Dissertation FINAL2.pdf - Cornell University

Virgil’s list of the human sins and afflictions that stand before the gates of Hades and
Lucretius’ explanation of how the fear of death can create a hell on earth 82 (turpis
enim ferme contemptus et acris egestas / semota ab dulci uita stabilique uidetur / et
quasi iam leti portas cunctarier ante “for indeed rank distain and sharp poverty appear
far removed from a sweet and stable life and seem as it were to tarry before the gates
of death,” 65-67).
For Lucretius, hell is something that men create for themselves in the upper
world. The very real afflictions that humans suffer on earth are ultimately the result of
the fear of death. By contrast, the shades of the Underworld, no less than the
impossible hybrid creatures that appear before our mind’s eye, have no existence. 83
Virgil, by populating the entrance to his Underworld with precisely the mythical
creatures that his predecessor singles out as demonstrably unreal, challenges his
readers to confront the unreality of what is presented to them. 84
He challenges us to
accept the figures he describes as mere imagines of the real thing. 85
As Zetzel notes,
“while the underworld which follows these allusions is obviously not a Lucretius one
– that would be impossible – their effect is to undercut the literal truth of what it to
come, and to alert the reader to the possibility of larger interpretations.” 86
While Zetzel and others are concerned primarily with the literal truth of the
visions presented to Aeneas in the Underworld, 87 our concern here is with the question
82 Barigazzi (1982) 221 explains: “Le cupiditates procurano le curae che agitano la vita degli uomini,
spingendoli a compiere delitti di ogni sorta …; ma le cupidigie sono causate, dice Lucrezio, dalla paura
della morte; dunque è la paura della morte che procura l’infelicità agli uomini.”
83 Cf. Michels (1944) 137: “The connection with here with visions of the dead is also significant. It
establishes firmly the association of these figures with Hades. The Epicurean does not deny the
possibility that we may see visions of the dear departed, which are really their simulacra. He does deny
that the dead themselves exist, any more than the mythical beasts.”
84 Cf. Michels (1944) 140.
85 Cf. Bahr-Volk (1974).
86 Zetzel (1989) 275.
87 On the discrepancies between what Aeneas hears and sees in the Underworld and what we learn
elsewhere in the poem, see Zetzel (1989) 272-4.
107