The Omnipresence of the Gods

Whether by means of the Sortes Virgilianae or simply by choice, every Latinist has his favorite line from the Aeneid. My favorite line has always been from Book IX, when Nisus asks Euryalus the following question:

Dine hunc ardorem mentibus addunt,
Euryale, an sua cuique deus fit dira cupido?
(184-85)

Do the gods not give this fire to our hearts, O Euryalus,
or does each man’s mad passion become to him a god?

This question is one of the seminal questions of the Aeneid and one of the great questions of all philosophy: what is it that ultimately motivates man? Is the source of what moves man divine, or is it simply himself, his own psychology? While Virgil never explicitly answers this question, he sets a number of equivalent situations where he entertains this question, and how the reader understands this question is pivotal to the understanding the final scene in Book XII, in which Aeneas slays Turnus.

Nisus’ dira cupido (“mad passion”, “dread desire”) refers to his wish to abandon his guard post and venture into the sleeping ranks of Rutulian troops. Nisus knows perfectly well that this wild risk is a nearly suicidal endeavor, but the payoff is glory—and that is the stuff of heroes. To win glory, or at the very least, to bite the dust in the flames of battle is the goal of any Classical warrior worth his mettle. To die anonymously at sea (as Aeneas almost does in Book I), or with a whimper after days of siege wear down the battlements, is abhorrent.

The Nisus¹ and Euryalus episode is a retelling of a scene from Book X of the Iliad, in which Odysseus and Diomedes spy on the Trojan camps at night. Capitalizing on the vulnerable sleeping Trojans, the pair behead their victims, sending a mess of Trojans from Hypnos to Thanatos. Both Homer and Virgil recognize this scene as distinctly heroic, but to Virgil, it is Greek heroism, an example of timê. Roman heroism is something which Virgil spends the entirety of the Aeneid defining, but might be truncated to the idea of pietas: a combination of personal responsibility to the gods, family, and homeland. In the context of a Greek war, the heroism of Diomedes and Odysseus is therefore highly effective. In the context of a Roman war, however, the Greek heroism embodied by Nisus and Euryalus ultimately leads to nothing. While the Trojan pair successfully murder a slew of sleeping Rutulians, they fail to achieve the primary objective of informing Aeneas that their camp has been surrounded, and also fail to obey orders and keep guard.

Nisus' question touches on the idea of gods as both anthropomorphic figures physically living within the heavens and affecting the course of humanity, while simultaneously being projected representations of aspects of the human psyche and other phenomena. Thus, Hypnos is both the god who controls sleep, as well as sleep itself; Thanatos is both the god of death, and death itself; Venus is both the goddess of love, and love itself; Juno is the goddess of wrath (among other things), and wrath itself. Nisus' question is similar to the dilemma of the chicken or the egg: did the gods give him the impulse, or did his impulse give him the god?

Virgil explores the mystery of the source of human impulses further at the end of Book I, where Eros disguised as Ascanius breathes poisonous love into Dido's heart. On one level, this scene is entirely the result of divine will. Venus tells Eros to poison Dido so that she falls in love with Aeneas, and by doing so Venus guarantees Aeneas' safety in this foreign land ruled by Juno. On another level, this scene can be described entirely within the context of human emotion. Dido certainly cannot deny being a tidbit smitten with Aeneas long before the arrival of Cupid. The first time she lays eyes on him, she is described as obstipuit aspectu² (“standing agape at the sight”, “marveling at the sight”) and immediately addresses him as nate dea³ (“goddess born”). Her words give away her attraction to Aeneas long before Eros crawls into her lap. When Ascanius/Eros eventually does sit in her lap, can we blame Dido for thinking of her own empty womb, her own dead husband, her sworn widowhood, (all of which she will lament later in the book)—is not this hero, who washed up on her shores, the perfect suitor for her? Is it not only natural that she fall in love with Aeneas, a proper king for her new land, leader of seasoned warriors to help defend against Iarbus and other surrounding enemies?

The next time we see Dido is in Book IV, where “burning” nearly becomes her epithet as her passion is associated with fire and madness. She is compared directly to the raging Bacchante (the wild hedonist worshipers of Bacchus), howling in their orgies as she herself bacchatur (“rages”)⁴ through the entire city of Carthage. The flame of love “eats at her marrow”⁵, driving her more and more insane. She is described repeatedly as infelix⁶, “unlucky”, a word which implies that Dido is a victim of bad luck, that she could not have controlled this situation. Her passion, as with Nisus dira cupido, has become her god. Fittingly, she ends her life by making literal the metaphorical wound referred to in the second line of Book IV.⁷

Another example is drowsy Palinurus at the end of Book V, whom Hypnos persuades to fall asleep at the tiller of Aeneas' ship. Palinurus initially rebukes Hypnos' argument, so the god takes drastic measures, enchanting him to sleep and pushing him off the stern of the ship (but not before the determined Palinurus rips off a piece of the tiller). Here, it seems that the situation is more a matter of direct divine intervention, yet the description of this scene (as with Dido) is allegorically equivalent to the human phenomenon of drowsiness. It is not for nothing that we “fight” sleep, “struggle” to stay awake, but ultimately, capitulate, “falling” asleep or, in Palinurus' case, off the taffrail.

