If he did not, they would surely carry off in utmost speed the seas and lands and the high heaven, and carry them through the air. Aeolus sits in his high citadel, holding his sceptre, soothing their passions and tempering their rage. They, in their anger, with mighty moans of the mountain, bluster around their enclosure. Here in a vast cavern, king Aeolus keeps under his command the struggling winds and the roaring storms, and binds them with fetters and prison. Key to scanning symbols: – = Syllables scanning long u = Syllables scanning short x = The last syllable of the hexameter, which can be either short or long ( anceps) | = Demarcating the six feet of the hexameter ]|[ = Strong break in sense, whether caesura (in the middle of a foot) or diaeresis (at the end of a foot) Quippe ferant rapidi secum uerrantque per auras. Ni faciat, maria ac terras caelumque profundum Sceptra tenens mollitque animos et temperat iras. Illi indignantes magno cum murmure montisĬircum claustra fremunt celsa sedet Aeolus arce Imperio premit ac uinclis et carcere frenat. Here is Virgil’s description of the Cave of the Winds in its entirety-and how it scans ( Aen. The full picture only comes into view once we consider the line as part of the larger block of verses to which it belongs. 261 For Lucretius operates with a conception of the universe as consisting of elementary particles his poem De Rerum Natura correlates the construction of the world out of atoms and the construction of poetry out of letters on a grand scale.īut this is by no means the end of the matter. This enacts on the atomistic level of the individual letter the notion that the winds are forces of chaos-a point that acquires further depth if we recall the powerful reminiscences of Lucretius that Virgil has built into this passage. (c) The opening phrase luctantis uentos contains all five vowels of the alphabet in topsy-turvy sequence: u, a, i, e, o. (b) The line is chiastic in design: attribute ( luctantis) noun ( uentos) noun ( tempestates) attribute ( sonoras). The ‘ struggling winds’ are thus a particularly striking contribution to the ‘ struggle between ictus and word-accent’ spotted by Austin. luctantis (‘struggling’), contains a hint of enactment within itself: in the way Virgil has positioned luctantis within the verse, the word does exactly what it means: it struggles. It would indeed not be difficult to add further points: But the first principle of reading Virgil holds that there is always more to see. all combine to form a memorable sound-picture. the highly charged epithet sonoras ending the line.the huge stretch of tempestatesque from the third to the fifth foot,.the struggle of ictus and word-accent, 260.the massive spondees (the maximum number possible),.1.53):Ī fine line, showing metrically and linguistically the noise and straining of the imprisoned winds: Virgil’s description of the ‘Cave of the Winds’ includes the following line ( Aen. Determined to sink Aeneas’ fleet, she pays a visit to Aeolia, where the wind-god Aeolus resides, ruling the storms, which are imprisoned in a cave. The sight of Aeneas about to reach his destination, however, mightily displeases Juno who sees her divinity under threat if one of her adversaries were to succeed in his quest against her wishes. 1.1–33), features Aeneas and his men setting out from Sicily for the Italian mainland. The first scene of actual narrative in the Aeneid, which kicks in after the extensive proem ( Aen. They are meant as illustrations of what a close reading of Virgil’s poetry can unearth and as encouragement to subject the verses from Aeneid 4 to similar scrutiny (or, as the case may be, interpretative overkill). To give you some idea of the returns that sustained attention to Virgil’s poetry at the formal level (metre, verse design, lexical choices, syntax) can yield, I here offer discussions of two passages, one from Book 1, the other from Book 6. Just Do It! (As Nike would put it.) There is a lot to be noticed and enjoyed. All you need to do is to take a good hard look at the text (which includes scanning the hexameters) and to ponder how the design reinforces theme. This is curious: unlike other aspects of Virgil’s poetry, the appreciation of formal artistry requires comparatively little prior knowledge it is more a matter of sensibility and imagination. Much of Virgil’s sophistication in interrelating content and form eludes the casual reader, and even scholars in their commentaries frequently do little more than scratch the surface of what can be discovered. Virgil’s genius manifests itself not least (some would argue: above all) in his supreme mastery of his chosen metre and, especially, in how he uses metre and formal aspects of his poetry more generally to enhance his thematic concerns.
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