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Book 14: The Ships of Aeneas
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Metamorphoses, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Metamorphosis
Humanity vs. Nature
Love and Destruction
Gods and Humans
Time, Fate, and Poetry
Summary
Analysis
Even after the transformation of the Trojan ships, Turnus continues to fight Aeneas. Gods fight on both sides of the battle. Turnus no longer hopes to win Lavinia’s hand, but he is too ashamed to stop fighting now that he has started. Finally, Turnus is killed and Aeneas wins. The Trojans burn Turnus’s city, Ardea. From the ashes, a new bird takes flight, carrying Ardea’s grief and history with it.
