Aeneid Book 7, lines 54- 78

Omens for Princess Lavinia

by Virgil

As Aeneas and the Trojans arrive in Latium, its King, Latinus, has no sons and an only daughter, Lavinia. Many would like to marry her: the favourite is Turnus, the handsome chief of the neighbouring Rutuli. In this passage, however, omens suggest to Latinus that fate requires him to look farther afield.

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Multi illam magno e Latio totaque petebant
Ausonia. petit ante alios pulcherrimus omnis
Turnus, avis atavisque potens, quem regia coniunx
adiungi generum miro properabat amore;
sed variis portenta deum terroribus obstant.
laurus erat tecti medio in penetralibus altis,
sacra comam multosque metu servata per annos,
quam pater inventam, primas cum conderet arces,
ipse ferebatur Phoebo sacrasse Latinus
Laurentisque ab ea nomen posuisse colonis.
huius apes summum densae (mirabile dictu),
stridore ingenti liquidum trans aethera vectae,
obsedere apicem, ex pedibus per mutua nexis
examen subitum ramo frondente pependit.
continuo vates: ‘Externum cernimus,’ inquit,
‘adventare virum et partis petere agmen easdem
partibus ex isdem et summa dominarier arce.’
praeterea, castis adolet dum altaria taedis
et iuxta genitorem adstat Lavinia virgo,
visa (nefas) longis comprendere crinibus ignem,
atque omnem ornatum flamma crepitante cremari
regalisque accensa comas, accensa coronam
insignem gemmis, tum fumida lumine fulvo
involvi ac totis Volcanum spargere tectis.

Many men sought her, from great Latium and all Ausonia.
Turnus sought her, more handsome than all others,
powerful by descent and long pedigree, whom the Queen
loved and was determined to make her son-in-law, but
various frightening omens from the Gods stood in the way.
In the lofty shrine in the middle of the house stood
a laurel, with a sacred crown, kept with great care
over many years, which father Latinus himself
was said to have found and consecrated to Apollo
when first he founded the citadel, and named his colonists
the Laurentes after it. Wonderful to say, a dense cloud
of bees was borne through the clear air with a great hum
and settled at the top, locked together by the feet,
and hung all of a sudden in a swarm from the leafy branch.
The seer broke out: “I see a foreigner come, and
a force make for this same place from the same
quarter, and hold sway in the very topmost stronghold.”
Also, as the maid Lavinia worshipped with chaste torches
at the altar, standing by her father, a terrible thing!
they saw her catch fire in her long hair, the whole
of its ornament burning with crackling flame,
her royal locks, her diadem and its bright gems alight,
and she engulfed in smoke and glow, scattering
Vulcan’s sparks all through the palace.

`

More Poems by Virgil

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