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THE A EN El D
But father Aeneas, shattered by this bitter blow, turned and revolved his heavyanxieties
one way and another in his heart: should he settle in the fields of Sicily and
forget the fates, or press on to the shores of Italy.
Nothing could be more precise than this: he has two options, to give up his
mission and forget the fates or to continue, and it is a long time before he
decides. The Stoic platitudes of Nautes do not convince him, and it takes a
vision of his father Anchises to make him realize that he must follow his duty
and continue on to Italy.
The essential human frailty and fallibility of Aeneas, the courage with which
he continues on a mission almost too much for his shoulders to bear, is revealed
again and again in the poem. The hostility of Juno and the undeserved suffering
she causes is presented in powerful terms at the beginning of Book i, and the
prelude to the poem ends with the famous and unforgettable line tantae molis
erat Romanam condere gentem 'so great a task it "was to found the Roman race'
(1.33). Indeed it was, and one in which Aeneas succeeded by the narrowest of
margins.
On Aeneas' first appearance in the poem, as he and his men are battered by
the storm sent by Juno, we see him frightened and in despair —
extemplo Aeneae soluuntur frigore membra;
ingemit et duplicis tendens ad sidera palmas
talia uoce refert. . . (1.92—4)
Straightway Aeneas' limbs were loosened in cold fear; he groaned, and holding out his
two hands to the sky thus he spoke. . .
And the burden of his speech is that he wishes he had died along with his comrades
at Troy.
After the storm has been calmed by Neptune Aeneas speaks to his men in
heartening terms (i.i98ff.), but immediately after the speech Virgil tells us that
his confidence was feigned:
talia uoce refert curisque ingentibus aeger
spem uultu simulat, premit altum corde dolorem. (1.208—9)
So he spoke, and sick at heart with his terrible anxieties he feigned hope in his expression
and suppressed his agony deep in his heart.
The scene of the poem shifts to Olympus where Venus indignantly complains
to Jupiter of her son's apparently unending suffering, and Jupiter replies to her
in the serene and glowing tones of his promise for Rome's future greatness. The
reader is inspired with optimism, feeling that with such a reward the task must
be and will be fulfilled. But the mortal Aeneas has not heard the speech in
heaven, and must continue on darkly, helped only by vague knowledge of his
destiny. His divine mother, in disguise, meets him as he explores the coast where
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