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Title: The Æneid of Virgil translated into English prose
Author: Virgil
Editor: Edgar S. Shumway
Translator: John Conington
Release date: April 28, 2024 [eBook #73488]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: The Macmillan Company, 1910
Credits: Charles Aldarondo and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
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THE
ÆNEID OF VIRGIL
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH PROSE
BY
JOHN CONINGTON, M.A.
LATE CORPUS PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
EDGAR S. SHUMWAY, PH.D.
EDITOR “LATINE”
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1917
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1910,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1910.
Reprinted June, 1914; September, 1917.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION
The Æneid ix
Virgil’s Life x
Influence of the Æneid xiii
The Epic Itself xvii
The Story xix
Sources xxi
The Translation xxi
Chronological Table xxv
Verse Translations Recommended xxvi
Books for Reference xxvii
Subjects for Investigation xxvii
THE ÆNEID
Book I. 1
II. 26
III. 51
IV. 74
V. 96
VI. 122
VII. 150
VIII. 176
IX. 198
X. 222
XI. 250
XII. 277
NOTES 305
INDEX TO NOTES 345
INTRODUCTION
THE ÆNEID
When Rome, torn and bleeding from a century of civil wars, turned to that
wise judge of men, the second Cæsar, and acquiesced as, through carefully
selected ministers, he gathered the reins of power into velvet-clad
fingers of steel, she did wisely. Better one-man power than anarchy! It
became the part of true patriotism for the citizen and of statesmanship
for the politician to bring to the aid of the First Man of the state
all the motives that could harmonize the chaotic elements, and start
Republican Rome on the path of a new unity—the unity of the Empire.
For already “far away on the wide Roman marches might be heard, as
it were, the endless, ceaseless monotone of beating horses’ hoofs
and marching feet of men. They were coming, they were nearing, _like
footsteps heard on wool_;[A] there was a sound of multitudes and millions
of barbarians, all the North, mustering and marshalling her peoples.” In
his great task Augustus, with the aid of Mæcenas, very cleverly drew to
his help writers whose work has since charmed the world. We can almost
pardon fate for destroying the Republic—it gave us Virgil and Horace.
Pleasant indeed had it been for Virgil to sing in emulation of his great
teacher Lucretius! “As for me,” he says, “first of all I would pray that
the charming Muses, whose minister I am, for the great love that has
smitten me, would receive me graciously, and teach me the courses of the
stars in heaven, the various eclipses of the sun and the earth, what is
the force by which the deep seas swell to the bursting of their barriers
and settle down again on themselves—why the winter suns make such
haste to dip in ocean, or what is the retarding cause which makes the
nights move slowly.” Pleasant, too, to spend his “chosen coin of fancy
flashing out from many a golden phrase” in picturing “the liberty of
broad domains, grottos and natural lakes, cool Tempe-like valleys, lawns
and dens where wild beasts hide, a youth strong to labor and inured to
scanty fare.” “Let me delight in the country and the streams that freshen
the valleys—let me love river and woodland with an unambitious love.”
“Then, too, there are the husbandman’s sweet children ever hanging on his
lips—his virtuous household keeps the tradition of purity.” Ah, yes, to
Virgil most attractive was the simple life of the lover of nature, and
charmingly did he portray it in his _Eclogues_ and _Georgics_!
But Augustus, recognizing the genius of Virgil, and realizing the supreme
need of a reinvigorated patriotism, urgently demanded an epic that should
portray Rome’s beginnings and her significance to the world. Reluctantly
then Virgil took up this task. Even at his death he considered it
unfulfilled. Indeed it was his wish that the manuscript be destroyed.
Almost immediately the _Æneid_ became the object of the closest study,
and ever since it has evoked the deepest admiration. Perhaps no other
secular writing has so profoundly affected literature.
VIRGIL’S LIFE
Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), born in the rural district near Mantua,
a farmer’s son, was given by his loving father a careful education. Of
his father Virgil says, “those whom I have ever loved and above all my
father.” The regard of his hero Æneas for his father Anchises not merely
illustrates the early Roman filial affection—it suggests Virgil’s
relation to his own parent. In north Italy Virgil studied at Mantua,
Cremona, and Milan, and at seventeen took up his wider studies at Rome
itself in the year 53 B.C. Catullus had died the year before, Lucretius
was dead two years. At Rome Virgil had the best masters in Greek,
rhetoric, and in philosophy, a study in which he especially delighted.
In forming his own poetic style Virgil was profoundly influenced by
Lucretius, whose great poem _On Nature_ treated of the wondrous physical
universe, and by the subtly sweet young Catullus,
“Tenderest of Roman poets.”
—TENNYSON.
In such studies Virgil spent ten years. But in 41 B.C. he appears again
in north Italy and this time in storm and stress. In the year of Philippi
the triumvirs, settling their victorious legions, confiscated lands about
Cremona, and Virgil, attempting to resist dispossession, came near to
losing his life. Through fellow-students of the Roman days he secured an
introduction to Octavius and was compensated—either recovering his own
farm, or receiving in lieu of it an estate in Campania.
Virgil relates his experience in two of his ten _Eclogues_ which were
published in their present form in 38 B.C. These charming poems were
especially loved by Milton and Wordsworth. Macaulay indeed considered
them the best of Virgil’s works. At Rome they met immediate success with
the people and with Octavius and his wise minister Mæcenas, Horace’s
patron. In them Virgil tenderly sings love of friends, home, and country.
Then Virgil spent seven years on the four books of the _Georgics_,
publishing them in 29 B.C., two years after Actium. The _Georgics_
Merivale calls “the glorification of labor.” In them Virgil hymns the
farmer’s life in beautiful Italy.
“Hail to thee, land of Saturn, mighty mother of noble fruits and noble
men! For thee I essay the theme of the glory and the skill of olden
days.”
Virgil was now acknowledged the greatest poet of Italy. In the year 26
B.C., one year after the title Augustus had been conferred on Octavius,
we find the emperor writing Virgil the most urgent letters begging the
poet to send him, then in Spain, some portion of the projected _Æneid_.
It was, however, considerably later when Virgil read to Augustus the
second, fourth, and sixth books, for the young Marcellus, the emperor’s
nephew, died in 23 B.C., and we are told that Octavia, his mother,
fainted on hearing the poet read the immortal lines about her son in the
sixth book:—
“Child of a nation’s sorrow! Were there hope of thy breaking the tyranny
of fate, thou shalt be Marcellus. Bring me handfuls of lilies, that I
may strew the grave with their dazzling hues, and crown, if only with
these gifts, my young descendant’s shade, and perform the vain service of
sorrow.”
Virgil,
“who would write ten lines, they say,
At dawn, and lavish all the golden day
To make them wealthier in his readers’ eyes,”
had already spent some ten years on the _Æneid_, when in 19 B.C. he
decided to devote three years to its revision and improvement amid the
“famous cities” and scenes of Greece and Asia. It is in anticipation of
this voyage that his friend Horace prays the winds to
“Speed thee, O ship, as I pray thee to render
Virgil, a debt duly lent to thy charge,
Whole and intact on the Attican borders
Faithfully guarding the half of my soul.”
Augustus, however, met him at Athens and persuaded him to accompany his
own return. But Virgil was never again to see Rome. He contracted a fever
in Greece. It grew worse on the homeward trip; and he died, a few days
after landing, in Brundisium, having reached the age of fifty-one. His
tomb looks down upon the bay of Naples,
“That delicious Bay
Parthenope’s Domain—Virgilian haunt;
Illustrated with never dying verse
And by the Poet’s laurel-shaded tomb,
Age after age to pilgrims from all lands
Endeared.”
—WORDSWORTH.
INFLUENCE OF THE ÆNEID
As to the success of the _Æneid_, it was immediate with poets and people.
Two years after Virgil’s death Horace writes in his _Secular Hymn_:—
“If Rome be all thy work, if Trojan bands
Upon the Etruscan shore have won renown,
That chosen remnant, who at thy command
Forsook their hearths, and homes, and native town;
If all unscathed through Ilion’s flames they sped
By sage Æneas led,
And o’er the ocean waves in safety fled,
Destined from him, though of his home bereft,
A nobler dower to take, than all that they had left.”
—Translated by MARTIN.
Some of the scholars, indeed, criticised it as having an undue
simplicity, as coining new words and using old words, with new meanings,
as borrowing too freely from Homer, as not written in chronological
order, as containing anachronisms, etc. But within ten years it was as
familiarly quoted by writers as we quote Shakespeare. It became the chief
text-book in the Roman schools of grammar and rhetoric. The great writers
of later days, like Pliny and Tacitus, show the profound influence of his
style, which would seem to have gripped them as Goethe tells us Luther’s
translation of the Scriptures affected his style, and as the King James
version has left its indelible traces on English literature.
When the race-mind tired of problems of government and law, and turned
strongly to the problems of religion,—degenerating easily, to be sure,
to superstition,—it was evidence of Virgil’s grip on humanity that the
poet of poets became the wizard of wizards. Even under the Antonines, the
_Sors Vergiliana_ (Virgilian prophecy) was practised. The _Æneid_ was
opened at random, and the first verse that struck the eye was considered
a prophecy of good or bad portent. “The mediæval world looked upon him
as a poet of prophetic insight who contained within himself all the
potentialities of wisdom. He was called the Poet, as if no other existed;
the _Roman_, as if the ideal of the commonwealth were embodied in him;
the _perfect in style_, with whom no other writer could be compared; the
_Philosopher_, who grasped the ideas of all things; the _Wise One_, whose
comprehension seemed to other mortals unlimited. His writings became the
Bible of a race. The mysteries of Roman priestcraft, the processes of
divination, the science of the stars, were all found in his works.”
True indeed are the words of Professor MacMechan: “Beginning the _Æneid_
is like setting out upon a broad and beaten highway along which countless
feet have passed in the course of nineteen centuries. It is a spiritual
highway, winding through every age and every clime;” and these of
Professor Woodberry: “The _Æneid_ shows that characteristic of greatness
in literature which lies in its being a watershed of time; it looks
back to antiquity in all that clothes it with the past of imagination,
character and event, and forward to Christian times in all that clothes
it with emotion, sentiment, and finality to the heart.”
As we approach modern literature, the great Italian Dante consciously
takes Virgil as his “master and author.” “O glory and light of other
poets! May the long zeal avail me, and the great love, that made me
search thy volume. Thou art my master and my author.” On English
literature the influence of the _Æneid_ has been so potent that our space
will hardly suffice to convey the barest hint of its direct and indirect
lines. Celtic story developed from it a voyage of Brutus who founds a
new Troy, or London. Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century sets
forth this tale in his history. It was believed down to the seventeenth
century and is reported by Milton. Elizabethan literature has frequent
references to it. Chaucer in his _House of Fame_ outlines the _Æneid_,
emphasizing the Dido episode, which interested also Nash, Marlowe, and
Shakespeare. Spenser teems with allusions and indeed translations, so—
“Anchyses sonne, begott of Venus fayre,”
Said he, “out of the flames for safegard fled
And with a remnant did to sea repayre;
Where he, through fatall errour, long was led
Full many yeares, and weetlesse wandered
From shore to shore emongst the Lybick sandes
Ere rest he fownd.”
—_F. Q._, III., ix., 41.
and—
“Like a great water-flood, that, tombling low
From the high mountaines, threates to overflow
With suddein fury all the fertile playne,
And the sad husbandmans long hope doth throw
Adown the streame, and all his vowes make vayne,
Nor bounds nor banks his headlong ruine may sustayne.”
—_F. Q._, II., xi., 18; cf. _Æn._ II., 304 ff.
Bacon calls Virgil “the chastest poet and royalest that to the memory
of man is known.” “Milton,” writes Dryden, “has acknowledged to me that
Spenser was his original.” But beside this indirect influence, and that
through the Italian school, Virgil’s direct influence on Milton is
attested by many an allusion. Dryden, Cowper, with his “sweet Maro’s
matchless strain,” Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold, with his “sweet, tender
Virgil,” freely acknowledge the debt they owe our poet. Dryden and Morris
translated the _Æneid_ into verse.
Tennyson, “the most Virgilian of modern poets,” gives the following
tribute, written at the request of the Mantuans for the nineteenth
centenary of Virgil’s death:—
“Roman Virgil, thou that singest Ilion’s lofty temples robed in fire,
Ilion falling, Rome arising, wars, and filial faith, and Dido’s pyre,
Landscape lover, lord of language more than he that sang the Works and
Days,
All the chosen coin of fancy flashing out from many a golden phrase,
Thou that singest wheat and woodland, tilth and vineyard, hive and horse
and herd,
All the charm of all the Muses often flowering in a lonely word,
Poet of the happy Tityrus piping underneath his beechen bowers,
Poet of the poet-satyr whom the laughing shepherds bound with flowers,
Chanter of the Pollio, glorying in the blissful years again to be,
Summers of the snakeless meadow, unlaborious earth and oarless sea,
Thou that seest Universal Nature moved by Universal Mind,
Thou majestic in thy sadness at the doubtful doom of human kind,
Light among the vanished ages, star that gildest yet this phantom shore,
Golden branch amid the shadows, kings and realms that pass to rise no
more,
Now thy Forum roars no longer, fallen every purple Cæsar’s dome—
Tho’ thine ocean-roll of rhythm sound forever of Imperial Rome—
Now the Rome of slaves hath perished, and the Rome of freemen holds her
place,
I, from out the Northern Island, sundered once from all the human race,
I salute thee, Mantovano, I that loved thee since my day began,
Wielder of the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man.”
It is a lover of Horace (and who is not a lover of Horace?), the
brilliant Andrew Lang, who points out (in his _Letters to Dead Authors_)
a vital difference that has made Virgil’s the higher influence: “Virgil
might wander forth bearing the golden branch ‘the Sibyl doth to singing
man allow,’ and might visit, as one not wholly without hope, the dim
dwellings of the dead and the unborn. To him was it permitted to see and
sing ‘mothers and men, and the bodies outworn of mighty heroes, boys and
unwedded maids, and young men borne to the funeral fire before their
parents’ eyes.’ The endless caravan swept past him—‘many as fluttering
leaves that drop and fall in autumn woods when the first frost begins;
many as birds that flock landward from the great sea when now the chill
year drives them o’er the deep and leads them to sunnier lands.’ Such
things was it given to the sacred poet to behold, and the happy seats and
sweet pleasances of fortunate souls, where the larger light clothes all
the plains and dips them in a rosier gleam, plains with their own new sun
and stars before unknown. Ah, not _frustra pius_ was Virgil, as you say,
Horace, in your melancholy song. In him, we fancy, there was a happier
mood than your melancholy patience.”
THE EPIC ITSELF
The purpose of the epic is to indicate the divinely ordained origin and
history of Rome as a conquering, civilizing, and organizing government,
destined to replace both anarchy and tyrannical despotism by liberty
under law. As the real world-historic reason for Rome’s existence is so
commonly overlooked, let us recall Mommsen’s words in the introduction
to his _Provinces of the Roman Empire_: “It fostered the peace and
prosperity of the many nations united under its sway longer and more
completely than any other leading power has ever succeeded in doing....
If an angel of the Lord were to strike the balance whether the domain
ruled by Severus Antoninus was governed with the greater intelligence
and the greater humanity at that time or in the present day, whether
civilization and national prosperity generally have since that time
advanced or retrograded, it is very doubtful whether the decision would
prove in favor of the present.” Virgil states the function of Rome
clearly in the famous passage of the sixth book wherein Greek and Roman
are compared:—
“Forget not, O Roman, thy fate—to rule in thy might o’er the nations:
This is to be thine art—peace to the world to give.”
So the hero Æneas, himself of divine birth, is preserved by divine
intervention when Troy falls, and mid dire perils for seven years’
voyagings, and all the bitter warring in Italy, “to bring the gods
unto Latium,” “to found a city,” to teach Italy religion and a virile
civilization. “Whence Rome mighty in her defences,” “a task of so great
magnitude it was to build the Roman nation.” Twice,—once in fields
Elysian from the lips of sainted Anchises, and again, portrayed on
the shield that Vulcan made for Æneas, is rehearsed the long line of
legendary and historical Roman heroes down to Augustus himself. “On
this side is Augustus Cæsar, leading the Italians to conflict, with the
senate and the people, the home-gods and their mighty brethren, standing
aloft on the stern.” “But Cæsar ... was consecrating to the gods of
Italy a votive tribute to deathless gratitude, three hundred mighty
fanes the whole city through.” “Such sights Æneas scans with wonder on
Vulcan’s shield ... as he heaves on his shoulder the fame and the fate of
grandsons yet to be” (end of eighth book). Incidentally ground is given,
in compensating fate, for Rome’s conquest of Greek lands—she is but
loyal to her Trojan ancestry!—and for the duel to the death with Semitic
Carthage—whose queen once was the stately Dido, left by King Æneas at
Jove’s command! Incidentally, too, Virgil draws from Trojan origins
governmental forms, religious rites, yes, even games.
While this great task of glorifying patriotism and harmonizing it with
loyalty to Cæsar is ever present to Virgil, he cannot lose two qualities
that make him the most modern of ancient poets—his love of nature and
his pathos. As examples—of the former, it suffices to cite the charming
harbor scene succeeding storm and wreck, in the first book; and, of the
latter, the death-scene of the immortal twain, Nisus and Euryalus (in
Book nine).
“Down falls Euryalus in death; over his beauteous limbs gushes the blood,
and his powerless neck sinks on his shoulders; as when a purple flower,
severed by the plough, pines in death, or poppies with faint necks droop
the head, when rain has chanced to weigh them down. But Nisus rushes full
on the foe ... and dying robs his foe of life. Then he flung himself on
his breathless friend, pierced through and through, and there at length
slept away in peaceful death.
“Happy pair! if this my song has ought of potency, no lapse of days shall
efface your names from the memory of time, so long as the house of Æneas
shall dwell on the Capitol’s moveless rock, and a Roman father shall be
the world’s lord.”
THE STORY
The story on which Virgil builds is, briefly, the fall of Troy, the
voyaging of Trojan refugees under Æneas, and the successful wars of Æneas
with Italian barbarians.
According to the ancient legend the Greeks had warred ten years under
Troy’s walls, because the Trojan prince, Paris, having awarded the prize
of beauty to Venus as against Juno and Minerva, and, having been promised
as reward by Venus Helen the beautiful wife of the Greek Menelaus, had
eloped with that fatal beauty to Troy, and his father King Priam had
refused to make restitution.
The story then, as related by Æneas to Queen Dido in her palace at
Carthage, takes up (in the second book of the Æneid) the downfall and
destruction of Troy, with the escape of Æneas, his father and son,
together with a band of Trojans. Then (in the third book) are depicted
their voyagings, unsuccessful attempts to found cities, and arrival in
Sicily. Here father Anchises dies. From Sicily they sail in the endeavor
to reach Latium in Italy.
It is at this point that the epic begins. So after his invocation and
introduction (in Book one), Virgil makes unrelenting Juno, through the
storm-king Æolus, let loose upon the Trojan fleet a fierce tempest, which
drives the remnant of the fleet far away to the Carthaginian coast.
Æneas, directed by his disguised mother Venus, comes to the court of Dido
by whom he is kindly received, banqueted; and at her request narrates (in
Books two and three) his harsh experiences.
Book four continues the Dido episode. The queen madly loves Æneas—this
through the influence of Venus, who else had feared Carthaginian
hostility to her dear Trojans. Juno thinks to thwart the fates and Jove’s
will that Æneas should create the Roman race; and she plans to hold Æneas
as spouse of the Carthaginian queen. Jove intervenes, sending Mercury
with explicit commands to Æneas to seek Italy. He sails, and Dido slays
herself.
In Book five they reach Sicily again, and it being the anniversary of
Anchises’ death, Æneas celebrates it with athletic contests. During these
Juno again attempts to thwart the fates, sending a messenger to incite
the Trojan women to set the fleet on fire. But this attempt is only
successful in so far as it leads Æneas to leave the weaklings under the
kindly sway of their kinsman, the Sicilian chief, Acestes. The rest sail
for Italy, losing the faithful pilot, Palinurus.
Book six details the visit Æneas, under the guidance of the Sibyl, to the
abode of the dead. There he meets again his father Anchises, who passes
in review, as souls about to be reborn into the upper world, their heroic
descendants.
So far, with the exception of Book two, which recorded the fall and
sack of Troy, a theme omitted by Homer, Virgil has recorded the Odyssey
or wanderings of his hero Æneas. Now in the succeeding six books is
given the Iliad or wars of Æneas in Italy. As he lands, King Latinus is
divinely led to promise Æneas his daughter Lavinia. But she has been
betrothed to Turnus. Under Juno’s prompting then begins this tremendous
duel between Æneas and Turnus. And here we note a curious likeness
between Milton and Virgil. As our sympathies are aroused in the _Paradise
Lost_ for Lucifer, so Turnus, “the reckless one,” looms up a figure of
heroic size, doomed by the fates to die that Rome may live.
SOURCES
As Virgil’s sources for his story and indeed for no small portion of
his language may be mentioned preeminently:— Homer’s _Odyssey_ and
_Iliad_; Euripides, “with his droppings of warm tears”; the Greek epic
poets, called the cyclic poets, as dealing with the cycle of story
revolving around Troy; the Greek freedman and teacher, Livius Andronicus,
who translated roughly the _Odyssey_; Nævius, who wrote on the First
Punic War, tracing Carthaginian hostility back to the Æneas visit; and
especially Ennius, “father of Latin literature,” who in a great epic
traced the history of Rome from Æneas down. Of Virgil’s borrowings it
were enough perhaps to say that, like our Shakespeare, he ennobled what
he borrowed, wove it into the texture of his song—stamped it Virgilian.
THE TRANSLATION
Concerning the translation itself, we should perhaps set over against
Emerson’s famous saying, “I should as soon think of swimming across
Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books
in originals, when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue,”
that other remark of a great scholar, that “the thing for the student of
language to learn is that _translation is impossible_.” Exquisitely done
as is this version by Professor Conington, noble student of Virgil as he
was, some faint notion of what is lost in the process might be gained by
comparing a prose version of, say, Longfellow’s “Evangeline” with his
hexameters themselves:—
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic—
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
At the very least, “the noblest measure ever moulded by the lips of man,”
Virgil’s “ocean-roll of rhythm,” is lost. That indeed is not revived for
us in Conington’s own poetical version, not in Dryden’s, nor in Morris’s.
Of Virgil also that is true which T. B. Aldrich, charming poet that he
was, wrote me anent his own early translations, “But who could hope to
decant the wine of Horace?”
Yet it may be not without interest to compare some verse renderings of
the initial lines:—
I (woll now) sing (if that I can,)
The armes and also the man,
That first came through his destinie,
Fugitive fro Troy the countrie
Into Itaile, with full much pine,
Unto the stronds of Lavine.
—CHAUCER, _House of Fame_.
Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate,
And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,
Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore,
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Latian realm, and built the destined town;
His banished gods restored to rites divine,
And settled sure succession in his line,
From whence the race of Alban fathers come
And the long glories of majestic Rome.
—DRYDEN.
I sing of arms, I sing of him, who from the Trojan land,
Thrust forth by Fate, to Italy and that Lavinian strand
First came: all tost about was he on earth and on the deep
By heavenly might for Juno’s wrath, that had no mind to sleep:
And plenteous war he underwent ere he his town might frame,
And set his gods in Latian earth, whence is the Latin name.
And father-folk of Alba-town, and walls of mighty Rome.
—MORRIS.
Arms and the man I sing, who first,
By Fate of Ilian realm amerced,
To fair Italia onward bore,
And landed on Lavinium’s shore:—
Long tossing earth and ocean o’er,
By violence of heaven, to sate
Fell Juno’s unrelenting hate;
Much labored too in battle-field,
Striving his city’s walls to build,
And give his gods a home:
Thence come the hardy Latin brood,
The ancient sires of Alba’s blood,
And lofty-rampired Rome.
—CONINGTON.
I sing of arms, and of the man who first
Came from the coasts of Troy to Italy
And the Lavinian shores, exiled by fate,
Much was he tossed about upon the lands
And in the ocean by supernal powers,
Because of cruel Juno’s sleepless wrath.
Many things also suffered he in war,
Until he built a city, and his gods
Brought into Latium; whence the Latin race,
The Alban sires and walls of lofty Rome.
—CRANCH.
I sing of war, I sing the man who erst,
From off the shore of Troy fate-hunted, came
To the Lavinian coast in Italy,
Hard pressed on land and sea, the gods malign,
Fierce Juno’s hate unslaked. Much too in war
He bore while he a city built, and set
His gods in Latium. Thence the Latin race,
Our Alban sires, the walls of haughty Rome.
—LONG.
Arms and the man I sing who first, from Troy
Expelled by Fate’s decree, to Italy
And the Lavinian shores, a wanderer came.
Sore travail he endured by land and sea
From adverse gods, and unrelenting rage
Of haughty Juno: harassed, too, by war,
His destined city while he strove to build
And raise new altars for his exiled gods.
The Latian race, the Alban fathers hence
Their birth derived—hence Rome’s proud fabric sprung.
—RICKARDS.
(In hexameters.)
Arms and the hero I sing, who of old from the borders of Troja
Came to Italia, banished by fate to Lavinia’s destined
Sea coasts: Much was he tossed on the lands and the deep by enlisted
Might of supernals, through Juno’s remembered resentment:
Much, too, he suffered in warfare, while he was founding a city,
And into Latium bearing his gods: whence issued the Latin
Race, and the Alban fathers, and walls of imperial Roma.
—CRANE.
Sing I the arms and the man, who first from the shores of the Trojan,
Driven by Fate, into Italy came, to Lavinium’s borders
Much was he vexed by the power of the gods, on the land and the ocean,
Through the implacable wrath of the vengeful and pitiless Juno;
Much, too, he suffered in war, until he could found him a city,
And into Latium carry his gods; whence the race of the Latins,
Alba’s illustrious fathers, and Rome’s imperial bulwarks.
—HOWLAND.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
B.C.
98. Birth of Lucretius.
87. Birth of Catullus.
70. Virgil is born.
69. Birth of Mæcenas; Cicero is ædile.
66. Cicero is prætor.
65. Horace is born.
63. Birth of Octavius (afterward Gaius Julius Cæsar Octavianus Augustus).
Cicero’s consulship and _Orations against Catiline_.
60. First Triumvirate (Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus).
58. Cicero banished. Cæsar begins conquest of Gaul.
57. Cicero recalled from exile.
55. Virgil assumes the _toga virilis_. Death of Lucretius, Cæsar in
Britain.
54. Virgil studies in Milan. Death of Catullus. Cicero edits Lucretius’
_On Nature_, and (perhaps) Catullus’ _Odes_, and begins his essay
_On the State_.
53. Virgil goes to Rome: Horace is also taken there. Cicero is augur.
Parthians defeat Romans at Carrhæ.
52. Cicero’s _Oration for Milo_.
51. Cicero proconsul in Cilicia.
49. Civil War. Cæsar marches on Rome, bestowing Roman citizenship on
Italians north of the Po. Pompey leaves Italy.
48. Battle of Pharsalia. Assassination of Pompey.
46. Battle of Thapsus. Suicide of Cato at Utica.
45. Horace goes to Athens.
44. Cæsar assassinated: Octavius, adopted in his will, assumes his name.
Cicero’s _Philippics_.
43. Birth of Ovid. Second Triumvirate (Octavianus, Antony, and Lepidus).
Assassination of Cicero. Civil war with Brutus and Cassius. Horace
a tribune in Brutus’ army.
42. Battles of Philippi. Death of Brutus and Cassius.
41. Confiscations by the triumvirs. Virgil introduced to Mæcenas and
Octavianus. Horace returns to Rome.
40. Virgil restored to his estate.
39. Horace introduced to Mæcenas by Virgil and Varius.
37. Virgil publishes _Eclogues_. Phraates king of Parthia.
36. Antony invades Parthia.
35. Horace publishes First Book of _Satires_.
33. Phraates attacks Armenia and Media.
31. Battle of Actium. Overthrow of Antony. Octavianus visits the East.
30. Horace publishes Second Book of _Satires_ and his _Epodes_.
29. Octavianus returns from the East and celebrates threefold triumph.
Temple of Janus closed in sign of peace. Virgil publishes
_Georgics_.
27. Octavianus receives the title of Augustus.
26. Augustus in Spain corresponds with Virgil.
24. Horace (probably) publishes first Three Books of _Odes_.
23. Death of Marcellus. Virgil reads portions of the _Æneid_ to Augustus.
20. Expedition of Augustus to the East. Parthians restore standards taken
at Carrhæ.
19. Virgil journeys to Greece. Returns with Augustus. Dies at Brundisium.
Augustus directs Virgil’s friend Varius and Tucca to edit the
_Æneid_.
18. Horace publishes First Book of _Epistles_.
17. The Secular Festival. Horace writes the _Secular Hymn_.
13. Horace publishes Fourth Book of _Odes_.
8. Death of Mæcenas and Horace.
VERSE TRANSLATIONS RECOMMENDED
DRYDEN; CONINGTON (Crowell, New York); WILLIAM MORRIS (Roberts Brothers,
Boston); CRANCH; LONG (Lockwood Brooks & Co., Boston); CRANE (Baker &
Taylor Co., New York); HOWLAND (D. Appleton & Co., New York), RICKARDS
(Books I.-VI., Blackwood & Sons, London); RHOADES (Longmans); BILLSON
(Edward Arnold, London).
BOOKS FOR REFERENCE
_Roman Poets of the Augustan Age_, Sellar (Oxford, Clarendon Press);
_Virgil_, Nettleship (Appletons), and in his _Lectures and Essays_
(Oxford); _Classical Essays_, F. W. H. Myers (Macmillan); _Studies
in Virgil_, Glover (Edward Arnold, London); _Country of Horace and
Virgil_, Boissier (Putnam); _Master Virgil_, Tunison (Robert Clark &
Co., Cincinnati); _Vergil in the Middle Ages_, Comparetti (Sonnenschein,
London); _Legends of Virgil_, Leland (Macmillan); _Histories of Roman
Literature_ by Teuffel (George Bell & Sons, London), Browne (Bentley,
London), Cruttwell (Scribners, N.Y.), Simcox (Harpers, N.Y.). _Æneas as a
Character Study_, Miller (Latine, Vol. IV., p. 18).
SUBJECTS FOR INVESTIGATION
(Miller, in _Latine_ for January, 1886.)
(1) Virgilian Proverbs. (2) A Word Study. (3) Fatalism in Virgil. (4)
Virgil’s Pictures of Roman Customs. (5) Pen Pictures. (6) Astronomy in
Virgil. (7) Virgil’s Debt to Homer. (8) Milton’s Debt to Virgil. (9)
Virgil’s Gods and Religious Rites. (10) Omens and Oracles. (11) Virgil’s
Influence upon Literature in General. (12) Figures in Virgil. (13)
Virgilian Herbarium. (14) Detailed Account of the Wandering of Æneas.
(15) The Geography of Virgil. (16) Virgil as a Poet of Nature. (17)
Virgil’s Life as gleaned from his Works. [(18) The Manuscript Texts of
Virgil.] (19) Virgilian Translators and Commentators. (20) Some Noted
Passages—why? (21) The Platonism of the Sixth Book. (22) Dryden’s Dictum
Discussed, (23) Dante—The Later Virgil. [(24) The Prosody of Virgil.]
(25) Dido—A Psychological Study. (28) Æneas—A Character Study. [(27)
_Testimonium Veterum de Vergilio._] (28) Virgil and Theocritus. (29)
Virgil’s Creations. (30) Epithets of Æneas. (31) The Virgilian Birds.
(32) Was Virgil Acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures? (33) Visions
and Dreams—Supernatural Means of Spirit Communication. (34) Night
Scenes in Virgil. (35) Different Names for Trojans and Greeks and their
Significance. (36) The Story of the Æneid.
VIRGIL’S ÆNEID
THE ÆNEID
BOOK I
Arms and the man I sing,[1] who at the first from Troy’s[2]
shores the exile of destiny, won his way to Italy and her
Latian[3] coast—a man much buffeted on land and on the
deep by violence from above, to sate the unforgetting wrath
of Juno[4] the cruel—much[5] scourged too in war, as he 5
struggled to build him a city, and find his gods a home in
Latium—himself the father of the Latian people, and the
chiefs of Alba’s[6] houses, and the walls of high towering
Rome.
Bring to my mind, O Muse,[7] the causes—for what 10
treason against her godhead, or what pain received, the
queen of heaven drove a man of piety so signal to turn
the wheel of so many calamities, to bear the brunt of so
many hardships! Can heavenly natures hate[8] so fiercely
and so long? 15
Of old there was a city, its people emigrants from
Tyre,[9] Carthage, over against Italy and Tiber’s mouths,
yet far removed—rich and mighty, and formed to all
roughness by war’s[10] iron trade—a spot where Juno, it
was said, loved to dwell more than in all the world beside, 20
Samos[11] holding but the second place. Here was her
armour, here her chariot—here to fix by her royal act
the empire of the nations, could Fate be brought to assent,
was even then her aim, her cherished scheme. But she
had heard that the blood of Troy was sowing the seed of a 25
race to overturn one day those Tyrian towers—from that
seed a nation, monarch of broad realms and glorious in
war, was to bring ruin on Libya[12]—such the turning of
Fate’s[13] wheel. With these fears Saturn’s[14] daughter, and
with a lively memory of that old war which at first she
had waged at Troy for her loved Argos’[15] sake—nor indeed
had the causes of that feud and the bitter pangs
they roused yet vanished from her mind—no, stored up 5
in her soul’s depths remains the judgment of Paris,[16] and
the wrong done to her slighted beauty, and the race abhorred
from the womb, and the state enjoyed by the
ravished Ganymede.[17] With this fuel added to the fire,
the Trojans, poor remnants of Danaan[18] havoc and 10
Achilles’[19] ruthless spear, she was tossing from sea to sea,
and keeping far away from Latium; and for many long
years they were wandering, with destiny still driving
them, the whole ocean round. So vast the effort it cost
to build up the Roman nation! 15
Scarce out of sight of the land of Sicily were they spreading
their sails merrily to the deep, and scattering with
their brazen prows the briny spray, when Juno, the everlasting
wound still rankling in her heart’s core, thus communed
with herself: “And am I to give up what I have 20
taken in hand, baffled, nor have power to prevent the king
of the Teucrians[20] from reaching Italy—because, forsooth,
the Fates forbid me? What! was Pallas[21] strong enough
to burn up utterly the Grecian fleet, and whelm the crews
in the sea, for the offence of a single man, the frenzy of 25
Ajax,[22] Oïleus’ son? Aye, she with her own hand launched
from the clouds Jove’s[23] winged fire, dashed the ships apart,
and turned up the sea-floor with the wind—him, gasping
out the flame which pierced his bosom, she caught in the
blast, and impaled on a rock’s[24] point—while I, who walk 30
the sky as its queen, Jove’s sister and consort both, am
battling with a single nation these many years. And are
there any found to pray to Juno’s deity after this, or lay
on her altar a suppliant’s gift?”
With such thoughts sweeping through the solitude of 35
her enkindled breast, the goddess comes to the storm-cloud’s
birthplace, the teeming womb of fierce southern
blasts, Æolia.[25] Here, in a vast cavern,[26] King Æolus[27]
is bowing to his sway struggling winds and howling tempests,
and bridling them with bond[28] and prison. They,
in their passion, are raving at the closed doors, while the
huge rock roars responsive: Æolus is sitting aloft in his
fortress, his sceptre in his hand, soothing their moods 5
and allaying their rage; were he to fail in this, why sea
and land, and the deep of heaven, would all be forced
along by their blast, and swept through the air. But
the almighty sire has buried them in caverns dark and
deep, with this fear before his eyes, and placed over them 10
giant bulk and tall mountains, and given them a king
who, by the terms of his compact, should know how to
tighten or slacken the reins at his patron’s will. To him
it was that Juno then, in these words, made her humble
request:— 15
“Æolus—for it is to thee that the sire of gods and king
of men has given it with the winds now to calm, now to
rouse the billows—there is a race which I love not now
sailing the Tyrrhene[29] sea, carrying Ilion[30] into Italy and
Ilion’s vanquished gods; do thou lash the winds to fury, 20
sink and whelm their ships, or scatter them apart, and
strew the ocean with their corpses. Twice seven nymphs
are of my train, all of surpassing beauty; of these her whose
form is fairest, Deiopea, I will unite to thee in lasting wedlock,
and consecrate her thy own, that all her days, for a 25
service so great, she may pass with thee, and make thee
father of a goodly progeny.”
Æolus returns: “Thine, great Queen, is the task to
search out on what thou mayest fix thy heart; for me to do
thy bidding[31] is but right. Thou makest this poor realm 30
mine, mine the sceptre and Jove’s smile; thou givest me a
couch at the banquets of the gods, and makest me lord
of the storm-cloud and of the tempest.”
So soon as this was said, he turned his spear, and pushed
the hollow mountain on its side; and the winds, as though 35
in column formed, rush forth[32] where they see any outlet,
and sweep over the earth in hurricane. Heavily they
fall[33] on the sea, and from its very bottom crash down the
whole expanse—one and all, east and south, and south-west,
with his storms thronging at his back, and roll huge
billows shoreward. Hark to the shrieks of the crew, and
the creaking of the cables! In an instant the clouds
snatch sky and daylight[34] from the Teucrians’ eyes—night 5
lies on the deep, black and heavy—pole thunders to
pole; heaven flashes thick with fires, and all nature
brandishes instant death in the seaman’s face. At once
Æneas’[35] limbs are unstrung and chilled[36]—he groans
aloud, and, stretching his clasped hands to the stars, 10
fetches from his breast words like these:—“O happy,
thrice[37] and again, whose lot it was, in their fathers’ sight,
under Troy’s high walls to meet death! O thou, the bravest
of the Danaan race, Tydeus’ son,[38] why was it not mine
to lay me low on Ilion’s plains, and yield this fated life to 15
thy right hand? Aye, there it is that Hector,[39] stern as
in life, lies stretched by the spear of Æacides[40]—there
lies Sarpedon’s[41] giant bulk—there it is that Simois[42]
seizes and sweeps down her channel those many shields
and helms, and bodies of the brave!” 20
Such words as he flung wildly forth, a blast roaring from
the north strikes his sail full in front and lifts the billows
to the stars.[43] Shattered are the oars; then the prow
turns and presents the ship’s side to the waves; down
crashes in a heap a craggy mountain of water. Look! 25
these are hanging on the surge’s crest[44]—to those the
yawning deep is giving a glimpse of land down among
the billows; surf and sand are raving together. Three
ships the south catches, and flings upon hidden rocks—rocks 30
which, as they stand with the waves all about them,
the Italians call Altars, an enormous ridge rising above
the sea. Three the east drives from the main on to shallows
and Syrtes,[45] a piteous sight, and dashes them on
shoals, and embanks them in mounds of sand. One in
which the Lycians were sailing, and true Orontes, a 35
mighty sea strikes from high on the stem before Æneas’
very eyes; down goes the helmsman, washed from his
post, and topples on his head, while she is thrice whirled
round by the billow in the spot where she lay, and swallowed
at once by the greedy gulf. You might see them
here and there swimming in that vast abyss—heroes’
arms, and planks, and Troy’s treasures glimmering through
the water. Already Ilioneus’ stout ship, already brave 5
Achates’, and that in which Abas sailed, and that which
carried old Aletes, are worsted by the storm; their side-jointings[46]
loosened, one and all give entrance to the
watery foe, and part failingly asunder.
Meantime the roaring riot of the ocean and the storm let 10
loose reached the sense of Neptune,[47] and the still waters
disgorged from their deep beds, troubling him grievously;
and casting a broad glance over the main he raised at
once his tranquil brow from the water’s surface. There
he sees Æneas’ fleet tossed hither and thither over the 15
whole expanse—the Trojans whelmed under the billows,
and the crashing ruin of the sky—nor failed the brother
to read Juno’s craft and hatred there. East and West
he calls before him, and bespeaks them thus:—“Are ye
then so wholly o’ermastered by the pride of your birth? 20
Have ye come to this, ye Winds, that, without sanction
from me, ye dare to confound[48] sea and land, and upheave
these mighty mountains? ye! whom I—but it were best
to calm the billows ye have troubled. Henceforth ye
shall pay me for your crimes in far other coin. Make 25
good speed with your flight, and give your king this message.
Not to him did the lot assign the empire of the sea
and the terrible trident, but to me. His sway is over those
enormous rocks, where you, Eurus,[49] dwell, and such as
you; in that court let Æolus lord it, and rule in the prison-house 30
of the winds when its doors are barred.”
He speaks, and ere his words are done soothes the swelling
waters, and routs[50] the mustered clouds, and brings
back the sun in triumph. Cymothoë and Triton[51] combine
their efforts to push off the vessels from the sharp-pointed 35
rock. The god himself upheaves them with his
own trident,[52] and levels the great quicksands, and allays
the sea, and on chariot-wheels of lightest motion glides
along the water’s top. Even as when in a great crowd tumult
is oft stirred up, and the base herd waxes wild and frantic,
and brands and stones are flying already, rage suiting
the weapon[53] to the hand—at that moment, should their
eyes fall on some man of weight, for duty done and public 5
worth, tongues are hushed and ears fixed in attention,
while his words sway the spirit and soothe the breast—so
fell all the thunders of the ocean, so soon as the great
father, with the waves before him in prospect, and the
clear sky all about him, guides his steeds at will, and as he 10
flies flings out the reins freely to his obedient car.
Spent with toil, the family of Æneas labour to gain the
shore that may be nearest, and are carried to the coasts
of Libya. There is a spot retiring deep into the land, where
an island forms a haven[54] by the barrier of its sides, which 15
break every billow from the main and send it shattered
into the deep indented hollows. On either side of the bay are
huge rocks, and two great crags rising in menace to the
sky; under their summits far and wide the water is hushed
in shelter, while a theatric background of waving woods, 20
a black forest of stiffening shade, overhangs it from the
height. Under the brow that fronts the deep is a cave
with pendent crags; within there are fresh springs and
seats in the living rock—the home of the nymphs; no
need of cable[55] here to confine the weary bark or anchor’s 25
crooked fang to grapple her to the shore. Here with seven
ships mustered from his whole fleet Æneas enters; and
with intense yearning for dry land the Trojans disembark
and take possession of the wished-for shore, and lay their
brine-drenched limbs upon the beach. And first Achates 30
from a flint struck out a spark, and received the fire as it
dropped in a cradle of leaves, and placed dry food all about
it, and spread the strong blaze among the tinder. Then
their corn, soaked and spoiled as it was, and the corn-goddess’
armoury they bring out, sick of fortune; and make 35
ready to parch the rescued grain at the fire, and crush it
with the millstone.
Æneas meanwhile clambers up a rock, and tries to get a
full view far and wide over the sea, if haply he may see
aught of Antheus, driven by the gale, and the Phrygian
biremes,[56] or Capys, or high on the stern the arms of Caicus.
Sail there is none in sight; three stags he sees at distance
straying on the shore; these the whole herd follows in the 5
rear, and grazes along the hollows in long array. At once
he took his stand, and caught up a bow and fleet arrows,
which true Achates chanced to be carrying, and lays low first
the leaders themselves, as they bear their heads aloft with
tree-like antlers, then the meaner sort, and scatters with 10
his pursuing shafts the whole rout among the leafy woods;
nor stays his hand till he stretches on earth victoriously
seven huge bodies, and makes the sum of them even with
his ships. Then he returns to the haven and gives all his
comrades their shares. The wine next, which that good 15
Acestes had stowed in casks on the Trinacrian shore, and
given them at parting with his own princely hand, he
portions out, and speaks words of comfort to their sorrowing
hearts:—
“Comrades! for comrades we are, no strangers to hardships 20
already; hearts that have felt deeper wounds! for
these too heaven will find a balm. Why, men, you have
even looked on Scylla[57] in her madness, and heard those
yells that thrill the rocks; you have even made trial of
the crags of the Cyclops.[58] Come, call your spirits back, 25
and banish these doleful fears—who knows but some
day this too will be remembered[59] with pleasure? Through
manifold chances, through these many perils of fortune,
we are making our way to Latium, where the Fates hold
out to us a quiet settlement; there Troy’s empire has 30
leave to rise again from its ashes. Bear up, and reserve
yourselves for brighter days.”
Such were the words his tongue uttered; heart-sick[60]
with overwhelming care, he wears the semblance of hope
in his face, but has grief deep buried in his heart. They 35
gird themselves to deal with the game, their forthcoming
meal; strip the hide from the ribs, and lay bare the flesh—some
cut it into pieces, and impale it yet quivering on
spits, others set up the caldrons on the beach, and supply
them with flame. Then with food they recall their
strength, and, stretched along the turf, feast on old wine
and fat venison to their hearts’ content. Their hunger
sated by the meal, and the boards removed, they vent in 5
long talk their anxious yearning for their missing comrades—balanced
between hope and fear, whether to
think of them as alive, or as suffering the last change, and
deaf already to the voice that calls on them. But good
Æneas’ grief exceeds the rest; one moment he groans for 10
bold Orontes’ fortune, another for Amycus’, and in the
depth of his spirit laments for the cruel fate of Lycus;
for the gallant Gyas and the gallant Cloanthus.
And now at last their mourning had an end, when
Jupiter from the height of ether,[61] looking down on the sea 15
with its fluttering sails, on the flat surface of earth, the
shores, and the broad tribes of men, paused thus upon
heaven’s very summit, and fixed his downward gaze on
Libya’s realms. To him, revolving in his breast such
thoughts as these, sad beyond her wont, with tears suffusing 20
her starry eyes, speaks Venus: “O thou, who by thy
everlasting laws swayest the two commonwealths of men
and gods, and awest them by thy lightning! What can
my poor Æneas have done to merit thy wrath? What
can the Trojans? yet they, after the many deaths they 25
have suffered already, still find the whole world barred[62]
against them for Italy’s sake. From them assuredly it
was that the Romans, as years rolled on—from them were
to spring those warrior chiefs, aye from Teucer’s blood revived,
who should rule sea and land with absolute sway—such 30
was thy promise: how has thy purpose, O my father,
wrought a change in thee? This, I know, was my constant
solace when Troy’s star set in grievous ruin, as I sat balancing
destiny against destiny. And now here is the same
Fortune, pursuing the brave men she has so oft discomfited 35
already. Mighty king, what end of sufferings hast thou
to give them? Antenor,[63] indeed, found means to escape
through the midst of the Achæans, to thread in safety
the windings of the Illyrian coast, and the realms of the
Liburnians, up at the gulf’s head, and to pass the springs
of Timavus, whence through nine mouths,’mid the rocks’
responsive roar, the sea comes bursting up, and deluges
the fields with its thundering billows. Yet in that spot 5
he built the city of Patavium for his Trojans to dwell in,
and gave them a place and a name among the nations, and
set up a rest for the arms[64] of Troy: now he reposes, lapped
in the calm of peace. Meantime we, of thine own blood,
to whom thy nod secures the pinnacle of heaven, our ships, 10
most monstrous, lost, as thou seest, all to sate the malice
of one cruel heart, are given up to ruin, and severed far
from the Italian shores. Is this the reward of piety[65]?
Is this to restore a king to his throne?”
Smiling on her, the planter of gods and men, with that 15
face which calms the fitful moods of the sky, touched with
a kiss his daughter’s lips, then addressed her thus: “Give
thy fears a respite, lady of Cythera[66]: thy people’s destiny
abides still unchanged for thee; thine eyes shall see the
city of thy heart, the promised walls of Lavinium[67]; 20
thine arms shall bear aloft to the stars of heaven thy hero
Æneas; nor has my purpose wrought a change in me.
Thy hero—for I will speak out, in pity for the care that
rankles yet, and awaken the secrets of Fate’s book from
the distant pages where they slumber—thy hero shall 25
wage a mighty war in Italy, crush its haughty tribes, and
set up for his warriors a polity and a city, till the third
summer shall have seen him king over Latium, and three
winters in camp shall have passed over the Rutulians’[68]
defeat. But the boy Ascanius,[69] who has now the new 30
name of Iulus—Ilus he was, while the royalty of Ilion’s
state stood firm—shall let thirty of the sun’s great courses
fulfil their monthly rounds while he is sovereign, then
transfer the empire from Lavinium’s seat, and build
Alba the Long, with power and might. Here for full three 35
hundred years the crown shall be worn by Hector’s[70] line,
till a royal priestess, teeming by the war-god, Ilia, shall
be the mother of twin sons. Then shall there be one,
proud to wear the tawny hide of the wolf that nursed him,
Romulus, who will take up the sceptre, and build a new
city, the city of Mars, and give the people his own name
of Roman. To them I assign no limit, no date of empire:
my grant to them is dominion without end. Nay, Juno, 5
thy savage foe, who now, in her blind terror, lets neither
sea, land, nor heaven rest, shall amend her counsels, and
vie with me in watching over the Romans, lords of earth,
the great nation of the gown. So it is willed. The time
shall come, as Rome’s years roll on, when the house of 10
Assaracus[71] shall bend to its yoke Phthia[72] and renowned
Mycenæ,[73] and queen it over vanquished Argos.[74] Then shall
be born the child of an illustrious line, one of thine own
Trojans, Cæsar, born to extend his empire to the ocean, his
glory to the stars,[75]—Julius, in name as in blood the heir of 15
great Iulus. Him thou shalt one day welcome in safety to
the sky, a warrior laden with Eastern spoils; to him, as to
Æneas, men shall pray and make their vows. In his days
war[76] shall cease, and savage times grow mild. Faith with
her hoary head, and Vesta,[77] Quirinus,[78] and Remus his 20
brother, shall give law to the world: grim, iron-bound,
closely welded, the gates of war shall be closed; the fiend
of Discord a prisoner within, seated on a pile of arms deadly
as himself, his hands bound behind his back with a hundred
brazen chains, shall roar ghastly from his throat of blood.” 25
So saying, he sends down from on high the son of Maia,[79]
that Carthage the new, her lands and her towers, may
open themselves to welcome in the Teucrians, lest Dido,[80]
in her ignorance of Fate, should drive them from her
borders. Down flies Mercury through the vast abyss of 30
air, with his wings for oars, and has speedily alighted on
the shore of Libya. See! he is doing his bidding already:
the Punic[81] nation is resigning the fierceness of its nature
at the god’s pleasure; above all the rest, the queen is
admitting into her bosom thoughts of peace towards the 35
Teucrians, and a heart of kindness.
But Æneas the good, revolving many things the whole
night through, soon as the gracious dawn is vouchsafed,
resolves to go out and explore this new region; to inquire
what shores be these on which the wind has driven him,
who their dwellers, for he sees it is a wilderness, men or
beasts; and bring his comrades back the news. His
fleet he hides in the wooded cove under a hollow rock, 5
with a wall of trees and stiffening shade on each side.
He moves on with Achates, his single companion, wielding
in his hands two spear shafts, with heads of broad iron.
He had reached the middle of the wood, when his way
was crossed by his mother, wearing a maiden’s mien and 10
dress, and a maiden’s armour, Spartan, or even as Harpalyce
of Thrace, tires steed after steed, and heads the swift
waters of her own Hebrus as she flies along. For she had
a shapely bow duly slung from her shoulders in true huntress
fashion, and her hair streaming in the wind, her knee 15
bare, and her flowing scarf gathered round her in a knot.
Soon as she sees them, “Ho![82] youths,” cries she, “if you
have chanced to see one of my sisters wandering in these
parts, tell me where to find her—wandering with a quiver,
and a spotted lynx hide fastened about her; or, it may 20
be, pressing on the heels of the foaming boar with her
hounds in full cry.”
Thus Venus spoke, and Venus’ son replied:—“No sight
or hearing have we had of any sister of thine, O thou—what
name shall I give thee? maiden; for thy face is not 25
of earth, nor the tone of thy voice human: some goddess[83]
surely thou art. Phœbus’[84] sister belike, or one of the
blood of the nymphs? be gracious, whoe’er thou art, and
relieve our hardship, and tell us under what sky now,
on what realms of earth we are thrown. Utter strangers 30
to the men and the place, we are wandering, as thou seest,
by the driving of the wind and of the mighty waters.
Do this, and many a victim shall fall to thee at the altar
by this hand of mine.”
Then Venus:—“Nay, I can lay claim to no such honours. 35
Tyrian maidens, like me, are wont to carry the
quiver, and tie the purple buskin high up the calf. This
that you now see is the Punic realm, the nation Tyrian
and the town Agenor’s[85]; but on the frontiers are the
Libyans, a race ill to handle in war. The queen is Dido,
who left her home in Tyre to escape from her brother.
Lengthy is her tale of wrong, lengthy the windings of its
course; but I will pass rapidly from point to point. Her 5
husband was Sychæus, wealthiest of Phœnician landowners,
and loved by his poor wife with fervid passion;
on him her father had bestowed her in her maiden bloom,
linking them together by the omens of a first bridal. But
the crown of Tyre was on the head of her brother, Pygmalion, 10
in crime monstrous beyond the rest of men.
They were two, and fury came between them. Impious
that he was, at the very altar of the palace, the love of
gold blinding his eyes, he surprises Sychæus with his
stealthy steel, and lays him low, without a thought for 15
his sister’s passion; he kept the deed long concealed,
and with many a base coinage sustained the mockery
of false hope[86] in her pining love-lorn heart. But lo! in
her sleep there came to her no less than the semblance of
her unburied spouse, lifting up a face of strange unearthly 20
pallor; the ruthless altar and his breast gored with the
steel, he laid bare the one and the other, and unveiled
from first to last the dark domestic crime. Then he urges
her to speed her flight, and quit her home for ever, and in
aid of her journey unseals a hoard of treasure long hid in 25
the earth, a mass of silver and gold which none else knew.
Dido’s soul was stirred; she began to make ready her
flight, and friends to share it. There they meet, all whose
hate of the tyrant was fell or whose fear was bitter; ships,
that chanced to lie ready in the harbour, they seize, and 30
freight with gold. Away it floats over the deep, the
greedy Pygmalion’s wealth; and who heads the enterprise?
a woman[87]! So they came to the spot where you
now see yonder those lofty walls, and the rising citadel
of Carthage the new; there they bought ground, which 35
got from the transaction the name of Byrsa,[88] as much as
they could compass round with a bull’s hide. But who
are you after all? What coast are you come from, or
whither are you holding on your journey?” That question
he answers thus, with a heavy sigh, and a voice
fetched from the bottom of his heart:—
“Fair goddess! should I begin from the first and proceed
in order, and hadst thou leisure to listen to the chronicle 5
of our sufferings, eve would first close the Olympian gates
and lay the day to sleep. For us, bound from ancient
Troy, if the name of Troy has ever chanced to pass through
a Tyrian ear, wanderers over divers seas already, we have
been driven by a storm’s wild will upon your Libyan 10
coasts. I am Æneas, styled the good, who am bearing
with me in my fleet the gods of Troy rescued from the
foe; a name blazed by rumour above the stars. I am in
quest of Italy, looking there for an ancestral home, and a
pedigree drawn from high Jove himself. With twice ten 15
ships I climbed the Phrygian main, with a goddess mother
guiding me on my way, and a chart of oracles to follow.
Scarce seven remain to me now, shattered by wind and
wave. Here am I, a stranger, nay, a beggar, wandering
over your Libyan deserts, driven from Europe and Asia 20
alike.” Venus could bear the complaint no longer, so
she thus struck into the middle of his sorrows:—
“Whoever you are, it is not, I trow, under the frown of
heavenly powers that you draw the breath of life,[89] thus to
have arrived at our Tyrian town. Only go on, and make 25
your way straight hence to the queen’s palace. For I
give you news that your comrades are returned and your
fleet brought back, wafted into shelter by shifting gales,
unless my learning of augury was vain, and the parents
who taught me cheats. Look at these twelve swans 30
exultant in victorious column, which the bird of Jove,[90]
swooping from the height of ether, was just now driving
in confusion over the wide unsheltered sky; see now how
their line stretches, some alighting on the ground, others
just looking down on those alighted. As they, thus rallied, 35
ply their whirring wings[91] in sport, spreading their train
round the sky, and uttering songs of triumph, even so
your vessels and your gallant crews are either safe in the
port, or entering the haven with sails full spread. Only
go on, and where the way leads you direct your steps.”
She said, and as she turned away, flashed on their sight
her neck’s roseate hue; her ambrosial locks breathed from
her head a heavenly fragrance; her robe streamed down 5
to her very feet; and in her walk[92] was revealed the true
goddess. Soon as he knew his mother, he pursued her
flying steps with words like these:—“Why wilt thou be
cruel like the rest, mocking thy son these many times
with feigned semblances? Why is it not mine to grasp 10
thy hand in my hand, and hear and return the true language
of the heart?” Such are his upbraidings, while he
yet bends his way to the town. But Venus fenced them
round with a dim cloud as they moved, and wrapped them
as a goddess only can in a spreading mantle of mist, that 15
none might be able to see them, none to touch them, or
put hindrances in their path, or ask the reason of their coming.
She takes her way aloft to Paphos,[93] glad to revisit
the abode she loves, where she has a temple and a hundred
altars, smoking with Sabæan[94] incense, and fragrant with 20
garlands ever new.
They, meanwhile, have pushed on their way, where the
path guides them, and already they are climbing the hill
which hangs heavily over the city, and looks from above
on the towers that rise to meet it. Æneas marvels at the 25
mass of building, once a mere village of huts; marvels at
the gates, and the civic din, and the paved ways. The
Tyrians are alive and on fire—intent, some on carrying
the walls aloft and upheaving the citadel, and rolling
stones from underneath by force of hand; some on making 30
choice of a site for a dwelling, and enclosing it with a
trench. They are ordaining the law and its guardians, and
the senate’s sacred majesty. Here are some digging out
havens; there are others laying deep the foundation of a
theatre, and hewing from the rocks enormous columns, 35
the lofty ornaments of a stage that is to be. Such are the
toils that keep the commonwealth of bees[95] at work
in the sun among the flowery meads when summer is
new, what time they lead out the nation’s hope, the young
now grown, or mass together honey, clear and flowing, and
strain the cells to bursting with its nectarous sweets, or
relieve those who are coming in of their burdens, or collect
a troop and expel from their stalls the drones, that lazy, 5
thriftless herd. The work is all afire, and a scent of thyme
breathes from the fragrant honey. “O happy they, whose
city is rising already!” cries Æneas, as he looks upward
to roof and dome. In he goes, close fenced by his cloud,
miraculous to tell, threads his way through the midst, 10
and mingles with the citizens, unperceived of all.
A grove there was in the heart of the city, most plenteous
of shade—the spot where first, fresh from the buffeting of
wave and wind, the Punic race dug up the token which
queenly Juno had bidden them expect, the head of a fiery 15
steed—for even thus, said she, the nation should be renowned
in war and rich in sustenance for a life of centuries.
Here Dido, Sidon’s[96] daughter, was building a vast temple
to Juno, rich in offerings and in the goddess’s especial
presence; of brass was the threshold with its rising steps, 20
clamped with brass the door-posts, the hinge creaked on
a door of brass. In this grove it was that first a new object
appeared, as before, to soothe away fear: here it was that
Æneas first dared to hope that all was safe, and to place a
better trust in his shattered fortunes. For while his eye 25
ranges over each part under the temple’s massy roof, as
he waits there for the queen—while he is marvelling at
the city’s prosperous star, the various artist-hands vying
with each other, their tasks and the toil they cost, he
beholds, scene after scene, the battles of Ilion, and the 30
war that Fame had already blazed the whole world over—Atreus’[o]
sons, and Priam, and the enemy of both,
Achilles. He stopped short, and breaking into tears,
“What place is there left?” he cries, “Achates, what
clime on earth that is not full of our sad story? See there 35
Priam. Here, too, worth finds its due reward; here, too,
there are tears[97] for human fortune, and hearts that are
touched by mortality. Be free from fear: this renown
of ours will bring you some measure of safety.” So speaking,
he feeds his soul on the empty portraiture, with many
a sigh, and lets copious rivers run down his cheeks. For
he still saw how, as they battled round Pergamus,[98] here
the Greeks were flying, the Trojan youth in hot pursuit; 5
here the Phrygians, at their heels in his car Achilles, with
that dreadful crest. Not far from this he recognizes with
tears the snowy canvas of Rhesus’ tent, which, all surprised
in its first sleep, Tydeus’ son was devastating with wide
carnage, himself bathed in blood—see! he drives off 10
the fiery steeds to his own camp, ere they have had time
to taste the pastures of Troy or drink of Xanthus.[99] There
in another part is Troilus[100] in flight, his arms fallen from
him—unhappy boy, confronted with Achilles in unequal
combat—hurried away by his horses, and hanging half 15
out of the empty car, with his head thrown back, but the
reins still in his hand; his neck and his hair are being
trailed along the ground, and his inverted spear is drawing
lines in the dust. Meanwhile to the temple of Pallas,[101]
not their friend, were moving the Trojan dames with locks 20
dishevelled, carrying the sacred robe, in suppliant guise
of mourning, their breasts bruised with their hands—the
goddess was keeping her eyes riveted on the ground,
with her face turned away. Thrice had Achilles dragged
Hector round the walls of Ilion, and was now selling for 25
gold his body, thus robbed of breath. Then, indeed,
heavy was the groan that he gave from the bottom of
his heart, when he saw the spoils, the car, the very body
of his friend, and Priam, stretching out those helpless
hands. Himself, too, he recognizes in the forefront of 30
the Achæan ranks, and the squadrons of the East, and the
arms of the swarthy Memnon.[102] There, leading the columns
of her Amazons, with their moony shields, is Penthesilea[103]
in her martial frenzy, blazing out, the centre of thousands,
as she loops up her protruded breast with a girdle of gold, 35
the warrior queen, and nerves herself to the shock of combat,
a maiden against men.
While these things are meeting the wondering eyes of
Æneas the Dardan—while he is standing bewildered,
and continues riveted in one set gaze—the queen has
moved towards the temple, Dido, of loveliest presence,
with a vast train of youths thronging round her. Like
as on Eurotas’ banks, or along the ridges of Cynthus, 5
Diana[104] is footing the dance, while, attending her, a thousand
mountain nymphs are massing themselves on either
side; she, her quiver on her shoulder, as she steps, towers
over the whole goddess sisterhood, while Latona’s[105] bosom
thrills silently with delight; such was Dido—such she 10
bore herself triumphant through the midst, to speed the
work which had empire for its prospect. Then, at the doors
of the goddess, under the midmost vaulting of the temple,
with a fence of arms round her, supported high on a throne,
she took her seat. There she was giving laws and judgments 15
to her citizens, and equalizing the burden of their
tasks by fair partition, or draughting it by lot, when suddenly
Æneas sees coming among the great crowd Antheus
and Sergestus, and brave Cloanthus, and other of the
Teucrians, whom the black storm had scattered over the 20
deep, and carried far away to other coasts. Astounded
was he, overwhelmed, too, was Achates, all for joy and
fear: eagerly were they burning to join hands with theirs,
but the unexplained mystery confounds their minds.
They carry on the concealment, and look out from the 25
hollow cloud that wraps them, to learn what fortune their
mates have had, on what shore they are leaving their fleet,
what is their errand here—for they were on their way,
a deputation from all the crews, suing for grace, and were
making for the temple with loud cries. 30
After they had gained an entrance, and had obtained
leave to speak in the presence, Ilioneus, the eldest, thus
began, calm of soul:—
“Gracious queen, to whom Jupiter has given to found a
new city, and to restrain by force of law the pride of savage 35
nations, we, hapless Trojans, driven by the winds over
every sea, make our prayer to you—keep off from our
ships the horrors of fire, have pity on a pious race, and
vouchsafe a nearer view to our affairs. We are not come
to carry the havoc of the sword into the homes of Libya—to
snatch booty and hurry it to the shore; such violence
is not in our nature; such insolence were not for
the vanquished. There is a place—the Greeks call it 5
Hesperia—a land old in story, strong in arms and in
the fruitfulness of its soil; the Œnotrians were its settlers;
now report says that later generations have called the
nation Italian, from the name of their leader. Thither
were we voyaging, when, rising with a sudden swell, Orion,[106] 10
lord of the storm, carried us into hidden shoals, and far
away by the stress of reckless gales over the water, the
surge mastering us, and over pathless rocks scattered us
here and there: a small remnant, we drifted hither on to
your shores. What race of men have we here? What 15
country is so barbarous as to sanction a native usage like
this? Even the hospitality of the sand is forbidden us—they
draw the sword, and will not let us set foot on the
land’s edge. If you defy the race of men, and the weapons
that mortals wield, yet look to have to do with gods, who 20
watch over the right and the wrong. Æneas was our king,
than whom never man breathed more just, more eminent
in piety, or in war and martial prowess. If the Fates are
keeping our hero alive—if he is feeding on this upper
air, and not yet lying down in death’s cruel shade—all 25
our fears are over, nor need you be sorry to have made
the first advance in the contest of kindly courtesy. The
realm of Sicily, too, has cities for us, and store of arms,
and a hero-king of Trojan blood, Acestes.[o] Give us leave
but to lay up on shore our storm-beaten fleet, to fashion 30
timber in your forests, and strip boughs for our oars, that,
if we are allowed to sail for Italy, our comrades and king
restored to us, we may make our joyful way to Italy and
to Latium; or, if our safety is swallowed up, and thou,
best father of the Teucrians, art the prey of the Libyan 35
deep, and a nation’s hope lives no longer in Iulus, then, at
least, we may make for Sicania’s straits, and the houses
standing to welcome us, whence we came hither, and may
find a king in Acestes.” Such was the speech of Ilioneus;
an accordant clamour burst at once from all the sons of
Dardanus.
Then briefly Dido, with downcast look, makes reply:—“Teucrians!
unburden your hearts of fear, lay your anxieties 5
aside. It is the stress of danger and the infancy of
my kingdom that make me put this policy in motion and
protect my frontiers with a guard all about. The men
of Æneas and the city of Troy—who can be ignorant of
them?—the deeds and the doers, and all the blaze of that 10
mighty war? Not so blunt are the wits we Punic folk
carry with us, not so wholly does the sun turn his back
on our Tyrian town when he harnesses his steeds.
Whether you make your choice of Hesperia the great, and
the old realm of Saturn, or of the borders of Eryx and their 15
king Acestes, I will send you on your way with an escort
to protect you, and will supply you with stores. Or would
you like to settle along with me in my kingdom here?
Look at the city I am building, it is yours, lay up your
ships, Trojan and Tyrian shall be dealt with by me without 20
distinction. Would to heaven your king were here too,
driven by the gale that drove you hither—Æneas himself!
For myself, I will send trusty messengers along the coast,
with orders to traverse the furthest parts of Libya, in case
he should be shipwrecked and wandering anywhere in 25
forest or town.”
Excited by her words, brave Achates and father Æneas,
too, were burning long ere this to break out of their cloud.
Achates first accosts Æneas:—“Goddess-born, what purpose
now is foremost in your mind? All you see is safe, 30
our fleet and our mates are restored to us. One is missing,
whom our own eyes saw in the midst of the surge swallowed
up, all the rest is even as your mother told us.”
Scarce had he spoken when the cloud that enveloped
them suddenly parts asunder and clears into the open sky. 35
Out stood Æneas, and shone[107] again in the bright sunshine,
his face and his bust the image of a god, for his great
mother had shed graceful tresses over her son’s brow,
and the glowing flush of youth, and had breathed the
breath of beauty and gladness into his eyes, loveliness such
as the artist’s touch imparts to ivory, or when silver or
Parian marble is enchased[108] with yellow gold. Then he
addresses the queen, and speaks suddenly to the astonishment 5
of all:—“Here am I whom you are seeking, before
you,—Æneas, the Trojan, snatched from the jaws of the
Libyan wave. O heart that alone of all has found pity for
Troy’s cruel agonies—that makes us, poor remnants of
Danaan fury, utterly spent by all the chances of land and 10
sea, destitute of all, partners of its city, of its very palace!
To pay such a debt of gratitude, Dido, is more than we can
do—more than can be done by all the survivors of the
Dardan nation, now scattered the wide world over. May
the gods—if there are powers that regard the pious, if 15
justice and conscious rectitude count for aught anywhere
on earth—may they give you the reward you merit!
What age had the happiness to bring you forth? what
godlike parents gave such nobleness to the world? While
the rivers run into the sea, while the shadows sweep along 20
the mountain-sides, while the stars draw life from the
sky, your glory and your name and your praise shall still
endure, whatever the land whose call I must obey.” So
saying, he stretches out his right hand to his friend Ilioneus,
his left to Serestus, and so on to others, gallant Gyas 25
and gallant Cloanthus.
Astounded was Dido, Sidon’s daughter, first at the hero’s
presence, then at his enormous sufferings, and she bespoke
him thus:—“What chance is it, goddess-born, that is
hunting you through such a wilderness of perils? what 30
violence throws you on our savage coasts? Are you, indeed,
the famed Æneas, whom to Anchises the Dardan,
Venus, queen of light and love, bore by the stream of
Simois? Aye, I remember Teucer coming to Sidon, driven
from the borders of his fatherland, hoping to gain a new 35
kingdom by the aid of Belus. Belus, my sire, was then
laying waste the rich fields of Cyprus, and ruling the isle
with a conqueror’s sway. Ever since that time I knew
the fate of the Trojan city, and your name, and the
Pelasgian princes. Foe as he was, he would always extol
the Teucrians with signal praise, and profess that
he himself came of the ancient Teucrian stock. Come
then, brave men, and make our dwellings your home. 5
I, too, have had a fortune like yours, which, after the
buffeting of countless sufferings, has been pleased that
I should find rest in this land at last. Myself no stranger
to sorrow, I am learning[109] to succour the unhappy.”
With these words, at the same moment she ushers 10
Æneas into her queenly palace, and orders a solemn
sacrifice at the temples of the gods. Meantime, as if
this were nought, she sends to his comrades at the shore
twenty bulls, a hundred huge swine with backs all bristling,
a hundred fat lambs with their mothers, and the 15
wine-god’s jovial bounty.
But the palace within is laid out with all the splendour of
regal luxury, and in the centre of the mansion they are
making ready for the banquet; the coverlets are embroidered
and of princely purple—on the tables is massy 20
silver, and chased on gold the gallant exploits of Tyrian
ancestors, a long, long chain of story, derived through
hero after hero ever since the old nation was young.
Æneas, for his fatherly love would not leave his heart at
rest, sends on Achates with speed to the ships to tell Ascanius 25
the news and conduct him to the city. On Ascanius
all a fond parent’s anxieties are centred. Presents,
moreover, rescued from the ruins of Ilion, he bids him
bring—a pall stiff with figures of gold, and a veil with
a border of yellow acanthus,[110] adornments of Argive 30
Helen,[111] which she carried away from Mycenæ, when she
went to Troy and to her unblessed bridal, her mother
Leda’s marvellous gift; the sceptre, too, which Ilione
had once borne, the eldest of Priam’s daughters, and the
string of pearls for the neck, and the double coronal of 35
jewels and gold. With this to despatch, Achates was
bending his way to the ships.
But the lady of Cythera is casting new wiles, new devices
in her breast, that Cupid,[112] form and feature changed, may
arrive in the room of the charmer Ascanius, and by the
presents he brings influence the queen to madness, and turn
the very marrow of her bones to fire. She fears the two-faced
generation, the double-tongued sons of Tyre; Juno’s 5
hatred scorches her like a flame, and as night draws on the
care comes back to her. So then with these words she
addresses her winged Love:—“My son, who art alone my
strength and my mighty power, my son, who laughest to
scorn our great father’s Typhœan[113] thunderbolts, to thee 10
I fly for aid, and make suppliant prayer of thy majesty.
How thy brother Æneas is tossed on the ocean the whole
world over by Juno’s implacable rancour I need not tell
thee—nay, thou hast often mingled thy grief with mine.
He is now the guest of Dido, the Phœnician woman, and 15
the spell of a courteous tongue is laid on him, and I fear
what may be the end of taking shelter under Juno’s
wing; she will never be idle at a time on which so much
hangs. Thus then I am planning to be first in the field,
surprising the queen by stratagem, and encompassing 20
her with fire, that no power may be able to work a change
in her, but that a mighty passion for Æneas may keep
her mine. For the way in which thou mayest bring this
about, listen to what I have been thinking. The young
heir of royalty, at his loved father’s summons, is making 25
ready to go to this Sidonian city—my soul’s darling
that he is—the bearer of presents that have survived
the sea and the flames of Troy. Him I will lull in deep
sleep and hide him in my hallowed dwelling high on
Cythera or Idalia, that by no chance he may know or mar 30
our plot. Do thou then for a single night, no more, artfully
counterfeit his form, and put on the boy’s usual looks,
thyself a boy, that when Dido, at the height of her joy,
shall take thee into her lap while the princely board is
laden and the vine-god’s liquor flowing, when she shall 35
be caressing thee and printing her fondest kisses on thy
cheek, thou mayest breathe concealed fire into her veins,
and steal upon her with poison.”[114]
At once Love complies with his fond mother’s words,
puts off his wings, and walks rejoicing in the gait of Iulus.
As for Ascanius, Venus sprinkles his form all over with the
dew of gentle slumber,[115] and carries him, as a goddess may,
lapped in her bosom, into Idalia’s lofty groves, where a 5
soft couch of amaracus enfolds him with its flowers, and
the fragrant breath of its sweet shade. Meanwhile Cupid
was on his way, all obedience, bearing the royal presents to
the Tyrians, and glad to follow Achates. When he arrives,
he finds the queen already settled on the gorgeous tapestry 10
of a golden couch, and occupying the central place. Already
father Æneas, already the chivalry of Troy are flocking
in, and stretching themselves here and there on coverlets
of purple. There are servants offering them water
for their hands, and deftly producing the bread from the 15
baskets, and presenting towels with shorn nap. Within
are fifty maidens, whose charge is in course to pile up provisions
in lasting store, and light up with fire the gods of the
hearth. A hundred others there are, and male attendants
of equal number and equal age, to load the table with 20
dishes, and set on the cups. The Tyrians, too, have
assembled in crowds through the festive hall, and scatter
themselves as invited over the embroidered couches.
There is marvelling at Æneas’ presents, marvelling at
Iulus, at those glowing features, where the god shines 25
through, and those words which he feigns so well, and at
the robe and the veil with the yellow acanthus border.
Chief of all, the unhappy victim of coming ruin cannot
satisfy herself with gazing,[116] and kindles as she looks,
the Phœnician woman, charmed with the boy and the 30
presents alike. He, after he has hung long in Æneas’
arms and round his neck, gratifying the intense fondness
of the sire he feigned to be his, finds his way to the queen.
She is riveted by him—riveted, eye and heart, and ever
and anon fondles him in her lap[117]—poor Dido, unconscious 35
how great a god is sitting heavy on that wretched bosom.
But he, with his mind still bent on his Acidalian mother,
is beginning to efface the name of Sychæus letter by letter,
and endeavouring to surprise by a living passion affections
long torpid, and a heart long unused to love.
When the banquet’s first lull was come, and the board
removed, then they set up the huge bowls and wreathe the
wine. A din rings to the roof—the voice rolls through 5
those spacious halls; lamps[118] hang from the gilded ceiling,
burning brightly, and flambeau-fires put out the night.
Then the queen called for a cup, heavy with jewels and
gold, and filled it with unmixed wine; the same which
had been used by Belus, and every king from Belus downward. 10
Then silence was commanded through the hall.
“Jupiter, for thou hast the name of lawgiver for guest and
host, grant that this day may be auspicious alike for the
Tyrians and the voyagers from Troy, and that its memory
may long live among our posterity. Be with us, Bacchus,[119] 15
the giver of jollity, and Juno, the queen of our blessings;
and you, the lords of Tyre, may your goodwill grace this
meeting.” She said, and poured on the table an offering
of the wine, and, the libation made, touched the cup
first with her lips, then handed it to Bitias, rallying his 20
slowness. Eagerly he quaffed the foaming goblet, and
drenched himself deep with its brimming gold. Then
came the other lords in order. Iopas, the long-haired
bard, takes his gilded lyre, and fills the hall with music;
he, whose teacher was the mighty Atlas.[120] His song[121] is of 25
the wanderings of the moon and the agonies of the sun,
whence sprung man’s race and the cattle, whence rain-water
and fire; of Arcturus and the showery Hyades,
and the twin Bears; why the winter suns make such
haste to dip in ocean, or what is the retarding cause that 30
bids the nights move slowly. Plaudits redouble from
the Tyrians, and the Trojans follow the lead. With
varied talk, too, she kept lengthening out the night, unhappy
Dido, drinking draughts of love long and deep,
as she asked much about Priam, about Hector much; 35
now what were the arms in which Aurora’s son had come
to battle; now what Diomede’s steeds were like; now how
great was Achilles. “Or rather, gentle guest,” cries she,
“tell us the story from the very first—all about the stratagems
of the Danaans, and the sad fate of your country,
and your own wanderings—for this is now the seventh
summer that is wafting you a wanderer still over every
land and wave.”
BOOK II
Every tongue was hushed, and every eye fixed intently,
when, from high couch, father Æneas began thus:—
“Too cruel to be told, great queen, is the sorrow you
bid me revive—how the power of Troy and its empire
met with piteous overthrow from the Danaans—the 5
heartrending sights which my own eyes saw, and the scenes
where I had a large part to play. Who, in such recital—be
he of the Myrmidons[122] or the Dolopes, or a soldier of
ruthless Ulysses’[123] band—would refrain from tears? And
now, too, night is rushing in dews down the steep of heaven, 10
and the setting stars counsel repose. Still, if so great be
your longing to acquaint yourself with our disasters, and
hear the brief tale of Troy’s last agony, though my mind
shudders at the remembrance, and starts back in sudden
anguish, I will essay the task. 15
“Broken by war and foiled by destiny, the chiefs of the
Danaans, now that the flying years were numbering so
many, build a horse of mountain size, by the inspiration of
Pallas’ skill, and interlace its ribs with planks of fir. A
vow for their safe journey home is the pretext: such the 20
fame that spreads. In this they secretly enclose chosen
men of sinew, picked out by lot, in the depth of its sides,
and fill every corner of those mighty caverns, the belly of
the monster, with armed warriors.
“In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an island of wide-spread 25
renown, powerful and rich while Priam’s empire yet was,
now a mere bay, a treacherous roadstead for ships. Thus
far they sail out, and hide themselves on the forsaken
coast. We thought them gone off with a fair wind for
Mycenæ. And so all Trojan land shakes off the agony of 30
years. Open fly the gates; what pleasure to go and see the
Dorian camp, and the places deserted, and the shore forsaken!
Yes, here were the troops of the Dolopes; here
the tent of that savage Achilles; here the ships were drawn
up; here they used to set the battle in array. Some of 5
us are standing agaze at the fatal offering to the virgin
goddess, and wondering at the hugeness of the horse;
and Thymœtes takes the lead, urging to have it dragged
within the walls, and lodged in the citadel, either with
treasonable intent, or that the fate of Troy had begun to 10
set that way. But Capys, and the men of saner judgment,
bid us send this snare of the Danaans, this suspicious present,
headlong into the sea, or light a fire under and burn
it; or, if not that, to pierce and probe that hollow womb
that might hide so much. The populace, unstable as 15
ever, divides off into opposite factions.
“Throwing himself before all, with a great crowd at his
back, Laocoon,[124] all on fire, comes running down the steep
of the citadel, crying in the distance, ‘What strange
madness is this, my unhappy countrymen? Think you 20
that the enemy has sailed off, or that a Danaan could ever
make a present that had no treachery in it? Is this your
knowledge of Ulysses? Either the Achæans are shut up
and hiding in this piece of wood, or it is an engine framed
against our walls, to command the houses and come down 25
on the city from above, or there is some other secret trick.
Men of Troy, put no faith in the horse. Whatever it be,
I fear a Greek even with a gift in his hand.’ With these
words he hurled a mighty spear with all his force against
the beast’s side, the jointed arch of its belly. It lodged, 30
and stood quivering; the womb shook again, and an echo
and a groan rang hollow from its caverns; and, then,
had but heaven’s destiny and man’s judgment been unwarped,
he had led us to carry sword and havoc into the
Argive lurking-place, and Troy would now be standing, 35
and thou, Priam’s tall fortress, still in being.
