The two most famous metrical narratives of the "golden age" of Latin literature are Virgil's Aeneid (70-19 BC) and Ovid's Metamorphoses (43 BC-17 AD). Technically, both belong to the "epic" genre, but the former undertakes to erect a monument for the man whose mission is to create the conditions for the future Rome, while the latter is offered as a kind of metrical mythological encyclopedia, where inevitably, Greek names, figures, and things abound. In the former, the maestoso of a national foundational myth is heard above all, while in the latter, the allegro and allegretto of dozens of myths dominate, which, even if they have a tragic mark, become the plaything of a narcissistic and playful narrator. It so happens that the undersigned has faced the translational challenge of the Aeneid after previously having served as a translator for the Metamorphoses.

The difference is significant and cannot be adequately described by saying that one, a genius poet with a rhetorical flair, constantly surprises you with a high-tech verbal sleight of hand, while the other, Virgil of the Aeneid, with a contemplative flair, enchants the words, and the words, sometimes on their own like signposts vibrating between statement and connotation and sometimes with their "defamiliarizing" combinations and well-calculated affinities, show you paths and trails "towards the depth" - a depth of senses and meanings that seem to rearrange themselves every time you return to the text. That is why the feeling of a je ne sais quoi that always remains outside the translation is heavier and more tormenting when dealing with the Aeneid. With this feeling, the present translation is delivered, and it is unnecessary to renounce here fruitless concerns about fidelity or liberty.