Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. “Know first that heaven and earth and ocean's plain,
  2. The moon's bright orb, and stars of Titan birth
  3. Are nourished by one Life; one primal Mind,
  4. Immingled with the vast and general frame,
  5. Fills every part and stirs the mighty whole.
  6. Thence man and beast, thence creatures of the air,
  7. And all the swarming monsters that be found
  8. Beneath the level of the marbled sea;
  9. A fiery virtue, a celestial power,
  10. Their native seeds retain; but bodies vile,
  11. With limbs of clay and members born to die,
  12. Encumber and o'ercloud; whence also spring
  13. Terrors and passions, suffering and joy;
  14. For from deep darkness and captivity
  15. All gaze but blindly on the radiant world.
  16. Nor when to life's last beam they bid farewell
  17. May sufferers cease from pain, nor quite be freed
  18. From all their fleshly plagues; but by fixed law,
  19. The strange, inveterate taint works deeply in.
  20. For this, the chastisement of evils past
  21. Is suffered here, and full requital paid.
  22. Some hang on high, outstretched to viewless winds;
  23. For some their sin's contagion must be purged
  24. In vast ablution of deep-rolling seas,
  25. Or burned away in fire. Each man receives
  26. His ghostly portion in the world of dark;
  27. But thence to realms Elysian we go free,
  28. Where for a few these seats of bliss abide,
  29. Till time's long lapse a perfect orb fulfils,
  30. And takes all taint away, restoring so
  31. The pure, ethereal soul's first virgin fire.
  32. At last, when the millennial aeon strikes,
  33. God calls them forth to yon Lethaean stream,
  34. In numerous host, that thence, oblivious all,
  35. They may behold once more the vaulted sky,
  36. And willingly to shapes of flesh return.”