Virgil, Aeneid II.390
Melphi speaks
dolus an virtus, quis in hoste requirat?
The priest translates
«trickery or courage, who would ask which, when dealing with an enemy?»
And interprets
This line puts a temptation in front of you: the idea that with someone who has wronged you, any means is fair. Perhaps you are in a tough contest at work, a tense separation, a family quarrel, and you feel like playing dirty too. Melphi warns you with an important nuance: in the poem this choice seems to work at first, but then it turns against those who made it. A disguise confuses your friends as well. This is not the time to give up cleverness, which can be intelligence; it is the time to ask yourself whether you could openly own the move you are considering tomorrow.
The historical translations
Annibal Caro (1581)
E l’insegne de’ Greci. O biasmo o lode
Che ciò ne sia, chi co’ nemici il cerca?
E l’insegne de’ Greci. O biasmo o lode
Che ciò ne sia, chi co’ nemici il cerca?
Theodore C. Williams (1910)
'Twixt guile and valor who will nicely weigh
When foes are met? These dead shall find us arms.”
'Twixt guile and valor who will nicely weigh
When foes are met? These dead shall find us arms.”
Source
Publius Vergilius Maro, Aeneis, ed. J. B. Greenough (1900)
Virgil, Aeneid II.390