So the no TV experiment is one of the most valuable things I’ve ever done; I am now convinced. I have gotten so much done, and read so much more in the last few days, than I’d normally do in a month. This is definitely going to continue.
Onward into Book 3. Wow. Aeneas is really laying it on thick. He tells Dido that after the sack of Troy and the destruction of “Priam’s guiltless race” [1] (horsefeathers—Paris stole Helen, and you don’t get much more guilty than that), he took his people to Ida, where they build a fleet of ships. In the beginning of summer, they left the Anatolian peninsula (although I don’t think they call it Anatolia yet).
They sailed to the shores of Thrace, where Aeneas met with Polydorus for the first time. Apparently, Polydorus was sent by Priam to be some kind of Trojan sleeper agent in Thrace—OMG—He’s the first Trojan virus!! I can’t quite tell if Polydorus is a ghost or not. Aeneas had been offering sacrifices in thanks for having made it to the Thracian shore, and he went to gather branches to put on the altar. He harvested some branches from a hill [25] but heard groans from this mound.
(Possibly) Polydorus speaks from it. Oh—I get it. The problem was that I couldn’t tell without reading further who was speaking, but it IS Polydorus. Sometimes these guys refer to themselves in the third person, and there’s no convention like “he said” or “she replied.” Grr. It turns out that the Thracian king, on hearing of the defeat of Troy, killed Polydorus and took the gold that Priam had sent him with. It doesn’t say how the Thracian king found out about Polydorus’ allegiance. It would seem that it’s not a smart thing to do, to go to a foreign country as a spy, then TELL everyone about it. It reminds me of that story about Nathan Hale, how he oh-so-courteously answered people at a dinner party he was at that, yes, he was indeed a spy. Like it’s ok to be a spy and not a liar or something. One wonders why the CIA has a big fat statue of him at Langley. He doesn’t seem to have been very good at it.
Anyway, Aeneas tells Dido that they were appalled at the fact that Polydorus had been improperly buried, a fellow Trojan—so they reburied him and got out. Aeneas says specifically that they didn’t want to stay in a land where they profaned hospitality—presumably referring to the fact that the Thracian king had killed his guest, Polydorus. Wow. So it’s ok to be a spy, but not ok to kill that spy. What an odd conception of hospitality.
So Aeneas tells Dido that they got back on the sea ASAP. They landed on Delos—the birthplace of Apollo and Diana. I think Diana is the Roman equivalent of Artemis—the virgin huntress, but I’m not sure what the Greek/Roman conception of Apollo is. I guess that the ruler of Delos, King Anius, is friends with Anchises, and so he welcomed the Trojan fragment to Delos. Aeneas tells Dido that he went to the temple and was paying homage there, and he prayed for a home for his people. A voice came out of the air [93] (if I recall correctly, temples like the one Aeneas was at had amplification acoustics, so like the Oracle at Delphi would boom out the answers to people’s questions in the temple, so maybe that’s where the disembodied voice Aeneas is hearing was coming from) and told Aeneas that “the land which bore you first from your parent stock shall welcome you back to her fruitful bosom.” [96] This seems again to be going back to Virgil’s desire to show that the Trojan remnant that will end up in Italy really belonged there. Also, I see some grapes, wine, and women images here—I’m thinking that the images of wine and women are the Trojan equivalent to a “land flowing with milk and honey.”
Anchises, hearing the voice too, says that they should go to Crete—after all, that’s the “cradle of our race.” [105] Also, Anchises says that it’s only a 3-day journey to Crete. Aeneas tells Dido that he had heard a rumor than the Cretan chieftain, Idomeneus, had abandoned Crete, and that the cities of that island were abandoned, ready for resettlement.
Aeneas says they left Delos for Crete, and upon reaching it, started fortifying a city’s walls there that they’d named Pergamum, in homage to the old city of Pergamum in Troy. I wonder if this tendency to name cities like this, to call up the memory of a previously occupied town—is that common to humans? We name places “New…” as if it were the old town come again—New Amsterdam (ooh—I wish that show hadn’t been cancelled), New Guinea, New Jersey. Or even just flat out naming it after the original place, like Athens, Georgia, or Ithaca, New York.
