On a mission to find Aeneas, the lovers Euryalus and Nisus pause to take the enemy unawares in their camp. Success will be short-lived: hear their tragic end in Latin and follow in English here. the 16th century enamelled illustration is by the Master of the Aeneid Legend.
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.
Aeneas’s enemy Juno has duped his tired and travel-worn Trojan women into setting fire to his ships while he holds rich funeral games in Sicily for the anniversary of the death of his father Anchises. Juno and the women hope that he will give up his destiny in Italy and settle where he is. In today’s extract here, Aeneas calls on Jupiter to save the ships in the nick of time. Help is granted: only the old, tired and timid will stay and Aeneas will go on to Italy with a smaller but more select band composed solely of the young, brave and battle-ready. In the illustration, Claude Lorrain (1600 – 1682) uses the incident as an excuse for a charmingly mysterious seascape.
Here is a selection of poetry about the Gods – in a variety of moods. First, Jupiter, King of the Gods, in the mood for love as Europa’s bull. After Continue Reading
Aeneas has spotted Helen of Troy, whose elopement with Paris caused the war and the destruction of Troy, lying low in the burning ruins. He has an angry impulse to kill her, but now his divine mother, Venus, intervenes to tell him that the city has fallen by the will of the Gods and that he must go home and save his family.
Hear Virgil’s Latin and follow in English here.