Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. Fair Opis, keeping guard for Trivia
  2. in patient sentry on a lofty hill, beheld
  3. unterrified the conflict's rage. Yet when,
  4. amid the frenzied shouts of soldiery,
  5. she saw from far Camilla pay the doom
  6. of piteous death, with deep-drawn voice of sight
  7. she thus complained: “O virgin, woe is me!
  8. Too much, too much, this agony of thine,
  9. to expiate that thou didst lift thy spear
  10. for wounding Troy. It was no shield in war,
  11. nor any vantage to have kept thy vow
  12. to chaste Diana in the thorny wild.
  13. Our maiden arrows at thy shoulder slung
  14. availed thee not! Yet will our Queen divine
  15. not leave unhonored this thy dying day,
  16. nor shall thy people let thy death remain
  17. a thing forgot, nor thy bright name appear
  18. a glory unavenged. Whoe'er he be
  19. that marred thy body with the mortal wound
  20. shall die as he deserves.” Beneath that hill
  21. an earth-built mound uprose, the tomb
  22. of King Dercennus, a Laurentine old,
  23. by sombre ilex shaded: thither hied
  24. the fair nymph at full speed, and from the mound
  25. looked round for Arruns. When his shape she saw
  26. in glittering armor vainly insolent,
  27. “Whither so fast?” she cried. “This way, thy path!
  28. This fatal way approach, and here receive
  29. thy reward for Camilla! Thou shalt fall,
  30. vile though thou art, by Dian's shaft divine.”
  31. She said; and one swift-coursing arrow took
  32. from golden quiver, like a maid of Thrace,
  33. and stretched it on her bow with hostile aim,
  34. withdrawing far, till both the tips of horn
  35. together bent, and, both hands poising well,
  36. the left outreached to touch the barb of steel,
  37. the right to her soft breast the bowstring drew:
  38. the hissing of the shaft, the sounding air,
  39. Arruns one moment heard, as to his flesh
  40. the iron point clung fast. But his last groan
  41. his comrades heeded not, and let him lie,
  42. scorned and forgotten, on the dusty field,
  43. while Opis soared to bright Olympian air.