By Meghan Reedy
Anchises points out just one more person at the end of his run-through of the key players in the history of Rome-to-come. He takes a breath, and we get that tiny aside: sic pater Anchises, atque haec mirantibus addit (854). About Anchises, the line reminds us that he was the speaker of what preceded, and addit lets us know that he will be the speaker of what is to follow. About Aeneas, we are reminded that he is still in the same state of awe, making the same wide-eyed effort to comprehend what he sees, as he was when he first saw the dead crowding up to the shore. Here in 854 he is mirantibus; back there he was Aeneas miratus (317).
In both moments, he really is striving to comprehend. Back on the bank, as the dead crowded up and Charon took some and not others, the description of Aeneas as miratus came just ahead of his questions to the Sibyl (quid petunut animae? quo discrimine … hae linquun, illae … verrunt? 318–20), and once he heard her answer he really thought about it (multa putans, 332), and it upset him, and he felt a poignant, powerless sadness about it: sortem animo miseratus iniquam (332).
In the moment that concerns us now, he is again really striving to comprehend. We see the reminder that he is mirans in 854, then the ‘one more’ that Anchises adds to his already extensive list (855–59 on a Marcellus who won the spolia opima; M. Claudius Marcellus himself killed the leader of the Insubrian Gauls)—and then, as he did in 318, Aeneas asks a question.
As before, his question is about something he has seen and doesn’t comprehend – in this instance, something his father Anchises has not pointed out to him. What Aeneas sees is described in a parenthesis (860–62): it’s someone going along at the same time as the Marcellus he was just told about, an outstandingly good-looking young man with beautiful armor and weapons, una namque ire videbat egregium forma iuvenem et fulgentibus armis (860–61). What is different, and leads to his question, is that this astonishing person also looks sad, and his face is downcast: sed frons laeta parum et deiecto lumina vultu (862).
Having noticed him, Aeneas asks, quis, pater, ille, virum qui sic comitatur euntem? (863), and goes on to point out to Anchises what drew his notice—his magnificence (865) and the black cloud over his head (nox atra caput tristi circumvolat umbra, 866).
It is here that Anchises weeps, lacrimis ingressus obortis (867), and it is perhaps interesting that his weeping is described using the same phrase that described Dido’s first weeping, when she first told Anna how she was struggling with her feelings for Aeneas: sinum lacrimis implevit obortis. As Dido was, Anchises is swamped with tears that well up unbidden.
Anchises—although he will go on to talk about this other Marcellus (tu Marcellus eris, 883) at length—doesn’t want to think about it. In particular he doesn’t want Aeneas to think about it: o gnate, ingentem luctum ne quaere tuorum (865). Don’t seek out, don’t ask about the huge grief of your people, son, he says. There is that word again, ingens; remember how Aeneas was ingens stepping into the boat, 413; Cerberus, guard-dog of the underworld, was ingens, 417, 423; that first awful, infant wailing was also ingens, 426; and now this huge grief—the last thing Aeneas hears about in the underworld is, like the first thing, ingens.
In Anchises’ speech from 788–859, there are occasional exclamations. He states things emphatically, sometimes—as at 791, when he repeats hic vir, hic est … as he’s introducing Augustus Caesar. When he has finished discussing Augustus he closes with a rhetorical question, et dubitamus adhuc …? (806–7) that amounts to an exclamation, as happens again in 841 and 841–44. In the longish passage that glances at and hints around the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey Magnus, he reaches his most emotional; it is here that the one use of heu! appears: heu quantum inter se bellum …(828).
By contrast, Anchises’ response to Aeneas’ question about who this young, sad man is befits the welling tears of 867; this speech is overflowing with emotion. He starts with O! (875), and uses the exclamation heu! three times, twice within a single line (heu pietas, heu prisca fides …!, 878) and once as part of an apostrophe (direct address) to Marcellus himself, heu, miserande puer,… (882). He addresses so many different things, calls on them on after another: the gods collectively, superi (871); then the river Tiber, Tiberine (873); then pietas and old-fashioned loyalty, heu pietas, heu prisca fides (878), as well as the boy’s right hand unconquered in war, invictaque bello dextera (878–79)––as well as the poor young man, the boy, himself, miserande puer … tu Marcellus eris (882–83). Lastly, he tells Aeneas, us, any and everyone, what to do: give him lilies with full hands, manibus date lilia plenis (883)—and he finally says what he will do, useless as it is: scatter flowers, heap gifts, occupy himself with empty service, purpureos spargam flores animamque nepotis his saltem accumulem donis, et funger inani munere, (884–86).
