Editing Aeneid (section)

===Journey to Italy (books 1–6)===
====Theme====
Virgil begins his poem with a statement of his theme ({{Lang|la|Arma virumque cano}}''&nbsp;...'', "Of arms and the man I sing&nbsp;...") and an invocation to the [[Muse]], falling some seven lines after the poem's inception (''{{Lang|la|Musa, mihi causas memora}}&nbsp;...'', "O Muse, recount to me the causes&nbsp;..."). He then explains the reason for the principal conflict in the story: the resentment held by the goddess [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]] against the [[Troy|Trojan]] people. This is consistent with her role throughout the [[Homer#Epics|Homeric epics]].

====Book 1: Storm and refuge====
Also in the manner of [[Homer]], the story proper begins ''[[in medias res]]'' (into the middle of things), with the Trojan fleet in the eastern [[Mediterranean Sea|Mediterranean]], heading in the direction of Italy. The fleet, led by [[Aeneas]], is on a voyage to find a second home. It has been foretold that in Italy he will give rise to a race both noble and courageous, a race which will become known to all nations. Juno is wrathful, because she had not been chosen in the [[judgement of Paris]], and because her favourite city, [[Carthage]], will be destroyed by Aeneas' descendants. Also, [[Ganymede (mythology)|Ganymede]], a Trojan prince, was chosen to be the [[Cup-bearer|cupbearer]] to her husband, [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]]—replacing Juno's daughter, [[Hebe (mythology)|Hebe]]. Juno proceeds to [[Aeolus (son of Hippotes)|Aeolus]], King of the Winds, and asks that he release the winds to stir up a storm in exchange for a bribe ([[Nereids|Deiopea]], the loveliest of all her sea nymphs, as a wife). Aeolus agrees to carry out Juno's orders (line 77, "My task is / To fulfill your commands"); the storm then devastates the fleet.

[[File:1875, Cézanne, Aeneas Meeting Dido at Carthage.jpg|thumb|[[Paul Cézanne]], ''Aeneas Meeting Dido at Carthage'', c.&nbsp;1875, [[Princeton University Art Museum]]]]
[[Neptune (mythology)|Neptune]] takes notice: although he himself is no friend of the Trojans, he is infuriated by Juno's intrusion into his domain, and stills the winds and calms the waters, after making sure that the winds would not bother the Trojans again, lest they be punished more harshly than they were this time. The fleet takes shelter on the coast of Africa, where Aeneas rouses the spirits of his men, reassuring them that they have been through worse situations before. There, Aeneas' mother, Venus, in the form of a huntress very similar to the goddess [[Diana (mythology)|Diana]], encourages him and recounts to him the history of Carthage. Eventually, Aeneas ventures into the city, and in the temple of Juno he seeks and gains the favour of [[Dido (Queen of Carthage)|Dido]], queen of the city. The city has only recently been founded by refugees from [[Tyre (Lebanon)|Tyre]] and will later become a great imperial rival and enemy to Rome.

Meanwhile, [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]] has her own plans. She goes to her son, Aeneas' half-brother [[Cupid]], and tells him to imitate [[Ascanius]] (the son of Aeneas and his first wife Creusa). Thus disguised, Cupid goes to Dido and offers the gifts expected from a guest. As Dido cradles the boy during a banquet given in honour of the [[Troy|Trojans]], Cupid secretly weakens her sworn fidelity to the soul of her late husband [[Sychaeus]], who was murdered by her brother [[Pygmalion of Tyre|Pygmalion]] back in Tyre, by inciting fresh love for Aeneas.

====Book 2: Trojan Horse and sack of Troy====
[[File:Hawara Papyrus 24, with line of Virgil's Aeneid repeated 7 times, Book 2, line 601. Recto. Latin language. 1st century CE. From Hawara, Egypt. On display at the British Museum in London.jpg|thumb|Hawara Papyrus 24, with a line of the ''Aeneid'' (repeated 7 times, probably a writing exercise) that translates: "It is not the hated face of Spartan Helen..."). 1st century AD, from [[Hawara]], Egypt; displayed at the [[British Museum]], London]]
In books 2 and 3, Aeneas recounts to Dido the events that occasioned the Trojans' arrival. He begins the tale shortly after the war described in the ''[[Iliad]]''. Cunning [[Odysseus|Ulysses]] devised a way for [[Greeks|Greek]] warriors to gain entry into the walled city of Troy by hiding in a large [[Trojan Horse|wooden horse]]. The Greeks pretended to sail away, leaving a warrior, [[Sinon]], to mislead the Trojans into believing that the horse was an offering and that if it were taken into the city, the Trojans would be able to conquer Greece. The Trojan priest [[Laocoön]] saw through the Greek plot and urged the horse's destruction, but his protests fell on deaf ears, so he hurled his spear at the horse. Then, in what would be seen by the Trojans as punishment from the gods, two serpents emerged from the sea and devoured Laocoön, along with his two sons. The Trojans then took the horse inside the fortified walls, and after nightfall the armed Greeks emerged from it, opening the city's gates to allow the returned Greek army to slaughter the Trojans.

