Aeneid Quotes

Tell me Muse

The evocation of the muses begins the epic in a similar way to the Odyssey

He would have been growing up now

Andromache’s mourning at her loss of Astyanax, and comparison to Ascanius

Fortune is too strong for us to resist

Palinurus’ direction to Aeneas convinces him to change course

Like those stars that… race across the sky trailing their blazing hair

Comet at Anchises’ funeral games evokes Julius Caesar

Twice your father tried to shape your fall in gold and twice his hands fell helpless

Grief of a father seen through the story of Daedalus and Icarus

Instrument of propaganda

Avery - propaganda

Weighed down by despair

Williams - description of the Trojans evokes pity

Bitter resentment

Anger of Juno

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

Horace’s statement about dying for your country

Instrument of propaganda

Avery - use of the poem for Augustus

Heart of Mycenae

This links the Italians to the Greeks, implying that the battle is simply a continuation of the Trojan War

A great pounding… at the hands of the heavenly gods

Aeneas is heroic as he undergoes struggles and has divine intervention

So heavy was the cost of founding the human race

Reminder of the cost of the Trojan War and Rome

On them I impose no limits of time or place

Jupiter foreshadowing Rome’s greatness

Death stared them in the face

The personification of death during the storm emphasises the mortal danger of the Trojans

His limbs grew weak

His fragility is shown here, which humanises him and presents him as a hero whose destiny is thrust upon him

Leaders of men who would hold power over every land and sea

Foreshadowing of the greatness of the Roman emperors and their empires

The engine of fate mounted our walls

This evokes pity for the Trojans, as it suggests that Troy was doomed to fall

The cruelty of the gods

Blaming the gods as responsible for the fall of Troy

One for each of the ships

Aeneas is a seemingly better leader than Odysseus, who produced only one stag for all his men

Kept misery deep in his heart

Aeneas conceals his true emotions to maintain the morale of his men

Fierce and unforgetting anger of Juno

The furor of the goddess

Can there be so much anger in the hearts of the heavenly gods?

Gods and their emotions are central to the plot

Like bees at the beginning of the summer

Comparison of the Phoenicians to bees shows them as hardworking and united as a people

The cruelest thing I saw in all the sack of the city

Aeneas’ emotion regarding Creusa’s death

Slaves of lust

Description of Aeneas and Dido

Like a wounded doe

Dido is a victim to her fate, and is doomed to die

The towers she was building ceased to rise… all stood idle

The consequences of Dido’s yearning on the city

One woman has been overthrown by the arts of two gods!

Dido was forced to fall in love through divine intervention

Love is a cruel master

Damning description of love as something that rules you

Women are unstable creatures, always changing

Negative description of women

O my unknown avenger

Dido’s lament foreshadows Hannibal and his victory at the battle of Cannae

Double-tongued people of Tyre

Description of the Phoenicians shows the fear of foreigners

The solution to Trojan suffering will be a foreign bride, another marriage with a stranger

This marriage to a stranger anticipates both the union of Aeneas and Livinia and also the rape of the Sabine women

The kingdom owed to me by the fates

Aeneas here seems to accept his fate

Govern the people of the world in your empire

The extent and greatness of the Roman empire to come

It was against my will, O queen, that I left your shore

Despite his personal feelings, Aeneas is not willing to oppose fate

I fear the Greeks

Laocoon’s premonition encourages the idea that Romans are better as they are not tricksters

Aeneas stood resplendent in the bright light of day with the head and shoulders of a god

Aeneas is the light in the darkness (like how Athene makes Odysseus beautiful in Books 6 and 23), also foreshadows his deification

Like Diana she bore herself joyfully among her people

Dido is both a good leader and chaste, which encourages Romans to like her - and shows her later actions were not by choice

Great father of the Trojans

Aeneas as pater patriae (a title later awarded to Julius and Augustus Caesar by the Roman Senate)

I am Aeneas, known for my devotion

He is favoured by the gods and incredibly pious, and still known today

Why am I never allowed to take your hand in mine?

A moment of human tragedy creates pity for Aeneas, as his destiny has been thrust upon him and he is unable to live a normal life

Winding the fire of passion round her bones

Dido is tricked by Juno, so she did not stand a chance. The description seems like a sickness or a snake

Showing her naked breast…. was the warrior maiden, daring to clash with men in battle

The sexualisation of Penthesilea

Most of all did Aeneas, who loved his men, mourn to himself

Aeneas is presented as a good leader through his deep care for his men

[Sinon] wept. We spared him and even began to pity him

The Trojans were good people cruelly tricked by the fake tears of a Greek

Today we die. But not all of us will die unavenged

Aeneas’ rousing speech to his men, perhaps reminding them of the importance of kleos

Three times I tried to put my hands around her neck. Three times her phantom melted in my arms

This description mirrors Odysseus’ reunion with his mother in Book 11 as Aeneas tries to embrace Creusa. It evokes Pathos

So afraid both for the man I carried and for the child at my side

Aeneas cares deeply for his family, worrying about them before himself

If it had been my fate to fall, my right hand fully earned it

Aeneas in Book 2 values the honourable death of Romans in battle

Cunning and false tears had overcome the men who had not been subdued… by ten years of siege nor a thousand ships

Sinon used his Greek tricks to take advantage of the Trojans - they did not win the war honourably

I shall join them in lasting marriage

As Juno is the goddess of marriage, it suggests that the union is legitimate

Aeneas was faithful to his duty

Aeneas shows pietas by being faithful to the gods and prioritising his duty over personal wishes

Like Pentheus in his frenzy

Dido is compared to mad people

Thrown away the good name I once had, my only hope of reaching the stars

Dido gave up her kleos and chance of immortality for Aeneas.

