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    The Aeneid
    The Aeneid
    The Aeneid
    Ebook495 pages6 hours

    The Aeneid

    By Virgil and Mint Editions

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    “In the whole of European literature there is no poet who can furnish the texts for a more significant variety of discourse than Virgil. [He] symbolizes so much in the history of Europe, and represents such central European values…” –T.S. Eliot

    The Aeneid (19 BC) is an epic poem by Roman poet Virgil. Translated by English poet laureate John Dryden in 1697, Virgil’s legendary epic is the story of the hero Aeneas, a castaway from Troy whose adventures across the Mediterranean led him to Italy, where he discovered what would later become the city of Rome. Presented here in faithful translation, though rearranged to accommodate Dryden’s rhyming couplets, The Aeneid is a treasure of classical literature and a story of romance, war, and adventure to rival the best of Homer.

    “Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate, / And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate, / Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore.” Fleeing the destruction of Troy by Greek forces, Aeneas brings his son Ascanius and father Anchises on a voyage across the sea. Landing in Carthage, Aeneas, his family, and his crew are rescued by Dido, Queen of Tyre. There, Aeneas, despite mourning the loss of his beloved wife Creusa, falls in love with Dido, who offers him refuge and her devoted love. Knowing that he is destined to found a city in Italy, however, Aeneas abandons the queen, leading her to commit suicide. Now determined to fulfill his destiny at any cost, Aeneas sails to Sicily, journeys to the underworld, and eventually arrives in the region of Latium, where he is swept up in conflict with Turnus, the Rutulian king. Flawed and feared, Aeneas exemplifies the imperfect hero compelled by fate and the gods, yet ultimately driven through a will to survive and provide for his fledgling people.

    This edition of Virgil’s The Aeneid is a classic work of Roman literature reimagined for modern readers.

    Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

    With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMint Editions
    Release dateApr 20, 2021
    ISBN9781513285283
    Author

    Virgil

    Virgil (70 BC-19 BC) was a Roman poet. He was born near Mantua in northern Italy. Educated in rhetoric, medicine, astronomy, and philosophy, Virgil moved to Rome where he was known as a particularly shy member of Catullus’ literary circle. Suffering from poor health for most of his life, Virgil began his career as a poet while studying Epicureanism in Naples. Around 38 BC, he published the Eclogues, a series of pastoral poems in the style of Hellenistic poet Theocritus. In 29 BC, Virgil published his next work, the Georgics, a long didactic poem on farming in the tradition of Hesiod’s Works and Days. In the last decade of his life, Virgil worked on his masterpiece the Aeneid, an epic poem commissioned by Emperor Augustus. Expanding upon the story of the Trojan War as explored in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid follows the hero Aeneas from the destruction of Troy to the discovery of the region that would later become Rome. Posthumously considered Rome’s national poet, Virgil’s reputation has grown through the centuries—in large part for his formative influence on Dante’s Divine Comedy—to secure his position as a foundational figure for all of Western literature.

