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 BCE 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 tasked 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 would come easily, if his journey is ordained by fate, Virgil describes the bough as briefly hesitating before he takes it.
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Golden Bough (Aeneid)