# Aeneid (Conington 1866)/Book 7

Layout 2
BOOK VII.
Thou too, Æneas' nurse of yore, In death hast glorified our shore, Caieta, honoured dame: Still glory haunts thy place of rest: Marked by thy name, thy relics blest In the great country of the west Repose—if that be fame. But good Æneas, soon as paid Due tribute to the well-loved shade And funeral mound upreared, Waits till the seas grow calm at eve, Then spreads his sail, constrained to leave The haven, thus endeared. The breezes freshen toward the night, Nor doth the moon refuse Her guiding lamp: its tremulous light The glancing deep bestrews. Next, skirting still the shore, they run Fair Circe's magic coast along, Where she, bright daughter of the sun, Her forest fastness thrills with song, And for a nightly blaze consumes Rich cedar in her stately rooms, While, sounding shrill, the comb is sped From end to end adown the thread. ​Thence hear they many a midnight roar: The lion strives to burst his cell: The raging bear, the foaming boar Alternate with the gaunt wolf's yell: Whom from the human form divine For malice' sake the ruthless queen Had changed by pharmacy malign To bristly hide and bestial mien. So lest the pious Trojan train Such dire enormity sustain, The harbour should they reach, or land On that inhospitable strand, The Ocean-god inflates their sails With breath of favourable gales, And speeds their flight, and bears them safe Where angry waves no longer chafe.
The sea was reddening with the dawn: The queen of morn on high Was seen in rosy chariot drawn Against a saffron sky, When on the bosom of the deep The Zephyrs dropped at once to sleep, And, struck with calm, the tired oars strain Against the smooth unmoving main. Now from the deep Æneas sees A mighty grove of glancing trees. Embowered amid the silvan scene Old Tiber winds his banks between, And in the lap of ocean pours His gulfy stream, his sandy stores. Around, gay birds of diverse wing, Accustomed there to fly or sing, Were fluttering on from spray to spray And soothing ether with their lay. ​He bids his comrades turn aside And landward set each vessel's head, And enters in triumphant pride The river's shadowy bed.
Be with me, Goddess, while I tell What chiefs bore rule, what deeds befel, What Latium's early time, before The stranger landed on her shore, And wake the memory of the feud Which first her arms in blood imbued. O be thy poet's guide, and aid His recollection, heavenly maid! I sing of War's tempestuous tide, Of kings who perished in their pride, The Tyrrhene chivalry, and all Hesperia roused by battle's call. A loftier task the bard assays: The horizon broadens on his gaze.
Latinus, old at length and grey, O'er town and realm held peaceful sway, Born of a nymph of Latian race From kingly Faunus' loved embrace. Picus was Faunus' sire: and he, Great Saturn, owes his birth to thee. No manly heir, so Heaven decreed, Preserved in life the royal seed; E'en as it rose, in youth's fair day That progeny was reft away. One daughter stood to guard the throne, To bridal age already grown: Full many a prince from Latian land And all Ausonia sought her hand, Young Turnus chief, to kings allied And comelier far than all beside, ​Much favoured of the queen, who strove With, earnest zeal to speed his love: But prodigies with dire alarms Deny the maiden to his arms. Within the palace' centre bred An ancient tree of laurel stood: Long years of reverential dread Had gathered round its sacred wood: Men say 'twas by Latinus found When first he traced the castle's bound: He reared it from its native sod, Devoted to the Delphian god, And taught his settlers thence to claim For their new town Laurentum's name. To its high top a swarm of bees Came warping on the summer breeze: And, linking feet with feet, they sway In pendent cluster from the spray. 'A stranger comes' exclaimed the seer 'A foreign host: I see them near: The same the quarter of their flight, The same the region where they light: E'en now in plenitude of power They hold the city's topmost tower.' Then too, as standing by her sire Lavinia tends the altar-fire, Her tresses—prodigy untold— Catch the fierce flame with eager hold, And on her beauteous head-tire preys The crackling stream of torrent blaze. Her royal locks are all alight, Her coronal, with jewels bright: Till, wrapt in smoke and glare, she showers Live sparkles through the palace bowers. With mingled wonder and affright The boding seers proclaimed the sight: ​Her fame, they said, should proudly blaze A streaming light to after days, But dim should be the nation's star, O'erclouded by a mighty war.
