4.453–466

Proteus begins to recount Aristaeus’s crime. 

Proteus explains that Aristaeus has angered some divinity by committing great crimes (commissa). Namely, Orpheus’s loss of Eurydice, his wife, has left the poet devastated, through no fault of his own. Instead, while fleeing Aristaeus along a riverbank, Orpheus’s wife suffered a fatal snakebite. Her fellow nymphs mourned her death, and Orpheus sat alone day and night singing about his love.

453  nōn…nūllīūs: equivalent to nōnnūllīus, “of some” (AG 326a). The litotes makes this emphatic. 

453  nūllīūs: the final “u” is lengthened here at the caesura, often referred to as “lengthening in arsis,” that is, on the upbeat. 

453  exercent: “torment.”

454  magna…commissa: these are obviously great crimes that have been committed by Aristaeus. 

454-456  Orpheus:Orpheus was traditionally a noted musician and prophet. He hailed from Thrace, the son of a king, Oaegrus, and the Muse Calliope. 

454–456  tibi…suscitat = Orpheus, miserābilis haudquāquam ob meritum, suscitat hās poenās tibi, nī fāta resistant. 

455  ob meritum:the phrase is terribly difficult to construe. Some take it with tibi (“penalties which you in no way deserve”), but we have just been told that his deeds were magna commissa. Others change ob to ad (“penalties that are not up to what you deserve”). Though a little awkward, it seems best to take ob meritum with Orpheus, “wretched, in no way in accordance with what he deserves” (Thomas). 

456 raptā: “stolen” by death, ablative singular feminine, modifying coniuge.

457  illa: Orpheus’s stolen bride, Eurydice, though her name is not given till line 486. 

457  dum…fugeret: “while she was fleeing.” dum = “while” with subjunctive begins to appear in Augustan literature (AG 556.N).

457  per flūmina: likely along the banks of the river, not through its waters.

458  ante pedēs: “before her feet.” 

458  moritūra: future active participle < morior, morī, mortuus.

460  aequālis: “of the same age.” A chorus is traditionally a group of dancers, so we should imagine here a group of wood nymphs (of marriageable age) dancing together. 

460  clāmōre: adjectives and verbs of fullness take an ablative of means (AG 409a).

460-461  suprēmōs…montēs:suprēmōs here is equivalent to summōs, “the tops.” 

461-463  flērunt Rhodopēiae…Ōrīthyīa: the following lines list any number of natural of phenomena and individuals that mourn the death of Eurydice. flērunt is a syncopated perfect (AG 181).

Rhodopēiae: The Rhodopes are a mountain range that runs through northern Greece and southern Bulgaria, long inhabited by the Thracians. The last syllable, although a diphthong, is shortened in hiatus.

462  Pangaea: Pangaeum is another mountain in Thrace, where the Olympian gods fought the Titans. 

462  Rhēsī Māvortia tellūs: Thrace was customarily thought to be founded by Thrax, son of Mars, so Māvortia both explains Thracian origins and suggests their warlike nature. Rhesus was the king of the Thracians who fought on the side of the Trojans, and whose camp was raided by Odysseus and Diomedes in Iliad 10.

463  Getae: a tribe of northern Thrace. 

463  Hebrus: the Maritsa, a river in Thrace (now Bulgaria and Turkey). 

463  Actias Ōrīthyīa: “Attic Orithyia;” Actias refers to Attica, the province in which Athens is situated. Acte was an old name for Attica. Orithyia was the daughter of Erechtheus, a mythological king Athens. She was stolen away by the wind Boreas and carried to Thrace. The scansion of this line is tricky, no doubt because of the abundance of proper nouns: there is hiatus after Getae, and a spondaic fifth foot. The first vowel in Hebrus is short, but the “mute + liquid” rule does not apply.

464  ipse: Orpheus. 

464 aegrum...amōrem: the direct object of sōlāns; the amōrem is Orpheus’ for his lost wife. 

464  cavā … testūdine: the lyre, made originally by Mercury who fixed strings to a tortoise shell (Homeric Hymn to Hermes 25-61). We see that Proteus is now no longer specifically addressing Aristaeus. As vates, he is fully absorbed in his tale, and we feel ourselves to be the audience for the mythological story he weaves.

465  sōlō: the shore might be lonely, but this is likely a transferred epithet, since it is Orpheus who is alone. 

465  sēcum: in English we would say he sings to himself. 

466  tē veniente diē, tē dēcēdente: veniente diē…dēcēdente <diē> are ablatives absolute, showing the duration of his singing (AG 420). The repetition of tē is an example of anaphora, here a very emphatic repetition. tē, refers to the dulcis coniūnx, Eurydice.