In this second selection of poems on a theme, love is not going so smoothly. Dido is being consumed by a passion for Aeneas which as yet is unrequited: Dido Continue Reading
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.
Mercury gets into formal dress to bring a stern message to Aeneas, visiting his Grandfather, Atlas, on the way. No wonder Aeneas will be startled. Virgil closely echoes Homer, but adds touches from his own imagination which bring Mercury, the shepherd of the souls of the dead, to disturbingly vivid life. Hear the story here.
The loss of a loved one is hard, but it has inspired some very beautiful poetry. This selection begins with Catullus’s farewell to a beloved brother. In this poem, the Continue Reading
Aeneas learns from his ships, which have been transformed into sea- nymphs by the Goddess Cybele, that his son, Ascanius, and his Trojan force are being hard-pressed by the Rutulian leader, Turnus. Hear the Latin and follow in John Dryden’s classic 17th-century translation here.
At first glance there is not much in this poem to remind us of Latin, except perhaps for the “murmuring labours” of the Etonians studying their vocab or irregular verbs. However, it is pure “carpe diem”, and the personified human misfortunes it lists are a pretty close borrowing from Book 6 of the Aeneid. See the Aeneid text, and the whole of the Gray poem, here.
The picture is one of a sequence illustrating the poem by William Blake.