Virgil, from The Aeneid

The commander’s words relieve their stricken hearts.
“My comrades, hardly strangers to pain before now,
we all have weathered worse. Some god will grant us
an end to this as well. You’ve threaded the rocks
resounding with Scylla’s howling rabid dogs,
and taken the brunt of the Cyclops’ boulders, too.
Call up your courage again. Dismiss your grief and fear.

A joy it will be one day, perhaps, to remember even this.
Through so many hard straits, so many twists and turns
our course holds firm for Latium. There Fate holds out
a homeland, calm, at peace. There the gods decree
the kingdom of Troy will rise gain. Bear up.
Save your strength for better times to come.”

From Robert Fagles’ 2006 translation of The Aeneid, which had been long awaited after his earlier work on The Iliad and The Odyssey. Fagles died last week; he was 74.

Last December, many of his peers and admirers gathered in New York for a celebration of his legacy.

(photo: Laura Pedrick/NYT)

1 April 2008 | poetry |