Aeneid Quotes

Facilis descensus Averno:
Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradium superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est.
(The gates of Hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this task and mighty labor lies.) ~ Virgil

Macte virtute, sic itur ad astra.

("excellence is the way to the stars" - IX.641) ~ Virgil, Aeneid

But if my forces are not enough, I am hardly the one to relent, I'll plead for the help I need, wherever it may be - if I cannot sway the heavens, I'll wake the powers of hell! ~ Virgil

This spirit of humanity breathes in Cicero and Virgil. Hence the veneration paid to the poet of the Aeneid by the fathers and throughout the middle ages. Augustine calls him the noblest of poets, and Dante, "the glory and light of other poets," and "his master," who guided him through the regions of hell and purgatory to the very gates of Paradise. It was believed that in his fourth Eclogue he had prophesied the advent of Christ. This interpretation is erroneous; but "there is in Virgil," says an accomplished scholar,84 "a vein of thought and sentiment more devout, more humane, more akin to the Christian than is to be found in any other ancient poet, whether Greek or Roman. He was a spirit prepared and waiting, though he knew it not, for some better thing to be revealed. ~ Philip Schaff

Nd why the winter suns so rush to bathe themselves in the sea
and what slows down the nights to a long lingering crawl ... ~ Virgil

The History of Ireland in two words: Ah well.

The Invasion by the Vikings: Ah well.

The Invasion by the Normans. The Flight of the Earls, Mr Oliver Cromwell. Daniel O'Connell, Robert Emmett, The Famine, Charles Stewart Parnell, Easter Rising, Michael Collins, Éamon De Valera, Éamon De Valera again (Dear Germany, so sorry to learn of the death of your Mr Hitler), Éamon De Valera again, the Troubles, the Tribunals, the Fianna Fáil Party, The Church, the Banks, the eight hundred years of rain: Ah well.

In the Aeneid Virgil tells it as Sunt lacrimae rerum, which in Robert Fitzgerald's translation means 'They weep for how the world goes', which is more eloquent than Ah well but means the same thing. ~ Niall Williams

Arma Virumque Cano (I sing of arms and of man) -The Aeneid ~ Aeneas Middleton

I dragged on my ruined life in darkness and grief, wrathful in my heart... ~ Virgil

Viresque Acquirit Eundo.(She gathers strength as she goes.) ~ Virgil, From Aeneid

To what crime do you not drive the hearts of men, accursed hunger for gold? ~ Virgil

Then answered her son, who turns the stars in the sky:
'What way art thou bending fate, Mother? What dost thou ask
For these thy ships? May vessels built by the hands
Of mortal men claim an immortal right?
Is Aeneas to pass, sure of the outcome, through dangers
When nothing is sure? To what god is such power allowed? ~ Virgil

Then, like ravening wolves in a black mist, when the belly's lawless rage has driven them blindly forth, and their whelps at home await them with thirsty jaws, through swords, through foes we pass to certain death, and hold our way to the city's heart; black night hovers around with sheltering shade. ~ Virgil

A fickle and changeful thing is woman ever ~ Virgil

The dank night is sweeping down from the sky
and the setting stars incline our heads to sleep. ~ Virgil

Augustine said he wept more for the death of Dido than he did for the death of his own saviour. What about Book Four, the best book of the best poem of the best poet? ~ Boris Johnson

Sometimes," Nina clarified, "everybody tells you something because they are everybody. But why should one listen to everybody? Did everybody write the Odyssey? Did everybody write the Aeneid?" She ~ Amor Towles

I am Aeneas, duty-bound, and known
Above high air of heaven by my fame. -AM #CymruAMbyth ~ Aeneas Middleton

Emilia stared at me for three or four more seconds, then gave up on pumping me for information. "We should go," she decided with the force of a monarch declaring law. "I have Latin first period. The Aeneid waits for no man. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Acheron is the Greek Underworld river, timelessly flowing beneath Middle World consciousness, circulating through our bloodstreams in varying states from polluted to pristine. Freud was fond of this line from Virgil's Aeneid: "If I cannot bend the gods, then I shall stir up Acheron. ~ Mary Trainor-Brigham

The Greeks shape bronze statues so real they seem to breathe,
And carve cold marble until it almost comes to life.
The Greeks compose great orations, and measure
The heavens so well they can predict the rising of the stars.
But you, Romans, remember your great arts;
To govern the peoples with authority,
To establish peace under the rule of law,
To conquer the mighty, and show them mercy once they are conquered."

-Virgil, Aeneid VI, 847-853 ~ Virgil