Aeneid 1.1-11 — Arma virumque cano
Aeneid 1.1-11: Arma virumque cano
A lesson of La B2 — Upper Intermediate, in Introduction to Vergil, about 15 minutes.
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to read and analyze the full proem of the Aeneid (lines 1-11), parse every major grammatical construction, and explain Vergil's invocation of the Muse and his thematic introduction of furor and pietas.
Introduction
The opening eleven lines of the Aeneid are the most carefully crafted lines in Latin poetry. Vergil worked on them for years. They introduce not just a story, but a theology of history: a man driven by fate, opposed by the anger of a goddess, destined to found Rome. The word arma (arms/war) comes before virum (man) — Vergil's Aeneas is a warrior before he is a person. By line 11, every major theme of the poem is in place. At B2, reading these eleven lines slowly and deeply is more valuable than racing through a hundred lines carelessly.
The Text — Aeneid 1.1-11
Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam fato profugus Laviniaque venit
litora; multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
vi superum, saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram,
multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem
inferretque deos Latio; genus unde Latinum
Albanique patres atque altae moenia Romae.
Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso
quidve dolens regina deum tot volvere casus
insignem pietate virum, tot adire labores
impulerit. Tantaene animis caelestibus irae?
Line-by-Line Commentary
Lines 1-3 — The in medias res opening:
- Arma virumque cano — "I sing of arms and the man" — the two accusatives (arma, virum) are the direct objects of cano (I sing). -que = and (enclitic). The verb comes last, as Latin poetry normally places it.
- Troiae qui primus ab oris — "who first from the shores of Troy" — qui is a connecting relative pronoun, subject of the following venit (line 2)
- Italiam fato profugus Laviniaque venit litora — "came to Italy and the Lavinian shores, a fugitive by fate"
- Italiam and Laviniaque litora are accusatives of motion toward (without preposition, poetic usage)
- fato profugus = "a fugitive by fate" — ablative of cause
- multum ille et terris iactatus et alto — "he, much tossed both on land and on deep sea" — is an adverbial accusative; and are locative ablatives