Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Aeneid
    The Aeneid
    The Aeneid
    Audiobook13 hours

    The Aeneid

    Written by Virgil

    Narrated by Michael Page

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    After a century of civil strife in Rome and Italy, the poet Virgil wrote The aeneid to honor the emperor Augustus by praising aeneas, Augustus's legendary ancestor. As a patriotic epic imitating Homer, The aeneid also set out to provide Rome with a literature equal to that of Greece. It tells of aeneas, survivor of the sack of Troy, and of his seven-year journey: to Carthage, where he fell tragically in love with Queen Dido; to the underworld, in the company of the Sibyl of Cumae; and, finally, to Italy, where he founded Rome. It is a story of defeat and exile, and of love and war.

    Virgil's aeneid is as eternal as Rome itself, a sweeping epic of arms and heroism-the searching portrait of a man caught between love and duty, human feeling, and the force of fate. Filled with drama, passion, and the universal pathos that only a masterpiece can express. The aeneid is a book for all the time and all people.

    This version of The aeneid is the classic translation by John Dryden.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 19, 2010
    ISBN9781400186006
    Author

    Virgil

    Publius Vergilius Maro – or Virgil – was born near Mantua in 70 BC and was brought up there, although he attended schools in Cremona and Rome. Virgil’s rural upbringing and his affinity with the countryside are evident in his earliest work, the Eclogues, a collection of ten pastoral poems. As an adult Virgil lived mostly in Naples, although he spent time in Rome and belonged to the circle of influential poets that included Horace. He also had connections to leading men within the senatorial class and to the Emperor Augustus himself. Following the Eclogues, Virgil wrote the Georgics, a didactic poem, and thereafter began his longest and most ambitious work, the Aeneid. He died in Brindisi in 19 BC.

    More audiobooks from Virgil

    • The Aeneid
      The Aeneid

      Audiobook

      The Aeneid

      Virgil
      4/5
    • Aeneid
      Aeneid

      Audiobook

      Aeneid

      Virgil
      0 ratings

    Related authors

    Related to The Aeneid

    Related audiobooks

    Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Professor Edith Hall

      Nov 5, 2020

      Edith Hall is professor in the Classics Department at King’s Collect London, specialising in Ancient Greek literature and cultural history. She has published several books including Aristotle’s Way: Ten Ways Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life (The B

      4 min read

    • Article

      Thick as Thebans

      Mar 25, 2021

      Thick as Thebans
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Island (catullus 64)

      Mar 1, 2022

      Back then the evergreens tumbled downriverfrom the glaze-white runoff to the boot-stirred puddlesof amber young men who fulfilled our destiny,who clambered into ships, on horses, and in wagonspainting the newfound landscapes ours.Our calling was nobl

      9 min read

    • Article

      Cape Horn

      Oct 22, 2020

      They lifted anchor, spread the sails,Quit shores where they were born,Bound for spice isles from doubtful talesBy way of far Cape Horn—Rough seamen, fortune-bound, to tradeIn gold and peppercornAnd woo a grass-clad island maid—But first to round Cape

      1 min read

    • Article

      RHYME & REASON

      May 17, 2021

      RHYME & REASON
      1 min read

    • Article

      In Memory Of Derek Alton Walcott

      Mar 15, 2018

      1 Island traffic slows to a haltas screeching gulls reluctantto lift heavenwardcongregate like mourners in saltcrustedkelp, as the repellentnews spreads to colder shores: Sir Derek is no more.Bandwidths, clogged by streamingtributes, carry the pitcho

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Devil’s Dictionary

      Jul 6, 2021

      Select entries from Ambrose Bierce’s lexicon of cynicism, bitterness, and humor, produced over a 30-year period beginning in 1881. APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence. BARD, n. A person who makes rhymes. The word is one of the

      4 min read

    • Article

      Volcanoes Of The Med

      Oct 16, 2019

      Volcanoes Of The Med
      10 min read

    • Article

      Sea Sounds

      Feb 3, 2022

      Sea Sounds
      3 min read

    • Article

      Death Within The Walls

      Jan 24, 2023

      Death Within The Walls
      10 min read

    • Article

      Historical Fiction

      Aug 4, 2022

      By Dan Jones Head of Zeus, £16.99, hardback, 464 pages It is July 1346, and the conflict that will come to be known as the Hundred Years’ War has been raging for nearly a decade. Led by a battle-scarred captain and calling themselves the ‘Essex Dogs’

