Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. “Hark now! for of the glories I will tell
  2. That wait our Dardan blood; of our sons' sons
  3. Begot upon the old Italian breed,
  4. Who shall be mighty spirits, and prolong
  5. Our names, their heritage. I will unfold
  6. The story, and reveal the destined years.
  7. Yon princeling, thou beholdest leaning there
  8. Upon a royal lance, shall next emerge
  9. Into the realms of day. He is the first
  10. Of half-Italian strain, the last-born heir
  11. To thine old age by fair Lavinia given,
  12. Called Silvius, a royal Alban name
  13. (Of sylvan birth and sylvan nurture he),
  14. A king himself and sire of kings to come,
  15. By whom our race in Alba Longa reign.
  16. Next Procas stands, our Trojan people's boast;
  17. Capys and Numitor, and, named like thee,
  18. Aeneas Sylvius, like thee renowned
  19. For faithful honor and for deeds of war,
  20. When he ascends at last his Alban throne.
  21. Behold what warrior youth they be! How strong
  22. Their goodly limbs! Above their shaded brows
  23. The civic oak they wear! For thee they build
  24. Nomentum, and the walls of Gabii,
  25. Fidena too, and on the mountains pile
  26. Collatia's citadels, Pometii,
  27. Bola and Cora, Castrum-Inui—
  28. Such be the names the nameless lands shall bear.
  29. See, in that line of sires the son of Mars,
  30. Great Romulus, of Ilian mother born,
  31. From far-descended line of Trojan kings!
  32. See from his helm the double crest uprear,
  33. While his celestial father in his mien
  34. Shows forth his birth divine! Of him, my son,
  35. Great Rome shall rise, and, favored of his star,
  36. Have power world-wide, and men of godlike mind.
  37. She clasps her seven hills in single wall,
  38. Proud mother of the brave! So Cybele,
  39. The Berecynthian goddess, castle-crowned,
  40. On through the Phrygian kingdoms speeds her car,
  41. Exulting in her hundred sons divine,
  42. All numbered with the gods, all throned on high.
  43. “Let now thy visionary glance look long
  44. On this thy race, these Romans that be thine.
  45. Here Caesar, of Iulus' glorious seed,
  46. Behold ascending to the world of light!
  47. Behold, at last, that man, for this is he,
  48. So oft unto thy listening ears foretold,
  49. Augustus Caesar, kindred unto Jove.
  50. He brings a golden age; he shall restore
  51. Old Saturn's sceptre to our Latin land,
  52. And o'er remotest Garamant and Ind
  53. His sway extend; the fair dominion
  54. outruns th' horizon planets, yea, beyond
  55. The sun's bright path, where Atlas' shoulder bears
  56. Yon dome of heaven set thick with burning stars.
  57. Against his coming the far Caspian shores
  58. Break forth in oracles; the Maeotian land
  59. Trembles, and all the seven-fold mouths of Nile.