9—
Intrusion of a Second Action
There is a very frequent variant of what we have just discussed: one action is
interrupted by another of which the early stages are contemporaneous with the stage
we have reached in the first. The poet has a choice of procedure here. He can
proceed with his narrative until the second action starts, and then insert a recapitula-
383 tory explanation. The disadvantage here is that the action is interrupted while past
matters are caught up with, almost like a footnote. Moreover, the additional material
has to be told in the pluperfect; the composition easily gets out of hand; recapitula-
tion always reports instead of describing, and the visual aspect is lost. Virgil
preferred the alternative: he abandons the first action, switches to the second, and
continues to narrate this to the point where it joins with the first. Thus here the
continuity of the narrative is broken, and the break is usually covered only with an
interea [meanwhile] or suchlike; but there would have been a break in any case,
even with the recapitulatory method, and making a new start has the advantage that
the narrative still moves forward; the listener is not kept waiting in one place while
an explanation describes things which are past and gone. An example is the Nisus
narrative: we leave Nisus and Euryalus on their way to the king's tent (9.223); here
the narrator breaks off and makes an emphatic new start: 'all creation lay in deep
sleep and forgot their troubles and cares; but the leaders of the Trojans were holding
a council of war etc.: then Nisus and Euryalus asked for an audience.' Similarly
further on (366); instead of narrating how the pair suddenly hear and see in the
distance enemy horsemen approaching, and then inserting the explanation: 'it was
three hundred Latin horsemen, who were under Volcens' leadership and supporting
Turnus' etc. – instead of explaining and recapitulating like this and then returning to
the two Trojans, the poet breaks off and narrates: 'Meanwhile there rode to Turnus'
camp from Laurentum three hundred etc.; they caught sight of the two, called to
them and, receiving no answer, divided up to cut off their retreat'; in this way he
returns to the fleeing pair in an unforced way.
This process is necessary particularly often in the scenes featuring gods which
precede their intervention in the action. It is never reported that this and that hap-
pened because in Olympus such and such a decision was made; it is always done by
making a fresh start. Thus, for example, at 1.656 we do not accompany Achates to
the camp and to Ascanius, only to hear that this was not the real Ascanius but Amor,
whom his mother had asked to act as love's messenger; no, we leave Achates on the
384 way and then visit Olympus for the scene which explains the basis for what follows,
iamque ibat Cupido (695) [now Cupid was on his way].[25]
When the poet decides in such cases to abandon one action and start afresh,
instead of interrupting the action with a recapitulation, then the precondition men-
tioned at the beginning must be fulfilled (and this is also true of the transitions
discussed in the previous section), if we are not to feel that abandoning the first
action creates a violent and arbitrary break: the action has to be brought to a point
where we can see how it will develop, i.e. it must have reached a stage where it will
continue in a balanced way, or develop in a predictable way.[26] Virgil does this
nearly every time. We have seen in our analysis of the battle-scenes, where the
nature of the subject requires frequent changes of standpoint, that Virgil always
takes care to lead the action on the one side to at least a temporary conclusion before
he switches to the description of what is happening simultaneously on the other side.
This is true in every case of a transition from one action to another. In our final
passage for discussion, three actions interweave: the preparations for the banquet in
Carthage: at 1.637ff. they are described as an action proceeding on an even tenor;
then Achates is sent off: we abandon him (656) on his way, iter ad navis tendebat
[he made his way to the ships], and can thus turn our attention to the third action, the
conversation between Venus and Amor. Some further examples: we could not leave
the Games in Book 5 without breaking into an action which is fast, changing and
385 unstoppable: the lusus Troiae , which unrolls peacefully, with no result expected,
provides the suitable moment at which to move over to the Trojan women and the
appearance of Iris. Before the solemn oath-swearing in Book 12 we see the two
peoples advance and take up positions, waiting for the kings: that is the moment
when we can conveniently leave them and listen to the conversation between Juno
and Juturna (134-60). In Book 11, Diana's revenge wrought by Opis on Arruns
should follow immediately on his deed and flight (815), or at least on the news of
Camilla's death (831), but in both cases the action would have been badly inter-
rupted, for the reader wants to know the result of Arruns' shot, and also what effect
Camilla's death had on the course of the battle; Virgil therefore continues with the
main action until a static situation ( crudescit pugna [833] [the battle hardened],
incurrunt [834] [they charge] etc.) permits a quick shift to another place. The scene
between Jupiter and Venus in Book 1 has borrowed its motif from Naevius, if what
Macrobius (6.2) says is true, that Naevius has Venus bewailing her sorrows to
Jupiter during the storm, and being comforted by him. For the plot, this timing is
completely justified, but technically it was unacceptable to Virgil, since he already had
the gods acting during the tempest and could not interrupt again so soon: our interest has
been captured by Aeneas and his men and we want to hear more about them. The scene
with the gods is therefore inserted when the action on earth has reached a point of rest
with everybody asleep; Virgil does not recapitulate ('While Aeneas was in deadly
danger, Venus had turned to Jupiter') but carries the narrative forward, so that we have
to imagine the conversation as taking place by night. It is also in the night, in Book 4, the
night that precedes the fateful hunting expedition, that Juno and Venus forge their plan
(ubi primos crastinus ortus extulerit Titan [118] [as soon as tomorrow's sun rises at
dawn], Oceanum interea surgens Aurora reliquit [129] [meanwhile Aurora rose and left
the ocean]). The night setting has a better motivation in Book 8, the scene between
Venus and Vulcan when everything is at rest; that is also the time when the heavenly
couple meet in the marriage-bed. In all these examples and countless similar ones,
Virgil achieves the added advantage of absolute continuity in the narrative, since it
386 has no gaps even in the nights.[27]
This rule is infringed only once: with the conversation between Juno and Jupiter
during the duel between Aeneas and Turnus (12.791-842). The first two bouts are
over, the combatants stand ready for the third, which is to be the decisive one: then,
at this moment of greatest tension, where if a stable situation has been reached it can
only last for a few moments, we have to leave the scene to follow the poet to the
gods. Virgil's intention is certainly not to create a 'cliff-hanger'; that would go
against his artistic principles: it is just that here these have to take second place to
practical considerations, as explained above p. 179f. Since this case is unique, and
there were exceptional reasons for breaking the rule, the rule itself holds good.