Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

STYLE AND METRE
caesura to line ending (nostris. . . regnis). The staccato impression is continued
with a very strong sense pause after naualibus (echoing that in 590) and the
series of short clauses in 594 with violent alliteration of/. Then as Dido realizes
that there is no one to hear her agitated commands the metre slows totally and
the simple words of 596 produce an entirely spondaic rhythm; the question
she asks herself is answered in equally simple words, in an even shorter sentence
of absolute finality {turn. . .dabas).
Now Dido's anger rises again as she passes from self-blame to emotional
resentment of her lover's actions: alliteration of/> in 598—9 reinforces her disbelief
in the traditional stories of Aeneas' virtues and the impersonal aiunt is
strongly contemptuous. Had she not heard it all from his own lips? The
gruesome imagery of 600 is allowed to run on to the next line; and again emphasis
is put on the intervening words epulandum ponere by the rhyme from caesura
to line ending (602). As she reflects on the doubtful issue of the horrifying deeds
she has suggested to herself her words are given impetus by two very rare
trochaic sense pauses (603, 604); and the certainty that all the actions she might
have taken are now for ever unfulfilled is reflected by the remarkable rhyming
effect of the pluperfect subjunctives (tulissem, implessem, exstinxem, dedisseni).
Now the trend of her thoughts changes direction entirely from the agony of
the unfulfilled past to her passion for vengeance in the future. The rhythm
slows entirely, with a high proportion of spondees and two monosyllables to
commence her invocation (607), with rhyme of harum. . . curarum (echoing
terrarum), with lines that are complete in themselves with pauses at the end of
each, and with the strange sound-repetition of et Dirae. . .et di. After the
solemnity of the invocation the prayer itself is given in three short clauses
involving sense pauses in the second foot, at the line ending, and in the fourth
foot (611—12). Thus the invocation itself has a sonorous majesty as each verse,
complete in itself, reinforces the previous one; while the actual prayer reflects
metrically the urgent call for action.
The subject matter of the prayer begins with a long sweeping sentence with
end-stopped lines, given vehemence by places of marked conflict of accent and
ictus (613, 615) and coming to a pause abruptly and powerfully on the word
funera: death is her desire for others as well as for herself and there is no more
emphatic way of stressing the word than by placing it last in its sentence and
first in the line. The next phrase begins very slowly with monosyllables (618)
and comes to its violent climax with the conflict of accent against ictus on the
word cadat.
In the resumption of her curse, as she extends it from Aeneas personally to
the long vista of the years to come she uses the same technique as in 618 to
give emphasis to the intense irony of munera (624). Her invocation of the
unknown avenger has hissing .r's to reinforce the syntactical strangeness of the
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