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Book V
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Some things we didn't read, but it is helpful to know.
. .
- Helenus, a Trojan seer, advised Aeneas to find out
from the Sibyl, a prophetess of Apollo, about his
immediate future in Italy (this is told in Book 3!).
- Aeneas held anniversary games for the anniversary
of his father's death
- Juno plots to have the Trojan women set fire to
the ships, which they do; many of the women and some of
the weaker men are left in Sicily. NB: this frees up "a
few good [Trojan] men" to take Italian wives in Italy,
thus joining the Trojan and Italian blood.
- Anchises appears to Aeneas in a dream and tells
him to visit him in the underworld (V.940ff)
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Katabasis
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Before we look at the details, let's think about a
catabasis/katabasis in hero stories: a
katabasis may be thought of as a symbolic death and
resurrection, though the hero neither dies nor returns
immortal; it is a kind of rite of passage in which the hero
learns something and frequently returns changed in some
aspect.
The location of the catabasis in Virgil's epic
is significant for understanding it as a 'passage'. Remember
that we have said the journey from East to West/ Troy to
Italy is a major theme of the poem, and, further, that the
journey is not just geographical, but also ideological.
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Italy/West
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Troy/East
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reinvented hero is 'duty-bound' public
servant
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[Homeric] heroism
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reign of law/order
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disorder/destruction
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___?___ war (Trojan prince takes a foreign
bride)
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futile war (Trojan prince takes a
foreign bride)
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The katabasis occurs right in the center
of the epic and in the center of the East to West movement.
It marks several "leavings" of relationships and/or
identities associated with the ideology of Troy and an
identification with a new order and a new people, the Roman
descendants of Aeneas. But we must return to the issue of
war; before we do so, think about what the Sibyl tells
Aeneas about his arrival in Italy:
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VI.130-145
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The Sibyl foretells war in Italy; the cause is like
the cause of the Trojan War (Trojan prince takes a foreign
wife). Is Aeneas just 'another Paris' and is the war in
Italy just 'another [futile and senseless] Trojan War'?
Accordingly, is the second half of Virgil's epic "just
another Iliad!?" We will have to struggle with this
problem--and it is a central one--along with Aeneas in Book
8.
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Aeneas' visit to the underworld
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Two acts Aeneas must perform before being admitted to
the underworld:
- perform funeral rites for Misenus (a ritual victim
to the gods to compensate for Aeneas' coming and going
from Hades?)
- find and bring the golden bough (a symbol of death
and resurrection? the object of a heroic-quest story
motif? allusion to legend of slave-kings?)
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Map of hell
Virgil and Augustus
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1) Aeneas is ferried across the Styx, leaving behind
Palinurus.
2) The place for those who led wretched lives
- died untimely deaths, were falsely accused,
committed suicide, ruined by love
- Dido the paragon of those who dwell in this part
of the underworld.
3) Another place for men who died in war (but didn't
make it to Elysium!), like poor Deiphobos (who had married
Helen after Hektor's death), whom Aeneas also leaves
sorrowfully.
4) Tartarus is reserved for the worst of the worst;
but listen to some of the [Roman] crimes that will get you
to Tartarus ( 814ff):
- what are all these crimes a violation of?
5) Elysium, "places of delight," where there are
athletic contests, choral dancing, chariots and horses, and
all the things the blessed souls enjoyed during their life
on earth. Aeneas is amazed that anyone would want to leave
to re-enter earthly existence. (Virgil's vision of the
underworld may be compared to Plato's in the Myth of
Er.)
- 904ff: metempsychosis
- 974ff: compare to Stoic cosmology
- Note the future Romans that Aeneas sees: KINGS,
AUGUSTUS, HEROES OF THE REPUBLIC. What might this say
about, or TO, Augustus?
- Note especially the program adumbrated in the
"Roman arts" in 1151-54. Is this praise, prescription,
or both?
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Aeneas belongs to the future in Italy, not to the past
in Troy. The continuity with Troy is important, but less so,
it appears, than the creation of something new that awaits.
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Looking ahead
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- As you read Book 8, think about the problem of
war: is the war in Italy significantly different than the
war in Troy and, if so, in what respects? This is a
problem that Aeneas must come to grips with. . . like the
reader.
- A little summary of the plot advance in Book
VII:
- Aeneas beaches his ships in Italy near the
mouth of the Tiber and sends an envoy to King Latinus.
King Latinus realizes that Aeneas fulfills an oracle
about the man to whom he should give his daughter
Lavinia, so he promises her to Aeneas. Lavinia has,
however, been courted by Turnus, with her mother's,
Amata's, approval.
- Juno sends Allecto, the most terrifying of the
Furies, first to Amata to enflame her with anger over
the proposed marriage of Lavinia and Aeneas, and
secondly to Turnus to enflame him to take up arms
against Aeneas and the Trojans.
- Allecto then maddens the hounds in the Trojan
camp so they chase a stag, raised by the royal
herders, which Ascanius wounds. She whips up a bloody
battle between the farmers, foresters, herders, and
the Trojans. Virgil uses all the images of disorder
and destruction that he has set up in the first six
books (fire, furor, wounds, storm, etc.) to
characterize the battle. The question of what kind of
war this will be becomes pressing.
- Both Turnus and the Latins approach Latinus and
demand that he declare war on the Trojans; he cannot
reason with them and so withdraws into his halls
(VII.825) .
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