everyman's library edited by ernest rhys classical the aeneid of virgil the sages of old live again in us. glanvill the aeneid of virgil translated into english verse by e. fairfax taylor london: published by j. m. dent & sons ltd. and in new york by e. p. dutton & co. _first issue of this edition ._ _reprinted ._ introduction virgil--publius vergilius maro--was born at andes near mantua, in the year b.c. his life was uneventful, though he lived in stirring times, and he passed by far the greater part of it in reading his books and writing his poems, undisturbed by the fierce civil strife which continued to rage throughout the roman empire, until octavian, who afterwards became the emperor augustus, defeated antony at the battle of actium. though his father was a man of humble origin, virgil received an excellent education, first at cremona and milan, and afterwards at rome. he was intimate with all the distinguished men of his time, and a personal friend of the emperor. after the publication of his second work, the _georgics_, he was recognized as being the greatest poet of his age, and the most striking figure in the brilliant circle of literary men, which was centred at the court. he died at brindisi in the spring of b.c. whilst returning from a journey to greece, leaving his greatest work, the _aeneid_, written but unrevised. it was published by his executors, and immediately took its place as the great national epic of the roman people. virgil seems to have been a man of simple, pure, and loveable character, and the references to him in the works of horace clearly show the affection with which he was regarded by his friends. like every cultivated roman of that age, virgil was a close student of the literature and philosophy of the greeks, and his poems bear eloquent testimony to the profound impression made upon him by his reading of the greek poets. his first important work, the _eclogues_, was directly inspired by the pastoral poems of theocritus, from whom he borrowed not only much of his imagery but even whole lines; in the _georgics_ he took as his model the _works and days_ of hesiod, and though in the former case it must be confessed that he suffers from the weakness inherent in all imitative poetry, in the latter he far surpasses the slow and simple verses of the boeotian. but here we must guard ourselves against a misapprehension. we moderns look askance at the writer who borrows without acknowledgment the thoughts and phrases of his forerunners, but the roman critics of the augustan age looked at the matter from a different point of view. they regarded the greeks as having set the standard of the highest possible achievement in literature, and believed that it should be the aim of every writer to be faithful, not only to the spirit, but even to the letter of their great exemplars. hence it was only natural that when virgil essayed the task of writing the national epic of his country, he should be studious to embody in his work all that was best in greek epic poetry. it is difficult in criticizing virgil to avoid comparing him to some extent with homer. but though virgil copied homer freely, any comparison between them is apt to be misleading. a primitive epic, like the _iliad_ or the _nibelungenlied_, produced by an imaginative people at an early stage in its development, telling its stories simply for the sake of story telling, cannot be judged by the same canons of criticism as a literary epic like the _aeneid_ or _paradise lost_, which is the work of a great poet in an age of advanced culture, and sets forth a great idea in a narrative form. the greek writer to whom virgil owes most perhaps, is apollonius of rhodes, from whose _argonautica_ he borrowed the love interest of the _aeneid_. and though the roman is a far greater poet, in this instance the advantage is by no means on his side, for, as professor gilbert murray has so well said, 'the medea and jason of the _argonautica_ are at once more interesting and more natural than their copies, the dido and aeneas of the _aeneid_. the wild love of the witch-maiden sits curiously on the queen and organizer of industrial carthage; and the two qualities which form an essential part of jason--the weakness which makes him a traitor, and the deliberate gentleness which contrasts him with medea--seem incongruous in the father of rome.' but though virgil turned to the greek epics for the general framework and many of the details of his poem, he always remains master of his materials, and stamps them with the impress of his own genius. the spirit which inspires the _aeneid_ is wholly roman, and the deep faith in the national destiny, and stern sense of duty to which it gives expression, its profoundly religious character and stately and melodious verse, have always caused it to be recognized as the loftiest expression of the dignity and greatness of rome at her best. but the sympathetic reader will be conscious of a deeper and more abiding charm in the poetry of virgil. even in his most splendid passages his verses thrill us with a strange pathos, and his sensitiveness to unseen things--things beautiful and sad--has caused a great writer, himself a master of english prose, to speak of 'his single words and phrases, his pathetic half lines, giving utterance as the voice of nature herself to that pain and weariness, yet hope of better things, which is the experience of her children in every age.' the task of translating such a writer at all adequately may well seem to be an almost impossible one; and how far any of the numerous attempts to do so have succeeded, is a difficult question. for not only does the stated ideal at which the translator should aim, vary with each generation, but perhaps no two lovers of virgil would agree at any period as to what this ideal should be. two general principles stand out from the mass of conflicting views on this point. the translation should read as though it were an original poem, and it should produce on the modern reader as far as possible the same effect as the original produced on virgil's contemporaries. and here we reach the real difficulty, for the scholar who can alone judge what that effect may have been, is too intimate with the original to see clearly the merits of a translation, and the man who can only read the translation can form no opinion. however, it seems clear that a prose translation can never really satisfy us, because it must always be wanting in the musical quality of continuous verse. and our critical experience bears this out, since even professor mackail with all his literary skill and insight has failed to make his version of the _aeneid_ more than a very valuable aid to the student of the original. the meaning of the poet is fully expressed, but his music has been lost. that oft-quoted line-- 'sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt' haunts us like tennyson's 'when unto dying eyes the casement slowly grows a glimmering square,' and no prose rendering can hope to convey the poignancy and pathos of the original. the ideal translation, then, must be in verse, and perhaps the best way for us to determine which style and metre are most suited to convey to the modern reader an impression of the charm of virgil, will be to take a brief glance at some of the best-known of the verse translations which have appeared. the first translation of the _aeneid_ into english verse was that of gawin douglas, bishop of dunkeld in scotland, which was published in . it is a spirited translation, marked by considerable native force and verisimilitude, and it was certainly unsurpassed until that of dryden appeared. in the best passages it renders the tone and feeling of the original with extreme felicity--indeed, all but perfectly. take for instance this passage from the sixth book-- 'thai walking furth fa dyrk, oneth thai wyst quhidder thai went, amyd dym schaddowys thar, quhar evir is nycht, and nevir lyght dois repar, throwout the waist dongion of pluto kyng, thai voyd boundis, and that gowsty ryng: siklyke as quha wold throw thik woddis wend in obscure licht, quhen moyn may nocht be kenned; as jupiter the kyng etheryall, with erdis skug hydis the hevynnys all and the myrk nycht, with her vissage gray, from every thing hes reft the hew away.' but in spite of its merits, its dialect wearies the modern reader, and gives it an air of grotesqueness which is very alien to the spirit of the latin. one other sixteenth-century translation deserves notice, as it was written by one who was himself a distinguished poet; namely, the version of the second and fourth books of the _aeneid_ written by henry, earl of surrey. it gained the commendation of that stern critic ascham, who praises surrey for avoiding rhyme, but considers that he failed to 'fully hit perfect and true versifying'; which is hardly a matter for wonder since english blank verse was then in its infancy. but it has some fine passages--notably the one which relates the death of dido-- 'as she had said, her damsell might perceue her with these wordes fal pearced on a sword the blade embrued and hands besprent with gore. the clamor rang unto the pallace toppe, the brute ranne throughout al thastoined towne, with wailing great, and women's shrill yelling, the roofs gan roare, the aire resound with plaint, as though cartage, or thauncient town of tyre with prease of entred enemies swarmed full, or when the rage of furious flame doth take the temples toppes, and mansions eke of men.' of the translations into modern english, that of dryden may still be said to stand first, in spite of its lack of fidelity. it owes its place to its sustained vigour, and the fact that the heroic couplet is in the hands of a master. in its way nothing could be better than-- 'just in the gate, and in the jaws of hell, revengeful cares, and sullen sorrows dwell, and pale diseases, and repining age-- want, fear, and famine's unresisted rage, here toils and death, and death's half-brother sleep, forms terrible to view, their sentry keep. with anxious pleasures of a guilty mind, deep frauds, before, and open force behind; the furies' iron beds, and strife that shakes her hissing tresses, and unfolds her snakes.' but though the heroic couplet may have conveyed to dryden's age something of the effect of the virgilian hexameter, it does nothing of the kind to us. probably we are prejudiced in the matter by pope's homer. professor conington's translation certainly has spirit and energy, but he was decidedly unfortunate in his choice of metre. to attempt to render 'the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man' by fluent octosyllabics was bound to result in incongruity, as in the following passage, where the sombre warning of the sibyl to aeneas becomes merely a sprightly reminder that-- 'the journey down to the abyss is prosperous and light, the palace gates of gloomy dis stand open day and night; but upward to retrace the way and pass into the light of day, there comes the stress of labour; this may task a hero's might.' the various attempts that have been made to translate the poem in the metre of the original have all been sad failures. and from richard stanyhurst, whom thomas nash described as treading 'a foul, lumbering, boistrous, wallowing measure, in his translation of virgil,' down to our own time, no one has succeeded in avoiding faults of monotony and lack of poetical quality. a short extract from dr. crane's translation will illustrate this very clearly-- 'no species of hardships, longer, o maiden, arises before me as strange and unlooked for: all things have i foreknown, and in soul have already endured them. one special thing i crave, since here, it is said, that the gateway stands of the monarch infernal, and refluent acheron's dark pool: let it be mine to go down to the sight and face of my cherished father, and teach me the way, and the sacred avenues open.' nor is william morris' attempt to devise a new metre anything but disappointing. it is surprising that so delightfully endowed a poet should have so often missed the music of virgil's verse as he has done in his translation, and the archaisms with which his work abounds, though they might be suitable in a translation of homer, are only a source of irritation in the case of virgil. for the best metre to use we must look in a different direction. virgil made use of the dactylic hexameter because it was the literary tradition of his day that epics should be written in that metre. in the same way it might be argued, the english tradition points to blank verse as the correct medium. this may be so, but its use demands that the translator should be as great a poet as virgil. had tennyson ever translated the _aeneid_, it would doubtless have been as nearly faultless as any translation could be, as is shown by the version of sir theodore martin, which owes so much of its stately charm to its close adherence to the manner of tennyson. a typical passage is the description of dido's love for aeneas-- 'soothsayers, ah! how little do they know! of what avail are temples, vows, and prayers, to quell a raging passion? all the while a subtle flame is smouldering in her veins, and in her heart a silent aching wound. * * * * * now dido leads aeneas round the ramparts, to him shows the wealth of sidon, all the town laid out, begins to speak, then stops, she knows not why. now, as day wanes, the feast of yesterday she gives again, again with fevered lips begs for the tale of troy and all its woes, and hangs upon his lips, who tells the tale. then, when the guests are gone and in her turn the wan moon pales her light, and waning stars persuade to sleep, she in her empty halls mourns all alone, and throws herself along the couch where he had lain: though he be gone far from her side, she hears and sees him still.' of the merits of the present translation the reader will judge for himself; but it may perhaps be said of the usual objections urged against the spenserian stanza--that it is cumbrous and monotonous, and presents difficulties of construction--that the two former criticisms will be just or the reverse, according to the skill of the writer, while it is quite possible that the last is really an advantage, for the intricate machinery imposes a restraint on careless or hasty composition. and finally we must turn a deaf ear, even to so high an authority as matthew arnold, when he says that it is not suited to the grand manner. when he said this he cannot have remembered either the lament of florimell in the _faerie queene_ or the conclusion of _childe harold_. j. p. maine. edward fairfax taylor, whose translation of the _aeneid_ is now published, was descended from the taylors of norwich, a family well known for their culture and intellectual gifts. he was the only son of john edward taylor, himself an accomplished german and italian scholar, and the first translator of the _pentamerone_ into english, who lived at weybridge near his aunt, mrs. sarah austin. brought up among books, young taylor early showed an intense love for classical literature, and soon after going to marlborough he began the present translation as a boy of sixteen. his admiration for spenser led him to adopt the spenserian stanza, and in the preface to his translation of the first two books he gives detailed reasons for considering it peculiarly well adapted for the _aeneid_. he was a favourite pupil of the late dr. bradley, dean of westminster, at that time headmaster of marlborough, and who much wished that he should follow in the footsteps of 'that brilliant band of marlborough men,' as they have been called, who at that time, year after year, gained the balliol scholarship. but circumstances made him decide otherwise, and in he passed the necessary examination for a clerkship in the house of lords. the long vacations gave him time to continue this labour of love, and in the intervals of much other literary work, and in spite of ill health, he completed the translation of the twelve books of the _aeneid_. he looked forward to re-editing it and bringing it out when he should have retired from his work in the house of lords, but this day never came, and he died from heart disease in january . his was a singularly charming disposition, and he was beloved by all who knew him; while the courage and patience with which he bore ever-increasing suffering, and the stoicism he showed in fulfilling his duties in the house of lords, have left a deep impression on all his friends. l. m. the _edisso princeps_, of virgil is that printed at rome by sweynham and pannartz. it was not dated, but it is almost certain that it was printed before the venice folio edition of v. de spira, which was issued in . the best modern critical editions of the text are those of ribbeck ( vols. ) and f. a. hirtzel (_scriptorum classicorum bibliotheca oxoniensis_, ). of the editions containing explanatory notes, that of conington and nettleship, revised by haverfield, is the standard english commentary. that of a. sidgwick ( vols. cambridge) is more elementary, but will be found valuable. those of kennedy (london, ) and of papillon and haigh (oxford, vols. - ) may also be referred to. virgil was first introduced to english readers by william caxton in . but his _eneydos_ was based, not on the _aeneid_ itself, but on a french paraphrase, the _liure des eneydes_, printed at lyons in . the best modern prose translations are those of mackail (london, ) and conington (london, ). the following is a list of the more important verse translations of the _aeneid_ which have appeared. the name of the translator, and the date at which his translation appeared, are given:--gawin douglas, (see introduction, p. xi); henry, earl of surrey, (books ii. and iv. only); j. dryden, ; c. r. kennedy, ; j. conington, ; w. morris, ; w. j. thornhill, ; sir charles bowen, (books i.-vi. only); j. rhoades, (books i.-vi. only); sir theodore martin, (books i.-vi. only); t. h. d. may, ; e. fairfax taylor, . students of virgil would also do well to consult sellar, _poets of the augustan age_ (oxford, ), and nettleship, _introduction to the study of vergil_. the aeneid of virgil book one argument fate sends aeneas to latium to found rome, but juno's hostility long delays his success ( - ). descrying him and his trojans in sight of italy, she bribes aeolus to raise a storm for their destruction ( - ). the tempest ( - ). the despair of aeneas ( - ). one trojan ship is already lost, when neptune learns the plot and lays the storm ( - ). aeneas escapes, lands in libya, and heartens his men ( - ). venus appeals to jupiter, who comforts her with assurance that aeneas shall yet be great in italy. his son shall found alba and his son's sons rome. juno shall eventually relent, and rome under augustus shall be empress of the world ( - ). mercury is sent to secure from dido, queen of libya, a welcome for aeneas. aeneas and achates, while reconnoitring, meet venus in the forest disguised as a nymph. she tells them dido's story. aeneas in reply bewails his own troubles, but is interrupted with promises of success. let him but persist, all will be well ( - ). venus changes before their eyes from nymph to goddess, and vanishes before aeneas can utter his reproaches. hidden in a magic mist, the pair approach carthage, which they find still building. they reach the citadel unobserved, and are encouraged on seeing pictures of scenes from the trojan war ( - ). dido appears and takes her state. to her enter, as suppliants, trojan leaders, whom aeneas had imagined dead. ilioneus, their spokesman, tells the story of the storm and asks help. "if only aeneas were here!" ( - ). dido speaks him fair and echoes his words, "if aeneas were here!" the mist scatters. aeneas appears; thanks dido, and greets ilioneus ( - ). dido welcomes aeneas to carthage and prepares a festival in his honour. aeneas sends achates to summon his son and bring gifts for dido ( - ). cupid, persuaded by venus to personate ascanius and inspire dido with love for aeneas, comes with the gifts to dido's palace, while ascanius is carried away to idalia. the night is passed in feasting. after the feast iopas sings the wonders of the firmament, and dido, bewitched by cupid, begs aeneas to tell the whole story of his adventures ( - ). i. of arms i sing, and of the man, whom fate first drove from troy to the lavinian shore. full many an evil, through the mindful hate of cruel juno, from the gods he bore, much tost on earth and ocean, yea, and more in war enduring, ere he built a home, and his loved household-deities brought o'er to latium, whence the latin people come, whence rose the alban sires, and walls of lofty rome. ii. o muse, assist me and inspire my song, the various causes and the crimes relate, for what affronted majesty, what wrong to injured godhead, what offence so great heaven's queen resenting, with remorseless hate, could one renowned for piety compel to brave such troubles, and endure the weight of toils so many and so huge. o tell how can in heavenly minds such fierce resentment dwell? iii. there stood a city, fronting far away the mouths of tiber and italia's shore, a tyrian settlement of olden day, rich in all wealth, and trained to war's rough lore, carthage the name, by juno loved before all places, even samos. here were shown her arms, and here her chariot; evermore e'en then this land she cherished as her own, and here, should fate permit, had planned a world-wide throne. iv. but she had heard, how men of trojan seed those tyrian towers should level, how again from these in time a nation should proceed, wide-ruling, tyrannous in war, the bane (so fate was working) of the libyan reign. this feared she, mindful of the war beside waged for her argives on the trojan plain; nor even yet had from her memory died the causes of her wrath, the pangs of wounded pride,-- v. the choice of paris, and her charms disdained, the hateful race, the lawless honours ta'en by ravished ganymede--these wrongs remained. so fired with rage, the trojans' scanty train by fierce achilles and the greeks unslain she barred from latium, and in evil strait for many a year, on many a distant main they wandered, homeless outcasts, tost by fate; so huge, so hard the task to found the roman state. vi. scarce out of sight of sicily, they set their sails to sea, and merrily ploughed the main, with brazen beaks, when juno, harbouring yet within her breast the ever-rankling pain, mused thus: "must i then from the work refrain, nor keep this trojan from the latin throne, baffled, forsooth, because the fates constrain? could pallas burn the grecian fleet, and drown their crews, for one man's crime, oileus' frenzied son? vii. "she, hurling jove's winged lightning, stirred the deep and strewed the ships. him, from his riven breast the flames outgasping, with a whirlwind's sweep she caught and fixed upon a rock's sharp crest. but i, who walk the queen of heaven confessed, jove's sister-spouse, shall i forevermore with one poor tribe keep warring without rest? who then henceforth shall juno's power adore? who then her fanes frequent, her deity implore?" viii. such thoughts revolving in her fiery mind, straightway the goddess to aeolia passed, the storm-clouds' birthplace, big with blustering wind. here aeolus within a dungeon vast the sounding tempest and the struggling blast bends to his sway and bridles them with chains. they, in the rock reverberant held fast, moan at the doors. here, throned aloft, he reigns; his sceptre calms their rage, their violence restrains: ix. else earth and sea and all the firmament the winds together through the void would sweep. but, fearing this, the sire omnipotent hath buried them in caverns dark and deep, and o'er them piled huge mountains in a heap, and set withal a monarch, there to reign, by compact taught at his command to keep strict watch, and tighten or relax the rein. him now saturnia sought, and thus in lowly strain: x. "o aeolus, for jove, of human kind and gods the sovran sire, hath given to thee to lull the waves and lift them with the wind, a hateful people, enemies to me, their ships are steering o'er the tuscan sea, bearing their troy and vanquished gods away to italy. go, set the storm-winds free, and sink their ships or scatter them astray, and strew their corpses forth, to weltering waves a prey. xi. "twice seven nymphs have i, beautiful to see; one, deiopeia, fairest of the fair, in lasting wedlock will i link to thee, thy life-long years for such deserts to share, and make thee parent of an offspring fair."-- "speak, queen," he answered, "to obey is mine. to thee i owe this sceptre and whate'er of realm is here; thou makest jove benign, thou giv'st to rule the storms and sit at feasts divine." xii. so spake the god and with her hest complied, and turned the massive sceptre in his hand and pushed the hollow mountain on its side. out rushed the winds, like soldiers in a band, in wedged array, and, whirling, scour the land. east, west and squally south-west, with a roar, swoop down on ocean, and the surf and sand mix in dark eddies, and the watery floor heave from its depths, and roll huge billows to the shore. xiii. then come the creak of cables and the cries of seamen. clouds the darkened heavens have drowned, and snatched the daylight from the trojans' eyes. black night broods on the waters; all around from pole to pole the rattling peals resound and frequent flashes light the lurid air. all nature, big with instant ruin, frowned destruction. then aeneas' limbs with fear were loosened, and he groaned and stretched his hands in prayer: xiv. "thrice, four times blest, who, in their fathers' face fell by the walls of ilion far away! o son of tydeus, bravest of the race, why could not i have perished, too, that day beneath thine arm, and breathed this soul away far on the plains of troy, where hector brave lay, pierced by fierce aeacides, where lay giant sarpedon, and swift simois' wave rolls heroes, helms and shields, whelmed in one watery grave?" xv. e'en as he cried, the hurricane from the north struck with a roar against the sail. up leap the waves to heaven; the shattered oars start forth; round swings the prow, and lets the waters sweep the broadside. onward comes a mountain heap of billows, gaunt, abrupt. these, horsed astride a surge's crest, rock pendent o'er the deep; to those the wave's huge hollow, yawning wide, lays bare the ground below; dark swells the sandy tide. xvi. three ships the south-wind catching hurls away on hidden rocks, which (latins from of yore have called them "altars") in mid ocean lay, a huge ridge level with the tide. three more fierce eurus from the deep sea dashed ashore on quicks and shallows, pitiful to view, and round them heaped the sandbanks. one, that bore the brave orontes and his lycian crew, full in aeneas' sight a toppling wave o'erthrew. xvii. dashed from the tiller, down the pilot rolled. thrice round the billow whirled her, as she lay, then whelmed below. strewn here and there behold arms, planks, lone swimmers in the surges grey, and treasures snatched from trojan homes away. now fail the ships wherein achates ride and abas; old aletes' bark gives way, and brave ilioneus'. each loosened side through many a gaping seam lets in the baleful tide. xviii. meanwhile great neptune, sore amazed, perceived the storm let loose, the turmoil of the sky, and ocean from its lowest depths upheaved. with calm brow lifted o'er the sea, his eye beholds troy's navy scattered far and nigh, and by the waves and ruining heaven oppressed the trojan crews. nor failed he to espy his sister's wiles and hatred. east and west he summoned to his throne, and thus his wrath expressed. xix. "what pride of birth possessed you, earth and air without my leave to mingle in affray, and raise such hubbub in my realm? beware-- yet first 'twere best these billows to allay. far other coin hereafter ye shall pay for crimes like these. presumptuous winds, begone, and take your king this message, that the sway of ocean and the sceptre and the throne fate gave to me, not him; the trident is my own. xx. "he holds huge rocks; these, eurus, are for thee, there let him glory in his hall and reign, but keep his winds close prisoners." thus he, and, ere his speech was ended, smoothed the main, and chased the clouds and brought the sun again. triton, cymothoe from the rock's sharp brow push off the vessels. neptune plies amain his trident-lever, lays the sandbanks low, on light wheels shaves the deep, and calms the billowy flow. xxi. as when in mighty multitudes bursts out sedition, and the wrathful rabble rave; rage finds them arms; stones, firebrands fly about, then if some statesman reverend and grave, stand forth conspicuous, and the tumult brave all, hushed, attend; his guiding words restrain their angry wills; so sank the furious wave, when through the clear sky looking o'er the main, the sea-king lashed his steeds and slacked the favouring rein. xxii. tired out, the trojans seek the nearest land and turn to libya.--in a far retreat there lies a haven; towards the deep doth stand an island, on whose jutting headlands beat the broken billows, shivered into sleet. two towering crags, twin giants, guard the cove, and threat the skies. the waters at their feet sleep hushed, and, like a curtain, frowns above, mixt with the glancing green, the darkness of the grove. xxiii. beneath a precipice, that fronts the wave, with limpid springs inside, and many a seat of living marble, lies a sheltered cave, home of the sea-nymphs. in this haven sweet cable nor biting anchor moors the fleet. here with seven ships, the remnant of his band, aeneas enters. glad at length to greet the welcome earth, the trojans leap to land, and lay their weary limbs still dripping on the sand. xxiv. first from a flint a spark achates drew, and lit the leaves and dry wood heaped with care and set the fuel flaming, as he blew. then, tired of toiling, from the ships they bear the sea-spoiled corn, and ceres' tools prepare, and 'twixt the millstones grind the rescued grain and roast the pounded morsels for their fare: while up the crag aeneas climbs, to gain full prospect far and wide, and scan the distant main. xxv. if aught of phrygian biremes he discern antheus or capys, tost upon the seas, or arms of brave caicus high astern. no sail, but wandering on the shore he sees three stags, and, grazing up the vale at ease, the whole herd troops behind them in a row. he stops, and from achates hastes to seize his chance-brought arms, the arrows and the bow, the branching antlers smites, and lays the leader low. xxvi. next fall the herd; and through the leafy glade in mingled rout he drives the scattered train, plying his shafts, nor stays his conquering raid till seven huge bodies on the ground lie slain, the number of his vessels; then again he seeks the crews, and gives a deer to each, then opes the casks, which good acestes, fain at parting, filled on the trinacrian beach, and shares the wine, and soothes their drooping hearts with speech. xxvii. "comrades! of ills not ignorant; far more than these ye suffered, and to these as well will jove give ending, as he gave before. ye know mad scylla, and her monsters' yell, and the dark caverns where the cyclops dwell. fear not; take heart; hereafter, it may be these too will yield a pleasant tale to tell. through shifting hazards, by the fates' decree, to latin shores we steer, our promised land to see. xxviii. "there quiet settlements the fates display, there troy her ruined fortunes shall repair. bear up; reserve you for a happier day." he spake, and heart-sick with a load of care, suppressed his grief, and feigned a cheerful air. all straightway gird them to the feast. these flay the ribs and thighs, and lay the entrails bare. those slice the flesh, and split the quivering prey, and tend the fires and set the cauldrons in array. xxix. so wine and venison, to their hearts' desire, refreshed their strength. and when the feast was sped, their missing friends in converse they require, doubtful to deem them, betwixt hope and dread, alive or out of hearing with the dead. all mourned, but good aeneas mourned the most, and bitter tears for amycus he shed, gyas, cloanthus, bravest of his host, lycus, orontes bold, all counted with the lost. xxx. now came an end of mourning and of woe, when jove, surveying from his prospect high shore, sail-winged sea, and peopled earth below, stood, musing, on the summit of the sky, and on the libyan kingdom fixed his eye, to him, such cares revolving in his breast, her shining eyes suffused with tears, came nigh fair venus, for her darling son distrest, and thus in sorrowing tones the sire of heaven addressed; xxxi. "o thou, whose nod and awful bolts attest o'er gods and men thine everlasting reign, wherein hath my aeneas so transgressed, wherein his trojans, thus to mourn their slain, barred from the world, lest italy they gain? surely from them the rolling years should see new sons of ancient teucer rise again, the romans, rulers of the land and sea. so swar'st thou; father, say, why changed is thy decree? xxxii. "that word consoled me, weighing fate with fate, for troy's sad fall. now fortune, as before, pursues the woe-worn victims of her hate. o when, great monarch, shall their toil be o'er? safe could antenor pass th' illyrian shore through danaan hosts, and realms liburnian gain, and climb timavus and her springs explore, where through nine mouths, with roaring surge, the main bursts from the sounding rocks and deluges the plain. xxxiii. "yet there he built patavium, yea, and named the nation, and the trojan arms laid down, and now rests happy in the town he framed. but we, thy progeny, to whom alone thy nod hath promised a celestial throne, our vessels lost, from italy are barred, o shame! and ruined for the wrath of one. thus, thus dost thou thy plighted word regard, our sceptred realms restore, our piety reward?" xxxiv. then jove, soft-smiling with the look that clears the storms, and gently kissing her, replies; "firm are thy fates, sweet daughter; spare thy fears. thou yet shalt see lavinium's walls arise, and bear thy brave aeneas to the skies. my purpose shifts not. now, to ease thy woes, since sorrow for his sake hath dimmed thine eyes, more will i tell, and hidden fates disclose. he in italia long shall battle with his foes, xxxv. "and crush fierce tribes, and milder ways ordain, and cities build and wield the latin sway, till the third summer shall have seen him reign, and three long winter-seasons passed away since fierce rutulia did his arms obey. then, too, the boy ascanius, named of late iulus--ilus was he in the day when firm by royalty stood ilium's state-- shall rule till thirty years complete the destined date. xxxvi. "he from lavinium shall remove his seat, and gird long alba for defence; and there 'neath hector's kin three hundred years complete the kingdom shall endure, till ilia fair, queen-priestess, twins by mars' embrace shall bear. then romulus the nation's charge shall claim, wolf-nursed and proud her tawny hide to wear, and build a city of mavortian fame, and make the roman race remembered by his name. xxxvii. "to these no period nor appointed date, nor bounds to their dominion i assign; an endless empire shall the race await. nay, juno, too, who now, in mood malign, earth, sea and sky is harrying, shall incline to better counsels, and unite with me to cherish and uphold the imperial line, the romans, rulers of the land and sea, lords of the flowing gown. so standeth my decree. xxxviii. "in rolling ages there shall come the day when heirs of old assaracus shall tame phthia and proud mycene to obey, and terms of peace to conquered greeks proclaim. caesar, a trojan,--julius his name, drawn from the great iulus--shall arise, and compass earth with conquest, heaven with fame, him, crowned with vows and many an eastern prize, thou, freed at length from care, shalt welcome to the skies. xxxix. "then wars shall cease and savage times grow mild, and remus and quirinus, brethren twain, with hoary faith and vesta undefiled, shall give the law. with iron bolt and chain firm-closed the gates of janus shall remain. within, the fiend of discord, high reclined on horrid arms, unheeded in the fane, bound with a hundred brazen knots behind, and grim with gory jaws, his grisly teeth shall grind." xl. so saying, the son of maia down he sent, to open carthage and the libyan state, lest dido, weetless of the fates' intent, should drive the trojan wanderers from her gate. with feathered oars he cleaves the skies, and straight on libya's shores alighting, speeds his hest. the tyrians, yielding to the god, abate their fierceness. dido, more than all the rest, warms to her phrygian friends, and wears a kindly breast. xli. but good aeneas, pondering through the night distracting thoughts and many an anxious care, resolved, when daybreak brought the gladsome light, to search the coast, and back sure tidings bear, what land was this, what habitants were there, if man or beast, for, far as the eye could rove, a wilderness the region seemed, and bare. his ships he hides within a sheltering cove, screened by the caverned rock, and shadowed by the grove, xlii. then wielding in his hand two broad-tipt spears, alone with brave achates forth he strayed, when lo, before him in the wood appears his mother, in a virgin's arms arrayed, in form and habit of a spartan maid, or like harpalyce, the pride of thrace, who tires swift steeds, and scours the woodland glade, and outstrips rapid hebrus in the race. so fair the goddess seemed, apparelled for the chase. xliii. bare were her knees, and from her shoulders hung the wonted bow, kept handy for the prey her flowing raiment in a knot she strung, and loosed her tresses with the winds to play. "ho, sirs!" she hails them, "saw ye here astray ought of my sisters, girt in huntress wise with quiver and a spotted lynx-skin gay, or following on the foaming boar with cries?" thus venus spake, and thus fair venus' son replies; xliv. "nought of thy sisters have i heard or seen. what name, o maiden, shall i give to thee, for mortal never had thy voice or mien? o goddess surely, whether nymph i see, or phoebus' sister; whosoe'er thou be, be kind, for strangers and in evil case we roam, tost hither by the stormy sea. say, who the people, what the clime and place, and many a victim's blood thy hallowed shrine shall grace." xlv. "nay, nay, to no such honour i aspire." said venus, "but a simple maid am i, and 'tis the manner of the maids of tyre to wear, like me, the quiver, and to tie the purple buskin round the ankles high. the realm thou see'st is punic; tyrians are the folk, the town agenor's. round them lie the libyan plains, a people rough in war. queen dido rules the land, who came from tyre afar, xlvi. "flying her brother. dark the tale of crime, and long, but briefly be the sum supplied. sychaeus was her lord, in happier time the richest of phoenicians far and wide in land, and worshipped by his hapless bride. her, in the bloom of maidenhood, her sire had given him, and with virgin rites allied. but soon her brother filled the throne of tyre, pygmalion, swoln with sin; 'twixt whom a feud took fire. xlvii. "he, reckless of a sister's love, and blind with lust of gold, sychaeus unaware slew by the altar, and with impious mind long hid the deed, and flattering hopes and fair devised, to cheat the lover of her care. but, lifting features marvellously pale, the ghost unburied in her dreams laid bare his breast, and showed the altar and the bale wrought by the ruthless steel, and solved the crime's dark tale. xlviii. "then bade her fly the country, and revealed, to aid her flight, an old and unknown weight of gold and silver, in the ground concealed. thus roused, her friends she gathers. all await her summons, who the tyrant fear or hate. some ships at hand, chance-anchored in the bay, they seize and load them with the costly freight, and far off o'er the deep is borne away pygmalion's hoarded pelf. a woman leads the way. xlix. "hither, where now the walls and fortress high, of carthage, and her rising homes are found, they came, and there full cheaply did they buy, such space--called byrsa from the deed--of ground as one bull's-hide could compass and surround. but who are ye, pray answer? on what quest come ye? and whence and whither are ye bound?" her then aeneas, from his inmost breast heaving a deep-drawn sigh, with labouring speech addressed: l. "o goddess, should i from the first unfold, or could'st thou hear, the annals of our woe, eve's star were shining, ere the tale were told. from ancient troy--if thou the name dost know-- a chance-met storm hath driven us to and fro, and tost us on the libyan shores. my name is good aeneas; from the flames and foe i bear troy's rescued deities. my fame outsoars the stars of heaven; a jove-born race, we claim li. "a home in fair italia far away. with twice ten ships i climbed the phrygian main, my goddess-mother pointing out the way, as fate commanded. now scarce seven remain, wave-worn and shattered by the tempest's strain. myself, a stranger, friendless and unknown, from europe driven and asia, roam in vain the wilds of libya"--then his plaintive tone no more could venus bear, but interrupts her son; lii. "stranger," she answered, "whosoe'er thou be; not unbeloved of heavenly powers, i ween, thou breath'st the vital air, whom fate's decree permits a tyrian city to have seen. but hence, and seek the palace of the queen. glad news i bear thee, of thy comrades brought, the north-wind shifted and the skies serene; thy ships have gained the harbour which they sought, else vain my parents' lore the augury they taught. liii. "see yon twelve swans, in jubilant array, whom late jove's eagle scattered through the sky; now these alight, now those the pitch survey. as they, returning, sport with joyous cry, and flap their wings and circle in the sky, e'en so thy vessels and each late-lost crew safe now and scatheless in the harbour lie, or, crowding canvas, hold the port in view. but hence, where leads the path, thy forward steps pursue." liv. so saying, she turned, and all refulgent showed her roseate neck, and heavenly fragrance sweet was breathed from her ambrosial hair. down flowed her loosened raiment, streaming to her feet, and by her walk the goddess shone complete. "ah, mother mine!" he chides her, as she flies, "art thou, then, also cruel? wherefore cheat thy son so oft with images and lies? why may i not clasp hands, and talk without disguise?" lv. thus he, reproaching. towards the town they fare in haste. but venus round them on the way wrapt a thick mist, a mantle of dark air, that none should see them, none should touch nor stay, nor, urging idle questions, breed delay. then back, rejoicing, through the liquid air to paphos and her home she flies away, where, steaming with sabaean incense rare, an hundred altars breathe with garlands fresh and fair. lvi. they by the path their forward steps pursued, and climbed a hill, whose fronting summit frowned steep o'er the town. amazed, aeneas viewed tall structures rise, where whilom huts were found, the streets, the gates, the bustle and the sound. hotly the tyrians are at work. these draw the bastions' lines, roll stones and trench the ground; or build the citadel; those clothe with awe the senate; there they choose the judges for the law. lvii. these delve the port; the broad foundations there they lay for theatres of ample space, and columns, hewn from marble rocks, prepare, tall ornaments, the future stage to grace. as bees in early summer swarm apace through flowery fields, when forth from dale and dell they lead the full-grown offspring of the race, or with the liquid honey store each cell, and make the teeming hive with nectarous sweets to swell. lviii. these ease the comers of their loads, those drive the drones afar. the busy work each plies, and sweet with thyme and honey smells the hive. "o happy ye, whose walls already rise!" exclaimed aeneas, and with envious eyes looked up where pinnacles and roof-tops showed the new-born city; then in wondrous wise, clothed in the covering of the friendly cloud, passed through the midst unseen, and mingled with the crowd. lix. a grove stood in the city, rich in shade, where storm-tost tyrians, past the perilous brine, dug from the ground, by royal juno's aid, a war-steed's head, to far-off days a sign that wealth and prowess should adorn the line. here, by the goddess and her gifts renowned, sidonian dido built a stately shrine. all brazen rose the threshold; brass was round the door-posts; brazen doors on grating hinges sound. lx. here a new sight aeneas' hopes upraised, and fear was softened, and his heart was mann'd. for while, the queen awaiting, round he gazed, and marvelled at the happy town, and scanned the rival labours of each craftsman's hand, behold, troy's battles on the walls appear, the war, since noised through many a distant land, there priam and th' atridae twain, and here achilles, fierce to both, still ruthless and severe. lxi. pensive he stood, and with a rising tear, "what lands, achates, on the earth, but know our labours? see our priam! even here worth wins her due, and there are tears to flow, and human hearts to feel for human woe. fear not," he cries, "troy's glory yet shall gain some safety." thus upon the empty show he feeds his soul, while ever and again deeply he sighs, and tears run down his cheeks like rain. lxii. he sees, how, fighting round the trojan wall, here fled the greeks, the trojan youth pursue, here fled the phrygians, and, with helmet tall, achilles in his chariot stormed and slew. not far, with tears, the snowy tents he knew of rhesus, where tydides, bathed in blood, broke in at midnight with his murderous crew, and drove the hot steeds campward, ere the food of trojan plains they browsed, or drank the xanthian flood. lxiii. there, reft of arms, poor troilus, rash to dare achilles, by his horses dragged amain, hangs from his empty chariot. neck and hair trail on the ground; his hand still grasps the rein; the spear inverted scores the dusty plain. meanwhile, with beaten breasts and streaming hair, the trojan dames, a sad and suppliant train, the veil to partial pallas' temple bear. stern, with averted eyes the goddess spurns their prayer. lxiv. thrice had achilles round the trojan wall dragged hector; there the slayer sells the slain. sighing he sees him, chariot, arms and all, and priam, spreading helpless hands in vain. himself he knows among the greeks again, black memnon's arms, and all his eastern clan, penthesilea's amazonian train with moony shields. bare-breasted, in the van, girt with a golden zone, the maiden fights with man. lxv. thus while aeneas, with set gaze and long, hangs, mute with wonder, on the wildering scene, lo! to the temple, with a numerous throng of youthful followers, moves the beauteous queen. such as diana, with her oreads seen on swift eurotas' banks or cynthus' crest, leading the dances. she, in form and mien, armed with her quiver, towers above the rest, and tranquil pleasure thrills latona's silent breast. lxvi. e'en such was dido; so with joyous mien, urging the business of her rising state, among the concourse passed the tyrian queen; then, girt with guards, within the temple's gate beneath the centre of the dome she sate. there, ministering justice, she presides, and deals the law, and from her throne of state, as choice determines or as chance decides, to each, in equal share, his separate task divides. lxvii. sudden, behold a concourse. looking down, his late-lost friends aeneas sees again, sergestus, brave cloanthus of renown, antheus and others of the trojan train, whom the black squall had scattered o'er the main, and driven afar upon an alien strand. at once, 'twixt joy and terror rent in twain, amazed, aeneas and achates stand, and long to greet old friends and clasp a comrade's hand. lxviii. yet wildering wonder at so strange a scene still holds them mute, while anxious thoughts divide their doubtful minds, and in the cloud unseen, wrapt in its hollow covering, they abide and note what fortune did their friends betide, and whence they come, and why for grace they sue, and on what shore they left the fleet to bide, for chosen captains came from every crew, and towards the sacred fane with clamorous cries they drew. lxix. then, audience granted, as the fane they filled, thus calmly spake the eldest of the train, ilioneus: "o queen, whom jove hath willed to found this new-born city, here to reign, and stubborn tribes with justice to refrain, we, troy's poor fugitives, implore thy grace, storm-tost and wandering over every main,-- forbid the flames our vessels to deface, mark our afflicted plight, and spare a pious race. lxx. "we come not hither with the sword to rend your libyan homes, and shoreward drive the prey. nay, no such violence our thoughts intend, such pride suits not the vanquished. far away there lies a place--greeks style the land to-day hesperia--fruitful and of ancient fame and strong in arms. oenotrian folk, they say, first tilled the soil. italian is the name borne by the later race, with italus who came. lxxi. "thither we sailed, when, rising with the wave, orion dashed us on the shoals, the prey of wanton winds, and mastering billows drave our vessels on the pathless rocks astray. we few have floated to your shore. o say, what manner of mankind is here? what land is this, to treat us in this barbarous way? they grudge the very shelter of the sand, and call to arms and bar our footsteps from the strand! lxxii. "if human kind and mortal arms ye scorn, think of the gods, who judge the wrong and right. a king was ours, aeneas; ne'er was born a man more just, more valiant in the fight, more famed for piety and deeds of might. if yet he lives and looks upon the sun, nor cruel death hath snatched him from the light, no fear have we, nor need hast thou to shun a trojan guest, or rue kind offices begun. lxxiii. "towns yet for us in sicily remain, and arms, and, sprung from trojan sires of yore, our kinsman there, acestes, holds his reign. grant us to draw our scattered fleet ashore, and fit new planks and branches for the oar. so, if with king and comrades brought again, the fates allow us to reach italia's shore, italia gladly and the latian plain seek we; but else, if thoughts of safety be in vain, lxxiv. "if thee, dear sire, the libyan deep doth hide, nor hopes of young iulus more can cheer, back let our barks to the sicanian tide and proffered homes and king acestes steer." he spake; the dardans answered with a cheer. then dido thus, with downcast look sedate; "take courage, trojans, and dismiss your fear. my kingdom's newness and the stress of fate force me to guard far off the frontiers of my state. lxxv. "who knows not troy, th' aeneian house of fame, the deeds and doers, and the war's renown that fired the world? not hearts so dull and tame have punic folk; not so is phoebus known to turn his back upon our tyrian town. whether ye sail to great hesperia's shore and saturn's fields, or seek the realms that own acestes' sway, where eryx reigned of yore, safe will i send you hence, and speed you with my store. lxxvi. "else, would ye settle in this realm, the town i build is yours; draw up your ships to land. trojan and tyrian will i treat as one. would that your king aeneas here could stand, driven by the gale that drove you to this strand! natheless, to scour the country, will i send some trusty messengers, with strict command to search through libya to the furthest end, lest, cast ashore, through town or lonely wood he wend." lxxvii. roused by these words, long since the sire of troy yearned, like his friend, their comrades to surprise and burst the cloud. then first with eager joy "o goddess-born," the bold achates cries, "how now--what purpose doth thy mind devise? lo! all are safe--ships, comrades brought again; one only fails us, who before our eyes sank in the midst of the engulfing main. all else confirms the tale thy mother told thee plain." lxxviii. scarce had he said, when straight the ambient cloud broke open, melting into day's clear light, and bathed in sunshine stood the chief, endowed with shape and features most divinely bright. for graceful tresses and the purple light of youth did venus in her child unfold, and sprightly lustre breathed upon his sight, beauteous as ivory, or when artists mould silver or parian stone, enchased in yellow gold. lxxix. then to the queen, all wondering, he exclaimed, "behold me, troy's aeneas; i am here, the man ye seek, from libyan waves reclaimed. thou, who alone troy's sorrows deign'st to hear, and us, the gleanings of the danaan spear, poor world-wide wanderers and in desperate case, hast ta'en to share thy city and thy cheer, meet thanks nor we, nor what of dardan race yet roams the earth, can give to recompense thy grace. lxxx. "the gods, if gods the good and just regard, and thy own conscience, that approves the right, grant thee due guerdon and a fit reward. what happy ages did thy birth delight? what godlike parents bore a child so bright? while running rivers hasten to the main, while yon pure ether feeds the stars with light, while shadows round the hill-slopes wax and wane, thy fame, where'er i go, thy praises shall remain." lxxxi. so saying aeneas with his left hand pressed serestus, and ilioneus with his right, brave gyas, brave cloanthus and the rest. then dido, struck with wonder at the sight of one so great and in so strange a plight, "o goddess-born! what fate through dangers sore, what force to savage coasts compels thy flight? art thou, then, that aeneas, whom of yore venus on simois' banks to old anchises bore? lxxxii. "ay, well i mind me how in days of yore to sidon exiled teucer crossed the main, to seek new kingdoms and the aid implore of belus. he, my father belus, then ruled cyprus, victor of the wasted plain, since then thy name and ilion's fate are known, and all the princes of pelasgia's reign. himself, a foe, oft lauded troy's renown, and claimed the teucrian sires as kinsmen of his own. lxxxiii. "welcome, then, heroes! me hath fortune willed long tost, like you, through sufferings, here to rest and find at length a refuge. not unskilled in woe, i learn to succour the distrest." so to the palace she escorts her guest, and calls for festal honours in the shrine. then shoreward sends beeves twenty to the rest, a hundred boars, of broad and bristly chine, a hundred lambs and ewes and gladdening gifts of wine. lxxxiv. meanwhile with regal splendour they arrayed the palace-hall, where feast and banquet high all in the centre of the space is laid, and forth they bring the broidered tapestry, with purple dyed and wrought full cunningly. the tables groan with silver; there are told the deeds of prowess for the gazer's eye, a long, long series, of their sires of old, traced from the nation's birth, and graven in the gold. lxxxv. but good aeneas--for a father's care no rest allows him--to the ships sends down achates, to ascanius charged to bear the welcome news, and bring him to the town. the father's fondness centres on the son. rich presents, too, he sends for, saved of old from troy, a veil, whose saffron edges shone fringed with acanthus, glorious to behold, a broidered mantle, stiff with figures wrought in gold. lxxxvi. fair helen's ornaments, from argos brought, the gift of leda, when the trojan shore and lawless nuptials o'er the waves she sought. therewith the royal sceptre, which of yore ilione, priam's eldest daughter, bore; her shining necklace, strung with costly beads, and diadem, rimmed with gold and studded o'er with sparkling gems. thus charged, achates heeds, and towards the ships forthwith in eager haste proceeds. lxxxvii. but crafty cytherea planned meanwhile new arts, new schemes,--that cupid should conspire, in likeness of ascanius, to beguile the queen with gifts, and kindle fierce desire, and turn the marrow of her bones to fire. fierce juno's hatred rankles in her breast; the two-faced house, the double tongues of tyre she fears, and with the night returns unrest; so now to winged love this mandate she addressed: lxxxviii. "o son, sole source of all my strength and power, who durst high jove's typhoean bolts disdain, to thee i fly, thy deity implore. thou know'st, who oft hast sorrowed with my pain, how, tost by juno's rancour, o'er the main thy brother wanders. him with speeches fair and sweet allurements doth the queen detain; but juno's hospitality i fear; scarce at an hour like this will she her hand forbear. lxxxix. "soft snares i purpose round the queen to weave, and wrap her soul in flames, that power malign shall never change her, but her heart shall cleave fast to aeneas with a love like mine. now learn, how best to compass my design. to tyrian carthage hastes the princely boy, prompt at the summons of his sire divine, my prime solicitude, my chiefest joy, fraught with brave store of gifts, saved from the flames of troy. xc. "him on idalia, lulled into a dream, will i secrete, or on the sacred height of lone cythera, lest he learn the scheme, or by his sudden presence mar the sleight. take thou his likeness, only for a night, and wear the boyish features that are thine; and when the queen, in rapture of delight, amid the royal banquet and the wine, shall lock thee in her arms, and press her lips to thine, xci. "then steal into her bosom, and inspire through all her veins with unsuspected sleight the poisoned sting of passion and desire." young love obeys, and doffs his plumage light, and, like iulus, trips forth with delight. she o'er ascanius rains a soft repose, and gently bears him to idalia's height, where breathing marjoram around him throws sweet shade, and odorous flowers his slumbering limbs compose. xcii. forth cupid, at his mother's word, repairs, and merrily, for brave achates led, the royal presents to the tyrians bears. there, under gorgeous curtains, at the head sate dido, throned upon a golden bed. there, flocking in, the trojans and their king recline on purple coverlets outspread. bread, heaped in baskets, the attendants bring, towels with smooth-shorn nap, and water from the spring. xciii. within are fifty maidens, charged with care to dress the food, and nurse the flames divine. a hundred more, and youths like-aged, prepare to load the tables and arrange the wine. there, entering too, on broidered seats recline the tyrians, crowding through the festive court. they praise the boy, his glowing looks divine, the words he feigned, the royal gifts he brought, the robe, the saffron veil with bright acanthus wrought. xciv. doomed to devouring love, the hapless queen burns as she gazes, with insatiate fire, charmed by his presents and his youthful mien: he, fondly clinging to his fancied sire, gave all the love that parents' hearts desire, then seeks the queen. she, fixing on the boy her eyes, her soul, impatient to admire, now, fondling, folds him to her lap with joy; weetless, alas! what god is plotting to destroy. xcv. true to his paphian mother, trace by trace, slowly the love-god with prevenient art, begins the lost sychaeus to efface, and living passion to a breast impart long dead to feeling, and a vacant heart. now, hushed the banquet and the tables all removed, huge wine-bowls for each guest apart they wreathe with flowers. the noise of festival rings through the spacious courts, and rolls along the hall. xcvi. there, blazing from the gilded roof, are seen bright lamps, and torches turn the night to day. now for the ponderous goblet called the queen, of jewelled gold, which belus used and they of belus' line, and poured the wine straightway, and prayed, while silence filled the crowded hall: "great jove, the host's lawgiver, bless this day to these my tyrians and the trojans all. long may our children's sons this solemn feast recall. xcvii. "come, jolly bacchus, giver of delight; kind juno, come; and ye with fair accord and friendly spirit hold the feast aright." so spake the queen, and on the festal board the prime libation to the gods outpoured, then lightly to her lips the goblet pressed, and gave to bitias. challenged by the word, he dived into the brimming gold with zest, and quaffed the foaming bowl, and after him, the rest. xcviii. his golden lyre long-haired iopas tunes, and sings what atlas taught in loftiest strain; the suns' eclipses and the changing moons, whence man and beast, whence lightning and the rain, arcturus, watery hyads and the wain; what causes make the winter nights so long, why sinks the sun so quickly in the main; all this he sings, and ravished at the song, tyrians and trojan guests the loud applause prolong. xcix. with various talk the night poor dido wore, and drank deep love, and nursed her inward flame, of priam much she asks, of hector more, now in what arms aurora's offspring came, of diomede's horses and achilles' fame. "tell me," she says, "thy wanderings; stranger, come, thy friends' mishaps and danaan wiles proclaim; for seven long summers now have seen thee roam o'er every land and sea, far from thy native home." book two argument aeneas' story.--the greeks, baffled in battle, built a wooden horse, in which their leaders took ambush. their fleet sailed to tenedos. the trojans, but for capys and laocoon, had dragged the horse forthwith as a trophy into troy ( - ). sinon, a greek, brought before priam, feigns righteous indignation against greece. the trojans sympathise and believe his story of wrongs done him by ulysses ( - ). "when greek plans of flight had often," says sinon, "been foiled by storms, oracles foretold that only a human sacrifice could purchase their escape." chosen for victim, sinon had fled. he solemnly declares the horse to be an offering to pallas. "destroy it, and you are lost. preserve it in your citadel, your revenge is assured" ( - ). treachery triumphs. laocoon's cruel fate is ascribed to his sacrilegious attack upon the horse, which is brought with rejoicing into troy, despite a last warning, from cassandra ( - ). while troy sleeps, the fleet returns, and sinon releases the greeks from the horse ( - ). hector's wraith warns aeneas in a dream to flee with the sacred vessels and images ( - ), and panthus brings news of sinon's treachery. the city is in flames. aeneas heads a forlorn hope of rescue ( - ). he and his followers exchange armour with certain greeks slain in the darkness. the ruse succeeds until they are taken for enemies by their friends. the greeks rally. the trojans scatter. at priam's palace a last stand is made, but pyrrhus forces the great gates, and the defenders are massacred ( - ). priam's fate.--the sight of his headless corpse draws aeneas' thoughts to his own father's danger. hastening homewards he espies helen, and is pausing to take vengeance and her life, when ( - ) venus intervening opens his eyes to see the gods aiding the greeks ( - ). aeneas regains his home. anchises obstinately refuses to flee, until a halo is seen about the head of ascanius ( - ), whereupon he accepts the omen and yields. the escape.--in a sudden panic creusa is lost ( - ). aeneas, at peril of his life, is seeking her throughout the city, when her wraith appears and bids him away. "she is dead in troytown: in italy empire awaits him." she vanishes: day dawns: and aeneas, with anchises and the surviving trojans, flees to the hills ( - ). i. all hushed intent, when from his lofty seat troy's sire began, "o queen, a tale too true, too sad for words, thou biddest me repeat; how ilion perished, and the danaan crew her power and all her wailful realm o'erthrew: the woes i saw, thrice piteous to behold, and largely shared. what myrmidon, or who of stern ulysses' warriors can withhold his tears, to tell such things, as thou would'st have re-told? ii. "and now already from the heaven's high steep the dewy night wheels down, and sinking slow, the stars are gently wooing us to sleep. but, if thy longing be so great to know the tale of troy's last agony and woe, the toils we suffered, though my heart doth ache, and grief would fain the memory forego of scenes so sad, yet, lady, for thy sake i will begin,"--and thus the sire of troy outspake; iii. "broken by war, long baffled by the force of fate, as fortune and their hopes decline, the danaan leaders build a monstrous horse, huge as a hill, by pallas' craft divine, and cleft fir-timbers in the ribs entwine. they feign it vowed for their return, so goes the tale, and deep within the sides of pine and caverns of the womb by stealth enclose armed men, a chosen band, drawn as the lots dispose. iv. "in sight of troy lies tenedos, an isle renowned and rich, while priam held command, now a mere bay and roadstead fraught with guile. thus far they sailed, and on the lonely strand lay hid, while fondly to mycenae's land we thought the winds had borne them. troy once more shakes off her ten years' sorrow. open stand the gates. with joy to the abandoned shore, the places bare of foes, the dorian lines we pour. v. "here camped the brave dolopians, there was set the tent of fierce achilles; yonder lay the fleet, and here the rival armies met and mingled. some with wonder and dismay the maid minerva's fatal gift survey. then first thymaetes cries aloud, to go and through the gates the monstrous horse convey and lodge it in the citadel. e'en so his fraud or troy's dark fates were working for our woe. vi. "but capys and the rest, of sounder mind, urge us to tumble in the rolling tide the doubtful gift, for treachery designed, or burn with fire, or pierce the hollow side, and probe the caverns where the danaans hide. thus while they waver and, perplext with doubt, urge diverse counsels, and in parts divide, lo, from the citadel, foremost of a rout, breathless laocoon runs, and from afar cries out; vii. "'ah! wretched townsmen! do ye think the foe gone, or that guileless are their gifts? o blind with madness! _thus_ ulysses do ye know? or grecians in these timbers lurk confined, or 'tis some engine of assault, designed to breach the walls, and lay our houses bare, and storm the town. some mischief lies behind. trust not the horse, ye teucrians. whatso'er this means, i fear the greeks, for all the gifts they bear.' viii. "so saying, his mighty spear, with all his force, full at the flank against the ribs he drave, and pierced the bellying framework of the horse. quivering, it stood; the hollow chambers gave a groan, that echoed from the womb's dark cave, then, but for folly or fate's adverse power, his word had made us with our trusty glaive lay bare the argive ambush, and this hour should ilion stand, and thou, o priam's lofty tower! ix. "lo, now to priam, with exulting cries, the dardan shepherds drag a youth unknown, with hands fast pinioned, and in captive guise. caught on the way, by cunning of his own, this end to compass, and betray the town. prepared for either venture, void of fear, the crafty purpose of his mind to crown, or meet sure death. around, from far and near, the trojans throng, and vie the captive youth to jeer. x. "mark now the danaans' cunning; from one wrong learn all. as, scared the phrygian ranks to see, confused, unarmed, amid the gazing throng, he stood, 'alas! what spot on earth or sea is left,' he cried, 'to shield a wretch like me, whom dardans seek in punishment to kill, and greeks disown?'--touched by his tearful plea, we asked his race, what tidings, good or ill, he brings, for hope, perchance, may cheer a captive still. xi. "then he, at length his show of fear laid by, 'great king, all truly will i own, whate'er the issue, nor my argive race deny. this first; if fortune, spiteful and unfair, hath made poor sinon wretched, fortune ne'er shall make me false or faithless;--if the name of palamedes thou hast chanced to hear, old belus' progeny, if ever came to thee or thine in talk the rumour of his fame, xii. "'whom, pure of guilt, on charges false and feigned, wroth that his sentence should the war prevent, by perjured witnesses the greeks arraigned, and doomed to die, but now his death lament, his kinsman, by a needy father sent, with him in boyhood to the war i came, and while in plenitude of power he went, and high in princely counsels waxed his fame, i too could boast of credit and a noble name. xiii. "'but when, through sly ulysses' envious hate, he left the light,--alas! the tale ye know,-- stricken, i mused indignant on his fate, and dragged my days in solitude and woe, nor in my madness kept my purpose low, but vowed, if e'er should happier chance invite, and bring me home a conqueror, even so my comrade's death with vengeance to requite. my words aroused his wrath; thence evil's earliest blight; xiv. "'thenceforth ulysses sought with slanderous tongue to daunt me, scattering in the people's ear dark hints, and looked for partners of his wrong: nor rested, till with calchas' aid, the seer-- but why the thankless story should ye hear? why stay your hand? if grecians in your sight are all alike, ye know enough; take here your vengeance. dearly will my death delight ulysses, well the deed will atreus' sons requite.' xv. "then, all unknowing of pelasgian art and crimes so huge, the story we demand, and falteringly the traitor plays his part. 'oft, wearied by the war, the danaans planned to leave--and oh! had they but left--the land. as oft, to daunt them, in the act to fly, storms lashed the deep, and southern gales withstand, and louder still, when towered the horse on high with maple timbers, pealed the thunder through the sky. xvi. "'in doubt, we bade eurypylus explore apollo's oracle, and back he brought the dismal news: _with blood, a maiden's gore, ye stilled the winds, when trojan shores ye sought. with blood again must your return be bought; an argive victim doth the god demand._ full fast the rumour 'mong the people wrought; cold horror chills us, and aghast we stand; whom doth apollo claim, whose death the fates demand? xvii. "'then straight ulysses, 'mid tumultuous cries, drags calchas forth, and bids the seer unfold the dark and doubtful meaning of the skies. many e'en then the schemer's crime foretold, and, silent, saw my destiny unrolled. ten days the seer, as shrinking to reply or name a victim, did the doom withhold; then, forced by false ulysses' clamorous cry, spake the concerted word, and sentenced me to die. xviii. "'all praised the sentence, pleased that one alone should suffer, glad that one poor wretch should bear the doom that each had dreaded for his own. the fatal day was come; the priests prepare the salted meal, the fillets for my hair. i fled, 'tis true, and saved my life by flight, bursting my bonds in frenzy of despair, and hidden in a marish lay that night, waiting till they should sail, if sail, perchance, they might. xix. "'no hope have i my ancient fatherland, or darling boys, or long-lost sire to see, whom now perchance, the danaans will demand, poor souls! for vengeance, and their death decree, to purge my crime, in daring to be free. o by the gods, who know the just and true, by faith unstained,--if any such there be,-- with mercy deign such miseries to view; pity a soul that toils with evils all undue.' xx. "so, moved at length to pity by his tears, we spare him. priam bids the cords unbind, and thus with friendly words the captive cheers; 'whoe'er thou art, henceforward blot from mind the greeks, and leave thy miseries behind. ours shalt thou be; but mark, and tell me now, what means this monster, for what use designed? some warlike engine? or religious vow? who planned the steed, and why? come, quick, the truth avow.' xxi. "then schooled in cunning and pelasgian sleights, his hands unshackled to the stars he spread; 'ye powers inviolate, ever-burning lights! ye ruthless swords and altars, which i fled, ye sacred fillets, that adorned my head! freed is my oath, and i am free to lay their secrets bare, and wish the danaans dead. thou, troy, preserved, to sinon faithful stay, if true the tale i tell, if large the price i pay. xxii. "'all hopes on pallas, since the war begun, all trust was stayed. but when ulysses, fain to weave new crimes, with tydeus' impious son dragged the palladium from her sacred fane, and, on the citadel the warders slain, upon the virgin's image dared to lay red hands of slaughter, and her wreaths profane, hope ebbed and failed them from that fatal day, the danaans' strength grew weak, the goddess turned away. xxiii. "'no dubious signs tritonia's wrath declared. scarce stood her image in the camp, when bright with flickering flames her staring eyeballs glared. salt sweat ran down her; thrice, a wondrous sight! with shield and quivering spear she sprang upright. "back o'er the deep," cries calchas; "nevermore shall argives hope to quell the trojan might, till, homeward borne, new omens ye implore, and win the blessing back, which o'er the waves ye bore." xxiv. "'so now to argos are they gone, to gain fresh help from heaven, and hither by surprise shall come once more, remeasuring the main. thus calchas warned them; by his words made wise this steed, for stol'n palladium, they devise, to soothe the outrag'd goddess. tall and great, with huge oak-timbers mounting to the skies, they build the monster, lest it pass the gate, and like palladium stand, the bulwark of the state. xxv. "'"once had your hands," said calchas, "dared profane minerva's gift, dire plagues" (which heaven forestall or turn on him) "should priam's realm sustain; but if by trojan aid it scaled your wall, proud asia then should pelops' sons enthrall, and children rue the folly of the sire."' his arts gave credence, and forced tears withal snared us, whom diomede, nor achilles dire, nor thousand ships subdued, nor ten years' war could tire. xxvi. "a greater yet and ghastlier sign remained our heedless hearts to terrify anew. laocoon, neptune's priest, by lot ordained, a stately bull before the altar slew, when lo!--the tale i shudder to pursue,-- from tenedos in silence, side by side, two monstrous serpents, horrible to view, with coils enormous leaning on the tide, shoreward, with even stretch, the tranquil sea divide. xxvii. "their breasts erect they rear amid the deep, their blood-red crests above the surface shine, their hinder parts along the waters sweep, trailed in huge coils and many a tortuous twine; lashed into foam, behind them roars the brine; now, gliding onward to the beach, ere long they gain the fields, and rolling bloodshot eyne that blaze with fire, the monsters move along, and lick their hissing jaws, and dart a flickering tongue. xxviii. "pale at the sight we fly; unswerving, these glide on and seek laocoon. first, entwined in stringent folds, his two young sons they seize, with cruel fangs their tortured limbs to grind. then, as with arms he comes to aid, they bind in giant grasp the father. twice, behold, around his waist the horrid volumes wind, twice round his neck their scaly backs are rolled, high over all their heads and glittering crests unfold. xxix. "both hands are labouring the fierce knots to pull; black gore and slime his sacred wreaths distain. loud are his moans, as when a wounded bull shakes from his neck the faltering axe and, fain to fly the cruel altars, roars in pain. but lo! the serpents to tritonia's seat glide from their victim, till the shrine they gain, and, coiled beside the goddess, at her feet, behind her sheltering shield with gathered orbs retreat. xxx. "fresh wonder seized us, and we shook with fear. all say, that justly had laocoon died, and paid fit penalty, whose guilty spear profaned the steed and pierced the sacred side. 'on with the image to its home,' they cried, 'and pray the goddess to avert our woe'; we breach the walls, and ope the town inside. all set to work, and to the feet below fix wheels, and hempen ropes around the neck they throw. xxxi. "mounting the walls, the monster moves along, teeming with arms. boys, maidens joy around to touch the ropes, and raise the festive song. onward it came, smooth-sliding on the ground, and, beetling, o'er the midmost city frowned. o native land! o ilion, now betrayed! blest home of deities, in war renowned! four times beside the very gate 'twas stayed; four times within the womb the armour clashed and brayed. xxxii. "but heedless, blind with frenzy, one and all up to the sacred citadel we strain, and there the ill-omened prodigy install. e'en then--alas! to trojan ears in vain-- cassandra sang, and told in utterance plain the coming doom. we, sunk in careless joy, poor souls! with festive garlands deck each fane, and through the town in revelry employ the day decreed our last, the dying hours of troy! xxxiii. "and now the heaven rolled round. from ocean rushed the night, and wrapt in shadow earth and air and myrmidonian wiles. in silence hushed, the trojans through the city here and there, outstretched in sleep, their weary limbs repair. meanwhile from neighbouring tenedos once more, beneath the tranquil moonbeam's friendly care, with ordered ships, along the deep sea-floor, back came the argive host, and sought the well-known shore. xxxiv. "forth from the royal galley sprang the flame, when sinon, screened by partial fate, withdrew the bolts and barriers of the pinewood frame, and from its inmost caverns, bared to view, the fatal horse disgorged the danaan crew. with joy from out the hollow wood they bound; first, dire ulysses, with his captains two, thessander bold and sthenelus renowned, down by a pendent rope come sliding to the ground. xxxv. "then thoas comes; and acamas, athirst for blood; and neoptolemus, the heir of mighty peleus; and machaon first; and menelaus; and himself is there, epeus, framer of the fatal snare. now, stealing forward, on the town they fall, buried in wine and sleep, the guards o'erbear, and ope the gates; their comrades at the call pour in and, joining bands, all muster by the wall. xxxvi. "'twas now the time, when on tired mortals crept first slumber, sweetest that celestials pour. methought i saw poor hector, as i slept, all bathed in tears and black with dust and gore, dragged by the chariot and his swoln feet sore with piercing thongs. ah me! how sad to view, how changed from him, that hector, whom of yore returning with achilles' spoils we knew, when on the ships of greece his phrygian fires he threw. xxxvii. "foul is his beard, his hair is stiff with gore, and fresh the wounds, those many wounds, remain, which erst around his native walls he bore. then, weeping too, i seem in sorrowing strain to hail the hero, with a voice of pain. 'o light of troy, our refuge! why and how this long delay? whence comest thou again, long-looked-for hector? how with aching brow, worn out by toil and death, do we behold thee now! xxxviii. "'but oh! what dire indignity hath marred the calmness of thy features? tell me, why with ghastly wounds do i behold thee scarred?' to such vain quest he cared not to reply, but, heaving from his breast a deep-drawn sigh, 'fly, goddess-born! and get thee from the fire! the foes,' he said, 'are on the ramparts. fly! all troy is tumbling from her topmost spire. no more can priam's land, nor priam's self require. xxxix. "'could troy be saved by mortal prowess, mine, yea, mine had saved her. to thy guardian care she doth her gods and ministries consign. take them, thy future destinies to share, and seek for them another home elsewhere, that mighty city, which for thee and thine o'er traversed ocean shall the fates prepare.' he spake, and quickly snatched from vesta's shrine the deathless fire and wreaths and effigy divine. xl. "meanwhile a mingled murmur through the street rolls onward,--wails of anguish, shrieks of fear, and though my father's mansion stood secrete, embowered in foliage, nearer and more near peals the dire clang of arms, and loud and clear, borne on fierce echoes that in tumult blend, war-shout and wail come thickening on the ear. i start from sleep, the parapet ascend, and from the sloping roof with eager ears attend. xli. "like as a fire, when southern gusts are rude, falls on the standing harvest of the plain, or torrent, hurtling with a mountain flood, whelms field and oxens' toil and smiling grain, and rolls whole forests headlong to the main, while, weetless of the noise, on neighbouring height, tranced in mute wonder, stands the listening swain, then, then i see that hector's words were right, and all the danaan wiles are naked to the light. xlii. "and now, deiphobus, thy halls of pride, bowed by the flames, come ruining through the air; next burn ucalegon's, and far and wide the broad sigean reddens with the glare. then come the clamour and the trumpet's blare. madly i rush to arms; though vain the fight, yet burns my soul, in fury and despair, to rally a handful and to hold the height: sweet seems a warrior's death and danger a delight. xliii. "lo, panthus, flying from the grecian bands, panthus, the son of othrys, phoebus' seer, bearing the sacred vessels in his hands, and vanquished home-gods, to the door draws near, his grandchild clinging to his side in fear. 'panthus,' i cry, 'how fares the fight? what tower still hold we?'--sighing, he replies ''tis here, the final end of all the dardan power, the last, sad day has come, the inevitable hour. xliv. "'troy was, and we were trojans, now, alas! no more, for perished is the dardan fame. fierce jove to argos biddeth all to pass, and danaans rule a city wrapt in flame. high in the citadel the monstrous frame pours forth an armed deluge to the day, and sinon, puffed with triumph, spreads the flame. part throng the gates, part block each narrow way; such hosts mycenae sends, such thousands to the fray. xlv. "'athwart the streets stands ready the array of steel, and bare is every blade and bright. scarce the first warders of the gates essay to stand and battle in the blinding night.' so spake the son of othrys, and forthright, my spirit stirred with impulse from on high, i rush to arms amid the flames and fight, where yells the war-fiend and the warrior's cry, mixt with the din of strife, mounts upward to the sky. xlvi. "here warlike epytus, renowned in fight, and valiant rhipeus gather to our side, and hypanis and dymas, matched in might, join with us, by the glimmering moon descried. here mygdon's son, coroebus, we espied, who came to troy,--cassandra's love to gain, and now his troop with priam's hosts allied; poor youth and heedless! whom in frenzied strain his promised bride had warned, but warned, alas! in vain. xlvii. "so when the bold and compact band i see, 'brave hearts,' i cry, 'but brave, alas! in vain; if firm your purpose holds to follow me who dare the worst, our present plight is plain. troy's guardian gods have left her; altar, fane, all is deserted, every temple bare. the town ye aid is burning. forward, then, to die and mingle in the tumult's blare. sole hope to vanquished men of safety is despair.' xlviii. "then fury spurred their courage, and behold, as ravening wolves, when darkness hides the day, stung with mad fire of famine uncontrolled, prowl from their dens, and leave the whelps to stay, with jaws athirst and gaping for the prey. so to sure death, amid the darkness there, where swords, and spears, and foemen bar the way, into the centre of the town we fare. night with her shadowy cone broods o'er the vaulted air. xlix. "oh, who hath tears to match our grief withal? what tongue that night of havoc can make known an ancient city totters to her fall, time-honoured empress and of old renown; and senseless corpses, through the city strown, choke house and temple. nor hath vengeance found none save the trojans; there the victors groan, and valour fires the vanquished. all around wailings, and wild affright and shapes of death abound. l. "first of the greeks approaches, with a crowd, androgeus; friends he deems us unaware, and thus, with friendly summons, cries aloud: 'haste, comrades, forward; from the fleet ye fare with lagging steps but now, while yonder glare troy's towers, and others sack and share the spoils?' then straight--for doubtful was our answer there-- he knew him taken in the foemen's toils; shuddering, he checks his voice, and back his foot recoils. li. "as one who, in a tangled brake apart, on some lithe snake, unheeded in the briar, hath trodden heavily, and with backward start flies, trembling at the head uplift in ire and blue neck, swoln in many a glittering spire. so slinks androgeus, shuddering with dismay; we, massed in onset, make the foe retire, and slay them, wildered, weetless of the way. fortune, with favouring smile, assists our first essay. lii. "flushed with success and eager for the fray, 'friends,' cries coroebus, 'forward; let us go where fortune newly smiling, points the way. take we the danaans' bucklers; with a foe who asks, if craft or courage guide the blow? themselves shall arm us.'--then he takes the crest, the shield and dagger of androgeus; so doth rhipeus, so brave dymas and the rest; all in the new-won spoils their eager limbs invest. liii. "thus we, elate, but not with heaven our friend, march on and mingle with the greeks in fight, and many a danaan to the shades we send, and many a battle in the blinding night we join with those that meet us. some in flight rush diverse to the ships and trusty tide; some, craven-hearted, in ignoble fright, make for the horse and, clambering up the side, deep in the treacherous womb, their well-known refuge, hide. liv. "ah! vain to boast, if heaven refuse to aid! dragged by her tresses from minerva's fane, cassandra comes, the priameian maid, stretching to heaven her burning eyes in vain, her eyes, for bonds her tender hands constrain. that sight coroebus brooked not. stung with gall and mad with rage, nor fearing to be slain, he plunged amid their columns. one and all, with weapons massed, press on and follow at his call. lv. "here first with missiles, from a temple's height hurled by our comrades, we are crushed and slain, and piteous is the slaughter, at the sight of argive helms for argive foes mista'en. now too, with shouts of fury and disdain to see the maiden rescued, here and there the danaans gathering round us, charge amain; fierce-hearted ajax, the atridan pair, and all thessalia's host our scanty band o'erbear. lvi. "so, when the tempest bursting wakes the war, the justling winds in conflict rave and roar, south, west and east upon his orient car, the lashed woods howl, and with his trident hoar nereus in foam upheaves the watery floor. those too, whom late we scattered through the town, tricked in the darkness, reappear once more. at once the falsehood of our guise is known, the shields, the lying arms, the speech of different tone. lvii. "o'erwhelmed with odds, we perish; first of all, struck down by fierce peneleus by the fane of warlike pallas, doth coroebus fall. next, rhipeus dies, the justest, but in vain, the noblest soul of all the trojan train. heaven deemed him otherwise; then dymas brave and hypanis by comrades' hands are slain. nor, panthus, thee thy piety can save, nor e'en apollo's wreath preserve thee from the grave. lviii. "witness, ye ashes of our comrades dear, ye flames of troy, that in your hour of woe nor darts i shunned, nor shock of danaan spear. if fate my life had called me to forego, this hand had earned it, forfeit to the foe. thence forced away, brave iphitus, and i, and pelias,--iphitus with age was slow, and pelias by ulysses lamed--we fly where round the palace rings the war-shout's rallying cry. lix. "there raged a fight so fierce, as though no fight raged elsewhere, nor the city streamed with gore. we see the war-god glorying in his might; up to the roof we see the danaans pour; their shielded penthouse drives against the door. close cling their ladders to the walls; these, fain to clutch the doorposts, climb from floor to floor, their right hands strive the battlements to gain, their left with lifted shield the arrowy storm sustain. lx. "there, roof and pinnacle the dardans tear-- death standing near--and hurl them on the foe, last arms of need, the weapons of despair; and gilded beams and rafters down they throw, ancestral ornaments of days ago. these, stationed at the gates, with naked glaive, shoulder to shoulder, guard the pass below. hearts leap afresh the royal halls to save, and cheer our vanquished friends and reinspire the brave. lxi. "behind the palace, unobserved and free, there stood a door, a secret thoroughfare through priam's halls. here poor andromache while priam's kingdom flourished and was fair, to greet her husband's parents would repair alone, or carrying with tendance fain to hector's father hector's son and heir. by this i reached the roof-top, whence in vain the luckless teucrians hurled their unavailing rain. lxii. "sheer o'er the highest roof-top to the sky, skirting the parapet, a watch-tower rose, whence camp and fleet and city met the eye. here plying levers, where the flooring shows weak joists, we heave it over. down it goes with sudden crash upon the danaan train, dealing wide ruin. but anon new foes come swarming up, while ever and again fast fall the showers of stones, and thick the javelins rain. lxiii. "just on the threshold of the porch, behold fierce pyrrhus stands, in glittering brass bedight: as when a snake, that through the winter's cold lay swoln and hidden in the ground from sight, gorged with rank herbs, forth issues to the light, and sleek with shining youth and newly drest, wreathing its slippery volumes, towers upright and, glorying, to the sunbeam rears its breast, and darts a three-forked tongue, and points a flaming crest. lxiv. "with him, achilles' charioteer and squire, automedon, huge periphas and all the scyrian youth rush up, and flaming fire hurl to the roof, and thunder at the wall. he in the forefront, tallest of the tall, poleaxe in hand, unhinging at a stroke the brazen portals, made the doorway fall, and wide-mouthed as a window, through the oak, a panelled plank hewn out, a yawning rent he broke. lxv. "bared stands the inmost palace, and behold, the stately chambers and the courts appear of priam and the trojan kings of old, and warders at the door with shield and spear. moaning and tumult in the house we hear, wailings of misery, and shouts that smite the golden stars, and women's shrieks of fear, and trembling matrons, hurrying left and right, cling to and kiss the doors, made frantic by affright. lxvi. "strong as his father, pyrrhus onward pushed, nor bars nor warders can his strength sustain. down sinks the door, with ceaseless battery crushed. force wins a footing, and, the foremost slain, in, like a deluge, pours the danaan train. so when the foaming river, uncontrolled, bursts through its banks and riots on the plain, o'er dyke and dam the gathering deluge rolled, from field to field sweeps on with cattle, flock and fold. lxvii. "these eyes saw pyrrhus, rioting in blood, saw on the threshold the atridae twain, saw where among a hundred daughters, stood pale hecuba, saw priam's life-blood stain the fires his hands had hallowed in the fane. those fifty bridal chambers i behold (so fair the promise of a future reign) and spoil-deckt pillars of barbaric gold, a wreck; where fails the flame, its place the danaans hold. lxviii. "haply the fate of priam thou would'st know. soon as he saw the captured city fall, the palace-gates burst open, and the foe dealing wild riot in his inmost hall, up sprang the old man and, at danger's call, braced o'er his trembling shoulders in a breath his rusty armour, took his belt withal, and drew the useless falchion from its sheath, and on their thronging spears rushed forth to meet his death. lxix. "within the palace, open to the day, there stood a massive altar. overhead, with drooping boughs, a venerable bay its shadowy foliage o'er the home-gods spread. here, with her hundred daughters, pale with dread, poor hecuba and all her female train, as doves, that from the low'ring storm have fled, and cower for shelter from the pelting rain, crouch round the silent gods, and cling to them in vain. lxx. "but when in youthful arms came priam near, 'ah, hapless lord!' she cries, 'what mad desire arms thee for battle? why this sword and spear? and whither art thou hurrying? times so dire not such defenders nor such help require. not e'en, were hector here, my hector's aid could save us. hither to this shrine retire, and share our safety or our death.'--she said, and to his hallowed seat the aged monarch led. lxxi. "see, now, polites, one of priam's sons, scarce slipt from pyrrhus' butchery, and lame, through foes, through darts, along the cloisters runs and empty courtyards. at his heels, aflame with rage, comes pyrrhus. lo, in act to aim, now, now, he clutches him,--a moment more, e'en as before his parent's eyes he came, the long spear reached him. prostrate on the floor down falls the hapless youth, and welters in his gore. lxxii. "then priam, though hemmed with death on every side, spared not his utterance, nor his wrath controlled; 'to thee, yea, thee, fierce miscreant,' he cried, 'may heaven,--if heaven with righteous eyes behold so foul an outrage and a deed so bold, ne'er fail a fitting guerdon to ordain, nor worthy quittance for thy crime withhold, whose hand hath made me see my darling slain, and dared with filial blood a father's eyes profane. lxxiii. "'not so achilles, whom thy lying tongue would feign thy father; like a foeman brave, he scorned a suppliant's rights and trust to wrong, and sent me home in safety,--ay, and gave my hector's lifeless body to the grave.' the old man spoke and, with a feeble throw, at pyrrhus with a harmless dart he drave. the jarring metal blunts it, and below the shield-boss, down it hangs, and foils the purposed blow. lxxiv. "'go then,' cries pyrrhus, 'with thy tale of woe to dead pelides, and thy plaints outpour. to him, my father, in the shades below, these deeds of his degenerate son deplore; now die!'--so speaking, to the shrine he tore the aged priam, trembling with affright, and feebly sliding in his son's warm gore. the left hand twists his hoary locks; the right deep in his side drives home the falchion, bared and bright. lxxv. "such close had priam's fortunes; so his days were finished, such the bitter end he found, now doomed by fate with dying eyes to gaze on troy in flames and ruin all around, and pergamus laid level with the ground. lo, he to whom once asia bowed the knee, proud lord of many peoples, far-renowned, now left to welter by the rolling sea, a huge and headless trunk, a nameless corpse is he. lxxvi. "grim horror seized me, and aghast i stood. uprose the image of my father dear, as there i see the monarch, bathed in blood, like him in prowess and in age his peer. uprose creusa, desolate and drear, iulus' peril, and a plundered home. i look around for comrades; none are near. some o'er the battlements leapt headlong, some sank fainting in the flames; the final hour was come. lxxvii. "i stood alone, when lo, in vesta's fane i see tyndarean helen, crouching down. bright shone the blaze around me, as in vain i tracked my comrades through the burning town. there, mute, and, as the traitress deemed, unknown, dreading the danaan's vengeance, and the sword of trojans, wroth for pergamus o'erthrown, dreading the anger of her injured lord, sat troy's and argos' fiend, twice hateful and abhorred. lxxviii. "then, fired with passion and revenge, i burn to quit troy's downfall and exact the fee such crimes deserve. sooth, then, shall _she_ return to sparta and mycenae, ay, and see home, husband, sons and parents, safe and free, with ilian wives and phrygians in her train, a queen, in pride of triumph? shall this be, and troy have blazed and priam's self been slain, and trojan blood so oft have soaked the dardan plain? lxxix. "not so; though glory wait not on the act; though poor the praise, and barren be the gain, vengeance on feeble woman to exact, yet praised hereafter shall his name remain, who purges earth of such a monstrous stain. sweet is the passion of vindictive joy, sweet is the punishment, where just the pain, sweet the fierce ardour of revenge to cloy, and slake with dardan blood the funeral flames of troy. lxxx. "so mused i, blind with anger, when in light apparent, never so refulgent seen, my mother dawned irradiate on the night, confessed a goddess, such her form, and mien and starry stature of celestial sheen. with her right hand she grasped me from above, and thus with roseate lips: 'o son, what mean these transports? say, what bitter grief doth move thy soul to rage untamed? where vanished is thy love? lxxxi. "'wilt thou not see, if yet thy sire survive, worn out with age, amid the war's alarms? and if thy wife creusa be alive, and young ascanius? for around thee swarms the foe, and but for my protecting arms, fierce sword or flame had swept them all away. not oft-blamed paris, nor the hateful charms of helen; heaven, unpitying heaven to-day hath razed the trojan towers and reft the dardan sway. lxxxii. "'look now, for i will clear the mists that shroud thy mortal gaze, and from the visual ray purge the gross covering of this circling cloud. thou heed, and fear not, whatsoe'er i say, nor scorn thy mother's counsels to obey. here, where thou seest the riven piles o'erthrown, mixt dust and smoke, rock torn from rock away, great neptune's trident shakes the bulwarks down, and from its lowest base uproots the trembling town. lxxxiii. "'here, girt with steel, the foremost in the fight, fierce juno stands, the scaean gates before, and, mad with fury and malignant spite, calls up her federate forces from the shore. see, on the citadel, all grim with gore, red-robed, and with the gorgon shield aglow, tritonian pallas bids the conflict roar. e'en jove with strength reanimates the foe, and stirs the powers of heaven to work the dardan's woe. lxxxiv. "'haste, son, and fly; the fruitless toil give o'er. i will not leave thee, but assist thy flight, and set thee safely at thy father's door.' she spake, and vanished in the gloom of night. dread shapes and forms terrific loomed in sight, and hostile deities, whose faces frowned destruction. then, amid the lurid light, i see troy sinking in the flames around, and mighty neptune's walls laid level with the ground. lxxxv. "so, when an aged ash on mountain tall stout woodmen strive, with many a rival blow, to rend from earth; awhile it threats to fall, with quivering locks and nodding head; now slow it sinks and, with a dying groan lies low, and spreads its ruin on the mountain side. down from the citadel i haste below, through foe, through fire, the goddess for my guide. harmless the darts give way, the sloping flames divide. lxxxvi. "but when anchises' ancient home i gain, my father,--he, whom first, with loving care, i sought and, heedful of my mother, fain in safety to the neighbouring hills would bear, disdains troy's ashes to outlive and wear his days in banishment: 'fly ye, who may, whom age hath chilled not, nor the years impair. for me, had heaven decreed a longer day, heaven too had spared these walls, nor left my home a prey. lxxxvii. "'enough and more, to live when ilion fell, and once to see troy captured. leave me, pray, and bid me, as a shrouded corpse, farewell. for death--this hand will find for me the way, or foes who spoil will pity me and slay. light is the loss of sepulchre or pyre, loathed have i lived and useless, since the day when man's great monarch and the god's dread sire breathed his avenging blast and scathed me with his fire.' lxxxviii. "so spake he, on his purpose firmly bent. we--wife, child, family and i--with prayer and tears entreat the father to relent, nor doom us all the common wreck to share, and urge the ruin that the fates prepare. he heeds not--stirs not. then again i fly to arms--to arms, in frenzy of despair, and long in utter misery to die. what other choice was left, what other chance to try? lxxxix. "'what, _i_ to leave thee helpless, and to flee? o father! could'st thou fancy it? could e'er a parent speak of such a crime to me? if heaven of such a city naught should spare, and thou be pleased that thou and thine should share the common wreck, that way to death is plain. wide stands the door; soon pyrrhus will be there, red with the blood of priam; he hath slain the son before his sire, the father in the fane. xc. "'dost thou for _this_, dear mother, me through fire and foemen safely to my home restore; to see creusa, and my son and sire each foully butchered in the other's gore, and danaans dealing slaughter at the door? arms--bring me arms! troy's dying moments call the vanquished. give me to the greeks. once more let me revive the battle; ne'er shall all die unrevenged this day, nor tamely meet their fall.' xci. "once more i girt me with the sword and shield, and forth had soon into the battle hied, when lo, creusa at the doorway kneeled, and reached iulus to his sire and cried: 'if death thou seekest, take me at thy side thy death to share, but if, expert in strife, thou hop'st in arms, here guard us and abide. to whom dost thou expose iulus' life, thy father's, yea, and mine, once called, alas! thy wife.' xcii. "so wailed creusa, and in wild despair filled all the palace with her sobs and cries, when lo! a portent, wondrous to declare. for while, 'twixt sorrowing parents' hands and eyes, stood young iulus, wildered with surprise, up from the summit of his fair, young head a tuft was seen of flickering flame to rise. gently and harmless to the touch it spread around his tender brows, and on his temples fed. xciii. "in haste we strive to quench the flame divine, shaking the tresses of his burning hair. but gladly sire anchises hails the sign, and gazing upward through the starlit air, his hands and voice together lifts in prayer: 'o jove omnipotent, dread power benign, if aught our piety deserve, if e'er a suppliant move thee, hearken and incline this once, and aid us now and ratify thy sign.' xciv. "scarce spake the sire when lo, to leftward crashed a peal of thunder, and amid the night a sky-dropt star athwart the darkness flashed, trailing its torchfire with a stream of light. we mark the dazzling meteor in its flight glide o'er the roof, till, vanished from our eyes, it hides in ida's forest, shining bright and furrowing out a pathway through the skies, and round us far and wide the sulphurous fumes arise. xcv. "up rose my sire, submissive to the sign, and briefly to the gods addressed his prayer, and bowed adoring to the star divine. 'now, now,' he cries, 'no tarrying; wheresoe'er ye point the path, i follow and am there. gods of my fathers! o preserve to-day my home, preserve my grandchild; for your care is troy, and yours this omen. i obey; lead on, my son, i yield and follow on thy way.' xcvi. "he spake, and nearer through the city came the roar, the crackle and the fiery glow of conflagration, rolling floods of flame. 'quick, father, mount my shoulders; let us go. that toil shall never tire me. come whatso the fates shall bring us, both alike shall share one common welfare or one common woe. let young iulus at my side repair; keep thou, my wife, aloof, and follow as we fare. xcvii. "'ye too, my servants, hearken my commands. outside the city is a mound, where, dear to ceres once, but now deserted, stands a temple, and an aged cypress near, for ages hallowed with religious fear, there meet we. father, in thy charge remain troy's gods; for me, red-handed with the smear of blood, and fresh from slaughter, 'twere profane to touch them, ere the stream hath cleansed me of the stain.' xcviii. "so saying, my neck and shoulders i incline, and round them fling a lion's tawny hide, then lift the load. his little hand in mine, iulus totters at his father's side; behind me comes creusa. on we stride through shadowy ways; and i who rushing spear and thronging foes but lately had defied, now fear each sound, each whisper of the air, trembling for him i lead, and for the charge i bear. xcix. "and now i neared the gates, and thought my flight achieved, when suddenly a noise we hear of trampling feet, and, peering through the night, my father cries, 'fly, son, the greeks are near; they come, i see the glint of shield and spear, fierce foes in front and flashing arms behind.' then trembling seized me and, amidst my fear, what power i know not, but some power unkind confused my wandering wits, and robbed me of my mind. c. "for while, the byways following, i left the beaten track, ah! woe and well away! my wife creusa lost me;--whether reft by fate, or faint or wandering astray, i know not, nor have seen her since that day, nor sought, nor missed her, till in ceres' fane we met at length, and mustered our array. there she alone was wanting of our train, and husband, son and friends all looked for her in vain! ci. "whom then did i upbraid not, wild with woe, of gods or men? what sadder sight elsewhere had troy, now whelmed in utter wreck, to show? troy's gods commending to my comrades' care, with old anchises and my infant heir, i hide them in a winding vale from view, then, sheathed again in shining arms, prepare once more to scour the city through and through, resolved to brave all risks, all ventures to renew. cii. "i reach the ramparts and the shadowy gates whence first i issued, backward through the night my studied steps retracing. horror waits around; the very silence breeds affright. then homeward turn, if haply in her flight, if, haply, thither she had strayed; but ere i came, behold, the danaans, loud in fight, swarmed through the halls; roof-high the fiery glare, fanned by the wind, mounts up; the loud blast roars in air. ciii. "again to priam's palace, and again up to the citadel i speed my way. armed, in the vacant courts, by juno's fane, phoenix and curst ulysses watched the prey. there, torn from many a burning temple, lay troy's wealth; the tripods of the gods were there, piled in huge heaps, and raiment snatched away, and golden bowls, and dames with streaming hair and tender boys stand round, and tremble with despair. civ. "i shout, and through the darkness shout again, rousing the streets, and call and call anew 'creusa,' and 'creusa,' but in vain. from house to house in frenzy as i flew, a melancholy spectre rose in view, creusa's very image; ay, 'twas there, but larger than the living form i knew. aghast i stood, tongue-tied, with stiffening hair. then she addressed me thus, and comforted my care. cv. "'what boots this idle passion? why so fain sweet husband, thus to sorrow and repine? naught happens here but as the gods ordain. it may not be, nor doth the lord divine of high olympus nor the fates design that thou should'st take creusa. seas remain to plough, long years of exile must be thine, ere thou at length hesperia's land shalt gain, where lydian tiber glides through many a peopled plain. cvi. "'wide rule and happy days await thee there, and royal marriage shall thy portion be. weep not for lov'd creusa, weep not; ne'er to grecian women shall i bow the knee, never in argos see captivity, i, who my lineage from the dardans tell, allied to venus. now, by fate's decree, here with the mother of the gods i dwell. farewell, and guard in love our common child. farewell!' cvii. "so spake she, and with weeping eyes i yearned to answer, wondering at the words she said, when lo, the shadowy spirit, as i turned, dissolved in air, and in a moment fled. thrice round the neck with longing i essayed to clasp the phantom in a wild delight; thrice, vainly clasped, the visionary shade mocked me embracing, and was lost to sight, swift as a winged wind or slumber of the night. cviii. "back to my friends i hasten. there, behold, matrons and men, a miserable band, gathered for exile. from each side they shoaled, resolved and ready over sea and land my steps to follow, where the fates command. now over ida shone the day-star bright; greeks swarmed at every entrance; help at hand seemed none. i yield, and, hurrying from the fight, take up my helpless sire, and climb the mountain height." book three argument in obedience to oracles the trojans build a fleet and sail to thrace ( - ). seeking to found a city, they are warned away by the ghost of polydorus and visit anius in ortygia ( - ). apollo promises aeneas and his descendants world-wide empire if they return to "the ancient motherland" of troy,--which anchises declares to be crete ( - ). they reach crete, only to be again baffled. drought and plague interrupt this second attempt to found a city. on the point of returning to ask apollo for clearer counsel, aeneas in a dream is certified by the home-gods of troy that the true motherland is italy ( - ). anchises owns his mistake, and recalls how cassandra had in other days been mocked for prophesying that troy should eventually be transplanted to italy ( - ). landing in the strophades, they unwittingly wrong the harpies, whose queen celaeno thereupon threatens them with a portentous famine. panic-stricken, they coast along to actium, where they celebrate their national games and leave a defiance to the greeks ( - ). at buthrotum they find helenus and andromache in possession of the kingdom of pyrrhus, and by them are entertained awhile and sent upon their way with gifts and guidance ( - ). the voyage from dyrrhachium and the first glimpse of italy. they land and propitiate juno: then coast along till they sight mount aetna ( - ). after a description of the rescue of achemenides and the escape from polyphemus, the voyage and the story end with the death of anchises at drepanum ( - ). i. "when now the gods have made proud ilion fall, and asia's power and priam's race renowned o'erwhelmed in ruin undeserved, and all neptunian troy lies smouldering on the ground, in desert lands, to diverse exile bound, celestial portents bid us forth to fare; where ida's heights above antandros frowned, a fleet we build, and gather crews, unware which way the fates will lead, what home is ours and where. ii. "scarce now the summer had begun, when straight my father, old anchises, gave command to spread our canvas and to trust to fate. weeping, i leave my native port, the land, the fields where once the trojan towers did stand, and, homeless, launch upon the boundless brine, heart-broken outcast, with an exiled band, comrades, and son, and household gods divine, and the great gods of troy, the guardians of our line. iii. "far off there lies, with many a spacious plain, the land of mars, by thracians tilled and sown, where stern lycurgus whilom held his reign; a hospitable shore, to troy well-known, her home-gods leagued in union with our own, while fortune smiled. hither, with fates malign, i steer, and landing for our purposed town the walls along the winding shore design, and coin for them a name 'aeneadae' from mine. iv. "due rites to venus and the gods i bore, the work to favour, and a sleek, white steer to heaven's high king was slaughtering on the shore. with cornel shrubs and many a prickly spear of myrtle crowned, it chanced a mound was near. thither i drew, and strove with eager hold a green-leaved sapling from the soil to tear, to shade with boughs the altars, when behold a portent, weird to see and wondrous to unfold! v. "scarce the first stem uprooted, from the wood black drops distilled, and stained the earth with gore. cold horror shook me, in my veins the blood was chilled, and curdled with affright. once more a limber sapling from the soil i tore; once more, persisting, i resolved in mind with inmost search the causes to explore and probe the mystery that lurked behind; dark drops of blood once more come trickling from the rind. vi. "much-musing, to the woodland nymphs i pray, and mars, the guardian of the thracian plain, with favouring grace the omen to allay, and bless the dreadful vision. then again a third tall shaft i grasp, with sinewy strain and firm knees pressed against the sandy ground; when o! shall tongue make utterance or refrain? forth from below a dismal, groaning sound heaves, and a piteous voice is wafted from the mound: vii. "'spare, o aeneas, spare a wretch, nor shame thy guiltless hands, but let the dead repose. from troy, no alien to thy race, i came. o, fly this greedy shore, these cruel foes! not from the tree--from polydorus flows this blood, for i am polydorus. here an iron crop o'erwhelmed me, and uprose bristling with pointed javelins.'--mute with fear, perplext, aghast i stood, and upright rose my hair. viii. "this polydorus priam from the war to thracia's king in secret had consigned with store of gold, when, girt with siege, he saw troy's towers, and trust in dardan arms resigned. but when our fortune and our hopes declined, the treacherous king the conqueror's cause professed, and, false to faith, to friendship and to kind, slew polydorus, and his wealth possessed. curst greed of gold, what crimes thy tyrant power attest! ix. "now, freed from terror, to my father first, then to choice friends the vision i declare. all vote to sail, and quit the shore accurst. so to his shade, with funeral rites, we rear a mound, and altars to the dead prepare, wreathed with dark cypress. round them, as of yore, pace troy's sad matrons, with their streaming hair. warm milk from bowls, and holy blood we pour, and thrice with loud farewell the peaceful shade deplore. x. "soon as our ships can trust the deep once more, and south-winds chide, and ocean smiles serene, we crowd the beach, and launch, and town and shore fade from our view. amid the waves is seen an island, sacred to the nereids' queen and neptune, lord of the aegean wave, which, floating once, apollo fixed between high myconos and gyarus, and gave for man's resort, unmoved the blustering winds to brave. xi. "hither we sail and on this island fair, worn out, find welcome in a sheltered bay, and, landing, hail apollo's town with prayer. king anius here, enwreath'd with laurel spray, the priest of phoebus meets us on the way; with joy at once he recognised again his friend anchises of an earlier day. and joining hands in fellowship, each fain to show a friendly heart the palace-halls we gain. xii. "there, in a temple built of ancient stone i worship: 'grant, thymbrean lord divine, a home, a settled city of our own, walls to the weary, and a lasting line, to troy another pergamus. incline and harken. save these dardans sore-distrest, the remnant of achilles' wrath. some sign vouchsafe us, whom to follow? where to rest? steal into trojan hearts, and make thy power confessed.' xiii. "scarce spake i, suddenly the bays divine shook, and a trembling seized the temple door. the mountain heaves, and from the opening shrine loud moans the tripod. prostrate on the floor we hear a voice; 'brave hearts, the land that bore your sires shall nurse their dardan sons again. seek out your ancient mother; from her shore through all the world the aeneian house shall reign, and sons of sons unborn the lasting line sustain.' xiv. "straight rose a joyous uproar; each in turn ask what the walls that phoebus hath designed? which way to wander, whither to return? then spake my sire, revolving in his mind the ancient legends of the trojan kind, 'chieftains, give ear, and learn your hopes and mine; jove's island lies, amid the deep enshrined, crete, hundred-towned, a land of corn and wine, where ida's mountain stands, the cradle of our line. xv. "'thence troy's great sire, if i remember right, old teucer, to rhoeteum crossed the flood, and for his future kingdom chose a site. nor yet proud ilion nor her towers had stood; in lowly vales sequestered they abode. thence corybantian cymbals clashed and brayed in praise of cybele. in ida's wood her mystic rites in secrecy were paid, and lions, yoked in pomp, their sovereign's car conveyed. xvi. "'come then and seek we, as the gods command, the gnosian kingdoms, and the winds entreat. short is the way, nor distant lies the land. if jove be present and assist our fleet, the third day lands us on the shores of crete.' so spake he and on altars, reared aright, due victims offered, and libations meet; a bull to neptune and apollo bright, to tempest a black lamb, to western winds a white. xvii. "fame flies, idomeneus has left the land, expelled his kingdom; that the shore lies clear of foes, and homes are ready to our hand. ortygia's port we leave, and skim the mere; soon naxos' bacchanalian hills appear, and past olearos and donysa, crowned with trees, and paros' snowy cliffs we steer. far-scattered shine the cyclades renowned, and clustering isles thick-sown in many a glittering sound. xviii. "loud rise the shouts of sailors to the sky; 'crete and our fathers,' rings for all to hear the cry of oarsmen. through the deep we fly; behind us sings the stern breeze loud and clear. so to the shores of ancient crete we steer. there in glad haste i trace the wished-for town, and call the walls 'pergamea,' and cheer my comrades, glorying in the name well-known, the castled keep to raise, and guard the loved hearth-stone. xix. "scarce stand the vessels hauled upon the beach, and bent on marriages the young men vie to till new settlements, while i to each due law dispense and dwelling place supply, when from a tainted quarter of the sky rank vapours, gathering, on my comrades seize, and a foul pestilence creeps down from high on mortal limbs and standing crops and trees, a season black with death, and pregnant with disease. xx. "sweet life from mortals fled; they drooped and died. fierce sirius scorched the fields, and herbs and grain were parched, and food the wasting crops denied. once more anchises bids us cross the main and seek ortygia, and the god constrain by prayer to pardon and advise, what end of evils to expect? what woes remain? what fate hereafter shall our steps attend? what rest for toil-worn men, and whitherward to wend? xxi. "'twas night; on earth all creatures were asleep, when lo! the figures of our gods, the same whom erst from falling ilion o'er the deep i brought, scarce rescued from the midmost flame, before me, sleepless for my country's shame, stood plain, in plenteousness of light confessed, where streaming through the sunken lattice came the moon's full splendour, and their speech addressed, and i in heart took comfort, hearing their behest. xxii. "'lo! what apollo from ortygia's shrine would sing, unasked he sends us to proclaim. we who have followed o'er the billowy brine thee and thine arms, since ilion sank in flame, will raise thy children to the stars, and name thy walls imperial. thou build them meet for heroes. shrink not from thy journey's aim, though long the way. not here thy destined seat, so saith the delian god, not thine the shores of crete. xxiii. "'far off there lies, across the rolling wave, an ancient land, which greeks hesperia name; her soil is fruitful and her people brave. th' oenotrians held it once, by later fame the name italia from their chief they claim. thence sprang great dardanus; there lies thy seat; thence sire iasius and the trojans came. rise, and thy parent with these tidings greet, to seek ausonian shores, for jove denies thee crete.' xxiv. "awed by the vision and the voice divine ('twas no mere dream; their very looks i knew, i saw the fillets round their temples twine, and clammy sweat did all my limbs bedew) forthwith, upstarting, from the couch i flew, and hands and voice together raised in prayer, and wine unmixt upon the altars threw. this done, to old anchises i repair, pleased with the rites fulfilled, and all the tale declare. xxv. "the two-fold race anchises understands, the double sires, and owns himself misled by modern error 'twixt two ancient lands. 'o son, long trained in ilian fates,' he said, this chance cassandra, she alone, displayed. oft to hesperia and italia's reign she called us. ah! who listened or obeyed? who dreamed that teucrians should hesperia gain? yield we to phoebus now, nor wisdom's words disdain.' xxvi. "all hail the speech. we quit this other home, and leaving here a handful on the shore, spread sail and scour with hollow keel the foam. the fleet was on mid ocean; land no more was visible, naught else above, before but sky and sea, when overhead did loom a storm-cloud, black as heaven itself, that bore dark night and wintry tempest in its womb, and all the waves grew rough and shuddered with the gloom. xxvii. "winds roll the waters, and the great seas rise. dispersed we welter on the gulfs. damp night has snatched with rain the heaven from our eyes, and storm-mists in a mantle wrapt the light. flash after flash, and for a moment bright, quick lightnings rend the welkin. driven astray we wander, robbed of reckoning, reft of sight. no difference now between the night and day e'en palinurus sees, nor recollects the way. xxviii. "three days, made doubtful by the blinding gloom, as many nights, when not a star is seen, we wander on, uncertain of our doom. at last the fourth glad daybreak clears the scene, and rising land, and opening uplands green, and rolling smoke at distance greet the view. no longer tarrying; to our oars we lean. down drop the sails; in order ranged, each crew flings up the foam to heaven, and sweeps the sparkling blue. xxix. "saved from the sea, the strophades we gain, so called in greece, where dwells, with harpies, dire celaeno, in the vast ionian main, since, forced from phineus' palace to retire, they fled their former banquet. heavenly ire ne'er sent a pest more loathsome; ne'er were seen worse plagues to issue from the stygian mire-- birds maiden-faced, but trailing filth obscene, with taloned hands and looks for ever pale and lean. xxx. "the harbour gained, lo! herds of oxen bright and goats untended browse the pastures fair. we, sword in hand, make onset, and invite the gods and jove himself the spoil to share, and piling couches, banquet on the fare. when straight, down-swooping from the hills meanwhile the harpies flap their clanging wings, and tear the food, and all with filthy touch defile, and, mixt with screams, uprose a sickening stench and vile. xxxi. "once more, within a cavern screened from view, where circling trees a rustling shade supply, the boards are spread, the altars blaze anew. back, from another quarter of the sky, dark-ambushed, round the clamorous harpies fly with taloned claws, and taste and taint the prey. to arms i call my comrades, and defy the loathsome brood to battle. they obey, and swords and bucklers hide amid the grass away. xxxii. "so when their screams descending fill the strand, misenus from his outlook sounds the fray. all to the strange encounter, sword in hand, rush forth, these miscreants of the deep to slay. no wounds they take, no weapon wins its way. swiftly they soar, all leaving, ere they go, their filthy traces on the half-gorged prey. one perched, celaeno, on a rock, and lo, thus croaked the dismal seer her prophecy of woe. xxxiii. "'war, too, laomedon's twice-perjured race! war do ye bring, our cattle stol'n and slain? and unoffending harpies would ye chase forth from their old, hereditary reign? mark then my words and in your breasts retain. what jove, the sire omnipotent, of old revealed to phoebus, and to me again phoebus apollo at his hest foretold, i now to thee and thine, the furies' queen, unfold. xxxiv. "'ye seek italia and, with favouring wind, shall reach italia, and her ports attain. but ne'er the town, by destiny assigned, your walls shall gird, till famine's pangs constrain to gnaw your boards, in quittance for our slain.' so spake the fiend, and backward to the wood soared on the wing. cold horror froze each vein. aghast and shuddering my comrades stood; down sank at once each heart, and terror chilled the blood. xxxv. "no more with arms, for peace with vows and prayer we sue, and pardon of these powers implore, or be they goddesses or birds of air obscene and dire; and lifting on the shore his hands, anchises doth the gods adore. 'o heaven!' he cries, 'avert these threats; be kind and stay the curse, and vex with plagues no more a pious folk,' then bids the crews unbind the stern-ropes, loose the sheets and spread them to the wind. xxxvi. "the south-wind fills the canvas; on we fly where breeze and pilot drive us through the deep. soon, crowned with woods, zacynthos we espy, dulichium, same and the rock-bound steep of neritos. past ithaca we creep, laertes' realms, and curse the land that bred ulysses, cause of all the woes we weep. soon, where leucate lifts her cloud-capt head, looms forth apollo's fane, the seaman's name of dread. xxxvii. "tired out we seek the little town, and run the sterns ashore and anchor in the bay, saved beyond hope and glad the land is won, and lustral rites, with blazing altars, pay to jove, and make the shores of actium gay with ilian games, as, like our sires, we strip and oil our sinews for the wrestler's play. proud, thus escaping from the foemen's grip, past all the argive towns, through swarming greeks, to slip. xxxviii. "meanwhile the sun rolls round the mighty year, and wintry north-winds vex the waves once more. in front, above the temple-gates i rear the brazen shield which once great abas bore, and mark the deed in writing on the door, _'aeneas these from conquering greeks hath ta'en';_ then bid my comrades quit the port and shore, and man the benches. they with rival strain and slanting oar-blades sweep the levels of the main. xxxix. "phaeacia's heights with the horizon blend; we skim epirus, and chaonia's bay enter, and to buthrotum's town ascend. strange news we hear: a trojan greeks obey, helenus, master of the spouse and sway of pyrrhus, and andromache once more has yielded to a trojan lord. straightway i burn to greet them, and the tale explore, and from the harbour haste, and leave the ships and shore. xl. "within a grove andromache that day, where simois in fancy flowed again, her offerings chanced at hector's grave to pay, a turf-built cenotaph, with altars twain, source of her tears and sacred to the slain-- and called his shade. distracted with amaze she marked me, as the trojan arms shone plain. heat leaves her frame; she stiffens with the gaze, she swoons--and scarce at length these faltering words essays: xli. "'real, then, real is thy face, and true thy tidings? liv'st thou, child of heavenly seed? if dead, then where is hector?' tears ensue, and wailing, shrill as though her heart would bleed. then i, with stammering accents, intercede, and, sore perplext, these broken words outthrow to calm her transport, 'yea, alive, indeed,-- alive through all extremities of woe. doubt not, thou see'st the truth, no shape of empty show. xlii. "'alas! what lot is thine? what worthy fate hath caught thee, fallen from a spouse so high? hector's andromache, art thou the mate of pyrrhus?' then with lowly downcast eye she dropped her voice, and softly made reply. 'ah! happy maid of priam, doomed instead at troy upon a foeman's tomb to die! not drawn by lot for servitude, nor led a captive thrall, like me, to grace a conqueror's bed. xliii. "'i, torn from burning troy o'er many a wave, endured the lust of pyrrhus and his pride, and knew a mother's travail as his slave. fired with hermione, a spartan bride, me, joined in bed and bondage, he allied to helenus. but mad with love's despair, and stung with furies for his spouse denied, at length orestes caught the wretch unware, e'en by his father's shrine, and smote him then and there. xliv. "'the tyrant dead, a portion of his reign devolves on helenus, who chaonia calls from trojan chaon the chaonian plain, and on these heights rebuilds the trojan walls. but thou--what chance, or god, or stormy squalls have driven thee here unweeting?--and the boy ascanius--lives he, or what hap befalls his parents' darling, and their only joy? breathes he the vital air, whom unto thee now troy-- xlv. "'still grieves he for his mother? doth the name of sire or uncle make his young heart glow for deeds of valour and ancestral fame?' weeping she spake, with unavailing woe, and poured her sorrow to the winds, when lo, in sight comes helenus, with fair array, and hails his friends, and hastening to bestow glad welcome, toward his palace leads the way; but tears and broken words his mingled thoughts betray. xlvi. "i see another but a tinier troy, a seeming pergama recalls the great. a dried-up xanthus i salute with joy, and clasp the portals of a scaean gate. nor less kind welcome doth the rest await. the monarch, mindful of his sire of old, receives the teucrians in his courts of state. they in the hall, the viands piled on gold, pledging the god of wine, their brimming cups uphold. xlvii. "one day and now another passed; the gale sings in the shrouds, and calls us to depart, when thus the prophet helenus i hail, 'troy-born interpreter of heaven! whose art the signs of phoebus' pleasure can impart; thou know'st the tripod and the clarian bay, the stars, the voices of the birds, that dart on wings with omens laden, speak and say,-- since fate and all the gods foretell a prosperous way. xlviii. "'and point to far italia,--one alone, celaeno, sings of famine foul and dread, a nameless prodigy, a plague unknown,-- what perils first to shun? what path to tread, to win deliverance from such toils?' this said, i ceased, and helenus with slaughtered kine implores the god, and from his sacred head unbinds the wreath, and leads me to the shrine, awed by apollo's power, and chants the doom divine: xlix. "'o goddess-born, high auspices are thine, and heaven's plain omens guide thee o'er the main. thus jove, by lot unfolding his design, assorts the chances, and the fates ordain. this much may i of many things explain, how best o'er foreign seas to urge thy keel in safety, and ausonian ports attain, the rest from helenus the fates conceal, and juno's envious power forbids me to reveal. l. "'learn then, italia, that thou deem'st so near, and thither dream'st of lightly passing o'er, long leagues divide, and many a pathless mere. first must trinacrian waters bend the oar, ausonian waves thy vessels must explore, first must thou view the nether world, where flows dark styx, and visit that aeaean shore, the home of circe, ere, at rest from woes, thou build the promised walls, and win the wished repose. li. "'these tokens bear, and in thy memory store. when, musing sad and pensive, thou hast found beside an oak-fringed river, on the shore, a huge sow thirty-farrowed, and around, milk-white as she, her litter, mark the ground, that spot shall see thy promised town; for there thy toils are ended, and thy rest is crowned. fear not this famine--'tis an empty scare; the fates will find a way, and phoebus hear thy prayer. lii. "'as for yon shore and that italian coast, washed, where the land lies nearest, by our main, shun them; their cities hold a hostile host. there troy's old foes, the evil argives, reign, locrians of narycos her towns contain. there fierce idomeneus from crete brought o'er his troops to vex the sallentinian plain; there, girt with walls and guarded by the power of philoctetes, stands petelia's tiny tower. liii. "'nay, when thy vessels, ranged upon her shore, rest from the deep, and on the beach ye light the votive altars, and the gods adore, veil then thy locks, with purple hood bedight, and shroud thy visage from a foeman's sight, lest hostile presence, 'mid the flames divine, break in, and mar the omen and the rite. this pious use keep sacred, thou and thine, the sons of sons unborn, and all the trojan line. liv. "'when, wafted to sicilia, dawns in sight pelorus' channel, keep the leftward shore, though long the circuit, and avoid the right. these lands, 'tis said, one continent of yore (such change can ages work) an earthquake tore asunder; in with havoc rushed the main, and far sicilia from hesperia bore, and now, where leapt the parted lands in twain, the narrow tide pours through, 'twixt severed town and plain. lv. "'here scylla, leftward sits charybdis fell, who, yawning thrice, her lowest depths laid bare, sucks the vast billows in her throat's dark hell, then starward spouts the refluent surge in air. here scylla, gaping from her gloomy lair, the passing vessels on the rocks doth hale; a maiden to the waist, with bosom fair and human face; below, a monstrous whale, down from whose wolf-like womb hangs many a dolphin's tail. lvi. "'far better round pachynus' point to steer, though long the course, and tedious the delay, than once dread scylla to behold, or hear the rocks rebellow with her hell-hounds' bay. this more, besides, i charge thee to obey, if any faith to helenus be due, or skill in prophecy the seer display, and mighty phoebus hath inspired me true, these warning words i urge, and oft will urge anew: lvii. "'seek juno first; great juno's power adore; with suppliant gifts the potent queen constrain, and winds shall waft thee to italia's shore. there, when at cumae landing from the main, avernus' lakes and sounding woods ye gain, thyself shalt see, within her rock-hewn shrine, the frenzied prophetess, whose mystic strain expounds the fates, to leaves of trees consign the notes and names that mark the oracles divine. lviii. "'whate'er the maiden on those leaves doth trace, in rows she sorts, and in the cave doth store. there rest they, nor their sequence change, nor place, save when, by chance, on grating hinge the door swings open, and a light breath sweeps the floor, or rougher blasts the tender leaves disperse. loose then they flutter, for she recks no more to call them back, and rearrange the verse; untaught the votaries leave, the sibyl's cave to curse. lix. "'but linger thou, nor count thy lingering vain, though comrades chide, and breezes woo the fleet. approach the prophetess; with prayer unchain her voice to speak. she shall the tale repeat of wars in italy, thy destined seat,-- what toils to shun, what dangers to despise,-- and make the triumph of thy quest complete. thou hast whate'er 'tis lawful to advise; go, and with deathless deeds raise ilion to the skies.' lx. "so spake the seer, and shipward bids his friends rich gifts convey, and store them in the hold. gold, silver plate, carved ivory he sends, with massive caldrons of dodona's mould; a coat of mail, with triple chain of gold, and shining helm, with cone and flowing crest, the arms of pyrrhus, glorious to behold. nor lacks my sire his presents; for the rest steeds, guides and arms he finds, and oarsmen of the best. lxi. "then to anchises, as he bids us spread the sails, with reverence speaks apollo's seer, 'far-famed anchises, honoured with the bed of haughty venus, heaven's peculiar care, twice saved from troy! behold ausonia there, steer towards her coasts, yet skirt them; far away that region lies, which phoebus doth prepare. blest in thy son's devotion, take thy way. why should more words of mine the rising south delay?' lxii. "nor less andromache, sore grieved to part, rich raiment fetches, wrought with golden thread, and phrygian scarf, and still with bounteous heart loads him with broideries. 'take these,' she said, 'sole image of astyanax now dead. thy kin's last gifts, my handiwork, to show how hector's widow loved the son she bred. such eyes had he, such very looks as thou, such hands, and oh! like thine his age were ripening now!' lxiii. "with gushing tears i bid the pair farewell. live happy ye, whose destinies are o'er; we still must wander where the fates compel. your rest is won; no oceans to explore, no fair ausonia's ever-fading shore. ye still can see a xanthus and a troy, reared by your hands, old ilion to restore, and brighter auspices than ours enjoy, nor tempt, like ours, the greeks to ravage and destroy. lxiv. "'if ever tiber and the fields i see washed by her waves, ere mingling with the brine, and build the city which the fates decree, then kindred towns and neighbouring folk shall join, yours in epirus, in hesperia mine, and linked thenceforth in sorrow and in joy, with dardanus the founder of each line,-- so let posterity its pains employ, two nations, one in heart, shall make another troy.' lxv. "on fly the barks o'er ocean. near us frown ceraunia's rocks, whence shortest lies the way to italy. and now the sun goes down, and darkness gathers on the mountains grey. close by the water, in a sheltered bay, a few as guardians of the oars we choose, then stretched at random on the beach we lay our limbs to rest, and on the toil-worn crews sleep steals in silence down, and sheds her kindly dews. lxvi. "nor yet had night climbed heaven, when up from sleep starts palinurus, and with listening ear catches the breeze. he marks the stars, that keep their courses, gliding through the silent sphere, arcturus, rainy hyads and each bear, and, girt with gold, orion. far away he sees the firmament all calm and clear, and from the stern gives signal. we obey, and shifting camp, set sail and tempt the doubtful way. lxvii. "the stars were chased, and blushing rose the day. dimly, at distance through the misty shroud italia's hills and lowlands we survey, 'italia,' first achates shouts aloud; 'italia,' echoes from the joyful crowd. then sire anchises hastened to entwine a massive goblet with a wreath, and vowed libations to the gods, and poured the wine and on the lofty stern invoked the powers divine: lxviii. "'great gods, whom earth and sea and storms obey, breathe fair, and waft us smoothly o'er the main.' fresh blows the breeze, and broader grows the bay, and on the cliffs is seen minerva's fane. we furl the sails, and shoreward row amain. eastward the harbour arches, scarce descried. two jutting rocks, by billows lashed in vain, stretch out their arms the narrow mouth to hide. far back the temple stands, and seems to shun the tide. lxix. "lo, here, first omen offered to our eyes, four snow-white steeds are grazing on the plain. ''tis war thou bringest us,' anchises cries, 'strange land! for war the mettled steed they train, and war these threaten. yet in time again these beasts are wont in harness to obey, and bear the yoke, as guided by the rein. peace yet is hopeful.' so our vows we pay to pallas, famed in arms, whose welcome cheered the way. lxx. "veiled at her shrines in phrygian hood we stand, and chief to juno, mindful of the seer, burnt-offerings pay, as pious rites demand. this done, the sailyards to the wind we veer, and leave the grecians and the land of fear. lo, there tarentum's harbour and the town, if fame be true, of hercules, and here lacinium's queen and caulon's towers are known, and scylaceum's rocks, with shattered ships bestrown. lxxi. "far off is seen, above the billowy mere, trinacrian aetna, and the distant roar of ocean and the beaten rocks we hear, and the loud burst of breakers on the shore; high from the shallows leap the surges hoar, and surf and sand mix eddying. 'behold charybdis!' cries anchises, ''tis the shore, the dreaded rocks that helenus foretold. row, comrades, for dear life, and let the oars catch hold.' lxxii. "he spake, 'twas done; and palinurus first turns the prow leftward: to the left we ply with oars and sail, and shun the rocks accurst. now curls the wave, and lifts us to the sky, now sinks and, plunging in the gulf we lie. thrice roar the caverned shore-cliffs, thrice the spray whirls up and wets the dewy stars on high. thus tired we drift, as sinks the wind and day, unto the cyclops' shore, all weetless of the way. lxxiii. "it was a spacious harbour, sheltered deep from access of the winds, but looming vast with awful ravage, aetna's neighbouring steep thundered aloud, and, dark with clouds, upcast smoke and red cinders in a whirlwind's blast. live balls of flame, with showers of sparks, upflew and licked the stars, and in combustion massed, torn rocks, her ragged entrails, molten new, the rumbling mount belched forth from out the boiling stew. lxxiv. "here, while from aetna's furnaces the flame bursts forth, enceladus, 'tis said, doth lie, scorched by the lightning. as his wearied frame he shifts, trinacria, trembling at the cry moans through her shores, and smoke involves the sky. there all night long, screened by the woods, we hear the dreadful sounds, and know not whence nor why, for stars are none, nor planet gilds the sphere; night holds the moon in clouds, and heaven is dark and drear. lxxv. "now rose the day-star from the east, and cleared the mists, that melted with advancing morn, when suddenly from out the woods appeared an uncouth form, a creature wan and worn, scarce like a man, in piteous plight forlorn. suppliant his hands he stretches to the shore; we turn and look on tatters tagged with thorn, dire squalor and a length of beard,--what more, a greek, to troy erewhile in native arms sent o'er. lxxvi. "he scared to see the dardan garb once more and trojan arms, stood faltering with dismay, then rushed, with prayer and weeping, to the shore. 'o, by the stars, and by the gods, i pray, and life's pure breath, this light of genial day, take me, o teucrians; wheresoe'er ye go, enough to bear me from this land away. i once was of the danaan crews, i know, and came to trojan homes and ilion as a foe. lxxvii. "'for that, if that be such a crime to you, o strew me forth upon the watery waste, and drown me in the deep. if death be due, 'twere sweet of death by human hands to taste.' he cried, and, grovelling, our knees embraced, and, clasping, clung to us. we bid him stand and tell his birth and trouble; and in haste himself the sire anchises pledged his hand, and he at length took heart, and answered our demand. lxxviii. "'my name is achemenides. i come from ithaca. to troy i sailed the sea with evil-starred ulysses, leaving home and father, adamastus;--poor was he, and o! if such my poverty could be. me here my thoughtless comrades, hurrying fast to quit the cruel threshold and be free, leave in the cyclops' cavern. dark and vast that house of slaughtered men, and many a foul repast. lxxix. "'himself so tall, he strikes the lofty skies (o gods, rid earth of such a monstrous brood!), none dare with speech accost, nor mortal eyes behold him. human entrails are his food. myself have seen him, gorged with brains and blood, pluck forth two comrades, in his cave bent back, and dash them till the threshold swam with blood, then crunch the gobbets in his teeth, while black with gore the limbs still quivered, and the bones did crack: lxxx. "'not unavenged; nor brave ulysses deigned to brook such outrage. in that hour of tyne true to himself the ithacan remained. when, gorged with food, and belching gore and wine, with drooping neck, the giant snored supine, then, closing round him, to the gods we pray, each at his station, as the lots assign, and where, beneath the frowning forehead, lay, huge as an argive shield, or like the lamp of day, lxxxi. "'his one great orb, deep in the monster's head we drive the pointed weapon, joy'd at last to wreak such vengeance for our comrades dead. but fly, unhappy trojans, fly, and cast your cables from the shore. such and so vast as polyphemus, when the cave's huge door shuts on his flocks, and for his night's repast he milks them, lo! a hundred cyclops more roam on the lofty hills, and range the winding shore. lxxxii. "'now thrice the moon hath filled her horns with light, and still in woods and lonely dens i lie, and see the cyclops stalk from height to height, and hear their tramp, and tremble at their cry. my food--hard berries that the boughs supply, and roots of grass. thus wandering, as i scanned the distant ocean with despairing eye, i saw your ships first bearing to the land, and vowed, whoe'er ye proved, the strangers' slave to stand. lxxxiii. "'enough, these monsters to escape; o take my life, and tear me as you will from day, rather than these devour me!'--scarce he spake, when from the mountains to the well-known bay, the shepherd polyphemus gropes his way; huge, hideous, horrible in shape and show, and visionless. a pine-trunk serves to stay and guide his footsteps, and around him go the sheep, his only joy and solace of his woe. lxxxiv. "down came the giant, wading in the main, and rinsed his gory socket from the tide, gnashing his teeth and moaning in his pain. on through the deep he stalks with awful stride, so tall, the billows scarcely wet his side. forthwith our flight we hasten, prickt with fear, on board--'twas due--we let the suppliant hide, then, mute and breathless, cut the stern-ropes clear, bend to the emulous oar, and sweep the whitening mere. lxxxv. "he heard, and turned his footsteps to the sound. short of its mark the huge arm idly fell outstretched, and swifter than his stride he found the ionian waves. then rose a monstrous yell; all ocean shudders and her waves upswell; far off, italia trembles with the roar, and aetna groans through many a winding cell, and trooping to the call the cyclops pour from wood and lofty hill, and crowding fill the shore. lxxxvi. "we see them scowling impotent, the band of aetna, towering to the stars above, an awful conclave! tall as oaks they stand, or cypresses--the lofty trees of jove, or cone-clad guardians of diana's grove. fain were we then, in agony of fear, to shake the canvas to the winds, and rove at random; natheless, we obey the seer, who past those fatal rocks had warned us not to steer, lxxxvii. "where scylla here, and there charybdis lies, and death lurks double. backward we essay our course, when lo, from out pelorus flies the north-wind, sent to waft us on our way. we pass the place where, mingling with the spray, through narrow rocks pantagia's stream outflows; we see low-lying thapsus and the bay of megara. these shores the suppliant shows, known from the time he shared his wandering chieftain's woes. lxxxviii. "far-stretcht against plemmyrium's wave-beat shore an island lies, before sicania's bay, now called ortygia--'twas its name of yore. hither from distant elis, legends say, beneath the seas alpheus stole his way, and, mingling now with arethusa here, mounts, a sicilian fountain, to the day. here we with prayer, obedient to the seer, invoke the guardian gods to whom the place is dear. lxxxix. "thence past helorus' marish speeds the bark, where fat and fruitful shines the meadowy lea. we graze the cliffs and jutting rocks, that mark pachynus. camarina's fen we see, fixt there for ever by the fates' decree; then gela's town (the river gave the name) and gela's plains, far-stretching from the sea, and distant towers and lofty walls proclaim steep acragas, once known for generous steeds of fame. xc. "thee too we pass, borne onward by the wind, palmy selinus, and the treacherous strand and shoals of lilybaeum leave behind. last, by the shore at drepanum we stand and take the shelter of her joyless land, here, tost so long o'er many a storm-lashed main, we lose the stay and comfort of our band, here thou, best father, leav'st me to my pain, thou, saved from countless risks, but saved, alas, in vain. xci. "not helenus, who many an ill forecast, warned us to think such sorrow was in store, not even dire celaeno. there at last my wanderings ended, and my toils were o'er, and thence a god hath led me to your shore." thus, while mute wonder did the rest compose, the sire aeneas did his tale outpour, and told his fates, his wanderings and his woes; then ceased at length his speech, and sought the wished repose. book four argument dido opens her heart to her sister. but for her promised loyalty to the dead sychaeus, she must have yielded ( - ). anna pleads for aeneas, and dido half-yielding sacrifices to the marriage-gods. the growth of her passion is described ( - ). venus feigns assent to juno's proposal that aeneas shall marry dido and be king of carthage. at a hunting juno will send a storm and the lovers will shelter in a cave, and there plight their vows ( - ). the plot is consummated. dido yields ( - ). description of rumour, who bruits abroad the story and rouses the jealous iarbas to conjure his father, jupiter, to interpose ( - ). jupiter sends mercury to remind aeneas of his mission ( - ). aeneas, terrified by the message, prepares for instant flight, to the delight of his followers and the despair of dido ( - ), who entreats him to stay, and rehearses the dangers to which he is leaving her ( - ). aeneas is obdurate. although he loves dido, he is the slave of a destiny which he must at all costs fulfil ( - ). after calling down a solemn curse upon him dido swoons, but crushing the impulse to comfort her, he hastens his preparations for departure ( - ). dido sends anna with a last appeal to aeneas, who nevertheless, in spite of struggles, obeys the gods ( - ). in utter misery dido, on pretext of burning all aeneas' love-gifts, prepares a pyre and summons a sorceress. her preparations complete, she utters her last lament ( - ). mercury repeats his warning to aeneas, who sails forthwith ( - ). daybreak reveals his flight, and dido--cursing her betrayer--falls by her own hand, to the despair of her sister and the consternation of her subjects ( - ). i. long since a prey to passion's torturing pains, the queen was wasting with the secret flame, the cruel wound was feeding on her veins. back to the fancy of the lovelorn dame came the chief's valour and his country's fame. his looks, his words still lingered in her breast, deep-fixt. and now the dewy dawn upcame, and chased the shadows, when her love's unrest thus to her sister's soul responsive she confessed: ii. "what dreams, dear anna, fill me with alarms; what stranger guest is this? like whom in face? how proud in portance, how expert in arms! in sooth i deem him of celestial race; fear argues souls degenerate and base; but he--how oft by danger sore bestead, what warlike exploits did his lips retrace. were not my purpose steadfast, ne'er to wed, since love first played me false, and mocked me with the dead, iii. "were i not sick of bridal torch and bower, this once, perchance, i had been frail again. anna--for i will own it--since the hour when, poor sychaeus miserably slain, a brother's murder rent a home in twain, he, he alone my stubborn will could tame, and stir the balance of my soul. too plain i know the traces of the long-quenched flame; the sparks of love revive, rekindled, but the same. iv. "but o! gape earth, or may the sire of might hurl me with lightning to the shades amain, pale shades of erebus and abysmal night, ere, wifely modesty, thy name i stain, or dare thy sacred precepts to profane. nay, he whose love first linked us long ago, took all my love, and he shall still retain and guard it with him in the grave below." she spake, and o'er her lap the gushing tears outflow. v. then anna: "sister, dearer than the day, why thus in loneliness and endless woe wilt thou for ever wear thy youth away? nor care sweet sons, fair venus' gifts to know? think'st thou such grief concerns the shades below? what though no husband, libyan or of tyre, could bend a heart made desolate; what though in vain iarbas did thy love desire, and africa's proud chiefs, why quench a pleasing fire? vi. "think too, whose lands surround thee: on this side, gaetulian cities, an unconquered race, numidians, reinless as the steeds they ride, and cheerless syrtis hold thee in embrace; there fierce barcaeans and a sandy space wasted by drought. why tell of wars from tyre, a brother's threats? well know i juno's grace and heaven's propitious auspices conspire to find for trojans here the home of their desire. vii. "sister, how glorious even now these towers, what realm shall rise, with such a wondrous pair when teucrian arms join fellowship with ours, what glory shall the punic state upbear! pray thou to heaven and, having gained thy prayer, indulge thy welcome, and thy guest entreat to tarry. bid him winter's storms beware; point to orion's watery star, the fleet still shattered, and the skies for mariners unmeet." viii. so fanned, her passion kindled into flame: hope scattered scruples, and her doubts gave way, and loosed were all the lingering ties of shame. first to the fane the sisters haste away, and there for peace at every shrine they pray, and chosen ewes, as ancient rites ordain, to sire lyaeus, to the god of day, and ceres, giver of the law, are slain, and most to juno's power, who guards the nuptial chain. ix. herself, the lovely dido, bowl in hand, o'er a white heifer's forehead pours the wine, or by the gods' rich altars takes her stand, and piles the gifts, and o'er the slaughtered kine pores, from the quivering heartstrings to divine the doom of fate. blind seers, alas! what art to calm her frenzy, now hath vow or shrine? deep in her marrow feeds the tender smart, unseen, the silent wound is festering in her heart. x. poor dido burns, and roams from street to street, wild as a doe, whom heedless, far away, some swain hath pierced amid the woods of crete, and left, unware, the flying steel to stay, while through the forests and the lawns his prey roams, with the death-bolt clinging to her side. now to aeneas doth the queen display her walls and wealth, the dowry of his bride; oft she essays to speak, so oft the utterance died. xi. again, when evening steals upon the light, she seeks the feast, again would fain give ear to troy's sad tale and, ravished with delight, hangs on his lips; and when the hall is clear, and the moon sinks, and drowsy stars appear, alone she mourns, clings to the couch he pressed, him absent sees, his absent voice doth hear, now, fain to cheat her utter love's unrest, clasps for his sire's sweet sake ascanius to her breast. xii. no longer rise the growing towers, nor care the youths in martial exercise to vie, nor ports nor bulwarks for defence prepare. the frowning battlements neglected lie, and lofty scaffolding that threats the sky. her, when saturnian juno saw possessed with love so tameless, as would dare defy the shame that whispers in a woman's breast, forthwith the queen of jove fair venus thus addressed: xiii. "fine spoils, forsooth, proud triumph ye have won, thou and thy boy,--vast worship and renown! two gods by fraud one woman have undone. but well i know ye fear the rising town, the homes of carthage offered for your own. when shall this end? or why a feud so dire? let lasting peace and plighted wedlock crown the compact. see, thou hast thy heart's desire, poor dido burns with love, her blood is turned to fire. xiv. "come then and rule we, each with equal power, these folks as one. let tyrian dido bear a phrygian's yoke, and tyrians be her dower." then venus, for she marked the libyan snare to snatch italia's lordship, "who would care to spurn such offer, or with thee contend, should fortune follow on a scheme so fair? 'tis fate, i doubt, if jupiter intend the sons of tyre and troy in common league to blend. xv. "thou art his consort; 'tis thy right to learn by prayer the counsels of his breast. lead thou, i follow." quickly juno made return: "be mine that task. now briefly will i show what means our purpose shall achieve, and how. soon as to-morrow's rising sun is seen, and titan's rays unveil the world below, forth ride aeneas and the love-sick queen, with followers to the chase, to scour the woodland green. xvi. "while busy beaters round the lawns prepare their feathered nets, thick sleet-storms will i shower and rend all heaven with thunder. here and there the rest shall fly, and in the darkness cower. one cave shall screen both lovers in that hour. there will i be, if thou approve, meanwhile and make her his in wedlock. hymen's power shall seal the rite."--not adverse, with a smile sweet venus nods assent, and gladdens at the guile. xvii. meanwhile aurora o'er the deep appears. at daybreak, issuing from the gates is seen a chosen train, with nets and steel-tipt spears and wide-meshed toils; and sleuth-hounds, staunch and keen, mixed with massylian riders, scour the green. each on his charger, by the doorway sit the princes, waiting for the lingering queen. her steed, with gold and purple housings fit, impatient paws the ground, and champs the foaming bit. xviii. now forth at length, with numbers in her train, she comes in state, majestic to behold, wrapped in a purpled scarf of tyrian grain. all golden is her quiver; knots of gold confine her hair; a golden clasp doth hold her purple cloak. behind her throng amain the trojans, with iulus, blithe and bold, and good aeneas, with the rest, as fain, joins in, and steps along, the comeliest of the train. xix. as when from wintry lycia and the shore of xanthus, to his mother's delian seat apollo comes, the dances to restore. around his shrines dryopians, sons of crete, and tattooed agathyrsians shouting meet. he, on high cynthus moving, binds around his flowing locks the foliage soft and sweet, and braids with gold: his arms behind him sound, so firm aeneas strode, such grace his features crowned. xx. the hill-tops and the pathless lairs they gain. lo! from the rocks dislodged, the goats in fear bound o'er the crags. in dust-clouds o'er the plain down from the mountains rush the frightened deer. on mettled steed the boy, in wild career, outrides them, glorying in the chase. no more he heeds such timid prey, but longs to hear the tawny lion, issuing with a roar forth from the lofty hills, and front the foaming boar. xxi. meanwhile deep mutterings vex the louring sky, and, mixt with hail, in torrents comes the rain. scar'd, o'er the fields to diverse shelter fly troy's sons, ascanius, and the tyrian train. down from the hills the deluge pours amain. one cave protects the pair. earth gives the sign, with juno, mistress of the nuptial chain. and heaven bears witness, and the lightnings shine, and from the crags above shriek out the nymphs divine. xxii. dark day of fate, and dismal hour of sin! then first disaster did the gods ordain, and death and woe were destined to begin. nor shame nor scandal now the queen restrain, no more she meditates to hide the stain, no longer chooses to conceal her flame. marriage she calls it, but the fraud is plain, and pretexts weaves, and with a specious name attempts to veil her guilt, and sanctify her shame. xxiii. fame with the news through libya's cities hies, fame, far the swiftest of all mischiefs bred; speed gives her force; she strengthens as she flies. small first through fear, she lifts a loftier head, her forehead in the clouds, on earth her tread. last sister of enceladus, whom earth brought forth, in anger with the gods, 'tis said, swift-winged, swift-footed, of enormous girth, huge, horrible, deformed, a giantess from birth. xxiv. as many feathers as her form surround, strange sight! peep forth so many watchful eyes, so many mouths and tattling tongues resound, so many ears among the plumes uprise. by night with shrieks 'twixt heaven and earth she flies, nor suffers sleep her eyelids to subdue; by day, the terror of great towns, she spies from towers and housetops, perched aloft in view, fond of the false and foul, yet herald of the true. xxv. so now, exulting, with a mingled hum of truth and falsehood, through the crowd she sped; how one aeneas hath from ilion come, a dardan guest, whom dido deigns to wed. now, lapt in dalliance and with ease o'erfed, all winter long they revel in their shame, lost to their kingdoms. such the tale she spread; and straight the demon to iarbas came, and wrath on wrath upheaped, and fanned his soul to flame. xxvi. born of a nymph, by ammon's forced embrace, a hundred temples and in each a shrine he built to jove, the father of his race, and lit the sacred fires, that sleepless shine, the gods' eternal watches. slaughtered kine smoke on the teeming pavement, garlands fair of various hues the stately porch entwine. stung by the bitter tidings, in despair before the gods he kneels, and pours a suppliant's prayer. xxvii. "great jove, to whom our moorish tribes, reclined on broidered couch, the votive wine-cup drain, see'st thou or, father, are thy bolts but blind, mere noise thy thunder, and thy lightnings vain? this woman here, who, wandering on the main, bought leave to build and govern as her own her puny town, and till the sandy plain, our proffered love hath ventured to disown, and takes a trojan lord, aeneas, to her throne. xxviii. "and now that paris, tricked in lydian guise, with perfumed locks and bonnet, and his crew of men half-women, gloats upon the prize, while vainly at thy so-called shrines we sue, and nurse a faith as empty as untrue." he prayed and clasped the altar. his request jove heard, and to the city bent his view, and saw the guilty lovers, lapt in rest and lost to shame, and thus cyllenius he addressed: xxix. "go, son, the zephyrs call, and wing thy flight to carthage. call the dardan chief away, who, deaf to fate, his destined walls doth slight. this mandate through the wafting air convey, not such fair venus did her son pourtray, nor twice for _this_ from grecian swords reclaim one born to rule italia, big with sway and fierce for war, and spread the teucrian name through teucer's sons, and laws to conquered earth proclaim. xxx. "if glory cannot tempt him, nor inflame his soul to win such greatness, if indeed he takes no trouble for his own fair fame, shall he, a father, envy to his seed the towers of rome, by destiny decreed? what schemes he now? what hope the chief constrains to linger 'mid a hostile race, nor heed ausonia's sons and the lavinian plains? go, bid him sail; enough; that word the sum contains." xxxi. jove spake. cyllenius to his feet binds fast his golden sandals, that aloft in flight o'er sea and shore upbear him with the blast, then takes his rod--the rod of mystic might, that calls from hell or plunges into night the pallid ghosts, gives sleep or bids it fly, and lifts the dead man's eyelids to the light. armed with that rod, he rules the clouds on high, and drives the scattered gales, and sails the stormy sky. xxxii. now, borne along, beneath him he espies the sides precipitous and towering peak of rugged atlas, who upholds the skies. round his pine-covered forehead, wild and bleak, the dark clouds settle and the storm-winds shriek. his shoulders glisten with the mantling snow, dark roll the torrents down his aged cheek, seamed with the wintry ravage, and below, stiff with the gathered ice his hoary beard doth show. xxxiii. poised on his wings, here first cyllenius stood, then downward shot, and in the salt sea spray dipped like a sea-gull, who, in quest of food, searches the teeming shore-cliffs for his prey, and scours the rocks and skims along the bay. so swiftly now, between the earth and skies, leaving his mother's sire, his airy way cyllene's god on cleaving pinions plies, as o'er the libyan sands along the wind he flies. xxxiv. scarce now at carthage had he stayed his feet, among the huts aeneas he espied, planning new towers and many a stately street. a sword-hilt, starred with jasper, graced his side, a scarf, gold-broidered by the queen, and dyed with tyrian hues, was o'er his shoulders thrown. "what, thou--wilt thou build carthage?" hermes cried, "and stay to beautify thy lady's town, and dote on tyrian realms, and disregard thine own? xxxv. "himself, the sire, who rules the earth and skies, sends me from heaven his mandate to proclaim. what scheme is thine? what hope allures thine eyes, to loiter thus in libya? if such fame nowise can move thee, nor thy soul inflame, if loth to labour for thine own renown, think of thy young ascanius; see with shame his rising promise, scarce to manhood grown, hope of the roman race, and heir of latium's throne." xxxvi. he spake and, speaking, vanished into air. dumb stood aeneas, by the sight unmann'd: fear stifled speech and stiffened all his hair. fain would he fly, and quit the tempting land, surprised and startled by the god's command. ah! what to do? what opening can he find to break the news, the infuriate queen withstand? this way and that dividing his swift mind, all means in turns he tries, and wavers like the wind. xxxvii. this plan prevails; he bids a chosen few collect the crews in silence, arm the fleet and hide the purport of these counsels new, himself, since dido dreams not of deceit, nor thinks such passion can be frail or fleet, some avenue of access will essay, some tender moment for soft speeches meet, and wit shall find, and cunning smooth the way. with joy the captains hear, and hasten to obey. xxxviii. but dido--who can cheat a lover's care? could guess the fraud, the coming change descry, and in the midst of safety feared a snare. now wicked fame hath bid the rumour fly of mustering crews. poor dido, crazed thereby, raves like a thyiad, when the frenzied rout with orgies hurry to cithaeron high, and "bacchus! bacchus" through the night they shout. at length the chief she finds, and thus her wrath breaks out: xxxix. "thought'st thou to steal in silence from the land, false wretch! and cloak such treason with a lie? can neither love, nor this my plighted hand, nor dying dido keep thee? must thou fly, when north-winds howl, and wintry waves are high? o cruel! what if home before thee lay, not lands unknown, beneath an alien sky, if troy were standing, as in ancient day, would'st thou for troy's own sake this angry deep essay? xl. "_me_ dost thou fly? o, by these tears, thy hand late pledged, since madness leaves me naught beside, but lovers' vows and wedlock's sacred band, scarce knit and now too soon to be untied; if aught were pleasing in a new-won bride, if sweet the memory of our marriage day, o by these prayers--if place for prayer abide-- in mercy put that cruel mind away. pity a falling house, now hastening to decay. xli. "for thee the libyans and each nomad lord hate me, and tyrians would their queen disown. my wifely honour is a name abhorred, and that chaste fame has perished, which alone perchance had raised me to a starry throne. o think with whom thou leav'st me to thy fate, dear guest, no longer as a husband known. why stay i? till pygmalion waste my state, or on iarbas' wheels, a captive queen, to wait? xlii. "ah! if at least, ere thou had'st sailed away, some babe, the token of thy love, were born, some child aeneas, in my halls to play, like thee at least in look, i should not mourn as altogether captive and forlorn." she paused, but he, at jove's command, his eyes keeps still unmoved, and, though with anguish torn, strives with his love, nor suffers it to rise, but checks his heaving heart, and thus at length replies: xliii. "never, dear queen, will i disown the debt, thy love's deserts, too countless to repeat, nor ever fair elissa's name forget, while memory shall last, or pulses beat. few words are mine, for fewest words are meet. think not i meant--the very thought were shame-- thief-like to veil my going with deceit. i gave no promise of a husband's name, nor talked of ties like that, or wedlock's sacred flame. xliv. "did fate but let me shape my life at will, and rest at pleasure, ilion, first of all, and troy's sweet relics would i cling to still, and pergama and priam's stately hall once more should cheer the vanquished for their fall. but now grynoean phoebus bids me fare to great italia; to italia call the lycian lots, and so the fates declare. there lies the land i love, my destined home is there. xlv. "if thee, tyre-born, a libyan town detain, what grudge to troy ausonia's land denies? we too may seek a foreign realm to gain. me, oft as night's damp shadows from the skies have shrouded earth, and fiery stars arise, my sire anchises' troubled ghost in sleep upbraids and scares, and ever louder cries the wrong, that on ascanius' head i heap, whom from hesperia's plains, his destined realms, i keep. xlvi. "now, too, jove's messenger himself comes down-- bear witness both--i heard the voice divine, i saw the god just entering the town. cease then to vex me, nor thyself repine. heaven's will to latium summons me, not mine." him, speaking thus and pleading but in vain, she viewed askance, rolling her restless eyne, then scanned him o'er, long silent, in disdain, and thus at length broke out, and gave her wrath the rein. xlvii. "false traitor! goddess never gave thee birth, nor of thy race was dardanus the first. thy limbs were fashioned in the womb of earth, the rugged rocks of caucasus accurst. hyrcanian tigresses thy childhood nursed. why fawn and feign? what more have i to fear, what more to wait for, having known the worst? moved he those eyes? dropped he a single tear sighed he with me, or spake a lover's heart to cheer? xlviii. "what first? what last? nor juno, nay, nor jove with equal eyes beholds the wrongs i bear. faithless is earth, and false is heaven above. i took him in, an outcast, and bade spare, his ships and wandering comrades, let him share my home, and made him partner of my reign. ah me! the furies drive me to despair. now phoebus calls him, now the lycian fane, now jove's own herald brings the dreadful news too plain: xlix. "fit task for gods; such cares disturb their ease. i care not to confute thee nor delay. go, seek thy latin lordship o'er the seas. may heaven--if heaven be righteous--make thee pay thy forfeit, left on ocean's rocks to pray for help to dido. there shall dido go with sulphurous flames, and vex thee far away. my ghost in death shall haunt thee. i shall know thy punishment, false wretch, and hail the news below." l. abrupt she ceased and, sickening with despair, turns from his gaze, and shuns the light of day, and leaves the dardan, faltering in his fear, and thinking of a thousand things to say. back to her marble couch the maids convey the fainting queen. the pious prince, though fain with gentle words her anguish to ally, sighing full sore, and racked with inward pain, bows to the god's behest, and hastens to the main. li. stirred by his presence, at their chief's command, the trojan mariners, with might and main, bend to the work. along the shelving strand they launch tall ships that long had idle lain. the tarred keel joys the waters to regain. timbers unshaped and many a green-leaved oar they fetch from out the forest, glad and fain to speed their flight, and hurrying to the shore forth from the town-gates fast the mustering trojans pour. lii. as ants that, mindful of the cold to come, lay waste a mighty heap of garnered grain, and store the golden treasure in their home: back through the grass, with plunder, o'er the plain in narrow column troops the sable train: their tiny shoulders heave, with restless moil, the cumbrous atomies; these scourge amain the loiterers in the rear, and guard the spoil. hot fares the busy work; the pathway glows with toil. liii. what, hapless dido, were thy feelings then? what groans were thine, from out thy tower to view the ships prepared, the shores astir with men, the turmoil'd deep, the shouting of each crew! o tyrant love, so potent to subdue! again, perforce, she weeps for him; again she stoops to try persuasion, and to sue, and yields, a suppliant, to her love's sweet pain, lest aught remain untried, and dido die in vain. liv. "look yonder, look, dear anna! all around they crowd the shore their canvas wooes the wind! behold the poops with festal garlands crown'd. if i could bear this prospect, i shall find strength still to suffer, and a soul resign'd. one boon i ask--o pity my distress-- for thee alone he tells his inmost mind, to thee alone unperjur'd; thou can'st guess the means of soft approach, the seasons of address; lv. "go, sister, meekly tell the haughty foe, not i at aulis with the greeks did swear to smite the trojans and their towers o'erthrow, nor sought his father's ashes to uptear. whom shuns he? wherefore would he spurn my prayer? beg him, in pity of poor love, to stay till flight is easy, and the winds breathe fair. not now for wedlock's broken vows i pray, nor bid him lose for me fair latium and his sway. lvi. "i ask but time--a respite and reprieve-- a little truce, my passion to allay, till fortune teach my baffled love to grieve. grant, sister, this, the latest grace i pray, and death with interest shall the debt repay." she spake; sad anna to the dardan bears her piteous plea. but fate hath barred the way: deaf stands aeneas to her prayers and tears: jove, unrelenting jove, hath stopped his gentle ears. lvii. e'en as when northern alpine blasts contend this side and that to lay an oak-tree low, aged but strong: the branches creak and bend, and leaves thick-falling all the ground bestrow: the trunk clings firmly to the rock below: high as it rears its weather-beaten crest, so dive its roots to tartarus. even so beset with prayers, the hero stands distrest; so vain are anna's tears, so moveless is his breast. lviii. then--then unhappy dido prays to die, maddened by fate, aweary of the day, aweary of the over-arching sky. and lo! an omen seems to chide delay, and steel her purpose. as, in act to pay her gifts, with incense at the shrine she kneels, black turns the water, horrible to say; to loathsome gore the sacred wine congeals. not e'en to anna's self this vision she reveals. lix. nay more; within the precincts of her house there stood a marble shrine, with garlands bright and snow-white fleeces, sacred to her spouse. hence, oft as darkness shrouds the world from sight, voices she hears, and accents of affright, as though sychaeus told aloud his wrong, hears from the roof-top, through the livelong night, the solitary screech-owl's funeral song, wailing an endless dirge, the dismal notes prolong. lx. dim warnings, given by many an ancient seer, affright her. ever wandering, ever lost, in dreams she sees the fierce aeneas near, and seeks her tyrians on a lonely coast. so raving pentheus sees the furies' host, twin suns and double thebes. so, mad with fate, blood-stained orestes flees his mother's ghost, armed with black snakes and firebrands; at the gate the avenging fiends, close-crouched, the murderer await. lxi. so now, possessed with furies, the poor queen, o'ercome with grief and resolute to die, settles the time and manner. joy serene smiles on her brow, her purpose to belie, and hope dissembled sparkles in her eye. "dear anna," thus she hails with cheerful tone her weeping sister, "put thy sorrow by, and joy with me. indulgent heaven hath shown a way to gain his love, or rid me of my own. lxii. "near ocean's limits and the sunset, lies a far-off land, by aethiopians owned, where mighty atlas turns the spangled skies. there a massylian priestess i have found, the warder of the hesperian fane renowned. 'twas hers to feed the dragon, hers to keep the golden fruit, and guard the sacred ground, the dragon's food in honied drugs to steep, and mix the poppy drowse, that soothes the soul to sleep. lxiii. "what souls she listeth, with her charms she claims to free from passion, or with pains to smite the love-sick heart; the planets all she tames, and stays the rivers; and her voice of might calls forth the spirits from the realms of night. thyself the rumbling of the ground shalt hear, and see the tall ash tumble from the height. o, by the gods, by thy sweet self i swear, loth am i, sister dear, these magic arms to wear. lxiv. "thou privily within the courtyard frame a lofty pyre; his armour and attire heap on it, and the fatal couch of shame. all relics of the wretch are doomed to fire; so bids the priestess, and her charms require." she ended, pale as death, and anna plied her task, not dreaming of a rage so dire. nought worse she fears than when sychaeus died, nor recks that these strange rites her purposed death could hide. lxv. now rose the pile within the courtyard's space, of oak and pine-wood, open to the wind. herself the queen with garlands decked the place, and funeral chaplets in the sides entwined. above, his robes, the sword he left behind, and, last, his image on the couch she laid, foreknowing all, and while the altars shined with blazing offerings, the enchantress-maid, frenzied, with thundering voice and tresses disarrayed, lxvi. summons her gods--three hundred powers divine, chaos and erebus, in hell supreme, and dian-hecate, the maiden trine; then water, feigned of dark avernus' stream, she sprinkles round. rank herbs are sought, that teem with poisonous juice, and plants at midnight shorn with brazen sickles by the moon's pale beam, and from the forehead of a foal new-born, ere by the dam devoured, love's talisman is torn. lxvii. herself, the queen, before the altar stands, one foot unsandalled, and her flowing vest loosed from its cincture. in her stainless hands the sacrificial cake she holds; her breast heaves, with approaching agony oppressed. she calls the conscious planets as they move, she calls the stars, her purpose to attest, and all the gods, if any rules above, mindful of lovers' wrongs, and just to injured love. lxviii. 'twas night; on earth all creatures were asleep: midway the stars moved silent through the sphere; hushed were the forest and the angry deep, and hushed was every field, and far and near reigned stillness, and the night spread calm and clear. the flocks, the birds, with painted plumage gay, that haunt the copse, or dwell in brake and brere, or skim the liquid lakes--all silent lay, lapt in oblivion sweet, forgetful of the day. lxix. not so unhappy dido; no sweet peace dissolves her cares; her wakeful eyes and breast drink not the dewy night; her pains increase, and love, with warring passions unsuppressed, swells up, and stirs the tumult of unrest. "what, then," she sadly ponders, "shall i do? ah, woe is me! shall dido, made a jest to former lovers, stoop herself to sue, and beg the nomad lords their oft-scorned vows renew? lxx. "or with the fleet of ilion shall i sail, the slave and menial of a trojan crew, as though they count past kindness of avail, or dream that aught of gratitude be due? grant that i wished it, of these lordings who would take me, humbled and a thing of scorn? is dido blind, if trojans are untrue? know'st thou not yet, o lost one and forlorn, troy's perjured race still shows laomedon forsworn? lxxi. "what, fly alone, and join their shouting crew? or launch, and chase them with my tyrian train scarce torn from tyre? nay--die and take thy due; the sword alone can ease thee of thy pain. sister, 'twas thy weak pity wrought this bane, swayed by my tears, and gave me to the foe. ah! had i lived unloving, void of stain, free as the beasts, nor meddled with this woe, nor wronged with broken vows sychaeus' shade below!" lxxii. so wailed the queen. aeneas, fixt in mind, all things prepared, his voyage to pursue, snatched a brief slumber, on the deck reclined, lo, in a dream, returning near him drew the god, and seemed his warning to renew. like mercury, the very god behold! so sweet his voice, so radiant was his hue, such loveliness of limb and youthful mould, such cheeks of ruddiest bloom, and locks of burnished gold. lxxiii. "o goddess-born aeneas, can'st thou sleep, nor see the dangers that around thee lie, nor hear the zephyrs whispering to the deep. dark crimes the queen is plotting, bent to die and tost with varying passions. haste thee--fly, while flight is open. morn shall see the bay swarm with their ships, and all the shore and sky red with fierce firebrands and the flames. away! changeful is woman's mood, and varying with the day." lxxiv. he spake and, mixing with the night, withdrew. up starts aeneas from his sleep, so sore the vision scared him, and awakes his crew. "quick, comrades, man the benches! ply the oar! unfurl the canvas! lo, a god once more comes down to urge us, chiding our delay, and bids us cut our cables from the shore. dread power divine, we follow on thy way, gladly, whoe'er thou art, thy summons we obey. lxxv. "be near us now, and o, vouchsafe thine aid, and bid fair stars their kindly beams afford to light our pathway through the deep." he prayed, and from the scabbard snatched his flaming sword, and, swift as lightning, cleft the twisted cord. fired by their chief, like ardour fills the crew, they scour, they scud and, hurrying, crowd on board. bare lies the beach; ships hide the sea from view, and strong arms lash the foam and sweep the sparkling blue. lxxvi. now rose aurora from the saffron bed of old tithonus, and with orient ray sprinkled the earth. forth looks the queen in dread, and from her watch-tower marks the twilight grey glow with the shimmering whiteness of the day, the harbour shipless and the shore all bare, the fleet with full-squared canvas under weigh. then thrice and four times, frantic with despair, she beats her beauteous breast, and rends her golden hair. lxxvii. "ah! jove, shall he escape me? shall he mock my queenship? he, an alien, flout my sway? will no one arm and chase them, or undock the ships? bring fire; get weapons, quick! away! swing out the oars! ah me! what do i say? where am i? o, what madness turns my brain? poor dido, hath thy folly found its prey? thy sins, alas! they sting thee, but in vain. they should have done so then, when yielding him thy reign. lxxviii. "lo, there his honour and the faith he swore, who takes troy's gods the partners of his flight, and erst from troy his aged parent bore. o, had i torn him piecemeal, as i might, and strewn him on the waves, and slain outright his friends, and for the father's banquet spread the murdered boy! but doubtful were the fight. grant that it had been, whom should dido dread, what fear had death for me, self-destined to be dead? lxxix. "these hands the firebrands at his feet had cast, and filled with flames his hatches. sire and son and all their race had perished with the past, and i, too, perished with them. o great sun, whose torch reveals whate'er on earth is done, juno, who know'st the passion that devours poor dido; hecate, where crossways run night-howled in cities; ye avenging powers, friends, furies, gods that guard elissa's dying hours! lxxx. "mark this, compassionate these woes, and bow to supplication. if the fates demand-- curst be his head!--that he escape me now, and touch his haven, and float up to land. if so jove wills, and fixt his edicts stand, then, scourged with warfare by a daring race, in vain for succour let him stretch his hand, and see his people perish with disgrace, an exile, torn from home and from his son's embrace. lxxxi. "and when hard peace the traitor stoops to buy, no realm be his, nor happy days in store. cut off in prime of manhood let him die, and rot unburied on the sandy shore. this dying curse, this utterance i pour, the latest, with my life-blood,--this my prayer. them and their children's children evermore ye tyrians, with immortal hate outwear. this gift--'twill please me best--for dido's shade prepare. lxxxii. "this heritage be yours; no truce nor trust 'twixt theirs and ours, no union or accord arise, unknown avenger from our dust; with fire and steel upon the dardan horde mete out the measure of their crimes' reward. to-day, to-morrow, for eternity fight, oft as ye are able--sword with sword, shore with opposing shore, and sea with sea; fight, tyrians, all that are, and all that e'er shall be." lxxxiii. so spake the queen, and pondered in her breast how of her loathed life to clip the thread, then briefly thus sychaeus' nurse addressed (her own at tyre lay buried)--"haste," she said, "dear barce; call my sister; let her head with living water from the lustral bough be sprinkled. hither be the victims led, and due atoning offerings, and thou bring forth the sacred wreath, and bind it on thy brow. lxxxiv. "the sacrifice, prepared for stygian jove, i purpose now to consummate, and pay the last sad rites, and ease me of my love, and burn the couch whereon the dardan lay." she spake; the old dame tottering hastes away. maddening stood dido at the doom so dread, with bloodshot eyes and trembling with dismay, her quivering cheeks flecked with the burning red, pale with approaching death, but yearning to be dead. lxxxv. so bursting through the inner doors she flew and, with wild frenzy, climbed the lofty pyre, then seized the scabbard he had left, and drew the sword, ne'er given for an end so dire. but when, with eyes still wistful with desire, she viewed the bed that she had known too well, the ilian raiment and the chief's attire, she paused, then musing, while the teardrops fell, sank on the fatal couch, and cried a last farewell: lxxxvi. "dear relics! loved while fate and jove were kind, receive this soul, and free me from my woe. my life is lived; behold, the course assigned by fortune now is finished, and i go, a shade majestic, to the world below, a glorious city i have built, have seen my walls, avenged my husband of his foe. thrice happy, ah! too happy had i been had dardan ships, alas! not come to bring me teen!" lxxxvii. she paused, and pressed her lips upon the bed. "to die--and unavenged? yea, let me die! thus--thus it joys to journey to the dead. let yon false dardan with remorseful eye drink in this bale-fire from the deep, and sigh to bear the omens of my death."--no more she said, but swooned. the servants see her lie, sunk on the sword; they see the life-blood pour, reddening her tender hands, the weapon drenched with gore. lxxxviii. then through the lofty palace rose a scream, and madly rumour riots, as she flies through the shocked town. the very houses seem to groan, and shrieks, and sobbing and the cries of wailing women pierce the vaulted skies. 'twas e'en as though all carthage or old tyre were falling, stormed by ruthless enemies, while over roof and battlement and spire and temples of the gods rolled on the infuriate fire. lxxxix. her sister heard, and through the concourse came, and tore her cheeks and beat her bosom fair, and called upon the dying queen by name. "sister! was this thy secret? thine this snare? for me this fraud? for this did i prepare that pyre, those flames and altars? this the end? ah me, forlorn! what worse remains to bear? would'st thou in death desert me, and pretend to scorn a sister's care, and shun me as a friend? xc. "thou should'st have called me to thy doom! one stroke, a moment's pang, and we had ceased to sigh. reared i this pyre, did i the gods invoke to leave thee thus companionless, to die? lo, all are dead together, thou and i, town, princes, people, perished in a day. bring water; let me close the lightless eye, and bathe those wounds, and kiss those lips of clay, and catch one fluttering breath, if yet, perchance, i may!" xci. so saying, she climbs the steps, and, groaning sore, clasps to her breast her sister ere she dies, and stanches with her robe the streaming gore. in vain poor dido lifts her wearied eyes, the closing eyelids sicken at the skies. deep gurgles in her breast the deadly wound; thrice on her elbow she essays to rise, thrice back she sinks. with wandering eyes all round she seeks the light of heaven, and moans when it is found. xcii. then juno, pitying her agony of lingering death, sent iris down with speed. her struggling soul from clinging limbs to free. for since by fate, or for her own misdeed she perished not, but, ere the day decreed, fell in the frenzy of her love's despair, not yet proserpina had claimed her meed, and shorn the ringlet of her golden hair, and bade the sacred shade to stygian realms repair. xciii. so down to earth came iris from on high on saffron wings all glittering with the dew. a thousand tints against the sunlit sky she flashed from out her rainbow as she flew, then, hovering overhead, these words outthrew, "behold, to dis this offering i bear, and loose thee from thy body."--forth she drew the fatal shears, and clipped the golden hair; the vital heats disperse, and life dissolves in air. book five argument aeneas, unaware of dido's fate, sails away to acestes in sicily, and prepares funeral games against the anniversary of anchises' death ( - ). offerings are paid to the spirit of anchises. sicilians and trojans assemble for the first contest, a boat race ( - ), which is described at length. cloanthus, ancestor of the cluentii, wins with the "scylla" ( - ). the foot-race is next narrated. euryalus, by his friend's cunning, gains the first prize, and the scene shifts ( - ) to the ring, in which dares is defeated by the veteran entellus, who fells the ox, his prize, as an offering to his master eryx ( - ). after some wonderful shooting in the archery which follows, aeneas awards the first prize to acestes, as the favourite of the gods ( - ). before this contest is over aeneas summons ascanius and his boy-companions to perform the elaborate manoeuvres afterwards celebrated in rome as the "trojan ride" ( - ). juno schemes to destroy the trojan fleet, while the games are being held. she inspires with discontent the trojan matrons, who are not present at the festival. they set fire to the ships ( - ). ascanius hurries to the scene. jupiter sends rain and saves all the ships but four ( - ). nautes advises aeneas to leave behind the weak and aged with acestes. the wraith of anchises enforces the advice, and bids aeneas visit him in the nether-world ( - ). preparations for departure. acestes accepts his new subjects, and the trojans depart. venus prevails on neptune to grant them safe convoy in return for the life of the helmsman palinurus, who is drowned ( - ). i. now well at sea, aeneas, fixt in mind, held on his course, and cleft the watery ways through billows blackened by the northern wind, and backward on the city bent his gaze, bright with the flames of dido. whence the blaze arose, they knew not; but the pangs they knew when love is passionate, and man betrays, and what a frantic woman scorned can do, and many a sad surmise their boding thoughts pursue. ii. the fleet was on mid-ocean; land no more was visible, nor aught but sea and sky; when lo! above them a black cloud, that bore tempest and night, frowned iron-dark on high, and the wave, shuddering as the wind swept by, curled and was darkened. from the stern loud cries the pilot palinurus: "whence and why this cloudy rack that gathers o'er the skies? what, father neptune, now, what mischief dost devise?" iii. so having said, he bade the seamen take the tackling in, and ply the lusty oar, then sloped the mainsheet to the wind, and spake: "noble aeneas, e'en if high jove swore to bring us safely to italia's shore, with skies like these, 'twere hopeless. westward loom the dark clouds mustering, and the changed winds roar athwart us, and the air is thick with gloom. vainly we strive to move, and struggle with our doom. iv. "come, then, since fortune hath the mastering hand, yield we and turn. not far, methinks, there lies a friendly shore, thy brother eryx' land, and ports sicanian, if aright these eyes recall my former reading of the skies." then good aeneas: "long ago, 'tis plain, the winds so willed it. i have seen," he cries, "and marked thee toiling in their teeth in vain. shift sail and turn the helm. what sweeter shore to gain, v. "what port more welcome to a wearied fleet and wave-worn mariners, what land more blest than that where still acestes lives, to greet his dardan friends, and in the boon earth's breast my father's bones, anchises', are at rest?" he spake; at once the trojans strive to gain the port. fair breezes, blowing from the west, swell out the sails. they bound along the main, and soon with gladdening hearts the well-known shore attain. vi. far off acestes, wondering, from a height the coming of their friendly ships descries, and hastes to meet them. roughly is he dight in libyan bearskin, as in huntsman's guise; a pointed javelin in each hand he plies. him once a trojan to crimisus bore, the stream-god. mindful of ancestral ties he hails his weary kinsmen, come once more, and dainty fruits sets forth, and cheers them from his store. vii. next dawn had chased the stars, when on the shore aeneas thus the gathered crews addressed: "twelve months have passed, brave dardans, since we bore the bones of great anchises to his rest, and laid his ashes in the ground, and blessed the mourning altars by the rolling sea. and now once more, if rightly i have guessed, the day is come, which heaven hath willed to be sacred for evermore, but ever sad to me. viii. this day, though exiled on gaetulian sands, or caught by tempests on th' aegean brine, or at mycenae in the foemen's hands, with annual honours will i hold divine, and head with fitting offerings the shrine. by chance unsought, now hither are we led, yet not, i ween, without the god's design, where lie the ashes of my father dead, and greet a friendly port, by favouring breezes sped. ix. "come then, with festival his name revere, pray we for winds to waft us, and entreat his shade to take these offerings year by year, when gathered to our new-built troy, we meet in hallowed fanes, his worship to repeat. see, for each ship two head of horned kine acestes sends, his trojan friends to greet bid then the home-gods of the trojan line, with those our host adores, to grace the feast divine. x. "nay, if the ninth fair morning show fine day, and bring the sunshine, be a match decreed for teucrian ships, their swiftness to essay. next, in the footrace whosoe'er hath speed, or, glorying in his manhood, claims the meed with dart, or flying arrow and the bow, or bout with untanned gauntlet, mark and heed, and wait the victor's guerdon. come ye now; hush'd be each idle tongue, and garlanded each brow." xi. he spake, and round his temples binds with joy his mother's myrtle. helymus is crowned, the veteran acestes, and the boy ascanius, and the trojan warriors round. so from the council to the funeral mound he moves, the centre of a circling crowd. two bowls of wine he pours upon the ground, two of warm milk, and two of victim's blood, and, scattering purple flowers, invokes the shade aloud. xii. "hail, holy sire! blest spirit, hail once more, and ashes, vainly rescued! not with thee was i allowed to reach italia's shore, the fields ausonian that the fates decree, and latin tiber--whatsoe'er it be." he ceased, when lo, a monstrous serpent, wound in seven huge coils, seven giant spires, they see glide from the grave, and gently clasp the mound, and 'twixt the altars trail in many a tortuous round. xiii. the back with azure and the scales with gold in streaks and glittering patches were ablaze: so doth the rainbow in the clouds unfold a thousand hues against the sun's bright rays. aeneas stood bewildered with amaze. in lengthened train meanwhile the snake went on, 'twixt cups and bowls weaving its sinuous ways, then sipped the sacred food, and harming none, the tasted altars left and 'neath the tomb was gone. xiv. cheered, to anchises he the rites renewed, in doubt if there some genius of the shrine or menial spirit of his sire he viewed. two sheep, two dark-backed heifers, and two swine he slays, invoking, as he pours the wine, the ghost, released from acheron. glad of soul, each adds his gift. these slay the sacred kine, pile altars, set the cauldrons, heap the coal, and, sitting, hold the spits, and roast the entrails whole. xv. now came the looked-for day. the ninth fair dawn bright phaethon drove up a cloudless sky. rumour and great acestes' name had drawn the neighbouring folk; shoreward in crowds they hie to see the trojans, or the games to try. piled in the lists the presents they behold, green garlands, tripods, robes of purple dye, the conqueror's palm, bright armour for the bold, and many a talent's weight of silver and of gold. xvi. now from a mound the trumpet's notes proclaim the sports begun. four galleys from the fleet, the choicest, manned by mariners of fame, and matched in size and urged with ponderous beat of oar-blades, for the naval contest meet. see, here the shark comes speeding to her place, trained is her crew and eager to compete, brave mnestheus is her captain, born to grace italia's land ere long, and found the memmian race. xvii. here too, the huge chimaera towers along, a floating citadel, with walls of pine, three tale of dardans urge her, stout and strong, their triple tiers in unison combine to drive her, ruled by gyas, through the brine. borne in the monstrous centaur, next doth come sergestus, father of the sergian line. last, in the dark-blue scylla ploughs the foam cloanthus, whence thy house, cluentius of rome. xviii. far seaward stands, afront the foamy shore, a rock, half-hid when wintry waves upleap, and skies are starless, and the north-winds roar, but still and silent, when the calm waves sleep, a level top it lifts above the deep, the seamews' haunt. a bough of ilex here the good aeneas sets upon the steep, green-leaved and tall,--a goal, to seamen clear, to seek and, doubling round, their homeward course to steer. xix. each takes his station. on the sterns behold, ranged in due order as the lots assign, the captains, gay with purple and with gold. the crews their brows with poplar garlands twine, and wet with oil their naked shoulders shine. prone on their oars, and straining from the thwart, with souls astretch, they listen for the sign. fear stirs the pulse and drains the throbbing heart, thrilled with the lust of praise, and panting for the start. xx. loud peals the trumpet. from the port they dash with cheers. the waves hiss, as the strong arms keep in time, drawn up to finish with a flash; and three-toothed prow and oars, with measured sweep, tear up the yawning furrows of the deep, less swiftly, to the chariot yoked atwain, the bounding racers from the base outleap, less keen the driver, as they scour the plain, leans o'er the whistling lash, and slacks the streaming rein. xxi. shouts, cheers and plaudits wake the woods around, their clamours roll along the land-locked shore, and, echoing, from the beaten hills rebound. first gyas comes, amid the rout and roar; cloanthus second,--better with the oar his crew, but heavier is the load of pine. next shark and centaur struggle to the fore, now shark ahead, now centaur, now in line the long keels, urged abreast, together plough the brine. xxii. near lay the rock, the goal was close in sight, when gyas, first o'er half a length of tide shouts to his helmsman: "whither to the right? hug close the cliff, and graze the leftward side. let others hold the deep." in vain he cried. menoetes feared the hidden reefs, and bore to seaward. "whither from thy course so wide? what; swerving still?" the captain shouts once more, "keep to the shore, i say, menoetes, to the shore." xxiii. he turned, when lo! behind him, gaining fast, cloanthus. on the leeward side he stole a narrower compass, grazing as he passed his rival's vessel and the sounding shoal, then gained safe water, as he turned the goal. grief fired young gyas at the sight, and drew tears from his eyes and anger from his soul. careless alike of honour and his crew, down from the lofty stern his timorous guide he threw. xxiv. forthwith he grasps the tiller in his hand, captain and helmsman, and his comrades cheers, and wrests the rudder leftward to the land, slow from the depths menoetes reappears, clogged by his clothes, and cumbered with his years. then, shoreward swimming, climbs with feeble craft the rock, and there sits drying. all with jeers laughed as he fell and floated; loud they laughed as, sputtering, from his throat he spits the briny draught. xxv. joy, mixt with hope, as gyas slacks his pace, fires the two hindmost. now they near the mark; sergestus, leading, takes the inside place. yet not a length divides them, for the shark shoots up halfway and overlaps his bark. mnestheus, amidships pacing, cheers his crew; "now, now lean to, and let each arm be stark; row, mighty hector's followers, whom i drew from troy, in troy's last hour, my comrades tried and true! xxvi. "now for the strength and hardihood that braved gaetulian shoals, and the ionian main, and billows following billows, as they raved against steep malea. not mine to gain the prize: i strive not to be first--'tis vain. sweet were the thought--but neptune rules the race; let them the palm, whom he has willed, retain. but oh, for shame! to take the hindmost place win this--to ward that doom, and ban the dire disgrace." xxvii. straining each nerve, they bend them to the oar. the bronze poop reels, so lustily they row, and from beneath them slips the watery floor. the parched lips quiver, as they pant and blow, sweat pours in rivers from their limbs; when now chance brings the wished-for honour. blindly rash, close to the rocks sergestus drives his prow. too close he steals; on jutting crags they dash; the straining oars snap short, the bows with sudden crash xxviii. stick fast, and hang upon the ledge. up spring with shouts the sailors, clamorous at delay, and snatch the crushed oars from the waves, and bring sharp poles and steel-tipt boathooks, and essay to thrust the forepart from the rocks away. brave mnestheus sees and, glorying in his gain, invokes the winds. with oarsmen in array his swift bark, urged with many a stalwart strain, shoots down the sloping tide, and wins the open main. xxix. like as a pigeon, startled from her rest, swift from the crannies of the rock, where clings her heart's desire, the darlings of her nest, darts forth and, scared with terror, flaps her wings, then, gliding smoothly, in the soft air swings, and skims her liquid passage through the skies on pinions motionless. so mnestheus springs, so springs the shark; her impulse, as she flies, cleaving the homeward seas, the wanting wings supplies. xxx. he leaves sergestus, who implores in vain his aid, still toiling from the rocks to clear and headway with his shattered oars to gain. soon huge chimaera, left with none to steer, drops off astern, and labours in the rear. alone remains cloanthus, but the race well-nigh is ended, and the goal is near; him mnestheus seeks; his crew, with quickened pace and utmost stretch of oars, press forward in the chase. xxxi. now, now the noise redoubles; cheers and cries urge on the follower, and the wild acclaim rolls up, and wakes the echoes of the skies. these scorn to lose their vantage, stung with shame, and life is wagered willingly for fame. success inspires the hindmost; as they dare, they do; the thought of winning wins the game. with equal honours chance had crowned the pair, but thus, with outspread hands, cloanthus breathed a prayer: xxxii. "great gods of ocean! on whose waves i ride, a milk-white bull upon the shore i vow, and with its entrails will i strew the tide, and on your altars make the wine outflow." fair panopea hears him from below, the nereids hear, and old portunus plies his own great hand, to push them as they go. swifter than arrow to the shore she flies, swifter than southern gale, and in the harbour lies. xxxiii. all summoned now, the herald's voice declares cloanthus conqueror, and with verdant bay aeneas crowns him. to each crew he shares three steers and wine, and, to recall the day, a silver talent bids them bear away. choice honours to the captains next are told, a scarf he gives the victor, rich and gay, twice-fringed with purple, glorious to behold, whose melibaean dye meanders round the gold. xxxiv. inwoven there, behold the kingly boy, fair ganymede, pursues the flying deer on ida and the wooded heights of troy, swift-footed, glorying with uplifted spear, so keen the panting of his heart ye hear. down swoops jove's armour-bearer, and on high with taloned claws hath trussed him. vainly here his aged guardians lift their heads and cry; the faithful dogs look up, and fiercely bay the sky. xxxv. a goodly hauberk to the next he gave, with polished rings and triple chain of gold, torn by his own hands from demoleos brave, beneath high troy, where simois swiftly rolled, the warrior's glory and defence, to hold. phegeus and sagaris, with all their might, two stalwart slaves, scarce bore it, fold on fold, that coat of mail, wherein demoleos dight, trod down the ranks of troy, and put his foes to flight. xxxvi. last comes the third: two brazen caldrons fine, two cups of silver doth the prince bestow, rough-chased with imagery of choice design. each had his prize, and glorying forth they go, with purple ribbons on their brows, when lo! scarce torn with effort from the rock's embrace, oarless, and short of oarsmen by a row, home comes sergestus, and in rueful case drives his dishonoured bark, left hindmost in the race. xxxvii. as when an adder, whom athwart the way some wheel hath crushed, or traveller, passing by, maimed with a stone, as unaware he lay, and left sore mangled, on the point to die, in vain his coils would lengthen, fain to fly: one half erect, his burning eyes around he darts, and lifts his hissing throat on high, defiant, half still writhes upon the ground, self-twined in tortuous knots, and crippled by the wound: xxxviii. so slowly rows the centaur, yet anon they set the sails, and loose the spreading sheet, and crowd full canvas; and the port is won. glad is aeneas, and he joys to greet his friends brought safely and his ships complete. so to sergestus, for his portion due, he gives fair pholoe, a slave of crete, twins at her breast, two sons of loveliest hue, and well minerva's works, the weaving art, she knew. xxxix. this contest o'er, the good aeneas sought a grassy plain, with waving forests crowned and sloping hills--fit theatre for sport, where in the middle of the vale was found a circus. hither comes he, ringed around with thousands, here, amidst them, throned on high in rustic state, he seats him on a mound, and all who in the footrace list to vie, with proffered gifts invites, and tempts their souls to try. xl. in crowds the teucrians and sicanians come, first, nisus and euryalus. none so fair as young euryalus, in youthful bloom and beauty; none with nisus could compare in pure affection for a youth so rare. here stood diores, famous for his speed, a prince of priam's lineage; salius there, and patron, this of acarnanian seed, that of arcadian birth and tegeaean breed. xli. came from trinacria two champions bold, young helymus and panopes, well-tried in woodland craft, and followers of old acestes; came full many a youth beside, whose fame shines dimly, or whose name hath died. then cries aeneas 'mid the concourse: "ho! give heed, for surely shall my word abide, blithe be your hearts, for none among you--no, not one of all this crowd--without a gift shall go. xlii. "to each, a common largess, be a pair of gnossian javelins and an axe decreed, with haft of silver chasings. three shall wear crowns of pale olive. for the victor's need, adorned with trappings, stands a noble steed. a quiver, worn by amazon of old, with thracian arrows, for the next in speed, clasped with a gem and belted with bright gold. the third this argive helm, fit recompense, shall hold." xliii. he spake, and at the signal forth they burst together, like a storm-cloud, from the base, with eager eyes set goalward. nisus first darts off, and, bounding with the south-wind's pace, and swift as winged lightning, leads the race. next, but the next with many a length between, comes salius; then, behind him, third in place, euryalus; then helymus is seen; and lo! diores last, comes flying along the green. xliv. heel touching heel, on helymus he hung, shoulder to shoulder. but a rood beside, and, slipping past him, foremost he had sprung, and solved a doubt by winning. side by side, the last lap reached, with many a labouring stride and breathless effort to the post they strain, when lo! chance-tripping where the sward is dyed with slippery blood of oxen newly slain, down luckless nisus slides, and sprawls upon the plain. xlv. stumbling, he felt the tottering knees give way. with shouts of triumph on his lips he falls prone in the gore and in the miry clay. e'en then, his love remembering, he recalls euryalus. across the track he crawls, then, scrambling up from out the quagmire, flies at salius. in the dust proud salius sprawls. forth darts euryalus, 'mid cheers and cries, hailed, through his helping friend, the winner of the prize. xlvi. the second prize to helymus, the third falls thus to brave diores.--now the heat was o'er, when salius with his clamouring stirred troy's seated elders, furious with defeat, and claimed the prize, as wrested by a cheat. tears aid euryalus, and favour pleads his worth, more winsome in a form so sweet, and loudly, too, diores intercedes. lost were his own last prize, if salius' claim succeeds. xlvii. "boys," said the good aeneas, "the award is fixt, and no man shall the palm withhold. yet be it mine to cheer a friend ill-starred." he spake, and salius with a gift consoled, a moorish lion's hide, with claws of gold and shaggy hair. then nisus with a frown: "if gifts so great a vanquished man may hold, if falls win pity, and defeat renown, what prize shall nisus gain, whose merit earned the crown? xlviii. "ay, who had won, had chance not interfered, and baffled me, like salius? look," he said, and pointed to his limbs and forehead, smeared with ordure. smiling, the good sire surveyed his piteous plight and raiment disarrayed; then forth he bade a glittering shield be borne, which didymaon's workmanship had made, from neptune's temple by the danaans torn. this prize he gives the youth, his prowess to adorn. xlix. the race was ended, and the gifts assigned, when thus aeneas, as they thronged about, addressed the crowd: "now, whosoe'er hath mind his nerve to venture, or whose heart is stout, step forth, and don the gauntlets and strike out." he spake, and straightway, while the lists they clear, sets forth the gifts, for him who wins the bout, gilt-horned and garlanded, a comely steer, a sword and glittering helm, the loser's soul to cheer. l. at once, amid loud murmurs, to his feet upsprang great dares, who in olden day alone the haughty paris dared to meet. he, by the tomb where mightiest hector lay, huge butes fought, who, glorying in the bay, and boasting amycus' bebrycian strain, called for his match. but dares heard him, yea, and smote him. headlong on the sandy plain a lifeless corpse he rolled, and all his boasts were vain. li. such dares towers, and strides into the ring, with head erect, and shoulders broad and bare, and right and left his sinewy arms doth swing, and burning for a rival, beats the air. where is his match? not one of all will dare to don the gloves. so, deeming none can stand against him, flushed with triumph, then and there before aeneas, grasping in his hand the heifer's horns, he cries in accents of command: lii. "son of a goddess, if none risks the fray, how long shall dares guerdonless remain? what end of standing? must i wait all day? bring the prize hither." straight the dardan train shout for their champion, and his claim sustain. then to entellus, seated at his side, couched on the green grass, in reproachful strain thus sternly spake acestes, fired with pride, and fain, for manhood sake, his younger friend to chide: liii. "entellus, once our bravest, but in vain, can'st _thou_ sit tamely, with the field unfought, and see this braggart glory in his gain? where is thy god, that eryx? hath he taught thine arm its vaunted cleverness for naught? to us what booteth thy trinacrian name, thy spoil-hung house, thy roof with prizes fraught?" entellus said: "my spirit is the same. fear hath not quenched my fire, nor checked the love of fame. liv. "but numbing age hath made the blood run cold, and turned my strength to dulness and decay. had i the youth that stirred these bones of old, the youth _he_ boasts, no need of guerdon, nay, nor comely steer to tempt me to the fray. glory i care for, not a gift," he cried, and, rising, hurled into the ring midway two ponderous gauntlets, stiff with hardened hide; these eryx wore, these thongs around his wrists he tied. lv. all stood amazed, so huge the weight, so vast, sevenfold with lead and iron overlaid, the bull's tough hide. e'en dares shrank aghast. forth stepped aeneas, and the gauntlets weighed, and to and fro the ponderous folds he swayed. then gruffly spake the veteran once more: "ah! had ye seen great hercules arrayed in arms like these, such gauntlets as he wore, and watched the deadly fight waged here upon the shore! lvi. "these eryx wore, thy brother, when that day he faced alcides in the strife;--see now his blood and brains,--with these i dared the fray when better blood gave vigour, nor the snow of envious eld was sprinkled on my brow. still, if this trojan doth these arms decline, and good aeneas and our host allow, match we the fight. these gauntlets i resign, put fear away, and doff those trojan gloves of thine." lvii. so saying, entellus from his shoulders flung his quilted doublet, and revealed to light the massive joints, the sinews firmly strung, the bones and muscles, and the limbs of might, and, like a giant, stood prepared for fight. two gloves for either champion, matched in weight, aeneas brings, and binds them firm and tight. so, face to face, each eager and elate, like-armed the rivals stand, on tiptoe for debate. lviii. each from the blow the towering head draws back, fearless, with arms uplifted to the skies. spars hand through hand, and tempts to the attack, one, nimbler-footed, on his youth relies; entellus' strength is in his limbs and size. but the knees shake beneath him, and are slow, and age the wanted energy denies. he heaves for breath; thick pantings come and go, and shake the labouring breast, as hailing blow on blow. lix. in vain they strive for mastery. loud sound their hollow sides; the battered chests ring back, as here and there the whistling strokes pelt round their ears and temples, and the jaw-bones crack. firm stands entellus, though his knees are slack; still in the same strained posture, he defies, unmoved, the tempest of his foe's attack. only his body and his watchful eyes slip from the purposed stroke, and shun the wished surprise. lx. as one who strives with battery to o'erthrow a high-walled city, or close siege doth lay against some mountain-stronghold; even so sly dares shifts, an opening to essay, and vainly varies his assault each way. on tiptoe stretched, entellus, pricked with pride, puts forth his right hand, with resistless sway steep from his shoulder. but the foe, quick-ey'd, foresees the coming blow, and lightly leaps aside. lxi. on empty air entellus wastes his strength. down goes the giant, baulked of his design, fallen like a giant, and lies stretched at length. so, torn from earth, on ida's height divine or erymanthus, falls the hollow pine. up spring each rival's countrymen. loud cheers the welkin rend, and, bursting through the line, forth runs acestes, and his friend uprears, pitying his fallen worth and fellowship of years. lxii. fearless, unshaken, with his soul aflame for vengeance, up entellus springs again, and conscious valour and the sense of shame rouse all his strength as, burning with disdain, he drives huge dares headlong o'er the plain, now right, now left, keeps pummelling his foe; no stint, no stay; as rattling hailstones rain on roof-tops, so with many a ceaseless blow each hand in turn he plies, and pounds him to and fro. lxiii. but good aeneas suffered not too far the strife to rage, not let entellus slake his wrath, but rescued dares from the war, sore-spent, and thus in soothing terms bespake, "poor friend! what madness doth thy mind o'ertake? feel'st not that more than mortal is his aid? the gods are with him, and thy cause forsake. yield then to heaven and desist."--he said, and with his voice straightway the deadly strife allayed. lxiv. then, stirred with pity, the dardanian throng their vanquished kinsman from the contest bore. his sick knees wearily he drags along, feeble and helpless, for his wound is sore; and loosened teeth and clots of curdled gore spout forth, as o'er his shoulders nods each way the drooping head. they lead him to the shore, his gifts, the sword and helmet; but the bay and bull entellus takes, the victor of the day. lxv. forth steps the champion, glorying in the prize, pride in his port, defiance on his brow. "see, goddess-born; ye teucrians, mark," he cried, "what strength entellus in his youth could show; how dire a doom ye warded from his foe." he spake and, standing opposite the bull, swung back his arm, and, rising to the blow, betwixt the horns with hardened glove smote full, and back upon the brain drove in the splintered skull. lxvi. down drops the beast, and on the earth lies low, quivering but dead. then o'er him, as he lay, entellus cries "o eryx, hear my vow. this life, for dares, i devote this day, a nobler victim and a worthier prey. accept it thou who taught'st this arm to wield the gloves of death. unvanquished in the fray these withered arms their latest offering yield, these gauntlets i resign, and here renounce the field." lxvii. next cries aeneas to the crowd: "come now, whoso hath mind in archer's feats to vie, step forth, and prove his cunning with the bow": then sets the prizes: on the beach hard by with stalwart arms he rears a mast on high, ta'en from serestus' vessel, and thereto a fluttering pigeon with a string doth tie, mark for their shafts. around the rivals drew, and in a brazen helm the gathered lots they threw. lxiii. out leap the names; cheers hail the first in place, hippocoon, son of hyrtacus renowned; then mnestheus, victor in the naval race, mnestheus, his brows with olive wreath still crowned. third in the casque eurytion's lot is found thy brother, famous pandarus, whose dart, hurled at the danaans, did the truce confound. last comes acestes, for with dauntless heart still in the toils of youth the veteran claims his part. lxix. forth step the marksmen, and with bows well-bent, draw forth their arrows, and their aim prepare. loud twanged the cord, as first hippocoon sent his feathered shaft, that through the flowing air went whistling on, and pierced the mast, and there stuck fast. the stout tree quivered, and the bird flapped with her wings in terror and despair, fluttering for freedom, and around were heard shouts, as admiring joy the clamorous concourse stirred. lxx. next him stood mnestheus, eager for the prize, and straight the bowstring to his breast updrew, aiming aloft. the lightning of his eyes went with the arrow, as he twanged the yew. ah pity! fortune sped the shaft untrue. the bird he missed, but cut the flaxen ties that held the feet, and cleft the knots in two. and forth, exulting, through the windy skies, into the darkening clouds the loosened captive flies. lxxi. then, quick as thought, his arrow on the string, eurytion to his brother breathed a prayer, marking the pigeon, as she clapped her wing beneath a cloud, he pierced her. breathless there she drops; her life is with the stars of air, the bolt is in her breast. acestes now alone remains; no palm is left to bear, yet skyward shoots the veteran, proud to show what skill his hand can boast, the sounding of his bow. lxxii. sudden a portent was revealed; how great an augury, the future brought to light, and frightening seers their omens sang too late. aloft, the arrow kindled in its flight, then marked with shining trail its pathway bright, and, wasting, vanished into viewless air. so stars, unfastened from the vault of night, stream in the firmament with fiery glare, and through the dark fling out a length of glittering hair. lxxiii. awed stand the men of sicily and troy, and pray the gods. aeneas owns the sign, and, heaping gifts, acestes clasps with joy. "take, father, take; jove's auspices divine a special honour for thy meed assign. this bowl, embossed with images of gold, the gift of old anchises, shall be thine, which thracian cisseus to my sire of old gave, as a pledge of love, to have it and to hold." lxxiv. so saying, with a garland of green bay he crowned his temples, and the prize conferred, and named acestes victor of the day. nor good eurytion to the choice demurred, nor grudged to see the veteran's claim preferred, though his the prowess that the rest surpassed, his shaft the one that struck the soaring bird. the second, he who cut the cord, the last, he who with feathered reed transfixed the tapering mast. lxxv. but good aeneas, ere the games are done, the child of epytus, companion dear and trusty guardian of his beardless son, calls to his side, and whispers in his ear: "go bid ascanius, if his troop be here and steeds in readiness, with spear and shield in honour of his grandsire to appear." then, calling to the thronging crowd to yield free space, he clears the course, and open lies the field. lxxvi. forth ride the boys, before their fathers' eyes, reining their steeds. in radiant files they fare, and wondering murmurs from each host arise. all with stript leaves have bound the flowing hair. two cornel javelins, tipt with steel, they bear, some, polished quivers; and a pliant chain of twisted gold around the neck they wear; three companies--three captains scour the plain. twelve youths, behind each chief, compose the glittering train. lxxvii. one shouting troop young priam's lead obeys, thy son, polites, from his grandsire hight, and born erelong italia's fame to raise. a dappled thracian charger bears the knight, his pasterns flecked and forehead starred with white. next atys, whom the atian line reveres, the youthful idol of a youth's delight, so well iulus loved him. last appears iulus, first in grace and comeliest of his peers. lxxviii. his a sidonian charger; dido fair this pledge and token of her love supplied. trinacrian horses his attendants bear, acestes' gift. their bosoms throb with pride, while dardans, cheering, welcome as they ride the sires that have been in the sons that are. so, when before their kinsfolk on each side their ranks had passed, epytides afar cracks the loud whip, and shouts the signal, as for war. lxxix. in equal bands the triple troops divide, then turn, and rallying, with spears bent low, charge at the call. now back again they ride, wheel round, and weave new courses to and fro, in armed similitude of martial show, circling and intercircling. now in flight they bare their backs, now turning, foe to foe, level their lances to the charge, now plight the truce, and side by side in friendly league unite. lxxx. e'en as in crete the labyrinth of old between blind walls its secret hid from view, with wildering ways and many a winding fold, wherein the wanderer, if the tale be true, roamed unreturning, cheated of the clue: such tangles weave the teucrians, as they feign fighting or flying, and the game renew: so dolphins, sporting on the watery plain, cleave the carpathian waves and distant libya's main. lxxxi. these feats ascanius to his people showed, when girdling alba longa; there with joy the ancient latins in the pastime rode, wherein the princely dardan, as a boy, was wont his trojan comrades to employ. to alban children from their sires it came, and mighty rome took up the "game of troy," and called the players "trojans," and the name lives on, as sons renew the hereditary game. lxxxii. thus far to blest anchises they defrayed the funeral rites; when fortune turned unkind, forsook her faith. for while the games were played before the tomb, saturnian juno's mind new schemes, to glut her ancient wrath, designed. iris she calls, and bids the goddess go down to the ilian fleet, and breathes a wind to waft her on. so, borne upon her bow of myriad hues, unseen, the maiden hastes below. lxxxiii. she eyes the concourse, marks the ships unmanned, and sees the empty harbour and the shore. while far off on the solitary strand the trojan dames sat sorrowful, and o'er the deep sea gazed, and, gazing, evermore wept for the sire. "ah, woe! the fields of foam! the waste of waters for the wearied oar! oh! for a city and a certain home; a rest for sea-worn souls, for weary 'tis to roam!" lxxxiv. so, not unversed in mischief, from the skies amidst the gathered matrons down she came, in raiment and in face to mortal eyes no more a goddess, but an aged dame, the wife of doryclus, of tmarian fame. e'en venerable beroe, once blest with rank, and children and a noble name. so changed in semblance, the celestial guest mixed with the dardan dames, and thus the crowd addressed: lxxxv. "oh, born to sorrow! whom th' achaian foe dragged not to death, when ilion was o'erthrown! o hapless race! what still extremer woe doth fortune doom the living to bemoan? since ilion fell, seven summers nigh have flown, and we o'er every ocean, every plain, past cheerless rocks, and under stars unknown, oft and so oft are driven, as in vain italia's shores we grasp, and welter on the main! lxxxvi. "'tis eryx' land, acestes is our host. what hinders for the homeless here to gain a home--an ilion for the one we lost? o fatherland! o home-gods saved in vain, if still in endless exile we remain! ah! nevermore shall i behold with joy a xanthus and a simois again, our hector's streams? ne'er hear the name of troy? up! let devouring flames these ill-starred ships destroy! lxxxvii. "methought in sleep, cassandra's ghost came near, with torches in her hands, and bade me seize the flaming firebrands, and exclaimed: 'see, here thy troy, the home that destiny decrees! the hour is ripe; such prodigies as these brook not delay. lo! here to neptune rise four altars. he, the sovereign of the seas, himself the firebrands and the will supplies.'" then straight, with arm drawn back, and fury in her eyes, lxxxviii. she waved a torch, and hurled it. dazed with fear, the women trembled as she tossed the flame. then one who nursed through many a bygone year the sons of priam--pyrgo was the dame,-- "no trojan this, nor beroe her name, the wife of doryclus. full sure i ween immortal birth her sparkling eyes proclaim. what breathing beauty! what celestial sheen! mark her majestic voice, and more than mortal mien! lxxxix. "myself but now left beroe, worn out with sickness, grieving in her heart to miss these funeral honours to our sire."--in doubt they waver, and with eyes that bode amiss look towards the vessels and the blue abyss of ocean, torn in spirit 'twixt the love of realms that shall be and the land that is. on even wings the goddess soared above, and with her rainbow vast the cloudy drift she clove. xc. then, by the monstrous prodigy dismayed, and driven by madness, forth the matrons fare with shouts and shrieks. the houses they invade, and living embers from the hearthstones tear, with impious hands these strip the altars bare, and boughs, and leaves and lighted brands they cast in heaps, and fuel for the flames prepare. o'er bench and oar, from painted keel to mast, the fire-god raves at will, and rides upon the blast. xci. meanwhile, with tidings of the fleet in flames, swift posts eumelus. to the tomb he hies of old anchises, and the crowded games. back look the trojans, and with awe-struck eyes see the dark ash-cloud floating through the skies. and, as his troop ascanius joyed to lead in mimic fight, so keen, when danger cries, first to the wildered camp he spurs his steed; and breathless guardians fail to stay his headlong speed. xcii. "what madness this, poor women?" he exclaims, "what mean ye now? no camp of argive foe, _your_ hopes ye doom to perish in the flames. see your ascanius!"