1 I know I am girt by the bitter hatred of my people.
2 I the first, I whom thou picturest thine enemy, as I care not if I am, see, I bow at thy feet.
3 For I am not held in cruel Tartarus among wailing ghosts, but inhabit Elysium and the sweet societies of the good.
4 I am Aeneas the good, who carry in my fleet the household gods I rescued from the enemy; my fame is known high in heaven.
5 I am arranging a stratagem of war in his pathway on the wooded slope, to block a gorge on the highroad with armed troops.
6 I am he whom thou seest washing the banks with full flood and severing the rich tilth, glassy Tiber, best beloved by heaven of rivers.
7 I am resolved to face Aeneas, resolved to bear what bitterness there is in death; nor shalt thou longer see me shamed, sister of mine.
8 I know I am one out of the Grecian fleets, I confess I warred against the household gods of Ilium; for that, if our wrong and guilt is so great, throw me piecemeal on the flood or plunge me in the waste sea.
9 But if I only am claimed by the Teucrians for combat, if that is your pleasure, and I am the barrier to the public good, Victory does not so hate and shun my hands that I should renounce any enterprise for so great a hope.