In which we discuss the third book of the Aeneid. Book three has Aeneas relating the tale of the Trojans as they journey from the shores of burning Troy to their arrival at Carthage, where they are hospitably and warmly received by Dido, the Carthaginian queen. (As the next book will reveal, this hospitality will not ultimately be reciprocated by Aeneas, to say the least). Because this book follows the path of Odysseus’ journey in the Odyssey so closely, we spend much of our time comparing and contrasting these two journeys, giving particular attention to the very different encounters with Polyphemus, the monstrous cyclops blinded by Odysseus. What kind of leader is Aeneas? What kind of a leader was Odysseus? What kind of leadership is held up by the poem as ideal and why? We also consider some murkier, more metaphysical, depths about the nature of meaning and truth. How do morals and meanings exist? Where do they come from and what grounds them? The Trojans, being literal (but not, perhaps, especially literary) seem to be seeking a literal piece of ground on which to built a nation, and from which to emanate a moral order. Sometimes we say “the history determines the metaphysics of the poem,” and sometimes we say “the metaphysics determines the history of the poem.” Join us on our own journey of trying to understand just what we mean by all those words.