I'm not sure that this is a normal response, and I don't know if this detail of the underworld is really even important in the rest of the text, but in book VI around line 575 those who passes away as infants are mentioned, and I felt really bad for these children. The first thing I noticed was the sound of the infants' wailing could be heard. Therefore, those who died in infancy were probably destined to exist in the underworld as infants, both physically and mentally; however, if this were not the case, they were forced to exist knowing of the life that they never had the opportunity to experience. Neither situation pleasant in my eyes. They were deprived of the opportunity to ever learn and grow. When I picture this scene, I imagine as the infant spirits crying alone without their mothers or any type of caregiver or nurturer. Compared with the picture that I would assume most Christians hold about the afterlife of those who pass away in infancy, it seems to me to be a drastically different situation.
P.S. I commented on Molly Gray's "Changing the Names."
It does seem almost cruel to think of infants ending up in the underworld like that. It makes me wonder what the general populace thought about infant deaths. Great insight
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