WORLD SOUNDSCAPE PROJECT
SOUND REFERENCES IN LITERATURE



538.

Two bulls begin to encounter furiously and inflict

Many gashes, until their bodies are dark with blood;

Their horns confront, lock with a crash and take the strain.

The forests and far-reaching skies roar back at them.

 

Tlli alternantes multa vi proelia miscent

vulneribus crebris, lavit ater corpora sanguis,

versaque in obnixos urEentur cornua vasto

cum gemitu, reboant silvaeque et longus Olympus.

 

Virgil, Georgics, Book III, lines 220-223, trans. C. Day Lewis. The Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil, Doubleday, New York, 1964.

PLACE: Italy

TIME: During Virgil's time (ca. 70 B.C.)

CIRCUMSTANCE: A fight of two bulls

 

539.

The eyes are inflamed, the breath comes deep and dragging, broken

By heavy groans, the long flanks heave with profound sobs,

Out of the nostrils oozes

Black blood, the tongue is rough and swells in the throat and blocks it.

 

Sin in processu coepit crudescere morbus,

tum vero ardentes oculi atque attractus ab alto

spiritus, interdum gemitu gravis, imaque longo

ilia singultu tendunt, it naribus ater

sanguis, et obsessas fauces premit aspera lingua.

 

Virgil, Georgics, Book III, lines 504-5OS, trans. C. Day Lewis, The Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil, Doubleday, New York, 1964.

PLACE: Italy

TIME: During Virgil's lifetime (ca. 70 B.C.)

CIRCUMSTANCE: Virgil describes the death of a horse during a plague.


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