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?
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
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!
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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://discourse.textkit.com/t/virgil-or-vergil/4593/1), 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? ) 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.
*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.
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.
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.
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.
@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.
#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.
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.
) 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.