Customer Reviews

The Aeneid (Library Edition)

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This review is one of the this particular translation and not of Virgil's Aeneid. This translation is outstanding. It is a prose translation undoubtedly made by some nineteenth century British Classicist. That, however, takes nothing away from it. This is the one translation I have found that actually succeeds at keeping the beauty of Virgil's words. It makes for great sounding language and it is not spoiled by modern idioms or expressions. The translator keeps his text very literal and yet somehow manages not to sound redundant or awkward. Indeed, the words simply flow. I do not know who the translator is and oddly enough, the book doesn't tell you either. I highly recommend this translation especially to anyone who is tired of the classics not sounding like classics.

This review is directed towards this, apparently anonymous, translation. It is written in "poetry," so that every two lines rhyme, but it is almost impossible to make sense of because of the archaic sentence structure. I am a Latin major who has read most of the Aeneid in Latin. In my opinion, it will be easier for potential buyers to learn Latin than to read this particular translation.

The Roman poet Virgil, normally content with evocations of farming, animal husbandry and rustic scenes, here takes up the task of crafting an epic worthy of Rome's greatness and success as a world power. Taking as his model the Odyssey of Homer, Virgil traces the wanderings of Aeneas, hero of the Trojan Wars, as he wends his way toward Italy and his destiny -- to found Rome. Along the way he falls in love with Queen Dido of Carthage. There are lots of scenes of battles and one-on-one fighting, and they are occasionally more gory than Homer ever was (or perhaps it just seems that way because we know more about the victims' psyches than we did with Homer's characters). Be prepared for a rather abrupt ending, but the good news is you won't have to wade through obsequies and other formalisms in a denouement that could only have been anticlimactic. The prose translation I heard (on the Blackstone unabridged tapes) was undoubtedly accurate but not very noble. Someday I'll try it again with a poetic version.