Though reading heroic couplets, I do wish he would strive less for the heroic declaration (the faint echo in the room tone doesn't help, either). And if you listen closely, Virgil’s vision is not unclouded by ambiguities. Subversion is not the only gambit available to poets.
There remains something grand in the ideals here expressed.
Dismiss the Roman patriotism as propagandistic toadyism. Compare him unfavorably to the wily, many-sided Odysseus. Say what you want about Aeneas being a straight arrow. Among his many merits, Dryden makes freer use of enjambment than Pope (see the latter's translation of the Iliad), softening the monotony of heroic couplets. Untrammeled by any knowledge of Latin, I can say this remains my favorite translation of the Aeneid, primarily because it is a powerful English poem on its own terms, by one of my favorite English poets. To tame the proud, the fetter’d slave to free…
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