By
Virgil
Translated
by David Ferry
University
of Chicago Press
Chicago
and London
ISBN:
978-0-226-45018-6
416
Pages
Review
by Dennis Daly
Whether
carrying his father and leading his son out of a burning city,
navigating his fleet through a tsunami, escaping a Carthaginian
seductress, visiting the forbidden realm of Hades, or engaging in
mortal combat with a Latin prince, Aeneas, in David Ferry’s new and
superbly rendered translation of Virgil’s Aeneid, conveys the
destiny of civilization forward into its ordained future. This epic
journey with episodic tragedies, and mythological wonders still
captures the imagination of modern readers perplexed by their own
earthly impediments and those nasty, ill-deserved thunderbolt strikes
from above.
Publius
Vergilius Maro (Virgil) wrote The Aeneid for Octavian Caesar Augustus
during the last ten years of his life (29-19 BC). He at first ordered
his executors to burn the unedited manuscript. Octavian apparently
intervened and countermanded that directive. Some critics argue that
the book’s purpose was to justify Augustan succession and
ultimately Pax Romana. Others believe that Virgil turned his work
into something much larger, an allegory of man’s destiny and
independence in the face of intruding forces emanating from a panoply
of misanthropic and whimsical divinities. In any case, the narrative
seems to take on a life of its own, at times brutally realistic, at
other times strangely comforting.
Whereas
John Dryden in 1697 provided the coming eighteenth century with a
glorious translation of The Aeneid to match that historical era and
temperament, Ferry contributes a comparable achievement during this
onset of the twenty-first century. Dryden’s heroic couplets both
expanded and compacted the original text based on his understanding
of Virgil’s intent. Ferry does much the same thing going with, not
fighting the natural flow and intricacies of modern English.
Additionally the method Dryden employed bestowed a smoothness and a
halting beauty, his couplets neatly completing images and thoughts.
Ferry, using loose blank verse with anapests and other feet
substituting here and there for iambs, accomplishes much of the same
beauty with added speed and elongated elegance. The elongation
reminds one of and occasionally flirts with the original hexameter
instrument, and the strategic irregularity accommodates itself very
well indeed to the modern ear. In Book One Ferry’s word choices
describing the fierce storm, instigated by Juno, the queen of gods,
to obstruct Aeneas’ fleet, leaves the reader both breathless and
awestruck,
… a
sudden violent
Burst
of wind comes crashing against the sails,
The
prow of the ship turns round, the oars are broken,
The
ship is broadside to the waves and then
A
mountain of water descends upon them all;
Some
of the men hang clinging high upon
The
high-most of the wave and others see
The
very ground beneath the sea revealed
As
hissing with sand the giant wave recoils;
Three
of the ships are spun by the South Wind onto
A
huge rock ridge that hulks up out of the sea
(The
name the Italians call it is The Altars);
Three
other ships the East Wind runs aground
And
carries them into the shallows, a wretched sight,
The
sand heaped up around them. Aeneas himself
Saw
how a monstrous devouring wave rose up
And
struck the stern of the ship the Lycians and
Faithful
Orontes rode in…
Emotions
well up and manifest themselves in Book Six when a perplexed and
remorseful Aeneas in Hades meets Dido, his temptress and lover, who
caused their forbidden dalliance in defiance of fate. Distraught, he
questions the circumstances of her suicide. Departures like this from
The Aeneid’s epic tone and majesty create the emotional depth that
captures the reader and makes Virgil all the more compelling. Here’s
Ferry’s splendid rendering of the scene,
Is
it true, what I was told, that you were dead,
And
with a sword had brought about your death?
And
was it I, alas, who caused it? I
Swear
by the stars, and by the upper world,
And
by whatever here below is holy,
I
left your shores unwillingly. It was
The
gods’ commands which have brought me now down through
The
shadows to these desolate wasted places,
In
the profound abysmal dark; it was
The
gods who drove me, and I could not know
That
when I left I left behind a grief
So
devastated. Stay. Who is it you
Are
fleeing from? Do not withdraw from sight.
This
is the last I am allowed by fate
To
say to you.” Weeping he tried with these,
His
words, to appease the rage in her fiery eyes.
Notice
the meeting of pathos and white-hot ire at the end of the selection.
As a suicide Dido was condemned to live in the past, forever
enshrining her tragedy. Seems a bit unjust! And, paradoxically, quite
suitable for our age.
During
his quest Aeneas loses quite a lot: his wife left in Troy’s flames,
Dido, his lover, succumbing to suicide, and Pallas, the Arcadian boy
he was guardian to, felled by the prince of his enemies. All
sacrificed to destiny. Along the way circumstances seem to alter
“pious” Aeneas’ psychological makeup. In his climactic battle
with Turnus, his Latin antagonist, Aeneas shuns the mercy asked for
by his remorseful rival and lets vengefulness rule the day, perhaps
even prospectively setting the precedent that influenced the history
of Rome with strife and civil war down to Octavian’s time. After
some hesitation the deal is sealed when Aeneas glimpses Pallas’
sword belt on Turnus. Ferry feels the building wrath and translates
part of Virgil’s last scene this way,
When
Aeneas saw it on Turnus’ shoulder, shining
Memorial
of the dolorous story, and
Of
his own grief, the terrible savage rage
Rose
up in him, and he said to Turnus, “Did you
Think
that you could get away with this,
Wearing
this trophy of what you did to him?
It
is Pallas who makes you his sacrifice. It is Pallas
Who
drives this home!” And saying this he ripped
Open
the breast of Turnus and Turnus’ bones
Went
chilled and slack…
No hyperbole
needed in praise of David Ferry’s translation of the Aeneid. Truly
astonishing.