“Meanwhile, see! some Dardan shepherds are dragging
with loud shouts before the king a young man with his
hands tied behind him, who had thrown himself, a stranger,
across their way, to compass this very thing, and thus
let the Achæans into Troy—bold of heart, and ready for
either issue, either to play off his stratagem, or to meet
inevitable death. From all sides, in eager curiosity, 5
the Trojan youth come streaming round, vying in their
insults to the prisoner. Now then, listen, to the tale of
Danaan fraud, and from one act of guilt learn what the
whole nation is. There as he stood, with all eyes bent on
him, bewildered, defenceless, and looked round on the 10
Phrygian bands, ’ Alas!’ he cries, ‘where is there a
spot of earth or sea that will give me shelter now? or what
last resource is left for a wretch like me—one who has no
place among the Danaans to hide my head—while the
children of Dardanus no less are in arms against me, 15
crying for bloody vengeance?’ At that piteous cry our
mood was changed, and every outrage checked. We
encourage him to speak—to tell us what his parentage
is; what his business; what he has to rest on as a prisoner.
‘All, my lord, shall be avowed to you truly, whatever 20
be the issue. I will not deny that I am an Argive by
nation; this to begin with. Nor if Fortune has made a
miserable man out of Sinon, shall her base schooling
make him deceiver and liar as well. If haply in talk your
ears ever caught the name of Palamedes, of the house of 25
Belus, and his wide-spread renown—his, whom under
false accusation, an innocent man, charged by the blackest
calumny, all because his voice was against the war,
the Pelasgians sent down to death, and now, when he is
laid in darkness, lament him too late—know that it was 30
as his comrade and near kinsman I was sent by a needy
father to a soldier’s life in earliest youth. While he stood
with his royal state unimpaired, an honoured member of
the kingly council, I, too, enjoyed my measure of name
and dignity; but after the jealousy of false Ulysses—you 35
know the tale—removed him from this upper clime—dashed
from my height, I dragged on life in darkness and
sorrow, and vented to my own heart my rage at the disaster
of my innocent friend. Nor did I keep silence—madman
that I was! No, if ever the chance were given
me—if ever I came back with glory to my native Argos—I
vowed myself his avenger, and my words stirred up
bitter enmity. From that time my ruin began; from that 5
time Ulysses was ever threatening me with some new
charge, ever scattering abroad words of mystery, and looking
for allies to plot with. Nor did he rest till by Calchas’[125]
agency—but why recall this unwelcome story with no
end to gain? Why waste your time, if you hold all Achæans 10
alike, and to hear that is to hear enough? Take the
vengeance you should have taken long ago. It is just
what would please the Ithacan, and earn a large reward
from the sons of Atreus!’[126]
“This makes us burn, indeed, to explore and inquire into 15
the reason of his tale, not knowing that crime could be so
monstrous, and Pelasgian art so cunning. He resumes, in
faltering tones, spoken from his false heart:—
“‘Often have the Danaans designed to turn their back
on Troy and accomplish a retreat, and abandon the war 20
that had wearied them so long; and would they had done
it! As often has the fierce inclemency of the deep barred
their purpose, and the south wind frightened them from
sailing. Especially, when this horse was set up at last, a
compacted mass of maple planks, the thunder of the storm-clouds 25
was heard the whole firmament over. In our
perplexity we send Eurypylus to inquire of Phœbus’[127]
oracle, and this is the gloomy message that he brings back
from the shrine: “With blood it was ye appeased the winds,
even with a maiden’s slaughter, when first ye came, Danaans, 30
to the shore of Ilion. With blood it is ye must buy
your return, and propitiate heaven by the life of an Argive!”
Soon as the news reached the public ear, every
mind was cowed, and a cold shudder thrilled the depth of
every heart. For whom has Fate a summons? Whom does 35
Apollo demand as his prey? And now the Ithacan, with
boisterous vehemence, drags forward the prophet Calchas,
insists on knowing what that announcement of heaven’s
will may mean; and many even then were the prophetic
mouths that warned me of the trickster’s cruel villany,
and many the eyes that silently foresaw the future. Ten
days the seer holds his peace, and keeps his tent, refusing
to utter a word that should, disclose any name or sacrifice 5
any life. At last, goaded by the Ithacan’s vehement
clamour, he breaks into a concerted utterance, and dooms
me to the altar. All assented, well content that the danger
which each feared for himself should be directed to the
extinction of one poor wretch. And now the day of horror 10
was come; all was being ready for my sacrifice—the
salt cakes for the fire, and the fillet to crown my brow—when
I escaped, I own it, from death, and broke my
bonds, and hid myself that night in a muddy marsh in the
covert of the rushes, while they should be sailing, in the 15
faint hope that they had sailed. My old country, I
never expect to see it again, nor my darling children, and
the father I have longed so for! No! they are likely
to visit them with vengeance for my escape, and expiate
this guilt of mine by taking their poor lives. O! by the 20
gods above, and the powers that know when truth is
spoken, if there is yet abiding anywhere among men such
a thing as unsullied faith, I conjure you, have pity on this
weight of suffering, have pity on a soul that is unworthily
borne down!’ 25
“Such a tearful appeal gains him his life, and our compassion
too. Priam himself is first to bid them relieve the
man of his manacles and the chains that bound him, and
addresses him in words of kindness. ‘Whoever you are,
from this time forth have done with the Greeks, and forget 30
them. I make you my man, and bid you answer truly
the questions I shall put. What do they mean by setting
up this huge mountain of a horse? Who was the prompter
of it? What is their object? Some religious offering, or
some engine of war?’ 35
“Thus Priam: the prisoner, with all his Pelasgian craft
and cunning about him, raised his unfettered hands to the
stars:—
“‘You, eternal fires, with your inviolable majesty, be
my witnesses; you, altars and impious swords, from which
I fled; and you, hallowed fillets, which I wore for the sacrifice!
I am free to break all the sacred ties that bound me
to the Greeks. I am free to treat them as my foes, and 5
disclose all their secrets to the light of day, all the claims
of the land of my birth notwithstanding. Only do thou
abide by thy plighted word, and preserve faith with thy
preserver, land of Troy, if he tells thee true, and makes
thee large returns. 10
“‘The strength of the Danaan hopes, and the soul of
their confidence in the war they plunged into, has ever
been the aid of Pallas. From the time when Tydeus’ impious
son and Ulysses, that coiner of villany, dared to
drag away from her hallowed temple the fateful Palladium,[128] 15
slaughtering the guards who watched the citadel’s
height, thenceforth there was an ebb and a backsliding in
the Danaan hopes, their forces shattered, the goddess estranged.
Nor were the portents dubious that betokened
Tritonia’s change of mood. Scarce was the image lodged 20
in the camp, when flashing fire glowed in her uplifted eyes,
and salt sweat trickled over her frame, and thrice of herself
she leaped from the ground, marvellous to relate, shield
and quivering lance and all. Forthwith Calchas sounds
the note for flight over the perilous deep, for that Pergamus 25
can never be razed by Argive steel, unless they go to
Argos for fresh omens, and bring back the divine aid
which their crooked keels bore with them aforetime over
the sea. And now this their voyage home to Mycenæ is
to get new forces and gods to sail with them; they will re-cross 30
the deep, and come upon you unforeseen. Such is
Calchas’ scanning of the omens. As for this image, he
warned them to set it up in exchange for the Palladium,
and, in expiation of injured deity, to atone for their fatal
crime. Calchas, however, bade them raise it to the vast 35
height you see, knitting plank to plank, till it was brought
near to heaven, that it might not be admitted at the gates
or dragged within the walls, and thus restore to the people
the bulwark of their old worship. For if your hand should
profane Minerva’s offering, then (said he) a mighty destruction—may
the gods turn the omen on his head ere
it falls on yours!—would come on the empire of Priam
and the Phrygian nation; but if these hands of yours 5
should help it to scale your city’s height, Asia would roll
the mighty tide of invasion on the walls of Pelops,[129] and
our posterity would have to meet the fate he threatened.’
“Such was the stratagem—the cursed art of perjured
Sinon—that gained credence for the tale; and such the 10
victory won over us by wiles and constrained tears—over
us, whom not Tydeus’ son, nor Achilles of Larissa,
nor ten years of war subdued, nor a fleet of a thousand
sail.
“And now another object, greater and far more terrible, 15
is forced on my poor countrymen, to the confusion of their
unprophetic souls. Laocoon, drawn by lot as Neptune’s
priest, was sacrificing a mighty bull at the wonted altar—when
behold from Tenedos, over the still deep—I
shudder as I recount the tale—two serpents coiled in vast 20
circles are seen breasting the sea, and moving side by side
towards the shore. Their breasts rise erect among the
waves; their manes, of blood-red hue, tower over the
water, the rest of them floats behind on the main, trailing
a huge undulating length; the brine foams and dashes 25
about them; they are already on shore, in the plain—with
their glowing eyes bloodshot and fiery, and their
forked tongues playing in their hissing mouths. We fly
all ways in pale terror: they, in an unswerving column,
make for Laocoon, and first each serpent folds round one 30
of his two sons, clasping the youthful body, and greedily
devouring the poor limbs. Afterwards, as the father comes
to the rescue, weapon in hand, they fasten on him and lash
their enormous spires tight round him—and now twice
folded round his middle, twice embracing his neck with 35
their scaly length, they tower over him with uplifted head
and crest. He is straining with agonizing clutch to pull
the knots asunder, his priestly fillets all bedewed with gore
and black poison, and raising all the while dreadful cries
to heaven—like the bellowing, when a wounded bull darts
away from the altar, dashing off from his neck the ill-aimed
axe. But the two serpents escape glidingly to the
temple top, making for the height where ruthless Tritonia 5
is enthroned, and there shelter themselves under the goddess’s
feet and the round of her shield. Then, indeed,
every breast is cowed and thrilled through by a new and
strange terror—every voice cries that Laocoon has been
duly punished for his crime, profaning the sacred wood 10
with his weapon’s point, and hurling his guilty lance
against the back of the steed. Let the image be drawn
to her temple, and let prayer be made to the goddess, is
the general cry—we break through the walls and open
the town within. All gird them to the work, putting 15
wheels to run easily under its feet, and throwing lengths
of hempen tie round its neck. It scales the walls, that
fateful engine, with its armed brood—boys and unwedded
girls, standing about it, chant sacred hymns, delighted to
touch the rope. In it moves, rolling with threatening brow 20
into the heart of the city. O my country! O Ilion,
home of the gods! O ye, Dardan towers, with your martial
fame! Yes—four times on the gateway’s very threshold
it stopped, four times the arms rattled in its womb.
On, however, we press, unheeding, in the blindness of our 25
frenzy, and lodge the ill-starred portent in our hallowed
citadel. Even then Cassandra[130] unseals to speak of future
fate those lips which by the god’s command no Trojan
ever believed—while we, alas! we, spend the day that
was to be our last in crowning the temples of the gods 30
with festal boughs the whole city through.
“Meantime round rolls the sky, and on comes night from
the ocean, wrapping in its mighty shade earth and heaven
and Myrmidon wiles: through the city the Trojans are
hushed in careless repose, their tired limbs in the arms of 35
sleep. Already was the Argive host on its way from Tenedos,
through the friendly stillness of the quiet moon,
making for the well-known shore, when see! the royal
ship mounts its fire signal, and Sinon, sheltered by heaven’s
partial decree, stealthily sets at large the Danaans, hid in
that treacherous womb, and opens the pine-wood door:
they as the horse opens are restored to upper air, and leap
forth with joy from the hollow timber, Thessander and 5
Sthenelus leading the way, and the dreaded Ulysses, gliding
down the lowered rope, and Achamas and Thoas, and
Neoptolemus of Peleus’ line, and first Machaon, and Menelaus,
and the framer of the cheat himself, Epeus. They
rush on the town as it lies drowned in sleep and revelry. 10
The watchers are put to the sword, the gates thrown open,
and all are welcoming their comrades, and uniting with
the conspiring bands.
“It was just the time when first slumber comes to heal
human suffering, stealing on men by heaven’s blessing 15
with balmiest influence. Lo! as I slept, before my eyes
Hector,[131] in deepest sorrow, seemed to be standing by me,
shedding rivers of tears—mangled from dragging at the
car, as I remember him of old, and black with gory dust,
and with his swollen feet bored by the thong. Ay me! 20
what a sight was there! what a change from that Hector
of ours, who comes back to us clad in the spoils of Achilles,
or from hurling Phrygian fire on Danaan vessels! with
stiffened beard and hair matted with blood, and those
wounds fresh about him, which fell on him so thickly 25
round his country’s walls. Methought I addressed him
first with tears like his own, fetching from my breast the
accents of sorrow—‘O light of Dardan land, surest hope
that Trojans ever had! What delay has kept you so long?
From what clime is the Hector of our longings returned 30
to us at last? O the eyes with which, after long months
of death among your people, months of manifold suffering
to Troy and her sons, spent and weary, we look upon you
now! What unworthy cause has marred the clear beauty
of those features, or why do I behold these wounds?’ 35
He answers nought, and gives no idle heed to my vain
inquiries, but with a deep sigh, heaved from the bottom
of his heart—‘Ah! fly, goddess-born!’ cries he, ‘and
escape from these flames—the walls are in the enemy’s
hand—Troy is tumbling from its summit—the claims
of country and king are satisfied—if Pergamus could be
defended by force of hand, it would have been defended
by mine, in my day. Your country’s worship and her 5
gods are what she entrusts to you now—take them to
share your destiny—seek for them a mighty city, which
you shall one day build when you have wandered the
ocean over.’ With these words he brings out Queen Vesta[132]
with her fillets and the ever-burning fire from the secret 10
shrine.
“Meanwhile the city in its various quarters is being convulsed
with agony—and ever more and more, though my
father Anchises’ palace was retired in the privacy of embosoming
trees, the sounds deepen, and the alarm of 15
battle swells. I start up from sleep, mount the sloping
roof, and stand intently listening—even as, when among
standing corn a spark falls with a fierce south wind to
fan it, or the impetuous stream of a mountain torrent
sweeps the fields, sweeps the joyous crops and the bullocks’ 20
toil, and drives the woods headlong before it, in
perplexed amazement a shepherd takes in the crash from
a rock’s tall summit. Then, indeed, all doubt was over,
and the wiles of the Danaans stood confessed. Already
Deiphobus’ palace has fallen with a mighty overthrow 25
before the mastering fire-god—already his neighbour
Ucalegon is in flames—the expanse of the Sigean sea
shines again with the blaze. Up rises at once the shouting
of men and the braying of trumpets. To arms I rush
in frenzy.—not that good cause is shown for arms—but 30
to muster a troop for fight, and run to the citadel with
my comrades is my first burning impulse—madness and
rage drive my mind headlong, and I think how glorious to
die with arms in my hand.
“But see! Panthus, escaped from an Achæan volley, 35
Panthus, Othrys’ son, priest of Phœbus in the citadel,
comes dragging along with his own hand the vanquished
gods of his worship and his young grandchild, and making
distractedly for my door. ‘How goes the day, Panthus?
What hold have we of the citadel?’ The words
were scarcely uttered when with a groan he replies, ‘It is
come, the last day, the inevitable hour—on Dardan land
no more Trojans; no more of Ilion, and the great renown 5
of the sons of Teucer; Jove, in his cruelty, has carried all
over to Argos; the town is on fire, and the Danaans are
its masters. There, planted high in the heart of the city,
the horse is pouring out armed men, and Sinon is flinging
about fire in the insolence of conquest; some are 10
crowding into the unfolded gates—thousands, many as
ever came from huge Mycenæ: some are blocking up the
narrow streets, with weapons pointed at all comers; the
sharp steel with its gleaming blade stands drawn, ready
for slaughter; hardly, even on the threshold, the sentinels 15
of the gates are attempting resistance, in a struggle where
the powers of war are blind.’
“At these words of the son of Othrys, and heaven’s
will thus expressed, I plunge into the fire and the battle,
following the war-fiend’s yell, the din of strife, and the 20
shout that rose to the sky. There join me Rhipeus and
Epytus, bravest in fight, crossing my way in the moonlight,
as also Hypanis and Dymas, and form at my side;
young Coroebus, too, Mygdon’s son; he happened to be
just then come to Troy, with a frantic passion for Cassandra, 25
and was bringing a son-in-law’s aid to Priam and his
Phrygians—poor boy! to have given no heed to the
warnings of his heaven-struck bride! Seeing them
gathered in a mass and nerved for battle, I begin thereon:—‘Young
hearts, full of unavailing valour, if your desire 30
is set to follow a desperate man, you see what the plight
of our affairs is—gone in a body from shrine and altar
are the gods who upheld this our empire—the city you
succour is a blazing ruin; choose we then death, and rush
we into the thick of the fight. The one safety for vanquished 35
men is to hope for none.’ These words stirred
their young spirits to madness: then, like ravenous wolves
in night’s dark cloud, driven abroad by the blind rage of
lawless hunger, with their cubs left at home waiting their
return with parched jaws, among javelins, among foemen,
on we go with no uncertain fate before us, keeping our
way through the heart of the town, while night flaps over
us its dark, overshadowing wings. Who could unfold in 5
speech the carnage, the horrors of that night, or make his
tears keep pace with our suffering? It is an ancient city,
falling from the height where she queened it many a year;
and heaps of unresisting bodies are lying confusedly in the
streets, in the houses, on the hallowed steps of temples. 10
Nor is it on Teucer’s sons alone that bloody vengeance
lights. There are times when even the vanquished feel
courage rushing back to their hearts, and the conquering
Danaans fall. Everywhere is relentless agony; everywhere
terror, and the vision of death in many a manifestation. 15
“First of the Danaans, with a large band at his back,
Androgeos crosses our way, taking us for a troop of his
friends in his ignorance, and hails us at once in words of
fellowship: ‘Come, my men, be quick. Why, what sloth 20
is keeping you so late? Pergamus is on fire, and the rest
of us are spoiling and sacking it, and here are you, but
just disembarked from your tall ships.’ He said, and instantly,
for no reply was forthcoming to reassure him, saw
that he had fallen into the thick of the enemy. Struck 25
with consternation, he drew back foot and tongue. Just
as a man who at unawares has trodden on a snake among
thorns and briers in his walk, and recoils at once in sudden
alarm from the angry uplifted crest and the black swelling
neck, so Androgeos, appalled at the sight, was retiring. 30
But we rush on him, and close round, weapons in
hand; and, in their ignorance of the ground, and the
surprise of their terror, they fall before us everywhere.
Fortune smiles on our first encounter. Hereon Coroebus,
flushed with success and daring, ‘Come, my friends,’ he 35
cries, ‘where Fortune at starting directs us to the path of
safety, and reveals herself as our ally, be it ours to follow
on. Let us change shields, and see if Danaan decorations
will fit us. Trick or strength of hand, who, in dealing
with an enemy, asks which? They shall arm us against
themselves.’ So saying, he puts on Androgeos’ crested
helm, and his shield with its goodly device, and fastens
to his side an Argive sword. So does Rhipeus, so Dymas 5
too, and all our company, with youthful exultation, each
arming himself out of the new-won spoils. On we go,
mixing with the Greeks, under auspices not our own, and
many are the combats in which we engage in the blindness
of night, many the Danaans whom we send down to 10
the shades. They fly on all hands: some to the ships,
making at full speed for safety on the shore; others, in
the debasement of terror, climb once more the horse’s
huge sides, and hide themselves in the womb they knew
so well. 15
“Alas! it is not for man to throw himself on the gods
against their will!
“Lo! there was a princess of Priam’s house being
dragged by her dishevelled hair from the temple, from
the very shrine of Minerva, Cassandra, straining her flashing 20
eyes to heaven in vain—her eyes—for those delicate
hands were confined by manacles. The sight was too
much for the infuriate mind of Coroebus: rushing to his
doom, he flung himself into the middle of the hostile force.
One and all, we follow, close our ranks, and fall on. And 25
now, first from the temple’s lofty top we are overwhelmed
by a shower of our own countrymen’s darts, and a most
piteous carnage ensues, all along of the appearance of our
arms and our mistaken Grecian crests. Then the Danaans,
groaning and enraged at the rescue of the maiden, rally 30
from all sides, and fall on us. Ajax, in all his fury, and
the two sons of Atreus, and the whole array of the Dolopes—even
as one day when the tempest is broken loose, and
wind meets wind—west, and south, and east exulting in
his orient steeds—there is crashing in the woods, and 35
Nereus,[133] in a cloud of foam, is plying his ruthless trident,
and stirring up the sea from its very bottom. Such of
the foe, moreover, as in the darkness of night we had
driven routed through, the gloom—thanks to our stratagem—and
scattered the whole city over, rally again:
they are the first to recognize the imposture of shield and
weapon, and to mark the different sound of our speech.
All is over—we are overwhelmed by numbers: first of 5
all, Coroebus is stretched low; his slayer Peneleos, his
place of death the altar of the Goddess of Arms; slain,
too, is Rhipeus, the justest and most righteous man in
Troy—but heaven’s will is not ours—down go Hypanis
and Dymas both, shot by their friends; nor could all 10
your acts of piety, good Panthus, shield you in your fall;
no, nor the fillet of Apollo on your brow. Ye ashes of
Ilion, and thou, funeral fire of those I loved, witness ye
that in your day of doom I shrank from no Danaan dart,
no hand-to-hand encounter; nay, that had my fate been 15
to fall, my hand had earned it well. We are parted from
the rest, Iphitus, Pelias, and I. Iphitus, a man on whom
years were already pressing; Pelias, crippled by a wound
from Ulysses—all three summoned by the shouting to
Priam’s palace. 20
“Here, indeed, the conflict was gigantic—just as if the
rest of the war were nowhere—as if none were dying in the
whole city beside: even such was the sight we saw—the
war-god raging untamed, the Danaans streaming up to the
roof, the door blockaded by a long penthouse of shields. 25
The scaling ladders are clasping the walls; close to the very
door men are climbing, with their left hands presenting
the buckler to shelter them from darts, while with their
right they are clasping the battlements. The Dardans,
on their part, are tearing up from the palace turret and 30
roof—such the weapons with which, in their dire extremity,
in the last death-struggle, they make ready for their
defence—gilded rafters, the stately ornaments of elder
days, they are hurling down; while others, their swords
drawn, are stationed at the doors at the bottom, and 35
guarding them in close array. The fire revived within
me, to bring succour to the royal roof, and relieve those
brave men, and breathe new daring into the vanquished.
“A door there was, a hidden entrance, a thoroughfare
through Priam’s palace, a postern which you leave in the
rear; by it the hapless Andromache,[134] while yet the throne
was standing, used often to repair unattended to her husband’s 5
parents, and pull the boy Astyanax into his grandsire’s
presence. Through it I make my way to the summit
of the roof, whence the wretched Teucrians were hurling
darts without avail. There was a tower standing precipitous,
its roof reared high to the stars, whence could be
seen all Troy, and the Danaan fleet, and the Achæan camp; 10
to this we applied our weapons, just where the lofty flooring
made the joining insecure; we wrench it from its eminence,
we have toppled it over—down it falls at once, a huge
crashing ruin, and tumbles far and wide over the Danaan
ranks. But others fill their place; while stones and every 15
kind of missile keep raining unabated.
“There in the entry, at the very gate, is Pyrrhus[135] in his
glory, gleaming with spear and sword, and with all the
brilliance of steel. Even as against the daylight a serpent
gorged with baleful herbage, whom winter’s cold of late 20
was keeping swollen underground, now, his skin shed, in
new life and in the beauty of youth, rears his breast erect,
and wreathes his shining scales, towering to the sun, and
flashes in his mouth his three-forked tongue. With him
gigantic Periphas and Automedon, his armour-bearer, 25
once Achilles’ charioteer, with him the whole chivalry
of Scyros press to the walls, and hurl up fire to the roof.
Himself among the foremost, a two-edged axe in hand,
is bursting through the stubborn door and forcing from
their hinges the valves copper-sheathed; see! now he has 30
cut out a plank and delved into that stout heart of oak,
and made a wide gaping window in the middle. There is
seen the house within, and the long vista of the hall;
there is seen the august retirement of Priam and the
monarchs of past days, and armed warriors are disclosed 35
standing in the entrance.
“But the palace within is a confused scene of shrieking
and piteous disorder; the vaulted chambers wail from
their hollow depths with female lamentation; the noise
strikes the golden stars above. The terror-stricken matrons
are running to and fro through the spacious courts, clinging
claspingly to the gates and printing them with kisses.
On presses Pyrrhus with all his father’s might; neither 5
barrier of oak nor yet living guard can resist him; the
door gives way under the thick strokes of the battery,
and the valves are torn from their hinges and brought
down. Force finds its way; the Danaans burst a passage,
rush in, and slaughter those they meet, and the whole 10
wide space is flooded with soldiers. With far less fury,
when the river, all foam, has broken the prison of its banks
and streamed with triumphant tide over the barriers set
to check it, down it comes tumbling along the corn-fields,
and along the whole country sweeps away herd and stall. 15
With my own eyes I saw Neoptolemus, mad with carnage,
and the two Atridæ on the palace-floor. I saw Hecuba[136]
and her hundred daughters-in-law, and Priam at the
altar, polluting with his blood the flames he had himself
made holy. Those fifty marriage-chambers, the splendid 20
promise of children’s children, doors gorgeous with barbaric
gold and plundered treasure, all sank in dust. Where
the fire flags, the Danaans are masters.
“Perhaps, too, you may be curious to hear the fate of
Priam. When he saw his city fallen and captured, the 25
doors of his palace burst open, the foe in the heart of his
home’s sanctuary, poor old man! helplessly and hopelessly
he puts about his shoulders, trembling with age,
his armour, long disused, and girds on his unavailing sword,
and is going to his doom among the thick of the foe. In 30
the midst of the palace, under the naked height of the sky,
stood a great altar, and by it a bay tree of age untold,
leaning over the altar and enfolding the household gods
in its shade. Here about the altar Hecuba and her
daughters, all helpless, like doves driven headlong down 35
by a murky tempest, huddled together and clinging to
the statues of the gods, were sitting. But when she saw
Priam—yes, Priam—wearing the arms of his youth—‘What
monstrous thought,’ cries she, ‘my most wretched
spouse, has moved you to gird on these weapons? or to
what are you hurrying? It is not help like this, not protections
like those you wear, that the crisis needs. No,
not even if my lost Hector were now at our side. Come, 5
join us here at last; this altar shall be a defence for us all,
or we will die together.’ With these words she took him
to where she was, and lodged his aged frame in the hallowed
resting-place.
“But, see! here is Polites, one of Priam’s sons escaped 10
from Pyrrhus’ murderous hand, through showers of darts
and masses of foemen, flying down the long corridors and
traversing the empty courts, sore and wounded, while
Pyrrhus, all on fire, is pursuing him, with a deadly stroke,
his hand all but grasping him, his spear close upon him. 15
Just as at last he won his way into the view and presence of
his parents, down he fell and poured out his life in a gush of
blood. Hereon Priam, though hemmed in by death on
all sides, could not restrain himself, or control voice and
passion. ‘Aye,’ cries he, ‘for a crime, for an outrage like 20
this, may the gods, if there is any sense of right in heaven
to take cognizance of such deeds, give you the full thanks
you merit, and pay you your due reward; you, who have
made me look with my own eyes on my son’s death, and
stained a father’s presence with the sight of blood. But 25
he whom your lying tongue calls your sire, Achilles, dealt
not thus with Priam his foe—he had a cheek that could
crimson at a suppliant’s rights, a suppliant’s honour.
Hector’s lifeless body he gave back to the tomb, and sent
me home to my realms in peace.’ So said the poor old 30
man, and hurled at him a dart unwarlike, unwounding,
which the ringing brass at once shook off, and left hanging
helplessly from the end of the shield’s boss. Pyrrhus
retorts: ‘You shall take your complaint, then, and carry
your news to my father, Pelides. Tell, him about my 35
shocking deeds, about his degenerate Neoptolemus,
and do not forget. Now die.’ With these words he
dragged him to the very altar, palsied and sliding in a pool
of his son’s blood, wreathed his left hand in his hair, and
with his right flashed forth and sheathed in his side the
sword to the hilt. Such was the end of Priam’s fortunes,
such the fatal lot that fell upon him, with Troy blazing
and Pergamus in ruins before his eyes—upon him, once 5
the haughty ruler of those many nations and kingdoms,
the sovereign lord of Asia! There he lies on the shore,
a gigantic trunk, a head severed from the shoulders, a
body without a name.
“Now, for the first time grim horror prisoned me round—I 10
was wildered—there rose up the image of my dear
father, as I saw the king, his fellow in age, breathing out
his life through that ghastly wound. There rose up Creusa[137]
unprotected, my house, now plundered, and the chance to
which I had left my little Iulus. I cast my eyes back and 15
look about to see what strength there is round me. All
had forsaken me, too tired to stay; they had leapt to the
ground, or dropped helplessly into the flames. And now
I was there alone. When lodged in the temple of Vesta,
and crouching mutely in its darkest recess, the daughter of 20
Tyndareus[138] meets my eye; the brilliant blaze gives light
to my wandering feet and ranging glance. Yes, she in her
guilty fears, dreading at once the Teucrians whom the
overthrow of Pergamus had made her foes, and the vengeance
of the Danaans, and the wrath of the husband she 25
abandoned—she, the common fiend of Troy and of her
country, had hid herself away, and was sitting in hateful
solitude at the altar. My spirit kindled into flame—a
fury seized me to avenge my country in its fall, and to do
justice on a wretch. ‘So she is to see Sparta and her 30
native Mycenæ again in safety, and is to move as a queen
in a triumph of her own? She is to look upon her lord
and her old home, her children and her parents, with a
crowd of our Trojan ladies and Phrygian captives to wait
on her? Shall it be for this that Priam has died by the 35
sword, that Troy has been burnt with fire, that the Dardan
shore has gushed so oft with the sweat of blood? No,
never—for though there are no proud memories to be
won by vengeance on a woman, no laurels to be reaped from
a conquest like this, yet the extinction of so base a life
and the exaction of vengeance so merited will count as a
praise, and it will be a joy to have glutted my spirit with
the flame of revenge and slaked the thirsty ashes of those 5
I love.’ Such were the wild words I was uttering, such
the impulse of my infuriate heart, when suddenly there
appeared to me, brighter than I had ever seen her before,
and shone forth in clear radiance through the night, my
gracious mother, all her deity confessed, with the same 10
mien and stature by which she is known to the dwellers
in heaven. She seized me by the hand and stayed me,
seconding her action with these words from her roseate
lips; ‘My son, what mighty agony is it that stirs up
this untamed passion? What means your frenzy? or 15
whither has fled your care for me? Will you not first see
where you have left your father Anchises, spent with age
as he is? whether your wife, Creusa, be yet alive, and
your child, Ascanius? All about them the Grecian armies
are ranging to and fro, and were not my care exerted to 20
rescue them, ere this they had been snatched by the flame,
devoured by the foeman’s sword. It is not the hated
beauty of the daughter of Tyndareus, the Spartan woman—not
the reviled Paris. No, it is heaven, unpitying
heaven that is overturning this great empire and levelling 25
Troy from its summit. See here—for I will take away
wholly the cloud whose veil, cast over your eyes, dulls
your mortal vision and darkles round you damp and
thick—do you on your part shrink in naught from your
mother’s commands, nor refuse to obey the instructions 30
she gives. Here, where you see huge masses rent asunder,
and stones wrenched from stones, and blended torrents
of smoke and dust, is Neptune with his mighty trident
shaking the walls and upheaving the very foundations;
here is Juno, cruellest of foes, posted at the entry of the 35
Scæan gate, and summoning in tones of fury from the
ships her confederate band, herself girt with steel like them.
Look behind you—there is Tritonian Pallas, seated already
on the summit of our towers, in the lurid glare of
her storm-cloud and grim Gorgon’s head. The great
Father himself is nerving the Danaans with courage and
strength for victory—himself leading the gods against
our Dardan forces. Come, my son, catch at flight while 5
you may and bring the struggle to an end. I will not leave
you, till I have set you in safety at your father’s door.’
She had ceased, and veiled herself at once in night’s
thickest shadows. I see a vision of awful shapes—mighty
presences of gods arrayed against Troy. 10
“Then, indeed, I beheld all Ilion sinking into flame, and
Neptune’s city, Troy, overturned from its base. Even as
an ancient ash on the mountain-top, which woodmen have
hacked with steel and repeated hatchet strokes, and are
trying might and main to dislodge—it keeps nodding 15
menacingly, its leafy head palsied and shaken, till at
last, gradually overborne by wound after wound, it has
given its death-groan, and fallen uprooted in ruined
length along the hill. I come down, and, following my
heavenly guide, thread my way through flames and foemen, 20
while weapons glance aside and flames retire.
“Now when at last I had reached the door of my father’s
house, that old house I knew so well, my sire, whom it
was my first resolve to carry away high up the hills—who
was the first object I sought—refuses to survive the 25
razing of Troy and submit to banishment. ‘You, whose
young blood is untainted, whose strength is firmly based
and self-sustained, it is for you to think of flight. For me,
had the dwellers in heaven willed me to prolong my life,
they would have preserved for me my home. It is enough 30
and more than enough to have witnessed one sack, to
have once outlived the capture of my city. Here, O
here as I lie, bid farewell to my corpse and begone. I will
find me a warrior’s death. The enemy will have mercy on
me, and my spoils will tempt him. The loss of a tomb 35
will fall on me lightly. Long, long have I been a clog on
time, hated of heaven and useless to earth, from the day
when the father of gods and sovereign of men blasted me
with the wind of his lightning, and laid on me the finger
of flame.’[139]
“Such the words he kept on repeating and continued
unshaken, while we were shedding our hearts in tears—Creusa,
my wife, and Ascanius and my whole house, 5
imploring my father not to be bent on dragging
all with him to ruin, and lending his weight to the avalanche
of destiny. But he refuses, and will not be moved
from his purpose or his home. Once more I am plunging
into battle, and choosing death in the agony of my 10
wretchedness—for what could wisdom or fortune do
for me now? What, my father? that I could stir a step
to escape, leaving you behind? was this your expectation?
could aught so shocking fall from a parent’s lips? No—if
it is the will of heaven that naught of this mighty city 15
should be spared—if your purpose is fixed, and you find
pleasure in throwing yourself and yours on Troy’s blazing
pile, the door stands open for the death you crave. Pyrrhus
will be here in a moment, fresh from bathing in
Priam’s blood—Pyrrhus, who butchers the son before the 20
father’s face, who butchers the father at the altar. Gracious
mother! was it for this that thou rescuest me from fire and
sword—all that I may see the foe in the heart of my
home’s sanctuary—may see my Ascanius, and my father,
and my Creusa by them sacrificed in a pool of each other’s 25
blood? My arms, friends, bring me my arms! the call
of the day of death rings in the ears of the conquered.
Give me back to the Danaans, let me return and renew the
combat. Never shall this day see us all slaughtered
unresisting. 30
“Now I gird on my sword again, and was buckling and
fitting my shield to my left arm, and making my way out
of the house—when lo! my wife on the threshold began
to clasp and cling to my feet, holding out my little Iulus to
his father. ‘If it is to death you are going, then carry us 35
with you to death and all, but if experience gives you any
hope in the arms you are resuming, let your first stand be
made at your home. To whom, think you, are you leaving
your little Iulus—your father, and me who was once
styled your wife?’
“Thus she was crying, while her moaning filled the
house, when a portent appears, sudden and marvellous to
relate. Even while the hands and eyes of his grieving 5
parents were upon him, lo, a flickering tongue of flame
on the top of Iulus’ head was seen to shoot out light,
playing round his soft curly locks with innocuous contact
and pasturing about his temples. We are all hurry and
alarm, shaking out his blazing hair and quenching the 10
sacred fire with water from the spring—but Anchises
my father raised his eyes in ecstasy to heaven, directing
hand and voice to the stars: ‘Almighty Jove, if any
prayer can bow thy will, look down on us—’tis all I crave—and
if our piety have earned requital, grant us thy 15
succour, father, and ratify the omen we now see.’ Scarce
had the old man spoken, when there came a sudden peal
of thunder on the left, and a star fell from heaven and
swept through the gloom with a torchlike train and a
blaze of light. Over the top of the house we see it pass, 20
and mark its course along the sky till it buries itself lustrously
in Ida’s wood—then comes a long furrowed line
of light, and a sulphurous smoke fills the space all about.
Then at length overcome, my father raises himself towards
the sky, addresses the gods, and does reverence to the 25
sacred meteor: ‘No more, no more delay from me. I
follow your guidance, and am already in the way by which
you would lead me. Gods of my country! preserve my
house, preserve my grandchild. Yours in this augury—your
shield is stretched over Troy. Yes, my son, I 30
give way, and shrink not from accompanying your flight.’
He said—and by this the blaze is heard louder and louder
through the streets, and the flames roll their hot volumes
nearer. ‘Come then, dear father, take your seat on my
back, my shoulders shall support you, nor shall I feel the 35
task a burden. Fall things as they may, we twain will
share the peril, share the deliverance. Let my little Iulus
walk by my side, while my wife follows our steps at a
distance. You, our servants, attend to what I now say.
As you leave the city there is a mound, where stands an
ancient temple of Ceres all alone, and by it an old cypress,
observed these many years by the reverence of our sires.
This shall be our point of meeting in one place from 5
many quarters. You, my father, take in your hand these
sacred things, our country’s household gods. For me, just
emerged from this mighty war, with the stains of carnage
fresh upon me, it were sacrilege to touch them, till I
have cleansed me in the running stream.’ 10
“So saying, I spread out my shoulders, bow my neck,
cover them with a robe, a lion’s tawny hide, and take up
the precious burden. My little Iulus has fastened his
hand in mine, and is following his father with ill-matched
steps, my wife comes on behind. On we go, keeping in the 15
shade—and I, who erewhile quailed not for a moment at
the darts that rained upon me or at the masses of Greeks
that barred my path, now am scared by every breath of air,
startled by every sound, fluttered as I am, and fearing alike
for him who holds my hand and him I carry. And now I 20
was nearing the gates, and the whole journey seemed accomplished,
when suddenly the noise of thick trampling
feet came to my ear, and my father looks onward through
the darkness. ‘Son, son,’ he cries, ‘fly: they are upon
us. I distinguish the flashing of their shields and the 25
gleam of their steel.’ In this alarm some unfriendly
power perplexed and took away my judgment. For,
while I was tracking places where no track was, and
swerving from the wonted line of road, woe is me! destiny
tore from me my wife Creusa. Whether she stopped, 30
or strayed from the road, or sat down fatigued, I never
knew—nor was she ever restored to my eyes in life.
Nay, I did not look back to discover my loss, or turn my
thoughts that way till we had come to the mound and
temple of ancient Ceres; then at last, when all were 35
mustered, she alone was missing, and failed those who
should have travelled with her, her son and husband both.
Whom of gods or men did my upbraiding voice spare?
what sight in all the ruin of the city made my heart bleed
more? Ascanius and Anchises my father and the Teucrian
household gods I give to my comrades’ care, and lodge
them in the winding glade. I repair again to the city
and don my shining armour. My mind is set to try every 5
hazard again, and retrace my path through the whole of
Troy, and expose my life to peril once more. First
I repair again to the city walls, and the gate’s dark entry
by which I had passed out. I track and follow my footsteps
back through the night, and traverse the ground 10
with my eye. Everywhere my sense is scared by the
horror, scared by the very stillness. Next I betake me
home, in the hope, the faint hope that she may have turned
her steps thither. The Danaans had broken in and were
lodged in every chamber. All is over—the greedy flame 15
is wafted by the wind to the roof, the fire towers triumphant—the
glow streams madly heavenwards. I pass
on, and look again at Priam’s palace and the citadel. There
already in the empty cloisters, yes, in Juno’s sanctuary,
chosen guards, Phœnix and Ulysses the terrible, were 20
watching the spoil. Here are gathered the treasures of
Troy torn from blazing shrines, tables of gods, bowls of
solid gold, and captive vestments in one great heap. Boys
and mothers stand trembling all about in long array.
“Nay, I was emboldened even to fling random cries 25
through the darkness. I filled the streets with shouts, and
in my agony called again and again on my Creusa with unavailing
iteration. As I was thus making my search and
raving unceasingly the whole city through, the hapless
shade, the spectre of my own Creusa appeared in my 30
presence—a likeness larger than the life. I was aghast,
my hair stood erect, my tongue clove to my mouth, while
she began to address me thus, and relieve my trouble
with words like these: ‘Whence this strange pleasure
in indulging frantic grief, my darling husband? It is 35
not without Heaven’s will that these things are happening:
that you should carry your Creusa with you on your journey
is forbidden by fate, forbidden by the mighty ruler
of heaven above. You have long years of exile, a vast
expanse of ocean to traverse—and then you will arrive
at the land of Hesperia, where Tiber, Lydia’s river, rolls
his gentle volumes through rich and cultured plains.
There you have a smiling future, a kingdom and a royal 5
bride waiting your coming. Dry your tears for Creusa,
your heart’s choice though she be. I am not to see the
face of Myrmidons or Dolopes in their haughty homes,
or to enter the service of some Grecian matron—I, a
Dardan princess, daughter by marriage of Venus the immortal. 10
No, I am kept in this country by heaven’s
mighty mother. And now farewell, and continue to love
your son and mine. Thus having spoken, spite of my
tears, spite of the thousand things I longed to say, she left
me and vanished into unsubstantial air. Thrice, as I 15
stood, I essayed to fling my arms round her neck—thrice
the phantom escaped the hands that caught at it in vain—impalpable
as the wind, fleeting as the wings of sleep.
“So passed my night, and such was my return to my
comrades. Arrived there, I find with wonder their band 20
swelled by a vast multitude of new companions, matrons
and warriors both, an army mustered for exile, a crowd
of the wretched. From every side they were met, prepared
in heart as in fortune to follow me over the sea to
any land where I might take them to settle. And now 25
the morning star was rising over Ida’s loftiest ridge
with the day in its train—Danaan sentinels were blocking
up the entry of the gates, and no hope of succour appeared.
I retired at last, took up my father, and made for the
mountains. 30
BOOK III
“After that it had seemed well to the powers above to
overthrow Asia’s fortunes and Priam’s guiltless nation;
after that Ilion fell headlong from its pride, and Troy,
which Neptune reared, became one levelled smoking ruin,
we are driven by auguries from heaven to look elsewhere 5
for the exile’s home in lands yet unpeopled. We build us
a fleet under the shadow of Antandros,[140] and the range of
our own Phrygian Ida, all uncertain whither fate may
carry us, where it may be our lot to settle, and muster
men for sailing. Scarcely had summer set in, when my 10
father, Anchises, was bidding us spread our sails to destiny.
Then I give my last tearful look to my country’s shores
and her harbours, and those plains where Troy once stood
but stands no longer. A banished man, I am wafted into
the deep with my comrades and my son, my household 15
gods and their mighty brethren.
“In the distance lies the land of the war-god, inhabited,
in vast extent—the Thracians are its tillers—subject
erewhile to Lycurgus’[141] savage sway, bound by old hospitality
to Troy, their household gods friends of ours, while 20
our star yet shone. Hither I am wafted, and on the
bending line of coast trace the outline of a city, a commencement
made in an evil hour, and call the new nation
Æneadæ,[142] after my own name.
“I was sacrificing to my parent, Dione’s[143] daughter, and 25
the rest of the gods, that they might bless the work I
had begun, and was slaying to the heavenly monarch of the
powers above a bull of shining whiteness on the shore.
It happened that there was a mound near, on whose top
were plants of cornel, and a myrtle bristling thick with 30
spearlike wands. I drew near, and essayed to pull up
from the ground the green forest growth, that I might
have leafy boughs wherewith to shadow the altar, when I
see a portent dreadful and marvellous to tell. For the
first tree that I pull up from the soil, severing its roots, 5
from that tree trickle drops of black blood, staining the
earth with gore. For me, a freezing shudder palsies my
frame, and my chilled blood curdles with affright. Again
I go on to pluck the reluctant fibres of a second tree, and
thus probe the hidden cause to the bottom; as surely 10
from the bark of that second tree the black blood follows.
Much musing in my mind, I began to call on the nymphs
of the wood, and Gradivus,[144] our father, patron of the land
of Thrace, that they might duly turn the appearance to
good, and make the heavy omen light. But when I come 15
to tear up a third spear-shaft with a still greater effort,
straining with my knees against the sand which pressed on
them—ought I to tell the tale or hold my peace?—a lamentable
groan is heard from the bottom of the mound, and
the utterance of a human voice reaches my ear: ‘Why, 20
Æneas, mangle a wretch like me? Spare me at length in
my grave—spare those pious hands the stain of guilt.
It was not an alien to you that Troy bore in bearing me—it
is no alien’s blood that is trickling from the stem. Ah!
fly from this land of cruelty, fly from this shore of greed, 25
for I am Polydorus. Here I lie, pierced and buried by a
growing crop of spears that has shot into sharp javelins.’
“Then, indeed, terror, blank and irresolute, came over
me—I was aghast—my hair stood erect, my tongue
clove to my mouth. Yes, this Polydorus had long ago 30
been sent secretly by Priam, unhappy then as ever, with
a vast weight of gold, to be brought up by the king of
Thrace, when he had already come to despair of the arms
of Dardania, and saw the siege folding closer round his
city. When the power of the Trojans had been broken, 35
and their star set, the Thracian followed Agamemnon’s
fortunes, and joined the standard of the conqueror—every
tie of duty is snapped—he murders Polydorus, and
by violence possesses himself of the gold. Cursed lust of
gold, to what dost thou not force the heart of man? After
the cold shuddering had ceased to tingle in my marrow,
I lay this portent from heaven before the select senate
of our nation, and my father as their chief, and ask them 5
what they think. All are of the same mind, to depart from
the land of crime, to leave the home of violated friendship,
and indulge our fleet with the gales that wooed it. So we
give Polydorus a solemn funeral: earth is heaped high
upon his mound; there stand the altars reared to his 10
manes,[145] in all the woe of dark fillets and sad-coloured
cypress: and round them are daughters of Ilion, their
hair unbound in mourner fashion: we offer bowls of new
milk warm and frothing, and dishes of consecrated blood:
so we lay the spirit to rest in its grave, and with a loud 15
voice give the farewell call.[146]
“Then, when the deep first looks friendly, and the
winds offer a smooth sea, and the south’s gentle whisper invites
us to the main, our crews haul down their ships and
crowd the shore. We sail out of the harbour, land and 20
town leaving us fast. There is a sacred country with
water all round it, chief favourite of the mother of the
Nereids and the god of the Ægean. Once it drifted among
the coasts and seaboards round about, till the heavenly
archer in filial gratitude moored it to the rock of Myconos 25
and to Gyaros, and gave it to be a fixed dwelling-place
henceforth, and to laugh at the winds. Hither I sail:
here it is that in a sheltered harbour our weary crews
find gentlest welcome. We land, and worship the city of
Apollo. King Anius, king of men at once and priest of 30
Phœbus, his temples wreathed with fillets and hallowed
bay, comes running up; in Anchises he owns an old friend,
we knit hand to hand in hospitality and enter his roof.
“Behold me now worshipping the temple of the god,
built of ancient stone. ‘Give us, god of Thymbra,[147] a home 35
that we can call our own: give us weary men a walled
habitation, a posterity, a city that will last: keep from
ruin Troy’s second Pergamus, all that was left by the
Danaans and their ruthless Achilles! Who is our guide?
Whither wouldst thou have us go? where set up our
roof-tree? Vouchsafe us a response, great father, and
steal with power upon our souls!’
“Scarce had I spoken, when methought suddenly came 5
a trembling on the whole place, temple-gate and hallowed
bay, a stir in the mountain from height to depth, a muttering
from the tripod as the door of the shrine flew open.
We fall low on earth, and a voice is wafted to our ears:
‘Sons of Dardanus, strong to endure, the land which first 10
gave you birth from your ancestral tree, the same land
shall welcome you back, restored to its fruitful bosom:
seek for your old mother till you find her. There it is
that the house of Æneas shall set up a throne over all
nations, they, and their children’s children, and those 15
that shall yet come after.’ Thus Phœbus; and a mighty
burst succeeds of wild multitudinous joy, all asking as one
man what that city is—whither is Phœbus calling the
wanderers, and bidding them return. Then my father,
revolving the traditions of men of old: ‘Listen,’ he cries, 20
‘lords of Troy, and learn where your hopes are. Crete
lies in the midst of the deep, the island of mighty Jove.
There is Mount Ida, and there the cradle of our race.
It has a hundred peopled cities, a realm of richest plenty.
Thence it was that our first father, Teucer, if I rightly 25
recall what I have heard, came in the beginning to the
Rhœtean coast, and fixed on the site of empire: Ilion and
the towers of Pergamus had not yet been reared: the
people dwelt low in the valley. Hence came our mighty
mother, the dweller on Mount Cybele, and the symbols 30
of the Corybants, and the forest of Ida: hence the inviolate
mystery of her worship, and the lions harnessed
to the car of their queen. Come, then, and let us follow
where the ordinance of heaven points the way: let us
propitiate the winds, and make for the realm of Gnossus[148]—the 35
voyage is no long one—let but Jupiter go with us,
and the third day will land our fleet on the Cretan shore.’
He said, and offered on the altar the sacrifice that was
meet—a bull to Neptune, a bull to thee, beauteous
Apollo—a black lamb to the storm-wind, to the favouring
Zephyrs a white one.
“Fame flies abroad that King Idomeneus[149] has been
driven to quit his paternal realm, that the shores of Crete 5
are abandoned, houses cleared of the enemy, dwellings
standing empty to receive us. So we leave Ortygia’s
harbour, and fly along the deep, past Naxos’ bacchant
mountains, and green Donysa, Olearos, and snowy Paros,
and the Cyclades sprinkled over the waves, and seas thick 10
sown with islands. Up rises the seaman’s shout amid
strain and struggle—each encourages his comrades,
‘For Crete and our forefathers, ho!’ A wind gets up
from the stern and escorts us on our way, and at length we
are wafted to the Curetes’ time-honoured shore. 15
“And now the site is chosen, and I am rearing a city’s
walls and calling it Pergamia: the new nation is proud
to bear the name of the old: I bid them love hearth and
home, and raise and roof the citadel. Already the ships
had been hauled up high and dry on the shore, the crews 20
were busied with marriage and tilling the new country, and
I was appointing laws to live by, and houses to dwell in—when
suddenly there came on the human frame a wasting
sickness, shed from the whole tainted expanse of the sky,
a piteous blight on trees and crops, a year charged with 25
death. There were men leaving the lives they loved, or
dragging with them the bodies that burdened them,
while Sirius baked the fields into barrenness, the herbage
was parching, the corn was sickening, and would not
yield its food. Back again to Phœbus and his Ortygian 30
oracle over the sea my father bids us go, and there sue for
grace, asking the god to what haven he means to bring our
overtoiled fortunes, whence he orders us to seek for help
in our sufferings—whither to direct our course.
“It was night and all living things on earth were in the 35
power of sleep, when methought the sacred images of the
gods, the Phrygian household deities, whom I had borne
away with me from Troy, even from the midst of the blazing
town, stood before my eyes as I lay in slumber, clear in
a flood of light, where the full moon was streaming through
the windows of the house. Then they began to address
me thus, and relieve my trouble with words like these:
‘The answer which Apollo has ready to give you when you 5
reach Ortygia, he delivers here, sending us, see, of his own
motion to your very door. We, the followers of you and
your fortune since Dardanland sunk in flame—we,
the comrades of the fleet which you have been guiding over
the swollen main—we it is that will raise to the stars the 10
posterity that shall come after you, and crown your city
with imperial sway. Be it yours to build mighty walls
for mighty dwellers, and not abandon the task of flight for
its tedious length. Change your settlement: it is not this
coast that the Delian god moved you to accept—not in 15
Crete that Apollo bade you sit down. No, there is a
place—the Greeks call it Hesperia[150]—a land old in
story, strong in arms and in the fruitfulness of its soil—the
Œnotrians were its settlers. Now report says that
later generations have called the nation Italian from the 20
name of their leader. That is our true home: thence
sprung Dardanus and father Iasius, the first founder of our
line. Quick! rise, and tell the glad tale, which brooks no
question, to your aged sire; tell him that he is to look for
Corythus[151] and the country of Ausonia. Jupiter bars you 25
from the fields of Dicte.’[152] Thus astonished by visions
and voices of heaven—for sleep it was not: no—methought
I saw them face to face, their wreathed locks and
their features all in full view; and a cold sweat, too,
trickled down my whole frame. I leap from the bed, and 30
direct upturned hand and voice to heaven, and pour on the
hearth the undefiled libation. The sacrifice paid, with
joy I inform Anchises, and expound the whole from first to
last. He owns the double pedigree and the rival ancestors,
and his own new mistake about the two old countries. 35
Then he says: ‘My son, trained in the school of Troy’s
destiny, Cassandra’s was the one voice which used to
chant to me of this chance. Now I recollect, this was the
fortune she presaged as appointed for our line, calling often
for Hesperia, often for the land of Italy. But could anyone
think that Teucrians would ever reach the Hesperian
shore? Could Cassandra’s prophesying in those days gain
any one’s credence? Let us give way to Phœbus, and 5
follow the better course enjoined.’ He said, and with one
consent we gladly obey. So we quit this settlement as we
quitted the last, and leaving a few behind, set sail, and
make our hollow barque fly over the vast world of waters.
“Soon as the ships had gained the mid-sea, and land was 10
no more to be seen, sky on every side, on every side ocean,
then came a murky storm-cloud and stood over my head,
charged with night and winter tempest, and darkness
ruffled the billow’s crest. At once the winds lay the sea in
heaps, and the waters rise mountains high: a scattered 15
fleet, we are tossed upon the vast abyss: clouds enshrouded
the day, and dank night robbed us of the sky, while fire
flashes momently from the bursting clouds. We are
dashed out of our track, and wander blindly over the blind
waters. Nay, even Palinurus owns he cannot tell day 20
from night in a heaven like this, or recollect the footpath
in the watery wilderness. Three dreary suns, blotted by
blinding darkness, we wander on the deep: three nights
with never a star. On the fourth day, at last, land was
first seen to rise, and mountains with curling smoke 25
wreaths to dawn in distant prospect. Down drop the
sails: we rise on our oars: incessantly the crews, straining
every nerve, toss the foam and sweep the blue.
“Escaped from the sea, I am first welcomed by the coast
of the Strophades—the Strophades are known by the 30
name Greece gave them, islands in the great Ionian, which
fell Celæno[153] and the rest of the Harpies have made their
home, ever since Phineus’[154] doors were closed against
them, and fear drove them from the board which once fed
them. A more baleful portent than this—a fiercer plague 35
of heaven’s vengeance never crawled out of the Stygian
flood. Birds with maiden’s faces, a foul discharge, crooked
talons, and on their cheeks the pallor of eternal famine.
“On our arrival here, and entering the harbour, see! we
behold luxuriant herds of oxen grazing dispersedly in the
fields, and goats all along the grass, with none to tend them.
On we rush, sword in hand, inviting the gods and Jove
himself to share the spoil with us: and then on the winding 5
shore pile up couches for the banquet, and regale on the
dainty fare. But on a sudden, with an appalling swoop
from the hills, the Harpies are upon us, flapping their
wings with a mighty noise—they tear the food in pieces,
and spoil all with their filthy touch, while fearful screeches 10
blend with foul smells. Again, in a deep retreat under a
hollow rock, with trees and crisp foliage all about us, we set
out the board and put new fire on new altars. Again,
from another quarter of the sky, out of their hidden lair,
comes the troop, all rush and sound, flying about the prey 15
with their hooked talons, tainting the food with their
loathsome mouths. I give the word to my comrades to
seize their arms and wage war with the fell tribe. As I
ordered they do—they arrange their swords in hiding
about the grass, and cover and conceal their shields. So 20
soon as the noise of their swoop was heard along the winding
shore, Misenus, from his lofty watch-tower, makes the
hollow brass sound the alarm. On rush my comrades, and
essay a combat of a new sort, to spoil with their swords the
plumage of these foul sea-birds. But no violence will 25
ruffle their feathers, no wounds pierce their skin: they are
off in rapid flight high in the air, leaving their half-eaten
prey and their filthy trail behind them. One of them,
Celæno, perches on a rock of vast height—ill-boding
prophetess—and gives vent to words like these: ‘What, 30
is it war, for the oxen you have slain and the bullocks
you have felled, true sons of Laomedon? is it war that
_you_ are going to make on _us_, to expel us, blameless Harpies,
from our ancestral realm? Take then into your minds
these my words, and print them there. The prophecy 35
which the Almighty Sire imparted to Phœbus, Phœbus
Apollo to me, I, the chief of the Furies, make known to you.
For Italy, I know, you are crowding all sail: well, the winds
shall be at your call as you go to Italy, and you shall be
free to enter its harbours: but you shall not build walls
round your fated city, before fell hunger and your murderous
wrong against us drive you to gnaw and eat up your
very tables.’[155] She said, and her wings carried her swiftly 5
into the wood. But for my friends, a sudden terror curdled
their blood, their hearts died within them; no more arms—no,
we must sue for grace, with vows and prayers, be
the creatures goddesses or fell and loathsome birds. And
my father Anchises, spreading his hands from the shore, 10
invokes the mighty powers, and ordains meet sacrifice—‘Great
gods, forefend these menaces! Great gods, avert a
chance like this, and let your blessing shield your worshippers!’
Then he bids us tear our moorings from the shore,
and uncoil and stretch our ropes. 15
“The winds swell our sails, we scud over the foaming
surge, where gale and pilot bid us go. Now rising from
the wave are seen the woods of Zacynthos,[156] and Dulichium,
and Samos, and the tall cliffs of Neritos: we fly
past the rocks of Ithaca, Laertes’ realm, breathing a curse 20
for the land that nursed the hard heart of Ulysses. Soon,
too, the storm-capped peaks of Leucata dawn on the
view, and their Apollo, the terror of sailors. In our
weariness we make for him, and enter the little town:
our anchors are thrown from the prow, our sterns ranged 25
on the coast.
“So now, masters of the land beyond our hope, we perform
lustrations to Jove, and set the altars ablaze with
our vows, and solemnize the shores of Actium[157] with the
native games of Troy. My comrades strip, and practise 30
the wrestle of the old country, all slippery with oil: what
joy to have passed in safety by all those Argive cities,
and held on our flight through the heart of the foe!
Meanwhile the sun rolls round the mighty year, and the
north winds of icy winter roughen the sea. A shield of 35
hollow brass, once borne by the great Abas, I fasten up
full on the temple gate, and signalize the deed with a
verse: ‘These arms are the offering of Æneas, won from
his Danaan conquerors.’ Then I give the word to leave
the haven and take seat on the benches. Each vying with
each, the crews strike the water and sweep the marble
surface. In due course we hide from view the airy summits 5
of Phæacian[158] land, coast the shore of Epirus, enter
the Chaonian haven, and approach Buthrotum’s lofty
tower.
“Here a rumour of events past belief takes hold of our
ears—that Helenus, son of Priam, is reigning among
Grecian cities, lord of the wife and crown of Pyrrhus, 10
Achilles’ very son, and that Andromache had again been
given to a husband of her own nation. I was astounded:
my heart kindled with a strange longing to have speech
of my old friend, and learn all about this wondrous stroke
of fortune. So I advance into the country from the haven, 15
leaving fleet and coast behind, at the very time when
Andromache, before the city, in a grove, by the wave of
a mock Simois, was celebrating a yearly banquet, the
offering of sorrow, to the dead, and invoking her Hector’s
shade at a tomb called by his name, an empty mound of 20
green turf which she had consecrated to him with two
altars, that she might have the privilege of weeping.
Soon as her wild eye saw me coming with the arms of
Troy all about me, scared out of herself by the portentous
sight, she stood chained to earth while yet gazing—life’s 25
warmth left her frame—she faints, and after long time
scarce finds her speech:—‘Is it a real face that I see?
are those real lips that bring me news? Goddess-born,
are you among the living? or, if the blessed light has left
you, where is my Hector?’ She spoke—her tears flowed 30
freely, and the whole place was filled with her shrieks.
Few, and formed with labour, are the words I address to
her frenzied ear, broken and confused the accents I utter:—‘Aye,
I live, sure enough, and through the worst of
fortunes am dragging on life still. Doubt it not, your eye 35
tells you true. Alas! on what chance have you alit,
fallen from the height where your first husband throned
you? What smile has Fortune bright enough to throw
back on Hector’s Andromache? is it Pyrrhus’ bed you
are still tending?’ She dropped her eyes, and spoke with
bated breath:—‘O blest pre-eminently over all, Priam’s
virgin daughter,[159] bidden to die at the grave of her foe,
under Troy’s lofty walls! she that had not to brook the 5
chance of the lot, or, a slave and a captive, to touch the
bed of her lord and conqueror! While we, after the burning
of our city, carried over this sea and that, have stooped
to the scorn, the youthful insolence of Achilles’ heir, the
slave-mother of his child; he, after this, goes in quest of 10
Leda’s Hermione[160] and her Spartan alliance, and gives me
over to Helenus, the bondwoman to be the bondman’s
mate! Him, however, Orestes, fired by desperate passion
for a ravished bride, and maddened by the frenzy-fiend of
crime, surprises at unawares, and slays at his sire’s own 15
altar. At Neoptolemus’ death a portion of this kingdom
passed to Helenus, who called the fields Chaonian, and
the land itself Chaonia, from Chaon, their Trojan namesake,
and crowned, as you see, these heights with a new
Pergamus, the citadel of Ilion. But you—what wind, 20
what destiny has shaped your voyage? What god has
driven you on a coast which you know not to be ours?
What of the boy Ascanius? is he alive and breathing
upper air? he, whom you on that night at Troy—say,
can his boyish mind feel yet for the mother he has lost? 25
Is he enkindled at all to the valour of old days, the prowess
of a grown man, by a father like Æneas, an uncle like
Hector?’
“Such were the sorrows she kept pouring out, weeping
long and fruitlessly, when Priam’s noble son, Helenus, 30
presents himself from the city, with a train of followers,
and knows his friends again, and joyfully leads them to
his home, many a tear interrupting his utterance. As I
go on, I recognize a miniature Troy, a Pergamus copied
from the great one, a dry rivulet the namesake of Zanthus, 35
and throw my arms round a Scæan[161] gate. My
Trojan comrades, too, are made free of the friendly town.
The king made entertainment for them in spacious cloisters.
There, in the midst of the hall, they were pouring libations
from cups of wine, their meat served on gold, and
goblets in their hands.
“And now suppose a day past, and yet another day:
the breeze is inviting the sail, the swelling south inflating 5
the canvas, when I accost the prophet with these words,
and put to him the question I tell you:—‘True Trojan
born, heaven’s interpreter,[B] whose senses inform you of
the stars, and of the tongue of birds, and of the omens of
the flying wing, tell me now—for revelation has spoken 10
in auspicious words of the whole of my voyage, and all
the gods have urged me with one voice of power to make
for Italy, and explore that hidden clime. One alone, the
Harpy Celæno, forebodes a strange portent, too horrible
to tell, denouncing fierce vengeance and unnatural hunger. 15
Tell me then, what perils do I shun first, or what must
I observe to surmount the tremendous hardships before
me?’ Then Helenus first implores the favour of Heaven
by a solemn sacrifice of bullocks, and unbinds the fillet
from his consecrated brow, and with his own hand leads 20
me to thy temple, Phœbus, my mind lifted from its place
by the effluence of divine power; which done, that priestly
mouth chants these words from its prophetic lips:—
“‘Goddess-born—for that presages of mighty blessing
are attending you over the deep is clear beyond doubt—such 25
is the casting of the lot of fate by heaven’s king as
he rolls event after event—such the ordained succession—a
few things out of many, to make your voyage through
strange waters safer, your settlement in Ausonia’s haven
more assured. My speech shall unfold to you but a few—for 30
the rest the fatal sisters keep from Helenus’ knowledge,
and Saturnian Juno seals his lips. First then for
Italy, which you think close at hand, ready in your blindness
to rush into the harbours that neighbour us, the
length of a way where no way is severs you from its length 35
of territory. First must the oar be suppled in Trinacrian
waters, and your ships must traverse the expanse
of the Ausonian brine, and the spectral lake, and the isle
of Ææan Circe,[162] ere you can find a safe spot to build a
peaceful city. I will tell you the tokens, be it yours to 5
keep them lodged in your mind. When on an anxious
day, by the side of a sequestered river, you shall find an
enormous swine lying under the oaks on the bank with a
litter of thirty head just born, white herself through all
her lazy length, her children round her breasts as white 10
as she—that shall be the site of your city—that your
assured rest from toil and trouble. Nor need you shudder
beforehand at the prospect of gnawing your tables—the
fates will find you a path, and a prayer will bring you
Apollo. But as for these lands, and this line of the 15
Italian coast, which lies close at hand, and is washed by
the spray of our waters, this you must fly: the cities, one
and all, are peopled by enemies from Greece. Here the
Narycian Locrians have built them cities, and the Sallentine
fields have been occupied with an army by Lyctian 20
Idomeneus: here is the Melibœan chief Philoctetes’ tiny
town Patelia, with a strong wall to prop it. Further,
when your fleet stands moored on the other side the
water, and you build altars and pay vows on the coast,
shroud your head with the covering of a purple robe, lest, 25
while the hallowed fires are blazing, and the worship of
the gods is yet unfinished, some enemy’s eye should meet
yours, and make the omens void. Be this ritual custom
maintained by your comrades as by yourself: let the piety
of generations to come abide in this observance. But 30
when leaving Italy you are carried by the wind near the
Sicilian coast, and Pelorus’ narrow bars dimly open, make
for the left shore, for the left water, long as the circuit
round may be; avoid the right, its land and its seas.
This whole region by the forceful throes of a mighty convulsion—such 35
power of change is there in long centuries
of olden time—was rent in twain, so runs the story, the
two countries before having been one and unbroken; at
last the sea poured in violently between, and with its
waters cut off the Hesperian from the Sicilian side, washing
between fields and cities, their seaboards now parted,
with the waves of its narrow channel. There the right-hand
coast is held by Scylla,[163] the left by Charybdis, ever 5
hungering, who, at the bottom of the whirling abyss,
thrice a day draws the huge waves down her precipitous
throat, and in turn upheaves them to the sky, and lashes
the stars with their spray. But Scylla is confined in the
deep recesses of a cave, whence she thrusts out her mouths, 10
and drags vessels on to her rocks. At top, a human face,
a maiden with beauteous bosom; at bottom an enormous
sea-monster—dolphins’ tails attached to a belly all of
wolves’ heads. Better far wearily to round the goal of
Trinacrian[164] Pachynus and fetch about a tedious compass, 15
than once to have looked on the monster Scylla in her
enormous cave, and the rocks that echo with her sea-coloured
dogs. Moreover, if there be any foresight in
Helenus, if you give any credence to his prophetic tongue,
if his mind be a fountain of Apollo’s truth, one thing 20
there is, goddess-born, one thing outweighing all beside
which I will foreshow you, reiterating the warning again
and again—be Juno, great Juno, the first whose deity
you worship—to Juno chant your willing prayers: subdue
that mighty empress by suppliant offerings: thus at 25
last victorious you will leave Trinacria behind, and be
sped to the borders of Italy. When you are there at
length, and have come to the city of Cumæ, and the
haunted lake, and the woods that rustle over Avernus, you
will have sight of the frenzied prophetess, who, in the 30
cavern under the rock, chants her fateful strain, and commits
characters and words to the leaves of trees. All the
strains that the maid has written on these leaves she
arranges in order, shuts them up in her cave, and leaves
them there. They remain as she has left them, their 35
disposition unchanged. But, strange to say, when the
hinge is turned, and a breath of air moves the leaves,
and the opened door throws their light ranks into confusion,
henceforth she never troubles herself for a moment
to catch them as they fly about the cavern, to restore
them to their places, or to fit each strain to each. The
inquirers retire with their doubts unsolved, and a hatred
of the sibyl’s seat. Arrived here, let no cost of time or 5
delay weigh with you so much—though your comrades
should chide, and the voyage loudly call your sails
to sea, and a sheet-full of fair wind be there at your choice—but
that you visit the prophetess, and beg and pray
her herself to chant the oracle, loosing speech and tongue 10
with a ready will. She shall tell you of the nations of
Italy, and the wars of the future, and the way to shun or
stand the shock of every peril, and shall vouchsafe to
your prayer the boon of a prosperous voyage. Such are
the counsels which it is given you to receive from my 15
lips. Go on your way, and by your own actions lift to
heaven the greatness of Troy.’
“Soon as the seer had thus uttered these words of kindness,
he next orders massy gifts of gold and carved ivory
to be carried on shipboard, and stores in the keels, a 20
weight of silver and caldrons of Dodona, a cuirass of
chain-mail, three-threaded in gold, and a splendid helmet
with cone and flowing crest, the armour of Neoptolemus.
My father, too, has presents of his own. Horses, too, he
gives, and guides too; makes up the complement of oars, 25
and arms the crews. Meanwhile Anchises was giving the
word to rig the fleet, not to wear out the patience of a
fair wind. Him the interpreter of Phœbus addresses with
much pomp of courtesy: ‘Anchises, graced with the
proud privilege of Venus’ wedded love, the special care 30
of the gods, whom they twice interposed to save from the
fall of Pergamus, lo! there lies Ausonia’s land; for this
make all sail. Yet what have I said? This coast you
must needs sail past; far away yonder lies that part of
Ausonia which Apollo reveals to you. Go on your way,’ 35
cries he, ‘blessed in a son so duteous! Why proceed
further, and make the rising gales wait while I talk?’
As freely, too, Andromache, saddened with the grief of
parting, presents Ascanius with robes pictured with gold
embroidery, and a Phrygian scarf. She tires not in her
bounty, but loads him with gifts of needlework, and bespeaks
him thus: ‘Take, too, these, dear boy, to be a
memorial of what my hands can do—a token for long 5
years of the affection of Andromache, Hector’s wife. Yes,
take the last presents your kin can bestow, O sole surviving
image of my own Astyanax[165]! Those eyes are his
eyes, those hands his hands, that face his face, and he
would now be growing to manhood by your side, in bloom 10
like yours!’ Tears started forth, as I addressed my parting
words to the royal pair: ‘Live long and happily, as
those should for whom the book of Fortune is closed.
We, alas! are still called to turn page after page. You
have won your rest: you have no expanse of sea to 15
plough, no Ausonian fields to chase, still retiring as
you advance. Your eyes look upon a copy of the old
Xanthus, upon a Troy which your own hands have made—made,
I would hope and pray, with happier auspices, and
with less peril of a visit from Greece. If the day ever 20
arrive when I shall enter Tiber and the fields that neighbour
Tiber, and look on the walls which Fate has made
over to my people, then we will have our two kindred
cities, our two fraternal nations—the one in Epirus, the
other in Hesperia, with a common founder, Dardanus, 25
and a common history—animated by one heart, till they
come to be one Troy. Be this the destined care of our
posterity!’
“We push on over the sea under Ceraunia’s neighbouring
range, whence there is a way to Italy, the shortest 30
course through the water. Meantime the sun drops, and
the mountains are veiled in shadow. We stretch ourselves
gladly on the lap of earth by the water’s side, having cast
lots for the oars, and take our ease dispersedly along the
dry beach. Sleep’s dew sprinkles our wearied limbs. Not 35
yet was night’s car entering the middle of its circle, drawn
by the unflagging hours, when Palinurus, with no thought
of sloth, springs from his bed, explores every wind, and
catches with his ears the voices of the air. All the stars
he notes, as they swim through the silent sky, looking
round on Arcturus, and the showery Hyades, and the
twin Bears, and Orion in his panoply of gold. Soon as
he sees them all set in a heaven of calm, he gives a clear 5
signal from the stern. We break up our quarters, essay
our flight, and spread the wings of our sails. And now
the stars were fled, and Aurora[166] was just reddening in the
sky, when in the distance we see the dim hills and low
plains of Italy. ‘Italy!’ Achates was the first to cry. 10
Italy our crews welcome with a shout of rapture. Then
my father, Anchises, wreathed a mighty bowl with a garland,
and filled it with wine, and called on the gods, standing
upon the tall stern: ‘Ye powers that rule sea and
land and weather, waft us a fair wind and a smooth passage, 15
and breathe auspiciously!’ The breeze we wished
for freshens; the harbour opens as we near it, and the
temple of Minerva is seen crowning the height. The crews
furl the sails, and turn their prows coastward. The harbour
is curved into an arch by the easterly waves; a 20
barrier of cliffs on each side foams again with the briny
spray; between them the haven lies concealed; the towery
rocks let down their arms like two walls, and the temple
retires from the shore. Here on the grass I saw four
horses, the first token of heaven’s will, browsing the 25
meadow at large, of snowy whiteness. And Anchises, my
father, breaks forth: ‘War is on thy front, land of the
stranger; for war thy horses are prepared; war is threatened
by the cattle we see. Still, these beasts no less are trained
one day to stoop to the car, and carry harness and curb 30
in harmony with the yoke; yes,’ cries he, ‘there is hope
of peace, too.’ With that we make our prayers to the
sacred majesty of Pallas, queen of clanging arms, the first
to welcome us in the hour of our joy; and, according to
Helenus’ order, that order which he gave so earnestly, we 35
duly solemnize to Juno of Argos the prescribed honours.
Then, without dallying, soon as our vows were paid in
course, we turn landward the horns of our covered sail-yards,
and leave the homes of the sons of Greece, and
the fields we could not trust. Next we sight the bay of
Tarentum, the city, if legend say true, of Hercules; right
against us rises the goddess of Lacinium, and the towers
of Caulon, and Scylaceum, wrecker of ships. Then, in 5
the distance, from the surge is seen Trinacrian Ætna;
and the heavy groaning of the sea and the beating of the
rocks is heard from afar, and broken voices on the beach,
and the depths leap up to sight, and the sands are in a
turmoil with the surge. Then, my father, Anchises: ‘No 10
doubt this is that Charybdis; these the cliffs, these the
frightful rocks of Helenus’ song. Snatch us from them,
comrades; rise on your oars as one man.’ They do no
less than bidden; first of all Palinurus turned the plashing
prow to the waters on the left; for the left makes the 15
whole fleet, oars, winds, and all. Up we go to heaven on
the arched back of the wave; down again, as the water
gives way under us, we sink to the place of death below.
Thrice the rocks shouted in our ears deep in their stony
hollows; twice we saw the foam dashed up, and the stars 20
all dripping. Meanwhile, tired and spent, we lose wind
and sunlight at once, and, in our ignorance of the way,
float to the land of the Cyclops.
“There is a haven, sheltered from the approach of the
winds, and spacious, were that all; but Ætna is near, 25
thundering with appalling crashes; at one time it hurls
to the sky a black cloud, a smoky whirlwind of soot and
glowing ashes, and upheaves balls of fire, and licks the
stars; at another it raises rocks, torn from the mountain’s
bowels, and whirls heaps of molten stones into the air 30
with a groan, and boils up from its very foundations.
The legend is, that the body of Enceladus,[167] blasted by
lightning, is kept down by this mighty weight, and that
the giant bulk of Ætna, piled on him, breathes forth penal
fire through passages which that fire has burst; and ever, 35
as he shifts his side from weariness, all Trinacria quakes
and groans, and draws up a curtain of smoke over the
sky. That night, in the shelter of the woods, we endure
the visitation of monstrous portents, yet see not what
cause produces the sound. For there was no starlight,
no sky, bright with a heaven of constellations, but the
firmament was dim and murky, and dead night was keeping
the moon in a prison of storm-clouds. 5
“And now the next day was breaking in early dawn,
and Aurora had drawn off the dewy shadow from the
sky, when suddenly from the woods comes forth the
strange figure of a man unknown, in piteous trim—a
picture completed by Famine’s master-stroke, and 10
stretches his hands in supplication to the shore. We
look back: there was filth to make us shudder, a length
of beard, a covering fastened with thorns; yet the rest
betokened a Greek, who had once been sent to Troy in
the army of his nation. As for him, when he saw from 15
afar the dress of Dardan land and the arms of Troy, for
a moment he faltered, scared by the sight, and checked
his steps; soon he ran headlong to the shore, crying and
praying: ‘By the stars I adjure you, by the powers
above, by this blessed light of heaven we breathe, take 20
me with you, Teucrians; carry me off to any land you
will; this will be enough. I know I am one of the Danaan
crews; I own that I carried war into your Trojan homes;
for which, if the guilt of my crime is so black, fling me
piecemeal to the waves, drown me deep in the great sea. 25
If I am to die, there will be pleasure in dying by the hands
of men.’ His speech was over, and he was clinging about
us, clasping our knees, and writhing round them. We
encourage him to tell us who he is, of what race sprung,
to reveal what fortune has since made him its sport. My 30
father, Anchises, after no long pause, himself gives his
hand to the youth, and reassures him by the powerful
pledge. He at length lays aside his fear, and speaks as
follows:—
“‘I come from Ithaca, a comrade of the ill-starred 35
Ulysses, my name Achemenides. I went to Troy, leaving
my father, Adamastus, who was poor. Would that his
lot had remained mine! Here, in their hurry to leave
the door of the slaughterhouse, my comrades forgot me
and so left me behind in the Cyclops’ enormous den. It
is a house of gore and bloody feasting, deep, and dark,
and huge; its master towers aloft, and strikes the stars
on high (ye gods, remove from the earth a plague like 5
this!), whom no eye rests on with pleasure, no tongue dare
accost. The flesh of wretched men and their black blood
are the food he feeds on. These eyes saw, when two
bodies from our company, caught by his huge hand, as
he threw back his head in the midst of the den, were 10
being brained against the rock, and the floor was plashed
and swimming with blood—they saw, when he was
crunching their limbs, dripping with black gore, and the
warm joints were quivering under his teeth. He did it,
but not unpunished. Ulysses was not the man to brook 15
a deed like this; the brain of Ithaca was not wanting to
itself when the need was so great. For soon as, gorged
with his food and buried in wine, he bent and dropped
his neck, and lay all along the den in unmeasured length,
belching out gore in his sleep, and gobbets mixed with 20
bloody wine; then we, having made our prayer to the
great gods and drawn our places by lot, surround him on
all sides as one man, and with a sharp weapon bore out
his eye, that vast eye, which used to lie single and sunk
under his grim brow,[C] and thus at last take triumphant 25
vengeance for our comrades’ shades. But fly, unhappy
men, fly, and tear your cable from the shore. For hideous
and huge as is Polyphemus, folding in his den his woolly
flocks and pressing their udders, as hideous and huge are
a hundred others that dwell everywhere along this coast, 30
monster Cyclops, and stalk over the tall mountains. It
is now the third moon, whose horns are filling out with
light, that I am dragging along my life in the woods;
among the lonely lairs where wild beasts dwell, and looking
forth on the huge Cyclops as they stalk from rock to 35
rock, and trembling at their tread and at the sound of
their voices. My wretched fare, berries and stony cornels,
is supplied by the boughs, and herbage uprooted yields
me food. As I turned my eyes all about, this fleet of
yours at last I saw advancing to the shore; with this, 5
prove it what might, I cast in my lot; it is enough to
have escaped this race of monsters. Sooner do you destroy
this life by any death you please.’
“Scarce had he ended, when on the mountain-top we
see the giant himself, moving along with his enormous 10
bulk among his cattle, and making for the well-known
shore—a monster dreadful, hideous, huge, with his eye
extinguished. A pine, lopped by his own hand, guides
him and steadies his footsteps. His woolly sheep accompany
him—there is his sole pleasure, the solace of his 15
suffering. After he had touched the waves of the deep
and come to the sea, he washes with its water the gore
that trickles from his scooped-out eye, gnashing his teeth
with a groan; and he steps through the sea, now at main
height, while the wave has not yet wetted his tall sides. 20
We, in alarm, hasten our flight from the place, taking on
board the suppliant, who had thus made good his claim,
and silently cut the cable; then throw ourselves forward,
and with emulous oars sweep along the sea. He perceived
it, and turned his steps towards the noise he heard. 25
But when he finds he has no means of grasping at us with
his hand, no power of keeping pace with the Ionian waves
in pursuit, he raises a gigantic roar, at which the sea and
all its waters trembled inwardly, and the land of Italy
shuddered to its core, and Ætna bellowed through her 30
winding caverns. But the tribe of the Cyclops, startled
from wood and lofty mountain, rush to the haven and
fill the shore. There we see them standing, each with
the empty menace of his grim eye, the brethren of Ætna,
lifting their tall heads to heaven, a dire assemblage—like 35
as on some tall peak, skyey oaks or cone-bearing cypresses
stand together, a lofty forest of Jupiter, or a grove of
Diana. Headlong our crews are driven by keen terror to
fling out the ropes anywhither, and stretch their sails to
the winds that would catch them. On the other hand,
Helenus’ warning bids them not to hold on their way
between Scylla and Charybdis, a passage on either side
removed but a hair’s breadth from death; so our purpose 5
stands to spread our sails backward. When lo! the north
wind is upon us, sped from Pelorus’ narrow strait. On I
fly past Pantagia’s mouth of living rock, and the bay of
Megara, and low-lying Thapsus. Such were the coasts
named to us by Achemenides, as he retraced his former 10
wanderings—Achemenides, comrade of the ill-starred
Ulysses.
