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Pietas
Jun 2011
The Aeneid - Virgil, tr. C Day Lewis - Oxford World Classics,
* * * *
I was inspired to read this by Ursual Le Guin's Lavinia and I can now see why she thought it was worth writing a story set in that highly patriarchal world. For despite the gruesome depictions of war and the divine and human politics, Virgil clearly was aware that some of his readers would be women and ensures that there are several strong female characters. It is telling that the divine movers and shakers of the story are both women - the vengeful Juno and Aeneas' mother Venus. Amongst the mortals, the most famous female character is Dido, who, despite going into a hysterical frenzy when Aeneas announces his intention to depart, is generally sympathetically treated as a tragic heroine whose love is thwarted by the machinations of the gods. There are other significant characters, such as the Sybil, who guides Aeneas through the underworld in Book VI. Virgil clearly likes his warrior maidens, and makes Camilla's exploits in Book XI an emotional high. The nymph Juturna is a major player in the final pages. Despite all these female elements, however, the story is very much a man’s tale.
The main plot is perhaps the earliest example of a mash-up, combining as it does the wonderings of the Odyssey (Dido's Carthage being a stopover) with the all-out war of the Iliad. Several episodes are direct lifts of famous scenes from Homer’s epics, though Virgil adds a few telling details to illustrate his theme of pietas. The battle scenes are in general the least interesting - I can see that Virgil was trying to humanise the main characters' numerous opponents by naming them, but since at best they each have a single epithet and a different manner of death, the result is a laundry list of slaughter that holds up the action (and which Le Guin parodies rather effectively in Lavinia).
The theme - Aeneas is heavily into pietas, the sense of family and social honour that was strongly emotional for the Romans. This makes him rather uninterestingly virtuous for modern readers. But Virgil's eye for human detail undercuts this to a certain extent, both in his less-than-heroic treatment of Dido and in the controversial death of Turnus, which some scholars have criticised as undermining the whole theme of honour. This argument seems odd to me, because Turnus comes across as a definite villain with his aggressive refusal to make peace with the Trojans, his contempt for the ancient and noble Etruscans and the arrogant assumption of his right to Lavinia's hand. Basically, he has to die.
Classical texts are not always an easy read, but the human details make this one surprisingly fun for an epic, in the same way as they do in the Mahabharata. It is greatly helped by Cecil Day Lewis’ excellent translation, which has a supple poetic flow. The notes in this edition are also useful, though having them as footnotes rather than an appendix would have saved a lot of page-flipping.
For fellow cartophiles, a useful map of Aeneas’ journey can be found here.
The Aeneid - Virgil, tr. C Day Lewis - Oxford World Classics,
* * * *
I was inspired to read this by Ursual Le Guin's Lavinia and I can now see why she thought it was worth writing a story set in that highly patriarchal world. For despite the gruesome depictions of war and the divine and human politics, Virgil clearly was aware that some of his readers would be women and ensures that there are several strong female characters. It is telling that the divine movers and shakers of the story are both women - the vengeful Juno and Aeneas' mother Venus. Amongst the mortals, the most famous female character is Dido, who, despite going into a hysterical frenzy when Aeneas announces his intention to depart, is generally sympathetically treated as a tragic heroine whose love is thwarted by the machinations of the gods. There are other significant characters, such as the Sybil, who guides Aeneas through the underworld in Book VI. Virgil clearly likes his warrior maidens, and makes Camilla's exploits in Book XI an emotional high. The nymph Juturna is a major player in the final pages. Despite all these female elements, however, the story is very much a man’s tale.
The main plot is perhaps the earliest example of a mash-up, combining as it does the wonderings of the Odyssey (Dido's Carthage being a stopover) with the all-out war of the Iliad. Several episodes are direct lifts of famous scenes from Homer’s epics, though Virgil adds a few telling details to illustrate his theme of pietas. The battle scenes are in general the least interesting - I can see that Virgil was trying to humanise the main characters' numerous opponents by naming them, but since at best they each have a single epithet and a different manner of death, the result is a laundry list of slaughter that holds up the action (and which Le Guin parodies rather effectively in Lavinia).
The theme - Aeneas is heavily into pietas, the sense of family and social honour that was strongly emotional for the Romans. This makes him rather uninterestingly virtuous for modern readers. But Virgil's eye for human detail undercuts this to a certain extent, both in his less-than-heroic treatment of Dido and in the controversial death of Turnus, which some scholars have criticised as undermining the whole theme of honour. This argument seems odd to me, because Turnus comes across as a definite villain with his aggressive refusal to make peace with the Trojans, his contempt for the ancient and noble Etruscans and the arrogant assumption of his right to Lavinia's hand. Basically, he has to die.
Classical texts are not always an easy read, but the human details make this one surprisingly fun for an epic, in the same way as they do in the Mahabharata. It is greatly helped by Cecil Day Lewis’ excellent translation, which has a supple poetic flow. The notes in this edition are also useful, though having them as footnotes rather than an appendix would have saved a lot of page-flipping.
For fellow cartophiles, a useful map of Aeneas’ journey can be found here.
