benedicti qui sedeant hic

I am very close to finishing the entire rendering and have already gone back to revise earlier parts. I realized that the first 250 or so lines need a lot of work rhythmically, since it wasn’t until that point that I “found my groove” and the standard rhythm to each line came naturally. For now, I welcome ye to the Elysian fields, on the “right-hand path” where the virtuous pagans have their haunts, lines 634-702.

And having accomplished the goddess’ service,
they reach cheerful places and blithe promenades:
The Havens of Holy Ones, dwellings of bliss.

Here fields th’ether clothes in a lavender dawn,
its own constellations and sun it perceives.
Some work on gymnastics, train limbs on the lawn,

competing in sports, wrestling on golden sands;
some dance to a rhythm and canticles sing.
That priest with long surplice come from Thracian lands,

the sevenfold melody’s measures he plays,
with ivory plectra, now fingers he plucks.
Here Teucer’s great scions of our ancient race,

Troy’s founder and men of superior years:
there’s Dardanus, Ilus, Assaracus too.
He marvels at arms, cars without charioteers.

In earth planted spears, horses graze everywhere,
set loose through the pasture. Of war-cars and arms,
what grace was in life of these things and what care,

to feed shimm’ring steeds, when here follows the same.
He glimpses all ‘round: merry men on the green;
glad hymns to Apollo a chorus exclaims.

The plains smell of laurel, whence th’upper world’s flood,
the stream Eridanus through forests above.
Here patriot troops who in battle shed blood,

and those who in life holy orders took part,
those worthy of Phoebus, those prophets devout,
th’ennoblers of life by discov’ry of arts,

those risen by merits and mem’rable tasks.
Their temples by snowy-white fillets are fringed,
whom poured all around them the Sibyl thus asked

Musaeus midway through the plenteous throng,
whose loftier shoulders she spied over all:
“Please tell, joyful shades, and thou, bard, best with song,

which region’s the place where Anchises’ soul haunts?
For him navigated we Erebus’ depths.”
And straightway the hero returned this response

“no home here is fixed; live we in shady groves,
make pillows of riverbanks, meadows made lush.
But ye, if your hearts such ambition behoves,

ascend to this ridge; down a path I’ll point then.”
He showcased the luminous fields from above;
and hence from the prominent heights they descend.

And father Anchises in verdurous vales,
surveying the souls who’ll return to the light,
reflecting with zeal he reviews the detail

of kinsfolk, descendants, posterity prized,
their fates and their fortunes, their manners and deeds.
And heading through grasslands Aeneas he spies.

With palms both outstretched with familial desire,
tears pour down his cheek and he speaks with this voice:
“Art here thou, has piety, hope of thy sire,

surmounted thy quest? May thy face I behold,
my son, and hear answers of speech that I know?
Indeed I was reck’ning the future foretold,

and numb’ring the times; not my worry deceives.
I welcome my son, many perils thou braved,
who voyaged through myriad nations and seas!

How feared I, lest Libya injured thee so!”
Moreover Aeneas: “oh father, thy ghost,
so often did haunt me, urged me here to go.

My fleet tastes Tyrrhenian salt. Your embrace,
please give it, dear father, and do not withdraw!”
He burst into tears then, bedewing his face,

thrice throwing his arms ‘round his neck as he weeps:
thrice fleeing the ghost from his futile caress,
like tender, soft breezes and fluttering sleep.