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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book XII Chapter 10: Oath of Aeneas | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
Aeneas thus: then with uplifted eyes Latinus swore, his right hand raised to heaven: I too, Aeneas, take the sacred vow. By earth and sea and stars in heaven I swear, by fair Latona's radiant children [Note 1] twain, and two-browed Janus; by the shadowy powers of Hades and th' inexorable shrines of the Infernal King; and may Jove hear, who by his lightnings hallows what is sworn! I touch these altars, and my lips invoke the sacred altar-fires that 'twixt us burn: we men of Italy will make this peace inviolate, and its bond forever keep, let come what will; there is no power can change my purpose, not if ocean's waves o'erwhelm the world in billowy deluge and obscure the bounds of heaven and hell. We shall remain immutable as my smooth sceptre is (By chance a sceptre in his hand he bore), which wears no more light leaf or branching shade; for long since in the grove t was plucked away from parent stem, and yielded to sharp steel its leaves and limbs; erewhile t was but a tree, till the wise craftsman with fair sheath of bronze encircled it and laid it in the hands of Latium's royal sires. With words like these they swore the bond, in the beholding eyes of gathered princes. Then they slit the throats of hallowed victims o'er the altar's blaze, drew forth the quivering vitals, and with flesh on loaded chargers heaped the sacrifice. |
195-215 suspiciens caelum, tenditque ad sidera dextram: 'haec eadem, Aenea, terram, mare, sidera, iuro Latonaeque genus duplex Ianumque bifrontem, uimque deum infernam et duri sacraria Ditis; audiat haec genitor qui foedera fulmine sancit. tango aras, medios ignis et numina testor: nulla dies pacem hanc Italis nec foedera rumpet, quo res cumque cadent; nec me uis ulla uolentem auertet, non, si tellurem effundat in undas diluuio miscens caelumque in Tartara soluat, ut sceptrum hoc' (dextra sceptrum nam forte gerebat) 'numquam fronde leui fundet uirgulta nec umbras, cum semel in siluis imo de stirpe recisum matre caret posuitque comas et bracchia ferro, olim arbos, nunc artificis manus aere decoro inclusit patribusque dedit gestare Latinis.' talibus inter se firmabant foedera dictis conspectu in medio procerum. tum rite sacratas in flammam iugulant pecudes et uiscera uiuis eripiunt, cumulantque oneratis lancibus aras. |