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    Reviews for The Aeneid

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      This translation of the Aeneid is highly readable and very worthwhile.Virgil is superior to Homer if only due to the fact that he is more contemporary.The story of Aeneas the founder of the Roman race is both mythical and legendary and at once inspiring and breathtaking
    • 5/5
      The Aeneid is an epic poem, detailing Aeneas' journey. The first six books of the Aeneid recount the adventures of Aeneas, the future founder of Rome. The last six books tell of the settlement of the Trojans in Italy and the war with the Italians.After the fall of Troy, a small group of refugees escaped, and Aeneas became their leader. Several prophecies predicted that this group would settle in Italy and become ancestors of the Romans. They suffer many hardships; similar to those suffered by Odysseus (attacks by the Cyclops, Scylla and Charybdis.) After wandering for years, they arrive in Italy, settling in Latium. Before they are accepted, they have to fight a terrible war against the Latins led by Turnus. After Aeneas slays Turnus, he is free to marry Lavinia, the princess of Latium.Virgil begins the poem as Aeneas is sailing on the last leg of his journey, destined to take him to Italy. When tremendous storms batter his ships they take refuge on the nearest land. Aeneas learns that it is here that Queen Dido is constructing Carthage. The Queen falls in love with Aeneas and begs him to tell her the story of the fall of Troy.Aeneas relates the tale at the request of the Queen. After the fall, the band of exiled men sailed to Delos where the oracle of Apollo predicted that they would found a great nation. He details his adventures up to the present time for the Queen. Dido and Aeneas' love is ill-fated. He must follow the destiny the Gods have made for him. When he leaves grief-stricken Dido commits suicide.The ships finally arrive in Italy, near Cumae. Aeneas visits the temple of Apollo to consult a prophetess. She appears to him and tells Aeneas of the war he will fight and of his enemies. He asks to descend into Hades, where he meets his father, Anchises. Anchises shows Aeneas his future heirs and the heroes of Rome. The visit to the underworld in the Aeneid parallels a similar visit made by Ulysses (Odysseus) in Homer's Odyssey. The Trojans continue on and settle in Latium. Aeneas realizes his prophecy has been fulfilled. A war breaks out and Aeneas is given magical armor by the Gods for protection. Turnus, the leader of Latium's defense, attacks the Trojan camp, and many lives are lost. Turnus announces that the husband of Lavinia will be determined by a duel between Aeneas and himself. Aeneas kills Turnus in battle. The prophecies of the gods have been fulfilled.The epic by Virgil has inspired great writers ever since his day. Dante knew the story of Ulysses from Ovid who recounts it in his Metamorphoses (like Dante, Ovid suffered the fate of exile and expulsion from the city he loved and died without returning to it). It is this recounting that inspired the tale narrated by Ulysses in Canto 26 of The Inferno. In the twentieth century Hermann Broch began his novel of Virgil's last days, The Death of Virgil, with a similar motif of the ending of a sea-voyage with Virgil lying on his death bed in the entourage of Augustus. Beside Virgil in a small trunk was the manuscript for the Aeneid. And Primo Levi, in his autobiographical Survival in Auschwitz, recounts how he kept himself sane by attempting to reconstruct Ulysses' great speech in the Comedy from memory. These words provided a touchstone of humanity and civilization even that modern version of Dante's hell.
    • 5/5
      Of the Odyssey, Iliad, and Aeneid, The Aeneid is my favorite. It's amazing the difference that a few centuries can make in terms of character and plot development and literary conventions like, you know, not having the gods spoil the plot right before it happens.

      Ruden's introduction provides the basic info about how and why Vergil shaped the Aeneid to sort out the founding myths of Rome, praise its (relatively) new Emperor Augustus, and tout the benefits of an empire after the fall of the Roman Republic. In an explanation that gave me flashbacks to my first-semester class on the New Testament, way back in 2008, she explained that Vergil, like many ancient poets, found legitimacy by calling back to respected older works--in this case, the first part of the Aeneid reflects the beats and themes of the Odyssey, while the second part reflects the Iliad. Ruden also prepared me for the incredibly abrupt ending by explaining that Vergil died before he had a chance to finish the Aeneid, and that Augustus saved the unfinished work from the fate requested by the author: burning.

      Ruden's translation also has some key elements that I would have sorely liked to see in Wilson's Odyssey and Alexander's Iliad: footnotes! They provided mythological and, sometimes, historical context (I would have liked more of the latter) to some of the many name-dropped families and mythological figures that would have been otherwise just been, well, ancient Greek or Latin to me. I'm a huge fan of footnotes. Gimme gimmie.

      Finally, the language. Alexander's Iliad felt very functional, Wilson's Odyssey flowed with the beat of iambic pentameter, but Ruden's Aeneid, to me, seemed to find the best balance between clarity and poetry.

      Alas, to my shame I was epic poetry-d out and took a pretty long break in the middle. That loss of momentum has kind of fizzled my enthusiasm for writing a long review. On top of that, I've discovered that some of my past reviews on Goodreads have disappeared. I can't be sure since I didn't receive any warnings or notice from Goodreads, but I suspect that my Quote Roundups--despite my efforts to only quote portions insignificant in comparison to the books as a whole--may have had something to do with it. So I did keep notes, and I'll include them, but again, not feeling particularly inspired to do anything long and involved.

      Quote/Thought Round-up

      2:310) So apparently Paris died after the Iliad. Why the heck didn't the Trojans just give Helen up and call it a day after that?

      2:402) "No one should trust the gods against their will."
      No kidding, considering what they get up to.

      In general, I find it amusing that Paris got so much flak for being the pretty son of Aphrodite/Venus when Aeneas never gets teased about it.

      Chapter 4
      Dang, Dido. Dang, Venus.