“Stretched before the Sicanian bay lies an island, over
against Plemyrium the billowy—former ages named it
Ortygia. Hither, the legend is, Alpheus, the river of 15
Elis, made himself a secret passage under the sea; and
he now, through thy mouth, Arethusa,[168] blends with the
waters of Sicily. Obedient to command, we worship
the mighty gods of the place; and from thence I pass the
over-rich soil of Helorus the marshy. Hence we skirt the 20
tall crags and jutting rocks of Pachynus, and Camarina is
seen in the distance,—Camarina, which the oracle gave
no man leave to disturb, and the plains of Gela, and Gela
itself, mighty city, called from the stream that laves it.
Next Acragas the craggy displays from afar its lofty 25
walls, one day the breeder of generous steeds. Thee,
too, I leave, by favour of the winds, palmy Selinus, and
pick my way through the sunk rocks that make Lilybæum’s
waters perilous. Hence Drepanum receives me,
with its haven and its joyless coast. Here, after so many 30
storms on the sea had done their worst, woe is me! I
lose him that had made every care and danger light, my
father, Anchises. Here, best of sires, you leave your son,
lone and weary, you, who had been snatched from those
fearful dangers, alas! in vain. Helenus, the seer, among 35
the thousand horrors he foretold, warned me not of
this agony; no, nor dread Celæno. This was my last
suffering, this the goal of my long journeyings. It
was on parting hence that Heaven drove me on your
coast.”
Thus father Æneas, alone, amid the hush of all around,
was recounting Heaven’s destined dealings, and telling of
his voyages; and now, at length, he was silent, made an 5
end, and took his rest.
BOOK IV
But the queen, pierced long since by love’s cruel shaft,
is feeding the wound with her life-blood, and wasting under
a hidden fire. Many times the hero’s own worth comes
back to her mind, many times the glory of his race; his
every look remains imprinted on her breast, and his every 5
word, nor will trouble let soothing sleep have access to
her frame.
The dawn-goddess[169] of the morrow was surveying the
earth with Phœbus’ torch in her hand, and had already
withdrawn the dewy shadow from the sky, when she, 10
sick of soul, thus bespoke the sister whose heart was one
with hers:—“Anna, my sister, what dreams are these
that confound and appal me! Who is this new guest
that has entered our door! What a face and carriage!
What strength of breast and shoulders! I do believe—it 15
is no mere fancy—that he has the blood of gods in his
veins. An ignoble soul is known by the coward’s brand.
Ah! by what fates he has been tossed! What wars he
was recounting, every pang of them borne by himself!
Were it not the fixed, immovable purpose of my mind 20
never to consent to join myself with any in wedlock’s
bands, since my first love played me false and made me
the dupe of death—had I not been weary of bridal bed
and nuptial torch, perchance I might have stooped to
this one reproach. Anna—for I will own the truth—since 25
the fate of Sychæus, my poor husband—since the
sprinkling of the gods of my home with the blood my
brother shed, he and he only has touched my heart and
shaken my resolution till it totters. I recognize the
traces of the old flame. But first I would pray that earth 30
may yawn for me from her foundations, or the all-powerful
sire hurl me thunder-stricken to the shades, to the wan
shades of Erebus[170] and abysmal night, ere I violate thee,
my woman’s honour, or unknit the bonds thou tiest.
He who first wedded me, he has carried off my heart—let 5
him keep it all his own, and retain it in his grave.”
Thus having said, she deluged her bosom with a burst of
tears.
Anna replies:—“Sweet love, dearer than the light to
your sister’s eye, are you to pine and grieve in loneliness 10
through life’s long spring, nor know aught of a mother’s
joy in her children, nor of the prizes Venus gives? Think
you that dead ashes and ghosts low in the grave take this
to heart? Grant that no husbands have touched your
bleeding heart in times gone by, none now in Libya, none 15
before in Tyre; yes, Iarbas has been slighted, and the
other chieftains whom Afric, rich in triumphs, rears as
its own—will you fight against a welcome, no less than
an unwelcome passion? Nor does it cross your mind in
whose territories you are settled? On one side the cities 20
of the Gætulians, a race invincible in war, and the Numidians
environ you, unbridled as their steeds, and the
inhospitable Syrtis; on another, a region unpeopled by
drought, and the widespread barbarism of the nation of
Barce. What need to talk of the war-cloud threatening 25
from Tyre, and the menaces of our brother? It is under
Heaven’s auspices, I deem, and by Juno’s blessing, that
the vessels of Ilion have made this voyage hither. What
a city, my sister, will ours become before your eyes!
what an empire will grow out of a marriage like this! 30
With the arms of the Teucrians at its back, to what a
height will the glory of Carthage soar! Only be it yours
to implore the favour of Heaven, and having won its
acceptance, give free course to hospitality and weave a
chain of pleas for delay, while the tempest is raging its 35
full on the sea, and Orion, the star of rain, while his ships
are still battered, and the rigour of the sky still unyielding.”
By these words she added fresh fuel to the fire of
love, gave confidence to her wavering mind, and loosed
the ties of woman’s honour.
First they approach the temples and inquire for pardon
from altar to altar; duly they slaughter chosen sheep to
Ceres the lawgiver, to Phœbus, and to father Lyæus[171]—above 5
all to Juno, who makes marriage bonds her care.
Dido herself, in all her beauty, takes a goblet in her
hand, and pours it out full between the horns of a heifer
of gleaming white, or moves majestic in the presence of
the gods towards the richly-laden altars, and solemnizes 10
the day with offerings, and gazing greedily on the victims’
opened breasts, consults the entrails yet quivering with
life. Alas! how blind are the eyes of seers! What can
vows, what can temples do for the madness of love? All
the while a flame is preying on the very marrow of her 15
bones, and deep in her breast a wound keeps noiselessly
alive. She is on fire, the ill-fated Dido, and in her madness
ranges the whole city through, like a doe from an
arrow-shot, whom, unguarded in the thick of the Cretan
woods, a shepherd, chasing her with his darts, has pierced 20
from a distance, and left the flying steel in the wound,
unknowing of his prize; she at full speed scours the
forests and lawns of Dicte; the deadly reed still sticks
in her side. Now she leads Æneas with her through the
heart of the town, and displays the wealth of Sidon, and 25
the city built to dwell in. She begins to speak, and stops
midway in the utterance. Now, as the day fades, she
seeks again the banquet of yesterday, and once more in
frenzy asks to hear of the agonies of Troy, and hangs
once more on his lips as he tells the tale. Afterwards, 30
when the guests are gone, and the dim moon in turn is
hiding her light, and the setting stars invite to slumber,
alone she mourns in the empty hall, and presses the
couch he has just left; him far away she sees and hears,
herself far away; or holds Ascanius long in her lap, spellbound 35
by his father’s image, to cheat, if she can, her ungovernable
passion. The towers that were rising rise no
longer; the youth ceases to practise arms, or to make
ready havens and bulwarks for safety in war; the works
are broken and suspended, the giant frowning of the
walls, and the engine level with the sky.
Soon as Jove’s loved wife saw that she was so mastered
by the plague, and that good name could not stand in 5
the face of passion, she, the daughter of Saturn, bespeaks
Venus thus:—“Brilliant truly is the praise, ample the
spoils you are carrying off, you and your boy—great and
memorable the fame, if the plots of two gods have really
conquered one woman. No; I am not so blind either 10
to your fears of my city, to your suspicions of the open
doors of my stately Carthage. But when is this to end?
or what calls now for such terrible contention? Suppose
for a change we establish perpetual peace and a firm marriage
bond. You have gained what your whole heart 15
went to seek. Dido is ablaze with love, and the madness
is coursing through her frame. Jointly then let us rule
this nation, each with full sovereignty; let her stoop to
be the slave of a Phrygian husband, and make over her
Tyrians in place of dowry to your control.” 20
To her—for she saw that she had spoken with a feigned
intent, meaning to divert the Italian empire to the coast of
Libya—Venus thus replied:—“Who would be so mad
as to spurn offers like these, and prefer your enmity to your
friendship, were it but certain that the issue you name 25
would bring good fortune in its train? But I am groping
blindly after destiny—whether it be Jupiter’s will that
the Tyrians and the voyagers from Troy should have one
city—whether he would have the two nations blended
and a league made between them. You are his wife; it 30
is your place to approach him by entreaty. Go on, I
will follow.” Imperial Juno rejoined thus:—“That task
shall rest with me. Now, in what way our present purpose
can be contrived, lend me your attention, and I will explain
in brief. Æneas and Dido, poor sufferer! are 35
proposing to go hunting in the forest, when first to-morrow’s
sun displays his rising, and with his beams uncurtains
the globe. On them I will pour from above a black
storm of mingled rain and hail, just when the horsemen
are all astir, and spreading their toils before the wood-walks,
and the whole heaven shall be convulsed with
thunder. The train shall fly here and there, and be lost
in the thick darkness. Dido and the Trojan chief shall 5
find themselves in the same cave. I will be there, and,
if I may count on your sanction, will unite her to him in
lasting wedlock, and consecrate her his for life. Thus
shall Hymen[172] give us his presence.” The Queen of
Cythera makes no demur, but nods assent, smiling at the 10
trick she has found out.
Meanwhile Aurora has risen, and left the ocean. Rising
with the day-star, the chivalry of Carthage streams
through the gates, their woven toils, and nets, and hunting-spears
tipped with broad iron, and Massylian horsemen 15
hurry along, and a force of keen-scented hounds.
There are the Punic princes, waiting for the queen, who
still lingers in her chamber; there stands her palfrey,
conspicuous in purple and gold, fiercely champing the
foaming bit. At length she comes forth, with a mighty 20
train attending, a Tyrian scarf round her, itself surrounded
by an embroidered border; her quiver of gold, her hair
knotted up with gold, her purple robe fastened with a
golden clasp. The Phrygian train, too, are in motion,
and Iulus, all exultation. Æneas himself, comely beyond 25
all the rest, adds his presence to theirs, and joins the procession;
like Apollo, when he leaves his Lycian winter-seat
and the stream of Xanthus, and visits Delos, his
mother’s isle, and renews the dance; while with mingled
voices round the altar shout Cretans and Dryopians, and 30
tattooed Agathyrsians. The god in majesty walks on
the heights of Cynthus, training his luxuriant hair with the
soft pressure of a wreath of leaves, and twining it with
gold; his arrows rattle on his shoulders. Not with less
ease than he moved Æneas; such the beauty that sparkles 35
in that peerless countenance. When they reach the high
mountains and the pathless coverts, see! the wild goats,
dropping from the tops of the crags, have run down the
slopes; in another quarter the deer are scouring the open
plains, massing their herds as they fly in a whirlwind of
dust, and leaving the mountains. But young Ascanius
is in the heart of the glens, exulting in his fiery courser.
Now he passes one, now another of his comrades at full 5
speed, and prays that in the midst of such spiritless game
he may be blest with the sight of a foaming boar, or that
a tawny lion may come down the hill. Meantime the sky
begins to be convulsed with a mighty turmoil; a storm-cloud
follows of mingled rain and hail. The Tyrian train, 10
all in confusion, and the chivalry of Troy, and the hope
of Dardania, Venus’ grandson, have sought shelter in
their terror up and down the country, some here, some
there. The streams run in torrents down the hills. Dido
and the Trojan chief find themselves in the same cave. 15
Earth, the mother of all, and Juno give the sign.
Lightnings blaze, and heaven flashes in sympathy with
the bridal; and from mountain-tops the nymphs give the
nuptial shout. That day was the birthday of death, the
birthday of woe. Henceforth she has no thought for the 20
common eye or the common tongue; it is not a stolen passion
that Dido has now in her mind—no, she calls it
marriage; that name is the screen of her sin.
Instantly Fame[173] takes her journey through Libya’s great
cities—Fame, a monster surpassed in speed by none; her 25
nimbleness lends her life, and she gains strength as she
goes. At first fear keeps her low; soon she rears herself
skyward, and treads on the ground, while her head is
hidden among the clouds. Earth, her parent, provoked to
anger against the gods, brought her forth, they say, the 30
youngest of the family of Cœus[174] and Enceladus—swift
of foot and untiring of wing, a portent terrible and vast—who,
for every feather on her body has an ever-wakeful
eye beneath, marvellous to tell, for every eye a loud tongue
and mouth, and a pricked-up ear. At night she flies midway 35
between heaven and earth, hissing through the darkness,
nor ever yields her eyes to the sweets of sleep. In
the daylight she sits sentinel on a high house-top, or on a
lofty turret, and makes great cities afraid; as apt to cling
to falsehood and wrong as to proclaim the truth. So
then she was filling the public ear with a thousand tales—things
done and things never done alike the burden of
her song—how that Æneas, a prince of Trojan blood, had 5
arrived at Carthage, a hero whom lovely Dido deigned to
make her husband, and now in luxurious ease they were
wearing away the length of winter together, forgetful of
the crowns they wore or hoped to wear, and enthralled by
unworthy passion. Such are the tales the fiendlike goddess 10
spreads from tongue to tongue. Then, in due course, she
turns her steps to King Iarbas, and inflames him with her
rumours, and piles his indignation high. He, the son of
Ammon, from the ravished embrace of a Garamantian
nymph, built within his broad realms a hundred temples 15
to Jove, and in each temple an altar; there he had consecrated
an ever-wakeful fire, the god’s unsleeping sentry,
a floor thick with victims’ blood, and doors wreathed with
particoloured garlands. And he, frenzied in soul, and
stung by the bitter tidings, is said, as he stood before the 20
altars, with the majesty of Heaven all around him, to have
prayed long and earnestly to Jove with upturned hands:—“Jove,
the Almighty, to whom in this my reign the
Moorish race, feasting on embroidered couches, pour out
the offering of the vintage, seest thou this? or is our dread 25
of thee, Father, when thou hurlest thy lightnings, an idle
panic? are those aimless fires in the clouds that appal us?
have their confused rumblings no meaning? See here:
a woman, who, wandering in our territories, bought leave
to build a petty town, to whom we made over a strip of 30
land for tillage, with its rights of lordship, she has rejected
an alliance with us, and received Æneas into her kingdom,
to be its lord and hers. And now that second Paris, with
his emasculate following, a Mæonian[175] cap supporting his
chin and his essenced hair, is enjoying his prize, while we, 35
forsooth, are making offerings to temples of thine, and
keeping alive an idle rumour.”
Thus as he prayed, his hands grasping the altar, the
almighty one heard him, and turned his eyes to the queenly
city and the guilty pair, lost to their better fame. Then
thus he bespeaks Mercury, and gives him a charge like this:—“Go,
haste, my son, summon the Zephyrs, and float on
thy wings; address the Dardan chief, who is now dallying 5
in Tyrian Carthage, and giving no thought to the city
which Destiny makes his own; carry him my commands
through the flying air. It was not a man like that whom
his beauteous mother promised us in him, and on the
strength of her word twice rescued him from the sword of 10
Greece. No, he was to be one who should govern Italy—Italy,
with its brood of unborn empires, and the war-cry
bursting from its heart—who should carry down a line
sprung from the grand fountain-head of Teucer’s blood,
and should force the whole world to bow to the laws[176] he 15
makes. If he is fired by no spark of ambition for greatness
like this, and will not rear a toilsome fabric for his own
praise, is it a father’s heart that grudges Ascanius the hills
of Rome? What is he building? What does he look to
in lingering on among a nation of enemies, with no thought 20
for the great Ausonian family, or for the fields of Lavinium?
Away with him to sea! This is our sentence;
thus far be our messenger.”
Jove had spoken, and Mercury was preparing to execute
the great sire’s command: first he binds to his feet his 25
sandals, all of gold, which carry him, uplifted by their
pinions, over sea no less than land, with the swiftness of
the wind that wafts him. Then he takes his rod—the
rod with which he is wont to call up pale spectres from the
place of death, to send others on their melancholy way to 30
Tartarus, to give sleep or take it away, and to open the
eyes when death is past. With this in hand, he drives the
winds before him, and makes a path through the sea of
clouds. And now in his flight he espies the crest and the
tall sides of Atlas the rugged, who with his top supports 35
the sky—Atlas, whose pine-crowned dead, ever wreathed
with dark clouds, is buffeted by wind and rain. A mantle
of snow wraps his shoulders; rivers tumble from his hoary
chin, and his grisly beard is stiff with ice. Here first
Cyllene’s god poised himself on his wings and rested; then
from his stand stooping his whole body, he sent himself
headlong to the sea, like a bird which haunting the coast and
the fishy rocks flies low, close to the water. Even so was 5
he flying between earth and heaven, between Libya’s
sandy coast and the winds that swept it, leaving his
mother’s father behind, himself Cyllene’s progeny.
Soon as his winged feet alit among the huts of Carthage,
he sees Æneas founding towers and making houses new. 10
A sword was at his side, starred with yellow jaspers, and
a mantle drooped from his shoulders, ablaze with Tyrian
purple—a costly gift which Dido had made, varying the
web with threads of gold. Instantly he assails him:—“And
are you at a time like this laying the foundations of 15
stately Carthage, and building, like a fond husband, your
wife’s goodly city, forgetting, alas! your own kingdom
and the cares that should be yours? It is no less than the
ruler of the gods who sends me down to you from his
bright Olympus—he whose nod sways heaven and earth; 20
it is he that bids me carry his commands through the flying
air. What are you building? what do you look to in
squandering your leisure in Libyan land? If you are fired
by no spark of ambition for the greatness in your view,
and will not rear a toilsome fabric for your own praise, 25
think of Ascanius rising into youth, think of Iulus, your
heir and your hope, to whom you owe the crown of Italy
and the realm of Rome.” With these words Cyllene’s
god quitted mortal sight ere he had well ceased to speak,
and vanished away from the eye into unsubstantial air. 30
The sight left Æneas dumb and aghast indeed; his hair
stood shudderingly erect; his speech clave to his throat.
He burns to take flight and leave the land of pleasure, as
his ears ring with the thunder of Heaven’s imperious warning.
What—ah! what is he to do? with what address 35
can he now dare to approach the impassioned queen?
what first advances can he employ? And thus he despatches
his rapid thought hither and thither hurrying
it east and west, and sweeping every corner of the field.
So balancing, at last he thought this judgment the best.
He calls Mnestheus and Sergestus and brave Serestus;
bids them quietly get ready the fleet, muster the crews on
the shore, with their arms in their hands, hiding the reason 5
for so sudden a change. Meantime he, while Dido, kindest
of friends, is in ignorance, deeming love’s chain too strong
to be snapped, will feel his way, and find what are the
happiest moments for speech, what the right hold to take
of circumstance. At once all gladly obey his command, 10
and are busy on the tasks enjoined.
But the queen (who can cheat a lover’s senses?) scented
the plot, and caught the first sound of the coming stir, alive
to fear in the midst of safety. Fame, as before, the same
baleful fiend, whispered in her frenzied ear that the fleet 15
was being equipped and the voyage got ready. She
storms in impotence of soul, and, all on fire, goes raving
through the city, like a Mænad[177] starting up at the rattle
of the sacred emblems, when the triennial orgies lash her
with the cry of Bacchus, and Cithæron’s yell calls her into 20
the night. At length she thus bespeaks Æneas, unaddressed
by him:—
“To hide, yes, hide your enormous crime, perfidious
wretch, did you hope _that_ might be done—to steal away
in silence from my realm? Has our love no power to keep 25
you? has our troth, once, plighted, none, nor she whom
you doom to a cruel death, your Dido? Nay, are you
fitting out your fleet with winter’s sky overhead, and hastening
to cross the deep in the face of all the northern winds,
hard-hearted as you are? Why, suppose you were not 30
seeking a strange clime and a home you know not—suppose
old Troy were still standing—would even Troy draw
you to seek her across a billowy sea? Flying, and from
me! By the tears I shed, and by your plighted hand,
since my own act, alas! has left me nought else to plead—by 35
our union—by the nuptial rites thus prefaced—if
I have ever deserved well of you, or aught of mine ever
gave you pleasure—have pity on a falling house, and strip
off, I conjure you, if prayer be not too late, the mind that
clothes you. It is owing to you that the Libyan tribes and
the Nomad chiefs hate me, that my own Tyrians are estranged;
owing to you, yes, you, that my woman’s honour
has been put out, and that which was my one passport 5
to immortality, my former fame. To whom are you abandoning
a dying woman, my guest?—since the name of
husband has dwindled to that. Why do I live any longer?—to
give my brother Pygmalion time to batter down
my walls, or Iarbas the Moor to carry me away captive? 10
Had I but borne any offspring of you before your flight,
were there some tiny Æneas to play in my hall, and remind
me of you, though but in look, I should not then feel utterly
captive and forlorn.”
She ceased. He all the while, at Jove’s command, was 15
keeping his eyes unmoved, and shutting up in his heart his
great love. At length he answers in brief:—“Fair queen,
name all the claims to gratitude you can, I shall never
gainsay one, nor will the thought of Elissa[178] ever be unwelcome
while memory lasts, while breath animates this 20
frame. A few words I will say, as the case admits. I
never counted—do not dream it—on stealthily concealing
my flight. I never came with a bridegroom’s torch
in my hand, nor was this the alliance to which I agreed.
For me, were the Fates to suffer me to live under a star 25
of my own choosing, and to make with care the terms I
would, the city of Troy, first of all the dear remains of what
was mine, would claim my tendance. Priam’s tall roof-tree
would still be standing, and my hand would have
built a restored Pergamus, to solace the vanquished. But 30
now to princely Italy Grynean[179] Apollo, to Italy his Lycian
oracles bid me repair. There is my heart, there my fatherland.
If you are riveted here by the sight of your stately
Carthage, a daughter of Phœnicia by a Libyan town,
why, I would ask, should jealousy forbid Teucrians to 35
settle in Ausonian land? We, like you, have the right of
looking for a foreign realm. There is my father Anchises,
oft as night’s dewy shades invest the earth, oft as the fiery
stars arise, warning me in dreams and appalling me by his
troubled presence. There is my son Ascanius, and the
wrongs heaped on his dear head every day that I rob him
of the crown of Hesperia, and of the land that fate makes
his. Now, too, the messenger of the gods, sent down from 5
Jove himself (I swear by both our lives) has brought me
orders through the flying air. With my own eyes I saw
the god in clear daylight entering the walls, and took in his
words with the ears that hear you now. Cease then to
harrow up both our souls by your reproaches: my quest 10
of Italy is not of my own motion.”
Long ere he had done this speech she was glaring at him
askance, rolling her eyes this way and that, and scanning
the whole man with her silent glances, and thus she bursts
forth all ablaze:—“No goddess was mother of yours, no 15
Dardanus the head of your line, perfidious wretch!—no,
your parent was Caucasus, rugged and craggy, and
Hyrcanian tigresses put their breasts to your lips. For
why should I suppress aught? or for what worse evil hold
myself in reserve? Did he groan when I wept? did he 20
move those hard eyes? did he yield and shed tears, or
pity her that loved him? What first? what last? Now,
neither Juno, queen of all, nor Jove, the almighty Father,
eyes us with impartial regard. Nowhere is there aught
to trust—nowhere. A shipwrecked beggar, I welcomed 25
him, and madly gave him a share of my realm; his lost
fleet, his crews, I brought back from death’s door. Ah!
Fury sets me on fire, and whirls me round! Now, prophet
Apollo, now the Lycian oracles. Now the messenger of
the gods, sent down by Jove himself, bears his grim bidding 30
through the air! Aye, of course, that is the employment
of the powers above, those the cares that break their
repose! I retain not your person, nor refute your talk.
Go, chase Italy with the winds at your back; look for
realms with the whole sea between you. I have hope that 35
on the rocks midway, if the gods are as powerful as they
are good, you will drain the cup of punishment, with Dido’s
name ever on your lips. I will follow you with murky
fires when I am far away: and when cold death shall have
parted soul and body, my shade shall haunt you everywhere.
Yes, wretch, you shall suffer, I shall hear it—the
news will reach me down among the dead.” So saying,
she snaps short her speech, and flies with loathing 5
from the daylight, and breaks and rushes from his sight,
leaving him hesitating, and fearing, and thinking of a
thousand things to say. Her maidens support her, and
carry her sinking frame into her marble chamber, and
lay her on her bed. 10
But good Æneas, though yearning to solace and soothe
her agonized spirit, and by his words to check the onset of
sorrow, with many a groan, his whole soul upheaved by
the force of love, goes nevertheless about the commands
of Heaven, and repairs to his fleet. The Teucrians redouble 15
their efforts, and along the whole range of the shore
drag their tall ships down. The keels are careened and
floated. They carry oars with their leaves still on, and
timber unfashioned as it stood in the woods, so strong their
eagerness to fly. You may see them all in motion, streaming 20
from every part of the city. Even as ants when they
are sacking a huge heap of wheat, provident of winter
days, and laying up the plunder in their stores; a black
column is seen moving through the plain, and they convey
their booty along the grass in a narrow path: some are 25
putting their shoulders to the big grains, and pushing them
along; others are rallying the force and punishing the
stragglers; the whole track is in a glow of work. What
were your feelings then, poor Dido, at a sight like this!
How deep the groans you heaved, when you looked out 30
from your lofty tower on a beach all seething and swarming,
and saw the whole sea before you deafened with that
hubbub of voices! Tyrant love! what force dost thou not
put on human hearts? Again she has to condescend to
tears, again to use the weapons of entreaty, and bow her 35
spirit in suppliance under love’s yoke, lest she should have
left aught untried, and be rushing on a needless death.
“Anna, you see there is hurrying all over the shore—they
are met from every side; the canvas is already wooing
the gale, and the joyful sailors have wreathed the sterns.
If I have had the foresight to anticipate so heavy a blow,
I shall have the power to bear it too, my sister. Yet,
Anna, in my misery, perform me this one service. You, 5
and you only, the perfidious man was wont to make his
friend—aye, even to trust you with his secret thoughts.
You, and you only, know the subtle approaches to his
heart, and the times of essaying them. Go, then, my
sister, and supplicate our haughty foe. Tell him I was 10
no party to the Danaan league at Aulis to destroy the
Trojan nation; I sent no ships to Pergamus; I never
disinterred his father Anchises, his dust or his spirit. Why
will he not let my words sink down into his obdurate ears?
Whither is he hurrying? Let him grant this last boon to 15
her who loves him so wildly; let him wait till the way is
smoothed for his flight, and there are winds to waft him.
I am not asking him now to renew our old vows which he
has forsworn. I am not asking him to forego his fair
Latium, and resign his crown. I entreat but a few vacant 20
hours, a respite and breathing-space for my passion, till
my fortune shall have taught baffled love how to grieve.
This is my last request of you—Oh, pity your poor sister!—a
request which when granted shall be returned with
interest in death.” 25
Such was her appeal—such the wailing which her
afflicted sister bears to him, and bears again; but no wailing
moves him, no words find him a gentle listener. Fate
bars the way, and Heaven closes the hero’s relenting ears.
Even as an aged oak, still hale and strong, which Alpine 30
winds, blowing now here, now there, strive emulously to
uproot—a loud noise is heard, and, as the stem rocks,
heaps of leaves pile the ground; but the tree cleaves
firmly to the cliff; high as its head strikes into the air,
so deep its root strikes down to the abyss—even thus the 35
hero is assailed on all sides by a storm of words: his mighty
breast thrills through and through with agony; but his
mind is unshaken, and tears are showered in vain.
Then at last, maddened by her destiny, poor Dido prays
for death: heaven’s vault is a weariness to look on. To
confirm her in pursuing her intent, and closing her eyes on
the sun, she saw, as she was laying her offerings on the
incense-steaming altars—horrible to tell—the sacred 5
liquor turn black, and the streams of wine curdle into
loathly gore. This appearance she told to none, not even
to her sister. Moreover, there was in her palace a marble
chapel to her former husband, to which she used to pay
singular honours, wreathing it with snowy fillets and festal 10
boughs; from it she thought she heard a voice, the accents
of the dead man calling her, when the darkness of night
was shrouding the earth: and on the roof a lonely owl in
funereal tones kept complaining again and again, and
drawing out wailingly its protracted notes; and a thousand 15
predictions of seers of other days come back on her,
terrifying her with their awful warnings. When she
dreams, there is Æneas himself driving her in furious chase:
she seems always being left alone to herself, always pacing
companionless on a never-ending road, and looking for her 20
Tyrians in a realm without inhabitants—like Pentheus,[o]
when in frenzy he sees troops of Furies, and two suns, and
a double Thebes rising around him; or Agamemnon’s[o]
Orestes rushing over the stage, as he flies from his mother,
who is armed with torches and deadly snakes, while the 25
avenging fiends sit crouched on the threshold.
So when, spent with agony, she gave conception to the
demon, and resolved on death, she settled with herself
time and means, and thus bespoke her grieving sister, her
face disguising her intent, and hope smiling on her brow:— 30
“Dearest, I have found a way—wish me joy, as a sister
should—to bring him back to me, or to loose me from the
love which binds me to him. Hard by the bound of ocean
and the setting sun lies the extreme Ethiopian clime, where
mighty Atlas turns round on his shoulders the pole, studded 35
with burning stars. From that clime, I have heard of a
priestess of the Massylian race, once guardian of the
temple of the Hesperides, who used to give the dragon his
food, and so preserve the sacred boughs on the tree, sprinkling
for him moist honey and drowsy poppy-seed. She,
by her spells, undertakes to release souls at her pleasure,
while into others she shoots cruel pangs; she stops the
water in the river-bed, and turns back the stars in their 5
courses, and calls ghosts from realms of night. You will
see the earth bellowing under you, and the ashes coming
down from the mountain-top. By the gods I swear,
dearest sister, by you and your dear life, that unwillingly
I gird on the weapons of magic. Do you, in the privacy 10
of the inner court, build a pile to the open sky; lay on it
the arms which that godless man left hanging in the
chamber, and all his doffed apparel, and the nuptial bed
which was my undoing. To destroy every memorial of
the hateful wretch is my pleasure, and the priestess’ bidding.” 15
This said, she is silent—paleness overspreads her
face. Yet Anna does not dream that these strange rites
are a veil to hide her sister’s death: she cannot grasp
frenzy like that; she fears no darker day than that of their
mourning for Sychæus, and so she does her bidding. 20
But the queen, when the pile had been built in the heart
of the palace to the open sky, a giant mass of pine-wood and
hewn oak, spans the place with garlands, and crowns it
with funeral boughs. High above it on the couch she sets
the doffed apparel, and the sword that had been left, and 25
the image of the false lover, knowing too well what was
to come. Altars rise here and there; the priestess, with
hair dishevelled, thunders out the roll of three hundred
gods, Erebus and Chaos, and Hecate[180] with her triple form—the
three faces borne by maiden Dian. See! she has 30
sprinkled water, brought, so she feigns, from Avernus’
spring, and she is getting green downy herbs, cropped by
moonlight with brazen shears, whose sap is the milk of
deadly poison, and the love-charm, torn from the brow
of the new-born foal, ere the mother could snatch it. 35
Dido herself, with salted cake and pure hands at the altars,
one foot unshod, her vest ungirdled, makes her dying
appeal to the gods and to the stars who share Fate’s
counsels, begging the powers, if any there be, that watch,
righteous and unforgetting, over ill-yoked lovers, to hear
her prayer.
It was night, and overtoiled mortality throughout the
earth was enjoying peaceful slumber; the woods were at 5
rest, and the raging waves—the hour when the stars are
rolling midway in their smooth courses, when all the land is
hushed, cattle, and gay-plumed birds, haunters far and wide
of clear waters and rough forest-ground, lapped in sleep
with stilly night overhead, their troubles assuaged, their 10
hearts dead to care. Not so the vexed spirit of Phœnicia’s
daughter; she never relaxes into slumber, or
welcomes the night to eye or bosom; sorrow doubles peal
on peal; once more love swells, and storms, and surges,
with a mighty tempest of passion. Thus, then, she 15
plunges into speech, and whirls her thoughts about thus
in the depth of her soul:—“What am I about? Am I
to make fresh proof of my former suitors, with scorn before
me? Must I stoop to court Nomad bridegrooms, whose
offered hand I have spurned so often? Well, then, shall 20
I follow the fleet of Ilion, and be at the beck and call of
Teucrian masters? Is it that they think with pleasure
on the succour once rendered them? that gratitude for
past kindness yet lives in their memory? But even if I
wished it, who will give me leave, or admit the unwelcome 25
guest to his haughty ships? Are you so ignorant, poor
wretch? Do you not yet understand the perjury of the
race of Laomedon[181]? What then? Shall I fly alone, and
swell the triumph of their crews? or shall I put to sea, with
the Tyrians and the whole force of my people at my back, 30
dragging those whom it was so hard to uproot from their
Sidonian home again into the deep, and bidding them
spread sail to the winds? No!—die the death you have
merited, and let the sword put your sorrow to flight.
You, sister, are the cause; overmastered by my tears, 35
you heap this deadly fuel on my flame, and fling me upon
nay enemy. Why could I not forswear wedlock, and live
an unblamed life in savage freedom, nor meddle with
troubles like these? Why did I not keep the faith I
vowed to the ashes of Sychæus?” Such were the reproaches
that broke from that bursting heart.
Meanwhile Æneas, resolved on his journey, was slumbering
in his vessel’s tall stern, all being now in readiness. 5
To him a vision of the god, appearing again with the same
countenance, presented itself as he slept, and seemed to
give this second warning—the perfect picture of Mercury,
his voice, his blooming hue, his yellow locks, and the youthful
grace of his frame:—“Goddess-born, at a crisis like 10
this can you slumber on? Do you not see the wall of
danger which is fast rising round you, infatuate that you
are, nor hear the favouring whisper of the western gale?
She is revolving in her bosom thoughts of craft and cruelty,
resolved on death, and surging with a changeful tempest 15
of passion. Will you not haste away while haste is in your
power? You will look on a sea convulsed with ships, an
array of fierce torch-fires, a coast glowing with flame, if
the dawn-goddess shall have found you loitering here on
land. Quick!—burst through delay. A thing of moods 20
and changes is woman ever.” He said, and was lost in the
darkness of night.
At once Æneas, scared by the sudden apparition, springs
up from sleep, and rouses his comrades. “Wake in a moment,
my friends, and seat you on the benches. Unfurl 25
the sails with all speed. See! here is a god sent down
from heaven on high, urging us again to hasten our flight,
and cut the twisted cables. Yes! sacred power, we follow
thee, whoever thou art, and a second time with joy obey
thy behest. Be thou with us, and graciously aid us, and 30
let propitious stars be ascendant in the sky.” So saying,
he snatches from the scabbard his flashing sword, and with
the drawn blade cuts the hawsers. The spark flies from
man to man; they scour, they scud, they have left the
shore behind; you cannot see the water for ships. With 35
strong strokes they dash the foam, and sweep the blue.
And now Aurora was beginning to sprinkle the earth
with fresh light, rising from Tithonus’[182] saffron couch.
Soon as the queen from her watch-tower saw the gray
dawn brighten, and the fleet moving on with even canvas,
and coast and haven forsaken, with never an oar left,
thrice and again smiting her beauteous breast with her
hands, and rending her golden locks, “Great Jupiter!” 5
cries she, “shall he go? Shall a chance-comer boast of
having flouted our realm? Will they not get their arms
at once, and give chase from all the town, and pull, some
of them, the ships from the docks? Away! bring fire;
quick! get darts, ply oars! What am I saying? Where 10
am I? What madness turns my brain? Wretched Dido!
do your sins sting you now? They should have done so
then, when you were giving your crown away. What
truth! what fealty!—the man who, they say, carries
about with him the gods of his country, and took up on 15
his shoulders his old worn-out father! Might I not have
caught and torn him piecemeal, and scattered him to the
waves?—destroyed his friends, aye, and his own Ascanius,
and served up the boy for his father’s meal? But the
chance of a battle would have been doubtful. Let it have 20
been. I was to die, and whom had I to fear? I would
have flung torches into his camp, filled his decks with flame,
consumed son and sire and the whole line, and leapt myself
upon the pile. Sun, whose torch shows thee all that is
done on earth, and thou, Juno, revealer and witness 25
these stirrings of the heart, and Hecate, whose name is
yelled in civic crossways by night, avenging fiends, and
gods of dying Elissa, listen to this! Let your power stoop
to ills that call for it, and hear what I now pray! If
it must needs be that the accursed wretch gain the haven 30
and float to shore—if such the requirement of Jove’s
destiny, such the fixed goal—yet grant that, harassed
by the sword and battle of a warlike nation, a wanderer
from his own confines, torn from his Iulus’ arms, he may
pray for succour, and see his friends dying miserably round 35
him! Nor when he has yielded to the terms of an unjust
peace, may he enjoy his crown, or the life he loves; but
may he fall before his time, and lie unburied in the midst
of the plain! This is my prayer—these the last accents
that flow from me with my life-blood. And you, my
Tyrians, let your hatred persecute the race and people for
all time to come. Be this the offering you send down to
my ashes: never be there love or league between nation 5
and nation. Arise from my bones, my unknown avenger,
destined with fire and sword to pursue the Dardanian
settlers, now or in after-days, whenever strength shall be
given! Let coast be at war with coast, water with wave,
army with army; fight they, and their sons, and their 10
sons’ sons!”
Thus she said, as she whirled her thought to this side
and that, seeking at once to cut short the life she now abhorred.
Then briefly she spoke to Barce, Sychæus’ nurse,
for her own was left in her old country, in the black 15
ashes of the grave: “Fetch me here, dear nurse, my sister
Anna. Bid her hasten to sprinkle herself with water
from the stream, and bring with her the cattle and the
atoning offerings prescribed. Let her come with these;
and do you cover your brow with the holy fillet. The 20
sacrifice to Stygian Jove, which I have duly commenced
and made ready, I wish now to accomplish, and with it
the end of my sorrows, giving to the flame the pile that
pillows the Dardan head!” She said: the nurse began
to quicken her pace with an old wife’s zeal. 25
But Dido, wildered and maddened by her enormous
resolve, rolling her bloodshot eye, her quivering cheeks
stained with fiery streaks, and pale with the shadow of
death, bursts the door of the inner palace, and frantically
climbs the tall pile, and unsheathes the Dardan sword, a 30
gift procured for a far different end. Then, after surveying
the Trojan garments and the bed, too well known,
and pausing awhile to weep and think, she pressed her
bosom to the couch, and uttered her last words:
“Relics, once darlings of mine, while Fate and Heaven 35
gave leave, receive this my soul, and release me from these
my sorrows. I have lived my life—the course assigned
me by Fortune is run, and now the august phantom of
Dido shall pass underground. I have built a splendid
city. I have seen my walls completed. In vengeance for
a husband, I have punished a brother that hated me—blest,
ah! blest beyond human bliss, if only Dardan ships
had never touched coast of ours!” She spoke—and kissing 5
the couch: “Is it to be death without revenge? But
be it death,” she cries—“this, this is the road by which
I love to pass to the shades. Let the heartless Dardanian’s
eyes drink in this flame from the deep, and let him
carry with him the presage of my death.” 10
She spoke, and even while she was yet speaking, her
attendants see her fallen on the sword, the blade spouting
blood, and her hands dabbled in it. Their shrieks rise to
the lofty roof; Fame runs wild through the convulsed city.
With wailing and groaning, and screams of women, the 15
palace rings; the sky resounds with mighty cries and beating
of breasts—even as if the foe were to burst the gates
and topple down Carthage or ancient Tyre, and the infuriate
flame were leaping from roof to roof among the
dwellings of men and gods. 20
Her sister heard it. Breathless and frantic, with wild
speed, disfiguring her cheeks with her nails, her bosom
with her fists, she bursts through the press, and calls
by name on the dying queen: “Was this your secret,
sister? Were you plotting to cheat me? Was this what 25
your pile was preparing for me, your fires, and your altars?
What should a lone heart grieve for first? Did you disdain
your sister’s company in death? You should have
called me to share your fate—the same keen sword-pang,
the same hour, should have been the end of both. And 30
did these hands build the pile, this voice call on the gods
of our house, that you might lie there, while I, hard-hearted
wretch, was away? Yes, sister, you have destroyed
yourself and me, the people and the elders of Sidon,
and your own fair city. Let in the water to the wounds; 35
let me cleanse them, and if any remains of breath be
still flickering, catch them in my mouth!” As she thus
spoke, she was at the top of the lofty steps, and was embracing
and fondling in her bosom her dying sister, and
stanching with her robe the black streams of blood.
Dido strives to raise her heavy eyes, and sinks down
again, the deep stab gurgles in her breast. Thrice, with
an effort, she lifted and reared herself up on her elbow; 5
thrice, she fell back on the couch, and with helpless
wandering eyes aloft in the sky, sought for the light and
groaned when she found it.
Then Juno almighty, in compassion for her lengthened
agony and her trouble in dying, sent down Iris[183] from 10
Olympus to part the struggling soul and its prison of flesh.
For, as she was dying, not in the course of fate, nor for
any crime of hers, but in mere misery, before her time, the
victim of sudden frenzy, not yet had Proserpine[184] carried
off a lock of her yellow hair, and thus doomed her head to 15
Styx and the place of death. So then Iris glides down
the sky with saffron wings dew-besprent, trailing a thousand
various colours in the face of the sun, and alights
above her head. “This I am bidden to bear away as an
offering to Pluto, and hereby set you free from the body.” 20
So saying, she stretches her hand and cuts the lock: at
once all heat parts from the frame, and the life has passed
into air.
BOOK V
Æneas, meantime, was well on his road, holding with set
purpose on the watery way, and cutting through billows
gloomed by the North wind, with eyes ever and anon
turned back to the city, which poor Elissa’s funeral flame
now began to illumine. What cause has lit up a blaze so 5
mighty they cannot tell; but as they think of the cruel
pangs which follow outrage done on great love, and remember
what a frantic woman can do, the Teucrian hearts
are swept through a train of dismal presage.
Soon as the ships gained the mid-ocean, and no land met 10
the view any more—waters everywhere and everywhere
skies—a dark rain-cloud arose and stood over the hero’s
head, charged with night and winter tempest, and darkness
ruffled the billow’s crest. Palinurus himself, the pilot,
was heard from the lofty stern:—“Ah! why has such an 15
army of storms encompassed the heaven? What hast
thou for us now, old Father Neptune?” No sooner said
than he bids them gather up the tackle and ply the lusty
oar, and shifts the sheet to the wind, and speaks thus:—“Noble
Æneas, though Jove himself were to pledge me 20
his faith, I could not hope to reach Italy with a sky like
this. The winds shift and storm crosswise, ever rising
from the blackening West, and the mist is being massed
into clouds. We cannot make head against them, or
struggle as we should. Well, since Fortune exerts her 25
tyranny, let us follow, and turn our faces as she pulls the
rein. I take it, too, we are not far from the friendly
brother-coast of your Eryx, and the havens of Sicania,
if my memory serves me as I retrace the stars I watched
long ago.” To him good Æneas:—“I have seen myself 30
this long time that such is the winds’ will, and all your
counter-efforts vain. Turn sail and ship. Could any
land indeed be welcomer, any that I would sooner choose
to harbour my weary ships, than the land which keeps for
me above ground the Darden Acestes, and laps in its breast 5
the bones of my sire Anchises?” This said, they make
for the haven; favouring zephyrs swell their sail, the fleet
rides swiftly over the flood, and at last they touch with
joy the strand they know so well.
From a hill’s tall top Acestes had marked with wonder 10
afar off the new arrival, and the friendly vessels; up he
runs, all in the savage trim of hunting-spear and Libyan
bearskin—Acestes, son of a Trojan mother by the river
Crimisus. The ancestral blood quickens in his veins as
he gives them joy of their safe arrival, welcomes them 15
with the plenty of rustic royalty, and soothes their weariness
with every kind appliance.
On the morrow, when the first dawn of the bright dayspring
had put the stars to flight, Æneas calls his comrades
to a gathering from all the shore, and standing on a heaped 20
mound bespeaks them thus:—“Mighty sons of Dardanus,
race of Heaven’s high parentage, the months are
all past and the year has fulfilled its cycle, since we gave
to the earth the earthly relics, the ashes of my deified sire,
and consecrated the altars of mourning. And now, if I 25
err not, the very day is here—that day which for me shall
ever be a day of weeping, ever a day of honour, since you,
ye gods, have willed it so. Though this day were to find
me among the Gætulian Syrtes a homeless wanderer—were
it to surprise me in the Argive main or in the streets 30
of Mycenæ—still would I pay my yearly vows and the
pomp of solemn observance, and would pile the altars with
their proper gifts. And now, behold, by an unsought
chance we are standing—not in truth I deem without the
providence, the beckoning hand of Heaven—at the very 35
grave, the buried ashes of my sire, driven as we are into
this friendly haven. Come, then, solemnize we all the
glad celebration; pray we for winds, and may He be
pleased that I should offer these rites yearly in a city of
my own building, in a temple dedicated to himself. Two
heads of oxen Acestes, like a true son of Troy, gives you
for each ship; call to the feasts the gods of the hearth,
both those of our fathers and those worshipped by Acestes 5
our host. Furthermore, if the ninth day hence the dawn-goddess
restore to mortals the genial light, and make the
world visible with sunshine, I will set up, first of all, for
all Teucrian comers, a match among our swift fleet; then
let him that is light of foot, and him that, glorying in his 10
strength, bears himself more proudly with the dart and the
flying arrow, or has confidence to join battle in gauntlets
of raw hide, let one and all be here, and look for the prizes
that victory earns. Give me your auspicious voices, and
bind your brows with green.” 15
This spoken, he shrouds his own brows with his mother’s
myrtle. So does Helymus, so does veteran Acestes, so
young Ascanius—so the whole multitude of warriors.
He was already on his way from the council to the tomb
with many thousands round him, the centre of a great 20
company. Here in due libation he pours on the ground
two bowls of the wine-god’s pure juice, two of new milk,
two of sacrificial blood; he flings bright flowers, and makes
this utterance:—“Hail to thee, blessed sire, once more!
hail to you, ashes of one rescued in vain, spirit and shade 25
of my father! It was not in Fate that thou shouldst
journey with me to the Italian frontier and the fields of
Destiny, or see the Ausonian Tiber, whatever that name
may import.” He had said this, when from the depth
of the grave a smooth shining serpent trailed along seven 30
spires, seven volumes of giant length, coiling peacefully
round the tomb and gliding between the altars: dark
green flecks were on its back; its scales were all ablaze
with spots of golden lustre, even as the bow in the clouds
showers a thousand various colours in the face of the sun. 35
Æneas stood wonder-struck: the creature, winding its
long column among the dishes and the polished goblets,
tasted of the viands, and then, innocent of harm, reëntered
the tomb at its base, leaving the altars where its mouth
had been. Quickened by this, the hero resumes the work
of homage to his sire, not knowing whether to think this
the genius of the spot or his father’s menial spirit: duly
he slays two young sheep, two swine, two black-skinned 5
bullocks; again and again he pours goblets of wine, again
and again he calls on the soul of great Anchises and the
shade loosed from Acheron’s[185] prison. His comrades, too,
each according to his means, give glad offerings—they
pile the altars, they slay the bullocks; others in their function 10
set on the cauldrons, and, stretched along the grass,
hold the spits over the embers and roast the flesh.
And now the expected day was come; the steeds of
Phaethon[186] were ushering in the goddess of the ninth
dawn through a heaven of clear light; the rumoured spectacle 15
and the great name of Acestes had brought the
neighbouring people from their homes; the holiday crowd
was flooding the shore, to gaze on the family of Æneas,
and some, too, ready to dispute the prizes. First, in sight
of all, the gifts are bestowed in the midst of the ring—hallowed 20
tripods and verdant chaplets, and palms, the
conquerors’ special guerdon—armour and raiment of
purple dye—a talent’s[187] weight of silver and gold; and
from a mound in the centre the shrill trumpet proclaims
the sports begun. The first contest, waged with labouring 25
oars, is entered by four ships, the flower of the entire
fleet. There is Mnestheus, with his fiery crew, speeding
along the swift Shark—Mnestheus, hereafter a prince of
Italy, who gives his name to the Memmian line; there is
Gyas with his monster Chimæra, that monster mass[D] 30
which three tiers of stout Dardans are pulling on, the oars
rising in a triple bank; Sergestus, from whom the Sergian
house gains the name it keeps, sails in the mighty Centaur;
and in the sea-green Scylla Cloanthus, your great forefather,
Cluentius of Rome. 35
At a distance in the sea is a rock, over against the spray-washed
shore—sometimes covered by the swelling waves
that beat on it, when the wintry north winds hide the stars
from view—in a calm it rests in peace, and rises over the
unruffled waters, a broad table-land, a welcome basking-ground 5
for the sea-bird. Here Æneas set up a green stem
of leafy oak with his own royal hand—a sign for the sailors,
that they might know whence to begin their return, and
where to double round their long voyage. Then they choose
their places by lot: there are the captains on the sterns, 10
a glorious sight, gleaming far with gold and purple; the
crews are crowned with thick poplar leaves, and their bare
shoulders shine with the oil that has rubbed them. They
seat them on the benches, every arm is strained on the
oar—straining they expect the signal, and their beating 15
hearts are drained at each stroke by panting fear and high-strung
ambition. Then, when the shrill trumpet has uttered
its voice, all in a moment dart forward from their
bounds, the seaman’s shout pierces the sky; the upturned
seas foam as the arm is drawn back to the chest. With 20
measured strokes they plough their furrows; the water
is one yawning chasm, rent asunder by the oar and the
pointed beak. Not such the headlong speed when in two-horse
race the chariots dash into the plain and pour along
from their floodgates, or when the drivers shake the streaming 25
reins over their flying steeds, and hang floating over
the lash. Then plaudits, and shouts of manly voices,
and the clamorous fervour of the backers, make the whole
woodland ring; the pent-up shores keep the sound rolling;
the hills send back the blows of the noise. See! flying 30
ahead of the rest, gliding over the first water in the midst
of crowd and hubbub, is Gyas; next him comes Cloanthus,
with better oars, but the slow pinewood’s weight keeps
him back. After them at equal distance the Shark and
the Centaur strive to win precedence. And now the Shark 35
has it. Now she is beaten and passed by the Centaur.
Now the two ride abreast stem to stem, cutting with their
long keels the salt waves. And now they were nearing the
rock, and the goal was just in their grasp, when Gyas, the
leader, the victor of the halfway-passage, calls aloud to his
ship’s pilot Menœtes:—“Whither away so far to my right?
Steer us hither; hug the shore; let the oar-blade graze
the cliffs on the left; leave the deep to others.” Thus he; 5
but Menœtes, afraid of hidden rocks, keeps turning the
prow well towards the sea. “Whither away from the right
course? Make for the rocks, Menœtes!” shouted Gyas
again; and see! looking back, he perceives Cloanthus
gaining on him close behind. Between Gyas’ ship and 10
the sounding rocks he threads his way to the left, steering
inward, and in an instant passes the winner, leaves the
goal behind, and gains the smooth open sea. Grief turned
the youth’s very marrow to flame, nor were his cheeks
free from tears; he seizes the slow Menœtes, forgetting 15
at once his own decency and his crew’s safety, and flings
him headlong from the lofty stern into the sea. Himself
becomes their guide at the helm, himself their pilot, cheering
on the rowers, and turning the rudder to the shore.
But Menœtes, when at last disgorged from the bottom of 20
the sea, heavy with age, and with his dripping clothes all
hanging about him, climbs the cliff-top, and seats himself
on a dry rock. The Teucrians laughed as he was falling,
laughed as he was swimming, and now they laugh as he
discharges from his chest the draught of brine. Then 25
sprung up an ecstatic hope in the two last, Sergestus and
Mnestheus, of passing the lagging Gyas. Sergestus gets
the choice of water and comes nearer the rock—not first,
however, he by a whole vessel’s length—half his ship is
ahead, half is overlapped by the beak of his rival, the 30
Shark. Mnestheus walks through the ship among the
crew and cheers them on. “Now, now, rise to your oars,
old Hector’s men, whom I chose to follow me at Troy’s last
gasp; now put out the strength, the spirit I saw you exert
in the Gætulian Syrtes, the Ionian Sea, the entangling 35
waves of Malea. It is not the first place I look for. I
am not the man; this is no struggle for victory—yet
might it be!—but conquest is for them, Neptune, to
whom thou givest it. Let our shame be to come in last;
be this your victory, friends, to keep off disgrace.” Straining
every nerve, they threw themselves forward; their
mighty strokes make the brazen keel quiver, the ground
flies from under them; thick panting shakes their limbs, 5
their parched throats; sweat flows down in streams.
A mere chance gave them the wished preëminence; for
while Sergestus, blind with passion, keeps driving his prow
towards the rock nearer and nearer, and pressing through
the narrow passage, his ill star entangled him with a projecting 10
crag. The cliffs were jarred, the oars cracked as
they met the sharp flint, and the prow hung where it had
lodged. Up spring the sailors with loud shout, while the
ship stands still. They bring out their iron-shod poles
and pointed boat-hooks, and pick up the broken oars in 15
the water. But Mnestheus, rejoicing, and keener for success,
with quick plashing oars, and the winds at his call,
makes for the seas that shelve to the coast and speeds along
the clear expanse. Like as a dove suddenly startled in a
cave, where in the hollow of the rock are her home and her 20
loved nestlings, issues out to fly over the plain, clapping
loud her pinions in terror in the cell—then, gliding smooth
through the tranquil air, she winnows her liquid way without
a motion of her rapid wings—so with Mnestheus,
so the Shark, flying of herself, cuts through the last water 25
of the course, so the mere impulse bears her speeding on.
First he takes leave of Sergestus, struggling with the tall
rock and the shallow water, and in vain calling for help, and
learning to run along with broken oars. Then he comes
up with Gyas and the great monster Chimæra itself; she 30
yields, because deprived of her pilot. And now there
remains Cloanthus alone, just at the very end of the race;
him he makes for, and presses on him with all the force of
effort. Then, indeed, the shouting redoubles—all lend
their good-will to spur on the second man, and the sky 35
echoes with the din. These think it shame to lose the
glory that they have won, the prize that is already their
own, and would fain barter life for renown; these are feeding
on success, they feel strong because they feel that they
are thought[188] strong. And perhaps their beaks would have
been even and the prize divided, had not Cloanthus,
stretching out both hands over the deep, breathed a
prayer and called the gods to hear his vow:—“Powers 5
whose is the rule of ocean, whose waters I ride, for you with
glad heart will I lead to your altars on this shore a snow-white
bull, as a debtor should; I will throw the entrails
afar into the salt waves, and pour out a clear stream of
wine.” He said, and deep down among the billows there 10
heard him all the Nereids and Phorcus’ train, and maiden
Panopea, and father Portunus[189] himself, with his own great
hand, pushed the ship as she moved; fleeter than south-wind
or winged arrow she flies to the land and is lodged
already deep in the haven. 15
Then Anchises’ son, duly summoning the whole company,
proclaims by a loud-voiced herald Cloanthus conqueror,
and drapes his brow with green bay; he gives each
crew a gift at its choice, three bullocks, and wine, and the
present of a great talent of silver. To the captains themselves 20
he further gives especial honours, to the conqueror
a gold-broidered scarf, round which runs a length of Melibœan
purple with a double Mæander; enwoven therein is the
royal boy[190] on leafy Ida, plying the swift stag with the javelin
and the chase, keen of eye, his chest seeming to heave; 25
then, swooping down from Ida, the bearer of Jove’s armour
has snatched him up aloft in his crooked talons, while his
aged guardians are stretching in vain their hands to heaven,
and the barking of the hounds streams furious to the sky.
But for him whose prowess gained him the second place 30
there is a cuirass of linked chain mail, three-threaded with
gold, which the hero himself had stripped with a conqueror’s
hand from Demoleos on swift Simois’ bank under
the shadow of Troy; this he gives the warrior for his own, 35
a glory and a defence in the battle. Scarce could the two
servants, Phegeus and Sagaris, support its many folds,
pushing shoulder to shoulder; yet Demoleos, in his day,
with it on his breast, used to drive the Trojans in flight
before him. The third present he makes a pair of brazen
cauldrons, and two cups of wrought silver, rough with
fretwork.
And now all had received their presents, and each, glorying
in his treasure, was walking along with purple festooning 5
round his brows, when Sergestus, at last with great pain
dislodged from the cruel rock, his oars lost and one whole
side crippled, was seen propelling among jeers his inglorious
vessel. Like as a serpent surprised on the highway,
whom a brazen wheel has driven across, or a traveller, 10
heavy of hand, has left half dead and mangled by a stone,
writhes its long body in ineffectual flight, its upper part
all fury, its eyes blazing, its hissing throat reared aloft, the
lower part, disabled by the wound, clogs it as it wreathes
its spires and doubles upon its own joints. Such was the 15
oarage with which the ship pushed herself slowly along:
she makes sail, however, and enters the haven with canvas
flying. To Sergestus Æneas gives the present he had
promised, delighted to see the ship rescued and the crew
brought back. His prize is a slave, not unversed in Pallas’ 20
labours, Pholoë, Cretan born, with twin sons at her
breast.
This match dismissed, good Æneas takes his way to a
grassy plain, surrounded on all sides with woods and sloping
hills: in the middle of the valley was a circle, as of a 25
theatre; thither it was that the hero repaired with many
thousands, the centre of a vast assembly, and sat on a
raised throne. Then he invites, with hope of reward, the
bold spirits who may wish to contend in the swift foot-race,
and sets up the prizes. Candidates flock from all 30
sides, Teucrian and Sicanian mixed. Nisus and Euryalus
the foremost. Euryalus conspicuous for beauty and blooming
youth, Nisus for the pure love he bore the boy; following
them came Diores, a royal scion of Priam’s illustrious
stock; then Salius and Patron together, one from 35
Acarnania, the other from Tegea, an Arcadian by blood;
next two Trinacrian youths, Helymus and Panopes, trained
foresters, comrades of their elder friend, Acestes, and many
others, whom dim tradition leaves in darkness. As they
crowd round him, Æneas bespeaks them thus:—“Hear
what I have to say, and give the heed of a glad heart. No
one of this company shall go away unguerdoned by me.
I will give a pair of Gnossian darts, shining with polished 5
steel, and an axe chased with silver for the hand to wield.
This honour all shall obtain alike. The three first shall
receive prizes, and shall wear also wreaths of yellow-green
olive. Let the first, as conqueror, have a horse, full
decorated with trappings; the second an Amazonian 10
quiver, full of Thracian shafts, with a belt of broad gold
to encompass it, and a buckle of a polished jewel to fasten
it; let the third go away content with this Argive helmet.”
This said, they take their places, and suddenly, on hearing
the signal, dash into the course, and leave the barrier 15
behind, pouring on like a burst of rain, their eyes fixed on
the goal. First of all, away goes Nisus, his limbs flying
far before all the rest, swifter than wind and winged
thunderbolt; next to him, but next at a long distance
follows Salius; then, at a shorter space, Euryalus third. 20
After Euryalus comes Helymus; close on him, see! flies
Diores, heel touching heel and shoulder shoulder: were the
course but longer, he would be shooting on and darting
beyond him, and turning a doubtful race to a victory.
Now they were just at the end of the course, all panting 25
as they reached the goal, when Nisus, the ill-starred, slides
in a puddle of blood, which lay there just as it had been
spilt after a sacrifice of bullocks, soaking the ground and
the growing grass. Poor youth! just in the moment of
triumph, he could not keep his sliddery footing on the soil 30
he trod, but fell flat in the very middle of unclean ordure
and sacrificial gore. But he forgot not Euryalus—forgot
not his love—no! he threw himself in Salius’ way, rising
in that slippery place—and Salius lay there too, flung
on the puddled floor. Forth darts Euryalus, and gains 35
the first place, a winner, thanks to his friend, cheered in
his flight by plaudit and shouting. Next comes in Helymus
and Diores, thus made the third prize. But now
Salius is heard, deafening with his clamour the whole
company in the ring and the seniors in the first rank, and
insisting that the prize, which he had lost by a trick, be
restored him. Euryalus is supported by the popular voice,
by the tears he sheds so gracefully, and the greater loveliness 5
of worth when seen in a beauteous form. Diores
backs his claim with loud appealing shouts; he had just
won the prize, and his attainment of the third place was all
for nothing if the first reward were to be given to Salius.
To whom father Æneas:—“Your rewards, boys, remain 10
fixed as they ever were; no one disturbs the palm once
arranged: suffer me to show pity to a friend’s undeserved
misfortune.” So saying, he gives Salius the enormous
hide of a Gætulian lion, loaded with shaggy hair and talons
of gold. On which Nisus:—“If the vanquished are 15
rewarded so largely—if you can feel for tumblers—what
prize will be great enough for Nisus’ claims? My
prowess had earned me the first chaplet, had not unkind
Fortune played me foul, as she played Salius;” and with
these words he displayed his features and his limbs, all 20
dishonoured by slime and ordure. The gracious prince
smiled at him, and bade them bring out a shield of Didymaon’s
workmanship, once wrested by the Danaans from
Neptune’s hallowed gate, and with this signal present he
endows the illustrious youth. 25
Next, when the race was finished, and the prizes duly
given:—“Now, whoever has courage, and a vigorous
collected mind in his breast, let him come forward, bind on
the gloves, and lift his arms.” Thus speaks Æneas, and
sets forth two prizes for the contest: for the conqueror, 30
a bullock with gilded horns and fillet festoons; a sword
and a splendid helmet, as a consolation to the vanquished.
In a moment, with all the thews of a giant, rises Dares,
uprearing himself amid a loud hum of applause—the
sole champion who used to enter the lists with Paris: 35
once, at the tomb where mighty Hector lies buried, he
encountered the great conqueror Butes, who carried his
enormous bulk to the field with all the pride of Amycus’[191]
Bebrycian blood—struck him down, and stretched him
in death on the yellow sand. Such are Dares’ powers,
as he lifts high his crest for the battle, displays his broad
shoulders, throws out his arms alternately, and strikes the
air with his blows. How to find his match is the cry; 5
no one of all that company dares to confront such a champion,
and draw on the gauntlets. So, with confident
action, thinking that all were retiring from the prize, he
stands before Æneas, and without further prelude grasps
with his left hand the bull by the horn, and bespeaks him 10
thus:—“Goddess-born, if no one dares to take the risk
of the fight, how long are we to stand still? How long is
it seemly to keep me waiting? Give the word for me to
carry off the prize.” A simultaneous shout broke from
the sons of Dardanus, all voting that their champion should 15
have the promised gift made good.
On this Acestes, with grave severity of speech, rebukes
Entellus, just as he chanced to be seated next him on the
verdant grassy couch. “Entellus, once known as the
bravest of heroes, and all for nought, will you brook so 20
calmly that a prize so great be carried off without a blow?
Where are we now to look for that mighty deity your
master, Eryx, vaunted so often and so idly? Where is
that glory which spread all Trinacria through, and those
spoils that hang from your roof?” He replied: “It is 25
not the love of praise, not ambition, that has died out,
extinguished by fear. No, indeed; but my blood is dulled
and chilled by the frost of age, and the strength in my
limbs withered and ice-bound. Had I now what I once
had, what is now the glory and the boast of that loud braggart 30
there; had I but the treasure of youth, I should not
have needed the reward and the goodly bullock to bring
me into the field; nor are gifts what I care for.” So saying,
he flung into the midst a pair of gauntlets of enormous
weight, with which the fiery Eryx[192] was wont to 35
deal his blows in combat, stringing his arms with the tough
hide. Every heart was amazed, so vast were the seven
huge bull-hides, hardened with patches of lead and iron.
More than all the rest Dares is astonished, and recoils
many paces; and the hero himself, Anchises’ son, stands
turning in his hands the massive weight and the enormous
wrappers of twisted thong. Then the old man fetched
from his heart words like these:—“What if any one here 5
had seen those mightier weapons, Hercules’ own gauntlets,
and the fatal combat on this very strand? These are the
arms that Eryx, your brother, once wielded; you see on
them still the stains of blood and sprinkled brains. With
these he stood up against the great Alcides. These I 10
was trained to use while fresher blood inspired me with
strength, and the snows of age, my jealous rival, were not
yet sprinkled on my brows. But if Dares the Trojan
refuses our Sicilian weapons, and that is good Æneas’ fixed
wish, approved by Acestes, my backer in the fight, make 15
we the contest even. I spare you the bull-hides of Eryx—never
fear—and do you put off your Trojan gauntlets.”
So saying, he flung off from his shoulders his double garment,
and displays the giant joints of his limbs, the giant
bone-work of his arms, and stands, a mighty frame, in 20
the midst of the sand.
Then Anchises’ son brought out with his royal hand two
pairs of equal gauntlets, and bound round the fists of the
twain weapons of even force. At once each rose on tiptoe,
and raised his arms undaunted to the air of heaven. They 25
draw back their towering heads out of the reach of blows,
and make their fists meet in the melée, and provoke the
battle. The one is better in quick movement of the foot,
and youth lends him confidence; the other’s strength is in
brawny limbs and giant bulk, but his knees are heavy and 30
unstable, and a troubled panting shakes that vast frame.
Many the blows that the champions hail on each other in
vain; many are showered on the hollow side, and draw
loud echoes from the chest. The fist keeps playing round
ear and temple; the teeth chatter under the cruel blow. 35
Heavily stands Entellus, unmoved, in the same strained
posture; his bending body and watchful eye alone withdraw
him from the volley. His rival, like a general who
throws up mounds round a high-walled town, or sits down
with his army before a mountain fort, tries now this approach,
now that, reconnoitres the whole stronghold, and
plies him with manifold assaults, baffled in each. Rising
to the stroke, Entellus put forth his right hand, and raised 5
it aloft; the other’s quick eye foresaw the downcoming
blow, and his lithe frame darts beyond its range. Entellus
has flung his whole force on air; at once, untouched by his
foe, the heavy giant, with heavy giant weight, falls to
earth, even as one day falls hollow-hearted with hollow 10
crash on Erymanthus or lofty Ida, uptorn by the roots, a
mighty pine. Eagerly start up at once the Teucrian and
Trinacrian chivalry; up soars a shout to heaven; and first
runs up Acestes, and soothingly raises from the ground
his friend, aged as he. But not slackened by his overthrow, 15
nor daunted, the hero comes back fiercer to the
field, with anger goading force; that mass of strength is
enkindled at last by shame and conscious prowess. All on
fire, he drives Dares headlong over the whole plain, now
with his right hand showering blows, now with his giant 20
left. No stint, no stay; thick as the hail with which the
storm-clouds rattle on the roof, so thick the blows with
which the hero, crowding on with both hands, is battering
and whirling Dares. Then father Æneas thought fit to
stem the tide of fury, nor suffered Entellus’ wounded spirit 25
to glut its rage further, but put an end to the fray, and
rescued the gasping Dares with soothing words, and bespeaks
him thus:—“My poor friend! what monstrous
madness has seized you? See you not that strength has
passed over—that the gods have changed their sides? 30
Give way to Heaven.” He said, and his word closed the
fight. But Dares is in the hands of his faithful comrades,
dragging after him his feeble knees, dropping his head on
this side and on that, discharging from his mouth clotted
gore, teeth and blood together. Thus they lead him to 35
the ships; summoned, they receive for him the helmet and
the sword; the palm and the bull they leave to Entellus.
Hereon the conqueror, towering in pride of soul, and
exulting in his prize, the bull: “Goddess-born,” cries he,
“and you, Teucrians, take measure at once of the strength
which dwelt in my frame, while that frame was young,
and the death from whose door you have called back,
and are still keeping, your Dares.” So saying, he took his 5
stand full before the face of the bullock, which was there
as the prize of the fray, and with arm drawn back, swung
the iron gauntlet right between the horns, rising to his
full height, crashed it down on the bone, and shattered the
brain. Prostrated, breathless, and quivering, on earth lies 10
the bull. He from his bosom’s depth speaks thus over
the dead:—“This life, Eryx, I render to thee—a better
substitute for Dares’ death; here, as a conqueror may,
I resign the gauntlets and the game.”
Next Æneas invites those who may care to vie in shooting 15
the fleet arrow, and sets forth the prizes. With his
own giant hand he rears upright the mast from Serestus’
ship, and from its lofty summit ties a fluttering dove with
a cord passed round the mast—a mark for aiming the
steel. The archers are met; the lot has been thrown 20
and received by the brazen helmet. See! first, among the
shouts of his friends, comes out before all the place of
Hyrtacus’ son, Hippocoon, who is followed by Mnestheus,
late conqueror in the ship-race—Mnestheus, crowned
with the green olive-wreath. Third comes Eurytion, thy 25
brother, thrice glorious Pandarus, who in elder days,
bidden to destroy the truce, wast the first to wing thy
weapon into the Achæan ranks. Last is Acestes, sank at
the bottom of the helm, the old man’s spirit nerving his
arm to essay the task of the young. And now, with stern 30
strength, they bend and arch their bows, each hero his
own, and draw forth the shaft from the quiver. First
through heaven from the twanging string the arrow of
Hyrtacus’ youthful son pierces sharp and shrill the flying
air: it hits—it is lodged full in the mast-tree. After 35
him stood keen Mnestheus, his bowstring drawn to his
breast, his bow pointing upwards, eye and shaft levelled
at once. But the bird itself, hapless man! his arrow had
not power to touch that: it cut the knot and the hempen
fastening by which she hung, tied by the foot, from the
mast’s top. Away she flew, all among the south-winds
and their murky clouds. Then, quick as thought, his
bow long since ready, and his shaft poised on the string, 5
Eurytion breathed a vow to his brother, fixing his eye on
her in the moment of her triumph high up in the open sky,
and as she claps her wings, pierces the dark cloudy covert,
and strikes the dove. Down she drops unnerved, leaving
her life among the stars of ether, and as she tumbles to 10
earth, brings back the arrow in her breast. Acestes remained
alone, a champion with no prize to gain; yet he
shot his weapon into the air aloft, displaying at once his
veteran skill and the force of his twanging bow. And now
their eyes are met by a sudden portent, drawing a mighty 15
augury in its train. In after days the vast issue told the
tale, and terror-striking seers shrieked their omens too late.
For as it flew in the clouds of heaven, the reed took fire,
and marked its way with a trail of flame, and wasted and
vanished wholly into unsubstantial air; even as stars unfastened 20
from the firmament oft sweep across and drag
their blazing hair as they fly. Fixed aghast to the spot,
in prayer to Heaven, hung the stout sons of Trinacria and
Troy; nor does Æneas’ sovran judgment reject the omen.
He clasps the glad Acestes to his heart, loads him with 25
costly gifts, and bespeaks him thus:—“Take them, my
father; for Olympus’ mighty monarch has said by the
voice of these omens that yours is to be a prize drawn without
a lot. From Anchises the aged himself comes the
present I now bestow—a bowl embossed with figures, 30
which in old days Cisseus[o] gave to my sire Anchises in
royal bounty, a standing remembrance of himself and a
testimony of his love.” So saying, he crowns his brow
with verdant bays, and proclaims, first of all, the conquering
name of Acestes. Nor did good Eurytion grudge the 35
preëminence, though he and none but he brought down
the bird from the sky. Next steps into the prize he who cut
the cord; last, he whose quivering arrow nailed the mast
But father Æneas, ere the match was over, calls to his
side the guardian and companion of Iulus’ tender years,
Epytides, and thus speaks into his ear in secret:—“Go
now and tell Ascanius, if his company of boys is ready,
and the movements of his young cavalry duly marshalled, 5
to bring them into the field in his grandsire’s honour, and
show himself in arms.” He, by his own voice, bids the
whole surging crowd retire from the length of the circus,
and leave the field clear. The boys come prancing in on
well-reined steeds, in even lines of light brightening their 10
parents’ eyes; and as they pass, an admiring shout, breaks
from the gathered chivalry of Sicily and Troy. All alike
have their flowing hair duly cinctured with stripped leaves;
each bears two cornel javelins tipped with steel; some have
polished quivers at their backs; round the top of the chest 15
goes a pliant chain of twisted gold circling the neck.
Three are the companies of horse, three the leaders that
scour the plain; twelve boys follow each, a glittering show,
in equal divisions and commanded alike. The first of the
youthful bands is led as to victory by a young Priam, 20
who revives his grandsire’s name, thy princely offspring,
Polites, destined to people Italy; him a Thracian steed
carries, dappled with spots of white, with white on the
extremes of his prancing feet, and white on his towering
brow. Next is Atys, whence comes the house of Roman 25
Atii—Atys the young, the boyish friend of the boy Iulus.
Last of all, and excelling all in beauty, Iulus rides in on a
Sidonian steed, bestowed on him by Dido the fair, in remembrance
of herself, and in testimony of her love.
The remaining youth are borne on Trinacrian horses from 30
old Acestes’ stalls. The Dardans welcome them with
reassuring plaudits, and gaze on them with rapture, and
trace in their young faces the features of their old sires.
Soon as the riders have made their joyous survey of the
whole gazing crowd and of their friends’ loving eyes, 35
Epytides gives the expected signal with far-reaching shout
and loud cracking whip. In regular order they gallop asunder,
the three companies breaking and parting right and left;
and again, at the word of command, they wheel round, and
charge each other with levelled lances. Then they essay
other advances and other retreats in quarters still opposite,
each entangling each in circles within circles, and in their
real armour raise an image of battle. Now they expose 5
their backs in flight, now they turn their spear-points in
charge, now as in truce they ride along side by side. Even
as men tell of that old labyrinth[193] in lofty Crete, its way
cunningly woven with blind high walls, and the ambiguous
mystery of its thousand paths, winding till the pursuer’s 10
every trace was baffled by a maze without solution and
without return, not unlike are the courses in which these
sons of the Teucrians interlace their movements—a
gamesome tangle of flying and fighting, as it were dolphins
that swimming the watery seas dart through the Carpathian 15
and the Libyan, and sport along the billows. Such
was the form of exercise, and such the game that Ascanius,
when he built the cincturing walls of Alba the Long, was the
first to revive, and taught the early Latians to celebrate it
as he had done in his boyhood, he and the youth of Troy 20
with him; the men of Alba taught their sons; from them
mighty Rome received the tradition and maintained the
observance of her sires; and the boys still bear the name
of Troy, and their band is styled the band of Troy. Thus
far went the solemn[194] games in honour of the deified sire. 25
Now it was that Fortune exchanged her old faith for
new. While they are rendering to the tomb the due solemnities
of the varied games, Juno, Saturn’s daughter, has
sped down Iris from heaven to the feet of Ilion, with breath
of winds to waft her on her way—Juno, deep-brooding 30
over many thoughts, her ancient wrath yet unsated.
Speeding along her many-coloured bow, seen of none, runs
swiftly down the celestial maid. She beholds that mighty
concourse; she looks round on the coast, and sees harbour
abandoned and fleet forsaken. Far away, in the privacy 35
of a solitary beach, the Trojan dames were weeping for
lost Anchises, and, as they wept, were gazing, one and all,
wistfully on the great deep. Alas, that wearied souls
should still have those many waters to pass, and that vast
breadth of sea! Such the one cry of every heart. Oh
for a city! the toils of the main are a weariness to bear!
So, then, in the midst of them, she suddenly alights—no
novice in the ways of doing hurt—and lays by her heavenly 5
form and heavenly raiment. She takes the shape of
Beroe, the aged wife of Doryclus of Tinaros, a dame who
once had had race and name and children, and in this guise
stands in the midst of the Dardan matrons. “Wretched
women,” cries she, “not to have been dragged to the death 10
of battle by the force of Achaia under our country’s walls!
Hapless nation! What worse than death has Fortune in
store for you? Here is the seventh summer rolling on
since Troy’s overthrow, and all the while we are being
driven, land and ocean over, among all the rocks of an 15
unfriendly sea, under all the stars of heaven, as through
the great deep we follow after retreating Italy, and are
tossed from wave to wave. Here is the brother-land of
Eryx; here is Acestes, our ancient friend. Who shall gainsay
digging a foundation, and giving a people the city 20
they crave? O my country! O gods of our homes,
snatched in vain from the foe! Shall there never be walls
named with the name of Troy? Shall I never on earth
see the streams that Hector loved—his Xanthus and his
Simois? Come, join me in burning up these accursed 25
ships. For in my sleep methought the likeness of Cassandra
the seer put blazing torches into my hands. ‘Here,’
she said, ‘and here only, look for Troy: here, and here
only, is your home.’ The hour for action is come. Heaven’s
wonders brook not man’s delay. See here! four 30
altars to Neptune. The god himself gives us the fire and
the will.”
So saying, she is the first to snatch the baleful brand—swinging
back her hand on high; with strong effort she
whirls and flings it. The dames of Ilion gaze with straining 35
mind and wildered brain. Then one of the crowd, the
eldest of all, Pyrgo, the royal nurse of Priam’s many sons:
“No Beroe have you here, matrons—this is not Doryclus’
wife, of Rhoeteum—mark those signs of heavenly
beauty, those glowing eyes—what a presence is there—what
features—what a tone in her voice—what majesty
in her gait! Beroe I myself parted from but now, and
left her sick and sullen to think that she alone should fail 5
at this observance, nor pay Anchises the honour that is
his due.” Such were her words, while the matrons, doubtful
at first, were looking on the ships with evil eyes, distracted
between their fatal yearning for a country now
theirs, and the voice of destiny from realms beyond the 10
sea—when the goddess, spreading her two wings, soared
up into the sky and severed the clouds as she flew with the
giant span of her bow. Then indeed, maddened by the
portent, goaded by frenzy, they shriek one and all, and
snatch fire from house and hearth—some strip the altars, 15
and fling on the vessels leaf and bough and brand. The
fire-god revels in full career along bench and oar, and
painted pine-wood stern. The news of the fleet on fire
is carried by Eumelus to Anchises’ tomb, and the seats in
the circus. They look back, and with their own eyes see 20
sparks and smoke in a black flickering cloud. First of all
Ascanius, riding in triumph at the head of his cavalry,
spurred his horse just as he was to the wildering camp,
while his breathless guardians strive in vain to stay him.
“What strange madness this? whither now, whither 25
would ye go,” cries he, “my poor countrywomen? It is
not the Argive foe and his hated camp—it is your own
hopes that you are burning. See, I am your own Ascanius”—at
his feet he flung his empty helmet which he was
wearing in sport as he helped to raise the image of war. 30
Quick follows Æneas, quick the Teucrian host at his heels.
But the matrons are flying in panic along the coast, now
here, now there, stealing to the thickest woods and the
deepest caves. They loathe the deed and the daylight.
Sobered, they know their friends again, and Juno is exorcised 35
from their souls. But not for all this will blaze and
burning resign their unslaked powers: deep among the
moistened timber smoulders the quick tow, discharging
a slow lazy smoke: the crawling heat preys on the keels,
and the plague sinks down into the vessel’s every limb,
and strength of giant warriors and streaming water-floods
are all of no avail. Then good Æneas began to tear his
raiment from his back and call the gods for aid, and raise 5
his hands in prayer: “Jove Almighty, if thy hate would
not yet sweep off the whole Trojan race to a man, if thy
ancient goodness has yet any regard for human suffering,
grant the fleet to escape from flame now, Father, even now,
and rescue from death the shattered commonweal of Troy. 10
Or else do thou with thy wrathful bolt send down this
poor remnant to the grave, if that is my fit reward, and
here with thy own right hand overwhelm us all.” Scarce
had the words been breathed, when a black tempest is
set loose, raging with fierce bursts of rain: the thunderpeals 15
thrill through highland and lowland—down from
the whole sky pours a torrent of blinding water, thickened
to blackness by the southern winds—the ships are filled,
the smouldering timbers soaked—till every spark is
quenched at last, and all the vessels, with the loss of four, 20
rescued from the deadly plague.
