A new Aeneid

Robert Fagles has a new translation of the Aeneid, and has this to say about the poem in today's New York Times:

“I usually try not to ride the horse of relevance very hard,” Mr. Fagles said recently at his home near Princeton University, from which he recently retired, after teaching comparative literature for more than 40 years. “My feeling is that if something is timeless, then it will also be timely.” But he went on to say that “The Aeneid” did speak to the contemporary situation. It’s a poem about empire, he explained, and was commissioned by the emperor Augustus to celebrate the spread of Roman civilization.

“To begin with, it’s a cautionary tale,” Mr. Fagles said. “About the terrible ills that attend empire — its war-making capacity, the loss of blood and treasure both. But it’s all done in the name of the rule of law, which you’d have a hard time ascribing to what we’re doing in the Middle East today.

“It’s also a tale of exhortation. It says that if you depart from the civilized, then you become a murderer. The price of empire is very steep, but Virgil shows how it is to be earned, if it’s to be earned at all. The poem can be read as an exhortation for us to behave ourselves, which is a horse of relevance that ought to be ridden.”

Fagles has also translated the Iliad (I still prefer Lattimore) and the Odyssey, and offers this personal glimpse into his fascination with these works:

Virgil worked on “The Aeneid” for 10 years, and Mr. Fagles took almost as long. When he was done with it, he said, he went through a period of mourning, having lost what had become in effect a daily companion. And he still can’t decide which of the epics is his favorite.

“Some days are very Iliadic,” he said. “You’re in a war. And some days it’s all about getting home; you’re like Odysseus. It all depends on what side of the bed you get up on.”