When Turnus had assembled all his pow'rs,\nHis standard planted on Laurentum's tow'rs;\nWhen now the sprightly trumpet, from afar,\nHad giv'n the signal of approaching war,\nHad rous'd the neighing steeds to scour the fields,\nWhile the fierce riders clatter'd on their shields;\nTrembling with rage, the Latian youth prepare\nTo join th' allies, and headlong rush to war.\nFierce Ufens, and Messapus, led the crowd,\nWith bold Mezentius, who blasphem'd aloud.\nThese thro' the country took their wasteful course,\nThe fields to forage, and to gather force.\nThen Venulus to Diomede they send,\nTo beg his aid Ausonia to defend,\nDeclare the common danger, and inform\nThe Grecian leader of the growing storm:\nAeneas, landed on the Latian coast,\nWith banish'd gods, and with a baffled host,\nYet now aspir'd to conquest of the state,\nAnd claim'd a title from the gods and fate;\nWhat num'rous nations in his quarrel came,\nAnd how they spread his formidable name.\nWhat he design'd, what mischief might arise,\nIf fortune favor'd his first enterprise,\nWas left for him to weigh, whose equal fears,\nAnd common interest, was involv'd in theirs.<\/p>\n
While Turnus and th' allies thus urge the war,\nThe Trojan, floating in a flood of care,\nBeholds the tempest which his foes prepare.\nThis way and that he turns his anxious mind;\nThinks, and rejects the counsels he design'd;\nExplores himself in vain, in ev'ry part,\nAnd gives no rest to his distracted heart.\nSo, when the sun by day, or moon by night,\nStrike on the polish'd brass their trembling light,\nThe glitt'ring species here and there divide,\nAnd cast their dubious beams from side to side;\nNow on the walls, now on the pavement play,\nAnd to the ceiling flash the glaring day.<\/p>\n
'T was night; and weary nature lull'd asleep\nThe birds of air, and fishes of the deep,\nAnd beasts, and mortal men. The Trojan chief\nWas laid on Tiber's banks, oppress'd with grief,\nAnd found in silent slumber late relief.\nThen, thro' the shadows of the poplar wood,\nArose the father of the Roman flood;\nAn azure robe was o'er his body spread,\nA wreath of shady reeds adorn'd his head:\nThus, manifest to sight, the god appear'd,\nAnd with these pleasing words his sorrow cheer'd:\n\"Undoubted offspring of ethereal race,\nO long expected in this promis'd place!\nWho thro' the foes hast borne thy banish'd gods,\nRestor'd them to their hearths, and old abodes;\nThis is thy happy home, the clime where fate\nOrdains thee to restore the Trojan state.\nFear not! The war shall end in lasting peace,\nAnd all the rage of haughty Juno cease.\nAnd that this nightly vision may not seem\nTh' effect of fancy, or an idle dream,\nA sow beneath an oak shall lie along,\nAll white herself, and white her thirty young.\nWhen thirty rolling years have run their race,\nThy son Ascanius, on this empty space,\nShall build a royal town, of lasting fame,\nWhich from this omen shall receive the name.\nTime shall approve the truth. For what remains,\nAnd how with sure success to crown thy pains,\nWith patience next attend. A banish'd band,\nDriv'n with Evander from th' Arcadian land,\nHave planted here, and plac'd on high their walls;\nTheir town the founder Pallanteum calls,\nDeriv'd from Pallas, his great-grandsire's name:\nBut the fierce Latians old possession claim,\nWith war infesting the new colony.\nThese make thy friends, and on their aid rely.\nTo thy free passage I submit my streams.\nWake, son of Venus, from thy pleasing dreams;\nAnd, when the setting stars are lost in day,\nTo Juno's pow'r thy just devotion pay;\nWith sacrifice the wrathful queen appease:\nHer pride at length shall fall, her fury cease.\nWhen thou return'st victorious from the war,\nPerform thy vows to me with grateful care.\nThe god am I, whose yellow water flows\nAround these fields, and fattens as it goes:\nTiber my name; among the rolling floods\nRenown'd on earth, esteem'd among the gods.\nThis is my certain seat. In times to come,\nMy waves shall wash the walls of mighty Rome.\"<\/p>\n
He said, and plung'd below. While yet he spoke,\nHis dream Aeneas and his sleep forsook.\nHe rose, and looking up, beheld the skies\nWith purple blushing, and the day arise.\nThen water in his hollow palm he took\nFrom Tiber's flood, and thus the pow'rs bespoke:\n\"Laurentian nymphs, by whom the streams are fed,\nAnd Father Tiber, in thy sacred bed\nReceive Aeneas, and from danger keep.\nWhatever fount, whatever holy deep,\nConceals thy wat'ry stores; where'er they rise,\nAnd, bubbling from below, salute the skies;\nThou, king of horned floods, whose plenteous urn\nSuffices fatness to the fruitful corn,\nFor this thy kind compassion of our woes,\nShalt share my morning song and ev'ning vows.\nBut, O be present to thy people's aid,\nAnd firm the gracious promise thou hast made!\"\nThus having said, two galleys from his stores,\nWith care he chooses, mans, and fits with oars.\nNow on the shore the fatal swine is found.\nWondrous to tell!- She lay along the ground:\nHer well-fed offspring at her udders hung;\nShe white herself, and white her thirty young.\nAeneas takes the mother and her brood,\nAnd all on Juno's altar are bestow'd.<\/p>\n
The foll'wing night, and the succeeding day,\nPropitious Tiber smooth'd his wat'ry way:\nHe roll'd his river back, and pois'd he stood,\nA gentle swelling, and a peaceful flood.\nThe Trojans mount their ships; they put from shore,\nBorne on the waves, and scarcely dip an oar.\nShouts from the land give omen to their course,\nAnd the pitch'd vessels glide with easy force.\nThe woods and waters wonder at the gleam\nOf shields, and painted ships that stem the stream.\nOne summer's night and one whole day they pass\nBetwixt the greenwood shades, and cut the liquid glass.\nThe fiery sun had finish'd half his race,\nLook'd back, and doubted in the middle space,\nWhen they from far beheld the rising tow'rs,\nThe tops of sheds, and shepherds' lowly bow'rs,\nThin as they stood, which, then of homely clay,\nNow rise in marble, from the Roman sway.\nThese cots (Evander's kingdom, mean and poor)\nThe Trojan saw, and turn'd his ships to shore.\n'T was on a solemn day: th' Arcadian states,\nThe king and prince, without the city gates,\nThen paid their off'rings in a sacred grove\nTo Hercules, the warrior son of Jove.\nThick clouds of rolling smoke involve the skies,\nAnd fat of entrails on his altar fries.<\/p>\n
But, when they saw the ships that stemm'd the flood,\nAnd glitter'd thro' the covert of the wood,\nThey rose with fear, and left th' unfinish'd feast,\nTill dauntless Pallas reassur'd the rest\nTo pay the rites. Himself without delay\nA jav'lin seiz'd, and singly took his way;\nThen gain'd a rising ground, and call'd from far:\n\"Resolve me, strangers, whence, and what you are;\nYour bus'ness here; and bring you peace or war?\"\nHigh on the stern Aeneas his stand,\nAnd held a branch of olive in his hand,\nWhile thus he spoke: \"The Phrygians' arms you see,\nExpell'd from Troy, provok'd in Italy\nBy Latian foes, with war unjustly made;\nAt first affianc'd, and at last betray'd.\nThis message bear: 'The Trojans and their chief\nBring holy peace, and beg the king's relief.'\nStruck with so great a name, and all on fire,\nThe youth replies: \"Whatever you require,\nYour fame exacts. Upon our shores descend.\nA welcome guest, and, what you wish, a friend.\"\nHe said, and, downward hasting to the strand,\nEmbrac'd the stranger prince, and join'd his hand.<\/p>\n
Conducted to the grove, Aeneas broke\nThe silence first, and thus the king bespoke:\n\"Best of the Greeks, to whom, by fate's command,\nI bear these peaceful branches in my hand,\nUndaunted I approach you, tho' I know\nYour birth is Grecian, and your land my foe;\nFrom Atreus tho' your ancient lineage came,\nAnd both the brother kings your kindred claim;\nYet, my self-conscious worth, your high renown,\nYour virtue, thro' the neighb'ring nations blown,\nOur fathers' mingled blood, Apollo's voice,\nHave led me hither, less by need than choice.\nOur founder Dardanus, as fame has sung,\nAnd Greeks acknowledge, from Electra sprung:\nElectra from the loins of Atlas came;\nAtlas, whose head sustains the starry frame.\nYour sire is Mercury, whom long before\nOn cold Cyllene's top fair Maia bore.\nMaia the fair, on fame if we rely,\nWas Atlas' daughter, who sustains the sky.\nThus from one common source our streams divide;\nOurs is the Trojan, yours th' Arcadian side.\nRais'd by these hopes, I sent no news before,\nNor ask'd your leave, nor did your faith implore;\nBut come, without a pledge, my own ambassador.\nThe same Rutulians, who with arms pursue\nThe Trojan race, are equal foes to you.\nOur host expell'd, what farther force can stay\nThe victor troops from universal sway?\nThen will they stretch their pow'r athwart the land,\nAnd either sea from side to side command.\nReceive our offer'd faith, and give us thine;\nOurs is a gen'rous and experienc'd line:\nWe want not hearts nor bodies for the war;\nIn council cautious, and in fields we dare.\"<\/p>\n
He said; and while spoke, with piercing eyes\nEvander view'd the man with vast surprise,\nPleas'd with his action, ravish'd with his face:\nThen answer'd briefly, with a royal grace:\n\"O valiant leader of the Trojan line,\nIn whom the features of thy father shine,\nHow I recall Anchises! how I see\nHis motions, mien, and all my friend, in thee!\nLong tho' it be, 't is fresh within my mind,\nWhen Priam to his sister's court design'd\nA welcome visit, with a friendly stay,\nAnd thro' th' Arcadian kingdom took his way.\nThen, past a boy, the callow down began\nTo shade my chin, and call me first a man.\nI saw the shining train with vast delight,\nAnd Priam's goodly person pleas'd my sight:\nBut great Anchises, far above the rest,\nWith awful wonder fir'd my youthful breast.\nI long'd to join in friendship's holy bands\nOur mutual hearts, and plight our mutual hands.\nI first accosted him: I sued, I sought,\nAnd, with a loving force, to Pheneus brought.\nHe gave me, when at length constrain'd to go,\nA Lycian quiver and a Gnossian bow,\nA vest embroider'd, glorious to behold,\nAnd two rich bridles, with their bits of gold,\nWhich my son's coursers in obedience hold.\nThe league you ask, I offer, as your right;\nAnd, when to-morrow's sun reveals the light,\nWith swift supplies you shall be sent away.\nNow celebrate with us this solemn day,\nWhose holy rites admit no long delay.\nHonor our annual feast; and take your seat,\nWith friendly welcome, at a homely treat.\"\nThus having said, the bowls (remov'd for fear)\nThe youths replac'd, and soon restor'd the cheer.\nOn sods of turf he set the soldiers round:\nA maple throne, rais'd higher from the ground,\nReceiv'd the Trojan chief; and, o'er the bed,\nA lion's shaggy hide for ornament they spread.\nThe loaves were serv'd in canisters; the wine\nIn bowls; the priest renew'd the rites divine:\nBroil'd entrails are their food, and beef's continued chine.<\/p>\n
