The Aeneid

Valiant of tongue, though his hand was cold for battle.

How each man weaves

his web will bring him to glory or to grief.

The picture of filial love touched his soul.

Why this shameful collapse before it all begins?

Why tremble so before the trumpet blares?

O mind of man, knowing not fate or coming doom or how to keep bounds when uplifted with favoring fortune!

Turnus, what no god

Would dare to promise you—your heart's desire—

The course of time has of itself brought on.

Such hopes I had indeed, while Heaven was kind.

Many an ill has time repaired, and the shifting toil of changing years; many a man has Fortune, fitful visitant, mocked, then once more set up upon firm ground.

And dying, dreams of his sweet Argos.

Within that single heart surges mighty shame, and madness mingled with grief, and love stung by fury, and the consciousness of worth.

Don't let your corrosive grief

devour you in silence.

Thinking deeply, and pitying deep in his soul the injustice they suffer.

Here is our home, here is our fatherland.

And fired his soul with love of fame that was to be.

He, like an unmoved ocean cliff, resists.

Yet love of country shall prevail, and boundless passion for renown.

And here are troops of men

who had suffered wounds, fighting to save their country,

and those who had been pure priests while still alive,

and the faithful poets whose songs were fit for Phoebus;

those who enriched our lives with the newfound arts they forged

and those we remember well for the good they did mankind.

Buried deep in sleep,

peaceful, sweet, like the peace of death itself.

No, my boys, no! Don't accustom your spirits to wars of such huge scope,

Don't use your strength and your vigour to disembowel your country!

Lust of the sword rages in him, the accursed frenzy of war.

Now aged, but a god's old age is hardy and green.

There lies my love, there lies my homeland now.

Now hither, now thither he swiftly throws his mind.

His will stands unmoved. The falling tears are futile.

Goddess born, whither the Fates, in their ebb and flow, draw us, let us follow; whatever befall, all fortune is to be o'ercome by bearing.

Nowhere is trust safe.

The faith vowed to the ashes of Sychaeus I have not kept.

The day is at hand which I shall keep (such, O gods, was your will) ever as a day of grief, ever as of honour.

He stands immovable by tears,

Nor tenderest words with pity hears.

Since Fortune's got the upper hand,

let's follow her where she calls and change course.

Deep in her breast lives the silent wound.

Just let me offer a consolation prize to a luckless man, a friend without a fault.

Just before the entrance, even within the very jaws of Hell, Grief and avenging Cares have made their bed; there pale Diseases dwell, and sad Age, and Fear, and ill-counselling Famine, and loathly Want, shapes terrible to view; and Death and Distress; next, Death's own brother Sleep.

She calls it a marriage,

using the word to cloak her sense of guilt.

The fatal dart

Sticks in her side, and rankles in her heart.

Hug the shore... let others keep to the deep!

What dreams thrill me with fears?

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.

Heartbreaking things I saw with my own eyes

And was myself a part of.

All things were full of horror and affright,

And dreadful even the silence of the night.

Three times I tried to fling my arms around her neck,

three times I embraced—nothing... her phantom

sifting through my fingers,

light as wind, quick as a dream in flight.

Sometimes the spark of generous fire

Revives in vanquished hearts again.

Fortune favours our first effort.

Hence would he sow dark rumours in the crowd.

To these tears we grant life and pity him besides.

His looks, his words, they pierce her heart and cling—

no peace, no rest for her body, love will give her none.

Call it cunning or courage; who would ask in war?

Alas, it is wrong for man to rely on the gods for anything against their will!

He follows his father, but not with equal steps.

It was the hour when for weary mortals their first rest begins, and by grace of the gods steals over them most sweet.

Live on in your blessings, your destiny's been won!

But ours calls us on from one ordeal to the next.

If you have no use for humankind and mortal armor,

at least respect the gods. They know right from wrong.

If only Jupiter would give me back

The past years and the man I was...

Blessings on your young courage, boy; that's the way to the stars.

He said; and feeds his hungry heart

With shapes of unsubstantial art.

