The Aeneid

In the same breath, blazing with wrath he plants
his iron sword hilt-deep in his enemy’s heart.
Turnus’ limbs went limp in the chill of death.
His life breath fled with a groan of outrage
down to the shades below.

While doing background research on The Aeneid I found commentators listing the same pros and cons:

Cons: Work of nationalistic propaganda for a long-dead empire; facsimile of Homer
Pros: Introspective and ambivalent feelings on said empire; shocking ending scene

Where does that leave a reviewer like me? Should I celebrate the pros so as to entice you of its merit? Or recognize the cons make the venture probably not worthwhile? My conundrum is not so different from Virgil, who lived during Augustus' reign and whose life was warped by the Roman Civil War. It's essential to understand that Virgil appreciated Augustus for ending civil strife and restoring stability to the nation (as well as property rights). But this gratitude--though it extended to writing a painstaking national epic of Rome and her newfound empire--did not go so far as to ignore the cost and foundational violence that the empire was built upon. Though Virgil died before The Aeneid's final draft was complete, Augustus was happy enough with the work to have it celebrated, and it's not clear if he, or subsequent generations (recall who Dante choose as is cosmic guide) tasted the subtle nagging doubt that our reflective author nursed about his homeland. A concoction of chauvinism and moral unease, this is probably the most self-conscious epic out there.

The Aeneid is twelve books long, with the first half mirroring the Odyssey, and the second half mirroring the Iliad. Aeneas, a hero of fallen Troy, travels to Italy with his men in search of a new home after the Trojan War. He gets bounced around the Mediterranean a bit, has a mad love affair with Dido (the founder of Carthage), and even visits the underworld to see his Roman descendants waiting to be born via a radical theory about rebirth. In book 7 he finally lands in Italy and gets into it with the natives, led by Turnus--who represents both Achilles and Hector--and after some back-and-forth defeats Turnus in a duel. The shocking ending scene has Turnus on his knees asking Aeneas for mercy: either to be spared or to have his corpse returned to his father's homeland for burial. Now, repeatedly throughout the epic a lesson promulgated to Aeneas and the audience is to have mercy on the vanquished, and Aeneas' core attribute has been the Roman concept of piety, which encapsulates faith, tradition, and devotion to the Gods. Everything has led to the rather predictable conclusion that Aeneas will show mercy on Turnus and heal the wound of civil strife he has brought to Italy, a la Augustus. Instead Aeneas, in a fit of rage, buries his sword to its hilt in Turnus' chest, and the epic abruptly ends on that gruesome note.

The Aeneid is a long story that I've amputated to get to this juicy ending, to consider its implications. Why did Aeneas do that? Why did Virgil meticulously write this highly organized epic just to have the hero go apeshit in its closing lines? One key is in Aeneas' character, and how different he is from Homeric heroes. The latter are supremely self-confident, even in defeat, and it was jarring reading Virgil's work because his heroes express self-doubt and mixed feelings about their destiny. The opening scene with Aeneas has him wishing he was dead before he has to act as leader (and inspiration) to his men; he receives and misinterprets many visions from the gods about his destiny; he engages in a love affair with his enemy who he regrets leaving to satisfy fate; he visits his father in the afterlife and learns--without saying a word--that his Trojans will be eradicated to create the Roman empire; he comes to Italy intending to be a friend to the locals but instead butchers them in war; he discovers he will die before his new "Troy" is founded (reminiscent of Moses); he has to marry a woman who does not love him; and his best friend in this new land is killed by Turnus during conflict. In short, Virgil sets the price for the Roman founding so high as to make the audience--and protagonist-- question if its worth going through at all. Augustus probably saw it as the steep price he had to pay to heal a war-torn nation, but he likely was obtuse to the cost it inflicted on the Roman people.

This isn't just a specific complaint Virgil has about Rome's history, but a generalized comment on the nature of empire itself. Violence seems a necessary ingredient for its formation, and warps irresistibly the character of any people who bring it about. Here I'm reminded of Homer's ability to both celebrate and condemn--sometimes in a single breath--notions of war, divinity, and human choice. Likewise I don't think Virgil is lamely saying "imperialism is bad." I think he recognizes the prosperity it brings Romans, just as it infects their character with moral contradictions that manifest themselves in frightful ways.

