Aeneas Searches for his Lost Wife
For me, one of the most poignant moments in literature is in the second book of the Aeneid, when Aeneas is desperately searching for his wife on the streets of burning Troy.
Troy has fallen. Hector, the late son of King Priam, appears to Aeneas to tell him to get out: “Hostis habet muros,” the enemy holds the walls, Troy has fallen from its great height. Aeneas’s reaction is to fight, not to flee, but he can’t prevent the inevitable. All he accomplishes is to witness the death of Priam by the hand of Achilles’s brutal son Pyrrhus, who had killed Priam’s son in front of the beaten King. Ultimately, the pleading of his wife and a sign from heaven convince Aeneas of what he must do. He carries his aging father Anchises and the penates, or household gods, and holds his young son Ascanius at his side. He tells Creusa, his wife, to follow, and they flee the city together. Except that when they get to the gates, Aeneas notices that Creusa is no longer with them.
The city is burning. The Greeks are rounding up and killing the remaining Trojans. Yet Aeneas cannot leave his dear wife behind. He leaves his father and his son at the temple of Ceres and returns to the flame-engulfed city, where he runs through the streets like a suicidal madman, crying out his wife’s name in desperation. His search is interrupted by Creusa’s ghost, whose speech foretells his future and asks him to take care of their son:
‘Quid tantum insano juvat indulgere dolori,
O dulcis conjunx? Non haec sine numine divum
Eveniunt; nec te comitem hinc portare Creusam
Fas aut ille sinit superi regnator Olympi.
Longa tibi exilia, et vastum maris aequor arandum;
Et terram Hesperiam venies, ubi Lydius arva
Inter opima virum leni fluit agmine Thybris.
Illic res laetae regnumque et regia conjunx
Parta tibi. Lacrimas dilectae pelle Creusae:
Non ego Myrmidonum sedes Dolopumve superbas
Aspiciam aut Grais servitum matribus ibo,
Dardanis et divae Veneris nurus;
Sed me magna deum genetrix his detinet oris.
Jamque vale et nati serva communis amorem.’
I am incompetent to render Vergil into English, and perhaps nobody could do him justice, but I turn to 17th century poet John Dryden for the following remarkable attempt. Nonetheless, it is worth learning Latin for this and many other literary treasures of Western civilization, for “nec te comitem hinc portare Creusam fas aut ille sinit superi regnator Olympi,” which emphasizes Aeneas’s loss of poor Creusa’s company, hurts so sweetly in a way that doesn’t quite come through in “My fates permit me not from hence to fly; Nor he, the great controller of the sky.”
‘Nor tears, nor cries, can give the dead relief.
Desist, my much-lov’d lord,’t indulge your pain;
You bear no more than what the gods ordain.
My fates permit me not from hence to fly;
Nor he, the great controller of the sky.
Long wand’ring ways for you the pow’rs decree;
On land hard labors, and a length of sea.
Then, after many painful years are past,
On Latium’s happy shore you shall be cast,
Where gentle Tiber from his bed beholds
The flow’ry meadows, and the feeding folds.
There end your toils; and there your fates provide
A quiet kingdom, and a royal bride:
There fortune shall the Trojan line restore,
And you for lost Creusa weep no more.
Fear not that I shall watch, with servile shame,
Th’ imperious looks of some proud Grecian dame;
Or, stooping to the victor’s lust, disgrace
My goddess mother, or my royal race.
And now, farewell! The parent of the gods
Restrains my fleeting soul in her abodes:
I trust our common issue to your care.’
Upon hearing this, Aeneas thrice attempted to embrace his ghost-wife, but to no avail; her image faded from view.