Unfortunately, Aeneas tells Dido, sickness started spreading among his people. Anchises was telling everyone they should go back to the Oracle and ask for the help of Phoebus and Ortygia (I wonder what goddess she is?) Intriguing. Aeneas tells Dido that his household gods came alive in the middle of the night to deliver Apollo’s message to him, thus saving him the trip back to Delos. I am completely envisioning Battlestar Galactica right now, and not just because of the name Apollo. This reminds me of how all the characters in Battlestar Galactica get visions conveniently just before they’re going to do the wrong thing or go the wrong way. One envisions Gaius Baltar right before the glass crashes in his ginormous pent-mans-abode in Vancouver…I mean, Caprica…with his jaw hanging at Number Six’s revelations. I can totally see that expression on Aeneas’ face. Minus the brilliant sleaziness of James Callis (who should have a bloody Emmy by now but there’s no real justice). The idol of Apollo tells Aeneas to go to Italy—and man, Virgil is pounding home the propaganda again like a White House spokesman—“[Italy] is our abiding home…from whom first came our race.” [168] I think if Scott McClellan could have declaimed the presidential schedule in epic verse, or if Ari Fleischer would have used heroic metaphor to announce bill passages, Bush would have sounded better—or at least more plausible—with the whole inventing of new and strange words thing. Seriously—“misunderestimated” sounds like something Jupiter would do on an off day, right?
Aeneas, shaking in fear and awe before the gods, offers sacrifices to them (possibly because now he won’t have to make return trip arrangements through freaking Expedia, and also because now he can tell his dad that Aeneas was right to leave Delos after all. There’s nothing like winning an argument with your same-gendered parent to give you a warm glow of self-satisfied maturity.
Ooh—see? “I gladly tell Anchises the tale and reveal all in order.” [179] Told you so.
Anchises responds by slapping a hand to his forehead and saying that he just now remembered what Cassandra told him about how the Trojans really belong in Hesperia (apparently another name for Italy, like Ilium/Troy). I still can’t tell if Phoebus and Apollo are the same person or not. Oh, wait. I remember in Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Darkhunter series that the Apollonians are the children of the Sun God, and Phoebus is the sun god. Ok, I’m going to treat them as the same person until I see otherwise. ANYWAY (BATBC—back at the Bat Cave), Aeneas takes his people and his dad back on the ocean from New Pergamum (hmm—the King of Pergamum will one day will his kingdom to Rome—I think during the first Roman civil wars with Marius and Sulla. Interesting that Virgil—who’s writing 100 years or so after that happened—notes that this New Pergamum on Crete was deserted and then pestilential. I wonder what it means?)
BATBC—Aeneas tells Dido that his fleet was tossed about for three days [205] on the Mediterranean. I know that 3 and 7 were very mystical numbers to the people around the Mediterranean, like how there’s a Holy Trinity, or God created the world in seven days, or Jesus rose from the dead in three days, or that there were three realms in Greek theology. Zeus was the ruler of the Heavens, Poseidon was the ruler of the Earth (though he mostly stuck to the sea), and Hades ruled the Underworld. Hmm. As a result, I wonder if Aeneas is actually just saying that his fleet was in a storm that lasted more than one day, and not quite a week.
Aeneas tells Dido that they landed on the Strophades, which are apparently in the Ionian Sea (where is that, exactly?) *I need to get a Google Map of the world and start sticking pins in it. Ooh. Aeneas tells Dido that this is where “dread Celaeno and the Harpies” live. [212] Gross. The Harpies have the faces of girls and gaunt, clawed bodies, wings, and they apparently are continually soiling themselves and smearing it everywhere. This is like someone mated a gorilla, a vulture, and Dakota Fanning. Also, I’m snickering because I am totally remembering when Autolycus in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (played by the apotheosis of all actors, Bruce Campbell) tells Hercules upon walking into his befouled home, “I don’t know how to tell you this, but…you’ve got Harpies.” !!!!
