Term 1, Handout 4. the Verbal and the Visual: Virgil S Aeneid

Politics and Poetics 27.10.2016

Term 1, handout 4. The verbal and the visual: Virgil’s Aeneid

Epic and the visual/multimedia: enargeia, aletheia

Ecphrases punctuating the Aeneid:

1.441-97: the temple of Juno at Carthage

6.14-34: the engraved doors on the temple of Apollo at Cumae

8.625-731: Aeneas’ shield

10.495-99: the tragedy of the Danaids on Pallas’ swordbelt

12.939-46: Aeneas visualises the swordbelt worn now by Turnus

Vision and trauma

1.95: children died ‘before the eyes of their fathers, ante ora patrum

1.89: the storm roused by Juno snatches the sky and daylight from the Trojans’ eyes, ex oculis. The scene is miserabile visu, terrible to behold, at 1.111.

4. Darkness visible: Nisus and Euryalus and the politics of seeing/being seen

A. Aen.9.234-37 (Fitzgerald adapted)

‘Soldiers of Aeneas, listen

with open minds, and let what we propose

be looked on (spectentur) withour reference to our years.

The Rutulians have quieted down, buried in sleep

And wine. Our own eyes have seen (conspeximus) a place for ambush

Lying open where the road divides

There at the gate nearest the sea.

B. 9.262: reddite conspectum (bring back the sight of Anchises)

C. 9.373-5: Euryalus, fleeing the scene of slaughter, is spotlit when the moonlight

strikes his shiny helmet. He is immemor (forgetful, thoughtless’ at 374. ‘Not in

vain was he seen’ (haud temere est visum), 375.

D. 9.394: the primacy of vision gives way to another sense: hearing

E. 9.396: Nisus sees Euryalus: videt Euryalum

F. 9.425: Nisus can no longer hide himself and comes out of the shadows to plead

for his friend’s life.

G. 9.441-2: Insane with grief, Nisus becomes a storm-like force, lighting up the

night figuratively with his ‘lightning bolt sword’

H. 9.446-9: Nisus and Euryalus up in lights in Virgil’s famous epigram

Fortunate both! If in the least my songs

avail, no future day will ever take you

out of the record of remembering Time, (memori…aevo)

while children of Aeneas make their home

around the Capitol’s unshaken rock,

and still the Roman father governs all.

What’s political about ekphrasis?

A)Narrative, timing, plot

B)Art’s power to contain, frame, miniaturise? E.g. Aeolus/Neptune controlling and quelling the winds, like artists, at 1.57(mollitque animoset temperat iras / he mollifies their spirit and tempers their fury), and 1.145-53:

levat ipse tridenti

et vastas aperit syrtis et temperat aequor

atque rotis summas levibus perlabitur undas

ac veluti magno in populo cum saepe coorta est

seditio saevitque animis ignobile vulgus

iamque faces et saxa volant, furor arma ministrat;

tum, pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem

conspexere, silent arrectisque auribus astant;

ille regit dictis animos et pectora mulcet.

Then Neptune with his trident

Heaved them away, opened miles of shoals,

Tempered the sea, and in his car departed

Gliding over the wave-tops on light wheels.

When rioting breaks out in a great city

And the rampaging table goes so far

That stones fly, and incendiary brands –

For anger can supply that kind of weapon –

If it so happens they look around and sea

Some dedicated public man, a veteran

Whose record gives him weight, they quiet down,

Willing to stop and listen.

Then he prevails in speech over their fury

By his authority and placates them.

C) Art as dangerous, provocative, traumatic?E.g. 6.14-36: The doors on the temple of Apollo

Daedalus, ut fama est, fugiens Minoia regna

praepetibus pennis ausus se credere caelo15

insuetum per iter gelidas enavit ad Arctos,

Chalcidicaque levis tandem super astitit arce.

redditus his primum terris tibi, Phoebe, sacravit

remigium alarum posuitque immania templa.

in foribus letum Androgeo; tum pendere poenas20

Cecropidae iussi (miserum!) septena quotannis

corpora natorum; stat ductis sortibus urna.

