![]() ![]() The transition between Aeneid 10 and 11, between the gushing blood of Mezentius and the rise of Aurora, is arguably the most abrupt in the poem â but is hardly evidence for its unfinished state. 4 Halfway through the book, of course, the war restarts â and in the second half of Aeneid 11 we get yet another high-profile kill that â just like the death of Mezentius â serves as a further prequel to the epicâs final curtain call: the death of Camilla, followed by the death of her killer, Arruns. As a book of âprematureâ resolution, it offers a transitional variant of what we might have expected after the death of Turnus too (but donât get): attention to the dead, mourning for those killed in battle, a depiction of burials, diplomatic activity between the warring parties resulting in a (temporary) truce. In contrast to the terminal closure of Aeneid 12, however, the aftermath of the high drama that concludes Aeneid 10 receives narrative attention â in Aeneid 11. Virgil also deploys a decisive kill as a device of closure at the very end of the Aeneid: he notoriously shuts his epic down on a scene of shock and awe, Aeneasâ slaying of Turnus. Undantique animam diffundit in arma cruore. Haec loquitur, iuguloque haud inscius accipit ensem scio acerba meorumĬircumstare odia: hunc, oro, defende furoremĮt me consortem nati concede sepulcro.â Unum hoc per si qua est victis venia hostibus oro:Ĭorpus humo patiare tegi. Nec tecum meus haec pepigit mihi foedera Lausus. Nullum in caede nefas, nec sic ad proelia veni, Âhostis amare, quid increpitas mortemque minaris? Suspiciens hausit caelum mentemque recepit: Over the course of the narrative he thus recovers his humanity, dying as an âold, tired, grief-stricken, animal-loving, bereaved father.â 3 Here is the final exchange between the two warriors and the ensuing bloodbath (10.896â∹08):Įt super haec: âubi nunc Mezentius acer et illaĮffera vis animi?â contra Tyrrhenus, ut auras 2 In Aeneid 10 he proves his martial prowess on the battlefield, joins the ranks of bereaved parents when Aeneas kills his son Lausus (who is trying to protect his father), interacts movingly with his warhorse Rhaebus (also dispatched by Aeneas), and faces his own death in calm defiance. Ultimately, however, he does not quite manage âto live up to this own billingâ as a blasphemous monster in human form. ![]() And if one changes the accent from Îὴν to Îá¿Î½, one gets âHe who does not honour lifeâ â a reference to his nasty habit of tying living humans to rotting corpses as a form of punishment. Indeed, one of the (many) etymologies for his name is Îá½´ Îὴν ÏίÏν, which translates, literally, as âHe who does not honour Zeusâ (Rivero GarcÃa and Librán Moreno 2011: 464). 1 He is explicitly singled out as a âdespiser of the godsâ (7.648: contemptor divum 8.7: contemptor deum) â what in Greek would be called theomachos, âone who fights the gods â. Aeneas learns about Mezentiusâ evil ways from Evander, including his fiendish habit of tying his (living) adversaries to corpses and letting them rot to death, âone of the most repugnant and perverse instruments of death ever devised by the human mindâ, among other atrocities (8.478â∹5). ![]() To regain his throne, Mezentius joins the Italic forces that fight Aeneas (7.647â∵4, 8.6â∸), while his former subjects side with the Trojan castaways. He enters the epic as a wicked tyrant whom his own people drove from his kingdom because of his savage reign. Mezentius is a complex figure, who contributes much to the thematic economy of the Aeneid. The long and bloody fighting of Aeneid 10 concludes with the death of the Etruscan king Mezentius, whom Aeneas kills in a duel that prefigures his showdown with Turnus. Henderson, CC BY 4.0 11.1â∴: The Morning After ![]()
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