Now we all know what Virgil's poetic career would go on to look like.

No prizes for guessing who inspired the headline “New President Feels Nation’s Pain, Breasts”, or who regaled dinner guests with an impromptu oration on Virgil’s minor works.

The god told Virgil that he wasn't ready yet for the manly, the adult, and the public world, the important world, of epic poetry.

To say he was Virgil to my Dante would be stretching it-just a little-and yet he did show me something of hell, and where to look for grace and mercy in the midst of that.

It's to admit that this is in fact a late epic and that it derives from a close, studious, student-like imitation of the great epics of Homer and Virgil.