Lavinia

Lavinia is Ursula K. Le Guin’s take on Vergil’s second half of the Aeneid. In the epic, Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus, is a central character and catalyst for events; however, Vergil gives her no dialogue, only a brief mention as the most minor of characters. While we had met Creusa and the infamous Dido, Lavinia’s betrothal to Aeneas, the subsequent civil war, and their eventual marriage, is never depicted in the Aeneid, because Vergil died before it could be finished.

Le Guin finally gives Lavinia a voice in this beautifully written book about pre-Julian Rome, where people have “a strong sense of duty, order, and justice”. Because the book takes place during the early republic, the places and people have a sense of austerity, very unlike the usual decadence one associates with Rome.

The book begins with Lavinia’s childhood, her closeness with her father King Latinus, and her fear of her half mad mother Queen Amata, who has never forgiven her for surviving a plague that took her other two sons. However, King Latinus dotes on her (“You are the light of my eyes, daughter”) and thus she grows into an intelligent and pious woman, often visiting the sacred grove of Albunea, where she meets the shade of Vergil. Their conversations are so interesting; the naive maiden and the man who mysteriously foretells many events in Lavinia’s life. In fact, he tells her he is a “vates“, or soothsayer, as Lavinia does not know the meaning of  poet. Vergil’s regret, and knowledge of his impending death are always weaved into his conversations with Lavinia, and her wit and personality often come through in these one on one conversations with Vergil.

“I favor none of them.”

“Why is that?

“Why should I? Where can a man take me that is better than my father’s house? What do I want with a lesser king? Why should I serve Lares that re not my family’s Lares, the Penates of some other woman’s storerooms, the fire of a foreign hearth? Why, why is a girl brought up at home to be a woman in exile the rest of her life?”

Eventually Lavinia grows into adulthood and is promised to Turnus, King of the Rutulians. Her mother pushes for this match; whether it is because he reminder of her lost sons or perhaps because she is a little in love with him herself is never really made clear. Of course, prophesy eventually dictates that Lavinia is meant to marry a foreigner, and Turnus in his anger incites a civil war against Aeneas and his men.

Le Guin follows Vergil’s work closely; she simply fills in the areas that Vergil left sparse, and thus illuminates corners of the Aeneid that we never knew existed. This is an excellent book for those interested in the classics or historical fiction.

“O Lavinia,” he said, “you are worth ten Camillas. And I never saw it. Well, never mind. Did you ever hear of Troy..There was a pretty prince of Troy named Paris. He and a Greek queen ran off together. Her husband called the other kings of Greece together, and they went to Troy, a great army in a thousand beaked ships, to get the woman back. Helen, her name was.”

“What did they want her back for?”

“Her husband’s honor demanded it”

“I should think his honor demanded that he divorce her and find himself a decent wife.”

“Lavinia, these people were Greeks, not Ro–not Italians.”

“King Evander’s a Greek. I wonder if he’d chase after a cheating wife.”

“Lavinia, daughter of the king, will you let me tell my tale?”

“I’m sorry. I won’t talk.”

“Then I will tell you the story of the fall of Troy, as Aeneas told it to the queen of Carthage,” he said. And he sat up straighter, there on the dark ground, a shadow among shadows, and began to sing.

It wasn’t singing like the shepherd’s songs, or rowers’ choruses, or the hymns at Ambarvalia and Compitalia, or the songs women sing all day at spinning and weaving and pounding and chopping and cleaning and sweeping. There was no tune to it. Its words were all the music of it, its words were its drumbeat, clasck of the loom, tread of feet, oarstroke, heartbeat, waves breaking on the beach at Troy away across the world.