“The Two Voices of Aeneas”At pius Aeneas, quamquam lenire dolentemsolando cupit et dictis avertere curas,multa gemens magnoque animum labefactus amoreiussa tamen divum exsequitur classemque revisit.(IV.393-6)Here in Book IV, Aeneas wishing to stay with his love, Dido, is compelled bydivine command and duty towards his dependents to leave her and seek his promisedland. The recovery of his happiness after years of toil is ended abruptly by adivine order, to which he is unswervingly loyal. But beneath his reservedexterior, his poverty of emotional expression, he is a man torn. Duty and desire,public and personal devotion are warring within his breast. These verses giveperhaps the most succinct example of that to which my dissertation’s title refers.The idea of a duality of ‘public’ and ‘private’ voices within the Aeneid and thephrase the ‘two voices of Aeneas’, to which my title alludes, was suggested to meby Parry’s important article The Two Voices of the Aeneid. I have used this titlein order to introduce the notion which I will expand upon throughout the essay,namely that of two voices, the public, primary and the private, secondary voice.This idea may be elucidated by a quotation from Lyne: “The Aeneid is an unusuallycomplex and rich poem. Its dense texture conveys a multiplicity of meanings. Moreparticularly, I would say it conveys a multiplicity of opinions; it offers avariety of ways of interpreting the events enacted. It is as if one hearddifferent voices speaking to one in and behind the action” . Parry himself puts itmore starkly; “We hear two distinct voices in the Aeneid, a public voice oftriumph, and a private voice of regret” . I put it that these distinct voices canalso be discerned within Aeneas himself and are, in essence, distinguished bytheir variance in object of concern. For example, Aeneas’ ‘first,’ primary voice(like the Aeneid’s) is one of public concern and glorification, manifested as hisselflessness and duty towards others. The ‘second’ voice is the converse it is avoice of personal tendencies and regard for himself, one of private concern. Moregenerally the term ‘two voices’ refers to Virgil’s even-handed treatment of hissubjects, his shunning of stereotypes in the portrayal of all his characters and,in particular, Aeneas.Although the idea of these two voices in the Aeneid is well trodden theme , andhas often been explored, I wish to investigate further this duality in thecharacterisation of Aeneas and whether, and in what way, he is himself, inmicrocosm, a model of the external struggles and conflicts of these voices withinthe text. Put simply then my aim is to investigate the Aeneid’s portrayal of thetwo voices or impulses within Aeneas: duty to the public cause and desire, whichis in effect duty to himself. I shall explore this through analysis of Aeneas’character and its development throughout the epic. Specifically I am interested inthe internal strife that often plagues him, to which his men, and to a lesserextent the reader, are rarely privy. I will then continue to examine how this fitswithin the other tensions and wider voices in the text.I shall begin with a brief study of the Aeneid as a whole, and from there proceedto examine Aeneas’ character in more detail. I will attempt to illuminate thedifferent inclinations contained within Aeneas and for this purpose shall focusespecially upon those moments where conflict arises. These are times when thetensions become more clearly discernable in their contrast and conflict, whendivergence of impulse brings them to the surface of Aeneas, and thus thenarrative. Once this disharmony in Aeneas’ character has been identified, alongwith its constituent parts, I hope to discuss how it is portrayed and the tonethat this creates, before continuing to question Virgil’s intention and sympathyfor Aeneas’ more closely.

In instances where I do not offer my own translation, I shall use W.F. JacksonKnight’s translation of the Aeneid, chosen for its accuracy and its literarymerits. I also include references to the Odyssey and the Iliad, clearly two ofVirgil’s major models. I use these purely as measures for his treatment of theepic subject, and so my discussion of these texts is rather cursory. Even so, withreference to the Aeneid’s epic precursors, much can be discerned about both Aeneasand the wider poem’s intended meaning and interpretations. Central to this is theunderstanding and estimation of Aeneas’ character, through both his divergencefrom, and similarity to, Odysseus and Achilles.The Two Voices of the AeneidAt its most basic the Aeneid is the story of Aeneas’ odyssey from his homeTroy, razed to the ground by the Greek army, to journey to Italy’s shores,“installing the gods of his race in the Latin land: and that was the origin of theLatin nation, the Lords of Alba, and the proud battlements of Rome” . The journeyis really only half of the struggle; for once he reaches the ‘Lavinian’ shore hemust contest in warfare to claim Latium for his descendants. We have then a manwilled by fate and divine power to leave his desecrated home and seek a foreignland for the reason of founding a great and glorious race, the Romans.Thus the Aeneid is a hymn to the greatest empire the world had even seen.His patron and sovereign emperor of Rome, Augustus, traced his lineage throughJulius Caesar all the way back to the poem’s heroic protagonist Aeneas and his sonAscanius (or more patently Iulus). Thus Augustus appears to bask in the reflectedglory of his ancestor’s quasi-mythical endeavours and travails . Several times inthe poem, episodes are created to link