The Aeneid

موضوع: The Aeneid الأربعاء أبريل 27, 2011 4:05 pm

The Aeneid
Plot Overview

ON
THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA, Aeneas and his fellow Trojans flee from their
home city of Troy, which has been destroyed by the Greeks. They sail for
Italy, where Aeneas is destined to found Rome. As they near their
destination, a fierce storm throws them off course and lands them in
Carthage. Dido, Carthage’s founder and queen, welcomes them. Aeneas
relates to Dido the long and painful story of his group’s travels thus
far.
Aeneas tells of the sack of Troy that ended the Trojan War after
ten years of Greek siege. In the final campaign, the Trojans were
tricked when they accepted into their city walls a wooden horse that,
unbeknownst to them, harbored several Greek soldiers in its hollow
belly. He tells how he escaped the burning city with his father,
Anchises, his son, Ascanius, and the hearth gods that represent their
fallen city. Assured by the gods that a glorious future awaited him in
Italy, he set sail with a fleet containing the surviving citizens of
Troy. Aeneas relates the ordeals they faced on their journey. Twice they
attempted to build a new city, only to be driven away by bad omens and
plagues. Harpies, creatures that are part woman and part bird, cursed
them, but they also encountered friendly countrymen unexpectedly.
Finally, after the loss of Anchises and a bout of terrible weather, they
made their way to Carthage.
Impressed by Aeneas’s exploits and
sympathetic to his suffering, Dido, a Phoenician princess who fled her
home and founded Carthage after her brother murdered her husband, falls
in love with Aeneas. They live together as lovers for a period, until
the gods remind Aeneas of his duty to found a new city. He determines to
set sail once again. Dido is devastated by his departure, and kills
herself by ordering a huge pyre to be built with Aeneas’s castaway
possessions, climbing upon it, and stabbing herself with the sword
Aeneas leaves behind.
As the Trojans make for Italy, bad weather
blows them to Sicily, where they hold funeral games for the dead
Anchises. The women, tired of the voyage, begin to burn the ships, but a
downpour puts the fires out. Some of the travel-weary stay behind,
while Aeneas, reinvigorated after his father visits him in a dream,
takes the rest on toward Italy. Once there, Aeneas descends into the
underworld, guided by the Sibyl of Cumae, to visit his father. He is
shown a pageant of the future history and heroes of Rome, which helps
him to understand the importance of his mission. Aeneas returns from the
underworld, and the Trojans continue up the coast to the region of
Latium.
The arrival of the Trojans in Italy begins peacefully. King
Latinus, the Italian ruler, extends his hospitality, hoping that Aeneas
will prove to be the foreigner whom, according to a prophecy, his
daughter Lavinia is supposed to marry. But Latinus’s wife, Amata, has
other ideas. She means for Lavinia to marry Turnus, a local suitor.
Amata and Turnus cultivate enmity toward the newly arrived Trojans.
Meanwhile, Ascanius hunts a stag that was a pet of the local herdsmen. A
fight breaks out, and several people are killed. Turnus, riding this
current of anger, begins a war.
Aeneas, at the suggestion of the
river god Tiberinus, sails north up the Tiber to seek military support
among the neighboring tribes. During this voyage, his mother, Venus,
descends to give him a new set of weapons, wrought by Vulcan. While the
Trojan leader is away, Turnus attacks. Aeneas returns to find his
countrymen embroiled in battle. Pallas, the son of Aeneas’s new ally
Evander, is killed by Turnus. Aeneas flies into a violent fury, and many
more are slain by the day’s end.
The two sides agree to a truce so
that they can bury the dead, and the Latin leaders discuss whether to
continue the battle. They decide to spare any further unnecessary
carnage by proposing a hand-to-hand duel between Aeneas and Turnus. When
the two leaders face off, however, the other men begin to quarrel, and
full-scale battle resumes. Aeneas is wounded in the thigh, but
eventually the Trojans threaten the enemy city. Turnus rushes out to
meet Aeneas, who wounds Turnus badly. Aeneas nearly spares Turnus but,
remembering the slain Pallas, slays him instead.