Produced by Thierry Alberto, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE ÆNEIDS OF VIRGIL DONE INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY WILLIAM MORRIS AUTHOR OF 'THE EARTHLY PARADISE' _THIRD IMPRESSION_ LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1900 THE ÆNEIDS OF VIRGIL. BOOK I. ARGUMENT. ÆNEAS AND HIS TROJANS BEING DRIVEN TO LIBYA BY A TEMPEST, HAVE GOOD WELCOME OF DIDO, QUEEN OF CARTHAGE. _Lo I am he who led the song through slender reed to cry,_ _And then, come forth from out the woods, the fields that are thereby_ _In woven verse I bade obey the hungry tillers' need:_ _Now I, who sang their merry toil, sing Mars and dreadful deed._ I sing of arms, I sing of him, who from the Trojan land Thrust forth by Fate, to Italy and that Lavinian strand First came: all tost about was he on earth and on the deep By heavenly might for Juno's wrath, that had no mind to sleep: And plenteous war he underwent ere he his town might frame And set his Gods in Latian earth, whence is the Latin name, And father-folk of Alba-town, and walls of mighty Rome. Say, Muse, what wound of godhead was whereby all this must come, How grieving, she, the Queen of Gods, a man so pious drave To win such toil, to welter on through such a troublous wave: 10 --Can anger in immortal minds abide so fierce and fell? There was a city of old time where Tyrian folk did dwell, Called Carthage, facing far away the shores of Italy And Tiber-mouth; fulfilled of wealth and fierce in arms was she, And men say Juno loved her well o'er every other land, Yea e'en o'er Samos: there were stored the weapons of her hand, And there her chariot: even then she cherished the intent To make her Lady of all Lands, if Fate might so be bent; Yet had she heard how such a stem from Trojan blood should grow, As, blooming fair, the Tyrian towers should one day overthrow, 20 That thence a folk, kings far and wide, most noble lords of fight, Should come for bane of Libyan land: such web the Parcæ dight. The Seed of Saturn, fearing this, and mindful how she erst For her beloved Argive walls by Troy the battle nursed-- --Nay neither had the cause of wrath nor all those hurts of old Failed from her mind: her inmost heart still sorely did enfold That grief of body set at nought in Paris' doomful deed, The hated race, and honour shed on heaven-rapt Ganymede-- So set on fire, that Trojan band o'er all the ocean tossed, Those gleanings from Achilles' rage, those few the Greeks had lost, 30 She drave far off the Latin Land: for many a year they stray Such wise as Fate would drive them on by every watery way. --Lo, what there was to heave aloft in fashioning of Rome!