Title: The Aeneid
Author: Virgil
Written: 19BCE
Translator: David West (1990)
Pages: 307 Pages
Structure: 12 “books”, each consisting of 800 to 900 lines or about 25 pages long
The Details
The Aeneid by Virgil is a wonderful book.
It tells of the epic journey of a group of Trojans who, led by Aeneas, leave their ruined city after a decade-long war, in search of a new homeland, as promised by the gods.
Despite the promise of a new homeland, Aeneas and his countrymen are forced to deal with brutal opposition brought about by the goddess Juno (Hera), who still bears a grudge against Troy, and fears the prophesy that the descendants of Aeneas will one day defeat Juno’s favourite city, Carthage.
Things to look out for
Virgil pays homage to the great Homer by imitating the devices he used in The Iliad and The Odyssey.
Meter. The original poem is written in lines consisting of six “feet” or “beats” (hexameter), each of those beats consisting three syllables, with the stress on the first syllable (dactyls). This is the same meter used by Homer.
Here’s a Latin quote in that form, followed by an english translation that tries to follow the same pattern. It’s the first line of the poem:
Ārma virūmque canō, Trōiae quī prīmus ab ōrīs
ARMS and the | MAN I | SING, who | FIRST from the | SHORES of old | TROY
The translator, David West, took the decision to present the work in prose. So we don’t see the poem presented in verse form, but in paragraphs. I didn’t feel like I missed out on anything by reading it in this form, although I’m curious to see what it might look like in a more lyrical format.
Invocation. The first paragraph of the story includes a call to the heavenly Muse to help the author to tell his story:
Tell me, Muse, the causes of her anger. How did he violate the will of the Queen of the Gods? What was his offence? Why did she drive a man famous for his piety to such endless hardship and such suffering? Can there be so much anger in the hearts of the heavenly gods?
In media res. Like other epic poems, this story begins in the thick of it, with the protagonist fleet at sea in a storm, looking for safe harbour. The reader is expected to know some details of the Trojan war, and how Aeneas led his people to flee the city.
Epithets. Virgil uses regularly recurring nicknames for his characters, imitating Homer:
| “All-powerful Father” | Jupiter |
| “Saturnian Juno” | Juno, daughter of Saturn |
| “Phoebus Apollo” | Apollo, god of light |
| “Father Aeneas” | Aeneas, the father of the Roman race. |
| “Faithful Achates” | Achates, a close and trusted friend of Aeneas |
| “Pitiless Mars” | Mars, the god of war |
| “Aurora on her rosy chariot” | Sunrise – Aurora the goddess of the dawn |
Epic Similes. The books is full of masterfully crafted epic similes that continue for many lines, painting a picture of the subject. Here’s a wonderful simile of Neptune calming the sea. Can you picture him on his oceanic horses commanding the sea?
As when disorder arises among the people of a great city and the common mob runs riot, wild passion finds weapons for men’s hands and torches and rocks start flying; at such a time if people chance to see a man who has some weight among them for his goodness and his services to the state, they fall silent, standing and listening with all their attention while his words command their passions and soothe their hearts – so did all the crashing of the sea fall silent and Father Neptune, looking out over the waves, drove the horses of his chariot beneath a clear sky and gave them rein to fly before the wind.
Gods. Virgil’s gods are fickle, vindictive and impatient.
We see Juno bearing the mother of all grudges that takes the entire story to resolve, Venus showing motherly devotion to her son, Aeneas (yes Aeneas was the son of a god), and Alecto, the fury, bringing grief and strife by sowing xenophobia among the Latins.
Above them all is Jupiter, king of the gods, who sends the messenger Mercury to remind Aeneas of his divine destiny to build a new empire in Italy that will rule the world.
Favourite Parts
This book has so many exciting parts. I can’t pick a favourite, but here are several:
The love story between Dido and Aeneas in Book 4 is heartbreaking.
