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Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars

BOOK VI
32/33

(Virgil, "Aeneid", iv., 515.) (33) "When the boisterous sea, Without a breath of wind, hath knocked the sky." -- Ben Jonson, "Masque of Queens".
(34) The sky was supposed to move round, but to be restrained in its course by the planets.

(See Book X., line 244.) (35) "Coatus audire silentum." To be present at the meetings of the dead and hear their voices.

So, in the sixth Aeneid, the dead Greek warriors in feeble tones endeavour to express their fright at the appearance of the Trojan hero (lines 492, 493).
(36) "As if that piece were sweeter which the wolf had bitten." Note to "The Masque of Queens", in which the first hag says: "I have been all day, looking after A raven feeding on a quarter, And soon as she turned her beak to the south I snatched this morsel out of her mouth." -- Ben Jonson, "Masque of Queens".
But more probably the meaning is that the wolf's bite gave the flesh magical efficacy.
(37) Confusing Pharsalia with Philippi.

(See line 684.) (38) One of the miraculous stories to be found in Pliny's "Natural History".

See Lecky's "Augustus to Charlemagne", vol.i., p.


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