Vergil, Eclogue I, 59-63

T.: Yes, nature will change her course and countries their seats before I forget my benefactor.

59–63  ante … / … /ante … / … / quam: “sooner … sooner … than.” Each ante clause has two parts to it. Tityrus uses these reversals of natural laws to assert the impossibility of verse 63, that he would ever forget the face of his benefactor.

59  ergō: resumes Tityrus's thought from lines 40–45, after the response of Meliboeus. "As I was saying." LS ergo II.B.4.

60  the idea seems to be that fish will live on land, not simply be thrown up on the shore by the waves.

61  pererrātīs ambōrum fīnibus: “each wandering over the other’s frontiers,” referring to the borders of Parthia and Germany that the Parthian or German exile would hypothetically cross to get to each other’s rivers; an ablative absolute as a clause of accompanying circumstance (AG 419, 420.5) giving context for the actions of the main clause.

61–62  exul … / … bibet: implies a long-term transfer of residence.

62  Ararim … Tigrim: accusatives (AG 75a.1); this impossibility comes from the mixing of eastern and western geography. The chiasmus locates the two rivers at each end of the verse, highlighting the geographic distance between them.

62  Germania: “Germany” in place of “the German”: the region represents its occupants.

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The Arar (Saone) is a river of Gaul, not of Germany: its source, however, in the high land connected with the Vosges (Vogesus) is not very far from Alsace, which in and before Vergil's time, as now, was inhabited by Germans The ancients, too, frequently confounded the Germans and Celts (Conington).

63  nostrō … pectore: ablative of separation (AG 401) or place from which (AG 428g) taken with labātur.

63  illīus: genitive indicates possession of vultus; refers to Octavian.

63  labātur: the subjunctive indicates a hypothetical situation (AG 551c).