Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. Scarce had Aurora's purple from the sky
  2. warned off the stars, when Iying very low
  3. along th' horizon, the dimmed hills we saw
  4. of Italy; Achates first gave cry
  5. “Italia!” with answering shouts of joy,
  6. my comrades' voices cried, “Italia, hail!”
  7. Anchises, then, wreathed a great bowl with flowers
  8. and filled with wine, invoking Heaven to bless,
  9. and thus he prayed from our ship's lofty stern:
  10. “O Iords of land and sea and every storm!
  11. Breathe favoring breezes for our onward way!”
  12. Fresh blew the prayed-for winds. A haven fair
  13. soon widened near us; and its heights were crowned
  14. by a Greek fane to Pallas. Yet my men
  15. furled sail and shoreward veered the pointing prow.
  16. the port receding from the orient wave
  17. is curved into a bow; on either side
  18. the jutting headlands toss the salt sea-foam
  19. and hide the bay itself. Like double wall
  20. the towered crags send down protecting arms,
  21. while distant from the shore the temple stands.
  22. Here on a green sward, the first omen given,
  23. I saw four horses grazing through the field,
  24. each white as snow. Father Anchises cried:
  25. “Is war thy gift, O new and alien land?
  26. Horses make war; of war these creatures bode.
  27. Yet oft before the chariot of peace
  28. their swift hoofs go, and on their necks they bear
  29. th' obedient yoke and rein. Therefore a hope
  30. of peace is also ours.” Then we implored
  31. Minerva's mercy, at her sacred shrine,
  32. the mail-clad goddess who gave welcome there;
  33. and at an altar, mantling well our brows
  34. the Phrygian way, as Helenus ordained,
  35. we paid the honors his chief counsel urged,
  36. with blameless rite, to Juno, Argive Queen.