The Aeneid

by Virgil

King Latinus, already old, had governed the fields and towns through long years of peace.

Here too, Latinus himself, seeking out responses, slaughtered a hundred yearling sheep in the old way and there he lay ensconced, at rest on fleecy hides when a sudden voice broke from the grove’s depths: “Never seek to marry your daughter to a Latin, put no trust, my son, in a marriage ready-made. Strangers will come, and come to be your sons and their lifeblood will lift our name to the stars. 110 Their sons’ sons will see, wherever the wheeling Sun looks down on the Ocean, rising or setting, East or West, the whole earth turn beneath their feet, their rule!”

Aeneas cries at once: “Hail to the country owed to me by Fate! Hail to you, you faithful household gods of Troy! Here is our home, here is our native land!

The Almighty Father answered, three times over, 160 rending the cloudless sky with claps of thunder, flourishing high in his own hand from heaven’s peak a cloud on fire with rays of gold, with radiance.

Yes, and here, carved in seasoned cedar, rows of statues, rows of the founding forebears: Italus, Father Sabinus, the vintner’s figure still wielding his hooked knife; old Saturn and Janus’ figure facing right and left.

I swear by Aeneas’ fate, by his right hand proved staunch in loyalty, strong in feats of arms, that many nations, many—and don’t slight us now because we come with an olive branch held out and desperate pleas—that many people have urged us, strongly, to join them as allies.

As Ilioneus ends his appeal, Latinus keeps on looking down at the ground, stock-still, 290 only his eyes moving, rapt in concentration.

“So this,” he thinks, “is the man foretold by Fate. That son-in-law from a foreign home, and he’s called to share my throne with equal power! His heirs will blaze in courage, their might will sway the world.”

While Latinus rules, you’ll never lack rich plowland, bounty great as Troy’s. Just let Aeneas—if he needs us so, and presses so to join in alliance and take the name of comrade— come in person and never shy from the eyes of friends.

Let this be part of our peace, to grasp your leader’s hand.

Signs from my father’s shrine 310 and a host of omens from the skies forbid me to wed her to a bridegroom chosen from our race.

Our sons-in-law will arrive from foreign shores: that is the fate in store for Latium, so the prophets say, a stranger’s blood will raise our name to the stars.

Riding high with Latinus’ gifts and words, Aeneas’ envoys bring back news of peace.

Juno stopped, transfixed with anguish, then, shaking her head, this exclamation came pouring from her heart: 340 “That cursed race I loathe—their Phrygian fate that clashes with my own! So, couldn’t they die on the plains of Troy? So, couldn’t they stay defeated in defeat? Couldn’t the fires of Troy cremate the Trojans? No, through the shocks of war, through walls of fire, they’ve found a way!

if I cannot sway the heavens, I’ll wake the powers of hell!

Hecuba’s not the only one who spawned a firebrand, who brought to birth a wedding torch of a son. Venus’ son will be the same—a Paris reborn, a funeral torch to consume a second Troy!”

That said, the terrible goddess swooped down to the earth and stirred Allecto, mother of sorrows, up from her den 380 where nightmare Furies lurk in hellish darkness. Allecto—a joy to her heart, the griefs of war, rage, and murderous plots, and grisly crimes.

You have a thousand names, a thousand deadly arts. Shake them out of your teeming heart, sunder their pact of peace, sow crops of murderous war! Now at a stroke make young men thirst for weapons, demand them, grasp them—now!”

Allecto flings a snake from her black hair at the queen and thrusts it down her breast, the very depths of her heart, and the horror drives her mad to bring the whole house down. It glides between her robes and her smooth breasts but she feels nothing, no shudder of coils, senses nothing at all 410 as the viper breathes its fire through the frenzied queen.

“So, Lavinia goes in wedlock to these Trojans—exiles?

She even darts into forests, feigning she’s in the grip of Bacchus’ power, 450 daring a greater outrage, rising to greater fury, hiding her daughter deep in the mountains’ leafy woods to rob the Trojans of marriage, delay the marriage torch.

“Bacchus, hail!” she shouts. “You alone,” she cries, “you deserve the virgin! For you, I say, she lifts the thyrsus twined with ivy, dancing in your honor, letting her hair grow long, your sacred locks!”

The king denies you your bride, denies you your dowry earned in blood, he seeks a stranger as heir to his royal throne.

See to your own chores, 520 go tend the shrines and statues of the gods. Men will make war and peace. War’s their work.”

“So, I’m in my dotage, am I? A doddering wreck too spent to see the truth? I and my warring kings— a mockery of a prophet, am I? False alarms? Well, look at these alarms! I come to you from the nightmare Furies’ den, I brandish war and death in my right hand!”

