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What's so great about The Aeneid? And what's Virgil got that Homer ain't got?

   posted 12.04.05

THE PLEASURES OF THE AENEID

by Pejman Yousefzadeh

An utterly splendid work, and one that I love even more than The Iliad and The Odyssey. I imagine that the reasons for my high regard of The Aeneid have to do with the fact that Virgil's work combines both the compelling tales of warfare from The Iliad and the intensely personal and human drama of The Odyssey. Aeneas himself is a simple hero—distinguished by his bravery and prowess in battle and by his piety—and thus perhaps lacks some of the nuance that defined the characters of Achilleus and Hektor. But brave and worthy he is nonetheless and while Virgil entices sympathy and pity for the fate and character of Turnus, the latter does not even come close to stealing the show from Aeneas in the manner that Hektor has been able to do from Achilleus.

This is not to say, of course, that I would not have wanted to see some more definition to Aeneas's character. And I was somewhat displeased with Virgil's decision to discuss the after-effects of the war between the Trojans and the Latins in the opening lines of the poem rather than going into the subject after the death of Turnus (ending the poem at Turnus's death when his soul "fled resentfully down to the shades" was somewhat jarring). But while there may be somewhat less nuance to Aeneas's character than there is to the characters of other classical heroes like Achilleus and Hektor, The Aeneid itself prospers mightily from the infusion of nuance and layers of fascinating complexity, thus engrossing the reader.

Virgil's facility with description and language is nothing short of awe-inspiring—even in translation. Consider the following passage about Rumor:

Rumor at once sweeps through Libya's great cities,
Rumor, the swiftest of evils. She thrives on speed
And gains power as she goes. Small and timid at first,
She grows quickly, and though her feet touch the ground
Her head is hidden in the clouds. The story goes
That Mother Earth, vexed with the gods, bore this
One last child, a sister to Coeus and Enceladus,
Fast on her feet, her beating wings a blur,
She is a dread, looming monster. Under every feather
On her body she has—strange to say—a watchful eye,
A tongue, a shouting mouth, and pricked up ears.
By night she wheels through the dark skies, screeching,
And never closes her shining eyes in sleep.
By day she perches on rooftops or towers,
Watching, and she throws whole cities into panic,
As much a hardened liar as a herald of truth.
Exultant now, she fills the people's ears
With all kinds of talk, intoning fact and fiction:
Aeneas has come, born of Trojan blood;
Dido, impressed, has given him her hand,
And now they indulge themselves the winter long,
Neglecting their realms, slaves to shameful lust.
The loathsome goddess spreads this gossip
Far and wide. Then she winds her way to King Iarbas,
And with her words his rage flares to the sky.

Or consider Virgil's tribute to the lovers Nisus and Euryalus, both of whom die in battle and each of whom shows great devotion to the other:

Happy pair,
If my poetry has any power
Never shall you be blotted from memory,
As long as the house of Aeneas still stands
On the Capitol's unmoving rock,
And the Roman Father rules supreme.

The political implications of The Aeneid are certainly worthy of mention and discussion. The poem is meant to legitimize the line of the Caesars—Caesar Augustus (Octavian) is glorified though Anchises's relation of the story of Aeneas's line when Aeneas visits his father's shade in Hades. Of course, as the poem serves as the myth for the founding of Rome, the reader will naturally wonder at the construct of a story that has Trojans defeating indigenous Latins and then blending in with the Latins in order to create Rome. Bear in mind, however, that this blending of the ancient Greek myths with the founding of Rome might have served as an omen of the general tendency of the Romans to identify very strongly with the ancient Greeks—an identification that bordered on obsessive imitation, as J.E. Lendon pointed out. And bear in mind as well that whatever the inclination to blend elements of heroic Greek mythology with Roman foundational mythology, Virgil intended that the Latin characteristics of the Romans be seen to outweigh the Trojan ones. Consider Juno's plea to Jupiter when she sees that despite her best efforts, the Fates demand a Trojan victory over Turnus's Latins:

I have one solemn request of you, something
Not prohibited by Fate, for latium's sake
And for your people's majesty. When soon
(Let it be) they make peace with happy weddings,
And form alliances with laws and treaties,
Do not command the native Latins
To change their ancient name, nor become
Trojans and be called Teucrians, nor to change
In language or in dress. Let Latium be,
Let Alban kings rule through the ages,
And let the Roman stock be strong
In Italian manhood. Troy has fallen.
Let the name of Troy be fallen too.

Jupiter grants Juno's request. And thus, despite the desire to blend heroic myths and traditions, Rome, like China, becomes a sea that salts all waters that flow into it.

A word about the translation. I found Lombardo to be quite good—and this despite the fact that I approached his translation with some trepidation given the reviews of his Iliad and Odyssey that suggested that his translations were too colloquial. Generally, I didn't find this problem with Lombardo's Aeneid, though there were some colloquialisms that got on my nerves (Turnus calling Aeneas "big mouth" was more than a little ridiculous). I suppose that at some point, I will review Lombardo's Iliad and Odyssey, though for me, the definitive translations of those two works are the Lattimore translations. Of course, the definitive Aeneid translation has been done by John Dryden, and it is Dryden's work that continues to govern scholarship in the poem.

Reprinted by permission of the author from his web site, A Chequer-Board of Nights & Days. Pejman Yousefzadeh is a lawyer who lives in the Chicago area and who blogs as an alternative to shouting at the television.

   Discuss this article at TheWebzine Blog

Read The Aeneid as translated by Stanley Lombardo

Read The Aeneid as translated by John Dryden

Read The Iliad of Homer as translated by Richmond Lattimore

Read The Odyssey of Homer as translated by Richmond Lattimore

Read Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World by J. E. Lendon

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