Explore "The Aeneid" by Virgil on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
There is something grotesque in the idea of a prose translation of a poet, though the practice is become so common that it has ceased to provoke a smile or demand an apology. The language of poetry is language in fusion; that of prose is language fixed and crystallised; and an attempt to copy the one material in the other must always count on failure to convey what is, after all, one of the most essential things in poetry,--its poetical quality. And this is so with Virgil more, perhaps, than with any other poet; for more, perhaps, than any other poet Virgil depends on his poetical quality from first to last. Such a translation can only have the value of a copy of some great painting executed in mosaic, if indeed a copy in Berlin wool is not a closer analogy; and even at the best all it can have to say for itself will be in Virgil's own words, _Experiar sensus; nihil hic nisi carmina desunt._
The more important deviations from this text are mentioned in the notes; but I have not thought it necessary to give a complete list of various readings, or to mention any change except where it might lead to misapprehension. Their notes have also been used by me throughout.