Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

's ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...

'', Iopas is a bard at the court of

Dido Dido ( ; , ), also known as Elissa ( , ), was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (located in modern Tunisia), in 814 BC. In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre (t ...

. He appears at the end of Book 1, where he sings the so-called "Song of Iopas", a creation narrative, at the banquet given for Aeneas and his Trojans.

Text, context

The passage in Virgil:

...cithara crinitus Iopas personat aurata, docuit quem maximus Atlas. hic canit errantem lunam solisque labores, unde hominum genus et pecudes, unde imber et ignes, Arcturum pluuiasque Hyadas geminosque Triones, quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles hiberni, uel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet

A student of Atlas, the maestro, Livens the air with his gilded harp. For the long-haired Iopas Sings of the unpredictable moon, of the sun and its labours, Origins human and animal, causes of fire and of moisture, Stars (Lesser, Greater Bear, rainy Hyades, also Arcturus), Why in the winter the sun so hurries to dive in the Ocean, What slows winter's lingering nights, what blocks and delays them. (Tr. Frederick Ahl)

As Christine G. Perkell points out, Iopas's song consists of "commonplaces of the didactic genre" rather than heroic song, which is the kind of song one could have expected from a court poet like

Phemius In Homer's epic poem the ''Odyssey'', Phemius (; Ancient Greek: Φήμιος ''Phēmios'') is an Ithacan poet who performs narrative songs in the house of the absent Odysseus. Mythology Phemius's audience is made up largely of the suitors of Pene ...

or Demodocus from the ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major Ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek Epic poetry, epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by moder ...

''. Iopas's song resembles

Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into E ...

's ''

De Rerum Natura ''De rerum natura'' (; ''On the Nature of Things'') is a first-century BC didactic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius ( – c. 55 BC) with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, written in some 7 ...

'',

Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...

's ''

Works and Days ''Works and Days'' ( grc, Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι, Érga kaì Hēmérai)The ''Works and Days'' is sometimes called by the Latin translation of the title, ''Opera et Dies''. Common abbreviations are ''WD'' and ''Op''. for ''Opera''. is a ...

'', and Virgil's own ''

Georgics The ''Georgics'' ( ; ) is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests (from the Greek word , ''geōrgika'', i.e. "agricultural (things)") the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example ...

''.

Interpretation

Many interpretations have been offered for Iopas's song. Classicist

Eve Adler Eve Adler (29 April 1945 – 4 September 2004) was an American classicist who taught at Middlebury College for 25 years until her death in 2004. Adler was a graduate of Queens College with a B.A. in Hebrew, of Brandeis University with a M.A. in ...

, who paid particular attention to how the Trojans at the banquet wait until the Carthaginians have expressed their appreciation before applauding the song, notes that Iopas's naturalistic explanation of the world (requiring no gods) comes as a surprise to the Trojans; Adler sees the passage as anticipated in Virgil's ''

'', at the end of Book 2 and the beginning of Book 3. For Adler, Iopas is a kind of

-figure (whose message Virgil rejects). Classicist Timothy Power considers that Iopas evokes King Juba II of Numidia, famous augustal scholar.Timothy Power: VERGIL’S CITHARODES: CRETHEUS AND IOPAS RECONSIDERED in VergiliusVol. 63 (2017), pp. 93-124. Published by The Vergilian Society

References

{{Reflist Characters in the Aeneid