One such way--and of course I had to end on this--is Aeneas' action in the closing lines of the poem. The sacrifices Aeneas made in fulfilling his destiny cost him his people, his love, his friends, his future; everything in short that made him human. That his humanity was therefore absent in the closing lines is appropriate to everything that came before. It doesn't leave a positive picture of the Augustinian regime--who ironically wanted to stop conquering and consolidate territorial gains--but it does serve as a somber parting comment for the Roman people. Virgil was a student of Homer and would have noticed how both the Iliad and Odyssey ended with positive lineaments: Achilles returning Hector's body, and Odysseus fixing his marriage bed. Yet our Roman poet discarded such symbols, and took a story fundamentally about building one's home and chose to end it with our hero murdering a surrendered enemy. We're forced to ask if the Roman empire--or any empire--has the tools necessary to build a sustaining community, or if it's only lasting fame is the blood it bleaches enemy lands.

Prometheus Bound

Do you think I will crouch before your Gods—so new—and tremble?
I am far from that.

There’s one thing all liberal peoples have in common: unadulterated defiance against unjust power. To be bloody, but unbowed. The first great playwright of the world, the Greek Aeschylus, saw in his countryman’s fight against imperial Persia the defiance of freemen. He witnessed firsthand the desperate but resolute plight of those fighting against slavery of spirit, not just body. But to fail—to be conquered by a tyrant—is preferable to never having fought at all. After the Greco-Persian wars he staged a play celebrating that theme with a well-known myth: Prometheus Bound.

Prometheus was one of the old titans before the current Olympian pantheon. He helped Zeus and the young upstart gods overthrow his brethren. As reward he was allowed to exist in the new world order. But he fell in disfavor when he aided mankind—a race Zeus was intending to blot out—by giving them the gift of fire. He also taught them several crafts, and blessed them with blind hope so they may persevere in light of their doom. This empowered mankind, and angered Zeus so much he decreed Prometheus would be chained and tortured for eternity. The play follows Prometheus’ enslavement and indignation towards his condition. He curses Zeus and prophesies the god’s downfall. During the story he is visited by several characters who ultimately disagree with his rebellion, for Prometheus could alleviate his suffering by bowing to Zeus and serving him. But the titan will not hear of it.

An otherwise simple, if not dignified story has a few cool things going on. The first is the meaning of Prometheus’ name, foresight, which reveals the titan’s ability to predict the future. He knows his fate as well as the fates of others. We’re not sure if this makes his suffering better or worse; better in that he knows it’ll end, or worse as it eliminates the possibility of hope. But foresight also connotes thinking ahead, which allows for intelligent planning. Many characters in the story think they’re outplaying their opponent: Zeus thinks he’ll break the titan, Hermes and the chorus think they’re on the winning side, and humanity plans on controlling the world with fire’s power. But it’s Prometheus who has the ace, and he (along with the audience) knows he’ll win the long game. It’s just getting there that’s an issue.

Thus tyranny is not sustainable. The seemingly foolish resistance to absolute power is actually quite wise; Prometheus knows it is right to oppose injustice, and that his opposition is what will end Zeus’ reign. But the indignation is also necessary. To stoically endure would be a waste; the titan must share his woe and inspire others. He moves the other characters to sympathy, if not inspiration, but doesn’t seem to sway them. It is not easy enduring hell. But the play does vibrate with the audience—an audience who have already endured hell and came out on top. Hopefully Prometheus will inspire the generations to come who are faced with the same choice. And while we lack such divine foresight, we do have another important gift: blind hope.

