The Aeneid: “Tell me the causes now, O Muse”

Attributed to Lucca Batoni Pompeo.

1/ One of the surprising things about the Aeneid is how similar, how well it fits in with Homer’s epics: even though it’s written centuries later, in a different language, and the gods have Roman names, it’s essentially the same world; Virgil also writes about the Trojan War and its aftermath, just from the other perspective; there are also sacrifices and gods and ghosts; Virgil uses epic similes, as in the Iliad; he includes a story-within-the-story, as in the Odyssey; the Aeneid begins with an invocation of the Muse, like Homer’s epic poems; I’ve also read that the first half of the Aeneid is modelled after the Odyssey and the second half, after the Iliad. 

(No wonder the three books are sometimes grouped together—there’s a Robert Fagles box set composed of three books, for instance, and in translation they feel like a trilogy). 

When I google the Aeneid, I see many people talk about it as some kind of propaganda about the founding of Rome, but I’m more interested in the aspect of the Aeneid as a spin-off from Homer’s epic poems: Virgil takes Aeneas from the Iliad and the Trojan horse from the Odyssey and tells the story from the other side. And because it’s the other side, the Odyssey is about homecoming and the Aeneid is about becoming an exile and creating a new home. 

I can see that Virgil sets out to imitate—and rival—Homer. 

“With this she left me weeping, 

Wishing that I could say so many things, 

And faded on the tenuous air. Three times 

I tried to put my arms around her neck, 

Three times enfolded nothing, as the wraith

Slipped through my fingers, bodiless as wind, 

Or like a flitting dream.” 

(Book 2) 

(translated by Robert Fitzgerald) 

That moving scene between Aeneas and the ghost of his wife Creusa is reminiscent of Odysseus trying three times to hug the ghost of his mother in the Odyssey. 

2/ There are some interesting images in the poem. 

“Here men were dredging harbors, there they laid 

The deep foundation of a theatre, 

And quarried massive pillars to enhance 

The future stage—as bees in early summer 

In sunlight in the flowering fields 

Hum at their work, and bring along the young 

Full-grown to beehood; as they cram their combs 

With honey, brimming all the cells with nectar, 

Or take newcomers’ plunder, or like troops 

Alerted, drive away the lazy drones, 

And labor thrives and sweet rhyme scents the honey.” 

(Book 1) 

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a Homeric simile. 

3/ The poem begins with Aeneas and some Trojans becoming exiles and reaching Carthage. Books 2-3 are Aeneas recounting his story (like Odysseus telling his adventures in Books 9-12 of the Odyssey). The sack of Troy is a particularly great scene, with many touching moments: Aeneas and others continuing to fight amidst the burning city; old Priam taking up weapons only to see another son of his brutally killed before his eyes; Aeneas carrying his aging father out of chaos and fire, then realising that his wife is no longer with them; Aeneas discovering that she’s dead, and trying in vain to embrace her one more time; and so on. It is such a great chapter.   

4/ Virgil repeats stories or images from Homer’s poems: the body of Hector being dragged around Troy walls; the Trojan horse; Scylla (or Skylle) and Charybdis; Polyphemus and the other Cyclops; etc. 

One of the fascinating things about Homer’s poems is that (unless I misremember) no story or incident in the Iliad is repeated in the Odyssey: when Odysseus, or someone that Telemakhos (Telemachus) meets, talks about himself or about the Trojan War, it’s a new story. If the Odyssey was not written by the author of the Iliad, it was written by someone who knew the Iliad very well and made sure not to have any overlapping scenes or stories. 

When Virgil evokes something from Homer, it’s not just a reference or a repetition—he changes the perspective, or does something interesting with it: the ruse of the Trojan horse and the destruction of Troy are now seen from the perspective of Trojans; Polyphemus is seen after he has been blinded by Odysseus (Ulysses) and his men; Aeneas and his crew go the long way, avoiding Scylla and Charybdis; etc. 

It is fascinating to examine the Aeneid as a spin-off. 

PS: I’m reading the Aeneid as a way to keep from killing myself, which may or may not work—I guess we’ll see.