The SFFaudio Podcast #826 – The Aeneid by Virgil [Books I – IV] read by George Allen (for LibriVox) and translated by John Dryden. This is the first third of the epic poem, books I to IV (comprised of XII Books) running 3 hours 52 minutes, followed by a discussion of them. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Scott Danielson and Alex (Pulpcovers)

Talked about on today’s show:
books 1 to 4, a humanities course, misspoke, The Iliad, a hard downshift to reading the Aeneid vs. living on twitter, opposite end of the spectrum, young people don’t watch a lot of movies anymore, even TV shows are generally for old people, The Only Murders In The Building, boomers or slightly younger, bet money, this didn’t actually happen, invited Virgil over for dinner, it’s 9 hours, bro, people would and could do it, you’re in a different headspace, a different mode, the material is familiar, reading this on paper, easy reading on paper, following along in print, Robert Fagels, John Dryden, the footnotes, sometimes the footnotes contradict Jesse, who is Aeneas’ mom, the goddess Venus, she’s a huntress, dressing up like Diana, sometimes they’re not behaving in the way that is most stereotypical, reflecting, the opening, the retelling, mapping The Odyssey, book 3 especially, one to oney, Homer, Virgil was a real dude, 100% known, a merging of some things, existing myths about Aeneas, crafted an overarching story, popular myths, strikingly different, a work of art by a particular individual, all about prophecy, just Roman history, subsumed by the Roman Empire, a national epic done folk hero style, Robin Hood, national epic propaganda style, saying Shakespeare wrote to get approval of the queen, this doesn’t feel as mythological, reliance on gods for everyday events, Augustus, from town to town, died before he finished it, not in 20 years, a really cool noir ending, its finished, wanted to have it burned, not good enough, his heirs, his literary estate, copyright didn’t exist back then, George R.R. Martin, more drafts, how you write an epic poem, the pentameter wasn’t quite right, a meter problem, forced rhymes, pretending you can rhyme things, funnier, poems should be hilarious, helps tell the story, Beowulf, the translation, failed Latin, Latin 101, greater shames in life, written in Greek or Latin, this translation tries to feel epic poetry, modern post-critical translation, words that will shock you, twist the meaning, the feel, someone just telling a story, structured that way on the page, accept it without a rhyme, prose translation, a phone call, edited an annotated and compiled, Arms and the man I sing, haughty Juno, long labours both by sea and land he bore, Latian realm, built his destined town, long glories of majestic Rome, so brave, so just a man, first part of book 1, very different, an exile driven on by fate, destined to reach Lavinia soil, cruel Juno’s relentless rage, before he could found a city, the same idea, same material, not as pretty, not as poetic, easier to understand, sounds better when you read it, a very busy week, hard to pick up what’s happening, sometimes the backwards is grammar, to make it it, Maissa was going to be here, compared to The Odyssey, a very boy book, not a girl book, marriage, Juno being mad, childbirth and marriage, picks up his father, takes his son by his hand, leaves his wife behind, new wives, a nice lady there, wants to have him in bed, a serious succession of goddesses, widow, ok, destiny, I am very Roman virtue, honoring thy father, Imma kill myself, I curse you, the feel, we notice and know, comes back all by himself, loses some ships, war with the Latins, he’s still got his people, not an individual’s return home, Philip K. Dick, a man experiencing the world, Beyond Lies The Wub, a similarity but a difference, he’s trying to go home, home has been destroyed, found a new place, you need more than one guy, the Greeks are not an empire, a league, teams, allies, games together, each guy is his own king, no matter what town, Ajax the lesser, Ajax the greater, propagandistic, a national epic for an empire, a leader of men who doesn’t kill his men, sex quest across the Mediterranean, supernatural stuff, monster or goddess, variation on the magic, guest host relationship, you invited me into your home, you came into my home without knocking, each island is about the guest host relationship, a bible for how to deal with no empire, they invite you in and turn you into a pig, Dido’s peninsula, Libya, respect and food to the other lost ships, I’ll sleep with you, that’s cool, called by fate, reminded by the gods, we disagree, Juno’s the one manipulating things, do we call that fate if a god is doing it, when Zeus or Jupiter says something’s happening, that’s