Lines 450-466

Question 1

Tantum effatus. Ad haec vates vi denique multa
ardentes oculos intorsit lumine glauco
et graviter frendens sic fatis ora resolvit.

Answer 1

So he spoke. At that the seer, at last twisted by great force,
eyes blazing with grey-green light,
and grimly gnashing his teeth, opened his mouth with this fate:

Question 2

“Non te nullius exercent numinis irae;
magna luis commissa: tibi has miserabilis Orpheus
haudquaquam ob meritum poenas, ni fata resistant,
suscitat et rapta graviter pro coniuge saevit.

Answer 2

‘It is not the case that no divinity’s anger harasses you:
you atone for a heavy crime: Orpheus, wretched man,
brings this punishment on you, which you have not deserved
fate did not forbid it: he raves madly for his lost wife.

Question 3

Illa quidem, dum te fugeret per flumina praeceps,
immanem ante pedes hydrum moritura puella
servantem ripas alta non vidit in herba.

Answer 3

Indeed that doomed girl, while seeking to avoid you, headlong along the stream,
in the deep grass under her feet
did not see the enormous snake, keeping to the riverbank.

Question 4

At chorus aequalis Dryadum clamore supremos
implerunt montes; flerunt Rhodopeiae arces
altaque Pangaea et Rhesi mavortia tellus
atque Getae atque Hebrus et Actias Orithyia.

Answer 4

But her crowd of Dryad playmates filled the mountaintops
with their cry: the towers of Rhodope wept,
and the heights of Pangaea, and the warlike land of Rhesus,
and the Getae, and the Hebrus, and Orythia, Acte’s child.

Question 5

Ipse cava solans aegrum testudine amorem
te, dulcis coniunx, te solo in litore secum,
te veniente die, te decedente canebat.

Answer 5

He himself, consoling love’s anguish, with his hollow tortoise-shell (lyre),
was singing of you, sweet wife, you alone on the shore,
of you as day neared, of you as day departed.