While Turnus fills his Rutulian troops with headlong daring, Allecto flies to the Trojan camp on Stygian wings— a fresh plot in the air—to scout out the place 560 where handsome Iulus was hunting along the shore, coursing, netting game.

Here the infernal Fury throws an instant frenzy into the hounds, she daubs their nostrils wet with a well-known scent, and they burn to chase a stag.

Savage Allecto, high on a lookout, spots her chance to wreak some havoc.

No rustic free-for-all with clubs and charred stakes— 610 they’ll fight to the finish now with two-edged swords.

“Look, I’ve done your bidding, perfected a work of strife with ghastly war! Go tell them to join in friendship, seal their pacts, now I’ve spattered the Trojans red with Italian blood. I’ll add this too, if I can depend on your good will: With rumors I will draw the border towns into war, ignite their hearts with a maddening lust for battle. 640 They’ll rush to the rescue now from every side— I’ll sow their fields with swords!”

And here it is, 710 when the fathers’ will is set on all-out war, the consul himself, decked out in Romulus’ garb, his toga girt up in the ceremonial Gabine way, will unbar the screeching gates and cry for war.

From Clausus spreads through Latium both the Claudian tribe and clan, once Rome had long been shared with Sabine people.

Then Father Almighty, enraged that any mortal rise from the shades below, return to the light of life, Jove with his lightning bolt struck down Apollo’s son who honed such healing skills, down to the Styx’s flood.

Over the earth all weary living things, all birds and flocks were fast asleep when captain Aeneas, his heart racked by the threat of war, lay down on a bank beneath 30 the chilly arc of the sky and at long last indulged his limbs in sleep. Before his eyes the god of the lovely river, old Tiber himself, seemed to rise from among the poplar leaves, gowned in his blue-grey linen fine as mist with a shady crown of reeds to wreathe his hair, and greeted Aeneas to ease him of his anguish:

I tell you now—so you won’t think me an empty dream— that under an oak along the banks you’ll find a great sow stretched on her side with thirty pigs just farrowed, a snow-white mother with snow-white young at her dugs. By this sign, after thirty years have made their rounds Ascanius will establish Alba, bright as the city’s name. All that I foresee has been decreed.

They wage a relentless war against the Latin people. Welcome them to your camp as allies, seal your pacts.

I am the river Tiber. Clear blue as the heavens, 70 stream most loved by the gods who rule the sky. My great home is here, my fountainhead gives rise to noble cities.”

Reminds me of the movie with James Earl Jones where he's writing a poem, "I am the River Niger, hear my waters."

“You nymphs, Laurentine nymphs, you springs of rivers, and you, Father Tiber, you and your holy stream, 80 embrace Aeneas, shield him from dangers, now at last. You who pity our hardships—wherever the ground lies where you come surging forth in all your glory—always with offerings, always with gifts I’ll do you honor, you great horned king of the rivers of the West. Just be with me. Prove your will with works.”

But look, suddenly, right before his awestruck eyes, a marvel, 90 shining white through the woods with a brood as white, lying stretched out on a grassy bank for all to see— a great sow. Devout Aeneas offers her up to you, Queen Juno on high, a blood sacrifice to you, standing her at your altar with her young.

sounds like the sacrifice of Isaac.

So our two lines are branches sprung from the same blood.

But even to us, at last, time brought the answer to our prayers: the help, the arrival of a god. That greatest avenger, Hercules!

Suddenly Hercules ignited in rage, in black fury and seizing his weapons and weighted knotted club, he made for the hill’s steep heights at top speed.

Watch Hercules on the attack.

Hercules overwhelms him from high above, raining down all weapons he finds at hand, torn-off branches, rocks 290 like millstones. A deathtrap, no way out for the monster now!

Here, as Cacus spouts his flames in the darkness, 300 all for nothing—Hercules grapples him, knots him fast in a death-lock, throttling him, gouging out the eyes in his head, choking the blood in his gullet dry.

In no time, all were tipping wine on the board with happy hearts and praying to the gods.

The king, bent with years, kept his comrades, Aeneas and his son, beside him, moving on as he eased the way with many stories.

First came Saturn, down from the heights of heaven, fleeing Jove in arms: Saturn robbed of his kingdom, exiled. He united these wild people scattered over the hilltops, gave them laws and pitched on the name of Latium for the land, 380 since he’d lain hidden within its limits, safe and sound.

Make yourself—you too—worthy to be a god.

And father Vulcan, enthralled by Venus, his everlasting love, replied: