Golden Bough (Aeneid)

The Golden Bough is a fantastical object described in the Aeneid, an epic poem by the Roman poet Virgil composed between 29 and 19 BC narrating the adventures of the Trojan hero Aeneas after the Trojan War. The episode of the Golden Bough is found in its sixth book and is part of Aeneas's journey into the Underworld. The bough itself acts as proof of Aeneas's divine favour, and allows him to pass into the Underworld. He is directed to find it in an expansive forest, which he accomplishes with the aid of his mother, the goddess Venus, and to remove it from its host tree. Although Aeneas has been told that it will come easily – if his journey is ordained by fate – Virgil describes the bough as briefly hesitating before he takes it.

Virgil's portrayal of the bough has no direct literary antecedents, though it draws on several precedents from literature, folklore and philosophy. Scholars have connected it with, among others, the Golden Fleece in the story of the Argonauts; symbolic objects associated with deities such as Hermes, Dionysus and Circe; and the branches carried by prospective initiates into the Eleusinian Mysteries, a Greek religious rite centred on a symbolic journey into the Underworld. Virgil associates it with both death and immortality, partly by way of symbolic associations in Graeco-Roman culture between gold and the gods. It also recalls ideas put forth by the Roman philosopher Lucretius as to the nature of the soul. The episode of the Golden Bough was parodied by authors including Virgil's contemporary Ovid, and drawn upon by later Roman poets including Lucan and Valerius Flaccus.

Early interpretations of the Golden Bough tended to give it an allegorical function, particularly via Pythagorean and Neoplatonist philosophy, which viewed it as symbolic of the choice between virtue and vice. Medieval commentators often considered it a symbol of wisdom, and several Christian theologians interpreted it as representing Christian wisdom and virtue. In the sixteenth century, it became a heraldic symbol of the Florentine House of Medici. Early modern receptions of the bough, including those of François Rabelais and Jonathan Swift, were often parodic or obscene. In the twentieth century, scholars following the Harvard School interpretation of the Aeneid argued that Virgil's use of the bough reflected his ambivalence towards Aeneas and the latter's mission to set in motion the rise of the Roman Empire. Other critics have highlighted echoes between the episode of the Golden Bough and the morally charged deaths of two of Aeneas's antagonists, Dido and Turnus.

In the fourth or fifth century AD, the commentator Servius connected the bough to the rex Nemorensis, a priest of the goddess Diana at Lake Nemi whose office was passed on by the killing of its holder. This equation influenced the anthropologist James George Frazer, who used the bough for the title of his 1890 work on comparative religion. The bough is recalled in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was the subject of an 1834 painting by J. M. W. Turner, which was used as the frontispiece for the early editions of Frazer's book. It was an influential motif in the "Byzantium" poems of W. B. Yeats and in the poetry of Seamus Heaney, who made several translations of Virgil's account of the episode. Scholars have also drawn parallels between the Golden Bough and significant objects in the novels of J. R. R. Tolkien.

In Virgil's Aeneid

The Aeneid, an epic poem composed by the Roman poet Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, narrates the journey of Aeneas, a Trojan survivor of the Trojan War, to the land of Italy. Aeneas was considered to be the ancestor of the gens Iulia, the aristocratic family of the emperor Augustus. Virgil's poetic career was supported by Maecenas, Augustus's lieutenant, and the Aeneid establishes Aeneas as prefiguring and paralleling Augustus.

When he reaches Italy, Aeneas travels to Cumae to meet the Sibyl, the holder of an oracular priesthood featuring in Greek mythology and associated with the prophetic Sibylline Books held in Rome during the historical period. Virgil's portrayal of the Sibyl, cast as a priestess of Apollo and of Diana Trivia, draws upon Roman beliefs about witches, and also creates parallels between her and the persona adopted by the poet. She prophesies to Aeneas about his own future and that of his Roman descendants, gives him instructions on how to make his journey to the Underworld (his katabasis), and escorts him there to seek the shade of his father, Anchises.

Before entering the Underworld, the Sibyl tells Aeneas he must first bury Misenus, a comrade of his who has recently died, and also obtain the Golden Bough which grows in a grove nearby. This bough must be given as an offering to Proserpina, the queen of the Underworld, to indicate that Aeneas's visit is approved by fate and divine sanction. It grows from a shaded tree in a dark grove, itself concealed in a dark valley. When Aeneas arrives at the wood, he finds it to be immense in size and the task of finding the bough apparently impossible: his mother, the goddess Venus, sends two doves to aid him, and they direct him to the tree's location near Lake Avernus, where Aeneas takes it from the tree. Virgil describes the bough as cunctantem ('hesitating') as Aeneas attempts to remove it from its tree: this follows the Sibyl's pronouncement that the bough would "come easily of its own accord", if Aeneas's journey were ordained by fate.

The Trojans, led by Corynaeus, carry out the funerary rites for Misenus, allowing Aeneas to start his descent into the Underworld. When the two reach the River Styx, the Sibyl shows the Golden Bough to the ferryman Charon, who only then allows them to enter his boat and cross into the Underworld proper. Aeneas and the Sibyl move through the Underworld, seeing the shades of the dead as well as the punishments meted out in Tartarus. Aeneas places the Golden Bough on the threshold of the Elysian Fields, the home of the just, where he meets his father.

