Aeneid
Virgil
David Farry, Translator
Virgil. Aeneid, Translated by David Farry. University of Chicago, 2017, ln. 1-210; 229-231; 299-352.
Book 1
I sing of arms and the man whom fate had sent
To exile from the shores of Troy to be
The first to come to Lavinium and the coasts
Of Italy, and who, because of Juno’s
Savage implacable rage, was battered by storms
At sea, and from the heavens above, and also
By tempests of war, until at last he might
Bring his household gods to Latium, and build his town,
From which would come the Alban Fathers and
The lofty walls of Rome. Muse, tell me
The cause why Juno the queen of heaven was so
Aggrieved by what offense against her power,
To send this virtuous faithful hero out
To perform so many labors, confront such dangers?
Can anger like this be, in immortal hearts?
There was an ancient city known as Carthage
(Settled by men from Tyre), across the sea
And opposite to Italy and the mouth
Of the Tiber river; very rich and fierce,
Experienced in warfare. Juno, they say,
Loved Carthage more than any other place
In the whole wide world, more even than her Samos.
Here’s where she kept her chariot and her armor.
It was her fierce desire, if fate permitted,
That Carthage should be chief city of the world.
But she had heard that there would come a people
Engendered of Trojan blood, who would someday
Throw down the Tyrian citadel, a people
Proud in warfare, rulers of many realms,
Destined to bring down Libya. Thus it was
That the Parcae’s turning wheel foretold the story.
Fearful of this and remembering the old
War she had waged at Troy for her dear Greeks,
And remembering too her sorrow and her rage
Because of Paris’s insult to her beauty,
Remembering her hatred of his people,
And the honors paid to ravished Ganymede—
For all these causes her purpose was to keep
The Trojan remnant, who’d survived the Greeks
And pitiless Achilles, far from Latium,
On turbulent waters wandering, year after year
Driven by fates across the many seas.
-So formidable the task of founding Rome.
Sicily was still in sight behind them
As, with joyous sails spread out, their brazen prows
Sped through the foaming waters, and Juno said,
Obsessing in herself over her grievance,
“Am I, then, I, defeated, to be prevented
From keeping the Teucrian king from Italy?
Is it because of the Fates? Pallas was able
To burn the Argive ships and down all its sailors
To punish the offense of on man only,
Ajax Oileus’ son; Pallas herself
Was able forthwith to hurl the fire of Jove
Down from the clouds above, and from below
Raise up the ocean in tempestuous surge
And carry Ajax in a whirlwind off,
His breast aflame, on fire from the lightning bolt,
And fasten him impaled to a craggy rock.
But I who walk as queen of all the gods,
I, the sister and wife of Jove, must wage
Year after year my war against one people.
In time to come will there be any to pay
Due reverence to me, and at my alters
Worship with sacrifice and supplication?
Thus burning with resentment, in her mind
Turning these matters over and over, the goddess
Made her way to the spawning place of storms,
Aeolios, the cyclones’ Berecynthian country.
There Aeolus the king in his huge cavern
Uses his power with fetters and chains to hold
The struggling winds and howling tempests in.
The mountain moaned with the noise of their prisoned outrage.
They blustered against the bonds he bound them with.
There Aeolus sat, scepter in hand, in his
High stronghold, he, to mollify their fury
And quiet them down; if he did not do so
Then they without a doubt would carry away
All seas and lands and the starry heavens themselves,
Sweeping them all to the nothingness beyond.
Therefore it was all-knowing all-powerful Jove,
Fearing that this might happen, hid them away
In the darkest night of caverns and piled up huge
Mountains above them and gave to them a king
Whose charge it was to use his regal skill
To loosen or tighten the reins when so commanded.
So Juno said to Aeolus, entreating,
“Jove, the Father of Gods and King of Men,”
Has, Aeolus, given you the power either
To calm the ocean waters into peace
Or cause the winds to make them rise and surge.
Right now there is a race of men I hate,
Sailing upon the Tyrrhenian Sea to bring
The Defeated household gods of Troy to Latium.
Shake their fleet with the raging of your winds,
Sink them, overwhelm them, scatter their broken
Bodies everywhere upon the waters.
There are fourteen beautiful nymphs in my retinue;
The most beautiful of them all is Deiopea;
I’ll give you Deiopea as you reward,
To be your wife and be your own forever,
And be the mother of your beautiful children.”
Aeolus answered: “O queen, it is for you
To discover what it is that you desire;
It is for me to do what you command.
I owe my kingdom and scepter to
Your favor and the favor of Jupiter.
Because of this I have my rightful place
At the banquet of the gods; because of this
I am the potentate of clouds and storms.”
Having said this, Aeolus takes his spear
And with its blunt end bashes open a hole
In the hollow mountain’s side, and then, at once,
The doors give way and like an army the winds,
The mob of pent-up winds, rush out and whirl
Down on the ocean and with seismic force
Heave up the waters from the lowest bottom—
All winds together, Notus and Eurus and Africus, and
Southwest, East and South, teeming with tempests,
And vast tsunami roll toward helpless shores.
And then were heard the cries of terrified men,
And the shriek of the vessels’ cables; all light of day
Was suddenly ripped away from the Trojan’s eyes;
Black night upon the ocean waters, thunder
From pole to pole and sheets of shaking lightning
Tell of the mariner’s deaths now there at hand.
