Product Description

From the award-winning translator of The Iliad and The Odyssey comes a brilliant new translation of Virgil’s great epic

With his translations of Homer’s classic poems, Robert Fagles gave new life to seminal works of the Western canon and became one of the preeminent translators of our time. His latest achievement completes the magnificent triptych of Western epics. A sweeping story of arms and heroism, The Aeneid follows the adventures of Aeneas, who flees the ashes of Troy to embark upon a tortuous course that brings him to Italy and fulfills his destiny as founder of the Roman people. Retaining all of the gravitas and humanity of the original, this powerful blend of poetry and myth remains as relevant today as when it was first written.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9288 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-29
• Original language: Latin
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780143105138
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Princeton scholar Fagles follows up his celebrated Iliad and Odyssey with a new, fast-moving, readable rendition of the national epic of ancient Rome. Virgil's long-renowned narrative follows the Trojan warrior Aeneas as he carries his family from his besieged, fallen home, stops in Carthage for a doomed love affair, visits the underworld and founds in Italy, through difficult combat, the settlements that will become, first the Roman republic, and then the empire Virgil knew. Recent translators (such as Allen Mandelbaum) put Virgil's meters into English blank verse. Fagles chooses to forgo meter entirely, which lets him stay literal when he wishes, and grow eloquent when he wants: "Aeneas flies ahead, spurring his dark ranks on and storming/ over the open fields like a cloudburst wiping out the sun." A substantial preface from the eminent classicist Bernard Knox discusses Virgil's place in history, while Fagles himself appends a postscript and notes. Scholars still debate whether Virgil supported or critiqued the empire's expansion; Aeneas' story might prompt new reflection now, when Americans are already thinking about international conflict and the unexpected costs of war. (Nov.)
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From The New Yorker
Fagles's new version of Virgil's epic delicately melds the stately rhythms of the original to a contemporary cadence. Having previously produced well-received translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, he illuminates the poem's Homeric echoes while remaining faithful to Virgil's distinctive voice. Pious Aeneas, passionate Dido, and raging Turnus are driven by the desires and rivalries of the gods-but even the gods recognize their obeisance to fate, and to the foretold Roman Empire that will produce Augustus, Virgil's patron. The excellent introduction, by Bernard Knox, gives historical and literary context, and both Knox and Fagles convincingly argue the epic's continuing relevance. Fagles, writing of Virgil's sense of "the price of empire," notes that "it seems to be a price we keep on paying, in the loss of blood and treasure, time-worn faith and hard-won hope, down to the present day."
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Review
“A new and noble standard bearer . . . There’s a capriciousness to Fagles’s line well suited to this vast story’s ebb and flow.”
—The New York Times Book Review (front page review)

“Fagles’s new version of Virgil’s epic delicately melds the stately rhythms of the original to a contemporary cadence. . . . He illuminates the poem’s Homeric echoes while remaining faithful to Virgil’s distinctive voice.”
—The New Yorker

“Robert Fagles gives the full range of Virgil’s drama, grandeur, and pathos in vigorous, supple modern English. It is fitting that one of the great translators of The Iliad and The Odyssey in our times should also emerge as a surpassing translator of The Aeneid.”
—J. M. Coetzee

Customer Reviews

Very readable
There is no such thing as a "best" translation, only translations that suit one's purpose. If you want to read the Aeneid as a gripping story, Fagles's version does very well. I have just finished reading book 4, and Dido's fury, as set against the implacable higher purpose of Aeneas, has perhaps never been as vividly, even scarily, portrayed.

On the other hand, it could be argued that Fagles's verse does not convey the stately or epic quality of the Latin in the way that, for instance, Fitzgerald's does. A short comparison may suffice:

"sed nullis ille mouetur / fletibus aut uoces ullas tractabilis audit; / fata obstant placidasque uiri deus obstruit auris." (Vergil)

"But no tears move Aeneas now. / He is deaf to all appeals. He won't relent. / The Fates bar the way / and heaven blocks his gentle, human ears." (Fagles)

"But no tears moved him, no one's voice would he / Attend to tractably. The fates opposed it; / God's will blocked the man's once kindly ears." (Fitzgerald)

Fitzgerald's version is closer to the Latin (other than not using the present tense), better reflects its formal nature, and achieves a Vergilian metrical effect with the three successive beats of "God's will blocked." But Fagles's free and fluid rendition is undoubtedly more engaging to the modern reader.

Occasionally Fagles does introduce a modern idiom that is trite or jarring. For instance, when the sea-nymph speeds Aeneas's ship on its way in Book 10, she does so skillfully ("haud ignara modi") because she "knows the ropes".

The book has a useful introduction, a few notes, and a pronouncing glossary. Fagles's postscript is, however, a tedious pastiche of quotations from previous critics and could have been omitted.

Mandelbaum is Still the King
I got my first look at Fagles' Aeneid today. My test passage was the death of Turnus. Fagles' work is perfectly good, of course, but that wasn't the point of my looking; I wanted, instead, to see if he had improved on Allen Mandelbaum's masterful version. (I don't want a good English Virgil, I want the best English Virgil.) I'll look microscopically at word choices, but I am not a bean-counter, and the point I'm driving at here has to do with how they read and feel as poetry.

12.940, Latin flectere, Mand. "move," Fagles "sway"; 12.941, Latin infelix, Mand. "luckless," Fagles "fateful"; 12.943, Latin Pallantis pueri, Mand. "of Pallas, of the boy," Fagles "young Pallas"; 12.944, Latin straverat, Mand. "stretched," Fagles I forget exactly, something like laid low, felled, killed, etc.

My judgment on these differences: Fagles' words are diffuse and lose some of Mandelbaum's admirable simplicity and directness. When he chooses to be less literal, it seems he's aiming for polish, which I don't want. No doubt he wants to avoid vulgar overliteralness--he knows that the Romans didn't feel the full specific and literal impact of every verbal stem--but instead of deepening the accuracy through attention to idiom, I feel that his choices intrude just a bit too much stuffiness between me and Virgil. Mandelbaum is passionate, his Virgil's pathos unmistakably aimed at the English reader's heart (much like his Dante). Fagles is refined, but without the crisp focus refinement needs. Mandelbaum writes a noble and sober American English that is literary in all of the good senses but none of the bad.

I'll be the first to admit that these are quick and irrational prejudices speaking. I enjoy reading Homer in Greek and Virgil in Latin, and I enjoy reading these epics in English. I will say that Fagles' Virgil is way better than his Homer, where he seizes on every stately epithet and falsely tries to wring dramatic significance out of it (I prefer Lattimore: let Homer speak for himself in his own language). But I beg you, even if you loved Fagles' Homer, check out Mandelbaum's Virgil, because you may not know what you're missing.

Bottom line: Anyone who thought Fitzgerald was better than Mandelbaum should give Fagles a good look, because these two versions do rival each other. But no one who appreciated what Mandelbaum achieved beyond Fitzgerald will find any reason to abandon Mandelbaum here.

Fagles and Knox do it again.
A great new translation. Hold onto your copy of Fitzgerald, but don't hesitate to check out this new edition. This will be my go-to copy of The Aeneid. The book has a useful map, an informative forward, and a handy glossary and list of names. It also goes a long way towards capturing the timelessness of Virgil's poem. Simply put, I enjoyed it immensely and would recommend it to any reader. If you have never read Virgil (or Homer), then you need look no further for an illuminating, essential translation.