Antecedents and possible inspiration

Virgil's treatment of the Golden Bough merges folkloric, philosophical and literary precedents. However, it has no direct antecedents, and some early critics, such as the mid–first century AD commentator Lucius Annaeus Cornutus, considered the episode to have been entirely Virgil's invention. Raymond J. Clark connects the bough with the caduceus, the golden staff carried by the god Hermes, among whose roles was to escort the souls of the dead to the Underworld. In the Odyssey and Homeric Hymns, both composed in Ancient Greek around the eighth–seventh centuries BC, Hermes is given the epithet khrusorrhapis (χρυσόρραπις, 'the one with the golden rod'). Nicholas Horsfall suggests that the Golden Bough may equally echo the golden wand of Circe in the Odyssey, the golden sceptres carried by the shades of Tiresias and Minos in the same poem, or the fig-branch, carved in the shape of a phallus, placed on the tomb of Prosymnus by the god Dionysus. Damien Nelis suggests that Virgil's Golden Bough episode echoes the narrative of the Greek hero Jason and the Argonauts; Jason is guided through the Clashing Rocks by a dove, and ultimately obtains the Golden Fleece which, like the bough, is found in an oak grove. Adrian Pârvulescu observes that none of these potential antecedents share the essential function of Virgil's Golden Bough, namely, to allow the bearer passage or to demonstrate their moral virtue.

Jan Bremmer suggests that the bough recalls the branches of myrtle carried by prospective initiates into the Eleusinian Mysteries, a mystery religion of ancient Attica centred on the myth of Proserpina and a symbolic descent into the Underworld. It may thus also allude to a Descent of Herakles, a lost poem in a tradition of works narrating the journey of the hero Herakles to the Underworld during the last of his twelve labours, since Herakles was first initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. Agnes Michels suggests that Virgil may have been inspired by the first-century BC poet Meleager, whose poetic anthology The Garland included a reference to "the ever-golden branch of divine Plato shining all round with virtue".

Charles Segal connects the bough, via its close association with the death of Misenus, to the folkloric motif of another's death being required for a hero to enter the Underworld, as in the case of that of Elpenor in the Odyssey. Ancient Greek and Roman culture connected gold with the divine, particularly the Olympian gods, and with the world of the dead, particularly via the chthonic deities Persephone (known as Proserpina in Latin) and Demeter (known in Latin as Ceres). It was also associated with immortality.

In the fourth or fifth century AD, the commentator Servius connected the bough to the institution of the rex Nemorensis (or "king of the grove"), a priest of the goddess Diana at Lake Nemi. The title of rex Nemorensis was passed on by the killing of its current holder. To challenge the priest for his office, a contender had to break off a branch from the grove of trees around the sanctuary, an act which was otherwise forbidden. Domizio Calderini and Pietro Crinito, two scholars of the Italian Renaissance, suggested that the Golden Bough should be identified as mistletoe, with which Virgil compares it in a simile. They therefore saw it as a reference to the ritual use of that plant by druids in ancient Celtic religion. This interpretation was taken up by James Sowerby in his 1805 work English Botany, and through this influenced the anthropologist James George Frazer in choosing the bough for the title of his 1890 volume on comparative religion and ritual.

Interpretation

Anthony Ossa-Richardson calls the Golden Bough "the central detail of the central book of what was, from late antiquity to the end of the Renaissance, the most significant and prestigious work of pagan literature in Western Europe". In Horsfall's formulation, it acts as a sort of talisman to grant Aeneas safe passage through the Underworld, perhaps analogous to the diploma carried by Roman travellers on official business, or the moly given to Odysseus by Hermes to protect him from Circe's magic in the Odyssey. Pârvulescu sees it as a mirror of the suppliant branch or herald's staff, used in Greek and Roman antiquity as a sign of truce and good intentions between emissaries from warring parties. Clifford Weber sees the bough as mirroring the understanding of the soul put forth by the Roman philosopher Lucretius; Lucretius compared the soul and body with mistletoe entwined with a tree, and several phrases and ideas used by Lucretius to refer to the soul echo in Virgil's description of the Golden Bough.

Servius attempted to discredit readings of the Golden Bough's hesitation which suggested that it may imply that Aeneas is not truly favoured or endorsed by the gods. Richard F. Thomas argues that Servius's attempts to suppress this interpretation indicate that it was already current by the time of his commentary. Weber links the bough's hesitation to Lucretian metaphysics, in which the soul is tightly bound to the body and not easily separated from it. He similarly connects the bough with the golden lock of hair emphasised during the death of the Carthaginian queen Dido in Book 4 of the Aeneid: the severing of Dido's lock causes her death, just as Aeneas's breaking of the Golden Bough initiates the symbolic death represented by his journey into the Underworld. The word cunctantem recurs at several points in the poem, including at its climax, when Aeneas hesitates before deciding to kill his defeated enemy Turnus; Anthony J. Boyle interprets this as a recurring motif by which "opposition is overcome by violence, passion, mindlessness and furor". Joseph Farrell sees the motif as indicating the impossibility of choosing a "third way" between the poem's stark binary ethical choices. In relation to the apparent difficulty of interpreting the bough's hesitation, David West sees Virgil as employing the "Excalibur motif" of a talismanic object that will readily acquiesce to the chosen hero, as in the Sibyl's words to Aeneas. West views Aeneas's display of force in removing the bough as a means of emphasising his strength and boldness.