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THE A EN El D
third person aliqids with the second person verb exoriare, and rhyme of
Dardanios. . .colonos as well as of exoriare. . .sequare. After the three selfcontained
lines (625—7) the speech concludes with lines containing mid-line
stops (after the fourth foot in 628, after the first and in the third of 629), and
ends with the very rare device of hypermetric elision, a device which is in fact
impossible here because the speech is over and Dido's last word nepotesque
cannot be elided. She is unable at the end to fit the torrent of her words to the
metrical scheme.
A brief and very selective analysis of this kind gives perhaps some idea of
the complexity and variety of Virgil's rhythm, a variety sufficient to sustain
the interest over many thousands of lines. More than any other Roman poet
Virgil was able to make the movement of his words and the sound of his verse
match and therefore reinforce the content and mood of the subject matter.
7. CONCLUSION
The Aeneid is above all a poem of the exploration of conflicting attitudes, an
attempt to harmonize the different and often discordant facets of human
experience. Its relationship with the poems of Homer sets up a double timescale
in which the qualities and ideals of Homeric life can be compared and
contrasted with the needs of a new type of civilization. Its parallel narrative on
two planes, divine in Olympus and human in the mortal world, perpetually
compels our attention to the interrelationship of the everlasting divine laws
and transient human action. But above all the poem explores the relationship
between the strong vigorous national world of Roman organization
and empire and the quiet private world of the lonely individual who is not
interested in, or is excluded from, or is destroyed by the cosmic march of
Roman destiny.
We may distinguish these two elements by speaking of Virgil's public voice
(patriotic, national, concerned with the march of a people) and his private
voice (sorrowful, sensitive, personal). There need be no doubt that the Aeneid
is intended primarily to celebrate the public aspect of optimism, of power, of
organized government. But side by side with this, and perhaps increasingly as
the poem progressed, Virgil was preoccupied with the suffering of those who
fall by the way, or are trampled underfoot as the march of destiny proceeds
forward. The outstanding examples of this are of course Dido and Turnus, but
instances of tragic and unhappy death occur throughout the poem: Orontes
drowned by Juno's storm (i.i^ff.), Priam and Laocoon and many others in
Book 2, like Coroebus, Rhipeus, Polites; there is the pathos of Andromache
and Achaemenides in Book 3; the sudden and inexplicable loss of Palinurus in
Book 5; the plight of the ghosts in Book 6, especially Palinurus, Dido and
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