Virgil, The Aeneid

Okay, I think I'm getting the hang of this blogging thing. Today's entry is on Virgil's The Aeneid, which, despite being one of the best examples of beautifully written Latin, is basically fanfiction of the Odyssey. (I forget where I first heard that comparison; if I didn't think of it myself, I probably read it on some cesspool of the internet.) Aeneas, a Trojan briefly mentioned in the Iliad, flees his home after the end of the Trojan War and, following a prophecy that he will found the greatest empire the world has ever known, sets off on a journey to Italy. The first half of the poem takes us through his journey from Troy to Italy – including a very passionate relationship with Dido – and the last half tells about the war he wages against Latinus, king of the Latiums, the native people of the land where he must build his kingdom. Again, I'll organize my thoughts under a few headings. This will probably be the general format of my future posts.


Language

Since I'm a pleb and can't read Latin, there were a couple popular options for translations: the Bernard Knox and Robert Fagles edition is probably the standard, and their versions of the Iliad/Odyssey were very good; Allen Mandelbaum, whose translation of Ovid I'll write about in a couple weeks, was also an attractive choice (plus, I like having a variety of spines on my bookshelf; the uniform, black Penguin Classics get monotonous). I settled, however, on Sarah Ruden's translation, which was the newest and the most colorful and idiosyncratic.

Translation is especially important for the Greeks and Romans because they are, to me, the most satisfying books to pick up and begin reading. Though they tend to become long-winded and tedious (the Aeneid's 300 pages took way too long), their capacity for description and metaphor is unparalleled; it's what made me think for a few months in college that I should be a classics major. Ruden did a great job with the language. Like the original, her translation was in verse (beautifully rendered iambic pentameter, the English equivalent of Latin's crazy-ass meter). I won't belabor this point, but here are just a few really beautiful lines from throughout the poem:

"The smile that clears the sky of storms."
"Wrench away the towering sky."
"Uproot the sea."

"Muse, tell me why." This is a much simpler invocation to the muse than you usually see, without the anger of the Iliad's "Rage" or the exuberance of the Odyssey's "Sing to me, muse!" It's desperate, lamenting, unfit for the start of an epic poem, yet it's a powerful choice of words. Virgil is trying to understand how the gods could allow all the ills that befell Aeneas to happen, and so he understandably asks, "Why?" It's the plea of a man trying to make sense of an irrational and uncaring universe. It's the same question Neil Young asks in that great song. And it's the question that Dido seems to ask when Aeneas leaves her, and Turnus when his city is ruined by the Trojans just as their city was ruined by the Greeks. "Tell me why."

This is not even mentioning the choice descriptions of battle and gore. The Saw series has nothing on the Greeks and Romans. But I digress. 


Biblical Allusions

A couple major parallels to the Bible occur in the poem. Anchises, Aeneas' father, dies before he reaches Italy, but not until he catches a glimpse of the coast. "There is your Italy," the son says to the father. Moses, of course, was prohibited from entering the Promised Land, but he was able to stand on a mountaintop and look at the land for which he had wandered forty years in the desert.

Aeneas is told that when he gets to Italy, he will find that it has already been settled, and that the only way to establish his kingdom is to kill 'em all. "The race you must defeat is rough and hardy," he is warned. This should remind us of the story immediately following the death of Moses, wherein the Israelites had to conquer the Canaanites in the Promised Land before they could settle there. It should also remind us of, well, you know... America. Ahem.

Speaking of religion, there's a throwaway comment made by a minor character, Nisus, during the battle again Latinus that stood out to me. Nisus says to his friend, and apparently lover, Euryalus:

"Is it gods who make me want this [fights, war, battle, etc.]
Or do we make our deadly urges gods?"

Nothing more is said of this, but it's an incredibly self-aware line. 


