The Sixth Aeneid rises like a dome above the rest of the poem, uniting past, present, and future. It goes beyond the visible world and gives an interpretation not only of Rome's destiny but of the meaning of life. The vision of Aeneas touches the deepest things in Virgil in his conception of the Roman Fate. Is it conceivable, then, that the poet could have made a mockery of it all by representing that revelation, which was to inspire Aeneas for his great task, as false and misleading in the concluding lines of the book?