It’s going to be Poetry Month all month long! But really, aren’t all months Poetry Month? Especially when time for substantive blogging is hard to come by?
Today we dip back a few millenia, to offer an excerpt from Virgil’s Aeneid, in the Robert Fagles translation. The backstory is that Aeneas has fled from the fall of Troy, charged by Jupiter with traveling to Italy and founding a new city (Rome). Along the way his party is diverted to Carthage by winds whipped up by the wind god Aeolus. (Who was in turn urged on by Juno, Jupiter’s wife, who was piqued at Aeneas because his mother, Venus, was judged to be better-looking than Juno by Aeneas’s countryman Paris. Gods have rarely risen above the standards of their humans.)
So anyway, in Carthage Aeneas is smitten by the widowed queen Dido, and they become lovers. Eventually Jupiter becomes impatient with this lollygagging, and urges Aeneas on his way. Dido, heartbroken, kills herself in her grief. Once in Italy, Aeneas does what any great epic hero would do, and takes a detour to the Underworld. There he comes across the shade of Dido, and appeals to her.
“Tragic Dido,
so, was the story true that came my way?
I heard that you were dead. . .
you took the final measure with a sword.
Oh, dear god, was it I who caused your death?
I swear by the stars, by the Powers on high, whatever
faith one swears by here in the depths of earth,
I left your shores, my Queen, against my will. Yes,
the will of the gods, that drives me through the shadows now,
these moldering places so forlorn, this deep unfathomed night–
their decrees have forced me on. Nor did I ever dream
my leaving could have brought you so much grief.
Stay a moment. Don’t withdraw from my sight.
Running away — from whom? This is the last word
that Fate allows me to say to you. The last.”Aeneas, with such appeals, with welling tears,
tried to soothe her rage, her wild fiery glance.
But she, her eyes fixed on the ground, turned away,
her features no more moved by his pleas as he walked on
than if she were sent in stony flint or Parian marble rock.
A great article in the New York Review (subscription required) by Hayden Pelliccia unpacks the layers of meaning behind the simple line “I left your shores, my Queen, against my will.” Although to us the scene is poignant, the emotional center of the entire poem, that particular line is an echo of a comic line in a poem of Catullus that would have been well known to Virgil — “I left your head, my Queen, against my will,” spoken by a shorn lock of the hair of Queen Berenice, cousin of the Egyptian king Ptolemy. So is the scene tragic, or secretly facetious? The answer is ambiguous, but involves an intricate digression into Roman politics and the loves of Cleopatra. That’s why every month is Poetry Month.
Nabokov’s Lolita also drew upon Catullus — Humbert’s repeated invocations of “this Lolita, my Lolita” and related forms all follow a Catullan template (poem 58).
My high school Latin class read the Aenied, and our running joke throughout the year was how often Aeneas was bursting into tears. The fact that it can rarely be quoted without a reference to weepy Aeneas, just goes to show that this was an accurate observation. I’m glad I remembered the most important parts…
Change “Tragic Dido” to “Tragic Dodo” and you have a whole new poem with an entirely different meaning.
“So is the scene tragic, or secretly facetious?”
I get it. It’s either tragic, or it’s tragedy to the nth power.
Just want to share a Robert Hunter love poem, when he was digging into Rilke.
Look out of any window
any morning, any evening, any day
Maybe the sun is shining
birds are winging or
rain is falling from a heavy sky –
What do you want me to do,
to do for you to see you through?
this is all a dream we dreamed
one afternoon long ago
Walk out of any doorway
feel your way, feel your way
like the day before
Maybe you’ll find direction
around some corner
where it’s been waiting to meet you –
What do you want me to do,
to watch for you while you’re sleeping?
Well please don’t be surprised
when you find me dreaming too
Look into any eyes
you find by you, you can see
clear through to another day
I know it’s been seen before
through other eyes on other days
while going home —
What do you want me to do,
to do for you to see you through?
It’s all a dream we dreamed
one afternoon long ago
Walk into splintered sunlight
Inch your way through dead dreams
to another land
Maybe you’re tired and broken
Your tongue is twisted
with words half spoken
and thoughts unclear
What do you want me to do
to do for you to see you through
A box of rain will ease the pain
and love will see you through
Just a box of rain –
wind and water –
Believe it if you need it,
if you don’t just pass it on
Sun and shower –
Wind and rain –
in and out the window
like a moth before a flame
It’s just a box of rain
I don’t know who put it there
Believe it if you need it
or leave it if you dare
But it’s just a box of rain
or a ribbon for your hair
Such a long long time to be gone
and a short time to be there
There is a fundamental dilemma in many of our chases after romantic love: we often want the other to love us and for our time with them to be filled with joy and unconditional love, but we also want novelty and excitement. And if we are very sure and know how things will work out ahead of time, then the sense of novelty and excitement wanes. Is this perhaps part of the reason why some people cheat on their significant others and have flings– because the fling allows one to have novelty, excitement, and risk whereas a long term relationship should, at least in theory, be based on nearly unconditional love and security?
“Along the way his party is diverted to Carthage by winds whipped up by the wind god Aeolus”
That ol’ prankster Aeolus…! Even Odysseus could not keep those winds in hand.