Tracking Hermes, Pursuing Mercury by John F. Miller;Jenny Strauss Clay; & Jenny Strauss Clay

Author:John F. Miller;Jenny Strauss Clay; & Jenny Strauss Clay [Miller, John F. & Clay, Jenny Strauss]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780191083129
Publisher: OUP Premium
Published: 2019-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

For he would never have welcomed Phrixos, grandson of Aeolus, as a guest in his house, though he was in sore need, Phrixus who excelled among all strangers in gentleness and piety, had not Zeus himself sent Hermes his messenger down from heaven, to ensure that Phrixus might find him welcoming.

Mercury’s first intervention in the Aeneid recalls the only intervention of Hermes as messenger/emissary of Zeus in the Argonautica,6 which is not part of the main plot but is located in a flashback. “The roles played by Jupiter, Mercury, Aeneas and Dido in Vergil correspond exactly to those of Zeus, Hermes, Phrixus and Aeetes.”7 This is particularly interesting in the case of Dido ~ Aeetes, as Moorton 1989 has well illustrated: Apollonian intertextuality suggests that Mercury intervenes to calm down a character who is potentially as fierce and dangerous as the king of the Colchians.8 Vergil’s language might seem to suggest at least a slight distinction between the Poeni, who put down their ferocia…corda, and the queen (1.302–4), but in fact Dido herself, just like any of her subjects, has a “fierce heart” ready to be roused again. Moreover, this relationship between Dido and Aeetes connects the first and the last intervention of Mercury. It is precisely when the god appears to Aeneas in a dream to warn him of the danger represented by the abandoned Dido that she is depicted not only as a potential Medea, as we shall see later, but also with traits that specifically recall the figure of Aeetes, and this is in turn a comment on an association between Medea and Aeetes suggested by Apollonius himself. At Aen. 4.563–4 Mercury warns Aeneas about Dido’s menacing thoughts: illa dolos dirumque nefas in pectore versat, / certa mori, variosque irarum concitat aestus (“She, resolved to die, revolves in her heart deceptions and nefarious crime, and stirs up the changeable tides of her anger”). This recalls a passage from the introduction to the speech of Aeetes that contains the reminiscence of Hermes’ pacifying intervention on the occasion of Phrixus’ visit: Aeetes summons the assembly of the Colchians outside of his palace, ἀτλήτους Μινύῃσι δόλους καὶ κήδεα τεύχων (“devising against the Minyans insufferable deceptions and troubles,” Arg. 3.578).9 The moment when Dido fully “becomes” Aeetes is in her speech at Aen. 4.590–629; Moorton (1989: 53) points out the connection of Aen. 4.590 and 607 with Arg. 4.229 (invocation to Jupiter and Sol ~ invocation to Zeus and Helius), and that of Aen. 4.600–6 with Arg. 4.233–4 (thirst for vengeance of Dido and Aeetes). But more significant for our present purposes is the way the words of Dido at 604–6, in which she regrets not having burned the ships when she had the chance, echo not only those of the “Euripidean” Medea at Arg. 4.391–3, as is well known:10

       faces in castra tulissem

implessemque foros flammis natumque patremque

cum genere extinxem, memet super ipsa dedissem

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