r/bookclub • u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile • Aug 10 '26
The Aeneid [Discussion 2/6] | Bonus Book - The Aeneid by Virgil | Books 3 & 4
Welcome to the second of six discussions of Virgil's The Aeneid. This week we will be discussing the third and fourth books of The Aeneid. I found some cool summaries of each books in John Dryden's translation so I'll use those instead of trying to make my own.
THE THIRD BOOK OF THE ÆNEID
The Argument.—
Æneas proceeds in his relation: he gives an account of the fleet with which he sail’d, and the success of his first voyage to Thrace. From thence he directs his course to Delos, and asks the oracle what place the gods had appointed for his habitation. By a mistake of the oracle’s answer, he settles in Crete; his household gods give him the true sense of the oracle, in a dream. He follows their advice, and makes the best of his way for Italy. He is cast on several shores, and meets with very surprising adventures, till at length he lands on Sicily, where his father Anchises dies. This is the place which he was sailing from, when the tempest rose, and threw him upon the Carthaginian coast.
THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE ÆNEID
The Argument.—
Dido discovers to her sister her passion for Æneas, and her thoughts of marrying him. She prepares a hunting match for his entertainment Juno, by Venus’s consent, raises a storm, which separates the hunters, and drives Æneas and Dido into the same cave, where their marriage is suppos’d to be completed. Jupiter dispatches Mercury to Æneas, to warn him from Carthage. Æneas secretly prepares for his voyage. Dido finds out his design, and, to put a stop to it, makes use of her own and her sister’s entreaties, and discovers all the variety of passions that are incident to a neglected lover. When nothing would prevail upon him, she contrives her own death, with which this book concludes.
Since this is originally a Latin text, I'll be using the Latin forms of everyone's names (Odysseus becomes Ulysses in Latin, etc.) If you're unfamiliar with the Roman names for the gods, have no fear, I found a cool chart which you can use as a guide. It can be found here. Also, here's the schedule and here's the marginalia.
Join us next week as we discuss the fifth and six books of Virgil's epic!
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
3) We hear a little bit about Orestes. Have you ever heard his story before? Any interest in reading Aeschylus' Orestia trilogy with us?
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u/Opyros Aug 11 '26
r/AyearOfMythology did the Oresteia two years ago. If we read it again, I’d like to also read Sophocles’s Electra and Euripides’s Electra for comparison.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 12 '26
I'll pass that suggestion along. Sounds like it would be interesting to do so!
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u/Don_Quixotel Aug 11 '26
I went through a phase last year where I was reading through Bloom’s Western canon. I read a lot of Trojan War-related literature, including the Orestia.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 12 '26
I've got a whole stack of Greek plays I've been meaning to get through. Maybe this is the kick in the pants I've needed to get me to actually read them?
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
8) Aeneas has to be reminded of his mission by Mercury. Is Dido's.... errr... hospitality really that good? Why does he have to be reminded of his mission?
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
8a) Kind of a subquestion here. Since Aeneas has spent a year in Carthage, could Dido be viewed as an analogue to Calypso from Homer's Odyssey?
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u/mustardgoeswithitall 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 Aug 10 '26
This part of the Aeneid is an analogue to the Odyssey as a whole, so yes.
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u/Comprehensive-Fun47 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 ||🧠🥉 Aug 11 '26
I was thinking "this feels familiar" a lot during this section!
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u/IraelMrad Marius Hater #1 | 🐉|🥇|🧠💯 Aug 13 '26
I think there is an element of coercion in The Odyssey that it's not present here, but this applies to our modern sensitivity. I don't know if Virgil actually considered this difference.
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u/llmartian Attempting 2025 Bingo Blackout 29d ago
Yes, I think it must be. Virgil is kinda writing as a fan of the original, a bit of a ... Rome-centric fanfic, one might say.
