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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book III Chapter 2: Omens | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
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Unto Dione's daughter [Note 1], and all gods who blessed our young emprise, due gifts were paid; and unto the supreme celestial King [Note 2] I slew a fair white bull beside the sea. But haply near my place of sacrifice a mound was seen, and on the summit grew a copse of corner and a myrtle tree, with spear-like limbs outbranched on every side. This I approached, and tried to rend away from its deep roots that grove of gloomy green, and dress my altars in its leafy boughs. But, horrible to tell, a prodigy smote my astonished eyes: for the first tree, which from the earth with broken roots I drew, dripped black with bloody drops, and gave the ground dark stains of gore. Cold horror shook my frame, and every vein within me froze for fear. Once more I tried from yet another stock the pliant stem to tear, and to explore the mystery within, -- but yet again the foul bark oozed with clots of blackest gore! From my deep-shaken soul I made a prayer to all the woodland nymphs and to divine Gradivus, patron of the Thracian plain, to bless this sight, to lift its curse away. But when at a third sheaf of myrtle spears I fell upon my knees, and tugged amain against the adverse (ground (I dread to tell!), a moaning and a wail from that deep grave burst forth and murmured in my listening ear: "Why wound me, great Aeneas, in my woe? O, spare the dead, nor let thy holy hands do sacrilege and sin! I, Trojan-born, was kin of thine. This blood is not of trees. Haste from this murderous shore, this land of greed. O, I am Polydorus! Haste away! Here was I pierced; a crop of iron spears has grown up o'er my breast, and multiplied to all these deadly javelins, keen and strong." Then stood I, burdened with dark doubt and fear I quailed, my hair rose and my utterance choked. |
10-48 litora cum patriae lacrimans portusque relinquo et campos ubi Troia fuit. feror exsul in altum cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis. Terra procul uastis colitur Mauortia campis (Thraces arant) acri quondam regnata Lycurgo, hospitium antiquum Troiae sociique penates dum fortuna fuit. feror huc et litore curuo moenia prima loco fatis ingressus iniquis Aeneadasque meo nomen de nomine fingo sacra Dionaeae matri diuisque ferebam auspicibus coeptorum operum, superoque nitentem caelicolum regi mactabam in litore taurum. forte fuit iuxta tumulus, quo cornea summo uirgulta et densis hastilibus horrida myrtus. accessi uiridemque ab humo conuellere siluam conatus, ramis tegerem ut frondentibus aras, horrendum et dictu uideo mirabile monstrum. nam quae prima solo ruptis radicibus arbos uellitur, huic atro liquuntur sanguine guttae et terram tabo maculant. mihi frigidus horror membra quatit gelidusque coit formidine sanguis. rursus et alterius lentum conuellere uimen insequor et causas penitus temptare latentis; ater et alterius sequitur de cortice sanguis. multa mouens animo Nymphas uenerabar agrestis Gradiuumque patrem, Geticis qui praesidet aruis, rite secundarent uisus omenque leuarent. tertia sed postquam maiore hastilia nisu adgredior genibusque aduersae obluctor harenae, (eloquar an sileam?) gemitus lacrimabilis imo auditur tumulo et uox reddita fertur ad auris: 'quid miserum, Aenea, laceras? iam parce sepulto, parce pias scelerare manus. non me tibi Troia externum tulit aut cruor hic de stipite manat. heu fuge crudelis terras, fuge litus auarum: nam Polydorus ego. hic confixum ferrea texit telorum seges et iaculis increuit acutis.' tum uero ancipiti mentem formidine pressus obstipui steteruntque comae et uox faucibus haesit. |