Love and Suffering
The Aeneid by Virgil and Inferno by Dante are both works centering around adventures. In both of these adventures, love is intertwined with suffering. Why are love and suffering connected as such? In The Aeneid, Aeneas suffered a great deal and then was fated to lead his people to Italy and Rome. Aeneas "marries" the Queen of Carthage, Dido, who eventually kills herself out of despair. In Inferno, Dante is taken on a divine mission to see the depths and horrors of Hell. While in Hell, Dante stumbles upon and is intrigued by two lovers, Paolo and Francesca, who were tragically killed by Francesca’s husband, Gianciotti.
	In The Aeneid, Aeneas is on a journey to lead his people, the Trojans to a new homeland. Aeneas was chosen by fate to lead the Trojans to establish a new homeland in Italy and Rome. This fate also represents the national destiny of Rome. Aeneas looks towards the future, towards Rome’s power over the known world. In the same way that the Promised Land was guaranteed to the Hebrews in the Old Testament, the Trojans’ Promised Land was guaranteed by fate. History is the guarantor. The theme of this work is that of how a nation came to be.
	Aeneas suffers a great deal. Emerging from this suffering, Aeneas will lead his people and conquer their new homeland. Aeneas has many obstacles that stand in his way. Juno hates the Trojans and wants to do everything in her power to prevent the Trojans from reaching Rome and Italy. Aeneas has inner obstacles as well. Until Aeneas descends into Hades, he will never fully gave up his old life in Troy. He constantly thinks about his life in Troy. "Weeping, I must give up the shores, the harbors that were my home, the plain that once was Troy" (Book III, lines 14-15). He was still grieving for the family and friends that he lost in Troy. At one point Aeneas even said that it would have been better if he had died in Troy. When Aeneas descended into the underworld, Anchises showed Aeneas his lineage and all of the great Roman leaders that came from Aeneas. Anchises told Aeneas that the Romans’ great gift would be for ruling. " Roman, these will be your arts: to teach the ways of peace to those you conquer, to spare defeated peoples, tame the proud" (Book VI, lines 1135 – 1137). Aeneas was inspired by this vision of the future....
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...g in love.
	Dante, like Aeneas, was a heroic traveler. Dante seeks a better understanding of sin. He is a figure of wisdom. Aeneas is a character who goes through punishment. Aeneas must undergo suffering in order to realize that he must give up his old life in Troy and concentrate on conquering Hesperia and establishing Rome and Italy. Dante doesn’t undergo punishments nor does he confess acts in his life. Dante points out things in other people’s lives. "O you, there, with your head bent low, if the features of your shade do not deceive me, you are Venedico Caccianemico, I’m sure. How did you get yourself in such a pickle?" (Canto XVIII, lines 48 – 51)
Love and suffering are closely intertwined in these two works. In The Aeneid, Aeneas suffers through the fall of Troy and the loss of his wife before finding Dido and "marrying" her. In Inferno, Paolo and Francesca suffer in Hell after they were killed for falling in love. In The Aeneid, a reoccurring theme is that bad things are ahead and that we must go through the bad things in order to get to the good things. The opposite is true in the story of Paolo and Francesca in the Inferno.
"Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all." (Aristotle). In Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is living proof of Aristotle's statement. Although he is arguably the most powerful man in Umuofia, His personal flaws of fear of failure and uncontrollable anger do not allow him true greatness as a human being.
Faced with a storm brewed up by Juno, Aeneas has a small amount of options to resort to in the open ocean. “It was sent at the instigation of Juno and its purpose is to destroy the Trojan fleet and prevent the Trojans from reaching Italy” (Gossage 1). Aeneas is afraid during the storm, but Aeneas also realizes that he is destined to found Rome, and has faith in the gods to deliver him there. Aeneas is fearful and worried, but he still is committed to fulfill his duty of founding Rome. Therefore, Aeneas is motivated by his sense of duty, unlike Odysseus who doesn’t seem to be in a rush when setting sail for home. Odysseus initially focuses on looting nearby villages with his crew. In regards to sea conflict, Aeneas is more committed to his goal than Odysseus. Later, Odysseus becomes completely helpless at sea, and must rely on the assistance of Calypso to reach his destination. Aeneas has a greater commitment to discover a land that he has yet to see than Odysseus has motivation to return to the land he has experienced most of his life residing
Aristotle argues that friendship is a vital part of life. It serves not only as a means to bond individuals together, but also a necessity in achieving overall happiness. Aristotle comments on the various types of friendships that exist, and the role they each play in society. He explains three overarching types; utility, pleasure, and complete friendship. Yet, with family, friendship is different than it is with companionship. As Aristotle states in his piece, Nicomachean Ethics on friendship in families, “they all seem to depend on paternal friendship” (Aristotle, 1161b18). In The Aeneid, Aeneas and Anchises’ relationship, perfectly embodies this. The father son bond does not distinctly resemble one of the three types, rather it is a friendship in of itself; a paternal friendship.
In Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is a tragic hero. Aristotle’s Poetics defines a Tragic Hero as a good man of high status who displays a tragic flaw (“hamartia”) and experiences a dramatic reversal (“peripeteia”), as well as an intense moment of recognition (“anagnorisis”). Okonkwo is a leader and hardworking member of the Igbo community of Umuofia whose tragic flaw is his great fear of weakness and failure. Okonkwo’s fall from grace in the Igbo community and eventual suicide, makes Okonkwo a tragic hero by Aristotle’s definition.
Okonkwo, a fierce warrior, remains unchanged in his unrelenting quest to solely sustain the culture of his tribe in the time of religious war in Achebe's book, Things Fall Apart. He endures traumatic experiences of conflict from other tribes, dramatic confrontations from within his own family, and betrayal by his own tribe.
Fate is a powerful force in the Greek and especially Roman eras, and it is the major theme in Virgil’s Aeneid. He is destined to outlive the Trojan War, lead his people on a long voyage, and ultimately create Rome. In this journey, however, Aeneas is forced to lose many people who are close to him. His wife, Creusa, must die so that he can leave Troy and eventually marry an Italian woman to start Rome. He also must leave his lover Dido for this same reason. Aeneas’ readiness to part with those who are so dear to him alludes to his acceptance to fate and it’s predominant role in his life.
In the Aeneid, love is depicted as an uncontrollable emotion. Venus and Juno promote the romance between Dido and Aeneas. Dido, the queen of Carthage, begins to fall in love with Aeneas, even though she has vowed to her late husband that she would set her “face against marriage” (Virgil 975). Aeneas falls in love with Dido and remains with her in Carthage, even though he knows that he must continue his travel to Rome. Love is a passion which consumes the soul in spite of its will. It is an “inward fire” (Virgil 976). Juno arranges it so that Dido and Aeneas consummate their love in a cave during a storm. Again, mortals have little or no control over their loves. The gods are the ones who cause people to fall in love.
Many people seem to be under the impression that the Aeneid is a celebration of Roman glory, led by the hero of fate Aeneas. I find these preconceived ideas hard to reconcile with my actual reading of the text. For starters, I have a hard time viewing Aeneas as a hero at all. Almost any other main characters in the epic, from Dido to Camilla to Turnus, have more heroic qualities than Aeneas. This is especially noteworthy because many of these characters are his enemies. In addition, Aeneas is presented as a man with no free will. He is not so much bound to duty as he is shielded by it. It offers a convenient way for hum to dodge crucial moral questions. Although this doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person, it certainly makes him a weak one. Of course some will argue that it takes greater moral conviction to ignore personal temptation and act for the good of the people. These analysts are dodging the issue just like Aeneas does. The fact is that Aeneas doesn’t just sacrifice his own personal happiness for the common good; he also sacrifices the past of the Trojan people, most notably when he dishonors the memory of his fallen city by becoming the men he hated most, the Greek invaders. The picture of Aeneas as seen in the end of the Aeneid bears some sticking resemblances to his own depiction of the savage and treacherous Greeks in the early books.
... prominent source of his weighty troubles. They are helpless to withstand the gods, restrain Aeneas from advancing towards Italy, and burn at women’s torches. Yet, his ships are invaluable to the overall success of his journey and the expression of his character. Aeneas is a ship, chugging toward western shores and providing refuge for his people. However, this extended analogy has greater importance to Virgil and the rest of human society. After the destruction of Troy, Aeneas has no country to protect or call his home. The cargo and soldiers aboard his ships are the remnants of his past civilization, but they are also the seeds for a new empire. Aeneas, just as his ships, is the invaluable carrier and protector of one of the greatest empires in all of human history – Rome.
