of the aged Parcae—
infirmo quatientes corpora motu—
spinning the thread of human destiny, as with clear-ringing voice they poured forth their truthful prophecy. So too the eye of an artist is shown in the description of the scenes in which the action takes place, and in the illustrative imagery with which the subject is adorned,—as in the pictures from mountain and sea scenery at lines 240 and 269; and in that image of a waste expanse of sea called up in the lines—
Idomeneosne petam montes? a gurgite lato
Discernens ponti truculentum ubi dividit aequor?
A genuine love of Nature, which his more personal poems only faintly suggest, appears in the lines describing the gifts which Chiron brought with him from the plains and vast mountain chains and river-banks of Thessaly—
Nam quoscumque ferunt campi, quos Thessala magnis
Montibus ora creat, quos propter fluminis undas
Aura parit flores tepidi fecunda Favoni,