Somewhat tangential to the thread of Modernizing Shakespeare, but the Fitzgerald translation of Vergil's Aeneid I think proves that "modern" translations can be made to work very well. It's also a good example of how religious and cultural contexts largely foreign to us don't get in the way of a good story.

Vergil, The Aeneid, translated by Robert Fitzgerald, Vintage Books, 1983, 442 pages. Includes a postscript by the translator and a glossary.

Translated by Eugene Woodbury

Many an adolescent's curiosity in the "classics," starting with the Bible, has been wrecked by the wrong translation being foisted upon him. Now, I adore the language of the King James Bible, just as I adore Shakespeare. But I must remind myself that Shakespeare's characters didn't sound Shakespearean to Shakespeare's audiences. They spoke the common tongue. Shakespeare, after all, had to fill the cheap seats to make a living. And the King James translators crafted language that would be read aloud in churches to often illiterate audiences. The author must always consider the audience, and so must any publisher of a modern version.

The Fitzgerald translation of Vergil's Aeneid is such a case in point.

I never could abide the Dryden long enough to get past the first page. All that incessant rhyming. (This compunction to rhyme in translated verse I don't understand -- haiku, for example -- since you are imposing a form on a form already distorted by translation.) The Robert Fitzgerald translation (Vintage Books) may not be definitive (I'm in no position to speak authoritatively on the subject) but it's more than good enough. The Theodore Williams version I think scans better, but the language and grammar can be hard going. Fitzgerald achieves naturalness without sounding glib.

Granted, even with the hurdle of the narrative voice mostly surmounted, there are still obstacles: lots and lots of names I have no idea how to pronounce, bounteous references to historical incidents and heroic characters I know too little about, portentous foreshadowings such as Hannibal crossing the Alps and Caesar crossing the Rubicon which I missed completely until I read Fitzgerald's commentary at the end.

Nevertheless, a good story is a good story, and this is a ripping good yarn. A strong authorial voice (it helps to read it aloud in your head as you go along) and a narrative construction guaranteed to entertain the plebeians while sneaking in enough high-brow commentary to keep the patrician intellectuals tuned in. It convinces me that, indeed, Sam Raimi is the definitive modern interpreter of the Greco-Roman dramatic tradition.

Of course, Shakespeare accomplished the same. And like Shakespeare, Vergil is a master of the concrete metaphor and the action verb, as well being an astute observer of human behavior. His analysis of how small dust-ups can lead (or be lead) to all-out war resonates with today's geopolitical quagmires.

There's something for everybody. Today, it'd be called, Aeneas: the miniseries. Every element of modern dramatic style is touched upon at some point: man against man, man against nature, man against god, man against himself. You've got romance, adventure, political intrigue, a whole chapter just for sport enthusiasts, and lots of action scenes. With lots of explicit detail about who stabbed who and where the blood and guts went. And this isn't depersonalized violence. Before some poor piker gets his head whacked off, Vergil takes a few moments to tell us who he is, where he came from, what he had for breakfast, and how he loved his mom. It's a bit disturbing, frankly.

This all plays out under the gaze of the Roman pantheon, which is half the fun. Jupiter is trying very hard to be a good deist -- not getting involved in these human squabbles except to answer pleas based on individual merit -- except that Juno and Venus are running around getting the rest of the gods involved in their knock-down, drag-out, proxy war.

Juno hates the Trojans with a white-hot passion. Aeneas, leader of the Trojans, is Venus's son by a mortal father (these gods are unapologetically polyandrous). Growing up with that Botticellian image fixed firmly in my mind, Vergil's Venus was a pleasant surprise. None of this demure, floating in on the half-shell stuff. She's tough, feisty, cunning, loyal (that is, to Aeneas; when she snuggles up to husband Vulcan to get him to crank out some quality armaments for the Trojans, he grouses, You know, I'd do it even if you didn't sleep with me).

There are a number of strong female characters. Camilla, for example, kicks Trojan butt all over the place, and Juturna, Turnus's nymph half-sister, does a lot of Juno's dirty work, mostly in order to keep her brother (the villain in the piece) from getting killed by Aeneas. Though in the ends-justify-being-mean department, Juno is way ahead of all of them. Husband Jupiter finally pulls her aside and says, Enough already. In an ironic twist, Juno wins for losing: as part of the deal, the Trojan identity and language is subsumed by that of the Etruscan Italians.

Fitzgerald comments on the curiosity of the Romans (way, way after the fact) identifying with the Trojans in their founding myth -- and there is a fair amount of trashing of the Greek demigods (i.e., all the enemies of the Trojans) in the tale. I guess it was a way of one-upping Greek civilization while stealing from it.

What impressed me the most overall what the extent to which The Aeneid fits into the modern, western, narrative tradition, both in style and subject matter. And, additionally, how un-odd the religious context is. Many scenes of sacrificing animals and beseeching the gods could easily be confused with Old Testament accounts. Consider as well the concept of the hero being the child of a god and mortal parent. And you can imagine an easy transition from patron god to patron saint; Vergil I think would be at home with the melodramatics of Touched by an Angel. For example, like Juno and Venus, Camilla's patron god, Diana, is limited in the extent to which she can interfere with Fate and keep Camilla from harm once she decides to join forces with Turnus. Human free will seems to a great extent to rule the liberty of the gods.

It's the kind of thing that makes me believe that Rome never fell. Rather, in the same way that China absorbed its numerous invaders, instead of conquering Rome, Northern Europe became Rome, and so brought to Britain and then to America that self-dramatizing view of ourselves in relationship to god and nature and the rest of the universe.