The Aeneid Read Online Free Page A

Leader
    There are tears at the heart of things,
sunt lacrimae rerum
, and for the Victorians Virgil was often seen as a sad presence brooding on the griefs of humanity. On the other hand, throughout these funeral games Aeneas is cheerful, inspiriting, active, efficient, statesmanlike, and a sensitive leader of his men. He sets up the branch on an island to mark the turning point for the boat-race. He gives munificent prizes to every competitor, even to Sergestus when his ship limps home last. He is amusedby the effrontery of Nisus and skilfully defuses a nasty situation when Nisus and Salius squabble over the prizes. He tries with a joke to tempt a challenger into the ring with the formidable Dares. When this fails, he conspires with Acestes to tempt the old champion Entellus to put on his gloves again, and when Entellus is on the rampage in this great boxing match, it is Aeneas who saves the life of Dares and shows supreme tact in consoling him for his defeat. He shows his statesman-like vision in acknowledging the blessing of the gods on his Trojan host, Acestes. When the competitive events are over he allows no gap. He has seen to everything. All he has to do to set in motion the grand cavalry display of the Trojan boys is to whisper a word in the ear of a young friend of Ascanius. Throughout, Father Aeneas cares like a father for his people, grieving when he is persuaded that it is the the will of the gods and the wisest course that he should leave the women and children in Sicily in the new city of Segesta he founds for them under Acestes. Once again, the
Aeneid
looks forward from the legendary past to more recent events. (In the Punic Wars Segesta was to side with Rome.)
    Throughout the poem Aeneas is said to be
pius
. But Roman
pietas
is not the same as our piety. It is not simply a matter of respecting the gods. Pietas requires that a man should do what is due and right not only by his gods, but also for his city, his family, his friends and his enemies. Apart from his lapse in Book 4, Aeneas is its embodiment, and it shows vividly here. Perhaps this is part of the explanation of Montaigne’s view that the fifth book of the
Aeneid
seems to be the most perfect (‘le cinquiesme livre de l’Aeneide me semble le plus parfaict’,
Essays
2.10).
BOOK 6
THE UNDERWORLD
    Aeneas arrives in Italy at last, landing at Cumae just north of the Bay of Naples. There he consults the Sibyl, begging her to allow him to go down to the Underworld to see his father Anchises. She agrees to escort him on condition that he finds a golden branch in a dark tree and buries the body of Misenus, a comrade who has been drowned. These tasks he achieves andin the Underworld they meet, in reverse order of their deaths, Palinurus, Dido and heroes who had died at Troy. They proceed to the place of eternal torture of the damned and to the Fields of the Blessed where they find Anchises, who explains the creation of the universe and the origin of life, and takes them to see a parade of great Romans of the future marching up family by family towards the light of life.
Why the Underworld?
    Why did Virgil send his hero down into the Underworld? In Virgil there is often more than one answer to a question. The simple explanation is that this allows him the emotional intensity of the scenes where Aeneas meets dead friends and enemies – his pilot Palinurus drowned in the crossing to Cumae, Dido ignoring his tears and words of love, Trojans who had died at the sack of the city, Greeks fleeing at his approach. This episode is also a watershed in the plot. In the Underworld Aeneas faces his memories and is given a view of the future. From this time forth he is looking towards the destiny of Rome. Another factor in Virgil’s decision must have been the Homeric model. Virgil is writing a Latin epic to stand beside the great epics of the Greeks. Odysseus had conversed with the shades over a trench filled with blood; Aeneas, too, will converse with the dead. The