>In Thomas Hardy's novel A Pair of Blue Eyes there is this passage "She >looked so intensely LIVING and full of movement as she came into the >old silent place, that young Smith's world began to be lit by 'the >purple light' in all its definiteness." > >Apparently this is a translation of the Virgilian phrase 'lumen >purpureum' signifying 'the light of love'. > >Can anyone tell where in Virgil this comes from and whether it was a >general Roman expression, or one coined by V?
See R. G. Austin's note on Aeneid VI:641, where there is a reference to an article by Donald Davie on Thomas Hardy's Virgilian Purples, _Agenda_ x (1972) 138ff. Simon Cauchi [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