      5:333) Nice to know austere ancient Greeks and Romans liked slapstick and scatalogical humor. Aiyah...

      Chapter 6
      Aeneas's journey to the underworld was awesome.

      7:340-542) "Allecto, steeped in Gorgon poisons, rushed / and lurked there, at the threshold of Amata [Latinus's queen] / ... Dark snakes made up the Fury's hair: she tossed one / to glide - maddening, hellish - through the dress / into the heart, and rattled all the house. / Beneath her clothes it coiled, around her smooth breasts. / She couldn't feel it as it breathed its poison - / her frenzy.
      The language of the fury Allecto's spreading poison of hate and war is so well done, not just here but as it spreads to first to other Latins and then to the Trojans. Props to Vergil and to Ruden.

      8:314) "The native fauns and nymphs once shared this forest / with many a tribe born out of flinty oak trunks."
      Kind of odd to read a once-upon-a-time line in a narrative that still includes nymphs and gods as key characters who interact with mortals.

      9:178) Nisus and Euryalus--oh la la.

      10:650) "You sailed here seeking land: I'll lay you on it."
      The Romans have some killer lines. I mean, they tend to die after saying them, no matter how awesome they supposedly were up to that point in their lives, but still...epic last words even if they'd be better off in the mouths of the person who lives.

      11:498-830) They may not have the best, most contemporary feminist storylines, but dang Dido and Camilla are awesome. Camilla's here, riding into war for the Latins. Too bad she was yet another woman warrior virgin sworn to Diana or Turnus might have been happier with her than with Lavinia.

      11:891-895) "The very mothers on the walls, who'd witnessed / Camilla's love of country, tried to match her. / In their alarm, they hurled down posts of oak wood / and stakes singed hard in place of iron weapons. / They longed to die first in the town's defense."
      I would, too, considering all they said they'd do to conquered cities, both in Latium and in Troy.
    • 4/5
      The selling point of this translation by Shadi Bartsch is its fidelity to the Latin, so I can't fault it too much for its awkward line-breaks and tendency to stiltedness. Bartsch's halting iambs come alive in lines like "while Turnus dealt relentless death across the plain", but this kind of fluency is never sustained for long. Having said that, it's nice to read a translation where you feel like you know where you are. "Planted" in the text, as Bartsch might say!As for the poem, this read confirmed me in my Greek vs. Roman affinities. Virgil tries on the epic mantle of the Odyssey (first six books) and Iliad (second six). But he wears it awkwardly due to his desire to write a national epic and the resultant unyielding Romanness. Homer on the other hand is elemental, enjoyably alien. Here, the constant wild animal similes and X-killed-Y-and-was-then-killed-by-Z verses somehow grate in a way they don't in the Iliad. The contradictions between divine intervention and predestination are annoying here, acceptable in the Odyssey.A matter of taste. But there's no denying that Aeneas is a total dick and impossible to root for. He completely botches the Dido situation resulting in Carthage opposing Rome for all eternity. He's not a complex character, just a blowhard and bully with a taste for human sacrifice, and his bloodthirsty dispatch of Turnus ends the story on an especially distasteful note. It doesn't help that his English epithet "pious" produces a jaunty rhyme that grows ridiculous with repetition.
    • 3/5
      This one, I found, only okay. I came into it hoping to get a bit more depth on the end of the Trojan War, having finished both The Iliad and The Odyssey.

      But this just seemed to meander. Lots of fighting, lots of blood and entrails and brain matter. Lots of somewhat hysterical women and angry men. But it felt, at times very much a retread of Homer's Odyssey.

      And Aeneas? I'm sorry, but dude's just a bitch. He lost two fights during the Trojan War, and both times, gods saved his ass by whisking him away. Here, he gets new armour and weapons from the gods, and once again, the gods interfere to make him the big prophesied hero he supposedly was destined to be.

      In the meantime, he also has a big romantic love affair with Dido, but leaves her, and she basically goes bunny-boiler and piles up his stuff, sets it on fire, then throws herself on top and kills herself.

      ...okay, maybe he was better off to leave her, on second thought.

      And the end just seemed to drag on and on and on, to the point where I literally pulled out my phone to check and see how much time was left on the audio book.

