by Hope de Vega

The Aeneids of Virgil

Abbreviations: A-S = Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian; Lat = Latin(ate);
defect = this is a defective line in V (of which there are 50 in V and 50 in M.)
sim = simplification of an image or phrase; exp = expansion of an image or phrase; fidel = faithful; X = divergent
WSE = instances of so-called “Wardour Street English”
Citations: M = Morris; V = Vergil
A = Vergil, Aeneid. edited by R.G. Austin. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
F = Vergil, Aeneid: H. Rushton Fairclough, translator. Loeb Classical Library: Harvard University Press, 2000. Rev. ed. G.P. Goold.
G = Vergil, Aeneid. edited by Randall T. Ganiban. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing, 2009.
Mac = Vergil, Aeneid. edited by Keith Maclennan. London, UK: Bristol Classical Press: 2010.
R = Riddehough, Geoffrey. “William Morris's Translation of the Aeneid.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 36, no. 3
(1937): 338-346.
OED = The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed.
All other citations and references will be spelled out entirely.

n.b. Only more remarkable or unique features of the text have been commented upon; the selection of that body of passages on which I have taken the time to comment has often been whimsical, always subjective. Readerly moments of difficulty, of admiration, of censoriousness, of exasperation, and of enjoyment were counted among such experiences as were given expression in these marginalia.

Each entry follows the sequence: Line/lemma Vergil; Morris; Remarks

AENEID ONE

I.33 condere fashioning Lat: here M chooses a Lat word when many A-S words are available
I.35 spumas salis the sea sim: no adj!
I.38 Teucrorum Teucer’s son A-S
I.52 x hight A-S, sim
I.58 ni faciat yea but for that fidel: R loves this, and it is admirably compact and economical to boot
I.64 Iuno supplex suppliant Juno Lat, fidel
I.71 praestanti corpore of body passing fair A-S, fidel
I.87-91 -que, -que correlatives & heaven & day fidel: the rep. of –que via the English “and” – also the assonance (day, away) cf. “clamorque stridorque” (M transposes the correlatives though); also see R 340 on this passage
I.92 solvuntur frigore membra grow weak with chilly dread X: M misses an opportunity here to repeat this phrase cf. XII.951
I.101 scuta … volvit The shields … bodies of the strong fidel
I.107 terram … aestus harenis Three keels … that lie A-S, fidel except for, once again, he misses an opportunity to repeat where V repeats “harena” (cf. I.112 “harenae”). Still, this line showcases the power of M’s deployment of A-S monosyllables
I.123 inimicum imbrem the baneful stream A-S, fidel: M’s syntax renders a Lat ablative absolute as a prepositional phrase but this is a common manoeuvre in English translation of classical syntax
I.130 nec latuere … et irae Juno’s guile and wrathful heart A-S, exp but also in a sense fidel because Morris maintains the repetition of
“Iunonis ob iram / Iunonis et irae” = “Juno’s wrath / Juno’s wrathful … heart”
in I.4 (with some slight formal modulations dictated by morphology)
I.149 ignobile volgus low-born herd Curious – here V uses an Old Latin form, but M an ordinary word! The word “volgus” shows up twice in V – both citations are in Aeneid I (at I.149 and I.190.)
Ironically, in translating the latter, M again fails to perceive the carte blanche he is
being given to be archaïc, using instead “common sort” a far commoner word even
than “herd”! When it is licit to do so, M avoids opportunities to be mannered. (n.b. The view of this reader is that had he recognised the Old Latin forms, he
would certainly have availed himself of the opportunity to use some Old Norse
word here; his conclusion, that these two moments more than anything shed light
on the limits of M’s command of the classical languages, which was respectable but as seen here hardly comprehensive. Old Latin would likely not have been deeply covered as a linguistic or philological subject in M’s classical training, whatever his exposure would have been to such authors as Ennius and Plautus. vid. cap. 2 of this dissertation.) Still, M is not utterly incompetent: his command of aetymology at times surprises the reader, as in VIII.690.
I.162f. minantur / in caelum cast dread / on very heaven WSE this isn’t exactly literal but the sense is clearly faithful
I.163f. late / aequora tuta silent hushed are the harmless waters A-S, fidel the Anglo-Saxon alliteration achieves much the same effect as is seen in V: M manages a similar contrast between sound/fury vs. silence (this is an image of natural sublimity and juxtaposition and M renders it well)
I.177 Cererem … Cerealiaque Ceres’ body … Ceres’ arms fidel: M repeats Ceres, as in V
I.229 o qui res hominumque… O thou who rulest… A-S, fidel: M follows the Lat syntax with meticulous fidelity here cf. Mac 101: “Modern English does not allow a second person verb to follow a relative pronoun (‘O thou who rulest’). One must find one’s own way of rendering the solemnity and pathos of the expression.” M does exactly what Mac prohibits!
I.253 honos guerdon A-S, fidel, WSE
I.264 moenia wallèd steads A-S, WSE: while “cities” is implied in this synecdoche, M uses this as an opportunity both to use a Germanic word and to fill in the last iamb of his fourteener line
I.279 imperium sine fine dedi I give them empire without end fidel to the core. M very clearly here resists the impulse to torture the sense of the Lat line in the interest of moderating its political overtones
I.283 sic placitum Such is the doom. A-S, fidel both in maintaining the laconic finality of the short Lat clause, and in terms of the sense, which again M has managed to Scandinavianise without unduly diverging from literal/implied meaning.
I.306 ut primum lux alma at first of holy day X, WSE: here M excessively mediaevalises – “holy day” carries undeniable Christian overtones
I.313 lato … ferro with broad-beat iron done fidel, and furthermore, what could be a more Morrisian solution to this qualitative ablative than “done”? cf. “Done into English Verse” – a crafty “maker’s” choice!
I.320 nuda genu … fluentis naked-kneed … gathered in a lap A-S, fidel, WSE
I.364 dux femina facti a woman first therein this translation of dux = “first” improves vastly upon “duke” – for an extended discussion of why this is a departure from the original sense, cf. R 535 on M II.261,
III.402, V.249
I.367 mercatique … Byrsam and bought the Byrsa-field … show A-S, fidel and what a quintessentially Morrisian line of verse, at that!
I.378 pius Aeneas Aeneas, God-lover A-S, fidel in its fashion. No quibbling that it Christianises the line will do here.
cf. I.545, V.26 for “pius”/“pietas.”
I.381 Phrygium aequor the Phrygian brine exp in that M uses a denser noun than simply “sea” – the image is pictorial, vivid where V is straightforward. cf. IV.313.
I.383 convulsae riven A-S, fidel: this is a perfect rhyme with “given” & it is faithful to the original “convello” = fem.nom.pl. perf.pass.ppl. (“naves” being implicit)
I.409 et reddere voces that come from Earth and heaven X: M’s relative syntax is wholly absent in the Latin; entirely metrical in function?
I.413 - happed X, WSE: M loves this word, perhaps on account of its mediaeval character and easy rhyming. The only problem is that the sense of the Latin literally has to do with seeing and touching, not with the idea of a chance encounter.
I.420 urbi burg A-S, fidel, WSE: M manages to pick a word that is both faithful and, well, Morrisian
I.421 magalia quondam once a peasants’ place X: lit. “(which) once (had been) a tent-city” – there is no imputation of poverty, only of paucity that has grown great, in V; the contrast is greatness from smallness, not lucre from poverty.
I.423 ardentes Hot-heart fidel
I.426 iura magistratisque the laws, and lords of doom A-S, fidel but see A on this line, which some have considered spurious
I.427 portus havens A-S, fidel
I.436 thymo thymy fidel, WSE: M positively loves this word; cf. Jason III.555, IV.246, 314, XII.364,
XIV.39, 555, XVI.422 – and that’s just in one poem!
I.489 Eoas acies Eastland hosts A-S, fidel, WSE; cf II.504 “outland gold”; vid qq. VII.124, VII.255.
I.494 Dardanio Aeneae Aeneas, Dardan lord A-S, fidel: this is arguably too mediaevalising but I maintain that the sense of “lord” is implicit in the Lat demonym
I.526 pio generi pious folk Lat, fidel: here M uses the conventional “pious” in rendering Lat “pius”
I.534 hic cursus fuit… thitherward our course was turned defect, fidel: M reproduces V’s unfinished line (the gentle would call it catalectic)
I.542 si genus … arma if menfolk … set at nought A-S, fidel. This line exemplifies how M is able to remain faithful to sense while also adulterating V’s poem with a radically different, much more Germanic kind of monosyllabic force
I.551f. quassatam … remos now … anew A-S, fidel, WSE, if it is a little bit expansive (“suffer” and “timber”)
I.560 Dardanidae … The Dardan-folk … mouth A-S, defect, exp, X: M loses the sense of the original here and his choice of “murmuring” is a bit odd, considering V’s very point is that they are loudly shouting their assent.
I.571f. auxilio … regnis Safe … to bide A-S, fidel, WSE
I.615f. insequitur dogs A-S, fidel, a characteristic specimen of the powers of which M’s unique diction is capable when not in its cups.
I.625 hostis foeman A-S, fidel
I.633 nec minus … litora mittit nor yet … the sea-beat place A-S, fidel
I.636 munera laetitiamque dei and gifts and gladness of the God defect, fidel
I.657 nova … consilia new-wrought rede A-S, fidel, WSE
I.658 novas artis new craft A-S, fidel
I.660 ossibus implicet ignem make her … yoke-fellows of flame A-S, X, WSE: “yoke-fellows” subjects M to just criticism IMO
I.686 regalis inter mensas ’twixt queenly board A-S, fidel, WSE. cf. IV.193, IV.256, V.91, V.154.
I.706 dapibus mensas onerent set on the meat upon the board A-S, fidel, WSE
I.736f. laticum … ore glorious wave … dainty lip and fine A-S, exp, WSE: M is aestheticising what amounts in V to a toast
I.744 geminosque Triones twin-wrought Northern Bears A-S, exp: M specifies their septentrional character where in V they are just bears

