Politics and Poetics 27.10.2016
Term 1, handout 4. The verbal and the visual: Virgil’s Aeneid
1. Epic and the visual/multimedia: enargeia, aletheia
2. Ecphrases punctuating the Aeneid:
1.441-97: the temple of Juno at Carthage
6.14-34: the engraved doors on the temple of Apollo at Cumae
8.625-731: Aeneas’ shield
10.495-99: the tragedy of the Danaids on Pallas’ swordbelt
12.939-46: Aeneas visualises the swordbelt worn now by Turnus
3. Vision and trauma
1.95: children died ‘before the eyes of their fathers, ante ora patrum
1.89: the storm roused by Juno snatches the sky and daylight from the Trojans’ eyes, ex oculis. The scene is miserabile visu, terrible to behold, at 1.111.
4. Darkness visible: Nisus and Euryalus and the politics of seeing/being seen
A. Aen.9.234-37 (Fitzgerald adapted)
‘Soldiers of Aeneas, listen
with open minds, and let what we propose
be looked on (spectentur) withour reference to our years.
The Rutulians have quieted down, buried in sleep
And wine. Our own eyes have seen (conspeximus) a place for ambush
Lying open where the road divides
There at the gate nearest the sea.
B. 9.262: reddite conspectum (bring back the sight of Anchises)
C. 9.373-5: Euryalus, fleeing the scene of slaughter, is spotlit when the moonlight
strikes his shiny helmet. He is immemor (forgetful, thoughtless’ at 374. ‘Not in
vain was he seen’ (haud temere est visum), 375.
D. 9.394: the primacy of vision gives way to another sense: hearing
E. 9.396: Nisus sees Euryalus: videt Euryalum
F. 9.425: Nisus can no longer hide himself and comes out of the shadows to plead
for his friend’s life.
G. 9.441-2: Insane with grief, Nisus becomes a storm-like force, lighting up the
night figuratively with his ‘lightning bolt sword’
H. 9.446-9: Nisus and Euryalus up in lights in Virgil’s famous epigram
Fortunate both! If in the least my songs
avail, no future day will ever take you
out of the record of remembering Time, (memori…aevo)
while children of Aeneas make their home
around the Capitol’s unshaken rock,
and still the Roman father governs all.
5. What’s political about ekphrasis?
A) Narrative, timing, plot
B) Art’s power to contain, frame, miniaturise? E.g. Aeolus/Neptune controlling and quelling the winds, like artists, at 1.57 (mollitque animos et temperat iras / he mollifies their spirit and tempers their fury), and 1.145-53:
levat ipse tridenti
et vastas aperit syrtis et temperat aequor
atque rotis summas levibus perlabitur undas
ac veluti magno in populo cum saepe coorta est
seditio saevitque animis ignobile vulgus
iamque faces et saxa volant, furor arma ministrat;
tum, pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem
conspexere, silent arrectisque auribus astant;
ille regit dictis animos et pectora mulcet.
Then Neptune with his trident
Heaved them away, opened miles of shoals,
Tempered the sea, and in his car departed
Gliding over the wave-tops on light wheels.
When rioting breaks out in a great city
And the rampaging table goes so far
That stones fly, and incendiary brands –
For anger can supply that kind of weapon –
If it so happens they look around and sea
Some dedicated public man, a veteran
Whose record gives him weight, they quiet down,
Willing to stop and listen.
Then he prevails in speech over their fury
By his authority and placates them.
C) Art as dangerous, provocative, traumatic? E.g. 6.14-36: The doors on the temple of Apollo
Daedalus, ut fama est, fugiens Minoia regna
praepetibus pennis ausus se credere caelo15
insuetum per iter gelidas enavit ad Arctos,
Chalcidicaque levis tandem super astitit arce.
redditus his primum terris tibi, Phoebe, sacravit
remigium alarum posuitque immania templa.
in foribus letum Androgeo; tum pendere poenas20
Cecropidae iussi (miserum!) septena quotannis
corpora natorum; stat ductis sortibus urna.
contra elata mari respondet Cnosia tellus:
hic crudelis amor tauri suppostaque furto
Pasiphae mixtumque genus prolesque biformis 25
Minotaurus inest, Veneris monimenta nefandae,
hic labor ille domus et inextricabilis error; cf. Cat 64.115, inobservabilis error
magnum reginae sed enim miseratus amorem
Daedalus ipse dolos tecti ambagesque resolvit,
caeca regens filo vestigia. tu quoque magnam30
partem opere in tanto, sineret dolor, Icare, haberes.