--at his feet below he flung the helmet, that adorned his brow when mimic fight he marshalled. hurrying came aeneas, hurrying came the host; but lo! the shore lies bare; this way and that each dame slinks to the woods and caves, if aught can hide her shame. xciii. all loathe the daylight and the deed unblest. sobered, they know their countrymen at last, and juno's power is shaken from each breast. not so the flames; with gathered strength and fast onward still swept the unconquerable blast. forth puffed between the timbers, drenched in vain, the smoke-jets from the smouldering tow. down passed from keel to cabin the devouring bane. nor floods nor heroes' strength the mastering flames restrain. xciv. then good aeneas from his shoulders threw his robe, and heavenward stretched his hands in prayer; "great jove! if spares thy vengeance to pursue troy's children to the uttermost, if e'er the toils of mortals move thy ancient care, preserve this feeble remnant, and command these flames from further havoc to forbear; else, if my deeds deserve it, bare thine hand, launch thine avenging bolt, and slay me as i stand." xcv. scarce spake he, when in torrents comes the rain. darkly the tempest riots, and the roar of thunder shakes the mountains and the plain. black storm-clouds from the thickening south sweep o'er the darkened heavens, and down a deluge pour. drenched are the decks; the timbers, charr'd with heat, are soaked and smoulder, till the fire no more raves, and the flames are conquered, and the fleet, save four alone, survives the fiery plague complete. xcvi. sore-struck, aeneas in his breast debates this way and that, still doubtful to remain in fields sicilian, mindless of the fates, or strive the shores of italy to gain, then aged nautes, wisest of his train, taught by tritonian pallas to unfold what wrathful gods or destinies ordain, in prescient utterance his response unrolled, and thus with cheerful words the anxious chief consoled: xcvii. "o goddess-born, where fate directs the way, 'tis ours to follow. who the best can bear, best conquers fortune, be the doom what may. a friend thou hast, acestes; bid him share and be a willing partner of thy care. he too is trojan, and of seed divine. give him the lost ships' crews, and whosoe'er is faint or feeble, to his charge consign, old men and sea-sick dames, who glory's quest decline. xcviii. "here let them rest, who care not for renown, and build their walls, and, if our host assent, acesta from acestes name the town." such counsel cheered him, but his breast is rent with trouble, musing on the dark event. and now black night, upon her course midway, with ebon car had climbed the steep ascent, when, gliding down before him as he lay, his father's phantom stood, and speaking, seemed to say: xcix. "o dearer than the life, while life remained, my son, by troy's hard destinies sore tried, hither i come at jove's command, who deigned thy burning ships to save, and pitying-eyed beholds thy sorrows. hear then, nor deride the grey-haired nautes, for his words are good. choice youths, the bravest, for thy quest provide. stout hearts ye need in italy, for rude and rough the latin race, and hard to be subdued. c. "but seek thou first the nether realms of dis, and through avernus tread the dark domain to meet me. not in tartarus' abyss, sad shades of sin and never-ending pain, i dwell, but on the blest elysian plain join with the just in fellowship. now heed: there the chaste sibyl, if with victims slain, black sheep, ye seek her, shall thy footsteps lead, and show thy destined walls and progeny decreed. ci. "and now farewell; for dewy night midway wheels on her course, and from the orient sky fierce beats the breathing of the steeds of day." he spake, and melted as a mist on high. "ah, whither," cried aeneas, "wilt thou fly? who tears thee hence? where hurriest thou again?" so saying, he wakes the embers ere they die. and offering frankincense and sacred grain, troy's household gods adores, and hoary vesta's fane. cii. forthwith he tells acestes, then the crews, jove's will, his father's counsel and his own. all vote assent, nor doth his host refuse. no tarrying now; they write the matrons down, and all who faint or care not for renown they leave behind,--the idlers of each crew, but willing settlers in the new-planned town. these the charred timbers and the thwarts renew, shape oars and fit the ropes; a gallant band, but few. ciii. aeneas with a ploughshare marks the town, and, homes allotting, gives each place a name, here troy, there ilion. pleased to wear the crown, a forum good acestes hastes to frame, and laws to gathered senators proclaim. rear'd high on eryx, to the stars ascends a temple, to idalian venus' fame. a priest anchises' sepulchre attends, a grove's far sacred shade his hallowed dust defends. civ. the rites are paid, the nine-days' feast is o'er, smooth lies the deep, and southern winds invite the mariners. along the winding shore loud rise the sounds of sorrow, day and night, where friends, clasped close in lingering undelight, weep at the thought of parting. matrons, ay, and men, who lately shuddered at the sight, and loathed the name of ocean, scorn to stay, and willing hearts now brave the long, laborious way. cv. kindly aeneas cheers them, and with tears leaves to their king, then, parting, gives command a lamb to slay to tempest, and three steers to eryx. so they loosen from the land. he on the prow, a charger in his hand, flings forth the entrails, and outpours the wine, and, crowned with olive chaplet, takes his stand. up-springs the favouring stern breeze, as in line with emulous sweep of oars, they brush the level brine. cvi. then venus, torn with anguish and desire, spake thus to neptune, and her grief confessed: "o neptune, juno's unrelenting ire, the quenchless malice, that consumes her breast, constrains me thus to urge a suppliant's quest; and stoop, with humbled majesty, to sue. her neither piety nor jove's behest nor time, nor fate can soften or subdue, still doth immortal hate the phrygian race pursue. cvii. "'tis not enough their city to destroy, and wear their remnant with remorseless pain, needs must she trample on the dust of troy. she best, forsooth, her fury can explain. but thou,--thou know'st how on the libyan main,-- thine eyes beheld it from thy throne on high,-- lately she stirred the tumult, and in vain armed with aeolian tempests, sea and sky mixed in rebellious wrath, thy sceptre to defy. cviii. "all this she ventured in thy realm; nay more, her rage hath filled the matrons, fired the fleet, and left these crews upon an alien shore, reft of their friends, and baffled of retreat. o spare this trojan remnant, i entreat; safe in thy guidance let them sail the main, and scatheless reach their promised walls, and greet laurentian tiber and the latian plain, if what i ask be just, and so the fates ordain." cix. then spake the monarch of the deep: "'tis just to look for safety to my realm, that gave thee birth; and well have i deserved thy trust, who oft have stilled the raging wind and wave; nor less on land have interposed, to save-- xanthus and simois i attest again-- thy darling son, when back achilles drave troy's breathless host, and rivers, choked with slain, groaned, ay, and xanthus scarce could struggle to the main. cx. "then, as with adverse gods and feebler power he faced pelides, in a cloud i caught thy favourite, albeit 'twas the hour when, wroth with perjured ilion, i sought to raze the walls these very hands had wrought. fear not; unaltered doth my will remain. safe shall he be into this haven brought. one, only one, for many shall be slain; one in the deep thy son shall look for, but in vain." cxi. so saying, he soothed the goddess, and in haste his steeds with golden harness yoked amain. the bridle and the foaming bit he placed, to curb their fury, and outflung the rein. lightly he flies along the watery plain, borne in his azure chariot. far and nigh beneath his thundering wheels the heaving main sinks, and the waves are tranquil, and on high through flying storm-drift shines the immeasurable sky. cxii. behind him throng, in many a motley group, his followers--monsters of enormous chine, sea-shouldering whales, and glaucus' aged troop, paloemon, ino's progeny divine, swift tritons, born to gambol in the brine, and phorcus' finny legions. melite, and virgin panopoea leftward shine, thetis, nesaee, daughters of the sea, spio, thalia fair, and bright cymodoce. cxiii. then o'er aeneas' spirit, racked with fear, joy stole in gentle counterchange. he hails the crews, and biddeth them the masts uprear, and stretch the sheets. all, tacking, loose the brails larboard or starboard, and let go the sails, and square or sideways to the breeze incline the lofty sailyards. welcome blow the gales behind them. palinurus leads the line; the rest his course obey, and follow at his sign. cxiv. damp night well-nigh had climbed olympus' crest; each slumbering mariner his limbs unbends, stretched by his oar, along the bench at rest, when lo! false sleep his feathery wings extends. to guiltless palinurus he descends, parting the scattered shadows. down he bears delusive dreams, and cunning words pretends, as now, in phorbas' likeness he appears, perched on the lofty stern, and whispers in his ears: cxv. "son of iasus! see, the tide that flows bears thee along; behind thee breathes apace the stern breeze, and the hour invites repose. rest now, and cheat thy wearied eyes a space, myself will take the rudder in thy place." "nay," quoth the pilot, with half-lifted eyes, "shall i put faith in ocean's treacherous face, and trust aeneas to the flattering skies, i, whom their smiles oft fooled, but folly hath made wise?" cxvi. so saying, he grasped the tiller, nor his hold relaxed, nor ever from the stars withdrew his steadfast eyes, still watchful when behold! a slumberous bough the god revealed to view, thrice dipt in styx, and drenched with lethe's dew. then, lightly sprinkling, o'er the pilot's brows the drowsy dewdrops from the leaves he threw. dim grow his eyes; the languor of repose steals o'er his faltering sense, the lingering eyelids close. cxvii. scarce now his limbs were loosened by the spell, down weighed the god, and in the rolling main dashed him headforemost, clutching, as he fell, stern timbers torn, and rudder rent in twain, and calling oft his comrades, but in vain. this done, his wings he balanced, and away soared skyward. natheless o'er the broad sea-plain the ships sail on; safe lies the watery way, for neptune's plighted words the seamen's cares allay. cxviii. now near the sirens' perilous cliffs they draw, white with men's bones, and hear the surf-beat side roar with hoarse thunder. here the sire, who saw the ship was labouring, and had lost her guide, straight seized the helm, and steered her through the tide, while, grieved in heart, with many a groan and sigh, he mourned for palinurus. "ah," he cried, "for faith reposed on flattering sea and sky, left on an unknown shore, thy naked corpse must lie!" book six argument arrived at cumae aeneas visits the sibyl's shrine, and, after prayer and sacrifice to apollo, asks access to the nether-world to visit his father ( - ). he must first pluck for proserpine the golden bough and bury a dead comrade ( - ). after the death and burial of misenus, aeneas finds and gathers the golden bough ( - ). preparation and invocation ( - ). the start ( - ). the "dreadful faces" that guard the outskirts of hell. charon's ferry and the unburied dead ( - ). palinurus approaches and entreats burial. passing by charon and cerberus, they see the phantoms of suicides, of children, of lovers, and experience dido's disdain ( - ). from greek and trojan shades deiphobus is singled out to tell his story ( - ). the sibyl hurries aeneas on past the approach to tartarus, describing by the way its rulers and its horrors. finally, they reach elysium and gain entrance ( - ). the search among the shades of the blessed for anchises, and the meeting between father and son ( - ). anchises explains the mystery of the transmigration of souls, and the book closes with the revelation to aeneas of the future greatness of rome, whose heroes, from the days of the kings to the times of augustus, pass in procession before him ( - ). he is then dismissed through the ivory gate, and sails on his way to caieta ( - ). i. weeping he speaks, and gives his fleet the rein, and glides at length to the euboean strand of cumae. there, with prows towards the main, safe-fastened by the biting anchors, stand the vessels, and the round sterns line the land. forth on the shore, in eager haste to claim hesperia's welcome, leaps a youthful band. these search the flint-stones for the seeds of flame, those point to new-found streams, or scour the woods for game. ii. but good aeneas seeks the castled height and temple, to the great apollo dear, and the vast cave where, hidden far from sight within her sanctuary dark and drear, dwells the dread sibyl, whom the delian seer inspires with soul and wisdom to unfold the things to come.--so now, approaching near through trivia's grove, the temple they behold, and entering, see the roof all glittering with gold. iii. fame is, that daedalus, adventuring forth on rapid wings, from minos' realms in flight, trusted the sky, and to the frosty north swam his strange way, till on the tower-girt height of chalcis gently he essayed to light. here, touching first the wished-for land again, to thee, great phoebus, and thy guardian might, he vowed, and bade as offerings to remain, the oarage of his wings, and built a stately fane. iv. androgeos' death is graven on the gate; there stand the sons of cecrops, doomed each year with seven victims to atone his fate. the lots are drawn; the fatal urn is near. here, o'er the deep the gnossian fields appear, the bull--the cruel passion--the embrace stol'n from pasiphae--all the tale is here; the minotaur, half human, beast in face, record of nameless lust, and token of disgrace. v. there, toil-wrought house and labyrinthine grove, with tangled maze, too intricate to tread, but that, in pity for the queen's great love, its secret daedalus revealed, and led her lover's blinded footsteps with a thread. there, too, had sorrow not the wish denied, thy name and fame, poor icarus, were read. twice in the gold to carve thy fate he tried, and twice the father's hands dropped faltering to his side. vi. so they in gazing had the time beguiled, but now, returning from his quest, comes near achates, with deiphobe, the child of glaucus, phoebus' and diana's seer. "not this," she cries, "the time for tarrying here for shows like these. go, hither bring with speed seven ewes, the choicest, and with each a steer unyoked, in honour of the god to bleed." so to the chief she spake, and straight his followers heed. vii. into the lofty temple now with speed,-- a huge cave hollowed in the mountain's side,-- the priestess calls the teucrians. thither lead a hundred doors, a hundred entries wide, a hundred voices from the rock inside peal forth, the sibyl answering. so they had reached the threshold, when the maiden cried, "now 'tis the time to seek the fates and pray; behold, behold the god!" and standing there, straightway, viii. her colour and her features change; loose streams her hair disordered, and her heart distrest swells with wild frenzy. larger now she seems, her voice not mortal, as her heaving breast pants, with the approaching deity possest. "pray, trojan," peals her warning utterance, "pray! cease not, aeneas, nor withhold thy quest, nor stint thy vows. while dumbly ye delay, ne'er shall its yawning doors the spell-bound house display." ix. she ceased: at once an icy chill ran through the sturdy trojans. from his inmost heart thus prayed the king: "o phoebus, wont to view with pity troy's sore travail; thou, whose art true to achilles aimed the dardan dart, how oft, thou guiding, have i tracked the main round mighty lands, to earth's remotest part massylian tribes and libya's sandy plain: scarce now the flying shores of italy we gain. x. "enough, thus far troy's destinies to bear, ye, too, at length, your anger may abate and deign the race of pergamus to spare, o gods and goddesses, who viewed with hate troy and the glories of the dardan state. and thou, dread mistress of prophetic lore, grant us--i ask but what is due by fate, our promised realms--that on the latian shore troy's sons and wandering gods may find a home once more. xi. "to phoebus then and trivia's sacred name, thy patron powers, a temple will i rear of solid marble, and due rites proclaim and festal days, for votaries each year the name of guardian phoebus to revere. thee, too, hereafter in our realms await shrines of the stateliest, for thy name is dear. there safe shall rest the mystic words of fate, and chosen priests shall guard the oracles of state. xii. "only to leaves commit not, priestess kind, thy verse, lest fragments of the mystic scroll fly, tost abroad, the playthings of the wind. thyself in song the oracle unroll." he ceased; the seer, impatient of control, strives, like a frenzied bacchant, in her cell, to shake the mighty deity from her soul. so much the more, her raging heart to quell, he tires the foaming mouth, and shapes her to his spell. xiii. then yawned the hundred gates, and every door, self-opening suddenly, revealed the fane, and through the air the sibyl's answer bore: "o freed from ocean's perils, but in vain, worse evils yet upon the land remain. doubt not; troy's sons shall reach lavinium's shore, and rule in latium; so the fates ordain. yet shall they rue their coming. woes in store, wars, savage wars, i see, and tiber foam with gore. xiv. "a xanthus there and simois shall be seen, and doric tents; achilles, goddess-born, shall rise anew, nor jove's relentless queen shall cease to vex the teucrians night and morn. then oft shalt thou, sore straitened and forlorn, all towns and tribes of italy implore to grant thee shelter from the foemen's scorn. an alien bride, a foreign bed once more shall bring the old, old woes, the ancient feud restore. xv. "yield not to evils, but the bolder thou persist, defiant of misfortune's frown, and take the path thy destinies allow. hope, where unlooked for, comes thy toils to crown, thy road to safety from a grecian town." so sang the sibyl from her echoing fane, and, wrapping truth in mystery, made known the dark enigmas of her frenzied strain. so phoebus plied the goad, and shook the maddening rein. xvi. soon ceased the fit, the foaming lips were still. "o maiden," said aeneas, "me no more can danger startle, nor strange shape of ill. all have i seen and throughly conned before. one boon i beg,--since yonder are the door of pluto, and the gloomy lakes, they tell, fed by o'erflowing acheron,--once more to see the father whom i loved so well. teach me the way, and ope the sacred gates of hell. xvii. "him on these shoulders, in the days ago, a thousand darts behind us, did i bear safe through the thickest of the flames and foe. he, partner of my travels, loved to share the threats of ocean and the storms of air, though weak, yet strong beyond the lot of age. 'twas he who bade me, with prevailing prayer, approach thee humbly, and thy care engage, pity the sire and son, and trojan hearts assuage. xviii. "for thou can'st all, nor hecate for naught hath set thee o'er avernus' groves to reign. if orpheus from the shades his bride up-brought, trusting his thracian harp and sounding strain, if pollux could from pluto's drear domain his brother by alternate death reclaim, and tread the road to hades o'er again oft and so oft--why great alcides name? why theseus? i, as they, jove's ancestry can claim." xix. so prayed aeneas, clinging to the shrine, when thus the prophetess: "o trojan knight, born of anchises, and of seed divine, down to avernus the descent is light, the gate of dis stands open day and night. but upward thence thy journey to retrace, there lies the labour; 'tis a task of might, by few achieved, and those of heavenly race, whom shining worth extolled or jove hath deigned to grace. xx. "thick woods and shades the middle space invest, and black cocytus girds the drear abode. yet, if such passion hath thy soul possessed, if so thou longest to indulge thy mood, and madly twice to cross the stygian flood, and visit twice black tartarus, mark the way sacred to nether juno, in a wood, with golden stem and foliage, lurks a spray, and trees and darksome dales surrounding shroud the day. xxi. "yet none the shades can visit, till he tear that golden growth, the gift of pluto's queen, and show the passport she decreed to bear. one plucked, another in its place is seen, as bright and burgeoning with golden green. search then aloft, and when thou see'st the spray, reach forth and pluck it; willingly, i ween, if fate shall call thee, 'twill thy touch obey; else steel nor strength of arm shall rend the prize away. xxii. "mark yet--alas! thou know'st not--yonder lies thy friend's dead body, and pollutes the shore. while thou the fates art asking to advise, and lingering here, a suppliant, at our door. nay, first thy comrade to his home restore, and build a tomb, and bring black cattle; they the stain shall expiate; so the stygian shore shalt thou behold, and tread the sunless way, which living feet ne'er trod, and mounted to the day." xxiii. she ended. from the cave aeneas went, with down-dropt eyes and melancholy mien, inly revolving many a dark event. trusty achates at his side is seen, moody alike, each measured step between in musing converse framing phantasies, what lifeless comrade could the priestess mean? whom to be buried? when before their eyes, stretched on the barren beach the dead misenus lies, xxiv. dead with dishonour, in unseemly plight, misenus, son of aeolus, whom beside none better knew with brazen blast to light the flames of war, and wake the warrior's pride. once hector's co-mate, proud at hector's side to wind the clarion and the sword to wield. when, stricken by achilles, hector died, aeneas then he followed to the field, loth to a meaner lord his fealty to yield. xxv. now while a challenge to the gods he blew, and made the waves his hollow shell resound, him triton, jealous--if the tale be true-- caught unaware, and in the surges drowned among the rocks.--there now the corpse they found. loud groaned aeneas, and a mournful cry rose from the trojans, as they gazed around. then, filled with tears, the sibyl's task they ply, and rear a wood-built pile and altar to the sky. xxvi. into a grove of aged trees they go, the wild-beasts' lair. the holm-oak rings amain, smit with the axe, the pitchy pine falls low, sharp wedges cleave the beechen core in twain, the mountain ash comes rolling to the plain. foremost himself, accoutred as the rest, aeneas cheered them, toiling with his train; then, musing sadly, and with pensive breast, gazed on the boundless grove, and thus his prayer addressed: xxvii. "o in this grove could i behold the tree with golden bough; since true, alas, too true, misenus, hath the priestess sung of thee!" he spake, when, lighting on the sward, down flew two doves. with joy his mother's birds he knew, "lead on, blest guides, along the air," he prayed, "if way there be, the precious bough to view, whose golden leaves the teeming soil o'ershade; o mother, solve my doubts, nor stint the needed aid." xxviii. so saying, he stays his footsteps, fain to heed what signs they give, and whitherward their flight. awhile they fly, awhile they stop to feed, then, fluttering, keep within the range of sight, till, coming where avernus, dark as night, gapes, with rank vapours from its depths uprolled, aloft they soar, and through the liquid height dart to the tree, where, wondrous to behold, the varying green sets forth the glitter of the gold. xxix. as in the woods, in winter's cold, is seen, sown on an alien tree, the mistletoe to bloom afresh with foliage newly green, and round the tapering boles its arms to throw, laden with yellow fruitage, even so the oak's dark boughs the golden leaves display, so the foil rustles in the breezes low. quickly aeneas plucks the lingering spray, and to the sibyl bears the welcome gift away. xxx. nor less the dead misenus they deplore, and honours to the thankless dust assign. a stately pyre they build upon the shore, rich with oak-timbers and the resinous pine, and sombre foliage in the sides entwine. in front, the cypress marks the fatal soil, above, they leave the warrior's arms to shine. these heat the water, till the caldrons boil, and wash the stiffened limbs, and fill the wounds with oil. xxxi. loud is the wailing; then with many a tear they lay him on the bed, and o'er him throw his purple robes. these lift the massive bier; those, as of yore--sad ministry of woe-- with eyes averted, hold the torch below. oil, spice and viands, in promiscuous heap, they pour and pile upon the fire; and now, the embers crumbling and the flames asleep, with draughts of ruddy wine the thirsty ash they steep. xxxii. and cornyaeus in a brazen urn enshrined the bones, upgathered in a caul, and bearing round pure water, thrice in turn from olive branch the lustral dew lets fall, and, sprinkling, speaks the latest words of all. a lofty mound aeneas hastes to frame, crowned with his oar and trumpet, 'neath a tall and airy cliff, which still misenus' name preserves, and ages keep his everlasting fame. xxxiii. this done, aeneas hastens to obey the sibyl's hest.--there was a monstrous cave, rough, shingly, yawning wide-mouthed to the day, sheltered from access by the lake's dark wave and shadowing forests, gloomy as the grave. o'er that dread space no flying thing could ply its wings unjeopardied (whence grecians gave the name "aornos"), such a stench on high rose from the poisonous jaws, and filled the vaulted sky. xxxiv. here four black oxen, as the maid divine commands them, forth to sacrifice are led. over their brows she pours the sacred wine, then plucks the hairs that sprouted on the head and burns them, as the first-fruits to the dead, calling aloud on hecate, whose reign in heaven and erebus is owned with dread. these stab the victims in the throat, and drain in bowls the steaming blood that gushes from the slain. xxxv. a black-fleeced lamb aeneas slays, to please the furies' mother and her sister dread, a barren cow to proserpine decrees. then to the stygian monarch of the dead the midnight altars he began to spread. the bulls' whole bodies on the flames he laid, and fat oil on the broiling entrails shed, when lo! as morn her opening beams displayed, loud rumblings shook the ground, the wooded hill-tops swayed, xxxvi. and hell-dogs baying through the gloom, proclaimed the goddess near. "back, back, unhallowed crew, and quit the grove!" the prophetess exclaimed, "thou, bare thy blade, and take the road in view. now, trojan, for a stalwart heart and true; firmness and steadiness!" no more she cried, but back into the open cave withdrew, fired with new frenzy. he, with fearless stride, treads on the sibyl's heels, rejoicing in his guide. xxxvii. o silent shades, and ye, the powers of hell, chaos and phlegethon, wide realms of night, what ear hath heard, permit the tongue to tell, high matter, veiled in darkness, to indite.-- on through the gloomy shade, in darkling plight, through pluto's solitary halls they stray, as travellers, whom the moon's unkindly light baffles in woods, when, on a lonely way, jove shrouds the heavens, and night has turned the world to grey. xxxviii. before the threshold, in the jaws of hell, grief spreads her pillow, with remorseful care. there sad old age and pale diseases dwell, and misconceiving famine, want and fear, terrific shapes, and death and toil appear. death's kinsman, sleep, and joys of sinful kind, and deadly war crouch opposite, and here the furies' iron chamber, discord blind and strife, her viperous locks with gory fillets twined. xxxix. high in the midst a giant elm doth fling the shadows of its aged arms. there dwell false dreams and, nestling, to the foliage cling, and monstrous shapes, too numerous to tell, keep covert, stabled in the porch of hell. the beast of lerna, hissing in his ire, huge centaurs, two-formed scyllas, fierce and fell, briareus hundred-handed, gorgons dire, harpies, the triple shade, chimaera fenced with fire. xl. at once aeneas, stirred by sudden fear, clutches his sword, and points the naked blade to affront them. then, but that the heaven-taught seer warned him that each was but an empty shade, a shapeless soul, vain onset he had made, and slashed the shadows. so he checked his hand, and past the gateway in the gloom they strayed through tartarus to acheron's dark strand, where thick the whirlpool boils, and voids the seething sand xli. into the deep cocytus. charon there, grim ferryman, stands sentry. mean his guise, his chin a wilderness of hoary hair, and like a flaming furnace stare his eyes. hung in a loop around his shoulders lies a filthy gaberdine. he trims the sail, and, pole in hand, across the water plies his steel-grey shallop with the corpses pale, old, but a god's old age has left him green and hale. xlii. there shoreward rushed a multitude, the shades of noble heroes, numbered with the dead, boys, husbands, mothers and unwedded maids, sons on the pile before their parents spread, as leaves in number, which the trees have shed when autumn's frosts begin to chill the air, or birds, that from the wintry blasts have fled and over seas to sunnier shores repair. so thick the foremost stand, and, stretching hands of prayer, xliii. plead for a passage. now the boatman stern takes these, now those, then thrusts the rest away, and vainly for the distant bank they yearn. then spake aeneas, for with strange dismay he viewed the tumult, "prithee, maiden, say what means this thronging to the river-side? what seek the souls? why separate, do they turn back, while others sweep the leaden tide? who parts the shades, what doom the difference can decide?" xliv. thereto in brief the aged priestess spake: "son of anchises, and the god's true heir, thou see'st cocytus and the stygian lake, by whose dread majesty no god will dare his solemn oath attested to forswear. these are the needy, who a burial crave; the ferryman is charon; they who fare across the flood, the buried; none that wave can traverse, ere his bones have rested in the grave. xlv. "a hundred years they wander in the cold around these shores, till at the destined date the wished-for pools, admitted, they behold." sad stood aeneas, pitying their estate, and, thoughtful, pondered their unequal fate. leucaspis there, and lycia's chief he viewed, orontes, joyless, tombless, whom of late, sea-tost from troy, the blustering south pursued, and ship and crew at once whelmed in the rolling flood. xlvi. there paced in sorrow palinurus' ghost, who, lately from the libyan shore their guide, watching the stars, headforemost from his post had fallen, and perished in the wildering tide. him, known, but dimly in the gloom descried, the dardan hails, "o palinurus! who of all the gods hath torn thee from our side? speak, for apollo, never known untrue, this once hath answered false, and mocked with hopes undue. xlvii. "safe--so he sang--should'st thou escape the sea, and scatheless to ausonia's coast attain. lo, this, his plighted promise!"--"nay," said he, "nor answered phoebus' oracle in vain, nor did a god o'erwhelm me in the main. for while i ruled the rudder, charged to keep our course, and steered thee o'er the billowy plain, sudden, i slipped, and, falling prone and steep, snapped with sheer force the helm, and dragged it to the deep. xlviii. "naught--let the rough seas witness--but for thee i feared, lest rudderless, her pilot lost, your ship should fail in such a towering sea. three wintry nights, nipt with the chilling frost, upon the boundless waters i was tost, and on the fourth dawn from a wave at last descried italia. slowly to her coast i swam, and clutching at the rock, held fast, cumbered with dripping clothes, and deemed the worst o'erpast. xlix. "when lo! the savage folk, with sword and stave, set on me, weening to have found rich prey. and now my bones lie weltering on the wave, now on strange shores winds blow them far away. o! by the memory of thy sire, i pray, by young iulus, and his hope so fair, by heaven's sweet breath and light of gladsome day, relieve my misery, assuage my care, sail back to velia's port, great conqueror, and there l. "strew earth upon me, for the task is light; or, if thy goddess-mother deign to show some path--for never in the god's despite o'er these dread waters would'st thou dare to go, thine aid in pity on a wretch bestow; reach forth thy hand, and bear me to my rest, dead with the dead to ease me of my woe." he spake, and him the prophetess addressed: "o palinurus! whence so impious a request? li. "think'st thou the stygian waters to explore unburied, and the furies' flood to see, and reach unbidden yon relentless shore? hope not by prayer to bend the fates' decree, but take this comfort to thy misery; the neighbouring towns, and people far and near, compelled by prodigies, thy ghost shall free, and load thy tomb with offerings year by year, and palinurus' name for aye the place shall bear." lii. these words relieved his heaviness; joy came upon his saddened spirit, pleased to hear the well-known land remembered by his name. thus on they journey, and the stream draw near; whom when the stygian boatman saw appear, as shoreward through the silent grove they stray, with stern rebuke he challenged them: "beware; stand off; approach not, but your purpose say; what brought you here, whoe'er ye come in armed array? liii. "here shades inhabit,--sleep and drowsy night,-- i may not steer the living to yon shore. small joy was mine, when, in the gods' despite, alive alcides o'er the stream i bore, and theseus and pirithous, though more than men in prowess, nor of mortal clay. one tried to seize hell's guardian, and before our monarch's throne to chain the trembling prey; these from her lord's own bed to drag the queen to day." liv. briefly the seer amphrysian spake again: "no guile these arms intend, nor open fight; fear not; still may the monster in his den with endless howl the bloodless ghosts affright, and chaste proserpine guard her uncle's right. duteous and brave, his father's shade to view, descends the famed aeneas; if the sight of love so great is powerless to subdue, mark this,"--and from her vest the fateful gift she drew. lv. down fell his wrath: the venerable bough, so long unseen, with wonderment he eyed; then, shoreward turning with his cold-blue prow, from bench and gangway thrusts the shades aside, and takes the great aeneas and his guide. the stitched bark, groaning with the load it bore, gapes at each seam, and drinks the plenteous tide, till prince and prophetess, borne safely o'er, stand on the dank, grey ooze and grim, unsightly shore. lvi. crouched in a fronting cave, huge cerberus wakes these kingdoms with his three-mouthed bark. his head the priestess marked, all bristling now with snakes, and flung a sop of honied drugs and bread. he, famine-stung, with triple jaws dispread, the morsel snaps, then prone along the cave lies stretched on earth, with loosened limbs, as dead. the sentry lulled, aeneas, blithe and brave, seizes the pass, and leaves the irremeable wave. lvii. loud shrieks are heard, and wails of the distrest, the souls of babes, that on the threshold cry, reft of sweet life, and ravished from the breast, and early plunged in bitter death. hard by are those, whom slanderous charges doomed to die. not without judgment these abodes they win. here, urn in hand, dread minos sits to try the charge anew; he summons from within the silent court, and learns each several life and sin. lviii. and next are those, who, hateful of the day, with guiltless hands their sorrowing lives have ta'en, and miserably flung their souls away. how gladly now, in upper air again, would they endure their poverty and pain! it may not be. the fates their doom decide past hope, and bind them to this sad domain. dark round them rolls the sea, unlovely tide; ninefold the waves of styx those dreary realms divide. lix. not far off stretch the mourning meads, where those whom cruel love hath wasted with despair, in myrtle groves and alleys hide their woes, nor death itself relieves them of their care. lo, phaedra, procris, eriphyle there, baring the breast by filial hands imbrued, evadne, and pasiphae, and fair laodamia in the crowd he viewed, and caeneus, maid, then man, and now a maid renewed. lx. there through the wood phoenician dido strayed, fresh from her wound. whom when aeneas knew, scarce seen, though near, amid the doubtful shade, as one who views, or only seems to view, the clouded moon rise when the month is new, fondly he spake, while tears were in his eye: "ah, hapless dido! then the news was true that thou had'st sought the bitter end. was i, alas! the cause of death? o by the starry sky, lxi. "by gods above, by faith, if aught, below, unwillingly, o queen, i left thy sight. the gods, at whose compulsion now i go through these dark shades, this realm of deepest night, these wastes of squalor, 'twas their word of might that drove me forth; nor could i dream such woe was thine at my departing. stay thy flight. whom dost thou fly? o, whither wilt thou go? one word--the last, sad word--one parting look bestow!" lxii. so strove aeneas, weeping, to appease her wrathful spirit. she, with down-fixt eyes turns from him, scowling, heedless of his pleas, and hard as flint or marble, nor replies. then, starting, to the shadowy grove she flies, where dead sychaeus, her old lord, renews his love with hers, and sorrows with her sighs. touched by her fate, the dardan hero views, and far with tearful gaze the melting shade pursues. lxiii. thus onward to the furthest fields they strayed, the haunts of heroes here doth tydeus fare, parthenopaeus, pale adrastus' shade. and many a dardan, wailed in upper air, and fallen in war. sighing, he sees them there, glaucus, thersilochus and medon slain, antenor's sons, three brethren past compare, and polyphoetes, priest of ceres' fane, and brave idaeus, still grasping the sword and rein. lxiv. all throng around, nor rest content to claim one look, but linger with delight, and fain would pace beside, and question why he came. but when the greeks and agamemnon's train beheld the hero, and his arms shone plain, huge terror shook them, and some turned to fly, as erst they scattered to their ships; some strain their husky voice, and raise a feeble cry. the warshout mocks their throats, the gibbering accents die. lxv. there, too, he sees great priam's son, the famed deiphobus, in evil plight forlorn; a mangled shape, his visage marred and maimed. his ravaged face the ruthless steel had torn,-- face, nose and ears--and both his hands were shorn. him, cowering back, and striving to disown the shameful tokens of his foemen's scorn, scarcely aeneas knew, then, soon as known, thus, unaccosted, hailed in old, familiar tone: lxvi. "o brave deiphobus, great teucer's seed! whose heart had will, whose cruel hand had might to wreak such punishment? fame told, indeed, that, tired with slaughter, thou had'st sunk that night on heaps of mingled carnage in the fight. then on the shore i reared an empty mound, and called (thy name and armour mark the site) thy shade. thyself, dear comrade, ne'er was found. vain was my parting wish to lay thee in the ground." lxvii. "not thine the fault"; deiphobus replied, "thy debt is rendered; thou hast dealt aright. fate, and the baseness of a spartan bride wrought this; behold the tokens of her spite. thou know'st--too well must thou recall--that night passed in vain pleasure and delusive joy, what time the fierce steed, with a bound of might, big with armed warriors, eager to destroy, leaped o'er the wall, and scaled the citadel of troy. lxviii. "feigning mock orgies, round the town she led troy's dames, with shrieks that rent the midnight air, and, armed with blazing cresset, at their head bright from the watch-tower made the signal flare, that called the danaan foemen from their lair. i, sunk in sleep, the fatal couch had pressed, worn out with watching, and weighed down with care, and, calm and deep, death's image, gentle rest crept o'er the wearied limbs, and stilled the troubled breast. lxix. "meanwhile, all arms the traitress, as i slept, stole from the house, and from beneath my head she took the trusty falchion, that i kept to guard the chamber and the bridal bed. then, creeping to the door, with stealthy tread, she lifts the latch, and beckons from within to menelaus; so, forsooth, she fled in hopes a lover's gratitude to win, and from the past wipe out the scandal of old sin. lxx. "o noble wife! but why the tale prolong? few words were best; my chamber they invade, they and ulysses, counsellor of wrong. heaven! be these horrors on the greeks repaid, if pious lips for just revenge have prayed. but thou, make answer, and in turn explain what brought thee, living, to these realms of shade? by heaven's command, or wandering o'er the main, com'st thou to view these shores, this sunless, sad domain?" lxxi. so they in converse haply had the day consumed, when, rosy-charioted, the morn o'erpassed mid heaven on her ethereal way, and thus the sibyl doth the dardan warn: "night lowers apace; we linger but to mourn. here part the roads; beyond the walls of dis _there_ lies for us elysium; leftward borne thou comest to tartarus, in whose drear abyss poor sinners purge with pains the lives they lived amiss." lxxii. "spare, priestess," cried deiphobus, "thy wrath; i will depart, and fill the tale, and hide in darkness. thou, with happier fates, go forth, our glory."--sudden, from the dardan's side he fled. back looked aeneas, and espied broad bastions, girt with triple wall, that frowned beneath a rock to leftward, and the tide of torrent phlegethon, that flamed around, and made the beaten rocks rebellow with the sound. lxxiii. in front, a massive gateway threats the sky, and posts of solid adamant upstay an iron tower, firm-planted to defy all force, divine or human. night and day, sleepless tisiphone defends the way, girt up with bloody garments. from within loud groans are heard, and wailings of dismay, the whistling scourge, the fetter's clank and din, shrieks, as of tortured fiends, and all the sounds of sin. lxxiv. aghast, aeneas listens to the cries. "o maid," he asks, "what crimes are theirs? what pain do they endure? what wailings rend the skies?" then she: "famed trojan, this accursed domain none chaste may enter; so the fates ordain. great hecate herself, when here below she made me guardian of avernus' reign, led me through all the region, fain to show the tortures of the gods, the various forms of woe. lxxv. "here cretan rhadamanthus, strict and stern, his kingdom holds. each trespass, now confessed, he hears and punishes; each tells in turn the sin, with idle triumph long suppressed, till death has bared the secrets of the breast. swift at the guilty, as he stands and quakes, leaps fierce tisiphone, for vengeance prest, and calls her sisters; o'er the wretch she shakes the torturing scourge aloft, and waves the twisted snakes. lxxvi. "then, opening slow, on horrid hinges grate the doors accursed. see'st thou what sentinel sits in the porch? what presence guards the gate? know, that within, still fiercer and more fell, wide-yawning with her fifty throats, doth dwell a hydra. tartarus itself, hard by, abrupt and sheer, beneath the ghosts in hell, gapes twice as deep, as o'er the earth on high towers up the olympian steep, the summit of the sky. lxxvii. "there roll the titans, born of ancient earth, hurled to the bottom by the lightning's blast. there lie--twin monsters of enormous girth-- aloeus' sons, who 'gainst olympus cast their impious hands, and strove with daring vast to disenthrone the thunderer. there, again, the famed salmoneus i beheld, laid fast in cruel agonies of endless pain, who sought the flames of jove with mimic art to feign, lxxviii. "and mocked olympian thunder. torch in hand, drawn by four steeds, through elis' streets he came, a conqueror, borne in triumph through the land. and, waving high the firebrand, dared to claim the god's own homage and a godlike name. blind fool and vain! to think with brazen clash and hollow tramp of horn-hoofed steeds, to frame the dread storm's counterfeit, the thunder's crash, the matchless bolts of jove, the inimitable flash. lxxix. "but lo! his bolt, no smoky torch of pine, the sire omnipotent through darkness sped, and hurled him headlong with the blast divine. there, too, lay tityos, nine roods outspread, nursling of earth. hook-beaked, a vulture dread, pecking the deathless liver, plied his quest, and probed the entrails and the heart, that bred immortal pain, and burrowed in his breast. the torturing growth goes on, the fibres never rest. lxxx. "why now those ancient lapithae recall, ixion and pirithous? there in sight the black rock frowns, and ever threats to fall. on golden pillars shine the couches bright, and royal feasts their longing eyes invite. but lo, the eldest of the furies' band sits by, and oft uprising in her might, warns from the banquet, with uplifted hand, and thunders in their ears, and waves a flaming brand. lxxxi. "those, who with hate a brother's love repaid, or drove a parent outcast from their door, or, weaving fraud, their client's trust betrayed; those, who--the most in number--brooded o'er their gold, nor gave to kinsmen of their store; those, who for foul adultery were slain, who followed treason's banner, or forswore their plighted oath to masters, here remain, and, pent in dungeons deep, await their doom of pain. lxxxii. "ask not what pain; what fortune or what fate o'erwhelmed them, nor their torments seek to know. these roll uphill a rock's enormous weight, those, hung on wheels, are racked with endless woe. there, too, for ever, as the ages flow, sad theseus sits, and through the darkness cries unhappy phlegyas to the shades below, 'learn to be good; take warning and be wise; learn to revere the gods, nor heaven's commands despise.' lxxxiii. "there stands the traitor, who his country sold, a tyrant's bondage for his land prepared; made laws, unmade them, for a bribe of gold. with lawless lust a daughter's shame he shared; all dared huge crimes, and compassed what they dared. ne'er had a hundred mouths, if such were mine, nor hundred tongues their endless sins declared, nor iron voice their torments could define, or tell what doom to each the avenging gods assign. lxxxiv. "but haste we," adds the sibyl; "onward hold the way before thee, and thy task pursue. forged in the cyclops' furnaces, behold yon walls and fronting archway, full in view. leave there thy gift and pay the god his due." she spake, and thither through the dark they paced, and reached the gateway. he, with lustral dew self-sprinkled, seized the entrance, and in haste high o'er the fronting door the fateful offering placed. lxxxv. these dues performed, they reach the realms of rest, fortunate groves, where happy souls repair, and lawns of green, the dwellings of the blest. a purple light, a more abundant air invest the meadows. sun and stars are there, known but to them. there rival athletes train their practised limbs, and feats of strength compare. these run and wrestle on the sandy plain, those tread the measured dance, and join the song's sweet strain. lxxxvi. in flowing robes the thracian minstrel sings, sweetly responsive to the seven-toned lyre; fingers and quill alternate wakes the strings. here teucer's race, and many an ancient sire, chieftains of nobler days and martial fire, ilus, high-souled assaracus, and he who founded troy, the rapturous strains admire, and arms afar and shadowy cars they see, and lances fixt in earth, and coursers grazing free. lxxxvii. the love of arms and chariots, the care their glossy steeds to pasture and to train, that pleased them living, still attends them there: these, stretched at ease, lie feasting on the plain; there, choral companies, in gladsome strain, chant the loud paean, in a grove of bay, rich in sweet scents, whence hurrying to the main, eridanus' full torrent on its way rolls from below through woods majestic to the day. lxxxviii. there, the slain patriot, and the spotless sage, and pious poets, worthy of the god; there he, whose arts improved a rugged age, and those who, labouring for their country's good, lived long-remembered,--all, in eager mood, crowned with white fillets, round the sibyl pressed; chiefly musaeus; in the midst he stood, with ample shoulders towering o'er the rest, when thus the listening crowd the prophetess addressed: lxxxix. "tell, happy souls; and thou, great poet, tell where--in what place--anchises doth abide, for whom we came and crossed the streams of hell." briefly the venerable chief replied: "fixt home hath no one; by the streamlet's side, or in dark groves, or dewy meads we stray, where living waters through the pastures glide. mount, if ye list, and i will point the way, yon summit, and beneath the shining fields survey." xc. thus on he leads them, till they leave the height, rejoicing.--in a valley far away the sire anchises scanned, with fond delight, the prisoned souls, who waited for the day. their shape, their mien his studious eyes survey; their fates and fortunes he reviews with pride, and counts his future offspring in array. now, when his son advancing he espied, aloud, with tearful eyes and outspread hands, he cried: xci. "art thou, then, come at last? has filial love, thrice welcome, braved the perils of the way? o joy! do i behold thee? hear thee move sweet converse as of old? 'tis come, the day i longed and looked for, pondering the delay, and counting every moment, nor in vain. how tost with perils do i greet thee? yea, what wanderings thine on every land and main! what dangers did i dread from libya's tempting reign!" xcii. "father, 'twas thy sad image," he replied, "oft-haunting, drove me to this distant place. our navy floats on the tyrrhenian tide. give me thy hand, nor shun a son's embrace." so spake the son, and o'er his cheeks apace rolled down soft tears, of sadness and delight. thrice he essayed the phantom to embrace; thrice, vainly clasped, it melted from his sight, swift as the winged wind, or vision of the night. xciii. meanwhile he views, deep-bosomed in a dale, a grove, and brakes that rustle in the breeze, and lethe, gliding through the peaceful vale. peoples and tribes, all hovering round, he sees, unnumbered, as in summer heat the bees hum round the flowerets of the field, to drain the fair, white lilies of their sweets; so these swarm numberless, and ever and again the gibbering ghosts disperse, and murmur o'er the plain. xciv. awe-struck, aeneas would the cause enquire: what streams are yonder? what the crowd so great, that filled the river's margin? then the sire anchises answered: "they are souls, that wait for other bodies, promised them by fate. now, by the banks of lethe here below, they lose the memory of their former state, and from the silent waters, as they flow, drink the oblivious draught, and all their cares forego. xcv. "long have i wished to show thee, face to face, italia's sons, that thou might'st joy with me to hail the new-found country of our race." "oh father!" said aeneas, "can it be, that souls sublime, so happy and so free, can yearn for fleshly tenements again? so madly long they for the light?" then he: "learn, son, and listen, nor in doubt remain." and thus in ordered speech the mystery made plain: xcvi. "first, heaven and earth and ocean's liquid plains, the moon's bright globe and planets of the pole, one mind, infused through every part, sustains; one universal, animating soul quickens, unites and mingles with the whole. hence man proceeds, and beasts, and birds of air, and monsters that in marble ocean roll; and fiery energy divine they share, save what corruption clogs, and earthly limbs impair. xcvii. "hence fear and sorrow, hence desire and mirth; nor can the soul, in darkness and in chains, assert the skies, and claim celestial birth. nay, after death, the traces it retains of fleshly grossness, and corporeal stains, since much must needs by long concretion grow inherent. therefore are they racked with pains, and schooled in all the discipline of woe; each pays for ancient sin with punishment below. xcviii. "some hang before the viewless winds to bleach; some purge in fire or flood the deep decay and taint of wickedness. we suffer each our ghostly penance; thence, the few who may, seek the bright meadows of elysian day, till long, long years, when our allotted time hath run its orbit, wear the stains away, and leave the aetherial sense, and spark sublime, cleansed from the dross of earth, and cankering rust of crime. xcix. "these, when a thousand rolling years are o'er, called by the god, to lethe's waves repair; there, reft of memory, to yearn once more for mortal bodies and the upper air." so spake anchises, and the priestess fair leads, with his son, the murmuring shades among, where thickest crowd the multitude, and there they mount a hillock, and survey the throng, and scan the pale procession, as it winds along. c. "come, now, and hearken to the dardan's fame, what noble grandsons shall italia grace, proud spirits, heirs of our illustrious name, and learn the fates and future of thy race. see yon fair youth, now leaning--mark his face-- upon a pointless spear, by lot decreed to stand the nearest to the light in place, he first shall rise, of mixt italian breed, silvius, an alban name, the youngest of thy seed. ci. "him, latest offspring of thy days' decline, thy spouse lavinia in the woods shall rear, the kingly parent of a kingly line, the lords of alba longa. procas, dear to trojans, capys, numitor are here, and he, whose surname shall revive thine own. silvius aeneas, like his great compeer alike for piety and arms well known, if e'er, by fate's decree, he mount the alban throne. cii. "what youths! what strength! what promise of renown! behold the wreaths of civic oak they wear. first founders these of many a glorious town, nomentum, gabii and fidenae fair; they on the mountain pinnacles shall rear collatia's fortress, and pometii found, the camp of inuus, which foemen fear, bola and cora, names to be renowned, albeit inglorious now, for nameless is the ground. ciii. "see romulus, beside his grandsire's shade, offspring of mars and ilia, and the line of old assaracus. see there displayed, the double crest upon his helm, the sign, stamped by his sire, to mark his birth divine. henceforth, beneath his auspices, shall rise that rome, whose glories through the world shall shine; far as wide earth's remotest boundary lies, her empire shall extend her genius to the skies. civ. "seven hills her single rampart shall embrace, seven citadels her girdling wall contain, thrice blest, beyond all cities, in a race of heroes, destined to adorn her reign. so, with a hundred grandsons in her train, thrice blest, the mother of the gods, whose shrine is berecynthus, rides the phrygian plain, tower-crowned, the queen of an immortal line, all habitants of heaven, and all of seed divine. cv. "see now thy romans; thither bend thine eyes, and caesar and iulus' race behold, waiting their destined advent to the skies. this, this is he--long promised, oft foretold-- augustus caesar. he the age of gold, god-born himself, in latium shall restore, and rule the land, that saturn ruled of old, and spread afar his empire and his power to garamantian tribes, and india's distant shore. cvi. "beyond the planets his dominions lie, beyond the solar circuit of the year, where atlas bears the starry-spangled sky. e'en now the realms of caspia shuddering hear his coming, made by oracles too clear. e'en now maeotia trembles at his tread, and nile's seven mouths are troubled, as in fear she shrinks reluctant to the deep, such dread hath seized the wondering world, so far his fame hath spread. cvii. "so much of earth not hercules of yore o'erpassed, though he the brass-hoofed hind laid low, and forth from erymanthus drove the boar, and startled lerna's forest with his bow; nor he, the wine-god, who in conquering show, with vine-wreathed reins, and tigers to his car, rides down from nysa to the plains below. and doubt we then to celebrate so far our prowess, and shall fear ausonian fields debar? cviii. "but see, who, crowned with olive wreath, doth bring the sacred vessels? by his long, grey hair and grizzled beard i know the roman king, whom fate from lowly cures calls to bear the mighty burden of an empire's care, in peace the fabric of our laws to frame. now, tullus comes, new triumphs to prepare, and wake the folk to arm from idlesse fame, and ancus courts e'en now the popular acclaim. cix. "would'st thou behold the tarquins? yonder stands great brutus, the avenger, proud to tear the people's fasces from the tyrant's hands. first consul, he the dreaded axe shall bear, the patriot-father, who for freedom fair shall call his own rebellious sons to bleed. o noble soul, but hapless! howso'er succeeding ages shall record the deed. 'tis country's love prevails, and glory's quenchless greed. cx. "lo, there the drusi and the decii stand, and stern torquatus with his axe, and lo! camilius brings in triumph to his land the roman standards, rescued from the foe. see, too, yon pair, well-matched in equal show of radiant arms, and, while obscured in night, firm knit in friendly fellowship; but oh! how dire the feud, what hosts shall arm for fight, what streams of carnage flow, if e'er they reach the light! cxi. "here from monoecus and the alps descends the father; there, with easterns in array, the daughter's husband. o my sons! be friends; cease from the strife; forbear the unnatural fray, nor turn rome's prowess to her own decay; and thou, the foremost of our blood, be first to fling the arms of civic strife away, and cease for lawless victories to thirst, thou of olympian birth, and sheath the sword, accurst. cxii. "see who from corinth doth his march pursue, decked with the spoils of many a grecian foe. his car shall climb the capitol. see, too, the man who lofty argos shall o'erthrow, and lay the walls of agamemnon low, and great aeacides himself destroy, sprung from achilles, to requite the woe wrought on old ilion, and avenge with joy minerva's outraged fane, and slaughtered sires of troy. cxiii. "shalt thou, great cato, unextolled remain? cossus? the gracchi? or the scipios, ye twin thunderbolts of battle, and the bane of libya? who would fail to tell of thee, fabricius, potent in thy poverty? or thee, serranus, scattering the seed? o spare my breath, ye fabii; thou art he called maximus, their greatest thou indeed, sole saviour, whose delay averts the hour of need. cxiv. "others, no doubt, from breathing bronze shall draw more softness, and a living face devise from marble, plead their causes at the law more deftly, trace the motions of the skies with learned rod, and tell the stars that rise. thou, roman, rule, and o'er the world proclaim the ways of peace. be these thy victories, to spare the vanquished and the proud to tame. these are imperial arts, and worthy of thy name." cxv. he paused; and while they pondered in amaze, "behold," he cried "marcellus, see him stride, proud of the spoils that tell a nation's praise. see how he towers, with all a conqueror's pride. his arm shall stem the tumult and the tide of foreign hordes, and save the land from stain. 'tis he shall crush the rebel gaul, and ride through punic ranks, and in quirinus' fane hang up the thrice-won spoils, in triumph for the slain." cxvi. then thus aeneas spoke, for, passing by, he saw a comely youth, in bright array of glittering arms; yet downcast was his eye, joyless and damp his face; "o father, say, who companies the hero on his way? his son? or scion of his stock renowned? what peerless excellence his looks display! what stir, what whispers in the crowd around! but gloomy night's sad shades his youthful brows surround." cxvii. weeping, the sire: "seek not, my son, to weigh thy children's mighty sorrow. him shall fate just show to earth, but suffer not to stay. too potent heaven had deemed the roman state, were gifts like this as permanent as great. ah! what laments, what groanings of the brave shall fill the field of mars! what funeral state shall tiber see, as past the recent grave slowly and sad he winds his melancholy wave! cxviii. "no trojan youth of such illustrious worth shall raise the hopes of latin sires so high. ne'er shall the land of romulus henceforth look on a fosterling with prouder eye. o filial love! o faith of days gone by! o hand unconquered! none had hoped to bide unscathed his onset, nor his arm defy, when, foot to foot, the murderous sword he plied, or dug with iron heel his foaming charger's side. cxix. "ah! child of tears! can'st thou again be free and burst fate's cruel bondage, rome shall know her own marcellus, reappeared in thee. go, fill your hands with lilies; let me strow the purple blossoms where he lies below. these gifts, at least, in sorrow will i lay, to grace my kinsman's spirit, thus--but oh! alas, how vainly!--to the thankless clay these unavailing dues, these empty offerings pay." cxx. twain are the gates of sleep; one framed, 'tis said, of horn, which easy exit doth invite for real shades to issue from the dead. one with the gleam of polished ivory bright, whence only lying visions leave the night. through this anchises, talking by the way, sends forth the son and sibyl to the light. back hastes aeneas to his friends, and they straight to caieta steer, and anchor in her bay. book seven argument passing caieta and circeii, aeneas sails up the tiber ( - ). virgil pauses to enumerate the old rulers of latium and to describe the state of the country at the coming of aeneas. latinus is king. oracles have foretold that by marriage with an alien his only daughter is to become the mother of an imperial line. fresh signs and wonders enforce the prophecy ( - ). the trojans eat their tables ( - ). an embassage is sent to the latin capital, and after conference latinus offers peace to the trojans and to aeneas his daughter's hand ( - ). juno, the evil genius of troy, again intervenes and summons to her aid the demon alecto ( - ), who excites first amata then turnus against the proposed peace, and finally ( - ) provokes a pitched battle between trojans and latins ( - ). alecto is scornfully dismissed by juno, who causes war to be formally declared ( - ). the war-fever in italy. catalogue of the leaders and nations that gather to destroy aeneas, chief among them being turnus and camilla ( - ). i. thou too, caieta, dying, to our shore, aeneas' nurse, hast given a deathless fame, e'en now thine honour guards it, as of yore, still doth thy tomb in great hesperia frame glory--if that be glory--for thy name. here good aeneas paid his dues aright, and raised a mound, and now, as evening came, sails forth; the faint winds whisper to the night; clear shines the moon, and tips the trembling waves with light. ii. they skirt the coast, where circe, maiden bright, the sun's rich daughter, wakes with melodies the groves that none may enter. there each night, as nimbly through the slender warp she plies the whistling shuttle, through her chambers rise the flames of odorous cedar. thence the roar of lions, raging at their chains, the cries of bears close-caged, and many a bristly boar, the yells of monstrous wolves at midnight fill the shore. iii. all these with potent herbs the cruel queen had stripped of man's similitude, to wear a brutal figure, and a bestial mien. but kindly neptune, with protecting care, and loth to see the pious trojans bear a doom so vile, such prodigies as these, lest, borne perchance into the bay, they near the baneful shore, fills out with favouring breeze the sails, and speeds their flight across the boiling seas. iv. now blushed the deep beneath the dawning ray, and in her rosy chariot borne on high, aurora, bright with saffron, brought the day. down drop the winds, the zephyrs cease to sigh, and not a breath is stirring in the sky, and not a ripple on the marble seas, as heavily the toiling oars they ply. when near him from the deep aeneas sees a mighty grove outspread, a forest thick with trees. v. and in the midst of that delightful grove fair-flowing tiber, eddying swift and strong, breaks to the main. around them and above, gay-plumaged fowl, that to the stream belong, and love the channel and the banks to throng, now skim the flood, now fly from bough to bough, and charm the air with their melodious song. shoreward aeneas bids them turn the prow, and up the shady stream with joyous hearts they row. vi. say, erato, how latium fared of yore, what deeds were wrought, what rulers lived and died, when strangers landed on ausonia's shore, and trace the rising of the war's dark tide. fierce feuds i sing--o goddess, be my guide,-- tyrrhenian hosts, the battle's armed array, proud kings who fought and perished in their pride, and all hesperia gathered to the fray, a larger theme unfolds, and loftier is the lay. vii. long had latinus ruled the peaceful state. a nymph, marica, of laurentian breed, bore him to faunus, who, as tales relate, derived through picus his saturnian seed. no son was left latinus to succeed, his boy had died ere manhood; one alone remained, a daughter, so the fates decreed, to mind his palace and to heir his throne ripe now for marriage rites, to nuptial age full-grown. viii. full many a prince from latium far and wide, and all ausonia had essayed in vain to win the fair lavinia for his bride. her suitor now, the comeliest of the train, was turnus, sprung from an illustrious strain. fair seemed his suit, for kindly was the maid, and dearly the queen loved him, and was fain his hopes to further, but the fates gainsayed, and boding signs from heaven the purposed match delayed. ix. deep in the inmost palace, long rever'd, there stood an ancient laurel. 'twas the same that sire latinus, when the walls he reared, found there, and vowed to phoebus, and the name "laurentines" thence his settlers taught to claim. here suddenly--behold a wondrous thing!-- borne with loud buzzing through the air, down came a swarm of bees. around the top they cling, and from a leafy branch in linked clusters swing. x. "behold, from yon same quarter," cried a seer, "a stranger! see their swarming hosts conspire to lord it o'er laurentum; see them near." he spake, but lo! while, standing by her sire, the chaste lavinia feeds the sacred fire, the flames, o horror! on her locks lay hold: her beauteous head-dress and her rich attire, her hair, her coronal of gems and gold blaze, and the crackling flames her regal robe enfold. xi. wrapt, so it seemed, in clouds of smoke, but bright with yellow flames, through all the house she fled, scattering a shower of sparkles. sore affright and wonder seized them, as the seer with dread explained the vision; 'twas a sign, he said, that bright and glorious in the rolls of fate her fame should flourish and her name be spread, but dark should lour the fortunes of the state, whelmed in a mighty war and sunk in evil strait. xii. forth hastes latinus, by these sights distressed, to faunus' oracle, his sire renowned, and seeks the grove, beneath albunea's crest, and sacred spring, which, echoing from the ground, leaps up and flings its sulphurous fumes around. here, craving counsel when in doubtful plight, italians and oenotria's tribes are found. here, when the priest, his offerings paid aright, on skins of slaughtered beasts, in stillness of the night, xiii. lies down to sleep, in visions he beholds weird shapes, and many a wondrous voice doth hear, and, borne in spirit to avernus, holds deep converse there with acheron. 'twas here latinus sought for answer from the seer. a hundred ewes, obedient to the rite, he slew, then rested, with expectant ear, stretched on their fleeces, when, at noon of night, straight from the grove's deep gloom forth pealed a voice of might: xiv. "seek not, my son, a latin lord. beware the purposed bridal. lo! a foreign guest is coming, born to raise thee as thine heir, and sons of sons shall see their power confessed from sea to sea, from farthest east to west." these words, in stillness of the night's noon-tide, latinus hears, nor locks them in his breast. ausonia's towns have heard them far and wide, or ere by tiber's banks the dardan fleet doth ride. xv. stretched on the grass beneath a tall tree lie troy's chief and captains and iulus fair, and wheaten platters for their meal supply ('twas jove's command), the wilding fruits to bear. when lack of food has forced them now to tear the tiny cakes, and tooth and hand with zest the fateful circles desecrate, nor spare the sacred squares upon the rounds impressed, "what! eating boards as well?" iulus cries in jest. xvi. 'twas all; the sally, as we heard it, sealed our toils. aeneas caught it, as it flew, and hushed them, marvelling at the sign revealed. "hail! land," he cries, "long destined for our due. hail, household deities, to troy still true! here lies our home. thus, thus, i mind the hour, anchises brought fate's hidden things to view: 'my son, when famine on an unknown shore shall make thee, failing food, the very boards devour, xvii. "'then, worn and wearied, look to find a home, and build thy walls, and bank them with a mound.' this was that famine; this the last to come of all our woes, the woful term to bound. come then, at daybreak search the land around (each from the harbour separate let us fare) and see what folk, and where their town, be found, now pour to jove libations, and with prayer invoke anchises' shade, and back the wine-cups bear." xviii. so saying, his brows he garlands, and with prayer invokes the genius whom the place doth own, and earth, first goddess, and the nymphs who there inhabit, and the rivers yet unknown, night and the stars that glitter in her zone he calls to aid him, and idaean jove, and phrygia's mother on her heavenly throne, and last, his parent deities to move, invokes his sire below and mother queen above. xix. thrice jove omnipotent from heaven's blue height thunders aloud, and flashes in the skies a cloud ablaze with rays of golden light. 'tis come--so rumour through the trojans flies-- the day to bid their promised walls arise. cheered by the mighty omen and the sign, they spread the feast, and each with other vies to range the goblets and to wreath the wine, and gladdening hearts rejoice to greet the day divine. xx. soon as the morrow bathed the world once more in dawning light, by separate ways they fare to search the town, the frontiers and the shore. here is numicius' fountain, tiber there, here dwell the latins. then anchises' heir choice spokesmen to the monarch's city sends, five score, their peaceful errand to declare, and royal presents to their charge commends, and bids them claim of right the welcome due to friends. xxi. at once the heralds hearken and obey, and each and all, with rapid steps, and crowned with pallas' olive, hasten on their way. himself with shallow trench marks out the ground, and, camp-like, girds with bastions and a mound the new-formed settlement. meanwhile the train of delegates their journey's end have found, and greet with joy, uprising o'er the plain, the latin towers and homes, and now the walls attain. xxii. before the city, boys and youths contend on horseback. through the whirling dust they steer their chariots and the practised steeds, or bend the tight-strung bow, or aim the limber spear, or urge fist-combat or the foot's career. now to their king a message quick has flown; tall men and strange, in foreign garb are here. latinus summons them within: anon, amidmost of his court he mounts the ancestral throne. xxiii. raised on a hundred columns, vast and tall, above the city reared its reverend head a stately fabric, once the palace-hall of picus. dark woods shrouded, and the dread of ages filled, the precinct. here, 'tis said, kings took the sceptre and the axe of fate, their senate house this temple; here were spread the tables for the sacred feast, where sate, what time the ram was slain, the elders of the state. xxiv. in ancient cedar o'er the doors appear the sculptured effigies of sires divine. grey saturn, italus, sabinus here, curved hook in hand, the planter of the vine. there two-faced janus, and, in ordered line, old kings and patriot chieftains. captive cars hang round, and arms upon the doorposts shine, curved axes, crests of helmets, towngates' bars, spears, shields and beaks of ships, the trophies of their wars. xxv. there picus sat, with his quirinal wand, tamer of steeds. the augur's gown he wore, short, striped and belted; and his lifted hand the sacred buckler on the left upbore. him circe, his enamoured bride, of yore, wild with desire, so ancient legends say, smote with her golden rod, and sprinkling o'er his limbs her magic poisons, made a jay, and sent to roam the air, with dappled plumage gay. xxvi. such is the temple, in whose sacred dome latinus waits the teucrians on his throne, and kindly thus accosts them as they come: 'speak, dardans,--for the dardan name ye own; nor strange your race and city, nor unknown sail ye the plains of ocean--tell me now, what seek ye? by the tempest tost, or blown at random, needful of what help and how came ye to latin shores the dark-blue deep to plough? xxvii. "but, whether wandering from your course, or cast by storms--such ills as oft-times on the main o'ertake poor mariners--your ships at last our stream have entered, and the port attain. shun not a welcome, nor our cheer disdain. for dear to saturn, whom our sires adored, was latium. manners, not the laws, constrain to justice. freely, of our own accord, we mind the golden age, and virtues of our lord. xxviii. "now, i remember, old auruncans told (age dims, but memory can the tale retrace) how, born in latium, dardanus of old went forth to northern samos, styled of thrace, and reached the towns at phrygian ida's base. from tuscan corythus in days gone by he went, and now among the stars hath place, throned in the golden palace of the sky. on earth his altar marks one godhead more on high." xxix. he spake: ilioneus this answer gave: "o king, blest seed of faunus! star nor strand misled us, nor hath stress of storm or wave forced us to seek the shelter of your land. freewill hath brought us hither, forethought planned our flight; for we are outcasts, every one, the toil-worn remnant of an exiled band, driven from a mighty empire; mightier none in bygone years was known beneath the wandering sun. xxx. "from jove we spring; jove dardans hail with joy their parent; he who sends us is our lord aeneas, jove-born and a prince of troy. how fierce a tempest from mycenae poured o'er ida's fields; how fate with fire and sword made europe clash with asia, he hath known whoe'er to ocean's limits hath explored the utmost earth, or in the central zone dwells, if a man there be, in torrid climes unknown. xxxi. "swept by that deluge o'er the deep, we crave a home for home-gods, shelter on the strand, and man's free privilege of air and wave. we shall not shame the lustre of your land, nor stint the gratitude kind deeds demand. grant troy a refuge, and ausonians ne'er shall rue the welcome proffered by your hand. yea, scorn us not, that thus unsought we bear the lowly suppliant's wreath, and speak the words of prayer. xxxii. "full many a people,--let the fates attest of great aeneas, and his hand of might, ne'er pledged in vain, our bravest and our best-- full many a tribe, though lowly be our plight, have sought with ours their fortunes to unite. fate bade us seek your country and her king. hither, where dardanus first saw the light, apollo back the dardan race would bring, to tuscan tiber's banks and pure numicius' spring. xxxiii. "these gifts aeneas to our charge commends, poor relics saved from ilion, but a sign of ancient greatness, and the gifts of friends. see, from this golden goblet at the shrine his sire anchises poured the sacred wine; clad in these robes sat priam, when of old the laws he ministered. these robes are thine, this sceptre, this embroidered vest,--behold, 'twas wrought by trojan dames,--this diadem of gold." xxxiv. mute sat and motionless, with looks bent down, latinus; but his restless eyes confessed his musings. not the sceptre nor the gown of purple moved him, but his pensive breast dwelt on his daughter's marriage, till he guessed the meaning of old faunus. this was he, his destined heir, the bridegroom and the guest, whose glorious progeny, by fate's decree, the latin throne should share, and rule from sea to sea. xxxv. "heaven prosper," joyfully he cried, "our deed, and heaven's own augury. your wish shall stand; i take the gifts. yours, trojans, all ye need-- the wealth of troy, the fatness of the land,-- nought shall ye lack from king latinus' hand. let but aeneas, if he longs so fain to claim our friendship, and a home demand, come here, nor fear to greet us. not in vain 'twixt monarchs stands the peace, which plighted hands ordain. xxxvi. "let now this message to your king be given. 'a child, the daughter of my heart, is mine, whom neither frequent prodigies from heaven, nor voices uttered from my father's shrine, permit with one of latin birth to join. strange sons--so latin oracles conspire-- shall come, whose offspring shall exalt our line. thy king the bridegroom whom the fates require i deem, and, if in aught i read the truth, desire.'" xxxvii. so speaks latinus, and with kindly care choice steeds selects. three hundred of the best stand in his lofty stables, sleek and fair; and forth in order for each teucrian guest his servants led them, at their king's behest. rich housings, wrought in many a purple fold, and broidered rugs adorn them; o'er each breast hang golden poitrels, glorious to behold. each champs with foaming mouth a chain of glittering gold. xxxviii. a car he orders for the dardan sire, and twin-yoked coursers of ethereal seed, whose snorting nostrils breathe the flames of fire. half-mortal, half-immortal was each steed, the bastard birth of that celestial breed, which cunning circe from a mortal mare raised to her sire the sun-god. so with speed the mounted trojans to their prince repair, pleased with the gifts and words, for peaceful news they bear. xxxix. lo! from inachian argos through the skies jove's consort her avenging flight pursues, and far off, from pachynus, as she flies o'er sicily, beholds the dardan crews and great aeneas, gladdening at the news. the rising settlement, the new-tilled shore, the ships deserted for the land she views, and shaking her imperial brows, and sore with anguish, from her breast these wrathful words doth pour: xl. "ah, hateful race! ah, phrygian fates abhorred! what, fell they not on the sigean plain? must captives be twice captured? have the sword and flames of troy avenged me but in vain? have foes and fire found passage for the slain? sooth, then, my godhead sleepeth, and that hand is tired of hate, which whilom o'er the main dared chase these outcasts and their paths withstand, where'er the deep sea rolled, far from their native land! xli. "have sea and sky been wielded to destroy, nor syrtes yet, nor scylla's fierce embrace, nor vast charybdis whelmed the sons of troy, who, safe in tiber, flout me to the face? yet mars from earth, and for a less disgrace could sweep the lapithae, and heaven's great sire doomed ancient calydon and oeneus' race to rue the vengeance of diana's ire. did ever crime of theirs the dardans' meed require? xlii. "but i, jove's consort, who have stooped to seek all shifts, all ventures and devices, i am vanquished by aeneas! if too weak myself, some other godhead will i try, and hell shall hear, if heaven its aid deny. grant that these dardans must in latium reign, that fixt and changeless stands the doom, whereby his bride shall be lavinia, that in vain can juno thwart whate'er the destinies ordain; xliii. "yet time delayed can make occasion lost, yet mutual strife each nation may devour, and kings plight marriage at their peoples' cost. troy's blood and latium's, maiden, be thy dower. bellona lights thee to thy bridal bower. not only hecuba--ah, sweet the joy!-- conceives a firebrand. born in evil hour, the child of venus shall her hopes destroy, and, like another paris, fire a new-born troy." xliv. she spake, and earthward darting, fierce and fell, calls sad alecto from her dark retreat among the furies in the shades of hell. sweet are war's sorrows to her soul, and sweet are evil deeds, and hatred and deceit. e'en pluto, e'en her sister-fiends detest the monstrous shape, so many forms complete the grisly horrors of that hateful pest, so many a coal-black snake sprouts from her threatening crest. xlv. her juno finds, and thus new rage inspires: "grant, virgin daughter of eternal night, this boon, the labour that thy soul desires. lest here my fame and honour lose their might, and troy gain italy, and craft unite troy's prince with latium's heiress. thou can'st turn fond hearts to feuds, and brethren arm for fight. thou know'st, for savage is thy mood and stern, to breed domestic strife and happy homes to burn. xlvi. "a thousand names, a thousand means hast thou of mischief. search thy fertile breast, and break the plighted peace. breed calumnies, and sow the strife. let youth desire, demand and take thy weapons."--wreathed with many a gorgon snake, to latium's court alecto flew unseen, and by amata's chamber sate, nor spake; while, musing on her new-come guests, the queen, wroth for her turnus, boiled with woman's rage and spleen. xlvii. at her the goddess from her dark locks threw a snake, and lodged the monster in her breast, to make her fury all the house undo. in glides, impalpable, the maddening pest between the dainty bosom and the vest, breathing its venom. like a necklace thin it hung, all golden, like a wreath, caressed her temples, like a ribbon, wove within her hair its slippery coils, and wandered o'er her skin. xlviii. so, while the taint, first stealing through her frame, slipped in, with slimy venom, and the pest thrilled every sense, and wrapped her bones in flame, nor yet her soul had caught it, or confessed the fiery fever that consumed her breast; soft, like a mother, and with tears, she cried, grieved for her child, and pondering with unrest the phrygian match, "ah, woe the day betide, if teucrian exiles win lavinia for a bride! xlix. "hast thou no pity for thy child, nor thee, o father! nor her mother, left forlorn, when, with the rising north-wind, o'er the sea yon faithless pirate hath the maiden borne? not so, forsooth, did lacedaemon mourn robbed helen, when the phrygian shepherd planned her capture. is thy sacred faith forsworn? where is thy old affection? where that hand so oft to turnus pledged, thy kinsman of the land? l. "if latins for lavinia needs must find a foreign mate; if so the fates constrain, and faunus' words weigh heavy on thy mind, all lands, that yield not to the latin reign, i count as foreign; so the gods speak plain; and foreign then is turnus, if we trace the first beginning of his princely strain. greeks were his grandsires; argos was the place where old acrisius ruled, where dwelt th' inachian race." li. so pleading, and so weeping, she essayed to move the king; but when her prayers were vain, nor tears latinus from his purpose stayed, and now the viper with its deadly bane crept to her inmost parts, and through each vein the maddening poison to her heartstrings stole, then, scared by monstrous phantoms of the brain, poor queen! she raved, and maddening past control, ran through the crowded streets in impotence of soul. lii. like as a whip-top by the lash is sent in widening orbs to spin, when lads among the empty courtyards urge their merriment; and, scourged in circling courses by the thong it wheels and eddies, while the beardless throng bend over, lost in ignorant surprise, and marvel, as the boxwood whirls along, stirred by each stroke; so fast amata flies from street to street, while crowds look on with lowering eyes. liii. nay, simulating bacchus, now she dares to feign new orgies, and her crime complete. swift with her daughter to the woods she fares, and hides her on the mountains, fain to cheat the trojans, and the purposed rites defeat. "hail, thou alone art worthy of the fair! evoe, bacchus! for thy name is sweet. for thee she grows her dedicated hair, for thee she leads the dance, the ivied wand doth bear." liv. the matrons then--so fast the rumour flew,-- fired like the queen, and frenzied with despair, rush forth, and leave their ancient homes for new, and to the breezes give their necks and hair. these with their tremulous wailings fill the air, and, girt about with fawn-skins, bear along the vine-branch javelins, and amata there, herself ablaze with fury, o'er the throng a blazing pine-torch waves, and chants the nuptial song lv. of turnus and lavinia. fiercely roll her blood-shot eyes, and, frowning, suddenly she pours the frantic passions of her soul. "ho! latin mothers all, where'er ye be, here, if ye love me, if a mother's plea deserve your pity, let your hair be seen loosed from the fillets, and be mad, like me." so through the woods, the wild-beasts' lairs between, with bacchanalian goads alecto drives the queen. lvi. when now thus fairly was the work begun, the barbs of anger planted, pleased to view latinus' purpose and his house undone, on dusky wings the goddess soared, and through the liquid air to neighbouring ardea flew, the bold rutulian's city, built of yore by danae, thither when the south-wind blew her and her followers. ardea's name it bore, and ardea's name still lives, though fortune smiles no more. lvii. there in his palace, locked in sleep's embrace, lay turnus. straight alecto, versed in snares, doffs the fiend's figure and her frowning face. the likeness of a withered crone she wears, with wrinkled forehead and with hoary hairs. her fillet and her olive crown proclaim the priestess. changed in semblance, she appears like calybe, great juno's sacred dame; thus to the youth she comes, and hails him by his name. lviii. "fie! turnus, fie! wilt thou behold unstirred such labours wasted, and thy hopes belied? thy sceptre to a dardan guest transferred? see, now, to thee latinus hath denied thy blood-bought dowry, and thy promised bride, and seeks a stranger for his throne. away to thankless perils, while thy friends deride! go, strew the tuscans, scatter their array, till latins, saved once more, their plighted word betray. lix. "this mandate great saturnia bade me bear, thou sleeping. up, then! greet the welcome hour; arm, arm the youth, and from the towngates fare! these phrygian vessels with the flames devour, moored yonder in fair tiber. 'tis the power of heaven that bids thee. let latinus, too, if false and faithless he withhold the dower, and grudge thy marriage, learn the deed to rue, and taste at length and try what turnus armed can do." lx. then he in scorn: "yea, tiber's waves beset with foreign ships--i know it; wherefore feign for me such terrors? juno guards me yet. good mother, dotage wears thee, and thy brain is rusty; age hath troubled thee in vain, and, 'midst the feuds of monarchs, mocks with fright a priestess. go; 'tis thine to guard the fane and sacred statues; these be thy delight; leave peace and war to men, whose business is to fight." lxi. therewith in fire alecto's wrath outbroke, a sudden tremor through his limbs ran fast, his stony eyeballs stiffened as he spoke. so hissed the fury with her snakes, so vast her shape appeared, so fierce the look she cast, as back she thrust him with her flaming eyes, fain to say more, but faltering and aghast. two serpents from her gorgon locks uprise; shrill sounds her scorpion lash, as, foaming, thus she cries: lxii. "behold me, worn with dotage! me, whom age hath rusted, and, while monarchs fight, would scare with empty fears! behold me in my rage! i come, the furies' minister; see there, war, death and havoc in these hands i bear." full at his breast a firebrand, as she spoke, black with thick smoke, but bright with lurid glare, the fiend outflung. in terror he awoke, and o'er his bones and limbs a clammy sweat outbroke. lxiii. "arms, arms!" he yells, and searches for his sword in couch and chamber, maddening at the core with war's fierce passion, and the lust abhorred of slaughter, and with bitter wrath yet more. as when a wood-fire crackles with fierce roar, heaped round a caldron, and the simmering stream foams, fumes, and bubbles, and at last boils o'er, and upward shoots the mingled smoke and steam; so turnus boils with wrath, so dire his rage doth seem. lxiv. choice youths he sends, to let latinus know the peace was torn, then musters his array to guard italia and expel the foe. let trojans league with latins as they may, himself can match them, and he comes to slay. so saying, his vows he renders. ardour fires the fierce rutulians, and each hails the fray; and one his youth, and one his grace admires, and one his valorous deeds, and one his kingly sires. lxv. so turnus the rutulians stirred to war. meanwhile the fury to the trojans bent her flight; with wily eye she marked afar, with snares and steeds upon the chase intent, iulus. on his hounds at once she sent a sudden madness, and fierce rage awoke to chase the stag, as with the well-known scent she lured their nostrils.--thus the feud outbroke; so small a cause of strife could rustic hearts provoke. lxvi. broad-antlered, beauteous was the stag, which erst the sons of tyrrheus (tyrrheus kept whilere the royal herd and pastures), fostering nursed, snatched from the dam. their sister, silvia fair, oft wreathed his horns, and oft with tender care she washed him, and his shaggy coat would comb. so tamed, and trained his master's board to share, the gentle favourite in the woods would roam; each night, how late soe'er, he sought the well-known home. lxvii. him the fierce hounds now startle far astray, as down the stream he floats, or, crouching low, rests on the green bank from the noontide ray. athirst for praise, ascanius bends his bow; loud whirs the arrow, for fate aims the blow, and cleaves his flank and belly. homeward flies the wounded creature, moaning in his woe. blood-stained, with piteous and imploring eyes, like one who sues for life, he fills the house with cries. lxviii. smiting the breast, poor silvia calls for aid. forth rush the churls, scarce waiting her demand, roused by the fury in the wood's still shade. one grasps a club, another wields a brand; rage makes a weapon of what comes to hand. forth from his work ran tyrrheus, who an oak was cleaving with the wedge, and cheered the band. his hand still grasped the hatchet for the stroke, and bitter wrath he breathed, and fierce the words he spoke. lxix. the fury snatched the moment; forth she flew, and, perching on the cabin-roof, looked round, and from the curved horn of the shepherds blew a blast of tartarus, that shook the ground, and made the forests and the groves rebound the infernal echoes. trivia's lakes afar, and velia's fountains heard the dreadful sound; the white waves heard it of the sulphurous nar, and mothers clasped their babes, and trembled at the war. lxx. swift at the summons, as the trumpet brayed, the sturdy shepherds arm them for the fray. swift pour the trojans from their camp, to aid ascanius. lo! 'tis battle's stern array, no village brawl, where churls dispute the day with charred oak-staves and cudgels. broadswords clash with broadswords, and war's harvest far away stands, bristling black with iron, as they dash together, and drawn swords in doubtful conflict flash. lxxi. and brazen arms shoot many a blinding ray, smit by the sun, as clouds that fill the sky, disparting, show the splendours of the fray. as when a light wind o'er the sea doth fly, and the wave whitens as the breeze goes by, and by degrees the bosom of the deep heaves up and swells, till higher and more high the billows rise, and, gathering in a heap, from ocean's caves mount up, and storm the ethereal steep. lxxii. first falls the son of tyrrheus, stretched in death, young almo. in his throat the deadly bane stuck fast, and choked the humid pass of breath, and clipped the thin-spun life. there, too, is slain grey-haired galaesus, parleying but in vain. more righteous none, though many around lie killed, none wealthier did ausonia's realm contain. five herds, five bleating flocks, his pastures filled, and with a hundred ploughs his fruitful lands he tilled. lxxiii. thus while the conflict wavered on the plain, the fury, pleased her triumph to survey, her pledge fulfilled,--war crimsoned with the stain of gore, and grim death busy with his prey,-- swift from hesperia wings her airy way, and proudly speaks to juno: "see, 'tis done; the discord perfect in the dolorous fray, and war with all its miseries begun. now bid, forsooth, the foes plight friendship and be one. lxxiv. "steeped are thy trojans in ausonian gore. yet speak, and more will i perform, if so thy purpose holds. along the neighbouring shore each town shall hear the rumour of the foe, each breast with frenzy for the strife shall glow, till all bring aid, and fruitful is the land in deeds of blood."--then juno: "nay, not so; enough of fraud and terror. firmly stand the causes of the feud; they battle hand to hand, lxxv. "and fresh blood stains the weapons chance supplied. such joy the bridal to latinus bear, and venus' wondrous offspring, and his bride. but thou--for scarce olympus' king would bear thy lawless roving in ethereal air,-- give place; myself will guide the rest aright." saturnia spoke; alecto then and there her wings, that hiss with serpents, spreads for flight, and to cocytus dives, and leaves the realms of light. lxxvi. in mid italia lies a vale renowned, amsanctus. dark woods down the mountain grow this side and that; a torrent with the sound of thunder roars among the rocks below. there, black as night, an awful cave they show, the gorge of dis. dread acheron from beneath bursts in a whirlpool, with its waves of woe, and jaws that gape with pestilential death. there plunged the hateful fiend, and earth and air took breath. lxxvii. nor less, meanwhile, saturnia hastes to crown the war's mad tumult. home the shepherds bore their dead from out the battle to the town. young almo, and galaesus, fouled with gore. all bid latinus witness, and implore the gods, and while the blood-cry calls for flame and slaughter, turnus swells the wild uproar. what! he an outcast? shall the trojans claim the realm, and bastards dare the latin race to shame? lxxviii. then they, whose mothers through the pathless vales and forests, fired with bacchic frenzy, ply their orgies--so amata's name prevails-- come forth, and, gathering from far and nigh, weary the war-god with their clamorous cry, till, thwarting heaven's high purpose, each and all omens at once and oracles defy, and swarm around latinus in his hall, war now is all their wish, "to arms" the general call. lxxix. firm stands the monarch as a sea-girt rock, a sea-girt rock against the roaring main, which, spite of barking billows and the shock of ocean, doth its own huge mass sustain. the foaming crags around it chafe in vain, and back it flings the seaweed from its side. too weak at length their madness to restrain, for things move on as juno's whims decide, oft to the gods, and oft to empty air he cried. lxxx. "ah me! the tempest hurries us along. fate grinds us sore. poor latins! ye must sate, your blood must pay, the forfeit for your wrong. thee, turnus, thee the avenging fiends await, thou, too, the gods shalt weary, but too late. my rest is won, and in the port i ride; happy in all, had not an envious fate denied a happy ending." thus he cried, and to his chamber fled, and flung the crown aside. lxxxi. a custom in hesperian latium reigned, which alban cities kept with sacred care, and rome, the world's great mistress, hath retained. thus still they wake the war-god, whensoe'er for arabs or hyrcanians they prepare, or getic tribes the tearful woes of war, or push to ind their distant arms, or dare to track the footsteps of the morning star, and claim their standards back from parthia's hosts afar. lxxxii. twain are the gates of war, to dreadful mars with awe kept sacred and religious pride. a hundred brazen bolts and iron bars shut fast the doors, and janus stands beside. here, when the senators on war decide, the consul, decked in his quirinal pall and gabine cincture, flings the portals wide, and cries to arms; the warriors, one and all, with blare of brazen horns make answer to the call. lxxxiii. 'twas thus that now latinus they require to dare aeneas' followers to the fray, and ope the portals. but the good old sire shrank from the touch, and, shuddering with dismay, shunned the foul office, and abjured the day. then, downward darting from the skies afar, heaven's empress with her right hand wrenched away the lingering bars. the grating hinges jar, as back saturnia thrusts the iron gates of war. lxxxiv. then woke ausonia from her sleep. forth swarm footmen and horsemen, and in wild career whirl up the dust. "arm," cry the warriors, "arm!" with unctuous lard their polished shields they smear, and whet the axe, and scour the rusty spear. their banners wave, their trumpets sound the fight. five towns their anvils for the war uprear, crustumium, tibur, glorying in her might, ardea, atina strong, antemnae's tower-girt height. lxxxv. lithe twigs of osier in their shields they weave, and shape the casque, and in the mould prepare the brazen breastplate and the silver greave. scorned lie the spade, the sickle and the share, their fathers' falchions to the forge they bear. now peals the clarion; through the host hath spread the watch-word. helmets from the walls they tear, and yoke the steeds. in triple gold arrayed, each grasps the burnished shield, and girds the trusty blade. lxxxvi. now open helicon; awake the strain, ye muses. aid me, that the tale be told, what kings were roused, what armies filled the plain, what battles blazed, what men of valiant mould graced fair italia in those days of old. aid ye, for ye are goddesses, and clear can ye remember, and the tale unfold. but faint and feeble is the voice we hear, a slender breath of fame, that falters on the ear. lxxxvii. first came with armed men from etruria's coast mezentius, scorner of the gods. next came his son, young lausus, comeliest of the host, save turnus--lausus, who the steed could tame, and quell wild beasts and track the woodland game. a hundred warriors from agylla's town he leads--ah vainly! though he died with fame. proud had he been and worthy to have known a nobler sire's commands, a nobler sire to own. lxxxviii. with conquering steeds triumphant o'er the mead, his chariot, crowned with palm-leaves, proudly wheeled the comely aventinus, glorious seed of glorious hercules; the blazoned shield his father's hydra and her snakes revealed. him, when of old, the monstrous geryon slain, the lord of tiryns, victor of the field, reached in his wanderings the laurentian plain, and bathed in tiber's stream the captured herds of spain, lxxxix. the priestess rhea, in the secret shade of wooded aventine, brought forth to light, a god commingling with a mortal maid. with pikes and poles his followers join the fight, their swords are sharp, their sabine spears are bright. himself afoot, a lion's bristling hide with sharp teeth set in rows of glittering white, swings o'er his forehead, as with eager stride, clad in his father's cloak, he seeks the monarch's side. xc. twin brothers came from tibur--such the name tiburtus gave it--one catillus hight, and one fierce coras, each of argive fame, each in the van, where deadliest raves the fight. as when two cloud-born centaurs in their might from some tall mountain with swift strides descend, steep homole, or othrys' snow-capt height; the thickets yield, trees crash, and branches bend, as with resistless force the trampled woods they rend. xci. nor lacked praeneste's founder, vulcan's child, found on the hearthstone--if the tale be true,-- brave caeculus, the shepherds' monarch styled. forth from praeneste swarmed the rustic crew, from juno's gabium to the fight they flew, from ice-cold anio, swoln with wintry rain, from hernic rocks, which mountain streams bedew, from fat anagnia's pastures, from the plain where amasenus rolls majestic to the main. xcii. with diverse arms they hasten to the war; not all can boast the clashing of the shield, not all the thunder of the rattling car. these sling their leaden bullets o'er the field, those in each hand the deadly javelin wield. with caps of fur their rugged brows are dight, the tawny covering from the dark wolf peeled; bare is the left foot, as they march to fight, and, rough with raw bull's-hide, a sandal guards the right. xciii. next came messapus, tamer of the steed, great neptune's son. fire nor the steel's sharp stroke could lay him lifeless, so the fates decreed. grasping his sword, a laggard race he woke, disused to war, and tardy to provoke. behind him throng fescennia's ranks to fight, men from flavinia, and faliscum's folk, and those whom fair capena's groves delight, ciminius' mount and lake, and steep soracte's height. xciv. with measured tramp, their monarch's praise they sing, like snowy swans, the liquid clouds among, which homeward from their feeding ply the wing, when o'er cayster's marish, loud and long, the echoes float of their melodious song. none, sure, such countless multitudes would deem the mail-clad warriors of an armed throng: nay, rather, like a dusky cloud they seem of sea-fowl, landward driven with many a hoarse-voiced scream. xcv. lo, clausus next; a mighty host he led, himself a host. from sabine sires he came, and latium thence the claudian house o'erspread, when romans first with sabines dared to claim coequal lordship and a share of fame. with amiternus came eretum's band; from fair velinus' dewy fields they came, from olive-crowned mutusca, from the land where proud nomentum's towers the fruitful plains command. xcvi. from the rough crags of tetrica came down her hosts; they came from tall severus' flank, from foruli and fam'd casperia's town, wash'd by himella's waves, and those who drank of fabaris, or dwelt on tiber's bank. those, too, whom nursia sendeth from the snows, and horta's sons, in many an ordered rank, and tribes of latin origin, and those between whose parted fields th' ill-omened allia flows. xcvii. as roll the billows on the libyan deep, when fierce orion in the wintry main sinks, dark with tempests, and the waves upleap; as, parched with suns of summer, stands the grain on hermus' fields, or lycia's golden plain; so countless swarm the multitudes around bold clausus, and the wide air rings again with echoes, as their clashing shields resound, and with the tramp of feet they shake the trembling ground. xcviii. there agamemnon's kinsman yokes his steeds, halaesus. trojans were his foes, his friend was turnus. lo, a thousand tribes he leads; those who on massic hills the vineyards tend, those whom auruncans from their mountains send. from sidicinum and her neighbouring plain, from cales, from volturnus' shoals they wend. from steep saticulum the sturdy swain, fierce for the fray, comes down and joins the oscan train. xcix. light barbs they fling, from pliant thongs of hide, a leathern target o'er the left is strung, and short, curved daggers the close fight decide. nor, oebalus, those gallant hosts among, shalt thou go nameless, and thy praise unsung, thou, from old telon, as the tale hath feigned, and beauteous sebethis, the wood-nymph, sprung, o'er teleboan caprea when he reigned; but caprea's narrow realm proud oebalus disdained. c. far stretched his rule; sarrastians owned his sway, and they, whose lands the sarnian waters drain, and they, who till celenna's fields, and they whom batulum and rufrae's walls contain, and where through apple-orchards o'er the plain shines fair abella. deftly can they wield their native arms; the teuton's lance they strain; bark helmets guard them, from the cork-tree peeled, and brazen are their swords, and brazen every shield. ci. from nersa's hills, by prosperous arms renowned, comes ufens, with his aequians, in array. rude huntsmen these; in arms the stubborn ground they till, themselves as stubborn. day by day they snatch fresh plunder, and they live by prey. there, too, brave umbro, of marruvian fame, sent by his king archippus, joins the fray. around his helmet, for in arms he came, the auspicious olive's leaves the sacred priest proclaim. cii. the rank-breath'd hydra and the viper's rage with hand and voice he lulled asleep; his art their bite could heal, their fury could assuage. alas! no medicine can heal the smart wrought by the griding of the dardan dart. nor massic herbs, nor slumberous charms avail to cure the wound, that rankles in his heart. ah, hapless! thee anguitia's bowering vale, thee fucinus' clear waves and liquid lakes bewail! ciii. next came to war hippolytus' fair child, the comely virbius, whom aricia bore amid egeria's grove, where rich and mild stands dian's altar on the meadowy shore. for when (fame tells) hippolytus of yore was slain, the victim of a stepdame's spite, and, torn by frightened horses, quenched with gore his father's wrath, famed paeon's herbs of might and dian's fostering love restored him to the light. civ. wroth then was jove, that one of mortal clay should rise by mortal healing from the grave, and change the nether darkness for the day, and him, whose leechcraft thus availed to save, hurled with his lightning to the stygian wave. but kind diana, in her pitying love, concealed her darling in a secret cave, and fair egeria nursed him in her grove, far from the view of men, and wrath of mighty jove. cv. there, changed in name to virbius, but to fame unknown, through life in latin woods he strayed. thenceforth, in memory of the deed of shame, no horn-hoof'd steeds are suffered to invade chaste trivia's temple or her sacred glade, since, scared by ocean's monsters, from his car they dashed him by the deep. yet, undismayed, his son, young virbius, o'er the plains afar the fleet-horsed chariot drives, and hastens to the war. cvi. high in the forefront towered with stately frame turnus himself. his three-plumed helmet bore a dragon fierce, that breathed aetnean flame. the bloodier waxed the battle, so the more its fierceness blazed, the louder was its roar. behold, the heifer on his shield, the sign of io's fate; there argus ever o'er the virgin watches, and the stream doth shine, poured from the pictured urn of inachus divine. cvii. next come the shielded footmen in a cloud, auruncan bands, sicanians famed of yore, argives, rutulians, and sacranians proud. their painted shields the brave labicians bore; from tibur's glades, from blest numicia's shore, from circe's mount, from where great jove presides o'er anxur, from feronia's grove they pour, from satura's dark pool, where ufens glides cold through the deepening vales, and mingles with the tides. cviii. last came camilla, with the volscian bands, fierce horsemen, each in glittering arms bedight, a warrior-virgin; ne'er her tender hands had plied the distaff; war was her delight, her joy to race the whirlwind and to fight. swift as the breeze, she skimmed the golden grain, nor bent the tapering wheatstalks in her flight, so swift, the billows of the heaving main touched not her flying fleet, she scoured the watery plain. cix. forth from each field and homestead, hurrying, throng, with wonder, men and matrons, young and old, and greet the maiden as she moves along. entranced with greedy rapture, they behold her royal scarf, in many a purple fold, float o'er her shining shoulders, and her hair bound in a coronal of clasping gold, her lycian quiver, and her pastoral spear of myrtle, tipt with steel, and her, the maid, how fair! book eight argument mustering of italians, and embassage to diomedes ( - ). tiber in a dream heartens aeneas and directs him to evander for succour. aeneas sacrifices the white sow and her litter to juno, and reaches evander's city pallanteum--the site of rome ( - ). aeneas and evander meet and feast together. the story of cacus and the praises of hercules are told and sung. evander shows his city to aeneas ( - ). venus asks and obtains from vulcan divine armour for her son ( - ). at daybreak evander promises aeneas further succour. their colloquy is interrupted by a sign from heaven ( - ). despatches are sent to ascanius and prayers for aid to the tuscans. aeneas, his men and evander's son pallas are sent forth by evander with prayers for their success ( - ). venus brings to aeneas the armour wrought by vulcan ( - ). virgil describes the shield, on which are depicted, not only the trials and triumphs of rome's early kings and champions, but the final conflict also at actium between east and west and the world-wide empire of augustus ( - ). i. when turnus from laurentum's tower afar signalled the strife, and bade the war-horns bray, and stirred the mettled steeds, and woke the war, hearts leaped at once; all latium swore that day the oath of battle, burning for the fray. messapus, ufens, and mezentius vain, who scorned the gods, ride foremost. far away they scour the fields; the shepherd and the swain rush to the war, and bare of ploughmen lies the plain. ii. to diomed posts venulus, to crave his aid, and tell how teucrians hold the land; aeneas with his gods hath crossed the wave, and claims the throne his vaunted fates demand. how many a tribe hath joined the dardan's band, how spreads his fame through latium. what the foe may purpose next, what conquest he hath planned, should friendly fortune speed the coming blow, better than latium's king aetolia's lord must know. iii. so latium fares. aeneas, tost with tides of thought, for well he marked the growing fight, this way and that his eager mind divides, reflects, revolves and ponders on his plight. as waters in a brazen urn flash bright, smit by the sunbeam or the moon's pale rays, and round the chamber flits the trembling light, and darts aloft, and on the ceiling plays, so many a varying mood his anxious mind displays. iv. 'twas night; the tired world rested. far and nigh all slept, the cattle and the fowls of air. stretched on a bank, beneath the cold, clear sky, lay good aeneas, fain at length to share late slumber, troubled by the war with care. when, 'twixt the poplars, where the fair stream flows, with azure mantle, and with sedge-crowned hair, the aged genius of the place uprose, and, standing by, thus spake, and comforted his woes: v. "blest seed of heaven! who from the foemen's hand our troy dost bring, and to an endless date preservest pergama; whom latium's land hath looked for, and laurentum's fields await, here, doubt not, are thy homegods, here hath fate thy home decreed. let not war's terrors seem to daunt thee. heaven is weary of its hate; its storms are spent. distrust not, nor esteem these words of idle worth, the coinage of a dream. vi. "hard by, beneath yon oak-trees, thou shalt see a huge, white swine, and, clustering around her teats, are thirty young ones, white as she. there shall thy labour with repose be crown'd, thy city set. there alba's walls renowned, when twice ten times hath rolled the circling year, called alba longa, shall ascanius found. sure stands the word; and now attend and hear, how best through present straits a prosperous course to steer. vii. "arcadians here, a race of old renown, from pallas sprung, with king evander came, and on the hill-side built a chosen town, called pallanteum, from their founder's name. year after year they ply the war's rude game with latins. go, and win them to thy side, bid them as fellows to thy camp, and frame a league. myself along the banks will guide, and teach thy labouring oars to mount the opposing tide. viii. "rise, goddess-born, and, when the stars decline, pray first to juno, and on bended knee subdue her wrath with supplication. mine shall be the victor's homage; i am he, heaven's favoured stream, whose brimming waves ye see, borne in full flood these flowery banks between, chafe the fat soil and cleave the fruitful lea, blue tiber. here my dwelling shall be seen, fairest of lofty towns, the world's majestic queen." ix. so saying, the stream-god dived beneath the flood, and sought the deep. slumber at once and night forsook aeneas; he arose, and stood, and eastward gazing at the dawning light, scooped up the stream, obedient to the rite, and prayed, "o nymphs, laurentian nymphs, whence spring all rivers; father tiber, blest and bright, receive aeneas as your own, and bring peace to his toil-worn heart, and shield the dardan king. x. "what pool soever holds thy source, where'er the soil, from whence thou leapest to the day in loveliness, these grateful hands shall bear due gifts, these lips shall hallow thee for aye, horned river, whom hesperian streams obey, whose pity cheers; be with us, i entreat, confirm thy purpose, and thy power display." he spake, and chose two biremes from the fleet, equipped with oars, and rigged with crews and arms complete. xi. lo! now a portent, wondrous to be seen. stretched at full length along the bank, they view the fateful swine, conspicuous on the green, white, with her litter of the self-same hue. her good aeneas, as an offering due, to juno, mightiest of all powers divine, yea, e'en to thee, dread juno, caught and slew, and lit the altars and outpoured the wine, and left the dam and brood together at the shrine. xii. all night the tiber stayed his swelling flood, and with hushed wave, recoiling from the main, calm as some pool or quiet lake, he stood and smoothed his waters like a liquid plain, that not an oar should either strive or strain. thus on they go; smooth glides the bark of pine, borne with glad shouts; and ever and again the woods and waters wonder, as the line of painted keels goes by, with arms of glittering shine. xiii. all night and day outwearying, they steer up the long reaches, through the groves, that lie with green trees shadowing the tranquil mere. now flamed the sun in the meridian high, when walls afar and citadel they spy, and scattered roofs. where now the power of rome hath made her stately structures mate the sky, then poor and lowly stood evander's home. thither their prows are turned, and to the town they come. xiv. that day, arcadia's monarch, in a grove before the town, a solemn feast had planned to hercules and all the gods above. his son, young pallas, and a youthful band, and humble senators around him stand, each offering incense, and the warm, fresh blood still smokes upon the shrines, when, hard at hand, they see the tall ships, through the shadowy wood, glide up with silent oars along the sacred flood. xv. scared by the sudden sight, all quickly rise and quit the board. but pallas, bold of cheer, bids them not break the worship. forth he flies to meet the strangers, as their ships appear, his right hand brandishing a glittering spear. "gallants," he hails them from a mound afar, "what drove you hither by strange ways to steer? say whither wending? who and what ye are? your kin, and where your home? and bring ye peace or war?" xvi. then sire aeneas from the stern outheld a branch of olive, and bespake him fair: "troy's sons ye see, by latin pride expelled. 'gainst latin enemies these arms we bear. we seek evander. go, the news declare: choice dardan chiefs his friendship come to claim. his aid we ask for, and his arms would share." he ceased, and wonder and amazement came on pallas, struck with awe to hear the mighty name. xvii. "whoe'er thou art, hail, stranger," he replied, "step forth, and to my father tell thy quest, and take the welcome that true hearts provide." forth as he leaped, the dardan's hand he pressed, and, pressing, held it, and embraced his guest. so from the river through the grove they fare, and reach the place, where, feasting with the rest, they find evander. him with speeches fair aeneas hails, and hastes his errand to declare. xviii. "o best of greeks, whom thus with olive bough hath fortune willed me to entreat; yet so i shunned thee not, albeit arcadian thou, a danaan leader, in whose veins doth flow the blood of atreus, and my country's foe. my conscious worth, our ties of ancestry, thy fame, which rumour through the world doth blow, and heaven's own oracles, by fate's decree, my willing steps have led, and link my heart, to thee. xix. "troy's founder, dardanus, to the teucrians came, child of electra, so the greeks declare. huge atlas was electra's sire, the same whose shoulders still the starry skies upbear. your sire is mercury, whom maia fair on chill cyllene's summit bore of old; and maia's sire, if aught of truth we hear, was atlas, he who doth the spheres uphold. thus from a single stock the double stems unfold. xx. "trusting to this, no embassy i sent, no arts employed, thy purpose to explore. myself, my proper person, i present, and stand a humble suppliant at thy door. thy foes are ours, the daunian race, and sore they grind us. if they drive us hence, they say, their conquering arms shall stretch from shore to shore. plight we our troth; strong arms are ours to-day, stout hearts, and manhood proved in many a hard essay." xxi. he ceased. long while evander marked with joy his face and eyes, and scanned through and through, then spake: "o bravest of the sons of troy! what joy to greet thee; thine the voice, the hue, the face of great anchises, whom i knew. well i remember, how, in days forepast, old priam came to salamis, to view his sister's realms, hesione's, and passed to far arcadia, chilled with many a northern blast. xxii. "scarce o'er my cheeks the callow down had crept, with wondering awe i viewed the trojan train, and gazed at priam. but anchises stepped the tallest. boyish ardour made me fain to greet the hero, and his hand to strain. i ventured, and to pheneus brought my guest. a lycian case of arrows, bridles twain, all golden--pallas holds them,--and a vest and scarf of broidered gold his parting thanks expressed. xxiii. "take then the hand thou seekest; be it thine, the plighted pact; and when to-morrow's ray shall chase the shadows, and the dawn shall shine, aid will i give you, and due stores purvey, and send you hence rejoicing on your way. meanwhile, since heaven forbids us to postpone these yearly rites, and we are friends, be gay and share with us the banquet. sit ye down,-- behold, the boards are spread,--and make the feast your own." xxiv. he spake, and back, at his command, they bring the food and wine. the chiefs, in order meet, along the grass he ranges, and their king leads to his throne; of maple was the seat; a lion's hide lay bristling at his feet. youths and the altar's minister bring wine, and heap the bread, and serve the roasted meat. on lustral entrails and the bull's whole chine, couched round the trojan king, the trojan warriors dine. xxv. then, when at last desire of food had ceased, thus spake evander: "lo, this solemn show, this sacred altar, and this ordered feast, no idle witchwork are they. well we know the ancient gods. saved from a fearful foe, each year the deed we celebrate. see there yon nodding crag; behold the rocks below, tost in huge ruin, and the lonely lair, scooped from the mountain's side, how wild the waste and bare! xxvi. "there yawned the cavern, in the rock's dark womb, wherein the monster cacus dwelt of yore, half-human. never sunlight pierced the gloom; but day by day the rank earth reeked with gore, and human faces, nailed above the door, hung, foul and ghastly. from the loins he came of vulcan, and his huge mouth evermore spewed forth a torrent of vulcanian flame; proudly he stalked the earth, and shook the world's fair frame. xxvii. "but time, in answer to our prayers, one day brought aid,--a god to help us in our need. flushed with the death of geryon, came this way alcides, glorying in the victor's meed, and hither drove his mighty bulls to feed. these, pasturing in the valley, from his lair fierce cacus saw, and, scorning in his greed to leave undone what crime or craft could dare, four beauteous heifers stole, four oxen sleek and fair. xxviii. "then, lest their footprints should the track declare, back by their tails he dragged the captured kine, with hoofs reversed, and shut them in his lair, and whoso sought the cavern found no sign. but when at last amphitryon's son divine, his feasted herds, preparing to remove, called from their pastures, and in long-drawn line, with plaintive lowing, the departing drove trooped from the echoing hills, and clamours filled the grove, xxix. "one of the heifers from the cave again lowed back, in answer to the sound, and broke the hopes of cacus, and his theft was plain. black choler in alcides' breast awoke. grasping his arms and club of knotted oak, straight to the sky-capt aventine he hies, and scales the steep. then, not till then, our folk saw cacus tremble. to the cave he flies, wing'd like the wind with fear, and terror in his eyes. xxx. "scarce in, the rock he loosened with a blow, slung high in iron by his father's care, and with the barrier blocked the door; when lo, with heart aflame, great hercules was there, and searched each way for access to his lair, grinding his teeth. thrice round the mount he threw his vengeful eyes, thrice strove from earth to tear the stone, and storm the threshold, thrice withdrew, and in the vale sat down, and nursed his wrath anew. xxxi. "sharp-pointed, sheer above the dungeon, stood a crag, fit home for evil birds to light. this, where it frowned to leftward o'er the flood, alcides shook, and, heaving from the right, tore from its roots, and headlong down the height impelled it. with the impulse and the fall heaven thunders; back the river in affright shrinks to its source. bank leaps from bank, and all the mountain, yawning, shows the monster's cave and hall. xxxii. "stript of their roof, the dark abodes far back lie open to their inmost; e'en as though earth, rent asunder with convulsive wrack, and opening to the centre, gaped to show hell's regions, and the gloomy realms of woe, abhorr'd of gods, and bare to mortals lay the vast abyss, while in the gulf below the pallid spectres, huddling in dismay, looked up with dazzled eyes, at influx of the day. xxxiii. "caught in his den, the startled monster strove, with uncouth bellowing, to elude the light. with darts alcides plies him from above, huge trunks and millstones seizing for the fight, hard pressed at length, and desperate for flight, black smoke he vomits, wondrous to be told, that shrouds the cavern, and obscures the sight, and, denser than the night, around his hold thick darkness, mixt with fire, and smothering fumes are rolled. xxxiv. "scorn filled alcides, and his wrath outbroke, and through the fire, indignant, with a bound he dashes, where thickest rolled the cloud of smoke, and in black vapours all the cave was drowned. here, vomiting his idle flames, he found huge cacus in the darkness. like a thread he twists him--chokes him--pins him to the ground, the strangled eyeballs starting from his head; blood leaves the blackened throat, the giant form lies dead. xxxv. "then suddenly, as back the doors are torn, the gloomy den stands open, and the prey, the stolen oxen, and the spoils forsworn, are bared to heaven, and by the heels straightway he drags the grisly carcase to the day. all, thronging round, with hungry gaze admire the monster. lost in wonder and dismay they mark the eyes, late terrible with ire, the face, the bristly breast, the jaw's extinguished fire. xxxvi. "henceforth they solemnise this day divine, their glad posterity from year to year, potitius first, and the pinarian line, preserve the praise of hercules; and here this altar named 'the greatest' did they rear. (greatest 'twill be for ever). come then, all, and give such worth due honour. wreathe your hair, and pass the wine-bowl merrily, and call each on our common god, the guardian of us all." xxxvii. he spake; the god's own poplar, fleckt with white, hung, twining o'er his brows. his right hand bore the sacred bowl. all, gladdening, hail the rite, and pour libations, and the gods adore. 'twas evening, and the western star once more sloped towards olympus. forth potitius came, leading the priests, girt roughly, as of yore, with skins of beasts, and bearing high the flame. fresh, dainty gifts they bring, the second course to frame. xxxviii. next came the salians, dancing as they sung around the blazing altars. poplar crowned their brows; a double chorus, old and young, chant forth the glories and the deeds renowned of hercules; how, potent to confound his stepdame's hate, he crushed the serpents twain; what towns in war he levelled to the ground, troy and oechalia; how with infinite pain eurystheus' tasks he sped, and juno's fates were vain: xxxix. "oh thou, unconquered, whose resistless hand smote the twin giants of the cloud-born crew, pholus, hylaeus; and the cretan land freed from its monster; and in nemea slew the lion! styx hath trembled at thy view, and cerberus, when, smeared with gore, he lay on bones half-mumbled in his darksome mew. thee not typhoeus, when in armed array he towered erect, could daunt, nor grisly shapes dismay. xl. "prompt was thy wit, when, powerless to prevail, around thee twined, the beast of lerna's fen hissed with the legion of its heads. o hail, true son of jove, the praise of mortal men, and heaven's new glory. hither turn thy ken, and cheer thy votaries." so with heart and will they chant his praise, nor less the monster's den, and cacus, breathing flames. the loud notes fill the sacred grove around, and echo to the hill. xli. the rites thus ended, to the town they fare. in front, the good evander, old and grey, moves 'twixt aeneas and his youthful heir, and oft with various converse, as they stray, beguiles the lightened labour of the way. now this, now that the trojan chief admires, filled with new pleasure, as his eyes survey each place in turn. oft, gladly he enquires the tokens, one by one, and tales of ancient sires. xlii. then he, who built the citadel of rome, spake thus--the good evander: "yonder view the forest; 'twas the fauns' and wood-nymphs' home. their birth from trunks and rugged oaks they drew; no arts they had, nor settled life, nor knew to yoke the ox, or lay up stores, or spare what wealth they gathered; but their wants were few; the branches gave them sustenance, whate'er in toilsome chase they won, composed their scanty fare. xliii. "then first came saturn from olympus' height, flying from jove, his kingdom barred and banned, he taught the scattered hillsmen to unite, and gave them laws, and bade the name to stand of latium, he safe latent in the land. then tranquilly the happy seasons rolled year after year, and peace, with plenteous hand, smiled on his sceptre. 'twas the age of gold, so well his placid sway the willing folk controlled. xliv. "then waxed the times degenerate, and the stain with stealthy growth gave birth to deeds of shame, the rage of battle, and the lust of gain. then came ausonians, then sicanians came, and oft the land of saturn changed its name. strange tyrants came, and ruled italia's shore, grim-visaged thybris, of gigantic frame; his name henceforth the river tiber bore, and albula's old name was known, alas! no more. xlv. "me, from my country driven forth to roam the utmost deep, perforce the fates' design and fortune's power drove hitherward. this home my mother, nymph carmentis, warned was mine; a god, apollo, did these shores assign." so saying, he shows the altar and the gate long called carmental, from the nymph divine, first seer who sang, with faithful voice, how great aeneas' race should rise, and pallanteum's fate. xlvi. he shows the grove of romulus, his famed asylum; then, beneath the rock's cold crest lupercal's cave, from pan lycaean named; then, argiletum's grove, whose shades attest the death of argus, once the monarch's guest; tarpeia's rock, the capitolian height, now golden--rugged 'twas of old, a nest of tangled brakes, yet hallowed was the site e'en then, and wood and rock filled the rude hinds with fright. xlvii. "these wooded steeps," he said, "this sacred grove what godhead haunts, we know not; legends say arcadians here have seen the form of jove, and seen his right hand, with resistless sway, shake the dread aegis, and the clouds array. see, yon two cities, once renowned by fame, now ruined walls and crumbling to decay; this janus built, those walls did saturn frame; janiculum was this, that bore saturnia's name." xlviii. so talking, to evander's lowly seat they journeyed. herds were lowing on the plain, where stand the forum and carinae's street. "these gates," said he, "did great alcides deign to pass; this palace did the god contain. dare thou to quit thee like the god, nor dread to scorn mere wealth, nor humble cheer disdain." so saying, aeneas through the door he led, and skins of libyan bears on garnered leaves outspread. xlix. night, with dark wings descending, wrapt the world, when venus, harassed, nor in vain, with fear, to see the menace at laurentum hurled, to vulcan, on his golden couch, drew near, breathing immortal passion: "husband dear, when greeks the fated citadel of troy with fire and sword were ravaging, or ere her towers had fallen, i sought not to employ arms, arts or aid of thine, their purpose to destroy. l. "ne'er taxed i then thy labours, dearest love, large as my debt to priam's sons, and sore my grief for poor aeneas. now, since jove hath brought him here to the rutulian shore, thine arms i ask, thy deity implore, a mother for her son. dread power divine, whom thetis, whom tithonus' spouse of yore could move with tears, behold, what hosts combine, what towns, with barr'd gates, arm to ruin me and mine." li. she spake, and both her snowy arms outflung around him doubting, and embraced the sire, and, softly fondling, kissed him as she clung. through bones and veins her melting charms inspire the well-known heat, and reawake desire. so, riven by the thunder, through the pile of storm-clouds runs the glittering cleft of fire. proud of her beauty, with a conscious smile, the goddess feels her power, and gladdens at the guile. lii. then vulcan, mastered by immortal love, answers his spouse, "why, goddess mine, invent such far-fetched pleas? dost thou thy faith remove, and cease to trust in vulcan? had thy bent so moved thee then, arms quickly had i lent to aid thy trojans, and thy wish were gained, nor envious fate, nor jove omnipotent had crossed my purpose; then had troy remained, and priam ten years more the kingly line sustained. liii. "e'en now, if war thou seekest to prepare, and thither tends thy purpose, be it sped. whate'er my craft can promise, whatso'er is wrought with iron, ivory or lead, fanned with the blast, or molten in the bed, thine be it all; forbear a suppliant's quest, nor wrong thy beauty's potency." he said, and gave the love she longed for; on her breast outpoured at length he slept, and loosed his limbs with rest. liv. 'twas midnight; sleep had faded from its prime, the hour, when housewives, who a scanty fare eke out with loom and distaff, rise in time to wake the embers, and the night outwear; then call their handmaids, by the light to share the task, that keeps the husband's bed from shame, and earns a pittance for the babes. so there, nor tardier, to his toil the lord of flame springs from his couch of down, the workmen's task to frame. lv. hard by aeolian lipare, before sicania, looms an island from the deep, with smoking rocks. there aetna's caverns roar, hewn by the cyclop's forges from the steep. there the steel hisses and the sparks upleap, and clanging anvils, smit with dexterous aim, groan through the cavern, as their strokes they heap, and restless in the furnace pants the flame. 'twas vulcan's house, the land even yet bears vulcan's name. lvi. down to this cavern came the lord of flame, and found pyracmon, naked as he strove, brontes and steropes. their hands still frame a thunderbolt unfinished, such as jove rains thickly from his armouries above, tipt with twelve barbs and never known to fail. part still remain unwrought; three rays they wove of ruddy fire, three of the southern gale, three of the watery cloud, and three of twisted hail. lvii. they blend the frightful flashes and the peals, sound, fear, and fury with the flames behind. these forge the war-gods' chariot and swift wheels, which stir up cities, and arouse mankind. here, burnished bright for wrathful pallas, shined, with serpent scales, and golden links firm bound, her dreadful aegis, and the snakes entwined; and on her breast, with severed neck, still frowned medusa's head, and rolled her dying eyes around. lviii. "cease now," said vulcan, "and these toils forbear, cyclops of aetna; hither turn your heed. arms for a hero must the forge prepare. now use your strength and nimble hands; ye need a master's cunning; to your tasks with speed." he spake; each quickly at the word once more falls to his labour, as the lots decreed. now flows the copper, now the golden ore; now melts the deadly steel; the flames resume their roar. lix. a mighty shield they fashion, fit to meet singly all arms of latium. layer on layer, seven folds in circles on its face they beat. these from the windy bellows force the air, these hissing copper for the forge prepare, dipt in the trough. the cavern floor below groans with the anvils and the strokes they bear, as strong arms timed heap measured blow on blow, and, turned with griping tongs, the molten mass doth glow. lx. while on aeolia's coast the lemnian sire wrought thus, the fair dawn, mantling in the skies, awakes evander, and the lowly choir of birds beneath the eaves invites to rise. the tuscan sandals to his feet he ties, the kirtle dons, the tegeaean sword links to his side. a panther's skin supplies his scarf, hung leftward, and his watchful ward, two dogs, the threshold leave, and 'company their lord. lxi. so to the chamber of his dardan guest the good evander for his promise' sake full early hastens pondering in his breast the tale he listened to, the words he spake. nor less aeneas, with the dawn awake, goes forth. achates at his side attends, his son, young pallas, doth evander take. so meeting, each a willing hand extends, and host and guest sit down, and frankly talk as friends. lxii. first spake the king: "great chief of trojan fame, who living, ne'er the trojan state is lost. small is our strength for war, though great our name. here tiber bounds us, there rutulians boast to rend our walls, and thunder with their host. but mighty tribes and wealthy realms shall band their arms with mine. chance, where unlooked-for most, points to this succour. by the fate's command thou comest; thee the gods have guided to our land. lxiii. "not far from here, upon an aged rock, there stands a town, agylla is its name, where on etruscan ridges dwells the stock of ancient lydia, men of warlike fame. long years it flourished, till mezentius came and ruled it fiercely, with a tyrant's sway. ah me! why tell the nameless deeds of shame, the savage murders wrought from day to day? may heaven on him and his those cruelties repay! lxiv. "nay more, he joined the living to the dead, hand linked to hand in torment, face to face. the rank flesh mouldered, and the limbs still bled, till death, o misery, with lingering pace, loosed the foul union and the long embrace. worn out at last with all his crimes abhorred, around the horrid madman swarmed apace the armed agyllans. on his roof they poured the firebrands, seized his guards and slew them with the sword. lxv. "he safely through the carnage slunk away to fields rutulian, where with sheltering hand great turnus shields the tyrant. so to-day, stirred with just fury, all etruria's land springs to the war, prompt vengeance to demand. thine be these all, for thousands can i boast, aeneas, thine to captain and command. mark now their shouts; already roars the host, 'arm, bring the banners forth'; their vessels crowd the coast. lxvi. "an aged seer thus warns them to refrain, expounding fate: 'choice youths, the flower and show of ancient warriors of meonian strain, whom just resentment arms against the foe, whose souls with hatred of mezentius glow, no man of italy is fit to lead so vast a multitude, the fates say "no; seek ye a foreign captain."' awed, they heed the warning words divine, and camp upon the mead. lxvii. "lo, tarchon sends ambassadors; they bring the crown, and sceptre, and the signs of state, and bid me join the tuscans as their king. but frosty years have dulled me; life is late, and envious age forbids an empire's weight. fit were my son, but half italian he, his mother born a sabine. thee hath fate endowed with years and proper birth; for thee the gods this throne have willed, and, what they will, decree. lxviii. "advance, brave chief of italy and troy! advance; young pallas at thy side shall fare, my hope, my solace, and my heart's best joy. with thee to teach him, he shall learn to share the war's grim work, the warrior's toil to bear; from earliest youth to marvel at thy deeds, and try to match them. horsemen shall be there, ten score, the choicest that arcadia breeds; two hundred more, his own, the gallant stripling leads." lxix. he spake: aeneas and achates stood with down-fixt eyes, musing the strange event. dark thoughts were theirs, and sorrowful their mood; when lo, to leftward cytherea sent a sign amid the open firmament. a flash of lightning swift from ether sprang with thunder. turmoil universal blent earth, sea and sky; the empyrean rang with arms, and loudly pealed the tuscan trumpet's clang. lxx. upward they look: again and yet again comes the loud crash of thunder, and between a cloud that frets the firmamental plain, with bright, red flash amid the sky serene, the glitter of resounding arms is seen. all tremble; but aeneas hails the sign long-promised. "ask not," he exclaims, "what mean these prodigies and portents; they are mine. me great olympus calls; i hear the voice divine. lxxi. "this sign my goddess-mother vowed to send, if war should threaten; thus in armed array from heaven with aid she promised to descend. ah, woe for thee, laurentum, soon the prey of foeman! what a reckoning shalt thou pay to me, ill-fated turnus! how thy wave shall redden, tiber, as it rolls away helmets, and shields and bodies of the brave! ay, let them break the league, and bid the war-god rave." lxxii. he spake, and, rising from his seat, renews the slumbering fires of hercules, and tends the hearth-god's shrine of yesterday. choice ewes they slay--evander and his trojan friends. then to his comrades and the shore he wends, arrays the crews, and takes the bravest there to follow him in fight. the rest he sends to young ascanius down the stream, to bear news of his absent sire, and how the cause doth fare. lxxiii. with steeds, to aid the tuscans, they provide the teucrians. for aeneas forth is led the choicest, with a tawny lion's hide, all glittering with gilded claws, bespread. now rumour through the little town hath sped, of horsemen for the tuscan king, with spear and shield for battle. mothers, pale with dread, heap vows on vows. the war-god, drawing near, looms larger, and more close to danger draws the fear. lxxiv. then cries evander, clinging, and with tears insatiate, loth to see his pallas go, "ah! would but jove bring back the bygone years, as when beneath praeneste long ago i strowed the van, and laid their mightiest low, and burned their shields, and with this hand to hell hurled down king erulus, the monstrous foe, to whom feronia, terrible to tell, three lives had given, and thrice to battle ere he fell. lxxv. "twice up he rose, but thrice i slew the slain, thrice of his life i robbed him, till he died, thrice stripped his arms. o, were i such again, danger, nor death, nor aught of ill beside, sweet son, should ever tear me from thy side. ne'er had mezentius then, the neighbouring lord, dared thus to flout me, nor this arm defied. nor wrought such havoc and such crimes abhorred, nor made a weeping town thus widowed by the sword. lxxvi. "o gods, and thou, who rulest earth and air, great jove, their mightiest, pity, i implore, arcadia's king, and hear a father's prayer. if fate this happiness reserve in store, to gaze upon my pallas' face once more, if living means to meet my son again, then let me live; how hard soe'er and sore my trials, gladly will i count them gain. sweet will the suffering seem, and light the load of pain. lxxvii. "but o, if fortune, with malignant spite, some blow past utterance for my life prepare, now, now this moment rid me of the light, while fears are vague, nor hoping breeds despair, while, dearest boy, my late and only care, thus--thus i fold thee in my arms to-day. nor wound with news too sorrowful to bear a father's ears!" he spake, and swooned away; back to his home the slaves their fainting lord convey. lxxviii. forth troop the horsemen from the gates. first ride aeneas and achates; in the rear troy's nobles, led by pallas, in the pride of broidered scarf and figured arms, appear. as when bright lucifer, to venus dear beyond all planets and each starry beam, high up in heaven his sacred head doth rear, bathed in the freshness of the ocean stream, and melts the dark, so fair the gallant youth doth seem. lxxix. the matrons stand upon the walls, distraught, and mark the dust-cloud and the mail-clad train. these through the brushwood, where the road lies short, move on in arms. the war-shout peals again, the hard hoofs clattering shake the crumbling plain. and now, where, cold with crystal waves, is found fair caere's stream, a spreading grove they gain. ages have spread its sanctity, and, crowned with pine-woods dark as night, the hollow hills stand round. lxxx. this grove, 'tis said, the tribes pelasgian--they, who first in latin marches dwelt of old-- kept sacred to silvanus, and the day vowed to the guardian of the field and fold. hard by, brave tarchon and his tuscans bold lay camped. his legions, stretching o'er the meads, the trojans from a rising ground behold. aeneas here his toil-worn warriors leads; food for themselves they bring, and forage for their steeds. lxxxi. meanwhile fair venus through the clouds came down, bearing her gifts. couched in a secret glade, by a cool river, she espies her son, and hails him: "see the promised gifts displayed, wrought by my husband's cunning for thine aid. thy prowess now let proud laurentum taste, nor fear with turnus to contend." so said cythera's goddess, and her child embraced, and on an oak in front the radiant arms she placed. lxxxii. joy fills aeneas; with insatiate gaze he views the gifts, and marvels at the sight. in turn he handles, and in turn surveys the helmet tall with fiery crest bedight, the fateful sword, the breastplate's brazen might, blood-red, and huge, and glorious to behold as some dark cloud, far-blazing with the light of sunset; then the polished greaves of gold, the spear, the mystic shield, too wondrous to be told. lxxxiii. there did the fire-king, who the future cons, the tale of ancient italy portray, rome's triumphs, and ascanius' distant sons, their wars in order, and each hard-fought fray. there, in the cave of mars all verdurous, lay the fostering she-wolf with the twins; they hung about her teats, and licked in careless play their mother. she, with slim neck backward flung, in turn caressed them both, and shaped them with her tongue. lxxxiv. there, later rome, and there, the sabine dames amid the crowded theatre he viewed, raped by the romans at the circus games; the sudden war, that from the deed ensued, with aged tatius and his cures rude. there stand the kings, still armed, but foes no more, beside jove's altar, and abjure the feud. goblet in hand, the sacred wine they pour, and o'er the slaughtered swine the plighted peace restore. lxxxv. next, mettus, by the four-horsed chariot torn. ('twere better, perjured alban, to be true!) fierce tullus dragged the traitor's limbs in scorn through brambles, dripping with the crimson dew. porsenna there around the city drew his 'leaguering host. but freedom fired the blood of romans. idle was his rage, to view how cocles on the battered bridge withstood, and cloelia burst her bonds, and singly stemmed the flood. lxxxvi. next, manlius guards the capitol; see here the straw-thatched palace. silvered in the gold, the fluttering goose proclaims the gauls are near. they, screened by darkness, thread the woods, and hold with arms the slumbering citadel. behold their beards all golden, and their golden hair, their white necks gleaming with the twisted gold, their chequered plaids. each hand an alpine spear waves, and an oblong shield their stalwart arms upbear. lxxxvii. there danced the salians, the luperci reeled half-naked. see them sculptured in array, with caps wool-tufted, and the sky-dropt shield. chaste dames, in cushioned chariots, lead the way through the glad city. elsewhere, far away, loom dis and tartarus, where the guilty pine, and catiline, upon a rock for aye hangs, shuddering at the furies. distant shine the just, where cato stands, dealing the law divine. lxxxviii. the swelling ocean in the midst is seen, all golden, but the billow's hoary spray foams o'er the blue. dolphins of silvery sheen lash the white eddies with their tails in play, cleaving the surges. in the centre lay the brazen fleets, all panoplied for war, 'tis actium's fight; leucate's headland grey boils with the tumult of the distant jar, and golden glow the waves, effulgent from afar. lxxxix. augustus his italians leads from home, high on the stern. the senators stand round, the people, and the guardian gods of rome. with double flame his joyous brows are crowned; the constellation of his sire renowned beams o'er his head. there too, his ships in line, with winds and gods to prosper him, is found agrippa. radiant on his head doth shine the crown of golden beaks, the battle's glorious sign. xc. here, late from parthia and the red-sea coast, with motley legions and barbaric pride, comes anthony. from egypt swarms his host, from india and far bactra. at his side stands--shame to tell it--an egyptian bride. see now the fight; prows churn and oar-blades lash the foam. 'twould seem the cyclads swim the tide, torn from his moorings, or the mountains clash, so huge the tower-crowned ships, so terrible the crash. xci. winged darts are hurled, and flaming tow; the leas of neptune redden. there the queen stands by, and sounds the timbrel for the fray, nor sees the asps behind. all monsters of the sky with neptune, venus, and minerva vie. in vain anubis barks; mars raves among the combatants; the furies frown on high. with mantle rent, glad discord joins the throng; behind, with bloody scourge, bellona stalks along. xcii. there actian phoebus, gazing on the scene, bent his dread bow. egypt, arabia fled, and india turned in terror. there, the queen calls to the winds; behold, the sails are spread. her, pale with thoughts of dying, through the dead the waves and zephyrs--so the gold expressed-- bear onward. yonder, to his sheltering bed nile, sorrowing, calls the fugitives to rest, unfolds his winding robes, and bares his azure breast. xciii. there, caesar sacred to his gods proclaims three hundred temples, each a stately fane. behold his triple triumph. shouts and games gladden the streets; glad matrons chant the strain at every altar, and the steers are slain. he takes the offerings, and reviews the throng, throned in the portal of apollo's fane. below, the captive nations march along, diverse in arms and garb, and each of different tongue. xciv. wild nomads, africans uncinctured came, carians, gelonian bowmen, and behind the leleges, the dahae, hard to tame, the morini, extreme of human-kind. last, proud araxes, whom no bridge could bind, euphrates humbled, and the horned rhine. all this, by vulcan on the shield designed, he sees, and, gladdening at the gift divine, upbears aloft the fame and fortunes of his line. book nine argument certified by juno of the absence of aeneas, turnus leads his forces against the trojans. when they entrench themselves within their lines, he attempts to burn their ships, which are thereupon changed by cybele into nymphs, and float away ( - ). turnus undaunted harangues his men and beleaguers the camp ( - ). nisus and euryalus scheme, and petition, to sally forth to find aeneas and a rescue. setting out with promise of rich rewards if successful, they surprise the latin camp but are themselves in turn surprised and slain ( - ). their victims are buried; their heads are paraded on pikes before the trojan camp, to the agony of the mother of euryalus ( - ). the allies assault the camp. virgil invokes calliope to describe the fray ( - ). the collapse of a tower and losses on both sides prelude ascanius' baptism of fire. he kills his man ( - ). the brothers pandarus and bitias open the camp-gates in defiance. bitias falls, and pandarus, retreating, shuts turnus within the camp, who kills him, but failing to let in his friends is eventually hard pressed ( - ). the trojans rally round mnestheus and serestus. turnus plunges into the river and with difficulty escapes by swimming ( - ). i. while thus in distant quarter moves the scene, down to the daring turnus from the skies comes iris, sent by the saturnian queen. him seated in a hallowed vale, where lies his father's grove, pilumnus', she espies. there straight with rosy lips the daughter fair of thaumas hails the hero: "turnus, rise. behold what none of all the gods would dare to promise, rolling time hath proffered without prayer. ii. "fleet left and friends, aeneas to the court of palatine evander speeds his way, nay, the far towns of corythus hath sought, and arms the lydian swains to meet the fray! now call for steel and chariot. why delay? surprise the camp and capture it."--she said, and straight on balanced pinions soared away, cleaving the bow. the warrior marked, and spread his hands, and thus with prayer pursued her as she fled: iii. "o iris, heaven's fair glory, who hath sent thee hither? whence this sudden light so clear? i see the firmament asunder rent, and planets wandering in the polar sphere. blest omens, hail! i follow thee, whoe'er thou art, that call'st to battle." he arose with joy, and stepping to the streamlet near, scoops up the water in his palms, and bows in suppliance to the gods, and burdens heaven with vows. iv. now all the host were marching on the meads, well-horsed, and panoplied in golden gear, with broidered raiment. brave messapus leads the van, the sons of tyrrheus close the rear, and turnus in mid column shakes his spear. slow moves the host, as when his seven-fold head great ganges lifts in silence, calm and clear, or nile, whose flood the fruitful soil hath fed, ebbs from the fattened fields, and hides him in his bed. v. far off, the teucrians from their camp descried the gathering dust-cloud on the plains appear. then brave caicus from a bastion cried, "what dark mass, rolling towards us, have we here? arm, townsmen, arm! bring quick the sword and spear, and mount the battlements, and man the wall. the foemen, ho!" and with a mighty cheer the teucrians, hurrying at the warning call, pour in through all the gates, and muster on the wall. vi. so, parting, wise aeneas gave command, should chance surprise them, with their chief away, to shun the field, nor battle hand to hand, but safe behind their sheltering earthworks stay, and, guarding wall and rampart, stand at bay. so now, though passion and indignant hate prompt to engage, his mandate they obey, and bar each inlet, and secure each gate, and, armed, in sheltering towers their enemies await. vii. turnus, with twenty horsemen, left the rest to lag behind, and near the town-gate drew all unforeseen. a thracian steed he pressed, dappled with white; a crest of scarlet hue high o'er his golden helmet flamed in view. loudly he shrills in anger to his train, "who first with me will at the foemen--who? see there!" and, rising hurls his spear amain, sign of the fight begun, and pricks along the plain. viii. with shouts his comrades welcome the attack, and clamouring fiercely follow in his train. they marvel at the teucrian hearts so slack, that none will dare to trust the open plain, and fight like men, but in the camp remain, and safe behind their sheltering rampart stay. now here, now there, fierce turnus in disdain rides round the walls, and, searching for a way, where way is none, still strives an entrance to essay. ix. as wolf, in ambush by the fold, sore beat with winds, at midnight howls amid the rain. the lambs beneath their mothers safely bleat. he, mad with rage, and faint with famine's pain, thirsts for their blood, and ramps at them in vain; so raves fierce turnus, as his eyes survey the walls and camp. grief burns in every vein, as round he looks for access and a way to shake the teucrians out, and strew them forth to slay. x. the fleet, as by the flanking camp it lies, fenced by the river and the mounded sand, he marks, then loudly to the burning cries, and with a flaming pinestock fills his hand, himself aflame. his presence cheers the band. all set to work, and strip the watchfires bare: each warrior arms him with a murky brand: the smoking torch shoots up a pitchy glare, and clouds of mingled soot the fire-god flings in air. xi. say, muse, what god from teucrians turned the flame, such fiery havoc. o, the tale declare; old is its faith, but deathless is its fame. when first aeneas did his fleet prepare 'neath phrygian ida, through the seas to fare, to jove the berecynthian queen divine spake thus, 'tis said, urging a suppliant's prayer: "o lord olympian, hearken and incline. grant what thy mother asks, who made olympus thine. xii. "a wood, beloved for many a year, was mine, a grove of sacrifice, on ida's height, darksome with maple and the swart pitch-pine. this wood, these trees, my ever-dear delight, gladly i gave to speed the dardan's flight. but doubts and fears my troubled mind assail. o calm them; may a parent's prayer have might, and this their birth upon our hills avail to guide their voyage safe, and shield them from the gale." xiii. then spake her son, who wields the starry sphere, "mother, what would'st thou of the fates demand? what art thou seeking for these teucrians here? shall vessels, fashioned by a mortal hand, the gift of immortality command? and shall aeneas sail the uncertain main, himself of safety certain, and his band? did ever god such privilege attain? nay, rather, when at length, ausonian ports they gain, xiv. "their duty done, and ocean's dangers o'er, what ships soe'er shall have escaped, to bear the dardan chief to the laurentian shore, shall lose their perishable form, and wear the sea-nymphs' shape, like galatea fair and doto, when they breast the deep." he spake, and by his brother's stygian river sware, whose pitchy torrent swells the infernal lake, and with his awful nod made all olympus shake. xv. the day was come, the fated time complete, when turnus' insults bade the mother rise and ward the firebrands from her sacred fleet. a sudden light now flashed upon their eyes, a cloud from eastward ran athwart the skies, with choirs of ida, and a voice through air pealed forth, and filled both armies with surprise, "trojans, be calm; your needless pains forbear, nor arm to save these ships; their safety is my care. xvi. "sooner shall turnus make the ocean blaze, than these my pines. go, sea-nymphs, and be free, your mother bids you." each at once obeys, their cables snapt, like dolphins in their glee, they dip their beaks, and dive beneath the sea. hence, where before along the shore had stood the brazen poops--o marvellous to see!-- so many now, with maiden forms endued, rise up, and reappear, and float upon the flood. xvii. all stand aghast; amid the startled steeds messapus quails, and tiber checks his tide, and, hoarsely murmuring, from the deep recedes. yet fails not turnus, prompt to cheer or chide. "to teucrians point these prodigies," he cried, "they bide not, they, rutulian sword and brand. e'en jove their wonted succour hath denied. barred is the sea, and half the world is banned; earth, too, is ours, such hosts italia's chiefs command. xviii. "i fear not fate, nor what the gods can do. suffice for venus and the fates the day when trojans touched ausonia. i have, too, my fates, these robbers of my bride to slay. not atreus' sons alone, and only they, have known a sorrow and a smart so keen, and armed for vengeance. but enough, ye say, once to have fallen? one trespass then had been enough, and made them loathe all womankind, i ween. xix. "lo, these who think a paltry wall can save, a narrow ditch can thwart us,--these, so bold, with but a span betwixt them and the grave! saw they not troy, which neptune reared of old, sink down in ruin, as the flames uprolled? but ye, my chosen, who with me will scale yon wall, and storm their trembling camp? behold, no aid divine nor ships of thousand sail, nor vulcan's arms i need, o'er trojans to prevail. xx. "nay; let etrurians join them, one and all, no raid, nor robbed palladium they shall fear, nor sentries stabbed beneath the night's dark pall. no horse shall hide us; by the daylight clear our flames shall ring their ramparts. dream they here to find such danaan striplings, weak as they whom hector baffled till the tenth long year? but now, since near its ending draws the day, take rest, and bide prepared the dawning of the fray." xxi. his outposts plants messapus, set to guard the gates with watchfires, and the walls invest. twice seven captains round the camp keep ward, each with a hundred warriors of the best, with golden armour and a blood-red crest. these to and fro pace sentinels, and share the watch in turn; those, on the sward at rest, tilt the brass wine-bowl. bright the watch-fires flare, and games and festive mirth the wakeful night outwear. xxii. forth look the trojans from their walls, and line the heights in arms, and test with hurrying fear the gates, and bridges to the bulwarks join, and bring up darts and javelins. mnestheus here, there bold serestus is at hand to cheer, they, whom aeneas left to rule the host, should ill betide them, or the foe draw near. thus all in turn, where peril pressed the most, keep watch along the wall, dividing danger's post. xxiii. nisus, the bold, stood warder of the gate, the son of hyrtacus, whom ida fair, the huntress, on aeneas sent to wait, quick with light arrows and the flying spear. beside him stood euryalus, his fere; scarce on his cheeks the down of manhood grew, the comeliest youth that donned the trojan gear. love made them one; as one, to fight they flew, as one they guard the gates, companions tried and true. xxiv. then nisus: "is it that the gods inspire, euryalus, this fever of the breast? or make we gods of but a wild desire? battle i seek, or some adventurous quest, and scorn to dally with inglorious rest, see yonder the rutulians, stretched supine, what careless confidence is theirs, oppressed with wine and slumber; how the watch-fires shine, faint, few, and far between; what silence holds the line. xxv. "learn now the plan and purpose of my mind, 'aeneas should be summoned,' one and all,-- camp, council,--cry, and messengers would find to take sure tidings and our chief recall. if thee the meed i ask for shall befall,-- bare fame be mine--methink the pathway lies by yonder mound to pallanteum's wall." then, fired with zeal and smitten with surprise, thus to his ardent friend euryalus replies: xxvi. "me, me would nisus from such deeds debar? am i to send thee singly to thy fate? not thus my sire opheltes, bred to war, brought up and taught me, when in evil strait was troy, and argives battered at her gate. not thus to great aeneas was i known, his trusty follower through the paths of fate. here dwells a soul that dares the light disown, and counteth life well sold, to purchase such renown." xxvii. "for _thee_ i feared not," nisus made reply, "'twere shame, indeed, to doubt a friend so tried. so may great jove, or whosoe'er on high with equal eyes this exploit shall decide, restore me soon in triumph to thy side. but if--for divers hazards underlie so bold a venture--evil chance betide, or angry deity my hopes bely, thee heaven preserve, whose youth far less deserves to die. xxviii. "mine be a friend to lay me, if i fall, rescued or ransomed, in my native ground; or, if hard fortune grudge a boon so small, to make fit honour to my shade redound, and o'er the lost one rear an empty mound. ne'er let a childless mother owe to me a pang so keen, and such a cureless wound. she, who, alone of mothers, dared for thee acestes' walls to leave, and braved the stormy sea." xxix. "my purpose holds and shifts not," he replies, "these empty pretexts cannot shake me--no. hence, let us haste." and to the guard he cries, who straight march up, and forth the two friends go to find the chief. all creatures else below lay wrapt in sleep, forgetting toil and care; but sleepless still, in presence of the foe, troy's chosen chiefs urge council, what to dare, whom to aeneas send, the desperate news to bear. xxx. there, in the middle of the camp and plain, each shield in hand, and leaning on his spear, they stand; when lo! in eager haste the twain, craving an audience instantly, appear. high matter theirs, and worth a pause to hear. then first iulus greets the breathless pair, and calls to nisus. "dardans, lend an ear," outspake the son of hyrtacus, "be fair, nor rate by youthful years the proffered aid we bear. xxxi. "see, hushed with wine and slumber, lies the foe. where by the sea-gate, parts the road in twain, a stealthy passage from the camp we know. black roll the smoke-clouds, and the watch-fires wane. leave us to try our fortune, soon again yourselves shall see, from pallanteum's town, aeneas, rich with trophies of the slain. plain lies the path, for oft the chase hath shown from darksome vales the town, and all the stream is known." xxxii. "o gods!" exclaimed aletes, wise and old, "not yet ye mean to raze the trojan race, who give to troy such gallant hearts and bold." so saying, he clasped them in a fond embrace, and bathed in tears his features and his face. "what gifts can match such valour? deeds so bright heaven and your hearts with fairest meed shall grace. the rest our good aeneas shall requite, nor young ascanius e'er such services shall slight." xxxiii. "yea, gallant nisus," adds ascanius there, "i, too, who count my father's safety mine, adjure thee, by the household gods i swear of old assaracus and teucer's line, and hoary vesta's venerable shrine, whate'er of fortune or of hopes remain, to thee and thy safe-keeping i resign. bring back my sire in safety; care nor pain shall ever vex me more, if he return again. xxxiv. "two goblets will i give thee, richly wrought of sculptured silver, beauteous to behold, the spoils my sire from sacked arisbe brought, with two great talents of the purest gold, two tripods, and a bowl of antique mould, the gift at carthage of the tyrian queen. nay, more, if e'er italia's realm i hold, and share the spoils of conquest,--thou hast seen the steed that turnus rode, his arms of golden sheen,-- xxxv. "that steed, that shield, that crest of crimson hue, i keep for thee,--thine, nisus, from to-day. twelve lovely matrons and male captives too, each with his armour, shall my sire convey, with all the lands that own latinus' sway. but thee, whose years the most with mine agree, brave youth! my heart doth welcome. come what may, in peace or war my comrade shalt thou be. thine are my thoughts, my deeds; fame tempts me but for thee." xxxvi. "no time, i ween," euryalus replies, "shall shame the promise of this bold design, come weal, come woe. one boon alone i prize beyond all gifts. a mother dear is mine, a mother, sprung from priam's ancient line. troy nor the walls of king acestes e'er stayed her from following, when i crossed the brine. her of this risk--whate'er the risk i dare-- weetless, i left behind, nor breathed a parting prayer. xxxvii. "night bear me witness; by thy hand i swear, i cannot bear a parent's tears. but o! be thou her solace, comfort her despair; this hope permit, and bolder will i go, to face all hazards and confront the foe." grief smote the dardans, and the tears ran down, and young iulus, pierced with kindred woe, outweeps them all; in filial love thus shown, touched to the heart, he traced the likeness of his own. xxxviii. "all, all," he cries, "that such a deed can claim, i promise for thy guerdon. mine shall be thy mother,--mine, creusa save in name; nor small her praise to bear a son like thee. howe'er shall fortune the event decree, i swear--so swore my father--by my head, what gifts i pledge, if thou return, to thee, these, if thou fall, thy mother in thy stead, these shall thy kinsmen keep, the heirlooms of the dead." xxxix. weeping, the gilded falchion he untied, lycaon's work, with sheath of ivory fair. to nisus mnestheus gave a lion's hide, his helmet changed aletes. forth they fare, and round them to the gates, with vows and prayer, the band of chiefs their parting steps attend; and, manlier than his years, iulus fair full many a message to his sire would send. vain wish! his fruitless words the scattering breezes rend. xl. so past the trench, upon the shadowy plain forth issuing, to the foemen's tents they creep, fatal to many, ere the camp they gain. warriors they see, who drank the wine-bowl deep, beside their tilted chariots stretched in sleep, and reins, and wheels and wine-jars tost away, and arms and men in many a mingled heap. then nisus: "up, euryalus, and slay! haste, for the hour is ripe, and yonder lies the way. xli. "watch thou, lest hand be lifted in the rear. there, flanked with swaths of corpses, will i reap thy pathway; broad shall be the lane and clear." so saying, he checks his voice, and, aiming steep, drives at proud rhamnes. on a piled-up heap of carpets lay the warrior, and his breast heaved with hard breathing and the sounds of sleep: augur and king, whom turnus loved the best. not all his augur's craft could now his doom arrest. xlii. three slaves beside him, lying heedless here amidst their arms, he numbers with the slain, then remus' page, and remus' charioteer, caught by their steeds. the weapon, urged amain, swoops down, and cleaves their drooping necks in twain. their master's head he severs with a blow, and leaves the trunk, still heaving, on the plain, and o'er the cushions and the ground below, wet with the warm, black gore, the spouting streams outflow. xliii. lamus and lamyras he slew outright, and fair serranus, as asleep he lay, tamed by the god; for long and late that night the youth had gamed. ah! happier, had his play outlived the night, and lasted till the day. like some starved lion, that on the teeming fold springs, mad with hunger, and the feeble prey, all mute with terror, in his clutch doth hold, and rends with bloody mouth, and riots uncontrolled, xliv. such havoc wrought euryalus, so flamed his fury. fadus and herbesus died, and abaris, and many a wight unnamed, caught unaware. but rhoetus woke, and tried in fear behind a massive bowl to hide. full in the breast, or e'er the wretch upstood, the shining sword-blade to the hilt he plied, then drew it back death-laden. wine and blood gush out, the dying lips disgorge the crimson flood. xlv. thence, burning, to messapus' camp he speeds, where faint the watch-fires flicker far away, and tethered on the herbage graze the steeds, when briefly thus speaks nisus, fain to stay the lust of battle and mad thirst to slay: "cease we; the light, our enemy, is near. vengeance is glutted; we have hewn our way." bowls, solid silver armour here and there they leave behind untouched, and arras rich and rare. xlvi. the arms and belt of rhamnes, bossed with gold, which caedicus, his friendship to attest, sent to tiburtine remulus of old, whose grandson took it, as a last bequest (rutulians thence these spoils of war possessed)-- these trophies seized euryalus, and braced the useless trappings on his valorous breast, and on his head messapus' helm he placed, light and with graceful plumes; and from the camp they haste. xlvii. meanwhile from out laurentum rides a train with news of turnus, while the main array with marshalled ranks is lingering on the plain, three hundred shieldsmen volscens' lead obey. now to the ramparts they have found their way, when lo, to leftward, hurrying from their raid, they mark the youths amid the twilight grey. his glittering helm euryalus betrayed, that flashed the moonbeams back, and pierced the glimmering shade. xlviii. nor passed the sight unheeded. shrill and loud "stand, who are ye in armour dight, and why? what make ye there?" cries volscens from the crowd, "and whither wend ye?" naught the youths reply, but swiftly to the bordering forest fly, and trust to darkness. then around each way the horsemen ride, all outlet to deny; circling, like huntsmen, closely as they may, they watch the well-known turns, and wait the expected prey. xlix. shagg'd with rough brakes and sable ilex, spread the wood, and, glimmering in the twilight grey, through broken tracks a narrow pathway led. the shadowy boughs, the cumbrous spoils delay euryalus, and fear mistakes the way. nisus, unheeding, through the foemen flies, and gains the place,--called alba now--where lay latinus' pastures; then with back-turned eyes stands still, and seeks in vain his absent friend, and cries: l. "where, in what quarter, have i left thee? where, euryalus, shall i follow thee? what clue shall trace the mazes of this silvan snare, the tangled path unravelling?" back he flew, picking his footsteps with observant view, and roamed the silent brushwood. steeds he hears, the noise, the signs of foemen who pursue. a moment more, and, bursting on his ears, there came a shout, and lo, euryalus appears. li. him, in false ways, amid the darkness, ta'en, the gathering band with sudden rush o'erbear. poor nisus sees him struggling, but in vain. what should he do? by force of arms how dare his friend to rescue? shall he face them there, and rush upon the foemen's swords, to die, and welcome wounds that win a death so fair? his spear he poises, and with upturned eye and stalwart arm drawn back, invokes the moon on high: lii. "come thou, latonia, succour my distress! guardian of groves, bright glory of the sky, if e'er with offerings for his son's success my sire thine altars hath adorned, or i enriched them from the chase, and hung on high spoils in thy deep-domed temple, or arrayed thy roof with plunder; make this troop to fly, and guide my weapons through the air." he prayed, and, winged with strength, the steel went whistling through the shade. liii. it struck the shield of sulmo at his side; there broke the shaft and splintered. down he rolled pierced through the midriff, and his life's warm tide poured from his bosom, and the long sobs told its heavings, ere the stiffening limbs grew cold. all look around and tremble, when again the youth another javelin, waxing bold, aimed from his ear-tip. through the temples twain of tagus whizzed the steel, and warmed within the brain. liv. fierce volscens raves with anger, nor espies the wielder of the weapon, nor which way to rush, aflame with fury. "thou," he cries, "thy blood meanwhile the penalty shall pay for both," and with his falchion bared to slay springs at euryalus. then, wild with fear, poor nisus shouts, in frenzy of dismay, nor longer in the dark can hide, nor bear a pang of grief so keen--to lose a friend so dear, lv. "me--me, behold the doer! mine the deed! kill me, rutulians. by this hand they fell. he could not--durst not. by the skies i plead, by yon bright stars, that witnessed what befell, he only loved his hapless friend too well." vain was his prayer; the weapon, urged amain, pierced through his ribs and snowy breast. out swell dark streams of gore his lovely limbs to stain; the sinking neck weighs o'er the shoulders of the slain. lvi. so doth the purple floweret, dying, droop, smit by the ploughshare. so the poppy frail on stricken stalk its languid head doth stoop, and bows o'erladen with the drenching hail. but onward now, through thickest ranks of mail, rushed nisus. volscens only will he slay; he waits for none but volscens. they assail from right and left, and crowd his steps to stay. he whirls his lightning brand, and presses to his prey. lvii. ere long he meets him clamouring, and down his throat he drives the griding sword amain, and takes his life, ere laying down his own. then, pierced he sinks upon his comrade slain, and death's long slumber puts an end to pain. o happy pair! if aught my verse ensure, no length of time shall make your memory wane, while, throned upon the capitol secure, the aeneian house shall reign, and roman rule endure. lviii. weeping, the victors took the spoils and prey, and back dead volscens to their camp they bore. nor less the wailing in the camp that day, brave rhamnes found, and many a captive more, numa, serranus, weltering in their gore. thick round the dead and dying, where the plain reeks freshly with the frothing blood, they pour. sadly they know messapus' spoils again, the trappings saved with sweat, the helmet of the slain. lix. now, rising from tithonus' saffron couch, the goddess of the dawn with orient ray sprinkled the earth, and 'neath the wakening touch of sunlight, all things stand revealed to-day. turnus himself, accoutred for the fray, wakes up his warriors with the morning light. at once each captain marshals in array his company, in brazen arms bedight, and rumours whet their rage, and prick them to the fight. lx. nay more, aloft upon the javelin's end, with shouts they bear--a miserable sight!-- the heads, the heads of nisus and his friend. on the walls' left--the river flanked their right-- the sturdy trojans stand arrayed for fight, and line the trenches and each lofty tower, sad, while the foemen, clamorous with delight, march onward, with the heroes' heads before, well known--alas! too well--and dropping loathly gore. lxi. now fame, winged herald, through the wildered town swift to euryalus' mother speeds her way. life's heat forsakes her; from her hand drops down the shuttle, and the task-work rolls away. forth with a shriek, like women in dismay, rending her hair, in frantic haste she flies, and seeks the ramparts and the war's array, heedless of darts and dangers and surprise, heedless of armed men, and fills the heaven with cries. lxii. "thou--is it thou, euryalus, my own? thou, the late solace of my age? ah, why so cruel? could'st thou leave me here alone, nor let thy mother bid a last good-bye? now left a prey on latin soil to lie of dogs and birds, nor i, thy mother, there to wash thy wounds, and close thy lightless eye, and shroud thee in the robe i wrought so fair, fain with the busy loom to soothe an old wife's care! lxiii. "where shall i follow thee? thy corpse defiled, thy mangled limbs--where are they? woe is me! is this then all of what was once my child? was it for this i roamed the land and sea? pierce _me_, rutulians; hurl your darts at me, me first, if ye a mother's love can know. great sire of heaven, have pity! set me free. hurl with thy bolt to tartarus below this hateful head, that longs to quit a world of woe!" lxiv. so wails the mother, weeping and undone, and sorrow smites each warrior, as he hears, each groaning, as a father for his son. grief runs, like wildfire, through the trojan peers, and numbs their courage, and augments their fears. then, fain the spreading sorrow to allay, ilioneus and iulus, bathed in tears call actor and idaeus; gently they the aged dame lift up, and to her home convey. lxv. now terribly the brazen trumpet pealed its summons, and the war-shout rent the air. on press the volscians, locking shield to shield, and fill the trenches, and the breastwork tear. these plant their ladders for assault, where'er a gap, just glimmering, shows the line less dense. vain hope! the teucrians with their darts are there. stout poles they ply, and thrust them from the fence, trained by a lingering siege, and tutored to defence. lxvi. stones, too, they roll, to crush the serried shields: blithely the warriors bear the storm below, yet not for long; for, see, the penthouse yields. down on the midst, where thickest press the foe, the teucrians, rolling, with a crash let go a ponderous mass, that opens to the light the jointed shields, and lays the warriors low. nor care they longer in the dark to fight, but vie with distant darts to sweep the rampart's height. lxvii. pine-stock in hand, mezentius hurls the flame; there, fierce messapus rends the palisade,-- tamer of steeds, from neptune's loins he came,-- and shouts aloud for ladders to invade. aid me, calliope; ye muses, aid to sing of turnus and his deeds that day, the deaths he wrought, the havoc that he made, and whom each warrior singled for his prey; roll back the war's great scroll, the mighty leaves display. lxviii. built high, with lofty gangways, stood a tower, fit post of vantage, which the latins vied, with utmost effort and with all their power, to capture and destroy, while armed inside with stones, the trojans through the loopholes plied their missiles. turnus, 'mid the foremost, cast a blazing brand, and, fastening to the side, up went the flame; from floor to floor it passed, clung to and licked the posts, and maddened with the blast. lxix. within 'twas hurrying and tumultuous fright, as, crowding backward, they retreat before the advancing flames, and vainly long for flight. lo! toppling suddenly, the tower went o'er, and shook the wide air with reverberant roar. half-dead, the huge mass following amain, they come to earth, stabbed by the darts they bore, or pierced by splinters through the breast. scarce twain escape--helenor one, and lycus--from the slain. lxx. of these helenor,--whom to lydia's lord by stealth his slave, the fair licymnia, bore, and sent to ilium, where a simple sword and plain, white shield, yet unrenowned, he wore,-- he, when he sees, around him and before, the latin hosts, as when in fierce disdain, hemmed round by huntsmen, in his rage the boar o'erleaps the spears, so, where the thickest rain the foemen's darts, springs forth helenor to be slain. lxxi. but fleeter far, young lycus hastes to slip through swords, through foes, and gains the walls, and tries to climb them, and a comrade's hand to grip. with foot and spear behind him, as he flies, comes turnus. scornfully the victor cries, "mad fool! to fly, whom i have doomed to fall; think'st thou to baffle turnus of his prize?" therewith he grasps him hanging, and withal down with his victim drags huge fragments of the wall. lxxii. e'en so some snowy swan, or timorous hare jove's armour-bearer, swooping from the sky, grips in his talons, and aloft doth bear. so, where apart the folded weanlings lie, swift at some lamb the warrior-wolf doth fly, and leaves the mother, bleating in her woe. loud rings the noise of battle. with a cry the foe press on; these fill the trench below, these to the topmost towers the blazing firebrands throw. lxxiii. ilioneus with a rock's huge fragment quelled lucetius, creeping to the gate below with fire. asylas corynaeus felled, liger emathion, one skilled to throw the flying dart, one famous with the bow. caenus--brief triumph!--made ortygius fall, with dioxippus, turnus lays him low, then itys, clonius, promolus withal, sagaris, and idas last, the warder of the wall. lxxiv. there, slain by capys, poor privernus lay, grazed by themilla's javelin; with a start the madman flung his trusty shield away, and clapped his left hand to the wounded part, fain, as he thought, to ease him of the smart. thereat, a light-winged arrow, unespied, whirred on the wind. it missed the warrior's heart, but pierced his hand, and pinned it to his side, and, entering, clave the lung, and with a gasp he died. lxxv. with broidered scarf of spanish crimson, stood a comely youth, young arcens was his name, sent by his father, from symaethus' flood, and nurtured in his mother's grove, he came, where, rich and kind, palicus' altars flame. his lance laid by, thrice whirling round his head the whistling thong, mezentius took his aim. clean through his temples hissed the molten lead, and prostrate in the dust, the gallant youth lay dead. lxxvi. then first, 'tis said, in war ascanius drew his bow, wherewith in boyish days he plied the flying game. his hand numanus slew, called remulus, to turnus late allied, for turnus' youngest sister was his bride. he, puffed with new-won royalty and proud, stalked in the forefront of the fight, and cried with random clamour and big words and loud, fain by his noise to show his grandeur to the crowd. lxxvii. "think ye no shame, poor cowards, thus again behind your sheltering battlements to stand, twice-captured phrygians! and to plant in vain these walls, to shield you from the foemen's hand? lo, these the varlets who our wives demand! what god, what madness blinded you, that e'er ye thought to venture to italia's land? no wily-worded ithacan is near; far other foes than he or atreus' sons are here. lxxviii. "our babes are hardened in the frost and flood, strong is the stock and sturdy whence we came. our boys from morn till evening scour the wood, their joy is hunting, and the steed to tame, to bend the bow, the flying shaft to aim. patient of toil, and used to scanty cheer, our youths with rakes the stubborn glebe reclaim, or storm the town. through life we grasp the spear. in war it strikes the foe, in peace it goads the steer. lxxix. "age cannot stale, nor creeping years impair stout hearts as ours, nor make our strength decay. our hoary heads the heavy helmet bear. our joy is in the foray, day by day to reap fresh plunder, and to live by prey. ye love to dance, and dally with the fair, in saffron robes with purple flounces gay. your toil is ease, and indolence your care, and tunics hung with sleeves, and ribboned coifs ye wear. lxxx. "go phrygian women, for ye are not men! hence, to your dindymus, and roam her heights with corybantian eunuchs! get ye, then, and hear the flute, harsh-grating, that invites with twy-mouthed music to her lewd delights, where boxen pipe and timbrel from afar shriek forth the summons to her sacred rites. put by the sword, poor dotards as ye are, leave arms to men, like us, nor meddle with the war." lxxxi. such taunts ascanius brooked not. stung with pride, a shaft he fitted to the horse-hair twine, and, turning, stood with outstretched arms, and cried: "bless, jove omnipotent, this bold design: aid me, and yearly offerings shall be thine. a milk-white steer--i bind me to the vow-- myself will lead, the choicest, to thy shrine, tall as his mother, and with gilded brow, and butting horns, and hoofs, that spurn the sand e'en now." lxxxii. jove heard, and leftward, where the sky was blue, thundered aloud. at once the fateful bow twanged; with a whirr the fateful arrow flew, and pierced the head of remulus. "now go, and teach thy proud tongue to insult a foe, and scoff at trojan valour. _this_ reply twice-captured phrygians to thy taunts bestow." ascanius spoke; the teucrians with a cry, press on, their joyous hearts uplifting to the sky. lxxxiii. meanwhile, apollo from his cloudy car the ausonian host, and leaguered town descries, and calls the youthful conqueror from afar: "hail to thy maiden prowess; yonder lies thy path, brave boy, to glory and the skies. o sons of gods, and sire of gods to be, all wars shall cease beneath the race to rise from great assaracus. nor thine, nor thee shall narrow troy contain; so stands the fate's decree." lxxxiv. he spake, and through the breathing air shot down, and sought ascanius, now a god no more, but shaped like aged butes, whilom known the servant of the dardan king, who bore anchises' shield, and waited at his door, then left to guard ascanius. such in view apollo seemed; such clanging arms he wore; such were his hoary tresses, voice, and hue, and these his words, as near the fiery youth he drew: lxxxv "enough, to live, and see numanus bleed, child of aeneas! this, thy valour's due, great phoebus grants, nor stints a rival's meed. now cease."--he spake, and vanished from their view. his arms divine the dardan chieftains knew, and heard the quiver rattle in his flight. so, warned by phoebus' presence, back they drew the fiery youth, then plunged into the fight. death seems a welcome risk, and danger a delight. lxxxvi. shouts fill the walls and outworks; casque and shield clash; bows are bent, and javelins hurled amain: fierce grows the fight, and weapons strew the field. so fierce what time the kid-star brings the rain, the storm, from westward rising, beats the plain: so thick with hail, the clouds, asunder riven, pour down a deluge on the darkened main, when jove, upon his dreaded south-wind driven stirs up the watery storm, and rends the clouds of heaven. lxxxvii. pandarus and bitias, whom in ida's grove the nymph iaera to alcanor bare, tall as their mountains or the pines of jove, fling back the gate committed to their care, and bid the foemen enter, if they dare. with waving plumes, and armed from top to toe, in front, beside the gateway, stand the pair, tall as twin oaks, with nodding crests, that grow where athesis' sweet stream or padus' waters flow. lxxxviii. up rush the foemen to the open gate, quercens, aquicolus, in armour bright, brave haemon, tmarus, eager and elate, in troops they come, in troops they turn in flight, or fall upon the threshold, slain outright. now fiercer swells the discord, louder grows the noise of strife, as, hastening to unite, the sons of troy their banded ranks oppose, and battle hand to hand and, sallying, charge the foes. lxxxix. elsewhere to turnus, as he raged, and marred the ranks, came tidings of the foe, elate with new-wrought carnage, and the gates unbarred. forth from his work he rushes, grim with hate, to seek the brothers, and the dardan gate. here brave antiphates, the first in view (the bastard offspring of sarpedon great, borne by a theban) with his dart he slew; swift through the yielding air the italian cornel flew. xc. down through his throat into the chest it passed. out from the dark pit gushed a foaming tide; the cold steel, warming in the lung, stood fast. then merops, erymas, aphidnus died, and bitias, fierce with flaming eyes of pride. no dart for him; no dart his life had ta'en. a spear phalaric, thundering, pierced his side. nor bulls' tough hides, nor corselet's twisted chain, twice linked with golden scales the monstrous blow sustain. xci. prone falls the giant in a heap. earth groans, his shield above him thunders. such the roar, when falls the solid pile of quarried stones, sunk in the sea off baiae's echoing shore; so vast the ruin, when the waves close o'er, and the black sands mount upward, as the block, dashed headlong, settles on the deep-sea floor, and prochyta and arime's steep rock, piled o'er typhoeus, quake and tremble with the shock. xcii. now mars armipotent the latins lends fresh heart and strength, but fear and black dismay and flight upon the teucrian troops he sends. from right and left they hurry to the fray, and o'er each spirit comes the war-god's sway. but when brave pandarus saw his brother's fate, and marked the swerving fortune of the day, he set his broad-built shoulders to the gate; the groaning hinges yield, and backward rolls the weight. xciii. full many a friend without the camp he leaves, sore straitened in the combat; these, the rest, saved like himself, he rescues and receives. madman! who, blind to turnus, as he pressed among them, made the dreaded foe his guest. fierce as a tiger in the fold, he preys. loud ring his arms; his helmet's blood-red crest waves wide; strange terrors from his eyes outblaze, and on his dazzling shield the living lightning plays. xciv. that hated form, those giant limbs too plain the trojans see, and stand aghast with fear. then, fired with fury for his brother slain, forth leaping, shouts huge pandarus with a jeer, "no queen amata's bridal halls are here; no ardea this; around the camps the foe. no flight for thee." he, smiling, calm of cheer, "come, if thou durst; full soon shall priam know thou too hast found a new achilles to thy woe." xcv. he spake. then pandarus a javelin threw, cased in its bark, with hardened knots and dried. the breezes caught the missile as it flew; saturnian juno turned the point aside, and fixed it in the gate. "ha! bravely tried! not so _this_ dart shalt thou escape; not so send i the weapon and the wound." he cried, and, sword in hand, uprising to the blow, between the temples clave the forehead of his foe. xcvi. the beardless cheeks, so fearful was the gash, gape wide. aloud his clanging arms resound. earth groans beneath, as prone, amid the splash of blood and brains, he sprawls upon the ground, and right and left hangs, severed by the wound, his dying head. in terror, strewn afar, the trojans fly. then, then had turnus found time and the thought to burst the town-gate's bar, that day had seen the last of trojans and the war. xcvii. but lust of death, and vengeance unappeased urged on the conqueror. phalaris he slew, then hamstrung gyges, and their javelins seized, and hurled them at their comrades, as they flew, for juno nerved and strengthened him anew. here halys fell, and hardy phlegeus there, pierced through his shield. alcander down he threw, prytanis, noemon, halius unaware, as on the walls they stood, and roused the battle's blare. xcviii. slain, too, was lynceus, as he ran for aid, cheering his friends. back-handed, with fierce sway, his right knee bent, he swung the sweeping blade, and head and helmet tumbled far away. fell clytius, amycus expert to slay the wood-deer, and the venomed barb to wing, and creteus, too, who loved the minstrel's lay, the muses' friend, whose joy it was to sing of steeds, and arms and men, and wake the lyre's sweet string. xcix. then meet at length, their kinsmen's slaughter known, brave mnestheus, and serestus fierce, and see their friends in flight, and foemen in the town. then mnestheus cries: "friends, whither would ye flee? what other walls, what further town have we? shame on the thought, shall then a single foe, one man alone, o townsmen! ay, and he cooped thus within your ramparts, work such woe, such deaths--and unavenged? and lay your choicest low? c. "is yours no pity, sluggard souls? no shame for troy's old gods, and for your native land, and for the great aeneas, and his name?" fired by his words, they gather heart, and stand, shoulder to shoulder, rallying in a band. backward, but slowly he retreats, too proud to turn, and seeks the ramparts hard at hand, girt by the stream; while, clamouring aloud, fiercer the foe press on, and larger grows the crowd. ci. as when an angry lion, held at bay, and pressed with galling javelins, half in fright, but grim and glaring, step by step gives way, too wroth to turn, too valorous for flight, and fain, but impotent, to wreak his spite against his armed assailants; even so, slowly and wavering, turnus quits the fight, boiling with rage; yet twice he charged the foe, twice round the walls in rout they fled before his blow. cii. but now new hosts come swarming from the town, nor juno dares his failing force to stay, for jove in wrath sent heavenly iris down, stern threats to bear, should turnus disobey, and longer in the trojan camp delay. no more his shield, nor strength of hand avail to ward the storm; so thick the javelins play. loud rings his helmet with the driving hail; rent with the volleyed stones, the solid brass-plates fail. ciii. reft are his plumes, and shattered by the blows the shield-boss. faster still the darts they pour, and thundering mnestheus towers amid his foes. trembling with pain, exhausted, sick, and sore, he gasps for breath. sweat streams from every pore, and, black with dust, from all his limbs descends. headlong, at length, he plunges from the shore, clad all in arms. the yellow river bends, and bears him, cleansed from blood, triumphant to his friends. book ten argument the gods meet in council. venus pleads for the trojans, juno for the latins. jupiter as a compromise leaves the arbitrament to fate ( - ). the siege of the trojan camp continues. aeneas meanwhile is sailing with his arcadian and tuscan allies down the tiber ( - ). catalogue of the helpers of aeneas, who is presently warned by the nymphs in what peril ascanius stands: comes in sight of the camp and with difficulty lands his men ( - ). a hard-fought battle by the river follows, of which pallas and lausus are the heroes ( - ). pallas is killed by turnus in single combat ( - ). aeneas in revenge gives no quarter, but slays and slays, until juno, warned by jupiter that if she would save turnus even for a time she must act at once, goes down into the battle and fashions in the form of aeneas a phantom, which flees before turnus and lures him into a ship, by which he is miraculously carried away to his father's city ( - ). mezentius takes up the command, but after performing prodigies of valour is wounded by aeneas ( - ). mezentius withdraws, and his son lausus is killed while covering his retreat. thereupon mezentius gets to horse and rides back to die in a vain endeavour to avenge his son. aeneas exults over mezentius ( - ). i. meanwhile, at bidding of almighty jove, his palace, as olympus' gates unfold, stands open. to his starry halls above the sire of gods and men, whose eyes behold the wide-wayed earth, the dardans' leaguered hold, and latium's peoples, from his throne of state convokes the council. ranged on seats of gold around the halls, in silence they await. himself, in measured speech, begins the grand debate. ii. "heaven's great inhabitants, what change hath brewed rebellious thoughts, my purpose thus to mar? 'twixt troy and italy i banned the feud; my nod forbade it. whence this impious jar? what fear hath stirred them to provoke the war? fate in due course shall bring the destined hour,-- foredate it not--when carthage from afar her barbarous hordes through riven alps shall pour, to storm the towers of rome, to ravage and devour. iii. "then may ye rend, and ravage and destroy, then may ye glut your vengeance. now forbear, and plight this peaceful covenant with joy." thus jove; but venus of the golden hair, less brief, made answer: "lord of earth and air! o father! power eternal! whom beside we know none other, to approach with prayer, see the rutulians, how they swell with pride; see turnus, puffed with triumph, borne upon the tide. iv. "their very walls the teucrians shield no more. within the gates, amid the mounds the fray is raging, and the trenches float with gore, while, ignorant, aeneas is away. is theirs no rest from leaguer--not a day? again a threatening enemy hangs o'er a new-born troy! new foemen in array swarm from aetolian arpi, and once more a son of tydeus comes, as dreadful as before. v. "ay, wounds are waiting for thine offspring still, and mortal arms must vex her. list to me: if maugre thee, and careless of thy will, the trojans sought italia, let them be, nor aid them; let their folly reap its fee. but if, oft called by many a warning sign from heaven and hell, they followed thy decree, who then shall tamper with the doom divine, or dare to forge new fates, or alter words of thine? vi. "why tell of grievances in days forepast, the vessels burnt on eryx' distant shore, the tempest's monarch, and the raging blast stirred in aeolia, and the winds' uproar, and iris, heaven-sent messenger? nay more, from hell's dark depths she summons her allies, the ghosts of hades, overlooked before. through latin towns, sent sudden from the skies, alecto wings her flight, and riots as she flies. vii. "i reck not, i, of empire; once, indeed, while fortune smiled, i hoped for it; but now theirs, whom thou choosest, be the victor's meed. but if no land thy ruthless spouse allow to teucrian outcasts, hearken to me now: o father! by the latest hour of troy, by ilion's smoking ruins, deign to show thy pity for ascanius; spare my boy; safe let him cease from arms, my darling and my joy. viii. "let brave aeneas follow, as he may, where future leads, and wander on the brine. _him_ shield, and let me snatch him from the fray. paphos, cythera, amathus are mine, and on idalium is my home and shrine: there let him live, forgetful of renown, and, deaf to fame, these warlike weeds resign; then let fierce carthage press ausonia down, for he and his no more shall vex the tyrian town. ix. "ah, what availed to 'scape the fight and flame, and drain all dangers of the land and main, if teucrians seek on latin soil to frame troy's towers anew? far better to remain there, on their country's ashes, on the plain where troy once stood. give, father, i implore, to wretched men their native streams again; their xanthus and their simois restore; there let them toil and faint, as trojans toiled of yore." x. then, roused with rage, spake juno: "wherefore make my lips break silence and lay bare my woe? what god or man aeneas forced to take the sword, and make the latin king his foe? fate to italia called him: be it so: driven by the frenzied prophetess of troy. did we then bid him leave the camp, and throw his life to fortune, ay, and leave a boy to rule the war, and tuscan loyalty destroy, xi. "and harass peaceful nations? who was there the god, and whose the tyranny to blame for fraud like that? where then was juno? where was cloud-sent iris? sooth, ye count it shame that latins hedge the new-born troy with flame, and turnus dares his native land possess, albeit from pilumnus' seed he came, and nymph venilia. is the shame then less, that troy with foreign yoke should latin fields oppress, xii. "and rob their maidens of the love they vow, and lift, and burn and ravage as they list, then plead for peace, with arms upon the prow? thy sheltering power aeneas can assist, and cheat his foemen with an empty mist, the warrior's counterfeit. at thy command ships change to sea-nymphs, and the flames desist. and now, that we should stretch a friendly hand, and lend rutulians aid, an infamy ye brand. xiii. "thy chief is absent, absent let him be. he knows not: let him know not. do i care? what is aeneas' ignorance to me? thou hast thy paphos, and idalium fair, and bowers of high cythera; get thee there. why seek for towns with battle in their womb, and beard a savage foeman in his lair? wrought we the wreck, when ilion sank in gloom, we, or the hands that urged poor trojans to their doom? xiv. "was i the robber, who the war begun, whose theft in arms two continents arrayed, when europe clashed with asia? i the one, who led the dardan leman on his raid, to storm the chamber of the spartan maid? did i with lust the fatal strife sustain, and fan the feud, and lend the dardans aid? _then_ had thy fears been fitting; now in vain thy taunts are hurled; too late thou risest to complain." xv. so pleaded juno: the immortals all on this and that side murmured their assent, as new-born gales, that tell the coming squall, caught in the woods, their mingled moanings vent. then thus began the sire omnipotent, who rules the universe, and as he rose, hush'd was the hall; earth shook; the firmament was silent; whist was every wind that blows, and o'er the calm deep spread the stillness of repose. xvi. "now hearken all, and to my words give heed. since naught avails this discord to allay, and peace is hopeless, let the war proceed. trojans, rutulians--each alike this day must carve his hopes and fortune as he may. fate, blindness, crooked counsels--whatso'er holds troy in leaguer, equally i weigh the chance of all, nor would rutulians spare. for each must toil and try, till fate the doom declare." xvii. he spake, and straightway, to confirm his word, invoked his brother, and the stygian flood, the pitchy whirlpool, and the banks abhorr'd, then bent his brow, and with his awful nod made all olympus tremble at the god. so ceased the council. from his throne of state, all golden, he arose, and slowly trod the courts of heaven. the powers celestial wait around their sovereign lord, and lead him to the gate. xviii. now, fire in hand, and burning to destroy, the fierce rutulians still the siege maintain. pent in their ramparts stay the sons of troy, hopeless of flight, and line the walls in vain, a little band, but all that now remain. thymoetes, son of hicetaon bold, asius, the son of imbrasus, the twain assaraci, castor and thymbris old, these, battling in the van, the desperate strife uphold. xix. next stand the brethren of sarpedon slain, claros and themon,--braver lycians none. there, with a rock's huge fragment toils amain lyrnessian acmon, famous clytius' son, menestheus' brother, nor less fame he won. hot fares the combat; from the walls these fling the stones, and those the javelins. each one toils to defend; these blazing firebrands bring, and fetch the flying shafts, and fit them to the string. xx. there too, bare-headed, in the midst is seen fair venus' care, the dardan youth divine, bright as a diamond, or the lustrous sheen of gems, that, set in yellow gold, entwine the neck, or sparkling on the temples shine. so gleams the ivory, inlaid with care in chest of terebinth, or boxwood scrine; and o'er his milk-white neck and shoulders fair, twined with the pliant gold, streams down the warrior's hair. xxi. there, too, brave ismarus, the nations see, scattering the poisoned arrows from thy hands; a gallant knight, and born of high degree in far maeonia, where his golden sands pactolus rolls along the fruitful lands. there he, whom yesterday the voice of fame raised to the stars, the valiant mnestheus stands, who drove fierce turnus from the camp with shame; there, capys, he who gave the capuan town its name. xxii. thus all day long both armies toiled and fought. and now, at midnight, o'er the deep sea fares aeneas. by evander sent, he sought the tuscan camp. to tarchon he declares his name and race, the aid he asks and bears, the friends mezentius gathers to the fray, and turnus' violence; then warns, with prayers, of fortune's fickleness. no more delay: brave tarchon joins his power, and strikes a league straightway. xxiii. so, free of fate, heaven's mandate they obey, and lydians, with a foreign leader, plough the deep; aeneas' vessel leads the way. sweet ida forms the figure-head; below, the phrygian lions ramp upon the prow. here sits aeneas, thoughtful, on the stern, for war's dark chances cloud the chieftain's brow. there, on his left, sits pallas, and in turn now cons the stars, now seeks the wanderer's woes to learn. xxiv. now open helicon; unlock the springs, ye goddesses. strike up the noble stave, and sing what hosts from tuscan shores he brings, what ships he arms, and how they cross the wave. first, massicus with brazen tiger clave the watery plain. with him from clusium go, and cosae's town, a hundred, tried and brave; deft archers, well the deadly craft they know. light from their shoulders hang the quiver and the bow. xxv. with blazoned troops came abas, gaunt and grim. golden apollo on the stern he bore. six hundred populonia gave to him, all trained to battle, and three hundred more sent ilva, rich in unexhausted ore. third came asylas, who the voice divine expounds to man, and kens, with prescient lore, the starry sky, the hearts of slaughtered kine, the voices of the birds, the lightning's warning sign. xxvi. a thousand from alphaeus' tuscan town of pisa, with him to the war proceed, in bristling ranks, all spearmen of renown. next, astur--comeliest astur--clad in weed of divers hues, and glorying in his steed: three hundred men from ancient pyrgos fare, from caere's home, from minio's fruitful mead, and they who breathe gravisca's tainted air. one purpose fills them all, to follow and to dare. xxvii. nor would i leave thee, cinyras, untold, liguria's chief, nor, though a few were thine, cupavo. emblem of his sire of old, the swan's white feathers on his helmet shine, thy fault, o love. when cycnus, left to pine for phaethon, the poplar shades among, soothed his sad passion with the muse divine, old age with hoary plumage round him clung; starward he soared from earth and, soaring up, still sung. xxviii. now comes his son, with his ligurian bands, oaring their bark. a centaur from the prow looms o'er the waves a-tiptoe, with his hands a vast rock heaving, as in act to throw; the long keel ploughs the furrowed deep below. next, from his home the gallant ocnus came, the son of manto, who the fates doth know, brave child of tiber. he his mother's name and walls to mantua gave,--great mantua, rich in fame, xxix. and rich in heroes, though diversely bred. three separate stems four-fold the state compose, herself, of tuscan origin, the head. five hundred warriors, all mezentius' foes, and armed for vengeance, from her walls arose. mincius in front, veiled in his sedges grey (fair stream, whose birth from sire benacus flows), shines on the poop, and seaward points the way; swift speeds the bark of pine, with foemen for the fray. xxx. last, huge aulestes, rising with his row of hundred oarsmen, beats the watery lea. the lashed deeps boil; big triton from the prow sounds his loud shell, that frights the sky-blue sea. waist-high, a man with human face is he; all else, a fish; beneath his savage breast the white foam roars before him.--such to see, such, and so numerous was the host that pressed, borne in their thirty ships, to succour troy distrest. xxxi. daylight had failed; to mid olympus' gate bright phoebe drove her nightly-wandering wain. tiller in hand, the good aeneas sate and trimmed the sails, while trouble tossed his brain. when lo! around him thronged the sea-nymphs' train, whom kind cybele changed from ships of wood to rule, as goddesses, the watery main. as many as late, with brazen beaks, had stood linked to the shore, now swim in even line the flood. xxxii. far off, their king the goddesses beheld and danced around him joyously, and lo, cymodocea, who in speech excelled, clings to the stern; breast-high the nymph doth show; her left hand oars the placid deep below. then, "watchest thou, aeneas, child divine? watch on," she cries, "and let the canvas go. behold us, sea-nymphs, once a grove of pine on ida's sacred crest, the trojans' ships and thine. xxxiii. "when on us late the false rutulian pressed with sword and flame, perforce, sweet life to save, we broke our chains, and wander in thy quest. our shape the mother, pitying, changed and gave immortal life, to spend beneath the wave. thy son, he stays in latin leaguer pent; arcadian horsemen, with the tuscans brave, hold tryst to aid. his troops hath turnus sent, charged, with opposing arms, their succour to prevent. xxxiv. "now rise, and when to-morrow's dawn shall shine, bid forth thy followers to arms. be bold, and take this shield, the fire-king's gift divine, invincible, immortal, rimm'd with gold. next morn--so truly as the word is told-- huge heaps of dead rutulian foes shall view." she spake; her hand, departing, loosed its hold, and pushed the vessel; well the way she knew; swift as a dart it flies; the rest its flight pursue. xxxv. wondering, aeneas pauses in amaze, yet hails the sign, and gladdens at the sight, and, gazing on the vaulted skies, he prays, "mother of heaven, whom dindymus' famed height, and tower-girt towns, and lions yoked delight, assist the phrygians, and direct the fray. kind goddess, prosper us, and speed aright this augury." he ended, and the day returning, climbed the sky, and chased the night away. xxxvi. forthwith he calls his comrades to arise and take fresh heart, and for the fight prepare. now, from the stern, the dardans he espies, hemmed in their camp. aloft his hands upbear the burning shield. with shouts his dardans tear heaven's concave. hope with fury fires their veins. fast fly their darts, as when through darkened air with clang and clamour the strymonian cranes stream forth, the signal given, from winter's winds and rains. xxxvii. then lost in wonderment, the foemen stand, till, looking round, they see the watery ways a sea of ships, all crowding to the land, the flaming crest, the helmet all ablaze, the golden shield-boss, with its lightning rays. as when a comet, bright with blazing hair, its blood-red beams athwart the night displays, or sirius, rising, with its baleful glare brings pestilence and drought, and saddens all the air. xxxviii. yet quails not turnus; still his hopes are high to seize the shore, and keep them from the land. now cheering, and now chiding, rings his cry "lo, here--'tis here, the battle ye demand. up, crush them; war is in the warrior's hand. think of your fathers and their deeds of old, your homes, your wives. forestall them on the strand, now, while they totter, while the foot's faint hold slips on the shelving beach. fair fortune aids the bold." xxxix. so saying, he ponders inly, whom to choose to mind the siege, and whom the foe to meet. by planks meanwhile aeneas lands his crews. some wait until the languid waves retreat, then, leaping, to the shallows trust their feet; some vault with oars. brave tarchon marks, quick-eyed, a sheltered spot, where neither surf doth beat, nor breakers roar, but smooth the waters glide, and up the sloping shore unbroken swells the tide. xl. here suddenly he bids them turn the prow, and shouts aloud, "now, now, my chosen band, lean to your oars; strive lustily and row. lift the keel onward, till it cleaves the strand, and ploughs its furrow in the foeman's land. let the bark break, with such a haven here what harm, if once upon the shore we stand?" so tarchon spake; his comrades, with a cheer, rise on the smooth-shaved thwarts, and sweep the foaming mere. xli. so, one by one, they gain the land, and, whole and scatheless, on the latin shore abide. all safe but tarchon. dashed upon a shoal, long on a rock's unequal ridge astride, in doubtful balance swayed from side to side, his vessel hangs, and back the waves doth beat, then breaks, and leaves them tangled in the tide 'twixt planks and oars, while, ebbing to retreat, the shrinking waves draw back, and wash them from their feet. xlii. nor loiters turnus; eager to attack, along the shore he marshals his array, to meet the foe, and drive the teucrians back. the trumpet sounds: the latin churls straightway aeneas routs, first omen of the day, huge theron slain, their mightiest, who in pride of strength, rushed forth and dared him to the fray. through quilted brass the dardan sword he plied, through tunic stiff with gold, and pierced th' unguarded side. xliii. lichas he smites, who vowed his infant life, ripped from his mother, dying in her pain, to phoebus, freed from perils of the knife. huge gyas, brawny cisseus press the plain, as, club in hand, they strew the tuscan train. naught now avail those stalwart arms, that plied the weapons of alcides; all in vain they boast their sire melampus, comrade tried of hercules, while earth his toilsome tasks supplied. xliv. lo, full at pharus, in his bawling mouth he plants a dart. thou, cydon, too, in quest of clytius, blooming with the down of youth, thy latest joy, had'st laid thy loves to rest, slain by the dardan; but around thee pressed old phorcus' sons. seven brethren bold are there, seven darts they throw. these helm and shield arrest, those, turned aside by venus' gentle care just graze the dardan's frame, and, grazing, glance in air. xlv. then cried aeneas to achates true, "quick, hand me store of weapons; none in vain this arm shall hurl at yon rutulian crew, not one of all that whilom knew the stain of argive blood upon the trojan plain." so saying, he snatched, and in a moment threw his mighty spear, that, hurtling, rent in twain the brazen plates of maeon's shield, and through the breastplate pierced the breast, nor faltered as it flew. xlvi. up ran, and raised his brother, as he lay, alcanor. shrill another javelin sung, and pierced his arm, and, reddening, held its way, and from his shoulders by the sinews hung the dying hand. then straight, the dart outwrung, his brother numitor the barb let fly full at aeneas. in his face he flung, but failed to smite. the weapon, turned awry, missed the intended mark, and grazed achates' thigh. xlvii. up clausus came, of cures, in the pride of youth. his stark spear, urged with forceful sway, through dryops' throat, beneath the chin, he plied, and voice and life forsook him, as he lay, spewing thick gore, his forehead in the clay. three thracians next, three sons of idas bleed. ismarians these. halaesus to the fray brings his auruncan bands, and neptune's seed, messapus, too, comes up, the tamer of the steed. xlviii. each side strives hard the other's ground to win. e'en on ausonia's threshold raves the fray. as in the broad air warring winds begin the battle, matched in strength and rage, nor they, the winds themselves, nor clouds nor sea give way, all locked in strife, and struggling as they can, and long in doubtful balance hangs the day, so meet the ranks, and mingle in the van, and foot clings close to foot, and man is massed with man. xlix. where, in another quarter, stones and trees, torn from its banks, a torrent at its height had strewn with wide-wrought ravage, pallas sees his brave arcadians break the ranks of fight, and turn before their latin foes in flight. strange to foot-combat, from his trusty horse the rough ground lured each rider to alight. now with entreaties--'tis his last resource-- and now with bitter words he fires their flagging force. l. "shame on ye, comrades! whither do ye run? by your brave deeds, and by the name ye bear, and great evander's, by the wars ye won, by these my hopes, which even now bid fair e'en with my father's honours to compare. trust not your feet; the sword, the sword must hew a pathway through the foemen. see, 'tis there, where foes press thickest, and our friends are few, our noble country calls for pallas and for you. li. "no gods assail us; mortals fight to-day with mortals. lives as many as theirs have we, as many hands, to match them in the fray. earth fails for flight, and yonder lies the sea. seaward or troyward--whither shall we flee?" so saying, he plunged amid the throng. first foe, fell lagus, doomed an evil fate to dree. him, toiling hard a ponderous stone to throw, between the ribs and spine a whistling dart laid low. lii. scarce from his marrow could the victor tear the steel, so tightly clung it to the bone. forth hisbo leaped, to smite him unaware. rash hope! brave pallas caught him, rushing on, and through the lung his sword a passage won. then sthenius he slew; beside him bled anchemolus, of rhoetus' stock the son, the lewd defiler of his stepdame's bed. fate stopped his lewdness now, and stretched him with the dead. liii. ye, too, young thymber and larides fair, twin sons of daucus, did the victor quell. so like in form and features were the pair, that e'en their doting parents failed to tell this one from that. alas! the sword too well divides them now. here, tumbled on the sward, at one fierce swoop, the head of thymber fell. thy severed hand, larides, seeks its lord; the fingers, half alive and quivering, clutch the sword. liv. fired by his words, his deeds the arcadians view, and shame and anger arm them to the fray. rhoeteus, as past his two-horsed chariot flew he pierced,--'twas ilus pallas meant to slay, and ilus gained that moment of delay. rhoeteus, in flight from teuthras and from thee, his brother tyres, met the spear midway. down from his chariot in the dust rolled he, and, dying, with his heels beat the rutulian lea. lv. as when a shepherd, on a summer's day, the wished-for winds arising, hastes to cast the flames amid the stubble: far away, the mid space seized, the line of fire runs fast from field to field, and broadens with the blast: and, sitting down, the victor from a height surveys the triumph, as the flames rush past. so all arcadia's chivalry unite, and round thee, pallas, throng, and aid thee in the fight. lvi. but lo, from out the foemen's ranks, athirst for battle, fierce halesus charged, and drew his covering shield before him. ladon first, then pheres, then demodocus he slew. next, at his throat as bold strymonius flew, the glittering falchion severed at a blow the lifted hand. at thoas' face he threw a stone, that smashed the forehead of his foe, and bones, and blood, and brains the spattered earth bestrow. lvii. halesus, when a boy, in woods concealed, his sire, a seer, had reared with tender care. but soon as death the old man's eyes had sealed, fate marked the son for the evandrian spear. him pallas sought; "o tiber!" was his prayer, "true to halesus let this javelin go. his arms and spoils thy sacred oak shall bear." 'twas heard: halesus, shielding from the foe imaon, leaves his breast unguarded to the blow. lviii. firm lausus stands, bearing the battle's brunt, nor lets halesus' death his friends dismay. dead falls the first who meets him front to front, brave abas, knot and holdfast of the fray. down go arcadia's chivalry that day, down go the etruscans, and the teucrians, those whom grecian conquerors had failed to slay. man locked with man, amid the conflict's throes, with strength and leaders matched, the rival armies close. lix. on press the rearmost, crowding on the van, so thick, that neither hand can stir, nor spear be wielded; each one struggles as he can. here pallas, there brave lausus, charge and cheer, two foes, in age scarce differing by a year. both fair of form. stern fate to each forbade his home return. but jove allowed not here a meeting; he who great olympus swayed, awhile for mightier foes their destined doom delayed. lx. warned by his gracious sister, turnus flies to take the place of lausus. driving through the ranks, "stand off," he shouts to his allies, "i fight with pallas; pallas is my due. would that his sire were here himself to view!" all clear the field. then, pondering with surprise the proud command, as back the crowd withdrew, the youth, amazed at turnus, rolls his eyes and scans his giant foe, and thus in scorn replies: lxi. "or kingly spoils shall make me famed to-day, or glorious death. whatever end remain, my sire can bear it. put thy threats away." then forth he stepped; cold horror chills his train. down from his car, close combat to darrain, leapt turnus. as a lion, who far away has marked a bull, that butts the sandy plain for battle, springs to grapple with his prey; so dreadful turnus looks, advancing to the fray. lxii. him, deemed within his spear-throw, undismayed the youth prevents, if chance the odds should square, and aid his daring. to the skies he prayed, "o thou, my father's guest-friend, wont whilere a stranger's welcome at his board to share, aid me, alcides, prosper my emprise; let turnus fall, and, falling, see me tear his blood-stained arms, and may his swooning eyes meet mine, and bear the victor's image, when he dies." lxiii. alcides heard, and, stifling in his breast a deep groan, poured his unavailing grief. whom thus the sire with kindly words addressed: "each hath his day; irreparably brief is mortal life, and fading as the leaf. 'tis valour's part to bid it bloom anew by deeds of fame. dead many a godlike chief, dead lies my son sarpedon. turnus too his proper fates demand; his destined hour is due." lxiv. so saying, he turned, and shunned the scene of death. forth pallas hurled the spear with all his might, and snatched the glittering falchion from the sheath. where the shield's top just matched the shoulders' height, clean through the rim, the javelin winged its flight, and grazed the flesh. then turnus, poising slow his oakbeam, tipt with iron sharp and bright, took aim, and, hurling, shouted to his foe, "see, now, if this my lance can deal a deadlier blow." lxv. he spake, and through the midmost shield, o'erlaid with bull-hide, brass, and iron, welded hard, whizzed the keen javelin, nor its course delayed, but pierced the broad breast through the corslet's guard. he the warm weapon, in the wound embarred, wrenched, writhing in his agony; in vain; out gushed the life and life-blood. o'er him jarred his clanging armour, as he rolled in pain. dying, with bloody mouth he bites the hostile plain. lxvi. then turnus, standing o'er the dead, "go to, arcadians, hear and let evander know, i send back pallas, handled as was due. if aught of honour can a tomb bestow, if earth's cold lap yield solace to his woe, i grant it. dearly will his dardan guest cost him, i trow." then, trampling on the foe, his left foot on the lifeless corpse he pressed, and tore the ponderous belt in triumph from his breast; lxvii. the belt, whereon the tale of guilt was told,-- the wedding night, the couches smeared with gore, the bridegrooms slain--which clonus in the gold, the son of eurytus, had grav'n of yore, and turnus now, exulting, seized and wore. vain mortals! triumphing past bounds to-day, blind to to-morrow's destiny. the hour shall come, when gold in plenty would he pay ne'er pallas to have touched, and curse the costly prey. lxviii. with tears his comrades lifted from the ground dead pallas; groaning, on his shield they bore him homeward, and the bitter wail went round. "o grief! o glory! fall'n to rise no more! thus back we bring thee, thus the son restore! one day to battle gave thee, one hath ta'en, victor and vanquished in the self-same hour! yet fall'n with honour, for behind thee slain, heaps of rutulian foes thou leavest on the plain!" lxix. sure tidings to aeneas came apace,-- 'twas no mere rumour--of his friends in flight; time pressed for help, death stared them in the face. sweeping his foes before him, left and right he mows a passage through the ranks of fight. thee, haughty turnus, thee he burns to find, hot with new blood, and glorying in thy might. the sire, the son, the welcome warm and kind, the feast, the parting grasp--all crowd upon his mind. lxx. eight youths alive he seizes for the pyre, four, sons of sulmo, four, whom ufens bred, poor victims, doomed to feed the funeral fire, and pour their blood in quittance for the dead. then from afar a bitter shaft he sped at magus. warily he stoops below the quivering steel, that whistles o'er his head, and, like a suppliant, crouching to his foe, clings to aeneas' knees, and cries in words of woe: lxxi. "o by the promise of thy youthful heir, by dead anchises, pity, i implore, my son, my father; for their sakes forbear. rich is my house, its cellars heaped with store of gold, and silver talents by the score. 'tis not my doom, that shall the day decide. if trojans win, one foeman's life the more mars not the triumph, nor can turn the tide." thus he, and thus in scorn the dardan chief replied: lxxii. "the treasures that thou vauntest, let them be. thy gold, thy silver, and thy hoarded gain spare for thy children, for they bribe not me. since pallas fell by turnus' hand, 'twere vain to think thy pelf will traffic for the slain, so deems my son, so deems anchises' shade." he spake, and with his left hand grasped amain his helmet. even as the suppliant prayed, hilt-deep, the neck bent back, he drove the shining blade. lxxiii. hard by, the son of haemon there was seen, apollo's priest and trivia's, all aglow in robe and armour of resplendent sheen, the holy ribboned chaplet on his brow. him, met, afield he chases, lays him low, and o'er him, like a storm-cloud, dark as night, stands, hugely shadowing the fallen foe: and back serestus bears his armour bright, a trophy, vowed to thee, gradivus, lord of fight. lxxiv. then caeculus, to vulcan's race allied, and marsian umbro, rally 'gainst the foe the wavering ranks. the dardan on his side still rages. first from anxur with a blow his sword the shield-arm and the shield laid low. big things had anxur boasted, empty jeers, and deemed his valour with his vaunts would grow: perchance, with spirit lifted to the spheres, hoar hairs he looked to see, and length of peaceful years. lxxv. sheathed in bright arms, proud tarquitus in scorn, whom dryope the nymph, if fame be true, to faunus, ranger of the woods, had borne, leaped forth, and at the fiery dardan flew. he, drawing back his javelin, aimed and threw. and through the cuirass and the ponderous shield pinned him. then, vainly as he strove to sue, much pleading, even while the suppliant kneeled. lopt off, the lifeless head went rolling on the field. lxxvi. his reeking trunk the victor in disdain spurns with his foot, and cries aloud, "lie there, proud youth, and tell thy terrors to the slain. no tender mother shall thy shroud prepare, no father's sepulchre be thine to share. thy carrion corpse shall be the vultures' food, and birds that batten on the dead shall tear thee piecemeal, and the fishes lick thy blood, drowned in the deep sea-gulfs, or drifting on the flood." lxxvii. lucas, antaeus in the van were slain. here numa, there the fair-haired camers lay, great volscens' son; full many a wide domain was his, and mute amyclae owned his sway. as when aegeon, hundred-armed, they say, and hundred-handed, would the sire withstand, and fifty mouths, and fifty maws each way shot flames against jove's thunder, and each hand clashed on a sounding shield, or bared a glittering brand, lxxviii. so raves aeneas, victor of the war, his sword now warmed, and many a foeman dies. now at niphaeus, in his four-horse car breasting the battle, in hot haste he flies. scared stand the steeds, in terror and surprise, so dire his gestures, as he strides amain, so fierce his looks, so terrible his cries; then, turning, from his chariot on the plain fling their ill-fated lord, and gallop to the main. lxxix. with two white steeds into the midmost dashed bold lucagus and liger, brethren twain. around him lucagus his broad sword flashed his brother wheeled the horses with the rein. fired at the sight, aeneas in disdain rushed on them, towering with uplifted spear. "no steeds of diomede, nor phrygian plain," cries liger, "nor achilles' car are here. this field shall end the war, thy fatal hour is near." lxxx. so fly his words, but not in words the foe makes answer, but his javelin hurls with might. as o'er the lash proud lucagus bends low to prick the steeds, and planting for the fight his left foot forward, stands in act to smite, clean through the nether margin of his shield the dardan shaft goes whistling in its flight, and thrills his groin upon the left. he reeled, and from the chariot fell half-lifeless on the field. lxxxi. then bitterly aeneas mocked him: "lo, proud lucagus! no lagging steeds have played thy chariot false, nor shadows of the foe deceived thy horses, and their hearts dismayed. 'tis thou--thy leap has lost the car!" he said and snatched the reins. the brother in despair slipped down, and spread his hapless hands, and prayed: "o by thyself, great son of troy, forbear; by those who bore thee such, have pity on my prayer." lxxxii. more would he, but aeneas: "nay, not so thou spak'st erewhile. die now, and take thy way, and join thy brother, brotherlike, below." deep in the breast he stabbed him as he lay, and bared the life's recesses to the day. such deaths the dardan dealt upon the plain, like storm or torrent, full of rage to slay. and now at length ascanius and his train burst forth, and leave their camp, long leaguered, but in vain. lxxxiii. great jove meanwhile to juno spake and said, "sweet spouse and sister, thou hast deemed aright, 'tis venus, sure, who doth the trojans aid, not courage, strength and patience in the fight." then juno meekly: "dearest, why delight with cruel words to vex me, sad with fear and sick at heart? had still my love the might it had and should have; were i still so dear, not thou, with all thy power, should'st then refuse to hear, lxxxiv. "but safe should turnus from the fight once more return to greet old daunus. be it so, and let him die, and shed his righteous gore to glut the vengeance of his teucrian foe, albeit his name celestial birth doth show, fourth in succession from pilumnus, yea, though oft his hand thy sacred shrines below hath heaped his gifts." she ended, and straightway brief answer made the sire, who doth olympus sway: lxxxv. "if but a respite for the youth be sought, a little time of tarrying, ere he die, and thus thou read'st the purport of my thought, take then awhile thy turnus; let him fly and 'scape his present fates; thus far may i indulge thee. but if aught beneath thy prayer lie veiled of purpose or of hopes more high, to change the war's whole aspect, then beware, for idle hopes thou feed'st, as empty as the air." lxxxvi. then she with tears: "what if thy heart should give the pledge and promise, that thy lips disdain, and turnus by thy warrant still should live? now death awaits him guiltless, or in vain i read the fates. ah! may i merely feign an empty fear, and better thoughts advise thee--for thou can'st--to spare him and refrain!" so saying, arrayed in storm-clouds, through the skies down to laurentum's camp and ilian lines she flies. lxxxvii. then straight the goddess from a hollow cloud-- strange sight to see!--a thin and strengthless shade shaped like the great aeneas, and endowed with dardan arms, and fixed the shield, and spread the plume and crest as on his godlike head. and empty words, a soulless sound, she gave, and feigned the fashion of the warrior's tread. thus ghosts are said to glide above the grave; thus oft delusive dreams the slumbering sense enslave. lxxxviii. proud stalks the phantom, gladdening in the van, with darts provokes him, and with words defies. forth rushed fierce turnus, hurling as he ran his whistling spear. the shadow turns and flies. then turnus, glorying in his fancied prize, "where now, aeneas, from thy plighted bride? the land thou soughtest o'er the deep, it lies here, and this hand shall give it thee." he cried, and waved his glittering sword, and chased him, nor espied lxxxix. the winds bear off his triumph.--hard at hand, with steps let down and gangway ready laid, moored by the rocks, a vessel chanced to stand, which brave osinius, clusium's king, conveyed. here, as in haste, for shelter plunged the shade. on turnus pressed, and with a bound ascends the lofty gangways, dauntless nor delayed. the bows scarce reached, the rope saturnia rends, and down the refluent tide the loosened ship descends. xc. loud calls aeneas for his absent foe, and many a hero-body--all who dare to meet him--hurries to the shades below. no more the phantom lingers in his lair, but, soaring, melts into the misty air. turnus a storm-wind o'er the deep sea blows. backward he looks, and of events unware, and all unthankful to escape his foes. up to the stars of heaven his hand and voice he throws. xci. "great sire, was i so guilty in thy sight, to make thee deem such punishment my due? whence came i? whither am i borne? what flight is this? and how do i return, and who? again laurentum's city shall i view? what of that band, who followed me, whom i-- shame on me--left a shameful death to rue? e'en now i see them scattered,--see them fly,-- and see them fall; and hear the groans of those that die. xcii. "what am i doing? where can earth for me gape deep enough? ye winds that round me roar, pity i crave, on rocks amid the sea-- 'tis turnus, i, a willing prayer who pour-- dash me this ship, or drive it on the shore, 'mid ruthless shoals, where no rutulian eyes may see my shame, nor prying fame explore." thus he, and, tost in spirit, as he cries, this plan and that in turn his wavering thoughts devise: xciii. madly to grasp the dagger in his hand, and through his ribs drive home the naked blade, or plunge into the deep, and swim to land, and, armed, once more the teucrian foes invade. thrice, but in vain, each venture he essayed. thrice heaven's high queen, in pity fain to save, held back the youth, and from his purpose stayed. and borne along by favouring tide and wave, on to his father's town the level deep he clave. xciv. jove prompting, fierce mezentius now the fight takes up, and charges at the teucrian foes. and, hurrying up, the tuscan troops unite. all against one--one only--these and those their gathered hate and crowding darts oppose. unmoved he stands, as when a rocky steep in ocean, bare to every blast that blows, around whose base the savage waves upleap, braves all the threats of heaven, and buffets of the deep. xcv. hebrus he slew, from dolichaon sprung, then latagus, then palmus, as he fled. full in the face of latagus he flung a monstrous stone, that stretched him with the dead. palmus, with severed hamstring, next he sped, and rolled him helpless. lausus takes his gear; the shining crest he fits upon his head, and dons the breastplate. 'neath the conqueror's spear phrygian evanthes falls, and paris' friend and peer, xcvi. young mimas, whom to amycus that night theano bore, when, big with ilion's bane, queen hecuba brought paris forth to light. now paris sleeps upon his native plain, but mimas on a foreign shore is slain. as when a wild-boar, hounded from the hill, who long on pine-clad venulus hath lain, or in laurentum's marish fed his fill, now in the toils caught fast, before his foes stands still, xcvii. and snorts with rage, and rears his bristling back; none dares approach him, but aloof they wait, safe-shouting, and with distant darts attack; e'en so, of those who burn with righteous hate, none dares against mezentius try his fate. but cries are hurled, and distant missiles plied, while he, undaunted, but in desperate strait, gnashes his teeth, and from his shield's tough hide shakes off the darts in showers, and shifts from side to side. xcviii. from ancient corythus came acron there, a greek, in exile from his half-won bride. him, dealing havoc in the ranks, elsewhere mezentius marked; the purple plumes he eyed, the robe his loved one for her lord had dyed. as when a lion, prowling to and fro, sore pinched with hunger, round the fold, hath spied a stag tall-antlered, or a timorous roe, ghastly he grins, erect his horrid mane doth show; xcix. prone o'er his victim, to the flesh he clings, and laps the gore; so, burning in his zeal, the fierce mezentius at his foemen springs. poor acron falls, and earth with dying heel spurns, and the red blood stains the splintered steel. orodes fled; mezentius marks his flight, and scorns with lance a covert wound to deal, but face to face confronts him in the fight, courage, not craft, prevails, and might o'ermatches might. c. with foot and spear upon him, "see," he cries, "their champion; see the great orodes slain!" all shout applause, but, dying, he replies, "strange foe, not long thy triumph shall remain; like fate awaits thee, on the self-same plain." "die!" said mezentius, with a smile of spite, "jove cares for me," and plucked the shaft again. grim rest and iron slumber seal his sight; the drooping eyelids close on everlasting night. ci. now caedicus made great alcathous fall, sacrator killed hydaspes; rapo too parthenius and orses, strong and tall; messapus clonius, whom his steed o'erthrew, and, foot to foot, lycaon's son he slew, brave ericetes. valerus with a blow felled agis, lycia' s warrior. salius flew at thronius, but nealces lays him low, skilled with the flying dart and far-deceiving bow. cii. stern mars, impartial, weighs in equal scale the mutual slaughter, and the ghastly fight raves, as in turn they perish or prevail, vanquished or victor, for none dreams of flight. from heaven the gods look pitying on the sight, such fruitless hate, such scenes of mortal woe. here venus, there great juno, filled with spite, sits watching. pale tisiphone below fierce amid thousands raves, and bids the discord grow. ciii. his massive spear mezentius, flown with pride, shakes in his fury, as he towers amain, like huge orion, when with ample stride he cleaves the deep-sea, where the nereids reign, and lifts his lofty shoulders o'er the main, or when, uprooting from the mountain head an aged ash, he stalks along the plain, and hides his forehead in the clouds; so dread mezentius clangs his arms, so terrible his tread. civ. aeneas marks him in the files of fight far off, and hastes to meet him in advance. dauntless he waits, collected in his might, the noble foe, then, measuring at a glance the space his arm can cover with the lance; "may this right hand, my deity," cried he, "and this poised javelin aid the doubtful chance. the spoils, from this false pirate stript, to thee my lausus, i devote; his trophy shalt thou be." cv. so saying, from far his whistling shaft he threw. wide glanced the missile, by the tough shield bent, and finding famed antores, as it flew, 'twixt flank and bowels pierced a deadly rent. he, friend of hercules, from argos sent, with king evander, 'neath italian skies, had fixed his home. alas! a wound unmeant hath laid him low. to heaven he lifts his eyes, and of sweet argos dreams, his native land, and dies. cvi. his javelin then the good aeneas cast; flying it pierced the hollow disk, and through the plates of brass, thrice welded firm and fast, and linen folds, and triple bull-hides flew, and in the groin, with failing force but true, lodged deep. at once aeneas, for his eye glistens with joy, the tuscan's blood to view, his trusty sword unfastening from his thigh, springs at the faltering foe, and bids mezentius die. cvii. love for his sire stirred lausus, and the tears rolled down, and heavily he groaned. thy fate, brave youth! thy prowess, if the far-off years shall give due credence to a deed so great, my verse at least shall spare not to relate. while backward limped mezentius, spent and slow, his shield still cumbered with the javelin's weight, forth sprang the youth, and grappled with the foe, and 'neath aeneas' sword, uplifted for the blow, cviii. slipped in, and checked him. onward press the train with shouts, to shelter the retreating sire, and distant arrows on the foeman rain. safe-covered stands aeneas, thrilled with ire. as when the storm-clouds in a deluge dire pour down the hail, and all the ploughmen fly, and scattered hinds from off the fields retire, and rock or stream-side shields the passer-by, till sunshine calls to toil, and reawakes the sky; cix. so, whelmed with darts, the trojan chief defies the cloud of war, till all its storms abate, and chides and threatens lausus. "fool," he cries, "why rush to death, and dare a deed too great? rash youth! thy love betrays thee." 'twas too late; rage blinds poor lausus, and he scorns to stay. then fiercer waxed the dardan's wrath, and fate the threads had gathered, for their forceful sway hilt-deep within his breast the falchion urged its way. cx. it pierced the shield, light armour and the vest, wrought by his mother with fine golden thread, and drenched with gore the tunic and the breast. sweet life, departing, left the limbs outspread, and the sad spirit to the ghost-world fled. but when the son of great anchises scanned the face, the pallid features of the dead, deeply he groaned, and stretched a pitying hand. grief for his own dear sire his noble soul unmanned. cxi. "alas! what meed, to match such worth divine, can good aeneas give thee? take to-day the arms wherein thou joyed'st; they are thine. thy corpse--if aught can please the senseless clay-- back to thy parents' ashes i repay. poor youth! thy solace be it to be slain by great aeneas." then his friends' delay he chides, and lifts young lausus from the plain, dead, and with dainty locks fouled by the crimson stain. cxii. meanwhile the sire mezentius, faint with pain, in tiber's waters bathes the bleeding wound. against a trunk he leans; the boughs sustain his brazen helm; his arms upon the ground rest idly, and his comrades stand around. sick, gasping, spent, his weary neck he tends; loose o'er his bosom floats the beard unbound. oft of his son he questions, oft he sends to bid him quit the field, and seek his sire and friends. cxiii. but, sad and sorrowful, the tuscan train bear back the lifeless lausus from the field, weeping--the mighty by a mightier slain, and laid in death upon the warrior's shield. far off, their wailing to the sire revealed the grief, that made his boding heart mistrust. in agony of vanquish, down he kneeled, his hoary hairs disfiguring with the dust, and, grovelling, clasped the corpse, and both his hands outthrust. cxiv. "dear son, was life so tempting to the sire, to let thee face the foemen in my room, whom i begot? shalt thou, my son, expire, and i live on, my darling in the tomb, saved by thy wounds, and living by thy doom? ah! woe is me; too well at length i own the pangs of exile, and the wound strikes home. 'twas i, thy name who tarnished, i alone, whom just resentment thrust from sceptre and from throne. cxv. "due to my country was the forfeit; yea, all deaths mezentius had deserved to die. yet still i leave, and leave not man and day, but leave i will,--the fatal hour is nigh." then, slowly leaning on his crippled thigh (deep was the wound, but dauntless was his breast), he rose, and calling for his steed hard by, the steed, that oft in victory's hour he pressed, his solace and his pride, the sorrowing beast addressed: cxvi. "rhaebus, full long, if aught of earth be long, we two have lived. aeneas' head to-day, and spoils, blood-crimsoned to avenge this wrong, back shalt thou bring, or, failing in the fray, bite earth with me, and be the dardan's prey. not thou would'st brook a foreign lord, i weet, brave heart, or deign a teucrian to obey." he spoke, and, mounting to his well-known seat, swift at the ranks spurred forth, his dreaded foe to meet. cxvii. each hand a keen dart brandished; o'er his head gleamed the brass helmet with its horse-hair crest. shame for himself, and sorrow for the dead, the parent's anguish, and the warrior's zest, thrilled through his veins, and kindled in his breast, and thrice he called aeneas. with delight aeneas heard him, and his vows addressed: "so help me jove, so phoebus lend his might, come on," and couched his spear, advancing to the fight. cxviii. "wretch," cries mezentius, "having robbed my son, why scare me now? thy terrors i defy. only through lausus were his sire undone. i heed not death nor deities, not i; forbear thy taunting; i am here to die, but send this gift to greet thee, ere i go." he spake, and quickly let a javelin fly, another--and another, as round the foe in widening orbs he wheels; the good shield bides the blow. cxix. thrice round aeneas leftward he careers, raining his darts. thrice, shifting round, each way the trojan bears the forest of his spears. at length, impatient of the long delay, and tired with plucking all the shafts away, pondering awhile, and by the ceaseless blows hard pressed, and chafing at the unequal fray, forth springs aeneas, and betwixt the brows full at the warrior-steed a fatal javelin throws. cxx. up rears the steed, and paws the air in pain, then, following on his falling rider, lies and pins him with his shoulder to the plain. shouts from each host run kindling through the skies. forth springs aeneas, glorying in his prize, and plucks the glittering falchion from his thigh, "where now is fierce mezentius? where," he cries, "that fiery spirit?" then, with upturned eye, gasping, with gathered sense, the tuscan made reply: cxxi. "stern foe! why taunt and threaten? 'twere no shame to slay me. no such covenant to save his sire made lausus; nor for this i came. one boon i ask--if vanquished men may crave the victor's grace--a burial for the brave. my people hate me; i have lived abhorred; shield me from them with lausus in the grave." this said, his throat he offered to the sword, and o'er his shining arms life's purple stream was poured. book eleven argument aeneas erects a trophy of mezentius' arms, and sends the body of pallas with tears and lamentations to evander ( - ). a truce for the burial of the dead is asked by the latins, and sympathy with the trojan cause finds a spokesman in drances ( - ). the sorrow of evander and the funeral rites of trojans and latins ( - ). the ambassadors return from the city of diomedes and report that he praises aeneas and counsels submission ( - ). an anxious debate follows: latinus suggests terms of peace: drances inveighs against turnus, who replies, protesting his readiness to meet aeneas in single combat, and presently seizes the opportunity afforded by a false alarm of impending attack to break up the council. the latin mothers and maidens offer gifts and litanies to pallas. turnus arms for battle ( - ). camilla and messapus command the latin horse; turnus prepares an ambuscade ( - ). diana tells the story of camilla and charges opis, one of her nymphs, to avenge her should she fall ( - ). opis watches the battle before the city of latinus ( - ). the deeds and death of camilla are recounted: aruns, her slayer, is slain by opis ( - ). the latins are routed, and turnus, learning the news, abandons the ambush and hurries to the city, closely followed by aeneas ( - ). i. meanwhile from ocean peeps the dawning day. the dardan chief, though fain his friends to mourn, and pressed with thoughts of burial, hastes to pay his vows, as victor, with the rising morn. a towering oak-tree, of its branches shorn, he plants upon a mound. aloft, in sight, the glittering armour from mezentius torn, his spoils, he hangs,--a trophy to thy might, great mars, the lord of war, the ruler of the fight. ii. thereon he sets the helmet and the crest, bedewed with gore, the javelins snapt in twain, and fits the corslet on the warrior's breast, pierced in twelve places through the twisted chain. the left arm, as for battle, bears again the brazen shield, and from the neck depends the ivory-hilted falchion of the slain. around, with shouts of triumph, crowd his friends, whom thus the dardan chief with gladdening words commends: iii. "comrades, great deeds have been achieved to-day; let not the morrow trouble you. see there the tyrant's spoils, the first-fruits of the fray. and this my work, mezentius. now prepare to king latinus and his walls to fare. let hope forestall, and courage hail the fray, so, when the gods shall summon us to bear the standards forth, and muster our array, no fears shall breed dull sloth, nor ignorance delay. iv. "our co-mates now commit we to the ground, sole honour that in acheron below awaits them. go ye, on these souls renowned, who poured their blood, to purchase from the foe this country for our fatherland, bestow the last, sad gift, the tribute of a tomb. first to evander's city, whelmed in woe, send pallas back, whom death's relentless doom hath reft ere manhood's prime, and plunged in early gloom." v. he spake, and sought the threshold, weeping sore, where by dead pallas watched with pious care acoetes; once evander's arms he bore, his squire; since then, with auspices less fair, the trusted guardian of his dear-loved heir. a crowd of sorrowing menials stand around, and troy's sad matrons, with their streaming hair. these, when aeneas at the door is found, shriek out, and beat their breasts, and bitter wails resound. vi. he marked the pillowed head, the snow-white face, the smooth breast, gaping with the wound, and cried in anguish, while the tears burst forth apace, "poor boy; hath fortune, in her hour of pride, to me thy triumph and return denied? not such my promise to thy sire; not so my pledge to him, who, ere i left his side in quest of empire, clasped me, boding woe, and warned the race was fierce, and terrible the foe. vii. "he haply now, by empty hope betrayed, with prayer and presents doth the gods constrain. we to the dead, whose debt to heaven is paid, the rites of mourners render, but in vain. unhappy! doomed to see thy darling slain. is this the triumph? this the promise sworn? this the return? yet never thine the pain a coward's flight, a coward's scars to mourn; not thine to long for death, thy loved one saved with scorn. viii. "ah, weep, ausonia! thou hast lost to-day thy champion. weep, iulus; he is ta'en, thy heart's delight, the bulwark of the fray!" thus he with tears, and bids them lift the slain. a thousand men, the choicest of his train, he sends as mourners, with the corpse to go, and stand between the parent and his pain, a scanty solace for so huge a woe, but such as pity claims, and piety doth owe. ix. of oaken twigs and arbutus they wove a wattled bier. soft leaves beneath him made his pillow, and with leafy boughs above they twined a verdurous canopy of shade. there, on his rustic couch the youth is laid, fair as the hyacinth, with drooping head, cropped by the careless fingers of a maid, or tender violet, when life has fled, that, torn from earth, still blooms, unfaded but unfed. x. two purple mantles, stiff with golden braid, aeneas brings, which erst, in loving care, sidonian dido with her hands had made, and pranked with golden tissue, for his wear. one, wound in sorrow round the corpse so fair, the last, sad honour, shrouds the senseless clay; one, ere the burning, veils the warrior's hair. rich spoils, the trophies of laurentum's fray, stript arms and steeds he brings, and bids them pile the prey. xi. here march the captives, doomed to feed the flames; there, staff in hand, each dardan chief uprears the spoil-decked ensigns, marked with foemen's names. there, too, they lead acoetes, bowed with years, he smites his breast, his haggard cheeks he tears, then flings his full length prostrate. there, again, the blood-stained chariot, and with big, round tears, stript of his trappings, in the mournful train, aethon, the warrior's steed, comes sorrowing for the slain. xii. these bear the dead man's helmet and his spear; all else the victor for his spoils hath ta'en. a melancholy phalanx close the rear, teucrians, and tuscans, and arcadia's train, with arms reversed, and mourning for the slain. so passed the pomp, and, while the tear-drops fell, aeneas stopped, and, groaning, cried again, "hail, mighty pallas! us the fates compel yet other tears to shed. farewell! a long farewell!" xiii. he spake, then, turning, to the camp doth fare. thither laurentum's envoys found their way. branches of olive in their hands they bear, and beg a truce,--a respite from the fray, their slaughtered comrades in the ground to lay, and glean the war's sad harvest. brave men ne'er warred with the dead and vanquished. once were they his hosts and kinsmen; he would surely spare. their plea aeneas owns, and thus accosts them fair: xiv. "what mischief, latins, hath your minds misled, to shun our friendship in the hour of need, and rush to arms? peace ask ye for the dead, the war-god's prey, whom folly doomed to bleed? peace to the living would i fain concede. i came not hither, but with heaven to guide. fate chose this country, and this home decreed; nor war i with the race. your king denied our proffered league; 'twas he on turnus' arms relied. xv. "'twere juster then that turnus hand to hand his life had ventured. dreams he in his pride to end the war, and drive us from the land? _he_ should have met me; he or i had died, as fate or prowess might the day decide. go, take your dead, and let the bale-fires blaze: ye have your answer." thus the prince replied, and each on each the wondering heralds gaze, mute with admiring awe, and wildered with amaze. xvi. then drances, ever fain with gibes and hate to vex young turnus, takes the word and cries, "o trojan, great in fame, in arms more great, what praise of mine shall match thee with the skies? what most--thy deeds or justice--shall i prize? grateful, this answer to our friends we bear, and thee (let turnus seek his own allies), thee king latinus shall his friend declare, and latium's sons with joy troy's destined walls prepare." xvii. he spake; as one, all murmur their assent. for twice six days a solemn truce they plight, and teucrians, now, with latins, freely blent in peaceful fellowship, as friends unite, and roam the wooded hills. sharp axes smite the sounding ash; these with keen wedges cleave tall oak and scented cedar; those with might the pine-tree, soaring to the stars, upheave, and wains, with groaning wheels, the giant elms receive. xviii. now rumour, harbinger of woe so great, that told of pallas victor, fills again evander's town. all hurry to the gate, with torches snatched, as ancient rites ordain. a line of fire, that parts the dusky plain, the long road gleams before them, as they go to meet the mourners. soon the wailing train the phrygians join. with shrieks the matrons know far off the funeral throng, and fill the town with woe. xix. naught stays evander; through the midst he springs, and falling on the bier, as down they lay dead pallas, groaning to his child he clings, and hangs with tears upon the senseless clay, till speech, half-choked with sorrow, finds a way. "pallas, not such thy promise to thy sire, warely to trust the war-god in the fray. i knew what ardour would thy soul inspire, the charms of new-won fame, and battle's fierce desire. xx. "o bitter first-fruits of a youth so fair! o war's stern prelude! promise dashed to scorn! unheeded vows, and unavailing prayer! o happy spouse! not left, like me, to mourn a son thus slaughtered, and a life outworn. i have o'erlived my destiny; life fled when pallas left me childless and forlorn. o, had i fall'n with trojans in his stead, and me this pomp brought home, and not my pallas, dead! xxi. "yet, trojans, you i blame not, nor the hands we joined in friendship, nor the league we swore. old age--too old--this cruel lot demands. ah, sweet to think, though falling in his flower, he fell, where thousand volscians fell before, leading troy's sons to latium. thou shalt have a trojan's funeral--can i wish thee more?-- what rites aeneas offers to the brave, and all etruria's hosts shall bear thee to the grave. xxii. "proud trophies those who perish by thy hand bear thee, and slaughtered foemen speak thy fame. thou, turnus, too, an effigy should'st stand, hung round with arms, and pallas' praise proclaim, had but thine age and pallas' been the same, like thine the vigour of his years. but o! why, teucrians, do i keep you? wherefore claim an old man's privilege of empty woe? this message bear your king, and con it as ye go. xxiii. "if yet i linger on, with pallas slain, loathing the light, and longing to expire, 'tis thy right hand that tempts me to remain, that hand from which--thou see'st it--son and sire the penalty of turnus' blood require. this niche of fame,--'tis all the fates bestow-- awaits thee still. for me, all life's desire-- 'twere vain--hath fled; but gladly would i go, and bear the welcome news to pallas' shade below." xxiv. meanwhile to weary mortals fresh and fair upsprings the dawn, and reawakes the land to toil and labour. reared with pious care by tarchon and the good aeneas, stand the funeral pyres along the winding strand. here brings each warrior, as in days gone by, his comrade's corpse, and holds the lighted brand. the dusk flames burn beneath them, and on high the clouds of smoke roll up, and shroud the lofty sky. xxv. three times the trojans, sheathed in shining mail, pace round the piles; three times they ride around the funeral fire, and raise the warrior's wail. tears bathe their arms, and tears bedew the ground, and, mixt with clamour, comes the clarion's sound. spoils of dead latins on the flames are thrown, bits, bridles, glowing wheels and helmets crown'd with glittering plumes, and, last, the gifts well-known, the luckless spear and shield, the weapons of their own. xxvi. oxen in numbers round the pyres are slain to death's dread power, and herds of bristly swine; and cattle, snatched from all the neighbouring plain, and sheep they slaughter for the flames divine. far down the sea-coast, where the bale-fires shine, they guard and gaze upon the pyres, where lie their burning comrades, nor their watch resign, nor leave the spot, till dewy night on high rolls round the circling heavens, and starlight gilds the sky. xxvii. nor less the sorrowing latins build elsewhere their countless piles. these burying they bemoan; those to the town or neighbouring fields they bear. the rest, untold, unhonoured and unknown, a mass of carnage, on the flames are thrown. thick blaze the fires, and light the plains around, and on the third dawn, when the mists have flown, the bones and dust, still smouldering on the ground, mourning, they rake in heaps, and cover with a mound. xxviii. but loudest in laurentum rose the noise of woe and wailing for their friends who died. here, mothers, wives, sad sisters, orphaned boys curse the dire war, and turnus and his bride. "let him, let turnus fight it out," they cried; "who claims chief honours and italia's throne, and caused the quarrel, let his sword decide"; and spiteful drances: "ay, 'tis he alone whom latium's foes demand; the challenge is his own." xxix. and voices, too, with various reasons, plead for turnus, sheltered by the queen's great name, and spoils that speak for many a glorious deed. lo, in the midst, the tumult still aflame, with doleful news from diomede, back came the envoys. all was useless,--gifts, and prayer, and proffered gold; his answer was the same: let latins look for other arms elsewhere, or beg the trojan king in clemency to spare. xxx. grief bowed latinus, and his heart sank low. the wrath of heaven, the recent funerals, the graves before them--all aeneas show the god's true choice. a council straight he calls, and latium's chiefs convenes within his walls. all meet; along the crowded ways the peers stream at the summons. in his palace-halls amidst them sits latinus, first in years, and first in sceptred state, but filled with anxious fears. xxxi. forthwith the envoys he invites, each man to tell his message, and the terms expound, then, silence made, thus venulus began: "friends, we have seen great diomede, and found the argive camp, and, safe from peril, crowned our journey's end, and pressed the mighty hand that razed old troy. on iapygian ground by garganus the conqueror hath planned argyripa's new town, named from his native land. xxxii. "there, audience gained and liberty to speak, the gifts we tender, and our names declare and country, who our foemen, what we seek, and why to arpi and his court we fare. he hears, and gently thus bespeaks us fair: 'o happy nations, once by saturn blest, time-old ausonians, what sad misfare, what evil fortune mars your ancient rest and tempts to wage strange wars, and dare the doubtful test? xxxiii. "'all we, whoever with the steel profaned troy's fields (i leave the wasting siege alone, the dead, who lie in simois), all have drained evils past utterance, o'er the wide world blown, and, suffering, learned our trespass to atone, a hapless band! e'en priam's self might weep for woes like ours, as pallas well hath known, whose baleful star once wrecked us on the deep, and grim euboea's rocks, caphareus' vengeful steep. xxxiv. "'freed from that war, to distant shores we stray. to proteus' pillars, far remote from men an exile, menelaus wends his way; ulysses shudders at the cyclops' den; why speak of pyrrhus, by orestes slain? or poor idomeneus, expelled his state? of locrians, cast upon the libyan plain? of agamemnon, greatest of the great, mycenae's valiant lord, slain by his faithless mate, xxxv. "'e'en on his threshold, when the adulterer lay in wait for asia's conqueror? me, too, hath envious heaven in exile doomed to stay, nor home, nor wife, nor calydon to view. nay, ghastly prodigies my flight pursue. transformed to birds, my comrades wing the skies,-- ah! cruel punishment for friends so true!-- or skim the streams; from all the shores arise their piteous shrieks, the cliffs re-echo with their cries. xxxvi. "'such woes had i to look for, from the day i dared a goddess, and my javelin tore the hand of venus. to such fights, i pray, persuade me not. troy fall'n, i fight no more with trojans, nor those evil days of yore now care to dwell on. to aeneas go, and take these gifts. once, hand to hand, we bore the shock of battle; to my cost i know how to his shield he towers, the whirlwind of his throw. xxxvii. "'had ida's land two others borne as great, to argos dardanus had found his way, and greece were mourning now a different fate. the stubborn siege, the conquerors kept at bay, for ten whole years, the triumph's long delay were his and hector's doing, each in might renowned, and each the foremost in the fray, aeneas first in piety. go, plight what peace ye may, but shun to meet him in the fight.' xxxviii. "thou hast, great king, the answer of the king, and this, his sentence on the war." so they, and diverse murmurs in the crowd upspring; as when big rocks a rushing torrent stay, the prisoned waters, chafing with delay, boil, and the banks in many a foaming crest fling back with echoes the tumultuous spray. now from his throne, their murmurs laid to rest, the king, first offering prayer, his listening folk addressed: xxxix. "i would, ye peers, and better it had been an earlier hour had called us to debate, than thus in haste a council to convene, and meet, while foemen battle at the gate. a war ill-omened, with disastrous fate, we wage with men unconquered in the field, a race of gods, whose force nor toils abate, nor wounds can tire; who, driven back, still wield the sword and shake the spear, and, beaten, scorn to yield. xl. "what hope ye had in diomede, give o'er; each for himself must be his hope and stay. this hope how slender, and our straits how sore, ye see; the general ruin and decay is open, palpable and clear as day. yet blame i none; what valour could, was done. our country's strength, our souls were in the fray. hear then in brief, and ponder every one, what wavering thoughts have shaped, our present fate to shun. xli. "far-stretching westward, past sicania's bound, by tiber's stream, an ancient tract is mine. auruncans and rutulians till the ground; their ploughshares cleave the stubborn slopes, their kine graze on the rocks. this tract, these hills of pine let latins yield the trojans for their own, and both, as friends, in equal league combine and share the realm. here let them settle down, if so they love the land, and build the wished-for town. xlii. "but if new frontiers, and another folk, they fain would look for, and can leave our shore, then twice ten ships of tough italian oak build we, nor only let us build a score can they but man them (by the stream good store of timber is at hand); let them decide the form, the number, and the size. what more is wanting, we will grudge not to provide, gold, labour, brass, and docks, and naval gear beside. xliii. "nay more, to strike the proffered league, 'twere good that chosen envoys to their camp should fare, a hundred latins of the noblest blood, the peaceful olive in their hands to bear, with gifts, the choicest that the realm can spare, talents of gold and ivory, just in weight, the royal mantle, and the curule chair, the marks of rule. with freedom now debate, consult the common weal, and help the sickly state." xliv. up rose then drances, with indignant mien, whom, spiteful still, the fame of turnus stung with carping envy, and malignant spleen; lavish of wealth, and fluent with his tongue, no mean adviser in debate, and strong in faction, but in battle cold and tame. from royal seed his mother's race was sprung, his sire's unknown. he thus with words of blame piles up the general wrath, and fans resentment's flame. xlv. "good king, the matter--it is plain, for each knows well our needs, but hesitates to say. let _him_ cease blustering, and allow free speech, him, for whose pride and sullen temper, yea, i say it, let him threaten as he may-- quenched is the light of many a chief, that lies in earth's cold lap, and mourning and dismay have filled the town, while, sure of flight, he tries to storm the trojan camp, and idly flouts the skies. xlvi. "one gift, o best of monarchs, add, to crown thy bounty to the dardans,--one, beside these many, nor let bluster bear thee down. a worthy husband for thy child provide, and peace shall with the lasting pact abide. else, if such terror doth our souls enslave, him now, in hope to turn away his pride, him let us pray his proper right to waive, and, pitying, deign to yield what king and country crave. xlvii. "o turnus, cause of all our ills to-day, why make the land these miseries endure? the war is desperate; for peace we pray, and that one pledge, inviolably sure, naught else but which can make the peace secure. thy foeman, i--nor be the fact concealed, for so thou deem'st--entreat thee and adjure. blood flows enough on many a wasted field. relent, and spare thine own, and, beaten, learn to yield. xlviii. "or, if fame tempt, and in thy bosom glow such fire, and so thou hankerest to gain a kingdom's dower, take heart and face the foe. must we, poor souls, that turnus may obtain a royal bride, like carrion strew the plain, unwept, unburied? if thine arm hath might, if but a spark of native worth remain, go forth this hour; in arms assert thy right, and meet him, face to face, who calls thee to the fight." xlix. fierce blazed the wrath of turnus, and he wrung speech from his breast, deep groaning in his gall. "glib art thou, drances, voluble of tongue, when hands are needed, and the trumpets call. the council summoned, thou art first of all. not this the hour thy vapouring to outpour, though big thy talk, and brave the words, that fall from craven lips, while ramparts stand before, to guard thee safe from foes, nor trenches swim with gore. l. "rave on, and thunder in thy wonted strain, and brand me coward, thou whose hands can slay such trojan hosts, whose trophies grace the plain. what worth can do, and manhood can essay, we twain may venture. sooth, not far away need foes be sought; around the walls they throng. march we to meet them! dotard, why delay? still dwells thy war-god in a windy tongue, and flying feet, and knees all feeble and unstrung? li. "i beaten? who, foul spawn of earth, shall call me beaten? who, that saw swoln tiber flow red with the blood of trojans, ay, and all evander's house and progeny laid low, and fierce arcadians vanquished at a blow? not such dead pandarus and bitias found this right hand, nor those thousands hurled below in one short day, when battlement and mound hemmed me in hostile walls, and foemen swarmed around. lii. "no hope from war?--go, fool, to dardan ears these bodings whisper, to thy new ally. go, swell the panic, spread the coward's fears. puff up the foemen's prowess to the sky,-- twice-conquered churls,--and latin arms decry. see now, forsooth, the myrmidons afraid of phrygian arms, tydides fain to fly, achilles trembling, aufidus in dread shrunk from the hadrian deep, and cowering in his bed. liii. "or mark the trickster's cunning when he feigns to fear my vengeance, whom his taunts revile! nay, drances, be at ease; this hand disdains to take the forfeit of a soul so vile. keep it, fit inmate of that breast of guile, and now, good sire, if, beaten, we despair, if never fate on latin arms shall smile, and naught our ruined fortunes can repair, stretch we our craven hands, and beg the foe to spare. liv. "yet oh! if aught of ancient worth remain, him deem i noblest, and his end renowned, brave soul! who sooner than behold such stain, fell once for all, and, dying, bit the ground. but, if fit men and martial means abound, and towns and tribes, to muster at our call, hath italy; if trojans, too, have found fame dearly bought with many a brave man's fall (for they have, too, their deaths; the storm hath swept o'er all), lv. "why fail we on the threshold, faint with fears, and sick knees tremble ere the trumpets bray? time--healing time--and long, laborious years oft raise the humble; fortune in her play lifts those to-morrow, whom she lowers to-day. what though no aid aetolian arpi lends, ours is messapus, ours tolumnius, yea, and all whom latium or laurentum sends, nor scanty fame, nor slow italia's hosts attends. lvi. "ours, too, is brave camilla, noble maid, the pride of volscians, and she leads a band of horsemen fierce, in brazen arms arrayed. if me the foe to single fight demand, and so ye will, and i alone withstand the common good, come danger as it may, not so hath victory fled this hated hand, not yet so weak is turnus, as to stay with such a prize unsnatched, and falter from the fray. lvii. "though greater than the great achilles he, though, like achilles, vulcan's arms he wear, fain will i meet him. lo, to you, to thee, latinus, father of the bride so fair, i, turnus, i, in prowess past compare, devote this life. aeneas calls but me, so let him, rather than that drances bear the smart, if death the wrathful gods decree, or, if 'tis glory's field, usurp the victor's fee." lviii. while thus, with wrangling and contentious doubt, they urged debate, aeneas his array moved from the camp. behold, a trusty scout back, through latinus' palace, speeds his way, and fills the town with tumult and dismay. the trojans--see!--the trojans,--down they swarm from tiber. see the meadows far away alive with foes! rage, turmoil and alarm in turns distract the town. "arm," cry the young men, "arm!" lix. the old men weep and mutter. clamours rend the startled skies, and discord reigns supreme, e'en as when birds on lofty woods descend in flocks, or in padusa's fishful stream the swans sing hoarsely, and the wild-fowl scream along the babbling waters. turnus straight the moment snatched. "ah! townsmen, sooth, ye deem this hour an hour to chatter and debate; sit on, and praise sweet peace, while foemen storm the gate." lx. he spake, and from the council dashed with speed. "go, volusus," he cries, "and arm amain the volscians; hither the rutulians lead. messapus, go, with horsemen in thy train, and coras, with thy brother scour the plain. let these all entrance at the gate forestall, and man the turrets; let the rest remain in arms, and wait my bidding." one and all, the townsmen throng the streets, and hurry to the wall. lxi. then, sore distrest, the aged king proclaims the council closed, and for a happier tide puts off debate; and oft himself he blames, who welcomed not aeneas to his side, nor graced his city with a dardan's bride. but hark! to battle peals the clarion's call. these by the gate dig trenches, those provide sharp stakes and stones. along the girdling wall pale boys and matrons stand: the last hour cries for all. lxii. to pallas' rock-built temple rides the queen, bearing her gifts. the matrons march in line, and by her side is fair lavinia seen, the war's sad authoress, with down-dropt eyne. they, entering in, with incense fume the shrine, and from the threshold pour the mournful strain: "o strong in arms, tritonian maid divine! break thou the phrygian robber's spear in twain, and 'neath the gates strike down and stretch him on the plain." lxiii. now in hot haste fierce turnus dons the mail, eager for battle. on his breast he laced the corselet, rough with many a brazen scale. around his legs the golden greaves he placed, his brow yet bare, and at his side he braced, the trusty sword. all golden is the glow of burnished arms, as down the height in haste he flies exulting to the field below. high leaps his heart, and hope anticipates the foe. lxiv. so, free at length, his tether snapt in twain, swift from his stall, in eager joy, the steed bounds forth and, master of the open plain, now seeks the mares that in the pastures feed, now towards the well-known river scours the mead, wont there to cool his glowing sides, and neighs with head erect and glories in his speed, while o'er his collar and his shoulders plays the waving mane, flung loose in many a wandering maze. lxv. him meets camilla, with her volscian train, and by the gate dismounting then and there (down likewise leap her followers to the plain), "turnus," she cries, "if confidence can e'er befit the brave, i venture and i swear singly to face yon trojans in the fray, and stem the tuscan cavalry. my care shall be the war's first hazards to essay; thou guard the walls afoot, and by the ramparts stay." lxvi. then he, with eyes fixt on the wondrous maid, "o glory of italia, virgin bright! what praise can match thee? how shall thanks be paid? but now, since naught can daunt thee nor affright, share thou my labour, and divide the fight. yonder aeneas, so the news hath flown, so spies report, hath sent his horsemen light to scour the fields, while o'er the mountains' crown himself through devious ways is marching to the town. lxvii. "deep in a hollow, where the wood's dark shade two cross-ways hides, an ambush i prepare, and armed men shall the double pass blockade. thou take the shock of battle, and o'erbear the tuscan horse. messapus shall be there, tiburtus' band, and latins in array to aid, and thine shall be the leader's care." he spake, and cheered messapus to the fray, and latium's federate chiefs, and spurred upon his way. lxviii. there lies a winding valley, fit for snares and stratagems, shut in on either hand by wooded slopes. a narrow pathway fares along the gorge, and on the hill-tops, planned for safety, flat but hidden spreads the land. rightward or leftward there is room to bear the shock of arms, or on the ridge to stand, and roll down rocks upon the foe. 'twas there young turnus, screened by woods, lies crouching in his lair. lxix. meanwhile latonia in the realms of air fleet opis, sister of her sacred train, addressed in sorrowing accents, "maiden fair, see how camilla to the fatal plain goes forth, in quest of battle. see, in vain our arms she wears, the quiver and the bow. dearest is she of all that own my reign, nor new-born is diana's love, i trow; no fit of fondness this, or fancy known but now lxx. "when tyrant metabus his people's hate drove from privernum, for his deeds of shame. his babe he bore, the partner of his fate, through war and battle, and, her mother's name casmilla changed, camilla she became. to lonely woods and hill-tops fain to fly, fierce swords and volscians all around, he came where amasenus, with its waves bank-high, athwart him foamed; so vast a deluge rent the sky. lxxi. "prepared to plunge, he pauses, sore assailed by love, and terror for a charge so dear. all means revolving, this at last prevailed. fire-dried and knotted, an enormous spear of seasoned oak the warrior chanced to bear. to the mid shaft the tender babe he ties, swathed in the covering of a cork-tree near, then lifts the load, and, poising, ere it flies, the ponderous lance, looks up, and thus invokes the skies: lxxii. "'o queen of woods, latonia, virgin fair! to thee my daughter i devote this day, thy handmaid. see, thus early through the air she bears thy weapons. make her thine, i pray, and safely through the doubtful air convey.' so prayed the sire, and nerved him for the throw, then aimed, and launched the missile on its way. the babe forlorn, while roars the stream below, link'd to the shaft, is borne across the current's flow. lxxiii. "in plunges metabus, the foemen near, and trivia's gift, safe landing from the wave, plucks from the grass,--the maiden and the spear. no town is his, to shelter and to save, his savage mood no shelter deigns to crave. a shepherd's life on lonely hills he leads, in tangled covert, or in woodland cave. the milk of beasts supplies his daughter's needs, and from the wild-mare's teats her tender lips he feeds. lxxiv. "and when the tottering infant first essayed to plant her footsteps, to her hands he strung a lance, and o'er the shoulders of the maid the light-wing'd arrows and the bow he slung. for golden coif and trailing mantle, hung a tiger's spoils. her tiny hand e'en then hurled childish darts; e'en then the tough hide, swung around her temples, as she roamed the plain, brought down the snowy swan, or swift strymonian crane. lxxv. "full many a tuscan mother far and near has wooed camilla for her son in vain. contented with diana year by year, she loves her silvan weapon, free and fain to live a maiden-huntress, pure of stain. and o! had battle, and the toils of fight not lured her thus to combat on the plain, and match her prowess with the teucrians' might, mine were the maiden still, my darling and delight. lxxvi. "now, since well-nigh the fatal threads are spun, go, nymph, to latin frontiers wing thy way, where evil omens mark the fight begun. take, too, this quiver; who the maid shall slay,-- trojan or latin--with his blood shall pay myself the armour and the corpse will bear, wrapt in a cloud, and in her country lay." she spake, and, girt with whirlwind, and the blare of sounding arms, the nymph glides down the yielding air. lxxvii. meanwhile, the trojans and the tuscan train, in marshalled squadrons, to the walls draw near, steeds neigh, and chafe, and prance upon the plain, and lances bristling o'er the field appear. messapus, too, and latium's hosts are here, coras, catillus, and camilla leads her troops to aid. all couch the levelled spear, and whirl the dart. hot waxes on the meads the tramp of hurrying hosts, the snorting of the steeds. lxxviii. each halts within a spear-cast of the foe, then, spurring, forward with a shout they dash, and, darkening heaven, shower the darts like snow. in front, tyrrhenus and aconteus rash cross spears, the first to grapple. with a crash, steed against steed, went ruining. breast and head shocked and were shattered. like the lightning's flash, and loud as missile from an engine sped, hurled far, aconteus falls, and with a gasp lies dead. lxxix. this breaks the line; the latins turn and fly, their shields behind them. on the trojans go, asilas first. and now the gates are nigh; once more, with shouts, the latins face the foe; these, scared in turn, the slackened reins forego. so shifts the fight, as on the winding strand the swelling ocean, with alternate flow, foams on the rocks, and curls along the sand, now sucks the shingle back, and, ebbing, leaves the land. lxxx. twice the fierce tuscans, spurring o'er the fields, drive the rutulians to their walls in flight. twice, driven backward, from behind their shields the victors see the rallying foes unite. but when the third time, in the fangs of fight, man singling man, both armies met to close, loud were the groans, and fearful was the sight, arms splashed with gore, steeds, riders, friends and foes, blent in the deadly broil, and fierce the din uprose. lxxxi. lo, here, orsilochus, too faint with fear to meet fierce remulus, a distant dart hurls at his steed. beneath the charger's ear the shaft stands fixt; the beast, with sudden start, his breast erect, and maddened by the smart, rears up, and flings his rider to the ground. here brave iolas, from his friends apart, catillus slew; herminius next he found, large-hearted, large of limb, and eke in arms renowned. lxxxii. bare is his head, with auburn locks aglow, and bare his shoulders. wounds to him are vain; tower-like he stands, defenceless to the foe. through his broad chest the javelin, urged amain, pierced him, and quivered, and he writhed with pain, his giant form bent double. far and nigh the dark blood pours in torrents on the plain, as, dealing havoc with the sword, they vie, and, courting wounds, rush on, a warrior's death to die. lxxxiii. there, quiver-girt, the amazonian maid, one bosom bare, amidst the carnage wheeled, camilla, glorying in the war's grim trade. her limber darts she scatters o'er the field, her arms untired the ponderous axe can wield. diana's arrows and the golden bow sound at her back. she too, if forced to yield, fights as she flies, and well the maid doth know with flying shafts hurled back to stay the following foe. lxxxiv. around her, tulla and larinia stand, tarpeia too, with brazen axe bedight, italians all, the choicest of her band, in peace or war her glory and delight. so, battling round hippolyte, unite her thracians, when thermodon's banks afar ring with their arms. so rides the maid of might, penthesilea, in her conquering car, and hosts, with moon-shaped shields, exulting hail the war. lxxxv. whom first, dread maiden, did thy javelin quell? whom last? how many in the dust lay low? eunaeus first, the son of clytius, fell. sheer through his breast, left naked to the blow, ploughed the long fir-shaft, as he faced his foe. prone falls the warrior, and in deadly stound gasps out his life-blood, and the crimson flow spouts forth in torrents, as he bites the ground, and, dying, grasps the spear, and writhes upon the wound. lxxxvi. liris anon and pagasus she slew, one, flung to earth, and gathering up the rein, his charger stabbed, the other, as he flew to aid, and reached his helpless hands in vain, amastrus, son of hippotas, was slain; harpalycus, demophoon, as they fled, the dread spear caught, and stretched upon the plain, tereus and chromis. for each shaft that sped, launched from her maiden hand, a phrygian foe lay dead. lxxxvii. on iapygian steed, in arms unknown, rode ornytus, the huntsman. a rough hide, stript from a bullock, o'er his back was thrown. a wolf's huge jaws, with glittering teeth, supplied his helmet, and a rustic pike he plied. him, as he towered, the tallest in the fray, wheeling his steed, camilla unespied caught--in the rout 'twas easy--and her prey pinned, with unpitying spear, and jeered him as he lay. lxxxviii. "ha, tuscan! thought'st thou 'twas the chase? thy day hath come; a woman shall thy vaunts belie. yet take this glory to the grave, and say 'twas i, the great camilla, made thee die." she spake, and smote orsilochus close by, and butes, hugest of the trojan crew. first butes falls; just where the neck doth lie, 'twixt casque and corslet, naked to the view, and leftward droops the shield, the fatal barb goes through. lxxxix. chased by orsilochus, afar she wheels her seeming flight, wide-circling to and fro, till, doubling in a narrower ring, she steals inside, and follows on the following foe. then, rising steep, while vainly in his woe he pleads for pity, and entreats her grace, she swings the battle-axe, and blow on blow on head and riven helmet heaps apace, and the hot brains and blood are spattered o'er his face. xc. next crossed her path, but stood aghast to see, the son of aunus, from the mountain-seat of apennine. no mean ligurian he, while fate was kind, and prospered his deceit. fearful of death, and hopeless to retreat, he tries if cunning can avail his need, and cries aloud, "good sooth, a wondrous feat! a woman trusts for glory to her steed. come down; fight fair afoot, and take the braggart's meed!" xci. down leaps the maid in fury, and her steed hands to a comrade, and with arms matched fair, and dauntless heart, confronts him on the mead, her shield unblazoned, and her falchion bare. he, vainly glorying in his fancied snare, reins round in haste, and, spurring, strives to flee. "fool," cries camilla, "let thy pride beware. think not to palm thy father's tricks on me, nor hope with craft like this thy lying sire to see." xcii. so spake she, and on flying feet afire outruns his steed, and stands athwart the way, then grasps the reins, and deals the wretch his hire, doomed with his life-blood for his craft to pay. so on a dove, amid the clouds astray, down swoops the sacred falcon through the sky from some tall cliff, and fastens on his prey, and grips, and rends, and sucks the life-blood dry; the feathers, foul with blood, come, fluttering down from high. xciii. nor jove meanwhile with unregarding ken, throned on olympus, doth the scene survey. watchful of all, the sire of gods and men stirs up the tuscan tarchon to the fray, and plies the war-goad with no gentle sway. he through the squadrons on his steed aflame rides 'mid the carnage, where the ranks give way; now chides, now cheers, and calling each by name, re-forms the broken lines, and reinspires the tame. xciv. "cowards, why faint ye, tuscans but in name? fie! shall a woman scatter you in flight? o, slack! o, never to be stung to shame! what use of weapons, if ye fear to fight? no laggards ye for amorous jousts at night, or bacchic revels, when the fife ye hear. the feast and wine-cup--these are your delight; for these ye linger, till the approving seer calls to the grove's deep shade, where bleeds the fattened steer." xcv. then, spurring forth, himself prepared to die, he dashed at venulus, unhorsed his prize, and bore him on his saddle-bow. a cry goes up, and all the latins turn their eyes. swift with his prey the fiery tarchon flies, and, while the steel-head from his spear he rends, each chink and crevice in his armour tries, to deal the death-blow. he, as fierce, contends, and, countering force with force, his naked throat defends. xcvi. as when a golden eagle, high in air, wreathed with a serpent, fastens, as she flies, with feet that clutch, and taloned claws that tear. coil writhed in coil, the roughening scales uprise, the crest points up, the hissing tongue defies. she with sharp beak still rends the struggling prey, and beats the air. so tarchon with his prize through tibur's host exulting speeds away. with cheers the tuscans charge, and hail their chief's essay. xcvii. now, due to fate, aloof with lifted lance, the crafty aruns round camilla wheels, and tries where fortune lends the readiest chance. oft as she charges, where the war-shout peals, he slips unseen, and follows on her heels. when back she runs, triumphant from the foe, he shifts the rein, and from the conflict steals. now here, now there, he doubles to and fro, and shakes his felon spear, but hesitates to throw. xcviii. lo, chloreus, priest of cybele, aglow in phrygian armour, gorgeous to behold, urges his foaming charger at the foe, all decked in feathered chain-work, linked with gold. cretan his shafts, his bow of lycian mould. dark blue and foreign purple clothed his breast, golden his casque and bow; his mantle's fold of yellow saffron knots of gold compressed, and buskins bound his knees, and broidered was his vest. xcix. him the fierce huntress, whether fain the shrine to deck with trophies, or with envious eyes wishful herself in trojan arms to shine, marks in the strife; at him alone she flies, proud, like a woman, of her fancied prize. blindly she runs, uncautious of the snare, when, darting from the ambush, where he lies, the moment snatched, false aruns shakes his spear, and thus, with measured aim, invokes the gods with prayer. c. "o phoebus, guardian of soracte's steep, whom first we honour, to whose sacred name, thy votaries, we, the blazing pine-wood heap, and, firm in faith, pass through the smouldering flame, grant that our arms may wipe away this shame. trophies, nor spoils, nor plunder from the prey be mine; i look to other deeds for fame. if wound of mine this hateful pest shall slay, home will i gladly go, and fameless quit the fray." ci. apollo heard, and granted half his prayer, and half he scattered to the winds. to slay with sudden stroke camilla unaware he gave, but gave not his returning day; the breezes puffed the bootless wish away. shrill sang the lance; each volscian eye and heart turned to the queen. the weapon on its way,-- the rush of air she heeds not, till the dart strikes home, and, staying, draws the life-blood from her heart. cii. up run her friends, the fainting queen to aid, more scared than all, in fear and joy amain, false aruns flies, nor dares to face the maid, or trust the venture of his spear again. as guilty wolf, some steer or shepherd slain, slinks to the hills, ere hostile darts pursue, and clasps his tail between his thighs, full fain to seek the woods, so aruns shrank from view, sore scared and glad to fly, and in the crowd withdrew. ciii. with dying hand she strives to pluck the spear: deep 'twixt the rib-bones in the wound it lies. bloodless she faints; her features, late so fair, fade, as the crimson from the pale cheeks flies, and cold and misty wax the drooping eyes. then, with quick gasps, and groaning from her breast, she calls to faithful acca, ere she dies,-- acca, her truest comrade and her best, the partner of her cares,--and breathes a last request. civ. "sister, 'tis past; the bitter shaft apace consumes me; all is growing dark. go, tell this news to turnus; bid him take my place, and keep these trojans from the town. farewell." so saying, she dropped the bridle, as she fell. death's creeping chills the loosened limbs o'erspread. down dropped the weapons she had borne so well, the neck drooped, slackened; and she bowed her head, and the disdainful soul went groaning to the dead. cv. up rose a shout, camilla fall'n, that beat the golden stars, and fiercer waxed the fray. on press the host, in serried ranks complete, trojans, arcadians, tuscans in array. high on a hill, fair opis watched the day, set there by trivia, undisturbed till now, when, lo, amid the tumult far away she sees camilla, in the dust laid low, deep from her breast she sighs, and thus in words of woe: cvi. "cruel, too cruel, is thy forfeit paid, poor maiden, who the trojan arms would'st dare; nor aught availed thee, in the woodland glade to serve diana, and her arms to wear. yet not unhonoured in thy death, nor bare of fame she leaves thee; nor in after day shall vengeance fail thy prowess to declare. whoso hath dared thy sacred form to slay, his blood shall rue the deed, and fit atonement pay." cvii. beneath the hill a barrow chanced to stand, heaped there of old, and holm-oaks frowned beside dercennus' tomb, who ruled laurentum's land. here, lightning swift, the lovely nymph espied, in shining arms, and puffed with empty pride, false aruns. "caitiff! dost thou think to flee? why keep aloof? turn hitherward!" she cried, "come here, and die! camilla claims her fee. must cynthia waste her shafts on worthless knaves like thee?" cviii. plucking the arrow from her case, she drew the bow, full-stretched, till both the horns unite. both arms raised level, ere the missile flew, her left hand touched the iron point, the right, pressed to her nipple, strained the bow-string tight. he hears the arrow whistle as it flies, and feels the wound. sweeping on amain, [word missing] forsakes him. groaning, with a gasp, he dies. upsoars the gladdening nymph, and seeks the olympian skies. cix. first flies camilla's troop, their mistress slain, then, routed, the rutulian ranks give way, and fierce atinas gallops from the plain, and scattered chiefs and squadrons in dismay spur towards the town for shelter from the fray. none dares that murderous onset of the foe to stem with javelins, nor their charge to stay. slack from their fainting shoulders hangs the bow, the clattering horse-hoofs shake the crumbling ground below. cx. dark rolls the dust-cloud, to the town-walls driven, and mothers on the watch-towers, pale with fear, smite on their breasts, and shriek aloud to heaven. these, bursting in, their foemen in the rear crush in the crowd, and slaughter with the spear, slain in the gateway--miserably slain!-- their walls in sight, their happy homes so near. those bar the gates, while comrades on the plain stretch their imploring hands, and call to them in vain. cxi. then piteous waxed the carnage by the gate, some storming, some defending. these without, in sight of parents, weeping at their fate, roll down the moat, swept headlong by the rout, or charge the battered doorposts with a shout. the very matrons, at their country's call, their javelins hurl. charr'd stakes and oak-staves stout serve them for swords. forth rush they, one and all, fir'd by camilla's deeds, to save the town or fall. cxii. meanwhile to turnus, in the woods afar, came acca, and the bitter news made plain, and told the chief the tumult of the war,-- the panic and the rout--the volscian train swept from the battle, and camilla slain. the foemen, flushed with conquest, far and near in hot pursuit, and sweeping on amain, and all the city now aghast with fear:-- such was the dolorous tale that filled the warrior's ear. cxiii. then, mad with fury, in revengeful mood (for jove is stern, and so the fates ordain), he quits his mountain-ambush and the wood. scarce, out of sight, had turnus reached the plain, when, issuing forth, aeneas hastes to gain the pass, left open, climbs the neighbouring height, and leaves the tangled forest. thus the twain, each near to each,--the middle space is slight,-- townward their troops lead on, and hail the proffered fight. cxiv. at once aeneas on the dusty plain marks the laurentine columns far away. at once, in arms, fierce turnus knows again the dread aeneas, and he hears the neigh of steeds, and tramp of footmen in array. then each the fight had ventured, as they stood, but rosy phoebus, with declining day, his steeds was bathing in the iberian flood; so by the walls they camp, and make the ramparts good. book twelve argument turnus realises that he must now redeem his promise to meet aeneas in single combat, and refuses to be dissuaded either by latinus or by amata ( - ). the challenge is sent, and the two make ready. lists are prepared and spectators gather ( - ). juno warns the nymph juturna to aid her brother turnus ( - ). after the terms of combat have been ratified by oath and sacrifice, juturna, in disguise, by an opportune omen induces one of the assembled latins to break the truce and kill a trojan ( - ). aeneas is wounded while endeavouring to restrain his men from reprisals, and the fray becomes general. turnus deals death among the trojans ( - ). aeneas is miraculously healed, and at first pursues only turnus--who is carried off by juturna ( - ), but presently gives rein to his anger and slays indiscriminately, until by venus' advice he attacks the city. amata kills herself, believing turnus dead ( - ). turnus' eyes are opened. seeing the city outworks in flames, he returns and proclaims himself ready to meet aeneas, who, welcoming the challenge, rushes forward. all eyes are riveted on the two, when turnus' sword breaks, and once more he flees, pursued by aeneas. juturna gives turnus another sword, and venus restores to aeneas his spear ( - ). follows a colloquy between jupiter and juno.--turnus must die. aeneas shall marry lavinia and be king. but the new nation must keep the ancient rites and names of latium, and be called not trojans but latins. juno yields, and jupiter warns juturna to leave the battle ( - ). turnus, being beside himself, after a last superhuman effort, is struck down. aeneas is about to spare his life, when he sees upon his shoulder the spoils of pallas, and kills him ( - ). i. when turnus saw the latins faint and fly, crushed by the war-god, and his pledge reclaimed, himself the mark of every scornful eye, rage unappeasable his pride inflamed. as when a lion, in the breast sore maimed in punic fields, uprousing, shakes his mane, and snaps the shaft that felon hands had aimed, his mouth all bloody, as he roars with pain, so turnus blazed with wrath, as thus in scornful strain ii. he hailed the king: "not turnus stops the way; no cause have these their challenge to forego, poor trojan cowards; i accept the fray, sire, be the compact hallowed; be it so. or i, while latins sit and see the show, will hurl to hell this dardan thief abhorred, this asian runaway, and on the foe refute the common slander with the sword, or he, as victor, reign and be lavinia's lord." iii. then, calm of soul, latinus made reply, "o gallant youth, the more thy heart is fain in fierceness to excel, the more should i weigh well the risks and measure loss with gain. to thee belong thy father daunus' reign and captured towns. good will have i and gold, and other maids our latin homes contain, of noble birth and lovely to behold. hear now, and let plain speech the thankless truth unfold. iv. "to none of former suitors was i free to wed my daughter, so the voice ordained of gods and men consenting. love for thee, and sympathy for kindred blood hath gained the mastery, and a weeping wife constrained. i robbed the husband of the bride he wooed, took impious arms, and plighted faith disdained. ah me! what wars, what bitter fates ensued, thou, turnus, know'st too well, who first hast felt the feud. v. "scarce now, twice worsted in the desperate fray, our walls can guard what latin hopes remain, and, choked with latin corpses, day by day, old tiber's stream runs purple to the main, and latin bones are whitening all the plain. why shifts my frenzied purpose to and fro? why change and change? if, maugre turnus slain, i deign to welcome as a friend his foe, why not, while turnus lives, the needless strife forego? vi. "what will rutulian kinsmen, what will all italia say, if (chance the deed forefend!) i leave thee, cheated of my care, to fall, the daughter's lover, and the father's friend? o, weigh the risks that on the war attend; pity the parent in his sad, old age, left at far ardea to lament thine end." thus he; but naught fierce turnus can assuage; the healing hand but chafes, and words augment his rage. vii. then he, scarce gathering utterance, spake again, "good sire, thy trouble for my sake forego; leave me the price of glory--to be slain. i too can hurl, nor feeble is my blow, the whistling shaft, that lays the foeman low, and drinks his life-blood. vain shall be his prayer. no goddess mother shall be there, to throw her mist around him, with a woman's care, and screen her darling son with empty shades of air." viii. the queen, with death before her, filled with fears, wept sore and checked the fiery suitor's way. "o turnus! if thou heed'st me, by these tears;-- hope of my age, latinus' strength and stay, prop of our falling house! one boon i pray; forbear the fight. what fate awaiteth thee, awaits me too. if trojans win the day, with thee i'll leave the loathed light, nor see aeneas wed my child, a captive slave, as she." ix. with tears lavinia heard her mother speak. a crimson blush her glowing face o'erspread, and hot fires kindled on her burning cheek. as indian ivory, when stained with red, or lilies, mixt with roses in a bed, so flushed the maid, with varying thoughts distrest. he, wild with love, upon lavinia fed his constant gaze, but maddening with unrest, burned for the fight still more, and thus the queen addressed: x. "vex me not, mother, marching to the fray, with these thy tears and bodings of despair. 'tis not in me the fatal hour to stay. thou, idmon, to the phrygian tyrant bear the unwelcome word: to-morrow let him spare to lead his teucrians to the fight. each side shall rest awhile; when morning shines in air, his blood or mine the quarrel shall decide, and he or i shall win, whose prowess earns, the bride." xi. thus speaking, to his home the chieftain hies and bids his steeds be harnessed for the fight: soon for the pleasure of their master's eyes they stand before him, neighing in their might. in days of old from orithyia bright to king pilumnus came those coursers twain, swifter than breezes and than snow more white; his ready grooms attend, a nimble train, and clap the sounding breast and comb the abundant mane. xii. himself the shining corselet, stiff with gold and orichalcum, on his shoulders laid. his sword and shield he fitted to his hold, and donned the helm, with crimson plumes arrayed, the sword the fire-king for his sire had made, and dipped still glowing in the stygian flood, last, the strong spear-beam in his hand he swayed (against a pillar in the house it stood), auruncan actor's spoils, and shook the quivering wood, xiii. and shouted, "now, o never known to fail thy master's call, my trusty spear, i trow the hour is come. once, mightiest under mail, did actor wield thee; turnus wields thee now. grant this strong hand to lay the foeman low, this phrygian eunuch of his arms to spoil, and rend his shattered breastplate with a blow; dragged in the dust, his dainty curls to soil, hot from the crisping tongs, and wet with myrrh and oil." xiv. such furies urge him, and, ablaze with ire, his hot face sparkles, and his eyes burn bright, and from his eye-balls leaps the living fire; as when a bull, in prelude for the fight, roars terribly, and fills the hinds with fright, and, butting at a chance-met tree, would try to vent his fury on his horns of might, and with his fierce hoofs flings the sand on high, and gores the empty air, and challenges the sky. xv. nor less, meanwhile, and terrible in arms,-- the arms that venus to her son doth lend,-- aeneas rages, and the war-god warms. pleased with the challenge, singly to contend, and bring the weary warfare to an end, his friends he cheers, and calms iulus' care, unfolding fate, then heralds hastes to send, his answer to the latin king to bear: the challenge he accepts, the terms of peace are fair. xvi. scarce morning glimmered on the mountains grey, and phoebus' steeds, uprising from the main, with lifted nostrils breathed approaching day. mixt with the trojans, the rutulian train, beneath the lofty town-walls on the plain mark out the lists, and mid-way in the ring, their braziers set, as common rites ordain. these, apron-girt and crowned with vervain, bring fire for the turf-piled hearths, and water from the spring. xvii. forth, as to war, ausonia's spear-armed host, trojans and tuscans, to the field proceed, and to and fro, in gold and purple, post asilas brave, assaracus's seed, mnestheus, messapus, tamer of the steed. back step both armies at the trumpet's call, their spears in earth, their shields upon the mead. an unarmed crowd, old men and matrons, all stand by the lofty gates, and throng the towers and wall. xviii. but juno, seated on a neighbouring height, now alban called, then nameless and unknown, gazed from its summit on the field of fight, and, musing, on the marshalled hosts looked down of troy and latium, and latinus' town, then straight--a goddess to a goddess--spake to turnus' sister, who the sway doth own of sounding river and of stagnant lake, raised by the king of air, as yielding for his sake. xix. "nymph, pride of rivers, darling of my love, thou know'st, juturna, how to all whoe'er of latin maidens climbed the couch of jove, i thee preferred, and gave his courts to share. learn now thy woe, lest i the blame should bear. while fate and fortune smiled on latium's sway, thy walls i saved, and turnus was my care. now in ill hour i see him tempt the fray; fate and the foe speed on the inevitable day. xx. "not i this fight, this wager can behold. thou, if thou durst, thy brother's doom arrest. go; luck perchance may follow thee." fast rolled juturna's tears, and thrice she smote her breast. "no time to weep," said juno, "speed thy quest, and save thy brother, if thou canst, ere dead, or wake the war, and rend the league unblest; 'tis i who bid thee to be bold." she said, and left her, tost with doubt, and full of wildering dread. xxi. forth come the kings; latinus, proudly borne high in his four-horse chariot, shines afar. twelve gilded rays the monarch's brows adorn, his sire's, the sun-god's. wielding as for war two spears, comes turnus in his two-horse car. there, rome's great founder, doth aeneas ride, with dazzling shield, bright-shining as a star, and arms divine, and at his father's side ascanius takes his place, rome's second hope and pride. xxii. and clad in robes of purest white, the priest leads forth the youngling of a bristly swine, and two-year sheep, by shearer's hands unfleec'd. and they, with eyes turned to the dawn divine, bared the bright steel, the victim's brow to sign, and strewed the cakes of salted meal, and poured on blazing altars bowls of sacred wine; and good aeneas drew his glittering sword, and thus, with pious prayer, the immortal gods adored: xxiii. "witness, o sun, thou earth attest my prayer, for whom i toil. thou, jove, supreme in sway, and thou, great juno, pleased at length to spare. o mighty mars, whose nod directs the fray; springs, streams, and powers whom air and sea obey. if turnus win--o let the vow remain-- humbly to king evander, as they may, troy's sons shall fly, iulus quit the reign, nor seed of mine e'er vex the latin field again. xxiv. "but else, if victory smile upon my sword (as rather deem i, and may heaven decree), i wish not troy to be italia's lord, nor claim the crown; let each, unquelled and free, in deathless league on equal terms agree. arms, empire let latinus keep; i claim to bring our rites and deities. for me my teucrian friends another town shall frame, and bless the rising towers with fair lavinia's name." xxv. thus first aeneas; then with uplift eyes, his right hand stretching to the stars in prayer, "hear me, aeneas," old latinus cries, "by the same earth, and sea and stars i swear, by the twin offering of latona fair, and two-faced janus, and hell's powers malign, and dis unpitying; let jove give ear, the sire whose bolt the solemn league doth sign, witness these fires and gods,--my hand is on the shrine,-- xxvi. "no time with latins shall this league unbind, whate'er the issue, or the peace confound, no force shall shake the purpose of my mind. nay--though the circling ocean burst its bound, and all the earth were in a deluge drowned, and heaven with hell should mingle. sure as now this sceptre" (haply in his hand was found the royal sceptre) "nevermore, i trow, shall bourgeon with fresh leaves, or spread a shadowing bough, xxvii. "since once in forests, from its parent tree lopped clean away, the woodman stripped it bare of boughs and leaves, now fashioned, as ye see, and cased in brass by cunning craftsman's care, for fathers of the latin realm to bear." so they, amid their chiefest, sire with sire, confirm the league. these o'er the flames prepare to slay the victims, and, as rites require, the living entrails tear, and feed the sacred fire. xxviii. long while unequal to rutulian eyes the combat seemed, and trouble tossed them sore, now more, beholding nearer, how in size and strength the champions differed, yea, and more, beholding turnus, as he moved before the altars, sad and silently, and seeks with downcast eyes heaven's favour to implore, the wanness of his youthful frame, that speaks of health and hope now fled, the pallor of his cheeks. xxix. soon as juturna saw the whispers grow from tongue to tongue, and marked the changing tone, the hearts of people wavering to and fro, amidst them,--now in form of camers known, great camers, sprung from grandsires of renown, his father famed for many a brave emprise, himself as famed for exploits of his own,-- amidst them, mistress of her part, she flies, and scatters words of doubt, and many a dark surmise. xxx. "shame, will ye risk, rutulians, for his host the life of one? in number, strength and show do we not match them? _those_ are all they boast, trojans, arcadians and etruscans. lo, fight we by turns, each scarce can find a foe. he to his gods, whose shrines he dies to shield, will rise, and praised will be his name below. we, reft of home, to tyrant lords shall yield, and toil as slaves, who sit so slackly on the field." xxxi. so saying, juturna to the youths imparts fresh rage, and murmurs through the concourse run, and changed are latin and laurentian hearts, and they, who lately sought the strife to shun, and longed for rest, now wish the league undone, and, pitying turnus, wrongly doomed to die, call out for arms. and now, her work begun, juturna shows a lying sign on high, that shakes italian hearts, and cheats the wondering eye. xxxii. jove's golden eagle through the crimson skies in chase of clanging marsh-fowl, swooped in flight down on a swan, and trussed the noble prize. the latins gaze, when lo, a wondrous sight! back wheels the flock, and all with screams unite, and darkening, as a cloud, in dense array press on the foe, till, overborne by might, and yielding to sheer weight, he drops the prey into the stream below, and cloudward soars away. xxxiii. with shouts the glad rutulians hail the sign, and lift their hands. then spake the seer straightway, tolumnius: "welcome, welcome, powers divine! 'twas this--'twas this i longed for, day by day. to arms! 'tis i, tolumnius, lead the way. poor souls! whom yon strange pirate would enslave, like feeble birds, and make your coast a prey. he too shall fly, and vanish o'er the wave. stand close and fight as one, your captive king to save." xxxiv. he spake and hurled his javelin at the foes, advancing. shrill the cornel hissed, and flew true to its quarry. then a shout uprose, and the ranks wavered, and hearts throbbed anew with ardour, as the gathering tumult grew. on went the missile to where, side by side, nine brethren stood, of comely form, whom, true to her gylippus, bare a tuscan bride, nine tall arcadian sons, in bloom of youthful pride. xxxv. one, where the belt chafes, and the strong clasp bites the broidered edges,--comeliest of the band, and sheathed in shining mail--the steel-head smites, and rives the ribs, and rolls him on the sand. blind with hot rage, his brethren, sword in hand, or snatching missiles, to avenge the slain, rush to the charge. laurentum's ranks withstand their onset, and a deluge sweeps the plain, trojans, agylla's bands, arcadia's glittering train. xxxvi. one passion burns,--to let the sword decide. stript stand the altars, and the shrines are bare; dark drives the storm of javelins far and wide, the iron tempest hurtles in the air, and bowls and censers from the hearths they tear. himself latinus, flying, bears afar his home-gods, outraged by the league's misfare. some leap to horse, and others yoke the car, or bare the glittering sword, and hurry to the war. xxxvii. aulestes first, a king with kingly crown, messapus scares, and, spurring forward, fain to break the treaty, rides the tuscan down. he, bating ground, falls back, and hurled amain against the altars, pitches on the plain. up comes messapus, with his beam-like spear, and smites him, pleading sorely but in vain, steep-rising heavily smites him, with a jeer, "he hath it; heaven hath gained a better victim here." xxxviii. up latins rush, and strip the limbs yet warm, a brand half-burnt fierce corynoeus there flings full at ebusus, as with lifted arm he nears him, and the long beard, all aflare, shines crackling, with a smell of burning hair. he with his left hand, following up the throw, grasps the long locks, and, planting firm and fair his knee, beneath him pins the prostrate foe, and drives the stark sword home, so deadly is the blow. xxxix. then, fired with fury, podalirius flew at shepherd alsus, as he rushed among the foremost. with his naked sword he drew behind him close, and o'er his foeman hung. he turning round his broad axe backward swung, and clave the chin and forehead. left and right the dark blood o'er the spattered arms outsprung. hard rest and iron slumber seal his sight, the drooping eyelids close on everlasting night. xl. unarmed, aeneas, with uncovered brow, stretched out his hands, and shouted to his train: "where rush ye, men? what sudden discord now is this? be calm; your idle wrath refrain. the truce is struck; the treaty's terms are plain. to me belongs the battle, not to you. give way to me, nor fret and fume in vain. this hand shall make the treaty firm and true. these rites, this solemn pact give turnus for my due." xli. so spake he, fain the tumult to allay, and scarce had ceased, when, whistling as it flew, a feathered shaft came hurtling on its way, and smote the good aeneas; whose, and who that shaft had sped, what wind had borne it true, what chance with fame ausonia's host had crowned, what god, perhaps, had aided them--none knew. the glory of that noble deed was drowned, and none was found to boast of great aeneas' wound. xlii. when turnus saw the trojan prince retire, the chiefs bewildered, and their hearts unstrung, hope unexpected set his soul on fire, and, calling for his steeds and arms, he sprung upon his chariot, and the reins outflung. on drives he; many a hero of renown sinks, crushed to death; the dying roll among the dead; whole ranks beneath his wheels go down, and fast at flying hosts the fliers' spears are thrown. xliii. as when grim mars, by hebrus' icy flood, clashing his brazen buckler, drives apace his fierce steeds, maddening with the lust of blood; they o'er the plain the flying winds outrace, and with their trampling groan the fields of thrace; and round the war-god his attendants throng, hatred, and treachery and fear's dark face; so turnus drove the battling ranks among, and lashed his smoking steeds, and waved the whistling thong. xliv. in piteous sort he tramples on the slain; the flying horse-hoofs spirt the crimson dew, and tread the gore down in the sandy plain. now, man to man, at thamyris he flew, and pholus. sthenelus aloof he slew; aloof the two imbracidae lay dead, glaucus and lades, of the lycian crew, both armed alike, whom imbracus had bred to fight, or on swift steeds the flying winds to head. xlv. elsewhere afield, amid the foremost, fought the brave eumedes. (from the loins he came of noble dolon, and to war he brought the borrowed lustre of his grandsire's name, the strength and spirit of his sire of fame, who for his meed, when offering to explore the danaan camp, pelides' car would claim. poor fool! tydides paid the boaster's score, and for achilles' steeds he hankers now no more.) xlvi. him turnus sees, and through the void afar speeds a light lance, then bids the coursers stand, and, lightly leaping from his two-horsed car, stamps on his neck, fall'n breathless on the sand, and wrests the shining dagger from his hand. deep in his throat he deals a deadly wound, and cries, "now, trojan, take the wished-for land. lie there, and measure the hesperian ground; their meed, who tempt my sword; thus city-walls they found." xlvii. asbutes, sybaris and chloreus bleed, dares the bold, orsilochus the brave, thymoetes, pitched from off his plunging steed. as on the aegean when the north-winds rave, and the fierce gale rolls shoreward wave on wave, and drives the cloud-rack through the sky; so these shrank back from turnus, as his path he clave, urged by his impulse, and each turns and flees; loose streams his horsehair crest, blown backward by the breeze. xlviii. his fiery onset, and his shouts of pride bold phlegeus brooked not, but himself he flung before the car, and caught and turned aside the foaming steeds. but while, thus dragged along, grasping the bridle, on the yoke he hung, his shieldless side the broad-tipt javelin found, and pierced, and, staying, to the corslet clung, with linen folds and brazen links twice bound. and lightly scored the skin, and grazed him with the wound. xlix. his shield before him, at the foe he made, and drew his short sword, turning sharply round, and trusted to the naked steel for aid, when wheel and axle, urged with onward bound, struck down and dashed him headlong to the ground, and turnus, reaching forward, sword in hand, room 'twixt the hauberk and the helmet found and lopped the head with his avenging brand, and left the bleeding trunk to welter on the sand. l. while turnus thus dealt havoc as he flew, back with aeneas from the combat went ascanius, mnestheus, and achates true, and helped the bleeding hero to his tent. faltering and pale, as on the spear he leant, fretting, and tugging at the shaft in vain, quick help he summons,--with the broadsword's rent the wound to widen, and the lurking bane cut out, and send him back to battle on the plain. li. iapis, son of iasus, was there, the best-beloved of phoebus. long ago apollo, fired to see a youth so fair, his arts and gifts had offered to bestow, his augury, his lyre, his sounding bow. but he, in hope a bed-rid parent's days to lengthen, sought the leech's craft to know, the power of simples, and the silent praise of healing arts, and scorned the great apollo's bays. lii. dark-frowning stands, still propt upon his spear, aeneas, heedless of his friends around and young iulus, weeping in his fear. tight-girt like paeon, with the robes upbound, beside him kneels the aged leech renowned. with busy haste apollo's salves he tries, in vain, in vain he coaxes in the wound the stubborn steel, the pincer's teeth he plies: fate bides averse, his help the healing god denies; liii. and more and more, along the echoing wold, the war's wild horror thickens on the ear, and storm-like, in the darkened skies uprolled, the driving dust-clouds show the danger near. now horsemen, galloping in haste, appear, and darts and arrows, as the foe draw nigh, fall in the tents, and fill the camp with fear, and a grim clamour mounts the vaulted sky, the shouts of those that fight, the groans of those that die. liv. then, venus, for her darling filled with grief, a stalk of dittany on ida's crown seeks out, and gathers, for his wound's relief, the flower of purple and the leaves of down. (to wounded wild-goats 'twas a plant well-known) this brings the goddess, veiled in mist, and brews in a bright bowl a mixture of her own, and, steeped in water from the stream, she strews soft balm of fragrant scent, and sweet ambrosial dews. lv. therewith the leech, unwitting, rinsed the wound, and the pain fled, and all the blood was stayed. out came the dart, and he again was sound. "arms! bring his arms! why stand ye thus afraid?" iapis cries, and, foremost to upbraid, inflames them to the fight. "no hand of mine, no power of leech-craft, nor a mortal's aid this healing wrought; a greater power divine, aeneas, sends thee back, by greater deeds to shine." lvi. he, hot for fight, the golden cuishes bound, and shook the spear, then put his corslet on, and strung the shield, and in his arms enwound, and gently through the helmet kissed his son. "learn, boy, of me, how gallant deeds are done, fortune of others. i will guard thee now, and lead to fame. let riper manhood con thy kinsmen's deeds. remember, and be thou what uncle hector was, and what thy sire is now." lvii. he spake, and swinging his tremendous spear, swept through the gate; then antheus, with his train, rushed forth, and mnestheus. with a general cheer forth pours the host; a dust-cloud hides the plain; earth, startled by their trampling, throbs in pain. pale turnus saw them from a distant height, the ausonians saw, and terror chilled each vein. juturna heard, and knew the noise of fight, and from the van drew back, and shuddered with affright. lviii. on swept he, and the blackening host behind. as when from sea a storm-cloud sweeps to shore, the weather breaking, and the trembling hind foresees afar the ruin and the roar, the shattered orchards, and the crops no more, while, landward borne, the muttering winds betray the coming storm; so down the trojan bore against the foemen, and in firm array all knit their serried ranks, and gladden at the fray. lix. thymbraeus smites osiris, mnestheus fells archetius; by achates smitten sheer, falls epulo, and gyas ufens quells. falls, too, tolumnius, the sacred seer, who first against the foemen hurled his spear. uprose a shout, and the rutulians reeled and fled. aeneas, on the dusty rear close-trampling, scorns to follow them afield, or fight with those that stand, or slaughter those that yield. lx. turnus alone, amid the blinding gloom, he tracks and traces, searching far and near, turnus alone he summons to his doom. juturna sees, and smit with sudden fear, unseats metiscus, turnus' charioteer, and flings him down, and leaves him on the plain, then takes his place, and, urging their career, loose o'er the coursers shakes the waving rein; metiscus' voice and form, metiscus' arms remain. lxi. like a black swallow, as she flies among a rich man's halls, or in the courts is found in quest of dainties for her twittering young. and now in empty cloisters, now around the fishpools circles, while the shrill notes sound. so now juturna, through the midmost foes, whirled in the rapid chariot, scours the ground; now here, now there triumphant turnus shows, now, flying, wheels aloof, nor suffers him to close. lxii. so wheels in turn aeneas to and fro, and tracks his man, and through the war's wild tide calls him aloud. oft as he marks his foe, and, running, tries to match the coursers' stride, so oft juturna wheels the team aside. what shall he do? while wavering thus in vain, as diverse thoughts his doubtful mind divide, a steel-tipt dart messapus--one of twain-- aims true, and hurls it forth, uprunning on the plain. lxiii. aeneas paused, behind his buckler bent. on came the javelin, and the cone was shorn from off his helmet, and the plume was rent. foiled by this treachery, as he marked with scorn the steeds and chariot from the combat borne, he blazed with ire, and, calling on again jove and the altars of the truce forsworn, rushed on, thrice terrible, and o'er the plain dealt indiscriminate death, and gave his wrath the rein. lxiv. what heavenly muse can sing, what god can say the scenes of horror wrought on either side, the varied slaughter of that fatal day, what chiefs were chased along the field, and died, as turnus now, and now the trojan plied his murderous sword? jove, could'st thou deem it right so dire a broil such peoples should divide, two jarring nations met in deadly fight, whom leagues of lasting love were destined to unite? lxv. aeneas first (that fight 'twas first that stayed the teucrian rout) caught suero on the side. where death is quickest, 'twixt the ribs his blade, deep in the framework of the breast, he plied. then turnus slew diores; close beside, his brother amycus from his steed he tore; one by the spear, one by the sword-cut died. their severed heads the ruthless victor bore, fixt to his flying car, and dripping with the gore. lxvi. talus, and tanais, and cethegus there aeneas smote, and poor onytes slew, whom peridia to echion bare. turnus two lycian brethren next o'erthrew from phoebus' fields, and young menoetes too from arcady, who loathed the war in vain. poor was his home, nor rich men's doors he knew. by fishful lerna he had earned his gain, hired was the scanty glebe his father sowed with grain. lxvii. lo, as fierce flames drive in from left and right through woodlands parched and groves of crackling bay, as sweep impetuous from a mountain height loud, foaming torrents, that withouten stay cleave to the sea their devastating way: so, while in each full tides of anger flow, rush turnus and aeneas to the fray: their tameless breasts with bursting valour glow, on, on they speed amain, nor fear the opposing blow. lxviii. there stands murranus, vaunting in vain joy his sires, and grandsires, he the princely son of latin monarchs. him the chief of troy smites with the whirlwind of a monstrous stone, huge as a rock. down from his chariot thrown, 'twixt reins and yoke, he tumbles on the sward. the fierce wheels, thundering onward, beat him down; his starting steeds, to shun the victor's sword, tread on his trampled limbs, unmindful of their lord. lxix. here, fronting hyllus, as he rushed amain, fierce turnus stood; his levelled spear-head clave the golden casque, and quivered in his brain. nor thee, poor creteus, though of greeks most brave, from turnus had thy prowess power to save. nor aught availed cupencus' gods to aid against the dread aeneas, as he drave. squaring his breast, he met the glittering blade, nor long his brazen shield the mortal stroke delayed. lxx. thee, too, great aeolus, laurentum's plain saw trampled down by turnus, as he flew, and stretched at length among the trojan slain. thou diest, whom ne'er could argive bands subdue, nor peleus' son, who priam's realm o'erthrew. thy goal is here; beyond the distant wave, beneath the mount where ida's fir-trees grew, high house was thine; high house lyrnessus gave, thy home; laurentum's soil hath given thee a grave. lxxi. so met the ranks, and mingled, man with man, latins and dardans in promiscuous throng, mnestheus and fierce serestus in the van, messapus, tamer of the steed, and strong asylas. there in tumult swept along arcadian horsemen, and the tuscan train. no rest is theirs, no respite; loud and long the conflict rages, as with might and main, each for his own dear life, the warriors strive and strain. lxxii. now lovely venus doth her son persuade to seek the walls, and townward turn his train, and deal swift havoc on the foe dismayed. while here and there aeneas scans the plain, still tracking turnus through the ranks in vain, far off the peaceful city he espies, unscathed, unstirred, and in his restless brain the vision of a greater war doth rise; larger the war-god looms, and to his chiefs he cries. lxxiii. mnestheus, sergestus and serestus strong he calls, and on a hillock takes his stand. there, mustering round him, all the teucrians throng, each armed with buckler, and his spear in hand, and from the mound he thus exhorts the band: "hear, sons of teucer, and let none be slack. jove fights for us, so hearken my command. though strange the venture, sudden the attack, let none for that cause faint, none loiter and hang back. lxxiv. "this town--unless they yield them and obey-- this town, the centre of latinus' reign, the cause of war, will i uproot this day, and raze her smoking roof-tops to the plain. what! shall i wait, and wait, till turnus deign to take fresh heart, and tempt the war's rough game, and, conquered, face his conqueror again? see there the fount of all this blood! for shame; bring quick the torch; let fire the perjured pact reclaim!" lxxv. so spake he, and one purpose nerves them all. they form a wedge, and forward with a cheer the close-knit column charges at the wall. here scaling ladders in a trice they rear, and firebrands suddenly and flames appear. these seek the gates, and lay the foremost dead; those flash the sword, or shake the shining spear. darts cloud the skies. aeneas, at their head, stands by the lofty walls, and with his hands outspread, lxxvi. upbraids aloud latinus, twice untrue, and bids heaven witness and his wrongs regard, thus forced reluctant to the fight anew; how loth again with latin foes he warred, how twice the truce the latin crimes had marred. upsprings wild discord in the town; some call to cede the city, and have the gates unbarred, and drag the aged monarch to the wall; some rush to arms, and strive their entrance to forestall. lxxvii. as when within a crannied rock some hind, returning home, a swarm of bees hath found, and all the nest with bitter smoke doth blind: they, in their waxen citadel fast bound, post to and fro, the narrow cells around, and whet their stings in fury and despair: with stifled hum the caverned crags resound, the black fumes search the windings of their lair, and the dark smoke rolls up, and mingles with the air. lxxviii. a new mischance now smote with further woe the latin town, and fainting hearts dismayed. as queen amata sees the coming foe, the ramparts stormed, their flames the roofs invade, and nowhere turnus nor his troops to aid, him dead she deems, herself the cause declares, herself alone she spares not to upbraid. she wails,--she raves,--her purple robe she tears, and from a lofty beam the hideous noose prepares. lxxix. the women heard; lavinia first of all, her golden locks, her rosy cheeks doth tear. all rave around, and wailings fill the hall. fast flies the news, and shakes the town with fear. then rends his robes latinus in despair, his town in ruins and his consort dead, and, scattering dust upon his hoary hair, himself he blames, that ne'er in turnus' stead the dardan prince he chose, his dear-lov'd child to wed. lxxx. meanwhile, in chase of distant stragglers, speeds fierce turnus. slacker is his car's career, and less he glories in his conquering steeds, when lo, the breezes from laurentum bear the sound of shouting, and the shrieks of fear, and a dull murmur, as of men that groan,-- the city's roar--strikes on his listening ear. "ah me! what clamour on the winds is blown? what noise of grief," he cries, "comes rolling from the town?" lxxxi. he spake, and madly pulled the rein. then she, his sister, like metiscus changed in view, who ruled the chariot, "forward, turnus! see the path that victory points thee to pursue. this way--this way to chase the trojan crew! others there are, who can the walls defend, see here aeneas, how he storms. we, too, our foes, troy's varlets, to their graves can send, nor thee less tale of slain, nor scantier praise attend." lxxxii. then quickly answered turnus, glancing round, "sister, long since i knew thee--knew thee plain, when first thy cunning did the league confound, and sent thee forth, fierce battle to darrain; and now thou think'st to cheat me, but in vain, albeit a goddess. but what power on high hath willed thee, sent from the olympian reign, such toils to suffer, and such tasks to try? cam'st thou, forsooth, to see thy wretched brother die? lxxxiii. "what can i do? what pledge of safety more doth fortune give? what better hopes remain? myself beheld, these very eyes before, murranus die, the dearest of our train, stretched by a huge wound hugely on the plain. i saw, how, backward as his comrades reeled, poor ufens, sooner than behold such stain, sank low in death; himself, his sword and shield the teucrian victors hold, their trophies of the field. lxxxiv. "what, shall i see our houses wrapt in flame,-- last wrong of all--and coward-like, stand by, nor make this arm put drances' taunts to shame? shall turnus run, and latins see him fly? and is it then so terrible to die? be kind, dread spirits of the world below! to you, since envious are the powers on high, worthy my ancestors of long ago, free from the coward's blame, a sacred shade i go." lxxxv. scarce spake he; through the midmost foes apace comes saces, borne upon his foaming steed, a flying shaft had scored him in the face. "turnus," he cries, "sole champion in our need, help us, have pity on thy friends who bleed. see there, aeneas threatens in his ire to raze our towers, and with a storm-cloud's speed thunders in arms, and roofward flies the fire, to thee the latins turn, thee latin hopes require. lxxxvi. "himself, the king, is wavering, whom to call his new allies, and whom his kingdom's heir. dead is the queen, thy faithfullest of all, self-plunged from light, in terror and despair. scarce fierce atinas and messapus there, beside the town-gates standing, hold their own. dense hosts surround them, and with falchions bare, war's harvest bristles, by the walls upgrown; thou on the empty sward art charioting alone." lxxxvii. stunned and bewildered by the changeful scene stood turnus, gazing speechless and oppressed. shame, rage, and sorrow, and revengeful spleen, and frenzied love, and conscious worth confessed boil from the depths of his tumultuous breast. now, when the shadows from his mind withdrew, and light, returning, to his thoughts gave rest, back from his chariot towards the walls he threw his eyes, aflame with wrath, and grasped the town in view. lxxxviii. from floor to floor, behold, a tower upblazed,-- the tower, with bridge above and wheels below, himself with beams and mortised planks had raised. "sister," he cries, "fate conquers; let us go the way which heaven and cruel fortune show. i stand to meet aeneas in the fray, and die; if death be bitter, be it so. no more dishonoured shalt thou see me, nay, o sister, let me vent this fury, while i may." lxxxix. he spake, and quickly vaulting from his car, through foes, through darts, his sister left to mourn, rushed headlong forth, and broke the ranks of war. as when a boulder, from a hill-top borne, which rains have washed, or blustering winds have torn, or creeping years have loosened, down the steep, from crag to crag, leaps headlong, and in scorn goes bounding on, and with resistless sweep lays waste the woods, and whelms the shepherd and his sheep; xc. so turnus through the broken ranks doth fly on to the town-walls, where the crimson plain is soaked, and shrill with javelins shrieks the sky, then shouts, with hand uplifted, to his train, "rutulians, hold! ye latin men refrain! mine are the risks of fortune, mine of right, the truce thus torn, to expiate the stain, and let the sword give judgment." at the sight the hostile ranks divide, and clear the lists of fight. xci. but when the sire aeneas heard the name of turnus, and his foeman's form espied, down from the ramparts and the towers he came, and scorned delay, and put all else aside, thundering in arms, and glorying in his pride. as athos huge, as eryx huge he shows, or huge as father apennine, whose side roars with his nodding oaks, when drifted snows shine on his joyous crest, and lighten on his brows. xcii. rutulians, trojans, latins,--each and all look wondering on, both they who man the height, and they who batter at the base. down fall their arms. amazed latinus views the sight, two chiefs from distant countries, matched in might. the lists set wide, they dash into the fray. each hurls a spear, then, hand to hand, they fight. loud ring the shields, and quick the broadswords play. earth groans, and chance contends with courage for the day. xciii. as on taburnus, or in sila's shade two bulls, with butting foreheads, mix in fray: pale fly the hinds, mute stands the herd dismayed: the heifers low, unknowing who shall sway the grove, what lord and leader to obey; they, with horns locked, their mutual rage outpour, and thrust for thrust, and wound for wound repay, fast from their necks and dewlaps streams the gore, and all the neighbouring wood rebellows to the roar; xciv. so, when both champions on the listed field, the trojan and the daunian, eye to eye, met in the deadly conflict, shield to shield clanged, and a loud crash shattered through the sky. and now great jove, the sire of gods on high, holds up the scales, and sets the long beam straight, and in the balance lays their fates, to try each champion's fortune in the stern debate, whom battle's toil shall doom, where sinks the deathful weight. xcv. forth springs, in fancied safety, at his foe fierce turnus, rising to his utmost height, and planting all his body in the blow, strikes. a loud shout, of terror and delight goes up from troy and latium at the sight. when lo, the falchion, as the stroke he plies, snaps short, and leaves him helpless. naught but flight can aid him; swifter than the wind he flies, as in his hand disarmed an unknown hilt he spies. xcvi. when first his steeds were harnessed for the war, in haste he snatched metiscus' sword, 'tis said, his sire's forgotten, as he climbed the car, and well enough that weapon served his stead, to smite the stragglers, while the trojans fled; but when it met, and countered in the fray the arms of vulcan, then the mortal blade, found faithless, like the brittle ice, gave way, and in the yellow sand the sparkling fragments lay. xcvii. so turnus flies, and, doubling, but in vain, now here, now there, weaves many an aimless round; for all about him, as he scours the plain, the swarming legions of the foe are found, and here the marsh, and there the bulwarks bound. nor less aeneas, though his stiff knee feels the rankling arrow, and the hampering wound retards his pace, pursues him, as he wheels, and dogs the flying foe, and presses on his heels. xcviii. as when some stag, a river in his face, or toils with scarlet feathers, set to scare, a huntsman with his braying hounds doth chase. awed by the steep bank and the threatening snare, a thousand ways he doubles here and there; but the keen umbrian, all agape, is by, now grasps,--now holds him,--and now thinks to tear, and snaps his teeth on nothing; and a cry rings back from shore and stream, and rolls along the sky. xcix. chiding by name his comrades, as he flies, fierce turnus for his trusty sword doth cry. nor less aeneas with his threat defies, "stand off," he shouts, "who ventures to draw nigh, his town shall perish, and himself shall die." onward, though maimed, he presses to his prey. twice five times circling round the field they fly; for no mean stake or sportive prize they play, lo, turnus' life and blood are wagered in the fray. c. a wilding olive on the sward had stood, sacred to faunus. mariners of yore in worship held the venerable bough, when to laurentum's guardian, safe on shore their votive raiment and their gifts they bore. that sacred tree, the lists of fight to clear, troy's sons had lopped. there, in the trunk's deep core, the dardan javelin, urged with impulse sheer, stuck fast; the stubborn root, retentive, grasped the spear. ci. stooping, aeneas with his hands essayed to pluck the steel, and follow with the spear the foe his feet o'ertook not. sore dismayed then turnus cried, "o faunus, heed and hear, and thou, kind earth, hold fast the steel, if dear i held the plant, which trojan hands profaned." he prayed, nor heaven refused a kindly ear. long while aeneas at the tough root strained; vain was his utmost strength; the biting shaft remained. cii. while thus he stooped and struggled, prompt to aid, juturna, to metiscus changed anew, ran forth, and to her brother reached his blade. then venus, wroth the daring nymph to view, came, and the javelin from the stem withdrew, thus, armed afresh, each eager for his chance, the daunian trusting to his falchion true, the dardan towering with uplifted lance, high-hearted, face to face, the breathless chiefs advance. ciii. then jove, as from a saffron cloud above looked juno, pleased the doubtful strife to view, "when shall this end, sweet partner of my love? what more? thou know'st it, and hast owned it too, divine aeneas to the skies is due. what wilt thou, chill in cloudland? was it right a god with mortal weapons to pursue? or give--for thine was all juturna's might-- lost turnus back his sword, and renovate the fight? civ. "desist at length, and hearken to my prayer. feed not in silence on a grief so sore, nor spoil those sweet lips with unlovely care. the end is come; 'twas thine on sea and shore troy's sons to vex, to wake the war's uproar, to cloud a home, a marriage-league untie, and mar with grief a bridal. cease, and more attempt not." thus the ruler of the sky, and thus, with down-cast look, saturnia made reply. cv. "e'en so, great jove, because thy will was known, i left, reluctant, turnus and his land. else ne'er should'st thou behold me here alone, thus shamed and suffering, but, torch in hand, to smite these hateful teucrians would i stand. i made juturna rescue from the foe her hapless brother,--mine was the command,-- approved her daring for his sake, yet so as not to wield the spear, or meddle with the bow. cvi. "nay, that i swear, and a dread oath will take (the only oath that doth the high gods bind), by that grim fount that feeds the stygian lake. and now, great jove, reluctant, but resigned, i yield, and leave the loathed fight behind. one boon i ask, nor that in fate's despite, for latium, for the honour of thy kind. when--be it so--blest hymen's pact they plight, and laws and lasting league the warring folks unite, cvii. "ne'er let the children of the soil disown the name of latins; turn them not, i pray, to trojan folk, to be as teucrians known. ne'er let italia's children put away the garb they wear, the language of to-day let latium flourish, and abide the same, and alban kings through distant ages sway. let rome through latin prowess wax in fame; but fall'n is troy, and fall'n for ever be her name." cviii. smiling, the founder of the world replied: "thou, second child of saturn, born to reign in heaven jove's sister, and his spouse beside. such floods of passion can thy breast contain? but come, and from thy fruitless rage refrain. i yield, and gladly; be thy will obeyed. speech, customs, name ausonia shall retain unchanged for ever, as thy lips have prayed. and in the latin race troy's mingled blood shall fade. cix. "all latins will i make them, of one tongue, and sacred rites, as common good, assign. hence shalt thou see, from blood ausonian sprung, a blended race, whose piety shall shine excelling man's, and equalling divine; and ne'er shall other nation tell so loud thy praise, or pay such homage to thy shrine." well-pleased was juno, and assenting bowed, and straight with altered mind ascended from the cloud. cx. new schemes the sire, from turnus to repel juturna's aid, now ponders in his mind. two fiends there are, called furies. night with fell megaera bore them at one birth, and twined their serpent spires, and winged them like the wind. these at jove's threshold, and beside his throne await his summons, to afflict mankind, when death or pestilence the sire sends down, or shakes the world with war, and scares the guilty town. cxi. one, for an omen, from the skies he sends, to front juturna. down, with sudden spring, to earth, as in a whirlwind, she descends. as when a poisoned arrow from the string through clouds a parthian launches on the wing,-- parthian or cretan--and in darkling flight the shaft, with cureless venom in its sting, screams through the shadows; so, arrayed in might, swift to the earth came down the daughter of the night. cxii. but when troy's host and turnus' ranks were known, shrunk to the semblance of a bird in size, which oft on tombs or ruined roofs alone sits late at night, and with ill-omened cries vexes the darkness; so in dwarfed disguise the foul fiend, shrieking around turnus' head, flaps on his shield, and flutters o'er his eyes. strange torpor numbs the daunian's limbs with dread; the stiffening hair stands up, and all his voice is dead. cxiii. the rustling wings juturna knew, and tore her comely face, and rent her scattered hair, and smote her breast: "o cruel me! what more for turnus can a sister now? what care or craft thy days can lengthen? can i dare to face this fiend? at last, at last i go, and quit the field. foul birds, avaunt, nor scare my fluttering soul. too well the sounds of woe, those beating wings,--too well great jove's behest i know. cxiv. "_this_ for my robbed virginity? ah, why did immortality the sire bestow, and grudge a mortal's privilege--to die? else, sure this moment could i end my woe, and with my hapless brother pass below. immortal i? what joy hath aught beside, thou, turnus, dead? gape, earth, and let me go, a goddess, to the shades!" she spake, and sighed, and, veiled in azure mantle, plunged beneath the tide. cxv. but fierce aeneas on his foeman pressed. his tree-like spear he poises for the fray, and pours the pent-up fury of his breast. "why stay'st thou, turnus? wherefore this delay? fierce arms, not swiftness, must decide the day. shift as thou wilt, and every shape assume; exhaust thy courage and thy craft, and pray for wings to soar with, or in earth's dark womb sink low thy recreant head, and hide thee from thy doom." cxvi. thus he; but turnus shook his head, and said, "ruffian! thy threats are but as empty sound; they daunt not turnus; 'tis the gods i dread, and jove my enemy." then, glancing round, he marked a chance-met boulder on the ground, huge, grey with age, set there in ancient days to clear disputes,--a barrier and a bound. scarce twelve picked men the ponderous mass could raise, such men as earth brings forth in these degenerate days. cxvii. that stone the daunian lifted, straining hard with hurrying hand, and all his height updrew, and at aeneas hurled the monstrous shard; so heaving, and so running, scarce he knew his running, or how huge a weight he threw. cold froze his blood; beneath his trembling frame the weak knees tottered. through the void air flew the stone, nor all the middle space o'ercame, short of its mark it fell, nor answered to its aim. cxviii. as oft in dreams, when drowsy night doth load the slumbering eyes, still eager, but in vain, we strive to race along a lengthening road, and faint and fall, amidmost of the strain; the feeble limbs their wonted aid disdain, mute is the tongue, nor doth the voice obey, nor words find utterance; so with fruitless pain poor turnus strives; but, struggle as he may, the baffling fiend is there, and mocks the vain essay. cxix. then, tost with diverse passions, dazed with fear, towards friends and town he throws an anxious glance. no car he sees, no sister-charioteer. desperate of flight, nor daring to advance, aghast, and shuddering at the lifted lance, he falters. then aeneas poised at last his spear, and hurled it, as he marked his chance. less loud the stone from battering engine cast, less loud through ether bursts the levin-bolt's dread blast. cxx. like a black whirlwind flew the deadly spear, right thro' the rim the sevenfold shield it rent and breastplate's edge, nor stayed its onset ere deep in the thigh its hissing course was spent. down on the earth, his knees beneath him bent, great turnus sank: rutulia's host around sprang up with wailing and with wild lament: from neighbouring hills their piercing cries rebound, and every wooded steep re-echoes to the sound. cxxi. then, looking up, his pleading hands he rears: "death i deserve, nor death would i delay. use, then, thy fortune. if a father's tears move thee, for old anchises' sake, i pray, pity old daunus. me, or else my clay, if so thou wilt, to home and kin restore. thine is the victory. latium's land to-day hath seen her prince the victor's grace implore. lavinia now is thine; the bitter feud give o'er." cxxii. wrathful in arms, with rolling eyeballs, stood aeneas, and his lifted arm withdrew; and more and more now melts his wavering mood, when lo, on turnus' shoulder--known too true-- the luckless sword-belt flashed upon his view; and bright with gold studs shone the glittering prey, which ruthless turnus, when the youth he slew, stripped from the lifeless pallas, as he lay, and on his shoulders wore, in token of the day. cxxiii. then terribly aeneas' wrath upboils, his fierce eyes fixt upon the sign of woe. "shalt _thou_ go hence, and with the loved one's spoils? 'tis pallas--pallas deals the deadly blow. and claims this victim for his ghost below." he spake, and mad with fury, as he said, drove the keen falchion through his prostrate foe. the stalwart limbs grew stiff with cold and dead, and, groaning, to the shades the scornful spirit fled. notes to book one i. 'the lavinian shore,' the coast of italy near lavinium, an old town in latium. see also stanzas xxxv. and xxxvi. iii. carthage was a phoenician colony, and tyre was the leading phoenician city. samos was an island in the archipelago near the coast of asia minor. there was a famous temple on it, dedicated to juno, who was supposed to take a special interest in the island. v. 'the choice of paris' refers to the greek story that once when the gods were feasting, 'discord' threw a golden apple on the table as a prize for the fairest. juno, minerva and venus each claimed it, but the trojan prince paris, who was made judge, gave it to venus. _ganymede_ was a beautiful trojan boy who was carried off to olympus to be jove's cup-bearer. vi. ajax, son of oileus, desecrated minerva's temple at troy. (cf. book ii. stanza liv.) xiv. the 'son of tydeus' is diomedes, one of the foremost greek warriors in the war with troy. aeneas narrowly escaped being slain by him. for _sarpedon_ see book ix. stanza lxxxix. and for _simois_ note on book vi. stanza xiv. xxvi. acestes was king of eryx in sicily, which was called 'trinacria' from its three promontories. see book v. stanzas iv. and following. xxvii. see note on book iii. stanzas lxxi. and following. xxxii. the legend was that antenor escaped from troy and established a colony of trojans at the northern end of the adriatic. the _timavus_ was a small river near where trieste now is. xxxiii. _patavium_. the modern padua. xxxv. ascanius or iulus is the son of aeneas. xxxvi. the legend was that rhea silvia, a priestess of mars, bore the twins romulus and remus. the two children were exposed and left to die, but were found and nursed by a she-wolf. xxxviii. this prophecy refers not to c. julius caesar but to his nephew augustus, as is shown by the references to the east (the battle of actium) and to the closing of the 'gates of janus.' for an account of the latter, see book vii. stanza xxiv. xl. the 'son of maia' is mercury. xlii. harpalyce was the daughter of a thracian king and a famous huntress. xlix. _byrsa_. this word, originally the semitic word for 'citadel,' was thought by the greeks to be their own word _byrsa_ meaning 'a bull's hide.' this mistake was probably the cause of the legend given by virgil. lv. _paphos_ in cyprus was one of the chief centres of the worship of venus. lx. priam was the king of troy, and the atridae were agamemnon and menelaus. achilles is described as fierce to both, because he quarrelled with agamemnon about a captive. it is with this quarrel that the _iliad_ opens. lxii. _rhesus_, king of thrace, had come to help the trojans. it had been prophesied that if his horses ate trojan grass or drank the water of the river, troy could never be taken. diomedes (tydides) prevented this by capturing the horses. lxiii. _troilus:_ a son of priam slain by achilles. lxiv. memnon, son of aurora, the dawn-goddess, and penthesilea, queen of the amazons, came to troy as allies. they were both slain by achilles. lxv. the _eurotas_ was a river in laconia, and cynthus was a mountain of delos. both places were supposed to be favourite haunts of the goddess diana. _oreads:_ mountain-nymphs. _latona_ was the mother of diana and apollo. lxx. _hesperia_, 'the western land,' means italy. the oenotrian folk were an old italian race settled in the south of the peninsula, in lucania. _italus_ is an eponymous hero and was probably invented to account for the name _italia_. probably _italia_ means 'the cattle land.' lxxxii. this teucer, who was a greek, must be carefully distinguished from the founder of the trojans. he was a son of the king of salamis, and on his return from the trojan war was exiled by his father. he fled to dido's father belus, and with the help of the latter founded a new kingdom in cyprus. xcvii. bacchus was the god of wine and feasting. notes to book two xxii. an oracle said that the citadel of troy would never be taken as long as the _palladium_, or image of pallas, remained in it. so diomedes and ulysses stole the image. xxxii. apollo had conferred on cassandra the gift of prophecy. but she deceived him, and as he could not take away his former gift, he added as a curse that no one should ever believe her. xxxv. _neoptolemus_ was the son of achilles and grandson of peleus. xlii. _sigeum_ is the name of the promontory which juts out into the hellespont from the troad. lv. the 'atridan pair' were agamemnon, king of argos, and menelaus, king of sparta, the sons of atreus. lvi. _nereus_ was one of the chief sea-gods. lxi. andromache was the wife of hector. lxiii. pyrrhus is the same as neoptolemus in stanza xxxv. lxxvi. creusa and iulus were the wife and son of aeneas. lxxvii. helen is called 'tyndarean' because she was the daughter of tyndarus. paris, son of priam, had carried her off from her husband menelaus, and so caused the trojan war. lxxxiii. the goddess pallas (athena) wore on her shield the head of the snaky-haired monster medusa, one of the gorgons. lxxxiv. the walls of troy were said to have been built by apollo and neptune. cv. _hesperia_, 'the western land,' here means italy. the tiber is called lydian from a tradition that the lydians had colonised etruria. notes to book three x. the _nereids_ were sea-nymphs, the daughters of nereus. the island mentioned is delos, and the story referred to is that jupiter hid latona, the mother of apollo and diana, on the floating island of delos, in order to shelter her from the jealousy of juno. by means of chains apollo fixed delos between the two small neighbouring islands myconos and gyarus. xii. 'thymbrean lord.' apollo, so called from the town of thymbra in the troad, where he was worshipped. xvi. crete is called 'gnosian' from 'gnossos,' the chief town of the island. xvii. _ortygia_ was the ancient name of delos. xxiii. the 'ausonian shores' means italy. for the ausonians, see book vii. stanza vi. xxix. the strophades were a small group of islands off the south-west coast of greece. the story alluded to is that phineus, king of thrace, unjustly put out the eyes of his sons. as a punishment the gods blinded him, and sent the harpies--loathsome monsters with the bodies of birds and the faces of women--to defile and seize all the food that was set before him. phineus was at last freed from them by zetes and calais, the sons of the north wind, who drove the harpies from thrace to the strophades. for celaeno's prophecy, see note on book vii. stanza xvi. xxxvi. ulysses, the most cunning of the greek leaders before troy, was king of ithaca, and son of laertes. xxxix. _phaeacia_ means _corcyra_, and _chaonia_ is a district of epirus. its chief harbour was buthrotum. xliii. _hermione_ was the daughter of menelaus and helen. orestes was the son of agamemnon and clytemnestra. he slew his mother on account of her treacherous murder of agamemnon when the latter returned home from troy, and killed pyrrhus for having deprived him of his promised bride, hermione. xlvi. _xanthus_ was a river that flowed near troy. the 'scaean gate' was the western gate of troy and looked towards the sea. it was the best known of the gates because most of the fighting took place before it. xlvii. apollo was called 'clarian' from claros (near ephesus), where there was a shrine and oracle of the god. lii. _narycos_, or more properly _naryx_, was a town of the opuntian locri in greece. virgil follows the tradition that they went and settled in the south of italy at the close of the trojan war. the 'sallentinian plain' was the land bordering on the tarentine gulf, and 'petelia' was on the east coast of bruttium, and had been founded by philoctetes, after he had been expelled from thessaly. lv. _scylla_ and _charybdis_ are taken from homer. the former was a terrible sea-monster with six heads, and the latter a whirlpool. tradition fixed their abode as the straits of messina. scylla dwelt in a cave on the italian side, charybdis on the sicilian. lx. dodona, in epirus, was one of the famous oracles in greece. lxviii. the place was called 'castrum minervae,' and lay a few miles to the north of the southern extremity of calabria. lxxii. the cyclops were placed by virgil on the slopes of aetna. lxxiv. _enceladus_ was one of the giants who had fought against the gods, but jupiter struck him down with a thunderbolt and buried him under mount aetna. lxxxvii. _pelorus_ was the most northerly headland of the straits of messina. lxxxviii. _plemmyrium_ ('the place of the tides') is the headland near the harbour of syracuse, which was built on the island of ortygia. the legend which virgil refers to relates that alpheus, the god of a river in elis, fell in love with the nymph arethusa while she was bathing in his waters. diana changed her into a stream, and in that guise she fled from alpheus under land and sea, finally issuing forth in ortygia. alpheus pursued her, and mingled his waters with hers. notes to book four viii. '_sire lyaeus:_' bacchus. these gods are mentioned in this place as having to do with marriage--possibly they are invoked as being specially the gods of carthage. xv. the name 'titan' as applied to the sun is curious. perhaps it is a reference to the greek tale that hyperion, one of the titans, was the father of the sun. xix. the _agathyrsians_ were a scythian tribe, and the _dryopes_ were a thessalian people who dwelt on mount parnassus, the especial home of apollo; cynthus is a mountain in delos. xxvi. 'ammon' was the african jupiter. xxix. the 'zephyrs' were the south-west winds, and so the right ones to take the fleet of aeneas to italy from carthage. xxxii. atlas was the giant who held apart heaven and earth. virgil identifies him with the mountains which lie in north africa between the sea and the desert of sahara. atlas was the father of maia, the mother of mercury. the latter is called 'cyllenius' from his birth-place, mount cyllene in arcadia. xxxviii. mount cithaeron, near thebes, was famous for the revels which took place there in honour of bacchus. xliv. phoebus (apollo) is called 'grynoeus' from grynium, a city of aeolis in asia minor. he was much worshipped in lycia, hence his oracles are often called 'lycian lots.' lv. it was at aulis in boeotia that the greek expedition against troy mustered. lx. in this passage virgil has in mind the _bacchae_ of euripides, in which pentheus goes mad, and perhaps the _eumenides_ of aeschylus, but it is more probable that in the latter case he is merely thinking of orestes as he is represented in tragedy. lxvi. _hecate_, the goddess of the lower world, sometimes identified with proserpina, and sometimes with diana. she was worshipped at cross-roads by night. for _avernus_, see note on book vi. stanza xviii. the ancients believed that foals were born with a lump on their foreheads. the name given to this was _hippomanes_, and it was supposed to act as a powerful love-philtre. lxxxii. by the 'unknown avenger' virgil clearly points to hannibal. notes to book five iv. eryx was the son of venus and butes, aeneas son of venus and anchises, hence they are called brothers here. eryx is the legendary founder of the town of that name on the west coast of sicily, near mount eryx. vi. the story was that acestes was the son of the sicilian river-god crimisus and egesta, a trojan maiden. xi. the myrtle was sacred to venus. helymus was the supposed founder of the elymi, a sicilian tribe. he was a trojan who had migrated to sicily from troy. xvi.-xvii. the _gens memmia_ and the _gens sergia_ were two distinguished roman families who traced their descent from trojans. the only member of the family of cluentius we know much about is the disreputable person on whose behalf cicero made a well-known speech. xxvi. cape malea is the most southerly point of laconia in the peloponnesus, renowned for its storms. xxxii. _panopea_ was one of the nereids or sea-nymphs. portunus was an ancient roman sea-god. originally he was, as his name implies, a god of harbourage. xxxiii. meliboea was a town at the foot of mount ossa in thessaly. lvi. _alcides_, a common name for hercules, who was descended from alcaeus. hercules slew eryx in the boxing-match referred to. lxviii. this refers to an incident mentioned in the _iliad_. a truce had been concluded by the greek and trojans but it was broken by pandarus, who shot an arrow at menelaus. lxxii. the meaning of this passage is very obscure. for we are not told what the portent signified either in this or the succeeding books. the old interpretation was that it referred to the burning of the ships (lxxxii. and following), but it is more probable that virgil was thinking of the wars between rome and sicily. lxxvii. the mother of augustus was a member of the atian family, and this passage was evidently inserted by virgil with the special idea of pleasing augustus. lxxx. for crete and the labyrinth, see note on book vi. stanza iv. ciii. the temple of venus on mount eryx was very celebrated in antiquity. venus is called 'idalian' from idalium in cyprus. cxii. all the names that occur in this stanza are those of sea-gods or sea-nymphs. cxviii. the roman poets placed the sirens on some rocks in the southern part of the bay of naples. notes to book six i. _cumae_ was the most ancient greek colony in campania. the tradition was that it had been founded by immigrants from cyme and aeolis and from chaleis in euboea. hence its name, and the epithet virgil applies to it. ii. the 'sibyl' here mentioned was the most famous of the prophetesses of antiquity. she was directly inspired by apollo (the delian seer), and dwelt in a cavern near his temple. _trivia_ is an epithet of hecate. see note on book iv. stanza lxvi. iii. daedalus, who built the labyrinth for minos, incurred the wrath of the latter and escaped from crete with his son icarus, by making wings. he fastened them on with wax, and icarus flying too near the sun, his wings melted and he fell into the aegean. daedalus, however, reached cumae in safety. iv. on the gate were carvings representing various cretan stories. androgeos was the son of minos, king of crete. he won all the contests at the panathenaic festival at athens, whose king, aegeus, slew him out of jealousy. in revenge, minos made war on the athenians, and forced them to pay a yearly tribute of seven youths and seven maidens, who were devoured by the minotaur. this monster was the offspring of pasiphae, wife of minos, and a bull sent by neptune, and it lived in the labyrinth built by daedalus. the tribute continued to be paid until theseus, son of aegeus, went to crete as one of the seven. ariadne, the daughter of minos, fell in love with him, and helped him to slay the monster. xiv. _xanthus_ and _simois_ were two rivers which flowed through the plain before troy. the new achilles is of course turnus, king of the rutuli. xv. the grecian town is pallanteum, the chief city of evander's kingdom. see book viii. stanza vii. xvi. acheron was the fabled river of the lower world. virgil probably had in his mind the real _acherusia palus_, a gloomy marsh near naples. xviii. there was a volcanic lake near cumae called _avernus_, whose waters gave out sulphureous vapours. it was connected by tradition with the lower world. orpheus, the mythical poet, so charmed the gods of the nether world by his harp-playing, that he was allowed to take back to the upper world his dead wife eurydice. castor was mortal, but his brother pollux was immortal; so when the former was slain in fight pollux obtained from jupiter permission that each should spend half their time in heaven, half in hades. theseus descended into hades in order to carry off proserpine. he was kept a prisoner there until he was rescued by hercules (alcides), who came down to carry off cerberus, the three-headed dog who guarded the entrance (see stanza lvi.). xxxii. virgil alludes to the promontory of misenum on the north side of the bay of naples. the legend is a purely local one. there is no mention of misenus in homer. xxxiii. 'aornos' is a greek word--'where no bird can come.' xxxv. 'the furies' mother and her sister' were night and earth. xxxvii. 'phlegethon' was the 'burning' river of the lower world. xxxix. the beast of lerna is the lernean hydra, slain by hercules; the others are terrible monsters slain by various heroes. xli. charon was the ferryman of the dead. liv. apollo was called amphrysian because he tended the herds of admetus near the river amphrysus in thessaly. here the epithet is strangely transferred to apollo's servant. lvii. minos, king of crete, became one of the judges of the dead, in the under-world. his brother rhadamanthus was the other. see stanza lxxv. lix. for phaedra, see note on book vii. stanza ciii. procris was accidentally slain by her husband, eriphyle was killed by her son alcmaeon, evadne threw herself on her husband's funeral pyre, and laodamia also died with her husband. for pasiphae, see note on stanza iv. lxiii. tydeus, parthenopaeus, and adrastus were three of the seven heroes who fought against thebes. the other names are taken from the _iliad_. lxxvii. the two sons of aloeus were otus and ephialtes, who threatened to assail the immortals by piling pelion on ossa and ossa on olympus. salmoneus of elis was punished for having presumptuously claimed divine honours. lxxx. ixion was king of the lapithae, and being taken to heaven by jupiter, made love to juno, for which he was eternally punished. pirithous was his son, and was guilty of having, with theseus, attempted to carry off proserpine. xciii. _lethe_ was the river of forgetfulness, and those who drank of it forgot their former life and were ready for a new one. c.-ci. the kings mentioned in these two stanzas are the earliest mythical rulers of alba longa. numitor was the father of rhea silvia (ilia), the mother of romulus and remus. cv. the emperor augustus was the nephew and adopted son of c. julius caesar, who claimed to trace his descent back to iulus, and so through aeneas to venus herself. cviii. the first king referred to is numa pompilius, who was a sabine born at cures. tullus and ancus were the third and fourth kings of rome. they can none of them be considered historical figures. cix. this brutus expelled tarquinius superbus, the last king of rome. his sons tried to restore the monarchy and he ordered them to be executed. cx. the decii, father and son, both died in battle, and the family of the drusi had many distinguished members. manlius torquatus was celebrated for killing his son for disobeying orders. camillus was the great roman hero of the fourth century b.c. he was five times dictator and saved rome from the gauls. cxi. virgil is referring to caesar and pompey. cxii. l. mummius captured corinth, and so ended the war with greece, in b.c., and is clearly referred to here. by 'the man who lofty argos shall o'erthrow,' virgil probably means aemilius paullus, who won the battle of pydna in b.c. against a king of macedonia who called himself a descendant of achilles. cxiii. cato was the famous censor of b.c. who vainly tried to check the growth of luxury at rome. cossus killed the king of veii in b.c. the two gracchi were great political reformers. the elder scipio defeated hannibal at zama in b.c., and his son took carthage in b.c. fabricius was the general who fought against pyrrhus, when the latter invaded italy in - b.c. serranus was a general in the first punic war. the fabii of renown are so many that anchises only mentions the most famous of them, q. fabius maximus cunctator, the general against hannibal. cxv. marcus marcellus was a roman general in the first punic war. cxvi. marcellus was the son of the emperor's sister octavia, and at the age of he married augustus' daughter julia. he was a youth of great promise, and was destined to succeed his father-in-law, but he died of fever at the age of in b.c., amidst universal grief. notes to book seven i. 'thou too, caieta,' that is to say, as well as misenus and palinurus, mentioned in the last book. caieta gave her name to the town and promontory which were on the confines of latium and campania. ii. 'the coast, where circe'--virgil identifies 'the island of aeaea,' the dwelling-place of circe in homer, with the promontory of circeii in italy. vi. 'say, erato:' erato was the muse of love, and the invocation is not specially appropriate in this place. but the line is an imitation of apollonius rhodius iii, . 'ausonia,' a poetical name for italy. the _ausones_ were early inhabitants of campania. vii. _latinus_ was king of the latins, a small tribe whose chief town was laurentum. _faunus_ a god of the fields and cattle-keepers, was afterwards identified with the greek pan. _picus_ was a prophetic god. we are told by ovid that he was changed into a woodpecker (_picus_) by circe, whose love he had slighted. _saturnus_ was the old latin god of sowing, and was later identified with the greek kronos, father of zeus. xii. 'albunea': apparently refers to a wooded hill with a sulphur spring. probably it refers to a shrine near some sulphur springs at altieri, near laurentum. 'oenotria': originally the southern part of lucania and bruttium, but virgil uses it poetically for the whole of italy. xiii. see note on book vi. stanzas xvi. and xviii. xvi. it was not anchises, but a harpy who delivered this prophecy. see book viii. stanza xxix. this, and other slight inconsistencies in the _aeneid_ are undoubtedly due to the fact that virgil died before he had revised the poem. xviii. 'phrygia's mother' was cybele, the phrygian goddess. xxiv. 'two-faced janus.' janus was an old latin deity, god of the morning and of gateways. he was represented as 'two-faced,' looking before and behind. there was a double archway in the forum, called _janus_, which was closed in times of peace, but opened in time of war. see stanzas lxxxi., lxxxii. xxviii. the auruncans were a tribe living in campania. xli. the _syrtes_ were two great gulfs on the north coast of africa. for scylla and charybdis, see note on book iii stanza lv. the lapithae were a thessalian tribe, ruled by perithous. the centaurs came to his marriage feast, and at the instigation of mars, fought with the lapithae until the latter were defeated. 'diana's ire' was caused by neglect on the part of king oeneus of calydon to sacrifice to her. she sent a wild boar to ravage the country. lxix. 'trivia's lake' refers to the little lake of nemi. a famous temple of diana stood here, tended by a priest who was a runaway slave. he gained his office by slaying his predecessor and held it only so long as he could escape a similar fate. cf. stanza ciii. 'velia's fountains,' a lake in the umbrian hills beyond reate. lxxxvii. agylla was the original name of caere. xc. homole and othrys were mountains in thessaly. xci. the anio flows through the hills near tibur, and joins the tiber close to 'antemnae's tower-girt height.' cf. stanza lxxxiv. anagnia was the largest town of the hernici, and amasenus was a river of latium. xciii. all these places were close to each other in etruria, a few miles north of rome. xciv. it is probable that this passage was left unfinished by virgil. the simile is taken from homer, and used here in two different ways, the poet evidently postponing his final decision as to which he would adopt, until he revised the poem. xcv. clausus, according to a legend preserved by livy, was a sabine who left his own countrymen and joined the romans. for this he was rewarded by a gift of land on the anio. he was regarded as the ancestor of the claudian family. xcvi. the name of the allia was ill-omened because it was on the banks of this stream that the gauls under brennus inflicted a crushing defeat on the romans in b.c. xcviii. the oscans were one of the old non-latin tribes of italy. some fragments of their language still remain. ciii. the legend was that hippolytus, the son of theseus, king of athens, was loved by his step-mother phaedra. hippolytus rejected her love, and she killed herself, leaving a writing accusing him of having tempted her. theseus in his wrath besought poseidon to slay his son, and the latter sent a monster from the sea, which terrified the horses of hippolytus so that they ran away and killed their master. aesculapius raised him to life, however, and diana concealed him in the grove of aricia under the name of virbius. the virbius in the text is the son of this hippolytus, also called virbius. cvi. io, the daughter of inachus, king of argos, was loved by jupiter, and turned by him into a white cow in order to escape the jealousy of juno. the latter, however, set argus with the hundred eyes to watch her. notes to book eight i. both here and in book vii. stanza lxxxvii. mezentius is called the 'scorner of the gods.' the meaning of this allusion is not known. perhaps it refers to his claiming for himself the first-fruits due to the gods, a legend mentioned by macrobius. see stanzas lxiii. and lxiv. ii. 'diomed' dwelt at argyripa or arpi, a city in apulia, where he settled with his argine followers after the trojan war. vii. pallas is the name of an old arcadian hero. his grandson evander is said to have settled with his followers on the site of rome, and called it pallanteum, after the arcadian city of that name. xiv. hercules was the son of alcmena and jupiter. his worship at rome dated from very early times, as is shown by the legend--mentioned by livy--that it was established by romulus according to greek usage as it had been instituted by evander. xvi. the olive branch was the sign--universally recognised in antiquity--of a desire for peace. xx. the daunian race means the rutulians. daunus was the father of turnus. cf. book xii. stanza iii. xxvii. alcides is one of the names given to hercules. the killing of geryon, the three-bodied monster who was king in spain, and the driving off of his cattle, was one of the famous 'twelve labours' of hercules. xxxvi. the gens potitia and the gens pinaria were the two tribes to which the care of the worship of hercules was entrusted. xxxviii.-ix. in historic times, the salians were the twelve priests of mars who kept the twelve sacred shields in the temple of that god on the palatine hill. their priesthood was one of the oldest roman institutions, and their festival was held on march , the first day of the old roman year. '_his stepdame's hate_' refers to the story that juno, being jealous of alcmena, the mother of hercules, sent two snakes to destroy the latter as he lay in his cradle, but the infant hero strangled them. _eurystheus_ was the king of tiryns, whom hercules had to serve for twelve years, and at whose command he performed his famous twelve labours. _pholus_ and _hylaeus_ were two centaurs; they were called 'cloud-born' because they were the offspring of ixion and a cloud. the cretan monster is the mad bull sent by neptune to destroy the land; hercules came to the rescue and carried it away on his shoulders. there is no other mention in ancient literature of the fight between hercules and typhoeus. the latter was a hundred-headed fire-breathing monster, who fought against the gods, and was buried beneath mount aetna. xlii.-xlviii. evander shows the town to aeneas, tells him of the former state of latium, and points out to him the chief places of interest. _asylum_--livy tells us that in order to increase the population, romulus offered a refuge at rome to all comers from the neighbouring towns. the _lupercal_ was the sanctuary of lupercus ('wolf-repeller'), an old roman shepherd god. the _capitol_ is referred to as 'now golden,' because in virgil's time the roof of the temple of jupiter capitotinus was gilded. l. thetis, the mother of achilles, persuaded vulcan to make arms for her son, and so had aurora, the goddess of dawn, 'tithonus' spouse,' when her son memnon went to troy to fight against the greeks. lv. the island here referred to is hiera, one of the aeolian isles, north-east of sicily. it is now called volcano. the _cyclops_ were originally gigantic one-eyed cannibals who lived a pastoral life near mount aetna. in later legends they are described as the assistants of vulcan. lvi. these three names are greek and mean 'fire-anvil,' 'thunder,' and 'lightning,' respectively. lxxiv. _erulus_ is not mentioned by any other ancient writer, so we cannot explain the allusion. _feronia_ was a campanian goddess. lxxviii. _lucifer_, 'the light bringer,' was the name of the morning star, which, rising just before the sun, seemed to bring the daylight. lxxx. the pelasgians were a very ancient race, of whom only traces existed in greece in historic times. they were said to be very wide-spread, but the tales connecting them with italy are all unhistoric. _silvanus_ was an ancient latin woodland deity. lxxxiv. the story, as related by livy, is that the romans being in want of wives, romulus instituted games in honour of neptune. at a given signal, the romans seized and carried off the sabine maidens who had come to see the games. lxxxv. _mettus_, dictator of alba, had been called in to assist the romans under tullus hostilius. he came, but withdrew his troops in the middle of the battle. for this treachery he was punished in the way virgil describes. _horatius cocles_ was the hero who guarded the tiber bridge against porsenna of clusium. _cloelia_ was a roman maiden who had been sent as a hostage to porsenna. she escaped by swimming across the tiber. lxxxvi. the event here referred to is the invasion of rome by the gauls in b.c. they captured the whole of the city, except the capitol, which was successfully defended by manlius, who had been put on the alert by the cackling of a flock of geese. lxxxvii. see note on stanza xxxviii. the _luperci_ were the priests of lupercus. _catiline_ was the author of the conspiracy of b.c. . cicero, the famous orator, was consul for that year and frustrated the plot. _cato_ the younger died at utica in b.c. in the roman writers catiline is always the proverbial scoundrel and cato is always taken as the model of rigid and exalted virtue. lxxxviii. at the battle of actium, in b.c. , the fleet of augustus met those of antony and cleopatra, and owing to the desertion of the egyptians at the crisis of the fight, gained a complete victory over them. xc. the cyclads were the western islands of the greek archipelago. xciv. the carians lived in the south of asia minor, the gelonians beyond the danube, and the morini on the north sea, near where ostend now is. the dahae were a tribe of scythians, and the leleges were an ancient people spread over asia minor. notes to book nine i. iris, the rainbow-goddess, daughter of thaumas, was the messenger of the gods. pilumnus was an ancient latin god, and an ancestor of turnus. xi. _ida_ was the mountain in the troad whence the wood for the fleet was taken. _berecyntia_. cybele, the mother of the gods. originally a phrygian goddess, the centre of whose worship was mount berecyntus. xiv. the 'brother' is pluto, god of the lower world. to swear by the styx was the most dread and binding oath; it was inviolable even by the gods. xviii. the reference here is to the story of how paris, son of priam, king of troy, seized helen, the wife of menelaus, king of sparta, and so caused the trojan war. menelaus and agamemnon were the sons of atreus. xxviii. for acestes see note on book v. stanza vi. xxxiii. assaracus was an ancestor of the trojan race, and his household gods would of course be the tutelary spirits of the trojan royal family. lii. _latonia_. the daughter of leto, and sister of apollo, diana, who was identified with the greek artemis, the goddess of the woods and of hunting. lxxii. 'jove's armour-bearer' is the eagle. lxxv. the symaethus was a river in sicily. lxxvii. the 'wily-worded ithacan' is ulysses, the hero of the _odyssey_. lxxx. _dindymus_ was a mountain in phrygia, the seat of the worship of cybele. lxxxvi. 'the kid-star.' the 'kids' are two little stars which first rise in the evening towards the end of september, during the equinoctial gales. lxxxvii. the _athesis_ is the modern adige. the _padus_ is the po. lxxxix. sarpedon was a lycian prince who had fought for the trojans at troy and been slain by patroclus. 'theban' here refers to the town of thebe in cilicia, mentioned by homer. xci. _baiae_ was a favourite seaside resort of the rich romans on the bay of naples. _prochyta_ and _arime_ were two rocky islands dose to the bay of naples. typhoeus was a hundred-headed monster slain by jupiter and buried under prochyta and arime. notes to book ten i. olympus was a mountain in thessaly, and was believed by the greeks to be the home of the gods. hence it came to be used for 'heaven'; as in the present passage. ii. jupiter is referring to the invasion of italy by hannibal in b.c. iv. diomedes, the son of tydeus from aetolia, is said to have settled, after the trojan war, in apulia, where he founded the city of arpi. the latins, it will be remembered, had asked him to help them against the trojans. see book viii. stanza ii. and for the result of the embassy, book xi. stanza xxxi. and following. vi. for the burning of the vessels at eryx, see book v. stanzas lxxxii. and following. for _aeolia_ book i. stanzas viii. to xx. for _alecto_ book vii. stanzas xliv. and following. viii. paphos, amathus, and idalium were towns in cyprus. cythera is an island off the southern coast of greece. all four were celebrated in antiquity as centres of the worship of venus. xiv. the robber was paris, who carried off helen. xxi. _ismarus_ was a prince from lydia, a district in asia minor, called maeonia in ancient times. the pactolus was a river in maeonia, famous on account of the quantity of gold it washed down. the 'capuan town' is capua. xxiii. the lions are there because cybele the phrygian goddess, worshipped by the trojans on mount ida, was drawn in her chariot by two lions. the figure-head of aeneas' ship was probably an image of a goddess, personifying the mountain. xxiv. mount helicon is in boeotia, and was sacred to apollo and the muses. _clusium_ and _cosae_ were etruscan cities. xxv. _populonia:_ a town on the coast of etruria. _ilva_ (the modern elba): an island off the coast of etruria near populonia. xxvii. cinyras and cupavo were sons of cycnus. the legend tells us that phaethon rashly attempted to drive the chariot of the sun, and was killed by a thunderbolt from jupiter, while so doing. cycnus, who was devotedly attached to him, was changed into a swan while lamenting his death. xxviii. mantua was virgil's birthplace. hence probably the insertion of this tradition as to its origin. mincius, mentioned in the next stanza, is a lombard river, the mincio, and flows out from lake benacus (lago di garda). xxxvii. sirius, the dog-star, whose rising was supposed to coincide with the hot weather, is always spoken of as bringing pestilence and trouble. the connection between sirius and the hot weather was one of the conventions of poetry which the augustan writers had borrowed from the greeks. lxvii. the story referred to is that of the fifty daughters of danaus, who were married to the fifty sons of aegyptus, their cousins. danaus ordered his daughters to murder their husbands on their wedding night, and they all obeyed except hypermnestra, who loved her husband lynceus, and so saved his life. lxxiii. trivia here refers to diana. gradivus is an archaic latin name for mars. lxxvii. 'mute amyclae' was probably so called because the inhabitants had been forbidden, owing to false alarms, to speak of the approach of an enemy. but if virgil is referring, not to the amyclae near naples, but to the original amyclae in laconia, then the proverbial taciturnity of those inhabiting the latter country offers sufficient explanation. _aegeon_ was a monster with arms and heads. he is more often called briareus. lxxix. in the _iliad_ aeneas had been rescued from diomedes and achilles. liger is taunting him with this. notes to book eleven xxxi. _iapygia_, a greek name for the southern part of apulia. _garganus:_ name of a mountain in apulia. see also note on book x. stanza iv. xxxiii. the references in this stanza are ( ) to the storm which minerva (pallas) raised when the greeks set sail from troy. ( ) to the story of nauplius, king of euboea, who hung false lights over the headland of caphareus, and so caused the wreck of the greek fleet. xxxiv. 'proteus' pillars' means egypt, and the stories of menelaus, as also the adventures of ulysses with the cyclops, will be found in the _odyssey_. for _pyrrhus_ see note on book iii. stanza xliii. for _idomeneus_, that on book iii. stanza xvii. agamemnon was killed by his wife and her lover, when he returned home at the end of the trojan war. xxxv. calydon was the ancient home of diomedes in aetolia. lii. the myrmidons were the followers of achilles--tydides is diomedes. the _aufidus_ is a river of apulia. lxix. opis was a nymph of diana (latonia). lxxxiv. virgil is comparing camilla to the two famous amazons, hippolyte who was married to theseus, and penthesilea who fought for troy and was slain by achilles. cviii. [transcriber's note: the rhyme, the meter, and the sense of the phrase require a word here that is missing from the published text. possibly "flight" or "sight" was intended by the translator.] notes to book twelve xi. orithyia was the wife of boreas the north wind, who according to legend was the father of the royal horses of troy. xxv. the two children of latona were apollo and diana. xxix. camers was king of amyclae. see note on book x. stanza lxxvii. xlv. the story of dolon is taken from the _iliad_. he offered to spy upon the movements of the greeks if hector would give him the chariot and horses of achilles. he was however captured and slain by diomedes (tydides). lii. 'paeon': a name used of apollo as the healer. lxix. 'cupencus' was the name given by the sabines to the priests of hercules. xci. _athos:_ the mountain at the extreme end of the peninsula between thrace and thessaly. mount eryx is in the north-west of sicily. xciii. _taburnus:_ a mountain in samnium. _sila:_ a range of mountains in the extreme south of italy. richard clay & sons, limited, bread street hill, e.c., and bungay, suffolk. the publishers of _everyman's library_ will be pleased to send freely to all applicants a list of the published and projected volumes to be comprised under the following thirteen headings: travel, science, fiction, theology & philosophy, history, classical, for young people, essays, oratory, poetry & drama, biography, reference, romance in four styles of binding: cloth, flat back, coloured top; leather, round corners, gilt top; library binding in cloth, & quarter pigskin london: j. m. dent & sons, ltd. new york: e. p. dutton & co. the Æneids of virgil done into english verse by william morris author of 'the earthly paradise' _third impression_ longmans, green, and co. paternoster row, london new york and bombay the Æneids of virgil. book i. argument. Æneas and his trojans being driven to libya by a tempest, have good welcome of dido, queen of carthage. _lo i am he who led the song through slender reed to cry,_ _and then, come forth from out the woods, the fields that are thereby_ _in woven verse i bade obey the hungry tillers' need:_ _now i, who sang their merry toil, sing mars and dreadful deed._ i sing of arms, i sing of him, who from the trojan land thrust forth by fate, to italy and that lavinian strand first came: all tost about was he on earth and on the deep by heavenly might for juno's wrath, that had no mind to sleep: and plenteous war he underwent ere he his town might frame and set his gods in latian earth, whence is the latin name, and father-folk of alba-town, and walls of mighty rome. say, muse, what wound of godhead was whereby all this must come, how grieving, she, the queen of gods, a man so pious drave to win such toil, to welter on through such a troublous wave: --can anger in immortal minds abide so fierce and fell? there was a city of old time where tyrian folk did dwell, called carthage, facing far away the shores of italy and tiber-mouth; fulfilled of wealth and fierce in arms was she, and men say juno loved her well o'er every other land, yea e'en o'er samos: there were stored the weapons of her hand, and there her chariot: even then she cherished the intent to make her lady of all lands, if fate might so be bent; yet had she heard how such a stem from trojan blood should grow, as, blooming fair, the tyrian towers should one day overthrow, that thence a folk, kings far and wide, most noble lords of fight, should come for bane of libyan land: such web the parcæ dight. the seed of saturn, fearing this, and mindful how she erst for her beloved argive walls by troy the battle nursed-- --nay neither had the cause of wrath nor all those hurts of old failed from her mind: her inmost heart still sorely did enfold that grief of body set at nought in paris' doomful deed, the hated race, and honour shed on heaven-rapt ganymede-- so set on fire, that trojan band o'er all the ocean tossed, those gleanings from achilles' rage, those few the greeks had lost, she drave far off the latin land: for many a year they stray such wise as fate would drive them on by every watery way. --lo, what there was to heave aloft in fashioning of rome! now out of sight of sicily the trojans scarce were come and merry spread their sails abroad and clave the sea with brass, when juno's heart, who nursed the wound that never thence would pass, spake out: "and must i, vanquished, leave the deed i have begun, nor save the italian realm a king who comes of teucer's son? the fates forbid it me forsooth? and pallas, might not she burn up the argive fleet and sink the argives in the sea for oileus' only fault and fury that he wrought? she hurled the eager fire of jove from cloudy dwelling caught, and rent the ships and with the wind the heaped-up waters drew, and him a-dying, and all his breast by wildfire smitten through, the whirl of waters swept away on spiky crag to bide. while i, who go forth queen of gods, the very highest's bride and sister, must i wage a war for all these many years with one lone race? what! is there left a soul that juno fears henceforth? or will one suppliant hand gifts on mine altar lay?" so brooding in her fiery heart the goddess went her way unto the fatherland of storm, full fruitful of the gale, Æolia hight, where Æolus is king of all avail, and far adown a cavern vast the bickering of the winds and roaring tempests of the world with bolt and fetter binds: they set the mountains murmuring much, a-growling angrily about their bars, while Æolus sits in his burg on high, and, sceptre-holding, softeneth them, and strait their wrath doth keep: yea but for that the earth and sea, and vault of heaven the deep, they eager-swift would roll away and sweep adown of space: for fear whereof the father high in dark and hollow place hath hidden them, and high above a world of mountains thrown and given them therewithal a king, who, taught by law well known, now draweth, and now casteth loose the reins that hold them in: to whom did suppliant juno now in e'en such words begin: "the father of the gods and men hath given thee might enow, o Æolus, to smooth the sea, and make the storm-wind blow. hearken! a folk, my very foes, saileth the tyrrhene main bearing their troy to italy, and gods that were but vain: set on thy winds, and overwhelm their sunken ships at sea, or prithee scattered cast them forth, things drowned diversedly. twice seven nymphs are in my house of body passing fair: of whom indeed deïopea is fairest fashioned there. i give her thee in wedlock sure, and call her all thine own to wear away the years with thee, for thy deserving shown to me this day; of offspring fair she too shall make thee sire." to whom spake Æolus: "o queen, to search out thy desire is all thou needest toil herein; from me the deed should wend. thou mak'st my realm; the sway of all, and jove thou mak'st my friend, thou givest me to lie with gods when heavenly feast is dight, and o'er the tempest and the cloud thou makest me of might." therewith against the hollow hill he turned him spear in hand and hurled it on the flank thereof, and as an ordered band by whatso door the winds rush out o'er earth in whirling blast, and driving down upon the sea its lowest deeps upcast. the east, the west together there, the afric, that doth hold a heart fulfilled of stormy rain, huge billows shoreward rolled. therewith came clamour of the men and whistling through the shrouds and heaven and day all suddenly were swallowed by the clouds away from eyes of teucrian men; night on the ocean lies, pole thunders unto pole, and still with wildfire glare the skies, and all things hold the face of death before the seamen's eyes. now therewithal Æneas' limbs grew weak with chilly dread, he groaned, and lifting both his palms aloft to heaven, he said: "o thrice and four times happy ye, that had the fate to fall before your fathers' faces there by troy's beloved wall! tydides, thou of danaan folk the mightiest under shield, why might i never lay me down upon the ilian field, why was my soul forbid release at thy most mighty hand, where eager hector stooped and lay before achilles' wand, where huge sarpedon fell asleep, where simoïs rolls along the shields of men, and helms of men, and bodies of the strong?" thus as he cried the whistling north fell on with sudden gale and drave the seas up toward the stars, and smote aback the sail; then break the oars, the bows fall off, and beam on in the trough she lieth, and the sea comes on a mountain huge and rough. these hang upon the topmost wave, and those may well discern the sea's ground mid the gaping whirl: with sand the surges churn. three keels the south wind cast away on hidden reefs that lie midmost the sea, the altars called by men of italy, a huge back thrusting through the tide: three others from the deep the east toward straits, and swallowing sands did miserably sweep, and dashed them on the shoals, and heaped the sand around in ring: and one, a keel the lycians manned, with him, the trusty king orontes, in Æneas' sight a toppling wave o'erhung, and smote the poop, and headlong rolled, adown the helmsman flung; then thrice about the driving flood hath hurled her as she lay, the hurrying eddy swept above and swallowed her from day: and lo! things swimming here and there, scant in the unmeasured seas, the arms of men, and painted boards, and trojan treasuries. and now ilioneus' stout ship, her that achates leal and abas ferried o'er the main, and old aletes' keel the storm hath overcome; and all must drink the baneful stream through opening leaky sides of them that gape at every seam. but meanwhile neptune, sorely moved, hath felt the storm let go, and all the turmoil of the main with murmur great enow; the deep upheaved from all abodes the lowest that there be: so forth he put his placid face o'er topmost of the sea, and there he saw Æneas' ships o'er all the main besprent, the trojans beaten by the flood and ruin from heaven sent. but juno's guile and wrathful heart her brother knew full well: so east and west he called to him, and spake such words to tell: "what mighty pride of race of yours hath hold upon your minds, that earth and sea ye turmoil so without my will, o winds; that such upheaval and so great ye dare without my will? whom i--but first it comes to hand the troubled flood to still: for such-like fault henceforward though with nought so light ye pay. go get you gone, and look to it this to your king to say: that ocean's realm and three-tined spear of dread are given by fate not unto him but unto me? he holds the cliffs o'ergreat, thine houses, eurus; in that hall i bid him then be bold, thine Æolus, and lord it o'er his winds in barred hold." so saying and swifter than his word he layed the troubled main, and put to flight the gathered clouds, and brought the sun again; and with him triton fell to work, and fair cymothoë, and thrust the ships from spiky rocks; with triple spear wrought he to lift, and opened swallowing sands, and laid the waves alow. then on light wheels o'er ocean's face soft gliding did he go. and, like as mid a people great full often will arise huge riot, and all the low-born herd to utter anger flies, and sticks and stones are in the air, and fury arms doth find: then, setting eyes perchance on one of weight for noble mind, and noble deeds, they hush them then and stand with pricked-up ears, and he with words becomes their lord, and smooth their anger wears; --in such wise fell all clash of sea when that sea-father rose, and looked abroad: who turned his steeds, and giving rein to those, flew forth in happy-gliding car through heaven's all-open way. Æneas' sore forewearied host the shores that nearest lay stretch out for o'er the sea, and turn to libyan land this while. there goes a long firth of the sea, made haven by an isle, against whose sides thrust out abroad each wave the main doth send is broken, and must cleave itself through hollow bights to wend: huge rocks on this hand and on that, twin horns of cliff, cast dread on very heaven; and far and wide beneath each mighty head hushed are the harmless waters; lo, the flickering wood above and wavering shadow cast adown by darksome hanging grove: in face hereof a cave there is of rocks o'erhung, made meet with benches of the living stone and springs of water sweet, the house of nymphs: a-riding there may way-worn ships be bold to lie without the hawser's strain or anchor's hookèd hold. that bight with seven of all his tale of ships Æneas gained, and there, by mighty love of land the trojans sore constrained, leap off-board straight, and gain the gift of that so longed-for sand, and lay their limbs with salt sea fouled adown upon the strand: and first achates smote alive the spark from out the flint, and caught the fire in tinder-leaves, and never gift did stint of feeding dry; and flame enow in kindled stuff he woke; then ceres' body spoilt with sea, and ceres' arms they took, and sped the matter spent with toil, and fruit of furrows found they set about to parch with fire and 'twixt of stones to pound. meanwhile Æneas scaled the cliff and far and wide he swept the main, if anywhere perchance the sea his antheus kept, tossed by the wind, if he might see the twi-banked phrygians row; if capys, or caïcus' arms on lofty deck might show. nor any ship there was in sight, but on the strand he saw three stags a-wandering at their will, and after them they draw the whole herd following down the dales long strung out as they feed: so still he stood, and caught in hand his bow and shafts of speed, the weapons that achates staunch was bearing then and oft; and first the very lords of those, that bore their heads aloft with branching horns, he felled, and then the common sort, and so their army drave he with his darts through leafy woods to go: nor held his hand till on the earth were seven great bodies strown, and each of all his ships might have one head of deer her own. thence to the haven gat he gone with all his folk to share, and that good wine which erst the casks acestes made to bear, and gave them as they went away on that trinacrian beach, he shared about; then fell to soothe their grieving hearts with speech: "o fellows, we are used ere now by evil ways to wend; o ye who erst bore heavier loads, this too the gods shall end. ye, ye have drawn nigh scylla's rage and rocks that inly roar, and run the risk of storm of stones upon the cyclops' shore: come, call aback your ancient hearts and put your fears away! this too shall be for joy to you remembered on a day. through diverse haps, through many risks wherewith our way is strown, we get us on to latium, the land the fates have shown to be for peaceful seats for us: there may we raise up troy. abide, endure, and keep yourselves for coming days of joy." so spake his voice: but his sick heart did mighty trouble rack, as, glad of countenance, he thrust the heavy anguish back. but they fall to upon the prey, and feast that was to dight, and flay the hide from off the ribs, and bare the flesh to sight. some cut it quivering into steaks which on the spits they run, some feed the fire upon the shore, and set the brass thereon. and so meat bringeth might again, and on the grass thereby, fulfilled with fat of forest deer and ancient wine, they lie. but when all hunger was appeased and tables set aside, of missing fellows how they fared the talk did long abide; whom, weighing hope and weighing fear, either alive they trow, or that the last and worst has come, that called they hear not now. and chief of all the pious king Æneas moaned the pass of brisk orontes, amycus, and cruel fate that was of lycus, and of bias strong, and strong cloanthus gone. but now an end of all there was, when jove a-looking down from highest lift on sail-skimmed sea, and lands that round it lie, and shores and many folk about, in topmost burg of sky stood still, and fixed the eyes of god on libya's realm at last: to whom, as through his breast and mind such cares of godhead passed, spake venus, sadder than her due with bright eyes gathering tears: "o thou, who rulest with a realm that hath no days nor years, both gods and men, and mak'st them fear thy thunder lest it fall, what then hath mine Æneas done so great a crime to call? what might have trojan men to sin? so many deaths they bore 'gainst whom because of italy is shut the wide world's door. was it not surely promised me that as the years rolled round the blood of teucer come again should spring from out the ground, the roman folk, such very lords, that all the earth and sea their sway should compass? father, doth the counsel shift in thee? this thing indeed atoned to me for troy in ashes laid, and all the miserable end, as fate 'gainst fate i weighed: but now the self-same fortune dogs men by such troubles driven so oft and oft. what end of toil then giv'st thou, king of heaven? antenor was of might enow to 'scape the achæan host, and safe to reach the illyrian gulf and pierce liburnia's coast, and through the inmost realms thereof to pass timavus' head, whence through nine mouths midst mountain roar is that wild water shed, to cast itself on fields below with all its sounding sea: and there he made patavium's town and teucrian seats to be, and gave the folk their very name and trojan arms did raise: now settled in all peace and rest he passeth quiet days. but we, thy children, unto whom thou giv'st with bowing head the heights of heaven, our ships are lost, and we, o shame! betrayed, are driven away from italy for anger but of one. is this the good man's guerdon then? is this the promised throne?" the sower of the gods and men a little smiled on her with such a countenance as calms the storms and upper air; he kissed his daughter on the lips, and spake such words to tell: "o cytherean, spare thy dread! unmoved the fates shall dwell of thee and thine, and thou shalt see the promised city yet, e'en that lavinium's walls, and high amidst the stars shalt set great-souled Æneas: nor in me doth aught of counsel shift but since care gnaws upon thine heart, the hidden things i lift of fate, and roll on time for thee, and tell of latter days. great war he wars in italy, and folk full wild of ways he weareth down, and lays on men both laws and wallèd steads, till the third summer seeth him king o'er the latin heads, and the third winter's wearing brings the fierce rutulians low. thereon the lad ascanius, iulus by-named now, (and ilus was he once of old, when ilium's city was,) fulfilleth thirty orbs of rule with rolling months that pass, and from the town lavinium shifts the dwelling of his race, and maketh alba-town the long a mighty fencèd place. here when for thrice an hundred years untouched the land hath been beneath the rule of hector's folk, lo ilia, priestess-queen, goes heavy with the love of mars, and bringeth twins to birth. 'neath yellow hide of foster-wolf thence, mighty in his mirth, comes romulus to bear the folk, and mavors' walls to frame, and by the word himself was called the roman folk to name. on them i lay no bonds of time, no bonds of earthly part; i give them empire without end: yea, juno, hard of heart, who wearieth now with fear of her the heavens and earth and sea, shall gather better counsel yet, and cherish them with me; the roman folk, the togaed men, lords of all worldly ways. such is the doom. as weareth time there come those other days, wherein assaracus shall bind mycenæ of renown, and phthia, and shall lord it o'er the argives beaten down. then shall a trojan cæsar come from out a lovely name, the ocean-stream shall bound his rule, the stars of heaven his fame, julius his name from him of old, the great iulus sent: him too in house of heaven one day 'neath spoils of eastlands bent thou, happy, shalt receive; he too shall have the prayers of men. the wars of old all laid aside, the hard world bettereth then, and vesta and the hoary faith, quirinus and his twin now judge the world; the dreadful doors of war now shut within their iron bolts and strait embrace the godless rage of folk, who, pitiless, on weapons set, and bound in brazen yoke of hundred knots aback of him foams fell from bloody mouth." such words he spake, and from aloft he sent down maia's youth to cause the lands and carthage towers new-built to open gate and welcome in the teucrian men; lest dido, fooled of fate, should drive them from her country-side. the unmeasured air he beat with flap of wings, and speedily in libya set his feet: and straightway there his bidding wrought, and from the tyrians fall, god willing it, their hearts of war; and dido first of all took peace for teucrians to her soul, and quiet heart and kind. now good Æneas through the night had many things in mind, and set himself to fare abroad at first of holy day to search the new land what it was, and on what shore he lay driven by the wind; if manfolk there abode, or nought but deer, (for waste it seemed), and tidings true back to his folk to bear. so in that hollow bight of groves beneath the cavern cleft, all hidden by the leafy trees and quavering shades, he left his ships: and he himself afoot went with achates lone, shaking in hand two slender spears with broad-beat iron done. but as he reached the thicket's midst his mother stood before, who virgin face, and virgin arms, and virgin habit bore, a spartan maid; or like to her who tames the thracian horse, harpalyce, and flies before the hurrying hebrus' course. for huntress-wise on shoulder she had hung the handy bow, and given all her hair abroad for any wind to blow, and, naked-kneed, her kirtle long had gathered in a lap: she spake the first: "ho youths," she said, "tell me by any hap if of my sisters any one ye saw a wandering wide with quiver girt, and done about with lynx's spotted hide, or following of the foaming boar with shouts and eager feet?" so venus; and so venus' son began her words to meet: "i have not seen, nor have i heard thy sisters nigh this place, o maid:--and how to call thee then? for neither is thy face of mortals, nor thy voice of men: o very goddess thou! what! phoebus' sister? or of nymphs whom shall i call thee now? but whosoe'er thou be, be kind and lighten us our toil, and teach us where beneath the heavens, which spot of earthly soil we are cast forth; unlearned of men, unlearned of land we stray, by might of wind and billows huge here driven from out our way. our right hands by thine altar-horns shall fell full many a host." spake venus: "nowise am i worth so much of honour's cost: the tyrian maids are wont to bear the quiver even as i, and even so far upon the leg the purple shoe-thong tie. the punic realm thou seest here, agenor's town and folk, but set amidst of libyan men unused to bear the yoke. dido is lady of the land, who fled from tyre the old, and from her brother: weary long were all the ill deed told, and long its winding ways, but i light-foot will overpass. her husband was sychæus hight, of land most rich he was of all phoenicians: she, poor wretch! loved him with mighty love, whose father gave her, maid, to him, and first the rites did move of wedlock: but as king of tyre her brother did abide, pygmalion, more swollen up in sin than any man beside: mad hatred yoked the twain of them, he blind with golden lust, godless with stroke of iron laid sychæus in the dust unwares before the altar-horns; nor of the love did reck his sister had, but with vain hope played on the lover sick, and made a host of feignings false, and hid the matter long. till in her sleep the image came of that unburied wrong, her husband dead; in wondrous wise his face was waxen pale: his breast with iron smitten through, the altar of his bale, the hooded sin of evil house, to her he open laid, and speedily to flee away from fatherland he bade; and for the help of travel showed earth's hidden wealth of old, a mighty mass that none might tell of silver and of gold. sore moved hereby did dido straight her flight and friends prepare: they meet together, such as are or driven by biting fear, or bitter hatred of the wretch: such ships as hap had dight they fall upon and lade with gold; forth fare the treasures bright of wretch pygmalion o'er the sea, a woman first therein. and so they come unto the place where ye may see begin the towers of carthage, and the walls new built that mighty grow, and bought the byrsa-field good cheap, as still the name shall show, so much of land as one bull's hide might scantly go about --but ye forsooth, what men are ye, from what land fare ye out, and whither go ye on your ways?" her questioning in speech he answered, and a heavy sigh from inmost heart did reach: "o goddess, might i tread again first footsteps of our way, and if the annals of our toil thine hearkening ears might stay, yet vesper first on daylight dead should shut olympus' door. from troy the old, if yet perchance your ears have felt before that name go by, do we come forth, and, many a water past, a chance-come storm hath drifted us on libyan shores at last. i am Æneas, god-lover; i snatched forth from the foe my gods to bear aboard with me, a fame for heaven to know. i seek the italian fatherland, and jove-descended line; twice ten the ships were that i manned upon the phrygian brine, my goddess-mother led the way, we followed fate god-given; and now scarce seven are left to me by wave and east-wind riven; and i through libyan deserts stray, a man unknown and poor, from asia cast, from europe cast," she might abide no more to hear his moan: she thrusts a word amidst his grief and saith: "nay thou art not god's castaway, who drawest mortal breath, and fairest to the tyrian town, if aught thereof i know. set on to dido's threshold then e'en as the way doth show. for take the tidings of thy ships and folk brought back again by shifting of the northern wind all safe from off the main: unless my parents learned me erst of soothsaying to wot but idly. lo there twice seven swans disporting in a knot, whom falling from the plain of air drave down the bird of jove from open heaven: strung out at length they hang the earth above, and now seem choosing where to pitch, now on their choice to gaze, as wheeling round with whistling wings they sport in diverse ways and with their band ring round the pole and cast abroad their song. nought otherwise the ships and youth that unto thee belong hold haven now, or else full sail to harbour-mouth are come. set forth, set forth and tread the way e'en as it leadeth home." she spake, she turned, from rosy neck the light of heaven she cast, and from her hair ambrosial the scent of gods went past upon the wind, and o'er her feet her skirts fell shimmering down, and very god she went her ways. therewith his mother known, with such a word he followed up a-fleeing from his eyes: "ah cruel as a god! and why with images and lies dost thou beguile me? wherefore then is hand to hand not given and we to give and take in words that come from earth and heaven?" such wise he chided her, and then his footsteps townward bent: but venus with a dusky air did hedge them as they went, and widespread cloak of cloudy stuff the goddess round them wrapped, lest any man had seen them there, or bodily had happed across their road their steps to stay, and ask their dealings there. but she to paphos and her home went glad amidst the air: there is her temple, there they stand, an hundred altars meet, warm with sabæan incense-smoke, with new-pulled blossoms sweet. but therewithal they speed their way as led the road along; and now they scale a spreading hill that o'er the town is hung, and looking downward thereupon hath all the burg in face. Æneas marvels how that world was once a peasants' place, he marvels at the gates, the roar and rattle of the ways. hot-heart the tyrians speed the work, and some the ramparts raise, some pile the burg high, some with hand roll stones up o'er the ground; some choose a place for dwelling-house and draw a trench around; some choose the laws, and lords of doom, the holy senate choose. these thereaway the havens dig, and deep adown sink those the founding of the theatre walls, or cleave the living stone in pillars huge, one day to show full fair the scene upon. as in new summer 'neath the sun the bees are wont to speed their labour in the flowery fields, whereover now they lead the well-grown offspring of their race, or when the cells they store with flowing honey, till fulfilled of sweets they hold no more; or take the loads of new-comers, or as a watch well set drive off the lazy herd of drones that they no dwelling get; well speeds the work, and thymy sweet the honey's odour is. "well favoured of the fates are ye, whose walls arise in bliss!" Æneas cries, a-looking o'er the housetops spread below; then, wonderful to tell in tale, hedged round with cloud doth go amid the thickest press of men, and yet of none is seen. a grove amid the town there is, a pleasant place of green, where erst the tyrians, beat by waves and whirling of the wind, dug out the token juno once had bidden them hope to find, an eager horse's head to wit: for thus their folk should grow far-famed in war for many an age, of victual rich enow. there now did dido, sidon-born, uprear a mighty fane to juno, rich in gifts, and rich in present godhead's gain: on brazen steps its threshold rose, and brass its lintel tied, and on their hinges therewithal the brazen door-leaves cried. and now within that grove again a new thing thrusting forth 'gan lighten fear; for here to hope Æneas deemed it worth, and trust his fortune beaten down that yet it might arise. for there while he abode the queen, and wandered with his eyes o'er all the temple, musing on the city's fate to be, and o'er the diverse handicraft and works of mastery, lo there, set out before his face the battles that were troy's, and wars, whereof all folk on earth had heard the fame and noise; king priam, the atridæ twain, achilles dire to both. he stood, and weeping spake withal: "achates, lo! forsooth what place, what land in all the earth but with our grief is stored? lo priam! and even here belike deed hath its own reward. lo here are tears for piteous things that touch men's hearts anigh: cast off thy fear! this fame today shall yet thy safety buy." and with the empty painted thing he feeds his mind withal, sore groaning, and a very flood adown his face did fall. for there he saw, as war around of pergamus they cast, here fled the greeks, the trojan youth for ever following fast; there fled the phrygians, on their heels high-helmed achilles' car; not far off, fair with snowy cloths, the tents of rhesus are; he knew them weeping: they of old in first of sleep betrayed, tydides red with many a death a waste of nothing made, and led those fiery steeds to camp ere ever they might have one mouthful of the trojan grass, or drink of xanthus' wave. and lo again, where troilus is fleeing weaponless, unhappy youth, and all too weak to bear achilles' stress, by his own horses, fallen aback, at empty chariot borne, yet holding on the reins thereof; his neck, his tresses torn o'er face of earth, his wrested spear a-writing in the dust. meanwhile were faring to the fane of pallas little just the wives of troy with scattered hair, bearing the gown refused, sad they and suppliant, whose own hands their very bosoms bruised, while fixed, averse, the goddess kept her eyes upon the ground. thrice had achilles hector dragged the walls of troy around, and o'er his body, reft of soul, was chaffering now for gold. deep groaned Æneas from his heart in such wise to behold the car, the spoils, the very corpse of him, his fellow dead, to see the hands of priam there all weaponless outspread. yea, thrust amidst achæan lords, his very self he knew; the eastland hosts he saw, and arms of memnon black of hue. there mad penthesilea leads the maids of moony shield, the amazons, and burns amidst the thousands of the field, and with her naked breast thrust out above the golden girth, the warrior maid hath heart to meet the warriors of the earth. but while Æneas, dardan lord, beholds the marvels there, and, all amazed, stands moving nought with eyes in one set stare, lo cometh dido, very queen of fairest fashion wrought, by youths close thronging all about unto the temple brought. yea, e'en as on eurotas' rim or cynthus' ridges high diana leadeth dance about, a thousandfold anigh the following oreads gather round, with shoulder quiver-hung she overbears the goddesses her swift feet fare among, and great latona's silent breast the joys of godhead touch. lo, such was dido; joyously she bore herself e'en such amidst them, eager for the work and ordered rule to come; then through the goddess' door she passed, and midmost 'neath the dome, high raised upon a throne she sat, with weapons hedged about, and doomed, and fashioned laws for men, and fairly sifted out and dealt their share of toil to them, or drew the lot as happed. there suddenly Æneas sees amidst a concourse wrapped antheus, sergestus, and the strong cloanthus draw anigh, and other teucrians whom the whirl, wild, black, all utterly had scattered into other lands afar across the sea. amazed he stood, nor stricken was achates less than he by joy, by fear: they hungered sore hand unto hand to set; but doubt of dealings that might be stirred in their hearts as yet; so lurking, cloaked in hollow cloud they note what things betide their fellows there, and on what shore the ships they manned may bide, and whence they come; for chosen out of all the ships they bear bidding of peace, and, crying out, thus temple-ward they fare. but now when they were entered in, and gained the grace of speech, from placid heart ilioneus the elder 'gan beseech: "o queen, to whom hath jove here given a city new to raise, and with thy justice to draw rein on men of wilful ways, we wretched trojans, tossed about by winds o'er every main, pray thee forbid it from our ships, the dreadful fiery bane. spare pious folk, and look on us with favouring kindly eyes! we are not come with sword to waste the libyan families, nor drive adown unto the strand the plunder of the strong: no such high hearts, such might of mind to vanquished folk belong. there is a place, hesperia called of greeks in days that are, an ancient land, a fruitful soil, a mighty land in war. oenotrian folk first tilled the land, whose sons, as rumours run, now call it nought but italy from him who led them on. and thitherward our course was turned, when sudden, stormy, tumbling seas, orion rose on us, and wholly scattering us abroad with fierce blasts from the south, drave us, sea-swept, by shallows blind, to straits with wayless mouth: but to thy shores we few have swum, and so betake us here. what men among men are ye then? what country's soil may bear such savage ways? ye grudge us then the welcome of your sand, and fall to arms, and gainsay us a tide-washed strip of strand. but if men-folk and wars of men ye wholly set at nought, yet deem the gods bear memory still of good and evil wrought Æneas was the king of us; no juster was there one, no better lover of the gods, none more in battle shone: and if the fates have saved that man, if earthly air he drink, nor 'neath the cruel deadly shades his fallen body shrink, nought need we fear, nor ye repent to strive in kindly deed with us: we have in sicily fair cities to our need. and fields we have; acestes high of trojan blood is come. now suffer us our shattered ships in haven to bring home, to cut us timber in thy woods, and shave us oars anew. then if the italian cruise to us, if friends and king are due, to italy and latium then full merry wend we on. but if, dear father of our folk, hope of thy health be gone, and thee the libyan water have, nor hope iulus give, then the sicanian shores at least, and seats wherein to live, whence hither came we, and the king acestes let us seek." so spake he, and the others made as they the same would speak, the dardan-folk with murmuring mouth. but dido, with her head hung down, in few words answer gave: "let fear fall from you, teucrian men, and set your cares aside; hard fortune yet constraineth me and this my realm untried to hold such heed, with guard to watch my marches up and down. who knoweth not Æneas' folk? who knoweth not troy-town, the valour, and the men, and all the flame of such a war? nay, surely nought so dull as this the souls within us are, nor turns the sun from tyrian town, so far off yoking steed. so whether ye hesperia great, and saturn's acres need, or rather unto eryx turn, and king acestes' shore, safe, holpen will i send you forth, and speed you with my store: yea and moreover, have ye will in this my land to bide. this city that i build is yours: here leave your ships to ride: trojan and tyrian no two wise at hands of me shall fare. and would indeed the king himself, Æneas, with us were, driven by that self-same southern gale: but sure men will i send, and bid them search through libya from end to utmost end, lest, cast forth anywhere, he stray by town or forest part." father Æneas thereupon high lifted up his heart, nor stout achates less, and both were fain the cloud to break; and to Æneas first of all the leal achates spake: "o goddess-born, what thought hereof ariseth in thy mind? all safe thou seest thy ships; thy folk fair welcomed dost thou find: one is away, whom we ourselves saw sunken in the deep; but all things else the promised word thy mother gave us keep." lo, even as he spake the word the cloud that wrapped them cleaves, and in the open space of heaven no dusk behind it leaves; and there Æneas stood and shone amid the daylight clear, with face and shoulders of a god: for loveliness of hair his mother breathed upon her son, and purple light of youth, and joyful glory of the eyes: e'en as in very sooth the hand gives ivory goodliness, or when the parian stone, or silver with the handicraft of yellow gold is done: and therewithal unto the queen doth he begin to speak, unlooked-for of all men: "lo here the very man ye seek, trojan Æneas, caught away from libyan seas of late! thou, who alone of toils of troy hast been compassionate, who takest us, the leavings poor of danaan sword, outworn with every hap of earth and sea, of every good forlorn, to city and to house of thine: to thank thee to thy worth, dido, my might may compass not; nay, scattered o'er the earth the dardan folk, for what thou dost may never give thee meed: but if somewhere a godhead is the righteous man to heed, if justice is, or any soul to note the right it wrought, may the gods give thee due reward. what joyful ages brought thy days to birth? what mighty ones gave such an one today? now while the rivers seaward run, and while the shadows stray o'er hollow hills, and while the pole the stars is pasturing wide, still shall thine honour and thy name, still shall thy praise abide what land soever calleth me." therewith his right hand sought his very friend ilioneus, his left serestus caught, and then the others, gyas strong, cloanthus strong in fight. sidonian dido marvelled much, first at the hero's sight, then marvelled at the haps he had, and so such word doth say: "o goddess-born, what fate is this that ever dogs thy way with such great perils? what hath yoked thy life to this wild shore? and art thou that Æneas then, whom holy venus bore unto anchises, dardan lord, by phrygian simoïs' wave? of teucer unto sidon come a memory yet i have, who, driven from out his fatherland, was seeking new abode by belus' help: but belus then, my father, over-rode cyprus the rich, and held the same as very conquering lord: so from that tide i knew of troy and bitter fate's award, i knew of those pelasgian kings--yea, and i knew thy name. he then, a foeman, added praise to swell the teucrian fame, and oft was glad to deem himself of ancient teucer's line. so hasten now to enter in 'neath roofs of me and mine. me too a fortune such as yours, me tossed by many a toil, hath pleased to give abiding-place at last upon this soil, learned in illhaps full wise am i unhappy men to aid." such tale she told, and therewith led to house full kingly made Æneas, bidding therewithal the gods with gifts to grace; nor yet their fellows she forgat upon the sea-beat place, but sendeth them a twenty bulls, an hundred bristling backs of swine, an hundred fatted lambs, whereof his ewe none lacks, and gifts and gladness of the god. meanwhile the gleaming house within with kingly pomp is dight, and in the midmost of the hall a banquet they prepare: cloths laboured o'er with handicraft, and purple proud is there; great is the silver on the board, and carven out of gold the mighty deeds of father-folk, a long-drawn tale, is told, brought down through many and many an one from when their race began. Æneas, through whose father's heart unquiet love there ran, sent on the swift achates now unto the ships to speed, to bear ascanius all these haps, and townward him to lead; for on ascanius well beloved was all his father's thought: and therewithal gifts good to give from ilium's ruin caught he bade him bring: a cope all stiff with golden imagery; with saffron soft acanthus twine a veil made fair to see; the argive helen's braveries, brought from mycenæ erst, when she was seeking pergamos and wedding all accursed: her mother leda gave her these and marvellous they were. a sceptre too that ilione in days agone did bear, the eldest-born of priam's maids; a neckchain pearl bestrown, and, doubly wrought with gold and gems, a kingly-fashioned crown. so to the ships achates went these matters forth to speed. but cytherea in her heart turned over new-wrought rede, new craft; how, face and fashion changed, her son the very love for sweet ascanius should come forth, and, gift-giving, should move the queen to madness, make her bones the yoke-fellows of flame. forsooth the doubtful house she dreads, the two-tongued tyrian name; and bitter juno burneth her, and care the night doth wake: now therefore to the winged love such words as this she spake: "o son, my might, my only might, who fearest nought at all how his, the highest father's bolts, typhoeus' bane, may fall, to thee i flee, and suppliant so thy godhead's power beseech: thy brother, e'en Æneas, tossed on every sea-side beach thou knowest; all the fashioning of wrongful juno's hate thou knowest; oft upon my grief with sorrow wouldst thou wait. him now phoenician dido holds, and with kind words enow delays him there, but unto what junonian welcomes grow i fear me: will she hold her hand when thus the hinge is dight? now therefore am i compassing to catch their craft in flight, to ring the queen about with flame that her no power may turn, that she may cling to me and sore for mine Æneas yearn. now hearken how i counsel thee to bring about my will: the kingly boy his father calls, he whom i cherish still, to that sidonian city now is ready dight to fare, and gifts, the gleanings of the sea and flames of troy, doth bear, whom soaked in sleep forthwith will i in high cythera hide, or in idalium's holy place where i am wont to bide, lest any one the guile should know and thrust themselves between: but thou with craft his fashion feign, and with his face be seen well known of all, for no more space than one night's wearing by; and so, when dido, gladdest grown, shall take thee up to lie upon her breast 'twixt queenly board and great lyæus' wave, and thou the winding of her arms and kisses sweet shalt have, then breathe the hidden flame in her and forge thy venomed guile." his lovesome mother love obeyed, and doffed his wings awhile, and as iulus goeth now rejoicing on his way. but venus all ascanius' limbs in quiet rest doth lay, and cherished in her goddess' breast unto idalian groves she bears him, where the marjoram still soft about him moves and breatheth sweet from scented shade and blossoms on the air. love wrought her will, and bearing now those royal gifts and rare, unto the tyrians joyous went, e'en as achates led. but when he came into the house, there on her golden bed with hangings proud queen dido lay amidmost of the place: the father then, Æneas, then the youth of trojan race, there gather, and their bodies cast on purple spread abroad. folk serve them water for their hands, and speed the baskets stored with ceres, and the towels soft of close-clipped nap they bear. within were fifty serving-maids, whose long array had care to furnish forth the meat and drink, and feed the house-gods' flame; an hundred more, and youths withal of age and tale the same, set on the meat upon the board and lay the cups about. and now through that wide joyous door came thronging from without the tyrians, and, so bidden, lie on benches painted fair. they wonder at Æneas' gifts, and at iulus there, the flaming countenance of god, and speech so feigned and fine; they wonder at the cope and veil with that acanthus twine. and chiefly that unhappy one doomed to the coming ill, nor hungry hollow of her heart nor burning eyes may fill with all beholding: gifts and child alike her heart do move. but he, when he had satisfied his feignèd father's love, and clipped Æneas all about, and round his neck had hung, went to the queen, who with her eyes and heart about him clung, and whiles would strain him to her breast--poor dido! knowing nought what god upon her bosom sat; who ever had in thought his acidalian mother's word, and slowly did begin to end sychæus quite, and with a living love to win her empty soul at rest, and heart unused a weary tide. but when the feasting first was stayed, and boards were done aside, great beakers there they set afoot, and straight the wine they crowned. a shout goes up within the house, great noise they roll around the mighty halls: the candles hang adown from golden roof all lighted, and the torches' flame keeps dusky night aloof. and now a heavy bowl of gold and gems the queen bade bring and fill with all unwatered wine, which erst used belus king, and all from belus come: therewith through the hushed house she said: "o jupiter! they say by thee the guesting laws were made; make thou this day to tyrian folk, and folk come forth from troy, a happy day, and may our sons remember this our joy! mirth-giver bacchus, fail thou not from midst our mirth! be kind, o juno! and ye tyrian folk, be glad this bond to bind!" she spake, and on the table poured the glorious wave of wine, then touched the topmost of the bowl with dainty lip and fine, and, egging on, to bitias gave: nought slothful to be told the draught he drained, who bathed himself within the foaming gold; then drank the other lords of them: long-haired iopas then maketh the golden harp to sing, whom atlas most of men erst taught: he sings the wandering moon and toiling of the sun, and whence the kind of men and beasts, how rain and fire begun, arcturus, the wet hyades, and twin-wrought northern bears: and why so swift the winter sun unto his sea-bath fares, and what delayeth night so long upon the daylight's hem. then praise on praise the tyrians shout, the trojans follow them. meanwhile unhappy dido wore the night-tide as it sank in diverse talk, and evermore long draughts of love she drank, and many a thing of priam asked, of hector many a thing: with what-like arms aurora's son had come unto the king; what were the steeds of diomed, how great achilles was. at last she said: "but come, o guest, tell all that came to pass from earliest tide; of danaan craft, and how thy land was lorn, and thine own wanderings; for as now the seventh year is worn that thee a-straying wide away o'er earth and sea hath borne." book ii. argument. Æneas telleth to dido and the tyrians the story of troy's overthrow. all hearkened hushed, and fixed on him was every face of man, as from the couch high set aloft Æneas thus began: "unutterable grief, o queen, thou biddest me renew the falling of the trojan weal and realm that all shall rue 'neath danaan might; which thing myself unhappy did behold, yea, and was no small part thereof. what man might hear it told of dolopes, or myrmidons, or hard ulysses' band, and keep the tears back? dewy night now falleth from the land of heaven, and all the setting stars are bidding us to sleep: but if to know our evil hap thy longing is so deep, if thou wilt hear a little word of troy's last agony, though memory shuddereth, and my heart shrunk up in grief doth lie, i will begin. by battle broke, and thrust aback by fate through all the wearing of the years, the danaan lords yet wait and build a horse up mountain-huge by pallas' art divine, fair fashioning the ribs thereof with timbers of the pine, and feign it vowed for safe return, and let the fame fly forth. herein by stealth a sort of men chosen for bodies' worth amid its darkness do they shut; the caverns inly lost deep in the belly of the thing they fill with armed host. in sight of troy lies tenedos, an island known of all, and rich in wealth before the realm of priam had its fall, now but a bay and roadstead poor, where scarcely ships may ride. so thither now they sail away in desert place to hide. we thought them gone, and that they sought mycenæ on a wind, whereat the long-drawn grief of troy fell off from every mind. the gates are opened; sweet it is the dorian camp to see, the dwellings waste, the shore all void where they were wont to be: here dwelt the band of dolopes, here was achilles set, and this was where their ships were beached; here edge to edge we met. some wonder at unwedded maid minerva's gift of death, that baneful mountain of a horse; and first thymoetes saith 'twere good in walls to lead the thing, on topmost burg to stand; whether such word the fate of troy or evil treason planned i know not: capys and the rest, who better counsel have, bid take the fashioned guile of greeks, the doubtful gift they gave, to tumble it adown to sea, with piled-up fire to burn, or bore the belly of the beast its hidden holes to learn; so cleft atwain is rede of men abiding there in doubt. but first before all others now with much folk all about laocoon the fiery man runs from the burg adown, and shouts from far: 'o wretched men, how hath such madness grown? deem ye the foe hath fared away? deem ye that danaan gifts may ever lack due share of guile? are these ulysses' shifts? for either the achæans lurk within this fashioned tree, or 'tis an engine wrought with craft bane of our walls to be, to look into our very homes, and scale the town perforce: some guile at least therein abides: teucrians, trust not the horse! whatso it is, the danaan folk, yea gift-bearing i fear.' thus having said, with valiant might he hurled a huge-wrought spear against the belly of the beast swelled out with rib and stave; it stood a-trembling therewithal; its hollow caverns gave from womb all shaken with the stroke a mighty sounding groan. and but for god's heart turned from us, for god's fate fixed and known, he would have led us on with steel to foul the argive den, and thou, o troy, wert standing now, thou priam's burg as then! but lo, where dardan shepherds lead, with plenteous clamour round, a young man unto priam's place with hands behind him bound, who privily had thrust himself before their way e'en now the work to crown, and into troy an open way to show unto the greeks; a steadfast soul, prepared for either end, or utterly to work his craft or unto death to bend. eager to see him as he went around the trojans flock on every side, and each with each contend the man to mock. lo now, behold the danaan guile, and from one wrong they wrought learn ye what all are like to be. for as he stood in sight of all, bewildered, weaponless, and let his eyes go all around the gazing phrygian press, he spake: 'what land shall have me now, what sea my head shall hide? what then is left of deed to do that yet i must abide? no place i have among the greeks, and dardan folk withal my foemen are, and bloody end, due doom, upon me call.' and with that wail our hearts were turned, and somewhat backward hung the press of men: we bade him say from whence his blood was sprung, and what he did, and if indeed a captive we might trust; so thus he spake when now all fear from off his heart was thrust: 'whatso betide, to thee, o king, the matter's verity will i lay bare unto the end, nor argive blood deny: this firstly; for if fate indeed shaped sinon for all bale to make him liar and empty fool her worst may not avail. perchance a rumour of men's talk about your ears hath gone, telling of palamedes' fame and glory that he won, the son of belus: traitors' word undid him innocent; by unjust doom for banning war the way of death he went, slain by pelasgian men, that now his quenchèd light deplore. fellow to him, and nigh akin, i went unto the war, sent by my needy father forth, e'en from my earliest years; now while he reigned in health, a king fair blooming mid his peers in council of the kings, i too had share of name and worth. but after he had gone his way from land of upper earth, thrust down by sly ulysses' hate, (i tell all men's belief), then beaten down i dragged my life through shadowy ways of grief, and heavily i took the death of him my sackless friend, nor held my peace, o fool! but vowed revenge if time should send a happy tide; if i should come to argos any more, a victor then: so with my words i drew down hatred sore. this was the first fleck of my ill; ulysses ever now would threaten with some new-found guilt, and mid the folk would sow dark sayings, and knowing what was toward, sought weapons new at need; nor wearied till with calchas now to help him to the deed.-- --but why upturn these ugly things, or spin out time for nought? for if ye deem all greekish men in one same mould are wrought: it is enough. come make an end; ulysses' hope fulfil! with great price would the atridæ buy such working of their will.' then verily to know the thing and reach it deep we burned, so little in pelasgian guile and evil were we learned. he takes the tale up; fluttering-voiced from lying heart he speaks: 'the longing to be gone from troy fell oft upon the greeks, and oft they fain had turned their backs on war without an end, (i would they had), and oft as they were e'en at point to wend a tempest would forbid the sea, or southern gale would scare, and chiefly when with maple-beams this horse that standeth here they fashioned, mighty din of storm did all the heavens fulfil. so held aback, eurypylus we sent to learn the will of phoebus: from the shrine he brought such heavy words as these: _with blood and with a virgin's death did ye the winds appease_ _when first ye came, o danaan folk, unto the ilian shore;_ _with blood and with an argive soul the gods shall ye adore_ _for your return._ 'now when that word men's ears had gone about their hearts stood still, and tremors cold took all their bones for doubt what man the fates had doomed thereto, what man apollo would. amidst us then the ithacan drags in with clamour rude calchas the seer, and wearieth him the gods' will to declare. of that craftsmaster's cruel guile had many bade beware in words, and many silently foresaw the coming death. twice five days calchas holdeth peace and, hidden, gainsayeth to speak the word that any man to very death should cast, till hardly, by ulysses' noise sore driven, at the last he brake out with the speech agreed, and on me laid the doom; all cried assent, and what each man feared on himself might come, 'gainst one poor wretch's end of days with ready hands they bear. now came the evil day; for me the rites do men prepare, the salted cakes, the holy strings to do my brows about. i needs must say i brake my bonds, from death's house gat me out, and night-long lay amid the sedge by muddy marish side till they spread sail, if they perchance should win their sailing tide. nor have i hope to see again my fatherland of old; my longed-for father and sweet sons i never shall behold; on whom the guilt of me who fled mayhappen men will lay, and with their death for my default the hapless ones shall pay. but by the might of very god, all sooth that knoweth well, by all the unstained faith that yet mid mortal men doth dwell, if aught be left, i pray you now to pity such distress! pity a heart by troubles tried beyond its worthiness!' his weeping won his life of us, and pity thereunto, and priam was the first who bade his irons to undo, and hand-bonds, and in friendly words unto the man he speaks: 'whoso thou art, henceforward now forget thy missing greeks; thou shalt be ours: but learn me now, who fain the sooth would wot, wherefore they built this world of horse, what craftsman him begot, and what to do? what gift for gods; what gin of war is he?' he spake. the other, wise in guile and greekish treachery, both palms of his from bonds new-freed raised toward the stars above, and, 'o eternal fires!' he cried, 'o might that none may move, bear witness now! ye altar-stones, ye wicked swords i fled, ye holy fillets of the gods bound round my fore-doomed head, that i all hallowed greekish rites may break and do aright, that i may hate the men and bring all hidden things to light if aught lie hid; nor am i held by laws my country gave! but thou, o troy, abide by troth, and well thy saviour save, if truth i bear thee, if great things for great i pay thee o'er! 'all hope the danaans had, all trust for speeding on the war on pallas' aid was ever set: yet came a day no less when godless diomed and he, well-spring of wickedness, ulysses, brake the holy place that they by stealth might gain the fate-fulfilled palladium, when, all the burg-guards slain, they caught the holy image up, and durst their bloody hands lay on the awful goddess there and touch her holy bands: the flood-tide of the danaan hope ebbed from that very day; might failed them, and the goddess-maid turned all her heart away: token whereof tritonia gave by portent none might doubt: scarce was the image set in camp when suddenly flashed out fierce fire from staring eyes of her, and salt sweat oozed and fell o'er all her limbs, and she from earth, o wonderful to tell! leapt thrice, still holding in her hand the quivering spear and shield: then calchas bade us turn to flight across the wavy field, singing how ruin of pergamos the argive steel shall lack, till argos give the signs again, and we the god bring back in hollow of the curved keel across the tumbling main. and this is why they sought their home, mycenæ's land, again, and there they dight them arms and god, and presently unwares will be on you across the sea--calchas such doom declares. so warned hereby for godhead's hurt, in stolen palladium's stead, atonement for their heavy guilt, this horse they fashionèd. but him indeed did calchas bid to pile so mountain-high with such a might of mingled beams, and lead up to the sky, lest it within the gates should come, or mid the walls, and lest beneath their ancient pallas-faith the people safe should rest. for if upon minerva's gift ye lay a godless hand, then mighty ruin (and would to god before his face might stand that ruin instead) on priam's might, and phrygian folk shall fall. but if your hands shall lead it up within the city wall, then asia, free and willing it, to pelops' house shall come with mighty war; and that same fate our sons shall follow home.' caught by such snares and crafty guile of sinon the forsworn, by lies and lies, and tears forced forth there were we overborne; we, whom tydides might not tame, nor larissæan king achilles; nor the thousand ships, and ten years' wearying. but now another, greater hap, a very birth of fear, was thrust before us wretched ones, our sightless hearts to stir. laocoon, chosen out by lot for mighty neptune's priest, would sacrifice a mighty bull at altars of the feast; when lo, away from tenedos, o'er quiet of the main (i tremble in the tale) we see huge coils of serpents twain breasting the sea, and side by side swift making for the shore; whose fronts amid the flood were strained, and high their crests upbore blood-red above the waves, the rest swept o'er the sea behind, and all the unmeasured backs of them coil upon coil they wind, while sends the sea great sound of foam. and now the meads they gained, the burning eyes with flecks of blood and streaks of fire are stained, their mouths with hisses all fulfilled are licked by flickering tongue. bloodless we flee the sight, but they fare steadfastly along unto laocoon; and first each serpent round doth reach one little body of his sons, and knitting each to each, and winding round and round about, the unhappy body gnaws: and then himself, as sword in hand anigh for help he draws, they seize and bind about in coils most huge, and presently are folded twice about his midst, twice round his neck they tie their scaly backs, and hang above with head and toppling mane, while he both striveth with his hands to rend their folds atwain, his fillets covered o'er with blood and venom black and fell, and starward sendeth forth withal a cry most horrible, the roaring of a wounded bull who flees the altar-horn and shaketh from his crest away the axe unhandy borne. but fleeing to the shrines on high do those two serpents glide, and reach the hard tritonia's house, and therewithin they hide beneath the goddess' very feet and orbèd shield of dread; then through our quaking hearts indeed afresh the terror spread, and all men say laocoon hath paid but worthily for guilt of his, and hurt of steel upon the holy tree, when that unhappy wicked spear against its flank he threw. they cry to lead the image on to holy house and due, and pallas' godhead to adore. we break adown our rampart walls and bare the very town: all gird themselves unto the work, set wheels that it may glide beneath his feet, about his neck the hempen bond is tied to warp it on: up o'er the walls so climbs the fateful thing fruitful of arms; and boys about and unwed maidens sing the holy songs, and deem it joy hand on the ropes to lay. it enters; through the city's midst it wends its evil way. --o land! o ilium, house of gods! o glorious walls of war! o dardan walls!--four times amidst the threshold of our door it stood: four times with sound of arms the belly of it rung; but heedless, maddened hearts and blind, hard on the ropes we hung, nor but amidst the holy burg the monster's feet we stay. and then cassandra oped her mouth to tell the fateful day,-- her mouth that by the gods' own doom the teucrians ne'er might trow. then on this day that was our last we bear the joyous bough, poor wretches! through the town to deck each godhead's holy place. meanwhile the heavens are faring round, night falls on ocean's face, enwrapping in her mighty shade all earthly things and sky, and all the guile of myrmidons: silent the teucrians lie through all the town, and sleep her arms o'er wearied bodies slips. and now the argive host comes forth upon its ordered ships from tenedos, all hushed amid the kind moon's silent ways, seeking the well-known strand, when forth there breaks the bale-fire's blaze on the king's deck: and sinon, kept by gods' unequal fate, for danaans hid in horse's womb undoes the piny gate in stealthy wise: them now the horse, laid open to the air, gives forth again, and glad from out the hollow wood they fare; thessandrus, sthenelus, the dukes, and dire ulysses pass; slipped down along a hanging rope, thoas and acamas, peleian neoptolemus, and machaon the first, and menelaüs, and the man who forged the guile accursed, epeos. through the city sunk in sleep and wine they break, slain are the guards, at gates all oped their fellows in they take, till all their bands confederate are met at last in one. it was the time when that first peace of sick men hath begun, by very gift of god o'er all in sweetest wise to creep, when hector comes before mine eyes amid the dreams of sleep, most sorrowful to see he was, and weeping plenteous flood, and e'en as torn behind the car, black with the dust and blood, his feet all swollen with the thong that pierced them through and through. woe worth the while for what he was! how changed from him we knew! the hector come from out the fight in arms achilles lost, the hector that on danaan decks the phrygian firebrands tost. foul was his beard, and all his hair was matted up with gore, and on his body were the wounds, the many wounds he bore around his troy. i seemed in sleep, i weeping e'en as he, to speak unto the hero first in voice of misery: 'o light of troy, most faithful hope of all the teucrian men, what stay hath held thee back so long? from what shore com'st thou then, long-looked-for hector? that at last, so many died away, such toil of city, toil of men, we see thy face today, we so forewearied? what hath fouled in such an evil wise thy cheerful face? what mean these hurts thou showest to mine eyes?' nought: nor my questions void and vain one moment turned his speech; who from the inmost of his heart a heavy groan did reach: 'o goddess-born, flee forth,' he said, 'and snatch thee from the fire! the foeman hath the walls, and troy is down from topmost spire. for priam and for country now enough. if any hand might have kept pergamos, held up by mine it yet should stand. her holy things and household gods troy gives in charge to thee; take these as fellows of thy fate: go forth the walls to see, the great walls thou shalt build, when thou the sea hast wandered o'er.' he spake, and from the inner shrine forth in his hands he bore great vesta, and the holy bands, and fire that never dies. meanwhile the city's turmoiled woe was wrought in diverse wise, and though my father's house aback apart from all was set, and hedged about with many trees, clearer and clearer yet the sounds grew on us, ever swelled the weapons' dread and din. i shake off sleep and forthwithal climb up aloft and win to topmost roof: with ears pricked up i stand to hearken all. as when before the furious south the driven flame doth fall among the corn: or like as when the hill-flood rolls in haste to waste the fields and acres glad, the oxen's toil to waste, tearing the headlong woods along, while high upon a stone the unready shepherd stands amazed, and hears the sound come on. then was their faith made manifest, then danaan guile lay bare; deïphobus' wide house e'en now, o'ertopped by vulcan's flare, shows forth its fall; ucalegon's is burning by its side: the narrow seas sigæum guards gleam litten far and wide. the shout of men ariseth now, and blaring of the horn, and mad, i catch my weapons up though idly they be borne; but burned my heart to gather folk for battle, and set forth upon the burg in fellowship; for fury and great wrath thrust on my heart: to die in arms, it seemed a good reward. but lo, now panthus newly slipped from 'neath the achean sword, panthus the son of othrys, priest of phoebus' house on high; his holy things and vanquished gods, his little lad thereby he drags, and as a madman runs, to gain our doorway set. 