154 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 
concretam exemit labem purumque relinquit 
aetherium sensum atque aurai simplicis ignem. 
Has omnes, ubi mille rotam volvere per annos, 
Laetheum ad fluvium deus evocat agmine magno, 
scilicet immemores super ut convexa revisant 
rursus et incipiant in corpora velle reverti. 
Is the Elysium here mentioned merely a poetic substitute for the Stoic 
ethereal heaven? Is it, in other words, the final goal of the soul, the 
ultimate paradise, and do the “few” possess the “‘happy fields” forever ? 
This is the general view." 
But as the text stands they possess the happy fields only until the 
long cycle of time completed has washed away the last trace of impurity 
and left the clear, ethereal essence. It is assumed, therefore, that lines 
745-47 have dropped out of their right place and should be written 
after 742.2. The sense would then be that after the punishment and 
purification described in 739-43 have continued through the longa dies 
perfecto temporis orbe, and cleansed the soul of every taint, then finally 
the few enjoy Elysium. 
To this remedy it may be objected that it is too heroic to be used 
save as a last resort: and, furthermore, it clears up one difficulty only 
to make another. We may well ask: If only those who have undergone 
this long purification are in Elysium, how can Anchises be there? But 
this is a minor inconsistency, of which Vergil might easily have been 
capable. The serious objection appears in 748-51. It is not the jew 
only who possess the happy fields. “All these” (as omnes) who are 
not released from the cycle and are summoned by the god to drink of 
Lethe and undergo another incarnation are also in Elysium, not ina 
place distinct from it as Norden holds. He regards the secluswm nemus 
in valle reducta et virgulta sonantia silvae in which these are congregated 
t Of the editors Wagner, Heyne, Conington, Ribbeck, but not Norden; also of Rohde Psyche II, p. 16s, 
n. 2; Dieterich Nekyia, p. 155. Cf., however, Maas op. cit., p. 231. 
2 Ribbeck actually gives this order in his text. 
3 Dieterich has an ingenious explanation which aims to do away with the difficulty without disturbing 
the lines. He would put a period after /enemus, 744, marking a distinct pause in the words of Anchises. After 
ignem, 747, he would remove the period, making ll. 745-47 look forward rather than backward. This would 
be helped out, he thinks, by some dramatic gesture of Anchises. The sense would then be the same as if ll. 
745-47 were written after 751. (Nekyia, p. 156.) However, this is rather too ingenious. See objections 
to it in Glover’s Studies in Vergil, p. 249. 
