Epic Poetry

"Trust not too much to that enchanting face; Beauty's a charm, but soon the charm will pass."

"The trees are clothed with leaves, the fields with grass; The blossoms blow; the birds on bushes sing; And nature has accomplished all the spring."

"Daphnis, the guest of heaven, with wondering eyes, Views in the milky way the starry skies, And far beneath him, from the shining sphere, Beholds the moving clouds, and rolling year."

"From the great father of the gods above My muse begins: for all is full of Jove."

"I envy not your fortune, but admire."

"Fool that I was, I thought imperial Rome Like Mantua."

"Freedom, which came at length, though slow to come."

"Round the wide world in banishment we roam, Forced from our pleasing fields and native home."

"The mountain-tops unshorn, the rocks rejoice; The lowly shrubs partake of human voice."

"The rest among the Britons he confined; A race of men from all the world disjoined."

"With mighty souls in narrow bodies prest."

"Loose me," he cried, "'twas impudence to find A sleeping god, 'tis sacrilege to bind."

"Yet all these dreadful deeds, this deadly fray, A cast of scattered dust will soon allay."

"More various colours through his body run, Than Iris when her bow imbibes the sun."

"For they can conquer who believe they can."

"If little things with great we may compare."

"And now the rising day renews the year— A day for ever sad, for ever dear."

"The partial crowd their hopes and fears divide, And aid, with eager shouts, the favoured side. Cries, murmurs, clamours, with a mixing sound, From woods to woods, from hills to hills rebound."

"Jason and the Golden Fleece (The Argonautica), trans. Richard Hunter (Oxford University Press, 2009),"

"Jason and the Argonauts, trans. Aaron Poochigian (Penguin Classics, 2014),"

"The Medea and Jason of the Argonautica are at once more interesting and more natural than their copies, the Dido and Aeneas of the Aeneid. The wild love of the witch-maiden sits curiously on the queen and organiser of industrial Carthage; and the two qualities which form an essential part of Jason—the weakness which makes him a traitor, and the deliberate gentleness which contrasts him with Medea—seem incongruous in the father of Rome."

"The Argonautica is a brilliant and disturbing achievement, a poem shot through with intelligence and deep ironies."

"The Argonautica, trans. R. C. Seaton (Harvard University Press, 1912)"

"The connexion between Virgil and Apollonius is closer than could have been presumed from any mere general considerations. After the Iliad and Odyssey, the Argonautics is the only poem which the intelligent criticism of antiquity declares to have furnished an actual model to the author of the Aeneid, and the similarity is one which the reader of the two works does not take long to discover. Not only is the passion of Medea in Apollonius' Third Book confessedly the counterpart of the passion of Dido in Virgil's Fourth, but the instances are far from few where Virgil has conveyed an incident from his Alexandrian predecessor, altering and adapting, but not wholly disguising it. The departure of Jason from his father and mother resembles the departure of Pallas from Evander; the song of Orpheus is contracted into the song of Iopas, as it had already been expanded into the song of Silenus; the reception of the Argonauts by Hypsipyle is like the reception of the Trojans by Dido, and the parting of Jason from the Lemnian princess reappears, though in very different colours, in the parting of Aeneas from the queen of Carthage; the mythical representations in Jason's scarf answer to the historical representations which distinguished the shield of Aeneas from that of Achilles; the combat of Pollux with Amycus is reproduced in the combat of Entellus with Dares; the harpies of Virgil are the harpies of Apollonius, while the deliverance of Phineus by the Argonauts may have furnished a hint for the deliverance of Achemenides by the Trojans, an act of mercy which has another parallel in the deliverance of the sons of Phrixus; Phineus' predictions are like the predictions of Helenus; the cave of Acheron in Asia Minor suggests the cave of Avernus in Italy; Evander and Pallas appear once more in Lycus and Dascylus; Here addresses Thetis as Juno addresses Juturna; Triton gives the same vigorous aid in launching the Argo that he gives to the stranded vessels of Aeneas, or that Portunus gives to the ship of Cloanthus in the Sicilian race."

"She flung at him the full force of her malevolence, and in an ecstasy of rage she plied him with images of death."

"Αἵδε δ᾽ ἀοιδαὶ εἰς ἔτος ἐξ ἔτεος γλυκερώτεραι εἶεν ἀείδειν ἀνθρώποις."

"The Voyage of Argo: The Argonautica, trans. E. V. Rieu (Penguin Books, 1959)"

"Non tamen contemnendum edidit opus aequali quadam mediocritate."

"Qualem primo qui surgere mense aut videt aut vidisse putat per nubila lunam."

"They also took the sheep."

"They gave him solemn burial, marched in full armour three times round the grave, and raised a mound above it."

"Τὼς ἰδέειν, ὥς τίς τε νέῳ ἐνὶ ἤματι μήνην ἢ ἴδεν, ἢ ἐδόκησεν ἐπαχλύουσαν ἰδέσθαι."

"The Argonautika: The Story of Jason and the Quest for the Golden Fleece, trans. Peter Green (University of California Press, 1997),"

"Ter circum accensos cincti fulgentibus armis decurrere rogos, ter maestum funeris ignem lustravere in equis ululatusque ore dedere."

"Cymothoe simul et Triton adnixus acuto detrudunt navis scopulo."

"... Convoca as alvas filhas de Nereu ... Repartem-se e rodeiam nesse instante As naus ligeiras, que iam por diante ... Põem no madeiro duro o brando peito, Para detrás a forte nau forçando ..."

