> what shall this brackets-salad mean? word-by-word-translation? > who kills whom can be seen by "illi" - in those brackets translated with > "his", > but it has the direction to the "other" person: demonstrative pronoun >to the > distant person. > "illi" (Dativ) means the enemy, Turnus. > the subject of course is Aeneas; the dativ object is Turnus, the demonstrativ > pronoun "ille" can only mean the distant person
Hans, you've hit the nail just off to the side of its head. I never claimed that "ille" might literally be Aeneas. Of course Aeneas kills Turnus. But you forget that the _Aeneid_ is poetry, and its syntax should not be treated as if it were prose. Therefore, yes, demonstrative to the distant person--Turnus; yet, i am sorry, i cannot help but simultaneously think of aeneas, who is himself quite 'distant' in this scene. aeneas buries his sword in turnus' breast, but the other's (the other aeneas) limbs grow cold... as you point out, aeneas goes through a remarkable change. however, it is not, as has since been pointed out, so black and white as you seem to read it. there are moments of the old aeneas in the second half and even in book 12. i have never really thought about this idea of people and events reincarnated in others as applied to Vergil, but i am enthralled by it. it is huge in joyce's Ulysses, in fact it is precisely what i love about that work. wow. i'd like to see more discussion about this... to get back to hans, i fail to understand why you think that the aeneid is an unfinished work. love from, -matthewspencer ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