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u/mustardgoeswithitall 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 Aug 10 '26
I think Aeneas just wants to move on, really. He wants to settle down and start LIVING again, he wants his son to have something concrete, his men to not endure hardship.
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u/EmergencyAromatic671 Aug 12 '26
The Fagles translation depicts this affair as very consensual/mutual. Like, Aeneas genuinely falls for Dido and is conflicted about leaving her. Not sure what it’s like in the other translations, but it made sense to me that he got swept up!
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u/HildyZ I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie Aug 11 '26
Would you want to live in an open boat for years at a stretch? Andromache has had time to get to Albania, have three children, unload one husband and marry a new one. I can't work out exactly how much time has passed since the fall of Troy, but it's a lot.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 12 '26
Not really. But the joke is mostly sex since Aeneas and Dido seem to spend an awful long time together.
Professor Google states that seven years have passed between the fall of Troy and Aeneas landing in Carthage and they spend another year there
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u/HildyZ I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie Aug 12 '26
Seven years rowing across the Mediterranean seems like a lot to me! Compared to Odysseus, though, it's pretty good.
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u/HildyZ I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie Aug 12 '26
I really did get the sex joke, though. I didn't really think they spent all that time strumming the lute (if you know what I mean.)
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 12 '26
So anyway, here's... umm...
WondercrawlWonderwall (Ancient Trojan cover version)2
u/Lachesis_Decima77 Tea Connoisseur ⭐️🧠🥉 Aug 10 '26
Maybe she really is that great a hostess? I dunno. 🤷♀️
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
Yes. Great at hosting Aeneas. Just the two of them. Alone.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
6) All of the characters so far hate Ulysses and even go so far as to curse at the island of Ithaca as they sail by it. Is this merely becasuse this story is told from the point of view of the escaping Trojans who were defeated by a cunning ruse by Ulysses or is there something more going on here?
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u/Lachesis_Decima77 Tea Connoisseur ⭐️🧠🥉 Aug 10 '26
I thought it was because the story was told from the perspective of the Trojans. Odysseus/Ulysses was the mastermind behind the Trojan horse, so of course the survivors of the sack of Troy would feel a certain way toward him and his homeland.
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u/HildyZ I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
Professor Google says the Sack of Athens was in 86 BCE, and Virgil was writing The Aeneid around 20 BCE, so the Romans were at war with the Greeks, too, not very long ago. Is Virgil maybe retconning the Roman defeat of the Greek city-states as righteous revenge for their "ancestors" being driven from Troy by the sneaky, dishonorable, all-around contemptible Greeks?
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 12 '26
Maybe. I'd wager it's a distinct possibility.
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u/mustardgoeswithitall 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 Aug 10 '26
Vergil thought Greeks were untrustworthy, I think.
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u/Don_Quixotel Aug 12 '26
Odysseus was the enemy and was quite savage. It’s no surprise Aeneas and his men spit his name.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
10) The story of Dido and Aeneas has been adapted as a play at least once and as an opera many times (the version by Henry Purcell comes to my mind). Ever watch any of these adaptations?
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u/coltainesCrows Aug 11 '26
Thank you for this. Im listening to the Opera by Purcell. Can you please share details about the play so I can watch it too?
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 11 '26
It’s this one by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe. I don’t know much else about it as I’ve yet to read it though I’ve put it on my TBR list now.
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u/coltainesCrows Aug 12 '26
Thank you!
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 12 '26
No probs. I'm probably going to give it a read since after finishing Aeneid since it's apparently not all that long.
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u/Lachesis_Decima77 Tea Connoisseur ⭐️🧠🥉 Aug 10 '26
I'm familiar with Dido's Lament from the Purcell opera. I had to study it for a music history class.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
Same. We watched a recorded performance of the Purcell opera that was on a VHS tape. (I think that shows my age a little bit!).
