Vergil's Aeneid

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Bart
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Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Bart »

I'm almost through Pro Archia (no doubt Cicero's most enjoyable speech so far) and then, at long last, I can start reading the Aeneid. Its first six books constitute the final part of Henle. Afterwards, I'll just read on I guess. We'll see.

The first question, as always, is about what materials/ commentaries to use. I have Page's Victorian commentary and Henle of course, so I think I have enough help with difficult grammar and unusual vocabulary etcetera. I'm actually looking for a more literary approach, something like Griffin's Homer on Life and Death, maybe even a discussion of Latin poetry in general (to have some background), or something covering the reception of the Aeneid through the centuries. Any suggestions?

Looking forward to this.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Nesrad »

Take a look at Clyde Pharr's Aeneid. I don't think it's quite what you're looking for, but it's definitely worth a look for anyone approaching V. for the first time.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Nesrad »

BTW, how did you like Henle? Why did you choose this method in particular? How long did it take to get through and at what pace?

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by seneca2008 »

I am sure that people will have their favourite's but Austen's single volume commentaries are standard works. The Focus Vergil Aeneid Commentaries (Randall Ganiban et al) are less advanced and aimed at intermediate readers. The Cambridge Companion to Virgil is well worth reading for an overview of relatively recent scholarship although it was published in 1997. A Companion to Virgil's Aeneid and Its Tradition in the Blackwell companion series is more recent and although I have it I havent read it. The Epic Successors of Virgil: A Study in the Dynamics of a Tradition is a very important book by Hardie which although ostensibly concentrating on later epic has a great deal to say about Virgil. There are many excellent monographs in the Cambridge "Roman literature and its contexts" series.

The literature is immense as you can imagine.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Scribo »

Textkit Aeneid read through orgy? I've already doffed my pants. Commentary wise you have, basically:

Bulk:

Conington, J. & H. Nettleship (1884), Virgil: the works, with a commentary, Vol. 2, 4th ed.// (1883), Virgil: the works…, Vol. 3, 3th ed. (London)
Williams, R. D. (1972), Aeneid 1-6 // (1973), Aeneid 7-12 (London)
(Pharr's 6 booker is extremely basic)

Single:

Austin, R. G. (1984), Aeneidos Liber Primus (Oxford)
Austin, R. G. (1964), Aeneidos Liber Secundus (Oxford)
Horsfall, N. (2006), Virgil. Aeneid 3, a commentary (Leiden)
Williams, R. D. (1962), P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Tertius (Oxford)
Austin, R. G. (1982), Aeneidos Liber Quartus (Oxford)
Williams, R. D. (1960), P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Quintus (Oxford)
Austin, R. G. (1986), Aeneidos Liber Sextus (Oxford)
Horsfall, N. (1999), Virgil. Aeneid 7, a commentary (Leiden)
Grandsen, K. W. (1976), Virgil Aeneid Book VIII (Cambridge)
Hardie, P. (1994), Virgil Aeneid Book IX (Cambridge)
Harrison, S. J. (1991), Virgil Aeneid 10 (Oxford)
Horsfall, N. (2003), Virgil, Aeneid 11, a commentary (Leiden)
Grandsen, K. W. (1991), Virgil Aeneid Book XI (Cambridge)
Tarrant, R. J. (2012), Virgil: Aeneid Book XII (Cambridge)

Tarrant on XII is rather good, that's not exhaustive (e.g Horsfall in two vols on VI I've left of) but a pretty good spread.

Now, literary studies as you requested. I would argue that articles have been more important than books, but in terms of books I'm going to go on to say that Hardie's "COMOS AND IMPERIUM" (it must be spoken aloud in caps) is the best singular book you'll read. After that? something like Lyne's "Further Voices in Virgil's Aeneid" or Heinze on epic technique.

Getting at the articles can be difficult, there's a very expensive 4 vol collection edited by Hardie ("Virgil: Critical Assessment"), the Cambridge Companion, the Blackwell companion and the Oxford Readings.

Without inundating you with suggestions, that's the bare bones of it and you'll soon be able to find anything you're interested in by yourself once you get the hang of things.
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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Hylander »

I'm old enough to have cut my teeth on Page, so I still have a particular fondness for him. He was a very sympathetic reader of Vergil, but of course he's somewhat outdated today.