the tale directly to the present day. Inthe underworld Anchises proudly demonstrates the line of heroes ready to be bornafter Aeneas in his lineage. Of these the most lavishly decorated by Anchises’tongue is Augustus Caesar. The link could not be stated more plainly and thinlyveiled allusion is cast off in favour of direct praise and panegyric . Praise ofAugustus is accompanied throughout the poem by effusive praise for the Romanpeople and empire itself, which will become the prize of Aeneas’ toil. At the endof the poem we have the victorious Roman people, Aeneas’ men, Ascanius, Lavinia,the glorious nation and the roman reader for whom the epic was intended. AsJupiter proclaims in the first book;“To Romans I set no boundary in space or time. I have granted them dominion and ithas no end.”his ergo nec metas rerum nec tempora pono:imperium sine fine dedi. (I.278-9)This is the overtly public and panegyric sense of the Aeneid, forceful, proud andpatriotic. Appreciated most fully in its own time, this primary and optimisticsense of the Aeneid has been so tarnished by the centuries of appreciation of theprivate, ‘Cattulan’ voice in the poem that, strangely, one must appreciate thatthis is not the only or even primary tendency of the poem. “The element of pathosis so obvious to all readers of Virgil, and has been so strongly stressed in thelast hundred years of Virgilian criticism, that it is necessary to emphasise theother polarity, the optimistic note of Rome’s greatness” .This ‘Catullan’ voice, the second of the ‘two voices’ in the Aeneid is a term usedto describe the opposing voice of contemplation, a voice of dissent within theprimary voice, which creates pathos for Aeneas’ human obstacles. It engenders anote of reflection and a sympathetic tone towards the characters who opposeunawares the birth of the Roman Empire. For Virgil as a Roman it is an astoundingand touching ambivalence, and one of the great features of his epic.Celebration Compromised; the Second Voice of the Aeneid

“…those who seek a fundamentally sound, imperial poem need not be disappointed ordisturbed: the epic voice is there to speak to those with such positiveexpectations. But there are further voices… Devices are exploited to insinuateramifying meanings and messages for those prepared to listen. Further voicesintrude other material and opinions, and these may be disturbing, even shocking.Further voices add to, comment upon, question, and occasionally subvert theimplications of the epic voice.”The Aeneid then is the tale of the first man of Rome, willed by the gods and thefates to strive past perils and obstacles in order to create the Roman Empire, anempire without end. The plot of the Aeneid is wrought out of a conflict betweenJuno and the Fates, whilst Aeneas is tossed between them. He is impelled anddirected towards the creation of a Latin race, an event which Juno wishes to stopsince they were destined to one day overthrow her beloved Tyrian stronghold ofCarthage. As Aeneas succeeds and continues in his quest, so others are defeated orfall by the wayside. By the end of the poem the list of Rome’s victims, even atits embryonic stage, is numberless;“…and the rest, a huge pile of tangled corpses, burned uncounted and withoutdignity.”cetera confusaeque ingentem caedis acervumnec numero nec honore cremant…(XI.207-8)Ostensibly then we have a struggle between the advancement of Rome and itsenemies, unaware of the crushing weight of destiny that makes their cause vain.However, Virgil has presented us with a poem then that is far more open tointerpretation that we could have expected from a man patronised directly byAugustus. For Dido and Turnus, the enemies of infant Rome, are givenrepresentation and understanding by the author worthy even of the hero himself.Their motives and passions are far from the shallow whims of caricaturedadversaries; their faults are abused by the gods to their own ends. Dido is cursedby a love ordained by Venus as a safeguard for Aeneas and a marriage built as atether by Juno . Her violent end is a testament to the meddling of the gods.Turnus too may be destroyed by Aeneas’ hand, but it is Juno who seals his fatewhen she sends Allecto to madden him with another passion, the passion of war .Our sympathy is evoked for both of them through the awareness that their causesare in vain. The weight of destiny and all the golden ages of Rome are too much tohold back. Their causes are honest, and their actions though impassioned and oftenrash show integrity and determination in their beliefs. In many ways they areinnocents caught up in a progression of history that is not their own. But inwhich they are intertwined by the gods’ interference. As Jupiter soothes hisdaughter Venus with words of reassurance that destiny favours the Romans, thereader knows with tragic dramatic irony, what the adversaries of Rome do not, thatthey are doomed with no hope of success. At the same time as the fate of Rome issealed, so is the fate of all who stand in the way of her accession.“Spare your fears, Cytherean. You shall have your people’s destiny still, and itshall not be disturbed. You shall see your city, see Lavinium’s walls, for I havepromised them.”This is why their destruction might not seem a cause for celebration; their deathsare presented by a narrative voice and in a manner that seems to shroud the greatvictory of the Trojans and subdue the celebration of Rome’s advancement. This isthe second voice, a voice of reflection. Their causes are presented as all themore tragic since they do not act independently; compulsion from the gods seals