Translating Aeneid I.198-207 (Aeneas' speech) into greek hexametres

Any suggestions/corrections for improvement are welcome!

«Οὐ γάρ τ’ εἰμὲν κακῶν, ὦταῖροι, τῶν πρὶν ἀΐδρεις.
Τέτλατε κύντερα, τοῖσδέ τε δαίμων τέρματα δώσει.
Ὑμεῖς καὶ Σκύλλης τε βίην, σκοπέλους τ’ ἐσαφῖχθε
ἠχήεντας ἔσω, Κυκλώπων τείχεα θ’ ὑμεῖς
θηήσασθ’: ἂρ ἀνορθοῦτε θυμόν, πέμπετε λυγρὸν
δεῖμα. Τάχ’ ἄν τοι καὶ τῶν μνήσεσθ’ ἡδύ ποτ’ ἔσται.
Πολλ’ ἐπὶ πήματα θ’ ἥκοντες ἀκμάς τε τοσαύτας
ἐς Λάτιον χωροῦμεν, ὅπη δείκνυθ’ ἕδος αἴσῃ
εὔκηλον, θέμις ἔνθ’ αὖ δεῖμαι πέργαμα Τροίης.
Τλῆτε φίλ’, ὑμέας σῴζετε γ’ οὖν ἐπ’ ἀμείνοσιν αὐτούς.»

A valiant effort, and you’ve contrived an almost word-for-word rendering. But too much of it is unmetrical (neither of your first two lines scans) and scarcely intelligible (ἀΐθρεις I guess is meant to be ἀίδρεις). It’s very difficult to compose respectable hexameters without being thoroughly immersed in Homer. That may be the chief value of such an exercise.

Your best line is probably the penultimate. In the last line τλῆτε φίλ’ obviously won’t do, but you could try τλῆτε φίλοι, υμεας τ’ επ’αμεινοσι σωζεθ’ εαυτους.

Thanks for the comments!

I meant indeed to write ἀΐδρεις and τέτλατε, so I will edit them on the original.

Τέτλατε restores the metre, but how is the first line unmetrical?

You ask how is the first line unmetrical? ειμεν κακων. vae tibi οιμοι!

Oh damn! I can’t believe I didn’t see that :smiley: