The Aeneid Quotes

Find the perfect quote to float your boat. Shmoop breaks down key quotations from The Aeneid.

Fate and Free Will Quotes

(Juno): "Give up what I began? Am I defeated? Am I impotent To keep the king of Teucrians from Italy? The Fates forbid me, am I to suppose?" (1.56-59)

Power Quotes

(Jupiter): "[…] young Romulus Will take the leadership, build walls of Mars, And call by his own name his people Romans. For these I set no limits, world or time, But make the gift of empire...

Love Quotes

And more than anyone, the Phoenician queen, Luckless, already given over to ruin, Marveled and could not have enough: she burned With pleasure in the boy and in the gifts. […] And she with al...

Warfare Quotes

Wars at an end, harsh centuries then will soften, Ancient Fides and Vesta, Quirinus With Brother Remus, will be lawgivers, And grim with iron frames, the Gates of War Will then be shut: inside, unh...

Duty Quotes

So ran the speech. Burdened and sick at heart, He feigned hope in his look, and inwardly Contained his anguish. […] Aeneas, more than any, secretly Mourned for them all (1.284-286, 300-301)

Mortality Quotes

At Dido's head she came to rest. "This token Sacred to Dis I bear away as bidden And free you from your body." Saying this, She cut a lock of hair. Along with it Her body's warmth fell into dissolu...

Religion Quotes

When gods are contrary They stand by no one. (2.532-533)

Memory and The Past Quotes

(Aeneas): "Triply lucky, all you men To whom death came before your fathers' eyes Below the wall at Troy! Bravest Danaan, Diomedes, why could I not go down When you had wounded me, and lose my life...

Family Quotes

(Aeneas): 'When faintness of dread left me, I brought before the leaders of the people, My father first, these portents of the gods And asked their judgment.' (3.82-84)

Primitiveness Quotes

There's a spot Where at the mouth of a long bay an island Makes a harbor, forming a breakwater Where every swell divides as it comes in And runs far into curving recesses. There are high cliffs on...