      1 min read

    • Article

      Stormy Lesson

      May 9, 2019

      Stormy Lesson
      8 min read

    • Article

      Something About John Coltrane

      Sep 1, 2021

      Something about a tree in shallow sleepListening for what it wants to remember: The note of a seed, its neck sliding throughDirt and its confusion—nothing cleansed Of struggle. The weight lost after death,A confrontation of death. John Coltrane Even

      5 min read

    • Article

      Viking Raiders

      Mar 16, 2023

      Viking Raiders
      10 min read

    • Article

      America the Beautiful

      May 30, 2023

      America the Beautiful
      1 min read

    • Article

      Death of Endurance

      Mar 31, 2022

      Death of Endurance
      5 min read

    • Article

      Portrait Of An Island

      Jun 3, 2021

      AN ISLAND provides refuge for refugees. Their roofs, tablecloths, and bedsheets wave from the port’s breeze. Temporarily permanent, adjacent to the water, each tent kneels behind the mayor’s office and in front of a tenth-century castle. The locals p

      4 min read

    • Article

      Rome: Prince Rogers Nelson Dead

      Mar 1, 2020

      I had stage fright before the baroqueof Rome, afraid some part of mewould get loose in the volutes and the cork-screwedcolumns like the minds of the melancholyarchitects that overshot the human. I was dizzy.I was thirsty. I didn’t know the bodyof wor

      2 min read

    • Article

      One Night

      Sep 15, 2022

      The night looks wrapped in milky cotton. The full moon shines through from time to time when the fogbanks turn wispy under the stratus. The entire sea glows with greenish, phosphorescent sheets. It is hardly rumbling, because the fog muffles all soun

      5 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Sep 4, 2018

      In London. England. Who knows why?Perhaps this rumpled guyFrom central casting or a page of Dickens.He’s taking ordinary usTo haunts of the illustrious,Where even dull pulse quickens. A red felt hat’s dark fingered brim,Food-spotted vest are—him.A mo

      4 min read

    • Article

      Goodbye To Beauty

      Dec 17, 2020

      Goodbye To Beauty
      8 min read

    • Article

      Toby Martinez De Las Rivas

      Dec 15, 2018

      III. Is belief, like love, first a touch, a feeling,an inclination toward rightness?But I have known—known—myself right somany times & been so, só wrong.Is it a mode of dying? Of benediction?Acceptance of suffering?It is benediction.I am ill. There i

      2 min read

    • Article

      Battle Of Arginusae

      Feb 20, 2020

      Battle Of Arginusae
      4 min read

    • Article

      Entertainment Afloat

      Jan 2, 2020

      In 1963 Charles Stock converted a 16ft 8in Fairey Falcon hull into a midget sailing cruiser, Shoal Waters. She was engineless and gaff-rigged and sailed 70,000 miles around the Thames Estuary over the next 35 years. ‘Don’t just sit there’, says Stock

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Aeneid

    3.5/5

    78 ratings61 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      I do think it is a commendable effort by Fagles to translate another lengthy epic but I do think my on-going ennui while reading through this epic poetry even with the help of Simon Callow's narration was the result of Virgil's prose and storytelling itself. The Aeneid is a continuation after the fall of Troy and it set around the adventures of Aeneas and his role in the founding of Rome. However, this doesn't mean Virgil is ripping off Homer although obviously he did base his work around Iliad but Mediterranean culture often derive from the same geographical source, much like how there's some similarity between food cultures around South East Asia.

      Unlike Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid is highly political and almost devoid of storytelling until usual good parts. Most of the time the poems constantly surrounded itself with 'prophetic' grandeur of the future Roman empire and its people and there's a lot of brown nosing in this book that it became unbearable. That made more sense why Virgil wanted his manuscript destroyed. Its not just a story of Aeneus, its also a 19 BC product placement story about how the then-Roman families and rulers being placed inside the mythology with stories of their grandeur.

      The role of various women in Aeneid is by far the most troublesome element I had with this book. I could blame it on my modern bias but there are prevalent amount of misogyny in this book that made the process of reading as discomforting. This whole story seem to assert itself that a woman couldn't hold a position of power and always in danger of irrationality and on the verge of hysteria and suicidal at the whims of men. First we see them with Juno and Venus then Dido and Queen Amata. I do admire Dido at first but due to a deus ex machina, her characterization was tarnished and she became an even more caricatured version of Homer's Penelope and Calypso.

