felix hominum

ancient thought & post modern theory, or how to talk like one

I've probably spent more time on Virgil's Aeneid these past few months than on any other single topic here.  So what does Virgil’s Aeneid have to do with postmodern theory?  Well, everything.  There is a part of postmodern thinking which says that the great "stories to live by" are, well, not all that great, and certainly not to live by.  The Aeneid sets itself out against the suspicion of metanarratives.   It is one of the great metanarratives of culture. It is an architectural blueprint for Augustan expansion in the Mediterranean, north Africa, Asia Minor, northern Europe, and into the Middle East and beyond.  And as such its influence is not merely “western”, in the limited sense of the term.  It is a vision of human community, a vision which as powerful enough to sustain not only the embodiment of Roman ideals in the classical world, but even to help inform the vision of medieval Christianity and Renaissance humanism.

What Virgil reminds us of is the second half of the concept of a "story to live by".  In fact, I suspect he would say that there is not only the "concept", but the practice.  It is a story "to live by."  It must be worked out in the physical world.  Greek idealism is not sufficient; there must be a practice, in order for it to be a real story "to live by".

One of the great problems of the (post) Reformation era in the west is the fracturing of “church” in a formal sense. I might suggest that much of North American protestant individualism is itself a cousin of post modern rejection of metanarrative.  (It is also the reason why “yet another group” is not really the answer the problem, but then that was why I spent so many posts on Cyprian of Carthage.)  It is not the rejection of the larger idea of a universal “story to live by”;  the First Bible Faith Apostolic Church of Yourtown will always have copies of the story to read. It is rather the rejection of a universal place in which to hear it.  That universal place is the “Church”.  It is the rejection of the Church as catholic, and as the place in which the story needs to be heard.  It is the rejection of meta-community, which then lends credence to the idea of rejecting the meta narrative by which that community lived.  Of course it is not overt in all cases, and it is not covert in other cases.  The "bible believing church" will never say they reject the scriptures.  By the same token, individualism in Christian community can reject the meta-community in which the story is meant to be read, and heard, and interpreted and lived.  On the other hand there is the overt rejection of Scripture as a "given" metanarrative (eg Spong et al.) in some parts of the Anglican world.  This is again a cousin to the more fundamentalist strains in Christianity:  the principle of individual autonomy is supreme.  Freedom (whatever that means) from something imposed or "given" from an authority other than the self, rules the day.  I think that an extreme form of liberalism which has come out of an "independant fundamentalist" background has not really shifted its priniciples all that much.  The "independant" part is still the controlling factor.  Which is why, in my experience (the arbiter of all judgment), many people who come out of the one seem to so easily embrace the other:  the controlling factor is still a form of independence from the universal place (church) in which the story is heard.

Continue on with your day.

ps merry Orthodox Christmas

Virgil the Aeneid; pt 14 book VII: Juno, Furies and the end of the Golden Age

see entire series on Virgil's Aeneid here

Since my last post on Virgil's Aeneid, we've enjoyed some -30 weather and New Year's festivities and all that good holiday kind of stuff.  Thinking back on the first part of Book VII, it seems to me that Virgil is telling us how the Golden Age comes to an end.  What is it that causes humanity to fall out of paradise?  The descriptions of Latinus and his almost immediate knowledge of the will of the gods is a picture of an earlier time:  man was in harmony with nature and with the gods.  The prophecies were clear;  Latinus knows that Aeneas is "the man called for by fate" (VII.369).  If the Aeneid were done by a Disney writer, or perhaps by a Greek idealist, the story would end there.  The will of fate is known, destiny is known, and the Golden Age of the Latins would continue.

Only look upward, though,
At Jove's unpitying queen. (389)

In the midst of this certainty about Fate, Juno makes her return.  Her thoughts are laid out in lines 388-440.  She has come back with a vengeance.  She too, knows that Aeneas is the fated man, but they are to her a "hateful race" (388).  Juno gives us a summary of what she has tried against the Trojans thus far:

Could they be killed on the Sigean battlefield? When beaten
Could they be beaten?  Troy on fire, did Troy
Consume her men?  Amid the spears, amid
The flames, they found a way.
(400...)

The Trojans have persevered despite circumstances.  "They found a way" is at the heart of the Roman pragmatism as articulated by Virgil.  It is moving forward as Fate dictates, despite whatever may happen in the world of circumstances, the world of Fortune.  Not only has Juno tried to stop "fate" through manipulating human circumstances, even the very forces of nature were used against the Trojans:  "The strength of sea and sky has been poured out against these Teucrians" (409).  Juno laments that the Trojans are "unworried by deep water or by me".  Juno even recognizes that she was untrue to her own principles as goddess of marriage in arranging the delay of Dido (Bk 4, post here):  "To leave no risk unventured, lent myself to every indignity".  Finally in exasperation she declares what she thinks is the crux of the matter:  "I am defeated, and by Aeneas!" (423).

This is where Juno is mistaken.  She has not been defeated simply by Aeneas.  She has been defeated by Fate working through Aeneas.  The only reason Aeneas (the pious, the dutiful) has been able to "defeat" Juno (the greatest goddess, "sister and consort of Jove") is that Aeneas has aligned his own will with that of Fate.  He cannot, in the end, fail.  The will of Fate will be accomplished.  Juno's defeat is really her own failure to acknowledge Fate.  She cannot alter Fate from above, she can only delay it from below:

If I can sway no heavenly hearts I'll rouse the world below. 
It will not be permitted me, so be it,
To keep the man from rule in Italy
By changeless fate Lavinia waits, his bride.
And yet to drag it out, to pile delay
Upon delay in these great matters - that
I can do:  to destroy both countries' people,
That I can do.
(425...)

Now this, to Virgil, is an interesting question:  how can one "delay" Fate?  What gives Juno the power to "drag out" Fate?  It is a question which has much in common with questions asked by Christians.  How is the "will of God" accomplished?  Can God's purpose and will be thwarted, delayed, moved?  In other words, what is the relationship between the eternal will of the Divine, and the actual course of events in an ever changing world?  If Fate has decreed something, does it not have the power to make it come to pass in the way it wants?  Or does Fate simply decree that it will happen, but not how it will happen?  Juno seems now aware that she cannot change the "that" of Fate, but she will use everything in here power to influence the "how". 

What does Juno have within her power?  As she said, if she cannot change Fate ("I can sway no heavenly hearts") she will use her power in the less-than-heavenly places:  "the world below".  Juno summons Allecto, one of the Furies, from "the dark underworld" (443).  Allecto is described as the Daughter of Night, so miserable and terrifying that "even her father Pluto hates this figure" (447).  You know you're at the bottom when the king of Hades thinks you are bad news.  Juno summons Allecto to enter the paradise of the Latins and cause havoc.  And cause havoc she does.  She can cause men to be whipped up into mobs.  She can drive Latin queen Amata into a Bacchic frenzy (559).  She can cause Turnus to awake in a sweat after horrifying dreams and grab for his weapons in a fit of rage (634).