The artifice of the play is complex too, because Zeus of course is head god. He’s the ‘just’ leader of Greek religion. How Aeschylus manages to portray him as an insufferable tyrant is nothing short of spectacular, and surely dangerous. But the playwright skillfully—and uncomfortably—manages to get us on Prometheus’ side by carefully transitioning our feelings from basic sympathy to incited anger. Io’s interjection tops it off: why did Zeus allow this to happen to an innocent woman he claimed to love? Does this not display his indifference to injustice? And why would he want to destroy all mankind? Prometheus Bound moves us from being compassionate observers to chained and defiant rebels. We evolve from mere humans to titan-sapian hybrids that defy Zeus himself. We don’t seem to mind it’s a losing battle. We are willing to spend ourselves for a worthy cause.

What makes this so interesting is that the play’s status quo—Hermes, Oceanos, and the Chorus—in many ways are meant to represent ourselves. Zeus has overthrown the tyranny of the titans, and we of the Olympian faith stand by him. Aeschylus is inviting us to serious self-reflection on where we hold our allegiances, and anticipates the Peloponnesian war where the liberators become the imperialists. Along with the Persians, the playwright is a master at getting the audience to identify with the opposite side. If we stand by Zeus we oppose Prometheus. We oppose a just cause. In order to think upon this troubling contradiction we need to exercise our intelligence, something more akin to Prometheus than Zeus.

This leads to a final and no less important dichotomy. Zeus symbolizes the unbridled might of tyranny, where Prometheus is liberating intelligence. It is not enough to say the strong conquer the weak; we must also consider the role of the intellectual in life’s food chain. In the short term he is devoured but his cunning and foresight will let him dominate in the end. This is a theme that pulsates in the Oresteia as well. Strong-arm tactics must be curbed in civilized life, and the only effective shackle is institutionalized intelligence. Prometheus is the last stand against a lawless world. He teaches man so they may organize themselves rationally and plan their future. The implicit message—that absolute authority is degenerate and only through each other can we survive—celebrates not only our humanity but also our legitimate institutions. Aeschylus urges us to memorialize the martyrs who suffered so this could happen; not just a fictitious titan, not just the author, but hopefully ourselves.

The Oresteia

I accept this home at Athene's side.
I shall not forget the cause
of this city, which Zeus all powerful and Ares
rule, stronghold of divinities,
glory of Hellene gods, their guarded alter.
So with the forecast of good
I speak this prayer for them
that the sun's bright magnificence shall break out wave
on wave of all the happiness
life can give, across their land

I recently had the pleasure of watching a video recording of an exquisite (though very English) adaptation of Aeschylus' Oresteia, and thought it appropriate to give this masterpiece a review. I'm not sure I would have used the word "masterpiece" before I saw the play performed, but The National Theatre's 1983 rendition (which mimics the direction and style of classical Greek theater, masks and all) brought life to a stilted story. With this extra dimension the literature rises to theater--a different art form than one I'm trained in. But I can still give my impressions as well as a full-throated recommendation to the only extant tragic trilogy of classical greek theater (CGT).

Writing about CGT is difficult because it's so unique it's a genre onto itself. The Greeks took well-known myths and added unique spins or interpretations for the annual festival of Dionysus. It's important to understand that these plays are as much sacred religious rituals as entertainment, but the catch is that they're rituals for a god of subversion. Hence we have a mix of the conservative and the radical, new spins on old stories, and solemn civic reflections during a jolly good time. Further, in terms of performance, theater began as choral religious songs--reciting myths included--until the legendary Thespis had a person step away from the Chorus and talk to them, inventing characters and conflict. Aeschylus innovated by having a second character step away, as Sophocles is credited with the third. But note that the "chorus" is still an essential character in these plays, even as we see their prominence fade over time, especially with Euripides.

These plays were always trilogies, but The Oresteia is our only extant one. It tells of what happened with the House of Atreus after Agamemnon returns from Troy. In Agamemnon the king is murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, upon his return to Argos in retribution for the earlier sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia. In The Libation Bearers Agamemnon's children--Orestes and Electra--meet up to plot their mother's doom (Orestes commits the act with Shakespearean delay). And Eumenides ends the story with the Furies pursuing Orestes for the murder of his bloodkin, while Athena flies in at the end to install a judicial institution to appraise Orestes' guilt, and offer the Furies a legitimate civic station to absorb-and-purify the ancient-but-destructive power of vengeance.

