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90–128:  Love and Marriage, or: A Match Made in Heaven

1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 After a day-by-day, even hour-by-hour unfolding of events in Books 1–4.53, narrative time has started to drift a little after Anna’s speech. The conversation between the two sisters took place ‘the morning after’ Aeneas’ arrival and first narration of his adventures during the welcome festivities. But from then on, it is difficult to keep track of how many days have been passing by. Going by the (imprecise) temporal markers in 63 (instauratque diem donis) and 82–85, it is just about possible to cram the action of Aeneid 4.1–89 into three days:

2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 Day 1: conversation between Anna and Dido; initial sacrifices

3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 Day 2: renewal of sacrifices; raging through the city; sightseeing with Aeneas; second evening banquet; Dido being left behind alone

4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 Day 3: cuddling time with Ascanius

5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 But that does not account for the atmosphere of indefinite drift that Virgil has created. In particular, the comment on the abandoned building works in 86–89 that concludes this section, implies that more time has elapsed than a three-day period. Still, it is important to bear in mind that Aeneas both arrives and departs during the same non-sailing season. What has he been up to while we learn about Dido in love? We only get glimpses of him, in very passive roles: in 74, he is the accusative object (Aenean), whom Dido leads through the city; in 79 he is ‘he, who narrates’ at the behest of Dido; and in 83 he is ‘absent’ (illum … absentem). It is almost as if Virgil gives his protagonist a break, after three full books in the narrative limelight. (Homer, too, has long stretches in which Achilles and Odysseus all but disappear from view.) Still, developments have reached something of an impasse, and in such situations the epic poet has at his disposal a reliable source of new narrative stimuli: the gods. The action now shifts back to the divine plane, with Juno, the goddess of conjugal bonds, (who has faded from the narrative after derailing the fleet of Aeneas at the very beginning of the epic) accosting and confronting Venus, the goddess of erotic passion. The two scheming divinities, one more deceitful than the other, engage in a battle of wits. Each one walks away in the belief to have fooled the other. Only Venus, of course, is right: whereas Juno dominates the conversation (she gets two speeches), the goddess of love knows that she will emerge victoriously in the end. She has, after all, been briefed in the workings of destiny by none other than Jupiter (see Aeneid 1.223-96) and uses this privileged insight into the plot to play cat and mouse with Dido and her divine patron Juno. Here is the section in outline:

6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 90–92: Juno seeks out Venus

7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 93–104: Juno’s first speech

8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0 105–07a: Venus’ hidden thoughts (1)

9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 107b–114a: Venus’ response

10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 114b–127a: Juno’s second speech

11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 0 127b–128: Venus hidden thoughts (2)

12 Leave a comment on paragraph 12 0 Hera/ Juno soliciting the help of Aphrodite/ Venus has an epic history, starting with Iliad 14, the famous ‘Deception of Zeus’, where Hera uses the girdle of Aphrodite to seduce her husband into some truly extraordinary sex, so as to use his post-coital slumber to meddle in the Trojan war against his will.

13 Leave a comment on paragraph 13 0 [Extra information: the most salient model for this encounter between Juno (the goddess of marriage) and Venus (the goddess of love and erotic desire) is Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 3.49–111, which features a conversation between Hera (the Greek equivalent of Juno), Athena, and Aphrodite (the Greek equivalent of Venus). The parallels, set out by Nelis and Hall, are as follows:[1]

14 Leave a comment on paragraph 14 0 1 The opening gambit includes a sarcastic comment: compare Aeneid 4.93–95 (Juno speaking) with Argonautica 3.51–54 (Aphrodite speaking, slyly hailing Hera and Athena as goddesses who ‘excel all others’—a malicious if veiled allusion to the judgement of Paris).

15 Leave a comment on paragraph 15 0 2 Juno/ Hera explains the situation: compare Aeneid 4.96–104 with Argonautica 3.57–75.

16 Leave a comment on paragraph 16 0 3 Venus/ Aphrodite yields to the higher authority of Juno/ Hera: compare Aeneid 4.107–14 with Argonautica 3.79–82.

17 Leave a comment on paragraph 17 0 4 Juno/ Hera suggests a plan to which Venus/ Aphrodite agrees: compare Aeneid 4.115–28 with Argonautica 3.84–110. Ironically, in Apollonius, this plan consists in Aphrodite calling upon Eros to enchant Medea with desire for Jason – exactly what Venus, in Virgil, then does also to Dido, much to the displeasure of Juno. Viewed intertextually, Venus clearly has learned a trick or two from past encounters with the queen of the gods.

18 Leave a comment on paragraph 18 0 The passage from Apollonius contains further material not included in Virgil’s rewrite (notably a complaint by Aphrodite that her son Eros is unruly). And, of course, in Virgil the power relation is inverted: in Apollonius, Hera and Athena are in charge and Aphrodite does their bidding (see esp. 3.100); in Virgil, Venus pulls the strings and is secretly in charge (see esp. 4.128). This manifests itself not least in a slippage in plot: in Apollonius, Hera first engineers Medea’s infatuation with Jason with the help of Aphrodite and Eros and then orchestrates a proper wedding when the need arises (in Argonautica 4, discussed below). But when Juno approaches Venus in Virgil, the erotic assault on the heroine is already a fait accompli: in the Aeneid, Venus is a step ahead in the divine power struggle. In intertextual terms, then, it is payback time: this is not the Argonautica, where Aphrodite stands for sex and little else; this is the Aeneid, where Venus, apart from sex and erotic attraction, also figures as the mother of the founding-hero of the Roman people, as the daughter of Jupiter, as mistress of fate.]

18 Leave a comment on paragraph 18 0 90–92: Quam simul ac tali persensit peste teneri/ cara Iouis coniunx nec famam obstare furori/ talibus adgreditur Venerem Saturnia dictis: a difficult set of verses, with untidy word-order, possibly reflecting Juno’s flustered state of mind:

19 Leave a comment on paragraph 19 0 (a) The basic structure is a subordinate clause introduced by simul ac (‘as soon as’) with cara Iovis coniunx (91) as subject and persensit (90) as verb, followed by the main clause in 92 (with Saturnia as subject and adgreditur as verb).

20 Leave a comment on paragraph 20 0 (b) Within the simul-ac-clause, persensit introduces an indirect statement that falls into two parts linked by nec. quam and famam are the subject accusatives, teneri and obstare the infinitives.

