Hunter Book
260355347
CLAS-208: Roman Literature and Society
Empty Embraces:
Imagines, Dreams, and the Failed Embrace in the Aeneid
ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum;
ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago,
par leuibus uentis uolucrique similima somno.
sic demum socios consumpta nocte reuiso.1
The above quotation, used twice in the Aeneid and based heavily on an equivalent scene
from the Odyssey, marks two crucial points in the Aeneid which are in dialogue not only with
each other, but with the Homeric tradition in general. It represents but two of many parts in the
Aeneid in which Aeneas tries and fails to reach out to a loved one and to take them in an
embrace. This recurring trope, almost always modeled on similar scenes from Homeric epic,
frequently leaves us deeply conflicted about the ultimate meaning of the passages. In this paper,
I will assess the role and the significance of Creusa and Anchises, attempting, in particular to use
intertextual references in order to understand the meaning of their failed embraces with Aeneas.
In so doing, I will argue whether or not these episodes can be considered to reflect reality within
the text or whether they may be taking place within a dream world. Finally, this will lead to an
examination of how Aeneas seeks closure and how he must break with his Trojan past in order to
pursue his future.
The significance of Creusa stand as one of the most confounding issues in the Aeneid
which must be sorted out. However, in order to understand the significance of her failed
embrace with Aeneas, it is necessary to first consider what her significance is in the totality of
Book 2. One thing which we can safely say about Creusa is that she seems, throughout most of
the work, to exit less as a human being and more as a concept and a reminder “of his familial
responsibilities and of the home to which he must return.”2 To this I would only add that this
home to which Creusa compels him to return is fundamentally rooted in Troy. As long as Creusa
remains in the narrative, Aeneas is bound to his Trojan past and it is for this reason that she must
be removed from the narrative so that Aeneas can progress. Thus, it is not 'fas'3 for Creusa to
journey with Aeneas. The means by which she is removed from the narrative will be discussed
in greater detail later.
Of course, the most consequential role that Creusa plays in the Aeneid comes to the fore
as she, or rather an imago of her, talks to Aeneas after he searches for her in Troy. This episode
can be viewed as the culmination of two prior apparitions that occur in Book 2. The first of these
is the appearance of Hector to Aeneas in a dream.4 In this dream, Hector instructs Aeneas to flee
1
. Verg. A. 2.983.986; 6.808-811. “Three times he tried to fling his arms around his neck, / three
times he embraced – nothing … the phantom sifting through is fingers, / light as wind, quick as a dream in flight.
(All line numbers and translations refer to Fagles' editions of the Aeneid, Iliad, or Odyssey unless otherwise stated)
2
. S. Gergia Nugent, “The Women of the Aeneid: Vanishing Bodies, Lingering Voices,” Reading
Vergil's Aeneid: An Interpretive Guide, ed. Christine Perkell (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999):
266.
3
. Verg. A. 2.779. Original line number.
4
. Verg. A. 2.342-372.
Troy with his household gods. The second apparition is that of Aeneas' mother, Venus.5 She
instructs him to pay no attention to Helen and to rush home to save his family and to flee Troy.6
Thus, by instructing Aeneas to flee Troy with the household gods and their son, Creusa becomes
a synthesis of both Hector and Venus.7
Lying at the confluence of the apparitions of both Hector and Venus, the scene involving
Creusa's imago seems to pick up attributes of both of the aforementioned characters. Besides
advising Aeneas to save the household gods, Creusa resembles Hector in that she too is
insubstantial. Hector comes to Aeneas as a dream and so too can Aeneas' return to Troy, and
encounter of his wife, be seen as taking place in a dream like state (this will be talked about at
length later). The resemblance between Creusa and Venus, however, is much more easily seen.
