Virgil's Description Of Hades Odyssey

There are some distinguishable similarities between Homer’s description of Hades and Virgil’s description of Hades.
First and foremost, one can note that the purpose of both Odysseus and Aeneas went to Hades was to receive knowledge. Even though the knowledge that Odysseus received from the underworld was different from Aeneas, the purpose of their trip to the underworld was fundamentally the same.
“While I dug an ell-square pit with my sword; And poured libation to all the dead; First with milk and honey, then with sweet wines; And a third time with water…; After these supplications to the spirits; I cut sheeps’ throats over the pit; And the dark blood pooled there.” In Book XI of Odyssey as soon as Odysseus reached the entrance of Hades, he directly …show more content…
In Book XI of Odyssey, though some of the punishments in Hades were described in details by Homer, it lacks sense of fright and true misery compared to Book VI of Aeneid. Homer makes it more towards the sense of endless wasting time by the souls of the dead, when people reached the afterlife. This sense does not being shared with Virgil’s Aeneid. When Aeneas reached the divided road that separates Tartarus and Elysium, Aeneas heard “… From the interior, groans; Are heard, and thud of lashes, clanking iron; Dragging chains…” from the interior of Tartarus, where the souls that have done bad deeds when they’re alive being punished accordingly. Since Aeneas was not meant to go there, the Sibyl helped him to understand what’s going on in the Tartarus with a great and much gory details than Homer’s description of punishments in Hades were, such as “… Here comes those who as long as life remained; Held brothers hateful, beat their parents, cheated; Poor men dependent on them; also those; Who hugged their newfound riches to themselves; And put nothing aside for relatives -