There are twin Gates of Sleep. One, they say, is called the Gate of Horn and it offers easy passage to all true shades. The other glistens with ivory, radiant, flawless, but through it the dead send false dreams up toward the sky. And here Anchises, his vision told in full, escorts his son and Sibyl both and shows them out now through the Ivory Gate.
The seeds of life – fiery is their force, divine their birth, but they are weighed down by the bodies’ ills or dulled by limbs and flesh that’s born for death. That is the source of all men’s fears and longings, joys and sorrows, nor can they see the heaven’s light, shut up in the body’s tomb, a prison dark and deep.
Happy is the man who has learned the causes of things.
No other evil we know is faster than Rumor, thriving on speed and becoming stronger by running. Small and timid at first, then borne on a light air, she flits over ground while hiding her head on a cloud-top.
I recognize the vestiges of an old flame.
Mind moves matter.
I too am a poet who has found some favour with the Muse. I too have written songs. I too have heard the shepherds call me bard. But I take it from them with a grain of salt: I have the feeling that I cannot yet compare with Varius or Cinna, but cackle like a goose among melodious swans.
O tyrant love, to what do you not drive the hearts of men.
What madness destroyed me and you, Orpheus?
Roman, remember by your strength to rule Earth’s peoples – for your arts are to be these: To pacify, to impose the rule of law, To spare the conquered, battle down the proud.
All things by nature are ready to get worse.
The grim lioness follows the wolf, the wolf himself the goat, the wanton goat the flowering clover, and Corydon follows you, Alexis. Each is led by his liking.
Just as, all too often, some huge crowd is seized by a vast uprising, the rabble runs amok, all slaves to passion, rocks, firebrands flying. Rage finds them arms but then, if they chance to see a man among them, one whose devotion and public service lend him weight, they stand there, stock-still with their ears alert as he rules their furor with words and calms their passion.
Yet here, this night, you might repose with me, On green leaves pillowed: apples ripe have I, Soft chestnuts, and of curdled milk enow. And, see, the farm-roof chimneys smoke afar, And from the hills the shadows lengthening fall!
But if my forces are not enough, I am hardly the one to relent, I’ll plead for the help I need, wherever it may be – if I cannot sway the heavens, I’ll wake the powers of hell!
Mirabile dictu!
But the Danaan princes and Agamemnon’s battalions, soon as they saw the man and his arms flashing amid the glom, trembled with mighty fear; some turn to flee, as of old they sought the ships; some raise a shout – faintly; the cry essayed mocks their gaping mouths.
Then, like ravening wolves in a black mist, when the belly’s lawless rage has driven them blindly forth, and their whelps at home await them with thirsty jaws, through swords, through foes we pass to certain death, and hold our way to the city’s heart; black night hovers around with sheltering shade.
Every man’s last day is fixed. Lifetimes are brief, and not to be regained, for all mankind. But by their deeds to make their fame last: that is labor for the brave.
Time carries all things, even our wits, away.