Commonplace Book: "Falling Asleep over the Aeneid"

[ricardienne]

Failing at Nat'l Poetry Month, failing at school, failing at life. But. THIS POEM. (caveats: publication date 1948; casual racist and misogynist language & unfortunate implications; human sacrifice.)

Falling Asleep over the Aeneid
BY ROBERT LOWELL
An old man in Concord forgets to go to morning service. He falls asleep, while reading Vergil, and

Comments

[existentialgoat]

Can I just say that "Its beak/ Clangs and ejaculates the Punic word/ I hear the bird-priest chirping like a bird" is pretty much the best sentence ever?

[ricardienne]

I rather like "Their headman’s cow-horned death’s-head bites its tongue/ And stiffens, as it eyes the hero slung/ Inside his feathered hammock..."

Basically anyone who rhymes things with "tongue" is good in my book!

[charlie_ego]

This is totally awesome. Thank you!

(And oh Aeneas, always so charming with the ladies! This totally bothered me in the original -- "Oh, hey, my girlfriend -- who by the way committed suicide because of me -- made me this pretty robe SO I GUESS I WILL GIVE IT TO THIS DEAD BOY." Dido's probably facepalming down in Avernus...)

(come taaaaalk to me sometime about the Aeneid, I really liked it! Only the ending was so abrupt!)

[ricardienne]

Yeah, a couple of us were actually talking about how many robes of Dido's Aeneas seems to be carrying around (although I can see how he would want to get rid of them because -- awkward breakup reminders (maybe you shouldn't have sailed off with your ex's entire wardrobe, hmmm?)). I think this is the last one that gets mentioned. The "optimistic" reading would say that this is Aeneas finally putting Carthage and Eastern Luxury behind him to settle into his ordained role as Stern (proto-)Roman Leader. But thinking of Dido also makes us remember that everyone Aeneas love ends up dead and everywhere he goes he brings destruction.

(I knooooww! I can't think about it right now, but I will! I promise!)