It might be helpful, before turning to the Aeneid, to consider the
earlier poems. Eclogue VIII (following Theocritus Id. 2) where women
are attributed some kind of magical power, is an important starting point.
It is perhaps significant that the witch draws her lover Daphnis 'ab
urbe', from the
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
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
