Noctem addens operi; famulasque ad lumina longo
Exercet penso; castum ut servare cubile
Conjugis, et possit parvos educere natos—Æn. viii. 407-413.
I take the liberty of rejecting the ruling of Heyne, and of the late Professor Conington, that ‘impositum’ is the regimen of ‘tolerare.’ (1) It is not necessary. (2) ‘Impositum’ gives importance and meaning to ‘cinerem,’ which would be too meagre without it. It does also, as it were, balance ‘sopitos.’ (3) It brings before the eye the pictures of the way in which the fire had been made up over night, to keep it alive till the morning, and of the way in which in the morning it is resuscitated. Where wood is the fuel, the ashes are heaped up, for the night, over the live coals. This excludes the air. In the morning, the heaped up ashes are removed, and the fire fed. Everyone has seen this done in Italy, and elsewhere. Virgil had seen it done; and this is what he describes.
I also suppose that ‘ad lumina’ means at the first dawn. The good woman herself rises before dawn, ‘noctem addens operi.’ But it would be hard, and unnatural, to set her women to work before dawn. That they should work through the whole day, beginning at dawn, is a sufficiently long task for them. I even doubt whether spinning and weaving could have been carried on with the feeble light of the lamps of those days; and, too, whether, if possible, it would have paid to do it for the short time before dawn. At all events by my interpretation of ‘ad lumina’ the good woman’s motives and early rising are thrown into strong relief; and this is done without making her treat her women harshly.
[2] I was reminded of the Anacreontic to the Grasshopper, and of Cowley’s rendering of it:—
Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing,
Happier than the happiest king.
Thou dost innocently enjoy,
Nor does thy luxury destroy.