Aeneid Book 6, lines 886 - 901

The portals of sleep

by Virgil

When Aeneas has completed his tour of the Elysian fields and learnt from Anchises, his father, what lies ahead of him in Italy, Anchises shows him the way back to the upper world and both Aeneas’s underworld journey and the sixth book of the Aeneid come to an end.

Why does Anchises send his son through the gate by which the infernal powers send out false dreams and nightmares, and not through the other where true dreams issue? There is no definite answer: perhaps Virgil is making a subtle point that might have been clearer to a Roman audience than to us; perhaps this is a loose end that he might have reconsidered had he lived to give his poem the final revision that we are told he planned.

See the illustrated blog post here.

To follow the story of Aeneas in sequence, use this link to the full Pantheon Poets selection of extracts from the Aeneid. See the next episode here.

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To scroll the original and English translation of the poem at the same time - tap inside one box to select it and then scroll.

Sic tota passim regione vagantur
aeris in campis latis atque omnia lustrant.
quae postquam Anchises natum per singula duxit
incenditque animum famae venientis amore,
exim bella viro memorat quae deinde gerenda,
Laurentisque docet populos urbemque Latini,
et quo quemque modo fugiatque feratque laborem.
Sunt geminae Somni portae, quarum altera fertur
cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris,
altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,
sed falsa ad caelum mittunt insomnia Manes.
his ibi tum natum Anchises unaque Sibyllam
prosequitur dictis portaque emittit eburna;
ille viam secat ad navis sociosque revisit.
Tum se ad Caietae recto fert litore portum.
ancora de prora iacitur; stant litore puppes.

So they wander in the wide expanse of dimness
over the whole region, observing everything.
Then Anchises led his son through every detail
and fired his mind with longing for fame to come,
then tells him of the wars later to be fought,
the Laurentine tribes and the city of Latinus,
and how he can avoid or bear each ordeal.
There are two gates of Sleep, one said to be of horn,
through which true dreams are given an easy way,
and a shining one finished in snow-white ivory,
but here the powers send up false, bad dreams.
Speaking thus, Anchises brings his son with the Sibyl
and sends them through the ivory gate. He makes his
swift way to the ships and joins his men. Then he sails
directly for the port of Caieta. The anchor is cast
from prows; sterns stand along the shore.

`

More Poems by Virgil

  1. Mercury’s journey to Carthage
  2. Virgil’s poetic temple to Caesar
  3. The death of Priam
  4. Aeneas rescues his Father Anchises
  5. Into battle
  6. Dido and Aeneas: royal hunt and royal affair
  7. Mourning for Pallas
  8. Aeneas joins the fray
  9. Aeneas finds Dido among the shades
  10. Cassandra is taken
  11. Vulcan’s forge
  12. Juno throws open the gates of war
  13. Fire strikes Aeneas’s fleet
  14. The infant Camilla
  15. New allies for Aeneas
  16. Aeneas sees Marcellus, Augustus’s tragic heir
  17. The Harpy’s prophecy
  18. The Trojan Horse enters the city
  19. More from Virgil’s farming Utopia
  20. Aristaeus’s bees
  21. The Aeneid begins
  22. Jupiter’s prophecy
  23. Storm at sea!
  24. Turnus is lured away from battle
  25. Aeneas prepares for a hopeless fight
  26. In King Latinus’s hall
  27. Aeneas’s oath
  28. The death of Pallas
  29. Help for Father Aeneas from Father Tiber
  30. Aeneas’s vision of Augustus
  31. Signs of bad weather
  32. Omens for Princess Lavinia
  33. Aeneas prepares to tell Dido his story
  34. The Fury Allecto blows the alarm
  35. Love is the same for all
  36. The battle for Priam’s palace
  37. Turnus the wolf
  38. Aeneas is wounded
  39. Aeneas comes to the Hell of Tartarus
  40. Rites for the allies’ dead
  41. Virgil predicts a forthcoming birth and a new golden age
  42. Aeneas learns the way to the underworld
  43. Hector visits Aeneas in a dream
  44. The boxers
  45. Venus speaks
  46. The natural history of bees
  47. Juno is reconciled
  48. Rumour
  49. Turnus at bay
  50. Juno’s anger
  51. Sea-nymphs
  52. The Trojan horse opens
  53. Dido falls in love
  54. Aeneas saves his son and father, but at a cost
  55. King Mezentius meets his match
  56. The Trojans prepare to set sail from Carthage
  57. Aeneas and Dido meet
  58. Helen in the darkness
  59. King Latinus grants the Trojans’ request
  60. How Aeneas will know the site of his city
  61. A Fury rouses Turnus to war
  62. Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields
  63. Dido’s release
  64. The death of Priam
  65. Aeneas arrives in Italy
  66. Laocoon and the snakes
  67. The farmer’s starry calendar
  68. The death of Euryalus and Nisus
  69. Dido and Aeneas: Hell hath no fury …
  70. Catastrophe for Rome?
  71. Virgil’s perils on the sea
  72. Aeneas’s ships are transformed
  73. Virgil begins the Georgics
  74. The Syrian hostess
  75. Aeneas tours the site of Rome
  76. Dido’s story
  77. Anchises’s ghost invites Aeneas to visit the underworld
  78. The death of Dido.
  79. The journey to Hades begins
  80. The farmer’s happy lot
  81. Souls awaiting punishment in Tartarus, and the crimes that brought them there.
  82. The Trojans reach Carthage
  83. What is this wooden horse?
  84. Charon, the ferryman
  85. Laocoon warns against the Trojan horse
  86. Palinurus the helmsman is lost
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