"Ὡς δ᾽ ὁπόταν δελφῖνες ὑπὲξ ἁλὸς εὐδιόωντες σπερχομένην ἀγεληδὸν ἑλίσσωνται περὶ νῆα, ἄλλοτε μἑν προπάροιθεν ὁρώμενοι, ἄλλοτ᾽ ὄπισθεν, ἄλλοτε παρβολάδην, ναύτῃσι δὲ χάρμα τέτυκται· ὧς αἱ ὑπεκπροθέουσαι ἐπήτριμοι εἱλίσσοντο Ἀργῴῃ περὶ νηί, Θέτις δ᾽ ἴθυνε κέλευθον.."

"Ἔνθα σφιν κοῦραι Νηρηίδες ἄλλοθεν ἄλλαι ἤντεον· ἡ δ᾽ ὄπιθεν πτέρυγος θίγε πηδαλίοιο δῖα Θέτις, Πλαγκτῇσιν ἐνὶ σπιλάδεσσιν ἐρύσσαι."

"Αὐτίκα δ᾽ ἄφνω ἴαχεν ἀνδρομέῃ ἐνοπῇ μεσσηγὺ θεόντων αὐδῆεν γλαφυρῆς νηὸς δόρυ, τό ῥ᾽ ἀνὰ μέσσην στεῖραν Ἀθηναίη Δωδωνίδος ἥρμοσε φηγοῦ... Ὧς Ἀργὼ ἰάχησεν ὑπὸ κνέφας."

"Time, combining this with that, brought the animal creation into order."

"Αἱ δ᾽, ὥστ᾽ ἠμαθόεντος ἐπισχεδὸν αἰγιαλοῖο παρθενικαί, δίχα κόλπον ἐπ᾽ ἰξύας εἱλίξασαι σφαίρῃ ἀθύρουσιν περιηγέι· αἱ μὲν ἔπειτα ἄλλη ὑπ᾽ ἐξ ἄλλης δέχεται καὶ ἐς ἠέρα πέμπει ὕψι μεταχρονίην· ἡ δ᾽ οὔποτε πίλναται οὔδει· ὧς αἱ νῆα θέουσαν ἀμοιβαδὶς ἄλλοθεν ἄλλη πέμπε διηερίην ἐπὶ κύμασιν, αἰὲν ἄπωθεν πετράων."

"Ἀλλ᾽ ἄγε καί τινά τοι νημερτέα μῦθον ἐνίψω. εὖτ᾽ ἂν ἐς Ἠλύσιον πεδίον τεὸς υἱὸς ἵκηται, ὃν δὴ νῦν Χείρωνος ἐν ἤθεσι Κενταύροιο νηιάδες κομέουσι τεοῦ λίπτοντα γάλακτος, χρειώ μιν κούρης πόσιν ἔμμεναι Αἰήταο Μηδείης."

"Αἶψα δὲ κούρη ἔμπαλιν ὄμματ᾽ ἔνεικε, καλυψαμένη ὀθόνῃσιν, μὴ φόνον ἀθρήσειε κασιγνήτοιο τυπέντος."

"Οἷον ὅτε κλωστῆρα γυνὴ ταλαεργὸς ἑλίσσει ἐννυχίη· τῇ δ᾽ ἀμφὶ κινύρεται ὀρφανὰ τέκνα χηροσύνῃ πόσιος· σταλάει δ᾽ ὑπὸ δάκρυ παρειὰς μνωομένης, οἵη μιν ἐπὶ σμυγερὴ λάβεν αἶσα· ὧς τῆς ἰκμαίνοντο παρηίδες· ἐν δέ οἱ ἦτορ ὀξείῃς εἰλεῖτο πεπαρμένον ἀμφ᾽ ὀδύνῃσιν."

"At last [Absyrtus] breathing out his life caught up in both hands the dark blood as it welled from the wound; and he dyed with red his sister's silvery veil and robe as she shrank away."

"The hearts of all were chilled, their cheeks grew pale, and they began to stray, dragging their feet along the endless beach. So, in some doomed city, when the gods' statues are sweating blood and bellowing is heard in the temples, or the midday sun has been eclipsed and stars shine out in the darkened sky, men wander ghostlike in the streets, expecting war, or pestilence, or the flooding of their fields by torrential rain."

"Medea's maids had gathered round their mistress.They laid their golden tresses in the dust and all night long made piteous lament, shrill as the twittering of unfledged birds fallen from a cleft in the rock and crying for their mother, and sad as the music that is echoed by dewy meadows and the river's lovely stream when swans begin to sing on the banks of Pactolus."

"Ac veluti pleno lupus insidiatus ovili cum fremit ad caulas ventos perpessus et imbris nocte super media; tuti sub matribus agni balatum exercent, ille asper et improbus ira saevit in absentis; collecta fatigat edendi ex longo rabies et siccae sanguine fauces."

"Ὡς δ᾽ ὅτε τίς τε μύωπι τετυμμένος ἔσσυτο ταῦρος πίσεά τε προλιπὼν καὶ ἑλεσπίδας, οὐδὲ νομήων, οὐδ᾽ ἀγέλης ὄθεται, πρήσσει δ᾽ ὁδόν, ἄλλοτ᾽ ἄπαυστος, ἄλλοτε δ᾽ ἱστάμενος, καὶ ἀνὰ πλατὺν αὐχέν᾽ ἀείρων ἵησιν μύκημα, κακῷ βεβολημένος οἴστρῳ."

"Οἱ δ' ἐφέβοντο κατὰ μέγαρον βόες ὣς ἀγελαῖαι· τὰς μέν τ' αἰόλος οἶστρος ἐφορμηθεὶς ἐδόνησεν."