Virgil's Aeneid: new post series

Now that one election is over, and another one is going to soon take place, I thought this an appropriate time to have a casual stroll through the Aeneid of Virgil.  The idea of doing a series on the Aeneid struck me as an eventual possibility after last Lent's series on Dante's journey through the Inferno.  Dante found himself guided through the circles of hell by the wise Poet, who represented the best in humanism, in reason, and philosophy (Dante giving Aristotle the title of "king of men who know" notwithstanding).  It was at that point I thought that I would sometime turn the blog toward Virgil and the ancient tradition of humanism.  It might help explain why Virgil could not accompany Dante into the Paradiso, much as we might like to have such company in heaven.

Plus, I thought that Virgil's opening line is perfect for election season.  What makes for a leader of an empire?  What, indeed, makes an empire? Virgil wrote in the time of Augustus, and he died shortly before the birth of Christ.  Many have looked to Virgil's imagery of the founding of a divine empire as the model of political evolution:  Rome would rule the world by law, and bring even the barbarians under the sway of the rational principle.  Others have disagreed.  St Augustine, writing in the City of God, reduces Aeneas to little more than a pirate, cruising the seas in search of power - libido dominandi - lust for power and domination.  In any event, the first line of the poem introduces the themes:  the man Aeneas (refugee from fallen Troy) and the arms which will bring glory to Rome and stability to the world:

Arma virumque cano
Of arms and a man I sing

I haven't decided which translation to use for the blog series, but I'm sure I'll let you all know.

Roman ruins, theatre, Hieropolis

photo: felix hominum

View entire series on the Aeneid here.

Comments

[Grammaticastrix]

"Arma virumque cano," I think, Joe. Masculine singular accusative case. In English we sing OF arms, men, etc., in Latin we just "sing arms and the man"

Troiae qui primum ab oris,
littora multa ille et terris iactatis ... etc.
vi superum saevae, memorem Iunonis ob iram ... and so forth.
It's been a VERY long time.

[joseph]

I thought I had caught & fixed that in my draft of this post, but apparently my accidie got the better of me. It has been a long time - I had a little note on one critical edition which read JW/ King's College/ 1984.

Perhaps it's time to pick up Cicero's De senectute.