But when the rage of hunger was repress'd,\nThus spoke Evander to his royal guest:\n\"These rites, these altars, and this feast, O king,\nFrom no vain fears or superstition spring,\nOr blind devotion, or from blinder chance,\nOr heady zeal, or brutal ignorance;\nBut, sav'd from danger, with a grateful sense,\nThe labors of a god we recompense.\nSee, from afar, yon rock that mates the sky,\nAbout whose feet such heaps of rubbish lie;\nSuch indigested ruin; bleak and bare,\nHow desart now it stands, expos'd in air!\n'T was once a robber's den, inclos'd around\nWith living stone, and deep beneath the ground.\nThe monster Cacus, more than half a beast,\nThis hold, impervious to the sun, possess'd.\nThe pavement ever foul with human gore;\nHeads, and their mangled members, hung the door.\nVulcan this plague begot; and, like his sire,\nBlack clouds he belch'd, and flakes of livid fire.\nTime, long expected, eas'd us of our load,\nAnd brought the needful presence of a god.\nTh' avenging force of Hercules, from Spain,\nArriv'd in triumph, from Geryon slain:\nThrice liv'd the giant, and thrice liv'd in vain.\nHis prize, the lowing herds, Alcides drove\nNear Tiber's bank, to graze the shady grove.\nAllur'd with hope of plunder, and intent\nBy force to rob, by fraud to circumvent,\nThe brutal Cacus, as by chance they stray'd,\nFour oxen thence, and four fair kine convey'd;\nAnd, lest the printed footsteps might be seen,\nHe dragg'd 'em backwards to his rocky den.\nThe tracks averse a lying notice gave,\nAnd led the searcher backward from the cave.<\/p>\n
\"Meantime the herdsman hero shifts his place,\nTo find fresh pasture and untrodden grass.\nThe beasts, who miss'd their mates, fill'd all around\nWith bellowings, and the rocks restor'd the sound.\nOne heifer, who had heard her love complain,\nRoar'd from the cave, and made the project vain.\nAlcides found the fraud; with rage he shook,\nAnd toss'd about his head his knotted oak.\nSwift as the winds, or Scythian arrows' flight,\nHe clomb, with eager haste, th' aerial height.\nThen first we saw the monster mend his pace;\nFear his eyes, and paleness in his face,\nConfess'd the god's approach. Trembling he springs,\nAs terror had increas'd his feet with wings;\nNor stay'd for stairs; but down the depth he threw\nHis body, on his back the door he drew\n(The door, a rib of living rock; with pains\nHis father hew'd it out, and bound with iron chains):\nHe broke the heavy links, the mountain clos'd,\nAnd bars and levers to his foe oppos'd.\nThe wretch had hardly made his dungeon fast;\nThe fierce avenger came with bounding haste;\nSurvey'd the mouth of the forbidden hold,\nAnd here and there his raging eyes he roll'd.\nHe gnash'd his teeth; and thrice he compass'd round\nWith winged speed the circuit of the ground.\nThrice at the cavern's mouth he pull'd in vain,\nAnd, panting, thrice desisted from his pain.\nA pointed flinty rock, all bare and black,\nGrew gibbous from behind the mountain's back;\nOwls, ravens, all ill omens of the night,\nHere built their nests, and hither wing'd their flight.\nThe leaning head hung threat'ning o'er the flood,\nAnd nodded to the left. The hero stood\nAdverse, with planted feet, and, from the right,\nTugg'd at the solid stone with all his might.\nThus heav'd, the fix'd foundations of the rock\nGave way; heav'n echo'd at the rattling shock.\nTumbling, it chok'd the flood: on either side\nThe banks leap backward, and the streams divide;\nThe sky shrunk upward with unusual dread,\nAnd trembling Tiber div'd beneath his bed.\nThe court of Cacus stands reveal'd to sight;\nThe cavern glares with new-admitted light.\nSo the pent vapors, with a rumbling sound,\nHeave from below, and rend the hollow ground;\nA sounding flaw succeeds; and, from on high,\nThe gods with hate beheld the nether sky:\nThe ghosts repine at violated night,\nAnd curse th' invading sun, and sicken at the sight.\nThe graceless monster, caught in open day,\nInclos'd, and in despair to fly away,\nHowls horrible from underneath, and fills\nHis hollow palace with unmanly yells.\nThe hero stands above, and from afar\nPlies him with darts, and stones, and distant war.\nHe, from his nostrils huge mouth, expires\nBlack clouds of smoke, amidst his father's fires,\nGath'ring, with each repeated blast, the night,\nTo make uncertain aim, and erring sight.\nThe wrathful god then plunges from above,\nAnd, where in thickest waves the sparkles drove,\nThere lights; and wades thro' fumes, and gropes his way,\nHalf sing'd, half stifled, till he grasps his prey.\nThe monster, spewing fruitless flames, he found;\nHe squeez'd his throat; he writh'd his neck around,\nAnd in a knot his crippled members bound;\nThen from their sockets tore his burning eyes:\nRoll'd on a heap, the breathless robber lies.\nThe doors, unbarr'd, receive the rushing day,\nAnd thoro' lights disclose the ravish'd prey.\nThe bulls, redeem'd, breathe open air again.\nNext, by the feet, they drag him from his den.\nThe wond'ring neighborhood, with glad surprise,\nBehold his shagged breast, his giant size,\nHis mouth that flames no more, and his extinguish'd eyes.\nFrom that auspicious day, with rites divine,\nWe worship at the hero's holy shrine.\nPotitius first ordain'd these annual vows:\nAs priests, were added the Pinarian house,\nWho rais'd this altar in the sacred shade,\nWhere honors, ever due, for ever shall be paid.\nFor these deserts, and this high virtue shown,\nYe warlike youths, your heads with garlands crown:\nFill high the goblets with a sparkling flood,\nAnd with deep draughts invoke our common god.\"<\/p>\n
This said, a double wreath Evander twin'd,\nAnd poplars black and white his temples bind.\nThen brims his ample bowl. With like design\nThe rest invoke the gods, with sprinkled wine.\nMeantime the sun descended from the skies,\nAnd the bright evening star began to rise.\nAnd now the priests, Potitius at their head,\nIn skins of beasts involv'd, the long procession led;\nHeld high the flaming tapers in their hands,\nAs custom had prescrib'd their holy bands;\nThen with a second course the tables load,\nAnd with full chargers offer to the god.\nThe Salii sing, and cense his altars round\nWith Saban smoke, their heads with poplar bound-\nOne choir of old, another of the young,\nTo dance, and bear the burthen of the song.\nThe lay records the labors, and the praise,\nAnd all th' immortal acts of Hercules:\nFirst, how the mighty babe, when swath'd in bands,\nThe serpents strangled with his infant hands;\nThen, as in years and matchless force he grew,\nTh' Oechalian walls, and Trojan, overthrew.\nBesides, a thousand hazards they relate,\nProcur'd by Juno's and Eurystheus' hate:\n\"Thy hands, unconquer'd hero, could subdue\nThe cloud-born Centaurs, and the monster crew:\nNor thy resistless arm the bull withstood,\nNor he, the roaring terror of the wood.\nThe triple porter of the Stygian seat,\nWith lolling tongue, lay fawning at thy feet,\nAnd, seiz'd with fear, forgot his mangled meat.\nTh' infernal waters trembled at thy sight;\nThee, god, no face of danger could affright;\nNot huge Typhoeus, nor th' unnumber'd snake,\nIncreas'd with hissing heads, in Lerna's lake.\nHail, Jove's undoubted son! an added grace\nTo heav'n and the great author of thy race!\nReceive the grateful off'rings which we pay,\nAnd smile propitious on thy solemn day!\"\nIn numbers thus they sung; above the rest,\nThe den and death of Cacus crown the feast.\nThe woods to hollow vales convey the sound,\nThe vales to hills, and hills the notes rebound.\nThe rites perform'd, the cheerful train retire.<\/p>\n
Betwixt young Pallas and his aged sire,\nThe Trojan pass'd, the city to survey,\nAnd pleasing talk beguil'd the tedious way.\nThe stranger cast around his curious eyes,\nNew objects viewing still, with new surprise;\nWith greedy joy enquires of various things,\nAnd acts and monuments of ancient kings.\nThen thus the founder of the Roman tow'rs:\n\"These woods were first the seat of sylvan pow'rs,\nOf Nymphs and Fauns, and salvage men, who took\nTheir birth from trunks of trees and stubborn oak.\nNor laws they knew, nor manners, nor the care\nOf lab'ring oxen, or the shining share,\nNor arts of gain, nor what they gain'd to spare.\nTheir exercise the chase; the running flood\nSupplied their thirst, the trees supplied their food.\nThen Saturn came, who fled the pow'r of Jove,\nRobb'd of his realms, and banish'd from above.\nThe men, dispers'd on hills, to towns he brought,\nAnd laws ordain'd, and civil customs taught,\nAnd Latium call'd the land where safe he lay\nFrom his unduteous son, and his usurping sway.\nWith his mild empire, peace and plenty came;\nAnd hence the golden times deriv'd their name.\nA more degenerate and discolor'd age\nSucceeded this, with avarice and rage.\nTh' Ausonians then, and bold Sicanians came;\nAnd Saturn's empire often chang'd the name.\nThen kings, gigantic Tybris, and the rest,\nWith arbitrary sway the land oppress'd:\nFor Tiber's flood was Albula before,\nTill, from the tyrant's fate, his name it bore.\nI last arriv'd, driv'n from my native home\nBy fortune's pow'r, and fate's resistless doom.\nLong toss'd on seas, I sought this happy land,\nWarn'd by my mother nymph, and call'd by Heav'n's command.\"<\/p>\n
Thus, walking on, he spoke, and shew'd the gate,\nSince call'd Carmental by the Roman state;\nWhere stood an altar, sacred to the name\nOf old Carmenta, the prophetic dame,\nWho to her son foretold th' Aenean race,\nSublime in fame, and Rome's imperial place:\nThen shews the forest, which, in after times,\nFierce Romulus for perpetrated crimes\nA sacred refuge made; with this, the shrine\nWhere Pan below the rock had rites divine:\nThen tells of Argus' death, his murder'd guest,\nWhose grave and tomb his innocence attest.\nThence, to the steep Tarpeian rock he leads;\nNow roof'd with gold, then thatch'd with homely reeds.\nA reverent fear (such superstition reigns\nAmong the rude) ev'n then possess'd the swains.\nSome god, they knew- what god, they could not tell-\nDid there amidst the sacred horror dwell.\nTh' Arcadians thought him Jove; and said they saw\nThe mighty Thund'rer with majestic awe,\nWho took his shield, and dealt his bolts around,\nAnd scatter'd tempests on the teeming ground.\nThen saw two heaps of ruins, (once they stood\nTwo stately towns, on either side the flood,)\nSaturnia's and Janicula's remains;\nAnd either place the founder's name retains.\nDiscoursing thus together, they resort\nWhere poor Evander kept his country court.\nThey view'd the ground of Rome's litigious hall;\n(Once oxen low'd, where now the lawyers bawl;)\nThen, stooping, thro' the narrow gate they press'd,\nWhen thus the king bespoke his Trojan guest:\n\"Mean as it is, this palace, and this door,\nReceiv'd Alcides, then a conqueror.\nDare to be poor; accept our homely food,\nWhich feasted him, and emulate a god.\"\nThen underneath a lowly roof he led\nThe weary prince, and laid him on a bed;\nThe stuffing leaves, with hides of bears o'erspread.\nNow Night had shed her silver dews around,\nAnd with her sable wings embrac'd the ground,\nWhen love's fair goddess, anxious for her son,\n(New tumults rising, and new wars begun,)\nCouch'd with her husband in his golden bed,\nWith these alluring words invokes his aid;\nAnd, that her pleasing speech his mind may move,\nInspires each accent with the charms of love:\n\"While cruel fate conspir'd with Grecian pow'rs,\nTo level with the ground the Trojan tow'rs,\nI ask'd not aid th' unhappy to restore,\nNor did the succor of thy skill implore;\nNor urg'd the labors of my lord in vain,\nA sinking empire longer to sustain,\nTho'much I ow'd to Priam's house, and more\nThe dangers of Aeneas did deplore.\nBut now, by Jove's command, and fate's decree,\nHis race is doom'd to reign in Italy:\nWith humble suit I beg thy needful art,\nO still propitious pow'r, that rules my heart!\nA mother kneels a suppliant for her son.\nBy Thetis and Aurora thou wert won\nTo forge impenetrable shields, and grace\nWith fated arms a less illustrious race.\nBehold, what haughty nations are combin'd\nAgainst the relics of the Phrygian kind,\nWith fire and sword my people to destroy,\nAnd conquer Venus twice, in conqu'ring Troy.\"\nShe said; and straight her arms, of snowy hue,\nAbout her unresolving husband threw.\nHer soft embraces soon infuse desire;\nHis bones and marrow sudden warmth inspire;\nAnd all the godhead feels the wonted fire.\nNot half so swift the rattling thunder flies,\nOr forky lightnings flash along the skies.\nThe goddess, proud of her successful wiles,\nAnd conscious of her form, in secret smiles.<\/p>\n
