The wild love of the witch-maiden sits curiously on the queen and organizer of industrial Carthage; and the two qualities which form an essential part of Jason--the weakness which makes him a traitor, and the deliberate gentleness which contrasts him with Medea--seem incongruous in the father of Rome.' But though Virgil turned to the Greek epics for the general framework and many of the details of his poem, he always remains master of his materials, and stamps them with the impress of his own genius.

The spirit which inspires the _Aeneid_ is wholly Roman, and the deep faith in the National Destiny, and stern sense of duty to which it gives expression, its profoundly religious character and stately and melodious verse, have always caused it to be recognized as the loftiest expression of the dignity and greatness of Rome at her best.
But the sympathetic reader will be conscious of a deeper and more abiding charm in the poetry of Virgil.

Even in his most splendid passages his verses thrill us with a strange pathos, and his sensitiveness to unseen things--things beautiful and sad--has caused a great writer, himself a master of English prose, to speak of 'his single words and phrases, his pathetic half lines, giving utterance as the voice of Nature herself to that pain and weariness, yet hope of better things, which is the experience of her children in every age.' The task of translating such a writer at all adequately may well seem to be an almost impossible one; and how far any of the numerous attempts to do so have succeeded, is a difficult question.

For not only does the stated ideal at which the translator should aim, vary with each generation, but perhaps no two lovers of Virgil would agree at any period as to what this ideal should be.

Two general principles stand out from the mass of conflicting views on this point.