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قراءة كتاب The Æneid of Virgil Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor

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‏اللغة: English
The Æneid of Virgil
Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor

The Æneid of Virgil Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 4

feasting. After the feast Iopas sings the wonders of the firmament, and Dido, bewitched by Cupid, begs Æneas to tell the whole story of his adventures (775-891).


I . Of arms I sing, and of the man, whom Fate
First drove from Troy to the Lavinian shore.
Full many an evil, through the mindful hate
Of cruel Juno, from the gods he bore,
Much tost on earth and ocean, yea, and more
In war enduring, ere he built a home,
And his loved household-deities brought o'er
To Latium, whence the Latin people come,
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Whence rose the Alban sires, and walls of lofty Rome.


II . O Muse, assist me and inspire my song,
The various causes and the crimes relate,
For what affronted majesty, what wrong
To injured Godhead, what offence so great
Heaven's Queen resenting, with remorseless hate,
Could one renowned for piety compel
To brave such troubles, and endure the weight
Of toils so many and so huge. O tell
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How can in heavenly minds such fierce resentment dwell?


III . There stood a city, fronting far away
The mouths of Tiber and Italia's shore,
A Tyrian settlement of olden day,
Rich in all wealth, and trained to war's rough lore,
Carthage the name, by Juno loved before
All places, even Samos. Here were shown
Her arms, and here her chariot; evermore
E'en then this land she cherished as her own,
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And here, should Fate permit, had planned a world-wide throne.


IV . But she had heard, how men of Trojan seed
Those Tyrian towers should level, how again
From these in time a nation should proceed,
Wide-ruling, tyrannous in war, the bane
(So Fate was working) of the Libyan reign.
This feared she, mindful of the war beside
Waged for her Argives on the Trojan plain;
Nor even yet had from her memory died
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The causes of her wrath, the pangs of wounded pride,—


V . The choice of Paris, and her charms disdained,
The hateful race, the lawless honours ta'en
By ravished Ganymede—these wrongs remained.
So fired with rage, the Trojans' scanty train
By fierce Achilles and the Greeks unslain
She barred from Latium, and in evil strait
For many a year, on many a distant main
They wandered, homeless outcasts, tost by Fate;
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So huge, so hard the task to found the Roman state.


VI . Scarce out of sight of Sicily, they set
Their sails to sea, and merrily ploughed the main,
With brazen beaks, when Juno, harbouring yet
Within her breast the ever-rankling pain,
Mused thus: "Must I then from the work refrain,
Nor keep this Trojan from the Latin throne,
Baffled, forsooth, because the Fates constrain?
Could Pallas burn the Grecian fleet, and drown
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Their crews, for one man's crime, Oileus' frenzied son?


VII . "She, hurling Jove's winged lightning, stirred the deep
And strewed the ships. Him, from his riven breast
The flames outgasping, with a whirlwind's sweep
She caught and fixed upon a rock's sharp crest.
But I, who walk the Queen of Heaven confessed,
Jove's sister-spouse, shall I forevermore
With one poor tribe keep warring without rest?
Who then henceforth shall Juno's power adore?
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Who then her fanes frequent, her deity implore?"


VIII . Such thoughts revolving in her fiery mind,
Straightway the Goddess to Æolia passed,
The storm-clouds' birthplace, big with blustering wind.
Here Æolus within a dungeon vast
The sounding tempest and the struggling blast
Bends to his sway and bridles them with chains.
They, in the rock reverberant held fast,
Moan at the doors. Here, throned aloft, he reigns;
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His sceptre calms their rage, their violence restrains:


IX . Else earth and sea and all the firmament
The winds together through the void would sweep.
But, fearing this, the Sire omnipotent
Hath buried them in caverns dark and deep,
And o'er them piled huge mountains in a heap,
And set withal a monarch, there to reign,
By compact taught at his command to keep
Strict watch, and tighten or relax the rein.
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Him now Saturnia sought, and thus in lowly strain:


X . "O Æolus, for Jove, of human kind
And Gods the sovran Sire, hath given to

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