Flood simile

[David Wilson-Okamura]

Oblique commentary on the flood simile in Aen. 2.302-8 --

Excutior somno, et summi fastigia tecti

ascensu supero, atque arrectis auribus adsto:

in segetem ueluti cum flamma furentibus austris

incidit, aut rapidus montano flumine torrens

sternit agros, sternit sata laeta boumque labores,

praecipitisque trahit siluas, stupet inscius alto

accipiens sonitum saxi de uertice pastor.

-- from Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks:

Amid all the causes of the destruction of human property, it seems to me that rivers on account of their excessive and violent inundations hold the foremost place. And if as against the fury of impetuous rivers any one should wish to uphold fire, such a one would seem to me to be lacking in judgment, for fire remains spent and dead when fuel fails it, but against the irreparable inundation caused by swollen and proud rivers no resource of human foresight can avail; for in a succession of raging and seething [waves], gnawing and tearing away the high banks, growing turbid with the earth from the ploughed fields, destroying the houses therein and uprooting the tall trees, it carries these as its prey down to the sea which is its lair, bearing along with it men, trees, animals, houses and lands, sweeping away every dike and every kind of barrier, bearing with it the light things, and devastating and destroying those of weight, creating big landslips out of small fissures, filling up with its floods the low valleys, and rushing headlong with insistent and inexorable mass of waters. 

What a need there is of flight for whoso is near! O how many citices, 

how many lands, castles, villas and houses has it consumed! 

How many of the labours of wretched husbandmen have been rendered idle and profitless! How many families has it brought to naught, and overwhelmed! What shall I say of the herds of cattle which have been drowned and lost! 

And often issuing forth from its ancient rocky beds it washes over 

the tilled [lands] . . . (C.A. 361 v. a, trans. Edward MacCurdy)

--

Dr. David Wilson-Okamura        http://virgil.org          da...@virgil.org

Professor of English                 Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c

East Carolina University           Sparsa et neglecta coegi. -- Claude Fauchet