Palinurus

Palinurus responds that he survived the plunge into the sea and washed ashore after four days near Velia, and was killed there and left unburied.

The Cumaean Sibyl, who has guided Aeneas into the underworld, predicts that locals will come and build him a mound; the place will be named Cape Palinuro in his honor.

[8] Scholars have recognized in Palinurus a counterpart of Homer's Elpenor, who dies while Odysseus is on Circe's island; in their haste, his comrades do not look for him and his body remains unburied.

[9] One of Martial's epigrams (3.78) plays on Palinurus's name by turning it into an obscene pun: Minxisti currente semel, Pauline, carina.

[13] Canto 3, the canto of the "sheepfold of the excommunicates",[13] discusses the problem of the body and the soul (Dante's character casts a shadow at the foot of Mount Purgatory, in contrast to the bodiless souls that populate purgatory) and the concept of exclusion (from "physical burial,...safety, the sacraments of the church,...divine grace absolutely").

[12] Christian commentators saw "an anticipation of the sacrifice of Christ" in Palinurus – unum pro multis dabitur caput prefigures the biblical "that one man should die for the people" (John 11:50).

[14] Palinurus's request to Aeneas, "save me, unconquered one, from this vile doom [it]",[15] "resonates with the Catholic liturgy" in the Latin translation of Psalm 58, "Deliver me, Lord, from my enemies.