The Æneid of Virgil translated into English prose

When Rome, torn and bleeding from a century of civil wars, turned to that wise judge of men, the second Cæsar, and acquiesced as, through carefully selected ministers, he gather...

“Down falls Euryalus in death; over his beauteous limbs gushes the blood, and his powerless neck sinks on his shoulders; as when a purple flower, severed by the plough, pines in...

through the influence of Venus, who else had feared Carthaginian hostility to her dear Trojans. Juno thinks to thwart the fates and Jove’s will that Æneas should create the Roma...

So far, with the exception of Book two, which recorded the fall and sack of Troy, a theme omitted by Homer, Virgil has recorded the Odyssey or wanderings of his hero Æneas. Now...

Arms and the man I sing,[1] who at the first from Troy’s[2] shores the exile of destiny, won his way to Italy and her Latian[3] coast—a man much buffeted on land and on the deep...

“Too cruel to be told, great queen, is the sorrow you bid me revive—how the power of Troy and its empire met with piteous overthrow from the Danaans—the 5 heartrending sights wh...

“After that it had seemed well to the powers above to overthrow Asia’s fortunes and Priam’s guiltless nation; after that Ilion fell headlong from its pride, and Troy, which Nept...

But the queen, pierced long since by love’s cruel shaft, is feeding the wound with her life-blood, and wasting under a hidden fire. Many times the hero’s own worth comes back to...

Æneas, meantime, was well on his road, holding with set purpose on the watery way, and cutting through billows gloomed by the North wind, with eyes ever and anon turned back to...

So saying and weeping, he gives rope to his fleet, and in due time is wafted smoothly to Cumæ’s shores of Eubœan fame. They turn their prows seaward: then the anchor with gripin...

And thou, too, in thy death, Caieta,[238] nurse of Æneas, hast left to our coast the heritage of an ever-living fame; still in this later day thy glory hovers over thy resting-p...

Soon as Turnus set high on Laurentum’s tower the ensign of war, and the horns clanged forth their harsh music, soon as he shook the reins in the mouth of his fiery steeds, and c...

While these things are in progress far away, Juno, Saturn’s daughter, has sent down Iris from above on an errand to Turnus the bold. It chanced that then Turnus was sitting in t...

Meantime the palace of strong Olympus is thrown open, and the sire of gods and monarch of men summons a council to the starry chamber, whence, throned on high, he looks down on...

Meanwhile, the Goddess of Dawn has risen and left the ocean. Æneas, though duty presses to find leisure for interring his friends, and his mind is still wildered by the scene of...

When Turnus sees that the War-god’s enmity has broken the spirit of Latium, that men are beginning to claim his promise, and make him the mark of their eyes, he bursts at once i...

“Tell me, O muse, of that sagacious man Who, having overthrown the sacred town Of Ilium, wandered far and visited The capitals of many nations, learned The customs of their dwel...

[124] 27:18. =Laocoon.= A priest of Apollo appointed to act as priest of Neptune. The famous group of Laocoon and his two sons in the coils of the twin serpents, of the Pergamen...

[141] 51:19. =Lycurgus.= An early king of Thrace who stoutly opposed the introduction of the rites of Bacchus into his realm, was blinded and afterward destroyed by Jupiter. The...

This portion of the _Æneid_ was written when the memory of Antony and Cleopatra was still fresh, and many traits of royal, imperious Dido seem suggestive of the Egyptian queen....

Æneas sees the flames of Dido’s pyre and guesses their meaning. In Sicily, he institutes funeral games to Anchises. Compare funeral games of Patroclus in 23d book of _Iliad_. Th...

Visit of Æneas to Anchises in the world of the dead. Much of the philosophy is Stoic pantheism. The theory of the vision appears to include the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsyc...

[203] 122:11. =Sibyl.= Through the Cumæan Sibyl, Deïphobe, as the guide of Æneas through the lower world, Virgil exalts the use of the Sibylline Books in the Roman religion. It...

[240] 151:14. =Tyrrhenian.= The Tyrrheni were a people of Asia who had settled in Etruria, a district north of Italy. Hence used synonymously for Etrurian, Tuscan—Italian. Œnotr...

[253] 182:8. =Geryon.= A giant monster of Gades (Cadiz) in Spain, the keeper of beautiful cattle. He was slain by Hercules, who took the cattle across the Alps to the valley of...

“Soul of mine, pretty one, flitting one, Guest and partner of my clay, Whither wilt thou hie away,— Pallid one, rigid one, naked one— Never to play again, never to play?”