Book 1
consoled my heart with this, and balanced oft
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our destined good against our destined ill!
But the same stormful fortune still pursues
my band of heroes on their perilous way.
When shall these labors cease, O glorious King?
Antenor, though th' Achaeans pressed him sore,
found his way forth, and entered unassailed
Illyria's haven, and the guarded land
of the Liburni. Straight up stream he sailed
where like a swollen sea Timavus pours
a nine-fold flood from roaring mountain gorge,
and whelms with voiceful wave the fields below.
He built Patavium there, and fixed abodes
for Troy's far-exiled sons; he gave a name
to a new land and race; the Trojan arms
were hung on temple walls; and, to this day,
lying in perfect peace, the hero sleeps.
But we of thine own seed, to whom thou dost
a station in the arch of heaven assign,
behold our navy vilely wrecked, because
a single god is angry; we endure
this treachery and violence, whereby
wide seas divide us from th' Hesperian shore.
Is this what piety receives? Or thus
doth Heaven's decree restore our fallen thrones?”
Smiling reply, the Sire of gods and men,
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with such a look as clears the skies of storm
chastely his daughter kissed, and thus spake on:
“Let Cytherea cast her fears away!
Irrevocably blest the fortunes be
of thee and thine. Nor shalt thou fail to see
that City, and the proud predestined wall
encompassing Lavinium. Thyself
shall starward to the heights of heaven bear
Aeneas the great-hearted. Nothing swerves
my will once uttered. Since such carking cares
consume thee, I this hour speak freely forth,
and leaf by leaf the book of fate unfold.
Thy son in Italy shall wage vast war
and, quell its nations wild; his city-wall
