+doluit+ is suggested by +dolor+. +miserans+ „ „ +miser+. Cf. _miser-able_. +inopem+ „ „ +in + ops+. Cf. _op-ulent_. +invidit+ „ „ +invidia+. Cf. _envy_.
(ii.) _Translation._--You have here two principal verbs, +doluit+, +invidit+, joined by +aut+, and a principal subject +ille+.
Notice that +inopem+ must be the object of the participle +miserans+, and that +habenti+ is used as a noun.
_He never felt the pang of pity for the poor, or of envy for the rich._
Copy of a rendering shown up by a boy of fifteen in a recent scholarship examination:--
‘Happy is the man who _is able_ to discern the reason of things, and _controls_ under his feet all changes and inexorable destiny, and the _groaning_ of greedy Acheron! |I| Blessed also is he who knows the rustic gods, Pan and old Silvanus, and those sisters, the nymphs! |II| He is not moved by _the people’s axes_, nor by the regal purple, nor by discord that rouses brothers to _distrust_ each other. He is not moved by _Dacus_, coming down from the _sacred_ Danube, nor by _the affairs_ of Rome, and the realms about to perish. |III| He neither _grieves for nor pities the helpless_, nor does he envy the rich.’ |IV|
The above version is fair, but notice the following points:--
_is able ... and controls_. The connection in thought is not shown: ‘He is happy because he _knows_ and ∴ fears not.’
_groaning_--_i.e._ +gemitum+; +strepitum+ = _roar_, _din_.
_by the people’s axes_. This suggests quite a wrong idea; contrast the version, ‘by the honours that the people confer.’
_sacred_. This is quite wrong. +con-iurato+ = _allied by oath_.
_the affairs of Rome_. A very weak, and inadequate rendering.
_grieves for nor pities_. This quite obscures the point. Vergil says that a country life, with its absence of poverty, so commonly met with in a town, saves a man from the necessity of feeling a pang of pity for the poor.
Before you put aside this passage, try to avail yourself of some of the following suggestions. Thus:--
I. _For the Poet Vergil_[17] (70 B.C.-19 B.C.).--The chief facts of his life and the subject of his great poems are clearly and shortly given in the _Student’s Companion to Latin Authors_ (a useful and convenient book of reference).
[Footnote 17: See Short Lives, p. 343.] [[Appendix VI]]