Aeneas’s limbs gone weak and chill to the bone,
Groaning raised up his arms to heaven and cried,
“O those others are three times, four times, blessed,
Whose privilege it was to meet their fate,
Watched by their fathers as they died beneath
The high walls of their native city, Troy!
Alas, Tydides, bravest of the Danaans,
That by thy hand I could not fall and pour
My life out on the fields of Ilium, where
Fierce Hector, helpless, fallen, lies, brought down
By the spear of Aeacides and where the great
Sarpedon lies, and where the river Samois
Carries away the bodies of so many
Heroes and their tumbling shields and helmets,
Turning over and over in its waters.”
As Aeneas cries out thus, a sudden violent
Burst of wind comes crashing against the sails,
The prow of the ship turns round, the oars are broken,
The ship is broadside to the waves and then
A mountain of water descends upon them all;
Some of the men hang clinging high upon
the high-most of the wave and other see
The very ground beneath the sea revealed
As hissing with sand the giant wave recoils;
Three of the ships are spun by the South Wind onto
A huge rock ridge that hulks up out of the sea
(The name the Italians call it is The Altars);
Three other ships the East Wind runs aground
And carries them into shallows, a wretched sight,
The sand heaped up around them. Aeneas himself
Saw how a monstrous devouring wave rose up
And struck the stern of the ship the Lycians and
Faithful Orontes rode in, the the ship
Turned round and round in the whirlpool whirling waters.
He saw the helmsman head-first over the side;
He saw the scattered cast-out soldiers swimming
Hapless in the vast abysmal flood;
He saw the detritus floating on the water,
Troy treasure, weapons, pieces of wood; he saw
The ship of Ilioneus and the ship of
Of brave Achates, Abas’s ship, and the ship
Of old Aletes, all of them overwhelmed,
Their seams split open, letting in the sea.
Then Neptune, god of the sea, became aware
Of the loud commotion of the waves upsurging
From the still foundations down below; and deeply
Troubled within raised up his placid face
Above the roiling waters and looked across
And saw Aeneas’s scattered ships and saw
The Trojans overpowered by the waves,
And by the heavens collapsing down upon them.
The brother of Juno knew whose work this was,
The work of his sister Juno and her wrath.
He summoned the East and West Winds and he said:
“Are you so confident of who you are
That you have dared, without command of mine,
To collide the heavens and seas and cause such trouble?
But first it is my task to quet the waves.
Your punishment comes later. Now, East Wind,
Speedily fly to tell your king: ‘The power
To weird the trident and to rule the seas
Was given to me by lot and not to him.
Aeolus is the warden of the rocks:
Of that vast prison let him be the king,
And hold the winds in chains within that cavern.’”
He speaks, and as soon as he speaks, the waves are calmed,
The gathered clouds disperse, the sun comes out;
Triton and Cymothoë together push
The ships away from the rocks they are stranded on,
As Neptune uses his trident to lever them free,
And opens for them the Syrtes quicksands too,
His chariot gliding upon the quieting waters.
It is as when of a sudden, in some city,
Violence erupts, the rabble enraged,
Stones and firebrands thrown, but then, if the mob
Should see a man whose piety and strength
Are known to them, silent they stand and listen,
As with measured speech he calms their rage; just so,
When their creator appears to them, the rage
Of the raging waters is appeased, as he
Goes on his way, under a now clear sky.
Exhausted by the terrible storm at sea,
Aeneas’s followers seek whatever land
Lies nearest, and so they turn toward Libya’s coast. [. . .]
His followers get themselves on the welcome beach,
To lie there, stretching out their sea-soaked limbs
On dry land they so long have longed to be on. [. . .]
And now the day was coming to its end.
Jupiter from his place on high looked out,
And over across the sea, with its many ships
And far-spread lands, its shores and peoples, and as
The god looked down upon the Libyan realms,
He thought about the troubles that he saw,
And, as he did so, Venus spoke to him
In sadness, her bright eyes shining with tears, and said,
“O you who for eternity govern, with power
And with your lightning bolt, both men and gods,
What crime could my Aeneas have committed,
How have the Trojans so offended you,
That after so much suffering they are kept
From every land and kept from Italy, where,
According to your promise, from their line,
The line of Teucrian kings, there would come Roman
Leaders to govern all nations and all the seas?
Why is it, Father, that your purpose has changed?
Indeed it was your promise that consoled me
For the terrible ruin of my Troy, your promise
Of a glorious fate in spite of those fatal events.
But after so many calamities, now the same
Bad fortune follows these people everywhere.
Great king, when will you grant my Trojans relief? [. . .]
The father smiled upon her with the look
That clears the sky of storms and brings fair weather.
He kissed his daughter, and this is what he said:
“Be not afraid, my lady of Cythera.
The promise I made to your children of what their fates
Would be is what it was. You are to see
The fortress walls of Lavinia’s city, and you
Will bring great-hearted Aeneas to his high
Destined rightful place in the starry heavens.
I have not changed my mind. Because you worry
About your dead son gnaws at you, I will
Unroll of the scroll of Fates and tell the meaning
Of the secrets written there. [. . .]