Quotes from 'The Aeneid' by Virgil

Virgil (Vergil) wrote The Aeneid, a story about a Trojan hero. The Aeneid has been compared with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey -- partly because Virgil was influenced by and borrowed from Homer's works. Written by one of the earliest great poets, The Aeneid has inspired a number of the greatest writers and poets in world literature. Here are a few quotes from The Aeneid. Perhaps these lines will inspire you too!

• "I sing of arms and of a man: his fate
  had made him fugitive: he was the first
  to journey from the coasts of Troy as far
  as Italy and the Lavinian shores
  Across the lands and waters he was battered
  beneath the violence of the high ones for
  the savage Juno's unforgetting anger."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 1, lines 1-7
• "For full three hundred years, the capital
  and rule of Hector's race shall be at Alba,
  until a royal priestess Ilia
  with child by Mars, has brought to birth twin sons."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 1, lines 380-3
• "just as the bees in early summer, busy
  beneath the sunlight through the flowered meadows."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 1, lines 611-12
• "The man you seek is here. I stand before you,
  Trojan Aeneas, torn from Libyan waves.
  O you who were alone in taking pity
  on the unutterable trials of Troy,
  who welcome us as allies to your city
  and home- a remnant left by Greeks, harassed
  by all disasters known on land and sea."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 1, lines 836-842
• "tell us all / things from the first beginning: Grecian guile,
  your people's trials, and then your journeyings."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 1, lines 1049-51
• "Do you
  believe the enemy have sailed away?
  Or think that any Grecian gifts are free
  of craft? Is this the way Ulysses acts?
  Either Achaeans hide, shut in this wood,
  or else this is an engine built against
  our walls...
  I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 2, lines 60-70
• "four times it stalled before the gateway, at the very threshold;
  four times the arms clashed loud inside its belly.
  Nevertheless, heedless, blinded by frenzy,
  we press right on and set the inauspicious
  monster inside the sacred fortress."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 2, lines 335-339
• "Poor husband, what wild thought drives you
  to wear these weapons now? Where would you rush?"
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 2, lines 699-700
• "If you go off to die, then take us, too,
  to face all things with you; but if your past
  still lets you put your hope in arms, which now
  you have put on, then first protect this house."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 2, lines 914-7
• "Why are you mangling me, Aeneas? Spare
  my body. I am buried here. Do spare
  the profanation of your pious hands.
  I am no stranger to you; I am Trojan.
  The blood you see does not flow from a stem.
  Flee from these cruel lands, this greedy shore,
  for I am Polydorus; here an iron
  harvest of lances covered my pierced body."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 3, lines 52-59
• "until an awful hunger and your wrong
  in slaughtering my sisters has compelled
  your jaws to gnaw as food your very tables."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 3, lines 333-5
• "Along the banks beneath the branching ilex,
  a huge white sow stretched out upon the ground
  together with a new-delivered litter
  of thirty suckling white pigs at her teats"
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 3, lines 508-11
• "I am of Ithaca and sailed for Troy,
  a comrade of unfortunate Ulysses;
  my name is Achaemenides."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 3, lines 794-6
• "Let us make, instead of war,
  an everlasting peace and plighted wedding.
  You have what you were bent upon: she burns
  with love; the frenzy now is in her bones.
  Then let us rule this people - you and I-
  with equal auspices..."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 4, lines 130-136
• "Are you now laying the foundations of high Carthage, as servant to a woman?"
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 4, lines 353-4
• "Pity your sister- as a final kindness.
  When he has granted it, I shall repay
  my debt, and with full interest, by my death."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 4, lines 599-601
• "Do not let love or treaty tie our peoples.
  May an avenger rise up from my bones,
  one who will track with firebrand and sword
  the Dardan settlers, now and in the future,
  at any time that ways present themselves."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 4, lines 861-6
• "The circling year
  completes its months since we entombed in earth
  the bones and remnants of my godlike father.
  Unless I err, that anniversary
  is here, the day that I shall always keep
  in grief and honor..."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 5, lines 61-7
• "At this the loud outcries of Salius
  reach everyone within that vast arena."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 5, lines 448-9
• "In my sleep
  the image of the prophet Cassandra
  appeared and offered blazing brands. 'Look here
  for Troy; here is your home!' she cried. The time
  to act is now; such signs do not allow
  delay. Here are four altars raised to Neptune;
  the god himself gives us the will, the torches."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 5, lines 838-44
• "I see wars, horrid wars, the Tiber foaming
  with much blood.
  You shall have your Simois
  your Xanthus, and your Doric camp; already
  there is in Latium a new Achilles."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 6, lines 122-5
• "all these you see are helpless and unburied."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 6, line 427
• "And I could not
  believe that with my going I should bring
  so great a grief as this. But stay your steps.
  Do not retreat from me. Whom do you flee?
  This is the last time fate will let us speak."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 6, lines 610-3
• "There are two gates of Sleep: the one is said
  to be of horn, through it an easy exit
  is given to true Shades; the other is made
  of polished ivory, perfect glittering,
  but through that way the Spirits send false dreams
  into the world above. And here Anchises,
  when he is done with words, accompanies
  the Sibyl and his son together; and
  he sends them through the gate of ivory."
  - Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 6, lines 1191-1199

More Info

• General Book Club Questions for Study and Discussion
• Which character do you most like?
• How to Determine a Reading Schedule
• What is a classic?

More Info.

• General Book Club Questions for Study and Discussion
• Which character do you most like?
• How To Determine a Reading Schedule
• What is a classic?
• Quotes