Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. Smiling reply, the Sire of gods and men,
  2. with such a look as clears the skies of storm
  3. chastely his daughter kissed, and thus spake on:
  4. “Let Cytherea cast her fears away!
  5. Irrevocably blest the fortunes be
  6. of thee and thine. Nor shalt thou fail to see
  7. that City, and the proud predestined wall
  8. encompassing Lavinium. Thyself
  9. shall starward to the heights of heaven bear
  10. Aeneas the great-hearted. Nothing swerves
  11. my will once uttered. Since such carking cares
  12. consume thee, I this hour speak freely forth,
  13. and leaf by leaf the book of fate unfold.
  14. Thy son in Italy shall wage vast war
  15. and, quell its nations wild; his city-wall
  16. and sacred laws shall be a mighty bond
  17. about his gathered people. Summers three
  18. shall Latium call him king; and three times pass
  19. the winter o'er Rutulia's vanquished hills.
  20. His heir, Ascanius, now Iulus called
  21. (Ilus it was while Ilium's kingdom stood),
  22. full thirty months shall reign, then move the throne
  23. from the Lavinian citadel, and build
  24. for Alba Longa its well-bastioned wall.
  1. Here three full centuries shall Hector's race
  2. have kingly power; till a priestess queen,
  3. by Mars conceiving, her twin offspring bear;
  4. then Romulus, wolf-nursed and proudly clad
  5. in tawny wolf-skin mantle, shall receive
  6. the sceptre of his race. He shall uprear
  7. and on his Romans his own name bestow.
  8. To these I give no bounded times or power,
  9. but empire without end. Yea, even my Queen,
  10. Juno, who now chastiseth land and sea
  11. with her dread frown, will find a wiser way,
  12. and at my sovereign side protect and bless
  13. the Romans, masters of the whole round world,
  14. who, clad in peaceful toga, judge mankind.
  15. Such my decree! In lapse of seasons due,
  16. the heirs of Ilium's kings shall bind in chains
  17. Mycenae's glory and Achilles' towers,
  18. and over prostrate Argos sit supreme.
  19. Of Trojan stock illustriously sprung,
  20. lo, Caesar comes! whose power the ocean bounds,
  21. whose fame, the skies. He shall receive the name
  22. Iulus nobly bore, great Julius, he.
  23. Him to the skies, in Orient trophies dress,
  24. thou shalt with smiles receive; and he, like us,
  25. shall hear at his own shrines the suppliant vow.
  26. Then will the world grow mild; the battle-sound
  27. will be forgot; for olden Honor then,
  28. with spotless Vesta, and the brothers twain,
  29. Remus and Romulus, at strife no more,
  30. will publish sacred laws. The dreadful gates
  31. whence issueth war, shall with close-jointed steel
  32. be barred impregnably; and prisoned there
  33. the heaven-offending Fury, throned on swords,
  34. and fettered by a hundred brazen chains,
  35. shall belch vain curses from his lips of gore.”