Recently added

More lovely virtue, in a lovely form.

Her torments multiply, over and over her passion

surges back into heaving waves of rage.

You're running away—from me? Oh, I pray you

by these tears, by the faith in your right hand—

what else have I left myself in all my pain?—

by our wedding vows, the marriage we began,

if I deserve some decency from you now,

if anything mine has ever won your heart,

pity a great house about to fall, I pray you,

if prayers have any place—reject this scheme of yours!

You trusted—oh, Palinurus—

far too much to a calm sky and sea.

Your naked corpse will lie on an unknown shore.

None of the trials you tell of, virgin,

is strange or unexpected: all of these

I have foreseen and journeyed in my thought.

I pray that the earth gape deep enough to take me down

or the almighty Father blast me with one bolt to the shades,

the pale, glimmering shades in hell, the pit of night,

before I dishonor you, my conscience, break your laws.

He's carried my love away, the man who wed me first—

may he hold it tight, safeguard it in his grave.

though my mind shudders to remember, and has recoiled in grief, I will begin.

He lacks not much that lacks a grave.

Purple light of youth.

May the gods—

And surely there are powers that care for goodness,

Surely somewhere justice counts—may they

And your own consciousness of acting well

Reward you as they should.

So come, dear father, climb up onto my shoulders!

I will carry you on my back. This labor of love

will never wear me down. Whatever falls to us now,

we both will share one peril, one path to safety.

Little Iulus, walk beside me, and you, my wife,

follow me at a distance, in my footsteps.

The queen, for her part, all that evening ached

With longing that her heart's blood fed, a wound

Or inward fire eating her away.