Book 4: The End

Vergil plays up the theme of vengeance at the end of the book, with ulta in 656 and inultae in 659; this very much follows from the speech of Dido that we skipped, in which she calls down curses on Aeneas - that he struggle to reach Italy, that he be worn out by war once he should reach Italy, that he see Ascanius die, and that he himself die before his time.  Finally, she calls for eternal war between Rome and Carthage.  In this light, it is sort of interesting reading Moriemur inultae in 659; it is, of course, literally accurate in that when Dido dies, Aeneas has received no hardship on her account.  I would suggest, though, that it also hints that Dido's curses, though dreadful, will be ultimately unsuccessful (and that she perhaps suspects this) - Aeneas does have to face adversity and war, but neither he nor Ascanius dies early, he does establish a new kingdom in Italy, and Rome will eventually defeat and destroy Carthage.  Furthermore, nowhere in the rest of the book do we get the impression that Dido's curse had any effect on these events - most of them have already been predicted/foreshadowed before we ever met Dido.  It is perhaps the ultimate example of Dido's tragedy - for all that she loves and hates, burns and rages, and constantly fills the story with tension and passion, her final curse matters little, and her dying words acknowledge that she has been nothing but the plaything of the gods.  It is something we should keep in mind when we read about Amata (though I don't think we encounter her much in our passages in Latin).

Practice Essay Question

I slacked off last week, but hopefully we'll get going again this week. While you wait, a practice essay question. Instead of actually writing out an essay for this (well, I guess you can do that if you really want to), I invite you to comment with any particular points that you might write about if you were given this question. Try it without going back to look at a translation or notes first. Note - this is a 45 minute question involving the comparison of 2 passages.

(A)
"Anna, fatebor enim, miseri post fata Sychaei
coniugis et sparsos fraterna caede Penates
solus hic inflexit sensus animumque labantem
impulit. Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae.
Sed mihi vel tellus optem prius ima dehiscat
vel pater omnipotens adigat me fulmine ad umbras,
pallentes umbras Erebo noctemque profundam,
ante, Pudor, quam te violo aut tua iura resolvo.
Ille meos, primus qui me sibi iunxit, amores
abstulit; ille habeat secum servetque sepulchro."
Aeneid 4.20-29

(B)
"Te propter Libycae gentes Nomadumque tyranni
odere, infensi Tyrii; te propter eundem
exstinctus pudor et, qua sola sidera adibam,
fama prior. Cui me moribundam deseris, hospes,
hoc solum nomen quoniam de coniuge restat?
Quid moror? An mea Pygmalion dum moenia frater
destruat aut captam ducat Gaetulus Iarbas?
Saltem si qua mihi de te suscepta fuisset
ante fugam suboles, si quis mihi parvulus aula
luderet Aeneas, qui te tamen ore referret,
non equidem omnino capta ac deserta viderer."
Aeneid 4.320-330

The passages above reveal Dido's feelings at the beginning and at the end of her relationship with Aeneas. In a well-developed essay, contrast her feelings in these two passages.
BE SURE TO REFER SPECIFICALLY TO THE LATIN THROUGHOUT THE PASSAGES TO SUPPORT THE POINTS YOU MAKE IN YOUR ESSAY. Do NOT simply summarize what the passages say.

Book 4, lines 259-278

Well, I've had all weekend to catch up, and here I am at 1 AM Sunday night, and I'm just getting to the blog.  Plus, I've still got to grade quizzes so that we can have a quiz in class on Monday (so if any of you have this on RSS reader or just felt like checking it at 7:30 AM Monday morning, get studying!).  So don't be shocked when this ends up a little shorter than normal.

Anyway, I'm going to take a slightly different tack with this entry and focus pretty minutely on one example.  Specifically, I want to compare lines 264 (the last line before Mercury's speech to Aeneas) and 278 (two lines after the speech, when Mercury vanishes):

264: fecerat, et tenui telas discreverat auro.

278: et procul in tenuem ex oculis evanuit auram.

When one is reading through, the parallel between these two lines is reasonably hard to catch.  Stick them next to each other, though, and it's remarkable.  In both lines, a form of tenuis occurs after the first syllable of the second foot of the line; in both lines it agrees with the last word in the line, which in both cases begins with aur-.  The parallel is too great for this to be coincidence; it must be on purpose.  The question, then, is why Vergil did it?  Is he merely doing some clever punning?  Is this wordplay meant to bookend the speech in some way, somehow making it more significant?  Does it perhaps suggest that the attraction of Dido and her rich gifts (symbolized by the fine workmanship of the 'thin gold') has been dispelled by the miraculous disappearance of Mercury 'into thin air?'  Other ideas?

Along these lines, often it takes multiple readings for us to catch things like this; if you find something you find interesting as we go along, please feel free to post it as a comment here or in the most recent post.  I will try to repost these as entries (with appropriate credit, of course) so that they are easy to find for general discussion.

Book 4, Lines 238-255

We have here an interlude between Juppiter's speech to Mercury and Mercury's speech to Aeneas relaying Juppiter's command.  The first question that comes to mind for me is simply why we have these lines in the first place - why do we need a six line description of Mercury getting ready followed by a fourteen line description of his flight from the heavens down to Carthage (including six lines about Atlas, who I don't think ever appears again in the story)?  All that is really necessary to make the plot flow smoothly is to say that he obeys the command of Juppiter (l. 238), takes off from Olympus (l. 245, more or less), and soon sees Aeneas at Carthage (picking up at line 259).  The first explanation that comes to mind, for me, is that Vergil wanted to create some space between two speeches that will necessarily be fairly similar (since Mercury will more or less be repeating Juppiter's speech).  I'm not sure if that is a sufficient explanation though - does anyone have other ideas?

A couple small, but possibly interesting notes: there is an awful lot of alliteration with the letter p in lines 238-9: ...patris magni parere parabat/ imperio: et primum pedibus...  Could all these ps give a sense of Mercury's quickness?  Perhaps even mimicking the beating of his winged sandals and hat (ok, that might be stretching it, I admit)?

There is also a lot of alliteration with s in 240-1; could that be mimicking the gusts of wind that carry him on his way?