The king, by prodigies distraught, His father Faunus' temple sought, A sacred grove displayed to sight Beneath Albunea's frowning height, Which echoes with a brawling stream, And breathes aloft sulphureous steam. Hither Œnotria's tribes repair, To seek heaven's help in man's despair: Then, when the minister divine Has placed the offering on the shrine, And, seeking sleep, at midnight lain On the stripped skins of cattle slain, Strange shapes before his eyes appear, Strange voices whisper in his ear, He communes with the sons of bliss, Or talks with Acheron's dark abyss. So now, when king Latinus came His parent god's response to claim, A hundred sheep he slew, and lay Stretched on their wool till night's decay, When sudden from the grove's deep gloom Burst on his ear the voice of doom: 'Ambition not, my son, to pair With Latian prince thy royal heir, Nor satisfy an easy quest With nuptial bowers already drest: Lo! foreign bridegrooms come, whose fame To heaven shall elevate our name: The sons who from their loins have birth Shall see one day the whole broad earth, ​From main to main, from pole to pole Beneath, them bow, beneath them roll.' These words, at night's still hour addrest, Latinus locks not in his breast: Along Ausonia's country side The voice of fame had spread them wide Already when the Trojans moored Their fleet on Tiber's river-board.
Æneas and the chiefs of Troy, And Ilium's hope, the princely boy, Their weary limbs at leisure laid Under a tree's alluring shade, Set forth the banquet, and bespread The sward beneath with cakes of bread (Jove gave the thought), and heap with store Of wilding fruit their wheaten floor. So when, all else consumed, at last The failure of their scant repast Compelled the wanderers to devour Their slender garniture of flour, Attack the fated round, nor spare The impress of the sacred square, 'What! eating up our boards beside?' In merry vein Iulus cried. That word at once dissolved the spell: The father caught it as it fell, With warning look all utterance stilled, And marvelled at the sign fulfilled. Then 'Hail, auspicious land' he cries 'So long from Fate my due! All hail, ye Trojan deities, To Trojan fortunes true! At length we rest, no more to roam. Here is our country, here our home. ​For well I mind, my sire of old This secret of the future told: 'Whene'er on unknown shores you eat Your very boards for lack of meat, Then count your home already found: There build your town and bank it round.' Aye, this the lack his words forecast. And these the horrors of that fast, Which waited all the while, to close Our dreary catalogue of woes. Come then, and with the morrow's ray. Explore we each his diverse way, The natives who, and what the place, And where the city of the race. Now with full cups libation pour To mighty Jove, whom all adore, Invoke Anchises' blessed soul, And once again set on the bowl.' Thus having said, he wreaths his brow With cincture of a leafy bough, Invokes the Genius of the spot, And Earth, of Gods the first begot, The Nymphs and Floods as yet unknown, And Night and Stars that gem her throne, And Ida's monarch Jove, And the great Mother, Phrygia's fear, And last, his own two parents dear, One nether, one above. Thrice, as he prayed, from azure skies The Thunderer pealed aloud, And flushing shook before their eyes A red and golden cloud. Through Ilium's ranks the fame flies fast, The day has come shall found at last Their city's promised towers: ​Exulting in the mighty sign, They spread the board, set on the wine, And crown the cup with flowers.
Soon as the moon at earliest birth Diffused her lustre o'er the earth, Each by a different path explores The town, the frontier, and the shores: And here they find Numicius' spring, Here Tiber flows, here dwells the king. This done, the monarch's grace to gain, Æneas sends a goodly train, A hundred chiefs of each degree, With wool-wreathed boughs from Pallas' tree, Rich presents to their hand commends, And bids them crave the dues of friends. At once the ambassadors obey: Their hasty steps despatch the way. Himself with narrow trench defines The rampart's meditated lines, And camp-like girds his city round With palisade and sloping mound. And now the chiefs, the way o'ercome, Before them rising tall See roofs and towers, the Latins' home, And pass beneath the wall. Before the town the youth at play In mimic contests speed the day, Direct the rapid car, or train The courser on the dusty plain, With vigour bend the phant bow, Or to its mark the javelin throw, Ply the swift foot, or plant the blow: When riding up in full career A herald to the monarch's ear ​Reports that valiant chiefs are here Attired in garb unknown: He, hearing, gives the word to call The strangers to the audience-hall, And seats him on his throne.
Upon the city's highest ground, With hundred columns compassed round, There rose a fane sublime; 'Twas Picus' palace long ago, And sacred woods around it throw The awe of elder time. Here wont the monarchs to receive The royal staff, the fasces heave, An omen of their reign: Here met the council of debate, Here on high days the seniors sate At lengthening tables ranged in state To feast on cattle slain. There, formed of ancient cedar wood, A line of old forefathers stood; Here Italus, Sabinus here Who taught them first the vine to rear (The mimic semblance still preserved The hook for priming deftly curved); There ancient Saturn holds his place, And Janus with his double face, And many another hoary king E'en from the nation's earliest spring, And many a warrior, strong and brave, Who poured his blood his land to save. There too were spoils of bygone wars Hung on the portals, captive cars, Strong city-gates with massy bars, And battle-axes keen, ​And plumy cones from helmets shorn, And beaks from vanquished vessels torn, And darts, and bucklers sheen. There with his bowed augurial wand And scanty robe with purple band, The sacred buckler in his hand, Sat Picus, horseman king, Who stirred of old the jealous flame Of Circe, wonder-working dame, And by her potent drugs became A bird of dappled wing. Such was the fane within whose walls The king enthroned the Trojans calls, And, thronging round him as they stand, With tranquil mien accosts the band:
'Say, Dardans, for we know your name, Nor sail ye hither strange to Fame, What need has power to waft you o'er Such length of seas to this our shore? If stress of wind, or way mista'en, Or other suffering on the main, Has made you thread our stream, and moor Your vessels from its pleasant shore, Disdain not this our Latin cheer, But know the race to Saturn dear, Not righteous by constraint or fear, But freely virtuous, self-controlled By memory of the age of gold. Aye, now I mind, in earlier day Auruncan elders wont to say 'Twas hence that Dardanus your king For Phrygian land of old took wing, And reached the towns at Ida's base And northern Samos, styled of Thrace: ​From Corythus he went, and now He suns him on Olympus' brow,
And when to heaven our altars fume,
'Mid other powers he claims his room.'
'Great King' Ilioneus made reply 'Sage Faunus' princely progeny, We come not to your friendly coast By random gale o'er ocean tost, Nor land nor star has made us stray From our determined line of way: Of steady purpose one and all We flock beneath your city wall, Driven from an empire, greater none Within the circuit of the sun. Jove is our sire: to Jove's high race We, Dardans born, our lineage trace: Jove's seed, the monarch we obey, Æneas, sends us here to-day. How fierce a storm from Argos sent On Ida's plains its fury spent, How Fate in dire collision hurled The eastern and the western world, E'en he has heard, whom earth's last verge Just separates from the circling surge, And he who, to his kind unknown, Dwells midmost 'neath the torrid zone. Swept by that deluge o'er the foam For our lorn gods we ask a home: A belt of sand is all we crave, And man's free birthright, air and wave. We shall not shame your Latin crown, Nor light shall be your own renown, Nor time obliterate the debt, Nor Italy the hour regret When Troy with outstretched arms she met. ​I swear it by Æneas' fate, By that right hand which makes him great, In peace and war approved alike A friend to aid, a foe to strike, Full oft have mighty nations—nay, Scorn not a suppliant's mean array, Nor deem that wreaths and lowly speech The freedom of our boast impeach— Full oft with zeal and earnest prayers Have nations wooed us to be theirs; But heaven's high fate, with stern command, Impelled us still to this your land. Here Dardanus was born, and here Apollo bids our race return: To Tyrrhene Tiber points the seer And pure Numicius' hallowed urn. These presents too our hands convey, Scant relics of a happier day, From burning Ilium snatched away. From this bright gold before the shrine His sire Anchises poured the wine: With these adornments Priam sate 'Mid gathered crowds in kingly state, The sceptre and the diadem: Troy's women wrought the vesture's hem.'
Thus as Ilioneus moves his suit, Latinus' face is fixed and mute; He sits as rooted to the ground, And turns his eyes in wonder round. Not Priam's crown nor purple wrought So deeply stirs his princely thought: His daughter's bed—on that he dwells, And Faunus' riddle spells and spells: Aye, this the chief the Fates prepare From foreign parts his throne to share, ​And hence the warrior race, whose sway Should make a subject world obey. At length with gladness he exclaims: 'Speed, gracious Heaven, a parent's aims And thine own sign! I grant your prayer, Kind guest, nor scorn the gifts you bear. You shall not lack, while mine the throne, Rich soil and plenty like your own. Let but Æneas, if he feel For us and ours so warm a zeal, Would he be friend and firm ally, Approach, nor shun our kindly eye: For know, that treaty may not stand Where king greets king and joins not hand. Now list, and to your monarch take What further answer here I make. A maiden child is mine, whose hand May mate with none of this our land, Thus heaven declares with many a sign, And voices from my father's shrine: Our fate, they say, has yet in store A bridegroom from a foreign shore, Whose mingling blood shall raise our name Above the empyrean frame. That he, your chief, is fortune's choice, So speaks my heart, my hope, my voice.' He ceased, and bade be brought for all Fleet horses from his royal stall: Three hundred in the stable stood With glossy coat and fiery blood:— The servants hear, and straightway lead For every chief a gallant steed: A purple cloak each courser decks, And golden poitrels grace their necks: For Venus' son the monarch's care Provides a car and princely pair, ​Twin horses of ethereal seed, Their nostrils breathing flames of fire, Derived from that clandestine breed By Circe stolen from her sire. So, cheered with gifts and courteous phrase, The Trojans take their homeward ways, And, mounted as they ride, report A friendly welcome from the court.
