The Aeneid: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Virgil

Author:Virgil [Virgil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101201541
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2006-11-01T23:00:00+00:00

And then, with the holy rites performed in full,

they turned back to the city. The king, bent with years,

kept his comrades, Aeneas and his son, beside him,

moving on as he eased the way with many stories.

Aeneas marveled, his keen eyes gazing round,

entranced by the site, gladly asking, learning,

one by one, the legendary tales of the men of old.

King Evander, founder of Rome’s great citadel, begins:

370

“These woods the native fauns and the nymphs once held

and a breed of mortals sprung from the rugged trunks of oaks.

They had no notion of custom, no cultured way of life,

knew nothing of yoking oxen, laying away provisions,

garnering up their stores. They lived off branches,

berries and acorns, hunters’ rough-cut fare. 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.

Saturn’s reign was the Age of Gold, men like to say,

so peacefully, calm and kind, he ruled his subjects.

Ah, but little by little a lesser, tarnished age

came stealing in, filled with the madness of war,

the passion for possessions.

“Then on they came,

the Ausonian ranks in arms, Sicanian tribes and

time and again the land of Saturn changed its name.

Then kings reared up and the savage giant Thybris,

and since his time we Italians call our river Tiber.

390

The true name of the old river Albula’s lost and gone.

And I, cast from my country, bound for the ocean’s ends—

irresistible Fortune and inescapable Fate have planted me

in this place, spurred on by my mother’s dire warnings,

the nymph Carmentis, and God Apollo’s power.”

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