Descent to the Underworld in the Aeneid and the Odyssey

In my opinion Odysseus is simply driven by his curiosity when going to Hades, he wants to know, see and feel everything himself. But there is a formal reason for the descent – to meet the “famous Theban prophet” Tiresias.

        

A sweet smooth journey home, renowned Odysseus,

that is what you seek

but a god will make it  hard for you…

And even if you escape, you’ll come home late

and come a broken man – all shipmates lost,

alone in a stranger’s ship…

And at last your own death will steal upon you…

a gentle, painless death, far from the sea it comes

to take you down, borne down with the years in ripe old age…

Everything that Odysseus asked Tiresias about was concerning his personal destiny only – the possibility of his returning home, seeing his beautiful wife and his only son. The prophecy made by Anchises, on the other hand, is of a political character.  

Greeks believed in life after death, but it was the life of shadows with all the human feelings. This is very noticeable in Odysseus’s conversation with Achilles. After Achilles is told of his son’s bravery:

…the ghost of the great runner, Aeacus’ grandson

loping with long strides across the fields of asphodel,

triumphant in all I had told of his son,… 

The most general belief of antiquity, given its form by Homer, was that all the dead dwell below the earth in the realm of Hades and Persephone. Robbers and their victims together, leading a cheerless and meaningless existence, they are disembodied souls waiting to be reincarnated.  

House of Death –

where the senseless, burnt-out wraiths of mortals make their home. 

Apart from Hades there is a scarier place called Tartarus, the light never shines there. The gods, who have been thrown down are sent to suffer in Tartarus. Homer also speaks of Elysium or the Isles of the Blest situated somewhere on earth where certain favored heroes may pass, but he never specifies who.    

In ancient Greece, according to Homer, a clear picture of the underworld didn’t exist. Romans adopted the general idea about Hades, Tartarus and Elysium. Virgil developed it to the smallest detail; so that even a person from the twenty-first century starts believing, against his own will, in the existence of the imaginary kingdom.

Romans supposed that a person consists of three substances – the body, the soul and the ghost. The body is burned and the ashes are kept in a jar, the soul flies into the sky and the ghost, the disembodied shadow, is sent to the underworld. Here a separation occurs – the shadows of chaste men fly away to Elysium the world of felicity.

This was the company of those who suffered

Wounds in battle for their country; those

Who in their lives were holy men and chaste

Or worthy of Phoebus in prophetic song;   

The shadows of criminals fly to Tartarus for torment and suffering. Every offender receives his or her own punishment, which depends on the felony they committed.

Some heave at a great boulder, or revolve,

Spreadeagled, hung on wheel-spokes. Theseus

Cleaves to his chair and cleaves to it forever. 

If I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, a voice

Of iron, I could not tell of all the shapes

Their crimes had taken, or their punishments.

In Virgil’s underworld we notice “iron” order. Suicides are found in one place, people who pined from love in another, etc… A big difference between his world of the dead and Homer’s is the amount of clear details which describe the system in Hades. This difference, in my opinion, reflects the distinction of two state systems: Greek and Roman.

During that time Rome already had a well planned out state system, accurately regulated code of laws and a Court of Justice. Meanwhile in Greece during Homer’s time all of the state institutions were still amorphous, not developed. Only one thing can be inferred here – the differences and the similarities that we see in the description of the underworld are determined by the differences and the similarities, which existed in life, in the understanding of the world, in the state systems of two great civilizations.

If in the center of Greek civilization and culture, as a constituent part of it, stood a human being, his soul, his thoughts and deeds, than we can see all of the above in Odysseus’s trip to the dark world. He melts into tears after finding out about his mother’s death, attempts to embrace her three times, grieves over the death of his companions-in-arms and worries about the destiny of his son, wife and father. Odysseus’s personal feelings: the love for his son and for Penelope, the love for his motherland, his infinite curiosity and the will to find out everything about himself and the world around him – that’s the main motive force in Homer’s poem.

A totally different force drives Aeneas, even though he also experiences the death of father and Dido, but it doesn’t affect him as much. He thinks of himself as a political figure whose mission is to establish a new State – Rome. His personal feelings are not taken in an account; only the great mission is of any importance. He leaves the woman he loves, Dido, because of that.

In the center of the Roman culture is the State, its strength and welfare, its power and size. Rome must rule the world. The last words, which Aeneas’s father delivers to him, are very symbolic:      

Let others better mold the running mass

Of metals, and inform the breathing brass,

And soften into flesh a marble face;

Plead better at the bar; describe the skies,

And when the stars descend, and when they rise.

But, Rome, 't is thine alone, with awful sway,

To rule mankind, and make the world obey,

Disposing peace and war by thy own majestic way;

To tame the proud, the fetter'd slave to free:

These are imperial arts, and worthy thee.

Through an analysis of the adventures of the two characters in the invented underworld, we draw conclusions about their real life, their hopes and dreams. The world of the dead represents a mirror, which reflects this real world and helps us to understand not only the characters but also the poets who wrote the two outstanding compositions, on which all of the world’s literature is based.

Homer who glorifies the great value of a person and Virgil who glorifies the grandeur of the State – Rome.                                

 

 

   

Works Cited

Fagles, Robert. The Odyssey. New York: Penguin Books USA Inc. 1996

Fitzgerald, Robert. The Aeneid. Penguin Books.

 

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