      There are some good parts with war and fight scenes and occasional description of gore but overall the narrative seem to jump around characters. But unlike Greek's thematic Xenia where hospitality is one of the most important values, Aeneid focus more on Pietas which was piety toward the gods, the prophecy and responsibility which was prevalent throughout the book. It show Aeneus in varied position where he was pushed to his destiny and held back from his goal by people or divine stalker entity. It is laughably distracting that in a way it is a classic way to teach its listener about being pious but all I want was some coherent storytelling instead of a propaganda and a story within a story. Aeneid have its historical significance but it certainly doesn't give me much entertainment without being distracted by all the allegories.
    • 5/5
      This is a classic of course. This translation in particular is quite well done. It has excellent notes and references. I love this work particularly because of the context in which it was written which gives depth to many of the events and/or the way in which they are portrayed.
    • 3/5
      Another classic! Interesting to hear the Trojan side of this and also the slightly different Roman Gods. Aeneas is a great hero and the story suitably epic!
    • 4/5
      Love this translation, especially the beginning.
    • 4/5
      Having read Broch's The Death of Virgil earlier this year, I felt I should read The Aeneid, especially as I never studied Latin III, where we would have read it in the original. I'm glad I read it now for the first time, as I don't think I would have appreciated its richness, creativity, and psychological insight years ago. The story is quickly told: Aeneas flees Troy after the Trojan War and he and his companions seek a new land to settle, in Italy. Juno opposes them, so they are forced on a long voyage until reaching their destination. They must fight to gain the land where they will found their new city. Yes, you could call it a propaganda piece; but oh, how marvellous! In Book VI, Aeneas journeys to the Elysian Fields where his dead father's shade tells him of the glories of the Rome to come. The translation was very readable and evocative of the time and place. I liked the use of the present tense to describe the action [the 'historical present']; to me, it gave it immediacy. I appreciated the lengthy introduction by Bernard Knox and the Postscript by the translator, Robert Fagles. More than just the text, I highly recommend all supplementary material. My favorite parts were Book VI and Book X [the main battle against Latium]. I could almost call Aeneas the distant ancestor of one of the Roman soldier-heroes in today's Roman military novels. Certainly, the fighting was as bloody. The Aeneid is a must-read!
    • 3/5
      I finally finished!I read the first half with a coursera course and really enjoyed it--the lectures really gave me a background into who the characters are, and how those chapters worked with The Iliad/Odyssey and Italian history/myth.And then the course reading ended, and I have spent months reading the second half. The course helped me understand the story itself, but I would love to know who the important characters are in the second half, and how they relate to history, myth, the Trojan War, etc.
    • 5/5
      I remember Joy de Menil telling me that the first six chapters of the Aeneid were great but the last six were unreadable and merited skipping. It took me another twenty years to get around to reading it and I largely agree with Joy -- although I found some parts to like in the second half.

      The first six books are Odyssey-like and recount Aeneas' travels from the fall of Troy, through a variety of islands, to Carthage. It begins in media res (not sure of the Latin of this) with the gods fighting about the treatment of Aeneas. Within the first pages the narrator rushes to inform us that the book will culminate in the triumph of Rome, a theme it returns to somewhat didactically throughout.

      Following the opening book, is a second book with an extraordinary and largely self-contained flashback to the fall of Troy, including Aeneas' bitter recriminations about the decision to bring the wooden horse into the city walls and some moving scenes with the ghost of his wife who got separated from him in the shuffle. The tragedy of Dido and Aeneas is another largely self-contained book in the first half.

      The journey's forward momentum begins with Aeneas' trip to the underworld to see his dead father (not quite as dramatic as one might have hoped). This is followed by the second half of the epic, which is an Iliad-like accounting of the Trojans' war with the Latins, a conflict that is even more pointless than the Trojan War because the leaders of both sides both see the same peaceful solution but repeatedly get driven apart by Juno and her minions.

      Unlike the Iliad and the Odyssey, most of the stories and characters in the second half of the Aeneid were completely unfamiliar to me. I don't think I had ever heard of Latinus, Turnus, Amata, Lavinia or Evander -- all characters that loom large in the epic war that Virgil describes. That is in stark contrast to Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Paris, Helen, Priam, Hector, Odysseus, Patrcolus, the Ajaxes, Achilles, and the many other familiar characters that populate The Iliad. I think it is largely because of this that the second half is so much less engaging and dramatic (or it could be that all of these figures are less familiar because the second half is less engaging and dramatic).

