There was a discussion-thread a while back on Aen. 2.255 tacitae per amica silentia lunae.
There is a curious little discussion of this in Borges' essay, "A Note on (toward) Bernard Shaw" (in the collection entitled Labyrinths (New Directions 1964) pp. 213-6). I pass it along for anyone who is interested: "A book is more than a verbal structure or a series of verbal structures; it is the dialogue it establishes with its reader and the intonation it imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves on his memory. The dialogue is infinite; the words amica silentia lunae now mean the intimate, silent, and shining moon, and in the Aeneid they meant the interlunar period, the darkness which allowed the Greeks to enter the stronghold of Troy." Borges adds in a footnote after this: "Thus Milton and Dante interpreted them, to judge by certain passages which seem to be imitative. In the Commedia (Inf. I.60; V.28) we have d'ogni luce muto and dove il sol tace to signify dark places; in the Samson Agonistes (86-89): The Sun to me is dark And silent as the Moon When she deserts the night Hid in her vacant interlunar cave." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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