The Theme in the Work
Aeneas is, above all, a man without a home. The Aeneid presents him as "fugitive by fate," and the whole story is the search for a place for the Penates, the household gods he saved from Troy. In Book I, shipwrecked on the coast of Libya, he envies those who died before their fathers beneath the walls of their homeland, and, seeing Carthage under construction, he envies those who already have walls standing.
The flight in Book II turns the home into a gesture: the father on the shoulders, the son by the hand, the Penates in the father's hands, and the wife lost along the way. The shade of Creusa foretells a long exile and Hesperia, where he will have a kingdom and a royal wife. Book III shows that the return cannot be read easily. Apollo's oracle orders them to seek "the ancient mother," the land that first gave birth to the Trojans, and for that reason Aeneas founds a city in Crete before the Penates correct him: the land of origin is Italy, from which Dardanus came. At Buthrotum, Helenus and Andromache built a little Troy, and Aeneas, taking his leave, calls them happy, because their fortune has already run its course, while his own calls him from one fate to the next.
The weariness of wandering weighs most in Book V. The Trojan women, looking at the sea from a beach in Sicily, weep over how much sea is still left and, urged on by Iris, sent by Juno and disguised as Beroe, burn the ships: they want to stay where there is land at hand. Aeneas ends up leaving the weary behind at Acesta. The arrival comes in Book VII, when the Trojans, short of food, eat the flatbreads that served as their tables, Ascanius jokes that now they are eating even the tables, and Aeneas recognizes the prophecy, greets the land and the Penates, and says: here is the home, this is the homeland.
Book VIII completes the cycle: the god of the Tiber promises a sure home and sure Penates, and Evander, also driven from his homeland, hosts Aeneas in a hut where the future Capitol is still brush. The home appears throughout measured by hospitality: Carthage welcomes, Thrace violates the guest, Buthrotum recalls Troy, the Cyclopes devour, and Evander offers poverty.
The return the poem promises is not a return to Troy; it is a return to an earlier origin, and so Aeneas arrives in Italy both as one who returns and as one who conquers. The house he calls homeland is also that of Latinus and Turnus, and the poem does not forget this: the exile's home is built upon the homes of others. The Penates, which pass from the hands of Anchises to the altar in Latium, are the thread that links Troy to the poem that comes after it.
Where It Appears
- Book I: Aeneas, shipwrecked on the coast of Libya, envies those who died before their fathers beneath the walls of Troy, and then envies the Carthaginians whose walls are already rising.
- Book II: Aeneas leaves burning Troy with his father on his shoulders, his son by the hand and the Penates, and loses Creusa along the way.
- Book III: Aeneas sets out from Troy without knowing where he is going, abandons Thrace and Crete on divine signs, and finds at Buthrotum a little Troy created by Helenus and Andromache.
- Book V: The Trojan women, weary of the sea, burn the ships on the Sicilian beach, and Aeneas leaves at Acesta those who do not want to go on.
- Book VII: The Trojans eat the flatbreads that served as their tables, and Aeneas greets the land and the Penates, saying that there is the home and the homeland.
- Book VIII: The god of the Tiber promises Aeneas a sure home and sure Penates, and Evander, also exiled, welcomes him into a poor hut, after showing him the future Capitol still covered in brush.
Passages
Aeneas envies the Carthaginians what he lacks.
O fortunati, quorum jam moenia surgunt!, oh fortunate ones, whose walls are already rising!
Creusa's shade foretells exile and Hesperia.
Quid tantum insano juvat indulgere labori, / O dulcis conjux? non haec sine numine divum / Eveniunt; nec te comitem asportare Creusam / Fas, aut ille sinit superi regnator Olympi. / Longa tibi exilia, et vastum maris aequor arandum., why does it please you so much to indulge in this mad grief, sweet husband? These things do not happen without the will of the gods; it is not lawful for you to carry Creusa away as your companion, nor does the ruler of high Olympus allow it. Long exiles await you, and a vast expanse of sea to plow.
Apollo orders them to seek the ancient mother without naming the land.
Dardanidae duri, quae vos a stirpe parentum / Prima tulit tellus, eadem vos ubere laeto / Accipiet reduces: antiquam exquirite matrem, hard Dardanians, the land that first bore you from your ancestral stock will receive you back in its fertile bosom: seek out the ancient mother.
Iris, disguised as Beroe, gives the weary Trojan women what they want most, a city bearing the name of Troy.
Nullane jam Trojae dicentur moenia? nusquam / Hectoreos amnes, Xanthum et Simoenta, videbo? / Quin agite, et mecum infaustas exurite puppes. / Nam mihi Cassandrae per somnum vatis imago / Ardentes dare visa faces: Hic quaerite Trojam, / Hic domus est, inquit, vobis., will there be no walls of Troy ever again said to exist? Shall I never see the rivers of Hector, the Xanthus and the Simois? Come, burn the ill-fated ships with me. For in a dream the image of the prophetess Cassandra seemed to give me blazing torches: here seek Troy, here is your home, she said.
Aeneas calls an unknown shore home and homeland.
Salve, fatis mihi debita tellus; / Vosque, ait, o fidi Trojae, salvete, Penates. / Hic domus, haec patria est, hail, land owed to me by the fates; and you, he said, faithful Penates of Troy, hail! Here is the home, this is the homeland.
The god of the Tiber gives Aeneas the promise of a sure place.
Hic tibi certa domus, certi, ne absiste, Penates; / Neu belli terrere minis: tumor omnis et irae / Concessere deum, here you have a sure home and sure Penates; do not give up, and do not be frightened by the threats of war: all the swelling of the gods' anger has yielded.