The power of the underworld has entered the scene, and the Golden Age is gone in a moment.  What is the reason for the fall out of paradise, the end of the Golden Age?  The answer is found in the question.  What happens is that reason ceases to rule, and the force of unreason, of irrationality, begins to take over.  In that sense there is no "reason" for the Fall.  It is pure irrationality in action.  And this is what Allecto brings from the underworld.  The kingdom of Latinus collapses as his people, goaded on by Allecto and Juno, become less a kingdom and more a mob.  His kingship is "wrecked, swept away by storm" (816).  Latinus knows that his golden age has come to an end: 

He said no more, but shut himself away
And dropped the reins of rule over the state
(825)

Virgil the Aeneid; pt 13 book VII: the Latins & the golden age

see entire post series on the Aeneid here

Aurea prima sata est aetas, quae vindice nullo,
sponte sua, sine lege fidem rectumque colebat.

Golden was sown that first age, which,
without coercion and laws,
spontaneously nurtured the good and the true.

Ovid Metamorphoses
I.90

When I first read these lines from Ovid many years ago, I think there awoke a sense of the universality of the memory, or perhaps the desire, for paradise. That place where the good and the true arise effortlessly, built into the very fabric of the earth.  Though we live in a fallen world, there are many who look longingly to Eden.  Paradise is not a creation of the Christian religion (though I would say it is a creation of the Christian God).  This is a larger memory of a time and place when humanity chose the good and the true.  What kind of place it was I will leave for others to consider.  For myself, I see in the ancient idea of the "Golden Age" a human awareness that the present experience of the world is not what it was, nor what it was intended to be.  And if memory is also a close cousin to the faculty which looks forward (for it seems to me that the capacity of memory can move in two directions - we merely think of its capacity to look behind, but it can also look ahead) then this idea of the Golden Age is also a foretaste of something yet to come.

King Latinus echoes these sentiments to the emissary of Aeneas:

Know that our Latins
Come of Saturn’s race, that we are just –
Not by constraint or laws, but by our choice
And habit of our ancient God
VII.268

There is such a perfect balance of nature and reason in Latinus.  It is still the golden age for them. When Aeneas' men tell Latinus that they have come by the will of Fate, Latinus himself immediately recognizes the truth of their claim.  He recalls a prophecy given by old Faunus, and instantly "knows" that this Aeneas is the man about whom the prophecy was spoken:

This is the man…by fate appointed
Called to reign here with equal authority
The man whose heirs will be brilliant in valor
And win the mastery of the world
VII.342

This is paradise - an unmistakable knowledge of the divine will, and a desire to see it accomplished.

[unfortunately, paradise is lost, as other tasks call, and I'll try to return to this book later on this evening]

Virgil: the Aeneid pt 12: book VII; the poet's "greater task"

(see entire post series on Virgil's Aeneid here)

Be with me, Muse of all Desire, Erato
While I call up the kings, the early times...
Immortal one, bring all in memory to the singer's mind
For I must tell of wars to chill the blood...
A greater history opens before my eyes,
A greater task awaits me.

VII.47

Virgil invokes a new Muse at the beginning of book VII.  This new invocation serves to let us know that there will be a new direction in the poem.  There is a shift in the poet's task, and in the tasks of Aeneas as well.  Remember that by the end of book VI (the underworld) Virgil has given us a vision of the ideal of Rome as the eternal city:  to rule the world by rational principle of law.  This was the fate revealed to Aeneas in his journey to the underworld.

Now Virgil is faced with a "greater task".  Why exactly is the bloody history of combat and kingship greater than all that has come before this point in the Aeneid?  Well, to borrow from Christian terminology, it is the problem of the "word made flesh".  It is a greater task for Aeneas to take the idea of Rome and make it a reality in time and space.  This is why he needs to invoke a new muse, and this is the greater task ahead of him.  This particular problem is one of the great difficulties of ancient thought.  How can Plato take the ideals of the philosopher king and make them a reality in the Republic, in the actual lives of citizens?  Of course, Plato tells us that his Republic will fall - the ideal will not always be reflected in the events of time and space, in the actual history.  What Virgil is attempting is a vision of a city which can be truly everlasting:  a city in which the ideal (fate - fatum) is worked out in the practical affairs (fortune - fortuna).  If those two principles can be wedded, then there would be no reason why Rome should not continue forever.  The ideal and the practical must meet together.  This is the greater task.  To have either side without the other is inadequate, as all of us see in our own contemporary experience.  An ideal which can never find flesh in the world, unconnected to actual events and human history, will be impotent.  It will remain unconnected from our lives.  On the other side, mere "activity" is insufficient, without the divine destiny or fate to guide it.  It will be unstable, unsustainable, and will eventually just return to a chaos of "doing things" without knowing why.  Human activity must be guided by the Divine;  only then will it have eternal meaning.  And so in this second half of the poem, Virgil wishes to give us his vision of how these two sides can be united.

There are many introductions in book VII.  We get a cast of characters for the second half of the Aeneid.  We meet Turnus, Latinus, Lavinia, and a few more beside.  Juno (represting fortuna as opposed to fate) pops in again.I will look more closely at each one of these in turn.  But for now, the stage is being set for the action of the rest of the poem.

Virgil: the Aeneid pt 11: Aeneas, the underworld, and the destiny of Rome

view entire post series on Virgil's Aeneid here

The geography of the Roman underworld is a rather fascinating, (and I admit, morbid to some) study.  There's a kind of cool map here by Carlos Parada.  Aeneas is guided by the Sibyl.  This need for a companion and guide to the underworld is something which Dante will pick up on when Virgil himself accompanies Dante into the regions of the Inferno.

Aeneas took the opening: swiftly he turned away
From the river over which no soul returns (VI.573)

Virgil’s underworld is a strangely familiar to us, not in the least because many of the ideas he transmitted to western culture are either broadly recognizable in a variety of cultures, or because of the influence he had on subsequent millennia.  Or both.  Upon venturing only a few steps, Aeneas hears the sounds of “the souls of infants wailing” (VI.576), and the souls of those who were “falsely accused, condemned to die”(VI.580).  Next to these he sees the suicides, and Dido among them.  Aeneas tries to move her, and in a pitiable scene she refuses to acknowledge him, “Her face no more affected than if she were Immobile granite or Marpesian stone” (VI.632)  Over all this “Minos reigned as presiding judge” (VI.584). 

No underworld would be worth a story if it did not feature judgment.  Judgment in the proper sense of the word is really simply discernment between good and evil.  This is visualized as a fork in the road:  the Sibyl tells Aeneas

Here is the place
Where the road forks: on the right hand it goes
Past mighty Dis’s walls, Elysium way
Our way;  but the leftward road will punish
Malefactors, taking them to Tartarus
(VI. 726)

Aeneas begs the Sibyl to tell him more about the realm from which he hears such groans and cries.  This, Aeneas is told, is where the Cretan Rhadamanthus is appointed judge.  He brings all the sins of the offenders to light.  Those who put off atonement in their earthly life are merely “thieves of time” (766);  they put off amendment of life “until too late, until the hour of death”.

There is a certain logic to the underworld, and here we can see at least some of the logic by which Dante arranged the punishments of the Inferno in the Divine Comedy.  Dante of course added much more detail, and followed Augustine’s dictum from the Confessions that “every man’s inordinate affection becomes his own affliction”.  But I’m getting ahead of myself again. What does Aeneas learn as he goes?  First we have those of the old race – the Titans – who rebelled against the Olympians.  Rebellion against the Olympian gods is the first offense.  The old forces of nature and chaos are plunged deep into Tartarus.  Next we see Salmoneus, who committed blasphemy by “mimicking Jove’s fire” (VI.787). 