Then thus the pow'r, obnoxious to her charms,\nPanting, and half dissolving in her arms:\n\"Why seek you reasons for a cause so just,\nOr your own beauties or my love distrust?\nLong since, had you requir'd my helpful hand,\nTh' artificer and art you might command,\nTo labor arms for Troy: nor Jove, nor fate,\nConfin'd their empire to so short a date.\nAnd, if you now desire new wars to wage,\nMy skill I promise, and my pains engage.\nWhatever melting metals can conspire,\nOr breathing bellows, or the forming fire,\nIs freely yours: your anxious fears remove,\nAnd think no task is difficult to love.\"\nTrembling he spoke; and, eager of her charms,\nHe snatch'd the willing goddess to his arms;\nTill in her lap infus'd, he lay possess'd\nOf full desire, and sunk to pleasing rest.\nNow when the Night her middle race had rode,\nAnd his first slumber had refresh'd the god-\nThe time when early housewives leave the bed;\nWhen living embers on the hearth they spread,\nSupply the lamp, and call the maids to rise-\nWith yawning mouths, and with half-open'd eyes,\nThey ply the distaff by the winking light,\nAnd to their daily labor add the night:\nThus frugally they earn their children's bread,\nAnd uncorrupted keep the nuptial bed-\nNot less concern'd, nor at a later hour,\nRose from his downy couch the forging pow'r.<\/p>\n
Sacred to Vulcan's name, an isle there lay,\nBetwixt Sicilia's coasts and Lipare,\nRais'd high on smoking rocks; and, deep below,\nIn hollow caves the fires of Aetna glow.\nThe Cyclops here their heavy hammers deal;\nLoud strokes, and hissings of tormented steel,\nAre heard around; the boiling waters roar,\nAnd smoky flames thro' fuming tunnels soar.\nHether the Father of the Fire, by night,\nThro' the brown air precipitates his flight.\nOn their eternal anvils here he found\nThe brethren beating, and the blows go round.\nA load of pointless thunder now there lies\nBefore their hands, to ripen for the skies:\nThese darts, for angry Jove, they daily cast;\nConsum'd on mortals with prodigious waste.\nThree rays of writhen rain, of fire three more,\nOf winged southern winds and cloudy store\nAs many parts, the dreadful mixture frame;\nAnd fears are added, and avenging flame.\nInferior ministers, for Mars, repair\nHis broken axletrees and blunted war,\nAnd send him forth again with furbish'd arms,\nTo wake the lazy war with trumpets' loud alarms.\nThe rest refresh the scaly snakes that fold\nThe shield of Pallas, and renew their gold.\nFull on the crest the Gorgon's head they place,\nWith eyes that roll in death, and with distorted face.<\/p>\n
\"My sons,\" said Vulcan, \"set your tasks aside;\nYour strength and master-skill must now be tried.\nArms for a hero forge; arms that require\nYour force, your speed, and all your forming fire.\"\nHe said. They set their former work aside,\nAnd their new toils with eager haste divide.\nA flood of molten silver, brass, and gold,\nAnd deadly steel, in the large furnace roll'd;\nOf this, their artful hands a shield prepare,\nAlone sufficient to sustain the war.\nSev'n orbs within a spacious round they close:\nOne stirs the fire, and one the bellows blows.\nThe hissing steel is in the smithy drown'd;\nThe grot with beaten anvils groans around.\nBy turns their arms advance, in equal time;\nBy turns their hands descend, and hammers chime.\nThey turn the glowing mass with crooked tongs;\nThe fiery work proceeds, with rustic songs.<\/p>\n
While, at the Lemnian god's command, they urge\nTheir labors thus, and ply th' Aeolian forge,\nThe cheerful morn salutes Evander's eyes,\nAnd songs of chirping birds invite to rise.\nHe leaves his lowly bed: his buskins meet\nAbove his ankles; sandals sheathe his feet:\nHe sets his trusty sword upon his side,\nAnd o'er his shoulder throws a panther's hide.\nTwo menial dogs before their master press'd.\nThus clad, and guarded thus, he seeks his kingly guest.\nMindful of promis'd aid, he mends his pace,\nBut meets Aeneas in the middle space.\nYoung Pallas did his father's steps attend,\nAnd true Achates waited on his friend.\nThey join their hands; a secret seat they choose;\nTh' Arcadian first their former talk renews:\n\"Undaunted prince, I never can believe\nThe Trojan empire lost, while you survive.\nCommand th' assistance of a faithful friend;\nBut feeble are the succors I can send.\nOur narrow kingdom here the Tiber bounds;\nThat other side the Latian state surrounds,\nInsults our walls, and wastes our fruitful grounds.\nBut mighty nations I prepare, to join\nTheir arms with yours, and aid your just design.\nYou come, as by your better genius sent,\nAnd fortune seems to favor your intent.\nNot far from hence there stands a hilly town,\nOf ancient building, and of high renown,\nTorn from the Tuscans by the Lydian race,\nWho gave the name of Caere to the place,\nOnce Agyllina call'd. It flourish'd long,\nIn pride of wealth and warlike people strong,\nTill curs'd Mezentius, in a fatal hour,\nAssum'd the crown, with arbitrary pow'r.\nWhat words can paint those execrable times,\nThe subjects' suff'rings, and the tyrant's crimes!\nThat blood, those murthers, O ye gods, replace\nOn his own head, and on his impious race!\nThe living and the dead at his command\nWere coupled, face to face, and hand to hand,\nTill, chok'd with stench, in loath'd embraces tied,\nThe ling'ring wretches pin'd away and died.\nThus plung'd in ills, and meditating more-\nThe people's patience, tir'd, no longer bore\nThe raging monster; but with arms beset\nHis house, and vengeance and destruction threat.\nThey fire his palace: while the flame ascends,\nThey force his guards, and execute his friends.\nHe cleaves the crowd, and, favor'd by the night,\nTo Turnus' friendly court directs his flight.\nBy just revenge the Tuscans set on fire,\nWith arms, their king to punishment require:\nTheir num'rous troops, now muster'd on the strand,\nMy counsel shall submit to your command.\nTheir navy swarms upon the coasts; they cry\nTo hoist their anchors, but the gods deny.\nAn ancient augur, skill'd in future fate,\nWith these foreboding words restrains their hate:\n'Ye brave in arms, ye Lydian blood, the flow'r\nOf Tuscan youth, and choice of all their pow'r,\nWhom just revenge against Mezentius arms,\nTo seek your tyrant's death by lawful arms;\nKnow this: no native of our land may lead\nThis pow'rful people; seek a foreign head.'\nAw'd with these words, in camps they still abide,\nAnd wait with longing looks their promis'd guide.\nTarchon, the Tuscan chief, to me has sent\nTheir crown, and ev'ry regal ornament:\nThe people join their own with his desire;\nAnd all my conduct, as their king, require.\nBut the chill blood that creeps within my veins,\nAnd age, and listless limbs unfit for pains,\nAnd a soul conscious of its own decay,\nHave forc'd me to refuse imperial sway.\nMy Pallas were more fit to mount the throne,\nAnd should, but he's a Sabine mother's son,\nAnd half a native; but, in you, combine\nA manly vigor, and a foreign line.\nWhere Fate and smiling Fortune shew the way,\nPursue the ready path to sov'reign sway.\nThe staff of my declining days, my son,\nShall make your good or ill success his own;\nIn fighting fields from you shall learn to dare,\nAnd serve the hard apprenticeship of war;\nYour matchless courage and your conduct view,\nAnd early shall begin t' admire and copy you.\nBesides, two hundred horse he shall command;\nTho' few, a warlike and well-chosen band.\nThese in my name are listed; and my son\nAs many more has added in his own.\"<\/p>\n
Scarce had he said; Achates and his guest,\nWith downcast eyes, their silent grief express'd;\nWho, short of succors, and in deep despair,\nShook at the dismal prospect of the war.\nBut his bright mother, from a breaking cloud,\nTo cheer her issue, thunder'd thrice aloud;\nThrice forky lightning flash'd along the sky,\nAnd Tyrrhene trumpets thrice were heard on high.\nThen, gazing up, repeated peals they hear;\nAnd, in a heav'n serene, refulgent arms appear:\nRedd'ning the skies, and glitt'ring all around,\nThe temper'd metals clash, and yield a silver sound.\nThe rest stood trembling, struck with awe divine;\nAeneas only, conscious to the sign,\nPresag'd th' event, and joyful view'd, above,\nTh' accomplish'd promise of the Queen of Love.\nThen, to th' Arcadian king: \"This prodigy\n(Dismiss your fear) belongs alone to me.\nHeav'n calls me to the war: th' expected sign\nIs giv'n of promis'd aid, and arms divine.\nMy goddess mother, whose indulgent care\nForesaw the dangers of the growing war,\nThis omen gave, when bright Vulcanian arms,\nFated from force of steel by Stygian charms,\nSuspended, shone on high: she then foreshow'd\nApproaching fights, and fields to float in blood.\nTurnus shall dearly pay for faith forsworn;\nAnd corps, and swords, and shields, on Tiber borne,\nShall choke his flood: now sound the loud alarms;\nAnd, Latian troops, prepare your perjur'd arms.\"<\/p>\n
He said, and, rising from his homely throne,\nThe solemn rites of Hercules begun,\nAnd on his altars wak'd the sleeping fires;\nThen cheerful to his household gods retires;\nThere offers chosen sheep. Th' Arcadian king\nAnd Trojan youth the same oblations bring.\nNext, of his men and ships he makes review;\nDraws out the best and ablest of the crew.\nDown with the falling stream the refuse run,\nTo raise with joyful news his drooping son.\nSteeds are prepar'd to mount the Trojan band,\nWho wait their leader to the Tyrrhene land.\nA sprightly courser, fairer than the rest,\nThe king himself presents his royal guest:\nA lion's hide his back and limbs infold,\nPrecious with studded work, and paws of gold.\nFame thro' the little city spreads aloud\nTh' intended march, amid the fearful crowd:\nThe matrons beat their breasts, dissolve in tears,\nAnd double their devotion in their fears.\nThe war at hand appears with more affright,\nAnd rises ev'ry moment to the sight.<\/p>\n
Then old Evander, with a close embrace,\nStrain'd his departing friend; and tears o'erflow his face.\n\"Would Heav'n,\" said he, \"my strength and youth recall,\nSuch as I was beneath Praeneste's wall;\nThen when I made the foremost foes retire,\nAnd set whole heaps of conquer'd shields on fire;\nWhen Herilus in single fight I slew,\nWhom with three lives Feronia did endue;\nAnd thrice I sent him to the Stygian shore,\nTill the last ebbing soul return'd no more-\nSuch if I stood renew'd, not these alarms,\nNor death, should rend me from my Pallas' arms;\nNor proud Mezentius, thus unpunish'd, boast\nHis rapes and murthers on the Tuscan coast.\nYe gods, and mighty Jove, in pity bring\nRelief, and hear a father and a king!\nIf fate and you reserve these eyes, to see\nMy son return with peace and victory;\nIf the lov'd boy shall bless his father's sight;\nIf we shall meet again with more delight;\nThen draw my life in length; let me sustain,\nIn hopes of his embrace, the worst of pain.\nBut if your hard decrees- which, O! I dread-\nHave doom'd to death his undeserving head;\nThis, O this very moment, let me die!\nWhile hopes and fears in equal balance lie;\nWhile, yet possess'd of all his youthful charms,\nI strain him close within these aged arms;\nBefore that fatal news my soul shall wound!\"\nHe said, and, swooning, sunk upon the ground.\nHis servants bore him off, and softly laid\nHis languish'd limbs upon his homely bed.<\/p>\n
