Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. There in the middle court a shadowy elm
  2. Its ancient branches spreads, and in its leaves
  3. Deluding visions ever haunt and cling.
  4. Then come strange prodigies of bestial kind :
  5. Centaurs are stabled there, and double shapes
  6. Like Scylla, or the dragon Lerna bred,
  7. With hideous scream; Briareus clutching far
  8. His hundred hands, Chimaera girt with flame,
  9. A crowd of Gorgons, Harpies of foul wing,
  10. And giant Geryon's triple-monstered shade.
  11. Aeneas, shuddering with sudden fear,
  12. Drew sword and fronted them with naked steel;
  13. And, save his sage conductress bade him know
  14. These were but shapes and shadows sweeping by,
  15. His stroke had cloven in vain the vacant air.