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The Aeneid

Virgil, 19 BCE

Held by Standard Ebooks, PG 228read here

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Virgil's Latin epic follows Aeneas, a Trojan prince who escapes the burning city with his father and son and sails toward Italy, driven on by fate and hounded by the goddess Juno. In Carthage he loves the queen Dido, then leaves her at the gods' command. After visiting the underworld he reaches Latium, where the first six books of wandering give way to six of war against the Latins and Turnus. The poem ends with Aeneas killing Turnus, and it ties Rome's origins to Troy.

Where it happens

  1. Troy Aeneas flees the fallen city with his father Anchises and his son Ascanius.13
  2. Carthage Juno's favourite city, where Aeneas meets and falls in love with Queen Dido.13
  3. Lavinium City founded by Aeneas in Italy, and the site of early worship of him.1
  4. Actium Octavian's naval victory of 31 BC, which the shield of Aeneas depicts.1
  5. Rome The city Aeneas's descendants will found, and the audience for whom Virgil wrote.1

Through time

  1. 280 BCWar against Pyrrhus of Epirus, after which Romans most likely took up Greek myth and Troy as part of their own origin story.1
  2. 31 BCBattle of Actium, which later appears on Aeneas's shield in the poem.1
  3. 29 BCVirgil begins writing the Aeneid, a work that occupies him until 19 BC.1
  4. 19 BCVirgil dies with the poem unfinished.12
  5. 1374Chaucer, in The House of Fame, gives Virgil a uniquely prominent place in history.2

Who is in it, and behind it

Virgil author

Roman poet of the Augustan period who wrote the Eclogues, the Georgics and the Aeneid.2

Aeneas character

Trojan who flees the fall of Troy and travels to Italy, where he becomes the ancestor of the Romans.1

Juno character

Goddess whose resentment of the Trojans, and love of Carthage, drives the opening storm and the principal conflict.13

Dido character

Queen of Carthage, who falls in love with Aeneas when he reaches her city.3

Anchises character

Aeneas's father, whom he carries out of the ruins of Troy.3

Turnus character

Latin warrior in love with Lavinia who leads the war against the Trojans and is killed by Aeneas.1

Augustus subject

The first emperor, whose rule and ancestry the poem legitimises and to whom Virgil is said to have recited Books 2, 4 and 6.1

John Dryden translator

Translator of the English verse version this site carries.3

What it is about

Founding myth of Rome

The poem ties Rome to the legends of Troy, explains the Punic Wars and presents the Julio-Claudian line as descended from heroes and gods.1

Pietas as the hero's virtue

Aeneas is defined by scrupulous duty to gods, family and country rather than by personal gain.1

Odyssey then Iliad

Books 1 to 6 echo Homer's wandering and Books 7 to 12 echo his warfare, so Virgil rivals both epics in one poem.1

Celebration or doubt?

Critics split on whether the poem praises the Augustan regime or quietly undermines it, especially in Aeneas's merciless killing of Turnus.1

In its own words

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate, And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate, Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore
Book I. The opening lines state the theme and name Juno's hatred as the cause of everything that follows. Read on
Proceeding on, another Troy I see, Or, in less compass, Troy’s epitome.
Book III. In Book III the exiles find a small copy of Troy, a picture of how the poem keeps looking back at what was lost. Read on
The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labour lies
Book VI. The Sibyl's warning on entering the underworld, one of the poem's best-known lines. Read on
Let others better mould the running mass Of metals, and inform the breathing brass, And soften into flesh a marble face; Plead better at the bar; describe the skies, And when the stars descend, and when they rise
Book VI. Anchises tells Aeneas what Rome's art will be: not bronze and marble but rule, peace and mercy. Read on
Actium surveys the well-disputed prize; Leucate’s wat’ry plain with foamy billows fries
Book VIII. The shield of Aeneas shows Augustus's victory, the poem's clearest link to its own present. Read on
Fortune befriends the bold.” Nor more he said, But balanc’d whom to leave, and whom to lead; Then these elects, the landing to prevent; And those he leaves, to keep the city pent
Book X. A line from the fighting in Italy, in the second half where the poem turns to war. Read on
Traitor, dost thou, dost thou to grace pretend, Clad, as thou art, in trophies of my friend
Book XII. Aeneas's final outburst before killing Turnus, where the poem ends abruptly on the blow. Read on

The shape of the book

12 chapters, 107,465 words. Point at a bar.

How it came to be here

Virgil wrote the poem between 29 and 19 BC, in the years after the civil wars and the battle of Actium, when Augustus was restoring order and traditional Roman values. The poem gave Augustus's family a mythic ancestor in Aeneas's son Iulus, and it was still unfinished when Virgil died. It became a standard school text and shaped later poets, Dante most of all, who made Virgil his guide through Hell and Purgatory. This site carries John Dryden's English verse translation from the Standard Ebooks edition.

Free to read elsewhere

Sources

  1. Aeneid (Wikipedia)
  2. Virgil (Wikipedia)
  3. The Aeneid, translated by John Dryden (Standard Ebooks)

Text: PG 228 | translator: John Dryden. CC0 (Standard Ebooks).

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