Anybody who's interested in other dark suggestions is welcome to check
out the long chapter on Virgil's *Aeneid* in my 2003 book "Dreams of the
Burning Child."
Apologies for the self-ad, John. This is what happens when you drop a
kind word carelessly to a fellow attention-starved academic.
D
>>> [log in to unmask] 5/22/2007 1:58 PM >>>
I had never read Virgil's passage that way before, but David makes his
"darker suggestion" sound plausible (it reminds me of the similarly
dark
suggestion when Aeneas exits the underworld through the gate of
ivory--the
gate of false dreams--which also, oddly, makes an appearance in
Milton's
Paradise 4.778). Thanks, David, for sharing this.
John
----- Original Message -----
From: "David L. Miller" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 1:34 PM
Subject: Re: Mazes and murmurs in Milton's Heaven (was Re:
Metempsychotic)
>I think that the maze pattern in Virgil carries a much darker
> suggestion, namely that the boys in their military games are being
> inducted *into* the maze like the sacrificial Athenian youths
annually
> given up to the Minotaur.
>
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