      Anyway. That Virgil...he's no Homer, let me tell you.
    • 2/5
      If you like excruciatingly detailed descriptions of glorious battles and sports, if you'd like to Make Rome Great Again, this is the book for you. Me, not so much.
    • 3/5
      I had high hopes for the Aeneid since it is the connecting thread between Homer and Dante, both of whose epics I love. This new translation succeeds in being accessible, and parts of the first half shine, but the back half is a litany of name-dropping nested in a boring war description.
    • 5/5
      In a reversal of the Iliad and Odyssey, the Trojan hero Aeneas revisits many of Odysseus’s adventures when he flees the sack of Troy, and fights a bloody battle to a foothold in Italy where is he destined to found the race of the Romans. Unlike Homer’s work which it draws upon the poem’s final form in 19 BC bears none of the traces of Homer’s use of stock phrases common to oral literature, Virgil’s work uses more literary style, imagery and scene setting. It also contains the story of the Trojan Horse, an extended visit to the underworld and the hero’s romance with Dido, Queen of Carthage, and its tragic consequence.
    • 3/5
      I haven't read an epic poem since college. I forgot how bloody they can be. I read Aeneid to get the back story for my next opera, Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz.
    • 4/5
      Love this translation, especially the beginning.
    • 3/5
      The Trojan Odyssey. Interesting for how it has carried down even until today.
    • 5/5
      Last year I managed to do cover-to-cover readings of Homer's Iliad and The Odyssey, but it has taken me some time to get around to Virgil's "sequel", The Aeneid. In The Iliad, Aeneas is whisked away from the battle at Troy (to heal) and effectively disappears from the story. Virgil, in his epic poem written during 30-19 BCE, picks up Aeneas' story (much like Homer does with Odysseus in The Odyssey) and puts him on a quest to become the founder of Rome. (This occurred before the time of Romulus and Remus. Virgil had to reconcile the myth of the wolf-suckled brothers with the earlier Greek myth.) This translation puts the epic poem into prose. It is nothing short of gripping. I enjoyed Virgil's Georgics and Eclogues, but this work was brilliant. I can see how Virgil has adapted much of Homer's approach to story-telling, but with several differences. Homer brings in the scenery, such as sunsets reflecting on battlefield bronze, as well as stories about who killed whom. Virgil does similar, but without so much of the scenery. Of course, this is a translation from the hexameter form, and was originally written in Latin rather than Greek, so how this translation compares with the original, I am at a loss. What we do know is that Virgil was honouring Augustus Caesar with this tale, and tracing Augustus back to Aeneas. (I recall a family history on the UK's Who do you think you are? where one person's lineage was traced right back to Jesus, so such myths for the aristocracy have been common for centuries.) Rather than recount the story, and what I find most fascinating, is the story of the Trojan Horse. Homer barely mentions it, and Virgil fills in some of the gaps. But the larger story that has been passed down doesn't really come from Homer or Virgil. This is not new, but I was expecting that the three books together would give a more complete story of the legend that we have come to know. As for the "quasi-plagiarism" of Homer, I tend to agree with La Trobe University's Chris Mackie that:In this sense the criticism of Virgil of plagiarising Homer, or quasi-plagiarism, seems rather unreasonable.I am surprised to learn that the poem was never completely finished, and that Virgil wrote at the same speed I write up my research. For the record, that is "about three lines a day".
    • 4/5
      While I loved all the supplementary information, Fagles translation wasn't as good as I had hoped based upon my experience with his Odyssey. My old paperback edition, translated by Allan Mandelbaum, was better but my friend's copy of Fitzgerald's was best of all.
    • 3/5
      Borders edition to the Iliad and the Odyssey's counter, the Aeneid. Tehe Trojans wonder looking for a home after Troy's defeat moving on until they reach Italy. And battle after battle leads to a final victory with heroes and gods in tow. This was definitely a bathroom read, one page at a time. So 2500 years ago the hero was the center of attention. You can see how this story line is still wih us today. Glad I took the tike to read it.
    • 3/5
      I finally finished!I read the first half with a coursera course and really enjoyed it--the lectures really gave me a background into who the characters are, and how those chapters worked with The Iliad/Odyssey and Italian history/myth.And then the course reading ended, and I have spent months reading the second half. The course helped me understand the story itself, but I would love to know who the important characters are in the second half, and how they relate to history, myth, the Trojan War, etc.
    • 5/5
      Delightful translation; goes well with Fagles previous translation of Homer's 'Odyssey' and 'The Iliad.' The introduction by Bernard Knox gives a nice historical context to the material as well.
    • 3/5
      I listened to the audiobook read by Simon Callow. He was an excellent narrator. The story itself is a classic, and one that is somewhat familiar to people: the Trojan Horse, the betrayal of Dido, the journey to the Underworld, the voyage to found Rome. It’s part of our Western folklore. Hearing poetry aloud makes a big difference in understanding. The Fagles translation, while somewhat stilted, is understandable when written, but even better aloud. Like Homer, Virgil’s poetry definitely benefits from being read in audiobook form (at least if you have a good narrator).
    • 4/5
      The Aeneid is a true adventure - a look towards the future and the promises made. History in the making for the Roman Empire. There are twelve books in the epic, much-loved poem. In a nutshell, the first six cover Aeneas and his wanderings after surviving the Trojan war. The second half of the poem are the details of the Trojan War. Much like how Gregory Maguire chose to tell the story of the wicked witch of the west, Virgil tells the other side of the Trojan War story. Instead of following Odysseus, we focus on Aeneas, the defeated Trojan.On a personal level, an observation: Aeneas reminded me of Dorothy Dunnett's character, Francis, from the Lymond series. He is that deeply flawed hero that everyone roots for.
    • 4/5
      While I've read both the Iliad and the Odyssey several times each, I've never gotten around to the Aeneid by Virgil, until now. The Aeneid is a sequel to the Iliad from a Trojan's point of view, specifically, Aeneus' wanderings after escaping the sacking of Troy. He is promised, by the gods, that he will found a new Troy in Latium (the future Rome), thus this epic, written during the time of Augustus Caesar, is a foundation story for the Roman Empire. It copies the structure and devices of its predecessors with the gods constantly interfering with Aeneas' mission because of their own petty quarrels, as well as wanderings from place to place, tragic loves, bloody battles between heroic men and even a trip to the underworld. In this book you'll find the description of Troy's destruction, the details about the Greek's devious ruse with the Wooden Horse, as well as the story of Dido the queen of Carthage who falls, to her own demise, in love with Aeneas. If the Aeneid is inferior to both the Iliad and the Odyssey, it is, nevertheless, enjoyable reading. I especially liked the depiction of Camilla, a female warrior that would give the Amazons a run for their money.
    • 4/5
      He got there in the end, did Aeneas. Battered in Troy, he overcame all that was before him on the way to Rome. Dido turned out to be very aggrieved. The last six books overdid the blood and gore. Poor Turnus was slain. The word emulously recurred and the earth groaned and moaned a lot. Super journey, however; we all make these journeys but with less excitement and spillage of limbs and blood. Not sure what Virgil would have thought of just a 4 star rating.
    • 2/5
      Read in college in the late 60s. Much prefer the Mandlebaum translation. The Day-Lewis translation too often goes in for phrasing that was probably in vogue with the English public schools of the 20's: Lachrymae rerum (I, 445-475) awkwardly translated as "Tears in the nature of things." From Book 1, 340-341: ""a long and labyrinthine tale of wrong is hers, *but I will touch upon its salient points in order."" Book 2:: Pyrrhus is "crazed with blood-lust" and Anchisis "flatly refused to prolong his life." "Ye gods prevent these threats! Ye gods avert this calamity." Stale phrases from Book 4: "his trusty wand," ""Got wind of what was going to happen." "It has come to this!" "I must have been mad!" "Jump to it, men!." "they cut and ran for it." The Aeneid is a great epic poem; other translations do justice to it; the Day Lewis translation does not.
    • 3/5
      On its own this is perhaps a great work, but it pales in comparison to Homer's surviving pair of epics. Not only did Virgil mimic Homer's style of prose, but many of the events in his epic are heavily based on similar events in The Iliad and The Odyssey, so that many scenes feel like inferior rehashes of Homer's earlier work. You can almost picture Virgil reading Homer and sketching out how he's going to make his book even better. "Oh, Achilles had an ornate shield that is described at length? Well, Aeneas will have a shield too, and it'll be a way cooler one depicting Roman history!" Virgil was a fine writer, but the result of his labor feels far more like a calculated "great work" written on commission than the natural, beautiful works of Homer that came before. It's not as though Virgil has that much to work with, though: compared to the great characters among both the Trojans and the Greeks in The Iliad and The Odyssey, the cast of The Aeneid seems rather weak and sparse. Perhaps the most interesting character that feels original, as opposed to an imitation of one of Homer's subjects, is Dido, but she appears in only the first four books. Compared to The Iliad and The Odyssey, that ended on a strong note, The Aeneid is a front-loaded epic.