Examples of this conundrum are numerous. For example, Allecto drives the firebrand of wrath into Turnus' heart, and releases the viperish snake of hatred on Amata.⁸ Yet it is important to note that every action taken by any character in the Aeneid can be read both as effected by the gods, or as a psychological phenomenon. Thus, even in scenes where the name “Juno” might not ever be mentioned, we can still see the presence of Juno via actions, thoughts, or impulsions that are Juno-esque. Seas cannot storm without the permission of Neptune, so if we see a storming sea, we must assume Neptune is present. Though the gods may be absent in name, they are omnipresent in numen.

Understanding the above paradox is crucial to understanding the final scenes of the Aeneid. When Juno is told to stay out of the fight and quit interfering with the war between Trojans and Rutulians, she complies, and we don't see her name for the remainder of the epic. Bodily, she is absent; yet the emotions she represents are terribly present. Thus, when Aeneas stands over the suppliant Turnus, sword hanging above the vanquished man's head, he has to decide whether to kill or spare Turnus. Turnus begs him, ulterius ne tende⁹ odiis (“stretch no further with hatred”), and asks him to consider the grief his father Daunus would feel, and notes that Anchises would have had pity in his situation (no doubt this is true—the last time Aeneas talked to Anchises in Book VI, the shade of Anchises reminded Aeneas that the powers of Rome will be to battle down the haughty, and spare the suppliant).¹⁰ This is the moment of stillness, the brief pause of consideration where, in a way, the whole future of Rome hangs in the sway of this one, crucial decision. Whether Aeneas kills Turnus or spares Turnus will set the example for all future generations of Romans.

And then Juno swoops in. Seeing the baldric of Pallas, Aeneas is furiis accensus et ira terribilis (“enflamed by rage and terrible anger”)¹¹—Aeneas is at last overcome by Juno; whether or not he realizes it, his apotheosis into the annals of Roman history is adorned with the attributes of Juno, Queen of vengeance. Juno, while ceding the fight to Jupiter, is more present here than ever before, becoming the conquering emotion of Aeneas himself.

Furthermore, Nisus' great question is just as present as ever, and we as readers are supposed to ask this same question in all scenes of the Aeneid, and perhaps too within our personal lives. Perhaps Virgil found himself asking the same question of Nisus—do the Muses inspire the poetry of his pen, or does his poetry create the very Muses that inspire him?

¹ nisus, us m. a pressing or resting upon or against a) a striving, exertion; b) step, flight, push, ascent; c) a giving birth; Virgil is no stranger to etymological puns.

² Book I: 613.

³ Book I: 615.

⁴ “Saevit inops animi totamque incense per urbem
bacchatur, qualis commotis excit sacris
Thyias ubi audito stimulant trieteria Baccho
Orgia noctuernusque vocat clamore Cithaeron”,
Book IV:300-303.

⁵ “Est mollis flamma medulla”, Book IV: 66.

⁶ “Uritur infelix Dido totaque vagatur / urbe furens”, Book IV: 68-69.

⁷ “vulnus alit venis et caeco carpitur igni”. Book IV: 2.

⁸ One might further compare the scenes between the poisoning of Amata by wrath/Allecto and the poisoning of Dido with love/Eros. Analysis of these scenes reveals that, despite these two emotions seeming to be opposites, the effects they have on Dido and Amata are remarkably similar: both women burn with the emotion, both rage, both go insane, and both can only be cured of it by suicide. If we read the competition between Venus and Juno as a competition between Love and Vengeance, there are some very interesting implications for the end of the Book XII, when Aeneas stands over Turnus and must decide between Love (thus, sparing Turnus) and Vengeance (slaying him).

⁹ We might recall the first book of the Aeneid, line 205 tendimus in Latium (“we stretch into Latium”), where this word tendimus appears for the first time. Aeneas heroic speech is the mark of his leadership in Book I, and here Turnus reminds us of that speech by the use of the imperative form tende. We are reminded that the question of the epic has never been whether or not Aeneas will make it to Italy and found Rome, but rather how he will go about doing it.

¹⁰ tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento
(hae tibi erunt artes), pacisque imponere morem,
parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.
(Book VI, 851-3)

¹¹ XII, 946-47.

