On deep consideration, King Latinus accedes to Aeneas’s request through his ambassadors for peaceful permission to settle, and is ready to offer him his daughter’s hand in marriage. The prospects for peace look bright, but they are fragile and Juno is ready to take a hand and sow discord.
Hear the extract in Latin and follow in English here.
Today’s new poem is the famous first appearance of the saying “carpe diem”, early in Horace’s Odes. It means “seize the day”, doesn’t it? Yes, and so many other possible things that it is ultimately untranslatable. Read more, hear the Latin and follow in English here.
At first glance there is not much in this poem to remind us of Latin, except perhaps for the “murmuring labours” of the Etonians studying their vocab or irregular verbs. However, it is pure “carpe diem”, and the personified human misfortunes it lists are a pretty close borrowing from Book 6 of the Aeneid. See the Aeneid text, and the whole of the Gray poem, here.
The picture is one of a sequence illustrating the poem by William Blake.
Today’s poem is traditionally ascribed to Virgil: it is plenty good enough, though not his usual style. If it does not make you want to spend a hot afternoon relaxing in the shade, see a doctor. The illustration of a Syrian dancer is by Waterhouse.
Hear the Latin and follow in English here.
King Latinus, informed that strangers have arrived in the kingdom and that ambassadors have come to wait on him, goes to the heart of his court to receive them, a resplendent building with a hundred columns at the top of the city. It stands in a dense, sacred wood and serves as a temple as well as a throne-room, containing the spoils of war along with carvings of Latinus’s predecessors. One of these is of King Picus, whom the sorceress Circe turned into a woodpecker when he rejected her advances. He is not visible in this picture of Circe and her shape-shifted pets: perhaps he is staying out of reach of her lions and foxes.
Hear the Latin and follow in English here.
The fulfilment of a prophecy shows Aeneas and his Trojan companions the site of their future city in Italy. Jupiter thunders three times and brandishes a fiery cloud to confirm the omen.
Hear the Latin and follow in English here.
In today’s extract, Aeneas learns in his journey to the underworld of Marcellus, the Emperor Augustus’s nephew. Augustus adopted him as his son and prospective successor and heir in 25 BCE, when he was still only a teenager. It was not to be: Marcellus would die only two years later with his potential unfulfilled. The illustration shows what might have been: the general making a triumphant entry to Rome may be the Marcellus with whose shade Aeneas sees the young man walking, an illustrious war leader of the third century BCE.
Hear the extract in Latin and follow in English here.
Yeats shows classical and Byzantine influences in a poem that expresses sadness at growing old but asserts the power of mysticism and intellect. He may have had this 6th century portrait of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I in mind when making his references to golden mosaics and drowsy Emperors. Read the poem here.
It is time for Lavinia, the only child of King Latinus of Latium, to marry. Her mother, the Queen, has definite plans, but the omens are unfavourable, including a horrifying accident as Lavinia’s hair catches fire at the altar.
Hear the Latin and follow in English here.