1 This great pain, my sister, I shall have strength to bear, as I have had strength to foresee.
2 Through his broad shoulders the quivering spear runs piercing him through, and doubles him up with pain.
3 Then Juno omnipotent, pitying her long pain and difficult decease, sent Iris down from heaven to unloose the struggling life from the body where it clung.
4 Yet if thy desire be such to know our calamities, and briefly to hear Troy's last agony, though my spirit shudders at the remembrance and recoils in pain, I will essay.
5 Again and again his own valiance and his line's renown flood back upon her spirit; look and accent cling fast in her bosom, and the pain allows not rest or calm to her limbs.
6 Why the broad blaze is lit lies unknown; but the bitter pain of a great love trampled, and the knowledge of what woman can do in madness, draw the Teucrians' hearts to gloomy guesses.
7 I too have my fate in reply to theirs, to put utterly to the sword the guilty nation who have robbed me of my bride; not the sons of Atreus alone are touched by that pain, nor may Mycenae only rise in arms.
8 But not so the distressed Phoenician, nor does she ever sink asleep or take the night upon eyes or breast; her pain redoubles, and her love swells to renewed madness, as she tosses on the strong tide of wrath.
9 But the gods, at whose orders now I pass through this shadowy place, this land of mouldering overgrowth and deep night, the gods' commands drove me forth; nor could I deem my departure would bring thee pain so great as this.
10 At this, stirred deep by her son's cruel pain, Venus his mother plucked from Cretan Ida a stalk of dittamy with downy leaves and bright-tressed flowers, the plant not unknown to wild goats when winged arrows are fast in their body.
11 While they pay the due rites to the tomb with diverse games, Juno, daughter of Saturn, sends Iris down the sky to the Ilian fleet, and breathes a gale to speed her on, revolving many a thought, and not yet satiate of the ancient pain.
12 And now, when I have reached the courts of my ancestral dwelling, our home of old, my father, whom it was my first desire to carry high into the hills, and whom first I sought, declines, now Troy is rooted out, to prolong his life through the pains of exile.
13 She professes with her spells to relax the purposes of whom she will, but on others to bring passion and pain; to stay the river-waters and turn the stars backward: she calls up ghosts by night; thou shalt see earth moaning under foot and mountain-ashes descending from the hills.
14 As he speaks thus he raises himself painfully on his thigh, and though the violence of the deep wound cripples him, yet unbroken he bids his horse be brought, his beauty, his comfort, that ever had carried him victorious out of war, and says these words to the grieving beast: 'Rhoebus, we have lived long, if aught at all lasts long with mortals.'