Today’s new Latin poem is from Virgil’s Aeneid. It sets the scene for Aeneas, as an honoured guest at the court of Dido, Queen of Carthage, to describe the fall of Troy. He is a Trojan prince, and the story he tells will be first-hand, vivid and full of drama, and a rarer subject in ancient literature than you might suppose – Homer’s Iliad ends before Troy falls. As Book 2 begins, Aeneas’s superhuman dignity and charisma are meant to remind us of his descendant, the Emperor Augustus.
Aeneas succeeds in rescuing his son and father, but cannot save his wife, Creusa. Hear the story in Latin and follow in English here.
At first Aeneas’s Father Anchises didn’t want to go, but now his son carries him to safety through the flames as Troy falls. Hear Virgil’s poetry in Latin and follow in English here.The painting is by Johann Heinrich Schönfeld.
Laocoon warns his fellow-Trojans not to take the Trojan horse into their city. Hear the Latin and follow the English here.
Pantheon Poets continues to offer you a direct taste of spoken Latin poetry. You can follow the poems in the original whether you know Latin or not – you might for example be interested in later European writers and curious about what Latin influences meant to them. Today’s post is the final part of the story of Laocoon from Book 2 of Virgil’s Aeneid. He has warned the Trojans not to trust the wooden horse that the Greeks have left – he fears Greeks even when they bring gifts. Now, as fate and the Gods bring the fall of Troy ever closer, Laocoon pays a terrible price for his warning.
In the latest extract from Virgil’s Aeneid, Aeneas recalls the fate of Troy’s King, Priam, as he continues to tell the story of the fall of Troy to Queen Dido of Carthage. The painting is by Jean Baptiste Regnault.
