Aeneid quotes Flashcards
Difference in Odysseus and Aeneas’ introductions?
O - “the whole world talks of my stratagems”
A - “known for my devotion”
What does Aeneas tell Dido in the Underworld?
“it was against my will, O Queen, that I left your shore”
b6 “Aeneas was no less stricken by the injustice of her fate and…
…long did he gaze after her with tears, pitying her”
b1 proem “this was the beginning of the Latin race, the Alban fathers and…
…the high walls of Rome”
Evidence that Aeneas is a good leader b6:
“Aeneas took the lead in all this work, urging on his comrades and carrying at his side the same tools as they”
b1 Jupiter tells Venus “he will build walls for his people…
…and establish their way of life”
“scorner of the gods”
epithet used for Mezentius
Lausus death described as:
“cruel death”
“listen now to this story of Greek treachery, and from this one indictment…
…. learn the ways of a whole people”
b2 flashback to Trojan war
“Juno is said to have loved it more…
… than any other place” - b1 Carthage
b1 “they were like bees…
…. at the beginning of summer”
b12 Latinus “gave way to my love for you… to the…
…grief and tears of my wife”
How does Latinus describe the war in b12?
“unjust cause”
b6 “I knew your devotion would prevail over all…
…the rigour of the journey and bring you to your father”
b10 “I return you to the shades and the ashes of your ancestors…
…if that is any comfort to you” - Aeneas feels sorrow for killing Lausus
b12 “we have a treaty…
…and my right hand will make it good” - Aeneas stands by the oath he made
b12 “from me, my son, you can…
…learn courage and hard toil”
b1 “listening with all their attention”, to a man with “some weight”, “his words command their passions…
…and soothe their hearts” - Virgil likens Neptune calming the sea to a man calming the mob (Augustus)
b4 “but priests, as we know, are ignorant”
example of Virgil’s narrator intervention to the reader
b4 “Dido was on fire with love and wandered all over the city in her…
…misery and madness like a wounded doe”
b4 “he was like Apollo”
Aeneas is likened to a god, particularly Augustus’ patron god
b4 “the warning, the command from the gods,…
…had struck him like a thunderbolt”
b4 “no griefs moved Aeneas. He heard but did not heed her words. …
… The fates forbade it and God blocked his ears to all appeals” - Aeneas listening to Dido
b4 “she was dying not by the decree of Fate or by her own deserts….
…but pitiably and before her time, in a sudden blaze of madness” - Dido’s death
b6 “a second Achilles is already born in Latium, and he too is the son of a goddess”
The Sibyl on Turnus
b6 “you must cease to hope that the Fates of the gods can…
…be altered by prayers” - the Sibyl scolding unburied Palinurus
b6 “here he is, Augustus Caesar, son of a god, the man who will…
…bring back the golden years to the fields of Latium”
b7 “This is a greater work…
….I now set in motion” - Virgil narrator intervention
b7 Amata - “it breathed its viper’s breath into her…
… and made her mad”
b7 “raged in a wild frenzy… like a spinning top”
furor of Amata
b7 “the trees shivered at the noise and the whole forest rang to its very depths”
after the horn of war is sounded, nature comparison of destruction of war
b7 “she threw a burning torch at the warrior…
…and it lodged deep in his heart”
b7 “in a frenzy of rage he roared for his armour”
Turnus
b7 “terrified mothers…
…pressed their babies to their breasts” - hearing the call of war
b7 “this wicked war against…divine destiny and contrary…
…to the will of the gods”
b7 “so too in those days Latinus was bidden to declare war upon the men of Aeneas…
…by opening those grim gates” - reference to the gates of war/ temple of Janus
b8 “you too must have the courage to despise wealth. You must mould yourself to be worthy…
…of a god” - Evander to Aeneas, links to Augustus living in a ‘modest’ house and discouraging excess in Rome
b8 “laid out the story of Italy and the triumphs of the Romans”
Aeneas’ shield made by Vulcan
b8 “Aeneas lifted on to his shoulder…
…the fame and the fate of his descendants”
b9 “Turnus in a fury prowled round the walls…. like a…
….wolf in the dead of night”
b9 “they were one in love, and side by side they used…
…to charge into battle” - introduction to N and E
b9 “Euryalus was overcome, pierced to the heart…
…with a great love of glory”
b9 “Nisus was like a lion driven mad with hunger… while he growls from jaws…
…dripping with blood as he mauls and champs their soft flesh”
b9 “Euryalus now snatched them up”
Euryalus takes war spoils, which is not seen as pious. The “glittering” of the helmet he takes is what gives the men away.
