>>Vergil, Aeneid 8:83ff,
> Could you please give the whoe sentence where is to find the word
> "mater" with the sense of "sow" ?
Oh Alex! Firstly I did not say the word was "mater". Secondly, mater
means "mother". It might be used of a cow, a dog, a hen, a gorilla, a
plant, or a human. It still means "mother". It does not mean cow, dog,
hen, gorilla, plant or human even if it is used for a mother of any of those
species.
You can find the actual quote in any of the several websites that give you
the Aeneid in Latin. In case all your fingers are broken, lines 82 -83 are:
candida per silvam cum fetu concolor albo
concubuit viridique in litore conspicitur sus.
There has been some debate about the metrical ending of line 83. An early
commentator called it a defect, and later writers have tried to defend
Vergil against this charge.
Peter