The Aeneid

Like Homer's epics, The Aeneid is written in dactylic hexameter (lines consisting of six metrical feet, each of which contains a long syllable followed by a pair of short syllables). Virgil's precise use of this verse form gives the poem a consistent pace and rhythm. And although these features don't always carry over in translation, the alliteration and assonance in the original Latin imbues the poem with a compelling sound. The reading experience is also boosted by the poem's vivid imagery, gripping instances of personification, and the great number of thoroughly developed similes and metaphors.

Occasionally, Virgil uses his rhetorical flourishes to develop everyday scenes that would be more familiar to a reader than the epic characters and setting of the poem. Through this, he forges a link between the mythological world he develops through his poem to the world beyond its fictional frame. An example of this can be found in Book 8.

And then,

Cite this Quote

when the first deep rest had driven sleep away

and the chariot of Night had wheeled past mid-career,

that hour a housewife rises, faced with scratching out

a living with loom and Minerva’s homespun crafts,

and rakes the ashes first to awake the sleeping fires,

adding night to her working hours, and sets her women

toiling on at the long day’s chores by torchlight—

and all to keep the bed of her husband chaste

and rear her little boys—so early, briskly,

in such good time the fire-god rises up

from his downy bed to labor at his forge.

In this rich passage, Virgil's main aim is to express that Vulcan, the fire god, gets up and begins working very early in the morning. Instead of simply stating this, however, Virgil goes in detail about the struggling housewife who gets up before dawn to begin her daily toil and care for her family. The Aeneid's cast of characters mostly involves immortals and great heroes, but here Virgil takes the time to honor the life of a more ordinary sort of person. Indirectly, he states that an anonymous housewife getting up early to provide for her family is not completely unlike the fire god—and thereby connects the lives of normal people to the lives of the gods. Moreover, the passage reveals Virgil's poetic talent. While the poem is certainly compelling on account of its fantastic events and famous characters, it's arguably worth reading simply for these sorts of background descriptions of time and space.