So understood, 1st, the passage is according to Virgil's usual manner, the latter part of the line explaining and defining the general statement contained in the former; and, 2ndly, Pallas kills her enemy, not by the somewhat roundabout and unusual method of first striking him with thunder, and then snatching him up in a whirlwind, and then either dashing him against a sharp rock, and leaving him impaled there, or, as I have shown is undoubtedly the meaning, impaling him with a sharp rock, but by the more compendious and less out-of-the-way method of first striking him with thunder, and then whirling a sharp-pointed rock on top of him, so as to impale him. From Milton's imitation of this passage, in his _Paradise Lost_ (ii. 180.), it appears that even he fell into the general and double error: "Caught in a fiery tempest shall be hurled, Each on his rock transfixed." Caro's translation shows that he had no definite idea whatever of the meaning: "A tale un turbo In preda il diè; che per acuti scogli Miserabil ne fe' rapina, e scempio." * * * * * V. "Ast ego, quæ Divûm incedo regina, Jovisque Et soror et conjux, una cum gente tot annos Bella gero."--_Æn._ I. 50. "'INCEDERE' wird besonders von der feierlichen, würdevollen Haltung im Gange gebraucht: vers 500, von der Dido, 'Regina incessit.' (Ruhnk. zu _Terent. And._ I. i. 100. _Eun._ v. 3. 9.) Deshalb der majestätischen Juno eigenthümlich, Ἡραῖον βαδίζειν. Also nicht für _sum_, sondern ganz eigentlich."--_Thiel._ "But I who walk in awful state above." _Dryden._ "_Incedere_ est _ingredi_, sed proprie cum quadam pompa et fastu."--_Gesner._ "Incessus dearum, imprimis Junonis, gravitate sua notus."--_Heyne._ And so also Holdsworth and Ruæus. I think, on the contrary, that _incedo_, both here and elsewhere, expresses only the stepping or walking motion generally, and that the character of the step or walk, if inferable at all, is to be inferred only from the context. Accordingly, "Magnifice incedit" (Liv. II. 6.); "Turpe incedere" (Catull. XXXXII. 8.); "Molliter incedit" (Ovid, _Amor._ II. 23.); "Passu incedit inerti" (Ovid, _Metam._ II. 772.); "Melius est incessu regem quam imperium regno claudicare" (Justin. VI. ii. 6.); "Incessus omnibus animalibus certus et uniusmodi, et in suo, cuique, genere" (Plin. X. 38.). The emphasis, therefore, is on _regina_, and the meaning is, _I who step, or walk, QUEEN of the Gods_; the dignity of the step being not expressed by "incedo," but inferable from "regina." The expression corresponds exactly to "ibit regina" (_Æn._ II. 578.); with this difference only, that "ibit" does not, like "incedo," specify motion on foot. "Jovisque et soror et conjux."--Both the _ets_ are emphatic. "Jovisque _et_ soror _et_ conjux."