{"id":116,"date":"2017-05-17T14:37:16","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T14:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/?p=116"},"modified":"2018-05-17T15:31:30","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T15:31:30","slug":"reading-vergil-misenus-the-trumpeter-aeneid-6-156-164","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/2017\/05\/17\/reading-vergil-misenus-the-trumpeter-aeneid-6-156-164\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast: Misenus the Trumpeter (Aeneid 6.156-164)"},"content":{"rendered":"

William Boyes discusses the character of Misenus in Vergil’s Aeneid.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Capo Miseno (source: it.wikipedia.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Most people aim to leave a mark on this world before they leave it, whether in the form of having children, or in their career, or contribution to some social movement. But very few can\u00a0hope for an entire location named after us post mortem<\/em>. We count among these famous few some of the most influential and important members of society to date: George Washington, Saint Francis, Milton Hershey. Nowadays you have to be a titan of industry, lead a revolution, or effect major social change to get your own hill or street. But Vergil’s\u00a0Italy, all you had to do it seemed was just die near Aeneas.<\/p>\n

The Aeneid succeeds on its own terms as a\u00a0beautifully composed epic in Latin, but it also provides explanations for the state of many things in the Roman world. \u00a0Vergil knits together local myths and historical accounts in a wat\u00a0that gives parts the Italian peninsula itself a kind of legendary gravity. For example, Aeneas\u2019s helmsman Palinurus and his nurse Caieta both give names to capes and peninsulas in Italy.<\/p>\n

One such venerated companion of Aeneas was his trumpeter Misenus, whose name adorns a cape in Italy to this day, now\u00a0Capo Miseno. The Sibyl first tells Aeneas of Misenus\u2019s death, and then Aeneas finds and buries his body in order to enter the underworld. The most interesting part of this section of about 100 lines to me was the section describing Misenus in life, and detailing the circumstances of Aeneas finding his body and then his death:<\/p>\n

Aen\u0113\u0101s maest\u014d d\u0113f\u012bxus l\u016bmina vult\u016b
\ningreditur linqu\u0113ns antrum, caec\u014dsque vol\u016btat
\n\u0113vent\u016bs anim\u014d s\u0113cum. Cui f\u012bdus Ach\u0101t\u0113s
\nit comes et paribus c\u016br\u012bs v\u0113st\u012bgia f\u012bgit.
\nMulta inter s\u0113s\u0113 vari\u014d serm\u014dne ser\u0113bant, \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0160
\nquem socium exanimum v\u0101t\u0113s, quod corpus humandum
\nd\u012bceret. Atque ill\u012b M\u012bs\u0113num in l\u012btore sicc\u014d,
\nut v\u0113n\u0113re, vident indign\u0101 morte per\u0113mptum,
\nM\u012bs\u0113num Aeolid\u0113n, qu\u014d n\u014dn praestantior alter
\naere ci\u0113re vir\u014ds M\u0101rtemque accendere cant\u016b. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0165
\nHectoris hic magn\u012b fuerat comes, Hectora circum
\net litu\u014d pugn\u0101s \u012bnsignis ob\u012bbat et hast\u0101.
\npostquam illum v\u012bt\u0101 victor spoli\u0101vit Achill\u0113s,
\nDardani\u014d Aen\u0113ae s\u0113s\u0113 fortissimus h\u0113r\u014ds
\naddiderat socium, n\u014dn \u012bnferi\u014dra sec\u016btus. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0170
\nSed tum, forte cav\u0101 dum personat aequora conch\u0101,
\nd\u0113m\u0113ns, et cant\u016b vocat in cert\u0101mina d\u012bv\u014ds,
\naemulus exceptum Tr\u012bt\u014dn, s\u012b cr\u0113dere dignum est,
\ninter saxa virum sp\u016bm\u014ds\u0101 immerserat und\u0101.<\/p>\n

\u00a0My translation of this passage is as follows:<\/p>\n

Leaving the cavern, Aeneas walked with his eyes cast downward, his face sorrowful, pondering these strange dark events in his mind. Trusty Achates went with him as a comrade and locked with his captain both his step and his thought. They spoke about many different topics among themselves, what dead comrade did the princess mean? Whose body was left to be buried? When they came to the beach, they saw Misenus on the dry sand, dead, cutoff by a death all undeserved. Misenus, son of Aeolus, than whom no one was more outstanding at rousing men and in igniting the war god with his bronze trumpet. He had been the companion of great Hector. Around Hector Misenus met battles. He was distinguished with both war-horn and spear. After victorious Achilles stripped Hector of life, the very brave hero had come into the company of Dardanian Aeneas, then following a leader no worse than he had before. But then, while he happened to be playing his conch, making the seas resound loudly with his music- the fool- he called the gods into competition with his song and, if the story is to be believed, envious Triton snatched him up and drowned the man in the frothy waves among the rocks.<\/p>\n

