The Aeneid Read Online Free

first two appeals to him. But when Jupiter sends his messenger, Aeneas instantly decides to leave her. Once again the divine machinery provides double motivation. We have heard the voice of Jupiter in all his majesty and seen the brilliant flight of Mercury. At another level we could sense this as a dramatization of a sudden victory of duty over desire in Aeneas’ heart. Modern susceptibilities are offended, not least by his decision not to tellDido – yet. This is a shrewd observation by Virgil of the sort of thing men do, and may well increase our sympathy for Dido. Aeneas is condemned also for the cold formality of his response to Dido’s appeals. On this count, however, it is more difficult to fault him. Her speeches are passionate, yet full of tight logic. At their first meeting after Dido divines that he is going to leave her, she hurls argument after argument. Given that he has taken an irreversible decision to leave her, he answers the points to which answer is possible in the best imaginable way. It all comes down to his statement that it is not by his will that he goes to Italy. Modern views of his behaviour tend to be severe. But it does not make sense that Aeneas, founder of the Roman race and ancestor of Augustus, should behave contemptibly in this Roman epic written by Virgil in praise of his patron. True, Aeneas’ decision not to tell Dido the truth immediately, shows him in a moment of weakness, and his replies to her are cold and feeble. But Aeneas is the hero of the poem, and his weakness and misery in this book are a measure of Virgil’s human understanding, not a demolition of the character of the hero of his epic.
    These are the problems that linger after a reading of this book. The
Aeneid
would be a weaker poem if they could be solved. Dido’s fault, if fault there was, did not merit the punishment she received. Why then did she receive it? Aeneas put duty before love at the behest of the gods, and Dido and others have despised him for it. Was he then despicable? The goddesses are spiteful and heartless, but can we not imagine that Dido would have behaved as she did in a godless world, and that Aeneas would have left her even if Mercury had never swooped down from Mount Atlas to a roof in Carthage? All these questions are set in the context of Roman history. In one of Dido’s last speeches, for instance, she prophesies the Punic Wars and Hannibal’s invasion of Italy although she could not know the name of the avenger who would arise from her dead bones (622–9). These Roman questions touch upon human life in any era.
BOOK 5
FUNERAL GAMES
    On their way to Italy the Trojans are caught in another storm and run before the winds back to Sicily where Anchises had died precisely one year before. Aeneas celebrates rites in his honour and holds funeral games. Weary with their wanderings, the Trojan women fire the ships, and Aeneas decides to leave the women, children and old men in Sicily in a city ruled by Acestes, the Trojan who had been their host in Sicily. Aeneas’ steersman Palinurus is lost overboard on the voyage to Italy
.
Roman Religion
    The tragedy of Book 4 is followed by the games of Book 5, but first Aeneas looks back at Carthage and sees the flames rising from the pyre on which Dido is dying. None of the Trojans knows what is causing the fire but their hearts are filled with foreboding, soon to be fulfilled by the storm which forces them to return to the place where Anchises had died. Here the piety of Aeneas shows in the scrupulous care with which he performs, for the first time in history, the rites of the
Parentalia
, the Roman festival of the dead, in honour of his father, who now becomes a god. The
Aeneid
is authenticating contemporary Roman religious practice by attributing its origins to the founder of the Julian family, and at the same time authenticating the stress upon the revitalization of Roman religion so dear to the heart of the contemporary Julian, Augustus.
Aeneas the