Daisy to Daisy

When reading Henry James’ Daisy Miller, one cannot help note the influences the story has on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s works, particularly in regards to the character of Daisy Miller, transformed into Daisy Buchanan. In this comparison, we see the two figures are much alike in terms of name, description, and even speech patterns. It is almost as if these two ladies were the same person, as if Fitzgerald picked up Daisy Miller, gave her a new last name, and pretended she hadn’t died of malaria in Rome.

I propose that Daisy Buchanan is modeled closely after Daisy Miller, to the extent that the former can be said to be an older version of the latter. Fitzgerald must have been captivated by the figure of Daisy Miller, and wondered what sort of girl she would have become had she not been so tragically struck down by malaria. Daisy Buchanan is his answer to that question.

I always think it best to start with the name “Daisy” itself and consider its etymology and what, therefore, the reader can expect from a so-named character. “Daisy”, as William Carlos Williams notes in the first line of his poem by the same title, comes from the combination of the two words “day’s eye”, given because its petals close at night and reopen with the sun. Williams notes some important qualities of the daisy, as the speaker of the poem closely examines one, that it is fascinatingly delicate, the petals thin to the point of translucency—a mere touch and it is bruised! The daisy is a beautiful, ephemeral flower, carefree and careless, in and of itself, a thing to be admired and looked at, growing from rich, fecund earth but reciprocating with nothing but its own radiance. Daisy Miller is such a flower. Our first description of her regards her physical beauty:

The young lady meanwhile had drawn near. She was dressed in white muslin, with a hundred frills and flounces, and knots of pale-colored ribbon. She was bare-headed; but she balanced in her hand a large parasol, with a deep border of embroidery; and she was strikingly, admirably pretty. (393)

This entire description is distinctly visual, and could literally be a description of a flower. She is entrancing from the first moment we meet her on account of her lavish dress and appearance, and Winterbourne soon finds himself stealing glances at her lovely features, particularly her “wonderfully pretty eyes” and her “eminently delicate” face. Daisy vainly spends much of her time smoothing out her bows and ribbons, rigorously attentive to maintaining her complexion. Fitzgerald takes the same visual route when we first meet Daisy Buchanan:

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew the curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as a wind does at sea.
The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall.” (8)

Here, Fitzgerald paints an ekphrasis of Botticelli’s famous Birth of Venus, in which Daisy Buchanan becomes the golden-haired goddess herself, the enormous couch is her seashell, which she floats upon, buoyant, gently tossed by the windy Zephyr flowing through the open windows. What an extraordinary vision Fitzgerald paints for us, what an extraordinary way to introduce a character.

From the beginning, we know that both Daisies are distinctly physical specimens of feminine beauty. And, given we have the ideal daisy flower in our hands, we must assume that it is growing from only the finest, richest soil. Neither girl, I suspect, could survive without and enormous amount of wealth readily available for disposal. Daisy Miller is the daughter of a wealthy businessman from New York, a member of what Henry James calls the “reckless class”. She is empowered with money to travel abroad with her careless mother (a woman who rarely seems to have any control or concern for Daisy Miller’s situation) and meet the acquaintance of whomever she finds pleasing. In this act, she fosters a degree of boldness along with an air of innocence; she possesses what might be called the audacity of innocence, the sort of forgivable ignorance that leads to one ask inappropriately forward questions, and generally fail to understand the circumstances from which others are speaking.¹

Daisy Buchanan grows from the same pot of wealth, having married the successful Tom Buchanan, and having come from an upper-class home. She too comes from the reckless class, or as Fitzgerald describes it, she is a person who “smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into…money and…vast carelessness.” She is moved by Gatsby’s mansion, impressed by his wealth, and pivotally brought to tears by his shirts (“’They’re such beautiful shirts’, she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ‘it makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.’”).

Nick Carraway is often taken aback by Daisy’s voice, the “inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle in it, the cymbals of it”. It is Gatsby himself who recognizes that her mellifluous voice is “full of money”; its beauty a function of meretricious material charm. She is, on all accounts, the epitome of Madonna’s “Material Girl”, living in a material world.

