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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book VI Chapter 27: Aneas wonders about reincarnation | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
After these things Aeneas was aware Of solemn groves in one deep, distant vale, Where trees were whispering, and forever flowed The river Lethe, through its land of calm. Nations unnumbered roved and haunted there: As when, upon a windless summer morn, The bees afield among the rainbow flowers Alight and sip, or round the lilies pure Pour forth in busy swarm, while far diffused Their murmured songs from all the meadows rise. Aeneas in amaze the wonder views, And fearfully inquires of whence and why; What yonder rivers be; what people press, Line after line, on those dim shores along. Said Sire Anchises: Yonder thronging souls To reincarnate shape predestined move. Here, at the river Lethe's wave, they quaff Care-quelling floods, and long oblivion. Of these I shall discourse, and to thy soul Make visible the number and array Of my posterity; so shall thy heart In Italy, thy new-found home, rejoice. O father, said Aeneas, must I deem That from this region souls exalted rise To upper air, and shall once more return To cumbering flesh? O, wherefore do they feel, Unhappy ones, such fatal lust to live? I speak, my son, nor make thee longer doubt, Anchises said, and thus the truth set forth, In ordered words from point to point unfolding: Event: Aeneas visits the Underworld |
703-723 Interea uidet Aeneas in ualle reducta seclusum nemus et uirgulta sonantia siluae, Lethaeumque domos placidas qui praenatat amnem. hunc circum innumerae gentes populique uolabant: ac ueluti in pratis ubi apes aestate serena floribus insidunt uariis et candida circum lilia funduntur, strepit omnis murmure campus. horrescit uisu subito causasque requirit inscius Aeneas, quae sint ea flumina porro, quiue uiri tanto complerint agmine ripas. tum pater Anchises: 'animae, quibus altera fato corpora debentur, Lethaei ad fluminis undam securos latices et longa obliuia potant. has equidem memorare tibi atque ostendere coram iampridem, hanc prolem cupio enumerare meorum, quo magis Italia mecum laetere reperta.' 'o pater, anne aliquas ad caelum hinc ire putandum est sublimis animas iterumque ad tarda reuerti corpora? quae lucis miseris tam dira cupido?' 'dicam equidem nec te suspensum, nate, tenebo' suscipit Anchises atque ordine singula pandit. |