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John Conington Quotes

John Conington was an English classical scholar. In 1866 he published his best-known work, the translation of the Aeneid of Virgil into the octosyllabic metre of Walter Scott. He was Corpus Professor of Latin at the University of Oxford from 1854 till his death. Wikipedia  

✵ 10. August 1825 – 23. October 1869
John Conington: 85 quotes0 likes

Famous John Conington Quotes

“Now for a heart that scorns dismay:
Now for a soul prepared.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 197

“Live and be blest! 'tis sweet to feel
Fate's book is closed and under seal.
For us, alas! that volume stern
Has many another page to turn.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book III, p. 96

“This suffering will yield us yet
A pleasant tale to tell.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 12

“Let hopes and sorrows, fears and angers be,
And think each day that dawns the last you'll see;
For so the hour that greets you unforeseen
Will bring with it enjoyment twice as keen.”

John Conington

Book I, epistle iv, p. 108
Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Epistles

“Now dews precipitate the night,
And setting stars to rest invite.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book II, p. 39

“Thou too take courage, wealth despise,
And fit thee to ascend the skies,
Nor be a poor man's courtesies
Rejected or disdained.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VIII, p. 286

John Conington Quotes about death

“Ah! Postumus! Devotion fails
The lapse of gliding years to stay,
With wrinkled age it nought avails
Nor conjures conquering Death away.”

John Conington

Book II, ode xiv
Translations, The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace (1863)

“In vain she strives with dying hands
To wrench away the blade:
Fixed in her ribs the weapon stands,
Closed by the wound it made.
Bloodless and faint, she gasps for breath;
Her heavy eyes sink down in death;
Her cheek's bright colors fade.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book XI, p. 427

“Dire agonies, wild terrors swarm,
And Death glares grim in many a form.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book II, p. 55

“Death takes the mean man with the proud;
The fatal urn has room for all.”

John Conington

Book III, ode i
Translations, The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace (1863)

“Tis come, our fated day of death.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book II, p. 53

“At Orcus' portals hold their lair
Wild Sorrow and avenging Care;
And pale Diseases cluster there,
And pleasureless Decay
Foul Penury, and Fears that kill,
And Hunger, counsellor of ill,
A ghastly presence they:
Suffering and Death the threshold keep,
And with them Death's blood-brother, Sleep.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 197

John Conington Quotes about life

“A critical sense of style and of poetic form is not easy to attain, nor is it of first importance for the younger, or, indeed, for any student of Virgil. Wide open to anyone who is willing to learn is the richer knowledge of Virgil as a poet who loved his country and who loved also that humanity which existed before Rome, exists today within ourselves, and will exist long after our own civilization, like that of Virgil's Rome, has become a matter of "ancient history." It is true that the longer one has lived the better one can appreciate a poem which is concerned with life. But the gain that comes to us with the years depends, partly at least, upon the riches we have been willing to extract from literature, which is the experience of other men and women written out. In youth's search for this treasure the Aeneid will be at once a fair haven and a port of departure.”

John Conington

Introduction<!--was the Introduction written by John Conington or by the editors?--> to The Aeneid of Virgil (Chicago and New York: Scott Foresman and Company, 1916), p. 45; partially quoted in School and Home Education, Vol. 35 (1916), p. 172

“O Fortune, cruellest of heavenly powers,
Why make such game of this poor life of ours?”

John Conington

Book II, satire viii, p. 94
Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Satires

“Here sees he the illustrious dead
Who fighting for their country bled;
Priests who while earthly life remained
Preserved that life unsoiled, unstained;
Blest bards, transparent souls and clear,
Whose song was worthy Phoebus' ear;
Inventors who by arts refined
The common lot of human kind,
With all who grateful memory won
By services to others done:
A goodly brotherhood, bedight
With coronals of virgin white.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 217

“My life is lived, and I have played
The part that Fortune gave.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book IV, p. 138

“Then take, good sir, your pleasure while you may;
With life so short 'twere wrong to lose a day.”

