Virgil aeneid fitzgerald translated summary

In the twentieth century, the notable poets who devoted themselves to the task of translation were Rolfe Humphries (whose Metamorphoses remains my favorite) and Robert Fitzgerald, whose Aeneid (as his translations of HomerвЂ™s epics do) offers a fluid blank verse beauty somewhat absent in the more straightforward, unmetered version by Robert Fagles. My point is that I am no scholar, and like the vast majority of readers I gratefully apprehend the likes of Virgil and Ovid through their English translators. He seemed to regard my poor performance as no better than could be expected, and passed me on with a sigh. My own Latin education, which came too late to stick, required me to construe some lines from the Aeneid before a frowning, and then sarcastic, doorkeeper to a graduate program in literature. This kind of translation almost needs a new name, to distinguish it from all the other worthy efforts to bring the ancient poets to life: it is an iteration, another version, but also-perhaps, almost-the thing itself.ДЇor centuries, schoolboys and girls вЂњconstruedвЂќ Virgil into English. Especially when reading the Eclogues, one hears a new-old voice, as if Virgil had miraculously learned English and decided it might do as well as Latin.

Virgil detail from RaphaelвЂ™s The Parnassus, circa 1511ДЇerryвЂ™s previous outings with Virgil, in his matchless Eclogues and Georgics, had already convinced me that he has some sort of uncanny connection to the great poet. But it is what Ferry accomplishes-his delighted attention to the movement of the doves, teasing the reader forward, and again forward, along with Aeneas and his confidence, as a poet, in this instance to take an even more expansive liberty while keeping the diction pure and plain-that makes this new translation such a marvel throughout. With all translations of the Aeneid into English, extra words are needed to convey the meaning of the more condensed Latin this passage in VirgilвЂ™s text takes only four lines. So that they can be seen by him who followsвЂ¦. Then flying a little again, feeding and flying, Then flying a little way, and alighting again, What signs he might be given by how they went,ДЄlighting to feed a little, then flying a little,ДЄlighting a little again to feed on the grass, He stood there where he was and watched to see In David FerryвЂ™s new translation, the moment unfolds as follows: One of the most magical passages in the Aeneid occurs when the hero, in search of the golden bough that will allow him entrance to the Underworld, is shown the way by two doves, emblems of his mother, Venus.

Virgil aeneid fitzgerald translated summary