She appears to Aeneas larger than life and indeed it seems that she herself is not dead, as is
commonly assumed, but has become like a goddess. The striking similarity of the tones of
Creusa and Venus towards Aeneas is very difficult to ignore.8 And so, Creusa finds herself in
highly ambiguous position. She is “no longer living and yet not dead, Creusa seems to exist in
some interstitial niche between the human and the divine.”9 It is important to note that in
explaining why she can not go with Aeneas, she neither attributes it to her capture, which she
explicitly denies, nor to her death, which she makes no reference to (which, if she were dead,
would be a curious omission). Rather, she states that the Magna Mater is detaining her there.10
Thus, she has crossed into a realm that is more than human.
Knowing this, we can now consider the significance of the encounter and attempted
embrace between Aeneas and Creusa. However, this is best approaches by analyzing the
relationship of Aeneas and Creusa through the lens of thee intertextual references, all dealing
with a hero and a woman in that hero's life. The first and most extended reference which the
reader encounters is the contrast which one is intended to draw between Hector and Aeneas. In
Iliad 6, Hector consistently acts with warmth and affection towards Andromache; he expressly
states that his first fear pertaining to the fall of Troy is not for the safety of his father, but for
Andromache, lest she should be dragged off to some Greek household. Aeneas, on the other
hand, is a perfect foil for this: he hardly pays any attention at all to Creusa – indeed, he has to be
repeatedly reminded of her in order to return home – and his first concern is quite clearly for the
safety of his father.11
The next intertextual reference for us to consider is that relating to Orpheus and Eurydice.
Vergil seems to be telling us that we are supposed to once again be drawing a contrast, this time
between Orpheus and Aeneas. One inversion that we see is that, in the Georgics, Orpheus refers
to his wife as 'dulcis coniunx' whilst in Aeneid 2, it is Creusa who calls Aeneas this.12 A much
more striking inversion can be seen in the treatment of the backward glance. Orpheus loses
Eurydice because he cannot control his love for her and is cannot help but look back to check on
5
. The debate about whether or not this was in Vergil's original is obviously an important one for
the understanding of this, but it is a debate which is beyond the scope of this paper.
6
. Verg. A. 2.729-767.
7
. Luca Grill, “Leaving Troy and Creusa: Reflections on Aeneas' Flight,” The Classical Journal
106, no. 1 (2010): 65
8
. Grill, “Leaving Troy and Creusa,” 62.
9
. Nugent, “The Women of the Aeneid,” 265.
10
. Verg. A. 2.974-978.
11
. There are numerous other elements of Aeneid 2 that show that we are intended to read it next to
Iliad 6, but for our purposes, this will suffice.
12
. Grill, “Leaving Troy and Creusa,” 49.
her. The audience is clearly supposed to draw the inference that Aeneas's failure to check on
Creusa is responsible for her loss, thus calling into question the depth of Aeneas' love.13
Finally, in the lines which are quoted at the beginning of this paper, the audience is
clearly called upon to view this passage through the lens of Odyssey 11, wherein Odysseus
encounters his mother, Anticlea, and tries to embrace her:
Three times I rushed toward her, desperate to holder her, / three times she fluttered
through my fingers, sifting away / like a shadow, dissolving like a dream, and each time /
the grief cut to the heart, sharper, yes, and I, / I cried out to her, words winging into the
darkness: / 'Mother – why not wait for me? How I long to hold you! - / so even here, in
the House of Death, we can fling / our loving arms around each other, take some joy / in
the tears that numb the heart.14
The contrast which we are to draw between Odysseus and Aeneas is simply that, whereas the
travels of Odysseus were motivated by a desire to return to his wife, the journey of Aeneas is
predicated on leaving his wife behind and seeking a new one.
