Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius Puns

Ascanius: The Youth Classics Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the knowledge of and inspiring lifelong learning about Latin, Greek, and the ancient Greco-Roman world, especially at the elementary and middle school levels. Since 2000, we have served thousands of students and teachers on the east coast, west coast, and many places in between. We encourage today's youth to think critically about ancient societies and compare them to their daily life in the modern world.

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Link: https://youtu.be/hfmXo4icn-Q

Dido and Aeneas is considered to be the first English Language opera, which is why we are starting with it.

gay. I don't know where that came from as he was only in the film for a few minutes. I also don't remember Anchise giving Oliver a look over. Maybe his character was more developed in the book.

After seeing that post, I googled Anchise and it pulled up "Anchises (yes there is an "s" at the end of the name) who was a member of the royal family of Troy. "In Greek mythology, Anchises was a son of Capys and Themiste (daughter of Ilus, son of Tros) or Hieromneme, a naiad. He is famous because he was mortal and a lover of the goddess Aphrodite (and in Roman mythology, the lover of Venus)." I wonder why Aciman chose that name but left off the "s." Perhaps he planned on Anchise having a bigger part in the story then changed his mind. Maybe I'm reaching. Thoughts.

Homer's epic cycle definitely sides against the Trojans. The Trojans were the wrong doers, they were the vanquished. Why would the Romans take pride in being descendants of a Trojan prince (Aeneas) if they were so obviously more inclined to the victories of the "Greeks" (so to speak)?

Edit: Also, Virgil actively tried to portray the Greeks as deceitful and treacherous. Sinon was the one to trick the Trojans into accepting the Trojan Horse. Sinon is now used as the literary personification of betrayal and of fraud.

this is so me when i cheat my son of a hesperian kingdom and of pre-destined land

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Artwork from Gaspard Dughet and Carlo Maratta

https://preview.redd.it/a0n1yla4k2a71.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b64f08846d4233926598fdcf31072fcb50e2621f

The love affair of Dido and Aeneas -- invented by Virgil -- has echoed constantly through 2 milennia of Western literature, art and song. Why? Because it's both high tragedy in the classic sense and also a human love story gone very wrong.

The elements of classic tragedy comprise -- as always -- human 'faults', nobility, divine meddling and the ineluctible demands of fate/history. But the first of these is the most powerful part of the story. Dido is lonely and passionate; she misreads Aeneas' intentions (that he fails to clarify) and dedicates herself to all the wrong things: first to the memory of her murdered former husband, then to the fantasy that this hero who arrived on her shores en route to his 'destiny' could be her lover, her equal and her partner.

The human story is not just about love misplaced. It's chiefly about the ambiguities that might creep into any relationship and the difficulty of seeing clearly through emotion and excitement: when even advisers such as Dido's sister Anna or the Massalian priestess/magician are no use to Dido.

The human elements include, too, Aeneas' woeful failure to communicate -- his coldness amounting to cynicism and faithlessness as Dido claims in her distress -- that Vergil does not really explain or even credibly excuse by references to Aeneas 'dutiful' ('pius') epithet.

The ambiguities that Vergil allows to remain and the dramatic power of some of the scenes -- especially when Dido, briefly, goes ballistic and when she rushes to her death on top of a bonfire of memories -- makes the original of this story esssential reading.

Then Ovid, a few years after the publication of the Aeneid, cleverly composed a mad but affecting 'suicide note' for the Queen that he included in his early book "Heroides". Being Ovid, it's a little easier to follow for a Latin student than Vergil's more formal verse. But, being Ovid, it also takes risks that Vergil does not: including a big final blast from "Dido" aimed at the progenitor of the Julian clan to which Octavian Augustus adhered. He can't have been amused.

My translation is what you could expect from an amateur (I recommend you buy the recent translation by Shadi Bartsch for a much better read). I made it for myself as part of my efforts to reacquire my Latin. I'm only a couple of chapters into Orberg's "Roma Aeterna", so not very literate yet. I leaned heavily on the notes in James O'Hara's edition of Book IV (Focus Publishing, on Amazon) and on the Prince & Lawell