The horsemen march; the gates are open'd wide;\nAeneas at their head, Achates by his side.\nNext these, the Trojan leaders rode along;\nLast follows in the rear th' Arcadian throng.\nYoung Pallas shone conspicuous o'er the rest;\nGilded his arms, embroider'd was his vest.\nSo, from the seas, exerts his radiant head\nThe star by whom the lights of heav'n are led;\nShakes from his rosy locks the pearly dews,\nDispels the darkness, and the day renews.\nThe trembling wives the walls and turrets crowd,\nAnd follow, with their eyes, the dusty cloud,\nWhich winds disperse by fits, and shew from far\nThe blaze of arms, and shields, and shining war.\nThe troops, drawn up in beautiful array,\nO'er heathy plains pursue the ready way.\nRepeated peals of shouts are heard around;\nThe neighing coursers answer to the sound,\nAnd shake with horny hoofs the solid ground.<\/p>\n
A greenwood shade, for long religion known,\nStands by the streams that wash the Tuscan town,\nIncompass'd round with gloomy hills above,\nWhich add a holy horror to the grove.\nThe first inhabitants of Grecian blood,\nThat sacred forest to Silvanus vow'd,\nThe guardian of their flocks and fields; and pay\nTheir due devotions on his annual day.\nNot far from hence, along the river's side,\nIn tents secure, the Tuscan troops abide,\nBy Tarchon led. Now, from a rising ground,\nAeneas cast his wond'ring eyes around,\nAnd all the Tyrrhene army had in sight,\nStretch'd on the spacious plain from left to right.\nThether his warlike train the Trojan led,\nRefresh'd his men, and wearied horses fed.<\/p>\n
Meantime the mother goddess, crown'd with charms,\nBreaks thro' the clouds, and brings the fated arms.\nWithin a winding vale she finds her son,\nOn the cool river's banks, retir'd alone.\nShe shews her heav'nly form without disguise,\nAnd gives herself to his desiring eyes.\n\"Behold,\" she said, \"perform'd in ev'ry part,\nMy promise made, and Vulcan's labor'd art.\nNow seek, secure, the Latian enemy,\nAnd haughty Turnus to the field defy.\"\nShe said; and, having first her son embrac'd,\nThe radiant arms beneath an oak she plac'd,\nProud of the gift, he roll'd his greedy sight\nAround the work, and gaz'd with vast delight.\nHe lifts, he turns, he poises, and admires\nThe crested helm, that vomits radiant fires:\nHis hands the fatal sword and corslet hold,\nOne keen with temper'd steel, one stiff with gold:\nBoth ample, flaming both, and beamy bright;\nSo shines a cloud, when edg'd with adverse light.\nHe shakes the pointed spear, and longs to try\nThe plated cuishes on his manly thigh;\nBut most admires the shield's mysterious mold,\nAnd Roman triumphs rising on the gold:\nFor these, emboss'd, the heav'nly smith had wrought\n(Not in the rolls of future fate untaught)\nThe wars in order, and the race divine\nOf warriors issuing from the Julian line.\nThe cave of Mars was dress'd with mossy greens:\nThere, by the wolf, were laid the martial twins.\nIntrepid on her swelling dugs they hung;\nThe foster dam loll'd out her fawning tongue:\nThey suck'd secure, while, bending back her head,\nShe lick'd their tender limbs, and form'd them as they fed.\nNot far from thence new Rome appears, with games\nProjected for the rape of Sabine dames.\nThe pit resounds with shrieks; a war succeeds,\nFor breach of public faith, and unexampled deeds.\nHere for revenge the Sabine troops contend;\nThe Romans there with arms the prey defend.\nWearied with tedious war, at length they cease;\nAnd both the kings and kingdoms plight the peace.\nThe friendly chiefs before Jove's altar stand,\nBoth arm'd, with each a charger in his hand:\nA fatted sow for sacrifice is led,\nWith imprecations on the perjur'd head.\nNear this, the traitor Metius, stretch'd between\nFour fiery steeds, is dragg'd along the green,\nBy Tullus' doom: the brambles drink his blood,\nAnd his torn limbs are left the vulture's food.\nThere, Porsena to Rome proud Tarquin brings,\nAnd would by force restore the banish'd kings.\nOne tyrant for his fellow-tyrant fights;\nThe Roman youth assert their native rights.\nBefore the town the Tuscan army lies,\nTo win by famine, or by fraud surprise.\nTheir king, half-threat'ning, half-disdaining stood,\nWhile Cocles broke the bridge, and stemm'd the flood.\nThe captive maids there tempt the raging tide,\nScap'd from their chains, with Cloelia for their guide.\nHigh on a rock heroic Manlius stood,\nTo guard the temple, and the temple's god.\nThen Rome was poor; and there you might behold\nThe palace thatch'd with straw, now roof'd with gold.\nThe silver goose before the shining gate\nThere flew, and, by her cackle, sav'd the state.\nShe told the Gauls' approach; th' approaching Gauls,\nObscure in night, ascend, and seize the walls.\nThe gold dissembled well their yellow hair,\nAnd golden chains on their white necks they wear.\nGold are their vests; long Alpine spears they wield,\nAnd their left arm sustains a length of shield.\nHard by, the leaping Salian priests advance;\nAnd naked thro' the streets the mad Luperci dance,\nIn caps of wool; the targets dropp'd from heav'n.\nHere modest matrons, in soft litters driv'n,\nTo pay their vows in solemn pomp appear,\nAnd odorous gums in their chaste hands they bear.\nFar hence remov'd, the Stygian seats are seen;\nPains of the damn'd, and punish'd Catiline\nHung on a rock- the traitor; and, around,\nThe Furies hissing from the nether ground.\nApart from these, the happy souls he draws,\nAnd Cato's holy ghost dispensing laws.<\/p>\n
Betwixt the quarters flows a golden sea;\nBut foaming surges there in silver play.\nThe dancing dolphins with their tails divide\nThe glitt'ring waves, and cut the precious tide.\nAmid the main, two mighty fleets engage\nTheir brazen beaks, oppos'd with equal rage.\nActium surveys the well-disputed prize;\nLeucate's wat'ry plain with foamy billows fries.\nYoung Caesar, on the stern, in armor bright,\nHere leads the Romans and their gods to fight:\nHis beamy temples shoot their flames afar,\nAnd o'er his head is hung the Julian star.\nAgrippa seconds him, with prosp'rous gales,\nAnd, with propitious gods, his foes assails:\nA naval crown, that binds his manly brows,\nThe happy fortune of the fight foreshows.\nRang'd on the line oppos'd, Antonius brings\nBarbarian aids, and troops of Eastern kings;\nTh' Arabians near, and Bactrians from afar,\nOf tongues discordant, and a mingled war:\nAnd, rich in gaudy robes, amidst the strife,\nHis ill fate follows him- th' Egyptian wife.\nMoving they fight; with oars and forky prows\nThe froth is gather'd, and the water glows.\nIt seems, as if the Cyclades again\nWere rooted up, and justled in the main;\nOr floating mountains floating mountains meet;\nSuch is the fierce encounter of the fleet.\nFireballs are thrown, and pointed jav'lins fly;\nThe fields of Neptune take a purple dye.\nThe queen herself, amidst the loud alarms,\nWith cymbals toss'd her fainting soldiers warms-\nFool as she was! who had not yet divin'd\nHer cruel fate, nor saw the snakes behind.\nHer country gods, the monsters of the sky,\nGreat Neptune, Pallas, and Love's Queen defy:\nThe dog Anubis barks, but barks in vain,\nNor longer dares oppose th' ethereal train.\nMars in the middle of the shining shield\nIs grav'd, and strides along the liquid field.\nThe Dirae souse from heav'n with swift descent;\nAnd Discord, dyed in blood, with garments rent,\nDivides the prease: her steps Bellona treads,\nAnd shakes her iron rod above their heads.\nThis seen, Apollo, from his Actian height,\nPours down his arrows; at whose winged flight\nThe trembling Indians and Egyptians yield,\nAnd soft Sabaeans quit the wat'ry field.\nThe fatal mistress hoists her silken sails,\nAnd, shrinking from the fight, invokes the gales.\nAghast she looks, and heaves her breast for breath,\nPanting, and pale with fear of future death.\nThe god had figur'd her as driv'n along\nBy winds and waves, and scudding thro' the throng.\nJust opposite, sad Nilus opens wide\nHis arms and ample bosom to the tide,\nAnd spreads his mantle o'er the winding coast,\nIn which he wraps his queen, and hides the flying host.\nThe victor to the gods his thanks express'd,\nAnd Rome, triumphant, with his presence bless'd.\nThree hundred temples in the town he plac'd;\nWith spoils and altars ev'ry temple grac'd.\nThree shining nights, and three succeeding days,\nThe fields resound with shouts, the streets with praise,\nThe domes with songs, the theaters with plays.\nAll altars flame: before each altar lies,\nDrench'd in his gore, the destin'd sacrifice.\nGreat Caesar sits sublime upon his throne,\nBefore Apollo's porch of Parian stone;\nAccepts the presents vow'd for victory,\nAnd hangs the monumental crowns on high.\nVast crowds of vanquish'd nations march along,\nVarious in arms, in habit, and in tongue.\nHere, Mulciber assigns the proper place\nFor Carians, and th' ungirt Numidian race;\nThen ranks the Thracians in the second row,\nWith Scythians, expert in the dart and bow.\nAnd here the tam'd Euphrates humbly glides,\nAnd there the Rhine submits her swelling tides,\nAnd proud Araxes, whom no bridge could bind;\nThe Danes' unconquer'd offspring march behind,\nAnd Morini, the last of humankind.<\/p>\n
These figures, on the shield divinely wrought,\nBy Vulcan labor'd, and by Venus brought,\nWith joy and wonder fill the hero's thought.\nUnknown the names, he yet admires the grace,\nAnd bears aloft the fame and fortune of his race.<\/p>","rendered":"
When Turnus had assembled all his pow’rs,
\nHis standard planted on Laurentum’s tow’rs;
\nWhen now the sprightly trumpet, from afar,
\nHad giv’n the signal of approaching war,
\nHad rous’d the neighing steeds to scour the fields,
\nWhile the fierce riders clatter’d on their shields;
\nTrembling with rage, the Latian youth prepare
\nTo join th’ allies, and headlong rush to war.
\nFierce Ufens, and Messapus, led the crowd,
\nWith bold Mezentius, who blasphem’d aloud.
\nThese thro’ the country took their wasteful course,
\nThe fields to forage, and to gather force.
\nThen Venulus to Diomede they send,
\nTo beg his aid Ausonia to defend,
\nDeclare the common danger, and inform
\nThe Grecian leader of the growing storm:
\nAeneas, landed on the Latian coast,
\nWith banish’d gods, and with a baffled host,
\nYet now aspir’d to conquest of the state,
\nAnd claim’d a title from the gods and fate;
\nWhat num’rous nations in his quarrel came,
\nAnd how they spread his formidable name.
\nWhat he design’d, what mischief might arise,
\nIf fortune favor’d his first enterprise,
\nWas left for him to weigh, whose equal fears,
\nAnd common interest, was involv’d in theirs.<\/p>\n
While Turnus and th’ allies thus urge the war,
\nThe Trojan, floating in a flood of care,
\nBeholds the tempest which his foes prepare.