John Conington

Dum licet, in rebus jucundis vive beatus;
Vive memor quam sis aevi brevis.
Book II, satire viii, line 96 (trans. Conington)
Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Satires

“O ye Gods, and O great Jove,
Have pity on a father's love
And hear Evander's prayer:
If 'tis your purpose to restore
My Pallas to my arms once more;
If living is to see his face,
Then grant me life, of your dear grace:
No toil too hard to bear.
But ah! if Fortune be my foe,
And meditate some crushing blow,
Now, now the thread in mercy break,
While hope sees dim and cares mistake,
While still I clasp thee darling boy,
My latest and my only joy,
Nor let assurance, worse than fear,
With cruel tidings wound my ear.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VIII, p. 295

John Conington: Trending quotes

“Then should some man of worth appear
Whose stainless virtue all revere,
They hush, they list: his clear voice rules
Their rebel wills, their anger cools.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 10

“Fear proves a base-born soul.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book IV, p. 109

“Me, guilty me, make me your aim,
O Rutules! mine is all the blame;
He did no wrong, nor e'er could do;
That sky, those stars attest 'tis true;
Love for his friend too freely shown,
This was his crime, and this alone.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book IX, p. 324

John Conington Quotes

“Mere grace is not enough: a play should thrill
The hearer's soul, and move it at its will.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Art of Poetry, p. 175

“The journey down to the abyss
Is prosperous and light:
The palace gates of gloomy Dis
Stand open day and night:
But upward to retrace the way
And pass into the light of day
There comes the stress of labour; this
May task a hero's might.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 191

“A woman's will
Is changeful and uncertain still.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book IV, p. 134

“Along the illimitable shade
Darkling and lone their way they made,
Through the vast kingdom of the dead,
An empty void, though tenanted:
So travellers in a forest move
With but the uncertain moon above,
Beneath her niggard light.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 197

“Sleep gives his name to portals twain;
One all of horn, they say,
Through which authentic spectres gain
Quick exit into day,
And one which bright with ivory gleams,
Whence Pluto sends delusive dreams.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 228

“Each for himself, we all sustain
The durance of our ghostly pain;
Then to Elysium we repair,
The few, and breathe this blissful air.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 220

“Huge, awful, hideous, ghastly, blind.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book III, p. 103

“Tis thus that men to heaven aspire:
Go on and raise your glories higher.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book IX, p. 333

“They can because they think they can.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book V, p. 153

“What's kept at home you cancel by a stroke:
What's sent abroad you never can revoke.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Art of Poetry, p. 188

“A wet summer and a fine winter should be the farmer's prayer.”

John Conington

Georgics, Book I, p. 39
Translations, The Poems of Virgil Translated Into English Prose (1872)

“Thus, severed by the ruthless plough,
Dim fades a purple flower:
Their weary necks so poppies bow,
O'erladen by the shower.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book IX, p. 324

“She calls it marriage now; such name
She chooses to conceal her shame.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book IV, p. 117

“Why reel I thus, confused and blind?
What madness mars my sober mind?”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book XII, p. 436

“She turned, and flashed upon their view
Her stately neck's purpureal hue;
Ambrosial tresses round her head
A more than earthly fragrance shed:
Her falling robe her footprints swept,
And showed the goddess as she stept.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 21

“This to a tyrant master sold
His native land for cursed gold.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 215

“Comrades and friends! for ours is strength
Has brooked the test of woes;
O worse-scarred hearts! these wounds at length
The Gods will heal, like those.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 12

“No, had I e'en a hundred tongues,
A hundred mouths, and iron lungs,
Those types of guilt I could not show,
Nor tell the forms of penal woe.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 215

“In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb'd away.
Seize the present; trust to-morrow e'en as little as you may.”

John Conington

Book I, ode xi
Translations, The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace (1863)

“The gods implore
To crush the proud and elevate the poor.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Art of Poetry, p. 180

“If men and mortal arms ye slight,
Know there are gods who watch o'er right.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 27

“Virgil imitated Homer, but imitated him as a rival, not as a disciple.”