21 Leave a comment on paragraph 21 0 (c) Quam, the subject accusative of the first part of the indirect statement introduced by persensit, is a connecting relative pronoun (= eam): the referent is Dido.

22 Leave a comment on paragraph 22 0 90: tali persensit peste teneri: note the alliterative pattern ta-, pe-, pe-, te-. teneri, which shares its first syllable with the last syllable of the preceding word (peste) and rhymes with tali (taliteneri) thus relates on the sound level to the paraphrase of the force that is doing the holding. In the light of our discussion of time, the per– in persensit is important: it underscores that it dawns on Juno gradually what is going on and as soon as (simul ac) she has become fully conscious of the dirty trick Venus and her son have been playing on Dido, she takes action. pestis is a very strong term: it signifies a fatal disease of epidemic proportions, but can also refer by way of personification to a baneful individual (Cicero uses it of Catiline, for instance) or ruin and destruction more generally. Here it refers either to Dido’s love-sickness or Cupid (whom Juno calls magnum et memorabile numen a few lines later) or both. The wording recalls 1.712 where the phrase pesti deuota futurae (‘doomed to impending ruin’), in apposition to infelix no less, turns Dido metaphorically into a sacrificial victim about to be slaughtered—just before she unwittingly embraces Cupid disguised as Ascanius. Henderson, per litteras, proposes Catullus 76.20 as salient model: eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi! (‘Get me rid of this pernicious pest!’).

23 Leave a comment on paragraph 23 0 91: famam obstare furori: iconic word order in which fama (Dido’s sense of her reputation, or, indeed, the reputation she has hitherto enjoyed in the historiographical accounts) stands in the way of (obstare) furor (the insane passion that she suffers from in Virgil): the two nouns of the antithesis, kept apart from each other by obstare (which thereby enacts its meaning) are linked by alliteration.

24 Leave a comment on paragraph 24 0 91–92: cara Iouis coniunx … Saturnia: Juno has been absent from the narrative for a while, and upon her re-entry Virgil goes out of his way to stress her important position within the Olympic pantheon: she is the wife of Jupiter and the offspring of Saturn. Both her marriage to the ruler of gods and men and her ancient lineage mark her as Venus’ superior in the divine hierarchy, but Venus manages to counterbalance inferior power and prestige with superior knowledge and potential for mischief.

25 Leave a comment on paragraph 25 0 92: talibus adgreditur Venerem Saturnia dictis: another symmetrical line, with talibus modifying dictis, and the verb adgreditur correlating with the subject Saturnia. This places Venerem, the accusative object of adgreditur, smack in the middle, reproducing on the level of verse design the scenario of Venus being ‘cornered’ by Juno, but also emphasizing her central role in what is unfolding on the level of plot: despite the fact that she is in the ‘oblique’ accusative and Juno holds, from a grammatical point of view, the subject position, Venus is clearly pulling the strings here.

26 Leave a comment on paragraph 26 0 93–104: Juno’s first speech

27 Leave a comment on paragraph 27 0 Juno’s first speech falls into two halves of 6 lines each: 93–98 comprise a disapproving commentary on what Venus has been up to; 99–104 follow this up with a proposal of peace and alliance.

28 Leave a comment on paragraph 28 0 93–95: egregiam uero laudem et spolia ampla refertis/ tuque puerque tuus (magnum et memorabile numen),/ una dolo diuum si femina uicta duorum est: Juno chisels her opening, a conditional sequence, into the air with meticulous deliberation and emphasis, verse by self-standing verse: 93 contains the main clause (apodosis); 94 contains a magnificent elaboration of the subject implied in refertis; 95 contains the si-clause (protasis). Some editors, however, (including Conington and Pease) prefer to read nomen instead of numen and to punctuate differently:

29 Leave a comment on paragraph 29 0 egregiam uero laudem et spolia ampla refertis

30 Leave a comment on paragraph 30 0 tuque puerque tuus; magnum et memorabile nomen,

31 Leave a comment on paragraph 31 0 una dolo diuum si femina uicta duorum est.

32 Leave a comment on paragraph 32 0 We would then be dealing with two sentences roughly equal in length: the first, consisting of a main clause only, comes to an end after tuus; and magnum et memorabile nomen (with the verb erit understood) becomes the apodosis of the conditional sequence (‘it will be a great and memorable exercise of divine power, that…’). Which reading do you prefer and why?

33 Leave a comment on paragraph 33 0 93: egregiam uero laudem et spolia ampla refertis: refertis is the 2nd person plural present indicative active of refero. Its accusative object is presented chiastically: adjective (egregiam), noun (laudem), noun (spolia), adjective (ampla). The entire phrase, but in particular the attributes, are dripping with sarcasm, as Juno uses technical language to refer to the success of Venus’ limey plot: laus at Rome is primarily associated with excellence in the public sphere, spolia are ‘the spoils of (military) victory’, and referre is a standard verb used to describe the return of a triumphant general. This sarcastic praise for a conquest that could not have been easier to achieve may deliberately recall Iliad 5, where Aphrodite saves Aeneas from Diomedes, though not without being wounded in the process, leading to much lament. ‘Juno’s mocking description of Venus’ psychological conquest of Dido in martial terms thus not only insults Venus for directing her powers against an overmatched opponent but also reminds her of her earlier failure on the literal battlefield.’[2] And, as John Henderson points out, per litteras, ‘it also reminds us that all this typologically prefigures the Roman obliteration of Carthaginian Carthage (before the Julian and Augustan re-foundation as Roman Carthage). This love tragedy soups and serves up superpower struggle on the world stage: but in Virgil’s hands, the rights and wrongs are inextricably tangled beyond chauvinist simplication from the start. Juno isn’t wrong, then—especially in claiming that this (first third of arma uirumque) is a sordid story out of keeping with epic decorum, a lapse into Hellenistic romance and the theatre of boudoir persecution of the femme fatale. What a mess the Aeneid is making of getting from Troy to Rome—wrong continent, wrong genre… correct: it’s an ordeal.’