\nThis way and that he turns his anxious mind;
\nThinks, and rejects the counsels he design’d;
\nExplores himself in vain, in ev’ry part,
\nAnd gives no rest to his distracted heart.
\nSo, when the sun by day, or moon by night,
\nStrike on the polish’d brass their trembling light,
\nThe glitt’ring species here and there divide,
\nAnd cast their dubious beams from side to side;
\nNow on the walls, now on the pavement play,
\nAnd to the ceiling flash the glaring day.<\/p>\n
‘T was night; and weary nature lull’d asleep
\nThe birds of air, and fishes of the deep,
\nAnd beasts, and mortal men. The Trojan chief
\nWas laid on Tiber’s banks, oppress’d with grief,
\nAnd found in silent slumber late relief.
\nThen, thro’ the shadows of the poplar wood,
\nArose the father of the Roman flood;
\nAn azure robe was o’er his body spread,
\nA wreath of shady reeds adorn’d his head:
\nThus, manifest to sight, the god appear’d,
\nAnd with these pleasing words his sorrow cheer’d:
\n“Undoubted offspring of ethereal race,
\nO long expected in this promis’d place!
\nWho thro’ the foes hast borne thy banish’d gods,
\nRestor’d them to their hearths, and old abodes;
\nThis is thy happy home, the clime where fate
\nOrdains thee to restore the Trojan state.
\nFear not! The war shall end in lasting peace,
\nAnd all the rage of haughty Juno cease.
\nAnd that this nightly vision may not seem
\nTh’ effect of fancy, or an idle dream,
\nA sow beneath an oak shall lie along,
\nAll white herself, and white her thirty young.
\nWhen thirty rolling years have run their race,
\nThy son Ascanius, on this empty space,
\nShall build a royal town, of lasting fame,
\nWhich from this omen shall receive the name.
\nTime shall approve the truth. For what remains,
\nAnd how with sure success to crown thy pains,
\nWith patience next attend. A banish’d band,
\nDriv’n with Evander from th’ Arcadian land,
\nHave planted here, and plac’d on high their walls;
\nTheir town the founder Pallanteum calls,
\nDeriv’d from Pallas, his great-grandsire’s name:
\nBut the fierce Latians old possession claim,
\nWith war infesting the new colony.
\nThese make thy friends, and on their aid rely.
\nTo thy free passage I submit my streams.
\nWake, son of Venus, from thy pleasing dreams;
\nAnd, when the setting stars are lost in day,
\nTo Juno’s pow’r thy just devotion pay;
\nWith sacrifice the wrathful queen appease:
\nHer pride at length shall fall, her fury cease.
\nWhen thou return’st victorious from the war,
\nPerform thy vows to me with grateful care.
\nThe god am I, whose yellow water flows
\nAround these fields, and fattens as it goes:
\nTiber my name; among the rolling floods
\nRenown’d on earth, esteem’d among the gods.
\nThis is my certain seat. In times to come,
\nMy waves shall wash the walls of mighty Rome.”<\/p>\n
He said, and plung’d below. While yet he spoke,
\nHis dream Aeneas and his sleep forsook.
\nHe rose, and looking up, beheld the skies
\nWith purple blushing, and the day arise.
\nThen water in his hollow palm he took
\nFrom Tiber’s flood, and thus the pow’rs bespoke:
\n“Laurentian nymphs, by whom the streams are fed,
\nAnd Father Tiber, in thy sacred bed
\nReceive Aeneas, and from danger keep.
\nWhatever fount, whatever holy deep,
\nConceals thy wat’ry stores; where’er they rise,
\nAnd, bubbling from below, salute the skies;
\nThou, king of horned floods, whose plenteous urn
\nSuffices fatness to the fruitful corn,
\nFor this thy kind compassion of our woes,
\nShalt share my morning song and ev’ning vows.
\nBut, O be present to thy people’s aid,
\nAnd firm the gracious promise thou hast made!”
\nThus having said, two galleys from his stores,
\nWith care he chooses, mans, and fits with oars.
\nNow on the shore the fatal swine is found.
\nWondrous to tell!- She lay along the ground:
\nHer well-fed offspring at her udders hung;
\nShe white herself, and white her thirty young.
\nAeneas takes the mother and her brood,
\nAnd all on Juno’s altar are bestow’d.<\/p>\n
The foll’wing night, and the succeeding day,
\nPropitious Tiber smooth’d his wat’ry way:
\nHe roll’d his river back, and pois’d he stood,
\nA gentle swelling, and a peaceful flood.
\nThe Trojans mount their ships; they put from shore,
\nBorne on the waves, and scarcely dip an oar.
\nShouts from the land give omen to their course,
\nAnd the pitch’d vessels glide with easy force.
\nThe woods and waters wonder at the gleam
\nOf shields, and painted ships that stem the stream.
\nOne summer’s night and one whole day they pass
\nBetwixt the greenwood shades, and cut the liquid glass.
\nThe fiery sun had finish’d half his race,
\nLook’d back, and doubted in the middle space,
\nWhen they from far beheld the rising tow’rs,
\nThe tops of sheds, and shepherds’ lowly bow’rs,
\nThin as they stood, which, then of homely clay,
\nNow rise in marble, from the Roman sway.
\nThese cots (Evander’s kingdom, mean and poor)
\nThe Trojan saw, and turn’d his ships to shore.
\n‘T was on a solemn day: th’ Arcadian states,
\nThe king and prince, without the city gates,
\nThen paid their off’rings in a sacred grove
\nTo Hercules, the warrior son of Jove.
\nThick clouds of rolling smoke involve the skies,
\nAnd fat of entrails on his altar fries.<\/p>\n
But, when they saw the ships that stemm’d the flood,
\nAnd glitter’d thro’ the covert of the wood,
\nThey rose with fear, and left th’ unfinish’d feast,
\nTill dauntless Pallas reassur’d the rest
\nTo pay the rites. Himself without delay
\nA jav’lin seiz’d, and singly took his way;
\nThen gain’d a rising ground, and call’d from far:
\n“Resolve me, strangers, whence, and what you are;
\nYour bus’ness here; and bring you peace or war?”
\nHigh on the stern Aeneas his stand,
\nAnd held a branch of olive in his hand,
\nWhile thus he spoke: “The Phrygians’ arms you see,
\nExpell’d from Troy, provok’d in Italy
\nBy Latian foes, with war unjustly made;
\nAt first affianc’d, and at last betray’d.
\nThis message bear: ‘The Trojans and their chief
\nBring holy peace, and beg the king’s relief.’
\nStruck with so great a name, and all on fire,
\nThe youth replies: “Whatever you require,
\nYour fame exacts. Upon our shores descend.
\nA welcome guest, and, what you wish, a friend.”
\nHe said, and, downward hasting to the strand,
\nEmbrac’d the stranger prince, and join’d his hand.<\/p>\n
Conducted to the grove, Aeneas broke
\nThe silence first, and thus the king bespoke:
\n“Best of the Greeks, to whom, by fate’s command,
\nI bear these peaceful branches in my hand,
\nUndaunted I approach you, tho’ I know
\nYour birth is Grecian, and your land my foe;
\nFrom Atreus tho’ your ancient lineage came,
\nAnd both the brother kings your kindred claim;
\nYet, my self-conscious worth, your high renown,
\nYour virtue, thro’ the neighb’ring nations blown,
\nOur fathers’ mingled blood, Apollo’s voice,
\nHave led me hither, less by need than choice.
\nOur founder Dardanus, as fame has sung,
\nAnd Greeks acknowledge, from Electra sprung:
\nElectra from the loins of Atlas came;
\nAtlas, whose head sustains the starry frame.
\nYour sire is Mercury, whom long before
\nOn cold Cyllene’s top fair Maia bore.
\nMaia the fair, on fame if we rely,
\nWas Atlas’ daughter, who sustains the sky.
\nThus from one common source our streams divide;
\nOurs is the Trojan, yours th’ Arcadian side.
\nRais’d by these hopes, I sent no news before,
\nNor ask’d your leave, nor did your faith implore;
\nBut come, without a pledge, my own ambassador.
\nThe same Rutulians, who with arms pursue
\nThe Trojan race, are equal foes to you.
\nOur host expell’d, what farther force can stay
\nThe victor troops from universal sway?
\nThen will they stretch their pow’r athwart the land,
\nAnd either sea from side to side command.
\nReceive our offer’d faith, and give us thine;
\nOurs is a gen’rous and experienc’d line:
\nWe want not hearts nor bodies for the war;
\nIn council cautious, and in fields we dare.”<\/p>\n
He said; and while spoke, with piercing eyes
\nEvander view’d the man with vast surprise,
\nPleas’d with his action, ravish’d with his face:
\nThen answer’d briefly, with a royal grace:
\n“O valiant leader of the Trojan line,
\nIn whom the features of thy father shine,
\nHow I recall Anchises! how I see
\nHis motions, mien, and all my friend, in thee!
\nLong tho’ it be, ‘t is fresh within my mind,
\nWhen Priam to his sister’s court design’d
\nA welcome visit, with a friendly stay,
\nAnd thro’ th’ Arcadian kingdom took his way.
\nThen, past a boy, the callow down began
\nTo shade my chin, and call me first a man.
\nI saw the shining train with vast delight,
\nAnd Priam’s goodly person pleas’d my sight:
\nBut great Anchises, far above the rest,
\nWith awful wonder fir’d my youthful breast.
\nI long’d to join in friendship’s holy bands
\nOur mutual hearts, and plight our mutual hands.
\nI first accosted him: I sued, I sought,
\nAnd, with a loving force, to Pheneus brought.
\nHe gave me, when at length constrain’d to go,
\nA Lycian quiver and a Gnossian bow,
\nA vest embroider’d, glorious to behold,
\nAnd two rich bridles, with their bits of gold,
\nWhich my son’s coursers in obedience hold.
\nThe league you ask, I offer, as your right;
\nAnd, when to-morrow’s sun reveals the light,
\nWith swift supplies you shall be sent away.
\nNow celebrate with us this solemn day,
\nWhose holy rites admit no long delay.
\nHonor our annual feast; and take your seat,
\nWith friendly welcome, at a homely treat.”
\nThus having said, the bowls (remov’d for fear)
\nThe youths replac’d, and soon restor’d the cheer.
\nOn sods of turf he set the soldiers round:
\nA maple throne, rais’d higher from the ground,
\nReceiv’d the Trojan chief; and, o’er the bed,
\nA lion’s shaggy hide for ornament they spread.
\nThe loaves were serv’d in canisters; the wine
\nIn bowls; the priest renew’d the rites divine:
\nBroil’d entrails are their food, and beef’s continued chine.<\/p>\n
But when the rage of hunger was repress’d,
\nThus spoke Evander to his royal guest:
\n“These rites, these altars, and this feast, O king,
\nFrom no vain fears or superstition spring,
\nOr blind devotion, or from blinder chance,
\nOr heady zeal, or brutal ignorance;
\nBut, sav’d from danger, with a grateful sense,
\nThe labors of a god we recompense.
\nSee, from afar, yon rock that mates the sky,
\nAbout whose feet such heaps of rubbish lie;
\nSuch indigested ruin; bleak and bare,
\nHow desart now it stands, expos’d in air!
\n‘T was once a robber’s den, inclos’d around
\nWith living stone, and deep beneath the ground.
\nThe monster Cacus, more than half a beast,
\nThis hold, impervious to the sun, possess’d.
\nThe pavement ever foul with human gore;
\nHeads, and their mangled members, hung the door.
\nVulcan this plague begot; and, like his sire,
\nBlack clouds he belch’d, and flakes of livid fire.
\nTime, long expected, eas’d us of our load,
\nAnd brought the needful presence of a god.
\nTh’ avenging force of Hercules, from Spain,
\nArriv’d in triumph, from Geryon slain:
\nThrice liv’d the giant, and thrice liv’d in vain.