After those who directly offended the gods come those who “held brothers hateful, beat their parents, cheated/ Poor men dependent on them” (VI. 814).  These have offended against the basic structures of family and community.  Next we have men “killed for adultery” and those who betrayed their lords – oathbreakers, whether of the marriage vow or the civil vow.

We are also told of those who broke the laws of the city – ones who “set up laws or nullified them for a price” (VI.831), and then those who broke the laws of nature – “another entered his daughter’s room to take a bride forbidden him” (VI. 834).

The lesson is clear:  “Be warned and study justice, not to scorn the immortal gods” (829).

But it is Aeneas’ fate to walk through the Elysium fields, that region of “happy souls” (895).  Again, in a fashion related to the punishments for vices, we have in lines 870 to 890 a set of virtues which have earned these souls a place among the blessed.  They are ones who honoured the gods (“chorused out a hymn praising Apollo), were faithful to their vows (“in battle for their country”) or built up the civic and familial order.  It is in this region that Aeneas meets the shade of his father Anchises, but the embodied man cannot grasp the spirit of his father, which is “weightless as wind and fugitive as dream” (942).

Anchises gives his son some instruction about the nature of the soul and the body (VI.973ff).  For Virgil the soul is "imprisoned in the darkness of the body" (987);  there is a process of purification by which souls are freed from the "deathliness which comes from flesh" (985);  purity is achieved (proto-purgatory) and souls may rise again to earthly existence.  It is quite a contrast with the view of flesh and body which will become part of the Christian story only a few decades later.  For Virgil, the Incarnation would be an unthinkable horror - an impossibility.

Next Aeneas sees the souls of the future leaders of Rome.  And it is here in the underworld that we see the genius of Rome and the key to her destiny: "Illustrious Rome will bound here power with earth/ Her spirit with Olympus" (VI.1047).  This is the Incarnation of Rome:  the joining of the earthly and the heavenly in the rise of Empire under Augustus. 

Caesar Augustus, son of the deified
Who shall bring once again the Age of Gold (1064).

Rome will bring about a new kind of kingdom:

Roman, remember by your strength to rule
Earth’s peoples – for your arts are to be these:
To pacify, to impose the rule of law,
To spare the conquered, battle down the proud”
(VI. 1151)

You can almost hear a faint echo of the hopes of Christian messiahship.  Virgil’s humanist vision of the message of Isaiah:  every valley raised and every mountain made low.  It can make one think about the Christian phrase "In the fullness of time".  With Virgil and with Christ there are competing visions of body and spirit, kingdom, empire, eternal city, son of the deified...

Virgil: the Aeneid pt 10: Aeneas descends to the underworld

see entire series on Virgil's Aeneid here

Before we finally leave Book V, there are a few short but important passages which are key to understanding Roman destiny.  After the funeral games for Anchises, Juno puts it into the minds of the Trojan women to set fire to the ships – as if Fate could be averted by adverse circumstances.  In the face of this misfortune, one of Aeneas’ companions (Nautes) gives his commander some advice:

Sir, born of an immortal, let us follow
Where our fates may lead, or lead us back,
Whatever comes,
All Fortune can be mastered by endurance.
(V.918)

It is this steadfast stoicism which drives Aeneas forward, even into the cave of the Cumean Sibyl in book VI.  This is the “Sibyl feared by men” from whom he was earlier instructed to seek counsel.  The problem with the Sibyl, however, was simply this:  she would have the prophecies committed to leaves, which the wind would scatter before sense could be made of them.  And doesn’t that simply typify the problem of mortals understanding the will of the gods?  How shall Aeneas know for certain the course of action he should take, when all too often the messages from the gods are unclear?  He knows his fate, but he does not know how his fortune will bring his fate to pass.  And so with his men he goes to seek the prophetess.

She is transformed before them as the god possesses her:  “her breast heaved, her wild heart grew large with passion” (VI.79).   While the Trojans look on, she cries out to them:

Slow, are you, in your vows and prayers?
Trojan Aeneas, are you slow?  Be quick,
The great mouths of the god’s house, thunderstruck,
Will never open till you pray!
(VI.84)

Aeneas prays, and tells the god that he asks “no kingdom other than fate allows me” (VI.107).  He is seeking to have his will, his desires, aligned with those of Jupiter, of Fate.  The Sibyl, for her part, “sang out riddles” (VI.150), but riddles in which Virgil gives us a vision of what the Roman Empire must be.  “A first way to safety / Will open where you reckon on it least/ From a Greek city” (VI.145)  This is one of the key elements of empire:  there must be alliances with non-Trojans.  Tribalism can have no part in true Empire;  Rome must be able to unite both Trojan and non-Trojan.  The wars of the past, the memory of the Greeks, must be forgotten, if Aeneas is to found an eternal city.

Aeneas is also to see into the future, but must gather a branch “sacred to Juno of the lower world” (VI.222).  As I’ve said before, all great heroes have to face Hades. ("He descended into hell"). Down into the underworld he goes, where deep beneath the earth he sees the future glory of Rome.  But before he sees the future glory, he must pass by all the powers of the underworld:  Chaos and the Infernal Fiery Stream, the jaws of Orcus, pale Disease, Dread, Death and his brother Sleep, and death-bringing War.  The list goes on in lines 365 to 400.  It is not simply that Aeneas goes past this house of horrors of the underworld for amusement sake.  It is a sign that Rome must learn the lesson of Nautes:  all these things can be mastered by endurance.  All the irrational forces of the underworld must be faced and conquered, or at least accommodated and endured.  Only men who can show such endurance will be fit to rule the world. 

Once in the region of the shades he meets Palinurus, who fell overboard at the end of book V.  He pleads with Aeneas to give him funeral rites so that he can pass properly through deathly regions, yet the Sibyl tells him “Abandon hope by prayer to make the gods change their decrees” (VI. 506).  This is perhaps one of the greatest conundrums of Roman religious belief as expressed in the Aeneid.  Compare this with the Old Testament notions of God “repenting” of a certain course of action, yet having a steadfast covenant.  Or with subsequent Christian difficulties around the notion of “the will of God”. 

Does prayer change heaven’s decrees?

Next:  Aeneas and the future of Rome

Plutarch on death

At the moment of death, the soul has the same experience as those who are initiated into the great mysteries... These are primarily random wanderings, painful detours, endless disconcerting journeys through the darkness. Then, before the end, the terror reaches its climax: shuddering, trembling, cold sweat, fright. However, at that point a marvelous light dawns and we pass on to the pure atmosphere of verdant meadows, over which songs and dances resound; sacred words and divine visions inspire a religious veneration. Thenceforth the initiate, in a state of perfection, becomes free and moves freely, celebrating the mysteries with a crown on his head. He lives with pure and holy men. He sees on earth the mass of those who are not initiated and purified; they batter and crush one another in the mire and the darkness, and in fear of death, persevere in evil doing for fear of what lies beyond. 

Plutarch (46-127),Treatise on the Soul.