... attempts they do just the opposite. With Venus’ many interventions, Aeneas is prevented from making mistakes and is guided to his fate, from not killing Helen [book 2] to leaving behind the old and the weak for Italy [book 4] . He is shown enough times to be the puppet of their play: from obeying the will of the gods while enduring the wrath of other gods, all this in order to set the wheels in motion for the far off future Roman race. However, there are also times when he is also shown to be exerting his won free will. For example, in book 12, killing Turnus when he is begging for mercy, something not heroic and which Susanna Braund debates the positive and negative aspect of in her essay on Virgil and the Meaning of the Aeneid [1.17-18]. nonetheless, this act demonstrates that even the gods and the fates require his cooperation to fulfil his destiny.
In Virgil’s The Aeneid, there are many parallels found in Homer’s The Odyssey. In each epic, the heroes, Aeneas and Odysseus, are on a journey “home.” Aeneas is on the search of a new home for he and his companions to settle since Troy has been destroyed, Odysseus on the other hand is attempting to return to his home he left years earlier to fight the Trojan War. They both have Gods against them and helping them, both Aeneas and Odysseus are both held back by women, both voluntary and involuntarily, and they both have experiences visiting the Underworld. Despite these similarities, there are differences between the two characters and it reflects their values and the society they live in. Aeneas relies on his strength as a warrior, where as Odysseus uses his deception to survive which reflects how Aeneas is truly Roman is versus Greek.
In many ways, judging and comparing Vigil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses is inevitable because each of the writers lived at roughly the same time in history, both sought to create a historical work that would endure long past their mortal existences, and while each man was ultimately successful in their endeavors, they achieved their desired goals in vastly different ways. That being said, the epic poem by Ovid is superior because unlike Virgil, whose epic poem utilized a character centered narrative steeped in historical inferences and a theme that celebrated the moral virtues of Greek and Roman society, Ovid defied tradition by creating an intricate narrative that looked
Love plays a significant role throughout Dante’s Divine Comedy in determining whether a soul will reach salvation. Each realm of the afterlife symbolizes the type of love its inhabitants exercised while they were living on Earth. Inferno shows how disordered love towards earthly desires dominates an individual while Paradise is the final ascension where the soul may live in God’s love. Although those in Paradise may have sinned, they repented long before their death. However, Purgatory is unlike Inferno or Paradise. The inhabitants of Purgatory are those who started to repent later in their lifetimes, but still often only thought of their individual needs and corporeal pleasures. Thus it makes intuitive sense that they are placed between Heaven and Hell. Purgatorio serves a great importance in bridging the gap between these two extremes by defining love and in so the concept of man’s will. This section of Dante’s journey deals with the knowledge and teaching of love, as Beatrice and others help outline love for Dante so he can make the climb to paradise and be worthy of entering heaven. Additionally, Purgatorio helps explain how man chooses love and why those who keep true to God through their response to earthly desires will be living in God’s image. In exploring the dynamic concept of love and how errors in free will can account for sins, Dante gains salvation by fixing his will towards God so that he is able to eternally exist in God’s order.
When discussing the fate of Aeneas, a thought provoking question is posed that is commonly debated. If Aeneas is commanded by fate, does he have free will? It is important to approach this question with a solid understand of fate. There are two common sides to the debate of whether Aeneas had free will or not. One view believes Aeneas had no choice but to follow his destiny because he was commanded by fate, and prophesied to found the race that will one day build Rome. The other side states Aeneas did indeed have free will, and even though his fate was set, room is available within his fate for events to change. One can argue Aeneas makes some of his own choices, but no particular detail of his life is untouched. Destiny determines that the Trojans will found a city in Italy, but it does not stipulate how that will happen. This is where room is left for free will. After much research and considering the views of many commentators and the proof they showed, the answer can simply be found by going back to the text of The Aeneid.
Dante's "Inferno" is full of themes. But the most frequent is that of the weakness of human nature. Dante's descent into hell is initially so that Dante can see how he can better live his life, free of weaknesses that may ultimately be his ticket to hell. Through the first ten cantos, Dante portrays how each level of his hell is a manifestation of human weakness and a loss of hope, which ultimately Dante uses to purge and learn from. Dante, himself, is about to fall into the weaknesses of humans, before there is some divine intervention on the part of his love Beatrice, who is in heaven. He is sent on a journey to hell in order for Dante to see, smell, and hear hell. As we see this experience brings out Dante's weakness' of cowardice, wrath and unworthiness. He is lead by Virgil, who is a representation of intellect. Through Dante's experiences he will purge his sins.