The Aeneid

By: Virgil
Translated by Cecil Day Lewis

A unenjoyable and distasteful piece. I disliked Dante Alighieri’s work it is no suprise that I do not like The Aeneid.
I found the dispersions against the Greeks to be quite infuriating.
As a Greek, Homer still portays the Trojans in postive and admirable ways with Hector, Paris and other.
Virgil in The Aeneid introduces many snide remarks against them that I hated. I dislike Virgil’s claims of the Trojan treatment of Sinon. Dante also puts Sinon in Hell in his book Inferno.
To me Sinon is a true hero. He may not be a great Warrior like Achilles or even Menelaus (lol as if) but
Sinon has loyalty and guile that are stuff of legends.\

Click below to show spoilers:
The best part of this book is easily the murder of King Priam by son of Achiles: “carry a message to achilles tell him what shocking deeds I have committed, now die!” I enjoyed this phrases: “helen the sourage of her land and troy”, “decreed by destiny”, “the honey smells of time”

I did not like Virgil disrespecting Chiron. I found his description of Aeneis’s travels to be a cheap knockoff of Odysseus’s adventures.
I did not like Aeneis consorthing with Carthage and Dido.
The battles towards the end of the book were poor immitations of The Iliad. The man with black tree blood was an interesting concept though.
It is clear that Dante rips off Virgils description of Aeneis passing through the underworld, purgatory and paradise with Dante adding the Christian element to it.
Even then this is an imitation of The Odyssey though.
This book was not a pleasure and I will likely not revisit it.