bis conatus erat casus effingere in auro,
bis patriae cecidere manus. quin protinus omnia
perlegerent oculis, ni iam praemissus Achates
adforet atque una Phoebi Triviaeque sacerdos,35
Deiphobe Glauci, fatur quae talia regi:
They say that Daedalus, when he fled the realm of Minos
Dared to entrust himself to stroking wings
And to the air of heaven – unheard-of path –
On which he swam away to the cold North,
At length to touch down on that very height
Of the Chalcidians. Here, on earth again
He dedicated to you, Phoebus Apollo,
The twin sweeps of his wngs; here he laid out
A spacious temple. In the entrance way,
Androgeos’ death appeared, then Cecrops’ children
Ordered to pay in recompense each year
The living flesh of seven sons. The urn
From which the lots were drawn stood modelled there.
And facing it, upon the opposite door,
The land of Crete, emergent from the sea;
Here the brutish act appeared: Pasiphae
Being covered by the bull in the cow’s place,
Then her mixed breed, her child of double form,
The minotaur, get of unholy lust.
Here, too, that puzzle of the house of Minos
The maze none could untangle, until, touched
By a great love shown by a royal girl,
He, Daedalus himself, unravelled all
The baffling turns and dead ends in the dark,
Guiding the blind way back by a skein unwound.
In that sculpture you too, would have had
Your great part, Icarus, had grief allowed.
Twice your father had tried to shape your fall
In gold, but twice his hands dropped.
Here the Trojans would have passed on and gazed and read it all,
Had not Achates, whom they had sent ahead,
Returned now with the priestess of Apollo
And of Diana, goddess of the crossroads –
Deiphobe, the Sibyl, Glaucus’ daughter.
Thus she addressed the king….
D) The Aeneid seems actively to participate in the Augustan cultural shift towards the visual and the spectacular as politically powerful modes of representation. See especially books by Riggs Alden Smith (The Primacy of Vision in Virgil’s Aeneid), Paul Zanker (The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus), Helen Lovatt (The Epic Gaze) and David Fredrick (ed.) (The Roman Gaze).
E) Ecphrases are points of confrontation between different ways of representing and imagining the world. It is at these moments in the Aeneid that we see poetry reflecting on itself, on its scope, power, and limits, vis à vis other art forms.
F) Who sees? Ecphrases spotlight the importance of the viewing subject in the creation of meaning.
6. The temple of Juno at Carthage, Aeneid 1.446-496: Aeneas sees himself
Q: Examine the politics of Aeneas’ vision/blindness in this scene. What kind of a model for reading/viewing the Aeneid does Aeneas offer here?
Here being built by the Sidonian queen 446
Was a great temple planned in Juno’s honour,
Rich in offerings and the godhead there.
Steps led up to a sill of bronze, with brazen
Lintel, and bronze doors on groaning pins.
Here in this grove new things that met his eyes 450
Calmed Aeneas’ fear for the first time.
Here for the first time he took heart to hope
For safety, and to ruts his destiny more
Even in affliction. It was while he walked
From one to another wall of the great temple 455
And waited for the queen, staring amazed
At Carthaginian promise, at the handiwork
Of artificers and the toil they spent on it:
He found before his eyes the Trojan battles
In the old war, now known throughout the world – 460
The great Atridae, Priam, and Achilles,
Fierce in his rage at both sides. Here Aeneas halted, and tears came.
“What spot on earth,”
he said, “what region of the earth, Achates,
is not full of the story of our sorrow? 465
Look, here is Priam. Even so far away
Great valour has due honour; they weep here
For how the world goes, and our life that passes
Touches their hearts. Throw off your fear. This fame
Insures some kind of refuge.” 470
He broke off
To feast his eyes and mind on a mere image,
Sighing often, cheeks grown wet with tears,
To see again how, fighting around Troy,
The Greeks broke here, and ran before the Trojans, 475
And there the Phrygians ran, as plumed Achilles
Harried them in his warcar. Nearby, then,
He recognized the snowy canvas tents
Of Rhesus, and more tears came: these, betrayed
In first sleep, Diomedes devastated, 480
Swording many, till he reeked with blood,
Then turned the mettlesome horses towards the beachhead
Before the tasted Trojan grass or drank
At Xanthus’ ford.
