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- # Shakespeare's Poem and Classical Influences
## Overview
This subsection, titled "In the rhetorical digressions which distinguish Shakespeare’s poem he had every opportunity of pursuing his own bent, but even in these digressive passages there emerge bold traces of his reading, not merely in the classics, but in contemporary English poetry," is a segment of a larger document. It was extracted from the file `pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt` on January 30, 2026, and is part of the collection titled "PDF Workflow Main Test 2026-01-30T00:26:53".
## Context
This section delves into the literary influences present in Shakespeare's poem, suggesting that even in digressive passages, his reading in classical and contemporary English poetry is evident. The text specifically highlights the 217 lines (1366–582) describing the destruction of Troy, noting a close connection to Virgil's *Aeneid*, particularly Book I (lines 456–655) and Book II (lines 76 seq.). The description of the character Sinon is also linked to Virgil's work. The subsection is situated between "One parallel between Bandello’s novel and Shakespeare’s Lucrece will suffice." and "Shakespeare again enlarges the restricted bounds of the classical tale by introducing a sympathizing handmaiden."
## Contents
The primary content of this subsection is an analysis of Shakespeare's poem, focusing on its engagement with classical literature. It details how Shakespeare drew upon Virgil's *Aeneid* for the depiction of the destruction of Troy and the character of Sinon. The text also includes a footnote referencing a translation of a passage related to Brutus's feigned madness and another footnote that points to Ovid's *Heroides* and its potential influence on *The Taming of the Shrew*, quoting Latin lines from Ovid that appear in Shakespeare's play.
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- In the rhetorical digressions which distinguish Shakespeare’s poem he had every opportunity of pursuing his own bent, but even in these digressive passages there emerge bold traces of his reading, not merely in the classics, but in contemporary English poetry. The 217 lines (1366–582), which describe with exceptional vividness a skilful painting of the destruction of Troy, betray a close intimacy with more than one book of Vergil’s *Aeneid*. The episode in its main outline is a free development of Vergil’s dramatic account (Bk. i. 456–655) of a picture of the identical scene which arrests Aeneas’ attention in Dido’s palace at Carthage. The energetic portrait of the wily Sinon which fills a large space in Shakespeare’s canvas is drawn from Vergil’s second book (ll. 76 seq.).²
¹ In English the words run:—‘And pretending to be mad, and doing such foolish things a thousand times a day as fools are wont to do, Brutus came to be looked upon as an idiot, who was held dear by the king’s sons, more for making them sport with his foolish tricks than for any other cause.’
² References to more or less crude pictorial representations of the siege of Troy are common in classical authors, notably in Ovid. Ovid in his *Heroides*, i. 33 seq., causes the Greek soldier to paint on a table with wine the disposition of the opposing armies at Troy. The first lines of this passage are very deliberately quoted in *The Taming of the Shrew*, iii. 1. 18, 29:—
Hic ibat Simois; hic est Sigela tellus;
Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis.
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- In the rhetorical digressions which distinguish Shakespeare’s poem he had every opportunity of pursuing his own bent, but even in these digressive passages there emerge bold traces of his reading, not merely in the classics, but in contemporary English poetry.