CLAS 353
September 18, 2023

The mourning of Pallas in illustrated edition of Vergil (1798)

Examination #1 Study Guide (Monday, September 25)

Aeneid 8 (cont.): shield of Aeneas (Augustan propaganda; culturally "superior" West vs "emasculated" East/"Orientalism"; cf. Remulus' taunts to Ascanius, 9.598ff., "O Phrygian ladies")



• Augustus' triumphal celebration (29 BCE) @ center of shield (8.714ff.); Augustan teleology ("goal/purpose of history"; cf. Achilles' shield)
  
  Aeneid 8.729-32
  Aeneas admires Vulcan's shield, his mother's gift,
  pleased by images he does not understand.
  He hoists the fame and fate of his descendants. [cf. end of Aeneid 2]
  
  
  Aeneid 9: attack against Trojan camp; Nisus & Euryalus; Turnus in action
  
  
  Woodcut illustration of the Strasbourg Vergil (1502)
  
  
• Nisus & Euryalus (cf. successful night raid of Odysseus & Diomedes, Iliad 10 (Rhesos' horses, 13 Trojans killed); cf. foreshadowing in running race of Aeneid 5 won by Euryalus; "The two made no reply, / but ran still faster to the woods, trusting to / the dark. . .", 9.377-9)
  
  Aeneid 9.184-6 (Motivations: Nisus on epic convention)
  Nisus asked, “Do gods enflame our hearts,
  Euryalus, or do our fierce desires become
  our gods?"
  
  Nisus & Euryalus, Liebig ("Extract of Meat") card (19th/20th centuries)
  
  
• relationship? (Euryalus: "there was no warrior more handsome—a boy / whose unshaved chin showed puberty's first fuzz. / They shared one mind, one heart", 9.181-3); cf. Cydon's escaping Aeneas ("You too, luckless Cydon: you'd have fallen / by that Trojan as you trailed Clytius, / your new passion. You'd be free of your eternal / love of boys as you lay there, pitiful", 10. 324-7)
  
  
• Ascanius' incentive: Dido's "antique bowl" (9.265-6)
  
  
• Euryalus & Messapus' helmet ("But Nisus sensed his friend was lost / to lust for slaughter", 9.353-4)
  
  Nisus & Euryalus, Jean-Baptiste Roman (1827)
  
  
• eroticized death
  
  Aeneid 9.431-49 (Nisus attempts to divert the Rutulians to himself)
  But as he spoke, the sword plunged violently
  through Euryalus' ribs, ripping open
  his white chest. He crumpled, dying. Blood
  ran down his lovely body; his neck slumped
  like a purple flower cut down by the plow,
  bending as it dies, like a poppy's drooping
  neck when heavy rain drags down its head.***
  Nisus rushed at them. But among them all,
  he aimed at Volcens only, took time for him alone.
  The soldiers crowded him, jabbing with spears
  to drive him off. He fought on still. His sword
  swung round like lightning till he shoved it into
  Volcens' shouting face. He killed him and died,
  pierced through and through, flinging himself
  on his friend's corpse, finding peace at last in death.
  
  [***cf. 1st century BCE Roman love poet Catullus:
  Tell her she can look somewhere else for my love
  which she, by her crime, cut to pieces—like a
  flower at the meadow’s edge that the plow, in passing,
  brushed and left broken. (11.21-4)]
  
  Lucky pair! If my song has any power,
  no day will steal you from time's memory, while
  Aeneas' people settle by the Capitol's
  unmoving stone, and a Roman father rules.
  
  
• outcome for Nisus & Euryalus? Euryalus' mother?
  
  *Debate on World Trade Center 9/11 Memorial Inscription*
  
  Aeneid 9.447: nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo, lit. "No day will ever remove you from unforgetting time"
  
  
  Spencer Finch, Trying to Remember the Color of the Sky on That September Morning, 9/11 Memorial Museum (2014)
  

• Aeneid 9.625: "Almighty Jupiter, approve my daring act" (Ascanius' prayer before killing Remulus, Iuppiter omnipotens, audacibus adnue coeptis; cf. ANNUIT COEPTIS)
  
  
• Turnus’ aristeia introduced by invocation of Muses (9.525ff.); his style of battle? ("As a wolf . . .," 9.59ff.; before halving Pandarus' head, "Tell Priam you found Achilles here too," 9.742; "A savage lion . . .," 9.793ff.)
  