b9 “this was too much for Nisus. Out of his mind with terror…
…and unable to endure his anguish, he broke cover”
Euryalus death quotes:
“shattering his white breast”
“like a scarlet flower languishing and dying when its stem has been cut by the plough”
b9 “he hurled himself on the dead body of his friend…
…and rested there at last in the peace of death”
“the day will never come when time will erase you from the memory of man”
Virgil addressing Nisus and Euryalus after their deaths in b9
b9 “like the eagle”
Turnus breaking into the Trojan camp
b10 “let each man face his own fortune and set his course by his own hopes. ….
…Trojan and Rutulian I shall treat alike” - Jupiter on fate
b10 “as he died his bleeding mouth bit the soil of his enemies”
Pallas’ death
b10 “he gloried in the taking of it”
Turnus takes Pallas’ sword-belt
Aeneas kills Magus b10 quote
“so judges the shade of my father Anchises. And so judges Iulus.”
b10 “Die now. A brother’s place is with his brother’
Aeneas killing Liger and Lucagus
b10 “it pierced too, the tunic his mother had woven for him with a soft thread of gold…
…and filled the folds of it with blood” - Lausus’ death
b10 “you will have one consolation for your cruel death,…
…that you fell by the hand of the great Aeneas”
b11 “they beat their breasts and raised their wild lament to the sky…
… till the whole palace rang with the sound of their grief”
- women of Pallanteum/Trojans
b11 “there he lay like a flower cut by the thumbnail of a young girl”
Pallas’ dead body - links to Euryalus
b11 “here were the mothers and heart-broken wives of the dead. Here were loving sisters beating their breasts, and children who had lost their fathers, all cursing this deadly war and Turnus’ marriage”
the people of King Latinus grieving
b11 “as easily as the sacred falcon flies from his crag to pursue a dove”
Camilla killing her enemies
b11 “burning with all a woman’s passion for spoil and plunder”
Camilla chasing Chloreus
b11 “her life left her with a groan and fled in anger down to the shades”
Camilla’s death - link to Turnus
b12 “grant me the power to bring down…
…that effeminate Phrygian”
b12 “by such words she more and more…
…inflamed the minds of the warriors” - Juturna destroying the truce
b12 “just as Mars, splattered with blood”
Turnus compared to Mars
b12 “just as a cloud blots out the sun”
Aeneas’ army advancing across the open plain towards Turnus
b12 “pouring her heart out in sorrow and madness,…
…she resolved to die” - Amata
b12 “this is madness, but before I die, I beg of you, let me be mad”
Turnus to Juturna after deciding to face Aeneas head on
b12 “just as a boulder comes crashing down…
….so did Turnus crash through the shattered ranks of his enemies towards the walls of the city”
b12 “just as two enemy bulls”
Turnus and Aeneas fighting
b12 “kept hard on the heels of the terrified Turnus, like a hunting dog”
Aeneas chases Turnus
b12 “he who devised mankind and all the world”
Jupiter’s description - link to role in fate
b12 “he faltered with fear. He began to tremble…
…at the death that was upon him” - Turnus
b12 “like a dark whirlwind it flew….
…carrying death and destruction with it” - Aeneas;’s pear
b12 “Aeneas feasted his eyes on the sight of this spoil, this reminder of his own wild grief, then, ….