'panthus, how fares it at the worst? what stronghold keep we yet?' scarce had i said, when from his mouth a groan and answer fares: 'troy's latest day has come on us, a tide no struggling wears: time was, the trojans were; time was, and ilium stood; time was, and glory of the teucrian folk! jove biddeth all to pass to argos now: in troy afire the danaans now are lords; the horse high set amidst the town pours forth a flood of swords, and sinon, of the victors now, the flame is driving home high mocking: by the open gates another sort is come, as many thousands as ere flocked from great mycenæ yet: others with weapons ready dight the narrow ways beset, and ban all passage; point and edge are glittering drawn and bare ready for death: and scarcely now the first few gatewards dare the battle, and blind game of mars a little while debate.' spurred by such speech of othrys' son, and force of godhead great, mid fire and steel i follow on as grim erinnys shows, where call the cries, where calls the shout that ever heavenward goes, rhipeus therewith, and epytus the mighty under shield, dymas and hypanis withal their fellowship now yield; met by the moon they join my side with young coroebus; he the son of mygdon, at that tide in troy-town chanced to be; drawn thither by cassandra's love that burned within his heart. so he to priam service gave, and helped the phrygian part: unhappy! that the warning word of his god-maddened love he might not hearken on that day. now when i see them gathered so to dare the battle's pain, thus i begin: 'o fellows fair, o hardy hearts in vain! if now ye long to follow me who dares the utterance and certain end, ye see indeed what wise our matters chance. the gods, who in the other days our lordship mighty made, are gone from altar and from shrine: a town of flames ye aid. fall on a very midst the fire and die in press of war! one hope there is for vanquished men, to cherish hope no more.' therewith the fury of their minds i feed, and thence away, as ravening wolves by night and cloud their bellies' lust obey, that bitter-sharp is driving on, the while their whelps at home dry-jawed await them, so by steel, by crowd of foes we come into the very death; we hold the city's midmost street, black night-tide's wings with hollow shade about our goings meet. o ruin and death of that ill night, what tongue may set it forth! or who may pay the debt of tears that agony was worth! the ancient city overthrown, lord for so many a year, the many bodies of the slain, that, moveless, everywhere lie in the street, in houses lie, lie round the holy doors of gods. but not alone that night the blood of teucrians pours, for whiles the valour comes again in vanquished hearts to bide, and conquering danaans fall and die: grim grief on every side, and fear on every side there is, and many-faced is death. androgeus, whom a mighty band of danaans followeth, first falleth on the road of us, and, deeming us to be his fellow-folk, in friendly words he speaketh presently: 'haste on, o men! what sloth is this delayeth so your ways? while others hand and haul away in pergamos ablaze; what! fellows, from the lofty ships come ye but even now?' but with the word, no answer had wherein at all to trow, he felt him fallen amid the foe, and taken in the snare; then foot and voice aback he drew, and stood amazèd there, as one who through the thicket thrusts, and unawares doth tread upon a snake, and starts aback with sudden rush of dread from gathering anger of the thing and swelling neck of blue: so, quaking at the sight of us, androgeus backward drew. but we fall on with serried arms and round their rout we crowd, and fell them knowing nought the place, and with all terror cowed: so sweet the breath of fortune was on our first handicraft. but with good-hap and hardihood coroebus' spirit laughed; 'come, fellows, follow up,' he cries, 'the way that fortune shows this first of times, and where belike a little kind she grows. change we our shields, and do on us the tokens of the greeks; whether with fraud or force he play what man of foeman seeks, yea, these themselves shall give us arms.' he spake, and forth did bear androgeus' high-crested helm and shield emblazoned fair, and did it on, and argive sword he girt unto his thigh: so rhipeus did, and dymas did, and all did joyously, and each man wholly armed himself with plunder newly won. then mingled with the greeks we fare, and no god helps us on, and many a battle there we join amid the eyeless night, and many a danaan send adown to orcus from the light: some fled away unto the ships, some to the safe sea-shore, or smitten with the coward's dread climbed the great horse once more and there they lie all close within the well-known womb of wood. alas! what skills it man to trust in gods compelled to good? for lo, cassandra, priam's maid, with hair cast all about, from pallas' house and innermost of holy place dragged out, and straining with her burning eyes in vain to heaven aloft; her eyes, for they in bonds had bound her tender palms and soft. nought bore coroebus' maddened mind to see that show go by, and in the middle of their host he flung himself to die, and all we follow and fall on with points together set. and first from that high temple-top great overthrow we get from weapons of our friends, and thence doth hapless death arise from error of the greekish crests and armour's greekish guise; then crying out for taken maid, fulfilled thereat with wrath, the gathered greeks fall in on us: comes keenest ajax forth; the sons of atreus, all the host of dolopes are there:-- as whiles, the knit whirl broken up, the winds together bear and strive, the west wind and the south, the east wind glad and free with eastland steeds; sore groan the woods; and nereus stirs the sea from lowest deeps, and trident shakes, and foams upon the wave:-- they even to whom by night and cloud great overthrow we gave, through craft of ours, and drave about through all the town that while, now show themselves, and know our shields and weapons worn for guile the first of all; our mouths unmeet for greekish speech they tell then o'er us sweeps the multitude; and first coroebus fell by peneleus before the maid who ever in the fight prevaileth most; fell rhipeus there, the heedfullest of right of all among the teucrian folk, the justest man of men; the gods deemed otherwise. dymas and hypanis died then, shot through by friends, and not a whit availed to cover thee, o panthus, thine apollo's bands or plenteous piety. ashes of ilium, ye last flames where my beloved ones burned, bear witness mid your overthrow my face was never turned from danaan steel and danaan deed! if fate had willed it so that i should fall, i earned my wage. borne thence away, we go pelias and iphitus and i; but iphitus was spent by eld, and by ulysses' hurt half halting pelias went. so unto priam's house we come, called by the clamour there, where such a mighty battle was as though none otherwhere yet burned: as though none others fell in all the town beside. there all unbridled mars we saw, the danaans driving wide against the house; with shield-roofs' rush the doors thereof beset. the ladders cling unto the walls, men by the door-posts get some foothold up; with shielded left they meet the weapons' rain, while on the battlements above grip with the right they gain. the dardans on the other side pluck roof and pinnacle from off the house; with such-like shot they now, beholding well the end anigh, all death at hand, make ready for the play: and gilded beams, the pomp and joy of fathers passed away. they roll adown, and other some with naked point and edge the nether doorways of the place in close arrayment hedge. blazed up our hearts again to aid this palace of a king, to stead their toil, to vanquished men a little help to bring. a door there was, a secret pass into the common way of all king priam's houses there, that at the backward lay as one goes by: in other days, while yet the lordship was, hapless andromache thereby unto the twain would pass alone, or leading to the king astyanax her boy. and thereby now i gain the tower, whence wretched men of troy in helpless wise from out their hands were casting darts aloof. there was a tower, a sheer hight down, builded from highest roof up toward the stars; whence we were wont on troy to look adown, and thence away the danaan ships, the achæan tented town. against the highest stage hereof the steel about we bear, just where the joints do somewhat give: this from its roots we tear, and heave it up and over wall, whose toppling at the last bears crash and ruin, and wide away the danaans are down cast beneath its fall: but more come on: nor drift of stones doth lack, nor doth all kind of weapon-shot at any while grow slack. lo, pyrrhus in the very porch forth to the door doth pass exulting; bright with glittering points and flashing of the brass; --e'en as a snake to daylight come, on evil herbage fed, who, swollen, 'neath the chilly soil hath had his winter bed, and now, his ancient armour doffed, and sleek with youth new found, with front upreared his slippery back he coileth o'er the ground up 'neath the sun; his three-cleft tongue within his mouth gleams clear:-- and with him periphas the huge, achilles' charioteer, now shield-bearer automedon and all the scyrian host closed on the walls and on the roof the blazing firebrands tost. pyrrhus in forefront of them all catches a mighty bill, beats in the hardened door, and tears perforce from hinge and sill the brazen leaves; a beam hewn through, wide gaped the oak hard knit into a great-mouthed window there, and through the midst of it may men behold the inner house; the long halls open lie; bared is the heart of priam's home, the place of kings gone by; and close against the very door all armèd men they see. that inner house indeed was mazed with wail and misery, the inmost chambers of the place an echoing hubbub hold of women's cries, whose clamour smites the far-off stars of gold, and through the house so mighty great the fearful mothers stray, and wind their arms about the doors, and kisses on them lay. but pyrrhus with his father's might comes on; no bolt avails, no man against the might of him; the door all battered fails, the door-leaves torn from off of hinge tumble and lie along: might maketh road; through passage forced the entering danaans throng, and slay the first and fill the place with armour of their ranks. nay nought so great is foaming flood that through its bursten banks breaks forth, and beateth down the moles that 'gainst its going stand. and falls a fierce heap on the plain, and over all the land drags off the herds and herd-houses. there saw i pyrrhus wild with death of men amidst the door, and either atreus' child; and hecuba and hundred wives her sons wed saw i there, and priam fouling with his blood the very altars fair whose fires he hallowed: fifty beds the hope of house to be, the doorways proud with outland gold and war-got bravery sunk into ash; where fire hath failed the danaans are enow. belike what fate on priam fell thou askest me to show: for when he saw the city lost, and his own house-door stormed, and how in bowels of his house the host of foemen swarmed, the ancient man in vain does on the arms long useless laid about his quaking back of eld, and girds himself with blade of no avail, and fareth forth amid the press to die. a very midmost of the courts beneath the naked sky a mighty altar stood: anear a bay exceeding old, the altar and the gods thereof did all in shadow hold; and round about that altar-stead sat hecuba the queen, and many daughters: e'en as doves all huddled up are seen 'neath the black storm they cling about the dear god's images. but when in arms of early days king priam now she sees, she crieth: 'o unhappy spouse! what evil heart hast thou, with weapons thus to gird thyself, or whither wilt thou now? today availeth no such help, and no such warder's stay may better aught; not even were my hector here today. but come thou hither unto me; this altar all shall save, or we shall die together here!' her arms about she gave and took him, and the elder set adown in holy stead. but lo! now one of priam's sons, polites, having fled from pyrrhus' murder through the swords and through the foeman's throng, runs wounded through the empty hall from out the cloister long, and burning pyrrhus, hard at heel, the deadly hurt doth bear, and grip of hand is on him now, and now the point of spear. but as he rushed before their eyes, his parents' face beneath he fell, and with most plenteous blood shed forth his latest breath; then priam, howsoever nigh the very death might grip, refrained him nothing at the sight, but voice and wrath let slip: 'ah, for such wickedness,' he cried, 'for daring such a deed, if aught abide in heaven as yet such things as this to heed, may the gods give thee worthy thanks, and pay thee well-earned prize, that thou hast set the death of sons before my father's eyes, that thou thy murder's fouling thus in father's face hast flung. not he, achilles, whence indeed thou liar hast never sprung, was such a foe to priam erst; for shamfast meed he gave to law and troth of suppliant men, and rendered to the grave the bloodless hector dead, and me sent to mine own again.' so spake the elder, and cast forth a toothless spear and vain, that forthwith from the griding brass was put aback all spent, and from the shield-boss' outer skin hung down, for nothing sent. then pyrrhus cried: 'yea tell him this, go take the tidings down to peleus' son my father then, of pyrrhus worser grown and all these evil deeds of mine! take heed to tell the tale! now die!' and to the altar-stone him quivering did he hale, and sliding in his own son's blood so plenteous: in his hair pyrrhus his left hand wound, his right the gleaming sword made bare, that even to the hilts thereof within his flank he hid. such was the end of priam's day, such faring forth fate bid, troy all aflame upon the road, all pergamus adown. he, of so many peoples once the mighty lord and crown, so many lands of asia once, a trunk beside the sea huge with its headless shoulders laid, a nameless corpse is he. then first within the compassing of bitter fear i was; the image of my father dear by me all mazed did pass, when i beheld the like-aged king gasping his life away through cruel wound: upon mine eyes forlorn creusa lay, the wasted house, my little one, iulus', evil end. i look aback to see what folk about me yet do wend, but all, foredone, had fallen away, their weary bodies spent, some all amid the fire had cast, some unto earth had sent. alone was i of all men now, when lo, in vesta's house abiding, and in inmost nook silent and lurking close, helen the seed of tyndarus! the clear fires give her light as there she strayeth, turning eyes on every shifting sight; she, fearful of the teucrian wrath for pergamus undone, and fearful of the danaan wrath and husband left alone, the wasting fury both of troy and land where she was born, she hid her by the altar-stead, a thing of gods forlorn. forth blazed the wildfire in my soul, wrath stirred me up to slake my vengeance for my dying home, and ill's atonement take. what! should she come to sparta safe, and her mycenæ then, and in the hard-won triumphing go forth a queen of men, and see her husband and her home, her parents and her sons, served by the throng of ilian wives and phrygian vanquished ones? shall priam so be slain with sword; shall troy so blaze aloft; shall the sea-beach the dardan blood have sweat so oft and oft for this? nay, nay: and though forsooth no deed to blaze abroad the slaying of a woman be, nor gaineth fame's reward, yet still to quench an evil thing and pay the well-earned meed is worthy praise, and joy it were unto the full to feed my heart's fell flame, and satisfy these ashes well beloved. such things my soul gave forth; such things in furious heart i moved. when lo, my holy mother now, ne'er seen by eyes of mine so clear before, athwart the dark in simple light did shine; all god she was; of countenance and measure was she nought, but her the heaven-abiders see; so my right hand she caught, and held me, and from rosy mouth moreover added word: 'o son, what anger measureless thy mighty grief hath stirred? why ragest thou? or whither then is gone thy heed of me? wilt thou not first behold the place where worn by eld is he, anchises, left? wilt thou not see if yet thy wife abide creusa, or ascanius yet? the greekish bands fare wide about them now on every hand, and but my care withstood the fire had wafted them away or sword had drunk their blood. laconian helen's beauty cursed this overthrow ne'er wrought. nor guilty paris; nay, the gods, the gods who pity nought, have overturned your lordship fair, and laid your troy alow. behold! i draw aside the cloud that all abroad doth flow, dulling the eyes of mortal men, and darkening dewily the world about. and look to it no more afeard to be of what i bid, nor evermore thy mother's word disown. there where thou seest the great walls cleft, and stone torn off from stone, and seest the waves of smoke go by with mingled dust-cloud rolled,-- there neptune shakes the walls and stirs the foundings from their hold with mighty trident, tumbling down the city from its base. there by the scæan gates again hath bitter juno place the first of all, and wild and mad, herself begirt with steel, calls up her fellows from the ships. look back! tritonian pallas broods o'er topmost burg on high, all flashing bright with gorgon grim from out her stormy sky; the very father hearteneth on, and stays with happy might the danaans, crying on the gods against the dardan fight. snatch flight, o son, whiles yet thou may'st, and let thy toil be o'er, i by thy side will bring thee safe unto thy father's door.' she spake, and hid herself away where thickest darkness poured. then dreadful images show forth, great godheads are abroad, the very haters of our troy. and then indeed before mine eyes all ilium sank in flame, and overturned was neptune's troy from its foundations deep. e'en as betideth with an ash upon the mountain steep, round which sore smitten by the steel the acre-biders throng, and strive in speeding of the axe: and there it threateneth long, and, shaken, trembleth nodding still with heavy head of leaf; till overcome by many hurts it groans its latest grief, and torn from out the ridgy hill, drags all its ruin alow. i get me down, and, goddess-led, speed on 'twixt fire and foe, and point and edge give place to me, before me sinks the flame; but when unto my father's door and ancient house i came, and i was fain of all things first my father forth to bear unto the mountain-tops, and first i sought to find him there, still he gainsayed to spin out life now troy was lost and dead, or suffer exile: 'ye whose blood is hale with youth,' he said, 'ye other ones, whose might and main endureth and is stout, see ye to flight while yet ye may! full surely if the heavenly ones my longer life had willed, they would have kept me this abode: the measure is fulfilled in that the murder i have seen, and lived when troy-town fell. o ye, depart, when ye have bid my body streaked farewell. my hand itself shall find out death, or pity of my foes, who seek my spoils: the tomb methinks a little thing to lose. forsooth i tarry overlong, god-cursed, a useless thing, since when the father of the gods, the earth-abiders' king, blew on me blast of thunder-wind and touched me with his flame.' his deed was stubborn as his word, no change upon him came. but all we weeping many tears, my wife creusa there, ascanius, yea and all the house, besought him not to bear all things to wrack with him, nor speed the hastening evil tide. he gainsaith all, and in his will and home will yet abide. so wretchedly i rush to arms with all intent to die; for what availeth wisdom now, what hope in fate may lie? 'and didst thou hope, o father, then, that thou being left behind, my foot would fare? woe worth the word that in thy mouth i find! but if the gods are loth one whit of such a town to save, and thou with constant mind wilt cast on dying troy-town's grave both thee and thine, wide is the door to wend adown such ways; for pyrrhus, red with priam's blood, is hard at hand, who slays the son before the father's face, the father slays upon the altar. holy mother, then, for this thou ledst me on through fire and sword!--that i might see our house filled with the foe, my father old, ascanius, creusa lying low, all weltering in each other's blood, and murdered wretchedly. arms, fellows, arms! the last day's light on vanquished men doth cry. ah! give me to the greeks again, that i may play the play another while: not unavenged shall all we die today.' so was i girt with sword again, and in my shield would set my left hand now, and was in point from out of doors to get, when lo, my wife about my feet e'en in the threshold clung, still to his father reaching out iulus tender-young: 'if thou art on thy way to die, then bear us through it all; but if to thee the wise in arms some hope of arms befall, then keep this house first! unto whom giv'st thou iulus' life, thy father's, yea and mine withal, that once was called thy wife?' so crying out, the house she filled with her exceeding moan, when sudden, wondrous to be told, a portent was there shown; for as his woeful parents' hands and lips he hangs between, on topmost of iulus' head a thin peaked flame is seen, that with the harmless touch of fire, whence clearest light is shed, licks his soft locks and pastures round the temples of his head. quaking with awe from out his hair we fall the fire to shake, and bring the water of the well the holy flame to slake. but joyous to the stars aloft anchises raiseth eyes, and with his hands spread out abroad to very heaven he cries: 'almighty jove, if thou hast will toward any prayers to turn, look down on us this while alone; if aught our goodness earn, father, give help and strengthen us these omens from the sky!' scarce had the elder said the word ere crashing suddenly it thundered on the left, and down across the shades of night ran forth a great brand-bearing star with most abundant light; and clear above the topmost house we saw it how it slid lightening the ways, and at the last in ida's forest hid. then through the sky a furrow ran drawn out a mighty space, giving forth light, and sulphur-fumes rose all about the place. my father vanquished therewithal his visage doth upraise, and saith a word unto the gods that holy star to praise: 'now, now, no tarrying is at all, i follow where ye lead; o father-gods heed ye our house and this my son's son heed! this is your doom; and troy is held beneath your majesty. i yield, o son, nor more gainsay to go my ways with thee.' he spake; and mid the walls meanwhile we hear the fire alive still clearer, and the burning place more nigh the heat doth drive. 'o hasten, father well-beloved, to hang about my neck! lo, here my shoulders will i stoop, nor of the labour reck. and whatsoever may befall, the two of us shall bide one peril and one heal and end: iulus by my side shall wend, and after us my wife shall follow on my feet ye serving-folk, turn ye your minds these words of mine to meet: scant from the city is a mound and temple of old tide, of ceres' lone, a cypress-tree exceeding old beside. kept by our fathers' worshipping through many years agone: thither by divers roads go we to meet at last in one. now, father, take thy fathers' gods and holy things to hold, for me to touch them fresh from fight and murder were o'erbold, a misdeed done against the gods, till in the living flood i make a shift to wash me clean.' i stooped my neck and shoulders broad e'en as the word i said, a forest lion's yellow fell for cloth upon them laid, and took my burden up: my young iulus by my side, holding my hand, goes tripping short unto his father's stride; my wife comes after: on we fare amidst a mirky world. and i, erewhile as nothing moved by storm of weapons hurled, i, who the gathering of the greeks against me nothing feared, now tremble at each breath of wind, by every sound am stirred, sore troubled for my fellows both, and burden that i bore. and now we draw anigh the gates, and all the way seemed o'er, when sudden sound of falling feet was borne upon our ears, and therewithal my father cries, as through the dusk he peers, 'haste, son, and get thee swift away, for they are on us now; i see the glittering of the brass and all their shields aglow.' what godhead nought a friend to me amidst my terror there snatched wit away i nothing know: for while i swiftly fare by wayless places, wandering wide from out the road i knew, creusa, whether her the fates from me unhappy drew, whether she wandered from the way, or weary lagged aback, nought know i, but that her henceforth mine eyes must ever lack. nor turned i round to find her lost, nor had it in my thought, till to that mound and ancient house of ceres we were brought; where, all being come together now, there lacked but her alone, and there her fellows' hopes, her son's, her husband's were undone. on whom of men, on whom of gods, then laid i not the guilt? what saw i bitterer to be borne in all the city spilt? ascanius and anchises set the teucrian gods beside, i give unto my fellows there in hollow dale to hide, but i unto the city turn with glittering weapons girt; needs must i search all troy again, and open every hurt, and into every peril past must thrust my head once more. and first i reach the walls again and mirk ways of the door whereby i wended out erewhile; and my old footsteps' track i find, and mid the dusk of night with close eyes follow back; while on the heart lies weight of fear, and e'en the hush brings dread, thence to the house, if there perchance, if there again she tread, i go: infall of greeks had been, and all the house they hold, and 'neath the wind the ravening fire to highest ridge is rolled. the flames hang o'er, with raging heat the heavens are hot withal; still on: i look on priam's house and topmost castle-wall; and in the desert cloisters there and juno's very home lo, phoenix and ulysses cursed, the chosen wards, are come to keep the spoil; fair things of troy, from everywhither brought, rapt from the burning of the shrines, gods' tables rudely caught, and beakers utterly of gold and raiment snatched away are there heaped up; and boys and wives drawn out in long array stand trembling round about the heap. and now withal i dared to cast my cries upon the dark, i fill the streets with clamour great, and, groaning woefully, 'creusa,' o'er and o'er again without avail i cry. but as i sought and endlessly raved all the houses through a hapless shape, creusa's shade, anigh mine eyen drew, and greater than the body known her image fashioned was; i stood amazed, my hair rose up, nor from my jaws would pass my frozen voice, then thus she spake my care to take away: 'sweet husband, wherefore needest thou with such mad sorrow play? without the dealing of the gods doth none of this betide; and they, they will not have thee bear creusa by thy side, nor will olympus' highest king such fellowship allow. long exile is in store for thee, huge plain of sea to plough, then to hesperia shalt thou come, where lydian tiber's wave the wealthiest meads of mighty men with gentle stream doth lave: there happy days and lordship great, and kingly wife, are born for thee. ah! do away thy tears for loved creusa lorn. i shall not see the myrmidons' nor dolopes' proud place, nor wend my ways to wait upon the greekish women's grace; i, daughter of the dardan race, i, wife of venus' son; me the great mother of the gods on trojan shore hath won. farewell, and love the son we loved together once, we twain.' she left me when these words were given, me weeping sore, and fain to tell her much, and forth away amid thin air she passed: and there three times about her neck i strove mine arms to cast, and thrice away from out my hands the gathered image streams, e'en as the breathing of the wind or wingèd thing of dreams. and so at last, the night all spent, i meet my folk anew; and there i found great multitude that fresh unto us drew, and wondered thereat: wives were there, and men, and plenteous youth; all gathered for the faring forth, a hapless crowd forsooth: from everywhere they draw to us, with goods and courage set, to follow o'er the sea where'er my will may lead them yet. and now o'er ida's topmost ridge at last the day-star rose with dawn in hand: all gates and doors by host of danaan foes were close beset, and no more hope of helping may i bide. i turned and took my father up and sought the mountain-side. book iii. argument. Æneas tells of his wanderings and mishaps by land and by sea. now after it had pleased the gods on high to overthrow the asian weal and sackless folk of priam, and alow proud ilium lay, and neptune's troy was smouldering on the ground, for diverse outlands of the earth and waste lands are we bound, driven by omens of the gods. our fleet we built beneath antandros, and the broken steeps of phrygian ida's heath, unwitting whither fate may drive, or where the gods shall stay and there we draw together men. now scarce upon the way was summer when my father bade spread sails to fate at last. weeping i leave my fatherland, and out of haven passed away from fields where troy-town was, an outcast o'er the deep, with folk and son and household gods and greater gods to keep. far off a peopled land of mars lies midst its mighty plain, tilled of the thracians; there whilom did fierce lycurgus reign. 'twas ancient guesting-place of troy: our gods went hand in hand while bloomed our weal: there are we borne, and on the hollow strand i set my first-born city down, 'neath evil fates begun, and call the folk Æneadæ from name myself had won. unto dione's daughter there, my mother, and the rest, i sacrificed upon a day to gain beginning blest, and to the king of heavenly folk was slaying on the shore a glorious bull: at hand by chance a mound at topmost bore a cornel-bush and myrtle stiff with shafts close set around: thereto i wend and strive to pluck a green shoot from the ground, that i with leafy boughs thereof may clothe the altars well; when lo, a portent terrible and marvellous to tell! for the first stem that from the soil uprooted i tear out oozes black drops of very blood, that all the earth about is stained with gore: but as for me, with sudden horror chill my limbs fall quaking, and my blood with freezing fear stands still. yet i go on and strive from earth a new tough shoot to win, that i may search out suddenly what causes lurk within; and once again from out the bark blood followeth as before. i turn the matter in my mind: the field-nymphs i adore, and him, gradivus, father dread, who rules the thracian plain, and pray them turn the thing to good and make its threatenings vain. but when upon a third of them once more i set my hand, and striving hard thrust both my knees upon the opposing sand-- --shall i speak now or hold my peace?--a piteous groan is heard from out the mound, and to mine ears is borne a dreadful word: 'why manglest thou a wretched man? o spare me in my tomb! spare to beguilt thy righteous hand, Æneas! troy's own womb bore me, thy kinsman; from this stem floweth no alien gore: woe's me! flee forth the cruel land, flee forth the greedy shore; for i am polydore: pierced through, by harvest of the spear o'ergrown, that such a crop of shafts above my head doth bear.' i stood amazed: the wildering fear the heart in me down-weighed. my hair rose up, my frozen breath within my jaws was stayed. unhappy priam privily had sent this polydore, for fostering to the thracian king with plenteous golden store. in those first days when he began to doubt the dardan might, having the leaguered walls of troy for ever in his sight. this king, as failed the weal of troy and fortune fell away, turned him about to conquering arms and agamemnon's day. he brake all right, slew polydore, and all the gold he got perforce: o thou gold-hunger cursed, and whither driv'st thou not the hearts of men? but when at length the fear from me did fall, unto the chosen of the folk, my father first of all, i show those portents of the gods and ask them of their will, all deem it good that we depart that wicked land of ill, and leave that blighted guesting-place and give our ships the breeze. therefore to polydore we do the funeral services, the earth is heaped up high in mound; the death-gods' altars stand woeful with bough of cypress black and coal-blue holy band; the wives of ilium range about with due dishevelled hair; cups of the warm and foaming milk unto the dead we bear, and bowls of holy blood we bring, and lay the soul in grave, and cry a great farewell to him, the last that he shall have. but now, when we may trust the sea and winds the ocean keep unangered, and the south bids on light whispering to the deep, our fellows crowd the sea-beach o'er and run the ships adown, and from the haven are we borne, and fadeth field and town. amid the sea a land there lies, sweet over everything, loved of the nereids' mother, loved by that Ægean king great neptune: this, a-wandering once all coasts and shores around, the bow-lord good to gyaros and high myconos bound, and bade it fixed to cherish folk nor fear the wind again: there come we; and that gentlest isle receives us weary men; in haven safe we land, and thence apollo's town adore; king anius, who, a king of men, apollo's priesthood bore, his temples with the fillets done and crowned with holy bays, meets us, and straight anchises knows, his friend of early days. so therewith hand to hand we join and houseward get us gone. there the god's fane i pray unto, the place of ancient stone: 'thymbræan, give us house and home, walls to the weary give, in folk and city to endure: let pergamus twice live, in troy twice built, left of the greeks, left of achilles' wrath! ah, whom to follow? where to go? wherein our home set forth? o father, give us augury and sink into our heart! scarce had i said the word, when lo all doors with sudden start fell trembling, and the bay of god, and all the mountain side, was stirred, and in the opened shrine the holy tripod cried: there as a voice fell on our ears we bowed ourselves to earth: 'o hardy folk of dardanus, the land that gave you birth from root and stem of fathers old, its very bosom kind, shall take you back: go fare ye forth, your ancient mother find: there shall Æneas' house be lords o'er every earth and sea, the children of his children's sons, and those that thence shall be.' so phoebus spake, and mighty joy arose with tumult mixed, as all fell wondering where might be that seat of city fixed, where phoebus called us wandering folk, bidding us turn again. thereat my father, musing o'er the tales of ancient men, saith: 'hearken, lords, and this your hope a little learn of me! there is an isle of mightiest jove called crete amid the sea; an hundred cities great it hath, that most abundant place; and there the hill of ida is, and cradle of our race. thence teucer our first father came, if right the tale they tell, when borne to those rhoetean shores he chose a place to dwell a very king: no ilium was, no pergamus rose high; he and his folk abode as then in dales that lowly lie: thence came earth-mother cybele and corybantian brass, and ida's thicket; thence the hush all hallowed came to pass, and thence the lions yoked and tame, the lady's chariot drag. on then! and led by god's command for nothing let us lag! please we the winds, and let our course for gnosian land be laid; nor long the way shall be for us: with jupiter to aid, the third-born sun shall stay our ships upon the cretan shore.' so saying, all the offerings due he to the altar bore, a bull to neptune, and a bull to thee, apollo bright, a black ewe to the storm of sea, to zephyr kind a white. fame went that duke idomeneus, thrust from his fathers' land, had gone his ways, and desert now was all the cretan strand, that left all void of foes to us those habitations lie. ortygia's haven then we leave, and o'er the sea we fly by naxos of the bacchus ridge, donusa's green-hued steep, and olearon, and paros white, and scattered o'er the deep all cyclades; we skim the straits besprent with many a folk; and diverse clamour mid the ships seafarers striving woke; each eggs his fellow; on for crete, and sires of time agone! and rising up upon our wake a fair wind followed on. and so at last we glide along the old curetes' strand, and straightway eager do i take the city wall in hand, and call it pergamea, and urge my folk that name who love, for love of hearth and home to raise a burg their walls above. and now the more part of the ships are hauled up high and dry, to wedding and to work afield the folk fall presently, and i give laws and portion steads; when suddenly there fell from poisoned heaven a wasting plague, a wretched thing to tell, on limbs of men, on trees and fields; and deadly was the year, and men must leave dear life and die, or weary sick must bear their bodies on: then sirius fell to burn the acres dry; the grass was parched, the harvest sick all victual did deny. then bids my father back once more o'er the twice-measured main, to phoebus and ortygia's strand, some grace of prayer to gain: what end to our outworn estate he giveth? whence will he that we should seek us aid of toil; where turn to o'er the sea? night falleth, and all lives of earth doth sleep on bosom bear, when lo, the holy images, the phrygian house-gods there, e'en them i bore away from troy and heart of burning town, were present to the eyes of me in slumber laid adown, clear shining in the plenteous light that over all was shed by the great moon anigh her full through windows fashionèd. then thus they fall to speech with me, end of my care to make: 'the thing that in ortygia erst the seer apollo spake here telleth he, and to thy doors come we of his good will: thee and thine arms from troy aflame fast have we followed still. we 'neath thy care and in thy keel have climbed the swelling sea, and we shall bear unto the stars thy sons that are to be, and give thy city majesty: make ready mighty wall for mighty men, nor toil of way leave thou, though long it fall. shift hence abode; the delian-born apollo ne'er made sweet these shores for thee, nor bade thee set thy city down in crete: there is a place, the westland called of greeks in days that are, an ancient land, a fruitful soil, a mighty land of war; oenotrian folk first tilled the land, whose sons, as rumours run, now call it nought but italy, from him who led them on. this is our very due abode: thence dardanus outbroke, iasius our father thence, beginner of our folk. come rise, and glad these tidings tell unto thy father old, no doubtful tale: now corythus, ausonian field and fold let him go seek, for jupiter banneth dictæan mead.' all mazed was i with sight and voice of gods; because indeed this was not sleep, but face to face, as one a real thing sees. i seemed to see their coifèd hair and very visages, and over all my body too cold sweat of trembling flowed. i tore my body from the bed, and, crying out aloud, i stretched my upturned hands to heaven and unstained gifts i spilled upon the hearth, and joyfully that worship i fulfilled. anchises next i do to wit and all the thing unlock; and he, he saw the twi-branched stem, twin fathers of our stock, and how by fault of yesterday through steads of old he strayed. 'o son, well learned in all the lore of ilium's fate,' he said, 'cassandra only of such hap would sing; i mind me well of like fate meted to our folk full oft would she foretell; and oft would call to italy and that hesperian home. but who believed that teucrian folk on any day might come unto hesperia's shores? or who might trow cassandra then? yield we to phoebus, follow we as better counselled men the better part.' we, full of joy, obey him with one mind; from this seat too we fare away and leave a few behind; with sail abroad in hollow tree we skim the ocean o'er. but when our keels the deep sea made, nor had we any more the land in sight, but sea around, and sky around was spread, a coal-blue cloud drew up to us that, hanging overhead, bore night and storm, and mirky gloom o'er all the waters cast: therewith the winds heap up the waves, the seas are rising fast and huge; and through the mighty whirl scattered we toss about; the storm-clouds wrap around the day, and wet mirk blotteth out the heavens, and mid the riven clouds the ceaseless lightnings live. so are we blown from out our course, through might of seas we drive, nor e'en might palinurus self the day from night-tide sift, nor have a deeming of the road atwixt the watery drift. still on for three uncertain suns, that blind mists overlay, and e'en so many starless nights, across the sea we stray; but on the fourth day at the last afar upon us broke the mountains of another land, mid curling wreaths of smoke. then fall the sails, we rise on oars, no sloth hath any place, the eager seamen toss the spray and sweep the blue sea's face; and me first saved from whirl of waves the strophades on strand now welcome; named by greekish name isles of the sea, they stand amid the great ionian folk: celæno holds the shores, and others of the harpies grim, since shut were phineus' doors against them, and they had to leave the tables they had won. no monster woefuller than they, and crueller is none of all god's plagues and curses dread from stygian waters sent. a wingèd thing with maiden face, whose bellies' excrement is utter foul; and hookèd hands, and face for ever pale with hunger that no feeding stints. borne thither, into haven come, we see how everywhere the merry wholesome herds of neat feed down the meadows fair, and all untended goatish flocks amid the herbage bite. with point and edge we fall on them, and all the gods invite, yea very jove, to share the spoil, and on the curvèd strand we strew the beds, and feast upon rich dainties of the land. when lo, with sudden dreadful rush from out the mountains hap the harpy folk, and all about their clanging wings they flap, and foul all things with filthy touch as at the food they wrench, and riseth up their grisly voice amid the evilest stench. once more then 'neath a hollow rock at a long valley's head, where close around the boughs of trees their quavering shadows shed, we dight the boards, and once again flame on the altars raise. again from diverse parts of heaven, from dusky lurking-place, the shrieking rout with hookèd feet about the prey doth fly, fouling the feast with mouth: therewith i bid my company to arms, that with an evil folk the war may come to pass. they do no less than my commands, and lay along the grass their hidden swords, and therewithal their bucklers cover o'er. wherefore, when swooping down again, they fill the curvèd shore with noise, misenus blows the call from off a watch-stead high with hollow brass; our folk fall on and wondrous battle try, striving that sea-fowl's filthy folk with point and edge to spill. but nought will bite upon their backs, and from their feathers still glanceth the sword, and swift they flee up 'neath the stars of air, half-eaten meat and token foul leaving behind them there. but on a rock exceeding high yet did celæeno rest, unhappy seer! there breaks withal a voice from out her breast: 'what, war to pay for slaughtered neat, war for our heifers slain? o children of laomedon, the war then will ye gain? the sackless harpies will ye drive from their own land away? then let this sink into your souls, heed well the words i say; the father unto phoebus told a tale that phoebus told to me, and i the first-born fiend that same to you unfold: ye sail for italy, and ye, the winds appeased by prayer, shall come to italy, and gain the grace of haven there: yet shall ye gird no wall about the city granted you, till famine, and this murder's wrong that ye were fain to do, drive you your tables gnawed with teeth to eat up utterly.' she spake, and through the woody deeps borne off on wings did fly. but sudden fear fell on our folk, and chilled their frozen blood; their hearts fell down; with weapon-stroke no more they deem it good to seek for peace: but rather now sore prayers and vows they will, whether these things be goddesses or filthy fowls of ill. father anchises on the strand stretched both his hands abroad, and, bidding all their worship due, the mighty ones adored: 'gods, bring their threats to nought! o gods, turn ye the curse, we pray! be kind, and keep the pious folk!' then bade he pluck away the hawser from the shore and slack the warping cable's strain: the south wind fills the sails, we fare o'er foaming waves again, e'en as the helmsman and the winds have will that we should fare. and now amidmost of the flood zacynthus' woods appear, dulichium, samos, neritos, with sides of stony steep: wide course from cliffs of ithaca, laertes' land, we keep, cursing the soil that bore and nursed ulysses' cruelty. now open up leucata's peaks, that fare so cloudy high over apollo, mighty dread to all seafarers grown; but weary thither do we steer and make the little town, we cast the anchors from the bows and swing the sterns a-strand. and therewithal since we at last have gained the longed-for land, we purge us before jupiter and by the altars pray, then on the shores of actium's head the ilian plays we play. anointed with the sleeking oil there strive our fellows stripped in wrestling game of fatherland: it joys us to have slipped by such a host of argive towns amidmost of the foe. meanwhile, the sun still pressing on, the year about doth go, and frosty winter with his north the sea's face rough doth wear; a buckler of the hollow brass of mighty abas' gear i set amid the temple-doors with singing scroll thereon, Æneas hangeth armour here from conquering danaans won. and then i bid to leave the shore and man the thwarts again. hard strive the folk in smiting sea, and oar-blades brush the main. the airy high phæacian towers sink down behind our wake, and coasting the epirote shores chaonia's bay we make, and so buthrotus' city-walls high set we enter in. there tidings hard for us to trow unto our ears do win, how helenus, e'en priam's son, hath gotten wife and crown of pyrrhus come of Æacus, and ruleth greekish town, and that andromache hath wed one of her folk once more. all mazed am i; for wondrous love my heart was kindling sore to give some word unto the man, of such great things to learn: so from the haven forth i fare, from ships and shore i turn. but as it happed andromache was keeping yearly day, pouring sad gifts unto the dead, amidst a grove that lay outside the town, by wave that feigned the simoïs that had been, blessing the dead by hector's mound empty and grassy green, which she with altars twain thereby had hallowed for her tears. but when she saw me drawing nigh with armour that troy bears about me, senseless, throughly feared with marvels grown so great, she stiffens midst her gaze; her bones are reft of life-blood's heat, she totters, scarce, a long while o'er, this word comes forth from her: 'is the show true, o goddess-born? com'st thou a messenger alive indeed? or if from thee the holy light is fled, where then is hector?' flowed the tears e'en as the word she said, and with her wailing rang the place: sore moved i scarce may speak this word to her, grown wild with grief, in broken voice and weak: 'i live indeed, i drag my life through outer ways of ill; doubt not, thou seest the very sooth. alas! what hap hath caught thee up from such a man downcast? hath any fortune worthy thee come back again at last? doth hector's own andromache yet serve in pyrrhus' bed?' she cast her countenance adown, and in a low voice said: 'o thou alone of trojan maids that won a little joy, bidden to die on foeman's tomb before the walls of troy! who died, and never had to bear the sifting lot's award, whose slavish body never touched the bed of victor lord! we from our burning fatherland carried o'er many a sea, of achillæan offspring's pride the yoke-fellow must be, must bear the childbed of a slave: thereafter he, being led to leda's child hermione and that laconian bed, to helenus his very thrall me very thrall gave o'er: but there orestes, set on fire by all the love he bore his ravished wife, and mad with hate, comes on him unaware before his fathers' altar-stead and slays him then and there. by death of neoptolemus his kingdom's leavings came to helenus, who called the fields chaonian fields by name, and all the land chaonia, from chaon of troy-town; and pergamus and ilian burg on ridgy steep set down. what winds, what fates gave thee the road to cross the ocean o'er? or what of gods hath borne thee on unwitting to our shore? what of the boy ascanius? lives he and breathes he yet? whom unto thee when troy yet was---- the boy then, of his mother lost, hath he a thought of her? do him Æneas, hector gone, father and uncle, stir, to valour of the ancient days, and great hearts' glorious gain?' such tale she poured forth, weeping sore, and long she wept in vain great floods of tears: when lo, from out the city draweth nigh lord helenus the priam-born midst mighty company, and knows his kin, and joyfully leads onward to his door, though many a tear 'twixt broken words the while doth he outpour. so on; a little troy i see feigned from great troy of fame, a pergamus, a sandy brook that hath the xanthus name, on threshold of a scæan gate i stoop to lay a kiss. soon, too, all teucrian folk are wrapped in friendly city's bliss, and them the king fair welcomes in amid his cloisters broad, and they amidmost of the hall the bowls of bacchus poured, the meat was set upon the gold, and cups they held in hand. so passed a day and other day, until the gales command the sails aloft, and canvas swells with wind from out the south: therewith i speak unto the seer, such matters in my mouth: 'o troy-born, o gods' messenger, who knowest phoebus' will, the tripods and the clarian's bay, and what the stars fulfil, and tongues of fowl, and omens brought by swift foreflying wing, come, tell the tale! for of my way a happy heartening thing all shrines have said, and all the gods have bid me follow on to italy, till outland shores, far off, remote were won: alone celæno, harpy-fowl, new dread of fate set forth, unmeet to tell, and bade us fear the grimmest day of wrath, and ugly hunger. how may i by early perils fare? or doing what may i have might such toil to overbear?' so helenus, when he hath had the heifers duly slain, prays peace of gods, from hallowed head he doffs the bands again, and then with hand he leadeth me, o phoebus, to thy door, my fluttering soul with all thy might of godhead shadowed o'er. there forth at last from god-loved mouth the seer this word did send: 'o goddess-born, full certainly across the sea ye wend by mightiest bidding, such the lot the king of gods hath found all fateful; so he rolls the world, so turns its order round. few things from many will i tell that thou the outland sea may'st sail the safer, and at last make land in italy; the other things the parcæ still ban helenus to wot, saturnian juno's will it is that more he utter not. first, from that italy, which thou unwitting deem'st anigh, thinking to make in little space the haven close hereby, long is the wayless way that shears, and long the length of land; and first in the trinacrian wave must bend the rower's wand. on plain of that ausonian salt your ships must stray awhile, and thou must see the nether meres, Ææan circe's isle, ere thou on earth assured and safe thy city may'st set down. i show thee tokens; in thy soul store thou the tokens shown. when thou with careful heart shalt stray the secret stream anigh, and 'neath the holm-oaks of the shore shalt see a great sow lie, that e'en now farrowed thirty head of young, long on the ground she lieth white, with piglings white their mother's dugs around,-- that earth shall be thy city's place, there rest from toil is stored. nor shudder at the coming curse, the gnawing of the board, the fates shall find a way thereto; apollo called shall come. but flee these lands of italy, this shore so near our home, that washing of the strand thereof our very sea-tide seeks; for in all cities thereabout abide the evil greeks. there now have come the locrian folk narycian walls to build; and lyctian idomeneus sallentine meads hath filled with war-folk; philoctetes there holdeth petelia small, now by that meliboean duke fenced round with mighty wall. moreover, when your ships have crossed the sea, and there do stay, and on the altars raised thereto your vows ashore ye pay, be veiled of head, and wrap thyself in cloth of purple dye, lest 'twixt you and the holy fires ye light to god on high some face of foeman should thrust in the holy signs to spill. now let thy folk, yea and thyself, this worship thus fulfil, and let thy righteous sons of sons such fashion ever mind. but when, gone forth, to sicily thou comest on the wind, and when pelorus' narrow sea is widening all away, your course for leftward lying land and leftward waters lay, how long soe'er ye reach about: flee right-hand shore and wave. in time agone some mighty thing this place to wrack down drave, so much for changing of the world doth lapse of time avail. it split atwain, when heretofore the two lands, saith the tale, had been but one, the sea rushed in and clave with mighty flood hesperia's side from italy, and field and city stood drawn back on either shore, along a sundering sea-race strait. there scylla on the right hand lurks, the left insatiate charybdis holds, who in her maw all whirling deep adown sucketh the great flood tumbling in thrice daily, which out-thrown thrice daily doth she spout on high, smiting the stars with brine. but scylla doth the hidden hole of mirky cave confine; with face thrust forth she draweth ships on to that stony bed; manlike above, with maiden breast and lovely fashioned down to the midst, she hath below huge body of a whale, and unto maw of wolfish heads is knit a dolphin's tail. 'tis better far to win about pachynus, outer ness of sicily, and reach long round, despite the weariness, than have that ugly sight of her within her awful den, and hear her coal-blue baying dogs and rocks that ring again. now furthermore if helenus in anything have skill, or aught of trust, or if his soul with sooth apollo fill, of one thing, goddess-born, will i forewarn thee over all, and spoken o'er and o'er again my word on thee shall fall: the mighty juno's godhead first let many a prayer seek home; to juno sing your vows in joy, with suppliant gifts o'ercome that lady of all might; and so, trinacria overpast, shalt thou be sped to italy victorious at the last. when there thou com'st and cumæ's town amidst thy way hast found, the holy meres, avernus' woods fruitful of many a sound, there the wild seer-maid shalt thou see, who in a rock-hewn cave singeth of fate, and letteth leaves her names and tokens have: but whatso song upon those leaves the maiden seer hath writ she ordereth duly, and in den of live stone leaveth it: there lie the written leaves unmoved, nor shift their ordered rows. but when the hinge works round, and thence a light air on them blows, then, when the door doth disarray among the frail leaves bear, to catch them fluttering in the cave she never hath a care, nor will she set them back again nor make the song-words meet; so folk unanswered go their ways and loathe the sibyl's seat. but thou, count not the cost of time that there thou hast to spend; although thy fellows blame thee sore, and length of way to wend call on thy sails, and thou may'st fill their folds with happy gale, draw nigh the seer, and strive with prayers to have her holy tale; beseech her sing, and that her words from willing tongue go free: so reverenced shall she tell thee tale of folk of italy and wars to come; and how to 'scape, and how to bear each ill, and with a happy end at last thy wandering shall fulfil. now is this all my tongue is moved to tell thee lawfully: go, let thy deeds troy's mightiness exalt above the sky!' so when the seer from loving mouth such words as this had said, then gifts of heavy gold and gifts of carven tooth he bade be borne a-shipboard; and our keels he therewithal doth stow with dodonæan kettle-ware and silver great enow, a coat of hookèd woven mail and triple golden chain, a helm with noble towering crest crowned with a flowing mane, the arms of pyrrhus: gifts most meet my father hath withal; and steeds he gives and guides he gives, fills up the tale of oars, and arms our fellows to their need. anchises still was bidding us meanwhile to have a heed of setting sail, nor with the wind all fair to make delay; to whom with words of worship now doth phoebus' servant say: 'anchises, thou whom venus' bed hath made so glorious, care of the gods, twice caught away from ruin of pergamus, lo, there the ausonian land for thee, set sail upon the chase: yet needs must thou upon the sea glide by its neighbouring face. far off is that ausonia yet that phoebus open lays. fare forth, made glad with pious son! why tread i longer ways of speech, and stay the rising south with words that i would tell?' and therewithal andromache, sad with the last farewell, brings for ascanius raiment wrought with picturing wool of gold, and phrygian coat; nor will she have our honour wax acold, but loads him with the woven gifts, and such word sayeth she: 'take these, fair boy; keep them to be my hands' last memory, the tokens of enduring love thy younger days did win from hector's wife andromache, the last gifts of thy kin. o thou, of my astyanax the only image now! such eyes he had, such hands he had, such countenance as thou, and now with thee were growing up in equal tale of years.' then i, departing, spake to them amid my rising tears: 'live happy! ye with fortune's game have nothing more to play, while we from side to side thereof are hurried swift away. your rest hath blossomed and brought forth; no sea-field shall ye till, seeking the fields of italy that fade before you still. ye see another xanthus here, ye see another troy, made by your hands for better days mehopes, and longer joy: and soothly less it lies across the pathway of the greek, if ever i that tiber flood and tiber fields i seek shall enter, and behold the walls our folk shall win of fate. twin cities some day shall we have, and folks confederate, epirus and hesperia; from dardanus each came, one fate had each: them shall we make one city and the same, one troy in heart: lo, let our sons of sons' sons see to it!' past nigh ceraunian mountain-sides thence o'er the sea we flit, whence the sea-way to italy the shortest may be made. but in the meanwhile sets the sun, the dusk hills lie in shade, and, choosing oar-wards, down we lie on bosom of the land so wished for: by the water-side and on the dry sea-strand we tend our bodies here and there; sleep floodeth every limb. but ere the hour-bedriven night in midmost orb did swim, nought slothful palinurus rose, and wisdom strives to win of all the winds: with eager ear the breeze he drinketh in; he noteth how through silent heaven the stars soft gliding fare, arcturus, the wet hyades, and either northern bear, and through and through he searcheth out orion girt with gold. so when he sees how everything a peaceful sky foretold, he bloweth clear from off the poop, and we our campment shift, and try the road and spread abroad our sail-wings to the lift. and now, the stars all put to flight, aurora's blushes grow, when we behold dim fells afar and long lands lying low, --e'en italy. achates first cries out on italy; to italy our joyous folk glad salutation cry. anchises then a mighty bowl crowned with a garland fair, and filled it with unwatered wine and called the gods to hear, high standing on the lofty deck: 'o gods that rule the earth and sea, and all the tides of storm, make our way easy with the wind, breathe on us kindly breath!' then riseth up the longed-for breeze, the haven openeth as nigh we draw, and on the cliff a fane of pallas shows: therewith our fellow-folk furl sail and shoreward turn the prows. bow-wise the bight is hollowed out by eastward-setting flood, but over-foamed by salt-sea spray thrust out its twin horns stood, while it lay hidden; tower-like rocks let down on either hand twin arms of rock-wall, and the fane lies backward from the stand. but i beheld upon the grass four horses, snowy white, grazing the meadows far and wide, first omen of my sight. father anchises seeth and saith: 'new land, and bear'st thou war? for war are horses dight; so these war-threatening herd-beasts are. yet whiles indeed those four-foot things in car will well refrain, and tamed beneath the yoke will bear the bit and bridle's strain, so there is yet a hope of peace.' then on the might we call of pallas of the weapon-din, first welcomer of all, and veil our brows before the gods with cloth of phrygian dye; and that chief charge of helenus we do all rightfully, and argive juno worship there in such wise as is willed. we tarry not, but when all vows are duly there fulfilled, unto the wind our sail-yard horns we fall to turn about, and leave the houses of the greeks, and nursing fields of doubt. and next is seen tarentum's bay, the herculean place if fame tell true; lacinia then, the house of gods, we face; and caulon's towers, and scylaceum, of old the shipman's bane. then see we Ætna rise far off above trinacria's main; afar the mighty moan of sea, and sea-cliffs beaten sore, we hearken, and the broken voice that cometh from the shore: the sea leaps high upon the shoals, the eddy churns the sand. then saith anchises: 'lo forsooth, charybdis is at hand, those rocks and stones the dread whereof did helenus foretell. save ye, o friends! swing out the oars together now and well!' nor worser than his word they do, and first the roaring beaks doth palinurus leftward wrest; then all the sea-host seeks with sail and oar the waters wild upon the left that lie: upheaved upon the tossing whirl we fare unto the sky, then down unto the nether gods we sink upon the wave: thrice from the hollow-carven rocks great roar the sea-cliffs gave; thrice did we see the spray cast forth and stars with sea-dew done; but the wind left us weary folk at sinking of the sun, and on the cyclops' strand we glide unwitting of the way. locked from the wind the haven is, itself an ample bay; but hard at hand mid ruin and fear doth Ætna thunder loud; and whiles it blasteth forth on air a black and dreadful cloud, that rolleth on a pitchy wreath, where bright the ashes mix, and heaveth up great globes of flame and heaven's high star-world licks, and other whiles the very cliffs, and riven mountain-maw it belches forth; the molten stones together will it draw aloft with moan, and boileth o'er from lowest inner vale. this world of mountain presseth down, as told it is in tale, enceladus the thunder-scorched; huge Ætna on him cast, from all her bursten furnaces breathes out his fiery blast; and whensoe'er his weary side he shifteth, all the shore trinacrian trembleth murmuring, and heaven is smoke-clad o'er. in thicket close we wear the night amidst these marvels dread, nor may we see what thing it is that all that noise hath shed: for neither showed the planet fires, nor was the heaven bright with starry zenith; mirky cloud hung over all the night, in mist of dead untimely tide the moon was hidden close. but when from earliest eastern dawn the following day arose, and fair aurora from the heaven the watery shades had cleared, lo, suddenly from out the wood new shape of man appeared. unknown he was, most utter lean, in wretchedest of plight: shoreward he stretched his suppliant hands; we turn back at the sight, and gaze on him: all squalor there, a mat of beard we see, and raiment clasped with wooden thorns; and yet a greek is he, yea, sent erewhile to leaguered troy in greekish weed of war. but when he saw our dardan guise and arms of troy afar, feared at the sight he hung aback at first a little space, but presently ran headlong down into our sea-side place with tears and prayers: 'o teucrian men, by all the stars,' he cried, 'by all the gods, by light of heaven ye breathe, o bear me wide away from here! to whatso land henceforth ye lead my feet it is enough. that i am one from out the danaan fleet, and that i warred on ilian house erewhile, most true it is; for which, if i must pay so much wherein i wrought amiss, then strew me on the flood and sink my body in the sea! to die by hands of very men shall be a joy to me.' he spake with arms about our knees, and wallowing still he clung unto our knees: but what he was and from what blood he sprung we bade him say, and tell withal what fate upon him drave. his right hand with no tarrying then father anchises gave unto the youth, and heartened him with utter pledge of peace. so now he spake when fear of us amid his heart did cease: 'luckless ulysses' man am i, and ithaca me bore, hight achemenides, who left that adamastus poor my father (would i still were there!) by leaguered troy to be. here while my mates aquake with dread the cruel threshold flee, they leave me in the cyclops' den unmindful of their friend; a house of blood and bloody meat, most huge from end to end, mirky within: high up aloft star-smiting to behold is he himself;--such bane, o god, keep thou from field and fold! scarce may a man look on his face; no word to him is good; on wretches' entrails doth he feed and black abundant blood. myself i saw him of our folk two hapless bodies take in his huge hand, whom straight he fell athwart a stone to break as there he lay upon his back; i saw the threshold swim with spouted blood, i saw him grind each bloody dripping limb, i saw the joints amidst his teeth all warm and quivering still. --he payed therefore, for never might ulysses bear such ill, nor was he worser than himself in such a pinch bestead: for when with victual satiate, deep sunk in wine, his head fell on his breast, and there he lay enormous through the den, snorting out gore amidst his sleep, with gobbets of the men and mingled blood and wine; then we sought the great gods with prayer and drew the lots, and one and all crowded about him there, and bored out with a sharpened pike the eye that used to lurk enormous lonely 'neath his brow overhanging grim and mirk, as great a shield of argolis, or phoebus' lamp on high; and so our murdered fellows' ghosts avenged we joyously. --but ye, o miserable men, flee forth! make haste to pluck the warping hawser from the shore! for even such, and e'en so great as polypheme in cave shuts in the wealth of woolly things and draws the udders' wave, an hundred others commonly dwell o'er these curving bights, unutterable cyclop folk, or stray about the heights. thrice have the twin horns of the moon fulfilled the circle clear while i have dragged out life in woods and houses of the deer, and gardens of the beasts; and oft from rocky place on high trembling i note the cyclops huge, hear foot and voice go by. and evil meat of wood-berries, and cornel's flinty fruit the bush-boughs give; on grass at whiles i browse, and plucked-up root so wandering all about, at last i see unto the shore your ships a-coming: thitherward my steps in haste i bore: whate'er might hap enough it was to flee this folk of ill; rather do ye in any wise the life within me spill.' and scarcely had he said the word ere on the hill above the very shepherd polypheme his mountain mass did move, a marvel dread, a shapeless trunk, an eyeless monstrous thing, who down unto the shore well known his sheep was shepherding; a pine-tree in the hand of him leads on and stays his feet; the woolly sheep his fellows are, his only pleasure sweet, the only solace of his ill. but when he touched the waters deep, and mid the waves was come, he falls to wash the flowing blood from off his eye dug out; gnashing his teeth and groaning sore he walks the sea about, but none the less no wave there was up to his flank might win. afeard from far we haste to flee, and, having taken in our suppliant, who had earned it well, cut cable silently, and bending to the eager oars sweep out along the sea. he heard it, and his feet he set to follow on the sound; but when his right hand failed to reach, and therewithal he found he might not speed as fast as fares the ionian billow lithe, then clamour measureless he raised, and ocean quaked therewith through every wave, and inwardly the land was terrified of italy, and Ætna boomed from many-hollowed side. but all the race of cyclops stirred from woods and lofty hills, down rushes to the haven-side and all the haven fills; and Ætna's gathered brethren there we see; in vain they stand glowering grim-eyed with heads high up in heaven, a dreadful band of councillors: they were as when on ridge aloft one sees the oaks stand thick against the sky, and cone-hung cypresses, jove's lofty woods, or thicket where diana's footsteps stray. then headlong fear fell on our folk in whatsoever way to shake the reefs out spreading sail to any wind that blew; but helenus had bid us steer a midmost course and true 'twixt scylla and charybdis, lest to death we sail o'er-close: so safest seemed for backward course to let the sails go loose. but lo, from out pelorus' strait comes down the northern flaw, and past pantagia's haven-mouth of living stone we draw, and through the gulf of megara by thapsus lying low. such names did achemenides, ulysses' fellow, show, as now he coasted back again the shore erst wandered by. in jaws of the sicanian bay there doth an island lie against plemyrium's wavy face; folk called it in old days ortygia: there, as tells the tale, alpheus burrowed ways from his own elis 'neath the sea, and now by mouth of thine, o arethusa, blendeth him with that sicilian brine. we pray the isle's great deities, e'en as we bidden were: and thence we pass the earth o'erfat about helorus' mere; then by pachynus' lofty crags and thrust-forth rocks we skim, and camarina showeth next a long way off and dim; her whom the fates would ne'er be moved: then comes the plain in sight of gela, yea, and gela huge from her own river hight: then acragas the very steep shows great walls far away, begetter of the herds of horse high-couraged on a day. then thee, selinus of the palms, i leave with happy wind, and coast the lilybean shoals and tangled skerries blind. but next the firth of drepanum, the strand without a joy, will have me. there i tossed so sore, the tempests' very toy, o woe is me! my father lose, lightener of every care, of every ill: me all alone, me weary, father dear, there wouldst thou leave; thou borne away from perils all for nought! ah, neither helenus the seer, despite the fears he taught, nor grim celæno in her wrath, this grief of soul forebode. this was the latest of my toils, the goal of all my road, for me departed thence some god to this your land did bear." so did the father Æneas, with all at stretch to hear, tell o'er the fateful ways of god, and of his wanderings teach: but here he hushed him at the last and made an end of speech. book iv. argument. herein is told of the great love of dido, queen of carthage, and the woeful ending of her. meanwhile the queen, long smitten sore with sting of all desire, with very heart's blood feeds the wound and wastes with hidden fire. and still there runneth in her mind the hero's valiancy, and glorious stock; his words, his face, fast in her heart they lie: nor may she give her body peace amid that restless pain. but when the next day phoebus' lamp lit up the lands again, and now aurora from the heavens had rent the mist apart, sick-souled her sister she bespeaks, the sharer of her heart: "sister, o me, this sleepless pain that fears me with unrest! o me, within our house and home this new-come wondrous guest! ah, what a countenance and mien! in arms and heart how strong! surely to trow him of the gods it doth no wisdom wrong; for fear it is shows base-born souls. woe's me! how tossed about by fortune was he! how he showed war's utter wearing out! and, but my heart for ever now were set immovably never to let me long again the wedding bond to tie, since love betrayed me first of all with him my darling dead, and were i not all weary-sick of torch and bridal bed, this sin alone of all belike my falling heart might trap; for, anna, i confess it thee, since poor sychæus' hap, my husband dead, my hearth acold through murderous brother's deed, this one alone hath touched the quick; this one my heart may lead unto its fall: i feel the signs of fire of long agone. and yet i pray the deeps of earth beneath my feet may yawn, i pray the father send me down bolt-smitten to the shades, the pallid shades of erebus, the night that never fades, before, o shame, i shame thy face, or loose what thou hast tied! he took away the love from me, who bound me to his side that first of times. ah, in the tomb let love be with him still!" the tears arisen as she spake did all her bosom fill. but anna saith: "dearer to me than very light of day, must thou alone and sorrowing wear all thy youth away, nor see sweet sons, nor know the joys that gentle venus brings? deem'st thou dead ash or buried ghosts have heed of such-like things? so be it that thy sickened soul no man to yield hath brought in libya as in tyre; let be iarbas set at nought, and other lords, whom africa, the rich in battle's bliss, hath nursed: but now, with love beloved,--must thou be foe to this? yea, hast thou not within thy mind amidst whose bounds we are? here the gætulian cities fierce, a folk unmatched in war, and hard numidia's bitless folk, and syrtes' guestless sand lie round thee: there barcæans wild, the rovers of the land, desert for thirst: what need to tell of wars new-born in tyre, and of thy murderous brother's threats? meseems by very will of gods, by juno's loving mind, the ilian keels run down their course before the following wind. ah, what a city shalt thou see! how shall the lordship wax with such a spouse! with teucrian arms our brothers at our backs unto what glory of great deeds the punic realm may reach! but thou, go seek the grace of gods, with sacrifice beseech; then take thy fill of guest-serving; weave web of all delays: the wintry raging of the sea, orion's watery ways, the way-worn ships, the heavens unmeet for playing seaman's part." so saying, she blew the flame of love within her kindled heart, and gave her doubtful soul a hope and loosed the girth of shame. then straight they fare unto the shrines, by every altar's flame praying for peace; and hosts they slay, chosen as custom would, to phoebus, ceres wise of law, father lyæus good, but chiefest unto juno's might, that wedlock hath in care. there bowl in hand stands dido forth, most excellently fair, and pours between the sleek cow's horns; or to and fro doth pace before the altars fat with prayer, 'neath very godhead's face, and halloweth in the day with gifts, and, gazing eagerly amid the host's yet beating heart, for answering rede must try. --woe's me! the idle mind of priests! what prayer, what shrine avails the wild with love!--and all the while the smooth flame never fails to eat her heart: the silent wound lives on within her breast: unhappy dido burneth up, and, wild with all unrest, for ever strays the city through: as arrow-smitten doe, unwary, whom some herd from far hath drawn upon with bow amid the cretan woods, and left the swift steel in the sore, unknowing: far in flight she strays the woods and thickets o'er, 'neath dictæ's heights; but in her flank still bears the deadly reed. now midmost of the city-walls Æneas doth she lead, and shows him the sidonian wealth, the city's guarded ways; and now she falls to speech, and now amidst a word she stays. then at the dying of the day the feast she dights again, and, witless, once again will hear the tale of ilium's pain; and once more hangeth on the lips that tell the tale aloud. but after they were gone their ways, and the dusk moon did shroud her light in turn, and setting stars bade all to sleep away, lone in the empty house she mourns, broods over where he lay, hears him and sees him, she apart from him that is apart or, by his father's image smit, ascanius to her heart she taketh, if her utter love she may thereby beguile. no longer rise the walls begun, nor play the youth this while in arms, or fashion havens forth, or ramparts of the war: broken is all that handicraft and mastery; idle are the mighty threatenings of the walls and engines wrought heaven high. now when the holy wife of jove beheld her utterly held by that plague, whose madness now not e'en her fame might stay, then unto venus, saturn's seed began such words to say: "most glorious praise ye carry off, meseems, most wealthy spoil, thou and thy boy; wondrous the might, and long to tell the toil, whereas two gods by dint of craft one woman have o'erthrown. but well i wot, that through your fear of walls i call mine own, in welcome of proud carthage doors your hearts may never trow. but what shall be the end hereof? where wends our contest now? what if a peace that shall endure, and wedlock surely bound, we fashion? that which all thine heart was set on thou hast found. for dido burns: bone of her bone thy madness is today: so let us rule these folks as one beneath an equal sway: let the doom be that she shall take a phrygian man for lord, and to thine hand for dowry due her tyrian folk award." but venus felt that juno's guile within the word did live, who lordship due to italy to libya fain would give, so thus she answered her again: "who were so overbold to gainsay this? or who would wish war against thee to hold, if only this may come to pass, and fate the deed may seal? but doubtful drifts my mind of fate, if one same town and weal jove giveth to the tyrian folk and those from troy outcast, if he will have those folks to blend and bind the treaty fast thou art his wife: by prayer mayst thou prove all his purpose weighed. set forth, i follow." juno then took up the word and said: "yea, that shall be my very work: how that which presseth now may be encompassed, hearken ye, in few words will i show: Æneas and the hapless queen are minded forth to fare for hunting to the thicket-side, when titan first shall bear tomorrow's light aloft, and all the glittering world unveil: on them a darkening cloud of rain, blended with drift of hail, will i pour down, while for the hunt the feathered snare-lines shake, and toils about the thicket go: all heaven will i awake with thunder, and their scattered folk the mid-mirk shall enwrap: then dido and the trojan lord on one same cave shall hap; i will be there, and if to me thy heart be stable grown, in wedlock will i join the two and deem her all his own: and there shall be their bridal god." then venus nought gainsaid, but, nodding yea, she smiled upon the snare before her laid. meanwhile aurora risen up had left the ocean stream, and gateward throng the chosen youth in first of morning's beam, and wide-meshed nets, and cordage-toils and broad-steeled spears abound, massylian riders go their ways with many a scenting hound. the lords of carthage by the door bide till the tarrying queen shall leave her chamber: there, with gold and purple well beseen, the mettled courser stands, and champs the bit that bids him bide. at last she cometh forth to them with many a man beside: a cloak of sidon wrapped her round with pictured border wrought, her quiver was of fashioned gold, and gold her tresses caught; the gathering of her purple gown a golden buckle had. then come the phrygian fellows forth; comes forth iulus glad; yea and Æneas' very self is of their fellowship, and joins their band: in goodliness all those did he outstrip: e'en such as when apollo leaves the wintry lycian shore, and xanthus' stream, and delos sees, his mother's isle once more; and halloweth in the dance anew, while round the altars shout the cretans and the dryopes, and painted scythian rout: he steps it o'er the cynthus' ridge, and leafy crown to hold his flowing tresses doth he weave, and intertwines the gold, and on his shoulders clang the shafts. nor duller now passed on Æneas, from his noble face such wondrous glory shone. so come they to the mountain-side and pathless deer-fed ground, and lo, from hill-tops driven adown, how swift the wild goats bound along the ridges: otherwhere across the open lea run hart and hind, and gathering up their hornèd host to flee, amid a whirling cloud of dust they leave the mountain-sides. but here the boy ascanius the midmost valley rides, and glad, swift-horsed, now these he leaves, now those he flees before, and fain were he mid deedless herds to meet a foaming boar, or see some yellow lion come the mountain-slopes adown. meanwhile with mighty murmuring sound confused the heavens are grown, and thereupon the drift of rain and hail upon them broke; therewith the scattered trojan youth, the tyrian fellow-folk, the son of venus' dardan son, scared through the meadows fly to diverse shelter, while the streams rush from the mountains high. then dido and the trojan lord meet in the self-same cave; then earth, first-born of everything, and wedding juno gave the token; then the wildfires flashed, and air beheld them wed, and o'er their bridal wailed the nymphs in hill-tops overhead. that day began the tide of death; that day the evil came; no more she heedeth eyes of men; no more she heedeth fame; no more hath dido any thought a stolen love to win, but calls it wedlock: yea, e'en so she weaveth up the sin. straight through the mighty libyan folks is rumour on the wing-- rumour, of whom nought swifter is of any evil thing: she gathereth strength by going on, and bloometh shifting oft! a little thing, afraid at first, she springeth soon aloft; her feet are on the worldly soil, her head the clouds o'erlay. earth, spurred by anger 'gainst the gods, begot her as they say, of coeus and enceladus the latest sister-birth. swift are her wings to cleave the air, swift-foot she treads the earth: a monster dread and huge, on whom so many as there lie the feathers, under each there lurks, o strange! a watchful eye; and there wag tongues, and babble mouths, and hearkening ears upstand as many: all a-dusk by night she flies 'twixt sky and land loud clattering, never shutting eye in rest of slumber sweet. by day she keepeth watch high-set on houses of the street, or on the towers aloft she sits for mighty cities' fear! and lies and ill she loves no less than sooth which she must bear. she now, rejoicing, filled the folk with babble many-voiced, and matters true and false alike sang forth as she rejoiced: how here was come Æneas now, from trojan blood sprung forth, whom beauteous dido deemed indeed a man to mate her worth: how winter-long betwixt them there the sweets of sloth they nursed, unmindful of their kingdoms' weal, by ill desire accursed. this in the mouth of every man the loathly goddess lays, and thence to king iarbas straight she wendeth on her ways, to set his mind on fire with words, and high his wrath to lead. he, sprung from garamantian nymph and very ammon's seed, an hundred mighty fanes to jove, an hundred altars fair, had builded in his wide domain, and set the watch-fire there, the everlasting guard of god: there fat the soil was grown with blood of beasts; the threshold bloomed with garlands diverse blown. he, saith the tale, all mad at heart, and fired with bitter fame, amidmost of the might of god before the altars came, and prayed a many things to jove with suppliant hands outspread: "o jupiter, almighty lord, to whom from painted bed the banqueting maurusian folk lenæan joy pours forth, dost thou behold? o father, is our dread of nothing worth when thou art thundering? yea, forsooth, a blind fire of the clouds, an idle hubbub of the sky, our souls with terror loads! a woman wandering on our shore, who set her up e'en now a little money-cheapened town, to whom a field to plough and lordship of the place we gave, hath thrust away my word of wedlock, and hath taken in Æneas for her lord: and now this paris, hedged around with all his gelding rout, mæonian mitre tied to chin, and wet hair done about, sits on the prey while to thine house a many gifts we bear, still cherishing an idle tale who our begetters were." the almighty heard him as he prayed holding the altar-horns, and to the war-walls of the queen his eyes therewith he turns, and sees the lovers heeding nought the glory of their lives; then mercury he calls to him, and such a bidding gives: "go forth, o son, the zephyrs call, and glide upon the wing unto the duke of dardan men in carthage tarrying, who hath no eyes to see the walls that fate to him hath given: speak to him, son, and bear my words down the swift air of heaven: his fairest mother promised us no such a man at need, nor claimed him twice from greekish sword to live for such a deed. but italy, the fierce in war, the big with empire's brood, was he to rule; to get for us from glorious teucer's blood that folk of folks, and all the world beneath his laws to lay. but if such glory of great deeds nought stirreth him today, nor for his own fame hath he heart the toil to overcome, yet shall the father grudge the son the towered heights of rome? what doth he? tarrying for what hope among the enemy? and hath no eyes ausonian sons, lavinian land to see? let him to ship! this is the doom; this word i bid thee bear." he spake: his mighty father's will straight did the god prepare to compass, and his golden shoes first bindeth on his feet, e'en those which o'er the ocean plain aloft on feathers fleet, or over earth swift bear him on before the following gale: and then his rod he takes, wherewith he calleth spirits pale from orcus, or those others sends sad tartarus beneath, and giveth sleep and takes away, and openeth eyes to death; the rod that sways the ocean-winds and rules the cloudy rack. now winging way he comes in sight of peak and steepy back of flinty atlas, on whose head all heaven is set adown-- of atlas with the piny head, and never-failing crown of mirky cloud, beat on with rain and all the winds that blow: a snow-cloak o'er his shoulders falls, and headlong streams overflow his ancient chin; his bristling beard with plenteous ice is done. there hovering on his poisèd wings stayed that cyllenian one, and all his gathered body thence sent headlong toward the waves; then like a bird the shores about, about the fishy caves, skims low adown upon the wing the sea-plain's face anigh, not otherwise 'twixt heaven and earth cyllene's god did fly; and now, his mother's father great a long way left behind, unto the sandy libya's shore he clave the driving wind. but when the cot-built place of earth he felt beneath his feet, he saw Æneas founding towers and raising houses meet: starred was the sword about him girt with yellow jasper stone, the cloak that from his shoulders streamed with tyrian purple shone: fair things that wealthy dido's hand had given him for a gift, who with the gleam of thready gold the purple web did shift. then brake the god on him: "forsooth, tall carthage wilt thou found, o lover, and a city fair raise up from out the ground? woe's me! thy lordship and thy deeds hast thou forgotten quite? the very ruler of the gods down from olympus bright hath sent me, he whose majesty the earth and heavens obey; this was the word he bade me bear adown the windy way. what dost thou? hoping for what hope in libya dost thou wear thy days? if glorious fated things thine own soul may not stir, and heart thou lackest for thy fame the coming toil to wed, think on ascanius' dawn of days and hope inherited, to whom is due the italian realm and all the world of rome!" but when from out cyllenius' mouth such word as this had come, amidst his speech he left the sight of men that die from day, and mid thin air from eyes of folk he faded far away. but sore the sight Æneas feared, and wit from out him drave; his hair stood up, amidst his jaws the voice within him clave. bewildered by that warning word, and by that god's command, he yearneth to depart and flee, and leave the lovely land. ah, what to do? and with what word may he be bold to win peace of the queen all mad with love? what wise shall he begin? hither and thither now he sends his mind all eager-swift, and bears it diversely away and runs o'er every shift: at last, as many things he weighed, this seemed the better rede. mnestheus, sergestus, straight he calls, sergestus stout at need, and bids them dight ship silently and bring their folk to shore, and dight their gear, and cause thereof with lying cover o'er; while he himself, since of all this kind dido knoweth nought, nor of the ending of such love may ever have a thought, will seek to draw anigh the queen, seek time wherein the word may softliest be said to her, the matter lightliest stirred. so all they glad his bidding do, and get them to the work. but who may hoodwink loving eyes? she felt the treason lurk about her life, and from the first saw all that was to be; fearing indeed where no fear was. that rumour wickedly told her wild soul of ship-host armed and ready to set out; the heart died in her; all aflame she raves the town about, e'en as a thyad, who, soul-smit by holy turmoil, hears the voice of bacchus on the day that crowns the triple years, and mirk cithæron through the night hath called her clamorous. unto Æneas at the last herself she speaketh thus: "o thou forsworn! and hast thou hoped with lies to cover o'er such wickedness, and silently to get thee from my shore? our love, it hath not held thee back? nor right hand given in faith awhile agone? nor dido doomed to die a bitter death? yea, e'en beneath the winter heavens thy fleet thou gatherest in haste to fare across the main amid the north's unrest o cruel! what if land unknown and stranger field and fold thou sought'st not; if the ancient troy stood as in days of old; wouldst thou not still be seeking troy across the wavy brine? --yea, me thou fleest. o by these tears, by that right hand of thine, since i myself have left myself unhappy nought but this, and by our bridal of that day and early wedding bliss, if ever i were worthy thanks, if sweet in aught i were, pity a falling house! if yet be left a space for prayer, o then i pray thee put away this mind of evil things! because of thee the libyan folks, and those numidian kings, hate me, and tyrians are my foes: yea, and because of thee my shame is gone, and that which was my heavenward road to be. my early glory.--guest, to whom leav'st thou thy dying friend? since of my husband nought but this is left me in the end. why bide i till pygmalion comes to lay my walls alow, till taken by getulian kings, iarbas' slave i go? ah! if at least ere thou wert gone some child of thee i had! if yet Æneas in mine house might play a little lad, e'en but to bring aback the face of that beloved one, then were i never vanquished quite, nor utterly undone." she spake: he, warned by jove's command, his eyes still steadfast held, and, striving, thrust his sorrow back, howso his heart-strings swelled: at last he answered shortly thus: "o queen, though words may fail to tell thy lovingkindness, ne'er my heart belies the tale: still shall it be a joy to think of sweet elissa's days while of myself i yet may think, while breath my body sways. few words about the deed in hand: ne'er in my mind it came as flees a thief to flee from thee; never the bridal flame did i hold forth, or plight my troth such matters to fulfil. if fate would let me lead a life according to my will, might i such wise as pleaseth me my troubles lay to rest, by troy-town surely would i bide among the ashes blest of my beloved, and priam's house once more aloft should stand; new pergamus for vanquished men should rise beneath my hand. but now grynean phoebus bids toward italy the great to reach my hand; to italy biddeth the lycian fate: there is my love, there is my land. if carthage braveries and lovely look of libyan walls hold fast thy tyrian eyes, why wilt thou grudge the teucrian men ausonian dwelling-place? if we too seek the outland realm, for us too be there grace! father anchises, whensoever night covereth up the earth with dewy dark, and whensoe'er the bright stars come to birth, his troubled image midst of sleep brings warning word and fear. ascanius weigheth on my heart with wrong of head so dear, whom i beguile of fateful fields and realm of italy. yea, even now god's messenger sent from the jove on high, (bear witness either head of us!) bore doom of god adown the eager wind: i saw the god enter the fair-walled town in simple light: i drank his voice, yea with these ears of mine. cease then to burn up with thy wail my burdened heart and thine! perforce i follow italy." but now this long while, as he spake, athwart and wild she gazed, and here and there her eyeballs rolled, and strayed with silent look his body o'er; and at the last with heart of fire outbroke: "traitor! no goddess brought thee forth, nor dardanus was first of thine ill race; but caucasus on spiky crags accurst begot thee; and hyrcanian dugs of tigers suckled thee. why hide it now? why hold me back lest greater evil be? for did he sigh the while i wept? his eyes--what were they moved? hath he been vanquished unto tears, or pitied her that loved? --ah, is aught better now than aught, when juno utter great, yea and the father on all this with evil eyen wait? all faith is gone! i took him in a stranded outcast, bare: yea in my very throne and land, ah fool! i gave him share. his missing fleet i brought aback; from death i brought his friends. --woe! how the furies burn me up!--now seer apollo sends, now bidding send the lycian lots; now sendeth jove on high his messenger to bear a curse adown the windy sky! such is the toil of gods aloft; such are the cares that rack their souls serene.--i hold thee not, nor cast thy words aback. go down the wind to italy! seek lordship o'er the sea! only i hope amid the rocks, if any god there be, thou shalt drink in thy punishment and call on dido's name full oft: and i, though gone away, will follow with black flame; and when cold death from out my limbs my soul hath won away, i will be with thee everywhere; o wretch, and thou shalt pay. ah, i shall hear; the tale of all shall reach me midst the dead." therewith she brake her speech athwart, and sick at heart she fled the outer air, and turned away, and gat her from his eyes; leaving him dallying with his fear, and turning many wise the words to say. her serving-maids the fainting body weak, bear back unto the marble room and on the pillows streak. but god-fearing Æneas now, however fain he were to soothe her grief and with soft speech assuage her weary care, much groaning, and the heart of him shaken with loving pain. yet went about the god's command and reached his ships again. then fall the teucrians on indeed, and over all the shore roll the tall ships; the pitchy keel swims in the sea once more: they bear the oars still leaf-bearing: they bring the might of wood, unwrought, so fain of flight they are, lo now their flitting! how they run from all the town in haste! e'en as the ants, the winter-wise, are gathered whiles to waste a heap of corn, and toil that same beneath their roof to lay, forth goes the black troop mid the mead, and carries forth the prey over the grass in narrow line: some strive with shoulder-might and push along a grain o'ergreat, some drive the line aright, or scourge the loiterers: hot the work fares all along the road. ah dido, when thou sawest all what heart in thee abode! what groans thou gavest when thou saw'st from tower-top the long strand a-boil with men all up and down; the sea on every hand before thine eyes by stir of men torn into all unrest! o evil love, where wilt thou not drive on a mortal breast? lo, she is driven to weep again and pray him to be kind, and suppliant, in the bonds of love her lofty heart to bind, lest she should leave some way untried and die at last for nought. "anna, thou seest the strand astir, the men together brought from every side, the canvas spread calling the breezes down. while joyful on the quarter-deck the sea-folk lay the crown. sister, since i had might to think that such a thing could be, i shall have might to bear it now: yet do one thing for me, poor wretch, o anna: for to thee alone would he be kind, that traitor, and would trust to thee the inmost of his mind; and thou alone his softening ways and melting times dost know. o sister, speak a suppliant word to that high-hearted foe: i never swore at aulis there to pluck up root and branch the trojan folk; for pergamus no war-ship did i launch: anchises' buried ghost from tomb i never tore away: why will his ears be ever deaf to any word i say? where hurrieth he? o let him give his wretched love one gift; let him but wait soft sailing-tide, when fair the breezes shift. no longer for the wedding past, undone, i make my prayer, nor that he cast his lordship by, and promised latium fair. for empty time, for rest and stay of madness now i ask, till fortune teach the overthrown to learn her weary task. sister, i pray this latest grace; o pity me today, and manifold when i am dead the gift will i repay." so prayed she: such unhappy words of weeping anna bears, and bears again and o'er again: but him no weeping stirs, nor any voice he hearkeneth now may turn him from his road: god shut the hero's steadfast ears; fate in the way abode. as when against a mighty oak, strong growth of many a year, on this side and on that the blasts of alpine boreas bear, contending which shall root it up: forth goes the roar, deep lie the driven leaves upon the earth from shaken bole on high. but fast it clingeth to the crag, and high as goes its head to heaven aloft, so deep adown to hell its roots are spread. e'en so by ceaseless drift of words the hero every wise is battered, and the heavy care deep in his bosom lies; steadfast the will abides in him; the tears fall down for nought. ah, and unhappy dido then the very death besought, outworn by fate: the hollow heaven has grown a sight to grieve. and for the helping of her will, that she the light may leave, she seeth, when mid the frankincense her offering she would lay, the holy water blackening there, o horrible to say! the wine poured forth turned into blood all loathly as it fell. which sight to none, not e'en unto her sister, would she tell. moreover, to her first-wed lord there stood amidst the house a marble shrine, the which she loved with worship marvellous, and bound it was with snowy wool and leafage of delight; thence heard she, when the earth was held in mirky hand of night, strange sounds come forth, and words as if her husband called his own. and o'er and o'er his funeral song the screech-owl wailed alone, and long his lamentable tale from high aloft was rolled. and many a saying furthermore of god-loved seers of old fears her with dreadful memory: all wild amid her dreams cruel Æneas drives her on, and evermore she seems left all alone; and evermore a road that never ends, mateless, and seeking through the waste her tyrian folk, she wends. as raving pentheus saw the rout of that well-willing folk, when twofold sun and twofold thebes upon his eyes outbroke: or like as agamemnon's son is driven across the stage, fleeing his mother's fiery hand that bears the serpent's rage, while there the avenging dreadful ones upon the threshold sit. but when she gave the horror birth, and, grief-worn, cherished it, and doomed her death, then with herself she planned its time and guise, and to her sister sorrowing sore spake word in such a wise, covering her end with cheerful face and calm and hopeful brow: "kinswoman, i have found a way, (joy with thy sister now!) whereby to bring him back to me or let me loose from him. adown beside the setting sun, hard on the ocean's rim, lies the last world of Æthiops, where atlas mightiest grown upon his shoulder turns the pole with burning stars bestrown. a priestess thence i met erewhile, come of massylian seed, the warden of the west-maid's fane, and wont the worm to feed, mingling for him the honey-juice with poppies bearing sleep, whereby she maketh shift on tree the hallowed bough to keep. she by enchantment takes in hand to loose what hearts she will, but other ones at need will she with heavy sorrows fill; and she hath craft to turn the stars and back the waters beat, call up the ghosts that fare by night, make earth beneath thy feet cry out, and ancient ash-trees draw the mountain-side adown. dear heart, i swear upon the gods, i swear on thee, mine own and thy dear head, that i am loath with magic craft to play. but privily amid the house a bale for burning lay 'neath the bare heaven, and pile on it the arms that evil one left in the chamber: all he wore, the bridal bed whereon my days were lost: for so 'tis good: the priestess showeth me all tokens of the wicked man must perish utterly." no more she spake, but with the word her face grew deadly white. but anna sees not how she veiled her death with new-found rite, nor any thought of such a deed her heart encompasseth; nor fears she heavier things to come than at sychæus' death. wherefore she takes the charge in hand. but now the queen, that bale being built amid the inner house 'neath the bare heavens, piled high with fir and cloven oak enow, hangeth the garlands round the place, and crowns the bale with bough that dead men use: the weed he wore, his very effigy, his sword, she lays upon the bed, well knowing what shall be. there stand the altars, there the maid, wild with her scattered hair, calls chaos, erebus, and those three hundred godheads there, and hecate triply fashionèd to maiden dian's look; water she scattered, would-be wave of dark avernus' brook; and herbs she brought, by brazen shears 'neath moonlight harvested, all downy-young, though inky milk of venomed ill they shed. she brings the love-charm snatched away from brow of new-born foal ere yet the mother snatcheth it. dido herself the altars nigh, meal in her hallowed hands, with one foot of its bindings bare, and ungirt raiment stands, and dying calls upon the gods, and stars that fateful fare; and then if any godhead is, mindful and just to care for unloved lovers, unto that she sendeth up the prayer. now night it was, and everything on earth had won the grace of quiet sleep: the woods had rest, the wildered waters' face: it was the tide when stars roll on amid their courses due, and all the tilth is hushed, and beasts, and birds of many a hue; and all that is in waters wide, and what the waste doth keep in thicket rough, amid the hush of night-tide lay asleep, and slipping off the load of care forgat their toilsome part. but ne'er might that phoenician queen, that most unhappy heart, sink into sleep, or take the night unto her eyes and breast: her sorrows grow, and love again swells up with all unrest, and ever midst her troubled wrath rolls on a mighty tide; and thus she broods and turns it o'er and o'er on every side. "ah, whither now? shall i bemocked my early lovers try, and go numidian wedlock now on bended knee to buy: i, who so often scorned to take their bridal-bearing hands? or shall i, following ilian ships, bear uttermost commands of teucrian men, because my help their lightened hearts makes kind; because the thank for deed i did lies ever on their mind? but if i would, who giveth leave, or takes on scornful keel the hated thing? thou knowest not, lost wretch, thou may'st not feel, what treason of laomedon that folk for ever bears. what then? and shall i follow lone the joyous mariners? or, hedged with all my tyrian host, upon them shall i bear, driving again across the sea those whom i scarce might tear from sidon's city, forcing them to spread their sails abroad? nay, stay thy grief with steel, and die, and reap thy due reward! thou, sister, conquered by my tears, wert first this bane to lay on my mad soul, and cast my heart in that destroyer's way. why was i not allowed to live without the bridal bed, sackless and free as beasts afield, with no woes wearièd? why kept i not the faith of old to my sychæus sworn?" such wailing of unhappy words from out her breast was torn. Æneas on the lofty deck meanwhile, assured of flight, was winning sleep, since every need of his was duly dight; when lo! amid the dreams of sleep that shape of god come back, seemed once again to warn him thus: nor yet the face did lack nor anything of mercury; both voice and hue was there, and loveliness of youthful limbs and length of yellow hair: "o goddess-born, and canst thou sleep through such a tide as this? and seest thou not how round about the peril gathered is? and, witless, hear'st not zephyr blow with gentle, happy wind? for treason now and dreadful deed she turneth in her mind, assured of death; and diversely the tide of wrath sets in. why fleest thou not in haste away, while haste is yet to win? thou shalt behold the sea beat up with oar-blade, and the brand gleam dire against thee, and one flame shall run adown the strand, if thee tomorrow's dawn shall take still lingering on this shore. up! tarry not! for woman's heart is shifting evermore." so saying, amid the mirk of night he mingled and was lost. and therewithal Æneas, feared by sudden-flitting ghost, snatching his body forth from sleep, stirs up his folk at need: "wake ye, and hurry now, o men! get to the thwarts with speed, and bustle to unfurl the sails! here sent from heaven again a god hath spurred us on to flight, and biddeth hew atwain the hempen twine. o holy god, we follow on thy way, whatso thou art; and glad once more thy bidding we obey. o be with us! give gracious aid; set stars the heaven about to bless our ways!" and from the sheath his lightning sword flew out e'en as he spake: with naked blade he smote the hawser through, and all are kindled at his flame; they hurry and they do. the shore is left, with crowd of keels the sight of sea is dim; eager they whirl the spray aloft, as o'er the blue they skim. and now aurora left alone tithonus' saffron bed, and first light of another day across the world she shed. but when the queen from tower aloft beheld the dawn grow white, and saw the ships upon their way with fair sails trimmed aright, and all the haven shipless left, and reach of empty strand, then thrice and o'er again she smote her fair breast with her hand, and rent her yellow hair, and cried, "ah, jove! and is he gone? and shall a very stranger mock the lordship i have won? why arm they not? why gather not from all the town in chase? ho ye! why run ye not the ships down from their standing-place? quick, bring the fire! shake out the sails! hard on the oars to sea! --what words are these, or where am i? what madness changeth me? unhappy dido! now at last thine evil deed strikes home. ah, better when thou mad'st him lord--lo whereunto are come his faith and troth who erst, they say, his country's house-gods held the while he took upon his back his father spent with eld? why! might i not have shred him up, and scattered him piecemeal about the sea, and slain his friends, his very son, with steel, ascanius on his father's board for dainty meat to lay? but doubtful, say ye, were the fate of battle? yea, o yea! what might i fear, who was to die?--if i had borne the fire among their camp, and filled his decks with flame, and son and sire quenched with their whole folk, and myself had cast upon it all! --o sun, whose flames on every deed earth doeth ever fall, o juno, setter-forth and seer of these our many woes, hecate, whose name howled out a-nights o'er city crossway goes, avenging dread ones, gods that guard elissa perishing, o hearken! turn your might most meet against the evil thing! o hearken these our prayers! and if the doom must surely stand, and he, the wicked head, must gain the port and swim aland, if jove demand such fixèd fate and every change doth bar, yet let him faint mid weapon-strife and hardy folk of war! and let him, exiled from his house, torn from iulus, wend, beseeching help mid wretched death of many and many a friend. and when at last he yieldeth him to pact of grinding peace, then short-lived let his lordship be, and lovèd life's increase. and let him fall before his day, unburied on the shore! lo this i pray, this last of words forth with my blood i pour. and ye, o tyrians, 'gainst his race that is, and is to be, feed full your hate! when i am dead send down this gift to me: no love betwixt the peoples twain, no troth for anything! and thou, avenger of my wrongs, from my dead bones outspring, to bear the fire and the sword o'er dardan-peopled earth now or hereafter; whensoe'er the day brings might to birth. i pray the shore against the shore, the sea against the sea, the sword 'gainst sword--fight ye that are, and ye that are to be!" so sayeth she, and everywise she turns about her mind how ending of the loathèd light she speediest now may find. and few words unto barce spake, sychæus' nurse of yore; for the black ashes held her own upon the ancient shore: "dear nurse, my sister anna now bring hither to my need, and bid her for my sprinkling-tide the running water speed; and bid her have the hosts with her, and due atoning things: so let her come; but thou, thine head bind with the holy strings; for i am minded now to end what i have set afoot, and worship duly stygian jove and all my cares uproot; setting the flame beneath the bale of that dardanian head." she spake; with hurrying of eld the nurse her footsteps sped. but dido, trembling, wild at heart with her most dread intent, rolling her blood-shot eyes about, her quivering cheeks besprent with burning flecks, and otherwhere dead white with death drawn nigh burst through the inner doorways there and clomb the bale on high, fulfilled with utter madness now, and bared the dardan blade, gift given not for such a work, for no such ending made. there, when upon the ilian gear her eyen had been set, and bed well known, 'twixt tears and thoughts awhile she lingered yet; then brooding low upon the bed her latest word she spake: "o raiment dear to me while gods and fate allowed, now take this soul of mine and let me loose from all my woes at last! i, i have lived, and down the way fate showed to me have passed; and now a mighty shade of me shall go beneath the earth! a glorious city have i raised, and brought my walls to birth, avenged my husband, made my foe, my brother, pay the pain: happy, ah, happy overmuch were all my life-days' gain, if never those dardanian keels had drawn our shores anigh." she spake: her lips lay on the bed: "ah, unavenged to die! but let me die! thus, thus 'tis good to go into the night! now let the cruel dardan eyes drink in the bale-fire's light, and bear for sign across the sea this token of my death." her speech had end: but on the steel, amid the last word's breath, they see her fallen; along the blade they see her blood foam out, and all her hands besprent therewith: wild fly the shrieks about the lofty halls, and rumour runs mad through the smitten town. the houses sound with women's wails and lamentable groan; the mighty clamour of their grief rings through the upper skies. 'twas e'en as if all carthage fell mid flood of enemies, or mighty tyre of ancient days,--as if the wildfire ran rolling about the roof of god and dwelling-place of man. half dead her sister heard, and rushed distraught and trembling there, with nail and fist befouling all her face and bosom fair: she thrust amidst them, and by name called on the dying queen: "o was it this my sister, then! guile in thy word hath been! and this was what the bale, the fire, the altars wrought for me! where shall i turn so left alone? ah, scorned was i to be for death-fellow! thou shouldst have called me too thy way to wend. one sword-pang should have been for both, one hour to make an end. built i with hands, on father-gods with crying did i cry to be away, a cruel heart, from thee laid down to die? o sister, me and thee, thy folk, the fathers of the land, thy city hast thou slain----o give, give water to my hand, and let me wash the wound, and if some last breath linger there, let my mouth catch it!" saying so she reached the topmost stair, and to her breast the dying one she fondled, groaning sore, and with her raiment strove to staunch the black and flowing gore. then dido strove her heavy lids to lift, but back again they sank, and deep within her breast whispered the deadly bane: three times on elbow struggling up a little did she rise, and thrice fell back upon the bed, and sought with wandering eyes the light of heaven aloft, and moaned when it was found at last. then on her long-drawn agony did juno pity cast, her hard departing; iris then she sent from heaven on high, and bade her from the knitted limbs the struggling soul untie. for since by fate she perished not, nor waited death-doom given, but hapless died before her day by sudden fury driven, not yet the tress of yellow hair had proserpine off-shred, nor unto stygian orcus yet had doomed her wandering head. so iris ran adown the sky on wings of saffron dew, and colours shifting thousandfold against the sun she drew, and overhead she hung: "so bid, from off thee this i bear, hallowed to dis, and charge thee now from out thy body fare." she spake and sheared the tress away; then failed the life-heat spent and forth away upon the wind the spirit of her went. book v. argument. Æneas making for italy is stayed by contrary winds, wherefore he saileth to sicily, and, coming to the tomb of his father anchises, holdeth solemn games thereat, and in the end goeth his way to italy again. meanwhile Æneas with his ships the mid-sea way did hold steadfast, and cut the dusky waves before the north wind rolled, still looking back upon the walls now litten by the flame of hapless dido: though indeed whence so great burning came they knew not; but the thought of grief that comes of love defiled how great it is, what deed may come of woman waxen wild, through woeful boding of the sooth the teucrians' bosoms bore. but when the ships the main sea held, nor had they any more the land in sight, but sea around and sky around was spread, a coal-blue cloud drew up to them, that hanging overhead bore night and storm: feared 'neath the dark the waters trembling lie. then called the helmsman palinure from lofty deck on high: "ah, wherefore doth such cloud of storm gird all the heavens about? what will ye, father neptune, now?" therewith he crieth out to gather all the tackling in, and hard on oars to lay, and slopeth sail across the wind; and so such word doth say: "great-souled Æneas, e'en if jove my borrow now should be, 'neath such a sky i might not hope to make our italy: the changed winds roar athwart our course, and from the west grown black they rise; while o'er the face of heaven gathers the cloudy rack. nor have we might to draw a-head, nor e'en to hold our own. wherefore since fortune hath prevailed, by way that she hath shown, whither she calleth, let us turn: methinks the way but short to brother-land of eryx leal and safe sicanian port, if i may read the stars aright that erst i bare in mind." quoth good Æneas: "now for long that suchwise would the wind i saw, and how thou heldest head against it all in vain: shift sail and go about; what land may sweeter be to gain, or whither would i liefer turn my keels from beat of sea, than that which yet the dardan lord acestes holds for me, that holds my very father's bones, anchises, in its breast?" they seek the haven therewithal, and fair and happy west swelleth the sails: o'er whirl of waves full speedily they wend, and glad to that familiar sand they turn them in the end: but there acestes meeteth them, who from a mountain high all wondering had seen afar the friendly ships draw nigh. with darts he bristled, and was clad in fell of libyan bear. him erst unto crimisus' flood a trojan mother fair brought forth: and now, forgetting nought his mother's folk of old, he welcomes them come back again with wealth of field and fold, and solaces the weary men with plenteous friendly cheer. but when the stars in first of dawn fled from the morrow clear, Æneas called upon the shore assembly of his folk, and standing high aloft on mound such words to tell he spoke: "o mighty dardan men, o folk from blood of godhead born, the yearly round is all fulfilled, with lapse of months outworn, since when my godlike father's husk and bones of him we laid amid the mould, and heavy sad the hallowed altars made: and now meseems the day is here, for evermore to me a bitter day, a worshipped day.--so god would have it be! yea should it find me outcast man on great getulia's sand, or take me in the argive sea, or mid mycenæ's land, yet yearly vows, and pomps that come in due recurring while, still should i pay, and gifts most meet upon the altar pile. now to my father's bones, indeed, and ashes are we brought by chance; yet not, meseems, without the godhead's will and thought are we come here, to lie in peace within a friendly bay. so come, and let all worship here the glory of the day; pray we the winds, that year by year this worship may be done in temples dedicate to him within my city won. troy-born acestes giveth you two head of hornèd beasts for every ship; so see ye bid the house-gods to your feasts, both them of troy and them our host acestes loveth here. moreover, if the ninth dawn hence aurora shall uprear for health of men, and with her rays earth's coverlit shall lift, for teucrians will i fast set forth the race for galleys swift: then whosoe'er is fleet of foot, or bold of might and main, or with the dart or eager shaft a better prize may gain, or whoso hath the heart to play in fight-glove of raw hide, let all be there, and victory's palm and guerdon due abide. clean be all mouths! and gird with leaves the temple of the head." his mother's bush he did on brow e'en as the word he said; the like did helymus, the like acestes ripe of eld, the like the boy ascanius, yea, and all that manner held. then from that council to the tomb that duke of men did pass; mid many thousands, he the heart of all that concourse was. there, worshipping, on earth he pours in such wise as was good two cups of mere wine, two of milk, and two of holy blood, and scatters purple flowers around; and then such words he said: "hail, holy father! hail once more! hail, ashes visited once more for nought! hail, father-shade and spirit sweet in vain! forbid with me that italy to seek, that fated plain, with me ausonian tiber-flood, whereso it be, to seek." he spake: but from the lowest mound a mighty serpent sleek drew seven great circles o'er the earth, and glided sevenfold, passing in peace the tomb around, and o'er the altars rolled: blue stripèd was the back of him, and all his scales did glow with glitter of fine flecks of gold; e'en as the cloud-hung bow a thousand shifting colours fair back from the sun he cast. Æneas wondered at the sight; but on the serpent passed, and 'twixt the bowls and smoothèd cups his long array he wound, tasting the hallowed things; and so he gat him underground beneath the tomb again, and left the altars pastured o'er. heartened hereby, his father's soul Æneas worshipped more, and, doubtful, deemeth it to be anchises' guardian ghost or godhead of the place: so there he slayeth double host, as custom would; two black-backed steers, and e'en as many swine, and calleth on his father's soul with pouring of the wine, on great anchises' glorious ghost from acheron set free. from out their plenty therewithal his fellows joyfully give gifts, and load the altar-stead, and smite the steers adown. while others serve the seething brass, and o'er the herbage strown set coaly morsels 'neath the spit, and roast the inner meat. and now the looked-for day was come with simple light and sweet, and phaeton's horses shining bright the ninth dawn in did bear. fame and the name acestes had the neighbouring people stir to fill the shore with joyful throng, Æneas' folk to see: but some were dight amid the games their strife-fellows to be. there first before the eyes of men the gifts to come they lay amid the course; as hallowed bowls, and garlands of green bay, and palms, the prize of victory, weapons, and raiment rolled in purple, and a talent's weight of silver and of gold; then blast of horn from midst the mound the great games halloweth in: four ships from all the fleet picked out will first the race begin with heavy oars; well matched are they for speed and rowers' tale: hereof did mnestheus' eager oars drive on the speedy whale, mnestheus to be of italy, whence cometh memmius' name. the huge chimæra's mountain mass was gyas set to tame; there on that city of a ship threesome its rowing plies the dardan youth; the banks of oars in threefold order rise. sergestus next, the name whereof the sergian house yet bears, is ferried by the centaur great: last in blue scylla steers cloanthus, whence the name of thee, cluentius, man of rome. far mid the sea a rock there is, facing the shore-line's foam, which, beat by overtoppling waves, is drowned and hidden oft, what time the stormy north-west hides the stars in heaven aloft: but otherwhiles it lies in peace when nought the sea doth move, and riseth up a meadow fair that sunning sea-gulls love. there a green goal Æneas raised, dight of a leafy oak, to be a sign of turning back to that sea-faring folk, that fetching compass round the same their long course they might turn. so then by lot they take their place: there on the deck they burn. the captains, goodly from afar in gold and purple show: the other lads with poplar-leaf have garlanded the brow, and with the oil poured over them their naked shoulders shine. they man the thwarts; with hearts a-stretch they hearken for the sign, with arms a-stretch upon the oars; hard tugs the pulse of fear about their bounding hearts, hard strains the lust of glory dear. but when the clear horn gives the sound, forthwith from where they lie they leap away; the seamen's shouts smite up against the sky, the upturned waters froth about as home the arms are borne: so timely they the furrows cut, and all the sea uptorn is cloven by the sweep of oars and bows' three-headed push. --nay, nought so swift in twi-yoke race forth from the barriers rush the scattered headlong chariots on to wear the space of plain, nor eager so the charioteers shake waves along the rein above the hurrying yoke, as hung over the lash they go. --then with the shouts and praise of men, and hope cast to and fro, rings all the grove; the cliff-walled shore rolleth great voice around, and beating 'gainst the mountain-side the shattering shouts rebound. before the others gyas flies, and first the waves doth skim betwixt the throng and roar, but hard cloanthus presseth him; who, better manned, is held aback by sluggish weight of pine. 'twixt whale and centaur after these the edge of strife is fine, and hard they struggle each with each to win the foremost place. now the whale hath it; beaten now is foregone in the race by the huge centaur; head and head now follow on the two, as the long keel of either one the salt sea furrows through. but now they drew anigh the holm, the goal close on them gave, when gyas first and conquering there amid the whirl of wave unto the helmsman of his ship, menoetes, cries command: "and why so far unto the right? turn hither to this hand! hug thou the shore; let the blades graze the very rocks a-lee. let others hold the deep!" no less unto the wavy sea menoetes, fearing hidden rocks, still turns away the bow: gyas would shout him back again: "menoetes, whither now? steer for the rocks!" and therewithal, as back his eyes he cast. he sees cloanthus hard at heel and gaining on him fast; who, grazing on this hand and that the rocks and gyas' ship, now suddenly by leeward course a-head of all doth slip, and leaving clear the goal behind hath open water's gain. then unto gyas' very bones deep burns the wrathful pain; nor did his cheeks lack tears indeed: forgetting honour's trust, forgetting all his fellows' weal, menoetes doth he thrust headlong from off the lofty deck into the sea adown, and takes the tiller, helmsman now and steering-master grown; he cheers his men, and toward the shore the rudder wresteth round. menoetes, heavy, hardly won up from the ocean's ground, (for he was old, and floods enow fulfilled his dripping gear,) made for the holm and sat him down upon the dry rock there: the teucrians laughed to see him fall, and laughed to see him swim, and laugh to see him spue the brine back from the heart of him. now mnestheus' and sergestus' hope began anew to spring, that they might outgo gyas yet amid his tarrying: of whom sergestus draws ahead and nears the rocky holm; but not by all his keel indeed the other did o'ercome, but by the half; the eager whale amidships held her place, where mnestheus midst the men themselves now to and fro did pace, egging them on: "now, now!" he cries; "up, up, on oar-heft high! fellows of hector, whom i chose when troy last threw the die! now put ye forth your ancient heart, put forth the might of yore, wherewith amid getulian sand, ionian sea ye bore; the heart and might ye had amidst malea's following wave! i, mnestheus, seek not victory now, nor foremost place to save. --yet, o my heart! but let them win to whom thou giv'st the crown, o neptune!--but the shameful last! o townsmen, beat it down. and ban such horror!" hard on oars they lie mid utter throes, and quivereth all the brazen ship beneath their mighty blows; the sea's floor slippeth under them; the ceaseless pantings shake their limbs and parchèd mouths, and still the sweat-streams never slake. but very chance those strivers gave the prize they struggled for, since now sergestus, hot at heart, while to the stony shore he clingeth innerward, is come into the treacherous strait, and hapless driveth on the rocks thrust forth for such a fate: the cliffs are shaken and the oars against the flinty spikes snap crashing, and the prow thrust up yet hangeth where it strikes: up start the seafarers, and raise great hubbub tarrying; then sprits all iron-shod and poles sharp-ended forth they bring to bear her off, and gather oars a-floating in the wash. but mnestheus, whetted by his luck, joyful, with hurrying dash of timely-beating oars, speeds forth, and praying breezes on, o'er waters' slope adown the sea's all open way doth run: --e'en as a pigeon in a cave stirred suddenly from rest, who in the shady pumice-rock hath house and happy nest; scared 'neath the roof she beateth forth with mighty flap of wings, and flieth, borne adown the fields, till in soft air she swings, and floateth on the flowing way, nor scarce a wing doth move; --so mnestheus, so the whale herself, the latter waters clove, so with the way erst made on her she flew on swift and soft; and first sergestus doth she leave stayed on the rock aloft, striving in shallows' tanglement, calling for help in vain, and learning with his broken oars a little way to gain. then gyas and chimæra's bulk he holdeth hard in chase, who, from her lack of helmsman lost, must presently give place. and now at very end of all cloanthus is the last with whom to deal: his most he strives, and presseth on him fast. then verily shout thrusts on shout, and all with all goodwill cry on the chase; their echoing noise the very lift doth fill. these, thinking shame of letting fall their hardly-gotten gain of glory's meed, to buy the praise with very life are fain; those, fed on good-hap, all things may, because they deem they may: the twain, perchance, head laid to head, had won the prize that day, but if cloanthus both his palms had stretched to seaward there, and called upon the gods to aid and poured forth eager prayer: "o gods, whose lordship is the sea, whose waters i run o'er, now glad will i, your debtor bound, by altars on the shore bring forth for you a snow-white bull, and cast amid the brine his inner meat, and pour abroad a flowing of fair wine." he spake, and all the nereids' choir hearkened the words he said down 'neath the waves, and phorcus' folk, and panopea the maid; yea, and the sire portunus thrust the keel with mighty hand upon its way, and arrow-swift it flew on toward the land, swift as the south, and there at rest in haven deep it lies. but now anchises' seed, all men being summoned in due wise, proclaims cloanthus victor there by loud-voiced herald's shout, and with green garland of the bay he does his brows about; then biddeth them to choose the gifts, for every ship three steers, and wine, and every crew therewith great weight of silver bears. and glorious gifts he adds withal to every duke of man: a gold-wrought cloak the victor hath, about whose rim there ran a plenteous double wavy stream of meliboean shell, and leafy ida's kingly boy thereon was pictured well. a-following up the fleeing hart with spear and running fleet; eager he seemed as one who pants; then him with hookèd feet jove's shield-bearer hath caught, and up with him from ida flies, and there the ancient masters stretch vain palms unto the skies, while bark of staring hunting-hound beats fierce at upper air. then next for him who second place of might and valour bare a mail-coat wove of polished rings with threefold wire of gold, which from demoleos the king had stripped in days of old, a conqueror then by simoïs swift beneath high-builded troy, he giveth now that lord to have a safeguard and a joy; its many folds his serving-men, phegeus and sagaris, scarce bore on toiling shoulders joined, yet clad in nought but this swift ran demoleos following on the trojans disarrayed. a third gift then he setteth forth, twin cauldrons brazen made, and silver bowls with picturing fret and wrought with utter pain. and now when all had gotten gifts, and glorying in their gain, were wending with the filleting of purple round the brow, lo, gotten from the cruel rock with craft and toil enow, with missing oars, and all one board unhandy and foredone, his ship inglorious and bemocked, sergestus driveth on. --as with an adder oft it haps caught on the highway's crown, aslant by brazen tire of wheel, or heavy pebble thrown by wayfarer, hath left him torn and nigh unto his end: who writhings wrought for helpless flight through all his length doth send, and one half fierce with burning eyes uprears a hissing crest, the other half, with wounds all halt, still holding back the rest; he knitteth him in many a knot and on himself doth slip. --e'en such the crawling of the oars that drave the tarrying ship. but they hoist sail on her, and so the harbour-mouth make shift to win: and there Æneas gives sergestus promised gift, blithe at his saving of the ship, and fellows brought aback: a maid he hath, who not a whit of pallas' art doth lack. of crete she is, and pholoë called, and twins at breast she bears. now all that strife being overpast, the good Æneas fares to grassy meads girt all about by hollow wooded hills, where theatre-wise the racing-course the midmost valley fills. thereto the hero, very heart of many a thousand men, now wendeth, and on seat high-piled he sits him down again. there whosoever may have will to strive in speedy race he hearteneth on with hope of gift, and shows the prize and grace. so from all sides sicilians throng, and trojan fellowship. euryalus and nisus first. euryalus for goodliness and youth's first blossom famed, nisus for fair love of the youth; then after these are named diores, of the blood of kings from priam's glorious race; salius and patron next; the one of acarnanian place, the other from arcadian blood of tegeæa outsprung: then two trinacrians, helymus and panopes the young, in woodcraft skilled, who ever went by old acestes' side; and many others else there were whom rumour dimmed doth hide. and now amidmost of all these suchwise Æneas spake: "now hearken; let your merry hearts heed of my saying take: no man of all the tale of you shall henceforth giftless go; two gnosian spears to each i give with polished steel aglow, an axe to carry in the war with silver wrought therein. this honour is for one and all: the three first prize shall win, and round about their heads shall do the olive dusky-grey. a noble horse with trappings dight the first shall bear away; a quiver of the amazons with thracian arrows stored the second hath; about it goes a gold belt broidered broad, with gem-wrought buckle delicate to clasp it at the end. but gladdened with this argive helm content the third shall wend." all said, they take their places due, and when the sign they hear, forthwith they leave the bar behind and o'er the course they bear, like drift of storm-cloud; on the goal all set their eager eyes: but far before all shapes of man shows nisus, and outflies the very whistling of the winds or lightning on the wing. then, though the space be long betwixt, comes salius following; and after salius again another space is left, and then euryalus is third; and after him is helymus: but lo, how hard on heel diores scuds! foot on his foot doth helymus nigh feel, shoulder on shoulder: yea, and if the course held longer out, he would slip by him and be first, or leave the thing in doubt. now, spent, unto the utmost reach and very end of all they came, when in the slippery blood doth luckless nisus fall, e'en where the ground was all a-slop with bullocks slain that day, and all the topmost of the grass be-puddled with it lay: there, as he went the victor now, exulting, failed his feet from off the earth, and forth he fell face foremost down to meet the midst of all the filthy slime blent with the holy gore: yet for euryalus his love forgat he none the more, for rising from the slippery place in salius' way he thrust, who, rolling over, lay along amid the thickened dust. forth flies euryalus, and flies to fame and foremost place, his own friend's gift, mid beat of hands and shouts that bear him grace. next came in helymus, and next the palm diores bore. but over all the concourse set in hollow dale, and o'er the heads of those first father-lords goes salius' clamouring speech, who for his glory reft away by guile doth still beseech. but safe goodwill and goodly tears euryalus do bear, and lovelier seemeth valour set in body wrought so fair. him too diores backeth now, and crieth out on high, whose palm of praise and third-won place shall fail and pass him by, if the first glory once again at salius' bidding shift. then sayeth father Æneas: "o fellows, every gift shall bide unmoved: the palm of praise shall no man now displace. yet for my sackless friend's mishap give me some pity's grace." he spake, and unto salius gave a mighty lion's hide, getulian born, with weight of hair and golden claws beside: then nisus spake: "if such great gifts are toward for beaten men, and thou must pity those that fall, what gift is worthy then of nisus? i, who should have gained the very victory's crown, if me, as salius, fate my foe had never overthrown." and even as he speaks the word he showeth face and limb foul with the mud. the kindest lord, the father, laughed on him, and bade them bring a buckler forth, wrought of didymaon, spoil of the greeks, from neptune's house and holy doors undone; and there unto the noble youth he gives that noble thing. but now, the race all overpassed and all the gift-giving, quoth he: "if any valour hath, or heart that may withstand, let him come forth to raise his arm with hide-begirded hand." so saying, for the fight to come he sets forth glories twain; a steer gilt-horned and garlanded the conquering man should gain, a sword and noble helm should stay the vanquished in his woe. no tarrying was there: dares straight his face to all doth show, and riseth in his mighty strength amidst the murmur great: he who alone of all men erst with paris held debate, and he who at the mound wherein that mightiest hector lay, had smitten butes' body huge, the winner of the day, who called him come of amycus and that bebrycian land: but dares stretched him dying there upon the yellow sand. such was the dares that upreared his head against the fight, and showed his shoulders' breadth and drave his fists to left and right, with arms cast forth, as heavy strokes he laid upon the air. but when they sought a man for him, midst all the concourse there was none durst meet him: not a hand the fighting-glove would don: wherefore, high-hearted, deeming now the prize from all was won, he stood before Æneas' feet nor longer tarrièd, but with his left hand took the steer about the horn and said: "o goddess-born, if no man dares to trust him in the play, what end shall be of standing here; must i abide all day? bid them bring forth the gifts." therewith they cried out one and all, the dardan folk, to give the gifts that due to him did fall. but with hard words acestes now entellus falls to chide, as on the bank of grassy green they sat there side by side, "entellus, bravest hero once of all men, and for nought, if thou wilt let them bear away without a battle fought such gifts as these. and where is he, thy master then, that god, that eryx, told of oft in vain? where is thy fame sown broad through all trinacria, where the spoils hung up beneath thy roof?" "nay," said he, "neither love of fame nor glory holds aloof beaten by fear, but cold i grow with eld that holdeth back. my blood is dull, my might gone dry with all my body's lack. ah, had i that which once i had, that which the rascal there trusts in with idle triumphing, the days of youth the dear, then had i come into the fight by no gift-giving led, no goodly steer: nought heed i gifts." and with the last word said, his fighting gloves of fearful weight amidst of them he cast, wherewith the eager eryx' hands amid the play had passed full oft; with hardened hide of them his arms he used to bind. men's hearts were mazed; such seven bull-hides each other in them lined, so stiff they were with lead sewn in and iron laid thereby; and chief of all was dares mazed, and drew back utterly. but the great-souled anchises' seed that weight of gauntlets weighed, and here and there he turned about their mighty folds o'erlaid. then drew the elder from his breast words that were like to these: "ah, had ye seen the gloves that armed the very hercules, and that sad battle foughten out upon this country shore! for these are arms indeed that erst thy kinsmen eryx bore: lo, ye may see them even now flecked with the blood and brain. with these alcides he withstood; with these i too was fain of war, while mightier blood gave might, nor envious eld as yet on either temple of my head the hoary hairs had set. but if this dares out of troy refuse our weapons still, and good Æneas doom it so, and so acestes will, my fight-lord; make the weapons like: these gloves of eryx here i take aback: be not afraid, but doff thy trojan gear." he spake, and from his back he cast his twifold cloak adown, and naked his most mighty limbs and shoulders huge were shown, and on the midmost of the sand a giant there he stood. wherewith anchises' seed brought forth gloves even-matched and good, and so at last with gear alike the arms of each he bound, then straightway each one stretched aloft on tip-toe from the ground: they cast their mighty arms abroad, nor any fear they know, the while their lofty heads they draw abackward from the blow: and so they mingle hands with hands and fall to wake the fight. the one a-trusting in his youth and nimbler feet and light; the other's bulk of all avail, but, trembling, ever shrank his heavy knees, and breathing short for ever shook his flank. full many a stroke those mighty men cast each at each in vain; thick fall they on the hollow sides; the breasts ring out again with mighty sound; and eager-swift the hands full often stray round ears and temples; crack the jaws beneath that heavy play: in one set strain, not moving aught, heavy entellus stands, by body's sway and watchful eye shunning the dart of hands: but dares is as one who brings the gin 'gainst high-built town, or round about some mountain-hold the leaguer setteth down: now here now there he falleth on, and putteth art to pain at every place, and holds them strait with onset all in vain. entellus, rising to the work, his right hand now doth show upreared; but he, the nimble one, foresaw the falling blow above him, and his body swift writhed skew-wise from the fall. entellus spends his stroke on air, and, overborne withal, a heavy thing, falls heavily to earth, a mighty weight: as whiles a hollow-eaten pine on erymanthus great, or mighty ida, rooted up, to earthward toppling goes. then teucrian and trinacrian folk with wondrous longing rose, and shouts went skyward: thither first the king acestes ran, and pitying his like-aged friend raised up the fallen man; who neither slackened by his fall, nor smit by any fear, gets back the eagerer to the fight, for anger strength doth stir, and shame and conscious valour lights his ancient power again. in headlong flight his fiery wrath drives dares o'er the plain, and whiles his right hand showereth strokes, his left hand raineth whiles. no tarrying and no rest there is; as hail-storm on the tiles rattleth, so swift with either hand the eager hero now beats on and batters dares down, and blow is laid on blow. but now the father Æneas no longer might abide entellus' bitter rage of soul or lengthening anger's tide, but laid an end upon the fight therewith, and caught away dares foredone, and soothing words in such wise did he say: "unhappy man, what madness then hath hold upon thine heart? feel'st not another might than man's, and heaven upon his part? yield to the gods!" so 'neath his word the battle sank to peace. but dares his true fellows took, trailing his feeble knees, lolling his head from side to side, the while his sick mouth sent the clotted blood from out of it wherewith the teeth were blent. they lead him to the ships; then, called, they take the helm and sword, but leave entellus' bull and palm, the victory's due reward; who, high of heart, proud in the beast his conquering hand did earn, "o goddess-born," he said, "and ye, o teucrians, look, and learn what might was in my body once, ere youth it had to lack, and what the death whence dares saved e'en now ye draw aback." he spake, and at the great bull's head straightway he took his stand, as there it bode the prize of fight, and drawing back his hand rose to the blow, and 'twixt the horns sent forth the hardened glove, and back upon his very brain the shattered skull he drove. down fell the beast and on the earth lay quivering, outstretched, dead, while over him from his inmost breast such words entellus said: "eryx, this soul, a better thing, for dares doomed to die, i give thee, and victorious here my gloves and craft lay by." forth now Æneas biddeth all who have a mind to strive at speeding of the arrow swift, and gifts thereto doth give, and with his mighty hand the mast from out serestus' keel uprears; and there a fluttering dove, mark for the flying steel, tied to a string he hangeth up athwart the lofty mast. then meet the men; a brazen helm catches the lots down cast: and, as from out their favouring folk ariseth up the shout, hippocoon, son of hyrtacus, before the rest leaps out; then mnestheus, who was victor erst in ship upon the sea, comes after: mnestheus garlanded with olive greenery. the third-come was eurytion, thy brother, o renowned, o pandarus, who, bidden erst the peace-troth to confound, wert first amid achæan host to send a wingèd thing. but last, at bottom of the helm, acestes' name did cling, who had the heart to try the toil amid the youthful rout. then with their strength of all avail they bend the bows about each for himself: from quiver then the arrows forth they take: and first from off the twanging string through heaven there went the wake of shaft of young hyrtacides, and clave the flowing air, and, flying home, amid the mast that stood before it there it stuck: the mast shook therewithal; the frighted, timorous bird, fluttered her wings; and mighty praise all round about was heard. then stood forth mnestheus keen, and drew his bow unto the head, aiming aloft; and shaft and eyes alike therewith he sped; but, worthy of all pitying, the very bird he missed, but had the hap to shear the knots and lines of hempen twist whereby, all knitted to her foot, she to the mast was tied: but flying toward the winds of heaven and mirky mist she hied. then swift eurytion, who for long had held his arrow laid on ready bow-string, vowed, and called his brother unto aid, and sighted her all joyful now amidst the void of sky, and smote her as she clapped her wings 'neath the black cloud on high: then dead she fell, and mid the stars of heaven her life she left, and, falling, brought the shaft aback whereby her heart was cleft. acestes now was left alone, foiled of the victory's prize. no less the father sent his shot aloft unto the skies, fain to set forth his archer-craft and loud-resounding bow. then to men's eyes all suddenly a portent there did show, a mighty sign of things to come, the ending showed how great when seers, the shakers of men's hearts, sang over it too late. for, flying through the flowing clouds, the swift reed burned about, and marked its road with flaming wake, and, eaten up, died out mid the thin air: as oft the stars fly loose from heaven's roof, and run adown the space of sky with hair that flies aloof. trinacrian men and teucrian men, staring aghast they stood, praying the gods: but mightiest Æneas held for good that tokening, and acestes takes as one all glad at heart, and loadeth him with many gifts, and suchwise speaks his part: "take them, o father, for indeed by such a sign i wot olympus' king will have thee win all honour without lot. this gift thou hast, anchises' self, the ancient, had before, a bowl all stamped with images, which cisseus once of yore, the thracian, to my father gave, that he might bear the same a very tokening of his love and memory of his name." so saying, a garland of green bay he doth his brows about, and victor over all the men acestes giveth out: nor did the good eurytion grudge his honour so preferred, though he alone from height of heaven had brought adown the bird: but he came next in gift-giving who sheared the string, and last was he who set his wingèd reed amidmost of the mast. now had Æneas called to him, ere yet the match was done, the child of epytus, the guard, and fellow of his son, beardless iulus, and so spake into his faithful ear: "go thou and bid asoenius straight, if ready dight with gear he hath that army of the lads, and fair array of steeds, to bring unto his grandsire now, himself in warlike weeds, that host of his." the lord meanwhile biddeth all folk begone who into the long course had poured, and leave the meadow lone. then come the lads: in equal ranks before their fathers' eyes they shine upon their bitted steeds, and wondering murmurs rise from men of troy and sicily as on their ways they fare. due crown of well-ordainèd leaves bindeth their flowing hair, and each a pair of cornel shafts with iron head doth hold; and some the polished quiver bear at shoulder: limber gold, ringing the neck with twisted stem, high on the breast is shown. three companies of horse they are by tale, and up and down three captains ride, and twice six lads each leadeth to the war: in bands of even tale they shine, and like their leaders are. their first array all glad at heart doth little priam lead, who from his grandsire had his name, thy well-renowned seed, polites, fated to beget italian folk: him bore a thracian piebald flecked with white, whose feet were white before, and white withal the crest of him that high aloft he flung. next atys came, from whence the stem of latin atii sprung; young atys, whom iulus young most well-beloved did call: iulus last, in goodliness so far excelling all, upon a horse of sidon came, whom that bright dido gave to be a token of her love, her memory to save. on horses of acestes old, trinacrian-nurtured beasts, the others of the youth are borne. with praise they greet their fluttering hearts and look on them with joy, those dardan folk, who see in them the ancient eyes of troy. but after they had fared on steed the concourse all about before the faces of their folk, epytides did shout the looked-for sign afar to them, and cracked withal his whip: then evenly they fall apart, in threesome order slip their cloven ranks; but, called again, aback upon their way they turn, and threatening levelled spears against each other lay. then they to other onset now and other wheeling take, in bands opposed, and tanglements of ring on ring they make; so with their weapons every show of very fight they stir, and now they bare their backs in flight, and now they turn the spear in hostile wise; now side by side in plighted peace they meet. --e'en as they tell of labyrinth that lies in lofty crete, a road with blind walls crossed and crossed, an ever-shifting trap of thousand ways, where he who seeks upon no sign may hap, but midst of error, blind to seize or follow back, 'tis gone. not otherwise troy's little ones the tangle follow on at top of speed, and interweave the flight and battle's play; e'en as the dolphins, swimming swift amid the watery way, cleave libyan or carpathian sea and sport upon the wave. this guise of riding, such-like play, his folk ascanius gave once more, when round the long white stead the walls of war he drew: withal the ancient latin folk he taught the games to do, suchwise as he a lad had learned with lads from troy that came: that same the albans taught their sons; most mighty rome that same took to her thence, and honoured so her sires of yore agone: now name of troy and trojan host the play and boys have won. thus far unto the holy sire the games were carried through, when fortune turned her faith at last and changed her mind anew: for while the diverse hallowed games about the tomb they spent, saturnian juno iris fair from heights of heaven hath sent unto the ilian ships, and breathed fair wind behind her ways, for sore she brooded, nor had spent her wrath of ancient days. so now the maid sped swift along her thousand-coloured bow, and swiftly ran adown the path where none beheld her go. and there she saw that gathering great, and swept the strand with eye, and saw the haven void of folk, the ships unheeded lie. but far away on lonely beach the trojan women weep the lost anchises; and all they look ever on the deep amid their weeping: "woe are we! what waters yet abide! what ocean-waste for weary folk!" so one and all they cried, and all they yearn for city's rest: sea-toil is loathsome grown. so she, not lacking craft of guile, amidst them lighted down, when she hath put away from her god's raiment and god's mien, and but as wife of doryclus, the tmarian man, is seen, old beroë, who once had sons and lordly race and name; amid the dardan mother-folk such wise the goddess came: "o wretched ones!" she said, "o ye whom armed achæan hand dragged not to death before the walls that stayed your fatherland! unhappy folk! and why hath fate held back your doom till now? the seventh year is on the turn since troy-town's overthrow; and we all seas the while, all lands, all rocks and skies that hate the name of guest, have wandered o'er, and through the sea o'ergreat still chase that fleeing italy mid wallowing waters tossed. lo, here is eryx' brother-land; acestes is our host; what banneth us to found our walls and lawful cities gain? o fatherland! o house-gods snatched from midst the foe in vain! shall no walls more be called of troy? shall i see never more xanthus or simoïs, like the streams where hector dwelt of yore? come on, and those unhappy ships burn up with aid of me; for e'en now mid the dreams of sleep cassandra did i see, who gave me burning brand, and said, 'here seek your troy anew: this is the house that ye shall have.'--and now is time to do! no tarrying with such tokens toward! lo, altars four are here of neptune: very god for us heart and the fire doth bear!" so saying, first she caught upon the fiery bane, and raised her hand aloft, and mightily she whirled it as it blazed and cast it: but the ilian wives, their straining hearts are torn, their souls bewildered: one of them, yea, and their eldest-born, pyrgo, the queenly fosterer of many a priam's son, cried: "mothers, nay no beroë, nay no rhoeteian one, the wife of doryclus is this: lo, godhead's beauty there! behold the gleaming of her eyes, note how she breathes the air; note ye her countenance and voice, the gait wherewith she goes. yea, i myself left beroë e'en now amidst her woes; sick, sad at heart that she alone must fail from such a deed, nor bear unto anchises' ghost his glory's righteous meed." such were the words she spake to them. but now those mothers, at the first doubtful, with evil eyes gazed on the ships awhile between unhappy craving stayed for land they stood on, and the thought of land that fortune bade: when lo! with even spread of wings the goddess rose to heaven, and in her flight the cloudy lift with mighty bow was riven. then, wildered by such tokens dread, pricked on by maddened hearts, shrieking they snatch the hearthstone's fire and brand from inner parts; while some, they strip the altars there, and flaming leaf and bough cast forth: and vulcan, let aloose, is swiftly raging now along the thwarts, along the oars, and stems of painted fir. but now with news of flaming ships there goes a messenger, eumelus, to anchises' tomb, and theatre-seats, and they look round themselves and see the soot black in the smoke-cloud play. then first ascanius, e'en as blithe the riding-play he led, so eager now he rode his ways to camp bewilderèd, and nowise might they hold him back, his masters spent of breath. "o what new madness then is this? what, what will ye?" he saith. "o wretched townswomen, no foe, no camp of argive men ye burn, but your own hopes ye burn. lo, your ascanius then!" therewith before their feet he cast his empty helm afar, dight wherewithal he stirred in sport that image of the war. and thither now Æneas sped, and crowd of teucrian folk; whereat the women diversely along the sea-shore broke, fleeing afeard, and steal to woods and whatso hollow den, and loathe their deed, and loathe the light, as changed they know again their very friends, and juno now from every heart is cast. but none the less the flaming rage for ever holdeth fast with might untamed; the fire lives on within the timbers wet, the caulking sends forth sluggish smoke, the slow heat teeth doth set upon the keel; to inmost heart down creeps the fiery bale; nor all the might of mighty men nor rivers poured avail. then good Æneas from his back the raiment off him tore, and called the gods to aid, and high his palms to heaven upbore: "great jove, if not all utterly a hater thou art grown of trojan folk, and if thy love of old yet looketh down on deeds of men, give to our ships to win from out the flame, o father, now, and snatch from death the feeble teucrian name, or else thrust down the remnant left, if so we merit aught, with bolt of death, and with thine hand sweep us away to nought!" scarce had he given forth the word, ere midst outpouring rain, the black storm rageth measureless, and earthly height and plain shake to the thundering; all the sky casts forth confusèd flood, most black with gathering of the south: then all the ship-hulls stood fulfilled with water of the heavens; the half-burned oak was drenched, until at last to utmost spark the smouldering fire is quenched, and all the ships escaped the bane of fiery end save four. but, shaken by such bitter hap, father Æneas bore this way and that; and turned the cares on all sides in his breast: whether amid sicilian fields to set him down in rest, forgetting fate, or yet to strive for shores of italy. then the old nautes, whom erewhile had pallas set on high by her exceeding plenteous craft and lore that she had taught:-- she gave him answers; telling him how wrath of god was wrought, and how it showed, and what the law of fate would ask and have:-- this man unto Æneas now such words of solace gave: "o goddess-born, fate's ebb and flow still let us follow on, whate'er shall be, by bearing all must fortune's fight be won. dardan acestes have ye here, sprung of the godhead's seed; take his goodwill and fellowship to help thee in thy rede. give him the crews of those burnt ships; to him let such-like go as faint before thy mighty hope and shifting weal and woe. the mothers weary of the sea, the elders spent with years, and whatsoever feeble is and whatsoever fears, choose out, and in this land of his walls let the weary frame; and they their town by leave of thee shall e'en acesta name." so was he kindled by the speech of that wise ancient friend, yet still down every way of care his thought he needs must send. but now the wain of mirky night was holding middle sky, when lo, his father's image seemed to fall from heaven the high, and suddenly anchises' lips such words to him poured forth: "o son, that while my life abode more than my life wert worth; o son, well learned in ilium's fates, hither my ways i take by jove's commands, who even now the fiery bane did slake amid thy ships, and now at last in heaven hath pitied thee: yield thou to elder nautes' redes; exceeding good they be: the very flower of all thy folk, the hearts that hardiest are, take thou to italy; for thee in latium bideth war with hardy folk of nurture rude: but first must thou be gone to nether dwelling-place of dis: seek thou to meet me, son, across avernus deep: for me the wicked house of hell the dusk unhappy holdeth not; in pleasant place i dwell, elysium, fellowship of good: there shall the holy maid, the sibyl, bring thee; plenteous blood of black-wooled ewes being paid: there shalt thou learn of all thy race, and gift of fated walls. and now farewell: for dewy night from mid way-faring falls, the panting steeds of cruel dawn are on me with their breath." he spake, and midst thin air he fled as smoke-wreath vanisheth. "where rushest thou?" Æneas cried: "where hurriest thou again? whom fleest thou? who driveth thee from these embraces fain?" so saying, the flame asleep in ash he busied him to wake, and worshipped with the censer full and holy-kneaded cake the sacred vesta's shrine and god of pergamean wall. then for his fellows doth he send, acestes first of all, and teacheth them of jove's command, and what his sire beloved had bidden him, and whitherwise his heart thereto was moved. no tarrying there was therein, acestes gainsaid nought; they write the mothers on the roll; thither a folk is brought, full willing hearts, who nothing crave the great reward of fame: but they themselves shape thwarts anew; and timbers gnawed by flame make new within their ships again, and oars and rudders fit. a little band it is by tale, but valour lives in it. meanwhile Æneas marketh out the city with the plough, and, portioning the houses out, bids troy and ilium grow: therewith acestes, trojan king, joys in his lordship fair; sets forth the court, and giveth laws to fathers gathered there: then on the head of eryx huge a house that neareth heaven to venus of idalia is reared: a priest is given and holy grove wide spread around, where old anchises lay. now all the folk for nine days' space have made them holyday and worshipped god; and quiet winds have lowly laid the main, and ever gentle southern breath woos to the deep again: then all along the hollow shore ariseth weeping great, and 'twixt farewells and many a kiss a night and day they wait: yea e'en the mothers, yea e'en they to whom so hard and drear the sea had seemed, a dreadful name they had no heart to bear, are fain to go, are fain to take all toil the way may find. whom good Æneas solaceth with friendly words and kind, as to acestes' kindred heart weeping he giveth them. three calves to eryx then he bids slay on the ocean's hem; to wind and weather an ewe lamb; then biddeth cast aloose: and he himself, begarlanded with olive clippèd close, stands, cup in hand, on furthest prow, and casts upon the brine the inner meat, and poureth forth the flowing of the wine. they gather way; springs up astern the fair and following breeze; the fellows strive in smiting brine and sweep the level seas. but meanwhile venus, sorely stirred by cares and all unrest, hath speech of neptune, pouring forth complaining from her breast: "the cruel wrath that juno bears, and heart insatiate, drive me, o neptune, prayer-fulfilled upon thy power to wait: she softeneth not by lapse of days nor piety's increase, nor yielding unto jove and fate from troubling will she cease. 'tis not enough to tear away from heart of phrygian folk their city by her cruel hate; nor with all ills to yoke troy's remnant; but its ash and bones through death she followeth on. what! doth her own heart know the deed that all this wrath hath won? be thou my witness how of late she stirred up suddenly wild tumult of the libyan sea! all waters with the sky she mingled, trusting all in vain to storm of Æolus: this in thy very realm she dared. e'en now mad hearts to trojan wives by wickedness she gave, and foully burned his ships; and him with crippled ship-host drave to leave his fellow-folk behind upon an outland shore. i pray thee let the remnant left sail safe thine ocean o'er, and let them come where into sea laurentian tiber falls, if right i ask, and unto these fate giveth fateful walls." then saturn's son, the sea-tamer, gave forth such words as these: "'tis utter right, o cytherean, to trust thee to my seas, whence thou wert born; and i myself deserve no less; e'en i, who oft for thee refrain the rage of maddened sea and sky. nor less upon the earth my care Æneas did embrace; xanthus and simoïs witness it!--when, following up the chace, the all-unheartened host of troy 'gainst troy achilles bore, and many a thousand gave to death; choked did the rivers roar nor any way might xanthus find to roll his flood to sea: Æneas then in hollow cloud i caught away, when he would meet pelides' might with hands and gods not strong enow. yea, that was when from lowest base i wrought to overthrow the walls of that same troy forsworn my very hands had wrought. and now cast all thy fear away, my mind hath shifted nought; avernus' haven shall he reach, e'en as thou deemest good, and one alone of all his folk shall seek amidst the flood; one head shall pay for all the rest." so when these words had brought to peace the goddess' joyful heart, the father yokes his steeds with gold, and bridles the wild things with o'erfoamed bit, and loose in hand the rein above them flings, and light in coal-blue car he flies o'er topmost of the sea: the waves sink down, the heaped main lays his waters peacefully before the thunder of his wheels; from heaven all cloud-flecks fail. lo, diverse bodies of his folk; lo, many a mighty whale; and glaucus' ancient fellowship, palæmon ino's son, and tritons swift, and all the host that phorcus leadeth on; maid panopea and melite, cymodoce the fair, nesæa, spio, and thalia, with thetis leftward bear. now to Æneas' overstrained heart the kindly joy and soft sinks deep: herewith he biddeth men raise all the masts aloft at swiftest, and along the yards to spread the sails to wind: so all sheet home together then; then leftward with one mind they tack; then tack again to right: the yard-horns up in air they shift and shift, while kindly winds seaward the ship-host bear. but first before all other keels did palinurus lead the close array, and all were charged to have his course in heed. and now the midmost place of heaven had dewy night drawn nigh, and 'neath the oars on benches hard scattered the shipmen lie, who all the loosened limbs of them to gentle rest had given; when lo, the very light-winged sleep stooped from the stars of heaven, thrusting aside the dusky air and cleaving night atwain: the sackless palinure he sought with evil dreams and vain. so on the high poop sat the god as phorbas fashionèd, and as he sat such-like discourse from out his mouth he shed: "iasian palinure, unasked the waves our ship-host bear; soft blow the breezes steadily; the hour for rest is here: lay down thine head, steal weary eyes from toil a little space, and i will do thy deeds awhile and hold me in thy place." but palinure with scarce-raised eyes e'en such an answer gave: "to gentle countenance of sea and quiet of the wave deem'st thou me dull? would'st have me trow in such a monster's truth? and shall i mine Æneas trust to lying breeze forsooth, i, fool of peaceful heaven and sea so many times of old?" so saying to the helm he clung, nor ever left his hold, and all the while the stars above his eyen toward them drew. but lo, the god brought forth a bough wet with lethean dew, and sleepy with the might of styx, and shook it therewithal over his brow, and loosed his lids delaying still to fall: but scarce in first of stealthy sleep his limbs all loosened lay, when, weighing on him, did he tear a space of stern away, and rolled him, helm and wrack and all, into the flowing wave headlong, and crying oft in vain for fellowship to save: then sleep himself amid thin air flew, borne upon the wing. no less the ship-host sails the sea, its safe way following untroubled 'neath the plighted word of father neptune's mouth. so to the sirens' rocks they draw, a dangerous pass forsooth in yore agone, now white with bones of many a perished man. thence ever roared the salt sea now as on the rocks it ran; and there the father felt the ship fare wild and fitfully, her helmsman lost; so he himself steered o'er the night-tide sea, sore weeping; for his fellow's end his inmost heart did touch: "o palinure, that trowed the sky and soft seas overmuch, now naked on an unknown shore thy resting-place shall be!" book vi. argument. Æneas cometh to the sibyl of cumÆ, and by her is led into the under-world, and there beholdeth many strange things, and in the end meeteth his father, anchises, who telleth him of the days to come. so spake he weeping, and his host let loose from every band, until at last they draw anigh cumæ's euboean strand. they turn the bows from off the main; the toothèd anchors' grip makes fast the keels; the shore is hid by many a curvèd ship. hot-heart the youthful company leaps on the westland's shore; part falleth on to seek them out the seed of fiery store that flint-veins hide; part runneth through the dwellings of the deer, the thicket steads, and each to each the hidden streams they bare. but good Æneas seeks the house where king apollo bides, the mighty den, the secret place set far apart, that hides the awful sibyl, whose great soul and heart he seeketh home, the seer of delos, showing her the hidden things to come: and so the groves of trivia and golden house they gain. now dædalus, as tells the tale, fleeing from minos' reign, durst trust himself to heaven on wings swift hastening, and swim forth along the road ne'er tried before unto the chilly north; so light at last o'er chalcis' towers he hung amid the air, then, come adown to earth once more, to thee he hallowed here, o phoebus, all his wingèd oars, and built thee mighty fane: androgeus' death was on the doors; then paying of the pain by those cecropians; bid, alas, each year to give in turn seven bodies of their sons;--lo there, the lots drawn from the urn. but facing this the gnosian land draws up amid the sea: there is the cruel bull-lust wrought, and there pasiphaë embraced by guile: the blended babe is there, the twiformed thing, the minotaur, that evil sign of venus' cherishing; and there the tangled house and toil that ne'er should be undone: but ruth of dædalus himself a queen's love-sorrow won, and he himself undid the snare and winding wilderment. guiding the blind feet with the thread. thou, icarus, wert blent full oft with such a work be sure, if grief forbade it not; but twice he tried to shape in gold the picture of thy lot, and twice the father's hands fell down. long had their eyes read o'er such matters, but achates, now, sent on a while before, was come with that deïphobe, the glaucus' child, the maid of phoebus and of trivia, and such a word she said: "the hour will have no tarrying o'er fair shows for idle eyes; 'twere better from an unyoked herd seven steers to sacrifice, and e'en so many hosts of ewes in manner due culled out." she spake; her holy bidding then the warriors go about, nor tarry: into temple high she calls the teucrian men, where the huge side of cumæ's rock is carven in a den, where are an hundred doors to come, an hundred mouths to go, whence e'en so many awful sounds, the sibyl's answers flow. but at the threshold cried the maid: "now is the hour awake for asking--ah, the god, the god!" and as the word she spake within the door, all suddenly her visage and her hue were changed, and all her sleekèd hair, and gasping breath she drew, and with the rage her wild heart swelled, and greater was she grown, nor mortal-voiced; for breath of god upon her heart was blown as he drew nigher: "art thou dumb of vows and prayers, forsooth, trojan Æneas, art thou dumb? unprayed, the mighty mouth of awe-mazed house shall open not." even such a word she said, then hushed: through hardened teucrian bones swift ran the chilly dread, and straight the king from inmost heart the flood of prayers doth pour: "phoebus, who all the woe of troy hast pitied evermore, who dardan shaft and paris' hands in time agone didst speed against achilles' body there, who me withal didst lead over the seas that go about so many a mighty land, through those massylian folks remote, and length of syrtes' sand, till now i hold that italy that ever drew aback; and now perchance a trojan fate we, even we may lack. ye now, o gods and goddesses, to whom a stumbling-stone was ilium in the days of old, and dardan folk's renown, may spare the folk of pergamus. but thou, o holiest, o maid that knowest things to come, grant thou the latin rest to teucrian men, and gods of troy, the straying way-worn powers! for surely now no realm i ask but such as fate makes ours. to phoebus and to trivia then a temple will i raise, a marble world; in phoebus' name will hallow festal days: thee also in our realm to be full mighty shrines await, there will i set thine holy lots and hidden words of fate said to my folk, and hallow there well-chosen men for thee, o holy one: but give thou not thy songs to leaf of tree, lest made a sport to hurrying gales confusedly they wend; but sing them thou thyself, i pray!" therewith his words had end. meanwhile the seer-maid, not yet tamed to phoebus, raves about the cave, still striving from her breast to cast the godhead out; but yet the more the mighty god her mouth bewildered wears, taming her wild heart, fashioning her soul with weight of fears. at last the hundred mighty doors fly open, touched of none, and on the air the answer floats of that foreseeing one: "o thou, who dangers of the sea hast throughly worn away, abides thee heavier toil of earth: the dardans on a day shall come to that lavinian land,--leave fear thereof afar: yet of their coming shall they rue. lo, war, war, dreadful war! and tiber bearing plenteous blood upon his foaming back. nor simoïs there, nor xanthus' stream, nor dorian camp shall lack: yea, once again in latin land achilles is brought forth, god-born no less: nor evermore shall mighty juno's wrath fail teucrian men. ah, how shalt thou, fallen on evil days, to all italian lands and folks thine hands beseeching raise! lo, once again a stranger bride brings woeful days on troy, once more the wedding of a foe. but thou, yield not to any ill, but set thy face, and wend the bolder where thy fortune leads; the dawn of perils' end, whence least thou mightest look for it, from greekish folk shall come." suchwise the seer of cumæ sang from out her inner home the dreadful double words, wherewith the cavern moans again, as sooth amid the mirk she winds: apollo shakes the rein over the maddened one, and stirs the strings about her breast; but when her fury lulled awhile and maddened mouth had rest, hero Æneas thus began: "no face of any care, o maiden, can arise on me in any wise unware: yea, all have i forecast; my mind hath worn through everything. one prayer i pray, since this they call the gateway of the king of nether-earth, and acheron's o'erflow this mirky mere: o let me meet the eyes and mouth of my dead father dear; o open me the holy gate, and teach me where to go! i bore him on these shoulders once from midmost of the foe, from flame and weapons thousandfold against our goings bent; my yoke-fellow upon the road o'er every sea he went, 'gainst every threat of sea and sky a hardy heart he held, though worn and feeble past decay and feebleness of eld. yea, he it was who bade me wend, a suppliant, to thy door, and seek thee out: o holy one, cast thou thy pity o'er father and son! all things thou canst, nor yet hath hecaté set thee to rule avernus' woods an empty queen to be. yea, orpheus wrought with thracian harp and strings of tuneful might to draw away his perished love from midmost of the night. yea, pollux, dying turn for turn, his brother borrowed well, and went and came the road full oft--of theseus shall i tell? or great alcides? ah, i too from highest jove am sprung." such were the words he prayed withal and round the altars clung: then she fell speaking: "man of troy, from blood of godhead grown, anchises' child, avernus' road is easy faring down; all day and night is open wide the door of dis the black; but thence to gain the upper air, and win the footsteps back, this is the deed, this is the toil: some few have had the might, beloved by jove the just, upborne to heaven by valour's light, the sons of god. 'twixt it and us great thicket fills the place that slow cocytus' mirky folds all round about embrace; but if such love be in thine heart, such yearning in thee lie, to swim twice o'er the stygian mere and twice to see with eye black tartarus, and thou must needs this idle labour win, hearken what first there is to do: the dusky tree within lurks the gold bough with golden leaves and limber twigs of gold, to nether juno consecrate; this all these woods enfold, dim shadowy places cover it amid the hollow dale; to come unto the under-world none living may avail till he that growth of golden locks from off the tree hath shorn; for this fair proserpine ordained should evermore be borne her very gift: but, plucked away, still faileth not the thing, another golden stem instead hath leafy tide of spring. so throughly search with eyes: thine hand aright upon it lay when thou hast found: for easily 'twill yield and come away if the fates call thee: otherwise no might may overbear its will, nor with the hardened steel the marvel mayst thou shear. --ah! further,--of thy perished friend as yet thou nothing know'st, whose body lying dead and cold defileth all thine host, while thou beseechest answering words, and hangest on our door: go, bring him to his own abode and heap the grave mound o'er; bring forth the black-wooled ewes to be first bringing back of grace: so shalt thou see the stygian groves, so shalt thou see the place that hath no road for living men." so hushed her mouth shut close: but sad-faced and with downcast eyes therefrom Æneas goes, and leaves the cave, still turning o'er those coming things, so dim, so dark to see. achates fares nigh fellow unto him, and ever 'neath like load of cares he lets his footsteps fall: and many diverse words they cast each unto each withal, what was the dead friend and the grave whereof the seer did teach. but when they gat them down at last upon the barren beach, they saw misenus lying dead by death but lightly earned; misenus, son of Æolus; no man more nobly learned in waking up the war with brass and singing mars alight. great hector's fellow was he erst, with hector through the fight he thrust, by horn made glorious, made glorious by the spear. but when from hector life and all achilles' hand did tear, dardan Æneas' man became that mightiest under shield, nor unto any worser lord his fellowship would yield. now while by chance through hollow shell he blew across the sea, and witless called the very gods his singing-foes to be, the envious triton caught him up, if ye the tale may trow, and sank the hero 'twixt the rocks in foaming waters' flow. wherefore about him weeping sore were gathered all the men, and good Æneas chief of all: the sibyl's bidding then weeping they speed, and loiter not, but heap the tree-boughs high upon the altar of the dead to raise it to the sky: then to the ancient wood they fare, high dwelling of wild things; they fell the pine, and 'neath the axe the smitten holm-oak rings; with wedge they cleave the ashen logs, and knitted oaken bole, full fain to split; and mighty elms down from the mountains roll. amid the work Æneas is, who hearteneth on his folk, as with such very tools as they he girds him for the stroke; but through the sorrow of his heart such thought as this there strays, and looking toward the waste of wood such word as this he prays: "o if that very golden bough would show upon the tree, in such a thicket and so great; since all she told of thee, the seer-maid, o misenus lost, was true and overtrue!" but scarcely had he spoken thus, when lo, from heaven there flew two doves before his very eyes, who settled fluttering on the green grass: and therewithal that mightiest battle-king knoweth his mother's birds new-come, and joyful poureth prayer: "o, if a way there be at all, lead ye amid the air, lead on unto the thicket place where o'er the wealthy soil the rich bough casteth shadow down! fail not my eyeless toil, o goddess-mother!" so he saith, and stays his feet to heed what token they may bring to him, and whitherward they speed. so on they flutter pasturing, with such a space between, as they by eyes of following folk may scantly well be seen; but when avernus' jaws at last, the noisome place, they reach, they rise aloft and skim the air, and settle each by each upon the very wished-for place, yea high amid the tree, where the changed light through twigs of gold shines forth diversedly; as in the woods mid winter's chill puts forth the mistletoe, and bloometh with a leafage strange his own tree ne'er did sow, and with his yellow children hath the rounded trunk in hold, so in the dusky holm-oak seemed that bough of leafy gold, as through the tinkling shaken foil the gentle wind went by: then straight Æneas caught and culled the tough stem greedily, and to the sibyl's dwelling-place the gift in hand he bore. nor less meanwhile the teucrians weep misenus on the shore, and do last service to the dead that hath no thanks to pay. and first fat fagots of the fir and oaken logs they lay, and pile a mighty bale and rich, and weave the dusk-leaved trees between its sides, and set before the funeral cypresses, and over all in seemly wise the gleaming weapons pile: but some speed fire bewavèd brass and water's warmth meanwhile, and wash all o'er and sleek with oil the cold corpse of the dead: goes up the wail; the limbs bewept they streak upon the bed, and cast thereon the purple cloths, the well-known noble gear. then some of them, they shoulder up the mighty-fashioned bier, sad service! and put forth the torch with faces from him turned, in fashion of the fathers old: there the heaped offerings burned, the frankincense, the dainty meats, the bowls o'erflowed with oil. but when the ashes were sunk down and fire had rest from toil, the relics and the thirsty ash with unmixed wine they wet. then the gleaned bones in brazen urn doth corynæus set, who thrice about the gathered folk the stainless water bore. as from the fruitful olive-bough light dew he sprinkled o'er, and cleansed the men, and spake withal last farewell to the dead. but good Æneas raised a tomb, a mound huge fashionèd, and laid thereon the hero's arms and oar and battle-horn, beneath an airy hill that thence misenus' name hath borne, and still shall bear it, not to die till time hath faded out. this done, those deeds the sibyl bade he setteth swift about: a deep den is there, pebble-piled, with mouth that gapeth wide; black mere and thicket shadowy-mirk the secret of it hide. and over it no fowl there is may wend upon the wing and 'scape the bane; its blackened jaws bring forth such venoming. such is the breath it bears aloft unto the hollow heaven; so to the place the greekish folk have name of fowl-less given. here, first of all, four black-skinned steers the priestess sets in line, and on the foreheads of all these out-pours the bowl of wine. then 'twixt the horns she culleth out the topmost of the hair, and lays it on the holy fire, the first-fruits offered there, and cries aloud on hecaté, of might in heaven and hell; while others lay the knife to throat and catch the blood that fell warm in the bowls: Æneas then an ewe-lamb black of fleece smites down with sword to her that bore the dread eumenides, and her great sister; and a cow yet barren slays aright to thee, o proserpine, and rears the altars of the night unto the stygian king, and lays whole bulls upon the flame, pouring rich oil upon the flesh that rush of fire o'ercame. but now, when sunrise is at hand, and dawning of the day, the earth falls moaning 'neath their feet, the wooded ridges sway, and dogs seem howling through the dusk as now she drew anear the goddess. "o be far away, ye unclean!" cries the seer. "be far away! ah, get ye gone from all the holy wood! but thou, Æneas, draw thy steel and take thee to the road; now needeth all thine hardihood and steadfast heart and brave." she spake, and wildly cast herself amidst the hollow cave, but close upon her fearless feet Æneas followeth. o gods, who rule the ghosts of men, o silent shades of death, chaos and phlegethon, hushed lands that lie beneath the night! let me speak now, for i have heard: o aid me with your might to open things deep sunk in earth, and mid the darkness blent. all dim amid the lonely night on through the dusk they went, on through the empty house of dis, the land of nought at all. e'en as beneath the doubtful moon, when niggard light doth fall upon some way amid the woods, when god hath hidden heaven, and black night from the things of earth the colours dear hath driven. lo, in the first of orcus' jaws, close to the doorway side, the sorrows and avenging griefs have set their beds to bide; there the pale kin of sickness dwells, and eld, the woeful thing, and fear, and squalid-fashioned lack, and witless hungering, shapes terrible to see with eye; and toil of men, and death, and sleep, death's brother, and the lust of soul that sickeneth: and war, the death-bearer, was set full in the threshold's way, and those well-willers' iron beds: there heartless discord lay, whose viper-breeding hair about was bloody-filleted. but in the midst a mighty elm, dusk as the night, outspread its immemorial boughs and limbs, where lying dreams there lurk, as tells the tale, still clinging close 'neath every leaf-side mirk. withal most wondrous, many-shaped are all the wood-beasts there; the centaurs stable by the porch, and twi-shaped scyllas fare, and hundred-folded briareus, and lerna's worm of dread fell hissing; and chimæra's length and fire-behelmèd head, gorgons and harpies, and the shape of that three-bodied shade. then smitten by a sudden fear Æneas caught his blade, and turned the naked point and edge against their drawing nigh; and but for her wise word that these were thin lives flitting by all bodiless, and wrapped about in hollow shape and vain, with idle sword had he set on to cleave the ghosts atwain. to acheron of tartarus from hence the road doth go, that mire-bemingled, whirling wild, rolls on his desert flow, and all amid cocytus' flood casteth his world of sand. this flood and river's ferrying doth charon take in hand, dread in his squalor: on his chin untrimmed the hoar hair lies most plenteous; and unchanging flame bides in his staring eyes: down from his shoulders hangs his gear in filthy knot upknit; and he himself poles on his ship, and tends the sails of it, and crawls with load of bodies lost in bark all iron-grey, grown old by now: but fresh and green is godhead's latter day. down thither rushed a mighty crowd, unto the flood-side borne; mothers and men, and bodies there with all the life outworn of great-souled heroes; many a boy and never-wedded maid, and youths before their fathers' eyes upon the death-bale laid: as many as the leaves fall down in first of autumn cold; as many as the gathered fowl press on to field and fold, from off the weltering ocean-flood, when the late year and chill hath driven them across the sea the sunny lands to fill. there stood the first and prayed him hard to waft their bodies o'er, with hands stretched out for utter love of that far-lying shore. but that grim sailor now takes these, now those from out the band, while all the others far away he thrusteth from the sand. Æneas wondered at the press, and moved thereby he spoke: "say, maid, what means this river-side, and gathering of the folk? what seek the souls, and why must some depart the river's rim, while others with the sweep of oars the leaden waters skim?" thereon the ancient maid of days in few words answered thus: "anchises' seed, thou very child of godhead glorious, thou seest the deep cocytus' pools, thou seest the stygian mere, by whose might gods will take the oath, and all forswearing fear: but all the wretched crowd thou seest are they that lack a grave, and charon is the ferryman: those borne across the wave are buried: none may ever cross the awful roaring road until their bones are laid at rest within their last abode. an hundred years they stray about and wander round the shore, then they at last have grace to gain the pools desired so sore." there tarried then anchises' child and stayed awhile his feet, mid many thoughts, and sore at heart, for such a doom unmeet: and there he saw all sorrowful, without the death-dues dead, leucaspis, and orontes, he that lycian ship-host led; whom, borne from troy o'er windy plain, the south wind utterly o'erwhelming, sank him, ships and men, in swallow of the sea. and lo ye now, where palinure the helmsman draweth nigh, who lately on the libyan sea, noting the starry sky, fell from the high poop headlong down mid wavy waters cast. his sad face through the plenteous dusk Æneas knew at last, and spake: "what god, o palinure, did snatch thee so away from us thy friends and drown thee dead amidst the watery way? speak out! for seer apollo, found no guileful prophet erst, by this one answer in my soul a lying hope hath nursed; who sang of thee safe from the deep and gaining field and fold of fair ausonia: suchwise he his plighted word doth hold!" the other spake: "apollo's shrine in nowise lied to thee, king of anchises, and no god hath drowned me in the sea: but while i clung unto the helm, its guard ordained of right, and steered thee on, i chanced to fall, and so by very might seaward i dragged it down with me. by the rough seas i swear my heart, for any hap of mine, had no so great a fear as for thy ship; lest, rudderless, its master from it torn, amid so great o'ertoppling seas it yet might fail forlorn. three nights of storm i drifted on, 'neath wind and water's might, over the sea-plain measureless; but with the fourth day's light there saw i italy rise up from welter of the wave. then slow i swam unto the land, that me well-nigh did save, but fell the cruel folk on me, heavy with raiment wet, and striving with my hookèd hands hold on the rocks to get: the fools, they took me for a prey, and steel against me bore. now the waves have me, and the winds on sea-beach roll me o'er. but by the breath of heaven above, by daylight's joyous ways, by thine own father, by the hope of young iulus' days, snatch me, o dauntless, from these woes, and o'er me cast the earth! as well thou may'st when thou once more hast gained the veline firth. or if a way there be, if way thy goddess-mother show,-- for not without the will of gods meseemeth wouldst thou go o'er so great floods, or have a mind to swim the stygian mere,-- then give thine hand, and o'er the wave me woeful with thee bear, that i at least in quiet place may rest when i am dead." so spake he, but the priestess straight such word unto him said: "o palinure, what godless mind hath gotten hold of thee, that thou the grim well-willers' stream and stygian flood wouldst see unburied, and unbidden still the brim wilt draw anear? hope not the fates of very god to change by any prayer. but take this memory of my words to soothe thy wretched case: through all their cities far and wide the people of the place, driven by mighty signs from heaven, thy bones shall expiate and raise thee tomb, and year by year with worship on thee wait; and there the name of palinure shall dwell eternally." so at that word his trouble lulled, his grief of heart passed by, a little while he joyed to think of land that bore his name. so forth upon their way they went and toward the river came; but when from stygian wave their path the shipman's gaze did meet, as through the dead hush of the grove shoreward they turned their feet, he fell upon them first with words and unbid chided them: "whoe'er ye be who come in arms unto our river's hem, say what ye be! yea, speak from thence and stay your steps forthright! this is the very place of shades, and sleep, and sleepful night; and living bodies am i banned in stygian keel to bear. nor soothly did i gain a joy, giving alcides fare, or ferrying of pirithoüs and theseus time agone, though come of god they were and matched in valiancy of none: he sought the guard of tartarus chains on his limbs to lay, and from the king's own seat he dragged the quaking beast away: those strove to carry off the queen from great dis' very bed." the amphrysian prophet answering, few words unto him said: "but here are no such guiles as this, so let thy wrath go by: our weapons bear no war; for us still shall the door-ward lie and bark in den, and fright the ghosts, the bloodless, evermore: nor shall chaste proserpine for us pass through her kinsman's door: trojan Æneas, great in arms and great in godly grace, goes down through dark of erebus to see his father's face. but if such guise of piety may move thine heart no whit, at least this bough "--(bared from her weed therewith she showeth it)-- "know ye!" then in his swelling heart adown the anger sank, nor spake he more; but wondering at that gift a god might thank, the fateful stem, now seen once more so long a time worn by, he turned about his coal-blue keel and drew the bank anigh the souls upon the long thwarts set therewith he thrusteth out, and clears the gangway, and withal takes in his hollow boat the huge Æneas, 'neath whose weight the seamed boat groans and creaks, and plenteous water of the mere lets in at many leaks. at last the hero and the maid safe o'er the watery way he leaveth on the ugly mire and sedge of sorry grey. the three-mouthed bark of cerberus here filleth all the place, as huge he lieth in a den that hath them full in face: but when the adders she beheld upon his crest upborne, a sleepy morsel honey-steeped, and blent of wizards' corn, she cast him: then his threefold throat, all wild with hunger's lack, he opened wide, and caught at it, and sank his monstrous back, and there he lay upon the earth enormous through the cave. Æneas caught upon the pass the door-ward's slumber gave, and fled the bank of that sad stream no man may pass again. and many sounds they heard therewith, a wailing vast and vain; for weeping souls of speechless babes round the first threshold lay, whom, without share of life's delight, snatched from the breast away, the black day hurried off, and all in bitter ending hid. and next were those condemned to die for deed they never did: for neither doom nor judge nor house may any lack in death: the seeker minos shakes the urn, and ever summoneth the hushed-ones' court, and learns men's lives and what against them stands. the next place is of woeful ones, who sackless, with their hands compassed their death, and weary-sick of light without avail cast life away; but now how fain to bear the poor man's bale beneath the heaven, the uttermost of weary toil to bear! but law forbiddeth: the sad wave of that unlovely mere is changeless bond; and ninefold styx compelleth to abide. nor far from thence behold the meads far spread on every side, the mourning meads--in tale have they such very name and sign. there those whom hard love ate away with cruel wasting pine are hidden in the lonely paths with myrtle-groves about, nor in the very death itself may wear their trouble out: phædra he saw, procris he saw, and eriphyle sad. baring that cruel offspring's wound her loving body had: evadne and pasiphaë, laodamia there he saw, and cænis, once a youth and then a maiden fair, and shifted by the deed of fate to his old shape again. midst whom phoenician dido now, fresh from the iron bane, went wandering in the mighty wood: and when the trojan man first dimly knew her standing by amid the glimmer wan --e'en as in earliest of the month one sees the moon arise, or seems to see her at the least in cloudy drift of skies-- he spake, and let the tears fall down by all love's sweetness stirred: "unhappy dido, was it true, that bitter following word, that thou wert dead, by sword hadst sought the utter end of all? was it thy very death i wrought? ah! on the stars i call, i call the gods and whatso faith the nether earth may hold, to witness that against my will i left thy field and fold! but that same bidding of the gods, whereby e'en now i wend through dark, through deserts rusty-rough, through night without an end, drave me with doom. nor held my heart in anywise belief that my departure from thy land might work thee such a grief. o stay thy feet! nor tear thyself from my beholding thus. whom fleest thou? this word is all that fate shall give to us." such were the words Æneas spake to soothe her as she stood with stern eyes flaming, while his heart swelled with the woeful flood: but, turned away, her sick eyes still she fixed upon the earth; nor was her face moved any more by all his sad words' birth than if marpesian crag or flint had held her image so: at last she flung herself away, and fled, his utter foe, unto the shady wood, where he, her husband of old days, gives grief for grief, and loving heart beside her loving lays. nor less Æneas, smitten sore by her unworthy woes, with tears and pity followeth her as far away she goes. but thence the meted way they wear, and reach the outer field, where dwell apart renownèd men, the mighty under shield: there tydeus meets him; there he sees the great fight-glorious man, parthenopæus; there withal adrastus' image wan; and there the dardans battle-slain, for whom the wailing went to very heaven: their long array he saw with sad lament: glaucus and medon there he saw, thersilochus, the three antenor-sons, and polyphoete, by ceres' mystery made holy, and idæus still in car with armèd hand: there on the right side and the left the straying spirits stand. nor is one sight of him enough; it joyeth them to stay and pace beside, asking for why he wendeth such a way. but when the lords of danaan folk, and agamemnon's hosts, behold the man and gleaming arms amid the dusky ghosts, they fall a-quaking full of fear: some turn their back to fly as erst they ran unto the ships; some raise a quavering cry, but never from their gaping vain will swell the shout begun. and now deïphobus he sees, the glorious priam's son; but all his body mangled sore, his face all evilly hacked, his face and hands; yea, and his head, laid waste, the ear-lobes lacked, and nostrils cropped unto the root by wicked wound and grim. scarcely he knew the trembling man, who strove to hide from him those torments dire, but thus at last he spake in voice well known: "o great in arms, deïphobus, from teucer's blood come down, who had the heart to work on thee such bitter wicked bale? who had the might to deal thee this? indeed i heard the tale, that, tired with slaying of the greeks on that last night of all, upon a heap of mingled death thou didst to slumber fall: and i myself an empty tomb on that rhoetean coast set up to thee, and thrice aloud cried blessing on thy ghost: thy name and arms still keep the place; but thee i found not, friend, to set thee in thy fathers' earth ere i too needs must wend." to him the child of priam spake: "friend, nought thou left'st undone; all things thou gav'st deïphobus, and this dead shadowy one: my fates and that laconian bane, the woman wicked-fair, have drowned me in this sea of ills: she set these tokens here. how midst a lying happiness we wore the last night by 'thou know'st: yea; overwell belike thou hold'st that memory now when the baneful horse of fate high pergamus leapt o'er, with womb come nigh unto the birth of weaponed men of war, she, feigning hallowed dance, led on a holy-shouting band of phrygian maids, and midst of them, the bale-fire in her hand, called on the danaan men to come, high on the castle's steep: but me, outworn with many cares and weighed adown with sleep, the hapless bride-bed held meanwhile, and on me did there press deep rest and sweet, most like indeed to death's own quietness. therewith my glorious wife all arms from out the house withdrew, and stole away from o'er my head the sword whose faith i knew, called menelaüs to the house and opened him the door, thinking, forsooth, great gift to give to him who loved so sore, to quench therewith the tale gone by of how she did amiss. why linger? they break in on me, and he their fellow is, ulysses, preacher of all guilt.--o gods, will ye not pay the greeks for all? belike with mouth not godless do i pray. --but tell me, thou, what tidings new have brought thee here alive? is it blind strayings o'er the sea that hither doth thee drive, or bidding of the gods? wherein hath fortune worn thee so, that thou, midst sunless houses sad, confused lands, must go?" but as they gave and took in talk, aurora at the last in rosy wain the topmost crown of upper heaven had passed, and all the fated time perchance in suchwise had they spent; but warning of few words enow the sibyl toward him sent: "night falls, Æneas, weeping here we wear the hours in vain; and hard upon us is the place where cleaves the road atwain; on by the walls of mighty dis the right-hand highway goes, our way to that elysium: the left drags on to woes ill-doers' souls, and bringeth them to godless tartarus." then spake deïphobus: "great seer, be not o'erwroth with us: i will depart and fill the tale, and unto dusk turn back: go forth, our glory, go and gain the better fate i lack!" and even with that latest word his feet he tore away. but suddenly Æneas turned, and lo, a city lay wide-spread 'neath crags upon the left, girt with a wall threefold; and round about in hurrying flood a flaming river rolled, e'en phlegethon of tartarus, with rattling, stony roar: in face with adamantine posts was wrought the mighty door, such as no force of men nor might of heaven-abiders high may cleave with steel; an iron tower thence riseth to the sky: and there is set tisiphone, with girded blood-stained gown, who, sleepless, holdeth night and day the doorway of the town. great wail and cruel sound of stripes that city sendeth out, and iron clanking therewithal of fetters dragged about. then fearfully Æneas stayed, and drank the tumult in: "o tell me, maiden, what is there? what images of sin? what torments bear they? what the wail yon city casts abroad?" then so began the seer to speak: "o glorious teucrian lord, on wicked threshold of the place no righteous foot may stand: but when great hecate made me queen of that avernus land, she taught me of god's punishments and led me down the path. --there gnosian rhadamanthus now most heavy lordship hath, and heareth lies, and punisheth, and maketh men confess their deeds of earth, whereof made glad by foolish wickedness, they thrust the late repentance off till death drew nigh to grip: those guilty drives tisiphone, armed with avenging whip, and mocks their writhings, casting forth her other dreadful hand filled with the snakes, and crying on her cruel sister's band. and then at last on awful hinge loud-clanging opens wide the door of doom:--and lo, behold what door-ward doth abide within the porch, what thing it is the city gate doth hold! more dreadful yet the water-worm, with black mouth fiftyfold, hath dwelling in the inner parts. then tartarus aright gapes sheer adown; and twice so far it thrusteth under night as up unto the roof of heaven olympus lifteth high: and there the ancient race of earth, the titan children, lie, cast down by thunder, wallowing in bottomless abode. there of the twin aloidæ the monstrous bodies' load i saw; who fell on mighty heaven to cleave it with their hands, that they might pluck the father jove from out his glorious lands; and salmoneus i saw withal, paying the cruel pain that fire of jove and heaven's own voice on earth he needs must feign: he, drawn by fourfold rush of steeds, and shaking torches' glare, amidmost of the grecian folks, amidst of elis fair, went glorying, and the name of god and utter worship sought. o fool! the glory of the storm, and lightning like to nought, he feigned with rattling copper things and beat of horny hoof. him the almighty father smote from cloudy rack aloof, but never brand nor pitchy flame of smoky pine-tree cast, as headlong there he drave him down amid the whirling blast. and tityon, too, the child of earth, great mother of all things, there may ye see: nine acres' space his mighty frame he flings; his deathless liver still is cropped by that huge vulture's beak that evermore his daily meat doth mid his inwards seek, fruitful of woe, and hath his home beneath his mighty breast: whose heart-strings eaten, and new-born shall never know of rest. of lapithæ, pirithoüs, ixion, what a tale! o'er whom the black crag hangs, that slips, and slips, and ne'er shall fail to seem to fall. the golden feet of feast beds glitter bright, and there in manner of the kings is glorious banquet dight. but lo, the furies' eldest-born is crouched beside it there, and banneth one and all of them hand on the board to bear, and riseth up with tossing torch, and crieth, thundering loud. here they that hated brethren sore while yet their life abode, the father-smiters, they that drew the client-catching net, the brooders over treasure found in earth, who never yet would share one penny with their friends--and crowded thick these are-- those slain within another's bed; the followers up of war unrighteous; they no whit ashamed their masters' hand to fail, here prisoned bide the penalty: seek not to know their tale of punishment; what fate it is o'erwhelmeth such a folk. some roll huge stones; some hang adown, fast bound to tire or spoke of mighty wheels. there sitteth now, and shall sit evermore theseus undone: wretch phlegyas is crying o'er and o'er his warning, and in mighty voice through dim night testifies: 'be warned, and learn of righteousness, nor holy gods despise.' this sold his fatherland for gold; this tyrant on it laid; this for a price made laws for men, for price the laws unmade: this broke into his daughter's bed and wedding-tide accursed: all dared to think of monstrous deed, and did the deed they durst. nor, had i now an hundred mouths, an hundred tongues at need, an iron voice, might i tell o'er all guise of evil deed, or run adown the names of woe those evil deeds are worth." so when apollo's ancient seer such words had given forth: "now to the road! fulfil the gift that we so far have brought! haste on!" she saith, "i see the walls in cyclops' furnace wrought; and now the opening of the gates is lying full in face, where we are bidden lay adown the gift that brings us grace." she spake, and through the dusk of ways on side by side they wend, and wear the space betwixt, and reach the doorway in the end. Æneas at the entering in bedews his body o'er with water fresh, and sets the bough in threshold of the door. so, all being done, the goddess' gift well paid in manner meet, they come into a joyous land, and green-sward fair and sweet amid the happiness of groves, the blessèd dwelling-place. therein a more abundant heaven clothes all the meadows' face with purple light, and their own sun and their own stars they have. here some in games upon the grass their bodies breathing gave; or on the yellow face of sand they strive and play the play; some beat the earth with dancing foot, and some, the song they say: and there withal the thracian man in flowing raiment sings unto the measure of the dance on seven-folded strings; and now he smites with finger-touch, and now with ivory reed. and here is teucer's race of old, most lovely sons indeed; high-hearted heroes born on earth in better days of joy: ilus was there, assaracus, and he who builded troy, e'en dardanus. far off are seen their empty wains of war and war-weed: stand the spears in earth, unyoked the horses are, and graze the meadows all about; for even as they loved chariot and weapons, yet alive, and e'en as they were moved to feed sleek horses, under earth doth e'en such joy abide. others he saw to right and left about the meadows wide feasting; or joining merry mouths to sing the battle won amidst the scented laurel grove, whence earthward rolleth on the full flood that eridanus athwart the wood doth pour. lo, they who in their country's fight sword-wounded bodies bore; lo, priests of holy life and chaste, while they in life had part; lo, god-loved poets, men who spake things worthy phoebus' heart: and they who bettered life on earth by new-found mastery; and they whose good deeds left a tale for men to name them by: and all they had their brows about with snowy fillets bound. now unto them the sibyl spake as there they flowed around,-- unto musæus first; for him midmost the crowd enfolds higher than all from shoulders up, and reverently beholds: "say, happy souls, and thou, o bard, the best earth ever bare, what land, what place anchises hath? for whose sake came we here, and swam the floods of erebus and every mighty wave." then, lightly answering her again, few words the hero gave: "none hath a certain dwelling-place; in shady groves we bide, and meadows fresh with running streams, and beds by river-side: but if such longing and so sore the heart within you hath, o'ertop yon ridge and i will set your feet in easy path." he spake and footed it afore, and showeth from above the shining meads; and thence away from hill-top down they move. but sire anchises deep adown in green-grown valley lay, and on the spirits prisoned there, but soon to wend to day, was gazing with a fond desire: of all his coming ones there was he reckoning up the tale, and well-loved sons of sons: their fate, their haps, their ways of life, their deeds to come to pass. but when he saw Æneas now draw nigh athwart the grass, he stretched forth either palm to him all eager, and the tears poured o'er his cheeks, and speech withal forth from his mouth there fares: "o come at last, and hath the love, thy father hoped for, won o'er the hard way, and may i now look on thy face, o son, and give and take with thee in talk, and hear the words i know? so verily my mind forebode, i deemed 'twas coming so, and counted all the days thereto; nor was my longing vain. and now i have thee, son, borne o'er what lands, how many a main! how tossed about on every side by every peril still! ah, how i feared lest libyan land should bring thee unto ill!" then he: "o father, thou it was, thine image sad it was, that, coming o'er and o'er again, drave me these doors to pass: my ships lie in the tyrrhene salt--ah, give the hand i lack! give it, my father; neither thus from my embrace draw back!" his face was wet with plenteous tears e'en as the word he spake, and thrice the neck of him beloved he strove in arms to take; and thrice away from out his hands the gathered image streams, e'en as the breathing of the wind or wingèd thing of dreams. but down amid a hollow dale meanwhile Æneas sees a secret grove, a thicket fair, with murmuring of the trees, and lethe's stream that all along that quiet place doth wend; o'er which there hovered countless folks and peoples without end: and as when bees amid the fields in summer-tide the bright settle on diverse flowery things, and round the lilies white go streaming; so the fields were filled with mighty murmuring. unlearned Æneas fell aquake at such a wondrous thing, and asketh what it all may mean, what rivers these may be, and who the men that fill the banks with such a company. then spake anchises: "these are souls to whom fate oweth now new bodies: there they drink the draught by lethe's quiet flow, the draught that is the death of care, the long forgetfulness. and sure to teach thee of these things, and show thee all their press, and of mine offspring tell the tale, for long have i been fain, that thou with me mightst more rejoice in thine italia's gain." "o father, may we think it then, that souls may get them hence to upper air and take once more their bodies' hinderance? how can such mad desire be to win the worldly day?" "son, i shall tell thee all thereof, nor hold thee on the way." therewith he takes the tale and all he openeth orderly: "in the beginning: earth and sky and flowing fields of sea, and stars that titan fashioned erst, and gleaming moony ball, an inward spirit nourisheth, one soul is shed through all, that quickeneth all the mass, and with the mighty thing is blent: thence are the lives of men and beasts and flying creatures sent, and whatsoe'er the sea-plain bears beneath its marble face; quick in these seeds is might of fire and birth of heavenly place, ere earthly bodies' baneful weight upon them comes to lie, ere limbs of earth bewilder them and members made to die. hence fear they have, and love, and joy, and grief, and ne'er may find the face of heaven amid the dusk and prison strait and blind: yea, e'en when out of upper day their life at last is borne, not all the ill of wretched men is utterly outworn, not all the bane their bodies bred; and sure in wondrous wise the plenteous ill they bore so long engrained in them it lies: so therefore are they worn by woes and pay for ancient wrong: and some of them are hung aloft the empty winds among; and some, their stain of wickedness amidst the water's heart is washed away; amidst the fire some leave their worser part; and each his proper death must bear: then through elysium wide are we sent forth; a scanty folk in joyful fields we bide, till in the fulness of the time, the day that long hath been hath worn away the inner stain and left the spirit clean, a heavenly essence, a fine flame of all unmingled air. all these who now have turned the wheel for many and many a year god calleth unto lethe's flood in mighty company, that they, remembering nought indeed, the upper air may see once more, and long to turn aback to worldly life anew." anchises therewithal his son, and her the sibyl drew amid the concourse, the great crowd that such a murmuring sent, and took a mound whence they might see the spirits as they went in long array, and learn each face as 'neath their eyes it came. "come now, and i of dardan folk will tell the following fame, and what a folk from italy the world may yet await, most glorious souls, to bear our name adown the ways of fate. yea, i will set it forth in words, and thou thy tale shalt hear: lo ye, the youth that yonder leans upon the headless spear, fate gives him nighest place today; he first of all shall rise, blent blood of troy and italy, unto the earthly skies: silvius is he, an alban name, thy son, thy latest born; he whom thy wife lavinia now, when thin thy life is worn, beareth in woods to be a king and get a kingly race, whence comes the lordship of our folk within the long white place. and procas standeth next to him, the trojan people's fame; then capys, numitor, and he who bringeth back thy name, silvius Æneas, great in war, and great in godliness, if ever he in that white stead may bear the kingdom's stress. lo ye, what youths! what glorious might unto thine eyes is shown! but they who shade their temples o'er with civic oaken crown, these build for thee nomentum's walls, and gabii, and the folk fidenian, and the mountains load with fair collatia's yoke: pometii, bola, cora, there shall rise beneath their hands, and inuus' camp: great names shall spring amid the nameless lands. "then mavors' child shall come on earth, his grandsire following, when ilia's womb, assaracus' own blood, to birth shall bring that romulus:--lo, see ye not the twin crests on his head, and how the father hallows him for day with his own dread e'en now? lo, son! those signs of his; lo, that renownèd rome! whose lordship filleth all the earth, whose heart olympus' home, and with begirdling of her wall girds seven great burgs to her, rejoicing in her man-born babes: e'en as the earth-mother amidst the phrygian cities goes with car and towered crown, glad in the gods, whom hundred-fold she kisseth for her own. all heaven-abiders, all as kings within the house of air. ah, turn thine eyeballs hitherward, look on this people here, thy roman folk! lo cæsar now! lo all iulus' race, who 'neath the mighty vault of heaven shall dwell in coming days. and this is he, this is the man thou oft hast heard foretold, augustus cæsar, sprung from god to bring the age of gold aback unto the latin fields, where saturn once was king. yea, and the garamantian folk and indians shall he bring beneath his sway: beyond the stars, beyond the course of years, beyond the sun-path lies the land, where atlas heaven upbears, and on his shoulders turns the pole with burning stars bestrown. yea, and e'en now the caspian realms quake at his coming, shown by oracles of god; and quakes the far mæotic mere, and sevenfold nile through all his mouths quakes in bewildered fear. not so much earth did hercules o'erpass, though he prevailed to pierce the brazen-footed hind, and win back peace that failed the erymanthus' wood, and shook lerna with draught of bow; nor liber turning vine-wreathed reins when he hath will to go adown from nysa's lofty head in tiger-yokèd car.-- forsooth then shall we doubt but deeds shall spread our valour far? shall fear forsooth forbid us rest in that ausonian land? "but who is this, the olive-crowned, that beareth in his hand the holy things? i know the hair and hoary beard of eld of him, the roman king, who first a law-bound city held, sent out from little cures' garth, that unrich land of his, unto a mighty lordship: yea, and tullus next is this, who breaks his country's sleep and stirs the slothful men to fight; and calleth on the weaponed hosts unused to war's delight but next unto him ancus fares, a boaster overmuch; yea and e'en now the people's breath too nigh his heart will touch. and wilt thou see the tarquin kings and brutus' lofty heart, and fasces brought aback again by his avenging part? he first the lordship consular and dreadful axe shall take; the father who shall doom the sons, that war and change would wake, to pain of death, that he thereby may freedom's fairness save. unhappy! whatso tale of thee the after-time may have, the love of country shall prevail, and boundless lust of praise. "drusi and decii lo afar! on hard torquatus gaze, he of the axe: camillus lo, the banner-rescuer! but note those two thou seest shine in arms alike and clear, now souls of friends, and so to be while night upon them weighs: woe's me! what war shall they awake if e'er the light of days they find: what host each sets 'gainst each, what death-field shall they dight! the father from the alpine wall, and from monoecus' height comes down; the son against him turns the east's embattlement. o children, in such evil war let not your souls be spent, nor turn the valour of your might against the heart of home. thou first, refrain, o thou my blood from high olympus come; cast thou the weapons from thine hand! "lo to the capitol aloft, for corinth triumphing, one glorious with achæan deaths in victor's chariot goes; mycenæ, agamemnon's house, and argos he o'erthrows, yea and Æacides himself the great achilles' son; avenging so the sires of troy and pallas' house undone. great cato, can i leave thee then untold? pass cossus o'er? or house of gracchus? yea, or ye, twin thunderbolts of war, ye scipios, bane of libyan land? fabricius, poor and strong? or thee, serranus, casting seed adown the furrows long? fabii, where drive ye me outworn? thou greatest, thou art he, who bringest back thy country's weal by tarrying manfully. "others, i know, more tenderly may beat the breathing brass, and better from the marble block bring living looks to pass; others may better plead the cause, may compass heaven's face, and mark it out, and tell the stars, their rising and their place: but thou, o roman, look to it the folks of earth to sway; for this shall be thine handicraft, peace on the world to lay, to spare the weak, to wear the proud by constant weight of war." so mid their marvelling he spake, and added furthermore: "marcellus lo! neath spoils of spoils how great and glad he goes, and overtops all heroes there, the vanquisher of foes: yea, he shall prop the roman weal when tumult troubleth all, and ride amid the punic ranks, and crush the rising gaul, and hang in sire quirinus' house the third war-taken gear." then spake Æneas, for he saw following marcellus near a youth of beauty excellent, with gleaming arms bedight, yet little glad of countenance with eyes that shunned the light: "o father, who is he that wends beside the hero's hem, his son belike, or some one else from out that mighty stem? what murmuring of friends about! how mighty is he made! but black night fluttereth over him with woeful mirky shade." then midst the rising of his tears father anchises spoke: "o son, search not the mighty woe and sorrow of thy folk! the fates shall show him to the world, nor longer blossoming shall give. o gods that dwell on high, belike o'ergreat a thing the roman tree should seem to you, should this your gift endure! how great a wail of mighty men that field of fame shall pour on mavors' mighty city walls: what death-rites seest thou there, o tiber, as thou glidest by his new-wrought tomb and fair! no child that is of ilian stock in latin sires shall raise such glorious hope; nor shall the land of romulus e'er praise so fair and great a nursling child mid all it ever bore. goodness, and faith of ancient days, and hand unmatched in war, alas for all! no man unhurt had raised a weaponed hand against him, whether he afoot had met the foeman's band, or smitten spur amid the flank of eager foaming horse. o child of all men's ruth, if thou the bitter fates mayst force, thou art marcellus. reach ye hands of lily-blooms fulfilled; for i will scatter purple flowers, and heap such offerings spilled unto the spirit of my child, and empty service do." thereafter upon every side they strayed that country through, amid wide-spreading airy meads, and sight of all things won. but after old anchises now through all had led his son, and kindled love within his heart of fame that was to be, then did he tell him of the wars that he himself should see, and of laurentian peoples taught, and town of latin folk; and how from every grief to flee, or how to bear its stroke. now twofold are the gates of sleep, whereof the one, men say, is wrought of horn, and ghosts of sooth thereby win easy way, the other clean and smooth is wrought of gleaming ivory, but lying dreams the nether gods send up to heaven thereby. all said, anchises on his son and sibyl-maid doth wait unto the last, and sends them up by that same ivory gate. he wears the way and gains his fleet and fellow-folk once more. so for caieta's haven-mouth by straightest course they bore, till fly the anchors from the bows and sterns swing round ashore. book vii. argument. Æneas and his trojans take land by the tiber-mouth, and king latinus plighteth peace with them; which peace is broken by the will of juno, and all men make them ready for war. thou also, o Æneas' nurse, caieta, didst avail, e'en dying, unto these our shores to leave a deathless tale: and yet thy glory guards the place, thy bones have won it name within the great hesperian land, if that be prize of fame. but good Æneas, when at last all funeral rites were paid and the grave heaped, when in a while the ocean's face was laid, went on his way with sails aloft, and left the port behind: the faint winds breathe about the night, the moon shines clear and kind; beneath the quivering shining road the wide seas gleaming lie. but next the beach of circe's land their swift ships glide anigh, where the rich daughter of the sun with constant song doth rouse the groves that none may enter in, or in her glorious house burneth the odorous cedar-torch amidst the dead of night, while through the slender warp she speeds the shrilling shuttle light. and thence they hear the sound of groans, and wrath of lions dread fretting their chains; and roaring things o'er night-tide fallen dead; and bristled swine and cagèd bears cried bitter-wild, and sore; and from the shapes of monstrous wolves the howling seaward bore. these from the likeness of mankind had cruel circe won by herbs of might, and shape and hide of beasts upon them done. but lest the godly trojan folk such wickedness should bear, lest borne into the baneful bay they bring their keels o'er near, their sails did father neptune fill with fair and happy breeze, and sped their flight and sent them swift across the hurrying seas. now reddened all the sea with rays, and from the heavenly plain the golden-hued aurora shone amidst her rosy wain, then fell the winds and every air sank down in utter sleep, and now the shaven oars must strive amid the sluggish deep: therewith Æneas sees a wood rise from the water's face, and there it is the tiber's flood amidst a pleasant place, with many a whirling eddy swift and yellowing with sand breaks into sea; and diversely above on either hand the fowl that love the river-bank and haunt the river-bed sweetened the air with plenteous song and through the thicket fled. so there Æneas bids his folk shoreward their bows to lay, and joyfully he entereth in the stream's o'ershadowed way. to aid, erato! while i tell what kings, what deedful tide, what manner life, in latin land did anciently abide when first the stranger brought his ships to that ausonian shore; yea help me while i call aback beginnings of the war. o goddess, hearten thou thy seer! dread war my song-speech saith: it tells the battle in array, and kings full fain of death, the tyrrhene host, all italy, spurred on the sword to bear: yea, greater matters are afoot, a mightier deed i stir. the king latinus, old of days, ruled o'er the fields' increase, and cities of the people there at rest in long-drawn peace: of faunus and laurentian nymph, marica, do we learn that he was born: but faunus came of picus, who must turn to thee, o saturn, for his sire: 'twas he that blood began. now, as god would, this king had got no son to grow a man, for he who first had dawned on him in earliest youth had waned: a daughter only such a house, so great a world sustained, now ripe for man, the years fulfilled that made her meet for bed: and her much folk of latin land were fain enow to wed, and all ausonia: first of whom, and fairest to be seen, was turnus, great from fathers great; and him indeed the queen was fain of for her son-in-law with wondrous love of heart: but dreadful portents of the gods the matter thrust apart. amidmost of the inner house a laurel-tree upbore its hallowed leaves, that fear of god had kept through years of yore: father latinus first, they said, had found it there, when he built there his burg and hallowed it to phoebus' deity, and on laurentian people thence the name thereof had laid; on whose top now the gathered bees, o wondrous to be said! borne on with mighty humming noise amid the flowing air, had settled down, and foot to foot all interwoven there, in sudden swarm they hung adown from off the leafy bough. but straight the seer cries out: "ah me! i see him coming now, the stranger man; i see a host from that same quarter come to this same quarter, to be lords amidst our highest home." but further, while the altar-fires she feeds with virgin brands, the maid lavinia, and beside her ancient father stands, out! how along her length of hair the grasp of fire there came, and all the tiring of her head was caught in crackling flame. and there her royal tresses blazed, and blazed her glorious crown gem-wrought, and she one cloud of smoke and yellow fire was grown: and wrapped therein, the fiery god she scattered through the house: and sure it seemed a dreadful thing, a story marvellous: for they fell singing she should grow glorious of fame and fate, but unto all her folk should be the seed of huge debate. so troubled by this tokening dread forth fareth now the king to faunus' fane, his father-seer, to ask him counselling 'neath albunea the high, whose wood, the thicket most of worth, resoundeth with the holy well and breathes the sulphur forth. from whence the folk of italy and all oenotrian land seek rede amidst of troublous time. here, when the priest in hand hath borne the gifts, and laid him down amidst the hush of night on the strown fells of slaughtered ewes, and sought him sleep aright, he seeth wondrous images about him flit and shift, he hearkeneth many a changing voice, of talk with gods hath gift, and holdeth speech with acheron, from deep avernus come. there now the sire latinus went seeking the answers home, and there an hundred woolly ewes in order due did slay, and propped upon the fells thereof on bed of fleeces lay, till from the thickets inner depths the sudden answer came: "seek not thy daughter, o my son, to wed to latin name; unto the bridal set on foot let not thy troth be given: thy sons are coming over sea to raise our blood to heaven, and sons of sons' sons from their stem shall see beneath their feet all things for them to shift and doom; all things the sun may meet, as to and fro he wendeth way 'twixt either ocean wave." such warnings of the silent night that father faunus gave, shut up betwixt his closed lips latinus held no whit, but through ausonia flying fame had borne the noise of it, when that laomedontian folk at last had moored their ships unto the grassy-mounded bank whereby the river slips. Æneas and iulus fair, and all their most and best, beneath a tall tree's boughs had laid their bodies down to rest: they dight the feast; about the grass on barley-cakes they lay what meat they had,--for even so jove bade them do that day,-- and on the ground that ceres gave the woodland apples pile. and so it happed, that all being spent, they turn them in a while to ceres' little field, and eat, egged on by very want, and dare to waste with hands and teeth the circle thin and scant where fate lay hid, nor spare upon the trenchers wide to fall. "ah!" cries iulus, "so today we eat up board and all." 