Ad hoc: Christine Perkell on Aeneid Book I

"Arma virumque cano ("Arms and the man I sing"). These words that open the Aeneid are perhaps the most famous in Latin literature. What do they signal to readers? 'Classic' as they are now, for Vergil's readers, schooled in the epic tradition as embodied in the Homeric poems, the words represent a departure from as well as an echo of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad begins: Menin aeide, thea, Peleiadeo Achileos. Following the Greek word order we read: 'Wrath, sing, goddess, of Peleus' son Achilles.' 'Wrath,' the first word, the object of 'sing,' thus defines the Iliad's major theme, around which the poet will build his poem. Similarly, the Odyssey begins: Andra moi ennepe Mousa polutropon . . . ('Man, narrate to me, Muse, the resourceful [man] . . . '). Again a single term, 'man' (andra), the object of 'narrate,' defines the subject of the poem and its focus on the figure of Odysseus. While Vergil's statement of themes clearly recalls the openings of the Homeric poems, it also sounds a double, as opposed to single, subject and announces the authority of the poem's singer ('I sing'), as opposed to a prayer to the Muse, which is postponed until line 8. The double subject suggests, I believe, at least two ideas. One is that this new poem, the Aeneid, will aim to encompass both of its famed rivals, arma being in some sense equivalent to 'wrath' and virum being precisely equivalent to andra . . . . The second idea suggested by the double theme is that the Aeneid will encompass not only two stories sequentially but also the interrelationship of the 'arms' and the 'man.'"


Christine Perkell, "Aeneid I: An Epic Programme," in Reading Vergil's Aeneid: An Interpretive Guide. C. Perkell, ed. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999, pp. 29-30.