LIBER TERTIUS

Summary

In the Third Book Virgil treads yet more closely in the steps of Homer, the subject being the wanderings of Aeneas, as that of the Ninth and three following books of the Odyssey is the wanderings of Ulysses. The time embraced by the present narrative is not much shorter than that comprehended by its prototype: indeed, it is considerably longer, as of Ulysses' ten years seven are spent with Calypso, and of these we have no record: but Virgil felt that the second narrator must be briefer than the first, and accordingly contracted his story into a single book. To a certain extent it was almost necessary that there should be a coincidence in the details of the two accounts as well as in the original plan. The mythical geography of Homer had become part of the epic common place, though, like the mythical history, it was modified freely, not followed servilely: and as Aeneas was wandering in the same parts as Ulysses, and at the same time, it would have been unnatural to make their experiences altogether independent and dissimilar. Yet the only place in which the two lines of adventure actually touch is when they enter the country of the Cyclops: and there Virgil has skilfully contrived not to rival Homer's story, but to appropriate it, and to make Aeneas reap the fruit of Ulysses' experience without being obliged to repeat it in his own person. For his other incidents he is indebted partly to other portions of the body of heroic legend, partly to his own invention.