7. What two good qualities of Vergil's character ennoble his verse?
FROM THE "ÆNEID"
1. Æneas, after fleeing from Troy, sacked by the Greeks, encountered various misfortunes, like Odysseus, and at last arrived at Carthage, recently founded by Dido, of Phœnicia. He narrates his adventures to her, and she, doomed by the gods, who desire to keep Æneas out of Italy, is consumed with love for him. Warned by friendly divinities to sail for Italy at once, Æneas has already begun preparations for departure.
2. The "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" were composed and listened to by men of action, familiar with battlefield, shipwreck, and the whole outdoor struggle for existence. The "Æneid" was written in a library by a gentle scholar for an audience whose culture was far advanced beyond that of Homer's warriors. In the main this fact is not immediately apparent, for Vergil was a consummate artist and took pains to prevent his work from 'smelling of the lamp'; that is, from showing its bookish and studied origin. But his phrases are hackneyed by comparison with Homer's "rosy-fingered Dawn" and "Odysseus of many counsels."
3. Find contrasting passages from Vergil and Homer, VII, 79, illustrating the comparison in 2.
4. Is Dido true to life; is her rash self-destruction convincingly handled by the poet?
5. Æneas figures in this episode as the villain; what excuse could Vergil make for him which would be valid in the eyes of the Romans?
6. What series of wars that almost overwhelmed Rome was carried on by Carthage centuries later? VIII, 198 ff.
FOR REFERENCE
"The World's Leading Poets."—Boynton.