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Virgil's lucid and noble poetry presents to us Aeneas, unequaled, proud, enduring all, ah! could he have seen my Sun, a subject equal to that style, his poem would've shone with a deeper truth, with the splendor, chivalry and courage then honored, now misunderstood--and thus we mourn a lost golden age of heroes. Defeat and betrayal don't diminish the poet's immortality--from them man's reason brought forth this world's history. it's that Virgil had to lead us to hell instead of paradise where to praise true virtue is to know unearthly splendor. |
An image of the Italian text from Visconti's 1840 edition |
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Notes: From V LXVII:67 ("Le fatiche d'Enea si chiare e sole"). See also B A1:24:15; R X:35-37 ("L'alte virtu d'Enea superbe, e sole"). R says VC had in mind Petrarch's Sonnet 186, "Se Virgilio et Omero avessin visto" (Durling, pp 332-3: If Virgil and Homer had seen that sun ... "); he also refers the reader to her "Gli alti trofei, le gloriose imprese". Key |