      Regardless, certainly not something anyone should miss reading, even if you wait another twenty years from now.
    • 3/5
      Klassieke vertaling van Anton van Wilderode.Episch-lyrisch hoogtepunt, maar soms zwakke structuur (vooral boek 7 en 8). Inhoudelijk zeer sterk schatplicht aan Homeros (boek 1-6: Odyssea, 7-12: Ilias).Dramatische sterkte is de concentratie op personen en actie. Centrale thema's: trouw, vriendschap, eergevoel. Grote rol van fatum en interventie van de goden (medehoofdrolspelers).Structurele zwakheden:- Dido is ontrouw, Vergilius niet- in boek 10 besluiten de goden neutraal te blijven, maar ze blijven ingrijpen, zonder commentaar van de auteur;Merkwaardige tweedeling: boek 1-6 zachtaardig en gevoelig van inslag, boek 7-12 actie op de voorgrond en eerder wreedaardige inslag.
    • 3/5
      I listened to the audiobook read by Simon Callow. He was an excellent narrator. The story itself is a classic, and one that is somewhat familiar to people: the Trojan Horse, the betrayal of Dido, the journey to the Underworld, the voyage to found Rome. It’s part of our Western folklore. Hearing poetry aloud makes a big difference in understanding. The Fagles translation, while somewhat stilted, is understandable when written, but even better aloud. Like Homer, Virgil’s poetry definitely benefits from being read in audiobook form (at least if you have a good narrator).
    • 4/5
      This is poetry, and is therefore harder for me to read. The introduction is very helpful; if doing it again, I would read the corresponding part prior to each book/chapter. The story is sort of a combination of the Iliad (war) and the Odyssey (travels).
    • 3/5
      The Trojan Odyssey. Interesting for how it has carried down even until today.
    • 4/5
      The Aeneid, translated by Robert FaglesAfter reading Black Ships by Jo Graham (which was based on The Aeneid), I was inspired to find a copy and read it myself. Robert Fagles is an award-winning translator and is especially recognized for his work on Homer's The Illiad and The Oddessy. He more recently turned his attention to The Aeneid by Virgil. While I've never read The Aeneid before, and can't compare Fagles translation to others, I did find it to be very approachable, enjoyable, and immensley readable. In fact, he won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from The Academy of American Poets because of it.Also included in this edition is a wonderful introduction by Bernard Knox explaining the background, history, and context of The Aeneid. Additional useful elements include a genealogy, notes on the translation, and a fairly comprehensive pronunciation glossary. Apparently, Virgil died before he could finish the epic poem and requested that it be destroyed. Fortunately, for us anyway, his wish was not fulfilled.The Aeneid consists of twelve books following Aeneas, a Trojan commander, and what remains of the free people of Troy after it's final destruction. Destined by the gods to settle in Italy and become the ancestors of the Romans, their path is not an easy one. (The establishment of this ancestry was one of the primary reasons Virgil set about writing this work.) The Trojans must face storms, wars, monsters, and even the gods themselves in their struggle to survive and to found a new homeland. Even unfinished, the poem is quite an achievement. It is filled with fantastic imagery and is packed with action while addressing the humanity of the people involved.While in high school, I was intensely interested in classical studies. Reading this terrific translation of The Aeneid was a wonderful way to revisit that one-time obsession. Though it did end rather suddenly, right at one of the climaxes actually, it was very much worth reading and I very much enjoyed it.Experiments in Reading
    • 2/5
      I prefer Homer.
    • 4/5
      Sometimes you just enjoy the book.
    • 5/5
      Last year I managed to do cover-to-cover readings of Homer's Iliad and The Odyssey, but it has taken me some time to get around to Virgil's "sequel", The Aeneid. In The Iliad, Aeneas is whisked away from the battle at Troy (to heal) and effectively disappears from the story. Virgil, in his epic poem written during 30-19 BCE, picks up Aeneas' story (much like Homer does with Odysseus in The Odyssey) and puts him on a quest to become the founder of Rome. (This occurred before the time of Romulus and Remus. Virgil had to reconcile the myth of the wolf-suckled brothers with the earlier Greek myth.) This translation puts the epic poem into prose. It is nothing short of gripping. I enjoyed Virgil's Georgics and Eclogues, but this work was brilliant. I can see how Virgil has adapted much of Homer's approach to story-telling, but with several differences. Homer brings in the scenery, such as sunsets reflecting on battlefield bronze, as well as stories about who killed whom. Virgil does similar, but without so much of the scenery. Of course, this is a translation from the hexameter form, and was originally written in Latin rather than Greek, so how this translation compares with the original, I am at a loss. What