Summary
Summary The Aeneid - book summaries
- Course
- Institution
Notes on all the important events that take place within the required books for the exam, OCR board
[Show more]
Seller
Follow
clempitrat
Content preview
Aeneid book summariesBook 1
- Juno mad due to Punic wars & asks Aeolus to send storm
- Aeneas wishes he died
- Neptune stops the storm
- Trojans land in Carthage
- Venus asks Jupiter why – Jupiter gives Rome prophecy
Founding of Rome, war with Italians and ‘trojan Caesar’
- Jupiter sends mercury to make Carthage hospitable
- Aeneas and Achates meet Venus in disguise
- Venus tells them about dido
- Ekphrasis of freezes – trojan war
- Dido compared to Diana, welcomes trojans and Aeneas
- Venus disguises cupid as Iulus and places ‘loves deadly arrow’ on dido
- Dido meets cupid and becomes ‘doomed’
- Aeneas asked to retell his story
Book 2
- Aeneas recounts his story
- Trojans wake up and see Greeks are gone
- Laocoon says horse is a trick and throws a spear on its side
- Sinon plays hate on hate of Ulises (Odysseus) and says its an offering to the gods
- Priam pities Sinon and brings the horse into the city
- Horse stops 4 times
- Laocoon killed by two snakes sent by Minerva along with his two sons
- Hector appears to Aeneas in a dream – tells him to leave troy
- Aeneas ignores him and tries to save the city in a ‘frenzy’
- Aeneas mentions the death of Priam, Polites and his father – blames Helen and wants to kill her
- Venus tells Aeneas to flee troy with his family because even the gods are attacking
- Aeneas’ father refuses to leave – Aeneas is mad
- Aeneas’ father changed his view after 2 omens – Ascanius’ head on fire and a shooting star
- Aeneas carried Anchises on his back
- Aeneas’ wife Creusa dies
- Aeneas goes back to find her – meets her ghost and she tells him to continue without him and love
their son and that he has a ‘long exile and a vast amount of sea’ before Italy
- Aeneas goes back to his comrades and leads an army of exiles from troy to found a new city in Latium
Book 4
- Dido tells his sister she likes Aeneas – she tells her to marry him
- Juno persuades Venus to allow dido and Aeneas to get married and stay in Carthage
- Venus agrees but knows that Juno is playing her
- Dido and Aeneas go on a hunt
- Juno makes a storm
- Dido and Aeneas have sex in a cave and are married
- Rumour spreads to a neighbouring tribe
- Barbas prays to Jupiter to make Aeneas leave Carthage
- Jupiter hears the prayer and sends mercury to tell Aeneas to leave
- Aeneas prepares to leave without telling dido
- Rumour tells dido
- Dido is pissed – compared to a bacchant by Virgil
, - Dido begs Aeneas to stay and says he ruined her name Aeneas says that ‘it is not by my own will that I
search for Italy’
- Dido is more pisses and calls Aeneas a ‘traitor’ and foreshadows her own death
- Dido speaks to her sister anna for her to persuade Aeneas to stay
- Dido tricks anna into making a funeral pyre
- Dido says she must die
- Mercury tells Aeneas to leave are ‘women are unstable creatures’
- Aeneas goes
- Dido kills herself and burns herself with Aeneas’ things
- She tells her descendants to never be at peace with Rome
- Anna is pisses and would have killed herself as well
- Dido’s death was her choice – not fate
Book 6
- Aeneas lands in Cumae (Italy)
- Aeneas goes to apollo’s temple for the sibyl’s prophecy
- Ekphrasis of gates of temple (made by Daedalus – father/son theme)
- Labyrinth story (parallel of Ariadne v dido)
- Aeneas prays that the ‘fortunes of troy’ don’t follow them
- The sibyl says that a ‘second Achilles’ is waiting to fight in Lavinium
- She tells Aeneas that he needs the golden bough and to bury misensus before entering the
underworld
- Aeneas enters the underworld and sees souls who can’t cross the Styx (as they weren’t given funeral
rites)
- Aeneas sees Palinurus (a trojan) who begs him to bury him
- Sibyl comforts Palinurus by saying a city will be named after him
- Aeneas sees dido – she refuses to talk to him and leaves with her old husband
- The sibyl shows Aeneas ‘the place set apart for brave soldiers’ and Tartarus (Greek hell)
- Sibyl then shows Aeneas ‘the land of joy’
- Aeneas sees his father again but they cant touch each other
- Anchises tells Aeneas about ‘the souls to whom Fate owes a second body’ – many of the souls will be
Aeneas’ descendants
- Anchises tells Aeneas the ‘glory that lies instore for the sons of Dardanus’
- His father shows him the soul of Augustus who ‘will bring back the golden years to the fields of
Latium’ and protect Rome from Egypt
- His father shows Pompey and Julius Caesar’s future souls and the civil war they’ll cause
- Anchises gives him 2 rules – ‘you must be the first to show clemency’ and to govern the people of the
world in his empire and pardon the defeated
- Aeneas is told about the wars he will soon fight
- Anchises ‘kindled in his mind a love for the glory that was to come’
- The sibyl takes Aeneas out of the gate of ivory
- Aeneas leaves for Latium
Book 7
- Caieta dies in Italy and Aeneas performs rites
- Virgil says the second half is more important – ‘this is a greater work I now set in motion’
- Lavinia (king Latinus’ daughter) sees 2 omens – a cloud of bees swarming and settling on a laurel tree
and her hair catching on fire but not being hurt
- Latinus tells his dad
- Latinus’ father (Faunus) says Lavinia should marry a stranger who will ‘raise out name to the stars’
- Ascanius says the trojans are eating their tables in Latium – a sign they are home
- Aeneas builds a camp and sends an envoy to Latinus
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller clempitrat. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $7.75. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
52510 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now