Versions of Vergil (part 3.)

Gentle is the journey down to Hades
(by night and day the door of dark Dis gapes);
but to take back your stepping and escape
to the upper breezes, that's the work--this task.
A few whom jovial Jupiter had loved,
or ardent courage lifted to the skies,
god-born, could.
                        Gliding Cocytus circles
a gloomy valley, and every kind of forest
occupies the middle.
                        But if you have
so much love of heart, if so much lust
twice to sail on Stygian lakes, to see
midnight Tartarus--twice, and with outrageous
hardship, it's any use to yield, [/grant]

accept what harrowings precede.


--mine (1984)

The Sibyl replied: "O child of blood divine,
Anchises' son, descent to hell is easy:
all night, all day black Pluto's door stands wide.
To recall the step, escape to earth annd sky--
this, this is task and toil! Some few--those loved
of Jove, those heavenward rapt by valor's flame,
the sons of God--have done it. Between, all's forest
wrapped round with black Cocytus's coiling streams.
But if you have at heart such love and lust
twice to cross over Styx, hell's darkness twice
to behold, and this mad project gives you joy,
hear what is first to do."


--Copley's 1965 line-for-line rendering


cum sic orsa loqui vates: "Sate sanguine divom,
Tros Anchisiade, facilis descensus Averno;
noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,
hoc opus, hic labor est. Pauci, quos aequus amavit
Iuppiter, aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus,
dis geniti potuere. Tenent media omnia silvae,
Cocytusque sinu labens circumvenit atro.
Quod si tantus amor menti, si tanta cupido est,
bis Stygios innare lacus, bis nigra videre
Tartara, et insano iuvat indulgere labori,
accipe, quae peragenda prius."


--The original Latin of VI.125-136.

(Why is it i remember it as "facilis est descensus Averni"...?)


Goddess of Atvatabar. (What a cool blog!)