Cambridge IGCSE Latin Aeneid Book III (Cyclops) Set Text Translation (2023-2025)

Postera iamque dies primo surgebat Eoo umentemque Aurora polo dimoverat umbram,

And now the following day was rising with the first signs of the Morning Star, and Aurora had moved the moist cloud away from the sky,

cum subito e silvis macie confecta suprema ignoti nova forma viri miserandaque cultu procedit supplexque manus ad litora tendit.

when suddenly the strange form of an unknown man came out

of the woods, exhausted by the last pangs of hunger,

pitifully dressed, and stretched his hands in supplication

towards the shore.

respicimus. dira inluvies immissaque barba, consertum tegimen spinis:

We stared at him. Terrible was his dirt and long his beard, and his clothing was held together with thorns;

at cetera Graius, et quondam patriis ad Troiam missus in armis.

but in other respects he was a Greek, who had once been sent to Troy fighting for his country.

isque ubi Dardanios habitus et Troia vidit arma procul, paulum aspectu conterritus haesit continuitque gradum;

And when he saw our Dardanian appearance and Trojan armour in the distance, terrified by the sight, he hesitated for a short time, then continued walking;

mox sese ad litora praeceps
cum fletu precibusque tulit:

soon he rushed toward the shore rapidly with weeping and entreaties:

'per sidera testor, per superos atque hoc caeli spirabile lumen, tollite me, Teucri, quascumque abducite terras: hoc sat erit.

"By the stars I witness, by the gods above, and by this air of the sky we breathe, take me away, Teucrians, lead me away to whatever lands. This will be enough.

scio me Danais e classibus unum et bello Iliacos fateor petiisse penates.

I know that I was one of the soldiers from the Danaan fleets, and I confess that I attacked the ancestral gods of Ilium with war.

pro quo, si sceleris tanta est iniuria nostri, spargite me in fluctus vastoque immergite ponto; si pereo, hominum manibus periisse iuvabit.'

In return for which, if the injury of my crime is so great, scatter me onto the waves and drown me in the vast sea. If I perish, at least it will please me to have perished at the hands of men."

dixerat et genua amplexus genibusque volutans haerebat. qui sit fari, quo sanguine cretus, hortamur, quae deinde agitet fortuna fateri.

He had spoken, and embracing our knees and rolling at our knees, he clung to them. We urged him to tell us who he was, from what blood he was born, and then what fortune was tormenting him.

ipse pater dextram Anchises haud multa moratus dat iuveni atque animum praesenti pignore firmat. ille haec deposita tandem formidine fatur:

My father Anchises himself, without delaying long, gave his right hand to the young man and encouraged his spirit with an immediate pledge. The man, having laid aside his fear, at last spoke these words:

'sum patria ex Ithaca, comes infelicis Ulixi, nomine Achaemenides, Troiam, genitore Adamasto paupere (mansissetque utinam fortuna!) profectus.

“I’m from the land of Ithaca, a companion of unlucky Ulysses,

Achaemenides by name, and, my father Adamastus being poor,

(I wish fate had kept me so!) I set out for Troy.

hic me, dum trepidi crudelia limina linquunt, immemores socii vasto Cyclopis in antro deseruere. domus sanie dapibusque cruentis,
intus opaca, ingens.

My comrades left me here in the Cyclops’ vast cave, forgetting me, as they were leaving the cruel doorway in panic. It’s a house of blood and gory feasts,

vast and dark inside.

ipse arduus, altaque pulsat
sidera (di talem terris avertite pestem!) nec visu facilis nec dictu adfabilis ulli; visceribus miserorum et sanguine vescitur atro.

He himself tall, striking against the high stars (may the gods avert such a pestilence from the earth!), neither easy to look at nor easy for anyone to speak to. He eats the dark blood and flesh of wretched men.

vidi egomet duo de numero cum corpora nostro prensa manu magna medio resupinus in antro frangeret ad saxum, sanieque aspersa natarent limina;

I saw myself how he seized two bodies of our number with his great hand, and while, lying on his back in the middle of his cave, he was breaking them on a rock, and the doorstep was spattered and swimming in blood.

vidi atro cum membra fluentia tabo manderet et tepidi tremerent sub dentibus artus —

I watched how he chewed their limbs which were flowing with black gore and the still warm bodies quivered in his jaws

haud impune quidem, nec talia passus Ulixes oblitusve sui est Ithacus discrimine tanto.

yet he did not go unpunished, indeed, since Ulysses did not allow such things to happen nor did the Ithacan forget himself in such a dangerous situation.

nam simul expletus dapibus vinoque sepultus cervicem inflexam posuit, iacuitque per antrum immensus saniem eructans et frusta cruento per somnum commixta mero,

For as soon as he, filled with the feast and buried in wine, bent his neck and put it down, and lay across the cave, immense, belching in his sleep gore and fragments of food mixed together with bloody wine,

nos magna precati numina sortitique vices una undique circum fundimur, et telo lumen terebramus acuto

we prayed to the great gods, and our roles fixed, surrounded him on all sides, and stabbed his one huge eye,

ingens quod torva solum sub fronte latebat, Argolici clipei aut Phoebeae lampadis instar, et tandem laeti sociorum ulciscimur umbras.

solitary, and half-hidden under his savage brow, like a round Greek shield, or the sun-disc of Phoebus, with a sharpened stake: and so we joyfully avenged the spirits of our friends.

sed fugite, o miseri, fugite atque ab litore funem rumpite.

