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The Fourth Book of the Aeneid Ettore Paratore: Virgilio,

Eneide, libro quarto. (Convivium, Collana di Autori
Greci e Latini, vol. iv.) Pp. xlviii+167. Rome: Gismondi,
1947. Paper, L. 280.

R. G. Austin

The Classical Review / Volume 62 / Issue 3-4 / December 1948, pp 140 - 141
DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00091721, Published online: 27 October 2009

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R. G. Austin (1948). Review of James Daane 'The Freedom of God: A Study of Election and
Pulpit' The Classical Review, 62, pp 140-141 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00091721

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140 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
Then when the sun's at thirsty ten o'clock,
And plaintive whistle of cicada bursts
Over the quiet coppice, I would call
The flocks to wells or stagnant pools to drink ,
The water running in long oaken pipes. (322-30)
These lines compare very favourably,
I think, with Mr. Trevelyan's version,
and are at times better than his. If the
more exacting test of a much longer
and more sustained passage is applied,
the description of Aristaeus in Wonder-
land (iv. 334-449) will give a good idea
of Mr. Jermyn's ability. Here are some
shorter samples of the quality of his
phrasing: 'the seas | breathe and boom
in the narrows' (i. 327); 'awake then!
be no dull-eyed slug-a-bed' (iii. 42);
'his middle rings go slack, slack goes
the tail: | his last live length scarce
drags into a coil' (iii. 423!); 'and
merrily gossip at the open doors' (iv.
188); ' and lo! the curling waves, the
bursting spray' (iv, 529).
The level varies, naturally: Mr. F. H.
Sandbach well set out the difficulties
of the translator of Virgil in C.R. lx. 35.
But Mr. Jermyn has produced a ser-
viceable version: and, if those who make
it their first acquaintance with the
Georgics will not discover from it what
'Virgil' means to the initiate, they will
yet learn something of the 'feel' of the
poem, its love and its passion and its
beauty and its peace—and they will
want to know more about the original.
In the circumstances in which Mr.
Jermyn wrote, he has done a remark-
able piece of work, and a courageous
THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE AENEID
Ettore PARATORE : Virgilio, Eneide, libro
quarto. (Convivium, CollanadiAutori
Greci e Latini, vol. iv.) Pp. xlviii-f-
167. Rome: Gismondi, 1947. Paper,
L. 280.
MR. PARATORE is a scholar for whom
Virgil is primarily a poet, and he has
produced an attractive book. He has
studied earlier editors carefully, in
particular Pease, Sabbadini, Buscaroli,
Del Grande, and Henry; when he
quotes their views, he gives his own
preference and his reasons for it, and
he is not afraid to offer an independent
one: for the truth is that, impossible
as it is to translate the Georgics, Mr.
Day Lewis came nearer to achieving the
impossibility than any other writer of
a verse-translation, and has made the
work of his successors more difficult
still. To illustrate three different
modern methods, let me quote the
following:
est etiam ille malus Calabris in saltibus anguis,
squamea convdlvens sublato pectore terga
atque notis longam maculosus grandibus alvum.
(iii. 425-7)
There is too in Calabria's glades that evil snake
Who wreathes his scaly back with neck uplifted,
And his long belly mottled with great spots.
(Trevelyan)
Then too, you'll find in glens Calabrian
.That evil snake which, as he lifts his neck,
Clenches his scaly back, his belly's length
Marked with a bold design. (Jermyn)
Or take that evil watersnake of Calabrian woods
Who bowls around with upright port; his back is
scaly,
His belly long and marked all over in big blotches.
(Day Lewis)
The last version alone brings out the
picture in convolvens sublato pectore.
Mr. Jermyn's notes and introduction
are sometimes naive, but they have
some interesting illustrations of Virgil
from the writer's Malayan experiences
which will be found worth attention.
I do not like the title; and I wish I
could believe that the spelling 'Vergil'
is a misprint. The woodcuts are at-
tractive.
R. G. AUSTIN.
University 'College, Cardiff.
opinion. His notes are largely 'appre-
ciative', although he does not neglect
textual and linguistic matters; he does
much to illuminate the finer points of
