Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. Messapus came, steed-tamer, Neptune's son,
  2. by sword and fire invincible: this day,
  3. though mild his people and unschooled in war,
  4. he calls them to embattled lines, and draws
  5. no lingering sword. Fescennia musters there,
  6. Aequi Falisci, and what clans possess
  7. Soracte's heights, Flavinia's fruitful farms,
  8. Ciminian lake and mountain, and the groves
  9. about Capena. Rank on rank they move,
  10. loud singing of their chieftain's praise: as when
  11. a flock of snowy swans through clouded air
  12. return from feeding, and make tuneful cry
  13. from their long throats, while Asia's rivers hear,
  14. and lone Cayster's startled moorland rings:
  15. for hardly could the listening ear discern
  16. the war-cry of a mail-clad host; the sound
  17. was like shrill-calling birds, when home from sea
  18. their soaring flock moves shoreward like a cloud.
  1. Then, one of far-descended Sabine name,
  2. Clausus advanced, the captain of a host,
  3. and in himself an equal host he seemed;
  4. from his proud loins the high-born Claudian stem
  5. through Latium multiplies, since Roman power
  6. with Sabine first was wed. A cohort came
  7. from Amiternum and the olden wall
  8. of Cures, called Quirites even then;
  9. Eretum answered and Mutusca's hill
  10. with olives clad, Velinus' flowery field,
  11. nomentum's fortress, the grim precipice
  12. of Tetrica, Severus' upland fair,
  13. Casperia, Foruli, Himella's waves,
  14. Tiber and Fabaris, and wintry streams
  15. of Nursia; to the same proud muster sped
  16. Tuscan with Latin tribes, and loyal towns
  17. beside whose walls ill-omened Allia flows.
  18. As numerous they moved as rolling waves
  19. that stir smooth Libyan seas, when in cold floods
  20. sinks grim Orion's star; or like the throng
  21. of clustering wheat-tops in the summer sun,
  22. near Hermus or on Lycia's yellowing plain:
  23. shields clashed; their strong tramp smote the trembling ground.
  1. Now Agamemnon's kinsman, cruel foe
  2. to the mere name of Troy, Halaesus, yokes
  3. the horses of his car and summons forth
  4. a thousand savage clans at Turnus' call :
  5. rude men whose mattocks to the Massic hills
  6. bring Bacchus' bounty, or by graybeard sires
  7. sent from Auruncan upland and the mead
  8. of Sidicinum; out of Cales came
  9. its simple folk; and dwellers by the stream
  10. of many-shoaled Volturnus, close-allied
  11. with bold Saticulan or Oscan swains.
  12. Their arms are tapered javelins, which they wear
  13. bound by a coiling thong; a shield conceals
  14. the left side, and they fight with crooked swords.
  1. Nor shalt thou, Oebalus, depart unsung,
  2. whom minstrels say the nymph Sebethis bore
  3. to Telon, who in Capri was a king
  4. when old and gray; but that disdaining son
  5. quitted so small a seat, and conquering sway
  6. among Sarrastian folk and those wide plains
  7. watered by Sarnus' wave, became a king
  8. over Celenna, Rufrae, Batulum,
  9. and where among her apple-orchards rise
  10. Abella's walls. All these, as Teutons use,
  11. hurl a light javelin; for helm they wear
  12. stripped cork-tree bark; the crescent of their shields
  13. is gleaming bronze, and gleaming bronze the sword.
  1. Next Ufens, mountain-bred, from Nersae came
  2. to join the war; of goodly fame was he
  3. for prosperous arms: his Aequian people show
  4. no gentle mien, but scour the woods for prey,
  5. or, ever-armed, across the stubborn glebe
  6. compel the plough; though their chief pride and joy
  7. are rapine, violence, and plundered store.