by Virgil
“What then shall end it, O my wife? what deed is left thine hand?
That Heaven shall gain Æneas yet, a Godhead of the land,
That Fate shall bear him to the stars thou know’st and hast allowed:
What dost thou then, or hoping what hang’st thou in chilly cloud?
What! was it right that mortal wound a God’s own flesh should wrong?
Right to give Turnus — but for thee how was Juturna strong? —
The sword he lost? or vanquished men, to give their might increase?
I prithee yield unto my prayers, and from thy troubling cease.
Let not thine hushed grief eat thine heart, or bitter words of care
So often from thy sweetest mouth the soul within me wear.
The goal is reached: thou hast availed o’er earth and sea to drive
The Trojan men; to strike the spark of wicked war alive;
To foul their house, and woe and grief mid wedding-feast to bear,
And now I bid thee hold thine hand.”
Thuswise said Jupiter,
And with a downcast countenance spake that Satumian Queen:
“Well have I known, great Jupiter, all that thy will hath been,
And Turnus and the worldly land loth have I left alone,
Else nowise should’st thou see me bear, sole on this airy throne,
Things meet and unmeet: flame-begirt the war-ranks would I gain,
And drag the host of Trojans on to battle and their bane.
Juturna! — yes, I pitied her, and bade her help to bear
Unto her brother; good, methought, for life great things to dare;
But nought I bade her to the shaft or bending of the bow,
This swear I by the ruthless well, the Stygian overflow,
The only holy thing there is that weighs on Godhead’s oath.
And now indeed I yield the place, and leave the fight I loathe.
But one thing yet I ask of thee, held in no fateful yoke;
For Latium’s sake I pray therefore, and glory of thy folk:
When they at last — so be it now! — pledge peace mid bridal kind,
When they at last join law to law, and loving treaty bind,
Let them not change their ancient name, those earth-born Latin men,
Nor turn them into Trojan folk, or call them Teucrians then:
Let not that manfolk shift their tongue, or cast their garb aside;
Let Latium and the Alban kings through many an age abide,
And cherish thou the Roman stem with worth of Italy:
Troy-town is dead: Troy and its name for ever let them die!”
The Fashioner of men and things spake, smiling in her face:
“Yea, Jove’s own sister; second branch forsooth, of Saturn’s race!
Such are the mighty floods of wrath thou rollestin thy breast.
But this thine anger born for nought, I prithee let it rest:
I give thine asking; conquered now I yield me, and am glad:
The Ausonian men shall keep the tongue and ways their fathers had,
And as their name is shall it be: only in body blent
Amidst them shall the Teucrians sink; from me shall rites be sent,
And holy things, and they shall be all Latins of one tongue.
Hence shalt thou see a blended race from blood Ausonian sprung,
Whose godliness shall outgo men, outgo the Gods above;
Nor any folk of all the world so well thy worth shall love.”
So gladdened Juno’s heart was turned, and yea-saying she bowed,
And so departed from the sky and left her watching-cloud.
Another thing the Father now within him turneth o’er,
What wise Juturna he shall part from her lost brother’s war:
Two horrors are there that are called the Dreadful Ones by name,
Whom with Megæra of the Pit at one birth and the same
Untimely Night brought forth of yore, and round about them twined
Like coils of serpents, giving them great wings to hold the wind:
About Jove’s throne, and close anigh the Stern King’s threshold-stead,
Do these attend, in sick-heart men to whet the mortal dread,
Whenso the King-God fashions forth fell death and dire disease,
Or smites the guilty cities doomed with battle miseries.
Now one of these sent Jupiter swift from the heavenly place,
And bade her for a sign of doom to cross Juturna’s face.
So borne upon a whirl of wind to earth the swift one flies,
E’en as an arrow from the string is driven amid the skies,
Which headed with the venom fell a Parthian man hath shot, —
Parthian, Cydonian, it may be, — the hurt that healeth not;
Its hidden whirring sweepeth through the drifting misty flow:
So fared the Daughter of the Night, and sought the earth below.
But when she saw the Ilian hosts and Turnus’ battle-rank,
Then sudden into puny shape her body huge she shrank,
A fowl that sits on sepulchres, and desert roofs alone
In the dead night, and through the mirk singeth her ceaseless moan;
In such a shape this bane of men met Turnus’ face in field,
And, screeching, hovered to and fro, and flapped upon his shield:
Strange heaviness his body seized, consuming him with dread,
His hair stood up, and in his jaws his voice lay hushed and dead.
But when afar Juturna knew the Dread One’s whirring wings,
The hapless sister tears her hair and loose its tresses flings,
Fouling her face with tearing nails, her breast with beat of hand.
“How may my help, O Turnus, now beside my brother stand?
How may I harden me ‘gainst this? by what craft shall I stay
Thy light of life? how cast myself in such a monster’s way?
