ISSN:
0017-3835
Source:
Cambridge Journals Digital Archives
Topics:
Archaeology
,
Classical Studies
Notes:
The source of the tears mentioned in the much quoted final line (449) has been the subject of diverse views. That the shedder of the tears is not specifically designated has been felt to create an ambiguity, and critics have been tempted to conjecture his or her identity according to their personal whims or prejudices. The point is of more than passing interest and is of relevance in the assessment of Aeneas' character and the understanding of Book 4. The tears have been variously assigned: to Aeneas (so Servius, Augustine, C.D. 9.4 fin., and a number of modern critics); to Dido and Anna (Heyne-Wagner, Conington-Nettleship), or Dido (Sidgwick, Page); to Aeneas, Dido, and Anna (R. Lesueur, L'Énéide de V. (Toulouse, 1975), p. 404). R. G. Austin (ed. Aen. IV, Oxford, 1955, p. 135) thinks it wrong to probe: ‘Virgil is purposely ambiguous, and why may he not remain so? The line is ruined by a chill analysis ... These tears could not be denied to Aeneas: but ... few could withhold them for ever from Dido.’ The position is summed up in Servius auctus: ‘quidam ... lacrimas inanes uel Aeneae uel Didonis uel Annae uel omnium accipiunt’, to which we may add ‘〈uel totius generis humani〉’: cf. ‘Virgil has not said whose tears; by not specifying he widens the area of sorrow, generalises this particular conflict into the universal conflict of pity with duty’ (R. D. Williams (ed.), Aen. I–VI (London, 1972), p. 373; cf. too W. F. Jackson Knight, Roman Vergil (London, 1944), p. 205). That Virgil should in truth have intended such puzzling obscurity seems hard to credit. It is being assumed that in a detail of his narrative which closely concerns the leading characters and which cannot but excite the reader's interest this master artist is guilty of a vagueness for which another writer would be censured as negligent, if not inept. It appears to me that the evidence presented by the poet himself is nowadays commonly ignored, and, outmoded as the process may seem, a reasoned consideration of the actual Latin text may not be out of place.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0017383500019331
Permalink
