"just whose side was Virgil on?"

October 16, 2018 5:14 AM

Since the end of the first century A.D., people have been playing a game with a certain book. In this game, you open the book to a random spot and place your finger on the text; the passage you select will, it is thought, predict your future. If this sounds silly, the results suggest otherwise. The first person known to have played the game was a highborn Roman who was fretting about whether he’d be chosen to follow his cousin, the emperor Trajan, on the throne

—Is the Aeneid a Celebration of Empire—or a Critique? by Daniel Mendelsohn. You can inquire about the future from the Aeneid on the Sortes Virgilianae website (English, Latin).
posted by Kattullus (29 comments total)

Eponypropriate.
posted by Fizz at 5:20 AM on October 16, 2018 [10 favorites]

"Within, the Fiend of Discord, high reclined"?
posted by cardamon at 5:46 AM on October 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Would the online version of this be just scrolling and randomly touching the screen?

“In sleep I saw her; she supplied my hands”

posted by Fizz at 5:55 AM on October 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

Ah, Sortes Virgilianae! I learned about this in college and have used it to make many decisions since, both important and unimportant. I usually use a M-W dictionary, though, because I don't have a good, floppy copy of the Aeneid. When I'm out of the house, I used the Oblique Strategies app.

Honestly, I think this is the first time I've ever said this out loud. I never talk about it because it sounds so eccentric.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 5:57 AM on October 16, 2018 [15 favorites]

Fizz, I too, seemingly stand in need of a hand:

"Arms! bring his arms! Why stand ye thus afraid?"
Iapis cries, and, foremost to upbraid,
Inflames them to the fight. "No hand of mine,

How are you doing for arms?
posted by taz at 6:11 AM on October 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

I asked how my class would go today:

Down on the midst, where thickest press the foe,
The Teucrians, rolling, with a crash let go
A ponderous mass, that opens to the light

Hoping for more opening to the light than ponderous masses, but will report back.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:19 AM on October 16, 2018 [12 favorites]

He saw a comely youth, in bright array
Of glittering arms; yet downcast was his eye,
Joyless and damp his face; "O father, say,

Lost little boy, obviously, up in arms to defend the crumbling patriarchy, looking dejected, because in his heart he knows the cause is lost, asking for guidance.

The image evokes pity, but I really don't know what to do with it. He's adressing his father, he won't want to hear from me.
posted by sohalt at 6:23 AM on October 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

"Lo, here--'tis here, the battle ye demand

I am no longer feeling optimistic about today's visit from the washing machine repairman.
posted by ALeaflikeStructure at 7:12 AM on October 16, 2018 [20 favorites]

The Latin sortes got me "dona recognoscit populorum aptatque superbis", that is,

"He checks out the gifts of the peoples (i.e. nations) and hangs them on the proud -"

Proud what? Postibus, pillars or portals.

Only the program does single lines only and left out that most crucial word.

The site needs work.

(Plus which, that's even less useful to me than today's horoscope: "Some of the things that were important to you yesterday won’t seem so important to you today and come tomorrow you probably won’t care about them in the slightest."

So true.)
posted by BWA at 7:19 AM on October 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

There's another Sortes Vergilianae website out there (of course) which is latin-focused and if you click the line it gives you the full context.
posted by Kattullus at 7:26 AM on October 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

We're having our furnace replaced right now and

"To tarry. Bid him winter's storms beware;"

Well, crap.
posted by Foosnark at 7:54 AM on October 16, 2018 [7 favorites]

I'll have to try this random page thing when I get back to my copy of the Aeneid.

Meanwhile, I'll just say that I always felt pretty bad for Dido. Is Aeneas fleeing Carthage the first known reference to "ghosting" in literature?

Also, my Latin teacher for the Aeneid always insisted that the bit where the Trojans land in Libya and then set out a feast on edible plates was a reference to pizza. Not strictly true, obviously, but it's amusing to picture.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:20 AM on October 16, 2018 [6 favorites]

In the same way Turnus shouldn't have been killed, the Black Panther should have found a way to spare Killmonger.

Black Panther = modern Aeneid.
posted by Groundhog Week at 8:21 AM on October 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

that the bit where the Trojans land in Libya and then set out a feast on edible plates was a reference to pizza.

Please tell me your Latin teacher used this as an excuse to justify throwing a pizza party, cuz come on!!
posted by Fizz at 8:22 AM on October 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

Warm milk in bowls, and holy blood pours

I'm a bit old to die in childbirth, am I not?
posted by DarlingBri at 8:23 AM on October 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

'If death thou seekest, take me at thy side
Thy death to share, but if, expert in strife,
Thou hop'st in arms, here guard us and abide.'


Oh. Well, then.
posted by dilettante at 8:52 AM on October 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

I didn't expect such an amazing, engaging history of the Aeneid from the simplistic "was he for or against the Empire" framing of the headline.
posted by edheil at 9:31 AM on October 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

As I have said here before, what I noticed when I read it was how much like Star Trek it was
posted by thelonius at 10:01 AM on October 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

"Black sheep, ye seek her, shall thy footsteps lead,
And show thy destined walls and progeny decreed."
posted by jamjam at 10:54 AM on October 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Report: there was a surprising amount of opening to light, so A+++, Aeneid, would engage in Virgilmancy again.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:58 AM on October 16, 2018 [6 favorites]

I asked how my cat is.

And back upon the brain drove in the splintered skull.
Down drops the beast, and on the earth lies low,

Oops.
posted by paduasoy at 12:20 PM on October 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

edheil: I didn't expect such an amazing, engaging history of the Aeneid from the simplistic "was he for or against the Empire" framing of the headline.

It was a really interesting essay. It felt a bit like, at the end, Mendelsohn was aiming for some point which he then pulled away from, or possibly he made an allusion that I missed.
posted by Kattullus at 12:26 PM on October 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

It is has been said that when Hector saw the red cedar racing strips for the gift horse he replied. " That will not auger well.

Didn't even speak Roman, freaky.
posted by clavdivs at 1:18 PM on October 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

The good news is that the washing machine is fixed. The better news is now I have an opening to recommend Ursula Le Guin's beautiful late novel Lavinia, which is (roughly) a re-vision of some of Aeneid from the point of view of Lavinia, whom Aeneas marries after he arrives in Italy. It has been described as fan fiction; if so, it's the vintage-Champagne-drunk-out-of-antique-crystal of fan fiction.
posted by ALeaflikeStructure at 1:38 PM on October 16, 2018 [7 favorites]

A nice paired reading is Lavinia and Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad...
posted by suelac at 4:21 PM on October 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

She spake, and smote Orsilochus close by,
And Butes, hugest of the Trojan crew.

Rockin'.

And a contrast to what makes Lavinia so interesting to me; the heroine does no smiting, is not spunky, is IIRC nearly passive in outward action but is still a courageous heroine. Very Le Guin.
posted by clew at 10:49 PM on October 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

"
Mixt dust and smoke, rock torn from rock away,
Great Neptune's trident shakes the bulwarks down,
And from its lowest base uproots the trembling town.
"

Concerning.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 4:13 PM on October 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

(checks vmow's location)

If the Cascadia fault lets go when I'm in Portland next week, I'm blaming you!
posted by tavella at 6:01 PM on October 17, 2018 [3 favorites]

Also eponysterical for vmow.
posted by clew at 9:05 PM on October 17, 2018 [2 favorites]