The 2-voume commentary by Williams (the replacement for Page in the now-defunct Macmillan series), which was is probably the optimal choice in terms of price and comprehensive coverage, though perhaps already slightly dated today.

Austin's commentaries on individual books in the first half of the Aeneid are excellent, though again somewhat dated, perhaps more so than Williams. The Cambridge commentaries in the Green and Yellow series on most of the last six books are generally up-to-date and really excellent. Horsfall's commentaries are very thorough and very, very expensive.

If you are really serious about Vergil and want to make him a big part of the rest of your life, acquiring various one-book commentaries makes sense, but it would be a very expensive proposition. Try looking for used volumes in good condition on ABEBooks.

Eduard Norden's commentary on Book 6 in German is one of the great works of classical scholarship.

Also Richard Heinze's book, Vergil's Epic Technique, is an important and seminal work, dating from the 1920s (I think), but still very much worthwhile. It breathed new life into the study of Vergil, as well as other Latin poetry in general. It's available in English translation as well as in German.

Victor Pöschl's Art of Vergil: Image and Symbol in the Aeneid is also available in English used.

Conington/Nettleship are available in reprints from Cambridge. They are very technical and exhaustive, but probably not what you would want for a first-time reading of the Aeneid.
Last edited by Hylander on Tue Mar 08, 2016 2:43 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Hylander »

If you're looking for a critical edition with an apparatus giving textual variants but no explanatory notes, the standard edition is Mynor's Oxford Classical Text.

Geymonat's edition published in Italy has a more comprehensive selection of readings, but isn't necessarily more useful.

Gian Biagio Conte's Teubner(iana) edition reflects his perhaps somewhat idiosyncratic view that the received text of Vergil has been smoothed out, obliterating in many instances Vergil's unique use of enallage/hypallage and other departures from normal modes of expression.

But the fact is that Vergil is probably--no, I would say, undoubtedly--the best preserved text from antiquity, especially since at least three more or less complete manuscripts and parts of three others have survived from late antiquity, and virtually all the variant readings were circulating in antiquity, many of which are preserved independently of the mss. in Servius's commentary, Macrobius and other ancient sources. The one-volume commentaries of Austin and the Cambridge series are equipped with apparatuses, and textual issues should be discussed in all of the commentaries except those at the most elementary level.

But textual questions--what did Vergil actually write?--frequently do make a difference in understanding many passages in Vergil and appreciating his art, so even if you don't use a critical edition, it's important to be aware of them.
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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Bart »

Great! Thanks for all the advice. I'll look up the various titles and see if I can find some of them second hand. Vergil must have been as much discussed, emulated, plagiarised and commentarised as Homer, or nearly so.

I'll use this thread to pose further questions. If someone wants to join reading, please do.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Bart »

Nesrad wrote:BTW, how did you like Henle? Why did you choose this method in particular? How long did it take to get through and at what pace?
I started Latin two years ago with three friends, each with a different background. I for example have had Latin at school (though I didn’t do anything with it for many years), but one of my friends hadn’t. So we looked for a course with a relatively slow pace, lots of exercises and graded readings and of course, an answer key. After some looking around and reading reviews Henle seemed to fit the bill. We couldn’t find a course in Dutch with an answer key, and Wheelock and D’Ooge -two other contenders- seemed to have far less exercises and reading material.

Our progress in the first year was slow, and in fact, all of my friends dropped out off the project for various reasons. It took me a year to go through the first book of Henle; pretty slow for someone who already studied the basics once. But left on my own, I could dictate my own pace and I finished book 2, 3 and the first quarter or so of book 4 in my second year of Latin.

I do like Henle a lot. It’s very old fashioned of course, using the ‘grammar translation’ method as some here call it, to teach accidence and syntax. The basics are covered in the first book (1st Year Latin). From then on it is basically a reader, with long excerpts from Caesar (2nd Year Latin), three orations by Cicero (3rd Year Latin) and again Cicero (Pro Archia) and Vergil in the 4th book. There are still a lot of exercises though in the later books, to reinforce idiom and syntax met in the reading sections.

