by Timmy

Created on: July 07, 2007

"The Temporal Transcendence of Virgil's Aeneid"

From the dawn of the written word, there have been accounts of what it means to be a person in one's respective society. The classical epic works by Homer and Virgil created an image what it is to be a member of humanity which lasted down through the ages until today. Virgil, like all great poets draws on the great artists of the past, reinventing their images and themes. The test of great art is its ability to withstand time. The Aeneid speaks as loudly today as it ever has. Duty to family, country, and the gods, drives Aeneas as they do the western man. Life is anything but easy and the story of Aeneas in his quest to plant the seeds of Rome illustrates this principle powerfully. Furthermore this notion, that nothing great comes easy, can serve as inspiration for anyone who is having or has ever had difficult days. Viewing the poem from the perspectives of a Roman and a modern demonstrates how it links these two civilizations thousands of years apart.

Aeneas's first scene in the poem features him wishing he was dead. His words speak loudly for all people having a rough time: " o terque quaterque beati, / quis ante ora partum Troiae sub moenibus altis / contigit oppetere! " His situation seemed so hopeless for him, that he wished for death. Those who had died at Troy were "three times and four times blessed." Williams notes that "his life is not his to throw away. But that it must be used in the service of his mission. " He was a mere mortal working for a transcendent greatness, Rome. At this moment he was being assaulted at sea by the winds at the behest of the hostile goddess Juno. Had he fallen at Troy, at least he would be at rest in the underworld as opposed to being charged with the founding of a great race. He knew that as difficult as it was for him on the sea, many more hardships and misfortunes awaited him. But all the while, Aeneas and his followers had to bear this in mind: "tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem." To found the Roman race would indeed prove to be very costly.
As did his counterpart in the Odyssey, Aeneas was a much traveled man who saw many lands. He was tossed on land and sea by the divine power of the gods above. The hardships which he endured were many and great. He remarks: "forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit." In retrospect, he and his comrades would probably look with pleasure upon these troubles. The fact that Romans always look favorably on the Carthaginian Wars in hindsight

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