Aeneid book summaries Book 1 -Juno mad due to Punic wars & asks Aeolus to send storm -Aeneas wishes he died -Neptune stops the storm -Trojans land in Carthage -Venus asks Jupiter why – Jupiter gives Rome prophecy Founding of Rome, war with Italians and ‘trojan Caesar’ -Jupiter sends mercury to make Carthage hospitable -Aeneas and Achates meet Venus in disguise -Venus tells them about dido -Ekphrasis of freezes – trojan war -Dido compared to Diana, welcomes trojans and Aeneas -Venus disguises cupid as Iulus and places ‘loves deadly arrow’ on dido -Dido meets cupid and becomes ‘doomed’ -Aeneas asked to retell his story Book 2 -Aeneas recounts his story -Trojans wake up and see Greeks are gone -Laocoon says horse is a trick and throws a spear on its side -Sinon plays hate on hate of Ulises (Odysseus) and says its an offering to the gods -Priam pities Sinon and brings the horse into the city -Horse stops 4 times -Laocoon killed by two snakes sent by Minerva along with his two sons -Hector appears to Aeneas in a dream – tells him to leave troy -Aeneas ignores him and tries to save the city in a ‘frenzy’ -Aeneas mentions the death of Priam, Polites and his father – blames Helen and wants to kill her -Venus tells Aeneas to flee troy with his family because even the gods are attacking -Aeneas’ father refuses to leave – Aeneas is mad -Aeneas’ father changed his view after 2 omens – Ascanius’ head on fire and a shooting star -Aeneas carried Anchises on his back -Aeneas’ wife Creusa dies -Aeneas goes back to find her – meets her ghost and she tells him to continue without him and love their son and that he has a ‘long exile and a vast amount of sea’ before Italy -Aeneas goes back to his comrades and leads an army of exiles from troy to found a new city in Latium Book 4 -Dido tells his sister she likes Aeneas – she tells her to marry him -Juno persuades Venus to allow dido and Aeneas to get married and stay in Carthage -Venus agrees but knows that Juno is playing her -Dido and Aeneas go on a hunt -Juno makes a storm -Dido and Aeneas have sex in a cave and are married -Rumour spreads to a neighbouring tribe -Barbas prays to Jupiter to make Aeneas leave Carthage -Jupiter hears the prayer and sends mercury to tell Aeneas to leave -Aeneas prepares to leave without telling dido -Rumour tells dido -Dido is pissed – compared to a bacchant by Virgil 1 / 2
-Dido begs Aeneas to stay and says he ruined her name Aeneas says that ‘it is not by my own will that I search for Italy’ -Dido is more pisses and calls Aeneas a ‘traitor’ and foreshadows her own death -Dido speaks to her sister anna for her to persuade Aeneas to stay -Dido tricks anna into making a funeral pyre -Dido says she must die -Mercury tells Aeneas to leave are ‘women are unstable creatures’ -Aeneas goes -Dido kills herself and burns herself with Aeneas’ things -She tells her descendants to never be at peace with Rome -Anna is pisses and would have killed herself as well -Dido’s death was her choice – not fate Book 6 -Aeneas lands in Cumae (Italy) -Aeneas goes to apollo’s temple for the sibyl’s prophecy -Ekphrasis of gates of temple (made by Daedalus – father/son theme) -Labyrinth story (parallel of Ariadne v dido) -Aeneas prays that the ‘fortunes of troy’ don’t follow them -The sibyl says that a ‘second Achilles’ is waiting to fight in Lavinium -She tells Aeneas that he needs the golden bough and to bury misensus before entering the underworld -Aeneas enters the underworld and sees souls who can’t cross the Styx (as they weren’t given funeral rites) -Aeneas sees Palinurus (a trojan) who begs him to bury him -Sibyl comforts Palinurus by saying a city will be named after him -Aeneas sees dido – she refuses to talk to him and leaves with her old husband -The sibyl shows Aeneas ‘the place set apart for brave soldiers’ and Tartarus (Greek hell) -Sibyl then shows Aeneas ‘the land of joy’ -Aeneas sees his father again but they cant touch each other -Anchises tells Aeneas about ‘the souls to whom Fate owes a second body’ – many of the souls will be Aeneas’ descendants -Anchises tells Aeneas the ‘glory that lies instore for the sons of Dardanus’ -His father shows him the soul of Augustus who ‘will bring back the golden years to the fields of Latium’ and protect Rome from Egypt -His father shows Pompey and Julius Caesar’s future souls and the civil war they’ll cause -Anchises gives him 2 rules – ‘you must be the first to show clemency’ and to govern the people of the world in his empire and pardon the defeated -Aeneas is told about the wars he will soon fight -Anchises ‘kindled in his mind a love for the glory that was to come’ -The sibyl takes Aeneas out of the gate of ivory -Aeneas leaves for Latium Book 7 -Caieta dies in Italy and Aeneas performs rites -Virgil says the second half is more important – ‘this is a greater work I now set in motion’ -Lavinia (king Latinus’ daughter) sees 2 omens – a cloud of bees swarming and settling on a laurel tree and her hair catching on fire but not being hurt -Latinus tells his dad -Latinus’ father (Faunus) says Lavinia should marry a stranger who will ‘raise out name to the stars’ -Ascanius says the trojans are eating their tables in Latium – a sign they are home -Aeneas builds a camp and sends an envoy to Latinus
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