Chapter Text
Arma virumque cano, et alter vir multos vertens, 1
totum mare iactatus, actus fato crudele.
ira miseriaque incitatus, troianus vir
talia voce refert: “o terque quaterque beati
quis ante ora patrum troiae sub moenibus altis 5
contigit oppetere! Ego utinam caelo invisus,
fato tuo sociari possem. Tydide, Scamandrum
animum meum effundere debuisti, aut ‘Peliae
pedibus celeribus cum Hectore glorioso
me hasta transfigere. 10
Arms and the man I sing, and of the other man, many-turning, cast [about] the whole sea, driven by cruel fate. By anger and misery stoked, the trojan man told out with his voice this:
‘O three and four times blessed, those to whom it befell to die before the faces of their fathers, under the lofty walls of troy! If only I, hated by the heavens, could be comrade to you in fate. [Son] of Tideus, into Scamander my soul you ought to have poured out, or [the son] of Peleus, swift-footed, [you ought] to have run me through with [your] spear alongside glorious Hector.
Notes
- ‘Arma virumque cano’: Aeneas, direct quote Aen 1.1, promoted over ‘vir multos vertens’ to show Aeneas as the primary character at this point in the narrative.
‘vir multos vertens’: Odysseus. Direct translation of his epithet ‘πολυτροπον’ (Od, 1.1) - ‘Totum mare iactatus’ reference to both Aen. 1 and Od. 1. Shows what the two protagonists have in common.
- Emphatic promotion of ira. Aeneas is fed up at this point.
- Direct quote from Aen. 1
- Continuation of the quote.
- Emphatic promotion of ‘Ego’ foreshadow’s Aeneas’ selfish action later in the narrative.
- ‘Tydide’: Diomedes
- ‘Peliae’: Achilles
- ‘Pedibus celeribus’: Direct translation of ποδάρκης, a homeric epithet for achilles.
‘Glorioso’: Direct translation of φαίδιμος, a common homeric epithet sometimes applied to Hector.