Quis genus Aeneadum, quis Troiae nesciat urbem
Virtutesque virosque, aut tanti incendia belli?
Non obtunsa adeo gestamus pectora Poeni,
Nec tam aversus equos Tyria Sol iungit ab urbe[611], etc.
The sea adventures of the Aeneid seem to be suggested [pg 385]rather by the experience of travellers in the Augustan Age, than by the spirit of wonder and buoyant resistance with which Odysseus and his companions encounter the perils of unexplored seas and coasts. The fabulous portents of legendary times appear in the shape of the Harpies, the Cyclops, the sea-monster Scylla, etc., but they do not produce that sense of novelty and vivid life which the same or similar representations produce in the Odyssey. The description of the Harpies is grotesque rather than imaginative. There is a touch of pathos in the introduction of the Cyclops—
Lanigerae comitantur oves: ea sola voluptas
Solamenque mali[612],
reminding us of the κριὲ πέπον, etc. of the Odyssey; and the picture of his assembled brethren—
Cernimus adstantis nequiquam lumine torvo
Aetnaeos fratres, caelo capita alta ferentis,