Why does the aeneid end

Hence why it's called, you know, Rome. So Virgil has Aeneas's son grow up to found a different city, and then that's the city that Romulus and Remus's mom is from, then they are eventually abandoned and nursed by a wolf and raised in the wilderness and then they found Rome. If that sounds like a whole lot of fanfiction nonsense that barely makes any sense And Virgil probably knew that. There's a lot to get into when it comes to The Aeneid. There's Dido, the fierce North African queen who Aeneas falls for and then totally ghosts.

There are wild battles and violent storms, spirits and prophecies and a whole chapter where they take a break and play lawn games. There's that one really creepy part where Jupiter makes out with his daughter, Venus. But for now, let's focus on one scene in particular: the underworld. Virgil mashes together many different myths and histories in his poem.

When Jupiter is being gross to Venus, for example, the god gets all meta and actually references a version of the myth where she's not his daughter which makes it When Aeneas goes to the underworld to visit his daddy, Virgil gets especially weird and throws a whole bunch of different stuff in there: there's a forest of people who died by suicide where Aeneas awkwardly runs into his ex and a torturous, hell neighborhood, and there's also kind of a heaven section, and then there's a reincarnation area, where souls are being washed of their memories and hung out to dry for future use, like so much spectral laundry.

Aeneas's dad shows him all of the souls that will become his descendants, explaining that Julius and Augustus Caesar are basically going to be the best and the sexiest of all of them, and that Rome is going to be the most bomb city ever.

According to the Fitzgerald translation:. Aeneas is stoked to see his awesome great-great-great-grandkids. Then Aeneas hugs his ghost dad and leaves the underworld. And there's this passage, from the Fitzgerald translation:. There are two gates leading out of the underworld: one made of horn and one made of ivory. The horn gate allows only true things to pass through, and the ivory gate allows only fantasies and lies to pass this is a all hilarious pun in Ancient Greek, which does not translate whatsoever.

Virgil didn't invent the gates; they're from Greek mythology. But he does have Aeneas and his friend Sibyl leave through the ivory gates of deception. Meaning that Then they rush toward each other to battle with swords. Turnus's sword breaks off, forcing him to retreat, and Aeneas pursues him despite his pain from the arrow wound.

Aeneas, unable to catch Turnus, notices his spear embedded in an olive tree and struggles to free it. Meanwhile, Juturna takes on the guise of Turnus's charioteer and returns her brother's blade to him. Angered by this interference, Venus helps Aeneas remove the spear from the tree. Jupiter , himself angered by this continued meddling in mortal affairs, calls his wife to him. She knows, he says, that Aeneas is fated to win, so why must she persist in staving off the inevitable?

Jupiter tells her that the end has come. Jupiter sends down one of the Furies to frighten Turnus into submission. Juturna, realizing that there is nothing more that she can do to help her brother, flees into the depths of the river, moaning. Aeneas hurls his spear at the fallen Turnus, and it pierces his thigh. Aeneas approaches Turnus to end his life, but Turnus pleads for mercy, for the sake of his father. Aeneas is moved by Turnus's words and momentarily considers sparing him, but then notices Pallas 's belt slung across Turnus's shoulders, and drives his sword through his opponent's chest.

One of the most fascinating and perplexing aspects of Virgil 's epic is its ending: even though our hero Aeneas is victorious, the Aeneid ends on an unquestionably tragic note, devoting its final lines to the sad last moments of Turnus's short life.

Virgil could have ended the story with, for example, victory celebrations and the joining together of the Latins and the Trojans, but he chooses to end it in a manner that not only takes readers to the opposite emotional pole from the triumphant, positive beginning, but is consistent with his interest in creating multilayered, painfully human characters.

The ending of the epic is tragic in order to convey Turnus's complexity, as well as the complexity of the situation at hand compare the funeral of Hector at the end of the Iliad , after which the second half of Virgil's epic is patterned. Turnus is arguably one of the most inconsistent characters in the Aeneid. He is by turns courageous, antagonistic, sympathetic, impassioned, and pitiful. This very complexity lends him his humanity.

Just as Virgil invests Aeneas with flaws in order to enhance the sense that he is not simply an epic hero but a real person, Turnus's capriciousness enables the audience to view him not merely as a villain but as a person whose misdeeds are motivated by internal conflicts and flaws. Indeed, his motivations, while vastly different from those of Aeneas, are in some ways no less pure. Turnus seems to be truly passionate about Lavinia, while Aeneas wishes to marry her simply because it his destiny to do so; Turnus wishes to uphold his sense of honor regardless of the challenges that face him, while Aeneas can, to some degree, rest in the security of knowing he is destined to succeed.

In the final episode, Turnus's willingness to fight Aeneas even though he knows that he is fated to lose demonstrates his courage, placing him on a level closer to Aeneas than any other warrior. Yet in the last moments of his life he is reduced to begging on his knees to be spared.

Both he and Turnus kill many men, turning the tide of the battle back and forth. He gathers a group of soldiers and attacks the city, panicking its citizens. Queen Amata, seeing the Trojans within the city walls, loses all hope and hangs herself.

Turnus hears cries of suffering from the city and rushes back to the rescue. Not wanting his people to suffer further, he calls for the siege to end and for Aeneas to emerge and fight him hand-to-hand, as they had agreed that morning. First, Aeneas and Turnus toss their spears.

They then exchange fierce blows with their swords. Turnus flees from Aeneas, calling for his real sword, which Juturna finally furnishes for him. Juno finally gives in and consents to abandon her grudge against Aeneas, on one condition: she wants the victorious Trojans to take on the name and the language of the Latins.

Jupiter gladly agrees. Jupiter sends down one of the Furies, who assumes the form of a bird and flaps and shrieks in front of Turnus, filling him with terror and weakening him. As Aeneas advances, Turnus pleads for mercy for the sake of his father.