Instead, Aeneas, with his mind set on fulfilling his Duty, can seem “an awful bore” (1). Comments like Aeneas sleeping in “his little trundle bed” (9) as the Greeks attack peel off the patina of “pious Aeneas,” The Father of the Roman People. is gleeful and high-spirited here is an author whose fondness for her subject matter enables her to poke brazen fun at it. Aeneas is compared to Scarlett O’Hara (“he knew that you can’t go forward if your head is hung over your shoulder looking back,” 16) the “chicken” Trojans’ haplessness is highlighted (74) Turnus is “an excellent example of an early spin doctor” (74). This slender book lucidly recounts the story of Aeneas vis à vis the Trojan War in a tongue-in-cheek tone that pokes fun at the majestic seriousness often allotted to Vergil’s epic. strives to retell the Aeneid in as painless a manner as possible, all the while keeping in mind “what a pain” reading this epic poem, in English or in Latin, can be for today’s high school Latin students as well as “untold millions of long-suffering history students” (1).
The book’s subtitle is from the translation of Book I.33, Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem : “What a pain it was to found the Roman race.” W. The Labors of Aeneas by Rose Williams (hereafter W.) is an extensive paraphrase-cum-retelling of Vergil’s Aeneid in a voice that is quite opposite to that often accorded to the lofty Founder of the Roman Race.
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