Elliot Explains: The Aeneid (Book 4)

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Classicist Elliot Explains Things

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@BushiZack 6 жыл бұрын

It takes talent to make Aeneid's story so entertaining! good job

@gamingbraaa7698 3 жыл бұрын

Damn that is a major diss at Virgil lmao

@frantic_fangirl1987 3 жыл бұрын

🤣🤣🤣

@JonathanMartin884 6 жыл бұрын

First of all I actually really like your delivery; I think the pauses are part of why your commentary is so funny. Also, as a lowbrow, uneducated American, I LOVE your accent! It's just wonderful! Now to my major issue: Dido didn't think they got married, they actually _did_ get married. In the classical world there was a marriage ceremony, but that is not what made it so that people were married. A woman married a man when he took her into his home and consummated the marriage. In Dido's mind the cave is the best Aeneas can do for a home, mainly because he is just wandering around and doesn't have a home. So, to her, after this event there is no question about their relationship status -- they are clearly married. Virgil, setting up both sides of this debate, does say that both the heavens and the earth agreed to the marriage: "prima et Tellus et pronuba Iuno dant signum: fulsere ignes et conscius aether conubiis, summoque ulularunt vertice Nymphae" (First Mother Earth and then Juno as the bride's attendant gave their signals: flashing lightning and the coupling [conubiis literally means "union in wedlock"] of the heavens [ie. thunder], and the Nymphs wailing from their peaks on high). This event, coupled with the fact that Aeneas acts as Aeneas normally does, like an emotionless, clueless Roman, as well as that she really didn't want to disgrace her dead husband, is what drives her to madness.

@5H131 6 жыл бұрын

You're deluded, they didn't get married, Virgil is just emphasising the madness of women

@JonathanMartin884 6 жыл бұрын

My students and I just discussed this a couple of days ago, so you are going to get the long answer, sorry. So besides Aeneas just saying they aren't married, do you have any proof of that? Remember the plan between Venus and Juno is that they would go out hunting, Venus would bring the rain and Dido and Aeneas would go away from everyone and "get married" (ie. consummate their relationship as a marriage). In the planning discussion both goddesses use the word "hymenaeus," the Latin word for marriage. Juno says, "quin potius pacem aeternam pactosque hymenaeos exercemus?" (Why do we not execute an eternal peace [between Carthage and Rome] with a marriage pact?). Venus says that is a great idea and here is her plan: "his ego nigrantem commixta grandine nimbum, dum trepidant alae saltusque indagine cingunt, desuper infundam et tonitru caelum omne ciebo. diffugient comites et nocte tegentur opaca: speluncam Dido dux et Troianus eandem devenient. adero et, tua si mihi certa voluntas, conubio iungam stabili propriamque dicabo. hic hymenaeus erit." On these (people hunting) I mixing hail and rain with black clouds, while the wing (of hunters) goes about the glade encircling the animals with nets, I will call from above (rain) pouring down from the sky filled with thunder. The hunters scatter and covered by the darkness of night: Dido and the leader of the Trojans into the same cave will go. I will be present and, if you promise to me your favor [as the goddess of marriage], I will join them in marriage and establishing (her as) his own [ie. taking her into his "house," as I referred to above]. This will be their marriage. And despite her madness, I think there are some clear indicators she is thinking quite rationally, she is just thinking rationally about doing something crazy. Calling the gods to witness her suicide and then doing it in the way she does is actually pretty smart and shows that she thought this through. The fate of Carthage is that they will be destroyed by Rome and because of her suicide she almost breaks that fate, seeing as Rome barely clings to life during the Second Punic War. If Hannibal had maybe just listened to Marhabal, Dido's curse could have come to fruition. It was that close. That is not the actions of a crazy woman, that is the calculations of a sane person who is bent on revenge for being wronged. Are we to think as a Roman audience, and even a modern audience, that she went too far? Definitely. But still, think it through, don't just rely on the same old tired explanations. No one knows what Virgil really meant with this poem; it is intentionally obscure and ambiguous. It is supposed to be up for interpretation. So if you want to think they weren't married, that's obviously what Aeneas says, but that is really the only evidence.

@5H131 6 жыл бұрын

Thanks for such an insightful reply! Is your class A2/A Level 2nd year?

@JonathanMartin884 6 жыл бұрын

You're welcome! Actually I teach humanities to 1st and 2nd year university students.

@5H131 6 жыл бұрын

Hopefully not at Warwick or else I may have just called my future lecturer deluded haha.

@SrApoc 7 жыл бұрын

Awesome and hilarious summary, really helped with narrowing down ideas for my paper on book 4. Thank you!

@sarainieto5620 6 жыл бұрын

OMG i loved this summary it was so funny !! "I wish i could be that extra when I die" lmaaoooo

@FishyCuber Жыл бұрын

2:00 I think you misunderstood the thing about her liking to have Ascanius on her lap. If you remember in book 1 Venus disguises her son Cupid as Ascanius so that he can make Dido fall in love with Aeneas. I think the description of her having him on her lap takes place chronologically after Venus/Cupid's plan but before Aeneas does his long recount of his previous adventures. So it wasn't really Ascanius on her lap, it was Cupid using his powers to kind of hypnotise her and make her madly in love with Aeneas.