Hannah Clargo
Write a commentary on the passage: Book 2, Lines 752-794
Context
- ‘Book 2 is both the first extended epic/tragic sequence, and the first
large-scale narrative whole that he has attempted’ (Virgil, Aeneid 2: A
Commentary, Nicholas Horsfall, 2008, pg. xiii)
- In a moment of limerence as the men are trying to leave Troy following
the fall of the city, yet Aeneas has been caught between the love for
his wife and the duty to his city and fate as a whole
- Marks the end of Book 2, a turning point as after this, Aeneas and his
men begin their wanderings to find the promised land
Overview/content
- Scene in which Aeneas has realised the loss of his wife whilst leaving
Troy
- He turns back into the burning city in a desperate attempt to find her
- He is met by her ghost who prophesises his fate, explaining that losing
her was necessary to fulfil his destiny
- Contrast between the general description of the Greek’s pillage of Troy
and the intimate conversation between husband and wife
- Similar to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice
Detailed analysis
- 752: emphasis on darkness, ‘obscuraque’ (dark) and ‘per noctem’
(through the night), should be easy to escape but instead easy to lose
Creusa
- 753: reversal of a heroic journey in relative clause ‘qua gressum
extuleram’, ‘by which I had left the city’, emphasis on his desperation
to return to a collapsing city just to find his wife, enhances struggle
between marital duty and martial duty
- 753: ‘vestigia’, ‘footsteps/route’ – same word used during their escape
as Creusa followed in his footsteps at a distance, bittersweet irony as
these are the steps that she accompanied him in whilst leaving the city
- 754: here ‘lumine’ likely refers to ‘eye’ in the poetic sense literally
meaning ‘observing with my eye’ (‘lumine lustro’), Tiberius Claudius
Donatus claims it refers to the fires still ablaze throughout Troy (TCD,
Interpretationes Vergilianae, C4thAD)
- 755: parallel drawn between ‘horror’ and ‘Danai’, ‘Greeks’, (line 757),
as horror is ‘ubique’, Greeks are similarly ‘omne’, ‘everywhere’ – all-
consuming terrors have invaded his own home as well as the entire city
- 755: ‘ipsa silentia terrrent’, ‘the silence itself terrifies’ – silence-induced
solitude as a theme in Homer’s Iliad (discussed in Porphyry’s Homeric
Questions on the Iliad)
- 757: Aeneas arrives at the point that flames begin ‘rolling to the top of
the roof’ (‘ignis edax summa ad fastigia… volvitur’), added pathos and
emotive suffering as he is forced to witness the fall of not only Troy and
his citizens, but also his house – wouldn’t have had to witness it if he
hadn’t returned for Creusa – similarly to Orpheus and Eurydice,
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Write a commentary on the passage: Book 2, Lines 752-794
Context
- ‘Book 2 is both the first extended epic/tragic sequence, and the first
large-scale narrative whole that he has attempted’ (Virgil, Aeneid 2: A
Commentary, Nicholas Horsfall, 2008, pg. xiii)
- In a moment of limerence as the men are trying to leave Troy following
the fall of the city, yet Aeneas has been caught between the love for
his wife and the duty to his city and fate as a whole
- Marks the end of Book 2, a turning point as after this, Aeneas and his
men begin their wanderings to find the promised land
Overview/content
- Scene in which Aeneas has realised the loss of his wife whilst leaving
Troy
- He turns back into the burning city in a desperate attempt to find her
- He is met by her ghost who prophesises his fate, explaining that losing
her was necessary to fulfil his destiny
- Contrast between the general description of the Greek’s pillage of Troy
and the intimate conversation between husband and wife
- Similar to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice
Detailed analysis
- 752: emphasis on darkness, ‘obscuraque’ (dark) and ‘per noctem’
(through the night), should be easy to escape but instead easy to lose
Creusa
- 753: reversal of a heroic journey in relative clause ‘qua gressum
extuleram’, ‘by which I had left the city’, emphasis on his desperation
to return to a collapsing city just to find his wife, enhances struggle
between marital duty and martial duty
- 753: ‘vestigia’, ‘footsteps/route’ – same word used during their escape
as Creusa followed in his footsteps at a distance, bittersweet irony as
these are the steps that she accompanied him in whilst leaving the city
- 754: here ‘lumine’ likely refers to ‘eye’ in the poetic sense literally
meaning ‘observing with my eye’ (‘lumine lustro’), Tiberius Claudius
Donatus claims it refers to the fires still ablaze throughout Troy (TCD,
Interpretationes Vergilianae, C4thAD)
- 755: parallel drawn between ‘horror’ and ‘Danai’, ‘Greeks’, (line 757),
as horror is ‘ubique’, Greeks are similarly ‘omne’, ‘everywhere’ – all-
consuming terrors have invaded his own home as well as the entire city
- 755: ‘ipsa silentia terrrent’, ‘the silence itself terrifies’ – silence-induced
solitude as a theme in Homer’s Iliad (discussed in Porphyry’s Homeric
Questions on the Iliad)
- 757: Aeneas arrives at the point that flames begin ‘rolling to the top of
the roof’ (‘ignis edax summa ad fastigia… volvitur’), added pathos and
emotive suffering as he is forced to witness the fall of not only Troy and
his citizens, but also his house – wouldn’t have had to witness it if he
hadn’t returned for Creusa – similarly to Orpheus and Eurydice,
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