AENEID TWO

II.12 luctuque refugit shrunk up in grief A-S, fidel
II.22 Priami … manebant before … fall A-S, X: V simply states that Tenedos was rich in wealth during the reign of Priam;
one supposes that Morris needed a rhyme for “all” and supplied this reframing of
time to such an end
II.39 scinditur … vulgus so cleft … in doubt A-S, X: V, lit: “the uncertain throng is torn into opposing parties/factions.” M here
commits two misdemeanours: firstly, he adds an “abiding” action where none exists in the original, and secondly, he translates “studia” as “rede” which seems imprecise (even to the reader whose familiarity with Morris’s poetic language normally allows
him to appreciate as mediaevalising a word as “rede.” The word “studia” here, as
“faction,” is used by Cicero and Tacitus in this legal or political sense, wholly
unreflected in M’s choice of “rede” which is merely a Germanicism for counsel)
II.41 Laocoön ardens Laocoön the fiery man A-S, fidel
II.66 disce omnis… learn ye what all are like to be defect, fidel
II.135 limosoque lacu … delitui night-long … muddy marish side PRB, fidel: cf Froissart, “marestz” (1523 tr. Berners = “marysshe”); 1596 Spenser
FQ V.x “marishes”; 1667 Milton PL XII.630 “the marish glides” ; 1830 Tennyson
Dying Swan “far through the marish green”; 1858 M “Sir Peter Harpdon’s End”
“we struggled in a marish half the day.” M’s reasoning cannot be said to be
motivated by metre here, since “marsh’s side” would have been as natural-sounding in English, with the added benefit that it satisfies the need for a trochaïc metron.
Also cf 1955 Tolkien, Return of the King: “the folk of the Marish” (like mirkwood)
vid. qq. VII.702, VII.801.
II.204 horresco referens (I tremble in the tale) fidel
II.233 numina conclamant… they cry … defect, fidel
II.256 flammas … extulerat when … breaks the bale-fire’s blaze A-S, fidel
II.261 Thessandrus … Ulixes Thessandrus … pass fidel: M introduces the proper names in this line into the heptameter whereas they are satisfactorily dactylic in V, yet maintains the order of their appearance.
This fidelity of order is maintained all the way until 264; this refusal to alter the
order of names in an epic catalogue is typical of M. Jason, passim.
II.261 duces dukes A-S, X: for critical discussion vid. R 535; cf. M I.364, III.402, IV.224, V.249
II.269 tempus erat … serpit It was the time … to creep very powerfully A-S, mostly fidel. X: The capital “God” is a bit Christian, perhaps, for divum, and a criticism of this shift in connotation could plausibly be mounted.
II.274 ei mihi, qualis erat Woe … was X: This line is a bad one and this reader is unable to express his approbation of the unhappy prolixity Morris here so curiously selects; his line is as insubstantial and opaque as the belchings of a chimney, where V is as clear and plain as a blue day.
II.311 relucent litten fidel in that “to light” is the English equivalent of “(re)lucere”; X in that the syntax is altered in M so as to make the verb a past participle instead of the finite form in which it is conjugated in V. It is, of course, an A-Sonising move, praise or blame.
II.346 non … / audierit He might not … on that day defect, fidel
II.354 una salus … salutem one hope … to hope no more A-S, very fidel: M even repeats “hope” alongside V: “una salus victis nullam sperare salutem”
II.368f. crudelis … / luctus grim grief A-S, fidel! This is both technically correct and very elegant.
II.371 offert nobis falleth on the roads of us A-S, X: there is no road in V, only “meet (with) us”; on the praepositionalisation of “nobis” into “of us” (rather than its potential inflection as “our”) cf. Ballantyne 590 and II.492 also.
II.402 nihil invitis … fidere divis What skills it man to trust … good? A-S, WSE, X: V directly states that it is not fas to do so; M asks a rhetorical question which is absent from the Latin original. His choice of “skills it” is best interpreted as a recognised tic of WSE; an anonymous reviewer of M’s House of the Wolfings (Saturday Review 26 Jan 1889, lxviii, 101-2) uses it mockingly at the outset of what amounts to a dismissive review: “The tale tells that in times, whether long past or near at hand it skilleth not, there was found in the land of the Beefings…” and so on. It certainly seems the case that by the late 1880s M’s reputation had begun to decline in the minds of those most opposed to such acts of lexical necromancy, and on at least these grounds. cf. IX.V807=M806.
II.428 dis aliter visum The gods deemed otherwise A-S, fidel: M manages this famous line with ease, even with a certain pithy Germanic grace quite his own.
II.461 eductam builded a move like this (using the form of a past participle that has by 1875 been almost wholly superseded, politely discarded as “literary” or “historic” – knowing that this is so, and using the form anyway) can be seen as quintessentially Morrisian. cf.
II.496 “bursten”, V.330 “bepuddled”, V.364 “begirded”, V.453 and VII.291
“smit”, VI.138 “consecrate”, VI.220 “bewept”, VII.524 “fire-behardened”, XII.428
“holpen” for M using superseded participial forms. M repeats this specific
“alternate-timeline participle” in IV.200, XI.462. VI.267 “blent” is right on the
line: it OED attests as a literary form. cf. Blake, “And Did Those Feet in Ancient
Time”: “And was Jerusalem builded here / Among these dark Satanic mills” (emphasis mine)
II.504 barbarico auro outland gold A-S, fidel: Here R and I agree: this option “avoids the connotation of savagery attached to our English ‘barbarian.’”
II.507f. c’que limina tectorum house-door stormed A-S, exp, X: there is no “storming” in V, whose “casum” is much simpler than that which M’s expansive imagination for visual images weaves for the reader, a power for images no doubt honed in the course of writing major works of lapidary narrative verse in the English tongue. Praise or blame, the image is a divagation.
II.535-543 A-S, fidel throughout. The response of Priam to seeing the death of his own son is fit material for communication by means of monosyllabic sonic thunderbolts, revivified into modern English from their deep old roots in Anglo-Saxon. Nobody does it better than M.
II.545f. rauco griding A-S, fidel: cf. 1850: Tennyson In Memoriam CVII.11 “the wood which grides and clangs / its leafless ribs and iron horns / together” and also 1830: Poems 113 “heavy thunder’s griding might” as well as 1820 Shelley Prometheus Unbound III.i.98 and 1667 Milton PL VI.329.
II.614 a navibus … vocat … calls up her fellows from the ship defect, fidel
II.623 numina magna deum… The very haters of our Troy defect, fidel
II.640 vos agitate fugam… See ye to flight while yet ye may! defect, fidel
II.658 tantumque … ore Woe … I find! A-S, sim, X: M twists V here, reframing an inability to believe that such a “wicked thing” (tantumque nefas) could “fall from the mouth of a father” (V “patrio excidit ore”) as mere moral denunciation-qua-interjection. M’s version just isn’t very good in any case, and one pauses to reflect on what could have induced M to opt for such a violent reshaping of syntax, when the reading being chosen is uglier than sin to begin with (M “Woe worth the word that in thy mouth I find”). One is indeed hardly free to imagine that M is sacrificing fidelity here in the pursuit of a decidedly mellifluous English verse, of an apt turn of phrase!
II.703 vestrum hoc augurium This is your doom A-S, fidel
II.708 nec me labor isti gravabit nor of the labour reck A-S, X: V has a certain sense of the burden weighing Aeneas down; this M transforms into a mediaevalising colloquial idiom, to the effect that Aeneas will not perceive the added onus. Because of the discrepancy between M and V in this particular circumstance, in M’s translation a paradox emerges that in V does not weigh us down as readers: M’s Aeneas claims that he will not perceive or notice added weight, but at II.729 he cites “onerique” (M “burden that I bore”) – how has
he “recked” this burden? In V Aeneas only claims that his task will not weigh him
down (“nec me gravabit”), not that he will be altogether ignorant of it.
II.720 abluero I make a shift to wash me clean. A-S, defect, fidel, exp: the entire passage leading up to this reproduction of a defective line in V is particularly admirable in its proximity to the sense of the original. The wisdom and beauty of “making a shift” to do something, of course, I leave it to the individual taste to litigate; to be sure, some would call it WSE.
II.751 periclis peril Lat, fidel
II.767 stant circum … Stand trembling round … the heap defect, fidel
II.772 oculos eyen A-S, fidel, WSE. cf. IV.372, IV.648, V.853
II.774 faucibus jaws A-S, X: Lat “faux” is not a “jaw” but a throat, a gullet. cf. III.48, VI.240.
II.784 lorn A-S, X: V has only “dilectae … Creusae.” One senses M needed to complete a seventh metron.

