Reading classics of Antiquity XII: Virgil: Aeneid completed

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo / Giandomenico Tiepolo (1727–1804): La processione del cavallo di Troia / The Greeks Entering Troy / Kreikkalaiset tunkeutuvat Troijaan / Grekerna invaderar Troja III. 1760. Bozzetto. Oil on canvas. 41 x 55 cm. Finnish National Gallery / Sinebrychoff Art Museum. Accession number: inv. no. S–1996–105. Photo: Hannu Aaltonen. Wikimedia Commons. The first two bozzettos of Tiepolo Junior's Troyan Horse series belong to the National Gallery (London). Please click to enlarge the images.

J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851): Dido Building Carthage (The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire, 1815). National Gallery. Oil on canvas. Source/Photographer: The Athenaeum. Permission: "You can reuse the artwork (but not our logos or original text) in any way, as long as you credit us." Wikipedia.

Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625): Aneas en de sibille in de onderwereld (Aeneas and a Sibyl in the Underworld, ca. 1600). Color on copper. 36 × 52 cm (14.2 × 20.5 in). Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Accession number: GG_817. Object history: 1619 Vienna. Notes: The painting depicts Aeneas' journey in the Underworld led by the Cumaean Sibyl (Aeneid VI, 269–282). Wikipedia.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867): Tu Marcellus eris / (Virgilio lee la Eneida a Livia, Octavia y Augusto) / [Virgil Reads the Aeneid to Livia, Octavia, and Augustus]. 1811 (date de début d'exécution). Huile sur toile. 326 x 307 cm. Statut administratif: Legs de Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Numéro d'inventaire: RO 124. Photothèque Musée des Augustins, Toulouse. Photo: Daniel Martin. © Musée des Augustins. L'histoire de cette œuvre est des plus complexes. Commandée par le général Miollis, gouverneur français à Rome, pour sa résidence de la villa Aldobrandini, la peinture est revendue à Francesco Borghèse avant qu'Ingres lui-même ne la rachète en 1835. En 1868, la peinture entre au musée mais singulièrement ruinée. Peu avant sa mort, Ingres entreprend en effet d'en corriger certains aspects qui ne le satisfont pas mais laisse l'ensemble inachevé. Jean Pichon, un de ses élèves, en réintègrera finalement les parties manquantes alors même que la toile se trouve déjà aux Augustins. - La scène présente Virgile, sur la gauche, tenant le manuscrit de l'Enéide déroulé. L'Empereur Auguste et sa sœur Octavie lui font face. Cette dernière s'évanouit lorsque le poète prononce les mots de « Tu Marcellus eris », rappelant son fils mort assassiné. Enfin, assise à côté d'eux, voici Livie, épouse d'Auguste et probable commanditaire du meurtre. [Octavia faints at the words "Tu Marcellus eris" {"You will be Marcellus"}, remembering her assassinated son. Livia, the wife of Augustus, is the probable contractor of the assassination.] - L'influence du néo-classicisme de David – David, dont Ingres fut l'élève après avoir fréquenté l'Académie des beaux-arts de Toulouse - est ici particulièrement remarquable. Les musées royaux des beaux-arts de Bruxelles conservent un tableau de même sujet et de composition très proche, peint par Ingres autour de 1820. © Musée des Augustins, Victor Hundsbuckler. Wikipedia.

Vergilius: Aeneis
Virgil: Aeneid. Written in Brundisium, the Roman Empire. Year of publication: Virgil left his work unfinished when he died in 19 BC. Written in dactylic hexameter in Latin, Golden Latin. Divided into 12 books. Originally published in the scroll format (in tomes / volumines). Survival status: complete. Read in Finnish:
Publius Vergilius Maro: Aeneis. Aeneaan taru
Finnish translation (in hexameter) by Päivö Oksala (I–IV: Aeneas and Dido) and Teivas Oksala (V–XII). Introduction, explanations, name glossary, maps and sources written and edited by Päivö Oksala. 451 p., Porvoo / Helsinki / Juva: WSOY, 1999.

Having first read the first four books of the Aeneid that were published in one volume in the Antiikin klassikot series translated by Päivö Oksala I then read the whole thing, brought to a finish by the son Teivas Oksala and published as a separate edition outside the series.

In Book Five we visit "the Olympiad", the funeral games in memory of Aeneas's father. In Book Six Aeneas enters the shores of Cumae, and guided by the Cumaean Sibyl descends to the underworld (katabasis), to the banks of the river Acheron. Charon the ferryman takes him to the other side, passing by Cerberus and Tartarus, until we enter the fields of Elysium where Aeneas meets his father and sees visions of the golden age of Rome.

In Book Seven Aeneas arrives in Italy. Juno provokes the peoples of Italy to war. In Book Eight the war is being prepared. In Book Nine the Troyans are surrounded and attacked. In Book Ten Gods meet and Pallas leads the Arcadeans to fight. In Book Eleven the dead are buried and the cavalries fight. Camilla fights her brave fight. In Book Twelve the war is settled via a single combat between Aeneas and Turnus.

The grandeur of the tragedy of Dido becomes fully evident in Book Six. In this official foundation myth of the Roman Empire we are already made to understand the genesis of its most formidable foe, Carthage. The antagonism is historical and psychological. Dido shatters the validity of Aeneas's calling to the core, and in the conscience of Aeneas the guilty agony for the destiny of Dido will never heal.

T. S. Eliot found the meeting of Aeneas with the shade of Dido in the underworld exemplary in What Is a Classic? Dido's dignity is like a projection of Aeneas' own conscience. "Instead of railing at him, she merely snubs him". "What matters most is that Aeneas does not forgive himself". Virgil compares Dido with the moon glimpsed through the clouds, aut videt aut vidisse putat. In this account Virgil grows into "the conscience of Rome" (Eliot).

The Finnish hexameter works very well, at best read aloud, even alone, and it could easily be composed to song. Greek and Roman epic poetry started in rhythmical, musical modes.