Brendan’s Reviews > The Aeneid > Status Update
Brendan
is on page 170 of 544
Aeneas witnesses the souls of the recently deceased at the river:
“…As many souls / As leaves that yield their hold on boughs and fall / Through forests in the early frost of autumn, / Or as migrating birds from the open sea / That darken heaven when the cold season comes / And drives them overseas to sunlit lands. / There all stood begging to be first across / And reached out longing hands to the far shore.”
— Nov 12, 2022 03:56PM
“…As many souls / As leaves that yield their hold on boughs and fall / Through forests in the early frost of autumn, / Or as migrating birds from the open sea / That darken heaven when the cold season comes / And drives them overseas to sunlit lands. / There all stood begging to be first across / And reached out longing hands to the far shore.”
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Brendan’s Previous Updates
Brendan
is on page 152 of 544
In this reading of Aeneid VI, I’m struck by how strongly Virgil’s conception of the afterlife and the nature of souls is influenced by Plato’s Myth of Er in the Republic. Given Virgil’s clear influence on Christian writers from Augustine to Dante (and beyond), I think I’ve finally spotted the thread that ties Plato’s bizarre parable to the still influential ideas of heaven, hell, purgatory, etc.
— Sep 12, 2025 10:42PM
Brendan
is on page 138 of 544
Aeneas entering the Underworld:
“Pouring his way, all the seething crowd spills down to the stream’s banks: / Mothers and full grown men and the bodies of great hearted heroes / Finished with life, young boys, young girls who have never been married, / Youths in their prime set on funeral pyres while their parents are watching: / Countless as leaves during autumn’s first frost, falling in forests, /
— Sep 12, 2025 09:47PM
“Pouring his way, all the seething crowd spills down to the stream’s banks: / Mothers and full grown men and the bodies of great hearted heroes / Finished with life, young boys, young girls who have never been married, / Youths in their prime set on funeral pyres while their parents are watching: / Countless as leaves during autumn’s first frost, falling in forests, /
Brendan
is on page 19 of 544
I’m struck immediately by how Virgil portrays, for perhaps the first time in literature, a highly competent and virtuous Queen. I can’t think of any others in world literature until Spenser’s Elizabeth. Dido is an excellent ruler and the savior of refugees. It makes her betrayal by Aeneas—“founder” of Rome—all the more tragic, and is another way that Virgil subtly subverts Roman supremacist propaganda
— Sep 10, 2025 04:39PM
Brendan
is on page 310 of 544
“Every man’s last day is fixed. / Lifetimes are brief, and not to be regained, / For all mankind. But by their deeds to make / Their fame last: that is labor for the brave.”
— Nov 13, 2022 07:01PM
Brendan
is on page 101 of 544
“Now in no time at all / Through all the African cities Rumor goes — / Nimble as quicksilver among evils. Rumor / Thrives on motion, stronger for the running, / Lowly at first through fear, then rearing high, / She treads the land and hides her head in cloud.”
— Nov 12, 2022 09:13AM