AENEID THREE

III.10 portusque haven A-S, fidel, perhaps some would see this as a mild example of WSE; though M’s word is indeed used in the English language, it has survived in everyday use mainly as an element in compound toponyms (New Haven, Connecticut springs to mind.)
cf. I.427, III.72, III.219, III.254, III.300, III.382, III.688, IV.87, V.32, V.243,
V.588, V.813, VI.900 and passim.
III.26 horrendum … monstrum when lo … to tell A-S, fidel: here M does an expert job of Englishing V’s daedal compression of ideas
III.29 mihi frigidus horror sudden horror chill Lat, fidel
III.43 aut cruor … stipite manat from … floweth no alien gore M’s selection of “alien”: conspicuously Lat
III.48 vox faucibus haesit within … was stayed A-S, X: M misses the entire point of V’s description, namely, the inability to speak, or to answer Polydorus in some noble and just manner, perhaps, but not this: this is M inventing a new detail from whole cloth, namely, that Aeneas’s “breath” is “cold” (this peculiar intelligence perhaps owing to III.29, where it is in any case not ambient detail but metaphor for the immobility of deep dread.) Another problem with M’s strategy of making this all about how cold Aeneas’s breath is, rather than portraying that inability to speak which is so quickly described in V, is that he repeats the error of rendering “faux” as “jaw”; in this manner M can reasonably be seen as practising a curious religion on insisting on what arguably amounts to a mistranslation. Fortunately, the detail comes and goes, marring the text but little.
But it has been twice now thus far in his Aeneid that Morris has demonstrated a
self-manifesting faith that Aeneas lived somewhere suddenly and unaccountably
cold – indeed, so cold that he is unable to exhale! – and that Aeneas has very low
jawbones, either for a Viking leader or for a Roman, seeing as they somehow surround his Adam’s apple! (cf. II.774, VI.240.)
III.V75=M76 Arquitenens Bow-Lord A-S, fidel, with elements of X: M sheds any pretence that this is a divine attributive, focussing instead on the image itself, a move which effects a certain degree of erasure: in V this is a specific god in the Olympian pantheon, but in M the image of a great god holding up a mighty bow overpowers the aetiology. M also inverts the order of “Mycono … Gyaroque”: “good to Gyaros and high Myconos bound”. cf. ClasGrk Τοξοφόρος = Apollo or Diana (´-η), vid. Lewis & Short
III.122 Ideomenea ducem Duke Idomeneus A-S, X: for critical discussion vid. R 535; cf. M I.364, II.261, IV.224, V.249
III.127 crebris … consita terris we skim the straits besprent … folk A-S, fidel, for “besprent” cf. IV.643, IV.665
III.129 hortantur eggs A-S, fidel and novel, if a touch colloquial. In terms of sound and sense alike it works.
III.163 Hesperiam Westland A-S, X: M’s attempts here to domesticate the ancient Greek name into … what language, exactly? His neo-Scandinavianising poetic English, that’s what.
A fascinating moment worthy of commentary/discussion.
III.171 arva mead A-S, fidel, would work if only most readers would not fall prey to the impression that this must be some sort of reference to Dictaean honey-wine. It doesn’t work precisely because of this ambiguity between mead(-bench) and mead(ow). Adding kindling to the fire is the fact that M is just the sort of poet to bring up a drink as unabashedly Vikingar-fancult-couture as is that beverage we call mead. And yet it’s just a simple meadow, in the original Lat. cf. III.400.
III.198 nox umida wet mirk A-S, fidel, a great example of the effect M’s Germanicising renderings can have.
cf. III.424, III.586, III.619, IV.123, IV.249, IV.303, VI.100, VI.107.
III.226 clangoribus clanging Lat, fidel and to a fault: the sense of the original Lat is not identical to the more restricted lexical domain of the modern English word “clang”, the latter a distinctly metallic sound, more recently an onomatopoetic word. The Lat describes a general loudness that M unhappily specifies as specifically metallic in character. (cf. OED, entry for “clang”)
III.258 in silvam through the woody deeps A-S, exp, fidel, PRB in that it amplifies the natural imagery of the line, making it much more vivid
III.266f. tum litore … rudentis Then bade he … strain A-S, fidel: perhaps M’s choices for a nautical lexicon are, happily for him, much broader than that which was available to V, who is at any rate famous for unostentatious diction. M has taken in the speech of the sailors of Albion and it shows here. Of course, he had been on sea voyages before 1875, the most ambitious and lengthy of which would have been his formative visits to Iceland, since you certainly can’t get there over land! It takes sea legs; these M possesses.
cf. III.277 for a similar example of M using sailor-talk accurately, as if it were his
own cant.
III.271 Dulichiumque … Neritos Dulichium … Neritos fidel: M maintains the order in V
III.285 glacialis … undas frosty … wear A-S, fidel, exp: a quintessentially Morrisian expansion of imagery, most of which is in V: cf. Lewis & Short, entry for “aquilo, -onis”, 1.a. cf. “boreas”
III.294 incredibilis hard for us to trow A-S, fidel, cf. High German “vertrauen”, A-S “treowian”, cf. IV.97, V.870
III.316 ne dubita … vides Doubt not … sooth A-S, defect, fidel
III.319 Pyrrhin Pyrrhus this is that Neoptolemus by whom Andromache is initially taken as a prize
in Euripides Troiades; she remains a single widow in Iliad XXII, concerned
for the future of Astyanax in a world without Hector. cf. III.333.
III.340 quem tibi iam Troia – when unto thee when Troy yet was defect, fidel
III.379 scire wot A-S, fidel, WSE
III.390 ilicibus holm-oaks A-S, fidel: of course M is going to avail himself of this opportunity to use an ancient English word for “holly” (quercus ilex) – “holm-oaks” are evergreen oaks. In spite of its longevity as a word, it is still widely used for this tree.
vid. qq. VI.180, VI.208.
III.412 laeva … laeva leftward … leftward A-S, fidel: M preserves a repetition.
III.420 implacata insatiate Lat, fidel: M here rejects one Latinate pedigree, only to choose another.
III.470 addit equos … duces and steeds he gives … gives A-S, defect, fidel, WSE: “steeds” for “equos” cf. Ballantyne 589, who cites M’s 1887 Odyssey IV.35 as an element in the mock-“Teutonic nosegay” of “this exclusively English garden”, by which garden he can only be taken to mean that putative store of words which is available to a writer given to bouts of WSE in Ballantyne’s view: “go, loose the Guest-folks’ steeds” cf. Homer Odyssey IV.35f. “ἀλλὰ λύ’ ἵππους / ξείνων” (quick verdict: M is very, very close to Homer here and if Ballantyne does not like M’s Germanic diction, well, à chacun son goût. B’s criticism cannot carry anything like objective rigour, at least with respect to a line like this, which tells the truth about what the original poetry says, whilst also reimagining what the English language is capable of being at this moment of its history. Finally to commit to disliking such acts of linguistic reimagining is a personal preference, hardly a scholarly conclusion.)
III.505 maneat … nepotes let our sons of son’s sons see to it X: this unfortunate and cacophonous repetition is nowhere in V.; while we’re on the topic of home-baked repetitions, cf. III.595, IV.83, IV.101 (see also IV.170f.)
III.516 geminosque Triones either Northern Bear A-S, exp, X: M here again, as in I.744, specifies their septentrional character where in V they are just Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Granted, they are constellations of the northern hemisphere, but as this “northern” attribute is not attested to Homer here and if Ballantyne does not like M’s Germanic diction, well, à chacun son goût. B’s criticism cannot carry anything like objective rigour, at least with respect to a line like this, which tells the truth about what the original poetry says, whilst also reimagining what the English language is capable of being at this moment of its history. Finally to commit to disliking such acts of linguistic reimagining is a personal preference, hardly a scholarly conclusion.)
III.505 maneat … nepotes let our sons of son’s sons see to it X: this unfortunate and cacophonous repetition is nowhere in V.; while we’re on the topic of home-baked repetitions, cf. III.595, IV.83, IV.101 (see also IV.170f.)
III.516 geminosque Triones either Northern Bear A-S, exp, X: M here again, as in I.744, specifies their septentrional character where in V they are just Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Granted, they are constellations of the northern hemisphere, but as this “northern” attribute is not attested in V it hardly warrants one whit more mention than any other of the twin stellar bears’ celestial traits, selected at random.
III.527 stans celsa in puppi High standing on the lofty deck A-S, fidel except for the added “lofty” – there is but one such adjective (celsa) in V
III.540 bello armantur equi for war are horses dight A-S, fidel: “dight” as essentially an exhumed Middle English past participle, hence this is what Ballantyne would call WSE. Correspondence with JP: “the word is
Morris’s metrical panacea – it is both easily rimed and prosodically economical”.
III.550 Graiugenumque domos the houses of the Greeks fidel, slightly sim.
III.574 lambit licks fidel: there it is, in V! A most odd image.
III.595 in armis Greekish weed of war X, WSE: so, two problems here. First, M has already translated the “Graius” of
III.594, and now unaccountably repeats its sense in “Greekish” where it is not
repeated in V; second, M’s choice of “weed” would certainly have been excessively
obscure even for many casual readers of English literature in the 1870s, which
entitles one to dare perhaps to imagine the difficulties such a word would present
readers of books today. cf. Ballantyne.
III.608 genua … genibusque about our knees … knees fidel: M, following V very closely here, repeats “knees”.
III.620-633 M puts his poetical talents to admirable use here in rendering a horrifying prospect just about as grisly as that on offer in V.
III.640 rumpite … pluck / … defect, X: My only quarrel here is that one doesn’t exactly “pluck” a mooring line; it is unfastened and then spilled out bight by bight, as would have been no less the case during the age of sail power. The word “pluck” denotes too rapid a motion and too short a duration of action for it to accurately portray an unmooring evolution at sea, even if the lines are simply cut (not usual procedure, of course.)
That said, the sailors are afraid, so perhaps “pay out all mooring lines” or even
“now cut all hawsers from the shore” followed by “be quick” would be closer to V.
M is fidel on the length of the line, but reorders the syntax.
III.642 ubera pressat draws the udder’s wave exp: in V the udders are plural, so in any case it should be “udders’” and not “udder’s”; also, the word “wave” here constitutes an expansion of the original idea, as V does not name the product of the draught-action, only the action itself.
It’s quite close, but not exactly the same idea. lit. “pinches (the) teats (of the
animals).” M is, here as before, imaginative and pictorial where V is direct and
plain.
III.661 solamenque mali the only solace of his ill defect, fidel
III.717 fata … divum the fateful ways of God Monotheistic overtones? cf. I.306, I.378, II.269.

