Plato was essentially a poet--the truth and splendour of his
imagery, and the melody of his language, are the most intense
that it is possible to conceive. He rejected the measure of the
epic, dramatic and lyrical forms, because he sought to kindle a
harmony in thoughts divested of shape and action, and he
forbore to invent any regular plan of rhythm which would
include under determinate forms, the varied pauses of his
style.

( Percy Bysshe Shelley. A Defence of Poetry ¹ )

The story of Virgil's Aeneid is well known. Ulysses' stratagem of
the wooden horse caused the city of Troy to fall to the Greeks,
prompting Aeneas to flee from Troy with his son, his father
Anchises, and his comrades. They travel to various places, includ-
ing Carthage, where Aeneas has an ill-fated love affair with Dido.
The Trojans then sail to Italy and, after Aeneas' visit to the
underworld, arrive in Latium. The pact made with the Latins is
soon broken and a bitter war ensues. The outcome is determined by
single combat between Aeneas and Turnus, the leader of the
Rutuli. Turnus is defeated and killed.

That summary of the story, however, is not at all the same thing
as the narrative of the Aeneld. The actual narrative of the Aeneid is
doubtless less well known than the story. The narrative is in Latin
verse and runs for several thousand lines. It does not begin at the
beginning of the story--the chain of events the poem seeks to
recount. The narrative opens in medias res with the sea storm
which brings the Trojans to Carthage. The account of the fall of
Troy and of Aeneas' flight from the city is given subsequently as a
'flashback' in the second and third books of the poem. That account

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