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
And thou, too, in thy death, Caieta,[238] nurse of Æneas, hast
left to our coast the heritage of an ever-living fame; still in
this later day thy glory hovers over thy resting-place, and
a name on Hesperia’s mighty seaboard is thy monument,
if that be renown. So when good Æneas had paid the last 5
dues and raised a funeral mound, and had waited for the
calming of the deep, he spreads sail and leaves the harbour.
Nightward the breezes blow, nor does the fair Moon scorn
to show the way: her rippling light makes the sea shine
again. The next land they skirt is the coast of Circe’s 10
realm, where in queenly state the daughter of the Sun
thrills her forest fastness with never-ending song, and in
her haughty mansion burns fragrant cedar to give light by
night, as she draws her shrill comb over the delicate warp.
From the shore they heard the growling noise of lions in 15
wrath, disdaining their bonds and roaring in midnight
hour, bristly boars and caged bears venting their rage, and
shapes of huge wolves fiercely howling: things which
Circe, fell goddess, had transformed by her magic drugs
from the mien of man to a beast’s visage and a beast’s hide. 20
So, lest the pious race of Troy should suffer such monstrous
change, were they to seek harbour there or approach the
perilous shore, Neptune filled their sails with favouring
breezes, sped their flight along, and wafted them past the
seething waters. 25
The sea was just reddening in the dawn, and Aurora was
shining down from heaven’s height in saffron robe and rosy
car, when all at once the winds were laid, and every breath
sank in sudden sleep, and the oars pull slowly against the
smooth unmoving wave. In the same moment Æneas, 30
looking out from the sea, beholds a mighty forest. Among
the trees Tiber, that beauteous river, with his gulfy rapids
and the burden of his yellow sand, breaks into the main.
Around and above, birds of all plumes, the constant tenants
of bank and stream, were lulling the air with their notes and
flying among the woods. He bids his comrades turn aside 5
and set their prows landward, and enters with joy the
river’s shadowed bed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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