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Virgil's Aeneid (Penguin Classics)

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John Dryden's 1697 translation of Virgil's Ancient Roman epic "The Aeneid" is, after 300 years, still entertaining and edifying. For students of Restoration/18th Century literature, it is a shining example of the major poetic tradition of the age, Neoclassicism. Dryden, trying with his measured heroic couplets to recapture the high forms of the age of Augustus in Rome, appropriately translates the famous epic of Aeneas, founder of Rome.

"The Aeneid" takes up the Homeric tradition, beginning in the aftermath of "The Iliad" and the Trojan War. Aeneas, protected by his mother, the goddess Venus, is advised to flee Troy with the remaining Trojans. He has been fated to found a greater empire in Italy. Juno, queen of the gods, who supported Greece in the Trojan War, has recently heard that the descendants of Troy will destroy her new favourites in Carthage. All of this raises Juno's ire, and she manipulates men and nature in an effort to end the Trojan line. Through Juno's efforts, and in a manner similar to Homer's "Odyssey," the three day journey from Troy to Rome ends up taking many years.

Aeneas as a hero is a problematic figure. Though he is a skilled warrior and committed leader, his relationships with women are thoroughly troubled in "The Aeneid." In particular, his treatment of Carthage's Queen Dido and later the Trojan women is questionable. In addition, Aeneas has a tendency to let his introspection and attachment to ceremony draw him away from his people when they need his leadership the most. Often, though, these desperate situations allow the next generation, represented by Aeneas's son Ascanius, to shine in action scenes.

Aeneas's foes throughout the poem (Juno, Turnus) offer intense opposition to the wandering Trojans, emphasizing the amount of toil and suffering the Trojans had to endure to establish themselves in a new home and found a new empire. The great thing about Dryden's translation specifically is the way that Dryden dramatizes and references recent problems in England in the context of a Roman epic. In this context, look for references to fires, which are usually described as spreading like "contagion" or "plague." Dryden's personal knowledge of the plague and fire that tore London apart in 1665-6 are important subtexts in the translation. Aeneas and his "exiled" court also fit in with Dryden's concern as a Catholic with the Protestant Succession in the years after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. That Dryden's own historical period finds its way in these and other ways into his translation of the Roman epic are impressive and interesting.

Though the heroic couplet/triplet poetic style Dryden uses throughout his translation of "The Aeneid" can be initially difficult, it gradually becomes easier to read and follow. However, in the books dealing with battles, you will want to read slowly, to figure out just who is killing who. Frederick Keener's introduction to this Penguin Classics edition is very helpful, providing detailed explanations of Dryden's style and context. This edition also includes a glossary of names and a map of Aeneas's voyage, so that names that are introduced only briefly can be better understood. Overall, an excellent edition for reading or study.

A Masterpiece in every sense of the word. I have also read John Conington's translation, done in about 1870, but find that Dryden's much earlier one wins out. Even though it has a very outmoded rhyme scheme, so despised in today's world, it is that very rhyme scheme that literally carries you along in the reading, making it much easier. Everything is here, war, unrequited love, violence to the max, blood, gore, horrific battle scenes, slaughter unending, the human condition. Which encompasses the gods, who succumb to using mankind as chess pieces to play out their very human emotions. And how Virgil must have clearly understood the futility of war, as well as its horror - and something else - how it catches hold of man and chases away his reason. The poetry is truly soaring; many scenes are as vivid as any movie screen could make them. The pathos and poignancy are not soon forgotton. Scenes of parents behind city walls seeing their sons shut out and killed when the gates are shut are heartwrenching. Here is an example of the power in Virgil's storytelling:
There is this king, who was evil and a very bad ruler,(one of the things he does as punishment to citizens is to tie a living man to a dead man, face to face, and leave them together while the dead man decays) and his people manage to throw him out. In his escape he takes with him his infant daughter, Camilla, whom he loves very much. (It is one of the poet's strengths that no one is either all good or all bad.) They come to a raging river, and the king quickly realizes that, although he is a very strong swimmer, he cannot possibly cross with Camilla, a babe in arms. What to do? He has with him a stout lance or spear, and lashes Camilla to this. Then, using all his considerable strength, he throws the lance across the river, where it lands, quivering, with Camilla still tied safely to it. Then he swims across, retrieves his daughter, and raises her to be Camilla, the virgin warrior, who will bring a corps of other like women to the last battle. Is this the stuff of movies or what? Don't be put off by the fact that it was written over 2000 years ago. It is exciting, absorbing stuff. And I must disagree with the majority of critics who constantly harp on the fact that Aeneas left Dido in the lurch. Dryden's translation makes perfectly clear that he did so only at the instigation of the gods, and that inwardly his heart was breaking. He was above all else an obedient man to his forefathers and his fate, containing that very Roman virtue, "pietas". Vergil captures "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" to a tee. A caveat - be very familiar with the story and characters of "The Iliad", from which Virgil builds "The Aeneid".

