Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

AETNAthrown at random, so as to form a chary])dis " liollowcdwitli frequent interstices within and hanging uponitself, even so in like configuration the earth, too,loosened into tiny channels, does not all unite compactlyor into narrow compass. Or maybe the causeof it is indeed ancient, though the formation is notcoeval with its origin, but some air enters uncheckedand works a road as it escapes ; or water has eatenaway the ground with the mud it perpetually makesand stealthily softens what blocks its course. Oragain hot vapours cribbed and confined have overcomesolidity and fire has sought a path for itself:or all these forces may have striven in their assignedplaces. No cause is here for mourning our ignorance,so long as the working of the true cause standsassured. Who does not believe that there are gulfsof emptiness in earth's recesses, when he sees springsso mighty emerge and so often plunge again in thedepth of a chasm ? That chasm could not speed itfrom any slender source : fit confluents must needssummon from everywhere their wandering ducts andthe chasm draw from a full source the making of amighty river. Moreover, rivers running with broadcurrents have found their own places of sinking.Either an abyss has snatched them headlong down" No editor has found a satisfactory reading here. What iswanted is a feminine noun agreeing with vacuata and meaninga loosely compacted heap with hollows in it : charybdis, "' awhirlpool," does not express this. Clericus invented corymbis(fern.) for this passage from Kopvfx&os, " a peak " or " cluster,"and Gronov suggested corymbas {Kopv/xffds, " a string runninground a net ").flu via S : confluit AR : confluvia"^ cum fluvio C : cumH^ and modern editors.^22 et trahat C8H : extrahat AR : ut trahat Munro.VOL. I.B B