Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. Such was his word, but vexed with grief and care,
  2. feigned hopes upon his forehead firm he wore,
  3. and locked within his heart a hero's pain.
  4. Now round the welcome trophies of his chase
  5. they gather for a feast. Some flay the ribs
  6. and bare the flesh below; some slice with knives,
  7. and on keen prongs the quivering strips impale,
  8. place cauldrons on the shore, and fan the fires.
  9. Then, stretched at ease on couch of simple green,
  10. they rally their lost powers, and feast them well
  11. on seasoned wine and succulent haunch of game.
  12. But hunger banished and the banquet done,
  13. in long discourse of their lost mates they tell,
  14. 'twixt hopes and fears divided; for who knows
  15. whether the lost ones live, or strive with death,
  16. or heed no more whatever voice may call?
  17. Chiefly Aeneas now bewails his friends,
  18. Orontes brave and fallen Amycus,
  19. or mourns with grief untold the untimely doom
  20. of bold young Gyas and Cloanthus bold.
  1. After these things were past, exalted Jove,
  2. from his ethereal sky surveying clear
  3. the seas all winged with sails, lands widely spread,
  4. and nations populous from shore to shore,
  5. paused on the peak of heaven, and fixed his gaze
  6. on Libya. But while he anxious mused,
  7. near him, her radiant eyes all dim with tears,
  8. nor smiling any more, Venus approached,
  9. and thus complained: “O thou who dost control
  10. things human and divine by changeless laws,
  11. enthroned in awful thunder! What huge wrong
  12. could my Aeneas and his Trojans few
  13. achieve against thy power? For they have borne
  14. unnumbered deaths, and, failing Italy,
  15. the gates of all the world against them close.
  16. Hast thou not given us thy covenant
  17. that hence the Romans when the rolling years
  18. have come full cycle, shall arise to power
  19. from Troy's regenerate seed, and rule supreme
  20. the unresisted lords of land and sea?
  21. O Sire, what swerves thy will? How oft have I
  22. in Troy's most lamentable wreck and woe
  23. consoled my heart with this, and balanced oft
  24. our destined good against our destined ill!
  25. But the same stormful fortune still pursues
  26. my band of heroes on their perilous way.
  27. When shall these labors cease, O glorious King?
  28. Antenor, though th' Achaeans pressed him sore,
  29. found his way forth, and entered unassailed
  30. Illyria's haven, and the guarded land
  31. of the Liburni. Straight up stream he sailed
  32. where like a swollen sea Timavus pours
  33. a nine-fold flood from roaring mountain gorge,
  34. and whelms with voiceful wave the fields below.
  35. He built Patavium there, and fixed abodes
  36. for Troy's far-exiled sons; he gave a name
  37. to a new land and race; the Trojan arms
  38. were hung on temple walls; and, to this day,
  39. lying in perfect peace, the hero sleeps.
  40. But we of thine own seed, to whom thou dost
  41. a station in the arch of heaven assign,
  42. behold our navy vilely wrecked, because
  43. a single god is angry; we endure
  44. this treachery and violence, whereby
  45. wide seas divide us from th' Hesperian shore.
  46. Is this what piety receives? Or thus
  47. doth Heaven's decree restore our fallen thrones?”