34 Leave a comment on paragraph 34 0 94: tuque puerque tuus (magnum et memorabile numen): Juno does not give her rival a lot of verse-space; after the monosyllabic tu at the outset, she devotes the rest of the line to an appreciation of Cupid. He may be Venus’ boy, but proves to be a divinity of extraordinary and ‘numinous’ power (magnum numen). Numen stresses the efficaciousness of divine power; it can either denote a divinity in its own right (as here: in Juno’s phrasing, Cupid is a numen) or refer to the ability of gods to influence events or indeed govern the entire cosmos. Later on in our passage, Mercury will refer to Jupiter as deum…regnator, caelum et terras qui numine torquet (4.268–69). Numen is a key concept in the religious infrastructure of Virgil’s epic more generally, from the proem onwards. Indeed, Juno’s words here specifically recall Virgil’s famous address to, and questioning of, the Muse at 1.8–11: Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso/ quidue dolens regina deum tot uoluere casus/ insignem pietate uirum, tot adire labores/ impulerit (‘Tell me, o Muse, the reasons, wherein thwarted in will or why angered, did the queen of the gods drive a man outstanding in piety, to traverse so many perils, to undergo so many toils?’). Ironically, Juno, who was the object of theological commentary by Virgil in the proem, has now turned into the commentator: she grudgingly concedes that Cupid has usurped what ought to be her narrative. Whereas Virgil is asking the Muse to recount the memorable reasons for Juno’s hostility towards Aeneas (1.8: memora), Juno here recognizes that what Cupid did to Dido is at least as memorable (cf. memorabile). There is also the additional irony that the issue of theodicy, which Virgil raises in the proem (the implication of his question to the Muse is that Juno’s actions are not just, given Aeneas’ outstanding pietas), here recurs in a slightly different key, insofar as it registers negatively. Juno does not seem interested in justice at all. For her, this is a matter of power and the pursuit of selfish interests. She does not remonstrate with Venus that Dido suffers unfairly. Rather, she mocks her counterpart for a cheap victory. The difference between the human and the divine perspective is telling: mortals have much at stake in the justice of the gods; the gods themselves, however, arguably nothing.

35 Leave a comment on paragraph 35 0 95: una dolo diuum si femina uicta duorum est: The protasis of the explanatory si-clause here comes after the apodosis (refertis). Juno points out that Dido never had a chance, whether in terms of ontology and gender (a mortal femina vs. immortal diui) or number (two against one: Virgil stresses the contrast by placing una and duorum at either end of the verse). As Conington observes: ‘The words are chosen so as to be as sarcastic as possible; the triumph is of two over one, of gods over a mortal, and that not even a man but a woman.’[3] Austin notes the intricate, antithetical design: ‘una contrasted with duorum, dolo paired with victa and completing its sense, divum contrasted with femina.’[4] The phrase dolo diuum … duorum (an ablative of means) is nicely held together by alliteration and homoioteleuton of the genitive phrase (-um), though duorum elides with est.

36 Leave a comment on paragraph 36 0 96–97: nec me adeo fallit ueritam te moenia nostra/ suspectas habuisse domos Karthaginis altae: fallit (impersonal, to be construed with me: ‘It does not escape me…’) introduces an indirect statement, with te as subject accusative and habuisse as infinitive; domos (with suspectas in predicative position: ‘in suspicion’) is the accusative object of habuisse. ueritam is a circumstantial participle agreeing with te (you, in fear of…), taking moenia nostra as accusative object. With the phrasing moenia nostra … domos Karthaginis altae Juno co-opts for Carthage what Virgil, in the proem, marked out as the destiny of Rome: the telos of Aeneas’ efforts (even though he doesn’t build them himself) are the altae moenia Romae at 1.7 (‘the walls of high Rome’). In both passages, we are dealing with a so-called transferred epithet: the attribute altus would go more naturally with another noun (moenia or domos) than the one it modifies grammatically (Romae or Karthaginis), though the transference invites us to think of, literally, ‘high walls’ and of, figuratively, ‘exalted Rome or Carthage.’ It is a nice touch that in the formulation Juno here ‘pinches’ from Virgil, the transference does not work so well: ‘high’ is much better suited as an attribute of ‘walls’ than of ‘homes’. Juno’s Carthage thus emerges as an inferior alternative, a perverse rival to Rome also on the stylistic level. That Juno mentions moenia (modified by the proud-possessive-protective nostra) in the same breath arguably highlights her rhetorical gaffe. But we may pardon the goddess for not being in top form, given her state of emotional distress: after all, the fear of Carthage she here projects onto Venus (ueritam te…), she herself suffers from because of Rome (cf. 1.23: id metuens [sc. Iuno], with id refering to the future destruction of Carthage by the Romans).

37 Leave a comment on paragraph 37 0 98: sed quis erit modus, aut quo nunc certamine tanto?: Juno has reached the mid point of her speech; after her sarcastic opening and confrontational ‘the game’s up: I know what this is all about’, she changes tack. In a more conciliatory vein, she begins to question the point and purpose of the scheming, enquiring into the limit of what she considers an excessive use of divine force. She then poses, in a sentence that fittingly lacks a verb such as tendimus, the open-ended question what all that strife and meddling is supposed to achieve: ‘whither (quo) now [do we go from here] in this rivalry (certamine tanto)?’ These are good questions, as Juno here picks up on a potential flaw in Venus’ machinations: what precisely is Venus trying to achieve by driving Dido into erotic insanity? Yes, ensuring a friendly welcome for Aeneas was important; but one would have thought that Venus’ ultimate goal (getting Rome underway) would have been better served by a more reserved type of hospitality so that Aeneas and his men could be back on their way to Italy soon. As it turns out, the reduction of Dido to a state of hopeless passion is now derailing the founding of two great cities: Carthage and Rome. Juno, for her own selfish interests to be sure, tries to offer a way out of the deadlock. (More generally speaking, Venus has seemingly gained very little from unleashing the powers of her son to the fullest extent or even caused significant damage: not only has she further delayed Aeneas on his travels; the tragic break-up and ensuing hatred, resulting in a vicious curse further empowered by Dido’s suicide, cause much suffering for Aeneas and Rome in the future. She of course knows, after her consultation with Jupiter, that matters will turn out well in the end: imperium sine fine and all that. But in the form of Hannibal especially, Dido’s wrath will continue to haunt her Romans, almost bringing them to their knees.)

38 Leave a comment on paragraph 38 0 99–100: quin potius pacem aeternam pactosque hymenaeos/ exercemus?: Juno concludes the first half of her speech with an open-ended question, suggesting to Venus how immoderate and pointless her attack on Dido has been so far (see above on 98); and she opens up the second half of her speech with a concrete proposal, which she casts as a question—though note that quin (‘why don’t we…?’) introduces questions ‘equivalent to commands or exhortations’: OLD s.v. A1. Juno wraps her offer to Venus in impressive rhetoric: pacem aeternam pactosque hymenaeos is chiastic in terms of grammar (noun: adjective; adjective: noun). Further links between the two phrases include a figura etymologica reinforced by alliteration in pacem ~ pactos (which comes from paciscor, ‘to negotiate, agree on, settle’) and the assonance ae-, –nae– in aeternam and hymenaeos.

