latin · epic

The Aeneid

c. 29–19 BCE · Late Roman Republic / Early Imperial Period · Rome

Book I — Invocation and the Storm

1Arms, and the man, I sing, who, forc'd by fate,

2And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,

3Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore.

4Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,

5And in the doubtful war, before he won

6The Latian realm, and built the destin'd town;

7His banish'd gods restor'd to rites divine,

8And settled sure succession in his line,

9From whence the race of Alban fathers come,

10And the long glories of majestic Rome.

11O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;

12What goddess was provok'd, and whence her hate;

13For what offense the Queen of Heav'n began

14To persecute so brave, so just a man;

15Involv'd his anxious life in endless harms,

16Expos'd to want, and hurried into arms!

17Was there a god so great? Is heav'nly mind

18Rack'd with such impotent desires to find

19Can heav'nly minds such high resentment show,

20Or exercise their spite in human woe?

21Scarce had they left the Phrygian coast behind,

22And her companions, and the Trojan men

23Were cheerfully in sail, when from the north

24Came Aeolus, with all his tempests forth.

Book II — The Fall of Troy

25Now all were hush'd, their faces fix'd to hear;

26The prince then silence broke, and thus began:

27"Great queen, what you command me to relate

28Renews the sad remembrance of our fate:

29An empire from its old foundations rent,

30And ev'ry woe the Trojans underwent;

31A peopled city made a desart plain;

32Of which myself was part, and much sustain.

33The Greeks grew weary of the tedious war,

34And, by Minerva's aid, a fabric rear'd,

35Which like a steed of monstrous height appear'd:

36The sides were plank'd with pine; they feign'd it made

37For their return, and this the vow they paid.

38Thus Calchas spoke; the Greeks at length obey,

39And the huge fabric, fill'd with armed men,

40Was thrust within the walls, and Priam then

41Declar'd it sacred to Minerva's shrine.

42The Trojans danc'd and shouted and made shrine.

43Trojans! I cry, beware; and fear the Greeks, even when they offer gifts!

44But Laocoön, from Troja's tow'rs in haste,

45Came running downward to the Trojan shore:

46'O wretched countrymen! What fury reigns?

47What more than madness has possess'd your brains?

48Think you the Grecians from your coasts are gone?

49And are Ulysses' arts no better known?

50This hollow fabric either must inclose,

51Within its blind recess, our secret foes;

52Or 'tis an engine rais'd above the town,

53To overlook the walls, or batter down.

54Somewhat is sure design'd, by fraud or force:

55Trust not their presents, nor admit the horse.'

Book VI — The Descent to the Underworld

56There is a cave with monstrous mouth, rough and vast,

57fenced by a black lake and the darkness of the forest:

58above it, no bird could wing safe flight

59(so great the vapor from those black jaws exhaled

60to the vaulted sky): whence the Greeks called it Avernus,

61the Birdless Place.

62Here first four black-backed bullocks the priestess placed,

63pouring wine between their horns; then clipping off

64the topmost bristles between the horns, she cast

65them on the holy fire for the first offerings.

66So spoke Aeneas, weeping, gave the rein,

67and in a little while came to the shore of Elysium.

68Here were those who had died in battle for their country,

69priests of holy life, true bards whose songs were worthy of their god,

70and those who improved life by arts of their own invention—

71all those whose service made them dear to others.

72They wear snow-white headbands, and the Sibyl called to them,

73and Musaeus, the greatest of the throng:

74"Tell me, blissful souls, and thou, best of bards,

75in what region, in what place is Anchises?

76For him we are come; for him we have crossed

77the vast rivers of Erebus."

78The hero answered briefly: "No one has fixed abodes.

79We dwell in the shady groves, and lie on the banks of streams,

80and lodge in meadows made fresh by brooks.

81But if your heart's desire so tends, cross this ridge

82and I will set you on an easy path."

83He spoke, and led them forward; from the height

84they viewed the wide champaign below, the gleaming fields.

85"Turn your eyes this way!" Anchises said,

86"and see the Romans, your posterity,

87Caesar and all Iulus' race, destined to pass under

88the great vault of the sky."

Book XII — The Final Duel

89Turnus saw the Trojans broken, saw the walls beset;

90no other road of flight was open, no defense remained.

91Then he arose and challenged Aeneas to the field.

92He flung his lance with all his force and might,

93and rushing on, he cried:

94"Now in this body lodges all my fate."

95Aeneas caught the force upon his shield.

96In that same moment, aimed the deadly blow

97from the left side, and drove the blade below

98the belt and through the groin.

99Turnus weakened, fell upon his bending knee.

100Up rose the Latins with a piteous cry,

101and all the hills around repeated it.

102Aeneas stood, and, looking at his enemy,

103held back his hand—and now began to yield,

104when high upon the shoulder he beheld

105the baldric of young Pallas, whom Turnus had slain.

106Aeneas blazing broke all thoughts of peace:

107"Shalt thou then, clad in spoils of mine, escape?

108Pallas it is, Pallas, who deals the blow—

109and takes your forfeit blood!"

110With these words he buried the blade in Turnus' breast,

111and life fled with a moan to the shades below.

notes

The Aeneid by Publius Vergilius Maro (70–19 BCE) is the foundational epic of Roman literature. Left unfinished at Virgil's death (he reportedly asked for it to be destroyed; Augustus overruled him), it follows the Trojan hero Aeneas from the fall of Troy to his victory over Turnus in Latium, founding the lineage that would lead to Rome. The poem is structurally a response to Homer: Books I–VI retell the Odyssey (wandering) and Books VII–XII retell the Iliad (war). But where Homeric heroes fight for personal glory, Aeneas is defined by pietas — duty to the gods, to family, and to the Roman destiny. The tension between that duty and individual feeling (most acutely in his abandonment of Dido in Book IV) is the poem's enduring moral complexity. Book VI, the descent to the underworld, draws on both Homer's Nekyia (Odyssey XI) and the Platonic tradition (the Myth of Er in Republic X), and presents Anchises' great pageant of Roman history — Virgil's justification of Roman imperial destiny. Translation: John Dryden, "The Works of Virgil," London, 1697. Public domain.

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