‘The controversy itself may be regarded as evidence, not of an ambiguity that must be removed, but of an ambiguity that readers have always experienced.’ (S.E. Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretative Communities [Cambridge, 1980], 152.)
‘There are moments in the poem when it is well not to be too sure; and there are readers, also, who had better not to be too sure at any time.’ (W.F. Jackson Knight, Roman Vergil [London, 19662], 252.)
When it comes to discussing ambiguities in Latin poetry, often what can be considered ambiguous can be simply ascribed to our insufficient knowledge of the poetic language in all its nuances. In a few cases, however, if challenges in the reading of a passage arise not only for us but also for an ancient reader, this confirms that we are facing, if not a poetic ambiguity, at least a problematic and obscure expression worth investigation.Footnote 1 This is the case for Aen. 4.296–8:
the famous description of Dido's presentiment about Aeneas’ imminent departure, where the hemistich omnia tuta timens has led to different interpretations.
According to the most common and widespread reading, based upon Servius (‘deest etiam; nedum illa quae timebat. et est exaggeratio’) and Tiberius Claudius Donatus (‘amans enim perpetuo ducitur metu, etiam si tuta sint omnia’), the expression is a brachylogy with a concessive force (‘fearing everything, even safe things’). These ancient testimonies have considerably influenced later exegesis, as appears clearly from the following short selection of notes on the passage: ‘timens etiam quae minime timenda erant’ (Wagner);Footnote 2 ‘fearing every safety, much more every danger; a natural exaggeration of the unquiet suspiciousness of love’ (Conington);Footnote 3 ‘to fear where all was safe’ (Page);Footnote 4 ‘inclined to fear where all was safe’ (Austin);Footnote 5 ‘fearing everything, even what was safe’ (Maclennan).Footnote 6 Pease reinforces this interpretation with Latin parallels,Footnote 7 and is followed by La Penna, who collects Greek passages about the topos of the lover always fearing everything, even when there is no reason to do so.Footnote 8 According to this reading, Dido, like any other lover, cannot be deceived (quis fallere possit amantem?), because, fearing everything, even safe things, inevitably leads to the discovery of Aeneas’ plan.
This exegesis, supported by Servius’ authority, has heavily influenced later imitations of the passage,Footnote 9 but requires a grammatical harshness (the supplying of etiam)Footnote 10 unparalleled in Virgil (no similar brachylogies have been quoted to underpin the reading), and, what is more, does not shed light on the immediate context (4.288–95), which is worth quoting in full:
Finally resolved to leave Carthage, Aeneas orders three of his men to summon the others and prepare to depart in absolute silence, to avoid arousing Dido's suspicions, hoping to find the opportune moment to tell her all, as she remains ignorant of his departure. The idea of silence and dissimulation stressed in the passage (taciti, dissimulent) has led to different readings of our hemistich, justified by the polysemy of the adjective tutus, which, as noted by Brink, ‘oscillates between “safe”, “apparently safe” and “on one's guard”’.Footnote 11 And this is the case for our passage, which is also quoted by Shackleton Bailey when he observes that tutus can refer to ‘things which look safe but are really unsafe’.Footnote 12 Williams also proposes a similar interpretation: ‘anxious even when all seemed safe’.Footnote 13 Dido, according to this exegesis, fears everything despite Aeneas and his friends’ attempt to maintain an apparent calmness. This reading lays less stress on the topos of the lover's anxiety about everything than on her/his infallible sixth sense.Footnote 14
Another suggestive interpretation has been proposed by HenryFootnote 15 and shared by a few scholars, such as ForbigerFootnote 16 or Lejay.Footnote 17 The expression omnia tuta could have a slightly causal force, meaning ‘fearing everything safe’, ‘because of perfect safety’: perfect safety, a condition one can easily lose, becomes a reason for anxiety for Dido, who fears an unexpected change in her luck. Henry, pointing out that ‘Dido's only ground of uneasiness is that things are too safe’ and that ‘she fears (timens) perfect safety (omnia tuta)’, quotes Greek and Latin parallels regarding the gnomic motif of the mutability of luck and the necessity of fearing res secundae. According to this interpretation, Dido can be seen as a suffering queen who, after facing adversities and hurdles in her life, has finally found a new land and a new love, and fears to lose what she has painfully achieved.
