Who She Is
Lavinia is the only daughter of King Latinus and Queen Amata, and the bride in dispute in the second half of the Aeneid. Many men seek her in Latium and throughout Ausonia, her mother wants her married to Turnus, and fate reserves her for Aeneas. She barely acts and never speaks: throughout the poem Lavinia does not have a single line of speech, and what the poem shows of her are gestures, a blush, hair in flames, her head bowed. Her role is to be what is at stake. Whoever marries her inherits the kingdom of a king without a male heir, and that is why the war in Latium revolves around a young woman whose will the poem never records.
Trajectory
In Book I, the poem only announces her land: Jupiter promises Venus that Aeneas will see the walls of Lavinium, and the proem speaks of the shores of Lavinium that the hero reaches first. Lavinia does not yet exist as a person, only as the name of a city he will found.
Arma virumque cano Trojae qui primus ab oris / Italiam, fato profugus, Lavinaque venit / Littora, I sing of arms and of the man who, a fugitive by fate, first came from the shores of Troy to Italy and to the coasts of Lavinium.
In Book VI, in the parade of future Romans, Anchises announces to Aeneas that Silvius will be born late, when he is already old, to Lavinia, his wife: she is the point of passage between Troy and the lineage of Alba and of Rome.
In Book VII, she enters the scene as the prize everyone wants. Turnus is the strongest suitor, with the queen on his side, but prodigies stall the wedding, and one of them envelops her: when Lavinia stands beside her father at the altar, a flame takes hold of her long hair, the ornament, and the crown of stones, and wraps her in smoke without burning her. The seers read the sign as fame for her and war for the people.
Multi illam magno e Latio totaque petebant / Ausonia. Petit ante alios pulcherrimus omnes / Turnus, avis atavisque potens; quem regia conjux / Adjungi generum miro properabat amore: / Sed variis portenta deum terroribus obstant, many sought her, from great Latium and from all of Ausonia. Before all the others, Turnus, the most beautiful, powerful through his grandfathers and great-grandfathers, sought her; and the queen, Latinus's wife, was hurrying with extraordinary love for him to be joined to her as son-in-law. But the portents of the gods stand in the way, with varied terrors.
Then the oracle of her grandfather Faunus orders Latinus to refuse Latin sons-in-law and to await foreigners, and the king concludes that Aeneas is the son-in-law. Juno, who has already accepted that Lavinia will indeed be Aeneas's wife, changes her aim: she will not prevent the marriage, but will make it cost blood, and, in a monologue in which she addresses the young woman without her hearing, says that she will be dowered with Trojan and Rutulian blood.
Non dabitur regnis (esto) prohibere Latinis, / Atque immota manet fatis Lavinia conjux: / At trahere, atque moras tantis licet addere rebus; / At licet amborum populos exscindere regum. / Hac gener atque socer coeant mercede suorum. / Sanguine Trojano et Rutulo dotabere, virgo; / Et Bellona manet te pronuba, it is not mine to prevent them from ruling among the Latins (very well), and Lavinia remains a wife fixed by the fates: but I can drag things out and put delays in the way of so great an enterprise; I can exterminate the peoples of both kings. Let son-in-law and father-in-law unite at this price, that of their own people. With Trojan and Rutulian blood you will be dowered, maiden; and Bellona awaits you as your matron of honor.
Lavinia is taken by Amata to the mountains, on the pretext of a rite of Bacchus, so that Aeneas cannot take her. In Book IX, Turnus calls her the bride the Trojans have taken from him, and says that the Greeks are not the only ones who take up arms for a wife.
In Book XI, the mothers and widows of Laurentum curse the war and Turnus's marriage to Lavinia, and the young woman herself accompanies her mother to the temple of Pallas, eyes lowered: the poem calls her the cause of so many evils, without saying that she did anything to bring it about.
In Book XII, Turnus demands the duel and, in proposing it, makes Lavinia the prize: either he sends the deserter from Asia to Tartarus, or the Trojan has the conquered and Lavinia is ceded to him as wife. She blushes on hearing Amata's weeping, and the blush inflames Turnus even more. It is the first moment in which the poem shows her reacting to something, and the gesture has no words.
Nulla mora in Turno; nihil est quod dicta retractent / Ignavi Aeneadae, nec quae pepigere recusent. / Congredior; fer sacra, pater, et concipe foedus. / Aut hac Dardanium dextra sub Tartara mittam / Desertorem Asiae (sedeant spectentque Latini) / Et solus ferro crimen commune refellam; / Aut habeat victos, cedat Lavinia conjux, there is no delay in Turnus; the cowardly Aeneadae have no reason to retract what they have said, or to refuse what they agreed to. I step forward: bring the sacrifices, father, and dictate the treaty. Either with this hand I will send the deserter from Asia down to Tartarus (let the Latins sit and watch), and alone with the sword I will refute the common charge; or let him have the conquered, and let Lavinia be ceded to him as wife.
Before the duel, Aeneas swears that, if he wins, the two peoples will have equal laws, Latinus will hold command, and the Trojan city will bear Lavinia's name. At Amata's death, Lavinia tears her hair and cheeks. When Turnus, defeated, holds out his palms, it is he who says that Lavinia belongs to Aeneas: the poem ends without her appearing again, neither in a marriage nor in mourning.
Equidem merui, nec deprecor, inquit; / Utere sorte tua. Miseri te si qua parentis / Tangere cura potest, oro (fuit et tibi talis / Anchises genitor), Dauni miserere senectae; / Et me, seu corpus spoliatum lumine mavis, / Redde meis. Vicisti, et victum tendere palmas / Ausonii videre: tua est Lavinia conjux; / Ulterius ne tende odiis, I have earned it, and I do not beg; use your fortune. If any care for a wretched father can touch you (you too had such a father, Anchises), have pity on the old age of Daunus; and return me to my people, or my body stripped of light, if you prefer. You have won, and the Ausonians saw the conquered stretch out his palms: Lavinia is your wife; do not carry hatred any further.
Themes Embodied
Lavinia embodies Fate and Free Will in reverse: she is the figure whose destiny is decided by everyone else, the oracle, her mother, her father, Turnus, and Juno, and whose will the poem never records. She embodies Empire and Colonialism in the most literal sense, because marriage to her is the title by which a foreigner inherits a kingdom, and the city Aeneas will found bears her name. She embodies War as what motivates it and what never asks her anything: she is the cause of so many evils without having acted. And she embodies Home, Exile, and Return, because for Aeneas the Italy he seeks comes to him in the figure of a bride.
Lavinia's silence is the most discussed absence in the poem. The text does not say what she wants, and what can be seen in her, the blush before Turnus, the weeping for her mother, the bowed head in the temple, points to at least three different feelings: modesty, filial affection, shame at being the cause. Dido, in the first half, speaks and decides; Lavinia, in the second, is decided. The comparison shows how much Virgil gives voice to the victims of the founding and still leaves one of them without any.
Relationships
- Latinus: the father, who promises her to Aeneas on the reading of the oracle and later treats her as part of the pact.
- Amata: the mother, who wants her married to Turnus and takes her to the mountains to hide her from the Trojans.
- Turnus: the promised suitor, who demands her back by arms and is troubled by love when he sees her blush before everyone.
- Aeneas: the suitor fate gives her, whose marriage to her will give a name to a city.
- Juno: the goddess who accepts the marriage and makes it cost blood.