Rumor

Rumor -- "the swiftest plague there is" -- is personified and employed to a degree that I haven't seen before. It's common enough for the ancients to attribute forces they don't understand to gods, but the spread of rumors is a unique one. Rumors have lately entered into academic study in political science and sociology, and also in mathematics. I haven't read much about it, but as a phenomenon, it's exactly the sort of thing that would be seen as a divine (or demonic) process: rumors leak, they spread with in an instant, they arise spontaneously. If anyone can recall another human phenomenon (as opposed to a natural phenomenon like lightning) that gets the same supernatural treatment, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Love

The Romans appreciate love poetry more than the Greeks did. While the latter did have the ethereal fragments of Sappho (I highly recommend Anne Carson's elegant translation), the Romans have Catullus and Ovid, among others.

When Aeneas deserts Dido by sneaking out in the morning before she wakes up, it's played-out and almost comical to our modern sensibilities, but for Dido it stirs some of the most devastating lines in the poem:

“If pleading has a chance still, change your mind.”

“Now I must call you guest instead of husband.”

“What did you feel then, Dido, when you saw [Aeneas leave]? 

How did you sob when all that shoreline seethed? / … / 

Reprobate Love, wrencher of mortal hearts! 

He drives her now to tears, and now to beg  

And cravenly submit her pride to love – 

Whatever leaves her with a hope of life.” 

Notice Love is personified, too, not as Cupid, but as "reprobate." That's a damn good word, Ms. Ruden.

Turnus and the Problem of Fate

Since Aeneas anticlimactically manages to avoid most of the woes that Odysseus encounters -- he is warned of Scylla and Charybdis as well as the Cyclops, and really has a pretty all right journey, all things considered -- the role of primary antagonist in the poem falls on Turnus. The problem? Turnus is actually a pretty cool guy.

When Aeneas gets to Latium, he sees Lavinia, King Latinus' daughter, and tells her father that he wishes to marry her. Latinus says that that is impossible, since she is betrothed to Turnus, and that he's sorry, but Aeneas says, "Fuck you," and goes to war with them so that he can marry her once he's defeated her city and killed her father.

Turnus, however, stands in his way. He is a great warrior, one who has been likened to Achilles by commentators, but he is ultimately defeated because his will runs counter to fate. The struggle is futile because it's recognized by everyone that Aeneas will win; after all, even the gods can't intervene and change fate. Even though Turnus is, by all accounts, in the right by defending his hometown and his fiancee, he can only be the bad guy in a poem like this. 

For this reason, I think the saddest part of the story -- sadder than Dido's suicide, than Aeneas' account of the fall of Troy, than the innumerable deaths -- is when Turnus comes to terms with the fact that, despite his prowess and his virtue, he will die. The queen has killed herself in frenzied mourning, and Turnus is watching the city "which he himself had raised" being conquered. Here are some lines:

“Murranus died – I saw, he called to me; 

No one still living is a dearer friend – 

When a massive wound brought down his massive body.” (The repetition of "massive" just kills, doesn't it?)

“Should I let them raze the town (that’s all that’s missing?) / … /

Is death so terrible? Spirits below, 

Bless me! The gods above have turned away.”

“Who sent you [Turnus' sister, Juturna] from Olympus on this mission –

To see your hapless brother’s brutal death? 

What can I do? What stroke of luck could save me?”

"He stood and stared in silence. In one heart 

Surged endless shame, madness infused with grief, 

Love spurred by fury, and the pride of courage.” 

The poem ends with the final battle between Turnus and Aeneas, wherein Turnus raises a boulder with which to crush Aeneas but suddenly -- as if by some divine or super-divine force -- his strength leaves him, and he is killed by Aeneas. One would think that Aeneas, who has been portrayed as infinitely honorable and has suffered the same injustices that he's now perpetrating on Latium, would be merciful to Turnus, and if fact he is, until he sees the belt of Pallas, a Trojan who was killed, around Turnus' waist. 

The final line of poem describes Aeneas killing Turnus, whose soul descends into the underworld. That's another powerful part of this poem: Virgil is basically saying, Fuck denouement; it all ends with a violent, merciless climax. 


Next up is Ovid's Metamorphosis, along with some of his shorter works on love. Since it's a pretty long book, the next post will likely be the second part of the Brothers K.