No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
OMNIA TVTA TIMENS (VIRGIL, AENEID 4.298): ALLUSION AND AMBIGUITY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2024
Abstract
This paper deals with a case of Virgilian ambiguity, namely the famous hemistich at Aen. 4.298 omnia tuta timens. By highlighting a plausible reading with a causal force (‘fearing everything too calm’, ‘because of the excessive calmness’), it seeks to demonstrate that this hemistich is an ambiguous passage. This view is confirmed through the imitation by Valerius Flaccus, who, in alluding to the Virgilian passage (Argonautica 8.408–12), highlights its ambiguity by including both of the most plausible readings.
- Type
- Shorter Notes
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Footnotes
I am grateful to Professor S.J. Harrison for his invaluable suggestions.
References
1 For discussion and bibliography on Virgilian ambiguity, see O'Hara, J.J., ‘Virgil's style’, in Góráin, F. Mac and Martindale, C. (edd.), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil (Cambridge, 2019 2), 368–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 376–8.
2 Wagner, G.P.E. and Heyne, C.G., P. Vergili Maronis opera, varietate lectionis et perpetua adnotatione illustrata, vol. 3 (Leipzig, 1841), ad locGoogle Scholar.
3 Conington, J. and Nettleship, H., The Works of Virgil, with a Commentary, vol. 2 (London, 1884 4), ad locGoogle Scholar.
4 Page, T.E., The Aeneid of Virgil, Books I–IV (London, 1894), ad locGoogle Scholar.
5 Austin, R.G., Aeneidos liber quartus (Oxford, 1955), ad locGoogle Scholar.
6 Maclennan, K., Virgil Aeneid IV (London, 2007), ad locGoogle Scholar.
7 Pease, A.S., Publi Vergili Maronis Aeneidos liber quartus (Darmstadt, 1967), ad locGoogle Scholar.
8 Penna, A. La, ‘Omnia tuta timens (nota su Aen. 4. 298)’, Lexis 20 (2002), 87–90Google Scholar.
9 See, for instance, Jerome's evident quotation in Ep. 7.4 huic ego, ut ait gentilis poeta, omnia etiam tuta timeo, where the influence of Servius’ gloss is clear in the addition of etiam to the Virgilian model.
10 See Peerlkamp, P.H., P. Virgilii Maronis Aeneidos libri I–VI (Leiden, 1843), ad locGoogle Scholar.: ‘dura est ellipsis vocabuli etiam, neque castigati scriptores ita loquuntur. Omnia et tuta non separantur.’
11 Brink, C.O., Horace on Poetry, The ‘Ars Poetica’ (Cambridge, 1971), 112–13Google Scholar, on Hor. Ars P. 28.
12 Bailey, D.R. Shackleton, Propertiana (Cambridge, 1956), 86–7Google Scholar.
13 Williams, R.D., Virgil Aeneid I–IV (London and Basingstoke, 1972), ad locGoogle Scholar.
14 Traina, A., L'utopia e la storia. Il libro XII dell'Eneide e antologia delle opere (Turin, 2004 2), ad locGoogle Scholar. also translates ‘per quanto tranquille’, but by considering the passage as a parallel of Ecl. 3.109–10 (quisquis amores | aut metuet dulcis aut experietur amaros) appears to have shared Servius’ interpretation.
15 J. Henry, Aeneidea, or Critical, Exegetical, and Aesthetical Remarks on the Aeneis, vol. 2 (Dublin, 1878), ad loc. He had already published this interpretation in ‘Adversaria Virgiliana’, Philologus 12 (1857), 248–70, at 258, and in Notes of a Twelve Years’ Voyage of Discovery in the First Six Books of the Eneis (Dresden, 1853), IV, 46, where he also recalls (at x) to have shared orally some observations on Books 3–6 of the Aeneid in 1951, in Leipzig with Forbiger, who included them in his commentary.
16 Forbiger, A., P. Virgilii Maronis opera, pars II, editio tertia correcta et aucta (Leipzig, 1852), ad locGoogle Scholar. admits the difficulty in choosing an interpretation for this evidently ambiguous expression: ‘omnia tuta prius mihi videbatur esse i[dem] q[uod] omnia, quamquam tuta, vel: omnia, etiam tuta … nunc praefero Henrici interpretationem: hoc ipsum, quod omnia tuta sunt, timet; timet, ut haec nimia fortuna stare possit.’ In his fourth edition (1879), Forbiger again changed his mind, preferring his first interpretation.
17 Lejay, P. and Plessis, F., Œuvres de Virgile (Paris, 1919), ad locGoogle Scholar. (‘elle craint justement parce que tout est ou parait tranquille’), followed by Paratore, E., Virgilio Eneide. Volume I (libri I–II) (Milan, 1978), ad locGoogle Scholar. (‘essa che già tutto temeva, appunto perché tutto appariva sicuro’), who rightly observes that this is a ‘frase di ardua interpretazione’. Further interpretations have been proposed, e.g. that by J.W. Mackail, The Aeneid (Oxford, 1930), ad loc., who takes tuta as a nominative singular referring to Dido (‘although she was safe’).
18 See N. Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 7. A Commentary (Leiden / Boston / Cologne, 2000), on 7.635.
19 I allude to the seminal article by Fowler, D., ‘Deviant focalization in Virgil's Aeneid’, in Fowler, D., Roman Constructions: Readings in Postmodern Latin (Oxford, 2000), 40–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar (= PCPS 216 [1990], 42–63).
20 Quinn, K., Virgil's Aeneid. A Critical Description (Ann Arbor, 1968), 413Google Scholar.
21 Traina (n. 14), ad loc.
22 See F. Spaltenstein, Commentaire des Argonautica de Valérius Flaccus (livres 6, 7 et 8) (Brussels, 2005), ad loc. For the relationship between Valerius’ poetry and Virgil's, see Venini, P., ‘Valerio Flacco’, in Corte, F. Della (ed.), Enciclopedia Virgiliana (Rome, 1990), 5.423–4Google Scholar and Barnes, W.R., ‘Virgil, the literary impact’, in Horsfall, N. (ed.), A Companion to the Study of Virgil (Leiden / Boston / Cologne, 1995), 257–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 273–8.
23 The combination of two passages from Virgil is not unusual: Venini (n. 22), 424.
24 See Spaltenstein (n. 22), ad loc.
25 The passage is quoted by Pease (n. 7), on Aen. 4.298, and by La Penna (n. 8), 87.