Psychology, Homeric slang and literary reference at a dinner from Proust’s masterpiece, the point being that, in those days (around 1890), every educated person knew something about the classics. Today things have changed, and one of the purposes of Pantheon Poets is to offer non-classicists a way to fill the gap.
Shakespeare on a classical scene – Ulysses tries to persuade Achilles to think of his reputation and re-engage in the Trojan War. Read the extract from his “Troilus and Cressida” here.
A very happy 467th, immortal Will!
Todays new poem is one of Horace’s poems on the shortness of life: as a contrast, he refers to several mythological characters who suffer everlasting punishment in Tartarus, including forty-nine of the fifty daughters of King Danaus, who killed their husbands on the wedding night. The illustration by Waterhouse shows them eternally fetching water to pour into a vessel that can never be filled.
Hear the poem in Latin and follow in English here.
After travelling with Aeneas through Hades, following Virgil at his most epic, it is time for a change. Horace Ode 3.21 sees Horace at his most gential, celebrating wine, friendship and other good things in life.
The illustration is a fresco from Herculaneum, destroyed like Pompeii by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79CE.
Listen in Latin and follow in English here.
Lost in a dark wood, prevented from climbing to the sunny heights by a leopard, a lion and a she-wolf, Dante makes out a dim figure and appeals for help. The illustration is by a third visionary, William Blake.
Hear the Italian and follow in English here.
There is a portrait of Dante by Botticelli on his poet page here.
Coming to the end of his underworld journey, Aeneas exits through the gates of sleep and brings Book 6 of the Aeneid to a close. Hear the Latin and follow in English here.
As Aeneas continues his underworld journey, his father Anchises shows him the future Marcellus, tragic nephew and adopted son and heir of the Emperor Augustus, whose great promise will be cut short by death at the age of nineteen. The poetry rises to much more affecting heights than the tremendous hymn of praises to Augustus himself, from which it follows on. The illustration reflects the tradition that Marcellus’s mother, Octavia, was so moved at hearing Virgil recite this passage that she fainted dead away. Hear the extract in Latin and follow in English here.
As Aeneas’s journey through the underworld continues, the shade of his father, Anchises, shows him the future Emperor Augustus and foretells his glorious conquests as they talk in the Elysian Fields. Hear the Latin and follow in English here.
Leaving Tartarus behind in his underworld journey, Aeneas arrives at the home of the blessed, the Elysian Fields. He will see many illustrious warriors there: the ones in the illustration are King Leonidas and the Spartans before the battle of Thermopylae, as imagined by Jacques-Louis David.
Hear the Latin and follow in English here.