As said, it is very old school and bears a marked Catholic stamp. Henle was a priest, I think. In the 1st book there are a lot of sentences for translation about sailors praising Mary and so on. And in all the books some Christian readings are included at the back, mainly from the Vulgate, medieval hymns, life of the saints etcetera. This may turn some people off, I didn’t mind at all.

My main objection is that there’s too much Cicero. I know that some find Caesar boring, but I actually like reading him. But after four Ciceronian orations I’ve really had enough. Some variation would have been nice. What’s wrong with Livy or Seneca after all?
Then there’s a strong emphasis on English to Latin translation. I don’t mind that, especially in the beginning. It’s a great way to really get to know the various declinations and conjugations and basic syntax. I did all of these exercises in the first two books. But in the last two books Henle appears to prepare his pupils (or so I think) to actually write in Latin. That was never my goal however, so I stopped doing these exercises, which saved me quite some time.

So, yes, overall I’m pretty positive, except for Cicero (sorry, Marcus Tullius).

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by anphph »

Hylander wrote:If you're looking for a critical edition with an apparatus giving textual variants but no explanatory notes, the standard edition is Mynor's Oxford Classical Text.
What's your take (and everyone's in general) on Conte's Teubner? I used it when I decided to read through the Aeneid last year, but that was my first full reading of it, so I don't really have a point of comparison.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Hylander »

I have Conte's Aeneid in the less expensive paperback edition, but I haven't used it to read through the poem--I've always used Mynors as a reading text (well, Hirtzel long ago). Here's a review, in part laudatory and in part critical, you might be interested in reading:

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2010/2010-10-03.html

Conte's apparatus actually has Latin notes explaining some of his editorial choices--not just the variant readings. As I mentioned, though, while there are many variant readings--most of which were circulating in antiquity--Vergil's text is very well preserved, and any of the modern texts will be adequate.
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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by anphph »

Actually yes, that's the one I own as well. It's a De Gruyter edition, but reading Teubneriana since the Leipzig house went bankrupt. This is actually reason for a sad story on my part: I was in Leipzig and decided I'd like to visit the place. I looked everywhere, until eventually I happened to come across the Department for Classical Studies (housed in some random street) where they told me that it no longer existed. It was good I hadn't gone there just for that.

Anyway, I went for that edition because I had read some of Conte's textual criticism essays and enjoyed them. Afterwards I read Mynor's Georgics (at least as far as he did it before passing away) instead of Conte's edition of the same (for pratical reasons, my library had it whereas I would have needed to buy the De Gruyter myself), and was dumbstruck by the level of erudition there. Also thanks for the review, I enjoyed it.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Hylander »

It's still called the Bibliotheca Teubneriana. My understanding is that Teubner had some difficulties reintegrating its East and West German businesses after reunificiation. For a while the Bibliotheca was owned by Saur of Munich, but then it was sold to De Gruyter.

Hopefully you visited some of the Bach sites in Leipzig--the Thomaskirche, for example. I've never been there myself.
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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by anphph »

It is, but they only make, as far as I know, the new paperback editions. Personally I'm fine with it. The clothbound or curated hardcover editions were fine and familiar, but even apart from the decrease in price the size on these new ones is much more handy. A similar change to the one the Italian BUR Classics went through, going from those inconvenient fist-sized bricks to books that can actually be read like books.

Concerning Leipzig, yes! I did have the chance. A memory that could merit a place in this forum was that when I visited the Nikolaikirche, and this must have been around 2010, the leaflets in different languages included Greek — katharevousa Greek.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Nesrad »

Bart wrote:
Nesrad wrote:My main objection is that there’s too much Cicero. I know that some find Caesar boring, but I actually like reading him. But after four Ciceronian orations I’ve really had enough. Some variation would have been nice. What’s wrong with Livy or Seneca after all?

So, yes, overall I’m pretty positive, except for Cicero (sorry, Marcus Tullius).
You've only read his speeches, which constitute the minority of his work. They're great for the style, but less great for the content. Try De Amicitia and De Senectute, you might enjoy them. Then there's one of my favourite books of all time: Disputationes Tusculanae. Also, his letters are beautiful, they let us see the real man, not the self-imbued orator.