A modern audience who finds the play difficult to follow (I urge you to use subtitles if possible) may feel some relief in the knowledge that the classical Greeks had a hard time with Aeschylus too, even as they celebrated his plays. He spoke in a dignified, elevated language far removed from the tongue of the commoner. But through this language he explored themes that form the very foundation of civilization. On the surface The Oresteia is about how the cycle of revenge can only be satiated with institutional justice: an important enough lesson for any peoples. But each part of the trilogy has its own depth that complicates this idea. Agamemnon, the most self-contained play (and could probably use its own review), examines Clytemnestra's murder of her husband and the effect that murder has on society. While a lesser playwright would have meekly bemoaned the death of the patriarchy, Agamemnon's own cruelty and incompetence make Clytemnestra a sympathetic figure and raises the argument that it was Agamemnon who first poisoned the well, perhaps justifying his wife's actions. And though I want to stress that Aeschylus was no Euripides and firmly reinstates the established order at the end of the story, he makes it clear that he takes the side of the "other" seriously, whether it be woman, barbarian, or heretical force.

The Libation Bearers is the weakest of the plays because Hamlet expands on the same themes better--indecision, civil conflict, the self-destructive moral ambiguity of revenge--but at least it's short. Eumenides, my favorite of the three, elevates the story from familial and tribal significance to the national and even transcendent realm. Here the avatar of vengeance threatens our (ostensible) hero, and by extension community, as a force that's completely out of control. Even the god Apollo is impotent to stop it (note his sexism). It takes Athena--the reconciliation of man and woman as well as conflict and learning--to create a human solution to the intractable dilemma. Here the Furies and Apollo present their arguments to a jury who symbolize a legitimate authority and resolution to conflict, sanctioned by the divine order. In the end the jury is split over Orestes guilt, and although Athena absolves him with a lame and offensive excuse, the important thing here is less the merits of the debate than the crucial stability that a respected decision commands. In fact after the verdict Orestes is tossed aside as the mere tool he is, as Athena strives to calm the Furies from their, well, fury. She succeeds by assimilating them into the civilized order and finding a healthy conduit for their destructive capacity.

Aeschylus is my favorite kind of conservative: he believed that legitimate institutions, when engaging seriously with the complaints of the subversive, can absorb and transform the latter in a way that benefits everyone. The solution is to find a reconciliation wherein those wronged by society can be allowed to invest in and profit from the status-quo. His contrast to Euripides--who questioned the very foundation of the state as almost hopelessly rotted, and who also reveled in the perspective of the exploited (especially women)--is more pregnant than even Aristophanes could manage. I'll end by highlighting that The Oresteia is not really about its namesake, who is a mere vehicle. The loci of attention--Clytemnestra, the Furies, and even perhaps Electra--draw attention to what's salient, with the respected maledom called into question: Agamemnon, Apollo, and even Orestes. I don't think their reinstatement as authority figures is perfunctory. You can criticize leadership without removing them by force. To do so risks self-perpetuating chaos, breeding more suffering than the original injustice itself. The answer Aeschylus offers us is that rare thing in CGT: a tragedy with a happy ending

Aesop

"Since you sang like a fool in the summer,” said the ant, 

“you had better be prepared to dance the winter away!

1. Aesop’s fables are now generally considered children’s literature. Why is this the case? How is this classification inaccurate? Do these fables speak particularly to one age group?
   
   I imagine it's because they're short, simple, and feature animals: all things that can keep a child's attention while parting some folksy wisdom. I agree this depiction is inaccurate. These fables are not always transparent or easily digestible--sometimes I appreciated the summarizing closing line; other times I thought it was off--and the stories occasionally reflect adult themes that children cannot understand.
   
   But more importantly these fables are intended for children in the same way 'G' rated films are. Sometimes that's their target audience, but most of the time the author is simply casting a wide net. It's meant for all people, of all ages. But I would add that the ideal audience is the middle-to-lower class family, who would enjoy the fables without pretension or finding them crude. (Folk tales often beg for class analysis, but I'll resist that temptation here.)
   
