The epic is a drama on gigantic scale; its acts are years or centuries; its actors, heroes; its stage, the world of life; its events, those mighty cycles of activity that leave their deep impress on human history. Homer’s epics reËnact the stirring scenes of the ten years’ siege of Troy, and the perilous, long wanderings of Ulysses before he reached his home; Vergil’s epic action embraces the fall of Troy and the never-ending struggles of Æneas and his band of exiles till Troy should rise again in the western world; Tasso pictures the heroic war of Godfrey and his crusaders, who strove to free the holy city of Jerusalem; and Milton, ignoring all bounds of time and space, fills his triple stage of heaven, earth, and hell with angels, men, and devils, all working out the most stupendous problems of human destiny.

Such gigantic dramas could be presented on no human stage. But in them all are lesser actions of marked dramatic possibility. Notable among these are the events culminating in the death of Hector, the home coming of Ulysses and his destruction of the suitors, Satan’s rebellion and expulsion from heaven, and the temptation and fall of man. All these furnish abundant material for the tragic stage; but all leave much to be supplied of speech and action before the full-rounded drama could take form. In the Æneid alone is found, among the minor parts which make up the epic whole, a dramatic action well-nigh complete—the love story of Æneas and Dido.

The ordinary student of Vergil is too much engrossed with an intensive study of the text, and has too near a view of the poem, to appreciate how fully this story is worked out in detail; how its speech, action, and events all lead to a dramatic climax. There is need only here and there of an interpolated lyric upon some suggested theme, a bit of Vergil’s description of action or feeling expressed in the actor’s words, an interjected line to relieve the strain of too long speech—all else is Vergil’s own, ready to be lifted out of its larger epic setting and portrayed upon the stage.

In arranging and translating this epic tragedy, the authors have made only such minor additions and alterations of the original as seemed necessary from the dramatic point of view. Prominent among these are the introduction of lyrics at certain points, the obviously necessary curtailing of the banquet scene by the omission of the long narrative of Æneas, and the removal behind the scenes of the final tragedy of Dido’s suicide. The lyrical parts have been set to original music in sympathy with the themes; stage action and scenery are suggested by outline drawings of the different settings; and idealized figures and costumes are reproduced from ancient vases and bas-reliefs. These figures have, in some cases, been assigned by scholars to other subjects; but they may be taken, for the purposes of the present work, as illustrative of the characters designated.

With full consciousness of the shortcomings of the work, but with the hope also of assisting the student in school and home to a fuller appreciation of the power and beauty of Vergil, this volume is respectfully presented to the public.