A guide for first-time readers

Reading Virgil

The Aeneid from translation to context: a guide to the characters, gods, journey and Latin vocabulary of Virgil’s twelve-book epic.

Recommended Translation

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The Aeneid, translated by Robert Fagles: cover
Recommended

Robert Fagles (2006)

Robert Fagles’s verse translation (Penguin Classics, 2006), with an introduction by Bernard Knox.

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The Aeneid, translated by Sarah Ruden: cover
Line for line

Sarah Ruden (2008)

Sarah Ruden’s verse translation (Yale, 2008; revised 2021) matches Virgil’s Latin line for line.

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Dryden’s Aeneid, free

John Dryden’s 1697 translation, with his Dedication, the Argument of each book and all twelve books of verse, can be read online.

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Quick Reference

The quick-reference pages cover the work’s characters, gods, glossary terms, synopsis and the route of Aeneas’s journey.

Aeneas’s JourneyThe voyage of Aeneas from Troy to Italy in the poem’s order, with each stop tied to its book.The GodsThe gods as they act in the poem, with their Greek names.CharactersEvery figure named in the poem, with the Greek equivalents of Roman god names.SynopsisA book-by-book synopsis of the Aeneid in descriptive prose.GlossaryKey Latin terms, such as pietas and fatum, explained in plain language.

Three Things to Know Before Page One

I

A twelve-book Latin epic

Virgil’s Aeneid is a Latin epic in twelve books. The journey guide follows Aeneas from Troy to Italy in the poem’s order.

II

Dryden’s line numbers differ

Dryden’s line numbers differ from the Latin and cannot serve as Latin line references. The edition keeps the modernised spelling of its Project Gutenberg base text.

III

Translations differ in line count

Sarah Ruden’s translation, published by Yale University Press in 2008 and revised in 2021, matches Virgil’s line count, line for line. Fagles’s version appeared in 2006.

More from the Guide

The Aeneid: TextThe hub for Dryden’s twelve books of the Aeneid, each with its Argument.Full TextThe whole edition on a single page, which is also the source of the PDF, EPUB and print versions.About This EditionThe edition’s source, its modernised spelling, Dryden’s line numbering and the convention used for names.