3/5 - cool, but only really because of the fact that this was a book i read for class. i wouldve completely missed all the referential roman culture pieces without it.

I read the English translation and then I translated this one. It was hard. This is only the first six books and it took so much longer than the translated 12 books I read. But it was so worth it; the poetry was incomparable between the English and the Latin.

Best way to read Virgil in Latin. Everything you need is in the book. You don't even need a dictionary.

I'm down with any story that starts in in medias res. Starts with the sacking of Troy and ends with the founding of Rome.

I used this text as an undergraduate in an intermediate Latin class 35 years ago. I fondly recall how reading the Aeneid in Latin for the first time was a completely transformative experience. Before my encounter with Vergil, I had no idea that literature could possibly be so incredibly beautiful and moving. His diction, rhythm, narrative genius and virtuoso command of the language struck me like a bolt of lightning. Suddenly, I emerged from an abyss of darkness and entered a new world illuminated by the dazzling brilliance of Vergil's immortal poetry.

Even more satisfying to me now is to witness my own students responding to Vergil in the same way, decades after my own first reading of the poem. I see in them the same wonder and admiration for his extraordinary artistry, their delight in discovering the remarkable poetic techniques that lie at the heart of his inimitable style.

To read Vergil in Latin is one of the most serious undertakings a young student can hope to achieve. It is a literary training of the first rank. Unlike in English classes, where students blow through several "great works" in the course of a year, in an upper level Latin class students will read Vergil, and only Vergil, over the entire year. And this means close reading: parsing each word in each line, admiring complex sentence structures, unusual word choices, richly figurative and rhetorical language. Through his unforgettable characters and their actions, Vergil never fails to provoke in his readers a means of contemplating the deepest mysteries of human existence. Honor, duty, sacrifice, the ties that bind human beings within their families and a larger political community -- all this and so much more is what Vergil has to offer. He is, in short, a serious writer for serious readers.

How many students, perhaps many years later, have recalled the famous bee simile as Aeneas gazes down upon Carthage when he sees it with Achates for the first time? Or summoned up a recollection of Laocoon and his two sons devoured by the fearsome snakes coiling over the sea and heading straight to them with deadly ferocity? Or called to mind the shocking violence of Pyrrhus (Neoptolemus) as he smashes his way into the innermost sanctuary of Priam's palace to slaughter Polites before his father's eyes, a moment before butchering Priam himself as he cowers helplessly at an altar with Hecuba and their daughters and daughters in law? Then there is Dido, the descent to Avernus, the encampment in Italy, and the inevitable death of Turnus.

Nowadays the word "epic" is used to describe just about anything that is big, or perhaps anything that is big and spans several generations. In its true sense, however, "epic" means much, much more. It is a word that describes a work of art that is universal, that narrates a story which fully embodies all of the most cherished values of an entire civilization. This is the Aeneid.

we get it you’re italian

Why it took me until I'm 66 to read this classic by Virgil I have no idea. But I'm so glad I did. Beautiful and powerful.

Reread Aeneid 1-6 for a class this summer. I still wish Pharr had done 7-12 as well (no, none of the other commentaries are nearly as helpful for quick reading).

Four stars for the vocab + notes; Vergil himself deserves 5, of course. <3

very helpful for the high school classroom or for any first time reader.

el vaig començar amb molt poques ganes només perquè era un llibre de la uni i estic cansada de pensar que no soc prou erudita com per poder-los entendre però UAU m'ha agradat moltíssim, llegir-lo ha estat un autèntic plaer i he gaudit cadascuna d les pàgines !!! gràcies adolfo i disculpa per pressuposar que no m'agradaria estant jo totalment cegada

Of course the poem itself is very famous and well worth reading, but since I have already marked the Aeneid as read and rated it, here I am responding more to this particular edition.

The layout is very useful - it does not give away quite as much as a Loeb (since there is no English for your eyes to flick to), so you have to work out the most difficult parts by yourself (although the editor sometimes gives you the meaning or rearranges the words in the notes), the vocabulary and translation advice is at the bottom of each page (so no constant flicking to the back), and any particular points of interest are noted (so you don't really need a commentary, unless studying the Aeneid in depth in a specifically literary context, rather than reading it for the translation and the language).

One criticism I would have is that it seemed to me that help was often given on parts that weren't that difficult, and occasionally not given on more challenging parts (though being left on one's own in the midst of a difficult passage seems to be a frequent problem for Classics students), and it would have been helpful if less common pieces of vocab had been repeated once or twice (since I don't have a good enough memory to see a word once and commmit it to memory, and I don't think most people do). However, overall it is a very solid edition, and I hope similar volumes are released for the other major Classical epics (and the second half of the Aeneid, of course, as well).

Clyde is an essential memory of my early years of Latin. I still have him fondly on my shelves and wouldn't give him up for the world.

For an introductory commentary/helper's guide to Vergil's Aeneid, Clyde is second to none.