The Aeneid (Penguin Classics) by Virgil

Author:Virgil
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9780141901695
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2003-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

BOOK 7

War in Latium

You too, Caieta, nurse of Aeneas, have given by your death eternal fame to our shores; the honour paid you there even now protects your resting-place, and your name marks the place where your bones lie in great Hesperia, if that glory is of any value.

Good Aeneas duly performed the funeral rites and heaped up a barrow for the tomb, and when there was calm on the high seas, he set sail and left the port behind him. A fair breeze kept blowing as night came on, the white moon lit their course and the sea shone in its shimmering rays. Keeping close inshore, they 10 skirted the land where Circe, the daughter of the Sun, lives among her riches. There she sets the untrodden groves ringing with never-ending singing and burns the fragrant cedar wood in her proud palace to lighten the darkness of the night as her sounding shuttle runs across the delicate warp. From her palace could be heard growls of anger from lions fretting at their chains and roaring late into the night, the raging of bristling boars and penned bears and howling from huge creatures in the shape of wolves. These had all been men, but with her irresistible herbs 20 the savage goddess had given them the faces and hides of wild beasts. To protect the devout Trojans from suffering these monstrous changes, Neptune kept them from sailing into the harbour or coming near that deadly shore. He filled their sails with favouring winds and took them past the boiling breakers to safety.

And now the waves were beginning to be tinged with red from the rays of the sun and Aurora on her rosy chariot glowed in gold from the heights of heaven, when of a sudden the wind fell, every breath was still and the oars toiled in a sluggish sea. 30 Here it was that Aeneas, still well off shore, sighted a great forest and the river Tiber in all its beauty bursting through it into the sea with its racing waves and their burden of yellow sand. Around it and above it all manner of birds that haunted the banks and bed of the river were flying through the trees and sweetening the air with their singing. Aeneas gave the order to change course and turn the prows to the land, and he came into the dark river rejoicing.

40 Come now, Erato, and I shall tell of the kings of ancient Latium, of its history, of the state of this land when first the army of strangers beached their ships on the shores of Ausonia. I shall recall too, the cause of the first battle – come, goddess, come and instruct your prophet. I shall speak of fearsome fighting, I shall speak of wars and of kings driven into the ways of death by their pride of spirit, of a band of fighting men from Etruria and the whole land of Hesperia under arms. For me this is the birth of a higher order of things.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.