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u/llmartian Attempting 2025 Bingo Blackout 29d ago
No, but when I read Dido's pleas I immediately thought there must be a play about it. It is so heart-felt, such an amazing moment, that in my head I was designing a story based entirely around that moment. I am absolutely going to be looking at Dido-focused adaptations
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Aug 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/HildyZ I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie Aug 11 '26
I just thought of something - Cleopatra would have been headline news when Virgil was alive, wouldn't she? Google says she died in 30 BCE. Another powerful African queen who just couldn't resist a man in a toga. . .
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 12 '26
Aeneid was first "published" (for lack of a better word) at Virgil's death in 19 BC but he had been working on it for a decade by that point so I'd imagine the recent events of the War of Actium would have influenced him.
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u/HildyZ I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie Aug 11 '26
I can't help it, even though I know she's doomed, I was rooting for Dido. I would have been a terrible Roman.
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u/EmergencyAromatic671 Aug 12 '26
I think it was the first time I’ve straight up read the myth of Dido and I found it to be very moving! Yes, it totally drives home the theme of fate!
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
1) Virgil has Anius prophecy that the descendants of Aeneas will rule the rule the world. How much of this is Virgil's invention for propoganda and how much of this is actual mythology concerning Aeneas?
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u/Lachesis_Decima77 Tea Connoisseur ⭐️🧠🥉 Aug 10 '26
I think a lot of this is propaganda. The Roman Empire was strong and on the rise when Virgil wrote this, so it stands to reason that he'd include this.
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u/HildyZ I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie Aug 11 '26
Are there any other sources for the myth of Aeneas that still exist? I know Virgil didn't completely make it up, I wonder what his source material was like?
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 12 '26
A fragment of a pre-Virgil account of Aeneas have been found and there are also vases from as early as the 6th century BC have been found depicting Aeneas founding a new home. The fragment, from a work called History of the Priestesses of Argos depicts Aeneas as founding a new city and is dated to around the 5th century BC.
Alas, I wish my TARDIS was working so we'd take a trip and talk to Virgil about it and maybe copy his sources.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
7) Juno is trying her hardest to stop Aeneas from settling in Italy and proposes that he and Dido marry and settle peacably. Is she honestly trying to bring about peace and averting the eventual destruction of her beloved Carthage or is she still smarting over being snubbed in the Judgement of Paris?
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u/mustardgoeswithitall 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 Aug 10 '26
There is definitely room for either interpretation, but I would go with Juno wanting to protect Carthage.
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u/IraelMrad Marius Hater #1 | 🐉|🥇|🧠💯 Aug 13 '26
This is also how I read it! Isn't it nice to see a goddess do something just to protect some people and not out of pure spite, for once? 😁
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u/mustardgoeswithitall 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 Aug 13 '26
Yes!
Besides, and I am by no means saying that anybody holds this view, but interpreting her behaviour as she's still salty over the judgement feels weirdly misogynistic/sexist/not sure which one fits best....
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
2) Andromache is now, seemingly, happily married to Helenus after having escaped being a slave to the son of Achilles. Had you ever heard her story post-Iliad before?
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u/mustardgoeswithitall 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 Aug 10 '26
She is in the Suppliant Women, if I remember correctly.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
I haven't read that one. I'll have to add that one to the reading list.
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u/Lachesis_Decima77 Tea Connoisseur ⭐️🧠🥉 Aug 10 '26
I had heard that she's been captured, but not that she'd escaped and remarried. I'm glad she was able to make it out, especially after losing Hector and Astyanax.
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u/HildyZ I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
She doesn't escape. Pyrrhus decides he wants to marry Helen, so he takes off and never comes back. (Good riddance.)
I think she's in The Trojan Women by Euripedies, but i can't remember the details. I remember it being very depressing.
edit: Or is it Helen's daughter he wants to marry? Now I can't remember.
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u/Lachesis_Decima77 Tea Connoisseur ⭐️🧠🥉 Aug 11 '26
Ah, I stand corrected. Haven't read that one yet.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
4) Aeneas and his crew face many of the same, or similar, dangers to that of Ulysses and his crew throughout their voyage. Why do you think Virgil is parallelling Homer's account of Ulysses?
