Virgil and Homer's Underworlds

Jacques Paye

Finding direction in the Underworld

-Aeneas has been instructed by his father's ghost to come visit him in the underworld

-Odysseus needs to speak with a prophet named Teiresias to find the way back to his home in Ithaca

The Unburied

"Neighboring people [...] will appease your  bones, will build you a tomb[...]

That promise lifts his anguish, drives, for a while, the grief from his sad heart"

Aeneid 6.410-440

"Unhappy spirit, I promise you the barrow and the burial.

So we conversed, and grimly, at a distance, with my long sword between, guarding the blood."

Odyssey 11.80-90

Failed Embrace

"Three times he tried to fling his arms around his neck, three times he embraced--nothing...the phantom sifting through his fingers, light as wind, quick as a dream in flight."

Aeneid 6.800-810

"I bit my lip, rising perplexed, with longing to embrace her, and tried three times, putting my arms around her, but she went sifting through my hands, impalpable."

Odyssey 11.228-240

Future vs. past focus

"Turn your eyes this way and behold these people, your own Roman people. Here is Caesar and all the line of Iulus soon to venture under the sky's great arch. Here is the man [...] Caesar Augustus!

Aeneid 6.910-920

"Tell me, have you any word at all about my son's life? Gone to Orkhomenos or sandy Pylos, can he be?"

Odyssey 11.530-540

Different Departures

"And here Anchises, his vision told in full, escorts his son and Sibyl both and shows them out now through the Ivory Gate.

Aeneas cuts his way to the waiting ships to see his crews."

Aeneid 6.1025-1040

"I should have met, then god-begotten Theseus and Peirithoös, whom I both longed to see, but first came shades in thousands, rustling in a pandemonium [...] I whirled then, made for the ship, shouted to crewmen to get aboard and cast off."

Odyssey 11. 750-760

Conclusions

• Both Aeneas and Odysseus encounter consequences of their actions in the Underworld
• They meet their parents and have emotional moments
• Aeneas' reaction and experience are focused on a bright future, whereas Odysseus looks towards his past life
• In departure, Aeneas steps confidently into reality and the future while Odysseus beats a hasty retreat from the shades