Just a bit of a warm up before we rejoin Aeneas in his journey to the underworld.  Which journey, by the way, is facilitated by "the Sibyl feared by men" (VI.16).  If you've ever seen Amadeus, you might recall the dark and stormy ride set to Mozart's requiem.  That marvellous piece captures (I suggest) some of the darkness of entering the underworld, and the fear that strikes the Trojans as they watch the god possess the prophetess.  The Elysium fields are there as well, but such a dwelling place is not for all...

Dies iræ! dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla

Day of wrath, day that
will dissolve the world into burning coals,
as David bore witness with the Sibyl

(Franciscan trans)

Virgil: the Aeneid pt 9: If the Romans ran the Olympics...

see entire post series on topics in the Aeneid here.

Over the summer months I found myself asking what it would be like if the ancients ran the Beijing Olympics.  Apart from the addition of the philosophers’ football match, I think there would be a few changes to the actual event.  Games are found in both the Iliad and the Aeneid.  But lest you think that all ancient games were alike, I am going to give a brief whirlwind tour of the two visions of what “Games” meant.  The Greek games, as shown in Homer’s work, were, well, Greek.  That means idealism.  If you recall the funeral games which Achilles staged after the death of Patroclus, you might recall that there were some unfortunate events which prevented the “best” man from claiming the prize.  In the true spirit of Greek idealism, the man who was known to be better got a prize, regardless of the actual practical outcome.  His virtue in that area was known and honoured, regardless of how he actually placed in the standings.  Sort of like the officials giving a prize to an athlete whom everyone knew was the best;  he may simply have had an unfortunate circumstance get in way that particular day.

Not so with the Romans.  In book V of the Aeneid, after the tragedy of Dido, we have Aeneas and his crew landing on Acestes’ soil, where they celebrate their new direction with games.  Now that Aeneas has returned to following the will of Fate, Virgil once again drives home the point that he is again a “good commander” (V.34).  He lost those positive adjectives when Aeneas was moving away from his destiny.  It is only when Aeneas is following his destiny that he is called “pious”, or “dutiful” or “good”.  They find themselves carried by “the great gods’ will and contrivance” (V.75) back in the land where Aeneas buried his father Anchises.  And so we see that in both the Iliad and the Aeneid, the games are connected to the death and afterlife.  These games, like the ones staged by Achilles, are also in a way “Funeral Games”.  Perhaps there is some relation between the classical games and the notion of “Sabbath” in its Augustinian sense from the Confessions – eternal rest.  Be that as it may, how does Virgil run the games?  First, we might note that this book provides some relief after the intensity of book IV.  But in the overall scheme of things, what do the games say about Roman character, and empire, and what it takes to rule the world?

The difference between Greek idealism and Roman pragmatism can be seen in the events of the Roman footrace.  Although we know who the “best” runners are, it is the actual outcome, regardless of circumstance and good or ill fortune, which determines the order of prizes.  The footrace is the scene of some rather unwholesome tactics, shall we say.  However, Aeneas tells the competitors:

Your prizes stand as the are, young fellows. There will be
No change by anyone in the winning order. 
Let me console a blameless friend’s bad luck.  (V.445)

Romans must recognize the practical affairs, and that empire will be won and kept not by rearranging things according to an ideal, but by working with and through all those things which are called “fortuna”.  Somehow Fate must find a way to work with fortuna – the ideal must work with the practical.    It is interesting to note some of the ideas which come out in the other contests.  In the boxing match between Entellus and Dares, Aeneas intervenes to stop the match as Dares is being badly beaten his opponent:

Poor fellow, how
Could rashness take you this way?  Don’t you feel
A force now more than mortal is against you
And heaven’s will has changed?  We’ll bow to that! (V. 602)

It is to heaven’s will (Fate) that the Romans will bow.  And it might be inferred, they will bow to no others.  The games end with the boys of the company engaging in a a mock battle formation.  The games serve another purpose:  reminding Romans that their vocation from heaven also includes the call to war.  The empire cannot be established without conquering.

Virgil: the Aeneid pt 8: the passion & suicide of Dido

(photo: Joe Walker, central Turkey, 2008)

Nothing says Dido like a picture of ruins.  The second half of the Aeneid book IV is filled with human emotion in its raw form.  There is immense tragedy, culminating in Aeneas' flight across the sea as he looks back to the sight of Dido's pyre.  She has killed herself.  How did things get this way, and why was this the end which Virgil chose for Dido and Aeneas? 

There are lots of threads here.  Coming straight out of what might seem like left field, let's look at the whole of the Aeneid in terms of another great attempt to articulate human community:  Plato's Republic.  If the Aeneid is a particularly Roman vision of human community (Empire), did Virgil learn any lessons from the Greek vision of human community?  Aeneas is not exactly a philosopher king, but the ordering of the various elements of Plato's Republic might be seen in the Aeneid.  Dido in this sense represents pure passion, even (as we shall see) irrational passion, which if left unchecked is self-destructive.  Hence her necessary end is, for Virgil, suicide.  It is suicide for the irrational passions to roam unrestricted.  Terribly unromantic, but then again, when you think of romance, the image of the stoic Roman generally does not come to mind.  Be that as it may and figure what you will.  On with the story.

It takes the prayers of King Iarbas, a rejected suitor, to move Jupiter into sending Mercury as a messenger to Aeneas.  The divine messenger is faithful to his task:  he reproaches Aeneas for his self-interest.  Even if Aeneas is still consumed with passion, can he not at least think of his son, "Iulus, to whom the Italian realm, the land of Rome, are due?" (374)  We are reminded again of Rome's destiny: to "bring the whole world under law's dominion" (315).  This is the vision of Rome:  not asian despotism, nor a Greek system of city states, but a law extending over the whole world.  This is the high vision of Empire, as it was in the beginning for Virgil.  And law must come before passion.

As soon as he receives the god’s message, Aeneas mind begins to work:  how can he tell queen Dido?  What is the best way to proceed? There must be 50 ways to leave your lover, as Paul Simon once said.  Aeneas decides on one which wasn’t on Paul’s list. He comes up with the plan of action:  “Get the fleet ready for sea, But quietly…” (393)  But a quiet getaway is not in the cards for Aeneas. 

The queen, for her part, felt some plot afoot
Quite soon – for who deceives a woman in love? (403)

Who indeed?   What we might call "a scene" ensues:  “You even hoped to keep me in the darkAs to this outrage, did you, two faced man/  And slip away in silence? Can our love/ Not hold you, can the pledge we gave not hold you? (417).   She even makes reference to “the marriage that we entered on” (432).  Aeneas, for his part, admits all the passion, but denies that there was any “marriage”:   I never held the torches of a bridegroom/ Never entered upon the pact of marriage”.  (467) Aeneas sees that what they had was not, for all its passion, a marriage.  We have two very different views of what has happened.  In a "burst of rage",  Dido even scorns Aeneas' report that a messenger of the gods came to him. (521)

Aeneas seems to wish his own fate were different:  "I sail for Italy not of my own free will” (499).  Duty and pietas above all else.

