The Adventures of Enea, Part 3 of 13

Enea, at the Scottish Court The critics claim that this is far the worst of all the frescoes. Enea the star? No inkling here. Can that be James the First? And that’s the Clyde? It looks more like the Arno. A spartan Stuart court? Or is it Bourbon? Less Edinburgh in feel, and more Locarno. Whoever saw Scots courtiers in turbans? The ceiling is salubriously embossed, more like the Vatican of sainted Urban! Perhaps Enea’s Latin can’t be glossed, for no-one’s listening, that much is certain. One wonders what the marble columns cost. And wrapped in that red robe (looks like a curtain!), he seems to lack all gusto, all scintilla. For this he braved the Beauly and the Burton? There’s nothing interesting in the villa. Less Donatello, more like Damien Hirst. It wasn’t worth Charybdis, much less Scylla. Enea Receives the Laurel Crown Not only is he with the Emperor: he’s kneeling to receive the laurel crown. His deeds will be preserved in tempora, his poems printed, bound and handed down. What more can man achieve in life than this? While many live and love, and toil in vain, Enea’s standing on the precipice: rewarded for that fine, well-nurtured brain. So why am I uneasy? Read the signs. And eagle savages a hapless duck. The building seems all wrong. Wrong size, wrong lines. And what’s it meant to be? Are you not struck to see the woman on the loggia, being raped? Pandora’s Box is open. Hope’s escaped. Form and Matter It all comes down to this, don’t you agree? The Court of Charlemagne, the Holy See – there’s Thought and Thing: idea, reality. We’re in the presence room, but some are free to stroll the colonnade at liberty. Unyielding marble throne, lapped by a sea of flowing silk: that’s how it has to be. Enea kneels between eternity and actuality: the Papacy against the Empire. Physicality abuts against the realm of sophistry.