Meantime from Argos journeying The consort of the almighty King, O'er far Pachynus as she flies, Looks down in prospect from the skies: She sees them in their hour of joy, Æneas and the crews of Troy: Already at their walls they toil, And trust them to the friendly soil, And leave the fleet behind: She halts, by keenest anguish stung, Shakes her dark brows, and thus gives tongue To her infuriate mind: 'O thrice abhorred, accursed brood! O Phrygian fates, with mine at feud! And fell they on Sigean plain Those all innumerable slain? And were the captives truly ta'en And were the bondmen bound? The flame that fell on Ilium's tower, Say, could it Ilium's sons devour? Through circling fires and steely shower Their passage have they found. Aye, sooth, my arts have spent their strength; My hate, full gorged, has slept at length— I, who could hound them o'er the foam When tossed and shaken from their home: On every sea, 'neath every sky, Where'er they turned them, there was I. ​The armouries of air and main Were loosed on Troy, and loosed in vain. What vantaged me those powers of hurt, Charybdis, Scylla, and the Syrt? In Tiber's port they ride at ease And laugh at Juno and her seas. Yet Mars could sweep from earth's wide face All vestige of the Lapith race: Old Calydon the eternal Sire Surrendered to Diana's ire: What sin so grievous had they done, The Lapith race or Calydon? But I, the Thunderer's awful bride, Who left, poor wretch, no art untried, Who dared a thousand arms to wield, Must yield, and to Æneas yield. If strength like mine be yet too weak, I care not whose the aid I seek: What choice 'twixt under and above? If Heaven be firm, the shades shall move. Grant that I cannot bar the way That leads him to his Latian sway, That fixed in destiny must stand The promise of Lavinia's hand: Yet just it were events so great For slow accomplishment should wait; Yet may I make the monarchs twain Each mourner for a nation slain. So let them give and take them wives, The wedding's cost their people's lives. Behold your marriage dower, fair maid! In Latium's blood and Troy's 't is paid: Bellona at the appointed hour Shall light you to your bridal bower. Not Hecuba the only dame Whose womb bore fruit in nuptial flame: ​Venus shall see her offspring dear Another Paris reappear, A torch rekindled to destroy E'en now the second birth of Troy.'
This said, with vengeance in her eyes From heaven to earth the goddess flies, And from the Furies' Stygian halls Alecto's baleful presence calls, To whom grim war and jealous strife And treacheries are the breath of life. E'en Pluto hates his offspring, e'en Her sister fiends the monster dread, So multiform her hideous mien, So thick the serpents round her head. Whom Juno then for aid entreats With words that kindle fiercer heats: 'Vouchsafe me, virgin child of Night, This boon for my peculiar right, A service all thine own, Lest Juno's praise and worship fall From their exalted pedestal, Should Troy Italia's bounds beset And weave her hymenæal net About Latinus' throne. Thou canst in hostile arms array Two brothers of one will, With rancorous hate and burning fray A peaceful homestead fill: Scourges are thine and funeral flames: Thou gloriest in a thousand names, A thousand means of ill. Stir up thy breast, with malice rife, Break the formed league, sow seeds of strife: Let youth and age with one accord Desire, demand, and seize the sword.' ​Then, steeped in venom's direst gall, Alecto spreads her wing For Latium and the stately hall Of the Laurentian king, Alights, and sits her down before Amata's silent chamber-door: Who, musing on the new-come host And Turnus' hopes malignly crossed, Was seething o'er, unhappy queen, With woman's passion, woman's spleen. The goddess snatched a serpent, bred 'Mid the dark ringlets of her head, And hurled it at the dame, That she, made frantic by the smart Deep working in her inmost heart, Might set the house on flame. In glides the snake, unfelt, unseen, Thin robe and ivory breast between, And breathing in its poisonous breath, Enwraps her in a dream of death: Now with her golden necklace blends, Now from her fillet's length depends, With serpent gold her tresses binds, And smoothly round her person winds. So, when the viperous influence Is first distilling o'er the sense, Nor yet the soul has caught entire The fever of contagious fire, Gently, as mother might, she speaks, The hot tears rolling down her cheeks, Tears for her hapless daughter shed And Phrygia's hated bridal bed: 'And shall a Dardan fugitive, O father, with Lavinia wive? And will you not compassion take For daughter's, sire's, or mother's sake? ​Aye, well I know, the first fair gale Shall see the faithless pirate sail, And bear from home the weeping maid, The prize of his triumphant raid. Not thus, forsooth, the Phrygian swain Made stealthy progress o'er the main, To Sparta won his way, and bore Fair Helen to the Idæan shore. Where now your sacred promise? where The love you wont your own to bear, Or where that hand, whose friendly grasp The hand of Turnus oft would clasp? If nought will serve for Latium's need But bridegroom sprung from foreign seed, And father Faunus' solemn hest Sits heavy on your anxious breast, All climes that own not our command, So read I Fate, are foreign land. And Turnus, if enquiry trace The first beginnings of his race, Counts with his grandsires Argive kings, And from Mycenæ's midmost springs.'