39 Leave a comment on paragraph 39 0 100–101: habes tota quod mente petisti:/ ardet amans Dido traxitque per ossa furorem: petisti = petiuisti. Juno pretends that Venus’ scheming does not extend beyond making Dido fall madly in love with Aeneas and that she therefore has achieved everything she ever desired. (Cf. tota … mente; the placement of tota outside the relative clause into which it belongs emphasizes the comprehensive wish-fulfillment that Juno, in an act of strategic incomprehension, projects onto Venus.) per ossa harks back to both uenis (4.2) and, especially, medullas (4.66). Note the husteron proteron in line 101: Juno first foregrounds that Dido is ‘on fire’ with love (cf. ardet in the exposed front position), before stating the cause: she has drawn in the insane passion through her bones.

40 Leave a comment on paragraph 40 0 102–103: communem hunc ergo populum paribusque regamus/ auspiciis: regamus is an exhortative subjunctive (‘let us rule’). the –que links communem (in the predicative position, modifying populum) and paribus auspiciis. The two phrases indicate how Juno intends to rule with Venus, namely ‘together and sharing power equally’, with communem identifying the basic principle (‘jointly’) and paribus auspiciis specifying the precise terms (‘equally’). What looks like a generous proposal is in fact both insidious (communem) and deeply problematic in terms of practical arrangement (paribus auspiciis). The Scholia Danielis (cited by Pease[5]) put the finger on the problem by asking whether communem means that Juno offers Venus joint rule of her city Carthage or that Tyrians and Trojans will have merged into one populus. The former of course all but implies the latter: a joint rule of the two goddesses will ultimately result in a joint people. Juno never spells this out (she only mentions marriage of their two princely and principal charges), but in effect she here suggests for Carthage what has been pre-scripted for Italy: the ethnic merging of the Trojan refugees with the indigenous population. In other words, she here again plots to derail fatum and the founding of Rome. paribus auspiciis too is far from unproblematic. Auspicium is, in the first instance, ‘the practice of augury from the behaviour of birds’ or ‘information about the future gleaned from the behaviour of birds’, but also refers more generally to the legitimate power invested in a Roman general: ‘the commander-in-chief alone had authority to take the auspicia, in virtue of his imperium, and so the auspicia could themselves be regarded as a symbol of imperium.’[6] There is considerable humour in the fact that Juno, a goddess, uses a technical term of Rome’s civic religion that refers to a practice designed to figure out the will of the gods. Taken literally, with paribus auspiciis Juno proposes that each goddess has to consult the other on anything before taking any action and that the opinion of each has exactly equal weight. It is an interesting question of how they would have worked this in practice. Rome’s political culture was quite good at sharing power: for instance, when both consuls were together on campaign, the right to take auspices (and decide on a course of action) alternated between them on a daily basis. But this sort of collegial arrangement is fraught with problems and can break down easily (Eteocles and Polynices also initially agreed to rule in alternating years: we all know what happened at the moment the regime was supposed to change hands for the first time), and one wonders whether it would have been practicable here. In Augustan Rome, especially, after a century of civil bloodshed had proven the difficulty of sharing power, the mode of government that Juno evokes with communem and paribus auspiciis would probably have been deemed doomed to failure. ‘Yet this fake deal also test runs the solution for Rome—Italia in the Aeneid’s finale AND the way that models of mutual treaty and partial/ phased/ wholesale incorporation developed within Italy in history; in Virgil’s day, the challenge was how to project civil relations out to communities outside Italy (such as Roman Carthage). Juno wouldn’t be the only one fudging and manoeuvering over this politics, in Rome or in other centres. No doubt you have to get past hate to make any of it work; one way to do that is to agree to treat the past and its conflicts as tragedy, as miscommunication, as cock-up’ (Henderson, per litteras).

41 Leave a comment on paragraph 41 0 103–104: liceat Phrygio seruire marito/ dotalisque tuae Tyrios permittere dextrae: Dido, the subject of liceat (‘let her/ may she…’), is otherwise effaced; the –que links seruire and permittere; dotalis (in predicative position) continues the idea of marito and modifies Tyrios—‘to hand over the Tyrians to your right hand as dowry.’ Juno here introduces the human analogue to the divine power-sharing she proposed previously: the linking of Dido and Aeneas in wedlock. She seems here to assume that the purpose of Venus’ intervention was to have Dido fall in love with Aeneas to get them married and now playacts as if she is willing to go along with the plan—however bitter it may be. When she utters the phrase Phrygio seruire marito she is best imagined as spitting in disgust: her queen (regina) and leader (dux), and thus also herself, enslaved—and to an effeminate, ‘slavish’ Phrygian on top! (Given that ‘Phrygian’ is a stock Roman term for ‘slave’, Juno phrases her irritation by means of a striking paradox: I am willing, she says, to enslave my Dido to a slave.)[7] But the show of contempt, apart from being presumably genuine, also has a rhetorical point: Juno hams it up to show how much she is (apparently) yielding.

42 Leave a comment on paragraph 42 0 105–114: Venus’ reply

43 Leave a comment on paragraph 43 0 105–107 contain some authorial comments on what Venus is thinking. Her speech falls into three parts:

44 Leave a comment on paragraph 44 0 107–109: a conciliatory opening which, however, already introduces a touch of reservation in the si-clause.

45 Leave a comment on paragraph 45 0 110–112: explicit articulation of doubts: Jupiter may not be willing to go along with Juno’s proposal.

46 Leave a comment on paragraph 46 0 113–114: exhortation to Juno that it is her responsibility to solve that problem; reiteration of her willingness to go along with Juno’s plan.

