^{page 166 note 1} For other examples of this type of ecphrasis in Virgil cf. Aen. i. 159 ff.Google Scholar, iv. 480 ff., vii. 563 ff. It is a favourite device of Milton's, e.g. P.L. i. 670 ff., x. 547 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 166 note 2} e.g. iv. 473 and 610, viii. 701.

^{page 167 note 1} e.g. Aen. vii. 328.Google Scholar

^{page 167 note 2} For the snaky hair of the Furies cf. vii. 329; the use of spiris recalls the terrifying serpents which killed Laocoon (ii. 217).

^{page 167 note 3} Cf. vii. 127, x. 477.

^{page 168 note 1} Cf. ix. 774 f., x. 200f.

^{page 168 note 2} Cf. Ecl. x. 59.Google Scholar

^{page 168 note 3} Cf. vi. 425 and 438, x. 467, xii. 816.

^{page 168 note 4} Cf. iv. 185 and 190, ix. 419.

^{page 168 note 5} Macbeth ii.Google Scholar

^{page 168 note 6} 6 Cf. vi. 122.

^{page 169 note 1} xii. 665 f., ‘obstipuit varia confusus imagine rerum / Turnus et obtutu tacito stetit…’.

^{page 169 note 2} iv. 677 f., ‘comitemne sororem / sprevisti moriens? eadem me ad fata vocasses…’.

^{page 169 note 3} Cf. iii. 262, where it is used of the Harpies.

^{page 169 note 4} Cf. 138 ff.

^{page 170 note 1} In context, se fluvio … condidit alto is meant to suggest death and burial, but dea (cf. 884; 882; 879) blocks any thought of real suicide in the nearest stream. Hence the internal logic of going home.

^{page 170 note 2} Cf. Lewis, and Short, and Oxford Latin DictionaryGoogle Scholar, indispensable modern aids to critical appreciation and the ‘feel’ of Latin. More sensitive Romans were better off, the poets especially knowing the language inside out, intuitively.

^{page 171 note 1} Sc. cognatorum, consanguineorum, as Henry rightly observes.

^{page 171 note 2} e.g. the economic range, distribution, and personalizing crescendo of the only explicit fear/terror words: metum/horrificum/territat; formidine/horrore; me terrete timentem—magnificent orchestration of language. The full significance of formidine in this context must be appreciated too, viz. alas, sagitta, alitis, 863, 864, 865, 866, everberat alis, formidine: or cf. (via Lewis and Short) Seneca, Dial. iv. 11. 5Google Scholar and Aen. xii. 750Google Scholar, no more than ten minutes recital-time before!

^{page 171 note 3} It's the sound-pattern and dactylic rhythm of fertque refertque which make it flap and flutter in this context: versa and alis support it to flood the line and intensify into the huge batter of its climax.

^{page 172 note 1} At procul (869); te sine, frater, erit (883) are the only two explicit separations (and again the economy, simplicity of language, and timing are magnificent) and the most effective thing about Iuturna's exit (condidit) is its implied meaning. There is an explicit ‘gulf’ (dehiscat [883])—an imaginary one denied Iuturna! Terra/fluvio is more, neat pointing of implied effect—a never-ending river, flowing into oceanic infinities of mystery, horror, and gloom, esp. for Romans, and a far longer way to the Underworld.Google Scholar

^{page 172 note 2} Thebaid ii. 505 ffGoogle Scholar. In context, the ‘pictorial’ physical features of Fama are, of course, functional. But as imaginative writing, compared to the Dira here the whole Fama episode seems to me more obvious and crude—though that could arguably be deliberate too. Nothing's beyond a really great artist if it's controlled and supported by the context and functionally effective. Art is the exercise of controlled imagination after all.

^{page 172 note 3} Sooner or later, one suddenly notices that celerem (853) and parvae (862) are the only two adjectives applied to the Dira direct—the sort of realization which indicates either that the author is an idiot, to dispense with the obvious so utterly, or a genius. Her adjectival horror starts at first or second remove (ventosas, obscenae, letalem) and is most in evidence at the third (e.g. horrificum [851]). A list of the terror/general nastiness words not used in this passage is instructive and can quickly be compiled from Lewis and Short; it's useful for Fama and the Sphinx, etc., too.

^{page 173 note 1} Leaving most if not all the snakes behind in 847–8, in childhood or otherwise (cf. Lewis and Short s.v. revincio and in some senses the preceding tulit partu).

^{page 173 note 2} i.e. no tres, tertia, etc., one way of first appreciating that family relationships else-where in the piece are indirectly used to enhance the family/human feeling between Iuturna and Turnus: cf. genitor, fratris, geminae, cognomine, uno eodemque tulit partu, paribusque revinxit, addidit, etc., soror, germana, mihi, tibi, etc., fratri, frater. By ‘addidit, etc.’ I mean other join/unite words, culminating in the sublime irony of contexit, condidit. ‘But Iuturna and Turnus weren't twins, were they?’ is as irrelevant a question as the notorious ‘How many children had Lady Macbeth?’: the poetic issue is unaffected.

^{page 173 note 3} Beautifully sparing in the Act 1 context and designed to mislead the reader; everything which ‘suddenly surprises’ is functional.

^{page 173 note 4} Cf., in context, the impact of the Revised Version ‘there shall be time no longer’ (Rev. 10. 6) or Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time which it inspired.

^{page 173 note 5} ‘A very odious name in the time of the Republic, i.q. tyrant, despot’ (Lewis and Short s.v. rex); cf. rex sacrificus, rex Nemorensis (ibid.). Words don't change their emotive connotations overnight, except in Orwell's 1984 Octavian's victory if anything heightened the implicit horror of the word for a decade at least—and both Virgil and Horace were too intelligently sensitive to language not to exploit its razor-topicality. Properly appreciated (cf. my paper ‘God, King, Law—and Augustus?—in Horace Odes I–III’ delivered to the 1973 Class. Assoc. A.G.M.), neither was the weak-kneed tout portrayed by traditional commentators on their respective ‘polities’.

^{page 174 note 1} The horror of Megaeram, partu, revinxit likewise, which will ‘need’ explaining in their different ways if the context is insensibly felt not to be self-explanatory.

^{page 175 note 1} i.e. relative order+emotive language matters more than crude metrical statistics. There are five lines in the passage with more dactyls than 853 or 855. Three have little or no atmospheric speed from the dactyl-count itself (878; 883; 886) and 866 suggests rapid fluttering to and fro, not motion hurtling forward. 861 certainly patters rapidly overhead and down onto Turnus, but is arguably less precipitate than 855's whirlwind plummet to the ground.

^{page 175 note 2} Parthians are antiquity's Red Indians, as a response to the rest of the simile will finally suggest to even the weakest pupil/student of Latin, experto credite. Otherwise Lewis and Short provides the horses and insidious ‘retreat’ at unnerving death-dealing gallop. The emotive historical implications of Parthus … Parthus—the horror of Crassus' defeat, the Parthian prisoners, etc. (cf. ‘Jap’, ‘Nazi‘, ‘goum’, ‘Angry Brigade’, etc.)—do have to be supplied from outside the piece, either from history text-books (e.g. Scullard, 's From the Gracchi to Nero, ch. vi. 8)Google Scholar or from commentators elsewhere: commentators on this Virgil passage itself are not specific or helpful enough.

^{page 175 note 3} ‘There does not seem much point in the repetition of Parthus, though it is in Virg.'s manner’ says Conington ad loc.! Cf. note 2 above. One wonders whether Conington, et al., understood how English poetry works, let alone Virgil.

^{page 177 note 1} Donne, , Satyre iii. 79 ff.Google Scholar