Monday, July 01, 2013

VIRGIL'S "AENEID": WHAT I LIKE ABOUT IT

 I'm writing about Aeneas (above), the towering hero of Rome's greatest epic poem,  Virgil's "Aeneid." My wife and daughter are reading it for a course on mythology, and I get to benefit from it too, just by hanging out and listening to them. What they've said has been so interesting that I can't resist writing about it. See what you think.


Aeneas was a Trojan in the Trojan War. The Greeks sacked the city and Aeneas escaped with his father and and son to a waiting ship. Like Odysseus, Aeneas and his crew wandered the monster-filled Mediterranean, only in his case he wasn't attempting to go home...he had a destiny.


Maybe the greatest obstacle on Aeneas's journey was his encounter with Dido, a princess of Carthage. She loved Aeneas fiercely and he stayed with her for years.


Let me digress for a moment to compare two painted versions of Aeneas and Dido hunting (the two pictures above). Look how much energy is conveyed in the larger of the two. That picture tells you all you need to know about Dido: how exceptionally suited for Aeneas she was, how she matched him in flare and virtue.


He might never have left Dido if not for the urging of the gods. One day on a hunting trip the clouds parted and Venus appeared to scold Aeneas. Why, she wanted to know, was he delaying the inevitable? There was that mysterious appeal to destiny again and Aeneas, bound by a sense of duty, obeyed. He immediately set sail for Italy.


When Dido discovered he was gone her grief knew no bounds. She ran herself through with a sword and crawled into a raging fire.


On the mainland Aeneas makes his famous trip to Hades where he asks his father (who had died on the journey) about the nature of his destiny.  To give you a taste of Virgil's literary technique, here's (below) the poet's description of Charon, the legendary boatman who ferries souls to Hell.






Aeneas meets up with his father and the nature of his destiny is finally revealed to him. He and his successors (which will include Romulus and Remus) will found Rome, what Virgil believes to be the greatest force for good ever to appear. The father mentions names (below) of great Romans yet unborn who will alter history, and explains why the world needs Roman virtue as much as it needs the technical and aesthetic qualities of the Greeks. 



He also encounters Dido with her wound still intact. He tries to explain why he left but she refuses to listen and flees to the comfort of her compassionate first husband.



For opera fans I offer this beautiful version of the key aria in Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas." The music has no catchy melody but is a sustained expression of anguish and dignity which manages to mirror the same qualities in some of Virgil's verse.

How does Virgil do it? His descriptions are sometimes very lean, as if he was writing an outline for a poem instead of the poem itself; and yet, so much of what he writes is memorable...you read it once and you can't get it out of your head. He seems to have the ability to make characters and events iconic. Aeneas doesn't just run out of Troy, he runs out with his talkative aged father over his shoulder. He doesn't just dally with Dido, he luxuriates in being loved by someone first-rate.

He also buys a lot of credibility with his ethos. For Virgil, the virtuous life, the life dominated by duty and knightly virtues is the only life worth living. In previous centuries every school boy read the Aeneid and thus was schooled in the art of being a civilized and virile man.

Fascinating stuff, eh?



5 comments:

Unknown said...

Those paintings that you selected are simply jaw dropping. I think that in the AP Latin class at the high school I graduated from last year, students would actually be able to read Virgil's Aenid and translate the lines from Latin to English. I never got to take that class because I was in Honors Latin 3, but you get the point.

Invisibules said...

The "catchy melody" in the Purcell is actually in the bass line. The falling phrase repeats and repeats (it's called a "ground bass"). The sung melody fits in beautifully over the top, but the main idea is in the bass.

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Invisibules: Thanks for the info. I just listened to the song and I couldn't discern a catchy tune in the bass line, but if you say it's there I believe you.

mike fontanelli said...

Never read Virgil's Aeneid, and I wouldn't know how to judge it if I did. The effectiveness of ancient literature is at the mercy of its modern translator, and not all translations are equal.

Take this comparison (from Wikipedia) of two different English translations of the lyrics to Gaudeamus Igitur:

One is perfunctory while the other one's inspired, yet both translators were working from the same source material. Some difference, huh?

pappy d said...

The Aeneid is almost erased from memory. To appropriate this quote at ground zero, they had to erase the original memorial.

http://www.911memorial.org/remains-repository-world-trade-center-site

Vergil meant to commemorate an heroic gay couple who sneaked into the enemy camp, slaughtered the sleeping foe & got killed trying to carry off their loot. I can't remember their names, but at least they were heroes, not an anonymous mass of victims.