ABSTRACT
Heyworth (2015, 207–211) launched an energetic defence of cui non risere parentes published in the collection “Virgilian Studies … dedicated to the Memory of Mario Geymonat”. Heyworth makes his interpretation of line 60 Incipe parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem an important element in his line of thought in favour of the codex paradosis of lines 62–63. A scholar like the author whose belief in the ‘reconstructed’ qui non risere parenti (with Schrader’s conjecture), based on Quintilian 9. 3. 8, has only become stronger over the years, is of course alert to arguments coming from the other position. The syntagm risu cognoscere matrem is subject to widely differing interpretations. Both Heyworth and the author can agree, however, that a proper grasp of these three words is an essential prerequisite for estimating correctly the whole epilogue of the Fourth Eclogue (60–63).
