Dear Mantovanae and Mantovani, Reading Eclogue 6 I have come to the vv. 62-3: _tum Phaethontiadas musco circumdat amarae corticis atque solo proceras erigit alnos_.
Why should the bark be bitter? The commentaries I consulted (old Latin one based on Heyne, and German Tusculum edition, and Klingner) raise no question about it. Servius ad loc. notes on _amarae_: _et est epitheton naturale_. On the contrary, my students suggested that _amarae_ can be taken metaphorically -- standing for the pain which torments the Phaethon's sisters. What do the other commentators say (unfortunately, I have no Clausen at hand)? What seems to me even more important -- how would you read these verses? _Musco_ also bothers me; the picture seems somewhat clumsy, not substantial enough. Valete, Neven Zagreb, Hrvatska ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
