No Day Shall Erase You 

No day shall erase you. This is the poet Vergil’s accolade to the ill-fated Nisus and Euralyus in Book IX of the Aeneid.:

. . .  si quid mea carmina possunt,
nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo,
dum domus Aeneae Capitoli immobile saxum
accolet . . .

. . . if my songs have any power,
no day shall erase you from unforgetting time
while the house of Aeneas shall dwell near unmovable rock of the Capitol . . .  

The pair die heroically (although, perhaps, unnecessarily) on a stealth mission through enemy lines. The poet humbly suggests (“If my songs have any power”) that they will find immortality through his verse.

American author Ursula LeGuin sets out to give the same gift to another of Vergil’s characters. Her novel Lavinia breathes life into the character of that name from the last half of Vergil’s Aeneid. Lavinia is the daughter of King Latinus. He’s the ruler, naturally, of the Latins. Whoever marries Lavinia will inherit his kingdom. A local ruler, Turnus, assumes that he is that man. An oracle advises Latinus, however, to marry his daughter to a foreigner. And so Latinus betroths her to the refugee Trojan prince Aeneas, newly arrived in Italy. The rivalry and war between Turnus and Aeneas provides the main conflict for Books VII-XII of the Aeneid.

Burning Hair and Maiden Cheeks 

Despite her crucial role in the epic, Lavinia herself gets very little attention. As she tells us herself (in LeGuin’s story):

. . . the life he gave me in his poem is so dull, except for the one moment when my hair catches fire –  so colorless, except when my maiden cheeks blush like ivory stained  with crimson dye . . .

Yes, as the quote above indicates, Lavinia is quite aware that she’s a character in a story. That, in fact, is one of the interesting features of the novel. Lavinia actually meets and talks with the soul, the anima, of Vergil several times. As his dying body goes through its final delirium, his anima comes up through the gates of the underworld, seeking to visit the world he has created. He meets Lavinia in a sacred grove, where she has gone to offer sacrifice and seek the guidance of the divine powers.

My Poet Gave Me Reality

I had heard about this aspect of Lavinia before I read the book. It’s the sort of thing that may or may not work, depending on how the author handles it. Fortunately, it works here. In fact, it adds complexity to the novel. The story works on several different levels. First, there is the basic, literal, story. We see the life and experience of Lavinia in the foreground. In the background, we see the events of Vergil’s Aeneid VII-XII. But at the same time we have a meditation on the meaning of literature and the world it creates. Lavinia is convinced that her life is literally a creation of “the poet,” as she calls him:

No doubt someone with my name, Lavinia, did exist, but she may have been so different from my own idea of myself, or my poet’s idea of me, that it only confuses me to think of her. As far as I know, it was my poet who gave me any reality at all.

At the same time, as she herself tells us, Vergil himself is unaware, until he’s dying and it’s too late to change anything in his poem, of most of what happens in her life. He realizes this to his sorrow at their first meeting. “‘O Lavinia,’ he said,’you are worth ten Camillas. And I never saw it.”

A Mythic Reality 

This presents us with a conundrum. How can her life be the creation of an author who’s barely aware of it? Epic poets in the ancient world went by the title of vates, which also means seer or prophet. That’s why they call upon the Muse at the beginning of a story.  They are asking the goddess to inspire them, literally to breath in the story. And vates is the word Vergil uses to identify himself to Lavinia when she doesn’t know the word “poet.”

Perhaps Vergil isn’t her creator at all. It could be that the Muse simply gives him a glimpse of a Mythic Reality that already exists. All he does, maybe, is put it into verse. I mean, why not? We can also see Lavinia’s relationship to Vergil as a sort of metaphor for literature. The story does, in a sense, exist independent of the author, and take on a life of its own. I think this is much like what Michelangelo meant when he said he didn’t create statues, he merely uncovered the figure hidden in the block of stone.

Capture the Magic 

And in this her last novel, LeGuin seems to be very much in a mood to muse upon the nature of literature. Her novel is a tribute to Vergil’s literary accomplishments and also an effort to make his work more accessible to modern readers. There is an unfair perception that there simply isn’t a whole lot of real story in the last half of the Aeneid. It’s just a lot of fighting. In filling out the life-story of a character Vergil mostly leaves blank, Le Guin creates a narrative context for the events Vergil does include. A reader can then go back to the Aeneid itself with a clearer understanding of the larger narrative that all that fighting is a part of. Historical fiction (at least good historical fiction) gives us a personal connection to the bare facts of history.

LeGuin is also quite aware that Vergil’s work presents some particular problems for modern readers. Perhaps the greatest problem arises from his greatest strength. That is, his style. In her Afterward LeGuin says:

His poetry is so profoundly musical, its beauty is so intrinsic to the sound and order of the words, that it is essentially untranslatable. Even Dryden, even FitzGerald couldn’t capture the magic.

Form and Content 

I have to admit that it took me a long time to “get” Vergil. When I was a student, and even through my first years of teaching, reading Vergil was like solving a puzzle. “This adjective over here must go with that noun over there. Ah, I see, he’s using hendiadys again. Or anaphora,” or whatever. But at some point, it clicked. The words and lines of poetry came to life. My eyes were opened, and I’ve been dazzled ever since. But something, a lot of something, is quite literally lost in the translation.

There is also something in the nature of literary epic. Now, I’ve come to believe that the line between “oral” epics and “literary” epics is not as clear as we might think. Yes, the stories in the Iliad and the Odyssey seem to have developed over generations as storytellers memorized them and passed them on. At some point, however, somebody, we might as well call him Homer, worked that raw material into a clearly organized literary form, with plenty of literary polish. Vergil’s Aeneid on the other hand started with the idea, the form, if you like, and he created a story to fill it up. Nonetheless, he included a whole lot of traditional material in it.