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u/Lachesis_Decima77 Tea Connoisseur ⭐️🧠🥉 Aug 10 '26
My guess is he wants to lend his epic origin story legitimacy by tying it into Homer's poems and echoing some of the same beats.
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u/mustardgoeswithitall 📚Bookclub Boffin📚 Aug 10 '26
The Aeneid was partly Vergil attempting to give Rome an epic on a par with Homer's work, so I think this is him differentiating between the two sections of his poem.
It also helps explain how these huge fleets of ships apparently sailed the Mediterranean, which is not very big, without seeing each other.
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u/llmartian Attempting 2025 Bingo Blackout 29d ago
Even in ye olden days, people love a cinematic tie-in
But yes, I agree with u/Lachesis_Decima77 and u/mustardgoeswithitall, by interweaving elements of the originals he is attempting to give legitimacy to his own story
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
9) If you hadn't read this story or any of the condensed versions of it (like in Edith Hamilton's book Mythology), were you shocked at Dido's death scene?
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u/EmergencyAromatic671 Aug 12 '26
It was insane 🙀 I’m a first time reader of Dido & Aeneas and I was genuinely brought to tears! It felt like a movie! A tragedy in the purest sense.
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u/coltainesCrows Aug 11 '26
It was definitely heartbreaking.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 12 '26
It's heartbreaking even when you know it's coming.
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u/Blackberry_Weary Mission Skittles Aug 13 '26
I thought it was the most beautiful death scene that I have read in recent history. Ha! My recent because this is ancient. Ba dum dum. I’m here all week.
But in all seriousness I came to the thread to see if it has been discussed. That scene alone inspires an opera.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
13) Anything else you wish to discuss?
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u/Don_Quixotel Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26
My guess is that the story of Aeneas and Dido had a lot to do with the Punic Wars . . . Maybe an origin for them or a symbolic retelling of them. I see Aeneas and Dido symbols of the nations they became (much like characters in the Old Testament: Moab, Ammon, Jacob (Israel), Esau (Edom/Idumea), etc.) . . . there’s a word for these type of characters but I’m blanking on it.
EDIT: Eponymous ancestors. Examples: Jacob/Israel, Esau/Edom, Ishmael, Moab, Ammon, Aram.
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u/coltainesCrows Aug 11 '26
The performance for Scott McGill’s translation on Audible is fantastic.
I find it a little bit difficult to get through Firzgerald’s translation (physical book) but once I finish a chapter, I listen to Scott’s on Audible and thoroughly enjoy it.2
u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 12 '26
Yes, it's so very good. I've always struggled slightly with Virgil but Edoardo Ballerini in the audiobook of the McGill & Wright translation has finally made it engaging for me.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
11) Any sections where you'd like me to compare translations of sections? I have the translations by Robert Fagles, Sarah Ruden and the recent Scott McGill and Susannah Wright translations.
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u/Lachesis_Decima77 Tea Connoisseur ⭐️🧠🥉 Aug 10 '26
I'd be interested in seeing how Dido's death scene was handled across the different versions.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
Any specific lines?
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u/Lachesis_Decima77 Tea Connoisseur ⭐️🧠🥉 Aug 11 '26
Shoot, my version doesn't include line numbers. Uh, let's say about where she curses Aeneas and Italy/Rome.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 11 '26
Fagles (2006):
"That is my prayer, my final cry- I pour it out
with my own lifeblood. Any you, my Tyrians,
harry with hatred all his line, his race to come:
make that offering to my ashes, send it down below.
No love between our peoples, ever, no pacts of peace!
Come rising up from my bones, you avenger unknown,
to stalk those Trojan settlers, hunt with fire and iron,
now or in time to come, whenever the power is yours.
