Skip to content
Surf Wiki
Save to docs
general/latin-words-and-phrases

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Quos ego

Phrase in Virgil's "Aeneid"


Phrase in Virgil's "Aeneid"

Quos ego (Latin, literally 'Whom I') are the words, in Virgil's Aeneid (I, 135), uttered by Neptune, the Roman god of the Sea, in threat to the disobedient and rebellious winds. Virgil's phrase is an example of the figure of speech called aposiopesis.

Neptune is angry with the winds, whom Juno released to start a storm and harass the Trojan hero and protagonist Aeneas. Neptune berates the winds for causing a storm without his approval, but breaks himself off mid-threat:

*Iam caelum terramque meō sine nūmine, ventī,* *miscēre et tantās audētis tollere mōlēs?* *quōs ego— sed mōtōs praestat compōnere flūctūs.*
Now, winds, you dare to embroil the sky and the earth without my approval, and raise up such a mass? You whom I— But it is better to settle the agitated waves.

Cultural references

Gustave Flaubert likens a teacher's rebuke of misbehaving students to "the Quos ego" in the opening scene of Madame Bovary.

Depictions in art of Neptune threatening the winds include the engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi and paintings by Peter Paul Rubens and Simone Cantarini.

References

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Quos ego — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report