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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book II Chapter 15: Aeneas gathers a group of Trojans | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
When these I [Note 1] saw close-gathered for the fight, I thus addressed them: Warriors, vainly brave, if ye indeed desire to follow one who dares the uttermost brave men may do, our evil plight ye see: the gods are fled from every altar and protecting fire, which were the kingdom's stay. Ye offer aid unto your country's ashes. Let us fight unto the death! To arms, my men, to arms! The single hope and stay of desperate men is their despair. Thus did I rouse their souls. Then like the ravening wolves, some night of cloud, when cruel hunger in an empty maw drives them forth furious, and their whelps behind wait famine-throated; so through foemen's steel we flew to surest death, and kept our way straight through the midmost town night brooded above us in vast vault of shade. But who the bloodshed of that night can tell? What tongue its deaths shall number, or what eyes find meed of tears to equal all its woe? The ancient City fell, whose throne had stood age after age. Along her streets were strewn the unresisting dead; at household shrines and by the temples of the gods they lay. Yet not alone was Teucrian blood required: oft out of vanquished hearts fresh valor flamed, and the Greek victor fell. Anguish and woe were everywhere; pale terrors ranged abroad, and multitudinous death met every eye. Note 1: I = Aeneas Event: The fall of Troy |
347-369 quos ubi confertos ardere in proelia uidi, incipio super his: 'iuuenes, fortissima frustra pectora, si uobis audentem extrema cupido certa sequi, quae sit rebus fortuna uidetis: excessere omnes adytis arisque relictis di quibus imperium hoc steterat; succurritis urbi incensae. moriamur et in media arma ruamus. una salus uictis nullam sperare salutem.' sic animis iuuenum furor additus. inde, lupi ceu raptores atra in nebula, quos improba uentris exegit caecos rabies catulique relicti faucibus exspectant siccis, per tela, per hostis uadimus haud dubiam in mortem mediaeque tenemus urbis iter; nox atra caua circumuolat umbra. quis cladem illius noctis, quis funera fando explicet aut possit lacrimis aequare labores? urbs antiqua ruit multos dominata per annos; plurima perque uias sternuntur inertia passim corpora perque domos et religiosa deorum limina. nec soli poenas dant sanguine Teucri; quondam etiam uictis redit in praecordia uirtus uictoresque cadunt Danai. crudelis ubique luctus, ubique pauor et plurima mortis imago. |