Had I studied four of the dozen books of the Aeneid – in Latin, no less! – I do believe I’d have spent the rest of my life complaining about it.

Not Mom, though … a high-school senior, she wrote Virgil a fan letter.

It was in the style of his epic poem, of course:

On Completing Book Four of the Aeneid

Farewell, proud poet of a thousand years,
Thou instigator of our common tears –
Thou prompter of the midnight oils that burn
This isolationist will ne’er return
To lonely chambers where the spectres brood
On pounding fists and brains that cry for food.
O mock magician with thy ageless powers,
Thou swept me from the lights to barren bowers,
And there thou perched and shrieked with wild delight
As pondered I the pages through the night.
I knew thee well. Inspired I would arise
With every aspect of thy form before my eyes,
But the golden flutes of learning rule –
Alas! I faltered with the phrase of some mere foll.
And how thou must have chortled at my plight,
Thou bard of brilliance, courted by the night.
But this I have to state in my defense:
While subject to thy whims in every sense,
I never strove to duplicate a fame.
Can thou, in justice, truly say the same?
Thou vexed me sore at times. Yet strange to tell,
Thou might master of the verse – I loved thee well.

~ Joan Cassidy ~ June 1948

Virgil wrote the Aeneid during the final “Before Christ” years. He died before completing it.

Want to read it?

Project Gutenberg offers it here as a free downloadable e-book. Here’s their summary of the work: It follows Aeneas, a Trojan hero who flees the fall of Troy and journeys to Italy, where he becomes the ancestor of the Romans. The first half chronicles his perilous wanderings across the Mediterranean, while the second depicts a brutal war against the Latins. Virgil transforms ancient legends into Rome’s founding myth, connecting the empire to Troy’s glory and legitimizing Roman power through divine ancestry and traditional virtues.

---

“On Completing Book Four of the Aeneid” ©1948  Joan Cassidy. All rights reserved.

Please subscribe here and we’ll send an email notice with each new story. (We’ll never sell nor share our list – promise!)