Aeneas (Legendary character) -- Poetry; Epic poetry, Latin -- Translations into English
'Take then to heart and lay deep these words of mine. Since it may not
be that Ausonians and Teucrians join alliance, and your quarrel finds no
term, to-day, what fortune each wins, what hope each follows, be he
Trojan or Rutulian, I will hold in even poise; whether it be Italy's
fate or Trojan blundering and ill advice that holds the camp in leaguer.
Nor do I acquit the Rutulians. Each as he hath begun shall work out his
destiny. Jupiter is one and king over all; the fates will find their
way.' By his brother's infernal streams, by the banks of the pitchy
black-boiling chasm he signed assent, and made all Olympus quiver at his
nod. Here speaking ended: thereon Jupiter rises from his golden throne,
and the heavenly people surround and escort him to the doorway.
Meanwhile the Rutulians press round all the gates, dealing grim
slaughter and girdling the walls with flame. But the army of the
Aeneadae are held leaguered within their trenches, with no hope of
retreat. They stand helpless and disconsolate on their high towers, and
their thin ring girdles the walls,--Asius, son of Imbrasus, and
Thymoetes, son of Hicetaon, and the two Assaraci, and Castor, and old
Thymbris together in the front rank: by them Clarus and
[126-160]Themon, both full brothers to Sarpedon, out of high Lycia.
Acmon of Lyrnesus, great as his father Clytius, or his brother
Mnestheus, carries a stone, straining all his vast frame to the huge
mountain fragment. Emulously they keep their guard, these with javelins,
those with stones, and wield fire and fit arrows on the string. Amid
them he, Venus' fittest care, lo! the Dardanian boy, his graceful head
uncovered, shines even as a gem set in red gold on ornament of throat or
head, or even as gleaming ivory cunningly inlaid in boxwood or Orician
terebinth; his tresses lie spread over his milk-white neck, bound by a
flexible circlet of gold. Thee, too, Ismarus, proud nations saw aiming
wounds and arming thy shafts with poison,--thee, of house illustrious in
Maeonia, where the rich tilth is wrought by men's hands, and Pactolus
waters it with gold. There too was Mnestheus, exalted in fame as he who
erewhile had driven Turnus from the ramparts; and Capys, from whom is
drawn the name of the Campanian city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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