AENEID FOUR

IV.51 indulge hospitio guest-serving PRB: this is exactly the kind of metrical heterodoxy critics of this kind of literature attacked; it must of course be owned that “serving” cannot be read as iambic.
IV.64 spirantia consulit exta for answering rede must try V lit: “consults the throbbing entrails”. M is rather extravagant here. Matthew Arnold would not have called this solution “plain” even if it is quite “rapid”. One senses that M’s decisions may plausibly have be driven by the constraints of metre and end-rime. cf. II.39. IV.297, V.728, VII.86.
IV.71 volatile ferrum swift steel A-S, fidel though it could be more conspicuously accurate, since steel is an alloyed mixture of iron and carbon (cf. V ferrum).
IV.83 sola … relictis she apart … apart X: This repetition is nowhere in V.
IV.94 mangum et … numen long to tell the toil A-S, exp, X: a boon: alliteration! Too bad there’s nothing like it in V. M craves alliteration here, and by George he’s going to have it. He expands on the simple idea of V’s text (the great and glorious divine agency) by inserting a lengthy narrative for its alliterative and metrical utility and aesthetic enhancement. This is definitely M choosing musicality over fidelity.
IV.96 nec me adeo fallit veritam But well I wot… A-S, fidel, WSE
IV.97 suspectas … altae In welcome … trow A-S, WSE: I can neither conclude that M is terribly close to V here, nor that M perpetrates a semantic divergence of sufficient gravity to merit comment. V’s language is idiomatic, and if expressed literally in English translation would sound cacophonous, circuitous, unfocussed. Drastic measures must be taken, of which M avails himself, reordering the sentence and reframing its central content into a plausible English idiom of his own manufacture. That in so doing he again insists upon “trow”, a curious Chaucerian bauble, is characteristic of his style, a move which certainly earned him much disapprobation among the less fanciful and “aesthetic” of M’s own age and place. cf. III.294. By the same token, “wend”, 98.
IV.101 ardet amans … furorem bone of her bone … today X: M repeats the sense of “ossa” where it is not repeated in V.
IV.131 ferro steel X: I must again here quite insist that iron and steel are different materials.
IV.135 stat sonipes … mandit the mettled … bide A-S, reasonably fidel: this is an excellent specimen. Morris answers the sibilant alliteration in V with a labial alliteration of his own design (“bit that bids her bide”). Lit. “(her) (noisy-hoofed=horse) stands, and violently gnaws at the foaming bit.” The relative clause “that bids her bide” effects both a filling out of the heptameter line and an attempt at the approximate recreation of the sonic effects of the original Lat, in which no relative clause is observed.
IV.138f. ex auro … aurea of fashioned gold … buckle A-S, fidel, PRB: it is hardly a surprise that M will choose to be conspicuously faithful at a moment of such sumptuous visual charms: we get three instances of “gold” in V and three in M. Whatever one says of his translation, we cannot conclude that he was either slavishly emulating or heedlessly recasting V.
IV.170f. neque … famave … nec no more … no more … no more fidel, exp: M demonstrates his understanding of these correlatives by finding a single rendering for all three. The repetition can be said to be suggested in V, if not quite so explicitly and expansively tripartite as in M. It is a clever solution.
IV.173f. fama … Fama Rumour … Rumour Lat, fidel: The reader of this translation is by now forgiven for expecting something like “scathe-lore” or “scoff-talk”. But M here chooses truth! The word “fame” just doesn’t work any longer as an English rendering of Lat “fama”; “rumour” is clearly the correct “schoolhouse answer”. One can claim that this instance shows M being moderate in his willingness to entertain coinages, kennings, etc. And so what, if “Rumour” is a personification? When did such scruples ever keep M from indulging his taste for hyphenated Germanic noun-clusters (as one sees in his choice of “Hall-Sun” in his later novel The House of the Wolfings)? cf. IV.203,
IV.298.
IV.193 inter se betwixt A-S, fidel, WSE, definitely. This word was just not in casual use in Britain in 1875 and belonged to that species of aureate diction used by poets; case closed. This is not to say that it is unwarranted, of course, but it can reasonably be called WSE if you're that sort of reader. cf. I.686, IV.256, V.91, V.154.
IV.200 posuit builded WSE. cf. II.461.
IV.203 rumore fame Interesting – M has just translated “fama” as “Rumour” at IV.173; here he does just the opposite. It is fidel as the sense of the Lat is just about the same. cf. IV.173,
IV.298
IV.229 gravidam big fidel. Though on first glance it may seem that M is yielding to the same humdrum (or as Arnold would have it “ignoble”) diction as that which exposed F.W. Newman’s 1856 translation of the Iliad to that critic’s needling eye, this sense of M’s thoroughbred English adjective is distinct, vid. OED entry for “big”, 6.a. (attested in sources as venerable and varied as Donne, Shakespeare, Addison and even James Joyce!) insofar as it signifies not general spatial magnitude but pregnancy specifically, so that the gestating body possesses the trait of being “big.”
IV.231 proderet … orbem that folk … to lay A-S, fidel, but decisively not so gauchely mediaevalising as to be WSE, relative to the everyday English of M as well as to our own. In a similar way is IV.237 wonderfully wrought: M chooses insistently domestic words to great effect here.
Truly, such an obedient milquetoast rendering as “let him navigate on; this is the
verdict” is not half so thunderous as “let him to ship; this is the doom”, and it is
breathtakingly close to V’s sense.
IV.244 dat … adimit … resignat giveth … takes … openeth One of these third-person singular present active indicative verbs is not like the other in M. If a person were to insist that life be a mediaeval festival at the level of the word, such a person ought also to wear cloaks and tunics without interruption – there shall be no breaks for Hawaiian shirt day. My point? This sudden and unexpected variation of “takes” is unsupportable; it draws attention to itself; it feels like an eyesore to those for whom the observation of consistency is accompanied by the sensation of pleasure. So, “taketh” would introduce another anapaest into the rising metre of the line – but such an alteration would only induce the steed of Morris’s iambic line suddenly to accelerate, which would hardly ruin any of the surrounding furniture, though it may well provide cheap, wholesome thrills! (There would just be two trisyllabic (anapaestic) metra in the iambic line rather than one. But there are two spondees in V’s dactylic line at IV.244, “dat-somn” and “mitque’t”, hence prosodic fidelity is of no reasonable concern.) cf. qq. 242 for “takes”.
This forces the issue: what is, in fact, the third person singular present active ndicative termination chez M? (For there would have been variation in Lydgate or Chaucer, as standardised prescription had not yet been incorporated into the educational institutions of the 14th century to the extent to which we today can trust in a relatively steady body of prescriptivist forms. Of course, third person
terminations in –s were alien to Anglo-Saxon grammar, and are generally identified today as a characteristic of early modern English verb tense formation.) vid. qq. VI.183, VI.197.
IV.265 x Forsooth exp, X, WSE
IV.277 mortalis men that die from day exp, X: a clever and mellifluous expansion of the original substantive adjective in V.
IV.280 vox faucibus haesit amidst … clave strongly, joyously, even heedlessly X: “Jaws” strikes again. For the record, Lewis and Short attest for Lat vox “voice, sound, tone, cry, call.” And among M’s fancies, this one is particularly inspired, “cleaving” as it does, where in V, the IIIsin. pres.act.ind. of haereo narrates only a “voice [that] (is) stuck in my throat.” This can hardly be seen as M’s most faithful line.
IV.298 Fama Rumour cf. IV.173, IV.203.
IV.313 aequor brine exp. cf. I.381. Another expansion of visual imagery.
IV.331f. dixerat … premebat She spake … swelled A-S, fidel. M’s metre serves his purposes well here.
IV.361 Italiam non sponte sequor Perforce I follow Italy defect, fidel
IV.365-387 M renders this famous vituperation by means of his heaviest grade of monosyllabic thunderbolts; the effect is that of a scornful Saxon curse most severely delivered.
IV.400 infabricata fugae studio unwrought, so fain of flight they are A-S, defect, fidel.
IV.440 fata obstant fate in the way abode A-S, fidel.
IV.441-446 ac velut … Tartara As when … hell A-S, fidel and very vividly poetic matter here, save for the unfelicitous and Christianising choice of “hell” (446); Venuti would likely urge a foreignised “Tartarus” and so would this reader.
IV.459 fronde leafage A-S, fidel: M chooses this over the more ubiquitous “foliage”. An unambiguous example of M tending to choose the A-S word over the Lat, when given the choice at null cost.
IV.503 ergo iussa parat Wherefore … in hand. defect, fidel.
IV.511 Dianae Dian’s I’m not sure what to say about this phaenomenon. M has referred to Polydorus as “Polydore” four times (III.45, III.49, III.55, III.62), to Polyphemus as “Polypheme” twice (III.641, III.656), and will first refer to Palinurus as “Palinure” (V.12, qq. V.840, V.844, V.847). The truncation of proper nouns for prosodic gain is evidently a card trick M can get behind. Let’s face it, “Diana” (a true English amphibrach) would deface beyond recognition the metre of the line’s end.
IV.515 et matri praereptus amor Ere yet the mother snatcheth it defect, fidel
IV. V520=M521 curae numen … precatur Mindful and just to care / … prayer fidel. An elegant fix.
IV.539 gratia thank A-S, fidel, WSE. (as a noun in the singular number)
IV.582 M is absolutely symphonic here: the distribution of consonantal sounds in this line is very even, and it lends the line a certain lapidary lustre
IV.599 aetate eld A-S, fidel, deep WSE: this word, a common noun, is an institution in M’s lexicon.
IV.601 ferro steel X: cf. notes on IV.71, IV.141, IV.663.
IV.617 auxilium … funera beseeching … many a friend exp, PRB: this can be interpreted as an expansion, but also as an intensification: namely, of the emotion of desperation, which is white-hot by the end of the line. Not only is there in V no such repetition as “many … many”, the exceedingly vanilla word “auxilium” is used, as if in contrast to M’s heightened state of feeling.
IV.624 nullus … sunto No love … anything A-S, fidel: M “troth” for “foedera” (lit. ‘pacts’) is reasonably close.
IV.626 ferro sword A-S, fidel: at last M chooses a translation for “ferrum” that is recognised by professors Lewis and Short (vid “ferrum”, entry II), to say nothing of students of
what today we call “materials science.”
IV.628 litora … / … armis the shore … / … sword A-S, exp: M turns V’s two repetitions into three in his rendering: V repeats “litora litoribus” and “arma armis”, but there is no repetition of a third pair in Lat, hence M expands to three the number of repetitions by rendering “fluctibus undas” as “sea against the sea”.
IV.653 vixi … peregi I, I have lived … A-S, exp: two verbs conjugated in the first person singular here admittedly manifest a certain parallellism that can be seen to authorise such an emphatic repetition as M “I, I”. This repetition can even be understood to be a flourish that effects a certain species of dramatic intensification of psychological realism. One could do worse than conclude that such shenanigans betray a Pre-Raphaelite focus purring, as it were, just beneath the hood of the translation.
IV.663 ferro steel X. cf. discussion at I.313, IV.131, IV.601, IV.626,
IV.666 fama Rumour Lat, fidel. cf. discussion at IV.173, IV.298.
IV.696 morte death-doom A-S, exp: M expands on V’s simple “death” by means of monosyllabic Saxon Alliteration. The effect? A yoke of two words which sound together like some sort of pre-Norman construction. He is really heightening the Germanic character of the English language here. WSE? cf. VIII.140.
IV.V699=M698 abstulerat had … off-shred Boldly A-S and WSE – particularly in its function as a past participle. German and Dutch may form past participles in this way, by prefixing praepositions to the verb radix (think Modern High German “zurückgebracht” = “zurück-ge-bracht” with “ge” being an infix signifying participial function, equivalent in form if not entirely in lexical domain to the Modern Dutch “teruggebracht” = “terug-ge-bracht”) but English performs no such gymnastics with its participles. (Anymore.) cf. “litten” V.03, “waxen” V.06.