If we combine the causal view of this last reading with tuta as ‘calm’ of the previous one, we have another possible and, in my opinion, plausible interpretation: omnia tuta timens would mean ‘fearing all this calmness’. The excessive unnatural calmness of the situation, the effect of Aeneas’ order on his men (289 classem aptent taciti, socios ad litora cogant), has aroused the suspicion of the watchful Dido. The adjective tuta together with omnia, a word that in Virgil often has a pathetic nuance, stressing the idea of a total loss or destruction,Footnote 18 has an implicit dative of judgement, applied to Dido: for her, and not for us and the narrator, things—every single thing—appear excessively calm, too calm to be secure. This passage can be considered among the examples of ‘deviant focalization’ in the Aeneid.Footnote 19
This interpretation, which entails an image psychologically more complex and appropriate to Dido, seen as a perspicacious, sensitive woman and not as a lover simply fearing everything (that would be more suitable for a young, inexperienced girl), has also been suggested, among other possible readings, by Quinn, who considers the passage as an example of Virgilian ambiguity,Footnote 20 and by Traina, who quotes it in his commentary but dismisses it as ‘sottile, forse troppo sottile, esegesi’ and prefers to follow Servius.Footnote 21 We can agree with Traina about the subtlety (perhaps a Virgilian one?) of this reading, but we may also consider other, post-Virgilian, Latin poets to understand how they interpreted this expression.
An answer to our question is provided by a fine reader of Virgil, Valerius Flaccus, who in the description of his Medea (similarly anxious about betrayal) clearly recalls the Virgilian passage (Argonautica 8.408–12):Footnote 22
Valerius’ imitation gives no indication about its model that can help the reader to choose one reading over another, but the poet evidently wishes to comment on the Virgilian ambiguity by exploring various possible readings; in lines 408–10 he imitates the image of the lover who, fearing everything, cannot be deceived. omnia tuta timens is ‘glossed’ by the polar expression uanos–ueros … timores, which recalls, and varies, another Virgilian passage,Footnote 23 namely Ecl. 3.109–10 quisquis amores | aut metuet dulcis aut experietur amaros, usually quoted by modern scholars to support this reading. But from Valerius’ imitation, it appears clear that the Flavian poet is aware of the other possible meaning of the Virgilian hemistich: the concessive clause quamlibet intima … signa uiri evidently recalls the reading with concessive force (‘even if everything seems calm’), stressing the sixth sense of Medea, who, like Dido, discovers her lover's plan, artfully concealed though it be.
Moreover, the ending nimiumque silentes | una omnes provides an incontrovertible but hitherto unnoticed allusion to omnia tuta timens (just as prior … sensit recalls praesensit) in the sense of ‘fearing everything too quiet’, for various reasons. First, the two expressions are semantically interchangeable: Dido fears the excessive calmness of the situation, Medea the excessive silence of Jason's friends, a forced silence that is typical of the guilty.Footnote 24 The generic Virgilian expression omnia tuta becomes concretized and personalized in omnes silentes, where omnes translates omnia, and silentes varies and specifies the adjective tuta. Both expressions, finally, provide a closure in enjambement to their whole sentence.
This reading could be supported by some other passages on the deceptiveness of a calm sky or sea, as, for instance, Aen. 5.848–51:
a motif which recurs again in Palinurus’ episode, a few lines afterwards, but in Aeneas’ words (Aen. 5.870 o nimium caelo et pelago confise sereno), and which may also be found in Lucretius, in the image of the deceptive smile of a calm sea (2.559 subdola cum ridet placidi pellacia ponti; 5.1004–5 nec poterat quemquam placidi pellacia ponti | subdola pellicere in fraudem ridentibus undis).
But the best model for our Virgilian hemistich is in Catull. 30.6–9:
This is a kind of significant oppositio in imitando: the expression tuta omnia is similar,Footnote 25 but the situation has ‘evolved’, as if Dido—thanks to an ‘intertextual knowledge’—is conscious of Catullus’ painful experience. The poet has been distressed by his dear friend Alfenus, who convinced him to abandon himself to a dominating friendship—which is so close to love (amorem)—as if everything would be safe; but Dido, and the reader with her, is able—thanks to her sixth sense and to the Catullan intertext—to know that lovers, as well as friends, can be deceptive, and that when everything is too calm and perfect things cannot be really safe.
