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facilis
descensus
“easy is the descent
to Avernus, for the door to the
underworld lies open both day and night.
But to retrace your steps and return to
the
breezes above-- that's the task, that's the toil.”
Aeneid Book 6 Lines 126 -129
The significance of Aeneas’s visit to the
underworld
Posted
Aeneid
Book 6, Lines 126 to 129
facilis descensus
dies
patet atri ianua Ditis; sed
revocare
gradum superasque evadere ad auras,
hoc opus, hic labor est.
Easy is
the descent to Avernus, for the door to the
underworld lies open both day and night. But to retrace your steps and return to the
breezes above-- that's the task, that's the
toil.
(
Probably Virgil’s most famous lines.
Aeneas is at the gateway to the underworld and is about to enter. In the underworld
he meets his father Anchises and his jilted lover princess Dido, who is not
very pleased to see him.
Entering the underworld is a task undertaken by many other
heroes of classical mythology including Odysseus, Heracles, and Orpheus. Homer’s
underworld of the Odyssey is however very different from Virgil’s. The entry to
and return from the underworld is significant at many levels.
In Karmic terms Aeneas is confronting something he must go
through in this incarnation but because of his status as a hero and example, he
will undertake the task and he has very chance of successful return. The
warning is clear that the task is fraught with danger and that lesser men do
not succeed or don’t bother. Fools think it is easy and will obviously get themselves into trouble.
In terms of the Aeneid story, the effect on Aeneas of his visit
and return is that he is in a way reborn with a greater awareness and continues
with his epic life journey. Failure would probably mean that he would continue
life but become like the Hanged Man of the Tarot, having seen another world but
not having successfully returned to this one, he is no longer comfortable in
either.
Following this analogy, if he failed to return, he would lose
his sanity. This is often held out as an inherent danger in many forms of
occult practice.
The visit to the underworld also functions as a form of clearing.
Aeneas has unfinished business with his father which he resolves and questions
are answered. With Princess Dido he acknowledges the bad karma he has generated.
Dido’s anger is a skeleton in the cupboard, a representation of the karmic debt
that Aeneas will eventually have to pay.
There is also an element of Palingenesis
in Aeneas’s visit to the underworld. This is a belief that one can call on one’s
ancestors as a resource as Aeneas takes advice from his father. In the Greek
tradition your ancestors might fight along side you in battle.
Palingenesis
in all forms seems to have generally dropped out of western thinking.
Aeneid Complete Text & Quick Reference
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