Tv Ne Cede Malis Sed Contra Avdentior Ito

So I am seriously getting tangled in my Turnuz/Mezentius/Aeneas section. I want to do for Aeneas what I did for Guan Yu with Lu Bu, but it's a little more difficult. First, I can't make the argument that the Greeks and Romans did not value martial heroes entirely for their ability as warriors because Achilles is a gigantic monkey-wrench in that argument. So what am I saying? I also think that the true "villain" of the Aeneid is in fact Juno, not Turnus, but that's not an argument I want to get into.

What am I trying to say? Mezentius is actually easy. He is a godless, bloodthirsty man. The fact that his son is still loyal to him and protects him I think is less a comment on Mezentius and more a comment on Lausus and Aeneas. Lausus isn't there to make Mezentius more sympathetic (or at least, that's not his central purpose). Lausus exists because Pallas exists. Lausus' death, his blood on Aeneas' hands, balances the scales again between Aeneas and Turnus. At least, on a certain level. His death also restores Aeneas to himself. In contrast to Aeneas, Mezentius shows the readers what men are like who neglect their divine pietas. Maybe this is not an especially illuminating example, though. In fact, maybe Lausus is the one I should use here instead of either Mezentius or Turnus. Although the boy exists only to die, so the section would shorten considerably.

Time to consider Turnus. Ah, Turnus. Turnus stands as the reflection of Aeneas, a twisted version of him. Maybe. He's a king, in love with Lavinia. Already haughty, he is twisted with furor into an ever-raging beast hungry for blood. A slight exaggeration, since, after all, in his bloodlust he never loses his majestic attributes nor his regal pride. Both Turnus and Mezentius revel in killing, though. Aeneas regrets the war with the Italian, the need for bloodshed and does what he can to prevent it while Turnus ad Mezentius spur it on. When Aeneas sinks to Turnus' level it is uncomfortable for the reader. That only the pitiful sight of Lausus dying can restore Aeneas to himself is painful. Yet Turnus is never restored to himself, or if so, it is only as death is staring him in the face, irrevocably approaching in the giant and unyielding form of Aeneas and his rage-grief for Pallas.

Dan'o suggests the following: Turnus as a foil for leadership, Mezentius as a foil for obedience to the gods, and Lausus as a foil for filial piety. I like this a lot. I will try this.

Yay, Dan'o!

I'm supposed to be reading an article by Putnam about Aeneas and piety, but it's bugging me because I frequently space and can't follow what he's saying. [I'm listening to "Violets of the Dawn" and it's so totally distracting because it's such a lovely song and I like his voice a lot, too.] Also, Putnam is talking about the moment when Aeneas kills Lausus and arguing that what Aeneas says to Lausus is an attempt to escape responsiblity by saying that it's Lausus' piety's fault. He also states that Aeneas doesn't take responsibility for killing Turnus either. I think we don't see enough to say whether he takes responsibility for Turnus' death. For Lausus I think it's human for Aeneas to fly into a rage and we shouldn't criticize him. And if in his anger he is cruel or savage, that is the nature of anger as well as humans. But I think in that moment, when Aeneas pauses and looks at Lausus, his rage fading away, there is a kind of responsibility there, a recognition of his own handiwork and the violence that he unleashed because of the intensity of his grief. Also, Virgil deliberately obscures Aeneas' feelings and thoughts from the reader, so there's no way of knowing what is really going on in Aeneas on more than surface level.

Then again, maybe I just don't want to look at Aeneas in a negative light and am trying to invent things so that I don't have to properly consider Putnam's argument. To claim that Virgil's hero lacks the complexity of more modern characters would be insulting as well as utterly ridiculous. Yet I think that the way that writers are now able to present characters' thoughts and feelings has changed a lot since antiquity, and the epic style isn't interested in the minutiae of human emotion. I want to believe that Virgil withholds such information in part to force us to ask these questions, the hard questions. Should we think less of Aeneas for becoming overwhelmed by grief, for giving in to his rage? In the middle of a battle does it matter if he is killing because he is out of control or if he is in perfect control? Isn't war a terrible thing? I think Lausus' death is tragic, whether he is killed by a pious Aeneas, or an Aeneas out of his mind and blind with emotion. The death of a young boy, whether Pallas or Lausus, in a war is always painful, always awful, always hateful. But you can't hate the warriors who kill young boys, because it is the job of the fighter to fight. The tragedy is that Lausus has to fight at all, that anyone has to fight. War is tragic. Maybe Turnus is a jerk when he kills Pallas, and maybe he is caught up in bloodlust. I think crimes committed in cold blood are far worse, and I pity Turnus as much as anyone for being a plaything of the gods.

...Reading secondary material about Virgil frequently makes me feel that I'm not smart enough to read Virgil.