Now, now I leave the battle-field; fright not the filled with fear,
O birds of ill! full well I know your flapping wings in air,
And baneful sound. Thy mastering will I know it holdeth good,
O Jove the great! — was this the gift thou gav’st for maidenhood?
Why give me everlasting life, and death-doom take away?
O, but for that my sorrows sore now surely might I slay,
And wend beside my brother now amid the nether Night.
Am I undying? ah, can aught of all my good delight
Without thee, O my brother lost! O Earth, gape wide and well,
And let a Goddess sink adown into the deeps of hell!”
So much she said, and wrapped her round with mantle dusky-grey,
And, groaning sore, she hid herself within the watery way.
But forth Æneas goes, and high his spear he brandisheth,
A mighty tree, and from his heart grown fell a word he saith:
“And wherewith wilt thou tarry me? hangs Turnus back again?
No foot-strife but the armèd hand must doom betwixt us twain.
Yea, turn thyself to every shape, and, gathering everything
Wherewith thine heart, thy craft is strong, go soaring on the wing,
And chase the stars; or deep adown in hollow earth lie stored.”
But Turnus shakes his head and saith: “’Tis not thy bitter word
That frights me, fierce one; but the Gods, but Jove my foeman grown.”
No more he said, but, looking round, espied a weighty stone,
An ancient mighty rock indeed, that lay upon the lea,
Set for a landmark, judge and end of acre-strife to be,
Which scarce twice six of chosen men upon their backs might raise,
Of bodies such as earth brings forth amid the latter days:
But this in hurrying hand he caught, and rising to the cast,
He hurled it forth against the foe, and followed on it fast;
Yet while he raised the mi
ghty stone, and flung it to its fall.
Knew nought that he was running there, or that he moved at all:
Totter his knees, his chilly blood freezes with deadly frost,
And e’en the hero-gathered stone, through desert distance tossed,
O’ercame not all the space betwixt, nor home its blow might bring:
E’en as in dreaming-tide of night, when sleep, the heavy thing,
Weighs on the eyes, and all for nought we seem so helpless-fain
Of eager speed, and faint and fail amidmost of the strain;
The tongue avails not; all our limbs of their familiar skill
Are cheated; neither voice nor words may follow from our will:
So Turnus, by whatever might he strives to win a way,
The Dread One bans his hope; strange thoughts about his heart-strings play;
He stareth on his Rutuli, and on the Latin town
Lingering for dread, trembling to meet the spear this instant thrown:
No road he hath to flee, no might against the foe to bear;
Nowhither may he see his car, or sister charioteer.
Æneas, as he lingereth there, shaketh the fateful shaft,
And, following up its fate with eyes, afar the steel doth waft
With all the might his body hath: no stone the wall-sling bears
E’er roars so loud: no thunderclap with such a crashing tears
Amid the heaven: on flew the spear, huge as the whirlwind black,
And speeding on the dreadful death: it brings to utter wrack
The hauberk’s skirt and outer rim of that seven-folded shield,
And goeth grating through the thigh: then falleth unto field
Huge Turnus, with his hampered knee twi-folded with the wound:
Then with a groan the Rutuli rise up, and all around
Roar back the hill-sides, and afar the groves cast back the cry:
But he, downcast and suppliant saith, with praying hand and eye:
“Due doom it is; I pray no ruth; use what hath chanced to fall.
Yet, if a wretched father’s woe may touch thine heart at all,
I pray thee — since Anchises once was even such to thee, —
Pity my father Daunus’ eld, and send me, or, maybe,
My body stripped of light and life, back to my kin and land.
Thou, thou hast conquered: Italy has seen my craven hand
Stretched forth to pray a grace of thee; Lavinia is thy wife:
Strain not thine hatred further now!”
Fierce in the gear of strife
Æneas stood with rolling eyes, and held back hand and sword,
And more and more his wavering heart was softening ‘neath the word —
When lo, upon the shoulder showed that hapless thong of war!
Lo, glittering with familiar boss the belt child Pallas bore,
Whom Turnus with a wound overcame and laid on earth alow,
And on his body bore thenceforth those ensigns of his foe.
But he, when he awhile had glared upon that spoil of fight,
That monument of bitter grief, with utter wrath alight,
Cried terrible:
“And shalt thou, clad in my beloved one’s prey,
Be snatched from me? — Tis Pallas yet, ’tis Pallas thus doth slay,
And taketh of thy guilty blood atonement for his death!”
Deep in that breast he driveth sword e’en as the word he saith:
But Turnus, — waxen cold and spent, the body of him lies,
And with a groan through dusk and dark the scornful spirit flies.
THE AENEID – Williams’ Translation
In 1910 the American Unitarian pastor and hymnwriter Theodore C. Williams published his more literal interpretation of Virgil’s text in blank verse.
Theodore C. Williams (1855-1915) was an American Unitarian pastor and hymn writer.
