We have changed our privacy policy. In addition, we use cookies on our website for various purposes. By continuing on our website, you consent to our use of cookies. You can learn about our practices by reading our privacy policy.

The Aeneid Aeneas Quotes

Aeneas

Quote 1

Knowing nothing of the events themselves,
He felt joy in their pictures, taking up
Upon his shoulder all the destined acts
And fame of his descendants. (8.989-992)

These lines illustrate Aeneas's reaction after receiving the armor made for him by the god Vulcan. (In case you don't remember, the shield is decorated with many scenes from future Roman history.) Do you think the fact that the future is already, in some sense, written (OK, engraved) means that Aeneas acts without free will? Or is it more complicated than that? Does the fact that Aeneas knows "nothing of the events themselves" change anything?

Aeneas

Quote 2

(Turnus):
"Here is the chance
You've prayed for: now to hack them up with swords!
The battle is in your hands, men. Let each soldier
Think of his wife, his home; let each recall
Heroic actions, great feats of our fathers.
Down to the surf we go, while they're in trouble,
Disembarking, losing their footing. Fortune
Favors men who dare!" (10.386-393)

Here Turnus encourages his men to attack Aeneas, who has just returned from meeting with the Arcadians and Etruscans. He uses a complex set of ideas to motivate them to fight: 1) love for their families, whom (Turnus implies) they wouldn't want to see fall into the hands of the Trojan invaders, and 2) a sense of pride, in their desire to live up to the deeds of their ancestors. Last of all, Turnus points out that the moment is now: they'll never have a better opportunity to give the Trojans hell. The last two lines, which could also be discussed in terms of the theme of Fate and Free Will basically express the idea that people make their own luck. Do you think that Turnus is right in thinking this or not?

Aeneas

Quote 3

(Aeneas):
"I am Aeneas, duty-bound, and known
Above high air of heaven by my fame,
Carrying with me in my ships our gods
Of hearth and home, saved from the enemy.
I look for Italy to be my fatherland,
And my descent is from all-highest Jove." (1.519-524)

This is how Aeneas introduces himself to the huntress he meets in the forest of Libya (actually, the huntress is his mother, Venus, in disguise). They reveal how much his mission and responsibilities make up his identity.

Aeneas

Quote 4

(Aeneas):
'Each night thoughts come of young Ascanius,
My dear boy wronged, defrauded of his kingdom,
Hesperian lands of destiny. And now
The gods' interpreter, sent by Jove himself—
I swear it by your head and mine—has brought
Commands down through the racing winds! I say
With my own eyes in full daylight I saw him
Entering the building! With my very ears
I drank his message in! So please, no more
Of these appeals that set us both afire.
I sail for Italy not of my own will.' (4.489-499)

These words, spoken by Aeneas to Dido when she confronts him about leaving, are his version of the "It's not you, it's me" speech. Well, make that the "It's not you, but it's not me either: it's the implacable powers of destiny that we all must obey." Here, as elsewhere, the Aeneid portrays duty as conflicting with personal desires and connections.

Aeneas

Quote 5

(Aeneas):
"Was it you, poor boy, that Fortune
Would not let me keep when she came smiling?
You who were not to see our kingdom won,
Or ride in victory to your father's house?
This was not the pledge I made Evander
On your behalf, on leaving him, when he
Embraced me and gave godspeed to my quest
For country-wide command." (11.56-63)

These words are spoken by Aeneas over the body of the Arcadian prince Pallas. They show that his grief for the dead boy is not only personal; he is also ashamed of having failed to live up to his promise to protect him.

Aeneas

Quote 6

Meanwhile, the man of honor, Aeneas, stood
Bare-headed with his right hand out, unarmed,
And called his troops:
"Where bound? Are you a mob?
Why this outbreak of brawling all at once?
Cool your hot heads. A pact has been agreed to,
Terms have been laid down. I am the one
To fight them. Let me do so. Never fear:
With this right hand I'll carry out the treaty.
Turnus is mine, our sacrifice obliged it." (12.427-436)

Here we see Aeneas attempting to restore order after what was going to be a duel between him and Turnus became a scene of mass violence. Aeneas is so committed to honor his agreements that he can't imagine anyone would break them. Can you think of other moments in the poem where Aeneas mistakenly thinks that other people will understand his sense of duty?

Aeneas

Quote 7

(Aeneas):
"Must we imagine,
Father, there are souls that go from here
Aloft to upper heaven, and once more
Return to bodies' dead weight? The poor souls,
How can they crave our daylight so?" (6.965-969)

In The Birth of Tragedy, the German philosopher (and former classics professor) Friedrich Nietzsche refers to the ancient "wisdom of Silenus" (a legendary half man, half beast), according to which the best thing for mortals was never to be born – and that second best was to die soon. Aeneas's view in this line isn't quite that extreme, but it's close – something like, "Once you've lived and died, why would you bother going through all that trouble again?" (For a great twentieth century poem that asks the same question – and that gives the final voice to the desire to go do it again, check out W. B. Yeats's "A Dialogue of Self and Soul".) Aeneas's words pose a more immediate problem, however, since they could be applied to his own situation: he is currently in the underworld; shouldn't he be a bit more excited about going back to the living? In the end, Anchises's explanation of future Roman history is enough to fire Aeneas up with excitement to finish his mission.

