I wonder if the Mantovani would care to consider whether a phenomenon
which one might call in Latin poetry actually exists or not.
In the line " Nocte volat caeli medio terraeque per umbram"(�neid
iv.184) we have a description of Fama flying through the night, halfway
between heaven & earth. When I first read this as a undergraduate, it
struck me that there was a pictorial component in the word order.
"Nocte" & "umbram" enclose the line, or,one could almost say, envelope
it in darkness. The word "medio" itself is literally in the middle of
the line with three words on either side of it; and is also placed
midway between the words"heaven"("caeli") & "earth"("terraeque")!
I was heartened to find a similar observations made about other lines by
Virgil and Horace in the website of a English Latin mistress (see
WEBSITE Pyrrha's Roman Pages http://www.pyrrha.demon.co.uk).
Is there any merit in this observation or is it a mare's nest like the
numerical fantasies of G.E.Duckworth.
PeterJVD Bryant
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