Have you ever heard of a plant dripping dark red blood? Neither had I, until I read book 3 of Virgil's Aeneid. At the start of the book, Aeneas is continuing to share his stories with Dido, and talks of the time when he and his fleet traveled to Thrace. After landing, Aeneas prepares a sacrifice, and spots a green mound with plants growing from it. He goes to uproot a sprout and it spurts dark blood, which obviously frightens Aeneas (I would be RUNNING). This is how he puts it: "There I had sight of a greusome prodigy beyond description: when the first stalk came torn out of the earth, and the root network burst, dark blood dripped down to soak and foul the soil. Shuddering took me, my heart's blood ran slow and chill with fear."
It turns out to be the corpse of Polydorus, a man Priam had sent away from Troy in case the city fell to the Greeks. Polydorus had been killed by the Thracian king upon landing, and the spears that had pierced his body had sprouted into the plants that Aeneas had uprooted. Polydorus warns Aeneas to flee the land, advice Aeneas takes only after giving Polydorus a proper burial. Aside from the obvious peculiarity of this passage, I was struck with the realization of how death was viewed by people in Virgil's time. Several times in these first few books Virgil mentions the presence of ghosts of those who had passed, ghosts who normally carry a forewarning or caution to passerby. In this interaction between Aeneas and Polydorus, the importance of a proper burial is noted, as Polydorus was seemingly unable to pass through to the next life until a proper burial had taken place.
Bleeding plants, ghosts, and burial mounds, an odd passage. Thoughts?
Edit: I commented on Haylee Lynd and Rachel Gregson's posts
The bleeding plant of Polydorus was definitely an interesting thing for me to read as well. Also, there have already been so many ghost or spirit encounters within these three books alone. There is the spirit of Hector that visits Aeneas in a dream to tell him that Troy has been breached, and then there is the spirit of Aeneas's wife that tells him to move on and that everything will be okay when she is lost in the escape from Troy.
ReplyDeleteI think it encaptures something extremely important to the catholics. They view the actions of the dead and prayer for prayer to the dead as a guiding force in their decision making. I think it is quite necessary to look to others lives as an example of what to do, or what not to do but disagree with the idea of asking the dead to pray for me. I think vigil made a good point in looking to the dead for advice.
ReplyDelete