Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. Nor thy renown may I forget, brave chief
  2. of the Ligurians, Cinyrus; nor thine,
  3. Cupavo, with few followers, thy crest
  4. the tall swan-wings, of love unblest the sign
  5. and of a father fair: for legends tell
  6. that Cycnus, for his Phaethon so dear
  7. lamenting loud beneath the poplar shade
  8. of the changed sisters, made a mournful song
  9. to soothe his grief and passion: but erewhile,
  10. in his old age, there clothed him as he sang
  11. soft snow-white plumes, and spurning earth he soared
  12. on high, and sped in music through the stars.
  13. His son with bands of youthful peers urged on
  14. a galley with a Centaur for its prow,
  15. which loomed high o'er the waves, and seemed to hurl
  16. a huge stone at the water, as the keel
  17. ploughed through the deep. Next Ocnus summoned forth
  18. a war-host from his native shores, the son
  19. of Tiber, Tuscan river, and the nymph
  20. Manto, a prophetess: he gave good walls,
  21. O Mantua, and his mother's name, to thee,—
  22. to Mantua so rich in noble sires,
  23. but of a blood diverse, a triple breed,
  24. four stems in each; and over all enthroned
  25. she rules her tribes: her strength is Tuscan born.
  26. Hate of Mezentius armed against his name
  27. five hundred men: upon their hostile prow
  28. was Mincius in a cloak of silvery sedge,—
  29. Lake Benacus the river's source and sire.
  30. Last good Aulestes smites the depths below,
  31. with forest of a hundred oars: the flood
  32. like flowing marble foams; his Triton prow
  33. threatens the blue waves with a trumpet-shell;
  34. far as the hairy flanks its form is man,
  35. but ends in fish below—the parting waves
  36. beneath the half-brute bosom break in foam.
  37. Such chosen chiefs in thirty galleys ploughed
  38. the salt-wave, bringing help to Trojan arms.