When the ancient epic poem The Aeneid picks up, the Trojan War has come to an end, and just the mention of the word “horse” was enough to make any Trojan’s hair stand on end. Aeneas, a brave soldier who happens to be the son of Venus, flees the city with his family and undergoes a series of adventures before settling in Italy. Why this epic hasn’t been made into an HBO miniseries is beyond us.
Like The Iliad and The Odyssey, this mythical tale features gods and goddesses intervening in human lives. Every once in awhile, a god will lift the veil, giving a mortal a glimpse of divine meddling. Amidst the carnage, Aeneas is enraged and blames the human actors, but his mom reveals to him that fall of his home is the result of the harsh will of the gods. It can be useful to have a goddess as a mom sometimes, huh?
With this new insight, Aeneas changes his whole interpretation of the war, its aftermath, and his destiny. How does having a sudden fundamental change in how you see the world something a hermeneutics scholar would love to take a bite out of?