Sunday, April 19, 2009

Aeneas in the Underworld

I know this may seem a bit off topic, but in Boland's poem "The Journey", she riffs on the journey of Aeneas into the underworld that Virgil writes up so horrifically in Book VI of The Aeneid.

"Immediately cries were heard. These were the loud wailing of infant souls weeping at the very entrance-way; never had they had their share of life’s sweetness for the dark day had stolen them from their mothers’ breasts and plunged them to a death before their time."
—Virgil, The Aeneid, Book VI

Here's a link to a blog "Monster Brains" where this is described, and with a beautiful photo of Brueghel's painting on said topic. (You have to scroll down to Sunday, June 22, 2008 to see the entry, but the whole blog is worth checking out -- amazing photos of monster art. Who knew?)

Jan Brueghel The Elder - AENEAS AND THE SIBYL IN THE UNDERWORLD, Oil on Copper 1598

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