Aeneas doesn’t respond; Anchises doesn’t say or do anything more about Marcellus. They keep moving, walk all over the place, and take it all in together: sic tota passim regione vagantur aeris in campis latis atque omnia lustrant (886–87). But what does that last word mean, lustrant? On the one hand, it’s ‘take in’, as in ‘look over’ ‘observe’ or ‘examine’; with Anchises, Aeneas examines everything. But also, even primarily, it’s ‘purify’ or ‘cleanse’—and while their looking around seems in keeping with the broad scheme, this wander also perhaps cleanses everything—helps wash off the grief, wash out the sadness of knowing young Marcellus will bloom only to die.
After another three little lines, reported indirectly, wherein we are told that Aeneas is given detailed advice about what he will face when he gets to Italy (890–93), he and the Sibyl leave.
Their departure is oddly easy and abrupt—there are two gates out (893–96), and they go through one (897–98), and then Aeneas is on his way back to his ships and his people, ille viam secat ad navis sociosque revisit (899).
As easy as it is for them, these two gates are also troubling; the gates come with implications, it seems, that suggest it matters in some indefinable way which one you use. Rather, which one Aeneas used. One wonders about them on so many levels.
In what ways, for example, are the gates actually different and similar?
It seems like this should be simple. The differ in materials, one is horn (altera … cornea, 893–4); the other is ivory (altera … perfecta … elephanto, 895). So far so good.
But it gets complicated immediately. One—the gate of horn—is associated with truth, cornea, qua veris… (894); the other—the gate of ivory—appears to be associated with falsehood, altera … perfecta … elephanto, sed falsa… (895–96). Although, why is the description of the first one so clearly linked—it’s a relative clause of description, with altera cornea the clear antecedent of qua—and the second is linked with sed, which is adversative? Presumably, sed emphasizes the contrast between the horn and the ivory, the true and the false. However, other things don’t quite match either: what leaves the gate of horn are veris … datur exitus umbris, ‘true shadows’ or ‘true shades’; and they are ‘given a way out’—the true shadows just leave, apparently. But from the other gate? falsa ad caelum mittunt insomnia Manes (896); the shades send false nightmares/dreams to the sky—so here the shades don’t leave at all, they send out falsa insomnia … to the sky.
The two gates are made of different things, associated with truth (horn) and falsehood (ivory), and they also work differently.
So then: his ibi tum natum Anchises unaque Sibyllam prosequitur dictis portaque emittit eburna (897–98). Anchises is talking up to the last, his … prosequitur dictis, and he sends them out, emittit, through the ivory gate, porta … eburna. So a shade sends them out, as though they were dreams/nightmares … because that is what shades send out that way. They don’t just go, just get ‘given exit’, through the horn gate—that is where true shades … real ghosts get out. But of course, Aeneas and the Sibyl are neither ghosts nor nightmares/dreams … they are living people, in living bodies. So, what do you make of it? Does it imply that living people are dream-like? Are all dreams false? Or are true dreams somehow always real shades, and only false dreams are what we think of as ‘dreams’ at all? Was that Anchises telling Aeneas and Sibyl about the gates, or no, was that Vergil telling us about them? What difference does it make?
Or maybe none of it matters, maybe that’s just the way out if you’re a living visitor to the underworld, and Aeneas and Sibyl jostled along, two bulky physical bodies among the flimsy dreamlings being sent on their way, until they were out in the night air, same as they stepped into that leaky old boat on the way in.
Further Reading
Brenk, F. E. ‘Aurorum spes et purpurei flores:the eulogy of Marcellus in Aeneid VI’ American Journal of Philology 107 (1986) 218-28
Brenk, F. E. ‘The gates of dreams and an image of life: consolation and allegory at the end of Vergil’s Aeneid VI’ Collection Latomus: Studies in Latin Literature and History VI (1992) 277-94
Gotoff, H. ‘The difficulty of the ascent from Avernus’ Classical Philology 80 (1985) 35-40
Johnson, W.R. Darkness Visible: A Study of Vergil’s Aeneid (Berkeley, 1976) 104-8
Kraggerud, E. ‘Vergiliana (II): What is wrong with the somni portae? (Aen. 6.893-898)’ Symbolae Osloenses 77 (2002) 128-44
O’Hara, J.J. ‘An unconvincing etymological argument about Aeneas and the Gates of Sleep’ Phoenix 50 (1996) 331-4
Reed, J. ‘Anchises reading Aeneas reading Marcellus’ Syllecta Classica 12 (2001) 146-68
Segal, C. ‘Aeternum per saecula nomen: the golden bough and the tragedy of history. Part 2’ Arion 5 (1966) 34-72