      Some people will love The Aeneid, and they'll be in good company- no less a writer than Dante thought of Virgil and his Aeneid as the greatest work of the ancient world (though given his description of Odysseus's life in Inferno, it's questionable how much familiarity with Homer Dante truly had). In my opinion, though, The Aeneid can't hold a candle to its predecessors.
    • 4/5
      Ah yes - The Aeneid by Virgil - Its the Romans answer to the Greeks Odyssey, written much much later. While the book is a classic, I found it difficult to read, even translated. There are a lot of concepts that don't quite work with modern day. I also found a bit... preachy - always obey the Gods, Free Will vs Prophecy, etc.Also, this book is problem written at the start of literature, as pleasure (Rather than literature as history or literature as religious text). So at times, it can be quite dense - also, as they say today "It could use a good editor" - there seems to be some pointlessness traveling that could have been cut out with no loss of plot. Either way, I read it, glad I did so, but I won't be rereading it.
    • 3/5
      I so disliked this translation that I stopped reading it at Line 620 of Book II and finished it in another. I think I reacted so strongly against it because I had just read The Iliad in Richmond Latimore's magnificent version. While that style was ringing in my head and heart, I just could not buy into this so different version.
    • 5/5
      I remember Joy de Menil telling me that the first six chapters of the Aeneid were great but the last six were unreadable and merited skipping. It took me another twenty years to get around to reading it and I largely agree with Joy -- although I found some parts to like in the second half.

