Essay on The Underworld and Morality in Vergils Aeneid

The Underworld and Morality in Vergils Aeneid Book IV of the Aeneid can stand alone as Vergils highest literary achievement, but centered in the epic, it provides a base for the entire work. The book describes Aeneass trip through the underworld, where after passing through the depths of hell, he reaches his father Anchises in the land of Elysium. Elysium is where the Soul[s] to which Fate owes Another flesh lie (115). Here Anchises delivers the prophecy of Rome to Aeneis. He is shown the great souls that will one day occupy the bodies of Romes leaders. Before the prophecy of Rome is delivered, Aeneiss journey through the underworld provides a definite ranking of souls according to their past lives on Earth. The Aeneid does not†¦show more content†¦. . ] / Lifes joyless outcasts [. . . ] / Plucked from the breast unripe (108). This probably refers to aborted and abandoned babies. A Roman mother wanting to rid herself of the burden of parenthood would certainly weigh one thousand years of wailing for her dead child again st whatever hardship she foresees in rearing that child. Next are the falsely accused. Minos presides over a silent court, where the accused forever plead their innocence. This is a call for fair justice in Roman courts. The accusers are not only sentencing an end to life on earth, but also adding a much longer punishment of grief to the accused in the afterlife. As with the babies, the punishment falls to the victim, thus encouraging the powerful to use their judgement meticulously. Further down the river, Aeneis encounters souls that have brought punishment unto themselves. First those who Dealt death unguilty, and threw away their lives (109). Suicide has often been called the most selfish of human acts; selfish to the ones who care and love for the victim, and selfish to the God that gave the victim life. The fate for suicide is constant drowning, like the constant drowning into the self that a person contemplating suicide must feel. This punishment suggests that suicide will not stop agony, but only prolong it. After the self-inflicted deaths, there are the heart broken whom Loves unpitying wound / Wasted; in death itself their pain remainsShow MoreRelated Promoting Morality in the Aeneid and Metamorphoses Essay1621 Words   |  7 PagesPromoting Morality in the Aeneid and Metamorphoses    Just as the authors of the Bible use an evocative, almost mythological vehicle to convey covenants and laws that set the moral tone for Hebrew and Christian societies, Latin poets Virgil and Ovid employ a similarly supernatural method to foster their own societal and moral goals in Roman society. Where Virgils Aeneid depicts Aeneas as the ideal, duty-bound Roman patriarch absent from the conflicted Rome of Virgils youth, Ovids MetamorphosesRead MoreThe Aeneid by Virgil1507 Words   |  6 PagesThe perception of morality is very subjective and relates heavily to what the society of the period defines as good or bad. In the Aenied, Vergil creates two characters with morally opposite values; Aenias and Dido. Aenias can be interpreted as the embodiment of what Vergil believes is right, while Dido is the embodiment of what Vergil believes to be bad. The contrast of Dido’s and Aeneas’ behavior represents the fact that Vergil’s moral values are heavily influenced by th e moral values which the