John Conington

Introduction, p. 27
Commentary, P. Vergili Maronis Opera, Volume II (1863)

“No longer dream that human prayer
The will of Fate can overbear.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 202

“None knows the reason why this curse
Was sent on him, this love of making verse.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Art of Poetry, p. 191

“Arise from my bones, my unknown avenger.”

John Conington

Aeneid, Book IV, p. 216
Translations, The Poems of Virgil Translated Into English Prose (1872)

“While memory lasts and pulses beat,
The thought of Dido shall be sweet.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book IV, p. 124

“Is there, friend,' he cries, 'a spot
That knows not Troy's unhappy lot?”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 23

“Fury and wrath within me rave,
And tempt me to a warrior's grave.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book II, p. 52

“Too cruel, lady, is the pain,
You bid me thus revive again.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book II, p. 39

“Fell lust of gold! abhorred, accurst!
What will not men to slake such thirst?”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book III, p. 77

“They reach the realms of tranquil bliss.
Green spaces folded in with trees,
A paradise of pleasances.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 215

“I heard, fear-stricken and amazed,
My speech tongue-tied, my hair upraised.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book III, p. 77

“Snatch him, ye Gods, from mortal eyes!”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book III, p. 101

“Who hopes by strange variety to please,
Puts dolphins among forests, boars in seas.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Art of Poetry, p. 172

“We have been Trojans: Troy has been:
She sat, but sits no more, a queen.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book II, p. 53

“E'en here the tear of pity springs,
And hearts are touched by human things.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 23

“From me you fly! Ah! let me crave,
By these poor tears, that hand you gave—
Since, parting with my woman's pride,
My madness leaves me nought beside—
By that our wedlock, by the rite
Which, but begun, could yet unite,
If e'er my kindness held you bound,
If e'er in me your joy you found,
Look on this falling house, and still,
If prayer can touch you, change your will.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book IV, p. 123

“Blank verse really deserving the name I believe to be impossible except to one or two eminent writers in a generation.”

John Conington

Preface to The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), p. ix

“There are few writers whose text is in so satisfactory a state as Virgil's.”

John Conington

Preface, p. xi
Commentary, P. Vergili Maronis Opera, Volume I (1858)

“No, trust the Muse: she opes the good man's grave,
And lifts him to the gods.”

John Conington

Book IV, ode viii
Translations, The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace (1863)

“Hush your tongues from idle speech.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book V, p. 146

“I quail,
E'en now, at telling of the tale.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book II, p. 48

“War, dreadful war, and Tiber flood
I see incarnadined with blood.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 189

“For easier 'tis to learn and recollect
What moves derision than what claims respect.”

John Conington

Book II, epistle i, p. 160
Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Epistles

“You lose no time in taking out a fly,
Or straw, it may be, that torments your eye;
Why, when a thing devours your mind, adjourn
Till this day year all thought of the concern?
Come now, have courage to be wise: begin:
You're halfway over when you once plunge in:
He who puts off the time for mending, stands
A clodpoll by the stream with folded hands,
Waiting till all the water be gone past;
But it runs on, and will, while time shall last.”

John Conington

Book I, epistle ii, p. 104
Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Epistles

“Each has his destined time: a span
Is all the heritage of man:
'Tis virtue's part by deeds of praise
To lengthen fame through after days.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book X, p. 367

“May Heaven, if virtue claim its thought,
If justice yet avail for aught;
Heaven, and the sense of conscious right,
With worthier meed your acts requite!”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 29

“A lethargy of sleep,
Most like to death, so calm, so deep.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, p. 209

“Bear up, and live for happier days.”

John Conington

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 12

“He who maligns an absent friend's fair fame,
Who says no word for him when others blame,
Who courts a reckless laugh by random hits,
Just for the sake of ranking among wits,
Who feigns what he ne'er saw, a secret blabs,
Beware him, Roman! that man steals or stabs!”

John Conington

Book I, satire iv, p. 18
Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Satires

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