Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. Large and majestical the castle rose:
  2. a hundred columns lifted it in air
  3. upon the city's crown—the royal keep
  4. of Picus of Laurentum; round it lay
  5. deep, gloomy woods by olden worship blest.
  6. Here kings took sceptre and the fasces proud
  7. with omens fair; the selfsame sacred place
  8. was senate-house and temple; here was found
  9. a hall for hallowed feasting, where a ram
  10. was offered up, and at long banquet-boards
  11. the nation's fathers sat in due array.
  12. Here ranged ancestral statues roughly hewn
  13. of ancient cedar-wood: King Italus;
  14. Father Sabinus, planter of the vine,
  15. a curving sickle in his sculptured hand;
  16. gray-bearded Saturn; and the double brow
  17. of Janus' head; and other sires and kings
  18. were wardens of the door, with many a chief
  19. wounded in battle for his native land.
  20. Trophies of arms in goodly order hung
  21. along the columns: chariots of war
  22. from foeman taken, axes of round blade,
  23. plumed helmets, bolts and barriers of steel
  24. from city-gates, shields, spears, and beaks of bronze
  25. from captured galleys by the conqueror torn.
  26. Here, wielding his Quirinal augur-staff,
  27. girt in scant shift, and bearing on his left
  28. the sacred oval shield, appeared enthroned
  29. Picus, breaker of horses, whom his bride,
  30. enamoured Circe, smote with golden wand,
  31. and, raining o'er him potent poison-dew,
  32. changed to a bird of pied and dappled wings.