AENEID FIVE

V.3 Elissae Dido X: M uses the name “Elissa” only twice in his Aeneid (IV.335, IV.610); V, thrice (IV.335, IV.610, V.3). Michael Paschalis on V’s Lat Wortspiel here: “Dido voices her prayers and imprecations as Elissa. The cluster ‘Elissae … preces’ (IV.610-612) suggests an etymological association with λίσσομαι (‘pray’); ‘precor’ recurs in IV.621 and Dido’s speech is concluded with ‘imprecor’ (629). Aeneas addresses Dido as ‘Elissa’ in IV.335, in response to the queen’s ‘entreaties’ to relinquish the idea of departing (319 ‘... oro si quis adhuc precibus locus exue mentem’) and not to abandon her alone and unprotected. Dido’s ‘preces’ are later borne by Anna to Aeneas (413 ‘iterum temptare precando’); they reappear as ‘prayers’ to gods who care for lovers joined in an unequal relationship (521 ‘precatur’); and eventually they are turned into curses.” (Virgil’s Aeneid: Semantic Relations and Proper Names. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997:170). Ovid (in Heroides VII) has Dido open with an imprecatio that ends in her own name: “Accipe Dardanide moriturae carmen Elissae”. My point here is that M, for reasons discussed in Chapter Two, (predictably) misses the point of all this wordplay on Dido’s name as commentary on her prayer life. M arguably demonstrates this lack of concern here, in choosing not to follow V’s charming little classical witticisms; what can be disapproved of as a deficiency in philology, however, must also be interpreted as the cost of M’s keen attention to the main action of the narrative and the psychological realism of its agonistaí. He is completely focussed on the tale, not on its aetiological subtleties.
V.9 undique … undique around … around fidel.
V.19f. mutati … / … venti the changed winds … course fidel and very artful here: “roared athwart” is a happy accident. It is a rare and auspicious occasion when such a faithful forklift-job of the original text results in such decisively apt and potently sonic language in the target translation.
V.70 meritaeque guerdon fidel if very mediaevalising; “guerdon” appears twice in M: here and at I.253.
V.109 A general comment: it is breathtaking, how reminiscent of the pagan rustic procession of Keats’s Endymion a translation of this moment in V’s Aeneid can be, dressed in such Cockney “weed” as M crafts for the tale. Anna Cox- Brinton indeed cannot be thought utterly wrong when she calls this a “Pre- Raphaelite Aeneid”!
V.132-238 The four ships are the Whale of Mnestheus, the Chimaera of Gyas, the Centaur of Sergestus, and the Scylla of Cloanthus. The blow-by-blow narrative that follows seeks in V and in M alike to arouse readerly interest in the games by modulating the fortunes of each contestant; it is a famous scene reminiscent of the funeral games held to honour Patroclus in Iliad XXIII.
V.182 salsos … fluctus brine A-S, sim, fidel: For once M is not translating “aequor” as “brine”. cf. qq. V.237,
V.778.
V.208 trudes sprits A-S, fidel: in the nautical English lexicon M found a vast treasure of words mostly Germanic in origin; that he eagerly avails himself of such a tool-chest is no wonder.
V.228 resonatque … aether their … lift doth fill strongly A-S, but also fidel: as a noun, “lift” is a decisive Germanicism (cf. MHG “luft”, Dutch “lucht”).
V.231 hos … videntur those … may M here smacks strongly of WSE.
V.233f. ni … fudisset … vocasset But if … The English syntax fails on account of an idiosyncrasy on M’s part: V is crystalclear that what follows is the protasis of a past contrafactual condition, whose apodosis has just concluded; the reversed syntax (apodosis-to-protasis) is clear in V, unclear in M.
V.267 aspera utter pain X: M misreads V here: the “aspera” are the rough reliefs that have been graven into the dish.
V.284 Minervae Pallas X: M uses a Greek epithet instead of the name “Minerva”, an amphibrach.
V.288 in … theatri theatre-wise A-S (“-wise”), fidel
V.294 Nisus … primi Euryalus and Nisus first defect, fidel, in spite of the fact that M reorders the proper names in the line.
V.322 tertius Euryalus And then Euryalus is third defect, fidel
V.451 Acestes King Acestes exp
V.559 flexilis … auri limber gold A-S, exemplarily fidel, with “limber” a striking and aesthetic choice.
V.574 fertur equis horses … / … are borne defect, fidel
V.646 Cried exp, X: M supplies a finite verb where none appears in V.
V.652 haec effata Such … words she spake to them defect, fidel
V.680-686 sed non idcirco … prosunt But none … avail exp, X. M here performs an imaginative modification that is key for readers who seek to appreciate the unique character of his contribution to the craft of Englishing classical epics: on the one hand, M maintains the semantic sense of “lentusque” in the dependent clause at V.682, while also superadding, in the same line and at the level of the main clause, a second adjective (one may say a “redundant” second adjective, really) (this is the word “slow”). Fine; M isn’t horribly missing the sense or something. On the other hand, he confects a new image out of whole cloth: this dental business is nowhere at all in V. Still, this reader is of sufficiently fanciful parts as to be able to accept the novel image as an apt one, since who can fail to own its propriety and felicity? It is undeniable that the action of fire on wet pine is actually like this: it is not only a vivid image, but also manages a quantum of recision, since the action of fire on wet wood is indeed the action of persistent gnawing. The wood’s xylem and phloem are under a kind of siege by the trenchant flames that crack and bite at them hungrily – but I grow prolix. My point is that the image is an apt flourish and an exemplum of M’s poetical gifts. cf. V.752 in which M keeps his doggedly zahnärztlich image up, Englishing “ambesa” as
“gnawed” (the word literally means “consumed”).
V.718 urbem … Acestam And they … name. In V this line is what one can politely call prosodically heterodox – it’s all over the place, with one spondee following another in a thunderous sequence.
In M it is a perfectly behaved line of iambic heptameter.
V.720 bigis wain A-S, fidel
V.722 the high exp, X
V.731 cultu nurture a conspicuously Lat choice, fidel
V.792 in regnis hoc ausa tuis This in thy very realm she dared A-S, defect, fidel
V.815 unum … caput One head … rest. defect, fidel
V.821 fugiunt vasto aethere nimbi from heaven all cloud-flecks fail nearly thoroughly A-S (save for the verb, which is Lat), exp, alliterative. Aesthetic.
Here M anticipates the sudden bursts and swayings of Hopkins – or, if you like, practises a Swinburnean attention to sound and effect. Swinburne, M, Hopkins: a finite golden braid.
V.867 pater Father M capitalises the word! Interesting, if a touch deceptive in effect: one cannot purge associations with the ON word “Alföðr” or “Allfather”, an epithet of Odin, any more easily than one can act as though the fact that the word appears here capitalised is somehow not reminiscent of such tactics of linguistic representation as would be convenient for those who accept a Christian conception of a fatherly God who is also omnipotent.

