artsykat
Junior Member
Hello, I'm Kateri, nice to meet you~!
Posts: 51 
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Post by artsykat on Sept 21, 2016 23:57:04 GMT
The ending stood out to me. Aeneas was going to show mercy to Turnus, then remembering Pallas' death, decides to kill him. I find Aeneas to be an interesting character, he has an odd seance of "mercy" and "justice". An example of that is found when during the battle, some Trojan soldiers beg for mercy, but out of rage, Aeneas slaughters them.
Yet they take a pause from the war to bury their dead, and Aeneas sees to it that the dead, on their side and the enemy's, is buried properly. He does this so that the souls will not wonder for eternity down in the underworld. I think Aeneas is a slightly unbalanced character, and I'm not sure if Virgil did this on purpose, to show that going through two wars, the underworld, and a crazy amount of travailing will change someone in that way.
Contrary to Homer's Odysseus though. Odysseys was pretty leveled minded through out the whole poem, despite what he went through. So I guess in the end, revenge conquers mercy. This goes along with how the gods think. We see this as well in The Iliad and The Odyssey.
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Post by Dominique Martin on Sept 22, 2016 22:19:11 GMT
I think that is a good point. That in the beginning he is kind, but after all his trials he grows faint of heart and vengeful. Definitely not a great role model. I suppose in this case revenge does conquer mercy. But at least love remains constant and truth in the end can be recognized.
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Post by Christopher Martin on Sept 23, 2016 13:06:55 GMT
Nope, not gonna let you abandon this great point so quickly!  We need to figure out the WHY! What, for example, set's Aeneas off into his blood rage? Further (hint hint!) is it related to his other major instance of mercilessness (when he kills Turnus)? One can be merciful while selectively showing no mercy . . . some would say that the merciful man is also wise enough to know when he should not be merciful. So, again, let's try to figure out WHY Aeneas sometimes shows no mercy. |
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Post by Dominique Martin on Sept 23, 2016 13:53:37 GMT
I suppose that Aeneas had no reason to trust the two Latins. How was he to know that they wouldn't just jump up and stab him in the back? Or kill more of his friends? And maybe, had he not killed them, they would've been had to endure a far more painful and gruesome death. Was it possibly, unknowingly, an act of mercy? Agh! The brain game!
As for Turnus' death. Aeneas was originally going to mercy, until he saw Turnus' trophy of Pallas' death. It wasn't that Turnus' killed Pallas, Turnus killed a lot of people, it was the he boasted about it. He was wearing a trophy showing that he was proud of his kill. Aeneas' rage at this is quite understandable.
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Post by Christopher Martin on Sept 23, 2016 14:03:21 GMT
What do you think Kat?
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artsykat
Junior Member
Hello, I'm Kateri, nice to meet you~!
Posts: 51
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Post by artsykat on Sept 23, 2016 17:52:23 GMT
Ho boy, I think Dominique just proved an excellent point. I guess we need to look at it from his point of perspective. Aeneas is a great warrior, second to Hector, and pretty much has his whole life planed out.
In both instances the soldiers and Turnes were begging for their lives. There is a sense of shame in this scene and yet no shame at all. I mean if you're like "please spare me I want to live and I really don't care that I killed a bunch of your friends and boasted about it" it's understandable in Aeneas' eyes as to the why he killed them.
They were the ones with no shame, yet they did things to hurt Aeneas. And Aeneas would feel shameful if he had not killed them. He needed to avenge his friends and comrades. This notion of avenging seems to be quite important in the Greek/Roman world.
The justice in this was for Aeneas' fallen comrades. The mercy could have been for the soldiers in the sense that, like Dominique said, the would have had a worse fate. Or to save them from their own scandal, which was shown when they begged for their lives. I feel like that's a bit of a stretch though...
Also, why did Virgil even tell us about Aeneas killing the soldiers? To show the sense of mercy and justice in Aeneas'eyes?
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Post by Christopher Martin on Sept 25, 2016 16:56:23 GMT
Excellent job digging, but let's not miss the character development here:
When Aeneas goes to visit king Evander, his entire court remarks on Aeneas' piety. Indeed, it's a recurring theme throughout the text: Aeneas knows how to act properly in the face of gods and men. So when Aeneas returns to Evander to break the bad news to him ("Hey, your son? The one who's life you entrusted to me? Yea, well, I failed to protect him. He's dead."), Evander is crushed but not at all angry at Aeneas. He knows it wasn't for lack of trying that Aeneas didn't keep Pallas alive, and thus doesn't ask for Aeneas to make amends. Rather, he asks only for a favor: to kill Turnus, the one who killed Pallas.
So really, we can look at Turnus' death as Aeneas being both merciful AND honorable: he wanted to spare Turnus' life, but changed his mind when he saw Turnus wearing Pallas' belt and was reminded of the promise he made to Evander.
I'll emphasize that the responses ya'll gave me weren't wrong (in fact, those are valid points and would probably do well on an exam), but it is important to explore as many facets of the story as we can . . . it's rare that there is only one possible interpretation, or only one possible right answer. Good work!
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We need to figure out the WHY! What, for example, set's Aeneas off into his blood rage? Further (hint hint!) is it related to his other major instance of mercilessness (when he kills Turnus)? One can be merciful while selectively showing no mercy . . . some would say that the merciful man is also wise enough to know when he should not be merciful. So, again, let's try to figure out WHY Aeneas sometimes shows no mercy.