Virgil

The leader of the enterprise a woman.

Following what is decreed by fate.

But when you hold him in the grasp of hands and fetters, then will manifold forms baffle you, and figures of wild beasts. For of a sudden he will become a bristly boar, a deadly tiger, a scaly serpent, or a lioness with tawny neck; or he will give forth the fierce roar of flame, and thus slip from his fetters, or he will melt into fleeting water and be gone.

And now farewell! Involved in shades of night,

For ever I am ravished from thy sight.

In vain I reach my feeble hands to join

In sweet embraces—ah! no longer thine!

And lay down their lives in the wound.

She weeps all night long, ... filling the region round with sad laments.

For God, they say, pervades all things, earth and sea's expanse and heaven's depth.

The immortal line in sure succession reigns,

The fortune of the family remains,

And grandsires' grandsires the long list contains.

But as for me—first above all, may the sweet Muses whose holy emblems, under the spell of a mighty love, I bear, take me to themselves, and show me heaven's pathways, the stars, the sun's many lapses, the moon's many labours; whence come tremblings of the earth, the force to make deep seas swell and burst their barriers, then sink back upon themselves; why winter suns hasten so fast to dip in Ocean, or what delays clog the lingering nights.

His cares are eased with intervals of bliss;

His little children, climbing for a kiss,

Welcome their father's late return at night;

His faithful bed is crowned with chaste delight.

Let my delight be the country, and the running streams amid the dells—may I love the waters and the woods, though fame be lost.

And snorting rolls beneath his nostrils the gathered fire.