Aeneid

Virgil

Vergil. The Aeneid of Virgil. Williams, Theodore, C, translator. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910.

Such was his word, but vexed with grief and care,
feigned hopes upon his forehead firm he wore,
and locked within his heart a hero's pain.
Now round the welcome trophies of his chase
they gather for a feast. Some flay the ribs
and bare the flesh below; some slice with knives,
and on keen prongs the quivering strips impale,
place cauldrons on the shore, and fan the fires.
Then, stretched at ease on couch of simple green,
they rally their lost powers, and feast them well
on seasoned wine and succulent haunch of game.
But hunger banished and the banquet done,
in long discourse of their lost mates they tell,
'twixt hopes and fears divided; for who knows
whether the lost ones live, or strive with death,
or heed no more whatever voice may call?
Chiefly Aeneas now bewails his friends,
Orontes brave and fallen Amycus,
or mourns with grief untold the untimely doom
of bold young Gyas and Cloanthus bold.

After these things were past, exalted Jove,
from his ethereal sky surveying clear
the seas all winged with sails, lands widely spread,
and nations populous from shore to shore,
paused on the peak of heaven, and fixed his gaze
on Libya. But while he anxious mused,
near him, her radiant eyes all dim with tears,
nor smiling any more, Venus approached,
and thus complained: “O thou who dost control
things human and divine by changeless laws,
enthroned in awful thunder! What huge wrong
could my Aeneas and his Trojans few
achieve against thy power? For they have borne
unnumbered deaths, and, failing Italy,
the gates of all the world against them close.
Hast thou not given us thy covenant
that hence the Romans when the rolling years
have come full cycle, shall arise to power
from Troy's regenerate seed, and rule supreme
the unresisted lords of land and sea?
O Sire, what swerves thy will? How oft have I
in Troy's most lamentable wreck and woe
consoled my heart with this, and balanced oft
our destined good against our destined ill!
But the same stormful fortune still pursues
my band of heroes on their perilous way.
When shall these labors cease, O glorious King?
Antenor, though th' Achaeans pressed him sore,
found his way forth, and entered unassailed
Illyria's haven, and the guarded land
of the Liburni. Straight up stream he sailed
where like a swollen sea Timavus pours
a nine-fold flood from roaring mountain gorge,
and whelms with voiceful wave the fields below.
He built Patavium there, and fixed abodes
for Troy's far-exiled sons; he gave a name
to a new land and race; the Trojan arms
were hung on temple walls; and, to this day,
lying in perfect peace, the hero sleeps.
But we of thine own seed, to whom thou dost
a station in the arch of heaven assign,
behold our navy vilely wrecked, because
a single god is angry; we endure
this treachery and violence, whereby
wide seas divide us from th' Hesperian shore.
Is this what piety receives? Or thus
doth Heaven's decree restore our fallen thrones?”

Smiling reply, the Sire of gods and men,
with such a look as clears the skies of storm
chastely his daughter kissed, and thus spake on:
“Let Cytherea cast her fears away!
Irrevocably blest the fortunes be
of thee and thine. Nor shalt thou fail to see
that City, and the proud predestined wall
encompassing Lavinium. Thyself
shall starward to the heights of heaven bear
Aeneas the great-hearted. Nothing swerves
my will once uttered. Since such carking cares
consume thee, I this hour speak freely forth,
and leaf by leaf the book of fate unfold.
Thy son in Italy shall wage vast war
and, quell its nations wild; his city-wall
and sacred laws shall be a mighty bond
about his gathered people. Summers three
shall Latium call him king; and three times pass
the winter o'er Rutulia's vanquished hills.
His heir, Ascanius, now Iulus called
(Ilus it was while Ilium's kingdom stood),
full thirty months shall reign, then move the throne
from the Lavinian citadel, and build
for Alba Longa its well-bastioned wall.

Here three full centuries shall Hector's race
have kingly power; till a priestess queen,
by Mars conceiving, her twin offspring bear;
then Romulus, wolf-nursed and proudly clad
in tawny wolf-skin mantle, shall receive
the sceptre of his race. He shall uprear
and on his Romans his own name bestow.
To these I give no bounded times or power,
but empire without end. Yea, even my Queen,
Juno, who now chastiseth land and sea
with her dread frown, will find a wiser way,
and at my sovereign side protect and bless
the Romans, masters of the whole round world,
who, clad in peaceful toga, judge mankind.
Such my decree! In lapse of seasons due,
the heirs of Ilium's kings shall bind in chains
Mycenae's glory and Achilles' towers,
and over prostrate Argos sit supreme.
Of Trojan stock illustriously sprung,
lo, Caesar comes! whose power the ocean bounds,
whose fame, the skies. He shall receive the name
Iulus nobly bore, great Julius, he.
Him to the skies, in Orient trophies dress,
thou shalt with smiles receive; and he, like us,
shall hear at his own shrines the suppliant vow.
Then will the world grow mild; the battle-sound
will be forgot; for olden Honor then,
with spotless Vesta, and the brothers twain,
Remus and Romulus, at strife no more,
will publish sacred laws. The dreadful gates
whence issueth war, shall with close-jointed steel
be barred impregnably; and prisoned there
the heaven-offending Fury, throned on swords,
and fettered by a hundred brazen chains,
shall belch vain curses from his lips of gore.”

These words he gave, and summoned Maia's son,
the herald Mercury, who earthward flying,
should bid the Tyrian realms and new-built towers
welcome the Trojan waifs; lest Dido, blind
to Fate's decree, should thrust them from the land.
He takes his flight, with rhythmic stroke of wing,
across th' abyss of air, and soon draws near
unto the Libyan mainland. He fulfils
his heavenly task; the Punic hearts of stone
grow soft beneath the effluence divine;
and, most of all, the Queen, with heart at ease
awaits benignantly her guests from Troy.

But good Aeneas, pondering all night long
his many cares, when first the cheerful dawn
upon him broke, resolved to take survey
of this strange country whither wind and wave
had driven him,—for desert land it seemed,—
to learn what tribes of man or beast possess
a place so wild, and careful tidings bring
back to his friends. His fleet of ships the while,
where dense, dark groves o'er-arch a hollowed crag,
he left encircled in far-branching shade.
Then with no followers save his trusty friend
Achates, he went forth upon his way,
two broad-tipped javelins poising in his hand.
Deep to the midmost wood he went, and there
his Mother in his path uprose; she seemed
in garb and countenance a maid, and bore,
like Spartan maids, a weapon; in such guise
Harpalyce the Thracian urges on
her panting coursers and in wild career
outstrips impetuous Hebrus as it flows.
Over her lovely shoulders was a bow,
slender and light, as fits a huntress fair;
her golden tresses without wimple moved
in every wind, and girded in a knot
her undulant vesture bared her marble knees.
She hailed them thus: “Ho, sirs, I pray you tell
if haply ye have noted, as ye came,
one of my sisters in this wood astray?
She bore a quiver, and a lynx's hide
her spotted mantle was; perchance she roused
some foaming boar, and chased with loud halloo.”

So Venus spoke, and Venus' son replied:
“No voice or vision of thy sister fair
has crossed my path, thou maid without a name!
Thy beauty seems not of terrestrial mould,
nor is thy music mortal! Tell me, goddess,
art thou bright Phoebus' sister? Or some nymph,
the daughter of a god? Whate'er thou art,
thy favor we implore, and potent aid
in our vast toil. Instruct us of what skies,
or what world's end, our storm-swept lives have found!
Strange are these lands and people where we rove,
compelled by wind and wave. Lo, this right hand
shall many a victim on thine altar slay!”