"Now that it pleased the gods to crush the power of Asia
and Priam's innocent people, now proud Troy had fallen-
Neptune's city a total ruin smoking on the ground-
sings from the high gods drive us on, exiles now,
searching earth for a home in some neglected land.
We labor to build a fleet-hard by Antandros,
under the heights of Phrygian Ida-knowing nothing.
Where would destiny take us? Where are we to settle?
We muster men for crews. Summer has just begun
when father commands us: 'Hoist the sails to Fate!'
And I launch out in tears and desert our native land,
the old safe haven, the plains where Troy once stood.

     I chose this passage because it is the first place in this weeks reading that shows some type of poetry. It may not sound like the normal poems one would hear as kid, where every line rhymed with the last. That is because it is an epic poem. Epic poems rarely rhyme like that, though sometimes two sentences do rhyme. Epic poems use a more complicated and less obvious strategy. For example when Aeneas says "I launch out in tears and desert our native land...." This is poetic because it paints a mental picture by exaggerating his sorrow. That what poetry is, painting a picture that the reader can easily understand. Whether it be with a rhyme or an exaggeration it all does the same thing.