of them again.[1] Here our business is solely with the Commentum Bernardi Silvestris super sex libros Aeneidos Virgilii.[2] The writer draws from the Saturnalia of the fifth-century grammarian, Macrobius; but his allegorical interpretation of the Aeneid seems to be his own. He finds in the Aeneid a twofold consideration, in that its author meant to teach philosophic truth, and at the same time was not inattentive to the poetic plot.
"Since then Virgil in this poem is both philosopher and poet, we shall first expound the purpose and method of the poet.… His aim is to unfold the calamities of Aeneas and other Trojans, and the labours of the exiles. Herein disregarding the truth of history as told by Dares the Phrygian,[3] and seeking to win the favour of Augustus, he adorns the facts with figments. For Virgil, greatest of Latin poets, wrote in imitation of Homer, greatest of Greek poets. As Homer in the Iliad narrates the fall of Troy and in the Odyssey the exile of Ulysses; so Virgil in the second Book briefly relates the overthrow of Troy, and in the rest the labours of Aeneas. Consider the twin order of narration, the natural and the artistic (artificialem). The natural is when the narrative proceeds according to the sequence of events, telling first what happened first. Lucan and Statius keep to this order. The artistic is when we begin in the middle of the story, and thence revert to the commencement. Terence writes thus, and Virgil in this work. It would have been the natural order to have described first the destruction of Troy, and then brought the Trojans to Crete, from Crete to Sicily, and from Sicily to Libya. But he first brings them to Dido, and introduces Aeneas relating the overthrow of Troy and the other things that he has suffered.[4]
"Up to this point we show how he proceeds: next let us observe why he does it so. With poets there is the reason of usefulness, as with a satirist; the reason of pleasure, as with a writer of comedies; and again these two combined, as with the historical poet As Horace says:
'Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae,
Aut simul et iucunda et idonea dicere vitae.'
"This kind of a historical poem is shown by its figurative and
- ↑ Post, Chapter XXXVI., iii.
- ↑ I draw upon the extracts given in the thesis of M. Demimuid, De Bernardo Carnotensi grammatico professore et interprete Virgilii (Paris, 1873), who, as appears by his title, confuses the two Bernards.
- ↑ The author of a bastard epitome on the Trojan War, see post, Chapter XXXII., iv.
- ↑ The above, in substance, is taken from Macrobius.