However, with the journey of Aeneas back into the falling city, each of these intertextual
allusions are systematically shattered. The notion that Aeneas' love for Creusa is somehow less
than Hector's love for Andromache is destroyed as Aeneas runs back into the city alone to seek
her, going so far as to shout out her name in the hopes of recovering her. The parallel with
Orpheus and Eurydice quickly breaks down when we learn from Creusa that her loss was not the
fault of Aeneas; on the contrary, she is not dead at all, but has rather been carried off by the
Magna Mater. Moreover, she was fated never to go with Aeneas to Hisperia, so he could hardly
have avoided this. Finally, we see the true significance of the quote with which this paper
opened as we consider the distinction between Aeneas' failed embrace of Creusa and Odysseus'
failed embrace of Anticlea.15 Anticlea is undoubtedly dead. Moreover, her death is the reason
for her being so insubstantial: “this is just the way of mortals when we die. / Sinews no longer
bind the flesh and bones together.”16 Creusa, however, does not appear to be dead. Unlike
Anticlea, who is truly present before Odysseus, albeit, in her deceased form, Creusa is present
only as an imago.
In reviewing Aeneas' account of the his actions within Troy on that day, we must consider
everything with a critical eye because Aeneid 2 is focalized through Aeneas, so we neither have
an omniscient narrator to confirm the veracity of what is being related, nor is there an observer in
the text who is capable of scrutinizing Aeneas because the one character who might be in a
position to do so, Dido, is currently under the influence of Cupid was thus hardly in a position to
be credulous. Thus we can reasonably ask whether it is possible that Aeneas is misremembering
or lying. Additionally, could it be possible that the episode in which Aeneas rushes back into
Troy all occurs in a dream? Though it is impossible to come to a definite conclusion about any
of these, there are good reasons to believe that this account should not be taken completely at
face value.
Why, we must ask, might Aeneas give an unfaithful depiction of reality? Part of the
explanation may come in the form of guilt on Aeneas' part and an inability to come to terms with
the loss of Creusa. In recounting the day to Dido, he asks “What man, what god did I not accuse
13
14
15
16
.
.
.
.
Grill, “Leaving Troy and Creusa,” 50.
Hom. Od. 235-243.
Verg. A. 2.983.986.
Hom. Od. 249-250.
in my madness?”17 Though the question is intended to be rhetorical, Aeneas' prior comment, “I
never looked back, she never crossed my mind,”18 gives us a sound idea of whom he neglected
to blame: himself. Moreover, it is not at all uncharacteristic of Aeneas to suddenly show deep
concern for Creusa after having lost her when he had previously paid little attention to her. As
Farron notes, “Vergil has a strong tendency to depict Aeneas showing deep emotions for other
characters only when they are dead.”19 Another reason for suspecting that Aeneas is not giving
an honest depiction of what transpired is the presence of what would appear to be a
contradiction. Upon setting out from his household, Aeneas states that he never saw his wife
again. Yet, upon reëntering the city, the imago of Creusa does of course appear before him.20
While it is possible that Aeneas is merely drawing a distinction between seeing the corporeal
Creusa and the imago of Creusa, her role as a symbol of his ties to his home and his city would
seem to make the presence of a solid body immaterial. Thus it may well be that Aeneas is telling
the truth here and that his latter anecdote about rushing back into Troy has another explanation.
Moreover, if Aeneas had truly encountered Creusa and been seen for himself that she no longer
had a corporeal form, why would he have refused to head towards Mt. Ida until the Greeks had
sealed off the entrances to Troy? The text implies that he was waiting at a position near the city
gates so that he he might be able to rush back in to provide assistance. In stating that he could
only be induced to leave once when “nec spes opis ulla dabatur,”21 he is essentially conceding
that he had, up until that point, harbored a hope that he might yet be able to provided assistance:
a hope which would be fruitless if he already knew that there was no potential of 'saving' Creusa.
To arrive at a fuller explanation of this, it is crucial to look at the second instance of the
quotation which opens this paper. In Aeneid 6,22 these lines occur when Aeneas tries, and fails,
to embrace his father, Anchises, in much the same way that he attempted to embrace Creusa.