\nHis prize, the lowing herds, Alcides drove
\nNear Tiber’s bank, to graze the shady grove.
\nAllur’d with hope of plunder, and intent
\nBy force to rob, by fraud to circumvent,
\nThe brutal Cacus, as by chance they stray’d,
\nFour oxen thence, and four fair kine convey’d;
\nAnd, lest the printed footsteps might be seen,
\nHe dragg’d ’em backwards to his rocky den.
\nThe tracks averse a lying notice gave,
\nAnd led the searcher backward from the cave.<\/p>\n
“Meantime the herdsman hero shifts his place,
\nTo find fresh pasture and untrodden grass.
\nThe beasts, who miss’d their mates, fill’d all around
\nWith bellowings, and the rocks restor’d the sound.
\nOne heifer, who had heard her love complain,
\nRoar’d from the cave, and made the project vain.
\nAlcides found the fraud; with rage he shook,
\nAnd toss’d about his head his knotted oak.
\nSwift as the winds, or Scythian arrows’ flight,
\nHe clomb, with eager haste, th’ aerial height.
\nThen first we saw the monster mend his pace;
\nFear his eyes, and paleness in his face,
\nConfess’d the god’s approach. Trembling he springs,
\nAs terror had increas’d his feet with wings;
\nNor stay’d for stairs; but down the depth he threw
\nHis body, on his back the door he drew
\n(The door, a rib of living rock; with pains
\nHis father hew’d it out, and bound with iron chains):
\nHe broke the heavy links, the mountain clos’d,
\nAnd bars and levers to his foe oppos’d.
\nThe wretch had hardly made his dungeon fast;
\nThe fierce avenger came with bounding haste;
\nSurvey’d the mouth of the forbidden hold,
\nAnd here and there his raging eyes he roll’d.
\nHe gnash’d his teeth; and thrice he compass’d round
\nWith winged speed the circuit of the ground.
\nThrice at the cavern’s mouth he pull’d in vain,
\nAnd, panting, thrice desisted from his pain.
\nA pointed flinty rock, all bare and black,
\nGrew gibbous from behind the mountain’s back;
\nOwls, ravens, all ill omens of the night,
\nHere built their nests, and hither wing’d their flight.
\nThe leaning head hung threat’ning o’er the flood,
\nAnd nodded to the left. The hero stood
\nAdverse, with planted feet, and, from the right,
\nTugg’d at the solid stone with all his might.
\nThus heav’d, the fix’d foundations of the rock
\nGave way; heav’n echo’d at the rattling shock.
\nTumbling, it chok’d the flood: on either side
\nThe banks leap backward, and the streams divide;
\nThe sky shrunk upward with unusual dread,
\nAnd trembling Tiber div’d beneath his bed.
\nThe court of Cacus stands reveal’d to sight;
\nThe cavern glares with new-admitted light.
\nSo the pent vapors, with a rumbling sound,
\nHeave from below, and rend the hollow ground;
\nA sounding flaw succeeds; and, from on high,
\nThe gods with hate beheld the nether sky:
\nThe ghosts repine at violated night,
\nAnd curse th’ invading sun, and sicken at the sight.
\nThe graceless monster, caught in open day,
\nInclos’d, and in despair to fly away,
\nHowls horrible from underneath, and fills
\nHis hollow palace with unmanly yells.
\nThe hero stands above, and from afar
\nPlies him with darts, and stones, and distant war.
\nHe, from his nostrils huge mouth, expires
\nBlack clouds of smoke, amidst his father’s fires,
\nGath’ring, with each repeated blast, the night,
\nTo make uncertain aim, and erring sight.
\nThe wrathful god then plunges from above,
\nAnd, where in thickest waves the sparkles drove,
\nThere lights; and wades thro’ fumes, and gropes his way,
\nHalf sing’d, half stifled, till he grasps his prey.
\nThe monster, spewing fruitless flames, he found;
\nHe squeez’d his throat; he writh’d his neck around,
\nAnd in a knot his crippled members bound;
\nThen from their sockets tore his burning eyes:
\nRoll’d on a heap, the breathless robber lies.
\nThe doors, unbarr’d, receive the rushing day,
\nAnd thoro’ lights disclose the ravish’d prey.
\nThe bulls, redeem’d, breathe open air again.
\nNext, by the feet, they drag him from his den.
\nThe wond’ring neighborhood, with glad surprise,
\nBehold his shagged breast, his giant size,
\nHis mouth that flames no more, and his extinguish’d eyes.
\nFrom that auspicious day, with rites divine,
\nWe worship at the hero’s holy shrine.
\nPotitius first ordain’d these annual vows:
\nAs priests, were added the Pinarian house,
\nWho rais’d this altar in the sacred shade,
\nWhere honors, ever due, for ever shall be paid.
\nFor these deserts, and this high virtue shown,
\nYe warlike youths, your heads with garlands crown:
\nFill high the goblets with a sparkling flood,
\nAnd with deep draughts invoke our common god.”<\/p>\n
This said, a double wreath Evander twin’d,
\nAnd poplars black and white his temples bind.
\nThen brims his ample bowl. With like design
\nThe rest invoke the gods, with sprinkled wine.
\nMeantime the sun descended from the skies,
\nAnd the bright evening star began to rise.
\nAnd now the priests, Potitius at their head,
\nIn skins of beasts involv’d, the long procession led;
\nHeld high the flaming tapers in their hands,
\nAs custom had prescrib’d their holy bands;
\nThen with a second course the tables load,
\nAnd with full chargers offer to the god.
\nThe Salii sing, and cense his altars round
\nWith Saban smoke, their heads with poplar bound-
\nOne choir of old, another of the young,
\nTo dance, and bear the burthen of the song.
\nThe lay records the labors, and the praise,
\nAnd all th’ immortal acts of Hercules:
\nFirst, how the mighty babe, when swath’d in bands,
\nThe serpents strangled with his infant hands;
\nThen, as in years and matchless force he grew,
\nTh’ Oechalian walls, and Trojan, overthrew.
\nBesides, a thousand hazards they relate,
\nProcur’d by Juno’s and Eurystheus’ hate:
\n“Thy hands, unconquer’d hero, could subdue
\nThe cloud-born Centaurs, and the monster crew:
\nNor thy resistless arm the bull withstood,
\nNor he, the roaring terror of the wood.
\nThe triple porter of the Stygian seat,
\nWith lolling tongue, lay fawning at thy feet,
\nAnd, seiz’d with fear, forgot his mangled meat.
\nTh’ infernal waters trembled at thy sight;
\nThee, god, no face of danger could affright;
\nNot huge Typhoeus, nor th’ unnumber’d snake,
\nIncreas’d with hissing heads, in Lerna’s lake.
\nHail, Jove’s undoubted son! an added grace
\nTo heav’n and the great author of thy race!
\nReceive the grateful off’rings which we pay,
\nAnd smile propitious on thy solemn day!”
\nIn numbers thus they sung; above the rest,
\nThe den and death of Cacus crown the feast.
\nThe woods to hollow vales convey the sound,
\nThe vales to hills, and hills the notes rebound.
\nThe rites perform’d, the cheerful train retire.<\/p>\n
Betwixt young Pallas and his aged sire,
\nThe Trojan pass’d, the city to survey,
\nAnd pleasing talk beguil’d the tedious way.
\nThe stranger cast around his curious eyes,
\nNew objects viewing still, with new surprise;
\nWith greedy joy enquires of various things,
\nAnd acts and monuments of ancient kings.
\nThen thus the founder of the Roman tow’rs:
\n“These woods were first the seat of sylvan pow’rs,
\nOf Nymphs and Fauns, and salvage men, who took
\nTheir birth from trunks of trees and stubborn oak.
\nNor laws they knew, nor manners, nor the care
\nOf lab’ring oxen, or the shining share,
\nNor arts of gain, nor what they gain’d to spare.
\nTheir exercise the chase; the running flood
\nSupplied their thirst, the trees supplied their food.
\nThen Saturn came, who fled the pow’r of Jove,
\nRobb’d of his realms, and banish’d from above.
\nThe men, dispers’d on hills, to towns he brought,
\nAnd laws ordain’d, and civil customs taught,
\nAnd Latium call’d the land where safe he lay
\nFrom his unduteous son, and his usurping sway.
\nWith his mild empire, peace and plenty came;
\nAnd hence the golden times deriv’d their name.
\nA more degenerate and discolor’d age
\nSucceeded this, with avarice and rage.
\nTh’ Ausonians then, and bold Sicanians came;
\nAnd Saturn’s empire often chang’d the name.
\nThen kings, gigantic Tybris, and the rest,
\nWith arbitrary sway the land oppress’d:
\nFor Tiber’s flood was Albula before,
\nTill, from the tyrant’s fate, his name it bore.
\nI last arriv’d, driv’n from my native home
\nBy fortune’s pow’r, and fate’s resistless doom.
\nLong toss’d on seas, I sought this happy land,
\nWarn’d by my mother nymph, and call’d by Heav’n’s command.”<\/p>\n
Thus, walking on, he spoke, and shew’d the gate,
\nSince call’d Carmental by the Roman state;
\nWhere stood an altar, sacred to the name
\nOf old Carmenta, the prophetic dame,
\nWho to her son foretold th’ Aenean race,
\nSublime in fame, and Rome’s imperial place:
\nThen shews the forest, which, in after times,
\nFierce Romulus for perpetrated crimes
\nA sacred refuge made; with this, the shrine
\nWhere Pan below the rock had rites divine:
\nThen tells of Argus’ death, his murder’d guest,
\nWhose grave and tomb his innocence attest.
\nThence, to the steep Tarpeian rock he leads;
\nNow roof’d with gold, then thatch’d with homely reeds.
\nA reverent fear (such superstition reigns
\nAmong the rude) ev’n then possess’d the swains.
\nSome god, they knew- what god, they could not tell-
\nDid there amidst the sacred horror dwell.
\nTh’ Arcadians thought him Jove; and said they saw
\nThe mighty Thund’rer with majestic awe,
\nWho took his shield, and dealt his bolts around,
\nAnd scatter’d tempests on the teeming ground.
\nThen saw two heaps of ruins, (once they stood
\nTwo stately towns, on either side the flood,)
\nSaturnia’s and Janicula’s remains;
\nAnd either place the founder’s name retains.
\nDiscoursing thus together, they resort
\nWhere poor Evander kept his country court.
\nThey view’d the ground of Rome’s litigious hall;
\n(Once oxen low’d, where now the lawyers bawl;)
\nThen, stooping, thro’ the narrow gate they press’d,
\nWhen thus the king bespoke his Trojan guest:
\n“Mean as it is, this palace, and this door,
\nReceiv’d Alcides, then a conqueror.
\nDare to be poor; accept our homely food,
\nWhich feasted him, and emulate a god.”
\nThen underneath a lowly roof he led
\nThe weary prince, and laid him on a bed;
\nThe stuffing leaves, with hides of bears o’erspread.
\nNow Night had shed her silver dews around,
\nAnd with her sable wings embrac’d the ground,
\nWhen love’s fair goddess, anxious for her son,
\n(New tumults rising, and new wars begun,)
\nCouch’d with her husband in his golden bed,
\nWith these alluring words invokes his aid;
\nAnd, that her pleasing speech his mind may move,
\nInspires each accent with the charms of love:
\n“While cruel fate conspir’d with Grecian pow’rs,
\nTo level with the ground the Trojan tow’rs,
\nI ask’d not aid th’ unhappy to restore,
\nNor did the succor of thy skill implore;
\nNor urg’d the labors of my lord in vain,
\nA sinking empire longer to sustain,
\nTho’much I ow’d to Priam’s house, and more
\nThe dangers of Aeneas did deplore.
\nBut now, by Jove’s command, and fate’s decree,
\nHis race is doom’d to reign in Italy:
\nWith humble suit I beg thy needful art,
\nO still propitious pow’r, that rules my heart!