As for Livy and Seneca, I couldn't agree more. Read them too. All of it.

Those who find Caesar boring are women and effiminate men. Caesar reads like a war documentary. It's great, great (to paraphrase D. T.).

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

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Those who find Caesar boring are women and effiminate men.
At first I was shocked to read this, then I wondered whether this might be a joke, a parody of the kind of misogyny one regularly encounters in classical texts. Either way I think its crass.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Bart »

Definitely a joke. I suggest we leave it at that. Let's not start one of those internet rows that lead nowhere.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Nesrad »

seneca2008 wrote: At first I was shocked to read this, then I wondered whether this might be a joke, a parody of the kind of misogyny one regularly encounters in classical texts. Either way I think its crass.
I got a real kick out of Livy the other day, after the second Punic war, when they were discussing letting the women wear jewellery and be carried around town. Old Cato, now he was mysogynous. He makes crass brutes like myself look like metrosexual yuppies. What I like about the classics is that I see them as a source of inspiration. Inspiring like ol' D.T. I wish I were an Amer'can just so I could vote for him. I don't like him much, I just like how he makes the thought police freak out.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by seneca2008 »

I found this page which seems a good starting point for Virgilian bibliography:
http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/vie ... 1-0068.xml
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by ailuros »

@Seneca2008,

i really like your style!

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Bart »

Okay, I ordered Austin's commentary on the first book and I'm scanning the internet for second hand copies of Cosmos & Imperium. Heinze's Virgils epische Technik is actually freely available on archive.org (https://archive.org/details/virgilsepischet00heingoog). No doubt all the other suggestions are worthwhile as well, but I had to start somewhere. Thanks once again for all the advice.

One more thing: is there a good recording (of book I) of the Aeneid out there?

I'll begin reading next week. Wish me luck!

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

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You don't need a recording. You can read it aloud yourself, and that would be better than any recording!
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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Bart »

No doubt you're right.
But I was thinking of listening to the Aeneid while walking to work. To be honest I am too lazy to make a recording of an extended passage myself, let alone the whole Aeneid

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Hylander »

Don't bother recording it--just read it aloud, and read it aloud slowly, which you should do anyway as you read the Aeneid. You'll learn more from doing that than from listening to a recording. And don't let yourself be distracted by listening to a recording when you cross the street.

I think you should have the rhythm of the hexameter in your head from your reading of Homer--but although on the surface the "rules" are more or less the same, the dynamics of the Latin hexameter are completely different from the Greek model. In Greek poetry, the hexameter is more or less a steady background (that's a gross and misleading oversimplification, of course.) The Latin hexameter, especially in the hands of its greatest master, Vergil, is in itself a highly crafted, finely wrought--I would almost say, sculpted--work of art. For one thing, there is the interplay between the natural Latin stress accent and the stress patterns imposed by the hexameter, which usually clash at the beginning of the line and resolve into agreement at the end. There's a greater use of deliberate sound effects in Vergil than in any Greek hexameter I"m aware of. There's a more conscious patterning of word-order in Latin, taking advantage of Latin's greater capacity for hyperbaton.

Every line of Vergil is a work of art in itself. So be sure to read Vergil aloud!
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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Bart »

I started reading today. First impression after 100 lines or so; it's suprisingly easy. Definitely less complex than Cicero's prose, I'ld say. Maybe I'm helped by the fact that I've read the Iliad and the Odyssey, which at the very least gives some notion of how a hexameter works.
Some small questions:

-44: illum expirantem transfixo pectore flammas
...him breathing flames with pierced chest ( from his pierced chest).
His chest is pierced by what: lightning?

-60: sed pater omnipotens speluncis abdidit atris
Atris must be the abl plur of 'ater', right? If so, is 'ater' just a poetical synonym for 'niger'?

-81: Haec ubi dicta, cauum conuersa cuspide montem
Impulit in latus.
Wat is Aeolus doing here precisely? -> either he turns over the hollow mountain on its side with his turned spear/ the butt side of his spear (which seem a bit over the top, even for a god), or he strikes the hollow mountain with the butt of his spear. But why would this release the winds?

-I'm confused, is it Vergil or Virgil?