Virgil's thought and writing, especially
by that best and surest method of using
the poet as his own mirror. Mr. Para-
tore is seldom over-fanciful, and does
not attempt to discover too much. He
has sympathy for Aeneas as well as for
Dido, and leaves his readers with a
better understanding of both.
Some of his most useful notes (not
always original) are those in which he
 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
draws attention to those reminiscent
contrasts which, in this book especially,
have such dramatic force: e.g. gratare
sorori (478) and miserere sororis (435),
the echo of Anna's happy augury
(45-6) which is caught in Dido's sorrow-
ful words in 657-8, or the affinity of
aversa tuetur (362) with vi. 469. He does
not notice one such reminiscence which
occurs to me, that of 429 'quo ruit?
extremum hoc miserae det munus
amanti' to be found in vi. 466 'quern
fugis? extremum fato, quod te adlo-
quor, hoc est.' Among interesting
comments is his remark on 309, where
he points out that what Anna had
originally suggested as a pretext, a
causa morandi (51), is now 'moto
umanissimo di sollecitudine della regina
innamorata'; in 633 he sees beyond the
conventional importance of the nurse
as a stock figure, noted by most editors,
in his comment 'la mancanza di questo
conforto per la regina, in un momento
cosl tragico per lei, contribuisce a dar
1'impressione della sua disperata solitu-
dine'; on 324 he observes 'nota come
le cesure, tutte terminanti con nasale,
ribadiscano 1'impressione di un con-
tinuo, soffocato singhiozzo'. The reader
may not always agree with such sub-
jective interpretations, but they often
provoke pleasurable thought.
In 311, Virgil could surely have
141
written crudelis without the help of
Catullus 64. 136; in 322, I hope I am
wrong in supposing that the editor takes
sola as a nominative; I cannot see how
the interpretation of Dido as vocative
in 383 is supported by Catullus 86. 3
'totum illud formosa nego'; in 471,
scaenis can hardly be in any way
'instrumental'; in 474, ergo is not
necessarily 'eredita lucreziana', nor
need heu nimium felix (657) suggest
Geo. ii. 458 or Aen. vi. 189.
A few small slips in printing occur
(a serious one in 684, the omission of et
after abluam). There is a very full index,
including a most useful index locorum
(where 'Wagner, R.' is unexpected).
The bibliography is adequate and not
overloaded; but I miss Conway's essay
on 'The Place of Dido in History' and
A. L. Irvine's edition of Fanshawe's
The Loves of Dido and Aeneas, which
I think Mr. Paratore would appreciate.
The introduction is lengthy and valu-
able. There is no critical apparatus.
English students at school and Uni-
versity rely mostly upon editions of
Book IV which first appeared fifty or
more years ago (for Pease is not every-
one's pudding); it is high time that
an English editor was found, as sym-
pathetic as Mr. Paratore, to prepare a
new commentary. R. G. AUSTIN.
University College, Cardiff.

INDIRECT SPEECH IN LIVY

Andr6 LAMBERT : Die indirekte Rede als examples to be no less analysable than
kunstlerisches Stitmittel des Limits. is direct speech (and, one may add,
Pp. 80. Riischlikon, Switzerland: narrative also) under the accepted
Baublatt A.G., 1946. Paper. headings of formal rhetoric. The con-
A DOCTORAL thesis offers little scope for clusion is not surprising, and L. has
so large a subject, and L. rightly claims already insisted (pp. 7 ff.) upon the
no more than a preliminary study. close relationship between oratory and
Drawing his material mainly but by no history. As often in such arguments,
means solely from Books i-vi and xxiv too much may be attributed to con-
he puts forward certain general con- scious artistry, too little to the cur-
clusions about Livy's use of indirect rency of everyday speech: some of the
speech, supplementing them by brief examples quoted are common phrases or
comparison with Polybius, Sallust, and belong to traditional religious or legal
Caesar. After a somewhat lengthy formulae. Indirect speech, L. then
section which deals rather with the argues, is an essential in Livy's art: it
general use of speeches in ancient his- is not a second-rate method of exposi-
toriography, indirect speech in Livy is tion nor a mere cataloguing: it has
shown by a number of classified greater flexibility than direct, and within