 Something Lost in Translation 

The key difference is that Homer starts with the story, and the literary design follows. And it’s a really great story, good enough that generations of story tellers memorized it and passed it down before he polished it. In Vergil’s case, one man first conceived the literary concept, then created the story. Now, he drew on and even adopted a lot of traditional material and traditional stories in the process. He also created a lot of it on his own. Overall, however, for Homer the story comes first, for Vergil the concept comes first.

The resulting difference is more apparent in translation. In the case of Homer’s epics, even without much of the literary embellishment, you still have a great story. Vergil’s story, however compelling it can be, simply can’t compare. However great Vergil’s achievement might be, most of us don’t share the sentiment of his friend and fellow poet that “Something greater than the Iliad is being born.” At least not as a universally accessible story. In an oral epic, the literary form serves the story. In a literary epic, the story serves the literary form.

Unhuman Prodigy 

But of course, it’s not fair to compare any author to Homer. If indeed Homer was one man. In fact, I suspect the direct (and unfair) comparison to Homer is a large part of why the Aeneid as a story is underestimated. Vergil’s magnificent retelling of the Trojan Horse story in Book II has no equal. The ill-fated love story of Aeneas in Dido in Book IV, which made the young St. Augustine cry, continues to resonate. Those are the two main reasons that the first half of the epic still draws so much interest.

It’s easier to miss the human drama in the midst of all battle scenes in the second half. Even the venerable Edith Hamilton, who usually is good at getting to the heart of things, get this one wrong. In her introduction to “The Story of Aeneas” in the classic Edith Hamilton Mythology she says:

Virgil’s patriotic purpose is probably responsible for the change from the human Aeneas of the first books to the unhuman prodigy of the last. The poet was finally carried away into the purely fantastic by his determination to create a hero for Rome that would make all other heroes seem insignificant.

 Pietas

With all due repect to Mrs. Hamilton, I must disagree. Part of Aeneas’s struggle is the internal conflict between his pietas, his sense of duty, and the ordinary human feelings that sometimes come in conflict with it. For example, at the beginning of Book I the shipwrecked Trojan refugees are in sorry shape. In spite of the bleak outlook, Aeneas gives them a stirring pep talk, which includes the famous exhortation:

. . . revocate animos, maestumque timorem
mittite: forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.

. . . bring back your good spirits, banish gloomy fear: 
perhaps some day even these things will be pleasing to remember.

And yet, the poet tells us,

. . . curisque ingentibus aeger
spem voltu simulat, premit altum corde dolorem.

. . . heartsick with enormous cares
he feigns hope with his expression, and represses grief deep in his heart.

This struggle is with him to the end. In fact, in very last scene we see Aeneas standing over his vanquished foe Turnus. Aeneas pauses, on the verge of sparing his enemy’s life. Then he notices the baldric Turnus is wearing. He had taken it from Pallas, a young ally of Aeneas’s whom Turnus had killed and dishonored. At this reminder of his duty, Aeneas immediately represses his emotions yet again and dispatches his enemy.

Humanitas

LeGuin, through her character Lavinia, emphasizes the humanity of Aeneas. LeGuin’s Lavinia is not merely a human pawn in a dynastic chess game. Her marriage to Aeneas is a true love match. She sees, and shares with us, the decent and affectionate man behind the battle-hardened hero. In fact. as Lavinia tells it, he never quite forgives himself for killing the disarmed and defeated Turnus. His lingering guilt ultimately plays a part in Aeneas’ own death. This is just one example of how she brings to the forefront the human story beneath the Iliadic surface of Vergil’s text. Reader’s of LeGuin’s novel will be able to bring this appreciation of the human qualities of the story to their reading of Vergil’s own text.

LeGuin’s Lavinia herself is a reflection of her modern author’s affection and devotion to the ancient author. In her Afterward, LeGuin writes: “More than anything else, my story is an act of gratitude to the poet, a love offering.” She doesn’t need to say it. Her story clearly displays her love, both in her treatment of his poem and in her depiction of Vergil himself. Just as her Lavinia humanizes the so-called “unhuman prodigy” of the conventional wisdom, LeGuin herself humanizes Lavina’s “Poet.”

Withering Away 

There’s also an immense sadness underlying the story. We see it in the dying Vergil, unable to finish his great work, and discovering, too late, what an opportunity he’s missed in the character of Lavinia. We see it in Lavinia’s knowledge that, as the Poet has written the story, Aeneas will die three years into their marriage. This is again a reflection of reality outside the story. Our reality. LeGuin describes it as follows:

For a long time anybody in Europe and the Americas who had much education knew Aeneas’ story: his travels from Troy, his love affair with the African queen Dido, his visit to the underworld were shared, familiar references and story sources for poets, painters, opera composers. From the Middle Ages on, the so-called dead language Latin was, through its literature, intensely alive, active, and influential. That’s no longer true. During the last century, the teaching and learning of Latin began to wither away into a scholarly specialty. So, with the true death of his language, Vergil’s voice will be silenced at last. This is an awful pity, because he is one of the great poets of the world.

No Day Shall Erase Vergil 

I, for my part, refuse to believe that Latin is well and truly dead. The whole point of this website is to contribute to the effort to keep it alive. Her final novel, Lavinia, shows that Ursula LeGuin did not completely give up either. As long as writers like LeGuin remind us of his achievement, no day shall erase Vergil and his Aeneid.

Feature image top of page: The Marriage of Aeneas and Lavinia from Speculum Aeneidis Vergilianae, Netherlands 1612.