Aeneid III: A Translation in Alliterative Verse

Aeneid III: 1-68

After the eastern empire, and pure people of Priam

The Divines destroyed, proud Ilium perished,

And the Sea-god's city smouldered on the soil,

In diverse direction, strange shores to seek,

By divine divinations we are driven, a fleet we form

Adjacent to Antandros and the alps of Ilion Ida

Uncertain where Fate may ferry us, and allow us to anchor,

We muster our men. Scarcely the first summer started,

And Ancient Anchises advised us to spread our sails to the stars.

Lacrimose I left my lands, and relinquished my refuge,

And the terrain where Troy was, an outcast on the ocean

I sail with my son and shipmates, with hearth-guardians and greater gods.

There is a far-flung field, the wastes of the War-god,

Tilled by Thracians, once led by lethal Lycurgus,

An ancient ally of Ilium, and hospitable to the household gods

While Fortune favoured. Thus we cruise and on curved coast

Found our first fortifications, starting under sour stars,

The appellation Aeneadae from my family name I form.

To Dione's daughter and the Divines I give gifts,

The supporters of our starting strivings, and a brilliant bull

To the proud prince of Paradise I sacrifice on the shore.

By chance it bordered a bank, crowned with cornel-trees,

With brushwood bristling solid with spears,

I approached, and attempted to grab green growth from the ground,

To array the altars with budding boughs.

Remarkable to recount, I see a startling sight.

For the first forest from field with rupture root I ripped,

Gushed with gouts of black blood

And stained the soil with slime. A cold chill

Shook my soul, and my life-fluid froze in fear.

Again another tough twig I try to tug

And seek the source of the hidden horror

And again black blood bleeds from the bark

My soul sorely shaken I worshippped the wild wood-spirits

And great Gravidus, the Getic ploughlands presiding

To solemnly sanctify the sight and cancel the curse

But after a third thrust I make on the myrtle

Kneeling, the nasty sands I struggle on

To speak or stay silent? A mournful moan

Groaned from the grave, a reply reaches my ears:

"Why mangle miserable me, Aeneas, spare my sepulchre

Pause the pollution of your pure palms. To you, a true Trojan,

I am no stranger, nor springs this blood from a bough.

Alas flee these fatal fields, shun this spiteful shore.

I was Polydorus, here pierced by steely shafts

The grain grows with sharp spikes."

Then truly with two-fold terror my mind mangled,

Stunned, my speech stuck and my beard bristled.

Poor Polydorus, given great gobs of gold

Pitiful Priam secretly sent

The Thracian throne to tend, when now distrust

In Trojan troops, and the city seen circled in siege

The Dardanian divisions dashed, and Fortune fading

Perfidious Polymnestre, devotes to the dominant Danaos

All vows violated, polishes off Polydorus

Gains the gold by grab. What mortal morals are not misled

By goddamn greed for gold? After fear fled my form,

To chosen chieftains and first to my father,

I told the terrible tale, and sought their sentiment.

All agreed alike: to sail from the stained soil,

To quit the corrupted confederate, and set sail to the South wind.

Thus we fashioned a fit funeral for perished Polydorus,

And much mud was moved to his mound, sanctuaries set forth for the spirits,

Bleak with black bands and sad cypress,

Around loose-locked ladies, according to custom

We bring basins brimming with mellow milk

And bowls of beatified blood, and the ghost in the grave

We lay, and lastly with clamorous chant we cry.