Introduction

This chapter mentions Italo Calvino, who once explained that a classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. It addresses the relationship of Juno in literature to the Juno of history and of cult, but only occasionally and, for the most part, generally. Similarly, it conjures with the allegorical Juno of Michael Murrin and Philip Hardie, but it does not consistently put physical allegory at center stage. The chapter regards Juno as a character in the poem and in relation to characters in other poems who in some sense share her identity. It discusses the approach to Juno, which is of some value if only because it is a bit unusual as it is not altogether unprecedented.