Where Is Aeneas?

[David Amicus]

Dante places Aeneas in Limbo. To my great surprise I just discovered that Ludovico Ariosto in "Orlando Furioso" places Aeneas in Hell proper.

[Patricio]

On Monday, April 14, 2014 12:39:31 AM UTC-4, David Amicus wrote:
> Dante places Aeneas in Limbo. To my great surprise I just discovered that Ludovico Ariosto in "Orlando Furioso" places Aeneas in Hell proper.

Livy wasn't quite sure what to do with him either.

Secundum inde proelium Latinis, Aeneae etiam ultimum operum mortalium fuit. Situs est, quemcumque eum dici ius fasque est, super Numicum flumen: Iovem indigetem appellant. (Ab Urbe Condita 1.2)

"Whatever it's right or proper to call him."

But Tibullus at least (2.5.43-44) was certain he had become a god.

Illic sanctus eris cum te veneranda Numici
unda deum caelo miserit indigetem.


--Patricio

[John W Kennedy]

On 2014-04-14 04:39:31 +0000, David Amicus said:
> Dante places Aeneas in Limbo. To my great surprise I just discovered
> that Ludovico Ariosto in "Orlando Furioso" places Aeneas in Hell proper.

To Dante, Aeneas is the father of the Empire, and the Empire is the
Other Half of God's Plan (an idea that used to be common in Christian
thought, and is still the monkey on the back of the Russian Orthodox
Church). To Ariosto, Aeneas is a man who skipped out on his woman.

--
John W Kennedy
"The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything...."
-- Emile Cammaerts, "The Laughing Prophet"

[Ed Cryer]

Vergil's Aeneas isn't exactly a hero.

Here's a decent view;
"Many people seem to be under the impression that the Aeneid is a
celebration of Roman glory, led by the hero of fate Aeneas. I find these
preconceived ideas hard to reconcile with my actual reading of the text.
For starters, I have a hard time viewing Aeneas as a hero at all. Almost
any other main characters in the epic, from Dido to Camilla to Turnus,
have more heroic qualities than Aeneas. This is especially noteworthy
because many of these characters are his enemies. In addition, Aeneas is
presented as a man with no free will. He is not so much bound to duty as
he is shielded by it. It offers a convenient way for him to dodge
crucial moral questions. Although this doesn’t necessarily make him a
bad person, it certainly makes him a weak one. Of course some will argue
that it takes greater moral conviction to ignore personal temptation and
act for the good of the people. These analysts are dodging the issue
just like Aeneas does."
http://www.123helpme.com/preview.asp?id=6900

Ed

[John W Kennedy]

Vergil lived a helluva long time before Marie de Champagne.

--
John W Kennedy
"'Your art then,' said Vertue, 'seems to teach men that the best way of
being happy is to enjoy unbroken good fortune in every respect. They
would not all find the advice helpful.'"
-- C. S. Lewis. "The Pilgrim's Regress"

[David Amicus]

Thanks all for the responses and the link!

[Ed Cryer]

John W Kennedy wrote:
> On 2014-04-14 15:38:43 +0000, Ed Cryer said:
>
>> David Amicus wrote:
>>> Dante places Aeneas in Limbo. To my great surprise I just discovered
>>> that Ludovico Ariosto in "Orlando Furioso" places Aeneas in Hell
>>> proper.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Vergil's Aeneas isn't exactly a hero.
>>
>> Here's a decent view;
>> "Many people seem to be under the impression that the Aeneid is a
>> celebration of Roman glory, led by the hero of fate Aeneas. I find
>> these preconceived ideas hard to reconcile with my actual reading of
>> the text. For starters, I have a hard time viewing Aeneas as a hero at
>> all. Almost any other main characters in the epic, from Dido to
>> Camilla to Turnus, have more heroic qualities than Aeneas. This is
>> especially noteworthy because many of these characters are his
>> enemies. In addition, Aeneas is presented as a man with no free will.
>> He is not so much bound to duty as he is shielded by it. It offers a
>> convenient way for him to dodge crucial moral questions. Although this
>> doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person, it certainly makes him a
>> weak one. Of course some will argue that it takes greater moral
>> conviction to ignore personal temptation and act for the good of the
>> people. These analysts are dodging the issue just like Aeneas does."
>> http://www.123helpme.com/preview.asp?id=6900
>
> Vergil lived a helluva long time before Marie de Champagne.
>

And almost 2 millennia before Hermann Broch.
Why did Vergil want to burn the unfinished Aeneid? Why had he even asked
people in advance to burn it if he died?
He was writing it for Augustus, he sailed back from Greece with
Augustus, was taken ill and died at Brundisium. Augustus rescued the
manuscript, and had it published.

Vergil knew what he'd done. He'd sold his soul for money; to have his
estates rescued and to have money poured over him.
But he knew what he'd done; and he was no imperialist fascist. He knew
the times he'd lived through, civil war, false propaganda, warlords and
private armies; during which Livy, by the way, said that he was glad to
hide away in a library and write history.

But Vergil cast Aeneas as wooden; about the only way he could navigate
him through the moral maze of the treacherous times; guided by fate and
the gods. "Si qua fata sinant" echoes throughout the Aeneid, and it
often rings loudest at times of moral crisis. When Aeneas sails away
from Carthage and leaves Dido, that "pius Aeneas" juxtaposes fate with
happiness. Fate becomes like a Roman army wiping out all freedom.

Ed

[John W Kennedy]

I suppose you have a source for all this?

--
John W Kennedy
"You can, if you wish, class all science-fiction together; but it is
about as perceptive as classing the works of Ballantyne, Conrad and W.
W. Jacobs together as the 'sea-story' and then criticizing _that_."
-- C. S. Lewis. "An Experiment in Criticism"

[Ed Cryer]

My own self.
I've read the Aeneid in Latin at least three times from cover to cover.
I'll be doing so again before too long. I love it. It never palls with me.

It's often occurred to me to compare it with other great epic poems; The
Iliad, The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost. It wins easily every time. And
yes, I have read The Iliad and Odyssey, in Greek mostly.

The Latin is bewitching. Every time I read it I find new tricks in it,
new imitations of Homer, new heights.

Ed