Aeneid Book 6, lines 637 - 659

Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields

by Virgil

Leaving Tartarus and the torments of the damned behind in their underworld journey, and leaving the golden bough that has been their passport for living entry to Hades as the prescribed offering to Queen Proserpina at her door, Aeneas and the Sibyl come to the paradise of the Elysian fields

See the illustrated blog post here.

To follow the story of Aeneas in sequence, use this link to the full Pantheon Poets selection of extracts from the Aeneid. See the next episode here.

To listen, press play:

To scroll the original and English translation of the poem at the same time - tap inside one box to select it and then scroll.

His demum exactis, perfecto munere divae
devenere locos laetos et amoena virecta
fortunatorum nemorum sedesque beatas.
largior hic campos aether et lumine vestit
purpureo, solemque suum, sua sidera norunt.
pars in gramineis exercent membra palaestris,
contendunt ludo et fulva luctantur harena;
pars pedibus plaudunt choreas et carmina dicunt.
nec non Threicius longa cum veste sacerdos
obloquitur numeris septem discrimina vocum,
iamque eadem digitis, iam pectine pulsat eburno.
hic genus antiquum Teucri, pulcherrima proles,
magnanimi heroes nati melioribus annis,
Ilusque Assaracusque et Troiae Dardanus auctor.
arma procul currusque virum miratur inanis;
stant terra defixae hastae passimque soluti
per campum pascuntur equi. quae gratia currum
armorumque fuit vivis, quae cura nitentis
pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos.
conspicit, ecce, alios dextra laevaque per herbam
vescentis laetumque choro paeana canentis
inter odoratum lauri nemus, unde superne
plurimus Eridani per silvam volvitur amnis.

This done, and the gift to the Goddess made,
they reached the happy land, the lovely sward
of the groves of the favoured and their blessed homes.
Here the air was more open, clothed the fields with
glowing light and beheld its own sun, its own stars.
Some train their limbs in the grassy rings, strive
in the contest and wrestle on the golden sand; some
beat the dance-floor with their feet and chant songs.
Thracian Orpheus, too, is there in his long robe, and
accompanies the line of the singers’ tune with seven
notes, plays now with fingers, now his ivory plectrum.
Here is the ancient race of Teucer, a handsome line,
high-minded heroes born in a greater age, Ilus,
Assaracus and Dardanus, founder of Troy. From a
distance he admires their phantom arms and chariots;
spears stand in the ground, while everywhere horses
graze, loose in the fields. The same pleasure they took,
alive, in arms, chariots and keeping horses
follows them under the earth. And look,
he sees others to left and right, feasting on
the grass and singing a joyful hymn under the
laurel-scented grove, from which, to Earth above,
the great river Po rolls through the wood.

`

More Poems by Virgil

  1. Aeneas learns the way to the underworld
  2. The farmer’s starry calendar
  3. Virgil’s poetic temple to Caesar
  4. Love is the same for all
  5. The journey to Hades begins
  6. Hector visits Aeneas in a dream
  7. New allies for Aeneas
  8. The infant Camilla
  9. Aeneas joins the fray
  10. Turnus is lured away from battle
  11. Aeneas comes to the Hell of Tartarus
  12. Aeneas’s oath
  13. Aeneas finds Dido among the shades
  14. Palinurus the helmsman is lost
  15. Aeneas arrives in Italy
  16. Dido’s release
  17. The death of Dido.
  18. Aeneas’s ships are transformed
  19. Aristaeus’s bees
  20. Mourning for Pallas
  21. How Aeneas will know the site of his city
  22. Help for Father Aeneas from Father Tiber
  23. The Harpy’s prophecy
  24. Juno is reconciled
  25. The farmer’s happy lot
  26. Virgil begins the Georgics
  27. Storm at sea!
  28. Fire strikes Aeneas’s fleet
  29. Laocoon warns against the Trojan horse
  30. Charon, the ferryman
  31. In King Latinus’s hall
  32. The Syrian hostess
  33. Vulcan’s forge
  34. Aeneas tours the site of Rome
  35. The Trojan Horse enters the city
  36. The Trojans reach Carthage
  37. Aeneas sees Marcellus, Augustus’s tragic heir
  38. Dido and Aeneas: royal hunt and royal affair
  39. Aeneas rescues his Father Anchises
  40. Anchises’s ghost invites Aeneas to visit the underworld
  41. The death of Priam
  42. Jupiter’s prophecy
  43. Aeneas saves his son and father, but at a cost
  44. Aeneas’s vision of Augustus
  45. Catastrophe for Rome?
  46. The death of Euryalus and Nisus
  47. Aeneas is wounded
  48. Signs of bad weather
  49. Dido falls in love
  50. Rites for the allies’ dead
  51. Mercury’s journey to Carthage
  52. Turnus at bay
  53. More from Virgil’s farming Utopia
  54. A Fury rouses Turnus to war
  55. Virgil’s perils on the sea
  56. Sea-nymphs
  57. King Latinus grants the Trojans’ request
  58. The natural history of bees
  59. Aeneas prepares to tell Dido his story
  60. The death of Pallas
  61. Turnus the wolf
  62. Omens for Princess Lavinia
  63. The Fury Allecto blows the alarm
  64. King Mezentius meets his match
  65. The portals of sleep
  66. Juno throws open the gates of war
  67. The Trojans prepare to set sail from Carthage
  68. The Aeneid begins
  69. Souls awaiting punishment in Tartarus, and the crimes that brought them there.
  70. Laocoon and the snakes
  71. Dido and Aeneas: Hell hath no fury …
  72. Virgil predicts a forthcoming birth and a new golden age
  73. Rumour