Aeneid
4-6 Study Questions
Identify: univira,
Anna, Iarbas, Cytherea, Mercury, Bacchante, Elissa, Pentheus, Orestes,
Mnestheus, Sergestus, Cloanthus, Gyas, Nisus, Euryalus, Cumaean Sibyl, Avernus,
Misenus, Proserpina, Charon, Cerberus, Deiphobus, Tisiphone, Lethe, Romulus,
Caesar, Marcellus.
Book 4
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What images are associated
with Dido's passion?
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What is Dido's position
in the politics of Africa?
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What effect does
her love have on the progress of her city?
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Venus and Juno have
very different goals. What are they? Why do they agree to work together?
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What sort of wedding
does Dido have? How does her perspective differ from the narrator's?
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What is Rumour's
role in the action of Book 4?
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What is Iarbas' complaint?
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What is Aeneas doing
and how is he dressed when Mercury arrives? What does this suggest?
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What is Mercury's
message to Aeneas from Jupiter?
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What Homeric antecedents
are there for this episode?
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What has Dido lost?
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How does Aeneas respond
to Dido's anguish?
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Are Dido's accusations
against Aeneas justified?
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Do Dido and Aeneas
resemble historical characters from Virgil's time?
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What are Dido's last
speeches before she dies? What events do they foretell?
Book 5
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Why is Aeneas happy
to be blown off-course to Sicily?
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How will he honour
his dead father there? How does this evoke Homeric epic?
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What are the differences
to be seen in these funeral games and those of the Iliad?
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What values are reflected
in the account of the ship race?
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Who is the 'royal
boy' of line 327?
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How does Euryalus
win the foot race?
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Why do the women
set fire to the ships?
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What plan is made
as a result of the lost ships?
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What is the significance
of the loss of Palinurus?
Book 6
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What myth is referred
to in the ecphrasis of lines 30ff?
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What mythological
examples does Aeneas use in persuading the Sibyl to tell him how to descend
to the underworld?
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What two things must
Aeneas do before he can gain entrance to the Underworld?
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In his description
of the Underworld, what elements does Virgil take from Homer and which
ones are different? Can you suggest a reason for the differences?
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Why is Charon unwilling
to ferry a hero across the waters?
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List the different
regions of the Underworld.
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Who is the Homeric
model for Dido in the Underworld?
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How do Agamemnon
and his companions react to the sight of Aeneas?
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Who is the 'Laconian
woman' of line 687? What portrait is given of her here?
-
For the Aeneid,
what are the implications of the scene
of reincarnation?
-
How do the revelations
of Anchises affect Aeneas?
-
What does Anchises
say about Caesar Augustus?
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What is the activity
in which Rome excels above all others?
-
Why does Aeneas exit
through the gate of false dreams?