[BOOK I.]
[BOOK II.]
[BOOK III.]
[BOOK IV.]
[BOOK V.]
[BOOK VI.]
[BOOK VII.]
[BOOK VIII.]
[BOOK IX.]
[BOOK X.]
[BOOK XI.]
[BOOK XII.]
THE ÆNEIDS OF VIRGIL.
BOOK I.
ARGUMENT.
ÆNEAS AND HIS TROJANS BEING DRIVEN TO LIBYA BY A TEMPEST, HAVE GOOD WELCOME OF DIDO, QUEEN OF CARTHAGE.
Lo I am he who led the song through slender reed to cry,
And then, come forth from out the woods, the fields that are thereby
In woven verse I bade obey the hungry tillers' need:
Now I, who sang their merry toil, sing Mars and dreadful deed.
I sing of arms, I sing of him, who from the Trojan land
Thrust forth by Fate, to Italy and that Lavinian strand
First came: all tost about was he on earth and on the deep
By heavenly might for Juno's wrath, that had no mind to sleep:
And plenteous war he underwent ere he his town might frame
And set his Gods in Latian earth, whence is the Latin name,
And father-folk of Alba-town, and walls of mighty Rome.
Say, Muse, what wound of godhead was whereby all this must come,
How grieving, she, the Queen of Gods, a man so pious drave
To win such toil, to welter on through such a troublous wave:10
—Can anger in immortal minds abide so fierce and fell?