In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes
>i recently asked a question pertaining to the shield that Venus, Aeneas'
>mother, brings to him as a gift. (End of Book 8) On the shield were pictures
>that depicted scenes from future glories of rome. i got some good responses
>to my question about what parallels there are in the epic to this scene ( i
>woulnd't mind if anyone still has some responses to that!) but i wanted also
>to ask about Aeneas' reaction when receiving the shield. what does his
>reaction say about him?
>In the Mandelbaum translation... it says that "he is glad for all these
>images, though he does not know what they mean." Why is he glad for the
>images? Well, it would be great to get some responses to this.. because i'm a
>bit confused. thanks!!!
M. W. Hughes's posting of 12 November in reply to Jon Hunt deals with
this question, and cites the original Latin. I must admit that if I had
to interpret 'glad for these images' without knowing what it translated,
I should be in some puzzlement: in my English of southern England, at
any rate, one is glad for someone one wishes well who has met with
success or good fortune ('I'm glad for you' expresses personal feeling,
whereas 'Congratulations!' need be no more than social convention even
if I hate his guts and wanted the job myself), but one is glad of
something one has that proves, perhaps unexpectedly, to be useful, like
a coat on a day that starts warm but turns cold. (One may also say 'I'm
glad of it', where 'it' is a fact, without reference to utility; but
that does not help us here.) Therefore, either American usage is
different, or Mandelbaum's translation is bad. In the next clause he has
made a valiant attempt to translate 'rerum . . . ignarus' idiomatically,
but has lost the Platonic (or anti-Platonic) implication. One might
render in eighteenth-century English
Joys in the _Image_, knowing not the _Things_
but only with eighteenth-century typography; level it down to
Joys in the image, knowing not the things
and it goes in one eye and comes out the other. (A point perhaps
relevant to discussions of Dryden's Vergil and Pope's Homer.)
Leofranc Holford-Strevens
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Leofranc Holford-Strevens
67 St Bernard's Road usque adeone
Oxford scire MEVM nihil est, nisi ME scire hoc sciat alter?
OX2 6EJ
tel. +44 (0)1865 552808(home)/267865(work) fax +44 (0)1865 512237
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (home) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work)
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