The Ambiguity of the Death of Turnus

My year 12 class have recently done an exam on Aeneid XII; to help them learn from the experience I wrote a sample answer to the extended response question I posed them. Any comments are, as always, welcome. I know the ending of the Aeneid has the potential to cause heated debate, so feel free to let me know if you think I've got it completely wrong.


'utere sorte tua. miseri te si qua parentis
tangere cura potest, oro (fuit et tibi talis
Anchises genitor) Dauni miserere senectae
et me, seu corpus spoliatum lumine mavis,                           935
redde meis. vicisti et victum tendere palmas
Ausonii videre; tua est Lavinia coniunx,
ulterius ne tende odiis.' stetit acer in armis
Aeneas volvens oculos dextramque repressit;
et iam iamque magis cunctantem flectere sermo                940
coeperat, infelix umero cum apparuit alto
balteus et notis fulserunt cingula bullis
Pallantis pueri, victum quem vulnere Turnus
straverat atque umeris inimicum insigne gerebat.
ille, oculis postquam saevi monimenta doloris                      945
exuviasque hausit, furiis accensus et ira
terribilis: 'tune hinc spoliis indute meorum
eripiare mihi? Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas
immolat et poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit.'

“A difficult, complex, allusive, challenging end” (Horsefall, p.195)

Analyse how Virgil’s language and characterisation of Aeneas and Turnus contributes to the ambiguity of his poem’s ending.

In the final lines of the Aeneid, we see what appears to be a dramatic role reversal in the characters of Virgil’s two heroes. The out of control Turnus, now seems calm and collected in the face of his impending death, whereas pius Aeneas seems to give in to the feelings of rage and grief which surge within him, showing the same excess of passion and lack of restraint which is condemned in both Dido and Turnus. This apparent reversal contributes to the poem's somewhat ambiguous ending, and forces the reader to carefully consider whether Aeneas’ final act can be justified within the moral framework of the Aeneid.

 

Aeneid XII

 

Aeneid XII, as imagined by my current year 12 class

Dido and Anna, Turnus and Juturna

Some notes from R.D. Williams on Aeneid XII.843f., interspersed with the relevant passages and translations. For more on the links between Dido and Turnus, I quite like this essay: Chaotic Passions; Turnus and Femininity in the Aeneid. It includes a chapter on both Dido and Juturna.

We are powerfully reminded of the scene in Aeneid 4 where Dido, another tragic victim of the events of the poem, visits her dead husband’s grave and is terrified by omens, voices and the hooting of owls by night

XII        postquam acies videt Iliacas atque agmina Turni,

alitis in parvae subitam collecta figuram,

quae quondam in bustis aut culminibus desertis

nocte sedens serum canit importuna per umbras—

hanc versa in faciem Turni se pestis ob ora               865

fertque refertque sonans clipeumque everberat alis.

When she sees the Trojan battle-lines and the troops of Turnus the Fury, changed suddenly into the form of that small bird which, sitting late at night on tombs and deserted buildings, often sings her ill-omened songs through the shadows - changed into this shape the fiend throws herself again and again into the face of Turnus, shrieking and beating upon his shield with her wings. 

 

IV         praeterea fuit in tectis de marmore templum

coniugis antiqui, miro quod honore colebat,

velleribus niveis et festa fronde revinctum:

hinc exaudirivuoces et verba vocantis                       460

visa viri, nox cum terras obscura teneret,

solaque culminibus ferali carmine bubo

saepe queri et longas in fletum ducere voces;

 

And furthermore, there was in her palace a marble chapel, sacred to her first husband, which she venerated with utmost love, keeping it decorated with snowy fleeces and festal greenery. Now from this chapel when night held the world in darkness she thought that she distinctly heard cries, as of her husband calling to her. And often on a rooftop a lonely owl would sound her deathly lamentation, drawing out her notes into a long wail.