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Lucretius, D.R.N. 5.948
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
In his account of primitive people in D.R.N. 5 Lucretius says that they led a wandering, nomadic sort of existence (932, ‘vulgivago vitam tractabant more ferarum’); ignorant of agriculture and husbandry, they were content to eat nuts and berries and the like (933ff.), while streams and springs called them to quench their thirst (945ff.):
denique nota vagis silvestria templa tenebant
nympharum…
The rest of the sentence is a lush description of the streams which welled up from those woodland shrines, washing over rocks and moss, and sometimes breaking out over the plain (949–52).
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References
1 This is the MS text as printed by C., Bailey in his 3 vol. edition of D.R.N. (Oxford, 1947). I refer to that work and other editions by editor's name only: Lachmann, K. (Berlin, 1850); Munro, H. A. J. (4th edn, Cambridge, 1886); Giussani, C. (Torino, 1896–8): E. J. Kenney (Bk. 3, Cambridge, 1971).Google Scholar
2 Bailey also mentions Naugerius' nodivagi and Bentley's node vagi for nota vagis.
3 It occurs nine times elsewhere in the poem (1.119, 449, 480, 580; 2.351, 525, 791; 3.207; 4.53). On its synonymity with esse, cf. Munro on 1.119, ‘cluerent, a favourite archaism of Lucr. = sometimes audio, sometimes simply sum’, and 1.449, ‘cluent is almost the same as sunt, as often in Lucr.’', and Kenney on 3.207, ‘cluebit ═ erit’.
4 I should like to thank Heyworth and an anonymous reader for helpful criticism of an earlier draft of this note.Google Scholar