lowercase">XII. 721.) "Cornua obnixi infigunt," fix their horns, not on, but in; infix their horns; stick their horns into each other; stick each other with their horns: q.d. Cornibus se mutuo infigunt: and, exactly parallel to our text:

In confirmation of this view of the passage, I may observe: 1st, that it is easier to imagine a man staked to the ground by a sharp-pointed rock, than flung on a sharp-pointed rock, so as to remain permanently impaled on it; and 2dly, that the account given of the transaction, both by Quintus Calaber and Seneca, agree as perfectly with this view as they disagree with the opposite:

And so Seneca; who, having presented us with Ajax clinging to the rock to which he had swum for safety, after his ship had been sunk, and himself struck with lightning, and there uttering violent imprecations against the Deity, adds:

And, so also, beyond doubt, we are to understand Sidonius Apollinaris's—

Not, with Wakefield and the other commentators, fixed on the rocks of Caphareus, but, pierced with the rocks of Caphareus, and lying under them. Compare (Æn. IX. 701.) "fixo pulmone," the pierced lung; "fixo cerebro" (Æn. XII. 537.); "verubus trementia figunt" (Æn. I. 216.), not, fix on the spits, but, stick or pierce with the spits; and especially (Ovid. Ibis. 341.),

pierced and pinned down with a rock, at the bottom of the Eubœan gulf.

TURBINE. SCOPULO.—Not two instruments, a whirlwind and a rock, but one single instrument, a whirling rock; scopulo turbineo; in modo turbinis se circumagente; as if Virgil had said, Solo affixit illum correptum et transverberatum scopulo acuto in eum maxima vi rotato: or, more briefly, Turbine scopuli acuti corripuit et infixit. Compare:

So understood, 1st, the passage is according to Virgil's usual manner, the latter part of the line explaining and defining the general statement contained in the former; and, 2ndly, Pallas kills her enemy, not by the somewhat roundabout and unusual method of first striking him with thunder, and then snatching him up in a whirlwind, and then either dashing him against a sharp rock, and leaving him impaled there, or, as I have shown is undoubtedly the meaning, impaling him with a sharp rock, but by the more compendious and less out-of-the-way method of first striking him with thunder, and then whirling a sharp-pointed rock on top of him, so as to impale him.

From Milton's imitation of this passage, in his Paradise Lost (ii. 180.), it appears that even he fell into the general and double error:

Caro's translation shows that he had no definite idea whatever of the meaning:

"'INCEDERE' wird besonders von der feierlichen, würdevollen Haltung im Gange gebraucht: vers 500, von der Dido, 'Regina incessit.' (Ruhnk. zu Terent. And. I. i. 100. Eun. v. 3. 9.) Deshalb der majestätischen Juno eigenthümlich, Ἡραῖον βαδίζειν. Also nicht für sum, sondern ganz eigentlich."—Thiel.

And so also Holdsworth and Ruæus.

I think, on the contrary, that incedo, both here and elsewhere, expresses only the stepping or walking motion generally, and that the character of the step or walk, if inferable at all, is to be inferred only from the context. Accordingly, "Magnifice incedit" (Liv. II. 6.); "Turpe incedere" (Catull. XXXXII. 8.);