47 Leave a comment on paragraph 47 0 It is noteworthy that Venus here brings into play two categories that go right to the heart of Virgil’s theology of history and how his characters position themselves and their experiences within a wider, temporal horizon: fortuna (109) and fata (112). Dido conceives of herself as a figure under the sway of fickle fortune (see esp. 1.628–29, with its striking reminiscences of the proem: me quoque per multos similis fortuna labores/ iactatam hac demum uoluit consistere terra ‘Me, too, has a like fortune driven through many toils, and willed to find rest at last in this land’), whereas Aeneas is of course a figure of fate. As Quint has pointed out, the Aeneid tends to associate the losers of history with fortuna and the winners with fatum; but in aesthetic terms the tragic figures of fortune arguably prevail over the characters who carry destiny on their shoulders: ‘Fortune denotes short-term contingency as opposed to the historical long run that is Fate. History’s losers only have the short term and must make the most of it. Their fortunes become personalized, allowing for the assertion of selfhood and the willfulness that make Dido and Turnus the most vivid characters in the poem.’[8]

48 Leave a comment on paragraph 48 0 [Extra information: Some of the formulations in this passage recall the encounter between Hera and Aphrodite (the Greek counterparts of Juno and Venus) in Iliad 14, where Hera approaches Aphrodite to borrow her girdle of erotic desire so she can lull her husband into a post-coital slumber in order to abet the Greeks. (Since Aphrodite of course favours the Trojans, Hera tells her a cock-and-bull story about needing the girdle to reconcile the estranged couple of Oceanus and Tethys.) Venus’ references to factum, fortuna, and fata are similar to her musings on fate and wish-fulfilment at Iliad 14.194–96:

49 Leave a comment on paragraph 49 0 Ἥρη πρέσβα θεὰ θύγατερ µεγάλοιο Κρόνοιο

50 Leave a comment on paragraph 50 0 αὔδα ὅ τι φρονέεις• τελέσαι δέ µε θυµὸς ἄνωγεν,

51 Leave a comment on paragraph 51 0 εἰ δύναµαι τελέσαι γε καὶ εἰ τετελεσµένον ἐστίν.

52 Leave a comment on paragraph 52 0 ‘Hera, reverent goddess, daughter of great Cronos, speak what is on your mind; the heart bids me to fulfil it, if fulfil it I can, and if it is something that has fulfilment.’

53 Leave a comment on paragraph 53 0 telos, which means ‘end’, ‘purpose’, or ‘final cause’ (from which comes teleology), is a Greek equivalent to fatum. After Hera has taken up this invitation to speak and has voiced her request, Aphrodite replies in language that has affinities with Venus’ conciliatory opening gambit at Aeneid 4.107–09 as well as her subsequent point that Juno is Jupiter’s husband and ought to put the case to him. See Iliad 14.211–13:

54 Leave a comment on paragraph 54 0 Τὴν δ’ αὖτε προσέειπε φιλοµειδὴς Ἀφροδίτη•

55 Leave a comment on paragraph 55 0 οὐκ ἔστ’ οὐδὲ ἔοικε τεὸν ἔπος ἀρνήσασθαι•

56 Leave a comment on paragraph 56 0 Ζηνὸς γὰρ τοῦ ἀρίστου ἐν ἀγκοίνῃσιν ἰαύεις.

57 Leave a comment on paragraph 57 0 Laughter-loving Aphrodite answered her: it is not to be nor is it seemly that I say no to your speech; for you sleep in the arms of Zeus the mightiest.

58 Leave a comment on paragraph 58 0 Bear in mind Aphrodite’s ornamental epithet ‘laughter-loving’ (φιλοµειδὴς). She will do it justice in Virgil at 128 below; and unlike in Homer, she is not to be deceived.]

58 Leave a comment on paragraph 58 0 105–107: Olli (sensit enim simulata mente locutam,/ quo regnum Italiae Libycas auerteret oras)/ sic contra est ingressa Venus: olli is an archaic form of illi, which Virgil had already used of Venus addressed by Jupiter at 1.254 (olli subridens hominum sator atque deorum…): ‘We are reminded of that conversation about the Roman future, as Venus conceals from Juno the knowledge that she has learned from it’.[9] Virgil may have opted for these archaizing touches to suggest divine gravity. sensit introduces an indirect statement; the subject accusative (eam, sc. Juno) is elided, just like the esse that completes locutam. quo introduces a purpose clause (‘in order to’). The subject of auerteret is Juno; in prose, the accusative of direction Libycas oras would normally have taken the preposition ad. The chiastic design of regnum Italiae Libycas oras stylistically underscores the intended redirection, with the two geographical markers juxtaposed in the centre and Italy yielding to Libya (note the homoioteleuton –cas, –ras).

59 Leave a comment on paragraph 59 0 107–109: ‘quis talia demens/ abnuat aut tecum malit contendere bello,/ si modo quod memoras factum fortuna sequatur?: talia refers to the terms that Juno is offering. abnuat and malit are present subjunctives. Since Iliad 1, nodding (ab-nuat) is a trademarked way of Olympian divinities to signal assent (or as here dissent) from above. See also 1.250 (Venus addressing Jupiter): nos, tua progenies, caeli quibus adnuis arcem… (‘but we, your offspring, to whom you grant the citadel of heaven…’). After Juno’s second speech, Venus indeed adnuit (128). When Venus asks quis … demens (‘who is so insane as to…’) a wry smile may well play around her lips given that Dido has just been diagnosed as demens (78). bello picks up Juno’s certamine tanto (98), but drops any hint of euphemism: Venus recognizes that she must choose between Juno’s proposal or outright warfare. The way she wriggles out of this dilemma is deft indeed: the rhetorical question introduced by quis implies the negative answer (‘no-one is so mad as to pick a fight with you, Juno’) that Juno wants to hear, but Venus instantly if surreptitiously qualifies her apparent consent by adding a si-clause (si modo = utinam: ‘if only’), in which she feigns concern that fortune, despite her hopes, may not favour the course of action (factum) that Juno has in mind (quod memoras). factum, the ‘antecedent’ of quod, is placed after the relative clause, generating an ironic juxtaposition, reinforced by alliteration, of factum and fortuna: by itself factum, the perfect participle of facere, signifies a deed or action that has already happened (‘a fact’), but together with the preceding relative clause it refers to a ‘planned action’, i.e. something in the future. And while in other contexts divinities operate on the principle of dictum factum (‘no sooner said than done’), here Venus reminds Juno that in principle the future is contingent insofar as it requires the smile of fickle fortuna to actually come about—’in principle’, since she by now knows full well that the future of Rome is no longer up for negotiation, but pre-scripted, and hence, in its essentials, removed from the realm of fortune. In other words, Venus knows very well that what Juno here plans will never become a factum. To some degree Virgil, the retrospective prophet, has eliminated contingency from his literary universe, tracing a story that is in outline historically predetermined—which in this case means that Juno will not be able to shape history the way she wants. With her maliciously double-layered and disingenuous gesture to fortuna, Venus reminds Juno that the successful execution of her scheme is not entirely up to them, but also secretly mocks her antagonist in the full knowledge that her scheming will be in vain.

