Virgil
Quotes
This one sold his country for gold.
With galloping tramp the horse-hoof shakes the crumbling plain.
Never having trained her woman's hands to Minerva's distaff or basket of wool.
They came to a land of joy, the green pleasaunces and happy seats of the Blissful Groves.
Behold how Marcellus advances, graced with the spoils of the chief he slew, and towers triumphant over all!
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.
Cease to dream that heaven's decrees may be turned aside by prayer.
Each of us must suffer his own demanding ghost.
Let men run war and peace: war is their work.
"Seek not to know," the ghost replied with tears,
"The sorrows of thy sons in future years.
This youth (the blissful vision of a day)
Shall just be shown on earth, and snatched away.
The gods too high had raised the Roman state:
Were but their gifts as permanent as great!
What groans of men shall fill the Martian field!
How fierce a blaze his flaming pile shall yield!
What funeral pomp shall floating Tiber see,
When, rising from his bed, he views the sad solemnity!
No youth shall equal hopes of glory give,
No youth afford so great a cause to grieve;
The Trojan honor, and the Roman boast,
Admired when living, and adored when lost!
Mirror of ancient faith in early youth!
Undaunted worth, inviolable truth!
No foe, unpunished, in the fighting field
Shall dare thee, foot to foot, with sword and shield;
Much less in arms oppose thy matchless force,
When thy sharp spurs shall urge thy foaming horse.
Ah! couldst thou break through fate's severe decree,
A new Marcellus shall arise in thee!"
About it hovered peoples and tribes unnumbered; even as when, in the meadows, in cloudless summertime, bees light on many-hued blossoms and stream round lustrous lilies and all the fields murmur with the humming.
Buried deep in sleep,
peaceful, sweet, like the peace of death itself.
