[343] Tacitum has been interpreted either as in a retired part of the house and so silent, or as lonely, because Amata was sitting apart to indulge her melancholy. It may however have reference to the silence of night. Comp. v. 413, where Allecto visits Turnus at midnight. ‘Obsedit’ implies hostility. ‘Limen’ is the threshold of Amata's room; and as the rooms were very small there is no incongruity in the idea of the Fury reaching Amata where she was lying without passing the threshold. For the threshold as the seat of the Furies comp. 4. 473., 6. 563.
This text is part of:
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.