Indeed, the whole dispute is of no more concernment to the common reader than it is to a ploughman whether February this year had twenty-eight or twenty-nine days in it; but for the satisfaction of the more curious (of which number I am sure your lordship is one) I will translate what I think convenient out of Segrais, whom perhaps you have not read, for he has made it highly probable that the action of the "AEneis" began in the spring, and was not extended beyond the autumn; and we have known campaigns that have begun sooner and have ended later.
Ronsard and the rest whom Segrais names, who are of opinion that the action of this poem takes up almost a year and half, ground their calculation thus:- Anchises died in Sicily at the end of winter or beginning of the spring. AEneas, immediately after the interment of his father, puts to sea for Italy; he is surprised by the tempest described in the beginning of the first book; and there it is that the scene of the poem opens, and where the action must commence. He is driven by this storm on the coasts of Africa; he stays at Carthage all that summer, and almost all the winter following; sets sail again for Italy just before the beginning of the spring; meets with contrary winds, and makes Sicily the second time. This part of the action completes the year. Then he celebrates the anniversary of his father's funerals, and shortly after arrives at Cumes. And from thence his time is taken up in his first treaty with Latinus; the overture of the war; the siege of his camp by Turnus; his going for succours to relieve it; his return; the raising of the siege by the first battle; the twelve days' truce; the second battle; the assault of Laurentum, and the single fight with Turnus--all which, they say, cannot take up less than four or five months more, by which account we cannot suppose the entire action to be contained in a much less compass than a year and half.
Segrais reckons another way, and his computation is not condemned by the learned Ruaeus, who compiled and published the commentaries on our poet which we call the "Dauphin's Virgil." He allows the time of year when Anchises died to be in the latter end of winter or the beginning of the spring; he acknowledges that when AEneas is first seen at sea afterwards, and is driven by the tempest on the coast of Africa, is the time when the action is naturally to begin; he confesses farther, that AEneas left Carthage in the latter end of winter, for Dido tells him in express terms, as an argument for his longer stay -
"Quin etiam hiberno moliris sidere classem."
But whereas Ronsard's followers suppose that when AEneas had buried his father he set sail immediately for Italy (though the tempest drove him on the coast of Carthage), Segrais will by no means allow that supposition, but thinks it much more probable that he remained in Sicily till the midst of July or the beginning of August, at which time he places the first appearance of his hero on the sea, and there opens the action of the poem. From which beginning, to the death of Turnus, which concludes the action, there need not be supposed above ten months of intermediate time; for arriving at Carthage in the latter end of summer, staying there the winter following, departing thence in the very beginning of the spring, making a short abode in Sicily the second time, landing in Italy, and making the war, may be reasonably judged the business but of ten months. To this the Ronsardians reply that, having been for seven years before in quest of Italy, and having no more to do in Sicily than to inter his father--after that office was performed, what remained for him but without delay to pursue his first adventure?
To which Segrais answers that the obsequies of his father, according to the rites of the Greeks and Romans, would detain him for many days; that a longer time must be taken up in the re-fitting of his ships after so tedious a voyage, and in refreshing his weather-beaten soldiers on a friendly coast. These indeed are but suppositions on both sides, yet those of Segrais seem better grounded; for the feast of Dido, when she entertained AEneas first, has the appearance of a summer's night, which seems already almost ended, when he begins his story. Therefore the love was made in autumn; the hunting followed properly, when the heats of that scorching country were declining. The winter was passed in jollity, as the season and their love required; and he left her in the latter end of winter, as is already proved. This opinion is fortified by the arrival of AEneas at the mouth of Tiber, which marks the season of the spring, that season being perfectly described by the singing of the birds saluting the dawn, and by the beauty of the place, which the poet seems to have painted expressly in the seventh AEneid:-
"Aurora in roseis fulgebat lutea bigis, Cum venti posuere . . .
. . . variae circumque supraque Assuetae ripis volucres, et fluminis alveo, AEthera mulcebant cantu."
The remainder of the action required but three months more; for when AEneas went for succour to the Tuscans, he found their army in a readiness to march and wanting only a commander: so that, according to this calculation, the "AEneas" takes not up above a year complete, and may be comprehended in less compass.
This, amongst other circumstances treated more at large by Segrais, agrees with the rising of Orion, which caused the tempest described in the beginning of the first book. By some passages in the "Pastorals," but more particularly in the "Georgics," our poet is found to be an exact astronomer, according to the knowledge of that age. Now Ilioneus, whom Virgil twice employs in embassies as the best speaker of the Trojans, attributes that tempest to Orion in his speech to Dido:-
"Cum subito assurgens fluctu nimbosus Orion."
He must mean either the heliacal or achronical rising of that sign.
