8. Study Questions Copy
We suggest that you try to answer the study questions before viewing the answers.
He responds calmly and in measured tones. He suggests that Turnus can marry someone else and there are numerous other lands that he can rule.
He feels responsible because he felt that he had broken oaths that he had made to Aeneas by dissolving the proposed marriage of his daughter to him as well as fighting against him.
In lines 35 to 36, he talks of the river Tiber running with blood and the landscape filled with the bone of the dead who had fallen in battle (recalent nostro Thybrina fluenta/ sanguine adhuc campique ingentes ossibus albent).
He urges him to think of his father (this is also something that Aeneas will be urged to do about his own father, Anchises). This concept of filial duty-pietas-is central to the Aeneid.
Latinus makes a direct address to Turnus, thus making the conversation more vivid, and it includes a number of rhetorical questions, pointing out the ethical dilemmas that he had faced when considering what to do. The indirect questions in lines 32-3 are also marked by asyndeton, implying that he had multiple dilemmas on his mind. He has used emotive language in his description of the blood that has already been shed, and appeals to pietas to help convince Turnus. And his willingness to admit his mistakes also invites Turnus to take pity on him and to accede to his requests.
