Analysis of Virgil's Aeneid

Selection 1: from the Aeneid by Virgil

The following passage is an excerpt from Virgil's epic poem the Aeneid. Virgil drew inspiration for this epic from Homer's famous epics the Iliad and the Odyssey. This excerpt is taken from the beginning of the epic poem. The hero of the epic is Aeneas. Aeneas and his people, the Trojans, were defeated in the Trojan War by the Greeks. The epic starts with Aeneas and the Trojans sailing on the Mediterranean Sea from Troy to Italy. Aeneas is lamenting the loss of the city of Troy and the hate he feels from the divine goddess Juno. Juno dislikes the Trojans. She has sent a storm that she hopes will destroy the fleet.

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate,

And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,

Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore.

Long labours, both by sea and land, he bore,

And in the doubtful war, before he won

The Latian realm, and built the destin'd town;

His banish'd gods restor'd to rites divine,

And settled sure succession in his line,

From whence the race of Alban fathers come,

And the long glories of majestic Rome.

O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;

What goddess was provok'd, and whence her hate;

For what offence the Queen of Heav'n began

To persecute so brave, so just a man;

Involv'd his anxious life in endless cares,

Expos'd to wants, and hurried into wars!

Can heav'nly minds such high resentment show,

Or exercise their spite in human woe?

Against the Tiber's mouth, but far away,

An ancient town was seated on the sea;

A Tyrian colony; the people made

Stout for the war, and studious of their trade;

Carthage the name; belov'd by Juno more

Than her own Argos, or the Samian shore.

Here stood her chariot; here, if Heav'n were kind,

The seat of awful empire she design'd.

Yet she had heard an ancient rumour fly,

1 Tiber's mouth the mouth of the Tiber River; a river in Italy.

2 Carthage ... shore Carthage is an ancient city in north Africa, in what is now Tunisia. Argos and Samos are cities of ancient Greece. Juno (in Greek mythology, Hera) was the patron goddess of Argos. She was said to have been born in Samos.