Learn fortitude and toil from me, my son,

Ache of true toil. Good fortune learn from others.

Nursing an undying wound deep in her heart.

Through various hazards and events we move.

Who knows?

Better times may come to those in pain.

So ran the speech. Burdened and sick at heart,

He feigned hope in his look, and inwardly

Contained his anguish.

Fate will find a way.

The attempts to heal enflame the fever more.

Do the gods light this fire in our hearts

or does each man's mad desire become his god?

Fortune favors the bold.

Go no further down the road of hatred.

There is no salvation in war.

Thus to their toils, in early summer, run

The clust'ring bees, and labour in the sun;

Led forth, in colonies, their buzzing race,

Or work the liquid sweets, and thicken to a mass.

The busy nation flies from flow'r to flow'r,

And hoards, in curious cells, the golden store;

A chosen troop before the gate attends,

To take the burdens, and relieve their friends;

Warm at the fragrant work, in bands, they drive

The drone, a lazy robber, from the hive.

Is it then so sad a thing to die?

Rage finds them arms.

But then, if they chance to see a man among them,

whose devotion and public service lend him weight,

they stand there, stock-still with their ears alert as

he rules their furor with his words and calms their passion.

Every man's last day is fixed.

Lifetimes are brief and not to be regained,

For all mankind. But by their deeds to make

Their fame last: that is labor for the brave.

Trojan and Tyrian I shall treat with no distinction.

I cannot bear a mother's tears.

Each one his own hope.

Fear is the proof of a degenerate mind.

There are twin Gates of Sleep.

One, they say, is called the Gate of Horn

and it offers easy passage to all true shades.

The other glistens with ivory, radiant, flawless,

but through it the dead send false dreams up toward the sky.

Each of us bears his own Hell.

Now, Aeneas, is the hour for courage, now for a dauntless heart!

Be warned; learn ye to be just and not to slight the gods!

Yield not to misfortunes, but advance all the more boldly against them.

Cease to think that the decrees of the gods can be changed by prayers.

I feel once more the scars of the old flame.

A greater history opens before my eyes,

A greater task awaits me.

Do not trust the horse, Trojans.

Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts.

They can because they think they can.

Let someone arise from my bones as an Avenger.

Roman, remember by your strength to rule

Earth's people—for your arts are to be these:

To pacify, to impose the rule of law,

To spare the conquered, battle down the proud.

The gates of hell are open night and day;

Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:

But to return, and view the cheerful skies,

In this the task and mighty labor lies.

I shall never deny what you deserve, my queen,

never regret my memories of Dido, not while I

can recall myself and draw the breath of life.

How changed from what he once was!

Fear gave wings to his feet.

I have lived

and journeyed through the course assigned by fortune.

And now my Shade will pass, illustrious,

beneath the earth.

Amid the friendly silence of the peaceful moon.

Who could tell such things and still refrain from tears?

This man sold his country for gold.

Sorrow too deep to tell, your majesty,

You order me to feel and tell once more.

I sail for Italy not of my own free will.

The only hope for the doomed is no hope at all.

Rumor, swiftest of all the evils in the world.

Can such resentment hold the minds of gods?

Your honor, your name, your praise will live forever.

No stranger to trouble myself I am learning to care for the unhappy.

Endure, and keep yourselves for days of happiness.

Even here, merit will have its true reward...

even here, the world is a world of tears

and the burdens of mortality touch the heart.

So hard and huge a task it was to found the Roman people.

Some day, perhaps, remembering even this

Will be a pleasure.

Friends and companions,

Have we not known hard hours before this?

My men, who have endured still greater dangers,

God will grant us an end to these as well.

The leader of the enterprise a woman.

Following what is decreed by fate.

Vivendo vici mea fata.

Audentis fortuna iuvat.

Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.

Mens sibi conscia recti.

Bella, horrida bella.

Consanguineus Leti Sopor.

Superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est.

Furor arma ministrat.

Quid non mortalia pectora cogis,

Auri sacra fames?

Quis fallere possit amantem?

Improbe Amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis!