gratias tibi ago, amici (2)

from the ghost of vergil :^)

Thank you to everyone who sailed along with the second run of Aeneid Daily! Very flattered to know anyone enjoyed this enough to want to do it again. Maybe we’ll go a third time in ‘25. Reposting my recommendations for post-Aeneid reading from last year:

• the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer: obvious, but very, very good; the Aeneid is heavily influenced by both, and drawing lines between the three works is fun, I promise!

• the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes: less obvious, but also a huge influence on the Aeneid, particularly in the relationship between Jason and Medea. Can I sell it by saying it invented cave sex?

• For other alternate takes on Aeneas and Dido: the titular characters in Shakespeare’s Antony & Cleopatra are a twist on their model, whereas Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage is an explicit adaptation of the story; these pair together for reasons beyond the authors’ contemporanity.

• For more Vergil: the Eclogues and Georgics! The former is a collection of pastoral poetry, the latter a four-book poem on agriculture and the natural world. I have been asked if I intend to do a Georgics Daily; I’m afraid that this particular ghost of Vergil knows a lot less about the non-Aeneid works, but if anyone particularly wants to see it, feel free to leave a comment.

• If you’re sick of literature written before the year 1700, and/or if you’re open to some of the most spot-on depictions of Aeneas to ever break your heart:

  • Christa Wolf’s Cassandra chronicles the last years of Troy from the perspective of its very own mad seer, in an extended-monologue-style novella that grips you by the throat and refuses to let go

  • Ursula K. Le Guin’s marvellously meta Lavinia retells the latter half of the Aeneid and the immediate aftermath from the perspective of the poem’s silent Lavinia, who finally gets to say her piece to the reader and to Vergil himself

• And, of course, there is Dante’s Divine Comedy: I’ve heard I’m present.

Thank you again to everyone who read & commented. Vale, and bona fortunam.