The Aeneid Rap

I wrote this when I was a sophomore in high school after Mr Anthony's lecture. First trimester of History of Europe, so I must have been 15 -- fall of 1987. Kyle even recorded it with me :-)

I have made a few changes from the original, but nothing major. In fact, this version includes some of the stuff I didn't get entirely right the first time. Never mind that 'The Aeneid Rap' only covers the first half of the Aeneid ;-)


Let's talk about Aeneas, he's a dude from Troy
those poor saps who fell for the Greeks' ploy
Odysseus had an idea about a wooden horse
inside it they hid with a mighty Greek force
And so the Greeks destroyed Ilion and took back Helen
They squashed those Trojans like a ripened melon!

Aeneas and the boys turned tail in a ship
If they'd stayed they would have died and that's not hip
Our Trojan heroes fled from shocking disaster
Then the gods said 'Now hear your future:
We want you to sail to a place on the Boot
In times to come, lands will send their loot
to this awesome-type city on seven hills
the center of an empire that the known earth fills!'

Aeneas sailed the sea in a wooden boat
'cuz that's the only kind they had then that would ever float
But his ship was wrecked and he was almost a goner
'til he washed up in Carthage, near a place called Zama
Then Dido came down and said 'Have no fear.
I'll rebuild your ships while you stay here.'
Well Dido liked Aeneas, she thought he was neat
We gotta censor this ... No, we don't, she was in heat
She said 'Yo, big guy, why don't you stay here with me.
I'll give you some land and I'll give you the key
To this awesome-type city near the sea of salt
You'll be my king and you'll have no fault!

Then Aeneas said 'Hey, I like you, too.
But, listen here, queen, I got a job to do.
The gods have charged me with a major fate.
I gotta' found a city and it just won't wait.'

But Dido took this hard, you know she had another plan
She said 'Ok, chump, since you won't be my man,
I'm gonna curse your darn city, so important to you
You'll find fighting Carthage is all that they will do!'

Our hero sailed to Italy and settled down
30 miles inland, and on a strip of ground
that was near the Tiber river and some hills, too
He had some cool descendants. I'll mention just two:
Romulus and Remus lived with wolves, without a home
But that's another story, how they founded Rome
Aeneas' city shaped our culture and we owe him that
That's all the storytelling done by the Aeneid Rap!