The Æneid of Virgil translated into English proseVirgil
General
The Æneid of Virgil translated into English prose
Virgil
Aeneas (Legendary character); Epic poetry, Latin -- Translations into English; Legends -- Rome
of a thousand years, Heaven summons to the stream of 35
Lethe, a mighty concourse, to the end that with memory
effaced they may return to the vault of the sky, and learn
to wish for a new union with the body.”
Anchises ended: he draws his son and the Sibyl with
him into the midst of the assemblage, the heart of that
buzzing crowd, and mounts an eminence, whence he
might see face to face the whole of the long procession,
and learn each comer’s looks. 5
“Now, then, for the glories of the Dardan race from
this time onward, the posterity reserved for you in the
Italian line, noble spirits, the ordained heirs of our proud
name: of these I will tell you, and inform you of your
destiny. 10
“He whom you see there, the youth leaning on the
pointless spear, his lot is to fill the next place in light:
he will be first to rise to upper day, born from the admixture
of Italian blood, Silvius, that great Alban name,
your latest offspring, whom in your old age at set of life 15
your spouse Lavinia will bear you in the woods, himself
a king and the father of kings to be: from him it is that
our race shall rule over Alba the Long. Next comes
mighty Procas, the pride of the people of Troy, and
Capys, and Numitor, and a second bearer of your name, 20
Silvius Æneas, himself renowned alike for piety and for
valour, if ever he should come to the throne of Alba.
What glorious youths! look what strength they carry in
their port, while their brows are shaded by the civic oak!
These shall uprear for you, high on the mountains, Nomentum, 25
and Gabii, and Fidenæ’s town, and the towers
of Collatia, Pometii and Inuus’ camp, and Bola, and
Cora; names which shall one day be named: now they
are mere nameless lands. Romulus, too, the child of
Mars, shall come along with his grandsire. Romulus, 30
whom a mother, bearing Ilium’s name, shall produce
from the blood of Assaracus. See you the two plumes
standing on his crest, how his sire marks him even now
for the upper world by his own token of honour? Yes,
my son, it is by his auspices that our glorious Rome shall 35
extend her empire to earth’s end, her ambition to the
skies, and embrace seven hills with the wall of a single
city, blest parent of a warrior brood: even as the mighty
Berecyntian[227] mother rides tower-crowned through the
towns of Phrygia, proud of the gods that have sprung
from her, a hundred grand-children at her knee, all dwellers
in heaven, all lords of the lofty sky. Hither now turn
your two rays of vision: look at this family, at Romans 5
of your own. Here is Cæsar: here the whole progeny of
Iulus, as it will pass one day under heaven’s mighty cope.
This, this is he, the man promised to you so often, Augustus
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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