There is surely some irony here: the apparition (is it really Mercury?) makes the famous remark about the untrustworthiness of women in order to persuade Aeneas to disregard the trust which a woman had placed in him. The passage may be more PC than it looks! I'd like to echo David's disagreement with the idea that A is a complete failure with women: on the contrary, he likes and respects them, they (think of Andromache as well as of Dido) like and respect him, he is a sincere and committed lover except when he is caught up in the tragic conflict between amor and pietas. Mercury's sneering 'Uxorius!' (266) is an unpleasant kind of acknowledgement of his commitment to Dido. I can see that Caro may not want to take Creusa's 'o dulcis coniunx' at face value but these words can't be completely misleading, surely. - Martin Hughes
On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Bradford Miller wrote: > of course no discussion about the treatment of women in the Aeneid would > be complete without perhaps the most un-P.C. line of the epic: (which, > coincidentally, is a line within a section taken out by the College Board > on the AP reading list this year) (Mercury to Aeneas) > > " varium et mutabile semper femina." (IV, 569-70) "a woman is always a > changing and fickle thing" > > Brad Miller > Choate Rosemary Hall > Wallingford, CT > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. > Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message > "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You > can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
