Shawn Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >The fact that Eclogue 4 sounds chillingly Christian has resulted in a >lot of great poetry, but >I don't think any responsible modern scholar >would would claim that Vergil was actually predicting the birth of >Christ. [. . .] And part of the ambivalence about Aeneas is that he >must, tragically, become Achilles in order >to found the Roman empire. >He has made many sacrifices throughout the poem, but in the end he >>must also give up the ethos of compassion and mercy that has >distinguished Trojan civilization >in the past--and it is that ethos >that makes Aeneas attractive to Christian thinkers. Jesus made many >sacrifices, including the ultimate one, but he did not give up his >ability to love and pity. And in the end, I think the only way one can >make Vergil the beginning of European Christian literature is to ignore >the second half of the Aeneid--as many medieval poets did.
Yes, Aeneas has to sacrifice much, including personal happiness; but that is the point, he *has to*, just as Agamemnon, faced with a choice, *had to* sacrifice his daughter. It is no use breezing in from another culture, or even some other point within the same culture, and saying one would have made the opposite choice (Antony, it could be said, had done so): it is morally impossible for *them*, committed as they are to a morality in which individual happiness is not the overriding goal. Yesterday I saw _The Trojans_ at the Coliseum. Interesting to hear the Carthaginians complaining at Dido's neglect of her duties in her besottedness with the stranger; which set me thinking how criminally selfish she is to abandon her people for death just because her heart is broken, monarchical irresponsibility at its worst. Aeneas transcends his individual self, Dido does not. A Christian concerned with personal salvation might be regarded as no less selfish than a pagan or a secularist concerned with personal happiness, or indeed with personal integrity. (If you could have assassinated Hitler in the certain knowledge that you would both save the world from many evils and go to hell, would you have done it?) However, it is not obvious from history that Christian commanders have in fact been less ready than Aeneas to sacrifice personal righteousness for the greater good, or at least the greater end. Leofranc Holford-Strevens ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
