Read Online The Aeneid by Robert Fagles Virgil, Bernard Knox - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Fagles Virgil, Bernard Knox
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were not many Italians who would call him “blessed” now; in fact, a few weeks later his blood-stained corpse, together with that of his mistress, Clara Petacci, and that of his right-hand man, Starace, would be hanging upside-down outside a gas station in Milan.
And then I remembered the Sortes Virgilianae. I closed my eyes, opened the book at random and put my finger on the page. What I got was not so much a prophecy about my own future as a prophecy for Italy; it was from lines at the end of the first Georgic :
. . . a world in ruins . . .
For right and wrong change places; everywhere
So many wars, so many shapes of crime
Confront us; no due honor attends the plow.
The fields, bereft of tillers, are all unkempt . . .
. . . throughout the world
Impious War is raging.
(1.500-11)
“A world in ruins.” It was an exact description of the Italy we were fighting in—its railroads and its ancient buildings shattered by Allied aircraft, its elegant bridges blown into the water by the retreating Germans, and its fields sown not with seed by the farmers but with mines by the German engineers.
The fighting stopped; it was time to move on. I tried to get the Virgil into my pack, but it was too big, and I threw it back to the cluttered floor. But I remember thinking: “If I get out of this alive, I’ll go back to the classics, and Virgil especially.” And I did. My first scholarly article, written when I was an assistant professor at Yale, was about the imagery of Book 2 of the Aeneid, entitled “The Serpent and the Flame.”
BOOK ONE
Safe Haven After Storm
Wars and a man I sing—an exile driven on by Fate,
he was the first to flee the coast of Troy,
destined to reach Lavinian shores and Italian soil,
yet many blows he took on land and sea from the gods above—
thanks to cruel Juno’s relentless rage—and many losses
he bore in battle too, before he could found a city,
bring his gods to Latium, source of the Latin race,
the Alban lords and the high walls of Rome.
Tell me,
Muse, how it all began. Why was Juno outraged?
What could wound the Queen of the Gods with all her power?
Why did she force a man, so famous for his devotion,
to brave such rounds of hardship, bear such trials?
Can such rage inflame the immortals’ hearts?
There was an ancient city held by Tyrian settlers,
Carthage, facing Italy and the Tiber River’s mouth
but far away—a rich city trained and fierce in war.
Juno loved it, they say, beyond all other lands
in the world, even beloved Samos, second best.
Here she kept her armor, here her chariot too,
and Carthage would rule the nations of the earth
if only the Fates were willing. This was Juno’s goal
from the start, and so she nursed her city’s strength.
But she heard a race of men, sprung of Trojan blood,
would one day topple down her Tyrian stronghold,
breed an arrogant people ruling far and wide,
proud in battle, destined to plunder Libya.
So the Fates were spinning out the future . . .
This was Juno’s fear
and the goddess never forgot the old campaign
that she had waged at Troy for her beloved Argos.
No, not even now would the causes of her rage,
her bitter sorrows drop from the goddess’ mind.
They festered deep within her, galled her still:
the Judgment of Paris, the unjust slight to her beauty,
the Trojan stock she loathed, the honors showered on Ganymede
ravished to the skies. Her fury inflamed by all this,
the daughter of Saturn drove over endless oceans
Trojans left by the Greeks and brute Achilles.
Juno kept them far from Latium, forced by the Fates
to wander round the seas of the world, year in, year out.
Such a long hard labor it was to found the Roman people.
Now, with the ridge of Sicily barely out of sight,
they spread sail for the open sea, their spirits buoyant,
their bronze beaks churning the waves to foam as Juno,
nursing deep in her heart the everlasting wound,
said to herself: “Defeated, am I? Give up the fight?
Powerless now to
And then I remembered the Sortes Virgilianae. I closed my eyes, opened the book at random and put my finger on the page. What I got was not so much a prophecy about my own future as a prophecy for Italy; it was from lines at the end of the first Georgic :
. . . a world in ruins . . .
For right and wrong change places; everywhere
So many wars, so many shapes of crime
Confront us; no due honor attends the plow.
The fields, bereft of tillers, are all unkempt . . .
. . . throughout the world
Impious War is raging.
(1.500-11)
“A world in ruins.” It was an exact description of the Italy we were fighting in—its railroads and its ancient buildings shattered by Allied aircraft, its elegant bridges blown into the water by the retreating Germans, and its fields sown not with seed by the farmers but with mines by the German engineers.
The fighting stopped; it was time to move on. I tried to get the Virgil into my pack, but it was too big, and I threw it back to the cluttered floor. But I remember thinking: “If I get out of this alive, I’ll go back to the classics, and Virgil especially.” And I did. My first scholarly article, written when I was an assistant professor at Yale, was about the imagery of Book 2 of the Aeneid, entitled “The Serpent and the Flame.”
BOOK ONE
Safe Haven After Storm
Wars and a man I sing—an exile driven on by Fate,
he was the first to flee the coast of Troy,
destined to reach Lavinian shores and Italian soil,
yet many blows he took on land and sea from the gods above—
thanks to cruel Juno’s relentless rage—and many losses
he bore in battle too, before he could found a city,
bring his gods to Latium, source of the Latin race,
the Alban lords and the high walls of Rome.
Tell me,
Muse, how it all began. Why was Juno outraged?
What could wound the Queen of the Gods with all her power?
Why did she force a man, so famous for his devotion,
to brave such rounds of hardship, bear such trials?
Can such rage inflame the immortals’ hearts?
There was an ancient city held by Tyrian settlers,
Carthage, facing Italy and the Tiber River’s mouth
but far away—a rich city trained and fierce in war.
Juno loved it, they say, beyond all other lands
in the world, even beloved Samos, second best.
Here she kept her armor, here her chariot too,
and Carthage would rule the nations of the earth
if only the Fates were willing. This was Juno’s goal
from the start, and so she nursed her city’s strength.
But she heard a race of men, sprung of Trojan blood,
would one day topple down her Tyrian stronghold,
breed an arrogant people ruling far and wide,
proud in battle, destined to plunder Libya.
So the Fates were spinning out the future . . .
This was Juno’s fear
and the goddess never forgot the old campaign
that she had waged at Troy for her beloved Argos.
No, not even now would the causes of her rage,
her bitter sorrows drop from the goddess’ mind.
They festered deep within her, galled her still:
the Judgment of Paris, the unjust slight to her beauty,
the Trojan stock she loathed, the honors showered on Ganymede
ravished to the skies. Her fury inflamed by all this,
the daughter of Saturn drove over endless oceans
Trojans left by the Greeks and brute Achilles.
Juno kept them far from Latium, forced by the Fates
to wander round the seas of the world, year in, year out.
Such a long hard labor it was to found the Roman people.
Now, with the ridge of Sicily barely out of sight,
they spread sail for the open sea, their spirits buoyant,
their bronze beaks churning the waves to foam as Juno,
nursing deep in her heart the everlasting wound,
said to herself: “Defeated, am I? Give up the fight?
Powerless now to
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