AENEID SIX

VI.V6=M5 Hesperium Westland(‘s) A-S, definitely, but one would also be at pains to decisively show that this line is inaccurate. That it barbarises, there is no doubt; however, semantically, the pair of words do manage to betray a certain satisfyingly plausible connection, barring questions of ethnic diction or aetymological colour. The choice can even arguably be seen as domesticating! After all, M clearly intends that the word “Westland” does roughly the service of the proper name “Hesperium”, but no less clearly he does so, crucially, in the English tongue – this is the Aeneids of Vergil, Done into English, he seems keen to remind us here. M provides in the place of the Lat “Hesperium” a geographically and culturally specific remanagement of an identical concept, one that blushes not to see its aetymological kinks slip before the eyes of men, but that above all seeks, at this fleeting instant in the poem, to duplicate for English letters that “Aeneid experience” which had once been offered up to ancient Latinity au naturel. My point is that it is difficult to imagine what could conceivably be seen as more “domesticating” than such manoeuvres as these, chez Venuti and friends!
Besides, M could have chosen “Vinland” or somesuch, a more radical transposition still! cf. qq. VI.374 “Well-Willers” and IX.524 “Song-Maid” for similar attempts at imaginative reconstruction from within the house of Germanistics. cf. VI.845 “Greatest”.
VI.25 biformis twiformed This transformation of Lat “bi-” into “twi-” is an explicit Germanicism: A-S, fidel. cf. VI.286.
VI.86 bella horrida bella Lo, war, war, dreadful war! It is just possible that this treble repetition (V says “bella” twice) is a subtle jab, anticipating M’s later anti-war agitprop (vid. “Sending to the War” in 1887’s The Pilgrims of Hope for a handy exemplum). It is just possible – this presents a possibility which is tantalising, perhaps even critically irresistible, for a reader. There is a M – and a reader of this same M – who would never overlook the political overtones of such an opportunity, in what can amount to a pair of participatory, subversive actions (one clandestine operation perpetrated by the poet, who seeks to circumvent the rigid bounds of Augustan ideology; the other by the translator, who wishes to send one more round downrange, as it were, at the target “bellum”, here abstracted as the object of moral revulsion and horror.) The possibility admittedly presents temptations to this reader no less than, I imagine, to others whose ears are pricked up for the slightest and subtlest susurrations of tone. cf. qq. VII.615; M is perhaps just a shade harsher than V? Coïncidence?
VI.94 externique iterum thalami Once more the wedding … foe defect, fidel
VI.98-100 This is M at the top of his game. I could be blind; a mere hearing of this read aloud would instantly disclose its Morrisian provenance. These lines could simply be the work of no other poet.
VI.112-114 ille … senectae My yoke-fellow … eld. A-S, fidel, and quite aesthetic. The alliteration of aspirates in VI.113 is strongly reminiscent of some of the alliterative mediaeval verse one finds in the volumes of the Early English Text Society. While King Alfred may not be on the cover of this translation of the Aeneid, moments like this can be seen as attempting to restore to the English tongue something like the alliterative force it still possessed in the hands of the authors of Havelok the Dane or The Alliterative Morte Arthure – this is to say, to reassert English’s authentic identity as a West Germanic language.
VI.229 pura … unda stainless … water A-S. Whether one considers this fidel or X is bound to be a function of the extent to which one deems appropriate the translation of one of the most straightforward words in Lat into an English word ending in the termination “-less”.
VI.240 faucibus jaws A-S, X. cf. discussion on “jaws” at II.774, III.48.
VI.277 labos(que) Toil of Men A-S, exp, fidel. That M chooses “toil” is telling – vid. “Useful Work vs. Useless Toil”: “worthy work carries with it the hope of pleasure in rest, the hope of pleasure in our using what it makes, and the hope of pleasure in our daily creative skill. All other work but this is worthless; it is slaves' work – mere toiling to live, that we may live to toil.” This shows us that by the 1880s, M would come to view the signal products of capitalist society as being waste and senseless toil. This fact weighs upon our interpretation of this choice considerably! (Here it is instructive to remember that the productive capacity of human suffering is the central difference between Dante’s inferno, in which the damned suffer pointlessly and endlessly, and his purgatory, in which the merely sinful suffer through a process with gain in mind if not always in sight.)
VI.366 portusque … Velinos the Veline firth A-S, fidel.
VI.374 sev’um Eumenidum ripam the grim Well-Willers’ stream very potently A-Sising. cf. VI.V6=M5 re: M’s imaginative, Germanicising reconstructionist translation praxis. M’s translation of “Well-Willers” for “Eumenides”, albeit interestingly reconstructionistic and fanciful, is utterly mystifying to one familiar with the sense of the original ClasGrk/Lat word. cf qq “Song-Maid” at IX.524.
VI.420 medicatis frugibus blent of wizards’ corn very tidily A-S, of course, but M adds a certain fantasy element to the experience of reading the epic. Lit. “the seer lobbed a hunk of grain commingled with honey (which had been) medicated with a sedative”; to M’s credit, this is no easy line!
VI.453f. This shorter epic simile stands in M in a very fine and consistently A-S passage.
VI.592 at pater omnipotens … Him the Almighty Father smote cf. Milton PL I.44ff.: “Him the Almighty Power / hurled headlong flaming from th’ethereal sky, / withhideous ruin and combustion, down / to bottomless perdition” &c.
VI.V651=M651f. arma … currusque wains of war / and war-weed… strongly A-S.
VI.700-702 ter …/ … somno there three times … / … dreams cf. II.792-794: the takeaway is that M does his utmost to get as close as the English language will let him to the repetition in V, save for “beloved” at VI.700:
II.792-794 ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum; And there three times about her neck I strove mine arms to cast, ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago, And thrice away from out my hands the gathered image streams, par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno. E'en as the breathing of the wind or wingèd thing of dreams.
VI.700-702 ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum; And thrice the neck of him beloved he strove in arms to take; ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago, And thrice away from out his hands the gathered image streams, par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno. E'en as the breathing of the wind or wingèd thing of dreams.
VI.835 proice … sanguis meus Cast thou … from thine hand A-S, defect, fidel
VI.845 Maximus Greatest A-S: it isn’t exactly clear if M is a) unaware that V here refers to a specific figure named Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator or b) knows this and yet fully intends to reconstruct this name along A-S lines, as discussed above at VI.V6=M5, VI.374, and IX.524.
VI.893ff. This ivory gate turns up unexpectedly in the “Apology” to M’s own 1868 epic poem The Earthly Paradise: “Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme / beats with light wing against the ivory gate” (25). cf. qq. Homer Odyssey XIX, 562-567.

AENEID SEVEN

VII.20 potentibus herbis herbs of might Potently A-Sising here; M here studiously avoids a Lat word like “potent”
VII.26 bigis wain A-S, fidel. vid VI.184
VII.41 tu vatem … horrida bella O Goddess … saith this line is conspicuously A-S, even for M
VII.81f. The thunderous alliteration of this line is not for the faint of heart! A-S, also
boldly mediaevalising. For a sibilant variation cf qq. VII.99.
VII.120 salve Hail A-S, fidel, mediaevalising.
VII.129 exitiis positura modum Our wasting evils … last. A-S, defect, fidel.
VII.248 Iliadumque labor vestes And weed the work of Ilian wives A-S, defect, fidel.
VII.302 This is hardly M’s finest hour, this line.
VII.407 consiliumque … Latini And that … undone Here M perpetrates a syntactical misdemeanour
VII.431 duces dukes of men M here does something interesting: it is as if he knew in advance about the criticism that his choice of “dukes” in such cases as this reasonably elicits, and sought to forestall, or at least to mitigate the force of, such a criticism by means of appealing to the original verbal meaning of the Lat “ducere”. (He could reply that “look, they’re leading men; are you happy now?”)
The Lat has no mention of “hominum”, a Morrisian provision.
VII.439 immemor est nostri belike she minds me yet A-S, defect, fidel.
VII.455 bella manu letumq. gero and war and death I have in hand A-S, defect, fidel.
VII.460 arma … arma arms … arms M repeats V’s repetition faithfully.
VII.463 virgea twiggen A-S, fidel. M registers the most recent use of this strange Gothic adjective attested in OED.
VII.520 undique from everywhither X. M never was a magisterial grammarian and his word here is a failure, since “from” and the suffix “-whither” counteract one another unaccountably.
VII.586 pelago rupes … pel’i rupes as crag … amid the sea A-S, fidel. M maintains V’s repetition.
VII.588 latrantibus undis waves bark fidel. This is another odd image in V which M dutifully maintains.
VII.613 limina stridentia creaking door-leaves A-S, fidel. This reader benefits from such frequent interaction with the various experiences of the translator: here, for his part, M has chosen a word that is architectural, teaching this decidedly nonarchitectural reader a new word! vid. qq. VII.622.
VII.631-633 M again here indulges his honest, sweet tooth for strongly alliterative strains of verse. vid. VII.688, VII.700, VII.717-719.
VII.647ff. M really shines here with this epic catalogue that begins with Mezentius, the Etruscan champion. His invocation is stirring and one grows excited with anticipation – and dread – at reading his martial rosters. M excels at this sortof rousing escalation in tone, and the epic voice here is very boldly his own.
VII.702 pulsa palus beat with song A-S, defect, fidel.
VII.741 Teutonico Teuton above all else, this is fidel. M obeys V very closely here, as V employs a gentilic proper name found passim in Caesar De Bello Gallico; it is to M’s credit that he manages to eschew such funhouse eccentricities as those of which one can be forgiven for imagining him capable at less judicious moments, and that he simply sticks to the script here. All sorts of complications could abound; perhaps he perceived this. The demonym is nowhere attested in Tacitus Germania.
VII.760 te liquidi … lacus the thin wan waters … thee A-S, defect, fidel.
VII.798 Rutulosque … collis Rutulian holt and hill very emphatically A-S and mediaevalising. On “holt” OED is cautious: “Old English only, and doubtful. … now poet. and dial.” One recalls Chaucer’s GP “inspirèd hath in every holt and heeth / the tendre croppes”. The verdict? exp but usltimately fidel.
VII.802 vallis dales A-S, fidel. This is, unsurprisingly, followed immediately with “folk” at VII.803.