The parallels between these two sections, some more of which will be discussed, are clearly
intended to connect the two passages in the mind of the audience. One of the key functions that
both Creusa and Anchises do is to give direction to Aeneas for his journey. We see Creusa do
this in Book 2, we see Anchises do this in Book 5 before Aeneas attempts to embrace Anchises,
once again, unsurprisingly, failing, and we now see Anchises telling the future again in Book 6.
However this episode is unlike the others in that Aeneas does not appear to recall what transpired
in the underworld after returning to the surface. Indeed, as Michels points out, “the whole
experience seems to have vanished from his min, just as Macrobius says an insomnium does.”23
Insomnium is a type of dream which cannot be used in divination, but rather comes to one who is
afflicted by cares of the mind and body. These dreams provide nothing of use to the person
having them and may leave no trace after having woken up.24 The fact that Aeneas seems to
have no recollection of the events of Book 6 after his return and the fact that the definition of
insomnium seems to fit him perfectly (he is, of course, perennially afflicted by cares of the mind
and body and has been for years; the information conveyed by Anchises all takes place in the
future and can't be used by Aeneas) suggests that the events of Book 6 may, in fact, be a dream.
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Verg. A. 2.745. Horsfall translation. Original line numbers.
Verg. A. 2.920.
Steven Farron, Vergil's Aeneid: A Poem of Love and Grief (New York: Brill, 1993): 122.
Nugent, “The Women of the Aeneid,” 265.
Nicholas Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 2: A commentary (Boston: Brill, 2008): 550.
Verg. A. 6.808-811.
Agnes Kirsopp Michels, “The Insomnium of Aeneas,” The Classical Quarterly 31, no. 1 (1981):
24
. Michels, “The Insomnium of Aeneas,” 144.
145.
This hypothesis is leant force by the fact that Aeneas, upon being shown out of the underworld,
is conveyed through the Ivory Gate, through which Vergil says that falsa insomnia25 pass. Nor is
it sufficient to simply say that he is conveyed through this gate because the other, the Gate of
Horn, is reserved for true shades. However, Vergil does not appear to be adhering precisely to
any one tradition of the gates of sleep and thus he was free to choose each gate to represent
whatsoever he pleased. The failure to go through the Gate of Horn may certainly tell us that
Aeneas is not a real ghost, but it also seems indicate that he is a a falsum insomnium.
Therefore, while Aeneas is in the underworld, he himself is an imago, which is reflected
by the opening line of the Aeneid, which allude to the replacing of Aeneas in Iliad 5 with an
imago by Apollo.26 Therefore, when Aeneas attempts to embrace Anchises, we are left
wondering which of the two is the insubstantial one: Anchises, who seems at times to be elevated
almost to a divine position, or Aeneas, who has been reduced to a mere imago, no more
substantial than that of Creusa. Furthermore, we can quickly see why Vergil would wish for
Aeneas to become temporarily unreal. When Anchises is ostensibly speaking to Aeneas, we can
see at times that he is breaking the fourth wall and is speaking past Aeneas, directly to his
Roman ancestors. We can clearly see this when Anchises declares “But you , Roman, remember,
rule with all your power / the peoples of the earth – these will be your arts: / to put our stamp on
the works and ways of peace, / to spare the defeated, break the proud in war.”27 Surely this
would have been intended not for the ears of Aeneas, but for present day Romans.