But father Æneas, staggering under this cruel blow,
began to shift from side to side a vast burden of care, as
he pondered whether to settle in the plains of Sicily, shutting
his ears to Fate’s voice, or still make for the shores of 25
Italy. Then Nautes the aged—whom Tritonian Pallas
singled from his kind, to teach her lore and dower him
with the fame of abundant wisdom—hers the oracular
utterances which told what Heaven’s awful wrath portended,
or what the stern sequence of destiny required—he 30
it was that addressed Æneas thus in words of comfort:
“Goddess-born, be it ours to follow as Fate pulls us to or
fro; come what may, there is no conquering fortune but
by endurance. Here you have Acestes, the blood of Dardanus
and of gods mingling in his veins—make him the 35
partner of your thoughts, and invite the aid he will gladly
give. Consign to him the crews whom your missing ships
have left homeless, and those who are tired of high emprize
and of following your fortunes—the old, old men,
and the matrons, weary of ocean, and whatever you have
that is weak and timorsome—set these apart, and suffer
them to have in this land a city of rest. The town’s name,
with leave given, they shall call Acesta.” 5
The fire thus kindled by the words of his aged friend,
now indeed the thoughts of his mind distract him utterly.
And now black Night, car-borne, was mounting the sky,
when the semblance of his sire Anchises, gliding from
heaven, seemed to break on his musings in words like 10
these: “My son, dearer to me of old than life, while life
was yet mine—my son, trained in the school of Troy’s
destiny, I come hither at the command of Jove—of him
who chased the fire from your ships, and looked down on
your need in pity from on high. Obey the counsel which 15
Nautes the aged now so wisely gives you. The flower of
your youth, the stoutest hearts you have, let these and
these only follow you to Italy—hard and of iron grain is
the race you have to war down in Latium. Still, ere you
go there, come to the infernal halls of Dis,[195] and travel 20
through Avernus’ deep shades till you meet your father.
No, my son, godless Tartarus[196] and its spectres of sorrow
have no hold on me—the company of the good is my
loved resort and Elysium[197] my dwelling. The virgin Sibyl
shall point you the way, and the streaming blood of black 25
cattle unlock the gate. There you shall hear of your whole
posterity, and the city that Fate has in store. And now
farewell, dark Night has reached the midst of her swift
career, and the relentless Daystar has touched me with the
breath of his panting steeds.” He said, and vanished, like 30
smoke, into unsubstantial air. “Whither away now?”
cries Æneas; “whither in such haste? from whom are
you flying? what power withholds you from my embrace?”
With these words he wakes to life the embers
and their slumbering flame, and in suppliance worships the 35
god of Pergamus and hoary Vesta’s shrine with duteous
meal and a full-charged censer.
At once he calls his friends to his side, and Acestes, first
of all, shows to them the command of Jove, and his loved
father’s precept, and what is now the settled judgment of
his mind. Brief is the parley, nor does Acestes gainsay
his bidding. They remove the matrons to the new city’s
roll, and disembark a willing crew of hearts that need not 5
the stir of great renown. For themselves they repair the
benches and restore the vessels’ half-burnt timber, shape
the oars and fit the ropes, a little band, but a living wellspring
of martial worth. Æneas, meanwhile, is marking
out the city with the plough, and assigning the dwellings 10
by lot, creating an Ilium here, and there a Troy. Acestes,
true Trojan, wields with joy his new sceptre, and proclaims
a court, and gives laws to his assembled senate.[E]
And now the whole nation had enjoyed a nine days’
banquet, and the altars had received due observance; 15
the sleeping winds have lulled the waves, and the repeated
whispers of the south invite to the deep once more. Uprises
along the winding shore a mighty sound of weeping;
prolonged embraces make day and night move slow.
Even the matrons, even the weaklings, who so lately 20
shuddered at the look of the sea, and could not bear its
name, would now fain go and endure all the weariness of
the journey. Them the good Æneas cheers with words
of kindness, and tearfully commends them to Acestes, his
kinsman and theirs. Then he bids slay three calves to 25
Eryx, and a ewe-lamb to the weather gods, and in due
course has the cable cut, while he, his head wreathed with
stript olive leaves, stands aloft in the prow with a charger
in hand, and far into the briny waves flings the entrails,
and pours the sparkling wine. A wind gets up from the 30
stern, and escorts them on their way. Each vying with
each, the crews strike the water, and sweep the marble
surface.
Meanwhile Venus, harassed with care, bespeaks Neptune,
and utters from her heart plaints like these: “The
fell wrath of Juno’s bottomless heart constrains me, Neptune,
to stoop to all the abasement of prayer—wrath that no
length of time softens, no piety of man, unconquered and unsilenced
by Jove’s behest, by destiny itself. It is not enough 5
that her monstrous malice has torn the heart from the breast
of Phrygia,[o] and dragged a city through an infinity of vengeance—the
remnants of Troy, the very ashes and bones
of the slain—these she pursues; rage so fiendish let _her_
trace to its source. Thou thyself canst bear me witness 10
but now in the Libyan waters, what mountains she raised
all in a moment—all ocean she confounded with heaven,
blindly relying on Æolus’ storms to convulse a realm where
thou art master. See now—goading the matrons of
Troy to crime, she has basely burnt their ships, and driven 15
them in the ruins of their fleet to leave their mates to a
home on an unknown shore. These poor relics, then, let
_them_, I beg, spread the sail in safety along thy waters; let
them touch the mouth of Laurentian Tiber, if my prayer
is lawful, if that city is granted them of Fate.” 20
Then thus spake Saturn’s son, lord of the ocean deep:
“All right hast thou, queen of Cythera, to place thy trust
in these realms of mine, whence thou drawest thy birth.
And I have earned it too—often have I checked the madness,
the mighty raving of sky and sea; nor less on earth 25
(bear witness Xanthus and Simois!) has thy Æneas known
my care. When Achilles was chasing Troy’s gasping
bands, forcing them against their own ramparts, and offering
whole hecatombs to Death, till the choked rivers
groaned again, and Xanthus could not thread his way, 30
or roll himself into the sea—in that day, as Æneas confronted
Peleus’ mighty son with weaker arm and weaker aid
from heaven, I snatched him away in a circling cloud even
while my whole heart was bent on overthrowing from their
base the buildings of my own hand, the walls of perjured 35
Troy. As my mind was then, it abides now. Banish thy
fears; safely, according to thy prayer, he shall reach
Avernus haven. One there shall be, and one only, whom
thou shalt ask in vain from the engulfing surge—one life,
and one only, shall be given for thousands.”
With these words, having soothed to joy the goddess’
heart, the august Father yokes his steeds with a yoke of
gold, and puts to their fierce mouth the foaming bit, and 5
gives full course to his flowing reins. The azure car glides
lightly over the water’s surface—the waves sink down,
the swelling sea stills its waters under the wheels of thunder—the
storm-clouds fly away over the wide waste of
heaven. Then come the hundred shapes of attendant 10
powers: enormous whales and Glaucus’[198] aged train, and
Ino’s young Palæmon,[199] and rapid Tritons, and the whole
host that Phorcus leads; on the left are Thetis, and Melite,
and maiden Panopea, Nesæa, and Spio, and Thalia, and
Cymodoce. 15
And now father Æneas feels a soft thrill of succeeding
joy shoot through his anxious bosom; at once he bids
every mast be reared, every sail stretched on its yard-arm.
One and all strain the rope and loosen the sheet, now right,
now left—one and all turn to and fro the sailyard’s lofty 20
horns; the fleet is wafted by the gales it loves. First,
before all, Palinurus led the crowding ranks; after him the
rest, as bidden, shaped their course. And now dewy
Night had well-nigh reached the cope of heaven’s arch—in
calm repose the sailors were relaxing their limbs, 25
stretched each by his oar along the hard benches—when
Sleep’s power, dropping lightly down from the stars of
heaven, parted the dusky air, and swam through the night,
in quest of you, poor Palinurus, with a fatal freight of
dreams for your guiltless head. The god has sat down 30
high on the stern, in the likeness of Phorbas, and these are
the words he utters: “Son of Iasus, Palinurus, the sea
itself is steering the fleet; the winds breathe evenly and
fully; it is slumber’s own hour; come, relax that strained
head, and let those weary eyes play truant from their toil. 35
I myself will undertake your functions awhile in your
stead.” Hardly raising his eyes, Palinurus answered him
thus:—“_I_ blind myself to smiling seas and sleeping
waves: is that your will? _I_ place my faith on this fickle
monster? What? trust Æneas to lying gales and fair
skies, whose fraud I have rued so often?” So he said,
and went on cleaving and clinging, never dropping his
hand from the rudder, nor his eye from the stars. When 5
lo! the god waves over his two temples a bough dripping
with Lethe’s[200] dews, and drugged by the charms of Styx,
and in his own despite closes his swimming eyes. Scarce
had sudden slumber begun to unstring his limbs, when
the power, leaning over him, hurled him headlong into the 10
streaming waves, tearing away part of the vessel’s stern
and the rudder as he fell, with many a cry for help that
never came, while Sleep himself soared high on his wings
into the yielding air. Safely, nevertheless, rides the fleet
over the water, travelling undaunted in the strength of 15
Neptune’s royal promise. And now it was nearing the
cliffs of the Sirens’[201] isle, cliffs unfriendly in days of old, and
white with many a seaman’s bones, and the rocks were
sounding hollow from afar with the untiring surge, when
the great Father perceived the unsteady reel of the masterless 20
ship, and guided it himself through the night of waters,
groaning oft, and staggering under the loss of his friend:
“Victim of faith in the calm of sky and sea, you will lie,
Palinurus, a naked[202] corpse on a strand unknown.”
BOOK VI
So saying and weeping, he gives rope to his fleet, and in
due time is wafted smoothly to Cumæ’s shores of Eubœan
fame. They turn their prows seaward: then the anchor
with griping fang began to moor vessel after vessel, and
crooked keels fringe all the coast. With fiery zeal the 5
crews leap out on the Hesperian shore: some look for the
seed of fire where it lies deep down in the veins of flint:
some strip the woods, the wild beast’s shaggy covert, and
point with joy to the streams they find. But good Æneas
repairs to the heights on which Apollo sits exalted, and 10
the privacy of the dread Sibyl,[203] stretching far away into a
vast cavern—the Sibyl, into whose breast the prophet that
speaks at Delos breathes his own mighty mind and soul,
and opens the future to her eye. And now they are entering
the groves of the Trivian goddess and the golden 15
palace.
Dædalus, so runs the legend, flying from Minos’ sceptre,
dared to trust himself in air on swift wings of his own workmanship,
sailed to the cold north along an unwonted way,
and at last stood buoyant on the top of this Eubœan hill. 20
Grateful to the land that first received him, he dedicated
to thee, Phœbus, his feathery oarage, and raised a mighty
temple. On the doors was seen Androgeos’ death: there
too were the sons of Cecrops,[204] constrained—O cruel woe!
to pay in penalty the yearly tale of seven of their sons’ 25
lives: the urn is standing, and the lots drawn out. On the
other side, breasting the wave, the Gnossian land frowns
responsive. There is Pasiphaë’s tragic passion for the
bull, and the mingled birth, the Minotaur, half man, half
brute, a monument of monstrous love. There is the edifice,[205] 30
that marvel of toiling skill, and its inextricable maze—inextricable,
had not Dædalus in pity for the enthralling
passion of the royal princess, himself unravelled
the craft and mystery of those chambers, guiding the
lover’s dark steps with a clue of thread. You too, poor
Icarus,[206] had borne no mean part in that splendid portraiture, 5
would grief have given art its way. Twice the artist
essayed to represent the tragedy in gold: twice the father’s
hands dropped down palsied. So they would have gone on
scanning all in succession, had not Achates returned from
his errand, and with him the priestess of Phœbus and 10
Diana, Deïphobe, Glaucus’ daughter, who thus bespeaks
the king: “Not this the time for shows like these; your
present work is to sacrifice seven bullocks untouched by the
yoke, seven sheep duly chosen.”
This said to Æneas, whose followers swiftly perform the 15
prescribed rites, she summons the Teucrians into the lofty
temple, herself its priestess. One huge side of the Eubœan
cliff has been hollowed into a cave, approached by a hundred
broad avenues, a hundred mouths—from these a
hundred voices are poured, the responses of the Sibyl. 20
Just as they were on the threshold, “It is the moment
to pray for the oracle,” cries the maiden; “the god, the god
is here.” Thus as she spoke at the gate, her visage, her
hue changed suddenly—her hair started from its braid—her
bosom heaves and pants, her wild soul swells with 25
frenzy—she grows larger to the view, and her tones are
not of earth, as the breath of the divine presence comes
on her nearer and nearer. “What! a laggard at vows and
prayers? Æneas of Troy a laggard? for that is the only
spell to part asunder the great closed lips of the terror-smitten 30
shrine.” She said, and was mute. A cold
shudder runs through the Teucrians’ iron frames, and their
king pours out his very soul in prayer: “Phœbus, ever
Troy’s pitying friend in her cruel agonies—thou who
didst level Paris’ Dardan[207] bow and string his Dardan arm 35
against the vast frame of Æacides[208]—by thy guidance I
have penetrated all these unknown seas that swathe
mighty continents. The Massylian tribes, thrust away by
Nature out of view, and the quicksands that environ their
coasts—now at last our hands are on the flying skirts of
Italy. Oh, let it suffice Troy’s fortune to have followed
us thus far! Ye too may now justly spare our nation of
Pergamus, gods and goddesses all, whose eyes were 5
affronted by Troy and the great glories of Dardan land.
And thou, most holy prophetess, that canst read the future
as the present, grant me—I am asking for no crown that
Fate does not owe me—grant a settlement in Latium to the
Teucrians and their wandering gods, even the travel-tost 10
deities of Troy. Then to Phœbus and his Trivian sister
I will set up a temple of solid marble, and appoint feast-days
in Phœbus’ name. For thee too an august shrine
is in store in that our future realm. For there I will lodge
thy oracles and the secret words of destiny which thou 15
shalt speak to my nation, and consecrate chosen men to
thy gracious service. Only commit not thy strains to
leaves, lest they float all confusedly the sport of the
whirling winds. Utter them with thine own mouth, I
implore thee.” So his prayer ended. 20
But the prophetess, not yet Phœbus’ willing slave, is
storming with giant frenzy in her cavern, as though she
hoped to unseat from her bosom the mighty god. All
the more sharply he plies her mouth with his bit till its
fury flags, tames her savage soul, and moulds her to his 25
will by strong constraint. And now the hundred mighty
doors of the chamber have flown open of their own accord,
and are wafting through the air the voice of prophecy: “O
you whose vast perils by sea are over at length! but on
land there are heavier yet in store. The sons of Dardanus 30
shall come to the realm of Lavinium—from this care set
your mind at rest—but think not that they shall also
have joy of their coming. War, savage war, and the
Tiber foaming with surges of blood, is the vision I see. No
lack for you of Simois, or Xanthus, or a Dorian[209] camp. 35
Another Achilles is reserved for Latium, he too goddess-born—nor
will Juno ever be seen to quit her fastened hold
on Troy—while you, a needy suppliant—what nation,
what city in Italy will not have had you knocking at its
gates! Once more will an alien bride bring on the Teucrians
all this woe—once more a foreign bed. But you,
yield not to affliction, but go forth all the bolder to meet it,
so far as your destiny gives you leave. The first glimpse of 5
safety, little as you dream it, shall dawn on you from a
Grecian town.”
Such are the words with which Cumæ’s Sibyl from her
cell shrills forth awful mysteries and booms again from
the cavern, robing her truth in darkness—such the violence 10
with which Apollo shakes the bridle in her frenzied mouth
and plies her bosom with his goad. Soon as her frenzy
abated and the madness of her lips grew calm, Æneas the
hero began: “No feature, awful maiden, that suffering can
show rises on my sight new or unlooked-for—I have 15
foreseen all and scanned all in fancy already. I have
but one prayer to make: since here it is that Fame tells of
the gate of the infernal monarch, and the murky pool of
Acheron’s overflow, grant me to pass to the sight, to
the presence of my loved father—teach the way, and unlock 20
the sacred doors. Him I bore away through flames
and a driving tempest of darts on these my shoulders and
rescued him from the midst of the foe: he was the companion
of my journey, and encountered with me all the
waves of ocean, all the terrors of sea and sky in his own 25
feeble frame, beyond the strength and the day of old age.
Nay more—that I would kneel to thee and approach thy
dwelling—this was his charge, his oft-repeated prayer.
Oh, of thy grace, pity the son and the sire; for thou art
all-powerful, nor is it for nought that Hecate has set thee 30
over the groves of Avernus. If Orpheus had the power to
fetch back the shade of his wife, by the help of his Thracian
lyre and its sounding strings—if Pollux redeemed
his brother by dying in turn with him, and went and returned
on the path those many times—why talk of Theseus, 35
why of great Alcides[210]? my line, like theirs, is from
Jove most high.”
Such were his prayers, while his hands clasped the altar,
when thus the prophetess began: “Heir of the blood of
gods, son of Anchises of Troy, easy is the going down to
Avernus—all night and all day the gate of gloomy
Pluto stands unbarred; but to retrace your footsteps, and
win your way back to the upper air, that is the labour, that 5
the task. There have been a few, favourites of gracious
Jove, or exalted to heaven by the blaze of inborn worth,
themselves sprung from the gods, who have had the power.
The whole intervening space is possessed by woods,
and lapped round by the black windings of Cocytus’[211] 10
stream. And now, if your heart’s yearning is so great,
your passion so strong, twice to stem the Stygian pool,
twice to gaze on the night of Tartarus—if it be your joy
to give scope to a madman’s striving—hear what must
first be done. Deep in the shade of a tree lurks a branch, all 15
of gold, foliage alike and limber twig, dedicated to the
service of the Juno of the shades; it is shrouded by the
whole labyrinth of the forest, closed in by the boskage that
darkens the glens. Yet none may pierce the subterranean
mystery, till a man have gathered from the tree that leafy 20
sprout of gold, for this it is that fair Proserpine has ordained
to be brought her as her own proper tribute. Pluck
off one, another is there unfailingly, of gold as pure, a twig
burgeoning with as fine an ore. Let then your eye be
keen to explore it, your hand quick to pluck it when duly 25
found, for it will follow the touch with willingness and
ease, if you have a call from Fate; if not, no strength of
yours will overcome it, no force of steel tear it away.
But, besides this, you have the breathless corpse of a
friend lying unburied—alas! you know it not—tainting 30
your whole fleet with the air of death, while you are asking
Heaven’s will, and lingering on this our threshold. Him
first consign to his proper place, and hide him in the grave.
Lead black cattle to the altar: be this the expiation to
pave your way. Thus at last you shall look on the groves 35
of Styx and the realms untrodden of the living.” She
said, and closed her lips in silence.
Æneas, with saddened face and steadfast eye, moves on,
leaving the cave behind, and revolves in his mind the secrets
of the future. Achates, ever faithful, walks at his
side, and plants his foot with no less consciousness of
care. Many were the things exchanged in their ranging
talk—who could be the dead comrade that the priestess 5
spoke of, what the corpse that needed burial. And lo!
Misenus, soon as they came, there on the dry beach they
see him, snatched by death that should have spared him—Misenus,
son of Æolus, than whom none was mightier to
stir men’s hearts with his clarion, and kindle with music 10
the war-god’s flame. Hector the great had been his chief:
in Hector’s service he performed a warrior’s part, famous
alike with the trumpet and the spear. But after the conquering
arm of Achilles robbed his master of life, valiant
hero, he made himself the comrade of the Dardan Æneas, 15
nor found the standard he followed meaner than of old.
But in those days, as he was making his hollow shell ring
over the waters, infatuate mortal, challenging the gods to
compete, Triton, roused to jealousy, seized him, if the
story be true, and plunged him in a moment in the billow 20
that laps among the rocks. So they all stood round, uttering
loud shrieks; louder than the rest Æneas the good.
And then without delay they set about the Sibyl’s bidding,
weeping sore, and in mournful rivalry heap up the funeral
pyre with trees, and carry it into the sky. 25
Away they go to an ancient wood, the wild beast’s tall
covert—down go the pitch-trees; the holm-oak rings with
the axe’s blows, and so do the ashen beams; the wedge
cleaves through the fissile[212] oak; they roll down from the
heights huge mountain ashes. There is Æneas, in this, 30
as in other labours, the first to cheer on his comrades, and
wielding a weapon like theirs; and thus he ponders in the
sad silence of his own breast, looking at the immeasurable
wood, and thus gives utterance to his prayer: “Oh that
at this moment that golden branch on the tree would reveal 35
itself to our sight in all this depth of forest! for I see that
in all things the prophetess has told us of you, Misenus,
alas! too truly!” Scarce had he spoken, when, as by
chance, a pair of doves come flying along the sky, under the
hero’s very eyes, and settle on the turf at his feet. At once
the mighty chief recognizes his mother’s birds, and gladly
breathes a second prayer: “Oh guide us on our way, wherever
it be, and as ye fly direct our steps into the grove 5
where the precious branch casts its shade on the rich
ground! Thou too forsake not our perplexity, O goddess
mother!” Thus much he said, and checked his advancing
foot, watching to see what prognostics they bring, whither
they aim their onward course. They, as they graze, go 10
ever forward on the wing, as far as the eyes of the travellers
can keep them in view. Then when they come to Avernus’
noisome jaws, swiftly they soar aloft, and gliding through
the clear sky, settle twain on the same tree, their chosen
seat, whence there flashed through the branches the contrasted 15
gleam of gold. Even as in the woods, in the cold of
midwinter, the mistletoe is wont to put forth new leaves, a
vegetable growth, but of no parent tree, and with its
yellow produce to surround the tapering boles, so looked
the leafy gold among the holm-oak’s dark shade—so in the 20
light breeze tinkled the foil. Æneas snatches it at once,
plucks it off with eagerness overpowering its delay, and
carries it to the home of the prophetic Sibyl.
Meantime, with not less zeal, the Teucrians on the
shore were mourning for Misenus, and paying the last 25
honour to the thankless ashes. First they raised a pile,
unctuous with pine-wood, and high-heaped with planks of
oak: they wreath its sides with gloomy foliage, and set
up before it funeral cypresses, and adorn it with a covering
of refulgent armour. Some make ready heated water and 30
cauldrons bubbling over the fire, and wash and anoint the
cold corpse. Loud rings the wail: then, the dirge over,
they place the limbs on the couch that claims them,
and fling over them purple garments, the dead men’s
usual covering. Some put their shoulders to the heavy 35
bier in melancholy service, and after ancestral fashion,
with averted eyes, apply the torch from under. The rich
heap is ablaze—offerings of incense, sacrificial viands, oil
streaming from the bowl. After that the ashes were fallen
in and the blaze was lulled, they drenched with wine the
relics and the thirsty embers on the pyre, and Corynæus
gathered up the bones, and stored them in a brazen urn.
He, too, carried round pure water, and sprinkled thrice 5
the comrades of the dead, scattering the thin drops with
a branch of fruitful olive—so he expiated the company,
and spoke the last solemn words. But good Æneas raises
over the dead a monument of massive size, setting up for
the hero his own proper arms, the oar and the trumpet, 10
under a skyey mountain, which is now from him called
Misenus, and retains from age to age the everlasting name.
This done, he hastens to execute the Sibyl’s bidding.
A deep cave there was, yawning wide with giant throat,
rough and shingly, shadowed by the black pool and the 15
gloom of the forest—a cave, over whose mouth no winged
thing could fly unharmed, so poisonous the breath that
exhaling from its pitchy jaws steamed up to the sky—whence
Greece has given the spot the name _Aornos_.[213]
Here first the priestess places in sacrificial station four 20
black-skinned bullocks, and empties wine over their
brows, and plucking from between their horns the hairs of
the crown, throws them into the hallowed flame, as the
firstfruits of worship, with loud cries on Hecate, queen in
heaven and Erebus both. Others put the knife to the 25
throat, and catch in chargers the steaming blood. With
his own sword Æneas strikes down a lamb of sable fleece,
for the Furies’[214] mother and her mighty sister, and a
barren heifer for thee, dread Proserpine. Then to the
Stygian monarch he rears altars, blazing through the 30
darkness, and piles on the flame the bulls’ carcases
entire, pouring fat oil on the entrails all aglow. When,
hark! as the sun began to glimmer and dawn, the ground
is bellowing under their feet, and the wood-crowned heights
are nodding, and the baying of dogs sounds through the 35
gloom, for the goddess is at hand. “Hence, hence with
your unhallowed feet!” clamours the prophetess, “and rid
the whole grove of your presence. And you—strike into
the road, and pluck your sword from his scabbard—now
is the hour for courage, Æneas, now for a stout heart.”
No more she said, but flung herself wildly into the cavern’s
mouth; and he, with no faltering step, keeps pace with his
guide. 5
Ye gods, whose empire is the shades—spirits of silence,
Chaos and Phlegethon, stretching wide in the stillness of
night, suffer me to tell what has reached my ears; grant
me your aid to reveal things buried underground, deep and
dark. 10
On they went, darkling in solitary night, far into the
gloom, through Pluto’s void halls and ghostly realms—like
a journey in a wood under the niggard beams of a
doubtful moon, when Jupiter has shrouded heaven in
shadow, and black Night has stolen the colour from 15
Nature’s face. There before the threshold, in the very
mouth of Hell, Agony and the fiends of Remorse have made
their lair: there dwell wan Diseases, and woful Age, and
Terror, and Hunger that prompts to Sin, and loathly
Want—shapes of hideous view—and Death, and Suffering; 20
then comes Sleep, Death’s blood-brother, and the
soul’s guilty joys, and deadly War couched in the gate,
and the Furies’ iron chambers, and frantic Strife, with
bloody fillets wreathed in her snaky hair.
In the midst there stands, with boughs and aged arms 25
outspread, a massive elm, of broad shade, the chosen
seat, so Rumour tells, of bodiless dreams, which cling
close to its every leaf. There, too, are a hundred monstrous
shapes of wild beasts of divers kinds, Centaurs
stalled in the entrance and two-formed Scyllas, and 30
Briareus,[215] the hundred-handed, and the portent of Lerna,[216]
hissing fearfully, and Chimæra[217] in her panoply of flames,
Gorgons,[218] and Harpies, and the semblance of the three-bodied
spectre. At once Æneas grasps his sword, in the
haste of sudden alarm, and meets their advance with its 35
drawn blade; and did not his companion warn him, of
her own knowledge, that they are but thin unbodied
spirits flitting in a hollow mask of substance, he would
be rushing among them, and slashing shadows asunder
with the steel’s unavailing blows.
Hence runs the road that leads to the waters of Tartarean
Acheron, whose gulfy stream, churning mud in its
monstrous depths, is all aglow, and disgorges into Cocytus 5
the whole of its sand. These waters are guarded by a
grisly ferryman, frightful and foul—Charon; his chin an
uncleared forest of hoary hair; his eyes a mass of flame;
while his uncleanly garb hangs from his shoulders, gathered
into a knot. With his own hand he pushes on the craft 10
with a pole, and trims the sails, and moves the dead
heavily along in his boat of iron-gray, himself already in
years; but a god’s old age is green and vigorous. Towards
him the whole crowd was pouring to the bank: matrons
and warriors, and bodies of mighty heroes discharged of 15
life, boys and unwedded maidens, and youths laid on the
pile of death in their parents’ eyes—many as are the
leaves that drop and fall in the woods in autumn’s early
cold, or many as are the birds that flock massed together
from the deep to the land, when the wintry year drives 20
them over sea to tenant a sunnier clime. There they
stood, each praying that he might be the first to cross,
with hands yearningly outstretched towards the further
shore; but the grim boatman takes on board now these,
now those, while others he drives away, and bars them 25
from the river’s brink. Æneas cries as a man perplexed
and startled by the tumult: “Tell me, dread maiden,
what means this concourse to the stream? Of what are
these spirits in quest? What choice decides that these
shall retire from the shore, while those are rowing through 30
that leaden pool?” To him in brief returned the aged
priestess: “Son of Anchises, Heaven’s undoubted offspring,
before you are Cocytus’ depths and the marshy
flood of Styx, that power by whose name the gods fear
to swear in vain. The whole multitude you see here is 35
helpless and tombless; Charon is the ferryman; those
who ride the wave are the buried. He may not ferry
them from the dreadful banks across that noisy current
till their bones have found a place of rest. A hundred
years they wander hovering about these shores; then at
last they embark, and see again the flood of their longing.”
Anchises’ son stood and paused, musing deeply, and pitying
at his heart a lot so unkind. Yes, there he sees, sadly 5
wandering without death’s last tribute, Leucaspis and
Orontes, the captain of Lycia’s fleet: both had sailed
with him from Troy over the stormy water, and the south
wind whelmed them both, engulfing the vessel and its
crew. 10
Lo! he sees his pilot, Palinurus, moving along—Palinurus,
who but now, while voyaging from Libya, his eyes
bent on the stars, had fallen’ from the stern, flung out
into the wide waste of waters. So when he had at last
taken knowledge of his features, now saddened, in the 15
deep gloom, he thus accosts him first: “Who was it,
Palinurus, of all the gods, that tore you from us, and
whelmed you in the wide sea? Tell me who. Till now
I never found him false; but in this one response Apollo
has proved a cheat, foretelling that you would be unharmed 20
on the deep, and win your way to the Ausonian
frontier, and thus it is that he keeps his word!” “Nay,”
returned he, “my chief, Anchises’ son, Phœbus’ tripod has
told you no lie, nor did any god whelm me in the sea.
No, I chanced to fall, tearing away by main force the 25
rudder, to which I was clinging like sentry to his post,
as I guided your course, and dragging it with me in my
headlong whirl. Witness those cruel waters, I felt no
fear for my own life like that which seized me for your
ship, lest, disarmed and disabled, shaken loose from her 30
ruler’s hand, she should give way under the great sea that
was rising then. Three long nights of storm the south
wind swept me over the vast wilderness of convulsed
ocean. Hardly at last, at the fourth dawn, I looked out
aloft upon Italy from the crest of the wave. Stroke by 35
stroke I was swimming to shore; and now I was just
laying hold on safety, had not the savage natives come
on me, sword in hand, clogged as I was with my dripping
clothes, and clutching with talon fingers the steep mountain-top,
and deemed blindly they had found a prize.
Now the wave is my home, and the winds keep tossing
me on the beach. Oh, by heaven’s pleasant sunshine
and bright sky; by your father, I adjure you; by the 5
promise growing up with your Iulus, rescue me with that
unconquered arm from this cruel fate: be yourself, and
either spread earth upon me, for that you can surely do,
and put back to Velia’s haven; or, if any way there be,
any that your goddess mother can reveal—for well I 10
ween it is not without Heaven’s leave that you purpose
to stem these fearful tides and the reluctant pool of Styx—stretch
your hand to your poor friend, and take me
with you over the water, that at least I may find in death
a place of rest and peace.” So had he spoken, when thus 15
the priestess begins: “What demon, Palinurus, has set
on you so monstrous a desire? You, unburied, look on
the Stygian water, and the dread river of the furies?
You set foot on the bank unbidden? Cease to dream
that Heaven’s destiny can be swayed by prayer. Yet 20
hear and retain a word which may console your hard lot.
For know that the dwellers in that fatal border, goaded
far and wide through their cities by prodigies from heaven,
shall propitiate your dust: they shall erect a tomb, and
through that tomb send down your funeral dues, and the 25
spot shall bear forever the name of Palinurus.” These
words allayed his cares, and banished for a while grief
from that sad bosom: his heart leaps to the land that is
called by his name.
They accordingly continue their journey, and approach 30
the river. Soon as the boatman saw them, at the moment,
from the wave of Styx, moving through the stilly forest,
and turning their steps to the bank, he first bespeaks
them thus, and assails them unaccosted: “You, whoever
you are, that are making for these waters of ours in warlike 35
trim, speak your errand from the spot where you
are, and come no nearer. This is the place for the shadows,
for Sleep and slumberous Night. The bodies of the living
may not be ferried in my Stygian barque. Nay, it was
not to my joy that I gave Alcides a passage over the lake,
nor Theseus and Pirithous, born of gods though they
were, and of strength unsubdued. The one laid a jailer’s
hand on the warder of Tartarus, even at the foot of the 5
king’s own throne, and dragged him trembling along:
the others essayed to carry off the queen from Pluto’s
bridal chamber.” To which the Amphrysian priestess
replied in brief: “Here there are no stratagems like those;
be not discomposed; these weapons are not borne for 10
violence; the monstrous guardian of your gate is free to
terrify the bloodless spectres from his den with his unending
bark; Proserpine is free to keep her uncle’s home
as faithful wife should. This is Æneas of Troy, renowned
for piety and arms alike: it is to see his father that he 15
is going down to Erebus’ lowest depth of gloom. If thou
art moved in nought by the spectacle of piety so signal,
yet let this branch”—she uncovered the branch which
was concealed in her robe—‘claim recognition.’ At
once the angry swell subsides, and the breast is calm. 20
No further parley. Gazing in wonder at the sacred offering
of the fated bough, last seen so long ago, he turns to
them the sea-green boat, and draws near the bank.
Then he dislodges other ghostly passengers who were sitting
along the benches, and clears the gangways, while 25
he takes into the vessel’s hollow the mighty Æneas. The
sutures of the boat cracked beneath the weight, as through
its rents it drew in large draughts of marsh-water. At
length priestess and prince are safe across the flood, set
down amid featureless mud and blue-green rushes. 30
Cerberus,[219] the monster, makes the whole realm ring
with his three barking throats, as he lies in giant length
fronting them in his den’s mouth. The priestess, seeing
the snakes already bristling on his neck, throws him a
morsel steeped in the slumber of honey and medicated 35
meal. He, in the frenzy of hunger, opens his triple jaws
to catch it as it comes, and stretches his enormous back at
length on the ground, till his huge bulk covers the den.
Æneas masters the approach while the warder sleeps, and
swiftly passes from the bank of the river without return.
At once there breaks on his ear a voice of mighty wailing,
infant spirits sobbing and crying on the threshold,
babes that, portionless of the sweets of life, were snatched 5
from the breast by the black death-day’s tyranny, and
whelmed in untimely night. Next to them are those
who were done to death by false accusation. Yet let
none think that the lot of award or the judge’s sentence
are wanting here. There sits Minos,[220] the president, urn 10
in hand: he summons an assembly of the speechless, and
takes cognizance of earthly lives and earthly sins.
Next to them comes the dwelling-place of the sons of
sorrow, who, though guiltless, procured their own death by
violence, and, for mere hatred of the sunshine, flung their 15
lives away. Oh, how gladly would they now, in the air
above, bear to the end the load of poverty and the full
extremity of toil! But Fate bars the way: the unlovely
pool swathes them round in her doleful waters, and Styx,
with her ninefold windings, keeps them fast. 20
Not far hence the traveller’s eye sees stretching on every
side the Mourning Fields: such the name they bear.
Here dwell those whom cruel Love’s consuming tooth
has eaten to the heart, in the privacy of hidden walks
and an enshrouding myrtle wood: their tender sorrows 25
quit them not even in death. In this region he sees
Phædra and Procris, and sad Eriphyle, pointing to the
wounds of her ruthless son, and Evadne, and Pasiphaë:
along with them moves Laodamia, and Cæneus, once a
man, now a woman, brought back by the turn of fate to 30
her former self. Among these was Phœnicia’s daughter,
Dido, fresh from her death-wound, wandering in that
mighty wood: soon as the Trojan hero stood at her side,
and knew her, looming dimly through the dusk—as a
man sees or thinks he sees through the clouds, when the 35
month is young, the rising moon—his tears broke forth,
and he addressed her tenderly and lovingly. “Unhappy
Dido! and was it then a true messenger that reached
me with the tale that you were dead: that the sword
had done its worst? Was it, alas, to a grave that I
brought you? By the stars of heaven I swear, by the
powers above, by all that is most sacred here underground,
against my will, fair queen, I quitted your coast. 5
No; it was the command of the gods; the same stern
force which compels me now to pass through this realm
of shade, this wilderness of squalor and abysmal night;
it was that which drove me by its uttered will: nor could
I have thought that my departure would bring on you 10
such violence of grief. Stay your step, and withdraw not
from the look I bend on you. Whom would you shun?
the last word which fate suffers me to address you is this.”
With words like these, Æneas kept soothing the soul that
blazed forth through those scowling eyes, and moving 15
himself to tears. She stood with averted head and eyes
on the ground, her features as little moved by the speech
he essayed as if she held the station of a stubborn flint,
or a crag of Marpessa.[221] At length she flung herself
away, and, unforgiving still, fled into the shadow of the 20
wood, where her former lord, Sychæus, answers her sorrows
with his, and gives her full measure for her love.
Yet, none the less, Æneas, thrilled through and through
by her cruel fate, follows far on her track with tears, and
sends his pity along with her. 25
Thence he turns, to encounter the appointed way.
And now they were already in the furthest region, the
separate place tenanted by the great heroes of war.
Here there meets him Tydeus, here Parthenopæus, illustrious
in arms, and the spectre of pale Adrastus. Here 30
are chiefs of Dardan line, wailed long and loudly in the
upper air as they lay low in fight: as he saw them all in
long array, he groaned heavily. Glaucus and Medon, and
Thersilochus, the three sons of Antenor, and Polyphœtes,
Ceres’ priest, and Idæus, with his hand still on the car, 35
still on the armour. They surround him, right and left,
the ghostly crowd; one look is not sufficient: they would
fain linger on and on, and step side by side with him,
and learn the cause of his coming. But the nobles of the
Danaans, and the flower of Agamemnon’s bands, when
they saw the hero and his armour gleaming through the
shade, were smitten with strange alarm: some turn their
backs in flight, as erst they fled to the ships: others raise 5
a feeble war-shout. The cry they essay mocks their
straining throats.
Here it is that he sees Priam’s son, mangled all over,
Deiphobus, his face cruelly marred—face and both
hands—his temples despoiled of his ears, and his nose 10
lopped by unseemly carnage. Scarce, in truth, he recognized
him, trembling as he was, and trying to hide the
terrible vengeance wreaked on him: unaccosted, he addresses
him in the tones he knew of old: “Deiphobus,
mighty warrior, scion of Teucer’s illustrious stock, who 15
has had the ambition to avenge himself so cruelly? who
has had his will of you thus? For me, Rumour told me
on that fatal night that you had sunk down, tired with
the work of slaughtering the Greeks, on a heap of undistinguished
carnage. Then with my own hand, I set up 20
an empty tomb on the Rhœtean shore, and thrice with a
loud voice invoked your spirit. There are your name and
your arms to keep the spot in memory: your self, dear
friend, I could not see, so as to give you repose in the
fatherland I was leaving.” To whom the son of Priam: 25
“Dear friend, you have failed in nought: all that Deiphobus
could claim has been paid by you to him and to his
shade. No; it was my own destiny and the deadly
wickedness of the Spartan woman that plunged me thus
deep in ill: these tokens are of her leaving. How we 30
spent that fatal night in treacherous joyance you know
well: too good cause is there to bear it in mind. When
the fateful horse at one bound surmounted the height of
Pergamus, and brought a mailclad infantry in its laden
womb, she feigned a solemn dance, and led round the 35
city Phrygian dames in Bacchic ecstasy; herself in their
midst raising a mighty torch aloft, and calling to the
Danaans from the top of the citadel. That hour I, spent
with care and overborne with sleep, was in the hold of
our ill-starred bridal chamber, weighed down as I lay, by
slumber sweet and sound, the very image of the deep
calm of death. Meantime, my peerless helpmate removes
from the house arms of every sort: yes, my trusty sword 5
she had withdrawn from my pillow, and now she calls
Menelaus to come in, and throws wide the door, hoping,
I doubt not, that the greatness of the boon would soften
her lover’s heart, and that the memory of her crime of
old could thus be wiped from men’s minds. Why make 10
the story long? They burst into the chamber, along with
them that child of Æolus,[222] then as ever the counsellor
of evil. Recompense, ye gods, the Greeks in kind, if
these lips, that ask for retribution, are pure and loyal.
But you; what chance has brought you here in your lifetime, 15
let me ask in turn? Are you come under the spell
of ocean-wandering, or by the command of heaven? or
what tyranny of fortune constrains you to visit these
sad, sunless dwellings, the abode of confusion?”
In this interchange of talk, the Dawn-goddess in her 20
flushing car, careering through the sky, had well passed
the summit of the arch; and perchance they had spent
all their allotted time in converse like this, had not the
Sibyl warned her companion with brief address: “Night
is hastening, Æneas; and we, as we weep, are making 25
hours pass. This is the spot where the road parts in
twain. The right, which goes under the palace-wall of
mighty Dis—there lies our way to Elysium; the left
puts in motion the tortures of the wicked, and sends
them to Tartarus, the home of crime.” Deiphobus replied: 30
“Frown not, dread priestess; I depart, to make
the ghostly number complete, and plunge again in darkness.
Go on your way, our nation’s glory, go: may your
experience of fate be more blest.” He said, and, while
yet speaking, turned away. 35
Suddenly, Æneas looks back, and, under a rock on the
left, sees a broad stronghold, girt by a triple wall; a fierce
stream surrounds it with surges of fire, Tartarean Phlegethon,
and tosses craggy fragments in thunder. Full in
front is a vast gate, its pillars of solid adamant. No force
of man, not even the embattled powers of heaven, could
break it down. Rising in air is a turret of iron, and Tisiphone,
with a gory robe girt round her, sits at the vestibule 5
with sleepless vigilance night and day. Hence
sounds of wailing meet the ear, and the crack of remorseless
whips; the clank of steel follows, and the trailing of
the chain. Æneas stood still, riveted by the terror of
the noise. “What shapes is guilt wearing now? tell me, 10
dread maiden. What are the torments that lie on it so
hard? what mean these loud upsoaring shrieks?” The
priestess returned: “Noble leader of the Teucrians, no
innocent foot may tread that guilty threshold; but the
day when Hecate set me over the groves of Avernus, she 15
taught me from her own lips the punishments of Heaven,
and led me through from end to end. Here rules Gnosian
Rhadamanthus, a reign of iron—avenger, at once, and
judge of cowering guilt, he compels a confession of what
crimes soever men in upper air, blindly rejoicing in the 20
cheat, have kept secret till the hour of death, to be expiated
then. In a moment, Tisiphone the torturer, with
uplifted scourge, lashes from side to side the spurned
and guilty soul; and brandishing in her left hand knots
of serpents, summons her unpitying sisterhood. Then at 25
last, grating on their dread-sounding hinge, the awful
gates are opened. See you what manner of sentry is
seated at the entrance? what a presence is guarding the
threshold? Know that a Hydra fiercer yet with fifty
monstrous throats, each a yawning pit, holds her seat 30
within. Then there is the abyss of Tartarus in sheer
descent, extending under the shades, twice as far as
man’s skyward gaze from earth to the heaven of Olympus.
Here are earth’s ancient progeny, the Titan brood,
hurled down by the thunderbolt to wallow in the depths 35
of the gulf. Here too saw I the twin sons of Aloeus,
frames of giant bulk, who essayed by force of hand to
pluck down the mighty heavens, and dislodge Jove from
his realm in the sky. I saw too Salmoneus, smitten with
cruel vengeance, while mimicking the fires of Jove and
the rumblings of Olympus. Borne in a four-horse car, a
flaring torch in hand, he was making his triumphal progress 5
through the tribes of Greece, and the midst of Elis’
city, and bidding men accord him a god’s homage. Madman!
to counterfeit the storm-cloud and the unrivalled
thunderbolt with the rattle of brass and the beat of
horses’ horny hoofs. But the almighty sire from the
depth of his cloudy dwelling hurled his weapon—no 10
futile firebrand his, no pinewood’s smoky glare—and
dashed him headlong down with that tremendous blast.
Tityos, too, the foster-child of Earth’s common breast, it
was mine to see: his body lies extended over nine whole
acres, and there is a monstrous vulture with hooked beak 15
shearing away his imperishable liver, and reaping a harvest
of suffering from his vitals, as it digs deep for its meal,
and burrows in the cavern of his breast, nor gives the
new-growing filaments rest or respite. What need to tell
of the Lapithæ, of Ixion[223] and Pirithous—men who live 20
under a black crag, ever falling, and just in act to drop?
The lofty couch is spread for the banquet, and the pillar
of gold gleams underneath: the feast is before them,
served in kingly luxury; but the eldest of the Furies is
couched at their side: she will not let them stretch a hand 25
to the board: she starts up with torch uplifted and
thunder in her tones. Here are they who lived in hatred
with their brethren while life yet was; who smote a
parent or wove for a client the web of fraud; who gained
a treasure and brooded over it alone, and never shared it 30
with their kin—a mighty number these—adulterers,
who were slain for their crime; citizens who followed
the standard of treason; slaves who shrunk not from
breaking their troth to their lords: all in prison awaiting
their doom. Ask not _what_ doom is theirs, what 35
phase, what fate has whelmed them so deep. Others roll
the huge stone up the hill, or hang dispread from the
spokes of the wheel: there sits, as he will sit for evermore,
unhappy Theseus: and Phlegyas, from the depth
of his agony, keeps warning all, and proclaiming with a
voice of terror through the shades: ‘Learn hereby to be
righteous, and not to scorn the gods.’ This sold his country
for gold, and saddled her with a tyrant; for gain he 5
made and unmade laws: this assailed his daughter’s bed,
and essayed a forbidden union: all dared some monstrous
crime, and enjoyed their daring. No; had I even a hundred
tongues, and a hundred mouths, and lungs of iron,
not then could I embrace all the types of crime, or rehearse 10
the whole muster-roll of vengeance.”
So spoke Apollo’s aged priestess; and then resuming:
“But come,” she cries, “speed on your way, and fulfil
the duty you have essayed: quicken we our pace. I see
the walls which the Cyclopian forge raised in air, and the 15
arched gates confronting us, where sacred rule bids us
set down our offering.” As she spoke, they step side by
side through the dusky ways, despatch the interval of
distance, and draw near the gate. Æneas masters the
approach, sprinkles his body with pure spring water, and 20
fixes the branch on the portal’s front.
And now these things done at length, and the offering
to the goddess accomplished, they have reached the
regions of bliss, green pleasaunces of happy groves, and the
abodes of the blest. Here ether clothes the plains with 25
an ampler plenitude and a dazzling lustre; and the eye
beholds a sun and stars of its own. There are some,
plying their limbs on the grassy wrestling-ground, conflicting
in sport, and grappling each other on the yellow
sand: some are beating their feet in the dance, and chanting 30
songs. There, too, is the Thracian priest[224] in his flowing
robe, singing the seven notes in unison with the
dancer’s measure, and striking them now with his fingers,
now with the quill of ivory. Here are the old race of
Teucer, a goodly family, heroes of lofty soul, born in 35
earth’s better days, Ilus and Assaracus, and Dardanus,
founder of Troy. From afar he gazes wonderingly on
their warrior arms and their ghostly chariots. Their spears
stand rooted in the ground, and their unyoked steeds
graze dispersedly over the meadow. All the delight they
took when alive in chariots and armour, all their pride in
grooming and feeding their horses, goes with them underground,
and animates them there. See, too, his eye rests 5
on others regaling on either hand upon the grass, and
singing in chorus a joyous pæan, all in a fragrant grove
of bay, the source whence, welling forth into the upper
world, Eridanus[225] flows in broad current between his
wooded banks. Here is a noble company who braved 10
wounds in fight for fatherland; all the priests who kept
their purity while life was; all the poets whose hearts
were clean, and their songs worthy Phœbus’ ear; all who
by cunning inventions gave a grace to life, and whose
worthy deeds made their fellows think of them with love: 15
each has his brow cinctured with a snow-white fillet.
Looking on the multitude as it streamed around, the
Sibyl bespoke them thus—Musæus before all; for he
stands the centre of that vast crowd, which looks up to
him, as with rising shoulders he towers above them: 20
“Tell us, happy spirits, and you, best of bards, which is
Anchises’ haunt? which his home? for it is to see him
that we have come hither, and won our way over the
mighty river of Erebus.” Instant the hero replied in brief:
“Here there are no fixed abodes: our dwellings are in 25
shadowy groves: our settlements on the velvet slope of
banks and meadows fresh with running streams. But
come, if you will, climb this hill with me, and I will set
your feet at once on a road that will lead you.” So saying,
he moves on before, and from the top of the ridge 30
points to broad fields of light, while they descend from
the summit.
But father Anchises, down in the depth of the green
dell, was surveying with fond observance the spirits now
confined there, but hereafter to pass into the light of day, 35
and scanning, as chance would have it, the whole multitude
of his people, even his loved posterity, their destinies,
their warrior deeds, their ways and their works.
Soon as he saw Æneas advancing through the grass to
meet him, he stretched out both his hands with eager
movement, tears gushed over his cheeks, and words escaped
his lips: “And are you come at last? has love fulfilled
a father’s hopes and surmounted the perils of the 5
way? is it mine to look on your face, my son, and listen
and reply as we talked of old? Yes; I was even thinking
so in my own mind. I was reckoning that it would
be, counting over the days. Nor has my longing played
me false. Oh, the lands and the mighty seas from which 10
you have come to my presence! the dangers, my son,
that have tossed and smitten you! Oh, how I have feared
lest you should come to harm in that realm of Libya!”
The son replied: “Your shade it was, father, your melancholy
shade, that, coming to me oft and oft, constrained 15
me to knock at these doors: here, in the Tyrrhene deep
my ships are riding at anchor. Let us grasp hand in
hand: let us, my father! Oh, withdraw not from my
embrace!” As he spoke, the streaming tears rolled down
his face. Thrice, as he stood, he essayed to fling his 20
arms round that dear neck: thrice the phantom escaped
the hands that caught at it in vain, impalpable as the
wind, fleeting as the wings of sleep.
Meanwhile Æneas sees in the retired vale a secluded
grove with brakes and rustling woods, and the river of 25
Lethe,[226] which floats along by those abodes of peace.
Round it were flying races and tribes untold: even as
in the meadows when bees in calm summer-tide settle on
flower after flower, and stream over the milk-white lilies,
the humming fills the plain. Startled at the sudden 30
sight, Æneas wonderingly inquires what it means, what
are those waters in the distance, or who the men that are
thronging the banks in crowds so vast. To him his father
Anchises: “They are spirits to whom Destiny has promised
new bodies, there at the side of Lethe’s water, drinking 35
the wave of carelessness, and the long draught of oblivion.
In truth I have long wished to tell you of them and show
them before you, to recount the long line of my kindred,
that you may rejoice with me now that Italy is found.”
“Oh, my father! and must we think that there are souls
that fly hence aloft into the upper air, and thus return
to the sluggish fellowship of the body? can their longing
for light be so mad, as this?” “I will tell you, my son, 5
nor hold you longer in doubt.” So replies Anchises, and
unfolds the story in order.
“Know, first, that heaven and earth, and the watery
plains, and the Moon’s lucid ball, and Titan’s starry fires
are kept alive by a spirit within: a mind pervading each 10
limb stirs the whole frame and mingles with the mighty
mass. Hence spring the races of men and beasts, and
living things with wings, and the strange forms that
Ocean carries beneath his marble surface. These particles
have a fiery glow, a heavenly nature, struggling against 15
the clogs of corrupting flesh, the dulness of limbs of clay
and bodies ready to die. Hence come their fears and
lusts, their joys and griefs: nor can they discern the
heavenly light, prisoned as they are in night and blind
dungeon walls. Nay, when life’s last ray has faded from 20
them, not even, then, poor wretches, are they wholly freed
from ill, freed from every plague of the flesh: those many
taints must needs be ingrained strangely in the being, so
long as they have grown with it. So they are schooled
with punishment, and pay in suffering for ancient ill: 25
some are hung up and dispread to the piercing winds:
others have the stain of wickedness washed out under the
whelming gulf, or burnt out with fire: each is chastised
in his own spirit: then we are sped through the breadth
of Elysium, while some few remain to inhabit these happy 30
plains, till the lapse of ages, when time’s cycle is complete,
has cleansed the ingrained blot and left a pure
residue of heavenly intelligence, the flame of essential
ether. All of these, when they have rounded the circle
of a thousand years, Heaven summons to the stream of 35
Lethe, a mighty concourse, to the end that with memory
effaced they may return to the vault of the sky, and learn
to wish for a new union with the body.”
Anchises ended: he draws his son and the Sibyl with
him into the midst of the assemblage, the heart of that
buzzing crowd, and mounts an eminence, whence he
might see face to face the whole of the long procession,
and learn each comer’s looks. 5
“Now, then, for the glories of the Dardan race from
this time onward, the posterity reserved for you in the
Italian line, noble spirits, the ordained heirs of our proud
name: of these I will tell you, and inform you of your
destiny. 10
“He whom you see there, the youth leaning on the
pointless spear, his lot is to fill the next place in light:
he will be first to rise to upper day, born from the admixture
of Italian blood, Silvius, that great Alban name,
your latest offspring, whom in your old age at set of life 15
your spouse Lavinia will bear you in the woods, himself
a king and the father of kings to be: from him it is that
our race shall rule over Alba the Long. Next comes
mighty Procas, the pride of the people of Troy, and
Capys, and Numitor, and a second bearer of your name, 20
Silvius Æneas, himself renowned alike for piety and for
valour, if ever he should come to the throne of Alba.
What glorious youths! look what strength they carry in
their port, while their brows are shaded by the civic oak!
These shall uprear for you, high on the mountains, Nomentum, 25
and Gabii, and Fidenæ’s town, and the towers
of Collatia, Pometii and Inuus’ camp, and Bola, and
Cora; names which shall one day be named: now they
are mere nameless lands. Romulus, too, the child of
Mars, shall come along with his grandsire. Romulus, 30
whom a mother, bearing Ilium’s name, shall produce
from the blood of Assaracus. See you the two plumes
standing on his crest, how his sire marks him even now
for the upper world by his own token of honour? Yes,
my son, it is by his auspices that our glorious Rome shall 35
extend her empire to earth’s end, her ambition to the
skies, and embrace seven hills with the wall of a single
city, blest parent of a warrior brood: even as the mighty
Berecyntian[227] mother rides tower-crowned through the
towns of Phrygia, proud of the gods that have sprung
from her, a hundred grand-children at her knee, all dwellers
in heaven, all lords of the lofty sky. Hither now turn
your two rays of vision: look at this family, at Romans 5
of your own. Here is Cæsar: here the whole progeny of
Iulus, as it will pass one day under heaven’s mighty cope.
This, this is he, the man promised to you so often, Augustus
Cæsar, true child of a god, who shall establish again
for Latium a golden age in that very region where Saturn 10
once reigned, while he stretches his sway alike beyond
Garamantian and Indian. See, the land is lying outside
the stars, outside the sun’s yearly path, where heaven-carrier
Atlas turns round on his shoulder the pole, studded
with burning constellations. In view of his approach, a 15
shiver runs already by oracular warning through Caspian
realms and Mæotian land, and there is stir and confusion
at the mouths of seven-fold Nile. Nay, even Alcides
traversed no such length of earth, though he stalked the
brazen-footed deer, or tamed Erymanthus’ savage wilds, 20
and appalled Lerna with his arrows: no, nor he who
guides his triumphal car with reins of ivy-leaf, Bacchus,
driving his tigers down from Nysa’s lofty top. And do
we still hesitate to let prowess give scope to power, or
does fear prevent our setting foot on Ausonian soil? 25
But who is he in the distance, conspicuous with a wreath
of olive, with sacred vessels in his hand? Ah! I know
the hoary hair and beard of the king of Rome, who shall
give the infant city the support of law, sent from his
homely Cures and a land of poverty into a mighty empire. 30
Next shall come one doomed to break his country’s peace,
and stir up with the war-cry of his name, Tullus, warriors
rusting in ease and squadrons that have forgotten their
triumphs. Ancus follows, a greater boaster, even now
too ready to catch the breath of a popular cheer. Would 35
you look too at the kings of Tarquin’s house, at the
haughty spirit of Brutus the avenger, and the fasces[228] retrieved?
He shall be the first to take the consul’s power
and the axes of doom: the father will bring his rebel sons
to death, all for fair freedom’s sake. Unhappy man! let
after ages speak of that deed as they will, strong over all
will be patriot passion and unmeasured thirst of praise.
Look, there are the Drusi[229] and the Decii,[230] and Torquatus[231] 5
with his unpitying axe, and Camillus[232] the restorer of the
standards. But those whom you see there, dressed alike
in gleaming armour—spirits at harmony now and so
long as they are confined in darkness—alas! how vast
a war will they wage, each with each, if they shall attain 10
the light of day, what arraying of hosts, what carnage
will there be! Father-in-law and son-in-law,[233] the one
coming down from Alpine ramparts and the stronghold
of Monœcus: the other drawn up against him with the
forces of the east. Do not, do not, my children, make 15
wars like these familiar to your spirits: turn not your
country’s valour against your country’s vitals: and you,
restrain yourself the first: you, whose lineage is from
heaven, drop the steel from your grasp, heir of Anchises’
blood. See here, a conqueror who shall drive to the lofty 20
Capitol the car of triumph over Corinth, glorious from
Achæan slaughter: here one who shall lay Argos in dust,
and Agamemnon’s own Mycenæ, ay, and the heir of Æacus,
with Achilles’ martial blood in his veins: a Roman’s
vengeance for his Trojan grandsires, and for Pallas’ insulted 25
fame. What tongue would leave you unpraised,
great Cato, or Cossus, you? or the race of the Gracchi,
or those twin thunderbolts of war, the Scipios, Libya’s
ruin, or Fabricius, princely in his poverty, or you, Serranus,
sowing your own ploughed fields? When, ye Fabii,[234] 30
will panting praise overtake you? You are in truth our
greatest, the single saviour of our state by delay. Others,
I doubt not, will mould the breathing brass to more flesh-like
softness, and spread over marble the look of life.
Others will plead better at the bar, will trace with the 35
rod the courses of heaven, and foretell the risings of the
stars. Yours, Roman, be the lesson to govern the nations
as their lord: this is your destined culture, to impose the
settled rule of peace, to spare the humbled, and to crush
the proud.”
Father Anchises paused; and, as they wondered, went
on to say: “See how Marcellus advances in the glory of
the general’s spoils, towering with conqueror’s majesty 5
over all the warriors near! When the state of Rome
reels under the invader’s shock, he shall stay it; his horse’s
hoofs shall trample the Carthaginian and the revolted
Gaul; and he shall dedicate the third suit of armour to
Quirinus[235] the sire.” Hereupon Æneas, for he saw walking 10
at Marcellus’ side a youth of goodly presence and in
gleaming armour, but with little joy on his brow and
downcast eyes: “Who, my father, is he that thus attends
the warrior’s march? his son, or one of the glorious line
of his posterity? What a hum runs through the attendant 15
train! how lofty his own mien! but the shadow of gloomy
night hovers saddening round his head.” Father Anchises
began, tears gushing forth the while: “Alas, my son!
ask not of the heavy grief that those of your blood must
bear. Of him the fates shall give but a glimpse to earth, 20
nor suffer him to continue longer. Yes, powers of the
sky! Rome’s race would have been in your eyes too
strong, had a boon like this been its own forever. What
groanings of the brave shall be wafted from Mars’ broad
field to Mars’ mighty town! What a funeral, father 25
Tiber, shall thine eyes behold, as thou flowest past that
new-built sepulchre! No child of the stock of Ilion shall
raise his Latian ancestors to such heights of hope: never
while time lasts shall the land of Romulus take such pride
in any that she has reared. Woe for the piety, for the 30
ancient faith, for the arm unconquered in battle! Never
would foeman have met that armed presence unscathed,
marched he on foot into the field or tore with bloody spur
the flank of his foaming steed. Child of a nation’s sorrow!
were there hope of thy breaking the tyranny of fate, thou 35
shalt be Marcellus. Bring me handfuls of lilies, that I
may strew the grave with their dazzling hues, and crown,
if only with these gifts, my young descendant’s shade, and
perform the vain service of sorrow.” Thus they wander
here and there through the whole expanse in the broad
fields of shadow and take note of all. Soon as Anchises
had taken his son from end to end, and fired his mind
with the prospect of that glorious history, he then tells 5
the warrior of the battles that he must fight at once, and
informs him of the Laurentian[236] tribes and Latinus’ town,
and how to shun or stand the shock of every peril.
There are two gates of Sleep: the one, as story tells,
of horn, supplying a ready exit for true spirits: the other 10
gleaming with the polish of dazzling ivory, but through
it the powers below send false dreams to the world above.
Thither Anchises, talking thus, conducts his son and the
Sibyl, and dismisses them by the gate of ivory.[237] Æneas
traces his way to the fleet and returns to his comrades; 15
then sails along the shore for Caieta’s haven. The anchor
is cast from the prow: the keels are ranged on the beach.
BOOK VII
And thou, too, in thy death, Caieta,[238] nurse of Æneas, hast
left to our coast the heritage of an ever-living fame; still in
this later day thy glory hovers over thy resting-place, and
a name on Hesperia’s mighty seaboard is thy monument,
if that be renown. So when good Æneas had paid the last 5
dues and raised a funeral mound, and had waited for the
calming of the deep, he spreads sail and leaves the harbour.
Nightward the breezes blow, nor does the fair Moon scorn
to show the way: her rippling light makes the sea shine
again. The next land they skirt is the coast of Circe’s 10
realm, where in queenly state the daughter of the Sun
thrills her forest fastness with never-ending song, and in
her haughty mansion burns fragrant cedar to give light by
night, as she draws her shrill comb over the delicate warp.
From the shore they heard the growling noise of lions in 15
wrath, disdaining their bonds and roaring in midnight
hour, bristly boars and caged bears venting their rage, and
shapes of huge wolves fiercely howling: things which
Circe, fell goddess, had transformed by her magic drugs
from the mien of man to a beast’s visage and a beast’s hide. 20
So, lest the pious race of Troy should suffer such monstrous
change, were they to seek harbour there or approach the
perilous shore, Neptune filled their sails with favouring
breezes, sped their flight along, and wafted them past the
seething waters. 25
The sea was just reddening in the dawn, and Aurora was
shining down from heaven’s height in saffron robe and rosy
car, when all at once the winds were laid, and every breath
sank in sudden sleep, and the oars pull slowly against the
smooth unmoving wave. In the same moment Æneas, 30
looking out from the sea, beholds a mighty forest. Among
the trees Tiber, that beauteous river, with his gulfy rapids
and the burden of his yellow sand, breaks into the main.
Around and above, birds of all plumes, the constant tenants
of bank and stream, were lulling the air with their notes and
flying among the woods. He bids his comrades turn aside 5
and set their prows landward, and enters with joy the
river’s shadowed bed.
Now be with me Erato,[239] and I will unfold who were the
kings, what the stage of circumstance, what the condition
of ancient Latium, when the stranger host first landed on 10
Ausonian shores, and will recall how the first blood was
drawn. Thou, goddess, thou prompt thy poet’s memory.
Mine is a tale of grisly war, of battle array, and princes in
their fury rushing on carnage—of Tyrrhenian[240] ranks, and
all Hesperia mustered in arms. Grander is the pile of 15
events that rises on my view, grander the task I essay.
It was the time when king Latinus, now stricken in age, was
ruling country and city in the calm of years of peace. He,
as story tells us, was the son of Faunus and a Laurentine
nymph, Marica. Faunus’ father was Picus, who owes his 20
birth to thee, great Saturn: thou art the first founder of the
line. No son, no male progeny, so Heaven willed, had
Latinus now; just as it was budding into youth, the branch
was cut off. The sole maintainer of the race, the sole
guardian of that princely house, was a daughter, already 25
ripe for wedlock, already arrived at full-blown womanhood.
Many were her wooers from mighty Latium, nay, from all
Ausonia. One wooer there was in beauty passing others,
Turnus,[241] strong in the glory of sires and grandsires: his alliance
the queen with intense yearning was seeking to compass; 30
but heavenly portents bar the way with manifold
alarm. There was a laurel in the middle of the palace, in the
very heart of royal privacy, sacred in its every leaf, cherished
by the awful observance of many years; men said that
father Latinus himself found it there when he first laid the 35
foundation of the tower, dedicated it to Phœbus, and thence
gave his new people the name of Laurentines. On the
top of this tree lodged a dense swarm of bees, marvellous
to tell, sailing thither with loud humming noise across the
liquid air, and twining their legs together, the cluster in a
moment was seen to hang from the leafy bough. At once
spoke a prophet: “There is a stranger approaching: I
see him now; along this self-same path a troop is moving 5
hitherward, and commanding the height of the citadel.”
Moreover, while Lavinia is applying the hallowed torch to
the altars, as she stands in maiden purity at her father’s
side, she was seen, oh, monstrous sight! to catch the fire
with her long tresses, all her headgear consuming in the 10
crackling flame, her queenly hair, her jewelled coronal all
ablaze, till at last she was wrapt in smoke and yellow
glare, and scattered the fire-god’s sparks the whole palace
through. There indeed was a tale of horror, a marvel and
a portent; for, said the wise men, she will herself be illustrious 15
in fame and fortune, but to the nation she bodes
tremendous war. Troubled by these prodigies, the king
repairs to the oracle of Faunus, his prophetic sire, to
question at the groves beneath Albunea’s shade—that
queen of forests, ever vocal with the sacred waters, ever 20
breathing from its dark heart deadly vaporous steam.
It is here that the tribes of Italy and all Œnotrian land
seek answers in their perplexity; hither the priestess
brings the inquirer’s offering, lies in the still of night on a
couch of slaughtered sheep’s skins, and turns to sleep, when 25
she sees many phantoms flitting in marvellous fashion,
and hears divers voices, and enjoys communion with the
gods, and holds converse with Acheron down in Avernus’
deep. Here also king Latinus, in quest of an answer, was
sacrificing duly a hundred sheep of the second year, and 30
was lying on their skins, a fleecy bed, when sudden from the
depth of the grove an utterance was heard: “Look not to
ally your daughter in wedlock of Latium, O my son;
put not faith in marriage chambers dressed and ready;
there are sons-in-law from a far country now on their way, 35
men destined by mixing their blood with ours to exalt our
name to the spheres—men whose lineal posterity shall
one day look down and see under their feet the whole
world, far as the two oceans which the sun surveys in his
daily round, revolving beneath them and wielded by their
control.” Such was the response of father Faunus,
the counsel given at still of night: nor does Latinus hold
it shut in the prison of his own lips; but Fame had flown 5
with the rumour through Ausonia far and wide from city
to city, when the young chivalry of old Laomedon anchored
their ships on the river’s grassy bank.
Æneas and his chief captains, and Iulus young and fair,
lay their limbs to rest under the boughs of a lofty tree; 10
there they spread the banquet, putting cakes of flour along
the sward to support the food—such was Jove’s high inspiration—and
rearing on the wheaten foundation a pile
of wilding fruits. It chanced that when the rest was eaten,
the want of meat forced them to ply their tooth on those 15
scanty gifts of Ceres—to profane with venturous hand and
mouth the sanctity of the cake’s fated circle, nor respect
the square impressed on its surface. “What! eating our
tables[242] as well?” cries Iulus, in his merry vein; that and no
more. That utterance first told the hearers that their 20
toils were over: even as it fell from the boy’s mouth his
father caught it up and broke it short, wondering in himself
at the power of Heaven. Then anon: “Hail to thee,
promised land of my destiny! hail to you,” he cries, “Troy’s
faithful gods! Yes, here is our home—this our country. 25
It was my father—these, I remember, were the mystic
words of fate he left me: ‘My son, whenever you are wafted
to an unknown coast, and hunger drives you, failing food,
to eat your tables, then remember my saying, there look
for a home of rest, set up your first roof-tree and strengthen 30
it with mound and rampart.’ This was the hunger he
meant. This was the last strait in store for us, not the
beginning but the end of death. Come then, take heart,
and with the morrow’s earliest light explore we what is
the place, who its dwellers, where the city of the nation, 35
making from the haven in different ways. Meanwhile
pour libations to Jove, invoke in prayer my sire Anchises,
and set again the wine on the board.” So having said, he
wreathes his brow with the leafy spray, and offers prayer
to the genius of the spot; to Earth the eldest of the gods;
to the nymphs and the streams yet unknown by name:
after that, to Night and Night’s new-born stars and
Ida’s Jove, and Phrygia’s mighty mother, invoking each 5
in turn, and his own two parents in the upper and the
nether world. Just then the Almighty Father thundered
thrice aloft in a clear sky, and with his own right hand
flashed in open view from on high a cloud ablaze with rays
of golden light. At once the news spreads among the Trojan 10
ranks that the day has arrived when they are to build
their promised city. With emulous haste they celebrate
the banquet, and in the power of the august presage set on
the bowls exultingly, and wreathe the wine.
Soon as on the morrow the risen day began to illumine 15
the earth with the first sparkle of her torch, some here,
some there, they set about exploring the city, the frontiers,
the seaboard of the country. This, they learn, is the spring
of Numicius, this the river Tiber, this the home of the brave
Latian race. Thereupon Anchises’ son commands an 20
embassy of a hundred, chosen from all classes alike, to go to
the monarch’s royal city, all of them with wreathed boughs
from Pallas’ tree, to carry presents for his honoured hand,
and entreat his friendship for the Teucrians. They delay
not, but hasten at his bidding, moving with rapid pace, 25
while he is marking out the city with a shallow trench,
preparing the ground, and surrounding this their first
settlement on the coast, camp-fashion, with battlements
and earthworks. Meanwhile the missioned band had performed
their journey, and were in sight of the towers and 30
stately homes of Latium, and passing under the city wall.
In a space before the town, boys and youths in their prime
are exercising on horseback, and breaking in their harnessed
cars among clouds of dust, or bending the sharp-springing
bow, or hurling from the arm the quivering javelin, 35
or vying on foot or with the gloves, when galloping up,
a messenger announces, in the aged monarch’s ears, that
mighty men have arrived in strange attire. The king bids
him summon them into the presence-hall, and takes his
seat in the midst on his ancestral throne. It was a reverend
pile, of vast proportions, raised high upon a hundred
pillars, on the city’s topmost ground, the palace of Picus
the Laurentine, clothed in the terror of waving woods and 5
hereditary awe. Here it was held to be of auspicious presage
that kings should first take in hand the sceptre, and
lift up the fasces: this temple was their senate-house,
the hall for their sacrificial feasts: here, when a ram was
slain, the seniors were wont to banquet down long lines 10
of tables. Here, too, in succession were the effigies of
past generations, carved from ancient cedar—Italus and
father Sabinus, planter of the vine, preserving in that
mimic form his curved hook, and hoary Saturn, and the
image of two-faced Janus, all standing in the vestibule, 15
and other kings from the earliest days, and heroes who had
sustained the war-god’s wounds in fighting for their
country. Moreover, there was hanging on the sacred
doors abundance of armour, captive chariots, crooked
axe-heads, helmet-crests, ponderous gates, javelins, and 20
shields, and beaks torn from vessels. There, as in life,
was sitting, decked with Quirinal staff and robe of scanty
border, in his left hand the sacred shield, Picus, tamer of
the steed, he whom, in her bridal jealousy, Circe, by a stroke
of her golden rod and the witchery of her drugs, transformed 25
to a bird, and scattered spots over his wings. Such was
the temple where Latinus, seated on his ancestral throne,
summoned the Teucrians to his presence within, and on
their entry with placid mien bespoke them thus:—
“Tell me, sons of Dardanus—for we know your city and 30
your race, and your coming over the deep has reached our
ears—what is your errand? what cause or what necessity
has wafted your ships to our Ausonian coast through
those many leagues of blue water? Be it from ignorance of
the way or stress of weather, or any of the thousand chances 35
that happen to seamen on the main, that you have passed
between our river’s banks, and are resting in the haven,
shrink not from our welcome, but know in the Latian
race the true people of Saturn, kept in righteousness by no
band of law, but by our own instinct and the rule of our
parent-god. And now I remember, though years have
dulled the freshness of the tale, that aged Auruncans used
to tell how in this land Dardanus saw the light, and hence 5
he won his way to the towns of Phrygian Ida and Thracian
Samos, which men now call Samothrace. Ay, it was from
the house of Tuscan Corythus he went, and now the golden
palace of starry heaven seats him on a throne, and among
the altars of the gods makes room for him.” 10
He ended; and Ilioneus followed thus: “Great king,
illustrious son of Faunus, no stress of gloomy storm has
made us the sport of the waves and driven us on your
coast, no sky or land misread has beguiled us of our
track: of set purpose, with full intent, we are arrived one 15
and all at your city, driven from a realm once the greatest
which the sun surveyed in his course from end to end of
heaven. From Jove is the origin of our race; in Jove, as
their ancestor, the sons of Dardanus glory; our monarch
himself, sprung of Jove’s own pure blood, Æneas of Troy, 20
has sent us to your doors. How dire a hurricane, launched
from fell Mycenæ, swept over Ida’s plains—how the two
worlds of Europe and Asia, fate driving each, met and
crashed together—has reached the ears of the man, if
such there be, whom earth’s last corner withdraws from 25
the wash of ocean, and his too who is parted from his fellows
by the zone that lies midmost among the four, the zone of
the tyrannous sun. From the jaws of that deluge flying
over many and mighty waters, we ask of you for our
country’s gods a narrow resting-place—the harmless 30
privilege of the coast, and the common liberty of water and
air. We shall be no disgrace to your kingdom, nor light
shall be the fame that men will blaze of you, nor shall
gratitude for your great bounty grow old, nor shall
Ausonia mourn the day when she welcomed Troy to her 35
heart. I swear by Æneas’ star, by his strong right hand,
known as such by all who have proved it in friendship or
in war, many have been the peoples, many the nations—nay,
scorn us not for that we accost you with fillets of suppliance
and words of prayer—who have sued for our company
and wished to make us one with them. But the
oracles of heaven, speaking as they only can, have driven
us to search out your realms. Hence sprang Dardanus; 5
hither Apollo bids us return, with the instance of high
command, even to Tuscan Tiber and the sacred waters of
Numicius’ spring. Moreover, here are presents from Æneas,
the scanty offerings of past prosperity, relics snatched from
the flames of Troy. From this gold his father, Anchises, 10
poured libations at the altar; this was Priam’s royal
accoutrement, when he gave laws in kingly fashion to the
assembled people; this sceptre, this sacred diadem, these
robes, the work of Trojan dames.”
Thus, as Ilioneus is speaking, Latinus holds his countenance 15
in set downcast gaze, and sits rooted to his throne,
turning his eyes in intense thought. Nor does the
broidered purple stir his princely mind; no, nor the sceptre
of Priam, so deeply as he ponders on the wedlock, the
bridal bed of his daughter, revolving in his breast old 20
Faunus’ oracle. This must be that predicted son-in-law,
arrived from a foreign home, destined to reign in joint
sovereignty with himself; thence must be born that glorious
progeny, whose prowess is to master the world. At
length he breaks out in glad tones: “May the gods prosper 25
our intent and ratify their own presage! Yes, Trojan,
you shall have your prayer, nor do I reject your presents.
Long as Latinus shall reign, you shall not lack the bounty of
a fruitful soil, nor miss the wealth of Troy. Let but Æneas
himself, if his desire of us is so great, if he covets the tie of 30
hospitality and the style of alliance, come to our presence,
nor shrink from eyes that will view him kindly. Peace
will be incomplete till I have touched your monarch’s
hand. And now do you take back to your king this my
message: I have a daughter, whose marriage with a husband 35
of our nation is forbidden by voices from my father’s
shrine, by countless prodigies from heaven; sons-in-law
are to arrive from foreign climes—such, they say, is
Fate’s will for Latium—who by mixing their blood with
ours are to exalt our name to the spheres. That he is this
chosen one of destiny is my belief, and, if my mind reads
the future true, my award.” With these words the old
king makes choice of horses from the multitude he possessed. 5
Three hundred there were, sleek-coated, standing
in their lofty stalls. At once he bids his servants
bring for each of the Teucrians a fleet-foot with housings
of embroidered purple; golden poitrels hang down to the
chest of each; there is gold on their coverings; yellow 10
gold under their champing teeth. For the absent Æneas
he orders a car and two coursers of ethereal seed, snorting
fire from their nostrils, sprung of that brood which artful
Circe raised up fraudfully to her father the Sun, a spurious
race, from the womb of a mortal dam. Thus graced with 15
gifts and kind speeches, the children of Æneas journey
homeward on their tall steeds, and carry tidings of peace.
Meanwhile, there was Jove’s relentless spouse travelling
back from her own Argos, city of Inachus, and already
launched on mid air; looking from the sky over Sicilian 20
Pachynus, she beheld in distant prospect Æneas in his
hour of joy and the Dardan fleet. Already she sees him
building his home; already he has made the soil his friend,
and has parted from his ships. Pierced with bitter grief,
she stayed her course, and then, shaking her head, pours 25
from her heart words like these: “Ah, that hated stock!
those destinies of Phrygia that hold my destinies in check!
Did the dead really fall on the plains of Sigeum? were the
captives captured in truth? did the flames of Troy burn
the men of Troy? Through the heart of the battle, 30
through the heart of the fire they have found a way.
Ay, belike, my power at last lies gasping and spent; my
hatred is slaked and I am at peace. I, who followed them
with a foe’s zeal over the water even when tossed from
their country’s arms, and met the exiles front to front on 35
every sea! Spent on these Teucrians is all that sky and
surge can do. Have Syrtes, has Scylla, has Charybdis’
yawning gulf stood me aught in stead? They have
gained the channel of Tiber, the haven of their wishes,
and may laugh at ocean and at me. Mars had strength to
destroy the Lapithan nation, huge as they were; the father
of the gods gave up the honoured land of Calydon to Diana’s
vengeance; and what had Lapithans or Calydon done 5
to earn such penal ruin? But I, Jove’s great consort,
who have stooped, miserably stooped, to leave nothing
untried, who have assumed every form by turns, am vanquished
by Æneas. Well, if my power be not august
enough, I would not shrink from suing for other aid, be it 10
found where it may; if I cannot prevail above, I will stir
up the fiends of the deep. It will not be mine to keep him
from the crown of Latium—be it so; fixed for him by fate
unalterably is his bride Lavinia; but delays and impediments
may well be where the matter is so great; but to 15
cut off the subjects of our two monarchs—this may be
done. So let father and son-in-law embrace, at the cost
of their people’s lives. The blood of Trojan and Rutulian
shall be your dower, fair lady; Bellona[243] is waiting to lead
you to your chamber. Nor is Hecuba the only mother that 20
has teemed with a fire-brand and given birth to a nuptial
blaze; Venus sees the tale repeated in her own offspring—a
second Paris—a funeral torch rekindled for reviving
Troy.”
Having vented words like these, she flew down in black 25
rage to the earth; and now she summons Allecto[244] the baleful
from the dwelling of the dread goddesses and the darkness
of the pit—Allecto, whom bitter wars, and strifes,
and stratagems, and injurious crimes cheer like a cordial.
Hateful even to Pluto her sire is the fiend, hateful to her 30
Tartarean sisters, so many the forms she puts on, so terrible
the mien of each, so countless the vipers that burgeon
blackly from her head. Her, thus dreadful, Juno lashes
to fiercer fury, speaking on this wise: “Grant me, maiden
daughter of Night, a boon all my own—thine undivided 35
aid, that my praise and renown may not be dashed from
their pedestal—that the children of Æneas may not be
able to ensnare Latinus in a bridal alliance or beset the
Italian frontier. Thou canst make brothers of one soul
take arms and fight; canst make peaceful homes dens of
strife; thou canst gain entrance for the scourge and the
funeral torch: thou hast a thousand names, a thousand
means of ill. Stir up that prolific bosom, snap the formed 5
bands of peace, scatter the incentives of war, let the nation
in the same moment desire, demand, and seize the sword.”
So then Allecto, empoisoned with Gorgon venom, first
repairs to Latium and the lofty halls of the Laurentine
monarch, and sits down before the hushed chamber of 10
queen Amata,[245] who, as she mused on the arrival of the
Trojans and Turnus’ bridal hopes, was glowing and seething
with all a woman’s passion, a woman’s spleen. Snatching
a snake from her dark venomed locks, she hurls it at
her, and lodges it in the bosom close to the very heart, that, 15
maddened by the pest, she may drive the whole house wild.
