The Æneids of Virgil, Done into English VerseVirgil
General
The Æneids of Virgil, Done into English Verse
Virgil
Aeneas (Legendary character) -- Poetry; Epic poetry, Latin -- Translations into English
But now Anchises' seed, all men being summoned in due wise,
Proclaims Cloanthus victor there by loud-voiced herald's shout,
And with green garland of the bay he does his brows about;
Then biddeth them to choose the gifts, for every ship three steers,
And wine, and every crew therewith great weight of silver bears.
And glorious gifts he adds withal to every duke of man:
A gold-wrought cloak the victor hath, about whose rim there ran 250
A plenteous double wavy stream of Meliboean shell,
And leafy Ida's kingly boy thereon was pictured well.
A-following up the fleeing hart with spear and running fleet;
Eager he seemed as one who pants; then him with hookèd feet
Jove's shield-bearer hath caught, and up with him from Ida flies,
And there the ancient masters stretch vain palms unto the skies,
While bark of staring hunting-hound beats fierce at upper air.
Then next for him who second place of might and valour bare
A mail-coat wove of polished rings with threefold wire of gold,
Which from Demoleos the King had stripped in days of old, 260
A conqueror then by Simoïs swift beneath high-builded Troy,
He giveth now that lord to have a safeguard and a joy;
Its many folds his serving-men, Phegeus and Sagaris,
Scarce bore on toiling shoulders joined, yet clad in nought but this
Swift ran Demoleos following on the Trojans disarrayed.
A third gift then he setteth forth, twin cauldrons brazen made,
And silver bowls with picturing fret and wrought with utter pain.
And now when all had gotten gifts, and glorying in their gain,
Were wending with the filleting of purple round the brow,
Lo, gotten from the cruel rock with craft and toil enow, 270
With missing oars, and all one board unhandy and foredone,
His ship inglorious and bemocked, Sergestus driveth on.
--As with an adder oft it haps caught on the highway's crown,
Aslant by brazen tire of wheel, or heavy pebble thrown
By wayfarer, hath left him torn and nigh unto his end:
Who writhings wrought for helpless flight through all his length doth send,
And one half fierce with burning eyes uprears a hissing crest,
The other half, with wounds all halt, still holding back the rest;
He knitteth him in many a knot and on himself doth slip.
--E'en such the crawling of the oars that drave the tarrying ship. 280
But they hoist sail on her, and so the harbour-mouth make shift
To win: and there Æneas gives Sergestus promised gift,
Blithe at his saving of the ship, and fellows brought aback:
A maid he hath, who not a whit of Pallas' art doth lack.
Of Crete she is, and Pholoë called, and twins at breast she bears.
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