'twas all his jest-word; but its sound their labour slew at last, and swift his father caught it up, as from his mouth it passed, and stayed him, by the might of god bewildered utterly. then forthwith: "hail," he cried, "o land that fate hath owed to me! and ye, o house-gods of our troy, hail ye, o true and kind! this is your house, this is your land: my father, as i mind, such secrets of the deeds of fate left me in days of yore: 'o son, when hunger driveth thee stranded on outland shore to eat the very boards beneath thy victual scant at need, there hope for house, o weary one, and in that place have heed to set hand first unto the roof, and heap the garth around.' so this will be that hunger-tide: this waited us to bound our wasting evils at the last. so come, and let us joyfully upon the first of dawn seek out the land, what place it is, what men-folk there abide, and where their city; diversely leaving the haven-side. but now pour out the bowls to jove, send prayer upon the way to sire anchises, and the wine again on table lay." he spake, and with the leafy bough his temples garlanded, and to the spirit of the soil forthwith the prayer he said, to earth, the eldest-born of gods, to nymphs, to streams unknown as yet: he called upon the night, and night-tide's signs new shown; idæan jove, the phrygian queen, the mother, due and well he called on; and his parents twain in heaven and in hell. but thrice the almighty father then from cloudless heaven on high gave thunder, showing therewithal the glory of his sky all burning with the golden gleam, and shaken by his hand. then sudden rumour ran abroad amid the trojan band, that now the day was come about their fateful walls to raise; so eagerly they dight the feast, gladdened by omen's grace, and bring the beakers forth thereto and garland well the wine. but when the morrow's lamp of dawn across the earth 'gan shine, the shore, the fields, the towns of folk they search, wide scattering: and here they come across the pools of that numician spring: this is the tiber-flood; hereby the hardy latins dwell. but therewithal anchises' seed from out them chose him well an hundred sweet-mouthed men to go unto the walls renowned, where dwelt the king, and every one with pallas' olive crowned, to carry gifts unto the lord and peace for teucrians pray. so, bidden, nought they tarry now, but swift-foot wear the way. but he himself marks out the walls with shallow ditch around, and falls to work upon the shore his first abode to found, in manner of a camp, begirt with bank and battlement. meanwhile his men beheld at last, when all the way was spent, the latin towers and roofs aloft, and drew the walls anigh: there were the lads and flower of youth afield the city by backing the steed, or mid the dust a-steering of the car, or bending of the bitter bow, hurling tough darts afar by strength of arm; for foot or fist crying the challenging. then fares a well-horsed messenger, who to the ancient king bears tidings of tall new-comers in outland raiment clad: so straight latinus biddeth them within his house be had, and he upon his father's throne sat down amidmost there. high on an hundred pillars stood that mighty house and fair, high in the burg, the dwelling-place laurentian picus won, awful with woods, and worshipping of sires of time agone: here was it wont for kings to take the sceptre in their hand, here first to raise the axe of doom: 'twas court-house of the land, this temple, and the banquet-hall; here when the host was slain the fathers at the endlong boards would sit the feast to gain. there too were dight in cedar old the sires of ancient line for there was fashioned italus, and he who set the vine, sabinus, holding yet in hand the image of the hook; and saturn old, and imaging of janus' double look, stood in the porch; and many a king was there from ancient tide, who in their country's battle erst the wounds of mars would bide: and therewithal were many arms hung on the holy door. there hung the axes crookèd-horned, and taken wains of war, and crested helms, and bolts and locks that city-gates had borne; and spears and shields, and thrusting-beaks from ships of battle torn. there with quirinus' crooked staff, girt in the shortened gown, with target in his left hand held, was picus set adown,-- the horse-tamer, whom circe fair, caught with desire erewhile, smote with that golden rod of hers, and, sprinkling venom's guile, made him a fowl, and colours fair blent on his shifting wings. in such a temple of the gods, in such a house of kings, latinus sat when he had called those teucrian fellows in, and from his quiet mouth and grave such converse did begin: "what seek ye, sons of dardanus? for not unknown to me is that your city or your blood; and how ye crossed the sea, that have i heard. but these your ships, what counsel or what lack hath borne them to ausonian strand o'er all the blue sea's back? if ye have strayed from out your course, or, driven by stormy tide (for such things oft upon the sea must seafarers abide), have entered these our river-banks in haven safe to lie, flee not our welcome, nor unknown the latin folk pass by; the seed of saturn, bound to right by neither law nor chain, but freely following in the ways whereof the god was fain. yea now indeed i mind a tale, though now with years outworn, how elders of aurunce said that mid these fields was born that dardanus, who reached at last the phrygian ida's walls, and thracian samos, that the world now samothracia calls: from tuscan stead of corythus he went upon his ways; whose throne is set in golden heaven, the star-besprinkled place, who adds one other to the tale of altared deities." he ended, but ilioneus followed in words like these: "o king, o glorious faunus' child, no storm upon the main drave us amid the drift of waves your country coast to gain; and neither star nor strand made blind the region of our road; but we by counsel and free will have sought out thine abode, outcast from such a realm as once was deemed the mightiest the sun beheld, as o'er the heaven she ran from east to west. jove is the well-spring of our race; the dardan children joy in jove for father; yea, our king, Æneas out of troy, who sends us to thy door, himself is of the highest's seed. how great a tempest was let loose o'er our idæan mead, from dire mycenæ sent; what fate drave either clashing world, europe and asia, till the war each against each they hurled, his ears have heard, who dwells afar upon the land alone that ocean beats; and his no less the bondman of the zone, that midmost lieth of the four, by cruel sun-blaze worn. lo, from that flood we come to thee, o'er waste of waters borne, praying a strip of harmless shore our house-gods' home to be, and grace of water and of air to all men lying free. we shall not foul our land's renown; and thou, thy glory fair we know, and plenteous fruit of thanks this deed of thine shall bear: nor ever may embrace of troy ausonia's soul despite. now by Æneas' fates i swear, and by his hand of might, whether in troth it hath been tried, or mid the hosts of war, that many folks--yea, scorn us not that willingly we bore these fillets in our hands today with words beseeching peace-- that many lands have longed for us, and yearned for our increase. but fate of gods and gods' command would ever drive us home to this your land: this is the place whence dardanus was come, and hither now he comes again: full sore apollo drave to tuscan tiber, and the place of dread numicius' wave. moreover, here some little gifts of early days of joy giveth our king, a handful gleaned from burning-tide of troy: anchises at the altar erst would pour from out this gold; this was the gear that priam used when in the guise of old he gave his gathered folk the law; sceptre, and holy crown, and weed the work of ilian wives." now while ilioneus so spake latinus held his face, musing and steadfast, on the ground setting his downcast gaze, rolling his eyes all thought-fulfilled; nor did the broidered gear of purple move the king so much, nor priam's sceptre fair, as on his daughter's bridal bed the thoughts in him had rest, for ancient faunus' fateful word he turned within his breast. here was the son, the fate-foretold, the outland wanderer, called on by equal doom of god the equal throne to share; he from whose loins those glorious sons of valour should come forth to take the whole world for their own by utter might of worth. at last he spake out joyfully: "god grace our deed begun, and his own bidding! man of troy, thine asking shall be done: i take your gifts: nought shall ye lack from king latinus' hand, riches of troy, nor health and wealth of fat and fruitful land. but let Æneas come himself if he so yearn for me, if he be eager for our house, and would our fellow be; nor let him fear to look upon friends' faces close anigh, part of the peace-troth shall be this, my hand in his to lie. and now bear back unto your king this bidding that i send: i have a daughter; her indeed with countryman to blend the answers of my father's house forbid, and many a sign sent down from heaven: from over sea comes one to wed our line; they say this bideth latin land; a man to raise our blood up to the very stars of heaven: that this is he fate would, i think, yea hope, if any whit my heart herein avail." he spake, and bade choose horses out from all his noble tale, whereof three hundred sleek and fair stood in the stables high: these biddeth he for teucrian men be led forth presently, wing-footed purple-bearing beasts, with pictures o'er them flung of woven stuff, and, on their breasts are golden collars hung: gold-housed are they, and champ in teeth the yellow-golden chain but to Æneas, absent thence, a car and yoke-beasts twain he sends: the seed of heaven are they, and breathing very fire, the blood of those that circe stole when she beguiled her sire, that crafty mistress, winning them, bastards, from earthy mare. so back again Æneas' folk high on their horses fare, bearing latinus' gifts and words, and all the tale of peace. but lo, where great jove's bitter wife comes from the town of greece, from argos wrought of inachus, and holds the airy way. far off she sees Æneas' joy, and where the ship-host lay of dardans: yea from sicily and far pachynus head she seeth him on earth at last and raising roofèd stead, and all the ships void: fixed she stood, smit through with bitter wrath, and shook her head: then from her breast the angry words came forth: "ah, hated race! ah, phrygian fates that shear my fates atwain! was there no dead man's place for you on that sigean plain? had ye no might to wend as slaves? gave troy so poor a flame to burn her men, that through the fire and through the swords ye came? i think at last my godhead's might is wearied and gone by, that i have drunk enough of hate, and now at rest may lie:-- i, who had heart to follow up those outcasts from their land, and as they fled o'er all the sea still in their path would stand. against these teucrians sea and sky have spent their strength for nought: was syrtes aught, or scylla aught, or huge charybdis aught? lo now the longed-for tiber's breast that nation cherisheth safe from the deep and safe from me: while mars might do to death those huge-wrought folk of lapithæ: the very father-god gave up the ancient calydon to dian's wrath and rod. what was the guilt of lapithæ? what crime wrought calydon? but i, the mighty spouse of jove, who nought have left undone my evil hap might compass, i who ran through all craft's tale am vanquished of Æneas now. but if of no avail my godhead be, i will not spare to pray what is of might, since heaven i move not, needs must i let loose the nether night. ah! say it is not fated me the latin realm to ban, lavinia must be fated wife of this same trojan man, yet may i draw out time at least, and those great things delay; at least may i for either king an host of people slay: for father and for son-in-law shall plenteous price be paid, with trojan and rutulian blood shalt thou be dowered, o maid; bellona's self shall bridal thee; not cisseus' seed alone was big with brand; not she alone with wedding-ring has shone: yea, and this too is venus' child; another paris comes to kindle deadly torch again in new-born trojan homes." so spake she terrible, and sank into the earth below, yea to the nether night, and stirred alecto, forge of woe, from the dread goddesses' abode: sad wars she loveth well, and murderous wrath, and lurking guile, and evil deeds and fell: e'en pluto loathes her; yea, e'en they of that tartarean place, her sisters, hate her: sure she hath as many a changing face, as many a cruel body's form, as her black snakes put forth. to whom in such wise juno spake and whetted on her wrath: "win me a work after thine heart, o virgin of the night, lest all my fame, unstained of old, my glory won aright, give place: lest there Æneas' sons latinus overcome by wedlock, and in italy set up their house and home: thou, who the brothers of one heart canst raise up each 'gainst each, and overturn men's homes with hate, and through the house-walls' breach bear in the stroke and deadly brand--a thousand names hast thou,-- a thousand arts of ill: stir up thy fruitful bosom now; be render of the plighted peace; of war-seed be the sower; that men may yearn for arms, and ask, and snatch in one same hour." thereon alecto, steeped at heart with gorgon venoming. sought latium first and high-built house of that laurentian king, and by the silent threshold stood whereby amata lay, in whose hot heart a woman's woe and woman's wrath did play, about those teucrian new-comers and turnus' bridal bed: on her she cast an adder blue, a tress from off her head, and sent it to her breast to creep her very heart-strings through, that she, bewildered by the bane, may all the house undo. so he betwixt her bosom smooth and dainty raiment slid, and crawled as if he touched her not, and maddened her yet hid, and breathed the adder's soul in her: the dreadful wormy thing seemed the wrought gold about her neck, or the long silken string that knit her hair, and slippery soft it glided o'er her limbs. and now while first the plague begins, and soft the venom swims, touching her sense, and round her bones the fiery web is pressed, nor yet her soul had caught the flame through all her poisoned breast, still soft, and e'en as mothers will, she spake the word and said her woes about her daughter's case, and phrygian bridal bed. "to teucrian outcasts shall our maid, lavinia, wedded be? o father, hast thou nought of ruth of her, forsooth, and thee? nor of the mother, whom that man forsworn shall leave behind, bearing the maiden o'er the sea with the first northern wind? nay, not e'en so the phrygian herd pierced lacedæmon's fold, and bore ledæan helen off unto the trojan hold. nay, where is gone thine hallowed faith, thy kinsomeness of yore? thine hand that oft to turnus' hand, thy kinsman, promise bore? lo, if we needs must seek a son strange to the latin folk, and father faunus' words on thee are e'en so strait a yoke, i deem, indeed, that every land free from our kingdom's sway is stranger land, and even so i deem the gods would say: and turnus comes, if we shall seek beginning of his race. from inachus, acrisius old, and mid mycenæ's place." but when she thus had said in vain, and saw latinus still withstand her: when all inwardly the maddening serpent's ill hath smitten through her heart of hearts and passed through all her frame, then verily the hapless one, with dreadful things aflame, raves through the city's length and breadth in god-wrought agonies: as 'neath the stroke of twisted lash at whiles the whip-top flies, which lads all eager for the game drive, ever circling wide round some void hall; it, goaded on beneath the strip of hide, from circle unto circle goes; the silly childish throng still hanging o'er, and wondering how the box-tree spins along, the while their lashes make it live: no quieter she ran through the mid city, borne amid fierce hearts of many a man. then in the wilderness she feigns the heart that bacchus fills, and stirs a greater madness up, beginning greater ills, and mid the leafy mountain-side her daughter hides away, to snatch her from the teucrian bed, the bridal torch to stay; foaming: "hail, bacchus! thou alone art worthy lord to wed this virgin thing: for thee she takes the spear's soft-fruited head, for thee she twinkleth dancing feet, and feeds her holy hair." the rumour flies, and one same rage all mother-folk doth bear, heart-kindled by the fury's ill, to roofs of all unrest: they flee the house and let the wind play free o'er hair and breast: while others fill the very heavens with shrilly quivering wail, and skin-clad toss about the spear the wreathing vine-leaves veil: but she ablaze amidst of them upholds the fir-lit flame, and sings her daughter's bridal song, and sings of turnus' name, rolling her blood-shot eyes about; then eager suddenly she shouts: "ho, mothers! latin wives, wherever ye may be, hearken! if in your righteous souls abideth any love of lorn amata; if your souls a mother's right may move, cast off the fillets from your locks, with me the madness bear." so through the woodland wilderness and deserts of the deer alecto drave the queen around, with bacchus' stings beset but when she deemed enough was wrought that rage of hers to whet, and that latinus' rede and house was utterly undone, forthwith away on dusky wings is borne that evil one unto the bold rutulian's wall: a city, saith the tale, raised up by danaë for her acrisian folks' avail when on the hurrying south she fled: ardea in days of yore our fathers called it; nor as yet is name thereof passed o'er, though wealth be gone: there turnus lay within his house on high, and midmost sleep of dusky night was winning peacefully. when there alecto cruel face and hellish body shed, and to an ancient woman's like her shape she fashionèd, wrinkling her forehead villanous; and hoary coifèd hair she donned, and round about it twined the olive-garland fair, and seemed the ancient calybé of juno's holy place; and so with such a word she thrust before the hero's face: "turnus, and wilt thou bear it now, such labour spent in vain, and give thy folk to dardan men, the outcasts of the main? the king gainsays thy wedding couch, and dowry justly bought by very blood, and for his throne an outland heir is sought. go, thou bemocked, and thrust thyself mid perils none shall thank; for cloaking of the latin peace o'erthrow the tuscan rank! the mighty saturn's seed herself hath bid me openly to bear thee this, while thou in peace of middle night shouldst lie. so up! be merry! arm the lads! bid wend from out the gate. up, up, and arm! the phrygian folk who in the fair stream wait, burn thou their dukes of men with fire! burn every painted keel! 'tis heavenly might that biddeth this. let king latinus feel thy strength, and learn to know at last what meaneth turnus' sword, unless he grant the wedding yet, and hold his plighted word." but therewithal the young man spake, and answered her in scorn: "thou errest: tidings of all this failed nowise to be borne unto mine ears, how stranger ships the tiber-flood beset. nay, make me not so sore afeared,--belike she minds me yet, juno, the queen of heaven aloft. nay, mother, eld the mouldy-dull, the empty of all sooth, tormenteth thee with cares in vain, and mid the arms of kings bemocks the seer with idle shows of many fearful things. nay, 'tis for thee to watch god's house, and ward the images, and let men deal with peace and war; for they were born for these." but at such word alecto's wrath in utter fire outbrake; a tremor ran throughout his limbs e'en as the word he spake; fixed stared his eyes, the fury hissed with serpent-world so dread, and such a mighty body woke: then rolling in her head her eyes of flame, she thrust him back, stammering and seeking speech, as on her head she reared aloft two adders each by each, and sounded all her fearful whip, and cried from raving mouth: "lo, i am she, the mouldy-dull, whom eld, the void of sooth, bemocks amid the arms of kings with empty lies of fear! look, look! for from the sisters' house, the dread ones, come i here; and war and death i have in hand." she spake, and on the youth she cast her torch and set its blaze, a mirky gleam of smoke-wreathed flame, amidmost of his heart: and mighty dread his slumber brake, and forth from every part, from bones and body, burst the sweat, and o'er his limbs 'gan fall; and wild he cries for arms, and seeks for arms from bed and wall: the sword-lust rageth in his soul, and wicked thirst of war. so was it as at whiles it is, when with a mighty roar the twiggen flame goes up about the hollow side of brass; the water leapeth up therewith, within comes rage to pass, the while the cloudy foaming flood spouts up a bubbling stir, until the sea refrains no more; the black cloud flies in air. so to the dukes of men he shows how peace hath evil end, and on latinus biddeth them in weed of war to wend; that they may save their italy, and thrust the foemen forth. and he will fare unto the field more than the twain of worth, teucrians and latins: so he saith, and calls the gods to aid. then eagerly rutulian men to war and battle bade: for some his glorious beauty stirred, and some his youth drave on, and some his sires; and some were moved by deeds his hand had done. but while he fills rutulian souls with love for glorious things, alecto to the teucrians wends on stygian-fashioned wings, with fresh guile spying out the place where goodly on the shore, with toils and speed 'gainst woodland beasts, iulus waged the war. here for his hounds cocytus' maid a sudden madness blent, crossing the nostrils of the beasts with long familiar scent, as eagerly they chased a hart. this first began the toil, and kindled field-abiders' souls to war and deadly broil. there was a hart most excellent, a noble hornèd thing, that tyrrheus' sons had stolen from its own dam's cherishing, and fostered: he, their father, had the kingly herd to heed, and well was trusted far and wide, the warden of the mead. but to their sister sylvia's hand the beast was used, and oft she decked him lovingly, and wreathed his horns with leafage soft, and combed him oft, and washed him oft in water of the well. tame to her hand, and used enow amid manfolk to dwell, he strayed the woods; but day by day betook him evermore, of his own will at twilight-tide, to that familiar door. him now iulus' hunting hounds mad-eager chanced to stir afar from home, and floating whiles adown the river fair, or whiles on bank of grassy green beguiling summer's flame. therewith ascanius, all afire with lust of noble fame, turned on the beast the spiky reed from out the curvèd horn; nor lacked the god to his right hand; on was the arrow borne with plenteous whirr, and smote the hart through belly and through flank; who, wounded, to the well-known house fled fast, and groaning shrank into the stalls of his abode, and bloody, e'en as one who cries for pity, filled the place with woefulness of moan. then first the sister sylvia there, smiting her breast, cried out, calling to aid the hardy hearts of field-folk thereabout; and swifter than the thought they came; for still that bitter bane lurked in the silent woods: this man a half-burned brand did gain for weapon; that a knotted stake: whate'er came first to hand, the seeker's wrath a weapon made: there tyrrheus cheers his band, come from the cleaving of an oak with foursome driven wedge, panting and fierce he tossed aloft the wood-bill's grinded edge. but she, that evil, on the watch, noting the death anigh, climbs up upon the stall-house loft, and from its roof on high singeth the shepherd's gathering sign, and through the crookèd horn sends voice of hell: and e'en therewith, as forth the notes were borne, the forest trembled; the deep woods resounded; yea afar the mere of trivia heard the sound, and that white water, nar, that bears the sulphur down its stream; the veline well-springs heard: mothers caught up their little ones, and trembled sore afeard. then hurrying at the voice sent forth by the dread war-horn's song, the hardy-hearted folk of fields from everywhither throng, with weapons caught in haste: and now the trojan folk withal pour from their opened gates, and on to aid ascanius fall. and there the battle is arrayed; and now no war they wake, where field-folk strive with knotty club or fire-behardened stake; but with the two-edged sword they strive: the meadows bristle black with harvest of the naked steel: the gleaming brass throws back unto the clouds that swim aloft the smiting of the sun: as when the whitening of the wind across the flood doth run, and step by step the sea gets up, and higher heaps the wave, until heaven-high it sweeps at last up from its lowest cave. and here, by dint of whistling shaft in forefront of the fight, a youth, e'en tyrrheus' eldest son, by name of almo hight, was laid alow: there in his throat the reedy bane abode, and shut with blood the path of speech, the tender life-breath's road. and many a body fell around: there, thrusting through the press with peaceful word, galæsus old died in his righteousness; most just of men; most rich erewhile of all ausonian land: five flocks of bleaters once he had: five-fold came home to hand his herds of neat: an hundred ploughs turned up the earth for him. but while they wrought these deeds of mars mid doubtful fate and dim, the goddess, strong in pledge fulfilled, since she the war had stained with very blood, and death of men in that first battle gained, leaveth the westland, and upborne along the hollow sky, to juno such a word of pride sets forth victoriously: "lo thou, the discord fashioned fair with misery of fight! come let them join in friendship now, and troth together plight! but now, since i have sprinkled troy with that ausonian blood, i will do more, if thereunto thy will abideth good; for all the cities neighbouring to war my word shall bring, and in their souls the love of mars and maddening fire shall fling till all strike in, and all the lea crops of my sowing bear." but juno answered: "full enough there is of fraud and fear; fast stands the stumbling-block of war, and hand to hand they fight: the sword that fate first gave to them hath man's death stained aright forsooth let king latinus now and venus' noble son join hand to hand, and hold high feast for such a wedding won. but thee, the father of the gods, lord of olympus high, will nowise have a-wandering free beneath the worldly sky: give place; and whatso more of toil fortune herein may make myself shall rule." such words as these saturnian juno spake, and on the wing the evil rose, with snaky sweeping whirr, seeking cocytus' house, and left the light world's steep of air. midst italy a place there is 'neath mountains high set down, whose noble tale in many a land hath fame and great renown, the valley of amsanctus called, hemmed in by woody steep on either side, and through whose midst a rattling stream doth leap, with clattering stones and eddying whirl: a strange den gapeth there, the very breathing-hole of dis; an awful place of fear, a mighty gulf of baneful breath that acheron hath made when he brake forth: therein as now the baneful fury laid her hated godhead, lightening so the load of earth and heaven. no less meanwhile did saturn's queen still turn her hand to leaven that war begun. the shepherd folk rush from the battle-wrack into the city of the king, bearing their dead aback, almo the lad, galæsus slain with changed befoulèd face. they bid latinus witness bear, and cry the gods for grace. turnus is there, and loads the tale of bale-fire and the sword, and swells the fear: "the land shall have a teucrian host for lord: with phrygians shall ye foul your race and drive me from your door." then they, whose mothers midst the wood god bacchus overbore, to lead the dance--amata's name being held in nowise light-- together draw from every side, and weary for the fight. yea, all with froward heart and voice cry out for war and death, that signs of heaven forbid so sore, that high god gainsayeth, and king latinus' house therewith beset they eagerly; but he unmoved against them stands as crag amid the sea; as crag amid the sea, that stands unmoved and huge to meet the coming crash, while plenteously the waves bark round its feet: vain is the roaring on the rocks and rattling shingly crash, the wrack from off its smitten sides falls down amid the wash. but when no might is given him their blindness to o'ercome, and by the road fell juno would the matter must win home, sore called the father on the gods and emptiness of air: "ah, broken by the fates," he cried, "amid the storm we bear! ye with your godless blood yourselves shall pay the penalty, unhappy men! but turnus, thou, thine ill deed bideth thee with woe enough, and overlate the gods shalt thou adore. for me, my rest is gained, my foot the threshold passeth o'er; yet is my happy ending spilled." nor further would he say; but, hedged within his house, he cast the reins of rule away. in latium of the westland world a fashion was whilome, thence hallowed of the alban folk, held holy thence by rome, earth's mightiest thing: and this they used what time soe'er they woke mars unto battle; whether they against the getic folk, ind, araby, hyrcanian men, fashioned the woeful wrack, or mid the dawn from parthian men the banners bade aback. for twofold are the gates of war--still bear they such a name-- hallowed by awe of mars the dread, and worship of his fame, shut by an hundred brazen bolts, and iron whose avail shall never die: nor ever thence doth door-ward janus fail. now when amid the fathers' hearts fast is the war-rede grown, the consul, girt in gabine wise, and with quirinus gown made glorious, doth himself unbar the creaking door-leaves great, and he himself cries on the war; whom all men follow straight, the while their brazen yea-saying the griding trumpets blare. in e'en such wise latinus now was bidden to declare the battle 'gainst Æneas' folk, and ope the gates of woe. but from their touch the father shrank, and fleeing lest he do the evil deed, in eyeless dark he hideth him away. then slipped the queen of gods from heaven, and ended their delay; for back upon their hinges turned the seed of saturn bore the tarrying leaves, and burst apart the iron gates of war, and all ausonia yet unstirred brake suddenly ablaze: and some will go afoot to field, and some will wend their ways aloft on horses dusty-fierce: all seek their battle-gear. some polish bright the buckler's face and rub the pike-point clear with fat of sheep; and many an axe upon the wheel is worn. they joy to rear the banners up and hearken to the horn. and now five mighty cities forge the point and edge anew on new-raised anvils; tibur proud, atina staunch to do, ardea and crustumerium's folk, antemnæ castle-crowned. they hollow helming for the head; they bend the withe around for buckler-boss: or other some beat breast-plates of the brass, or from the toughened silver bring the shining greaves to pass. now fails all prize of share and hook, all yearning for the plough; the swords their fathers bore afield anew they smithy now. now is the gathering-trumpet blown; the battle-token speeds; and this man catches helm from wall; this thrusteth foaming steeds to collar; this his shield does on, and mail-coat threesome laid of golden link, and girdeth him with ancient trusty blade. o muses, open helicon, and let your song awake to tell what kings awoke to war, what armies for whose sake filled up the meads; what men of war sweet mother italy bore unto flower and fruit as then; what flame of fight ran high: for ye remember, holy ones, and ye may tell the tale; but we--a slender breath of fame scarce by our ears may sail. mezentius first, the foe of gods, fierce from the tuscan shore unto the battle wends his way, and armeth host of war: lausus, his son, anigh him wends;--no lovelier man than he, save turnus, the laurentine-born, the crown of all to see.-- lausus, the tamer of the horse, the wood-deer's following bane, who led from agyllina's wall a thousand men in vain. worthy was he to have more mirth than 'neath mezentius' sway; worthy that other sire than he had given him unto day. the goodly aventinus next, glorious with palm of prize, along the grass his chariot shows and steeds of victories, sprung from the goodly hercules, marked by his father's shield, where hydra girded hundred-fold with adders fills the field: him rhea the priestess on a day gave to the sun-lit earth, on wooded bent of aventine, in secret stolen birth; the woman mingled with a god, what time that, geryon slain, the conquering man of tiryns touched the fair laurentian plain, and washed amidst the tuscan stream the bulls iberia bred. these bear in war the bitter glaive and darts with pilèd head: with slender sword and sabine staff the battle they abide; but he afoot and swinging round a monstrous lion's hide, whose bristly brow and terrible with sharp white teeth a-row hooded his head, beneath the roof where dwelt the king did go all shaggy rough, his shoulders clad with herculean cloak. then next twin brethren wend away from tibur's town and folk, whose brother-born, tiburtus, erst had named that citied place; catillus, eager coras they, men of the argive race; in forefront of the battle-wood, mid thick of sleet they fare, like as two centaurs cloud-begot, that down the mountains bear, leaving the high-piled homole, and othrys of the snow with hurrying hoofs: the mighty wood yields to them as they go; the tangle of the thicket-place before them gives aback. nor did præneste's raiser-up from field of battle lack, that cæculus, whom king of men mid cattle of the mead, all ages of the world have trowed was vulcan's very seed found on the hearth: from wide away gathered his rustic band: those housed upon præneste's steep; they of the juno land of gabii: abiders near cool anio, they that dwell on hernic rocks, the stream-bedewed: they whom thou feedest well, anagnia rich; the foster-sons of amasenus' coast. not all had arms, or clash of shield, or war-wain; but the most cast the grey plummets forth, and some, the dart in hand they bear, and on the head the fallow fell of woodland wolf they wear for helming: now with all of them the left foot goes aground, naked and bare; but with the hide untanned the left is bound. messapus lo, the horse-tamer, a child by neptune won, ne'er by the fire to be spilled, nor by the steel undone; his folk this long while sunk in peace, a battle-foolish band, he calleth suddenly to fight, and taketh sword in hand; Æqui falisci are of these, fescennium's folk of fight, these lie upon flavinium's lea, and hold soracte's hight, and mere and mound of ciminus, capena's woodland broad. with measured footfalls on they go, a-singing of their lord: as whiles the snowy swans will fare amid the world of cloud, returning from their feeding-field; far goes the song and loud, whose notes along their necks they pour: the flood resounds, and all the asian marish beat with song. scarce might ye deem the brazen ranks of such a mighty host were gathered there: but rather fowl a-driving toward the coast, an airy cloud of hoarse-voiced things drawn from the wallowing sea. lo sprung from ancient sabine blood comes clausus presently, leading a mighty host, himself a very host of war; from whom the claudian tribe and race hath spread itself afar through latium, since the sabine folk was given a share in rome: with him the amiternian host and old quirites come; eretus' host and they that keep mutusca's olive gain, the biders in nomentum's wall, and veline rosea's plain, the bristling rocks of tetricæ and high severus' flank, casperia and foruli and wet himella's bank; the drinkers of the tiber-stream and fabaris, and folk cool nursia sends, and horta's troop, and men of latin yoke; and they whom hapless allia parts with wash of waters wan: as many as on lybian main the tumbling waves roll on when fierce orion falls to sleep in wintry waters' lair; or thick as stand the wheaten ears the young sun burneth there on hermus' plain or lycia's lea a-yellowing for the hook: loud clashed the shields, and earth afeared beneath their footfalls shook. halæsus, agamemnon's blood, a foe to troy inbred, next yoked the horses to the car; a thousand men he led, fierce folk for turnus: they that hoe the vine-fair massic soil; and they that from their lofty hills adown unto the broil aruncan fathers sent, and they of sidicinum's lea; all who leave cales, all whose homes beside vulturnus be, the shoally water: with them went saticula's fierce band, and host of oscans: slender shafts are weapons of their hand, which same to toughened casting-thong amid the fight they tie; with bucklered left and scanty blade they come to blows anigh. nor, oebalus, shalt thou unsung from this our story fail, whom telon on nymph sebethis begat as tells the tale when teleboan capreæ he reigned o'er waxen old; whose son might not abide to sit within his father's fold; but even then held neath his sway the country far and wide, sarrastes' folk, and all the plain along the sarnus side. celenna's lea, and batulum, and folk of rufra's town, and those on whom abella's walls, the apple-rich, look down. but these are wont to hurl the spear after the teuton wise, their heads are helmed with e'en such bark as on the holm-oak lies: all brazen-wrought their targets gleam, their brazen sword-blades flash. 'twas nursæ in the heart of hills sent thee to battle-clash, o ufens, well renowned of fame, and rich in battle's grace; whose folk are roughest lived of men, eager for woodland chase; Æquiculi they hight; who dwell on land of little gain, and ever armed they till the earth, and ever are they fain to drive the spoil from hour to hour, and live upon the prey. then umbro of the hardy heart went on the battle-way; priest was he of marruvian folk; about his helm was bent the happy olive, leaf and twig: him king archippus sent: wont was he with his hand and voice the bitter viper-kind and water-worms of evil breath in bonds of sleep to bind; and he would soothe the wrath of them, and dull their bite by craft, yet nothing might he heal the hurt that came of dardan shaft; nay, nothing might the sleepy song avail against his bane, all herbs on marsian mountains plucked were nought thereto and vain. anguitia's thicket wept for thee, fucinus wave of glass, the thin wan waters wept for thee. most goodly virbius went to war, hippolytus' own son: his mother fair aricia sent this battle-glorious one from fostering of egeria's wood, from out the marish place where standeth dian's altar rich fulfilled of plenteous grace. for folk say, when hippolytus, undone by step-dame's lie, had paid unto his father's wrath that utmost penalty, he, piecemeal torn by maddened steeds, yet came aback to live beneath the starry firmament, and air that heaven doth give, brought back to life by healing herbs and dian's cherishing: then the almighty father, wroth that any mortal thing should rise again to light of life from nether shadows wan, beat down with bolt to stygian wave the phoebus-gotten man, the finder of such healing craft, the wise in such an art. but trivia's lovingkindness hid hippolytus apart, and in the nymph egeria's wood she held him many a day: alone in woods of italy he wore his life away, deedless, his very name all changed, and virbius by-named then. so for this cause to trivia's fane and hallowed grove do men drive horn-foot steeds, because, o'ercome by sea-beasts dread of yore, piecemeal the chariot and the man they strewed about the shore. no less his son would drive the steeds across the level plain for all their heat, and rush to war aloft in battle-wain. now mid the forefront turnus self of body excellent, strode sword in hand: there by the head all others he outwent: his threefold crested helm upbore chimæra in her wrath; where very flame of Ætna's womb her jaws were pouring forth; and fiercer of her flames was she, and madder of her mood as bloomed the battle young again with more abundant blood. but on the smoothness of his shield was golden io shown with upraised horns, with hairy skin, a very heifer grown,-- a noble tale;--and argus there was wrought, the maiden's ward; and father inachus from bowl well wrought the river poured. a cloud of foot-folk follow him; his shielded people throng the meadows all about; forth goes the argive manhood strong; aruncan men and rutuli, sicanians of old years, sacranian folk, labicus' band the blazoned shield-bearers: thy thicket-biders, tiber; those that holy acres till beside numicus, those that plough rutulian holt and hill, and ridges of circæi: they whose meadows anxur jove looks down on, where feronia joys amid her fair green grove; where satura's black marish lies, where chilly ufens glides, seeking a way through lowest dales, till in the sea he hides. and after these from volscian folk doth fair camilla pass, leading a mighty host of horse all blossoming with brass; a warrior maid, whose woman's hands unused to ply the rock, unused to bear minerva's crate, were wise in battle's shock. the very winds might she outgo with hurrying maiden feet, or speed across the topmost blades of tall unsmitten wheat, nor ever hurt the tender ears below her as she ran; or she might walk the middle sea, and cross the welter wan, nor dip the nimble soles of her amid the wavy ways. from house and field the youth pours forth to wonder and to gaze; the crowd of mothers stands at stare all marvelling, and beholds her going forth; how kingly cloak of purple dye enfolds her shining shoulders, how the clasp of gold knots up her hair, and how a quiver lycian-wrought the queen herself doth bear, and shepherd's staff of myrtle-wood steel-headed to a spear. book viii. argument. the latins seek help of diomede, and Æneas of evander, to whom he goeth as a guest. venus causeth vulcan to forge armour and weapons for her son Æneas. when turnus from laurentum's burg the battle-sign upreared, when with their voices hard and shrill the gathering trumpets blare, when he had stirred his war-steeds on and clashed his weed of war, all troubled were the minds of men, and midst of tumult sore all latium swore the battle oath, and rage of men outbroke; messapus then, and ufens great, the dukes of warring folk, mezentius, scorner of the gods, these drive from every side the folk to war, and waste the fields of tillers far and wide. and venulus is sent withal to diomedes' town to pray for aid, and tell him how the teucrians are come down on latium: how Æneas comes with ship-host, carrying his vanquished house-gods, calling him the fate-ordainèd king; how many a folk of italy hath joined the dardan lord, how that his name in latin land is grown a mighty word-- 'what thing the man will build from this, what way the prize of fight, if fortune aid him he shall turn--through this thou see'st more light than cometh to king turnus yet or king latinus eyes. so goes the world in latium now, and noting how all lies, the trojan hero drifts adown a mighty tide of care, and hither now his swift thought speeds, now thither bids it fare, and sends it diversely about by every way to slip: as quivering light of water is in brazen vessel's lip, smit by the sun, or casting back the image of the moon. it flitteth all about the place, and rising upward soon smiteth the fashioned ceiling spread beneath the tiling steep. night fell, and over all the world the earthly slumber deep held weary things, the fowl of air, the cattle of the wold, and on the bank beneath the crown of heaven waxen cold, father Æneas, all his heart with woeful war oppressed, lay stretched along and gave his limbs the tardy meed of rest: when lo, between the poplar-leaves the godhead of the place, e'en tiber of the lovely stream, arose before his face, a veil of linen grey and thin the elder's body clad, and garlanding of shady sedge the tresses of him had; and thus Æneas he bespeaks to take away his woe: "o seed of gods, who bearest us troy-town from midst the foe, who savest pergamus new-born no more to die again, long looked-for on laurentine earth and fields of latin men; this is your sure abiding-place, your house-gods' very stead; turn not, nor fear the battle-threats, for now hath fallen dead the swelling storm of godhead's wrath. and lest thou think i forge for thee an idle dream of sleep, amid the holm-oaks of the shore a great sow shalt thou see, who e'en now farrowed thirty head of young; there lieth she all white along, with piglings white around her uddered sides: that earth shall be thy dwelling-place; there rest from toil abides. from thence ascanius, when the year hath thrice ten times rolled round, shall raise a city, calling it by alba's name renowned. no doubtful matters do i sing,--but how to speed thee well, and win thee victor from all this, in few words will i tell: arcadian people while agone, a folk from pallas come, following evander for their king, have borne his banners home, and chosen earth, and reared their town amid a mountain place e'en pallanteum named, from him who first began their race: this folk against the latin men for ever wages fight, bid them as fellows to thy camp, and treaty with them plight; but i by bank and flow of flood will straightly lead thee there, while thou with beating of the oars the stream dost overbear. arise, arise, o goddess-born, when the first star-world sets, make prayer to juno in due wise; o'ercome her wrath and threats with suppliant vows: victorious grown, thou yet shalt worship me; for i am that abundant flood whom thou today dost see sweeping the bank and cleaving way amid the plenteous earth, blue tiber, sweetest unto heaven of all the streams of worth. this is my mighty house; my head from lofty cities sweeps." the river spake, and hid himself amid the watery deeps; but night and slumber therewithal Æneas' eyes forsook; he rose and toward the dawning-place and lights of heaven 'gan look, and duly in his hollow hand he lifted water fair from out the stream, and unto heaven in such wise poured his prayer: "o nymphs, laurentian nymphs, from whence the race of rivers springs, and thou, o father tiber fair, with holy wanderings, cherish Æneas; thrust from me the bitter following bane, what pool soe'er may nurse thy spring, o pityer of my pain, from whatso land, o loveliest, thy stream may issue forth. for ever will i give thee gifts, and worship well thy worth, horned river, of all westland streams the very king and lord; only be with me; faster bind thy great god-uttered word." thus having said, two twi-banked keels he chooseth from the fleet, and mans the oars and dights his folk with gear and weapons meet. but lo meanwhile a wondrous sign is thrust before his eyes; for on the green-sward of the wood a snow-white sow there lies down by the strand, her little ones, like-hued, about her pressed; whom god-loving Æneas slays to thee, o mightiest, o juno, at thine altar-fires hallowing both dam and brood. now while the long night wore away, the swelling of his flood had tiber soothed, and eddying back in peace the stream was stayed, and in the manner of a mere the water's face was laid, or as a pool, that so the oars unstrained their work may ply. so now they speed their journey forth amid a happy cry; the oiled fir slips along the seas, the waves fall wondering then,-- the woods, unused, fall wondering sore to see the shields of men shine far up stream; to see the keels bepainted swimming there: but day and night, with beat of oars, the watery way they wear, and conquer reaches long, o'erlaid with many a shifting tree, and cleave the forest fair and green along the waveless sea. unto the midmost crown of heaven had climbed the fiery sun, by then the walls, and far-off burg, and few roofs one by one they see; the place raised high as heaven by mightiness of rome, where in those days evander had an unrich, scanty home: so thither swift they turned their prows, and toward the city drew. that day it chanced the arcadian king did yearly honour do unto amphitryon's mighty son, and on the god did call in grove before the city-walls: pallas, his son, withal, the battle-lords, the senate poor of that unwealthy folk cast incense there; with yet warm blood the altars were a-smoke. but when they saw the tall ships glide amidst the dusky shade of woody banks, and might of men on oars all silent laid, scared at the sudden sight they rise, and all the boards forsake: but pallas, of the hardy heart, forbids the feast to break, while he, with weapon caught in haste, flies forth to meet the men, and crieth from a mound afar: "fellows, what drave you then? and whither wend ye on your ways by road untried before? what folk and from what home are ye? and is it peace or war?" then spake the father Æneas the lofty deck aboard, as with the peaceful olive-bough he reached his hand abroad; "troy's folk ye see and weapons whet against the latin side, whom they have driven forth by war amid their plenteous pride. we seek evander: go ye forth and tell him this, and say that chosen dukes of troy are come for plighted troth to pray." the sound of such a mighty name smote pallas with amaze: "come forth," he said, "whoso ye be: before my father's face say what ye would; come to our gods and in our house be guest." so saying he gave his hand to him, and hard his right hand pressed; therewith they leave the river-bank, and wend amidst the wood: but spake Æneas to the king fair friendly words and good: "o best of greeks, whom fortune wills that i should now beseech, and unto thee the suppliant staff of olive garlands reach, i feared thee not for arcas' seed or duke of danai, nor for thy being to atreus' twins a kinsman born anigh: rather my heart, and holy words that gods have given forth, our fathers' kin, the world-wide tale that goeth of thy worth, bind me to thee, and make me fain of what fate bids befall. now dardanus, first setter-up and sire of ilian wall, born of electra, atlas' child, as greekish stories say, came to the teucrians: atlas huge electra gave today, atlas, who on his shoulders rears the round-wrought heavenly house: but mercury thy father is, whom maia glorious conceived, and shed on earth one day on high cyllene cold; but atlas maia too begot, if we may trow tale told, that very atlas who the stars of heavenly house doth raise, so from one root the race of us wends on its twofold ways. stayed by these things none else i sent, nor guilefully have sought, assaying of thee, but myself unto thyself i brought, and mine own head; and here i stand a suppliant at thy door. and that same daunian folk of men drive us with bitter war as fall on thee: if us they chase, what stay but utterly, (so deem they) all the westland earth beneath their yoke shall lie, with all the upper flood of sea, and nether waters' wash. take troth and give it: hearts are we stout in the battle's clash, high-counselled souls, men well beheld in deeds that try the man." he ended: but evander's look this long while overran his face, his speaking eyes, and all his body fair to see; then in few words he answered thus: "how sweet to welcome thee, best heart of troy! and how i mind the words, and seem to hear anchises' voice, and see the face that mighty man did bear: for i remember priam erst, child of laomedon, came to hesione's abode, to salamis passed on, and thence would wend his ways to seek arcadia's chilly place. the blossom of the spring of life then bloomed upon my face, when on the teucrian lords i looked with joy and wonderment; on priam, too: but loftier there than any other went anchises; and his sight in me struck youthful love awake. i yearned to speak unto the man, and hand in hand to take: so fain i met him, led him in to phineus' wallèd place; and he, departing, gave to me a noble arrow-case and lycian shafts; a cloak thereto, all shot across with gold, and golden bridles twain, that now pallas, my son, doth hold. lo, then, the right hand that ye sought is joined in troth to thine; and when tomorrow's light once more upon the world shall shine, glad, holpen, shall i send you forth and stay you with my store. meanwhile, since here ye come our friends, with us the gods adore at this our hallowed yearly feast, which ill it were to stay: be kind, and with your fellows' boards make friends without delay." therewith he bids bring forth once more the wine-cups and the meat, and he himself sets down the men upon a grassy seat; but chiefly to the bed bedight with shaggy lion's skin he draws Æneas, bidding him the throne of maple win. then vie the chosen youth-at-arms, the altar-priest brings aid; they bear in roasted flesh of bulls, and high the baskets lade with gifts of ceres fashioned well, and serve the bacchus' joy; so therewithal Æneas eats and men-at-arms of troy of undivided oxen chines and inwards of the feast. but when the lust of meat was dulled and hunger's gnawing ceased, saith king evander: "this high-tide that we are holding thus, this ordered feast, this altar raised to god all-glorious, no idle task of witch-work is, that knoweth not the gods of ancient days: o trojan chief, we, saved from fearful odds, here worship, and give glory new to deeds done gloriously. note first the crag, whose world of stones o'ertoppleth there anigh; what stone-heaps have been cast afar, how waste and wild is grown the mountain-house, what mighty wrack the rocks have dragged adown. therein a cave was erst, that back a long way burrowing ran, held by the dreadful thing, the shape of cacus, monster-man. a place the sun might never see, for ever warm and wet with reek of murder newly wrought; o'er whose proud doorways set the heads of men were hanging still wan mid the woeful gore. vulcan was father of this fiend; his black flame did he pour forth from his mouth, as monster-great he wended on his ways. but to our aid, as whiles it will, brought round the lapse of days the help and coming of a god: for that most mighty one, all glorious with the death and spoils of threefold geryon, alcides, our avenger came, driving the victor's meed, his mighty bulls, who down the dale and river-bank did feed. but cacus, mad with furious heart, that nought undared might be of evil deeds, or nought untried of guile and treachery, drave from the fold four head of bulls of bodies excellent, and e'en so many lovely kine, whose fashion all outwent; which same, that of their rightful road the footprints clean might lack, tail-foremost dragged he to his den, turning their way-marks back; and so he hid them all away amid that stonydark, nor toward the cave might he that sought find any four-foot mark. "meanwhile, his beasts all satiate, from fold amphitryon's son now gets them ready for the road, and busks him to be gone; when lo, the herd falls bellowing, and with its sorrow fills the woodland as it goes away, and lowing leaves the hills. therewith a cow gave back the sound, and in the cavern hid lowed out, and in despite his heed all cacus' hope undid. then verily alcides' ire and gall of heart outbroke in fury, and his arms he caught and weight of knotty oak, and running, sought the hill aloft that thrusteth toward the skies. then first our folk saw cacus scared and trouble in his eyes, and in a twinkling did he flee, no eastern wind as fleet, seeking his den, and very fear gave wings unto his feet; but scarcely was he shut therein, and, breaking down the chains, had dropped the monstrous rock that erst his crafty father's pains hung there with iron; scarce had he blocked the doorway with the same, when lo, the man of tiryns there, who with his heart aflame eyed all the entries, here and there turning about his face, gnashing his teeth: afire with wrath, thrice all that hilly place of aventine he eyeth o'er, thrice tries without avail the rocky door, thrice sits him down awearied in the dale. "there was a peakèd rock of flint with ragged edges dight, which at the cave's back rose aloft exceeding high to sight, a dwelling meet for evil fowl amidst their nests to bide; this, that hung o'er the brow above the river's leftward side, hard from the right he beareth on, and shakes, and from its roots wrencheth it loose, and suddenly adown the bent side shoots. then ringeth all the mighty heaven with thunder of its wrack, the banks are rent, the frighted stream its waters casteth back; but cacus' den and kingly house showed all uncovered there, the inmost of the shadowy cave was laid undoored and bare: as if the inner parts of earth 'neath mighty stroke should gape, unlocking all the house of hell, showing that country's shape, the wan land all forlorn of god: there shows the unmeasured pit, and ghosts aquake with light of day shot through the depths of it. "but cacus, caught unwares by day whereof he had no doubt, imprisoned in the hollow rock, in strange voice bellowing out, alcides fell on from above, calling all arms to aid, and plenteous cast of boughs and stones upon the monster laid; while he, since now no flight availed to 'scape that peril's hold, pours from his mouth a mighty smoke, o wondrous to be told! enwrapping all the house about with blinding misty shroud, snatching the sight from eyes of men, and rolling on the cloud, a reeking night with heart of fire and utter blackness blent. alcides' spirit bore it nought; his body swift he sent with headlong leap amid the fire where thickest rolled the wave of smoke, and with its pitchy mist was flooding all the cave; cacus he catcheth in the dark spueing out fire in vain, and knitteth him in knot about, and, strangling him, doth strain the starting eyes from out of him, and throat that blood doth lack: then the mirk house is opened wide; the doors are torn aback; the stolen kine, that prey his oath foreswore to heaven are shown, and by the feet is dragged today the body hideous grown; nor may men satiate their hearts by gazing on the thing; his fearful eyes, the face of him, the man-beast's fashioning of bristled breast; those jaws of his, whence faded is the flame. "hence is this honour celebrate, and they that after came still kept the day all joyfully; potitius wrought it first, this feast of mighty hercules; the house pinarian nursed, the altar of the grove he reared, which mightiest yet we call, and ever more, in very sooth, shall mightiest be of all. so come, o youths, these glorious deeds i bid you glorify: wreathe round your hair, put forth your hands and raise the cup on high! call on the god whom all we love, and give the wine full fain!" he spake: the leaf of hercules, the poplar coloured twain, shaded his hair; the leaves entwined hung down aback his head; the holy beaker filled his hand: then merry all men sped, and on the table poured their gift, and called the gods to hear. meanwhile unto the slopes of heaven the western star drew near, and then the priests, and chief thereof, potitius, thither came, all clad in skins, as due it was, and bearing forth the flame. new feast they dight, and gifts beloved of second service bring, and on the altar pile again the plates of offering. the salii then to singing-tide heart-kindled go around the altars; every brow of them with poplar leafage bound: and here the youths, the elders there, set up the song of praise, and sing the deeds of hercules: how, on his first of days, the monsters twain his stepdame sent, the snakes, he crushed in hand; and how in war he overthrew great cities of the land, troy and oechalia: how he won through thousand toils o'ergreat, that king eurystheus laid on him by bitter juno's fate. "o thou unconquered, thou whose hand beat down the cloud-born two, pholeus, hylæus, twin-wrought things, and cretan monsters slew: o thou who slew'st the lion huge 'neath that nemean steep, the stygian mere hath quaked at thee, the ward of orcus deep quaked in his den above his bed of half-gnawed bones and blood. at nothing fashioned wert thou feared; not when typhoeus stood aloft in arms: nor from thine heart fell any rede away when round thee headed-manifold the worm of lerna lay. o very child of jupiter, o heaven's new glory, hail! fail not thy feast with friendly foot, nor us, thy lovers, fail!" with such-like song they sing the praise, and add to all the worth the cave of cacus, and the beast that breathed the wildfire forth. the woods sing with them as they sing; the hills are light with song. so, all the holy things fulfilled, they wend their ways along unto the city: the old king afoot was with them there, and bade Æneas and his son close to his side to fare, and as he went made light the way with talk of many a thing. Æneas wonders, and his eyes go lightly wandering o'er all; but here and there they stay, as, joyful of his ways, he asks and hears of tokens left by men of earlier days. then spake the king evander, he who built up rome of old: "these woods the earth-born fauns and nymphs in time agone did hold, and men from out the tree-trunk born and very heart of oak; no fashion of the tilth they knew, nor how the bulls to yoke, nor how to win them store of wealth, or spare what they had got; the tree-boughs only cherished them and rugged chase and hot. then from olympus of the heavens first saturn came adown, fleeing the war of jupiter and kingdom overthrown: he laid in peace the rugged folk amid the mountains steep scattered about, and gave them laws, and willed them well to keep the name of latium, since he lay safe hidden on that shore. they call the days the golden days that 'neath that king outwore, amid such happiness of peace o'er men-folk did he reign. but worsened time as on it wore, and gathered many a stain; and then the battle-rage was born, and lust of gain outbroke: then came the host ausonian; then came sicanian folk; and oft and o'er again the land of saturn cast its name. then kings there were, and thybris fierce, of monstrous body came, from whom the tiber flood is named by us of italy, its old true name of albula being perished and gone by. me, driven from my land, and strayed about the ocean's ends, almighty fortune and the fate no struggling ever bends set in these steads; my mother's word well worshipped hither drave, the nymph carmentis; and a god, apollo, wayfare gave." now, as he spake, hard thereunto the altar-stead doth show, and gate that by carmentis' name the roman people know; an honour of the olden time to nymph carmentis, she, the faithful seer, who first foretold what mighty men should be Æneas' sons; how great a name from pallanteum should come. then the great grove that romulus hallowed the fleer's home he showeth, and lupercal set beneath the cliff acold, called of lycæan pan in wise parrhasia used of old. thereafter argiletum's grove he shows and bids it tell, a very witness, where and how the guesting argus fell. next, then, to the tarpeian stead and capitol they went, all golden now, but wild of yore with thickets' tanglement: e'en then at its dread holiness the folk afield would quake and tremble sore to look upon its cliff-besetting brake. "this grove," saith he, "this hill thou seest with thicket-covered brow, some godhead haunts, we know not who: indeed arcadians trow that very jove they there have seen, when he his blackening shield hath shaken whiles and stirred the storm amidst the heavenly field. look therewithal on those two burgs with broken walls foredone! there thou beholdest tokens left by folk of long agone: for one did father janus old, and one did saturn raise, janiculum, saturnia, they hight in ancient days." amid such talk they reach the roofs whereunder did abide unrich evander; and they see the herd-beasts feeding wide and lowing through the roman courts amid carinæ's shine. but when they came unto the house, "beneath these doors of mine conquering alcides went," he said; "this king's house took him in. have heart to scorn world's wealth, o guest, and strive thou too to win a godhead's worth: take thou no scorn of our unrich estate." he spake, and 'neath the narrow roof Æneas' body great he led withal, and set him down; and such a bed was there as 'twas of leaves, and overlaid with skin of libyan bear. night falleth, and its dusky wings spreads o'er the face of earth, when venus, fearful in her soul (nor less than fear 'twas worth), sore troubled by laurentine threats and all the tumult dread, bespeaketh vulcan, as she lay upon his golden bed, and holiness of very love amidst her words she bore: "when argive kings were wasting troy predestined with their war, were wracking towers foredoomed to fall mid flames of hating men, no help of thine for hapless ones, no arms i asked for then, wrought by thy craft and mastery: nor would i have thee spend thy labour, o beloved spouse, to win no happy end; though many things to priam's house meseemeth did i owe, and oftentimes i needs must weep Æneas' pain and woe. but now that he by jove's command rutulian shores hath won, i am thy suppliant, asking arms, a mother for her son, praying thy godhead's holiness: time was when nereus' seed, tithonus' wife, with many tears could bend thee to thy need. look round, what peoples gather now; what cities shut within their barrèd gates are whetting sword to slay me and my kin." she spake: with snowy arms of god she fondled him about, and wound him in her soft embrace, while yet he hung in doubt: sudden the wonted fire struck home; unto his inmost drew the old familiar heat, and all his melting bones ran through: no otherwise than whiles it is when rolls the thunder loud, and gleaming of the fiery rent breaks up the world of cloud. in glory of her loveliness she felt her guile had gained. then spake the father, overcome by love that ne'er hath waned: "why fish thy reasons from the deep? where is thy trust in me, i prithee, o my god and love? had such wish weighed on thee, then, also, had it been my part to arm the teucrian hand, nor had the almighty sire nor fate forbidden troy to stand, and priam might have held it out another ten years yet. and now if thou wouldst wage the war, if thus thy soul is set, thy longing shall have whatsoe'er this craft of mine may lend; whatever in iron may be done, or silver-golden blend; whatever wind and fire may do: i prithee pray no more, but trust the glory of thy might." so when his words wore o'er he gave the enfolding that she would, and shed upon her breast he lay, and over all his limbs he drew the sleepy rest. but when the midmost night was worn, and slumber, past its prime, had faded out, in sooth it was that woman's rising-time, who needs must prop her life with rock and slender mastery that pallas gives: she wakes the ash and flames that smouldering lie, and, adding night unto her toil, driveth her maids to win long task before its kindled light, that she may keep from sin her bride-bed; that her little ones well waxen-up may be. not otherwise that might of fire, no sluggard more than she, to win his art and handicraft from that soft bed arose. upon the flank of sicily there hangs an island close to lipari of Æolus, with shear-hewn smoky steep; beneath it thunder caves and dens Ætnæan, eaten deep with forges of the cyclops: thence men hear the anvils cry 'neath mighty strokes, and through the cave the hissing sparkles fly from iron of the chalybes, and pants the forge with flame. the house is vulcan's, and the land vulcania hath to name. thither the master of the fire went down from upper air, where cyclop folk in mighty den were forging iron gear; pyracmon of the naked limbs, brontes and steropes. a thunderbolt half-fashioned yet was in the hands of these, part-wrought, suchwise as many an one the father casts on earth from all the heaven, but otherwhere unfinished from the birth, three rays they wrought of writhen storm, three of the watery wrack; nor do the three of ruddy flame nor windy winging lack: and now the work of fearful flash, and roar, and dread they won, and blent amid their craftsmanship the flame that followeth on. but otherwhere they dight the wain and wingèd wheels of mars, wherewith the men and walls of men he waketh up to wars. there angry pallas's arms they wrought and Ægis full of fear, and set the gold and serpent scales, and did with mighty care the knitted adders, and for breast of very god did deck the gorgon rolling eyen still above her severed neck. "do all away," he said, "lay by the labour so far done; cyclops of Ætna, turn your minds to this one thing alone: arms for a great man must be wrought; betake ye to your might; betake ye to your nimble hands and all your mastery's sleight, and hurry tarrying into haste." no more he spake: all they fall swift to work and portion out the labour of the day: the brazen rivers run about with metal of the gold, and soft the chalyb bane-master flows in the forges' hold. a mighty shield they set on foot to match all weapons held by latin men, and sevenfold ring on ring about it weld. meanwhile, in windy bellows' womb some in the breezes take and give them forth, some dip the brass all hissing in the lake, and all the cavern is agroan with strokes on anvil laid. there turn and turn about betwixt, with plenteous might to aid, they rear their arms; with grip of tongs they turn the iron o'er. but while the lemnian father thus speeds on the Æolean shore the lovely light evander stirs amid his lowly house, and morning song of eave-dwellers from sleep the king doth rouse. riseth that ancient man of days and on his kirtle does, and both his feet he binds about with bonds of tyrrhene shoes; then tegeæan sword he girds to shoulder and to side, and on the left he flings aback the cloak of panther-hide. moreover, from the threshold step goes either watchful ward, two dogs to wit, that follow close the footsteps of their lord. so to the chamber of his guest the hero goes his way, well mindful of his spoken word and that well-promised stay. nor less Æneas was afoot betimes that morning-tide, and pallas and achates went each one their lord beside. so met, they join their right hands there and in the house sit down, and win the joy of spoken words, that lawful now hath grown; and thuswise speaks evander first: "o mightiest duke of trojan men,--for surely, thou being safe, my heart may never more believe in troy-town's vanquishing,-- the battle-help that i may give is but a little thing for such a name: by tuscan stream on this side are we bound; on that side come rutulian arms to gird our walls with sound. but 'tis my rede to join to you a mighty folk of fight, a wealthy lordship: chance unhoped this hope for us hath dight; so draw thou thither whereunto the fates are calling on. not far hence is a place of men, on rock of yore agone built up; agylla's city 'tis, where glorious folk of war, the lydian folk, on tuscan hills pitched their abode of yore. a many years of blooming once they had, until the king mezentius held them 'neath his pride and cruel warfaring. why tell those deaths unspeakable, and many a tyrant's deed? may the gods store them for the heads of him and all his seed! yea, yea, dead corpses would he join to bodies living yet, and hand to hand, o misery! and mouth to mouth would set; there, drenched with gore and drenched with dew of death, must they abide, a foul embrace unspeakable, and long and long they died. worn out at last, his folk in arms beset his house about, and him therein all mad with rage, cut of his following rout, and cast the wildfire therewithal over his roof on high: but he, amidst the slaughter slipped, to fields of rutuli made shift to flee, and there is held a guest by turnus' sword. so by just anger raised today etruria is abroad, crying with mars to aid, 'give back the king to pay the cost!' Æneas, i will make thee now the captain of their host: for down the whole coast goes the roar from out their ship-host's pack; they cry to bear the banners forth; but them still holdeth back the ancient seer, thus singing fate: _mæonia's chosen peers,_ _the heart and flower of men of old, whom grief's just measure bears_ _against the foe; souls that your king hath stirred to righteous wrath,_ _no man of italy is meet to lead this army forth;_ _seek outland captains._ then, indeed, the tuscan war array, feared by such warnings of the gods, amidst these meadows lay. tarchon himself hath hither sent sweet speakers, bearing me their lordships' kingly staff and crown, and signs of royalty; and bidding take the tuscan land and join their camp of war. but eld adull with winter frost and spent with days of yore, my body over-old for deeds begrudged such government. i would have stirred my son, but he, with sabine mother blent, shared blood of this italian land: but thee the fates endow with years and race full meet hereto; the gods call on thee now. go forth, o captain valorous of italy and troy. yea, i will give thee pallas here, my hope and darling joy, and bid him 'neath thy mastery learn in battle to be bold, and win the heavy work of mars, and all thy deeds behold; and, wondering at thy valiancy, win through his earliest years. two hundred knights of arcady, the bloom of all it bears, i give thee; in his own name, too, like host shall pallas bring." scarce had he said, and still their gaze unto the earth did cling, Æneas of anchises born and his achates true, for many thoughts of matters hard their minds were running through, when cytherea gave a sign amid the open sky; for from the left a flash of light went quivering suddenly, and sound went with it, and all things in utter turmoil fared, and clangour of the tyrrhene trump along the heavens blared. they look up; ever and anon a mighty clash they hear, and gleams they see betwixt the clouds, amid the sky-land clear, the glitter of the arms of god, the thunder of their clang. the man of troy, while others' hearts amazed and fearful hang, knoweth the sound, the promised help, his goddess-mother's meed. he saith: "yea, verily, o host, to ask is little need what hap this portent draweth on: the gods will have me wend; the god that made me promised erst such heavenly signs to send if war were toward; and through the sky she promised to bear down arms vulcan-fashioned for my need. woe's me for poor laurentium's folk! what death, what bloody graves! --ah, turnus, thou shalt pay it me!--how many 'neath thy waves, o father tiber, shalt thou roll the shields and helms of men, and bodies of the mighty ones! cry war, oath-breakers, then!" and as he spake the word he rose from off the lofty throne, and the slaked fire of hercules roused on the altar-stone; and joyfully he drew anear the god of yesterday and little house-gods: chosen ewes in manner due they slay, evander and the youth of troy together side by side. then to the ships they wend their ways, where yet their fellows bide: there men to follow him in fight he chooseth from the peers, the flower of hardy hearts; the rest the downlong water bears; deedless they swim adown the stream, ascanius home to bring the tidings of his coming sire and matters flourishing. but horses get such teucrian men as are for tyrrhene mead; by lot they choose Æneas one which yellow lion's weed goes all about; full fair it shone, for it was golden-clawed. then sudden through the little town the rumour flies abroad, that knights will speedily ride forth to tyrrhene kingly stead. then fear redoubleth mothers' prayers, and nigher draweth dread in peril's hand, and greater still the face of mars doth grow. father evander strains the hand of him that needs must go, clinging with tears insatiate, and such a word doth say: "o me! would jove bring back again the years long worn away! were i as when the foremost foes upon præneste's field i felled, and burnt victoriously a heap of shield on shield: when with this very hand i sent king herilus to hell, whose dam, feronia, at his birth,--wild is the tale to tell,-- had given him gift of threefold life; three times the sword to shake, and thrice to fall upon the field: yet did this right hand take that threefold life away from him, thrice spoiled him of his gear. o were i such, ne'er would i break from thine embracing dear, o son; nor had mezentius erst, the tyrant neighbour lord, in my despite so many deaths wrought with his cruel sword, nor widowed this our city here of such a host of sons. but ye, o gods!--thou mightiest, king of all heavenly ones, o jove, have pity now, i pray, upon the arcadian king, and hear a father's prayers! for if your mighty governing,-- if fate shall keep my pallas safe, and i may live to see his face again,--if he return to keep our unity, then may i live, and any toil, such as ye will, abide! but, fortune, if thou threatenest ill, and misery betide, then let me now, yea, now indeed, the cruel life break through, while yet my fear is unfulfilled and hope may yet come true; while thee, belovèd joy of eld, i wrap mine arms around, ere yet the tale of evil hap mine ancient ears may wound." thus at their last departing-tide the father poured the prayer, whom, fainting now, the serving-men back within doors must bear; while forth from out the open gate the host of horsemen ride, Æneas and achates leal in forefront of their pride, and then the other trojan lords: amidst the company, in cloak adorned and painted arms, was pallas fair to see: e'en such as lucifer, when he bathed in the ocean stream, the light beloved of venus well o'er every starry beam, hath raised his holy head in heaven and down the darkness rent. the fearful mothers on the walls their eyen after sent, following the dusty cloud of them and ranks of glittering brass. but mid the thicket places there by nighest road they pass unto their end in weed of war: with shout and serried band the clattering hooves of four-foot things shake down the dusty land. there is a mighty thicket-place by chilly cæres' side, by ancient dread of fathers gone held holy far and wide: a place that hollow hills shut in and pine-wood black begirds. men say that to silvanus erst, the god of fields and herds, the old pelasgi hallowed it, and made a holy day, e'en those who in the time agone on latin marches lay. no great way hence the tuscan folk and tarcho held them still in guarded camp; the host of them from rising of a hill might now be seen, as far and wide they spread about the field. father Æneas and his folk, the mighty under shield, speed hither, and forewearied now their steeds and bodies tend. but through the clouds of heavenly way doth fair white venus wend, bearing the gift; who when she saw in hidden valley there her son afar, apart from men by river cool and fair, then kind she came before his eyes, and in such words she spake: "these promised gifts, my husband's work, o son, i bid thee take: so shalt thou be all void of doubt, o son, when presently laurentines proud and turnus fierce thou bidst the battle try." so spake the cytherean one and sought her son's embrace, and hung the beaming arms upon an oak that stood in face. but he, made glad by godhead's gift, and such a glory great, marvelleth and rolleth o'er it all his eyes insatiate, and turns the pieces o'er and o'er his hands and arms between; the helm that flasheth flames abroad with crest so dread beseen: the sword to do the deeds of fate; the hard-wrought plates of brass, blood-red and huge; yea, e'en as when the bright sun brings to pass its burning through the coal-blue clouds and shines o'er field and fold: the light greaves forged and forged again of silver-blend and gold: the spear, and, thing most hard to tell, the plating of the shield. for there the tale of italy and roman joy afield that master of the fire had wrought, not unlearned of the seers, or blind to see the days before. the men of coming years, ascanius stem, all foughten fields, were wrought in due array. in the green den of mavors there the fostering she-wolf lay, the twin lads sporting round the beast, clung to her udders there, and sucked the nursing mother-wolf, and nothing knew of fear; but she, with lithe neck turned about, now this now that caressed, and either body with her tongue for hardy shaping pressed. rome had he done anigh thereto and sabine maidens caught from concourse of the hollow seats when roundway games were wrought there for the sons of romulus the sudden war upstarts with tatius, the old king of days, and cures' hardy hearts. then those two kings, the battle quenched, yet clad in battle-gear, stand with the bowl in hand before the fire of jupiter, as each to each o'er slaughtered sow the troth of peace they plight. anigh is metius piecemeal dragged by foursome chariots light. --ah, alban, by the troth of words 'twere better to abide!-- there tullus strews his lying flesh about the thicket wide, nor sprinkling of a traitor's blood the bramble-bushes lack. there was porsena bidding men take outcast tarquin back, the while his mighty leaguer lay about the city's weal. for freedom there Æneas' sons were rushing on the steel: as full of wrath, as one who threats, might ye behold his frown, because that cocles was of heart to break the bridge adown; and cloelia from her bursten bonds was swimming o'er the flood. on topmost of tarpeian burg the warden manlius stood before the house of god, and held the capitol high-set; whereon with straw of romulus the roof was bristling yet. there fluttering mid the golden porch the silver goose was done, the seer that told of gaulish feet unto the threshold won: then through the brake the gauls were come, and held the castle's height, beneath the shielding of the mirk and gift of shadowy night. all golden are the locks of these, and golden is their gear, and fair they shine in welted coats; their milk-white necks do bear the twisted gold; each one in hand two alpine spears doth wield, and guarded are their bodies well with plenteous length of shield. the salii in their dancing game; the naked luperci, with crests that bore the tuft of wool and shields from out the sky, there had he wrought: the mothers chaste in softly-gliding car bore holy things the city through. yea, he had wrought afar the very house of tartarus, and doors of dis the deep, and dooms of evil: there wert thou hung on the beetling steep, o catiline, and quaking sore 'neath many a fiendly face; while cato gave the good their laws in happy hidden place. the image of the swelling sea amidst of these there lay all golden, with the blue o'erfoamed with flecks of hoary spray, and dolphins shining silver-white with tail-stroke swept the wave, and gathered in an orbèd band the flowing waters clave. and in the midst were brazen fleets and show of actium's wars and all leucate set a-boil with ordered game of mars there might ye see; and all the flood lit up with golden light. augustus cæsar, leading on italian men to fight with father-folk, and household gods, and gods of greater name, stood high on deck: his joyful brow flashed forth a twofold flame, his father's star above his head is shining glory-clear. with wind to aid and god to aid, agrippa otherwhere leads on the host from high; whose brows with glorious battle-sign are decked; for with the crown of beaks, the ship-host's prize, they shine. but antony, with outland force and arms wrought diversely, victorious from the morning-folks and ruddy-stranded sea, bore egypt and the eastland might and bactria's outer ends; and after him--o shame to tell!--a wife of egypt wends. they rush together; all the sea is beaten into foam, torn by the great three-tynèd beaks and oar-blades driven home: they seek the deep: ye might have thought that uptorn cyclades swam o'er the main, that mountains met high mountains on the seas, with such a world of towered ships fall on those folks of war. the hempen flame they fling from hand; they cast the dart afar of wingèd steel, and neptune's lea reddens with death anew. the queen amidst calls on her host with timbrel fashioned due in egypt's guise, nor looks aback the adders twain to see; barking anubis, shapes of god wild-wrought and diversely 'gainst neptune and 'gainst venus fair, and 'gainst minerva's weal put forth the spear; and mavors' wrath was fashioned forth in steel amidst the fight: the dreadful ones stooped evil-wrought from heaven, and discord stalked all glad at heart beneath her mantle riven; and after her, red scourge in hand, did dire bellona go. all this apollo, actian-housed, beheld, and bent his bow from high aloft, and with his fear all egypt fell to wrack, and ind and araby; and all sabæans turned the back. then once again the queen was wrought, who on the winds doth cry, and spreadeth sail; and now, and now, the slackened sheet lets fly. the lord of fire had wrought her there wan with the death to be, borne on, amid the death of men, by wind and following sea. but nile was wrought to meet them there, with body great to grieve, and in the folding of his cloak the vanquished to receive, to take them to his bosom grey, his flood of hidden home. there cæsar threefold triumphing, borne on amidst of rome, three hundred shrines was hallowing to gods of italy through all the city; glorious gift that nevermore shall die; the while all ways with joy and game and plenteous praising rang. in all the temples altars were; in all the mothers sang before the altars; on the earth the steers' due slaughter lay. but on the snow-white threshold there of phoebus bright as day he sat and took the nations' gifts, and on the glorious door he hung them up: in long array the tamed folks went before, as diverse in their tongues as in their arms and garments' guise. the nomads had he fashioned there, that mulciber the wise, and afric's all ungirded folk; carians and leleges, shafted geloni: softlier there euphrates rolled his seas; the morini, the last of men, the hornèd rhine, were there, danæ untamed, araxes loth the chaining bridge to bear. so on the shield, his mother's gift by vulcan fashioned fair, he wondereth, blind of things to come but glad the tale to see, and on his shoulder bears the fame and fate of sons to be. book ix. argument. in the meantime that Æneas is away, turnus and the latins beset the trojan encampment, and miss but a little of bringing all things to ruin. now while a long way off therefrom do these and those such deed, saturnian juno iris sends from heaven aloft to speed to turnus of the hardy heart, abiding, as doth hap, within his sire pilumnus' grove in shady valley's lap; whom thaumas' child from rosy mouth in suchwise doth bespeak: "turnus, what no one of the gods might promise, didst thou seek, the day of fate undriven now hath borne about for thee: Æneas, he hath left his town, and ships, and company, and sought the lordship palatine and king evander's house; nay more, hath reached the utmost steads, the towns of corythus and host of lydians, where he arms the gathered carles for war. why doubt'st thou? now is time to call for horse and battle-car. break tarrying off, and make thy stoop upon their camp's dismay." she spake, and on her poisèd wings went up the heavenly way, and in her flight with mighty bow cleft through the cloudy land. the warrior knew her, and to heaven he cast up either hand, and with such voice of spoken things he followed as she fled: "o iris, glory of the skies, and who thy ways hath sped amidst the clouds to earth and me? whence this so sudden clear of weather? lo, the midmost heaven i see departed shear, and through the zenith stray the stars: such signs i follow on, whoso ye be that call to war." and therewithal he won unto the stream, and from its face drew forth the water fair, praying the gods, and laid a load of vows upon the air. and now the host drew out to war amid the open meads, with wealth of painted gear and gold, and wealth of noble steeds. messapus leads the first array, and tyrrheus' children ward the latter host, and in the midst is turnus' self the lord. such is the host as ganges deep, arising mid the hush with sevenfold rivers' solemn flow, or nile-flood's fruitful rush, when he hath ebbed from off the fields and hid him in his bed. but now the teucrians see the cloud of black dust grow to head from far away, and dusty-dark across the plain arise: and first from off the mound in face aloud caïcus cries: "ho! what is this that rolleth on, this misty, mirky ball? swords, townsmen, swords! bring point and edge; haste up to climb the wall. ho, for the foeman is at hand!" then, with a mighty shout, the trojans swarm through all the gates and fill the walls about; for so Æneas, war-lord wise, had bidden them abide at his departing; if meantime some new hap should betide, they should not dare nor trust themselves to pitch the fight afield, but hold the camp and save the town beneath the ramparts' shield. therefore, though shame and anger bade go forth and join the play, they bolt and bar the gates no less and all his word obey; and armed upon the hollow towers abide the coming foe. but turnus, flying forward fast, outwent the main host slow, and with a score of chosen knights is presently at hand before the town: borne on he was on horse of thracian land, white-flecked, and helmeted was he with ruddy-crested gold. "who will be first with me, o youths, play with the foe to hold? lo, here!" he cried; and on the air a whirling shaft he sent, the first of fight, and borne aloft about the meadows went. his fellows take it up with shouts, and dreadful cry on rolls as fast they follow, wondering sore at sluggard teucrian souls,-- that men should shun the battle pitched, nor dare the weapon-game, but hug their walls. so round the walls, high-horsed, with heart aflame, he rides about, and tries a way where never was a way: e'en as a wolf the sheep-fold full besetteth on a day, and howleth round about the garth, by wind and rain-drift beat, about the middle of the night, while safe the lamb-folk bleat beneath their mothers: wicked-fierce against them safe and near he rageth; hunger-madness long a-gathering him doth wear, with yearning for that blood beloved to wet his parchèd jaws. e'en so in that rutulian duke to flame the anger draws, as he beholdeth walls and camp: sore burnt his hardy heart for shifts to come at them; to shake those teucrians shut apart from out their walls and spread their host about the meadows wide. so on the ships he falls, that lay the campment's fence beside, hedged all about with garth and mound and by the river's flood, and to the burning crieth on his folk of joyous mood, and eager fills his own right hand with branch of blazing fir: then verily they fall to work whom turnus' gaze doth stir, and all the host of them in haste hand to the black torch lays. they strip the hearths; the smoky brand sends forth pitch-laden blaze, and starward soot-bemingled flame drave vulcan as he burned. say, muse, what god from teucrian folk such sore destruction turned? who drave away from trojan keels so mighty great a flame? old is the troth in such a tale, but never dies its fame. what time Æneas first began on phrygian ida's steep to frame his ships, and dight him there to ride upon the deep, the berecynthian mother-queen spake, as the tale doth fare, unto the godhead of great jove: "son, grant unto my prayer that which thy lovèd mother asks from heaven all tamed to peace: a wood of pines i have, beloved through many years' increase. there is a thicket on my height wherein men worship me, dim with the blackening of the firs and trunks of maple-tree: these to the dardan youth in need of ship-host grudged i nought, but in my anxious soul as now is born a troubling thought. do off my dread, and let, i pray, a mother's prayers avail, that these amid no shattering sea or whirling wind may fail; let it avail them that my heights first brought them unto birth." answered her son, that swayeth still the stars that rule the earth: "o mother, whither call'st thou fate? what wouldst thou have them be? shall keels of mortal fashioning gain immortality? and shall Æneas well assured stray every peril through? shall this be right? hath any god the power such things to do? no less when they have done their work, and safe in italy lie in the haven, which soe'er have overpassed the sea, and borne the duke of dardan men to that laurentine home, from such will i take mortal shape, and bid them to become queens of the sea-plain, such as are doto the nereus child, and galatea, whose bosoms cleave the foaming waters wild." he spake and swore it by the flood his stygian brother rules, and by its banks that reek with pitch o'er its black whirling pools, and with the bowing of his head did all olympus shake. and now the promised day was come, nor will the parcæ break the time fulfilled; when turnus' threat now bade the mother heed that she from those her holy ships should turn the fire at need. strange light before the eyes of men shone forth; a mighty cloud ran from the dawning down the sky, and there was clashing loud of ida's hosts, and from the heavens there fell a voice of fear, that through rutulia's host and troy's fulfillèd every ear: "make no great haste, o teucrian men, these ships of mine to save! nor arm thereto! for turnus here shall burn the salt sea wave sooner than these, my holy pines. but ye--depart, go free! the mother biddeth it: depart, queens, goddesses, of sea!" straightway the ships brake each the chain that tied them to the bank, and, as the dolphins dive adown, with plunging beaks they sank down to the deeps, from whence, o strange! they come aback once more; as many brazen beaks as erst stood fast beside the shore, so many shapes of maidens now seaward they wend their ways. appalled were those rutulian hearts; yea, feared with all amaze, messapus sat mid frighted steeds: the rough-voiced stream grew black; yea, tiberinus from the deep his footsteps drew aback. but turnus of the hardy heart, his courage nothing died; unmoved he stirs their souls with speech, unmoved he falls to chide: "these portents seek the teucrians home; the very jupiter snatches their wonted aid from them, that might not bide to bear rutulian fire and sword: henceforth the sea-plain lacketh road for teucrian men: their flight is dead, and half the world's abode is reft from them: and earth, forsooth, upon our hands it waits, with thousands of italian swords. for me, i fear no fates: for if the phrygians boast them still of answering words of god, enough for venus and the fates that teucrian men have trod the fair ausonia's fruitful field: and answering fates have i: a wicked folk with edge of sword to root up utterly, for stolen wife: this grief hath grieved others than atreus' sons, and other folk may run to arms than those mycenian ones. --enough one downfall is, say ye?--enough had been one sin. yea, i had deemed all womankind your hatred well might win. --lo, these are they to whom a wall betwixt the sword and sword, the little tarrying of a ditch,--such toys the death to ward!-- give hearts of men! what, saw they not the war-walls of troy-town, the fashioning of neptune's hand, amid the flame sink down? but ye, my chosen, who is dight with me to break the wall, that we upon their quaking camp with point and edge may fall? no need i have of vulcan's arms or thousand ships at sea against these teucrians; yea, though they should win them presently, the tuscan friendship: deeds of dusk and deedless stolen gain of that palladium, and the guards of topmost castle slain, let them not fear: we shall not lurk in horse's dusky womb: in open day to gird your walls with wildfire is the doom. let them not deem they have to put the danaans to the proof, pelasgian lads that hector's hand for ten years held aloof. --but come, since all the best of day is well-nigh worn to end, joy in our good beginning, friends, and well your bodies tend, and bide in hope and readiness the coming of the fight." therewith messapus hath the charge with outguards of the night to keep the gates, and all the town with watch-fires round to ring: twice seven are chosen out to hold the town inleaguering of rutuli: an hundred youths, they follow each of these; a purple-crested folk that gleam with golden braveries: they pace the round, they shift the turn, or scattered o'er the grass please heart and soul with wine, and turn the empty bowl of brass: the watch-fires shine around in ring; through sport and sleeplessness their warding weareth night away. the trojans from their walls of war look down on all these things; they hold the heights in arms, and search the great gate's fastenings with hurrying fear; or, spear in hand, gangway to battlement they yoke. there mnestheus urged the work; there hot serestus went; they whom Æneas, if perchance the time should call thereto, had made first captains of the host, lords of all things to do. so all the host along the walls the peril shareth out, falling to watch, and plays its part in turn and turn about. nisus was warder of the gate, the eager under shield, the son of hyrtacus, whom erst did huntress ida yield unto Æneas' fellowship, keen with the shaft and spear. euryalus, his friend, stood by, than whom none goodlier went with Æneas or did on the battle-gear of troy: youth's bloom unshorn was on his cheek, scarce was he but a boy. like love the twain had each for each; in battle side by side they went; and now as gatewards twain together did abide. now nisus saith: "doth very god so set the heart on fire, euryalus, or doth each man make god of his desire? my soul is driving me to dare the battle presently, or some great deed; nor pleased with peace at quiet will it be. thou seest how those rutulian men trust in their warding keep; how wide apart the watch-fires shine; how slack with wine and sleep men lie along; how far and wide the hush o'er all things lies. note now what stirreth in my mind, what thoughts in me arise: they bid call back Æneas now, fathers, and folk, and all, and send out men to bear to him sure word of what doth fall. now if the thing i ask for thee they promise,--for to me the deed's fame is enough,--meseems beneath yon mound i see a way whereby to palianteum in little space to come." euryalus, by mighty love of glory smitten home, stood all amazed, then answered thus his fiery-hearted friend: "o nisus, wilt thou yoke me not to such a noble end? and shall i send thee unto deeds so perilous alone? my sire opheltes, wise in war, nourished no such an one, reared mid the terror of the greeks and troy-town's miseries; nor yet with thee have i been wont to deedless deeds like these, following Æneas' mighty heart through fortune's furthest way. here is a soul that scorns the light, and deems it good to pay with very life for such a fame as thou art brought anear." saith nisus: "nay, i feared of thee no such a thing, i swear, no such ill thought; so may he bring thy friend back with the prize, great jove, or whosoe'er beholds these things with equal eyes. but if some hap (thou seest herein how many such may fall), if any hap, if any god bear me the end of all, fain were i thou wert left: thine age is worthier life-day's gain; let there be one to buy me back snatched from amidst the slain, and give me earth: or if e'en that our wonted fortune ban, do thou the rites, and raise the tomb unto the missing man; nor make me of thy mother's woe the fashioner accurst: she who, o friend, alone of all our many mothers durst to follow thee, nor heeded aught of great acestes' town." he said: "for weaving of delay vain is thy shuttle thrown; nor is my heart so turned about that i will leave the play: let us be doing!" therewithal he stirs the guards, and they come up in turn, wherewith he leaves the warding-stead behind, and goes with nisus, and the twain set forth the prince to find. all other creatures, laid asleep o'er all the earthly soil, let slip the cares from off their hearts, forgetful of their toil, but still the dukes of trojan men and chosen folk of war held counsel of that heavy tide that on the kingdom bore, what was to do, or who would go Æneas' messenger. there shield on arm, and leaned upon the length of shafted spear, they stand amid their stronghold's mead: in eager haste the twain, nisus and young euryalus, the presence crave to gain, for matters great and worth the time: straight doth iulus take those hurried men to him, and bids that nisus speech should wake. then saith the son of hyrtacus: "just-hearted, hearken now, folk of Æneas, neither look upon the things we show as by our years. the rutuli slackened by wine and sleep lie hushed, and we have seen whereby upon our way to creep, e'en by the double-roaded gate that near the sea-strand lies: their fires are slaked, and black the smoke goes upward to the skies. if ye will suffer us to use this fortune that doth fall we will go seek Æneas now and pallanteum's wall: ye shall behold him and his spoils from mighty victory wrought come hither presently: the way shall fail our feet in nought, for we have seen the city's skirts amid the valleys dim in daily hunt, whereby we learned the river's uplong brim." then spake aletes weighty-wise, heart-ripe with plenteous eld: "gods of our fathers, under whom the weal of troy is held, ye have not doomed all utterly the teucrian folk undone, when ye for us such souls of youth, such hardy hearts have won." so saying by shoulder and by hand he took the goodly twain, while all his countenance and cheeks were wet with plenteous rain, "what gifts may i deem worthy, men, to pay such hearts athirst for utmost glory? certainly the fairest and the first the gods and your own hearts shall grant: the rest your lord shall give, godly Æneas; and this man with all his life to live, ascanius here, no memory of such desert shall lack." "but i," ascanius breaketh in, "whose father brought aback is all my heal--nisus, i pray by those great gods of mine, by him of old, assaracus, by hoary vesta's shrine, bring back my father! whatsoe'er is left with me today of fate or faith, into your breasts i give it all away. o give me back the sight of him, and grief is all gone by. two cups of utter silver wrought and rough with imagery i give you, which my father took from wracked arisbe's hold; two tripods eke, two talents' weight of fire-beproven gold; a beaker of the time agone, sidonian dido's gift. but if we hap to win the day and spoil of battle shift, if we lay hand on italy and staff of kingship bear,-- ye saw the horse that bore today gold turnus and his gear, that very same, the shield withal, and helm-crest ruddy dyed, thy gifts, o nisus, from the spoil henceforth i set aside. moreover of the mother-folk twice six most excellent my sire shall give, and captive men with all their armament, and therewithal the kingly field, latinus' garden-place. but thou, o boy most worshipful, whom nigher in the race mine own years follow, thee i take unto mine inmost heart, embracing thee my very friend in all to have a part; nor any glory of my days without thee shall i seek, whether i fashion peace or war; all that i do or speak i trust to thee." in answer thus euryalus 'gan say: "no day henceforth of all my life shall prove me fallen away from this my deed: only may fate in kindly wise befall, nor stand against me: now one gift i ask thee over all: i have a mother born on earth from priam's ancient race, who wretched in the land of troy had no abiding-place, nor in acesta's steadfast wall; with me she still must wend: her, who knows nought of this my risk, whatever may be the end unto thy safeguard do i leave: night and thy right hand there be witness that my mother's tears i had no heart to bear. but solace thou her lack, i pray; comfort her desert need; yea let me bear this hope with me, and boldlier shall i speed amid all haps." touched to the heart the dardans might not keep their tears aback, and chief of all did fair iulus weep, the image of his father's love so flashed upon his soul: and therewithal he spake the word: "all things i duly answer for worthy thy deed of fame; thy mother shall my mother be, nor lack but e'en the name to be creusa: store of thanks no little hath she won that bore thee. whatsoever hap thy valorous deed bear on, by this my head, whereon my sire is wont the troth to plight, whatever i promised thee come back, with all things wrought aright, thy mother and thy kin shall bide that very same reward." so spake he, weeping, and did off his shoulder-girded sword all golden, that with wondrous craft lycaon out of crete had fashioned, fitting it withal in ivory scabbard meet. and mnestheus unto nisus gives a stripped-off lion's hide and shaggy coat; and helm for helm giveth aletes tried. then forth they wend in weed of war, and they of first estate, young men and old, went forth with them, and leave them at the gate with following vows; and therewithal iulus, goodly-wrought, who far beyond his tender years had mind of manly thought, charged them with many messages unto his father's ear,-- vain words the night-winds bore away and gave the clouds to bear. forth now they wend and pass the ditch, and through the mirk night gain the baneful camp: yet ere their death they too shall be the bane of many: bodies laid in sleep and wine they see strewed o'er the herbage, and the battle-cars upreared along the shore; and mid the reins and wheels thereof are men and weapons blent with wine-jars: so hyrtacides such word from tooth-hedge sent: "euryalus, the hand must dare, the time cries on the deed; here lies the way: do thou afar keep watch and have good heed, lest any hand aback of us arise 'gainst thee and me: here will i make a waste forsooth, and wide thy way shall be." he speaks, and hushes all his voice, and so with naked blade falls on proud rhamnes; who, as happed, on piled-up carpets laid, amid his sleep was blowing forth great voice from inner breast. a king he was; king turnus' seer, of all belovèd best; yet nought availed his wizardry to drive his bane away. three thralls unware, as heeding nought amid the spears they lay, he endeth: remus' shield-bearer withal and charioteer, caught 'neath the very steeds: his sword their drooping necks doth shear; then from their lord he takes the head, and leaves the trunk to spout gushes of blood: the earth is warm with black gore all about. the beds are wet. there lamyrus and lamus doth he slay, and young serranus fair of face, who played the night away for many an hour, until his limbs 'neath god's abundance failed, and down he lay: ah! happier 'twere if he had still prevailed to make the live-long night one game until the morning cold. as famished lion nisus fares amid the sheep-filled fold, when ravening hunger driveth on; the soft things, dumb with dread, he draggeth off, devouring them, and foams from mouth blood-red. nor less the death euryalus hath wrought; for all aflame he wades in wrath, and on the way slays many lacking name: fadus, herbesus therewithal, rhoetus and abaris; unwary they: but rhoetus waked, and looking on all this, fulfilled of fear was hiding him behind a wine-jar pressed: the foe was on him as he rose; the sword-blade pierced his breast up to the hilts, and drew aback abundant stream of death. his purple life he poureth forth, and, dying, vomiteth blent blood and wine. on death-stealth still onward the trojan went, and toward messapus' leaguer drew, where watch-fires well-nigh spent he saw, and horses all about, tethered in order due, cropping the grass: but nisus spake in hasty words and few, seeing him borne away by lust of slaughter overmuch: "hold we our hands, for dawn our foe hasteth the world to touch: deep have we drunk of death, and cut a road amid the foe." the gear of men full goodly-wrought of silver through and through they leave behind, and bowls therewith, and carpets fashioned fair. natheless euryalus caught up the prophet rhamnes' gear and gold-bossed belt, which cædicus, the wealthy man of old, sent to tiburtine remulus, that he his name might hold, though far he were; who, dying, gave his grandson their delight; and he being dead, rutulian men won them in war and fight these now he takes, and all for nought does on his valorous breast, and dons messapus' handy helm with goodly-fashioned crest, wherewith they leave the camp and gain the road that safer lay. but horsemen from the latin town meantime were on the way, sent on before to carry word to turnus, lord and king, while in array amid the fields the host was tarrying. three hundred knights, all shielded folk, 'neath volscens do they fare. and now they drew anigh the camp and 'neath its rampart were, when from afar they saw the twain on left-hand footway lurk; because euryalus' fair helm mid glimmer of the mirk betrayed the heedless youth, and flashed the moonbeams back again. nor was the sight unheeded: straight cries volscens midst his men: "stand ho! why thus afoot, and why in weapons do ye wend, and whither go ye?" nought had they an answer back to send, but speed their fleeing mid the brake, and trust them to the night; the horsemen cast themselves before each crossway known aright, and every outgoing there is with guard they girdle round. rough was the wood; a thicket-place where black holm-oaks abound, and with the tanglement of thorns choked up on every side, the road but glimmering faintly out from where the foot-tracks hide. the blackness of overhanging boughs and heavy battle-prey hinder euryalus, and fear beguiles him of the way. nisus comes out, and now had won unwitting from the foe, and reached the place from alba's name called alban meadows now; where king latinus had as then his high-built herd-houses. so there he stands, and, looking round, his fellow nowhere sees: "hapless euryalus! ah me, where have i left thy face? where shall i seek thee, gathering up that tangle of the ways through the blind wood?" so therewithal he turns upon his track, noting his footsteps, and amid the hushed brake strays aback, hearkening the horse-hoofs and halloos and calls of following folk. nor had he long abided there, ere on his ears outbroke great clamour, and euryalus he sees, whom all the band hath taken, overcome by night, and blindness of the land, and wildering tumult: there in vain he strives in battle-play. ah, what to do? what force to dare, what stroke to snatch away the youth? or shall he cast himself amid the swords to die, and hasten down the way of wounds to lovely death anigh? then swiftly, with his arm drawn back and brandishing his spear, he looks up at the moon aloft, and thuswise poureth prayer: "to aid, thou goddess! stay my toil, and let the end be good! latonian glory of the stars, fair watcher of the wood, if ever any gift for me upon thine altars gave my father hyrtacus; if i for thee the hunting drave; if aught i hung upon thy dome, or set upon thy roof, give me to break their gathered host, guide thou my steel aloof!" he spake, and in the shafted steel set all his body's might, and hurled it: flying forth the spear clave through the dusk of night, and, reaching sulmo turned away, amidst his back it flew, and brake there; but the splintering shaft his very heart pierced through, and o'er he rolleth, vomiting the hot stream from his breast: then heave his flanks with long-drawn sobs and cold he lies at rest. on all sides then they peer about: but, whetted on thereby, the quivering shaft from o'er his ear again he letteth fly. amid their wilderment the spear whistleth through either side of tagus' temples, and wet-hot amidst his brain doth bide. fierce volscens rageth, seeing none who might the spear-shot send, or any man on whom his wrath and heat of heart to spend. "but thou, at least, with thine hot blood shalt pay the due award for both," he cries; and therewithal, swift drawing forth the sword, he falleth on euryalus. then, wild with all affright, nisus shrieks out, and cares no more to cloak himself with night, and hath no heart to bear against so great a misery. "on me, me! here--i did the deed! turn ye the sword on me, rutulians!--all the guilt is mine: he might not do nor dare. may heaven and those all-knowing stars true witness of it bear! only with too exceeding love he loved his hapless friend." such words he poured forth, but the sword no less its way doth wend, piercing the flank and rending through the goodly breast of him; and rolls euryalus in death: in plenteous blood they swim his lovely limbs, his drooping neck low on his shoulder lies: as when the purple field-flower faints before the plough and dies, or poppies when they hang their heads on wearied stems outworn, when haply by the rainy load their might is overborne. then nisus falls amidst of them, and volscens seeks alone for aught that any man may do: save him he heedeth none. about him throng the foe: all round the strokes on him are laid to thrust him off: but on he bears, whirling his lightning blade, till full in volscens' shouting mouth he burieth it at last, tearing the life from out the foe, as forth his own life passed. then, ploughed with wounds, he cast him down upon his lifeless friend, and so in quietness of death gat resting in the end. o happy twain, if anywise my song-craft may avail, from out the memory of the world no day shall blot your tale, while on the rock-fast capitol Æneas' house abides, and while the roman father still the might of empire guides. the rutuli, victorious now with spoils and prey of war, but sorrowing still, amid the camp the perished volscens bore. nor in the camp was grief the less, when they on rhamnes came bloodless; and many a chief cut off by one death and the same; serranus dead and numa dead: a many then they swarm about the dead and dying men, and places wet and warm with new-wrought death, and runnels full with plenteous foaming blood. then one by one the spoils they note; the glittering helm and good messapus owned: the gear such toil had won back from the dead. but timely now aurora left tithonus' saffron bed, and over earth went scattering wide the light of new-born day: the sun-flood flowed, and all the world unveiled by daylight lay. then turnus, clad in arms himself, wakes up the host to arms, and every lord to war-array bids on his brazen swarms; and men with diverse tidings told their battle-anger whet. moreover (miserable sight!) on upraised spears they set those heads, and follow them about with most abundant noise, euryalus and nisus dead. meanwhile Æneas' hardy sons upon their leftward wall stand in array; for on the right the river girdeth all. in woe they ward the ditches deep, and on the towers on high stand sorrowing; for those heads upreared touch all their hearts anigh, known overwell to their sad eyes mid the black flow of gore. therewith in wingèd fluttering haste, the trembling city o'er goes tell-tale fame, and swift amidst the mother's ears doth glide; and changed she was, nor in her bones the life-heat would abide: the shuttle falls from out her hand, unrolled the web doth fall, and with a woman's hapless shrieks she flieth to the wall: rending her hair, beside herself, she faced the front of fight, heedless of men, and haps of death, and all the weapons' flight, and there the very heavens she filled with wailing of her grief: "o son, and do i see thee so? thou rest and last relief of my old days! hadst thou the heart to leave me lone and spent? o cruel! might i see thee not on such a peril sent? was there no time for one last word amid my misery? a prey for latin fowl and dogs how doth thy body lie, on lands uncouth! not e'en may i, thy mother, streak thee, son, thy body dead; or close thine eyes, or wash thy wounds well won, or shroud thee in the cloth i wrought for thee by night and day, when hastening on the weaving-task i kept eld's cares at bay? where shall i seek thee? what earth hides thy body, mangled sore, and perished limbs? o son, to me bringest thou back no more than this? and have i followed this o'er every land and sea? o pierce me through, if ye be kind; turn all your points on me, rutulians! let me first of all with battle-steel be sped! father of gods, have mercy thou! thrust down the hated head beneath the house of tartarus with thine own weapon's stress, since otherwise i may not break my life-days' bitterness." their hearts were shaken with her wail, and sorrow fain will weep, and in all men their battle-might unbroken lay asleep. but actor and idæus take that flaming misery, as bade ilioneus, and young iulus, sore as he went weeping: back in arms therewith they bear her 'neath the roof. but now the trump with brazen song cast fearful sound aloof, chiding to war; and shouts rise up and belloweth back the heaven, and forth the volscians fare to speed the shield-roof timely driven. some men fall on to fill the ditch and pluck the ramparts down; some seek approach and ladders lay where daylight rends the crown of wall-wards, and would get them up where stands the hedge of war thinner of men: against their way the teucrian warders pour all weapon-shot: with hard-head pikes they thrust them down the steep. long was the war wherein they learned the battle-wall to keep. stones, too, of deadly weight they roll, if haply they may break the shield-roof of the battle-rush; but sturdily those take all chances of the play beneath their close and well-knit hold. yet fail they; for when hard at hand their world of war was rolled, a mighty mass by teucrians moved rolls on and rushes o'er, and fells the host of rutuli and breaks the tiles of war. nor longer now the rutuli, the daring hearts, may bear to play with mars amid the dark, but strive the walls to clear with storm of shaft and weapon shot. but now mezentius otherwhere, a fearful sight to see, was tossing high the tuscan pine with smoke-wreathed fiery heart: while neptune's child, the horse-tamer messapus, played his part, rending the wall, and crying out for ladders to be laid. speak, song-maids: thou, calliope, give thou the singer aid to tell what wise by turnus' sword the field of fight was strown; what death he wrought; what man each man to orcus sent adown. fall to with me to roll abroad the mighty skirts of war, ye, goddesses, remember all, and ye may tell it o'er. there was a tower built high overhead, with gangways up in air, set well for fight, 'gainst which the foe their utmost war-might bear, and all italians strive their most to work its overthrow: gainst whom the trojans ward it well, casting the stones below, and through the hollow windows speed the shot-storm thick and fast. there turnus first of all his folk a flaming firebrand cast, and fixed it in the turret's flank: wind-nursed it caught great space of planking, and amid the doors, consuming, kept its place. then they within, bewildered sore, to flee their ills are fain, but all for nought; for while therein they huddle from the bane, and draw aback to place yet free from ruin, suddenly o'erweighted toppleth down the tower, and thundereth through the sky. half-dead the warders fall to earth by world of wrack o'erborne, pierced with their own shafts, and their breasts with hardened splinters torn. yea, lycus and helenor came alone of all their peers alive to earth: helenor, now in spring-tide of his years: bond-maid licymnia privily to that mæonian king had borne the lad, and sent him forth to troy's beleaguering with arms forbidden, sheathless sword and churl's unpainted shield. but when he saw himself amidst the thousand-sworded field of turnus, latins on each side, behind, and full in face, e'en as a wild beast hedged about by girdle of the chase rages against the point and edge, and, knowing death anear, leaps forth, and far is borne away down on the hunter's spear; not otherwise the youth falls on where thickest spear-points lie, and in the middle of the foe he casts himself to die. but lycus, nimbler far of foot, betwixt the foemen slipped, betwixt the swords, and gained the wall, and at the coping gripped, and strove to draw him up with hand, the friendly hands to feel; but turnus both with foot and spear hath followed hard at heel, and mocks him thus in victory: "how was thy hope so grown of 'scaping from my hand, o fool?" therewith he plucks him down from where he hung, and space of wall tears downward with the man. as when it chanceth that a hare or snowy-bodied swan jove's shield-bearer hath borne aloft in snatching hookèd feet; or lamb, whose mother seeketh him with most abundant bleat, some wolf of mars from fold hath caught. goes up great cry around: they set on, and the ditches filled with o'erturned garth and mound, while others cast the blazing brands on roof and battlement. ilioneus with mighty stone, a shard from hillside rent, lucetius felled, as fire in hand unto the gate he drew. then liger felled emathion, for craft of spear he knew; asylas corynæus, by dint of skill in bowshaft's ways, cæneus ortygius fells, and him, victorious, turnus slays, and itys, clonius, promolus, dioxippus withal, and sagaris, and idas set on topmost turret-wall. then capys slays privernus; him themilla's light-winged spear had grazed, whereon he dropped his shield, and his left hand did bear upon the hurt; when lo, thereto the wingèd shaft did win, and nailed the hand unto the side, and, buried deep within, burst all the breathing-ways of life with deadly fatal sore. but lo, where standeth arcens' child in goodly weed of war, fair with his needle-painted cloak, with spanish scarlet bright, noble of face: arcens, his sire, had sent him to the fight from nursing of his mother's grove about symæthia's flood, whereby palicus' altar stands, the wealthy and the good. mezentius now laid by his spear, and took his whistling sling, and whirled it thrice about his head at length of tugging string, and with the flight of molten lead his midmost forehead clave, and to the deep abundant sand his outstretched body gave. then first they say ascanius aimed his speedy shafts in war, wherewith but fleeing beasts afield he used to fright before: but now at last his own right hand the stark numanus slays, who had to surname remulus, and in these latter days king turnus' sister, young of years, had taken to his bed: he in the forefront of the fight kept crying out, and said things worthy and unworthy tale: puffed up with pride of place new-won he went, still clamouring out his greatness and his grace. "o twice-caught phrygians, shames you nought thus twice amid the wars to lie in bonds, and stretch out walls before the march of mars? lo, these are they who woke the war the wives of us to wed! what god sent you to italy? what madness hither sped? here are no atreus' sons, and no ulysses word-weaver. a people hard from earliest spring our new-born sons we bear unto the stream, and harden us with bitter frost and flood. our lads, they wake the dawning-chase and wear the tangled wood; our sport is taming of the horse and drawing shafted bow; our carles, who bear a world of toil, and hunger-pinching know, tame earth with spade, or shake with war the cities of the folk. yea, all our life with steel is worn; afield we drive the yoke with spear-shaft turned about: nor doth a halting eld of sloth weaken our mightiness of soul, or change our glory's growth. we do the helm on hoary hairs, and ever deem it good to drive the foray day by day, and make the spoil our food. but ye--the raiment saffron-stained, with purple glow tricked out-- these are your heart-joys: ye are glad to lead the dance about. sleeve-coated folk, o ribbon-coifed, not even phrygian men, but phrygian wives, to dindymus the high go get ye then! to hear the flute's twi-mouthèd song as ye are wont to do! the berecynthian mother's box and cymbals call to you from ida: let men deal with war, and drop adown your swords." that singer of such wicked speech, that caster forth of words, ascanius brooked not: breasting now his horse-hair full at strain, he aimed the shaft, and therewithal drew either arm atwain, and stood so; but to jupiter first suppliant fell to pray: "o jove almighty, to my deeds, thus new-begun, nod yea, and i myself unto thy fane the yearly gifts will bear, and bring before thine altar-stead a snow-white gilt-horned steer, whose head unto his mother's head is evenly upborne, of age to spurn the sand with hoof and battle with the horn." the father heard, and out of heaven, wherein no cloud-fleck hung, his leftward thunder fell, wherewith the fateful bow outrung, the back-drawn shaft went whistling forth with dreadful sound, and sped to pierce the skull of remulus and hollow of his head: "go to, then, and thy mocking words upon men's valour call, the twice-caught phrygians answer back rutulians herewithal." this only word ascanius spake: the teucrians raise their cry and shout for joy, and lift their heart aloft unto the sky. long-haired apollo then by hap high-set in airy place, looked down upon ausonian host and leaguered city's case, and thus the victor he bespeaks from lofty seat of cloud: "speed on in new-born valour, child! this is the starward road, o son of gods and sire of gods! well have the fates ordained that 'neath assaracus one day all war shall be refrained. no troy shall hold thee." with that word he stoops from heaven aloft and puts away on either side the wind that meets him soft, and seeks ascanius: changed is he withal, and putteth on the shape of butes old of days, shield-bearer time agone unto anchises, dardan king, and door-ward true and tried; but with ascanius now his sire had bidden him abide. like this old man in every wise, voice, hue, and hoary hair, and arms that cried on cruel war, now did apollo fare, and to iulus hot of heart in such wise went his speech: "enough, o child of Æneas, that thou with shaft didst reach numanus' life unharmed thyself, great phoebus grants thee this, thy first-born praise, nor grudgeth thee like weapons unto his. but now refrain thy youth from war." so spake apollo then, and in the midmost of his speech fled sight of mortal men, and faded from their eyes away afar amid the air. the dardan dukes, they knew the god and holy shooting-gear, and as he fled away from them they heard his quiver shrill. therefore ascanius, fain of fight, by phoebus' word and will they hold aback: but they themselves fare to the fight again, and cast their souls amidst of all the perils bare and plain. then goes the shout adown the wall, along the battlement; the javelin-thongs are whirled about, the sharp-springed bows are bent, and all the earth is strewn with shot: the shield, the helmet's cup, ring out again with weapon-dint, and fierce the fight springs up. as great as, when the watery kids are setting, beats the rain upon the earth; as plentiful as when upon the main the hail-clouds fall, when jupiter, fierce with the southern blasts, breaks up the hollow clouds of heaven and watery whirl downcasts. now pandarus and bitias stark, idan alcanor's seed. they whom iæra of the woods in jove's brake nursed with heed, youths tall as firs or mountain-cliffs that in their country are, the gate their lord hath bid them keep, these freely now unbar, and freely bid the foeman in, trusting to stroke of hand; but they themselves to right and left before the gate-towers stand, steel-clad, and with their lofty heads crested with glittering gleams; e'en as amid the air of heaven, beside the flowing streams on rim of padus, or anigh soft athesis and sweet, twin oak-trees spring, and tops unshorn uprear the skies to meet, and with their heads high over earth nod ever in the wind. so now the rutuli fall on when clear the way they find, but quercens, and Æquicolus the lovely war-clad one, and tmarus of the headlong soul, and hæmon, mavors' son, must either turn their backs in flight, with all their men of war, or lay adown their lovèd lives on threshold of the door. then bitterer waxeth battle-rage in hate-fulfillèd hearts, and there the trojans draw to head and gather from all parts, eager to deal in handy strokes, full fierce afield to fare. but as duke turnus through the fight was raging otherwhere, confounding folk, there came a man with tidings that the foe, hot with new death, the door-leaves wide to all incomers throw. therewith he leaves the work in hand, and, stirred by anger's goad, against the dardan gate goes forth, against the brethren proud: there first antiphates he slew, who fought amid the first, the bastard of sarpedon tall, by theban mother nursed. with javelin-cast he laid him low: the italian cornel flies through the thin air, pierceth his maw, and 'neath his breast-bone lies deep down; the hollow wound-cave pours a flood of gore and foam, and warm amid him lies the steel, amid his lung gone home. then meropes', and erymas', aphidnus' lives he spilled; then bitias of the flaming eyes and heart with ire fulfilled;-- not with the dart, for to no dart his life-breath had he given;-- but whirled and whizzing mightily came on the sling-spear, driven like lightning-flash; against whose dint two bull-hides nought availed, nor yet the golden faithful fence of war-coat double-scaled: his fainting limbs fell down afield, and earth gave out a groan, and rang the thunder of his shield huge on his body thrown: e'en as upon euboean shore of baiæ falleth whiles a stony pillar, which built up of mighty bonded piles they set amid the sea: suchwise it draggeth mighty wrack headlong adown, and deep in sea it lieth dashed aback: the seas are blent, black whirl of sand goes up confusedly; and with the noise quakes prochytas, and quakes inarimè, the unsoft bed by jove's command upon typhoeus laid. then mars, the mighty in the war, brings force and strength to aid the latin men, and in their hearts he stirs his bitter goads, the while with fleeing and black fear the teucrian heart he loads: from everywhither run the folk, since here is battle rich, and in all hearts the war-god wakes. but pandarus, beholding now his brother laid to earth, and whitherward wends fortune now, and what time brings to birth, back-swinging on the hinge again with might the door-leaf sends, by struggle of his shoulders huge; and many of his friends shut outward of the walls he leaves, amid the fierce debate; while others, with himself shut in, poured backward through the gate. madman! who saw not how the king rutulian mid the band came rushing, but amidst the town now shut him with his hand, e'en as a tiger pent amidst a helpless flock of sheep. then dreadfully his armour rings, light from his eyes doth leap,-- a strange new light: the blood-red crest upon his helm-top quakes, and from the circle of his shield a glittering lightning breaks. sudden Æneas' frighted folk behold his hated face and mighty limbs: but pandarus breaks forth amid the place huge, and his heart afire with rage for his lost brother's death. "nay, this is not amata's home, the dowry house," he saith, "nor yet doth ardea's midmost wall hold kindred turnus in: the foeman's camp thou seest, wherefrom thou hast no might to win." but from his all untroubled breast laughed turnus, as he said: "begin, if thou hast heart thereto, let hand to hand be laid! thou shalt tell priam how thou found'st a new achilles here." he spake: the other put all strength to hurling of his spear, a shaft all rough with knots, and still in its own tree-bark bound. straightway the thin air caught it up, but that swift-speeding wound saturnian juno turned aside and set it in the door. --"but now thou 'scapest not this steel mine own hand maketh sure, nought such as thine the weapon-smith, the wound-smith----" with the word he riseth up unto the high uprising of the sword, wherewith betwixt the temples twain he clave his midmost head, and with a fearful wound apart the cheeks unbearded shred. then came a sound, and shook the earth 'neath the huge weight of him: with armour wet with blood and brain, with fainting, slackened limb, he strewed the ground in death; his head, sheared clean and evenly, from either shoulder hanging down, this side and that did lie. then turn and flee the trojan folk, by quaking terror caught; and if the conquering man as then one moment had had thought to burst the bolts and let his folk in through the opened door, that day had been the last of days for trojans and their war. but utter wrath of heart and soul, and wildering lust of death drave him afire amidst the foe. then phaleris he catcheth up, and ham-strung gyges then, whose spears, snatched up, he hurleth on against the backs of men; for juno finds him might enough and heart wherewith to do, halys he sendeth down with these, phegeus with targe smit through; then, as they roused the war on wall, nor wotted aught of this, alcander stark, and halius stout, noëmon, prytanis. then lynceus, as he ran to aid and cheered his folk withal, he reacheth at with sweeping sword from right hand of the wall and smiteth; and his helm and head, struck off with that one blow, lie far away: amycus then, the wood-deer's wasting foe, he slayeth: happier hand had none in smearing of the shaft and arming of the iron head the poison-wound to waft. then clytius, son of Æolus, and cretheus muse-beloved,-- cretheus the muses' fellow-friend, whose heart was ever moved by song and harp, and measured sound along the strainèd string; who still of steeds, and arms, and men, and battle-tide would sing. at last the trojan dukes of men, mnestheus, serestus fierce, draw to a head when all this death is borne unto their ears, and see their folk all scattering wide, the foe amidst them see. then mnestheus cries: "and whither now, and whither will ye flee? what other walls, what other town have ye a hope to find? hath one man, o my town-fellows, whom your own ramparts bind, wrought such a death and unavenged amid your very town, and sent so many lords of war by orcus' road adown? o dastards, your unhappy land, your gods of ancient days, your great Æneas--what! no shame, no pity do they raise?" fired by such words, they gather heart and stand in close array, till step by step 'gins turnus now to yield him from the play, and seek the river and the side the wet wave girds about. then fiercer fall the teucrians on, and raise a mighty shout, and lock their ranks: as when a crowd of men-folk and of spears falls on a lion hard of heart, and he, beset by fears, but fierce and grim-eyed, yieldeth way, though anger and his worth forbid him turn his back about: no less to fare right forth through spears and men avails him not, though ne'er so fain he be. not otherwise unhasty feet drew turnus doubtfully abackward, all his heart a-boil with anger's overflow. yea, twice, indeed, he falls again amidmost of the foe, and twice more turns to huddled flight their folk along the walls; but, gathered from the camp about, the whole host on him falls, nor durst saturnian juno now his might against them stay; for jupiter from heaven hath sent iris of airy way, no soft commands of his high doom bearing his sister down, if turnus get him not away from troy's high-builded town. so now the warrior's shielded left the play endureth not, nought skills his right hand; wrapped around in drift of weapon shot about his temples' hollow rings his helm with ceaseless clink; the starkly-fashioned brazen plates amid the stone-cast chink; the crest is battered from his head; nor may the shield-boss hold against the strokes: the trojans speed the spear-storm manifold, and lightening mnestheus thickeneth it: then over all his limbs the sweat bursts out, and all adown a pitchy river swims: hard grows his breath, and panting sharp shaketh his body spent. until at last, all clad in arms, he leapt adown, and sent his body to the river fair, who in his yellow flood caught him, and bore him forth away on ripple soft and good, and gave him merry to his men, washed from the battle's blood. book x. argument. the gods take counsel: Æneas cometh to his folk again, and doeth many great deeds in battle. meanwhile is opened wide the door of dread olympus' walls, and there the sire of gods and men unto the council calls, amid the starry place, wherefrom, high-throned, he looks adown upon the folk of latin land and that beleaguered town. there in the open house they sit, and he himself begins: "o dwellers in the house of heaven, why backward thuswise wins your purpose? why, with hearts unruled, raise ye the strife so sore? i clean forbade that italy should clash with troy in war. now why the war that i forbade? who egged on these or those to fear or fight, or drave them on with edge of sword to close? be not o'ereager in your haste: the hour of fight shall come, when dreadful carthage on a day against the walls of rome, betwixt the opened doors of alps, a mighty wrack shall send; then may ye battle, hate to hate, and reach and grasp and rend: but now forbear, and joyfully knit fast the plighted peace." few words spake jove; but not a few in answer unto these gave golden venus back again: "o father, o eternal might of men and deeds of earth-- for what else may be left to me whereto to turn my prayers?-- thou seest the rutuli in pride, and turnus, how he fares? amidst them, borne aloft by steeds, and, swelling, war-way sweeps with mars to aid: the fencèd place no more the teucrians keeps, for now within the very gates and mound-heaped battlement they blend in fight, and flood of gore adown the ditch is sent, unware Æneas is away.--must they be never free from bond of leaguer? lo, again the threatening enemy hangs over troy new-born! behold new host arrayed again from arpi, the Ætolian-built; against the teucrian men tydides riseth. so for me belike new wounds in store, and i, thy child, must feel the edge of arms of mortal war. now if without thy peace, without thy godhead's will to speed, the trojans sought for italy, let ill-hap pay ill deed, nor stay them with thine help: but if they followed many a word given forth by gods of heaven and hell, by whom canst thou be stirred to turn thy doom, or who to forge new fate may e'er avail? of ship-host burnt on eryx shore why should i tell the tale? or of the king of wind and storm, or wild and windy crowd Æolia bred, or iris sent adown the space of cloud? but now withal the gods of hell, a world untried before, she stirreth, and alecto sent up to the earthly shore in sudden hurry raves about towns of italian men. no whit for lordship do i yearn: i hoped such glories then while fortune was: let them be lords whom thou wilt doom for lords! but if no land thy hard-heart wife to teucrian men awards, yet, father, by the smoking wrack of overwhelmèd troy i pray thee from the weapon-dint safe let me send a boy, yea, e'en ascanius: let me keep my grandson safe for me! yea, let Æneas toss about on many an unknown sea, and let him follow wheresoe'er his fortune shall have led: but this one let me shield, and take safe from the battle's dread. paphus, cythera, amathus, are mine, and i abide within idalia's house: let him lay weed of war aside, and wear his life inglorious there: then shalt thou bid the hand of carthage weigh ausonia down, and nothing shall withstand the towns of tyre.--ah, what availed to 'scape the bane of war? ah, what availed that through the midst of argive flames they bore to wear down perils of wide lands, and perils of the main, while teucrian men sought latin land and troy new-born again? ah, better had it been for them by troy's cold ash to stay, to dwell on earth where troy hath been. father, give back, i pray, their xanthus and their simoïs unto that wretched folk, and let them toil and faint once more 'neath ilium's woeful yoke!" then spake queen juno, heavy wroth: "why driv'st thou me to part my deep-set silence, and lay bare with words my grief of heart? what one of all the gods or men Æneas drave to go on warring ways, or bear himself as king latinus' foe? fate-bidden he sought italy?--yea, soothly, or maybe spurned by cassandra's wilderment--and how then counselled we to leave his camp and give his life to make the winds a toy? to trust his walls and utmost point of war unto a boy? to trust the tuscan faith, and stir the peaceful folk to fight? what god hath driven him to lie, what hardness of my might? works juno here, or iris sent adown the cloudy way? 'tis wrong for italy, forsooth, the ring of fire to lay round troy new-born; for turnus still to hold his fathers' earth!-- though him, pilumnus' own son's son, venilia brought to birth-- but what if trojans fall with flame upon the latin folk, and drive the prey from off their fields oppressed by outland yoke? or choose them sons-in-law, or brides from mothers' bosoms tear? or, holding peace within their hands, lade ships with weapon-gear? thou erst hadst might from greekish hands Æneas' self to draw, to thrust a cloud and empty wind in stead of man of war, and unto sea-nymphs ship by ship the ship-host mayst thou change. but we to help the rutuli, 'tis horrible and strange! --unware Æneas is away?--let him abide unware! paphus thou hast, idalium, and high cythera fair, then why with cities big with war and hearts of warriors deal? what! we it was who strove to wrack the fainting trojan weal? we!--or the one who thwart the greeks the wretched trojans dashed? yea, and what brought it all about that thus in arms they clashed, europe and asia? that men brake the plighted peace by theft? did i the dardan lecher lead, who sparta's jewel reft? did i set weapons in his hand, breed lust to breed debate? then had thy care for thine been meet, but now indeed o'erlate with wrongful plaint thou risest up, and bickerest emptily." so pleaded juno, and all they, the heavenly folk anigh, murmured their doom in diverse wise; as when the first of wind caught in the woods is murmuring on, and rolleth moanings blind, betraying to the mariners the onset of the gale. then spake the almighty sire, in whom is all the world's avail, and as he spake the high-built house of god was quieted, and earth from her foundations shook, and heaven was hushed o'erhead, the winds fell down, the face of sea was laid in quiet fair: "take ye these matters to your hearts, and set my sayings there; since nowise the ausonian folk the plighted troth may blend with teucrians, and your contest seems a strife without an end; what fortune each may have today, what hope each one shears out, trojan or rutulan, will i hold all in balanced doubt, whether the camp be so beset by fate of italy, or hapless wanderings of troy, and warnings dealt awry. nor loose i rutulans the more; let each one's way-faring bear its own hap and toil, for jove to all alike is king; the fates will find a way to wend." he nodded oath withal by his own stygian brother's stream, the pitchy waters' fall, and blazing banks, and with his nod shook all olympus' land. then fell the talk; from golden throne did jupiter upstand, the heaven-abiders girt him round and brought him to the door. the rutuli amid all this are pressing on in war, round all the gates to slay the men, the walls with fire to ring, and all Æneas' host is pent with fenced beleaguering. nor is there any hope of flight; upon the towers tall they stand, the hapless men in vain, thin garland for the wall; asius, the son of imbrasus, thymoetes, and the two assaraci, and thymbris old, with castor, deeds they do in the forefront; sarpedon's sons, twin brethren, with them bide, clarus and themon, born erewhile in lofty lycia's side. and now lyrnessian acmon huge with strain of limbs strives hard, and raises up a mighty stone, no little mountain shard; as great as father clytius he, or brother mnestheus' might: so some with stones, with spear-cast some, they ward the walls in fight, they deal with fire or notch the shaft upon the strainèd string. but lo amidst, most meetly wrought for venus cherishing, his goodly head the dardan boy unhooded there doth hold, as shineth out some stone of price, cleaving the yellow gold, fair for the bosom or the head; or as the ivory shines, that with orician terebinth the art of man entwines, or mid the boxwood; down along his milk-white neck they lie the streams of hair, which golden wire doth catch about and tie. the mighty nations, ismarus, there saw thee deft to speed the bane of men, envenoming the deadly flying reed; thou lord-born of moeonian house, whereby the tiller tills rich acres, where pactolus' flood gold overflowing spills. there, too, was mnestheus, whom his deed late done of thrusting forth king turnus from the battlements hath raised to heavenly worth, and capys, he whose name is set upon campania's town. but while the bitter play of war went bickering up and down, Æneas clave the seas with keel amidst the dead of night: for when evander he had left and reached the tuscan might, he met their king and told his name, and whence his race of old, and what he would and how he wrought: and of the host he told, mezentius now had gotten him, and turnus' wrothful heart; he warned him in affairs of men to trust not fortune's part; and therewithal he mingleth prayers: tarchon no while doth wait, but joineth hosts and plighteth troth; and so, set free by fate, a-shipboard go the lydian folk by god's command and grace, yet 'neath the hand of outland duke: Æneas' ship hath place in forefront: phrygian lions hang above its armèd tyne o'ertopped by ida, unto those troy's outcasts happy sign: there great Æneas sits, and sends his mind a-wandering wide through all the shifting chance of war; and by his left-hand side is pallas asking of the stars and night-tide's journey dim, or whiles of haps by land or sea that fortuned unto him. ye goddesses, ope helicon, and raise the song to say what host from out the tuscan land Æneas led away, and how they dight their ships, and how across the sea they drave. in brazen tiger massicus first man the sea-plain clave; a thousand youths beneath him are that clusium's walls have left and cosæ's city: these in war with arrow-shot are deft, and bear light quivers of the bark, and bear the deadly bow. then comes grim abas, all his host with glorious arms aglow, and on his stern apollo gleams, well wrought in utter gold. but populonia's mother-land had given him there to hold six hundred of the battle-craft; three hundred ilva sent, rich isle, whose wealth of chalyb ore wastes never nor is spent. the third is he, who carrieth men the words god hath to say, asylas, whom the hearts of beasts and stars of heaven obey, and tongues of birds, and thunder-fire that coming tidings bears. a thousand men he hurrieth on with bristling of the spears; pisa, the town alpheüs built amid the tuscan land, bids them obey. came astur next, goodliest of all the band; astur, who trusteth in his horse and shifty-coloured weed; three hundred hath he, of one heart to wend as he shall lead: and these are they in cæres' home and minios' lea that bide, the pyrgi old, and they that feel gravisca's heavy tide. nor thee, best war-duke, cinyras, of that ligurian crew, leave i unsung: nor thee the more, cupavo lord of few, up from the cresting of whose helm the feathery swan-wings rise. love was thy guilt; thy battle-sign was thine own father's guise. for cycnus, say they, while for love of phaëthon he grieves. and sings beneath his sisters' shade, beneath the poplar-leaves; while with the muse some solace sweet for woeful love he won, a hoary eld of feathers soft about him doth he on, leaving the earth and following the stars with tuneful wails; and now his son amid his peers with tuscan ship-host sails, driving with oars the centaur huge, who o'er the waters' face hangs, threatening ocean with a rock, huge from his lofty place, and ever with his length of keel the deep sea furrows o'er. then he, e'en ocnus, stirreth up folk from his father's shore, who from the love of tuscan flood and fate-wise manto came, and gave, o mantua, walls to thee, and gave his mother's name: mantua, the rich in father-folk, though not one-stemmed her home. three stems are there, from each whereof four peoples forth are come, while she herself, the head of all, from tuscan blood hath might. five hundred thence mezentius arms against himself in fight, whom mincius' flood, benacus' son, veiled in the sedges grey, was leading in the fir of fight across the watery way. then heavy-huge aulestes goes; the oar-wood hundred-fold rises for beating of the flood, as foam the seas uprolled. huge triton ferries him, whose shell the deep blue sea doth fright: up from the shaggy naked waist manlike is he to sight as there he swims, but underneath whale-bellied is he grown; beneath the half-beast breast of him the foaming waters moan. so many chosen dukes of men in thrice ten keels they sail, and cut with brass the meads of brine for troy and its avail. and now had day-tide failed the sky, and phoebe, sweet and fair, amid her nightly-straying wain did mid olympus wear. Æneas, who might give his limbs no whit of peacefulness, was sitting with the helm in hand, heeding the sail-gear's stress, when lo a company of friends his midmost course do meet: the nymphs to wit, who cybele, the goddess holy-sweet, bade turn from ships to very nymphs, and ocean's godhead have. so evenly they swam the sea, and sundered wave and wave, as many as the brazen beaks once by the sea-side lay; afar they know their king, and round in dancing-wise they play; but one of them, cymodocea, who speech-lore knew the best, drew nigh astern and laid thereon her right hand, with her breast above the flood, the while her left through quiet waves rowed on, and thus bespoke him all unware: "wak'st thou, o godhead's son! Æneas, wake! and loose the sheets and let all canvas fill! we were the pine-trees on a time of ida's holy hill, thy ship-host once, but sea-nymphs now: when that rutulian lord fell faithless, headlong, on our lives with firebrand and the sword, unwillingly we brake our bonds and sought thee o'er the main. the mother in her pity thus hath wrought our shape again, and given us gift of godhead's life in house of ocean's ground. lo now, the boy ascanius by dyke and wall is bound amid the spears, the battle-wood that latins forth have sent. and now the horse of arcady, with stout etruscans blent, holdeth due tryst. now is the mind of turnus firmly set to thrust between them, lest thy camp they succour even yet. wherefore arise, and when the dawn first climbs the heavenly shore call on thy folk, and take thy shield unconquered evermore, the fire-lord's gift, who wrought its lips with circling gold about: tomorrow's light, unless thou deem'st my words are all to doubt, shall see rutulian death in heaps a-lying on the land." therewith departing, forth she thrust the tall ship with her hand, as one who had good skill therein, and then across the seas swifter than dart she fled, or shaft that matcheth well the breeze, and straight the others hastened on. all mazed was he of troy, anchises' seed, but yet the sign upraised his heart with joy, and, looking to the hollow heaven, in few words prayed he thus "kind ida-mother of the gods, whose heart loves dindymus and towered towns, and lions yoked and tamed to bear the bit, be thou my battle-leader now, and do thou further it, this omen, and with favouring foot the trojan folk draw nigh." but while he spake, day, come again, had run adown the sky, with light all utter perfect wrought, and driven away the night. then folk he biddeth follow on the banners of the fight, and make them ready for the play and shape their hearts for war. but he, aloft upon the poop, now sees them where they are, his leaguered teucrians, as his left uprears the blazing shield; and then, the sons of dardanus up to the starry field send forth the cry, and hope is come to whet their battle-wrath. thick flies their spear-storm: 'tis as when the strymon cranes give forth their war-sign on the mirky rack, and down the heavens they run sonorous, fleeing southern breeze with clamour following on. but wondrous to rutulian king and dukes of italy that seemed, until they look about, and lo, the keels they see turned shoreward; yea, a sea of ships onsetting toward the shore. yea, and the helm is all ablaze, beams from the crest outpour, the golden shield-boss wide about a world of flame doth shed. e'en so, amid the clear of night, the comets bloody-red blush woeful bright; nor otherwise is sirius' burning wrought, when drought and plagues for weary men the birth of him hath wrought, and that unhappy light of his hath saddened all the heaven. but nought from turnus' hardy heart was high hope ever driven to take the strand of them and thrust those comers from the shore: eager he chid, hot-heart, with words men's courage he upbore: "lo, now your prayers have come about, that hand meet hand in strife, and mars is in the brave man's hand: let each one's home and wife be in his heart! call ye to mind those mighty histories, the praises of our father-folk! come, meet them in the seas, amid their tangle, while their feet yet totter on the earth: for fortune helpeth them that dare." so saying, he turneth in his mind with whom on these to fall, and unto whom to leave meanwhile the leaguering of the wall. meanwhile Æneas from his ships high-built his folk doth speed ashore by bridges: many men no less the back-draught heed of the spent seas, and, trusting shoals, they make the downward leap; and others slide adown the oars. tarchon the shore doth sweep, espying where the waves break not, nor back the sea doth roar, but where the sea-flood harmlessly with full tide swims ashore, and thither straight he lays his keels, and prays unto his folk: "o chosen, on the stark oars lay! now up unto the stroke; bear on the ships, and with your beaks cleave ye this foeman's earth; and let the very keels themselves there furrow them their berth. on such a haven nought i heed, though ship and all we break, if once we gain the land." therewith, as such a word he spake, his fellows rise together hard on every shaven tree, in mind to bear their ships befoamed up on the latin lea, until their tynes are high and dry, and fast is every keel unhurt: save, tarchon, thine alone, that winneth no such weal; for on the shallows driven aground, on evil ridge unmeet, she hangeth balanced a long while, and doth the waters beat; then, breaking, droppeth down her men amidmost of the waves, entangled in the wreck of oars, and floating thwarts and staves; and in the back-draught of the seas their feet are caught withal. no dull delay holds turnus back; but fiercely doth he fall, with all his host, on them of troy, and meets them on the strand. the war-horns sing. Æneas first breaks through the field-folk's band, --fair omen of the fight--and lays the latin folk alow. thero he slays, most huge of men, whose own heart bade him go against Æneas: through the links of brass the sword doth fare, and through the kirtle's scaly gold, and wastes the side laid bare. then lichas smites he, ripped erewhile from out his mother dead, and hallowed, phoebus, unto thee, because his baby head had 'scaped the steel: nor far from thence he casteth down to die hard cisseus, gyas huge, who there beat down his company with might of clubs; nought then availed that herculean gear, nor their stark hands, nor yet their sire melampus, though he were alcides' friend so long as he on earth wrought heavy toil. lo pharo! while a deedless word he flingeth mid the broil, the whirring of the javelin stays within his shouting mouth. thou, cydon, following lucklessly thy new delight, the youth clytius, whose first of fallow down about his cheeks is spread art well-nigh felled by dardan hand, and there hadst thou lain dead, at peace from all the many loves wherein thy life would stray, had not thy brethren's serried band now thrust across the way e'en phorcus' seed: sevenfold of tale and sevenfold spears they wield: but some thereof fly harmless back from helm-side and from shield, the rest kind venus turned aside, that grazing past they flew; but therewithal Æneas spake unto achates true: "reach me my shafts: not one in vain my right hand now shall speed against rutulians, of all those that erst in ilian mead stood in the bodies of the greeks." then caught he a great spear and cast it, and it flew its ways the brazen shield to shear of mæon, breaking through his mail, breaking his breast withal: alcanor is at hand therewith, to catch his brother's fall with his right hand; but through his arm the spear without a stay flew hurrying on, and held no less its straight and bloody way, and by the shoulder-nerves the hand hung down all dead and vain. then numitor, his brother's spear caught from his brother slain, falls on Æneas; yet to smite the mighty one in face no hap he had, but did the thigh of great achates graze. clausus of cures, trusting well in his young body's might, now cometh, and with stiff-wrought spear from far doth dryops smite beneath the chin; home went its weight, and midst his shouting's birth from rent throat snatched both voice and life, and prone he smote the ear and from his mouth abundantly shed forth the flood of gore. three thracians also, men whose stem from boreas came of yore, three whom their father idas sent, and ismara their land, in various wise he fells. and now halesus comes to hand, and his aruncans: neptune's seed now cometh thrusting in, messapus, excellent of horse. hard strife the field to win! on this side and on that they play about ausonia's door. as whiles within the mighty heaven the winds are making war, and equal heart they have thereto, and equal might they wield: yields none to none, nor yields the rack, nor aught the waters yield; long hangs the battle; locked they stand, all things are striving then: not otherwise the trojan host and host of latin men meet foot to foot, and man to man, close pressing in the fray. but in another place, where erst the torrent in its way had driven the rolling rocks along and torn trees of the banks, did pallas see the arcadian folk, unused to fight in ranks of footmen, turn their backs before the latins in the chase, since they forsooth had left their steeds for roughness of the place: wherefore he did the only deed that failing fortune would, striving with prayers and bitter words to make their valour good: "where flee ye, fellows? ah, i pray, by deeds that once were bold, by name of king evander dear, by glorious wars of old, by my own hope of praise that springs to mate my father's praise, trust not your feet! with point and edge ye needs must cleave your ways amidst the foe. where yon array of men doth thickest wend, thither our holy fatherland doth you and pallas send: no gods weigh on us; mortal foes meet mortal men today; as many hands we have to use, as many lives to pay. lo, how the ocean shuts us in with yonder watery wall! earth fails for flight--what! seaward then, or troyward shall we fall?" thus said, forthwith he breaketh in amid the foeman's press, whom lagus met the first of all, by fate's unrighteousness drawn thitherward: him, while a stone huge weighted he upheaves, he pierceth with a whirling shaft just where the backbone cleaves the ribs atwain, and back again he wrencheth forth the spear set mid the bones: nor him the more did hisbo take unware, though that he hoped; for pallas next withstood him, rushing on all heedless-wild at that ill death his fellow fair had won, and buried all his sword deep down amid his wind-swelled lung. then sthenelus he meets, and one from ancient rhoetus sprung, anchemolus, who dared defile his own stepmother's bed. ye also on rutulian lea twin daucus' sons lay dead, larides, thymber; so alike, o children, that by nought your parents knew you each from each, and sweet the error thought. but now to each did pallas give a cruel marking-sign; for, thymber, the evandrian sword smote off that head of thine: and thy lopped right, larides, seeks for that which was its lord, the half-dead fingers quiver still and grip unto the sword. but now the arcadians cheered by words, beholding his great deed, the mingled shame and sorrow arm and 'gainst the foeman lead. then pallas thrusteth rhoeteus through a-flitting by in wain; and so much space, so much delay, thereby did ilus gain, for 'twas at ilus from afar that he his spear had cast but rhoeteus met it on the road fleeing from you full fast, best brethren, teuthras, tyres there: down from the car rolled he, and with the half-dead heel of him beat the rutulian lea. as when amidst the summer-tide he gains the wished-for breeze, the shepherd sets the sparkled flame amid the thicket trees, the wood's heart catches suddenly, the flames spread into one, and fearful o'er the meadows wide doth vulcan's army run, while o'er the flames the victor sits and on their joy looks down. no less the valour of thy folk unto a head was grown to help thee, pallas: but behold, halesus, fierce in field, turns on the foe, and gathers him 'neath cover of his shield. ladon, pheres, demodocus, all these he slaughtered there; with gleaming sword he lopped the hand strymonius did uprear against his throat: in thoas' face withal a stone he sent, and drave apart the riven bones with blood and brains all blent halesus' sire, the wise of fate, in woods had hidden him; but when that elder's whitening eyes at last in death did swim, fate took halesus, hallowing him to king evander's blade: for pallas aimeth at him now, when such wise he had prayed: "o father tiber, grant this spear, that herewithal i shake, through hard halesus' breast forthwith a happy way may take; so shall thine oak-tree have the arms, the warrior's battle-spoil." the god heard: while halesus shields imaon in the broil, to that arcadian shaft he gives his luckless body bared. but nought would lausus, lord of war, let all his host be scared, e'en at the death of such a man: first abas doth he slay, who faces him, the very knot and holdfast of the play. then fall arcadia's sons to field; felled is etruria's host, and ye, o teucrian bodies, erst by grecian death unlost. then meet the hosts with lords well-matched and equal battle-might; the outskirts of the battle close, nor 'mid the press of fight may hand or spear move: busy now is pallas on this side, lausus on that; nor is the space between their ages wide, those noble bodies: and both they were clean forbid of fate return unto their lands: but he who rules olympus great would nowise suffer them to meet themselves to end the play, the doom of each from mightier foe abideth each today. but turnus' sister warneth him to succour lausus' war, the gracious goddess: straight he cleaves the battle in his car, and when he sees his folk, cries out: "'tis time to leave the fight! lone against pallas do i fare, pallas is mine of right; i would his sire himself were here to look upon the field." he spake, and from the space forbid his fellow-folk did yield, but when the rutuli were gone, at such a word of pride amazed, the youth on turnus stares, and lets his gaze go wide o'er the huge frame, and from afar with stern eyes meets it all, and 'gainst the words the tyrant spake such words from him there fall: "now shall i win me praise of men for spoiling of a king, or for a glorious death: my sire may outface either thing: forbear thy threats." he spake, and straight amid the war-field drew; but cold in that arcadian folk therewith the heart-blood grew; while turnus from his war-wain leapt to go afoot to fight: and as a lion sees afar from off his watch burg's height a bull at gaze amid the mead with battle in his thought, and flies thereto, so was the shape of coming turnus wrought. but now, when pallas deemed him come within the cast of spear, he would be first, if fate perchance should help him swift to dare, and his less might, and thus he speaks unto the boundless sky: "now by my father's guesting-tide and board thou drew'st anigh, a stranger, o alcides, help this great deed i begin! his bloody gear from limbs half-dead let turnus see me win; and on the dying eyes of him be victor's image pressed." alcides heard the youth, and 'neath the inmost of his breast he thrust aback a heavy groan, and empty tears he shed: but to his son in kindly wise such words the father said: "his own day bideth every man; short space that none may mend is each man's life: but yet by deeds wide-spreading fame to send, man's valour hath this work to do: 'neath troy's high-builded wall how many sons of god there died: yea there he died withal, sarpedon my own progeny. yea too and turnus' fates are calling him: he draweth nigh his life's departing-gates." he spake and turned his eyes away from fields of rutuli: but pallas with great gathered strength the spear from him let fly, and drew therewith from hollow sheath his sword all eager-bright. the spear flew gleaming where the arms rise o'er the shoulder's height, smote home, and won its way at last through the shield's outer rim, and turnus' mighty body reached and grazed the flesh of him. long turnus shook the oak that bore the bitter iron head, then cast at pallas, and withal a word he cast and said: "let see now if this shaft of mine may better win a pass!" he spake; for all its iron skin and all its plates of brass, for all the swathing of bull-hides that round about it went, the quivering spear smote through the shield and through its midmost rent and through the mailcoat's staying fence the mighty breast did gain. then at the spear his heart-blood warmed did pallas clutch in vain; by one way and the same his blood and life, away they fare; but down upon the wound he rolled, and o'er him clashed his gear, and dying there his bloody mouth sought out the foeman's sod: whom turnus overstrides and says: "hearken arcadians, bear ye back evander words well learned: pallas i send him back again, dealt with as he hath earned, if there be honour in a tomb, or solace in the earth, i grudge it not--Ænean guests shall cost him things of worth." so spake he, and his left foot then he set upon the dead, and tore the girdle thence away full heavy fashionèd, and wrought with picture of a guilt; that youthful company slain foully on one wedding-night: bloody the bride-beds lie. this clonus son of eurytus had wrought in plenteous gold, now turnus wears it triumphing, merry such spoil to hold.-- --o heart of man, unlearned in fate and what the days may hide, unlearned to be of measure still when swelled with happy tide! the time shall come when turnus wealth abundantly would pay for pallas whole, when he shall loathe that spoil, that conquering day. but pallas' folk with plenteous groans and tears about him throng, and laid upon his battle-shield they bear the dead along. o thou, returning to thy sire, great grief and glory great, whom one same day gave unto war and swept away to fate, huge heaps of death rutulian thou leav'st the meadow still. and now no rumour, but sure word of such a mighty ill flies to Æneas, how his folk within the deathgrip lie, and how time pressed that he should aid the teucrians turned to fly. so all things near with sword he reaps, and wide he drives the road amid the foe with fiery steel, seeking thee, turnus proud, through death new wrought; and pallas now, evander, all things there live in his eyes: the boards whereto that day he first drew near, a stranger, and those plighted hands. four youths of sulmo wrought, and the like tale that ufens erst into the world's life brought, he takes alive to slay them--gifts for that great ghost's avail, and with a shower of captive blood to slake the dead men's bale. then next at magus from afar the shaft of bane he sent; deftly he cowered, and on above the quivering weapon went, and clasping both Æneas' knees thus spake the suppliant one: "o by thy father's ghost, by hope iulus hath begun, i pray thee for my sire and son my life yet let me win: i have a high house, silver wrought is dug adown therein, a talent's weight, and store therewith of wrought and unwrought gold: this will not snatch the victory from out the teucrian's hold, nor can the life of one alone such mighty matter make." so he, but answering thereunto this word Æneas spake: "thy gold and silver talent's weight, whereof thou tell'st such store, spare for thy sons! thy turnus slew such chaffering of war when pallas' death he brought about a little while ago; so deems my sire anchises' ghost, iulus deemeth so." then with his left he caught the helm and hilt-deep thrust the blade into the back-bent throat of him e'en as the prayer he prayed. not far hence was hæmonides, phoebus' and trivia's priest, the holy fillets on his brow, his glory well increased with glorious arms, and glittering gear shining on every limb. him the king chaseth o'er the field, and, standing over him, hides him in mighty dusk of death; whose gleanèd battle-gear, a gift to thee, o battle-god, back doth serestus bear. then cæculus of vulcan's stem the hedge of battle fills, and umbro cometh unto fight down from the marsian hills. on them his rage the dardan child let slip. but next his blade anxur's left hand and orbèd shield upon the meadow laid. proud things had anxur said, and deemed his word was matched by might, and so perchance he raised his soul up to the heavenly height, and hoary eld he looked to see, and many a peaceful year. tarquitius, proud of heart and soul, in glittering battle-gear, whom the nymph dryope of yore to woodland faunus gave, came thrusting thwart his fiery way; his back-drawn spear he drave, pinning his mail-coat unto him, and mighty mass of shield: his vainly-praying head, that strove with words, upon the field he swept therewith, and rolling o'er his carcase warm with death, above him from the heart of hate such words as this he saith: "lie there, fear-giver! no more now thy mother most of worth shall load thee with thy father's tomb, or lay thee in the earth: thou shalt be left to birds of prey, or deep adown the flood the waves shall bear thee, and thy wounds be hungry fishes' food." next lucas and antæus stout, foremost of turnus' men, he chaseth: numa staunch of heart and yellow camers then; a man from high-souled volscens sprung, field-wealthiest one of all ausonian men, and lord within the hushed amyclæ's wall. e'en as Ægæon, who they say had arms an hundred-fold, and hundred hands, from fifty mouths and maws the wildfire rolled, what time in arms against the bolts from jove of heaven that flew he clashed upon the fifty shields and fifty sword-points drew: so conquering, over all the mead Æneas' fury burns when once his sword is warm with death: and now, behold, he turns upon niphæus' four-yoked steeds, and breasts their very breath. but when they see him striding far, and threatening doom and death, in utter dread they turn about, and rushing back again, they shed their master on the earth and shoreward drag the wain. meanwhile with twi-yoked horses white fares lucagus midst men, his brother liger by his side, who holdeth rein as then, and turneth steed, while lucagus the drawn sword whirleth wide. them and their war-rage in no wise Æneas might abide, but on he rushes, showing huge with upheaved threatening shaft. then liger cast a word at him: "no steeds of diomede thou seest, and no achilles' car or phrygian fields: this hour shall end thy life-days and the war here on this earth." such words as these from witless liger stray, but nought in bandying of words the man of troy would play; rather his mighty battle-shaft he hurled against the foe, while lucagus his horses drives with spear-butt, bending low over the lash, and setteth forth his left foot for the fight. beneath the bright shield's nether rim the spear-shaft takes its flight, piercing his groin upon the left: then shaken from his wain, he tumbleth down and rolleth o'er in death upon the plain. to whom a fierce and bitter word godly Æneas said: "ho, lucagus! no dastard flight of steeds thy car betrayed, no empty shadow turned them back from facing of the foe, but thou thyself hast leapt from wheel and let the yoke-beasts go." he spake, and caught the reins withal; slipped down that wretched one his brother, and stretched forth the hands that little deed had done: "by thee, by those that brought thee forth so glorious unto day, o trojan hero, spare my life, and pity me that pray!" Æneas cut athwart his speech: "not so erewhile ye spake. die! ill it were for brother thus a brother to forsake." and in his breast the sword he drave home to the house of breath. thus through the meads the dardan duke set forth the tale of death, with rage as of the rushing flood, or whirl-storm of the wind. at last they break forth into field and leave their camp behind, ascanius and the lads of war in vain beleaguerèd. meanwhile to juno jupiter set forth the speech and said: "o thou who art my sister dear and sweetest wife in one, 'tis venus as thou deemedst, (nought thy counsel is undone), who upholds trojan might forsooth: they lack fight-eager hand, they lack fierce heart and steady soul the peril to withstand!" to whom spake juno, meek of mood: "and why, o fairest lord, dost thou so vex me sad at heart, fearing thy heavy word? but in my soul were love as strong as once it used to be, and should be, thou though all of might wouldst ne'er deny it me, that turnus i should draw away from out the midst of fight, that i might keep him safe to bless his father daunus' sight. now let him die, let hallowed blood the teucrian hate atone: and yet indeed his name and race from blood of ours hath grown; he from pilumnus is put forth: yea, good gifts furthermore his open hand full oft hath piled within thine holy door." to whom air-high olympus' king short-worded answer made: "if for the youth who soon must fall respite of death is prayed, and tarrying-time, nor aught thou deem'st but that my doom must stand, then carry turnus off by flight, snatch him from fate at hand. so far thy longing may i please: but if a greater grace lurk 'neath thy prayers, and thou hast hope to change the battle's face, and turmoil everything once more, thou feedest hope in vain." then juno weeping: "ah, but if thy heart should give the gain thy voice begrudgeth! if 'twere doomed that he in life abide-- but ill-end dogs the sackless man, unless i wander wide away from sooth--ah, yet may i be mocked of fear-wrought lies, and may thy rede as thou hast might be turned to better wise." she spake the word and cast herself adown from heaven the high, girt round with rain-cloud, driving on a storm amid the sky, and that laurentian leaguer sought and ilium's hedge of fight. and there she fashioned of the cloud a shadow lacking might: with image of Æneas' shape the wondrous show is drest, she decks it with the dardan spear and shield, and mocks the crest of that all-godlike head, and gives a speech that empty flows, sound without soul, and counterfeits the gait wherewith he goes,-- as dead men's images they say about the air will sweep, or as the senses weary-drenched are mocked with dreams of sleep. but in the forefront of the fight war-merry goes the thing, and cries the warrior on with words and weapons brandishing: on whom falls turnus, and afar hurleth his whizzing spear: then turns the phantom back about and fleeth as in fear. then verily when turnus deemed he saw Æneas fled. with all the emptiness of hope his headlong heart he fed: "where fleest thou, Æneas, then? why leave thy plighted bride? this hand shall give thee earth thou sought'st so far across the tide." so cries he following, brandishing his naked sword on high, nor sees what wise adown the wind his battle-bliss goes by. by hap a ship was moored anear unto a ledgy stone, with ladders out and landing-bridge all ready to let down, that late the king orsinius bore from clusium o'er the sea; and thereinto the hurrying lie, Æneas' shape, did flee, and down its lurking-places dived: but turnus none the more hangs back, but beating down delay swift runs the high bridge o'er. scarce on the prow, ere juno brake the mooring-rope atwain, and rapt the sundered ship away o'er back-draught of the main. and there afar from fight is he on whom Æneas cries, still sending down to death's abode an host of enemies; nor any more the image then will seek his shape to shroud, but flying upward blendeth him amid the mirky cloud. meanwhile, as midmost of the sea the flood bore turnus on, blind to the deed that was in hand, thankless for safety won, he looketh round, and hands and voice starward he reacheth forth: "almighty father, deemedst thou my guilt so much of worth? and wouldst thou have me welter through such woeful tide of pain? whence? whither? why this flight? what man shall i come back again? ah, shall i see laurentum's walls, or see my camp once more? what shall betide the fellowship that followed me to war, whom i have left? o misery to die the death alone! i see them scattered even now, i hear the dying groan. what do i? what abyss of earth is deep enough to hide the wretched man? but ye, o winds, be merciful this tide, on rocks, on stones--i, turnus, thus adore you with good will-- drive ye the ship, or cast it up on syrtes' shoals of ill, where rutuli and tell-tale fame shall never find me out!" hither and thither as he spake his spirit swam in doubt, shall he now fall upon the point, whom shame hath witless made, amid most of his very ribs driving the bitter blade; or casting him amid the waves swim for the hollow strand, and give his body back again to sworded teucrian band? thrice either deed he fell to do, and thrice for very ruth the mightiest juno stayed his hand and held aback his youth. so 'neath a fair and following wind he glideth o'er the sea, and to his father's ancient walls is ferried presently. meanwhile, by jupiter's command, mezentius props the fight, and all ablaze he falleth on the gladdened teucrian might: the tuscan host rush up, and all upon one man alone press on with hatred in their hearts and cloud of weapons thrown. yet is he as a rock thrust out amid the mighty deep to meet the raging of the winds, bare to the water's sweep. all threats of sea and sky it bears, all might that they may wield, itself unmoved. dolichaon's son he felleth unto field, one hebrus; latagus with him, and palmus as he fled. but latagus with stone he smites, a mighty mountain-shred, amid the face and front of him, and palmus, slow to dare, sends rolling ham-strung: but their arms he biddeth lausus bear upon his back, and with their crests upon his helm to wend. phrygian evanthes then he slays, and mimas, whiles the friend like-aged of paris; unto day and amycus his sire theano gave him on the night that she who went with fire, e'en cisseus' daughter, paris bore: now paris lies asleep in ancient troy; laurentian land unknown doth mimas keep. tis as a boar by bite of hounds from the high mountains driven, who on pine-nursing vesulus a many years hath thriven, or safe in that laurentian marsh long years hath had his home, and fed adown the reedy wood; now mid the toil-nets come he stands at bay, and foameth fierce, and bristleth up all o'er, and none hath heart to draw anigh and rouse the wrath of war, but with safe shouts and shafts aloof they press about the place; while he, unhastening, unafeard, doth everywhither face, gnashing his teeth and shaking off the spears from out his back. so they, who 'gainst mezentius there just wrath do nowise lack, lack heart to meet him hand to hand with naked brandished blade, but clamour huge and weapon-shot from far upon him laid. from that old land of corythus erewhile had acron come, a grecian man; half-wed he passed the threshold of his home: whom when mezentius saw afar turmoiling the mid fight, purple with plumes and glorious web his love for him had dight; e'en as a lion hunger-pinched about the high-fenced fold, when ravening famine driveth him, if he by chance behold some she-goat, or a hart that thrusts his antlers up in air, merry he waxeth, gaping fierce his mane doth he uprear, and hugs the flesh he lies upon; a loathsome sea of blood washes the horror of his mouth. so merry runs mezentius forth amid the press of foes, and hapless acron falls, and pounds the black earth mid his throes with beat of heel; staining the shaft that splintered in the wound. scorn had he then orodes swift to fell unto the ground amidst his flight, or give blind bane with unknown cast afar; he ran to meet him man to man, prevailing in the war by nought of guile or ambushing, but by the dint of blade. foot on the fallen then he set, and strength to spear-shaft laid: "fellows, here tall orodes lies, no thrall in battle throng." then merrily his following folk shout forth their victory-song: yet saith the dying: "whosoe'er thou art, thou winnest me not unavenged: thy joy grows old: the like fate looks for thee, and thou the self-same lea shalt hold within a little while!" to whom mezentius spake, his wrath crossed by a gathering smile: "die thou! the father of the gods, the earth-abider's lord, will look to me." he drew the spear from out him at the word, and iron slumber fell on him, hard rest weighed down his eyes, and shut were they for evermore by night that never dies. now cædicus slays alcathous; sacrator ends outright hydaspes; then parthenius stark and orses fall in fight by rapo; and messapus fells strong clonius, and the son, of lycaon; one laid alow, by his own steeds cast down, one foot to foot. lo agis now, the lycian, standeth forth, whom valerus, that nothing lacked his grandsire's might and worth, o'erthroweth: salius thronius slays; nealces, salius; for skilled he was in dart and shaft, far-flying, perilous. now grief and death in mavors' scales even for each they lie; victors and vanquished, here they slay, and here they fall and die, but neither these nor those forsooth had fleeing in their thought. but in jove's house the gods had ruth of rage that nothing wrought, and such a world of troubles sore for men of dying days; on this side venus, and on that saturnian juno gaze; and wan tisiphonè runs wild amid the thousands there. but lo, mezentius fierce and fell, shaking a mighty spear, stalks o'er the plain.--lo now, how great doth great orion sweep afoot across the nereus' field, the mid sea's mightiest deep, cleaving his way, raised shoulder-high above the billowy wash; or when from off the mountain-top he bears an ancient ash his feet are on the soil of earth, the cloud-rack hides his head: --e'en so in mighty battle-gear afield mezentius sped. but now Æneas, noting him adown the battle-row, wendeth to meet him; undismayed he bideth for his foe, facing the great-souled man, and stands unmoved, a mighty mass: then measuring the space between if spear thereby may pass: "right hand," he cries, "my very god, and fleeing spear i shake, to aid! thee, lausus, clad in arms that i today shall take from body of the sea-thief here i vow for gift of war over Æneas slain." he spake, and hurled the shaft afar loud whistling: from the shield it glanced, and flying far and wide smit glory-great antores down through bowels and through side: antores friend of hercules, who, erst from argos come, clung to evander, and abode in that italian home: there laid to earth by straying wound he looketh on the sky, with lovely argos in his heart, though death be come anigh. then good Æneas cast his spear, and through the hollow round of triple brass, through linen skin, through craftsmanship inwound, with threefold bull-hides, pierced the shaft, and in the groin did lie, nor further could its might avail. then swiftly from his thigh Æneas caught his glaive, and glad the tyrrhene blood to see, set on upon his wildered foe hot-heart and eagerly. but lausus, by his father's love sore moved, did all behold, and groaned aloud, while o'er his cheeks a heavy tear-flood rolled --ah, i will tell of thine ill-fate and deeds that thou hast done; if any troth in stories told may reach from yore agone, my speech, o unforgotten youth, in nowise shalt thou lack-- the father with a halting foot hampered and spent drew back, still dragging on the foeman's spear that hung amid his shield; but mingling him in battle-rush the son took up the field, and as Æneas' right hand rose well laden with the blow he ran beneath, bore off the sword, and stayed the eager foe, and with a mighty shout behind his fellows follow on, while shielded by his son's defence the father gat him gone, and shafts they cast and vex the foe with weapon shot afar. mad wroth Æneas grows, but bides well covered from the war; and as at whiles the clouds come down with furious pelt of hail, and every driver of the plough the beaten lea doth fail, and every one that works afield, while safe the traveller lurks in castle of the river-bank or rock-wrought cloister-works, the while the rain is on the earth, that they may wear the day when once again the sun comes back;--so on Æneas lay the shaft-storm, so the hail of fight loud thundering he abode, and lausus with the wrath of words, lausus with threats did load. "ah, whither rushest thou to die, and darest things o'ergreat? thy love betrays thine heedless heart." no less, the fool of fate, he rusheth on, till high and fierce the tide of wrath doth win o'er heart of that dardanian duke, and now the parcæ spin lausus' last thread: for his stark sword Æneas drives outright through the young body, hiding it hilt-deep therein from light it pierced the shield and glittering gear wherewith he threatened war, and kirtle that his mother erst with gold had broidered o'er, and flooded all his breast with blood; and woeful down the wind his spirit sought the under-world, and left his corpse behind. but when anchises' son beheld the face of that dead man, his face that in a wondrous wise grew faded out and wan, groaning for ruth his hand therewith down toward him did he move, for o'er his soul the image came of his own father's love: "o boy, whom all shall weep, what then for such a glorious deed, what gift can good Æneas give, thy bounteous valour's meed? keep thou the arms thou joyedst in. i give thy body here unto thy father's buried ghosts, if thou thereof hast care. but let this somewhat solace thee for thine unhappy death, by great Æneas' hand thou diest." then chiding words he saith unto his fellows hanging back, and lifteth up the dead from off the lea, where blood defiled the tresses of his head. meanwhile the father by the wave that ripples tiber's breast with water staunched his bleeding hurt and gave his body rest, leaning against a tree-trunk there: high up amid the tree hangeth his brazen helm; his arms lie heavy on the lea; the chosen war-youths stand about: he, sick and panting now, nurseth his neck, and o'er his breast his combed-down beard lets flow. much about lausus did he ask, and sore to men he spake to bid him back, or warning word from his sad sire to take. but lausus dead his weeping folk were bearing on his shield; a mighty heart, to mighty hand the victory must he yield the father's soul foretaught of ill, afar their wail he knew, and fouled his hoar hair with the dust, and both his hands upthrew toward heaven aloft; then clinging fast unto that lifeless one: "what lust," saith he, "of longer life so held my heart, o son, that thee, my son, i suffered thus to bare thee to the bane instead of me; that i, thy sire, health of thy hurts i gain, life of thy death! ah now at last my exile is become a woe unto my weary heart; yea, now the wound goes home. for i am he who stained thy name, o son, with guilt of mine, thrust forth by fate from fatherland and sceptre of my line: i should have paid the penalty unto my country's hate, and given up my guilty soul to death, my very fate. i live: i leave not sons of men, nor let the light go by-- --yet will i leave them." so he spake, and on his halting thigh rose up, and, howsoe'er his hurt might drag his body down, unvanquished yet, he called his horse, his very pleasures crown, and glory; who had borne him forth victorious from all war; and thus he spake unto the beast that seemed to sorrow sore: "rhoebus, o'erlong--if aught be long to men that pass away-- have we twain lived: those bloody spoils shalt thou bring home today, and carrying Æneas' head avenge my lausus' woe. or if our might no more may make a road whereby to go, thou too shalt fall: i deem indeed thou, stout-heart, hast no will to suffer other men's commands, or trojan joy fulfil." and therewithal he backeth him, and as he used of old settleth his limbs: good store of shafts his either hand doth hold: his head is glittering o'er with brass, and horse-hair shags his crest. so midmost of the fight he bears, and ever in his breast swelleth the mighty sea of shame and mingled miseries. and now across the fight his voice thrice on Æneas cries. Æneas knew it well forsooth, and joyfully he prayed: "so grant the father of the gods! so may apollo aid that thou may'st fall on me in fight!" so much he spake, and went his way to meet the foeman's shaft; but spake the other: "bitter wretch, who took'st away my son, why fright me now? by that one way my heart might be undone: no death i dread, no god that is, in battle would i spare. enough--i come to thee to die; but first these gifts i bear." he spake the word, and 'gainst the foe a dart withal he cast, and shaft on shaft he lays on him about him flitting fast, wide circling; but the golden boss through all the storm bore out thrice while Æneas faceth him he rides the ring about, casting the weapons from his hand; and thrice the trojan lord bears round a mighty thicket set in brazen battle-board. but when such tarrying wearieth him, such plucking forth of spears, and standing in such ill-matched fight the heart within him wears, turning the thing o'er manywise, he breaketh forth to speed a shaft amid the hollow brow of that war-famous steed: then beating of the air with hoof uprears the four-foot thing and with his fallen master falls, and 'neath his cumbering weighs down his shoulders brought to earth, and heavy on him lies. then trojan men and latin men with shouting burn the skies, and swift Æneas runneth up and pulleth forth his sword, and crieth o'er him: "where is now mezentius, eager lord? where is the fierce heart?" unto whom the tuscan spake, when he got sense again, and breathed the air, and o'er him heaven did see: "o bitter foe, why chidest thou? why slayest thou with words? slay me and do no wrong! death-safe i came not mid the swords; and no such covenant of war for us my lausus bought: one thing i pray, if vanquished men of grace may gain them aught, let the earth hide me! well i know how bitter and how nigh my people's wrath draws in on me: put thou their fury by, and in the tomb beside my son i pray thee let me lie." he saith, and open-eyed receives the sword-point in his throat, and o'er his arms in waves of blood his life and soul doth float. book xi. argument. truce is made for the burying of the dead: the latins take counsel of peace or war. camilla's deeds and death. meanwhile aurora risen up from bed of ocean wends, and king Æneas, though his grief bids him in burying friends to wear the day, and though his heart the death of men dismays, yet to the gods of dawning-tide the worship duly pays. from a great oak on every side the branches doth he shear, and setteth on a mound bedight in gleaming battle-gear the spoils of king mezentius: a gift to thee it stood, o might of war! thereon he set the crest with blood bedewed, the broken shafts, the mail-coat pierced amid the foughten field with twice six dints: on the left arm he tied the brazen shield, and round about the neck he hung the ivory-hilted sword. then to his friends, a mighty hedge of duke and battle-lord, he turned, and to their joyous hearts these words withal he said: "the most is done, and for the rest let all your fears lie dead: lo here the first-fruits! battle-spoil won from a haughty king: lo this is all mezentius now, mine own hands' fashioning. now toward the king and latin walls all open lies the way; up hearts, for war! and let your hope foregrip the battle-day, that nought of sloth may hinder you, or take you unaware, when gods shall bid the banners up, and forth with men ye fare from out of camp,--that craven dread clog not your spirits then: meanwhile give we unto the earth these our unburied men, the only honour they may have in nether acheron. come, fellows, to those noble souls who with their blood have won a country for us, give those gifts, the last that they may spend. and first unto evander's town of sorrow shall i send that pallas, whom, in nowise poor of valour or renown, the black day reft away from us in bitter death to drown." with weeping eyes he drew aback, e'en as the word he said, unto the threshold of the place where pallas, cold and dead, the old acoetes watched, who erst of that parrhasian king, evander, was the shield-bearer, but now was following his well-belovèd foster-child in no such happy wise; but round him were the homemen's band and trojan companies, and ilian wives with loosened locks in guise of sorrow sore. but when Æneas entereth now beneath the lofty door from beaten breast great moan they cast up to the starry heaven; and wailing of their woeful cheer through all the house is driven. the king himself when he beheld the pillowed head at rest, the snow-white face, the open wound wrought on the smooth young breast by that ausonian spear, so spake amid his gathered tears: "o boy bewept, despite the gifts my happy fortune bears doth she still grudge it thee to see my kingdom glorious, or come a victor back again unto thy father's house? not such the promise that i gave on that departing day unto thy father, whose embrace then sped me on my way to mighty lordship, while his fear gave forth the warning word that with fierce folk i had to do, hard people of the sword. now he, deceived by empty hope, belike pours forth the prayer, and pileth up the gifts for nought upon the altars fair, while we--in woe with honours vain--about his son we stand, dead now, and no more owing aught to any heavenly hand. unhappy, thou shalt look upon thy dead unhappy son! is this the coming back again? is this the triumph won? is this my solemn troth?--yet thee, evander, bides no sight of craven beat with shameful wounds, nor for the saved from fight shalt thou but long for dreadful death.--woe's me, ausonian land! woe's me, iulus, what a shield is perished from thine hand!" such wise he wept him, and bade raise the hapless body dead, and therewithal a thousand men, his war-hosts' flower, he sped to wait upon him on the way with that last help of all, and be between his father's tears: forsooth a solace small of mighty grief; a debt no less to that sad father due. but others speed a pliant bier weaving a wattle through, of limber twigs of berry-bush and boughs of oaken-tree, and shadow o'er the piled-up bed with leafy canopy. so there upon the wild-wood couch adown the youth is laid; e'en as a blossom dropped to earth from fingers of a maid-- the gilliflower's bloom maybe, or jacinth's hanging head, whose lovely colour is not gone, nor shapely fashion fled, although its mother feedeth not, nor earth its life doth hold. thereon two woven webs, all stiff with purple dye and gold, Æneas bringeth forth, which erst with her own fingers fair sidonian dido wrought for him, and, glad the toil to bear, had shot across the web thereof with thin and golden thread: in one of these the youth he wrapped, last honour of the dead, and, woeful, covered up the locks that fire should burn away. and furthermore a many things, laurentum's battle-prey, he pileth up, and bids the spoil in long array be borne: horses and battle-gear he adds, late from the foemen torn: and men's hands had he bound aback whom shortly should he send unto the ghosts; whose blood should slake the fire that ate his friend. and trunks of trees with battle-gear from foemen's bodies won he bids the leaders carry forth, with foemen's names thereon. hapless acoetes, spent with eld, is brought forth; whiles he wears his bosom with the beat of fists, and whiles his face he tears: then forth he falls, and grovelling there upon the ground doth lie. they bring the war-wain now, o'errained with blood of rutuli: Æthon his war-horse comes behind, stripped of his gear of state, mourning he goes, and wets his face with plenteous tear-drops great. some bring the dead man's spear and helm: victorious turnus' hand hath all the rest: then follow on the woeful teucrian band, all tuscans, and arcadian folk with weapons turned about. but now, when all the following folk were got a long way out, Æneas stood and groaned aloud, and spake these words withal: "us otherwhere to other tears the same dread war-fates call; undying greetings go with thee! farewell for evermore, o mightiest pallas!" ending so, to those high walls of war he turned about, and went his ways unto his war-folks' home. but from the latin city now were fair speech-masters come, half-hidden by the olive-boughs, and praying for a grace, that he would give them back their men who lay about the place o'erthrown by steel, and let them lie in earth-mound duly dight; since war was not for men o'ercome, or those that lack the light-- that he would spare his whileome hosts, the kinsmen of his bride. but good Æneas, since their prayer might not be put aside, let all his pardon fall on them, and sayeth furthermore: "o latin folk, what hapless fate hath tangled you in war so great and ill? from us, your friends, why must ye flee away? for perished men, dead thralls of mars, a little peace ye pray, but to your living folk indeed fain would i grant the grace. i had not come here, save that fate here gave me home and place: no battle with your folk i wage; nay, rather 'twas your lord who left my friendship, trusting him to turnus' shield and sword. for turnus to have faced the death were deed of better worth: if he deems hands should end the war and thrust the teucrians forth, 'twere lovely deed to meet my hand amid the rain of strife; then let him live to whom the gods have given the gift of life. go ye, and 'neath your hapless ones lay ye the bale-fire's blaze." he made an end; but still they stood and hushed them in amaze, and each on each they turned their eyes, and every tongue refrained, till elder drances, whom for foe child turnus well had gained by hate-filled charges, took the word, and in such wise began: "o great in fame, in dint of war yet greater, trojan man! what praise of words is left to me to raise thee to the sky? for justice shall i praise thee most, or battle's mastery? now happy, to our fathers' town this answer back we bear, and if good-hap a way thereto may open anywhere, thee to latinus will we knit--let turnus seek his own!-- yea, we shall deem it joy forsooth about your fateful town: to raise the walls, and trojan stones upon our backs to lay." such words he spake, and with one mouth did all men murmur yea. for twice six days they covenant; and in war-sundering peace the teucrians and the latins blent about the woods increase, about the hill-sides wander safe; the smitten ash doth know the ring of steel; the pines that thrust heaven-high they overthrow; nor cease with wedge to cleave the oak and cedar shedding scent, or on the wains to lead away the rowan's last lament. and now the very wingèd fame, with that great grief she bears, filleth evander's town and house, filleth evander's ears; yea, fame, who erst of pallas' deeds in conquered latium told: rush the arcadians to the gates, and as they used of old, snatch up the torches of the dead, and with the long array of flames the acre-cleaving road gleams litten far away: then meeteth them the phrygian crowd, and swells the wailing band; and when the mothers saw them come amid the house-built land, the woeful town they set afire with clamour of their ill. but naught there is hath any might to hold evander still; he comes amidst, and on the bier where pallas lies alow he grovels, and with weeping sore and groaning clings thereto; and scarce from sorrow at the last his speech might win a way: "pallas, this holdeth not the word thou gavest me that day, that thou wouldst ward thee warily in game of bitter mars: though sooth i knew how strong it is, that first fame of the wars; how strong is that o'er-sweet delight of earliest battle won. o wretched schooling of my child! o seeds of war begun, how bitter hard! o prayers of mine, o vows that none would hear of all the gods! o holiest wife, thy death at least was dear, and thou art happy to be gone, not kept for such a tide. but i--my life hath conquered fate, that here i might abide a lonely father. ah, had i gone with the trojan host, to fall amid rutulian spears! were mine the life-days lost; if me, not pallas, this sad pomp were bringing home today!-- yet, teucrians, on your troth and you no blaming would i lay, nor on our hands in friendship joined: 'twas a foreordered load for mine old age: and if my son untimely death abode, 'tis sweet to think he fell amidst the thousand volscians slain, and leading on the men of troy the latin lands to gain. pallas, no better funeral rites mine heart to thee awards than good Æneas giveth thee, and these great phrygian lords, the tyrrhene dukes, the tyrrhene host, a mighty company; while they whom thine own hand hath slain great trophies bear for thee. yea, turnus, thou wert standing there, a huge trunk weapon-clad, if equal age, if equal strength from lapse of years ye had. --but out!--why should a hapless man thus stay the teucrian swords? go, and be mindful to your king to carry these my words: if here by loathèd life i bide, with pallas dead and gone, thy right hand is the cause thereof, which unto sire and son owes turnus, as thou wottest well: no other place there is thy worth and fate may fill. god wot i seek no life-days' bliss, but might i bear my son this tale amid the ghosts of earth!" meanwhile the loveliness of light aurora brought to birth for heartsick men, and brought aback the toil of heart and hand: father Æneas therewithal down on the hollow strand, and tarchon with him, rear the bales; and each man thither bears his dead friend in the ancient guise: beneath the black flame flares, the heaven aloft for reek thereof with night is overlaid: three times about the litten bales in glittering arms arrayed they run the course; three times on steed they beat the earth about those woeful candles of the dead and sing their wailing out; the earth is strewn with tears of men, and arms of men forlorn, and heavenward goes the shout of men and blaring of the horn: but some upon the bale-fires cast gear stripped from latins slain: war-helms, and well-adornèd swords, and harness of the rein, and glowing wheels: but overwell some knew the gifts they brought, the very shields of their dead friends and weapons sped for nought. then oxen manifold to death all round about they slay, and bristled boars, and sheep they snatch from meadows wide away, and hew them down upon the flame; then all the shore about they gaze upon their burning friends, and watch the bale-fires out. nor may they tear themselves away until the dewy night hath turned the heavens about again with gleaming stars bedight. nor less the unhappy latins build upon another stead the bale-fires numberless of tale: but of their warriors dead, a many bodies there they dig into the earth adown, and bear them into neighbouring lands, or back into the town: the rest, a mighty heap of death piled up confusedly, untold, unhonoured, there they burn: then that wide-lying lea glareth with fires that thick and fast keep rising high and high. but when the third dawn drew away cold shadows from the sky, weeping, great heaps of ashes there and blended bones they made, and over them the weight of earth yet warm with fire they laid. but in the houses, in the town of that rich latin king more heavy was the wail, more sore the long-drawn sorrowing: here mothers, wretched fosterers here, here sisters loved and lorn, and sorrowing sore, and lads whose lives from fathers' care were torn, were cursing of the cruel war, and turnus and his bride, "he, he, in arms, he with the sword should play it out," they cried, "who claims the realm of italy and foremost lordship there." and bitter drances weights the scale, and witnessing doth bear that turnus only is called forth, the battle-bidden man. but divers words of many folk on turnus' side yet ran, and he was cloaked about withal by great amata's name, and plenteous signs of battle won upheld his fair-won fame. now midst these stirs and flaming broils the messengers are here from diomedes' mighty walls; and little is the cheer wherewith they bring the tidings back that every whit hath failed their toil and pains: that not a whit hath gold or gifts availed, or mighty prayers, that latin folk some other stay in war must seek, or from the trojan king a craven peace implore. then e'en latinus' counsel failed amid such miseries: the wrath of god, the tombs new-wrought that lay before their eyes, made manifest Æneas come by will of god and fate. therefore a mighty parliament, the firstlings of estate, by his commandment summoned there, unto his house he brings. wherefore they gather, streaming forth unto that house of kings by the thronged ways: there in the midst latinus sitteth now, first-born of years, first lord of rule, with little joyful brow. hereon the men come back again from that Ætolian wall he biddeth tell their errand's speed, what answers did befall, each in their order: thereupon for speech was silence made, and venulus, obeying him, suchwise began and said: "friends, we have looked on diomede and on the argive home, and all the road and every hap thereby have overcome: yea, soothly, we have touched the hand that wracked the ilian earth: argyripa he buildeth there, named from his land of birth, in iapygian garganus, where he hath conquered place. where, entered in, and leave being given to speak before his face, we gave our gifts, and told our names, and whence of lands we were, who waged us war, and for what cause to arpi we must fare. he hearkened and from quiet mouth gave answer thus again: "'o happy folk of saturn's land, time-old ausonian men, what evil hap hath turmoiled you amid your peaceful life, beguiling you to stir abroad the doubtfulness of strife? all we who on the ilian fields with sword-edge compassed guilt, --let be the war-ills we abode before the wall high built; let be the men whom simoïs hides--we o'er the wide world driven, have wrought out pain and punishment for ill deed unforgiven, till priam's self might pity us. witness the star of bane minerva sent; euboea's cliffs, caphereus' vengeful gain! 'scaped from that war, and driven away to countries sundered wide, by proteus' pillars exiled now, must menelaüs bide; and those Ætnæan cyclop-folk ulysses look upon: of pyrrhus's land why tell, or of idomeneus, that won to ruined house; of locrian men cast on the libyan shore? mycenæ's lord, the duke and king of all the argive war, there, on the threshold of his house, his wicked wife doth slay. --asia o'ercome--and in its stead adultery thwart the way!-- ah, the gods' hate, that so begrudged my yearning eyes to meet my father's hearth, my longed-for wife, and calydon the sweet! yea, and e'en now there followeth me dread sight of woeful things: my lost companions wend the air with feathery beat of wings, or wander, fowl on river-floods: o woe's me for their woe! the voices of their weeping wail about the sea-cliffs go. but all these things might i have seen full surely for me stored since then, when on the flesh of god i fell with maddened sword, and on the very venus' hand a wicked wound i won. nay, nay, to no such battles more i pray you drive me on! no war for me with teucrian men since pergamus lies low; nor do i think or joy at all in ills of long ago. the gifts, that from your fatherland unto my throne ye bear, turn toward Æneas. we have stood, time was, spear meeting spear, hand against hand: trust me, who tried, how starkly to the shield he riseth up, how blows the wind when he his spear doth wield. if two such other men had sprung from that idæan home, then dardanus with none to drive to inachus had come, and seen our walls, and greece had mourned reversal of her day. about the walls of stubborn troy, whatso we found of stay, by hector's and Æneas' hands the greekish victory was tarried, and its feet held back through ten years wearing by. both these in heart and weapon-skill were full of fame's increase, but this one godlier: let your hands meet in the plighted peace e'en as ye may: but look to it if sword to sword ye bring.' "thus have ye heard, most gracious one, the answer of the king, and therewithal what thought he had about this heavy war." scarce had he said, when diverse voice of murmuring ran all o'er those troubled mouths of italy: as when the rocks refrain the rapid streams, and sounds arise within the eddies' chain, and with the chatter of the waves the neighbouring banks are filled. but when their minds were soothed and all the wildering voices stilled, the king spake first unto the gods, then thus began to say: "latins, that ye had counselled you hereon before today was both my will, and had been good: no time is this to fall to counsel now, when as we speak the foe besets the wall. with folk of god ill war we wage, lords of the latin town, with all-unconquerable folk; no battles wear them down; yea, beaten never have they heart to cast the sword away. lay down the hope ye had to gain Ætolian war-array; let each man be his proper hope. lo ye, the straits are sore. how all things lie about us now by ruin all toppled o'er, witness of this the eyes of you, the hands of you have won. no man i blame, what valour could hath verily been done: with all the manhood of our land the battle hath been fought: but now what better way herein my doubtful mind hath thought will i set forth, and shortly tell the rede that is in me: hearken! beside the tuscan stream i own an ancient lea, which, toward the sunset stretching far, yea o'er sicanian bounds, aruncans and rutulians sow, working the rough hill grounds with draught of plough, but feeding down the roughest with their sheep. let all this land, and piny place upon the mountain-steep, be yielded for the teucrian peace: the laws let us declare for plighted troth, and bid the men as friends our realm to share. there let them settle and build walls, if thitherward they yearn; but if unto another land their minds are set to turn, and other folk, and all they ask is from our shore to flee, then let us build them twice ten ships from oak of italy, or more if they have men thereto: good store of ship-stuff lies hard by the waves; and they shall show their number and their guise; but toil of men, and brass and gear we for their needs will find. and now to carry these our words, and fast the troth-plight bind, send we an hundred speech-masters, the best of latin land, to seek them thither, stretching forth the peace-bough in the hand, and bearing gifts; a talent's weight of gold and ivory, the throne therewith and welted gown, signs of my lordship high. take open counsel; stay the state so faint and weary grown." then drances, ever full of hate, whom turnus' great renown with bitter stings of envy thwart goaded for evermore; lavish of wealth and fair of speech, but cold-hand in the war; held for no unwise man of redes, a make-bate keen enow; the lordship of whose life, forsooth, from well-born dam did flow, his father being of no account--upriseth now this man, and piles a grievous weight of words with all the wrath he can. "a matter dark to none, and which no voice of mine doth need, thou counsellest on, sweet king: for all confess in very deed they wot whereto our fortune drives; but fear their speech doth hide: let him give liberty of speech, and sink his windy pride, because of whose unhappy fate, and evil life and will-- yea, i will speak, despite his threats to smite me and to kill-- so many days of dukes are done, and all the city lies o'erwhelmed with grief, the while his luck round camps of troy he tries, trusting to flight, and scaring heaven with clashing of his sword. one gift meseems thou shouldest add, most gracious king and lord, unto the many gifts thou bid'st bear to the dardan folk, nor bow thyself to violence, nor lie beneath its yoke. father, thy daughter nobly wed unto a glorious son, and knit the bonds of peace thereby in troth-plight never done. or if such terror and so great upon our hearts doth lie, let us adjure the man himself, and pray him earnestly to yield up this his proper right to country and to king:-- --o why into the jaws of death wilt thou so often fling thine hapless folk, o head and fount of all the latin ill? no safety is in war; all we, for peace we pray thee still, o turnus,--for the only pledge of peace that may abide. i first, whom thou call'st foe (and nought that name i thrust aside), lo, suppliant to thy feet i come! pity thy people then! sink thine high heart, and, beaten, yield; surely we broken men have seen enough of deaths, laid waste enough of field and fold. but if fame stir thee, if thine heart such dauntless valour hold, if such a longing of thy soul a kingly dowry be, dare then, and trust thee in thy might, and breast the enemy. forsooth all we, that turnus here a queenly wife might gain-- we common souls--a heap unwept, unburied, strew the plain. and now for thy part, if in thee some valour hath a place or memory of the ancient wars, go look him in the face who calleth thee to come afield." but turnus' fury at the word outbrake in sudden flame. he groaned, and from his inmost soul this speech of his outpoured: "o drances, when the battle-day calleth for hand and sword, great words good store thou givest still, and first thou comest still when so the sires are called: but why with words the council fill? big words aflying from thee safe, while yet the walls hold good against the foe, nor yet the ditch is swimming with our blood. go, thunder out thy wonted words! lay craven fear on me, o drances, thou, whose hand has heaped the teucrian enemy dead all about, and everywhere has glorified the meads with war-spoil! thou thyself may'st try how lively valour speeds! 'tis well the time: forsooth the road lieth no long way out to find the foe! on every side they hedge the wall about go we against them!--tarriest thou? and is thy mars indeed a dweller in the windy tongue and feet well learned in speed, the same today as yesterday? --i beaten! who of right, o beast! shall brand me beaten man, that seeth the stream of ilian blood swelling the tiber's flow, who seeth all evander's house uprooted, laid alow; who seeth those arcadian men stripped of their battle-gear? big pandarus, stout bitias, found me no craven there, or all the thousand whom that day to tartarus i sent, when i was hedged by foeman's wall and mound's beleaguerment no health in war? fool, sing such song to that dardanian head, and thine own day! cease not to fright all things with mighty dread. cease not to puff up with thy pride the poor twice-conquered folk, and lay upon the latin arms the weight of wordy yoke. yea, sure the chiefs of myrmidons quake at the phrygian sword, tydides and achilles great, the larissæan lord; and aufidus the flood flees back unto the hadriac sea. but now whereas this guile-smith fains to dread mine enmity, and whetteth with a fashioned fear the bitter point of strife-- nay, quake no more! for this mine hand shall spill no such a life; but it shall dwell within thy breast and have thee for a mate.-- now, father, unto thee i turn, and all thy words of weight; if every hope of mending war thou verily lay'st down; if we are utterly laid waste, and, being once overthrown, have fallen dead; if fate no more may turn her feet about, then pray we peace, and deedless hands, e'en as we may, stretch out. yet if of all our ancient worth some little yet abide, i deem him excellent of men, craftsmaster of his tide, a noble heart, who, lest his eyes should see such things befall, hath laid him down in death, and bit the earth's face once for all. and if we still have store of force, and crop of youth unlaid, and many a town, and many a folk of italy to aid; and if across a sea of blood the trojan glory came, and they too died, and over all with one blast and the same the tempest swept; why shameless thus do our first footsteps fail? why quake our limbs, yea e'en before they feel the trumpet's gale? a many things the shifting time, the long laborious days, have mended oft: a many men hath fortune's wavering ways made sport of, and brought back again to set on moveless rock. the Ætolian and his arpi host help not our battle-shock. yet is messapus ours, and ours tolumnius fortunate, and many a duke and many a folk; nor yet shall tarry late the glory of our latin lords and this laurentian lea. here too camilla, nobly born of volscian stock, shall be, leading her companies of horse that blossom brass all o'er. but if the teucrians me alone are calling to the war, and thus 'tis doomed, and i so much the common good withstand-- well, victory hath not heretofore so fled my hated hand that i should falter from the play with such a prize in sight: fain shall i face him, yea, though he outgo achilles' might, and carry battle-gear as good of vulcan's fashioning, for you, and for latinus here, my father and my king, i, turnus, second unto none in valour of old years, devote my life. Æneas calls me only of the peers? --o that he may!--not drances here--the debt of death to pay if god be wroth, or if fame win, to bear the prize away." but while amid their doubtful fate the ball of speech they tossed, contending sore, Æneas moved his camp and battle-host; and lo, amid the kingly house there runs a messenger mid tumult huge, who all the town to mighty dread doth stir, with tidings how the teucrian host and tuscan men of war were marching from the tiber flood, the meadows covering o'er. amazèd are the minds of men; their hearts with tremor shake, and anger stirred by bitter stings is presently awake: in haste and heat they crave for arms; the youth cries on the sword, the fathers mutter sad and weep: with many a wrangling word a mighty tumult goeth up, and toward the sky doth sweep: not otherwise than when the fowl amid the thicket deep sit down in hosts; or when the swans send forth their shrilling song about padusa's fishy flood, the noisy pools among. "come, fellow-folk," cries turnus then, for he the time doth seize, "call ye to council even now, and sit and praise the peace, and let the armed foe wrack the realm!" nor more he said withal, but turned about and went his ways from that high-builded hall. said he: "volusus, lead away the volscian ranks to fight, and rutuli! messapus, thou, afield with horse and knight! thou, coras, with thy brother duke sweep down the level mead. let some make breaches good, and some man the high towers with heed; and let the rest bear arms with me whereso my bidding sends." then straightway, running in all haste, to wall the city wends. sore shaken in his very heart, by that ill tide undone, his council sire latinus leaves and those great redes begun: blaming himself that he took not Æneas of free will, nor gave the town that dardan lord the place of son to fill. now some dig dykes before the gate, or carry stones and stakes, and bloody token of the war the shattering trump awakes. mothers and lads, a motley guard, they crown the threatened wall, for this last tide of grief and care hath voice to cry for all. moreover to the temple-stead, to pallas' house on high, the queen goes forth hedged all about by matron company, and bearing gifts: next unto whom, the cause of all this woe, with lovely eyes cast down to earth, doth maid lavinia go. they enter and with frankincense becloud the temple o'er, and cast their woeful voices forth from out the high-built door: "o weapon-great tritonian maid, o front of war-array, break thou the phrygian robber's sword, and prone his body lay on this our earth; cast him adown beneath our gates high-reared!" now eager turnus for the war his body did begird: the ruddy-gleaming coat of mail upon his breast he did, and roughened him with brazen scales; with gold his legs he hid; with brow yet bare, unto his side he girt the sword of fight, and all a glittering golden man ran down the castle's height. high leaps his heart, his hope runs forth the foeman's host to face: as steed, when broken are the bonds, fleeth the stabling place, set free at last, and, having won the unfenced open mead, now runneth to the grassy grounds wherein the mare-kind feed; or, wont to water, speedeth him in well-known stream to wash, and, wantoning, with uptossed head about the world doth dash, while wave his mane-locks o'er his neck, and o'er his shoulders play. but, leading on the volscian host, there comes across his way camilla now, who by the gate leapt from her steed adown, and in likewise her company, who left their horses lone, and earthward streamed: therewith the queen such words as this gave forth: "turnus, if any heart may trust in manly might and worth, i dare to promise i will meet Æneas' war array, and face the tyrrhene knights alone, and deal them battle-play. let my hand be the first to try the perils of the fight, the while the foot-men townward bide, and hold the walls aright." then turnus answered, with his eyes fixed on the awful maid: "o glory of italian land, how shall the thanks be paid worthy thy part? but since all this thy great soul overflies, to portion out our work today with me indeed it lies. Æneas, as our spies sent out and rumour saith for sure, the guileful one, his light-armed horse hath now sent on before to sweep the lea-land, while himself, high on the hilly ground, across the desert mountain-necks on for our walls is bound. but i a snare now dight for him in woodland hollow way besetting so the straitened pass with weaponed war-array. but bear thy banners forth afield to meet the tyrrhene horse, with fierce messapus joined to thee, the latin battle-force, yea, and tiburtus: thou thyself the leader's care shalt take." so saith he, and with such-like words unto the war doth wake messapus and his brother-lords; then 'gainst the foeman fares. there was a dale of winding ways, most meet for warlike snares and lurking swords: with press of leaves the mountain bent is black that shutteth it on either side: thence leads a scanty track; by strait-jawed pass men come thereto, a very evil road: but thereabove, upon the height, lieth a plain abode, a mountain-heath scarce known of men, a most safe lurking-place, whether to right hand or to left the battle ye will face, or hold the heights, and roll a storm of mighty rocks adown. thither the war-lord wends his way by country road well known, and takes the place, and bideth there within the wood accursed. meanwhile within the heavenly house diana speaketh first to opis of the holy band, the maiden fellowship, and words of grief most sorrowful latonia's mouth let slip: "unto the bitter-cruel war the maid camilla wends, o maid: and all for nought indeed that dearest of my friends is girding her with arms of mine." nought new-born was the love diana owned, nor sudden-sweet the soul in her did move: when metabus, by hatred driven, and his o'erweening pride, fled from privernum's ancient town, his fathers' country-side, companion of his exile there, amid the weapon-game, a babe he had with him, whom he called from her mother's name casmilla, but a little changed, and now camilla grown. he, bearing her upon his breast, the woody ridges lone went seeking, while on every side the sword-edge was about, and all around were scouring wide the weaponed volscian rout. but big lay amasenus now athwart his very road, foaming bank-high, such mighty rain from out of heaven had flowed. there, as he dight him to swim o'er, love of his babe, and fear for burden borne so well-beloved, his footsteps back did bear. at last, as all things o'er he turned, this sudden rede he took: the huge spear that in mighty hand by hap the warrior shook, a close-knit shaft of seasoned oak with many a knot therein, thereto did he his daughter bind, wrapped in the cork-tree's skin, and to the middle of the beam he tied her craftily; then, shaking it in mighty hand, thus spoke unto the sky: "o kind, o dweller in the woods, latonian virgin fair, a father giveth thee a maid, who holds thine arms in air as from the foe she flees to thee: o goddess, take thine own, that now upon the doubtful winds by this mine arm is thrown!" he spake, and from his drawn-back arm cast forth the brandished wood; sounded the waves; camilla flew across the hurrying flood, a lorn thing bound to whistling shaft, and o'er the river won. but metabus, with all the band of chasers pressing on, unto the river gives himself, and reaches maid and spear, and, conquering, from the grassy bank diana's gift doth tear. to roof and wall there took him thence no city of the land, nay, he himself, a wild-wood thing, to none had given the hand; upon the shepherd's lonely hills his life thenceforth he led; his daughter mid the forest-brake, and wild deers' thicket-stead, he nourished on the milk that flowed from herd-mare's untamed breast, and to the maiden's tender lips the wild thing's udder pressed; then from the first of days when she might go upon her feet, the heft of heavy sharpened dart her hand must learn to meet, and from the little maiden's back he hung the shaft and bow; while for the golden hair-clasp fine and long-drawn mantle's flow down from her head, along her back, a tiger's fell there hung. e'en then too from her tender hand a childish shot she flung, the sling with slender smoothened thong she drave about her head to bring the crane of strymon down, or lay the white swan dead. then many a mother all about the tyrrhene towns in vain would wed her to their sons; but she, a maid without a stain, alone in dian's happiness the spear for ever loved, for ever loved the maiden life. --"o had she ne'er been moved by such a war, nor dared to cross the teucrian folk in fight! then had she been a maid of mine, my fellow and delight. but since the bitterness of fate lies round her life and me, glide down, o maiden, from the pole, and find the latin lea, where now, with evil tokens toward, sad battle they awake; take these, and that avenging shaft from out the quiver take, wherewith whoso shall wrong with wound my holy-bodied may, be he of troy or italy, see thou his blood doth pay: and then will i her limbs bewept, unspoiled of any gear, wrap in a hollow cloud, and lay in kindred sepulchre." she spoke; the other slipped adown the lightsome air of heaven, with wrapping cloak of mirky cloud about her body driven. but in meanwhile the trojan folk the city draw anigh, the tuscan dukes and all their horse in many a company well ordered: over all the plain neighing the steed doth fare, prancing, and champing on the bit that turns him here and there, and far and wide the lea is rough with iron harvest now. and with the weapons tossed aloft the level meadows glow. messapus and the latins swift, lo, on the other hand; and coras with his brother-lord, and maid camilla's band, against them in the field; and lo, far back their arms they fling in couching of the level spears, and shot spears' brandishing. all is afire with neigh of steeds and onfall of the men. and now, within a spear-shot come, short up they rein, and then they break out with a mighty cry, and spur the maddened steeds; and all at once from every side the storm of spear-shot speeds, as thick as very snowing is, and darkens down the sun. and thereon with their levelled spears each against each they run, tyrrhenus and aconteus fierce: in forefront of the fight they meet and crash with thundering sound; wracked are the steeds outright, breast beating in each breast of them: far is aconteus flung in manner of the lightning bolt, or stone from engine slung; far off he falls, and on the air pours all his life-breath out. then wildered is the war array; the latins wheel about and sling their targets all aback, and townward turn their steeds. the trojans follow; first of whom the ranks asylas leads. but when they draw anigh the gates once more the latin men raise up the cry, and turn about the limber necks again; then flee their foes, and far afield with loosened reins they ride; as when the sea-flood setting on with flowing, ebbing tide, now earthward rolling, overlays the rocks with foaming sea, and with its bosom overwhelms the sand's extremity, now swiftly fleeing back again, sucks back into its deep the rolling stones, and leaves the shore with softly-gliding sweep. twice did the tuscans townward drive the host of rutuli; twice, looking o'er their shielded backs, afield they needs must fly; but when they joined the battle thrice knit up was all array in one great knot, and man sought man wherewith to play the play. then verily the dying groans up to the heavens went; bodies and arms lie deep in blood, and with the men-folk blent, the dying horses wallow there, and fearful fight arose. orsilochus with remulus had scant the heart to close, but hurled his shaft against the horse, and smote him 'neath the ear; the smitten beast bears not the wound, but, maddened, high doth rear the legs of him and breast aloft: his master flung away, rolls on the earth: catillus there doth swift iolas slay; yea, and herminius, big of soul, and big of limbs and gear, who went with head by nothing helmed save locks of yellow hair, who went with shoulders all unarmed, as one without a dread, so open unto fight was he; but through his shoulders sped the quivering spear, and knit him up twi-folded in his pain. so black blood floweth everywhere; men deal out iron bane, and, struggling, seek out lovely death amid the wounds and woe. but through the middle of the wrack doth glad camilla go, the quivered war-maid, all one side stripped naked for the play; and now a cloud of limber shafts she scattereth wide away, and now with all unwearied hand catcheth the twi-bill strong. the golden bow is at her back, and dian's arrow-song. yea, e'en and if she yielded whiles, and showed her back in flight, from back-turned bow the hurrying shaft she yet would aim aright. about her were her chosen maids, daughters of italy, larina, tulla, and tarpeia, with brazen axe on high, whom that divine camilla chose for joy and fame's increase, full sweet and goodly hand-maidens in battle and in peace: e'en as the thracian amazons thresh through thermodon's flood, when they in painted war-gear wend to battle and to blood: or those about hippolyta, or round the wain of mars wherein panthesilea wends, when hubbub of the wars the maiden-folk exulting raise, and moony shields uprear. whom first, whom last, o bitter maid, didst thou overthrow with spear? how many bodies of the slain laidst thou upon the field? eunæus, clytius' son, was first, whose breast for lack of shield the fir-tree long smit through and through, as there he stood in face; he poureth forth a sea of blood, and, falling in his place, bites the red earth, and dying writhes about the bitter bane. liris and pagasus she slays; one, catching at the rein of his embowelled steed rolls o'er, the other as he ran to aid, and stretched his swordless hand unto the fallen man, fell headlong too, and there they lie: with these amastus wends, the son of hippotas; her spear in chase of men she sends, harpalycus, demophoön, tereus, and chromis stout as many as her maiden hand the whirling darts send out so many phrygian falls there are. far off, in uncouth gear, the hunter ornytus upon apulian steed doth fare, whose warring shoulders bigly wrought with stripped-off bullock's hide are covered; but his head is helmed with wood-wolf's gaping wide, a monstrous mouth, wherein are left the teeth all gleaming white: a wood-spear arms the hand of him, he wheels amid the fight, and by the head he overtops all other men about. him she o'ertakes, no troublous deed amid the fleeing rout, and, slaying him, from bitter heart this word withal she spake: "tuscan, thou deem'dst thee hunting still the deer amid the brake; the day has come when women's arms have cast thy boasting back: yet going to thy fathers' ghosts a word thou shalt not lack to praise thy life; for thou mayst say, camilla was my bane." orsilochus and butes next, two huge-wrought trojans, gain death at her hands: butes aback she smit through with the spear betwixt the mail-coat and the helm, wherethrough the neck doth peer as there he sits, and on his left hangs down the target round; but from orsilochus she flees, wide circling o'er the ground, then, slipping inward of the ring, chaseth the chaser there, and, rising high, her mighty axe driveth through bones and gear. with blow on blow, mid all his prayers and crying out for grace, until his hot and bloody brain is flooding all his face. a man haps on her now, and stands afeard such sight to see; of aunus of the apennines the warring son was he, great of ligurians, while the fates his guile would yet allow: but he, since fleeing out of fight, would nought avail him now, nor knew he how in any wise to turn the queen away, with rede of guile and cunning words began to play the play: "what deed of fame, for woman's heart to trust a horse's might? wilt thou not set thy speed aside, and 'gainst me dare the fight on equal ground, and gird thyself for foot-fight face to face? see then to whom the windy fame shall bring the victory's grace!" he spake; but she, in bitter rage, and stung to her heart's root, unto her fellow gave her steed and faced him there afoot, most unafeard, with naked glaive and target bare and white. thereat the youth deemed guile had won, and turned at once to flight; nought tarrying but to turn the reins, he fleeth on his road, and ever with his iron heel the four-foot thing doth goad. "empty ligurian, all in vain thine high heart dost thou raise, and all in vain thou triest today thy father's crafty ways. nor shall thy lying bring thee safe to lying aunus' head." so spake the maid, and all afire on flying feet she sped, outwent the horse and crossed his road, and catching at the rein, there made her foeman pay for all with bloody steel-wrought bane, as easily the holy hawk from craggy place on high in winged chase follows on the dove aloft along the sky, and taketh her in hookèd hold with bitter feet to tear, while blood and riven feathers fall from out the upper air. nathless the sower of manfolk and all the godly kind, upon olympus set aloft, to this was nothing blind, and tarchon of the tyrrhene folk he stirreth up to war, and stingeth all the heart of him with anger bitter-sore; who, borne on horse 'twixt death of men and faltering war-array, goads on his bands unto the fight, and many a word doth say, and calleth each man by his name, and bids the beaten stand: "what fear, o hearts that nought may shame, o folk of deedless hand, what dastardy, o tyrrhene folk, hath now so caught your souls? a woman drives us scattering wide, and back our war-wall rolls. why bear our hands these useless spears, this steel not made for fight? ye are not slack in venus' play or battle of the night, or when the crookèd fife gives sign that bacchus' dance is toward well wait ye onset of the feast and cups of plenteous board: your love, your hearts, are there, whereas the lucky priest doth bid the holy words, and victims fat call to the thickets hid." he spake, and, fain of death himself, against the foemen spurs, and full in face of venulus his eager body bears, and catcheth him by arm about, and tears him from his horse, and bears him off on saddle-bow in grip of mighty force: then goes the clamour up to heaven, and all the latin eyes turn thitherward: but fiery-swift across the field he flies, bearing the weapons and the man; then from his foeman's spear breaks off the head, and searches close for opening here and there whereby to give the deadly wound: the foe doth ever fight, thrusting the hand from threatened throat, and puts back might with might. as when a yellow erne aloft skyward a dragon draws, and knits him up within her feet and gripping of her claws: but still the wounded serpent turns in many a winding fold, and bristles all his spiky scales, and hissing mouth doth hold aloft against her; she no less through all his struggles vain drives hookèd beak, and still with wings beats through the airy plain; e'en so from those tiburtine ranks glad tarchon bears the prey: and, following on their captain's deed, fall on amid the fray mæonia's sons. but arruns now, the foredoomed man of fate, encompassing camilla's ways with spear and guile, doth wait on all her goings; spying out what hap is easiest. now, wheresoe'er the hot-heart maid amid the battle pressed, there arruns winds, and silently holds watch on all her ways: and when from forth the foe she comes, bearing the victory's praise, still speedily in privy wise the rein he turns about: this way he tries, that way he tries, still wandering in and out on all sides; shaking spear of doom with evil heart of guile. now chloreus, bond of cybele and priest upon a while, afar as happed in phrygian gear gleamed out upon his steed, foaming and goodly: clad was he in skin-wrought battle-weed, with brazen scales done feather-wise, and riveted with gold, and grand was he in outland red and many a purple fold; gortynian arrows from afar with lycian horn he sped; gold rang the bow upon his back; gold-mitred was his head in priestly wise; his saffron scarf, the crackling folds of it of linen fine, in knot about a red-gold buckle knit; his kirtle was embroidered fair, his hosen outland-wrought. the maiden, whether trojan gear for temple-gate she sought, or whether she herself would wend, glorious in war-got gold, amidst of all the press of arms this man in chase must hold blind as a hunter; all unware amidst the war-array she burned with all a woman's lust for spoil of men and prey: when now, the time at last being seized, from out its lurking-place arruns drew forth his spear, and prayed the gods above for grace: "highest of gods, apollo, ward of dear soracte's stead, whom we first honour, unto whom the piny blaze is fed; whom worshipping, we, waxen strong in might of godliness, the very midmost of the fire with eager foot-soles press-- almighty father, give me grace to do away our shame! no battle-gear, no trophies won from vanquished maid i claim, no spoils i seek; my other deeds shall bring me praise of folk; let but this dreadful pest of men but fall beneath my stroke, and me wend back without renown unto my father's place!" apollo heard, and half the prayer he turned his heart to grace, the other half he flung away adown the wind to go. that he by sudden stroke of death should lay camilla low,-- he granted this: that his high house should see his safe return, he granted not: the hurrying gusts that word to breezes turn. so when the shaft hurled from his hand gave sound upon the air, all volscians turn their hardy hearts, and all men's eyen bear upon the queen: but she no whit had any breeze in mind, or whistle of the spear that sped from out the house of wind, until the hurrying shaft beneath her naked bosom stood, and clung there, deeply driven home, drinking her virgin blood. her frighted damsels run to her and catch the falling maid, but arruns fleeth fast, forsooth more than all they afraid-- afraid and glad--nor durst he more to trust him to the spear, or 'neath the hail of maiden darts his body forth to bear. and as the murder-wolf, ere yet the avenging spear-points bite, straight hideth him in pathless place amid the mountain-height, when he hath slain some shepherd-lad or bullock of the fold; down goes his tail, when once he knows his deed so overbold, along his belly close it clings as he the woodland seeks. not otherwise from sight of men the wildered arruns sneaks, and mingles in the middle fight, glad to be clear away. death-smitten, at the spear she plucks; amidst her bones it lay, about the ribs, that iron point in baneful wound and deep: she droopeth bloodless, droop her eyes acold in deadly sleep; from out her cheeks the colour flees that once therewith were clear. then, passing, acca she bespeaks, her very maiden peer, her who alone of all the rest might share camilla's rede, a trusted friend: such words to her the dying mouth doth speed: "sister, thus far my might hath gone; but now this bitter wound maketh an end, and misty dark are grown all things around: fly forth, and unto turnus bear my very latest words; let him to fight, and from the town thrust off the trojan swords-- farewell, farewell!"