Virgil Quotes

“Troy shall overturn the Grecian state, And sweet revenge her conqu’ring sons shall call, To crush the people that conspir’d her fall.”

“Not Helen’s face, nor Paris, was in fault; But by the gods was this destruction brought.”

“Gods of the liquid realms, on which I row! If, giv’n by you, the laurel bind my brow, Assist to make me guilty of my vow! A snow-white bull shall on your shore be slain; His offer’d entrails cast into the main, And ruddy wine, from golden goblets thrown, Your grateful gift and my return shall own.”

“You promis’d once, a progeny divine Of Romans, rising from the Trojan line, In after times should hold the world in awe, And to the land and ocean give the law.”

“O country lost, and gods redeem’d in vain, If still in endless exile we remain!”

“Daughter, dismiss thy fears; to thy desire The fates of thine are fix’d, and stand entire.”

“The queen, whom sense of honor could not move, No longer made a secret of her love, But call’d it marriage, by that specious name To veil the crime and sanctify the shame.”

“My fatal course is finish’d; and I go, A glorious name, among the ghosts below.”

“Can heav’nly minds such high resentment show, Or exercise their spite in human woe?”

“Fierce Juno’s hate, Added to hostile force, shall urge thy fate.”

“And, lest new fears disturb thy happy state, Know, I have search’d the mystic rolls of Fate.”

“Why could not I by that strong arm be slain, And lie by noble Hector on the plain?”

“High on the deck the godlike hero stands, With olive crown’d, a charger in his hands; Then cast the reeking entrails in the brine, And pour’d the sacrifice of purple wine.”

“Rising Crete against their shore appears. There too, in living sculpture, might be seen The mad affection of the Cretan queen; Then how she cheats her bellowing lover’s eye; The rushing leap, the doubtful progeny, The lower part a beast, a man above, The monument of their polluted love.”

“Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate, And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate, Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore. Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore, And in the doubtful war, before he won The Latian realm, and built the destin’d town; His banish’d gods restor’d to rites divine, And settled sure succession in his line, From whence the race of Alban fathers come, And the long glories of majestic Rome.”

″‘T is fate diverts our course, and fate we must obey.”

″‘Endure the hardships of your present state; Live, and reserve yourselves for better fate.’ These words he spoke, but spoke not from his heart; His outward smiles conceal’d his inward smart.”

“Who knows what hazards thy delay may bring? Woman’s a various and a changeful thing.”

“They hope the fated land, but fear the fatal way.”

“Venus, anxious for her son’s affairs, New counsels tries, and new designs prepares.”

“Fear is the proof of a degenerate mind.”