Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. Smiling reply, the Sire of gods and men,
  2. with such a look as clears the skies of storm
  3. chastely his daughter kissed, and thus spake on:
  4. “Let Cytherea cast her fears away!
  5. Irrevocably blest the fortunes be
  6. of thee and thine. Nor shalt thou fail to see
  7. that City, and the proud predestined wall
  8. encompassing Lavinium. Thyself
  9. shall starward to the heights of heaven bear
  10. Aeneas the great-hearted. Nothing swerves
  11. my will once uttered. Since such carking cares
  12. consume thee, I this hour speak freely forth,
  13. and leaf by leaf the book of fate unfold.
  14. Thy son in Italy shall wage vast war
  15. and, quell its nations wild; his city-wall
  16. and sacred laws shall be a mighty bond
  17. about his gathered people. Summers three
  18. shall Latium call him king; and three times pass
  19. the winter o'er Rutulia's vanquished hills.
  20. His heir, Ascanius, now Iulus called
  21. (Ilus it was while Ilium's kingdom stood),
  22. full thirty months shall reign, then move the throne
  23. from the Lavinian citadel, and build
  24. for Alba Longa its well-bastioned wall.
  1. Here three full centuries shall Hector's race
  2. have kingly power; till a priestess queen,
  3. by Mars conceiving, her twin offspring bear;
  4. then Romulus, wolf-nursed and proudly clad
  5. in tawny wolf-skin mantle, shall receive
  6. the sceptre of his race. He shall uprear
  7. and on his Romans his own name bestow.
  8. To these I give no bounded times or power,
  9. but empire without end. Yea, even my Queen,
  10. Juno, who now chastiseth land and sea
  11. with her dread frown, will find a wiser way,
  12. and at my sovereign side protect and bless
  13. the Romans, masters of the whole round world,
  14. who, clad in peaceful toga, judge mankind.
  15. Such my decree! In lapse of seasons due,
  16. the heirs of Ilium's kings shall bind in chains
  17. Mycenae's glory and Achilles' towers,
  18. and over prostrate Argos sit supreme.
  19. Of Trojan stock illustriously sprung,
  20. lo, Caesar comes! whose power the ocean bounds,
  21. whose fame, the skies. He shall receive the name
  22. Iulus nobly bore, great Julius, he.
  23. Him to the skies, in Orient trophies dress,
  24. thou shalt with smiles receive; and he, like us,
  25. shall hear at his own shrines the suppliant vow.
  26. Then will the world grow mild; the battle-sound
  27. will be forgot; for olden Honor then,
  28. with spotless Vesta, and the brothers twain,
  29. Remus and Romulus, at strife no more,
  30. will publish sacred laws. The dreadful gates
  31. whence issueth war, shall with close-jointed steel
  32. be barred impregnably; and prisoned there
  33. the heaven-offending Fury, throned on swords,
  34. and fettered by a hundred brazen chains,
  35. shall belch vain curses from his lips of gore.”
  1. These words he gave, and summoned Maia's son,
  2. the herald Mercury, who earthward flying,
  3. should bid the Tyrian realms and new-built towers
  4. welcome the Trojan waifs; lest Dido, blind
  5. to Fate's decree, should thrust them from the land.
  6. He takes his flight, with rhythmic stroke of wing,
  7. across th' abyss of air, and soon draws near
  8. unto the Libyan mainland. He fulfils
  9. his heavenly task; the Punic hearts of stone
  10. grow soft beneath the effluence divine;
  11. and, most of all, the Queen, with heart at ease
  12. awaits benignantly her guests from Troy.
  1. But good Aeneas, pondering all night long
  2. his many cares, when first the cheerful dawn
  3. upon him broke, resolved to take survey
  4. of this strange country whither wind and wave
  5. had driven him,—for desert land it seemed,—
  6. to learn what tribes of man or beast possess
  7. a place so wild, and careful tidings bring
  8. back to his friends. His fleet of ships the while,
  9. where dense, dark groves o'er-arch a hollowed crag,
  10. he left encircled in far-branching shade.
  11. Then with no followers save his trusty friend
  12. Achates, he went forth upon his way,
  13. two broad-tipped javelins poising in his hand.
  14. Deep to the midmost wood he went, and there
  15. his Mother in his path uprose; she seemed
  16. in garb and countenance a maid, and bore,
  17. like Spartan maids, a weapon; in such guise
  18. Harpalyce the Thracian urges on
  19. her panting coursers and in wild career
  20. outstrips impetuous Hebrus as it flows.
  21. Over her lovely shoulders was a bow,
  22. slender and light, as fits a huntress fair;
  23. her golden tresses without wimple moved
  24. in every wind, and girded in a knot
  25. her undulant vesture bared her marble knees.
  26. She hailed them thus: “Ho, sirs, I pray you tell
  27. if haply ye have noted, as ye came,
  28. one of my sisters in this wood astray?
  29. She bore a quiver, and a lynx's hide
  30. her spotted mantle was; perchance she roused
  31. some foaming boar, and chased with loud halloo.”
  1. So Venus spoke, and Venus' son replied:
  2. “No voice or vision of thy sister fair
  3. has crossed my path, thou maid without a name!
  4. Thy beauty seems not of terrestrial mould,
  5. nor is thy music mortal! Tell me, goddess,
  6. art thou bright Phoebus' sister? Or some nymph,
  7. the daughter of a god? Whate'er thou art,
  8. thy favor we implore, and potent aid
  9. in our vast toil. Instruct us of what skies,
  10. or what world's end, our storm-swept lives have found!
  11. Strange are these lands and people where we rove,
  12. compelled by wind and wave. Lo, this right hand
  13. shall many a victim on thine altar slay!”