In glides the reptile unfelt, winding between the robe and
the marble breast, and beguiles her into frenzy, breathing
into her lungs its viperous breath; the linked gold round
her neck turns to the monstrous serpent; so does the festoon 20
of her long fillet; it twines her hair, it slides smoothly
from limb to limb. And while the first access of contagion,
stealing in with clammy poison, is pervading her senses
and threading her bones with flame, ere yet the soul has
caught fire through the whole compass of the bosom, she 25
speaks with gentle plaint, as mothers wont, shedding
many tears over her child and the Phrygian alliance: “And
are fugitives from Troy to take Lavinia in marriage, good
father? have you no compassion for your daughter and
yourself? none for her mother, whom with the first fair 30
gale the faithless pirate will leave and make for the deep,
carrying off his maiden prey? Ay, things were not so
when the Phrygian shepherd stole into Lacedæmon, and
bore away Leda’s Helen to Troy town. Where is your
pledged faith? where your old tenderness for your own 35
blood, and your hand plighted so oft to your kinsman
Turnus? If Latian folk must have a son-in-law fetched
from a foreign stock, and this is unalterably fixed, and
your father Faunus’ command sits heavy on your soul, I
hold that every nation is foreign whose independence
severs it from our rule, and that such is Heaven’s intent.
Turnus, too, if you go back to the first foundation of his
house, has Inachus and Acrisius for his ancestors, and the 5
heart of Mycenæ for his home.” But when, having tried
in vain what these words can do, she sees Latinus obstinately
bent, and meantime the serpent’s fiendish mischief
has sunk deep into her vitals, and is thrilling every
vein, then at last the miserable queen, unsexed by the 10
portentous enormity, raves in ungoverned frenzy through
the city’s length and breadth; as oft you may see a top
spinning under the lash, which boys are flogging round
and round in a great ring in an empty courtyard, with
every thought on their game: driven by the whip it 15
keeps making circle after circle: the beardless faces
hang over it in puzzled wonder, marvelling how the box-wood
can fly, as though the blows made it a living thing.
With motion as furious she courses through crowded
streets and unruly peoples. Nay, more than this, she 20
feigns the inspiration of Bacchus, nerving herself to more
atrocious deeds, and climbing new heights of madness—flies
into the woods, and hides her daughter among the
leafy hills, all to snatch from the Teucrians the bridal
bed and delay the kindling of Hymen’s torch. “Evoe 25
Bacchus!” is her cry; “thou, and none but thou art
fit mate for a maid like this. See! for thee she takes up
the sacred wand, for thee she leads the dance, for thee she
grows her dedicated hair.” Fame flies abroad; other
mothers are instinct with frenzy, and all have the same 30
mad passion driving them to seek a new home. They
have left their houses, and are spreading hair and shoulders
to the wind; while some are filling the sky with quivering
shrieks, clad in fawn-skins, and carrying vine-branch
spears. There in the middle is the queen all aglow, lifting 35
high a blazing pine, and singing the bridal song of Turnus
and her daughter, her eye red and glaring; and sudden she
shouts like a savage: “Ho! mothers of Latium all, where’er
ye be, if ye have human hearts and kindness left there for
poor Amata, if ye are stung to think of a mother’s rights,
off with the fillets from your hair, and join the orgie with
me.” Such is the queen, driven among the woods, among
the wild beasts’ lairs far and wide, by Bacchus’ goad in 5
Allecto’s hand.
And now, judging that she had barbed enough the
young fangs of frenzy, upheaving from their bases the
royal purpose and the royal house, the grim goddess next
soars in air on her murky wings on to the walls of the bold 10
Rutulian, the city which they say Danae built for her Argive
settlers, landing there under stress of wind. Ardea
was the name which past generations gave the place, and
Ardea still keeps her august title; but her star is set,
Here, in his lofty palace, Turnus at deep of night was in 15
the midst of his sleep. Allecto puts off her hideous features
and her fiendish shape, transforms herself to an old
woman’s countenance and furrows her loathly brow
with wrinkles, assumes hoary locks and woollen fillet,
lastly twines them with an olive spray, and so becomes 20
Calybe, the aged priestess of Juno’s temple; and presents
herself to the young warrior’s eyes with such words as
these: “And can Turnus calmly see all his toils poured out
in vain, and the crown that is his own transferred to settlers
from Dardania? See, the king is refusing you your bride 25
and your blood-bought dowry, and search is being made for
a foreign heir to fill the throne. Go on now, confront ungracious
perils, and earn derision; go, mow down the
Tuscan ranks, and spread over Latium the shield of peace.
These very words Saturn’s almighty daughter with her 30
own lips bade me say to you when you should be slumbering
in the still of night. Rise, then, bid your soldiery arm
and move from city to camp, set fire to the Phrygian
chiefs who have anchored in our fair river and to their
painted ships. The dread voice of heaven speaks by me, 35
Nay, let king Latinus, unless he consent to give you your
bride and respect his promise, feel at last and find what
it is to have Turnus for a foe.”
Laughing scornfully at the old seer, the youth thus spoke
in reply: “The news that a fleet has arrived in the Tiber
has not, as you imagine, escaped my ear. Conjure me
no such mighty terrors, nor think that queen Juno has forgotten
me. No, it is you, good mother, whom mouldering 5
dotage, drained dry of truth, is vexing to no end, mocking
your prophetic soul with false alarms in an atmosphere of
royal armaments. You are in your place watching over
statues and temples; but war and peace must be wielded
by men, whose work war is.” 10
At these words Allecto kindled into wrath. Even in
the act of speaking a shudder seized the youth’s frame and
his eyes grew stiff and stony, so fierce the hissing of the
Fury’s thousand snakes, so monstrous the features that
rose on his view. Instant with a roll of her fiery orbs she 15
thrust him back as he faltered and tried to speak further;
on either brow she upreared a serpent lock, and cracked her
whip, and with infuriate lips followed thus: “Here is the
mouldering mother, whom dotage, drained dry of truth, is
mocking with false alarms in an atmosphere of royal armaments. 20
Turn your eyes hither; I am come from the dwelling
of the Dread Sisters: war and death are wielded by
this hand.”
Saying thus, she hurled a torch full at the youth, and
lodged in his breast the pine-wood with its lurid smoke and 25
glare. The bonds of sleep are broken by the giant terror,
and a burst of sweat all over bathes the whole man, bone
and limb. “My sword!” he screams in frenzy; for his
sword he searches pillow and palace: the fever of the steel,
the guilty madness of bloodshed rage within him, and angry 30
pride tops all: even as when loud-crackling a fire of sticks
is heaped round the sides of a waving caldron, and the
heat makes the water start; there within is the flood,
steaming and storming, and bubbling high in froth, till at
last the wave cannot contain itself, and the black vapour 35
flies up into the air. So then, trampling on treaties, he
gives the word to the chiefs of his soldiery for a march
upon King Latinus, and bids arms be got ready. Italy
must be protected, the foe must be driven from the frontier;
he and his men will be enough for both, Teucrians and
Latians. So he says and appeals to Heaven: and the
Rutulians with emulous zeal encourage each other to
the fight. This one is fired by his leader’s peerless beauty 5
and youth; this by the kings in his pedigree; this by the
glorious deeds of his hand.
While Turnus is filling the Rutulians with the spirit of
daring, Allecto is putting her infernal wings in motion
against the Teucrians. A new device working in her 10
mind, she fixed her eye on the spot where on the winding
coast Iulus was hunting game with the snare and the
course. Hereon the maiden of Cocytus suddenly presents
to the hounds a maddening lure, and touches their nostrils
with the scent they know so well, making them chase a 15
stag in full cry; which was the first origin of the trouble,
and put the spark of war to the spirit of the countryside.
There was a stag of beauteous form and lofty horns,
taken by the sons of Tyrrheus from its mother’s breast,
and brought up by them and their father Tyrrheus, 20
who had the control of the royal herds and the charge of
the whole range of lawn. Trained to obey, it was the
chief care of their sister Silvia; she would deck and
wreathe its horns with delicate festoons, and comb its
rough coat, and wash it in the clear stream. Grown tame 25
to the hand, and accustomed to its master’s table, it would
run free in the forest and take itself back home to the
well-known door, however late the night. Now, in one
of its wanderings the maddened hounds of Iulus started
it in the hunt, as it happened to be floating down the 30
stream or allaying its heat on the verdant bank. Ascanius
himself, fired with a proud ambition, bent his bow and
levelled a shaft: nor did his hand err for want of heavenly
aid: the reed sped with a loud hurtling sound and pierced
the belly and the flank. The wounded creature took refuge 35
under the roof it knew, and moaning crept into its
stall, and bleeding all over filled, like a human suppliant,
the house with its piteous plaints. Sister Silvia first,
smiting on her arms with her flat hands, calls for help and
summons the rough country folk. They—for the fell
fiend is lurking in the silence of the forest—are at her
side ere she looks for them, armed one with a seared brand,
one with a heavy knotted stock: what each first finds as he 5
gropes about, anger makes do weapon’s service. Tyrrheus
musters the company, just as the news found him, splitting
an oak in four with convergent wedges, catching up an
axe and breathing savage rage. But the cruel goddess,
seizing from her watch-tower the moment of mischief, 10
makes for the stall’s lofty roof, and from its summit
shrills forth the shepherd’s clarion, pitching high on the
wreathen horn her Tartarean note; at the sound the
whole line of forest was convulsed, and the woods echoed
to their depths: it was heard far off by Trivia’s[246] lake, 15
heard by river Nar[246] with his whitening sulphurous waters,
and by the springs of the Veline[246]: and terror-stricken
mothers clasped their children to their breasts.
At once running to the sound with which the dread
clarion gave the signal, the untamed rustics snatch up 20
their weapons and gather from all sides; while the forces
of Troy, on their part, pour through the camp’s open gates
their succour for Ascanius. It is no longer a woodman’s
quarrel waged with heavy clubs or seared stakes; they try
the issue with two-edged steel; a dark harvest of drawn 25
swords bristles over the field; the brass shines responsive
to the sun’s challenge, and flings its radiance skyward; as
when the wave has begun to whiten under the rising wind,
the ocean gradually upheaves itself, and raises its billows
higher and higher, till at last, from its lowest depths, it 30
mounts up to heaven. See! as the arrow whizzes, a young
warrior in the first rank, once Tyrrheus’ eldest born, Almo,
is laid low in death; for the wound has lodged in his
throat, and has cut off, with the rush of blood, the passage
of the liquid voice and the vital breath. Round him lie 35
many gallant frames, and among them old Galæsus, while
throwing himself between the armies and pleading for
peace; none so just as he, none so wealthy before to-day in
Ausonian land; five flocks of sheep had he, five herds of
oxen went to and fro from his stalls, and his land was
furrowed by a hundred ploughs.
While thus on the plains the impartial war-god deals out
fortune, the goddess, having achieved her promise, soon 5
as she had inaugurated the war with blood, and brought
the battle to its first murderous shock, flies from Hesperia,
and rounding the cope of heaven, addresses Juno in the
haughty tones of triumph: “See here the work of discord
complete in the horrors of war! Now bid them come together 10
in friendship and strike truce. Thou hast seen that
I can sprinkle the Trojans with Ausonian blood; let me
but be assured of thy wish, I will give thee a further boon:
I will sew rumours and bring the neighbouring cities into
the war, and inflame their souls with mad martial passion 15
to crowd from all sides with succour; I will scatter arms
broadcast.” Juno returns: “There is panic and treachery
enough; the seeds of war are sown deep; men are fighting
hand to hand; the weapons which chance first supplied
are being seasoned with new-spilt blood. Such be the 20
alliance, such the nuptial rites solemnized by Venus’
virtuous son and good king Latinus. For thee to walk the
upper air with larger freedom would displease the great
Father, the monarch of high Olympus. Give place; should
any chance emerge in the struggle, myself will deal with it.” 25
So spoke Saturn’s daughter: the Fury lifts her wings that
hurtle with serpent plumage, and seeks her home in Cocytus,
leaving the altitudes above. There is a place in the
bosom of Italy, under the shadow of lofty hills, known to
fame and celebrated in far-off lands, the vale of Amsanctus; 30
pent between two woody slopes, dark with dense foliage,
while at the bottom a broken torrent makes a roaring
among the rocks along its winding bed. Here men show
an awful cavern, the very gorge of the fell infernal god, and
a deep gulf through which Acheron breaks open its baleful 35
mouth: there dived the Fury, and relieved of her loathed
presence earth and heaven.
Meanwhile, for her part, Saturn’s royal daughter gives
the last touch that brings down the war. From the battle-field
there pours into the city the whole company of shepherds,
with their slain in their arms, young Almo and
Galæsus’ disfigured countenance, calling on the gods and
adjuring Latinus. Turnus is on the spot, and, in the fury 5
and fire of the blood-cry, sounds again and again the note
of terror: “The Teucrians are invited to reign in Latium;
a Phrygian shoot is to be grafted on the royal tree; the
palace-gate is closed on himself.” Moreover, the kinsmen
of the matrons, who in Bacchic madness are footing the 10
pathless woods—for Amata’s name weighs not lightly—muster
from all sides, and strain the throat of Mars to
hoarseness. All at once, defying omens and oracles,
under the spell of a cursed deity, they clamour for an
atrocious war. With emulous zeal they swarm round 15
Latinus’ palace; he, like a rock in the sea, stands unshaken;
like a rock in the sea before the rush and crash of waters,
which, amid, thousands of barking waves, is fixed by its
own weight; the crags and the spray-foamed stones
roar about it in vain, and the lashed seaweed falls idly 20
from its side. But when he finds no power given him to
counterwork the secret agency, and all is moving at relentless
Juno’s beck, then with many an appeal to the gods
and the soulless skies, “Alas!” exclaims the good sire,
“shattered are we by destiny and whirled before the storm! 25
On you will come the reckoning, and your impious blood
will pay it, my wretched children! You, Turnus, you will
be met by your crime and its fearful vengeance, in a day
when it will be too late to pray to Heaven. For me, my
rest is assured; my ship is just dropping into port; it is 30
but of a happy departure that I am robbed.” No more
he spoke, but shut himself in an inner chamber, and let
the reins of empire go.
A custom there was in the Hesperian days of Latium,
observed as sacred in succession by the Alban cities, and 35
now honoured by the observance of Rome, the greatest
power on earth, when men first stir up the war-god to
battle, whether their purpose be to carry piteous war
among the Getæ, the Hyrcanians, or the Arabs, or to
march as far as India, track the Morning-star to its home,
and wrest the standards from the grasp of Parthia.
There are two folding-gates of War—such the title they
bear—clothed with religious awe and with the terrors of 5
Mars the cruel: they are closed by a hundred brazen bars
and by the everlasting strength of iron, and Janus[247] never
quits his guard on the threshold. When the fathers finally
conclude for battle, the consul himself, in the pride of
Quirinus’ striped robe and the Gabine[248] cincture, unbars the 10
grating portals, and with his own voice invokes battle;
the rest of the warriors take up the cry, and brazen horns
blare out in unison their hoarse assent. Thus it was that
then, too, Latinus was urged to declare war against the
family of Æneas and to unclose the grim gates. The good 15
old king recoiled from the touch, turned with averted eyes
from the service he loathed, and shrouded himself in impenetrable
gloom. Then darted down from the sky the
queen of heaven, smote with her own royal hand the unwilling
portals, and from their bursten fastenings, as Saturn’s 20
daughter might, flung back the valves on their hinges.
All Ausonia, sluggish and moveless till then, blazes into
fury; some commence their footmarch over the plain,
some from the height of their steeds storm through the
dust; one and all cry out for arms. Some are rubbing their 25
shields smooth and their javelins bright with unctuous
lard, and putting their axes under the grindstone; there
is joy in the carrying of the standard, joy in the hearing
of the trumpet’s sound. And now there are five great
cities with anvils everywhere set up, giving a new edge to 30
their weapons: Atina the mighty and Tibur the proud,
Ardea, and they of Crustumium, and tower-crowned
Antemnæ. Helmets are hollowed to guard the head;
willows are twisted into wicker frames for shields; others
are beating out brass into breastplates, or stretching ductile 35
silver into polished greaves. All the pride of sickle
and share, all the passion for the plough are swallowed
up in this; they bring out their father’s swords, and smelt
them anew in the furnace. Here, in wild haste, is one
snatching his helm from the chamber-wall; there is another
bringing his snorting steeds to the yoke, clothing
himself with shield and corslet of three-plied gold, and
girding to his side his trusty sword. 5
[F][249]Now, Muses, ope your Helicon,
The gates of song unfold,
What chiefs, what tribes to war came on
In those dim days of old,
What sons were then Italia’s pride, 10
And what the arms that blazed so wide:
For ye are goddesses: full well
Your mind takes note, your tongue can tell:
The far-off whisper of the years
Scarce reaches our bewildered ears. 15
Mezentius first from Tyrrhene coast,
Who mocks at heaven, arrays his host,
And braves the battle’s storm:
His son, young Lausus, at his side,
Excelled by none in beauty’s pride, 20
Save Turnus’ comely form:
Lausus, the tamer of the steed,
The conqueror of the silvan breed,
Leads from Agylla’s towers in vain
A thousand youths, a valiant train: 25
Ah happy, had the son been blest
In harkening to his sire’s behest,
Or had the sire from whom he came
Had other nature, other name!
Next drives along the grassy meads 30
His palm-crowned car and conquering steeds
Fair Aventinus, princely heir
Of Hercules the brave and fair,
And for his proud escutcheon takes
His father’s Hydra and her snakes. 35
’Twas he that priestess Rhea bare,
A stealthy birth, to upper air,
’Mid shades of woody Aventine
Mingling her own with heavenly blood,
When triumph-flushed from Geryon slain
Aleides touched the Latian plain,
And bathed Iberia’s distant kine
In Tuscan Tiber’s flood. 5
Long pikes and poles his bands uprear,
The shapely blade, the Sabine spear.
Himself on foot, with lion’s skin,
Whose long white teeth with ghastly grin
Clasp like a helmet brow and chin, 10
Joins the proud chiefs in rude attire,
And flaunts the emblem of his sire.
From Tiber’s walls twin brothers came,
The town that bears Tiburtus’ name,
Bold Coras and Catillus strong: 15
Through the thick-rained darts they storm along,
And foremost in the fray:
As when two cloud-born Centaurs leap
Down Homole or Othrys’ steep,
The forest parts before their sweep, 20
And crashing trees give way.
Nor lacked there to the embattled power
The founder of Præneste’s tower,
Brave Cæculus, by all renowned
As Vulcan’s son, ’mid embers found 25
And monarch of the rustics crowned.
Beneath him march his rural train,
Whom high Præneste’s walls contain,
Who dwell in Gabian Juno’s plain,
Whose haunt is Anio’s chilly flood 30
And Hernic rocks, by streams bedewed,
Who till Anagnia’s bosom green
Or drink of father Amasene.
Not all are furnished for the war
With ample shield or sounding car. 35
Some sling lead bullets o’er the field,
Some javelins twain in combat wield.
A cap of fur protects their head
By spoil of tawny wolf supplied;
Their left foot bare, on earth they tread, 40
The right is cased in raw bull-hide.
Messapus, tamer of the steed,
The Ocean-monarch’s mighty seed,
Whom none might harm, so willed his sire,
With force of iron or of fire,
Awakes his people’s slumbering zeal 5
Long time unused to war’s appeal,
And from the scabbard bares the steel.
With him Fescennia’s armed train,
The dwellers in Falerii’s plain,
Who hold Soracte’s lofty hill 10
Or fair Flavinia’s cornland till,
Capena’s woods their dwelling make
Or Ciminus, its mount and lake.
With measured pace they march along,
And make their monarch’s deeds their song; 15
Like snow-white swans in liquid air,
When homeward from their food they fare,
And far and wide melodious notes
Come rippling from their slender throats,
While the broad stream and Asia’s fen 20
Reverberate to the sound again.
Sure none had thought that countless crowd
A mail-clad company;
It rather seemed a dusky cloud
Of migrant fowl, that, hoarse and loud, 25
Press landward from the sea.
Lo! Clausus there, the Sabines’ boast,
Leads a great host, himself a host;
Whence spreads the Claudian race, since Rome
With Sabine burghers shared her home. 30
With him the Amiternians came
And Cures’ sons of ancient name,
The squadron that Eretum guards
And green Mutusca’s olive-yards.
Those whom Nomentum’s city yields, 35
Who till Velinus’ Rosean fields,
Who Tetrica’s rude summit climb
Or on Severus sits sublime,
Or dwell where runs Hemella by
Casperia’s walls and Foruli, 40
Who Tiber haunt and Fabaris’ banks,
Whom Nursia sends to battle down
From her cold home, Hortinian ranks
And Latian tribes of old renown,
With those whom Allia’s stream ill-starred
Flows through, dividing sward from sward: 5
Thick as the Libyan billows swarm
When fell Orion sets in storm,
Or as the sun-baked ears of grain
In Hæmus’ field or Lycia’s plain;
Their bucklers rattle, and the ground 10
Quakes, startled by their footfall’s sound.
Halæsus, Agamemnon’s mate,
Who hates all Troy with liegeman’s hate,
Yokes his swift horses to the car,
And brings his hosts to Turnus’ war, 15
The rustic tribes whose ploughshare tills
The vine-clad slopes of Massic hills,
Sent from Auruncan heights, or bound
From Sidicinian champaign-ground,
Who fertile Cales leave behind 20
Or where Vulturnian waters wind,
Saticule’s tenants, rough and rude,
And all the hardy Oscan brood.
Spiked truncheons they are wont to fling,
But fit them with a leathern string: 25
A target shields the good left hand,
And curved like primer’s hook the brand
They wield when foot to foot they stand.
Nor, Œbalus, shalt thou pass by
Unnamed in this our minstrelsy, 30
Born to old Telon, Capreæ’s king,
By Naiad of Sebethus’ spring;
The son contemned his sire’s domain,
And stretched o’er neighbouring lands his reign.
Sarrastes’ tribes his rule obey, 35
And fields where Sarnus’ waters play,
Who Batulum and Rufræ hold
Or till Celennæ’s fruitful mould,
Or those whom fair Abella sees
Down-looking through her apple-trees, 40
All wont in Teuton sort to throw
Nail-studded maces ’gainst the foe;
Their helm of bark from cork-tree peeled,
Of brass their sword, of brass their shield.
Thee too steep Nersæ sends to war 5
Brave Ufens, born ’neath happy star:
Hard as their clods the Æquian race,
Inured to labour in the chase;
In armour sheathed, they till their soil,
Heap foray up, and live by spoil. 10
Came too from old Marruvia’s realm,
An olive-garland round his helm,
Bold Umbro, priest at once and knight,
By king Archippus sent to fight;
Who baleful serpents knew to steep 15
By hand and voice in charmed sleep,
Soothed their fierce wrath with subtlest skill,
And from their bite drew off the ill.
But ah! his medicines could not heal
The death-wound dealt by Dardan steel; 20
His slumberous charms availed him nought,
Nor herbs on Marsian mountains sought
And cropped with magic shears;
For thee Anguitia’s woody cave,
For thee the glassy Fucine wave, 25
For thee the lake shed tears.
From green Aricia, bent on fame,
Hippolytus’ fair offspring came,
In lone Egeria’s forest reared,
Where Dian’s shrine is loved and feared. 30
For lost Hippolytus,’tis said,
By cruel stepdame’s cunning dead,
Dragged by his frightened steeds, to sate
His angry sire’s vindictive hate,
Was called once more to realms above, 35
By Pæon’s skill and Dian’s love.
Then Jove incensed that man should rise
From darkness to the upper skies,
The leech that wrought such healing hurled
With lightening down to Pluto’s world. 40
But Trivia kind her favourite hides
And to Egeria’s care confides,
To live in woods obscure and lone,
And lose in Virbius’ name his own.
’Tis thence e’en now from Trivia’s shrine 5
The horn-hoofed steeds are chased,
Since, scared by monsters of the brine,
The chariot and the youth divine
They tumbled on the waste,
Yet ne’ertheless with horse and car 10
His dauntless son essays the war.
In foremost rank see Turnus move,
His comely head the rest above:
On his tall helm the triple cone
Chimæra in relief is shown; 15
The monster’s gaping jaws expire
Hot volumes of Ætnæan fire:
And still she flames and raves the more
The deeper floats the field with gore.
With bristling hide and lifted horns 20
So, all gold, his shield adorns,
E’en as in life she stood;
There too is Argus, warder stern,
And Inachus from graven urn,
Her father, pours his flood. 25
A cloud of footmen at his back
And shielded hosts the plain made black;
Auruncans, Argives, brave and bold,
Rutulians and Sicanians old,
Sacranians thirsting for the field, 30
Labici with enamelled shield;
Who Tiber’s lawns with furrow score
And pure Numicius’ sacred shore,
Subdue Rutulian slopes, and plough
Circeius’ steep reluctant brow: 35
Where Anxur boasts her guardian Jove
And greenly blooms Feronia’s grove;
Where Satura’s unlovely mere
In sullen quiet sleeps,
And Ufens gropes through marshland drear 40
And hides him in the deeps.
Last marches forth for Latium’s sake
Camilla fair, the Volscian maid,
A troop of horsemen in her wake
In pomp of gleaming steel arrayed;
Stern warrior queen! those tender hands 5
Ne’er plied Minerva’s ministries:
A virgin in the fight she stands,
Or winged winds in speed outvies.
Nay, she might fly o’er fields of grain
Nor crush in flight the tapering wheat, 10
Or skim the surface of the main,
Nor let the billows touch her feet.
Where’er she moves, from house and land
The youths and ancient matrons throng,
And fixed in greedy wonder stand 15
Beholding as she speeds along:
In kingly dye that scarf was dipped:
’Tis gold confines those tresses’ flow:
Her pastoral wand with steel is tipped,
And Lycian are her shafts and bow. 20
BOOK VIII
Soon as Turnus set high on Laurentum’s tower the
ensign of war, and the horns clanged forth their harsh
music, soon as he shook the reins in the mouth of his
fiery steeds, and clashed his armour, at once came a stirring
of men’s souls: all Latium conspires in tumultuous rising, 5
and the warrior bands are inflamed to madness. The
generals, Messapus and Ufens and Mezentius, scorner of
the gods, assume the lead, mustering succour from all
sides and unpeopling the fields of their tillers far and
wide. Venulus too is sent to the town of mighty Diomede 10
to entreat help, and set forth that the Teucrians are
planting foot in Latium: that Æneas is arrived by sea
and intruding his vanquished home-gods, and announcing
himself as the Latians’ destined king; that many tribes
are flocking to the standard of the Dardan chief, and the 15
contagion of his name is spreading over Latium’s length
and breadth. What is to be the end of such a beginning,
what, should fortune favour him, he promises to himself
as the issue of the battle, Diomede will know better than
king Turnus or king Latinus. 20
So go things in Latium. The chief of Laomedon’s line
sees it all, and is tossed on a sea of cares; now on this
point, now on that, he throws in a moment the forces of
his mind, hurrying it into all quarters and sweeping the
whole range of thought: as in water a flickering beam 25
on a brazen vat, darted back by the sun or the bright
moon’s image, flits far and wide over the whole place,
now at last mounting to the sky and striking the ceiling
of the roof. Night came, and tired life the earth over,
bird and beast alike, were lapped deep in slumber, when 30
Æneas, good king, troubled at heart by the anxious war,
stretched himself on the bank under heaven’s chilly cope,
and let repose at last steal over his frame. Before him
appeared in person the god of the place, old Tiber of the
pleasant stream, rising among the poplar foliage: a gray
mantle of transparent linen floated about him, and his 5
hair was shaded with bushy reeds: and thus he began to
address the chief and relieve his care: “O offspring of
heaven’s stock, who are bringing back to us safe from
the foe the city of Troy, and preserving Pergamus in enduring
life, yourself looked for long on the Laurentian 10
soil and in the fields of Latium, here is your abiding place
of rest, here, distrust it not, permanence for your home-gods:
let not war’s threatenings make you afraid, the
swellings of the anger of heaven have all given way.
Even now, that you may not think this the idle coinage 15
of sleep, under the oaks on the bank you shall find an
enormous swine lying with a litter of thirty head just
born, white herself throughout her lazy length, her children
round her breasts as white as she: a sign that when
thirty years have made their circuit, Ascanius shall found 20
that city known by the illustrious name of the White.
Of no doubtful issue are these words of mine. Now for
the way in which you may triumphantly unravel the
present knot, grant me your attention, and I will show
you in brief. On this my coast, Arcadians, a race sprung 25
from Pallas, who have followed king Evander and his
banner, have chosen themselves a site and built a city
on the hills, called from the name of their ancestor Pallas,
Pallanteum. These are forever engaged in war with the
Latian nation: let them join your camp as allies, and 30
make league with them. I myself will lead you between
the banks, straight along my stream, that as you journey
up your oars may surmount the adverse current. Up
then, goddess-born, and ere the stars have well set, offer
prayer in due course to Juno, and overbear with suppliant 35
vows her anger and her menace. Once triumphant,
you shall pay your worship to me. I am he whom you
see here with brimming flood grazing the banks and
threading rich cultured lands, sea-green Tiber, the river
whom gods love best. Here rises my royal palace, the
crown of lofty cities.” The river-god said, and plunged
into his deep pool, down to the bottom; night and sleep
at once fled from Æneas. He rises, and with his eyes 5
fixed on the sun’s rays just dawning on the sky, he lifts
up in due form water from the river in the hollow of
his hands, and pours forth to heaven words like these:
“Nymphs, Laurentian nymphs, whence rivers derive their
birth, and thou, father Tiber, with thy hallowed flood, 10
take Æneas to your bosom, and at last relieve him from
perils. Whatever the spring of the pool where thou
dwellest in thy pity for our troubles, whatever the soil
whence thy goodly stream arises, ever shalt thou be
honoured by me with sacrifice, ever with offerings, the 15
river with the crescent horn, the monarch of Hesperian
waters. Be but thou present, and confirm by thy deed
thy heavenly tokens.” So saying, he chooses two biremes
from the fleet and fits them with rowers, while he gives
his comrades arms to wear. 20
When lo, a sudden portent marvellous to view—stretched
in milk-white length along the sward, herself of
one hue with her white litter, conspicuous on the verdant
bank is seen a sow, whom pious Æneas to thee, even to
thee, mightiest Juno, immolates in sacrifice, and sets her 25
with all her brood before the altar. That whole night
long Tiber smoothed his brimming stream, and so stood
with hushed waves, half recoiling, as to lay down a watery
floor as of some gentle lake or peaceful pool, that the oar
might have nought to struggle with. So they begin their 30
voyage and speed with auspicious cheers. Smooth along
the surface floats the anointed pine: marvelling stand
the waters, marvelling the unwonted wood, to see the
warriors’ shields gleaming far along the stream, and the
painted vessels gliding between the banks. The rowers 35
give no rest to night or day, as they surmount the long
meanders, sweep under the fringe of diverse trees, and
cut through the woods that look green in the still expanse.
The sun had climbed in full blaze the central cope of
heaven, when from afar they see walls, and a citadel,
and the roofs of straggling habitations—the place which
the power of Rome has now made to mate the skies:
then it was but Evander’s poor domain. At once they 5
turn their prows to land and approach the town.
It happened that on that day the Arcadian monarch
was performing a yearly sacrifice to Amphitryon’s mighty
child[250] and the heavenly brotherhood in a grove before the
city. With him his son Pallas, with him all the prime of 10
his warriors and his unambitious senate were offering incense,
and the new-shed blood was steaming warm on the
altar. Soon as they saw tall ships gliding toward them
through the shadowy trees, and plying the oar in silence,
alarmed by the sudden apparition, each and all start up 15
from the sacrificial board. Pallas, bolder than the rest,
bids them not break the sacred observance, and snatching
up a weapon flies himself to meet the strangers, and
from a height at distance, “Warriors,” he cries, “what
cause has led you to venture on a path you know not? 20
whither are you bound? what is your nation, your family?
is it peace you bring us or war?” Then father Æneas
bespeaks him thus from the lofty stern, stretching forth
in his hand a branch of peaceful olive: “These are Trojans
you see. These weapons mean hostility to the 25
Latins, who have driven us from their land by a tyrannous
war. Our errand is to Evander. Take back our message,
and say that chosen chiefs of Dardany are at his gate,
praying for an armed alliance.” That mighty name
struck awe into Pallas. “Disembark,” he cries, “whoever 30
you be, and speak to my sire in person, and come
beneath our home-gods’ hospitable shelter,” and gave his
hand in welcome, and clung to the hand he clasped.
They advance under the shade of the grove, and leave
the river behind. 35
Then Æneas addresses the king with friendly courtesy:
“Best of the sons of Greece, to whom it has pleased Fortune
that I should make my prayer and stretch out boughs
wreathed with fillets, I felt no fear for that you were a
Danaan leader, an Arcadian, allied by lineage with the
two sons of Atreus: I felt that my own worth, and the
gods’ hallowed oracles, and the old connection of our
ancestry, and your world-wide fame, had linked me to 5
you, and brought me before you at once by destiny and
of my own will. Dardanus, first father and founder of the
town of Ilion, born, as Greeks tell, of Electra, daughter of
Atlas, came among Teucer’s people: Electra’s father was
mighty Atlas, he that bears up on his shoulders the 10
spheres of heaven. Your progenitor is Mercury, whom
beauteous Maia[251] conceived and brought forth on Cyllene’s
chill summit; but Maia, if tradition be credited, is the
child of Atlas, the same Atlas who lifts up the stars of
the firmament. Thus our two races part off from one 15
and the same stock. Trusting to this, I sent no embassy,
nor contrived the first approaches to you by rule
and method: in myself, in my own person, I have made
the experiment, and come to your gate as a suppliant.
The same tribe which persecutes you, the Daunians, is 20
now persecuting us with cruel war: should they drive us
away, they foresee nought to hinder their subduing all
Hesperia utterly to their yoke, and mastering either sea,
that washes it above or below. Take our friendship and
give us yours. On our side are hearts valiant in war, 25
and a gallant youth approved by adventure.”
Æneas ended. Long ere this the other’s eye was scanning
the speaker’s countenance and eyes, and surveying
his whole frame. Then he returns in brief: “With what
joy, bravest of the Teucrians, do I welcome and acknowledge 30
ye! how well I call to mind the words, the voice,
the look of your sire, the great Anchises! For I remember
how Priam, son of Laomedon, journeying to Salamis,
to see the kingdom of his sister Hesione, went on to visit
the chill frontier of Arcadia. In those days the first 35
bloom of youth was clothing my cheeks. I admired the
Teucrian leaders, I admired Laomedon’s royal son; but
Anchises’ port was nobler than all. My mind kindled
with a youth’s ardour to accost one so great, and exchange
the grasp of the hand. I made my approach, and eagerly
conducted him to the walls of Pheneus.[252] On leaving he
gave me a beauteous quiver with Lycian arrows, and a
scarf embroidered with gold, and two bridles which my 5
Pallas has now, all golden. So now I both plight you
here with the hand you ask, and soon as to-morrow’s light
shall restore to the earth its blessing, I will send you back
rejoicing in an armed succour, and reënforced with stores.
Meanwhile, since you are arrived here as my friends, join 10
in gladly solemnizing with us this our yearly celebration,
which it were sin to postpone, and accustom yourselves
thus early to the hospitalities of your new allies.”
This said, he bids set on again the viands and the cups,
erewhile removed, and himself places the warriors on a 15
seat of turf, welcoming Æneas in especial grace with the
heaped cushion of a shaggy lion’s hide, and bidding him
occupy a throne of maple wood. Then chosen youths
and the priest of the altar with emulous zeal bring in the
roasted carcases of bulls, pile up in baskets the gifts of 20
the corn-goddess prepared by art, and serve the wine-god
round. Æneas and the warriors of Troy with him
regale themselves on a bull’s long chine[o] and on sacrificial
entrails.
When hunger had been quenched and appetite allayed, 25
king Evander begins: “Think not that these solemnities
of ours, these ritual feastings, this altar so blest in divine
presence, have been riveted on us by idle superstition,
unknowing of the gods of old; no, guest of Troy, it is
deliverance from cruel dangers that makes us sacrifice 30
and pay again and again worship where worship is due.
First of all cast your eyes on this rock-hung crag: observe
how the masses of stone are flung here and there, how
desolate and exposed stands the mountain’s recess, and
how the rocks have left the trail of a giant downfall. 35
Here once was a cave, retiring in enormous depth, tenanted
by a terrible shape, Cacus, half man, half brute: the sun’s
rays could never pierce it; the ground was always steaming
with fresh carnage; fixed to its imperious portals
were hanging human countenances ghastly with hideous
gore. This monster’s father was Vulcan: Vulcan’s were
the murky fires that he disgorged from his mouth as he
towered along in enormous bulk. To us also at length 5
in our yearning need time brought the arrival of a divine
helper. For the mightiest of avengers, Alcides, triumphing
in the slaughter and the spoils of the triple Geryon,[253]
was in our land, and was driving by this road as a conqueror
those giant oxen, and the cattle were filling valley 10
and river-side. But Cacus, infatuated by fiendish frenzy,
not to leave aught of crime or craft undared or unessayed,
carries off from the stalls four bulls of goodly form, and
heifers no fewer of surpassing beauty. And these, that
they might leave no traces by their forward motion, he 15
dragged by the tail to his cave, haled them with reversed
footprints to tell the story, and so concealed them in the
dark rocky den. Thus the seeker found no traces to lead
him to the cavern. Meantime, when Amphitryon’s son
was at last removing from their stalls his feasted herds 20
and preparing to quit the country, the oxen gave a farewell
low, filling the whole woodland with their plainings,
and taking clamorous leave of the hills. One of the
heifers returned the sound, lowing from the depth of the
vast cavern, and thus baffled the hopes of her jealous 25
guardian. Now, if ever, Alcides’ wrath blazed up from
the black choler of his heart: he snatches up his weapons
and his club with all its weight of knots, and makes at
full speed for the skyey mountain’s height. Then first the
men of our country saw Cacus’ limbs tremble and his 30
eyes quail: away he flies swifter than the wind, and seeks
his den; fear has winged his feet. Scarce had he shut
himself in, and let down from its burst fastenings the
huge stone, suspended there by his father’s workmanship
in iron, and with that barrier fortified his straining doorway, 35
when lo! the hero of Tiryns[254] was there in the fury
of his soul: scanning every inlet he turns his face hither
and thither, gnashing with his teeth. Thrice in white
heat of wrath he surveys the whole mass of Aventine;
thrice he attempts in vain the stony portal; thrice,
staggering from the effort, he sits down in the hollow.
Before him stood a pointed crag with abrupt rocky sides
rising over the cave behind, high as the eye can reach, a 5
fitting home for the nests of unclean and hateful birds.
This, as sloping down it inclined towards the river on the
left, pushing it full on the right he upheaved and tore it
loose from its seat, then suddenly sent it down, with a
shock at which high heaven thunders, the banks start 10
apart, and the river runs back in terror. Then the cave
and the vast halls of Cacus were seen unroofed, and the
dark recesses lay open to their depths—even as if earth,
by some mighty force laid open to her depths, should
burst the doors of the mansions below, and expose the 15
realms of ghastly gloom which the gods hate, and from
above the vast abyss were to be seen, and the spectres
dazzled by the influx of day. So as Cacus stares surprised
by the sudden burst of light, pent by the walls of
his cave, and roars in strange and hideous sort, Alcides 20
from above showers down his darts, and calls every
weapon to his aid, and rains a tempest of boughs and
huge millstones. But he, seeing that no hope of flight
remains, vomits from his throat huge volumes of smoke,
marvellous to tell, and wraps the whole place in pitchy 25
darkness, blotting out all prospect from the eyes, and in
the depth of the cave masses a smothering night of blended
blackness and fire. The rage of Alcides brooked not this:
headlong he dashed through the flame, where the smoke
surges thickest and the vast cavern seethes with billows 30
of black vapour. Here while Cacus in the heart of the
gloom is vomiting his helpless fires he seizes him, twines
his limbs with his own, and in fierce embrace compresses
his strangled eyeballs and his throat now bloodless and
dry. At once the doors are burst and the black den laid 35
bare, and the plundered oxen, the spoil that his oath had
disclaimed, are exposed to light, and the hideous carcase
is dragged out by the heels. The gazers look unsatisfied
on those dreadful eyes, those grim features, the shaggy
breast of the half bestial monster, and the extinguished
furnace of his throat. Since then grateful acknowledgments
have been paid, and the men of younger time have
joyfully observed the day: foremost among them Potitius, 5
founder of the ceremony, and the Pinarian house, custodian
of the worship of Hercules. He himself set up in
the grove this altar, which shall ever be named by us
the greatest, and shall ever be the greatest in truth.
Come then, warriors, and in honour of worth so glorious 10
wreathe your locks with leaves, and present in your hands
brimming cups, and invoke our common deity, and pour
libations with gladness of heart.” As he ended, the white-green
poplar cast its Herculean shade over his locks and
hung down with a festoon of leaves, and the sacred goblet 15
charged his hand. At once all with glad hearts pour
libations on the board and make prayers to heaven.
Meantime evening is approaching nearer the slope of
heaven, and already the priests and their chief Potitius
were in procession, clad in skins in ritual sort, and bearing 20
fire in their hands. They renew the solemn feast,
and bring delicious offerings for a fresh repast, and pile
the altars with loaded chargers. Then come the Salii to
sing round about the blazing altars, their temples wreathed
with boughs of poplar, a company of youths and another 25
of old men; and these extol in song the glories and deeds
of Hercules: how in his cradle, by the pressure of his
young hand he strangled his stepmother’s monstrous
messengers, the two serpents; how in war that same
hand dashed to pieces mighty cities, Troy and Œchalia; 30
how he endured those thousand heavy labours, a slave to
king Eurystheus, by ungentle Juno’s fateful will. “Yes,
thou, unconquered hero, thou slayest the two-formed
children of the cloud, Hylæus and Pholus, thou slayest
the portent of Crete, and the enormous lion that dwelt 35
’neath Nemea’s rock. Thou never quailedst at aught in
bodily shape, no, nor at Typhœus himself, towering high,
weapons in hand; thy reason failed thee not when Lerna’s
serpent stood round thee with all her throng of heads.
Hail to thee, authentic offspring of Jove, fresh ornament
of the sky! come to us, come to these thine own rites
with favouring smile and auspicious gait.” Such things
their songs commemorate; and they crown all with Cacus’ 5
cave and the fiend himself, the fire panting from his lungs.
The entire grove echoes with their voices, and the hills
rebound.
The sacrifice over, the whole concourse returns to the
city. There walked the king, mossed over with years, 10
keeping at his side Æneas and his son as he moved along,
and lightening the way with various speech. Æneas admires,
and turns his quick glance from sight to sight:
each scene enthralls him; and with eager zest he inquires
and learns one by one the records of men of old. Then 15
spoke king Evander, the builder of Rome’s tower-crowned
hill: “These woodlands were first inhabited by native
Fauns and Nymphs, and by a race of men that sprung
from trunks of trees and hard oaken core; no rule of life,
no culture had they: they never learnt to yoke the ox, 20
nor to hive their stores, nor to husband what they got;
the boughs and the chase supplied their savage sustenance.
The first change came from Saturn, who arrived from
skyey Olympus, flying from the arms of Jove, a realmless
exile. He brought together the race, untamed as they 25
were and scattered over mountain heights, and gave them
laws, and chose for the country the name of Latium,
because he had found it a safe hiding-place. The golden
age of story was when he was king, so calm and peaceful
his rule over his people; till gradually there crept in a 30
race of worse grain and duller hue, and the frenzy of war,
and the greed of having. Then came the host of Ausonia
and the Sicanian tribes, and again and again Saturn’s
land changed its name; then came king after king, savage
Thybris with his giant bulk, from whom in after days we 35
Italians called the river Tiber: the authentic name of
ancient Albula was lost. Myself, an exile from my country,
while voyaging to the ends of the sea, all-powerful
Fortune and inevitable Destiny planted here; at my back
were the awful hests[255] of my mother, the nymph Carmentis,
and the divine sanction of Apollo.” Scarce had he
finished, when moving on he points out the altar and
the Carmental gate, as the Romans call it, their ancient 5
tribute to the nymph Carmentis, the soothsaying seer, who
first told of the future greatness of Æneas’ sons and of
the glories of Pallanteum. Next he points out a mighty
grove, which fiery Romulus made the Asylum of a later
day, and embowered by the chill dank rock, the Lupercal, 10
bearing after Arcadian wont the name of Lycæan Pan.
He shows, moreover, the forest of hallowed Argiletum,
and appeals to the spot, and recounts the death of Argus,
once his guest. Thence he leads the way to the Tarpeian
temple, even the Capitol, now gay with gold, then rough 15
with untrimmed brushwood. Even in that day the sacred
terrors of the spot awed the trembling rustics; even then
they shuddered at the forest and the rock. “This wood,”
he says, “this hill with the shaggy brow, is the home of
a god of whom we know not; my Arcadians believe that 20
they have seen there great Jove himself, oft and oft,
shaking with his right hand the shadowy Ægis[256] and calling
up the storm. Here, too, in these two towns, with
their ramparts overthrown, you see the relics and the
chronicles of bygone ages. This tower was built by father 25
Janus, that by Saturn; the one’s name Janiculum, the
other’s Saturnia.” So talking together they came nigh
the palace where Evander dwells in poverty, and saw
cattle all about lowing in the Roman forum and Carinæ’s
luxurious precinct. When they reached the gate, “This 30
door,” said the host, “Alcides in his triumph stooped to
enter; this mansion contained his presence. Nerve yourself,
my guest, to look down on riches, and make your
own soul, like his, such as a god would not disdain, and
take in no churlish sort the welcome of poverty.” He 35
said, and beneath the slope of his narrow roof ushered in
the great Æneas, and laid him to rest on a couch of leaves
and the skin of a Libyan bear.
Down comes the night, and flaps her sable wings over
the earth. But Venus, distracted, and not idly, with a
mother’s cares, disturbed by the menaces of the Laurentines
and the violence of the gathering storm, addresses
Vulcan, and in the nuptial privacy of their golden chamber 5
begins her speech, breathing in every tone the love
that gods feel: “In old days of war, while the Argive
kings were desolating Pergamus, their destined prey, and
ravaging the towers which were doomed to hostile fire,
no help for the sufferers, no arms of thy resourceful workmanship 10
did I ask; no, my dearest lord, I chose not to
task thee and thy efforts to no end, large as was my debt
to the sons of Priam, and many the tears that I shed for
Æneas’ cruel agony. Now, by Jove’s commands, he has
set his foot on Rutulian soil; so, with the past in my 15
mind, I appear as a suppliant, to ask of his power whom
I honour most, as a mother may, armour for my son.
Thee the daughter of Nereus, thee the spouse of Tithonus,
found accessible to tears. See but what nations are
mustering, what cities are closing the gate and pointing 20
the steel against me and the lives I love.” The speech
was ended, and the goddess is fondling her undecided
lord on all sides in the soft embrace of her snowy arms.
Suddenly he caught the wonted fire, the well-known heat
shot to his vitals and threaded his melting frame, even as 25
on a day when the fiery rent burst by the thunderclaps
runs with gleaming flash along the veil of cloud. His
spouse saw the triumph of her art and felt what beauty
can do. Then spoke the stern old god, subdued by everlasting
love: “Why fetch your excuses from so far? 30
whither, my queen, has fled your old affiance in me? had
you then been as anxious, even in those old days it had
been allowed to give arms to the Trojans; nor was the
almighty sire nor the destinies unwilling that Troy should
stand and Priam remain in life for ten years more. And 35
now, if war is your object and so your purpose holds, all
the care that it lies within my art to promise, what can
be wrought out of iron and molten electrum, as far as
fire can burn and wind blow—cease to show by entreaty
that you mistrust your power.” This said, he gave the
embrace she longed for, and falling on the bosom of his
spouse wooed the calm of slumber in every limb.
Then, soon as rest, first indulged, had driven sleep 5
away, when flying night had run half her course; just
when a woman, compelled to support life by spinning,
even by Pallas’ slender craft, wakes to light the fire that
slumbered in the embers, adding night to her day’s work,
and keeps her handmaids labouring long by the blaze, all 10
that she may preserve her husband’s bed unsullied, and
bring up his infant sons; even so the lord of fire, at an
hour not less slothful, rises from his couch of down to
the toils of the artisan. There rises an island hard by
the Sicanian coast and Æolian Lipari, towering with fiery 15
mountains; beneath it thunders a cavern, the den of
Ætna, blasted out by Cyclop forges; the sound of mighty
blows echoes on anvils: the smeltings of the Chalybes
hiss through its depths, and the fire pants from the jaws
of the furnace; it is the abode of Vulcan, and the land 20
bears Vulcan’s name. Hither, then, the lord of fire
descends from heaven’s height. There, in the enormous
den, the Cyclops were forging the iron, Brontes, and
Steropes, and Pyracmon, the naked giant. In their hands
was the rough cast of the thunder-bolt, one of those many 25
which the great Father showers down on earth from all
quarters of heaven—part was polished for use, part still
incomplete. Three spokes of frozen rain, three of watery
cloud had they put together, three of ruddy flame and
winged southern wind; and now they were blending with 30
what they had done the fearful flash, and the noise, and
the terror, and the fury of untiring fire. In another part
they were hurrying on for Mars the car and the flying
wheels, with which he rouses warriors to madness, aye,
and whole cities; and with emulous zeal were making 35
bright with golden serpent scales the terrible Ægis, the
armour of angry Pallas, snakes wreathed together, and
full on the breast of the goddess the Gorgon herself, her
neck severed and her eyes rolling. “Away with all this,”
cries the god; “take your unfinished tasks elsewhere, you
Cyclops of Ætna, and give your attention here. Arms
are wanted for a fiery warrior. Now is the call for power,
now for swiftness of hand, now for all that art can teach. 5
Turn delay into despatch.” No more he said; but they
with speed put their shoulder to the work, sharing it in
equal parts. Copper flows in streams and golden ore, and
steel, that knows how to wound, is molten in the huge
furnace. They set up in outline a mighty shield, itself 10
singly matched against all the Latian weapons, and tangle
together seven plates, circle and circle. Some with their
gasping bellows are taking in and giving out the wind;
others are dipping the hissing copper in the lake. The
cave groans under the anvil’s weight. They, one with 15
another, with all a giant’s strength, are lifting their arms
in measured cadence, and turning with their griping
tongs the ore on this side and on that.
While the father of Lemnos[257] makes this despatch on
the Æolian shores, Evander is roused from his lowly 20
dwelling by the genial light and the morning songs of
birds under the eaves. Up rises the old man, and draws
a tunic over his frame, and puts Tyrrhenian sandals
round his feet; next he fastens from below to side and
shoulder a sword from Tegea, flinging back over him a 25
panther’s hide that drooped from the left. Moreover, two
guardian dogs go before him from his palace door, and
attend their master’s steps. So he made his way to the
lodging of his guest, and sought Æneas’ privacy, their
discourse of yesterday and the gift then promised fresh 30
in his heroic soul. Æneas likewise was astir not less early.
This had his son Pallas, that had Achates walking by his
side. They meet, and join hand in hand, and sit them
down in the midst of the mansion, and at last enjoy the
privilege of mutual talk. The king begins as follows:— 35
“Mightiest leader of the Teucrians, whom while heaven
preserves I shall never own that Troy’s powers are vanquished
or her realm overturned, we ourselves have but
small means of martial aid to back our great name; on
this side we are bounded by the Tuscan river: on that
our Rutulian foe beleaguers us, and thunders in arms
around our walls. But I have a mighty nation, a host
with an imperial heritage, which I am ready to unite with 5
you—a gleam of safety revealed by unexpected chance.
It is at the summons of destiny that you bend your steps
thither. Not far hence, built of ancient stone, is the inhabited
city of Agylla, where of old the Lydian nation,
renowned in war, took its seat on Etruscan mountains. 10
This city, after long and prosperous years, was held by
king Mezentius, by stress of tyrant rule and the terror of
the sword. Why should I recount the despot’s dreadful
murders and all his savage crimes? may the gods preserve 15
them in mind, and bring them on his own head and
his family’s! Nay, he would even link together the dead
and the living, coupling hand with hand and face with
face—so inventive is the lust of torture—and in the
slime and poison of that sickening embrace would destroy
them thus by a lingering dissolution. At last, wearied 20
by oppression, his subjects in arms besiege the frantic
monster himself and his palace, slay his retainers, shower
firebrands on his roof. He, mid the carnage, escapes to
Rutulian territory, and shelters himself under Turnus’
friendly power. So all Etruria has risen in righteous 25
wrath; at once, at the sword’s point, they demand that
the king be surrendered to their vengeance. Of these
thousands, Æneas, I will make you general. For along
the seaboard’s length their ships are swarming and panting
for the fray, and calling on the trumpet to sound, 30
while an aged soothsayer is holding them back by his
fateful utterance: ‘Chosen warriors of Mæonian land, the
power and soul of an ancient nation, whom just resentment
launches against the foe and Mezentius inflames with
righteous fury, no Italian may take the reins of a race so 35
proud: choose foreigners to lead you.’ At this the Etruscan
army settled down on yonder plain, awed by the
heavenly warning. Tarchon[o] himself has sent me ambassadors
with the royal crown and sceptre, and given to
my hands the ensigns of power, bidding me join the camp,
and assume the Tyrrhene throne. But age, with its enfeebling
chill and the exhaustion of its long term of years,
grudges me the honour of command; my day of martial 5
prowess is past. Fain would I encourage my son to the
task, but that the blood of a Sabine mother blending with
mine makes his race half Italian. You, in years and in
race alike the object of Fate’s indulgence—you, the
chosen one of Heaven—assume the place that waits 10
you, gallant general of Teucrians and Italians both. Nay,
I will give you, too, Pallas here, the hope and solace of
my age; under your tutelage let him learn to endure
military service and the war-god’s strenuous labours; let
your actions be his pattern, and his young admiration be 15
centred on you. To him I will give two hundred Arcadian
horsemen, the flower of my chivalry, and Pallas in his
own name shall give you as many more.”
Scarce had his words been uttered—and the twain
were holding their eyes in downcast thought, Æneas 20
Anchises’ son and true Achates, brooding each with his
own sad heart on many a peril, had not Cythera’s goddess
sent a sign from the clear sky. For unforeseen, flashed
from the heaven, comes a glare and a peal, and all around
seemed crashing down at once, and the clang of the 25
Tyrrhene trumpet appeared to blare through ether. They
look up: a second and a third time cracks the enormous
sound. Armour enveloped in a cloud in a clear quarter
of the firmament is seen to flash redly in the sunlight and
to ring as clashed together. The rest were all amazement; 30
but the Trojan hero recognized the sound, and in
it the promise of his goddess mother. Then he cries:
“Nay, my host, nay, ask not in sooth what chance these
wonders portend; it is I that have a call from on high.
This was the sign that the goddess who gave me birth 35
foreshowed me that she would send, should the attack of
war come, while she would bring through the air armour
from Vulcan for my help. Alas! how vast the carnage
ready to burst on Laurentum’s wretched sons! what
vengeance, Turnus, shall be mine from thee! how many
a warrior’s shield and helm and stalwart frame shalt thou
toss beneath thy waters, father Tiber! Aye, clamour for
battle, and break your plighted word!” 5
Thus having said, he rises from his lofty seat, and first
of all quickens the altars where the Herculean fires were
smouldering, and with glad heart approaches the hearth-god
of yesterday, and the small household powers; duly
they sacrifice chosen sheep, Evander for his part and the 10
Trojan youth for theirs. Next he moves on to the ships
and revisits his crew: from whose number he chooses men
to follow him to the war, eminent in valour: the rest are
wafted down the stream and float lazily along with the
current at their back, to bring Ascanius news of his father 15
and his fortunes. Horses are given to the Teucrians who
are seeking the Tyrrhene territory, and one is led along,
reserved for Æneas; a tawny lion’s hide covers it wholly,
gleaming forth with talons of gold.
At once flies rumour, blazed through the little city, 20
that the horsemen are marching with speed to the gates
of the Tyrrhene king. In alarm the matrons redouble
their vows; fear treads on the heels of danger, and the
features of the war-god loom larger on the view. Then
Evander, clasping the hand of his departing son, hangs 25
about him with tears that never have their fill, and speaks
like this: “Ah! would but Jupiter bring back my bygone
years, and make me what I was when under Præneste’s
very walls I struck down the first rank and set a
conqueror’s torch to piles of shields, and with this my 30
hand sent down to Tartarus king Erulus, whom at his
birth his mother Feronia endowed with three lives—fearful
to tell—and a frame that could thrice bear arms:
thrice had he to be struck down in death: yet from him
on that day this hand took all those three lives, and 35
thrice stripped that armour—never should I, as now, be
torn, my son, from your loved embrace. Never would
Mezentius have laid dishonour on a neighbour’s crest,
dealt with his sword that repeated havoc, and bereaved
my city of so many of her sons. But you, great powers
above, and thou, Jupiter, mightiest ruler of the gods,
have pity, I implore you, on an Arcadian monarch, and
give ear to a father’s prayer; if your august will, if destiny 5
has in store for me the safe return of my Pallas, if life
will make me see him and meet him once more, then I
pray that I may live; there is no trial I cannot bear to
outlast. But if thou, dark Fortune, threatenest any unnamed
calamity, now, oh, now, be it granted me to snap 10
life’s ruthless thread, while care wears a double face,
while hope cannot spell the future, while you, darling boy,
my love and late delight, are still in my arms: nor let
my ears be pierced by tidings more terrible.” So was the
father heard to speak at their last parting; his servants 15
were seen carrying within doors their fallen lord.
And now the cavalry had passed the city’s open gates,
Æneas among the first and true Achates, and after them
the other Trojan nobles; Pallas himself the centre of the
column, conspicuous with gay scarf and figured armour; 20
even as the morning-star just bathed in the waves of the
ocean, Venus’ favourite above all the stellar fires, sets in
a moment on the sky his heavenly countenance, and
melts the darkness. There are the trembling matrons
standing on the walls, following with their eyes the cloud 25
of dust and the gleam of the brass-clad companies. They
in their armour are moving through the underwood, their
eye on the nearest path: hark! a shout mounts up, a
column is formed, and the four-foot beat of the hoof shakes
the crumbling plain. Near the cool stream of Cære stands 30
a vast grove, clothed by hereditary reverence with wide-spread
sanctity; on all sides it is shut in by the hollows
of hills, which encompass its dark pine-wood shades.
Rumour says that the old Pelasgians dedicated it to Silvanus,
god of the country and the cattle, a grove with a 35
holiday—the people who once in early times dwelt on
the Latian frontier. Not far from this Tarchon and the
Tyrrhenians were encamped in a sheltered place, and from
the height of the hill their whole army spread already to
the view, as they pitched at large over the plain. Hither
come father Æneas and the chosen company of warriors,
and refresh the weariness of themselves and their steeds.
But Venus had come in her divine beauty through the 5
dark clouds of heaven with the gifts in her hand, and soon
as she saw her son far retired in the vale in the privacy of
the cool stream, she thus accosted him, appearing suddenly
before him: “See, here is the present completed by my
lord’s promised skill: now you will not need to hesitate 10
to-morrow about daring to the combat the haughty
Laurentians or fiery Turnus’ self.” So said the lady of
Cythera, and sought her son’s embrace: the arms she set
up to glitter under an oak that faced his view. He,
exulting in the goddess’ gifts, and charmed with their 15
dazzling beauty, cannot feast his eyes enough as he rolls
them from point to point, admiring and turning over in
his hands and arms the helmet with its dread crest, vomiting
flame, the fateful sword, the stiff brazen corslet, blood-red
and huge, in hue as when a dark cloud kindles with 20
sunlight and gleams afar; the polished cuishes,[258] too, of
electrum and gold smelted oft and oft, and the spear,
and the shield’s ineffable frame-work. On this was the
story of Italy and the triumphs of the Romans wrought
by the Lord of the fire; no stranger he to prophecy nor 25
ignorant of the time to come: on it was the whole royal
line of the future from Ascanius onward, and their foughten
fields in long succession. There, too, he had portrayed
the mother-wolf stretched in Mars’ green cavern; around
her teats were the twin boys in play climbing and clinging, 30
and licking their dam without dread; while she, her lithe
neck bent back, was caressing them by turns and with her
tongue shaping their young limbs. Near this he had inserted
Rome and the lawless rape of the Sabine maidens
amid the crowded circus, while the great games were in 35
course, and the sudden rise of a new war between the sons
of Romulus and ancient Tatius with his austere Cures.
Afterwards were seen the two kings, the conflict set at rest,
standing in arms before the altar of Jove with goblets in
their hands and cementing a treaty with swine’s blood.
Not far off Mettus had already been torn asunder by the
chariots driven apart—ah! false Alban, were you but a
keeper of your word!—and Tullus was dragging the 5
traitor’s flesh through the woodland, while the bushes were
sprinkled with the bloody rain. There, too, was Porsenna
insisting that exiled Tarquin should be taken back and
leaguering the city with a mighty siege: Æneas’ sons were
flinging themselves on the sword in freedom’s cause. In 10
his face might be seen the likeness of wrath, and the likeness
of menace, that Cocles[259] should have the courage
to tear down the bridge, that Cloelia should break her
prison and swim the river. There was Manlius standing
sentinel on the summit of the Tarpeian fortress in the 15
temple’s front, holding the height of the Capitol, while
the Romulean thatch looked fresh and sharp on the palace-roof.
And there was the silver goose fluttering its wings
in the gilded cloister, and shrieking that the Gauls were
at the door. The Gauls were at hand marching among 20
the brushwood, and had gained the summit sheltered
by the darkness and the kindly grace of dusky night.
Golden is their hair and golden their raiment; striped
cloaks gleam on their shoulders; their milk-white necks
are twined with gold; each brandishes two Alpine javelins, 25
his body guarded by the long oval of his shield. There
he had shown in relief the Salii in their dances and the
naked Luperci, and the woolly peaks of their caps, and
the sacred shields which fell from heaven: chaste matrons
were making solemn progress through the city in their 30
soft-cushioned cars. At distance from these he introduces
too the mansions of Tartarus, Pluto’s yawning portals,
and the torments of crime, and thee, Catiline, poised on
the beetling rock and quailing at grim Fury-faces: and
the good in their privacy, with Cato as their lawgiver. 35
Stretching in its breadth among these swept the semblance
of the swelling sea, all of gold, but the blue was made to
foam with whitening billows; and all about it dolphins
of bright silver in joyous circles were lashing the surface
with their tails and cutting the tide. In the midst might
be seen fleets of brazen ships, the naval war of Actium;
you might remark the whole of Leucate aglow with the
war-god’s array, and the waves one blaze of gold. On this 5
side is Augustus Cæsar leading the Italians to conflict,
with the senate and the people, the home-gods and their
mighty brethren, standing aloft on the stern: his auspicious
brows emit twin-born flames, and his ancestral
star dawns over his head. Elsewhere is Agrippa with the 10
winds and the gods at his back, towering high as he leads
his column; his brows gleam with the beaked circle of a
naval crown, the glorious ornament of war. On that side
is Antonius with his barbaric powers and the arms of divers
lands, triumphant from the nations of the dawn-goddess 15
and the red ocean’s coast, carrying with him Egypt
and the strength of the East and the utmost parts of Bactria,
and at his side—shame on the profanation!—his
Egyptian spouse.[260] All are seen at once in fierce onward
motion: the whole sea-floor foams up, torn by the backward 20
pull of the oars and by the three-fanged beaks.
On to the deep! you would deem that uprooted Cyclades
were swimming the sea, or that tall hills were meeting hills
in battle; such the giant effort, with which the warriors
urge on their tower-crowned ships. From the hand is 25
scattered a shower of flaming tow and flying steel: the
plains of Neptune redden with unwonted carnage. In the
midst of them the queen is cheering on her forces with
the timbrel of her native land; casting as yet no glance on
the twin-born snakes that threaten her rear. There are 30
the portentous gods of all the nations, and Anubis[261] the
barking monster, brandishing their weapons in the face
of Neptune and Venus and in the face of Pallas. Midmost
in the fray storms Mavors,[262] relieved in iron, and fell
Fury-fiends swooping from the sky; and Discord sweeps 35
along in the glory of her rent mantle, and at her back
Bellona with blood-dropping scourge. There was Actium’s
Apollo, with his eye on the fray, bending his bow from
above; at whose terror all Egypt and Ind, all Arabia, all
the sons of Saba[263] were turning the back in flight. The
queen herself was shown spreading her sails to friendly
breezes, and just loosing the sheets. On her face the Lord
of the Fire had written the paleness of foreshadowed 5
death, as she drove on among corpses before the tide and
the zephyr; over against her was Nile, his vast body writhing
in woe, throwing open his bosom, and with his whole
flowing raiment inviting the vanquished to his green lap
and his sheltering flood. But Cæsar, entering the walls 10
of Rome in threefold triumph, was consecrating to the
gods of Italy a votive tribute of deathless gratitude, three
hundred mighty fanes the whole city through. The ways
were ringing with gladness and with games and with plausive
peal; in every temple thronged a matron company, 15
in every temple an altar blazed; in front of the altars
slaughtered bullocks strewed the floor. The hero himself,
throned on dazzling Phœbus’ snow-white threshold, is
telling over the offerings of all the nations and hanging
them up on the proud temple gates; there in long procession 20
move the conquered peoples, diverse in tongue, diverse
no less in garb and in armour. Here had Mulciber portrayed
the Nomad race and the zoneless sons of Afric:
here, too, Leleges and Carians and quivered Gelonians:
Euphrates was flowing with waves subdued already; and 25
the Morini, furthest of mankind, and Rhine with his crescent
horn, and tameless Dahæ, and Araxes chafing to be
bridged. Such sights Æneas scans with wonder on Vulcan’s
shield, his mother’s gift, and joys in the portraiture
of things he knows not, as he heaves on his shoulder the 30
fame and the fate of grandsons yet to be.
BOOK IX
While these things are in progress far away, Juno,
Saturn’s daughter, has sent down Iris from above on an
errand to Turnus the bold. It chanced that then Turnus
was sitting in the grove of his sire Pilumnus, deep in the
hallowed dell. Him then the child[264] of Thaumas bespoke 5
thus from her rosy lips: “Turnus, what no god would have
dared to promise to your prayers, lo! the mere lapse of
time has brought to you unasked. Æneas, leaving behind
town, comrades, and fleet, is gone to seek the realm of the
Palatine, the settlement of Evander. Nor is that all: 10
he has won his way to Corythus’ farthest towns, and is
arming the Lydian bands, the crowds of country folk. Why
hesitate? now, now is the moment to call for horse and
car; fling delay to the winds, and come down on the bewildered
camp.” So saying, she raised herself aloft on the 15
poise of her wings, and drew as she fled along the clouds her
mighty bow. The warrior knew his visitant, lifted his
two hands to heaven, and pursued her flight with words
like these: “Iris, fair glory of the sky, who has sent thee
down from heaven to earth on an errand to me? I see 20
the firmament parting asunder, and the stars reeling about
the poles. Yes! I follow thy mighty presage, whoe’er
thou art thus calling me to arms.” With these words he
went to the river-side, and took up water from the brimming
flood, calling oft on the gods and burdening heaven 25
with a multitude of vows.
And now his whole army was in motion along the open
plain, richly dowered with horses, richly dowered with
gold and broidered raiment. Messapus[265] marshals the van,
Tyrrheus’ warrior-sons the rear: Turnus himself, the 30
general, is in the centre—like Ganges with his seven calm
streams proudly rising through the silence, or Nile when
he withdraws from the plain his fertilizing waters and has
at last subsided into his bed. Suddenly the Teucrians
look forth on a cloud massed with murky dust, and see
darkness gathering over the plain. First cries Caicus from 5
the rampart’s front: “What mass have we here, my
countrymen, rolling towards us, black as night? Quick
with the steel, bring weapons, man the walls, the enemy
is upon us, ho!” With loud shouts the Teucrians pour
themselves through all the gates and through the bulwarks. 10
For such had been the charge of Æneas, that best of soldiers,
when going on his way; should aught fall out meantime,
let them not venture to draw out their lines or try
the fortune of the field: enough for them to guard camp
and wall safe behind their earthworks. So now, though 15
shame and anger prompt to an engagement, they shield
themselves nevertheless with closed gates in pursuance of
his bidding, and armed, within the covert of their towers,
await the foe. Turnus, just as he had galloped on in advance
of his tardy column, appears unforeseen before the 20
gate with a chosen following of twenty horse: with a
Thracian steed to carry him, spotted with white, and a
golden helm with scarlet crest to guard his head. “Now,
gallants, which of you will venture with me first against
the foe? Look there!” he cries, and with a whirl sends 25
his javelin into the air, the overture of battle, and proudly
prances over the plain. His friends second him with a
shout and follow with dreadful cries; they wonder at the
Teucrians’ sluggish hearts—men-at-arms, not to trust
themselves to a fair field or fight face to face, but keep 30
nursing their camp. Enraged, he rides round and round
the walls, and looks out for an opening where way is none.
Even as a wolf, lying in wait to surprise a crowded fold,
whines about the enclosure, exposed to wind and rain, at
mid of night; the lambs, nestling safe under their mothers, 35
keep bleating loudly; he, maddened and reckless, gnashes
his teeth at the prey beyond his reach, tormented by the
long-gathered rage of hunger and his dry bloodless jaws:
just so the Rutulian scans wall and camp with kindling
wrath; grief fires the marrow of his iron bones—how to
essay an entrance? what way to dash the prisoned Trojans
from the rampart and fling them forth on level
ground? Close to the camp’s side was lying the fleet, 5
shored round by earthworks and by the river; this he
assails, calling for fire to his exulting mates, and filling his
hand with a blazing pine, himself all aglow. Driven on
by Turnus’ presence, they double their efforts: each soldier
of the band equips himself with his murky torch. See, 10
they have stripped the hearths: the smoking brand sends
up a pitchy glare, and the Fire-god wafts clouds of soot
and flame heaven-high.
What god, ye Muses, shielded the Teucrians from a fire
so terrible? who warded off from the ships so vast a conflagration? 15
Tell me; the faith in the tale is old, but its
fame is evergreen.
In early days, when Æneas in Phrygian Ida was first
fashioning his fleet and making ready for the high seas,
the great mother of the gods, they say, the Berecyntian 20
queen, thus addressed almighty Jove: “Grant, my son,
to thy mother’s prayer the boon she asks thee on thy conquest
of Olympus. A pine-forest is mine, endeared by the
love of many years, a sacred grove on the mountain’s
height, whither worshippers brought their offerings, bedarkened 25
with black pitch-trees and trunks of maple:
these I was fain to give to the youth of Dardany when he
needed a fleet; now my anxious heart is wrung by disturbing
fears. Release me from my dread, and let a
mother’s prayer avail thus much: let them be overcome 30
by no strain of voyage, no violence of wind; give them
good of their birth on my sacred hill.” To her replied her
son, who wields the starry sphere: “O mother, whither
wouldst thou wrest the course of fate? what askest thou
for these thy favourites? should vessels framed by mortal 35
hand have charter of immortality? should Æneas, himself
assured, meet perils all unsure? What god had ever
privilege so great? Nay, rather, when their service is
over and they gain one day the haven of Ausonia, from
all such as escape the waves and convoy the Dardan chief
safe to Laurentian soil, I will take away their perishable
shape, and summon them to the state of goddesses of the
mighty ocean, in form like Nereus’ children, Doto and 5
Galatea, when they breast the foaming deep.” He said;
and by the river of his Stygian brother, by the banks that
seethe with pitch and are washed by the murky torrent, he
nodded confirmation, and with his nod made all Olympus
tremble. 10
So now the promised day was come, and the Destinies
had fulfilled the time appointed, when Turnus’ lawless
violence gave warning to the mighty mother to ward off
the firebrand from her consecrated ships. Now in a moment
a strange light flashed on the eyes of all, and a great 15
cloud was seen from the quarter of the dawn-goddess
running athwart the sky, with the choirs of Ida in its
train; then came darting through the air a voice of terror,
thrilling the ranks of Trojan and Rutulian from end to
end: “Busy not yourselves, ye Teucrians, to defend my 20
ships, nor take weapons into your hands: Turnus shall
have leave to burn up the ocean sooner than to consume
my sacred pines. Go free, my favourites: go and be
goddesses of the sea: it is the mother’s voice that bids
you.” And at once each ship snaps her cable from the 25
bank, and like a dolphin dips her beak and makes for the
bottom. Then all emerge in maiden forms, a marvel to
behold, and breast the main, as many as stood a moment
ago with their brazen prows to the shore.
Amazement seized the Rutulians; terror came on Messapus 30
himself, confusion on his steeds; even Tiber, the
river, pauses, murmuring hoarsely, and retraces his seaward
course. But bold Turnus’ confidence felt no check;
no, his words are ready to encourage and upbraid: “It
is at the Trojans that these portents point: Jove himself 35
has robbed them of their wonted resource; they wait not
for Rutulian fire and sword to do the work. Yes, the sea
is impassable to the Teucrians; hope of flight have they
none; one half of nature is taken from them; as for earth,
it is in our hands, thanks to the thousands here standing in
arms, the tribes of Italy. I care not for the fateful utterances
of heaven that these Phrygians vaunt, be they
what they may: fate and Venus have had license enough, 5
in that the Trojans have set foot on the soil of our rich
Ausonia. I, too, have a fate of my own, to mow down
with the sword the guilty nation that has stolen my bride;
that wrong of theirs comes not home to the Atridæ alone,
nor has Mycenæ alone the privilege of going to war. But 10
one destruction is enough for them—aye, had one transgression
been enough, so that they had henceforth loathed
the sex well-nigh to a woman. Men who trust in their intervening
rampart, whom the pause at the trench, those few
feet of distance from death, inspires with courage. Why, 15
did they not see their city of Troy sink into the fire, though
built by the hand of Neptune? But you, my chosen
mates, who is there ready to hew down the rampart and
rush with me on their bewildered camp? I need not the
arms of Vulcan nor a thousand sail for _my_ Trojan war. 20
Let all Etruria join them in a body. Night alarms, cowardly
thefts of their guardian image, slaughterings of the
sentry on the height, they need fear none of these; we will
not skulk in a horse’s murky womb: in broad day, in the
sight of all, I stand pledged to put a ring of fire round their 25
walls. I will not let them fancy they are dealing with
the Danaans and the Pelasgian chivalry, whom Hector
kept ten years waiting for their due. Now, since the better
part of the day is spent, for what remains, gallants, refresh
yourselves after your good service, and be assured that 30
battle is getting ready.”
Meantime the charge is given to Messapus to leaguer the
gates with relays of watchmen, and throw a girdle of fire
round the ramparts. Twice seven Rutulian chiefs are
chosen to keep armed observation of the walls: a hundred 35
warriors attend on each, red with scarlet crests and gleaming
with gold. They move from place to place and relieve
one another, and stretched on the grass give wine its fling
and tilt the brazen bowl. Bright shine the fires: the
warders speed the wakeful night with sport and game.
The Trojans look forth on the scene from their earthworks,
as in arms they man the summit; with anxious
fear they test the gates, and link bridge and bulwark, 5
their weapons in their hands. First in the work are Mnestheus
and keen Serestus, whom father Æneas, should
adverse crisis call for action, left to command the warriors
and govern affairs at home. The whole army along the
wall, dividing the danger, keeps guard, each relieving 10
each at the post assigned.
The warder of the gate was Nisus, a soldier of keenest
mettle, Hyrtacus’ son, whom Ida the huntress sent to
attend Æneas, quick with the dart and the flying arrow:
and at his side Euryalus, than who was none fairer among 15
Æneas’ children, none that ever donned the arms of Troy,
a stripling whose unrazored cheeks just showed the first
bloom of youth. Theirs was a common love: side by side
they wont[266] to rush into the battle: and even then they were
keeping watch at the gate in joint duty. Nisus exclaims: 20
“Is it the gods, Euryalus, that make men’s hearts glow
thus? or does each one’s ungoverned yearning become his
god? My heart has long been astir to rush on war or
other mighty deed, nor will peaceful quiet content it.
You see the Rutulians there, delivered up to confidence 25
in the future: their line of lights gleams brokenly: unnerved
with sleep and wine, yonder they lie: all around is
still. Listen on, and learn on what I am brooding, and
what thought is this moment uppermost. ‘Æneas should
be recalled’—so cry people and leaders as one man; 30
‘messengers should be sent to tell him the truth.’ If they
pledge themselves to what I ask for you—for me the fame
of the deed is sufficient—methinks under the mound
yonder I could find a way to the city walls of Pallanteum.”
A thrill of generous ambition struck wonder into Euryalus, 35
as thus he addressed his glowing friend: “And would you
shrink from taking me with you, Nisus, on this high occasion?
Am I to send you out alone on such perilous
errand? It was not thus that my father, the veteran
Opheltes, reared and bred me among Argive terrors and
Trojan agonies, nor have such been my doings at your side,
since I followed our hero Æneas and his desperate fate.
Here, here, within me is a soul that thinks scorn of happy 5
sunshine, and deems that the glory at which you aim were
cheaply bought with life.” “Nay,” returns Nisus, “trust
me, I had no such fear of you—none such had been just:
so may I return to you in triumph, by grace of mighty Jove,
or whosoever now looks down on us with righteous eyes. 10
But should aught—and a venture like this, you see, has
a thousand such—should aught sway things amiss, be it
chance or heaven’s will, I would fain have you spared:
yours is the meeter age for life. Let me have one to rescue
me in fight, or redeem me by ransom paid, and so consign 15
me to the burial all receive: or should Fortune grudge
even that, to pay me the rites of the absent, and give
me the adornment of a tomb. Nor let me be the cause of
grief so terrible to that unhappy parent, who alone of
many matrons has had a heart to follow you, dear boy, 20
nor cares for the city of great Acestes.” He replied:
“Spinning empty pretexts is idle work: there is no change
or faltering in my resolve. Up and despatch!” At once
he rouses the guard, who take his place and fulfil their
time, while he, departing from the post, walks side by side 25
with Nisus, and they seek the prince together.
All else that breathed on earth were asleep, their load of
care unbound, their hearts oblivious of toil; the chief
leaders of the Teucrians, the flower of the host, were holding
council on the crisis in their realm’s fortune, what they 30
should do, or who should at length be sent with the news
to Æneas. There they stand propped on their long spears,
their shields still in their hands, in the midst of camp and
plain. At this moment Nisus and Euryalus eagerly crave
instant admission—the affair is great, say they, and well 35
worth the pause it claims. Iulus was the first to welcome
and reassure them, and bid Nisus speak. Then began the
son of Hyrtacus: “Listen, ye sons of Troy, with kindly
heed, nor let these our proffers be judged by our years.
The Rutulians, unnerved by sleep and wine, are hushed
in silence: we have ourselves observed a place for a
stealthy move, open through the passage of the gate which
abuts on the sea. The line of fires is broken, and only 5
dusky smoke rises to the sky: give us but leave to make
use of fortune, and go in quest of Æneas and the walls of
Pallanteum, soon shall you see us here again after a mighty
carnage, laden with spoils. Nor can the way mislead us
as we go: we have seen in the dimness of the vale the outskirts 10
of the city while persevering in our hunting, and
have made acquaintance with the whole river’s course.”
Then spoke Aletes, weighty with years and ripe of understanding:
“Gods of our fathers, whose constant presence
watches over Troy, not yet in spite of all do ye purpose to 15
make an utter end of us Teucrians, when such are the
spirits and so steadfast the hearts ye breed in our youth.”
