The Æneid of Virgil, Translated into English VerseVirgil
General
The Æneid of Virgil, Translated into English Verse
Virgil
Aeneas (Legendary character) -- Poetry; Epic poetry, Latin -- Translations into English
CV. Kindly AEneas cheers them, and with tears
Leaves to their King, then, parting, gives command
A lamb to slay to tempest, and three steers
To Eryx. So they loosen from the land.
He on the prow, a charger in his hand,
Flings forth the entrails, and outpours the wine,
And, crowned with olive chaplet, takes his stand.
Up-springs the favouring stern breeze, as in line
With emulous sweep of oars, they brush the level brine.
CVI. Then Venus, torn with anguish and desire,
Spake thus to Neptune, and her grief confessed:
"O Neptune, Juno's unrelenting ire,
The quenchless malice, that consumes her breast,
Constrains me thus to urge a suppliant's quest;
And stoop, with humbled majesty, to sue.
Her neither piety nor Jove's behest
Nor time, nor Fate can soften or subdue,
Still doth immortal hate the Phrygian race pursue.
CVII. "'Tis not enough their city to destroy,
And wear their remnant with remorseless pain,
Needs must she trample on the dust of Troy.
She best, forsooth, her fury can explain.
But thou,--thou know'st how on the Libyan main,--
Thine eyes beheld it from thy throne on high,--
Lately she stirred the tumult, and in vain
Armed with AEolian tempests, sea and sky
Mixed in rebellious wrath, thy sceptre to defy.
CVIII. "All this she ventured in thy realm; nay more,
Her rage hath filled the matrons, fired the fleet,
And left these crews upon an alien shore,
Reft of their friends, and baffled of retreat.
O spare this Trojan remnant, I entreat;
Safe in thy guidance let them sail the main,
And scatheless reach their promised walls, and greet
Laurentian Tiber and the Latian plain,
If what I ask be just, and so the Fates ordain."
CIX. Then spake the Monarch of the deep: "'Tis just
To look for safety to my realm, that gave
Thee birth; and well have I deserved thy trust,
Who oft have stilled the raging wind and wave;
Nor less on land have interposed, to save--
Xanthus and Simois I attest again--
Thy darling son, when back Achilles drave
Troy's breathless host, and rivers, choked with slain,
Groaned, ay, and Xanthus scarce could struggle to the main.
CX. "Then, as with adverse Gods and feebler power
He faced Pelides, in a cloud I caught
Thy favourite, albeit 'twas the hour
When, wroth with perjured Ilion, I sought
To raze the walls these very hands had wrought.
Fear not; unaltered doth my will remain.
Safe shall he be into this haven brought.
One, only one, for many shall be slain;
One in the deep thy son shall look for, but in vain."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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