-- and with the word the bridle failed her hold, and unto earth unwilling now she flowed, and waxen cold slowly she slipped her body's bonds; her languid neck she bent, laid down the head that death had seized, and left her armament; and with a groan her life flew forth disdainful into night. then rose the cry and smote aloft the starry golden height, and with the queen so felled to field the fight grew young again, and thronged and serried falleth on the teucrian might and main, the tuscan dukes, evander's host, the wings of arcady. but opis, dian's watch of war, set on the mountain high, a long while now all unafeard had eyed the battle o'er, and when far off, amid the cries of maddened men of war, she saw camilla win the death by bitter ill award, she groaned, and from her inmost heart such words as these she poured: "alas, o maid, thou payest it o'ermuch and bitterly, that thou unto the teucrian folk the challenge needs must cry. ah, nothing it availed thee, maid, through deserts of the deer to worship dian, or our shafts upon thy back to bear. and yet the queen hath left thee not alone amidst of shame in grip of death; nor shalt thou die a death without a name in people's ears; nor yet as one all unavenged be told: for whosoever wronged thy flesh with wounding overbold shall pay the penalty well earned." now 'neath the mountains high, all clad with shady holm-oaks o'er, a mighty mound doth lie, the tomb of king dercennus called, laurentum's lord of yore; and thitherward her speedy feet that loveliest goddess bore, and there abiding, arruns spied from off the high-heaped mound but when the wretch in gleaming arms puffed up with pride she found, "why," quoth she, "dost thou turn away? here, hither wend thy feet; come here and perish; take reward for slain camilla meet! but ah, for death of such an one is dian's arrow due?" then from the thracian quiver gilt a wingèd shaft she drew, and bent the horn-wrought bow withal with heart on slaying set: far drew she, till the curving horns each with the other met: alike she strained her hands to shoot; the left hand felt the steel, the right that drew the string aback her very breast did feel. then straightway arruns heard in one the bow-string how it rung, and whistle of the wind; and there the shaft within him clung: his fellows leave him dying there and groaning out his last, forgotten in an unknown field, amid the sand downcast; while to olympus on the wing straightway is opis borne. but now first flees camilla's band, their queen and mistress lorn, and flee the beaten rutuli, and fierce atinas flees; the dukes of men in disarray, the broken companies now turn their faces to the town, and seek a sheltering place, nor yet may any turn with spear upon the teucrian chase, that beareth death of men in hand, or bar the homeward road: cast back on fainting shoulders now the loose bow hangs a load; the horny hoofs of four-foot things shake down the dusty mead, the mirky cloud of rolling dust doth ever townward speed; and mothers beating of their breasts stand on the watch-towers high, and cast abroad their woman's wail up to the starry sky. but they who in their fleeing first break through the open doors, in mingled tumult on their backs a crowd of foemen pours; nor do they 'scape a wretched death: there, on the threshold-stead, within their fathers' walls, amidst the peace of home, they shed the lives from out their bodies pierced: then some men shut the gate, nor durst they open to their friends, or take in them that wait praying without; and there indeed is woeful slaughter towards of them that fence the wall with swords, and rushers on the swords. those shut out 'neath the very eyes of weeping kith and kin, some headlong down the ditches roll, by fleeing rout thrust in; some blindly and with loosened rein spur on their steeds to meet as battering-rams the very gates, the ruthless door-leaves beat and now, in agony of fight, the mothers on the walls, e'en as they saw camilla do, (so love of country calls), with hurrying hands the javelins cast, and in the iron's stead make shift of hardened pale of oak and stake with half-burned head. hot-heart they are, afire to die the first their town to save. meanwhile to turnus in the woods sweeps in that cruel wave of tidings: trouble measureless doth acca to him bring,-- the wasting of the volscian host, camilla's murdering, the onset of the baneful foe with favouring mars to aid; the ruin of all things; present fear e'en on the city laid, he, madly wroth, (for even so jove's dreadful might deemed good), leaveth the hills' beleaguerment and mirky rugged wood. scarce was he out of sight thereof, and nigh his camp to win, when mid the opened pass and bare Æneas entereth in, climbeth the ridge, and slippeth through the thicket's shadowy night. so either toward the city fares with all their battle-might, and no long space of way indeed there was betwixt the twain, for e'en so soon as far away Æneas saw the plain through dusty reek, and saw withal laurentum's host afar, turnus the fierce Æneas knew in all array of war, and heard the marching footmen tramp, and coming horses neigh. then had they fallen to fight forthwith and tried the battle-play, but rosy phoebus sank adown amidst iberian flood his weary steeds, and brought back night upon the failing day. so there they pitch before the town and make their ramparts good. book xii. argument. herein are Æneas and turnus pledged to fight the matter out in single combat; but the latins break the peace and Æneas is wounded: in the end Æneas meeteth turnus indeed, and slayeth him. when turnus sees the latin men all failing from the sword, broken by mars, and that all folk bethink them of his word. and fall to mark him with their eyes, then fell he burns indeed, and raises up his heart aloft; e'en as in punic mead the smitten lion, hurt in breast by steel from hunters' ring, setteth the battle in array, and joyfully doth fling the mane from off his brawny neck, and fearless of his mood breaks off the clinging robber-spear, and roars from mouth of blood; e'en so o'er turnus' fiery heart the tide of fury wins, and thus he speaketh to the king, and hasty speech begins: "no hanging back in turnus is, and no Ænean thrall hath aught to do to break his word or plighted troth recall: i will go meet him: father, bring the gods, the peace-troth plight; then either i this dardan thing will send adown to night,-- this rag of asia,--latin men a-looking on the play, and all alone the people's guilt my sword shall wipe away; or let him take us beaten folk, and wed lavinia then!" but unto him from quiet soul latinus spake again: "great-hearted youth, by e'en so much as thou in valorous might dost more excel, by so much i must counsel me aright, and hang all haps that may betide in those sad scales of mine. thine are thy father daunus' realms, a many towns are thine, won by thine hand: latinus too his gold and goodwill yields; but other high-born maids unwed dwell in laurentine fields or latin land,--nay, suffer me to set all guile apart, and say a hard thing--do thou take this also to thine heart: to none of all her wooers of old my daughter may i wed; this warning word of prophecy all men and gods have sped. but by thy kindred blood o'ercome, and by the love of thee, and by my sad wife's tears, i broke all bonds and set me free. from son-in-law i rapt his bride, i drew a godless sword. what mishaps and what wrack of peace have been my due reward thou seest, turnus, and what grief i was the first to bear. twice beaten in a woeful fight, scarce is our city here held by the hope of italy: still tiber-flood rolls by, warm with our blood, and 'neath our bones wide meadows whitening lie. but whither waver i so oft? what folly shifts my mind? if i am ready, turnus dead, peace with these men to bind, shall i not rather while thou liv'st cast all the war away? what shall my kindred rutuli, what shall italia say, if i deliver thee to death, (fate thrust the words aside!) thee, who hast wooed me for thy sire, my daughter for thy bride? look on the wavering hap of war, pity thy father's eld, now far from thee in sorrow sore by ancient ardea held." but not a whit might all these words the wrath of turnus bend. nay, worser waxed he, sickening more by medicine meant to mend: and e'en so soon as he might speak, such words were in his mouth: "thy trouble for my sake, best lord, e'en for my sake forsooth, lay down, i prithee; let me buy a little praise with death. i too, o father, sow the spear, nor weak hand scattereth the iron seed, with me afield: the blood-springs know my stroke. nor here shall be his goddess-dame with woman's cloud to cloak a craven king, and hide herself in empty mirky shade." but now the queen, by this new chance of battle sore afraid, fell weeping, as her fiery son she held with dying eyes: "o turnus, by these tears, by what of worship for me lies anigh thy heart; o, only hope of this my latter tide, sole rest from sorrow! thou, in whom all worship doth abide, all glory of the latin name, our falling house-wall stay! set not thine hand to teucrian war; this thing alone i pray. whatever lot abideth thee, o turnus, mid the fight, abideth me, and i with thee will leave the loathed light; nor will i, made Æneas' thrall, behold him made my son." lavinia heard her mother's words with burning cheeks, whereon lay rain of tears, for thereunto exceeding ruddy flush had brought the fire that now along her litten face did rush: as when the indian ivory they wrong with blood-red dye, or when mid many lilies white the ruddy roses lie, e'en such a mingled colour showed upon the maiden's face. sore stirred by love upon the maid he fixed his constant gaze, and, all the more afire for fight, thus to amata said: "i prithee, mother, with these tears, such sign of coming dread, dog not my feet as forth i wend to mavors' bitter play; for turnus is not free to thrust the hour of death away. go, idmon, bear the phrygian lord these very words of mine, nought for his pleasure: when the dawn tomorrow first shall shine, and from her purple wheels aloft shall redden all the sky, lead not thy teucrians to the fight: teucrians and rutuli shall let their swords be; and we twain, our blood shall quench the strife, and we upon that field shall woo lavinia for a wife." he spake, and to the roofed place now swiftly wending home, called for his steeds, and merrily stood there before their foam, e'en those that orithyia gave pilumnus, gift most fair, whose whiteness overpassed the snow, whose speed the wingèd air. the busy horse-boys stand about, and lay upon their breasts the clapping of their hollow hands, and comb their manèd crests. but he the mail-coat doth on him well-wrought with golden scale and latten white; he fits the sword unto his hand's avail: his shield therewith, and hornèd helm with ruddy crest o'erlaid: that sword, the very might of fire for father daunus made, and quenched the white-hot edge thereof amidst the stygian flood. then the strong spear he took in hand that 'gainst the pillar stood, amidmost of the house: that spear his hand won mightily from actor of auruncum erst; he shakes the quivering tree loud crying: "now, o spear of mine, who never heretofore hast failed my call, the day draws on: thee the huge actor bore, now turnus' right hand wieldeth thee: to aid, that i prevail to lay the phrygian gelding low, and strip his rended mail by might of hand; to foul with dust the ringlets of his hair, becrisped with curling-irons hot and drenched with plenteous myrrh!" by such a fury is he driven; from all his countenance the fiery flashes leap, the flames in his fierce eyeballs dance: as when a bull in first of fight raiseth a fearful roar, and teacheth wrath unto his horns and whets them for the war, and 'gainst the tree-trunks pusheth them, and thrusts the breezes home, and with the scattering of the sand preludeth fight to come. nor less Æneas, terrible, in venus' armour dight, now whetteth war; and in his heart stirreth the wrath of fight, that plighted peace shall lay the war fain is his heart and glad; his fellows' minds and bitter fear that makes iulus sad he solaceth with fate-wise words; then bids his folk to bear his answer to the latin king and peace-laws to declare. but scarce the morrow's dawn of day had lit the mountain steeps, and scarce the horses of the sun drew upward from the deeps, and from their nostrils raised aloft blew forth the morning clear, when trojans and rutulian men the field of fight prepare, and measure out a space beneath the mighty city's wall. midmost the hearths they hallow there to common gods of all, and grassy altars: other some bear fire, and fountain's flow, all linen clad, and vervain leaves are crowning every brow. forth comes the host of italy, the men that wield the spear pour outward from the crowded gate; the trojan host is there, and all the tyrrhene company in battle-gear diverse, nor otherwise in iron clad, than if the war-god fierce cried on to arms: and in the midst of war-ranks thousandfold the dukes are flitting, well beseen in purple dye and gold, e'en mnestheus of assaracus, asylas huge of force, messapus, neptune's very son, the tamer of the horse. but when the sign was given abroad each to his own place won, and set his spear-shaft in the earth and leaned his shield thereon. then streamed forth mothers fain to see and elders feeble grown; the unarmed crowd beset the towers and houses of the town, and others of the people throng the high-built gates around. but juno from the steep that men now call the alban mound (though neither worship, name, nor fame it bore upon that day), was looking down upon the lists and either war-array of trojan and laurentine men, and king latinus' wall, then upon turnus' sister's ear her words of god did fall: a goddess she, the queen of mere and sounding river-wave; which worship jupiter the king, the heaven-abider gave a hallowed gift to pay her back for ravished maidenhood: "o nymph, the glory of the streams, heart well-beloved and good, thee only, as thou know'st, i love of all who e'er have come into the unkind bed of jove from out a latin home, with goodwill have i granted thee the heavenly house to share; therefore, juturna, know thy grief lest i the blame should bear: while fortune would, and while the fates allowed the latin folk a happy day, so long did i thy town and turnus cloak; but now i see him hastening on to meet the fated ill: his doomsday comes, the foeman's hand shall soon his hour fulfil. i may not look upon the fight, or see the wagered field; but thou, if any present help thou durst thy brother yield, haste, it behoves thee!--happier days on wretches yet may rise." scarce spake she ere juturna poured the tear-flood from her eyes, and thrice and four times smote with hand her bosom well beseen. "nay, this is now no weeping-time," saith that saturnian queen, "haste; snatch thy brother from the death if all be not undone, or wake up war and rend apart the treaty scarce begun; and i am she that bids thee dare." she urged her, and she left her wavering mind and turmoiled heart with sorrow's torment cleft. meantime the kings--latinus there, a world of state around, is borne upon the fourfold car, his gleaming temples bound with twice six golden rays, the sign of his own grandsire's light, the heavenly sun; and turnus wends with twi-yoked horses white, tossing in hand two shafts of war with broad-beat points of steel. and hither father Æneas, spring of the roman weal, flaming with starry shield and arms wrought in the heavenly home, and next to him ascanius young, the second hope of rome, fare from the camp: the priest thereon, in unstained raiment due, offereth a son of bristly sow and unshorn yearling ewe, and bringeth up the four-foot hosts unto the flaming place. but they, with all eyes turned about the rising sun to face, give forth the salt meal from the hand, and with the iron sign the victims' brows, and mid the flame pour out the bowls of wine: then good Æneas draws his sword, and thuswise prays the prayer: "bear witness, sun, and thou, o land, who dost my crying hear! land, for whose sake i waxed in might, sustaining toils enow; and thou, almighty father, hear! saturnian juno thou, grown kinder, goddess, i beseech; and thou, most glorious mars, father, whose hand of utter might is master of all wars; ye springs, and river-floods i call, and whatsoever god is in the air, or whatso rules the blue sea with its rod-- if to ausonian turnus here fortune shall give the day, the conquered to evander's town shall straightly wend their way; iulus shall depart the land, nor shall Æneas' folk stir war hereafter, or with sword the latin wrath provoke. but if the grace of victory here bow down upon our fight; --(as i believe, as may the gods make certain with their might!)-- i will not bid the italian men to serve the teucrian's will; nor for myself seek i the realm; but all unconquered still let either folk with equal laws plight peace for evermore: the gods and worship i will give, latinus see to war; my father lawful rule shall have; for me my teucrians here shall build a city, and that home lavinia's name shall bear." so first Æneas: after whom latinus swears and says, looking aloft, and stretching hands up towards the starry ways: "e'en so, Æneas, do i swear by stars, and sea, and earth, by twi-faced janus, and the twins latona brought to birth, and by the nether might of god and shrine of unmoved dis; and may the sire who halloweth in all troth-plight hearken this: i hold the altars, and these gods and fires to witness take, that, as for italy, no day the peace and troth shall break, what thing soever shall befall; no might shall conquer me. not such as with the wrack of flood shall mingle earth and sea, nor such as into nether hell shall melt the heavenly land. e'en as this sceptre"--(for by chance he bore a staff in hand)-- "shall never more to leafage light and twig and shadow shoot, since when amid the thicket-place, cut off from lowest root, it lost its mother, and the knife hath lopped it, leaf and bough,-- a tree once, but the craftsman's hand hath wrapped it seemly now with brass about, and made it meet for hands of latin lords." so in the sight of all the chiefs with such abundant words they bound the troth-plight fast and sure: then folk in due wise slay the victims on the altar-flame, and draw the hearts away yet living, and with platters full the holy altars pile. but unto those rutulian men unequal this long while the fight had seemed, and in their hearts the mingled trouble rose; and all the more, as nigher now they note the ill-matched foes, this helpeth turnus' silent step, and suppliant worshipping about the altars, and his eyes that unto earth do cling, his faded cheeks, his youthful frame that wonted colour lacks. wherefore jaturna, when she hears the talk of people wax, and how the wavering hearts of men in diverse manner sway, like unto camers wendeth now amidst of that array; --a mighty man, from mighty blood, his father well renowned for valorous worth, and he himself keen in the battle found. so through the mid array she speeds, well knowing what is toward, and soweth rumour on the wind and speaketh such a word: "o shame ye not, rutulian men, to offer up one soul for all your warriors? lack we aught in might or muster-roll to match them? here is all they have--trojans, arcadian peers, and that etruscan turnus' bane, the fateful band of spears: why, if we meet, each second man shall scantly find a foe. and now their king, upborne by fame, unto the gods shall go, upon whose shrines he vows himself; his name shall live in tale. but we shall lose our fatherland and 'neath proud lords shall fail, e'en those that sit there heavy-slow upon our fields today." so with such words she lit the hearts of all that young array; yet more and more a murmur creeps about the ranks of men; changed even are laurentine folk; changed are the latins then; they who had hoped that rest from fight and peaceful days were won, are now but fain of battle-gear, and wish the troth undone, for ruth that such a cruel fate on turnus' head should fall. but unto these a greater thing jaturna adds withal, a sign from heaven; and nought so much stirred italy that day, as this whose prodigy beguiled men's hearts to go astray: for now the yellow bird of jove amid the ruddy light was chasing of the river-fowl, and drave in hurried flight the noisy throng; when suddenly down to the waves he ran, and caught in greedy hookèd claws a goodly-bodied swan: uprose the hearts of italy, for all the fowl cry out, and, wonderful for eyes to see, from fleeing turn about, darken the air with cloud of wings, and fall upon the foe; till he, oppressed by might of them and by his prey held low, gives way, and casts the quarry down from out his hookéd claws into the river, and aback to inner cloud-land draws. then to the sign the rutuli shout greeting with one breath, and spread their hands abroad; but first the seer tolumnius saith: "this, this is that, which still my prayers sought oft and o'er again. i take the sign, i know the god! to arms with me, o men! poor people, whom the stranger-thief hath terrified with war. e'en like these feeble fowl; who wastes the acres of your shore, yet shall he fly, and give his sails unto the outer sea: but ye, your ranks with heart and mind now serry manfully, and ward your ravished king and duke with all your battle-world!" he spake, and, running forth, a shaft against the foe he hurled. forth whizzed the cornel through the air, cleaving its way aright, and therewithal great noise outbreaks, and every wedge of fight is turmoiled, and the hearts of men are kindled for the fray. on sped the shaft to where there stood across its baneful way nine fair-shaped brethren, whom whilom one faithful tuscan wife amid gylippus' arcad house brought forth to light and life: now one of these, e'en where the belt of knitted stitches wrought chafed on the belly, and the clasp the joining edges caught, a youth most excellent of frame and clad in glittering gear-- it pierced his ribs; on yellow sand it stretched him dying there. thereat his brethren, a fierce folk, with grief and rage alight, some draw their swords and some catch up the steel of speedy flight, and rush on blind: laurentum's ranks, against them swift they go, and thick the trojans from their side the meadows overflow, agyllans and arcadian men with painted war array; and one lust winneth over all with point and edge to play. they strip the altars; drifting storm of weapon-shot doth gain o'er all the heavens, and ever grows the iron battle-rain. the bowls and hearths they bear away: latinus gets him gone, bearing aback the beaten gods and troth-plight all undone, but other men rein in the car and leap upon the steed, and there with naked swords they sit, all ready for the need. messapus, fain to rend the troth, on hostile horse down-bears upon aulestes, tuscan king, who kingly raiment wears: he fled, but as abackward there away from him he went, came on the altars at his back in hapless tanglement of head and shoulders: thitherward doth hot messapus fly with spear in hand, and from his steed he smites him heavily with the great beam amid his prayers, and word withal doth say: "he hath it, and the gods have got a better host today!" therewith to strip his body warm up runs the italian band; but corynæus from the hearth catches a half-burnt brand, and e'en as ebusus comes up, and stroke in hand doth bear, he filleth all his face with flame; out doth his great beard flare, and sendeth stink of burning forth: the trojan followed on the wildered man, and with his left grip of his tresses won, and, straining hard with weight of knee, to earth he pinned his foe, and drave the stark sword through his side. see podalirius go, chasing the shepherd alsus through the front of weapon-wrack; o'er him he hangs with naked sword; but he, with bill swung back, cleaveth the foeman facing him through midmost brow and chin, and all about his battle-gear the bloody rain doth win: then iron slumber fell on him, hard rest weighed down his eyes, and shut were they for evermore in night that never dies. then good Æneas stretched forth hands all empty of the sword, and called bare-headed on his folk, with eager shouted word: "where rush ye on, and whither now doth creeping discord rise? refrain your wrath; the troth is struck; its laws in equal wise are doomed; and 'tis for me alone the battle to endure. nay, let me be! cast fear away; my hand shall make it sure. this troth-plight, all these holy things, owe turnus to my sword." but while his voice was sounding, lo, amidmost of his word, a whistling speedy-wingèd shaft unto the hero won; unknown what hand hath sped it forth, what whirlwind bore it on; what god, what hap, such glory gave to hands of rutuli; beneath the weight of things unknown dead doth the honour lie, nor boasted any of the hurt Æneas had that day. but turnus, when he saw the king give back from that array, and all the turmoil of the dukes, with hope his heart grew fain; he cried for horse and arms, and leapt aloft to battle-wain, and high of heart set on apace, the bridle in his hand; and many a brave man there he gave unto the deadly land, and rolled o'er wounded men in heaps, and high in car wore down the ranks of men; and fleers' spears from out his hand were thrown: e'en as when litten up to war by hebrus' chilly flood red mavors beateth on his shield, and rouseth fightful mood amid the fury of his steeds, who o'er the level lea in uttermost hoof-smitten thrace the south and west outflee. and lo, the fellows of the god, the black fear's bitter face, the rage of men, the guile of war anigh him wend apace: e'en so amid the battle-field his horses turnus sped, reeking with sweat: there tramples he the woeful heaps of dead, the hurrying hoofs go scattering wide a drift of bloody rain; the gore, all blent with sandy dust, is pounded o'er the plain. to death he casteth sthenelus, pholus, and thamyris; those twain anigh, but him afar; from far the bane he is of glaucus and of lades, sons of imbrasus, whom he in lycia bred a while agone, and armed them equally to fight anigh, or on their steeds the winds to overrun. but otherwhere amidst the fight eumedes fareth on, the son of dolon of old time, most well-renowned in fight, and bringing back his father's name in courage and in might: for that was he who while agone the danaan camp espied, and chose achilles' car for spoil in his abundant pride: but otherwise tydides paid for such a deed o'erbold, and no more had he any hope achilles' steeds to hold. so turnus, when adown the lea this warrior he had seen, first a light spear he sent in chase across the void between, then stayed his steeds, and leaping down unto the fallen ran, and set his foot upon the neck of that scarce-breathing man, and from his right hand wrenched the sword and bathed its glittering blade deep in his throat, and therewithal such spoken chiding said: "down, trojan! measure out the mead, and that hesperean land thou sought'st in war: such are the gifts that fall unto the hand of those that dare the sword with me; such city-walls they raise!" asbutes wends 'neath spear-cast then, a fellow of his ways; chloreus, dares, thersilochus, and sybaris, withal; thymoetes, who from rearing horse had hap to catch a fall; and e'en as when the breathing forth of thracian boreas roars o'er deep Ægean, driving on the wave-press to the shores, then wheresoe'er the wind stoops down the clouds flee heaven apace; so wheresoe'er cleaves turnus way all battle giveth place, all war-array is turned to wrack: his onrush beareth him, and in the breeze that meets his car his tossing crest doth swim. this onset of the maddened heart nought phegeus might abide, but cast himself before the steeds, and caught and wrenched aside the bit-befoaming mouths of them, the heart-stung hurrying steeds. but while he hangeth dragged along, the spear broad-headed speeds unto his shieldless side, and rends the twilinked coat of mail, and for the razing of his flesh a little doth avail: but he turned round about his shield and at the foemen made, and from his naked sword drawn forth sought most well-needed aid; when now the axle-tree and wheel, unto fresh speeding won, cast him down headlong unto earth, and turnus following on, betwixt the lowest of the helm and haubert's upper lip sheared off his head, and left the trunk upon the sand to slip. but while victorious turnus gives these deaths unto the plain, mnestheus and that achates leal, ascanius with the twain, bring great Æneas to the camp all covered with his blood; there, propping up his halting steps with spear-shaft long, he stood: mad wroth he is, and strives to pluck the broken reed away, and bids them help by any road, the swiftest that they may, to cut away the wound with sword, cut to the hiding-place where lies the steel, and send him back to meet the battle's face. iapis, son of iasus, by phoebus best beloved, draws nigh now: phoebus on a time, by mighty longing moved, was fain to give him gifts of god, his very heavenly craft-- foresight, or skill of harp-playing, or mastery of the shaft: but he, that from his bed-rid sire the death he yet might stave, would liefer know the might of herbs, and how men heal and save, and, speeding of a silent craft, inglorious life would wear. Æneas, fretting bitterly, stood leaning on his spear midst a great concourse of the lords, with sad iulus by, unmoved amid their many tears: the elder, girded high in folded gown, in e'en such wise as pæon erst was dight, with hurrying hand speeds many a salve of phoebus' herbs of might; but all in vain: his right hand woos the arrow-head in vain; for nought the teeth of pincers grip the iron of the bane; no happy road will fortune show, no help apollo yields: and grimly terror more and more prevaileth o'er the fields, and nigher draws the evil hour: they see the dusty pall spread o'er the heaven; draw horsemen nigh, and shafts begin to fall thick in the midmost of the camp: grim clamour smites the stars, the shouts of men, the cries of men that fall in game of mars. now mother venus, sore at heart for her sore-wounded son, plucketh a stalk of dittany from cretan ida won, that with a downy leaf of grey and purple head doth grow, and well enough the mountain-goats the herbage of it know what time the winged shaft of man within them clingeth sore. this venus brought, with cloudy cloak her body covered o'er, this in the waves of glittering rims she steepeth privily, drugging the cup, and wholesome juice withal there blendeth she, wrought of ambrosia; heal-all too most sweet of heavenly smell. so with that stream iapis old the shaft-wound cherished well unwitting: sudden from the flesh all grievance doth depart, and all the blood is staunched at once up from the wound's deep heart, and comes the shaft unto the hand with nought to force it forth, and freshly to the king returns his ancient might and worth. then cries iapis: "loiter ye? arms for the hero then!" and he is first against the foe to whet the hearts of men. "lo, not from any help of man, nor from art's mastery these things have happed, nor hath mine hand, Æneas, holpen thee. a great god wrought to send thee back great deeds of fame to win." then, fain of fight, on either side the king his legs shuts in with ruddy gold: he loathes delay, and high his war-shaft shakes; and then his left side meets the shield, his back the hauberk takes, and round iulus casteth he a steel-clad man's embrace, and saith, but lightly kissing him from midst the helmet's space: "child, the bare valour learn of me and very earthly toil, good-hap of others; my right hand shall ward thee in the broil these days that are, and gain for thee exceeding great rewards; but thou, when ripe thine age shall grow, remember well the swords; then as thine heart seeks through the past for kin to show the road, well shall thy sire Æneas stir, thine uncle hector goad." but when these words are cast abroad, huge through the gate he goes, shaking in hand a mighty spear; then in arrayment close antheus and mnestheus rush to war: the camp is left behind, and all the host flows forth; the fields are blent with dust-cloud blind, and, stirred by trample of the feet, the earth's face trembleth sore. but turnus from a facing mound beheld that coming war. the ausonians looked, and through their hearts swift ran the chilly fear: and now before all other men first doth jaturna hear, and know the sound, and, quaking sore, she fleeth back again. on comes he, hurrying on the host black o'er the open plain: as when a storm cast on the world from heaven asunder rent, wendeth across the middle sea: out! how the dread is sent deep to the field-folks' boding hearts:--here comes the orchards' bane, here comes the acres' utter wrack, the ruin of all the plain! the gale that goes before its face brings tidings to the shore: so 'gainst the foe the trojan duke led on his hosts of war; and gathering in the wedge-array all knit them close around. now hath thymbræus' battle-blade the huge osiris found, and mnestheus slays archetius, achates epulo, and gyas ufens: yea, the seer tolumnius lieth low, he who was first against the foe to hurl the war-shaft out. the cry goes up unto the heaven; the war-tide turns about, dust-cloud of flight the rutuli raise up across the field: but he, the king, thinks scorn of it to smite the backs that yield; nay, those that meet him foot to foot, the wielders of the spear, he followeth not: turnus alone his eyes track everywhere amid the dust-cloud, him alone he crieth unto fight. hereby jaturna's manly mind is shaken with affright; metiscus, turnus' charioteer, she plucketh from the rein, and leaveth him fallen down afar from yoking pole and wain: but she mounts up, and with her hand the waving bridle guides, the while metiscus' voice, and limbs, and war-gear with her bides: as when amid a lordling's house there flits a swallow black, on skimming wings she seeks to still her noisy nestlings' lack, and wandering through the lofty halls but little feast doth get, then soundeth through the empty porch, and round the fish-pools wet, so is jaturna borne on wheels amidmost of the foe, and flying on in hurrying chase by everything doth go, now here, now there, her brother shows all flushed with victory, but still refrains him from the press; far o'er the waste they fly. no less Æneas picks his way amid the winding road, tracking the man, and through the rout cries ever high and loud; but e'en as oftentimes as he his foeman caught with eye, and 'gainst the flight of wingèd steeds his running feet would try, so oft the speedy wain of war jaturna turned aside. ah, what to do? in vain he went, borne on a shifting tide, while diverse cares to clashing ways the soul within him drave. but lo, messapus, speedy-light, who chanced in hand to have two light and limber shafts of tree, each with its iron head, now whirling one, a shot well aimed unto the hero sped: Ænesis stayed, and gathered him behind his shielding-gear, and sank upon his knee; no less the eager-driven spear smote on his helm, and shore away the topmost of his crest then verily his wrath arose; by all that guile oppressed, when he beheld the steeds and car far from his battle borne, he bade jove witness, and the hearths of troth-plight wronged and torn: he breaks at last amidst of them with mars to help him on, and fearful speedeth work of death wherein he spareth none, and casteth every rein aside that held his anger in. what god shall tell me all the woe, what god the song shall win of shifting death and dukes undone, and all those many dead, by turnus and by him of troy about the fight-field spread? o jupiter, was this thy will, that nations doomed to live in peace hereafter, on that day in such a broil should strive? rutulian sucro was the first that trojan onset stayed; Æneas met him, and forsooth no long delay he made, but smote his side, and through his ribs and fencing of the breast drave on his bitter naked sword where way was easiest. turnus afoot met amycus, cast down from off his horse, his brother, swift diores, too: the first amidst his course the long spear smote, the sword the last; the heads of both the twain he hangeth up and beareth on shedding a bloody rain. talon and tanais therewith, cethegus stout to do, all three at once the trojan sped, and sad onytes slew, whom to the name of echion peridia's womb did yield. then turnus slew the brethren sent from phoebus' lycian field: menates, too, of arcady, who loathed the war in vain; by fruitful fishy lerna's flood was once his life and gain, and unrich house, and nought he knew of mighty men's abode, and hired for a price of men the earth his father sowed. as when two fires, that on a while are sped from diverse ways, run through the dry and tinder wood, and crackling twigs of bays; as when from off the mountain-tops two hurrying rivers speed, and foaming, roaring, as they rush, drive down to ocean's mead, and each one wastes his proper road; no slothfuller than these, Æneas, turnus, fare afield; swell up the anger-seas in both their hearts; torn are their breasts that know not how to yield, in speeding of the wounding-craft their utter might they wield. murranus, as his sires of sires and ancient name he sings, and boasts his blood come far adown the line of latin kings, Æneas, with a mighty rock and whirlwind of a stone, o'erthrows, and stretches on the earth; the wain-wheels roll him on, amid the bridle and the yoke, whom there upon the sward the hurrying hoofs of horses pound, remembering not their lord. then hyllus' onset, and his heart with fury all aglow, doth turnus meet; who hurls a shaft against his golden brow, and through the helm the war-spear flies, and in the brain is stayed. thee, cretheus, bravest of the greeks, thine hands did nothing aid to snatch from turnus. nought his gods did their cupencus cloak against Æneas' rush of war; breast-on he met the stroke, and nought availed that hapless one the tarrying golden shield. thee also, warring Æolus, did that laurentine field see fallen, and cumbering the earth with body laid alow; thou diest, whom the argive hosts might never overthrow, nor that achilles' hand that wrought the priam's realm its wrack. here was thy meted mortal doom; high house 'neath ida's back, high house within lyrnessus' garth, grave in laurentine lea. now all the hosts to fight are turned, and blent in battle's sea, all latin folk, all dardan sons, mnestheus, serestus keen, messapus tamer of the horse, asylas fame-beseen, the tuscan host, evander's men, the arcadian wings of fight, each for himself the warriors play, and strive with utter might; no tarrying, no rest, they strain in contest measureless. but now a thought his mother sent Æneas' mind to bless. that he should wend unto the walls, and townward turn his host, and blend amid destruction swift the latin people lost. for he, now marking turnus' ways through many a company, hither and thither turns his eyes, and sees the city lie at peace amid the mighty stir, unharmed amid the fight, and image of a greater war set all his soul alight. mnestheus, sergestus then he calls, serestus battle-strong, the dukes of war; he mounts a knoll; thither the teucrians throng in serried ranks, yet lay not by the battle-spear and shield: so there from off the mound he speaks amidmost of the field: "let none hang back from these my words, for jove is standing by; let none be dull herein because it cometh suddenly: today the town, the cause of war, the king latinus' home, unless they cry them craven men, and 'neath the yoke they come, will i o'erthrow; the smoking towers upon the ground will lay. what! must i wait till turnus grows fain of the battle-play? and shall he, conquered, take his ease to fight me o'er and o'er? o fellows, this is head and well of all the wicked war. haste with the torches, set we forth the troth with fire to find!" he spake; but all they set to work, and striving with one mind knit close their ranks, and on the town a world of battle bear: unlooked-for ladders are at hand, and sudden fires appear; while some they run unto the gates, and there the out-guards slay, or hurl the spears, and with their cloud dim down the light of day. Æneas, in the front of men, lifts hand unto the walls, and in a great and mighty voice guilt on latinus calls, and bids the gods to witness him twice to the battle driven, italians twice become his foes, and twice the treaty riven. but mid the turmoiled city-folk arose the bickering then, some bade unbar and open gates unto the dardan men; yea, some unto the walls would drag their very king and lord; but some bear arms and go their ways the walls of war to ward: e'en as the shepherd finds the bees shut in, a fencèd folk, in chinky pumice rock, and fills their house with bitter smoke; but they, all busy-fearful grown within their waxen wall, run here and there and whet their wrath with mighty humming call: the black stink rolleth through their house, and with a murmuring blind the stony hollows moan: the reek the empty air doth find. here on the weary latins fell another stroke of fate, that moved the city deep adown with sorrow sore and great; for when the queen from house aloft beheld the foe draw nigh, the walls beset, the flaming brands unto the house-roofs fly, and nowhere the rutulian ranks or turnus' warring host, the hapless woman deems the youth in stress of battle lost, and, all bewildered in her mind by these so sudden woes, curses herself for head and spring whence all the evil flows; and crying many a bitter word, and mad with sorrow grown, she riveth with her dying hand the queenly purple gown, and knits the knot of loathly death from lofty beam on high. but when the wretched latin wives know all this misery, her daughter first, lavinia, wastes the blossom of her hair, and wounds her rosy cheeks; then they that stood about her there run wild about, and all the house resoundeth with their wail. thence through the city flies the sound of that unhappy tale, and all hearts sink: latinus goes with raiment rent and torn, stunned by his wife's unhappy lot, and city lost and lorn, and scattering o'er his hoariness defilement of the dust; and often he upbraids himself that he took not to trust that dardan lord, nor willingly had hallowed him his son. meanwhile across the outer plain war-turnus followeth on the last few stragglers, duller grown, and less and less his heart rejoices in his hurrying steed and their victorious part. the air bore to him noise of men with doubtful terror blent, and round about his hearkening ears confusèd murmur sent; the noise of that turmoilèd town, a sound of nought but woe: "ah, me!" he cried, "what mighty grief stirs up the city so? why from the walls now goeth up this cry and noise afar?" he spake, and, wildered, drew the rein and stayed the battle-car: his sister met his questioning, as she in seeming clad of that metiscus, all the rule of battle-chariot had, and steeds and bridle: "hereaway, o turnus, drive we on the sons of troy; where victory shows a road that may be won: for other hands there are, belike, the houses to defend. Æneas falls on italy, and there doth battle blend; so let our hands give cruel death to teucrian men this day, no less in tale: so shalt thou hold thine honour in the fray." but turnus sayeth thereunto: "sister, i knew thee long ago, when first by art and craft thou brok'st the troth-plight, and therewith amidst the battle went; and now thou hidest god in vain. but whose will thee hath sent from high olympus' house to bear such troubles, and so great? was it to see thy brother's end and most unhappy fate? for what do i? what heal is left in aught that may befall? mine eyes beheld murranus die, on me i heard him call: no dearer man in all the world is left me for a friend: woe's me i that mighty man of men a mighty death must end. ufens is dead, unhappy too lest he our shame behold; e'en as i speak the teucrians ward his arms and body cold. and now--the one shame wanting yet--shall i stand deedless by their houses' wrack, nor let my sword cast back that drances' lie? shall i give back, and shall this land see craven turnus fled? is death, then, such a misery? o rulers of the dead, be kind! since now the high god's heart is turned away from me; a hallowed soul i go adown, guiltless of infamy, not all unworthy of the great, my sires of long ago." scarce had he said when, here behold, from midmost of the foe, comes saces on his foaming steed, an arrow in his face, who, crying prayers on turnus' name, onrusheth to the place: "turnus, in thee our last hope lies! pity thy wretched folk! Æneas thundereth battle there, and threateneth with his stroke the overthrow of tower and town, and wrack of italy. the flames are flying toward the roofs; all mouths of latins cry on thee; all eyes are turned to thee: yea, the king wavereth there, whom shall he call his son-in-law, to whom for friendship fare. the queen to wit, thy faithfullest, is dead by her own hand, and, fearful of the things to come, hath left the daylight land. messapus and atinas keen alone upbear our might before the gates: round each of them are gathered hosts of fight thick-thronging, and a harvest-tide that bristles with the sword; while here thou wendest car about the man-deserted sward." bewildered then with images of diverse things he stood in silent stare; and in his heart upswelled a mighty flood of mingled shame and maddening grief: the furies goaded sore with bitter love and valour tried and known from time of yore. but when the cloud was shaken off and light relit his soul, his burning eyeballs toward the town, fierce-hearted, did he roll, and from the wheels of war looked back unto the mighty town; and lo, behold, a wave of flame into a tongue-shape grown licked round a tower, and 'twixt its floors rolled upward unto heaven: a tower that he himself had reared with timbers closely driven, and set beneath it rolling-gear, and dight the bridges high. "now, sister, now the fates prevail! no more for tarrying try. nay, let us follow where the god, where hard fate calleth me! doomed am i to Æneas' hand; doomed, howso sore it be, to die the death; ah, sister, now thou seest me shamed no more: now let me wear the fury through ere yet my time is o'er." he spake, and from the chariot leapt adown upon the mead, and left his sister lone in grief amidst the foe to speed, amidst the spears, and breaketh through the midmost press of fight, e'en as a headlong stone sweeps down from off the mountain-height, torn by the wind; or drifting rain hath washed it from its hold, or loosed, maybe, it slippeth down because the years grow old: wild o'er the cliffs with mighty leap goes down that world of stone, and bounds o'er earth, and woods and herds and men-folk rolleth on amidst its wrack: so turnus through the broken battle broke unto the very city-walls, where earth was all a-soak with plenteous blood, and air beset with whistling of the shafts; there with his hand he maketh sign, and mighty speech he wafts: "forbear, rutulians! latin men, withhold the points of fight! whatever haps, the hap is mine; i, i alone, of right should cleanse you of the broken troth, and doom of sword-edge face." so from the midst all men depart, and leave an empty space; but now the father Æneas hath hearkened turnus' name, and backward from the walls of war and those high towers he came. he casts away all tarrying, sets every deed aside, and thundering in his battle-gear rejoicing doth he stride: as athos great, as eryx great, great as when roaring goes amid the quaking oaken woods and glory lights the snows, and father apennine uprears his head amidst the skies. then trojan and rutulian men turn thither all their eyes, and all the folk of italy, and they that hold the wall, and they that drive against its feet the battering engines' fall all men do off their armour then. amazed latinus stands to see two mighty heroes, born in such wide-sundered lands. meet thus to try what deed of doom in meeting swords may be. but they, when empty space is cleared amid the open lea, set each on each in speedy wise, and with their war-spears hurled amid the clash of shield and brass break into mavors' world; then groaneth earth; then comes the hail of sword-strokes thick and fast, and in one blended tangle now are luck and valour cast: as when on mighty sila's side, or on taburnus height, two bulls with pushing horny brows are mingled in the fight: the frighted herdsmen draw aback, and all the beasts are dumb for utter fear; the heifers too misdoubt them what shall come, who shall be master of the grove and leader of the flock; but each on each they mingle wounds with fearful might of shock, and gore and push home fencing horns, and with abundant blood bathe neck and shoulder, till the noise goes bellowing through the wood; e'en so Æneas out of troy, and he, the daunian man, smite shield on shield; and mighty clash through all the heavens there ran. 'tis jupiter who holds the scales 'twixt even-poisèd tongue; there in the balance needfully their sundered fates he hung, which one the battle-pain shall doom, in which the death shall lie. now turnus deems him safe, and forth with sword upreared on high, he springs, and all his body strains, and rises to the stroke, and smites: the trojans cry aloud, and eager latin folk, and both hosts hang 'twixt hope and fear: but lo, the treacherous sword breaks in the middle of the blow and leaves its fiery lord:-- and if the flight shall fail him now!--swift as the east he flees when in his right hand weaponless an unknown hilt he sees. they say, that when all eager-hot he clomb his yokèd car in first of fight, that then he left his father's blade of war, and caught in hand his charioteer metiscus' battle-glaive; and that was well while trojan fleers backs to the smiting gave, but when they meet vulcanian arms, the very god's device, then shivereth all the mortal blade e'en as the foolish ice; and there upon the yellow sand the glittering splinters lie. so diversely about the field doth wildered turnus fly, and here and there in winding ways he doubleth up and down, for thick all round about the lists was drawn the teucrian crown: by wide marsh here, by high walls there, his fleeing was begirt. nor less Æneas, howsoe'er, hampered by arrow-hurt, his knees might hinder him at whiles and fail him as he ran, yet foot for foot all eagerly followed the hurrying man; as when a hound hath caught a hart hemmed by the river's ring, or hedged about by empty fear of crimson-feathered string, and swift of foot and baying loud goes following up the flight; but he, all fearful of the snare and of the flood-bank's height, doubles and turns a thousand ways, while open-mouthed and staunch the umbrian keen sticks hard at heel, and now, now hath his haunch, snapping his jaws as though he gripped, and, mocked, but biteth air. then verily the cry arose; the bank, the spreading mere, rang back about, and tumult huge ran shattering through the sky. but turnus as he fled cried out on all his rutuli, and, calling each man by his name, craved his familiar blade. meanwhile Æneas threateneth death if any come to aid, and swift destruction: and their souls with fearful threats doth fill of city ruined root and branch; and, halting, followeth still. five rings of flight their running fills, and back the like they wend: nought light nor gamesome is the prize for which their feet contend, for there they strive in running-game for turnus' life and blood. by hap hard by an olive wild of bitter leaves there stood, hallowed to faunus, while agone a most well-worshipped tree, whereon to that laurentian god the sailors saved from sea would set their gifts, and hang therefrom their garments vowed at need. but now the teucrian men of late had lopped with little heed that holy stem, that they might make the lists of battle clear: and there Æneas' war-spear stood; his might had driven it there, and held it now, set hard and fast in stubborn root and stout: the dardan son bent o'er it now to pluck the weapon out, that he might follow him with shot whom running might not take. but turnus, wildered with his fear, cried out aloud and spake: "o faunus, pity me, i pray! and thou, o kindest earth, hold thou the steel for me, who still have worshipped well thy worth, which ever those Ænean folk with battle would profane!" he spake, and called the god to aid with vows not made in vain; for o'er the tough tree tarrying long, struggling with utter might, no whit Æneas could undo the gripping woody bite. but while he struggleth hot and hard, and hangeth o'er the spear, again the daunian goddess, clad in shape of charioteer metiscus, turnus' trusty sword unto his hand doth speed. but venus, wrathful that the nymph might dare so bold a deed, came nigh, and from the deep-set root the shaft of battle drew. so they, high-hearted, stored with hope and battle-gear anew, one trusting in his sword, and one fierce with his spear on high, stand face to face, the glorious game of panting mars to try. meanwhile the king of heaven the great thus unto juno saith, as from a ruddy cloud she looked upon the game of death: "what then shall end it, o my wife? what deed is left thine hand? that heaven shall gain Æneas yet, a godhead of the land, that fate shall bear him to the stars thou know'st and hast allowed: what dost thou then, or hoping what hang'st thou in chilly cloud? what! was it right that mortal wound a god's own flesh should wrong? right to give turnus--but for thee how was juturna strong?-- the sword he lost? or vanquished men, to give their might increase? i prithee yield unto my prayers, and from thy troubling cease. let not thine hushed grief eat thine heart, or bitter words of care so often from thy sweetest mouth the soul within me wear. the goal is reached: thou hast availed o'er earth and sea to drive the trojan men; to strike the spark of wicked war alive; to foul their house, and woe and grief mid wedding-feast to bear, and now i bid thee hold thine hand." thuswise said jupiter, and with a downcast countenance spake that satumian queen: "well have i known, great jupiter, all that thy will hath been, and turnus and the worldly land loth have i left alone, else nowise should'st thou see me bear, sole on this airy throne, things meet and unmeet: flame-begirt the war-ranks would i gain, and drag the host of trojans on to battle and their bane. juturna!--yes, i pitied her, and bade her help to bear unto her brother; good, methought, for life great things to dare; but nought i bade her to the shaft or bending of the bow, this swear i by the ruthless well, the stygian overflow, the only holy thing there is that weighs on godhead's oath. and now indeed i yield the place, and leave the fight i loathe. but one thing yet i ask of thee, held in no fateful yoke; for latium's sake i pray therefore, and glory of thy folk: when they at last--so be it now!--pledge peace mid bridal kind, when they at last join law to law, and loving treaty bind, let them not change their ancient name, those earth-born latin men, nor turn them into trojan folk, or call them teucrians then: let not that manfolk shift their tongue, or cast their garb aside; let latium and the alban kings through many an age abide, and cherish thou the roman stem with worth of italy: troy-town is dead: troy and its name for ever let them die!" the fashioner of men and things spake, smiling in her face: "yea, jove's own sister; second branch forsooth, of saturn's race! such are the mighty floods of wrath thou rollestin thy breast. but this thine anger born for nought, i prithee let it rest: i give thine asking; conquered now i yield me, and am glad: the ausonian men shall keep the tongue and ways their fathers had, and as their name is shall it be: only in body blent amidst them shall the teucrians sink; from me shall rites be sent, and holy things, and they shall be all latins of one tongue. hence shalt thou see a blended race from blood ausonian sprung, whose godliness shall outgo men, outgo the gods above; nor any folk of all the world so well thy worth shall love." so gladdened juno's heart was turned, and yea-saying she bowed, and so departed from the sky and left her watching-cloud. another thing the father now within him turneth o'er, what wise juturna he shall part from her lost brother's war: two horrors are there that are called the dreadful ones by name, whom with megæra of the pit at one birth and the same untimely night brought forth of yore, and round about them twined like coils of serpents, giving them great wings to hold the wind: about jove's throne, and close anigh the stern king's threshold-stead, do these attend, in sick-heart men to whet the mortal dread, whenso the king-god fashions forth fell death and dire disease, or smites the guilty cities doomed with battle miseries. now one of these sent jupiter swift from the heavenly place, and bade her for a sign of doom to cross juturna's face. so borne upon a whirl of wind to earth the swift one flies, e'en as an arrow from the string is driven amid the skies, which headed with the venom fell a parthian man hath shot,-- parthian, cydonian, it may be,--the hurt that healeth not; its hidden whirring sweepeth through the drifting misty flow: so fared the daughter of the night, and sought the earth below. but when she saw the ilian hosts and turnus' battle-rank, then sudden into puny shape her body huge she shrank, a fowl that sits on sepulchres, and desert roofs alone in the dead night, and through the mirk singeth her ceaseless moan; in such a shape this bane of men met turnus' face in field, and, screeching, hovered to and fro, and flapped upon his shield: strange heaviness his body seized, consuming him with dread, his hair stood up, and in his jaws his voice lay hushed and dead. but when afar juturna knew the dread one's whirring wings, the hapless sister tears her hair and loose its tresses flings, fouling her face with tearing nails, her breast with beat of hand. "how may my help, o turnus, now beside my brother stand? how may i harden me 'gainst this? by what craft shall i stay thy light of life? how cast myself in such a monster's way? now, now i leave the battle-field; fright not the filled with fear, o birds of ill! full well i know your flapping wings in air, and baneful sound. thy mastering will i know it holdeth good, o jove the great!--was this the gift thou gav'st for maidenhood? why give me everlasting life, and death-doom take away? o, but for that my sorrows sore now surely might i slay, and wend beside my brother now amid the nether night. am i undying? ah, can aught of all my good delight without thee, o my brother lost! o earth, gape wide and well, and let a goddess sink adown into the deeps of hell!" so much she said, and wrapped her round with mantle dusky-grey, and, groaning sore, she hid herself within the watery way. but forth Æneas goes, and high his spear he brandisheth, a mighty tree, and from his heart grown fell a word he saith: "and wherewith wilt thou tarry me? hangs turnus back again? no foot-strife but the armèd hand must doom betwixt us twain. yea, turn thyself to every shape, and, gathering everything wherewith thine heart, thy craft is strong, go soaring on the wing, and chase the stars; or deep adown in hollow earth lie stored." but turnus shakes his head and saith: "'tis not thy bitter word that frights me, fierce one; but the gods, but jove my foeman grown." no more he said, but, looking round, espied a weighty stone, an ancient mighty rock indeed, that lay upon the lea, set for a landmark, judge and end of acre-strife to be, which scarce twice six of chosen men upon their backs might raise, of bodies such as earth brings forth amid the latter days: but this in hurrying hand he caught, and rising to the cast, he hurled it forth against the foe, and followed on it fast; yet while he raised the mighty stone, and flung it to its fall. knew nought that he was running there, or that he moved at all: totter his knees, his chilly blood freezes with deadly frost, and e'en the hero-gathered stone, through desert distance tossed, o'ercame not all the space betwixt, nor home its blow might bring: e'en as in dreaming-tide of night, when sleep, the heavy thing, weighs on the eyes, and all for nought we seem so helpless-fain of eager speed, and faint and fail amidmost of the strain; the tongue avails not; all our limbs of their familiar skill are cheated; neither voice nor words may follow from our will: so turnus, by whatever might he strives to win a way, the dread one bans his hope; strange thoughts about his heart-strings play; he stareth on his rutuli, and on the latin town lingering for dread, trembling to meet the spear this instant thrown: no road he hath to flee, no might against the foe to bear; nowhither may he see his car, or sister charioteer. Æneas, as he lingereth there, shaketh the fateful shaft, and, following up its fate with eyes, afar the steel doth waft with all the might his body hath: no stone the wall-sling bears e'er roars so loud: no thunderclap with such a crashing tears amid the heaven: on flew the spear, huge as the whirlwind black, and speeding on the dreadful death: it brings to utter wrack the hauberk's skirt and outer rim of that seven-folded shield, and goeth grating through the thigh: then falleth unto field huge turnus, with his hampered knee twi-folded with the wound: then with a groan the rutuli rise up, and all around roar back the hill-sides, and afar the groves cast back the cry: but he, downcast and suppliant saith, with praying hand and eye: "due doom it is; i pray no ruth; use what hath chanced to fall. yet, if a wretched father's woe may touch thine heart at all, i pray thee--since anchises once was even such to thee,-- pity my father daunus' eld, and send me, or, maybe, my body stripped of light and life, back to my kin and land. thou, thou hast conquered: italy has seen my craven hand stretched forth to pray a grace of thee; lavinia is thy wife: strain not thine hatred further now!" fierce in the gear of strife Æneas stood with rolling eyes, and held back hand and sword, and more and more his wavering heart was softening 'neath the word-- when lo, upon the shoulder showed that hapless thong of war! lo, glittering with familiar boss the belt child pallas bore, whom turnus with a wound overcame and laid on earth alow, and on his body bore thenceforth those ensigns of his foe. but he, when he awhile had glared upon that spoil of fight, that monument of bitter grief, with utter wrath alight, cried terrible: "and shalt thou, clad in my beloved one's prey, be snatched from me?--tis pallas yet, 'tis pallas thus doth slay, and taketh of thy guilty blood atonement for his death!" deep in that breast he driveth sword e'en as the word he saith: but turnus,--waxen cold and spent, the body of him lies, and with a groan through dusk and dark the scornful spirit flies. the end. printed by ballantyne, hanson & co. edinburgh & london pharsalia (aka "the civil war") by lucan (marcus annaeus lucanus) a.d. -a.d. originally written in latin, approximately a.d. - , by the roman poet lucan, and probably left unfinished upon his death in a.d. . although the work has been generally known through most of history as the "pharsalia", modern scholarship tends to agree that this was not lucan's choice for a title. this electronic edition was edited, proofed, and prepared by douglas b. killings (detroyes@aol.com), may . book i the crossing of the rubicon wars worse than civil on emathian ( ) plains, and crime let loose we sing; how rome's high race plunged in her vitals her victorious sword; armies akin embattled, with the force of all the shaken earth bent on the fray; and burst asunder, to the common guilt, a kingdom's compact; eagle with eagle met, standard to standard, spear opposed to spear. whence, citizens, this rage, this boundless lust to sate barbarians with the blood of rome? did not the shade of crassus, wandering still, ( ) cry for his vengeance? could ye not have spoiled, to deck your trophies, haughty babylon? why wage campaigns that send no laurels home? what lands, what oceans might have been the prize of all the blood thus shed in civil strife! where titan rises, where night hides the stars, 'neath southern noons all quivering with heat, or where keen frost that never yields to spring in icy fetters binds the scythian main: long since barbarians by the eastern sea and far araxes' stream, and those who know (if any such there be) the birth of nile had felt our yoke. then, rome, upon thyself with all the world beneath thee, if thou must, wage this nefarious war, but not till then. now view the houses with half-ruined walls throughout italian cities; stone from stone has slipped and lies at length; within the home no guard is found, and in the ancient streets so scarce seen the passer by. the fields in vain, rugged with brambles and unploughed for years, ask for the hand of man; for man is not. nor savage pyrrhus nor the punic horde e'er caused such havoc: to no foe was given to strike thus deep; but civil strife alone dealt the fell wound and left the death behind. yet if the fates could find no other way ( ) for nero coming, nor the gods with ease gain thrones in heaven; and if the thunderer prevailed not till the giant's war was done, complaint is silent. for this boon supreme welcome, ye gods, be wickedness and crime; thronged with our dead be dire pharsalia's fields, be punic ghosts avenged by roman blood; add to these ills the toils of mutina; perusia's dearth; on munda's final field the shock of battle joined; let leucas' cape shatter the routed navies; servile hands unsheath the sword on fiery etna's slopes: still rome is gainer by the civil war. thou, caesar, art her prize. when thou shalt choose, thy watch relieved, to seek divine abodes, all heaven rejoicing; and shalt hold a throne, or else elect to govern phoebus' car and light a subject world that shall not dread to owe her brightness to a different sun; all shall concede thy right: do what thou wilt, select thy godhead, and the central clime whence thou shalt rule the world with power divine. and yet the northern or the southern pole we pray thee, choose not; but in rays direct vouchsafe thy radiance to thy city rome. press thou on either side, the universe should lose its equipoise: take thou the midst, and weight the scales, and let that part of heaven where caesar sits, be evermore serene and smile upon us with unclouded blue. then may all men lay down their arms, and peace through all the nations reign, and shut the gates that close the temple of the god of war. be thou my help, to me e'en now divine! let delphi's steep her own apollo guard, and nysa keep her bacchus, uninvoked. rome is my subject and my muse art thou! first of such deeds i purpose to unfold the causes -- task immense -- what drove to arms a maddened nation, and from all the world struck peace away. by envious fate's decrees abide not long the mightiest lords of earth; beneath too heavy a burden great the fall. thus rome o'ergrew her strength. so when that hour, the last in all the centuries, shall sound the world's disruption, all things shall revert to that primaeval chaos, stars on stars shall crash; and fiery meteors from the sky plunge in the ocean. earth shall then no more front with her bulwark the encroaching sea: the moon, indignant at her path oblique, shall drive her chariot 'gainst her brother sun and claim the day for hers; and discord huge shall rend the spheres asunder. on themselves great powers are dashed: such bounds the gods have placed upon the prosperous; nor doth fortune lend to any nations, so that they may strike the sovereign power that rules the earth and sea, the weapons of her envy. triple reign and baleful compact for divided power -- ne'er without peril separate before -- made rome their victim. oh! ambition blind, that stirred the leaders so to join their strength in peace that ended ill, their prize the world! for while the sea on earth and earth on air lean for support: while titan runs his course, and night with day divides an equal sphere, no king shall brook his fellow, nor shall power endure a rival. search no foreign lands: these walls are proof that in their infant days a hamlet, not the world, was prize enough to cause the shedding of a brother's blood. concord, on discord based, brief time endured, unwelcome to the rivals; and alone crassus delayed the advent of the war. like to the slender neck that separates the seas of graecia: should it be engulfed then would th' ionian and aegean mains ( ) break each on other: thus when crassus fell, who held apart the chiefs, in piteous death, and stained assyria's plains with latian blood, defeat in parthia loosed the war in rome. more in that victory than ye thought was won, ye sons of arsaces; your conquered foes took at your hands the rage of civil strife. the mighty realm that earth and sea contained, to which all peoples bowed, split by the sword, could not find space for two ( ). for julia bore, cut off by fate unpitying( ), the bond of that ill-omened marriage, and the pledge of blood united, to the shades below. had'st thou but longer stayed, it had been thine to keep the husband and the sire apart, and, as the sabine women did of old, dash down the threatening swords and join the hands. with thee all trust was buried, and the chiefs could give their courage vent, and rushed to war. lest newer glories triumphs past obscure, late conquered gaul the bays from pirates won, this, magnus, was thy fear; thy roll of fame, of glorious deeds accomplished for the state allows no equal; nor will caesar's pride a prior rival in his triumphs brook; which had the right 'twere impious to enquire; each for his cause can vouch a judge supreme; the victor, heaven: the vanquished, cato, thee. ( ) nor were they like to like: the one in years now verging towards decay, in times of peace had unlearned war; but thirsting for applause had given the people much, and proud of fame his former glory cared not to renew, but joyed in plaudits of the theatre, ( ) his gift to rome: his triumphs in the past, himself the shadow of a mighty name. as when some oak, in fruitful field sublime, adorned with venerable spoils, and gifts of bygone leaders, by its weight to earth with feeble roots still clings; its naked arms and hollow trunk, though leafless, give a shade; and though condemned beneath the tempest's shock to speedy fall, amid the sturdier trees in sacred grandeur rules the forest still. no such repute had ceesar won, nor fame; but energy was his that could not rest -- the only shame he knew was not to win. keen and unvanquished ( ), where revenge or hope might call, resistless would he strike the blow with sword unpitying: every victory won reaped to the full; the favour of the gods pressed to the utmost; all that stayed his course aimed at the summit of power, was thrust aside: triumph his joy, though ruin marked his track. as parts the clouds a bolt by winds compelled, with crack of riven air and crash of worlds, and veils the light of day, and on mankind, blasting their vision with its flames oblique, sheds deadly fright; then turning to its home, ' nought but the air opposing, through its path spreads havoc, and collects its scattered fires. such were the hidden motives of the chiefs; but in the public life the seeds of war their hold had taken, such as are the doom of potent nations: and when fortune poured through roman gates the booty of a world, the curse of luxury, chief bane of states, fell on her sons. farewell the ancient ways! behold the pomp profuse, the houses decked with ornament; their hunger loathed the food of former days; men wore attire for dames scarce fitly fashioned; poverty was scorned, fruitful of warriors; and from all the world came that which ruins nations; while the fields furrowed of yore by great camillus' plough, or by the mattock which a curius held, lost their once narrow bounds, and widening tracts by hinds unknown were tilled. no nation this to sheathe the sword, with tranquil peace content and with her liberties; but prone to ire; crime holding light as though by want compelled: and great the glory in the minds of men, ambition lawful even at point of sword, to rise above their country: might their law: decrees are forced from senate and from plebs: consul and tribune break the laws alike: bought are the fasces, and the people sell for gain their favour: bribery's fatal curse corrupts the annual contests of the field. then covetous usury rose, and interest was greedier ever as the seasons came; faith tottered; thousands saw their gain in war. caesar has crossed the alps, his mighty soul great tumults pondering and the coming shock. now on the marge of rubicon, he saw, in face most sorrowful and ghostly guise, his trembling country's image; huge it seemed through mists of night obscure; and hoary hair streamed from the lofty front with turrets crowned: torn were her locks and naked were her arms. then thus, with broken sighs the vision spake: "what seek ye, men of rome? and whither hence bear ye my standards? if by right ye come, my citizens, stay here; these are the bounds; no further dare." but caesar's hair was stiff with horror as he gazed, and ghastly dread restrained his footsteps on the further bank. then spake he, "thunderer, who from the rock tarpeian seest the wall of mighty rome; gods of my race who watched o'er troy of old; thou jove of alba's height, and vestal fires, and rites of romulus erst rapt to heaven, and god-like rome; be friendly to my quest. not with offence or hostfie arms i come, thy caesar, conqueror by land and sea, thy soldier here and wheresoe'er thou wilt: no other's; his, his only be the guilt whose acts make me thy foe.' he gives the word and bids his standards cross the swollen stream. so in the wastes of afric's burning clime the lion crouches as his foes draw near, feeding his wrath the while, his lashing tail provokes his fury; stiff upon his neck bristles his mane: deep from his gaping jaws resounds a muttered growl, and should a lance or javelin reach him from the hunter's ring, scorning the puny scratch he bounds afield. from modest fountain blood-red rubicon in summer's heat flows on; his pigmy tide creeps through the valleys and with slender marge divides the italian peasant from the gaul. then winter gave him strength, and fraught with rain the third day's crescent moon; while eastern winds thawed from the alpine slopes the yielding snow. the cavalry first form across the stream ' to break the torrent's force; the rest with ease beneath their shelter gain the further bank. when csesar crossed and trod beneath his feet the soil of italy's forbidden fields, "here," spake he, "peace, here broken laws be left; farewell to treaties. fortune, lead me on; war is our judge, and in the fates our trust." then in the shades of night he leads the troops swifter than balearic sling or shaft winged by retreating parthian, to the walls of threatened rimini, while fled the stars, save lucifer, before the coming sun, whose fires were veiled in clouds, by south wind driven, or else at heaven's command: and thus drew on the first dark morning of the civil war. now stand the troops within the captured town, their standards planted; and the trumpet clang rings forth in harsh alarums, giving note of impious strife: roused from their sleep the men rush to the hall and snatch the ancient arms long hanging through the years of peace; the shield with crumbling frame; dark with the tooth of rust their swords ( ); and javelins with blunted point. but when the well-known signs and eagles shone, and caesar towering o'er the throng was seen, they shook for terror, fear possessed their limbs, and thoughts unuttered stirred within their souls. "o miserable those to whom their home denies the peace that all men else enjoy! placed as we are beside the northern bounds and scarce a footstep from the restless gaul, we fall the first; would that our lot had been beneath the eastern sky, or frozen north, to lead a wandering life, rather than keep the gates of latium. brennus sacked the town and hannibal, and all the teuton hosts. for when the fate of rome is in the scale by this path war advances." thus they moan their fears but speak them not; no sound is heard giving their anguish utterance: as when in depth of winter all the fields are still, the birds are voiceless and no sound is heard to break the silence of the central sea. but when the day had broken through the shades of chilly darkness, lo! the torch of war! for by the hand of fate is swift dispersed all caesar's shame of battle, and his mind scarce doubted more; and fortune toiled to make his action just and give him cause for arms. for while rome doubted and the tongues of men spoke of the chiefs who won them rights of yore, the hostile senate, in contempt of right, drove out the tribunes. they to caesar's camp with curio hasten, who of venal tongue, bold, prompt, persuasive, had been wont to preach of freedom to the people, and to call upon the chiefs to lay their weapons down ( ). and when he saw how deeply caesar mused, "while from the rostrum i had power," he said, to call the populace to aid thy cause, by this my voice against the senate's will was thy command prolonged. but silenced now are laws in war: we driven from our homes; yet is our exile willing; for thine arms shall make us citizens of rome again. strike; for no strength as yet the foe hath gained. occasion calls, delay shall mar it soon: like risk, like labour, thou hast known before, but never such reward. could gallia hold thine armies ten long years ere victory came, that little nook of earth? one paltry fight or twain, fought out by thy resistless hand, and rome for thee shall have subdued the world: 'tis true no triumph now would bring thee home; no captive tribes would grace thy chariot wheels winding in pomp around the ancient hill. spite gnaws the factions; for thy conquests won scarce shalt thou be unpunished. yet 'tis fate thou should'st subdue thy kinsman: share the world with him thou canst not; rule thou canst, alone." as when at elis' festival a horse in stable pent gnaws at his prison bars impatient, and should clamour from without strike on his ear, bounds furious at restraint, so then was caesar, eager for the fight, stirred by the words of curio. to the ranks he bids his soldiers; with majestic mien and hand commanding silence as they come. "comrades," he cried, "victorious returned, who by my side for ten long years have faced, 'mid alpine winters and on arctic shores, the thousand dangers of the battle-field -- is this our country's welcome, this her prize for death and wounds and roman blood outpoured? rome arms her choicest sons; the sturdy oaks are felled to make a fleet; -- what could she more if from the alps fierce hannibal were come with all his punic host? by land and sea caesar shall fly! fly? though in adverse war our best had fallen, and the savage gaul were hard upon our track, we would not fly. and now, when fortune smiles and kindly gods beckon us on to glory! -- let him come fresh from his years of peace, with all his crowd of conscript burgesses, marcellus' tongue ( ) and cato's empty name! we will not fly. shall eastern hordes and greedy hirelings keep their loved pompeius ever at the helm? shall chariots of triumph be for him though youth and law forbad them? shall he seize on rome's chief honours ne'er to be resigned? and what of harvests ( ) blighted through the world and ghastly famine made to serve his ends? who hath forgotten how pompeius' bands seized on the forum, and with glittering arms made outraged justice tremble, while their swords hemmed in the judgment-seat where milo ( ) stood? and now when worn and old and ripe for rest ( ), greedy of power, the impious sword again he draws. as tigers in hyrcanian woods wandering, or in the caves that saw their birth, once having lapped the blood of slaughtered kine, shall never cease from rage; e'en so this whelp of cruel sulla, nursed in civil war, outstrips his master; and the tongue which licked that reeking weapon ever thirsts for more. stain once the lips with blood, no other meal they shall enjoy. and shall there be no end of these long years of power and of crime? nay, this one lesson, e'er it be too late, learn of thy gentle sulla -- to retire! of old his victory o'er cilician thieves and pontus' weary monarch gave him fame, by poison scarce attained. his latest prize shall i be, caesar, i, who would not quit my conquering eagles at his proud command? nay, if no triumph is reserved for me, let these at least of long and toilsome war 'neath other leaders the rewards enjoy. where shall the weary soldier find his rest? what cottage homes their joys, what fields their fruit shall to our veterans yield? will magnus say that pirates only till the fields alight? unfurl your standards; victory gilds them yet, as through those glorious years. deny our rights! he that denies them makes our quarrel just. nay! use the strength that we have made our own. no booty seek we, nor imperial power. this would-be ruler of subservient rome we force to quit his grasp; and heaven shall smile on those who seek to drag the tyrant down." thus caesar spake; but doubtful murmurs ran throughout the listening crowd, this way and that their wishes urging them; the thoughts of home and household gods and kindred gave them pause: but fear of caesar and the pride of war their doubts resolved. then laelius, who wore the well-earned crown for roman life preserved, the foremost captain of the army, spake: "o greatest leader of the roman name, if 'tis thy wish the very truth to hear 'tis mine to speak it; we complain of this, that gifted with such strength thou did'st refrain from using it. had'st thou no trust in us? while the hot life-blood fills these glowing veins, while these strong arms avail to hurl the lance, wilt thou make peace and bear the senate's rule? is civil conquest then so base and vile? lead us through scythian deserts, lead us where the inhospitable syrtes line the shore of afric's burning sands, or where thou wilt: this hand, to leave a conquered world behind, held firm the oar that tamed the northern sea and rhine's swift torrent foaming to the main. to follow thee fate gives me now the power: the will was mine before. no citizen i count the man 'gainst whom thy trumpets sound. by ten campaigns of victory, i swear, by all thy world-wide triumphs, though with hand unwilling, should'st thou now demand the life of sire or brother or of faithful spouse, caesar, the life were thine. to spoil the gods and sack great juno's temple on the hill, to plant our arms o'er tiber's yellow stream, to measure out the camp, against the wall to drive the fatal ram, and raze the town, this arm shall not refuse, though rome the prize." his comrades swore consent with lifted hands and vowed to follow wheresoe'er he led. and such a clamour rent the sky as when some thracian blast on ossa's pine-clad rocks falls headlong, and the loud re-echoing woods, or bending, or rebounding from the stroke, in sounding chorus lift the roar on high. when csesar saw them welcome thus the war and fortune leading on, and favouring fates, he seized the moment, called his troops from gaul, and breaking up his camp set on for rome. the tents are vacant by lake leman's side; the camps upon the beetling crags of vosges no longer hold the warlike lingon down, fierce in his painted arms; isere is left, who past his shallows gliding, flows at last into the current of more famous rhone, to reach the ocean in another name. the fair-haired people of cevennes are free: soft aude rejoicing bears no roman keel, nor pleasant var, since then italia's bound; the harbour sacred to alcides' name where hollow crags encroach upon the sea, is left in freedom: there nor zephyr gains nor caurus access, but the circian blast ( ) forbids the roadstead by monaecus' hold. and others left the doubtful shore, which sea and land alternate claim, whene'er the tide pours in amain or when the wave rolls back -- be it the wind which thus compels the deep from furthest pole, and leaves it at the flood; or else the moon that makes the tide to swell, or else, in search of fuel ( ) for his fires, the sun draws heavenward the ocean wave; -- whate'er the cause that may control the main i leave to others; let the gods for me lock in their breasts the secrets of the world. those who kept watch beside the western shore have moved their standards home; the happy gaul rejoices in their absence; fair garonne through peaceful meads glides onward to the sea. and where the river broadens, neath the cape her quiet harbour sleeps. no outstretched arm except in mimic war now hurls the lance. no skilful warrior of seine directs the scythed chariot 'gainst his country's foe. now rest the belgians, and the arvernian race that boasts our kinship by descent from troy; and those brave rebels whose undaunted hands were dipped in cotta's blood, and those who wear sarmatian garb. batavia's warriors fierce no longer listen for the bugle call, nor those who dwell where rhone's swift eddies sweep saone to the ocean; nor the mountain tribes who dwell about its source. thou, too, oh treves, rejoicest that the war has left thy bounds. ligurian tribes, now shorn, in ancient days first of the long-haired nations, on whose necks once flowed the auburn locks in pride supreme; and those who pacify with blood accursed savage teutates, hesus' horrid shrines, and taranis' altars cruel as were those loved by diana ( ), goddess of the north; all these now rest in peace. and you, ye bards, whose martial lays send down to distant times the fame of valorous deeds in battle done, pour forth in safety more abundant song. while you, ye druids ( ), when the war was done, to mysteries strange and hateful rites returned: to you alone 'tis given the gods and stars to know or not to know; secluded groves your dwelling-place, and forests far remote. if what ye sing be true, the shades of men seek not the dismal homes of erebus or death's pale kingdoms; but the breath of life still rules these bodies in another age -- life on this hand and that, and death between. happy the peoples 'neath the northern star in this their false belief; for them no fear of that which frights all others: they with hands and hearts undaunted rush upon the foe and scorn to spare the life that shall return. ye too depart who kept the banks of rhine safe from the foe, and leave the teuton tribes free at their will to march upon the world. caesar, with strength increased and gathered troops new efforts daring, spreads his bands afar through italy, and fills the neighbouring towns. then empty rumour to well-grounded fear gave strength, and heralding the coming war in hundred voices 'midst the people spread. one cries in terror, "swift the squadrons come where nar with tiber joins: and where, in meads by oxen loved, mevania spreads her walls, fierce caesar hurries his barbarian horse. eagles and standards wave above his head, and broad the march that sweeps across the land." nor is he pictured truly; greater far more fierce and pitiless -- from conquered foes advancing; in his rear the peoples march. snatched from their homes between the rhine and alps, to pillage rome while roman chiefs look on. thus each man's panic thought swells rumour's lie: they fear the phantoms they themselves create. nor does the terror seize the crowd alone: but fled the fathers, to the consuls ( ) first issuing their hated order, as for war; and doubting of their safety, doubting too where lay the peril, through the choking gates, each where he would, rushed all the people forth. thou would'st believe that blazing to the torch were men's abodes, or nodding to their fall. so streamed they onwards, frenzied with affright, as though in exile only could they find hope for their country. so, when southern blasts from libyan whirlpools drive the boundless main, and mast and sail crash down upon a ship with ponderous weight, but still the frame is sound, her crew and captain leap into the sea, each making shipwreck for himself. 'twas thus they passed the city gates and fled to war. no aged parent now could stay his son; nor wife her spouse, nor did they pray the gods to grant the safety of their fatherland. none linger on the threshold for a look of their loved city, though perchance the last. ye gods, who lavish priceless gifts on men, nor care to guard them, see victorious rome teeming with life, chief city of the world, with ample walls that all mankind might hold, to coming caesar left an easy prey. the roman soldier, when in foreign lands pressed by the enemy, in narrow trench and hurried mound finds guard enough to make his slumber safe; but thou, imperial rome, alone on rumour of advancing foes art left a desert, and thy battlements they trust not for one night. yet for their fear this one excuse was left; pompeius fled. nor found they room for hope; for nature gave unerring portents of worse ills to come. the angry gods filled earth and air and sea with frequent prodigies; in darkest nights strange constellations sparkled through the gloom: the pole was all afire, and torches flew across the depths of heaven; with horrid hair a blazing comet stretched from east to west and threatened change to kingdoms. from the blue pale lightning flashed, and in the murky air the fire took divers shapes; a lance afar would seem to quiver or a misty torch; a noiseless thunderbolt from cloudless sky rushed down, and drawing fire in northern parts plunged on the summit of the alban mount. the stars that run their courses in the night shone in full daylight; and the orbed moon, hid by the shade of earth, grew pale and wan. the sun himself, when poised in mid career, shrouded his burning car in blackest gloom and plunged the world in darkness, so that men despaired of day -- like as he veiled his light from that fell banquet which mycenae saw ( ). the jaws of etna were agape with flame that rose not heavenwards, but headlong fell in smoking stream upon the italian flank. then black charybdis, from her boundless depth, threw up a gory sea. in piteous tones howled the wild dogs; the vestal fire was snatched from off the altar; and the flame that crowned the latin festival was split in twain, as on the theban pyre ( ), in ancient days; earth tottered on its base: the mighty alps from off their summits shook th' eternal snow ( ). in huge upheaval ocean raised his waves o'er calpe's rock and atlas' hoary head. the native gods shed tears, and holy sweat dropped from the idols; gifts in temples fell: foul birds defiled the day; beasts left the woods and made their lair among the streets of rome. all this we hear; nay more: dumb oxen spake; monsters were brought to birth and mothers shrieked at their own offspring; words of dire import from cumae's prophetess were noised abroad. bellona's priests with bleeding arms, and slaves of cybele's worship, with ensanguined hair, howled chants of havoc and of woe to men. arms clashed; and sounding in the pathless woods were heard strange voices; spirits walked the earth: and dead men's ashes muttered from the urn. those who live near the walls desert their homes, for lo! with hissing serpents in her hair, waving in downward whirl a blazing pine, a fiend patrols the town, like that which erst at thebes urged on agave ( ), or which hurled lycurgus' bolts, or that which as he came from hades seen, at haughty juno's word, brought terror to the soul of hercules. trumpets like those that summon armies forth were heard re-echoing in the silent night: and from the earth arising sulla's ( ) ghost sang gloomy oracles, and by anio's wave all fled the homesteads, frighted by the shade of marius waking from his broken tomb. in such dismay they summon, as of yore, the tuscan sages to the nation's aid. aruns, the eldest, leaving his abode in desolate luca, came, well versed in all the lore of omens; knowing what may mean the flight of hovering bird, the pulse that beats in offered victims, and the levin bolt. all monsters first, by most unnatural birth brought into being, in accursd flames he bids consume ( ). then round the walls of rome each trembling citizen in turn proceeds. the priests, chief guardians of the public faith, with holy sprinkling purge the open space that borders on the wall; in sacred garb follows the lesser crowd: the vestals come by priestess led with laurel crown bedecked, to whom alone is given the right to see minerva's effigy that came from troy ( ). next come the keepers of the sacred books and fate's predictions; who from almo's brook bring back cybebe laved; the augur too taught to observe sinister flight of birds; and those who serve the banquets to the gods; and titian brethren; and the priest of mars, proud of the buckler that adorns his neck; by him the flamen, on his noble head the cap of office. while they tread the path that winds around the walls, the aged seer collects the thunderbolts that fell from heaven, and lays them deep in earth, with muttered words naming the spot accursed. next a steer, picked for his swelling neck and beauteous form, he leads to the altar, and with slanting knife spreads on his brow the meal, and pours the wine. the victim's struggles prove the gods averse; but when the servers press upon his horns he bends the knee and yields him to the blow. no crimson torrent issued at the stroke, but from the wound a dark empoisoned stream ebbed slowly downward. aruns at the sight aghast, upon the entrails of the beast essayed to read the anger of the gods. their very colour terrified the seer; spotted they were and pale, with sable streaks of lukewarm gore bespread; the liver damp with foul disease, and on the hostile part the angry veins defiant; of the lungs the fibre hid, and through the vital parts the membrane small; the heart had ceased to throb; blood oozes through the ducts; the caul is split: and, fatal omen of impending ill, one lobe o'ergrows the other; of the twain the one lies flat and sick, the other beats and keeps the pulse in rapid strokes astir. disaster's near approach thus learned, he cries -- "whate'er may be the purpose of the gods, 'tis not for me to tell; this offered beast not jove possesses, but the gods below. we dare not speak our fears, yet fear doth make the future worse than fact. may all the gods prosper the tokens, and the sacrifice be void of truth, and tages (famous seer) have vainly taught these mysteries." such his words involved, mysterious. figulus, to whom for knowledge of the secret depths of space and laws harmonious that guide the stars, memphis could find no peer, then spake at large: "either," he said, "the world and countless orbs throughout the ages wander at their will; or, if the fates control them, ruin huge hangs o'er this city and o'er all mankind. shall earth yawn open and engulph the towns? shall scorching heat usurp the temperate air and fields refuse their timely fruit? the streams flow mixed with poison? in what plague, ye gods, in what destruction shall ye wreak your ire? whate'er the truth, the days in which we live shall find a doom for many. had the star of baleful saturn, frigid in the height, kindled his lurid fires, the sky had poured its torrents forth as in deucalion's time, and whelmed the world in waters. or if thou, phoebus, beside the nemean lion fierce wert driving now thy chariot, flames should seize the universe and set the air ablaze. these are at peace; but, mars, why art thou bent on kindling thus the scorpion, his tail portending evil and his claws aflame? deep sunk is kindly jupiter, and dull sweet venus' star, and rapid mercury stays on his course: mars only holds the sky. why does orion's sword too brightly shine? why planets leave their paths and through the void thus journey on obscure? 'tis war that comes, fierce rabid war: the sword shall bear the rule confounding justice; hateful crime usurp the name of virtue; and the havoc spread through many a year. but why entreat the gods? the end rome longs for and the final peace comes with a despot. draw thou out thy chain of lengthening slaughter, and (for such thy fate) make good thy liberty through civil war." the frightened people heard, and as they heard his words prophetic made them fear the more. but worse remained; for as on pindus' slopes possessed with fury from the theban god speeds some bacchante, thus in roman streets behold a matron run, who, in her trance, relieves her bosom of the god within. "where dost thou snatch me, paean, to what shore through airy regions borne? i see the snows of thracian mountains; and philippi's plains lie broad beneath. but why these battle lines, no foe to vanquish -- rome on either hand? again i wander 'neath the rosy hues that paint thine eastern skies, where regal nile meets with his flowing wave the rising tide. known to mine eyes that mutilated trunk that lies upon the sand! across the seas by changing whirlpools to the burning climes of libya borne, again i see the hosts from thracia brought by fate's command. and now thou bear'st me o'er the cloud-compelling alps and pyrenean summits; next to rome. there in mid-senate see the closing scene of this foul war in foulest murder done. again the factions rise; through all the world once more i pass; but give me some new land, some other region, phoebus, to behold! washed by the pontic billows! for these eyes already once have seen philippi's plains!" ( ) the frenzy left her and she speechless fell. endnotes: ( ) 'the great emathian conqueror' (milton's sonnet). emathia was part of macedonia, but the word is used loosely for thessaly or macedonia. ( ) crassus had been defeated and slain by the parthians in b.c. , four years before this period. ( ) mr. froude in his essay entitled "divus caesar" hints that these famous lines may have been written in mockery. probably the five years known as the golden era of nero had passed when they were written: yet the text itself does not aid such a suggestion; and the view generally taken, namely that lucan was in earnest, appears preferable. there were many who dreamed at the time that the disasters of the civil war were being compensated by the wealth and prosperity of the empire under nero; and the assurance of universal peace, then almost realised, which is expressed in lines - , seems inconsistent with the idea that this passage was written in irony. (see lecky's "european morals from augustus to charlemagne", vol. i.p. , who describes these latter verses as written with all the fervour of a christian poet. see also merivale's "roman empire," chapter liv.) ( ) see a similar passage in the final scene of ben jonson's "catiline". the cutting of the isthmus of corinth was proposed in nero's reign, and actually commenced in his presence; but abandoned because it was asserted that the level of the water in the corinthian gulf was higher than that in the saronic gulf, so that, if the canal were cut, the island of aegina would be submerged. merivale's "roman empire", chapter iv. ( ) compare: "two stars keep not their motion in one sphere; nor can one england brook a double reign of harry percy and the prince of wales." -- " henry iv", act v., scene . ( ) this had taken place in b.c. , about five years before the action of the poem opens. ( ) this famous line was quoted by lamartine when addressing the french assembly in . he was advocating, against the interests of his own party (which in the assembly was all- powerful), that the president of the republic should be chosen by the nation, and not by the assembly; and he ended by saying that if the course he advocated was disastrous to himself, 'victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa catoni.' ( ) 'plausuque sui gaudere theatri.' quoted by mr. pitt, in his speech on the address in , on the occasion of peace being made with france, spain, and america; in allusion to mr. sheridan. the latter replied, 'if ever i again engage in the compositions he alludes to, i may be tempted to an act of presumption -- to attempt an improvement on one of ben jonson's best characters -- the character of the angry boy in the "alchymist."' ( ) cicero wrote thus of caesar: have you ever read or heard of a man more vigorous in action or more moderate in the use of victory than our caesar?' -- epp. ad diversos,' viii. . ( ) marlowe has it: "...and swords with ugly teeth of black rust foully scarred." ( ) in the senate, curio had proposed and carried a resolution that pompeius and caesar should lay their arms down simultaneously; but this was resisted by the oligarchal party, who endeavoured, though unsuccessfully, to expel curio from the senate, and who placed pompeius in command of the legions at capua. this was in effect a declaration of war; and curio, after a last attempt at resistance, left the city, and betook himself to caesar. (see the close of book iv.) ( ) marcus marcellus, consul in b.c. . ( ) plutarch, "pomp.", . the harbours and places of trade were placed under his control in order that he might find a remedy for the scarcity of grain. but his enemies said that he had caused the scarcity in order to get the power. ( ) milo was brought to trial for the murder of clodius in b.c. , about three years before this. pompeius, then sole consul, had surrounded the tribunal with soldiers, who at one time charged the crowd. milo was sent into exile at massilia. ( ) see book ii., . ( ) the north-west wind. circius was a violent wind from about the same quarter, but peculiar to the district. ( ) this idea that the sun found fuel in the clouds appears again in book vii., line ; book ix., line ; and book x., line . ( ) this diana was worshipped by the tauri, a people who dwelt in the crimea; and, according to legend, was propitiated by human sacrifices. orestes on his return from his expiatory wanderings brought her image to greece, and the greeks identified her with their artemis. (compare book vi., .) ( ) the horror of the druidical groves is again alluded to in book iii., lines - . dean merivale remarks (chapter li.) on this passage, that in the despair of another life which pervaded paganism at the time, the roman was exasperated at the druids' assertion of the transmigration of souls. but the passage seems also to betray a lingering suspicion that the doctrine may in some shape be true, however horrible were the rites and sacrifices. the reality of a future life was a part of lucan's belief, as a state of reward for heroes. (see the passage at the beginning of book ix.; and also book vi., line ). but all was vague and uncertain, and he appears to have viewed the druidical transmigration rather with doubt and unbelief, as a possible form of future or recurring life, than with scorn as an absurdity. ( ) plutarch says the consuls fled without making the sacrifices usual before wars. ("pomp." .) ( ) compare ben jonson's "catiline," i. : -- lecca: the day goes back, or else my senses. curius: as at atreus' feast. ( ) when the theban brothers, eteocles and polynices, were being burned on the same pyre, the flame shot up in two separate tongues, indicating that even in death they could not be reconciled. (mr. haskins' note, citing statius, "thebiad") ( ) "shook the old snow from off their trembling laps." (marlowe.) the latin word is "jugis". ( ) book vi., . ( ) sulla was buried in the campus martius. (plutarch, "sulla,".) the corpse of marius was dragged from his tomb by sulla's order, and thrown into the anio. ( ) such a ceremonial took place in a.d. under nero, after the temples of jupiter and minerva had been struck by lightning, and was probably witnessed by lucan himself. (see merivale's "history of the roman empire," chapter lii.) ( ) see book ix., . ( ) the confusion between the site of the battle of philippi and that of the battle of pharsalia is common among the roman writers. (see the note to merivale, chapter xxvi.) book ii the flight of pompeius this was made plain the anger of the gods; the universe gave signs nature reversed in monstrous tumult fraught with prodigies her laws, and prescient spake the coming guilt. how seemed it just to thee, olympus' king, that suffering mortals at thy doom should know by omens dire the massacre to come? or did the primal parent of the world when first the flames gave way and yielding left matter unformed to his subduing hand, and realms unbalanced, fix by stern decree' unalterable laws to bind the whole (himself, too, bound by law), so that for aye all nature moves within its fated bounds? or, is chance sovereign over all, and we the sport of fortune and her turning wheel? whate'er be truth, keep thou the future veiled from mortal vision, and amid their fears may men still hope. thus known how great the woes the world should suffer, from the truth divine, a solemn fast was called, the courts were closed, all men in private garb; no purple hem adorned the togas of the chiefs of rome; no plaints were uttered, and a voiceless grief lay deep in every bosom: as when death knocks at some door but enters not as yet, before the mother calls the name aloud or bids her grieving maidens beat the breast, while still she marks the glazing eye, and soothes the stiffening limbs and gazes on the face, in nameless dread, not sorrow, and in awe of death approaching: and with mind distraught clings to the dying in a last embrace. the matrons laid aside their wonted garb: crowds filled the temples -- on the unpitying stones some dashed their bosoms; others bathed with tears the statues of the gods; some tore their hair upon the holy threshold, and with shrieks and vows unceasing called upon the names of those whom mortals supplicate. nor all lay in the thunderer's fane: at every shrine some prayers are offered which refused shall bring reproach on heaven. one whose livid arms were dark with blows, whose cheeks with tears bedewed and riven, cried, "beat, mothers, beat the breast, tear now the lock; while doubtful in the scales still fortune hangs, nor yet the fight is won, you still may grieve: when either wins rejoice." thus sorrow stirs itself. meanwhile the men seeking the camp and setting forth to war, address the cruel gods in just complaint. "happy the youths who born in punic days on cannae's uplands or by trebia's stream fought and were slain! what wretched lot is ours! no peace we ask for: let the nations rage; rouse fiercest cities! may the world find arms to wage a war with rome: let parthian hosts rush forth from susa; scythian ister curb no more the massagete: unconquered rhine let loose from furthest north her fair-haired tribes: elbe, pour thy suevians forth! let us be foes of all the peoples. may the getan press here, and the dacian there; pompeius meet the eastern archers, caesar in the west confront th' iberian. leave to rome no hand to raise against herself in civil strife. or, if italia by the gods be doomed, let all the sky, fierce parent, be dissolved and falling on the earth in flaming bolts, their hands still bloodless, strike both leaders down, with both their hosts! why plunge in novel crime to settle which of them shall rule in rome? scarce were it worth the price of civil war to hinder either." thus the patriot voice still found an utterance, soon to speak no more. meantime, the aged fathers o'er their fates in anguish grieved, detesting life prolonged that brought with it another civil war. and thus spake one, to justify his fears: "no other deeds the fates laid up in store when marius ( ), victor over teuton hosts, afric's high conqueror, cast out from rome, lay hid in marshy ooze, at thy behest, o fortune! by the yielding soil concealed and waving rushes; but ere long the chains of prison wore his weak and aged frame, and lengthened squalor: thus he paid for crime his punishment beforehand; doomed to die consul in triumph over wasted rome. death oft refused him; and the very foe, in act to murder, shuddered in the stroke and dropped the weapon from his nerveless hand. for through the prison gloom a flame of light he saw; the deities of crime abhorred; the marius to come. a voice proclaimed mysterious, 'hold! the fates permit thee not that neck to sever. many a death he owes to time's predestined laws ere his shall come; cease from thy madness. if ye seek revenge for all the blood shed by your slaughtered tribes to let this man, cimbrians, live out all his days.' not as their darling did the gods protect the man of blood, but for his ruthless hand fit to prepare that sacrifice of gore which fate demanded. by the sea's despite borne to our foes, jugurtha's wasted realm he saw, now conquered; there in squalid huts awhile he lay, and trod the hostile dust of carthage, and his ruin matched with hers: each from the other's fate some solace drew, and prostrate, pardoned heaven. on libyan soil ( ) fresh fury gathering ( ), next, when fortune smiled the prisons he threw wide and freed the slaves. forth rushed the murderous bands, their melted chains forged into weapons for his ruffian needs. no charge he gave to mere recruits in guilt who brought not to the camp some proof of crime. how dread that day when conquering marius seized the city's ramparts! with what fated speed death strode upon his victims! plebs alike and nobles perished; far and near the sword struck at his pleasure, till the temple floors ran wet with slaughter and the crimson stream befouled with slippery gore the holy walls. no age found pity men of failing years, just tottering to the grave, were hurled to death; from infants, in their being's earliest dawn ( ), the growing life was severed. for what crime? twas cause enough for death that they could die. the fury grew: soon 'twas a sluggard's part to seek the guilty: hundreds died to swell the tale of victims. shamed by empty hands, the bloodstained conqueror snatched a reeking head from neck unknown. one way of life remained, to kiss with shuddering lips the red right hand ( ). degenerate people! had ye hearts of men, though ye were threatened by a thousand swords, far rather death than centuries of life bought at such price; much more that breathing space till sulla comes again ( ). but time would fail in weeping for the deaths of all who fell. encircled by innumerable bands fell baebius, his limbs asunder torn, his vitals dragged abroad. antonius too, prophet of ill, whose hoary head ( ) was placed, dripping with blood, upon the festal board. there headless fell the crassi; mangled frames 'neath fimbria's falchion: and the prison cells were wet with tribunes' blood. hard by the fane where dwells the goddess and the sacred fire, fell aged scaevola, though that gory hand ( ) had spared him, but the feeble tide of blood still left the flame alive upon the hearth. that selfsame year the seventh time restored ( ) the consul's rods; that year to marius brought the end of life, when he at fortune's hands all ills had suffered; all her goods enjoyed. "and what of those who at the sacriport ( ) and colline gate were slain, then, when the rule of earth and all her nations almost left this city for another, and the chiefs who led the samnite hoped that rome might bleed more than at caudium's forks she bled of old? then came great sulla to avenge the dead, and all the blood still left within her frame drew from the city; for the surgeon knife which shore the cancerous limbs cut in too deep, and shed the life stream from still healthy veins. true that the guilty fell, but not before all else had perished. hatred had free course and anger reigned unbridled by the law. the victor's voice spake once; but each man struck just as he wished or willed. the fatal steel urged by the servant laid the master low. sons dripped with gore of sires; and brothers fought for the foul trophy of a father slain, or slew each other for the price of blood. men sought the tombs and, mingling with the dead, hoped for escape; the wild beasts' dens were full. one strangled died; another from the height fell headlong down upon the unpitying earth, and from the encrimsoned victor snatched his death: one built his funeral pyre and oped his veins, and sealed the furnace ere his blood was gone. borne through the trembling town the leaders' heads were piled in middle forum: hence men knew of murders else unpublished. not on gates of diomedes ( ), tyrant king of thrace, nor of antaeus, libya's giant brood, were hung such horrors; nor in pisa's hall were seen and wept for when the suitors died. decay had touched the features of the slain when round the mouldering heap, with trembling steps the grief-struck parents sought and stole their dead. i, too, the body of my brother slain thought to remove, my victim to the peace which sulla made, and place his loved remains on the forbidden pyre. the head i found, but not the butchered corse. "why now renew the tale of catulus's shade appeased? and those dread tortures which the living frame of marius ( ) suffered at the tomb of him who haply wished them not? pierced, mangled, torn -- nor speech nor grasp was left: his every limb maimed, hacked and riven; yet the fatal blow the murderers with savage purpose spared. 'twere scarce believed that one poor mortal frame such agonies could bear e'er death should come. thus crushed beneath some ruin lie the dead; thus shapeless from the deep are borne the drowned. why spoil delight by mutilating thus, the head of marius? to please sulla's heart that mangled visage must be known to all. fortune, high goddess of praeneste's fane, saw all her townsmen hurried to their deaths in one fell instant. all the hope of rome, the flower of latium, stained with blood the field where once the peaceful tribes their votes declared. famine and sword, the raging sky and sea, and earth upheaved, have laid such numbers low: but ne'er one man's revenge. between the slain and living victims there was space no more, death thus let slip, to deal the fatal blow. hardly when struck they fell; the severed head scarce toppled from the shoulders; but the slain blent in a weighty pile of massacre pressed out the life and helped the murderer's arm. secure from stain upon his lofty throne, unshuddering sat the author of the whole, nor feared that at his word such thousands fell. at length the tuscan flood received the dead the first upon his waves; the last on those that lay beneath them; vessels in their course were stayed, and while the lower current flowed still to the sea, the upper stood on high dammed back by carnage. through the streets meanwhile in headlong torrents ran a tide of blood, which furrowing its path through town and field forced the slow river on. but now his banks no longer held him, and the dead were thrown back on the fields above. with labour huge at length he struggled to his goal and stretched in crimson streak across the tuscan sea. "for deeds like these, shall sulla now be styled 'darling of fortune', 'saviour of the state'? for these, a tomb in middle field of mars record his fame? like horrors now return for us to suffer; and the civil war thus shall be waged again and thus shall end. yet worse disasters may our fears suggest, for now with greater carnage of mankind the rival hosts in weightier battle meet. to exiled marius, successful strife was rome regained; triumphant sulla knew no greater joy than on his hated foes to wreak his vengeance with unsparing sword. but these more powerful rivals fortune calls to worse ambitions; nor would either chief for such reward as sulla's wage the war." thus, mindful of his youth, the aged man wept for the past, but feared the coming days. such terrors found in haughty brutus' breast no home. when others sat them down to fear he did not so, but in the dewy night when the great wain was turning round the pole he sought his kinsman cato's humble home. him sleepless did he find, not for himself fearing, but pondering the fates of rome, and deep in public cares. and thus he spake: "o thou in whom that virtue, which of yore took flight from earth, now finds its only home, outcast to all besides, but safe with thee: vouchsafe thy counsel to my wavering soul and make my weakness strength. while caesar some, pompeius others, follow in the fight, cato is brutus' guide. art thou for peace, holding thy footsteps in a tottering world unshaken? or wilt thou with the leaders' crimes and with the people's fury take thy part, and by thy presence purge the war of guilt? in impious battles men unsheath the sword; but each by cause impelled: the household crime; laws feared in peace; want by the sword removed; and broken credit, that its ruin hides in general ruin. drawn by hope of gain, and not by thirst for blood, they seek the camp. shall cato for war's sake make war alone? what profits it through all these wicked years that thou hast lived untainted? this were all thy meed of virtue, that the wars which find guilt in all else, shall make thee guilty too. ye gods, permit not that this fatal strife should stir those hands to action! when the clouds of flying javelins hiss upon the air, let not a dart be thine; nor spent in vain such virtue! all the fury of the war shall launch itself on thee, for who, when faint and wounded, would not rush upon thy sword, take thence his death, and make the murder thine? do thou live on thy peaceful life apart as on their paths the stars unshaken roll. the lower air that verges on the earth gives flame and fury to the levin bolt; the deeps below the world engulph the winds and tracts of flaming fire. by jove's decree olympus rears his summit o'er the clouds: in lowlier valleys storms and winds contend, but peace eternal reigns upon the heights. what joy for caesar, if the tidings come that such a citizen has joined the war? glad would he see thee e'en in magnus' tents; for cato's conduct shall approve his own. pompeius, with the consul in his ranks, and half the senate and the other chiefs, vexes my spirit; and should cato too bend to a master's yoke, in all the world the one man free is caesar. but if thou for freedom and thy country's laws alone be pleased to raise the sword, nor magnus then nor caesar shall in brutus find a foe. not till the fight is fought shall brutus strike, then strike the victor." brutus thus; but spake cato from inmost breast these sacred words: "chief in all wickedness is civil war, yet virtue in the paths marked out by fate treads on securely. heaven's will be the crime to have made even cato guilty. who has strength to gaze unawed upon a toppling world? when stars and sky fall headlong, and when earth slips from her base, who sits with folded hands? shall unknown nations, touched by western strife, and monarchs born beneath another clime brave the dividing seas to join the war? shall scythian tribes desert their distant north, and getae haste to view the fall of rome, and i look idly on? as some fond sire, reft of his sons, compelled by grief, himself marshals the long procession to the tomb, thrusts his own hand within the funeral flames, soothing his heart, and, as the lofty pyre rises on high, applies the kindled torch: nought, rome, shall tear thee from me, till i hold thy form in death embraced; and freedom's name, shade though it be, i'll follow to the grave. yea! let the cruel gods exact in full rome's expiation: of no drop of blood the war be robbed. i would that, to the gods of heaven and hell devoted, this my life might satisfy their vengeance. decius fell, crushed by the hostile ranks. when cato falls let rhine's fierce barbarous hordes and both the hosts thrust through my frame their darts! may i alone receive in death the wounds of all the war! thus may the people be redeemed, and thus rome for her guilt pay the atonement due. why should men die who wish to bear the yoke and shrink not from the tyranny to come? strike me, and me alone, of laws and rights in vain the guardian: this vicarious life shall give hesperia peace and end her toils. who then will reign shall find no need for war. you ask, 'why follow magnus? if he wins ( ) he too will claim the empire of the world.' then let him, conquering with my service, learn not for himself to conquer." thus he spoke and stirred the blood that ran in brutus' veins moving the youth to action in the war. soon as the sun dispelled the chilly night, the sounding doors flew wide, and from the tomb of dead hortensius grieving marcia came ( ). first joined in wedlock to a greater man three children did she bear to grace his home: then cato to hortensius gave the dame to be a fruitful mother of his sons and join their houses in a closer tie. and now the last sad offices were done she came with hair dishevelled, beaten breast, and ashes on her brow, and features worn with grief; thus only pleasing to the man. "when youth was in me and maternal power i did thy bidding, cato, and received a second husband: now in years grown old ne'er to be parted i return to thee. renew our former pledges undefiled: give back the name of wife: upon my tomb let 'marcia, spouse to cato,' be engraved. nor let men question in the time to come, did'st thou compel, or did i willing leave my first espousals. not in happy times, partner of joys, i come; but days of care and labour shall be mine to share with thee. nor leave me here, but take me to the camp, thy fond companion: why should magnus' wife be nearer, cato, to the wars than thine?" although the times were warlike and the fates called to the fray, he lent a willing ear. yet must they plight their faith in simple form of law; their witnesses the gods alone. no festal wreath of flowers crowned the gate nor glittering fillet on each post entwined; no flaming torch was there, nor ivory steps, no couch with robes of broidered gold adorned; no comely matron placed upon her brow the bridal garland, or forbad the foot ( ) to touch the threshold stone; no saffron veil concealed the timid blushes of the bride; no jewelled belt confined her flowing robe ( ) nor modest circle bound her neck; no scarf hung lightly on the snowy shoulder's edge around the naked arm. just as she came, wearing the garb of sorrow, while the wool covered the purple border of her robe, thus was she wedded. as she greets her sons so doth she greet her husband. festal games graced not their nuptials, nor were friends and kin as by the sabines bidden: silent both they joined in marriage, yet content, unseen by any save by brutus. sad and stern on cato's lineaments the marks of grief were still unsoftened, and the hoary hair hung o'er his reverend visage; for since first men flew to arms, his locks were left unkempt to stream upon his brow, and on his chin his beard untended grew. 'twas his alone who hated not, nor loved, for all mankind to mourn alike. nor did their former couch again receive them, for his lofty soul e'en lawful love resisted. 'twas his rule inflexible, to keep the middle path marked out and bounded; to observe the laws of natural right; and for his country's sake to risk his life, his all, as not for self brought into being, but for all the world: such was his creed. to him a sumptuous feast was hunger conquered, and the lowly hut, which scarce kept out the winter, was a home equal to palaces: a robe of price such hairy garments as were worn of old: the end of marriage, offspring. to the state father alike and husband, right and law he ever followed with unswerving step: no thought of selfish pleasure turned the scale in cato's acts, or swayed his upright soul. meanwhile pompeius led his trembling host to fields campanian, and held the walls first founded by the chief of trojan race ( ). these chose he for the central seat of war, some troops despatching who might meet the foe where shady apennine lifts up the ridge of mid italia; nearest to the sky upsoaring, with the seas on either hand, the upper and the lower. pisa's sands breaking the margin of the tuscan deep, here bound his mountains: there ancona's towers laved by dalmatian waves. rivers immense, in his recesses born, pass on their course, to either sea diverging. to the left metaurus, and crustumium's torrent, fall and sena's streams and aufidus who bursts on adrian billows; and that mighty flood which, more than all the rivers of the earth, sweeps down the soil and tears the woods away and drains hesperia's springs. in fabled lore his banks were first by poplar shade enclosed: ( ) and when by phaethon the waning day was drawn in path transverse, and all the heaven blazed with his car aflame, and from the depths of inmost earth were rapt all other floods, padus still rolled in pride of stream along. nile were no larger, but that o'er the sand of level egypt he spreads out his waves; nor ister, if he sought the scythian main unhelped upon his journey through the world by tributary waters not his own. but on the right hand tiber has his source, deep-flowing rutuba, vulturnus swift, and sarnus breathing vapours of the night rise there, and liris with vestinian wave still gliding through marica's shady grove, and siler flowing through salernian meads: and macra's swift unnavigable stream by luna lost in ocean. on the alps whose spurs strike plainwards, and on fields of gaul the cloudy heights of apennine look down in further distance: on his nearer slopes the sabine turns the ploughshare; umbrian kine and marsian fatten; with his pineclad rocks he girds the tribes of latium, nor leaves hesperia's soil until the waves that beat on scylla's cave compel. his southern spurs extend to juno's temple, and of old stretched further than italia, till the main o'erstepped his limits and the lands repelled. but, when the seas were joined, pelorus claimed his latest summits for sicilia's isle. caesar, in rage for war, rejoicing found foes in italia; no bloodless steps nor vacant homes had pleased him ( ); so his march were wasted: now the coming war was joined unbroken to the past; to force the gates not find them open, fire and sword to bring upon the harvests, not through fields unharmed to pass his legions -- this was caesar's joy; in peaceful guise to march, this was his shame. italia's cities, doubtful in their choice, though to the earliest onset of the war about to yield, strengthened their walls with mounds and deepest trench encircling: massive stones and bolts of war to hurl upon the foe they place upon the turrets. magnus most the people's favour held, yet faith with fear fought in their breasts. as when, with strident blast, a southern tempest has possessed the main and all the billows follow in its track: then, by the storm-king smitten, should the earth set eurus free upon the swollen deep, it shall not yield to him, though cloud and sky confess his strength; but in the former wind still find its master. but their fears prevailed, and caesar's fortune, o'er their wavering faith. for libo fled etruria; umbria lost her freedom, driving thermus ( ) from her bounds; great sulla's son, unworthy of his sire, feared at the name of caesar: varus sought the caves and woods, when smote the hostile horse the gates of auximon; and spinther driven from asculum, the victor on his track, fled with his standards, soldierless; and thou, scipio, did'st leave nuceria's citadel deserted, though by bravest legions held sent home by caesar for the parthian war ( ); whom magnus earlier, to his kinsman gave a loan of roman blood, to fight the gaul. but brave domitius held firm his post ( ) behind corfinium's ramparts; his the troops who newly levied kept the judgment hall at milo's trial ( ). when from far the plain rolled up a dusty cloud, beneath whose veil the sheen of armour glistening in the sun, revealed a marching host. "dash down," he cried, swift; as ye can, the bridge that spans the stream; and thou, o river, from thy mountain source with all thy torrents rushing, planks and beams ruined and broken on thy foaming breast bear onward to the sea. the war shall stop here, to our triumph; for this headlong chief here first at our firm bidding shall be stayed." he bade his squadrons, speeding from the walls, charge on the bridge: in vain: for caesar saw they sought to free the river from his chains ( ) and bar his march; and roused to ire, he cried: "were not the walls sufficient to protect your coward souls? seek ye by barricades and streams to keep me back? what though the flood of swollen ganges were across my path? now rubicon is passed, no stream on earth shall hinder caesar! forward, horse and foot, and ere it totters rush upon the bridge." urged in their swiftest gallop to the front dashed the light horse across the sounding plain; and suddenly, as storm in summer, flew a cloud of javelins forth, by sinewy arms hurled at the foe; the guard is put to flight, and conquering caesar, seizing on the bridge, compels the enemy to keep the walls. now do the mighty engines, soon to hurl gigantic stones, press forward, and the ram creeps 'neath the ramparts; when the gates fly back, and lo! the traitor troops, foul crime in war, yield up their leader. him they place before his proud compatriot; yet with upright form, and scornful features and with noble mien, he asks his death. but caesar knew his wish was punishment, and pardon was his fear: "live though thou would'st not," so the chieftain spake, "and by my gift, unwilling, see the day: be to my conquered foes the cause of hope, proof of my clemency -- or if thou wilt take arms again -- and should'st thou conquer, count this pardon nothing." thus he spake, and bade let loose the bands and set the captive free. ah! better had he died, and fortune spared the roman's last dishonour, whose worse doom it is, that he who joined his country's camp and fought with magnus for the senate's cause should gain for this -- a pardon! yet he curbed his anger, thinking, "wilt thou then to rome and peaceful scenes, degenerate? rather war, the furious battle and the certain end! break with life's ties: be caesar's gift in vain." pompeius, ignorant that his captain thus was taken, armed his levies newly raised to give his legions strength; and as he thought to sound his trumpets with the coming dawn, to test his soldiers ere he moved his camp thus in majestic tones their ranks addressed: "soldiers of rome! avengers of her laws! to whom the senate gives no private arms, ask by your voices for the battle sign. fierce falls the pillage on hesperian fields, and gallia's fury o'er the snowy alps ( ) is poured upon us. caesar's swords at last are red with roman blood. but with the wound we gain the better cause; the crime is theirs. no war is this, but for offended rome we wreak the vengeance; as when catiline lifted against her roofs the flaming brand and, partner in his fury, lentulus, and mad cethegus ( ) with his naked arm. is such thy madness, caesar? when the fates with great camillus' and metellus' names might place thine own, dost thou prefer to rank with marius and cinna? swift shall be thy fall: as lepidus before the sword of catulus; or who my axes felt, carbo ( ), now buried in sicanian tomb; or who, in exile, roused iberia's hordes, sertorius -- yet, witness heaven, with these i hate to rank thee; hate the task that rome has laid upon me, to oppose thy rage. would that in safety from the parthian war and scythian steppes had conquering crassus come! then haply had'st thou fallen by the hand that smote vile spartacus the robber foe. but if among my triumphs fate has said thy conquest shall be written, know this heart still sends the life blood coursing: and this arm ( ) still vigorously flings the dart afield. he deems me slothful. caesar, thou shalt learn we brook not peace because we lag in war. old, does he call me? fear not ye mine age. let me be elder, if his soldiers are. the highest point a citizen can reach and leave his people free, is mine: a throne alone were higher; whoso would surpass pompeius, aims at that. both consuls stand here; here for battle stand your lawful chiefs: and shall this caesar drag the senate down? not with such blindness, not so lost to shame does fortune rule. does he take heart from gaul: for years on years rebellious, and a life spent there in labour? or because he fled rhine's icy torrent and the shifting pools he calls an ocean? or unchallenged sought britannia's cliffs; then turned his back in flight? or does he boast because his citizens were driven in arms to leave their hearths and homes? ah, vain delusion! not from thee they fled: my steps they follow -- mine, whose conquering signs swept all the ocean ( ), and who, ere the moon twice filled her orb and waned, compelled to flight the pirate, shrinking from the open sea, and humbly begging for a narrow home in some poor nook on shore. 'twas i again who, happier far than sulla, drave to death ( ) that king who, exiled to the deep recess of scythian pontus, held the fates of rome still in the balances. where is the land that hath not seen my trophies? icy waves of northern phasis, hot egyptian shores, and where syene 'neath its noontide sun knows shade on neither hand ( ): all these have learned to fear pompeius: and far baetis' ( ) stream, last of all floods to join the refluent sea. arabia and the warlike hordes that dwell beside the euxine wave: the famous land that lost the golden fleece; cilician wastes, and cappadocian, and the jews who pray before an unknown god; sophene soft -- all felt my yoke. what conquests now remain, what wars not civil can my kinsman wage?" no loud acclaim received his words, nor shout asked for the promised battle: and the chief drew back the standards, for the soldier's fears were in his soul alike; nor dared he trust an army, vanquished by the fame alone of caesar's powers, to fight for such a prize. and as some bull, his early combat lost, forth driven from the herd, in exile roams through lonely plains or secret forest depths, whets on opposing trunks his growing horn, and proves himself for battle, till his neck is ribbed afresh with muscle: then returns, defiant of the hind, and victor now leads wheresoe'er he will his lowing bands: thus magnus, yielding to a stronger foe, gave up italia, and sought in flight brundusium's sheltering battlements. here of old fled cretan settlers when the dusky sail ( ) spread the false message of the hero dead; here, where hesperia, curving as a bow, draws back her coast, a little tongue of land shuts in with bending horns the sounding main. yet insecure the spot, unsafe in storm, were it not sheltered by an isle on which the adriatic billows dash and fall, and tempests lose their strength: on either hand a craggy cliff opposing breaks the gale that beats upon them, while the ships within held by their trembling cables ride secure. hence to the mariner the boundless deep lies open, whether for corcyra's port he shapes his sails, or for illyria's shore, and epidamnus facing to the main ionian. here, when raging in his might fierce adria whelms in foam calabria's coast, when clouds tempestuous veil ceraunus' height, the sailor finds a haven. when the chief could find no hope in battle on the soil he now was quitting, and the lofty alps forbad iberia, to his son he spake, the eldest scion of that noble stock: "search out the far recesses of the earth, nile and euphrates, wheresoe'er the fame of magnus lives, where, through thy father's deeds, the people tremble at the name of rome. lead to the sea again the pirate bands; rouse egypt's kings; tigranes, wholly mine, and pharnaces and all the vagrant tribes of both armenias; and the pontic hordes, warlike and fierce; the dwellers on the hills rhipaean, and by that dead northern marsh whose frozen surface bears the loaded wain. why further stay thee? let the eastern world sound with the war, all cities of the earth conquered by me, as vassals, to my camp send all their levied hosts. and you whose names within the latian book recorded stand, strike for epirus with the northern wind; and thence in greece and macedonian tracts, (while winter gives us peace) new strength acquire for coming conflicts." they obey his words and loose their ships and launch upon the main. but caesar's might, intolerant of peace or lengthy armistice, lest now perchance the fates might change their edicts, swift pursued the footsteps of his foe. to other men, so many cities taken at a blow, so many strongholds captured, might suffice; and rome herself, the mistress of the world, lay at his feet, the greatest prize of all. not so with caesar: instant on the goal he fiercely presses; thinking nothing done while aught remained to do. now in his grasp lay all italia; -- but while magnus stayed upon the utmost shore, his grieving soul deemed all was shared with him. yet he essayed escape to hinder, and with labour vain piled in the greedy main gigantic rocks: mountains of earth down to the sandy depths were swallowed by the vortex of the sea; just as if eryx and its lofty top were cast into the deep, yet not a speck should mark the watery plain; or gaurus huge split from his summit to his base, were plunged in fathomless avernus' stagnant pool. the billows thus unstemmed, 'twas caesar's will to hew the stately forests and with trees enchained to form a rampart. thus of old (if fame be true) the boastful persian king prepared a way across the rapid strait 'twixt sestos and abydos, and made one the european and the trojan shores; and marched upon the waters, wind and storm counting as nought, but trusting his emprise to one frail bridge, so that his ships might pass through middle athos. thus a mighty mole of fallen forests grew upon the waves, free until then, and lofty turrets rose, and land usurped the entrance to the main. this when pompeius saw, with anxious care his soul was filled; yet hoping to regain the exit lost, and win a wider world wherein to wage the war, on chosen ships he hoists the sails; these, driven by the wind and drawn by cables fastened to their prows, scattered the beams asunder; and at night not seldom engines, worked by stalwart arms, flung flaming torches forth. but when the time for secret flight was come, no sailor shout rang on the shore, no trumpet marked the hour, no bugle called the armament to sea. already shone the virgin in the sky leading the scorpion in her course, whose claws foretell the rising sun, when noiseless all they cast the vessels loose; no song was heard to greet the anchor wrenched from stubborn sand; no captain's order, when the lofty mast was raised, or yards were bent; a silent crew drew down the sails which hung upon the ropes, nor shook the mighty cables, lest the wind should sound upon them. but the chief, in prayer, thus spake to fortune: "thou whose high decree has made us exiles from italia's shores, grant us at least to leave them." yet the fates hardly permitted, for a murmur vast came from the ocean, as the countless keels furrowed the waters, and with ceaseless splash the parted billows rose again and fell. then were the gates thrown wide; for with the fates the city turned to caesar: and the foe, seizing the town, rushed onward by the pier that circled in the harbour; then they knew with shame and sorrow that the fleet was gone and held the open: and pompeius' flight gave a poor triumph. yet was narrower far the channel which gave access to the sea than that euboean strait ( ) whose waters lave the shore by chalcis. here two ships stuck fast alone, of all the fleet; the fatal hook grappled their decks and drew them to the land, and the first bloodshed of the civil war here left a blush upon the ocean wave. as when the famous ship ( ) sought phasis' stream the rocky gates closed in and hardly gripped her flying stern; then from the empty sea the cliffs rebounding to their ancient seat were fixed to move no more. but now the steps of morn approaching tinged the eastern sky with roseate hues: the pleiades were dim, the wagon of the charioteer grew pale, the planets faded, and the silvery star which ushers in the day, was lost in light. then magnus, hold'st the deep; yet not the same now are thy fates, as when from every sea thy fleet triumphant swept the pirate pest. tired of thy conquests, fortune now no more shall smile upon thee. with thy spouse and sons, thy household gods, and peoples in thy train, still great in exile, in a distant land thou seek'st thy fated fall; not that the gods, wishing to rob thee of a roman grave, decreed the strands of egypt for thy tomb: 'twas italy they spared, that far away fortune on shores remote might hide her crime, and roman soil be pure of magnus' blood. endnotes: ( ) when dragged from his hiding place in the marsh, marius was sent by the magistrates of minturnae to the house of a woman named fannia, and there locked up in a dark apartment. it does not appear that he was there long. a gallic soldier was sent to kill him; "and the eyes of marius appeared to him to dart a strong flame, and a loud voice issued from the gloom, 'man, do you dare to kill caius marius?'" he rushed out exclaiming, "i cannot kill caius marius." (plutarch, "marius", .) ( ) the governor of libya sent an officer to marius, who had landed in the neighbourhood of carthage. the officer delivered his message, and marius replied, "tell the governor you have seen caius marius, a fugitive sitting on the ruins of carthage," a reply in which he not inaptly compared the fate of that city and his own changed fortune. (plutarch, "marius", .) ( ) in the "gathering of fresh fury on libyan soil", there appears to be an allusion to the story of antruns, in book iv. ( ) see ben jonson's "catiline", act i., scene , speaking of the sullan massacre. cethegus: not infants in the porch of life were free. .... catiline: 'twas crime enough that they had lives: to strike but only those that could do hurt was dull and poor: some fell to make the number as some the prey. ( ) whenever he did not salute a man, or return his salute, this was a signal for massacre. (plutarch, "marius", .) ( ) the marian massacre was in b.c. - ; the sullan in - . ( ) the head of antonius was struck off and brought to marius at supper. he was the grandfather of the triumvir. ( ) scaevola, it would appear, was put to death after marius the elder died, by the younger marius. he was pontifex maximus, and slain by the altar of vesta. ( ) b.c. , marius and cinna were consuls. marius died seventeen days afterwards, in the seventieth year of his age. ( ) the battle of sacriportus was fought between marius the younger and the sullan army in b.c. . marius was defeated with great loss, and fled to praeneste, a town which afterwards submitted to sulla, who put all the inhabitants to death (line ). at the colline gate was fought the decisive battle between sulla and the saranires, who, after a furious contest, were defeated. ( ) diomedes was said to feed his horses on human flesh. (for antaeus see book iv., .) enomaus was king of pisa in elis. those who came to sue for his daughter's hand had to compete with him in a chariot race, and if defeated were put to death. ( ) the brother of the consul. ( ) so cicero: "our cnaeus is wonderfully anxious for such a royalty as sulla's. i who tell you know it." ("ep. ad att.", ix. .) ( ) marcia was first married to cato, and bore him three sons; he then yielded her to hortensius. on his death she returned to cato. (plutarch, "cato", , .) it was in reference to this that caesar charged him with making a traffic of his marriage; but plutarch says "to accuse cato of filthy lucre is like upbraiding hercules with cowardice." after the marriage marcia remained at rome while cato hurried after pompeius. ( ) the bride was carried over the threshold of her new home, for to stumble on it would be of evil omen. plutarch ("romulus") refers this custom to the rape of the sabine women, who were "so lift up and carried away by force." (north, volume i., p. , edition by windham.) i have read "vetuit" in this passage, though "vitat" appears to be a better variation according to the manuscripts. ( ) the bride was dressed in a long white robe, bound round the waist with a girdle. she had a veil of bright yellow colour. ("dict. antiq.") ( ) capua, supposed to be founded by capys, the trojan hero. (virgil, "aeneid", x., .) ( ) phaethon's sisters, who yoked the horses of the sun to the chariot for their brother, were turned into poplars. phaethon was flung by jupiter into the river po. ( ) see the note to book i., . in reality caesar found little resistance, and did not ravage the country. ( ) thermus. to whom iguvium had been entrusted by the senate, was compelled to quit it owing to the disaffection of the inhabitants. (merivale, chapter xiv.) auximon in a similar way rose against varus. ( ) after caesar's campaign with the nervii, pompeius had lent him a legion. when the parthian war broke out and the senate required each of the two leaders to supply a legion for it, pompeius demanded the return of the legion which he had sent to gaul; and caesar returned it, together with one of his own. they were, however, retained in italy. ( ) see book vii., . ( ) see book i., . ( ) that is to say, by the breaking of the bridge, the river would become a serious obstacle to caesar. ( ) see line . ( ) this family is also alluded to by horace ("ars poetica,") as having worn a garment of ancient fashion leaving their arms bare. (see also book vi., .) ( ) in b.c. , after the death of sulla, carbo had been defeated by pompeius in b.c., in which occasion pompeius had, at the early age of twenty-five, demanded and obtained his first triumph. the war with sertorius lasted till b.c., when pompeius and metellus triumphed in respect of his overthrow. ( ) see book i., line . ( ) in b.c. , pompeius swept the pirates off the seas. the whole campaign did not last three months. ( ) from b.c. to b.c. , pompeius conquered mithridates, syria and the east, except parthia. ( ) being (as was supposed) exactly under the equator. syene (the modern assouan) is the town mentioned by the priest of sais, who told herodotus that "between syene and elephantine are two hills with conical tops. the name of one of them is crophi, and of the other, mophi. midway between them are the fountains of the nile." (herod., ii., chapter .) and see "paradise regained," iv., : -- "syene, and where the shadow both way falls, "meroe, nilotick isle;..." ( ) baetis is the guadalquivir. ( ) theseus, on returning from his successful exploit in crete, hoisted by mistake black sails instead of white, thus spreading false intelligence of disaster. ( ) it seems that the euripus was bridged over. (mr. haskins' note.) ( ) the "argo". book iii massilia with canvas yielding to the western wind the navy sailed the deep, and every eye gazed on ionian billows. but the chief turned not his vision from his native shore now left for ever, while the morning mists drew down upon the mountains, and the cliffs faded in distance till his aching sight no longer knew them. then his wearied frame sank in the arms of sleep. but julia's shape, in mournful guise, dread horror on her brow, rose through the gaping earth, and from her tomb erect ( ), in form as of a fury spake: "driven from elysian fields and from the plains the blest inhabit, when the war began, i dwell in stygian darkness where abide the souls of all the guilty. there i saw th' eumenides with torches in their hands prepared against thy battles; and the fleets ( ) which by the ferryman of the flaming stream were made to bear thy dead: while hell itself relaxed its punishments; the sisters three with busy fingers all their needful task could scarce accomplish, and the threads of fate dropped from their weary hands. with me thy wife, thou, magnus, leddest happy triumphs home: new wedlock brings new luck. thy concubine, whose star brings all her mighty husbands ill, cornelia, weds in thee a breathing tomb. ( ) through wars and oceans let her cling to thee so long as i may break thy nightly rest: no moment left thee for her love, but all by night to me, by day to caesar given. me not the oblivious banks of lethe's stream have made forgetful; and the kings of death have suffered me to join thee; in mid fight i will be with thee, and my haunting ghost remind thee caesar's daughter was thy spouse. thy sword kills not our pledges; civil war shall make thee wholly mine." she spake and fled. but he, though heaven and hell thus bode defeat, more bent on war, with mind assured of ill, "why dread vain phantoms of a dreaming brain? or nought of sense and feeling to the soul is left by death; or death itself is nought." now fiery titan in declining path dipped to the waves, his bright circumference so much diminished as a growing moon not yet full circled, or when past the full; when to the fleet a hospitable coast gave access, and the ropes in order laid, the sailors struck the masts and rowed ashore. when caesar saw the fleet escape his grasp and hidden from his view by lengthening seas, left without rival on hesperian soil, he found no joy in triumph; rather grieved that thus in safety magnus' flight was sped. not any gifts of fortune now sufficed his fiery spirit; and no victory won, unless the war was finished with the stroke. then arms he laid aside, in guise of peace seeking the people's favour; skilled to know how to arouse their ire, and how to gain the popular love by corn in plenty given. for famine only makes a city free; by gifts of food the tyrant buys a crowd to cringe before him: but a people starved is fearless ever. curio he bids cross over to sicilian cities, where or ocean by a sudden rise o'erwhelmed the land, or split the isthmus right in twain, leaving a path for seas. unceasing tides there labour hugely lest again should meet the mountains rent asunder. nor were left sardinian shores unvisited: each isle is blest with noble harvests which have filled more than all else the granaries of rome, and poured their plenty on hesperia's shores. not even libya, with its fertile soil, their yield surpasses, when the southern wind gives way to northern and permits the clouds to drop their moisture on the teeming earth. this ordered, caesar leads his legions on, not armed for war, but as in time of peace returning to his home. ah! had he come with only gallia conquered and the north ( ), what long array of triumph had he brought! what pictured scenes of battle! how had rhine and ocean borne his chains! how noble gaul, and britain's fair-haired chiefs his lofty car had followed! such a triumph had he lost by further conquest. now in silent fear they watched his marching troops, nor joyful towns poured out their crowds to welcome his return. yet did the conqueror's proud soul rejoice, far more than at their love, at such a fear. now anxur's hold was passed, the oozy road that separates the marsh, the grove sublime ( ) where reigns the scythian goddess, and the path by which men bear the fasces to the feast on alba's summit. from the height afar -- gazing in awe upon the walls of rome his native city, since the northern war unseen, unvisited -- thus caesar spake: "who would not fight for such a god-like town? and have they left thee, rome, without a blow? thank the high gods no eastern hosts are here to wreak their fury; nor sarmatian horde with northern tribes conjoined; by fortune's gift this war is civil: else this coward chief had been thy ruin." trembling at his feet he found the city: deadly fire and flame, as from a conqueror, gods and fanes dispersed; such was the measure of their fear, as though his power and wish were one. no festal shout greeted his march, no feigned acclaim of joy. scarce had they time for hate. in phoebus' hall their hiding places left, a crowd appeared of senators, uncalled, for none could call. no consul there the sacred shrine adorned nor praetor next in rank, and every seat placed for the officers of state was void: caesar was all; and to his private voice ( ) all else were listeners. the fathers sat ready to grant a temple or a throne, if such his wish; and for themselves to vote or death or exile. well it was for rome that caesar blushed to order what they feared. yet in one breast the spirit of freedom rose indignant for the laws; for when the gates of saturn's temple hot metellus saw, were yielding to the shock, he clove the ranks of caesar's troops, and stood before the doors as yet unopened. 'tis the love of gold alone that fears not death; no hand is raised for perished laws or violated rights: but for this dross, the vilest cause of all, men fight and die. thus did the tribune bar the victor's road to rapine, and with voice clear ringing spake: "save o'er metellus dead this temple opens not; my sacred blood shall flow, thou robber, ere the gold be thine. and surely shall the tribune's power defied find an avenging god; this crassus knew ( ), who, followed by our curses, sought the war and met disaster on the parthian plains. draw then thy sword, nor fear the crowd that gapes to view thy crimes: the citizens are gone. not from our treasury reward for guilt thy hosts shall ravish: other towns are left, and other nations; wage the war on them -- drain not rome's peace for spoil." the victor then, incensed to ire: "vain is thy hope to fall in noble death, as guardian of the right; with all thine honours, thou of caesar's rage art little worthy: never shall thy blood defile his hand. time lowest things with high confounds not yet so much that, if thy voice could save the laws, it were not better far they fell by caesar." such his lofty words. but as the tribune yielded not, his rage rose yet the more, and at his soldiers' swords one look he cast, forgetting for the time what robe he wore; but soon metellus heard these words from cotta: "when men bow to power freedom of speech is only freedom's bane ( ), whose shade at least survives, if with free will thou dost whate'er is bidden thee. for us some pardon may be found: a host of ills compelled submission, and the shame is less that to have done which could not be refused. yield, then, this wealth, the seeds of direful war. a nation's anger is by losses stirred, when laws protect it; but the hungry slave brings danger to his master, not himself." at this metellus yielded from the path; and as the gates rolled backward, echoed loud the rock tarpeian, and the temple's depths gave up the treasure which for centuries no hand had touched: all that the punic foe and perses and philippus conquered gave, and all the gold which pyrrhus panic-struck left when he fled: that gold ( ), the price of rome, which yet fabricius sold not, and the hoard laid up by saving sires; the tribute sent by asia's richest nations; and the wealth which conquering metellus brought from crete, and cato ( ) bore from distant cyprus home; and last, the riches torn from captive kings and borne before pompeius when he came in frequent triumph. thus was robbed the shrine, and caesar first brought poverty to rome. meanwhile all nations of the earth were moved to share in magnus' fortunes and the war, and in his fated ruin. graecia sent, nearest of all, her succours to the host. from cirrha and parnassus' double peak and from amphissa, phocis sent her youth: boeotian leaders muster in the meads by dirce laved, and where cephisus rolls gifted with fateful power his stream along: and where alpheus, who beyond the sea ( ) in fount sicilian seeks the day again. pisa deserted stands, and oeta, loved by hercules of old; dodona's oaks are left to silence by the sacred train, and all epirus rushes to the war. and proud athena, mistress of the seas, sends three poor ships (alas! her all) to prove her ancient victory o'er the persian king. next seek the battle creta's hundred tribes beloved of jove and rivalling the east in skill to wing the arrow from the bow. the walls of dardan oricum, the woods where athamanians wander, and the banks of swift absyrtus foaming to the main are left forsaken. enchelaean tribes whose king was cadmus, and whose name records his transformation ( ), join the host; and those who till penean fields and turn the share above iolcos in thessalian lands." there first men steeled their hearts to dare the waves ( ) and 'gainst the rage of ocean and the storm to match their strength, when the rude argo sailed upon that distant quest, and spurned the shore, joining remotest nations in her flight, and gave the fates another form of death. left too was pholoe; pretended home where dwelt the fabled race of double form ( ); arcadian maenalus; the thracian mount named haemus; strymon whence, as autumn falls, winged squadrons seek the banks of warmer nile; and all the isles the mouths of ister bathe mixed with the tidal wave; the land through which the cooling eddies of caicus flow idalian; and arisbe bare of glebe. the hinds of pitane, and those who till celaenae's fields which mourned of yore the gift of pallas ( ), and the vengeance of the god, all draw the sword; and those from marsyas' flood first swift, then doubling backwards with the stream of sinuous meander: and from where pactolus leaves his golden source and leaps from earth permitting; and with rival wealth rich hermus parts the meads. nor stayed the bands of troy, but (doomed as in old time) they joined pompeius' fated camp: nor held them back the fabled past, nor caesar's claimed descent from their iulus. syrian peoples came from palmy idumea and the walls of ninus great of yore; from windy plains of far damascus and from gaza's hold, from sidon's courts enriched with purple dye, and tyre oft trembling with the shaken earth. all these led on by cynosura's light ( ) furrow their certain path to reach the war. phoenicians first (if story be believed) dared to record in characters; for yet papyrus was not fashioned, and the priests of memphis, carving symbols upon walls of mystic sense (in shape of beast or fowl) preserved the secrets of their magic art. next persean tarsus and high taurus' groves are left deserted, and corycium's cave; and all cilicia's ports, pirate no more, resound with preparation. nor the east refused the call, where furthest ganges dares, alone of rivers, to discharge his stream against the sun opposing; on this shore ( ) the macedonian conqueror stayed his foot and found the world his victor; here too rolls indus his torrent with hydaspes joined yet hardly feels it; here from luscious reed men draw sweet liquor; here they dye their locks with tints of saffron, and with coloured gems bind down their flowing garments; here are they, who satiate of life and proud to die, ascend the blazing pyre, and conquering fate, scorn to live longer; but triumphant give the remnant of their days in flame to heaven. ( ) nor fails to join the host a hardy band of cappadocians, tilling now the soil, once pirates of the main: nor those who dwell where steep niphates hurls the avalanche, and where on median coatra's sides the giant forest rises to the sky. and you, arabians, from your distant home came to a world unknown, and wondering saw the shadows fall no longer to the left. ( ) then fired with ardour for the roman war oretas came, and far carmania's chiefs, whose clime lies southward, yet men thence descry low down the pole star, and bootes runs hasting to set, part seen, his nightly course; and ethiopians from that southern land which lies without the circuit of the stars, did not the bull with curving hoof advanced o'erstep the limit. from that mountain zone they come, where rising from a common fount euphrates flows and tigris, and did earth permit, were joined with either name; but now while like th' egyptian flood euphrates spreads his fertilising water, tigris first drawn down by earth in covered depths is plunged and holds a secret course; then born again flows on unhindered to the persian sea. but warlike parthia wavered 'twixt the chiefs, content to have made them two ( ); while scythia's hordes dipped fresh their darts in poison, whom the stream of bactros bounds and vast hyrcanian woods. hence springs that rugged nation swift and fierce, descended from the twins' great charioteer. ( ) nor failed sarmatia, nor the tribes that dwell by richest phasis, and on halys' banks, which sealed the doom of croesus' king; nor where from far rhipaean ranges tanais flows, on either hand a quarter of the world, asia and europe, and in winding course carves out a continent; nor where the strait in boiling surge pours to the pontic deep maeotis' waters, rivalling the pride of those herculean pillar-gates that guard the entrance to an ocean. thence with hair in golden fillets, arimaspians came, and fierce massagetae, who quaff the blood of the brave steed on which they fight and flee. not when great cyrus on memnonian realms his warriors poured; nor when, their weapons piled, ( ) the persian told the number of his host; nor when th' avenger ( ) of a brother's shame loaded the billows with his mighty fleet, beneath one chief so many kings made war; nor e'er met nations varied thus in garb and thus in language. to pompeius' death thus fortune called them: and a world in arms witnessed his ruin. from where afric's god, two-horned ammon, rears his temple, came all libya ceaseless, from the wastes that touch the bounds of egypt to the shore that meets the western ocean. thus, to award the prize of empire at one blow, pharsalia brought 'neath caesar's conquering hand the banded world. now caesar left the walls of trembling rome and swift across the cloudy alpine tops he winged his march; but while all others fled far from his path, in terror of his name, phocaea's ( ) manhood with un-grecian faith held to their pledged obedience, and dared to follow right not fate; but first of all with olive boughs of truce before them borne the chieftain they approach, with peaceful words in hope to alter his unbending will and tame his fury. "search the ancient books which chronicle the deeds of latian fame; thou'lt ever find, when foreign foes pressed hard, massilia's prowess on the side of rome. and now, if triumphs in an unknown world thou seekest, caesar, here our arms and swords accept in aid: but if, in impious strife of civil discord, with a roman foe thou seek'st to join in battle, weeping then we hold aloof: no stranger hand may touch celestial wounds. should all olympus' hosts have rushed to war, or should the giant brood assault the stars, yet men would not presume or by their prayers or arms to help the gods: and, ignorant of the fortunes of the sky, taught by the thunderbolts alone, would know that jupiter supreme still held the throne. add that unnumbered nations join the fray: nor shrinks the world so much from taint of crime that civil wars reluctant swords require. but grant that strangers shun thy destinies and only romans fight -- shall not the son shrink ere he strike his father? on both sides brothers forbid the weapon to be hurled? the world's end comes when other hands are armed ( ) than those which custom and the gods allow. for us, this is our prayer: leave, caesar, here thy dreadful eagles, keep thy hostile signs back from our gates, but enter thou in peace massilia's ramparts; let our city rest withdrawn from crime, to magnus and to thee safe: and should favouring fate preserve our walls inviolate, when both shall wish for peace here meet unarmed. why hither turn'st thou now thy rapid march? nor weight nor power have we to sway the mighty conflicts of the world. we boast no victories since our fatherland we left in exile: when phocaea's fort perished in flames, we sought another here; and here on foreign shores, in narrow bounds confined and safe, our boast is sturdy faith; nought else. but if our city to blockade is now thy mind -- to force the gates, and hurl javelin and blazing torch upon our homes -- do what thou wilt: cut off the source that fills our foaming river, force us, prone in thirst, to dig the earth and lap the scanty pool; seize on our corn and leave us food abhorred: nor shall this people shun, for freedom's sake, the ills saguntum bore in punic siege; ( ) torn, vainly clinging, from the shrunken breast the starving babe shall perish in the flames. wives at their husbands' hands shall pray their fate, and brothers' weapons deal a mutual death. such be our civil war; not, caesar, thine." but caesar's visage stern betrayed his ire which thus broke forth in words: "vain is the hope ye rest upon my march: speed though i may towards my western goal, time still remains to blot massilia out. rejoice, my troops! unsought the war ye longed for meets you now: the fates concede it. as the tempests lose their strength by sturdy forests unopposed, and as the fire that finds no fuel dies, even so to find no foe is caesar's ill. when those who may be conquered will not fight that is defeat. degenerate, disarmed their gates admit me! not content, forsooth, with shutting caesar out they shut him in! they shun the taint of war! such prayer for peace brings with it chastisement. in caesar's age learn that not peace, but war within his ranks alone can make you safe." fearless he turns his march upon the city, and beholds fast barred the gate-ways, while in arms the youths stand on the battlements. hard by the walls a hillock rose, upon the further side expanding in a plain of gentle slope, fit (as he deemed it) for a camp with ditch and mound encircling. to a lofty height the nearest portion of the city rose, while intervening valleys lay between. these summits with a mighty trench to bind the chief resolves, gigantic though the toil. but first, from furthest boundaries of his camp, enclosing streams and meadows, to the sea to draw a rampart, upon either hand heaved up with earthy sod; with lofty towers crowned; and to shut massilia from the land. then did the grecian city win renown eternal, deathless, for that uncompelled nor fearing for herself, but free to act she made the conqueror pause: and he who seized all in resistless course found here delay: and fortune, hastening to lay the world low at her favourite's feet, was forced to stay for these few moments her impatient hand. now fell the forests far and wide, despoiled of all their giant trunks: for as the mound on earth and brushwood stood, a timber frame held firm the soil, lest pressed beneath its towers the mass might topple down. there stood a grove which from the earliest time no hand of man had dared to violate; hidden from the sun ( ) its chill recesses; matted boughs entwined prisoned the air within. no sylvan nymphs here found a home, nor pan, but savage rites and barbarous worship, altars horrible on massive stones upreared; sacred with blood of men was every tree. if faith be given to ancient myth, no fowl has ever dared to rest upon those branches, and no beast has made his lair beneath: no tempest falls, nor lightnings flash upon it from the cloud. stagnant the air, unmoving, yet the leaves filled with mysterious trembling; dripped the streams from coal-black fountains; effigies of gods rude, scarcely fashioned from some fallen trunk held the mid space: and, pallid with decay, their rotting shapes struck terror. thus do men dread most the god unknown. 'twas said that caves rumbled with earthquakes, that the prostrate yew rose up again; that fiery tongues of flame gleamed in the forest depths, yet were the trees unkindled; and that snakes in frequent folds were coiled around the trunks. men flee the spot nor dare to worship near: and e'en the priest or when bright phoebus holds the height, or when dark night controls the heavens, in anxious dread draws near the grove and fears to find its lord. spared in the former war, still dense it rose where all the hills were bare, and caesar now its fall commanded. but the brawny arms which swayed the axes trembled, and the men, awed by the sacred grove's dark majesty, held back the blow they thought would be returned. this caesar saw, and swift within his grasp uprose a ponderous axe, which downward fell cleaving a mighty oak that towered to heaven, while thus he spake: "henceforth let no man dread to fell this forest: all the crime is mine. this be your creed." he spake, and all obeyed, for caesar's ire weighed down the wrath of heaven. yet ceased they not to fear. then first the oak, dodona's ancient boast; the knotty holm; the cypress, witness of patrician grief, the buoyant alder, laid their foliage low admitting day; though scarcely through the stems their fall found passage. at the sight the gauls grieved; but the garrison within the walls rejoiced: for thus shall men insult the gods and find no punishment? yet fortune oft protects the guilty; on the poor alone the gods can vent their ire. enough hewn down, they seize the country wagons; and the hind, his oxen gone which else had drawn the plough, mourns for his harvest. but the eager chief impatient of the combat by the walls carries the warfare to the furthest west. meanwhile a giant mound, on star-shaped wheels concealed, they fashion, crowned with double towers high as the battlements, by cause unseen slow creeping onwards; while amazed the foe, beheld, and thought some subterranean gust had burst the caverns of the earth and forced the nodding pile aloft, and wondered sore their walls should stand unshaken. from its height hissed clown the weapons; but the grecian bolts with greater force were on the romans hurled; nor by the arm unaided, for the lance urged by the catapult resistless rushed through arms and shield and flesh, and left a death behind, nor stayed its course: and massive stones cast by the beams of mighty engines fell; as from the mountain top some time-worn rock at length by winds dislodged, in all its track spreads ruin vast: nor crushed the life alone forth from the body, but dispersed the limbs in fragments undistinguished and in blood. but as protected by the armour shield the might of rome drew nigh beneath the wall (the front rank with their bucklers interlaced and held above their helms), the missiles fell behind their backs, nor could the toiling greeks deflect their engines, throwing still the bolts far into space; but from the rampart top flung ponderous masses down. long as the shields held firm together, like to hail that falls harmless upon a roof, so long the stones crushed down innocuous; but as the blows rained fierce and ceaseless and the romans tired, some here and there sank fainting. next the roof advanced with earth besprinkled: underneath the ram conceals his head, which, poised and swung, they dash with mighty force upon the wall, covered themselves with mantlets. though the head light on the lower stones, yet as the shock falls and refalls, from battlement to base the rampart soon shall topple. but by balks and rocky fragments overwhelmed, and flames, the roof at length gave way; and worn with toil all spent in vain, the wearied troops withdrew and sought the shelter of their tents again. thus far to hold their battlements was all the greeks had hoped; now, venturing attack, with glittering torches for their arms, by night fearless they sallied forth: nor lance they bear nor deadly bow, nor shaft; for fire alone is now their weapon. through the roman works driven by the wind the conflagration spread: nor did the newness of the wood make pause the fury of the flames, which, fed afresh by living torches, 'neath a smoky pall leaped on in fiery tongues. not wood alone but stones gigantic crumbling into dust dissolved beneath the heat; the mighty mound lay prone, yet in its ruin larger seemed. next, conquered on the land, upon the main they try their fortunes. on their simple craft no painted figure-head adorned the bows nor claimed protection from the gods; but rude, just as they fell upon their mountain homes, the trees were knit together, and the deck gave steady foot-hold for an ocean fight. meantime had caesar's squadron kept the isles named stoechades ( ), and brutus ( ) turret ship mastered the rhone. nor less the grecian host -- boys not yet grown to war, and aged men, armed for the conflict, with their all at stake. nor only did they marshal for the fight ships meet for service; but their ancient keels brought from the dockyards. when the morning rays broke from the waters, and the sky was clear, and all the winds were still upon the deep, smoothed for the battle, swift on either part the fleets essay the open; and the ships tremble beneath the oars that urge them on, by sinewy arms impelled. upon the wings that bound the roman fleet, the larger craft with triple and quadruple banks of oars gird in the lesser: so they front the sea; while in their rear, shaped as a crescent moon, liburnian galleys follow. over all towers brutus' deck praetorian. oars on oars propel the bulky vessel through the main, six ranks; the topmost strike the waves afar. when such a space remained between the fleets as could be covered by a single stroke, innumerable voices rose in air drowning with resonant din the beat of oars and note of trumpet summoning: and all sat on the benches and with mighty stroke swept o'er the sea and gained the space between. then crashed the prows together, and the keels rebounded backwards, and unnumbered darts or darkened all the sky or, in their fall, the vacant ocean. as the wings grew wide, less densely packed the fleet, some grecian ships pressed in between; as when with west and east the tide contends, this way the waves are driven and that the sea; so as they plough the deep in various lines converging, what the prow throws up advancing, from the foemen's oars falls back repelled. but soon the grecian fleet was handier found in battle, and in flight pretended, and in shorter curves could round; more deftly governed by the guiding helm: while on the roman side their steadier keels gave vantage, as to men who fight on land. then brutus to the pilot of his ship: "dost suffer them to range the wider deep, contending with the foe in naval skill? draw close the war and drive us on the prows of these phocaeans." him the pilot heard; and turned his vessel slantwise to the foe. then was the sea all covered with the war: then grecian ships attacking brutus found their ruin in the stroke, and vanquished lay beside his bulwarks; while with grappling hooks others laid fast the foe, themselves by oars held back the while. and now no outstretched arm hurls forth the javelin, but hand to hand with swords they wage the fight: each from his ship leans forward to the stroke, and falls when slain upon a foeman's deck. deep flows the stream of purple slaughter to the foamy main: by piles of floating corpses are the sides, though grappled, kept asunder. some, half dead, plunge in the ocean, gulping down the brine encrimsoned with their blood; some lingering still draw their last struggling breath amid the wreck of broken navies: weapons which have missed find yet their victims, and the falling steel fails not in middle deep to deal the wound. one vessel circled by phocaean keels divides her strength, and on the right and left on either side with equal war contends; on whose high poop while tagus fighting gripped the stern phocaean, pierced his back and breast two fatal weapons; in the midst the steel meets, and the blood, uncertain whence to flow, stands still, arrested, till with double course forth by a sudden gush it drives each dart, and sends the life abroad through either wound. here fated telon also steered his ship: no pilot's hand upon an angry sea more deftly ruled a vessel. well he knew, or by the sun or crescent moon, how best to set his canvas fitted for the breeze to-morrow's light would bring. his rushing stem shattered a roman vessel: but a dart hurled at the moment quivers in his breast. he falls, and in the fall his dying hand diverts the prow. then gyareus, in act to climb the friendly deck, by javelin pierced, still as he hung, by the retaining steel fast to the side was nailed. twin brethren stand a fruitful mother's pride; with different fates, but ne'er distinguished till death's savage hand struck once, and ended error: he that lived, cause of fresh anguish to their sorrowing souls, called ever to the weeping parents back the image of the lost: who, as the oars grecian and roman mixed their teeth oblique, grasped with his dexter hand the roman ship; when fell a blow that shore his arm away. so died, upon the side it held, the hand, nor loosed its grasp in death. yet with the wound his noble courage rose, and maimed he dared renew the fray, and stretched across the sea to grasp the lost -- in vain! another blow lopped arm and hand alike. nor shield nor sword henceforth are his. yet even now he seeks no sheltering hold, but with his chest advanced before his brother armed, he claims the fight, and holding in his breast the darts which else had slain his comrades, pierced with countless spears, he fails in death well earned; yet ere his end collects his parting life, and all his strength strains to the utmost and with failing limbs leaps on the foeman's deck; by weight alone injurious; for streaming down with gore and piled on high with corpses, while her sides sounded to ceaseless blows, the fated ship let in the greedy brine until her ways were level with the waters -- then she plunged in whirling eddies downwards -- and the main first parted, then closed in upon its prey. full many wondrous deaths, with fates diverse, upon the sea in that day's fight befell. caught by a grappling-hook that missed the side, had lysidas been whelmed in middle deep; but by his feet his comrades dragged him back, and rent in twain he hung; nor slowly flowed as from a wound the blood; but all his veins ( ) were torn asunder and the stream of life gushed o'er his limbs till lost amid the deep. from no man dying has the vital breath rushed by so wide a path; the lower trunk succumbed to death, but with the lungs and heart long strove the fates, and hardly won the whole. while, bent upon the fight, an eager crew were gathered to the margin of their deck (leaving the upper side as bare of foes), their ship was overset. beneath the keel which floated upwards, prisoned in the sea, and powerless by spread of arms to float the main, they perished. one who haply swam amid the battle, chanced upon a death strange and unheard of; for two meeting prows transfixed his body. at the double stroke wide yawned his chest; blood issued from his mouth with flesh commingled; and the brazen beaks resounding clashed together, by the bones unhindered: now they part and through the gap swift pours the sea and drags the corse below. next, of a shipwrecked crew, the larger part struggling with death upon the waters, reached a comrade bark; but when with elbows raised do they seized upon the bulwarks and the ship rolled, nor could bear their weight, the ruthless crew hacked off their straining arms; then maimed they sank below the seething waves, to rise no more. now every dart was hurled and every spear, the soldier weaponless; yet their rage found arms: one hurls an oar; another's brawny arm tugs at the twisted stern; or from the seats the oarsmen driving, swings a bench in air. the ships are broken for the fight. they seize the fallen dead and snatch the sword that slew. nay, many from their wounds, frenzied for arms, pluck forth the deadly steel, and pressing still upon their yawning sides, hurl forth the spear back to the hostile ranks from which it came; then ebbs their life blood forth. but deadlier yet was that fell force most hostile to the sea; for, thrown in torches and in sulphurous bolts fire all-consuming ran among the ships, whose oily timbers soaked in pitch and wax inflammable, gave welcome to the flames. nor could the waves prevail against the blaze which claimed as for its own the fragments borne upon the waters. lo! on burning plank one hardly 'scapes destruction; one to save his flaming ship, gives entrance to the main. of all the forms of death each fears the one that brings immediate dying: yet quails not their heart in shipwreck: from the waves they pluck the fallen darts and furnishing the ship essay the feeble stroke; and should that hope still fail their hand, they call the sea to aid and seizing in their grasp some floating foe drag him to mutual death. but on that day phoceus above all others proved his skill. well trained was he to dive beneath the main and search the waters with unfailing eye; and should an anchor 'gainst the straining rope too firmly bite the sands, to wrench it free. oft in his fatal grasp he seized a foe nor loosed his grip until the life was gone. such was his frequent deed; but this his fate: for rising, victor (as he thought), to air, full on a keel he struck and found his death. some, drowning, seized a hostile oar and checked the flying vessel; not to die in vain, their single care; some on their vessel's side hanging, in death, with wounded frame essayed to check the charging prow. tyrrhenus high upon the bulwarks of his ship was struck by leaden bolt from balearic sling of lygdamus; straight through his temples passed the fated missile; and in streams of blood forced from their seats his trembling eyeballs fell. plunged in a darkness as of night, he thought that life had left him; yet ere long he knew the living rigour of his limbs; and cried, "place me, o friends, as some machine of war straight facing towards the foe; then shall my darts strike as of old; and thou, tyrrhenus, spend thy latest breath, still left, upon the fight: so shalt thou play, not wholly dead, the part that fits a soldier, and the spear that strikes thy frame, shall miss the living." thus he spake, and hurled his javelin, blind, but not in vain; for argus, generous youth of noble blood, below the middle waist received the spear and failing drave it home. his aged sire from furthest portion of the conquered ship beheld; than whom in prime of manhood none, more brave in battle: now no more he fought, yet did the memory of his prowess stir phocaean youths to emulate his fame. oft stumbling o'er the benches the old man hastes to reach his boy, and finds him breathing still. no tear bedewed his cheek, nor on his breast one blow he struck, but o'er his eyes there fell a dark impenetrable veil of mist that blotted out the day; nor could he more discern his luckless argus. he, who saw his parent, raising up his drooping head with parted lips and silent features asks a father's latest kiss, a father's hand to close his dying eyes. but soon his sire, recovering from his swoon, when ruthless grief possessed his spirit, "this short space," he cried, "i lose not, which the cruel gods have given, but die before thee. grant thy sorrowing sire forgiveness that he fled thy last embrace. not yet has passed thy life blood from the wound nor yet is death upon thee -- still thou may'st ( ) outlive thy parent." thus he spake, and seized the reeking sword and drave it to the hilt, then plunged into the deep, with headlong bound, to anticipate his son: for this he feared a single form of death should not suffice. now gave the fates their judgment, and in doubt no longer was the war: the grecian fleet in most part sunk; -- some ships by romans oared conveyed the victors home: in headlong flight some sought the yards for shelter. on the strand what tears of parents for their offspring slain, how wept the mothers! 'mid the pile confused ofttimes the wife sought madly for her spouse and chose for her last kiss some roman slain; while wretched fathers by the blazing pyres fought for the dead. but brutus thus at sea first gained a triumph for great caesar's arms. ( ) endnotes: ( ) reading adscenso, as francken (leyden, ). ( ) so: "the rugged charon fainted, and asked a navy, rather than a boat, to ferry over the sad world that came." (ben jonson, "catiline", act i., scene .) ( ) i take "tepido busto" as the dative case; and, as referring to pompeius, doomed, like cornelia's former husband, to defeat and death. ( ) it may be remarked that, in b.c. , caesar, after the battle of thapsus, celebrated four triumphs: for his victories over the gauls, ptolemaeus, pharnaces, and juba. ( ) near aricia. (see book vi., .) ( ) he held no office at the time. ( ) the tribune ateius met crassus as he was setting out from rome and denounced him with mysterious and ancient curses. (plutarch, "crassus", .) ( ) that is, the liberty remaining to the people is destroyed by speaking freely to the tyrant. ( ) that is, the gold offered by pyrrhus, and refused by fabricius, which, after the final defeat of pyrrhus, came into the possession of the victors. ( ) see plutarch, "cato", , . ( ) it was generally believed that the river alpheus of the peloponnesus passed under the sea and reappeared in the fountain of arethusa at syracuse. a goblet was said to have been thrown into the river in greece, and to have reappeared in the sicilian fountain. see the note in grote's "history of greece", edition , vol. ii., p. .) ( ) as a serpent. xxxxx is the greek word for serpent. ( ) conf. book vi., . ( ) the centaurs. ( ) probably the flute thrown away by pallas, which marsyas picked up and then challenged apollo to a musical contest. for his presumption the god had him flayed alive. ( ) that is, the little bear, by which the phoenicians steered, while the greeks steered by the great bear. (see sir g. lewis's "astronomy of the ancients", p. .) in book vi., line , the pilot declares that he steers by the pole star itself, which is much nearer to the little than to the great bear, and is (i believe) reckoned as one of the stars forming the group known by that name. he may have been a phoenician. ( ) he did not in fact reach the ganges, as is well known. ( ) perhaps in allusion to the embassy from india to augustus in b.c. , when zarmanochanus, an indian sage, declaring that he had lived in happiness and would not risk the chance of a reverse, burnt himself publicly. (merivale, chapter xxxiv.) ( ) that is to say, looking towards the west; meaning that they came from the other side of the equator. (see book ix., .) ( ) see book i., . ( ) a race called heniochi, said to be descended from the charioteer of castor and pollux. ( ) "effusis telis". i have so taken this difficult expression. herodotus ( , ) says the men were numbered in ten thousands by being packed close together and having a circle drawn round them. after the first ten thousand had been so measured a fence was put where the circle had been, and the subsequent ten thousands were driven into the enclosure. it is not unlikely that they piled their weapons before being so measured, and lucan's account would then be made to agree with that of herodotus. francken, on the other hand, quotes a scholiast, who says that each hundredth man shot off an arrow. ( ) agamemnon. ( ) massilia (marseilles) was founded from phocaea in asia minor about b.c. lucan (line ) appears to think that the founders were fugitives from their city when it was stormed by the persians sixty years later. see thucydides i. ; grote, "history of greece", chapter xxii. ( ) a difficult passage, of which this seems to be the meaning least free from objection. ( ) murviedro of the present day. its gallant defence against hannibal has been compared to that of saragossa against the french. ( ) see note to book i., . ( ) three islands off the coast near toulon, now called the isles d'hyeres. ( ) this was decimus brutus, an able and trusted lieutenant of caesar, who made him one of his heirs in the second degree. he, however, joined the conspiracy, and it was he who on the day of the murder induced caesar to go to the senate house. less than two years later, after the siege of perasia, he was deserted by his army, taken and put to death. ( ) according to some these were the lines which lucan recited while bleeding to death; according to others, those at book ix., line . ( ) it was regarded as the greatest of misfortunes if a child died before his parent. ( ) it was brutus who gained the naval victory over the veneti some seven years before; the first naval fight, that we know of, fought in the atlantic ocean. book iv caesar in spain. war in the adriatic sea. death of curio. but in the distant regions of the earth fierce caesar warring, though in fight he dealt no baneful slaughter, hastened on the doom to swift fulfillment. there on magnus' side afranius and petreius ( ) held command, who ruled alternate, and the rampart guard obeyed the standard of each chief in turn. there with the romans in the camp were joined asturians ( ) swift, and vettons lightly armed, and celts who, exiled from their ancient home, had joined "iberus" to their former name. where the rich soil in gentle slope ascends and forms a modest hill, ilerda ( ) stands, founded in ancient days; beside her glides not least of western rivers, sicoris of placid current, by a mighty arch of stone o'erspanned, which not the winter floods shall overwhelm. upon a rock hard by was magnus' camp; but caesar's on a hill, rivalling the first; and in the midst a stream. here boundless plains are spread beyond the range of human vision; cinga girds them in with greedy waves; forbidden to contend with tides of ocean; for that larger flood who names the land, iberus, sweeps along the lesser stream commingled with his own. guiltless of war, the first day saw the hosts in long array confronted; standard rose opposing standard, numberless; yet none essayed attack, in shame of impious strife. one day they gave their country and her laws. but caesar, when from heaven fell the night, drew round a hasty trench; his foremost rank with close array concealing those who wrought. then with the morn he bids them seize the hill which parted from the camp ilerda's walls, and gave them safety. but in fear and shame on rushed the foe and seized the vantage ground, first in the onset. from the height they held their hopes of conquest; but to caesar's men their hearts by courage stirred, and their good swords promised the victory. burdened up the ridge the soldier climbed, and from the opposing steep but for his comrade's shield had fallen back; none had the space to hurl the quivering lance upon the foeman: spear and pike made sure the failing foothold, and the falchion's edge hewed out their upward path. but caesar saw ruin impending, and he bade his horse by circuit to the left, with shielded flank, hold back the foe. thus gained his troops retreat, for none pressed on them; and the victor chiefs, forced to withdrawal, gained the day in vain. henceforth the fitful changes of the year governed the fates and fashioned out the war. for stubborn frost still lay upon the land, and northern winds, controlling all the sky, prisoned the rain in clouds; the hills were nipped with snow unmelted, and the lower plains by frosts that fled before the rising sun; and all the lands that stretched towards the sky which whelms the sinking stars, 'neath wintry heavens were parched and arid. but when titan neared the ram, who, backward gazing on the stars, bore perished helle, ( ) and the hours were held in juster balance, and the day prevailed, the earliest faded moon which in the vault hung with uncertain horn, from eastern winds received a fiery radiance; whose blasts forced boreas back: and breaking on the mists within his regions, to the occident drave all that shroud arabia and the land of ganges; all that or by caurus ( ) borne bedim the orient sky, or rising suns permit to gather; pitiless flamed the day behind them, while in front the wide expanse was driven; nor on mid earth sank the clouds though weighed with vapour. north and south alike were showerless, for on calpe's rock alone all moisture gathered; here at last, forbidden to pass that sea by zephyr's bounds contained, and by the furthest belt ( ) of heaven, they pause, in masses huge convolved; the widest breadth of murky air scarce holds them, which divides earth from the heavens; till pressed by weight of sky in densest volume to the earth they pour their cataracts; no lightning could endure such storm unquenched: though oft athwart the gloom gleamed its pale fire. meanwhile a watery arch scarce touched with colour, in imperfect shape embraced the sky and drank the ocean waves, so rendering to the clouds their flood outpoured. and now were thawed the pyrenaean snows which titan had not conquered; all the rocks were wet with melting ice; accustomed springs found not discharge; and from the very banks each stream received a torrent. caesar's arms are shipwrecked on the field, his tottering camp swims on the rising flood; the trench is filled with whirling waters; and the plain no more yields corn or kine; for those who forage seek, err from the hidden furrow. famine knocks (first herald of o'erwhelming ills to come), fierce at the door; and while no foe blockades the soldier hungers; fortunes buy not now the meanest measure; yet, alas! is found the fasting peasant, who, in gain of gold, will sell his little all! and now the hills are seen no more; and rivers whelmed in one; beasts with their homes sweep downwards; and the tide repels the foaming torrent. nor did night acknowledge phoebus' rise, for all the sky felt her dominion and obscured its face, and darkness joined with darkness. thus doth lie the lowest earth beneath the snowy zone and never-ending winters, where the sky is starless ever, and no growth of herb sprouts from the frozen earth; but standing ice tempers ( ) the stars which in the middle zone kindle their flames. thus, father of the world, and thou, trident-god who rul'st the sea second in place, neptunus, load the air with clouds continual; forbid the tide, once risen, to return: forced by thy waves let rivers backward run in different course, thy shores no longer reaching; and the earth, shaken, make way for floods. let rhine o'erflow and rhone their banks; let torrents spread afield unmeasured waters: melt rhipaean snows: spread lakes upon the land, and seas profound, and snatch the groaning world from civil war. thus for a little moment fortune tried her darling son; then smiling to his part returned; and gained her pardon for the past by greater gifts to come. for now the air had grown more clear, and phoebus' warmer rays coped with the flood and scattered all the clouds in fleecy masses; and the reddening east proclaimed the coming day; the land resumed its ancient marks; no more in middle air the moisture hung, but from about the stars sank to the depths; the forest glad upreared its foliage; hills again emerged to view and 'neath the warmth of day the plains grew firm. when sicoris kept his banks, the shallop light of hoary willow bark they build, which bent on hides of oxen, bore the weight of man and swam the torrent. thus on sluggish po venetians float; and on th' encircling sea ( ) are borne britannia's nations; and when nile fills all the land, are memphis' thirsty reeds shaped into fragile boats that swim his waves. the further bank thus gained, they haste to curve the fallen forest, and to form the arch by which imperious sicoris shall be spanned. yet fearing he might rise in wrath anew, not on the nearest marge they placed the beams, but in mid-field. thus the presumptuous stream they tame with chastisement, parting his flood in devious channels out; and curb his pride. petreius, when he saw that caesar's fates swept all before them, left ilerda's steep, his trust no longer in the roman world; and sought for strength amid those distant tribes, who, loving death, rush in upon the foe, ( ) and win their conquests at the point of sword. but in the dawn, when caesar saw the camp stand empty on the hill, "to arms!" he cried: "seek not the bridge nor ford: plunge in the stream and breast the foaming torrent." then did hope of coming battle find for them a way which they had shunned in flight. their arms regained, their streaming limbs they cherished till the blood coursed in their veins; until the shadows fell short on the sward, and day was at the height. then dashed the horsemen on, and held the foe 'twixt flight and battle. in the plain arose two rocky heights: from each a loftier ridge of hills ranged onwards, sheltering in their midst a hollow vale, whose deep and winding paths were safe from warfare; which, when caesar saw: that if petreius held, the war must pass to lands remote by savage tribes possessed; "speed on," he cried, "and meet their flight in front; fierce be your frown and battle in your glance: no coward's death be theirs; but as they flee plunge in their breasts the sword." they seize the pass and place their camp. short was the span between th' opposing sentinels; with eager eyes undimmed by space, they gazed on brothers, sons, or friends and fathers; and within their souls they grasped the impious horror of the war. yet for a little while no voice was heard, for fear restrained; by waving blade alone or gesture, spake they; but their passion grew, and broke all discipline; and soon they leaped the hostile rampart; every hand outstretched ( ) embraced the hand of foeman, palm in palm; one calls by name his neighhour, one his host, another with his schoolmate talks again of olden studies: he who in the camp found not a comrade, was no son of rome. wet are their arms with tears, and sobs break in upon their kisses; each, unstained by blood, dreads what he might have done. why beat thy breast? why, madman, weep? the guilt is thine alone to do or to abstain. dost fear the man who takes his title to be feared from thee? when caesar's trumpets sound the call to arms heed not the summons; when thou seest advance his standards, halt. the civil fury thus shall fold her wings; and in a private robe caesar shall love his kinsman. holy peace that sway'st the world; thou whose eternal bands sustain the order of material things, come, gentle concord! ( ) these our times do now for good or evil destiny control the coming centuries! ah, cruel fate! now have the people lost their cloak for crime: their hope of pardon. they have known their kin. woe for the respite given by the gods making more black the hideous guilt to come! now all was peaceful, and in either camp sweet converse held the soldiers; on the grass they place the meal; on altars built of turf pour out libations from the mingled cup; on mutual couch with stories of their fights, they wile the sleepless hours in talk away; "where stood the ranks arrayed, from whose right hand the quivering lance was sped:" and while they boast or challenge, deeds of prowess in the war, faith was renewed and trust. thus made the fates their doom complete, and all the crimes to be; grew with their love. for when petreius knew the treaties made; himself and all his camp sold to the foe; he stirs his guard to work an impious slaughter: the defenceless foe flings headlong forth: and parts the fond embrace by stroke of weapon and in streams of blood. and thus in words of wrath, to stir the war: "of rome forgetful, to your faith forsworn! and could ye not with victory gained return, restorers of her liberty, to rome? lose then! but losing call not caesar lord. while still your swords are yours, with blood to shed in doubtful battle, while the fates are hid, will you like cravens to your master bear doomed eagles? will you ask upon your knees that caesar deign to treat his slaves alike, and spare, forsooth, like yours, your leaders' lives? ( ) nay! never shall our safety be the price of base betrayal! not for boon of life we wage a civil war. this name of peace drags us to slavery. ne'er from depths of earth, fain to withdraw her wealth, should toiling men draw store of iron; ne'er entrench a town; ne'er should the war-horse dash into the fray nor fleet with turret bulwarks breast the main, if freedom for dishonourable peace could thus be bought. the foe are pledged to fight by their own guilt. but you, who still might hope for pardon if defeated -- what can match your deep dishonour? shame upon your peace. thou callest, magnus, ignorant of fate, from all the world thy powers, and dost entreat monarchs of distant realms, while haply here we in our treaties bargain for thy life!" thus did he stir their minds and rouse anew the love of impious battle. so when beasts grown strange to forests, long confined in dens, their fierceness lose, and learn to bear with man; once should they taste of blood, their thirsty jaws swell at the touch, and all the ancient rage comes back upon them till they hardly spare their keeper. thus they rush on every crime: and blows which dealt at chance, and in the night of battle, had brought hatred on the gods, though blindly struck, their recent vows of love made monstrous, horrid. where they lately spread the mutual couch and banquet, and embraced some new-found friend, now falls the fatal blow upon the self-same breast; and though at first groaning at the fell chance, they drew the sword; hate rises as they strike, the murderous arm confirms the doubtful will: with monstrous joy through the wild camp they smite their kinsmen down; and carnage raged unchecked; and each man strove, proud of his crime, before his leader's face to prove his shamelessness of guilt. but thou, caesar, though losing of thy best, dost know the gods do favour thee. thessalian fields gave thee no better fortune, nor the waves that lave massilia; nor on pharos' main didst thou so triumph. by this crime alone thou from this moment of the better cause shalt be the captain. since the troops were stained with foulest slaughter thus, their leaders shunned all camps with caesar's joined, and sought again ilerda's lofty walls; but caesar's horse seized on the plain and forced them to the hills reluctant. there by steepest trench shut in, he cuts them from the river, nor permits their circling ramparts to enclose a spring. by this dread path death trapped his captive prey. which when they knew, fierce anger filled their souls, and took the place of fear. they slew the steeds now useless grown, and rushed upon their fate; hopeless of life and flight. but caesar cried: "hold back your weapons, soldiers, from the foe, strike not the breast advancing; let the war cost me no blood; he falls not without price who with his life-blood challenges the fray. scorning their own base lives and hating light, to caesar's loss they rush upon their death, nor heed our blows. but let this frenzy pass, this madman onset; let the wish for death die in their souls." thus to its embers shrank the fire within when battle was denied, and fainter grew their rage until the night drew down her starry veil and sank the sun. thus keener fights the gladiator whose wound is recent, while the blood within the veins still gives the sinews motion, ere the skin shrinks on the bones: but as the victor stands his fatal thrust achieved, and points the blade unfaltering, watching for the end, there creeps torpor upon the limbs, the blood congeals about the gash, more faintly throbs the heart, and slowly fading, ebbs the life away. raving for water now they dig the plains seeking for hidden fountains, not with spade and mattock only searching out the depths, but with the sword; they hack the stony heights, in shafts that reach the level of the plain. no further flees from light the pallid wretch who tears the bowels of the earth for gold. yet neither riven stones revealed a spring, nor streamlet whispered from its hidden source; to water trickled on the gravel bed, nor dripped within the cavern. worn at length with labour huge, they crawl to light again, after such toil to fall to thirst and heat the readier victims: this was all they won. all food they loathe; and 'gainst their deadly thirst call famine to their aid. damp clods of earth they squeeze upon their mouths with straining hands. where'er on foulest mud some stagnant slime or moisture lies, though doomed to die they lap with greedy tongues the draught their lips had loathed had life been theirs to choose. beast-like they drain the swollen udder, and where milk was not, they sucked the life-blood forth. from herbs and boughs dripping with dew, from tender shoots they pressed, say, from the pith of trees, the juice within. happy the host that onward marching finds its savage enemy has fouled the wells with murderous venom; had'st thou, caesar, cast the reeking filth of shambles in the stream, and henbane dire and all the poisonous herbs that lurk on cretan slopes, still had they drunk the fatal waters, rather than endure such lingering agony. their bowels racked with torments as of flame; the swollen tongue and jaws now parched and rigid, and the veins; each laboured breath with anguish from the lungs enfeebled, moistureless, was scarcely drawn, and scarce again returned; and yet agape, their panting mouths sucked in the nightly dew; they watch for showers from heaven, and in despair gaze on the clouds, whence lately poured a flood. nor were their tortures less that meroe saw not their sufferings, nor cancer's zone, nor where the garamantian turns the soil; but sicoris and iberus at their feet, two mighty floods, but far beyond their reach, rolled down in measureless volume to the main. but now their leaders yield; afranius, vanquished, throws down his arms, and leads his troops, now hardly living, to the hostile camp before the victor's feet, and sues for peace. proud was his bearing, and despite of ills, his mien majestic, of his triumphs past still mindful in disaster -- thus he stood, though suppliant for grace, a leader yet; from fearless heart thus speaking: "had the fates thrown me before some base ignoble foe, not, caesar, thee; still had this arm fought on and snatched my death. now if i suppliant ask, 'tis that i value still the boon of life given by a worthy hand. no party ties roused us to arms against thee; when the war, this civil war, broke out, it found us chiefs; and with our former cause we kept the faith, so long as brave men should. the fates' decree no longer we withstand. unto thy will we yield the western tribes: the east is thine and all the world lies open to thy march. be generous! blood nor sword nor wearied arm thy conquests bought. thou hast not to forgive aught but thy victory won. nor ask we much. give us repose; to lead in peace the life thou shalt bestow; suppose these armed lines are corpses prostrate on the field of war ne'er were it meet that thy victorious ranks should mix with ours, the vanquished. destiny has run for us its course: one boon i beg; bid not the conquered conquer in thy train." such were his words, and caesar's gracious smile granted his prayer, remitting rights that war gives to the victor. to th' unguarded stream the soldiers speed: prone on the bank they lie and lap the flood or foul the crowded waves. in many a burning throat the sudden draught poured in too copious, filled the empty veins and choked the breath within: yet left unquenched the burning pest which though their frames were full craved water for itself. then, nerved once more, their strength returned. oh, lavish luxury, contented never with the frugal meal! oh greed that searchest over land and sea to furnish forth the banquet! pride that joy'st in sumptuous tables! learn what life requires, how little nature needs! no ruddy juice pressed from the vintage in some famous year, whose consuls are forgotten, served in cups with gold and jewels wrought restores the spark, the failing spark, of life; but water pure and simplest fruits of earth. the flood, the field suffice for nature. ah! the weary lot of those who war! but these, their amour laid low at the victor's feet, with lightened breast, secure themselves, no longer dealing death, beset by care no more, seek out their homes. what priceless gift in peace had they secured! how grieved it now their souls to have poised the dart with arm outstretched; to have felt their raving thirst; and prayed the gods for victory in vain! nay, hard they think the victor's lot, for whom a thousand risks and battles still remain; if fortune never is to leave his side, how often must he triumph! and how oft pour out his blood where'er great caesar leads! happy, thrice happy, he who, when the world is nodding to its ruin, knows the spot where he himself shall, though in ruin, lie! no trumpet call shall break his sleep again: but in his humble home with faithful spouse and sons unlettered fortune leaves him free from rage of party; for if life he owes to caesar, magnus sometime was his lord. thus happy they alone live on apart, nor hope nor dread the event of civil war. not thus did fortune upon caesar smile in all the parts of earth; ( ) but 'gainst his arms dared somewhat, where salona's lengthy waste opposes hadria, and iadar warm meets with his waves the breezes of the west. there brave curectae dwell, whose island home is girded by the main; on whom relied antonius; and beleaguered by the foe, upon the furthest margin of the shore, (safe from all ills but famine) placed his camp. but for his steeds the earth no forage gave, nor golden ceres harvest; but his troops gnawed the dry herbage of the scanty turf within their rampart lines. but when they knew that baslus was on th' opposing shore with friendly force, by novel mode of flight they aim to reach him. not the accustomed keel they lay, nor build the ship, but shapeless rafts of timbers knit together, strong to bear all ponderous weight; on empty casks beneath by tightened chains made firm, in double rows supported; nor upon the deck were placed the oarsmen, to the hostile dart exposed, but in a hidden space, by beams concealed. and thus the eye amazed beheld the mass move silent on its path across the sea, by neither sail nor stalwart arm propelled. they watch the main until the refluent waves ebb from the growing sands; then, on the tide receding, launch their vessel; thus she floats with twin companions: over each uprose with quivering battlements a lofty tower. octavius, guardian of illyrian seas, restrained his swifter keels, and left the rafts free from attack, in hope of larger spoil from fresh adventures; for the peaceful sea may tempt them, and their goal in safety reached, to dare a second voyage. round the stag thus will the cunning hunter draw a line of tainted feathers poisoning the air; or spread the mesh, and muzzle in his grasp the straining jaws of the molossian hound, and leash the spartan pack; nor is the brake trusted to any dog but such as tracks the scent with lowered nostrils, and refrains from giving tongue the while; content to mark by shaking leash the covert of the prey. ere long they manned the rafts in eager wish to quit the island, when the latest glow still parted day from night. but magnus' troops, cilician once, taught by their ancient art, in fraudulent deceit had left the sea to view unguarded; but with chains unseen fast to illyrian shores, and hanging loose, they blocked the outlet in the waves beneath. the leading rafts passed safely, but the third hung in mid passage, and by ropes was hauled below o'ershadowing rocks. these hollowed out in ponderous masses overhung the main, and nodding seemed to fall: shadowed by trees dark lay the waves beneath. hither the tide brings wreck and corpse, and, burying with the flow, restores them with the ebb: and when the caves belch forth the ocean, swirling billows fall in boisterous surges back, as boils the tide in that famed whirlpool on sicilian shores. here, with venetian settlers for its load, stood motionless the raft. octavius' ships gathered around, while foemen on the land filled all the shore. but well the captain knew, volteius, how the secret fraud was planned, and tried in vain with sword and steel to burst the bands that held them; without hope he fights, uncertain where to avoid or front the foe. caught in this strait they strove as brave men should against opposing hosts; nor long the fight, for fallen darkness brought a truce to arms. then to his men disheartened and in fear of coming fate volteius, great of soul, thus spake in tones commanding: "free no more, save for this little night, consult ye now in this last moment, soldiers, how to face your final fortunes. no man's life is short who can take thought for death, nor is your fame less than a conqueror's, if with breast advanced ye meet your destined doom. none know how long the life that waits them. summon your own fate, and equal is your praise, whether the hand quench the last flicker of departing light, or shear the hope of years. but choice to die is thrust not on the mind -- we cannot flee; see at our throats, e'en now, our kinsmen's swords. then choose for death; desire what fate decrees. at least in war's blind cloud we shall not fall; nor when the flying weapons hide the day, and slaughtered heaps of foemen load the field, and death is common, and the brave man sinks unknown, inglorious. us within this ship, seen of both friends and foes, the gods have placed; both land and sea and island cliffs shall bear, from either shore, their witness to our death, in which some great and memorable fame thou, fortune, dost prepare. what glorious deeds of warlike heroism, of noble faith, time's annals show! all these shall we surpass. true, caesar, that to fall upon our swords for thee is little; yet beleaguered thus, with neither sons nor parents at our sides, shorn of the glory that we might have earned, we give thee here the only pledge we may. yet let these hostile thousands fear the souls that rage for battle and that welcome death, and know us for invincible, and joy that no more rafts were stayed. they'll offer terms and tempt us with a base unhonoured life. would that, to give that death which shall be ours the greater glory, they may bid us hope for pardon and for life! lest when our swords are reeking with our hearts'-blood, they may say this was despair of living. great must be the prowess of our end, if in the hosts that fight his battles, caesar is to mourn this little handful lost. for me, should fate grant us retreat, -- myself would scorn to shun the coming onset. life i cast away, the frenzy of the death that comes apace controls my being. those alone whose end inspires them, know the happiness of death, which the high gods, that men may bear to live, keep hid from others." thus his noble words warmed his brave comrades' hearts; and who with fear and tearful eyes had looked upon the wain, turning his nightly course, now hoped for day, such precepts deep within them. nor delayed the sky to dip the stars below the main; for phoebus in the twins his chariot drave at noon near cancer; and the hours of night ( ) were shortened by the archer. when day broke, lo! on the rocks the istrians; while the sea swarmed with the galleys and their grecian fleet all armed for fight: but first the war was stayed and terms proposed: life to the foe they thought would seem the sweeter, by delay of death thus granted. but the band devoted stood, proud of their promised end, and life forsworn, and careless of the battle: no debate could shake their high resolve. ( ) in numbers few 'gainst foemen numberless by land and sea, they wage the desperate fight; then satiate turn from the foe. and first demanding death volteius bared his throat. "what youth," he cries, "dares strike me down, and through his captain's wounds attest his love for death?" then through his side plunge blades uncounted on the moment drawn. he praises all: but him who struck the first grateful, with dying strength, he does to death. they rush together, and without a foe work all the guilt of battle. thus of yore, rose up the glittering dircaean band from seed by cadmus sown, and fought and died, dire omen for the brother kings of thebes. and so in phasis' fields the sons of earth, born of the sleepless dragon, all inflamed by magic incantations, with their blood deluged the monstrous furrow, while the queen feared at the spells she wrought. devoted thus to death, they fall, yet in their death itself less valour show than in the fatal wounds they take and give; for e'en the dying hand missed not a blow -- nor did the stroke alone inflict the wound, but rushing on the sword their throat or breast received it to the hilt; and when by fatal chance or sire with son, or brothers met, yet with unfaltering weight down flashed the pitiless sword: this proved their love, to give no second blow. half living now they dragged their mangled bodies to the side, whence flowed into the sea a crimson stream of slaughter. 'twas their pleasure yet to see the light they scorned; with haughty looks to scan the faces of their victors, and to feel the death approaching. but the raft was now piled up with dead; which, when the foemen saw, wondering at such a chief and such a deed, they gave them burial. never through the world of any brave achievement was the fame more widely blazed. yet meaner men, untaught by such examples, see not that the hand which frees from slavery needs no valiant mind to guide the stroke. but tyranny is feared as dealing death; and freedom's self is galled by ruthless arms; and knows not that the sword was given for this, that none need live a slave. ah death! would'st thou but let the coward live and grant the brave alone the prize to die! nor less were libyan fields ablaze with war. for curio rash from lilybaean ( ) coast sailed with his fleet, and borne by gentle winds betwixt half-ruined carthage, mighty once, and clupea's cliff, upon the well-known shore his anchors dropped. first from the hoary sea remote, where bagra slowly ploughs the sand, he placed his camp: then sought the further hills and mazy passages of cavernous rocks, antaeus' kingdom called. from ancient days this name was given; and thus a swain retold the story handed down from sire to son: "not yet exhausted by the giant brood, earth still another monster brought to birth, in libya's caverns: huger far was he, more justly far her pride, than briareus with all his hundred hands, or typhon fierce, or tityos: 'twas in mercy to the gods that not in phlegra's ( ) fields antaeus grew, but here in libya; to her offspring's strength, unmeasured, vast, she added yet this boon, that when in weariness and labour spent he touched his parent, fresh from her embrace renewed in rigour he should rise again. in yonder cave he dwelt, 'neath yonder rock he made his feast on lions slain in chase: there slept he; not on skins of beasts, or leaves, but fed his strength upon the naked earth. perished the libyan hinds and those who came, brought here in ships, until he scorned at length the earth that gave him strength, and on his feet invincible and with unaided might made all his victims. last to afric shores, drawn by the rumour of such carnage, came magnanimous alcides, he who freed both land and sea of monsters. down on earth he threw his mantle of the lion's skin slain in cleone; nor antaeus less cast down the hide he wore. with shining oil, as one who wrestles at olympia's feast, the hero rubs his limbs: the giant feared lest standing only on his parent earth his strength might fail; and cast o'er all his bulk hot sand in handfuls. thus with arms entwined and grappling hands each seizes on his foe; with hardened muscles straining at the neck long time in vain; for firm the sinewy throat stood column-like, nor yielded; so that each wondered to find his peer. nor at the first divine alcides put forth all his strength, by lengthy struggle wearing out his foe, till chilly drops stood on antaeas' limbs, and toppled to its fall the stately throat, and smitten by the hero's blows, the legs began to totter. breast to breast they strive to gain the vantage, till the victor's arms gird in the giant's yielding back and sides, and squeeze his middle part: next 'twixt the thighs he puts his feet, and forcing them apart, lays low the mighty monster limb by limb. the dry earth drank his sweat, while in his veins warm ran the life-blood, and with strength refreshed, the muscle swelled and all the joints grew firm, and with his might restored, he breaks his bonds and rives the arms of hercules away. amazed the hero stood at such a strength. not thus he feared, though then unused to war, that hydra fierce, which smitten in the marsh of inachus, renewed its severed heads. again they join in fight, one with the powers which earth bestowed, the other with his own: nor did the hatred of his step-dame ( ) find in all his conflicts greater room for hope. she sees bedewed in sweat the neck and limbs which once had borne the mountain of the gods nor knew the toil: and when antaeus felt his foeman's arms close round him once again, he flung his wearying limbs upon the sand to rise with strength renewed; all that the earth, though labouring sore, could breathe into her son she gave his frame. but hercules at last saw how his parent gave the giant strength. 'stand thou,' he cried; 'no more upon the ground thou liest at thy will -- here must thou stay within mine arms constrained; against this breast, antaeus, shalt thou fall.' he lifted up and held by middle girth the giant form, still struggling for the earth: but she no more could give her offspring rigour. slowly came the chill of death upon him, and 'twas long before the hero, of his victory sure, trusted the earth and laid the giant down. hence hoar antiquity that loves to prate and wonders at herself ( ), this region called antaeus' kingdom. but a greater name it gained from scipio, when he recalled from roman citadels the punic chief. here was his camp; here can'st thou see the trace of that most famous rampart ( ) whence at length issued the eagles of triumphant rome." but curio rejoiced, as though for him the fortunes of the spot must hold in store the fates of former chiefs: and on the place of happy augury placed his tents ill-starred, took from the hills their omens; and with force unequal, challenged his barbarian foe. all africa that bore the roman yoke then lay 'neath varus. he, though placing first trust in his latian troops, from every side and furthest regions, summons to his aid the nations who confessed king juba's rule. not any monarch over wider tracts held the dominion. from the western belt ( ) near gades, atlas parts their furthest bounds; but from the southern, hammon girds them in hard by the whirlpools; and their burning plains stretch forth unending 'neath the torrid zone, in breadth its equal, till they reach at length the shore of ocean upon either hand. from all these regions tribes unnumbered flock to juba's standard: moors of swarthy hue as though from ind; numidian nomads there and nasamon's needy hordes; and those whose darts equal the flying arrows of the mede: dark garamantians leave their fervid home; and those whose coursers unrestrained by bit or saddle, yet obey the rider's hand which wields the guiding switch: the hunter, too, who wanders forth, his home a fragile hut, and blinds with flowing robe (if spear should fail) the angry lion, monarch of the steppe. not eagerness alone to save the state stirred juba's spirit: private hatred too roused him to war. for in the former year, when curio all things human and the gods polluted, he by tribune law essayed to ravish libya from the tyrant's sway, and drive the monarch from his father's throne, while giving rome a king. to juba thus, still smarting at the insult, came the war, a welcome harvest for his crown retained. these rumours curio feared: nor had his troops (ta'en in corfinium's hold) ( ) in waves of rhine been tested, nor to caesar in the wars had learned devotion: wavering in their faith, their second chief they doubt, their first betrayed. yet when the general saw the spirit of fear creep through his camp, and discipline to fail, and sentinels desert their guard at night, thus in his fear he spake: "by daring much fear is disguised; let me be first in arms, and bid my soldiers to the plain descend, while still my soldiers. idle days breed doubt. by fight forestall the plot ( ). soon as the thirst of bloodshed fills the mind, and eager hands grip firm the sword, and pressed upon the brow the helm brings valour to the failing heart -- who cares to measure leaders' merits then? who weighs the cause? with whom the soldier stands, for him he fights; as at the fatal show no ancient grudge the gladiator's arm nerves for the combat, yet as he shall strike he hates his rival." thinking thus he leads his troops in battle order to the plain. then victory on his arms deceptive shone hiding the ills to come: for from the field driving the hostile host with sword and spear, he smote them till their camp opposed his way. but after varus' rout, unseen till then, all eager for the glory to be his, by stealth came juba: silent was his march; his only fear lest rumour should forestall his coming victory. in pretended war he sends sabura forth with scanty force to tempt the enemy, while in hollow vale he holds the armies of his realm unseen. thus doth the sly ichneumon ( ) with his tail waving, allure the serpent of the nile drawn to the moving shadow: he, with head turned sideways, watches till the victim glides within his reach, then seizes by the throat behind the deadly fangs: forth from its seat balked of its purpose, through the brimming jaws gushes a tide of poison. fortune smiled on juba's stratagem; for curio (the hidden forces of the foe unknown) sent forth his horse by night without the camp to scour more distant regions. he himself at earliest peep of dawn bids carry forth his standards; heeding not his captains' prayer urged on his ears: "beware of punic fraud, the craft that taints a carthaginian war." hung over him the doom of coming death and gave the youth to fate; and civil strife dragged down its author. on the lofty tops where broke the hills abruptly to their fall he ranks his troops and sees the foe afar: who still deceiving, simulated flight, till from the height in loose unordered lines the roman forces streamed upon the plain, in thought that juba fled. then first was known the treacherous fraud: for swift numidian horse on every side surround them: leader, men -- all see their fate in one dread moment come. no coward flees, no warrior bravely strides to meet the battle: nay, the trumpet call stirs not the charger with resounding hoof to spurn the rock, nor galling bit compels to champ in eagerness; nor toss his mane and prick the ear, nor prancing with his feet to claim his share of combat. tired, the neck droops downwards: smoking sweat bedews the limbs: dry from the squalid mouth protrudes the tongue, hoarse, raucous panting issues from their chests; their flanks distend: and every curb is dry with bloody foam; the ruthless sword alone could move them onward, powerless even then to charge; but giving to the hostile dart a nearer victim. but when the afric horse first made their onset, loud beneath their hoofs rang the wide plain, and rose the dust in air as by some thracian whirlwind stirred; and veiled the heavens in darkness. when on curio's host the tempest burst, each footman in the rank stood there to meet his fate -- no doubtful end hung in the balance: destiny proclaimed death to them all. no conflict hand to hand was granted them, by lances thrown from far and sidelong sword-thrusts slain: nor wounds alone, but clouds of weapons falling from the air by weight of iron o'erwhelmed them. still drew in the straightening circle, for the first pressed back on those behind; did any shun the foe, seeking the inner safety of the ring, he needs must perish by his comrades' swords. and as the front rank fell, still narrower grew the close crushed phalanx, till to raise their swords space was denied. still close and closer forced the armed breasts against each other driven pressed out the life. thus not upon a scene such as their fortune promised, gazed the foe. no tide of blood was there to glut their eyes, no members lopped asunder, though the earth so was piled with corpses; for each roman stood in death upright against his comrade dead. let cruel carthage rouse her hated ghosts by this fell offering; let the punic shades, and bloody hannibal, from this defeat receive atonement: yet 'twas shame, ye gods, that libya gained not for herself the day; and that our romans on that field should die to save pompeius and the senate's cause. now was the dust laid low by streams of blood, and curio, knowing that his host was slain. chose not to live; and, as a brave man should. he rushed upon the heap, and fighting fell. in vain with turbid speech hast thou profaned the pulpit of the forum: waved in vain from that proud ( ) citadel the tribune flag: and armed the people, and the senate's rights betraying, hast compelled this impious war betwixt the rival kinsmen. low thou liest before pharsalus' fight, and from thine eyes is hid the war. 