contra elata mari respondet Cnosia tellus:

hic crudelis amor tauri suppostaque furto

Pasiphae mixtumque genus prolesque biformis 25

Minotaurus inest, Veneris monimenta nefandae,

hic labor ille domus et inextricabilis error; cf. Cat 64.115, inobservabilis error

magnum reginae sed enim miseratus amorem

Daedalus ipse dolos tecti ambagesque resolvit,

caeca regens filo vestigia. tu quoque magnam30

partem opere in tanto, sineret dolor, Icare, haberes.

bis conatus erat casus effingere in auro,

bis patriae cecidere manus. quin protinus omnia

perlegerent oculis, ni iam praemissus Achates

adforet atque una Phoebi Triviaeque sacerdos,35

Deiphobe Glauci, fatur quae talia regi:

They say that Daedalus, when he fled the realm of Minos

Dared to entrust himself to stroking wings

And to the air of heaven – unheard-of path –

On which he swam away to the cold North,

At length to touch down on that very height

Of the Chalcidians. Here, on earth again

He dedicated to you, Phoebus Apollo,

The twin sweeps of his wngs; here he laid out

A spacious temple. In the entrance way,

Androgeos’ death appeared, then Cecrops’ children

Ordered to pay in recompense each year

The living flesh of seven sons. The urn

From which the lots were drawn stood modelled there.

And facing it, upon the opposite door,

The land of Crete, emergent from the sea;

Here the brutish act appeared: Pasiphae

Being covered by the bull in the cow’s place,

Then her mixed breed, her child of double form,

The minotaur, get of unholy lust.

Here, too, that puzzle of the house of Minos

The maze none could untangle, until, touched

By a great love shown by a royal girl,

He, Daedalus himself, unravelled all

The baffling turns and dead ends in the dark,

Guiding the blind way back by a skein unwound.

In that sculpture you too, would have had

Your great part, Icarus, had grief allowed.

Twice your father had tried to shape your fall

In gold, but twice his hands dropped.

Here the Trojans would have passed on and gazed and read it all,

Had not Achates, whom they had sent ahead,

Returned now with the priestess of Apollo

And of Diana, goddess of the crossroads –

Deiphobe, the Sibyl, Glaucus’ daughter.

Thus she addressed the king….

D)The Aeneid seems actively to participate in the Augustan cultural shift towards the visual and the spectacular as politically powerful modes of representation. See especially books by Riggs Alden Smith (The Primacy of Vision in Virgil’s Aeneid), Paul Zanker (The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus), Helen Lovatt (The Epic Gaze) and David Fredrick (ed.) (The Roman Gaze).

E)Ecphrases are points of confrontation between different ways of representing and imagining the world. It is at these moments in the Aeneid that we see poetry reflecting on itself, on its scope, power, and limits, vis à vis other art forms.

F)Who sees? Ecphrases spotlight the importance of the viewing subject in the creation of meaning.

6. The temple of Juno at Carthage, Aeneid 1.446-496: Aeneas sees himself

Q: Examine the politics of Aeneas’ vision/blindness in this scene. What kind of a model for reading/viewing the Aeneid does Aeneas offer here?

Here being built by the Sidonian queen 446

Was a great temple planned in Juno’s honour,

Rich in offerings and the godhead there.

Steps led up to a sill of bronze, with brazen

Lintel, and bronze doors on groaning pins.

Here in this grove new things that met his eyes 450

Calmed Aeneas’ fear for the first time.

Here for the first time he took heart to hope

For safety, and to ruts his destiny more

Even in affliction. It was while he walked

From one to another wall of the great temple455

And waited for the queen, staring amazed

At Carthaginian promise, at the handiwork

Of artificers and the toil they spent on it:

He found before his eyes the Trojan battles

In the old war, now known throughout the world – 460

The great Atridae, Priam, and Achilles,

Fierce in his rage at both sides. Here Aeneas halted, and tears came.

“What spot on earth,”

he said, “what region of the earth, Achates,

is not full of the story of our sorrow? 465

Look, here is Priam. Even so far away

Great valour has due honour; they weep here

For how the world goes, and our life that passes

Touches their hearts. Throw off your fear. This fame

Insures some kind of refuge.”470

He broke off

To feast his eyes and mind on a mere image,

Sighing often, cheeks grown wet with tears,

To see again how, fighting around Troy,

The Greeks broke here, and ran before the Trojans,475

And there the Phrygians ran, as plumed Achilles

Harried them in his warcar. Nearby, then,

He recognized the snowy canvas tents

Of Rhesus, and more tears came: these, betrayed

In first sleep, Diomedes devastated,480

Swording many, till he reeked with blood,

Then turned the mettlesome horses towards the beachhead

Before the tasted Trojan grass or drank

At Xanthus’ ford.