But when, essaying oft, she sees Latinus proof against her pleas, And now the deadly poison thrills Her veins, and all the woman fills, Then, maddened with its furious heats, She rages through the crowded streets, Like top that whirling 'neath the thong Is scourged by eager boys along Bent on their gamesome strife: With eddying motion it careers Round empty courts in circling spheres; The beardless troop in strange amaze Upon the winged boxwood gaze: The lashes lend it life. ​So wildly, furiously she flies Through peopled towns 'neath wolfish eyes. Nay more, with fiercer frenzy spurred, She feigns herself by Bacchus stirred, Betakes her to the woods, and hides The maid in leafy mountain-sides, To balk the Trojans and delay The dreaded hymenæal day: And 'Evoe Bacchus! thou alone' (So shrills her wild ecstatic tone) 'Art worthy of the fair: For thee she wields the ivied wand, For thee leads forth the dancers' band, For thee she tends her hair.' Swift flies the heraldry of fame, And many another frenzied dame Comes forth, her spirit all on flame A new abode to seek: Their ancient homes they leave behind, Spread hair and shoulders to the wind, Or clad in skins from fawns new doffed Their vine-branch javelins raise aloft, With shrill ear-piercing shriek. She in the midst with frantic hand Uplifts a blazing pine-wood brand, And hymns aloud in solemn lay Her child and Turnus' marriage day; Then rolling red her bloodshot eyes 'Ho, Latian mothers!' fierce she cries, 'Give ear, where'er ye be: If, still to poor Amata kind, A mother's wrongs ye bear in mind, The fillet from your brows unbind, And rove the woods with me.' Thus, armed with Bacchus' handspears keen, Alecto goads the ill-starred queen, ​And drives her far from home of men, 'Mid silvan haunt and wild-beast's den.
So when she sees the seeds of ill Have thriven obedient to her will, The royal house, the royal thought Alike to dire confusion brought, On dusky wings the goddess flies Where the bold Daunian's ramparts rise, The town which Danae built of yore, By headlong tempest blown ashore. Ardea the name that bygone race Bestowed upon their dwelling-place, And Ardea's name is honoured yet, But Ardea's sun in gloom is set. There in his home at midnight deep Was Turnus lying wrapped in sleep. At once the crafty fiend lays by All signs of baleful deity: No Fury now, she makes her own The likeness of a wrinkled crone, Binds with a fillet tresses grey And twines them round with olive spray: She stands, transformed to Calybe, Priestess of Juno's temple she, And thus in simulated guise Presents her to the warrior's eyes: 'Can Turnus rest and see his pain, His generous toil bestowed in vain? Lie still and see his kingly sway To Dardan settlers signed away? Latinus robs you of the fair, Withholds perforce her blood-bought dower, And searches out a foreign heir To throne him in the seat of power. ​Go, fight your fights that win no thanks, Seek scorn amid the embattled field; Go, mow them down, the Tuscan ranks, And Latium's tribes with safety shield. These words Saturnia's awful power Breathes in your ear in midnight's hour. Come, sound the glad alarm, and call The youth to arms without the wall; Consume the Phrygian ships, that ride At anchor in our pleasant tide: 'Tis heaven's high will that gives command, And prompts to fight your ready hand. Nay, let Latinus' self, if yet He grudge the fair, nor own his debt, From late experience learn, and feel The might of Turnus, sheathed in steel.'
