Characters in the Aeneid Flashcards
Aeneas in the Underworld
Book 6 is crucial in the development of Aeneas’ character. Before the descent to the underworld, he had been uncertain; during the journey to Elysium, he is backward-looking, filled with grief and remorse at the past, but finally Anchises’ revelation of the Roman future which Aeneas must inaugurate strengthens him, makes him confident and determined that he will not fail. Now at last there can be no more hesitation; Anchises has ‘fired his heart with passion for the great things to come’” RD Williams
Aeneas’ furor
Book 2 - I caught sight of Helen keeping watch on the doors of the temple of Vesta where she was staying quietly in hiding. [..] This Helen, this Fury sent to be the scourge both of Troy and of her native Greece [..] so, hated by all, she had gone into hiding and was sitting there at the altar. The passion flared in my heart and I longed in my anger to avenge my country even as it fell and to exact the penalty for her crimes.
Book 10
Four warrior sons of Sulmo he now captured alive and four reared by Ufens, to sacrifice them as offerings to the shade of Pallas and pour their captive blood on the flames of his pyre
Next he aimed his deadly spear from long range at Magus, who cleverly ran under it. The quivering spear flew over his head and he clasped the knees of Aeneas with this prayer: ‘By the shade of your own father and the hopes you have of Iulus as he grows to manhood, I beg you to spare this life of mine for the sake of my son and my father. […] This was Aeneas’ reply: [..] Turnus put an end to such war-trading the moment he murdered Pallas. So judges the shade of my father Anchises. And so judges Iulus.’ When he had spoken he took Magus’ helmet in his left hand, and bending back his neck when he was still begging for mercy, he drove the sword home to the hilt
Aeneas - Homeric Values reflection - Turnus’ death
Book 12 - Aeneas checked his hand, hesitating as the words of Turnus began to move him, when suddenly his eyes caught the fatal baldric of the boy Pallas high on Turnus’ shoulder with the glittering studs he knew so well.
Turnus had defeated and wounded him and then killed him, and now he was wearing his belt on his shoulder as a battle honour taken from an enemy. 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, he cried: ‘Are you to escape me now, wearing the spoils stripped from the body of those I loved? By this wound which I now give, it is Pallas who makes sacrifice of you.
Pallas exacts the penalty in your guilty blood.’ Blazing with rage, he plunged the steel full into his enemy’s breast. The limbs of Turnus were dissolved in cold and his life left him with a groan, fleeing in anger down to the shades
Aeneas - Homeric Values reflection - Furor and Kleos
Furor - Achilles reflection in Book 10 with Magus and Turnus
Kleos - Although there is no fame worth remembering to be won by punishing a woman and such a victory wins no praise, nevertheless I shall win praise for blotting out this evil.