'tis thus to suffering rome, for arms seditious and for civil strife ye mighty make atonement with your blood. happy were rome and all her sons indeed, did but the gods as rigidly protect as they avenge, her violated laws! there curio lies; untombed his noble corpse, torn by the vultures of the libyan wastes. yet shall we, since such merit, though unsung, lives by its own imperishable fame, give thee thy meed of praise. rome never bore another son, who, had he right pursued, had so adorned her laws; but soon the times, their luxury, corruption, and the curse of too abundant wealth, in transverse stream swept o'er his wavering mind: and curio changed, turned with his change the scale of human things. true, mighty sulla, cruel marius, and bloody cinna, and the long descent of caesar and of caesar's house became lords of our lives. but who had power like him? all others bought the state: he sold alone. ( ) endnotes: ( ) both of these generals were able and distinguished officers. afranius was slain by caesar's soldiers after the battle of thapsus. petreius, after the same battle, escaped along with juba; and failing to find a refuge, they challenged each other to fight. petreius was killed, and juba, the survivor, put an end to himself. ( ) these are the names of spanish tribes. the celtiberi dwelt on the ebro. ( ) lerida, on the river segre, above its junction with the ebro. cinga is the modern cinca, which falls into the segre (sicoris). ( ) phrixus and helle, the children of nephele, were to be sacrificed to zeus: but nephele rescued them, and they rode away through the air on the ram with the golden fleece. but helle fell into the sea, which from her was named the hellespont. (see book ix., .) the sun enters aries about march . the ram is pictured among the constellations with his head averse. ( ) see book i., . ( ) see mr. heitland's introduction, upon the meaning of the word "cardo". the word "belt" seems fairly to answer to the two great circles or four meridians which he describes. the word occurs again at line ; book v., ; book vii., . ( ) the idea is that the cold of the poles tempers the heat of the equator. ( ) fuso: either spacious, outspread; or, poured into the land (referring to the estuaries) as mr. haskins prefers; or, poured round the island. portable leathern skiffs seem to have been in common use in caesar's time in the english channel. these were the rowing boats of the gauls. (mommsen, vol. iv., .) ( ) compare book i., . ( ) compare the passage in tacitus, "histories", ii., , in which the historian describes how the troops of otho and vitellius wept over each other after the battle and deplored the miseries of a civil war. "victi victoresque in lacrumas effusi, sortem civilium armorum misera laetitia detestantes." ( ) "saecula nostra" may refer either to lucan's own time or to the moment arrived at in the poem; or it may, as francken suggests, have a more general meaning. ( ) "petenda est"? -- "is it fit that you should beg for the lives of your leaders?" mr. haskins says, "shall you have to beg for them?" but it means that to do so is the height of disgrace. ( ) the scene is the dalmatian coast of the adriatic. here was diocletian's palace. (described in the th chapter of gibbon.) ( ) that is, night was at its shortest. ( ) on the following passage see dean merivale's remarks, "history of the roman empire", chapter xvi. ( ) that is, sicilian. ( ) for phlegra, the scene of the battle between the giants and the gods, see book vii., , and book ix., . ben jonson ("sejanus", act v., scene ) says of sejanus: -- "phlegra, the field where all the sons of earth mustered against the gods, did ne'er acknowledge so proud and huge a monster." ( ) juno. ( ) that is, extols ancient deeds. ( ) referring to the battle of zama. ( ) see line . ( ) curio was tribune in b.c. . his earlier years are stated to have been stained with vice. ( ) see book ii., . ( ) preferring the reading "praeripe", with francken. ( ) bewick ("quadrupeds," p. ) tells the following anecdote of a tame ichneumon which had never seen a serpent, and to which he brought a small one. "its first emotion seemed to be astonishment mixed with anger; its hair became erect; in an instant it slipped behind the reptile, and with remarkable swiftness and agility leaped upon its head, seized it and crushed it with its teeth." ( ) reading "arce", not "arte". the word "signifer" seems to favour the reading i have preferred; and dean merivale and hosius adopted it. ( ) for the character and career of curio, see merivale's "history of the roman empire", chapter xvi. he was of profligate character, but a friend and pupil of cicero; at first a rabid partisan of the oligarchy, he had, about the period of his tribuneship (b.c. - ), become a supporter of caesar. how far gaulish gold was the cause of this conversion we cannot tell. it is in allusion to this change that he was termed the prime mover of the civil war. his arrival in caesar's camp is described in book i., line . he became caesar's chief lieutenant in place of the deserter labienus; and, as described in book iii., was sent to sardinia and sicily, whence he expelled the senatorial forces. his final expedition to africa, defeat and death, form the subject of the latter part of this book. mommsen describes him as a man of talent, and finds a resemblance between him and caesar. (vol. iv., p. .) book v the oracle. the mutiny. the storm thus had the smiles of fortune and her frowns brought either chief to macedonian shores still equal to his foe. from cooler skies sank atlas' ( ) daughters down, and haemus' slopes were white with winter, and the day drew nigh devoted to the god who leads the months, and marking with new names the book of rome, when came the fathers from their distant posts by both the consuls to epirus called ( ) ere yet the year was dead: a foreign land obscure received the magistrates of rome, and heard their high debate. no warlike camp this; for the consul's and the praetor's axe proclaimed the senate-house; and magnus sat one among many, and the state was all. when all were silent, from his lofty seat thus lentulus began, while stern and sad the fathers listened: "if your hearts still beat with latian blood, and if within your breasts still lives your fathers' vigour, look not now on this strange land that holds us, nor enquire your distance from the captured city: yours this proud assembly, yours the high command in all that comes. be this your first decree, whose truth all peoples and all kings confess; be this the senate. let the frozen wain demand your presence, or the torrid zone wherein the day and night with equal tread for ever march; still follows in your steps the central power of imperial rome. when flamed the capitol with fires of gaul when veii held camillus, there with him was rome, nor ever though it changed its clime your order lost its rights. in caesar's hands are sorrowing houses and deserted homes, laws silent for a space, and forums closed in public fast. his senate-house beholds those fathers only whom from rome it drove, while rome was full. of that high order all not here, are exiles. ( ) ignorant of war, its crimes and bloodshed, through long years of peace, ye fled its outburst: now in session all are here assembled. see ye how the gods weigh down italia's loss by all the world thrown in the other scale? illyria's wave rolls deep upon our foes: in libyan wastes is fallen their curio, the weightier part ( ) of caesar's senate! lift your standards, then, spur on your fates and prove your hopes to heaven. let fortune, smiling, give you courage now as, when ye fled, your cause. the consuls' power fails with the dying year: not so does yours; by your commandment for the common weal decree pompeius leader." with applause they heard his words, and placed their country's fates, nor less their own, within the chieftain's hands. then did they shower on people and on kings honours well earned -- rhodes, mistress of the seas, was decked with gifts; athena, old in fame, received her praise, and the rude tribes who dwell on cold taygetus; massilia's sons their own phocaea's freedom; on the chiefs of thracian tribes, fit honours were bestowed. they order libya by their high decree to serve king juba's sceptre; and, alas! on ptolemaeus, of a faithless race the faithless sovereign, scandal to the gods, and shame to fortune, placed the diadem of pella. boy! thy sword was only sharp against thy people. ah if that were all! the fatal gift gave, too, pompeius' life; bereft thy sister of her sire's bequest, ( ) half of the kingdom; caesar of a crime. then all to arms. while soldier thus and chief, in doubtful sort, against their hidden fate devised their counsel, appius ( ) alone feared for the chances of the war, and sought through phoebus' ancient oracle to break the silence of the gods and know the end. between the western belt and that which bounds ( ) the furthest east, midway parnassus rears his double summit: to the bromian god and paean consecrate, to whom conjoined the theban band leads up the delphic feast on each third year. this mountain, when the sea poured o'er the earth her billows, rose alone, by one high peak scarce master of the waves, parting the crest of waters from the stars. there, to avenge his mother, from her home chased by the angered goddess while as yet she bore him quick within her, paean came (when themis ruled the tripods and the spot) ( ) and with unpractised darts the python slew. but when he saw how from the yawning cave a godlike knowledge breathed, and all the air was full of voices murmured from the depths, he took the shrine and filled the deep recess; henceforth to prophesy. which of the gods has left heaven's light in this dark cave to hide? what spirit that knows the secrets of the world and things to come, here condescends to dwell, divine, omnipotent? bear the touch of man, and at his bidding deigns to lift the veil? perchance he sings the fates, perchance his song, once sung, is fate. haply some part of jove sent here to rule the earth with mystic power, balanced upon the void immense of air, sounds through the caves, and in its flight returns to that high home of thunder whence it came. caught in a virgin's breast, this deity strikes on the human spirit: then a voice sounds from her breast, as when the lofty peak of etna boils, forced by compelling flames, or as typheus on campania's shore frets 'neath the pile of huge inarime. ( ) though free to all that ask, denied to none, no human passion lurks within the voice that heralds forth the god; no whispered vow, no evil prayer prevails; none favour gain: of things unchangeable the song divine; yet loves the just. when men have left their homes to seek another, it hath turned their steps aright, as with the tyrians; ( ) and raised the hearts of nations to confront their foe, as prove the waves of salamis: ( ) when earth hath been unfruitful, or polluted air has plagued mankind, this utterance benign hath raised their hopes and pointed to the end. no gift from heaven's high gods so great as this our centuries have lost, since delphi's shrine has silent stood, and kings forbade the gods ( ) to speak the future, fearing for their fates. nor does the priestess sorrow that the voice is heard no longer; and the silent fane to her is happiness; for whatever breast contains the deity, its shattered frame surges with frenzy, and the soul divine shakes the frail breath that with the god receives, as prize or punishment, untimely death. these tripods appius seeks, unmoved for years these soundless caverned rocks, in quest to learn hesperia's destinies. at his command to loose the sacred gateways and permit the prophetess to enter to the god, the keeper calls phemonoe; ( ) whose steps round the castalian fount and in the grove were wandering careless; her he bids to pass the portals. but the priestess feared to tread the awful threshold, and with vain deceits sought to dissuade the chieftain from his zeal to learn the future. "what this hope," she cried, "roman, that moves thy breast to know the fates? long has parnassus and its silent cleft stifled the god; perhaps the breath divine has left its ancient gorge and thro' the world wanders in devious paths; or else the fane, consumed to ashes by barbarian ( ) fire, closed up the deep recess and choked the path of phoebus; or the ancient sibyl's books disclosed enough of fate, and thus the gods decreed to close the oracle; or else since wicked steps are banished from the fane, in this our impious age the god finds none whom he may answer." but the maiden's guile was known, for though she would deny the gods her fears approved them. on her front she binds a twisted fillet, while a shining wreath of phocian laurels crowns the locks that flow upon her shoulders. hesitating yet the priest compelled her, and she passed within. but horror filled her of the holiest depths from which the mystic oracle proceeds; and resting near the doors, in breast unmoved she dares invent the god in words confused, which proved no mind possessed with fire divine; by such false chant less injuring the chief than faith in phoebus and the sacred fane. no burst of words with tremor in their tones, no voice re-echoing through the spacious vault proclaimed the deity, no bristling locks shook off the laurel chaplet; but the grove unshaken, and the summits of the shrine, gave proof she shunned the god. the roman knew the tripods yet were idle, and in rage, "wretch," he exclaimed, "to us and to the gods, whose presence thou pretendest, thou shalt pay for this thy fraud the punishment; unless thou enter the recess, and speak no more, of this world-war, this tumult of mankind, thine own inventions." then by fear compelled, at length the priestess sought the furthest depths, and stayed beside the tripods; and there came into her unaccustomed breast the god, breathed from the living rock for centuries untouched; nor ever with a mightier power did paean's inspiration seize the frame of delphic priestess; his pervading touch drove out her former mind, expelled the man, and made her wholly his. in maddened trance she whirls throughout the cave, her locks erect with horror, and the fillets of the god dashed to the ground; her steps unguided turn to this side and to that; the tripods fall o'erturned; within her seethes the mighty fire of angry phoebus; nor with whip alone he urged her onwards, but with curb restrained; nor was it given her by the god to speak all that she knew; for into one vast mass ( ) all time was gathered, and her panting chest groaned 'neath the centuries. in order long all things lay bare: the future yet unveiled struggled for light; each fate required a voice; the compass of the seas, creation's birth, creation's death, the number of the sands, all these she knew. thus on a former day the prophetess upon the cuman shore, ( ) disdaining that her frenzy should be slave to other nations, from the boundless threads chose out with pride of hand the fates of rome. e'en so phemonoe, for a time oppressed with fates unnumbered, laboured ere she found, beneath such mighty destinies concealed, thine, appius, who alone had'st sought the god in land castalian; then from foaming lips first rushed the madness forth, and murmurs loud uttered with panting breath and blent with groans; till through the spacious vault a voice at length broke from the virgin conquered by the god: "from this great struggle thou, o roman, free escap'st the threats of war: alive, in peace, thou shalt possess the hollow in the coast of vast euboea." thus she spake, no more. ye mystic tripods, guardians of the fates and paean, thou, from whom no day is hid by heaven's high rulers, master of the truth, why fear'st thou to reveal the deaths of kings, rome's murdered princes, and the latest doom of her great empire tottering to its fall, and all the bloodshed of that western land? were yet the stars in doubt on magnus' fate not yet decreed, and did the gods yet shrink from that, the greatest crime? or wert thou dumb that fortune's sword for civil strife might wreak just vengeance, and a brutus' arm once more strike down the tyrant? from the temple doors rushed forth the prophetess in frenzy driven, not all her knowledge uttered; and her eyes, still troubled by the god who reigned within, or filled with wild affright, or fired with rage gaze on the wide expanse: still works her face convulsive; on her cheeks a crimson blush with ghastly pallor blent, though not of fear. her weary heart throbs ever; and as seas boom swollen by northern winds, she finds in sighs, all inarticulate, relief. but while she hastes from that dread light in which she saw the fates, to common day, lo! on her path the darkness fell. then by a stygian draught of the forgetful river, phoebus snatched back from her soul his secrets; and she fell yet hardly living. nor did appius dread approaching death, but by dark oracles baffled, while yet the empire of the world hung in the balance, sought his promised realm in chalcis of euboea. yet to escape all ills of earth, the crash of war -- what god can give thee such a boon, but death alone? far on the solitary shore a grave awaits thee, where carystos' marble crags ( ) draw in the passage of the sea, and where the fane of rhamnus rises to the gods who hate the proud, and where the ocean strait boils in swift whirlpools, and euripus draws deceitful in his tides, a bane to ships, chalcidian vessels to bleak aulis' shore. but caesar carried from the conquered west his eagles to another world of war; when envying his victorious course the gods almost turned back the prosperous tide of fate. not on the battle-field borne down by arms but in his tents, within the rampart lines, the hoped-for prize of this unholy war seemed for a moment gone. that faithful host, his comrades trusted in a hundred fields, or that the falchion sheathed had lost its charm; or weary of the mournful bugle call scarce ever silent; or replete with blood, well nigh betrayed their general and sold for hope of gain their honour and their cause. no other perilous shock gave surer proof how trembled 'neath his feet the dizzy height from which great caesar looked. a moment since his high behest drew nations to the field: now, maimed of all, he sees that swords once drawn are weapons for the soldier, not the chief. from the stern ranks no doubtful murmur rose; not silent anger as when one conspires, his comrades doubting, feared himself in turn; alone (he thinks) indignant at the wrongs wrought by the despot. in so great a host dread found no place. where thousands share the guilt crime goes unpunished. thus from dauntless throats they hurled their menace: "caesar, give us leave to quit thy crimes; thou seek'st by land and sea the sword to slay us; let the fields of gaul and far iberia, and the world proclaim how for thy victories our comrades fell. what boots it us that by an army's blood the rhine and rhone and all the northern lands thou hast subdued? thou giv'st us civil war for all these battles; such the prize. when fled the senate trembling, and when rome was ours what homes or temples did we spoil? our hands reek with offence! aye, but our poverty proclaims our innocence! what end shall be of arms and armies? what shall be enough if rome suffice not? and what lies beyond? behold these silvered locks, these nerveless hands and shrunken arms, once stalwart! in thy wars gone is the strength of life, gone all its pride! dismiss thine aged soldiers to their deaths. how shameless is our prayer! not on hard turf to stretch our dying limbs; nor seek in vain, when parts the soul, a hand to close our eyes; not with the helmet strike the stony clod: ( ) rather to feel the dear one's last embrace, and gain a humble but a separate tomb. let nature end old age. and dost thou think we only know not what degree of crime will fetch the highest price? what thou canst dare these years have proved, or nothing; law divine nor human ordinance shall hold thine hand. thou wert our leader on the banks of rhine; henceforth our equal; for the stain of crime makes all men like to like. add that we serve a thankless chief: as fortune's gift he takes the fruits of victory our arms have won. we are his fortunes, and his fates are ours to fashion as we will. boast that the gods shall do thy bidding! nay, thy soldiers' will shall close the war." with threatening mien and speech thus through the camp the troops demand their chief. when faith and loyalty are fled, and hope for aught but evil, thus may civil war in mutiny and discord find its end! what general had not feared at such revolt? but mighty caesar trusting on the throw, as was his wont, his fortune, and o'erjoyed to front their anger raging at its height unflinching comes. no temples of the gods, not jove's high fane on the tarpeian rock, not rome's high dames nor maidens had he grudged to their most savage lust: that they should ask the worst, his wish, and love the spoils of war. nor feared he aught save order at the hands of that unconquered host. art thou not shamed that strife should please thee only, now condemned even by thy minions? shall they shrink from blood, they from the sword recoil? and thou rush on heedless of guilt, through right and through unright, nor learn that men may lay their arms aside yet bear to live? this civil butchery escapes thy grasp. stay thou thy crimes at length; nor force thy will on those who will no more. upon a turfy mound unmoved he stood and, since he feared not, worthy to be feared; and thus while anger stirred his soul began: "thou that with voice and hand didst rage but now against thine absent chief, behold me here; here strike thy sword into this naked breast, to stay the war; and flee, if such thy wish. this mutiny devoid of daring deed betrays your coward souls, betrays the youth who tires of victories which gild the arms of an unconquered chief, and yearns for flight. well, leave me then to battle and to fate! i cast you forth; for every weapon left, fortune shall find a man, to wield it well. shall magnus in his flight with such a fleet draw nations in his train; and not to me as my victories bring hosts, to whom shall fall the prize of war accomplished, who shall reap your laurels scorned, and scathless join the train that leads my chariot to the sacred hill? while you, despised in age and worn in war, gaze on our triumph from the civic crowd. think you your dastard flight shall give me pause? if all the rivers that now seek the sea were to withdraw their waters, it would fail by not one inch, no more than by their flow it rises now. have then your efforts given strength to my cause? not so: the heavenly gods stoop not so low; fate has no time to judge your lives and deaths. the fortunes of the world follow heroic souls: for the fit few the many live; and you who terrified with me the northern and iberian worlds, would flee when led by magnus. strong in arms for caesar's cause was labienus; ( ) now that vile deserter, with his chief preferred, wanders o'er land and sea. nor were your faith one whit more firm to me if, neither side espoused, you ceased from arms. who leaves me once, though not to fight against me with the foe, joins not my ranks again. surely the gods smile on these arms who for so great a war grant me fresh soldiers. from what heavy load fortune relieves me! for the hands which aimed at all, to which the world did not suffice, i now disarm, and for myself alone reserve the conflict. quit ye, then, my camp, 'quirites', ( ) caesar's soldiers now no more, and leave my standards to the grasp of men! yet some who led this mad revolt i hold, not as their captain now, but as their judge. lie, traitors, prone on earth, stretch out the neck and take th' avenging blow. and thou whose strength shall now support me, young and yet untaught, behold the doom and learn to strike and die." such were his words of ire, and all the host drew back and trembled at the voice of him they would depose, as though their very swords would from their scabbards leap at his command themselves unwilling; but he only feared lest hand and blade to satisfy the doom might be denied, till they submitting pledged their lives and swords alike, beyond his hope. to strike and suffer ( ) holds in surest thrall the heart inured to guilt; and caesar kept, by dreadful compact ratified in blood, those whom he feared to lose. he bids them march upon brundusium, and recalls the ships from soft calabria's inlets and the point of leucas, and the salapinian marsh, where sheltered sipus nestles at the feet of rich garganus, jutting from the shore in huge escarpment that divides the waves of hadria; on each hand, his seaward slopes buffeted by the winds; or auster borne from sweet apulia, or the sterner blast of boreas rushing from dalmatian strands. but caesar entered trembling rome unarmed, now taught to serve him in the garb of peace. dictator named, to grant their prayers, forsooth: consul, in honour of the roll of rome. then first of all the names by which we now lie to our masters, men found out the use: for to preserve his right to wield the sword he mixed the civil axes with his brands; with eagles, fasces; with an empty word clothing his power; and stamped upon the time a worthy designation; for what name could better mark the dread pharsalian year than "caesar, consul"? ( ) now the famous field pretends its ancient ceremonies: calls the tribes in order and divides the votes in vain solemnity of empty urns. nor do they heed the portents of the sky: deaf were the augurs to the thunder roll; the owl flew on the left; yet were the birds propitious sworn. then was the ancient name degraded first; and monthly consuls, ( ) shorn of their rank, are chosen to mark the years. and trojan alba's ( ) god (since latium's fall deserving not) beheld the wonted fires blaze from his altars on the festal night. then through apulia's fallows, that her hinds left all untilled, to sluggish weeds a prey passed caesar onward, swifter than the fire of heaven, or tigress dam: until he reached brundusium's winding ramparts, built of old by cretan colonists. there icy winds constrained the billows, and his trembling fleet feared for the winter storms nor dared the main. but caesar's soul burned at the moments lost for speedy battle, nor could brook delay within the port, indignant that the sea should give safe passage to his routed foe: and thus he stirred his troops, in seas unskilled, with words of courage: "when the winter wind has seized on sky and ocean, firm its hold; but the inconstancy of cloudy spring permits no certain breezes to prevail upon the billows. straight shall be our course. no winding nooks of coast, but open seas struck by the northern wind alone we plough, and may he bend the spars, and bear us swift to grecian cities; else pompeius' oars, smiting the billows from phaeacian ( ) coasts, may catch our flagging sails. cast loose the ropes from our victorious prows. too long we waste tempests that blow to bear us to our goal." now sank the sun to rest; the evening star shone on the darkening heaven, and the moon reigned with her paler light, when all the fleet freed from retaining cables seized the main. with slackened sheet the canvas wooed the breeze, which rose and fell and fitful died away, till motionless the sails, and all the waves were still as deepest pool, where never wind ripples the surface. thus in scythian climes cimmerian bosphorus restrains the deep bound fast in frosty fetters; ister's streams ( ) no more impel the main, and ships constrained stand fast in ice; and while in depths below the waves still murmur, loud the charger's hoof sounds on the surface, and the travelling wheel furrows a track upon the frozen marsh. cruel as tempest was the calm that lay in stagnant pools upon the mournful deep: against the course of nature lay outstretched a rigid ocean: 'twas as if the sea forgat its ancient ways and knew no more the ceaseless tides, nor any breeze of heaven, nor quivered at the image of the sun, mirrored upon its wave. for while the fleet hung in mid passage motionless, the foe might hurry to attack, with sturdy stroke churning the deep; or famine's deadly grip might seize the ships becalmed. for dangers new new vows they find. "may mighty winds arise and rouse the ocean, and this sluggish plain cast off stagnation and be sea once more." thus did they pray, but cloudless shone the sky, unrippled slept the surface of the main; until in misty clouds the moon arose and stirred the depths, and moved the fleet along towards the ceraunian headland; and the waves and favouring breezes followed on the ships, now speeding faster, till (their goal attained) they cast their anchors on palaeste's ( ) shore. this land first saw the chiefs in neighbouring camps confronted, which the streams of apsus bound and swifter genusus; a lengthy course is run by neither, but on apsus' waves scarce flowing from a marsh, the frequent boat finds room to swim; while on the foamy bed of genusus by sun or shower compelled the melted snows pour seawards. here were met (so fortune ordered it) the mighty pair; and in its woes the world yet vainly hoped that brought to nearer touch their crime itself might bleed abhorrence: for from either camp voices were clearly heard and features seen. nor e'er, pompeius, since that distant day when caesar's daughter and thy spouse was reft by pitiless fate away, nor left a pledge, did thy loved kinsman (save on sands of nile) so nearly look upon thy face again. but caesar's mind though frenzied for the fight was forced to pause until antonius brought the rearward troops; antonius even now rehearsing leucas' fight. with prayers and threats caesar exhorts him. "why delay the fates, thou cause of evil to the suffering world? my speed hath won the major part: from thee fortune demands the final stroke alone. do libyan whirlpools with deceitful tides uncertain separate us? is the deep untried to which i call? to unknown risks art thou commanded? caesar bids thee come, thou sluggard, not to leave him. long ago i ran my ships midway through sands and shoals to harbours held by foes; and dost thou fear my friendly camp? i mourn the waste of days which fate allotted us. upon the waves and winds i call unceasing: hold not back thy willing troops, but let them dare the sea; here gladly shall they come to join my camp, though risking shipwreck. not in equal shares the world has fallen between us: thou alone dost hold italia, but epirus i and all the lords of rome." twice called and thrice antonius lingered still: but caesar thought to reap in full the favour of the gods, not sit supine; and knowing danger yields to whom heaven favours, he upon the waves feared by antonius' fleets, in shallow boat embarked, and daring sought the further shore. now gentle night had brought repose from arms; and sleep, blest guardian of the poor man's couch, restored the weary; and the camp was still. the hour was come that called the second watch when mighty caesar, in the silence vast with cautious tread advanced to such a deed ( ) as slaves should dare not. fortune for his guide, alone he passes on, and o'er the guard stretched in repose he leaps, in secret wrath at such a sleep. pacing the winding beach, fast to a sea-worn rock he finds a boat on ocean's marge afloat. hard by on shore its master dwelt within his humble home. no solid front it reared, for sterile rush and marshy reed enwoven formed the walls, propped by a shallop with its bending sides turned upwards. caesar's hand upon the door knocks twice and thrice until the fabric shook. amyclas from his couch of soft seaweed arising, calls: "what shipwrecked sailor seeks my humble home? who hopes for aid from me, by fates adverse compelled?" he stirs the heap upon the hearth, until a tiny spark glows in the darkness, and throws wide the door. careless of war, he knew that civil strife stoops not to cottages. oh! happy life that poverty affords! great gift of heaven too little understood! what mansion wall, what temple of the gods, would feel no fear when caesar called for entrance? then the chief: "enlarge thine hopes and look for better things. do but my bidding, and on yonder shore place me, and thou shalt cease from one poor boat to earn thy living; and in years to come look for a rich old age: and trust thy fates to those high gods whose wont it is to bless the poor with sudden plenty." so he spake e'en at such time in accents of command, for how could caesar else? amyclas said, "'twere dangerous to brave the deep to-night. the sun descended not in ruddy clouds or peaceful rays to rest; part of his beams presaged a southern gale, the rest proclaimed a northern tempest; and his middle orb, shorn of its strength, permitted human eyes to gaze upon his grandeur; and the moon rose not with silver horns upon the night nor pure in middle space; her slender points not drawn aright, but blushing with the track of raging tempests, till her lurid light was sadly veiled within the clouds. again the forest sounds; the surf upon the shore; the dolphin's mood, uncertain where to play; the sea-mew on the land; the heron used to wade among the shallows, borne aloft and soaring on his wings -- all these alarm; the raven, too, who plunged his head in spray, as if to anticipate the coming rain, and trod the margin with unsteady gait. but if the cause demands, behold me thine. either we reach the bidden shore, or else storm and the deep forbid -- we can no more." thus said he loosed the boat and raised the sail. no sooner done than stars were seen to fall in flaming furrows from the sky: nay, more; the pole star trembled in its place on high: black horror marked the surging of the sea; the main was boiling in long tracts of foam, uncertain of the wind, yet seized with storm. then spake the captain of the trembling bark: "see what remorseless ocean has in store! whether from east or west the storm may come is still uncertain, for as yet confused the billows tumble. judged by clouds and sky a western tempest: by the murmuring deep a wild south-eastern gale shall sweep the sea. nor bark nor man shall reach hesperia's shore in this wild rage of waters. to return back on our course forbidden by the gods, is our one refuge, and with labouring boat to reach the shore ere yet the nearest land way be too distant." but great caesar's trust was in himself, to make all dangers yield. and thus he answered: "scorn the threatening sea, spread out thy canvas to the raging wind; if for thy pilot thou refusest heaven, me in its stead receive. alone in thee one cause of terror just -- thou dost not know thy comrade, ne'er deserted by the gods, whom fortune blesses e'en without a prayer. break through the middle storm and trust in me. the burden of this fight fails not on us but on the sky and ocean; and our bark shall swim the billows safe in him it bears. nor shall the wind rage long: the boat itself shall calm the waters. flee the nearest shore, steer for the ocean with unswerving hand: then in the deep, when to our ship and us no other port is given, believe thou hast calabria's harbours. and dost thou not know the purpose of such havoc? fortune seeks in all this tumult of the sea and sky a boon for caesar." then a hurricane swooped on the boat and tore away the sheet: the fluttering sail fell on the fragile mast: and groaned the joints. from all the universe commingled perils rush. in atlas' seas first corus ( ) lifts his head, and stirs the depths to fury, and had forced upon the rocks whole seas and oceans; but the chilly north drove back the deep that doubted which was lord. but scythian aquilo prevailed, whose blast tossed up the main and showed as shallow pools each deep abyss; and yet was not the sea heaped on the crags, for corus' billows met the waves of boreas: such seas had clashed even were the winds withdrawn; eurus enraged burst from the cave, and notus black with rain, and all the winds from every part of heaven strove for their own; and thus the ocean stayed within his boundaries. no petty seas rapt in the storm are whirled. the tuscan deep invades th' aegean; in ionian gulfs sounds wandering hadria. how long the crags which that day fell, the ocean's blows had braved! what lofty peaks did vanquished earth resign! and yet on yonder coast such mighty waves took not their rise; from distant regions came those monster billows, driven on their course by that great current which surrounds the world. ( ) thus did the king of heaven, when length of years wore out the forces of his thunder, call his brother's trident to his help, what time the earth and sea one second kingdom formed and ocean knew no limit but the sky. now, too, the sea had risen to the stars in mighty mass, had not olympus' chief pressed down its waves with clouds: came not from heaven that night, as others; but the murky air was dim with pallor of the realms below; ( ) the sky lay on the deep; within the clouds the waves received the rain: the lightning flash clove through the parted air a path obscured by mist and darkness: and the heavenly vaults re-echoed to the tumult, and the frame that holds the sky was shaken. nature feared chaos returned, as though the elements had burst their bonds, and night had come to mix th' infernal shades with heaven. in such turmoil not to have perished was their only hope. far as from leucas point the placid main spreads to the horizon, from the billow's crest they viewed the dashing of th' infuriate sea; thence sinking to the middle trough, their mast scarce topped the watery height on either hand, their sails in clouds, their keel upon the ground. for all the sea was piled into the waves, and drawn from depths between laid bare the sand. the master of the boat forgot his art, for fear o'ercame; he knew not where to yield or where to meet the wave: but safety came from ocean's self at war: one billow forced the vessel under, but a huger wave repelled it upwards, and she rode the storm through every blast triumphant. not the shore of humble sason ( ), nor thessalia's coast indented, not ambracia's scanty ports dismay the sailors, but the giddy tops of high ceraunia's cliffs. but caesar now, thinking the peril worthy of his fates: "are such the labours of the gods?" exclaimed, "bent on my downfall have they sought me thus, here in this puny skiff in such a sea? if to the deep the glory of my fall is due, and not to war, intrepid still whatever death they send shall strike me down. let fate cut short the deeds that i would do and hasten on the end: the past is mine. the northern nations fell beneath my sword; my dreaded name compels the foe to flee. pompeius yields me place; the people's voice gave at my order what the wars denied. and all the titles which denote the powers known to the roman state my name shall bear. let none know this but thou who hear'st my prayers, fortune, that caesar summoned to the shades, dictator, consul, full of honours, died ere his last prize was won. i ask no pomp of pyre or funeral; let my body lie mangled beneath the waves: i leave a name that men shall dread in ages yet to come and all the earth shall honour." thus he spake, when lo! a tenth gigantic billow raised the feeble keel, and where between the rocks a cleft gave safety, placed it on the shore. thus in a moment fortune, kingdoms, lands, once more were caesar's. but on his return when daylight came, he entered not the camp silent as when he parted; for his friends soon pressed around him, and with weeping eyes in accents welcome to his ears began: "whither in reckless daring hast thou gone, unpitying caesar? were these humble lives left here unguarded while thy limbs were given, unsought for, to be scattered by the storm? when on thy breath so many nations hang for life and safety, and so great a world calls thee its master, to have courted death proves want of heart. was none of all thy friends deserving held to join his fate with thine? when thou wast tossed upon the raging deep we lay in slumber! shame upon such sleep! and why thyself didst seek italia's shores? 'twere cruel (such thy thought) to speak the word that bade another dare the furious sea. all men must bear what chance or fate may bring, the sudden peril and the stroke of death; but shall the ruler of the world attempt the raging ocean? with incessant prayers why weary heaven? is it indeed enough to crown the war, that fortune and the deep have cast thee on our shores? and would'st thou use the grace of favouring deities, to gain not lordship, not the empire of the world, but lucky shipwreck!" night dispersed, and soon the sun beamed on them, and the wearied deep, the winds permitting, lulled its waves to rest. and when antonius saw a breeze arise fresh from a cloudless heaven, to break the sea, he loosed his ships which, by the pilots' hands and by the wind in equal order held, swept as a marching host across the main. but night unfriendly from the seamen snatched all governance of sail, parting the ships in divers paths asunder. like as cranes deserting frozen strymon for the streams of nile, when winter falls, in casual lines of wedge-like figures ( ) first ascend the sky; but when in loftier heaven the southern breeze strikes on their pinions tense, in loose array dispersed at large, in flight irregular, they wing their journey onwards. stronger winds with day returning blew the navy on, past lissus' shelter which they vainly sought, till bare to northern blasts, nymphaeum's port, but safe in southern, gave the fleet repose, for favouring winds came on. when magnus knew that caesar's troops were gathered in their strength and that the war for quick decision called before his camp, cornelia he resolved to send to lesbos' shore, from rage of fight safe and apart: so lifting from his soul the weight that burdened it. thus, lawful love. thus art thou tyrant o'er the mightiest mind! his spouse was the one cause why magnus stayed nor met his fortunes, though he staked the world and all the destinies of rome. the word he speaks not though resolved; so sweet it seemed, when on the future pondering, to gain a pause from fate! but at the close of night, when drowsy sleep had fled, cornelia sought to soothe the anxious bosom of her lord and win his kisses. then amazed she saw his cheek was tearful, and with boding soul she shrank instinctive from the hidden wound, nor dared to rouse him weeping. but he spake: "dearer to me than life itself, when life is happy (not at moments such as these); the day of sorrow comes, too long delayed, nor long enough! with caesar at our gates with all his forces, a secure retreat shall lesbos give thee. try me not with prayers. this fatal boon i have denied myself. thou wilt not long be absent from thy lord. disasters hasten, and things highest fall with speediest ruin. 'tis enough for thee to hear of magnus' peril; and thy love ( ) deceives thee with the thought that thou canst gaze unmoved on civil strife. it shames my soul on the eve of war to slumber at thy side, and rise from thy dear breast when trumpets call a woeful world to misery and arms. i fear in civil war to feel no loss to magnus. meantime safer than a king lie hid, nor let the fortune of thy lord whelm thee with all its weight. if unkind heaven our armies rout, still let my choicest part survive in thee; if fated is my flight, still leave me that whereto i fain would flee." hardly at first her senses grasped the words in their full misery; then her mind amazed could scarce find utterance for the grief that pressed. "nought, magnus, now is left wherewith to upbraid the gods and fates of marriage; 'tis not death that parts our love, nor yet the funeral pyre, nor that dread torch which marks the end of all. i share the ignoble lot of vulgar lives: my spouse rejects me. yes, the foe is come! break we our bonds and julia's sire appease! -- is this thy consort, magnus, this thy faith in her fond loving heart? can danger fright her and not thee? long since our mutual fates hang by one chain; and dost thou bid me now the thunder-bolts of ruin to withstand without thee? is it well that i should die even while you pray for fortune? and suppose i flee from evil and with death self-sought follow thy footsteps to the realms below -- am i to live till to that distant isle some tardy rumour of thy fall may come? add that thou fain by use would'st give me strength to bear such sorrow and my doom. forgive thy wife confessing that she fears the power. and if my prayers shall bring the victory, the joyful tale shall come to me the last in that lone isle of rocks. when all are glad, my heart shall throb with anguish, and the sail which brings the message i shall see with fear, not safe e'en then: for caesar in his flight might seize me there, abandoned and alone to be his hostage. if thou place me there, the spouse of magnus, shall not all the world well know the secret mitylene holds? this my last prayer: if all is lost but flight, and thou shalt seek the ocean, to my shores turn not thy keel, ill-fated one: for there, there will they seek thee." thus she spoke distraught, leaped from the couch and rushed upon her fate; no stop nor stay: she clung not to his neck nor threw her arms about him; both forego the last caress, the last fond pledge of love, and grief rushed in unchecked upon their souls; still gazing as they part no final words could either utter, and the sweet farewell remained unspoken. this the saddest day of all their lives: for other woes that came more gently struck on hearts inured to grief. borne to the shore with failing limbs she fell and grasped the sands, embracing, till at last her maidens placed her senseless in the ship. not in such grief she left her country's shores when caesar's host drew near; for now she leaves, though faithful to her lord, his side in flight and flees her spouse. all that next night she waked; then first what means a widowed couch she knew, its cold, its solitude. when slumber found her eyelids, and forgetfulness her soul, seeking with outstretched arms the form beloved, she grasps but air. though tossed by restless love, she leaves a place beside her as for him returning. yet she feared pompeius lost to her for ever. but the gods ordained worse than her fears, and in the hour of woe gave her to look upon his face again. endnotes: ( ) the pleiades, said to be daughters of atlas. ( ) these were the consuls for the expiring year, b.c. -- caius marcellus and l. lentulus crus. ( ) that is to say, caesar's senate at rome could boast of those senators only whom it had, before pompeius' flight, declared public enemies. but they were to be regarded as exiles, having lost their rights, rather than the senators in epirus, who were in full possession of theirs. ( ) dean merivale says that probably caesar's senate was not less numerous than his rival's. duruy says there were senators in pompeius' camp, out of a total of between and . mommsen says, "they were veritably emigrants. this roman coblentz presented a pitiful spectacle of the high pretensions and paltry performances of the grandees of rome." (vol. iv., p. .) almost all the consulars were with pompeius. ( ) by the will of ptolemy auletes, cleopatra had been appointed joint sovereign of egypt with her young brother. lucan means that caesar would have killed pompeius if young ptolemy had not done so. she lost her hare of the kingdom, and caesar was clear of the crime. ( ) appius was proconsul, and in command of achaia, for the senate. ( ) see book iv., . ( ) themis, the goddess of law, was in possession of the delphic oracle, previous to apollo. (aesch., "eumenides", line .) ( ) the modern isle of ischia, off the bay of naples. ( ) the tyrians consulted the oracle in consequence of the earthquakes which vexed their country (book iii., line ), and were told to found colonies. ( ) see herodotus, book vii., - . the reference is to the answer given by the oracle to the athenians that their wooden walls would keep them safe; which themistocles interpreted as meaning their fleet. ( ) cicero, on the contrary, suggests that the reason why the oracles ceased was this, that men became less credulous. ("de div.", ii., ) lecky, "history of european morals from augustus to charlemagne", vol. i., p. . ( ) this name is one of those given to the cumaean sibyl mentioned at line . she was said to have been the daughter of apollo. ( ) probably by the gauls under brennus, b.c. . ( ) these lines form the latin motto prefixed to shelley's poem, "the demon of the world". ( ) referring to the visit of aeneas to the sibyl. (virgil, "aeneid", vi., , &c.) ( ) appius was seized with fever as soon as he reached the spot; and there he died and was buried, thus fulfilling the oracle. ( ) that is, nemesis. ( ) reading "galeam", with francken; not "glebam". ( ) labienus left caesar's ranks after the rubicon was crossed, and joined his rival. in his mouth lucan puts the speech made at the oracle of hammon in book ix. he was slain at munda, b.c. . ( ) that is, civilians; no longer soldiers. this one contemptuous expression is said to have shocked and abashed the army. (tacitus, "annals", i., .) ( ) reading "tenet", with hosius and francken; not "timet", as haskins. the prospect of inflicting punishment attracted, while the suffering of it subdued, the mutineers. ( ) caesar was named dictator while at massilia. entering rome, he held the office for eleven days only, but was elected consul for the incoming year, b.c. , along with servilius isauricus. (caesar, "de bello civili", iii., ; merivale, chapter xvi.) ( ) in the time of the empire, the degraded consulship, preserved only as a name, was frequently transferred monthly, or even shorter, intervals from one favourite to another. ( ) caesar performed the solemn rites of the great latin festival on the alban mount during his dictatorship. (compare book vii., line .) ( ) dyrrhachium was founded by the corcyreams, with whom the homeric phaeacians have been identified. ( ) apparently making the danube discharge into the sea of azov. see mr. heitland's introduction, p. . ( ) at the foot of the acroceraunian range. ( ) caesar himself says nothing of this adventure. but it is mentioned by dion, appian and plutarch ("caesar", ). dean merivale thinks the story may have been invented to introduce the apophthegm used by caesar to the sailor, "fear nothing: you carry caesar and his fortunes" (lines - ). mommsen accepts the story, as of an attempt which was only abandoned because no mariner could be induced to undertake it. lucan colours it with his wildest and most exaggerated hyperbole. ( ) see book i., . ( ) the ocean current, which, according to hecataeus, surrounded the world. but herodotus of this theory says, "for my part i know of no river called ocean, and i think that homer or one of the earlier poets invented the name and introduced it into his poetry." (book ii., , and book iv., .) in "oceanus" aeschylus seems to have intended to personify the great surrounding stream. ("prom. vinc.", lines , .) ( ) comp. vi., . ( ) sason is a small island just off the ceraunian rocks, the point of which is now called cape linguetta, and is nearly opposite to brindisi. ( ) compare "paradise lost", vii., . ( ) reading "teque tuus decepit amor", as preferred by hosius. book vi the fight near dyrrhachium. scaeva's exploits. the witch of thessalia now that the chiefs with minds intent on fight had drawn their armies near upon the hills and all the gods beheld their chosen pair, caesar, the grecian towns despising, scorned to reap the glory of successful war save at his kinsman's cost. in all his prayers he seeks that moment, fatal to the world, when shall be cast the die, to win or lose, and all his fortune hang upon the throw. thrice he drew out his troops, his eagles thrice, demanding battle; thus to increase the woe of latium, prompt as ever: but his foes, proof against every art, refused to leave the rampart of their camp. then marching swift by hidden path between the wooded fields he seeks, and hopes to seize, dyrrhachium's ( ) fort; but magnus, speeding by the ocean marge, first camped on petra's slopes, a rocky hill thus by the natives named. from thence he keeps watch o'er the fortress of corinthian birth which by its towers alone without a guard was safe against a siege. no hand of man in ancient days built up her lofty wall, no hammer rang upon her massive stones: not all the works of war, nor time himself shall undermine her. nature's hand has raised her adamantine rocks and hedged her in with bulwarks girded by the foamy main: and but for one short bridge of narrow earth dyrrhachium were an island. steep and fierce, dreaded of sailors, are the cliffs that bear her walls; and tempests, howling from the west, toss up the raging main upon the roofs; and homes and temples tremble at the shock. thirsting for battle and with hopes inflamed here caesar hastes, with distant rampart lines seeking unseen to coop his foe within, though spread in spacious camp upon the hills. with eagle eye he measures out the land meet to be compassed, nor content with turf fit for a hasty mound, he bids his troops tear from the quarries many a giant rock: and spoils the dwellings of the greeks, and drags their walls asunder for his own. thus rose a mighty barrier which no ram could burst nor any ponderous machine of war. mountains are cleft, and level through the hills the work of caesar strides: wide yawns the moat, forts show their towers rising on the heights, and in vast circle forests are enclosed and groves and spacious lands, and beasts of prey, as in a line of toils. pompeius lacked nor field nor forage in th' encircled span nor room to move his camp; nay, rivers rose within, and ran their course and reached the sea; and caesar wearied ere he saw the whole, and daylight failed him. let the ancient tale attribute to the labours of the gods the walls of ilium: let the fragile bricks which compass in great babylon, amaze the fleeting parthian. here a larger space than those great cities which orontes swift and tigris' stream enclose, or that which boasts in eastern climes, the lordly palaces fit for assyria's kings, is closed by walls amid the haste and tumult of a war forced to completion. yet this labour huge was spent in vain. so many hands had joined or sestos with abydos, or had tamed with mighty mole the hellespontine wave, or corinth from the realm of pelops' king had rent asunder, or had spared each ship her voyage round the long malean cape, or had done anything most hard, to change the world's created surface. here the war was prisoned: blood predestinate to flow in all the parts of earth; the host foredoomed to fall in libya or in thessaly was here: in such small amphitheatre the tide of civil passion rose and fell. at first pompeius knew not: so the hind who peaceful tills the mid-sicilian fields hears not pelorous ( ) sounding to the storm; so billows thunder on rutupian shores ( ), unheard by distant caledonia's tribes. but when he saw the mighty barrier stretch o'er hill and valley, and enclose the land, he bade his columns leave their rocky hold and seize on posts of vantage in the plain; thus forcing caesar to extend his troops on wider lines; and holding for his own such space encompassed as divides from rome aricia, ( ) sacred to that goddess chaste of old mycenae; or as tiber holds from rome's high ramparts to the tuscan sea, unless he deviate. no bugle call commands an onset, and the darts that fly fly though forbidden; but the arm that flings for proof the lance, at random, here and there deals impious slaughter. weighty care compelled each leader to withhold his troops from fight; for there the weary earth of produce failed pressed by pompeius' steeds, whose horny hoofs rang in their gallop on the grassy fields and killed the succulence. they strengthless lay upon the mown expanse, nor pile of straw, brought from full barns in place of living grass, relieved their craving; shook their panting flanks, and as they wheeled death struck his victim down. then foul contagion filled the murky air whose poisonous weight pressed on them in a cloud pestiferous; as in nesis' isle ( ) the breath of styx rolls upwards from the mist-clad rocks; or that fell vapour which the caves exhale from typhon ( ) raging in the depths below. then died the soldiers, for the streams they drank held yet more poison than the air: the skin was dark and rigid, and the fiery plague made hard their vitals, and with pitiless tooth gnawed at their wasted features, while their eyes started from out their sockets, and the head drooped for sheer weariness. so the disease grew swifter in its strides till scarce was room, 'twixt life and death, for sickness, and the pest slew as it struck its victim, and the dead thrust from the tents (such all their burial) lay blent with the living. yet their camp was pitched hard by the breezy sea by which might come all nations' harvests, and the northern wind not seldom rolled the murky air away. their foe, not vexed with pestilential air nor stagnant waters, ample range enjoyed upon the spacious uplands: yet as though in leaguer, famine seized them for its prey. scarce were the crops half grown when caesar saw how prone they seized upon the food of beasts, and stripped of leaves the bushes and the groves, and dragged from roots unknown the doubtful herb. thus ate they, starving, all that teeth may bite or fire might soften, or might pass their throats dry, parched, abraded; food unknown before nor placed on tables: while the leaguered foe was blessed with plenty. when pompeius first was pleased to break his bonds and be at large, no sudden dash he makes on sleeping foe unarmed in shade of night; his mighty soul scorns such a path to victory. 'twas his aim, to lay the turrets low; to mark his track, by ruin spread afar; and with the sword to hew a path between his slaughtered foes. minucius' ( ) turret was the chosen spot where groves of trees and thickets gave approach safe, unbetrayed by dust. up from the fields flashed all at once his eagles into sight and all his trumpets blared. but ere the sword could win the battle, on the hostile ranks dread panic fell; prone as in death they lay where else upright they should withstand the foe; nor more availed their valour, and in vain the cloud of weapons flew, with none to slay. then blazing torches rolling pitchy flame are hurled, and shaken nod the lofty towers and threaten ruin, and the bastions groan struck by the frequent engine, and the troops of magnus by triumphant eagles led stride o'er the rampart, in their front the world. yet now that passage which not caesar's self nor thousand valiant squadrons had availed to rescue from their grasp, one man in arms steadfast till death refused them; scaeva named this hero soldier: long he served in fight waged 'gainst the savage on the banks of rhone; and now centurion made, through deeds of blood, he bore the staff before the marshalled line. prone to all wickedness, he little recked how valourous deeds in civil war may be greatest of crimes; and when he saw how turned his comrades from the war and sought in flight a refuge, ( ) "whence," he cried, "this impious fear unknown to caesar's armies? do ye turn your backs on death, and are ye not ashamed not to be found where slaughtered heroes lie? is loyalty too weak? yet love of fight might bid you stand. we are the chosen few through whom the foe would break. unbought by blood this day shall not be theirs. 'neath caesar's eye, true, death would be more happy; but this boon fortune denies: at least my fall shall be praised by pompeius. break ye with your breasts their weapons; blunt the edges of their swords with throats unyielding. in the distant lines the dust is seen already, and the sound of tumult and of ruin finds the ear of caesar: strike; the victory is ours: for he shall come who while his soldiers die shall make the fortress his." his voice called forth the courage that the trumpets failed to rouse when first they rang: his comrades mustering come to watch his deeds; and, wondering at the man, to test if valour thus by foes oppressed, in narrow space, could hope for aught but death. but scaeva standing on the tottering bank heaves from the brimming turret on the foe the corpses of the fallen; the ruined mass furnishing weapons to his hands; with beams, and ponderous stones, nay, with his body threats his enemies; with poles and stakes he thrusts the breasts advancing; when they grasp the wall he lops the arm: rocks crush the foeman's skull and rive the scalp asunder: fiery bolts dashed at another set his hair aflame, till rolls the greedy blaze about his eyes with hideous crackle. as the pile of slain rose to the summit of the wall he sprang, swift as across the nets a hunted pard, above the swords upraised, till in mid throng of foes he stood, hemmed in by densest ranks and ramparted by war; in front and rear, where'er he struck, the victor. now his sword blunted with gore congealed no more could wound, but brake the stricken limb; while every hand flung every quivering dart at him alone; nor missed their aim, for rang against his shield dart after dart unerring, and his helm in broken fragments pressed upon his brow; his vital parts were safeguarded by spears that bristled in his body. fortune saw thus waged a novel combat, for there warred against one man an army. why with darts, madmen, assail him and with slender shafts, 'gainst which his life is proof? or ponderous stones this warrior chief shall overwhelm, or bolts flung by the twisted thongs of mighty slings. let steelshod ram or catapult remove this champion of the gate. no fragile wall stands here for caesar, blocking with its bulk pompeius' way to freedom. now he trusts his shield no more, lest his sinister hand, idle, give life by shame; and on his breast bearing a forest of spears, though spent with toil and worn with onset, falls upon his foe and braves alone the wounds of all the war. thus may an elephant in afric wastes, oppressed by frequent darts, break those that fall rebounding from his horny hide, and shake those that find lodgment, while his life within lies safe, protected, nor doth spear avail to reach the fount of blood. unnumbered wounds by arrow dealt, or lance, thus fail to slay this single warrior. but lo! from far a cretan archer's shaft, more sure of aim than vows could hope for, strikes on scaeva's brow to light within his eye: the hero tugs intrepid, bursts the nerves, and tears the shaft forth with the eyeball, and with dauntless heel treads them to dust. not otherwise a bear pannonian, fiercer for the wound received, maddened by dart from libyan thong propelled, turns circling on her wound, and still pursues the weapon fleeing as she whirls around. thus, in his rage destroyed, his shapeless face stood foul with crimson flow. the victors' shout glad to the sky arose; no greater joy a little blood could give them had they seen that caesar's self was wounded. down he pressed deep in his soul the anguish, and, with mien, no longer bent on fight, submissive cried, "spare me, ye citizens; remove the war far hence: no weapons now can haste my death; draw from my breast the darts, but add no more. yet raise me up to place me in the camp of magnus, living: this your gift to him; no brave man's death my title to renown, but caesar's flag deserted." so he spake. unhappy aulus thought his words were true, nor saw within his hand the pointed sword; and leaping forth in haste to make his own the prisoner and his arms, in middle throat received the lightning blade. by this one death rose scaeva's valour again; and thus he cried, such be the punishment of all who thought great scaeva vanquished; if pompeius seeks peace from this reeking sword, low let him lay at caesar's feet his standards. me do ye think such as yourselves, and slow to meet the fates? your love for magnus and the senate's cause is less than mine for death." these were his words; and dust in columns proved that caesar came. thus was pompeius' glory spared the stain of flight compelled by scaeva. he, when ceased the battle, fell, no more by rage of fight, or sight of blood out-pouring from his wounds, roused to the combat. fainting there he lay upon the shoulders of his comrades borne, who him adoring (as though deity dwelt in his bosom) for his matchless deeds, plucked forth the gory shafts and took his arms to deck the gods and shield the breast of mars. thrice happy thou with such a name achieved, had but the fierce iberian from thy sword, or heavy shielded teuton, or had fled the light cantabrian: with no spoils shalt thou adorn the thunderer's temple, nor upraise the shout of triumph in the ways of rome. for all thy prowess, all thy deeds of pride do but prepare her lord. nor on this hand repulsed, pompeius idly ceased from war, content within his bars; but as the sea tireless, which tempests force upon the crag that breaks it, or which gnaws a mountain side some day to fall in ruin on itself; he sought the turrets nearest to the main, on double onset bent; nor closely kept his troops in hand, but on the spacious plain spread forth his camp. they joyful leave the tents and wander at their will. thus padus flows in brimming flood, and foaming at his bounds, making whole districts quake; and should the bank fail 'neath his swollen waters, all his stream breaks forth in swirling eddies over fields not his before; some lands are lost, the rest gain from his bounty. hardly from his tower had caesar seen the fire or known the fight: and coming found the rampart overthrown, the dust no longer stirred, the rains cold as from a battle done. the peace that reigned there and on magnus' side, as though men slept, their victory won, aroused his angry soul. quick he prepares, so that he end their joy careless of slaughter or defeat, to rush with threatening columns on torquatus' post. but swift as sailor, by his trembling mast warned of circeian tempest, furls his sails, so swift torquatus saw, and prompt to wage the war more closely, he withdrew his men within a narrower wall. now past the trench were caesar's companies, when from the hills pompeius hurled his host upon their ranks shut in, and hampered. not so much o'erwhelmed as caesar's soldiers is the hind who dwells on etna's slopes, when blows the southern wind, and all the mountain pours its cauldrons forth upon the vale; and huge enceladus ( ) writhing beneath his load spouts o'er the plains a blazing torrent. blinded by the dust, encircled, vanquished, ere the fight, they fled in cloud of terror on their rearward foe, so rushing on their fates. thus had the war shed its last drop of blood and peace ensued, but magnus suffered not, and held his troops. back from the battle. thou, oh rome, had'st been free, happy, mistress of thy laws and rights were sulla here. now shalt thou ever grieve that in his crowning crime, to have met in fight a pious kinsman, caesar's vantage lay. oh tragic destiny! nor munda's fight hispania had wept, nor libya mourned encrimsoned utica, nor nilus' stream, with blood unspeakable polluted, borne a nobler corse than her egyptian kings: nor juba ( ) lain unburied on the sands, nor scipio with his blood outpoured appeased the ghosts of carthage; nor the blameless life of cato ended: and pharsalia's name had then been blotted from the book of fate. but caesar left the region where his arms had found the deities averse, and marched his shattered columns to thessalian lands. then to pompeius came (whose mind was bent to follow caesar wheresoe'er he fled) his captains, striving to persuade their chief to seek ausonia, his native land, now freed from foes. "ne'er will i pass," he said, "my country's limit, nor revisit rome like caesar, at the head of banded hosts. hesperia when the war began was mine; mine, had i chosen in our country's shrines, ( ) in midmost forum of her capital, to join the battle. so that banished far be war from rome, i'll cross the torrid zone or those for ever frozen scythian shores. what! shall my victory rob thee of the peace i gave thee by my flight? rather than thou should'st feel the evils of this impious war, let caesar deem thee his." thus said, his course he turned towards the rising of the sun, and following devious paths, through forests wide, made for emathia, the land by fate foredoomed to see the issue. thessalia on that side where titan first raises the wintry day, by ossa's rocks is prisoned in: but in th' advancing year when higher in the vault his chariot rides 'tis pelion that meets the morning rays. and when beside the lion's flames he drives the middle course, othrys with woody top screens his chief ardour. on the hither side pindus receives the breezes of the west and as the evening falls brings darkness in. there too olympus, at whose foot who dwells nor fears the north nor sees the shining bear. between these mountains hemmed, in ancient time the fields were marsh, for tempe's pass not yet was cleft, to give an exit to the streams that filled the plain: but when alcides' hand smote ossa from olympus at a blow, ( ) and nereus wondered at the sudden flood of waters to the main, then on the shore (would it had slept for ever 'neath the deep) seaborn achilles' home pharsalus rose; and phylace ( ) whence sailed that ship of old whose keel first touched upon the beach of troy; and dorion mournful for the muses' ire on thamyris ( ) vanquished: trachis; melibe strong in the shafts ( ) of hercules, the price of that most awful torch; larissa's hold potent of yore; and argos, ( ) famous erst, o'er which men pass the ploughshare: and the spot fabled as echionian thebes, ( ) where once agave bore in exile to the pyre (grieving 'twas all she had) the head and neck of pentheus massacred. the lake set free flowed forth in many rivers: to the west aeas, ( ) a gentle stream; nor stronger flows the sire of isis ravished from his arms; and achelous, rival for the hand of oeneus' daughter, rolls his earthy flood ( ) to silt the shore beside the neighbouring isles. evenus ( ) purpled by the centaur's blood wanders through calydon: in the malian gulf thy rapids fall, spercheius: pure the wave with which amphrysos ( ) irrigates the meads where once apollo served: anaurus ( ) flows breathing no vapour forth; no humid air ripples his face: and whatever stream, nameless itself, to ocean gives its waves through thee, peneus: ( ) whirled in eddies foams apidanus; enipeus lingers on swift only when fresh streams his volume swell: and thus asopus takes his ordered course, phoenix and melas; but eurotas keeps his stream aloof from that with which he flows, peneus, gliding on his top as though upon the channel. fable says that, sprung from darkest pools of styx, with common floods he scorns to mingle, mindful of his source, so that the gods above may fear him still. soon as were sped the rivers, boebian ploughs dark with its riches broke the virgin soil; then came lelegians to press the share, and dolopes and sons of oeolus by whom the glebe was furrowed. steed-renowned magnetians dwelt there, and the minyan race who smote the sounding billows with the oar. there in the cavern from the pregnant cloud ixion's sons found birth, the centaur brood half beast, half human: monychus who broke the stubborn rocks of pholoe, rhoetus fierce hurling from oeta's top gigantic elms which northern storms could hardly overturn; pholus, alcides' host: nessus who bore the queen across evenus' ( ) waves, to feel the deadly arrow for his shameful deed; and aged chiron ( ) who with wintry star against the huger scorpion draws his bow. here sparkled on the land the warrior seed; ( ) here leaped the charger from thessalian rocks ( ) struck by the trident of the ocean king, omen of dreadful war; here first he learned, champing the bit and foaming at the curb, yet to obey his lord. from yonder shore the keel of pine first floated, ( ) and bore men to dare the perilous chance of seas unknown: and here ionus ruler of the land first from the furnace molten masses drew of iron and brass; here first the hammer fell to weld them, shapeless; here in glowing stream ran silver forth and gold, soon to receive the minting stamp. 'twas thus that money came whereby men count their riches, cause accursed of warfare. hence came down that python huge on cirrha: hence the laurel wreath which crowns the pythian victor: here aloeus' sons gigantic rose against the gods, what time pelion had almost touched the stars supreme, and ossa's loftier peak amid the sky opposing, barred the constellations' way. when in this fated land the chiefs had placed their several camps, foreboding of the end now fast approaching, all men's thoughts were turned upon the final issue of the war. and as the hour drew near, the coward minds trembling beneath the shadow of the fate now hanging o'er them, deemed disaster near: while some took heart; yet doubted what might fall, in hope and fear alternate. 'mid the throng sextus, unworthy son of worthy sire who soon upon the waves that scylla guards, ( ) sicilian pirate, exile from his home, stained by his deeds of shame the fights he won, could bear delay no more; his feeble soul, sick of uncertain fate, by fear compelled, forecast the future: yet consulted not the shrine of delos nor the pythian caves; nor was he satisfied to learn the sound of jove's brass cauldron, 'mid dodona's oaks, by her primaeval fruits the nurse of men: nor sought he sages who by flight of birds, or watching with assyrian care the stars and fires of heaven, or by victims slain, may know the fates to come; nor any source lawful though secret. for to him was known that which excites the hate of gods above; magicians' lore, the savage creed of dis and all the shades; and sad with gloomy rites mysterious altars. for his frenzied soul heaven knew too little. and the spot itself kindled his madness, for hard by there dwelt the brood of haemon ( ) whom no storied witch of fiction e'er transcended; all their art in things most strange and most incredible; there were thessalian rocks with deadly herbs thick planted, sensible to magic chants, funereal, secret: and the land was full of violence to the gods: the queenly guest ( ) from colchis gathered here the fatal roots that were not in her store: hence vain to heaven rise impious incantations, all unheard; for deaf the ears divine: save for one voice which penetrates the furthest depths of airs compelling e'en th' unwilling deities to hearken to its accents. not the care of the revolving sky or starry pole can call them from it ever. once the sound of those dread tones unspeakable has reached the constellations, then nor babylon nor secret memphis, though they open wide the shrines of ancient magic and entreat the gods, could draw them from the fires that smoke upon the altars of far thessaly. to hearts of flint those incantations bring love, strange, unnatural; the old man's breast burns with illicit fire. nor lies the power in harmful cup nor in the juicy pledge of love maternal from the forehead drawn; ( ) charmed forth by spells alone the mind decays, by poisonous drugs unharmed. with woven threads crossed in mysterious fashion do they bind those whom no passion born of beauteous form or loving couch unites. all things on earth change at their bidding; night usurps the day; the heavens disobey their wonted laws; at that dread hymn the universe stands still; and jove while urging the revolving wheels wonders they move not. torrents are outpoured beneath a burning sun; and thunder roars uncaused by jupiter. from their flowing locks vapours immense shall issue at their call; when falls the tempest seas shall rise and foam ( ) moved by their spell; though powerless the breeze to raise the billows. ships against the wind with bellying sails move onward. from the rock hangs motionless the torrent: rivers run uphill; the summer heat no longer swells nile in his course; maeander's stream is straight; slow rhone is quickened by the rush of saone; hills dip their heads and topple to the plain; olympus sees his clouds drift overhead; and sunless scythia's sempiternal snows melt in mid-winter; the inflowing tides driven onward by the moon, at that dread chant ebb from their course; earth's axes, else unmoved, have trembled, and the force centripetal has tottered, and the earth's compacted frame struck by their voice has gaped, ( ) till through the void men saw the moving sky. all beasts most fierce and savage fear them, yet with deadly aid furnish the witches' arts. tigers athirst for blood, and noble lions on them fawn with bland caresses: serpents at their word uncoil their circles, and extended glide along the surface of the frosty field; the viper's severed body joins anew; and dies the snake by human venom slain. whence comes this labour on the gods, compelled to hearken to the magic chant and spells, nor daring to despise them? doth some bond control the deities? is their pleasure so, or must they listen? and have silent threats prevailed, or piety unseen received so great a guerdon? against all the gods is this their influence, or on one alone who to his will constrains the universe, himself constrained? stars most in yonder clime shoot headlong from the zenith; and the moon gliding serene upon her nightly course is shorn of lustre by their poisonous chant, dimmed by dark earthly fires, as though our orb shadowed her brother's radiance and barred the light bestowed by heaven; nor freshly shines until descending nearer to the earth she sheds her baneful drops upon the mead. these sinful rites and these her sister's songs abhorred erichtho, fiercest of the race, spurned for their piety, and yet viler art practised in novel form. to her no home beneath a sheltering roof her direful head thus to lay down were crime: deserted tombs her dwelling-place, from which, darling of hell, she dragged the dead. nor life nor gods forbad but that she knew the secret homes of styx and learned to hear the whispered voice of ghosts at dread mysterious meetings. ( ) never sun shed his pure light upon that haggard cheek pale with the pallor of the shades, nor looked upon those locks unkempt that crowned her brow. in starless nights of tempest crept the hag out from her tomb to seize the levin bolt; treading the harvest with accursed foot she burned the fruitful growth, and with her breath poisoned the air else pure. no prayer she breathed nor supplication to the gods for help nor knew the pulse of entrails as do men who worship. funeral pyres she loves to light and snatch the incense from the flaming tomb. the gods at her first utterance grant her prayer for things unlawful, lest they hear again its fearful accents: men whose limbs were quick with vital power she thrust within the grave despite the fates who owed them years to come: the funeral reversed brought from the tomb those who were dead no longer; and the pyre yields to her shameless clutch still smoking dust and bones enkindled, and the torch which held some grieving sire but now, with fragments mixed in sable smoke and ceremental cloths singed with the redolent fire that burned the dead. but those who lie within a stony cell untouched by fire, whose dried and mummied frames no longer know corruption, limb by limb venting her rage she tears, the bloodless eyes drags from their cavities, and mauls the nail upon the withered hand: she gnaws the noose by which some wretch has died, and from the tree drags down a pendent corpse, its members torn asunder to the winds: forth from the palms wrenches the iron, and from the unbending bond hangs by her teeth, and with her hands collects the slimy gore which drips upon the limbs. where lay a corpse upon the naked earth on ravening birds and beasts of prey the hag kept watch, nor marred by knife or hand her spoil, till on his victim seized some nightly wolf; ( ) then dragged the morsel from his thirsty fangs; nor fears she murder, if her rites demand blood from the living, or some banquet fell requires the panting entrail. pregnant wombs yield to her knife the infant to be placed on flaming altars: and whene'er she needs some fierce undaunted ghost, he fails not her who has all deaths in use. her hand has chased from smiling cheeks the rosy bloom of life; and with sinister hand from dying youth has shorn the fatal lock: and holding oft in foul embraces some departed friend severed the head, and through the ghastly lips, held by her own apart, some impious tale dark with mysterious horror hath conveyed down to the stygian shades. when rumour brought her name to sextus, in the depth of night, while titan's chariot beneath our earth wheeled on his middle course, he took his way through fields deserted; while a faithful band, his wonted ministers in deeds of guilt, seeking the hag 'mid broken sepulchres, beheld her seated on the crags afar where haemus falls towards pharsalia's plain. ( ) there was she proving for her gods and priests words still unknown, and framing numbered chants of dire and novel purpose: for she feared lest mars might stray into another world, and spare thessalian soil the blood ere long to flow in torrents; and she thus forbade philippi's field, polluted with her song, thick with her poisonous distilments sown, to let the war pass by. such deaths, she hopes, soon shall be hers! the blood of all the world shed for her use! to her it shall be given to sever from their trunks the heads of kings, plunder the ashes of the noble dead, italia's bravest, and in triumph add the mightiest warriors to her host of shades. and now what spoils from magnus' tombless corse her hand may snatch, on which of caesar's limbs she soon may pounce, she makes her foul forecast and eager gloats. to whom the coward son of magnus thus: "thou greatest ornament of haemon's daughters, in whose power it lies or to reveal the fates, or from its course to turn the future, be it mine to know by thy sure utterance to what final end fortune now guides the issue. not the least of all the roman host on yonder plain am i, but magnus' most illustrious son, lord of the world or heir to death and doom. the unknown affrights me: i can firmly face the certain terror. bid my destiny yield to thy power the dark and hidden end, and let me fall foreknowing. from the gods extort the truth, or, if thou spare the gods, force it from hell itself. fling back the gates that bar th' elysian fields; let death confess whom from our ranks he seeks. no humble task i bring, but worthy of erichtho's skill of such a struggle fought for such a prize to search and tell the issue." then the witch pleased that her impious fame was noised abroad thus made her answer: "if some lesser fates thy wish had been to change, against their wish it had been easy to compel the gods to its accomplishment. my art has power when of one man the constellations press the speedy death, to compass a delay; and mine it is, though every star decrees a ripe old age, by mystic herbs to shear the life midway. but should some purpose set from the beginning of the universe, and all the labouring fortunes of mankind, be brought in question, then thessalian art bows to the power supreme. but if thou be content to know the issue pre-ordained, that shall be swiftly thine; for earth and air and sea and space and rhodopaean crags shall speak the future. yet it easiest seems where death in these thessalian fields abounds to raise a single corpse. from dead men's lips scarce cold, in fuller accents falls the voice; not from some mummied flame in accents shrill uncertain to the ear." thus spake the hag and through redoubled night, a squalid veil swathing her pallid features, stole among unburied carcases. fast fled the wolves, the carrion birds with maw unsatisfied relaxed their talons, as with creeping step she sought her prophet. firm must be the flesh as yet, though cold in death, and firm the lungs untouched by wound. now in the balance hung the fates of slain unnumbered; had she striven armies to raise and order back to life whole ranks of warriors, the laws had failed of erebus; and, summoned up from styx, its ghostly tenants had obeyed her call, and rising fought once more. at length the witch picks out her victim with pierced throat agape fit for her purpose. gripped by pitiless hook o'er rocks she drags him to the mountain cave accursed by her fell rites, that shall restore the dead man's life. close to the hidden brink the land that girds the precipice of hell sinks towards the depths: with ever falling leaves a wood o'ershadows, and a spreading yew casts shade impenetrable. foul decay fills all the space, and in the deep recess darkness unbroken, save by chanted spells, reigns ever. not where gape the misty jaws of caverned taenarus, the gloomy bound of either world, through which the nether kings permit the passage of the dead to earth, so poisonous, mephitic, hangs the air. nay, though the witch had power to call the shades forth from the depths, 'twas doubtful if the cave were not a part of hell. discordant hues flamed on her garb as by a fury worn; bare was her visage, and upon her brow dread vipers hissed, beneath her streaming locks in sable coils entwined. but when she saw the youth's companions trembling, and himself with eyes cast down, with visage as of death, thus spake the witch: "forbid your craven souls these fears to cherish: soon returning life this frame shall quicken, and in tones which reach even the timorous ear shall speak the man. if i have power the stygian lakes to show, the bank that sounds with fire, the fury band, and giants lettered, and the hound that shakes bristling with heads of snakes his triple head, what fear is this that cringes at the sight of timid shivering shades?" then to her prayer. first through his gaping bosom blood she pours still fervent, washing from his wounds the gore. then copious poisons from the moon distils mixed with all monstrous things which nature's pangs bring to untimely birth; the froth from dogs stricken with madness, foaming at the stream; a lynx's entrails: and the knot that grows upon the fell hyaena; flesh of stags fed upon serpents; and the sucking fish which holds the vessel back ( ) though eastern winds make bend the canvas; dragon's eyes; and stones that sound beneath the brooding eagle's wings. nor araby's viper, nor the ocean snake who in the red sea waters guards the shell, are wanting; nor the slough on libyan sands by horned reptile cast; nor ashes fail snatched from an altar where the phoenix died. and viler poisons many, which herself has made, she adds, whereto no name is given: pestiferous leaves pregnant with magic chants and blades of grass which in their primal growth her cursed mouth had slimed. last came her voice more potent than all herbs to charm the gods who rule in lethe. dissonant murmurs first and sounds discordant from the tongues of men she utters, scarce articulate: the bay of wolves, and barking as of dogs, were mixed with that fell chant; the screech of nightly owl raising her hoarse complaint; the howl of beast and sibilant hiss of snake -- all these were there; and more -- the waft of waters on the rock, the sound of forests and the thunder peal. such was her voice; but soon in clearer tones reaching to tartarus, she raised her song: "ye awful goddesses, avenging power of hell upon the damned, and chaos huge who striv'st to mix innumerable worlds, and pluto, king of earth, whose weary soul grieves at his godhead; styx; and plains of bliss we may not enter: and thou, proserpine, hating thy mother and the skies above, my patron goddess, last and lowest form ( ) of hecate through whom the shades and i hold silent converse; warder of the gate who castest human offal to the dog: ye sisters who shall spin the threads again; ( ) and thou, o boatman of the burning wave, now wearied of the shades from hell to me returning, hear me if with voice i cry abhorred, polluted; if the flesh of man hath ne'er been absent from my proffered song, flesh washed with brains still quivering; if the child whose severed head i placed upon the dish but for this hand had lived -- a listening ear lend to my supplication! from the caves hid in the innermost recess of hell i claim no soul long banished from the light. for one but now departed, lingering still upon the brink of orcus, is my prayer. grant (for ye may) that listening to the spell once more he seek his dust; and let the shade of this our soldier perished (if the war well at your hands has merited), proclaim the destiny of magnus to his son." such prayers she uttered; then, her foaming lips and head uplifting, present saw the ghost. hard by he stood, beside the hated corpse his ancient prison, and loathed to enter in. there was the yawning chest where fell the blow that was his death; and yet the gift supreme of death, his right, (ah, wretch!) was reft away. angered at death the witch, and at the pause conceded by the fates, with living snake scourges the moveless corse; and on the dead she barks through fissures gaping to her song, breaking the silence of their gloomy home: "tisiphone, megaera, heed ye not? flies not this wretched soul before your whips the void of erebus? by your very names, she-dogs of hell, i'll call you to the day, not to return; through sepulchres and death your gaoler: from funereal urns and tombs i'll chase you forth. and thou, too, hecate, who to the gods in comely shape and mien, not that of erebus, appearst, henceforth wasted and pallid as thou art in hell at my command shalt come. i'll noise abroad the banquet that beneath the solid earth holds thee, thou maid of enna; by what bond thou lov'st night's king, by what mysterious stain infected, so that ceres fears from hell to call her daughter. and for thee, base king, titan shall pierce thy caverns with his rays and sudden day shall smite thee. do ye hear? or shall i summon to mine aid that god at whose dread name earth trembles; who can look unflinching on the gorgon's head, and drive the furies with his scourge, who holds the depths ye cannot fathom, and above whose haunts ye dwell supernal; who by waves of styx forswears himself unpunished?" then the blood grew warm and liquid, and with softening touch cherished the stiffened wounds and filled the veins, till throbbed once more the slow returning pulse and every fibre trembled, as with death life was commingled. then, not limb by limb, with toil and strain, but rising at a bound leaped from the earth erect the living man. fierce glared his eyes uncovered, and the life was dim, and still upon his face remained the pallid hues of hardly parted death. amazement seized upon him, to the earth brought back again: but from his lips tight drawn no murmur issued; he had power alone when questioned to reply. "speak," quoth the hag, "as i shall bid thee; great shall be thy gain if but thou answerest truly, freed for aye from all haemonian art. such burial place shall now be thine, and on thy funeral pyre such fatal woods shall burn, such chant shall sound, that to thy ghost no more or magic song or spell shall reach, and thy lethaean sleep shall never more be broken in a death from me received anew: for such reward think not this second life enforced in vain. obscure may be the answers of the gods by priestess spoken at the holy shrine; but whose braves the oracles of death in search of truth, should gain a sure response. then speak, i pray thee. let the hidden fates tell through thy voice the mysteries to come." thus spake she, and her words by mystic force gave him his answer; but with gloomy mien, and tears swift flowing, thus he made reply: "called from the margin of the silent stream i saw no fateful sisters spin the threads. yet know i this, that 'mid the roman shades reigns fiercest discord; and this impious war destroys the peace that ruled the fields of death. elysian meads and deeps of tartarus in paths diverse the roman chieftains leave and thus disclose the fates. the blissful ghosts bear visages of sorrow. sire and son the decii, who gave themselves to death in expiation of their country's doom, and great camillus, wept; and sulla's shade complained of fortune. scipio bewailed the scion of his race about to fall in sands of libya: cato, greatest foe to carthage, grieves for that indignant soul which shall disdain to serve. brutus alone in all the happy ranks i smiling saw, first consul when the kings were thrust from rome. the chains were fallen from boastful catiline. him too i saw rejoicing, and the pair of marii, and cethegus' naked arm. ( ) the drusi, heroes of the people, joyed, in laws immoderate; and the famous pair ( ) of greatly daring brothers: guilty bands by bars eternal shut within the doors that close the prison of hell, applaud the fates, claiming the plains elysian: and the king throws wide his pallid halls, makes hard the points of craggy rocks, and forges iron chains, the victor's punishment. but take with thee this comfort, youth, that there a calm abode, and peaceful, waits thy father and his house. nor let the glory of a little span disturb thy boding heart: the hour shall come when all the chiefs shall meet. shrink not from death, but glowing in the greatness of your souls, e'en from your humble sepulchres descend, and tread beneath your feet, in pride of place, the wandering phantoms of the gods of rome. ( ) which of the chiefs by tiber's yellow stream, and which by nile shall rest (the leaders' fate) this fight decides, no more. nor seek to know from me thy fortunes: for the fates in time shall give thee all thy due; and thy great sire, ( ) a surer prophet, in sicilian fields shall speak thy future -- doubting even he what regions of the world thou should'st avoid and what should'st seek. o miserable race! europe and asia and libya's plains, ( ) which saw your conquests, now shall hold alike your burial-place -- nor has the earth for you a happier land than this." his task performed, he stands in mournful guise, with silent look asking for death again; yet could not die till mystic herb and magic chant prevailed. for nature's law, once used, had power no more to slay the corpse and set the spirit free. with plenteous wood she builds the funeral pyre to which the dead man comes: then as the flames seized on his form outstretched, the youth and witch together sought the camp; and as the dawn now streaked the heavens, by the hag's command the day was stayed till sextus reached his tent, and mist and darkness veiled his safe return. endnotes: ( ) dyrrhachium (or epidamnus) was a corcyraean colony, but its founder was of corinth, the metropolis of corcyra. it stood some sixty miles north of the ceraunian promontory (book v., ). about the year it was stormed and taken by robert the guiscard, after furious battles with the troops of the emperor alexius. its modern name is durazzo. it may be observed that, according to caesar's account, he succeeded in getting between pompey and dyrrhachium, b.c. , , . ( ) c. del faro, the n.e. point of sicily. ( ) the shores of kent. ( ) aricia was situated on the via appia, about sixteen miles from rome. there was a temple of diana close to it, among some woods on a small lake. aricia was horace's first halting place on his journey to brundisium ("satires", i. ). as to diana, see book i., line . ( ) an island in the bay of puteoli. ( ) typhon, the hundred-headed giant, was buried under mount etna. ( ) this was scaeva's name. ( ) the vinewood staff was the badge of the centurion's office. ( ) this giant, like typhon, was buried under mount etna. ( ) juba and petreius killed each other after the battle of thepsus to avoid falling into caesar's hands. see book iv., line . ( ) so cicero: "shall i, who have been called saviour of the city and father of my country, bring into it an army of getae armenians and colchians?" ("ep. ad atticum," ix., .) ( ) see book viii., line . ( ) protesilaus, from this place, first landed at troy. ( ) thamyris challenged the muses to a musical contest, and being vanquished, was by them deprived of sight. ( ) the arrows given to philoctetes by hercules as a reward for kindling his funeral pyre. ( ) this is the pelasgic, not the historical, argos. ( ) book i., line ; book vii., line . agave was a daughter of cadmus, and mother of pentheus, king of the boeotian thebes. he was opposed to the mysterious worship of dionysus, which his mother celebrated, and which he had watched from a tree. she tore him to pieces, being urged into a frenzy and mistaking him for a wild beast. she then retired to another thebes, in phthiotis, in triumph, with his head and shoulders. by another legend she did not leave the boeotian thebes. (see grote, vol. i., p. . edit. .) ( ) aeas was a river flowing from the boundary of thessaly through epirus to the ionian sea. the sire of isis, or io, was inachus; but the river of that name is usually placed in the argive territory. ( ) a river rising in mount pindus and flowing into the ionian sea nearly opposite to ithaca. at its mouth the sea has been largely silted up. ( ) the god of this river fought with hercules for the hand of deianira. after hercules had been married to deianira, and when they were on a journey, they came to the river evenus. here nessus, a centaur, acted as ferryman, and hercules bade him carry deianira across. in doing so he insulted her, and hercules shot him with an arrow. ( ) admetus was king of pherae in thessaly, and sued for alcestis, the daughter of pelias, who promised her to him if he should come in a chariot drawn by lions and boars. with the assistance of apollo, admetus performed this. apollo, for the slaughter of the cyclops, was condemned to serve a mortal, and accordingly he tended the flocks of admetus for nine years. the river amphrysos is marked as flowing into the pagasaean gulf at a short distance below pherae. ( ) anaurus was a small river passing into the pagasaean gulf past iolcos. in this river jason is said to have lost one of his slippers. ( ) the river peneus flowed into the sea through the pass of tempe, cloven by hercules between olympus and ossa (see line ); and carried with it asopus, phoenix, melas, enipeus, apidanus, and titaresus (or eurotas). the styx is generally placed in arcadia, but lucan says that eurotas rises from the stygian pools, and that, mindful of this mysterious source, he refuses to mingle his streams with that of peneus, in order that the gods may still fear to break an oath sworn upon his waters. ( ) see on line . ( ) chiron, the aged centaur, instructor of peleus, achilles, and others. he was killed by one of the poisoned arrows of hercules, but placed by zeus among the stars as the archer, from which position he appears to be aiming at the scorpion. his constellation appears in winter. ( ) the teeth of the dragon slain by cadmus; though this took place in boeotia. ( ) poseidon and athena disputed as to which of them should name the capital of attica. the gods gave the reward to that one of them who should produce the thing most useful to man; whereupon athena produced an olive tree, and poseidon a horse. homer also places the scene of this event in thessaly. ("iliad", xxiii., .) ( ) the argo. conf. book iii., . ( ) see book vii., . ( ) son of pelasgus. from him was derived the ancient name of thessaly, haemonia. ( ) medea. ( ) it was supposed that there was on the forehead of the new- born foal an excrescence, which was bitten off and eaten by the mother. if she did not do this she had no affection for the foal. (virgil, "aeneid", iv., .) ( ) "when the boisterous sea, without a breath of wind, hath knocked the sky." -- ben jonson, "masque of queens". ( ) the sky was supposed to move round, but to be restrained in its course by the planets. (see book x., line .) ( ) "coatus audire silentum." to be present at the meetings of the dead and hear their voices. so, in the sixth aeneid, the dead greek warriors in feeble tones endeavour to express their fright at the appearance of the trojan hero (lines , ). ( ) "as if that piece were sweeter which the wolf had bitten." note to "the masque of queens", in which the first hag says: "i have been all day, looking after a raven feeding on a quarter, and soon as she turned her beak to the south i snatched this morsel out of her mouth." --ben jonson, "masque of queens". but more probably the meaning is that the wolf's bite gave the flesh magical efficacy. ( ) confusing pharsalia with philippi. (see line .) ( ) one of the miraculous stories to be found in pliny's "natural history". see lecky's "augustus to charlemagne", vol. i., p. . ( ) the mysterious goddess hecate was identified with luna in heaven, diana on earth, and proserpine in the lower regions. the text is doubtful. ( ) that is, for the second life of her victim. ( ) see book ii., . ( ) the gracchi, the younger of whom aimed at being a perpetual tribune, and was in some sort a forerunner of the emperors. ( ) that is, the caesars, who will be in tartarus. ( ) referring probably to an episode intended to be introduced in a later book, in which the shade of pompeius was to foretell his fate to sextus. ( ) cnaeus was killed in spain after the battle of munda; sextus at miletus; pompeius himself, of course, in egypt. book vii the battle ne'er to the summons of the eternal laws more slowly titan rose, ( ) nor drave his steeds, forced by the sky revolving, ( ) up the heaven, with gloomier presage; wishing to endure the pangs of ravished light, and dark eclipse; and drew the mists up, not to feed his flames, ( ) but lest his light upon thessalian earth might fall undimmed. pompeius on that morn, to him the latest day of happy life, in troubled sleep an empty dream conceived. for in the watches of the night he heard innumerable romans shout his name within his theatre; the benches vied to raise his fame and place him with the gods; as once in youth, when victory was won o'er conquered tribes where swift iberus flows, ( ) and where sertorius' armies fought and fled, the west subdued, with no less majesty than if the purple toga graced the car, he sat triumphant in his pure white gown a roman knight, and heard the senate's cheer. perhaps, as ills drew near, his anxious soul, shunning the future wooed the happy past; or, as is wont, prophetic slumber showed that which was not to be, by doubtful forms misleading; or as envious fate forbade return to italy, this glimpse of rome kind fortune gave. break not his latest sleep, ye sentinels; let not the trumpet call strike on his ear: for on the morrow's night shapes of the battle lost, of death and war shall crowd his rest with terrors. whence shalt thou the poor man's happiness of sleep regain? happy if even in dreams thy rome could see once more her captain! would the gods had given to thee and to thy country one day yet to reap the latest fruit of such a love: though sure of fate to come! thou marchest on as though by heaven ordained in rome to die; she, conscious ever of her prayers for thee heard by the gods, deemed not the fates decreed such evil destiny, that she should lose the last sad solace of her magnus' tomb. then young and old had blent their tears for thee, and child unbidden; women torn their hair and struck their bosoms as for brutus dead. but now no public woe shall greet thy death as erst thy praise was heard: but men shall grieve in silent sorrow, though the victor's voice amid the clash of arms proclaims thy fall; though incense smoke before the thunderer's shrine, and shouts of welcome bid great caesar hail. the stars had fled before the growing morn, when eager voices (as the fates drew on the world to ruin) round pompeius' tent demand the battle signal. what! by those so soon to perish, shall the sign be asked, their own, their country's doom? ah! fatal rage that hastens on the hour; no other sun upon this living host shall rise again. "pompeius fears!" they cry. "he's slow to act; too 'kind to caesar; and he fondly rules a world of subject peoples; but with peace such rule were ended." eastern kings no less, and peoples, eager for their distant homes, already murmured at the lengthy war. thus hath it pleased the gods, when woe impends on guilty men, to make them seem its cause. we court disaster, crave the fatal sword. of magnus' camp pharsalia was the prayer; for tullius, of all the sons of rome chief orator, beneath whose civil rule fierce catiline at the peace-compelling axe trembled and fled, arose, to magnus' ear bearing the voice of all. to him was war grown hateful, and he longed once more to hear the senate's plaudits; and with eloquent lips he lent persuasion to the weaker cause. "fortune, pompeius, for her gifts to thee asks this one boon, that thou should'st use her now. here at thy feet thy leading captains lie; and here thy monarchs, and a suppliant world entreats thee prostrate for thy kinsman's fall. so long shall caesar plunge the world in war? swift was thy tread when these proud nations fell; how deep their shame, and justly, should delay now mar thy conquests! where thy trust in fate, thy fervour where? ingrate! dost dread the gods, or think they favour not the senate's cause? thy troops unbidden shall the standards seize and conquer; thou in shame be forced to win. if at the senate's orders and for us the war is waged, then give to us the right to choose the battle-field. why dost thou keep from caesar's throat the swords of all the world? the weapon quivers in the eager hand: scarce one awaits the signal. strike at once, or without thee the trumpets sound the fray. art thou the senate's comrade or her lord? we wait your answer." but pompeius groaned; his mind was adverse, but he felt the fates opposed his wish, and knew the hand divine. "since all desire it, and the fates prevail, so let it be; your leader now no more, i share the labours of the battle-field. let fortune roll the nations of the earth in one red ruin; myriads of mankind see their last sun to-day. yet, rome, i swear, this day of blood was forced upon thy son. without a wound, the prizes of the war might have been thine, and he who broke the peace in peace forgotten. whence this lust for crime? shall bloodless victories in civil war be shunned, not sought? we've ravished from our foe all boundless seas, and land; his starving troops have snatched earth's crop half-grown, in vain attempt their hunger to appease; they prayed for death, sought for the sword-thrust, and within our ranks were fain to mix their life-blood with your own. much of the war is done: the conscript youth whose heart beats high, who burns to join the fray (though men fight hard in terror of defeat), the shock of onset need no longer fear. bravest is he who promptly meets the ill when fate commands it and the moment comes, yet brooks delay, in prudence; and shall we, our happy state enjoying, risk it all? trust to the sword the fortunes of the world? not victory, but battle, ye demand. do thou, o fortune, of the roman state who mad'st pompeius guardian, from his hands take back the charge grown weightier, and thyself commit its safety to the chance of war. nor blame nor glory shall be mine to-day. thy prayers unjustly, caesar, have prevailed: we fight! what wickedness, what woes on men, destruction on what realms this dawn shall bring! crimson with roman blood yon stream shall run. would that (without the ruin of our cause) the first fell bolt hurled on this cursed day might strike me lifeless! else, this battle brings a name of pity or a name of hate. the loser bears the burden of defeat; the victor wins, but conquest is a crime." thus to the soldiers, burning for the fray, he yields, forbidding, and throws down the reins. so may a sailor give the winds control upon his barque, which, driven by the seas, bears him an idle burden. now the camp hums with impatience, and the brave man's heart with beats tumultuous throbs against his breast; and all the host had standing in their looks ( ) the paleness of the death that was to come. on that day's fight 'twas manifest that rome and all the future destinies of man hung trembling; and by weightier dread possessed, they knew not danger. who would fear for self should ocean rise and whelm the mountain tops, and sun and sky descend upon the earth in universal chaos? every mind is bent upon pompeius, and on rome. they trust no sword until its deadly point glows on the sharpening stone; no lance will serve till straightened for the fray; each bow is strung anew, and arrows chosen for their work fill all the quivers; horsemen try the curb and fit the bridle rein and whet the spur. if toils divine with human may compare, 'twas thus, when phlegra bore the giant crew, ( ) in etna's furnace glowed the sword of mars, neptunus' trident felt the flame once more; and great apollo after python slain sharpened his darts afresh: on pallas' shield was spread anew the dread medusa's hair; and broad sicilia trembled at the blows of vulcan forging thunderbolts for jove. yet fortune failed not, as they sought the field, in various presage of the ills to come; all heaven opposed their march: portentous fire in columns filled the plain, and torches blazed: and thirsty whirlwinds mixed with meteor bolts smote on them as they strode, whose sulphurous flames perplexed the vision. crests were struck from helms; the melted sword-blade flowed upon the hilt: the spear ran liquid, and the hurtful steel smoked with a sulphur that had come from heaven. nay, more, the standards, hid by swarms of bees innumerable, weighed the bearer down, scarce lifted from the earth; bedewed with tears; no more of rome the standards, ( ) or her state. and from the altar fled the frantic bull to fields afar; nor was a victim found to grace the sacrifice of coming doom. but thou, caesar, to what gods of ill didst thou appeal? what furies didst thou call, what powers of madness and what stygian kings whelmed in th' abyss of hell? didst favour gain by sacrifice in this thine impious war? strange sights were seen; or caused by hands divine or due to fearful fancy. haemus' top plunged headlong in the valley, pindus met with high olympus, while at ossa's feet red ran baebeis, ( ) and pharsalia's field gave warlike voices forth in depth of night. now darkness came upon their wondering gaze, now daylight pale and wan, their helmets wreathed in pallid mist; the spirits of their sires hovered in air, and shades of kindred dead passed flitting through the gloom. yet to the host conscious of guilty prayers which sought to shed the blood of sires and brothers, earth and air distraught, and horrors seething in their hearts gave happy omen of the end to come. was't strange that peoples whom their latest day of happy life awaited (if their minds foreknew the doom) should tremble with affright? romans who dwelt by far araxes' stream, and tyrian gades, ( ) in whatever clime, 'neath every sky, struck by mysterious dread were plunged in sorrow -- yet rebuked the tear, for yet they knew not of the fatal day. thus on euganean hills ( ) where sulphurous fumes disclose the rise of aponus ( ) from earth, and where timavus broadens in the meads, an augur spake: "this day the fight is fought, the arms of caesar and pompeius meet to end the impious conflict." or he saw the bolts of jupiter, predicting ill; or else the sky discordant o'er the space of heaven, from pole to pole; or else perchance the sun was sad and misty in the height and told the battle by his wasted beams. by nature's fiat that thessalian day passed not as others; if the gifted sense of reading portents had been given to all, all men had known pharsalia. gods of heaven! how do ye mark the great ones of the earth! the world gives tokens of their weal or woe; the sky records their fates: in distant climes to future races shall their tale be told, or by the fame alone of mighty deeds had in remembrance, or by this my care borne through the centuries: and men shall read in hope and fear the story of the war and breathless pray, as though it were to come, for that long since accomplished; and for thee thus far, pompeius, shall that prayer be given. reflected from their arms, th' opposing sun filled all the slope with radiance as they marched in ordered ranks to that ill-fated fight, and stood arranged for battle. on the left thou, lentulus, had'st charge; two legions there, the fourth, and bravest of them all, the first: while on the right, domitius, ever stanch, though fates be adverse, stood: in middle line the hardy soldiers from cilician lands, in scipio's care; their chief in libyan days, to-day their comrade. by enipeus' pools and by the rivulets, the mountain troops of cappadocia, and loose of rein thy squadrons, pontus: on the firmer ground galatia's tetrarchs and the greater kings; and all the purple-robed, the slaves of rome. numidian hordes were there from afric shores, there creta's host and ituraeans found full space to wing their arrows; there the tribes from brave iberia clashed their shields, and there gaul stood arrayed against her ancient foe. let all the nations be the victor's prize, none grace in future a triumphal car; this fight demands the slaughter of a world. caesar that day to send his troops for spoil had left his tent, when on the further hill behold! his foe descending to the plain. the moment asked for by a thousand prayers is come, which puts his fortune on the risk of imminent war, to win or lose it all. for burning with desire of kingly power his eager soul ill brooked the small delay this civil war compelled: each instant lost robbed from his due! but when at length he knew the last great conflict come, the fight supreme, whose prize the leadership of all the world: and felt the ruin nodding to its fall: swiftest to strike, yet for a little space his rage for battle failed; the spirit bold to pledge itself the issue, wavered now: for magnus' fortunes gave no room for hope, though caesar's none for fear. deep in his soul such doubt was hidden, as with mien and speech that augured victory, thus the chief began: "ye conquerors of a world, my hope in all, prayed for so oft, the dawn of fight is come. no more entreat the gods: with sword in hand seize on our fates; and caesar in your deeds this day is great or little. this the day for which i hold since rubicon was passed your promise given: for this we flew to arms: ( ) for this deferred the triumphs we had won, and which the foe refused: this gives you back your homes and kindred, and the peaceful farm, your prize for years of service in the field. and by the fates' command this day shall prove whose quarrel juster: for defeat is guilt to him on whom it falls. if in my cause with fire and sword ye did your country wrong, strike for acquittal! should another judge this war, not caesar, none were blameless found. not for my sake this battle, but for you, to give you, soldiers, liberty and law 'gainst all the world. wishful myself for life apart from public cares, and for the gown that robes the private citizen, i refuse to yield from office till the law allows your right in all things. on my shoulders rest all blame; all power be yours. nor deep the blood between yourselves and conquest. grecian schools of exercise and wrestling ( ) send us here their chosen darlings to await your swords; and scarcely armed for war, a dissonant crowd barbaric, that will start to hear our trump, nay, their own clamour. not in civil strife your blows shall fall -- the battle of to-day sweeps from the earth the enemies of rome. dash through these cowards and their vaunted kings: one stroke of sword and all the world is yours. make plain to all men that the crowds who decked pompeius' hundred pageants scarce were fit for one poor triumph. shall armenia care who leads her masters, or barbarians shed one drop of blood to make pompeius chief o'er our italia? rome, 'tis rome they hate and all her children; yet they hate the most those whom they know. my fate is in the hands of you, mine own true soldiers, proved in all the wars we fought in gallia. when the sword of each of you shall strike, i know the hand: the javelin's flight to me betrays the arm that launched it hurtling: and to-day once more i see the faces stern, the threatening eyes, unfailing proofs of victory to come. e'en now the battle rushes on my sight; kings trodden down and scattered senators fill all th' ensanguined plain, and peoples float unnumbered on the crimson tide of death. enough of words -- i but delay the fates; and you who burn to dash into the fray, forgive the pause. i tremble with the hopes ( ) thus finding utterance. i ne'er have seen the mighty gods so near; this little field alone dividing us; their hands are full of my predestined honours: for 'tis i who when this war is done shall have the power o'er all that peoples, all that kings enjoy to shower it where i will. but has the pole been moved, or in its nightly course some star turned backwards, that such mighty deeds should pass here on thessalian earth? to-day we reap of all our wars the harvest or the doom. think of the cross that threats us, and the chain, limbs hacked asunder, caesar's head displayed upon the rostra; and that narrow field piled up with slaughter: for this hostile chief is savage sulla's pupil. 'tis for you, if conquered, that i grieve: my lot apart is cast long since. this sword, should one of you turn from the battle ere the foe be fled, shall rob the life of caesar. o ye gods, drawn down from heaven by the throes of rome, may he be conqueror who shall not draw against the vanquished an inhuman sword, nor count it as a crime if men of rome preferred another's standard to his own. pompeius' sword drank deep italian blood when cabined in yon space the brave man's arm no more found room to strike. but you, i pray, touch not the foe who turns him from the fight, a fellow citizen, a foe no more. but while the gleaming weapons threaten still, let no fond memories unnerve the arm, ( ) no pious thought of father or of kin; but full in face of brother or of sire, drive home the blade. unless the slain be known your foes account his slaughter as a crime; spare not our camp, but lay the rampart low and fill the fosse with ruin; not a man but holds his post within the ranks to-day. and yonder tents, deserted by the foe, shall give us shelter when the rout is done." scarce had he paused; they snatch the hasty meal, and seize their armour and with swift acclaim welcome the chief's predictions of the day, tread low their camp when rushing to the fight; and take their post: nor word nor order given, in fate they put their trust. nor, had'st thou placed all caesars there, all striving for the throne of rome their city, had their serried ranks with speedier tread dashed down upon the foe. but when pompeius saw the hostile troops move forth in order and demand the fight, and knew the gods' approval of the day, he stood astonied, while a deadly chill struck to his heart -- omen itself of woe, that such a chief should at the call to arms, thus dread the issue: but with fear repressed, borne on his noble steed along the line of all his forces, thus he spake: "the day your bravery demands, that final end of civil war ye asked for, is at hand. put forth your strength, your all; the sword to-day does its last work. one crowded hour is charged with nations' destinies. whoe'er of you longs for his land and home, his wife and child, seek them with sword. here in mid battle-field, the gods place all at stake. our better right bids us expect their favour; they shall dip your brands in caesar's blood, and thus shall give another sanction to the laws of rome, our cause of battle. if for him were meant an empire o'er the world, had they not put an end to magnus' life? that i am chief of all these mingled peoples and of rome disproves an angry heaven. see here combined all means of victory. noble men have sought unasked the risks of war. our soldiers boast ancestral statues. if to us were given a curius, if camillus were returned, or patriot decius to devote his life, here would they take their stand. from furthest east all nations gathered, cities as the sand unnumbered, give their aid: a world complete serves 'neath our standards. north and south and all who have their being 'neath the starry vault, here meet in arms conjoined: and shall we not crush with our closing wings this paltry foe? few shall find room to strike; the rest with voice must be content to aid: for caesar's ranks suffice not for us. think from rome's high walls the matrons watch you with their hair unbound; think that the senate hoar, too old for arms, with snowy locks outspread; and rome herself, the world's high mistress, fearing now, alas! a despot -- all exhort you to the fight. think that the people that is and that shall be joins in the prayer -- in freedom to be born, in freedom die, their wish. if 'mid these vows be still found place for mine, with wife and child, so far as imperator may, i bend before you suppliant -- unless this fight be won, behold me exile, your disgrace, my kinsman's scorn. from this, 'tis yours to save. then save! nor in the latest stage of life, let magnus be a slave." then burned their souls at these his words, indignant at the thought, and rome rose up within them, and to die was welcome. thus alike with hearts aflame moved either host to battle, one in fear and one in hope of empire. these hands shall do such work as not the rolling centuries not all mankind though free from sword and war shall e'er make good. nations that were to live this fight shall crush, and peoples pre-ordained to make the history of the coming world shall come not to the birth. the latin names shall sound as fables in the ears of men, and ruins loaded with the dust of years shall hardly mark her cities. alba's hill, home of our gods, no human foot shall tread, save of some senator at the ancient feast by numa's orders founded -- he compelled serves his high office. ( ) void and desolate are veii, cora and laurentum's hold; yet not the tooth of envious time destroyed these storied monuments -- 'twas civil war that rased their citadels. where now hath fled the teeming life that once italia knew? not all the earth can furnish her with men: untenanted her dwellings and her fields: slaves till her soil: one city holds us all: crumbling to ruin, the ancestral roof finds none on whom to fall; and rome herself, void of her citizens, draws within her gates the dregs of all the world. that none might wage a civil war again, thus deeply drank pharsalia's fight the life-blood of her sons. dark in the calendar of rome for aye, the days when allia and cannae fell: and shall pharsalus' morn, darkest of all, stand on the page unmarked? alas, the fates! not plague nor pestilence nor famine's rage, not cities given to the flames, nor towns trembling at shock of earthquake shall weigh down such heroes lost, when fortune's ruthless hand lops at one blow the gift of centuries, leaders and men embattled. how great art thou, rome, in thy fall! stretched to the widest bounds war upon war laid nations at thy feet till flaming titan nigh to either pole beheld thine empire; and the furthest east was almost thine, till day and night and sky for thee revolved, and all the stars could see throughout their course was roman. but the fates in one dread day of slaughter and despair turned back the centuries and spoke thy doom. and now the indian fears the axe no more once emblem of thy power, now no more the girded consul curbs the getan horde, or in sarmatian furrows guides the share: ( ) still parthia boasts her triumphs unavenged: foul is the public life; and freedom, fled to furthest earth beyond the tigris' stream, and rhine's broad river, wandering at her will 'mid teuton hordes and scythian, though by sword sought, yet returns not. would that from the day when romulus, aided by the vulture's flight, ill-omened, raised within that hateful grove rome's earliest walls, down to the crimsoned field in dire thessalia fought, she ne'er had known italia's peoples! did the bruti strike in vain for liberty? why laws and rights sanctioned by all the annals designate with consular titles? happier far the medes and blest arabia, and the eastern lands held by a kindlier fate in despot rule! that nation serves the worst which serves with shame. no guardian gods watch over us from heaven: jove ( ) is no king; let ages whirl along in blind confusion: from his throne supreme shall he behold such carnage and restrain his thunderbolts? on mimas shall he hurl his fires, on rhodope and oeta's woods unmeriting such chastisement, and leave this life to cassius' hand? on argos fell at grim thyestes' feast ( ) untimely night by him thus hastened; shall thessalia's land receive full daylight, wielding kindred swords in fathers' hands and brothers'? careless of men are all the gods. yet for this day of doom such vengeance have we reaped as deities may give to mortals; for these wars shall raise our parted caesars to the gods; and rome shall deck their effigies with thunderbolts, and stars and rays, and in the very fanes swear by the shades of men. with swift advance they seize the space that yet delays the fates till short the span dividing. then they gaze for one short moment where may fall the spear, what hand may deal their death, what monstrous task soon shall be theirs; and all in arms they see, in reach of stroke, their brothers and their sires with front opposing; yet to yield their ground it pleased them not. but all the host was dumb with horror; cold upon each loving heart, awe-struck, the life-blood pressed; and all men held with arms outstretched their javelins for a time, poised yet unthrown. now may th' avenging gods allot thee, crastinus, ( ) not such a death as all men else do suffer! in the tomb may'st thou have feeling and remembrance still! for thine the hand that first flung forth the dart, which stained with roman blood thessalia's earth. madman! to speed thy lance when caesar's self still held his hand! then from the clarions broke the strident summons, and the trumpets blared responsive signal. upward to the vault the sound re-echoes where nor clouds may reach nor thunder penetrate; and haemus' slopes ( ) reverberate to pelion the din; pindus re-echoes; oeta's lofty rocks groan, and pangaean cliffs, till at their rage borne back from all the earth they shook for fear. unnumbered darts they hurl, with prayers diverse; some hope to wound: others, in secret, yearn for hands still innocent. chance rules supreme, and wayward fortune upon whom she wills makes fall the guilt. yet for the hatred bred by civil war suffices spear nor lance, urged on their flight afar: the hand must grip the sword and drive it to the foeman's heart. but while pompeius' ranks, shield wedged to shield, were ranged in dense array, and scarce had space to draw the blade, came rushing at the charge full on the central column caesar's host, mad for the battle. man nor arms could stay the crash of onset, and the furious sword clove through the stubborn panoply to the flesh, there only stayed. one army struck -- their foes struck not in answer; magnus' swords were cold, but caesar's reeked with slaughter and with guilt. nor fortune lingered, but decreed the doom which swept the ruins of a world away. soon as withdrawn from all the spacious plain, pompeius' horse was ranged upon the flanks; passed through the outer files, the lighter armed of all the nations joined the central strife, with divers weapons armed, but all for blood of rome athirst: then blazing torches flew, arrows and stones. and ponderous balls of lead molten by speed of passage through the air. there ituraean archers and the mede winged forth their countless shafts till all the sky grew dark with missiles hurled; and from the night brooding above, death struck his victims down, guiltless such blow, while all the crime was heaped upon the roman spear. in line oblique behind the standards caesar in reserve had placed some companies of foot, in fear the foremost ranks might waver. these at his word, no trumpet sounding, break upon the ranks of magnus' horsemen where they rode at large flanking the battle. they, unshamed of fear and careless of the fray, when first a steed pierced through by javelin spurned with sounding hoof the temples of his rider, turned the rein, and through their comrades spurring from the field in panic, proved that not with warring rome barbarians may grapple. then arose immeasurable carnage: here the sword, there stood the victim, and the victor's arm wearied of slaughter. oh, that to thy plains, pharsalia, might suffice the crimson stream from hosts barbarian, nor other blood pollute thy fountains' sources! these alone shall clothe thy pastures with the bones of men! or if thy fields must run with roman blood then spare the nations who in times to come must be her peoples! now the terror spread through all the army, and the favouring fates decreed for caesar's triumph: and the war ceased in the wider plain, though still ablaze where stood the chosen of pompeius' force, upholding yet the fight. not here allies begged from some distant king to wield the sword: here were the roman sons, the sires of rome, here the last frenzy and the last despair: here, caesar, was thy crime: and here shall stay my muse repelled: no poesy of mine shall tell the horrors of the final strife, nor for the coming ages paint the deeds which civil war permits. be all obscured in deepest darkness! spare the useless tear and vain lament, and let the deeds that fell in that last fight of rome remain unsung. but caesar adding fury to the breasts already flaming with the rage of war, that each might bear his portion of the guilt which stained the host, unflinching through the ranks passed at his will. he looked upon the brands, these reddened only at the point, and those streaming with blood and gory, to the hilt: he marks the hand which trembling grasped the sword, or held it idle, and the cheek that grew pale at the blow, and that which at his words glowed with the joy of battle: midst the dead he treads the plain and on each gaping wound presses his hand to keep the life within. thus caesar passed: and where his footsteps fell as when bellona shakes her crimson lash, or mavors scourges on the thracian mares ( ) when shunning the dread face on pallas' shield, he drives his chariot, there arose a night dark with huge slaughter and with crime, and groans as of a voice immense, and sound of alms as fell the wearer, and of sword on sword crashed into fragments. with a ready hand caesar supplies the weapon and bids strike full at the visage; and with lance reversed urges the flagging ranks and stirs the fight. where flows the nation's blood, where beats the heart, knowing, he bids them spare the common herd, but seek the senators -- thus rome he strikes, thus the last hold of freedom. in the fray, then fell the nobles with their mighty names of ancient prowess; there metellus' sons, corvini, lepidi, torquati too, not once nor twice the conquerors of kings, first of all men, pompeius' name except, lay dead upon the field. but, brutus, where, where was thy sword? ( ) "veiled by a common helm unknown thou wanderest. thy country's pride, hope of the senate, thou (for none besides); thou latest scion of that race of pride, whose fearless deeds the centuries record, tempt not the battle, nor provoke the doom! awaits thee on philippi's fated field thy thessaly. not here shalt thou prevail 'gainst caesar's life. not yet hath he surpassed the height of power and deserved a death noble at brutus' hands -- then let him live, thy fated victim! there upon the field lay all the honour of rome; no common stream mixed with the purple tide. and yet of all who noble fell, one only now i sing, thee, brave domitius. ( ) whene'er the day was adverse to the fortunes of thy chief thine was the arm which vainly stayed the fight. vanquished so oft by caesar, now 'twas thine yet free to perish. by a thousand wounds came welcome death, nor had thy conqueror power again to pardon. caesar stood and saw the dark blood welling forth and death at hand, and thus in words of scorn: "and dost thou lie, domitius, there? and did pompeius name thee his successor, thee? why leavest thou then his standards helpless?" but the parting life still faintly throbbed within domitius' breast, thus finding utterance: "yet thou hast not won thy hateful prize, for doubtful are the fates; nor thou the master, caesar; free as yet, with great pompeius for my leader still, warring no more, i seek the silent shades, yet with this hope in death, that thou subdued to magnus and to me in grievous guise may'st pay atonement." so he spake: no more; then closed his eyes in death. 'twere shame to shed, when thus a world was perishing, the tear meet for each fate, or sing the wound that reft each life away. through forehead and through throat the pitiless weapon clove its deadly path, or forced the entrails forth: one fell to earth prone at the stroke; one stood though shorn of limb; glanced from this breast unharmed the quivering spear; that it transfixed to earth. here from the veins spouted the life-blood, till the foeman's arms were crimsoned. one his brother slew, nor dared to spoil the corse, till severed from the neck he flung the head afar. another dashed full in his father's teeth the fatal sword, by murderous frenzy striving to disprove his kinship with the slain. yet for each death we find no separate dirge, nor weep for men when peoples fell. thus, rome, thy doom was wrought at dread pharsalus. not, as in other fields, by soldiers slain, or captains; here were swept whole nations to the death; assyria here, achaia, pontus; and the blood of rome gushing in torrents forth, forbade the rest to stagnate on the plain. nor life was reft, nor safety only then; but reeled the world and all her manifold peoples at the blow in that day's battle dealt; nor only then felt, but in all the times that were to come. those swords gave servitude to every age that shall be slavish; by our sires was shaped for us our destiny, the despot yoke. yet have we trembled not, nor feared to bare our throats to slaughter, nor to face the foe: we bear the penalty for others' shame. such be our doom; yet, fortune, sharing not in that last battle, 'twas our right to strike one blow for freedom ere we served our lord. now saw pompeius, grieving, that the gods had left his side, and knew the fates of rome passed from his governance; yet all the blood that filled the field scarce brought him to confess his fortunes fled. a little hill he sought whence to descry the battle raging still upon the plain, which when he nearer stood the warring ranks concealed. thence did the chief gaze on unnumbered swords that flashed in air and sought his ruin; and the tide of blood in which his host had perished. yet not as those who, prostrate fallen, would drag nations down to share their evil fate, pompeius did. still were the gods thought worthy of his prayers to give him solace, in that after him might live his romans. "spare, ye gods," he said, "nor lay whole peoples low; my fall attained, the world and rome may stand. and if ye need more bloodshed, here on me, my wife, and sons wreak out your vengeance -- pledges to the fates such have we given. too little for the war is our destruction? doth the carnage fail, the world escaping? magnus' fortunes lost, why doom all else beside him?" thus he cried, and passed amid his standards, and recalled his vanquished host that rushed on fate declared. not for his sake such carnage should be wrought. so thought pompeius; nor the foeman's sword he feared, nor death; but lest upon his fall to quit their chief his soldiers might refuse, and o'er his prostrate corpse a world in arms might find its ruin: or perchance he wished from caesar's eager eyes to veil his death. in vain, unhappy! for the fates decree he shall behold, shorn from the bleeding trunk, again thy visage. and thou, too, his spouse, beloved cornelia, didst cause his flight; thy longed-for features; yet he shall not die when thou art present. ( ) then upon his steed, though fearing not the weapons at his back, pompeius fled, his mighty soul prepared to meet his destinies. no groan nor tear, but solemn grief as for the fates of rome, was in his visage, and with mien unchanged he saw pharsalia's woes, above the frowns or smiles of fortune; in triumphant days and in his fall, her master. the burden laid of thine impending fate, thou partest free to muse upon the happy days of yore. hope now has fled; but in the fleeting past how wast thou great! seek thou the wars no more, and call the gods to witness that for thee henceforth dies no man. in the fights to come on afric's mournful shore, by pharos' stream and fateful munda; in the final scene of dire pharsalia's battle, not thy name doth stir the war and urge the foeman's arm, but those great rivals biding with us yet, caesar and liberty; and not for thee but for itself the dying senate fought, when thou had'st fled the combat. find'st thou not some solace thus in parting from the fight nor seeing all the horrors of its close? look back upon the dead that load the plain, the rivers turbid with a crimson stream; then pity thou thy victor. how shall he enter the city, who on such a field finds happiness? trust thou in fortune yet, her favourite ever; and whate'er, alone in lands unknown, an exile, be thy lot, whate'er thy sufferings 'neath the pharian king, 'twere worse to conquer. then forbid the tear, cease, sounds of woe, and lamentation cease, and let the world adore thee in defeat, as in thy triumphs. with unfaltering gaze, look on the suppliant kings, thy subjects still; search out the realms and cities which they hold, thy gift, pompeius; and a fitting place choose for thy death. first witness of thy fall, and of thy noble bearing in defeat, larissa. weeping, yet with gifts of price fit for a victor, from her teeming gates poured forth her citizens, their homes and fanes flung open; wishing it had been their lot with thee to share disaster. of thy name still much survives, unto thy former self alone inferior, still could'st thou to arms all nations call and challenge fate again. but thus he spake: "to cities nor to men avails the conquered aught; then pledge your faith to him who has the victory." caesar trod pharsalia's slaughter, while his daughter's spouse thus gave him kingdoms; but pompeius fled 'mid sobs and groans and blaming of the gods for this their fierce commandment; and he fled full of the fruits and knowledge of the love the peoples bore him, which he knew not his in times of happiness. when italian blood flowed deep enough upon the fatal field, caesar bade halt, and gave their lives to those whose death had been no gain. but that their camp might not recall the foe, nor calm of night banish their fears, he bids his cohorts dash, while fortune glowed and terror filled the plain, straight on the ramparts of the conquered foe. light was the task to urge them to the spoil; "soldiers," he said, "the victory is ours, full and triumphant: there doth lie the prize which you have won, not caesar; at your feet behold the booty of the hostile camp. snatched from hesperian nations ruddy gold, and all the riches of the orient world, are piled within the tents. the wealth of kings and of pompeius here awaits its lords. haste, soldiers, and outstrip the flying foe; e'en now the vanquished of pharsalia's field anticipate your spoils." no more he said, but drave them, blind with frenzy for the gold, to spurn the bodies of their fallen sires, and trample chiefs in dashing on their prey. what rampart had restrained them as they rushed to seize the prize for wickedness and war and learn the price of guilt? and though they found in ponderous masses heaped for need of war the trophies of a world, yet were their minds unsatisfied, that asked for all. whate'er iberian mines or tagus bring to day, or arimaspians from golden sands may gather, had they seized; still had they thought their guilt too cheaply sold. when pledged to them was the tarpeian rock, for victory won, and all the spoils of rome, by caesar's word, shall camps suffice them? then plebeian limbs on senators' turf took rest, on kingly couch the meanest soldier; and the murderer lay where yesternight his brother or his sire. in raving dreams within their waking brains yet raged the battle, and the guilty hand still wrought its deeds of blood, and restless sought the absent sword-hilt. thou had'st said that groans issued from all the plain, that parted souls had breathed a life into the guilty soil, that earthly darkness teemed with gibbering ghosts and stygian terrors. victory foully won thus claimed its punishment. the slumbering sense already heard the hiss of vengeful flames as from the depths of acheron. one saw deep in the trances of the night his sire and one his brother slain. but all the dead in long array were visioned to the eyes of caesar dreaming. not in other guise orestes saw the furies ere he fled to purge his sin within the scythian bounds; nor in more fierce convulsions raged the soul of pentheus raving; nor agave's ( ) mind when she had known her son. before his gaze flashed all the javelins which pharsalia saw, or that avenging day when drew their blades the roman senators; and on his couch, infernal monsters from the depths of hell scourged him in slumber. thus his guilty mind brought retribution. ere his rival died the terrors that enfold the stygian stream and black avernus, and the ghostly slain broke on his sleep. yet when the golden sun unveiled the butchery of pharsalia's field ( ) he shrank not from its horror, nor withdrew his feasting gaze. there rolled the streams in flood with crimson carnage; there a seething heap rose shrouding all the plain, now in decay slow settling down; there numbered he the host of magnus slain; and for the morn's repast that spot he chose whence he might watch the dead, and feast his eyes upon emathia's field concealed by corpses; of the bloody sight insatiate, he forbad the funeral pyre, and cast emathia in the face of heaven. nor by the punic victor was he taught, who at the close of cannae's fatal fight laid in the earth the roman consul dead, to find fit burial for his fallen foes; for these were all his countrymen, nor yet his ire by blood appeased. yet ask we not for separate pyres or sepulchres apart wherein to lay the ashes of the fallen: burn in one holocaust the nations slain; or should it please thy soul to torture more thy kinsman, pile on high from oeta's slopes and pindus' top the woods: thus shall he see while fugitive on the deep the blaze that marks thessalia. yet by this idle rage nought dost thou profit; for these corporal frames bearing innate from birth the certain germs of dissolution, whether by decay or fire consumed, shall fall into the lap of all-embracing nature. thus if now thou should'st deny the pyre, still in that flame when all shall crumble, ( ) earth and rolling seas and stars commingled with the bones of men, these too shall perish. where thy soul shall go these shall companion thee; no higher flight in airy realms is thine, nor smoother couch beneath the stygian darkness; for the dead no fortune favours, and our mother earth all that is born from her receives again, and he whose bones no tomb or urn protects yet sleeps beneath the canopy of heaven. and thou, proud conqueror, who would'st deny the rites of burial to thousands slain, why flee thy field of triumph? why desert this reeking plain? drink, caesar, of the streams, drink if thou can'st, and should it be thy wish breathe the thessalian air; but from thy grasp the earth is ravished, and th' unburied host, routing their victor, hold pharsalia's field. then to the ghastly harvest of the war came all the beasts of earth whose facile sense of odour tracks the bodies of the slain. sped from his northern home the thracian wolf; bears left their dens and lions from afar scenting the carnage; dogs obscene and foul their homes deserted: all the air was full of gathering fowl, who in their flight had long pursued the armies. cranes ( ) who yearly change the frosts of thracia for the banks of nile, this year delayed their voyage. as ne'er before the air grew dark with vultures' hovering wings, innumerable, for every grove and wood sent forth its denizens; on every tree dripped from their crimsoned beaks a gory dew. oft on the conquerors and their impious arms or purple rain of blood, or mouldering flesh fell from the lofty heaven; or limbs of men from weary talons dropped. yet even so the peoples passed not all into the maw of ravening beast or fowl; the inmost flesh scarce did they touch, nor limbs -- thus lay the dead scorned by the spoiler; and the roman host by sun and length of days, and rain from heaven, at length was mingled with emathia's plain. ill-starred thessalia! by what hateful crime didst thou offend that thus on thee alone was laid such carnage? by what length of years shalt thou be cleansed from the curse of war? when shall the harvest of thy fields arise free from their purple stain? and when the share cease to upturn the slaughtered hosts of rome? first shall the battle onset sound again, again shall flow upon thy fated earth a crimson torrent. thus may be o'erthrown our sires' memorials; those erected last, or those which pierced by ancient roots have spread through broken stones their sacred urns abroad. thus shall the ploughman of haemonia gaze on more abundant ashes, and the rake pass o'er more frequent bones. wert, thracia, thou. our only battlefield, no sailor's hand upon thy shore should make his cable fast; no spade should turn, the husbandman should flee thy fields, the resting-place of roman dead; no lowing kine should graze, nor shepherd dare to leave his fleecy charge to browse at will on fields made fertile by our mouldering dust; all bare and unexplored thy soil should lie, as past man's footsteps, parched by cruel suns, or palled by snows unmelting! but, ye gods, give us to hate the lands which bear the guilt; let not all earth be cursed, though not all be blameless found. 'twas thus that munda's fight and blood of mutina, and leucas' cape, and sad pachynus, ( ) made philippi pure. endnotes: ( ) "it is, methinks, a morning full of fate! it riseth slowly, as her sullen car had all the weight of sleep and death hung at it!" ... and her sick head is bound about with clouds as if she threatened night ere noon of day." -- ben jonson, "catiline", i., . ( ) see book vi., . ( ) as to the sun finding fuel in the clouds, see book i., line . ( ) pompeius triumphed first in b.c. for his victories in sicily and africa, at the age of twenty-four. sulla at first objected, but finally yielded and said, "let him triumph then in god's name." the triumph for the defeat of sertorius was not till b.c., in which year pompeius was elected consul along with crassus. (compare book ix., .) ( ) these two lines are taken from ben jonson's "catiline", act v., scene . ( ) the volcanic district of campania, scene of the fabled battle of the giants. (see book iv., .) ( ) henceforth to be the standards of the emperor. ( ) a lake at the foot of mount ossa. pindus, ossa, olympus, and, above all, haemus (the balkans) were at a long distance from pharsalia. comp. book vi., . ( ) gades (cadiz) is stated to have been founded by the phoenicians about b.c. ( ) this alludes to the story told by plutarch ("caesar", ) that, at patavium, caius cornelius, a man reputed for skill in divination, and a friend of livy the historian, was sitting to watch the birds that day. "and first of all (as livius says) he discovered the time of the battle, and he said to those present that the affair was now deciding and the men were going into action. looking again, and observing the signs, he sprang up with enthusiasm and called out, 'you conquer, caesar.'" (long's translation.) ( ) the fontes aponi were warm springs near padua. an altar, inscribed to apollo aponus, was found at ribchester, and is now at st. john's college, cambridge. (wright, "celt, roman, and saxon", p. .) ( ) see book i., , and following lines. ( ) for the contempt here expressed for the greek gymnastic schools, see also tacitus, "annals", , . it is well known that nero instituted games called neronia which were borrowed from the greeks; and that many of the roman citizens despised them as foreign and profligate. merivale, chapter liii., cites this passage. ( ) thus paraphrased by dean stanley: "i tremble not with terror, but with hope, as the great day reveals its coming scope; never in earlier days, our hearts to cheer, have such bright gifts of heaven been brought so near, nor ever has been kept the aspiring soul by space so narrow from so grand a goal." inaugural address at st. andrews. , on the "study of greatness". ( ) that such were caesar's orders is also attested by appian. ( ) see book v., . ( ) that is, marked out the new colony with a plough-share. this was regarded as a religious ceremony, and therefore performed by the consul with his toga worn in ancient fashion. ( ) "hath jove no thunder?" -- ben jonson, "catiline", iii., . ( ) compare book i., line . ( ) this act of crastinus is recorded by plutarch ("pompeius", ), and by caesar, "civil war", book iii., . caesar called him by name and said: "well, crastinus, shall we win today?" "we shall win with glory, caesar," he replied in a loud voice, "and to-day you will praise me, living or dead." -- durny, "history of rome", vol. iii., . he was placed in a special tomb after the battle. ( ) see on line . ( ) that is, lashes on his team terrified by the gorgon shield in the ranks of the enemy. ( ) plutarch states that brutus after the battle escaped and made his way to larissa, whence he wrote to caesar. caesar, pleased that he was alive, asked him to come to him; and it was on brutus' opinion that caesar determined to hurry to egypt as the most probable refuge of pompeius. caesar entrusted brutus with the command of cisalpine gaul when he was in africa. ( ) "he perished, after a career of furious partisanship, disgraced with cruelty and treachery, on the field of pharsalia" (merivale, "hist. romans under the empire", chapter lii.). unless this man had been an ancestor of nero it is impossible to suppose that lucan would have thus singled him out. but he appears to have been the only leader who fell. (compare book ii, lines - , for his conduct at corfinium.) ( ) this appears to be the only possible meaning of the text. but in truth, although cornelia was not by her husband's side at his murder, she was present at the scene. ( ) see book vi., . ( ) the whole of this passage is foreign to caesar's character, and unfounded in fact. pompeians perished on the field, and were taken prisoners. when caesar passed over the field he is recorded to have said in pity, "they would have it so; after all my exploits i should have been condemned to death had i not thrown myself upon the protection of my soldiers." -- plutarch, "caesar"; durny, "history of rome", vol. iii., p. . ( ) alluding to the general conflagration in which (by the stoic doctrines) all the universe would one day perish. ( ) wrongly supposed by lucan to feed on carrion. ( ) alluding to the naval war waged by sextus pompeius after caesar's death. he took possession of sicily, and had command of the seas, but was ultimately defeated by the fleet of octavius under agrippa in b.c. . pachynus was the s.e. promontory of the island, but is used in the sense of sicily, for this battle took place on the north coast. book viii death of pompeius. now through alcides'( ) pass and tempe's groves pompeius, aiming for haemonian glens and forests lone, urged on his wearied steed scarce heeding now the spur; by devious tracks seeking to veil the footsteps of his flight: the rustle of the foliage, and the noise of following comrades filled his anxious soul with terrors, as he fancied at his side some ambushed enemy. fallen from the height of former fortunes, still the chieftain knew his life not worthless; mindful of the fates: and 'gainst the price he set on caesar's head, he measures caesar's value of his own. yet, as he rode, the features of the chief made known his ruin. many as they sought the camp pharsalian, ere yet was spread news of the battle, met the chief, amazed, and wondered at the whirl of human things: nor held disaster sure, though magnus' self told of his ruin. every witness seen brought peril on his flight: 'twere better far safe in a name obscure, through all the world to wander; but his ancient fame forbad. too long had great pompeius from the height of human greatness, envied of mankind, looked on all others; nor for him henceforth could life be lowly. the honours of his youth too early thrust upon him, and the deeds which brought him triumph in the sullan days, his conquering navy and the pontic war, made heavier now the burden of defeat, and crushed his pondering soul. so length of days drags down the haughty spirit, and life prolonged when power has perished. fortune's latest hour, be the last hour of life! nor let the wretch live on disgraced by memories of fame! but for the boon of death, who'd dare the sea of prosperous chance? upon the ocean marge by red peneus blushing from the fray, borne in a sloop, to lightest wind and wave scarce equal, he, whose countless oars yet smote upon coreyra's isle and leucas point, lord of cilicia and liburnian lands, crept trembling to the sea. he bids them steer for the sequestered shores of lesbos isle; for there wert thou, sharer of all his griefs, cornelia! sadder far thy life apart than wert thou present in thessalia's fields. racked is thy heart with presages of ill; pharsalia fills thy dreams; and when the shades give place to coming dawn, with hasty step thou tread'st some cliff sea-beaten, and with eyes gazing afar art first to mark the sail of each approaching bark: yet dar'st not ask aught of thy husband's fate. behold the boat whose bending canvas bears her to the shore: she brings (unknown as yet) thy chiefest dread, rumour of evil, herald of defeat, magnus, thy conquered spouse. fear then no more, but give to grief thy moments. from the ship he leaps to land; she marks the cruel doom wrought by the gods upon him: pale and wan his weary features, by the hoary locks shaded; the dust of travel on his garb. dark on her soul a night of anguish fell; her trembling limbs no longer bore her frame: scarce throbbed her heart, and prone on earth she lay deceived in hope of death. the boat made fast, pompeius treading the lone waste of sand drew near; whom when cornelia's maidens saw, they stayed their weeping, yet with sighs subdued, reproached the fates; and tried in vain to raise their mistress' form, till magnus to his breast drew her with cherishing arms; and at the touch of soothing hands the life-blood to her veins returned once more, and she could bear to look upon his features. he forbad despair, chiding her grief. "not at the earliest blow by fortune dealt, inheritress of fame bequeathed by noble fathers, should thy strength thus fail and yield: renown shall yet be thine, to last through ages; not of laws decreed nor conquests won; a gentler path to thee as to thy sex, is given; thy husband's woe. let thine affection struggle with the fates, and in his misery love thy lord the more. i bring thee greater glory, for that gone is all the pomp of power and all the crowd of faithful senators and suppliant kings; now first pompeius for himself alone tis thine to love. curb this unbounded grief, while yet i breathe, unseemly. o'er my tomb weep out thy full, the final pledge of faith. thou hast no loss, nor has the war destroyed aught save my fortune. if for that thy grief that was thy love." roused by her husband's words, yet scarcely could she raise her trembling limbs, thus speaking through her sobs: "would i had sought detested caesar's couch, ill-omened wife of spouse unhappy; at my nuptials twice a fury has been bridesmaid, and the ghosts of slaughtered crassi, with avenging shades brought by my wedlock to the doomed camp the parthian massacre. twice my star has cursed the world, and peoples have been hurled to death in one red moment; and the gods through me have left the better cause. o, hero mine, mightiest husband, wedded to a wife unworthy! 'twas through her that fortune gained the right to strike thee. wherefore did i wed to bring thee misery? mine, mine the guilt, mine be the penalty. and that the wave may bear thee gently onwards, and the kings may keep their faith to thee, and all the earth be ready to thy rule, me from thy side cast to the billows. rather had i died to bring thee victory; thy disasters thus, thus expiate. and, cruel julia, thee, who by this war hast vengeance on our vows, from thine abode i call: atonement find in this thy rival's death, and spare at least thy magnus." then upon his breast she fell, while all the concourse wept -- e'en magnus' self, who saw thessalia's field without a tear. but now upon the shore a numerous band from mitylene thus approached the chief: "if 'tis our greatest glory to have kept the pledge with us by such a husband placed, do thou one night within these friendly walls we pray thee, stay; thus honouring the homes long since devoted, magnus, to thy cause. this spot in days to come the guest from rome for thee shall honour. nowhere shalt thou find a surer refuge in defeat. all else may court the victor's favour; we long since have earned his chastisement. and though our isle rides on the deep, girt by the ocean wave, no ships has caesar: and to us shall come, be sure, thy captains, to our trusted shore, the war renewing. take, for all is thine, the treasures of our temples and the gold, take all our youth by land or on the sea to do thy bidding: lesbos only asks this from the chief who sought her in his pride, not in his fall to leave her." pleased in soul at such a love, and joyed that in the world some faith still lingered, thus pompeius said: "earth has for me no dearer land than this. did i not trust it with so sweet a pledge and find it faithful? here was rome for me, country and household gods. this shore i sought home of my wife, this lesbos, which for her had merited remorseless caesar's ire: nor was afraid to trust you with the means to gain his mercy. but enough -- through me your guilt was caused -- i part, throughout the world to prove my fate. farewell thou happiest land! famous for ever, whether taught by thee some other kings and peoples may be pleased to give me shelter; or should'st thou alone be faithful. and now seek i in what lands right may be found or wrong. my latest prayer receive, o deity, if still with me thou bidest, thus. may it be mine again, conquered, with hostile caesar on my tracks to find a lesbos where to enter in and whence to part, unhindered." in the boat he placed his spouse: while from the shore arose such lamentation, and such hands were raised in ire against the gods, that thou had'st deemed all left their kin for exile, and their homes. and though for magnus grieving in his fall yet for cornelia chiefly did they mourn long since their gentle guest. for her had wept the lesbian matrons had she left to join a victor husband: for she won their love, by kindly modesty and gracious mien, ere yet her lord was conquered, while as yet their fortunes stood. now slowly to the deep sank fiery titan; but not yet to those he sought (if such there be), was shown his orb, though veiled from those he quitted. magnus' mind, anxious with waking cares, sought through the kings his subjects, and the cities leagued with rome in faith, and through the pathless tracts that lie beyond the southern bounds: until the toil of sorrowing thought upon the past, and dread of that which might be, made him cast afar his wavering doubts, and from the captain seek some counsel on the heavens; how by the sky he marked his track upon the deep; what star guided the path to syria, and what points found in the wain would pilot him aright to shores of libya. but thus replied the well-skilled watcher of the silent skies: "not by the constellations moving ever across the heavens do we guide our barks; for that were perilous; but by that star ( ) which never sinks nor dips below the wave, girt by the glittering groups men call the bears. when stands the pole-star clear before the mast, then to the bosphorus look we, and the main which carves the coast of scythia. but the more bootes dips, and nearer to the sea is cynosura seen, so much the ship towards syria tends, till bright canopus ( ) shines, in southern skies content to hold his course; with him upon the left past pharos borne straight for the syrtes shalt thou plough the deep. but whither now dost bid me shape the yards and set the canvas?" magnus, doubting still; "this only be thy care: from thracia steer the vessel onward; shun with all thy skill italia's distant shore: and for the rest trust to the winds for guidance. when i sought, pledged with the lesbians, my spouse beloved, my course was sure: now, fortune, where thou wilt give me a refuge." these his answering words. the pilot, as they hung from level yards shifted the sails; and hauling to the stern one sheet, he slacked the other, to the left steering, where samian rocks and chian marred the stillness of the waters; while the sea sent up in answer to the changing keel a different murmur. not so deftly turns curbing his steeds, his wain the charioteer, while glows his dexter wheel, and with the left he almost touches, yet avoids the goal. now titan veiled the stars and showed the shore; when, following magnus, came a scattered band saved from the thracian storm. from lesbos' port his son; ( ) next, captains who preserved their faith; for at his side, though vanquished in the field, cast down by fate, in exile, still there stood, lords of the earth and all her orient realms, the kings, his ministers. to the furthest lands he bids ( ) deiotarus: "o faithful friend, since in emathia's battle-field was lost the world, so far as roman, it remains to test the faith of peoples of the east who drink of tigris and euphrates' stream, secure as yet from caesar. be it thine far as the rising of the sun to trace the fates that favour magnus: to the courts of median palaces, to scythian steppes; and to the son of haughty arsaces, to bear my message, 'hold ye to the faith, pledged by your priests and by the thunderer's name of latium sworn? then fill your quivers full, draw to its fullest span th' armenian bow; and, getan archers, wing the fatal shaft. and you, ye parthians, if when i sought the caspian gates, and on th' alaunian tribes ( ) fierce, ever-warring, pressed, i suffered you in persian tracts to wander, nor compelled to seek for shelter babylonian walls; if beyond cyrus' kingdom ( ) and the bounds of wide chaldaea, where from nysa's top pours down hydaspes, and the ganges flood foams to the ocean, nearer far i stood than persia's bounds to phoebus' rising fires; if by my sufferance, parthians, you alone decked not my triumphs, but in equal state sole of all eastern princes, face to face met magnus in his pride, nor only once through me were saved; (for after that dread day who but pompeius soothed the kindling fires of latium's anger?) -- by my service paid come forth to victory: burst the ancient bounds by macedon's hero set: in magnus' cause march, parthians, to rome's conquest. rome herself prays to be conquered.'" hard the task imposed; yet doffed his robe, and swift obeyed, the king wrapped in a servant's mantle. if a prince for safety play the boor, then happier, sure, the peasant's lot than lordship of the world. the king thus parted, past icaria's rocks pompeius' vessel skirts the foamy crags of little samos: colophon's tranquil sea and ephesus lay behind him, and the air breathed freely on him from the coan shore. cuidos he shunned, and, famous for its sun, rhodos, and steering for the middle deep escaped the windings of telmessus' bay; till rose pamphylian coasts before the bark, and first the fallen chieftain dared to find in small phaseils shelter; for therein scarce was the husbandman, and empty homes forbad to fear. next taurus' heights he saw and dipsus falling from his lofty sides: so sailed he onward. did pompeius hope, thus severed by the billows from the foe, to make his safety sure? his little boat flies unmolested past cilician shores; but to their exiled lord in chiefest part the senate of rome was drawn. celendrae there received their fleet, where fair selinus' stream in spacious bay gives refuge from the main; and to the gathered chiefs in mournful words at length pompeius thus resolved his thoughts: "o faithful comrades mine in war and flight! to me, my country! though this barren shore our place of meeting, and no gathered host surrounds us, yet upon our changed estate i seek your counsel. rouse ye as of yore with hearts of courage! magnus on the field not all is perished, nor do fates forbid but that i rise afresh with living hope of future victories, and spurn defeat. from libyan ruins did not marius rise again recorded consul on the page full of his honours? shall a lighter blow keep magnus down, whose thousand chiefs and ships still plough the billows; by defeat his strength not whelmed but scattered? and the fame alone of our great deeds of glory in the past shall now protect us, and the world unchanged still love its hero. "weigh upon the scales ye chiefs, which best may help the needs of rome, in faith and armies; or the parthian realm egypt or libya. for myself, ye chiefs, i veil no secret thoughts, but thus advise. place no reliance on the pharian king; his age forbids: nor on the cunning moor, who vain of punic ancestors, and vain of carthaginian memories and descent ( ) supposed from hannibal, and swollen with pride at varus' supplication, sees in thought rome lie beneath him. wherefore, comrades, seek at speed, the eastern world. those mighty realms disjoins from us euphrates, and the gates called caspian; on another sky than ours there day and night revolve; another sea of different hue is severed from our own. ( ) rule is their wish, nought else: and in their plains taller the war-horse, stronger twangs the bow; there fails nor youth nor age to wing the shaft fatal in flight. their archers first subdued the lance of macedon and baetra's ( ) walls, home of the mede; and haughty babylon with all her storied towers: nor shall they dread the roman onset; trusting to the shafts by which the host of fated crassus fell. nor trust they only to the javelin blade untipped with poison: from the rancorous edge the slightest wound deals death. "would that my lot forced me not thus to trust that savage race of arsaces! ( ) yet now their emulous fate contends with roman destinies: the gods smile favouring on their nation. thence i'll pour on caesar peoples from another earth and all the orient ravished from its home. but should the east and barbarous treaties fail, fate, bear our shipwrecked fortunes past the bounds of earth, as known to men. the kings i made i supplicate not, but in death shall take to other spheres this solace: chief of all; his hands, my kinsman's, never shed my blood nor soothed me dying. yet as my mind in turn the varying fortunes of my life recalls, how was i glorious in that eastern world! how great my name by far maeotis marsh and where swift tanais flows! no other land has so resounded with my conquests won, so sent me home triumphant. rome, do thou approve my enterprise! what happier chance could favouring gods afford thee? parthian hosts shall fight the civil wars of rome, and share her ills, and fall enfeebled. when the arms of caesar meet with parthian in the fray, then must kind fortune vindicate my lot or crassus be avenged." but murmurs rose, and magnus speaking knew his words condemned. then lentulas ( ) answered, with indignant soul, foremost to rouse their valour, thus in words worthy a consul: "have thessalian woes broken thy spirit so? one day's defeat condemned the world to ruin? is the cause lost in one battle and beyond recall? find we no cure for wounds? does fortune drive thee, magnus, to the parthians' feet alone? and dost thou, fugitive, spurn the lands and skies known heretofore, and seek for other poles and constellations, and chaldaean gods, and rites barbarian, servant of the realm of parthia? but why then took we arms for love of liberty? if thou canst slave thou hast deceived the world! shall parthia see thee at whose name, ruler of mighty rome, she trembled, at whose feet she captive saw hyrcanian kings and indian princes kneel, now humbly suppliant, victim of the fates; and at thy prayer her puny strength extol in mad contention with the western world? nor think, pompeius, thou shalt plead thy cause in that proud tongue unknown to parthian ears of which thy fame is worthy; sobs and tears he shall demand of thee. and has our shame brought us to this, that some barbarian foe shall venge hesperia's wrongs ere rome her own? thou wert our leader for the civil war: mid scythia's peoples dost thou bruit abroad wounds and disasters which are ours alone? rome until now, though subject to the yoke of civic despots, yet within her walls has brooked no foreign lord. and art thou pleased from all the world to summon to her gates these savage peoples, while the standards lost by far euphrates when the crassi fell shall lead thy columns? shall the only king who failed emathia, while the fates yet hid their favouring voices, brave the victor's power, and join with thine his fortune? nay, not so this nation trusts itself. each race that claims a northern birth, unconquered in the fray claims but the warrior's death; but as the sky slopes towards the eastern tracts and gentler climes so are the nations. there in flowing robes and garments delicate are men arrayed. true that the parthian in sarmatia's plains, where tigris spreads across the level meads, contends invincible; for flight is his unbounded; but should uplands bar his path he scales them not; nor through the night of war shall his weak bow uncertain in its aim repel the foeman; nor his strength of arm the torrent stem; nor all a summer's day in dust and blood bear up against the foe. they fill no hostile trench, nor in their hands shall battering engine or machine of war dash down the rampart; and whate'er avails to stop their arrows, battles like a wall. ( ) wide sweep their horsemen, fleeting in attack and light in onset, and their troops shall yield a camp, not take it: poisoned are their shafts; nor do they dare a combat hand to hand; but as the winds may suffer, from afar they draw their bows at venture. brave men love the sword which, wielded by a stalwart arm, drives home the blow and makes the battle sure. not such their weapons; and the first assault shall force the flying mede with coward hand and empty quiver from the field. his faith in poisoned blades is placed; but trustest thou those who without such aid refuse the war? for such alliance wilt thou risk a death, with all the world between thee and thy home? shall some barbarian earth or lowly grave enclose thee perishing? e'en that were shame while crassus seeks a sepulchre in vain. thy lot is happy; death, unfeared by men, is thy worst doom, pompeius; but no death awaits cornelia -- such a fate for her this king shall not reserve; for know not we the hateful secrets of barbarian love, which, blind as that of beasts, the marriage bed pollutes with wives unnumbered? nor the laws by nature made respect they, nor of kin. in ancient days the fable of the crime by tyrant oedipus unwitting wrought, brought hate upon his city; but how oft sits on the throne of arsaces a prince of birth incestuous? this gracious dame born of metellus, noblest blood of rome, shall share the couch of the barbarian king with thousand others: yet in savage joy, proud of her former husbands, he may grant some larger share of favour; and the fates may seem to smile on parthia; for the spouse of crassus, captive, shall to him be brought as spoil of former conquest. if the wound dealt in that fell defeat in eastern lands still stirs thy heart, then double is the shame first to have waged the war upon ourselves, then ask the foe for succour. for what blame can rest on thee or caesar, worse than this that in the clash of conflict ye forgot for crassus' slaughtered troops the vengeance due? first should united rome upon the mede have poured her captains, and the troops who guard the northern frontier from the dacian hordes; and all her legions should have left the rhine free to the teuton, till the parthian dead were piled in heaps upon the sands that hide our heroes slain; and haughty babylon lay at her victor's feet. to this foul peace we pray an end; and if thessalia's day has closed our warfare, let the conqueror march straight on our parthian foe. then should this heart, then only, leap at caesar's triumph won. go thou and pass araxes' chilly stream on this thine errand; and the fleeting ghost pierced by the scythian shaft shall greet thee thus: 'art thou not he to whom our wandering shades looked for their vengeance in the guise of war? and dost thou sue for peace?' there shalt thou meet memorials of the dead. red is yon wall where passed their headless trunks: euphrates here engulfed them slain, or tigris' winding stream cast on the shore to perish. gaze on this, and thou canst supplicate at caesar's feet in mid thessalia seated. nay, thy glance turn on the roman world, and if thou fear'st king juba faithless and the southern realms, then seek we pharos. egypt on the west girt by the trackless syrtes forces back by sevenfold stream the ocean; rich in glebe and gold and merchandise; and proud of nile asks for no rain from heaven. now holds this boy her sceptre, owed to thee; his guardian thou: and who shall fear this shadow of a name? hope not from monarchs old, whose shame is fled, or laws or troth or honour of the gods: new kings bring mildest sway." ( ) his words prevailed upon his hearers. with what freedom speaks, when states are trembling, patriot despair! pompeius' voice was quelled. they hoist their sails for cyprus shaped, whose altars more than all the goddess loves who from the paphian wave sprang, mindful of her birth, if such be truth, and gods have origin. past the craggy isle pompeius sailing, left at length astern its southern cape, and struck across the main with winds transverse and tides; nor reached the mount grateful to sailors for its nightly gleam: but to the bounds of egypt hardly won with battling canvas, where divided nile pours through the shallows his pelusian stream. ( ) now was the season when the heavenly scale most nearly balances the varying hours, once only equal; for the wintry day repays to night her losses of the spring; and magnus learning that th' egyptian king lay by mount casius, ere the sun was set or flagged his canvas, thither steered his ship. already had a horseman from the shore in rapid gallop to the trembling court brought news their guest was come. short was the time for counsel given; but in haste were met all who advised the base pellaean king, monsters, inhuman; there achoreus sat less harsh in failing years, in memphis born of empty rites, and guardian of the rise ( ) of fertilising nile. while he was priest not only once had apis ( ) lived the space marked by the crescent on his sacred brow. first was his voice, for magnus raised and troth and for the pledges of the king deceased: but, skilled in counsel meet for shameless minds and tyrant hearts, pothinus, dared to claim judgment of death on magnus. "laws and right make many guilty, ptolemmus king. and faith thus lauded ( ) brings its punishment when it supports the fallen. to the fates yield thee, and to the gods; the wretched shun but seek the happy. as the stars from earth differ, and fire from ocean, so from right expedience. ( ) the tyrant's shorn of strength who ponders justice; and regard for right bring's ruin on a throne. for lawless power the best defence is crime, and cruel deeds find safety but in doing. he that aims at piety must flee the regal hall; virtue's the bane of rule; he lives in dread who shrinks from cruelty. nor let this chief unpunished scorn thy youth, who thinks that thou not even the conquered from our shore can'st bar. nor to a stranger, if thou would'st not reign, resign thy sceptre, for the ties of blood speak for thy banished sister. let her rule o'er nile and pharos: we shall at the least preserve our egypt from the latian arms. what magnus owned not ere the war was done, no more shall caesar. driven from all the world, trusting no more to fortune, now he seeks some foreign nation which may share his fate. shades of the slaughtered in the civil war compel him: nor from caesar's arms alone but from the senate also does he fly, whose blood outpoured has gorged thessalian fowl; monarchs he fears whose all he hath destroyed, and nations piled in one ensanguined heap, by him deserted. victim of the blow thessalia dealt, refused in every land, he asks for help from ours not yet betrayed. but none than egypt with this chief from rome has juster quarrel; who has sought with arms to stain our pharos, distant from the strife and peaceful ever, and to make our realm suspected by his victor. why alone should this our country please thee in thy fall? why bringst thou here the burden of thy fates, pharsalia's curse? in caesar's eyes long since we have offence which by the sword alone can find its condonation, in that we by thy persuasion from the senate gained this our dominion. by our prayers we helped if not by arms thy cause. this sword, which fate bids us make ready, not for thee i hold prepared, but for the vanquished; and on thee (would it had been on caesar) falls the stroke; for we are borne. as all things, to his side. and dost thou doubt, since thou art in my power, thou art my victim? by what trust in us cam'st thou, unhappy? scarce our people tills the fields, though softened by the refluent nile: know well our strength, and know we can no more. rome 'neath the ruin of pompeius lies: shalt thou, king, uphold him? shalt thou dare to stir pharsalia's ashes and to call war to thy kingdom? ere the fight was fought we joined not either army -- shall we now make magnus friend whom all the world deserts? and fling a challenge to the conquering chief and all his proud successes? fair is help lent in disaster, yet reserved for those whom fortune favours. faith her friends selects not from the wretched." they decree the crime: proud is the boyish tyrant that so soon his slaves permit him to so great a deed to give his favouring voice; and for the work they choose achillas. where the treacherous shore runs out in sand below the casian mount and where the shallow waters of the sea attest the syrtes near, in little boat achillas and his partners in the crime with swords embark. ye gods! and shall the nile and barbarous memphis and th' effeminate crew that throngs pelusian canopus raise its thoughts to such an enterprise? do thus our fates press on the world? is rome thus fallen that in our civil frays the phaxian sword finds place, or egypt? o, may civil war be thus far faithful that the hand which strikes be of our kindred; and the foreign fiend held worlds apart! pompeius, great in soul, noble in spirit, had deserved a death from caesar's self. and, king, hast thou no fear at such a ruin of so great a name? and dost thou dare when heaven's high thunder rolls, thou, puny boy, to mingle with its tones thine impure utterance? had he not won a world by arms, and thrice in triumph scaled the sacred capitol, and vanquished kings, and championed the roman senate's cause; he, kinsman of the victor? 'twas enough to cause forbearance in a pharian king, that he was roman. wherefore with thy sword dost stab our breasts? thou know'st not, impious boy, how stand thy fortunes; now no more by right hast thou the sceptre of the land of nile; for prostrate, vanquished in the civil wars is he who gave it. furling now his sails, magnus with oars approached th' accursed land, when in their little boat the murderous crew drew nigh, and feigning from th' egyptian court a ready welcome, blamed the double tides broken by shallows, and their scanty beach unfit for fleets; and bade him to their craft leaving his loftier ship. had not the fates' eternal and unalterable laws called for their victim and decreed his end now near at hand, his comrades' warning voice yet might have stayed his course: for if the court to magnus, who bestowed the pharian crown, in truth were open, should not king and fleet in pomp have come to greet him? but he yields: the fates compel. welcome to him was death rather than fear. but, rushing to the side, his spouse would follow, for she dared not stay, fearing the guile. then he, "abide, my wife, and son, i pray you; from the shore afar await my fortunes; mine shall be the life to test their honour." but cornelia still withstood his bidding, and with arms outspread frenzied she cried: "and whither without me, cruel, departest? thou forbad'st me share thy risks thessalian; dost again command that i should part from thee? no happy star breaks on our sorrow. if from every land thou dost debar me, why didst turn aside in flight to lesbos? on the waves alone am i thy fit companion?" thus in vain, leaning upon the bulwark, dazed with dread; nor could she turn her straining gaze aside, nor see her parting husband. all the fleet stood silent, anxious, waiting for the end: not that they feared the murder which befell, but lest their leader might with humble prayer kneel to the king he made. as magnus passed, a roman soldier from the pharian boat, septimius, salutes him. gods of heaven! there stood he, minion to a barbarous king, nor bearing still the javelin of rome; but vile in all his arms; giant in form fierce, brutal, thirsting as a beast may thirst for carnage. didst thou, fortune, for the sake of nations, spare to dread pharsalus field this savage monster's blows? or dost thou place throughout the world, for thy mysterious ends, some ministering swords for civil war? thus, to the shame of victors and of gods, this story shall be told in days to come: a roman swordsman, once within thy ranks, slave to the orders of a puny prince, severed pompeius' neck. and what shall be septimius' fame hereafter? by what name this deed be called, if brutus wrought a crime? now came the end, the latest hour of all: rapt to the boat was magnus, of himself no longer master, and the miscreant crew unsheathed their swords; which when the chieftain saw he swathed his visage, for he scorned unveiled to yield his life to fortune; closed his eyes and held his breath within him, lest some word, or sob escaped, might mar the deathless fame his deeds had won. and when within his side achillas plunged his blade, nor sound nor cry he gave, but calm consented to the blow and proved himself in dying; in his breast these thoughts revolving: "in the years to come men shall make mention of our roman toils, gaze on this boat, ponder the pharian faith; and think upon thy fame and all the years while fortune smiled: but for the ills of life how thou could'st bear them, this men shall not know save by thy death. then weigh thou not the shame that waits on thine undoing. whose strikes, the blow is caesar's. men may tear this frame and cast it mangled to the winds of heaven; yet have i prospered, nor can all the gods call back my triumphs. life may bring defeat, but death no misery. if my spouse and son behold me murdered, silently the more i suffer: admiration at my death shall prove their love." thus did pompeius die, guarding his thoughts. but now cornelia filled the air with lamentations at the sight; "o, husband, whom my wicked self hath slain! that lonely isle apart thy bane hath been and stayed thy coming. caesar to the nile has won before us; for what other hand may do such work? but whosoe'er thou art sent from the gods with power, for caesar's ire, or thine own sake, to slay, thou dost not know where lies the heart of magnus. haste and do! such were his prayer -- no other punishment befits the conquered. yet let him ere his end see mine, cornelia's. on me the blame of all these wars, who sole of roman wives followed my spouse afield nor feared the fates; and in disaster, when the kings refused, received and cherished him. did i deserve thus to be left of thee, and didst thou seek to spare me? and when rushing on thine end was i to live? without the monarch's help death shall be mine, either by headlong leap beneath the waters; or some sailor's hand shall bind around this neck the fatal cord; or else some comrade, worthy of his chief, drive to my heart his blade for magnus' sake, and claim the service done to ceasar's arms. what! does your cruelty withhold my fate? ah! still he lives, nor is it mine as yet to win this freedom; they forbid me death, kept for the victor's triumph." thus she spake, while friendly hands upheld her fainting form; and sped the trembling vessel from the shore. men say that magnus, when the deadly blows fell thick upon him, lost nor form divine, nor venerated mien; and as they gazed upon his lacerated head they marked still on his features anger with the gods. nor death could change his visage -- for in act of striking, fierce septimius' murderous hand (thus making worse his crime) severed the folds that swathed the face, and seized the noble head and drooping neck ere yet was fled the life: then placed upon the bench; and with his blade slow at its hideous task, and blows unskilled hacked through the flesh and brake the knotted bone: for yet man had not learned by swoop of sword deftly to lop the neck. achillas claimed the gory head dissevered. what! shalt thou a roman soldier, while thy blade yet reeks from magnus' slaughter, play the second part to this base varlet of the pharian king? nor bear thyself the bleeding trophy home? then, that the impious boy (ah! shameful fate) might know the features of the hero slain, seized by the locks, the dread of kings, which waved upon his stately front, on pharian pike the head was lifted; while almost the life gave to the tongue its accents, and the eyes were yet scarce glazed: that head at whose command was peace or war, that tongue whose eloquent tones would move assemblies, and that noble brow on which were showered the rewards of rome. nor to the tyrant did the sight suffice to prove the murder done. the perishing flesh, the tissues, and the brain he bids remove by art nefarious: the shrivelled skin draws tight upon the bone; and poisonous juice gives to the face its lineaments in death. last of thy race, thou base degenerate boy, about to perish ( ) soon, and yield the throne to thine incestuous sister; while the prince from macedon here in consecrated vault now rests, and ashes of the kings are closed in mighty pyramids, and lofty tombs of thine unworthy fathers mark the graves; shall magnus' body hither and thither borne be battered, headless, by the ocean wave? too much it troubled thee to guard the corse unmutilated, for his kinsman's eye to witness! such the faith which fortune kept with prosperous pompeius to the end. 'twas not for him in evil days some ray of light to hope for. shattered from the height of power in one short moment to his death! years of unbroken victories balanced down by one day's carnage! in his happy time heaven did not harass him, nor did she spare in misery. long fortune held the hand that dashed him down. now beaten by the sands, torn upon rocks, the sport of ocean's waves poured through its wounds, his headless carcase lies, save by the lacerated trunk unknown. yet ere the victor touched the pharian sands some scanty rites to magnus fortune gave, lest he should want all burial. pale with fear came cordus, hasting from his hiding place; quaestor, he joined pompeius on thy shore, idalian cyprus, bringing in his train a cloud of evils. through the darkening shades love for the dead compelled his trembling steps, hard by the marin of the deep to search and drag to land his master. through the clouds the moon shone sadly, and her rays were dim; but by its hue upon the hoary main he knew the body. in a fast embrace he holds it, wrestling with the greedy sea, and deftly watching for a refluent wave gains help to bring his burden to the land. then clinging to the loved remains, the wounds washed with his tears, thus to the gods he speaks, and misty stars obscure: "here, fortune, lies pompeius, thine: no costly incense rare or pomp of funeral he dares to ask; nor that the smoke rise heavenward from his pyre with eastern odours rich; nor that the necks of pious romans bear him to the tomb, their parent; while the forums shall resound with dirges; nor that triumphs won of yore be borne before him; nor for sorrowing hosts to cast their weapons forth. some little shell he begs as for the meanest, laid in which his mutilated corse may reach the flame. grudge not his misery the pile of wood lit by this menial hand. is't not enough that his cornelia with dishevelled hair weeps not beside him at his obsequies, nor with a last embrace shall place the torch beneath her husband dead, but on the deep hard by still wanders?" burning from afar he sees the pyre of some ignoble youth deserted of his own, with none to guard: and quickly drawing from beneath the limbs some glowing logs, "whoe'er thou art," he said "neglected shade, uncared for, dear to none, yet happier than pompeius in thy death, pardon i ask that this my stranger hand should violate thy tomb. yet if to shades be sense or memory, gladly shalt thou yield this from thy pyre to magnus. 'twere thy shame, blessed with due burial, if his remains were homeless." speaking thus, the wood aflame back to the headless trunk at speed he bore, which hanging on the margin of the deep, almost the sea had won. in sandy trench the gathered fragments of a broken boat, trembling, he placed around the noble limbs. no pile above the corpse nor under lay, nor was the fire beneath. then as he crouched beside the blaze, "o, greatest chief," he cried, majestic champion of hesperia's name, if to be tossed unburied on the deep rather than these poor rites thy shade prefer, from these mine offices thy mighty soul withdraw, pompeius. injuries dealt by fate command this duty, lest some bird or beast or ocean monster, or fierce caesar's wrath should venture aught upon thee. take the fire; all that thou canst; by roman hand at least enkindled. and should fortune grant return to loved hesperia's land, not here shall rest thy sacred ashes; but within an urn cornelia, from this humble hand received, shall place them. here upon a meagre stone we draw the characters to mark thy tomb. these letters reading may some kindly friend bring back thine head, dissevered, and may grant full funeral honours to thine earthly frame." then did he cherish the enfeebled fire till magnus' body mingled with its flames. but now the harbinger of coming dawn had paled the constellations: he in fear seeks for his hiding place. whom dost thou dread, madman, what punishment for such a crime, for which thy fame by rumour trumpet-tongued has been sent down to ages? praise is thine for this thy work, at impious caesar's hands; sure of a pardon, go; confess thy task, and beg the head dissevered. but his work was still unfinished, and with pious hand (fearing some foe) he seizes on the bones now half consumed, and sinews; and the wave pours in upon them, and in shallow trench commits them to the earth; and lest some breeze might bear away the ashes, or by chance some sailor's anchor might disturb the tomb, a stone he places, and with stick half burned traces the sacred name: here magnus lies. and art thou, fortune, pleased that such a spot should be his tomb which even caesar's self had chosen, rather than permit his corse to rest unburied? why, with thoughtless hand confine his shade within the narrow bounds of this poor sepulchre? where the furthest sand hangs on the margin of the baffled deep cabined he lies; yet where the roman name is known, and empire, such in truth shall be the boundless measure of his resting-place. blot out this stone, this proof against the gods! oeta finds room for hercules alone, and nysa's mountain for the bromian god; ( ) not all the lands of egypt should suffice for magnus dead: and shall one pharian stone mark his remains? yet should no turf disclose his title, peoples of the earth would fear to spurn his ashes, and the sands of nile no foot would tread. but if the stone deserves so great a name, then add his mighty deeds: write lepidus conquered and the alpine war, and fierce sertorius by his aiding arm o'erthrown; the chariots which as knight he drove; ( ) cilician pirates driven from the main, and commerce safe to nations; eastern kings defeated and the barbarous northern tribes; write that from arms he ever sought the robe; write that content upon the capitol thrice only triumphed he, nor asked his due. what mausoleum were for such a chief a fitting monument? this paltry stone records no syllable of the lengthy tale of honours: and the name which men have read upon the sacred temples of the gods, and lofty arches built of hostile spoils, on desolate sands here marks his lowly grave with characters uncouth, such as the glance of passing traveller or roman guest might pass unnoticed. thou egyptian land by destiny foredoomed to bear a part in civil warfare, not unreasoning sang high cumae's prophetess, when she forbad ( ) the stream pelusian to the roman arms, and all the banks which in the summer-tide are covered by his flood. what grievous fate shall i call down upon thee? may the nile turn back his water to his source, thy fields want for the winter rain, and all the land crumble to desert wastes! we in our fanes have known thine isis and thy hideous gods, half hounds, half human, and the drum that bids to sorrow, and osiris, whom thy dirge ( ) proclaims for man. thou, egypt, in thy sand our dead containest. nor, though her temples now serve a proud master, yet has rome required pompeius' ashes: in a foreign land still lies her chief. but though men feared at first the victor's vengeance, now at length receive thy magnus' bones, if still the restless wave hath not prevailed upon that hated shore. shall men have fear of tombs and dread to move the dust of those who should be with the gods? o, may my country place the crime on me, if crime it be, to violate such a tomb of such a hero, and to bear his dust home to ausonia. happy, happy he who bears such holy office in his trust! ( ) haply when famine rages in the land or burning southern winds, or fires abound and earthquake shocks, and rome shall pray an end from angry heaven -- by the gods' command, in council given, shalt thou be transferred to thine own city, and the priest shall bear thy sacred ashes to their last abode. who now may seek beneath the raging crab or hot syene's waste, or thebes athirst under the rainy pleiades, to gaze on nile's broad stream; or whose may exchange on the red sea or in arabian ports some eastern merchandise, shall turn in awe to view the venerable stone that marks thy grave, pompeius; and shall worship more thy dust commingled with the arid sand, thy shade though exiled, than the fane upreared ( ) on casius' mount to jove! in temples shrined and gold, thy memory were viler deemed: fortune lies with thee in thy lowly tomb and makes thee rival of olympus' king. more awful is that stone by libyan seas lashed, than are conquerors' altars. there in earth a deity rests to whom all men shall bow more than to gods tarpeian: and his name shall shine the brighter in the days to come for that no marble tomb about him stands nor lofty monument. that little dust time shall soon scatter and the tomb shall fall and all the proofs shall perish of his death. and happier days shall come when men shall gaze upon the stone, nor yet believe the tale: and egypt's fable, that she holds the grave of great pompeius, be believed no more than crete's which boasts the sepulchre of jove. ( ) endnotes: ( ) comp. book vi., line . ( ) comp. book iii., line . ( ) canopus is a star in argo, invisible in italy. (haskins.) ( ) sextus. ( ) tetrarch of galatia. he was always friendly to rome, and in the civil war sided with pompeius. he was at pharsalia. ( ) a scythian people. ( ) pompeius seems to have induced the roman public to believe that he had led his armies to such extreme distances, but he never in fact did so. -- mommsen, vol. iv. p. . ( ) juba was of supposed collateral descent from hannibal. (haskins, quoting "the scholiast.") ( ) confusing the red sea with the persian gulf. ( ) balkh of modern times. bactria was one of the kingdoms established by the successors of alexander the great. it was, however, subdued by the parthians about the middle of the third century b.c. ( ) dion could not believe it possible that pompeius ever contemplated taking refuge in parthia, but plutarch states it as a fact; and says that it was theophanes of lesbos who dissuaded him from doing so. ("pompeius", ). mommsen (vol. iv., pp. - ) discusses the subject, and says that from parthia only could pompeius have attempted to seek support, and that such an attempt, putting the objections to it aside, would probably have failed. lucan's sympathies were probably with lentulus. ( ) probably lucius lentulus crus, who had been consul, for b.c. , along with caius marcellus. (see book v., .) he was murdered in egypt by ptolemy's ministers. ( ) that is, be as easily defended. ( ) thus rendered by sir thomas may, of the long parliament: "men used to sceptres are ashamed of nought: the mildest governement a kingdome finds under new kings." ( ) that is, he reached the most eastern mouth of the nile instead of the western. ( ) at memphis was the well in which the rise and fall of the water acted as a nilometer (mr. haskins's note). ( ) comp. herodotus, book iii. . apis was a god who appeared at intervals in the shape of a calf with a white mark on his brow. his appearance was the occasion of general rejoicing. cambyses slew the apis which came in his time, and for this cause became mad, as the egyptians said. ( ) that is, by achoreus, who had just spoken. ( ) compare ben jonson's "sejanus", act ii., scene : -- the prince who shames a tyrant's name to bear shall never dare do anything, but fear; all the command of sceptres quite doth perish if it begin religious thoughts to cherish; whole empires fall, swayed by these nice respects, it is the licence of dark deeds protects e'en states most hated, when no laws resist the sword, but that it acteth what it list." ( ) he was drowned in attempting to escape in the battle on the nile in the following autumn. ( ) dionysus. but this god, though brought up by the nymphs of mount nysa, was not supposed to have been buried there. ( ) see book vii., line . ( ) this warning of the sibyl is also alluded to by cicero in a letter to p. lentulus, proconsul of cilicia. (mr. haskins' note. see also mommsen, vol. iv., p. .) it seems to have been discovered in the sibylline books at the time when it was desired to prevent pompeius from interfering in the affairs of egypt, in b.c. . ( ) that is, by their weeping for iris departure they treated him as a mortal and not as a god. osiris was the soul of apis (see on line ), and when that animal grew old and unfit for the residence of osiris the latter was thought to quit it. then began the weeping. which continued until a new apis appeared, selected, of course, by osiris for his dwelling-place. then they called out "we have found him, let us rejoice." for a discussion on the egyptian conception of osiris, and iris place in the theogony of that nation, see hegel's "lectures on the philosophy of history": chapter on egypt. ( ) it may be noted that the emperor hadrian raised a monument on the spot to the memory of pompeius some sixty years after this was written (durny's 'history of rome,' iii., ). plutarch states that cornelia had the remains taken to rome and interred in a mausoleum. lucan, it may be supposed, knew nothing of this. ( ) there was a temple to jupiter on "mount casius old". ( ) the legend that jove was buried in crete is also mentioned by cicero: "de natura deorum", iii., . book ix cato yet in those ashes on the pharian shore, in that small heap of dust, was not confined so great a shade; but from the limbs half burnt and narrow cell sprang forth ( ) and sought the sky where dwells the thunderer. black the space of air upreaching to the poles that bear on high the constellations in their nightly round; there 'twixt the orbit of the moon and earth abide those lofty spirits, half divine, who by their blameless lives and fire of soul are fit to tolerate the pure expanse that bounds the lower ether: there shall dwell, where nor the monument encased in gold, nor richest incense, shall suffice to bring the buried dead, in union with the spheres, pompeius' spirit. when with heavenly light his soul was filled, first on the wandering stars and fixed orbs he bent his wondering gaze; then saw what darkness veils our earthly day and scorned the insults heaped upon his corse. next o'er emathian plains he winged his flight, and ruthless caesar's standards, and the fleet tossed on the deep: in brutus' blameless breast tarried awhile, and roused his angered soul to reap the vengeance; last possessed the mind of haughty cato. he while yet the scales were poised and balanced, nor the war had given the world its master, hating both the chiefs, had followed magnus for the senate's cause and for his country: since pharsalia's field ran red with carnage, now was all his heart bound to pompeius. rome in him received her guardian; a people's trembling limbs he cherished with new hope and weapons gave back to the craven hands that cast them forth. nor yet for empire did he wage the war nor fearing slavery: nor in arms achieved aught for himself: freedom, since magnus fell, the aim of all his host. and lest the foe in rapid course triumphant should collect his scattered bands, he sought corcyra's gulfs concealed, and thence in ships unnumbered bore the fragments of the ruin wrought in thrace. who in such mighty armament had thought a routed army sailed upon the main thronging the sea with keels? round malea's cape and taenarus open to the shades below and fair cythera's isle, th' advancing fleet sweeps o'er the yielding wave, by northern breeze borne past the cretan shores. but phycus dared refuse her harbour, and th' avenging hand left her in ruins. thus with gentle airs they glide along the main and reach the shore from palinurus ( ) named; for not alone on seas italian, pilot of the deep, hast thou thy monument; and libya too claims that her waters pleased thy soul of yore. then in the distance on the main arose the shining canvas of a stranger fleet, or friend or foe they knew not. yet they dread in every keel the presence of that chief their fear-compelling conqueror. but in truth that navy tears and sorrow bore, and woes to make e'en cato weep. for when in vain cornelia prayed her stepson and the crew to stay their flight, lest haply from the shore back to the sea might float the headless corse; and when the flame arising marked the place of that unhallowed rite, "fortune, didst thou judge me unfit," she cried, "to light the pyre to cast myself upon the hero dead, the lock to sever, and compose the limbs tossed by the cruel billows of the deep, to shed a flood of tears upon his wounds, and from the flickering flame to bear away and place within the temples of the gods all that i could, his dust? that pyre bestows no honour, haply by some pharian hand piled up in insult to his mighty shade. happy the crassi lying on the waste unburied. to the greater shame of heaven pompeius has such funeral. and shall this for ever be my lot? her husbands slain cornelia ne'er enclose within the tomb, nor shed the tear beside the urn that holds the ashes of the loved? yet for my grief what boots or monument or ordered pomp? dost thou not, impious, upon thy heart pompeius' image, and upon thy soul bear ineffaceable? dust closed in urns is for the wife who would survive her lord not such as thee, cornelia! and yet yon scanty light that glimmers from afar upon the pharian shore, somewhat of thee recalls, pompeius! now the flame sinks down and smoke drifts up across the eastern sky bearing thine ashes, and the rising wind sighs hateful in the sail. to me no more dearer than this whatever land may yield pompeius' victory, nor the frequent car that carried him in triumph to the hill; gone is that happy husband from my thoughts; here did i lose the hero whom i knew; here let me stay; his presence shall endear the sands of nile where fell the fatal blow. thou, sextus, brave the chances of the war and bear pompeius' standard through the world. for thus thy father spake within mine ear: 'when sounds my fatal hour let both my sons urge on the war; nor let some caesar find room for an empire, while shall live on earth still one in whom pompeius' blood shall run. this your appointed task; all cities strong in freedom of their own, all kingdoms urge to join the combat; for pompeius calls. nor shall a chieftain of that famous name ride on the seas and fail to find a fleet. urged by his sire's unconquerable will and mindful of his rights, mine heir shall rouse all nations to the conflict. one alone, (should he contend for freedom) may ye serve; cato, none else!' thus have i kept the faith; thy plot ( ) prevailed upon me, and i lived thy mandate to discharge. now through the void of space, and shades of hell, if such there be, i follow; yet how distant be my doom i know not: first my spirit must endure the punishment of life, which saw thine end and could survive it; sighs shall break my heart, tears shall dissolve it: sword nor noose i need nor headlong plunge. 'twere shameful since thy death, were aught but grief required to cause my own." she seeks the cabin, veiled, in funeral garb, in tears to find her solace, and to love grief in her husband's room; no prayers were hers for life, as were the sailors'; nor their shout roused by the height of peril, moved her soul, nor angered waves: but sorrowing there she lay, resigned to death and welcoming the storm. first reached they cyprus on the foamy brine; then as the eastern breeze more gently held the favouring deep, they touched the libyan shore where stood the camp of cato. sad as one who deep in fear presages ills to come, cnaeus beheld his brother and his band of patriot comrades. swift into the wave he leaps and cries, "where, brother, is our sire? still stands our country mistress of the world, or are we fallen, rome with magnus' death rapt to the shades?" thus he: but sextus said "oh happy thou who by report alone hear'st of the deed that chanced on yonder shore! these eyes that saw, my brother, share the guilt. not caesar wrought the murder of our sire, nor any captain worthy in the fray. he fell beneath the orders of a king shameful and base, while trusting to the gods who shield the guest; a king who in that land by his concession ruled: (this the reward for favours erst bestowed). within my sight pierced through with wounds our noble father fell: yet deeming not the petty prince of nile so fell a deed would dare, to egypt's strand i thought great caesar come. but worse than all, worse than the wounds which gaped upon his frame struck me with horror to the inmost heart, our murdered father's head, shorn from the trunk and borne aloft on javelin; this sight, as rumour said, the cruel victor asked to feast his eyes, and prove the bloody deed. for whether ravenous birds and pharian dogs have torn his corse asunder, or a fire consumed it, which with stealthy flame arose upon the shore, i know not. for the parts devoured by destiny i only blame the gods: i weep the part preserved by men." thus sextus spake: and cnaeus at the words flamed into fury for his father's shame. "sailors, launch forth our navies, by your oars forced through the deep though wind and sea oppose: captains, lead on: for civil strife ne'er gave so great a prize; to lay in earth the limbs of magnus, and avenge him with the blood of that unmanly tyrant. shall i spare great alexander's fort, nor sack the shrine and plunge his body in the tideless marsh? nor drag amasis from the pyramids, and all their ancient kings, to swim the nile? torn from his tomb, that god of all mankind isis, unburied, shall avenge thy shade; and veiled osiris shall i hurl abroad in mutilated fragments; and the form of sacred apis; ( ) and with these their gods shall light a furnace, that shall burn the head they held in insult. thus their land shall pay the fullest penalty for the shameful deed. no husbandman shall live to till the fields nor reap the benefit of brimming nile. thou only, father, gods and men alike fallen and perished, shalt possess the land." such were the words he spake; and soon the fleet had dared the angry deep: but cato's voice while praising, calmed the youthful chieftain's rage. meanwhile, when magnus' fate was known, the air sounded with lamentations which the shore re-echoed; never through the ages past, by history recorded, was it known that thus a people mourned their ruler's death. yet more when worn with tears, her pallid cheek veiled by her loosened tresses, from the ship cornelia came, they wept and beat the breast. the friendly land once gained, her husband's garb, his arms and spoils, embroidered deep in gold, thrice worn of old upon the sacred hill ( ) she placed upon the flame. such were for her the ashes of her spouse: and such the love which glowed in every heart, that soon the shore blazed with his obsequies. thus at winter-tide by frequent fires th' apulian herdsman seeks to render to the fields their verdant growth; till blaze garganus' uplands and the meads of vultur, and the pasture of the herds by warm matinum. yet pompeius' shade nought else so gratified, not all the blame the people dared to heap upon the gods, for him their hero slain, as these few words from cato's noble breast instinct with truth: "gone is a citizen who though no peer ( ) of those who disciplined the state of yore in due submission to the bounds of right, yet in this age irreverent of law has played a noble part. great was his power, but freedom safe: when all the plebs was prone to be his slaves, he chose the private gown; so that the senate ruled the roman state, the senate's ruler: nought by right of arms he e'er demanded: willing took he gifts yet from a willing giver: wealth was his vast, yet the coffers of the state he filled beyond his own. he seized upon the sword, knew when to sheath it; war did he prefer to arts of peace, yet armed loved peace the more. pleased took he power, pleased he laid it down: chaste was his home and simple, by his wealth untarnished. mid the peoples great his name and venerated: to his native rome he wrought much good. true faith in liberty long since with marius and sulla fled: now when pompeius has been reft away its counterfeit has perished. now unshamed shall seize the despot on imperial power, unshamed shall cringe the senate. happy he who with disaster found his latest breath and met the pharian sword prepared to slay. life might have been his lot, in despot rule, prone at his kinsman's throne. best gift of all the knowledge how to die; next, death compelled. if cruel fortune doth reserve for me an alien conqueror, may juba be as ptolemaeus. so he take my head my body grace his triumph, if he will." more than had rome resounded with his praise words such as these gave honour to the shade of that most noble dead. meanwhile the crowd weary of warfare, since pompeius' fall, broke into discord, as their ancient chief cilician called them to desert the camp. but cato hailed them from the furthest beach: "untamed cilician, is thy course now set for ocean theft again; pompeius gone, once more a pirate?" thus he spake, and gazed at all the stirring throng; but one whose mind was fixed on flight, thus answered, "pardon, chief, 'twas love of magnus, not of civil war, that led us to the fight: his side was ours: with him whom all the world preferred to peace, our cause is perished. let us seek our homes long since unseen, our children and our wives. if nor the rout nor dread pharsalia's field nor yet pompeius' death shall close the war, whence comes the end? the vigour of a life for us is vanished: in our failing years give us at least some pious hand to speed the parting soul, and light the funeral pyre. scarce even to its captains civil strife concedes due burial. nor in our defeat does fortune threaten us with the savage yoke of distant nations. in the garb of rome and with her rights, i leave thee. who had been second to magnus living, he shall be my first hereafter: to that sacred shade be the prime honour. chance of war appoints my lord but not my leader. thee alone i followed, magnus; after thee the fates. nor hope we now for victory, nor wish; for all our thracian army is fled in caesar's victory, whose potent star of fortune rules the world, and none but he has power to keep or save. that civil war which while pompeius lived was loyalty is impious now. if in the public right thou, patriot cato, find'st thy guide, we seek the standards of the consul." thus he spake and with him leaped into the ship a throng of eager comrades. then was rome undone, for all the shore was stirring with a crowd athirst for slavery. but burst these words from cato's blameless breast: "then with like vows as caesar's rival host ye too did seek a lord and master! not for rome the fight, but for pompeius! for that now no more ye fight for tyranny, but for yourselves, not for some despot chief, ye live and die; since now 'tis safe to conquer and no lord shall rob you, victors, of a world subdued -- ye flee the war, and on your abject necks feel for the absent yoke; nor can endure without a despot! yet to men the prize were worth the danger. magnus might have used to evil ends your blood; refuse ye now, with liberty so near, your country's call? now lives one tyrant only of the three; thus far in favour of the laws have wrought the pharian weapons and the parthian bow; not you, degenerate! begone, and spurn this gift of ptolemaeus. ( ) who would think your hands were stained with blood? the foe will deem that you upon that dread thessalian day first turned your backs. then flee in safety, flee! by neither battle nor blockade subdued caesar shall give you life! o slaves most base, your former master slain, ye seek his heir! why doth it please you not yet more to earn than life and pardon? bear across the sea metellus' daughter, magnus' weeping spouse, and both his sons; outstrip the pharian gift, nor spare this head, which, laid before the feet of that detested tyrant, shall deserve a full reward. thus, cowards, shall ye learn in that ye followed me how great your gain. quick to your task and purchase thus with blood your claim on caesar. dastardly is flight which crime commends not." cato thus recalled the parting vessels. so when bees in swarm desert their waxen cells, forget the hive ceasing to cling together, and with wings untrammelled seek the air, nor slothful light on thyme to taste its bitterness -- then rings the phrygian gong -- at once they pause aloft astonied; and with love of toil resumed through all the flowers for their honey store in ceaseless wanderings search; the shepherd joys, sure that th' hyblaean mead for him has kept his cottage store, the riches of his home. now in the active conduct of the war were brought to discipline their minds, untaught to bear repose; first on the sandy shore toiling they learned fatigue: then stormed thy walls, cyrene; prizeless, for to cato's mind 'twas prize enough to conquer. juba next he bids attack, though nature on the path had placed the syrtes; which his sturdy heart aspired to conquer. either at the first when nature gave the universe its form she left this region neither land nor sea; not wholly shrunk, so that it should receive the ocean flood; nor firm enough to stand against its buffets -- all the pathless coast lies in uncertain shape; the land by earth is parted from the deep; on sandy banks the seas are broken, and from shoal to shoal the waves advance to sound upon the shore. nature, in spite, thus left her work undone, unfashioned to men's use -- or else of old a foaming ocean filled the wide expanse, but titan feeding from the briny depths his burning fires (near to the zone of heat) reduced the waters; and the sea still fights with phoebus' beams, which in the length of time drank deeper of its fountains. when the main struck by the oars gave passage to the fleet, black from the sky rushed down a southern gale upon his realm, and from the watery plain drave back th' invading ships, and from the shoals compelled the billows, and in middle sea raised up a bank. forth flew the bellying sails beyond the prows, despite the ropes that dared resist the tempest's fury; and for those who prescient housed their canvas to the storm, bare-masted they were driven from their course. best was their lot who gained the open waves of ocean; others lightened of their masts shook off the tempest; but a sweeping tide hurried them southwards, victor of the gale. some freed of shallows on a bank were forced which broke the deep: their ship in part was fast, part hanging on the sea; their fates in doubt. fierce rage the waves till hems ( ) them in the land; nor auster's force in frequent buffets spent prevails upon the shore. high from the main by seas inviolate one bank of sand, far from the coast arose; there watched in vain the storm-tossed mariners, their keel aground, no shore descrying. thus in sea were lost some portion, but the major part by helm and rudder guided, and by pilots' hands who knew the devious channels, safe at length floated the marsh of triton loved (as saith the fable) by that god, whose sounding shell ( ) all seas and shores re-echo; and by her, pallas, who springing from her father's head first lit on libya, nearest land to heaven, (as by its heat is proved); here on the brink she stood, reflected in the placid wave and called herself tritonis. lethe's flood flows silent near, in fable from a source infernal sprung, oblivion in his stream; here, too, that garden of the hesperids where once the sleepless dragon held his watch, shorn of its leafy wealth. shame be on him who calls upon the poet for the proof of that which in the ancient days befell; but here were golden groves by yellow growth weighed down in richness, here a maiden band were guardians; and a serpent, on whose eyes sleep never fell, was coiled around the trees, whose branches bowed beneath their ruddy load. but great alcides stripped the bending boughs, and bore their shining apples (thus his task accomplished) to the court of argos' king. driven on the libyan realms, more fruitful here, pompeius ( ) stayed the fleet, nor further dared in garamantian waves. but cato's soul leaped in his breast, impatient of delay, to pass the syrtes by a landward march, and trusting to their swords, 'gainst tribes unknown to lead his legions. and the storm which closed the main to navies gave them hope of rain; nor biting frosts they feared, in libyan clime; nor suns too scorching in the falling year. thus ere they trod the deserts, cato spake: "ye men of rome, who through mine arms alone can find the death ye covet, and shall fall with pride unbroken should the fates command, meet this your weighty task, your high emprise with hearts resolved to conquer. for we march on sterile wastes, burnt regions of the world; scarce are the wells, and titan from the height burns pitiless, unclouded; and the slime of poisonous serpents fouls the dusty earth. yet shall men venture for the love of laws and country perishing, upon the sands of trackless libya; men who brave in soul rely not on the end, and in attempt will risk their all. 'tis not in cato's thoughts on this our enterprise to lead a band blind to the truth, unwitting of the risk. nay, give me comrades for the danger's sake, whom i shall see for honour and for rome bear up against the worst. but whose needs a pledge of safety, to whom life is sweet, let him by fairer journey seek his lord. first be my foot upon the sand; on me first strike the burning sun; across my path the serpent void his venom; by my fate know ye your perils. let him only thirst who sees me at the spring: who sees me seek the shade, alone sink fainting in the heat; or whoso sees me ride before the ranks plodding their weary march: such be the lot of each, who, toiling, finds in me a chief and not a comrade. snakes, thirst, burning sand the brave man welcomes, and the patient breast finds happiness in labour. by its cost courage is sweeter; and this libyan land such cloud of ills can furnish as might make men flee unshamed." 'twas thus that cato spake, kindling the torch of valour and the love of toil: then reckless of his fate he strode the desert path from which was no return: and libya ruled his destinies, to shut his sacred name within a narrow tomb. one-third of all the world, ( ) if fame we trust, is libya; yet by winds and sky she yields some part to europe; for the shores of nile no more than scythian tanais are remote from furthest gades, where with bending coast, yielding a place to ocean, europe parts from afric shores. yet falls the larger world to asia only. from the former two issues the western wind; but asia's right touches the southern limits and her left the northern tempest's home; and of the east she's mistress to the rising of the sun. all that is fertile of the afric lands lies to the west, but even here abound no wells of water: though the northern wind, infrequent, leaving us with skies serene, falls there in showers. not gold nor wealth of brass it yields the seeker: pure and unalloyed down to its lowest depths is libyan soil. yet citron forests to maurusian tribes were riches, had they known; but they, content, lived 'neath the shady foliage, till gleamed the axe of rome amid the virgin grove, to bring from furthest limits of the world our banquet tables and the fruit they bear. ( ) but suns excessive and a scorching air burn all the glebe beside the shifting sands: there die the harvests on the crumbling mould; no root finds sustenance, nor kindly jove makes rich the furrow nor matures the vine. sleep binds all nature and the tract of sand lies ever fruitless, save that by the shore the hardy nasamon plucks a scanty grass. unclothed their race, and living on the woes worked by the cruel syrtes on mankind; for spoilers are they of the luckless ships cast on the shoals: and with the world by wrecks their only commerce. here at cato's word his soldiers passed, in fancy from the winds that sweep the sea secure: here on them fell smiting with greater strength upon the shore, than on the ocean, auster's tempest force, and yet more fraught with mischief: for no crags repelled his strength, nor lofty mountains tamed his furious onset, nor in sturdy woods he found a bar; but free from reining hand, raged at his will o'er the defenceless earth. nor did he mingle dust and clouds of rain in whirling circles, but the earth was swept and hung in air suspended, till amazed the nasamon saw his scanty field and home reft by the tempest, and the native huts from roof to base were hurried on the blast. not higher, when some all-devouring flame has seized upon its prey, in volumes dense rolls up the smoke, and darkens all the air. then with fresh might he fell upon the host of marching romans, snatching from their feet the sand they trod. had auster been enclosed in some vast cavernous vault with solid walls and mighty barriers, he had moved the world upon its ancient base and made the lands to tremble: but the facile libyan soil by not resisting stood, and blasts that whirled the surface upwards left the depths unmoved. helmet and shield and spear were torn away by his most violent breath, and borne aloft through all the regions of the boundless sky; perchance a wonder in some distant land, where men may fear the weapons from the heaven there falling, as the armour of the gods, nor deem them ravished from a soldier's arm. 