Shore clash with shore, seas against sea and sword
against sword- this is my curse- war between all
out peoples, all their children, endless war!"
Ruden (2021):
And now my last plea, gushing with my blood:
Tyrians, hound with hatred for all time
The race he founds. My ashes call from you
This service. Let there be no pacts of friendship.
Out of my grave let an avenger rise
To visit fire and sword on Trojan settlers-
Now- someday- when the power is there to strike.
Our shores will clash, weapons and seas collide.
My curse is war for Trojans and their children."
McGill and Wright (2025):
"This final prayer I pour out with my blood.
My Tyrians, pursue all his descendants
with endless hate; send that gift to my ashes.
Let our two nations share no love or peace.
Unknown avenger, rise up from my bones
to chase the Dardan settlers now and always,
with fire, with steel, whenever you are strong,
I ask that shore fight shore, and sea fight sea,
and arms fight arms- I pray for lasting war
to fall on them and on their children's children."
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u/HildyZ I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie Aug 12 '26
This is a really interesting question!
Dryden is really more interested in the story and the poetry than doing a word-for-word translation:
"These are my pray’rs, and this my dying will;
And you, my Tyrians, ev’ry curse fulfil.
Perpetual hate and mortal wars proclaim,
Against the prince, the people, and the name.
These grateful off’rings on my grave bestow;
Nor league, nor love, the hostile nations know!
Now, and from hence, in ev’ry future age,
When rage excites your arms, and strength supplies the rage
Rise some avenger of our Libyan blood,
With fire and sword pursue the perjur’d brood;
Our arms, our seas, our shores, oppos’d to theirs;
And the same hate descend on all our heirs!”
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u/Lachesis_Decima77 Tea Connoisseur ⭐️🧠🥉 Aug 12 '26
Ooh, interesting! Thanks for posting! It really is quite different.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 12 '26
I hadn't really looked at the Dryden translation. Didn't know he translated it into rhyme like that. I'll have to get a copy just for that.
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u/HildyZ I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie Aug 12 '26
Yes, the whole thing is in rhyming verse like that. On the one hand, it can't be a super accurate translation of the original, if you have to worry about fitting the meter and the rhyme scheme. On the other hand, the original Latin rhymes, doesn't it? I'm more interested in enjoyment than historical fidelity, too, so John and I get along just fine.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 12 '26
I'm not 100% on it but I don't think the original Latin of Aeneid rhymes. I can't comment on the accuracy of any translation as my knowledge of Latin is a couple of prayers but I'd say that if you're enjoying the translation then it is a good translation.
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u/HildyZ I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie Aug 12 '26
Huh, you're right, it's in meter, but not in verse. Comp Lit was a long time ago.
You can download the Dryden translation for free from Standard ebooks, if you want to look at it.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 12 '26
Don't... tempt me. I'll have a look at it. I just can't read off screens so I have a tendency to look for hard copies even though it's freely available in the public domain. Something about reading off screens (I've tried a fair number of ereaders out) gives me headaches.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
12) Any quotes stand out to you from this week?
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u/coltainesCrows Aug 11 '26
No specific quote but I thought the verse about Rumor was fantastic and very creative. Atlas’ description also was memorable.
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u/llmartian Attempting 2025 Bingo Blackout 29d ago
yes, I also noted this one down as a great section. It made me think of ways to play with the personification of rumour in a horror story
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u/IraelMrad Marius Hater #1 | 🐉|🥇|🧠💯 Aug 13 '26
I really liked the juxtapositions in the text when Aeneas and Dido fall in love. You have these descriptions of passion and love immediately followed by a death omen, it's really powerful.
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u/Ser_Erdrick Professor of the Author Profile Aug 10 '26
5) Anyone else think it was pretty heartwarming that Aeneas rescued and took in Achaemenides from the cyclopes despite him being a Greek soldier formerly under the command of the much reviled (by the Trojans at any rate) Ulysses?