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| Latinus offerring Lavinia to Aeneas |
The Arrow of Apollo by Philip Womack
2. LAVINIA
The second wife of Aeneas (his first, Creusa, having perished at Troy), Lavinia was the daughter of King Latinus, a native Italian. She was betrothed to Turnus, a local chieftain; but there was a prophecy which stated that Lavinia should marry a stranger. Hence, when Aeneas arrived, Latinus gave his daughter to the settler. Naturally, there was trouble, and the second half of the Aeneid deals with the war between Aeneas and Turnus. The poem ends with Aeneas killing Turnus (as the Iliad ends with Achilles killing Hector); there were various continuations of the story in later times, including a 13th book of the Aeneid in which Lavinia and Aeneas get married; but there is very little in the texts about Lavinia herself.
Virgil describes her as blonde; she is also the subject of an omen, when her hair catches fire, promising future glory. The late, lamented Ursula Le Guin wrote an interesting account of her, Lavinia, in which Virgil is projected backwards in time and sees his subject - he’d got her hair colour wrong, of course.
In THE ARROW OF APOLLO, Lavinia is fleshed out. She is the proud queen of a new, bustling city; she is a healer; she has privileged contacts with divine creatures. She advises Aeneas, being a diplomatic bridge between the new settlers and the original inhabitants, and runs the palace household - including her stepson, Iulus; her son, Silvius; and his friend, the half-Carthaginian Elissa.
The second wife of Aeneas (his first, Creusa, having perished at Troy), Lavinia was the daughter of King Latinus, a native Italian. She was betrothed to Turnus, a local chieftain; but there was a prophecy which stated that Lavinia should marry a stranger. Hence, when Aeneas arrived, Latinus gave his daughter to the settler. Naturally, there was trouble, and the second half of the Aeneid deals with the war between Aeneas and Turnus. The poem ends with Aeneas killing Turnus (as the Iliad ends with Achilles killing Hector); there were various continuations of the story in later times, including a 13th book of the Aeneid in which Lavinia and Aeneas get married; but there is very little in the texts about Lavinia herself.
Virgil describes her as blonde; she is also the subject of an omen, when her hair catches fire, promising future glory. The late, lamented Ursula Le Guin wrote an interesting account of her, Lavinia, in which Virgil is projected backwards in time and sees his subject - he’d got her hair colour wrong, of course.
In THE ARROW OF APOLLO, Lavinia is fleshed out. She is the proud queen of a new, bustling city; she is a healer; she has privileged contacts with divine creatures. She advises Aeneas, being a diplomatic bridge between the new settlers and the original inhabitants, and runs the palace household - including her stepson, Iulus; her son, Silvius; and his friend, the half-Carthaginian Elissa.
HELP FUND THE ARROW OF APOLLO ON UNBOUND
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