Aeneas (Legendary character) -- Poetry; Epic poetry, Latin -- Translations into English
'O thou who dost sway mortal and immortal things with eternal command
and the terror of thy thunderbolt, how can my Aeneas have transgressed
so grievously against thee? how his Trojans? on whom, after so many
deaths outgone, all the world is barred for Italy's sake. From them
sometime in the rolling years the Romans were to arise indeed; from them
were to be rulers who, renewing the blood of Teucer, should hold sea and
land in universal lordship. This thou didst promise: why, O father, is
thy decree reversed? This was my solace for the wretched ruin of sunken
Troy, doom balanced against doom. Now so many woes are spent, and the
same fortune still pursues them; Lord and King, what limit dost thou set
to their agony? Antenor could elude the encircling Achaeans, could
thread in safety the Illyrian bays and inmost realms of the Liburnians,
could climb Timavus' source, whence through nine mouths pours the
bursting tide amid dreary moans of the mountain, and covers the fields
with hoarse waters. Yet here did he set Patavium town, a dwelling-place
for his Teucrians, gave his name to a nation and hung up the armour of
Troy; now settled in peace, he rests and is in quiet. We, thy children,
we whom thou beckonest to the heights of heaven, our fleet miserably
cast away for a single enemy's anger, are betrayed and severed far from
the Italian coasts. Is this the reward of goodness? Is it thus thou dost
restore our throne?'
Smiling on her with that look which clears sky and [255-289]storms, the
parent of men and gods lightly kissed his daughter's lips; then answered
thus:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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