What is book 6?
Didactic: purpose of teaching and offering moral lesson and Roman
What is Katabasis?
A heroes descent into the underworld and escape.
Significance of Aeneas leaving the Gates of Ivory
Because it is the place where false dreams leave the underworld, it calls into question all of the nationalistic things Virgil said.
Brief summary explaining the significance of the Pageant of Roman Heroes
Nationalistic, comparison to Greek culture, direct celebration of Augustus. Augustus’ place in the pageant highlights his importance linking to the founder of Rome.
Different places in the underworld
-The River Styx with Charon, the ferryman. No one is allowed to cross if their body has been left unburied (Palinurus) and Aeneas is only allowed to cross because of the golden bough.
-Gates guarded by Cerberus- the Sibyl throws him a “honey cake steeped in soporific drugs.”
-The banks of the river Styx contains different types of souls:
—->The souls of infants
—->”Those who have been condemned to death on false charges.”
—->”those unhappy people who had raised their innocent hands against themselves.” (Virgil goes on to condemn suicide) “But now how they wish to be under high heaven, enduring poverty and drudgery, however hard!”
-The Mourning Plains, “victims of unhappy love,”: this is where Aeneas sees Dido and other figures from mythology such as Phaedra and Pasiphae.
—-> simile: “like a man who sees or thinks he has seen the new moon rising through the clouds.” (Aeneas seeing Dido)
“if she had been a block of flint or Parian marble.” (Dido seeing Aeneas)
—->”it was against my will, O queen, that I left your shore. (…) Fate has decreed that I shall never speak to you again.”
—-> Dido rushes back to Sychaeus and Aeneas is “stricken by the injustice of her fate… he gaze after her with tears, pitying her as she went.”
-Fields of brave warriors: where Aeneas sees Deiphobus: “his whole body mutilated and his face cruelly torn.” Tries to reconnect with Aeneas but the Sibyl urges Aeneas onwards, which Deiphobus states: “Go, Aeneas, go great glory of our Troy and enjoy a better fate than mine.”
-Tartarus: hell or the place of the damned where the gates are guarded by Tisiphone: “with her blood-soaked dress girt up.” Rhadamanthus is the king who “holds sway with his unbending laws.” and forces souls to confess to crimes, all while Tisiphone “flogs them till they writhe.” Tisiphone is also guarding the Hydra, the titans, Tityos (Prometheus) and other mythological characters which enforces the didactic nature of this episode by giving the audience a point of reference.
-Fields of Elysium: “land of joy, the lovely glades of the fortunate woods and the home of the blest.” Here Aeneas sees Anchises who tells him about the origins of the world and also shows him the Roman Pageant of Heroes.
-Aeneas and the Sibyl then leave through the Gates of Ivory which are the gates of “false dreams,” which calls into question all the glory of the Pageant.