…burning with mad passion and terrible in his wrath”
b12 “hesitating more and more as the words of Turnus began to move him”
- Aeneas nearly spares Turnus who is begging for his life
b12 “by this wound which I now give, …
…it is Pallas who makes sacrifice of you.”
b12 “the limbs of Turnus were dissolved in cold and his life left him with a groan…
….fleeing in anger down to the shades” - final line
b2 “like wolves foraging blindly on a misty night, …
…driven out of their lairs by a ravening hunger” - the Trojans resisting the Greeks
b2 “we paid no heed and pressed on…
…blindly, madly”
b2 “like a shepherd when a furious south wind is carrying fire into a field of grain…
…or a mountain river whirls along in spate, flattening all the fields, the growing crops and all the labour of oxen, carrying great trees headlong down in its floods” —the comparison between war and nature
b10 “everything that stood before him he harvested with the sword, cutting a…
…broad swathe through the enemy”
- Aeneas after hearing of Pallas’ death
b10 “burning with rage” “flushed with slaughter”
Aeneas furor
b4 “it is not by my own will…
…that I search for Italy” - Aeneas to Dido
b4 “Women are unstable creatures, always changing.”
Mercury to Aeneas telling him to leave and not stay another night (after he has told Dido he is leaving)
b4 “let him be harried in war” “let there be no love between our peoples and no treaties”
Dido’s curse on Aeneas/ Rome
b6 “the kingdom I ask for is no more than…
…what is owed me by the fates”
- Aeneas to Sibyl
b10 “like a raging torrent of water or a storm of black wind”
- Aeneas dealing out death on the plain
- note comparison with book 2, when the destruction of Troy is compared to a flooding river - now Aeneas is the flooding river
b12 “Turnus was distraught with love…
…and fixed his eyes on Lavinia”
b12 “like foaming rivers roaring as they run down in spate from the high mountains to the sea, sweeping away everything that lies in their path - …
…no more sluggish were Aeneas and Turnus as they rushed over the field of battle”
b12 “deranged with grief”
Amata before she kills herself
b12 “in that one heart of his there seethed a bitter shame, a grief shot through with madness, love driven on by fury”
Turnus on the battlefield, just before he decides to face Aeneas one on one
b8 “Go then, O bravest leader of all the men of Troy and Italy, and I shall send with you this my son Pallas”
Evander already calls Aeneas leader of Italy,
b12 “I shall not order Italians to obey Trojans, nor do I seek royal power for myself. Both nations shall move forward into…
…an everlasting treaty”
-Aeneas is undertaking the war reluctantly. His aim is to secure peace and he has no aim of subduing the Latins
b7 “sons of Dardanus - you see we know your city and your family and had heard about you before you set your course here…
… …. that Dardanus was born in these fields and went far away”
- shows that the Trojans were always destined to return to the land of their ancestors. The Latins and Trojans were the same people and will be again
b12 “my hand will now defend you in war”
Part of Aeneas’ farewell to Ascanius
b9 Euryalus’ mother is “wailing as women do”.
She regrets not being able to prepare her son’s body properly for a funeral
b6 “the seven mouths of the nile…
…are in turmoil and alarm” - reference to Augustus’ invasion of Egypt
b6 “your task, Roman … will be to…
…govern the peoples of the world in your empire”
- Anchises to Aeneas
b6 “what carnage when the father-in-law swoops from the ramparts… and his son-in-law leads against him the embattled armies of the East”
Anchises references Pompey (son) and Caesar (father) who fought against each other from c.53-49BC
b6 “this is the greatest grief that you and yours will ever suffer” “the gods in heaven have judged that the Roman race would become too powerful…
…if this gift were theirs to keep”
- referring to Marcellus
b10 “the boy Ascanius for whom the goddess Venus cares above all others, and rightly cares.” “he was like a gem”
Ascanius
b1 “why do you so often mock your own son by taking on these disguises. You too are cruel. Why am I never allowed to take your hand in mine, to hear your true voice”
Aeneas wishes he could have a normal relationship with his mother. Maybe links to mortals as puppets - even as a son he is a puppet to her
