th a
touching envy of those who could "stay at home at ease" (iii. 493
foll.). His want of faith in the future is again shown in Book v., in
the passage quoted just now; and even in Book vi. he is at first
purposely depicted as "slack," as having his attention caught by what is
for the moment before him, or with the figures of old friends and
enemies whom he meets, until the last awakening revelation of Anchises.
Thus no sooner has he landed in Italy than he is attracted by the
pictures in the temple of Apollo and incurs a rebuke from the priestess
(vi. 37 foll.):

non hoc ista sibi tempus spectacula poscit;
nunc grege de intacto septem mactare iuvencos
praestiterit, etc.;

so also a little farther on she has to warn him again (50 foll.) at the
entrance to the cave:

"cessas in vota precesque,
Tros" ait "Aenea, cessas?"

It may be fancy in me to see even in his prayer which follows a leaning
to think of Troy and his past troubles (56 foll.). But I cannot but
believe that in this book he is meant to take a last farewell of all who
have shared his past fortunes, have helped him or injured him; he meets
Palinurus, Dido, Tydeus, Deiphobus, and the rest, and while meditating
over these he has once more to be hurried by his guide (538):

sed comes admonuit breviterque adfata Sibylla est:
nox ruit, Aenea, nos flendo ducimus horas.

When Anchises appears the whole tone changes, and his famous words seem
to me to show conclusively that hesitation and want of fixed,
undeviating purpose had been so far his son's chief failing (806):

et dubitamus adhuc virtutem extendere factis,
aut metus Ausonia prohibet consistere terra?

The father's vision and prophecy are of the _future_ and the great deeds
of men to come, and henceforward Aeneas makes no allusion to the past
and the figures that peopled it, abandons talk and lamentations,
"virtutem extendit factis." At the outset of Book vii. we feel the ship
moving at once; three lines suffice for the fresh start; Circe is passed
unheeded. "Maior rerum mihi nascitur ordo," says the poet in line 43;
"maius opus moveo;" for the real subject of the poem is at last reached,
and a heroic character by heroic deeds is to lay the foundation of the
eternal dominion of Rome.

A very few words shall suffice about the Aeneas of the later books. Let
us freely allow that he is not strongly characterised; that for us
moderns the interest centres rather in Turnus,