\nA mother kneels a suppliant for her son.
\nBy Thetis and Aurora thou wert won
\nTo forge impenetrable shields, and grace
\nWith fated arms a less illustrious race.
\nBehold, what haughty nations are combin’d
\nAgainst the relics of the Phrygian kind,
\nWith fire and sword my people to destroy,
\nAnd conquer Venus twice, in conqu’ring Troy.”
\nShe said; and straight her arms, of snowy hue,
\nAbout her unresolving husband threw.
\nHer soft embraces soon infuse desire;
\nHis bones and marrow sudden warmth inspire;
\nAnd all the godhead feels the wonted fire.
\nNot half so swift the rattling thunder flies,
\nOr forky lightnings flash along the skies.
\nThe goddess, proud of her successful wiles,
\nAnd conscious of her form, in secret smiles.<\/p>\n
Then thus the pow’r, obnoxious to her charms,
\nPanting, and half dissolving in her arms:
\n“Why seek you reasons for a cause so just,
\nOr your own beauties or my love distrust?
\nLong since, had you requir’d my helpful hand,
\nTh’ artificer and art you might command,
\nTo labor arms for Troy: nor Jove, nor fate,
\nConfin’d their empire to so short a date.
\nAnd, if you now desire new wars to wage,
\nMy skill I promise, and my pains engage.
\nWhatever melting metals can conspire,
\nOr breathing bellows, or the forming fire,
\nIs freely yours: your anxious fears remove,
\nAnd think no task is difficult to love.”
\nTrembling he spoke; and, eager of her charms,
\nHe snatch’d the willing goddess to his arms;
\nTill in her lap infus’d, he lay possess’d
\nOf full desire, and sunk to pleasing rest.
\nNow when the Night her middle race had rode,
\nAnd his first slumber had refresh’d the god-
\nThe time when early housewives leave the bed;
\nWhen living embers on the hearth they spread,
\nSupply the lamp, and call the maids to rise-
\nWith yawning mouths, and with half-open’d eyes,
\nThey ply the distaff by the winking light,
\nAnd to their daily labor add the night:
\nThus frugally they earn their children’s bread,
\nAnd uncorrupted keep the nuptial bed-
\nNot less concern’d, nor at a later hour,
\nRose from his downy couch the forging pow’r.<\/p>\n
Sacred to Vulcan’s name, an isle there lay,
\nBetwixt Sicilia’s coasts and Lipare,
\nRais’d high on smoking rocks; and, deep below,
\nIn hollow caves the fires of Aetna glow.
\nThe Cyclops here their heavy hammers deal;
\nLoud strokes, and hissings of tormented steel,
\nAre heard around; the boiling waters roar,
\nAnd smoky flames thro’ fuming tunnels soar.
\nHether the Father of the Fire, by night,
\nThro’ the brown air precipitates his flight.
\nOn their eternal anvils here he found
\nThe brethren beating, and the blows go round.
\nA load of pointless thunder now there lies
\nBefore their hands, to ripen for the skies:
\nThese darts, for angry Jove, they daily cast;
\nConsum’d on mortals with prodigious waste.
\nThree rays of writhen rain, of fire three more,
\nOf winged southern winds and cloudy store
\nAs many parts, the dreadful mixture frame;
\nAnd fears are added, and avenging flame.
\nInferior ministers, for Mars, repair
\nHis broken axletrees and blunted war,
\nAnd send him forth again with furbish’d arms,
\nTo wake the lazy war with trumpets’ loud alarms.
\nThe rest refresh the scaly snakes that fold
\nThe shield of Pallas, and renew their gold.
\nFull on the crest the Gorgon’s head they place,
\nWith eyes that roll in death, and with distorted face.<\/p>\n
“My sons,” said Vulcan, “set your tasks aside;
\nYour strength and master-skill must now be tried.
\nArms for a hero forge; arms that require
\nYour force, your speed, and all your forming fire.”
\nHe said. They set their former work aside,
\nAnd their new toils with eager haste divide.
\nA flood of molten silver, brass, and gold,
\nAnd deadly steel, in the large furnace roll’d;
\nOf this, their artful hands a shield prepare,
\nAlone sufficient to sustain the war.
\nSev’n orbs within a spacious round they close:
\nOne stirs the fire, and one the bellows blows.
\nThe hissing steel is in the smithy drown’d;
\nThe grot with beaten anvils groans around.
\nBy turns their arms advance, in equal time;
\nBy turns their hands descend, and hammers chime.
\nThey turn the glowing mass with crooked tongs;
\nThe fiery work proceeds, with rustic songs.<\/p>\n
While, at the Lemnian god’s command, they urge
\nTheir labors thus, and ply th’ Aeolian forge,
\nThe cheerful morn salutes Evander’s eyes,
\nAnd songs of chirping birds invite to rise.
\nHe leaves his lowly bed: his buskins meet
\nAbove his ankles; sandals sheathe his feet:
\nHe sets his trusty sword upon his side,
\nAnd o’er his shoulder throws a panther’s hide.
\nTwo menial dogs before their master press’d.
\nThus clad, and guarded thus, he seeks his kingly guest.
\nMindful of promis’d aid, he mends his pace,
\nBut meets Aeneas in the middle space.
\nYoung Pallas did his father’s steps attend,
\nAnd true Achates waited on his friend.
\nThey join their hands; a secret seat they choose;
\nTh’ Arcadian first their former talk renews:
\n“Undaunted prince, I never can believe
\nThe Trojan empire lost, while you survive.
\nCommand th’ assistance of a faithful friend;
\nBut feeble are the succors I can send.
\nOur narrow kingdom here the Tiber bounds;
\nThat other side the Latian state surrounds,
\nInsults our walls, and wastes our fruitful grounds.
\nBut mighty nations I prepare, to join
\nTheir arms with yours, and aid your just design.
\nYou come, as by your better genius sent,
\nAnd fortune seems to favor your intent.
\nNot far from hence there stands a hilly town,
\nOf ancient building, and of high renown,
\nTorn from the Tuscans by the Lydian race,
\nWho gave the name of Caere to the place,
\nOnce Agyllina call’d. It flourish’d long,
\nIn pride of wealth and warlike people strong,
\nTill curs’d Mezentius, in a fatal hour,
\nAssum’d the crown, with arbitrary pow’r.
\nWhat words can paint those execrable times,
\nThe subjects’ suff’rings, and the tyrant’s crimes!
\nThat blood, those murthers, O ye gods, replace
\nOn his own head, and on his impious race!
\nThe living and the dead at his command
\nWere coupled, face to face, and hand to hand,
\nTill, chok’d with stench, in loath’d embraces tied,
\nThe ling’ring wretches pin’d away and died.
\nThus plung’d in ills, and meditating more-
\nThe people’s patience, tir’d, no longer bore
\nThe raging monster; but with arms beset
\nHis house, and vengeance and destruction threat.
\nThey fire his palace: while the flame ascends,
\nThey force his guards, and execute his friends.
\nHe cleaves the crowd, and, favor’d by the night,
\nTo Turnus’ friendly court directs his flight.
\nBy just revenge the Tuscans set on fire,
\nWith arms, their king to punishment require:
\nTheir num’rous troops, now muster’d on the strand,
\nMy counsel shall submit to your command.
\nTheir navy swarms upon the coasts; they cry
\nTo hoist their anchors, but the gods deny.
\nAn ancient augur, skill’d in future fate,
\nWith these foreboding words restrains their hate:
\n‘Ye brave in arms, ye Lydian blood, the flow’r
\nOf Tuscan youth, and choice of all their pow’r,
\nWhom just revenge against Mezentius arms,
\nTo seek your tyrant’s death by lawful arms;
\nKnow this: no native of our land may lead
\nThis pow’rful people; seek a foreign head.’
\nAw’d with these words, in camps they still abide,
\nAnd wait with longing looks their promis’d guide.
\nTarchon, the Tuscan chief, to me has sent
\nTheir crown, and ev’ry regal ornament:
\nThe people join their own with his desire;
\nAnd all my conduct, as their king, require.
\nBut the chill blood that creeps within my veins,
\nAnd age, and listless limbs unfit for pains,
\nAnd a soul conscious of its own decay,
\nHave forc’d me to refuse imperial sway.
\nMy Pallas were more fit to mount the throne,
\nAnd should, but he’s a Sabine mother’s son,
\nAnd half a native; but, in you, combine
\nA manly vigor, and a foreign line.
\nWhere Fate and smiling Fortune shew the way,
\nPursue the ready path to sov’reign sway.
\nThe staff of my declining days, my son,
\nShall make your good or ill success his own;
\nIn fighting fields from you shall learn to dare,
\nAnd serve the hard apprenticeship of war;
\nYour matchless courage and your conduct view,
\nAnd early shall begin t’ admire and copy you.
\nBesides, two hundred horse he shall command;
\nTho’ few, a warlike and well-chosen band.
\nThese in my name are listed; and my son
\nAs many more has added in his own.”<\/p>\n
Scarce had he said; Achates and his guest,
\nWith downcast eyes, their silent grief express’d;
\nWho, short of succors, and in deep despair,
\nShook at the dismal prospect of the war.
\nBut his bright mother, from a breaking cloud,
\nTo cheer her issue, thunder’d thrice aloud;
\nThrice forky lightning flash’d along the sky,
\nAnd Tyrrhene trumpets thrice were heard on high.
\nThen, gazing up, repeated peals they hear;
\nAnd, in a heav’n serene, refulgent arms appear:
\nRedd’ning the skies, and glitt’ring all around,
\nThe temper’d metals clash, and yield a silver sound.
\nThe rest stood trembling, struck with awe divine;
\nAeneas only, conscious to the sign,
\nPresag’d th’ event, and joyful view’d, above,
\nTh’ accomplish’d promise of the Queen of Love.
\nThen, to th’ Arcadian king: “This prodigy
\n(Dismiss your fear) belongs alone to me.
\nHeav’n calls me to the war: th’ expected sign
\nIs giv’n of promis’d aid, and arms divine.
\nMy goddess mother, whose indulgent care
\nForesaw the dangers of the growing war,
\nThis omen gave, when bright Vulcanian arms,
\nFated from force of steel by Stygian charms,
\nSuspended, shone on high: she then foreshow’d
\nApproaching fights, and fields to float in blood.
\nTurnus shall dearly pay for faith forsworn;
\nAnd corps, and swords, and shields, on Tiber borne,
\nShall choke his flood: now sound the loud alarms;
\nAnd, Latian troops, prepare your perjur’d arms.”<\/p>\n
He said, and, rising from his homely throne,
\nThe solemn rites of Hercules begun,
\nAnd on his altars wak’d the sleeping fires;
\nThen cheerful to his household gods retires;
\nThere offers chosen sheep. Th’ Arcadian king
\nAnd Trojan youth the same oblations bring.
\nNext, of his men and ships he makes review;
\nDraws out the best and ablest of the crew.
\nDown with the falling stream the refuse run,
\nTo raise with joyful news his drooping son.
\nSteeds are prepar’d to mount the Trojan band,
\nWho wait their leader to the Tyrrhene land.
\nA sprightly courser, fairer than the rest,
\nThe king himself presents his royal guest:
\nA lion’s hide his back and limbs infold,
\nPrecious with studded work, and paws of gold.
\nFame thro’ the little city spreads aloud
\nTh’ intended march, amid the fearful crowd:
\nThe matrons beat their breasts, dissolve in tears,
\nAnd double their devotion in their fears.
\nThe war at hand appears with more affright,
\nAnd rises ev’ry moment to the sight.<\/p>\n
Then old Evander, with a close embrace,
\nStrain’d his departing friend; and tears o’erflow his face.
