VIRGIL, AENEID 2.121

Abstract This paper argues for Madvig’s conjecture paret. The subject of the verb is either quae uox or Apollo , and this allows fata to function as the needed direct object: ‘for whom this oracle (or Apollo) was preparing death’. It is demonstrated that attempts to defend transmitted parent are either wholly inadequate or not quite satisfactory and that, as Housman argued long ago, textual conservatism is not the risk-free policy some imagine it to be.