Aeneid

In ordered words from point to point unfolding:

“Know first that heaven and earth and ocean's plain,

The moon's bright orb, and stars of Titan birth

Are nourished by one Life; one primal Mind,

Immingled with the vast and general frame,

Fills every part and stirs the mighty whole.

Thence man and beast, thence creatures of the air,

And all the swarming monsters that be found

Beneath the level of the marbled sea;

A fiery virtue, a celestial power,

Their native seeds retain; but bodies vile,

With limbs of clay and members born to die,

Encumber and o'ercloud; whence also spring

Terrors and passions, suffering and joy;

For from deep darkness and captivity

All gaze but blindly on the radiant world.

Nor when to life's last beam they bid farewell

May sufferers cease from pain, nor quite be freed

From all their fleshly plagues; but by fixed law,

The strange, inveterate taint works deeply in.

For this, the chastisement of evils past

Is suffered here, and full requital paid.

Some hang on high, outstretched to viewless winds;

For some their sin's contagion must be purged

In vast ablution of deep-rolling seas,

Or burned away in fire. Each man receives

His ghostly portion in the world of dark;

But thence to realms Elysian we go free,

Where for a few these seats of bliss abide,

Till time's long lapse a perfect orb fulfils,

And takes all taint away, restoring so

The pure, ethereal soul's first virgin fire.

At last, when the millennial aeon strikes,

God calls them forth to yon Lethaean stream,

In numerous host, that thence, oblivious all,

They may behold once more the vaulted sky,

And willingly to shapes of flesh return.”

So spoke Anchises; then led forth his son,

The Sibyl with him, to the assembled shades

(A voiceful throng), and on a lofty mound

His station took, whence plainly could be seen

The long procession, and each face descried.

“Hark now! for of the glories I will tell

That wait our Dardan blood; of our sons' sons

Begot upon the old Italian breed,

Who shall be mighty spirits, and prolong

Our names, their heritage. I will unfold

The story, and reveal the destined years.

Yon princeling, thou beholdest leaning there

Upon a royal lance, shall next emerge

Into the realms of day. He is the first

Of half-Italian strain, the last-born heir

To thine old age by fair Lavinia given,

Called Silvius, a royal Alban name

(Of sylvan birth and sylvan nurture he),

A king himself and sire of kings to come,

By whom our race in Alba Longa reign.

Next Procas stands, our Trojan people's boast;

Capys and Numitor, and, named like thee,

Aeneas Sylvius, like thee renowned

For faithful honor and for deeds of war,

When he ascends at last his Alban throne.

Behold what warrior youth they be! How strong

Their goodly limbs! Above their shaded brows

The civic oak they wear! For thee they build

Nomentum, and the walls of Gabii,

Fidena too, and on the mountains pile

Collatia's citadels, Pometii,

Bola and Cora, Castrum-Inui—

Such be the names the nameless lands shall bear.

See, in that line of sires the son of Mars,

Great Romulus, of Ilian mother born,

From far-descended line of Trojan kings!

See from his helm the double crest uprear,

While his celestial father in his mien

Shows forth his birth divine! Of him, my son,

Great Rome shall rise, and, favored of his star,

Have power world-wide, and men of godlike mind.

She clasps her seven hills in single wall,

Proud mother of the brave! So Cybele,

The Berecynthian goddess, castle-crowned,

On through the Phrygian kingdoms speeds her car,

Exulting in her hundred sons divine,

All numbered with the gods, all throned on high.

“Let now thy visionary glance look long

On this thy race, these Romans that be thine.

Here Caesar, of Iulus' glorious seed,

Behold ascending to the world of light!

Behold, at last, that man, for this is he,

So oft unto thy listening ears foretold,

Augustus Caesar, kindred unto Jove.

He brings a golden age; he shall restore

Old Saturn's sceptre to our Latin land,

And o'er remotest Garamant and Ind

His sway extend; the fair dominion

outruns th' horizon planets, yea, beyond

The sun's bright path, where Atlas' shoulder bears

Yon dome of heaven set thick with burning stars.

Against his coming the far Caspian shores

Break forth in oracles; the Maeotian land