Well, it's been an eventful week, shall we say.

America, the TV show, is really popping off this season.

We've had all kinds of dramatic turns of events,

and a major theme of the week has actually been the difference between words and deeds.

This came up in the very heated Oval Office meeting between Donald

Trump and President Zelensky of Ukraine when J.D. Vance, the vice president, was contrasting the

tough words of the Biden administration with the tough deeds and actions of the Trump administration.

It was also something Zelensky talked about when he compared

the words and the deeds of Putin. He said Putin has gone back on his word again and again. And so

what use would a ceasefire be when he's always saying one thing and doing another? So this

difference, this contrast between words and deeds is actually an eternal theme of statecraft. It's one of the perennial

issues that humankind, especially nations at war, have dealt with throughout the ages. And it is also,

as luck or providence would have it, a crucial theme in the Inneid book two. Last week we saw

the pretty words of the Greeks. We saw how they talk. Now, once the Trojan horses in the walls and night falls, we are about to see how the Greeks act. And it ain't going to be pretty. Okay, things are getting real for Aeneas here.

I've called this part of the poem A trauma dump.

Book two of the Aeneid is a trauma dump, and that's really true. It's a story that Aeneas has been

invited to tell by Dido, Queen of Carthage, and it's the story of the central catastrophe,

the central tragedy of his life, the fall of Troy at the hands of the Greeks, the destruction

of his homeland. And this is something which I pray to God, none of my listeners

ever have to live through. I've never had to live through it. It's something that has been on

the public's mind recently with the war in Ukraine, with wars around the world, this idea of

displacement, of destruction, of disaster. it's indescribable, impossible

...