As he said this, he kept embracing the necks and hands of
both, and bathing his cheeks in floods of tears. “What
guerdons, gallant men, what can I fancy of worth enough 20
to pay you for glories like these? First and richest of all
will be the praise of heaven and your own hearts: next
to these you will receive the rest without fail from good
Æneas and young Ascanius, who will never forget a service
so great.” “Nay,” cries Ascanius, “let me speak, me, 25
whose safety is bound up with my sire’s return: by our
great household gods I adjure you, Nisus, by the deity of
Assaracus’ house and the shrine of reverend Vesta—all
my fortune, all my trust, I place in your hands: bring
back my father, let me see him again; he once restored, 30
all grief is over. I will give you a pair of goblets wrought
with silver and rough from the chasing-tool, which my
father took when he conquered Arisba, a couple of tripods,
two great talents of gold, and an ancient bowl, Sidonian
Dido its donor. But if it be our victorious fortune to 35
conquer Italy and attain the crown, and appoint the lot
for the booty—you saw the horse which Turnus rode, the
arms in which he moved all golden—that horse, that
shield, and the scarlet crest I will set apart from the lot,
and count it, Nisus, yours already. Moreover, my sire
shall give you twelve matron captives of choicest beauty,
male prisoners too, each with his armour, and, to
crown all, the portion of domain held by king Latinus 5
himself. But you, whose years are followed at nearer
distance by my own, revered youth, I take at once to my
heart, and fold you there, my comrade for whatever betides.
Never will I seek glory for my own estate apart
from you: whether I have peace or war on hand, yours 10
shall be my utmost confidence in deed and in word.”
To him spoke Euryalus in reply: “No length of time shall
find me false to the promise of my bold essay: let but
fortune speed and not thwart us. But one boon I would
ask of you beyond all others: I have a mother of Priam’s 15
ancient house, whom not the land of Ilium, not the city
of king Acestes, could keep, poor soul, from going with me.
Her I am now leaving, ignorant of this peril, be it what it
may, with no word of greeting—Night and your right
hand are my witnesses—because I could not bear a parent’s 20
tears. But you, I pray, comfort her need and support
her lonely age. With this trust in you to bear along
with me, I shall meet all that happens with a bolder
spirit.” Touched to the heart, the children of Dardanus
broke into tears—chief of all the fair Iulus, as the picture 25
of his own filial love flashed upon his soul. Thus he
speaks: “Assure yourself that all shall be done that your
mighty deeds deserve. Yes, she shall be my own mother,
nought wanting but the name to make her Creusa’s self;
to have borne you lays up no mean store of gratitude. 30
Whatever the fortune that attends your endeavour, I
swear by this my head, by which my father has been wont
to swear, all that I promise to you in the event of your
prosperous return, shall remain in its fulness assured to
your mother and your house.” This he says weeping, and 35
unbelts from his shoulder a gilded sword wrought with
rare art by Lycaon of Crete, and fitted for use with a scabbard
of ivory. To Nisus Mnestheus gives a skin, a lion’s
shaggy spoils: Aletes, true of heart, makes an exchange
of helmets. Their arming done they march along; and
as they go, the whole band of nobles, young and old, escorts
them to the gate with prayers for their safety. There too
was fair Iulus, in heart and forethought manlier than his 5
years, giving them many a charge to carry to his father.
But the winds scatter all alike, and deliver them cancelled
to the clouds.
Passing through the gate, they cross the trenches, and
through the midnight shade make for the hostile camp—destined, 10
though, first to be the death of many. All about
the grass they see bodies stretched at length by sleep and
wine, cars tilted up on the shore, men lying among wheels
and harness, with armour and pools of wine about them.
First spoke the son of Hyrtacus: “Euryalus, daring hands 15
are wanted; the occasion now calls for action; here lies
our way. Do you keep watch and wide look-out, lest any
hand be lifted against us from behind; I will lay these
ranks waste, and give you a broad path to walk in.” So
saying, he checks his voice, and at once with his tyrannous 20
sword assails Rhamnes, who, pillowed on a vast pile of
rugs, was breathing from all his breast the breath of sleep—a
king himself, and king Turnus’ favourite augur;
but his augury availed him not to ward off death. Close
by he surprises three attendants, stretched carelessly 25
among their weapons, and Remus’ armour-bearer and
charioteer, catching him as he lay at the horses’ side:
the steel shears through their drooping necks; then he
lops the head of their lord, and leaves the trunk gurgling
and spouting blood, while ground and couch are reeking 30
with black streams of gore. Lamyrus too, and Lamus,
and young Serranus, who had played long that night in the
pride of his beauty, and was lying with the dream-god’s
hand heavy upon him; happy, had he made his play as
long as the night, and pushed it into morning. Like a 35
hungry lion making havoc through a teeming fold—for
the madness of famine constrains him—he goes mangling
and dragging along the feeble cattle, dumb with terror,
and gnashing his bloody teeth. Nor less the carnage
of Euryalus: he, too, all on fire, storms along, and slays
on his road a vast and nameless crowd, Fadus and Herbesus,
and Rhœtus and Abaris—unconscious these:
Rhœtus was awake and saw it all, but in his fear he 5
crouched behind a massive bowl; whence, as he rose, the
conqueror plunged into his fronting breast the length of
his sword, and drew it back with a torrent of death. The
dying man vomits forth his crimson life, and disgorges
mingled wine and blood: the foe pursues his stealthy work. 10
And now he was making for Messapus’ followers, for there
he saw the flicker of dying fires, and horses tied and browsing
at their ease; when thus spoke Nisus in brief, seeing
him hurried on by passion and excess of slaughter: “Forbear
we now; the daylight, our enemy, is at hand; we 15
have supped on vengeance to the full; a highway is open
through the foe.” Many warriors’ arms they leave,
wrought of solid silver, many bowls and gorgeous coverlets.
Euryalus lays hand on Rhamnes’ trappings and his belt
with golden studs, sent by wealthy Cædicus of old as a 20
present to Remulus of Tiber, when he fain would make
him his friend from a distance; he, dying, leaves them to
his grandson, after whose death the Rutulians won them
in battle; these he strips off, and fits them to his valiant
breast, all for nought. Then he puts on Messapus’ shapely 25
helm, with its graceful crest. They leave the camp, and
pass into safety.
Meanwhile a troop of horse, sent on from the town of
Latium, while the rest of the force abides drawn up on the
field, was on its way with a message to king Turnus, three 30
hundred, shield-bearers all, with Volscens, their chief.
They were just nearing the camp, and passing under the
wall, when at distance they spy the two bending to the
left, and the helmet, seen in the glimmering twilight,
betrayed the heedless Euryalus, as the moonbeam flashed 35
full upon it. The sight fell not on idle eyes. Volscens
shouts from his band: “Halt, gallants; tell your errand,
who you are thus armed, and whither you are going.”
They venture no reply, but hasten the faster to the woods,
and make the night their friend. The horsemen bar each
well-known passage right and left and set a guard on every
outlet. The wood was shagged with thickets and dark
ilex boughs; impenetrable briars filled it on every side; 5
through the concealed tracks just gleamed a narrow path.
Euryalus is hampered by the darkness of the branches,
and the encumbrance of his booty, and fear makes him miss
the right line of road. Nisus shoots away: and now in
his forgetfulness he had escaped the foe, and gained the 10
region afterwards called Alban from Alba’s name; in
that day king Latinus had there his stately stalls; when he
halted, and looked back in vain for the friend he could not
see. “My poor Euryalus! where have I left you? what
way shall I trace you, unthreading all the tangled path of 15
that treacherous wood?” As he speaks, he scans and
retraces each step, and wanders through the stillness of
the brakes. He hears the horses, hears the noise and the
tokens of pursuit. Pass a few moments, and a shout
strikes on his ear, and he sees Euryalus, who is in the hands 20
of the whole crew, the victim of the ground and the night,
bewildered by the sudden onslaught, hurried along, and
making a thousand fruitless efforts. What should he do?
with what force, what arms, can he attempt a rescue?
should he dash through the thick of their swords with 25
death before his eyes, and hurry to a glorious end in a shower
of wounds? Soon, with his arm drawn back, he poises his
spear-shaft, looking up to the moon in the sky, and thus
prays aloud: “Thou, goddess, be thou present, and befriend
my endeavour, Latona’s daughter, glory of the 30
heavens and guardian of the woods: if ever my father
Hyrtacus brought gift for me to thine altar, if ever my own
hunting swelled the tribute, if ever I hung an offering from
thy dome or fastened it on thy hallowed summit, suffer
me to confound this mass, and guide my weapons through 35
the air.” This said, with an effort of his whole frame he
hurled the steel. The flying spear strikes through the
shades of night, reaches the turned back of Sulmo, there
snaps short, and pierces the midriff with the broken
wood. Down he tumbles, disgorging from his breast the
warm life-torrent that leaves him cold, and long choking
gasps smite on his sides. They look round this way and
that: while the same fell arm, nerved by success, is levelling, 5
see! another weapon from the ear-tip. While all
is confusion, the spear has passed through Tagus’ two
temples with whizzing sound, and lies warmly lodged in his
cloven brain. Volscens storms with fury, yet sees nowhere
the author of the wound, nor on whom to vent his 10
rage; “You, however, shall pay both debts meanwhile
with your heart’s blood,” cries he; and speaking, rushes
with drawn sword on Euryalus. Then, indeed, in frantic
agony, Nisus shouts aloud; no more care had he to hide
himself in darkness, no more strength to bear grief so 15
terrible: “Me, me! behold the doer! make me your mark,
O Rutulians! mine is all the blame; he had no heart, no
hand for such deeds; this heaven, these stars know that
it is true; it was but that he loved his unhappy friend too
well.” Thus he was pleading; but the sword, driven with 20
the arm’s full force, has pierced the ribs and is rending the
snowy breast. Down falls Euryalus in death; over his
beauteous limbs gushes the blood, and his powerless neck
sinks on his shoulders; as when a purple flower, severed by
the plough, pines in death, or poppies with faint necks 25
droop the head, when rain has chanced to weigh them
down. But Nisus rushes full on the foe, Volscens his one
object among them all; he cares for none but Volscens:
the enemy cluster round, and assail him on all sides; none
the less he holds on his way, whirling his lightning blade, 30
till at last he lodges it full in the Rutulian’s face, as he
shrieks for aid, and dying robs his foe of life. Then he
flung himself on his breathless friend, pierced through
and through, and there at length slept away in peaceful
death. 35
Happy pair! if this my song has aught of potency, no
lapse of days shall efface your names from the memory of
time, so long as the house of Æneas shall dwell on the
Capitol’s moveless rock, and a Roman father shall be the
world’s lord.
The Rutulian conquerors, enriched with spoil and booty,
were bearing Volscens’ body to the camp with tears in their
eyes. Nor less loud is the wailing in the camp, when they 5
find Rhamnes drained of life, and those many chiefs slain
by a single carnage—Serranus, Numa, and the rest.
They flock in crowds to the bodies, the warriors yet breathing,
the place fresh and reeking with slaughter, and the
streams of gore full and foaming. They pass the spoils 10
from hand to hand, and recognize Messapus’ gleaming
helm, and the trappings which it cost such sweat to recover.
Now at last the goddess of the dawn was sprinkling the
world with new-born light, as she rose from Tithonus’ 15
saffron couch: the sun had streamed in and all was revealed
by daybreak, when Turnus summons his men to
arms, himself sheathed in armour; each general musters
in battle array his brass-mailed bands, and, scattering
divers speeches, stings them to fury. Nay, more, on 20
uplifted spears, most piteous sight, they set up the heads,
and follow them with deafening shouts—the heads of
Euryalus and Nisus. Æneas’ sturdy family, on the rampart’s
left side, set the fight in array—for the right is
flanked by the river—guard the broad trenches and stand 25
on the lofty towers, deep in sorrow—touched to see those
lifted human countenances, which to their grief they knew
so well, dripping with black corrupted gore.
Meantime, Fame spreads her wings and flies with the
news through the wildered settlement, and reaches the 30
ears of Euryalus’ mother. At once the vital heat left her
wretched frame: the shuttle was dashed from her hands,
and the thread ran back. Forth flies the unhappy dame,
and with a woman’s piercing shriek, her tresses rent, makes
madly for the walls and the van of battle, heeding not the 35
eyes of men, heeding not the peril and the shower of javelins,
while she fills the heaven with her plaints: “Is it thus,
Euryalus, that I see you again? have you, the late solace
of my waning years, had the heart to leave me alone, unpitying?
nor, when you ventured on such dangerous errand,
might your wretched mother speak her farewell?
Alas! on an unknown land you are lying, exposed to the
ravin[267] of Latium’s dogs and birds; nor have I, your 5
mother, followed your corpse to the tomb, or closed your
eyes, or bathed your wounds, shrouding you with the
robe which I worked so hard to finish day and night, and
made the loom the medicine of an old wife’s sorrow!
Where shall I seek you? what land now contains those 10
severed limbs, that mutilated corpse? is this the sole relic
of yourself that you bring back to me, my son? is this
what I followed over land and sea? Pierce me, if you have
aught of human feeling—shower on me all your darts, ye
Rutulians, let the sword make me its first meal; or do 15
thou, great sire of the gods, have mercy, and with thy
lightning-bolt strike down to Tartarus this hated life,
since I cannot otherwise end the cruel pain of being.”
Her wail shook every heart to its centre; a groan of sorrow
passed through the ranks; their martial prowess flags 20
and faints. At last, as her agony flames higher, Idæus
and Actor, bidden by Ilioneus and the tearful Iulus, lay
hold of her, and carry in their arms within.
But the trumpet from its brazen throat uttered afar a
tremendous blare; a shout ensues, and heaven returns the 25
roar. Quick speed the Volscians, carrying in level line
their penthouse of shields, and strive to fill the moat and
pluck down the palisade. Some look about for an access,
and fain would scale the walls with ladders, where the line
of defence is thin, and the ring of men, not too closely set, 30
shows a gleaming interval. The Teucrians, on their part,
shower missiles of every sort, and repulse the assailants
with strong poles, taught by a long war’s experience how
to guard their walls. Stones, too, they kept rolling of fatal
bulk, in hope to break through the foe’s sheltered ranks, 35
though beneath so firm a penthouse a soldier may well
smile at all that can betide. Ay, and it ceases to avail
them: for where a mighty mass threatens the rampart, the
Teucrians push forward and roll down an enormous
weight, which made wide havoc among the Rutulians, and
burst the joints of their harness. And now the bold
Rutulians care no longer to wage war in the dark, but aim
at driving them from the ramparts with a storm of missiles. 5
In another quarter, terrible to look upon, Mezentius waves
an Etruscan pine and hurls fire and smoke, while Messapus,
tamer of the steed, of the race of Neptune, plucks
down the palisade, and calls for ladders to the
battlement. 10
Vouchsafe, Calliope and thy heavenly sisterhood, to aid
me while I sing, what slaughter, what deaths were dealt
that day in that place by Turnus’ sword, what foes each
warrior sent down to the grave, and help me to unfold the
length and breadth of the mighty war. 15
A tower there was, vast to look on from below, with
lofty bridges, placed on a vantage-ground, which all the
Italians, with utmost force and utmost strain of might,
were essaying to storm, while the Trojans, on their side,
were defending it with stones, and hurling showers of 20
darts through its narrow eyelets. Turnus the first flung
a blazing torch and fastened fire on its side; fanned by
the wind, the flame seized the planks and lodged in the
consuming doors. The inmates are all in confusion, and
in vain seek to escape the mischief. While they huddle 25
together and retire upon the part which the plague has
spared, in an instant the tower falls heavily down, and the
firmament thunders with the crash. Half dead they come
to the ground, the huge fabric following on their backs,
pierced by their own weapons, their breasts impaled by the 30
cruel wood. Barely two escaped, Helenor and Lycus—Helenor
in prime of youth, whom Licymnia the slave had
borne secretly to the Mæonian king, and had sent to Troy
in forbidden arms, with the light accoutrement of a
naked sword, and a shield uncharged by an escutcheon. 35
Soon as he saw himself with Turnus’ thousands round him,
the armies of Latium standing on this side and on that,
like a beast that, hemmed in by the hunters’ close-set ring,
vents her rage on the darts and flings herself deliberately
on death, and springs from high on the line of spears, even
thus the doomed youth rushes on the midst of the foe,
making for where he sees the darts are thickest. But
Lycus, far swifter of foot, winds among ranks of foes and 5
showers of steel and gains the wall, and strives to clutch
the fabric’s summit and reach the hands of his friends.
Whom Turnus, following him at once with foot and javelin,
taunts in victorious tone: “Dreamed you, poor fool, that
you could escape my hands?” and with that he seizes him 10
as he hangs in air, and pulls him down with a great fragment
of the wall; just as the bearer of Jove’s thunder
trusses in his hooked talons a hare or a snow-white swan
and soars into the sky, or one of Mars’ wolves snatches
from the fold a lamb which its mother’s bleatings reclaim 15
in vain. On all sides rises the war-shout. They rush on
the trenches and fill them with shattered earthworks,
while others fling brazen firebrands to the roofs. Ilioneus
with a rock, broken from a mighty mountain, brings
down Lucetius as he assails the gates and waves his torch. 20
Liger kills Emathion, Asilas Corynæus, one skilled with the
javelin, one with the arrow that surprises from a distance.
Cæneus slays Ortygius, Turnus the conqueror Cæneus,
Turnus Itys and Clonius, Dioxippus and Promolus, and
Sagaris, and Idas, who was standing on the turret’s top. 25
Capys kills Privernus: Themilla’s flying spear had grazed
him first; he, poor fool, dropped his buckler and clapped
his hand to the wound, so the arrow came on stealthy
wing, and the hand was pinned to the left side, and the
inmost seat of breath is rent asunder by the deadly wound. 30
There stood the son of Arcens in conspicuous armour,
his scarf embroidered with needlework, in the glory of
Hiberian purple, fair of form, sent to war by his father
Arcens, who had reared him in his mother’s grove by the
streams of Symæthus, where stands Palicus’ rich and 35
gracious altar: flinging his spears aside, Mezentius
whirled the strained thong of the whizzing sling thrice
round his head, and with the molten bullet burst in twain
the forehead of the fronting foe, and stretched him at
full length on the expanse of sand.
Then first, they say, Ascanius levelled in war his winged
arrow, used till then to terrify the beasts of chase, and
laid low by strength of hand the brave Numanus, Remulus 5
by surname, who had lately won and wedded Turnus’
younger sister. He was stalking in front of the host,
vaunting aloud things meet and unmeet to tell, in the
insolence of new-blown royalty, and venting his pride in
clamorous tones: “Are ye not ashamed to be imprisoned 10
yet again in leaguer and rampart, twice-captured Phrygians,
and to put your walls between you and death? Lo, these
are the men who demand our wives at the sword’s edge!
What god, what madness, has driven you to Italy? You
will not find the Atridæ here, nor Ulysses the forger of 15
speech. A hardy race even from the stock, we bring our
sons soon as born to the river’s side, and harden them with
the water’s cruel cold. Our boys spend long days in the
chase, and weary out the forest; their sport is to rein the
steed, and level shafts from the bow. Our youth, strong 20
to labour and schooled by want, subdues the earth with
the rake, or shakes the city’s walls with battle. All our
life we ply the steel; with the butt of our spears we belabour
our cattle; old age, which dulls all else, impairs
not the force of our hearts or changes our fresh vigour; 25
the hoary head is clasped by the helmet; our constant
joy is to bring home new booty and live by rapine. Yours
are embroidered garments of saffron and gleaming purple;
sauntering and sloth are your delight; your pleasure is to
indulge the dance; your tunics have sleeves and your turbans 30
strings. Phrygian dames in sooth—for Phrygian
men ye are not—get you to the heights of Dindymus,
where the pipe utters its two-doored note to your accustomed
ears. The Idæan mother’s cymbals, the Berecyntian
flute, are calling you to the revel; leave arms to 35
men, and meddle no more with steel.”
Such boasting and such ill-omened talk Ascanius could
bear no longer; setting his breast to the bow-string of
horsehair he levelled his dart, and drawing his arms wide
apart he stood, having first invoked Jove thus in suppliant
prayer: “Jove Almighty, smile on my bold essay; with
my own hand I will bring to thy temple yearly offerings,
and will set before thine altar a bullock with gilded brow, 5
snowy white, rearing his head to the height of his mother’s,
fit to butt with the horn and spurn up sand with the hoof.”
The father heard and from a cloudless quarter of the sky
thundered on the left; at the same instant twanged the
deadly bow. Forth flies the arrow from the string, whizzing 10
fearfully, passes through the head of Remulus, and cleaves
with its point his hollow temples. “Go, make valour the
sport of your boasting; the twice-captured Phrygians
answer the Rutulians thus.” So far Ascanius: the Teucrians
second him with a cry, shout for joy, and mount 15
heavenward in their exultation. It chanced that then
in the realm of sky long-haired Apollo was surveying the
armies of Ausonia and the city, seated on a cloud; and
thus addressed Iulus in the moment of triumph: “Rejoice,
brave youth, in your new-won laurels; ’tis thus 20
men climb the stars; son of gods that are, sire of gods that
shall be! Well has Fate ordered that beneath the house
of Assaracus the wars of the future shall find their end;
nor can Troy contain your prowess.” So saying he shoots
down from heaven, parts before him the breathing gales, 25
and makes for Ascanius. He changes his features to those
of ancient Butes, who had once been armour-bearer to
Dardanian Anchises and trusty watcher at the gate;
thence Ascanius’ sire made him his son’s guardian. Apollo
moved along, in all things like the aged veteran, the voice, 30
the colour, the white locks, the fiercely clanking armour;
and thus he spoke to Iulus’ glowing heart: “Suffice it,
child of Æneas, that Numanus has met from your darts an
unrequited death: this your maiden glory great Apollo
vouchsafes you freely, nor looks with jealousy on weapons 35
like his own; for the rest abstain from war, as stripling
should.” So Apollo began, and ere his speech was well
done parted from mortal eyes, and vanished from sight
into unsubstantial air. The Dardan chiefs knew the god
and his divine artillery, and heard his quiver hurtle as he
fled. So now at Phœbus’ present instance they check
Ascanius’ ardour for battle; themselves take their place
in the combat once more, and fling their lives into the 5
jaws of danger. All over the walls passes the shout from
rampart to rampart; they bend their sharp-springing
bows and hurl their lashed javelins—the ground is all
strewn with darts; shields and hollow helms ring with
blow on blow; a savage combat is aroused; fierce as the 10
rain coming from the west at the setting of the showery
kid-stars[268] scourges the earth, plenteous as the hail which
the stormclouds discharge into the sea, when Jove in the
sullenness of southern blasts whirls the watery tempest and
bursts the misty chambers of the sky. 15
Pandarus and Bitias, sons of Idæan Alcanor, brought up
by Iæra the wood-nymph in the grove of Jupiter, youths
tall as the pines and peaks of their birthplace, throw open
the gate, which the general’s order placed in their charge,
relying on their good steel, and invite the foe to enter the 20
town. Themselves within right and left stand before the
bulwarks, sheathed in iron, the crest waving on their lofty
heads: even as high in air beside the flowing streams,
on Padus’[269] banks it may be or by pleasant Athesis,[270] uptower
two oaks, raising to heaven their unshorn summits 25
and nodding their lofty crowns. In rush the Rutulians
when they see the entry clear. In a moment Quercens and
Aquicolus in his brilliant armour and headlong Tmarus
and Hæmon, scion of Mars, with all their followers, are
routed and turned to flight, or on the threshold of the gate 30
have resigned their lives. At this the wrath of the combatants
flames yet higher, and the Trojans rally and muster
in one spot and venture to engage hand to hand and to
advance farther into the plain.
Turnus, the chief, while venting his rage elsewhere and 35
scattering ranks of warriors, hears tidings that the foe,
fevered by the taste of blood, has thrown the gates open.
He leaves the work he had begun, and stirred with giant
fury hastens to the Dardan gate and the two haughty
brethren. Hurling his dart, he first slays Antiphates, who
happened first to meet him, bastard son of great Sarpedon
by a Theban mother; the shaft of Italian cornel flies
through the yielding air, and lodging in the throat goes 5
deep down into the chest; the wound’s dark pit spouts
forth a foaming torrent, and the cold steel grows warm
in the lungs it pierces. Then with strong hand he slays
Merops and Erymas and then Aphidnus, then Bitias
with his blazing eyes and his boiling valour—not with a 10
dart, for to a dart he would not have surrendered his life—no;
it was a whirled phalaric lance that came hurtling
fiercely, shot like a thunderbolt, which neither two bulls’
hides nor a trusty corselet with double golden plait could
withstand: the massive limbs sink and fall: earth groans, 15
and the vast buckler thunders on the body. Even thus
sometimes on Baiæ’s Eubœan coast falls a pile of stone,
which men compact with mighty blocks and then fling
into the sea; thus it comes down with protracted headlong
ruin, and dashing on the shallows settles into its 20
place; the sea is all disturbed, and the murky sand rises
to the surface; the crash shakes Prochyta[271] to her depths,
and Inarime’s[272] rugged bed, laid by Jove’s command upon
Typhœus.
Now Mars, the lord of arms, inspires the Latians with 25
strength and courage, and plants his stings deep in their
bosoms, while among the Teucrians, he sends Flight and
grisly Terror. They flock from this side and from that,
now that scope for battle is given, and the warrior-god
comes down on their souls. When Pandarus saw his 30
brother’s corpse laid low, and knew the posture of fortune
and the chance that was swaying the day, with a mighty
effort he turns the gate on its hinge, pushing with his broad
shoulders, and leaves outside many of his comrades shut out
from the camp all in the cruel battle, while others he shuts 35
in with himself, admitting them as they stream onward—madman,
to have failed to see the king of the Rutulians in
the middle of the company storming in, and to have shut
him wantonly within the walls, like monstrous tiger
among a herd of helpless cattle! On the instant a strange
light flashed from the eyes of the foe, and his arms gave a
fearful clang; on his helm quivers his crest, red as blood,
and from his shield he darts gleaming lightnings. With 5
sudden confusion the children of Æneas recognize that
hated form and those giant limbs. Then forth springs
mighty Pandarus, and with all the glow of wrath for his
brother’s death bespeaks him thus: “This is not the
bridal palace of Amata, nor is it Ardea that embraces 10
Turnus in the walls of his fathers; the enemy’s camp is
before you; all escape is barred.” To him Turnus, smiling
in quiet mood: “Begin, if you have courage, and engage in
combat. Priam shall learn from you that here too you
have found an Achilles.” Thus he: Pandarus, with the 15
full strain of his power, hurls his spear, rugged with knots
and unpeeled bark. It was launched on the air; but Saturnian
Juno turned aside the coming wound, and the
spear lodged in the gate. “But this my weapon you
shall not escape, swayed as it is by my hand’s full force; 20
he from whom wound and weapon come is too strong for
that.” So cries Turnus, and rises high upon his lifted
sword, and cleaves with the steel the forehead in twain full
between the temples, parting beardless cheek from cheek
with a ghastly wound. A crash is heard: earth is shaken 25
by the enormous weight: the unnerved limbs, the arms
splashed with gore and brain are stretched in death on the
ground; and the head, shared in equal parts, hangs right
and left from either shoulder. The routed Trojans fly
here and there in wildering terror; and had the thought at 30
once seized the conqueror, to burst the gates by main
force and give entrance to his friends, that day would have
ended a war and a nation both. But rage and mad thirst
for blood drove him in fury on the foe before him. First
he surprises Phalaris and hamstrings Gyges; plucks forth 35
spears and hurls them on the backs of the fliers; Juno
gives supplies of strength and courage. He sends Halys to
join them and Phegeus, pierced through the shield, and
cuts down others as they stand unconscious on the walls
and stir up the battle, Alcander and Halius, and Noëmon
and Prytanis. As Lynceus moved to meet him and calls
on his comrades, with a sweep of his arm from the rampart
on his right he catches him with his whirling sword; swept 5
off by a single blow hand to hand, the head with the helmet
on it lay yards away. Next falls Amycus, the ravager of
the forest brood, than who was never man more skilled
to anoint the dart and arm the steel with venom, and
Clytius, son of Æolus, and Cretheus, darling of the Muses, 10
Cretheus the Muses’ playmate, whose delight was ever in
minstrelsy and harp, and in stringing notes on the chord;
songs of chargers and warrior arms and battles were ever on
his lips.
At last the Teucrian leaders, hearing of the slaughter of 15
their men, come together to the spot, Mnestheus and keen
Serestus, when they see their comrades flying in confusion,
and the foe lodged in the camp. Out cries Mnestheus:
“Whither now, whither are ye making in flight? what
further city have ye, what walls beyond? Shall it be said 20
that a single man, and he too, my countrymen, hemmed in
on all hands by your ramparts, has spread unavenged
such havoc through your streets, has sent down to death so
many of your bravest? As ye think of your unhappy
country, your ancient gods, your great Æneas, is there no 25
pity, no shame in your sluggish hearts?” Roused by these
words they rally and halt in close array. Turnus step by
step withdraws from the fight, making for the river and
the part round which the water runs. All the more keenly
the Teucrians press on him with loud shouts and close their 30
ranks: as when a company of hunters bears down on a
savage lion javelin in hand: he, struck with fear, yet fierce
and glaring angrily, gives ground; wrath and courage
suffer him not to turn his back, nor yet may he charge,
though he fain would do so, through the huntsmen and the 35
spears. Not unlike to him Turnus in doubt retraces his
lingering footsteps, while his heart boils with rage. Even
then twice had he dashed on the thick of the foe, twice he
drives their ranks in huddled flight round the walls; but
the whole army musters in a body from the camp, nor dares
Saturnian Juno supply him with strength to oppose them;
for Jove sent down from the sky celestial Iris, with no
gentle message for his sister’s ear, if Turnus retire not from 5
the Teucrians’ lofty ramparts. So now the warrior cannot
hold his own with shield or sword; such a deluge of darts
overwhelms him. Round his hollow temples the helmet
echoes with ceaseless ringing; the solid plates of brass
give way beneath the stones; the horsehair crest is struck 10
from his head; his shield’s boss cannot stand the blows;
faster and faster they hail their spears, the Trojans and
fiery Mnestheus. Over all his frame flows the sweat and
trickles in a murky stream, while breathe he cannot; his
sinking limbs are shaken with feeble panting. At last 15
with headlong leap he plunged arms and all into the river.
Tiber with his yellow gulf received the guest, upbore him
on his buoyant waves, and washing off the stains of carnage,
restored him in joy to his friends.
BOOK X
Meantime the palace of strong Olympus is thrown open,
and the sire of gods and monarch of men summons a
council to the starry chamber, whence, throned on high,
he looks down on the length and breadth of earth, the
camp of the Dardans and the people of Latium. They 5
take their seats in the double-gated mansion; he himself
opens the court: “Mighty denizens of heaven, wherefore
is your judgment turned backward, and whence such discord
in your unkindly souls? I had forbidden that Italy
should meet the Teucrians in the shock of war. What 10
strife is this in defiance of my law? What terror has
prompted these or those to draw the sword and provoke
the fight? There shall come a rightful time for combat—no
need for you to hasten it—when fierce Carthage one
day shall launch on the hills of Rome mighty ruin and the 15
opening of Alpine barriers. Then will your rancours be
free to contend, your hands to plunder and ravage; for the
present let be, and cheerfully ratify the peace that I have
willed.”
Thus Jupiter in brief; but not brief was the answer 20
of golden Venus: “O Father! O eternal sovereignty of
man and nature! for what else can there be which is left
us to implore? Seest thou how the Rutulians insult? how
Turnus is whirled through the battle by his haughty
coursers, borne on the floodtide of war? No longer are 25
the Teucrians safe even in the shelter of their walls; within
the gates, amidst the very mounds of the ramparts combat
is waged, and the trenches overflow with carnage. Æneas
is away in his ignorance. Wilt thou never let us have
respite from siege? Once more the enemy is stooping over 30
the walls of our infant Troy, with a second army; once
more Tydeus’ son from his Ætolian Arpi is rising against
the Teucrians. Ay, my wounds, I ween, are yet in the
future, and I, thine own offspring, am delaying the destined
course of a mortal spear. If it is without your leave and 5
despite your will that the Trojans have won their way to
Italy, let them expiate the crime and withdraw from them
thine aid: but if they have but followed those many oracles
given by powers above and powers underground, how
can any now be able to reverse thine ordinance and write 10
anew the page of fate? Why should I remind thee of our
fleet consumed on Eryx’ shore? why of the monarch of the
storms and his raving winds stirred up from Æolia, or of
Iris sent down from the clouds? Now she is even rousing
the ghosts below—that portion of the world till then was 15
untried—and on a sudden Allecto is launched on upper
air, and rages through the Italian cities. It is not for
empire that I am disquieted; for that we hoped in the past,
while our star yet shone: let them conquer whom thou
wouldst have conquer. If there is no country on earth 20
which thy relentless spouse will allow the Teucrians, I adjure
thee, father, by the smoking ruins of Troy overthrown,
let me send away Ascanius safe from the war—let my
grandson survive in life. Æneas, indeed, may be tossed
on unknown waters, and follow such course as chance may 25
give him: _him_ let me have the power to screen and withdraw
from the horrors of battle. Amathus is mine, and
lofty Paphos, and high Cythera, and the mansion of Idalia:
there let him pass his days unwarlike and inglorious. Let
it be thy will that Carthage shall bow Ausonia beneath 30
her tyrannous sway; the Tyrian cities need fear no resistance
from him. What has it advantaged him to have
escaped the plague of war and fled through the hottest of
the Argive fires, to have drained to the dregs all those
dangers by sea and on broad earth, while the Teucrians 35
are in quest of Latium and a restored Pergamus? Give
back, great sire, to our wretched nation their Xanthus and
their Simois, and let the Teucrians enact once more the old
tragedy of Ilium.” Then outspoke queenly Juno, goaded
by fierce passion: “Why force you me to break my deep
silence, and give forth in words my buried grief? Your
Æneas—was it any man or god that compelled him to
draw the sword, and come down as a foe on the Latian 5
king? Grant that he went to Italy at the instance of fate,
at the impulse, in truth, of mad Cassandra; was it our
counsel that he should leave his camp and place his life
at the mercy of the winds? that he should trust the control
of battle and his city to a boy—should tamper with 10
Tyrrhenian loyalty and stir up a quiet nation? What
god, what cruel tyranny of ours, drove him thither to his
hurt? is there a trace of Juno here, or of Iris sent down from
the clouds? Ay, it is foul shame that the Italians should
throw a belt of flame round the infant Troy—that Turnus 15
should plant a foot on the soil of his fathers, Turnus, whose
grandsire was Pilumnus, whose mother the goddess
Venilia. How call you it for the Trojans to invade
Latium with their smoking torches, to put their yoke on a
country that is none of theirs, and harry away its plunder—to 20
choose at will those whose daughters they would wed,
and drag the plighted bride from the bosom—to bear
suppliant tokens in the hand and arm their vessels to the
teeth? You have power to withdraw Æneas from the
hands of the Greeks, and offer them clouds and thin winds 25
for the man they seek—power to turn a fleet of ships into
a bevy of Nymphs; and is it utterly monstrous for us to
give the Rutulians a measure of aid in return? Æneas
is away in ignorance, and in ignorance let him bide away.
You have your Paphos, your Idalium, your lofty Cythera: 30
why meddle with a city brimming with war and with ungentle
hearts? Is it we that are labouring to overturn
from the foundation your feeble Phrygian fortunes?
We? or the gallant who brought Greece down on the
wretched Trojans? What reason was there that Europe 35
and Asia should stand up to fight, and a league be broken
by treachery? Did I lead your Dardan leman to take
Sparta by storm? did I put weapons in his hand, or fan the
flame of war with the gales of love? Then had there been
decency in your fears for your friends; now you are rising
too late with unjust complaints, and flinging idly the language
of quarrel.”
Such was the appeal of Juno: and the whole body of immortals 5
murmured assent on this side or on that, like new-born
gales when they murmur, caught in the forest, and
roll about mysterious sounds, disclosing to the sailor a
coming storm. Then begins the almighty sire, whose is
the chief sovereignty of the universe: at opening of his 10
mouth the lofty palace of the gods grows still, and earth
shakes to her foundations; silent is the height of ether; the
Zephyrs are sunk to rest, and Ocean subdues its waves to
repose. “Take then to your hearts and engrave there
these my words: since it may not be that Ausonian and 15
Teucrian should be united by treaty, and your wranglings
brook no conclusion, be each man’s fortune to-day what
it may, be the span of each man’s hope long or short,
Trojan or Rutulian, I will show favour to neither, whether
it be by destiny that the Italian leaguer encompasses the 20
camp, or by Troy’s baneful error and the warnings of hostile
intelligence. Nor leave I the Rutulians free. Each man’s
own endeavours shall yield him the harvest of labour or
fortune. Jove, as king, is alike to all. Destiny shall find
her own way.” By the river of his Stygian brother, by the 25
banks that seethe with pitch and are washed by the
murky torrent, he nodded confirmation, and with his nod
made all Olympus tremble. So ended their debate.
Then from his golden throne rises Jove, and the immortals
gathering round him usher him to his chamber. 30
Meantime the Rutulians press round each and all of the
gates, eager to slaughter the soldiery and belt the ramparts
with flame. But Æneas’ army is hemmed within the
leaguered encampment, without hope of escape. In unavailing
wretchedness they stand guarding the turret’s 35
height, and form a thin circle round the walls. Asius son
of Imbrasus, and Hicetaon’s child Thymœtes, and the two
Assaraci, and Castor and aged Thymbris are their front
rank, by their side the two brethren of Sarpedon, Clarus
and Themon both, come from noble Lycia. There is one
carrying with the whole strain of his body a mighty rock,
no small portion of a mountain, Acmon of Lyrnessus, a
worthy peer of his father Clytius and his brother Menestheus. 5
Some repel the foe with javelins, some with stones:
they launch the firebrand, they fit the arrow to the string.
In the midst is he, Venus’ most rightful care, the royal boy
of Dardany, his beauteous head uncovered: see him shine
like a jewel islanded in yellow gold, an ornament for neck 10
or head, or as gleams ivory set by artist skill in box-wood or
Orician terebinth[273]: his flowing hair streams over a neck of
milky white and is gathered up by a ring of ductile gold.
Thou, too, Ismarus, wast seen by tribes of warriors dealing
wounds abroad and arming thy arrows with venom, gallant 15
branch of a Lydian house, from the land whose rich
soil is broken up by the husbandmen and washed by
Pactolus’ golden stream. Mnestheus, too, was there, whom
yesterday’s triumph over Turnus repulsed from the rampart
exalts to the stars, and Capys, who gives his name to 20
Campania’s mother city.
So they on this side and on that had waged all day the
conflict of stubborn war; and now at midnight Æneas
was ploughing the main. For soon as, leaving Evander,
he entered the Etruscan camp, accosted the king, and told 25
him of his name and his race, for what he sues and what
he offers, explains what arms Mezentius musters on his
side, and what the excess of Turnus’ violence, warns him
how little faith man can place in fortune, and seconds
reasoning by entreaty, without a moment’s pause Tarchon 30
combines his forces and strikes a truce; and at once, freed
from the spell of destiny, the Lydian race embarks according
to heaven’s ordinance, under the charge of a foreign
leader. First sails the vessel of Æneas, Phrygian lions
harnessed on the prow; above them Ida spreads her shade, 35
of happiest augury to exiled Troy. There sits great Æneas
brooding over the doubtful future of the war: and Pallas,
close cleaving to his left side, keeps questioning him,
now of the stars, the road-marks of the shadowy night,
and now of all that he has borne by land and by sea.
Now, ye goddesses, open wide your Helicon,[274] and stir up
the powers of song, to tell us what the army now following
Æneas from the Tuscan shores, equipping its ships for 5
adventure, and sailing over the sea.
First comes Massicus, cleaving the waters in his brass-sheathed
Tiger: in his train a band of a thousand warriors,
who have left the walls of Clusium and the city Cosæ;
their weapons a sheaf of arrows, light quivers for the 10
shoulder, and a bow of deadly aim. With him grim
Abas: his whole band ablaze with gleaming armour,
his vessel shining with a gilded Apollo. Populonia had
sent him six hundred of her sons, all versed in war: Ilva
three hundred, an island rich in the Chalybes’ unexhausted 15
mines. Third comes Asilas, the great interpreter
’tween gods and men, at whose bidding are the
victims’ entrails, the stars of the sky, the tongues of augurial
birds, and the flame of the prophetic lightning. With
him hurry a thousand in close array, bristling with spears—subjected 20
to his command by the town of Pisa, which,
sprung from Alpheus, took root on Etruscan soil. After
these is Astur, fairest of form, Astur, proud of his steed
and his glancing armour. Three hundred follow him, all
with one loyal soul, from those who dwell in Cære and in 25
the plains of Minio, in ancient Pyrgi, and Gravisca’s
tainted air.
I would not leave thee unsung, bravest chief of the Ligurians,
Cinyras, or Cupavo with scanty retinue, whose helmet
is surmounted by plumage of the swan: love was your 30
joint crime; for love you wear the cognizance of your
father’s form. For legend tells that Cycnus, all for grief
over his darling Phaethon, while in the poplar shade and
the leafage of the brotherless sisters he keeps singing and
consoling his sad passion by the Muses’ aid, drew over his 35
form the soft plumage of downy eld, mounting up from
earth and sending his voice before him to the stars. His
son, with a band of martial peers sailing at his side,
propels with his oars the enormous Centaur: the monster
stands lowering over the water, and threatens the billows
with a huge rock from his towering eminence, as he ploughs
the deep sea with the length of his keel.
Great Ocnus too is leading an army from the coasts of his 5
fathers, Ocnus, son of Manto the prophetess and the Etruscan
river, who bestowed on thee, Mantua, thy city walls
and the name of his mother, Mantua rich in ancestral
glories: but not all her sons of the same blood; three
races are there, and under each race range four nations: 10
herself the queen of the nations, her strength from Etruscan
blood. Hence, too, Mezentius draws against his life
five hundred unfriendly swords—Mincius, child of Benacus,
with his gray covering of reeds, ushers into the deep
their hostile bark. 15
On moves strong Aulestes, lashing the water as he rises
with the stroke of a hundred oars: the sea spouts foam
from its upturned surface. His bearer is a huge Triton,
whose shell strikes terror into the green billows; his
shaggy front, breasting the water, down to the side bespeaks 20
the man: the belly ends in a sea monster: under
the half bestial bosom the wave froths and roars.
So many chosen chiefs were journeying in thirty
vessels to the succour of Troy, and ploughing with brazen
beak the expanse of brine. 25
And now the day had withdrawn from the sky, and
gracious Dian was trampling over the cope of heaven with
her night-flying steeds: Æneas the while, for care refuses
slumber to his frame, is seated at his post, himself guiding
the rudder and trimming the sail—when lo! in the middle 30
of his voyage he is met by a fair bevy of comrades of his
own: the Nymphs whom gracious Cybele had invested
with the deity of the sea, and changed from ships to goddesses,
were swimming abreast and cleaving the billow,
a Nymph for each of the brazen prows that erst had 35
lined the shore. Far off they recognize their king, and
come dancing round him in state: Cymodoce, their skilfullest
in speech, swimming up behind, lays her right hand on
the stern, herself lifted breast high above the water,
while with her left she paddles in the noiseless wave.
Then thus she breaks on his wondering ear: “Wake you,
Æneas, seed of the gods? be wakeful still, and let the sail-ropes
go. We it is you see, pines of Ida from the sacred 5
summit, Sea-nymphs now, your sometime fleet. When
the false Rutulian was hot at our backs with fire and sword,
reluctantly we burst your bonds, and are now in full quest
of you over the sea. This new shape the great mother gave
us in her pity, and granted us the state of goddesses and 10
lives to lead beneath the water. Meantime young Ascanius
is hemmed in by rampart and trench, with serried
weapons all around him, and Latians bristling with battle.
Already the Arcadian horse mixed with the brave Etruscan
has gained the appointed spot: to bar their way with an 15
intervening host and cut them off from the camp is
Turnus’ fixed intent. Rise, and with the earliest approach
of dawn bid your allies be summoned to arms, and take in
hand that shield which the Fire-god himself made to
be invincible and bordered with a marge of gold. The 20
morrow’s sun, if you will but give credence to my words,
shall survey mighty heaps of Rutulian carnage.” Her
speech was done: and as she parted she gave with her
hand an impulse to the lofty stern, well knowing the due
measure of force: on it speeds over the wave, fleeter than 25
dart and wind-swift arrow both. The rest in order mend
their speed. Wondering he pauses, the great Trojan of
Anchises’ line, yet cheers his soul with the omen. Then,
looking to the vault above, he prays in brief: “Gracious
mother of the gods, lady of Ida, whose joy is in Dindymus, 30
and in turreted cities and harnessed lions at thy
bridle-rein, be thou now to me the controller of the fight,
do thou bring the presage nigh, and walk beside the
Phrygians, mighty goddess, with favouring step.” Thus
much he said: and meanwhile day was returning at speed, 35
with its light grown to full strength, and night had vanished
before it.
First he gives orders to his comrades to obey the
heavenly token, and nerve their souls for combat, and
make ready for the fight. And now at last from his
station on the tall stern he has the Teucrians and his
camp in view, when on the instant his blazing shield is
raised high on his left arm. Up goes a shout to heaven 5
from the Dardans on their ramparts; the gleam of hope
quickens wrath to fury; they hurl a shower of javelins:
even as amid dark clouds cranes from Strymon give token,
sweeping sonorously over the sky, and flying from the
southern gale with sequacious clamour. But the Rutulian 10
king and the Ausonian generals wonder at the sight, till,
looking back, they behold the stems bearing to the shore,
and the whole water floating on with vessels. There is a
blaze on that helmet’s summit, and from the crest on
high streams the flame, and the shield’s golden boss disgorges 15
mighty fires, even as when on a clear night blood-hued
comets glare with gloomy red, or as the Sirian blaze,
that harbinger of drought and sickness to weak mortality,
breaks into birth and saddens heaven with its ill-boding
rays. 20
Yet pause was none in bold Turnus’ confidence to forestall
the landing-place, and beat off the comers from the
shore. His words are ready at the moment to encourage
and upbraid: “See here the occasion you longed for, to
break through them at the sword’s point. A brave man’s 25
hand is the War-god’s chosen seat. Now let each remember
wife and home, recall the mighty deeds that made
your fathers great. Let us meet them at once at the
water’s edge, while they are in the hurry of landing, and
the foot falters in its first tread on shore. Valour has 30
Fortune for its friend:” So saying, he ponders with himself
whom to lead to the attack, and to whom he may
trust the leaguer of the walls.
Meanwhile Æneas is landing his comrades from the tall
ship-sides by help of bridges. Many of them watch for 35
the ebb of the failing sea and venture a leap among the
shallows; others resort to the oars. Tarchon, spying out
a place on the beach where the waters seethe not nor the
broken billows roar, but ocean without let glides gently
up the shore as the tide advances, suddenly turns his
prows thither, and exhorts his crew: “Now, ye chosen
band, ply your stout oars, lift the vessels and carry them
home: cleave with your beaks this land that hates you; 5
let the keel plough its own furrow. Even from shipwreck
in a roadstead like this I would not shrink, could I once
get hold of the soil.” Tarchon having thus said, his crew
rise on their oars and bear down on the Latian plains with
vessels all foam, till the beaks have gained the dry land, 10
and every keel has come scatheless to its rest. Not so
thy ship, Tarchon: for while dashed on a sandbank it
totters on the unequal ridge, poised in suspense awhile,
and buffeting the waves, its sides give way, and its men
are set down in the midst of the water: broken oars and 15
floating benches entangle them, and their feet are carried
back by the ebb of the wave.
No sluggish delay holds Turnus from his work: with
fiery speed he sweeps his whole army against the Teucrians,
and plants them in the foe’s face on the shore. The 20
clarions sound: first dashed Æneas on the rustic ranks, a
presage of the fight’s fortune, and disarrayed the Latians,
slaying Theron, who in his giant strength is assailing
Æneas: piercing through quilted brass and tunic stiff
with gold the sword devours his unguarded side. Next 25
he strikes Lycus, who was cut from the womb of his
dead mother and consecrated to thee, Apollo, because his
baby life had been suffered to scape the peril of the steel.
Hard by, as iron Cisseus and gigantic Gyas were laying
low his host with their clubs, he casts them down in 30
death: nought availed them; the weapons of Hercules or
strong hands to wield them, or Melampus their sire,
Alicides’ constant follower, long as earth found for him
those grievous tasks. See there, as Pharus is hurling
forth words without deeds, he flings at him his javelin 35
and plants it in the bawler’s mouth. Thou, too, Cydon,
while following with ill-starred quest the blooming Clytius,
thy latest joy, hadst lain stretched on the ground by the
Dardan hand, a piteous spectacle, at rest from the passions
that were ever in thy heart; but thy brethren met
the foe in close band, the progeny of Phorcus: seven their
number, seven the darts they throw; some rebound idly
from shield and helm, some as they grazed the frame were 5
turned aside by Venus’ gentle power. Quick spoke
Æneas to true Achates: “Give me store of weapons; not
one shall my hand hurl in vain against the Rutulians, of
all that have quivered in Grecian flesh on the plains of
Troy.” With that he seizes his mighty spear and launches 10
it: flying on it crashes through the brass of Mæon’s shield
and rends breastplate and breast at once. Swift comes
his brother Alcanor and props with his hand the falling
man: piercing the arm the spear flies onward and holds
its bloody course, and the dying hand dangles by the 15
sinews from the shoulder-blade. Then Numitor, snatching
the javelin from his brother’s body, assails Æneas;
yet it might not lodge in the enemy’s front, but just
grazed the thigh of mighty Achates.
Now comes Clausus of Cures in the pride of his youthful 20
frame, and strikes Dryops from a distance under the
chin with the strong impact of his stark spear, and piercing
his throat, robs him even as he speaks of life and
breath alike: the wounded man strikes the earth with
his forehead and vomits from his lips clotted blood. 25
Three, too, from Thrace, of Boreas’ noblest lineage, and
three sent to battle by Idas their sire and Ismarus their
country, he lays low by this chance or that. To his side
runs Halesus and the Auruncan bands; comes to his aid,
too, the seed of Neptune, steed-famed Messapus. Now 30
these, now those, strain to win the ground: the struggle is
on Ausonia’s very threshold. As in the spacious heaven
jarring winds meet in battle, alike in spirit and in strength,
winds, storm-clouds, and ocean, neither yields to the
other: long doubtful hangs the fight; all stand in death 35
grips, front to front: even such the meeting of the army
of Troy and the army of Latium: foot is set close to foot,
and man massed with man.
But in another part of the field, where a torrent had
scattered wide whirling stones and trees uprooted from its
banks, soon as Pallas saw his Arcadians, unused to wage
war on foot, flying before the chase of Latium, in that the
cragginess of the soil had driven them to discard their 5
steeds, he tries the one remedy in sore distress, and now
with prayers, now with bitter speeches, inflames their
valour: “Whither fly ye, mates? By your gallant deeds
I conjure you—by your chief Evander’s name and victories
won at his bidding—by my own promise, now 10
shooting up in rivalry with my father’s glory—trust not
to your feet. It is the sword that must hew us a way
through the foe. Where yonder host of men presses in
thickest mass is the path by which our noble country is
calling you and your general Pallas back to her arms. 15
No deities sit heavy on us: by a mortal foe we are pressed,
mortals ourselves: we have as many lives, as many hands
as they. Lo there! the sea hems us in with mighty
ocean-barrier; earth is closed to our flight: shall the sea
or Troy be our goal?” This said, he dashes at the midst 20
of the hostile throng. The first that meets him is Lagus,
brought to the spot by fates unkind; him, while tugging
a stone of enormous weight, he pierces with his whirled
javelin, just where the spine running down the back was
parting the ribs, and recovers the weapon from its lodgment 25
among the bones. Nor can Hisbo surprise him in
the fact, spite of his hopes; for Pallas catches him rushing
on in blind fury for the pain of his comrade’s death,
and buries the sword in his distended lungs. Next his
blow lights on Sthenelus, and Anchemolus of Rhœtus’ 30
ancient line, who dared pollute his stepdame’s couch.
You, too, twin brethren, fell on those Rutulian plains,
Larides and Thymber, Daucus’ resemblant offspring, undistinguished
even by your kin, a sweet perplexity to
those who bore you: but now Pallas has marked you with 35
a cruel difference; for you, poor Thymber, have your
head shorn off by the Evandrian sword; your hand,
Larides, severed from the arm, is looking in vain for you
its master; the fingers, half alive, are quivering yet and
closing again on the steel.
Arcadia’s sons, stung by their chief’s rebuke and gazing
on his glorious deeds, rush on the foe, strong in the
armour of mingled rage and shame. Then Pallas strikes 5
through Rhœtus as he flies past him on his car. So
much space and respite from his end did Ilus gain; for
’twas at Ilus he had launched from the distance his stalwart
spear: Rhœtus comes between and catches it, flying
from thee, noble Teuthras, and Tyres thy brother; and 10
tumbled from his car he beats with his dying heel the
Rutulian plains. Even as when the winds have risen at
his wish on a summer’s day, a shepherd lets loose his
scattered flames among the woods, in a moment catching
all that comes between, the Fire-god’s army in one bristling 15
line stretches over the broad plains: he from his seat
beholds the triumphant blaze with a conqueror’s pride:
even so the valour of thy friends musters from all sides on
one point to aid thee, Pallas. But Halesus, that fiery
warrior, moves against their opposing ranks, gathering 20
himself up into his arms. Ladon he massacres, and
Pheres, and Demodocus: Strymonius’ right hand, raised
against his throat, he lops away with his gleaming sword;
with a stone he strikes the front of Thoas, and has crushed
the bones mixed with gory brain. Halesus had been 25
hidden in the woods by his prophetic sire; when the
old man closed his whitening eyes in death, the Fates
claimed their victim, and devoted him to Evander’s darts.
And now Pallas aims at him, after these words of prayer:
“Grant, Father Tiber, to the flying steel poised in my 30
hand a prosperous passage through Halesus’ hardy breast;
thine oak shall have his arms and his warrior spoils.”
The god gave ear: while Halesus shielded Imaon, he gives
his own breast in evil hour unarmed to the Arcadian
lance. 35
But Lausus, himself a mighty portion of the war, suffers
not his troops to be dismayed by the hero’s dreadful
carnage: first he slays Abas, who had met him front to
front, the breakwater and barrier of fight. Down go the
sons of Arcadia, down go the Etruscans, and ye, too
Teucrians, whose frames Greece could not destroy. The
armies clash, their leaders and their powers the same.
The rear ranks close up the battle; nor weapon nor hand 5
can be moved for the crowd. Here is Pallas pushing and
pressing, there Lausus over against him: their years
scarcely differ; each has a comely form; but Fortune had
already written that neither should return to his home.
Yet were they not suffered to meet man to man by great 10
Olympus’ lord: each has his fate assigned him ere long at
the hand of a mightier enemy.
Turnus meanwhile is warned by his gracious sister to
come to Lausus’ aid; and with his flying car he cleaves
the intervening ranks. Soon as he met his comrades’ 15
eye: “You may rest from battle now; I alone am coming
against Pallas. Pallas is my due, and mine alone;
would that his sire were here to see us fight.” He said;
and his friends retired from the interdicted space. But
as the Rutulians withdraw, the young warrior, marvelling 20
at the haughty command, gazes astonished on Turnus,
rolls his eyes over that giant frame, and sweeps the whole
man from afar with fiery glance, and with words like
these meets the words of the monarch: “I shall soon be
famous either for kingly trophies won or for an illustrious 25
death; my sire is equal to either event; a truce to menace.”
This said, he marches into the middle space; while the
Arcadians’ blood chills and curdles about their hearts.
Down from his car leaps Turnus, and addresses himself to
fight on foot. And as when a lion has seen from a high 30
watch-tower a bull standing at distance in the field and
meditating fight, he flies to the spot, even thus looks
Turnus as he bounds along.
Soon as he judged his foe would be within reach of his
spear-throw, Pallas begins the combat, in hope that Fortune 35
may help the venture of unequal powers, and utters
these words to the mighty heaven: “By my sire’s hospitality
and the board where thou satest as a stranger, I
pray thee, Alcides, stand by me in my great endeavour.
Let Turnus see me strip the bloody arms from his dying
frame, and may his glazing eyes endure the sight of
a conqueror.” Alcides heard the youth, and stifled a
heavy groan deep down in his breast, and shed forth unavailing 5
tears. Then the Almighty Father bespeaks
his son with kindly words: “Each has his fixed day:
short and irretrievable is the span of all men; but to propagate
glory by great deeds, this is what worth can do.
Think of those many sons of gods who fell beneath Troy’s 10
lofty walls: among whom died even Sarpedon, my own
offspring. For Turnus, too, the call of his destiny has
gone forth, and he has reached the term of his allotted
days.” So he speaks, and turns away his eyes from the
Rutulian plain. 15
But Pallas with a mighty effort sends forth his spear,
and plucks from the hollow scabbard his flashing sword.
On flies the weapon, strikes where the margin of the
harness rises toward the shoulder, and forcing its way
through the buckler’s edge, at last even grazed the mighty 20
frame of Turnus. Then Turnus, long poising his beam
with its point of sharp steel, hurls it at Pallas, with these
words: “See whether our weapon be not the keener.”
So he: while cleaving those many plates of iron and
brass, spite of the bull-hides wound oft and oft about, 25
the point strikes through the shield’s midst with quivering
impact, and pierces the corselet’s barrier and the
mighty breast beyond. In vain the youth tears the
reeking dart from the wound: as it parts, blood and life
follow on its track. He falls forward on his wound: his 30
arms resound upon him, and with his bloody jaws in death
he bites the hostile earth. Standing over him, Turnus
began: “Men of Arcady, take heed and carry my words
to Evander: I send back Pallas handled as his sire deserves.
If there be any honour in a tomb, any solace in 35
burial, let him take it freely; his welcome of Æneas will
be costly notwithstanding.” Then with his left foot as
he spoke, he trod on the dead, tearing away the belt’s
huge weight and the crime thereon engraved[o]: that band
of youths slain foully all on one wedding night, and the
chambers dabbled with blood: Clonus Eurytides had
chased it on the broad field of gold: and now Turnus
triumphs in the prize, and exults in his winning. Blind 5
are the eyes of man’s soul to destiny and doom to be, nor
knows it to respect the limit, when upborne by prosperous
fortune! Turnus shall see the day when he will fain
have paid a high price for Pallas unharmed, when he will
hate the spoils and the hour he won them! But Pallas’ 10
followers, with many a groan and tear, are bearing off
their chief on his shield in long procession. Oh, vision of
sorrow and great glory, soon to meet thy father’s eye!
this day first gave thee to battle, this day withdraws the
gift, yet vast are the heaps thou leavest of Rutulian 15
carnage!
And now not the mere rumour of a blow so dreadful,
but surer intelligence flies to Æneas, that his army is but
a hand-breadth’s remove from death—that it is high
time to succour the routed Teucrians. With his sword he 20
mows down all that crosses him, and all on fire hews a
broad pathway through the ranks with the steel, seeking
thee, Turnus, fresh flushed with slaughter. Pallas, Evander,
the whole scene stands before his eyes—the board
where he had first sate as a stranger, the outstretched 25
hands of fellowship. At once he takes alive four youths
born of Sulmo, and other four reared by Ufens, that he
may offer them as victims to the dead, and sprinkle the
funeral flame with their captive gore. Next he had
levelled his spear from afar at Magus. Magus deftly runs 30
beneath, while the quivering spear flies over his head,
and clasping the enemy’s knees, utters these words of
suppliance: “By your dead father’s soul, and the dawning
promise of Iulus, I pray you spare my poor life for
my son and my sire. I have a lofty palace: deep in its 35
vaults lie talents of chased silver; masses of gold are
mine, wrought and unwrought both. The victory of Troy
hangs not on my fortunes, nor can a single life make
difference so great.” He spoke, and Æneas thus makes
reply: “Those many talents you name of silver and gold,
keep them for your sons. Turnus was the first to put an
end to such trading usages of war at the moment when he
slew Pallas. My sire Anchises’ ghost, and my son Iulus, 5
speak their thoughts through me.” This said, with his
left hand he grasps the helmet and drives his sword hilt-deep
through the suppliant’s back-drawn neck. Hard by
was Hæmonides, priest of Phœbus and Trivia, his temples
wreathed with the fillet’s sacred band, glittering all over 10
with gay raiment and goodly armour. Him he meets,
drives over the plain, stands over him fallen, sacrifices
the victim, and whelms him in a mighty shade; the arms
are stripped and carried off on Serestus’ shoulders, a trophy
to thee, royal Gradivus. The ranks are rallied by Cæculus, 15
scion of Vulcan’s stock, and Umbro, who comes from the
Volscian hills. The Dardan chief puts forth his rage
against them. Already had he mowed down with his
sword Anxur’s left hand and the whole orb of the shield
he bore—that foe, I ween, had uttered a haughty boast, 20
and deemed that his hand would second his tongue, and
was swelling in spirit to the stars, with an assured hope
of gray hairs and length of days—when Tarquitus, in the
pride of gleaming armour, borne by the nymph Dryope
to woodland Faunus, crossed his fiery path. Drawing 25
back his spear, he hampers the corselet and the buckler’s
weighty mass; then he sweeps to the ground the head,
as the lips were vainly praying and essaying to say a
thousand things, and dashing before him the reeking trunk,
utters thus the fierceness of his heart: “Lie there, doughty 30
warrior! never shall your tender mother give you burial,
or pile your father’s tomb above your limbs; no, you
will be left to savage birds, or the river will carry you
whelmed by its eddies, and hungry fish will lick your
wounds.” Next he hunts down Antæus and Lucas, of 35
Turnus’ first rank, and gallant Numa, and yellow Camers,
son of noble Volscens, who was wealthiest in land of
Ausonia’s children, and reigned over voiceless Amyclæ.
Even as Ægæon, who, fable tells, had a hundred arms
and a hundred hands, and flashed fire through fifty mouths
from the depths of fifty bosoms, what time against Jove’s
lightning he thundered on fifty strong shields, and drew
forth fifty sharp swords, so Æneas slakes his victorious 5
fury the whole field over, when once his blade had grown
warm with blood. See! he is advancing against Niphæus’
four harnessed steeds, and setting his breast
against theirs. At once they, soon as they saw his lofty
stride and his fierce gestures, turn round affrighted, and, 10
rushing backward, unseat their master and hurry the car
to the beach. Meanwhile Lucagus forces his way into
the midst, drawn by two white horses, with Liger his
brother; but the brother guides the steeds with the rein,
while Lucagus sweeps fiercely round his naked sword. 15
Æneas brooked not the fury of their fiery onset, but
rushed against them, and stood fronting them in his giant
bulk with threatening spear. To him cried Liger: “These
are not Diomede’s steeds you see, nor this Achilles’ chariot,
nor are these the Phrygian plains; your warfare and 20
your life shall end here on Italian ground.” So fly abroad
the random words of frantic Liger. The chief of Troy
seeks not to meet him with words, but hurls his javelin
at the foe. Even as Lucagus, bending forward over the
stroke, pricked on his horses with the steel, and advancing 25
his left foot prepares himself for fight, the spear
pierces the last margin of the radiant shield and enters
the groin at the left: down he falls from the car and
wallows in death on the plain; while good Æneas bespeaks
him with words of gall: “So, Lucagus, it is no 30
craven flight of your steeds that has played your car false;
no empty shadow cast by the foe has turned them; no,
it is you that spring down from the wheels, and leave the
horses to their fate.” With these words he laid hold of
the bridles, while the wretched brother, gliding down 35
from the car, was stretching his recreant hands: “Oh, by
yourself, by the parents that gave such greatness birth,
spare this poor life, brave hero of Troy, and let prayer
find compassion.” Æneas cut short his entreaties; “Not
such were your words a moment ago; die, and forsake
not your brother, as brother should:” and cleaving the
bosom with his sword, he laid bare the seat of breath.
Such were the deaths that the Dardan leader dealt about 5
the plains, storming along like torrent wave or murky
tempest. At length the prisoners burst forth and leave
their camp, the young Ascanius and the soldiery beleaguered
in vain.
Jupiter meanwhile first addresses Juno: “Sister mine 10
and sweetest wife in one, Venus it is, even as thou didst
suppose—for thy judgment is never at fault—that upholds
the powers of the Trojans, not the warriors’ own
keen right hand and the courageous soul that braves
every peril.” Juno returned, meekly: “Why, my fairest 15
lord, dost thou vex a sick spirit that quails before thy
cruel speeches? Had my love the force it once had, and
which should still be its own, this at least thou wouldst
not deny me, almighty as thou art, the power to withdraw
Turnus from the fight and preserve him in safety 20
for Daunus his father. As it is, let him perish, and glut
the Teucrian vengeance with his righteous blood. Yet
he draws his name from our lineage, and Pilumnus is his
grandsire’s grandsire: and often has thy temple been
loaded with store of offerings from his bounteous hand.” 25
To whom, in brief reply, the lord of skyey Olympus: “If
thy prayer for the doomed youth is respite and breathing
space from present death, and so thou readest my will,
bear thou Turnus away in flight, and snatch him from
the destiny that presses on his heels. Thus far is room 30
for compliance. But if any deeper favour be hidden
under these prayers of thine, and thou deemest that the
war’s whole course can be moved or changed, thou art
nursing an empty hope.” Juno answered with tears:
“What if thy heart were to grant what thy tongue grudges, 35
and Turnus’ life were pledged to continue? As it is, a
heavy doom hangs over his guiltless head, or I am void
of truth and wandering in delusion. But oh, that I
might rather be the sport of lying terrors, and thou, who
canst, lead back thy counsels by a better road!”
This said, from the lofty sky she shot forthwith, driving
storm before her through the air and girt with the rain-cloud,
and sought the army of Ilium and the camp of 5
Laurentum. Then, as goddesses may, she fashions a
thin, strengthless shadow of hollow cloud in the likeness
of Æneas, a marvel to the eyes, accoutres it with Dardan
weapons, and counterfeits the shield and the crest of the
god-like head, gives it empty words and tones without 10
soul, and renders to the life the step and the gait: even
as the shapes that are said to flit when death is past, or
the dreams that mock the sense of slumber. So the
phantom strides triumphant in the van, goading the enemy
with brandished weapons and defiant speech. Turnus 15
comes on, and hurls from far his hurtling spear; it turns
its back and retires. Then, when Turnus thought Æneas
flying in retreat, and snatched in the vehemence of his
soul at the empty hope: “Whither so fast, Æneas?”
cries he: “nay, leave not your promised bridal; this 20
hand shall give you the soil you have sought for the
ocean over.” So with loud shouts he follows, waving his
drawn sword, nor sees that the winds are bearing off his
triumph. It chanced that a ship was standing moored to
the edge of a lofty rock, its ladder let down, its bridge 25
ready to cross—the ship which had carried king Osinius
from the borders of Clusium. Hither, as in haste, the
semblance of the flying Æneas plunged for shelter. Turnus
follows as fast, bounds over all obstacles, and springs
across the high-raised bridge. Scarce had he touched the 30
prow when Saturn’s daughter breaks the mooring and
sweeps the sundered ship along the receding flood. Æneas
meanwhile is claiming the combat with his absent foe,
and sending down to death many a warrior frame that
crosses his way. Then the airy phantom seeks shelter no 35
longer, but soaring aloft blends with the murky atmosphere,
while Turnus is borne by the wind down the middle
of the tide. Ignorant of the event, and unthankful for
escape, he looks back, his hands and his voice addressed
to the sky: “Almighty sire! hast thou judged me worthy
of an infliction like this, and sentenced me to this depth
of suffering? Whither am I bound? whence have I
come? what is this flight that is bearing me home, and 5
what does it make of me? Shall I look again on Laurentum’s
camp and city? what of that warrior troop who
followed me and my standard? Are they not those
whom I left—horror to tell—all of them in the jaws
of a cruel death—whom I now see scattered in rout, and 10
hear their groans as they fall? What can I do? what
lowest depth of earth will yawn for me? Nay, do you,
ye winds, have compassion—on reef, on rock—see, it
is I, Turnus, who am fain to plead—dash me this vessel,
and lodge it on the sandbank’s ruthless shoal, where none 15
that know my shame, Rutuli or rumour, may find me
out!” So speaking, he sways in spirit to this side and to
that: should he for disgrace so foul impale his frenzied
breast on the sword’s point, and drive the stark blade
through his ribs, or fling himself into the midst of the 20
waves, and make by swimming for the winding shore,
and place himself again among the Teucrian swords?
Thrice he essayed either way: thrice mighty Juno kept
him back, and of her great pity withheld the youth from
action. On he flies, ploughing the deep with wave and 25
tide to speed him, and is borne safely to the ancient town
of Daunus his sire.
Prompted meanwhile by Jove, Mezentius, all on fire,
takes up the war, and charges the triumphant Teucrians.
The Tyrrhene host flocks to the spot, bending all their 30
fury, all their showering darts on one, one only man.
Even as a rock which juts into the mighty deep, exposed
to the rage of the wind and braving the sea, bears all the
violence and menace of heaven and ocean, itself unshaken,
he stands unmoved; now he lays low Hebrus, Dolichaon’s 35
child, and with him Latagus and craven Palmus: Latagus
he strikes on the face and front with a stone, a hill’s
enormous fragment, Palmus he suffers to roll ham-strung
in his cowardice; their harness he gives to Lausus to
wear on his shoulders, their crests to adorn his head.
Euanthes, too, the Phrygian, and Mimas, Paris’ playmate,
borne by Theano to Amycus his sire, the self-same night
when Cisseus’ royal daughter, teeming with a firebrand, 5
gave birth to Paris; he sleeps beneath his father’s walls,
while Mimas has his rest on Laurentum’s unknown shore.
Like as the mighty boar driven by fangs of hounds from
mountain heights, the boar whom pine-crowned Vesulus
or Laurentum’s pool shelters these many years, pastured 10
on the reedy jungle, soon as he finds himself among the
nets, stands at bay, snorting with fury and bristling his
back; none has the courage to flame forth and come near
him; at safe distance they press him with their darts
and their cries; even so of them who hate Mezentius with 15
a righteous hate, none has the heart to face him with
drawn steel; with missiles and deafening shouts they
assail him from afar; while he, undaunted, is pausing
now here, now there, gnashing his teeth, and shakes off
the javelins from his buckler’s hide. There was one 20
Acron from Corythus’ ancient borders, a Grecian wight,
who had fled forth leaving his nuptials yet to celebrate;
him, when Mezentius saw at distance scattering the intervening
ranks, in pride of crimson plumage and the purple
of his plighted bride, even as oft a famished lion ranging 25
through high-built stalls—for frantic hunger is his
prompter—if he chance to mark a flying goat or towering-antlered
deer, grins with huge delight, sets up his
mane, and hangs over the rent flesh, while loathly blood
laves his insatiate jaws—so joyfully springs Mezentius 30
on the foe’s clustering mass. Down goes ill-starred Acron,
spurns the blackened ground in the pangs of death, and
dyes with blood the broken spear. Nor did the chief
deign to strike down Orodes as he fled, or deal from a
spear-throw a wound unseen; full in front he meets him, 35
and engages him as man should man, prevailing not by
guile but by sheer force of steel. Then with foot and
lance planted on the back-flung body: “See, gallants, a
bulwark of the war has fallen in tall Orodes,” and his
comrades shout in unison, taking up the triumphal pæan.
The dying man returns: “Whoever thou art, thy victorious
boasting shall not be long or unavenged; for thee,
too, a like fate is watching, and thou shalt soon lie on 5
these self-same fields.” Mezentius answers, with hate
mantling in his smile: “Die now. The sire of gods and
king of men shall make his account with me.” So saying,
he drew forth the spear from the body: the heavy rest
of iron slumber settles down on its eyes, and their beams 10
are curtained in everlasting night.
Cædicus slaughters Alcathous, Sacrator Hydaspes, Rapo
kills Parthenius and Orses of iron frame, Messapus slays
Clonius and Ericetes, Lycaon’s son, that grovelling on the
ground by a fall from his unbridled steed, this encountered 15
foot to foot. Prancing forward came Agis of Lycia; but
Valerus, no unworthy heir of his grandsire’s prowess,
hurls him down; Thronius falls by Salius, and Salius by
Nealces, hero of the javelin and the shaft that surprises
from far. 20
And now the War-god’s heavy hand was dealing out to
each equal measures of agony and carnage; alike they
were slaying, alike falling dead, victors and vanquished
by turns, flight unthought of both by these and by those.
The gods in Jove’s palace look pityingly on the idle rage 25
of the warring hosts—alas, that death-doomed men
should suffer so terribly! Here Venus sits spectator,
there over against her Saturnian Juno. Tisiphone, ashy
pale, is raving among thousands down below. But see!
Mezentius, shaking his giant spear, is striding into the 30
field, an angry presence. Think of the stature of Orion,
as he overtops the billows with his shoulders, when he
stalks on foot through the very heart of Nereus’ mighty
depths that part before him, or as carrying an aged ash
in triumph from the hill-top he plants his tread on the 35
ground, and hides his head among the clouds above:
thus it is that Mezentius in enormous bulk shoulders his
way. Æneas spies him along the length of the battle,
and makes haste to march against him. He abides undismayed,
waiting for his gallant foe, and stands like
column on its base; then, measuring with his eye the
distance that may suffice for his spear, “Now let my right
hand, the god of my worship, and the missile dart I am 5
poising, vouchsafe their aid! I vow that you, my Lausus,
clad in spoils torn from yonder robber’s carcase, shall
stand in your own person the trophy of Æneas.” He
said, and threw from far his hurtling lance: flying onward,
it glances aside from the shield, and strikes in the 10
distance noble Antores twixt side and flank, Antores,
comrade of Hercules, who, sent from Argos, had cloven to
Evander’s fortunes and sat him down in an Italian home.
Now he falls, ill-fated, by a wound meant for other, and
gazes on the sky, and dreams in death of his darling Argos. 15
Then good Æneas hurls his spear; through the hollow
disk with its triple plating of brass, through the folds of
linen and the texture wherein three bulls joined, it won
its way and lodged low down in the groin, but its force
held not on. In a moment Æneas, gladdened by the sight 20
of the Tuscan’s blood, plucks his sword from his thigh
and presses hotly on his unnerved foe.
Soon as Lausus saw, he gave a heavy groan of tenderness
for the sire he loved, and tears trickled down his
face. And here, gallant youth, neither the cruel chance 25
of thy death, nor thy glorious deeds, if antiquity may
gain credence for so great a sacrifice, nor thine own most
worthy memory shall be unsung through fault of mine.
The father, dragging back his foot, disabled and entangled,
was quitting the field, his enemy’s spearshaft trailing 30
from his buckler. Forth dashed the youth and mingled
in the duel, and even as Æneas was rising with hand and
body and bringing down a blow from above, met the
shock of the sword, and gave the swordsman pause; his
comrades second him with a mighty shout, covering the 35
father’s retreat as sheltered by his son’s shield he withdraws
from the fray, hurl a rain of darts, and strive with
distant missiles to dislodge the foe. Æneas glows with
anger, and keeps within the covert of his arms. Even as
on a time when storm-clouds sweep down in a burst of
hail, every ploughman, every husbandman has fled scattering
from the field, and the traveller lies hid in a stronghold
of safety, either some river bank or vault of lofty 5
rock, while the rain is pelting on the lands, in the hope
that with the returning sun they may task the day once
more; even so, stormed on by javelins from all sides,
Æneas endures the thunder-cloud of war till all its artillery
be spent, and keeps chiding Lausus and threatening 10
Lausus: “Whither are you rushing on your death, with
aims beyond your strength? Your duteous heart blinds
your reckless valour.” Yet he bates not a jot in his
frantic onslaught: and now the Dardan leader’s wrath
surges into fury, and the fatal sisters are gathering up 15
Lausus’ last thread, for Æneas drives his forceful blade
sheer through the youth’s body, and buries it wholly
within him. Pierced is the shield by the edge, the light
armour he carried so threateningly, and the tunic embroidered
by his mother with delicate golden thread, and 20
his bosom is deluged with blood; and anon the life flits
through the air regretfully to the shades and the body is
left tenantless. But when the son of Anchises saw the
look and countenance of the dying—the countenance
with its strange and varying hues of pallor—heavily he 25
groaned for pity and stretched forth his hand, and the
portraiture of filial love stood before his soul. “What
now, hapless boy, what shall the good Æneas give you
worthy of your merit and of a heart like yours? Let the
arms wherein you took pride be your own still; yourself 30
I restore to the company of your ancestors, their shades
and their ashes, if that be aught to you now. This at
least, ill-starred as you are, shall solace the sadness of
your death: it is great Æneas’ hand that brings you low.”
Then without more ado he chides the slackness of his 35
comrades, and lifts their young chief from the earth, as
he lay dabbling his trim locks with gore.
Meanwhile the father at the wave of Tiber’s flood was
stanching his wounds with water, and giving ease to his
frame, leaning on a tree’s trunk. His brazen helmet is hanging
from a distant bough, and his heavy arms are resting
on the mead. Round him stand his bravest warriors: he,
sick and panting, is relieving his neck, while his flowing 5
beard scatters over his bosom: many a question asks he
about Lausus, many a messenger he sends to call him off
and convey to him the charge of his grieving sire. But
Lausus the while was being carried breathless on his shield
by a train of weeping comrades, a mighty spirit quelled by 10
a mighty wound. The distant groan told its tale to that
ill-boding heart. He defiles his gray hairs with a shower
of dust, stretches his two palms to heaven, and clings to
the body. “My son! and was I enthralled by so strong a
love of life as to suffer you, mine own offspring, to meet the 15
foeman’s hand in my stead? Are these your wounds
preserving your sire? is he living through your death?
Alas! now at length I know the misery of banishment!
now the iron is driven home! Aye, it was I, my son, that
stained your name with guilt, driven by the hate I gendered 20
from the throne and realm of my father! Retribution
was due to my country and to my subjects’ wrath: would
that I had let out my forfeit life through all the death-wounds
they aimed! And now I live on, nor as yet leave
daylight and humankind—but leave them I will.” So 25
saying, he raises himself on his halting thigh, and though
the deep wound makes his strength flag, calls for his war-horse
with no downcast mien. This was ever his glory
and his solace: this still carried him victorious from every
battle-field. He addresses the grieving creature and bespeaks 30
it thus: “Long, Rhæbus, have we twain lived, if
aught be long to those who must die. To-day you shall
either bear in victory the bloody spoils and head of Æneas
yonder, and join with me to avenge my Lausus’ sufferings,
or if our force suffice not to clear the way, we will lie down 35
together in death: for never, I ween, my gallant one, will
you stoop to a stranger’s bidding and endure a Teucrian
lord.” He said, and mounting on its back settled his limbs
as he was wont, and charged his two hands with pointed
javelins, his head shining with brass and shaggy with
horse-hair crest. So he bounded into the midst—his
heart glowing at once with mighty shame, madness and
agony commingled. Then with a loud voice he thrice 5
called on Æneas: aye, and Æneas knew it, and prays in
ecstasy: “May the great father of the gods, may royal
Apollo grant that you come to the encounter!” So
much said, he marches to meet him with brandished spear.
The other replies: “Why terrify me, fellest of foes, now 10
you have robbed me of my son? this was the only way by
which you could work my ruin. I fear not death, nor give
quarter to any deity. Enough: I am coming to die, and
send you this my present first.” He said, and flung a
javelin at his enemy: then he sends another and another 15
to its mark, wheeling round in a vast ring: but the golden
shield bides the blow. Three times, wheeling from right
to left, he rode round the foe that faced him, flinging
darts from his hand: three times the hero of Troy moves
round, carrying with him a vast grove planted on his 20
brazen plate. Then, when he begins to tire of the long
delay and the incessant plucking out of darts, and feels the
unequal combat press him hard, meditating many things,
at last he springs from his covert, and hurls his spear full
between the hollow temples of the warrior-steed. The 25
gallant beast rears itself upright, lashes the air with its
heels, and, flinging the rider, falls on and encumbers him,
and itself bowed to earth presses with its shoulder the prostrate
chief. Up flies Æneas, plucks forth his sword from
its scabbard, and bespeaks the fallen: “Where now is 30
fierce Mezentius and that his savage vehemence of spirit?”
To whom the Tuscan, soon as opening his eyes on the light
he drank in the heaven and regained his sense: “Insulting
foe, why reproach me and menace me with death? You
may kill me without crime: I came not to battle to be 35
spared, nor was that the league which my Lausus ratified
with you for his father. One boon I ask, in the name of
that grace, if any there be, which is due to a vanquished
enemy: suffer my corpse to be interred. The hot hatred
of my subjects, well I know, is blazing all round me: screen
me, I pray, from their fury, and vouchsafe me a share in
the tomb of my son.” So saying, with full resolve he welcomes
the sword to his throat, and spreads his life over his 5
armour in broad streams of blood.