   
2. To what degree are the animals anthropomorphized in these fables? Why? How does the attribute of speech change our perception of the animals? Does this affect the way that we enjoy the stories?
   
   The animals possess human language, attributes, and desires, while still firmly being part of the animal kingdom. This lets them serve as an analogue for human dilemmas; for example, the tortoise and the hair speak to each other, enter a race, and display virtues & vices--thoroughly human actives--while never going so far as to form a society. Thus their anthropomorphism only serves to illustrate a moral, while never breaking the audience's immersion.
   
   Speech in particular lets us connect to them because they're literally "talking our language". They're simultaneously identifiable and remote; familiar and fantastic. The audience is comforted and challenged at the same time, which adds to the stories' allure.
   
   
3. Compare the fables to the anecdotes of Odysseus on his journey home, and discuss in what manner they are similar or dissimilar from other short stories. For example, Odysseus’s encounter with Polyphemus might be understood to have a clear didactic moral for Odysseus, and yet it is clearly not a fable. Why not? What is the generic difference?
   
   Fables are episodic. Meaning they do not fit into a larger narrative (as Odysseus' stories do), contribute to a consistent theme (which would exclude Ovid's Metamorphoses), carry emotional or mental weight (they are bite-sized and often breezy), or communicate an ambiguous moral lesson (well, not intentionally). That is how they differ.
   
   They're similar in levying fantastical set-pieces to entertain their audience, while being just silly enough not to break their audiences' suspension of disbelief. They are, even at their most dangerous, non-threatening because they take place in a distant land, time, or reality (such as where animals talk). And both, of course, have something to say, which is ultimately conservative in character.
   
   
4. What sort of wisdom is contained in the fables? Is there a particular type of knowledge conveyed in them? How does this relate to the manner in which they might be considered instructive or illustrative?
   
   Despite the seriousness of the ending lines summarizing the moral--which I vaguely recall being added in the middles ages--Aesop's fables don't feel moralizing. Yes you can learn something from them, and yes each fable seems to be making a point, but they're enjoyable for their own sake and their pleasure may be more important than their didactic value. In fact their key motivation often lies in irony, producing a laugh and illustrating a character's folly. As such I don't feel right discussing their "wisdom", as it takes these stories a little too seriously.
   
   But if I had to narrow down their "particular knowledge", I would say these fables tease common vices, and aim to help the average person get by. Not in any practical sense, but simply in mocking the everyday stupidities we all engage in. This is why Aesop is given humble origins, instead of atop an ivory tower. His stories never--as far as I know--show us inspirational or idealized personages to imitate. He deals in fools, who serve as examples of how not to live. He appeals to the lowest common denominator, often ironically presenting a reassuring figure of fun: "at least I'm not as dumb as that guy."
   

Sappho

and cold sweat holds me and shaking
grips me all, greener than grass
I am and dead—or almost
I seem to me

1. How does Sappho’s presentation of love differ from Homer’s? Compare the loving discourse between Odysseus and Penelope to that which Sappho writes. Are these differences significant? If so, how?
   
   For Homer, love has a specific narrative function and serves the themes of the work they take place in. So in the Iliad, the interactions between Hector and Andromache epitomize the tension between husbands who need to give their life to protect their state, and their wives who rely on their husbands for their livelihood. Both feel conflicting emotions: duty against fear, the personal against the communal, and the union of marriage ironically severed by the need to protect it. Lastly, and most importantly, H & A are parents, and Astyanax's reaction to his father's armor reflects these tensions above, just as the babe's death is a proxy for Troy's destruction.
   
   Odysseus and Penelope likewise embody themes from the Odyssey. Their reuniting, taking place at the climax of the epic, putting marriage and its symbol (the deeply rooted marriage bed) as the apex of civilization, are book-ended with scenes where the couple first tests each other's faithfulness and then give each other counsel. They are halves to the same whole, and when combined bring order to the universe.
   
   While Sappho has themes too, these are reflections of love as they're really experienced, and appear less constructed and more natural than the scenes Homer paints us. Love doesn't serve some larger point but is an end onto itself, fueled by passion and controlling the "story" more than the other way around. She has poems where love is unrequited and brings a flood of emotions whose only purpose is to bring attention to themselves: desire, lust, sadness, regret, elation, with each of these reflected physically instead of just held internally. This isn't the careful script of Homer, but a description by Sappho as to what's actually lived-through. Or so it seems.
   
