Aeneid (Oxford World's Classics) by Ahl Frederick & Elaine Fantham

Author:Ahl, Frederick & Elaine Fantham [Ahl, Frederick]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2008-07-10T04:00:00+00:00

BOOK TEN

MEANWHILE Olympus, seat of all power in the universe, opens

Wide for a meeting* the Father of Gods and Ruler of Mortals

Calls to his residence high in the stars. He can monitor from there

All earth, including the Dardan camp and the people of Latium.

Gods take seats in a hall facing sunrise and sunset. He speaks first:

5

‘Why have you now reversed your judgement, lords of the heavens?

Why have your passions become so unfair, and your quarrels so violent?

I’d disapproved of a war that set Italy fighting the Teucrians:

Why this internal discord contesting what I had forbidden?*

What fear prompted this clique or that to provoke an armed conflict?

10

There’ll come a time when it’s just that you fight. Don’t rush to confront it.

Then fierce Carthage will open the Alps, unleashing a massive

Tide of destruction* on Rome and its citadels. You’ll have your licence

Then to compete in your hate, to despoil both cities and substance.

Now let it ride, be content to sustain this ratified treaty.’

15

Jupiter’s statement was brief; golden Venus did not respond briefly:

‘Father, whose power over men and events is complete and eternal—

What other force can exist that we could now make our appeal to?—

Surely you see the Rutulians’ arrogance: Turnus careering

20

High on his horses, straight through the ranks, bellied out in his onrush

By the success Mars blows his way. No longer are Teucrians

Shielded by well-sealed walls. Instead, they are fighting the battle

Inside the gates, on the ramparts. They’re filling the ditches with bloodshed.

Not knowing this, Aeneas is gone. Will you never give Trojans

25

Respite from siege and blockade? Once more there’s an enemy threatening

Reborn Troy’s new walls. And there’s now an additional army:

Tydeus’ son, Diomedes,* sets out from Aetolian Arpi,

Rushes the Teucrians again. More wounds, I suppose, yet await me—

I, your own child, now delay, by my absence, those spear-thrusts from mortals.

30

If these Trojans, of course, all sailed for Italy, lacking

Your divine will and consent, let them pay for their sins. Don’t assist them.

If, though, they followed responses to prayers which voices from heaven,

Voices from ghost worlds, too, kept giving them, why is it someone

Can now reverse your commands and set destiny on a new basis?

35

Need I remind you of fleets burned up near Sicilian Eryx?*

Or of the ruler of storms, and his winds from Aeolia, bellowed

Into a seething rage, or of Iris dispatched through the cloudbanks?

She’s now arousing death’s still world, the sole province of nature

Still untried. So Allecto’s suddenly launched on the upper

40

World for a Bacchic romp through the heart of Italy’s cities.

Visions of empire arouse me no more; I cherished them only

While there was still such a thing as albeit changeable Fortune.

Now let whoever you choose to win, win. If there’s no land your hard-nosed

Wife will allot to the Teucrians, Father, I beg by the smouldering

45

Ashes and ruins of Troy, grant licence to rescue Ascanius*

Safe and sound from the conflict, grant me my grandson’s survival.

As for Aeneas: well, let him indeed be tossed amid unknown

Waters and follow such random course as Fortune devises.

Give me the right to remove this boy from the horrors of warfare.

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