Lis and the "Mad Flight"

6. “Father and son”

February 13, 2013

San Marcello Pistoiese, Italy

In the VI book of Eneide, the son of Venus and Anchises get off Cuma, an ancient greek colony, where the oracol of Sibil, the prophetess, lies.

This one is deeply in love with Apollo and suggests the hero to invoke mercy of God who's temple lies in a place near the cave. Aeneas, after invoking Phoebus, asks the prophetess to take him  to Hades to meet the father Anchises.

Sibil shows Aeneas the difficulty of the task and warns him that he cannot obtain what he wishes before placing some symbolic actions after which he will be allowed to enter the Hell with the help of his guide. 

After overcoming the imposed actions, Aeneas can start his own descensio ad Inferos. After going past the vestibule and being carried by Caronte over the Stige's swamp, he will meet some souls, including the one frown and hostile of Dido, who suicided herself precisely because of him (compares infra). Then, he will reach the coveted Anchises who, after the firsts crying words shared with the son, will calm him about the destiny of his descent and the Roman future.

So, In this book (Eneide VI), the encounter with the dead marks not only a generational deal, but also the transmission of an egemony and a power able to link myth to history. In fact, Virgil's production differs from Odyssey, in which we can find only a succession of generations that founds a mythology and at the same time a sense of community based on social and political relations.

Just in this renewed prospective the hero undertakes an after-life trip searching for not a fortune-teller, but his own father (compares Odyssey XI).

Moreover, Anchises himself will reveal Aeneas what future deserves to him and his descendants, not his mother, as it happened in Odyssey XI. So, the announcement of future glory is evident in a continuity between patrilineal generations.

Besides, the novelty of Anchises' prophecy consists of a political omen in which there are important historical references.

The private feelings of Enea (the love for his father, the remorse for the suicide of Dido) become part of a common historical frame and political project.

The appearance itself a aversa (adverse) and inimica (inimical) Dido (vv. 469 and 472) goes beyond the personal vicissitude and alludes to the carthaginian revenge and to a conflict which will cover with blood the Mediterranean for over a century.

Gloria Ceccarelli, Francesca Santi