Aeneid 1
The Beginning
I’m reading through the Aeneid using a 1917 translation of books I-VI by Frederick Holland Dewey, A. B., available in the Internet Archive. It contains the original text and a literal interlinear translation. Besides improving my scattered knowledge of Latin, I’m actually reading the story for the first time. I’m looking up things I don’t understand as I read, but trying not to read commentary ahead of myself.
This is the story of Aeneas, an example of what a Roman man should be. He is a man of war, good and god-fearing, who is destined to found the Latin race, which will lead to the founding of Rome itself. He has been tested in war, but was on the losing side, and exiled from his home in Troy. Born of one goddess, Venus, he has become, through no fault of his own, the mortal enemy of another goddess, Juno. We will hear of all the trials he must go through to found the Roman race.
Why has Juno set herself against Aeneas and his fleet?
First of all, she favors the settlers from Tyre and Sidon, headed by Dido, who has founded the new city, Carthage, in Libya, in what is current day Tunisia. Her chariot and her arms are there. But the fates have decreed that Trojan blood will prevail over Carthage.
Secondly, Juno is jealous because her husband, Jove, has taken lovers from among the Trojans. Ganymede, the son of Tros, the founder of Troy, was taken to Olympus itself. Paris, a prince of Troy did not just choose Venus, the mother of Aeneas, because he thought her the most beautiful. He chose her because she promised him Helen, a daughter of Jove by another woman.
Juno has kept Aeneas and his fleet wandering at sea for years. Now they have finally made it past Sicily, and have set sail for Latium in Italy. They have spread their sail, and the bronze prows of their ships are turning up the foam of the salt sea.
But Juno will not be appeased. She remembers how Pallas (Athena) avenged herself on the Greeks because Ajax dragged Trojan princess Cassandra from Athena’s statue and violated her. She used Jove’s lightning to scatter the vessels, snatched Ajax away in a whirlwind, and impaled him on a sharp rock. Should not Juno, Jove’s own wife and sister, be able to do the same to the Trojan fleet? Who would continue to worship her if she could not?
Instead of getting a thunderbolt from Jove, she goes to King Aeolus, of Aeolia, the land of storms. He is under a strict edict to repress the struggling winds and roaring storms in a mighty cave. But she wants him to set them loose to scatter the ships of the Trojan fleet and strew the bodies of the Trojans on the deep. In return, she will give him the most beautiful of all her fourteen nymphs, Deiopea, in marriage, so he can father beautiful offspring.
He agrees.
In the Trojan fleet, men shout and ropes creak. Black night replaces daylight; the blotted out sky peals with thunder; the air flashes with lightning. Death is near.
Aeneas groans, and stretches his hands to the stars. How much better it would have been to die in front of his elders defending Troy. And then, hurricane winds hit his ship’s sail full on in the front. The oars break. The prow turns the ship broadside to the waves. They hang on the top of a mountain of water.
The south wind takes three of their ships and twists them on the hidden rocks. The east wind forces three of their ships onto the shoals, dashes them against the shallows, and surrounds them with a mound of sand. The ship of Orontes and the Lycians is twisted three times and swallowed by a whirlpool. Swimmers are scattered in the water. And weapons and planks and Trojan wealth.
Neptune sees what has happened to Aeneas and his fleet, and realizes this was his sister Juno’s doing. He sends her back to King Aeolus, to remind him that Neptune has dominion over the sea and Aeolus rules only the closed prison of the winds.
Then he quiets the waters, sends away the clouds, and brings back the sun. Three ships are saved from the sharp rocks; three are rescued from the shallows. Neptune calms his realm of the sea as if it were the rioting of a crowd, like a good and pious father, guiding his horses from his speeding car as he flies over the waters.
Aeneas turns seven of his ships towards the closest shores in Libya. An island forms a harbor in a deep cove, acting as a breakwater. On either side, ledges project out from the top of cliffs. Below them are calm waters. There is a rustling wood on top of the cliff, a black grove of shaggy shade that hangs over from above. Below the cliffs that face the harbor entrance is a cave of hanging crags, with fresh water and living rock, a home of nymphs. It’s a good place for damaged ships: they will need no rope or anchor to rest secure.
And now, Achates will kindle a fire. See An Epic Read