C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Rhea Silvia’s Dream

By Ennius (239–169 B.C.)

The tenderest passage extant seems modeled on a briefer sketch in Io’s account of her own sorrows, in Æschylus’s ‘Prometheus.’ The Vestal Rhea Silvia has been startled by a prophetic dream:—

RAISING her trembling body, the crone with a light had approached her:

This is the tale she affrighted relates, when roused from her slumber:—

“Daughter of Eurydicè, by our father dearly beloved,

Force and life are wholly from out my body departed!

Ay, for it seemed that a goodly man amid beautiful willows

Bore me by banks of rivers and unknown places. Thereafter,

Sister mine, in solitude—so I fancied—I wandered:

Slowly I sought thee, with wistful heart, but could not descry thee,

Tracing thy feet; for nowhere a pathway guided my footsteps.

Then in these words, and aloud, methought my father addressed me:

‘O my daughter, for thee is first great sorrow appointed:

Then in turn shall fortune revisit thee, out of the river.’

Such were my father’s words, O sister, and then he departed,

Suddenly, nor was he seen by me, though heartily longed for:

Not though often my hands to the azure expanses of heaven

I with tears held forth, and in loving accents addressed him:—

Then, with pain, from my weary heart had slumber departed.”

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