And on another panel485

Troilus, without his armour, luckless boy,

No match for his antagonist Achilles,

Appeared pulled onward by his team; he clung

To his empty warcar, though fallen backward, hanging

Onto the reins still, head dragged on the ground,490

His javelin scribbling S’s in the dust.

Meanwhile to hostile Pallas’ shrine

The Trojan women walked with hair unbound,

Beating the robe of offering, in sorrow,

Entreating her, beating their breasts. But she,495

Her face averted, would not raise her eyes.

And there was Hector, dragged around Troy’s walls

Three times, and there for gold Achilles sold him,

Bloodless and lifeless. Now indeed Aeneas

Heaved a mighty sigh from deep within him,500

Seeing the spoils, the chariot, and the corpse

Of his great friend, and Priam, all unarmed

Stretching his hands out.

He himself he saw

In combat with the first of the Achaeans,505

And saw the ranks of Dawn, black Memnon’s arms;

Then, leading the battalion of Amazons

With half-moon shields, he saw Penthesilea

Fiery amid her host, buckling a golden

Girdle beneath her bare and arrogant breast,510

A girl who dared fight men, a warrior queen.

Now, while these wonders were being surveyed

By Aeneas of Dardania, while he stood

Enthralled, devouring in one long gaze,

The queen paced toward the temple in her beauty,

Dido, with a throng of men behind.

Hic templum Iunoni ingens Sidonia Dido

condebat, donis opulentum et numine divae,

aerea cui gradibus surgebant limina, nexaeque

aere trabes, foribus cardo stridebat aenis.

Hoc primum in luco nova res oblata timorem450

leniit, hic primum Aeneas sperare salutem

ausus, et adflictis melius confidere rebus.

Namque sub ingenti lustrat dum singula templo,

reginam opperiens, dum, quae fortuna sit urbi,

artificumque manus inter se operumque laborem455

miratur, videt Iliacas ex ordine pugnas, (cf. Aen.8.629, in ordine)

bellaque iam fama totum volgata per orbem,

Atridas, Priamumque, et saevum ambobus Achillem.

Constitit, et lacrimans, 'Quis iam locus' inquit 'Achate,

quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?460

En Priamus! Sunt hic etiam sua praemia laudi;

sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.

Solve metus; feret haec aliquam tibi fama salutem.'

Sic ait, atque animumpictura pascit inani,

multa gemens, largoque umectat flumine voltum.465

Namque videbat, uti bellantes Pergama circum note the tenses

hac fugerent Graii, premeret Troiana iuventus,

hac Phryges, instaret curru cristatus Achilles.

Nec procul hinc Rhesi niveis tentoria velis

adgnoscit lacrimans, primo quae prodita somno470

Tydides multa vastabat caede cruentus,

ardentisque avertit equos in castra, prius quam

pabula gustassent Troiae Xanthumque bibissent.

Parte alia fugiens amissis Troilus armis,

infelix puer atque impar congressus Achilli,475

fertur equis, curruque haeret resupinus inani,

lora tenens tamen; huic cervixque comaeque trahuntur

per terram, et versa pulvis inscribitur hasta.

Interea ad templum non aequae Palladis ibant

crinibus Iliades passis peplumque ferebant,480

suppliciter tristes et tunsae pectora palmis;

diva solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat.

Ter circum Iliacos raptaverat Hectora muros,

exanimumque auro corpus vendebat Achilles.

Tum vero ingentem gemitum dat pectore ab imo,485

ut spolia, ut currus, utque ipsum corpus amici,

tendentemque manus Priamum conspexit inermis.

Se quoque principibus permixtum adgnovit Achivis,

Eoasque acies et nigri Memnonis arma.

Ducit Amazonidum lunatis agmina peltis490

Penthesilea furens, mediisque in milibus ardet,

aurea subnectens exsertae cingula mammae,

bellatrix, audetque viris concurrere virgo.

Haec dum Dardanio Aeneae miranda videntur,

dum stupet,obtutuque haeret defixus in uno,495

regina ad templum, forma pulcherrima Dido,

incessit magna iuvenum stipante caterva.