Aeneas is now called pious, duty bound Aeneas again (545); Virgil had stopped with those adjectives while Aeneas was, ummm, distracted.  He is now once again following the will of Fate.  But let's follow Dido:  she invokes fateful curses against Aeneas (535), to which every Roman schoolboy would agree and think of Hannibal and the bitter history between Carthage and Rome.  Virgil allows us to see her "broken in mind by suffering"  with a "fatal madness and resolved to die" (656).  Even after Aeneas has begun his departure, she still invokes the term "marriage", and even blames her sister Anna for encouraging her in this passion, claiming to Anna that "[you] thrust me on my enemy" (763).  We see the madness enveloping Dido:

Could I not then have torn him limb from limb
And flung the pieces on the sea?  His company
Even Ascanius could I not have minced
And served up to his father at a feast? (833)

Dido's passion is her private Trojan horse.  The earlier chapter on the fall of Troy didn't just tell a great part of the history.  It also gave us an image by which we could understand what is happening to Dido.  Once the horse was inside the city, old Troy was doomed.  And so with Dido's passion - it destroyed her from the inside out.

"Her body's warmth fell into dissolution/  And out into the winds her life withdrew." (977)

Next:  Roman games.  If the Greeks and Romans ran the Beijing Olympics, what would be different?

See the entire post series on Virgil's Aeneid here.

Virgil: the Aeneid pt 7: the passion & death of Dido

Now that Aeneas has wrapped up the story of the fall of Troy and all that befell him since its capture by the Greeks, Virgil brings us back into the present.  Aeneas has been telling the story at the request of Dido, the queen of newly founded Carthage.  And Virgil opens book IV by telling us that the work which Venus asked her divine son (not Aeneas, but Amor) to accomplish is well underway.  Back in book I Venus was worried that Juno had something up her sleeve, and would do all in her power to deter Aeneas from his destiny.  And so Venus sent her other son, Amor (think Cupid and his arrows) to make Dido fall in love with Aeneas:  "You'll breathe invisible fire into her/ And dupe her with your sorcery" (I.939)  And so here at the beginning of book IV we see that Dido is becoming consumed with this - what exactly shall we call it?  I suppose modern readers will say that she (and perhaps even he for a time at least) "fell in love".  Or maybe fell in lust might be closer.  Or infatuation.  Or any combination of the above.  Or perhaps something else beside.  But whatever it was that was driven into her from the god does not seem to be something which leaves one happy, to say the least.  Nor does Virgil introduce her experience in any positive way:

The queen, for her part, all that evening ached
With longing that her heart's blood fed, a wound
Or inward fire eating her away.  (IV.1)

Dido still thinks of the vow she made to the ashes of her deceased husband (IV.33), but even there she recognizes the "signs of the old flame, of old desire".  Her sister Anna advises her that there may be good fortune in joining the two families, and Dido in encouraged in her passion.  And maybe passion, in the ancient sense of the word, is the best that we can do.  Passions are powerful, but irrational things;  they need to be governed by reason, by a higher purpose, or they will run amok and end up consuming and destroying the passionate one, and perhaps others in their wake.  We might tend to make "passion" a rather glamourous thing, and many a Hollywood ending depends upon it.  However, in real life, many a broken relationship also depends upon it.  Passion alone is not "good".  It can certainly be used for good, but if passion alone is allowed to dictate the rules, it will end up simply serving itself, regardless of who gets in its way.

This section of the Aeneid is full of some very complex ideas about human relationship.  Dido seeks out the advice of the gods.  She looks for signs from Ceres, Phoebus Apollo, and "Juno most of all/ Who has the bonds of marriage in her keeping" (IV.82).  Now we are getting to some tricky territory:  what does "passion" have to do with marriage? And how will Venus and Juno be reconciled?  Or will they?  Dido seems to be seeking the will of the gods, but Virgil (go ahead and call him unromantic) tells us:

What good are shrines and vows to maddened lovers?
The inward fire eats the soft marrow away,
And the internal would bleeds on in silence. (IV.91)

Virgil uses some great poetic images to describe what is happening to Dido.  She roams about the city like a doe hit by an arrow (indeed, Cupid’s arrow), and she can think of nothing else but Aeneas, and her passion for him.  Then we see that all her duties as queen are being forgotten:  the care of her own city is falling away as she is consumed by her desire:

Towers, half built, rose
No further, men no longer trained in arms
Or toiled to make harbors and battlements
Impregnable.  Projects were broken off… (121)

You get the picture.  Dido is so concerned with this new passion of hers that she has allowed her governing of the city to be completely forgotten.  All the things which she was overseeing have ground to a halt.  Excess or misdirected, passion has that effect.  Perhaps Virgil wants to say that it is the nature of the thing itself - it is ultimately a self-directed kind of thing.  Duties toward others are neglected. 

Next we have Venus and Juno giving us a bit of back and forth.  Juno is willing to do anything to keep Aeneas from founding Rome, and so Juno contrives a bit of a plan – she will arrange for Dido and Aeneas to find just the right place to, err, “get married” (IV.165).  The witnesses will be the thunder and the rain, all of nature.  For after all, isn’t that what matters?  “There I shall marry them and call her his.  A wedding this will be.” (IV. 176).  And so Juno, the goddess of marriage, arranges things so that the two lovers do indeed find themselves together

...to the selfsame cave
Came Dido and the captain of the Trojans.
Primal earth herself and Nuptial Juno
Opened the ritual, torches of lightening blazed,
High heaven became witness to the marriage,
And nymphs cried out wild hymns from a mountain top.
That day was the first cause of death, and first
Of sorrow.  Dido had no further qualms
As to impressions given and set abroad;
She thought no longer of a secret love
But called it marriage.  Thus, under that name
She hid her fault.  (IV.227)

Well, Virgil asks us by those last few lines, is this really a marriage?  Does Juno, the goddess of marriage, stay true to the institution of which she is patroness?  Can it be a marriage if it is only sanctified and witnessed by the forces of nature?  Dido called it marriage, and even Juno called it a marriage, but, Virgil tells us, it was not a real marriage, whatever they may have called it.  It was mere "passion", it had negative consequences for the city of Carthage, the wider community.  And Virgil tells us what the real state of affairs was: 

Then how they reveled all the winter long
Unmindful of the realm, prisoners of lust. (IV. 264)

Instead of being free, they are prisoners.
Next:  things go sour...

Virgil's Aeneid entire post series here.

Virgil: the Aeneid, pt 6: you need the gods to rule an empire

Picking up in the middle of bk III, I want to draw your attention to a theme which runs through this section of the Aeneid.  It seems that the prophets of Apollo and references to Juno keep popping up;  Aeneas seeks prophecies to guide his journey.  There is a sense in Virgil that one cannot rightly found a new empire without heeding divine advice.  And so we have in book III a number of instances where Aeneas seeks to have some sort of sign from the gods in order to guide him.  The seers of Apollo figure large in this book.  Without their guidance, Aeneas would not know his true destination.  We have already seen that sometimes the god’s prophets can be cryptic, or misinterpreted.  Remember that Anchises mistakenly interprets one oracle to mean that they should build their new city in Crete.  And so there is a second problem:  how do humans know what the gods mean in their prophecies? 

