These books are intended to make Virgil's Latin accessible even to those with a fairly rudimentary knowledge of the language. There is a departure here from the format of the electronic books, with short sections generally being presented on single, or double, pages and endnotes entirely avoided. A limited number of additional footnotes is included, but only what is felt necessary for a basic understanding of the story and the grammar. Some more detailed footnotes have been taken from Conington's edition of the Aeneid.

In Book IV of Virgil's "Aeneid", one of the most studied books of that epic poem, Dido, queen of Carthage, is inflamed by love for Aeneas. The goddesses Juno and Venus plot to unite them, and their 'marriage' is consummated in a cave during a hunt. However, Jupiter sends Mercury to remind Aeneas of his duty, and the hero departs despite Dido's passionate pleas. At the end of the book, Dido commits suicide. This classic edition of the Latin text of Book IV replaces the long-serving edition by Gould and Whiteley, making this book more accessible to today's students and taking account of the most recent scholarship and critical approaches to Virgil. It includes a substantial introduction, annotation to explain language and content, and a comprehensive vocabulary.

Love and tragedy dominate book four of Virgil's most powerful work, building on the violent emotions invoked by the storms, battles, warring gods, and monster-plagued wanderings of the epic's opening. Destined to be the founder of Roman culture, Aeneas, nudged by the gods, decides to leave his beloved Dido, causing her suicide in pursuit of his historical destiny. A dark plot, in which erotic passion culminates in sex, and sex leads to tragedy and death in the human realm, unfolds within the larger horizon of a supernatural sphere, dominated by power-conscious divinities. Dido is Aeneas' most significant other, and in their encounter Virgil explores timeless themes of love and loyalty, fate and fortune, the justice of the gods, imperial ambition and its victims, and ethnic differences. This course book offers a portion of the original Latin text, study questions, a commentary, and interpretative essays. Designed to stretch and stimulate readers, Ingo Gildenhard's incisive commentary will be of particular interest to students of Latin at both A2 and undergraduate level. It extends beyond detailed linguistic analysis to encourage critical engagement with Virgil's poetry and discussion of the most recent scholarly thought.

Monumental epic poem tells the heroic story of Aeneas, a Trojan who escaped the burning ruins of Troy to found Lavinium, the parent city of Rome, in the west.

A masterpiece from one of the greatest poets of the century In a momentous publication, Seamus Heaney's translation of Book VI of the Aeneid, Virgil's epic poem composed sometime between 29 and 19 BC, follows the hero, Aeneas, on his descent into the underworld. In Stepping Stones, a book of interviews conducted by Dennis O'Driscoll, Heaney acknowledged the significance of the poem to his writing, noting that "there's one Virgilian journey that has indeed been a constant presence, and that is Aeneas's venture into the underworld. The motifs in Book VI have been in my head for years--the golden bough, Charon's barge, the quest to meet the shade of the father." In this new translation, Heaney employs the same deft handling of the original combined with the immediacy of language and sophisticated poetic voice as was on show in his translation of Beowulf, a reimagining which, in the words of James Wood, "created something imperishable and great that is stainless--stainless, because its force as poetry makes it untouchable by the claw of literalism: it lives singly, as an English language poem."