Virgil

Here a whole crowd came streaming to the banks,

Mothers and men, the forms of life all spent

Of heroes great in valor, boys and girls

Unmarried, and young sons laid on the pyre

Before their parents' eyes.

Tragic Dido,

so, was the story true that came my way?

I heard that you were dead...

you took the final measure with a sword.

Oh, dear god, was it I who caused your death?

I swear by the stars, by the Powers on high, whatever

faith one swears by here in the depths of earth,

I left your shores, my Queen, against my will.

As when, in a bronze basin, the quivering water reflects

A sunbeam or the round of the radiant moon, a light

Goes glancing hither and thither, now shooting up from the water

And jigging upon the fretted ceiling over your head.

All these images on Vulcan's shield

His mother's gift, were wonders to Aeneas

Knowing nothing of the events themselves

He felt joy in their pictures, taking up

Upon his shoulder all the destined acts

And fame of his descendants.

All the rest, once they have turned the wheel of time

for a thousand years: God calls them forth to the Lethe,

great armies of souls, their memories blank so that

they may revisit the overarching world once more

and begin to long to return to bodies yet again.

Condemned to death on a false charge.

He, like an unmoved ocean cliff, resists.

In my hand I bear war and death.

Always collecting

new booty and glad to live off their stealing.

Remember Roman, these will be your arts:

to teach the ways of peace to those you conquer,

to spare defeated peoples, tame the proud.

Full in the midst of this infernal road,

An elm displays her dusky arms abroad;

The god of sleep there hides his heavy head

And empty dreams on every leaf are spread.

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