As Aeneas sets sail, they come upon what they think is a rather bountiful discovery.  They easily slaughter herds on the islands of Strophades, and this Macfeast – this quick and easy plenty – is short lived.  For the island is the home of the Harpies, and the Harpies drive the Trojans from their spoil.  Celaeno acts as herald for the Harpies, and both rebukes Aeneas and gives a further prophecy from the gods:

You’d arm for war to drive innocent Harpies from their country?
Then put your mind on what I prophesy: a thing
Foretold to Phoebus by the almighty father
And by Apollo then to me; now, I
First of the Furies, will disclose it to you.
Italy is the land you look for
(III.339)

The will of the gods is now clearer.  In a “hierarchy of mediation”, the divine will of the gods is communicated to humanity.  First, the “almighty father” gives revelation to a lesser god (Phoebus=Apollo), who then tells Celaeno, and she in turn tells Aeneas.  Virgil is telling us how he thinks humanity comes to know what the gods require of us.  These things are not known directly, but indirectly, by a series, as it were, of messengers, in a sort of descending hierarchy.  There is no direct and clear message at this point from the “almighty father” to Aeneas.  Instead, the will of the almighty is communicated through this series of lesser beings.  Aeneas and his crew rejoice that the direction is finally clear, and they celebrate with some games as they set out (III.374)

So Aeneas has the big picture of his journey, but not the details.  He knows where he is to go, but is not yet sure how he is to get there.  Theory and practice, or the ideal and the practical working out of that ideal:  this is what Roman virtue will consist of.  There are still some lessons which Aeneas must learn before he accomplishes his divine task.  Part of those lessons come toward the end of this book.  There are two things in particular which are mentioned.  First, Aeneas visits the “new Troy” of Helenus (III.396), and then there is the death of his father Anchises.

What are these two things about?  They are about continuity and breaking with the past: what does one have to “leave behind”?  The new Troy which Aeneas visits is a rebuilt imitation of the old one.  He meets Helenus and Andromache, and in the course of his conversation we learn that he sees “a brook, thin replica of Simois”, tomb in imitation of Hector’s, a citadel named Pergamum (like that of old Troy).  All in all, Aeneas tells us that he saw before him “Troy in miniature” (III.477). 

The city of Helenus is merely an exact imitation of what had already fallen.  It is a lesson which Virgil wishes us to learn.  You cannot simply replicate what the gods have already destroyed, hoping that this time it will stand.  Old Troy was doomed; it will not do to simply build it again.  It must be changed; and Aeneas and his followers must let go of old Troy.

While he is there, Aeneas receives some further prophecy about the specifics of his journey:  how to navigate the waters, what dangers to avoid, by which routes to sail.  But he does not receive every detail.  In a marvelous prophecy from Helenus, Aeneas hears about the relationship between Fate and Fortune, about the overarching will of “Lord God” and the goddess Juno.  If Jupiter represents the big picture, Juno represents the details.  You need both in order to have an eternal city.  Greek idealism, without the practical ability to live it in the world of “fortune” – the everyday world of chance and accidents and earthly sorts of things – will not do.  And so Aeneas must learn not only the great will of Fate, but from Juno he must learn how to overcome everyday obstacles and make it practical.  That is what Aeneas must learn is the “power of that lady”.

Born of the goddess, highest auspices
Are clearly seen for your sea faring
The Lord God deals out destiny so
And turns the wheel of change, so turns the world…
Other details of time to come the Parcae
Keep from Helenus, and Saturn’s daughter
Juno, will not allow him speech of these.
(III.510)

If you can trust a seer, and if Apollo
Fills his mind with truth, I have one thing
To tell you, over and over again, one thing
To warn you of, son of the goddess:  make
Your prayer first of all to Juno’s godhead,
Chant with a will your vows to her; secure
With humble gifts the power of that lady.
(III.582)

Aeneas learns that he will also have to hear from the Sibylline oracle, who, if he can manage, will give him much more specific details of the journey, “the wars to come, the way you should avoid each difficulty, or face it” (III.611)  Eventually, the gods will reveal not only the large plan of destiny, but the details of fortune.

They sail to Sicily, narrowly avoiding the dangerous straights of Scylla and Charybdis, toward the Mount Etna and the Cyclops’ home.  Here they meet Achaemenides, who was cast off by Ulysses (Odysseus).  He begs Aeneas to have pity and take him along (contrast this with Sinon’s reception at Troy), and Aeneas is content to get away from the Cyclops as quickly as possible.  The book closes with the death of Anchises, father of Aeneas.  The break with old Troy is complete.

View entire series on the Aeneid here.

Virgil's Aeneid, pt 5: voyage by sea (1)

Nothing stirs the heart quite like a voyage at sea.  From the wanderings of Odysseus to the Grey Havens of Tolkien, the sea has been an image of threshold.  One crosses the sea as one crosses a threshold – and it is by the sea that Aeneas and his company must come to Italy.  There are many wonderful images in book III.  Aeneas continues his tale of Troy’s fall with an account of what happened after the city was destroyed.  He and his companions, encouraged by “auguries of heaven” (III.5) turned their minds to “exile in the far quarters of the world.”  And so they built a fleet.

It is marvelous to see the Trojans escaping by sea.  The sea brought a fleet of Argives to their shores, and now the Trojans themselves must sail over it in order to found their new city.  First they make for Thrace, in hope that they might begin anew.  It was an obvious first choice:  “Guesthood and common household gods had bound this realm to Troy while fortune held.” (III.21)  While making an offering, Aeneas discovers something rather startling and gruesome:  a bleeding tree.  It seems that Lycurgus (king of Thrace) had been entrusted with gold from Priam.  The greed of Lycurgus was great, and he murdered Priam’s emissary Polydorus, claimed the gold for himself, and turned traitor by siding with the Greeks.  Polydorus was murdered by the spears of the Thracians, and each spear which pierced him took root (III.64).  The spirit of Polydorus haunts the tree which grew on the spot:  whenever a branch was broken, blood would run from the ‘wound’.  It is an image which Dante used in his Inferno for the punishment of the suicides (I’ve posted on it in my Dante series – I’ll put in the link later).  All in all, Thrace is a less than suitable place for the Trojans to resettle:  greed, murder, treachery and the whims of Fortune are not the principles upon which a lasting empire can be founded.  Aeneas and his companions piously give Polydorus proper funeral rites, and then sail on.

They come to the temple of Apollo, where Aeneas makes his prayer to the god, hoping for some divine guidance;

O God of Thymbra, grant a home
And walls to weary men, grant us posterity
And an abiding city; guard our second
Tower of Troy, this remnant left alive…
Father, grant us a sign, enter our hearts!
(III.117)

Apollo’s oracle gives them an answer, telling them to set sail for the “land that bore you…look for your mother of old”.  For it is there that “Aeneas’ house/ In her will rule the world’s shores down the years/ Through generations of his children’s children” (III.130).  Anchises gives an interpretation of the prophecy from the god:  they chould set sail for Crete, where indeed the Trojans have some ancient lineage.  But at Crete they are besieged by a plague from Apollo, and Aeneas himself is given further direction in a dream:  the very hearth gods brought from Troy seemed to speak to him out the fire (III.205) and now he is told clearly that it is to Italy that he must sail.

Aeneas’ vision of his destiny is becoming clearer.  He is becoming fit to be the leader of the new city, which is not merely a new Troy.  Here he has a greater grasp and understanding of the divine signs and messages.  I wonder if at this point, the gods begin to speak more plainly to Aeneas.  Anchises recognizes the truth of his son’s vision, and even comes to understand the truth of Cassandra’s prophecies (III.260).  Remember that it was Cassandra’s fate that no one should believe her prophecies.  Now the Trojans are more fully understanding the actions and meanings of her words. If you are going to found an eternal city - an abiding city -, you have to understand the gods.

