Aeneid Book 2 English Translation

Aeneid II Full Translation 

(Areas in bold are chunks that may appear as 8mk style questions or translation questions - according to the OCR advance information for 2022. This will be irrelevant if you are taking GCSEs in any later year)

(1a)PRIAM – The King and Queen of Troy (Aen. II. 506-517) 

And perhaps you might ask what was the fate of Priam. When he saw the fall of the captured city and the entrances of the buildings torn apart and the enemy in the midst of the inner chambers, in vain the old man puts on his shoulders, trembling with age, weapons to which he had long been unaccustomed, puts on his useless sword and took himself to death into the thick of the enemy. In the middle of the palace and beneath the open vault of heaven was a huge altar and nearby an ancient laurel tree overhanging the altar and embracing the household gods with its shade. Here Hecuba and her daughters sat in vain around the altar, like doves driven headlong by a black storm, crowded together, and embracing the statues of the gods. 

(1b)PRIAM – Madness (Aen. II. 518-532) 

However, when she saw Priam himself having taken up youthful arms, she said “what mind so dreadful, most wretched husband, has driven you to put on these weapons? Or to where are you running? Not such help nor defenders such as these does the time need; not even if my Hector was himself now here. Here at last withdraw, this altar will protect us all, or you will die at the same time as us.”Thus having spoken this from her mouth, she drew the aged man to her and set him on the sacred spot. However, look, Polites, one of the sons of Priam, having escaped from the slaughter of Pyrrhus through weapons, through the enemies, flees in the long porticoes and wanders the empty halls, wounded. Pyrrhus, burning, follows him with a hostile wound, and now, now he holds him in his hand and presses him with his spear. As he at last escaped before the eyes and faces of his parents, he fell, and poured out his life with much blood. 

(1c)PRIAM – Helpless (Aen. II. 533-546) 

Here Priam, although now he was held in the midst of death, he did not, however, hold back, nor did he spare his voice and anger: “Indeed, in return for your wickedness” he shouted “in return for such outrageous deeds, may the gods, if there is any righteousness in heaven, which cares for such things, may the gods pay worthy thanks and give back the rewards owed to you, who have made me see the death of my son before my eyes and defiled a father’s face with death. But he, Achilles, from whom you falsely claim that you are sprung was not such a person in the case of his enemy Priam; but he…