60 Leave a comment on paragraph 60 0 110: sed fatis incerta feror si…: as Pease notes ‘the grammatical construction of fatis is hard to explain.’[10] One possibility is to take fatis with feror (note the alliteration), i.e. ‘I am carried along by the fates’ (giving Juno the impression that she bows to the destiny her counterpart has determined), with incerta (perhaps to be understood in a concessive sense) setting up the si-clause, i.e. ‘(even though) uncertain, whether…’ One could, perhaps, also take fatis with incerta: ‘uncertain of the fates, I am carried along (by your proposal, not knowing) whether…’—although ‘we lack other cases of such an ablative dependent upon incertus, our nearest analogy perhaps being the ablative with callidus and peritus’.[11] It is maybe best to take fatis with the entire phrase incerta feror, in the sense of ‘as someone ignorant of destiny I am carried along by it.’ The syntactical ambiguity involving fatis (which is in itself an irony to savour: grammatical indeterminancy around a concept that signifies predetermination) is thematically fitting: Venus is trying to be evasive, and well she might. That she is carried along by the fates is true enough (who isn’t), but that she is ignorant of either the fates or Jupiter’s will is a bald-faced lie: in Aeneid 1, she visited Jupiter who assured her that the fata would remained unmoved. See esp. 257–58 (Jupiter speaking): ‘parce metu, Cytherea: manent immota tuorum/ fata tibi…’ (‘Spare your fears, Lady of Cythera; the fates of your kin remain unmoved…’). What is more, he also revealed that even Juno would eventually come round to favouring her ‘race’ (gens): see 1.279–82. To be knowledgeable of the future sure is a nice position to be in: here, her superior insight into the fata enables Venus to be simultaneously smug and coy.

61 Leave a comment on paragraph 61 0 110–112: si Iuppiter unam/ esse uelit Tyriis urbem Troiaque profectis,/ misceriue probet populos aut foedera iungi: the –que after Troia links Tyriis and (Troia) profectis (‘those, who have departed from Troy’) the –ue after misceriue links uelit and probet, the aut coordinates misceri and iungi. The binary phrasing (Tyriis & Troia profectis; uelit & probet; misceri & iungi) and the different types of connectives (-que, –ue, aut) mirrors on the formal level both the theme of the si-clause (the potential merger of Tyrians and Trojans) and Venus’ simulated uncertainty about the precise terms of such a merger. Venus’ train of thought proceeds from the city (unam: ‘one only’, ‘a single one’), that is to be shared by Tyrians and Trojans (the datives Tyriis … Troiaque profectis refer to the respective origins of the ethnic communities of Dido, i.e. the people from Tyre in Phoenicia, and of Aeneas, i.e. those who departed from Troy), to an inevitable consequence of this sharing: some sort of merger or bond between the two peoples. Venus invokes two models: a ‘biological’ one (misceri), and a legal one (foedera iungi). She thereby signals awareness of two different ways of conceiving of a socio-political entity, nicely contrasted by means of the chiasmus (a) misceri (b) populos (b) foedera (a) iungi: as an ‘ethnic’ community, in which the members are thought to be linked by intermarriage and blood-descent, or as a ‘civic’ alliance, in which the members participate on the basis of some sort of legal-contractual arrangement (such as citizenship). The two are of course not mutually exclusive. Here the merger of two peoples is only mooted as a hypothetical possibility; but the theme dominates the second half of the Aeneid, which revolves around the merging of Trojans and Latins, again at the level of a royal couple (Aeneas and Lavinia) and two entire peoples. There, too, Virgil uses both ethnic and legal terminology to describe the union. (See e.g. 12.191: foedera). An idiosyncratic notion of Roman ethnicity also informs Virgil’s reconfiguration of the populus Romanus as gens Romana (uel Iulia): see note on 4: gentis honos.

62 Leave a comment on paragraph 62 0 113–114: tu coniunx [sc. Iouis es], tibi fas [sc. est] animum temptare precando./ perge, sequar: another guileful utterance: as Virgil’s readers know full well from Book 1, Venus has no scruples whatsoever to approach Jupiter and ask him for ressurance and support.[12] Venus’ use of fas is another instance of a divinity bandying about Roman religious terminology: the term refers to divinely sanctioned law, and Venus hilariously implies that her accosting Jupiter would constitute an instance of nefas (something that is prohibited by religious law). She effectively shifts full responsibility for the success of the plan onto Juno (who has a notoriously stormy relationship with her husband), rhetorically underscoring her devious proposal with the solemn and emphatic polyptoton tu ~ tibi and the laconic exhortation and promise that concludes her speech (perge, sequar).

63 Leave a comment on paragraph 63 0 114: tum sic excepit regia Iuno: the phrasing recalls 107: sic contra est ingressa Venus; now Juno takes over (cf. excepit) again. The epithet regia underscores her superior position in the Olympic hierarchy anew and has proleptic force: the opening of her speech is marked by ‘royal’ pomposity and self-importance.

64 Leave a comment on paragraph 64 0 115–27: Juno’s second speech

65 Leave a comment on paragraph 65 0 After briefly dealing with Venus’ speech, Juno proceeds to outline her plan for getting Aeneas and Dido into wedlock. The speech is well-structured, but there is a slight shift from measured exposition, where sections come to a close at the end of a verse, to a more animated, enjambed mode of speech that matches Juno’s mounting excitement as she works up to the triumphant finale in line 127: hic hymenaeus erit:

66 Leave a comment on paragraph 66 0 115–116: Preamble, consisting of a reply to Venus’ concerns and an exhortation designed to ensure Venus’ full attention (2 lines).

67 Leave a comment on paragraph 67 0 117–119: Description of the context in which the goddesses should strike: Aeneas and Dido go hunting (3 lines).

68 Leave a comment on paragraph 68 0 120–122: Juno’s interference: she plans to conjure up a storm (3 lines).

69 Leave a comment on paragraph 69 0 123–125a: The consequences: everyone scatters, and Dido and Aeneas, all by themselves, seek shelter in a cave (2+ lines).

