Some say that bees have a divine nature.
Some believe that bees are part of the divine mind. Such people argue that god permeates the land, sea and sky, and the creatures in it. This sense of divinity is returned and redistributed to all creatures, so there is no place for death. Instead, living, they return to the heavens.
219–221 hīs…dīxēre = hīs signīs atque secuti haec exempla, quīdam dīxēre apibus esse partem dīvīnae mentis et aetheriōs haustūs.
219 hīs signīs: “from these signs,” ablative of instrument (AG 409) or ablative of cause (AG 404).
219 quīdam: “certain people have said,” followed by in indirect statement (esse…aetheriōs), AG 580.
220 apibus: dative of possession (AG 373).
220–221 haustūs aetheriōs: “heavenly draughts.” Vergil speaks of the bees as being part of the divine mind, a doctrine that was part of various philosophical schools, including the Pythagoreans. The bees drink of the liquid flame of the universe, which is later echoed in the “thinly drawn lives” of line 224.
221 dīxēre: 3rd person plural perfect active indicative (AG 163a).
221-227 deum … caelō: the rest of the section is part of the indirect statement, and so we see the accusative-infinitive construction throughout, since the entirety of this theory is attributed to what “certain people have said.”
222 tractūs: accusative plural masculine.
223 hinc: from the divine mind.
223 pecudēs…ferārum: note that, according to these “certain people,” bees share an equal status with humans and other mammals, a status not held by other creatures.
224 quemque…nāscentem: “each one, when it is born.”
224 quemque < quisque, quaeque, quidque. sibī: although the second “i” is usually short, it can also scan long, as it does here.
225-226 scīlicet…omnia = scīlicet omnia deinde reddī ac referrī hūc resolūta.
225 scīlicet: “evidently.” This qualifies the following assertion.
225 hūc: “to here,” that is, to the divine mind that they have come from.
225 reddī…ac…referrī: present passive infinitives (AG 166).
225 deinde: scans as two-syllable word, long/short; an example of synizesis.
225 resolūta: “when released” (taken as a predicate). They eventually return to being part of the soul of the universe. Notice the repetition of the prefix re- in this line.
227 sīderis in numerum: the translation of this phrase is highly contested. Some suggest “into the position of a star,” since numerum is often substituted in texts for locum. Others suggest that numerum = modum, “in the manner of a star.” Still others suggest “into the number of stars,” since sīdus is properly a constellation, and thus a plurality of stars even when grammatically singular.
227 altō…caelō: dative place to which, as is common in poetry, “to high heaven” (AG 428h).