BOOK XI
Meanwhile, the Goddess of Dawn has risen and left the
ocean. Æneas, though duty presses to find leisure for
interring his friends, and his mind is still wildered by the
scene of blood, was paying his vows to heaven as conqueror
should at the day-star’s rise. A giant oak, lopped all 5
round of its branches, he sets up on a mound, and arrays
it in gleaming arms, the royal spoils of Mezentius, a trophy
to thee, great Lord of War: thereto he attaches the crest
yet raining blood, the warrior’s weapons notched and
broken, and the hauberk stricken and pierced by twelve 10
several wounds: to the left hand he binds the brazen shield,
and hangs to the neck the ivory-hilted sword. Then he
begins thus to give charge to his triumphant friends, for
the whole company of chiefs had gathered to his side:
“A mighty deed, gallants, is achieved already: dismiss 15
all fear for the future: see here the spoils, the tyrant’s
first-fruits: see here Mezentius as my hands have made
him. Now our march is to the king and the walls of Latium.
Set the battle in array in your hearts and let hope
forestall the fray, that no delay may check your ignorance 20
at the moment when heaven gives leave to pluck up the
standards and lead forth our chivalry from the camp, no
coward resolve palsy your steps with fear. Meanwhile,
consign we to earth the unburied carcases of our friends,
that solitary honour which is held in account in the pit 25
of Acheron. Go,” he says, “grace with the last tribute
those glorious souls, who have bought for us this our fatherland
with the price of their blood: and first to Evander’s
sorrowing town send we Pallas, who, lacking nought of
manly worth, has been reft by the evil day, and whelmed 30
in darkness before his time.”
So he says weeping, and returns to his tent-door, where
the body of breathless Pallas, duly laid out, was being
watched by Acœtes the aged, who had in old days been
armour-bearer to Evander his Arcadian lord, but then in
an hour less happy was serving as the appointed guardian 5
of the pupil he loved. Around the corpse were thronging
the retinue of menials and the Trojan train, and dames
of Ilion with their hair unbound in mourning fashion.
But soon as Æneas entered the lofty portal, a mighty
wail they raise to the stars, smiting on their breasts, and 10
the royal dwelling groans to its centre with their agony
of woe. He, when he saw the pillowed head and countenance
of Pallas in his beauty, and the deep cleft of the
Ausonian spear in his marble bosom, thus speaks, breaking
into tears: “Can it be, unhappy boy, that Fortune at the 15
moment of her triumphant flood-tide has grudged you to
me, forbidding you to look on my kingdom, and ride back
victorious to your father’s home? Not such was the parting
pledge I gave on your behalf to your sire Evander, when,
clasping me to his heart, he sent me on my way to mighty 20
empire, and anxiously warned me that the foe was fierce
and the race we should war with stubborn. And now he
belike at this very moment in the deep delusion of empty
hope is making vows to Heaven and piling the altars with
gifts, while we are following his darling, void of life, and 25
owing no dues henceforward to any power on high, with
the vain service of our sorrow. Ill-starred father! your
eyes shall see what cruel death has made of your son.
And is this the proud return, the triumph we looked for?
has my solemn pledge shrunk to this? Yet no beaten 30
coward shall you see, Evander, chastised with unseemly
wounds, nor shall the father pray for death to come in its
terror while the son survives. Ay me! how strong a defender
is lost to our Ausonian realm, and lost to you, my
own Iulus!” 35
So having wailed his fill, he gives order to lift and bear
the poor corpse, and sends a thousand men chosen from
his whole array to attend the last service of woe, and lend
their countenance to the father’s tears, a scant solace for
that mighty sorrow, yet not the less the wretched parent’s
due. Others, nothing slack, plait the framework of a
pliant bier with shoots of arbute and oaken twigs, and
shroud the heaped-up bed with a covering of leaves. 5
Here place they the youth raised high on his rustic litter,
even as a flower cropped by maiden’s finger, be it of delicate
violet or drooping hyacinth, unforsaken as yet of its
sparkling hue and its graceful outline, though its parent
earth no longer feeds it or supplies it with strength. Then 10
brought forth Æneas two garments stiff with gold and purple,
which Dido had wrought for him in other days with
her own hands, delighting in the toil, and had streaked
their webs with threads of gold. Of these the mourner
spreads one over his youthful friend as a last honour, 15
and muffles the locks on which the flame must feed: moreover
he piles in a heap many a spoil from Laurentum’s
fray, and bids the plunder be carried in long procession.
The steeds too and weapons he adds of which he had
stripped the foe. Already had he bound the victims’ 20
hands behind their backs, doomed as a sacrifice to the
dead man’s spirit, soon to spill their blood over the fire:
and now he bids the leaders in person carry tree-trunks
clad with hostile arms, and has the name of an enemy
attached to each. There is Acœtes led along, a lorn old 25
man, marring now his breast with blows, now his face with
laceration, and anon he throws himself at his full length
on the ground. They lead too the car, all spattered
with Rutulian blood. After it the warrior steed, Æthon,
his trappings laid aside, moves weeping, and bathes his 30
visage with big round drops. Others carry the spear and
the helm: for the rest of the harness is Turnus’ prize.
Then follows a mourning army, the Teucrians, and all the
Tuscans, and the sons of Arcady with weapons turned
downward. And now after all the retinue had passed on 35
in long array, Æneas stayed, and groaning deeply uttered
one word more: “We are summoned hence by the same
fearful destiny of war to shed other tears: I bid you hail
forever, mightiest Pallas, and forever farewell.” Saying
this and this only, he turned to the lofty walls again, and
bent his footsteps campward.
And now appeared the ambassadors from the town of
Latium, with the coverings of their olive boughs, entreating 5
an act of grace: the bodies which were lying over the
plains as the steel had mowed them down they pray him
to restore, and suffer them to pass under the mounded
earth: no man wars with the vanquished and with those
who have left the sun: let him show mercy to men once 10
known as his hosts and the fathers of his bride. The good
Æneas hearkens to a prayer that merits no rebuke, grants
them the boon, and withal bespeaks them thus: “What
undeserved ill chance, men of Latium, has entangled you
in a war so terrible and made you fly from us your friends? 15
Ask you peace for the dead, for those on whom the War-god’s
die has fallen? Nay, I would fain grant it to the
living too. I were not here had not fate assigned me a
portion and a home: nor wage I war against your nation:
it was the king that abandoned our alliance, and sought 20
shelter rather under Turnus’ banner. Fairer it had been
that Turnus should have met the death-stroke ye mourn.
If he seeks to end the war by strength of arm and expel the
Trojan enemy, duty bade him confront me with weapons
like mine, and that one should have lived who had earned 25
life from heaven or his own right hand. Now go and
kindle the flame beneath your ill-starred townsmen.”
Æneas’ speech was over: they stood in silent wonder, their
eyes and countenances steadfastly fixed on each other.
Then Drances, elder in birth, ever embroiled with the 30
youthful Turnus by hatred and taunting word, thus speaks
in reply: “O mighty in fame’s voice, mightier in your own
brave deeds, hero of Troy, what praise shall I utter to
match you with the stars? Shall I first admire your sacred
love of right, or the toils of your hand in war? Ours it 35
shall be gratefully to report your answer to our native
town, and should any favouring chance allow, make you
the friend of king Latinus. Let Turnus look for alliance
where he may. Nay, it will be our pride to uprear those
massive walls of destiny, and heave on our shoulders the
stones of your new Troy.” He spoke, and the rest all
murmured assent. For twelve days they make truce, and
with amity to mediate, Trojans and Latians mingled roam 5
through the forest on the mountain slopes unharming and
unharmed. The lofty ash rings with the two-edged steel:
they bring low pines erst uplifted to the sky, nor is there
pause in cleaving with wedges the oak and fragrant cedar,
or in carrying ashen trunks in the groaning wains. 10
And now flying Fame, the harbinger of that cruel agony,
is filling with her tidings the ears of Evander, his palace and
his city—Fame that but few hours back was proclaiming
Pallas the conqueror of Latium. Forth stream the Arcadians
to the gates, with funeral torches in ancient fashion, 15
snatched up hurriedly; the road gleams with the long
line of fire, which parts the breath of fields on either hand.
To meet them comes the train of Phrygians, and joins the
wailing company. Soon as the matrons saw them pass
under the shadow of the houses, they set the mourning city 20
ablaze with their shrieks. But Evander—no force can
hold him back; he rushes into the midst: there as they
lay down the bier he has flung himself upon Pallas, and is
clinging to him with tears and groans, till choking grief
at last lets speech find her way: “No, my Pallas! this was 25
not your promise to your sire, to trust yourself with caution
in the War-god’s savage hands. I knew what a spell
there lay in the young dawn of a soldier’s glory, the enrapturing
pride of the first day of battle. Alas for the
ill-starred first-fruits of youth, the cruel foretaste of the 30
coming war! alas for those my vows and prayers, that
found no audience with any of the gods! alas too for thee,
my blessed spouse, happy as thou art in the death that
spared thee not for this heavy sorrow! while I, living on,
have triumphed over my destiny, that I might survive in 35
solitary fatherhood. Had I but followed the friendly
standards of Troy, and fallen whelmed by Rutulian javelins!
had I rendered my own life up, so that this funeral
train should have borne _me_ home, and not my Pallas!
Nor yet would I blame you, men of Troy, nor the treaty
we made, nor the hands we plighted in friendship; it is
but the portion ordained long ago as fitting for my gray
hairs. If it was written that my son should die ere his 5
time, it shall be well that he fell after slaying his Volscian
thousands, while leading a Teucrian army to the gates of
Latium. Nay, my Pallas, I would wish for you no
worthier funeral than that accorded to you by Æneas
the good and his noble Phrygians, by the Tyrrhene leaders, 10
and the whole Tyrrhene host. Each bears you a mighty
trophy whom your right hand sends down to death. And
you, too, proud Turnus, would be standing at this moment,
a giant trunk hung round with armour, had your age been
but as his, the vigour of your years the same. But why 15
should misery like mine hold back the Teucrians from the
battle? Go, and remember to bear my message to your
king. If I still drag the wheels of my hated life now my
Pallas is slain, it is because of your right hand, which owes
the debt of Turnus’ life to son and sire, yourself being witness. 20
This is the one remaining niche for your valour and
your fortune to fill. I ask not for triumph to gild my life:
that thought were crime: I ask but for tidings that I
may bear to my son down in the spectral world.”
Meantime the Goddess of Dawn had lifted on high her 25
kindly light for suffering mortality, recalling them to task
and toil. Already father Æneas, already Tarchon, have
set up their funeral piles along the winding shore. Hither
each man brings the body of friend or kinsman as the rites
of his sires command; and as the murky flames are applied 30
below, darkness veils the heights of heaven in gloom.
Thrice they ran their courses round the lighted pyres,
sheathed in shining armour; thrice they circled on their
steeds the mournful funeral flame, and uttered the voice
of wailing. Sprinkled is the earth with their tears, 35
sprinkled is the harness. Upsoars to heaven at once the
shout of warriors and the blare of trumpets. Others
fling upon the fire plunder torn from the Latian slain,
helms and shapely swords and bridle-reins and glowing
wheels; some bring in offering the things the dead men
wore, their own shields and the weapons that sped so ill.
Many carcases of oxen are sacrificed round the piles:
bristly swine and cattle harried from the country round are 5
made to bleed into the flame. Then along the whole line
of coast they gaze on their burning friends, and keep
sentry over the half-quenched fire-bed, nor let themselves
be torn away till dewy night rolls round the sky with its
garniture of blazing stars. 10
With like zeal the ill-starred Latians in a different quarter
set up countless piles; of the multitude of corpses
some they bury in the earth, some they lift up and carry
off to neighbour districts, and send them home to the city;
the rest, a mighty mass of promiscuous carnage, they burn 15
uncounted and unhonoured; and thereon the plains
through their length and breadth gleam with the thickening
rivalry of funeral fires. The third morrow had withdrawn
the chill shadows from the sky: the mourners were
levelling the piles of ashes and sweeping the mingled bones 20
from the hearths, and heaping over them mounds of earth
where the heat yet lingers. But within the walls, in the
city of Latium’s wealthy king, the wailing is preëminent,
and largest the portion of that long agony. Here are
mothers and their sons’ wretched brides, here are sisters’ 25
bosoms racked with sorrow and love, and children orphaned
of their parents, calling down curses on the terrible
war and on Turnus’ bridal rites; he, he himself, they cry,
should try the issue with arms and the cold steel, who
claims for himself the Italian crown and the honours of 30
sovereignty. Fell Drances casts his weight into the scale,
and bears witness that Turnus alone is challenged by the
foe, Turnus alone defied to combat. Against them many
a judgment is ranged in various phrase on Turnus’ side,
and the queen’s august name lends him its shadow; many 35
an applauding voice upholds the warrior by help of the
trophies he has won.
Amid all this ferment, when the blaze of popular turmoil
is at its height, see, as a crowning blow, comes back the
sorrowing embassy with tidings from Diomede’s mighty
town: the cost of all their labours has gained them nought:
gifts and gold and earnest prayers are alike in vain: the
Latians must look for arms elsewhere, or sue for peace 5
from the Trojan chief. King Latinus himself is crushed
to earth by the weight of agony. The wrath of the gods,
the fresh-made graves before his eyes, tell him plainly that
Æneas is the man of destiny, borne on by heaven’s manifest
will. So he summons by royal mandate a mighty 10
council, the chiefs of his nation, and gathers them within
his lofty doors. They have mustered from all sides, and
are streaming to the palace through the crowded streets.
In the midst Latinus takes his seat, at once eldest in years
and first in kingly state, with a brow that knows not joy. 15
Hereupon he bids the envoys returned from the Ætolian
town to report the answers they bear, and bids them repeat
each point in order. Silence is proclaimed, and Venulus,
obeying the mandate, begins to speak:
“Townsmen, we have looked on Diomede and his Argive 20
encampment: the journey is overpast, and every chance
surmounted, and we have touched the hand by which the
realm of Ilion fell. We found him raising his city of Argyripa,
the namesake of his ancestral people, in the land of
Iapygian Garganus which his sword had won. Soon as 25
the presence was gained and liberty of speech accorded, we
proffer our gifts, inform him of our name and country,
who is our invader, and what cause has led us to Arpi.[275]
He listened, and returned as follows with untroubled mien:
‘O children of fortune, subjects of Saturn’s reign, men of 30
old Ausonia, what caprice of chance disturbs you in your
repose, and bids you provoke a war ye know not? Know
that all of us, whose steel profaned the sanctity of Ilion’s
soil—I pass the hardships of war, drained to the dregs
under those lofty ramparts, the brave hearts which that 35
fatal Simois covers—yea, all of us the wide world over
have paid the dues of our trespass in agonies unutterable,
a company that might have wrung pity even from Priam:
witness Minerva’s baleful star, and the crags of Eubœa,
and Caphereus the avenger. Discharged from that warfare,
wandering outcasts on diverse shores, Menelaus,
Atreus’ son, is journeying in banishment even to the pillars
of Proteus[276]; Ulysses has looked upon Ætna and her Cyclop 5
brood. Need I tell of Neoptolemus’ portioned realms,
of Idomeneus’ dismantled home, of Locrian settlers on
a Libyan coast? Even the monarch[277] of Mycenæ, the
leader of the great Grecian name, met death on his very
threshold at the hand of his atrocious spouse; Asia fell 10
before him, but the adulterer rose in her room. Cruel gods,
that would not have me restored to the hearth-fires of my
home, to see once more the wife of my longing and my own
fair Calydon! Nay, even my flight is dogged by portents
of dreadful view; my comrades torn from me are winging 15
the air and haunting the stream as birds—alas that the
followers of my fortunes should suffer so!—and making
the rocks ring with the shrieks of their sorrow. Such was
the fate I had to look for even from that day when with
my frantic steel I assailed the flesh of immortals, and impiously 20
wounded Venus’ sacred hand. Nay, nay, urge
me no longer to a war like this. Since Pergamus fell, my
fightings with Troy are ended; I have no thought, no joy,
for the evils of the past. As for the gifts which you bring
me from your home, carry them rather to Æneas. I tell 25
you, I have stood against the fury of his weapon, and joined
hand to hand with him in battle; trust one who knows
how strong is his onset as he rises on the shield, how
fierce the whirlwind of his hurtling lance. Had Ida’s
soil borne but two other so valiant, Dardanus would have 30
marched in his turn to the gates of Inachus, and the tears
of Greece would be flowing for a destiny reversed. All
those years of lingering at the walls of stubborn Troy, it
was Hector’s and Æneas’ hand that clogged the wheels of
Grecian victory, and delayed her coming till the tenth 35
campaign had begun. High in courage were both, high
in the glory of martial prowess; but piety gave _him_ the
preëminence. Join hand to hand in treaty, if so you may;
but see that your arms bide not the shock of his.’ Thus,
gracious sire, have you heard at once the king’s reply,
and the judgment he passed on this our mighty war.”
The envoys had scarcely finished when a diverse murmur
runs along the quivering lips of the sons of Ausonia, as, 5
when rapid streams are checked by rocks in their course,
confused sounds rise from the imprisoned torrent, and
neighbouring banks reëcho with the babbling of the waves.
Soon as their passions were allayed, and their chafed countenances
settled in calm, the monarch, first invoking 10
heaven, begins from his lofty throne:
“To have taken your judgment, Latians, ere this on the
state of the common-weal, would have been my pleasure,
and our truer interest, rather than summon a council at a
crisis like this, when the foe has sat down before our walls. 15
A grievous war, my countrymen, we are waging with the
seed of heaven, a nation unsubdued, whom no battles
overtire, nor even in defeat can they be made to drop the
sword. For any hope ye have cherished in the alliance of
Ætolian arms, resign it forever. Each is his own hope; 20
and how slender is this ye may see for yourselves. As
to all beside, with what utter ruin it is stricken is palpable
to the sight of your eyes, to the touch of your hands. I
throw the blame on none: manly worth has done the utmost
it could: all the sinews of the realm have been strained 25
in the contest. Now then I will set forth what is the judgment
of my wavering mind, and show you it in few words,
if ye will lend me your attention. There is an ancient
territory of mine bordering on the Tuscan river, extending
lengthwise to the west, even beyond the Sicanian frontier; 30
Auruncans and Rutulians are its tillers, subduing with the
ploughshare its stubborn hills, and pasturing their flocks
on the rugged slopes. Let this whole district, with the
lofty mountain and its belt of pines, be our friendly gift
to the Teucrians; let us name equal terms of alliance, and 35
invite them to share our kingdom; let them settle here, if
their passion is so strong, and build them a city. But if
they have a mind to compass other lands and another
nation, and are free to quit our soil, let us build twenty ships
of Italian timber, or more if they have men to fill them:
there is the wood ready felled by the river side; let themselves
prescribe the size and the number; let us provide
brass, and hands, and naval trim. Moreover, to convey 5
our proffers and ratify the league, I would have an embassy
of a hundred Latians of the first rank sent with peaceful
branches in their hands, carrying also presents, gold and
ivory, each a talent’s weight, and the chair and striped
robe that are badges of our royalty. Give free counsel 10
and help to support a fainting commonwealth.”
Then Drances, hostile as ever, whom the martial fame
of Turnus was ever goading with the bitter stings of sidelong
envy, rich, and prodigal of his riches, a doughty
warrior with the tongue, but a feeble hand in the heat of 15
battle, esteemed no mean adviser in debate, and powerful
in the arts of faction: his mother’s noble blood made proud
a lineage which on his father’s side was counted obscure:—he
rises, and with words like these piles and heaps anger
high: 20
“A matter obscure to none, and needing no voice of ours
to make it plain is this that you propound, gracious king.
All own that they know what is the bearing of the state’s
fortune; but their tongues can only mutter. Let him
accord freedom of speech, and bate his angry blasts, to 25
whose ill-omened leadership and inauspicious temper—aye,
I _will_ speak, let him threaten me with duel and death
as he may—we owe it that so many of our army’s stars
have set before our eyes, and the whole city is sunk in
mourning, while he is making his essay of the Trojan camp, 30
with flight always in reserve, and scaring heaven with the
din of his arms. One gift there is over and above that
long catalogue which you would have us send and promise
to the Dardans: add but this to them, most excellent
sovereign, nor let any man’s violence prevent you from 35
bestowing your daughter in the fulness of a father’s right
on a noble son-in-law and a worthy alliance, and basing
the peace we seek on a covenant which shall last forever.
Nay, if the reign of terror is so absolute over our minds
and hearts, let us go straight to him with our adjurations
and ask for grace at his own hands—ask him to yield, and
allow king and country to exercise their rights. Why
fling your wretched countrymen again and again into 5
danger’s throat, you, the head and wellspring of the ills
which Latium has to bear? There is no hope from war;
peace we ask of you, one and all—yes, Turnus, peace,
and the one surety that can make peace sacred. See,
first of all I, whom you give out to be your enemy—and 10
I care not though I be—come and throw myself at your
feet. Pity those of your own kin, bring down your
pride, and retire as beaten man should. Routed we are;
we have looked on corpses enough, and have left leagues
enough of land unpeopled. Or if glory stirs you, if you 15
can call up into your breast the courage needed, if the
dowry of a palace lies so near your heart, be bold for once,
and advance with bosom manned to meet the foe. What!
that Turnus may have the blessing of a queenly bride, are
we, poor paltry lives, a herd unburied and unwept, to lie 20
weltering on the plain? It is your turn: if you have any
strength, any touch of the War-god of your sires, look him
in the face who sends you his challenge.”
At these words Turnus’ violence blazed out: heaving a
groan, he vents from the bottom of his heart such utterance 25
as this: “Copious, Drances, ever is your stream of
speech in the hour when war is calling for hands; when the
senate is summoned, you are first in the field. Yet we
want not men to fill our court with talk, that big talk
which you hurl from a safe vantage-ground, while the rampart 30
keeps off the foe and the moat is not foaming with
carnage. Go on pealing your eloquence, as your wont is:
let Drances brand Turnus with cowardice, for it is Drances’
hand that has piled those very heaps of Teucrian slaughter,
and is planting the fields all over with its trophies. What 35
is the power of glowing valour, experience may show
you: enemies in sooth are not far to seek: they are standing
all about the walls. Well, are we marching to the
encounter? why so slow? will you never lodge the War-god
better than in that windy tongue, those flying feet?
What? beaten? I? who, foulest of slanderers, will justly
brand me as beaten, that shall look on Tiber still swelling
with Ilion’s best blood, on Evander’s whole house prostrate 5
root and branch, and his Arcadians stripped naked of their
armour? It was no beaten arm that Bitias and giant
Pandarus found in me, or the thousand that I sent to
death in a single day with my conquering hand, shut up
within their walls, pent in by the rampart of the foe. No 10
hope from war? Croak your bodings, madman, in the
ears of the Dardan and of your own fortunes. Ay, go
on without cease, throwing all into measureless panic,
heightening the prowess of a nation twice conquered already,
and dwarfing no less the arms of your king. See, 15
now the lords of the Myrmidons[278] are quaking at the martial
deeds of Phrygia, Tydeus’ son, Thessalian Achilles,
and the rest, and river Aufidus is in full retreat from the
Hadrian sea. Or listen when the trickster in his villany
feigns himself too weak to face a quarrel with me, and 20
points his charges with the sting of terror. Never, I
promise you, shall you lose such life as yours by hand of
mine—be troubled no longer—let it dwell with you and
retain its home in that congenial breast. Now, gracious
sire, I return to you and the august matter that asks our 25
counsel. If you have no hope beyond in aught our arms
can do, if we are so wholly forlorn, destroyed root and
branch by one reverse, and our star can never rise again,
then pray we for peace and stretch craven hands in suppliance.
Yet, oh, had we but one spark of the worth that 30
once was ours, that man I would esteem blest beyond
others in his service and princely of soul, who, sooner than
look on aught like this, has lain down in death and once
for all bitten the dust. But if we have still store of power,
and a harvest of youth yet unreaped, if there are cities 35
and nations of Italy yet to come to our aid, if the Trojans
as well as we have won their glory at much bloodshed’s
cost—for they too have their deaths—the hurricane has
swept over all alike—why do we merely falter on the
threshold? why are we seized with shivering ere the
trumpet blows? Many a man’s weal has been restored
by time and the changeful struggles of shifting days: many
a man has Fortune, fair and foul by turns, made her sport 5
and then once more placed on a rock. Grant that we shall
have no help from the Ætolian and his Arpi: but we shall
from Messapus, and the blest Tolumnius, and all the
leaders that those many nations have sent us; nor small
shall be the glory which will wait on the flower of Latium 10
and the Laurentine land. Ay, and we have Camilla,[279] of
the noble Volscian race, with a band of horsemen at her
back and troops gleaming with brass. If it is I alone that
the Teucrians challenge to the fight, and such is your will,
and my life is indeed the standing obstacle to the good of 15
all, Victory has not heretofore fled with such loathing from
my hands that I should refuse to make my venture for a
hope so glorious. No, I will confront him boldly, though he
should prove great as Achilles, and don harness like his, the
work of Vulcan’s art. To you and to my royal father-in-law 20
have I here devoted this my life, I, Turnus, second in
valour to none that went before me. ‘For me alone Æneas
calls.’ Vouchsafe that he may so call! nor let Drances
in my stead, if the issue be Heaven’s vengeance, forfeit
his life, or, if it be prowess and glory, bear that prize 25
away!”
So were these contending over matters of doubtful debate:
Æneas was moving his army from camp to field.
See, there runs a messenger from end to end of the palace
amid wild confusion, and fills the town with a mighty 30
terror, how that in marching array the Trojans and the
Tuscan force are sweeping down from Tiber’s stream
over all the plain. In an instant the minds of the people
are confounded, their bosoms shaken to the core, their
passions goaded by no gentle stings. They clutch at arms, 35
clamour for arms: arms are the young men’s cry: the
weeping fathers moan and mutter. And now a mighty
din, blended of discordant voices, soars up to the skies,
even as when haply flocks of birds have settled down in a
lofty grove, or on the fishy stream of Padusa hoarse swans
make a noise along the babbling waters, “Ay, good citizens,”
cries Turnus, seizing on his moment, “assemble
your council and sit praising peace; they are rushing on 5
the realm sword in hand.” Without further speech he
dashed away and issued swiftly from the lofty gate.
“You, Volusus,” he cries, “bid the Volscian squadrons arm,
and lead out the Rutulians. You, Messapus, and you,
Coras[280] and your brother, spread the horse in battle array 10
over the breadth of the plain. Let some guard the inlets
of the city and man the towers; the rest attack with me in
the quarter for which I give the word.” At once there is
a rush to the ramparts from every part of the city: king
Latinus leaves the council and the high debate unfinished, 15
and wildered with the unhappy time, adjourns to another
day, ofttimes blaming himself that he welcomed not with
open arms Æneas the Dardan, and bestowed on the city
a husband for the daughter of Latium. Others dig
trenches before the gates or shoulder stones and stakes. 20
The hoarse trumpet gives its deathful warning for battle.
The walls are hemmed by a motley ring of matrons and
boys: the call of the last struggle rings in each one’s ear.
Moreover the queen among a vast train of Latian mothers
is drawn to the temple, even to Pallas’ tower on the height, 25
with presents in her hand, and at her side the maid Lavinia,
cause of this cruel woe, her beauteous eyes cast down.
The matrons enter the temple and make it steam with
incense, and pour from the august threshold their plaints
of sorrow: “Lady of arms, mistress of the war, Tritonian[o] 30
maiden, stretch forth thy hand and break the spear of the
Phrygian freebooter, lay him prostrate on the ground,
and leave him to grovel under our lofty portals.” Turnus
with emulous fury arms himself for the battle. And now
he has donned his ruddy corslet, and is bristling with 35
brazen scales; his calves have been sheathed in gold, his
temples yet bare, and his sword had been girded to his
side, and he shines as he runs all golden from the steep
of the citadel, bounding high with courage, and in hope
already forestalls the foe: even as when a horse, bursting
his tether, escapes from the stall, free at last and master
of the open champaign,[281] either wends where the herds of
mares pasture, or wont to bathe in the well-known river 5
darts forth and neighs with head tossed on high in wanton
frolic, while his mane plays loosely about neck and shoulders.
His path Camilla crosses, a Volscian army at her
back, and dismounts from her horse at the gate with
queenly gesture; the whole band follow her lead, quit 10
their horses, and alight to earth, while she bespeaks him
thus: “Turnus, if the brave may feel faith in themselves,
I promise boldly to confront the cavalry of Troy and
singly ride to meet the Tyrrhene horse. Let me essay
the first hazard of the combat; do you on foot remain by 15
the walls and be the city’s guard.” Turnus replies, gazing
steadfastly on the dreadful maid: “O maiden, glory
of Italy, what thanks shall I strive to speak or render?
but seeing that soul of yours soars above all, partake the
toil with me. Æneas, as rumour and missioned spies tell 20
me for truth, has cunningly sent on his light-armed cavalry
to scour the plain, while he, surmounting the lonely
steeps of the hill, is marching townward. I meditate a
stratagem of war in that woodland gorge, to beset the
narrow thoroughfare with an armed band. Do you in 25
battle array receive the Tuscan horse. With you will
be keen Messapus, and the Latian cavalry, and Tiburtus’
troop: take your share of a general’s charge.” This said,
he exhorts Messapus and the federate leaders with like
words to the fight, and advances to meet the enemy. 30
A glen there is, narrow and winding, suited for ambush
and stratagems of arms, pent in on both sides by a mountain-wall
black with dense foliage; a scant pathway leads
to it, with straitened gorge and jealous inlet. Above it
on the mountain’s watch-tower height lies a concealed 35
table-land, a post of sheltered privacy, whether one be
minded to face the battle right and left, or, standing on
the slope, to roll down enormous stones. Hither repairs
the warrior along the well-known road: he has occupied
the spot and sat him down in the treacherous forest.
Meantime, in the mansions above Latona’s daughter
was addressing Opis the swift, a maiden comrade of her
sacred train, and was uttering these words in tones of 5
sorrow: “Ah, maiden, Camilla is on her way to the ruthless
war; in vain she girds herself with the arms of our
sisterhood, dear to me that she is beyond all beside: for
no new tenderness this that has come on Diana, nor sudden
the spell wherewith it stirs her heart. When Metabus, 10
exiled for the hate which tyranny genders, was parting
from Privernum, his ancient city, as he fled from the heart
of the combat, he bore away his infant child to share his
banishment, and varying Casmilla, her mother’s name,
called her Camilla. The father, carrying her in his bosom, 15
was making for the long mountain slopes of the solitary
woods, while bitter javelins were showering all around him,
and the Volscians with circling soldiery hovering about:
when lo! intercepting his flight was Amasenus, brimming
and foaming over its banks, so vast a deluge of rain had 20
burst from the clouds. Preparing to plunge in, he is
checked by tenderness for his child, and fears for the precious
load. At last, as he pondered over every course,
he hit suddenly on this resolve. There was a huge weapon,
which he chanced to be carrying in his stalwart hand 25
as warriors use, sturdy with knots and seasoned timber:
to it he fastens his daughter, enclosed in the cork-tree’s
forest bark, and binds her neatly round the middle
of the shaft; then, poising it in a giant’s grasp, he thus
exclaims to heaven: ‘Gracious lady, dweller in the woods, 30
Latona’s maiden daughter, I vow to thy service this my
child: thine are the first weapons that she wields as she
flies from the foe through air to thy protection. Receive,
I conjure thee, as thine own her whom I now entrust to the
uncertain gale.’ He said, and, drawing back his arm, 35
hurled the javelin: loud roared the waves, while over the
furious stream fled poor Camilla on the hurtling dart.
But Metabus, pressed closer and closer by the numerous
band, leaps into the river, and in triumph plucks from the
grassy bank his offering to Trivia, the javelin and the maid.
No cities opened to him house or stronghold, for his wild
nature had never brooked submission: among the shepherds’
lonely mountains he passed his days. There in the 5
woods, among beasts’ savage lairs, he reared his daughter
on milk from the breast of an untamed mare, squeezing
the udder into her tender lips. And soon as the child
first stood on her feet, he armed her hands with a pointed
javelin, and hung from her baby shoulder a quiver and a 10
bow. For the golden brooch in her hair, for the long
sweeping mantle, there hang from her head adown her
back a tiger’s spoils. Even then she launched with tiny
hand her childish missiles, swung round her head the sling’s
well-turned thong, and brought down a crane from Strymon 15
or a snow-white swan. Many a mother in Tyrrhene
town has wooed her for her son in vain: with no thought
but for Dian, she cherishes in unsullied purity her love for
the hunter’s and the maiden’s life. Would she had never
been pressed for warfare like this, essaying to strike a blow 20
at the Teucrians: so had she still been my darling and a
sister of my train. But come, since cruel destiny is darkening
round her, glide down, fair nymph, from the sky,
and repair to the Latian frontier, where now in an evil hour
the tearful battle is joining. Take these arms, and draw 25
from the quiver an avenging shaft: therewith let the foe,
whoever he be, Trojan or Italian, that shall profane with
the stroke of death that sacred person, make to me in like
manner the atonement of his blood. Afterwards in the
hollow of a cloud I will bear off the body of my lost favourite 30
undespoiled of its arms, and lay her down in her
own land.” Thus she: and Opis hurtled downward through
the buoyant air, a black whirlwind enswathing her form.
But the Trojan band meanwhile is nearing the walls
with the Etruscan chiefs and the whole array of cavalry, 35
marshalled into companies. Steeds are prancing and
neighing the whole champaign over, and chafing against
the drawn bridle as they face hither and thither: the field,
all iron, bristles far and wide with spears, and the plains
are ablaze with arms reared on high. Likewise Messapus
on the other side and the swift-paced Latians, and Coras
and his brother, and maid Camilla’s force appear in the
plain against them, couching the lance in their backdrawn 5
hands and brandishing the javelin: and the onset of warriors
and the neighing of steeds begin to wax hot. And
now each army had halted within a spear-throw of the
other: with a sudden shout they dash forward, and put
spurs to their fiery steeds: missiles are showered from all 10
sides in a moment, thick as snow-flakes, and heaven is
curtained with the shade. Instantly Tyrrhenus and fierce
Aconteus charge each other spear in hand, and foremost
of all crash together with sound as of thunder, so that the
chest of either steed is burst against his fellow’s; Aconteus, 15
flung off like the levinbolt or a stone hurled from an engine,
tumbles headlong in the distance, and scatters his life in
air. At once the line of battle is broken, and the Latians,
turned to flight, sling their shields behind them and set
their horses’ heads cityward. The Trojans give them 20
chase: Asilas in the van leads their bands. And now
they were nearing the gates, when the Latians in turn set
up a shout, and turn their chargers’ limber necks; the
others fly, and retreat far away at full speed. As when
the sea, advancing with its tide that ebbs and flows, one 25
while sweeps towards the land, deluges the rocks with a
shower of spray, and sprinkles the sandy margin with the
contents of its bosom, one while flees in hasty retreat,
dragging back into the gulf the recaptured stones, and
with ebbing waters leaves the shore. Twice the Tuscans 30
drove the Rutulians in rout to their walls; twice, repulsed,
they look behind as they sling their shields backward.
But when in the shock of a third encounter the entire
armies grapple each other, and man has singled out man,
then in truth upsoar the groans of the dying, and arms and 35
bodies and death-stricken horses blended with human
carnage welter in pools of gore: and a savage combat is
aroused. Orsilochus hurls a spear at Remulus’ horse—for
the rider he feared to encounter—and leaves the steel
lodged under the ear. Maddened by the blow, the beast
rears erect, and, uplifting its breast, flings its legs on high
in the uncontrolled agony of the wound: Remulus unseated
rolls on earth, Catillus dismounts Iollas, and likewise 5
Herminius, giant in courage, and giant too in stature
and girth: his bare head streams with yellow locks, and
his shoulders also are bare: wounds have no terrors for
him, so vast the surface he offers to the weapon. Through
his broad shoulders comes the quivering spear, and bows 10
the impaled hero double with anguish. Black streams
of gore gush on all sides: the combatants spread slaughter
with the steel, and rush on glorious death through a storm
of wounds.
But Camilla, with a quiver at her back, and one breast 15
put forth for the combat, leaps for joy like an Amazon in
the midst of carnage: now she scatters thick volleys of
quivering javelins, now her arm whirls unwearied the
massy two-edged axe: while from her shoulder sounds the
golden bow, the artillery of Dian. Nay, if ever she be 20
beaten back and retreating rearward, she turns her bow
and aims shafts in her flight. Around her are her chosen
comrades, maid Larina, and Tulla, and Tarpeia, wielding
the brazen-helved hatchet, daughters of Italy, whom
glorious Camilla herself chose to be her joy and pride, able 25
to deal alike with peace and war: even as the Amazons
of Thrace when they thunder over the streams of Thermōdon
and battle with her blazoned arms, encompassing
Hippolyte, or when Penthesilea, the War-god’s darling,
is careering to and fro in her chariot, and the woman 30
army, amid a hubbub of shrill cries, are leaping in ecstasy
and shaking their moony shields. Who first, who last,
fierce maiden, is unhorsed by your dart? How many stalwart
bodies lay you low in death? The first was Eunēus,
Clytius’ son, whose unguarded breast as he stood fronting 35
her she pierces with her long pine-wood spear. Down he
goes, disgorging streams of blood, closes his teeth on the
gory soil, and dying writhes upon his wound. Then
Liris, and Pagasus on his body: while that, flung from
his stabbed charger, is gathering up the reins, and this is
coming to the rescue and stretching his unarmed hand to
his falling comrade, they are overthrown in one headlong
ruin. To these she adds Amastrus, son of Hippotas: 5
then, pressing on the rout, pursues with her spear-throw
Tereus, and Harpalycus, and Demophoon, and Chromis:
for every dart she launched from her maiden hand there
fell a Phrygian warrior. In the distance rides Ornytus
accoutred strangely in hunter fashion on an Iapygian 10
steed: a hide stripped from a bullock swathes his broad
shoulders in the combat, his head is sheltered by a wolf’s
huge grinning mouth and jaws with the white teeth projecting,
and a rustic pike arms his hand: he goes whirling
through the ranks, his whole head overtopping them. 15
Him she catches, an easy task when the hosts are entangled
in rout, pierces him through, and thus bespeaks the
fallen in the fierceness of her spirit: “Tuscan, you thought
yourself still chasing beasts in the forest, but the day is
come which shall refute the vaunts of your nation by a 20
woman’s weapons. Yet no slight glory shall you carry
down to your fathers’ shades, that you have fallen by the
dart of Camilla.” Next follow Orsilochus and Butes, two
of the hugest frames of Troy: Butes she speared behind
’twixt corslet and helm, where the sitter’s neck is seen 25
gleaming, and the shield is hanging from the left arm:
Orsilochus, as she pretends to fly and wheels round in a
mighty ring, she baffles by ever circling inwards, and chases
him that chases her: at last, rising to the stroke, she brings
down on the wretch again and again, spite of all his prayers, 30
her massy battle-axe that rives armour and bone: the
brain spouts over the face through the ghastly wound.
Now there stumbles upon her, and pauses in terror at the
sudden apparition, the warrior son of Aunus, dweller on
the Apennine, not the meanest of Liguria’s children while 35
Fate prospered his trickery. He, when he sees no speed
of flight can escape the combat, or avoid the onset of the
dreadful queen, essaying to gain his base end by policy
and stratagem, thus begins: “What great glory is it
after all, if you, a woman, trust your mettled steed? Put
away the chance of flight, and dare to meet me hand to
hand on equal ground, and gird you for battle on foot:
soon shall you see which of us gains honour from this 5
windy boasting.” He said: but she, all on fire, stung with
bitter grief, gives her horse to her comrade, and stands
ready to meet him in arms, fearless though on foot, with
naked sword and maiden shield. But the youth, deeming
that his wiles had sped, darts away without more ado, 10
and turning his bridle, rides off in flight, and wearies his
beast with the strokes of his iron heel. “False Ligurian,
vainly puffed up with overweening fancies, to no end have
you tried your sire’s slippery craft, nor shall your lying
bring you safe to Aunus the liar.” So cries the maiden, 15
and with lightning-like pace crosses at full speed the horse’s
path, and seizing the reins, fronts and encounters him,
and gluts her vengeance with his hated blood: easily as a
hawk, the bird of augury, darting from a lofty rock, comes
up with a dove high in the clouds, holds her in his gripe, 20
and with crooked talons tears out her heart, while gore and
plucked feathers come tumbling from the sky.
But no blind spectator of the scene is sitting throned on
high Olympus, even the father of men and gods. The sire
urges Tarchon the Tuscan to the ruthless fray, and goads 25
him to wrath by no gentle stings. So among heaps of
carnage and yielding bands Tarchon goes riding, and
rouses the cavalry with words of diverse purport, calling
each by his name, and gives the beaten new strength for
battle. “What terror, O ye Tuscan hearts that will not 30
feel, that will still be sluggish, what strange cowardice has
come on you? To what end is this steel, these idle weapons
our right hands bear? But slow ye are not to hear the
call of love, or when the wry-necked fife gives the word for
the Bacchic dance: ay, there is your passion, there your 35
delight, till the favouring seer announce the sacrificial
feast, and the fat victim invite you to the tall trees of the
grove.” So saying, he spurs his steed into the midst,
ready for the death he brings to others, and charges in
fury on Venulus, snatches the foe from his horse, folds his
arms round him, and carries him on his saddle before him
with wild and violent speed. Upsoars a shout to heaven,
and every Latian eye is turned to the scene. Over the 5
plain like lightning flies Tarchon, bearing the warrior
and his arms. Then from the top of the chiefs own spear
he breaks off the point, and feels for an unguarded part
where to plant the deadly blow: the foe, struggling, keeps
off Tarchon’s hand from his throat, and repels force with 10
force. As when the golden eagle soaring on high carries
a serpent he has caught, trussing it in his claws, and adhering
with his taloned gripe; the wounded reptile writhes
its spiral coils, stiffens with erected scales, and hisses from
its mouth, surging and swelling; the eagle, undismayed, 15
plies it despite its struggles with his hooked beak, while
his pinions beat the air: even thus Tarchon carries his
prize in triumph from the bands of Tibur’s folk. Following
their chief’s auspicious lead, the sons of Mæonia charge
the foe. Then Arruns, the man of fate, compasses swift 20
Camilla about, dart in hand, with many a forestalling wile,
and tries what chance may be readiest. Wherever the
fiery maid dashes into the midst of the battle, Arruns
threads his way after her, and scans her steps in silence:
wherever she returns in triumph, escaping safely from the 25
foe, that way the youth turns his swift and stealthy rein;
now makes proof of this approach, now of that, and traverses
the whole circle, and shakes with relentless malice
his inevitable lance. It chanced that one Chloreus, sacred
to Cybele and once her priest, was shining conspicuous 30
from afar in Phrygian armour, urging on a foaming charger,
whose covering was a skin adorned with golden clasp and
brazen scales set plume-wise. He, in the blaze of foreign
purple, was launching Gortynian shafts from a Lycian bow;
golden was the bow that rang from his shoulder, golden the 35
helm on his sacred head; his saffron scarf with its rustling
gauzy folds was gathered up by a golden brooch, and his
tunic and his hose decked with barbaric broidery. He it
was that the maiden, eager, it may be, to fasten on the
temple-gate the arms of Troy, or to flaunt herself in the
golden spoil, singled out from all the battle, and was following
with a hunter’s blind devotion, raging recklessly
through the ranks, enkindled with a woman’s love for prey 5
and plunder; when at length, seizing his opportunity,
Arruns awakes his dart from its ambush, and thus prays
aloud to heaven: “Greatest of gods, Apollo, guardian of
divine Soracte, whom we are the first to worship, for whom
the pine-tree glow is fed by heaps of wood, while ourselves, 10
thy votaries, strong in our piety, walk through the flame
over living embers, grant, all-powerful sire, that my arms
may wipe this scandal away. I seek no plunder or spoil,
no trophy for the conquest of a maid; the rest of my deeds
shall secure my fame; let but this terrible fiend fall vanquished 15
by wound of mine, I will return to the cities of my
fathers an unhonoured man.” Phœbus heard, and vouchsafed
in his heart that half the vow should speed, while
half he scattered among the flying breezes: to strike and
slay Camilla with sudden death-wound, so much he grants 20
the suppliant: to return and meet the eyes of his noble
fatherland, this he allows not; the gusts of air turned the
accents into wind. So when the spear, launched from the
hand, was heard along the sky, each keen Volscian mind
flew to one centre, every Volscian eye was bent on the 25
queen. She alone had no thought for wind or sound or
weapon sweeping down from heaven, till the spear had
made its passage and lodged beneath her protruded breast,
and deeply driven, drank her maiden blood. Her comrades
run together in alarm, and support their falling mistress. 30
Arruns, more terrified than all, flies away, half joy,
half fear, nor puts further confidence in his lance, nor dares
to meet the darts of the maiden. Even as the caitiff
wolf, ere the weapons of vengeance can follow him, has
fled at once to the pathless privacy of the mountain steep, 35
on slaying a shepherd or mighty bullock, conscious of his
daring deed, and drawing back his quivering tail with
lithe action has clapped it to his belly and made for the
woods, in like manner Arruns all wildered has stolen away
from sight, and contented to escape has plunged into the
thick of the battle. With dying hand the maiden pulls
at the spear; but the steely point stands lodged among the
bones at the ribs in the deep wound it made. Drained of 5
blood, she sinks to earth; sink, too, her death-chilled eyes;
her once bright bloom has left her face. Then at her last
gasp she accosts Acca, one of her maiden train, who beyond
the rest was Camilla’s friend and shared her thoughts,
and speaks on this wise; “Thus far, sister Acca, has 10
strength been given me: now the cruel wound overcomes
me; and all around me grows dim and dark. Haste and
carry Turnus my dying charge, to take my place in the
battle and keep off the Trojans from the town. And now
farewell.” As she spoke she dropped the bridle, swimming 15
down to earth with no willing act. Then as the death-chill
grows she gradually discumbers herself of the entire weight
of the body, droops her unstrung neck and her head on
which fate has seized, quitting too her armour, and her
soul, resenting its lot, flies groaningly to the shades. Then 20
indeed, rising unmeasured, the uproar strikes the golden
stars: Camilla overthrown, the fight waxes fiercer: on
they rush thickening, at once the whole force of the Teucrians,
and the Tyrrhene leaders, and Evander’s Arcad
cavalry. 25
But Trivia’s sentinel Opis has long been seated high on
the mountain top, an undismayed spectator of the combat.
And when far off, deep among the din of raging
warriors, she spied Camilla shent by ruthless death, she
groaned, and fetched these words from the bottom of her 30
breast: “Poor maiden! too, too cruel the penalty you
have paid for provoking the Teucrians to battle. Nought
has it bestead you at your need to have served Dian in the
forest, and carried on your shoulder the shafts of our sisterhood.
Yet not unhonoured has your queen left you even 35
here in death’s extremity; nor shall this your end be without
its glory in the world, nor yourself bear the ignominy
of the unrevenged; for he, whoever he be, whose wound
has profaned your person, shall atone it by the death he
has earned.” Under the lofty mountain’s shade there
stood a vast mound of earth, the tomb of Dercennus, an
old Laurentine king, shrouded with dark ilex: here the
beauteous goddess first alights with a rapid bound, and 5
spies out Arruns from the barrow’s height. Soon as she
saw him gleaming in his armour, and swelling with vanity,
“Why stray from the path?” cries she; “turn your feet
hitherward! come hither to your death, and receive
Camilla’s guerdon! Alack! and are you too to be slain 10
by the shafts of Dian?” She said, and with the skill of
Thracian maiden drew a swift arrow from her gilded quiver,
bent the bow with deadly aim, and drew it far apart, till
the arching ends met together, and with her two hands
she touched, the barb of steel with her left, her breast with 15
her right and the bowstring. Forthwith the hurtling of
the shaft and the rush of the breeze reached Arruns’ ear
at the moment the steel lodged in his body. Him gasping
and groaning his last his comrades leave unthinking in the
unmarked dust of the plain: Opis spreads her wings, and 20
is borne to skyey Olympus.
First flies, its mistress lost, Camilla’s light-armed company;
fly the Rutules in rout, flies keen Atinas; leaders
in disarray and troops in devastation make for shelter,
turn round, and gallop to the walls. None can sustain 25
in combat the Teucrians’ deadly onset or resist the stream;
they throw their unstrung bows on their unnerved
shoulders, and the hoof of four-foot steeds shakes the
crumbling plain. On rolls to the ramparts a cloud of dust,
thick and murky; and the matrons from their sentry-posts, 30
smiting on their breasts, raise a shriek as women
wont to the stars of heaven. Who first pour at speed
through the open gates are whelmed by a multitude of
foemen that blends its crowd with theirs; they scape not
the agony of death, but on the very threshold, with their 35
native walls around them, in the sanctuary of home, they
breathe away their lives. Some close the gates: they dare
not give ingress to their friends nor take them within the
walls, implore as they may: and a piteous carnage ensues,
these guarding the approach sword in hand, those rushing
on the sword’s point. Some, borne on by the deluge,
stream headlong into the moat; some in blind agony,
spurring their horses, charge as with battering-rams the 5
portals and their stubborn barriers. Nay, the very matrons
on the walls in the intensity of the struggle, prompted
by true patriot spirit at sight of Camilla, fling darts from
their quivering hands, and make hard oak-stakes and
seared truncheons do the work of steel, hot and headlong, 10
and fain would be the first to die for their city.
Meantime the cruel news floods Turnus’ ears in his forest-ambush,
as Acca tells the warrior her tale of mighty terror:
the Volscian ranks destroyed, Camilla slain, the enemy
coming on like a torrent, sweeping all before their victorious 15
onslaught, the alarm already wafted to the walls.
He, all on fire (for even such is Jove’s stern requirement),
quits his post on the hills, leaves the impregnable forest.
Scarce had he passed from their sight and occupied the
plain, when father Æneas, entering the unguarded pass, 20
scales the hill-top, and issues through the shadowy wood.
So the two rivals march cityward at full speed, each with
all his army, nor long is the intervening distance; at the
same moment Æneas looked far over the plains all smoking
with dust, and saw the host of Laurentum, and Turnus was 25
aware of fell Æneas in battle array, and heard the onward
tramp of feet and the neighing of steeds. Instantly they
were for closing in fight and throwing for the stake of combat;
but the time was come for reddening Phœbus to bathe
his wearied team in the Hiberian flood, and bring back 30
night on the steps of retreating day. So they encamp
before the city, and make their ramparts strong.
BOOK XII
When Turnus sees that the War-god’s enmity has
broken the spirit of Latium, that men are beginning to
claim his promise, and make him the mark of their eyes,
he bursts at once into fury unappeasable, and swells his
pride to the height. As in Punic land, when the hunters 5
have wounded him deep in the breast, the lion at last rouses
himself to fight, tosses with fierce joy his mane from his
neck, snaps fearlessly the brigand’s spear in the wound,
and roars from his gory mouth: even so, Turnus once
kindled, his vehemence grows each moment. Then he 10
addresses the king, and dashes hotly into speech: “Turnus
stops not the way: Æneas and his cowards have no plea
for retracting their challenge or disowning their plighted
word; I meet the combat; bring the sacred things, good
father, and solemnize the truce. Either will I with my own 15
right hand send the Dardan down to Tartarus, the runaway
from Asia—let the Latians sit by and see—and
with my single weapon refute the slander of a nation; or
let the vanquished own their master and Lavinia be the
conqueror’s bride.” 20
With calm dignity of soul the king makes answer:
“Gallant youth, the greater your impetuous valour, the
more watchful must needs be my foresight, the more
anxious my scrutiny of all that may happen. You have
your father Daunus’ kingdom, you have many a town 25
won by your own sword: I that speak have gold and a
heart to give it; in Latium and Laurentum’s land are other
unwedded maidens, of no unworthy lineage. Suffer me
without disguise to give voice to these unwelcome sayings,
and take home what I speak further: I was forbidden by 30
Fate to give my daughter to any of her early suitors;
so sang gods and men alike. Conquered by my love for
you, conquered by the ties of kindred and the sorrow of
my weeping queen, I set all pledges at naught, I snatched
the bride from her plighted husband. I drew the unhallowed 5
sword. From that fatal day you see what troubles,
what wars are let loose upon me; you know the weight of
the sufferings which _you_ are the first to feel. Twice vanquished
in a mighty conflict, we scarce protect by our bulwarks
the hopes of Italy: Tiber’s waters are yet steaming 10
with our blood, and the spacious plains are whitened by
our bones. Whither am I drifting again and again?
what madness turns my brain? If on the death of Turnus
I am ready to welcome these new allies, why should I not
end the strife while he lives and is safe? What will our 15
Rutulian kinsmen say, what the rest of Italy, if—may
Fortune forefend the omen!—I give you up to death,
you, a suitor for my alliance, for my daughter’s hand?
Think of the uncertainties of war; have pity on your aged
sire, now biding forlornly far away in his Ardean home!” 20
These words abate not Turnus’ vehemence a whit: it
starts up fiercer, more virulent for the healing hand.
Soon as he can find utterance, he thus begins: “The care
you take for my sake, best of fathers, lay down for my
sake, I beg, and suffer me to pledge my life for my honour. 25
My hand, too, can scatter darts and fling steel with no
feeble force; my blows, too, fetch blood. He will not have
his goddess-mother within call, to hide her craven son in an
unmanly cloud, and conceal herself by help of treacherous
shadows.” 30
But the queen, appalled by the new hazard of the combat,
was all in tears, clinging to her fiery son-in-law with
the convulsive grasp of death: “Turnus, by these my
tears, by any regard you cherish for Amata—you are
now our only hope, our only solace in our forlorn old age—the 35
honour and power of the king are in your hands;
on you, its one pillar, the whole house leans. I ask but
this—forbear to cross swords with the Teucrians. Whatever
chance waits on you in this unhappy combat, waits
on me, too, my Turnus; along with you I shall leave the
hated light, nor see in Æneas my son-in-law and my
conqueror.”
As Lavinia heard her mother’s voice, her glowing cheeks 5
were bathed in tears; a deep blush kindled a fire, and shot
over her flushing face. As when a man has stained Indian
ivory with blood-red purple, or like a bed of lilies and roses
mixed: such hues were seen on the maiden’s countenance.
He, bewildered with passion, fixes his eyes upon her: the 10
sight makes him burn the more for battle, and thus he
addresses Amata in brief: “Let me not have tears nor
aught so ominous, dear mother, as my escort to the iron
battle; Turnus is not free to postpone the call of death.
Go, Idmon, and bear the Phrygian despot a message that 15
will like him not: Soon as the goddess of to-morrow’s
dawn shall fire the sky with the glow of her chariot, let
him not spur the Teucrians against the Rutulians; let
Teucrian and Rutulian sheath their swords, while we
twain with our own life-blood decide the war. Let 20
Lavinia’s hand be sought and won in yonder field.”
So he spoke, and rushed back within doors: he calls for
his steeds, and joys to look on them snorting and neighing—the
steeds which Orithyia gave as a present to Pilumnus,
to surpass the snows in whiteness, the winds in speed. 25
Round them stand the bustling charioteers, patting their
chests with hollow palms and combing their maned necks.
Next he throws round his shoulders his hauberk, stiff
with scales of gold and dazzling orichalc,[282] and adjusts to
his wear the sword, the shield, and the cones of the crimson 30
crest—that sword the Fire-god’s own hand had made for
his father Daunus, and tempered it glowing in the Stygian
wave. Lastly, the spear which was standing in the
palace-hall, propped by a mighty column, the spoil of
Auruncan Actor, he seizes forcefully, sturdy as it is, 35
and shakes till it quivers, crying aloud: “Now, my good
spear, that hast never failed my call, now is the time;
once wast thou swayed by giant Actor, now by Turnus:
grant that I may lay low the emasculate Phrygian, strip
and rend his hauberk by strength of hand, and soil in the
dust those ringlets curled with hot iron and moist with
myrrh.” So he rages, fury-driven: sparks flash from the
furnace of his countenance, lightnings dart from his 5
fiery eyes; as when a bull in view of a fight raises fearful
bellowing, and calls up rage into his horns by butting against
a tree’s trunk, challenges the wind with his blows, and
spurns the flying sand in prelude for the fray.
With equal fierceness Æneas, clad in his mother’s 10
armour, sharpens valour’s edge, and lashes his heart with
wrath, joying that proffered truce should end the war.
Then he calms his comrades’ fear and the grief of Iulus,
talking of destiny, and sends envoys with an answer to the
Latian king, to name the conditions of peace. 15
Scarce had the next morrow begun to sprinkle the
mountain-tops with light, at the time when the sun’s
steeds first come up from the deep and breathe flakes of
radiance from their upturned nostrils, when Rutulians
and Teucrians were at work, measuring out lists for combat 20
under the ramparts of the mighty town, with hearths
in the midst, and altars of turf for their common gods.
Others were carrying fire and spring water, begirt with
aprons, vervain[283] wreaths on their brows. Forth moves
the Ausonian army, bands with lifted javelins issuing 25
from the crowded gates. From yonder quarters pours the
Trojan and Tuscan force, with the arms of their several
countries, harnessed as if summoned by the War-god’s
bloody fray. In the midst of either squadrons the generals
flash along, glorious in gold and purple, Mnestheus, 30
Assaracus’ seed, and Asilas the brave, and Messapus,
tamer of horses, the progeny of Neptune. At a given
signal each army retreats within its confines; spears are
fixed in the ground, and bucklers rested at ease. Matrons
in yearning eagerness, and unarmed masses, and tottering 35
old men, fill turret and roof, or stand by the lofty portals.
But Juno, from the top of the mount now styled Alban—in
those days it had no name, nor glory, nor honour—was
looking in prospect on the plain, the two armies,
Trojan and Laurentine, and the Latian town. At once
she addressed Turnus’ sister, a goddess herself, who presides
over the pool and the brawling stream—such dignity
Jove, the king of heaven, solemnly made hers in return for 5
violated maidenhood: “Sweet Nymph, glory of the rivers,
favourite of my heart, you know how I have preferred you
to all Latium’s daughters who have climbed the odious bed
of our great Master and have gladly given you a seat in the
sky; and now, Juturna, learn from me your sorrow, for 10
which I am not to blame. So long as Fortune seemed
favourable and Fate allowed Latium to prosper, I spread
my shield over Turnus and these your walls: now I see
the youth engaged with a destiny mightier than his own,
and the day of doom and the power of the enemy are at 15
hand. I cannot look on the combat, nor on the league
that ushers it in. If you have the nerve to dare aught for
your brother, go on; it is a sister’s part: perhaps the downtrodden
have a better lot in store.” Ere she had well
ended Juturna’s tears sprang forth, and thrice and again 20
her hand smote on her lovely breast. “No time for tears,”
cries Saturn’s daughter: “quick, and if any way there be,
snatch your brother from death: or at least revive the war—and
mar the treaty while yet on their lips. Remember,
I warrant the attempt.” With such advice she left her 25
wavering in purpose and staggering under the cruel blow.
Meantime the monarchs appear, the stately form of the
Latian king riding in a four-horse car, his brows gleaming
with a circle of twelve gilded rays, the cognizance of the Sun
his grandsire: Turnus is drawn by a snow-white pair, two 30
spears with broad iron points quivering in his hands. Then
comes father Æneas, the parent stock of the Roman tree,
blazing with his starry shield and celestial armour, and at
his side Ascanius, the second hope of mighty Rome, both
issuing from their camp: while a priest in stainless robe 35
has brought the young of a bristly boar and an unclipped
sheep of two years old, and placed the victims by the
blazing altar. They, turning their eyes to the rising sun,
offer the salted barley, score with the steel the brows of the
cattle, and make libations from their chargers. Then
thus prays good Æneas, his sword drawn in his hand:
“Let the Sun above and the Earth beneath witness my invocation, 5
this very Earth for which I have had the heart
to endure so much, and the almighty Sire, and thou, his
goddess-bride, Saturn’s daughter, now—may I hope it?—now
at last made gracious: thou, too, glorious Mars,
whose princely nod controls every battle: Springs also
and Rivers I invoke, all the majesty of the sky, all the 10
deities of the purple deep: if chance award the victory
to Turnus the Ausonian, reason claims that the vanquished
shall retire to Evander’s town: Iulus shall quit the land,
nor shall Æneas’ children in after-days draw the sword again,
or threaten this realm with war. But should conquest 15
vouchsafe to us the smiles of the battle-field, as I rather
deem, and pray that Heaven will rather grant, I will not bid
the Italians be subject to Troy, nor ask I the crown for
myself: no, let the two great nations, one unconquered as
the other, join on equal terms in an everlasting federation. 20
The gods and their ritual shall be my gift: let my good
father-in-law still wield the sword and the lawful rights of
empire: the Teucrians shall raise me a city, and Lavinia
shall give it her name.” Thus first Æneas: the Latian
king follows, with eyes lifted to heaven, and right hand 25
stretched to the stars: “I swear as you swore, Æneas,
by Land and Ocean and Lights above, Latona’s twofold
offspring, and two-faced Janus, the potency of the gods
below and the shrine of relentless Pluto: and let the
Father too give ear, who ratifies covenants with thunder. 30
My hand is on the altars; I adjure the fires and powers
that part us: so far as rests with Italy, no length of time
shall break this bond of friendship, let things issue as they
may: no violence shall make me swerve in will, not though
deluge and chaos come again, ruining the earth into the 35
water and crushing down heaven into Tartarus: even
as this sceptre”—for a sceptre chanced to be in his hand—“shall
never more burgeon with light foliage into branch
or shade, now that once cut down in the woods it is orphaned
of that which gave it life, and has resigned to the
axe its leaves and its sprays—once a tree, now the workman’s
hand has cased it with seemly brass, and given it to
be wielded by Latium’s elders.” With words like these 5
were they ratifying the treaty, all the nobles looking on.
Then, as the rite ordains, they cut the throats of the
hallowed’ victims into the fire, flay the yet breathing flesh,
and pile the altars with laden chargers.
But the Rutulians have long been thinking the combat 10
unequal: their bosoms are swayed by rival emotions,
all the more, the nearer they observe the ill-matched
champions. Turnus aids the feeling by the quietness of
his step and the downcast reverential look which he turns
on the altar, his wan cheeks, and the pallor of his youthful 15
frame. Soon as his sister Juturna heard such whispers
spreading, and saw the hearts of the multitude wavering
to and fro, she plunges among the ranks, taking the form
of Camers, great in ancestral dignity, great in the name of
his father’s worth, and himself a valiant warrior—plunges 20
among the ranks, knowing well what she would have, and
scatters her sayings abroad in words like these: “Blush
ye not, Rutulians, with souls such as yours, to make one a
sacrifice for all? are we not equal to our foes in strength or
in numbers? See, here is their whole army, Trojan 25
and Arcadian, aye, and that fated band of Eturia, which
seeks Turnus’ life. Though but half of us should engage,
each would scarce have an enemy to fight with. He, no
doubt, will rise on the wings of fame to the gods for whose
altars he gives himself to die, and will live in the mouths 30
of men: we, stripped of our country, shall be the slaves of
haughty masters, we, I say, now seated passively on the
ground.” By such words the flame is fanned more and
more in those young warrior hearts, and murmurs run
from rank to rank: not Rutulian alone, but Laurentian and 35
Latian are changed men. They who a short while since
were hoping for their own repose and their state’s prosperity,
now burn for arms, would have the treaty undone,
and pity Turnus’ cruel fate. And now Juturna gives them
one thing more, even a sign from heaven, no spell so potent
to work on Italian minds and make them dupes of the
marvel. Flying through the ruddy sky, Jove’s golden
bird was chasing the river fowl, a winged noisy multitude, 5
when suddenly swooping on the water he carries off in
his tyrant claws a stately swan. The Italians are all
attention, when lo! the whole mass of birds face about with
a scream, marvellous to see, their wings darkening the air,
and in dense cloud press on their enemy, till overborne by 10
sheer weight he gives way, drops the booty from his talons
into the river, flying aloft, and vanishes in the distant sky.
Oh, then the Rutulians welcome the omen with a shout and
spread their hands on high; and first of all cries the augur
Tolumnius. “Here, here is the thing I have prayed for so 15
often. I embrace it, I own the hand of Heaven. Follow
me—yes, me—and seize your weapons, my poor countrymen,
whom the felon stranger is scaring with battle, as if
ye were feeble birds, and ravaging your coasts. He too
will turn to flight and sail far away on the deep. Close 20
your ranks with one accord, and rally round the prince
of whom the battle robs you.” He spoke, and running forward
hurls his dart full at the enemy: the hurtling cornel
sounds, and cuts the air on no doubtful errand. A deafening
shout follows on the act, the ranks are confused, 25
and men’s hearts stirred with mad bewilderment. On flew
the spear, just where nine goodly brethren chanced to
stand facing it, all born of one true Tuscan mother to
Gylippus the Arcadian. One of these just at the waist
where the quilted belt chafes against the belly and the 30
buckle presses the sides—a youth of goodly form and
clad in refulgent armour—it strikes through the ribs
and lays him grovelling on the yellow sand. But his
brothers, a gallant company and stung by grief, draw their
swords or seize their javelins, and charge in headlong fury. 35
To meet them rush the Laurentian columns: while from
their side surge forth in a flood Trojans and Agyllans and
Arcadians with inlaid harness. All are possessed by one
passion, to try the issue with the steel. The altars are
stripped bare: through the whole sky drives a flickering
storm of weapons and an iron sleet comes thick: bowls
and hearths are carried away. King Latinus flies, bearing
away his gods in discomfiture, the truce unratified. 5
Others rein the chariot or vault on horseback, with swords
ready drawn.
Messapus, all on fire to annul the treaty, spurs his horse
full on the Tuscan Aulestes, a king and wearing kingly
cognizance: he draws quickly back, and gets entangled 10
in piteous sort with the altars that meet him behind,
falling on them head and shoulders. Up flashes Messapus
spear in hand, and towering on horseback brings down on
him the massy beam in the midst of his prayers, and delivers
himself thus: “He is sped: here is a better victim for the 15
mighty gods.” The Italians cluster round, and strip the
yet warm body. As Ebusus comes up and aims a blow,
Corynæus meets him with a brand half-burnt from the
altar and dashes the fire in his face: his long beard burst
into a blaze and made a smell of burning hair: the enemy 20
presses on, grasps in his left hand the locks of the wildered
man and with the impact of his knee pins him to earth;
then buries the stark falchion in his side. Podalirius
gives chase to Alsus the shepherd as he rushed in the first
rank through a shower of darts, and hangs over him with 25
naked sword: he, swinging back his axe, splits full in front
the foe’s forehead and chin, and splashes his arms right
and left with the blood. The heavy rest of iron slumber
settles down on the dying eyes, and their beams are curtained
in everlasting night. 30
But good Æneas, his head bare, was stretching forth
his unarmed hand and shouting to his men: “Whither are
you driving? what is this sudden outburst of strife? Oh,
curb your passions! the truce is stricken, and all the terms
arranged: none but I has a right to engage: give way to 35
me and have done with alarm: my sword shall ratify the
treaty: this sacrifice has put Turnus in my power.”
While he is crying thus and uttering words like these, lo!
full at the chief flies a hurtling arrow, none knew by
what hand launched, by what wind wafted, who graced
the Rutulians so highly, chance or deity: the glory of the
proud achievement was lost, nor was any known to boast
of having wounded Æneas. 5
Soon as Turnus sees Æneas retiring from the battle,
and the Trojan leaders in confusion, he glows with swift
access of hope, calls for horses and armour, bounds like a
conqueror into the chariot, and takes the reins in hand.
Many a heroic frame he slaughters as he whirls along, many 10
he tumbles and leaves to live or die, crushes whole ranks
by the onset of his car, or plucks forth spears and hurls
them at the fliers. Just as storming along by Hebrus’ icy
flood gore-stained Mars smites on his shield, and stirring
battle lets loose his fiery steeds: they fly over the plains 15
faster than winds southern or western: Thrace groans to
her extremity under the beat of their hoofs: around him
circle the frowns of black-visaged Terror, and the powers
of Wrath and Treachery, liege followers of the god: with
like eagerness through the thickest of the battle Turnus 20
whirls his straining horses, trampling in piteous sort on the
slaughtered foe: the flying hoof spirts gory dew, and blood
and sand are kneaded in a mass. Sthenelus he has slain
already, and Thamyris and Pholus, these hand to hand,
that from a distance: a distant death, too, has found the 25
Imbrasidæ, Glaucus and Lades, trained in Lycia by
Imbrasus their sire, and by him harnessed alike, warriors
who could stand and fight or outride the winds. In another
part of the field Eumedes is riding through the fray, the
gallant son of ancient Dolon, with the name of his grandsire, 30
the heart and hand of his sire, who of old, offering
to spy out the Danaan camp, dared to ask Achilles’
chariot as his guerdon; far other guerdon was it with
which Diomed requited his daring, and his hopes are set on
Achilles’ steeds no longer. Marking him at distance along 35
the plain, Turnus first sends after him a flying spear
through the intervening space, then stops the car and dismounts,
comes on the wretch gasping and laid low, and
setting his foot on his neck, wrests the sword from his hand,
bathes it flashing deep in his throat, and thus accompanies
the blow: “Lie there, Trojan, and measure the Hesperian
soil you came to invade: such are their guerdons who
draw their swords on me; so build they up their city.” 5
Then with a spear throw he sends Asbutes to join the dead.
Chloreus and Sybaris and Dares and Thersilochus, Thymœtes
too, thrown off by a restiff horse. As when the
blast of Thracian Boreas roars on the deep Ægean and
drives the billows to the shore, wherever the winds push 10
on, the clouds scurry over the sky, so when Turnus cleaves
his path, the ranks give way, the armies turn in rout; the
motion bears him along, and the gale which blows on the
car tosses his flickering crest. Phegeus, indignant at his
overweening onset, meets the car and grasping the bridle 15
wrenches aside the foaming jaws of the impetuous steeds.
While he is dragged along clinging to the yoke, the broad
spear-head reaches his unguarded breast, cleaves the two-plated
corslet, and tastes the surface of the flesh. Yet he,
his shield before him, kept fronting and threatening the 20
foe, and protecting himself with his drawn sword, when
the wheel careering onward strikes and flings him on the
ground, and Turnus with a sweep of his blade between
the bottom of the helmet and the breastplate’s topmost
rim has lopped the head and left the trunk to welter. 25
While Turnus thus is dealing havoc over the field,
Mnestheus, true Achates, and Ascanius have helped Æneas
to the camp, all bleeding, and staying his halting steps
by the help of a spear. There he frets and struggles to
pull out the broken shaft, and calls for help the readiest 30
way, bidding them enlarge the wound with a broad sword,
cut the weapon’s lodgment to the bottom, and send him
to combat again. And now at his side was Iapis, son of
Iasus, dearest of mankind to Phœbus, he to whom the
god in his passionate fondness would fain have given his 35
own function, his own hand’s cunning, the augur’s insight,
the lyre, the weapons of archery; but he, wishing
to lengthen out the span of his bed-rid sire, chose rather
to know the virtue of simples and the laws of the healing
art, and to practise in silence an unambitious craft.
There stood Æneas, fretting impatiently, propped on his
massy spear, with a warrior concourse about him, and
Iulus all in tears, yet himself unmoved by their sorrow. 5
The aged leech, his garments swathed round him in
Pæon’s fashion, is plying busily the healing hand and
Phœbus’ sovereign remedies all to no end, all to no end
pulling at the dart and griping the steel with the pincer.
No Fortune guides the course of skill, no patron Phœbus 10
lends his aid; and meanwhile the fierce alarms of the field
grow louder and louder, and the mischief is nearer at
hand. They see dust-clouds propping the sky, the horsemen
gallop in, darts fall thick in the midst of the camp,
and heavenward mounts the cruel din of warriors battling 15
or falling in the stern affray:—when, lo! Venus, struck
to the heart by her son’s undeserved suffering, with a
mother’s care plucks dittany[284] from Cretan Ida, a plant
with downy leaves and a purple flower: wild goats know
that simple well, if the flying arrow should lodge in their 20
flesh. Veiled by a dim cloud, the goddess brings it down;
with it she impregnates the spring water gleaming in the
caldron, imparting unseen powers, and sprinkles ambrosia’s[285]
healthful juice and fragrant panacea. The old
man rinsed the wound with the water so transformed, all 25
unwitting, and in a moment all pain was fled from the
frame, and the blood was stanched in the wound. The
arrow obeys the hand, and falls unforced, and strength is
restored as before. “Quick! give the warrior his arms!
why so tardy?” cries Iapis, himself the first to stir up 30
the martial spirit. “No human aid has done this, no
power of leech-craft; it is not my hand, Æneas, that
restores you; a mightier power than man’s is at work,
sending you back to mightier deeds.” The chief, greedy
for the fight, has cased his legs in gold, chafing at delay 35
and brandishing his spear. Soon as the shield is fitted
to his side, the cuirass to his back, he clasps Ascanius to
his mailed breast, and kissing his lips through the helmet
addresses him thus: “Learn valour from me, my son,
and genuine hardihood, success from others. To-day it is
my hand that shall shield you in war and lead you through
the walks of honour; be it your care, when your age has
ripened into manhood, to bear the past in mind, seek 5
patterns among those of your own blood, and be stirred
to action by Æneas your sire and Hector your uncle.”
So having said, he passed towering through the gate,
a huge spear quivering in his hand: Antheus and Mnestheus
close their ranks and rush forth, and the whole 10
multitude streams from the empty camp. The field is
clouded by blinding dust, and earth throbs and shudders
with the tramp of feet. Turnus saw them coming towards
him from their battlements, the Ausonians saw, and a
cold shudder ran through their vitals: first before all the 15
Latians Juturna heard and knew the sound and shrank
back in terror. As a storm-cloud bursting through the
sky sweeps down to earth along the main: hapless husbandmen
know it ere it comes, and shudder at heart;
yes, it will bring havoc to their trees, devastation to their 20
crops, will lay all low far and wide; the winds fly before
it and waft the sound to the shore: with as strong a rush
the Rhœteian chief sweeps his army full on the foe; they
close in firm masses and form severally at his side. Thymbræus’
sword cuts down mighty Osiris, Mnestheus slays 25
Archetius, Achates Epulo, and Gyas Ufens; falls too the
augur Tolumnius, the first to fling his javelin at the
enemy. The din mounts to the sky, and the Rutulians
routed in turn fly through the plains in a whirlwind of
dust. The hero himself neither stoops to slaughter the 30
flying nor encounter such as would fain meet him foot to
foot, weapon in hand: Turnus alone he tracks winding
through the thick darkness, him alone he challenges to
combat. The terror struck Juturna’s manly mind: she
plucks from his seat Metiscus, Turnus’ charioteer, as he 35
drives the horses, and leaves him fallen at distance behind
the car: herself takes his place and handles the
flowing rein, assuming all that Metiscus had, voice and
person and armour. Like a black swallow that flies
through the house of some wealthy man and traverses
the lofty hail, in quest of scraps of food for her twittering
nestlings; now she is heard in the empty cloisters, now
about the watertanks; so drives Juturna through the 5
thick of the foe, and flies on rapid wheel from spot to
spot, now here, now there she gives a glimpse of her victorious
brother, yet never lets him stop and fight, but
whirls far away in the distance. Æneas for his part
winds through sinuous paths in hope to meet him, tracks 10
his steps, and shouts to him aloud across the weltering
ranks. Oft as he spies out the foe and tries by running
to match the horses’ winged speed, each time Juturna
wheels the car aside. What can he do? he tosses in aimless
ebb and flow, thoughts distracting his mind this 15
way and that:—when lo! Messapus, with sudden movement,
happening to carry two limber spear-shafts tipped
with steel, levels one at him and flings it true to its mark.
Æneas stopped and gathered his arms about him, sinking
on his knee; yet the fierce spear took the top of the 20
helmet and struck the crest from the cone. Then at last
his wrath mounts high; and under the duresse of treachery,
as he sees the steeds and chariot whirling away from him,
after many an appeal to Jove and the altars of the violated
league, he falls on the ranks before him, and fanned 25
to dreadful vengeance by the War-god’s breath, lets loose
a carnage cruel and unsparing, and flings the reins on the
neck of his passion.
And now what god will tell me all those horrors and
relate for me in verse the several scenes of slaughter, the 30
deaths of the leaders whom Turnus here, the Trojan hero
there, is chasing over the plain? Was it thy will, great
Jove, that nations destined in time to come to everlasting
amity should first clash in such dread turmoil? Æneas
confronted by Rutulian Sucro[o] (that combat first brought 35
the Trojan onset to a stand) after brief delay catches him
on the side and drives his stubborn sword death’s nearest
way through the ribs that fence the bosom. Turnus in
foot-encounter slays Amycus, whose horse had thrown
him, and his brother Diores, striking one with the spear
ere he came up, the other with the swordblade, lops the
heads of both, hangs them from his car, and carries them
dripping with blood. That sends down Talos to death 5
and Tanais and brave Cethegus, those at one onslaught,
and hapless Onytes, of the house of Echion, brought forth
by Peridia: that kills the brethren who came from
Apollo’s land of Lycia, and young Menœtes the Arcadian,
who shrunk from war in vain; he plied his craft and lived 10
in poverty by the fishy waters of Lerna, a stranger to the
halls of the great; and his father tilled land for hire.
Like two fires launched from different quarters on a dry
forest with bushes of crackling bay, or as when two foaming
rivers pouring from lofty heights crash along and run 15
towards the ocean, each ploughing his own wild channel:
with no less fury rush through the fight Æneas and
Turnus both: now, now the wrath is boiling within them:
their unconquered bosoms swell to bursting: they throw
their whole force on the wounds they deal. This with 20
the whirl and the blow of a mighty rock dashes Murranus
headlong from his car to the ground, Murranus who had
ever on his tongue the ancient names of sires and grandsires
and a lineage stretching through the series of Latium’s
kings: the wheels throw forward the fallen man under the 25
reins and yoke, and he is crushed by the quick hoof-beat
of the steeds that mind not their lord. That meets
Hyllus as he rushed on in vehement fury, and hurls a
javelin at his gold-bound brows: the spear pierced the
helmet and stood fixed in the brain. Nor did your 30
prowess, Cretheus, bravest of Greeks, deliver you from
Turnus, nor did the gods Cupencus worshipped shield
him from the onset of Æneas: his bosom met the steel,
and the check of the brazen buckler stood the wretch in
small stead. You, too, great Æolus, the Laurentian 35
plains looked on in death, spreading your frame abroad
over their surface: fallen are you, whom the Argive bands
could never overthrow, nor Achilles the destroyer of
Priam’s realm: here was your fatal goal: a princely
home under Ida’s shade: at Lyrnesus a princely hope, in
Laurentian soil a sepulchre. The two armies are in hot
conflict: all the Latians, all the sons of Dardanus, Mnestheus, 5
and keen Serestus, and Messapus tamer of the steed,
and brave Asilas, the Tuscan band, and Evander’s Arcad
cavalry, each man for himself straining every nerve: no
stint, no stay; they strive with giant tension.
And now Æneas had a thought inspired by his beauteous
mother, to march to the walls, throw his force 10
rapidly on the town, and stun the Latians with a sudden
blow. Tracking Turnus through the ranks he swept his
eyes round and round, and beholds the city enjoying
respite from all that furious war, and lying in unchallenged
repose. At once his mind is fired with the vision of a 15
grander battle: Mnestheus he summons and Sergestus
and brave Serestus, the first in command, and mounts an
eminence round which the rest of the Teucrian army
gathers in close ranks, not laying shield or dart aside.
Standing on the tall mound, he thus bespeaks them: 20
“Let nothing stay my orders; the hand of Jove is here;
nor let any move slower because the enterprise is sudden.
