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Lost Voices: Vergil, Aeneid 12.718–19*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Stephen M. Wheeler
Stephen M. Wheeler
Affiliation:
Penn State University
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Extract

Here, in the middle of the well-known simile that depicts Aeneas and Turnus as bulls fighting for territory and a herd (12.715–22), Vergil registers the reactions of the onlookers. Commentators and lexicographers disagree about what the heifers are doing, interpreting ‘mussant’ in different ways. Servius (followed by Conington–Nettleship) glosses the verb as ‘dubitant’. By contrast, Heyne offers the paraphrase ‘anxii expectant’, responding to the theme of fear in the two preceding cola: cf. ‘pavidi’ and ‘metu’. Forbiger's explanatory ‘tacite expectant’ stresses rather the note of silence introduced by ‘stat pecus omne metu mutum’. Lewis and Short (s.v., II) and Georges (s.v., 112) concur with Forbiger when they translate ‘mussant’ ‘expect in silence’ and ‘stumm harren’. Other authorities, however, underscore the verb's onomatopoeic sense. Julius Caesar Scaliger, for example, observes of Vergil's usage: ‘sane verbum factitium, neque absonum a bourn voce’. Accordingly, some older commentators interpret ‘mussant’ as a restrained form of ‘mugiunt’. More recently, the OLD (s.v., 3a) and TLL (s.v., II2b [8.2.1709.26–32]) cite Aen. 12.718 under the definitions ‘mutter in indecision’ and ‘mussantem (i.e. murmurantem) dubitare’. Although there is general agreement that ‘mussant’ (followed by indirect deliberative questions) connotes uncertainty, there still remains the problem of whether it indicates silence, faint lowing, or muttering. The purpose of this note is to call attention to an unrecognized etymological wordplay in line 718 (‘stat pecus omne metu mutum, mussantque iuvencae’) which helps explain what the heifers are doing and why there are varying interpretations of ‘mussant’.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , December 1993 , pp. 451 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1993

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References

1 Julius Caesar Scaliger, Poetices Libri Septem, facs. repr. of 1561 Lyon ed. (Stuttgart–Bad Cannstatt, 1964), p. 192.

2 Farnebus, T., P. Virgilii Maronis Opera (Amsterdam, 1650)Google Scholar, ad loc.: ‘tacite et intra se mugiunt’; Ruaeus, C., P. Virgilii Maronis Opera, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1682)Google Scholar, ad loc: ‘timide et quasi tacite mugiunt; videturque ipso vocabulo vox iuvencarum expressa’; Cooke, T., Publii Virgilii Bucolica Georgica et Aeneis (London and Dublin, 1742)Google Scholar, ad loc: ‘iuvencae mugientes expectant’.

3 Cf. Verg, . Aen. 3.540Google Scholar: ‘bello armantur equi, beilum haec armenta minantur’. For parallelism as an environment for etymologizing in Vergil, see Bartelink, G. J. M., Etymologisering bij Vergilius, Mededelingen der Kon. Neder. Akad. van Wetenschappen 28.3 (Amsterdam, 1965), pp. 94–5Google Scholar.

4 Cf. e.g. Verg, . Aen. 6Google Scholar.160: ‘multa inter sese vario sermone serebat’. For remarks on Vergil's etymologizing of words in ‘each other's vicinity’, see Bartelink, , op. cit. (n. 3), p. 92Google Scholar; on the ‘direct collocation’ of etymologically related words in Lucretius, see Snyder, J. M., Puns and Poetry in Lucretius' ‘De Rerum Natura’ (Amsterdam, 1980), pp. 76–84 and 90Google Scholar; discussion of presenting evidence for an etymology by ‘close proximity’ can be found in Cairns, F., Tibullus: A Hellenistic Poet in Rome (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 92–3Google Scholar.

