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

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.