With as Many Voices: The Aeneid of Virgil: Wars and a man I sing

Military Review, March-April, 2008 by David Harper

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With as Many Voices: The Aeneid of Virgil Wars and a man I sing.

With these marvelously compact words, Virgil opens his great epic with a promise to tell not of warfare alone, of great clashes of armies and heroes, but also of the very human struggles of a man entangled in war and entrapped by Fate. The poet's fulfillment of this promise assured The Aeneid's (Viking, New York, 2006) longevity and stature in the history of literature. A poet of dualities. Virgil presents warfare in epic and personal scope, both celebrating and questioning the Roman Empire of his day. As a result, this most acclaimed Roman poet has been characterized as both state propagandist and quiet critic of empire.

With the long-awaited publication of Robert Fagles's new and masterful translation. Virgil's many voices come alive to speak to our own troubled moment. Professor Fagles has now completed the trifecta of translation. His Iliad and Odyssey are the standard translations of Homer for our era. The Aeneid completes the sweeping tale that begins in Homer's song of Troy and ends with Virgil's tale of the Trojan exiles' Italian "homecoming." Fagles's translation, perhaps more than any before, highlights Virgil's range of voices. At appropriate times, Fagles's verse rings with the deep resonance of Aeneas beating his famous God-wrought shield to goad on his troops:

   Now up steps Clausus form Cures,
flushed with his young strength
   and flings his burly spear from a
distance, hitting Dryops
   under the chin full force to choke
the Trojan's throat
   as he shouted, cutting off both his
voice and his life
   in the same breath, and his brow
slams the ground
   as he vomits clots of blood
   ... Like clashing winds
   in the vast heavens, bursting forth
into battle,
   matched in spirit, power--no gust
surrendering,
   one to another, neither the winds
nor clouds nor seas:
   all hangs in the balance, the
world gripped in a deadlock.
   So then clash, the Trojan armies,
armies of Latins,
   foot dug in against foot, man
packed against man. (10.406-426)

At other times the quiet, private voice of Virgil surfaces in bittersweet moments that lend the poem its humanity. Like the cave at Cumae where the mystic Sibyl scribbled her prophecies on leaves prone to blow about, in Fagles's hands Virgil's poem seems to speak from "a hundred mouths with as many voices rushing out." (6:54)

Readers may notice that Fagles's Aeneid shares many echoes and tonal qualities with his translations of Homer. In his "Translator's Postscript," Fagles is self-conscious about this, going out of his way to explain why his Virgil seems as prone to performance as was his Homer. He needn't be concerned. This translation begs both for reading aloud and for private meditation. The echoes of Fagles's Iliad and Odyssey are fitting reminders that Virgil reprised and reworked Homer, translating the epics he made his own. Graced with a knowledgeable introduction by eminent classicist Bernard Knox, a pronunciation glossary, and helpful notes, Fagles's translation is for casual readers and scholars alike. This translation will draw in readers new to the work and quickly demonstrate to them why "epic" may never describe anything on television. It is destined to be the standard edition of the Aeneid for years to come, and Fagles can only improve it by including Virgil's Eclogues and Georgic's.

While the dust of 2,000 years may appear to weigh down the Aeneid, it speaks to our time. But readers must pay attention. In Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos (Vintage, New York, 2003), Robert Kaplan tries to use the classics to instruct modern leaders, but he cherry-picks his way through the literature and quite remarkably ignores Virgil except to dismiss him as an Augustan panegyrist. This characterization overlooks a century of scholarship questioning Virgil's role as state-sponsored propagandist. To hear only one Virgilian voice, instead of the multivocal Virgil Fagles highlights so well, is to miss depths of meaning. Yes, the famous image of Aeneas leaving Troy's ruins with his beloved father on his back and young son in hand is an emblem of the Roman virtue pietas, or duty. But it is too easy to read Aeneas as a model hero, or to follow Kaplan in critiquing Virgil for pandering to his political masters. While the epic holds lessons on duty and Vigil does praise Augustus, the public voice is balanced by another voice--one perhaps growing louder as it resonates in our present.

The private voice of Virgil, made distinct in this translation by Fagles's tonal and rhythm shifts, is not one of outright political opposition. Rather, it quietly voices a sense of foreboding and sadness, undercutting triumphal proclamations elsewhere in the poem. While the public voice declares Rome imperium sine fine (empire without end), the "other" voice invites readers to sympathize with Turnus, the "Italian Achilles" opposing Aeneas (and thus Rome). Turnus, like Aeneas, is urged on by divine beings who inspire him to take up arms against the foreign invader come to claim his land and bride. However, Virgil denies readers any simple right or wrong: there is no comforting archetypal battle of good versus evil here. Instead, Aeneas and Turnus both fight as proxies for higher powers, and are often chided for doubts or forced into actions they might spurn if not for divine meddling. Both heroes rightfully claim divine sanction for their actions. Readers, who admittedly know Aeneas will prevail, nonetheless feel disgust at the needless yet providentially sanctioned slaughter. At one point, even Jove, King of the Gods, throws up his lightning-bearing hands and withdraws, telling the bickering gods and goddesses: