Virgil's Terrifying Epic: A Classic Poem with No End

Virgil Terrifying Epic: A Classic Poem with No End. Published online on 19 October 2015.1 In the same way that there is a hidden crime in Latium 2 concerning Amata and Turnus, Virgil also hid another mystery, which is this: who was the person who wounded the protégé of Jupiter, Aeneas? The words that expose this other mystery come after the treaty between Aeneas and the city of Laurentum has been confirmed, and suddenly broken. This is what happens after the sudden rebellion explodes: At pius Aeneas dextram tendebat inermem nudato capite atque suos clamore vocabat: “quo ruitis? quaeve ista repens discordia surgit? o cohibete iras! ictum iam foedus et omnes compositae leges. mihi ius concurrere soli; me sinite atque auferte metus. ego foedera faxo firma manu; Turnum debent haec iam mihi sacra.” has inter voces, media inter talia verba ecce viro stridens alis adlapsa sagitta est, incertum qua pulsa manu, quo turbine adacta, quis tantam Rutulis laudem, casusne deusne, attulerit; pressa est insignis gloria facti, nec sese Aeneae iactavit vulnere quisquam. But good Aeneas, with head bared, was stretching forth his unarmed hand, and calling loudly to his 1 At shakespearemelodijo.com; cf. <shakespearemelodijo.com/2015/10/virgil-and-his-classic-epicterrifying.html?q=virgil&view=flipcard>. 2 See the exposition of this crime in this essay of mine in Academia.edu available at: <academia.edu/ 45527926/Amata_and_Turnus_or_The_Secret_Crime_in_Latium> men: “Where are you going? What is this sudden outburst of strife? Curb your rage! The truce has already been struck and all its terms fixed; I alone have the right to do battle. Let me act; banish your fears; this hand will prove the treaty true; these rites make Turnus already mine!” Amid these cries, amid such words, against him a whizzing arrow winged its way, launched by what hand, sped whirling by whom, none knows, nor who–chance or god–brought the Rutulians such honour: the fame of that high deed is hidden, and no one boasted of the wounding of Aeneas. (12.311-323; Loeb Classical Library, 2000) Here is the question then. Who was the one who wounded Aeneas? We do not get an answer until just before the end, some 500 lines later, when Jupiter and Juno are signing their own, particular treaty of peace. Aeneas will kill Turnus, and all Trojans and Latins will merge as Romans in Latium. Juno, not given to ask to be excused for anything, gives us the answer of who was the one who threw that “whizzing arrow”: Iuturnam misero (fateor) succurrere fratri suasi et pro vita maiora audere probavi, non tu tela tamen, non tu contenderet arcum; adiuro Stygii caput implacabile fontis, una superstitio superis quae reddita divis. As for Juturna, I counselled her, I own, to help her hapless brother, and for his lifeʼs sake sanctioned still greater deeds of daring, but not to level the arrow, not to bend the bow: I swear by the inexorable fountainhead of Styx, sole name of dread ordained for the gods above. (12.813-817). It was Juturna who wounded Aeneas, the only one in the epic, now we know, to be able to do so. A woman. And it makes sense, for now we realize, by reading back again, that Juturna was the one who helped his brother all along Book 12, taking him away in the chariot, incensing the spirits of the people against the treaty, killing Trojans in the field, giving the Vulcan sword back to his brother, and even wounding Aeneas when he is boasting that Turnus is only his. No, the arrow which wounds Aeneas declares that Turnus is for his sister, the fluvial goddess Juturna, a virgin raped by the very same Jupiter, a rape that leaves its mark in the thigh of Aeneas, his surrogate in Latium. What does Juturna say when she is forced to abandon her brother when the Fury is sent by Jupiter and Juno? What she says is terrifying. The end of the poem is full of darkness, violence, blood, tears, and memories of rape. The innocence (or virginity) of the human spirit raped by the Almighty God, or destiny. Seen from this perspective, the killing of Turnus by Aeneas in the last line is a metaphor of another rape. The one made by Aeneasʼ sword on Turnusʼ flesh. The end of the poem is foreshadowed here, in Juturnaʼs speech, a tragic elegy on the worst nightmare for the human condition one can imagine, which is not death, for death has the good point, as the Greek dramatists and Santayana very well knew, of ending our miseries and pains. No, the worst nightmare for the human condition, and for Juturna here, is to be condemned to a sorrowful immortality full of painful memories. A deep suffering with no end; that is the closest one can get to define hell: At procul tu Dirae stridorem agnovit et alas: infelix crinis scindit Iuturna solutos ungibus ora soror foedans et pectora pugnis: “quid nunc te tua, Turne, potest germana iuvare? aut quid iam durae superat mihi? qua tibi lucem arte morer? talin possum me opponere monstro? iam iam linquo acies. ne me terrete timentem, obscenae volucres: alarum verbera nosco letalemque sonum, nec fallunt ussa superba magnanimi Iovis. haec pro virginitate reponit? quo vitam dedit aeternam? cur mortis adempta est condicio? possem tantos finire dolores nunc certe, et misero fratri comes ire per umbras! immortalis ego? Aut quicquam mihi dulce meorum te sine, frater, erit? o quae satis ima dehiscat terra mihi, Manisque deam demittat ad imos?” tantum effata caput glauco contexit amictu multa gemens et se fluvio dea conditit alto. But when his unhappy sister Juturna recognized the Dread Oneʼs whirring wings from afar, she tears her loosened hair, disfiguring her face with her nails, and her breasts with her fists: “What help, Turnus, can your sister give you now? What still awaits me, who have endured so much? With what contrivance can I prolongue your life? Can I stand against this terrible portent? Now at last I quit the field. Do not terrify my fluttering soul, ill-boding birds! I know your beating wings, and their dreadful sound, and I do not mistake the haughty mandates of high-hearted Jove. Is this his repayment for my virginity? Why did he give me life eternal? Why am I deprived of the possibility of death? Then I could end this anguish, and pass through the shadows at my poor brotherʼs side! I immortal! Will anything of mine be sweet to me without you, my brother? What ground can gape deep enough for me, and send me down, goddess as I am, to the deepest shades?” So saying, she veiled her head in a mantle of grey, and with many a moan the goddess plunged into the depths of the river. (12.869-886) Yes, as W.R. Johnson said in his masterpiece Darkness Visible (University of Chicago Press, 1976), the Aeneid is a terrifying poem. In Richard F. Thomasʼ Virgil and the Augustan Reception (Cambridge University Press, 2001) we also read what Johnson has to say about this powerful poem: “In the Aeneid the extreme discrepancy between artistic method and ethical dilemma returns and widens and produces a heartbreaking, disconsolate poem that is too big for poetry, that cannot be constrained by the limits of art and explodes its frame.”