Skip to main content

Virgil, Romance, and Middle School // Haley Riddle

             Book IV of The Aeneid is giving me major middle school flashbacks. Dido's "inward fire" (Virgil, line 3)  of love for Aeneas reminds me of the days when my friends and I would obsess over boys and truly believe what we felt was love. Now, I'm not saying Dido was not in love, I just think Virgil did a great job showing us the fierce impact of Cupid's arrow by describing Dido's emotions in such an overly intense way. For example, in line 5, we are told that Aeneas' words "remained with her to haunt her mind." Again, I can't help but think back to the time when all my preteen friends and I could ever seem to talk about was some boy or who had a crush and the question of whether or not that crush liked them back. 

            Another scene in Book IV that causes me to reminisce on those awkward years begins on line 130, when Juno conjures up a plan to marry Dido and Aeneas. She hopes to put the two alone together seemingly by happenstance by causing a storm and forcing the lustful lovers to hide together in a cave. It's like in middle school when your friends would "accidentally" leave you with the person you were so obviously crushing on, as if they were being helpful and not obvious at all. They would then run away giggling while you and your crush would stand there, awkwardly, forgetting how to speak. Of course, in middle school we did not do anything close to what Dido and Aeneas did, but still, you get what I mean. In high school my best friend was trying to help a guy I was interested in summon up the courage to ask me to homecoming, and her way of making it happen was by calling me over to where he was, then suddenly leaving, saying something like :"oh, I have to go do something" forcing the boy to sheepishly say "hey, since you're here..." and well, you know how it goes. It was terribly awkward but my friend meant well, I guess. 

        Anyway, those middle school years are not some that I typically choose to think back on, in fact, I try to forget them... But I will say Dido and Aeneas' scandalous love, while brief, was quite entertaining. 

Comments

  1. ClaboNovember 16, 2020 at 10:59 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ClaboNovember 16, 2020 at 10:59 PM

    I very much agree with your post. I especially agree with your last sentence in describing their love as "scandalous." It was a very forced and unnatural relationship that ended just about as fast as it began. But, like you said, it was entertaining.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lily CaswellNovember 16, 2020 at 11:03 PM

    I was homeschooled so I’m not exactly in a position to talk about the entertaining middle and high-school drama with crushes. Juno almost reminds me of the teacher who ships the kids and will put them together for group projects. (Maybe it’s just me...)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Word Painting in Vesta—Lily Caswell

  Word painting in Weelkes’s As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending is quite interesting. And because that is a really long title, I’m calling it Vesta from now on. Word painting is basically when the melody matches up with the lyrics. So in Vesta, when it says “ascending” and “descending”, there are obviously scales going up and down. The madrigal was written for six voices to sing unaccompanied, so when they start to come together, it matches with the lyrics; so if the lyric says “two by two”, there are only two voices; “three by three” there is another voice added, and so forth. All the parts combine in exclamation before Vesta before it is left “all alone” to the highest soprano. All the way to the end of the piece, word painting continues when shouts of “Long live fair Oriana” with the bass sustaining long notes. Word painting in and of itself is a highly interesting topic because a musician takes the words of a poem or a sonnet and writes a melody line that pertains to cer...
4 comments
Read more

Honor and Gain; Which Do You Seek?

 Pericles.... thanks? I can only imagine that's what the family and friends were thinking after they heard his historic funeral speech honoring the departed. What do I mean? Well, Pericles briefly mentions the men who have fallen at the beginning of his speech, but then goes on to discuss how great Athens is, and how the contributions the city has made to the world are unmatched.. why? I understand that he is also commending the citizens of Athens and empowering them to continue to make their city greater, but I thought this was supposed to be a funeral speech about dead war heroes, not about Athens. Another thing I found interesting is what Pericles said on page five about honor: "For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness" (Thucydides, page 5). Have you ever watched a show or movie, or read a book, about a duel between two men? There is always an unspoken agre...
Post a Comment
Read more

Aristotle Might Not Like Me...Or Jesus//Haylee Lynd

      Aristotle says that the man who does not get angry at the things he should be angry at "is thought unlikely to defend himself; and to endure being insulted and put up with insult to one's friends is slavish" (Aristotle 41). While he states that passivity is preferred to excessive anger, he still gives great criticism to it.  In contrast to Aristotle, the man who Christians believe to be the most just is Jesus who states in Matthew 5:39-40, "...do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well." Essentially, arguing that one is not to respond in anger when insulted or hurt, to not defend one's self. Most individual's are unable to achieve this. Our natural instinct is to defend ourselves, especially in physical cases. However, Christians strive to be like Jesus in this way. I would also argue that it is a very admirable wa...
2 comments
Read more