Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. While o'er the battle-field thus doubtful swung
  2. the scales of war, the Fury (to her task
  3. now equal proven) having dyed the day
  4. a deep-ensanguined hue, and opened fight
  5. with death and slaughter, made no tarrying
  6. within Hesperia, but skyward soared,
  7. and, Ioud in triumph, insolently thus
  8. to Juno called: “See, at thy will, their strife
  9. full-blown to war and woe! Could even thyself
  10. command them now to truce and amity?
  11. But I, that with Ausonia's blood befoul
  12. their Trojan hands, yet more can do, if thou
  13. shift not thy purpose. For with dire alarms
  14. I will awake the bordering states to war
  15. enkindling in their souls the frenzied lust
  16. the war-god breathes; till from th' horizon round
  17. the reinforcement pours—I scattering seeds
  18. of carnage through the land.” In answer spoke
  19. juno: “Enough of artifice and fear!
  20. Thy provocation works. Now have they joined
  21. in close and deadly combat, and warm blood
  22. those sudden-leaping swords incarnadines,
  23. which chance put in their hands. Such nuptial joys,
  24. such feast of wedlock, let the famous son
  25. of Venus with the King Latinus share!
  26. But yon Olympian Sire and King no more
  27. permits thee freely in our skies to roam.
  28. Go, quit the field! Myself will take control
  29. of hazards and of labors yet to be.”
  30. Thus Saturn's daughter spoke. Alecto then,
  31. unfolding far her hissing, viperous wings,
  32. turned toward her Stygian home, and took farewell
  33. of upper air. Deep in Italia lies
  34. a region mountain-girded, widely famed,
  35. and known in olden songs from land to land:
  36. the valley of Amsanctus; deep, dark shades
  37. enclose it between forest-walls, whereby
  38. through thunderous stony channel serpentines
  39. a roaring fall. Here in a monstrous cave
  40. are breathing-holes of hell, a vast abyss
  41. where Acheron opes wide its noisome jaws:
  42. in this Alecto plunged, concealing so
  43. her execrable godhead, while the air
  44. of earth and heaven felt the curse removed.