And on another panel 485
Troilus, without his armour, luckless boy,
No match for his antagonist Achilles,
Appeared pulled onward by his team; he clung
To his empty warcar, though fallen backward, hanging
Onto the reins still, head dragged on the ground, 490
His javelin scribbling S’s in the dust.
Meanwhile to hostile Pallas’ shrine
The Trojan women walked with hair unbound,
Beating the robe of offering, in sorrow,
Entreating her, beating their breasts. But she, 495
Her face averted, would not raise her eyes.
And there was Hector, dragged around Troy’s walls
Three times, and there for gold Achilles sold him,
Bloodless and lifeless. Now indeed Aeneas
Heaved a mighty sigh from deep within him, 500
Seeing the spoils, the chariot, and the corpse
Of his great friend, and Priam, all unarmed
Stretching his hands out.
He himself he saw
In combat with the first of the Achaeans, 505
And saw the ranks of Dawn, black Memnon’s arms;
Then, leading the battalion of Amazons
With half-moon shields, he saw Penthesilea
Fiery amid her host, buckling a golden
Girdle beneath her bare and arrogant breast, 510
A girl who dared fight men, a warrior queen.
Now, while these wonders were being surveyed
By Aeneas of Dardania, while he stood
Enthralled, devouring in one long gaze,
The queen paced toward the temple in her beauty,
Dido, with a throng of men behind.
Hic templum Iunoni ingens Sidonia Dido
condebat, donis opulentum et numine divae,
aerea cui gradibus surgebant limina, nexaeque
aere trabes, foribus cardo stridebat aenis.
Hoc primum in luco nova res oblata timorem450
leniit, hic primum Aeneas sperare salutem
ausus, et adflictis melius confidere rebus.
Namque sub ingenti lustrat dum singula templo,
reginam opperiens, dum, quae fortuna sit urbi,
artificumque manus inter se operumque laborem455
miratur, videt Iliacas ex ordine pugnas, (cf. Aen.8.629, in ordine)
bellaque iam fama totum volgata per orbem,
Atridas, Priamumque, et saevum ambobus Achillem.
Constitit, et lacrimans, 'Quis iam locus' inquit 'Achate,
quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?460
En Priamus! Sunt hic etiam sua praemia laudi;
sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.
Solve metus; feret haec aliquam tibi fama salutem.'
Sic ait, atque animum pictura pascit inani,
multa gemens, largoque umectat flumine voltum.465
Namque videbat, uti bellantes Pergama circum note the tenses
hac fugerent Graii, premeret Troiana iuventus,
hac Phryges, instaret curru cristatus Achilles.
Nec procul hinc Rhesi niveis tentoria velis
adgnoscit lacrimans, primo quae prodita somno470
Tydides multa vastabat caede cruentus,
ardentisque avertit equos in castra, prius quam
pabula gustassent Troiae Xanthumque bibissent.
Parte alia fugiens amissis Troilus armis,
infelix puer atque impar congressus Achilli,475
fertur equis, curruque haeret resupinus inani,
lora tenens tamen; huic cervixque comaeque trahuntur
per terram, et versa pulvis inscribitur hasta.
Interea ad templum non aequae Palladis ibant
crinibus Iliades passis peplumque ferebant,480
suppliciter tristes et tunsae pectora palmis;
diva solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat.
Ter circum Iliacos raptaverat Hectora muros,
exanimumque auro corpus vendebat Achilles.
Tum vero ingentem gemitum dat pectore ab imo,485
ut spolia, ut currus, utque ipsum corpus amici,
tendentemque manus Priamum conspexit inermis.
Se quoque principibus permixtum adgnovit Achivis,
Eoasque acies et nigri Memnonis arma.
Ducit Amazonidum lunatis agmina peltis490
Penthesilea furens, mediisque in milibus ardet,
aurea subnectens exsertae cingula mammae,
bellatrix, audetque viris concurrere virgo.
Haec dum Dardanio Aeneae miranda videntur,
dum stupet, obtutuque haeret defixus in uno,495
regina ad templum, forma pulcherrima Dido,
incessit magna iuvenum stipante caterva.
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