      The first six books are Odyssey-like and recount Aeneas' travels from the fall of Troy, through a variety of islands, to Carthage. It begins in media res (not sure of the Latin of this) with the gods fighting about the treatment of Aeneas. Within the first pages the narrator rushes to inform us that the book will culminate in the triumph of Rome, a theme it returns to somewhat didactically throughout.

      Following the opening book, is a second book with an extraordinary and largely self-contained flashback to the fall of Troy, including Aeneas' bitter recriminations about the decision to bring the wooden horse into the city walls and some moving scenes with the ghost of his wife who got separated from him in the shuffle. The tragedy of Dido and Aeneas is another largely self-contained book in the first half.

      The journey's forward momentum begins with Aeneas' trip to the underworld to see his dead father (not quite as dramatic as one might have hoped). This is followed by the second half of the epic, which is an Iliad-like accounting of the Trojans' war with the Latins, a conflict that is even more pointless than the Trojan War because the leaders of both sides both see the same peaceful solution but repeatedly get driven apart by Juno and her minions.

      Unlike the Iliad and the Odyssey, most of the stories and characters in the second half of the Aeneid were completely unfamiliar to me. I don't think I had ever heard of Latinus, Turnus, Amata, Lavinia or Evander -- all characters that loom large in the epic war that Virgil describes. That is in stark contrast to Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Paris, Helen, Priam, Hector, Odysseus, Patrcolus, the Ajaxes, Achilles, and the many other familiar characters that populate The Iliad. I think it is largely because of this that the second half is so much less engaging and dramatic (or it could be that all of these figures are less familiar because the second half is less engaging and dramatic).

      Regardless, certainly not something anyone should miss reading, even if you wait another twenty years from now.
    • 3/5
      I do think it is a commendable effort by Fagles to translate another lengthy epic but I do think my on-going ennui while reading through this epic poetry even with the help of Simon Callow's narration was the result of Virgil's prose and storytelling itself. The Aeneid is a continuation after the fall of Troy and it set around the adventures of Aeneas and his role in the founding of Rome. However, this doesn't mean Virgil is ripping off Homer although obviously he did base his work around Iliad but Mediterranean culture often derive from the same geographical source, much like how there's some similarity between food cultures around South East Asia.

      Unlike Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid is highly political and almost devoid of storytelling until usual good parts. Most of the time the poems constantly surrounded itself with 'prophetic' grandeur of the future Roman empire and its people and there's a lot of brown nosing in this book that it became unbearable. That made more sense why Virgil wanted his manuscript destroyed. Its not just a story of Aeneus, its also a 19 BC product placement story about how the then-Roman families and rulers being placed inside the mythology with stories of their grandeur.