Both Daisy Miller and Buchanan share a very peculiar—and similar—way of speaking. The first thing one notices in their speech is a general prolixity. Daisy Miller is more than ready to speak—at length—about any topic regarding herself without hesitation, discretion, or even thought.² She seems to say things merely to invoke a response, to get a rise out of people, telling Mr. Witherbourne she was engaged just to see his reaction, or “prattling” on about her own affairs, or hoping for a “fuss”—“that’s all I want—a little fuss!” Daisy Miller has little concern for public reputation, and thus has little concern for what she says. She is a girl who says whatever pops into her head, with the assumption that it is both worth saying, and worth hearing. Daisy Buchanan is guilty of the same crime:

“All right,” said Daisy. “What’ll we plan?” She turned to me helplessly: “What do people plan?”
Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.
“Look!” she complained; “I hurt it.” (11-12)

Daisy Buchanan literally says everything that comes to her mind, and we are given open view of her entire thought process, spelled out before us. Fitzgerald adds an extra twist, noting her short attention span, as an alarming object catches her eye, completely overriding her previous thought processes in favor of the more pressing matter that has come to light: she has cut her finger, so slightly she didn’t even notice. But this is the nature of the Daisy flower; utter vanity inspires deep concern in even the most minute physical deformation, and allows room for very little actual thought.

Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing. “I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: “An absolute rose?”
This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. (14)

Here we see another example of Daisy Buchanan’s lack of thought in her comparison of Nick Carraway to a rose. She repeats it to herself, as if the repetition will affirm the statement itself, and when she finds this method of corroboration doesn’t work, she turns to Jordon Baker for help. Nick, of course, notes that this comparison is completely false. It is meaningless speech—words said for the sake of saying something.

Fitzgerald reiterates this point a number of times in the scene where Daisy attempts to speak words of wisdom. Relating the story of her daughter’s birth, she says:

‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’
“You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,” she went on in a convinced way. “Everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.” Her eyes flashed around in a defiant way…and she laughed with thrilling scorn. “Sophisticated—God I’m sophisticated!”

In this, we get the Daisy Buchanan motto: be a fool. Intelligence never got a girl anywhere, so why waste your time trying to sound smart when you can just use the powers of Venus? Again, she repeats herself a number of times, indicating a degree of self-affirmation, as well as uncertainty in what she is saying. Her source to back up her statements is narrowed from “everybody” to the vague concept of “the most advanced people.” Realizing this is not necessarily a reliable source, she then falls back on personal experience as the basis of her wisdom, ending in an exclamation that seems painfully ironic. We are left to wonder if she believes any of this herself, or if she is just blowing hot air.

Henry James focuses on Daisy Miller’s naiveté in a more indirect way, as Winterbourne notes that she could care less for visiting castles or historical landmarks.

The young man asked Mrs. Miller how she was pleased with Rome. “Well, I must say I am disappointed,” she answered. “we had heard so much about it; I suppose we had heard too much. But we couldn’t help that. We had been led to expect something different.”

Daisy and Mrs. Miller reach Rome in all its majesty, walk around, see the sights, and find themselves disappointed. They believe they have been let down, that it is the fault of the art, not the fault of their own ignorance. Daisy and Mrs. Miller forget that the art is not on trial. They are so self consumed that they cannot appreciate the great city of Rome, full of some of the most magnificent art and architecture in the world. The daisy flower, as we have already noted, is not meant to admire other things—it is meant to be admired. Its ability to appreciate anything beyond itself or without direct relation to itself is incredibly limited.

Note also that both Daisies are, by their nature, flirty. Upon arriving to Nick’s house, Daisy Buchanan asks Nick if she has secretly invited her over because he loves her. Daisy Miller coolly flirts with Winterbourne, specifying that she wants him to visit her in Rome not because of some side trip to see his Aunt, but because she wants him to want to see her. Indeed, Winterbourne spends the vast span of Daisy Miller debating whether the young lady is innocent, or a coquette.

“Coolness” is an attractive trait for both Daisies. For Daisy Buchanan, it is this word that publicly reveals her love for Gatsby: “Ah,” she cried, “you look so cool.”… “You always look so cool.” For Daisy Miller, the first quality she points out in her young Italian suitor is his coolness: “But there’s Giovanelli, leaning against that tree. He’s staring at the women in the carriages: did you ever see anything so cool?” For both of them, there is something about coolness which they find distinctly alluring. Note that in both cases coolness is something they observe, not something that is necessarily there, just appears to be there. The sense of this word in both cases is “deliberate, calm, not hasty,” which seems to be—apart from wealth—a winning quality for a man to possess, perhaps because any other sort of man would be too much for the delicate flower, anything but careful deliberation would undoubtedly lead to tragedy—and it does.

It does not take much to see that there are many parallels between Daisy Miller and Daisy Buchanan. Clearly, Fitzgerald saw something in the character of Daisy Miller, something about he wanted to explore, namely: what happens to all the Daisy Millers in the world who do not die young of malaria? How does such a person proceed into later stages of life? Daisy Buchanan is his answer.

¹ “But Daisy, on this occasion, continued to present herself as an inscrutable combination of audacity and innocence.” (415)

² “Of her own tastes, habits, and intentions Miss Miller was prepared to give the most definite, and indeed the most favourable account.” (407)