War tales and heroes frame my song.
 A man -- refugee from Troy --
 pushed by fate from Illium to Italy.
 O, but the troubles all he bore, tossed
 across seas, and in foreign lands blown
 like a leaf on the breath of the gods.
 (Cruel Juno's wrath, smoking slow,
 here the chief cause.)
 And the troubles he bore,
 the tests, the tricks, the battles,
 that he might raise up a city,
 that the gods might live in Italy;
 the Latin clan, the seeds of our race,
 the mighty walls of Rome.

Translated by Rondo Keele.

As adventure stories go, Virgil’s Aeneid is among the best; the fact that the entire epic is written in poetry only heightens the accomplishment, making Virgil himself as legendary as his characters.

These opening lines beautifully and dramatically frame Aeneas’s entire journey; tossed by the sea, blown by the gods, pushed by fate, Aeneas has no choice but to fulfill his destiny – the foundation of the future Roman empire.

— Lisa

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