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Transcriber's Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
TWO DRAMATIZATIONS
FROM VERGIL
I. DIDO—The Phœnician Queen
II. THE FALL OF TROY
PREFACE
The epic is a drama on gigantic scale; its acts are yearsor centuries; its actors, heroes; its stage, the world of life;its events, those mighty cycles of activity that leave theirdeep impress on human history. Homer’s epics reënactthe stirring scenes of the ten years’ siege of Troy, and theperilous, long wanderings of Ulysses before he reached hishome; Vergil’s epic action embraces the fall of Troy andthe never-ending struggles of Æneas and his band of exilestill Troy should rise again in the western world; Tassopictures the heroic war of Godfrey and his crusaders, whostrove to free the holy city of Jerusalem; and Milton,ignoring all bounds of time and space, fills his triple stageof heaven, earth, and hell with angels, men, and devils,all working out the most stupendous problems of humandestiny.
Such gigantic dramas could be presented on no humanstage. But in them all are lesser actions of marked dramaticpossibility. Notable among these are the eventsculminating in the death of Hector, the home coming ofUlysses and his destruction of the suitors, Satan’s rebell