70 Leave a comment on paragraph 70 0 125b–127a: Bingo: Juno will see to sex and marriage (2+ lines).

71 Leave a comment on paragraph 71 0 115–116: ‘mecum erit iste labor. nunc qua ratione quod instat/ confieri possit, paucis (aduerte) docebo: Juno reacts to Venus’ feigned doubts and duplicitous humility with some reassuring verbal strutting: mecum erit iste labor means something akin to ‘Don’t you worry, I’ll take care of that!’ Her use of the future tense (erit) is telling. She has absolutely no intention to consult with Jupiter any time soon. Far from clearing her plan with her husband beforehand, she clearly intends to let him know only after the liasion between Dido and Aeneas is already a fait accompli (if at all: in the end he finds out about what is going on from his son Iarbas). The tone is both matey and dismissive, as Juno instantly moves on. With nunc her attitude changes as she sets out methodically (qua ratione) and briefly (paucis) what the two goddesses ought to do on their own and right away (quod instat, contrasting with iste labor). There might be a touch of the ‘schoolmistress’[13] about the way she speaks, but I wonder whether the imperative aduerte is really ‘peremptory’ ‘as if Venus might not be paying attention’[14]: such an aggressive stance could backfire. Perhaps Juno is rather being chummy and conspiratorial?

72 Leave a comment on paragraph 72 0 117–119: uenatum Aeneas unaque miserrima Dido/ in nemus ire parant, ubi primos crastinus ortus/ extulerit Titan radiisque retexerit orbem: uenatum is the accusative of the supine, expressing purpose (‘in order to…’) with a verb of motion (ire). The –a of una scans long: it is an adverb meaning ‘together with’. Juno mentions Aeneas only by his bare name, without ornamental epithet, whereas Dido receives an attribute in the superlative (for a similar snide innuendo see line 124). But what is the force of miserrima, which recalls and stands in implicit contrast to the pulcherrima Virgil uses elsewhere)? Is it an expression of pity (‘my poor, love-sick Dido’)—or contempt (‘that Dido, love-sick to the hilt’)? Is it accusatory, directed against Venus (‘Dido, whom you have reduced to such a sorry state of wretchedness’)? Or is it proleptic, as the Scholia Danielis would have it: ‘Dido—most wretched in that she is about to lose her reputation for chaste loyalty to her dead husband and has to enter into wedlock with that Phrygian cast-away of yours’? The ubi-sentence is an elaborate and memorable way of saying ‘tomorrow at sunrise’: primos modifies ortus, and crastinus modifies Titan (= Sol), which produces an interlaced patterning of a1 (adjective: primos) a2 (adjective: crastinus) b1 (noun: ortus) c (verb, placed in enjambment) b2 (noun: Titan). extulerit Titan radiisque retexerit features alliteration (ra-, re-), assonance (ex-, –tex-; –tu-, Ti-, –ta-), and homoioteleuton (-erit, –erit). The –que links extulerit and retexerit. Usually it is the narrator who establishes the setting with evocative descriptions (cf. 4.6–7 above), so this underscores Juno’s powers: she is here taking control of Virgil’s narrative. What follows is her plot: here she outlines what she will then proceed to put into practice, in what amounts to giving Venus (and Virgil’s readers) an advanced ‘performance script’ that allows us to appraise later on how well she manages to execute her plan.

73 Leave a comment on paragraph 73 0 120–122: his ego nigrantem commixta grandine nimbum,/ dum trepidant alae saltusque indagine cingunt,/ desuper infundam et tonitru caelum omne ciebo: after a sneak-preview of the day’s divertissements, Juno moves on to an elaborate weather forecast. The hyperbaton of subject (120: ego) and accusative object (120: nigrantem … nimbum) and the corresponding verb (122: infundam) is as big as Juno’s ego. The word order of nigrantem commixta grandine nimbum is iconic: the hail is contained within the black cloud. In Book 1, Juno enlisted Aeolus to unleash a storm. In Book 7, she will enlist the Fury Allecto to unleash hell on earth. The thunderstorm here is her own creation, and while the imagery is impressive (both here and when Virgil describes the actual event), the spot of bad weather pales in comparison to the cosmic upheaval caused by the winds and the fury: despite her grandiose rhetoric, the passage also underscores the limits of Juno’s powers.

74 Leave a comment on paragraph 74 0 121: dum trepidant alae saltusque indagine cingunt: after Juno has spoken of gathering her black cloud, she effectively delays how she will unleash it with a retarding dum-clause. alae are the hunters on horseback who ‘bustle’ (trepidant) about to stir up the game and, in doing so, form a circle around the hunting grounds. indago, -inis, f. means ‘a ring of huntsmen or nets thrown round a wood, etc., to prevent the escape of game’: OLD s.v. 1a.

75 Leave a comment on paragraph 75 0 122: desuper infundam et tonitru caelum omne ciebo: after the delay, desuper marks a startling return to the weather. Juno plans to underscore her deluge with a suitable soundtrack that will rattle heaven. Note the two elisions infundam et and caelum omne, giving metrical support to the theme of pouring rain and resounding thunder.

76 Leave a comment on paragraph 76 0 [Extra information: what causes thunderstorms? They are frightening, and are often taken as a means of the gods to communicate with humans. To combat this notion, Lucretius, in the final book of his De Rerum Natura, an account of the world grounded in Epicurean physics (Epicurus was an atomist who dismissed divine interference in human affairs as noxious superstition), devotes a lengthy discussion of what natural phenomena might cause thunderstorms, trying to dispel any irrational fear of them. Some of the language is quite close: with Virgil’s phrase caelum ciere, cf. e.g. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 6.376: … tempestasque cietur turbida caelo.]

76 Leave a comment on paragraph 76 0 123: nocte tegentur opaca: again an iconic arrangement, in which the phrase nocte … opaca in framing/ embracing does to the verb what the verb means: ‘they will be covered by dark night.’

