> 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.
Excellent point, but if it is impossible for Aeneas not to fulfill his destiny, why does Mercury have to remind him of his task in Aeneid 4 when he has apparently settled down with Dido--an apparent neglect of his duty? Aeneas may be duty bound, but doesn't the significance of that duty depend on our awareness of how much he is giving up? We could blame it all on the gods, but doesn't the success of Vergil's narrative depend to some extent on a tension between divine will and mortal will? When we are told that Dido has died before her time, and not according to fate, aren't we given an example of a character who has defied the will of the gods? > 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. I'm not entirely convinced that Dido is being selfish here. Isn't there something noble about her assertion of the human will in the face of the gods who have not done right by her? What would you have her do, marry Iarbas? > 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. But doesn't really address the particular sacrifice I was talking about. Isn't it problematic that Aeneas ignores his father's instructions to spare the conquered at the end of the poem? Why does he have to make this sacrifice, in particular? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
