ABSTRACT
In Henry Hoare's Virgilian fantasia, the emergence of Aeneas and the Sibyl to the Elysian fields, the new sun, plays back even on the darkness of the entry to Hades. Virgil must have been well aware of both the senses of darkness, Hoare's and that of William Golding and W. R. Johnson. Virgil was in dark times a standard, a rallying point for civilization in the sense of gentleness. In dark times the simple appeal of Virgil's gentle civilization, the need to defend it, appears. But civilization is also complex and inclusive, is aware and respectful of other civilizations, other epochs, to the point where weaknesses appear, because awareness of cultural relativity, of layer upon layer of meaning in literature, culture and language disables belief. 'Civilized' can mean many things: but in this case a society can afford and cherish a certain gentleness, even though this may be no more characteristic of its rulers than it is in any other society.
