As we meet Anchises in the underworld, we
get to see the point the larger point of why Aeneas had to go down there.
Yeah, we heard from several that he needed to go down there,
The things he needed to learn. But as we get down there and run into
Anchises, we get the full thing laid out for us.
In fact, we get a huge statement laid out for us.
Anchises drops in basically statements about how the whole universe works.
We hear out of his mouth a whole statement about the, the larger structure of the
Cosmos, We hear it from a scientific standpoint.
We hear history enter in. We're going to look at some detailed
quotes from this quotations from the second part of Book six, in the second
coming out Anchises' mouth. But a couple of words before we get there,
on the background of this kind of literature.
Virgil's working from precedence, multiple ones not, not necessarily Homeric
interestingly, there surely are, of course, Homeric antecedents that we have
been talking about, but there are closer ones for this part of Book six that come
in other literary sources for him. Plato's Republic in Book Ten had talked
about an underworld, the famous Myth of Er,
Spelled E, R, if you want to look that up. A, a wonderful piece of Plato's Republic.
Had a long narrative story about this soldier that dies and, and during his
death, he has revealed to him, in his trip to the afterlife,
Revealed to him the whole structure of the Cosmos and how everything works.
Then in Cicero on the, the famous part of his own republic his final book called the
Dream of Scipio. An episode well-known as The Dream of
Scipio Cicero talks about again in the same way someone going to the afterlife
and at that point, and, and, their being brought there as a visitor, at that point
it's revealed to them the whole structure of the Cosmos and how everything works.
It's likely also that Virgil was familiar, by this time, with a genre of literature
that was emerging out of the ancient Near East that was called Apocalypse. And it's
true that some ancient Apocalypses talk about the end of the world,
A very famous one, The Book of Revelations, that closes off the Christian
Bible does this, but not all Apocalypses talk about the end of the world, they are
literature that is based on Revelation or Unveiling.
The Greek term, apocalypse, comes from a root, apo, meaning away from or un and
calypso means hide. So, an apocalypse is an unveiling of some
hidden truth. In this genre of literature, it always
happens that someone has a, a, a, hidden truth about how the universe works
unveiled to him or her. Usually, what happens is there is a dream
a visitation from a, a senior person, either in one's family, or in one's city
comes down and scoops the person up in the dream and carries them off to either a
mountain top or some place, some vista where they can see, you know, the
structure of the whole cosmos. The whole history is read out at that
point and the, the workings of the Cosmos are unveiled.
So, these precedents are likely also to be behind Virgil's Book six here in addition
to the materials from Plato's Republic and Cicero's Dream of Scipio, his closing off
of his own work through a public. So, a lot of these genres are getting
reworked in Virgil's treatment. Now, looking at the meat of what happens
here, we hear from Anchises. He has us by the hand, he's leading us
along, and he begins a, a series of observations on how the whole universe
works. Starting right from the very beginning, an
interesting one as, you know, this young boy,
Aeneas. Father,
Tell me how does it, how does it all work? And Anchises jumps right in.
First then, the sky and lands and sheets of water,
The bright moon's glow, The Titan sun and stars are fed within by
Spirit and a Mind Infused through all the members of the world makes one great
living body of the mass. From Spirit come the races of man and
beast. The life of birds.
Odd creatures the deep sea the deep sea contains beneath her sparkling surfaces.
And fiery energy from a heavenly source belongs to the generative seeds of these
so far as they are not poisoned. They are clawed by mortal bodies.
Their free essence dimmed by earthiness or deathliness of flesh.
This makes them fear and crave, rejoice and grieve.
So, Anchises gives from the standpoint of a kind of starting scientific observation
talking about the elements and the planets and the Cosmos, and a divine mind and
spirit that flows through everything borrowing from different philosophical
schools of his time including Stoicism and some others.
He's building up a picture of the universe here Virgil, and putting in into the mouth
of Anchises, an authoritative person and letting Aeneas become educated on not just
small things, but on the biggest things, How the whole cosmos function.
This is the kind of message that Aeneas gets in the underworld.
Now, as the story goes on, and as Anchises is continuously revealing the basic
structure of things he soon enough gets to this person, doesn't he?
And we have a pretty seamless movement from a discussion that would count as kind
of scientific observation of how the universe is structured into an historical
one. So, we move rather seamlessly from a
cosmology and science, science, into history.
We hear about Augustus. He will extend his power beyond the
Garamants and Indians over far territories north and south of the zodiacal stars,
The solar way. Where Atlas, heaven-bearing on his
shoulders turns the night sphere studded with burning stars.
At that man's coming even now the realms of Caspia and Maeotia tremble,
Warned by oracles and the seven mouths of the Nile go dark with fear.
