Setting opposing ideas or words side by side, so that one lights up the other through contrast.
In the Aeneid
Live happily, you whose fortune is already fulfilled: we are called from fate to fate.
Aeneas sets “you whose fortune is already fulfilled” against those who are “called from fate to fate.” On one side are those who already have a city and rest, on the other those who cannot stop. The contrast shows the weight of his mission.
Book III: The Wandering, Aeneas
It is war, O hospitable land, that you bring: horses are armed for war, these herds threaten war. But these same quadrupeds are used to draw the chariot and to bear, in harmony, the bit under the yoke: there is hope of peace.
Book III: The Wandering, Anchises
But first enter the infernal dwellings of Dis and, through the depths of Avernus, come to meet me, son. The impious Tartarus does not hold me back, nor do the sad shadows; I dwell in the pleasant assemblies of the pious and in Elysium. There, with the blood of many black cattle, the chaste Sibyl will take you.
Easy is the descent to Avernus; night and day the door of dark Dis stands open; but to turn back and escape to the breezes above, this is the task, this is the labor.
Book VI: The Descent to the Underworld, the Sibyl
Look for it, then, with your eyes raised high, and once you find it as you should, take it in your hand: it will come to you willingly and without cost, if the fates are calling you; otherwise, by no force will you conquer it, nor tear it away with hard iron.
Book VI: The Descent to the Underworld, the Sibyl
You, Roman, remember to rule the peoples with your power; these will be your arts: to impose the custom of peace, to spare the submissive and to strike down the proud.
Book VI: The Descent to the Underworld, Anchises
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