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Title: The AEneids of Virgil
Done into English Verse

Author: Virgil

Translator: William Morris

Release Date: July 9, 2009 [EBook #29358]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE AENEIDS OF VIRGIL

DONE INTO ENGLISH VERSE

BY

WILLIAM MORRIS

AUTHOR OF 'THE EARTHLY PARADISE'

_THIRD IMPRESSION_

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY

1900

THE AENEIDS OF VIRGIL.

BOOK I.

ARGUMENT.

AENEAS 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?

There was a city of old time where Tyrian folk did dwell,
Called Carthage, facing far away the shores of Italy
And Tiber-mouth; fulfilled of wealth and fierce in arms was she,
And men say Juno loved her well o'er every other land,
Yea e'en o'er Samos: there were stored the weapons of her hand,
And there her chariot: even then she cherished