So Aeneas tells his men to exterminate the Harpies, because they are fouling up the meal that the fleet had prepared upon landing.
Huh. Celaeno is apparently the “eldest of the Furies.” [252] She tells Aeneas that he’ll eventually get to Italy, but not until suffering because of the violence Aeneas did to her pet Harpies. This seems to echo, in a strange way, how the Greeks had to suffer, even though they would eventually win, because they killed Agamemnon’s daughter, still-can’t-remember-her-name. I wonder why there’s the contrast between the virgin Greek maiden and the disgusting female beast? Is it Virgil? Just something to think about.
Anyway, Aeneas pulls up stakes, and they hit the road again, metaphorically speaking. They sail past Ithaca, and “curse the land that nursed cruel Ulysses.” [273] I never noticed this before, but Ulysses in Latin is Ulixi. [273] I guess I thought it would be ULYSSES! It’s already not in its original language as Odysseus. $20 says I’m going to start reading Homer and find out that Odysseus isn’t spelled that way either. What, no takers?
So, Aeneas makes it to the Actian shores. Now, Aeneas erects a trophy that says “AENEAS HAEC DE DANAIS VICTORIBUS ARMA.” “THESE ARMS AENEAS FROM VICTORIOUS GREEKS.” [288] Now, I KNOW Virgil is flattering Augustus Caesar. ‘Member back in the day that Octavian defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra (a Ptolemy, and therefore a Greek of Alexander’s line) at the BATTLE OF FREAKING ACTIUM in 31 BC.
So Aeneas puts the shield of Abas on the trophy pillars and takes off again. Really—the whole 20 lines of the poem devoted to Aeneas landing at Actium and putting up that trophy don’t seem to serve any narrative purpose, though it might be back later. I can recognize a literary seed when planted, even if it never bears fruit. I completely remember the Battle of Actium because of Margaret George’s awesome novel, The Memoirs of Cleopatra.
Aeneas says that then he and his ships entered “the Chaonian harbor.” [294] I don’t know where that is, which is frustrating me. Aeneas says that in this harbor, he heard that Andromache was there, and that Priam’s son Helenus was reigning there as the husband of dead Pyrrhus’s woman (this is the same Pyrrhus that was Achilles’ son). Weird. Aeneas meets Andromache near the harbor where she’s offering sacrifices. They meet like two émigrés in a foreign land—this sounds like something out of a Great Russian Novel as they both cry and hug and ask about those left behind.
I guess Andromache had been taken captive by Pyrrhus and served as a sex slave to him—the son of the man who killed her husband! Damn—that would bite. She specifically references her sexual slavery—“…we have endured the pride of Achilles’ son and his youthful insolence, bearing children in slavery…” [326] So, she might have even gotten pregnant by her captor. No wonder Hector was so worried about her before going to fight Achilles outside the walls of Troy—if that’s what was waiting for her if he failed!
Apparently, Pyrrhus was killed by Orestes, though not before he had both raped Andromache and shuffled her off to Helenus, also a slave. Somehow, though, Neoptolemus’ death passed an inheritance to Helenus, who took Andromache as his wife. I don’t understand how that happened; it doesn’t explain it here. That’s the big problem with these epics—they assume I know all the back story.
Anyway, Andromache asks Aeneas about Ascanius to see if he’s ok—now that sounds more motherly than Creusa. I don’t know whether that’s meant to illustrate a difference between the concerns of the dead and the living or the difference between the kind of woman Andromache is as opposed to the woman Creusa was. Anyway, at this point, Helenus (why the HELL does Priam have a son named Helenus? Helen rained destruction down on Troy—it’s weird that Priam has a son with her name…) comes down to meet his wife, and sees Aeneas. The Trojan remnant gets a warm welcome at this “Ilian citadel.” Aeneas heads up to the city, and he says that he “recognize[s] a little Troy, with a copy of great Pergamus…” [350] It would seem Aeneas isn’t the only refugee who is trying to recreate Troy.
Another sucker bet says Aeneas is going to include elements of Trojan architecture and nomenclature when he gets to Italy and founds Lavinium.