Let there be war between the nations and between their sons forever

Dido curses conflict between Rome and Carthage (as will follow). Romans dislike her as she is a reminder of foreign queen Cleopatra.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned

William Congreave, The Mourning Bride

Turnus is a second Achilles, Aeneas will marry a foreigner, there will be wars, Aeneas must got to Palendium

Four parts of the Sybil’s prophecy in Book 6

You owe him the land of Rome and the kingdom of Italy

Mercury remind Aeneas that he is doing this for Ascanius as much as for himself

Two doves chanced to come flying out of the sky

Venus sends birds to guide Aeneas to the golden bough - he is helped by gods

Mothers… great-hearted heroes whose lives were ended… married girls

The catalogue of pitiable groups waiting to board Charon’s boats creates pathos

Hated their brothers… found wealth and brooded over it… caught and killed in adultery… abusing their master’s trust

People who will end up punished

As many are the leaves that fall in the forest at the first chill of autumn

Leaves falling slowly suggests the movement of the boat, and fragile skeletons of life

Devout Aeneas made for the citadel

Aeneas’ priority is piety over his own comfort

Learn to be just and not to slight the gods. You have been warned

Ominous warning to Romans reading the text to be pious or be punished

He deserved a father whom it would have been more of a joy to obey

Lausus is pitied as he was pretty and a good son, but on the wrong side of the war

A dark crop of drawn swords sprouted up all over the field

Instead of fertile crops, war and death sprout on the fields of Latium. War and devastation disrupts the natural order

Left their homes, their throats bare and their hair streaming in the wind

Mothers of Latium are riled up by passion, leading to the destruction of the household and reversal of normal female roles

Bursting the iron-bound Gates of War

Juno opens the gates of war, which were shut during 27BC and 180AD (Pax Romana)

A great river of it raging in the pot, with boiling foam spilling over

Turnus is quick to be brought to anger, like water is to boil. He is in a mad battle-lustful rage

Aeneas himself was marking out the line of his walls with a shallow ditch

Aeneas is pragmatic, as he prepares for war whilst sending a peace envoy. He is also a capable leader as he does so himself

Skimmed the tops of crops without touching them

Virgil’s women are either mad or unhuman and supernatural. Camilla is a capable female, but an exceptional woman with supernatural ability (Romans did fight against barbarian women)

War is the business of men

Turnus introduces himself as patronising, dismissive and arrogant to Allecto - he is disrespectful because he is Greek

You are the guilty one Turnus, and a grim punishment lies in store for you

Latinus’ warning to Turnus after his abdication

Raging in a wild frenzy… like a spinning top… when boys are engrossed in their play

Amata is like a wild animalistic Maenad. Morals are toys for the gods as they ‘kill us for their sport’

Slithered all over her body

Amata is infected with anger by Allecto’s snake. The erotic imagery and allusion to sexual assault presents her as a victim

Criminal madness of war

Virgil reminds the reader of the cost of war as Turnus is raging with battle lust

The fairest of them all, and taller by a head

Turnus is beautiful and tall

Many races have wished to join ours

The Trojans try to make themselves seem desirable so Latinus will offer them aid

Bleeding and filing the house with its cries of anguish, as though begging and pleading

War is started with one small catalyst, in this case, an innocent stag that shows the pain of war through anthropomorphism

I shall be able to delay it all and drag it out

Even Juno, one of the greatest gods, cannot stop the inevitability of fate, but she can delay it

Caieta

Nurse of Aeneas

Well aware of her beauty and knew how to use it

How Venus persuades Vulcan

Laid out the story of Italy and the triumphs of Rome

Aeneas’ shield shows the victories of Rome and acts as propaganda

Vomiting his crimson life’s breath and bringing up wine and gore together

The visceral description of Rhoetus’ death mirrors Polites’ in Book 2

Duty allowed no rest to the limbs of Aeneas

Aeneas values duty over self-interest always

Fortune had denied each of them a homecoming

The foreshadowing of Pallas and Lausus’ deaths creates great pathos, as they are pretty, young, and good sons

The horror of it - I have left them all to die!

Turnus is upset and mortified to have left the battle and contemplates suicide

The rest they burned uncounted and unhonoured, a huge pile of jumbled corpses

The futility of war is clear here as there are too many Latin bodies to recognise

Our lives are cheap. We… are to litter the fields, unburied and unwept

Drances’ criticism of Turnus shows the futility of war

The most powerful portent that ever confused and misled the men of Italy

Juturna sends a false portent of an eagle to the Rutilians

This admixture of Austonian blood will be above all men, above the gods, in devotion and no other race will be their equals

Roman blood is better because it is mixed

Hesitating more and more… when suddenly his eyes caught the fatal baldric of the boy Pallas… reminder of his own wild grief

Loss of Pallas drives Aeneas to kill Turnus

A hero is famed above all for his pietas… hardly the sexiest attribute

Mendelsohn - Aeneas’ pietas makes him boring

A wooden puppet lacking in genuine human emotion

Ross - human emotion

Awfully unwilling

Edwards - Aeneas serving fate

Dido is the innocent victim of Rome’s destiny

Sowerby - Dido as a victim

Fate chooses Aeneas, rather than Aeneas choosing fate

Quinn - fate vs Aeneas

Furor… dominates the last four books of the Aeneid

Grandsen - furor