I would have preferred Sarah Ruden for gender balance, but hers is not available in Kindle yet.įor Book VI, I also read Seamus Heaney’s translation, completed but not finally edited when he died (just as Virgil himself was still working on the Æneid at the time of his own death). I found him useful as a comprehension check where I got lost in Dryden’s verse, but I wasn’t convinced that I gained all that much in meaning, and the verse structure doesn’t carry me along in the sae way as the original or Dryden. To be honest I didn’t think Fagles was as good. I decided quite early on that I had to start with Dryden, whose verse is beautifully lyrical and mostly clear, and then wavered between the various modern translations before settling on Fagles. I thought I had previously read a translation of the Æneid, but I definitely hadn’t - I did the first third or so of Book II as part of a long-ago Latin O-Level, and more recently read Marlowe’s Dido, but this was my first time working through the whole thing. Proud fortress of Priam, you would tower still!” To rip the Greek lair open with iron spears and Surely Laocoön would have driven us on, now, If Fate and our own wits had not gone against us, Quivering, there it stuck, and the stricken wombĬame booming back from its depths with echoing groans. The mortised timberwork of its swollen belly. “In that spirit, with all his might he hurledĪ huge spear straight into the monster’s flanks, I fear the Greeks, especially bearing gifts.’ Or some other deception’s lurking deep inside it. Spy on our homes, come down on our city, overwhelm us. Or the horse is a battle-engine geared to breach our walls, Trust me, either the Greeks are hiding, shut inside those beams, FATA DEUM EARLY ACCESS FREEOr any gift of the Greeks is free of guile? You really believe the enemy’s sailed away? FATA DEUM EARLY ACCESS FULL“But now, out in the lead with a troop of comrades,ĭown Laocoön runs from the heights in full fury,Ĭalling out from a distance: ‘Poor doomed fools, Then had our lances pierc’d the treach’rous wood,Īnd Ilian tow’rs and Priam’s empire stood.” The sides, transpierc’d, return a rattling sound,Īnd groans of Greeks inclos’d come issuing thro’ the woundĪnd, had not Heav’n the fall of Troy design’d,Įnough was said and done t’inspire a better mind. Pierc’d thro’ the yielding planks of jointed wood, His forceful spear, which, hissing as it flew, Thus having said, against the steed he threw Trust not their presents, nor admit the horse.’ Somewhat is sure design’d, by fraud or force: T’ o’erlook the walls, and then to batter down. Within its blind recess, our secret foes Think you the Grecians from your coasts are gone? What more than madness has possess’d your brains? ‘O wretched countrymen! what fury reigns? Ran from the fort, and cried, from far, aloud: Troiaque nunc staret, Priamique arx alta maneres. Impulerat ferro Argolicas foedare latebras, Insonuere cavae gemitumque dedere cavernae.Įt, si fata deum, si mens non laeva fuisset, In latus inque feri curvam compagibus alvumĬontorsit. Sic fatus ualidis ingentem viribus hastam Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.' Inspectura domos venturaque desuper urbi,Īut aliquis latet error equo ne credite, Teucri. Primus ibi ante omnis magna comitante catervaĮt procul 'o miseri, quae tanta insania, cives?Ĭreditis avectos hostis? aut ulla putatisĭona carere dolis Danaum? sic notus Ulixes?Īut hoc inclusi ligno occultantur Achivi,Īut haec in nostros fabricata est machina muros, NwhyteRather than the second paragraph of Book III, I’m taking the second paragraph of Book II as my sample text, because it includes the single best known quotation from the poem:
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