Hello everyone. I am studying for my Latin GCSE with OCR, and I am finding many mixed messages with the 10 marker and 8 marker. I was wondering if anyone could offer me any advice on these?
My teacher set me a 10 marker on Nisus and Euryalus: the passage was lines 433-440, and I thought I'd share with you my answer. Could someone tell me how good it is as an answer or if it is absolutely terrible? I know for a fact it isn't 10 marks!
Firstly, Virgil repeatedly uses the passive mood, such as "volvitur" and "moratur", which gives the effect of Euryalus being unable to do anything and the surroundings being more powerful. This is further shown through the vivid and detailed description of Euryalus' death. Virgil uses a simile to describe the way in which Euryalus dies; by extensively describing the event, Virgil is explaining the true scale of the event, and the nature of his death. Within the simile, Virgil uses adjectives such as "purpureus", which translates to "purple". This use of colour, and in its simple form, i.e. not comparative or superlative, lessens the gory side of the event, through the simile and not by using a direct strong metaphor. In addition, the description, such as "flos succisus aratro"- a flower cut down by a plough- compares his death to a flower, and a poppy (papavera). By using such gracious and elegant nouns, this is a further way that Virgil describes the death, and softens the true impact. This, altogether, slows down the pace of the event, to which Virgil rapidly juxtaposes this. He writes "Nisus ruit" in the line after- Nisus rushed. By so rapidly switching to Nisus' actions, Virgil is showing a contrast between the seemingly elegant and slow death of Euryalus and the faster actions of Nisus in pursuit of Volcens.
As it's not long until the exams, I was wondering if any larger knowledge could aid me in these types of questions, or knows of any exemplar answers with a high number of marks they could donate to me?