5 It is unclear which sense of musso (taceo ormurmuro) Ennius uses and Varro clarifies. In their apparatus, Goetz–Schoell print L. Müller's emendation ‘faci<to> musset obrutus’ for the corrupt text, taking the Ennian example to mean taceo. Alternatively, in the Loeb edition, Kent accepts L. Spengler's emendation ‘fac <si> mus<s>et obrutum', and translates musso as ‘make a sound’. Both meanings of the verb are attested in Ennius by Festus ex Paul. p. 131.9–11 L: ‘mussare murmurare. Ennius (Ann. 168 Sk): “in occulto mussabat”. vulgo vero pro tacere dicitur, ut idem Ennius (Ann. 435 Sk): “non decet mussare bonos”.’ For a discussion of Ennian usage, see Skutsch on Ann. 168, 327, and 435.

6 On the influence of Varro on Vergil's etymologizing, see Bartelink, , op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 21–5 and 111–12Google Scholar; Due, O. S., ‘ZurEtymologisierunginder Aeneis’, in Due, O. S. et al. (edd.), Classica et Medaevalia Francisco Blatt Septuagenario Dedicata (Copenhagen, 1973), p. 276Google Scholar; Horsfall, N., ‘Varrone’, in Enciclopedia Virgiliana (Rome, 1985) p. 448Google Scholar. Notably, Vergil does not derive musso from a Greek source as does the Augustan grammarian Clodius Tuscus: ‘mussare est ex Graeco, conprimere oculos: Graeci μσαι dicunt’; (ap. Servius Auctus ad Aen. 12.657). Ancient etymologies of musso are conveniently found in Maltby, R., A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies (Leeds, 1991), p. 400Google Scholar; cf. also Ernout-Meillet, s.v.

7 Cf. Donatus on Ter. Ad. 207: ‘mussitare…proprie dissimulandi tacere est, vel a muto vel ab M, quae <est> littera nimium pressae vocis ac paene nullius adeo, ut sola omnium, cum inter vocales incident, atteratur atque subsidat. hinc Vergilius (Aen. 12.657) “mussat rex ipse Latinus”.’

8 Cf. CGL 5.33.22 + 23 (= 5.86.2 and 5.119.5): ‘mu adhuc in consuetudine est: unde mugire dicimus’.

9 Ross, D. O. JrVirgil's Elements: Physics and Poetry in the ‘Georgics’ (Princeton, 1987), pp. 158–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 On ambiguity of meaning in Vergil's use of language, see Knight, W. F. Jackson, Roman Virgil (London, 1944) pp. 203–4Google Scholar.

11 For examples ofmu in colloquial speech, see Otto, Sprichwörter, s.v. ‘mu. mut. muttire’.

12 Cf. Lucr. 1.92: ‘muta metu terram genibus summissa (sc. Iphianassa) petebat’. The personification of the herd in line 718 may be explained as a ‘trespass’ of the narrative context upon the simile, since the herd corresponds to the armies watching Aeneas and Turnus. For the phenomenon of ‘trespass’, see Lyne, R. O. A. M., Words and the Poet (Oxford, 1989), pp. 92–8Google Scholar.

13 Ross, , op. cit. (n. 9), p. 158Google Scholar.

14 Wölfflin, E., ‘Die Etymologien der lateinischen Grammatiker’, ALL 8 (1892), 432Google Scholar.

15 Schröter, R., Studien zur varronischen Etymologie, Akad. der Wiss. und der Lit. 12 (Mainz, 1959), pp. 852–3Google Scholar, argues that Varro relies on an already established grammatical inquiry into this type of transference of onomatopoeic words by poets. This would support the idea that Vergil was playing with established grammatical categories.

16 Cf. Verg. Geo. 3.219–40. On the much discussed parallelism between animals and humans in the Georgics and similar passages in the Aeneid, see Liebeschuetz, W., ‘Beast and Man in the Third Book of Virgil'sGeorgics’, G&R 12 (1965), 64–72Google Scholar; Putnam, M. C. J., Virgil's Poem of the Earth: Studies in the ‘Georgics’ (Princeton, 1979), pp. 192–4Google Scholar; Briggs, W. W. JrNarrative and Simile from the ‘Georgics’ in the ‘Aeneid’ (Leiden, 1980), pp. 31–2, and 92–6Google Scholar; Ross, , op. cit. (n. 9), pp. 149 and 159–63Google Scholar.