Once everyone is rested up and fed, Aeneas and Helenus offer some sacrifices and ask a priest of Phoebus whether he should believe the auguries and promises of all the gods so far that he’s going to be ok as soon as he reaches Italy, or if he should believe the prediction of Celaeno the Harpy, apparently a seer as well as a Fury, that he’s going to suffer a great deal before founding his city? The priest tells him that Italy is further off than he thinks, in a figurative, literal, and temporal sense. The priest tells Aeneas that when he sees a white pig with 30 piglets under an oak tree, there will be the future site of Rome. [392] The priest also tells Aeneas to suck up to Juno or else, and to visit the Sibyl (a prophetess).
Helenus restocks Aeneas’ fleet. Oh wow. Another heartbreaker. As Aeneas is getting ready to leave, Andromache brings rich gold robes for Ascanius and says “Take these last gifts of your kin, you sole surviving image of my Astyanax! [486] Such was he in eyes, in hands and face; even now would his youth be ripening in equal years with yours!” Andromache is basically giving Ascanius beautiful baby clothes that were meant for Astyanax—I know that Astyanax was Hector and Andromache’s son, and that he was killed by the Greeks, but not much else. Virgil really knows how to pull the heartstrings.
Again Virgil does the propaganda thing, as Aeneas says to Andromache that if he ever founds his city, he’ll ally with Epirus (Ah! That’s where they are—Epirus), and says “May that duty await our children’s children!” [505] Maybe they liked laying it on that thick back in the day.
They’re sailing; they’re sailing—when Achates spots Italy. Here’s the wine imagery again. Upon Achates’ cry, Anchises fills a big bowl of wine and toasts the gods with it. I guess I’ll find out eventually why all the wine/grapes metaphors when referring to Italy.
They’re sailing; they’re sailing. They see the town of Tarentum, which Aeneas says is “a town of Hercules, if the tale be true.” [551] Hmm. The Latin is “sic vera est fama.” Interesting. “Tale” is “fama,” so spreading tales of Hercules is literally spreading his fame.
Aeneas sees Aetna in the distance, so they must be passing by Sicily at this point. I don’t know exactly where Mount Aetna is, but I think they’re sailing between the boot tip and Sicily, crawling up the Italian coast. Anchises says this is where Charybdis is [558]—so I think that’s right.
Aeneas says they drift up the Cyclopes Coast—I don’t know where that is. I need a map of the ancient world. They land, but the eruptions of Aetna keep them up all night. They must be on the Sicilian coast. While they were on Sicily, a Greek comes out of the woods; he’s all ragged and starving. He begs them to take him with them, and tells them if they have to kill him, since he was an enemy combatant, he’d rather die at the hands of men. He tells his story: he’s Achaemenides, an Ithacan. He was one of Ulysses’ companions, and was left behind when Ulysses escaped from Polyphemus, the Cyclops. Aeneas tells Dido that just as Achaemenides was finishing his story, the Trojans all saw the Cyclops himself—they dashed, taking the poor Ithacan with them. I see a lot of parallels here between the Achaemenides and the story of Lord Rhoop, one of the seven Telmarine Lords that Miraz the Usurper exiled when he was still ruling Narnia before Caspian’s rule and voyage on the Dawn Treader. Hmm. Come to think of it, I see a lot of parallels between the story of the Odyssey and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I bet I’ll find more when I actually READ the Odyssey all the way through!
BATBC: Aeneas tells Dido that they left in a hurry, but that the warning Helenus gave him tells him NOT to pass between Scylla and Charybdis. I guess that means they’re not going to hug the boot, but sail around the bottom of Sicily and back north once they’re around it. So they’re sailing. Aeneas describes the trip around (presumably) Sicily, and tells Dido that he lost Anchises at last. He doesn’t say how Anchises died [710], so he presumably died of old age. This must be where Juno intervened in the winds and the sea, and drove them across the Mediterranean to the Carthaginian shore. Here’s where Aeneas finishes the tale he’s telling to Dido.
The saddest thing about this whole book is Andromache giving those baby clothes to Ascanius. Bless her heart.
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