  
  Aeneid 10: assembly of gods (Venus: "I no longer care for empires", 10.42; Juno: not at fault)
  
  Aeneid 10.6-15 (Jupiter's speech; "Royal Jove is neutral")
  "Great sky-gods, why this change
  of heart, this bitter disagreement? My command
  was that the Trojans and Italians should not fight. [cf. Aeneid 1.263-4]
  What's this conflict, then? What fear caused
  each side to take to war and weapons? The time
  for fighting will arrive (don't hasten it)
  when fierce Carthage opens up the Alps
  to launch destruction on Rome's citadel. [Juno vs. Venus]
  Then they can compete in hate and pillage.
  For now, stop. Be allies, gladly, as agreed."
  

• catalogue of Aeneas’ Etruscan allies (ships); call-out to (multi-ethnic) Mantua (10.200ff.); return of Aeneas to camp (warned by Cybele's nymphs), helmet ablaze (10.270f.).

• aristeia of Pallas & Turnus’ pursuit of him ("A lion . . .", 10.454ff.); cycle of violent deaths begins
  
  

  
  
  Death of Sarpedon (Iliad 16: cf. Jupiter's consoling Hercules at death of Pallas, Aeneid 10.460ff.)

  Aeneid 10.490-505 (Turnus vaunts over Pallas)
  "Arcadians, remember this, and tell Evander:
  I return the Pallas he deserves. I'll grant
  whatever honor's in a grave, whatever solace
  comes from burial. But being Aeneas' host
  will not have proven cheap." Bracing his left foot
  against the corpse, he ripped away the massive weight
  of Pallas' sword-belt, carved to show a wicked crime:
  a band of husbands murdered in their bloody beds
  on a single night, worked by Clonus [50 daughters of Danaus = Danaids, 50 sons of Aegyptus]
  with much gold. Turnus reveled in the spoils
  he'd won. How blind the minds of men to fate
  and future, to minding limits even in good luck!
  There'd come a time when Turnus would wish
  he'd left Pallas untouched. He'd hate this day, these spoils.
  
  Gigantomachy Scene, Parthenon Frieze (5th century BCE)
  

• avenging violence of Aeneas: (1) human sacrifice (after Achilles) of four youths (10.517ff.); (2) the slaughter of the suppliant Magus (521ff.); (3) taunting of beheaded Tarquitus (557ff.); (4) slaughter of Liger begging for his life & vaunting over corpse (595ff.); (5) simile of the impious giant Aegeon (566ff.)

• battle with Mezentius (cf. Evander's story, 8.481ff.; prayer to right hand, 10.772ff.) & death of Lausus
  
  Aeneid 10.789-93 (Lausus comes to the aid of wounded Mezentius)
  . . . But Lausus saw, and groaned
  with deep love for his father, shedding tears.
  Lausus, I won't silence your memory,
  your hard death, or your heroism, if indeed
  history tells the truth about your exploits .
  
  Aeneid 10.815-30 (Aeneas kills Lausus; his humanity returns )
  . . . Aeneas drove his hard blade
  through the young man's body. The pointed tip went through
  his shield (too thin to match his threats) and the tunic
  that his mother wore with soft gold mesh. It sank in
  to the hit. Blood filled his lungs: his mournful life
  descended to the shades, abandoning his body.
  
  But when Anchises' son looked at his dying face,
  that ashen otherwordly face, he groaned deeply,
  pitying the boy, and stretched his hand to him.
  His own paternal piety came to his mind.
  "Poor boy, what can pious Aeneas give you
  worthy of your bravery and noble nature?
  Keep the armor you so loved. I return you
  to the ghosts and ashes of your ancestors,
  if you can care. Your unhappy death has one sole
  comfort: you fell to great Aeneas."