Term Papers on Virgil

Term Paper Title	Virgil
# of Words	667
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	2.67

Virgil

     Throughout time, authors have always utilized the works of others
to make their stories great.  Virgil was no exception.  In Book Nine of The
Aeneid, Virgil draws from Homer’s Iliad to construct a uniquely Roman
epic using Greek culture as a base.
     One main connection that can be seen to the Iliad is that of
characterization.  Nisus and Euryalus are analogous to Achilles and
Patroklos of the Iliad.  Equal to Achilles and Patroklos in sentiment, they
are portrayed as having an inseparable bond with each other.  Euryalus
was  “renowned for handsomeness and for his fresh youth, Nisus for his
honest love of the boy” (5.  389-391).
     The adventure of Nisus and Euryalus begins with a hunt for glory.
This seems to be similar to the case of Diomedes and Odysseus in the Iliad,
with one exception.  The search for glory leads to the deaths of Nisus and
Euryalus, but Virgil’s description of the tragedy is very anti-Homeric in
style:

         So was he pleading when
        the sword, thrust home with force, pierced through the ribs
        and broke the white breast of Euryalus.
        He tumbles into death, the blood flows down
        his handsome limbs;  his neck, collapsing, leans
        against his shoulder:  even as purple
        flower, severed by the plow, falls slack in death;
        or poppies as, with weary necks, they bow
        their heads when weighted down by sudden rain.  (9. 573-581)

Although this deep, emotional depiction is not in the same fashion as
Homer’s, the similes used here by Virgil are very much like those of

                                                  Page 1
Homer.  The flower simile is modeled after the scene of Euphorbus’ death
in the Iliad  (Iliad.  17.  50-60) and the poppy simile is parallel to the death
of Gorgythion (Iliad.  8. 300-308).
     Despite the kindred similes, the descriptions are used in very
different ways.  Homer had used them to bring out the heroic nature of the
characters he described.  Virgil, though, applied the similes to the horrible
death of Euryalus.
     I believe that Virgil might have done this to evoke sympathy in the
reader for Euryalus.  He was being shown as heroi...

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