AENEID EIGHT

VIII.41 concessere deum… The swelling storm … wrath. A-S, defect, fidel.
VIII.59 astris star-world A-S, exp: of course, M does need an extra syllable here, but the pictorial character of the expansion of “-world” is to be expected, considering our translator’s fondness for image.
VIII.71 genus amnibus unde est from whence the race … springs slightly exp: V has simply “whence (it) is”; M here thought fidelity too humdrum?
VIII.91 mirantur et undae the waves fall wondering then again, slightly, ever-so-slightly exp, and for the same reason (“fall” being M’s gift)
VIII.119f. ferte haec … / rogantis go ye forth … / to pray A-S, fidel, with the subtle exception that M has “of Troy” for V’s “Dardaniae”
VIII.140 at Maiam … Atlas but Atlas … trow tale told, A-S and potently alliterative! M idiomatises V’s present condition into English with a fidelity that quite insists upon syntactical pliability and sonority in the TL.
VIII.211 saxo … opaco stonydark A-S, fidel, and aesthetic. The resultant blend word differs from V’s conventional usage in the Lat, of course, but this is hardly a violation of reasonable expectations.
VIII.260f. corripit … oculos knitteth him … the starting eyes A-S, and strongly alliterative, as well as arguably quite fidel.
VIII.271f. Maxima … maxima Mightiest … mightiest A-S, fidel: M follows V’s repetition.
VIII.278 sacer … scyphus the holy beaker A-S, fidel: “beaker” is a sort of Scandinavianism (cf. ON ‘bikarr’); for its use in “Englished epics” vid. Pope Odyssey of Homer XV.117 “the prince a silver beaker chose” (cf. Homer Odyssey =XV.103: “υἱὸν δὲ κρητῆρα φέρειν Μεγαπένθε᾽” κτλ)
VIII.300 Lernaeus … anguis the Worm of Lerna boldly, to some no doubt unsavourably, A-S: cf. OE “wyrm”. fidel.
VIII.302 et nos … sacra secundo fail not … fail! One might think that all the alliteration on “f” were a Morrisian chintz lain atop the bare metal of the literal sense, but which belies Morris’s creative priorities as a translator, but M is faithful elsewhere in following V’s synecdoche. fidel, save for the unhappy selection of “lovers”, so different in connotation from V.
VIII.321f. is genus … / … dedit he laid in peace … / … them laws this is remarkably direct and fidel.
VIII.327 amor successit habendi and lust of gain outbroke Again, one might sense in such a denunciation of material acquisition the hand of the socialist M, but his “lust of gain” is a direct and literal rendering of the Lat “amor habendi.” fidel.
VIII.364f. aude hospes … / … egenis Have heart to scorn … / … estate. exp, re: syntax, as M invents a second infinitive where V is characteristically pithy.
VIII.392 ignea rima fiery rent A-S, fidel.
VIII.433f. currumque … / … urbes the wain … / … wars A-S and strongly alliterative; exp in that he specifies “to wars”, a specification from which V refrains. Otherwise, fidel.
VIII.451 gemit … antrum and all … / … anvil laid exp: V only suggests the “strokes” that M makes explicit.
VIII.469 rex prior haec Thuswise speaks Evander first defect, fidel.
VIII.503 externos optate duces seek outland captains A-S, fidel. A picture-perfect exemplum of the kind of English of which M seems so fond, “outland” satisfies both V’s and M’s own criteria. The word “foreign” appears in M’s Aeneids of Vergil zero times; the word “outland”, sixteen:
II.504, III.364, III.377, IV.350, V.795, VII.124, VII.167, VII.255, VII.424,
VIII.503, VIII.685, X.78, X.156, XI.772, XI.777. For once, M refrains from
translating “dux” as duke, a convention to which he soon returns: cf. X.156.
VIII.528 in regione serena amid the sky-land clear A-S, fidel. M’s hyphenated blend words feel like kennings, what with all the alliteration and consciously Germanic diction wafting through the ambience.
VIII.536 laturam auxilio Arms Vulcan-fashioned for my need defect, fidel.
VIII.539f. scuta … / … volves the shields … / … mighty ones A-S, fidel: the sense of this reader is that M repeats as much of V’s motif from I.101 as he is able, since “strong” one can admit is a rather inconvenient monosyllable for the purposes of metrical numbers. And he comes admirably close: I.110 scuta virum galeasque et fortia corpora volvit the shields of men, and helms of men, and bodies of the strong
VIII.539-540 scuta virum galeasque et fortia corpora volves the shields and helms of men, / And bodies of the mighty ones!
VIII.690 tridentibus three-tynèd Lat, smashingly fidel here. M reaches into the noun “trident”’s origins as an adjective from “tri-dens” and, having probed its aetymology (hardly a keen interest of M’s), is able subsequently to refashion it as a fully “Englished” word.

AENEID NINE

IX.V61=M60 agni lamb-folk exp: M makes explicit what in V is implicit
IX.152 certum est is the doom X: M doesn’t translate the meaning quite perfectly here.
IX.V161=M160 bis septem … servent twice seven … inleaguering fidel: M maintains a repetition found in V (cf I.71)
IX.166 noctem … / … ludo their warding … away defect, fidel.
IX.257 cui sola … reducto is all my heal A-S, fidel. For the nominalisation of ‘heal’ cf. XII.637, XII.746.
IX.264 et … talenta eke … gold A-S, fidel. This “eke” (cf. Modern Dutch “ook”, Modern High German “auch”) would certainly not have been in common use very long after the age of Chaucer, but M considers it a quasi-Jamesian “live option.”
IX.294 tum sic effatur … and therewithal … word defect, fidel.
IX.307 armati in weed of war A-S, more or less fidel to the sense of V.
IX.313 fossas ditch A-S, fidel. cf. IX.469, IX.505.
IX.V381=M380 ilice holm-oaks A-S, fidel. cf. III.390, VI.180, VI.208
IX.V467=M466 Euryali et Nisi … Euryalus and Nisus dead defect, fidel.
IX.486 vulnera lavi wash … well won exp, alliterative and aesthetic.
IX.V520=M519 missilibus certant … with … shot defect, exp.
IX.V625=M624 adnue nod yea A-S, fidel, and colloquial.
IX.631 fatifer deadful A-S, fidel.
IX.690 Ductori Turno duke Turnus X: whatever one thinks of “duke” for “dux”, this is “ductor”, a leader, a chieftain.
IX.V721=M720 bellatorque … incidit and in … wakes defect, fidel.
IX.V761=M760 egit in adversos … drave him … foe defect, fidel.
IX.V765=M764 confixa … parma with targe smit through A-S, fidel.
IX.V807=M806 nec dextra valet nought skills his right hand A-S, fidel, WSE. cf. II.402

AENEID TEN

X.17 pauca refert … gave golden … back again defect, fidel.
X.26 obsidione sines? from bond of leaguer? A-S. F’s reliably wooden, verbum pro verbo rendering: “Will you never suffer the siege to be raised?” – and I leave the reader to derive her or his own conclusions therefrom.
X.43 vincant q’s vincere magis let them … for lords A-S, exp, but essentially fidel, since although in “vincere” V has them “win” or “conquer”; M makes them “lords”. The repetition of “vincant … vincere” M carefully maintains in “lords … lords”.
X.V45=M44 dura hard-heart A-S, exp.
X.51 est celsa … / … domus Paphus … abide M reorders the names of these three Mediterranean strongholds of Venus.
X.57 totque … terrae To wear … main This line seems so typical of M’s style and personality; his translation of this line effects a notably emboldened and amplified heroïc voice, and here if anywhere his Englishing of this great Roman tale can justly be called “epic”. It’s just an epic line.
This reader has seen tattoos of lines from W.E. Henley’s “Invictus” – could this be
too far away from the ink-smith’s snapping tool?
X.78 arva aliena outland yoke The adjective “outland” is a characteristic Germanicism in M’s hands; it occurs 13 times in his translation.
X.92 me duce … adulter did I … reft? A-S, fidel.
X.116 surgit upstand Strongly, glaringly A-Sising. Only in lampoons of Wagner is “upstand(en)” a Modern English verb. This is M attempting to return English to its primordial roots – or, as Will Abberley has argued, what he and Victorian philologists had imagined English’s primordial roots to have been – by means of wordcraft that must to his audience have been some spectacle of mannerism. To bolder, more transgressive forms of art one must bring an open mind. M seems to know that “upstand” makes for a harder reading – and yet he persists. It’s quite deliberate. cf. I.483.
X.154 foedusque ferit plighteth troth A-S, fidel, WSE. “Troth” appears 39 times in M.
X.163 pandite ope A-S, fidel, aesthetic, even aureate. Smacks suddenly of 17th century diction.
X.163-184 Again M demonstrates, in a highly representative and descriptive passage, the suitability of his archaïsing idiom to the task of the epic catalogue. The verse here positively crackles with energy, the fourteener meter trustily propelling the reader along.
X.185 ductor … bello war-duke For other “dukes” cf. X.213, X.267, X.602, X.814, XI.12, XI.171, XI.465,
XII.126, XII.456, XII.501, XII.562
X.225 fandi speech-lore A-S, fidel. Quite elegant, in the view of at least one reader, and pure Anglo-Saxon (speech-lore being just a modernisation of “spræc”"“spæc” + “lar”) in origin.
X.239 loca iussa tenent to tryst A-S, fidel.
X.310 signa tenent the war-horns sing fidel: M follows V here in being suddenly and noticeably laconic.
X.490 quem … adsistens: Whom Turnus … says defect, fidel.
X.529 dabit discrimina tanta such mighty matter make M follows V’s alliteration, choosing labials for dentals!
X.580 cui Liger … then Liger cast … him: defect, fidel.
X.609f. - they lack … / … they lack X: this repetition is only in M
X.700 poplite … succiso ham-strung fidel. M here deftly translates a Lat ablative absolute. The effect is that of studied brevity, an effect that while not identical to that observed in V shares its spirit (or at least its vigorous forward gait.)
X.728 ora cruor… washes … his mouth defect, fidel.
X.809 nubem belli shaft-storm A-S, fidel. Another Germanicising blend-word; I will refrain from calling it a “kenning” as its sense is too plain for that, but it is not insignificant that I thought to do just that, before my better judgment took the con. It isn’t a kenning, but it feels like one.
X.852 pulsus thrust … Fate X: cf. I.2, which in M shares “thrust forth” whereas in V “profugus” vs. “pulsus”
X.892 incumbit and ’neath his cumbering fidel, if according to some, no doubt, somewhat misguided, since the aetymological relationship between “encumbered” and “cumbering” isn’t quite enough to make his choice of “cumbering” one whose sense would hardly be clear to most readers.

