P. VERGILI MARONIS

AENEIDOS

LIBER TERTIUS.

IN the Third Book Virgil treads yet more closely in the steps of Homer, the subject being the wanderings of Aeneas, as that of the Ninth and three following books of the Odyssey is the wanderings of Ulysses. The time embraced by the present narrative is not much shorter than that comprehended by its prototype: indeed, it is considerably longer, as of Ulysses' ten years seven are spent with Calypso, and of these we have no record: but Virgil felt that the second narrator must be briefer than the first, and accordingly contracted his story into a single book. To a certain extent it was almost necessary that there should be a coincidence in the details of the two accounts as well as in the original plan. The mythical geography of Homer had become part of the epic commonplace, though, like the mythical history, it was modified freely, not followed servilely: and as Aeneas was wandering in the same parts as Ulysses, and at the same time, it would have been unnatural to make their experiences altogether independent and dissimilar. Yet the only place in which the two lines of adventure actually touch is when they enter the country of the Cyclops: and there Virgil has skilfully contrived not to rival Homer's story, but to appropriate it, and to make Aeneas reap the fruit of Ulysses' experience without being obliged to repeat it in his own person. For his other incidents he is indebted partly to other portions of the body of heroic legend, partly to his own invention. Polydorus is from the Greek drama; the bleeding myrtle however may be Virgil's own, though Heyne, with a judicial videtur, gives the credit of it to the Cyclic poets: the adventure with the Harpies was suggested by Apollonius, who also, as we have seen in the general Introduction, gave hints for the predictions of Helenus and the deliverance of Achemenides: other legends, noticed in Heyne's first Excursus, seem to have given the outline of the voyage, indicating the several places touched at. The mistakes made in searching for the new kingdom, the scene at Delos, the appearance of the Penates, the meeting with Andromache, seem all to be more or less original. Segrais notes that the interest of the book has suffered from its position between two of the noblest portions of the poem: and Heyne observes that it is not generally appreciated because the reader does not possess adequate knowledge of the minute particulars of legendary history, geography, and antiquities which the poet has indicated by transient and remote allusions.

Heyne has been at the pains to distinguish the seven years over which Virgil distributes his hero's wanderings. Troy, according to the almost universal tradition, was taken in the summer. The winter of this year, which counts as the first of the seven, is spent by Aeneas in those preparations of which we read vv. 5 foll. He sails in the spring or summer of the second year (v. 8), and spends the winter in Thrace, where he builds a city. The tragedy of Polydorus drives him away in the spring of the third year (v. 69). He goes to Delos and thence to Crete. Two years are supposed to be [p. 192] consumed in his unfortunate attempt at colonization. His stay at Actium brings him to the end of the fifth year (v. 284). The sixth year is spent partly in Epirus, partly in Sicily. In the summer of the seventh year he arrives at Carthage (1. 755), leaving probably as winter is drawing on, though there is some difficulty in reconciling the language used by Virgil in different places. Dido talks about storms and winter while Aeneas is yet at Carthage (4. 309): Beroe speaks of the seventh summer as still going on after they have returned to Sicily (5. 626): but some exaggeration may be allowed in the mouth of the former, and in the case of the latter the difficulty may be removed by pressing the sense of vertitur, which seems to mean that summer in its revolution is becoming winter.

Ingenious and plausible as this division is, it overlooks an important question, which appears only to have occurred quite recently to the critics of Virgil, but, when once entertained, is not easily dismissed. The Aeneid is known to have been left incomplete: are we right in treating it as a complete poem, and reconciling all the passages in the narrative in which the same thing is differently spoken of, rather than allowing for the existence of discrepancies? In particular, can we safely assume that the books of the Aeneid were all composed in the order in which they now stand? This last question has been pressed home forcibly by a German scholar, Conrads, in a short treatise called Quaestiones Virgilianae, which appeared at Treves in 1863. He believes that when Virgil wrote the present book he intended Aeneas' wanderings to occupy not more than two or three years, which would agree with the account given by other authorities, or, as Heyne chooses to call it, the fides historiae. This would certainly seem more natural on a view of the narrative as it stands, since the only marks of time which it contains subsequently to the notice of the departure of the Trojans, are vv. 69 foll., which may point to the opening of a new year, and vv. 284 foll., which distinctly speak of winter. The suggestion having been once made that this book was written independently of the rest, we readily see how much there is to confirm it. A difficulty has always been felt about Creusa's mention of Hesperia, Book 2. 781, as contrasted with Aeneas' ignorance on the subject during the early part of his wanderings: the prophecy of Celaeno is in effect another version of the prophecy of Anchises (Book 7. 124 foll.), with which it is scarcely reconcilable: and the predictions of Helenus about the white sow and the information to be received from the Sibyl are either inconsistent with or unaccountably independent of what actually happens in the course of the story. Whether the Third Book represents Virgil's earliest or latest thoughts is of course a question: but that it is not homogeneous with those which precede and follow it can hardly, I think, be denied.

Seeing that all was lost, we build a fleet and set sail, not knowing whither our destiny would lead us.