They joyfully set sail for Italy, but it is part of the fate of Rome that one cannot entire paradise directly:  they are blown off course, and land on the island of the Harpies.  College football updates are on, so I'll pick this up later.

View entire series on the Aeneid here.

Virgil's Aeneid, pt 4: why did Troy fall?

In the second book of Virgil’s Aeneid, Aeneas tells Dido and her court the story of the last days of Troy.  It is a fascinating retelling of the end of a great city, a great kingdom, from the viewpoint of one of the vanquished.  Only it may strike modern readers as odd that Aeneas does not play the “victim card” too strongly.  Yes, the Greeks were to blame, and the Trojans were to blame.  Yet in the end, it was the gods who brought down Troy.  The Aeneid weaves this theme together with the birth of a new city:  the same gods who fated Priam’s city for destruction also fated the rise of Rome.

So whom shall we blame for the fall of Troy?  Aeneas tells us that he has no doubt that the Greeks could never have taken Troy by mere military might, and so they turned to cunning:

Knowing their strength broken in warfare, turned
Back by the fates, and years – so many years –
Already slipped away, the Danaan captains
By the divine handicraft of Pallas built
A horse of timber, tall as a hill…
(II.18)

The Greeks left the horse, and sailed their fleet around the island of Tenedos.  The Trojans were not entirely of one mind as to what to do.  Thymoetes shouts that they should bring it into the city;  Capys warns his fellow Trojans against such an action:

Into the sea with it…or burn it
Build up a bonfire under it,
This trick of the Greeks, a gift no one can trust.
(II.50)

The same sentiment is echoed by Laocoon:  “A gift from Danaans, and no ruse? / Is that Ulysses’ way, as you have known him?… Whatever it is, even when Greeks bring gifts/ I fear them, gifts and all!” (II.62,69)  Here at least some of the Trojans are hitting close to the truth.  The Iliad was full of wily Odysseus, crafty Odysseus, cunning Odysseus, and at least some of the Trojans know his character well.  The Greeks could not defeat the Trojans by outright military power, and so they will have to defeat them by another method.  Aeneas highlights what he calls the deception of the Greeks:  an Argive solider had allowed himself to be captured, and he leads on the Trojans with an act and a tale, enticing them to bring the horse inside the citadel.  The disdain for the Greeks is evident:

Be instructed now
In Greek deceptive arts;  one barefaced deed
Can tell you of them all. (II.91)

Aeneas then tells how the Trojans were taken in by Sinon.  He gave such a convincing ‘performance’ that the Trojans were convinced.  Sinon swore that he was telling “the whole truth” (II.106) and the ‘honest’ (or naïve) Trojans were unable to see through the act.  Here Aeneas is contrasting the virtue of the honest Trojans with the deceptive Greeks.  The Trojans, indeed, were so honest (or naïve) a people as to be “unable to conceive such a performance/ the art of the Pelasgian” (II.144)  Twice more Sinon swears oaths by the gods that his tale is true (see II.191, 209). And so they took the horse into the city. 

This fraud of Sinon, his accomplished lying
Won us over, a tall tale and fake tears
Had captured us, whom neither Diomedes
Nor Larisaean Achilles overpowered,
Nor ten long years, nor all their thousand ships.
(II.268)

Once the thing is within the city, and the Greeks begin their attack, Aeneas begins to tell us that there were other, “higher” causes of the city’s fall.  We move from the “human agents” to the “divine agents”.  The pious Trojans call for “votive prayer to the goddess” (II.311);  we are reminded of the prophecies of Cassandra (whose destiny is that Trojans will never believe what she predicts).  Hector himself even visits Aeneas (as in a dream) from beyond the grave (II.387), and warns him to flee the city, and take with him the holy things of Troy.  Aeneas himself tells us that he gathered up “our conquered gods” (II.429), and, impelled “by the powers of heaven” (450) he ran out into the burning city.

The gods of Troy have been defeated: “The gods by whom this kingdom stood are gone” (II.468)  In one particular scene, Aeneas is even given the gift of being able to see the divinities at work, overthrowing the walls of Troy (II.795).  It is by the will of heaven, of Jupiter (Zeus), and of Fate, that Troy and what it stands for should fall to the Greeks. 

What does it mean that “the gods by whom this kingdom stood are gone”?  It means that the founding principles of the society have either been abandoned, or have proven inadequate to sustain that society.  It is the idea of Troy which has proven insufficient – the principles by which Troy existed as a human society.  The ideals of the Greeks proved stronger – cunning and intellect overcame the Asiatic kingdom.  This is the lesson which the new city – Rome – must learn.  For Rome cannot simply be a new Troy, it must be something greater than either the Greeks or the Trojans.  Its “gods”, its founding ideals and the ideals by which it governs, must be greater than that of the cities which went before.  And it must be greater than merely the Asiatic tribalism of Troy and the civic organization of the Greeks.  One must move beyond mere tribe and city in order to be an empire.  And one must learn from one’s mistakes:  Troy offended Juno (Hera) and so Rome must somehow seek to incorporate or appease her - and all she represents.

 

City wall and entrance to one of the ancient cities of Troy (there are many archaeological layers at the site).  The actual gate was just around the curve - a strategic defense against battering rams.

View entire series on the Aeneid here.

Virgil's Aeneid, pt 3

...at once the Phoenicians put aside belligerence
As the god willed.  Especially the queen
Took on a peaceful mood, an open mind
Toward the Teucrians
(I.407)

Aeneas and his band of defeated Trojans have not washed up on just any shore, but on the coast of North Africa, in a place inhabited by a group of Phoenicians under the leadership of their queen, Dido.  Welcome to Carthage, a name familiar to anyone who has had a smattering of Roman history.  It is no mere accident which brought Aeneas here.  For in many ways, the founding principles of Carthage and of Rome will be competing for supremacy.

Aeneas’ divine mother (Venus) meets him.  She is disguised as a huntress (why must the gods always hide themselves so?).  Aeneas himself laments this distance between the god and man, even when the divinity is his own mother:

You!  Cruel, too!
Why tease your son so often with disguise?
Why may we not join hands and speak and hear
The simple truth?
(I.558)

Venus covers Aeneas and his companion with a mist, so that they might enter into the local city of the Phoenicians undetected, and so they will be reassured as they observe the treatment their fellow companions are receiving.

A brief word might be in order here on the “titles” given to Aeneas.  Even a not so careful reading of Virgil will reveal that he is always giving Aeneas some sort of adjective as title:  pious Aeneas, dutiful Aeneas, and so forth.  These adjectives are clues not only to the character of Aeneas (and hence of the ideal Roman), but they are often carefully placed indicators of the kinds of “temptations” which threaten to deter Aeneas at any given moment.   Keep an eye on the way Aeneas is described, and how he describes himself.

View entire series on the Aeneid here.