With scornful laughter in his eye The haughty youth thus made reply: 'The fleet arrived in Tiber's stream Has not escaped me, as you deem: Why feign these terrors? well I ween Turnus is watched by Juno queen: 'Tis you, good dame, effete and old, Whom purblind age, o'ergrown with mould, Bemocks with visions of alarms Amid the clang of monarchs' arms. Yours is the task to tend the shrine And make your image look divine; But leave to men, whose care they are, The mysteries of peace and war.'
These taunts enkindled into fire The furnace of Alecto's ire. Or ere he ceased, a trembling takes His frame; his eyes are fixed as stone; ​So dire the hissing of her snakes, So ghastly grim the features shown; She thrusts him back with angry glare As, faltering, further speech he tries, Uprears two serpents from her hair, And cracks her scorpion whip, and cries: 'Behold the dame, grown o'er with mould, Whom dotage, impotent and old, Bemocks with visions of alarms Amid the clang of monarchs' arms! My home is with the infernal king, And death and war in hand I bring.'
A fire-brand at the youth she throws: Lodged in his breast the pinewood glows With lurid light and dim: A giant terror breaks his sleep, And, bursting forth, big sweat-drops steep His body, bone and limb. 'My sword! my sword!' he madly shrieks; His sword he through the chamber seeks And all the mansion o'er: Burns the fierce fever of the steel, The guilty madness warriors feel, And jealous wrath yet more: As when piled high a caldron round The wood-fire sends a crackling sound, And makes the waters start and bound, In wild turmoil with smoke and steam Seethes, hisses, froths the imprisoned stream, Till the vexed wave o'erleaps control, And vaporous clouds to heaven uproll. So, proudly trampling treaties down, He sounds a march to Latium's town: To king Latinus he will go, Protect the realm, expel the foe: ​Though Latium's force unite with Troy's Himself will bring the counterpoise. This said, to Heaven he makes appeal: The Rutule hosts with emulous zeal Their martial rage inflame: And one the chief's young beauty fires, One kindles at his hero sires, One at his deeds of fame.
While Turnus thus to fury fans The Rutules' warlike might, Alecto on her Stygian vans Turns to Troy's camp her flight. New cunning in her breast, a place She in the distance eyed, Where young Iulus led the chase Along the river-side: Then sudden to his hounds' keen smell Presents the lure they know so well, A gallant stag to start: 'Twas thence a nation's sorrow flowed, And kindling into madness glowed The savage rustic heart. Of beauteous form and branching head A stag in human haunts was bred, From mother's milk withdrawn, By Tyrrheus and his children reared, Tyrrheus, who ruled the royal herd, The ranger of the lawn. Fair Silvia, daughter of the race, Its horns with wreaths would interlace, Comb smooth its shaggy coat, and lave Its body in the crystal wave. Tame and obedient, it would stray Free through the woods a summer's day, ​And home again at night repair E'en of itself, how late soe'er. So now 'twas wandering when the pack Gave tongue and followed on its track, As sheltered from the noontide beam It floated listless down the stream. Ambition fired Ascanius too; The shaft he aimed, the bow he drew: Fate guides his hand: with whirring speed Through flank and belly flies the reed. Homeward the wounded creature fled, Took refuge in the well-known shed, And bleeding, crying as for aid, Through all the house its moaning made. With flat hand smiting on each arm Poor Silvia gives the first alarm, And calls the rural folk: They—for the fury-pest unseen Is lurking in the woodland green— Or ere she deems, are close at hand; One grasps a charred and hardened brand, And one a knotted oak: Whate'er the seeker's haste may find Does weapon's work for fury blind. Stout Tyrrheus, as he splits in four With wedge on wedge a tree's tough core, Leaps forth, his hatchet still in hand, And, breathing rage, arrays his band. The goddess from her vantage tower Perceives, and seizes mischief's hour, Flies to the summit of the stall, And thence shrills out the shepherd's call, With harsh Tartarean voice in air Pitching on high the horn's hoarse blare. That sound the forest line convulsed; The long vibration throbbed and pulsed Through all the depth of wood: ​'Twas heard by Trivia's lake afar, Heard by the sulphurous waves of Nar And Velia's fountain flood; And terror-stricken mothers pressed Their children closer to their breast.
Now, gathering at the hideous sound, The rustics from the country round Snatch up their arms and run: The Trojan youth, their gates displayed, Stream forth to give Ascanius aid, And battle is begun. No longer now 'tis village feud, Waged with seared stakes and truncheons rude: Another game they try: 'Tis two-edged iron: swords and spears Bristle the field with spiky ears: Responsive to the sun's appeal Flash glittering brass and burnished steel, And fling their rays on high: As when beneath the winds' first sweep The white foam gathers on the deep, The waters gradual rise, High and more high the billows grow, Till from the very depth below They mount into the skies. Young Almo, Tyrrheus' heir till then, Falls mid the foremost fighting men, By whizzing shaft laid low: Deep in his gullet lodged the death And choked the ways of voice and breath With life-blood's gushing flow: Around him many a warrior bleeds, And old Galæsus, as he pleads In vain for peace: no juster son Had fair Ausonia, richer none: ​Each night within his cotes were penned Five flocks of sheep, five herds of cows,
And his broad lands from end to end
Were furrowed by a hundred ploughs.