The town, the cause of the war, the royal home of the
Latian king, unless they submit the yoke and confess
themselves vanquished, I will overthrow this day, and lay 25
its smoking turrets level with the ground. What? am I
to wait till Turnus choose to bide the combat, and once
conquered, meet me a second time? This, my men, is
the well-spring, this the head and front of the monstrous
war. Bring torches with speed, and reclaim the treaty 30
fire in hand.” He said, and all with emulous spirit of
union close their ranks and stream to the walls in compact
mass. Scaling ladders and brands are produced
suddenly and in a moment. Some run to the several
gates and slay those stationed there: some hurl the steel 35
and overshadow the sky with javelins. Æneas himself
among the foremost lifts up his hand under the city wall,
loudly upbraids the king, and calls the gods to witness
that he is once more forced into battle, the Italians twice
his foes, the second treaty broken like the first. Strife
arises among the wildered citizens: some are for throwing
open the town and unbarring the gates to the Dardans:
nay, they even drag the monarch to the ramparts: others 5
draw the sword and prepare to guard the walls: as when
a countryman has tracked out bees concealed in a cavernous
rock and filled their hiding-place with pungent smoke,
they in alarm for the common wealth flit about their
waxen realm and stir themselves to wrath by vehement 10
buzzing: the murky smell winds from chamber to chamber:
a dull blind noise fills the cavern: vapours ascend
into the void of air.
Yet another stroke fell on Latium’s wearied sons,
shaking with its agony the city to her foundations. When 15
the queen from her palace saw the enemy draw near, the
walls assailed, flames flying roofward, the Rutulian army,
the soldiers of Turnus nowhere in sight, she deemed, poor
wretch, her warrior slain in the combat, and maddened
with the access of grief, cries aloud that she alone is the 20
guilty cause, the fountainhead of all this evil; and flinging
out wild words in the fury of her frenzied anguish,
rends with desperate hand her purple raiment, and fastens
from a lofty beam the noose of hideous death. Soon as
Latium’s wretched dames knew the blow that had fallen, 25
her daughter Lavinia is first to rend yellow hair and
roseate cheek, and the rest about her ran as wildly: the
palace re-echoes their wail. The miserable story spreads
through the town: every heart sinks: there goes the old
king with garments rent, all confounded by his consort’s 30
death and his city’s ruin: he soils his hoary locks with
showers of unseemly dust, and oft and oft upbraids himself
that he embraced not sooner Æneas the Dardan nor
took him for son-in-law of his own free will.
Turnus, meantime, is plying the war far away on the 35
plain, following here and there a straggler with abated
zeal, himself and his steeds alike less buoyant. The air
wafted to him the confused din, inspiring unknown terror,
and on his quickened ears smote the sound of the city’s
turmoil and the noise not of joy. “Alas! what is this
mighty agony that shakes the walls? what these loud
shouts pouring from this quarter and that?” So he cries,
and drawing his bridle halts bewildered. His sister, just 5
as she stood in guise of Metiscus the driver, guiding car,
horse, and reins, thus meets his question: “Proceed we
still, Turnus, to chase the Trojans, where victory’s dawn
shows us the way: others there are whose hands can
guard the city: Æneas bears down on the Italians and 10
stirs up the battle: let us send havoc as cruel among his
Teucrians: so shall your slain be as many and your martial
fame as high.” Turnus answered: “Sister, I both
knew you long since, when at first you artfully disturbed
the truce and flung yourself into our quarrel, and now 15
you vainly hide the goddess from my eyes. But tell me
by whose will you are sent from Olympus to cope with
toils like this? Is it that you may look on the cruel end
of your hapless brother? For what can I do? what
chance is there left to give me hope of safety? With my 20
own eyes I saw Murranus die, his giant frame laid low
by a giant wound: he called me by name, he, than whom
I had no dearer friend. Dead, too, is ill-starred Ufens,
all because he would not see me disgraced: his body and
his arms are the Teucrians’ prize. Am I to let the nation’s 25
homes be razed to the ground, the one drop that was
wanting to the cup, and not rather with my own right
hand give Drances’ words the lie? Shall I turn my back?
shall this land see Turnus flying? is death after all so
bitter? Be gracious to me, gentle powers of the grave, 30
since the gods above are against me! Yes, I will come
down to you a stainless spirit, guiltless of that base charge,
worthy in all my acts of my great forefathers.”
Scarce had he spoken, when lo! there flies through the
midst of the foe, on a foaming steed, Saces, with an arrow 35
full in his face: up he spurs, imploring Turnus by name:
“Turnus, our last hope is in you: have compassion on
your army. Æneas thunders with sword and spear, and
threatens that he will level in dust and give to destruction
the Italians’ topmost battlements: even now brands
are flying to the roofs. Every Latian face, every eye
turns to you: the king himself mutters in doubt whom
to call his son-in-law, to whose alliance to incline. Nay, 5
more, your fastest friend the queen is dead by her own
hand, scared and driven out of life. Only Messapus and
keen Atinas are at the gates to uphold our forces. About
them are closed ranks, and an iron harvest of naked
blades: you are rolling your car over a field from which 10
war has ebbed.” Turnus stood still with silent dull regard,
wildered by the thoughts that crowd on his mind:
deep shame, grief and madness, frenzy-goaded passion
and conscious wrath all surging at once. Soon as the
shadows parted and light came back to his intelligence, 15
he darted his blazing eyes cityward with restless vehemence,
and looked back from his car to the wide-stretching
town. Lo! there was a cone of fire spreading from story
to story and flaring to heaven: the flame was devouring
the turret which he had built himself of planks welded 20
together, put wheels beneath it, and furnished it with
lofty bridges. “Fate is too strong for me, sister, too
strong: hold me back no longer: we needs must follow
where Heaven and cruel Fortune are calling us. Yes, I
_will_ meet Æneas: I will endure the full bitterness of 25
death: no more, my love, shall you see me disgraced:
suffer me first to have my hour of madness.” He said,
and in a moment leapt to the ground, rushes on through
foes, through javelins, leaves his sister to her sorrow, and
dashes at full speed through the intervening ranks. Even 30
as from a mountain’s top down comes a rock headlong,
torn off by the wind, or washed down by vehement rain,
or loosened by the lapse of creeping years; down the steep
it crashes with giant impulse, that reckless stone, bounding
over the ground and rolling along with it trees, herds, 35
and men: so, dashing the ranks apart, rushes Turnus to
the city walls, where the earth is wet with plashy blood,
and the gale hurtles with spears: he beckons with his
hand, and cries with a mighty voice: “Have done, ye
Rutulians! ye Latians, hold back your darts! whatever
Fortune brings she brings to me: ’tis juster far that I in
your stead should singly expiate the treaty’s breach and
try the issue of the steel.” All at the word part from the 5
midst, and leave him a clear space.
But father Æneas, hearing Turnus’ name, quits his
hold on the walls and the battlements that crown them,
flings delay to the winds and breaks off the work of war,
steps high in triumph, and makes his arms peal dread 10
thunder: vast as Athos, vast as Eryx, vast as father
Apennine himself, when he roars with his quivering holms[286]
and lifts his snowy crest exultingly to the sky. All turn
their eyes with eager contention. Rutulians, Trojans, and
Italians, those alike who were manning the towers and 15
those whose battering-rams were assailing the foundations.
All unbrace their armour. Latinus himself stands amazed
to see two men so mighty, born in climes so distant each
from each, thus met together to try the steel’s issue. At
once, when a space is cleared on the plain, first hurling 20
their spears, they advance with swift onset, and dash into
the combat with shield and ringing harness. Earth groans
beneath them; their swords hail blow on blow: chance
and valour mingle pell-mell. As when on mighty Sila or
Taburnus’ summit two bulls, lowering their brows for 25
combat, engage fiercely: the herdsmen retreat in dread:
the cattle all stand dumb with terror, the heifers wait in
suspense who is to be the monarch of the woodland,
whom the herds are to follow henceforth: they each in
turn give furious blows, push and lodge their horns, and 30
bathe neck and shoulders with streams of blood: the
sound makes the forest bellow again: with no less fury
Æneas the Trojan, and the Daunian chief clash shield on
shield: the enormous din fills the firmament. Jupiter
himself holds aloft his scales poised and level, and lays 35
therein the destinies of the two, to see whom the struggle
dooms, and whose the weight that death bears down.
Forth darts Turnus, deeming it safe, rises with his whole
frame on the uplifted sword, and strikes, Trojans and
eager Latians shout aloud: both armies gaze expectant.
But the faithless sword snaps in twain and fails its fiery
lord midway in the stroke, unless flight should come to
his aid. Off he flies swifter than the wind, seeing an unknown 5
hilt in his defenceless hand. Men say that in his
headlong haste, when first he was mounting the car harnessed
for battle, he left behind his father’s falchion and
snatched up the steel of Metiscus, his charioteer: so long
as the Teucrians fled straggling before him, the weapon 10
did good service; soon as it came to the divine Vulcanian
armour, the mortal blade, like brittle ice, flew asunder at
the stroke: the fragments sparkle on the yellow sand.
So now in his distraction Turnus flies here and there
over the plain, weaving vague circles in this place and in 15
that: for the Trojans have closed in circle about him,
and here is a spreading marsh, there lofty ramparts to
bar the way.
Nor is Æneas wanting, though at times the arrow
wound slackens his knees and robs them of their power 20
to run: no, he follows on, and presses upon the flier foot
for foot: as when a hound has got a stag pent in by a
river, or hedged about by the terror of crimson plumage,
and chases him running and barking: the stag, frighted
by the snare and the steep bank, doubles a thousand times: 25
the keen Umbrian clings open-mouthed to his skirts, all
but seizes him, and as though in act to seize, snaps his
teeth, and is baffled to find nothing in their gripe. Then,
if ever, uprises a shout, echoing along bank and marsh,
and heaven rings again with the noise. Turnus, even as 30
he flies, calls fiercely on the Rutulians, addressing by
name, and clamors for his well-known sword. Æneas,
for his part, threatens death and instant destruction,
should any come near, and terrifies his trembling foes,
swearing that he will raze their city to the ground, and 35
presses on in spite of his wound. Five times they circle
round, five times they retrace the circle: for no trivial
prize is at stake, no guerdon of a game: the contest is
for Turnus’ life, for his very heart’s blood. It chanced
that there had stood there a wild olive with its bitter
leaves, sacred to Faunus, a tree in old days reverenced by
seamen, where when saved from ocean they used to fasten
their offerings to the Laurentian god and hang up their 5
votive garments: but the unrespecting Trojans had lately
lopped the hallowed trunk, that the lists might be clear
for combat. There was lodged Æneas’ spear: thither its
force had carried it, and was now holding it fast in the
unyielding root. The Dardan chief bent over it, fain to 10
wrench forth the steel that his weapon may catch whom
his foot cannot overtake. Then cried Turnus in the
moment of frenzied agony: “Have mercy, I conjure thee,
good Faunus, and thou, most gracious earth, hold fast
the steel if I have ever reverenced your sanctities, which 15
Æneas’ crew for their part have caused battle to desecrate.”
He said, nor were his vows unanswered by heavenly aid.
Hard as he struggled, long as he lingered over the stubborn
stock, by no force could Æneas make the wood unclose
its fangs. While he strains with keen insistence, the 20
Daunian goddess, resuming the guise of charioteer Metiscus,
runs forward and restores to her brother his sword.
Then Venus, resenting the freedom taken by the presumptuous
Nymph, came nigh, and plucks the weapon
from the depth of the root. And now towering high, 25
with restored weapons and recruited force, this in strong
reliance on his sword, that fiercely waving his spear tall
as he, the two stand front to front in the breath-draining
conflict of war.
Meanwhile the king of almighty Olympus accosts Juno, 30
as from a golden cloud she gazes on the battle: “Where
is this to end, fair spouse? what last stroke have you in
store? you know yourself, by your own confession, that
Æneas has his place assured in heaven among Italia’s
native gods, that destiny is making him a ladder to the 35
stars. What plan you now? what hope keeps you seated
on those chilly clouds? was it right that mortal wound
should harm a god, or that Turnus—for what power
could Juturna have apart from you?—should receive
back his lost sword and the vanquished should feel new
forces? At length have done, and let my prayers bow
your will. Let this mighty sorrow cease to devour you
in silence: let me hear sounds of sullen disquiet less often 5
from your lovely lips. The barrier has been reached.
To toss the Trojans over land and sea, to kindle an unhallowed
war, to plunge a home in mourning, to blend a
dirge with the bridal song, this it has been yours to do:
all further action I forbid.” So spake Jupiter: and so in 10
return Saturn’s daughter with downcast look: “Even
because I knew, great Jove, that such was your pleasure,
have I withdrawn against my will from Turnus and from
earth: else you would not see me now in the solitude of
my airy throne, exposed to all that comes, meet or unmeet: 15
armed with firebrands, I should stand in the very
line of battle, and force the Teucrians into the hands of
their foes. As for Juturna, I counselled her, I own, to
succour her wretched brother, and warranted an unusual
venture where life was at stake: but nought was said of 20
aiming the shaft or bending the bow: I swear by the inexpiable
fountain-head of Styx, the one sanction that
binds us powers above. And now I yield indeed, and
quit this odious struggle. Yet there is a boon I would
ask, a boon which destiny forefends not. I ask it for 25
the sake of Latium, for the dignity of your own people:
when at last peace shall be ratified with a happy bridal,
for happy let it be: when bonds of treaty shall be knit
at last, let it not be thy will that the native Latians
should change their ancient name, become Trojans or 30
take the Teucrian style: let not them alter their language
or their garb. Let there be Latium still: let there be
centuries of Alban kings: let there be a Roman stock,
strong with the strength of Italian manhood: but let
Troy be fallen as she is, name and nation alike.” The 35
Father of men and nature answered with a smile: “Aye,
you are Jove’s own sister, the other branch of Saturn’s
line; such billows of passion surge in your bosom! but
come,—let this ineffectual frenzy give way: I grant your
wish, and submit myself in willing obedience. The
Ausonians shall keep their native tongue, their native
customs: the name shall remain as it is: the Teucrians
shall merge in the nation they join—that and no more: 5
their rites and worship shall be my gift: all shall be Latians
and speak the Latian tongue. The race that shall arise
from this admixture of Ausonian blood shall transcend in
piety earth and heaven itself, nor shall any nation pay
you such honours as they.” Juno nodded assent, and 10
turned her sullenness to pleasure; meanwhile she departs
from the sky, and quits the cloud where she sat.
This done, the sire meditates a further resolve, and
prepares to part Juturna from her brother’s side. There
are two fiends known as the Furies, whom with Tartarean 25
Megæra dismal Night brought forth at one and the same
birth, wreathing them alike with coiling serpents, and
equipping them with wings that fan the air. They are
seen beside Jove’s throne, at the threshold of his angry
sovereignty, goading frail mortality with stings of terror, 20
oft as the monarch of the gods girds himself to send forth
disease and frightful death, or appals guilty towns with
war. One of these Jove sped with haste from heaven’s
summit, and bade her confront Juturna in token of his
will. Forth she flies, borne earthward on the blast of a 25
whirlwind. Swift as the arrow from the string cleaves
the cloud, sent forth by Parthian—Parthian or Cydonian—tipped
with fell poison’s gall, the dealer of a wound
incurable, and skims the flying vapours hurtling and unforeseen,
so went the Daughter of Night and made her 30
way to earth. Soon as she sees the forces of Troy and
the army of Turnus, she huddles herself suddenly into the
shape of a puny bird, which oft on tombstone or lonely
roof sitting by night screams restlessly through the gloom;
in this disguise the fiend again and again flies flapping in 35
Turnus’ face, and beats with her wings on his shield. A
strange chilly terror unknits his frame, his hair stands
shudderingly erect, and his utterance cleaves to his jaws.
But when Juturna knew from far the rustling of those
Fury pinions, she rends, hapless maid, her dishevelled
tresses, marring, in all a sister’s agony, her face with her
nails, her breast with her clenched hands: “What now,
my Turnus, can your sister avail? what more remains for 5
an obdurate wretch like me? by what expedient can I
lengthen your span? can I face a portent like this? At
last, at last I quit the field. Cease to appal my fluttering
soul, ye birds of ill omen: I know the flapping of your
wings and its deathful noise; nor fail I to read great 10
Jove’s tyrannic will. Is this his recompense for lost virginity?
why gave he me life to last for ever? why was
the law of death annulled? else might I end this moment
the tale of my sorrows, and travel to the shades hand in
hand with my poor brother. Can immortality, can aught 15
that I have to boast give me joy without him? Oh, that
earth would but yawn deep enough, and send me down,
goddess though I be, to the powers of the grave!” So
saying, she shrouded her head in her azure robe, with many
a groan, and vanished beneath the river of her deity. 20
Æneas presses on, front to front, shaking his massy,
tree-like spear, and thus speaks in the fierceness of his
spirit: “What is to be the next delay? why does Turnus
still hang back? ours is no contest of speed, but of stern
soldiership, hand to hand. Take all disguises you can; 25
muster all your powers of courage or of skill: mount on
wing, if you list, to the stars aloft, or hide in the cavernous
depth of earth.” Shaking his head, he replied: “I quail
not at your fiery words, insulting foe: it is Heaven that
makes me quail, and Jove my enemy.” No more he 30
spoke: but, sweeping his eyes round, espies a huge stone,
a stone ancient and huge, which chanced to be lying on
the plain, set as some field’s boundary, to forefend disputes
of ownership: scarce could twelve picked men lift
it on their shoulders, such puny frames as earth produces 35
now-a-days: he caught it up with hurried grasp and
flung it at his foe, rising as he threw, and running rapidly,
as hero might. And yet all the while he knows not that
he is running or moving, lifting up or stirring the enormous
stone: his knees totter under him, and his blood
chills and freezes: and so the mass from the warrior’s
hand, whirled through the empty void, passed not through
all the space between nor carried home the blow. Even 5
as in dreams, at night, when heavy slumber has weighed
down the eyes, we seem vainly wishing to make eager
progress forward and midway in the effort fail helplessly;
our tongue has no power, our wonted strength stands not
our frames in stead, nor do words or utterance come at 10
our call: so it is with Turnus: whatever means his valour
tries, the fell fiend bars them of their issue. And now
confused images whirl through his brain: he looks to his
Rutulians and to the city, and falters with dread, and
quails at the threatening spear: how to escape he knows 15
not, nor how to front the foe, nor sees he anywhere his
car or the sister who drives it.
Full in that shrinking face Æneas shakes his fatal
weapon, taking aim with his eye, and with an effort of
his whole frame hurls it forth. Never stone flung from 20
engine of siege roars so loud, never peal so rending follows
the thunderbolt. On flies the spear like dark whirlwind
with fell destruction on its wing, pierces the edge of the
corslet, and the outermost circle of the seven-fold shield,
and with a rush cleaves through the thigh. Down with 25
his knee doubled under him comes Turnus to earth, all
his length prostrated by the blow. Up start the Rutulians,
groaning as one man: the whole mountain round
rebellows, and the depths of the forest send back the
sound far and wide. He in lowly suppliance lifts up eye 30
and entreating hand: “It is my due,” he cries, “and I
ask not to be spared it: take what fortune gives you.
Yet, if you _can_ feel for a parent’s misery—your father,
Anchises was once in like plight—have mercy on Daunus’
hoary hairs, and let me, or if you choose my breathless 35
body, be restored to my kin. You are conqueror: the
Ausonians have seen my conquered hands outstretched:
the royal bride is yours: let hatred be pressed no further.”
Æneas stood still, a fiery warrior, his eyes rolling, and
checked his hand: and those suppliant words were working
more and more on his faltering purpose, when, alas!
the ill-starred belt was seen high on the shoulder, and
light flashed from the well-known studs—the belt of 5
young Pallas, whom Turnus conquered and struck down
to earth, and bore on his breast the badge of triumphant
enmity. Soon as his eyes caught the spoil and drank in
the recollection of that cruel grief, kindled into madness
and terrible in his wrath: “What, with my friend’s 10
trophies upon you, would you escape my hand? It is
Pallas, Pallas, who with this blow makes you his victim,
and gluts his vengeance with your accursed blood.”
With these words, fierce as flame, he plunged the steel into
the breast that lay before him. That other’s frame grows 15
chill and motionless, and the soul,[287] resenting its lot, flies
groaningly to the shades.
FOOTNOTES
[A] “Like footsteps upon wool.”—Tennyson, _Œnone_.
[B] Mr. Conington has missed a line, which may be rendered thus: “who
knowest the divine will of Apollo—his tripods and his laurels.”—[E. S. S.]
[C] Another line omitted in the translation:—“huge as Greek shield or
sun-god’s torch.”—[E. S. S.]
[D] A caret in the Ms. notes the omission of _Urbis opus_: “A city in
itself.”—[E. S. S.]
[E] Three lines omitted in the Ms.: “Then on Mount Eryx, towering to the
stars, is reared a temple to Idalian Venus, and for Anchises’ tomb a
priest appointed, with dedication of broad-acred grove.”—[E. S. S.]
[F] For the omitted lines Conington’s verses are inserted.—[E. S. S.]
NOTES
BOOK I
[1] 1:1. =Arms and the man I sing.= Compare the following opening lines
of great epics:—
“O goddess, sing the wrath of Peleus’ son,
Achilles; sing the deadly wrath that brought
Woes numberless upon the Greeks.”
—_Iliad_, Bryant’s Trans.
“Tell me, O muse, of that sagacious man
Who, having overthrown the sacred town
Of Ilium, wandered far and visited
The capitals of many nations, learned
The customs of their dwellers, and endured
Great sufferings on the deep.”
—HOMER, _Odyssey_.
“Of love and ladies, knights and arms, I sing,
Of courtesies and many a daring feat.”
—ARIOSTO, _Orlando Furioso_.
“I sing the pious arms and chief, who freed
The Sepulchre of Christ from thrall profane;
Much did he toil in thought and much in deed,
Much in the glorious enterprise sustain.”
—TASSO, _Jerusalem Delivered_.
“Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
...
Sing, heavenly muse.”
—MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
“I, who erewhile the happy garden sung,
By one man’s disobedience lost, now sing
Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man’s firm obedience.”
—MILTON, _Paradise Regained_.
[2] 1:1. =Troy.= A city in northwest Asia Minor where the famous Trojan
war took place.
[3] 1:3. =Latian.= The broad plain near the mouth of the Tiber, in Italy.
[4] 1:5. =Juno.= Queen of the gods; wife and sister of Jupiter.
[5] 1:5. =Much.=
“Much there he suffered,
And many perilles past in forreine landes,
To save his people sad from victours vengefull handes,”
—SPENSER, _Faerie Queene_.
[6] 1:8. =Alba.= Alba Longa, a long ridge some fifteen miles southeast of
Rome. The successors of Æneas reigned there until the founding of Rome.
[7] 1:10. =Muse.= One of the nine Muses. Greek and Latin poets often
profess to be merely the mouthpiece of the Muses.
[8] 1:14. =Hate.=
“And in soft bosoms dwell such mighty rage?”
—POPE, _Rape of the Lock_.
“In heavenly spirits could such perverseness dwell?”
—MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
[9] 1:17. =Tyre.= Carthage was sprung from Tyre, an old and prosperous
city on the coast of Phœnicia. The founders of Carthage and their
descendants are termed indifferently by Virgil Phœnicians, Sidonians,
Pœni, or Tyrians.
[10] 1:19. =War’s.=
“An old and haughty nation proud in arms.”
—MILTON, _Comus_.
[11] 1:21. =Samos.= A large island off the west coast of Asia Minor. Here
were the most ancient temple and worship of Juno, here she was nurtured,
and here she was married to Jupiter.
[12] 1:28. =Libya.= North Africa.
[13] 2:1. =Fate’s.=
“Those three fatall Sisters, whose sad hands
Doo weave the direful threads of destinie
And in their wrath brake off the vitall bands.”
—SPENSER, _Daphnaïda_.
“Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears
And slits the thin-spun life.”
—MILTON, _Lycidas_.
“Sad Clotho held the rocke [distaff], the whiles the thrid
By griesly Lachesis was spun with paine,
That cruell Atropos eftsoones undid,
With cursed knife cutting the twist in twaine.”
—SPENSER, _Faerie Queene_.
[14] 2:1. =Saturn.= An ancient Italian god of agriculture, identified
later with the Greek god Cronos.
[15] 2:3. =Argos.= A city of Argolis in the Peloponnesus. One of Juno’s
favorite cities. Juno’s love for Argos played the same part in the Trojan
war as her regard for Carthage plays in the _Æneid_. It is used here
poetically for the name of the people, _i.e._ = Greeks.
[16] 2:6. =Paris.= A son of Priam, king of Troy, who eloped with Helen
and caused the Trojan war. The judgment was the award of the golden
apple, prize of beauty, to Venus as against Juno and Minerva.
“Here eke that famous golden apple grew,
The which emongest the gods, false Ate threw;
For which th’ Idæan Ladies disagreed,
Till partiall Paris dempt it Venus dew,
And had of her fayre Helen for his meed.”
—SPENSER, _Faerie Queene_.
In Tennyson’s _Œnone_, Juno offers—
“from all neighbor crowns
Alliance and allegiance till thy hand
Fail from the sceptre-staff.”
And Minerva—
“Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control.”
But Venus—
“I promise thee
The fairest and most loving wife in Greece.”
[17] 2:9. =Ganymede.= A Trojan prince; was carried off to Olympus by
Jupiter’s eagle. He was made cup-bearer to the gods in place of Hebe,
daughter of Juno.
“And godlike Ganymede, most beautiful
Of men; the gods beheld and caught him up
To heaven, so beautiful was he, to pour
The wine to Jove, and ever dwell with them.”
—HOMER, _Iliad_.
“flushed Ganymede, his rosy thigh
Half-buried in the Eagle’s down,
Sole as a flying star shot thro’ the sky
Above the pillar’d town.”
—TENNYSON, _Palace of Art_.
[18] 2:10. =Danaan.= Greek. Danaus, an ancient city of Argos. Conington
transliterates various proper names, such as Argives, Achæans,
Pelasgians, all meaning Greeks. Vergil uses the originals now to secure
variety, now to meet the metrical requirement.
[19] 2:11. =Achilles.= Son of Peleus, king of Thessaly, and Thetis, a sea
nymph, chief champion of the Greeks before Troy.
[20] 2:22. =Teucrians.= Teucer, an ancient king of Troy; he came to Troy
from Crete. He was father-in-law of Dardanus, and is often called founder
of the Trojans.
[21] 2:23. =Pallas.= Epithet of the Greek goddess Athena. Sometimes
identified with the Latin goddess of wisdom, Minerva.
[22] 2:26. =Ajax.= Oïleus’ son. Had, on the night Troy was taken,
assaulted Priam’s daughter Cassandra, who had taken refuge in Minerva’s
temple.
[23] 2:27. =Jove.= Jupiter, chief of the Olympian gods. Son of Cronos
or Saturnus. He is father omnipotent, father of gods, and king of men.
The lightning and the thunderbolt, fashioned for him by Vulcan, are his
weapons. The eagle is his messenger. Apparently Jupiter, the Sky-father,
is the personification of the sky. Cicero quotes Ennius as follows: “This
shining vault on high which all men call upon in prayer as Jupiter.”
[24] 2:30. =Rock’s.=
“caught in a fierce tempest shall be hurled
Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey
Of rocking whirlwinds.”
—MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
[25] 2:38. =Æolia.= Home of the winds,—=Lipara=. One of the Æolian
islands north of Sicily.
[26] 2:38. =Cavern.=
“In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls by fits.”
—SHELLEY, _The Cloud_.
[27] 2:38. =Æolus.= King of the winds.
[28] 3:2. =Bond.=
“And wild winds bound within their cell.”
—TENNYSON, _Mariana_.
[29] 3:19. =Tyrrhene sea.= Also Tuscan sea; the part of the Mediterranean
which extended from Liguria to Sicily.
[30] 3:19. =Ilion.= Troy.
[31] 3:30. =Bidding.=
“Father eternal, thine is to decree;
Mine, both in heaven and earth, to do thy will.”
—MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
[32] 3:36. =Rush forth.=
“Nor slept the winds
Within their stormy caves, but rushed abroad
From the four hinges of the world, and fell
On the vexed wilderness.”
—MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
“With howling sound, high carnival to keep,
And in wild uproar all embroil both land and deep.”
—TASSO, _Jerusalem Delivered_.
“Then forth it breakes, and with his furious blast
Confounds both land and seas, and skyes doth overcast.”
—SPENSER, _Faerie Queene_.
[33] 3:38. =Fall.=
“The winds, as at their hour of birth,
Leaning upon the ridged sea.”
—TENNYSON.
[34] 4:5. =Daylight.=
“And tosse the deepes, and teare the firmament,
And all the world confound with wide uprore.”
—SPENSER, _Faerie Queene_.
“The clouds their gloomy veil above them strain,
Nor suffer sun or star to cheer the view.
...
While aye descending night, with deeper shade,
The vext and fearful billows overlayed.”
—ARIOSTO, _Orlando Furioso_.
[35] 4:9. =Æneas.= Son of Venus and Anchises, hero of the _Æneid_.
[36] 4:9. =Chilled.=
“His bold Æneas on like billows tossed
In a tall ship, and all his country lost
Dissolves with fear; and, both his hands upheld,
Proclaims them happy when the Greeks had quelled
In honorable fight.”
—WALLER, _Of the Dangers his Majesty Escaped_.
[37] 4:12. =Thrice.=
“Thrice happy, four times happy, they who fell
On Troy’s wide field warring for Atreus’ sons:
O, had I met my fate and perished there.”
—HOMER, _Odyssey_.
[38] 4:14. =Tydeus’ son.= Diomedes, with whom Æneas had fought in single
combat and been saved by direct intervention of Venus.
[39] 4:16. =Hector.= Son of Priam, king of Troy, and Hecuba. Hector was
the bravest champion of Troy, and was slain by Achilles.
[40] 4:17. =Æacides.= A descendant of Æacus (king of Ægina and father of
Peleus). Virgil applies the name to (1) Achilles, (2) Pyrrhus, son of
Achilles, (3) Perseus, king of Macedonia.
[41] 4:18. =Sarpedon.= Son of Jupiter, and king of the Lycians; an ally
of Troy slain by Patroclus, friend of Achilles.
[42] 4:18. =Simois.= The famous river that flows by Troy.
“And Simoïs, in whose bed lay many shields
And helms and bodies of slain demigods.”
—HOMER, _Iliad_.
[43] 4:23. =Stars.= Hyperbole; cf.—
“The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds;
The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous mane,
Seems to cast water on the burning Bear
And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole.”
—SHAKESPEARE, _Othello_.
[44] 4:26. =Crest.=
“Now quivering o’er the topmost waves she rides
While deep beneath the enormous gulf divides:
Now launching headlong down the horrid vale,
Becalmed she hears no more the howling gale.”
—FALCONER, _Shipwreck_.
[45] 4:33. =Syrtes.= Two shallow bays on the north coast of Africa
distinguished as Major and Minor,—dangerous to navigation.
[46] 5:8. =Side-jointings.=
“The chinks suck destruction. The heavy dead hulk
On the living sea rolls an inanimate bulk.”
—SHELLEY, _Vision of the Sea_.
“The sides convulsive shook on groaning beams,
And, rent with labour, yawn’d their pitchy seams.”
—FALCONER, _Shipwreck_.
[47] 5:11. =Neptune.= God of the sea,—brother of Juno.
[48] 5:22. =Confound.=
“I heard the wrack,
As earth and sky would mingle.”
—MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
“While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.”
—GOLDSMITH, _Deserted Village_.
[49] 5:29. =Eurus.= The east wind. It is the poet’s way to single out one
wind and use it as general word for winds. One example of the use of the
specific for the generic.
[50] 5:33. =Routs.=
“Thou frownest, and old Æolus thy foe
Skulks to his cavern, ’mid the gruff complaint
Of all his rebel tempests. Dark clouds faint
When, from thy diadem, a silver gleam
Slants over blue dominion.”
—KEATS, _Endymion_.
[51] 5:34. =Cymothoë and Triton.= Lesser sea deities.
“From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn.”
—HOLMES, _Chambered Nautilus_.
[52] 5:37. =Trident.=
“It seem’d as there the British Neptune stood,
With all his hosts of waters at command,
Beneath them to submit th’ officious flood;
And with his trident shov’d them off the sand.”
—DRYDEN, _Annus Mirabilis_.
[53] 6:4. =Weapon.=
“Rage prompted them at length, and found them arms
Against such hellish mischief fit to oppose.”
—MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
[54] 6:15. =Haven.=
“It was a still
And calmy bay, on the one side sheltered
With the brode shadow of an hoarie hill;
On th’ other side an high rock towred still,
That twixt them both a pleasaunt port they made,
And did like an halfe theatre fulfill.”
—SPENSER, _Faerie Queene_.
“And overhead upgrew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view.”
—MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
“Its uplands sloping deck the mountain’s side,
Woods over woods in gay theatric pride.”
—GOLDSMITH, _Traveller_.
“In one they find a lone sequestered place,
Where, to a crescent curved, the shore extends
Two moony horns, that in their sweep embrace
A spacious bay,—a rock the port defends;
Inward it fronts, and broad to ocean bends
Its back, whereon each dashing billow dies,
When the wind rises and the storm descends;
While here and there two lofty crags arise,
Whose towers, far out at sea, salute the sailor’s eyes.
Safe sleep the silent seas beneath; above,
Black arching woods o’ershade the circled scene:
Within, a grotto opens, in the grove,
Pleasant with flowers, with moss, with ivies green,
And waters warbling in the depths unseen;
Needed nor twisted rope nor anchor there
For weary ships.”
—TASSO, _Jerusalem Delivered_.
[55] 6:25. =Cable.=
“And there is a safe haven where no need
Of cable is; no anchor there is cast,
Nor hawsers fastened to the strand.”
—HOMER, _Odyssey_.
[56] 7:3. =Biremes.= Ships having two tiers of oars.
[57] 7:23. =Scylla.= A sea-monster, residing in a cave in certain rocks,
also called Scylla, between Italy and Sicily. The upper part of this
monster resembled a lovely woman. About the waist was a circle of dogs or
wolves; below was the tail of a dolphin. The wolves reach out and seize
passing ships and drag them on the rocks. Virgil’s Scylla is adopted by
Milton as a description of one of the monsters guarding the gates of Hell.
[58] 7:25. =Cyclops.= Certain giants of cannibal nature who dwelt in
Sicily near Ætna. They had a single large round eye in the middle of the
forehead.
[59] 7:27. =Remembered.=
“A time will come, not distantly descried,
When to remember ev’ry past dismay
Will be no less a pleasure than a pride;
Hold then courageous on, and keep, I pray,
Your noble hearts in cheer for that victorious day.”
—TASSO, _Jerusalem Delivered_.
[60] 7:33. =Heart-sick.=
“So spoke the apostate angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair.”
—MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
[61] 8:15. =Ether.=
“Now had the Almighty Father from above,
From the pure empyrean where he sits
High throned above all highth, bent down his eye,
His own works and their works at once to view.”
—MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
[62] 8:26. =Barred.=
“In vain—for rude adversity’s command
Still, on the margin, of each famous land,
With unrelenting ire his steps opposed,
And every gate of hope against him closed.”
—FALCONER, _Shipwreck_.
[63] 8:37. =Antenor.= Nephew of Priam. After the capture of Troy, he
sailed up the Adriatic Sea, established a new people called the Veneti,
and founded Patavium (Padua).
[64] 9:8. =Arms.=
“And in thy tempul I wol my banur hong,
And all the armes of my companye.”
—CHAUCER, _Knight’s Tale_.
“In my heart’s temple I suspend to thee
These votive wreaths of withered memory.”
—SHELLEY, _Epipsychidion_.
[65] 9:13. =Piety.=
“False Jupiter, rewardst thou virtue so?
What, is not piety exempt from woe?”
—MARLOWE AND NASH, _Dido_.
[66] 9:18. =Cythera.= An island south of Laconia, near which, the
tradition is, Venus rose from the foam of the sea.
[67] 9:20. =Lavinium.= A city of Latium, represented as founded by Æneas
and named by him for his wife Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus. It was
Latinus’ promise of Lavinia to Æneas that caused the wars of the last six
books of the Æneid.
[68] 9:29. =Rutulians.= A Volscian people whose chief city was Antium.
They with their King Turnus were the chief antagonists of Æneas when he
was trying to settle in Italy.
[69] 9:30. =Ascanius.= Son of Æneas.
[70] 9:36. =Hector’s.=
“There in stout Hector’s race three hundred years
The Roman sceptre royal shall remain.”
—MARLOWE AND NASH, _Dido_.
[71] 10:11. =Assaracus.= A Trojan king of Phrygia; he was grandfather of
Anchises, hence the expression “house of Assaracus” means the descendants
of Æneas. And as the Julian clan was thought to be derived from Iulus,
Æneas’ son, this included Julius Cæsar and his adopted son Augustus.
[72] 10:11. =Phthia.= A city and district in Thessaly, Greece, over
which, it is said, Achilles ruled.
[73] 10:12. =Mycenæ.= A famous city ruled by Agamemnon, in the Morea
(southern Greece).
[74] 10:12. =Argos.= A city of Argolis, in the Peloponnesus. One of
Juno’s favorite cities. So fate wills that the descendants of the Trojans
shall take vengeance for the destruction of Troy on the descendants of
the great Greek leaders.
[75] 10:15. =Stars.=
“He shall ascend
The throne hereditary, and bound his reign
With Earth’s wide bounds, his glory with the heavens.”
—MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
[76] 10:19. =War.=
“All loved virtue, no man was affray’d
Of force, ne fraud in wight was to be found:
No warre was known, no dreadfull trompets sound;
Peace universall rayn’d mongst men and beasts.”
—SPENSER, _Faerie Queene_.
“No war, or battle’s sound
Was heard the world around;
The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The hookèd chariot stood,
Unstained with hostile blood;
The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng,
And kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.”
—MILTON, _Hymn on Nativity_.
[77] 10:20. =Vesta.= Goddess of the hearth.
[78] 10:20. =Quirinus.= Name given to Romulus after he was translated
from earth to heaven. Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome. Cicero
tells us that after his translation, Romulus appeared on the Quirinal
Hill and stated that his name as god was Quirinus, and gave instructions
that a temple should be erected to him on that hill—hence the name of the
hill and the palace, once home of the popes, now of the monarchs of Italy.
[79] 10:26. =Son of Maia.= Mercury, swift-winged messenger of the gods.
“The Sonne of Maia, soone as he receiv’d
That word, streight with his azure wings he cleav’d
The liquid clowdes, and lucid firmament;
Ne staid, till that he came with steep descent
Unto the place where his prescript did showe.”
—SPENSER, _Mother Hubbard’s Tale_.
[80] 10:28. =Dido.= Daughter of Belus, king of Tyre; widow of Sychæus.
According to story, she led the Phœnician colony to Carthage.
[81] 10:33. =Punic.= Carthaginian. So the three Punic wars of Rome
against Carthage.
[82] 11:17. =Ho.=
“Ho, young men! saw you, as you came,
Any of all my sisters wandering here,
Having a quiver girded to her side,
And clothed in a spotted leopard’s skin?”
—MARLOWE AND NASH, _Dido_.
[83] 11:26. =Goddess.=
“Most sure, the goddess
On whom these airs attend! Vouchsafe my prayer
May know if you remain upon this island.”
—SHAKESPEARE, _Tempest_.
[84] 11:27. =Phœbus’ sister.= Diana, sister of Phœbus Apollo.
[85] 12:1. =Agenor.= Twin brother of Belus and founder of Sidon, from
whom Dido was descended.
[86] 12:18. =Hope.=
“Poor girl! put on thy stifling widow’s weed,
And ’scape at once from Hope’s accursed bands,
To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow,
And the next day will be a day of sorrow.”
—KEATS, _Isabella_.
[87] 12:33. =Woman.= “Dux femina facti,”—motto on the medal in 1588, in
honor of Elizabeth’s victories over the Spanish Armada. Cf. Kingsley’s
_Westward Ho!_
[88] 12:36. =Byrsa.= A word which in the Carthaginian language meant
citadel, but sounded like a Greek word meaning bull’s hide. From this
confusion, apparently, arose the story that Dido cut a bull’s hide into
very thin strings and so encompassed much ground for her new city.
[89] 13:24. =Breath of life.=
“So drew mankind in vain _the vital air_,
Unformed, unfriended by those kindly cares,
That health and vigor to the soul impart.”
—GRAY, _Education and Government_.
[90] 13:31. =Jove.=
“The bird of Jove, stooped from his airy tour.
Two birds of gayest plume before him drove.”
—MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
[91] 13:36. =Wings.=
“Around, around in ceaseless circles wheeling
With clang of wings and scream, the eagle sailed.”
—SHELLEY, _The Revolt of Islam_.
“Whilst with their clang the air resounds.”
—WORDSWORTH, _Excursion_.
[92] 14:6. =Walk.=
“In gliding state she wins her easy way.”
—GRAY, _Progress of Poesy_.
[93] 14:18. =Paphos.= A city in Cyprus.
[94] 14:20. =Sabæan incense.= Arabian frankincense.
“Sabean odoures, from the spicy shore
Of Arabie the blest.”
—MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
[95] 14:37. =Bees.=
“All hands employ’d the royal work grows warm:
Like labouring bees on a long summer’s day.
Some sound the trumpet for the rest to swarm,
And some on bells of tasted lilies play;
With glewy wax some new foundation lay
Of virgin combs, which from the roof are hung;
Some arm’d within doors upon duty stay,
Or tend the sick, or educate the young.”
—DRYDEN, _Annus Mirabilis_.
[96] 15:18. =Sidon.= Tyre and Sidon were the chief cities of Phœnicia.
Adjectives formed from them are used interchangeably with Phœnician and
Carthaginian for the sake of variety or to meet metrical requirements.
[97] 15:37. =Tears.=
“Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o’erthrown
Are mourned by man.”
—WORDSWORTH, _Laodamia_.
“The Virgilian cry,
The sense of tears in mortal things.”
—MATTHEW ARNOLD, _Geist’s Grave_.
“Thou majestic in thy sadness at the doubtful doom of human kind.”
—TENNYSON.
[98] 16:4. =Pergamus.= Troy.
[99] 16:12. =Xanthus.= A river near Troy.
[100] 16:13. =Troilus.= Shakespeare’s _Troilus_ draws plot from Chaucer.
[101] 16:19. =Pallas.= Minerva, goddess of wisdom, friend of the Greeks.
[102] 16:32. =Memnon.= Leader of the Æthiopian allies of Troy. Was son of
Tithonus and Aurora.
[103] 16:33. =Penthesilea.= Queen of the Amazons who fought for Troy.
Achilles slew both Memnon and Penthesilea.
[104] 17:6. =Diana.=
“Such as Diana by the sandy shore
Of swift Eurotas, or on Cynthus greene,
Where all the nymphs have her unwares forlore [left],
Wandreth alone with bow and arrowes keene,
To seeke her game.”
—SPENSER, _Faerie Queene_.
[105] 17:9. =Latona.= Mother of Apollo and Diana. The type of perfect
mother love.
[106] 18:10. =Orion.= A hunter famous in ancient myth, armed with belt
and sword, translated to the heavens as a constellation, thought to bring
storms.
[107] 19:36. =Shone.=
“When sea-born Venus guided o’er
Her warrior to the Punic shore,
Around that radiant head she threw
In deep’ning clouds ambrosial dew:
But when the Tyrian queen drew near,
The light pour’d round him fresh and clear.”
—LANDOR.
“Not great Æneas stood in plainer day,
When, the dark mantling mist dissolved away,
He to the Tyrians showed his sudden face,
Shining with all his goddess mother’s grace:
For she herself had made his countenance bright,
Breathed honor on his eyes, and her own purple light.”
—DRYDEN, _Britannia Rediviva_.
[108] 20:4. =Enchased.=
“Like to a golden border did appeare,
Framed in goldsmithes forge with cunning hand.”
—SPENSER, _Faerie Queene_.
[109] 21:9. =Learning.=
“Who by the art of known and feeling sorrows,
Are pregnant to good pity.”
—SHAKESPEARE, _King Lear_.
“What sorrow wast thou had’st her know,
And from her own she learned to melt at others’ woe.”
—GRAY, _Hymn to Adversity_.
[110] 21:30. =Acanthus.= A plant now called bear’s-foot, or
bear’s-breech; grows in southern Europe, Asia Minor, and India. Its leaf
was a common form in embroidery and sculpture, and is well known from
its use in the Corinthian capital.
[111] 21:31. =Helen.= Most beautiful of women, daughter of Jupiter and
Leda, was wife of Menelaus of Sparta. She was carried off by Paris as
Venus’ reward to him for his decision in her favor in the question of the
Golden Apple. This breach of hospitality by Paris was the cause of the
Trojan war.
[112] 22:1. =Cupid.= Son of Venus; god of love.
[113] 22:10. =Typhœan.= Thunderbolts of Jove, called Typhœan because they
slew the giant Typhœus at the time of the great fight for the throne of
heaven between Jupiter and the Olympian gods and “the earth-born Titan
brood.”
“Phœbus resigns his darts, and Jove
His thunder to the god of love.”
—DENHAM, _Friendship_.
[114] 22:38. =Poison.=
“Through her bones the false instilled fire
Did spred it selfe and venime close inspire.”
—SPENSER, _Faerie Queene_.
[115] 23:4. =Slumber.=
“She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven
That slid into my soul.”
—COLERIDGE, _Ancient Mariner_.
[116] 23:29. =Gazing.=
“And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.”
—TENNYSON, _Locksley Hall_.
[117] 23:35. =Lap.=
“But both Dione honored they and Cupid,
That as her mother, this one as her son,
And said that he had sat in Dido’s lap.”
—DANTE, _Paradiso_.
[118] 24:6. =Lamps.=
“As heaven with stars, the roof with jewels glows,
And ever-living lamps depend in rows.”
—POPE, _Temple of Fame_.
[119] 24:15. =Bacchus.= Son of Jupiter and Semele, god of wine, and, by
metonymy, used to mean wine. (Name of god for his realm, as Vulcan for
fire, etc.).
“Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.”
—GOLDSMITH, _Deserted Village_.
[120] 24:25. =Atlas.= A king of Mauretania; father of the Pleiades; he
supported the heavens on his shoulders. He was skilled in astronomy.
Personification of Mount Atlas.
[121] 24:25. =Song.=
“He sung the secret seeds of Nature’s frame:
How seas, and earth, and air, and active flame,
Fell through the mighty void, and in their fall
Were blindly gathered in this goodly ball.
The tender soil, then stiff’ning by degrees,
Shut from the bounded earth, the bounding seas.
Then earth and ocean various forms disclose;
And a new sun to the new world arose;
And mists, condensed to clouds, obscure the sky,
And clouds, dissolved, the thirsty ground supply.
The rising trees the lofty mountains grace;
The lofty mountains feed the savage race,
Yet few, and strangers, in th’ unpeopled place.
From thence the birth of man the song pursued,
And how the world was lost, and how renewed.”
—DRYDEN, Translation of Ecl. VI. Cf. Æn. VI.
BOOK II
[122] 26:8. =Myrmidons or the Dolopes.= The soldiers of Achilles, who was
the fiercest of the Greeks.
[123] 26:9. =Ulysses.= King of “Ithaca’s rocky isle,” husband of
“faithful Penelope.” His wanderings are the subject of Homer’s _Odyssey_.
Homer’s stock epithet is “the very crafty.”
[124] 27:18. =Laocoon.= A priest of Apollo appointed to act as priest of
Neptune. The famous group of Laocoon and his two sons in the coils of
the twin serpents, of the Pergamenian type of sculpture, was discovered
in the baths of the Emperor Titus, and stands in the Belvidere of the
Vatican Museum.
[125] 29:8. =Calchas.= Priest of the Greeks.
[126] 29:14. =Sons of Atreus.= Agamemnon, king of Mycenæ,
commander-in-chief of the Greeks, and his brother Menelaus of Sparta,
former husband of Helen.
[127] 29:27. =Phœbus.= Apollo, god of prophecy.
[128] 31:16. =Palladium.= Statue of Pallas, the Greek goddess identified
by the Romans with Minerva, goddess of wisdom, of household arts, and of
war. Also called Tritonia.
[129] 32:7. =Pelops.= Son of Tantalus and father of Atreus. He was served
up as food for the gods by his father, restored to life by Jupiter,
and furnished with an ivory shoulder in place of the one eaten at the
banquet. He gained control of the Peloponnesus, or Morea, which was named
for him. The use here, another case of the specific for the generic, is
in place of Greece itself.
[130] 33:27. =Cassandra.= Daughter of Priam and Hecuba. Priestess of
Apollo. When she offended Apollo, he could not take back the prophetic
power which he had given her, but he decreed that her prophecies should
never be believed.
[131] 34:17. =Hector.= Of this passage Fénelon wrote, “Can one read this
passage without being moved?” Châteaubriand called the scene “a kind of
epitome of Virgil’s genius.”
[132] 35:9. =Vesta.= So Æneas is to be apostle to the heathen. Even the
early Christians reverenced the vestal sisters, prototype of church
sisterhoods. The institution known as the Vestal Virgins was the purest
element of the Roman religion; even emperors intrusted their last wills
to their sacred keeping as the most inviolable of safeguards. Their
convent has recently been excavated near the Roman Forum.
[133] 38:36. =Nereus.= A sea-god, father of the Nereids.
[134] 40:3. =Andromache.= Daughter of King Eëtion, wife of Hector, the
eldest son of Priam and the most famous warrior of the Trojans, finally
slain by Achilles and dragged around the walls of Troy.
[135] 40:17. =Pyrrhus.= Son of Achilles. Also called Neoptolemus. After
fighting in the Trojan war, he founded a kingdom in Epirus.
[136] 41:17. =Hecuba.= Chief wife of Priam. She really was the mother of
nineteen children. Poetic license treats her as the queen mother of all
Priam’s fifty daughters-in-law and fifty daughters, and finally includes
them all under the term daughters-in-law.
[137] 43:13. =Creusa.= Wife of Æneas and mother of Ascanius or Iulus.
[138] 43:21. =Tyndareus.= Father of Helen.
[139] 46:2. =Flame.= In this passage Virgil makes Anchises refer to a
previous capture of Troy by the Greek hero Hercules, at which time King
Laomedon was slain; and, secondly, to Jupiter’s punishment of Anchises
himself for boasting of the love of Venus. Jupiter crippled him by a
thunderbolt.
BOOK III
The time covers about six years. It begins with events immediately
following the fall of Troy, June, B.C. 1184.
[140] 51:7. =Antandros.= A city on the southern side of Mount Ida, near
Troy.
[141] 51:19. =Lycurgus.= An early king of Thrace who stoutly opposed the
introduction of the rites of Bacchus into his realm, was blinded and
afterward destroyed by Jupiter. The present king was Polymnestor, who had
married Priam’s daughter Ilione.
[142] 51:24. =Æneadæ.= Literally, descendants of Æneas, translated by
Conington in Book I, line 157, as “the family of Æneas.” Really used to
mean the “household” of Æneas, or followers of Æneas, nation of Æneas. So
Greek artists of the early time called themselves Dædalides, or followers
of Dædalus. One is reminded of the tale of Jacob with his “household”
meeting Esau with his “household.” Indeed, the Romans themselves were
sometimes called Romulides, followers of Romulus.
[143] 51:25. =Dione.= Mother of Venus.
[144] 52:13. =Gradivus.= Mars, god of war, who decides the issue of all
battles, and goes forth to war with giant strides. Gradivus is derived
from a Latin word meaning to march, Mars was father of Romulus and Remus
by Rhea Sylvia.
[145] 53:11. =Manes.= The souls of the dead, also the spirit or shade of
a single person.
[146] 53:16. =Farewell call.= The cry _valē_, made three times at the
funeral pyre as a final farewell to the dead.
[147] 53:35. =Thymbra.= A city near Troy having a famous temple of Apollo.
[148] 64:35. =Gnossus.= A common name for Crete, from one of its towns.
[149] 55:4. =Idomeneus.= A king of Crete, leader of the Cretan forces
against Troy. On his return to Crete, in accordance with a vow, he
sacrificed his son to the gods. Because of the pestilence that followed
this act, the Cretans banished Idomeneus.
[150] 56:17. =Hesperia.= Land of the evening star, or western land,
Italy. Also called Ausonia.
[151] 56:25. =Corythus.= Legendary ancestor of the Trojans.
[152] 56:26. =Dicte.= A mountain in the eastern part of Crete.
[153] 57:32. =Celæno.= Queen of the Harpies, which were foul winged
monsters described as daughters of Electra and Oceanus.
[154] 57:33. =Phineus.= King of Salmydessus in Thrace. He put out the
eyes of his son, and so was himself blinded by the gods, and the Harpies
were sent to torment him by carrying off or defiling all his food. The
house of Phineus was shut to the Harpies when they were driven off by the
Argonauts.
[155] 59:5. =Tables.= Not so dreadful a portent as it seemed. See page
153.
[156] 59:18. =Zacynthos.= The island Zante.
[157] 59:29. =Actium.= Actium is introduced here because of the
epoch-making battle of Actium between Augustus and Antony, and the fact
that Augustus, after the victory, initiated games there.
[158] 60:5. =Phæacian.= The island Corfu.
[159] 61:4. =Daughter.= Polyxene, sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles.
[160] 61:11. =Hermione.= Granddaughter of Leda, daughter of Menelaus and
Helen; had been betrothed in Menelaus’ absence to Orestes. Menelaus, not
knowing this, gave her to Pyrrhus Neoptolemus, Achilles’ son.
[161] 61:36. =Scæan gate.= Famous gate of Troy.
[162] 63:4. =Circe.= The famous sorceress, who by her magic cake turned
men into animals. She was called Ææan, from Æa, a city in Colchis, in
Asia Minor, famous for its magic. Circe came from Colchis. Her island is
fabled to have become a promontory of Latium.
[163] 64:5. =Scylla and Charybdis.= Whirlpools, bordering the straits of
Messina, dangerous to the ancient navigator. This is the description of
Scylla used by Milton in describing one of the guardians of the gate of
Hell.
[164] 64:15. =Trinacrian.= Sicilian. The word is of Greek origin, and
signifies triangular, referring to the contour of Sicily. Pachynus itself
was the southeastern point of Sicily, the modern Capo di Passaro.
[165] 66:8. =Astyanax.= Son of Hector and Andromache, who perished in the
sack of Troy.
[166] 67:8. =Aurora.= Goddess of the dawn. Wife of Tithonus.
[167] 68:32. =Enceladus.= One of the giants who was defeated by Jupiter
and imprisoned in a burning cave beneath Mount Ætna. See Longfellow’s
_Enceladus_.
“Under Mount Etna he lies,
It is slumber, it is not death;
For he struggles at times to arise,
And above him the lurid skies
Are hot with his fiery breath.”
All this region, as has been newly shown by the late terrible earthquake,
is peculiarly subject to seismic disturbances.
[168] 72:17. =Arethusa.= According to fable, pursued by Alpheus,
river-god of Elis in Greece, was turned into a subterranean river, still
pursued by the river-god under the Ægean until she emerged harmoniously
blent with her pursuer in the famous fountain of Ortygia. Shelley uses
the legend as follows in his _Arethusa_:—
“And now from their fountains
In Enna’s mountains,
Down one vale where the morning basks,
Like friends once parted
Grown single-hearted,
They ply their watery tasks.
At sunrise they leap
From their cradles steep
In the cave of the shelving hill;
At noontide they flow
Through the woods below
And the meadows of asphodel;
And at night they sleep
In the rocking deep
Beneath the Ortygian shore:—
Like spirits that lie
In the azure sky
Where they love but live no more.”
BOOK IV
This portion of the _Æneid_ was written when the memory of Antony and
Cleopatra was still fresh, and many traits of royal, imperious Dido seem
suggestive of the Egyptian queen. Cf. Shakespeare’s _Cleopatra_, and
Chaucer’s _Legend of Good Women_.
[169] 74:8. =Dawn-goddess.= Aurora, with Phœbus’ torch. Apollo is
constantly identified with the sun-god.
[170] 75:3. =Erebus.= God of darkness, son of Chaos and brother of Night.
Synonymous with darkness, especially that of the underworld.
[171] 76:5. =Lyæus.= Bacchus. As the god that makes men unbend and frees
them from care, he is called Father Lyæus.
[172] 78:9. =Hymen.= God of marriage.
[173] 79:24. =Fame.= Cf. Bacon, _Fragment of an Essay of Fame_. “The
poets make Fame a monster. They describe her in part finely and
elegantly, and in part gravely and sententiously. They say, look how many
feathers she hath, so many eyes she hath underneath; so many tongues; so
many voices; she pricks up so many ears. This is a flourish; there follow
excellent parables; as that she gathereth strength in going; that she
goeth upon the ground, and yet hideth her head in the clouds, that in the
day-time she sitteth in a watch-tower, and flieth most by night; that she
mingleth things done with things not yet done, and that she is a terror
to great cities.”
[174] 79:31. =Cœus.= One of the Titans; was father of Latona.
[175] 80:34. =Mæonian cap.= Mæonia, part of Lydia, Asia Minor. Since
Lydia and Phrygia were adjacent, Mæonian = Phrygian = Trojan.
[176] 81:15. =The laws.= Rome, the world’s lawgiver.
[177] 83:18. =Mænad.= Mænads, or Bacchantes, women worshipping Bacchus in
wild and orgiastic fashion in the woods or on mountain slopes of Cithæron.
[178] 84:19. =Elissa.= Dido.
[179] 84:31. =Grynean.= Refers to oracle of Apollo at Gryneum.
[180] 89:29. =Hecate.= Diana, moon-goddess, is identified with Hecate,
also moon-goddess. As goddess of cross-roads, Hecate was called Trivia,
and is represented by three statues standing back to back. Hecate is
especially a goddess of the underworld and of witchcraft.
[181] 90:28. =Laomedon.= The father of Priam. He was notorious for his
trickery and broken promises. Hence Trojans in a derogatory, scornful
sense were termed race of Laomedon.
[182] 91:38. =Tithonus.= Son of Laomedon, husband of Aurora.
[183] 95:10. =Iris.= Goddess of the rainbow, the messenger of Juno.
[184] 95:14. =Proserpine.= Daughter of Ceres, wife of Pluto, and hence
queen of underworld.
BOOK V
Æneas sees the flames of Dido’s pyre and guesses their meaning. In
Sicily, he institutes funeral games to Anchises. Compare funeral games
of Patroclus in 23d book of _Iliad_. The contest of the ships and the
equestrian exhibition are wholly original, however. The burning of the
fleet was part of an old Trojan legend.
[185] 99:8. =Acheron’s prison.= The underworld.
[186] 99:14. =Phaethon.= The sun-god.
[187] 99:23. =Talent.= A weight, not coin, of silver or gold. The Attic
silver talent was worth over $1000.
[188] 103:2. =Feel that they are thought strong.= The translation here
is poor, the correct rendering being, “They can, because they think they
can.” Virgil’s is a classical expression of the power of belief.
[189] 103:12. =Portunus=, a god of harbors, is here associated with the
other divinities of the deep.
[190] 103:24. =The royal boy.= Ganymede, a favorite subject of art.
[191] 106:38. =Amycus.= A famous boxer of Bebrycii killed by Pollux.
[192] 107:35. =Eryx.= A Sicilian king, son of Venus; was killed by
Hercules in a boxing contest.
[193] 113:8. =Labyrinth in Crete.= The Labyrinth, a maze built by Dædalus
for King Minos at Gnossus in Crete to contain the Minotaur.
[194] 113:25. =Solemn.= Sacred festival, required each year.
[195] 117:20. =Dis.= Ruler of the underworld, variously called Orcus,
Acheron, Erebus, Avernus. Dis, or Pluto, brother of Jupiter, is called
Jupiter Stygius.
[196] 117:22. =Tartarus.= The abode of the wicked in the underworld.
[197] 117:24. =Elysium.= The abode of the good in the underworld.
[198] 120:11. =Glaucus.= A prophetic sea-god, said to be completely
incrusted by “shellfish, seaweed, and stones,” so that he is used by
Plato (_Rep._ X, p. 116) as the image of a soul incrusted with sin.
[199] 120:12. =Ino’s Palæmon.= Ino with his son Palæmon were transformed
into sea divinities. The following names are of sea divinities.
[200] 121:7. =Lethe.= A river of the underworld whose waters bring
forgetfulness. Styx. The main river in the underworld.
[201] 121:17. =Sirens’ isle.= The Sirens were monsters with heads of
women and bodies of birds who dwelt on some rocks off the Campanian
coast, by the bay of Naples. Their sweet singing enticed mariners on to
the rocks to be destroyed.
[202] 121:24. =Naked corpse.= Burial thought essential to spirit’s peace.
BOOK VI
Visit of Æneas to Anchises in the world of the dead. Much of the
philosophy is Stoic pantheism. The theory of the vision appears to
include the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis. Ulysses in _Odyssey_,
Book XI, visited the world of shades.
[203] 122:11. =Sibyl.= Through the Cumæan Sibyl, Deïphobe, as the guide
of Æneas through the lower world, Virgil exalts the use of the Sibylline
Books in the Roman religion. It is interesting to note that the position
given the Sibyl, as guide of Æneas, Dante in turn gives to Virgil as his
own guide in the lower world.
[204] 122:24. =Sons of Cecrops.= The Athenians yearly surrendered seven
youths and seven maidens to be sent to Crete to be devoured by the
Minotaur, because the Athenians, through envy of his success in the
public games, had murdered Androgeus, son of Minos, king of Crete, and
Minos had made this the condition of peace.
[205] 122:31. =The edifice= is the Labyrinth, in which the Minotaur was
confined.
[206] 123:5. =Icarus.= Son of Dædalus, who sought to escape with his
father from Crete, but flew so near the sun that the wax by which his
wings were fastened on was melted, and he fell and perished in the sea
called from his name Icarian.
[207] 123:35. =Dardan.= Trojan. The Trojans are called by Virgil
sometimes descendants of Dardanus, sometimes of Laomedon, sometimes of
Anchises, again of Æneas, now Teucrians, and now Phrygians.
[208] 123:36. =Æacides.= A patronymic, applied by Virgil, now to
Achilles, as here, now to Pyrrhus Neoptolemus, meaning descendant of
Æacus.
[209] 124:35. =Dorian.= Greek.
[210] 125:36. =Alcides.= Hercules.
[211] 126:10. =Cocytus.= A river of the underworld.
[212] 127:29. =Fissile.= Easy to split.
[213] 129:19. =Aornos.= Greek word, meaning without birds.
[214] 129:28. =Furies.= The Furies were the goddesses of Vengeance, named
Allecto, Megæra, and Tisiphonë.
[215] 130:31. =Briareus.= Giant, son of Earth.
[216] 130:31. =Lerna.= A lake and marsh near Argos in Greece. Here dwelt
the Hydra, a nine-headed monster, whose breath was poisonous. Hercules
finally slew it. Possibly an idealized tradition of the draining of the
marsh Lerna.
[217] 130:32. =Chimæra.= A fabulous monster which breathed forth fire.
In front it was a lion, in the hinder part a dragon, and in the middle a
goat. The monster was slain by Bellerophon.
[218] 130:33. =Gorgons.= Three mythical women of Libya, having some
resemblance to the Furies. The chief was Medusa, slain by Perseus. Her
head with serpent hair was placed in the shield or Ægis of Jove and
Minerva.
[219] 134:31. =Cerberus.= Three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to
the underworld.
[220] 136:10. =Minos.= King of Crete; after death became one of the
judges in the underworld.
[221] 136:19. =Marpessa.= The mountain in Paros which contained the
famous marble quarries, Marpesian, Parian.
[222] 138:12. =Æolus.= Ulysses was descended from Æolus.
[223] 140:20. =Ixion.= Ixion was father of Pirithous, king of the
Lapithæ. Examples of men who have incurred the wrath of the gods.
[224] 141:31. =Priest.= Orpheus. Legendary poet and musician. ’Twas he
who so charmed Proserpine that she allowed him to lead forth from the
lower world his wife Eurydice.
[225] 142:9. =Eridanus.= A river issuing from the underworld,
variously identified by ancient writers with the Po, the Rhine, or the
Rhone,—usually with the Po.
[226] 143:26. =Lethe.= Quaffing its waters brought forgetfulness. See
page 144.
[227] 146:1. =Berecyntian mother.= Cybele, a Phrygian goddess, worshipped
as mother of the gods. So called from Berecyntus, a mountain in Phrygia,
sacred to Cybele.
[228] 146:37. =Fasces.= The bundles of rods from which an axe protruded,
carried by the lictor before certain magistrates when they appeared in
public. Symbol of authority.
[229] 147:5. =Drusi.= A Roman family mentioned here in compliment to
their descendent Livia, wife of Augustus.
[230] 147:5. =Decii.= The Decii, father, son, and grandson, solemnly
devoted themselves to death, each to win a doubtful battle, in the wars
of the Latins, of the Samnites, and of Pyrrhus respectively.
[231] 147:5. =Torquatus.= (T. Manlius) won his title (with a gold
neck-chain) by slaying a gigantic Gaul.
[232] 147:6. =Camillus=, returning from banishment, drove back the
victorious Gauls, winning back the captured standards.
[233] 147:12. =Father-in-law and son-in-law.= Cæsar and Pompey.
[234] 147:30. =Fabii.= Quintus Fabius wore out the strength of Hannibal,
constantly refusing to be drawn into a pitched battle. Hence “Fabian
policy” means delay.
[235] 148:10. =Quirinus.= Romulus.
[236] 149:7. =Laurentian.= Laurentum, a town on the coast of Latium, a
city of King Latinus.
[237] 149:14. =Gate of ivory.=
“A recent writer has reminded us that dreams after midnight
were accounted true both by the Greeks and the Romans. Hence
he concluded that Virgil, in making Æneas issue by the gate
of false dreams, is indicating that Æneas comes forth from
the underworld before midnight. As to the time of Æneas’ stay
in the lower world see lines 255, 535-539. He is in the land
of the shades from dawn until nearly midnight.”—KNAPP.
“By those who think this book a symbolic exhibition of certain
mysteries, the legend of the Gate, with the dismissal of Æneas
from the ivory one, is considered a warning that the language
may not be taken literally, or understood except by the
initiated.”—GREENOUGH.
“Anchises conducts Æneas and the Sibyl to the ivory gate as
the one which affords the easiest and quickest ascent to the
upper world. They are thus saved the toil of ascending by the
way they came, which, according to the words of the Sibyl, 128,
129, would have been a work of great labor.”—FRIEZE.
BOOK VII
Arrival of Æneas in Latium and commencement of hostilities between the
Latins and Trojans.
[238] 150:1. =Caieta.= Æneas buries his nurse on a promontory of Latium
which he called after her—now called Gaeta.
[239] 151:8. =Erato.= Name of one of the Muses.
[240] 151:14. =Tyrrhenian.= The Tyrrheni were a people of Asia who had
settled in Etruria, a district north of Italy. Hence used synonymously
for Etrurian, Tuscan—Italian. Œnotrian is still another term.
[241] 151:29. =Turnus.= Son of Daunus and the nymph Venilia, was king
of the Rutulians, a people of Latium. He led the Italian forces against
Æneas, but was at last slain by Æneas in single combat, as described in
the last of Book XII.
[242] 153:19. =The eating of tables= was foretold by the Harpy and
Anchises, in Book III, page 59.
[243] 159:19. =Bellona.= Goddess of war and bloodshed, an old Italian
deity—sister of Mars.
[244] 159:26. =Allecto.= One of the Furies. Her sisters were Megæra and
Tisiphonë.
[245] 160:11. =Amata.= Queen of Latium, wife of King Latinus.
[246] 165:15-17. =Trivia’s lake= (= Diana’s), =Nar=, =Veline=.
“The lake of Diana on the Alban Mount, far to the southeast of
the Tiber, and the Nar and Velinus far to the northeast, i.e.
the whole country around heard the sound. The lake of Diana is
now called Lake Nemi, near Ariccia, 15 miles south of Rome. The
river Nar runs between Umbria and the Sabine country, and falls
into the Tiber. The lake Velinus was produced by the overflow
of the river Velinus and was led into the Nar by a channel cut
through a ledge of rock by the consul M. Curius Denatus, B.C.
270. This produced the celebrated fall of Terni.”—FRIEZE.
[247] 168:7. =Janus.= An Italian god of beginnings and
gateways—two-headed, since gates fall two ways. Is especially the
guardian of the gates of the temple of war.
[248] 168:10. =Gabine cincture.= A peculiar way of adjusting the toga.
[249] 169:6 to 175:18. For this portion, omitted in the prose version, we
use Conington’s verse translation.
BOOK VIII
Alliance of Æneas and Evander. Vulcan makes a shield for Æneas.
[250] 179:9. =Amphitryon’s child.= Hercules—the stepson of Amphitryon.
[251] 180:12. =Maia.= Daughter of Atlas.
[252] 181:3. =Pheneus.= A town of Arcadia.
[253] 182:8. =Geryon.= A giant monster of Gades (Cadiz) in Spain, the
keeper of beautiful cattle. He was slain by Hercules, who took the cattle
across the Alps to the valley of the Tiber.
[254] 182:36. =Tiryns.= In Argolis, the early home of Hercules.
[255] 186:2. =Hests.= Commands.
[256] 186:22. =Ægis.= Famous shield of Jupiter (worn also by Minerva),
bearing in the centre the baneful head of the Gorgon Medusa. The Ægis
when shaken wrought terror and dismay on the wearer’s foes. The shaking
was accompanied by thunder and lightning—thus the Ægis was the symbol of
the whirlwind that drives the storm-cloud.
[257] 189:19. =Lemnos.= An island in the Ægean Sea, the home of Vulcan.
[258] 194:21. =Cuishes.= Greaves, or leg coverings.
[259] 198:12. =Cocles.= Horatius. See Macaulay’s _Lays of Ancient Rome_.
[260] 196:19. =Egyptian spouse.= Cleopatra.
[261] 196:31. =Anubis.= An Egyptian god, with a dog’s head.
[262] 196:34. =Mavors.= Mars.
[263] 197:2. =Saba.= In Arabia.
BOOK IX
The attack of Turnus on the Trojan camp.
[264] 198:5. =Child.= Iris.
[265] 198:29. =Messapus.= A Tyrrhenian chief whose followers are from
Fescennium and other places on the right bank of the Tiber. See Book VII.
[266] 203:19. =Wont.= Were wont.
[267] 212:5. =Ravin.= Ravages.
[268] 217:12. =Kid-stars.= The Kids were two stars in the hand of Auriga,
the setting of which in December was attended with heavy rains.
[269] 217:24. =Padus.= The Po.
[270] 217:24. =Athesis.= A river in northern Italy, now the Adige.
[271] 218:22. =Prochyta.= A small island off the west of Campania, near
the promontory of Micenum.
[272] 218:23. =Inarime.= An island off the Campanian coast, now Ischia.
BOOK X
Council of the gods.
[273] 226:12. =Terebinth.= Turpentine tree.
[274] 227:3. =Helicon.= A mountain of Bœotia sacred to Apollo and the
Muses.
BOOK XI
Funeral honors to the dead. The truce broken by renewal of hostilities.
[275] 257:27. =Arpi.= A town of Apulia.
[276] 268:5. =The pillars of Proteus= are the island of Pharos and the
coast of Egypt, whither Menelaus was driven.
[277] 258:8. =Monarch of Mycenæ.= Agamemnon.
[278] 262:16. =Myrmidons.= See page 325.
[279] 263:11. =Camilla.= A warrior princess of the Volsci.
[280] 264:10. =Coras.= See page 170.
[281] 265:4. =Champaign.= Plain.
BOOK XII
Final conflict between Æneas and Turnus.
[282] 279:29. =Orichalc.= Copper.
[283] 280:24. =Vervain.= Verbena, leafy twig, sacred bough (of laurel,
olive, myrtle, or cypress).
[284] 288:18. =Dittany.= Herb growing on Mount Dicte in Crete.
[285] 288:24. =Ambrosia.= Sustenance of immortal life, food of the gods,
as nectar is their drink.
[286] 296:12. =Holms.= Oaks, holm-oak, “great scarlet oak.”
[287] 303:16. =Soul.= Cf. the Emperor Hadrian’s _Address to his Soul_,
translated by Byron, Prior, Pope, Merivale, Carnarvon, etc.
“Soul of mine, pretty one, flitting one,
Guest and partner of my clay,
Whither wilt thou hie away,—
Pallid one, rigid one, naked one—
Never to play again, never to play?”
—MERIVALE.
“Yes, thou goest, Spirit—yes,
In thy paleness, nakedness—
Mirth is banished,
Jest hath vanished
Into gloom and dreariness.”
—CARNARVON.
“Wee wan’erin’ winsome elf, my saul,
Thou’s made this clay long hoose an’ hall,
But whar, oh whar art now to dwall,
Thy bield now bare?
Gaun’ flickterin’ feckless, shiverin’ caul,
Nae cantrips mair.”
=Transcriber’s Note:= Endnotes indicated by [o] are missing.
INDEX TO NOTES
Acanthus, 322.
Acheron’s prison, 333.
Achilles, 309.
Actium, 329.
Æacides, 311, 335.
Ægis, 340.
Æneadæ, 327.
Æneas, 311.
Æolia, 309.
Æolus, 310, 336.
Agenor, 319.
Ajax, 309.
Alba, 306.
Alcides, 335.
Allecto, 339.
Amata, 339.
Ambrosia, 342.
Amphitryon’s child, 340.
Amycus, 333.
Andromache, 326.
Antandros, 327.
Antenor, 316.
Anubis, 340.
Aornos, 335.
Arethusa, 330.
Argos, 307, 317.
ARIOSTO, 305, 311.
Arms, 305, 316.
ARNOLD (Matthew), 321.
Arpi, 342.
Ascanius, 317.
Assaracus, 317.
Astyanax, 329.
Athesis, 341.
Atlas, 324.
Atreus, sons of, 325.
Aurora, 330.
Bacchus, 324.
BACON, 331.
Barred, 316.
Bees, 320.
Bellona, 339.
Berecyntian mother, 337.
Bidding, 310.
Biremes, 315.
Bond, 310.
Breath of life, 319.
Briareus, 336.
Byrsa, 319.
Cable, 315.
Caieta, 338.
Calchas, 325.
Camilla, 342.
Camillus, 337.
CARNARVON, 343.
Cassandra, 326.
Cavern, 309.
Cecrops, sons of, 335.
Celæno, 328.
Cerberus, 336.
Champaign, 342.
CHAUCER, 316.
Child, 341.
Chilled, 311.
Chimæra, 336.
Circe, 329.
Cocles, 340.
Cocytus, 335.
Cœus, 332.
COLERIDGE, 323.
Confound, 312.
CONINGTON (verse), 339.
Coras, 342.
Corythus, 328.
Crest, 312.
Creusa, 326.
Cuishes, 340.
Cupid, 323.
Cyclops, 315.
Cymothoë and Triton, 313.
Cythera, 316.
Danaan, 308.
DANTE, 324.
Dardan, 335.
Daughter, 329.
Dawn-goddess, 331.
Daylight, 310.
Decii, 337.
DENHAM, 323.
Diana, 321.
Dicte, 328.
Dido, 318.
Dione, 327.
Dis, 333.
Dittany, 342.
Dorian, 335.
Drusi, 337.
DRYDEN, 313, 320, 322, 324.
Eating of tables, 329, 339.
Edifice, 335.
Egyptian spouse, 340.
Elissa, 332.
Elysium, 334.
Enceladus, 330.
Enchased, 322.
Erato, 338.
Erebus, 331.
Eridanus, 337.
Eryx, 333.
Ether, 315.
Eurus, 313.
Fabii, 337.
FALCONER, 312, 316.
Fate’s, 307.
Fall, 310.
Fame, 331.
Farewell call, 328.
Fasces, 337.
Father-in-law and Son-in-law, 337.
Feel that they are thought strong, 333.
Fissile, 335.
Flame, 327.
FRIEZE, 338.
Furies, 336.
Gabine cincture, 339.
Ganymede, 308.
Gate of ivory, 338.
Gazing, 323.
Geryon, 340.
Glaucus, 334.
Gnossus, 328.
Goddess, 319.
GOLDSMITH, 313, 314, 324.
Gorgons, 336.
Gradivus, 327.
GRAY, 319, 320, 322.
GREENOUGH, 338.
Grynean, 332.
Hate, 306.
Haven, 314.
Heart-sick, 315.
Hecate, 332.
Hector, 311, 317, 326.
Hecuba, 326.
Helen, 323.
Helicon, 341.
Hermione, 329.
Hesperia, 328.
Hests, 340.
Ho, 318-319.
HOLMES, 313.
Holms, 342.
HOMER, 305, 308, 311, 312, 315.
Hope, 319.
Hymen, 331.
Icarus, 335.
Idomeneus, 328.
Ilion, 310.
Inarime, 341.
Ino’s Palæmon, 334.
Iris, 332.
Ixion, 336.
Janus, 339.
Jove, 309, 320.
Juno, 306.
KEATS, 313, 319.
Kid-stars, 341.
KNAPP, 338.
Labyrinth in Crete, 333.
Lamps, 324.
LANDOR, 322.
Laocoon, 325.
Laomedon, 332.
Lap, 323.
Latian, 306.
Latona, 321.
Laurentian, 337.
Lavinium, 316.
Laws, 332.
Learning, 322.
Lemnos, 340.
Lerna, 336.
Lethe, 334, 337.
Libya, 307.
LONGFELLOW, 330.
Lyæus, 331.
Lycurgus, 327.
Mænad, 332.
Mæonian cap, 332.
Maia, 318, 340.
Manes, 328.
MARLOWE, 316, 317, 319.
Marpessa, 336.
Mavors, 341.
Memnon, 321.
MERIVALE, 343.
Messapus, 341.
MILTON, 305, 306, 307, 309, 310, 313, 314, 315, 317, 318, 320.
Minos, 336.
Monarch of Mycenæ, 342.
Much, 306.
Muse, 306.
Mycenæ, 317, 342.
Myrmidons, 325, 342.
Naked Corpse, 334.
NASH, 316, 317, 319.
Neptune, 312.
Nereus, 326.
Orichalc, 342.
Orion, 322.
Padus, 341.
Palladium, 325.
Pallas, 309, 321.
Paphos, 320.
Paris, 307.
Pelops, 325.
Penthesilea, 321.
Pergamus, 321.
Phæacian, 329.
Phaethon, 333.
Pheneus, 340.
Phineus, 328.
Phœbus, 325.
Phœbus’ sister, 319.
Phthia, 317.
Piety, 316.
Proteus, pillars of, 342.
Poison, 323.
POPE, 306, 324.
Portunus, 333.
Priest, 336.
Prochyta, 341.
Proserpine, 332.
Punic, 318.
Pyrrhus, 326.
Quirinus, 318, 337.
Ravin, 341.
Remembered, 315.
Rock’s, 309.
Routs, 313.
Royal boy, 333.
Rush forth, 310.
Rutulians, 316.
Saba, 341.
Sabæan incense, 320.
Samos, 307.
Sarpedon, 312.
Saturn, 307.
Scæan gate, 329.
Scylla, 315.
Scylla and Charybdis, 329.
SHAKESPEARE, 312, 319, 322.
SHELLEY, 309, 312, 316, 320, 330.
Shone, 322.
Side-jointings, 312.
Sibyl, 334.
Sidon, 320.
Simois, 312.
Sirens’ isle, 334.
Slumber, 323.
Solemn, 333.
Song, 324.
Soul, 342.
SPENSER, 306, 307, 308, 310, 314, 317, 318, 321, 322, 323.
Stars, 312, 317.
Styx, 334.
Syrtes, 312.
Talent, 333.
Tartarus, 334.
TASSO, 305, 310, 314, 315.
Tears, 321.
TENNYSON, 308, 310, 321, 323.
Terebinth, 341.
Teucrians, 309.
Thrice, 311.
Thymbra, 328.
Tiryns, 340.
Tithonus, 332.
Torquatus, 337.
Trident, 313.
Trinacrian, 329.
Trivia’s lake, 339.
Troilus, 321.
Troy, 306.
Turnus, 339.
Tydeus’ son, 311.
Tyndareus, 327.
Typhœan, 323.
Tyre, 306.
Tyrrhene Sea, 310.
Tyrrhenian, 338.
Ulysses, 325.
Vervain, 342.
Vesta, 318, 326.
Walk, 320.
WALLER, 311.
War, 307, 317.
Weapon, 313.
Wings, 320.
Woman, 319.
Wont, 341.
WORDSWORTH, 320, 321.
Xanthus, 321.
Zacynthos, 329.
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