The Aeneid by Virgil

The Aeneid by Virgil

Finished July 28, 2026

For some misguided reason I expected this one to be my favorite; instead I liked it the least. I can practically hear the screams of hundreds of academics, translators, scholars, etc. but I’m gonna say it anyway:
A significant portion of it felt like The Odyssey fanfic but with a Trojan hero. Aeneas got thrown into an Odyssey AU with a few changes and deviations.

Alright, now that I’ve blasphemed, let’s see which quotes I picked out.

Given safe haven by Dido, Aeneas tells the story of his travels so far:

“So I was saved from the deep,
the shores of the Strophades first to take me in.
Strophades—Greek name for the Turning Islands—
lie in the Great Ionian Sea.
Here grim Celaeno and sister Harpies settled
after Phineus’ doors were locked against them all
and they fled in fear from the tables where they’d gorged.
The Harpies…no monsters on earth more cruel,
no scourge more savage, no wrath of the gods has
ever raised its head from the Styx’s waters.”

You may be thinking, “what a random ass quote” and you’d be right…if you hadn’t memorized The Last Unicorn movie. But if you had memorized it, you would’ve read that passage and muttered to yourself, “That one is real. That is the harpy Celaeno,” and maybe even added, because of course you couldn’t help yourself, “Keep your poor shadows, if you will, but let me go. And…let her go. I cannot see her caged. She is real, like me. We are two sides of the same magic. Let her go.”

But I’ll go ahead and operate on the assumption that you probably haven’t memorized The Last Unicorn and move onto the next quote. Here we have Aeneas who’s been shacking up with Dido:

Now Rumor is in her glory, filling Africa’s ears
with tale of intrigue, bruiting her song
of facts and falsehoods mingled…
“Here this Aeneas, born of Trojan blood,
has arrived in Carthage, and lovely Dido deigns
to join the man in wedlock. Even now they warm the winter,
long as it lasts, with obscene desire,
oblivious to their kingdoms, abject thralls of lust.”

And honestly that sounds pretty great, even if Dido did have some godly intervention making her fall so fast and hard. But they both seem to be having a nice time when, of course, the gods intervene again and tell/guilt trip Aeneas to get the hell back on the road. And being a grown as man he does the noble, chivalrous, responsible thing in this situation:

Then Aeneas
was truly overwhelmed by the vision, stunned,
his hackles bristle with fear, his voice chokes in his throat.
He yearns to be gone, to desert this land he loves,
thunderstruck by the warnings, Jupiter’s command…
But what can he do? What can he dare say now
to the queen in all her fury and win her over?
Where to begin, what opening? Thoughts racing,
here, there, probing his options, turning
to this plan, that plan—torn in two until,
at his wits’ end, this answer seems the best.
He summons Mnestheus, Sergestus, staunch Serestus,
gives them orders: “Fit out the fleet, but not a word.
Muster the crews on shore, all tackle set to sail,
but the cause for our new course, you keep it secret.”
Yet he himself, since Dido who means the world to him
knows nothing, never dreaming such a powerful love
could be uprooted—he will try to approach her,
find the moment to break the news gently,
a way to soften the blow that he must leave.
All shipmates snap to commands,
glad to do his orders.

Do I even have the fucking words.
And in case you’re wondering, no, Aeneas doesn’t have the chance to “try to approach her” and break the news…Dido figures it out pretty fucking quick considering all his men are getting their ships ready to get the hell out of there. Duh.

Anyway. It’s an understatement to say she does not take it well. She kills herself. But before that:

Such terrible grief kept breaking from her heart
as Aeneas slept in peace on his ship’s high stern,
bent on departing now, all tackle set to sail.
And now in his dreams it came again—the god,
his phantom, the same features shining clear.
Like Mercury head to foot, the voice, the glow,
the golden hair, the bloom of youth on his limbs
and his voice rang out with warnings once again:
“Son of the goddess, how can you sleep so soundly
in such a crisis? Can’t you see the dangers closing
around you now? Madman! Can’t you hear the Westwind
ruffling to speed you on? That woman spawns her plots,
mulling over some desperate outrage in her heart,
lashing her surging rage, she’s bent on death.
Why not flee headlong?
Flee headlong while you can! You’ll soon see
the waves a chaos of ships, lethal torches flaring,
the whole coast ablaze, if now a new dawn breaks
and find you still malingering on these shores.
Up with you now. Enough delay. Woman’s a thing
that’s always changing, shifting like the wind.”
With that he vanished into the black night.

I love misogyny as much as the next person but “woman’s a thing that’s always changing” uhhhh, bro. You are the asshole that changed here. She gave Aeneas her world and he was like, “awesome 🙂 i love you!” and then all of a sudden he’s all, “fuck, I gotta go and she’s not gonna take it well so let’s just not tell her, okay, guys?” And then when she doesn’t take it well (as in “I guess we’ll just all die then, that’s the only solution here”) Mercury has the balls to say “Women, man. So fickle. Run. Now. Seriously. Dunno WHAT her problem is.”

And yeah, let’s not forget that Dido was chastely, sincerely mourning her dead husband when Venus—aka Aeneas’ MOM—sent Cupid down, “bubby needs your help; make the queen fall in love with him, hmm?”

Pretty sure my creative paraphrasing here would have me shot lol

This and that happens and Aeneas continues on his way and my next quote is from the battle nearing the end of the book where we’re just listing random people dying (or almost dying) and how:

Here’s Pharus, watch,
hurling his hollow threats as Aeneas hurls his javelin,
stakes it square in the man’s howling mouth. You too,
unlucky Cydon, pursuing Clytius, your new love,
his cheeks soft with the first gold down of youth—
you would have gone down under the Trojan’s hand
and died a pitiful death,
with all recall of your young boy lovers lost,
if a pack of your brothers had not blocked Aeneas,
seven of Phorcus’ offspring rifling seven spears,
some glancing off his shield and his helmet, harmless,
others, that loving Venus flicked away, just scratched his body.

No clue why it was necessary to include that whole “pursuing Clytius your new love…blah blah…young boy lovers lost” bit but I guess I enjoyed it.

Eventually Aeneas gets shot with an arrow and needs a doctor:

Now comes up Iapyx, Iasius’ son, and dear
to Apollo, more than all other men, and once,
in the anguish grip of love, the god himself
gladly offered him all his own arts, his gifts,
his prophetic skills, his lyre, his flying shafts.

“Doctor, I’ve been shot and can’t get this arrow out; can you save me?”
“That doesn’t matter, does it? What really matters is that Apollo wanted to bang me. You’re in good hands.”

For the record, apparently Iapyx and Apollo didn’t bang (or Iapyx didn’t take Apollo up on the offer of all his stuff and just became a regular doctor after they banged, I don’t actually know) but also Iapyx didn’t heal Aeneas up…his goddess mom did. Plot armor, protagonist’s halo, so on and so forth.

You may be wondering why my last two quotes were both about man loving and, well. I can’t help what catches my attention.

So that’s The Aeneid. As I write this post I feel like I’m doing it a horrible disservice and being way too flippant about a classical masterpiece but I just liked Homer better.

Rating: That is the harpy Celaeno. 3.5 stars?