Author: Pantheon Poets

The tragedy of Marcellus

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In today’s extract, Aeneas learns in his journey to the underworld of Marcellus, the Emperor Augustus’s nephew. Augustus adopted him as his son and prospective successor and heir in 25 BCE, when he was still only a teenager. It was not to be: Marcellus would die only two years later with his potential unfulfilled. The illustration shows what might have been: the general making a triumphant entry to Rome may be the Marcellus with whose shade Aeneas sees the young man walking, an illustrious war leader of the third century BCE.

Hear the extract in Latin and follow in English here.

The transience of beauty

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This poem by Schiller, “Nänie” (meaning a Roman funeral song) is famous in the German-speaking world. It is a fine example of how influential classical education, which most significant European writers between the Renaissance and the mid-twentieth century would have had, was on their work. Schiller actually uses an ancient Greek and Roman metre – elegiac couplets – and takes it as read that his audience will immediately recognise the figures from myth that he refers to, although only one of them is referred to by name in the German text.

The illustration shows the courtship on a red-figure cup of Thetis, the grieving mother of Schiller’s poem, and the hero Peleus. Thetis, a shape-shifter, attempts to elude him by using her gift, but he holds her too tightly. Achilles, also a figure in Schiller’s poem, will be among the results.

Hear Schiller’s German read by Tatjana Pisarski and follow in Westbrook’s English here.

The true colours of the Cyclops

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When the Cyclops lights his evening fire, he spots Odysseus and his Ithacans. In the fraught exchanges which follow, it rapidly becomes clear that they cannot rely on the monster observing the ancient world’s sacred code of hospitality, and Odysseus realises that, even if he kills the monster, he and his comrades are trapped in the cave. But the resourceful Odysseus thinks of a plan.

Hear Homer’s Greek and follow in Samuel Butler’s English here.

The image, by Francisco de Goya, is of Saturn devouring one of his children.

 

The unhappy spirit

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In an unconventional but moving ode in which the speaker is a drowned sailor, pleas for burial are combined with reflections on the inevitability of death. Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.

The upright life

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Horace has had an unexpected encounter with a wolf: it has run from him although it is a monster and he is unarmed. Horace puts this down to the upright life he leads and the honest love he feels for his mistress, Lalage. Hear the Latin and follow in English here. The lovely wolf photograph is by Gary Kramer of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The wooden horse arrives

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After Dido’s banquet in the royal palace of Carthage, Aeneas has agreed to her request to tell the story of the fall of Troy and the years of his wanderings with his Trojan comrades-in-arms. He has just embarked on the episode of the Trojan horse, and is recalling how King Priam, and the Trojans were ticked into bringing it into the city by Sinon, who claims to hate the Greeks and narrowly to have escaped death at their hands as a human sacrifice. In fact, he is a Greek agent, and a very skilful one.

The illustration is a first-century CE wall painting from Pompeii, showing the Trojans bringing the horse into their city.

Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.