BOOK V
Æneas sees the flames of Dido’s pyre and guesses their meaning. In Sicily, he institutes funeral games to Anchises. Compare funeral games of Patroclus in 23d book of Iliad. The contest of the ships and the equestrian exhibition are wholly original, however. The burning of the fleet was part of an old Trojan legend.
[99:8.] Acheron’s prison. The underworld.
[99:14.] Phaethon. The sun-god.
[99:23.] Talent. A weight, not coin, of silver or gold. The Attic silver talent was worth over $1000.
[103:2.] Feel that they are thought strong. The translation here is poor, the correct rendering being, “They can, because they think they can.” Virgil’s is a classical expression of the power of belief.
[103:12.] Portunus, a god of harbors, is here associated with the other divinities of the deep.
[103:24.] The royal boy. Ganymede, a favorite subject of art.
[106:38.] Amycus. A famous boxer of Bebrycii killed by Pollux.
[107:35.] Eryx. A Sicilian king, son of Venus; was killed by Hercules in a boxing contest.
[113:8.] Labyrinth in Crete. The Labyrinth, a maze built by Dædalus for King Minos at Gnossus in Crete to contain the Minotaur.
[113:25.] Solemn. Sacred festival, required each year.
[117:20.] Dis. Ruler of the underworld, variously called Orcus, Acheron, Erebus, Avernus. Dis, or Pluto, brother of Jupiter, is called Jupiter Stygius.
[117:22.] Tartarus. The abode of the wicked in the underworld.
[117:24.] Elysium. The abode of the good in the underworld.
[120:11.] Glaucus. A prophetic sea-god, said to be completely incrusted by “shellfish, seaweed, and stones,” so that he is used by Plato (Rep. X, p. 116) as the image of a soul incrusted with sin.
[120:12.] Ino’s Palæmon. Ino with his son Palæmon were transformed into sea divinities. The following names are of sea divinities.
[121:7.] Lethe. A river of the underworld whose waters bring forgetfulness. Styx. The main river in the underworld.
[121:17.] Sirens’ isle. The Sirens were monsters with heads of women and bodies of birds who dwelt on some rocks off the Campanian coast, by the bay of Naples. Their sweet singing enticed mariners on to the rocks to be destroyed.
[121:24.] Naked corpse. Burial thought essential to spirit’s peace.