“Come, dear Father, climb on my back; I will bear you
on my shoulders, the task will be light;
come what may, for us there will be one shared danger,
one safety for us both. Let little Iulus come with me,
let my wife follow our steps at a distance.
Servants, attend to what I shall say. By the way out
of the city is a mound and an ancient temple
of abandoned Ceres, and by it an aged cypress, preserved
through many years by the religion of our fathers.
We shall go by different ways and meet at this spot.
Father, hold the sacred relics and ancestral home-gods
– coming from such slaughter and recent bloodshed,
they would be sinful to touch until I purify myself
in living water.”
Then I clothe my broad shoulders and bowed neck
with the skin of a tawny lion and take up
my burden.Little Iulus grips my right hand,
following his father with smaller steps:
then comes my wife. Through the dark we go;
no flying spears, or Greek bands from the enemy
army troubled me before, but every breeze frightens
and every sound alarms me now, tense and fearful equally
for my companion and my burden. Now near the gates,
I seemed to have made my escape entirely,
when suddenly we seem to hear running feet,
and my Father, peering through the dark, cries
“My son! Flee, my son, they are coming!
I see flashing shields and sparkling bronze!”
Now some malign god snatched away my shaken senses,
for as I missed the way in my flight,
following streets I did not know, alas, whether
my wife Creusa stopped, or was torn away by fate,
or missed her way, or sank exhausted, is unclear,but
we never saw her again. I did not miss her,
look back or think of her until we came
to the mound and the sacred seat of ancient Ceres:
here, when we were all together, only she was lacking to
her son and husband. In my frenzy,
whom did I not accuse of men or gods, or
what sight I saw in the fallen city was crueller?