we do know is that Virgil was honouring Augustus Caesar with this tale, and tracing Augustus back to Aeneas. (I recall a family history on the UK's Who do you think you are? where one person's lineage was traced right back to Jesus, so such myths for the aristocracy have been common for centuries.) Rather than recount the story, and what I find most fascinating, is the story of the Trojan Horse. Homer barely mentions it, and Virgil fills in some of the gaps. But the larger story that has been passed down doesn't really come from Homer or Virgil. This is not new, but I was expecting that the three books together would give a more complete story of the legend that we have come to know. As for the "quasi-plagiarism" of Homer, I tend to agree with La Trobe University's Chris Mackie that:In this sense the criticism of Virgil of plagiarising Homer, or quasi-plagiarism, seems rather unreasonable.I am surprised to learn that the poem was never completely finished, and that Virgil wrote at the same speed I write up my research. For the record, that is "about three lines a day".
    • 3/5
      I read this in Latin and survived the experience only because I was young and stubborn. In truth, the Odyssey is a much better written tale.
    • 5/5
      A lot of comparisons are being made between the Aeneid and Homer's Odyssey, but I personally find the Aeneid to surpass the former. Aeneas is portrayed with more compassion, I think, than Odysseus and a comparison isn't really very useful as Aeneas is a Trojan sailing with nowhere to go and Odysseus is a Greek victor who is just cursed to take ten years to get to his homeland.As far as the Aeneid on its own is concerned, you really get a feel for all of the characters involved (except, oddly enough, Zeus/Jove), and all of their points of view are justifiable, more or less. The personal drama and the battles are gripping, and you really sympathize with all of the characters.This translation in particular is a very easy one to read and I think true to the simplicity of the Latin original; Latin isn't a stuffy language and this is not a stuffy translation.
    • 5/5
      In my opinion, the greatest of the Classical epics. The Aeneid does not merely praise the glory of Rome and Augustus by exhalting Aeneas; it conveys a melancholy for everything that Aeneas, the Trojans, and even their enemies underwent in order to bring about fate. Rome's enemy Carthage, and even Hannibal who lead the invading army, is here depicted as the eventual avengers of a woman abandoned by her lover not for any fault of her own, but merely because the gods required him to be elsewhere. The Italians are shown as glorious warriors, whose necessary deaths in battle may not be worth it. Finally there is the end, not with the joy of triumph, but with the death moan of the Italian leader. The translation by David West perfectly captures the tone of the original.
    • 5/5
      poetic and lyrical all the way through. the weaving of the words is beautiful and apart. from the story they. The story is inspirsing and heart break. It was a stroke. of genius to give Romans their çreation epic (in copy of the Greeks witheir Homer epics The Iliead & The Odessey....Virgil's Abridge countinues the story of one defeated. Trojan General and prince who was under order orders from the gods to seek his "new kingdom" by the Tiber river in the strategic place perfect for a city to be born and control the Italian peninsula. SO....ONE OF THSE LAST STANDING TROJAN NOBLEMAN IS ANEAS..,.SON OF APHRODITE AND LEGENDARY FOUNDER OF ROME ACCORDING TO THIS EPIC POEM.
    • 3/5
      I found this easier to get through than [book: The Iliad], I think because at least for the first half there was stuff going on besides warfare. But I think I'm kind of epiced out after those two and [book: Paradise Lost] all this semester.
    • 3/5
      On its own this is perhaps a great work, but it pales in comparison to Homer's surviving pair of epics. Not only did Virgil mimic Homer's style of prose, but many of the events in his epic are heavily based on similar events in The Iliad and The Odyssey, so that many scenes feel like inferior rehashes of Homer's earlier work. You can almost picture Virgil reading Homer and sketching out how he's going to make his book even better. "Oh, Achilles had an ornate shield that is described at length? Well, Aeneas will have a shield too, and it'll be a way cooler one depicting Roman history!" Virgil was a fine writer, but the result of his labor feels far more like a calculated "great work" written on commission than the natural, beautiful works of Homer that came before. It's not as though Virgil has that much to work with, though: compared to the great characters among both the Trojans and the Greeks in The Iliad and The Odyssey, the cast of The Aeneid seems rather weak and sparse. Perhaps the most interesting character that feels original, as opposed to an imitation of one of Homer's subjects, is Dido, but she appears in only the first four books. Compared to The Iliad and The Odyssey, that ended on a strong note, The Aeneid is a front-loaded epic.

