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Solid rendering Jun 5, 2000 (37 of 37 found this helpful)
This is a very good English verse rendering of Virgil's classic. If you like epic poetry but can't read classical languages this translation is probably the next best thing. Though nothing compares to the original this is a faithful translation, and the verse makes for a more interesting presentation than prose.
This is a "no frills" volume (hence the price), so it is best for readers who already know the basic premise of The Aeneid and the main characters. It has a basic glossary that may be a useful refresher for knowledge already acquired, but it lacks the translator's introduction that typically sets the stage (both for the plot and the poem's place in history) and triples the price in other volumes.
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Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum! Dec 16, 2006 (24 of 24 found this helpful)
With Robert Fagles's version of 'The Aeneid' just released, I thought that would be the version I would be reading. I tried Robert Fitzgerald's version some years ago, but I gave up after the 5th or 6th "book".
After reading the numerous glowing reviews for Allen Mandelbaum's translation, I thought I would give it a shot.... plus it cost a lot less than Fagles's! I was not disappointed.
Mr. Mandelbaum's take on Virgil's epic is eminently accessible, very easy to understand (but not dumbed down at all). The glossary at the end is a huge help in identifying characters and places (as many of them go by more than one name).
This is a thrilling tale full of adventure, romance, war, friendship and loyalty. If you buy only one version, this is the one to get.
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I sing of a good translation Mar 30, 2005 (23 of 23 found this helpful)
Roman society was enamoured of Greek culture -- many of the best 'Roman' things were Greek; the major gods were derivative of the Greek pantheon; philosophy, literature, science, political ideals, architecture -- all this was adopted from the Greeks. It makes sense that, at the point of their ascendancy in the world, they would long for an epic history similar to the Homeric legends; the Iliad and the Odyssey, written some 500 years after the actual events they depict, tell of the heroism of the Greeks in their battle against Troy (Ilium). The Aeneid, written by Vergil 700 years after Homer, at the commission of Augustus (himself in the process of consolidating his authority over Rome), turns the heroic victory of the much-admired Greeks on its head by postulating a survivor from Troy, Aeneas, who undergoes as journey akin to the Odyssey, even further afield.
Vergil constructs Aeneas, a very minor character in the Iliad, as the princely survivor and pilgrim from Troy, on a journey through the Mediterranean in search of a new home. According to Fitzgerald, who wrote a brief postscript to the poem, Vergil created a Homeric hero set in a Homeric age, purposefully following the Iliad and Odyssey as if they were formula, in the way that many a Hollywood director follows the formulaic pattern of past successful films. Vergil did not create the Trojan legend of Roman origins, but his poem solidified the notion in popular and scholarly sentiment.
Vergil sets the seeds for future animosity between Carthage and Rome in the Aeneid, too -- the curse of queen Dido on the descendants of Aeneas of never-ending strife played into then-recent recollections of war in the Roman mind. Books I through VI are much more studied than VII through XII, but the whole of the Aeneid is a spectacular tale.
Mandelbaum's translation is poetic and stately, giving grace and life to the epic poem. Sometimes long-form poetry can become overblown in self-indulgence; Mandelbaum's translation avoids this by writing in free verse for the most part. There are no forced rhymes and schemes that detract from the story line. Word choice is contemporary and engaging.
Vergil died before he could complete the story. He wished it to be burned; fortunately, Augustus had other ideas. Still, there are incomplete lines and thoughts, and occasional conflicts in the storyline that one assumes might have been worked out in the end, had more editing time been available. Despite these, the Aeneid remains a masterpiece, and Mandelbaum's translation will likely be a companion for students and other readers for a long time to come.
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"The Greatest Translation of Perhaps the Greatest Epic" Aug 25, 2004 (21 of 23 found this helpful)
Allen Mandelbaum has given us the greatest English verse translation of the greatest Latin epic, the Aeneid. Mandelbaum manages to tune the Latin lyre to the beats of English verse without befouling it with the tediousness of the rhyming couplet. One truly hears the ancient voice of Virgil resounding in the contemporary pages of Mandelbaum's work. Aeneas on quest for homeland, Juno's savage rage, the burning passion of Dido, the two hero's struggle for the hand of Lavinia--all these themes and more will be realized almost fully in the original light upon which the master Virgil cast them.
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Mandelbaum's Aeneid translation was an awakening for me Jun 29, 2004 (8 of 8 found this helpful)
Decades ago I found the Aeneid in Latin easy to respect but not something I could feel that enthusiastic about whereas Homer (specifically the Illiad) in Greek made me think that that experience would have been worth building an entire education around.
I have in the years since then had occasion to think about 'culture shock' and seen first hand some of the misunderstandings that can happen cross culturally even with people who think that they are able to understand the language associated with other cultures, at least on a word by word basis.
Just thinking that one 'knows what the words/ symbols mean' in some artificial isolation does not mean that one understands a statement or a text. I have even had occasion in class to emphasise this to students in the context of a modern language. Of course, there, one can suggest the experiment of testing one's reaction against the reaction of native speakers of the language (in my response to the language, do I smile when they smile, am I moved when they are moved, do I feel a 'twist' in the statement at the same point they do, can I say something and predict correctly the kind of response I will get - and I do not mean of course simply bafflement or embarrassment or an attempt to suppress laughter at a mispronunciation or mischoice of words that is particularly bizarre sounding). In short, if I were allowed to adlib something in a play, in that language, could I succeed in choosing what I said and how I said it so that the native speaker audience member would respond as I had predicted to myself they would respond, not even thinking I was an 'outsider' trying to speak their language?
Yet with Vergil (or Virgil) and especially the Aeneid, I think I was always on the wrong side of a refractive cross cultural distortion, so to speak, like the most culture shock blinded 'but I looked up the words in the dictionary' student one could imagine - despite all the Latin I knew and what had once been a competition winning ability at Latin translation.
What has awed me about this brilliant translation by professor and poet Allen Mandelbaum is that it and his notes have helped me realise how deformed my past lack of appreciation had been.
He has given me not only this wonderful English translation but an ability to better find the Latin Vergil - a treasure that despite my background I had not had before. I must regard him, through this translation, as one of my great teachers. Before him in all seriousness, in gratitude, I bow my head to the floor.
Anyone wishing to try wading in the Aeneid in Latin might be interested in experimenting with the on-line Perseus project's digital library [based in the classics department at Tufts University but supported by grants from all over] texts for P. Vergilius Maro where hypertext links facilitate looking up any Latin words not recognised. But I first advise, look at this translation!