Virgil's Aeneid, pt 2

Virgil Aeneid

Book I:

Here Virgil introduces us to the themes, the characters and the main tensions which we will see unfold in the story.  Arma virumque cano – I sing of war and a man of war.  If you haven’t seen much of Aeneas since the movie Troy, he’s come a long way.  Virgil’s poem tells of the struggle of Aeneas and his fellow Trojan refugees to come to Italy “by destiny” (I.3)  But the goddess Juno (Hera for the Greeks) is still in pursuit:  she hates Aeneas and the Trojans.  She is willing to defy even the Fates in order to frustrate the destiny of Aeneas. 

“Give up what I began?
Am I defeated? Am I impotent
To keep the king of Teucrians from Italy?
The Fates forbid me, am I to suppose?”  (I.56)

What reasons does Juno have for being so opposed to the ex-Trojans founding a new city?  Virgil tells us (I.40ff) that she is still offended by the judgment of Paris, that she still opposed the Trojans descent, and she is still offended that the gods snatched up Ganymede (a Trojan boy) into Olympus.  Part of understanding her opposition to Aeneas is understanding what Juno represents.  The gods generally have some particular virtue associated with them.  Juno is the goddess of marriage, and so her offense at Paris is reasonable.  Recall that Paris, in judging the best of three goddesses, decided upon Venus, who was to arrange for him to have Helen.  And so Paris’ choice was not merely an ancient beauty pageant among goddesses, but a decision as to which goddess was to be preferred overall.  Paris choose adultery  with Helen over the virtue which Juno represents:  the bonds of marriage.  We will say a bit more about Juno’s other reasons for opposing Aeneas as the book goes on;  we will discover that Juno has her own favourite city (Carthage).

So how is Juno going to thwart destiny?  Can she really oppose the Fates and succeed?  Well, she is going to give it her best shot.  She calls on the winds to blow Aeneas’ fleet off course.  She has power to throw certain kinds of obstacles in the way of Aeneas and his destiny.  And it is precisely these kinds of obstacles which Aeneas (and the Roman genius at large) must learn to overcome if they are to be a true empire, a truly eternal city.  In the midst of the storm, Neptune becomes aware of some disturbance on the seas and comes to quiet it.  There is a marvelous description given of the process:

When rioting breaks out in a great city,
And the rampaging rabble goes so far
That stones fly, and incendiary brands-
For anger can supply that kind of weapon-
If it so happens they look round and see
Some dedicated public man, a veteran
Whose record gives him weight, they quiet down,
Willing to stop and listen.
Then he prevails in speech over their fury
By his authority, and placates them. (I.201ff)

Virgil gives us a wonderful image:  a “public man”, able to calm even a riotous crowd by his authority and speech.  We will see this same sort of image come up again in Bk VII.  But for now Virgil is content to give us an image of divine authority ruling over an irrational crowd.  Always these “irrational” things seem to happen to Aeneas, these incidents which threaten to move him away from Roman destiny.  Yet here we see the beginning of the Roman ideal:  political rule over the passions which can cause society to disintegrate into mere “mob”.

In the midst of the ruin of his fleet and their grounding off course, Aeneas encourages his men and reminds them that “God will grant an end to these” (I.273) and that they will have to trust their fate as they encounter “diversities of luck, and …so many challenges” (I.279).  Aeneas himself realizes that they have a fate, a destiny, but there is a force which is opposed them: Fortuna.  What exactly is “fortune”, and how can fortune oppose fate?  Hmmm…well…  Fate is the big thing; fortune is all the little things along the way.  Eventually the two must somehow be reconciled, yet at the outset they are opposed.  Like Juno and Jupiter.  Juno has so far wrecked Aeneas’ plans.  Now we see Jupiter come on the scene and reassures Venus:

No need to be afraid…Your children’s destiny has not been changed…
For these I set no limits, world or time,
But make the gift of empire without end.
Juno, indeed, whose bitterness now fills
With fear and torment sea and earth and sky,
Will mend her ways, and favor them as I do. (I.347…374)

That's a rather lofty claim:  limitless empire.  Why does Virgil think that this is possible?  Can there be a permanent political ideal which will allow a society to continue?  Remember that part of ancient thinking (very much opposed to modern at this point) was the notion of a "golden age", in comparison to which every subsequent age is a degradation.  We tend to think the opposite (or at least we did until post modernism) - that there is a feeling of evolution of society and humanity toward an ever greater good.  So I think in one sense this notion of Virgil's is rather new:  there is the possibility of a perpetual golden age, a kind of stability to life and society which had not been seen before:  the joining of Olympus and earth,  "Wars at an end, harsh centuries then will soften" (I.391)

Well, a high and noble calling.  But we have a new player introduced:   Queen Dido.

View entire series on the Aeneid here.

The Aeneid of Virgil part 1: can you read an ancient text?

I was leafing through some of my favorite passages of Virgil's Aeneid and thought I would begin in a rather roundabout way.  Can a contemporary person read an ancient text?  I mean, of course, read it in the sense that one can still find its basic message and meaning?  Stripped of such notions as "author's intent", with a limited knowledge of the ancient world (let alone the transition from Republic to Empire), and in a language other than the original?

I believe I have discovered at least part of why a series on the Aeneid intrigues me.  Such an exercise is, to my mind, related to another exercise which I deem profitable:  the reading of the Bible.  You see, I tend to believe that one can read the Aeneid with much profit if guided by the insights and learning of others, but one can also read the Aeneid and get the basic sense of the poet's text and message.  There may be a number of reasons for this.  You might say that because many of us are heirs to the Western tradition, the ideas found in Virgil's work are in some sense familiar.  He writes about humanity, about destiny, about fate, about the gods and the hand of the divine in human affairs.  He writes about warfare, about anger, about lust and also about love (and he doesn't confuse the two).  He writes about things which are, well, universal to being human.  Yes, a few notes about this particular goddess or that particular geography are helpful, but in the end all one needs to be is human in order to read the Aeneid. 

Now I don't intend to add any biblical commentary or insight into my postings on the Aeneid, except at this beginning point.  I believe that we may have come to a point where we can no longer read a text (or a Text) with confidence, unless we are guided by an expertise beyond our own.  And at the same time, we might become bogged down under the weight of an "expertise" which removes from us the mere confidence that we can read and grasp the basic message of a text simply because we are human. 

A few minor things:  there are particular passages which may, in any edition of the Aeneid, thought to be in the wrong place, or at least in a contested place.  A critical edition will have plenty of room for footnotes. The overall story is really unaffected by such things, however much fuss one might make.  The large themes are still clear;  the main characters are still who they are;  the actions of gods and men are largely unaffected.  I am not going to get too worked up over it.  Might the same principle apply elsewhere?

Then there is the question of the main themes of the story.  It will probably become clear as you read the text what the author wanted us to hear.  If we think we need to have a clear picture of Virgil's "authorial intent" before we begin the story, then I think we underestimate the genius of the poet.  Enduring texts don't entirely work that way:  when the text elicits in us a certain response - when we "get it" - then the author's intention becomes much clearer.

Virgil's themes are grander than the mere politics of Augustus, although the politics of Augustus are not indifferent to the time and place of the Aeneid.  So it is, in a sense, with Scripture.  The intentions of the individual authors are born out of particular times and places and concerns, but the grand themes are universal.  Sometimes the intention of authors transcends the limited range of their own particular community in geography and history.  Their intentions are larger than we think.

Well, with all of that behind us, off we go.  I will be using Robert Fitzgerald's verse translation.

View entire post series on the Aeneid here.