Musings, and a Question about an Emendation:
Musings - The virtues of Putnam's approach, it seems to me, is that it
describes quite convincingly how readers of the poem who were Stoics, both
those we know of such as Manilius, Lucan, Seneca, plus all the many
anonymous Stoics of the time, could have or perhaps did read the ending of
the poem. And the virtues of Galinsky's approach are the same: justified
anger is a notion which a Peripatetic such as Arius Didymus or someone
similar might have used to read the ending of the poem. And we might also
say that Vergil could have been aware that this is how different readers
might have read it.
The Aeneid could then be seen as a space in which a community of
interpreters debates the poem, an ideal which in a way is most fully
realized by Macrobius' Saturnalia.
If this answer feels unsatisfactory, it may be because we seem to have
gotten away from what we feel the poem itself wants to say to us; as though
it were a mute whose gestures we were desperately trying to interpret. So
let us suppose that Anchises' speech is the closest that Vergil comes to
clearly stating his own position. After all he speaks with a very
authoritative and archaic solemnity. The difficulty with using his
philosophy to interpret the rest of the poem is that it does too much, it
is so intensely pessimistic (as Aeneas recognizes when he asks why such
happy dead would want to be reborn) that it doesn't make sense of humans'
actions, rather it drains them of all meaning, it makes all the interesting
emotions errors of the flesh. So if we want to draw a moral from the
ending, we are thrown back on all the particulars which motivate it rather
than any broad theory.
Even if Anchises' speech were somehow more useful as an explanation,
wouldn't it still be drained somewhat by the conclusion of Book 6 in which
a connection is made between the experiences recorded in the book and the
departure of Aen. and Sibyll through the false, ivory gates?
Here is my question - what do members of the group think of a repunctuation
of Gates of Dreams passage along the following lines?
'Sunt geminae Somni portae, quarum altera fertur
cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris,
altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,
sed falsa ad caelum mittunt insomnia Manes.'
his ibi tum natum Anchises unaque Sibyllam
prosequitur dictis portaque emittit eburna.
translated: "There are two gates of Sleep, one of which is called the Horn
Gate, where true shades are granted an easy exit, and the other of which
shines, being made of gleaming ivory - but there the Manes send false
dreams to the sky." There and with these words Anchises said goodbye to his
son and the Sibyl and let them out through the ivory gate.
So that would make Anchises the speaker of the cryptic comment about the
gates rather than the narrator.
I would be grateful for any comments on this.
PT
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
