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AN ACROSTIC IN AENEID 11.902–6
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2020
Extract
Very shortly before the end of Book 11 of the Aeneid, Turnus, hearing of Camilla's death, is forced to abandon his ambush in order to fall back to the city. Just after he leaves the wooded gorge, Aeneas passes through it unscathed with his company. Both then head toward the city walls. Virgil marks this near miss of the two commanders by an acrostic (Aen. 11.901–7):
- ille furens (et saeua Iouis sic numina pellunt)
- deserit obsessos collis, nemora aspera linquit.
- uix e conspectu exierat campumque tenebat,
- cum pater Aeneas saltus ingressus apertos
- exsuperatque iugum siluaque euadit opaca.
- sic ambo ad muros rapidi totoque feruntur
- agmine nec longis inter se passibus absunt.
- Type
- Shorter Notes
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association.
Footnotes
I am grateful to the editor and to the anonymous reviewer of CQ for their comments on this note.
References
1 The Latin text is Geymonat, M. (ed.), P. Vergili Maronis opera (Rome, 2008 2)Google Scholar.
2 We need only recall the self-epitaph traditionally attributed to Virgil (VSD 36): Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc | Parthenope. cecini pascua, rura, duces.
3 Hilberg, I., ‘Ist die Ilias Latina von einem Italicus verfasst oder einem Italicus gewidmet?’, WS 21 (1899), 264–305Google Scholar, at 298. The acrostic is not mentioned in e.g. Katz, J.T., ‘The Muse at play: an introduction’, in Kwapisz, J., Petrain, D. and Szymański, M. (edd.), The Muse at Play. Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry (Berlin, 2013), 1–30Google Scholar, Robinson, M., ‘Looking edgeways. Pursuing acrostics in Ovid and Virgil’, CQ 69 (2019), 290–308CrossRefGoogle Scholar, or Robinson, M., ‘Arms and a mouse: approaching acrostics in Ovid and Vergil’, MD 82 (2019), 23–73Google Scholar.
4 I have in mind especially Aratus’ famous ΛΕΠΤΗ gamma-acrostic (Phaen. 783–7), where the word appears both vertically and horizontally: see Jacques, J.-M., ‘Sur un acrostiche d'Aratos (Phén., 783–787)’, REA 62 (1960), 48–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In Virgil, there is the well-known MARS acrostic in Aen. 7.601–4, where 7.603 includes the word Martem: see Fowler, D.P., ‘An acrostic in Vergil (Aeneid 7. 601–4)?’, CQ 33 (1983), 298CrossRefGoogle Scholar. But see also Grishin, A.A., ‘Ludus in undis: an acrostic in Eclogue 9’, HSPh 104 (2008), 237–40Google Scholar, for the VNDIS acrostic in Ecl. 9.34–8; verse 39 has the question quis est nam ludus in undis?, thus confirming the acrostic.
5 For a case of a Virgilian acrostic which corresponds not to a specific word but, none the less, to the theme of a passage, see e.g. Danielewicz, J., ‘Further Hellenistic acrostics: Aratus and others’, Mnemosyne 58 (2005), 321–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 324. The acrostic is INANIS (Ecl. 8.42–7), and it answers the remark nunc scio, quid sit amor (8.43).
6 Note that the grammatical subjects of the clauses are Turnus, Aeneas, or both. The armies are only explicitly mentioned in the ablatival phrase totoque … agmine (906–7).
7 Cf. e.g. Feeney, D. and Nelis, D., ‘Two Virgilian acrostics: certissima signa?’, CQ 55 (2005), 644–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where such signalling is discussed.
8 Cf. Carter, M.A.S., ‘Vergilium vestigare: Aeneid 12.587–8’, CQ 52 (2002), 615–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 616.
9 See especially Hinds, S., Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry (Cambridge, 1998), 11–14Google Scholar, on Aeneid Book 6, Keith, A.M., ‘Slender verse: Roman elegy and ancient rhetorical theory’, Mnemosyne 52 (1999), 41–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 48, on Horace, and Petrain, D., ‘Hylas and Silva: etymological wordplay in Propertius 1.20’, HSPh 100 (2000), 409–21Google Scholar, on Propertius. It is true that silua more properly has the metaliterary sense of poetic source material, but its looser, more general use is also attested: Keith (this note), 48.