The story of Priam's death on the citadel is told
in all its tragic horror till the climax is reached. Then suddenly with
astonishing force the mind is flung through and beyond the memories of
the awful mutilation by the amazingly condensed phrase:
jacet ingens litore truncus
avulsumque umeris caput et sine nomine corpus.
There Vergil has given only the last line of a suppressed tragedy which
the reader is compelled to visualize for himself.
Neoteric, too, is the accurate observation and the patience with details
displayed by the author of the _Aeneid_. In his youth Vergil had, to be
sure, avoided the extremes of photographic realism illustrated by the
very curious _Moretum_, but he had nevertheless, in works like the
_Copa_, the _Dirae_, and the eighth _Eclogue_, practiced the craft of the
miniaturist whenever he found the minutiae aesthetically significant. To
realize the precision of his strokes even then one has but to recall the
couplet of the _Copa_ which in an instant sets one upon the dusty road of
an Italian July midday:
Nunc cantu crebro rumpunt arbusta cicadae
nunc varia in gelida sede lacerta latet.
Throughout the _Aeneid,_ the patches of landscape, the retreats for
storm-tossed ships, the carved temple-doors, the groups of accoutred
warriors marching past, and many a gruesome battle scene, are reminders
of this early technique.
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