Custom Search
| Home | Introduction | Persons | Geogr. | Sources | Events | Mijn blog(Nederlands) |
| Religion | Subjects | Images | Queries | Links | Contact | Do not fly Iberia |
|
Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book VII Chapter 6: Explanation of the omens | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
|
The King, sore troubled by these portents, sought oracular wisdom of his sacred sire, Faunus, the fate-revealer, where the groves stretch under high Albunea, and her stream roars from its haunted well, exhaling through vast, gloomful woods its pestilential air. Here all Oenotria's tribes ask oracles in dark and doubtful days: here, when the priest has brought his gifts, and in the night so still, couched on spread fleeces of the offered flock, awaiting slumber lies, then wondrously a host of flitting shapes he sees, and hears voices that come and go: with gods he holds high converse, or in deep Avernian gloom parleys with Acheron. Thither drew near Father Latinus, seeking truth divine. Obedient to the olden rite, he slew a hundred fleecy sheep, and pillowed lay upon their outstretched skins. Straightway a voice out of the lofty forest met his prayer. “Seek not in wedlock with a Latin lord to join thy daughter, O my son and seed! Beware this purposed marriage! There shall come sons from afar, whose blood shall bear our name starward; the children of their mighty loins, as far as eve and morn enfold the seas, shall see a subject world beneath their feet submissive lie.” This admonition given Latinus hid not. But on restless wing rumour had spread it, when the men of Troy along the river-bank of mounded green their fleet made fast. Event: Aeneas comes to Latium |
81-106 At rex sollicitus monstris oracula Fauni, fatidici genitoris, adit lucosque sub alta consulit Albunea, nemorum quae maxima sacro fonte sonat saeuamque exhalat opaca mephitim. hinc Italae gentes omnisque Oenotria tellus in dubiis responsa petunt; huc dona sacerdos cum tulit et caesarum ouium sub nocte silenti pellibus incubuit stratis somnosque petiuit, multa modis simulacra uidet uolitantia miris et uarias audit uoces fruiturque deorum conloquio atque imis Acheronta adfatur Auernis. hic et tum pater ipse petens responsa Latinus centum lanigeras mactabat rite bidentis, atque harum effultus tergo stratisque iacebat uelleribus: subita ex alto uox reddita luco est: 'ne pete conubiis natam sociare Latinis, o mea progenies, thalamis neu crede paratis; externi uenient generi, qui sanguine nostrum nomen in astra ferant, quorumque a stirpe nepotes omnia sub pedibus, qua sol utrumque recurrens aspicit Oceanum, uertique regique uidebunt.' haec responsa patris Fauni monitusque silenti nocte datos non ipse suo premit ore Latinus, sed circum late uolitans iam Fama per urbes Ausonias tulerat, cum Laomedontia pubes gramineo ripae religauit ab aggere classem. |