ABSTRACT
It is indeed difficult, if not impossible by way of this translation, to follow the logical thread in Vergil's account. Three alternatives are presented: (1) Creusa was swept away by fate as she stopped, (2) she strayed from the path (what befell her then?) and (3) she sat down exhausted (which leads to the same question as in the second alternative). There is no obvious mistake in the translation, but even from the English version we suspect that erepta has not got its due. It is obvious that fato erepta is a euphemism for "swept away by some definitive fate, death being the nearest association" and that the three alternatives in line 739 are subordinated to what is told in line 738. If so, it is not only the word order that renders the -ne in line 738 suspicious; the first part of a disjunctive question is not motivated here: in other words, -ne is corrupt. Servius was on the right track, even with the faulty text he had at hand: "ordo est: 'fato erepta Creusa substititne, erravitne via'. Non enim dubitat fato esse sublatam, cum audierit (777) non haec sine numine divum eveniunt." The first modern scholar to see this clearly was Hofmann Peerlkamp: "Coniunx Aeneae, quaecunque fuerit causa cur in hostium potestatem venerit, semper fato est erepta.