Aeneas

Quote 8

"When the long file had gone
A distance on its way, Aeneas halted,
Sighed from the heart, and spoke a final word:
"More of the same drear destiny of battle
Calls me back to further tears. Forever
Hail to you, my noble friend, my Pallas,
Hail and farewell forever." (11.127-133)

Of course, the greatest pain caused by death may be felt by the survivors. As Walt Whitman puts it in his famous poem for Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," "I saw the debris and debris of all the dead soldiers of the war; / But I saw they were not as was thought; / They themselves were fully at rest—they suffer'd not; / The living remain'd and suffer'd." In this case, the words Aeneas speaks to the dead Pallas are a common way of saying a last goodbye. For a precursor to these lines in Latin literature, check out this poem by the Roman poet Catullus.

Aeneas

Quote 9

(Aeneas):
"Poor fellow, how
Could rashness take you this way? Don't you feel
A force now more than mortal is against you
And heaven's will has changed? We'll bow to that!" (5.602-605)

Were we suggesting that Augustus might have been using religion as a pretext? We were. But hey, it isn't only real people who can do it – quasi-fictional characters like Aeneas can, too! In this case, Aeneas is invoking the gods to break up the boxing match between Entellus and Dares, saying that Entellus clearly has a divinity helping him. The only problem is, Virgil hasn't told us about any gods getting involved, so it's a safe bet Aeneas didn't see one either. So long as the gods often act invisibly, the chances are high that someone will claim they've been acting one way or the other when the moment calls for it.

Aeneas

Quote 10

(Aeneas):
"Triply lucky, all you men
To whom death came before your fathers' eyes
Below the wall at Troy! Bravest Danaan,
Diomedes, why could I not go down
When you had wounded me, and lose my life
On Ilium's battlefield? Our Hector lies there,
Torn by Achilles' weapon; there Sarpedon,
Our giant fighter, lies; and there the river
Simoïs washes down so many shields
And helmets, with strong bodies taken under!" (1.134-143)

These are the first words that we hear Aeneas speak. Given that you can think about the Aeneid as divided into a first half, in which the hero is thinking about the past, and a second half, in which he is directed toward the future, it is significant that we are introduced to Aeneas as nostalgic for home – and even wishing he had died there instead of setting off on this quest.

Aeneas

Quote 11

(Aeneas):
"My men, who have endured still greater dangers,
God will grant us an end to these as well.
You sailed by Scylla's rage, her booming crags,
You saw the Cyclops' boulders. Now call back
Your courage, and have done with fear and sorrow.
Some day, perhaps, remembering even this
Will be a pleasure." (1.271-278)

In contrast to the first quotation under this theme, these lines, which follow relatively closely upon them, show that not all reflection on the past is nostalgic. Thinking about the past can also provide directions for how to act in the present – as, in this case, Aeneas reminds his men of how they met past challenges, thereby encouraging them to endure new ones. (In fact, he even imagines how, in the future, they will be able to look back on present challenges as also in the past – try wrapping your head around that!) How do you think this theme relates to the idea of the Aeneid as a whole, which can be read as a poem set in what for Virgil was the distant past, yet which also alludes to the events of what for him was the present day?

Aeneas

Quote 12

(Aeneas):
'When faintness of dread left me,
I brought before the leaders of the people,
My father first, these portents of the gods
And asked their judgment.' (3.82-84)

The standard epithet Virgil uses to characterize Aeneas is "pius." Although it is related to our word "pious," for the Romans this word had a much stronger connotation of devotion to family – and especially to one's parents. As the quotations in this section will show, devotion to one's parents, especially to one's father, is a very, very prevalent theme in the Aeneid. Here, we see this love and respect symbolized in the fact that Aeneas singles out his father as the first of the Trojan leaders he consults about a message from the gods.

Aeneas

Quote 13

(Aeneas):
'For after storms at sea had buffeted me
So often, here, alas, I lost my father,
Solace in all affliction and mischance;
O best of fathers, in my weariness—
Though you had been delivered from so many
Perils in vain—alas, here you forsook me.
Never had Helenus the seer, who warned
Of many things to make me quail, foretold
This grief to me—nor had the vile Celaeno.
Here was my final sorrow, here the goal
Of all my seafaring.' (3.937-948)

These lines come at the end of the story Aeneas tells to Dido in Books 2 and 3, so when he says "Here was my final sorrow," you have to understand that that is only from the perspective of his voyage so far. As we know, there are plenty more sad things that are going to happen to Aeneas before the poem is over. Still, given what we know of Aeneas's deep love for his father, there is no doubt that this was one of the worst calamities he ever experienced.

Aeneas

Quote 14

(Aeneas):
"I greet and bless you, sacred father, bless you,
Ashes and shade and soul, paternal soul
I vainly rescued once. It was not given me
With you beside me to explore the coasts
And plains of Italy, nor to discover,
Whatever it may be, Ausonian Tiber" (5.105-110)

Aeneas says these words while making a sacrifice at his father's grave in Sicily. They provide (yet another) sign of the depth of his affection.

Aeneas

Quote 15

(Aeneas):
"Learn fortitude and toil from me, my son,
Ache of true toil. Good fortune learn from others.
My sword arm now will be your shield in battle
And introduce you to the boons of war.
When, before long, you come to man's estate,
Be sure that you recall this. Harking back
For models in your family, let your father,
Aeneas, and uncle, Hector, stir your heart." (12.595-602)

After so many images of Aeneas playing the role of devoted son, here we see him playing the role of father, instructing Ascanius in how to be a proper warrior. At the same time, he holds up a different family member, the Trojan warrior Hector, who died at Troy, as another role model for his son.