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Hylander »

I'm confused, is it Vergil or Virgil?
Both. Take your pick--and you don't have to be consistent.


Both spellings are acceptable in English. I think the modern tendency is to use the spelling closer to Latin, Vergil, but the traditional spelling, Virgil, is acceptable.
illum expirantem transfixo pectore flammas
...him breathing flames with pierced chest ( from his pierced chest).
His chest is pierced by what: lightning?
Yes, he has been pierced by "Iouuis rapidum ignem," wielded by Pallas/Minerva.
-60: sed pater omnipotens speluncis abdidit atris
Atris must be the abl plur of 'ater', right? If so, is 'ater' just a poetical synonym for 'niger'?
Color words are always difficult to translate because the ancients divided up colors in different ways than we do. There may have been a difference in Vergil's mind. Maybe ater is "coal-black"; niger is "dark,"or something like that. Both words have connotations of death, gloom, etc.
-81: Haec ubi dicta, cauum conuersa cuspide montem
Impulit in latus.
Literally, something like "He struck the mountain with the downturned spear point into its side." There are several interlocking patterns of alliteration here: c- c- c-, -um -em im- in, con- mon-, cus- -tus. If V. wrote cauom, -uom con-, con- mon-, probably more.
Last edited by Hylander on Wed Mar 16, 2016 11:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Scribo »

Ater = something like coal black, or like the black after fire? What would you call that if not coal? the stem also gives us atrium (as in the part of the house we call atrium, presumably where the fireplace would have been originally?)

Now, how that contrasts with niger (or if V was even aware of these PIE connotations) is upto you. I've been wanting to read around - I HAVE THE CONTE TEXT! - but I've only got to about 1.80 or so, keep getting distracted :(
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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Timothée »

Latin teacher Benjamin Johnson has a Youtube channel, whereon he teaches Aeneid 1. His videoes are up to verse 156 at the moment, so that won't be of help for much longer (he will complete A.1 in due time).

I quite recommend his channel, though he's still in the basics and it will take many more years to get it closer to completion. He addresses, for instance, the Virgil vs. Vergil dichotomy on one video.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by mwh »

As I expect you know, it was the Greeks’ failure to punish the Locrian Ajax for his impiety against Athena in violating Cassandra’s sanctuary at her altar during the sack of Troy that turned her against the Greeks. A poem of Alcaeus on papyrus describes the incident, and there’s a papyrus fragment of Sophocles’ Locrian Ajax in which Athena makes an epiphany in response to the offence, white-hot with anger.

ater is a more moody and atmospheric word than the n-word, and has a rather higher register, as you suggest. I don’t think it’s really a color difference. Poets like ater. Again at 89, ponto nox incubat atra (like a bird settling on the nest: Vergil’s verbs have metaphoricity built into them).

conversa cuspide I think would more likely be understood as butt-end first than as Hylander’s “with the downturned spear point.” It’s not an attack, he just wants to punch a hole to let the winds out.
impulit in latus is phonically and metrically very expressive. You’ll find very few lines breaking after 2nd foot as well as 1st, dactylic at that.

Isn’t reading Vergil a joy? The Aeneid was an instant classic, and no subsequent poet could free himself from it.

Vergil/Virgil. Vergil is correct, but Virgil is traditional, and many still prefer Virgil so as not to cut him off from his identity through the ages.
Last edited by mwh on Thu Mar 17, 2016 1:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Timothée »

You have much longer classical tradition, which is why many names have been adapted into English. The tradition is much shorter here, and thus most names have been retained. So we say Vergilius (but the stress will be on the first syllable unless actually speaking Latin!).

To take another example, very occasionally some older person might say Iliadi, but it's mostly Ilias in Finland, and Aeneis. Greek names are not Latinised, thus we say Herodotos, Homeros, Aineias, Aristoteles and so on. It's of course not necessarily any better.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Bart »

Grazie!

Timothée: those are interesting, well made videos. I hope he'll cover the whole Aeneid.