      Some people will love The Aeneid, and they'll be in good company- no less a writer than Dante thought of Virgil and his Aeneid as the greatest work of the ancient world (though given his description of Odysseus's life in Inferno, it's questionable how much familiarity with Homer Dante truly had). In my opinion, though, The Aeneid can't hold a candle to its predecessors.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoy Fitzgerald's translation... I think he hit a home run on this one, although I'm not as hot on his Homeric translations. The Everyman's Library edition is quite an attractive one as well. As for the Aeneid, it's a fine tale of love and war, an interesting bit of propaganda, and some nice poetry. Those interested in Vergil as alchemist, rather than as author, should check out Avram Davidson's novels (particularly The Phoenix and the Mirror).
    • 3/5
      Interesting, humorous, informative and rather pleasant for the most part. To be honest with you, the parts I remember best are some of the races and the campfire stories and antics of some of the soldiers.I bogged down in some of the battles and other long descriptive parts, enjoyed the stories of people. The gods and goddesses were quite annoying, and if that isn't a good description of demons, I don't know what is. Petty, self-serving, envious and interfering to their own ends. Prayers and supplications made no difference, they were answered only as it suited the immortals ends, and their ends were always wrapped up in malice. As opposed to God, "For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11
    • 3/5
      Klassieke vertaling van Anton van Wilderode.Episch-lyrisch hoogtepunt, maar soms zwakke structuur (vooral boek 7 en 8). Inhoudelijk zeer sterk schatplicht aan Homeros (boek 1-6: Odyssea, 7-12: Ilias).Dramatische sterkte is de concentratie op personen en actie. Centrale thema's: trouw, vriendschap, eergevoel. Grote rol van fatum en interventie van de goden (medehoofdrolspelers).Structurele zwakheden:- Dido is ontrouw, Vergilius niet- in boek 10 besluiten de goden neutraal te blijven, maar ze blijven ingrijpen, zonder commentaar van de auteur;Merkwaardige tweedeling: boek 1-6 zachtaardig en gevoelig van inslag, boek 7-12 actie op de voorgrond en eerder wreedaardige inslag.
    • 2/5
      Read in college in the late 60s. Much prefer the Mandlebaum translation. The Day-Lewis translation too often goes in for phrasing that was probably in vogue with the English public schools of the 20's: Lachrymae rerum (I, 445-475) awkwardly translated as "Tears in the nature of things." From Book 1, 340-341: ""a long and labyrinthine tale of wrong is hers, *but I will touch upon its salient points in order."" Book 2:: Pyrrhus is "crazed with blood-lust" and Anchisis "flatly refused to prolong his life." "Ye gods prevent these threats! Ye gods avert this calamity." Stale phrases from Book 4: "his trusty wand," ""Got wind of what was going to happen." "It has come to this!" "I must have been mad!" "Jump to it, men!." "they cut and ran for it." The Aeneid is a great epic poem; other translations do justice to it; the Day Lewis translation does not.
    • 4/5
      He got there in the end, did Aeneas. Battered in Troy, he overcame all that was before him on the way to Rome. Dido turned out to be very aggrieved. The last six books overdid the blood and gore. Poor Turnus was slain. The word emulously recurred and the earth groaned and moaned a lot. Super journey, however; we all make these journeys but with less excitement and spillage of limbs and blood. Not sure what Virgil would have thought of just a 4 star rating.
    • 4/5
      I’m torn on the concept of Virgil continuing the Homeric tradition, which was at least 800 years old by the time he came around. On the one hand, it was an homage and The Aeneid is a classic in its own right, telling the tale of Aeneas’ wanderings from Troy to Italy after the Trojan War, and his victories in battle there over the Latins, essentially making it foundation mythology for the Romans. One thing I didn’t like is a fact of the culture, that the Romans converted all the Greek Gods and mythology to their own names, which I have a perhaps silly philosophical objection to. Worse is the less than straightforward way of referring to people or places in the narrative, it makes reading the book harder; I was regularly going into Fitzgerald’s glossary (e.g. Orcus = underworld/Hades; Pelides=Achilles; Ausonia=Italy; Elissa=Dido, etc etc).The first six books of The Aeneid are along the lines of the Odyssey, and contain my favorite parts: Book II, “How They Took the City”, which tells of the use of the Trojan horse, Book IV, “The Passion of the Queen”, which has Aeneas breaking Dido’s heart leading to her suicide, and Book VI, “The World Below”, which has Aeneas descending into the Underworld (but does this last one sound familiar?). The last six book are along the lines of the Iliad, and get a little nationalistic, with allusions to Augustus Caesar, Antonius (Marc Antony), and others … and this was of less interest to me.Certainly readable but can’t touch The Odyssey.