While these are killing thus and killed, The fiend, her promise now fulfilled, Soon as the first hot blood is drawn And war in thunder 'gins to dawn, Up from Hesperia flies, And riding on the rack of cloud, Thus with triumphant voice and proud To mighty Juno cries: 'Behold, 'tis finished! strife full-blown Has issued forth in fight: Now bid the hosts their hate atone And friendly treaty plight. The hands of Troy, thou seest, are dyed Deep in Ausonian blood; A guerdon I will add beside, If so thy will holds good: The neighbouring cities I will fill With thick-sown rumours rife, And wake in each unruly will The frantic lust of strife, Till aid they bring from every side, And battle's seeds be scattered wide.' Juno returns: 'Enough is spread Of treachery and panic dread: The roots of war are firmly set: The fight is ragging hilt to hilt: The arms that chance supplied are wet With taint of carnage newly spilt. Such be the hymenæal ties That Venus' son shall solemnize With Latium's easy king! ​For thee, heaven's monarch may not hear That longer thou in upper air Shouldst ply thine errant wing. Give place: if further chance betide, Myself the circumstance will guide.' Saturnia spoke: the Fury spread Her serpent wings for flight, Dives to the regions of the dead, And leaves the upper light. In mid Italia lies a place Retiring 'neath a mountain's base, Amsanctus' vale, pent in between Two wooded slopes of dusky green, While in the midst a torrent raves, As 'twixt the rocks it winds its waves. An awful cavern there men show, The very gorge of Dis below, And gulfs whence Acheron bursts to sight Ope jaws of pestilential night: There plunged the hateful fiend beneath, And earth and sky again took breath.
Juno takes up the unfinished plan And perfects what the fiend began. Straight to the city from the plain The shepherds speed, and bear the slain, Young Almo in his comely grace And old Galæsus' mangled face, Make street and home with clamour ring, Implore the gods, adjure the king. Fierce Turnus takes the tide at flood: His loud voice swells the cry for blood That blazes up to heaven: 'Strange slips defile the royal stem: The Phrygians share the diadem, Himself from Latium driven.' ​Then they whose dames are footing still In Bacchic frenzy wood and hill (Such power is in Amata's name) Come forth, and fan the martial flame. 'Gainst omens flashed before their eyes, 'Gainst warnings thundered from the skies, They cry for war, and early and late Besiege Latinus' palace-gate. Like rock engirdled by the sea, Like rock immoveable is he Before the roaring tide: The wild waves bark about its base: Its mass sustains it still in place: Crags echo round: it gives no heed: And scattered foam and rent seaweed Fall from its rugged side. Powerless at length their rage to check, As things whirl on at Juno's beck, Appealing oft to soulless skies And deaf dumb gods, the father cries: 'Alas! the destinies prevail: We drift and drift before the gale: Ah wretched children! yours the guilt, And yours the blood must needs be spilt. Thee, Turnus, thee the grim fiends wait: Thine agonizing vows too late Shall knock at heaven's relentless gate. For me, my rest is all assured, My bark within the haven moored: The shock that parts my aged breath But robs me of a happy death.' He speaks, and in his chamber hides, While from his hand the sceptre slides.