77 Leave a comment on paragraph 77 0 124–125: speluncam Dido dux et Troianus eandem/ deuenient: the hyberbaton of speluncam … eandem is a beautiful case of iconic word order: Dido and Aeneas will end up inside the same cave, just as the noun and the attribute ‘embrace’ the pair in the verse. The postponed et has a double effect: (a) it generates the momentary impression that Dido is the dux (an effect reinforced by alliteration); and (b) it separates the adjective that identifies Aeneas (Troianus) from the noun that indicates his leadership abilities (dux). Both the elevation of Dido and the slighting of Aeneas that the word order entails are of course fully in line with how the speaker (Juno) sees matters more generally. The postponed et thus underpins a beautifully subtle piece of ethopoiea. (The use of dux here also harks back to 1.364, where Venus, after recounting Dido’s departure from Tyre, notes: dux femina facti—a challenging formulation that gives Dido a masculine role.) deuenient, effectively placed in enjambment, is in the future indicative. On the diaeresis after deuenient see Austin: ‘the pause is effective; Juno waits a moment to let Venus appreciate her plot to the full.’[15]

78 Leave a comment on paragraph 78 0 125–127: adero et, tua si mihi certa uoluntas,/ conubio iungam stabili propriamque dicabo; hic hymenaeus erit: Juno captures her own involvement in a tricolon: aderoiungamdicabo; the verb of the si-clause (est) is elided. conubio iungam stabili is another instance of mimetic word-order and verse-design reinforcing meaning: iungam is placed between and hence ‘links’ conubio and stabili. Some have suspected line 126 here as a repetition of 1.73, where Juno promises one of her nymphs to Aeolus, in return for unleashing the sea-storm that was supposed to sink Aeneas’ fleet. But the re-use may also be part of Virgil’s characterization of Juno: to cause chaos and thwart fate she resorts to the resources that she has at her disposal as the goddess of marriage. At the same time, the comparison with 1.73 illustrates the irregular nature of Juno’s plan. In Book 1, Juno gives Aeolus the following promise (71–73):

79 Leave a comment on paragraph 79 0 Sunt mihi bis septem praestanti corpore nymphae,
quarum quae forma pulcherrima, Deiopea,
conubio iungam stabili propriamque dicabo.[16]

80 Leave a comment on paragraph 80 0 [I have fourteen nymphs of outstanding beauty, of whom I shall link who is most beautiful in appearance, Deiopea, [to you] in stable wedlock and will give her over [to you] as your own.]

80 Leave a comment on paragraph 80 0 Since Juno addresses Aeolus, tibi is easily understood with iungam and dicabo. In Book 4, however, matters are less clear. Juno obviously intends to link Dido and Aeneas in wedlock and will give over Dido to Aeneas as his own. But the person whom she addresses here, as the equivalent to Aeolus, is Venus. The awkward syntax thus continues her policy of marginalizing and eliding the Trojan hero, and it even generates an interesting ambiguity: is she giving over Dido to Aeneas or to his mother Venus (or both)?

81 Leave a comment on paragraph 81 0 The fuzziness of Juno’s discourse continues to the very end. What initially may look like a sharp and unambiguous punchline—hic hymenaeus erit—is anything but: does she mean ‘Hymenaeus [i.e. the god of wedding] will be here [hic = adverb]’? Or does she mean ‘This [hic = demonstrative pronoun] will be their marriage’? The former reading seems feeble; but if the meaning is supposed to be the latter, the use of the singular hymenaeus is unusual. (In the singular, hymenaeus tends to mean ‘wedding song’.) The lack of precision may be Virgil’s way of having Juno drawing unwittingly attention to the dodginess of her plan.

82 Leave a comment on paragraph 82 0 127–128: non aduersata petenti/ adnuit atque dolis risit Cytherea repertis: Cytherea is one of Venus’ cult titles, deriving from the worship she received on the Aegean island of Cythera. Venus, of course, is not fooled by the peace offer and sees through Juno’s guile. But she is quite happy to play along. Recent commentators (Pease, Austin, Maclennan, O’Hara) are unanimous in taking dolis … repertis to mean something akin to ‘after Juno’s guile had been discovered’ (ablative absolute) or ‘(she smiled) at Juno’s guile discovered’ (as ablative object with ridere). But this interpretation yields a feeble sense: already after Juno’s first speech, which ended with the proposal of marriage, Virgil tells us that Venus was not fooled for a second (105: sensit [sc. Venus] enim simulata mente locutam…), so why would he repeat this point here, as if Venus had not seen through Juno all along and only discovered her treacherous intentions now? True, Juno’s second speech lays out her precise strategy, but that in itself is a problem: what Venus has just learned is not so much that Juno is deceitful, but how she intends to put deceit into practice. And this is exactly what makes Venus smile: she laughs at the trickery that Juno has devised (for reperio in the sense of ‘to make up, devise, intent’, see OLD s.v. 6). Why should she? Well, the goddess of erotic desire can hardly keep a straight face when the goddess of lawful marriage engineers a romp in a cave that is to be dressed up as a legitimate wedding (though it will be anything but). Moreover, Venus knows full well that this sexual encounter may just prove disastrous for Dido (as it does)—and thus further Aeneas’ destiny, getting him back on the road to Rome. It is an insidious, even perverse sense of humour that Venus puts on display here—but perfectly in character.[17]

83 Leave a comment on paragraph 83 0  


84 Leave a comment on paragraph 84 0 [1]
For discussion of this relationship see Nelis (2001), p. 147 and Hall (2011), pp. 624–27. Hall argues for the presence of a hitherto underappreciated allusion to Sappho in the passage. More generally, Feeney (1991) is indispensable for any scene in the Aeneid that involves the gods.

85 Leave a comment on paragraph 85 0  

96 Leave a comment on paragraph 96 0 [7]
I owe this point to John Henderson, per litteras.

97 Leave a comment on paragraph 97 0  

106 Leave a comment on paragraph 106 0 [12]
The irony becomes even more marked if we factor in the ‘Deception of Zeus’ in Iliad 14, where Hera requests the loan of Aphrodite’s girdle to seduce and befuddle her husband—though the last word of the line (precando), perhaps deliberately, puts the emphasis on rhetoric rather than sex as a means of persuasion.

107 Leave a comment on paragraph 107 0  

114 Leave a comment on paragraph 114 0 [16]
She follows this up with two lines in which she promises Aeolus that the marriage will be ever-lasting (he gains a consort for life) and produce beautiful offspring: omnis ut tecum meritis pro talibus annos/ exigat et pulchra faciat te prole parentem (1.74–75). These aspects are—perhaps ominously?—absent from Juno’s plan here.

115 Leave a comment on paragraph 115 0  

116 Leave a comment on paragraph 116 0 [17]
On Venus’ smile see further Konstan (1986).

Source: https://aeneid4.theclassicslibrary.com/2012/11/30/90-128%E2%80%82-love-and-marriage-or-a-match-made-in-heaven/?replytopara=69