I want to bring attention to the reoccuring image of gates throughout the poem, and mull the significance of their symbolism...
Consider how Juno opens the gates of war; Aeneas leaves the underworld by the gate of false dreams rather than by the gate of true spirits; gates of Troyare breached in Book 2; In Book 9 Turnus breaks through Trojans gates and escapes once locked in.
The caverns, thresholds, doors, and gates all suggest the sexual entrance of the areas of which they are established to protect, and the breaking/entering of them almost appears as a rape.
Keep these images in mind in order to discuss parallels to the gates in Milton's Paradise Lost.
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