\n“Would Heav’n,” said he, “my strength and youth recall,
\nSuch as I was beneath Praeneste’s wall;
\nThen when I made the foremost foes retire,
\nAnd set whole heaps of conquer’d shields on fire;
\nWhen Herilus in single fight I slew,
\nWhom with three lives Feronia did endue;
\nAnd thrice I sent him to the Stygian shore,
\nTill the last ebbing soul return’d no more-
\nSuch if I stood renew’d, not these alarms,
\nNor death, should rend me from my Pallas’ arms;
\nNor proud Mezentius, thus unpunish’d, boast
\nHis rapes and murthers on the Tuscan coast.
\nYe gods, and mighty Jove, in pity bring
\nRelief, and hear a father and a king!
\nIf fate and you reserve these eyes, to see
\nMy son return with peace and victory;
\nIf the lov’d boy shall bless his father’s sight;
\nIf we shall meet again with more delight;
\nThen draw my life in length; let me sustain,
\nIn hopes of his embrace, the worst of pain.
\nBut if your hard decrees- which, O! I dread-
\nHave doom’d to death his undeserving head;
\nThis, O this very moment, let me die!
\nWhile hopes and fears in equal balance lie;
\nWhile, yet possess’d of all his youthful charms,
\nI strain him close within these aged arms;
\nBefore that fatal news my soul shall wound!”
\nHe said, and, swooning, sunk upon the ground.
\nHis servants bore him off, and softly laid
\nHis languish’d limbs upon his homely bed.<\/p>\n
The horsemen march; the gates are open’d wide;
\nAeneas at their head, Achates by his side.
\nNext these, the Trojan leaders rode along;
\nLast follows in the rear th’ Arcadian throng.
\nYoung Pallas shone conspicuous o’er the rest;
\nGilded his arms, embroider’d was his vest.
\nSo, from the seas, exerts his radiant head
\nThe star by whom the lights of heav’n are led;
\nShakes from his rosy locks the pearly dews,
\nDispels the darkness, and the day renews.
\nThe trembling wives the walls and turrets crowd,
\nAnd follow, with their eyes, the dusty cloud,
\nWhich winds disperse by fits, and shew from far
\nThe blaze of arms, and shields, and shining war.
\nThe troops, drawn up in beautiful array,
\nO’er heathy plains pursue the ready way.
\nRepeated peals of shouts are heard around;
\nThe neighing coursers answer to the sound,
\nAnd shake with horny hoofs the solid ground.<\/p>\n
A greenwood shade, for long religion known,
\nStands by the streams that wash the Tuscan town,
\nIncompass’d round with gloomy hills above,
\nWhich add a holy horror to the grove.
\nThe first inhabitants of Grecian blood,
\nThat sacred forest to Silvanus vow’d,
\nThe guardian of their flocks and fields; and pay
\nTheir due devotions on his annual day.
\nNot far from hence, along the river’s side,
\nIn tents secure, the Tuscan troops abide,
\nBy Tarchon led. Now, from a rising ground,
\nAeneas cast his wond’ring eyes around,
\nAnd all the Tyrrhene army had in sight,
\nStretch’d on the spacious plain from left to right.
\nThether his warlike train the Trojan led,
\nRefresh’d his men, and wearied horses fed.<\/p>\n
Meantime the mother goddess, crown’d with charms,
\nBreaks thro’ the clouds, and brings the fated arms.
\nWithin a winding vale she finds her son,
\nOn the cool river’s banks, retir’d alone.
\nShe shews her heav’nly form without disguise,
\nAnd gives herself to his desiring eyes.
\n“Behold,” she said, “perform’d in ev’ry part,
\nMy promise made, and Vulcan’s labor’d art.
\nNow seek, secure, the Latian enemy,
\nAnd haughty Turnus to the field defy.”
\nShe said; and, having first her son embrac’d,
\nThe radiant arms beneath an oak she plac’d,
\nProud of the gift, he roll’d his greedy sight
\nAround the work, and gaz’d with vast delight.
\nHe lifts, he turns, he poises, and admires
\nThe crested helm, that vomits radiant fires:
\nHis hands the fatal sword and corslet hold,
\nOne keen with temper’d steel, one stiff with gold:
\nBoth ample, flaming both, and beamy bright;
\nSo shines a cloud, when edg’d with adverse light.
\nHe shakes the pointed spear, and longs to try
\nThe plated cuishes on his manly thigh;
\nBut most admires the shield’s mysterious mold,
\nAnd Roman triumphs rising on the gold:
\nFor these, emboss’d, the heav’nly smith had wrought
\n(Not in the rolls of future fate untaught)
\nThe wars in order, and the race divine
\nOf warriors issuing from the Julian line.
\nThe cave of Mars was dress’d with mossy greens:
\nThere, by the wolf, were laid the martial twins.
\nIntrepid on her swelling dugs they hung;
\nThe foster dam loll’d out her fawning tongue:
\nThey suck’d secure, while, bending back her head,
\nShe lick’d their tender limbs, and form’d them as they fed.
\nNot far from thence new Rome appears, with games
\nProjected for the rape of Sabine dames.
\nThe pit resounds with shrieks; a war succeeds,
\nFor breach of public faith, and unexampled deeds.
\nHere for revenge the Sabine troops contend;
\nThe Romans there with arms the prey defend.
\nWearied with tedious war, at length they cease;
\nAnd both the kings and kingdoms plight the peace.
\nThe friendly chiefs before Jove’s altar stand,
\nBoth arm’d, with each a charger in his hand:
\nA fatted sow for sacrifice is led,
\nWith imprecations on the perjur’d head.
\nNear this, the traitor Metius, stretch’d between
\nFour fiery steeds, is dragg’d along the green,
\nBy Tullus’ doom: the brambles drink his blood,
\nAnd his torn limbs are left the vulture’s food.
\nThere, Porsena to Rome proud Tarquin brings,
\nAnd would by force restore the banish’d kings.
\nOne tyrant for his fellow-tyrant fights;
\nThe Roman youth assert their native rights.
\nBefore the town the Tuscan army lies,
\nTo win by famine, or by fraud surprise.
\nTheir king, half-threat’ning, half-disdaining stood,
\nWhile Cocles broke the bridge, and stemm’d the flood.
\nThe captive maids there tempt the raging tide,
\nScap’d from their chains, with Cloelia for their guide.
\nHigh on a rock heroic Manlius stood,
\nTo guard the temple, and the temple’s god.
\nThen Rome was poor; and there you might behold
\nThe palace thatch’d with straw, now roof’d with gold.
\nThe silver goose before the shining gate
\nThere flew, and, by her cackle, sav’d the state.
\nShe told the Gauls’ approach; th’ approaching Gauls,
\nObscure in night, ascend, and seize the walls.
\nThe gold dissembled well their yellow hair,
\nAnd golden chains on their white necks they wear.
\nGold are their vests; long Alpine spears they wield,
\nAnd their left arm sustains a length of shield.
\nHard by, the leaping Salian priests advance;
\nAnd naked thro’ the streets the mad Luperci dance,
\nIn caps of wool; the targets dropp’d from heav’n.
\nHere modest matrons, in soft litters driv’n,
\nTo pay their vows in solemn pomp appear,
\nAnd odorous gums in their chaste hands they bear.
\nFar hence remov’d, the Stygian seats are seen;
\nPains of the damn’d, and punish’d Catiline
\nHung on a rock- the traitor; and, around,
\nThe Furies hissing from the nether ground.
\nApart from these, the happy souls he draws,
\nAnd Cato’s holy ghost dispensing laws.<\/p>\n
Betwixt the quarters flows a golden sea;
\nBut foaming surges there in silver play.
\nThe dancing dolphins with their tails divide
\nThe glitt’ring waves, and cut the precious tide.
\nAmid the main, two mighty fleets engage
\nTheir brazen beaks, oppos’d with equal rage.
\nActium surveys the well-disputed prize;
\nLeucate’s wat’ry plain with foamy billows fries.
\nYoung Caesar, on the stern, in armor bright,
\nHere leads the Romans and their gods to fight:
\nHis beamy temples shoot their flames afar,
\nAnd o’er his head is hung the Julian star.
\nAgrippa seconds him, with prosp’rous gales,
\nAnd, with propitious gods, his foes assails:
\nA naval crown, that binds his manly brows,
\nThe happy fortune of the fight foreshows.
\nRang’d on the line oppos’d, Antonius brings
\nBarbarian aids, and troops of Eastern kings;
\nTh’ Arabians near, and Bactrians from afar,
\nOf tongues discordant, and a mingled war:
\nAnd, rich in gaudy robes, amidst the strife,
\nHis ill fate follows him- th’ Egyptian wife.
\nMoving they fight; with oars and forky prows
\nThe froth is gather’d, and the water glows.
\nIt seems, as if the Cyclades again
\nWere rooted up, and justled in the main;
\nOr floating mountains floating mountains meet;
\nSuch is the fierce encounter of the fleet.
\nFireballs are thrown, and pointed jav’lins fly;
\nThe fields of Neptune take a purple dye.
\nThe queen herself, amidst the loud alarms,
\nWith cymbals toss’d her fainting soldiers warms-
\nFool as she was! who had not yet divin’d
\nHer cruel fate, nor saw the snakes behind.
\nHer country gods, the monsters of the sky,
\nGreat Neptune, Pallas, and Love’s Queen defy:
\nThe dog Anubis barks, but barks in vain,
\nNor longer dares oppose th’ ethereal train.
\nMars in the middle of the shining shield
\nIs grav’d, and strides along the liquid field.
\nThe Dirae souse from heav’n with swift descent;
\nAnd Discord, dyed in blood, with garments rent,
\nDivides the prease: her steps Bellona treads,
\nAnd shakes her iron rod above their heads.
\nThis seen, Apollo, from his Actian height,
\nPours down his arrows; at whose winged flight
\nThe trembling Indians and Egyptians yield,
\nAnd soft Sabaeans quit the wat’ry field.
\nThe fatal mistress hoists her silken sails,
\nAnd, shrinking from the fight, invokes the gales.
\nAghast she looks, and heaves her breast for breath,
\nPanting, and pale with fear of future death.
\nThe god had figur’d her as driv’n along
\nBy winds and waves, and scudding thro’ the throng.
\nJust opposite, sad Nilus opens wide
\nHis arms and ample bosom to the tide,
\nAnd spreads his mantle o’er the winding coast,
\nIn which he wraps his queen, and hides the flying host.
\nThe victor to the gods his thanks express’d,
\nAnd Rome, triumphant, with his presence bless’d.
\nThree hundred temples in the town he plac’d;
\nWith spoils and altars ev’ry temple grac’d.
\nThree shining nights, and three succeeding days,
\nThe fields resound with shouts, the streets with praise,
\nThe domes with songs, the theaters with plays.
\nAll altars flame: before each altar lies,
\nDrench’d in his gore, the destin’d sacrifice.
\nGreat Caesar sits sublime upon his throne,
\nBefore Apollo’s porch of Parian stone;
\nAccepts the presents vow’d for victory,
\nAnd hangs the monumental crowns on high.
\nVast crowds of vanquish’d nations march along,
\nVarious in arms, in habit, and in tongue.
\nHere, Mulciber assigns the proper place
\nFor Carians, and th’ ungirt Numidian race;
\nThen ranks the Thracians in the second row,
\nWith Scythians, expert in the dart and bow.
\nAnd here the tam’d Euphrates humbly glides,
\nAnd there the Rhine submits her swelling tides,
\nAnd proud Araxes, whom no bridge could bind;
\nThe Danes’ unconquer’d offspring march behind,
\nAnd Morini, the last of humankind.<\/p>\n
These figures, on the shield divinely wrought,
\nBy Vulcan labor’d, and by Venus brought,
\nWith joy and wonder fill the hero’s thought.
\nUnknown the names, he yet admires the grace,
\nAnd bears aloft the fame and fortune of his race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"menu_order":8,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-118","chapter","type-chapter","status-web-only","hentry"],"part":110,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/118\/revisions"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/110"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/118\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}