But flee, wretched ones, flee and cut your mooring ropes

nam qualis quantusque cavo Polyphemus in antro lanigeras claudit pecudes atque ubera pressat,

For of the same kind and size as Polyphemus who encloses his woolly sheep in a hollow cave and milks their udders,

centum alii curva haec habitant ad litora vulgo infandi Cyclopes et altis montibus errant.

a hundred other unspeakable Cyclopes live everywhere on these shores and wander in the high mountains.

tertia iam lunae se cornua lumine complent cum vitam in silvis inter deserta ferarum lustra domosque traho

For the third time the horns of the moon are now filling themselves with light while I drag out my life in the woods amidst the lonely haunts and lairs of wild beasts;

vastosque ab rupe Cyclopas prospicio sonitumque pedum vocemque tremesco.

and from a cliff far off I keep a look out for the vast Cyclopes and tremble at the sound of their feet and at their voice.

victum infelicem, bacas lapidosaque corna, dant rami, et vulsis pascunt radicibus herbae.

The branches provide a wretched diet of berries and stony wild cherries, and the grass feeds me when I pluck up its roots.

omnia conlustrans hanc primum ad litora classem conspexi venientem.

Watching for everything, I saw, for the first time, this fleet

approaching shore.

huic me, quaecumque fuisset, addixi: satis est gentem effugisse nefandam. vos animam hanc potius quocumque absumite leto.'

To this, whatever it might turn out to be, I entrusted myself: it is enough to have escaped that unspeakable people. I would rather that you take away my soul with whatever death."

vix ea fatus erat summo cum monte videmus ipsum inter pecudes vasta se mole moventem pastorem Polyphemum et litora nota petentem,

Scarcely had he spoken these words when on the top of the mountain we saw Polyphemus himself among his flocks moving himself with his vast bulk and heading for the familiar shore,

monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.

a huge, shapeless, horrendous monster, whose eye had been removed, and seeking the known shore.

trunca manum pinus regit et vestigia firmat; lanigerae comitantur oves; ea sola voluptas solamenque mali.

A stripped off pine

postquam altos tetigit fluctus et ad aequora venit, luminis effossi fluidum lavit inde cruorem dentibus infrendens gemitu,

After he reached the deep waves and came to the sea, he washed the flowing blood from his dug

graditurque per aequor iam medium, necdum fluctus latera ardua tinxit.

and he was stepping now through the middle of the sea but the waves were not yet wetting his tall flanks.

nos procul inde fugam trepidi celerare recepto supplice sic merito tacitique incidere funem, vertimus et proni certantibus aequora remis.

We, far away, in a panic made haste to flee from there, having welcomed the supplicant who had duly deserved it, and silently began cutting the mooring rope, and, leaning forward, we turned the sea with competing oars.

sensit, et ad sonitum vocis vestigia torsit. verum ubi nulla datur dextra adfectare potestas nec potis Ionios fluctus aequare sequendo,

He sensed us, and twisted his footsteps to the sound of the voice. But when no ability was granted to him to affect us with his right hand, nor was he able to equal the Ionian waves by following us,

clamorem immensum tollit, quo pontus et omnes intremuere undae, penitusque exterrita tellus Italiae curvisque immugiit Aetna cavernis.

he raised an enormous shout, with which the sea and all the waves trembled, and far inland the terrified land of Italy and Etna with its hollow caves bellowed.

at genus e silvis Cyclopum et montibus altis excitum ruit ad portus et litora complent.

But the race of Cyclopes were roused and rushed from the forests and the tall mountains to the harbours and filled the beaches.

cernimus astantes nequiquam lumine torvo Aetnaeos fratres caelo capita alta ferentes, concilium horrendum:

We could make out the Aetnean brothers standing nearby in vain with their angry eye, carrying their tall heads in the sky, a horrendous assembly;

quales cum vertice celso aëriae quercus aut coniferae cyparissi constiterunt, silva alta Iovis lucusve Dianae.

with their tall tops, they were like like lofty oak trees standing or cone

praecipites metus acer agit quocumque rudentes excutere et ventis intendere vela secundis.

Keen fear drove us headlong to shake off the mooring

contra iussa monent Heleni, Scyllam atque Charybdin inter, utrimque viam leti discrimine parvo, ni teneant cursus:

But the orders of Helenus were warning against taking a course between Scylla and Charybdis, a way of death on each side by a small margin.

certum est dare lintea retro. ecce autem Boreas angusta ab sede Pelori missus adest:

The surest thing was to turn the sails back. Yet behold! the North Wind was here, sent from the narrow straits of Pelorus.

vivo praetervehor ostia saxo Pantagiae Megarosque sinus Thapsumque iacentem.

I was carried past the mouth of Pantagias with its living rock, and the bay of Megara, and low

talia monstrabat relegens errata retrorsus litora Achaemenides, comes infelicis Ulixi.

Such were the shores which, as he retraced his wanderings in reverse, Achaemenides, companion of ill