I'm glad to see Dryden getting all these good reviews. Penguin has done an excellent job annotating his work, and he has many advantages over other translators.

First of all, he really was the finest poet of his age, universally acknowledged as such after Milton's death. Second, he was genuinely popular, his Virgil translations no less than his other work. Third, the English neo-classical period developed a verse form, the heroic couplet, partly in imitation of Latin poets like Virgil, so translating Virgil into that form was an extremely natural thing to do. This gives Dryden a slight edge over Pope, also the finest poet of HIS generation, but translating a less sophisticated writer, Homer, into an even more sophisticated style than Dryden's.

Even at that, Pope's Homer is excellent, but Dryden's Virgil is absolutely supreme.

The original AENEID is so well-written and such a good story that any translation is likely to be exciting, and many modern poets -- by no means universally recognized as the best poets of their generation, and nothing like as popular as Dryden in any case -- have done a good job with Virgil. But Dryden is off the charts, and Penguin does him justice.

If Virgil were British, this is what he would have sounded like. Much praise must be give to John Dryden for this accomplishment. For our translator has managed to tune to the Latin lyre to the beat of English metre. These fine and artful heroic rhyming couplets are without a doubt a manifestation of the aesthetic potential of the English language. This edition is preferred above all others, with the exception of Allen Mandelbaum's rendering, which is without rhyme and without rival in the arena of Virgilian translation.

Virgil, with more justification than any Greek, could be hailed as the father of Western Literature. His work has set a benchmark for excellence. Dante referred to Virgil as his Òmaster,Ó Dryden hailed VirgilŐs 'GeorgicsŐ as the perfect poem by the perfect poet. With the Aeneid, Virgil had set out to write another perfect poem, and almost succeeded. Its poetry communicates across the cultural barrier from a period which had made a science of oratory and banked its entire stock in learning and political persuasion on the fine art of oral delivery. I feel it still has an edge over our snazzy sound bites designed to titillate the 30 second attention span of hypnotized telly-junkies. Sustained arguments donŐt come as an ambush on your solar plexus. Nabokov called VirgilŐs poetry Òinsipid,Ó a curious verdict, coming from an admirer of Marcel Proust. But even Proust would have had a hard time had he tried to match VirgilŐs subtle art of low key effects. Virgil was an extremely shy person, afflicted by tuberculosis, a sly smirk under a peasantŐs heavy brow; he spoke with a rustic accent. Modern critics sometimes express disdain for passages in VirgilŐs work, that look like the adulations of a servile courtier. But the AeneidŐs eulogies on the Imperial regime never exceed the noncommittal deference of a peasant, who gives Caesar what is CaesarŐs, in order to be left unmolested, when he minds his own business. There are indications that after the upheavals in 23 BC. which had led to the downfall of VirgilŐs patron and friend, the poet felt increasingly under pressure. It speaks for enormous talent that his best work was written on commission and not merely a product of gratuitous choice. Virgil could accepted limitations and expanded his talent from within proscribed boundaries Đ how many artists, even of the very greatest, can actually do this? I have a profound respect for Dryden. His translation of VirgilŐs 'Georgics' has added to our language one of its great revelations. Dryden was a devoted admirer of Virgil, and a great scholar, but of a very different temperament. His era has been called the age of the baroque, a period of ornate exuberance and redundant rhetorics. Science was still little understood but it became fashionable to mention NewtonŐs laws and publicly to express a not entirely sincere snobbery in regard to superstition and pagan religions. So DrydenŐs most difficult task as a translator was not just to be faithful to the original, but to ferry VirgilŐs Aeneid across the cultural divide. There was little appreciation for the polish and subtlety of VirgilŐs style, and Dryden wouldnŐt lose his sleep over unashamed padding: ÒMeantime imperial Neptune heard the sound / Of raging billows breaking on the ground. / Displeas'd, and fearing for his wat'ry reign, / He rear'd his awful head above the main, // (and now the truly majestic touch:) // Serene in majesty; then roll'd his eyes / Around the space of earth, and seas, and skies.Ó One almost regrets that Virgil hadnŐt thought of it. He only wrote :ÒInterea magno misceri murmure pontum, / emissamque hiemem sensit Neptunus, et imis / stagna refusa vadis, graviter commotus; et alto / prospiciens, summa placidum caput extulit unda.Ó (Òmeantime great noise disturbed the sea, tossed forth a storm, stirred Neptune on the lowest floor, who, displacing waters of the deep, calmly raised his head above the highest waveÓ) which creates a powerful enough image, though not quite of DrydenŐs grandeur. But for his padding, Dryden more than compensates with his absolutely ingenious use of transpositions. Look how Virgil puts his thoughts in sequence: ÒThere was an ancient city, inhabited by Tyrian husbandmen, Carthage, that faces from afar Ostia at the TiberŐs mouth, of great wealth and most warlike in its enterprise and being dear, itŐs said, more than all the land to Juno, who even Samos held in less esteem. Here they kept her arms, here her chariot, and the goddess hatched designs and hopes for a capital of nations, should destiny permit. Yet surely she had heard that a race of Trojan issue was hereafter to overturn the Tyrian towers, a people born to rule and of warlike pride would lay waste her Lybia, according to destinies decree.Ó And now compare how Dryden inverted this sequence to squeeze into his rhyming couplets the same amount of information and even throw in an additional explanatory note: ÒAgainst the Tiber's mouth, but far away, / An ancient town was seated on the sea; / A Tyrian colony; the people made / Stout for the war, and studious of their trade: / Carthage the name; belov'd by Juno more / Than her own Argos, or the Samian shore. / Here stood her chariot; here, if Heav'n were kind, / The seat of awful empire she design'd. / Yet she had heard an ancient rumor fly, / (Long cited by the people of the sky,) / That times to come should see the Trojan race / Her Carthage ruin, and her tow'rs deface; / Nor thus confin'd, the yoke of sov'reign sway / Should on the necks of all the nations lay.Ó This is a piece of sure-footed vigor and a rousing good read, but misses on VirgilŐs slightly subdued and more reflective consideration of circumstances. VirgilŐs Aeneid is a great work of art. Neither HumphriesŐ nor MandelbaumŐs and especially not FitzgeraldŐs translation do it justice. If English is the only option, then Dryden is still a very agreeable compromise, even so it is a Virgil in disguise.

