and the river banks and lakes echo round about and the sky thunders with the tumult" C, R, T imitate the crackling of flames in the following lines of Lucretius: "with a terrifying sound it burns up in a crackling flame" C and T can also imitate the sounds of musical instruments, as in these lines of Lucretius: "Taut timbrels thunder in their hands, and hollow cymbals all around, and horns menace with harsh-sounding bray" In the opening of Virgil's first Eclogue, as in the line of Theocritus that it imitates, the T and P sounds have been explained as the whispering of the leaves of the tree: . "Tityrus, you who are lying under the shade of a spreading beech tree." M may represent the rolling of thunder or the roaring of the sea: "meanwhile the sea began to stir with a loud roaring" With the letters P and D Virgil can represent the sound of men running: "he presses hotly with his foot the foot of the panicking Turnus" The alternation of T Q C and G combined with a dactylic rhythm can imitate the takkatak takkatak sound of a horse cantering across the plain: "his horse carries him and a golden helmet with a red crest covers his head" The letter H, which is only rarely used, can imitate the panting of a dog: "but the lively Umbrian dog sticks to it panting" In this line, describing the fate of some Lycian peasants who have been transformed into frogs, Ovid uses the alliteration (with assonance) of QUA QUA to represent their quacking, even before revealing what creatures they have been metamorphosed into: "Though they be under water, under water they still try to curse her." In the following highly alliterative line it has been suggested that Ovid is imitating the chattering sound of the local Black Sea languages: . "By now I have learnt to speak in Getic and Sarmatic." Light and liquid As Bailey points out often a key word will set the alliteration in a line. Thus "rumbling" will suggest the letters M and R, "wind" and "force" will suggest V, and the letter L, the initial of and (both meaning "light"), may represent the effects of light: "The breezes breathe into the night; nor does the bright moon deny their passage; the sea glistens beneath its trembling light." Likewise in the following lines from