Figures of Speech 1

Even though some of it is in Latin, you can do this! Many figures of speech are merely visual; you don't need to know what the words mean. You just have to observe where they are and the patterns.
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Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso, [alliteration]
quidve dolens, regina deum tot volvere casus
insignem pietate virum, tot adire labores impulerit. [repitition]
Tantaene animis caelestibus irae?


Muse, tell me the cause: how was she offended in her divinity,
how was she grieved, the Queen of Heaven, to drive a man,
noted for virtue, to endure such dangers, to face so many
trials? Can there be such anger in the minds of the gods? [rhetorical question]
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Illi indignantes magno cum murmure montis [alliteration]
circum claustra fremunt; celsa sedet Aeolus arce [alliteration]
sceptra tenens, mollitque animos et temperat iras.


The angry winds moan [personification] angrily at the doors, with a mountain’s vast murmurs: [onomonopoeia]
Aeolus sits, holding his sceptre, in his high stronghold,
softening their passions, tempering their rage.
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The oars break: then the prow swings round and offers
the beam to the waves: a steep mountain of water follows in a mass.
[hyperbole; also metaphor (water is a mountain)]
Some ships hang on the breakers crest: to others the yawning deep
shows land between the waves: the surge rages with sand.

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…the winds, formed ranks, [personification]
rushed out by the door he’d made, and whirled across the earth.
Suddenly clouds take sky and day away [personification]
from the Trojans eyes: dark night rests on the sea.
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Some of the figures of speech we’ve talked about:
hyperbole, rhetorical question, metaphor, simile, personification, onomatopoeia, alliteration