This passage is packed with information about Misenus, filling in his backstory from before the Trojan War up until his death. We learn he is a tested fighter, but he is mostly a hype guy for great heroes like Hector and Aeneas, and he is great because he himself is in the company of great men. This point is emphasized by the repetition of Hector\u2019s name, in addition to the names of other great men like Achilles and Aeneas, in line 166. Misenus was described as \u201cvery brave\u201d and \u201coutstanding at rousing men\u201d to war\u2014then later a close companion of Aeneas. Vergil also makes a point to paint the image of Misenus with great liveliness and youth, to make his death that much more tragic. Vergil\u2019s main objective throughout the Aeneid<\/em>, but especially in the little vignettes he sprinkles throughout the work, is to throw the reader into the emotional turmoil his own characters feel on their journey. In a different part of the Aeneid<\/em>, Vergil subjects us to Priam\u2019s gruesome and tragic death at the hands of Neoptolemus. This scene is particularly emotional because it involves old Priam being ripped from his family, still trembling under the weight of his old armor, and run through with a sword in a pool of his young son\u2019s own blood. Compare these episodes also to Aeneas\u2019s painful and protracted relational fight with Dido about leaving Carthage. Dido begs and pleads and clings to Aeneas hard as a lover should, but to no avail. She kills herself shortly after Aeneas leaves, in pain so great that nothing but death could relieve her. Each anecdote achieves the same end, in different ways: Vergil brings us a difficult and complex human experience we all find ourselves relating to in some way or another. The gods, as the ultimate arbiters of our fates, are seen as cruel and even shallow by the text\u2014it seems completely unnecessary for a powerful sea god like Triton to snuff out a young, vibrant soul such as Misenus\u2019s, just for playing a conch shell. The emphasis in this element is on the randomness of life\u2019s misery. His name is repeated at lines 162, then 164 to heighten the emotional effect on Aeneas and Achates\u2014and the reader. This technique is common in poetry, as in the line from Robert Frost: \u201cPossessing what we were still unpossessed by, Possessed by what we now no more Possessed\u201d (from \u201cThe Gift Outright<\/a>\u201d).<\/p>\n

Misenus\u2019s value and purity in the world remind the reader of the cruelty the fates seem to spin for each of us, and even can be framed in reference to the sacrifices made in war or any great undertaking. One scholar (McKay) suggests that Misenus, along with the unfortunate helmsman Palinurus, are consumed by the \u201cdestiny that embraces Aeneas and Ascanius\u201d as \u201cquasi-sacrificial victims.\u201d To achieve anything so great as the Roman Empire, sacrifices such as Misenus dying must be made. Another scholar (Dinter) likens Misenus to old Trojan glory lost and soon to be re-established. Misenus helps to bridge two continents, going from being very much involved with the old Trojan way, as Hector\u2019s loyal trumpeter, to dying and being buried on Italian soil. He, like the Trojan identity he represents, must be disintegrated and sown into Italian ground, for Roman crop to arise. He even holds a place in both Phrygian myth and Roman history.<\/p>\n

Minor Heroes like Misenus exist in literature to enhance and move the stories of greater epic heroes like Aeneas, even if that means their sacrifice. However, I wonder whether the ancients meant to comment on the irrelevance or auxiliary nature of some people\u2019s lives? Do the fates require sacrifice of some to ensure the glory of others, even now? Has destiny confined many of us to live only in the shadows of great men and women? Vergil doesn\u2019t seem to give us an optimistic answer. This hard truth would certainly fit with his lessons in life\u2019s many hardships.<\/p>\n

References:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dinter, M. \u201cEpic and Epigram: Minor Heroes in Vergil\u2019s Aeneid<\/em>.\u201d Classical Quarterly<\/em> 55 (2005): 153\u2013169.<\/p>\n

McKay, A. G. \u201cVergilian Heroes and Toponymy. Palinurus and Misenus.\u201d In H.D. Evjen, ed., Mnemai. Classical studies in memory of Karl K. Hulley<\/em> (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1984), 121\u2013137.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William Boyes discusses the character of Misenus in Vergil’s Aeneid.     Most people aim to leave a mark on this world before they leave it, whether in the form of having children, or in their career, or contribution to some social movement. But very few can\u00a0hope for an entire location named after us post … Continue reading Podcast: Misenus the Trumpeter (Aeneid 6.156-164)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2573,138297],"tags":[5514,138304,5513,138303],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcasts","category-reading-vergil","tag-aeneid","tag-misenus","tag-vergil","tag-william-boyes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}