In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, David Wilson-Okamura <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes >Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 01:03:49 +0200 (MET DST) >From: Neven Jovanovic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Aeneid 12,838-840: > >Hinc genus Ausonio mixtum quod sanguine surget, >supra homines, supra ire deos pietate uidebis, >nec gens ulla tuos aeque celebrabit honores. > >In reading for _rivers of blood_, I chanced across the verses >cited above. The problem seems to fit into the discussion of Vergil's >philosophic views. How would you interpret the _supra ire deos pietate_? >It is Juppiter who is speaking here, so it seems too easy to dismiss it >as mere rhetoric. >For the Greeks _supra ire deos_ could be hubris.
Though characters in Euripides accuse the gods of not living up to human moral standards; and however shocking Euripides was to some people in his own day, within a generation of his death he had become a classic. >For the Rome of Vergil's time, it could be bitter irony. > Or the spirit of the Augustan religious revival? Most modern scholars are so detached from the Great Awakenings and other revivals in Christian religious history that (unlike authors of, say, a century ago) they absolutely can't take one in ancient Rome seriously; I am very sceptical of such dogmatic scepticism. I think the e'lite mood had changed since the closing years of the Republic. If it didn't last, well, so our own revivals didn't last. But we really must cure ourselves of the delusion that if we couldn't say something seriously, it must be ironic in an ancient author. >I apologize for not translating the lines, Why apologize? *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Leofranc Holford-Strevens 67 St Bernard's Road usque adeone Oxford scire MEVM nihil est, nisi ME scire hoc sciat alter? OX2 6EJ tel. +44 (0)1865 552808(home)/267865(work) fax +44 (0)1865 512237 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (home) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. You will just prove to everyone that you can't read directions. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body.