fate, classical pantheons, the king of the gods has real authority, a lot of talk about how the greeks are very masculinity, same thing is true of the Romans, more obviously intensive, the rape of the Sabines, whole buncha women, a sacking, taken the remnants of an army, one guy eventually showing up on his own island, teams up with his son and kills em, righteous executes justice, boy what a troubled sailor, Aeneas is not fun, moved by the fate, a mirror to Augustus, blows some waves, Poseidon is happy with Aeneas, everything is reversed, all subsumed to the outcome, written backwards, a deliberate myth about his own people, an inversion, every part of it is backwards, an inevitable monopoly piece, watching a chess game from the 1960s, no concept of spoiling things, you know where it is going on purpose, the whole fun of it, almost too perfect, Dido is not a goddess, nymphs, more deliberate, more false, she’s also the queen of Carthage, beaten in recent history, she’s on her pyre, now we’re going to forever be at war for what you did to me, why didn’t he just stat with her, almost like a prequel, to get to Episode 4, doesn’t feel as awesomely spontaneous, not internal, everything he ran into, a goal he was going for, he’s dutiful, less of a character, found the new city and get better lives, you’re all going to live and conquer Italy, not acting like a king, a piece on a chessboard being moved around, his destiny was to found Rome, that is what a king is supposed to act like according to this piece of propaganda, those guys are lost at sea, that guy got eaten by a cyclops, that’s not the job of a kind, that is why we have an empire, good at art and tutoring but they don’t have the discipline that a king is supposed to have, that culminating scene at the end, he’s basically won the war, he’s essentially founded Rome, he could end this and make friends and have it be over, brothers in this new land, my friend, echoes back to the Iliad, of course we have to genocide you, extremely new to having a king again, imperator, supreme executive authority, an agent of the senate, working for the senate, that lie went away over the centuries, this is an emergency, for the rest of his life, is Augustus the first time an emperor comes into existence?, the same trick Napoleon uses, does that trick work again?, the British are very willing to marry into the Bonaparte royal line, the emperor of japan still exists, but the empire is just Japan and Okinawa, before the Shogun, prime minister, but the king has no power, I’m the emperor’s chief warlord, nobody tries to mess with the throne, a separate kind of thing, the managers of empire, they have staff, the buck stops with them, pontifex maximus, the highest religious figure, sometimes you become a literal god as well, the head of the army, extreme power, this book feels different in part because its an inversion, it is not about art and a man wandering the earth and figuring out how to relate to things, a man needs to be with his wife and his son, the journey of a state, curses the two culture to war, 27 BC, 2100 year old book?, they knew about all that Carthage stuff, figuring out what they’re culture is like based on this one thing, a very narrow window, the propaganda of empire, an emperor’s job, carrying the father, to lead the son, faithful to his friends, push on towards destiny, my pride is up, personal rivalry, the inevitable grind of what the plan is, trying to live your life trying to figure out what the gods want, make a sacrifice to Juno, the milk white cow, and a foal, motifs we don’t get, symbols, fire, snake, page 61, the hollow spaces lie, denoting deeth [death], the priestess enters with her hair unbound, a curse, threefold Hecate, hoary, with brazen sickles reaped a noon of night, baleful juices, robbing the mother’s love, two meanings, the mother of the foal, unable to suckle its child, she wanted to have his babies, you could get married again, this ritual is to kill her, a mother’s job is to have children and make new Roman soldiers, everything’s white, twas dead of night, gentle floods, peace with downy wings was brooding on the ground, making eggs, very skillfully done, a cow, pours red juice on its head, cow, cattle?, it exists, if I was a Roman, some of those symbols, circling back, feels like a witch, she’s a priestess, this text is the foundational text in education up into the 1900s, memorizing, those symbols, I bet a lot of it came straight outta this text, the root of a lot of the symbolism and language, this massive poem, 9000 couplets, breaking it up, so much going on, Donald Westlake book set in New York, what a cab is, how the economy works, the prices, racism, how much a sandwich costs, what the alley smelled lik...