    • 3/5
      Several reviews characterize The Aeneid as a slog and I agree. Compared to The Iliad and Odyssey it definitely is a more difficult story to get through. Partly for its self-aggrandizement of the Roman people and foundation, partly for its huge chunks of backstory and wild justification, but mostly for the insufferable gods and goddesses. Oh my head that was painful. Everyone it seems has a stake in Aeneas’s fate, but of course they are almost all at odds with each other and none seem to know what the others were doing. Every once in a while Zeus/Jove/Jupiter gets involved and lackadaisically makes a decision, but for the most part Venus and Juno get to butt heads and see who can mess with the participants the most in order to fulfill her ends.To some degree it’s a foregone conclusion since Vergil is writing this epic to give validation and divine permission to Augustus (his patron) and the Claudian and Julian families for crushing the life out of the Roman Republic. That means that Aeneas has to be perfect. Noble. Brave. Clear-sighted. Righteous. Determined. Bor-ring! There wasn’t enough humanity about Aeneas for me to connect with him. He was the correct embodiment of all that Roman Patrician families strive for in their men and he came off robot-like and stilted. Give me the much-maligned Odysseus any day.
    • 3/5
      The Aeneid is one of those staples of an education in Latin with which I was acquainted during my high school and college years, but only from a translation standpoint. In other words, I would be assigned to translate passages from The Aeneid as homework, but never really read the epic in its entirety until now.I love poetry, but epic poetry is something I've never quite been able to wrap my head around. I think it's because, with epic poetry, it's so much about the story and so little (In many cases) about the symbolism that I run into trouble. The conventions of the poetic form make it difficult to follow what would be, in prose, a normal sentence over several lines. By the time I get to the end of a "sentence" in an epic, I've lost the entire meaning of the thought because of the twists and turns of the poetic dialogue.So, basically, this was a bit of a slog for me.Keeping in mind that, in both Greek and Roman mythology, the gods and goddesses are petty and vengeful and really, really like to indulge their whims, I really thought Juno was spot-on. She was upset that Paris chose Venus as the best goddess (That's such a reductive way to state this, but there you have it), so she decided to take it out on Aeneas. However, she didn't really take into account that Aeneas would be protected by some other gods and goddesses, so she just ended up killing a bunch of people close to Aeneas without ever really being able to touch him. I guess that's the "Hurting those closest to your target hurts more than actually hurting your target" theory of vengeance.Aeneas is one of those characters that ran kind of hot and cold with me. At times, he seemed to be the heroic, noble founder of Rome from legends. At other times, he was kind of boring. For being the title character of this epic, I found him pretty blah.I did find myself, during battle scenes, grimacing quite often whenever someone was slashed/impaled/beheaded/what-have-you, as Vergil was quite fond of the term "gore" and all that went with it ("Thick gore," "thick black gore," "clotted gore" -- You get the idea). Much more effective than a lengthy description of blood spurting several feet from a decapitated trunk, if you ask me.Overall, I liked The Aeneid well enough to see why it's a classic in higher education. However, for those of you squeamish of epic poetry, I'd suggest finding either a prose version (I'm sure they exist somewhere) or a version that offers summaries of each of the books.My rating: 7/10
    • 5/5
      In what you'll recognize as a classic "reading group review" (if you've been paying attention . . . and why would you be?), some thoughts from The Aeneid Week 1:-I haven't been this excited about a reread in a long time.-Indeed, what is fate here? That which must be? The desultorily enforced whim of Zeus? Its own proof, because if you just did something awesome, some god or other must have been on your side?-I read that Virgil studied under Sino the Epicurean. I'd always thought of V. as more of a Stoic. Will read with that in mind.-What is all this about them braving Scylla and the cyclops? Like, Aeneas did everything Odysseus did, only offscreen? Burn!