The truth is even Alcides never traversed so much earth.
Coming out of Anchises' mouth, talking about this man Augustus, and that closing
statement. The truth is, even Alcides never traversed
so much earth. In the back of your text, you've got a
glossary just as you did in your translation of The Oddyssey.
Have a look at who this Alcides is. Someone we know.
Remember this guy? Well, Virgil is telling us something that
is undoubtedly true, and that is a stunning thing to be true.
This guy over here outdoes this guy over here.
If we take the most glorious fantastic mythical legends of Heracles the Roman
Hercules, And his dominion over the over the earth,
and how far he traveled, And the amazing things he did.
And all the, the labors that he completed. Well beyond what any human being is
capable of. Well, guess what, Romans, Virgil is
saying, We live in a time where real historical
figures are doing things that are even grander than what myths can cough up to
us. And, you've got to kind of hand it to them
to these Romans. It's true.
By now, history is, in actuality, outdoing myth.
Fact and historical truth is outdoing mythological fantasy.
So, Augustus, yeah, in, in truth is doing something that even Hercules could never
have imagined doing. We go through a further discussion of what
this Romanist is all about. We talk about avenging the, the, the
Trojan ancestors of, of that being avenged by the Romans eventually conquering
Greece. So, even though the Greeks might have felt
like they've beat the, The precursor to the Trojans or precursor
to the Romans back in Troy. Well, eventually, Rome gets its dominance.
We hear about them, revenge, it was revenge for the theft of the Palladium and
the rape of Cassandra. These things start to percolate back up
the old crimes of Greece. Then, we get to a point at the end of
Anchises's speech where he makes very clear what this new thing that Aeneas is
on the verge of beginning. What this new thing is all about.
We need to know a little bit more about what is this Rome we're headed off to get
started on and Anchises will lay it out for us exactly what new, what this new
idea is. Others will cast more tenderly in bronze,
their breathing figures I can well believe.
And bring more life-like portraits out of marble.
Argue more eloquently, use the pointer to trace the paths of heaven accurately and
accurately foretell the rising of stars. Roman, remember, buy your strength to rule
Earth's peoples. For your arts, are to be these.
To pacify, to impose the rule of law, To spare the conquered and battle down the
proud. Wow.
So, all of you Romans out there, if you are wondering, gosh, what does it mean to
be Roman? Remember, at the beginning of our
discussion of the Aeneid, we talked about this tumult, a historical tumult that had
been happening during Virgil's time. The difficulties they'd been through, the
decades and decades of civil war, the upheavals, the militarism.
And as a Roman, you and I might have been a little bit worried about what Romanist
is, is all about. We've might have said to ourselves, well,
is to be Roman only to be war hungry, fratricidal militarist.
Well, here we're hearing right out of Anchises's mouth, in this moment of
revelatory truth about the way the whole Cosmos is structured, bleeding into
history, moving into an identity of Rome, this is what it is to be Roman.
The point of all of this, you Romans, is to make the Earth work right.
That's what you're suppose to do. Now the historical import of this message
is without question extremely powerful. Virgil through this figure of Aeneas and
through his story, as he tells it, Pretty much succeeds in giving the Romans
a new identity, a, an identity of sense of self that they can hang on to.
It sticks, in other words Virgil's project, and the project that is
undertaken and, and supported by those around him in positions of political
power. The sense of what it is to be Roman
changes. And I think it would have to be you'd have
to be a little bit unkind to say that it doesn't change for the better.
And it probably in, in the longer scheme of things is a little bit better to talk
about the Roman as having this as their best side.
Virgil is able to get that sense of them and make it strong and make it regnant.
Now, the, the, the message though, of course that Virgil is carrying across,
He never gives us anything straight without taking a little bit away.
Recall how our book ends. Here we've got a wonderful a, a picture of
the sort of center of Romanist is and what it's all about and having been through a
clear discussion of Rome's power, and its way, and its ability to bring peace to
people Virgil has this whole grand statement of things enter or leave from
the underworld in a way that makes us wonder, just what he intended.
We exit, as you recall from this whole scene after this largest statement about
Romanist and how grand it is and, how, science has given way to history and how
history has overtaken myth. All of this exits, the grandest statements
that Virgil pronounces, all of this exits, out of the Gate of False Dreams.
Now, what are we supposed to make of this. Well, in a classic Virgil,
Giving us some sense of surety then taking it away.
It's not exactly clear and scholars have never had any settled opinion on what this
statement about that Virgil's making of having Aeneas exit through the Gate of
False Dreams. But we surely know that it's a
destabilizing gesture and all those things before us that we thought were fully
stable. We've got a place of questionmark after
them now in typical Virgilian fashion. The world is not quite so simple as we
thought it might be.