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[June 1922. ٥ VIRGIL AENEID Books IV to VI Partly in the Original and partly in Edited by CYRIL ALINGTON HEAD MASTER OF ETON OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS Oxford University Press 2176.14 PREFACE THIS book, as is obvious, is not written by a scholar for scholars, but by a schoolmaster for schoolboys and for the less exacting of their instructors. It has seemed to me that in such a book the object should rather be to endeavour to arouse and to encourage a real interest in literary questions, than to inculcate the rules of grammar or to explain recondite allusions. It is obviously very difficult to draw the line, and while some who use the book will, I fear, be insulted by the information it offers, others will with equal justice blame it for its omissions. I have acted on the belief that a teacher whose object is to teach Virgil as he should be taught, as one of the great poets of the world, will prefer to have opinions suggested with which he may disagree, than to be presented with conclusions Coldly correct and critically dull. No two persons of intelligence will agree entirely on any literary topic, just as no two persons would select, in an edition like this, the same passages for omission from the text. In selecting the translations I have endeavoured again rather to provide a subject for discussion, than to give the ideal rendering: much may, I think, be learnt by a comparison, aided by the teacher's own powers of criticism, between the different methods adopted. I am very grateful to Messrs. John Murray and Messrs. Longman for allowing me to quote from the versions by Lord Bowen and William Morris, and to Mr. James Rhoades for the generosity with which he has permitted the use of his translation. It is obvious that in a work like this, where very little is |