Book 2
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SOME grammarians of an earlier time, men by no means without learning and repute, who wrote commentaries on Virgil, and among them Annaeus Cornutus, criticize the poet's use of a word in the following verses Eel. vi. 75. ff. as careless and negligent: That, her white waist with howling monsters girt, Dread Scylla knocked about (vexasse) Ulysses' ships Amid the swirling depths, and, piteous sight! The trembling sailors with her sea-dogs rent. They think, namely, that vexasse is a weak word, indicating a slight and trivial annoyance, and not adapted to such a horror as the sudden seizing and rending of human beings by a ruthless monster.
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They also criticize another word in the following: Georg. iii. 4 Who has not heard Of king Eurystheus' pitiless commands And altars of Busiris, the unpraised (inlaudati)? Inlaudati, they say, is not at all a suitable world, but is quite inadequate to express abhorrence of a wretch who, because he used to sacrifice guests from all over the world, was not merely undeserving of praise, but rather deserving of the abhorrence and execration of the whole human race.
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They have criticized still another word in the verse: Aen. x. 314. Through tunic rough (squalentem) with gold the sword drank from his pierced side, on the ground that it is out of place to say auro squalentem, since the filth of squalor is quite opposed to the brilliance and splendour of gold.