This putative dream-sequence, as well as the episode in Aeneid 2, seem to operate as a
unit, fulfilling a common purpose in the framework of the epic. I would argue that, in both of
these scenes, the attempted embrace of the imagines of Creusa and Anchises which are slipping
through his fingers are meant to symbolize the gradual dripping away of Aeneas' Trojan identity,
which will ultimately allow him to settle his now homeland. Perhaps we can consider this to be
a desire on Aeneas' part to have closure, not only for the destruction of Troy, but also for the loss
of Creusa and Anchises. There is a striking parallel between Aeneid 2 and Aeneid 6 in how this
closure is attained. In both of these books, the failure of Aeneas' embrace may represent his
attempt to gain closure for their loss. However, as he sees them slipping away from him, that
closure is lost. Both books then invoke similar imagery which succeeds in providing a sense of
closure where the embrace failed. In Aeneid 2, as has briefly been alluded to, Aeneas remains
near the city until the greeks have occupied the 'limina portarum.'28 Once the gates of Troy have
been closed off, Aeneas has finally abandoned any home of offering relief to those inside.29 In
Book 6, this function is provided by the Gates of Sleep. Closure is provided after exiting the
Gate of Ivory, presumably because Aeneas has forgotten everything that has transpired. Finally,
there is a third common thread which joins the two books together in how they deal with
providing closure. In both books, there is an ascent immediately following the recognition of the
finality of the gates. In Book 2, Aeneas turns immediately from the ashes of Troy to the heights
of Mount Ida.30 Similarly, in Book 6, the Sibyl alludes to the fact that there is, of necessity, an
ascent from the underworld, which would presumably take place promptly after passing through
25
. Michels, “The Insomnium of Aeneas,” 145. Falsum, in this context, means 'unreal,' not 'untrue.'
26
. Hom. Il. 5.518-519.
27
. Verg. A. 6.981-985.
28
. Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 2: A commentary, 550. The construction is meant to add emphasis to
how definitive the boundary is. It also highlights the gateway's role as a liminal zone.
29
. Ibid.
30
. Verg. A. 2.998.
the Gates of Sleep.31
We can thus see that in the Aeneid, the failed embraces of Book 2 and Book 6 are of
paramount importance in the interpretation of the epics. In considering the problems presented
by these, a number of other problems contained within the Aeneid fall into focus. Among the
many problems that it offers a credible and coherent explanation for are the intertextual
references contained within Book 2, the nature of Book 6, the significance of the Gates of Sleep
and the apparent ignorance of Aeneas to all that had occurred to him in the aforementioned book.
While much remains uncertain in this text, it seems that much can be explained by reading the
Aeneid through the lens of imagines, dreams, and failed embraces.
Hunter,
Very good exegesis. First let me say that outside of a few spelling mistakes the paper was well
written. Your thoughts were lucid and your organization was exactly as it should have been. I
found your analysis quite good. I think looking at these embraces the way you do is illuminating,
but I also feel that you left the Aeneid 2 bit without returning to it the way I think it deserves. I
think Troy is becoming a lot of things at that instant…perhaps even an underworld, but the terms
are flipped a bit as the narrative is focalized from Creusa who casts Aeneas as Eurydice…I think
there is much more to think about here. Also, you analysis of Book six is a bit conservative.
Nevertheless I found the argument sound and the writing good. Perhaps a Hirundo entry if you
want to improve on it a bit. A-. Good job
31
. Verg. A. 6.151.
Works Cited
Primary Sources
Homer. Iliad, trans. Fagles, Robert. New York: Penguin Books, 1990.
---. Odyssey, trans. Fagles, Robert. New York: Penguin Books, 1996.
Vergil. Aeneid, trans. Fagles, Robert. New York: Viking, 2006.
Secondary Sources
Michels, Agnes Kirsopp. “The Insomnium of Aeneas.” The Classical Quarterly 31, no. 1, 1981.
140-146.
Grill, Luca. “Leaving Troy and Creusa: Reflections on Aeneas' Flight.” The Classical Journal
106, no. 1, 2010. 43- 68.
Horsfall, Nicholas. Virgil, Aeneid 2: A commentary. Boston: Brill. 2008.
Nugent, S. Gergia. “The Women of the Aeneid: Vanishing Bodies, Lingering Voices.” Reading
Vergil's Aeneid: An Interpretive Guide, ed. Christine Perkell. Norman, OK: University
of Oklahoma Press. 1999. 251-270.
Farron, Steven. Vergil's Aeneid: A Poem of Love and Grief. New York: Brill. 1993.