Dissertation FINAL2.pdf - Cornell University

Georgics 3, the theatrum that appears in Aeneid 1 is mentioned immediately before a
description of an enormous templum together with its magnificent artwork. Like
Dido’s city, Virgil’s ktistic epic is just beginning, but in a way we might never have
anticipated.
In a neat example of poetic architecture mirroring the physical architecture
described in the narrative, the two lines describing the entrance of the temple are
bolted closely together by the (unnecessarily) hypermetric –que at the end of line
148. 53 The pivot-like quality of –que in turn anticipates the noisy cardo that appears
between the two main caesurae in the precise middle of line 149. 54
Its prominence as
the subject of its clause is striking, for the “natural” subject – as Austin rightly
observes – is the fores themselves. 55
Given the prominence of the fores on Virgil’s song-temple in the Georgics 3, it
is reasonable expect a meta-literary sense for the cardo upon which noisily swing the
doors of Dido’s temple. Indeed, the lines that immediately follow the description of
Juno’s threshold speak of a cardinal juncture in the fortunes of Aeneas:
hoc primum in luco noua res oblata timorem
leniit, hic primum Aeneas sperare salutem
ausus et adflictis melius confidere rebus
(1.450-52)
In this grove for the first time did a change of fortune soothe his fear; here for
the first time did Aeneas dare to hope for salvation and to have greater faith in
his troubled circumstances.
53 Austin (1971) ad 448 notes that a connective is not necessary here and the two clauses might well
have stood in asyndeton.
54 Cf. Deuling (1997) 106-7: Virgil “audibly binds the two lines as closely as the bronze is bound to the
beams. Aenis at the end of 449 reminds us that the creaking of the hinges is caused by the bronze
doors.”
55 Cf. Smolenaars (1994) ad 40-63, on Statius’ adaptation of this passage at the beginning of Thebaid 7
(the palace of Mars).
54