Reading the book the second time, and aware of Dido’s cruel fate, there is bitter irony in Aeneas’s prayer of gratitude when he meets Dido for the first time:
May the gods bring you the reward you deserve, if there are any gods who have regard for goodness, if there is any justice in the world, if their minds have any sense of right. What happy age has brought you to the light of life? What manner of parents have produced such a daughter? While rivers run into the sea, while shadows of mountains move in procession round the curves of valleys, while the sky feeds the stars, your honour, your name, and your praise will remain for ever in every land to which I am called.
It made me ask, “Are there any gods who have regard for goodness? Is there any justice in the world?”
Aneas’ descent into the underworld in Book 6 is stunning. We witness a descent into the land of the dead, where we see people suffering in Tartarus for their misdeeds, heroes in Elysium enjoying the rewards of their valour, and the souls of future roman Emperors awaiting a future time when they will be born and eventually fulfill their destiny.
Anecdotes say that when Octavia, sister of Emperor Augustus heard this section read aloud for the first time, prophesying about her children, she fainted. The Emperor was stunned with the political power inherent in this section, and the legitimacy he felt it gave his regime.
The descriptions of the underworld in this section were borrowed over a millennium later by Dante in his description of Inferno, and from Dante into modern christian views of “hell”. Religion is indeed a much recycled commodity.
Here begins the road that leads to the rolling waters of Acheron, the river of Tartarus. Here is a vast quagmire of boiling whirlpools which belches sand and slime into Cocytus, and these are the rivers and waters guarded by the terrible Charon in his filthy rags. On his chin there grows a thick grey beard, never trimmed. His glaring eyes are lit with fire and a foul cloak hangs from a knot at his shoulder. With his own hands he plies the pole and sees to the sails as he ferries the dead in a boat the colour of burnt iron. He is no longer young but, being a god enjoys rude strength and a green old age.
Vulcan’s Forge. Here the roman god of fire crafts armour for Aeneas, reminiscent of how Haphaestus forged armour for Achilles in the Iliad.
This is spectacular. We read of Vulcan entering his volcanic furnace, where the Cyclopes are hammering out thunderbolts for Jupiter. He interrupts and commands them to make something special for Aeneas:
The Cyclopes were forging steel, working naked in that vast cavern, Brontes, Sterope and Pyracmon. In their hands was a thunderbolt which they had roughed out, one of those the Father of the Gods and Men hurls down upon the earth in such numbers from every part of the sky. Some of it was already burnished, some of it unfinished. They had attached three shafts of lashing rain to it, three shafts of heavy rainclouds, three of glowing fire and three of the south wind in full flight. They were now adding to the work the terrifying lightning and the sound of thunder, then Fear and Anger with their pursuing flames. In another part of the cave they were working for Mars, busy with the wing-wheeled chariot in which he stirs up men and cities to war. Others were hard at work polishing the armour worn by Pallas Athene when roused, the fearsome aegis and its weaving snakes with their reptilian scales of gold, even the Gorgon rolling her eyes in the bodiless head on the breast of the goddess. ‘Put all this away!’ he cried. ‘Whatever work you have started, you Cyclopes of Etna, lay it aside and give your attention here. Armour has to be made for a brave hero.
This is a joy to read. The imagery of the Cyclopes in the volcanic forge has inspired paintings, operas, and other stories. It is “fantastic” in the true, overused, sense of the word.
Conclusion
This is a delightful book. I read it twice to get as much out of it as I could. Sometimes out loud, sometimes furiously scribbling notes in the margins.
It raises compelling themes about nationhood, the collective idea of “Manifest Destiny”, shared myths, life, death, love, and free will. It also raises questions about our gods – are they really as benevolent as we like to think they are?
One gem of a quote when Hercules begs Jupiter to spare the life of Pallas: “Then Father Jupiter spoke these loving words to his son: Each man has his allotted day. All life is brief and time once past can never be restored. But the task of the brave man is to enlarge his fame by his actions.”
Virgil is a great poet, and does Homer justice as he retells and re-frames the themes from Iliad and Odyssey.
I wish I had read this book decades ago.