Mother-Son relationship

“And when Aeneas recognized his mother, he followed her with theses words as she fled: ‘Why do you mock your son – so often and so cruelly- with these lying apparitions? Why can’t I ever join you, hand to hand, to hear, to answer you with honest words?” (579-584, book 1)

This passage reveals the type of relationship between Aeneas and his mother Venus. This mother – son relationship is a conflict between motherly love and divine love. In the beginning of the story Venus’s love for her son seems indicative of human, motherly love when she pleads with Jupiter to ease the hardships of Aeneas. Her pleas for Aeneas seem like the plea of a mother genuinely worried about the sufferings of her child. But upon further analysis Venus’s love in fact seems devoid of motherly love. She complains about being Aeneas being “kept far from Italy” and not being able to achieve his fate. She is worried about the fulfillment of his destiny to establish the foundations of Rome. She is not concerned with Aeneas’s distress. If Venus had a true motherly love for Aeneas she would not be reproached by her son for being distant (as in the quoted passage). She appears to Aeneas just long enough to ensure that he is able to be successful, but the moment he recognizes her, she disappears. Venus’s divine love for Aeneas is concerned with the establishment of Rome, not with Aeneas’s emotional needs for a mother. Although Venus’ love for her son may almost seem cruel, it directly affects Aeneas’s identity. Throughout the story Aeneas fights between fulfilling duty over desire. Venus’s divine love emphasis duty and the importance that Aeneas achieve his destiny. Venus’s divine love is not a type of love singly focused on her one child. Her love is for the future of Aeneas; the creation of Rome.