Celia Flory

Creative Translation
Latin 232
Erin Haney

To start, (a little disclaimer) I am not very artistically inclined. So, I had to take what I

will call ‘creative freedoms’ when attempting to draw this passage. The section I focused on was

when Aeneas meets his father in the underworld and they observe ghosts/people surrounding the

River Lethe. The souls are hovering around and trying to drink from the water to forget their past

life, thus giving them a chance to completely start over and be reborn. Because I am completely

incapable of drawing humans, I chose to modify the visual representation. Instead of drawing the

ghost surrounding the river, I tried to show this buzzing, hovering, desperate crowd of ghosts as

hands coming out of the water. While this is a stretch, I just wanted to capture the same idea

where they are trying to grasp at a new life. The hands reaching out/into the water are meant to

be trying to scoop it up for a drink. I also tried to capture a bit of the underworld by creating a

cave-like scenery around the river to add to the creepy feeling of the passage. In the passage it is

not necessarily a cave, but I figured a cave must look somewhat similar to a “set back valley”. In

addition to the cave-like features, I attempted to make a ripple effect on the river to mirror what

he describes in the poem.

However, while I found this to be a little unsettling with the idea of reincarnation and

forgetting one's life, Virgil contrasted this image. The main reason I was attracted to this passage

was because of the extended simile, where Virgil compares these souls to bees in a meadow. I

found this simile extremely appealing because the idea of bees buzzing around flowers gives off

the same chaotic crowding while also seeming much more optimistic. Despite being in the

underworld, Virgil still compares the souls to bees in a bright meadow. Instead of looking at

them with pity, he thinks of these people getting a second chance. While - to me - forgetting their
life seems terrible, Virgil transports them out of the dark underworld and into a sunny summer

day. So, to show this simile, in the background I tried to draw a nice meadow covered with

wildflowers and bees. This bright spot was meant to juxtapose the darker colors of the rest of the

drawing. I also find this part interesting because Virgil contrasts this simile and Anchises’

explanation with Aeneas’ reaction where he begins to tremble at the sight. Anchises has a

positive reaction to the second chance (especially because he sees Rome as a rebirth of Troy)

while Aeneas’s reaction reflects mine a little more.

In addition to these details, I also included a little boat. While there is no boat in the poem

and no one is in the middle of the river, I wanted something to show that people had gotten to

this place or where there (because I can not draw people). Although Aeneas and Anchises never

took a boat on the Lethe and instead walked through a valley, it was just meant to show that

people had somehow gotten to this area - the river.