When literary criticism suddenly hits home:
It is not conflicted for Virgil to see betterment in history and yet be haunted by the sorrows of the world; rather, it is the mark of a mature and many-sided mind. Certainly, the view that a voice of doubt and sadness is the 'real' voice and that the paeans to Roman achievement should be discounted misses one of the poem's dimensions. In the underworld Aeneas wants to spend more time with a dead comrade, but the Sybil tells him that night is hastening on and 'we squander the hours in weeping'. That is the Aeneid in a nutshell: the impulse to linger compassionately and lament, but also the stern pressing on towards a greater purpose.
(Richard Jenkyns, Classical Literature, p. 169)
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