Virgil/ Vergil: I' ve just learned we had the same distinction in Dutch. Renaissance Dutch writers used to refer to Vergilius as Virgiel or Vergiel. But somewhere along the road, in the 18th or 19th century, this was replaced by Vergilius. Greek names: till only a few years ago the Latinised forms were used. Now it seems to be in vogue to speak of Homeros instead of Homerus. That's fine of course, though Thoukidides instead of Thucydides still feels weird.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by mwh »

I have a suggestion, if Bart’s agreeable. For Vergil/Virgil discussion, a subject that always seems to captivate people (I see there was a previous textkit thread on it, http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-foru ... f=3&t=4818), how about starting a new thread, or reviving that previous one? Then the present thread could get back to being on the Aeneid.

As it is, I fear it’s at risk of being taken over by the question of the spelling of V’s name (or should that be U’s name? :P) and other name-spelling issues instead of his poem and its poetics. I should have known better than to add the last sentence to my previous post.

Michael

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Bart »

But it's such a deliciously futile subject!

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Bart »

Well then, back on topic.

*90: Intonuere poli, et crebris micat ignibus aether,
praesentemque viris intentant omnia mortem.

Why the perfect 'intonuere' followed by the present 'micat': two verbs that express events that take place simultaneously.


The description of the storm is quite something. Even after several readings I'm not sure I get all the sound and metrical effects. A passage like the following must be a nightmare for a translator:

Talia iactanti stridens Aquilone procella
velum adversa ferit, fluctusque ad sidera tollit.
Franguntur remi; tum prora avertit, et undis
Dat latus; insequitur cumulo praeruptus aquae mons.

Vergil strikes me as much more polished than Homer, if that's the phrase.
Page is very nice so far. Still waiting for Austin.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by mwh »

Austin on 84 incubuere mari notes “the perfect marks instantaneous action.” It’s the same here with intonuere—a sudden thunder-clap, as black night settles on the ocean. micat has to be present: the lighting-flashes repeat (crebris). Rapid-fire switches of subject.

You’ll notice how in intentant omnia mortem the word-accent coincides with the longum not only in the last two feet as usual but also in the 4th, giving a strong clausular impression. Cf. the ending of the very first sentence of the poem (7 lines long), … atque altae moenia Romae. (And note Troiae qui not qui Troiae primus ab oris in the first verse.)

Vergil more polished: yes that’s a good word, and an understatement if ever there was one. He spent hours she-bear-like licking his verses into shape (his own image, reportedly), and it shows. Sound and rhythm and tone and pacing and sense are all far more deliberate and interactive than in Homer, and there’s much intertextuality with earlier poets both Greek and Latin. Lovely disposition of verbs in the passage you quote. praeruptus aquae mons in a sense is the very opposite of polished, as it drastically disrupts the rhythm at the end, but again it’s a calculated effect, as the water mountain comes crashing down and smashes the verse. All perfectly untranslatable, of course.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by swtwentyman »

This may be a bit off-topic but I've started on the eighth eclogue (and I've gotten better at it -- I've improved at reading sequentially and I managed the first 63 lines today) and even though I'm only seven poems into my exploration of Latin verse I have yet to begin to experience it as you all can, besides the obvious things like alliteration and sequences of light or heavy syllables, and the more obvious uses of word order and some of the effects of the hyperbata. Part of this is probably because I'm constantly flipping to the commentary and to the dictionary to check the vowel lengths of problem words (and meanings of words I don't know, of course) but I've gone back and read portions after I've sorted out all that stuff and I haven't found the poems as beautiful or fulfilling as they're supposed to be.

Some of it is inexperience but are there any beginner-friendly/non-technical books that would help educate me about Latin (and maybe Greek?) poetry, with examples of effects and what I "should" be hearing? I'm thinking kind of like those mid-century music-appreciation books with what are essentially program notes to one symphony or concerto or another. Ed: as well as general "music-appreciation" stuff, of course.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Bart »

My choice for the hexameter of the week:

Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto

Somehow a deeply moving verse: the image of those few struggling survivors, their desperate loneliness, the subtle assonance of a's, giving a lamenting undertone to this line. It makes me think of all those people shipwrecked on the Mediterranean this year on their way to Europe, leaving behind -just like Aeneas in fact- their cities and villages in ruins.