   
2. Choose three poetic tropes that Sappho makes use of and analyze their occurrences. What tropes are most common in her poetry? How does she employ them? What tropes are strikingly absent from her work?
   
   Setting aside the use of metaphors and symbols--which are ubiquitous in literature--the three tropes Sappho employs most often are hyperbole, invoking the gods, and rhetorical questions. None of these are particularly unique in ancient literature, and hyperbole is a pleasant mainstay in love poetry to this day. However I'm not that interested in how she wields them, and don't see much to write about. The only trope worth celebrating--now tame by today's standards--is her focus on homosexual love, about which I don't have anything new to say.
   
   Instead I'm fascinated by what tropes are missing. Almost entirely absent from Sappho's poems are other love cliches: star-crossed lovers, fabricated conflicts, and consummated desires. No where do we see two darlings pine for each other but unable to meet for whatever reason. Nor do we see them overcome that whatever reason and revel in each other's blaze. Instead we see a relationship after it's ended, a woman jealous of her friend (or her friend's partner), an old woman lamenting her age, an invocation to Aphrodite to engineer rape (!), and other atypical romantic states with the same beauty and intensity that's normally reserved for more conventional scenes. The closest we get to the typical are Sappho's marriage songs which, while lovely, feel a little too commercial.
   


3. What is Sappho’s essential understanding of love as revealed in these works? To what degree is it a passion, and to what degree is it an intellectual state? Is love good or bad? What other passions are most commonly associated with love?
   
   The heavy shadow draping over these poems is the tyranny of love.  Its ability to grant euphoria or anguish, against one's will, with no indication of length or outcome, tortures Sappho as a curse worth having. In fact there's an almost perverse reliance on Aphrodite that superbly reveals the god's power, so often tossed aside in other Greek myths. Perhaps then these poems are an attempt by Sappho to control that power, which so clearly controls her. Viewed in that light these are less poems than spells, meant to heal a broken heart or quench a clawing thirst.
   
   The associated passions that flow from this are also threatening: longing, hope, sadness, jealousy, and--most dangerous--bliss. Thus love cannot be identified as good or bad, but an endlessly mixed bag of emotions and desires roiling inside Sappho, with all the intensity and adventure of a Greek epic.
   
   
4. What is Sappho’s conception of the gods? Are they active or passive? Are they good or bad? How does this conception of the gods compare to Homer, Gilgamesh, and the ancient Egyptians? Is there a central, unifying understanding?
   
   Sappho articulates two conceptions. The first is perfunctory; in service of the marriage songs that she crafts for others. These are conventional and largely passive. The second is a more personal and active conception. She fittingly invokes female gods (Hera, Artemis, but by far Aphrodite) to protect and guide her and her loved ones.
   
   What's salient is her treatment of Aphrodite. Building on my prior answer, there is a dimension to the goddess of love that's reassuring. She unites people, she grants lustful desires, and when weighing the value of passion it's clear that a life without Aphrodite is not worth living. But by the same token, the unbridled influence that love can have over a person, not merely on their actions but on their psyche, casts this goddess as a tormentor at worst and a gatekeeper to happiness at best. She's even painted as capricious ("spangled mind"), which is no way to handle the most important part of a person's life.
   
   This is really what separates Sappho's religious views from her contemporaries. In other mythologies gods indeed control the world in capricious ways, but these always dealt with the exterior. Property, nations, flesh. It's only Aphrodite who can make or break someone's interior life, and for those who have been oppressively reduced to only their interior, this gives her life-or-death importance. In this way Sappho's appeal to this goddess is tragically sadomasochistic. She both loves and hates a symbol of her chains as well as her freedom. (From here it's impossible not to extend the analysis to her role in society at large, and what kind of pregnant symbolism homosexuality provides.) But to the extent she was leashed in love as well as life, Sappho seems to have at least found freedom in her art.