As Aeneas continues his underworld journey, his father Anchises shows him the future Marcellus, tragic nephew and adopted son and heir of the Emperor Augustus, whose great promise will be cut short by death at the age of nineteen. The poetry rises to much more affecting heights than the tremendous hymn of praises to Augustus himself, from which it follows on. The illustration reflects the tradition that Marcellus’s mother, Octavia, was so moved at hearing Virgil recite this passage that she fainted dead away. Hear the extract in Latin and follow in English here.
As Aeneas’s journey through the underworld continues, the shade of his father, Anchises, shows him the future Emperor Augustus and foretells his glorious conquests as they talk in the Elysian Fields. Hear the Latin and follow in English here.
Leaving Tartarus behind in his underworld journey, Aeneas arrives at the home of the blessed, the Elysian Fields. He will see many illustrious warriors there: the ones in the illustration are King Leonidas and the Spartans before the battle of Thermopylae, as imagined by Jacques-Louis David.
Hear the Latin and follow in English here.
The Sibyl has shown Aeneas on his underworld journey the citadel of Tartarus: now she tells him of the torments suffered by the guilty souls imprisoned there. Hear the Latin and follow in English here. In the illustration, Virgil conducts Dante on their later journey through the Inferno.
Aeneas in his underworld journey has come to the dread penitentiary of Tartarus. He cannot cross the cursed threshold but the Sibyl, his companion and guide through Hades, explains what he is hearing and seeing. Hear the Latin and follow in English here.
Having persuaded Charon the ferryman to take him across the river Styx, Aeneas is distressed to find the spirit of his former lover Dido, the Queen of Carthage, in the Fields of Mourning, the home of those who in life have suffered unhappy love. Hear the Latin and follow in English here.
On the fringes of Hades Aeneas and the Sibyl skirt the haunts of human cares, false dreams and phantom monsters before coming to the infernal river and Charon, the ferryman of the dead. Hear the Latin and follow in English here.
Aeneas has found the golden bough that will allow him entrance and purged a stain on the purity of his fleet – now he sacrifices to the Gods, summons up his courage and begins the journey.
Aeneas is told by the Cumaean Sybil that the way to the underworld can be opened to him only if he finds a golden bough, sacred to Proserpina, Queen of the underworld, and takes it with him as an offering. The illustration shows the golden bough as imagined by JMW Turner. Hear the Latin and follow the English translation here.