In a dream, [[Hector]], the fallen Trojan prince, advised Aeneas to flee with his family. Aeneas awoke and saw with horror what was happening to his beloved city. At first he tried to fight the enemy, but soon he lost his comrades and was left alone to fend off the Greeks. He witnessed the murder of [[Priam]] by Achilles' son [[Neoptolemus|Pyrrhus]]. His mother, Venus, appeared to him and led him back to his house. Aeneas tells of his escape with his son, [[Ascanius]], his wife [[Creusa (wife of Aeneas)|Creusa]], and his father, [[Anchises]], after the occurrence of various omens (Ascanius' head catching fire without his being harmed, a clap of thunder and a shooting star). At the city gates, they notice that they have lost Creusa, and Aeneas has to re-enter the city in order to look for her. To his sorrow, he encounters only her ghost, who tells him that his destiny is to reach [[Hesperia (mythology)|Hesperia]], where kingship and a royal spouse await him.

====Book 3: Wanderings====
Aeneas continues his account to Dido by telling how, rallying the other survivors, he built a fleet of ships and made landfall at various locations in the Mediterranean: [[Thrace]], where they find the last remains of a fellow Trojan, [[Polydorus (son of Priam)|Polydorus]]; [[Delos]], where [[Apollo]] tells them to leave and to find the land of their forefathers; [[Crete]], which they believe to be that land, and where they build their city ([[Pergamea]]) and promptly desert it after a plague proves this is not the place for them; the [[Strophades]], where they encounter the Harpy [[Celaeno]], who tells them to leave her island and to look for Italy, though, she prophesies, they will not find it until hunger forces them to eat their tables; and [[Buthrotum]]. This last city had been built in an attempt to replicate Troy. In Buthrotum, Aeneas meets [[Andromache]], the widow of [[Hector]]. She is still lamenting the loss of her valiant husband and beloved child. There, too, Aeneas sees and meets Helenus, one of [[Priam]]'s sons, who has the gift of prophecy. Through him, Aeneas learns the destiny laid out for him: he is divinely advised to seek out the land of Italy (also known as ''Ausonia'' or ''Hesperia''), where his descendants will not only prosper, but in time rule the entire known world. In addition, Helenus also bids him to go to the [[Sibyl]] in [[Cumae]].

Heading into the open sea, Aeneas leaves Buthrotum, rounds the south eastern tip of Italy and makes his way towards [[Sicily]] (Trinacria). There, they are caught in the whirlpool of [[Charybdis]] and driven out to sea. Soon they come ashore at the land of the [[Cyclopes]]. There they meet a Greek, [[Achaemenides]], one of Ulysses' men, who has been left behind when his comrades escaped the cave of [[Polyphemus]]. They take Achaemenides on board and narrowly escape Polyphemus. Shortly after, at [[Drepana|Drepanum]], Aeneas' father Anchises dies of old age. Aeneas heads on (towards Italy) and gets deflected to Carthage (by the storm described in book 1). Here, Aeneas ends his account of his wanderings to Dido.

[[File:Death Dido Cayot Louvre MR1780.jpg|thumb|The suicide of [[Dido (Queen of Carthage)|Queen Dido]] (book 4), sculpture by {{Interlanguage link|Claude-Augustin Cayot|fr}} (1667–1722)]]

====Book 4: Fate of Queen Dido====
Dido realises that she has fallen in love with Aeneas. Juno seizes upon this opportunity to make a deal with Venus, Aeneas' mother, with the intention of distracting Aeneas from his destiny of founding a city in Italy. Aeneas is inclined to return Dido's love, and during a hunting expedition, a storm drives them into a small cave in which Aeneas and Dido have sex, after which Juno presides over what Dido considers a marriage ceremony.

