Aeneid - Book IX

[AoM]

Been making my way through this book, and it's a real shame AP Latin students (and many readers of the Aeneid) don't read some of the passages here. This Nisus and Euryalus stuff really is great.

And this connection got me good. Dammit, Virgil!

hic demum collectis omnibus una / defuit (2.743-4)

nomenque Creusae / solum defuerit (9.297-8)

 

[Dantius]

Yeah, Nisus and Euryalus is one of my favorite parts of the Aeneid. Also I find it interesting that iirc, Aeneas himself never makes an appearance in Book IX. It's indeed too bad that the AP Latin curriculum has no Latin text from the second half.

 

[AoM]

tum super exanimum sese proiecit amicum
confossus, placidaque ibi demum morte quievit. (444-5)

 

[AoM]

et laevo infixa est alte lateri, abditaque intus (579)

Holy elisions.

 

[Dantius]

Is there a reason, other than metri gratia?

 

[AoM]

I don't have a copy of Hardie yet, so I don't know whether he has anything to say there.

But for me, they do a good job of stressing the fact that this guy's lung(s) just got punctured, so he's gasping for almost every breath. So more of an indication of what's to come in the very next line.

 

[AoM]

et tunicae manicas...habent (616)

"And your tunics... have sleeves! "

You know that one really got Ascanius' blood boiling.

 

[AoM]

sit satis, Aenide, telis impune Numanum
oppetiisse tuis. (653-4)

First use of the verb since book 1.

___________O terque quaterque beati,
quis ante ora patrum Troiae sub moenibus altis
contigit oppetere! (94-6)

That father-son connection.

 

[AoM]

I don't follow too many translations, but given the ease of access, I've occasionally been looking at Kline's.

And it's stuff like this that... urgh!

cavae...galeae are mentioned, which he translates as 'hollow helmets'. In the accompanying simile, cava is used again, this time referring to nubila.

And instead of keeping the parallel and translating it as 'hollow', he goes with 'cavernous'.

I imagine if I asked him about it, the much-invoked goddess (as Knox puts it) "Context" would inevitably come into play.

 

[AoM]

conlapsos artus atque arma cruenta cerebro
sternit humi moriens, atque illi partibus aequis
huc caput atque illuc umero ex utroque pependit. (753-5)

Three straight elisions with atque.

 

[AoM]

Turnus the Scylla.

nec muris cohibet patriis media Ardea Turnum. (738)

at Scyllam caecis cohibet spelunca latebris
ora exsertantem et navis in saxa trahentem. (3.424-5)

 

[AoM]

On looking up the word poples in L&S, I never thought I would see the phrase "the ham of the knee" written in the English language.

 

[AoM]

Finally found an English word that can get most of the senses of globus/glomerare.

 

[Pacifica]

Which is?

 

[AoM]

Cluster.

 

[AoM]

It looks like this certum est construction is used twice in the Aeneid: once of Aeneas, and then of Turnus.

3.686 - certum est dare lintea retro.
9.153 - luce palam certum est igni circumdare muros.

I like all these connections between the two - e.g.,

me bello e tanto digressum et caede recenti
attrectare nefas, donec me flumine vivo
abluero. (2.718-20)

____________ille suo cum gurgite flavo
accepit venientem ac mollibus extulit undis
et laetum sociis abluta caede remisit. (9.816-8)

 

[AoM]

Finally got a copy of Hardie's commentary. He has some good bits in the introduction.

"In the last four books of the Aeneid an Odyssean subplot runs beneath the main Iliadic plot: from one point of view the Trojans in Italy play the part of the Greek invaders of the Troad, but Italy is also, by the Trojans' descent from the Italian Dardanus (3.163-8) and by the design of fate, the once and future home of Aeneas and his race. Aeneas comes to Latium to win his destined bride Lavinia from the suitor Turnus as Odysseus returns home to Ithaca to claim his wife Penelope from the suitors."

 

[Bitmap]

Finally got a copy of Hardie's commentary. He has some good bits in the introduction.

I've always found the question of how the Aeneid can be structured very interesting. There's the obvious split in 2 halves as a reference to Homer with 1-6 showing Aeneas's Odyssee (and his struggle with fate, until he finally accepts it) and 7-12 being Aeneas's Iliad (and the sealing of his fate).

However, you can also find the separation into 3 parts consisting of 4 books each, which I'd consider an attempt by Vergil to set himself apart from Homer. 1-4 would then obviously be Aneas in Carthago, 5-8 his landing in Italy and the preparation of the war, and 9-12 the actual war. I find it interesting to hear about the Odyssean subplot Hardie sees in 9-12, I haven't thought of that, yet.

Btw. scholars have tried to split Ovid's Metamorphoses into 12 parts to construct a certain reference to the Aeneid. While that is certainly possible, Ovid himself wrote about his epos as "ter quinque volumina" in his Tristia - at the same point when he makes a reference to the Aeneid when he writes that he wanted to cast his Metamorphoses into the fire upon leaving (just like Vergil wanted his Aeneid destroyed after his death):

sunt quoque mutatae, ter quinque uolumina, formae,
nuper ab exequiis carmina rapta meis. (Ov. tris. 1,1,117f.)

So Ovid also acknowledges the tripartition of the Aeneid (and sees a similar partition in his own work).

 

[AoM]

I haven't thought of that, yet.

This idea of structure and division reminds me of Duckworth's... uh, interesting... book on the "Golden Mean ratio" in the Aeneid. Given my aversion to mathematics, I doubt I'll ever be picking up a copy lol.

Check out this description.

"m/M = M/(M + m) = 1/2 (v5 - 1) = .618 = the key to the most exciting discovery in the history of Vergilian criticism. As a result of intensive research and study in the poetry of Vergil, George Duckworth has made a remarkable find: Vergil, as well as other poets of his century, deliberately used the Golden Mean ratio to give mathematical symmetry to the structure of his poetry. The author gives a full and critical account of the scholarship, which up to now has been devoted to the construction of the Aeneid. In turn, he traces the Golden Mean ratio—famous in mathematics, art, and architecture—everywhere in the main divisions and subdivisions, in the short speeches, and in the long narrative units of the Aeneid. Duckworth proves with his data that consecutive units of the epic are proportionate to one another in the ratio .618. With the longer and shorter passages denoted as M (major) and m (minor), the exact ratio is: m/M = M/(M + m) = 1/2 (v5 - 1) = .618, being achieved most frequently by the Fibonacci series in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. This extraordinary book provides a new awareness of the marvelous structure of Vergil's poetry. It is an essential text for resolving the disputed passages in Vergil. George Duckworth has pioneered a structural analysis that will not only make obsolete much Vergilian criticism but will, in addition, serve as a basis for future research."

 

[Dantius]

deliberately

Not sure exactly how you can find whether or not an ancient poet did something deliberately, but sure. Also I doubt it's really exactly .618; my guess would be that it's more just a general thing where structural changes happen around 3/5 of the way through.

George Duckworth has pioneered a structural analysis that will not only make obsolete much Vergilian criticism but will, in addition, serve as a basis for future research.

Big promises here. Not sure if the book will live up to them. Now I kind of want to see what he's found, though, so I guess the advertising was a success?