How Old Was Astyanax?

[David Amicus]

One of the poems I'm reading by Maffeo Vergio is "Astyanax". I was wondering how old he was when he died?

I've read versions though that he didn't die and that he was the ancestor of the D'Este family of Ferrara.

[Ed Cryer]

About 3.

Ed

[David Amicus]

Thanks! That's about what he's portrayed in the paintings. But then in this poem where he voluntarily throws himself off the tower that did not seem like something a person that young would do.

In this poem there's a great scene where Venus pleads with Jove to spare the boy's life but the Fates have decreed otherwise.

In "Orlando Furioso" there's a scene showing the Fates spinning out life and an explanation of how some people are famous and others are non-entities.


I'm really enjoying 15th and 16th century Ausonian poetry whether Italian or Latin. In translation of course.



>
>
> Ed

[David Amicus]

Here is a statue of the noble Hector holding his son.

http://www.museumsyndicate.com/images/4/32784.jpg

[Ed Cryer]

What's the Latin for "threw himself off"?

Ed

[John W Kennedy]

Or of the Merovingians. As late as 1714 you could be sent to the
Bastille for denying it.

--
John W Kennedy
jwk...@attglobal.net
"It is unfortunate that it is only in geometry that a scholar must
state his assumptions clearly before he begins his proof. . . ."
-- Alice Kober

[David Amicus]

Here are verses 248,249,250.


ipse ultro e culmine summo proiecit sese uitamque sub aere liquit

[Ed Cryer]

That's a Roman death.
Firstly your dad gets utterly defeated and humiliated by Greece's
greatest warrior. Then your mum gets dragged off to slavery.
What else is left?

Ed