      The role of various women in Aeneid is by far the most troublesome element I had with this book. I could blame it on my modern bias but there are prevalent amount of misogyny in this book that made the process of reading as discomforting. This whole story seem to assert itself that a woman couldn't hold a position of power and always in danger of irrationality and on the verge of hysteria and suicidal at the whims of men. First we see them with Juno and Venus then Dido and Queen Amata. I do admire Dido at first but due to a deus ex machina, her characterization was tarnished and she became an even more caricatured version of Homer's Penelope and Calypso.

      There are some good parts with war and fight scenes and occasional description of gore but overall the narrative seem to jump around characters. But unlike Greek's thematic Xenia where hospitality is one of the most important values, Aeneid focus more on Pietas which was piety toward the gods, the prophecy and responsibility which was prevalent throughout the book. It show Aeneus in varied position where he was pushed to his destiny and held back from his goal by people or divine stalker entity. It is laughably distracting that in a way it is a classic way to teach its listener about being pious but all I want was some coherent storytelling instead of a propaganda and a story within a story. Aeneid have its historical significance but it certainly doesn't give me much entertainment without being distracted by all the allegories.
    • 2/5
      I prefer Homer.
    • 4/5
      After reading The Odyssey and The Iliad I was hungry for the next piece of the puzzle. The Aeneid is the continuation of the story of the Trojan War. Unlike the first two books this one wasn’t written by the Greek poet Homer. It was written centuries later by Virgil, a Roman, who modeled his writing style after the Greeks.The story follows Aeneas, a Trojan who travels to Italy after the war and becomes one of Rome’s founders. Early sections in the book cover the storming of Troy and the betrayal with the infamous Trojan horse. I loved those sections and they worked much better for me than the later chapters on the war in Latium. One interesting aspect of this book is the Roman names of the Gods vs the Greek names. After reading half a dozen books on Greek mythology last year it was strange to hear of Juno and Neptune instead of Zeus and Poseidon. I also read The Mark of Athena around the same time and that book focuses heavily on the different names of the gods. I would highly recommend reading it alongside this one if you like the Percy Jackson series.BOTTOM LINE: I’m so glad I was finally able to read the thrilling account of the Trajan horse. I was so disappointed to discover that wasn’t in The Iliad. Other sections of the book dragged a bit for me, but it’s a crucial part of the story. If you love learning about Greek and Roman mythology then this one is a must and it helps bridge the gap between the two nations’ cultures.  
    • 4/5
      Having read Broch's The Death of Virgil earlier this year, I felt I should read The Aeneid, especially as I never studied Latin III, where we would have read it in the original. I'm glad I read it now for the first time, as I don't think I would have appreciated its richness, creativity, and psychological insight years ago. The story is quickly told: Aeneas flees Troy after the Trojan War and he and his companions seek a new land to settle, in Italy. Juno opposes them, so they are forced on a long voyage until reaching their destination. They must fight to gain the land where they will found their new city. Yes, you could call it a propaganda piece; but oh, how marvellous! In Book VI, Aeneas journeys to the Elysian Fields where his dead father's shade tells him of the glories of the Rome to come. The translation was very readable and evocative of the time and place. I liked the use of the present tense to describe the action [the 'historical present']; to me, it gave it immediacy. I appreciated the lengthy introduction by Bernard Knox and the Postscript by the translator, Robert Fagles. More than just the text, I highly recommend all supplementary material. My favorite parts were Book VI and Book X [the main battle against Latium]. I could almost call Aeneas the distant ancestor of one of the Roman soldier-heroes in today's Roman military novels. Certainly, the fighting was as bloody. The Aeneid is a must-read!
    • 5/5
      poetic and lyrical all the way through. the weaving of the words is beautiful and apart. from the story they. The story is inspirsing and heart break. It was a stroke. of genius to give Romans their çreation epic (in copy of the Greeks witheir Homer epics The Iliead & The Odessey....Virgil's Abridge countinues the story of one defeated. Trojan General and prince who was under order orders from the gods to seek his "new kingdom" by the Tiber river in the strategic place perfect for a city to be born and control the Italian peninsula. SO....ONE OF THSE LAST STANDING TROJAN NOBLEMAN IS ANEAS..,.SON OF APHRODITE AND LEGENDARY FOUNDER OF ROME ACCORDING TO THIS EPIC POEM.

    Book preview

    The Aeneid - Virgil

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