Sunday, December 30, 2012

Wanderings of Aeneas


The last we see of Troy is the weeping of those who witness Hecuba turned into a feral dog, and the tears of Aurora for Memnon, which return each day as dew. 

The very next scene has Aeneas, who apparently was present at the transformation of Hecuba, setting out on his own odyssey:
Yet the fates did not allow Troy’s destiny, also, to be overthrown with her walls. Aeneas, Venus’s heroic son, carried away on his shoulders her sacred icons, and bore his father, another sacred and venerable burden. He dutifully chose that prize from all his riches, and his son Ascanius, and carried over the sea in his exiled fleet, he left Antandros’s harbour, and the sinful thresholds of Thrace, and the soil drenched in Polydorus’s blood, and riding the favourable winds and tides, he came with his company of friends, to the city of Apollo on Delos. Book 13 623-39.
Ovid doesn't treat the journey directly, but we glimpse Aeneas (and Ulysses) from time to time, between the stories of Scylla, Acis and Galatea, Circe, Glaucus Polyphemus et al that take up the foreground.

Here's a map of Aeneas' journey which might be useful:


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