WILLIAMS’ AENEID
BOOK I
BOOK II
BOOK III
BOOK IV
BOOK V
BOOK VI
BOOK VII
BOOK VIII
BOOK IX
BOOK X
BOOK XI
BOOK XII
BOOK I
Arms and the man I sing, who first made way,
predestined exile, from the Trojan shore
to Italy, the blest Lavinian strand.
Smitten of storms he was on land and sea
by violence of Heaven, to satisfy
stern Juno’s sleepless wrath; and much in war
he suffered, seeking at the last to found
the city, and bring o’er his fathers’ gods
to safe abode in Latium; whence arose
the Latin race, old Alba’s reverend lords,
and from her hills wide-walled, imperial Rome.
O Muse, the causes tell! What sacrilege,
or vengeful sorrow, moved the heavenly Queen
to thrust on dangers dark and endless toil
a man whose largest honor in men’s eyes
was serving Heaven? Can gods such anger feel?
In ages gone an ancient city stood —
Carthage, a Tyrian seat, which from afar
made front on Italy and on the mouths
of Tiber’s stream; its wealth and revenues
were vast, and ruthless was its quest of war.
‘T is said that Juno, of all lands she loved,
most cherished this, — not Samos’ self so dear.
Here were her arms, her chariot; even then
a throne of power o’er nations near and far,
if Fate opposed not, ‘t was her darling hope
to ‘stablish here; but anxiously she heard
that of the Trojan blood there was a breed
then rising, which upon the destined day
should utterly o’erwhelm her Tyrian towers,
a people of wide sway and conquest proud
should compass Libya’s doom; — such was the web
the Fatal Sisters spun. Such was the fear
of Saturn’s daughter, who remembered well
what long and unavailing strife she waged
for her loved Greeks at Troy. Nor did she fail
to meditate th’ occasions of her rage,
and cherish deep within her bosom proud
its griefs and wrongs: the choice by Paris made;
her scorned and slighted beauty; a whole race
rebellious to her godhead; and Jove’s smile
that beamed on eagle-ravished Ganymede.
With all these thoughts infuriate, her power
pursued with tempests o’er the boundless main
the Trojans, though by Grecian victor spared
and fierce Achilles; so she thrust them far
from Latium; and they drifted, Heaven-impelled,
year after year, o’er many an unknown sea —
O labor vast, to found the Roman line!
Below th’ horizon the Sicilian isle
just sank from view, as for the open sea
with heart of hope they sailed, and every ship
clove with its brazen beak the salt, white waves.
But Juno of her everlasting wound
knew no surcease, but from her heart of pain
thus darkly mused: “Must I, defeated, fail
of what I will, nor turn the Teucrian King
from Italy away? Can Fate oppose?
Had Pallas power to lay waste in flame
the Argive fleet and sink its mariners,
revenging but the sacrilege obscene
by Ajax wrought, Oileus’ desperate son?
She, from the clouds, herself Jove’s lightning threw,
scattered the ships, and ploughed the sea with storms.
Her foe, from his pierced breast out-breathing fire,
in whirlwind on a deadly rock she flung.
But I, who move among the gods a queen,
Jove’s sister and his spouse, with one weak tribe
make war so long! Who now on Juno calls?
What suppliant gifts henceforth her altars crown?”
So, in her fevered heart complaining still,
unto the storm-cloud land the goddess came,
a region with wild whirlwinds in its womb,
Aeolia named, where royal Aeolus
in a high-vaulted cavern keeps control
o’er warring winds and loud concourse of storms.
There closely pent in chains and bastions strong,
they, scornful, make the vacant mountain roar,
chafing against their bonds. But from a throne
of lofty crag, their king with sceptred hand
allays their fury and their rage confines.
Did he not so, our ocean, earth, and sky
were whirled before them through the vast inane.
But over-ruling Jove, of this in fear,
hid them in dungeon dark: then o’er them piled
huge mountains, and ordained a lawful king
to hold them in firm sway, or know what time,
with Jove’s consent, to loose them o’er the world.
To him proud Juno thus made lowly plea:
“Thou in whose hands the Father of all gods
and Sovereign of mankind confides the power
to calm the waters or with winds upturn,
great Aeolus! a race with me at war
now sails the Tuscan main towards Italy,
bringing their Ilium and its vanquished powers.
Uprouse thy gales. Strike that proud navy down!
Hurl far and wide, and strew the waves with dead!
Twice seven nymphs are mine, of rarest mould;
of whom Deiopea, the most fair,
I give thee in true wedlock for thine own,
to mate thy noble worth; she at thy side
shall pass long, happy years, and fruitful bring
her beauteous offspring unto thee their sire.”
Then Aeolus: “‘T is thy sole task, O Queen,
to weigh thy wish and will. My fealty
thy high behest obeys. This humble throne
is of thy gift. Thy smiles for me obtain
authority from Jove. Thy grace concedes
my station at your bright Olympian board,
and gives me lordship of the darkening storm.”
Replying thus, he smote with spear reversed
the hollow mountain’s wall; then rush the winds
through that wide breach in long, embattled line,
and sweep tumultuous from land to land:
