Books with title Stories from Virgil 1901

I have found it a difficult task, and I must ask the indulgence of my readers, who will certainly miss, not only the freshness and simplicity of the great Greek epic, but those chief characteristics of Virgil, his supreme mastery of expression and the splendour of his style. I beg them to remember that I do not attempt to translate my original, that while I add nothing (except, in a very few instances, an explanatory phrase), I am constrained to leave out much; and that what I leave out, or, at the most, very inadequately render, will often be found to be that which they have been accustomed most to admire in the poet,—his brilliant rhetoric, his philosophy, his imagination, and his pathos. My chief aim has been to represent to English readers the narrative, the interest of which is, perhaps, scarcely appreciated...

Excerpt:Then Helenus, after due sacrifice, led Æneas to the temple of Phœbus. And when they were come thither, and the god had breathed into the seer, even into Helenus, the spirit of prophecy, he spake, saying, “Son of Venus, that thou takest thy journey across the sea with favour of the Gods, is manifest. Hearken, therefore, and I will inform thee of certain things, though indeed they be few out of many, by which thou mayest more safely cross unknown seas and get thee to thy haven in Italy. Much indeed the Fates suffer me not to know, and much Juno forbids me to speak. Know then, first of all, [43] that Italy, which thou ignorantly thinkest to be close at hand, is yet far away across many seas. And let this be a sign to thee that thou art indeed come to the place where thou wouldst be. When thou shalt see a white sow and thirty pigs at her teats, then hast thou found the place of thy city that shall be. And as to the devouring of thy tables for famine, heed it not: Apollo will help thee at need. But seek not to find a dwelling-place on this shore of Italy which is near at hand, seeing that it is inhabited by the accursed sons of Greece. And when thou hast passed it by, and art come to the land of Sicily, and shalt see the strait of Pelorus open before thee, do thou keep to thy left hand and avoid the way that is on thy right. For here in days past was the land rent asunder, so that the waters of the sea flow between cities and fields that of old time were joined together. And on the right hand is Scylla, and on the left Charybdis the whirlpool.

For ten years King Agamemnon and the men of Greece laid siege to Troy. But though sentence had gone forth against the city, yet the day of its fall tarried, because certain of the gods loved it well and defended it, as Apollo, and Mars, the God of war, and Father Jupiter himself. Wherefore Minerva put it into the heart of Epeius, Lord of the Isles, that he should make a cunning device wherewith to take the city.

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