Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. What god, O Muses, saved the Trojans then
  2. from wrathful flame? Who shielded then the fleet,
  3. I pray you tell, from bursting storm of fire?
  4. From hoary eld the tale, but its renown
  5. sings on forever. When Aeneas first
  6. on Phrygian Ida hewed the sacred wood
  7. for rib and spar, and soon would put to sea,
  8. that mighty mother of the gods, they say,
  9. the Berecynthian goddess, thus to Jove
  10. addressed her plea: “Grant, O my son, a boon,
  11. which thy dear mother asks, who aided thee
  12. to quell Olympian war. A grove I have
  13. of sacred pine, long-loved from year to year.
  14. On lofty hill it grew, and thither came
  15. my worshippers with gifts, in secret gloom
  16. of pine-trees dark and shadowing maple-boughs.;
  17. these on the Dardan warrior at his need
  18. I, not unwilling, for his fleet bestowed.
  19. But I have fears. O, Iet a parent's prayer
  20. in this prevail, and bid my care begone!
  21. Let not rude voyages nor the shock of storm
  22. my ships subdue, but let their sacred birth
  23. on my charmed hills their strength and safety be!”
  24. Then spake her son, who guides the wheeling spheres:
  25. “Wouldst thou, my mother, strive to oversway
  26. the course of Fate? What means this prayer of thine?
  27. Can it be granted ships of mortal mould
  28. to wear immortal being? Wouldst thou see
  29. Aeneas pass undoubting and secure
  30. through doubtful strait and peril? On what god
  31. was e'er such power bestowed? Yet will I grant
  32. a different boon. Whatever ships shall find
  33. a safe Ausonian haven, and convey
  34. safe through the seas to yon Laurentian plain
  35. the Dardan King, from such I will remove
  36. their perishable shapes, and bid them be
  37. sea-nymphs divine, like Nereus' daughters fair,
  38. Doto and Galatea, whose white breasts
  39. divide the foaming wave.” He said, and swore
  40. by his Tartarean brother's mournful stream,
  41. the pitch-black floods and dark engulfing shore
  42. of Styx; then great Jove bowed his head, and all
  43. Olympus quaked at his consenting brow.