(cum gentis adultos
Educunt fetus)
that Virgil draws attention. Of the same class is the comparison at iv. 404, etc., of the Trojans preparing to leave the shores of Carthage to the movement of ants engaged in gathering together some heap of corn for their winter’s store—
It nigrum campis agmen, etc.
Others again are suggested by his subtle and sympathetic discernment of the conditions of inward feeling; as the comparison at iv. 70, etc. of Dido to the hind, which, unsuspecting of danger, has received a mortal wound from a hand ignorant of the harm which it has inflicted—
haeret lateri letalis harundo.
The awe and mystery of the unseen world suggest the comparison of the crowd of shades pressing round Charon’s boat to innumerable leaves falling in the woods, or to flocks of birds driven across the sea by the first cold of autumn—
Quam multa in silvis autumni frigore primo
Lapsa cadunt folia, aut ad terram gurgite ab alto
Quam multae glomerantur aves, ubi frigidus annus