Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. Next after these, conspicuous o'er the plain,
  2. with palm-crowned chariot and victorious steeds,
  3. rode forth well-moulded Aventinus, sprung
  4. from shapely Hercules; upon the shield
  5. his blazon was a hundred snakes, and showed
  6. his father's hydra-cincture serpentine;
  7. him deep in Aventine's most secret grove
  8. the priestess Rhea bore—a mortal maid
  9. clasped in a god's embrace the wondrous day
  10. when, flushed with conquest of huge Geryon,
  11. the lord of Tiryns to Laurentum drove,
  12. and washed in Tiber's wave th' Iberian kine.
  13. His followers brandished pointed pikes and staves,
  14. or smooth Sabellian bodkin tipped with steel;
  15. but he, afoot, swung round him as he strode
  16. a monstrous lion-skin, its bristling mane
  17. and white teeth crowning his ferocious brow:
  18. for garbed as Hercules he sought his King.