These two short lines are awkward in three more ways, 1) because Phaethontiadas is a patronymic, but these are sisters of Phaethon, not his daughters, 2) because cortex is normally masculine, but here (amarae corticis) it is feminine, and 3) because the sisters normally turn into poplars, not alders. Now Clausen has ways of explaining each - for example, he notes cortex feminine in Lucretius 4.51, and he suggests that Vergil is thinking about the alders which he saw growing along the river Po as a boy.
Still, when combined with the awkwardness you note, these things are hard to explain away. Maybe we should say that Vergil, as the narrator of the poem, is imitating the verbal mannerisms of Silenus, who recites the poem within the poem. Now Silenus is still pretty drunk when Chromis and Mnasyllos get to him; so Vergil, as narrator, is imitating the confused, slightly tongue-tied speech of a drunk. Like W.C. Fields, say. Hence all the funny expresssions. Philip Thibodeau >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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