The power and majesty of the English language is in all her glory in Dryden's incredible translation of Virgil's Aeneid. All the other translations seem pale beside it.

This, John Dryden's awe inspiring translation of Virgil's great Epic is probably the finest and most characteristic work of the Neo-Classical period. The Dryden heroic-couplet style, which would foreshadow the syle of the GREAT Alexander Pope (1688-1744) is very characteristic of the poetry of the Neoclassical era, and a large influence on the verse and drama of the eighteenth century.

This great work is the epoch of neo-classical literature in the seventeenth century, and look who translated the Great Virgil, the GREAT John Dryden (1631-1700), the GREATEST poet of the Restoration and right up there with Milton as the greatest two poets of Seventeenth Century English Literature

I was told that...(chuckle, chuckle)...that there are actually OTHER TRANSLATIONS, OTHER THAN DRYDEN'S!!! HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!! That's rediculous!!! STUFF & NONSENSE!!!!

THE DRYDEN TRANSLATION IS THE ONLY TRANSLATION!!!

BUY IMMEDIATLEY!!!!!

This, John Dryden's awe inspiring translation of Virgil's great Epic is probably the finest and most characteristic work of the Neo-Classical period. The Dryden heroic-couplet style, which would foreshadow the syle of the GREAT Alexander Pope (1688-1744) is very characteristic of the poetry of the Neoclassical era, and a large influence on the verse and drama of the eighteenth century.

This great work is the epoch of neo-classical literature in the seventeenth century, and look who translated the Great Virgil, the GREAT John Dryden (1631-1700), the GREATEST poet of the Restoration and right up there with Milton as the greatest two poets of Seventeenth Century English Literature

I was told that...(chuckle, chuckle)...that there are actually OTHER TRANSLATIONS, OTHER THAN DRYDEN'S!!! HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!! That's rediculous!!! STUFF & NONSENSE!!!!

THE DRYDEN TRANSLATION IS THE ONLY TRANSLATION!!!

BUY IMMEDIATLEY!!!!!