4—
Subjectivity
The process described above is perfectly compatible with a completely objective
stance on the part of the poet: he leads us into the emotions of his characters without
forcing his own upon us. This objective stance, which was strictly observed in
Homer almost without exception, was also consciously adopted in the earlier Hel-
lenistic epic, as far as I can see; it is very noticeable how completely Theocritus, for
example, effaces himself when narrating, in the Hylas , Heracliscus [young Her-
akles], and Castor and Pollux ; even there, in the hymn form, the poet himself does
not speak except infrequently when he addresses the person celebrated; it is hardly
any different in the narratives of the Callimachean hymns; it is true that Apollonius
sometimes steps out in front of the curtain in his rôle as singer; but he very rarely
allows himself to utter his own opinions or sentiments, or reveal his reaction as a
human being to human events.[12] In the only two poems which can give us any idea
371 of the style of the Roman Neoterics (and of the tendency of the Greek poetry of the
time and just before) – Catullus' Ariadne (poem 64) and the Ciris – the situation is
completely different: the narrator pities his heroine, is horrified and worried when
he imagines her sorrows, wishes she had not done this or that, tries to excuse her: in
short, he displays how touched he is by the story which he has to tell, and takes care
that we do not forget him while listening to the story. Virgil has avoided this excited
manner from the start, in the Aristaeus epyllion of his Georgics , where he puts only
occasional indications of his own feelings into the mouth of the narrator Proteus. In
the Aeneid he consciously strives for the same objectivity; but he seems to have
experienced some difficulty in adhering to it. It is significant that the tale of Dido,
which is closest to the nature of Hellenistic art, also contains the greatest number of
infringements of this rule: one example, strictly speaking, is the repetition of infelix
[unhappy][13] and misera [unfortunate], which anticipates further extensions: pesti
devota futurae (1.712) [condemned now to sure destruction], ille dies primus leti
primusque malorum causa fuit (4.169) [on that day were sown the seeds of destruc-
tion and death]; we have, completely in Neoteric style, the exclamation heu vatum
ignarae mentes (65) [how pitifully weak is the prescience of seers]; there are begin-
nings of comments about love: improbe amor , quid non mortalia pectora cogis
(412) [merciless love, is there any length to which you cannot force the human heart
to go?] (this is a very abbreviated reproduction of Apollonius' apostrophe men-
tioned above); quis fallere possit amantem? (296) [who can deceive a lover?]; and
the sympathetic words addressed to Dido quis tibi tum , Dido , cernenti talia sensu?
(408) [what must have been your thoughts, Dido, when you saw all this?].
Other parts of the story are not completely free of such things; but in general the
poet is consistent in suppressing his own feelings, restricting himself as far as
possible to the few occasions where Homer permitted a subjective utterance. When
Patroclus has begged Achilles to send him into battle, the poet cannot refrain from
alluding regretfully to the consequences (2.46): 'So he spoke, pleading, the ignorant
fool: he should have asked straight out for his own death and destruction.' Virgil is
more elaborate, after Turnus has killed Pallas and taken his spoils (10.501): 'Men
372 are truly ignorant of their fate and of the future, and when they are raised up by good
fortune they lose hold of moderation! The time will come for Turnus when he would
give a great deal for Pallas to be unharmed, and he will live to curse these spoils and
this day!' This example is unique, as is the one in Homer, and can therefore be
recognized as a conscious imitation of it. In other places where Virgil feels that he
must speak, he uses a different form. After the death of Nisus and Euryalus he
breaks out with the cry 'You fortunate pair![14] If there is any power in my song, the
day will never come which strikes you from human memory, as long as the sons of
Aeneas live around the immovable rock of the Capitol' (9.446). Lausus' sacrifice for
his father is announced by the poet (10.791): 'Now I will sing of your heroic death,
and of you, unforgettable youth.' In both these examples the poet is speaking as
himself; they are generically similar to the phrases which were used in the cata-
logue, although these had no particular moral: nec tu carminibus nostris indictus
abibis (7.733) [nor will you go without mention in my song] and non ego te ,
Ligurum ductor fortissime bello , transierim (10.185) [I am not one to pass you over,
valiant war-leader of Ligurians], and these, again, are echoes of the formulae of the
proem, as in arma virumque cano [this is a tale of arms and of a man] or dicam
horrida bella (7.41) [I shall tell of a ghastly war], and the latter is also linked with
the Homeric appeal to the Muses: 
[Sing, o Muse, of the
man] and 
[I sing of Ilium] are thus the germs of that insertion of a
'parabasis' for the development of which Homer himself had shown the way when
he inserted a second proem before the Catalogue and spoke in it about himself and
his relationship to his material.[15]
There is also another way in which Homer could provide at least the excuse to
deviate from strict 'objectivity'. With the famous phrase 
[the
sort of men who live today] he draws a contrast between himself and his own time
and the narrated past; like a lightning flash this one phrase illuminates the vast
chasm which separates him from that past, since one might otherwise think that his
373 story was set in recent times. The learned epic-writers of the Hellenistic period are
never tempted to produce this illusion and never try to make us forget how long ago
it all happened; that is why Apollonius, for example, in his periegetic sections,
continually breaks the illusion that we are 'living' the story by mentioning later
occurrences, or pointing out the survival of a custom, a foundation or a monument.
The poet of the 
must have regarded this as stylistically offensive; he wisely
decided against the epic form for his own work linking present and past. Virgil does
not go anything like as far as Apollonius; in most cases he is content to let the reader
work out for himself the connections between the story and the present time,[16] but in
the case of genealogical information, for example,[17] or in order to identify localities,
he often mentions later situations: locos qui post Albae de nomine dicti Albani
(9.387) [the spot later called Alban after Alba Longa] and a summo qui nunc
Albanus habetur tumulo (12.134) [from a high crest, a hill known now as Alban];
and so in Aeneas' visit to the site of Rome: Carmentalem Romani nomine portam
quam memorant [the gate which Romans call the Carmental gate]; lucum quem
Romulus acer asylum rettulit [a wood which the forceful Romulus was to adopt as
his sanctuary]; Romano foro [Roman Forum] (8.338, 342, 361)[18] and the thought of
what will rise from these humble beginnings fills him with such excitement that he
lets himself be carried away to speak of the splendid present day (99, 397). Other-
wise, there are only two mentions of the survival of old customs to his own time: at
the lusus Troiae (5.596ff.) and at the solemn declaration of war (7.601ff.): we know
that both were particularly closely connected with Augustus' archaistic nationalism:
thus here Virgil has sacrificed his artistic principles for political considerations.
However, it is obvious that Virgil has allowed this restriction to affect only the form;
in reality Virgil regards prophecy as an opportunity to draw rich material from the
history of recent times down to the present day.
374