tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29638226.post8937720012195687175..comments2023-09-11T18:12:17.305+10:00Comments on audio video disco: Dido and Anna, Turnus and JuturnaAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14399919314236872661noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29638226.post-62335557173051158562013-02-26T14:08:04.404+11:002013-02-26T14:08:04.404+11:00Interesting read, JM, many thanks!Interesting read, JM, many thanks!Mike Salterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08133817212055957800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29638226.post-75318351588890883222013-02-15T20:16:29.510+11:002013-02-15T20:16:29.510+11:00just to be clarify, I didn't write that essay....just to be clarify, I didn't write that essay. I just found it online and thought it might be helpful to my students.<br /><br />I like your thoughts on Diomedes; I'd noticed the parallels with Turnus and the rock, but never thought much about the broader implications.<br /><br />I'm not sure I follow you on the significance of Aeneas' chosen loyalty, but interesting reflections nonetheless.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29638226.post-68245077595122709092013-02-15T18:43:05.779+11:002013-02-15T18:43:05.779+11:00I liked your essay 'Chaotic Passion'. But...I liked your essay 'Chaotic Passion'. But one important person you didn't mention: Diomedes. Several times, from Aeneid 1 on, we are reminded that in Iliad 5 Diomedes nearly killed Aeneas after crushing his knee with a rock. Aeneas had to be rescued ignominiously by his mother. Yet when we finally meet Diomedes in book 11, he is a sober chastened individual: no longer the swashbuckler of the Iliad. How come?<br /><br />I think the function of Diomedes in the Aeneid is revealed in the final fight between Aeneas and Turnus. Turnus picks up a huge rock, preparing to throw it at Aeneas. Knowing our Iliad, we shudder: Aeneas is about to be incapacitated. But no: Jupiter, through the Dira, has given to Turnus crystal-clear understanding while at the same time paralysing his strength, as in a dream. The Dira finally counteracts Allecto. Just as Diomedes now understands (we are told) that Aeneas is fated to triumph, so Turnus now understands it too. Sadly but calmly, he concedes defeat and tells Aeneas that he can have Lavinia. But now it is Aeneas who is in a frenzy! The roles are reversed. Aeneas, the dutiful servant of Jupiter, acts in the end out of loyalty to an obligation that he has CHOSEN, not one imposed on him: his loyalty to Pallas.<br /><br />Jupiter has betrayed Aeneas. Will Troy rise again in Italy? No! Jupiter has capitulated to Juno and agree that it will not. So is Aeneas, at the end, a poor sap who has been diddled by an untrustworthy god? No, because he does at the end act on the basis of a CHOSEN loyalty. He even, through Pallas, makes amends in some degree for his abandonment of Dido -- for, by putting a tunic made by the dead Dido on the body of Pallas, he makes her the foster-mother of this foster-son, just as Lausus at his death is wearing a tunic made by his mother and just as Andromache, in 'adopting' Ascanius as a substitute for Astyanax, gives him a tunic.Andrew Carstairs-McCarthyhttp://www.saps.canterbury.ac.nz/ling/people/carstairs.shtmlnoreply@blogger.com