Vix nox inceperat, cum eclipsis lunam texit.

Vix means hardly, scarcely, or barely. It tells you that the first action had only just happened before the second one followed.

So Vix nox inceperat means something like Night had scarcely begun.

Yes. This is a very common idea in Latin:

vix / aegre / haud ... cum ...

It often corresponds to English hardly/scarcely ... when ...

So the sentence has this structure:

• Vix nox inceperat = Night had hardly begun
• cum eclipsis lunam texit = when an eclipse covered the moon

The point is immediacy: one thing had barely happened before the next happened.

Because inceperat is pluperfect active indicative, 3rd person singular, from incipio.

The pluperfect normally means had begun, not just began. It shows an action already completed before another past action.

Here the sequence is:

• first: nox inceperat = night had begun
• then: eclipsis lunam texit = the eclipse covered the moon

So the pluperfect helps mark the first action as earlier.

It comes from incipio, incipere, incepi, inceptum = begin.

A learner may notice that the perfect system uses incep-, not incip-:

• present: incipit = begins
• perfect: incepit = began / has begun
• pluperfect: inceperat = had begun

So inceperat is a normal perfect-system form of incipio.

No. Here cum means when.

You can tell because it introduces a whole clause with a verb:

• cum eclipsis lunam texit = when an eclipse covered the moon

If cum meant with, it would usually be followed by an ablative noun, not by a finite verb.

Because this cum is simply temporal: when.

Latin often uses cum + indicative when it means a straightforward when referring to a definite event in time. That is what we have here.

A cum clause with the subjunctive usually has a more circumstantial, causal, or concessive force, not just a plain time-reference.

Yes. Nox is nominative singular and is the subject of inceperat.

Latin can very naturally say:

• dies incipit = the day begins
• nox incipit = the night begins

So nox inceperat literally means night had begun. That is perfectly normal Latin.

Eclipsis is the subject of texit.

Grammatically, it is:

• nominative singular
• feminine
• a third-declension noun

A common learner question is whether -is means plural. Here it does not. Eclipsis is singular: an eclipse or the eclipse, depending on context.

Because lunam is the direct object of texit.

The verb tego means cover, and the thing covered goes into the accusative.

So:

• eclipsis = subject
• lunam = direct object
• texit = verb

That gives: the eclipse covered the moon.

Texit is perfect active indicative, 3rd person singular, from tego, tegere, texi, tectum.

In a sentence like this, the Latin perfect is usually translated as a simple past:

• texit = covered

So the second action is presented as a completed event in the past.

Because Latin has no definite or indefinite article.

So lunam could, in principle, mean:

• the moon
• a moon

But context tells us which English article to use. Here English naturally says the moon, because it is a specific, obvious celestial body.

Yes, but not in the same way as in English.

Latin word order is flexible because the endings show the grammar. The order here helps with emphasis and flow:

• Vix comes first for strong emphasis: Scarcely...
• texit comes at the end, giving a neat finish to the clause
• eclipsis lunam texit builds toward the action

So the order is stylistic and natural, even though the grammatical relationships are shown mainly by endings, not position.

A very natural translation is:

Scarcely had night begun when an eclipse covered the moon.

You could also say:

Night had barely begun when an eclipse covered the moon.

The main idea is the same: the eclipse happened almost immediately after night began.