I've made no more progress. The scarce free time I had I used for rereading and for catching up with Austin's commentary, which appears to be just what I was looking for. Oh well, I'm in no hurry.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by mwh »

@sw20man. You might try L.P. Wilkinson’s Golden Latin Artistry. I think it’s been mentioned here before. But you don’t have to find everything beautiful and fulfilling! As with music appreciation, different strokes for different folks. And the Eclogues are very mannered, and really rely on Theocritus as background. They inscribe themselves (as the jargon goes) into a tradition.

@Bart. That verse might well be my choice too (with perhaps 91 praesentemque viris intentant omnia mortem as runner-up). It's a jewel of expressiveness, even apart from its empathy-inducing topicality. I don’t want to keep harping on the meter, but I trust you see how much the succession of spondees contributes to the sense of their struggling, coupled as they are with the palpable push-me-pull-you tension between the word accents and the metrical longa. This is where the Latin hexameter wins over the Greek, where word accent is pretty well irrelevant to the dynamics.

But arma virum in the next line (119) I find jarring. How can we shut out recollection of the first words of the poem?

Other things I don’t care for (with swtwentyman in mind):
# The frigid Alexandrian-style parenthesis of 109f. It’s intelligible in terms of literary history and allegiance (the Aeneid is a Hellenistic poem, and I’m a great fan of Hellenistic poetry), but doesn’t it interfere with the effect of the scene? Or does the temporary distancing somehow enhance it? Or am I trying to read too romantically?
# The facile pathos of 111 miserabile visu, gratuitously imposing this response on the reader. Does anyone else find this cheap?

Glad you like Austin, the best thing to be using in my opinion, if you have to use anything. (Commentaries are a rather controlling genre.) They don’t write commentaries like that any more.
And no, don’t rush. The Aeneid, unlike the Iliad or Odyssey, is not meant for fast reading, and just think, you’ll never get to read it for the first time ever again. I wish I’d held back on it, or at least some of it, until I was in a better position to appreciate it. I envy you meeting it fresh.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by Bart »

#111 miserabile visu: yes, I don't care for that either. Too me, it reads like a stopgap. But why would Vergil need that with his obvious mastery of metrum and diction?

#109: saxa vocant.....Aras: I didn't mind, till you mentioned it. It seems a bit pedantic, yes. Austin defends it however, saying that Vergil gives "his readers the pleasure of looking at the map with him and identifying the very place where these mythical events occured. "


#119 arma virum: I don't find it jarring, but intriguing. Why here this obvious echo of the opening lines? Is it irony -see those famous arms lying in the sea-, a melancholy reminder of the fickleness of fate or even -far fetched maybe- a first sign Vergil has second thoughts about the imperial propaganda he is bringing. I have no idea, but it's very strange.

#Austin: I like him because he doesn't shy away from making his own opinion clear and pays attention to the literary appreciation of the text ( metrum, sound effects, etc), in fact, just the things swtwentyman was asking for. Is that what makes his commentary old fashioned?
In fact, this is my 'problem' with some of the newer commentaries I' ve been using, for example the Bassler Gesammtkommentar for Iliad 1: they offer an awful lot of information on things that I have a limited interest in (the realia, they are called I believe), and don't have enough attention for what I'm reading the text for in the first place, namely its literary value. Of course, I understand you cannot separate these two so clearly as I do now, and that you need to have at least some knowledge of the background to fully appraciate the text, but you get the picture.

#swtwentyman: multiple rereadings is what does it for me. Like you, I can't fully appreciate the beauty of a line while still struggling with grammar and vocabulary. But then, maybe the Eclogues are just not your thing. Try the Aeneid (in that case, get Austin's commentary and read along with me!) or switch to a different author.

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Re: Vergil's Aeneid

Post by swtwentyman »

The Austin commentary sounds great; however I looked on Abebooks after a fruitless search on Amazon and it seems that there are only a few scattered books at middle-to-high prices, and unfortunately they're still in copyright so there's no cheaper print-on-demand edition. Print-on-demand or otherwise they all ship from overseas so it would take like a month to arrive -- however I'm not planning on starting on the Aeneid anytime soon so I could order the first book and see what happens.

What kind of book is Golden Latin Artistry? The cheapest one on Abebooks runs $30 all told (and $40 + shipping on Amazon) and I don't want to drop so much money without knowing more about it.

Thanks to both of you.

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