[[Pheme|Fama]] (the personification of rumour) spreads the news of Aeneas and Dido's marriage, which eventually reaches king [[Iarbas]]. Iarbas, who also sought relations with Dido but was rejected, angrily prays to his father [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]] to express his feeling that his worship of Jupiter has not earned him the rewards he deserves. As a result, Jupiter sends [[Mercury (mythology)|Mercury]] to remind Aeneas of his duty, leaving him no choice but to depart.

When Aeneas clandestinely begins making preparations to leave at the behest of Mercury, Dido discovers Aeneas' intentions. Enraged and heartbroken, she accuses Aeneas of infidelity while also imploring him to stay. Aeneas responds by attempting to explain that his duty is important and that he does not leave of his own volition, but Dido is not satisfied. Ultimately, her heart broken, Dido commits suicide by stabbing herself upon a [[pyre]] with Aeneas' sword. Before dying, she predicts eternal strife between Aeneas' people and hers; "rise up from my bones, avenging spirit" (4.625, trans. Fitzgerald) is a possible invocation to [[Hannibal]].<ref>{{cite book|author1=Publius Vergilius Maro|author-link=Virgil|title=The Aeneid, translated by Robert Fagles, introduction by Bernard Knox|date=2006|publisher=Viking Penguin|location=New York, New York|isbn=978-0-14-310513-8|page=26|edition=deluxe}}</ref>

====Book 5: Sicily====
Looking back from the deck of his ship, Aeneas sees the smoke of Dido's funeral pyre, and although he does not understand the exact reason behind it, he understands it as a bad omen, considering the angry madness of her love.
[[File:Mosaic boxers Getty Villa 71.AH.106.jpg|thumb|Boxing scene from the ''Aeneid'' (book 5), mosaic floor from a Gallo-Roman villa in [[Villelaure]] (France), c.&nbsp;175 AD, [[Getty Villa]] (71.AH.106)]]

Hindered by bad weather from reaching Italy, the Trojans return to where they started at the beginning of book 1. Book 5 then takes place on [[Sicily]] and centres on the [[funeral games (antiquity)|funeral games]] that Aeneas organises for the anniversary of his father's death. Aeneas organises celebratory games for the men—a boat race, a foot race, a boxing match, and an archery contest. In all those contests, Aeneas is careful to reward winners and losers, showing his leadership qualities by not allowing antagonism even after foul play. Each of these contests comments on past events or prefigures future events: the boxing match, for instance, is "a preview of the final encounter of Aeneas and Turnus", and the dove, the target during the archery contest, is connected to the deaths of [[Polites (Prince of Troy)|Polites]] and King Priam in Book 2 and that of Camilla in Book 11.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Glazewski|first=Johanna|year=1972|title=The Function of Vergil's Funeral Games|journal=The Classical World|volume=66|issue=2|pages=85–96|jstor=4347751|doi=10.2307/4347751}}</ref> Afterwards, Ascanius leads the boys in a military parade and mock battle, the [[Lusus Troiae]]—a tradition he will teach the Latins while building the walls of Alba Longa.

During these events, Juno, via her messenger Iris, who disguises herself as an old woman, incites the Trojan women to burn the fleet and prevent the Trojans from ever reaching Italy, but her plan is thwarted when Ascanius and Aeneas intervene. Aeneas prays to Jupiter to quench the fires, which the god does with a torrential rainstorm. An anxious Aeneas is comforted by a vision of his father, who tells him to go to the underworld to receive a vision of his and Rome's future. In return for safe passage to Italy, the gods, by order of Jupiter, will receive one of Aeneas' men as a sacrifice: [[Palinurus]], who steers Aeneas' ship by night, is put to sleep by [[Somnus]] and falls overboard.

====Book 6: Underworld====
{{see also|The Golden Bough (mythology)}}
Aeneas, with the guidance of the [[Cumaean Sibyl]], [[Katabasis|descends into the underworld]]. They pass by crowds of the dead by the banks of the river [[Acheron]] and are ferried across by [[Charon (mythology)|Charon]] before passing by [[Cerberus]], the three-headed guardian of the underworld. Then Aeneas is shown the fates of the wicked in [[Tartarus]] and is warned by the Sibyl to bow to the justice of the gods. He also meets the shade of Dido, who remains irreconcilable. He is then brought to green fields of [[Elysium]]. There he speaks with the spirit of his father and is offered a prophetic vision of the destiny of Rome.