Time in Aeneas’ journey to the underworld is not fractured and chaotic as it is for the surrealists or Bruno Schulz. Rather, perceptions of time or duration in the underworld depend on one’s position as part of a particular group designated for a particular fate. While these different groups experience the passing of time in radically different ways, Aeneas and the Sibyl pass through on a temporal arch of their own. 

The first group Aeneas confronts after descending into hell is made up of souls whose bones had not been interred, meaning that they are not permitted to be transported by Charon, the ferryman, across the river Styx. The Sibyl explains to Aeneas, “And no spirits may be conveyed across the horrendous banks and hoarse, roaring flood until their bones are buried, and they rest in peace … A hundred years they wander, hovering around these shores till at last they may return and see once more the pools they long to cross.” Time exists on this bank of the river, but it slow, monotonous time, full of suffering. The same hope always animates the people there – that they be allowed to cross – and the same answer awaits them – not now. Though time is passing, nothing changes, making time a process of eternal waiting. Only by chance will this temporal loop be broken and the spirits allowed to rejoin a progressive flow of time.