Another famous passage is the beginning of Book ii, which has been translated into English hexameters as follows:
Sweet, when the great sea’s water is stirred to its depth by the storm winds,
Standing ashore to descry one afar off mightily struggling;
Not that a neighbor’s sorrow to you yields dulcet enjoyment;
But that the sight hath a sweetness, of ills ourselves are exempt from.
Sweet ’tis too to behold, on a broad plain mustering war-hosts
Arm them for some great battle, one’s self unscathed by the danger;
Yet still happier this: To possess, impregnably guarded,
Those calm heights of the sages which have for an origin Wisdom;
Thence to survey our fellows, observe them this way and that way