238-258: Mercury descending

Question 1

parere parabat

Answer 1

plosive alliteration & witty paronomasia - implies delay (his fourth such mission in Virgil’s literature)

Question 2

patris magni… imperio

Answer 2

hyperbaton: emphasises the weight an order by J carries

Question 3

rapido pariter cum flamine

Answer 3

simile conveys his power

Question 4

Tartara tristia mittit

Answer 4

dactyllic, reinforced by alliteration and assonance - suggests unconditional speech with which M dispatched the dead to Tartarus

Question 5

agit ventos

Answer 5

reinforces that M does not drift in the winds - he drives them

Question 6

nubila

Answer 6

enjambment enacts M passing through the clouds

Question 7

latera dura

Answer 7

Atlas is a giant like Fama

Question 8

caelum qui vertice fulcit

Answer 8

head in the clouds, and touches and supports the heavens themselves, like Fama

Question 9

caput
umeros
mento
barba

Answer 9

anthropomorphic landscape - Atlas is an old man

Question 10

praecipitant

Answer 10

enjambment reflects uninterrupted ‘cascade’ of water

Question 11

constitit

avi similis

Answer 11

enjambment of verb alone reflects brevity of his stop

another simile, conveys speed with which he descends

he lands gently: now he plummets down to the sea

Question 12

toto corpore

Answer 12

emphasises the weight with which he falls and thus the speed at which he descends

Question 13

terras inter caelum

Answer 13

inter enacts its meaning by sitting between the two nouns it governs

Question 14

litus harenosum ad

Answer 14

post positive position of ‘ad’, after litus, emphasises M’s speed

Question 15

magalia

Answer 15

lowly dwellings