Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. Aeneas to Evander speaking fair,
  2. these words essayed: “O best of Grecian-born!
  3. whom Fortune's power now bids me seek and sue,
  4. lifting this olive-branch with fillets bound,
  5. I have not feared thee, though I know thou art
  6. a Greek, and an Arcadian king, allied
  7. to the two sons of Atreus. For behold,
  8. my conscious worth, great oracles from Heaven,
  9. the kinship of our sires, thy own renown
  10. spread through the world—all knit my cause with thine,
  11. all make me glad my fates have so decreed.
  12. The sire and builder of the Trojan town
  13. was Dardanus; but he, Electra's child,
  14. came over sea to Teucria; the sire
  15. of fair Electra was great Atlas, he
  16. whose shoulder carries the vast orb of heaven.
  17. But thy progenitor was Mercury,
  18. and him conceiving, Maia, that white maid,
  19. on hoar Cyllene's frosty summit bore.
  20. But Maia's sire, if aught of truth be told,
  21. was Atlas also, Atlas who sustains
  22. the weight of starry skies. Thus both our tribes
  23. are one divided stem. Secure in this,
  24. no envoys have I sent, nor tried thy mind
  25. with artful first approaches, but myself,
  26. risking my person and my life, have come
  27. a suppliant here. For both on me and thee
  28. the house of Daunus hurls insulting war.
  29. If us they quell, they doubt not to obtain
  30. lordship of all Hesperia, and subdue
  31. alike the northern and the southern sea.
  32. Accept good faith, and give! Behold, our hearts
  33. quail not in battle; souls of fire are we,
  34. and warriors proved in many an action brave.”