AENEID ELEVEN

XI.59 deflevit he wept him fidel.
XI.87f. terrae … / … Rutulo lie / … Rutuli No such assonance (to say nothing, of course, of rime) appears in V.
XI.105 hospitibus his whileome hosts exp: “his hosts” suffices in the Lat.
XI.128 Fortuna good-hap X: for a similar instance of M deleting the agency of a personified Fortuna, cf. XII.637.
XI.138 nec plaustris … ornos on the wains … lament A-S, fidel.
XI.140 Evandrum Evandrique filleth Evander’s … ears X: (vid. notes 280 for this field)
XI.315 paucis … docebo the rede that is in me cf. XI.470, XI.551, XI.704, XI.821
XI.339 consiliis … auctor Held for … enow On “make-bate”: OED has “a person who or (occas.) thing which creates contention or discord; a fomenter of strife. Now archaïc.” Hence, very boldly A-S, fidel. If you are looking for a line to test your command of M’s remediaevalised, regermanicised idiom, this one will do for a gobbet. If you can readily make out its sense, you’re accustomed to M’s twist on English (and English verse) by now. If it still makes no sense to you, it’s back for more practice.
XI.345 se scire they wot A-S, fidel.
XI.370 fer pectus breast the enemy Remarkably here, M insists upon a closeness to the original sense, in a breathtakingly foreignising manoeuvre. V has “bear your breast/heart/courage unto the enemy”; even the conservative F handles it idiomatically: “fearlessly advance to meet the foe”. fidel.
XI.375 qui vocat.’ who calleth … afield.” defect, fidel.
XI.391 semper erit? the same … yesterday? defect, fidel.
XI.V407=M406 artificis scelus this guile-smith fains A-S, fidel.
XI.445 agebant / certantes the ball … they tost A domesticating move! M reworks the sense into a colloquial English idiom.
XI.462 tectis … altis high-builded Archaïc, fidel.
XI.481 vaporant becloud A-S, fidel: an admirably aesthetic decision.
XI.544f. ipse sinu … / nemorum He … / … about, One cannot here help recalling M’s retelling of “The Fostering of Aslaug” in The Earthly Paradise.
XI.579 fundam tereti the sling … thong A-S, fidel.
XI.591 (implicit: “huius virginis”) may exp but also fidel due to the character of the Lat syntax.
XI.593 miserandae bewept A-S, fidel.
XI.667 longa transverberat smit through and through A-S, exp. M repeats “through” where there is no such repetition in V.
XI.772, 777 peregrina … / … barbara outland … / … -wrought A-S, exp. M repeats “outland” where there is no such repetition in V.
XI.V795ff.=M’7f. dedit … / non dedit He granted this … / … not fidel.
XI.800 oculosque eyen fidel.
XI.804 virgineumque … cruorem drinking her virgin blood Lat, fidel.
XI.V811=M809 lupus murder-wolf exp. There is nary a whisper of “murder” on V’s ancient lips.

AENEID TWELVE

XII.21 casus haps At the level of this word, A-S, fidel, but the syntax and sense are wholly domesticated, and M here errs in adhering only loosely to the Lat.
XII.43 longaevi eld A-S, fidel.
XII.62 invisa … / lumina will leave the … light A-S, fidel.
XII.64-71 An exemplary passage that showcases the power of M’s rhythms and their fitness for epic matter.
XII.73 euntem wend A-S, fidel.
XII.155 honestum well beseen A-S, fidel.
XII.164 quadriiugo twiyoked A-S, fidel, elegant and aesthetic. Exemplary M.
XII.198 duplex twi-faced This feels a little forced so soon after the last time the reader in 1876 was asked to accept the use of “twi-”something or other. Lat, fidel.
XII.264 densete serry (thoughts on the matter of “serry”)
XII.271 - (implicit in syntax) whilom A-S, exp. V has the contemporaneïty of the verbal action syntactically mediated.
XII.304 sic … ferit and drave … his side defect, fidel.
XII.V333=M332 bella movens rouseth fightful mood A-S, fidel.
XII.340 sanguineos … harena the gore … / … plain A-S, fidel, very aesthetic.
XII.367f. quacumque wheresoe’er … / … wh’r M detects in V’s “-que … -que … -que” (XII.366, 368, 369: “sequiturque … quacumque … conversaeque”) correlatives enough of a hint of repetition to employ an English repetitive convention that seeks to duplicate the effect of V’s correlatives, even as it must by virtue of the English language do violence to the precise order of the ideas as presented in the Lat; still, such a moment can be seen as a token of M’s commitment to preserving at least something of V’s ancient music.
XII.V372=M373 spumantia frenis / ora bit-befoaming … of them A-S, fidel. Aesthetic and “epic” in effect: a detail frozen in crucial action.
XII.381 oras haubert’s upper lip A-S, fidel, exp. Demonstrates the intimacy of M’s knowledge of armour.
No translator, perhaps, but him would have taken the time to clarify exactly
what plate of the helm is being described here in V. Thus, aesthetic, pictorial.
XII.384 fidus Achates Achates leal vid. I.120 (“fortis Achati”), VIII.586 (“fidus Achates”). cf. I.581 (M “the leal Achates”, V “Achates”), VIII.521 (M “Achates true” V “fidus Achates”).
XII.419 panaceam heal-all A stark, dogged A-Sism. M would rather a “heal-all” than a “panacea”.
XII.428 servat holpen A-S, fidel.
XII.453 agricolis field-folks A-S, fidel. A characteristically Morrisian blend-word.
XII.577 primosque out-guards A-S, but a mild domestication. Another characteristically Morrisian blend-word.
XII.614 bellator … Turnus war-Turnus A-S, fidel. A characteristically Morrisian blend-word.
XII.631 Turnus ad haec … But Turnus … thereunto: defect, fidel.
XII.637 quae What heal A-S, exp. cf. IX.257, XII.746. Again, M makes explicit that which is implicit in V.
XII.687 mons that world of stone (cf. EP)
XII.V736=M735 conscendebat clomb A-S, fidel.
XII.825 viros manfolk A-S, fidel.
XII.839 supra … supra outgo … outgo A-S, fidel. M maintains a repetition in V.
XII.851 - (implicit in syntax) whenso A-S, fidel.
XII.890 - (implicit in syntax) betwixt us twain A-S, fidel.
XII.927 duplicato twifolded A-S, fidel.
XII.931 nec deprecor ruth A-S. This is a little bit idiomatic, but it’s pretty fidel.
XII.936 Vicisti Thou, thou hast conquered exp: M repeats “thou” where there is no such repetition in V.

CHARACTERISTICALLY MORRISIAN WORDS IN THE AENEIDS OF VERGIL

Characteristically Morrisian Words, listed Alphabetically:
sequence: word / part of speech / number of times used in the Aeneids of Vergil /frequency rank (among words here listed)

amid preposition 206 3
bane noun 54 7
betwixt (or ’twixt) preposition 40 9
bewept past participle 3 32
bide verb 42 8
blent past participle 24 15
breast verb 1 34
burg noun 21 17
chid praeterite verb 1 34
clomb praeterite verb 2 33
duke noun 39 10
eld noun 28 13
eke adverb 11 24
enow adjective/adverb 17 20
erne noun 11 24
eyen noun 7 28
fain adjective 59 6
firth noun 3 32
foeman noun 25 14
forsooth adverb 341 2
folk noun 344 1
gan (with “to” omitted) praeterite verb 6 29
garth noun 6 29
good-hap noun 4 31
guerdon noun 2 33
hap noun 30 12
hap verb 12 23
haven noun 22 16
heal noun 2 33
holpen past participle 3 32
leal adjective 5 30
lorn past participle 7 28
meat noun (denoting all food) 16 21
midmost preposition 34 11
outland adjective 15 22
rede noun 18 19
riven past participle 8 27
ruth noun 10 25
serry verb 6 29
skills verb 2 33
smit past participle 8 27
speech-lore noun 11 24
thuswise adverb 5 30
thymy adjective 11 24
troth noun 39 10
twi- prefix, adv., adj. 12 23
wain noun 20 18
wax verb 161 4
weed noun 15 22
wend verb 88 5
whenso conjunction 1 34
whilom/whileome conjunction 4 31
wot verb 9 26

CHARACTERISTICALLY MORRISIAN WORDS, LISTED IN DESCENDING ORDER OF FREQUENCY RANK

sequence: word / part of speech / number of times used in the Aeneids of Vergil / frequency rank (among words here listed)

folk noun 344 1
forsooth adverb 341 2
amid preposition 206 3
wax verb 161 4
wend verb 88 5
fain adjective 59 6
bane noun 54 7
bide verb 42 8
betwixt (or ’twixt) preposition 40 9
duke noun 39 10
troth noun 39 10
midmost preposition 34 11
hap noun 30 12
eld noun 28 13
foeman noun 25 14
blent past participle 24 15
haven noun 22 16
burg noun 21 17
wain noun 20 18
rede noun 18 19
enow adjective/adverb 17 20
meat noun (denoting all food) 16 21
outland adjective 15 22
weed noun 15 22
hap verb 12 23
twi- prefix, adv., adj. 12 23
eke adverb 11 24
erne noun 11 24
thymy adjective 11 24
speech-lore noun 11 24
ruth noun 10 25
wot verb 9 26
riven past participle 8 27
smit past participle 8 27
eyen noun 7 28
lorn past participle 7 28
gan (with “to” omitted) praeterite verb 6 29
garth noun 6 29
serry verb 6 29
leal adjective 5 30
thuswise adverb 5 30
good-hap noun 4 31
whilom/whileome conjunction 4 31
bewept past participle 3 32
firth noun 3 32
holpen past participle 3 32
clomb praeterite verb 2 33
guerdon noun 2 33
heal noun 2 33
skills verb 2 33
chid praeterite verb 1 34
breast verb 1 34
whenso conjunction 1 34