Three Faces Of Aeneas

18 Pages 4606 Words

Aeneas in a skilful narrative from which a new, Chaucerian three-faced Aeneas emerges. The writer focuses on the subject of love and selects passages from the Aeneid and Heroides involving Aeneas’ journey from burning Troy to the shores of Italy and his love relationship with Dido, since love represents the subject over which the auctores disagree the most and which thus reveals the inconsistencies and imperfections of revered ancient texts.
Aeneas the Hero
Aeneas the Hero enters Chaucer’s dream vision as an image on the wall of the glamorous temple of Venus, a decorated wall depicting events of the Aeneid including “the best-known love-story of the Middle Ages”, the story of Aeneas and Dido. Reading the inscription that he sees on a brass tablet in the temple, ‘Geffrey’, Chaucer’s dreamer/narrator, recalls the opening lines of the Aeneid:
I wol now say, if I kan,
The armes and also the man
That first came, thorgh his destanee,
Fugityfe of Troy contree,
In Itayle with ful coche pyne,
Unto the strondes of Lavyne… (...