In Latium's old Hesperian day An ancient rule of yore had sway; ​To Alba's cities thence it passed; Now Rome, earth's mistress, holds it fast, Whether 'gainst Thrace they turn their spears, Or bring the Arab blood and tears, Or, following on the daystar's track, From Parthia claim the standards back. Two gates there stand of War—'twas so Our fathers named them long ago— The war-god's terrors round them spread All atmosphere of sacred dread: A hundred bolts the entrance guard, And Janus there keeps watch and ward. These, when his peers on war decide, The consul, all in antique pride Of Gabine cincture deftly tied And purple-striped attire, With grating noise himself unbars, And calls aloud on Father Mars: The warrior train takes up the cry, And horns with brazen symphony Their hoarse assent conspire. 'Twas thus they bade the king proclaim Fierce war against the Trojan name, And ope the gates of doom: The good old sire with hand and eye Shrank from the hated ministry And deeper plunged in gloom. When lo! in person from above Descends the imperial spouse of Jove, Smote the barred gates, and backward rolled On jarring hinge each bursten fold. Ausonia, all inert before, Takes fire and blazes to the core: And some on foot their march essay, Some, mounted, storm along the way; To arms! cry one and all: ​With, unctuous lard their shields they clean And make their javelins bright and sheen, Their axes on the whetstone grind; Look how that banner takes the wind! Hark to yon trumpet's call! Five mighty towns, their anvils set, With emulous zeal their weapons whet: Crustumium, Tibur the renowned, And strong Atina there are found, And Ardea, and Antemnæ crowned With turrets round her wall. Steel caps they frame their brows to fit, And osier twigs for bucklers knit: Or twist the hauberk's brazen mail And mould them greaves of silver pale: To this has shrunk the homage paid Erewhile to ploughshare, scythe, and spade: Each brings his father's battered blade And smelts in fire anew: And now the clarions pierce the skies: From rank to rank the watchword flies: This tears his helmet from the wall, That drags his war-horse from the stall, Dons three-piled mail and ample shield, And girds him for the embattled field With falchion tried and true.
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, 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.
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, 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: Ah happy, had the son been blest In hearkening to his sire's behest, Or had the sire from whom he came Had other nature, other name!
Next drives along the grassy meads 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. '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 Alcides touched the Latian plain, And bathed Iberia's distant kine In Tuscan Tiber's flood. 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, ​Joins the proud chiefs in rude attire, And waves the emblem of his sire.
From Tibur's walls twin brothers came, The town that bears Tiburtus' name, Bold Coras and Catillus strong: Through thick-rained darts they storm along, The foremost in the fray: As when two cloud-born Centaurs leap Down Homole or Othrys' steep, The forest parts before their sweep, 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 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 And Hernic rocks, by streams bedewed, Who till Anagnia's bosom green Or drink of father Amasene. Not all are furished for the war With ample shield or sounding car. 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: 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 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 Or fair Flavinia's cornland till, Capena's woods their dwelling make Or haunt Ciminius' mount and lake. With measured pace they march along, And make their monarch's deeds their song; 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 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, Press landward from the sea.
Lo! Clausus there, the Sabines' boast, Leads a great host, himself a host: From whom the Claudii till the land Since Rome with Sabines joined her hand. 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, Who till Velinus' Rosean fields, Who Tetrica's rude summit climb Or on Severus sit sublime, ​Or dwell where runs Himella by Casperia's walls and Foruli, 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: 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 Quakes, startled by their footfall's sound.
Halæsus, Agamemnon's seed, Sworn foe to all of Trojan breed, Yokes his swift horses to the car, And brings his hosts to Turnus' war, The rustic tribes whose ploughshare tills The vine-clad slopes of Massic hills, Or whom from plain or mountain height Auruncan fathers send to fight, Who fertile Cales leave behind Or where Vulturnian waters wind, The dwellers on Saticule's rock And all the hardy Oscan stock. Bright javelins they are wont to fling, But fit them with a leathern string: A shield protects the good left hand, And curved like pruner's hook the brand They wield when foot to foot they stand.
Nor, Œbalus, shalt thou pass by Unnamed in this our minstrelsy, ​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, 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, All wont in Teuton sort to throw Long beamy lances '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, 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.
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 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: 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, 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. 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, 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 lightning down to Pluto's world. 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 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 His dauntless son essays the war.
In foremost rank see Turnus move, His comely head the rest above: On his tall helm with triple cone Chimæra in relief is shown; 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 Io, all gold, his shield adorns, Memorial grave and stern; There Argus stands, her guard and foe, And Inachus her sire lets flow The river from his urn. A cloud of footmen at his back, And shielded hosts the plain make black: Auruncans, Argives, brave and bold, Rutulians and Sicanians old, Sacranians thirsting for the field, Labici with enamelled shield; Who Tiber's lanws with ploughshare score And pure Numicius' hallowed shore, Subdue Rutulian slopes, and till Circeii's venerable hill: Where Anxur boasts her guardian Jove And greenly blooms Feronia's grove; Where Satura's unlovely pool In sullen quiet sleeps, And Ufens winds through valleys cool And plunges 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 Ne'er plied Minerva's ministries: A virgin in the fight she stands Or winged winds in speed outvies. Nay, she could fly o'er fields of grain Nor crush in flight the tapering wheat, ​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 Beholding as she speeds along: How fair her scarf in purple dipped, How clasps the gold her tresses' flow: Her pastoral wand with steel is tipped, And Lycian are her shafts and bow.
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