'twas thus on numa by the sacred fire those shields descended which our chosen priests ( ) bear on their shoulders; from some warlike race by tempest rapt, to be the prize of rome. fearing the storm prone fell the host to earth winding their garments tight, and with clenched hands gripping the earth: for not their weight alone withstood the tempest which upon their frames piled mighty heaps, and their recumbent limbs buried in sand. at length they struggling rose back to their feet, when lo! around them stood, forced by the storm, a growing bank of earth which held them motionless. and from afar where walls lay prostrate, mighty stones were hurled, thus piling ills on ills in wondrous form: no dwellings had they seen, yet at their feet beheld the ruins. all the earth was hid in vast envelopment, nor found they guide save from the stars, which as in middle deep flamed o'er them wandering: yet some were hid beneath the circle of the libyan earth which tending downwards hid the northern sky. when warmth dispersed the tempest-driven air, and rose upon the earth the flaming day, bathed were their limbs in sweat, but parched and dry their gaping lips; when to a scanty spring far off beheld they came, whose meagre drops all gathered in the hollow of a helm they offered to their chief. caked were their throats with dust, and panting; and one little drop had made him envied. "wretch, and dost thou deem me wanting in a brave man's heart?" he cried, "me only in this throng? and have i seemed tender, unfit to bear the morning heat? he who would quench his thirst 'mid such a host, doth most deserve its pangs." then in his wrath dashed down the helmet, and the scanty spring, thus by their leader spurned, sufficed for all. now had they reached that temple which possess sole in all libya, th' untutored tribes of garamantians. here holds his seat (so saith the story) a prophetic jove, wielding no thunderbolts, nor like to ours, the libyan hammen of the curved horn. no wealth adorns his fane by afric tribes bestowed, nor glittering hoard of eastern gems. though rich arabians, ind and ethiop know him alone as jove, still is he poor holding his shrine by riches undefiled through time, and god as of the olden days spurns all the wealth of rome. that here some god dwells, witnesses the only grove that buds in libya -- for that which grows upon the arid dust which leptis parts from berenice, knows no leaves; alone hammon uprears a wood; a fount the cause which with its waters binds the crumbling soil. yet shall the sun when poised upon the height strike through the foliage: hardly can the tree protect its trunk, and to a little space his rays draw in the circle of the shade. here have men found the spot where that high band solstitial divides in middle sky ( ) the zodiac stars: not here oblique their course, nor scorpion rises straighter than the bull, nor to the scales does ram give back his hours, nor does astraea bid the fishes sink more slowly down: but watery capricorn is equal with the crab, and with the twins the archer; neither does the lion rise above aquarius. but the race that dwells beyond the fervour of the libyan fires sees to the south that shadow which with us falls to the north: slow cynosure sinks ( ) for them below the deep; and, dry with us, the wagon plunges; far from either pole, no star they know that does not seek the main, but all the constellations in their course whirl to their vision through the middle sky. before the doors the eastern peoples stood seeking from horned jove to know their fates: yet to the roman chief they yielded place, whose comrades prayed him to entreat the gods famed through the libyan world, and judge the voice renowned from distant ages. first of these was labienus: ( ) "chance," he said, "to us the voice and counsel of this mighty god has offered as we march; from such a guide to know the issues of the war, and learn to track the syrtes. for to whom on earth if not to blameless cato, shall the gods entrust their secrets? faithful thou at least, their follower through all thy life hast been; now hast thou liberty to speak with jove. ask impious caesar's fates, and learn the laws that wait our country in the future days: whether the people shall be free to use their rights and customs, or the civil war for us is wasted. to thy sacred breast, lover of virtue, take the voice divine; demand what virtue is and guide thy steps by heaven's high counsellor." but cato, full of godlike thoughts borne in his quiet breast, this answer uttered, worthy of the shrines: "what, labienus, dost thou bid me ask? whether in arms and freedom i should wish to perish, rather than endure a king? is longest life worth aught? and doth its term make difference? can violence to the good do injury? do fortune's threats avail outweighed by virtue? doth it not suffice to aim at deeds of bravery? can fame grow by achievement? nay! no hammen's voice shall teach us this more surely than we know. bound are we to the gods; no voice we need; they live in all our acts, although the shrine be silent: at our birth and once for all what may be known the author of our being revealed; nor chose these thirsty sands to chaunt to few his truth, whelmed in the dusty waste. god has his dwelling in all things that be, in earth and air and sea and starry vault, in virtuous deeds; in all that thou can'st see, in all thy thoughts contained. why further, then, seek we our deities? let those who doubt and halting, tremble for their coming fates, go ask the oracles. no mystic words, make sure my heart, but surely-coming death. coward alike and brave, we all must die. thus hath jove spoken: seek to know no more." thus cato spake, and faithful to his creed he parted from the temple of the god and left the oracle of hammon dumb. bearing his javelin, as one of them before the troops he marched: no panting slave with bending neck, no litter bore his form. he bade them not, but showed them how to toil. spare in his sleep, the last to sip the spring when at some rivulet to quench their thirst the eager ranks pressed onward, he alone until the humblest follower might drink stood motionless. if for the truly good is fame, and virtue by the deed itself, not by sucoessful issue, should be judged, yield, famous ancestors! fortune, not worth gained you your glory. but such name as his who ever merited by successful war or slaughtered peoples? rather would i lead with him his triumph through the pathless sands and libya's bounds, than in pompeius' car three times ascend the capitol, ( ) or break the proud jugurtha. ( ) rome! in him behold his country's father, worthiest of thy vows; a name by which men shall not blush to swear, whom, should'st thou break the fetters from thy neck, thou may'st in distant days decree divine. now was the heat more dense, and through that clime than which no further on the southern side the gods permit, they trod; and scarcer still the water, till in middle sands they found one bounteous spring which clustered serpents held though scaroe the space sufficed. by thirsting snakes the fount was thronged and asps pressed on the marge. but when the chieftain saw that speedy fate was on the host, if they should leave the well untasted, "vain," he cried, "your fear of death. drink, nor delay: 'tis from the threatening tooth men draw their deaths, and fatal from the fang issues the juice if mingled with the blood; the cup is harmless." then he sipped the fount, still doubting, and in all the libyan waste there only was he first to touch the stream. why fertile thus in death the pestilent air of libya, what poison in her soil her several nature mixed, my care to know has not availed: but from the days of old a fabled story has deceived the world. far on her limits, where the burning shore admits the ocean fervid from the sun plunged in its waters, lay medusa's fields untilled; nor forests shaded, nor the plough furrowed the soil, which by its mistress' gaze was hardened into stone: phorcus, her sire. malevolent nature from her body first drew forth these noisome pests; first from her jaws issued the sibilant rattle of serpent tongues; clustered around her head the poisonous brood like to a woman's hair, wreathed on her neck which gloried in their touch; their glittering heads advanced towards her; and her tresses kempt dripped down with viper's venom. this alone thou hast, accursed one, which men can see unharmed; for who upon that gaping mouth looked and could dread? to whom who met her glance, was death permitted? fate delayed no more. but ere the victim feared had struck him down: perished the limbs while living, and the soul grew stiff and stark ere yet it fled the frame. men have been frenzied by the furies' locks, not killed; and cerberus at orpheus' song ceased from his hissing, and alcides saw the hydra ere he slew. this monster born brought horror with her birth upon her sire phorcus, in second order god of waves, and upon ceto and the gorgon brood, ( ) her sisters. she could threat the sea and sky with deadly calm unknown, and from the world bid cease the soil. borne down by instant weight fowls fell from air, and beasts were fixed in stone. whole ethiop tribes who tilled the neighbouring lands rigid in marble stood. the gorgon sight no creature bore and even her serpents turned back from her visage. atlas in his place beside the western columns, by her look was turned to rocks; and when on snakes of old phlegraean giants stood and frighted heaven, she made them mountains, and the gorgon head borne on athena's bosom closed the war. here born of danae and the golden shower, floating on wings parrhasian, by the god arcadian given, author of the lyre and wrestling art, came perseus, down from heaven swooping. cyllenian harp ( ) did he bear still crimson from another monster slain, the guardian of the heifer loved by jove. this to her winged brother pallas lent price of the monster's head: by her command upon the limits of the libyan land he sought the rising sun, with flight averse, poised o'er medusa's realm; a burnished shield of yellow brass upon his other arm, her gift, he bore: in which she bade him see the fatal face unscathed. nor yet in sleep lay all the monster, for such total rest to her were death -- so fated: serpent locks in vigilant watch, some reaching forth defend her head, while others lay upon her face and slumbering eyes. then hero perseus shook though turned averse; trembled his dexter hand: but pallas held, and the descending blade shore the broad neck whence sprang the viper brood. what visage bore the gorgon as the steel thus reft her life! what poison from her throat breathed! from her eyes what venom of death distilled! the goddess dared not look, and perseus' face had frozen, averse, had not athena veiled with coils of writhing snakes the features dead. then with the gorgon head the hero flew uplifted on his wings and sought the sky. shorter had been his voyage through the midst of europe's cities; but athena bade to spare her peoples and their fruitful lands; for who when such an airy courser passed had not looked up to heaven? western winds now sped his pinions, and he took his course o'er libya's regions, from the stars and suns veiled by no culture. phoebus' nearer track there burns the soil, and loftiest on the sky ( ) there fails the night, to shade the wandering moon, if o'er forgetful of her course oblique, straight through the stars, nor bending to the north nor to the south, she hastens. yet that earth, in nothing fertile, void of fruitful yield, drank in the poison of medusa's blood, dripping in dreadful dews upon the soil, and in the crumbling sands by heat matured. first from the dust was raised a gory clot ( ) in guise of asp, sleep-bringing, swollen of neck: full was the blood and thick the poison drop that were its making; in no other snake more copious held. greedy of warmth it seeks no frozen world itself, nor haunts the sands beyond the nile; yet has our thirst of gain no shame nor limit, and this libyan death, this fatal pest we purchase for our own. haemorrhois huge spreads out his scaly coils, who suffers not his hapless victims' blood to stay within their veins. chersydros sprang to life, to dwell within the doubtful marsh where land nor sea prevails. a cloud of spray marked fell chelyder's track: and cenchris rose straight gliding to his prey, his belly tinged with various spots unnumbered, more than those which paint the theban ( ) marble; horned snakes with spines contorted: like to torrid sand ammodytes, of hue invisible: sole of all serpents scytale to shed in vernal frosts his slough; and thirsty dipsas; dread amphisbaena with his double head tapering; and natrix who in bubbling fount fuses his venom. greedy prester swells his foaming jaws; pareas, head erect furrows with tail alone his sandy path; swift jaculus there, and seps ( ) whose poisonous juice makes putrid flesh and frame: and there upreared his regal head, and frighted from his track with sibilant terror all the subject swam, baneful ere darts his poison, basilisk ( ) in sands deserted king. ye serpents too who in all other regions harmless glide adored as gods, and bright with golden scales, in those hot wastes are deadly; poised in air whole herds of kine ye follow, and with coils encircling close, crush in the mighty bull. nor does the elephant in his giant bulk, nor aught, find safety; and ye need no fang nor poison, to compel the fatal end. amid these pests undaunted cato urged his desert journey on. his hardy troops beneath his eyes, pricked by a scanty wound, in strangest forms of death unnumbered fall. tyrrhenian aulus, bearer of a flag, trod on a dipsas; quick with head reversed the serpent struck; no mark betrayed the tooth: the aspect of the wound nor threatened death, nor any evil; but the poison germ in silence working as consuming fire absorbed the moisture of his inward frame, draining the natural juices that were spread around his vitals; in his arid jaws set flame upon his tongue: his wearied limbs no sweat bedewed; dried up, the fount of tears fled from his eyelids. tortured by the fire nor cato's sternness, nor of his sacred charge the honour could withhold him; but he dared to dash his standard down, and through the plains raging, to seek for water that might slake the fatal venom thirsting at his heart. plunge him in tanais, in rhone and po, pour on his burning tongue the flood of nile, yet were the fire unquenched. so fell the fang of dipsas in the torrid libyan lands; in other climes less fatal. next he seeks amid the sands, all barren to the depths, for moisture: then returning to the shoals laps them with greed -- in vain -- the briny draught scarce quenched the thirst it made. nor knowing yet the poison in his frame, he steels himself to rip his swollen veins and drink the gore. cato bids lift the standard, lest his troops may find in thirst a pardon for the deed. but on sabellus' yet more piteous death their eyes were fastened. clinging to his skin a seps with curving tooth, of little size, he seized and tore away, and to the sands pierced with his javelin. small the serpent's bulk; none deals a death more horrible in form. for swift the flesh dissolving round the wound bared the pale bone; swam all his limbs in blood; wasted the tissue of his calves and knees: and all the muscles of his thighs were thawed in black distilment, and file membrane sheath parted, that bound his vitals, which abroad flowed upon earth: yet seemed it not that all his frame was loosed, for by the venomous drop were all the bands that held his muscles drawn down to a juice; the framework of his chest was bare, its cavity, and all the parts hid by the organs of life, that make the man. so by unholy death there stood revealed his inmost nature. head and stalwart arms, and neck and shoulders, from their solid mass melt in corruption. not more swiftly flows wax at the sun's command, nor snow compelled by southern breezes. yet not all is said: for so to noxious humours fire consumes our fleshly frame; but on the funeral pyre what bones have perished? these dissolve no less than did the mouldered tissues, nor of death thus swift is left a trace. of afric pests thou bear'st the palm for hurtfulness: the life they snatch away, thou only with the life the clay that held it. lo! a different fate, not this by melting! for a prester's fang nasidius struck, who erst in marsian fields guided the ploughshare. burned upon his face a redness as of flame: swollen the skin, his features hidden, swollen all his limbs till more than human: and his definite frame one tumour huge concealed. a ghastly gore is puffed from inwards as the virulent juice courses through all his body; which, thus grown, his corselet holds not. not in caldron so boils up to mountainous height the steaming wave; nor in such bellying curves does canvas bend to eastern tempests. now the ponderous bulk rejects the limbs, and as a shapeless trunk burdens the earth: and there, to beasts and birds a fatal feast, his comrades left the corse nor dared to place, yet swelling, in the tomb. but for their eyes the libyan pests prepared more dreadful sights. on tullus great in heart, and bound to cato with admiring soul, a fierce haemorrhois fixed. from every limb, ( ) (as from a statue saffron spray is showered in every part) there spouted forth for blood a sable poison: from the natural pores of moisture, gore profuse; his mouth was filled and gaping nostrils, and his tears were blood. brimmed full his veins; his very sweat was red; all was one wound. then piteous levus next in sleep was victim, for around his heart stood still the blood congealed: no pain he felt of venomous tooth, but swift upon him fell death, and he sought the shades; more swift to kill no draught in poisonous cups from ripened plants of direst growth sabaean wizards brew. lo! upon branchless trunk a serpent, named by libyans jaculus, rose in coils to dart his venom from afar. through paullus' brain it rushed, nor stayed; for in the wound itself was death. then did they know how slowly flies, flung from a sling, the stone; how gently speed through air the shafts of scythia. what availed, murrus, the lance by which thou didst transfix a basilisk? swift through the weapon ran the poison to his hand: he draws his sword and severs arm and shoulder at a blow: then gazed secure upon his severed hand which perished as he looked. so had'st thou died, and such had been thy fate! whoe'er had thought a scorpion had strength o'er death or fate? yet with his threatening coils and barb erect he won the glory of orion ( ) slain; so bear the stars their witness. and who would fear thy haunts, salpuga? ( ) yet the stygian maids have given thee power to snap the fatal threads. thus nor the day with brightness, nor the night with darkness gave them peace. the very earth on which they lay they feared; nor leaves nor straw they piled for couches, but upon the ground unshielded from the fates they laid their limbs, cherished beneath whose warmth in chill of night the frozen pests found shelter; in whose jaws harmless the while, the lurking venom slept. nor did they know the measure of their march accomplished, nor their path; the stars in heaven their only guide. "return, ye gods," they cried, in frequent wail, "the arms from which we fled. give back thessalia. sworn to meet the sword why, lingering, fall we thus? in caesar's place the thirsty dipsas and the horned snake now wage the warfare. rather let us seek that region by the horses of the sun scorched, and the zone most torrid: let us fall slain by some heavenly cause, and from the sky descend our fate! not, africa, of thee complain we, nor of nature. from mankind cut off, this quarter, teeming thus with pests she gave to snakes, and to the barren fields denied the husbandman, nor wished that men should perish by their venom. to the realms of serpents have we come. hater of men, receive thy vengeance, whoso of the gods severed this region upon either hand, with death in middle space. our march is set through thy sequestered kingdom, and the host which knows thy secret seeks the furthest world. perchance some greater wonders on our path may still await us; in the waves be plunged heaven's constellations, and the lofty pole stoop from its height. by further space removed no land, than juba's realm; by rumour's voice drear, mournful. haply for this serpent land there may we long, where yet some living thing gives consolation. not my native land nor european fields i hope for now lit by far other suns, nor asia's plains. but in what land, what region of the sky, where left we africa? but now with frosts cyrene stiffened: have we changed the laws which rule the seasons, in this little space? cast from the world we know, 'neath other skies and stars we tread; behind our backs the home of southern tempests: rome herself perchance now lies beneath our feet. yet for our fates this solace pray we, that on this our track pursuing caesar with his host may come." thus was their stubborn patience of its plaints disburdened. but the bravery of their chief forced them to bear their toils. upon the sand, all bare, he lies and dares at every hour fortune to strike: he only at the fate of each is present, flies to every call; and greatest boon of all, greater than life, brought strength to die. to groan in death was shame in such a presence. what power had all the ills possessed upon him? in another's breast he conquers misery, teaching by his mien that pain is powerless. hardly aid at length did fortune, wearied of their perils, grant. alone unharmed of all who till the earth, by deadly serpents, dwells the psyllian race. potent as herbs their song; safe is their blood, nor gives admission to the poison germ e'en when the chant has ceased. their home itself placed in such venomous tract and serpent-thronged gained them this vantage, and a truce with death, else could they not have lived. such is their trust in purity of blood, that newly born each babe they prove by test of deadly asp for foreign lineage. so the bird of jove turns his new fledglings to the rising sun and such as gaze upon the beams of day with eves unwavering, for the use of heaven he rears; but such as blink at phoebus' rays casts from the nest. thus of unmixed descent the babe who, dreading not the serpent touch, plays in his cradle with the deadly snake. nor with their own immunity from harm contented do they rest, but watch for guests who need their help against the noisome plague. now to the roman standards are they come, and when the chieftain bade the tents be fixed, first all the sandy space within the lines with song they purify and magic words from which all serpents flee: next round the camp in widest circuit from a kindled fire rise aromatic odours: danewort burns, and juice distils from syrian galbanum; then tamarisk and costum, eastern herbs, strong panacea mixt with centaury from thrace, and leaves of fennel feed the flames, and thapsus brought from eryx: and they burn larch, southern-wood and antlers of a deer which lived afar. from these in densest fumes, deadly to snakes, a pungent smoke arose; and thus in safety passed the night away. but should some victim feel the fatal fang upon the march, then of this magic race were seen the wonders, for a mighty strife rose 'twixt the psyllian and the poison germ. first with saliva they anoint the limbs that held the venomous juice within the wound; nor suffer it to spread. from foaming mouth next with continuous cadence would they pour unceasing chants -- nor breathing space nor pause -- else spreads the poison: nor does fate permit a moment's silence. oft from the black flesh flies forth the pest beneath the magic song: but should it linger nor obey the voice, repugmant to the summons, on the wound prostrate they lay their lips and from the depths now paling draw the venom. in their mouths, sucked from the freezing flesh, they hold the death, then spew it forth; and from the taste shall know the snake they conquer. aided thus at length wanders the roman host in better guise upon the barren fields in lengthy march. ( ) twice veiled the moon her light and twice renewed; yet still, with waning or with growing orb saw cato's steps upon the sandy waste. but more and more beneath their feet the dust began to harden, till the libyan tracts once more were earth, and in the distance rose some groves of scanty foliage, and huts of plastered straw unfashioned: and their hearts leaped at the prospect of a better land. how fled their sorrow! how with growing joy they met the savage lion in the path! in tranquil leptis first they found retreat: and passed a winter free from heat and rain. ( ) when caesar sated with emathia's slain forsook the battlefield, all other cares neglected, he pursued his kinsman fled, on him alone intent: by land his steps he traced in vain; then, rumour for his guide, he crossed the sea and reached the thracian strait for love renowned; where on the mournful shore rose hero's tower, and helle born of cloud ( ) took from the rolling waves their former name. nowhere with shorter space the sea divides europe from asia; though pontus parts by scant division from byzantium's hold chalcedon oyster-rich: and small the strait through which propontis pours the euxine wave. then marvelling at their ancient fame, he seeks sigeum's sandy beach and simois' stream, rhoeteum noble for its grecian tomb, and all the hero's shades, the theme of song. next by the town of troy burnt down of old now but a memorable name, he turns his steps, and searches for the mighty stones relics of phoebus' wall. but bare with age forests of trees and hollow mouldering trunks pressed down assaracus' palace, and with roots wearied, possessed the temples of the gods. all pergamus with densest brake was veiled and even her stones were perished. he beheld thy rock, hesione; the hidden grove, anchises' nuptial chamber; and the cave where sat the arbiter; the spot from which was snatched the beauteous youth; the mountain lawn where played oenone. not a stone but told the story of the past. a little stream scarce trickling through the arid plain he passed, nor knew 'twas xanthus: deep in grass he placed, careless, his footstep; but the herdsman cried "thou tread'st the dust of hector." stones confused lay at his feet in sacred shape no more: "look on the altar of jove," thus spake the guide, "god of the household, guardian of the home." o sacred task of poets, toil supreme, which rescuing all things from allotted fate dost give eternity to mortal men! grudge not the glory, caesar, of such fame. for if the latian muse may promise aught, long as the heroes of the trojan time shall live upon the page of smyrna's bard, so long shall future races read of thee in this my poem; and pharsalia's song live unforgotten in the age to come. when by the ancient grandeur of the place the chieftain's sight was filled, of gathered turf altars he raised: and as the sacred flame cast forth its odours, these not idle vows gave to the gods, "ye deities of the dead, who watch o'er phrygian ruins: ye who now lavinia's homes inhabit, and alba's height: gods of my sire aeneas, in whose fanes the trojan fire still burns: pledge of the past mysterious pallas, ( ) of the inmost shrine, unseen of men! here in your ancient seat, most famous offspring of iulus' race, i call upon you and with pious hand burn frequent offerings. to my emprise give prosperous ending! here shall i replace the phrygian peoples, here with glad return italia's sons shall build another troy, here rise a roman pergamus." this said, he seeks his fleet, and eager to regain time spent at ilium, to the favouring breeze spreads all his canvas. past rich asia borne, rhodes soon he left while foamed the sparkling main beneath his keels; nor ceased the wind to stretch his bending sails, till on the seventh night the pharian beam proclaimed egyptian shores. but day arose, and veiled the nightly lamp ere rode his barks on waters safe from storm. then caesar saw that tumult held the shore, and mingled voices of uncertain sound struck on his ear: and trusting not himself to doubtful kingdoms, of uncertain troth, he kept his ships from land. but from the king came his vile minion forth upon the wave, bearing his dreadful gift, pompeius' head, wrapped in a covering of pharian wool. first took he speech and thus in shameless words commends the murder: "conqueror of the world, first of the roman race, and, what as yet thou dost not know, safe by thy kinsman slain; this gift receive from the pellaean king, sole trophy absent from the thracian field, to crown thy toils on lands and on the deep. here in thine absence have we placed for thee an end upon the war. here magnus came to mend his fallen fortunes; on our swords here met his death. with such a pledge of faith here have we bought thee, caesar; with his blood seal we this treaty. take the pharian realm sought by no bloodshed, take the rule of nile, take all that thou would'st give for magnus' life: and hold him vassal worthy of thy camp to whom the fates against thy son-in-law such power entrusted; nor hold thou the deed lightly accomplished by the swordsman's stroke, and so the merit. guest ancestral he who was its victim; who, his sire expelled, gave back to him the sceptre. for a deed so great, thou'lt find a name -- or ask the world. if 'twas a crime, thou must confess the debt to us the greater, for that from thy hand we took the doing." then he held and showed unveiled the head. now had the hand of death passed with its changing touch upon the face: nor at first sight did caesar on the gift pass condemnation; nor avert his gaze, but dwelt upon the features till he knew the crime accomplished. then when truth was sure the loving father rose, and tears he shed which flowed at his command, and glad in heart forced from his breast a groan: thus by the flow of feigned tears and grief he hoped to hide his joy else manifest: and the ghastly boon sent by the king disparaging, professed rather to mourn his son's dissevered head, than count it for a debt. for thee alone, magnus, he durst not fail to find a tear: he, caesar, who with mien unaltered spurned the roman senate, and with eyes undimmed looked on pharsalia's field. o fate most hard! didst thou with impious war pursue the man whom 'twas thy lot to mourn? no kindred ties no memory of thy daughter and her son touch on thy heart. didst think perchance that grief might help thy cause 'mid lovers of his name? or haply, moved by envy of the king, griev'st that to other hands than thine was given to shed the captive's life-blood? and complain'st thy vengeance perished and the conquered chief snatched from thy haughty hand? whate'er the cause that urged thy grief, 'twas far removed from love. was this forsooth the object of thy toil o'er lands and oceans, that without thy ken he should not perish? nay! but well was reft from thine arbitrament his fate. what crime did cruel fortune spare, what depth of shame to roman honour! since she suffered not, perfidious traitor, while yet magnus lived, that thou should'st pity him! thus by words he dared, to gain their credence in his sembled grief: "hence from my sight with thy detested gift, thou minion, to thy king. worse does your crime deserve from caesar than from magnus' hands. the only prize that civil war affords thus have we lost -- to bid the conquered live. if but the sister of this pharian king were not by him detested, by the head of cleopatra had i paid this gift. such were the fit return. why did he draw his separate sword, and in the toil that's ours mingle his weapons? in thessalia's field gave we such right to the pellaean blade? magnus as partner in the rule of rome i had not brooked; and shall i tolerate thee, ptolemaeus? in vain with civil wars thus have we roused the nations, if there be now any might but caesar's. if one land yet owned two masters, i had turned from yours the prows of latium; but fame forbids, lest men should whisper that i did not damn this deed of blood, but feared the pharian land. nor think ye to deceive; victorious here i stand: else had my welcome at your hands been that of magnus; and that neck were mine but for pharsalia's chance. at greater risk so seems it, than we dreamed of, took we arms; exile, and magnus' threats, and rome i knew, not ptolemaeus. but we spare the boy: pass by the murder. let the princeling know we give no more than pardon for his crime. and now in honour of the mighty dead, not merely that the earth may hide your guilt, lay ye the chieftain's head within the tomb; with proper sepulture appease his shade and place his scattered ashes in an urn. thus may he know my coming, and may hear affection's accents, and my fond complaints. me sought he not, but rather, for his life, this pharian vassal; snatching from mankind the happy morning which had shown the world a peace between us. but my prayers to heaven no favouring answer found; that arms laid down in happy victory, magnus, once again i might embrace thee, begging thee to grant thine ancient love to caesar, and thy life. thus for my labours with a worthy prize content, thine equal, bound in faithful peace, i might have brought thee to forgive the gods for thy disaster; thou had'st gained for me from rome forgiveness." thus he spake, but found no comrade in his tears; nor did the host give credit to his grief. deep in their breasts they hide their groans, and gaze with joyful front (o famous freedom!) on the deed of blood: and dare to laugh when mighty caesar wept. endnotes: ( ) this was the stoic theory. the perfect of men passed after death into a region between our atmosphere and the heavens, where they remained until the day of general conflagration, (see book vii. line ), with their senses amplified and rendered akin to divine. ( ) a promontory in africa was so called, as well as that in italy. ( ) meaning that her husband gave her this commission in order to prevent her from committing suicide. ( ) see book viii., line . ( ) see line . ( ) this passage is described by lord macaulay as "a pure gem of rhetoric without one flaw, and, in my opinion, not very far from historical truth" (trevelyan's "life and letters", vol. i., page .) ( ) "... clarum et venembile nomen gentibus, et multum nostrae quod profuit urbi," quoted by mr. burke, and applied to lord chatham, in his speech on american taxation. ( ) that is, liberty, which by the murder of pompeius they had obtained. ( ) reading "saepit", hosius. the passage seems to be corrupt. ( ) "scaly triton's winding shell", (comus, ). he was neptune's son and trumpeter. that pallas sprang armed from the head of jupiter is well known. ( ) cnaeus. ( ) compare herodotus, ii., : "for they all say that the earth is divided into three parts, europe, asia and libya." (and see bunbury's "ancient geography", i., , , for a discussion of this subject.) ( ) citron tables were in much request at rome. (comp. "paradise regained", book iv., ; and see book x., line .) ( ) alluding to the shield of mars which fell from heaven on numa at sacrifice. eleven others were made to match it ("dict. antiq.") while horace speaks of them as chief objects of a patriot roman's affection ("odes" iii., , ), lucan discovers for them a ridiculous origin. they were in the custody of the priests of mars. (see book i., .) ( ) i.e. where the equinoctial circle cuts the zodiac in its centre. -- haskins. ( ) compare book iii., . ( ) see book v., . ( ) st. for his victories in sicily and africa, b.c. ; nd. for the conquest of sertorius, b.c. ; rd. for his eastern triumphs, b.c. . (compare book ii., , &c.) ( ) over whom marius triumphed. ( ) phoreus and ceto were the parents of the gorgons -- stheno, euryale. and medusa, of whom the latter alone was mortal, (hesiod. "theogony", .) phorcus was a son of pontus and gaia (sea and land), ibid, . ( ) the scimitar lent by hermes (or mercury) to perseus for the purpose; with which had been slain argus the guardian of io (conf. "prometheus vinctus", .) hermes was born in a cave in mount cyllene in arcadia. ( ) the idea seems to be that the earth, bulging at the equator, casts its shadow highest on the sky: and that the moon becomes eclipsed by it whenever she follows a straight path instead of an oblique one, which may happen from her forgetfulness (mr. haskins' note). ( ) this catalogue of snakes is alluded to in dante's "inferno", . "i saw a crowd within of serpents terrible, so strange of shape and hideous that remembrance in my veins yet shrinks the vital current. of her sands let libya vaunt no more: if jaculus, pareas, and chelyder be her brood, cenchris and amphisbaena, plagues so dire or in such numbers swarming ne'er she showed." -- carey. (see also milton's "paradise lost", book x., - .) ( ) the egyptian thebes. ( ) "... all my being like him whom the numidian seps did thaw into a dew with poison, is dissolved, sinking through its foundations." --shelley, "prometheus unbound", act iii, scene . ( ) the glance of the eye of the basilisk or cockatrice, was supposed to be deadly. (see "king richard iii", act i., scene : -- gloucester: thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine. anne: would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!) the word is also used for a big cannon. (" king henry iv", act ii., scene .) ( ) see book iii., . ( ) according to one story orion, for his assault on diana, was killed by the scorpion, who received his reward by being made into a constellation. ( ) a sort of venomous ant. ( ) no other author gives any details of this march; and those given by lucan are unreliable. the temple of hammon is far from any possible line of route taken from the lesser syrtes to leptis. dean merivale states that the inhospitable sands extended for seven days' journey, and ranks the march as one of the greatest exploits in roman military history. described by the names known to modern geography, it was from the gulf of cabes to cape africa. pope, in a letter to henry cromwell, dated november , , makes some caustic remarks on the geography of this book. (see "pope's works", vol. vi., ; by elwin & courthope.) ( ) see line . ( ) see book iv., . ( ) the "palladium" or image of pallas, preserved in the temple of vesta. (see book i., .) book x caesar in egypt when caesar, following those who bore the head, first trod the shore accursed, with egypt's fates his fortunes battled, whether rome should pass in crimson conquest o'er the guilty land, or memphis' arms should ravish from the world victor and vanquished: and the warning shade of magnus saved his kinsman from the sword. first, by the crime assured, his standards borne before, he marched upon the pharian town; but when the people, jealous of their laws, murmured against the fasces, caesar knew their minds were adverse, and that not for him was magnus' murder wrought. and yet with brow dissembling fear, intrepid, through the shrines of egypt's gods he strode, and round the fane of ancient isis; bearing witness all to macedon's vigour in the days of old. yet did nor gold nor ornament restrain his hasting steps, nor worship of the gods, nor city ramparts: but in greed of gain he sought the cave dug out amid the tombs. ( ) the madman offspring there of philip lies the famed pellaean robber, fortune's friend, snatched off by fate, avenging so the world. in sacred sepulchre the hero's limbs, which should be scattered o'er the earth, repose, still spared by fortune to these tyrant days: for in a world to freedom once recalled, all men had mocked the dust of him who set the baneful lesson that so many lands can serve one master. macedon he left his home obscure; athena he despised the conquest of his sire, and spurred by fate through asia rushed with havoc of mankind, plunging his sword through peoples; streams unknown ran red with persian and with indian blood. curse of all earth and thunderbolt of ill to every nation! on the outer sea ( ) he launched his fleet to sail the ocean wave: nor flame nor flood nor sterile libyan sands stayed back his course, nor hammon's pathless shoals; far to the west, where downward slopes the world he would have led his armies, and the poles had compassed, and had drunk the fount of nile: but came his latest day; such end alone could nature place upon the madman king, who jealous in death as when he won the world his empire with him took, nor left an heir. thus every city to the spoiler's hand was victim made: yet in his fall was his babylon; and parthia feared him. shame on us that eastern nations dreaded more the lance of macedon than now the roman spear. true that we rule beyond where takes its rise the burning southern breeze, beyond the homes of western winds, and to the northern star; but towards the rising of the sun, we yield to him who kept the arsacids in awe; and puny pella held as province sure the parthia fatal to our roman arms. now from the stream pelusian of the nile, was come the boyish king, taming the rage of his effeminate people: pledge of peace; and caesar safely trod pellaean halls; when cleopatra bribed her guard to break the harbour chains, and borne in little boat within the macedonian palace gates, caesar unknowing, entered: egypt's shame; fury of latium; to the bane of rome unchaste. for as the spartan queen of yore by fatal beauty argos urged to strife and ilium's homes, so cleopatra roused italia's frenzy. by her drum ( ) she called down on the capitol terror (if to speak such word be lawful); mixed with roman arms coward canopus, hoping she might lead a pharian triumph, caesar in her train; and 'twas in doubt upon leucadian ( ) waves whether a woman, not of roman blood, should hold the world in awe. such lofty thoughts seized on her soul upon that night in which the wanton daughter of pellaean kings first shared our leaders' couches. who shall blame antonius for the madness of his love, when caesar's haughty breast drew in the flame? who red with carnage, 'mid the clash of arms, in palace haunted by pompeius' shade, gave place to love; and in adulterous bed, magnus forgotten, from the queen impure, to julia gave a brother: on the bounds, of furthest libya permitting thus his foe to gather: he in dalliance base waited upon his mistress, and to her pharos would give, for her would conquer all. then cleopatra, trusting to her charms, tearless approached him, though in form of grief; her tresses loose as though in sorrow torn, so best becoming her; and thus began: "if, mighty caesar, aught to noble birth be due, give ear. of lagian race am i offspring illustrious; from my father's throne cast forth to banishment; unless thy hand restore to me the sceptre: then a queen falls at thy feet embracing. to our race bright star of justice thou! nor first shall i as woman rule the cities of the nile; for, neither sex preferring, pharos bows to queenly governance. of my parted sire read the last words, by which 'tis mine to share with equal rights the kingdom and the bed. and loves the boy his sister, were he free; but his affections and his sword alike pothinus orders. nor wish i myself to wield my father's power; but this my prayer: save from this foul disgrace our royal house, bid that the king shall reign, and from the court remove this hateful varlet, and his arms. how swells his bosom for that his the hand that shore pompeius' head! and now he threats thee, caesar, also; which the fates avert! 'twas shame enough upon the earth and thee that of pothinus magnus should have been the guilt or merit." caesar's ears in vain had she implored, but aided by her charms the wanton's prayers prevailed, and by a night of shame ineffable, passed with her judge, she won his favour. when between the pair ( ) caesar had made a peace, by costliest gifts purchased, a banquet of such glad event made fit memorial; and with pomp the queen displayed her luxuries, as yet unknown to roman fashions. first uprose the hall like to a fane which this corrupted age could scarcely rear: the lofty ceiling shone with richest tracery, the beams were bound in golden coverings; no scant veneer lay on its walls, but built in solid blocks of marble, gleamed the palace. agate stood in sturdy columns, bearing up the roof; onyx and porphyry on the spacious floor were trodden 'neath the foot; the mighty gates of maroe's throughout were formed, he mere adornment; ivory clothed the hall, and fixed upon the doors with labour rare shells of the tortoise gleamed, from indian seas, with frequent emeralds studded. gems of price and yellow jasper on the couches shone. lustrous the coverlets; the major part dipped more than once within the vats of tyre had drunk their juice: part feathered as with gold; part crimson dyed, in manner as are passed through pharian leash the threads. there waited slaves in number as a people, some in ranks by different blood distinguished, some by age; this band with libyan, that with auburn hair red so that caesar on the banks of rhine none such had witnessed; some with features scorched by torrid suns, their locks in twisted coils drawn from their foreheads. eunuchs too were there, unhappy race; and on the other side men of full age whose cheeks with growth of hair were hardly darkened. upon either hand lay kings, and caesar in the midst supreme. there in her fatal beauty lay the queen thick daubed with unguents, nor with throne content nor with her brother spouse; laden she lay on neck and hair with all the red sea spoils, and faint beneath the weight of gems and gold. her snowy breast shone through sidonian lawn which woven close by shuttles of the east the art of nile had loosened. ivory feet bore citron tables brought from woods that wave ( ) on atlas, such as caesar never saw when juba was his captive. blind in soul by madness of ambition, thus to fire by such profusion of her wealth, the mind of caesar armed, her guest in civil war! not though he aimed with pitiless hand to grasp the riches of a world; not though were here those ancient leaders of the simple age, fabricius or curius stern of soul, or he who, consul, left in sordid garb his tuscan plough, could all their several hopes have risen to such spoil. on plates of gold they piled the banquet sought in earth and air and from the deepest seas and nilus' waves, through all the world; in craving for display, no hunger urging. frequent birds and beasts, egypt's high gods, they placed upon the board: in crystal goblets water of the nile they handed, and in massive cups of price was poured the wine; no juice of mareot grape ( ) but noble vintage of falernian growth which in few years in meroe's vats had foamed, (for such the clime) to ripeness. on their brows chaplets were placed of roses ever young with glistening nard entwined; and in their locks was cinnamon infused, not yet in air its fragrance perished, nor in foreign climes; and rich amomum from the neighbouring fields. thus caesar learned the booty of a world to lavish, and his breast was shamed of war waged with his son-in-law for meagre spoil, and with the pharian realm he longed to find a cause of battle. when of wine and feast they wearied and their pleasure found an end, caesar drew out in colloquy the night thus with achoreus, on the highest couch with linen ephod as a priest begirt: "o thou devoted to all sacred rites, loved by the gods, as proves thy length of days, tell, if thou wilt, whence sprang the pharian race; how lie their lands, the manners of their tribes, the form and worship of their deities. expound the sculptures on your ancient fanes: reveal your gods if willing to be known: if to th' athenian sage your fathers taught their mysteries, who worthier than i to bear in trust the secrets of the world? true, by the rumour of my kinsman's flight here was i drawn; yet also by your fame: and even in the midst of war's alarms the stars and heavenly spaces have i conned; nor shall eudoxus' year ( ) excel mine own. but though such ardour burns within my breast, such zeal to know the truth, yet my chief wish to learn the source of your mysterious flood through ages hidden: give me certain hope to see the fount of nile -- and civil war then shall i leave." he spake, and then the priest: "the secrets, caesar, of our mighty sires ( ) kept from the common people until now i hold it right to utter. some may deem that silence on these wonders of the earth were greater piety. but to the gods i hold it grateful that their handiwork and sacred edicts should be known to men. "a different power by the primal law, each star possesses: ( ) these alone control the movement of the sky, with adverse force opposing: while the sun divides the year, and day from night, and by his potent rays forbids the stars to pass their stated course. the moon by her alternate phases sets the varying limits of the sea and shore. 'neath saturn's sway the zone of ice and snow has passed; while mars in lightning's fitful flames and winds abounds' beneath high jupiter unvexed by storms abides a temperate air; and fruitful venus' star contains the seeds of all things. ruler of the boundless deep the god ( ) cyllenian: whene'er he holds that part of heaven where the lion dwells with neighbouring cancer joined, and sirius star flames in its fury; where the circular path (which marks the changes of the varying year) gives to hot cancer and to capricorn their several stations, under which doth lie the fount of nile, he, master of the waves, strikes with his beam the waters. forth the stream brims from his fount, as ocean when the moon commands an increase; nor shall curb his flow till night wins back her losses from the sun. ( ) "vain is the ancient faith that ethiop snows ( ) send nile abundant forth upon the lands. those mountains know nor northern wind nor star. of this are proof the breezes of the south, fraught with warm vapours, and the people's hue burned dark by suns: and 'tis in time of spring, when first are thawed the snows, that ice-fed streams in swollen torrents tumble; but the nile nor lifts his wave before the dog star burns; nor seeks again his banks, until the sun in equal balance measures night and day. nor are the laws that govern other streams obeyed by nile. for in the wintry year were he in flood, when distant far the sun, his waters lacked their office; but he leaves his channel when the summer is at height, tempering the torrid heat of egypt's clime. such is the task of nile; thus in the world he finds his purpose, lest exceeding heat consume the lands: and rising thus to meet enkindled lion, to syene's prayers by cancer burnt gives ear; nor curbs his wave till the slant sun and meroe's lengthening shades proclaim the autumn. who shall give the cause? 'twas parent nature's self which gave command thus for the needs of earth should flow the nile. "vain too the fable that the western winds ( ) control his current, in continuous course at stated seasons governing the air; or hurrying from occident to south clouds without number which in misty folds press on the waters; or by constant blast, forcing his current back whose several mouths burst on the sea; -- so, forced by seas and wind, men say, his billows pour upon the land. some speak of hollow caverns, breathing holes deep in the earth, within whose mighty jaws waters in noiseless current underneath from northern cold to southern climes are drawn: and when hot meroe pants beneath the sun, then, say they, ganges through the silent depths and padus pass: and from a single fount the nile arising not in single streams pours all the rivers forth. and rumour says that when the sea which girdles in the world ( ) o'erflows, thence rushes nile, by lengthy course, softening his saltness. more, if it be true that ocean feeds the sun and heavenly fires, then phoebus journeying by the burning crab sucks from its waters more than air can hold upon his passage -- this the cool of night pours on the nile. "if, caesar, 'tis my part to judge such difference, 'twould seem that since creation's age has passed, earth's veins by chance some waters hold, and shaken cast them forth: but others took when first the globe was formed a sure abode; by him who framed the world fixed with the universe. "and, roman, thou, in thirsting thus to know the source of nile dost as the pharian and persian kings and those of macedon; nor any age refused the secret, but the place prevailed remote by nature. greatest of the kings by memphis worshipped, alexander grudged ( ) to nile its mystery, and to furthest earth sent chosen ethiops whom the crimson zone stayed in their further march, while flowed his stream warm at their feet. sesostris ( ) westward far reached, to the ends of earth; and necks of kings bent 'neath his chariot yoke: but of the springs which fill your rivers, rhone and po, he drank. not of the fount of nile. cambyses king in madman quest led forth his host to where the long-lived races dwell: then famine struck, ate of his dead ( ) and, nile unknown, returned. no lying rumour of thy hidden source has e'er made mention; wheresoe'er thou art yet art thou sought, nor yet has nation claimed in pride of place thy river as its own. yet shall i tell, so far as has the god, who veils thy fountain, given me to know. thy progress. daring to upraise thy banks 'gainst fiery cancer's heat, thou tak'st thy rise beneath the zenith: straight towards the north and mid bootes flowing; to the couch bending, or to the risings, of the sun in sinuous bends alternate; just alike to araby's peoples and to libyan sands. by seres ( ) first beheld, yet know they not whence art thou come; and with no native stream strik'st thou the ethiop fields. nor knows the world to whom it owes thee. nature ne'er revealed thy secret origin, removed afar. nor did she wish thee to be seen of men while still a tiny rivulet, but preferred their wonder to their knowledge. where the sun stays at his limit, dost thou rise in flood untimely; such try right: to other lands bearing try winter: and by both the poles thou only wanderest. here men ask thy rise and there thine ending. meroe rich in soil and tilled by swarthy husbandmen divides thy broad expanse, rejoicing in the leaves of groves of ebony, which though spreading far their branching foliage, by no breadth of shade soften the summer sun -- whose rays direct pass from the lion to the fervid earth. ( ) next dost thou journey onwards past the realm of burning phoebus, and the sterile sands, with equal volume; now with all thy strength gathered in one, and now in devious streams parting the bank that crumbles at thy touch. then by our kingdom's gates, where philae parts arabian peoples from egyptian fields the sluggish bosom of thy flood recalls try wandering currents, which through desert wastes flow gently on to where the merchant track divides the red sea waters from our own. who, gazing, nile, upon thy tranquil flow, could picture how in wild array of foam (where shelves the earth) thy billows shall be plunged down the steep cataracts, in fuming wrath that rocks should bar the passage of thy stream free from its source? for whirled on high the spray aims at the stars, and trembles all the air with rush of waters; and with sounding roar the foaming mass down from the summit pours in hoary waves victorious. next an isle in all our ancient lore "untrodden" named stems firm thy torrent; and the rocks we call springs of the river, for that here are marked the earliest tokens of the coming flood. with mountain shores now nature hems thee in and shuts thy waves from libya; in the midst hence do thy waters run, till memphis first forbids the barrier placed upon thy stream and gives thee access to the open fields." thus did they pass, as though in peace profound, the nightly watches. but pothinus' mind, once with accursed butchery imbued, was frenzied still; since great pompeius fell no deed to him was crime; his rabid soul th' avenging goddesses and magnus' shade stirred to fresh horrors; and a pharian hand no less was worthy, as he deemed, to shed that blood which fortune purposed should bedew the conquered fathers: and the fell revenge due to the senate for the civil war this hireling almost snatched. avert, ye fates, far hence the shame that not by brutus' hand this blow be struck! shall thus the tyrant's fall just at our hands, become a pharian crime, reft of example? to prepare a plan (fated to fail) he dares; nor veils in fraud a plot for murder, but with open war attacks th' unconquered chieftain: from his crimes he gained such courage as to send command to lop the head of caesar, and to join in death the kinsmen chiefs. these words by night his faithful servants to achillas bear, his foul associate, whom the boy had made chief of his armies, and who ruled alone o'er egypt's land and o'er himself her king: "now lay thy limbs upon the sumptuous couch and sleep in luxury, for the queen hath seized the palace; nor alone by her betrayed, but caesar's gift, is pharos. dost delay nor hasten to the chamber of thy queen? thou only? married to the latian chief, the impious sister now her brother weds and hurrying from rival spouse to spouse hath egypt won, and plays the bawd for rome. by amorous potions she has won the man: then trust the boy! yet give him but a night in her enfondling arms, and drunk with love thy life and mine he'll barter for a kiss. we for his sister's charms by cross and flame shall pay the penalty: nor hope of aid; here stands adulterous caesar, here the king her spouse: how hope we from so stern a judge to gain acquittal? shall she not condemn those who ne'er sought her favours? by the deed we dared together and lost, by magnus' blood which wrought the bond between us, be thou swift with hasty tumult to arouse the war: dash in with nightly band, and mar with death their shameless nuptials: on the very bed with either lover smite the ruthless queen. nor let the fortunes of the western chief make pause our enterprise. we share with him the glory of his empire o'er the world. pompeius fallen makes us too sublime. there lies the shore that bids us hope success: ask of our power from the polluted wave, and gaze upon the scanty tomb which holds not all pompeius' ashes. peer to him was he whom now thou fearest. noble blood true, is not ours: what boots it? nor are realms nor wealth of peoples given to our command. yet have we risen to a height of power for deeds of blood, and fortune to our hands attracts her victims. lo! a nobler now lies in our compass, and a second death hesperia shall appease; for caesar's blood, shed by these hands, shall give us this, that rome shall love us, guilty of pompeius' fall. why fear these titles, why this chieftain's strength? for shorn of these, before your swords he lies a common soldier. to the civil war this night shall bring completion, and shall give to peoples slain fit offerings, and send that life the world demands beneath the shades. rise then in all your hardihood and smite this caesar down, and let the roman youths strike for themselves, and lagos for its king. nor do thou tarry: full of wine and feast thou'lt fall upon him in the lists of love; then dare the venture, and the heavenly gods shall grant of cato's and of brutus' prayers to thee fulfilment." nor was achillas slow to hear the voice that counselled him to crime. no sounding clarion summoned, as is wont, his troops to arms; nor trumpet blare betrayed their nightly march: but rapidly he seized all needed instruments of blood and war. of latian race the most part of his train, yet to barbarian customs were their minds by long forgetfulness of rome debased: else had it shamed to serve the pharian king; but now his vassal and his minion's word compel obedience. those who serve in camps lose faith and love of kin: their pittance earned ( ) makes just the deed: and for their sordid pay, not for themselves, they threaten caesar's life. where finds the piteous destiny of the realm rome with herself at peace? the host withdrawn from dread thessalia raves on nilus' banks as all the race of rome. what more had dared, with magnus welcomed, the lagean house? each hand must render to the gods their due, nor son of rome may cease from civil war; by heaven's command our state was rent in twain; nor love for husband nor regard for sire parted our peoples. 'twas a slave who stirred afresh the conflict, and achillas grasped in turn the sword of rome: nay more, had won, had not the fates adverse restrained his hand from caesar's slaughter. for the murderous pair ripe for their plot were met; the spacious hall still busied with the feast. so might have flowed into the kingly cups a stream of gore, and in mid banquet fallen caesar's head. yet did they fear lest in the nightly strife (the fates permitting) some incautious hand -- so did they trust the sword -- might slay the king. thus stayed the deed, for in the minds of slaves the chance of doing caesar to the death might bear postponement: when the day arose then should he suffer; and a night of life thus by pothinus was to caesar given. now from the casian rock looked forth the sun flooding the land of egypt with a day warm from its earliest dawn, when from the walls not wandering in disorder are they seen, but drown in close array, as though to meet a foe opposing; ready to receive or give the battle. caesar, in the town placing no trust, within the palace courts lay in ignoble hiding place, the gates close barred: nor all the kingly rooms possessed, but in the narrowest portion of the space he drew his band together. there in arms they stood, with dread and fury in their souls. he feared attack, indignant at his fear. thus will a noble beast in little cage imprisoned, fume, and break upon the bars his teeth in frenzied wrath; nor more would rage the flames of vulcan in sicilian depths should etna's top be closed. he who but now by haemus' mount against pompeius chief, italia's leaders and the senate line, his cause forbidding hope, looked at the fates he knew were hostile, with unfaltering gaze, now fears before the crime of hireling slaves, and in mid palace trembles at the blow: he whom nor scythian nor alaun ( ) had dared to violate, nor the moor who aims the dart upon his victim slain, to prove his skill. the roman world but now did not suffice to hold him, nor the realms from furthest ind to tyrian gades. now, as puny boy, or woman, trembling when a town is sacked, within the narrow corners of a house he seeks for safety; on the portals closed his hope of life; and with uncertain gait he treads the hails; yet not without the king; in purpose, ptolemaeus, that thy life for his shall give atonement; and to hurl thy severed head among the servant throng should darts and torches fail. so story tells the colchian princess ( ) with sword in hand, and with her brother's neck bared to the blow, waited her sire, avenger of his realm despoiled, and of her flight. in the imminent risk caesar, in hopes of peace, an envoy sent to the fierce vassals, from their absent lord bearing a message, thus: "at whose command wage ye the war?" but not the laws which bind all nations upon earth, nor sacred rights, availed to save or messenger of peace, or king's ambassador; or thee from crime such as befitted thee, thou land of nile fruitful in monstrous deeds: not juba's realm vast though it be, nor pontus, nor the land thessalian, nor the arms of pharnaces, nor yet the tracts which chill iberus girds, nor libyan coasts such wickedness have dared, as thou, with all thy luxuries. closer now war hemmed them in, and weapons in the courts, shaking the innermost recesses, fell. yet did no ram, fatal with single stroke, assail the portal, nor machine of war; nor flame they called in aid; but blind of plan they wander purposeless, in separate bands around the circuit, nor at any spot with strength combined attempt to breach the wall. the fates forbad, and fortune from their hands held fast the palace as a battlement. nor failed they to attack from ships of war the regal dwelling, where its frontage bold made stand apart the waters of the deep: there, too, was caesar's all-protecting arm; for these at point of sword, and those with fire ( ) he forces back, and though besieged he dares to storm th' assailants: and as lay the ships joined rank to rank, bids drop upon their sides lamps drenched with reeking tar. nor slow the fire to seize the hempen cables and the decks oozing with melting pitch; the oarsman's bench all in one moment, and the topmost yards burst into flame: half merged the vessels lay while swam the foemen, all in arms, the wave; nor fell the blaze upon the ships alone, but seized with writhing tongues the neighbouring homes, and fanned to fury by the southern breeze tempestuous, it leaped from roof to roof; not otherwise than on its heavenly track, unfed by matter, glides the ball of light, by air alone aflame. this pest recalled some of the forces to the city's aid from the besieged halls. nor caesar gave to sleep its season; swifter than all else to seize the crucial moment of the war. quick in the darkest watches of the night he leaped upon his ships, and pharos ( ) seized, gate of the main; an island in the days of proteus seer, now bordering the walls of alexander's city. thus he gained a double vantage, for his foes were pent within the narrow entrance, which for him and for his aids gave access to the sea. nor longer was pothinus' doom delayed, yet not with cross or flame, nor with the wrath his crime demanded; nor by savage beasts torn, did he suffer; but by magnus' death, alas the shame! he fell; his head by sword hacked from his shoulders. next by frauds prepared by ganymede her base attendant, fled arsinoe ( ) from the court to caesar's foes; there in the absence of the king she ruled as of lagean blood: there at her hands, the savage minion of the tyrant boy, achillas, fell by just avenging sword. thus did another victim to thy shade atone, pompeius; but the gods forbid that this be all thy vengeance! not the king nor all the stock of lagos for thy death would make fit sacrifice! so fortune deemed; and not till patriot swords shall drink the blood of caesar, magnus, shalt thou be appeased. still, though was slain the author of the strife, sank not their rage: with ganymede for chief again they rush to arms; in deeds of fight again they conquer. so might that one day have witnessed caesar's fate; so might its fame have lived through ages. as the roman chief, crushed on the narrow surface of the mole, prepared to throw his troops upon the ships, sudden upon him the surrounding foes with all their terrors came. in dense array their navy lined the shores, while on the rear the footmen ceaseless charged. no hope was left, for flight was not, nor could the brave man's arm achieve or safety or a glorious death. not now were needed for great caesar's fall, caught in the toils of nature, routed host or mighty heaps of slain: his only doubt to fear or hope for death: while on his brain brave scaeva's image flashed, now vainly sought, who on the wall by epidamnus' fields earned fame immortal, and with single arm drove back pompeius as he trod the breach.... endnotes: ( ) the body of alexander was embalmed, and the mummy placed in a glass case. the sarcophagus which enclosed them is stated to be now in the british museum. ( ) see book iii., . ( ) the kettledrum used in the worship of isis. (see book viii, line .) ( ) at the battle of actium. the island of leucas, close to the promontory of actium, is always named by lucan when he refers to this battle. (see also virgil, "aeneid", viii., .) ( ) between cleopatra and her brother. ( ) see book ix., . ( ) yet the mareot grape was greatly celebrated. (see professor rawlinson's note to herodotus. ii., .) ( ) the calendar introduced by caesar, in b.c. , was founded on the egyptian or solar year. (see herodotus, ii., .) eudoxus seems to have dealt with this year and to have corrected it. he is probably alluded to by virgil, "eclogue" iii., . ( ) herodotus was less fortunate. for he says "concerning the nature of the river i was not able to gain any information either from the priests or others." (ii., .) ( ) it was supposed that the sun and moon and the planets (saturn, jupiter, mars, mercury, and venus) were points which restrained the motion of the sky in its revolution. (see book vi., .) ( ) mercury. (see book ix., .) ( ) that is, at the autumnal equinox. the priest states that the planet mercury causes the rise of the nile. the passage is difficult to follow; but the idea would seem to be that this god, who controlled the rise and fall of the waves of the sea, also when he was placed directly over the nile caused the rise of that river. ( ) so also herodotus, book ii., . yet modern discoveries have proved the snows. ( ) so, too, herodotus, book ii., , who attributes the theory to greeks who wish to get a reputation for cleverness. ( ) see on book v., . herodotus mentions this theory also, to dismiss it. ( ) the historians state that alexander made an expedition to the temple of jupiter hammon and consulted the oracle. jupiter assisted his march, and an army of crows pointed out the path (plutarch). it is, however stated, in a note in langhorne's edition, that maximus tyrius informs us that the object of the journey was the discovery of the sources of the nile. ( ) sesostris, the great king, does not appear to have pushed his conquests to the west of europe. ( ) see herodotus, iii., . these ethiopian races were supposed to live to the age of years, drinking milk, and eating boiled flesh. on cambyses's march his starving troops cast lots by tens for the one man who was to be eaten. ( ) the seres are, of course, the chinese. the ancients seem to have thought that the nile came from the east. but it is possible that there was another tribe of this name dwelling in africa. ( ) a passage of difficulty. i understand it to mean that at this spot the summer sun (in leo) strikes the earth with direct rays. ( ) reading "ibi fas ubi proxima merees", with hosius. ( ) see book viii., . ( ) medea, who fled from colchis with her brother, absyrtus. pursued by her father aeetes, she killed her brother and strewed the parts of his body into the sea. the king paused to collect them. ( ) it was in this conflagration that a large part of the library of the ptolemies was destroyed. , volumes are stated to have perished. ( ) the island of pharos, which lay over against the port of alexandria, had been connected with the mainland in the middle by a narrow causeway. on it stood the lighthouse. (see book ix, .) proteus, the old man of the sea, kept here his flock of seals, according to the homeric story. ("odyssey", book iv, .) ( ) younger sister of cleopatra. preparer's notes: lucan's "pharsalia" (or, "civil war", as many scholars now prefer to call it) was written approximately a century after the events it chronicles took place. lucan was born into a prominent roman family (seneca the elder was his grandfather, and seneca the younger his uncle), and seems to have befriended the young emperor nero at an early age. he was for several years a poet of some prominence in the emperor's court, and it is during this period that the "civil war"/"pharsalia" was probably begun. however, nero and lucan's friendship evidently soured, and in a.d. lucan joined calpurnius piso's conspiracy to overthrow nero. when the conspiracy was discovered, lucan was given the option of suicide or death; he chose suicide, and recited several lines of his poetry while he died (possibly book iii, l. - ). lucan's "pharsalia" was left (probably) unfinished upon his death, coincidentally breaking off at almost the exact same point where julius caesar broke off in his commentary "on the civil war". ten books are extant; no one knows how many more lucan planned, but two to six more books (possibly taking the story as far as caesar's assassination in b.c. ) seem a reasonable estimate. it should be noted that, as history, lucan's work is far from being scrupulously accurate, frequently ignoring historical fact for the benefit of drama and rhetoric. for this reason, it should not be read as a reliable account of the roman civil war. however, as a work of poetic literature, it has few rivals; its powerful depiction of civil war and its consequences have haunted readers for centuries, and prompted many medieval and renaissance poets to regard lucan among the ranks of homer, virgil, and ovid. ---dbk selected bibliography: original text -- duff, j.d.: "lucan: the civil war" (loeb classics library, london, ). latin text with english translation. other translations -- braund, susan h.: "lucan: civil war" (oxford university press, oxford, ). note: highly recommended translation! recommended reading -- fuller, j.f.c.: "julius caesar -- man, soldier, and tyrant" (dacapo press, new york, ) gardner, jane f. (trans.): "caesar: the civil war" (penguin classics, london, ). also contains "the alexandrian war", "the african war", and "the spanish war", all anonymous. getzer, matthias: "caesar, politician and statesman" (harvard university press, cambridge ma, ). holmes, t. rice: "the roman republic" (oxford university press, oxford, ). volumes. transcriber's note: numbers in brackets [ ] refer to line numbers in virgil's aeneid. these numbers appeared at the top of each page of text and have been retained for reference. obvious typographical errors have been corrected. a complete list follows the text. the aeneid of virgil translated into english by j. w. mackail, m.a. fellow of balliol college, oxford london macmillan and co. printed by r. & r. clark, edinburgh. preface there is something grotesque in the idea of a prose translation of a poet, though the practice is become so common that it has ceased to provoke a smile or demand an apology. the language of poetry is language in fusion; that of prose is language fixed and crystallised; and an attempt to copy the one material in the other must always count on failure to convey what is, after all, one of the most essential things in poetry,--its poetical quality. and this is so with virgil more, perhaps, than with any other poet; for more, perhaps, than any other poet virgil depends on his poetical quality from first to last. such a translation can only have the value of a copy of some great painting executed in mosaic, if indeed a copy in berlin wool is not a closer analogy; and even at the best all it can have to say for itself will be in virgil's own words, _experiar sensus; nihil hic nisi carmina desunt._ in this translation i have in the main followed the text of conington and nettleship. the more important deviations from this text are mentioned in the notes; but i have not thought it necessary to give a complete list of various readings, or to mention any change except where it might lead to misapprehension. their notes have also been used by me throughout. beyond this i have made constant use of the mass of ancient commentary going under the name of servius; the most valuable, perhaps, of all, as it is in many ways the nearest to the poet himself. the explanation given in it has sometimes been followed against those of the modern editors. to other commentaries only occasional reference has been made. the sense that virgil is his own best interpreter becomes stronger as one studies him more. my thanks are due to mr. evelyn abbott, fellow and tutor of balliol, and to the rev. h. c. beeching, for much valuable suggestion and criticism. the aeneid book first the coming of aeneas to carthage i sing of arms and the man who of old from the coasts of troy came, an exile of fate, to italy and the shore of lavinium; hard driven on land and on the deep by the violence of heaven, for cruel juno's unforgetful anger, and hard bestead in war also, ere he might found a city and carry his gods into latium; from whom is the latin race, the lords of alba, and the stately city rome. muse, tell me why, for what attaint of her deity, or in what vexation, did the queen of heaven drive one so excellent in goodness to circle through so many afflictions, to face so many toils? is anger so fierce in celestial spirits? * * * * * there was a city of ancient days that tyrian settlers dwelt in, carthage, over against italy and the tiber mouths afar; rich of store, and mighty in war's fierce pursuits; wherein, they say, alone beyond all other lands had juno her seat, and held samos itself less dear. here was her armour, here her chariot; even now, if fate permit, the goddess strives to nurture it for queen of the nations. nevertheless she had heard a race was issuing of the blood of [ - ]troy, which sometime should overthrow her tyrian citadel; from it should come a people, lord of lands and tyrannous in war, the destroyer of libya: so rolled the destinies. fearful of that, the daughter of saturn, the old war in her remembrance that she fought at troy for her beloved argos long ago,--nor had the springs of her anger nor the bitterness of her vexation yet gone out of mind: deep stored in her soul lies the judgment of paris, the insult of her slighted beauty, the hated race and the dignities of ravished ganymede; fired with this also, she tossed all over ocean the trojan remnant left of the greek host and merciless achilles, and held them afar from latium; and many a year were they wandering driven of fate around all the seas. such work was it to found the roman people. hardly out of sight of the land of sicily did they set their sails to sea, and merrily upturned the salt foam with brazen prow, when juno, the undying wound still deep in her heart, thus broke out alone: 'am i then to abandon my baffled purpose, powerless to keep the teucrian king from italy? and because fate forbids me? could pallas lay the argive fleet in ashes, and sink the argives in the sea, for one man's guilt, mad oïlean ajax? her hand darted jove's flying fire from the clouds, scattered their ships, upturned the seas in tempest; him, his pierced breast yet breathing forth the flame, she caught in a whirlwind and impaled on a spike of rock. but i, who move queen among immortals, i sister and wife of jove, wage warfare all these years with a single people; and is there any who still adores juno's divinity, or will kneel to lay sacrifice on her altars?' such thoughts inly revolving in her kindled bosom, the goddess reaches aeolia, the home of storm-clouds, the land laden with furious southern gales. here in a desolate cavern aeolus keeps under royal dominion and yokes in [ - ]dungeon fetters the struggling winds and loud storms. they with mighty moan rage indignant round their mountain barriers. in his lofty citadel aeolus sits sceptred, assuages their temper and soothes their rage; else would they carry with them seas and lands, and the depth of heaven, and sweep them through space in their flying course. but, fearful of this, the lord omnipotent hath hidden them in caverned gloom, and laid a mountain mass high over them, and appointed them a ruler, who should know by certain law to strain and slacken the reins at command. to him now juno spoke thus in suppliant accents: 'aeolus--for to thee hath the father of gods and king of men given the wind that lulls and that lifts the waves--a people mine enemy sails the tyrrhene sea, carrying into italy the conquered gods of their ilian home. rouse thy winds to fury, and overwhelm their sinking vessels, or drive them asunder and strew ocean with their bodies. mine are twice seven nymphs of passing loveliness; her who of them all is most excellent in beauty, deïopea, i will unite to thee in wedlock to be thine for ever; that for this thy service she may fulfil all her years at thy side, and make thee father of a beautiful race.' aeolus thus returned: 'thine, o queen, the task to search whereto thou hast desire; for me it is right to do thy bidding. from thee have i this poor kingdom, from thee my sceptre and jove's grace; thou dost grant me to take my seat at the feasts of the gods, and makest me sovereign over clouds and storms.' even with these words, turning his spear, he struck the side of the hollow hill, and the winds, as in banded array, pour where passage is given them, and cover earth with eddying blasts. east wind and west wind together, and the gusty south-wester, falling prone on the sea, stir it up [ - ]from its lowest chambers, and roll vast billows to the shore. behind rises shouting of men and whistling of cordage. in a moment clouds blot sky and daylight from the teucrians' eyes; black night broods over the deep. pole thunders to pole, and the air quivers with incessant flashes; all menaces them with instant death. straightway aeneas' frame grows unnerved and chill, and stretching either hand to heaven, he cries thus aloud: 'ah, thrice and four times happy they who found their doom under high troy town before their fathers' faces! ah, son of tydeus, bravest of the grecian race, that i could not have fallen on the ilian plains, and gasped out this my life beneath thine hand! where under the spear of aeacides lies fierce hector, lies mighty sarpedon; where simoïs so often bore beneath his whirling wave shields and helmets and brave bodies of men.' as the cry leaves his lips, a gust of the shrill north strikes full on the sail and raises the waves up to heaven. the oars are snapped; the prow swings away and gives her side to the waves; down in a heap comes a broken mountain of water. these hang on the wave's ridge; to these the yawning billow shows ground amid the surge, where the sea churns with sand. three ships the south wind catches and hurls on hidden rocks, rocks amid the waves which italians call the altars, a vast reef banking the sea. three the east forces from the deep into shallows and quicksands, piteous to see, dashes on shoals and girdles with a sandbank. one, wherein loyal orontes and his lycians rode, before their lord's eyes a vast sea descending strikes astern. the helmsman is dashed away and rolled forward headlong; her as she lies the billow sends spinning thrice round with it, and engulfs in the swift whirl. scattered swimmers appear in the vast eddy, armour of men, timbers and trojan treasure amid the water. ere now the stout ship of ilioneus, ere now of brave achates, and she wherein [ - ]abas rode, and she wherein aged aletes, have yielded to the storm; through the shaken fastenings of their sides they all draw in the deadly water, and their opening seams give way. meanwhile neptune discerned with astonishment the loud roaring of the vexed sea, the tempest let loose from prison, and the still water boiling up from its depths, and lifting his head calm above the waves, looked forth across the deep. he sees all ocean strewn with aeneas' fleet, the trojans overwhelmed by the waves and the ruining heaven. juno's guile and wrath lay clear to her brother's eye; east wind and west he calls before him, and thereon speaks thus: 'stand you then so sure in your confidence of birth? careless, o winds, of my deity, dare you confound sky and earth, and raise so huge a coil? you whom i--but better to still the aroused waves; for a second sin you shall pay me another penalty. speed your flight, and say this to your king: not to him but to me was allotted the stern trident of ocean empire. his fastness is on the monstrous rocks where thou and thine, east wind, dwell: there let aeolus glory in his palace and reign over the barred prison of his winds.' thus he speaks, and ere the words are done he soothes the swollen seas, chases away the gathered clouds, and restores the sunlight. cymothoë and triton together push the ships strongly off the sharp reef; himself he eases them with his trident, channels the vast quicksands, and assuages the sea, gliding on light wheels along the water. even as when oft in a throng of people strife hath risen, and the base multitude rage in their minds, and now brands and stones are flying; madness lends arms; then if perchance they catch sight of one reverend for goodness and service, they are silent and stand by with attentive ear; he with [ - ]speech sways their temper and soothes their breasts; even so hath fallen all the thunder of ocean, when riding forward beneath a cloudless sky the lord of the sea wheels his coursers and lets his gliding chariot fly with loosened rein. the outworn aeneadae hasten to run for the nearest shore, and turn to the coast of libya. there lies a spot deep withdrawn; an island forms a harbour with outstretched sides, whereon all the waves break from the open sea and part into the hollows of the bay. on this side and that enormous cliffs rise threatening heaven, and twin crags beneath whose crest the sheltered water lies wide and calm; above hangs a background of flickering forest, and the dark shade of rustling groves. beneath the seaward brow is a rock-hung cavern, within it fresh springs and seats in the living stone, a haunt of nymphs; where tired ships need no fetters to hold nor anchor to fasten them with crooked bite. here with seven sail gathered of all his company aeneas enters; and disembarking on the land of their desire the trojans gain the chosen beach, and set their feet dripping with brine upon the shore. at once achates struck a spark from the flint and caught the fire on leaves, and laying dry fuel round kindled it into flame. then, weary of fortune, they fetch out corn spoiled by the sea and weapons of corn-dressing, and begin to parch over the fire and bruise in stones the grain they had rescued. meanwhile aeneas scales the crag, and seeks the whole view wide over ocean, if he may see aught of antheus storm-tossed with his phrygian galleys, aught of capys or of caïcus' armour high astern. ship in sight is none; three stags he espies straying on the shore; behind whole herds follow, and graze in long train across the valley. stopping short, he snatched up a bow and swift arrows, the arms trusty achates was carrying; and first the leaders, their stately heads high with branching antlers, then the common [ - ]herd fall to his hand, as he drives them with his shafts in a broken crowd through the leafy woods. nor stays he till seven great victims are stretched on the sod, fulfilling the number of his ships. thence he seeks the harbour and parts them among all his company. the casks of wine that good acestes had filled on the trinacrian beach, the hero's gift at their departure, he thereafter shares, and calms with speech their sorrowing hearts: 'o comrades, for not now nor aforetime are we ignorant of ill, o tried by heavier fortunes, unto this last likewise will god appoint an end. the fury of scylla and the roaring recesses of her crags you have been anigh; the rocks of the cyclops you have trodden. recall your courage, put dull fear away. this too sometime we shall haply remember with delight. through chequered fortunes, through many perilous ways, we steer for latium, where destiny points us a quiet home. there the realm of troy may rise again unforbidden. keep heart, and endure till prosperous fortune come.' such words he utters, and sick with deep distress he feigns hope on his face, and keeps his anguish hidden deep in his breast. the others set to the spoil they are to feast upon, tear chine from ribs and lay bare the flesh; some cut it into pieces and pierce it still quivering with spits; others plant cauldrons on the beach and feed them with flame. then they repair their strength with food, and lying along the grass take their fill of old wine and fat venison. after hunger is driven from the banquet, and the board cleared, they talk with lingering regret of their lost companions, swaying between hope and fear, whether they may believe them yet alive, or now in their last agony and deaf to mortal call. most does good aeneas inly wail the loss now of valiant orontes, now of amycus, the cruel doom of lycus, of brave gyas, and brave cloanthus. [ - ]and now they ceased; when from the height of air jupiter looked down on the sail-winged sea and outspread lands, the shores and broad countries, and looking stood on the cope of heaven, and cast down his eyes on the realm of libya. to him thus troubled at heart venus, her bright eyes brimming with tears, sorrowfully speaks: 'o thou who dost sway mortal and immortal things with eternal command and the terror of thy thunderbolt, how can my aeneas have transgressed so grievously against thee? how his trojans? on whom, after so many deaths outgone, all the world is barred for italy's sake. from them sometime in the rolling years the romans were to arise indeed; from them were to be rulers who, renewing the blood of teucer, should hold sea and land in universal lordship. this thou didst promise: why, o father, is thy decree reversed? this was my solace for the wretched ruin of sunken troy, doom balanced against doom. now so many woes are spent, and the same fortune still pursues them; lord and king, what limit dost thou set to their agony? antenor could elude the encircling achaeans, could thread in safety the illyrian bays and inmost realms of the liburnians, could climb timavus' source, whence through nine mouths pours the bursting tide amid dreary moans of the mountain, and covers the fields with hoarse waters. yet here did he set patavium town, a dwelling-place for his teucrians, gave his name to a nation and hung up the armour of troy; now settled in peace, he rests and is in quiet. we, thy children, we whom thou beckonest to the heights of heaven, our fleet miserably cast away for a single enemy's anger, are betrayed and severed far from the italian coasts. is this the reward of goodness? is it thus thou dost restore our throne?' smiling on her with that look which clears sky and [ - ]storms, the parent of men and gods lightly kissed his daughter's lips; then answered thus: 'spare thy fear, cytherean; thy people's destiny abides unshaken. thine eyes shall see the city lavinium, their promised home; thou shalt exalt to the starry heaven thy noble aeneas; nor is my decree reversed. he thou lovest (for i will speak, since this care keeps torturing thee, and will unroll further the secret records of fate) shall wage a great war in italy, and crush warrior nations; he shall appoint his people a law and a city; till the third summer see him reigning in latium, and three winters' camps pass over the conquered rutulians. but the boy ascanius, whose surname is now iülus--ilus he was while the ilian state stood sovereign--thirty great circles of rolling months shall he fulfil in government; he shall carry the kingdom from its fastness in lavinium, and make a strong fortress of alba the long. here the full space of thrice an hundred years shall the kingdom endure under the race of hector's kin, till the royal priestess ilia from mars' embrace shall give birth to a twin progeny. thence shall romulus, gay in the tawny hide of the she-wolf that nursed him, take up their line, and name them romans after his own name. i appoint to these neither period nor boundary of empire: i have given them dominion without end. nay, harsh juno, who in her fear now troubles earth and sea and sky, shall change to better counsels, and with me shall cherish the lords of the world, the gowned race of rome. thus is it willed. a day will come in the lapse of cycles, when the house of assaracus shall lay phthia and famed mycenae in bondage, and reign over conquered argos. from the fair line of troy a caesar shall arise, who shall limit his empire with ocean, his glory with the firmament, julius, inheritor of great iülus' name. him one day, thy care done, thou shalt welcome to heaven loaded [ - ]with eastern spoils; to him too shall vows be addressed. then shall war cease, and the iron ages soften. hoar faith and vesta, quirinus and remus brothers again, shall deliver statutes. the dreadful steel-riveted gates of war shall be shut fast; on murderous weapons the inhuman fury, his hands bound behind him with an hundred fetters of brass, shall sit within, shrieking with terrible blood-stained lips.' so speaking, he sends maia's son down from above, that the land and towers of carthage, the new town, may receive the trojans with open welcome; lest dido, ignorant of doom, might debar them her land. flying through the depth of air on winged oarage, the fleet messenger alights on the libyan coasts. at once he does his bidding; at once, for a god willed it, the phoenicians allay their haughty temper; the queen above all takes to herself grace and compassion towards the teucrians. but good aeneas, nightlong revolving many and many a thing, issues forth, so soon as bountiful light is given, to explore the strange country; to what coasts the wind has borne him, who are their habitants, men or wild beasts, for all he sees is wilderness; this he resolves to search, and bring back the certainty to his comrades. the fleet he hides close in embosoming groves beneath a caverned rock, amid shivering shadow of the woodland; himself, achates alone following, he strides forward, clenching in his hand two broad-headed spears. and amid the forest his mother crossed his way, wearing the face and raiment of a maiden, the arms of a maiden of sparta, or like harpalyce of thrace when she tires her coursers and outstrips the winged speed of hebrus in her flight. for huntress fashion had she slung the ready bow from her shoulder, and left her blown tresses free, bared her knee, and knotted together her garments' flowing folds. 'ha! my men,' she begins, 'shew me if [ - ]haply you have seen a sister of mine straying here girt with quiver and a lynx's dappled fell, or pressing with shouts on the track of a foaming boar.' thus venus, and venus' son answering thus began: 'sound nor sight have i had of sister of thine, o maiden unnamed; for thy face is not mortal, nor thy voice of human tone; o goddess assuredly! sister of phoebus perchance, or one of the nymphs' blood? be thou gracious, whoso thou art, and lighten this toil of ours; deign to instruct us beneath what skies, on what coast of the world, we are thrown. driven hither by wind and desolate waves, we wander in a strange land among unknown men. many a sacrifice shall fall by our hand before thine altars.' then venus: 'nay, to no such offerings do i aspire. tyrian maidens are wont ever to wear the quiver, to tie the purple buskin high above their ankle. punic is the realm thou seest, tyrian the people, and the city of agenor's kin; but their borders are libyan, a race unassailable in war. dido sways the sceptre, who flying her brother set sail from the tyrian town. long is the tale of crime, long and intricate; but i will briefly follow its argument. her husband was sychaeus, wealthiest in lands of the phoenicians, and loved of her with ill-fated passion; to whom with virgin rites her father had given her maidenhood in wedlock. but the kingdom of tyre was in her brother pygmalion's hands, a monster of guilt unparalleled. between these madness came; the unnatural brother, blind with lust of gold, and reckless of his sister's love, lays sychaeus low before the altars with stealthy unsuspected weapon; and for long he hid the deed, and by many a crafty pretence cheated her love-sickness with hollow hope. but in slumber came the very ghost of her unburied husband; lifting up a face pale in wonderful wise, he exposed the merciless altars and [ - ]his breast stabbed through with steel, and unwove all the blind web of household guilt. then he counsels hasty flight out of the country, and to aid her passage discloses treasures long hidden underground, an untold mass of silver and gold. stirred thereby, dido gathered a company for flight. all assemble in whom hatred of the tyrant was relentless or fear keen; they seize on ships that chanced to lie ready, and load them with the gold. pygmalion's hoarded wealth is borne overseas; a woman leads the work. they came at last to the land where thou wilt descry a city now great, new carthage, and her rising citadel, and bought ground, called thence byrsa, as much as a bull's hide would encircle. but who, i pray, are you, or from what coasts come, or whither hold you your way?' at her question he, sighing and drawing speech deep from his breast, thus replied: 'ah goddess, should i go on retracing from the fountain head, were time free to hear the history of our woes, sooner would the evening star lay day asleep in the closed gates of heaven. us, as from ancient troy (if the name of troy hath haply passed through your ears) we sailed over alien seas, the tempest at his own wild will hath driven on the libyan coast. i am aeneas the good, who carry in my fleet the household gods i rescued from the enemy; my fame is known high in heaven. i seek italy my country, my kin of jove's supreme blood. with twenty sail did i climb the phrygian sea; oracular tokens led me on; my goddess mother pointed the way; scarce seven survive the shattering of wave and wind. myself unknown, destitute, driven from europe and asia, i wander over the libyan wilderness.' but staying longer complaint, venus thus broke in on his half-told sorrows: 'whoso thou art, not hated i think of the immortals [ - ]dost thou draw the breath of life, who hast reached the tyrian city. only go on, and betake thee hence to the courts of the queen. for i declare to thee thy comrades are restored, thy fleet driven back into safety by the shifted northern gales, except my parents were pretenders, and unavailing the augury they taught me. behold these twelve swans in joyous line, whom, stooping from the tract of heaven, the bird of jove fluttered over the open sky; now in long train they seem either to take the ground or already to look down on the ground they took. as they again disport with clapping wings, and utter their notes as they circle the sky in company, even so do these ships and crews of thine either lie fast in harbour or glide under full sail into the harbour mouth. only go on, and turn thy steps where the pathway leads thee.' speaking she turned away, and her neck shone roseate, her immortal tresses breathed the fragrance of deity; her raiment fell flowing down to her feet, and the godhead was manifest in her tread. he knew her for his mother, and with this cry pursued her flight: 'thou also merciless! why mockest thou thy son so often in feigned likeness? why is it forbidden to clasp hand in hand, to hear and utter true speech?' thus reproaching her he bends his steps towards the city. but venus girt them in their going with dull mist, and shed round them a deep divine clothing of cloud, that none might see them, none touch them, or work delay, or ask wherefore they came. herself she speeds through the sky to paphos, and joyfully revisits her habitation, where the temple and its hundred altars steam with sabaean incense, and are fresh with fragrance of chaplets in her worship. they meantime have hasted along where the pathway points, and now were climbing the hill which hangs enormous over the city, and looks down on its facing towers. [ - ]aeneas marvels at the mass of building, pastoral huts once of old, marvels at the gateways and clatter of the pavements. the tyrians are hot at work to trace the walls, to rear the citadel, and roll up great stones by hand, or to choose a spot for their dwelling and enclose it with a furrow. they ordain justice and magistrates, and the august senate. here some are digging harbours, here others lay the deep foundations of their theatre, and hew out of the cliff vast columns, the lofty ornaments of the stage to be: even as bees when summer is fresh over the flowery country ply their task beneath the sun, when they lead forth their nation's grown brood, or when they press the liquid honey and strain their cells with nectarous sweets, or relieve the loaded incomers, or in banded array drive the idle herd of drones far from their folds; they swarm over their work, and the odorous honey smells sweet of thyme. 'happy they whose city already rises!' cries aeneas, looking on the town roofs below. girt in the cloud he passes amid them, wonderful to tell, and mingling with the throng is descried of none. in the heart of the town was a grove deep with luxuriant shade, wherein first the phoenicians, buffeted by wave and whirlwind, dug up the token queen juno had appointed, the head of a war horse: thereby was their race to be through all ages illustrious in war and opulent in living. here to juno was sidonian dido founding a vast temple, rich with offerings and the sanctity of her godhead: brazen steps rose on the threshold, brass clamped the pilasters, doors of brass swung on grating hinges. first in this grove did a strange chance meet his steps and allay his fears; first here did aeneas dare to hope for safety and have fairer trust in his shattered fortunes. for while he closely scans the temple that towers above him, while, awaiting the queen, he admires the fortunate city, the emulous hands and elaborate work of her craftsmen, he sees ranged in order the [ - ]battles of ilium, that war whose fame was already rumoured through all the world, the sons of atreus and priam, and achilles whom both found pitiless. he stopped and cried weeping, 'what land is left, achates, what tract on earth that is not full of our agony? behold priam! here too is the meed of honour, here mortal estate touches the soul to tears. dismiss thy fears; the fame of this will somehow bring thee salvation.' so speaks he, and fills his soul with the painted show, sighing often the while, and his face wet with a full river of tears. for he saw, how warring round the trojan citadel here the greeks fled, the men of troy hard on their rear; here the phrygians, plumed achilles in his chariot pressing their flight. not far away he knows the snowy canvas of rhesus' tents, which, betrayed in their first sleep, the blood-stained son of tydeus laid desolate in heaped slaughter, and turns the ruddy steeds away to the camp ere ever they tasted trojan fodder or drunk of xanthus. elsewhere troïlus, his armour flung away in flight--luckless boy, no match for achilles to meet!--is borne along by his horses, and thrown back entangled with his empty chariot, still clutching the reins; his neck and hair are dragged over the ground, and his reversed spear scores the dust. meanwhile the ilian women went with disordered tresses to unfriendly pallas' temple, and bore the votive garment, sadly beating breast with palm: the goddess turning away held her eyes fast on the ground. thrice had achilles whirled hector round the walls of troy, and was selling the lifeless body for gold; then at last he heaves a loud and heart-deep groan, as the spoils, as the chariot, as the dear body met his gaze, and priam outstretching unarmed hands. himself too he knew joining battle with the foremost achaeans, knew the eastern ranks and swart memnon's armour. penthesilea leads her crescent-shielded amazonian columns in furious heat with [ - ]thousands around her; clasping a golden belt under her naked breast, the warrior maiden clashes boldly with men. while these marvels meet dardanian aeneas' eyes, while he dizzily hangs rapt in one long gaze, dido the queen entered the precinct, beautiful exceedingly, a youthful train thronging round her. even as on eurotas' banks or along the cynthian ridges diana wheels the dance, while behind her a thousand mountain nymphs crowd to left and right; she carries quiver on shoulder, and as she moves outshines them all in deity; latona's heart is thrilled with silent joy; such was dido, so she joyously advanced amid the throng, urging on the business of her rising empire. then in the gates of the goddess, beneath the central vault of the temple roof, she took her seat girt with arms and high enthroned. and now she gave justice and laws to her people, and adjusted or allotted their taskwork in due portion; when suddenly aeneas sees advancing with a great crowd about them antheus and sergestus and brave cloanthus, and other of his trojans, whom the black squall had sundered at sea and borne far away on the coast. dizzy with the shock of joy and fear he and achates together were on fire with eagerness to clasp their hands; but in confused uncertainty they keep hidden, and clothed in the sheltering cloud wait to espy what fortune befalls them, where they are leaving their fleet ashore, why they now come; for they advanced, chosen men from all the ships, praying for grace, and held on with loud cries towards the temple. after they entered in, and free speech was granted, aged ilioneus with placid mien thus began: 'queen, to whom jupiter hath given to found this new city, and lay the yoke of justice upon haughty tribes, we beseech thee, we wretched trojans storm-driven over all [ - ]the seas, stay the dreadful flames from our ships; spare a guiltless race, and bend a gracious regard on our fortunes. we are not come to deal slaughter through libyan homes, or to drive plundered spoils to the coast. such violence sits not in our mind, nor is a conquered people so insolent. there is a place greeks name hesperia, an ancient land, mighty in arms and foison of the clod; oenotrian men dwelt therein; now rumour is that a younger race from their captain's name have called it italy. thither lay our course . . . when orion rising on us through the cloudrack with sudden surf bore us on blind shoals, and scattered us afar with his boisterous gales and whelming brine over waves and trackless reefs. to these your coasts we a scanty remnant floated up. what race of men, what land how barbarous soever, allows such a custom for its own? we are debarred the shelter of the beach; they rise in war, and forbid us to set foot on the brink of their land. if you slight human kinship and mortal arms, yet look for gods unforgetful of innocence and guilt. aeneas was our king, foremost of men in righteousness, incomparable in goodness as in warlike arms; whom if fate still preserves, if he draws the breath of heaven and lies not yet low in dispiteous gloom, fear we have none; nor mayest thou repent of challenging the contest of service. in sicilian territory too is tilth and town, and famed acestes himself of trojan blood. grant us to draw ashore our storm-shattered fleet, to shape forest trees into beams and strip them for oars; so, if to italy we may steer with our king and comrades found, italy and latium shall we gladly seek; but if salvation is clean gone, if the libyan gulf holds thee, dear lord of thy trojans, and iülus our hope survives no more, seek we then at least the straits of sicily, the open homes whence we sailed hither, and acestes for our king.' thus ilioneus, and all the dardanian company [ - ]murmured assent. . . . then dido, with downcast face, briefly speaks: 'cheer your anxious hearts, o teucrians; put by your care. hard fortune in a strange realm forces me to this task, to keep watch and ward on my wide frontiers. who can be ignorant of the race of aeneas' people, who of troy town and her men and deeds, or of the great war's consuming fire? not so dull are the hearts of our punic wearing, not so far doth the sun yoke his steeds from our tyrian town. whether your choice be broad hesperia, the fields of saturn's dominion, or eryx for your country and acestes for your king, my escort shall speed you in safety, my arsenals supply your need. or will you even find rest here with me and share my kingdom? the city i establish is yours; draw your ships ashore; trojan and tyrian shall be held by me in even balance. and would that he your king, that aeneas were here, storm-driven to this same haven! but i will send messengers along the coast, and bid them trace libya to its limits, if haply he strays shipwrecked in forest or town.' stirred by these words brave achates and lord aeneas both ere now burned to break through the cloud. achates first accosts aeneas: 'goddess-born, what purpose now rises in thy spirit? thou seest all is safe, our fleet and comrades are restored. one only is wanting, whom our eyes saw whelmed amid the waves; all else is answerable to thy mother's words.' scarce had he spoken when the encircling cloud suddenly parts and melts into clear air. aeneas stood discovered in sheen of brilliant light, like a god in face and shoulders; for his mother's self had shed on her son the grace of clustered locks, the radiant light of youth, and the lustre of joyous eyes; as when ivory takes beauty under the artist's hand, or when silver or parian stone is inlaid in gold. [ - ]then breaking in on all with unexpected speech he thus addresses the queen: 'i whom you seek am here before you, aeneas of troy, snatched from the libyan waves. o thou who alone hast pitied troy's untold agonies, thou who with us the remnant of the grecian foe, worn out ere now by every suffering land and sea can bring, with us in our utter want dost share thy city and home! to render meet recompense is not possible for us, o dido, nor for all who scattered over the wide world are left of our dardanian race. the gods grant thee worthy reward, if their deity turn any regard on goodness, if aught avails justice and conscious purity of soul. what happy ages bore thee? what mighty parents gave thy virtue birth? while rivers run into the sea, while the mountain shadows move across their slopes, while the stars have pasturage in heaven, ever shall thine honour, thy name and praises endure in the unknown lands that summon me.' with these words he advances his right hand to dear ilioneus, his left to serestus; then to the rest, brave gyas and brave cloanthus. dido the sidonian stood astonished, first at the sight of him, then at his strange fortunes; and these words left her lips: 'what fate follows thee, goddess-born, through perilous ways? what violence lands thee on this monstrous coast? art thou that aeneas whom venus the bountiful bore to dardanian anchises by the wave of phrygian simoïs? and well i remember how teucer came to sidon, when exiled from his native land he sought belus' aid to gain new realms; belus my father even then ravaged rich cyprus and held it under his conquering sway. from that time forth have i known the fall of the trojan city, known thy name and the pelasgian princes. their very foe would extol the teucrians with highest praises, and boasted himself a branch [ - ]of the ancient teucrian stem. come therefore, o men, and enter our house. me too hath a like fortune driven through many a woe, and willed at last to find my rest in this land. not ignorant of ill do i learn to succour the afflicted.' with such speech she leads aeneas into the royal house, and orders sacrifice in the gods' temples. therewith she sends his company on the shore twenty bulls, an hundred great bristly-backed swine, an hundred fat lambs and their mothers with them, gifts of the day's gladness. . . . but the palace within is decked with splendour of royal state, and a banquet made ready amid the halls. the coverings are curiously wrought in splendid purple; on the tables is massy silver and deeds of ancestral valour graven in gold, all the long course of history drawn through many a heroic name from the nation's primal antiquity. aeneas--for a father's affection denied his spirit rest--sends achates speeding to his ships, to carry this news to ascanius, and lead him to the town: in ascanius is fixed all the parent's loving care. presents likewise he bids him bring saved from the wreck of ilium, a mantle stiff with gold embroidery, and a veil with woven border of yellow acanthus-flower, that once decked helen of argos, the marvel of her mother leda's giving; helen had borne them from mycenae, when she sought troy towers and a lawless bridal; the sceptre too that ilione, priam's eldest daughter, once had worn, a beaded necklace, and a double circlet of jewelled gold. achates, hasting on his message, bent his way towards the ships. but in the cytherean's breast new arts, new schemes revolve; if cupid, changed in form and feature, may come in sweet ascanius' room, and his gifts kindle the queen to madness and set her inmost sense aflame. verily she fears the uncertain house, the double-tongued race of tyre; [ - ]cruel juno frets her, and at nightfall her care floods back. therefore to winged love she speaks these words: 'son, who art alone my strength and sovereignty, son, who scornest the mighty father's typhoïan shafts, to thee i fly for succour, and sue humbly to thy deity. how aeneas thy brother is driven about all the sea-coasts by bitter juno's malignity, this thou knowest, and hast often grieved in our grief. now dido the phoenician holds him stayed with soft words, and i tremble to think how the welcome of juno's house may issue; she will not be idle in this supreme turn of fortune. wherefore i counsel to prevent her wiles and circle the queen with flame, that, unalterable by any deity, she may be held fast to me by passionate love for aeneas. take now my thought how to do this. the boy prince, my chiefest care, makes ready at his dear father's summons to go to the sidonian city, carrying gifts that survive the sea and the flames of troy. him will i hide deep asleep in my holy habitation, high on cythera's hills or in idalium, that he may not know nor cross our wiles. do thou but for one night feign his form, and, boy as thou art, put on the familiar face of a boy; so when in festal cheer, amid royal dainties and bacchic juice, dido shall take thee to her lap, shall fold thee in her clasp and kiss thee close and sweet, thou mayest imbreathe a hidden fire and unsuspected poison.' love obeys his dear mother's words, lays by his wings, and walks rejoicingly with iülus' tread. but venus pours gentle dew of slumber on ascanius' limbs, and lifts him lulled in her lap to the tall idalian groves of her deity, where soft amaracus folds him round with the shadowed sweetness of its odorous blossoms. and now, obedient to her words, cupid went merrily in achates' guiding, with the royal gifts for the tyrians. already at his coming the queen hath sate her down in the midmost on her golden [ - ]throne under the splendid tapestries; now lord aeneas, now too the men of troy gather, and all recline on the strewn purple. servants pour water on their hands, serve corn from baskets, and bring napkins with close-cut pile. fifty handmaids are within, whose task is in their course to keep unfailing store and kindle the household fire. an hundred others, and as many pages all of like age, load the board with food and array the wine cups. therewithal the tyrians are gathered full in the wide feasting chamber, and take their appointed places on the broidered cushions. they marvel at aeneas' gifts, marvel at iülus, at the god's face aflame and forged speech, at the mantle and veil wrought with yellow acanthus-flower. above all the hapless phoenician, victim to coming doom, cannot satiate her soul, but, stirred alike by the boy and the gifts, she gazes and takes fire. he, when hanging clasped on aeneas' neck he had satisfied all the deluded parent's love, makes his way to the queen; the queen clings to him with her eyes and all her soul, and ever and anon fondles him in her lap, ah, poor dido! witless how mighty a deity sinks into her breast; but he, mindful of his mother the acidalian, begins touch by touch to efface sychaeus, and sows the surprise of a living love in the long-since-unstirred spirit and disaccustomed heart. soon as the noise of banquet ceased and the board was cleared, they set down great bowls and enwreathe the wine. the house is filled with hum of voices eddying through the spacious chambers; lit lamps hang down by golden chainwork, and flaming tapers expel the night. now the queen called for a heavy cup of jewelled gold, and filled it with pure wine; therewith was the use of belus and all of belus' race: then the hall was silenced. 'jupiter,' she cries, 'for thou art reputed lawgiver of hospitality, grant that this be a joyful day to the tyrians and the voyagers from troy, a day to live in our children's memory. [ - ]bacchus, the giver of gladness, be with us, and juno the bountiful; and you, o tyrians, be favourable to our assembly.' she spoke, and poured liquid libation on the board, which done, she first herself touched it lightly with her lips, then handed it to bitias and bade him speed; he valiantly drained the foaming cup, and flooded him with the brimming gold. the other princes followed. long-haired iopas on his gilded lyre fills the chamber with songs ancient atlas taught; he sings of the wandering moon and the sun's travails; whence is the human race and the brute, whence water and fire; of arcturus, the rainy hyades, and the twin oxen; why wintry suns make such haste to dip in ocean, or what delay makes the nights drag lingeringly. tyrians and trojans after them redouble applause. therewithal dido wore the night in changing talk, alas! and drank long draughts of love, asking many a thing of priam, many a thing of hector; now in what armour the son of the morning came; now of what fashion were diomede's horses; now of mighty achilles. 'nay, come,' she cries, 'tell to us, o guest, from their first beginning the treachery of the grecians, thy people's woes, and thine own wanderings; for this is now the seventh summer that bears thee a wanderer over all the earth and sea.' book second the story of the sack of troy all were hushed, and sate with steadfast countenance; thereon, high from his cushioned seat, lord aeneas thus began: 'dreadful, o queen, is the woe thou bidst me recall, how the grecians pitiably overthrew the wealth and lordship of troy; and i myself saw these things in all their horror, and i bore great part in them. what myrmidon or dolopian, or soldier of stern ulysses, could in such a tale restrain his tears! and now night falls dewy from the steep of heaven, and the setting stars counsel to slumber. yet if thy desire be such to know our calamities, and briefly to hear troy's last agony, though my spirit shudders at the remembrance and recoils in pain, i will essay. 'broken in war and beaten back by fate, and so many years now slid away, the grecian captains build by pallas' divine craft a horse of mountainous build, ribbed with sawn fir; they feign it vowed for their return, and this rumour goes about. within the blind sides they stealthily imprison chosen men picked out one by one, and fill the vast cavern of its womb full with armed soldiery. 'there lies in sight an island well known in fame, tenedos, rich of store while the realm of priam endured, [ - ]now but a bay and roadstead treacherous to ships. hither they launch forth, and hide on the solitary shore: we fancied they were gone, and had run down the wind for mycenae. so all the teucrian land put her long grief away. the gates are flung open; men go rejoicingly to see the doric camp, the deserted stations and abandoned shore. here the dolopian troops were tented, here cruel achilles; here their squadrons lay; here the lines were wont to meet in battle. some gaze astonished at the deadly gift of minerva the virgin, and wonder at the horse's bulk; and thymoetes begins to advise that it be drawn within our walls and set in the citadel, whether in guile, or that the doom of troy was even now setting thus. but capys and they whose mind was of better counsel, bid us either hurl sheer into the sea the guileful and sinister gift of greece, or heap flames beneath to consume it, or pierce and explore the hollow hiding-place of its womb. the wavering crowd is torn apart in high dispute. 'at that, foremost of all and with a great throng about him, laocoön runs hotly down from the high citadel, and cries from far: "ah, wretched citizens, what height of madness is this? believe you the foe is gone? or think you any grecian gift is free of treachery? is it thus we know ulysses? either achaeans are hid in this cage of wood, or the engine is fashioned against our walls to overlook the houses and descend upon the city; some delusion lurks there: trust not the horse, o trojans. be it what it may, i fear the grecians even when they offer gifts." thus speaking, he hurled his mighty spear with great strength at the creature's side and the curved framework of the belly: the spear stood quivering, and the jarred cavern of the womb sounded hollow and uttered a groan. and had divine ordinance, had a soul not infatuate been with us, he had moved us to lay violent steel on the argolic hiding place; [ - ]and troy would now stand, and you, tall towers of priam, yet abide. 'lo, dardanian shepherds meanwhile dragged clamorously before the king a man with hands tied behind his back, who to compass this very thing, to lay troy open to the achaeans, had gone to meet their ignorant approach, confident in spirit and doubly prepared to spin his snares or to meet assured death. from all sides, in eagerness to see, the people of troy run streaming in, and vie in jeers at their prisoner. know now the treachery of the grecians, and from a single crime learn all. . . . for as he stood amid our gaze confounded, disarmed, and cast his eyes around the phrygian columns, "alas!" he cried, "what land now, what seas may receive me? or what is the last doom that yet awaits my misery? who have neither any place among the grecians, and likewise the dardanians clamour in wrath for the forfeit of my blood." at that lament our spirit was changed, and all assault stayed: we encourage him to speak, and tell of what blood he is sprung, or what assurance he brings his captors. '"in all things assuredly," says he, "o king, befall what may, i will confess to thee the truth; nor will i deny myself of argolic birth--this first--nor, if fortune hath made sinon unhappy, shall her malice mould him to a cheat and a liar. hath a tale of the name of palamedes, son of belus, haply reached thine ears, and of his glorious rumour and renown; whom under false evidence the pelasgians, because he forbade the war, sent innocent to death by wicked witness; now they bewail him when he hath left the light;--in his company, being near of blood, my father, poor as he was, sent me hither to arms from mine earliest years. while he stood unshaken in royalty and potent in the councils of the kings, we too wore a name and honour. when by subtle ulysses' malice (no unknown tale do i tell) [ - ]he left the upper regions, my shattered life crept on in darkness and grief, inly indignant at the fate of my innocent friend. nor in my madness was i silent: and, should any chance offer, did i ever return a conqueror to my native argos, i vowed myself his avenger, and with my words i stirred his bitter hatred. from this came the first taint of ill; from this did ulysses ever threaten me with fresh charges, from this flung dark sayings among the crowd and sought confederate arms. nay, nor did he rest, till by calchas' service--but yet why do i vainly unroll the unavailing tale, or why hold you in delay, if all achaeans are ranked together in your mind, and it is enough that i bear the name? take the vengeance deferred; this the ithacan would desire, and the sons of atreus buy at a great ransom." 'then indeed we press on to ask and inquire the cause, witless of wickedness so great and pelasgian craft. tremblingly the false-hearted one pursues his speech: '"often would the grecians have taken to flight, leaving troy behind, and disbanded in weariness of the long war: and would god they had! as often the fierce sea-tempest barred their way, and the gale frightened them from going. most of all when this horse already stood framed with beams of maple, storm clouds roared over all the sky. in perplexity we send eurypylus to inquire of phoebus' oracle; and he brings back from the sanctuary these words of terror: _with blood of a slain maiden, o grecians, you appeased the winds when first you came to the ilian coasts; with blood must you seek your return, and an argive life be the accepted sacrifice._ when that utterance reached the ears of the crowd, their hearts stood still, and a cold shudder ran through their inmost sense: for whom is doom purposed? who is claimed of apollo? at this the ithacan with loud clamour drags calchas the soothsayer forth amidst them, and demands of him what is this the gods signify. and now many an one [ - ]foretold me the villain's craft and cruelty, and silently saw what was to come. twice five days he is speechless in his tent, and will not have any one denounced by his lips, or given up to death. scarcely at last, at the loud urgence of the ithacan, he breaks into speech as was planned, and appoints me for the altar. all consented; and each one's particular fear was turned, ah me! to my single destruction. and now the dreadful day was at hand; the rites were being ordered for me, the salted corn, and the chaplets to wreathe my temples. i broke away, i confess it, from death; i burst my bonds, and lurked all night darkling in the sedge of the marshy pool, till they might set their sails, if haply they should set them. nor have i any hope more of seeing my old home nor my sweet children and the father whom i desire. of them will they even haply claim vengeance for my flight, and wash away this crime in their wretched death. by the heavenly powers i beseech thee, the deities to whom truth is known, by all the faith yet unsullied that is anywhere left among mortals; pity woes so great; pity an undeserving sufferer." 'at these his tears we grant him life, and accord our pity. priam himself at once commands his shackles and strait bonds to be undone, and thus speaks with kindly words: "whoso thou art, now and henceforth dismiss and forget the greeks: thou shalt be ours. and unfold the truth to this my question: wherefore have they reared this vast size of horse? who is their counsellor? or what their aim? what propitiation, or what engine of war is this?" he ended; the other, stored with the treacherous craft of pelasgia, lifts to heaven his freed hands. "you, everlasting fires," he cries, "and your inviolable sanctity be my witness; you, o altars and accursed swords i fled, and chaplets of the gods i wore as victim! unblamed may i break the oath of greek allegiance, unblamed hate them and bring all to light that they [ - ]conceal; nor am i bound by any laws of country. do thou only keep by thy promise, o troy, and preserve faith with thy preserver, as my news shall be true, as my recompense great. '"all the hope of greece, and the confidence in which the war began, ever centred in pallas' aid. but since the wicked son of tydeus, and ulysses, forger of crime, made bold to tear the fated palladium from her sanctuary, and cut down the sentries on the towered height; since they grasped the holy image, and dared with bloody hands to touch the maiden chaplets of the goddess; since then the hope of greece ebbed and slid away backwards, their strength was broken, and the mind of the goddess estranged. whereof the tritonian gave token by no uncertain signs. scarcely was the image set in the camp; flame shot sparkling from its lifted eyes, and salt sweat started over its body; thrice, wonderful to tell, it leapt from the ground with shield and spear quivering. immediately calchas prophesies that the seas must be explored in flight, nor may troy towers be overthrown by argive weapons, except they repeat their auspices at argos, and bring back that divine presence they have borne away with them in the curved ships overseas. and now they have run down the wind for their native mycenae, to gather arms and gods to attend them; they will remeasure ocean and be on you unawares. so calchas expounds the omens. this image at his warning they reared in recompense for the palladium and the injured deity, to expiate the horror of sacrilege. yet calchas bade them raise it to this vast size with oaken crossbeams, and build it up to heaven, that it may not find entry at the gates nor be drawn within the city, nor protect your people beneath the consecration of old. for if hand of yours should violate minerva's offering, then utter destruction (the gods turn rather on himself his augury!) should be upon priam's empire and [ - ]the phrygian people. but if under your hands it climbed into your city, asia should advance in mighty war to the walls of pelops, and a like fate awaited our children's children." 'so by sinon's wiles and craft and perjury the thing gained belief; and we were ensnared by treachery and forced tears, we whom neither the son of tydeus nor achilles of larissa, whom not ten years nor a thousand ships brought down. 'here another sight, greater, alas! and far more terrible meets us, and alarms our thoughtless senses. laocoön, allotted priest of neptune, was slaying a great bull at the accustomed altars. and lo! from tenedos, over the placid depths (i shudder as i recall) two snakes in enormous coils press down the sea and advance together to the shore; their breasts rise through the surge, and their blood-red crests overtop the waves; the rest trails through the main behind and wreathes back in voluminous curves; the brine gurgles and foams. and now they gained the fields, while their bloodshot eyes blazed with fire, and their tongues lapped and flickered in their hissing mouths. we scatter, pallid at the sight. they in unfaltering train make towards laocoön. and first the serpents twine in their double embrace his two little children, and bite deep in their wretched limbs; then him likewise, as he comes up to help with arms in his hand, they seize and fasten in their enormous coils; and now twice clasping his waist, twice encircling his neck with their scaly bodies, they tower head and neck above him. he at once strains his hands to tear their knots apart, his fillets spattered with foul black venom; at once raises to heaven awful cries; as when, bellowing, a bull shakes the wavering axe from his neck and runs wounded from the altar. but the two snakes glide away to the high sanctuary and seek the fierce tritonian's citadel, [ - ]and take shelter under the goddess' feet beneath the circle of her shield. then indeed a strange terror thrills in all our amazed breasts; and laocoön, men say, hath fulfilled his crime's desert, in piercing the consecrated wood and hurling his guilty spear into its body. all cry out that the image must be drawn to its home and supplication made to her deity. . . . we sunder the walls, and lay open the inner city. all set to the work; they fix rolling wheels under its feet, and tie hempen bands on its neck. the fated engine climbs our walls, big with arms. around it boys and unwedded girls chant hymns and joyfully lay their hand on the rope. it moves up, and glides menacing into the middle of the town. o native land! o ilium, house of gods, and dardanian city renowned in war! four times in the very gateway did it come to a stand, and four times armour rang in its womb. yet we urge it on, mindless and infatuate, and plant the ill-ominous thing in our hallowed citadel. even then cassandra opens her lips to the coming doom, lips at a god's bidding never believed by the trojans. we, the wretched people, to whom that day was our last, hang the shrines of the gods with festal boughs throughout the city. meanwhile the heavens wheel on, and night rises from the sea, wrapping in her vast shadow earth and sky and the wiles of the myrmidons; about the town the teucrians are stretched in silence; slumber laps their tired limbs. 'and now the argive squadron was sailing in order from tenedos, and in the favouring stillness of the quiet moon sought the shores it knew; when the royal galley ran out a flame, and, protected by the gods' malign decrees, sinon stealthily lets loose the imprisoned grecians from their barriers of pine; the horse opens and restores them to the air; and joyfully issuing from the hollow wood, thessander and sthenelus the captains, and terrible ulysses, [ - ]slide down the dangling rope, with acamas and thoas and neoptolemus son of peleus, and machaon first of all, and menelaus, and epeüs himself the artificer of the treachery. they sweep down the city buried in drunken sleep; the watchmen are cut down, and at the open gates they welcome all their comrades, and unite their confederate bands. 'it was the time when by the gift of god rest comes stealing first and sweetest on unhappy men. in slumber, lo! before mine eyes hector seemed to stand by, deep in grief and shedding abundant tears; torn by the chariot, as once of old, and black with gory dust, his swoln feet pierced with the thongs. ah me! in what guise was he! how changed from the hector who returns from putting on achilles' spoils, or launching the fires of phrygia on the grecian ships! with ragged beard and tresses clotted with blood, and all the many wounds upon him that he received around his ancestral walls. myself too weeping i seemed to accost him ere he spoke, and utter forth mournful accents: "o light of dardania, o surest hope of the trojans, what long delay is this hath held thee? from what borders comest thou, hector our desire? with what weary eyes we see thee, after many deaths of thy kin, after divers woes of people and city! what indignity hath marred thy serene visage? or why discern i these wounds?" he replies naught, nor regards my idle questioning; but heavily drawing a heart-deep groan, "ah, fly, goddess-born," he says, "and rescue thyself from these flames. the foe holds our walls; from her high ridges troy is toppling down. thy country and priam ask no more. if troy towers might be defended by strength of hand, this hand too had been their defence. troy commends to thee her holy things and household gods; take them to accompany thy fate; seek for them a city, which, after all the seas have known thy wanderings, thou shalt at last establish in [ - ]might." so speaks he, and carries forth in his hands from their inner shrine the chaplets and strength of vesta, and the everlasting fire. 'meanwhile the city is stirred with mingled agony; and more and more, though my father anchises' house lay deep withdrawn and screened by trees, the noises grow clearer and the clash of armour swells. i shake myself from sleep and mount over the sloping roof, and stand there with ears attent: even as when flame catches a corn-field while south winds are furious, or the racing torrent of a mountain stream sweeps the fields, sweeps the smiling crops and labours of the oxen, and hurls the forest with it headlong; the shepherd in witless amaze hears the roar from the cliff-top. then indeed proof is clear, and the treachery of the grecians opens out. already the house of deïphobus hath crashed down in wide ruin amid the overpowering flames; already our neighbour ucalegon is ablaze: the broad sigean bay is lit with the fire. cries of men and blare of trumpets rise up. madly i seize my arms, nor is there so much purpose in arms; but my spirit is on fire to gather a band for fighting and charge for the citadel with my comrades. fury and wrath drive me headlong, and i think how noble is death in arms. 'and lo! panthus, eluding the achaean weapons, panthus son of othrys, priest of phoebus in the citadel, comes hurrying with the sacred vessels and conquered gods and his little grandchild in his hand, and runs distractedly towards my gates. "how stands the state, o panthus? what stronghold are we to occupy?" scarcely had i said so, when groaning he thus returns: "the crowning day is come, the irreversible time of the dardanian land. no more are we a trojan people; ilium and the great glory of the teucrians is no more. angry jupiter hath cast all into the scale of argos. the grecians are lords of the burning [ - ]town. the horse, standing high amid the city, pours forth armed men, and sinon scatters fire, insolent in victory. some are at the wide-flung gates, all the thousands that ever came from populous mycenae. others have beset the narrow streets with lowered weapons; edge and glittering point of steel stand drawn, ready for the slaughter; scarcely at the entry do the guards of the gates essay battle, and hold out in the blind fight." 'heaven's will thus declared by the son of othrys drives me amid flames and arms, where the baleful fury calls, and tumult of shouting rises up. rhipeus and epytus, most mighty in arms, join company with me; hypanis and dymas meet us in the moonlight and attach themselves to our side, and young coroebus son of mygdon. in those days it was he had come to troy, fired with mad passion for cassandra, and bore a son's aid to priam and the phrygians: hapless, that he listened not to his raving bride's counsels. . . . seeing them close-ranked and daring for battle, i therewith began thus: "men, hearts of supreme and useless bravery, if your desire be fixed to follow one who dares the utmost; you see what is the fortune of our state: all the gods by whom this empire was upheld have gone forth, abandoning shrine and altar; your aid comes to a burning city. let us die, and rush on their encircling weapons. the conquered have one safety, to hope for none." 'so their spirit is heightened to fury. then, like wolves ravening in a black fog, whom mad malice of hunger hath driven blindly forth, and their cubs left behind await with throats unslaked; through the weapons of the enemy we march to certain death, and hold our way straight into the town. night's sheltering shadow flutters dark around us. who may unfold in speech that night's horror and death-agony, or measure its woes in weeping? the [ - ]ancient city falls with her long years of sovereignty; corpses lie stretched stiff all about the streets and houses and awful courts of the gods. nor do teucrians alone pay forfeit of their blood; once and again valour returns even in conquered hearts, and the victorious grecians fall. everywhere is cruel agony, everywhere terror, and the sight of death at every turn. 'first, with a great troop of grecians attending him, androgeus meets us, taking us in ignorance for an allied band, and opens on us with friendly words: "hasten, my men; why idly linger so late? others plunder and harry the burning citadel; are you but now on your march from the tall ships?" he spoke, and immediately (for no answer of any assurance was offered) knew he was fallen among the foe. in amazement, he checked foot and voice; even as one who struggling through rough briers hath trodden a snake on the ground unwarned, and suddenly shrinks fluttering back as it rises in anger and puffs its green throat out; even thus androgeus drew away, startled at the sight. we rush in and encircle them with serried arms, and cut them down dispersedly in their ignorance of the ground and seizure of panic. fortune speeds our first labour. and here coroebus, flushed with success and spirit, cries: "o comrades, follow me where fortune points before us the path of safety, and shews her favour. let us exchange shields, and accoutre ourselves in grecian suits; whether craft or courage, who will ask of an enemy? the foe shall arm our hands." thus speaking, he next dons the plumed helmet and beautifully blazoned shield of androgeus, and fits the argive sword to his side. so does rhipeus, so dymas in like wise, and all our men in delight arm themselves one by one in the fresh spoils. we advance, mingling with the grecians, under a protection not our own, and join many a battle [ - ]with those we meet amid the blind night; many a greek we send down to hell. some scatter to the ships and run for the safety of the shore; some in craven fear again climb the huge horse, and hide in the belly they knew. alas that none may trust at all to estranged gods! 'lo! cassandra, maiden daughter of priam, was being dragged with disordered tresses from the temple and sanctuary of minerva, straining to heaven her blazing eyes in vain; her eyes, for fetters locked her delicate hands. at this sight coroebus burst forth infuriate, and flung himself on death amid their columns. we all follow him up, and charge with massed arms. here first from the high temple roof we are overwhelmed with our own people's weapons, and a most pitiful slaughter begins through the fashion of our armour and the mistaken greek crests; then the grecians, with angry cries at the maiden's rescue, gather from every side and fall on us; ajax in all his valour, and the two sons of atreus, and the whole dolopian army: as oft when bursting in whirlwind west and south clash with adverse blasts, and the east wind exultant on the coursers of the dawn; the forests cry, and fierce in foam nereus with his trident stirs the seas from their lowest depth. those too appear, whom our stratagem routed through the darkness of dim night and drove all about the town; at once they know the shields and lying weapons, and mark the alien tone on our lips. we go down, overwhelmed by numbers. first coroebus is stretched by peneleus' hand at the altar of the goddess armipotent; and rhipeus falls, the one man who was most righteous and steadfast in justice among the teucrians: the gods' ways are not as ours: hypanis and dymas perish, pierced by friendly hands; nor did all thy goodness, o panthus, nor apollo's fillet protect thy fall. o ashes of ilium and death flames of my people! you i call to witness that in your ruin i [ - ]shunned no grecian weapon or encounter, and my hand earned my fall, had destiny been thus. we tear ourselves away, i and iphitus and pelias, iphitus now stricken in age, pelias halting too under the wound of ulysses, called forward by the clamour to priam's house. 'here indeed the battle is fiercest, as if all the rest of the fighting were nowhere, and no slaughter but here throughout the city, so do we descry the war in full fury, the grecians rushing on the building, and their shielded column driving up against the beleaguered threshold. ladders cling to the walls; and hard by the doors and planted on the rungs they hold up their shields in the left hand to ward off our weapons, and with their right clutch the battlements. the dardanians tear down turrets and the covering of the house roof against them; with these for weapons, since they see the end is come, they prepare to defend themselves even in death's extremity: and hurl down gilded beams, the stately decorations of their fathers of old. others with drawn swords have beset the doorway below and keep it in crowded column. we renew our courage, to aid the royal dwelling, to support them with our succour, and swell the force of the conquered. 'there was a blind doorway giving passage through the range of priam's halls by a solitary postern, whereby, while our realm endured, hapless andromache would often and often glide unattended to her father-in-law's house, and carry the boy astyanax to his grandsire. i issue out on the sloping height of the ridge, whence wretched teucrian hands were hurling their ineffectual weapons. a tower stood on the sheer brink, its roof ascending high into heaven, whence was wont to be seen all troy and the grecian ships and achaean camp: attacking it with iron round about, where the joints of the lofty flooring yielded, we wrench it from its deep foundations and shake it free; it gives way, and [ - ]suddenly falls thundering in ruin, crashing wide over the grecian ranks. but others swarm up; nor meanwhile do stones nor any sort of missile slacken. . . . right before the vestibule and in the front doorway pyrrhus moves rejoicingly in the sparkle of arms and gleaming brass: like as when a snake fed on poisonous herbs, whom chill winter kept hid and swollen underground, now fresh from his weeds outworn and shining in youth, wreathes his slippery body into the daylight, his upreared breast meets the sun, and his triple-cloven tongue flickers in his mouth. with him huge periphas, and automedon the armour-bearer, driver of achilles' horses, with him all his scyrian men climb the roof and hurl flames on the housetop. himself among the foremost he grasps a poleaxe, bursts through the hard doorway, and wrenches the brazen-plated doors from the hinge; and now he hath cut out a plank from the solid oak and pierced a vast gaping hole. the house within is open to sight, and the long halls lie plain; open to sight are the secret chambers of priam and the kings of old, and they see armed men standing in front of the doorway. 'but the inner house is stirred with shrieks and misery and confusion, and the court echoes deep with women's wailing; the golden stars are smitten with the din. affrighted mothers stray about the vast house, and cling fast to the doors and print them with kisses. with his father's might pyrrhus presses on; nor guards nor barriers can hold out. the gate totters under the hard driven ram, and the doors fall flat, rent from the hinge. force makes way; the greeks burst through the entrance and pour in, slaughtering the foremost, and filling the space with a wide stream of soldiers. not so furiously when a foaming river bursts his banks and overflows, beating down the opposing dykes with whirling water, is he borne mounded over the fields, and sweeps herds and [ - ]pens all about the plains. myself i saw in the gateway neoptolemus mad in slaughter, and the two sons of atreus, saw hecuba and the hundred daughters of her house, and priam polluting with his blood the altar fires of his own consecration. the fifty bridal chambers--so great was the hope of his children's children--their doors magnificent with spoils of barbaric gold, have sunk in ruin; where the fire fails the greeks are in possession. 'perchance too thou mayest inquire what was priam's fate. when he saw the ruin of his captured city, the gates of his house burst open, and the enemy amid his innermost chambers, the old man idly fastens round his aged trembling shoulders his long disused armour, girds on the unavailing sword, and advances on his death among the thronging foe. 'within the palace and under the bare cope of sky was a massive altar, and hard on the altar an ancient bay tree leaned clasping the household gods in its shadow. here hecuba and her daughters crowded vainly about the altar-stones, like doves driven headlong by a black tempest, and crouched clasping the gods' images. and when she saw priam her lord with the armour of youth on him, "what spirit of madness, my poor husband," she cries, "hath stirred thee to gird on these weapons? or whither dost thou run? not such the succour nor these the defenders the time requires: no, were mine own hector now beside us. retire, i beseech thee, hither; this altar will protect us all, or thou wilt share our death." with these words on her lips she drew the aged man to her, and set him on the holy seat. 'and lo, escaped from slaughtering pyrrhus through the weapons of the enemy, polites, one of priam's children, flies wounded down the long colonnades and circles the empty halls. pyrrhus pursues him fiercely with aimed [ - ]wound, just catching at him, and follows hard on him with his spear. as at last he issued before his parents' eyes and faces, he fell, and shed his life in a pool of blood. at this priam, although even now fast in the toils of death, yet withheld not nor spared a wrathful cry: "ah, for thy crime, for this thy hardihood, may the gods, if there is goodness in heaven to care for aught such, pay thee in full thy worthy meed, and return thee the reward that is due! who hast made me look face to face on my child's murder, and polluted a father's countenance with death. ah, not such to a foe was the achilles whose parentage thou beliest; but he revered a suppliant's right and trust, restored to the tomb hector's pallid corpse, and sent me back to my realm." thus the old man spoke, and launched his weak and unwounding spear, which, recoiling straight from the jarring brass, hung idly from his shield above the boss. thereat pyrrhus: "thou then shalt tell this, and go with the message to my sire the son of peleus: remember to tell him of my baleful deeds, and the degeneracy of neoptolemus. now die." so saying, he drew him quivering to the very altar, slipping in the pool of his child's blood, and wound his left hand in his hair, while in his right the sword flashed out and plunged to the hilt in his side. this was the end of priam's fortunes; thus did allotted fate find him, with burning troy and her sunken towers before his eyes, once magnificent lord over so many peoples and lands of asia. the great corpse lies along the shore, a head severed from the shoulders and a body without a name. 'but then an awful terror began to encircle me; i stood in amaze; there rose before me the likeness of my loved father, as i saw the king, old as he, sobbing out his life under the ghastly wound; there rose creüsa forlorn, my plundered house, and little iülus' peril. i look back [ - ]and survey what force is around me. all, outwearied, have given up and leapt headlong to the ground, or flung themselves wretchedly into the fire: ['yes, and now i only was left; when i espy the daughter of tyndarus close in the courts of vesta, crouching silently in the fane's recesses; the bright glow of the fires lights my wandering, as my eyes stray all about. fearing the teucrians' anger for the overthrown towers of troy, and the grecians' vengeance and the wrath of the husband she had abandoned, she, the common fury of troy and her native country, had hidden herself and cowered unseen by the altars. my spirit kindles to fire, and rises in wrath to avenge my dying land and take repayment for her crimes. shall she verily see sparta and her native mycenae unscathed, and depart a queen and triumphant? shall she see her spousal and her home, her parents and children, attended by a crowd of trojan women and phrygians to serve her? and priam have fallen under the sword? troy blazed in fire? the shore of dardania so often soaked with blood? not so. for though there is no name or fame in a woman's punishment, nor honour in the victory, yet shall i have praise in quenching a guilty life and exacting a just recompense; and it will be good to fill my soul with the flame of vengeance, and satisfy the ashes of my people. thus broke i forth, and advanced infuriate;] '----when my mother came visibly before me, clear to sight as never till then, and shone forth in pure radiance through the night, gracious, evident in godhead, in shape and stature such as she is wont to appear to the heavenly people; she caught me by the hand and stayed me, and pursued thus with roseate lips: '"son, what overmastering pain thus wakes thy wrath? why ravest thou? or whither is thy care for us fled? wilt thou not first look to it, where thou hast left anchises, [ - ]thine aged worn father; or if creüsa thy wife and the child ascanius survive? round about whom all the greek battalions range; and without my preventing care, the flames ere this had made them their portion, and the hostile sword drunk their blood. not the hated face of the laconian woman, tyndarus' daughter; not paris is to blame; the gods, the gods in anger overturn this magnificence, and make troy topple down. look, for all the cloud that now veils thy gaze and dulls mortal vision with damp encircling mist, i will rend from before thee. fear thou no commands of thy mother, nor refuse to obey her counsels. here, where thou seest sundered piles of masonry and rocks violently torn from rocks, and smoke eddying mixed with dust, neptune with his great trident shakes wall and foundation out of their places, and upturns all the city from her base. here juno in all her terror holds the scaean gates at the entry, and, girt with steel, calls her allied army furiously from their ships. . . . even now on the citadel's height, look back! tritonian pallas is planted in glittering halo and gorgonian terror. their lord himself pours courage and prosperous strength on the grecians, himself stirs the gods against the arms of dardania. haste away, o son, and put an end to the struggle. i will never desert thee; i will set thee safe in the courts of thy father's house." 'she ended, and plunged in the dense blackness of the night. awful faces shine forth, and, set against troy, divine majesties . . . 'then indeed i saw all ilium sinking in flame, and neptunian troy uprooted from her base: even as an ancient ash on the mountain heights, hacked all about with steel and fast-falling axes, when husbandmen emulously strain to cut it down: it hangs threateningly, with shaken top and quivering tresses asway; till gradually, overmastered with [ - ]wounds, it utters one last groan, and rending itself away, falls in ruin along the ridge. i descend, and under a god's guidance clear my way between foe and flame; weapons give ground before me, and flames retire. 'and now, when i have reached the courts of my ancestral dwelling, our home of old, my father, whom it was my first desire to carry high into the hills, and whom first i sought, declines, now troy is rooted out, to prolong his life through the pains of exile. '"ah, you," he cries, "whose blood is at the prime, whose strength stands firm in native vigour, do you take your flight. . . . had the lords of heaven willed to prolong life for me, they should have preserved this my home. enough and more is the one desolation we have seen, survivors of a captured city. thus, oh thus salute me and depart, as a body laid out for burial. mine own hand shall find me death: the foe will be merciful and seek my spoils: light is the loss of a tomb. this long time hated of heaven, i uselessly delay the years, since the father of gods and king of men blasted me with wind of thunder and scathe of flame." 'thus held he on in utterance, and remained obstinate. we press him, dissolved in tears, my wife creüsa, ascanius, all our household, that our father involve us not all in his ruin, and add his weight to the sinking scale of doom. he refuses, and keeps seated steadfast in his purpose. again i rush to battle, and choose death in my misery. for what had counsel or chance yet to give? thoughtest thou my feet, o father, could retire and abandon thee? and fell so unnatural words from a parent's lips? "if heaven wills that naught be left of our mighty city, if this be thy planted purpose, thy pleasure to cast in thyself and thine to the doom of troy; for this death indeed the gate is wide, and even now pyrrhus will be here newly bathed in priam's [ - ]blood, pyrrhus who slaughters the son before the father's face, the father upon his altars. for this was it, bountiful mother, thou dost rescue me amid fire and sword, to see the foe in my inmost chambers, and ascanius and my father, creüsa by their side, hewn down in one another's blood? my arms, men, bring my arms! the last day calls on the conquered. return me to the greeks; let me revisit and renew the fight. never to-day shall we all perish unavenged." 'thereat i again gird on my sword, and fitting my left arm into the clasps of the shield, strode forth of the palace. and lo! my wife clung round my feet on the threshold, and held little iülus up to his father's sight. "if thou goest to die, let us too hurry with thee to the end. but if thou knowest any hope to place in arms, be this household thy first defence. to what is little iülus and thy father, to what am i left who once was called thy wife?" 'so she shrieked, and filled all the house with her weeping; when a sign arises sudden and marvellous to tell. for, between the hands and before the faces of his sorrowing parents, lo! above iülus' head there seemed to stream a light luminous cone, and a flame whose touch hurt not to flicker in his soft hair and play round his brows. we in a flutter of affright shook out the blazing hair and quenched the holy fires with spring water. but lord anchises joyfully upraised his eyes; and stretching his hands to heaven: "jupiter omnipotent," he cries, "if thou dost relent at any prayers, look on us this once alone; and if our goodness deserve it, give thine aid hereafter, o lord, and confirm this thine omen." 'scarcely had the aged man spoken thus, when with sudden crash it thundered on the left, and a star gliding through the dusk shot from heaven drawing a bright trail of light. we watch it slide over the palace roof, leaving [ - ]the mark of its pathway, and bury its brilliance in the wood of ida; the long drawn track shines, and the region all about fumes with sulphur. then conquered indeed my father rises to address the gods and worship the holy star. "now, now delay is done with: i follow, and where you lead, i come. gods of my fathers, save my house, save my grandchild. yours is this omen, and in your deity troy stands. i yield, o my son, and refuse not to go in thy company." 'he ended; and now more loudly the fire roars along the city, and the burning tides roll nearer. "up then, beloved father, and lean on my neck; these shoulders of mine will sustain thee, nor will so dear a burden weigh me down. howsoever fortune fall, one and undivided shall be our peril, one the escape of us twain. little iülus shall go along with me, and my wife follow our steps afar. you of my household, give heed to what i say. as you leave the city there is a mound and ancient temple of ceres lonely on it, and hard by an aged cypress, guarded many years in ancestral awe: to this resting-place let us gather from diverse quarters. thou, o father, take the sacred things and the household gods of our ancestors in thine hand. for me, just parted from the desperate battle, with slaughter fresh upon me, to handle them were guilt, until i wash away in a living stream the soilure. . . ." so spoke i, and spread over my neck and broad shoulders a tawny lion-skin for covering, and stoop to my burden. little iülus, with his hand fast in mine, keeps uneven pace after his father. behind my wife follows. we pass on in the shadows. and i, lately moved by no weapons launched against me, nor by the thronging bands of my grecian foes, am now terrified at every breath, startled by every noise, thrilling with fear alike for my companion and my burden. 'and now i was nearing the gates, and thought i had [ - ]outsped all the way; when suddenly the crowded trampling of feet came to our ears, and my father, looking forth into the darkness, cries: "my son, my son, fly; they draw near. i espy the gleaming shields and the flicker of brass." at this, in my flurry and confusion, some hostile god bereft me of my senses. for while i plunge down byways, and swerve from where the familiar streets ran, creüsa, alas! whether, torn by fate from her unhappy husband, she stood still, or did she mistake the way, or sink down outwearied? i know not; and never again was she given back to our eyes; nor did i turn to look for my lost one, or cast back a thought, ere we were come to ancient ceres' mound and hallowed seat; here at last, when all gathered, one was missing, vanished from her child's and her husband's company. what man or god did i spare in frantic reproaches? or what crueller sight met me in our city's overthrow? i charge my comrades with ascanius and lord anchises, and the gods of teucria, hiding them in the winding vale. myself i regain the city, girding on my shining armour; fixed to renew every danger, to retrace my way throughout troy, and fling myself again on its perils. first of all i regain the walls and the dim gateway whence my steps had issued; i scan and follow back my footprints with searching gaze in the night. everywhere my spirit shudders, dismayed at the very silence. thence i pass on home, if haply her feet (if haply!) had led her thither. the grecians had poured in, and filled the palace. the devouring fire goes rolling before the wind high as the roof; the flames tower over it, and the heat surges up into the air. i move on, and revisit the citadel and priam's dwelling; where now in the spacious porticoes of juno's sanctuary, phoenix and accursed ulysses, chosen sentries, were guarding the spoil. hither from all quarters is flung in masses the treasure of troy torn from burning shrines, [ - ]tables of the gods, bowls of solid gold, and raiment of the captives. boys and cowering mothers in long file stand round. . . . yes, and i dared to cry abroad through the darkness; i filled the streets with calling, and again and yet again with vain reiterance cried piteously on creüsa. as i stormed and sought her endlessly among the houses of the town, there rose before mine eyes a melancholy phantom, the ghost of very creüsa, in likeness larger than her wont. i was motionless; my hair stood up, and the accents faltered on my tongue. then she thus addressed me, and with this speech allayed my distresses: "what help is there in this mad passion of grief, sweet my husband? not without divine influence does this come to pass: nor may it be, nor does the high lord of olympus allow, that thou shouldest carry creüsa hence in thy company. long shall be thine exile, and weary spaces of sea must thou furrow through; and thou shalt come to the land hesperia, where lydian tiber flows with soft current through rich and populous fields. there prosperity awaits thee, and a kingdom, and a king's daughter for thy wife. dispel these tears for thy beloved creüsa. never will i look on the proud homes of the myrmidons or dolopians, or go to be the slave of greek matrons, i a daughter of dardania, a daughter-in-law of venus the goddess. . . . but the mighty mother of the gods keeps me in these her borders. and now farewell, and still love thy child and mine." this speech uttered, while i wept and would have said many a thing, she left me and retreated into thin air. thrice there was i fain to lay mine arms round her neck; thrice the vision i vainly clasped fled out of my hands, even as the light breezes, or most like to fluttering sleep. so at last, when night is spent, i revisit my comrades. 'and here i find a marvellous great company, newly flocked in, mothers and men, a people gathered for exile, [ - ]a pitiable crowd. from all quarters they are assembled, ready in heart and fortune, to whatsoever land i will conduct them overseas. and now the morning star rose over the high ridges of ida, and led on the day; and the grecians held the gateways in leaguer, nor was any hope of help given. i withdrew, and raising my father up, i sought the mountain.' book third the story of the seven years' wandering 'after heaven's lords pleased to overthrow the state of asia and priam's guiltless people, and proud ilium fell, and neptunian troy smokes all along the ground, we are driven by divine omens to seek distant places of exile in waste lands. right under antandros and the mountains of phrygian ida we build a fleet, uncertain whither the fates carry us or where a resting-place is given, and gather the people together. scarcely had the first summer set in, when lord anchises bids us spread our sails to fortune, and weeping i leave the shores and havens of my country, and the plains where once was troy. i sail to sea an exile, with my comrades and son and the gods of household and state. 'a land of vast plains lies apart, the home of mavors, in thracian tillage, and sometime under warrior lycurgus' reign; friendly of old to troy, and their gods in alliance while our fortune lasted. hither i pass, and on the winding shore i lay under thwarting fates the first foundations of a city, and from my own name fashion its name, aeneadae. 'i was paying sacrifice to my mother, daughter of dione, and to all the gods, so to favour the work begun, and slew a shining bull on the shore to the high lord of [ - ]the heavenly people. haply there lay a mound hard at hand, crowned with cornel thickets and bristling dense with shafts of myrtle. i drew near; and essaying to tear up the green wood from the soil, that i might cover the altar with leafy boughs, i see a portent ominous and wonderful to tell. for from the first tree whose roots are rent away and broken from the ground, drops of black blood trickle, and gore stains the earth. an icy shudder shakes my limbs, and my blood curdles chill with terror. yet from another i go on again to tear away a tough shoot, fully to fathom its secret; yet from another black blood follows out of the bark. with many searchings of heart i prayed the woodland nymphs, and lord gradivus, who rules in the getic fields, to make the sight propitious as was meet and lighten the omen. but when i assail a third spearshaft with a stronger effort, pulling with knees pressed against the sand; shall i speak or be silent? from beneath the mound is heard a pitiable moan, and a voice is uttered to my ears: "woe's me, why rendest thou me, aeneas? spare me at last in the tomb, spare pollution to thine innocent hands. troy bore me; not alien to thee am i, nor this blood that oozes from the stem. ah, fly the cruel land, fly the greedy shore! for i am polydorus; here the iron harvest of weapons hath covered my pierced body, and shot up in sharp javelins." then indeed, borne down with dubious terror, i was motionless, my hair stood up, and the accents faltered on my tongue. 'this polydorus once with great weight of gold had hapless priam sent in secret to the nurture of the thracian king, when now he was losing trust in the arms of dardania, and saw his city leaguered round about. the king, when the teucrian power was broken and fortune withdrew, following agamemnon's estate and triumphant arms, [ - ]severs every bond of duty; murders polydorus, and lays strong hands on the gold. o accursed hunger of gold, to what dost thou not compel human hearts! when the terror left my senses, i lay the divine tokens before the chosen princes of the people, with my father at their head, and demand their judgment. all are of one mind, to leave the guilty land, and abandoning a polluted home, to let the gales waft our fleets. so we bury polydorus anew, and the earth is heaped high over his mound; altars are reared to his ghost, sad with dusky chaplets and black cypress; and around are the ilian women with hair unbound in their fashion. we offer bubbling bowls of warm milk and cups of consecrated blood, and lay the spirit to rest in her tomb, and with loud voice utter the last call. 'thereupon, so soon as ocean may be trusted, and the winds leave the seas in quiet, and the soft whispering south wind calls seaward, my comrades launch their ships and crowd the shores. we put out from harbour, and lands and towns sink away. there lies in mid sea a holy land, most dear to the mother of the nereids and neptune of aegae, which strayed about coast and strand till the archer god in his affection chained it fast from high myconos and gyaros, and made it lie immoveable and slight the winds. hither i steer; and it welcomes my weary crew to the quiet shelter of a safe haven. we disembark and worship apollo's town. anius the king, king at once of the people and priest of phoebus, his brows garlanded with fillets and consecrated laurel, comes to meet us; he knows anchises, his friend of old; we clasp hands in welcome, and enter his palace. i worshipped the god's temple, an ancient pile of stone. "lord of thymbra, give us an enduring dwelling-place; grant a house and family to thy weary servants, and a city to abide: keep troy's second fortress, the remnant left of the grecians and merciless achilles. whom follow [ - ]we? or whither dost thou bid us go, where fix our seat? grant an omen, o lord, and inspire our minds." 'scarcely had i spoken thus; suddenly all seemed to shake, all the courts and laurels of the god, the whole hill to be stirred round about, and the cauldron to moan in the opening sanctuary. we sink low on the ground, and a voice is borne to our ears: "stubborn race of dardanus, the same land that bore you by parentage of old shall receive you again on her bountiful breast. seek out your ancient mother; hence shall the house of aeneas sway all regions, his children's children and they who shall be born of them." thus phoebus; and mingled outcries of great gladness uprose; all ask, what is that city? whither calls phoebus our wandering, and bids us return? then my father, unrolling the records of men of old, "hear, o princes," says he, "and learn your hopes. in mid ocean lies crete, the island of high jove, wherein is mount ida, the cradle of our race. an hundred great towns are inhabited in that opulent realm; from it our forefather teucer of old, if i recall the tale aright, sailed to the rhoetean coasts and chose a place for his kingdom. not yet was ilium nor the towers of pergama reared; they dwelt in the valley bottoms. hence came our lady, haunter of cybele, the corybantic cymbals and the grove of ida; hence the rites of inviolate secrecy, and the lions yoked under the chariot of their mistress. up then, and let us follow where divine commandments lead; let us appease the winds, and seek the realm of gnosus. nor is it a far journey away. only be jupiter favourable, the third day shall bring our fleet to anchor on the cretan coast." so spoke he, and slew fit sacrifice on the altars, a bull to neptune, a bull to thee, fair apollo, a black sheep to tempest, a white to the prosperous west winds. 'rumour flies that idomeneus the captain is driven [ - ]forth of his father's realm, and the shores of crete are abandoned, that the houses are void of foes and the dwellings lie empty to our hand. we leave the harbour of ortygia, and fly along the main, by the revel-trod ridges of naxos, by green donusa, olearos and snow-white paros, and the sea-strewn cyclades, threading the racing channels among the crowded lands. the seamen's clamour rises in emulous dissonance; each cheers his comrade: _seek we crete and our forefathers._ a wind rising astern follows us forth on our way, and we glide at last to the ancient curetean coast. so i set eagerly to work on the walls of my chosen town, and call it pergamea, and exhort my people, joyful at the name, to cherish their homes and rear the castle buildings. and even now the ships were drawn up on the dry beach; the people were busy in marriages and among their new fields; i was giving statutes and homesteads; when suddenly from a tainted space of sky came, noisome on men's bodies and pitiable on trees and crops, pestilence and a year of death. they left their sweet lives or dragged themselves on in misery; sirius scorched the fields into barrenness; the herbage grew dry, and the sickly harvest denied sustenance. my father counsels to remeasure the sea and go again to phoebus in his ortygian oracle, to pray for grace and ask what issue he ordains to our exhausted state; whence he bids us search for aid to our woes, whither bend our course. 'night fell, and sleep held all things living on the earth. the sacred images of the gods and the household deities of phrygia, that i had borne with me from troy out of the midst of the burning city, seemed to stand before mine eyes as i lay sleepless, clear in the broad light where the full moon poured through the latticed windows; then thus addressed me, and with this speech allayed my distresses: "what apollo hath to tell thee when thou dost [ - ]reach ortygia, he utters here, and sends us unsought to thy threshold. we who followed thee and thine arms when dardania went down in fire; we who under thee have traversed on shipboard the swelling sea; we in like wise will exalt to heaven thy children to be, and give empire to their city. do thou prepare a mighty town for a mighty people, nor draw back from the long wearisome chase. thou must change thy dwelling. not to these shores did the god at delos counsel thee, or apollo bid thee find rest in crete. there is a region greeks name hesperia, an ancient land, mighty in arms and foison of the clod; oenotrian men dwell therein; now rumour is that a younger race have called it italy after their captain's name. this is our true dwelling place; hence is dardanus sprung, and lord iasius, the first source of our race. up, arise, and tell with good cheer to thine aged parent this plain tale, to seek corythus and the lands of ausonia. jupiter denies thee the dictaean fields." 'astonished at this vision and divine utterance (nor was that slumber; but openly i seemed to know their countenances, their veiled hair and gracious faces, and therewith a cold sweat broke out all over me) i spring from my bed and raise my voice and upturned hands skyward and pay pure offering on the hearth. the sacrifice done, i joyfully tell anchises, and relate all in order. he recognises the double descent and twofold parentage, and the later wanderings that had deceived him among ancient lands. then he speaks: "o son, hard wrought by the destinies of ilium, cassandra only foretold me this fortune. now i recall how she prophesied this was fated to our race, and often cried of hesperia, often of an italian realm. but who was to believe that teucrians should come to hesperian shores? or whom might cassandra then move by prophecy? yield we to phoebus, and follow the better [ - ]way he counsels." so says he, and we all rejoicingly obey his speech. this dwelling likewise we abandon; and leaving some few behind, spread our sails and run over the waste sea in our hollow wood. 'after our ships held the high seas, nor any land yet appears, the sky all round us and all round us the deep, a dusky shower drew up overhead carrying night and tempest, and the wave shuddered and gloomed. straightway the winds upturn the main, and great seas rise; we are tossed asunder over the dreary gulf. stormclouds enwrap the day, and rainy gloom blots out the sky; out of the clouds bursts fire fast upon fire. driven from our course, we go wandering on the blind waves. palinurus himself professes he cannot tell day from night on the sky, nor remember the way amid the waters. three dubious days of blind darkness we wander on the deep, as many nights without a star. not till the fourth day was land at last seen to rise, discovering distant hills and sending up wreaths of smoke. the sails drop; we swing back to the oars; without delay the sailors strongly toss up the foam, and sweep through the green water. the shores of the strophades first receive me thus won from the waves, strophades the greek name they bear, islands lying in the great ionian sea, which boding celaeno and the other harpies inhabit since phineus' house was shut on them, and they fled in terror from the board of old. than these no deadlier portent nor any fiercer plague of divine wrath hath issued from the stygian waters; winged things with maidens' countenance, bellies dropping filth, and clawed hands and faces ever wan with hunger. . . . 'when borne hitherward we enter the haven, lo! we see goodly herds of oxen scattered on the plains, and goats flocking untended over the grass. we attack them with the sword, and call the gods and jove himself to share our [ - ]spoil. then we build seats on the winding shore and banquet on the dainty food. but suddenly the harpies are upon us, swooping awfully from the mountains, and shaking their wings with loud clangour, plunder the feast, and defile everything with unclean touch, spreading a foul smell, and uttering dreadful cries. again, in a deep recess under a caverned rock, shut in with waving shadows of woodland, we array the board and renew the altar fires; again, from their blind ambush in diverse quarters of the sky, the noisy crowd flutter with clawed feet around their prey, defiling the feast with their lips. then i bid my comrades take up arms, and proclaim war on the accursed race. even as i bade they do, range their swords in cover among the grass, and hide their shields out of sight. so when they swooped clamorously down along the winding shore, misenus from his watch-tower on high signals on the hollow brass; my comrades rush in and essay the strange battle, to set the stain of steel on the winged horrors of the sea. but they take no violence on their plumage, nor wounds on their bodies; and soaring into the firmament with rapid flight, leave their foul traces on the spoil they had half consumed. celaeno alone, prophetess of ill, alights on a towering cliff, and thus breaks forth in deep accents: '"war is it for your slaughtered oxen and steers cut down, o children of laomedon, war is it you would declare, and drive the guiltless harpies from their ancestral kingdom? take then to heart and fix fast these words of mine; which the lord omnipotent foretold to phoebus, phoebus apollo to me, i eldest born of the furies reveal to you. italy is your goal; wooing the winds you shall go to italy, and enter her harbours unhindered. yet shall you not wall round your ordained city, ere this murderous outrage on us compel you, in portentous hunger, to eat your tables with gnawing teeth." 'she spoke, and winged her way back to the shelter of [ - ]the wood. but my comrades' blood froze chill with sudden affright; their spirits fell; and no longer with arms, nay with vows and prayers they bid me entreat favour, whether these be goddesses, or winged things ill-ominous and foul. and lord anchises from the beach calls with outspread hands on the mighty gods, ordering fit sacrifices: "gods, avert their menaces! gods, turn this woe away, and graciously save the righteous!" then he bids pluck the cable from the shore and shake loose the sheets. southern winds stretch the sails; we scud over the foam-flecked waters, whither wind and pilot called our course. now wooded zacynthos appears amid the waves, and dulichium and same and neritos' sheer rocks. we fly past the cliffs of ithaca, laërtes' realm, and curse the land, fostress of cruel ulysses. soon too mount leucata's cloudy peaks are sighted, and apollo dreaded of sailors. hither we steer wearily, and stand in to the little town. the anchor is cast from the prow; the sterns are grounded on the beach. 'so at last having attained to land beyond our hopes, we purify ourselves in jove's worship, and kindle altars of offering, and make the actian shore gay with the games of ilium. my comrades strip, and, slippery with oil, exercise their ancestral contests; glad to have got past so many argive towns, and held on their flight through the encircling foe. meanwhile the sun rounds the great circle of the year, and icy winter ruffles the waters with northern gales. i fix against the doorway a hollow shield of brass, that tall abas had borne, and mark the story with a verse: _these arms aeneas from the conquering greeks._ then i bid leave the harbour and sit down at the thwarts; emulously my comrades strike the water, and sweep through the seas. soon we see the cloud-capped phaeacian towers sink away, skirt the shores of epirus, and enter the chaonian haven and approach high buthrotum town. [ - ]'here the rumour of a story beyond belief comes on our ears; helenus son of priam is reigning over greek towns, master of the bride and sceptre of pyrrhus the aeacid; and andromache hath again fallen to a husband of her people. i stood amazed; and my heart kindled with marvellous desire to accost him and learn of so strange a fortune. i advance from the harbour, leaving the fleet ashore; just when haply andromache, in a grove before the town, by the waters of a feigned simoïs, was pouring libation to the dust, and calling hector's ghost to a tomb with his name, on an empty turfed green with two altars that she had consecrated, a wellspring of tears. when she caught sight of me coming, and saw distractedly the encircling arms of troy, terror-stricken at the vision marvellously shewn, her gaze fixed, and the heat left her frame. she swoons away, and hardly at last speaks after long interval: "comest thou then a real face, a real messenger to me, goddess-born? livest thou? or if sweet light is fled, ah, where is hector?" she spoke, and bursting into tears filled all the place with her crying. just a few words i force up, and deeply moved gasp out in broken accents: "i live indeed, i live on through all extremities; doubt not, for real are the forms thou seest . . . alas! after such an husband, what fate receives thy fall? or what worthier fortune revisits thee? dost thou, hector's andromache, keep bonds of marriage with pyrrhus?" she cast down her countenance, and spoke with lowered voice: '"o single in happy eminence that maiden daughter of priam, sentenced to die under high troy town at an enemy's grave, who never bore the shame of the lot, nor came a captive to her victorious master's bed! we, sailing over alien seas from our burning land, have endured the haughty youthful pride of achilles' seed, and borne children in slavery: he thereafter, wooing leda's hermione and a lacedaemonian [ - ]marriage, passed me over to helenus' keeping, a bondwoman to a bondman. but him orestes, aflame with passionate desire for his stolen bride, and driven by the furies of crime, catches unguarded and murders at his ancestral altars. at neoptolemus' death a share of his realm fell to helenus' hands, who named the plains chaonian, and called all the land chaonia after chaon of troy, and built withal a pergama and this ilian citadel on the hills. but to thee how did winds, how fates give passage? or whose divinity landed thee all unwitting on our coasts? what of the boy ascanius? lives he yet, and draws breath, thy darling, whom troy's . . . yet hath the child affection for his lost mother? is he roused to the valour of old and the spirit of manhood by his father aeneas, by his uncle hector?" 'such words she poured forth weeping, and prolonged the vain wail; when the hero helenus son of priam approaches from the town with a great company, knows us for his kin, and leads us joyfully to his gates, shedding a many tears at every word. i advance and recognise a little troy, and a copy of the great pergama, and a dry brook with the name of xanthus, and clasp a scaean gateway. therewithal my teucrians make holiday in the friendly town. the king entertained them in his spacious colonnades; in the central hall they poured goblets of wine in libation, and held the cups while the feast was served on gold. 'and now a day and another day hath sped; the breezes woo our sails, and the canvas blows out to the swelling south. with these words i accost the prophet, and thus make request: '"son of troy, interpreter of the gods, whose sense is open to phoebus' influences, his tripods and laurels, to stars and tongues of birds and auguries of prosperous flight, tell me now,--for the voice of revelation was all favourable to my course, and all divine influence counselled me to [ - ]seek italy and explore remote lands; only celaeno the harpy prophesies of strange portents, a horror to tell, and cries out of wrath and bale and foul hunger,--what perils are the first to shun? or in what guidance may i overcome these sore labours?" 'hereat helenus, first suing for divine favour with fit sacrifice of steers, and unbinding from his head the chaplets of consecration, leads me in his hand to thy courts, o phoebus, thrilled with the fulness of the deity, and then utters these prophetic words from his augural lips: '"goddess-born: since there is clear assurance that under high omens thou dost voyage through the deep; so the king of the gods allots destiny and unfolds change; this is the circle of ordinance; a few things out of many i will unfold to thee in speech, that so thou mayest more safely traverse the seas of thy sojourn, and find rest in the ausonian haven; for helenus is forbidden by the destinies to know, and by juno daughter of saturn to utter more: first of all, the italy thou deemest now nigh, and close at hand, unwitting! the harbours thou wouldst enter, far are they sundered by a long and trackless track through length of lands. first must the trinacrian wave clog thine oar, and thy ships traverse the salt ausonian plain, by the infernal pools and aeaean circe's isle, ere thou mayest build thy city in safety on a peaceful land. i will tell thee the token, and do thou keep it close in thine heart. when in thy perplexity, beside the wave of a sequestered river, a great sow shall be discovered lying under the oaks on the brink, with her newborn litter of thirty, couched white on the ground, her white brood about her teats; that shall be the place of the city, that the appointed rest from thy toils. neither shrink thou at the gnawn tables that await thee; the fates will find a way, and apollo aid thy call. these lands moreover, on this nearest border of the italian shore [ - ]that our own sea's tide washes, flee thou: evil greeks dwell in all their towns. here the locrians of narycos have set their city, and here lyctian idomeneus beset the sallentine plains with soldiery; here is the town of the meliboean captain, philoctetes' little petelia fenced by her wall. nay, when thy fleets have crossed overseas and lie at anchor, when now thou rearest altars and payest vows on the beach, veil thine hair with a purple garment for covering, that no hostile face at thy divine worship may meet thee amid the holy fires and make void the omens. this fashion of sacrifice keep thou, thyself and thy comrades, and let thy children abide in this pure observance. but when at thy departure the wind hath borne thee to the sicilian coast, and the barred straits of pelorus open out, steer for the left-hand country and the long circuit of the seas on the left hand; shun the shore and water on thy right. these lands, they say, of old broke asunder, torn and upheaved by vast force, when either country was one and undivided; the ocean burst in between, cutting off with its waves the hesperian from the sicilian coast, and with narrow tide washes tilth and town along the severance of shore. on the right scylla keeps guard, on the left unassuaged charybdis, who thrice swallows the vast flood sheer down her swirling gulf, and ever again hurls it upward, lashing the sky with water. but scylla lies prisoned in her cavern's blind recesses, thrusting forth her mouth and drawing ships upon the rocks. in front her face is human, and her breast fair as a maiden's to the waist down; behind she is a sea-dragon of monstrous frame, with dolphins' tails joined on her wolf-girt belly. better to track the goal of trinacrian pachynus, lingering and wheeling round through long spaces, than once catch sight of misshapen scylla deep in her dreary cavern, and of the rocks that ring to her sea-coloured hounds. moreover, if [ - ]helenus hath aught of foresight or his prophecy of assurance, if apollo fills his spirit with the truth, this one thing, goddess-born, one thing for all will i foretell thee, and again and again repeat my counsel: to great juno's deity be thy first prayer and worship; to juno utter thy willing vows, and overcome thy mighty mistress with gifts and supplications; so at last thou shalt leave trinacria behind, and be sped in triumph to the italian borders. when borne hither thou drawest nigh the cymaean city, the haunted lakes and rustling woods of avernus, thou shalt behold the raving prophetess who deep in the rock chants of fate, and marks down her words on leaves. what verses she writes down on them, the maiden sorts into order and shuts behind her in the cave; they stay in their places unstirred and quit not their rank. but when at the turn of the hinge the light wind from the doorway stirs them, and disarranges the delicate foliage, never after does she trouble to capture them as they flutter about the hollow rock, nor restore their places or join the verses; men depart without counsel, and hate the sibyl's dwelling. here let no waste in delay be of such account to thee (though thy company chide, and the passage call thy sails strongly to the deep, and thou mayest fill out their folds to thy desire) that thou do not approach the prophetess, and plead with prayers that she herself utter her oracles and deign to loose the accents from her lips. the nations of italy and the wars to come, and the fashion whereby every toil may be avoided or endured, she shall unfold to thee, and grant her worshipper prosperous passage. thus far is our voice allowed to counsel thee: go thy way, and exalt troy to heaven by thy deeds." 'this the seer uttered with friendly lips; then orders gifts to be carried to my ships, of heavy gold and sawn ivory, and loads the hulls with massy silver and cauldrons [ - ]of dodona, a mail coat triple-woven with hooks of gold, and a helmet splendid with spike and tressed plumes, the armour of neoptolemus. my father too hath his gifts. horses besides he brings, and grooms . . . fills up the tale of our oarsmen, and equips my crews with arms. 'meanwhile anchises bade the fleet set their sails, that the fair wind might meet no delay. him phoebus' interpreter accosts with high courtesy: "anchises, honoured with the splendour of venus' espousal, the gods' charge, twice rescued from the fallen towers of troy, lo! the land of ausonia is before thee: sail thou and seize it. and yet needs must thou float past it on the sea; far away lies the quarter of ausonia that is revealed of apollo. go," he continues, "happy in thy son's affection: why do i run on further, and delay the rising winds in talk?" andromache too, sad at this last parting, brings figured raiment with woof of gold, and a phrygian scarf for ascanius, and wearies not in courtesy, loading him with gifts from the loom. "take these too," so says she, "my child, to be memorials to thee of my hands, and testify long hence the love of andromache wife of hector. take these last gifts of thy kinsfolk, o sole surviving likeness to me of my own astyanax! such was he, in eyes and hands and features; and now his equal age were growing into manhood like thine." 'to them as i departed i spoke with starting tears: "live happily, as they do whose fortunes are perfected! we are summoned ever from fate to fate. for you there is rest in store, and no ocean floor to furrow, no ever-retreating ausonian fields to pursue. you see a pictured xanthus, and a troy your own hands have built; with better omens, i pray, and to be less open to the greeks. if ever i enter tiber and tiber's bordering fields, and see a city granted to my nation, then of these kindred towns [ - ]and allied peoples in epirus and hesperia, which have the same dardanus for founder, and whose story is one, of both will our hearts make a single troy. let that charge await our posterity." 'we put out to sea, keeping the ceraunian mountains close at hand, whence is the shortest passage and seaway to italy. the sun sets meanwhile, and the dusky hills grow dim. we choose a place, and fling ourselves on the lap of earth at the water's edge, and, allotting the oars, spread ourselves on the dry beach for refreshment: the dew of slumber falls on our weary limbs. not yet had night driven of the hours climbed her mid arch; palinurus rises lightly from his couch, explores all the winds, and listens to catch a breeze; he marks the constellations gliding together through the silent sky, arcturus, the rainy hyades and the twin oxen, and scans orion in his armour of gold. when he sees the clear sky quite unbroken, he gives from the stern his shrill signal; we disencamp and explore the way, and spread the wings of our sails. and now reddening dawn had chased away the stars, when we descry afar dim hills and the low line of italy. achates first raises the cry of _italy_; and with joyous shouts my comrades salute italy. then lord anchises enwreathed a great bowl and filled it up with wine; and called on the gods, standing high astern . . . "gods sovereign over sea and land and weather! bring wind to ease our way, and breathe favourably." the breezes freshen at his prayer, and now the harbour opens out nearer at hand, and a temple appears on the fort of minerva. my comrades furl the sails and swing the prows to shore. the harbour is scooped into an arch by the eastern flood; reefs run out and foam with the salt spray; itself it lies concealed; turreted walls of rock let down their arms on either hand, and the temple retreats from the beach. here, an inaugural sight, four horses of snowy [ - ]whiteness are grazing abroad on the grassy plain. and lord anchises: "war dost thou carry, land of our sojourn; horses are armed in war, and menace of war is in this herd. but yet these same beasts are wont in time to enter harness, and carry yoke and bit in concord; there is hope of peace too," says he. then we pray to the holy deity, pallas of the clangorous arms, the first to welcome our cheers. and before the altars we veil our heads in phrygian garments, and duly, after the counsel helenus had urged deepest on us, pay the bidden burnt-sacrifice to juno of argos. 'without delay, once our vows are fully paid, we round to the arms of our sailyards and leave the dwellings and menacing fields of the grecian people. next is descried the bay of tarentum, town, if rumour is true, of hercules. over against it the goddess of lacinium rears her head, with the towers of caulon, and scylaceum wrecker of ships. then trinacrian aetna is descried in the distance rising from the waves, and we hear from afar a great roaring of the sea on beaten rocks, and broken noises by the shore: the channels boil up, and the surge churns with sand. and lord anchises: "of a surety this is that charybdis; of these cliffs, these awful rocks did helenus prophesy. out, o comrades, and rise together to the oars." even as bidden they do; and first palinurus swung the gurgling prow leftward through the water; to the left all our squadron bent with oar and wind. we are lifted skyward on the crescent wave, and again sunk deep into the nether world as the water is sucked away. thrice amid their rocky caverns the cliffs uttered a cry; thrice we see the foam flung out, and the stars through a dripping veil. meanwhile the wind falls with sundown; and weary and ignorant of the way we glide on to the cyclopes' coast. 'there lies a harbour large and unstirred by the winds' [ - ]entrance; but nigh it aetna thunders awfully in wrack, and ever and again hurls a black cloud into the sky, smoking with boiling pitch and embers white hot, and heaves balls of flame flickering up to the stars: ever and again vomits out on high crags from the torn entrails of the mountain, tosses up masses of molten rock with a groan, and boils forth from the bottom. rumour is that this mass weighs down the body of enceladus, half-consumed by the thunderbolt, and mighty aetna laid over him suspires the flame that bursts from her furnaces; and so often as he changes his weary side, all trinacria shudders and moans, veiling the sky in smoke. that night we spend in cover of the forest among portentous horrors, and see not from what source the noise comes. for neither did the stars show their fires, nor was the vault of constellated sky clear; but vapours blotted heaven, and the moon was held in a storm-cloud through dead of night. 'and now the morrow was rising in the early east, and the dewy darkness rolled away from the sky by dawn, when sudden out of the forest advances a human shape strange and unknown, worn with uttermost hunger and pitiably attired, and stretches entreating hands towards the shore. we look back. filthy and wretched, with shaggy beard and a coat pinned together with thorns, he was yet a greek, and had been sent of old to troy in his father's arms. and he, when he saw afar the dardanian habits and armour of troy, hung back a little in terror at the sight, and stayed his steps; then ran headlong to the shore with weeping and prayers: "by the heavens i beseech you, by the heavenly powers and this luminous sky that gives us breath, take me up, o trojans, carry me away to any land soever, and it will be enough. i know i am one out of the grecian fleets, i confess i warred against the household gods of ilium; for that, if our wrong and guilt is so great, throw [ - ]me piecemeal on the flood or plunge me in the waste sea. if i do perish, gladly will i perish at human hands." he ended; and clung clasping our knees and grovelling at them. we encourage him to tell who he is and of what blood born, and reveal how fortune pursues him since then. lord anchises after little delay gives him his hand, and strengthens his courage by visible pledge. at last, laying aside his terror, he speaks thus: '"i am from an ithacan home, achemenides by name, set out for troy in luckless ulysses' company; poor was my father adamastus, and would god fortune had stayed thus! here my comrades abandoned me in the cyclops' vast cave, mindless of me while they hurry away from the barbarous gates. it is a house of gore and blood-stained feasts, dim and huge within. himself he is great of stature and knocks at the lofty sky (gods, take away a curse like this from earth!) to none gracious in aspect or courteous of speech. he feeds on the flesh and dark blood of wretched men. i myself saw, when he caught the bodies of two of us with his great hand, and lying back in the middle of the cave crushed them on the rock, and the courts splashed and swam with gore; i saw when he champed the flesh adrip with dark clots of blood, and the warm limbs quivered under his teeth. yet not unavenged. ulysses brooked not this, nor even in such straits did the ithacan forget himself. for so soon as he, gorged with his feast and buried in wine, lay with bent neck sprawling huge over the cave, in his sleep vomiting gore and gobbets mixed with wine and blood, we, praying to the great gods and with parts allotted, pour at once all round him, and pierce with a sharp weapon the huge eye that lay sunk single under his savage brow, in fashion of an argolic shield or the lamp of the moon; and at last we exultingly avenge the ghosts of our comrades. but fly, o wretched men, fly [ - ]and pluck the cable from the beach. . . . for even in the shape and stature of polyphemus, when he shuts his fleeced flocks and drains their udders in the cave's covert, an hundred other horrible cyclopes dwell all about this shore and stray on the mountain heights. thrice now does the horned moon fill out her light, while i linger in life among desolate lairs and haunts of wild beasts in the woodland, and from a rock survey the giant cyclopes and shudder at their cries and echoing feet. the boughs yield a miserable sustenance, berries and stony sloes, and plants torn up by the root feed me. sweeping all the view, i at last espied this fleet standing in to shore. on it, whatsoever it were, i cast myself; it is enough to have escaped the accursed tribe. do you rather, by any death you will, destroy this life of mine." 'scarcely had he spoken thus, when on the mountain top we see shepherding his flocks a vast moving mass, polyphemus himself seeking the shores he knew, a horror ominous, shapeless, huge, bereft of sight. a pine lopped by his hand guides and steadies his footsteps. his fleeced sheep attend him, this his single delight and solace in ill. . . . after he hath touched the deep flood and come to the sea, he washes in it the blood that oozes from his eye-socket, grinding his teeth with groans; and now he strides through the sea up to his middle, nor yet does the wave wet his towering sides. we hurry far away in precipitate flight, with the suppliant who had so well merited rescue; and silently cut the cable, and bending forward sweep the sea with emulous oars. he heard, and turned his steps towards the echoing sound. but when he may in no wise lay hands on us, nor can fathom the ionian waves in pursuit, he raises a vast cry, at which the sea and all his waves shuddered, and the deep land of italy was startled, and aetna's vaulted caverns moaned. but the tribe of the [ - ]cyclopes, roused from the high wooded hills, run to the harbour and fill the shore. we descry the aetnean brotherhood standing impotent with scowling eye, their stately heads up to heaven, a dreadful consistory; even as on a mountain summit stand oaks high in air or coned cypresses, a high forest of jove or covert of diana. sharp fear urges us to shake out the sheets in reckless haste, and spread our sails to the favouring wind. yet helenus' commands counsel that our course keep not the way between scylla and charybdis, the very edge of death on either hand. we are resolved to turn our canvas back. and lo! from the narrow fastness of pelorus the north wind comes down and reaches us. i sail past pantagias' mouth with its living stone, the megarian bay, and low-lying thapsus. such names did achemenides, of luckless ulysses' company, point out as he retraced his wanderings along the returning shores. 'stretched in front of a bay of sicily lies an islet over against wavebeat plemyrium; they of old called it ortygia. hither alpheus the river of elis, so rumour runs, hath cloven a secret passage beneath the sea, and now through thy well-head, arethusa, mingles with the sicilian waves. we adore as bidden the great deities of the ground; and thence i cross the fertile soil of helorus in the marsh. next we graze the high reefs and jutting rocks of pachynus; and far off appears camarina, forbidden for ever by oracles to move, and the geloan plains, and vast gela named after its river. then acragas on the steep, once the breeder of noble horses, displays its massive walls in the distance; and with granted breeze i leave thee behind, palm-girt selinus, and thread the difficult shoals and blind reefs of lilybaeum. thereon drepanum receives me in its haven and joyless border. here, so many tempestuous seas outgone, alas! my father, the solace of every care and chance, anchises is [ - ]lost to me. here thou, dear lord, abandonest me in weariness, alas! rescued in vain from peril and doom. not helenus the prophet, though he counselled of many a terror, not boding celaeno foretold me of this grief. this was the last agony, this the goal of the long ways; thence it was i had departed when god landed me on your coasts.' thus lord aeneas with all attent retold alone the divine doom and the history of his goings. at last he was hushed, and here in silence made an end. book fourth the love of dido, and her end but the queen, long ere now pierced with sore distress, feeds the wound with her life-blood, and catches the fire unseen. again and again his own valiance and his line's renown flood back upon her spirit; look and accent cling fast in her bosom, and the pain allows not rest or calm to her limbs. the morrow's dawn bore the torch of phoebus across the earth, and had rolled away the dewy darkness from the sky, when, scarce herself, she thus opens her confidence to her sister: 'anna, my sister, such dreams of terror thrill me through! what guest unknown is this who hath entered our dwelling? how high his mien! how brave in heart as in arms! i believe it well, with no vain assurance, his blood is divine. fear proves the vulgar spirit. alas, by what destinies is he driven! what wars outgone he chronicled! were my mind not planted, fixed and immoveable, to ally myself to none in wedlock since my love of old was false to me in the treachery of death; were i not sick to the heart of bridal torch and chamber, to this temptation alone i might haply yield. anna, i will confess it; since sychaeus mine husband met his piteous doom, and our household was shattered by a brother's murder, he only hath [ - ]touched mine heart and stirred the balance of my soul. i know the prints of the ancient flame. but rather, i pray, may earth first yawn deep for me, or the lord omnipotent hurl me with his thunderbolt into gloom, the pallid gloom and profound night of erebus, ere i soil thee, mine honour, or unloose thy laws. he took my love away who made me one with him long ago; he shall keep it with him, and guard it in the tomb.' she spoke, and welling tears filled the bosom of her gown. anna replies: 'o dearer than the daylight to thy sister, wilt thou waste, sad and alone, all thy length of youth, and know not the sweetness of motherhood, nor love's bounty? deemest thou the ashes care for that, or the ghost within the tomb? be it so: in days gone by no wooers bent thy sorrow, not in libya, not ere then in tyre; iarbas was slighted, and other princes nurtured by the triumphal land of africa; wilt thou contend so with a love to thy liking? nor does it cross thy mind whose are these fields about thy dwelling? on this side are the gaetulian towns, a race unconquerable in war; the reinless numidian riders and the grim syrtis hem thee in; on this lies a thirsty tract of desert, swept by the raiders of barca. why speak of the war gathering from tyre, and thy brother's menaces? . . . with gods' auspices to my thinking, and with juno's favour, hath the ilian fleet held on hither before the gale. what a city wilt thou discern here, o sister! what a realm will rise on such a union! the arms of troy ranged with ours, what glory will exalt the punic state! do thou only, asking divine favour with peace-offerings, be bounteous in welcome and draw out reasons for delay, while the storm rages at sea and orion is wet, and his ships are shattered and the sky unvoyageable.' with these words she made the fire of love flame up in her spirit, put hope in her wavering soul, and let honour slip away. [ - ]first they visit the shrines, and desire grace from altar to altar; they sacrifice sheep fitly chosen to ceres the lawgiver, to phoebus and lord lyaeus, to juno before all, guardian of the marriage bond. dido herself, excellent in beauty, holds the cup in her hand, and pours libation between the horns of a milk-white cow, or moves in state to the rich altars before the gods' presences, day by day renewing her gifts, and gazing athirst into the breasts of cattle laid open to take counsel from the throbbing entrails. ah, witless souls of soothsayers! how may vows or shrines help her madness? all the while the subtle flame consumes her inly, and deep in her breast the wound is silent and alive. stung to misery, dido wanders in frenzy all down the city, even as an arrow-stricken deer, whom, far and heedless amid the cretan woodland, a shepherd archer hath pierced and left the flying steel in her unaware; she ranges in flight the dictaean forest lawns; fast in her side clings the deadly reed. now she leads aeneas with her through the town, and displays her sidonian treasure and ordered city; she essays to speak, and breaks off half-way in utterance. now, as day wanes, she seeks the repeated banquet, and again madly pleads to hear the agonies of ilium, and again hangs on the teller's lips. thereafter, when all are gone their ways, and the dim moon in turn quenches her light, and the setting stars counsel to sleep, alone in the empty house she mourns, and flings herself on the couch he left: distant she hears and sees him in the distance; or enthralled by the look he has of his father, she holds ascanius on her lap, if so she may steal the love she may not utter. no more do the unfinished towers rise, no more do the people exercise in arms, nor work for safety in war on harbour or bastion; the works hang broken off, vast looming walls and engines towering into the sky. so soon as she perceives her thus fast in the toils, and [ - ]madly careless of her name, jove's beloved wife, daughter of saturn, accosts venus thus: 'noble indeed is the fame and splendid the spoils you win, thou and that boy of thine, and mighty the renown of deity, if two gods have vanquished one woman by treachery. nor am i so blind to thy terror of our town, thine old suspicion of the high house of carthage. but what shall be the end? or why all this contest now? nay, rather let us work an enduring peace and a bridal compact. thou hast what all thy soul desired; dido is on fire with love, and hath caught the madness through and through. then rule we this people jointly in equal lordship; allow her to be a phrygian husband's slave, and to lay her tyrians for dowry in thine hand.' to her--for she knew the dissembled purpose of her words, to turn the teucrian kingdom away to the coasts of libya--venus thus began in answer: 'who so mad as to reject these terms, or choose rather to try the fortune of war with thee? if only when done, as thou sayest, fortune follow. but i move in uncertainty of jove's ordinance, whether he will that tyrians and wanderers from troy be one city, or approve the mingling of peoples and the treaty of union. thou art his wife, and thy prayers may essay his soul. go on; i will follow.' then queen juno thus rejoined: 'that task shall be mine. now, by what means the present need may be fulfilled, attend and i will explain in brief. aeneas and dido (alas and woe for her!) are to go hunting together in the woodland when to-morrow's rising sun goes forth and his rays unveil the world. on them, while the beaters run up and down, and the lawns are girt with toils, will i pour down a blackening rain-cloud mingled with hail, and startle all the sky in thunder. their company will scatter for shelter in the dim darkness; dido and the trojan captain [ - ]shall take refuge in the same cavern. i will be there, and if thy goodwill is assured me, i will unite them in wedlock, and make her wholly his; here shall hymen be present.' the cytherean gave ready assent to her request, and laughed at the wily invention. meanwhile dawn rises forth of ocean. a chosen company issue from the gates while the morning star is high; they pour forth with meshed nets, toils, broad-headed hunting spears, massylian horsemen and sinewy sleuth-hounds. at her doorway the chief of carthage await their queen, who yet lingers in her chamber, and her horse stands splendid in gold and purple with clattering feet and jaws champing on the foamy bit. at last she comes forth amid a great thronging train, girt in a sidonian mantle, broidered with needlework; her quiver is of gold, her tresses knotted into gold, a golden buckle clasps up her crimson gown. therewithal the phrygian train advances with joyous iülus. himself first and foremost of all, aeneas joins her company and unites his party to hers: even as apollo, when he leaves wintry lycia and the streams of xanthus to visit his mother's delos, and renews the dance, while cretans and dryopes and painted agathyrsians mingle clamorous about his altars: himself he treads the cynthian ridges, and plaits his flowing hair with soft heavy sprays and entwines it with gold; the arrows rattle on his shoulder: as lightly as he went aeneas; such glow and beauty is on his princely face. when they are come to the mountain heights and pathless coverts, lo, wild goats driven from the cliff-tops run down the ridge; in another quarter stags speed over the open plain and gather their flying column in a cloud of dust as they leave the hills. but the boy ascanius is in the valleys, exultant on his fiery horse, and gallops past one and another, praying that among the unwarlike herds a foaming boar may issue or a tawny lion descend the hill. [ - ]meanwhile the sky begins to thicken and roar aloud. a rain-cloud comes down mingled with hail; the tyrian train and the men of troy, and the dardanian boy of venus' son scatter in fear, and seek shelter far over the fields. streams pour from the hills. dido and the trojan captain take refuge in the same cavern. primeval earth and juno the bridesmaid give the sign; fires flash out high in air, witnessing the union, and nymphs cry aloud on the mountain-top. that day opened the gate of death and the springs of ill. for now dido recks not of eye or tongue, nor sets her heart on love in secret: she calls it marriage, and with this name veils her fall. straightway rumour runs through the great cities of libya,--rumour, than whom none other is more swift to mischief; she thrives on restlessness and gains strength by going: at first small and timorous; soon she lifts herself on high and paces the ground with head hidden among the clouds. her, one saith, mother earth, when stung by wrath against the gods, bore last sister to coeus and enceladus, fleet-footed and swift of wing, ominous, awful, vast; for every feather on her body is a waking eye beneath, wonderful to tell, and a tongue, and as many loud lips and straining ears. by night she flits between sky and land, shrilling through the dusk, and droops not her lids in sweet slumber; in daylight she sits on guard upon tall towers or the ridge of the house-roof, and makes great cities afraid; obstinate in perverseness and forgery no less than messenger of truth. she then exultingly filled the countries with manifold talk, and blazoned alike what was done and undone: one aeneas is come, born of trojan blood; on him beautiful dido thinks no shame to fling herself; now they hold their winter, long-drawn through mutual caresses, regardless of their realms and enthralled by passionate dishonour. this the pestilent goddess [ - ]spreads abroad in the mouths of men, and bends her course right on to king iarbas, and with her words fires his spirit and swells his wrath. he, the seed of ammon by a ravished garamantian nymph, had built to jove in his wide realms an hundred great temples, an hundred altars, and consecrated the wakeful fire that keeps watch by night before the gods perpetually, where the soil is fat with blood of beasts and the courts blossom with pied garlands. and he, distracted and on fire at the bitter tidings, before his altars, amid the divine presences, often, it is said, bowed in prayer to jove with uplifted hands: 'jupiter omnipotent, to whom from the broidered cushions of their banqueting halls the maurusian people now pour lenaean offering, lookest thou on this? or do we shudder vainly when our father hurls the thunderbolt, and do blind fires in the clouds and idle rumblings appal our soul? the woman who, wandering in our coasts, planted a small town on purchased ground, to whom we gave fields by the shore and laws of settlement, she hath spurned our alliance and taken aeneas for lord of her realm. and now that paris, with his effeminate crew, his chin and oozy hair swathed in the turban of maeonia, takes and keeps her; since to thy temples we bear oblation, and hallow an empty name.' in such words he pleaded, clasping the altars; the lord omnipotent heard, and cast his eye on the royal city and the lovers forgetful of their fairer fame. then he addresses this charge to mercury: 'up and away, o son! call the breezes and slide down them on thy wings: accost the dardanian captain who now loiters in tyrian carthage and casts not a look on destined cities; carry down my words through the fleet air. not such an one did his mother most beautiful vouch him to [ - ]us, nor for this twice rescue him from grecian arms; but he was to rule an italy teeming with empire and loud with war, to transmit the line of teucer's royal blood, and lay all the world beneath his law. if such glories kindle him in nowise, and he take no trouble for his own honour, does a father grudge his ascanius the towers of rome? with what device or in what hope loiters he among a hostile race, and casts not a glance on his ausonian children and the fields of lavinium? let him set sail: this is the sum: thereof be thou our messenger.' he ended: his son made ready to obey his high command. and first he laces to his feet the shoes of gold that bear him high winging over seas or land as fleet as the gale; then takes the rod wherewith he calls wan souls forth of orcus, or sends them again to the sad depth of hell, gives sleep and takes it away and unseals dead eyes; in whose strength he courses the winds and swims across the tossing clouds. and now in flight he descries the peak and steep sides of toiling atlas, whose crest sustains the sky; atlas, whose pine-clad head is girt alway with black clouds and beaten by wind and rain; snow is shed over his shoulders for covering; rivers tumble over his aged chin; and his rough beard is stiff with ice. here the cyllenian, poised evenly on his wings, made a first stay; hence he shot himself sheer to the water. like a bird that flies low, skirting the sea about the craggy shores of its fishery, even thus the brood of cyllene left his mother's father, and flew, cutting the winds between sky and land, along the sandy libyan shore. so soon as his winged feet reached the settlement, he espies aeneas founding towers and ordering new dwellings; his sword twinkled with yellow jasper, and a cloak hung from his shoulders ablaze with tyrian sea-purple, a gift that dido had made costly and shot the warp with thin gold. straightway [ - ]he breaks in: 'layest thou now the foundations of tall carthage, and buildest up a fair city in dalliance? ah, forgetful of thine own kingdom and state! from bright olympus i descend to thee at express command of heaven's sovereign, whose deity sways sky and earth; expressly he bids me carry this charge through the fleet air: with what device or in what hope dost thou loiter idly on libyan lands? if such glories kindle thee in nowise, yet cast an eye on growing ascanius, on iülus thine hope and heir, to whom the kingdom of italy and the roman land are due.' as these words left his lips the cyllenian, yet speaking, quitted mortal sight and vanished into thin air away out of his eyes. but aeneas in truth gazed in dumb amazement, his hair thrilled up, and the accents faltered on his tongue. he burns to flee away and leave the pleasant land, aghast at the high warning and divine ordinance. alas, what shall he do? how venture to smooth the tale to the frenzied queen? what prologue shall he find? and this way and that he rapidly throws his mind, and turns it on all hands in swift change of thought. in his perplexity this seemed the better counsel; he calls mnestheus and sergestus, and brave serestus, and bids them silently equip the fleet, gather their crews on shore, and order their armament, keeping the cause of the commotion hid; himself meanwhile, since dido the gracious knows not nor looks for severance to so strong a love, will essay to approach her when she may be told most gently, and the way for it be fair. all at once gladly do as bidden, and obey his command. but the queen--who may delude a lover?--foreknew his devices, and at once caught the presaging stir. safety's self was fear; to her likewise had evil rumour borne the maddening news that they equip the fleet and prepare [ - ]for passage. helpless at heart, she reels aflame with rage throughout the city, even as the startled thyiad in her frenzied triennial orgies, when the holy vessels move forth and the cry of bacchus re-echoes, and cithaeron calls her with nightlong din. thus at last she opens out upon aeneas: 'and thou didst hope, traitor, to mask the crime, and slip away in silence from my land? our love holds thee not, nor the hand thou once gavest, nor the bitter death that is left for dido's portion? nay, under the wintry star thou labourest on thy fleet, and hastenest to launch into the deep amid northern gales; ah, cruel! why, were thy quest not of alien fields and unknown dwellings, did thine ancient troy remain, should troy be sought in voyages over tossing seas? fliest thou from me? me who by these tears and thine own hand beseech thee, since naught else, alas! have i kept mine own--by our union and the marriage rites preparing; if i have done thee any grace, or aught of mine hath once been sweet in thy sight,--pity our sinking house, and if there yet be room for prayers, put off this purpose of thine. for thy sake libyan tribes and nomad kings are hostile; my tyrians are estranged; for thy sake, thine, is mine honour perished, and the former fame, my one title to the skies. how leavest thou me to die, o my guest? since to this the name of husband is dwindled down. for what do i wait? till pygmalion overthrow his sister's city, or gaetulian iarbas lead me to captivity? at least if before thy flight a child of thine had been clasped in my arms,--if a tiny aeneas were playing in my hall, whose face might yet image thine,--i would not think myself ensnared and deserted utterly.' she ended; he by counsel of jove held his gaze unstirred, and kept his distress hard down in his heart. at last he briefly answers: 'never, o queen, will i deny that thy goodness hath [ - ]gone high as thy words can swell the reckoning; nor will my memory of elissa be ungracious while i remember myself, and breath sways this body. little will i say in this. i never hoped to slip away in stealthy flight; fancy not that; nor did i ever hold out the marriage torch or enter thus into alliance. did fate allow me to guide my life by mine own government, and calm my sorrows as i would, my first duty were to the trojan city and the dear remnant of my kindred; the high house of priam should abide, and my hand had set up troy towers anew for a conquered people. but now for broad italy hath apollo of grynos bidden me steer, for italy the oracles of lycia. here is my desire; this is my native country. if thy phoenician eyes are stayed on carthage towers and thy libyan city, what wrong is it, i pray, that we trojans find our rest on ausonian land? we too may seek a foreign realm unforbidden. in my sleep, often as the dank shades of night veil the earth, often as the stars lift their fires, the troubled phantom of my father anchises comes in warning and dread; my boy ascanius, how i wrong one so dear in cheating him of an hesperian kingdom and destined fields. now even the gods' interpreter, sent straight from jove--i call both to witness--hath borne down his commands through the fleet air. myself in broad daylight i saw the deity passing within the walls, and these ears drank his utterance. cease to madden me and thyself alike with plaints. not of my will do i follow italy. . . .' long ere he ended she gazes on him askance, turning her eyes from side to side and perusing him with silent glances; then thus wrathfully speaks: 'no goddess was thy mother, nor dardanus founder of thy line, traitor! but rough caucasus bore thee on his iron crags, and hyrcanian tigresses gave thee suck. for why do i conceal it? for what further outrage do i wait? [ - ]hath our weeping cost him a sigh, or a lowered glance? hath he broken into tears, or had pity on his lover? where, where shall i begin? now neither doth queen juno nor our saturnian lord regard us with righteous eyes. nowhere is trust safe. cast ashore and destitute i welcomed him, and madly gave him place and portion in my kingdom; i found him his lost fleet and drew his crews from death. alas, the fire of madness speeds me on. now prophetic apollo, now oracles of lycia, now the very gods' interpreter sent straight from jove through the air carries these rude commands! truly that is work for the gods, that a care to vex their peace! i detain thee not, nor gainsay thy words: go, follow thine italy down the wind; seek thy realm overseas. yet midway my hope is, if righteous gods can do aught at all, thou wilt drain the cup of vengeance on the rocks, and re-echo calls on dido's name. in murky fires i will follow far away, and when chill death hath severed body from soul, my ghost will haunt thee in every region. wretch, thou shalt repay! i will hear; and the rumour of it shall reach me deep in the under world.' even on these words she breaks off her speech unfinished, and, sick at heart, escapes out of the air and sweeps round and away out of sight, leaving him in fear and much hesitance, and with much on his mind to say. her women catch her in their arms, and carry her swooning to her marble chamber and lay her on her bed. but good aeneas, though he would fain soothe and comfort her grief, and talk away her distress, with many a sigh, and melted in soul by his great love, yet fulfils the divine commands and returns to his fleet. then indeed the teucrians set to work, and haul down their tall ships all along the shore. the hulls are oiled and afloat; they carry from the woodland green boughs for oars and massy logs unhewn, in hot haste to go. . . . one might descry them shifting [ - ]their quarters and pouring out of all the town: even as ants, mindful of winter, plunder a great heap of wheat and store it in their house; a black column advances on the plain as they carry home their spoil on a narrow track through the grass. some shove and strain with their shoulders at big grains, some marshal the ranks and chastise delay; all the path is aswarm with work. what then were thy thoughts, o dido, as thou sawest it? what sighs didst thou utter, viewing from the fortress roof the broad beach aswarm, and seeing before thine eyes the whole sea stirred with their noisy din? injurious love, to what dost thou not compel mortal hearts! again, she must needs break into tears, again essay entreaty, and bow her spirit down to love, not to leave aught untried and go to death in vain. 'anna, thou seest the bustle that fills the shore. they have gathered round from every quarter; already their canvas woos the breezes, and the merry sailors have garlanded the sterns. this great pain, my sister, i shall have strength to bear, as i have had strength to foresee. yet this one thing, anna, for love and pity's sake--for of thee alone was the traitor fain, to thee even his secret thoughts were confided, alone thou knewest his moods and tender fits--go, my sister, and humbly accost the haughty stranger: i did not take the grecian oath in aulis to root out the race of troy; i sent no fleet against her fortresses; neither have i disentombed his father anchises' ashes and ghost, that he should refuse my words entrance to his stubborn ears. whither does he run? let him grant this grace--alas, the last!--to his lover, and await fair winds and an easy passage. no more do i pray for the old delusive marriage, nor that he give up fair latium and abandon a kingdom. a breathing-space i ask, to give my madness rest and room, till my very [ - ]fortune teach my grief submission. this last favour i implore: sister, be pitiful; grant this to me, and i will restore it in full measure when i die.' so she pleaded, and so her sister carries and recarries the piteous tale of weeping. but by no weeping is he stirred, inflexible to all the words he hears. fate withstands, and lays divine bars on unmoved mortal ears. even as when the eddying blasts of northern alpine winds are emulous to uproot the secular strength of a mighty oak, it wails on, and the trunk quivers and the high foliage strews the ground; the tree clings fast on the rocks, and high as her top soars into heaven, so deep strike her roots to hell; even thus is the hero buffeted with changeful perpetual accents, and distress thrills his mighty breast, while his purpose stays unstirred, and tears fall in vain. then indeed, hapless and dismayed by doom, dido prays for death, and is weary of gazing on the arch of heaven. the more to make her fulfil her purpose and quit the light, she saw, when she laid her gifts on the altars alight with incense, awful to tell, the holy streams blacken, and the wine turn as it poured into ghastly blood. of this sight she spoke to none--no, not to her sister. likewise there was within the house a marble temple of her ancient lord, kept of her in marvellous honour, and fastened with snowy fleeces and festal boughs. forth of it she seemed to hear her husband's voice crying and calling when night was dim upon earth, and alone on the house-tops the screech-owl often made moan with funeral note and long-drawn sobbing cry. therewithal many a warning of wizards of old terrifies her with appalling presage. in her sleep fierce aeneas drives her wildly, and ever she seems being left by herself alone, ever going uncompanioned on a weary way, and seeking her tyrians in a solitary land: even as frantic pentheus sees the [ - ]arrayed furies and a double sun, and thebes shows herself twofold to his eyes: or agamemnonian orestes, renowned in tragedy, when his mother pursues him armed with torches and dark serpents, and the fatal sisters crouch avenging in the doorway. so when, overcome by her pangs, she caught the madness and resolved to die, she works out secretly the time and fashion, and accosts her sorrowing sister with mien hiding her design and hope calm on her brow. 'i have found a way, mine own--wish me joy, sisterlike--to restore him to me or release me of my love for him. hard by the ocean limit and the set of sun is the extreme aethiopian land, where ancient atlas turns on his shoulders the starred burning axletree of heaven. out of it hath been shown to me a priestess of massylian race, warder of the temple of the hesperides, even she who gave the dragon his food, and kept the holy boughs on the tree, sprinkling clammy honey and slumberous poppy-seed. she professes with her spells to relax the purposes of whom she will, but on others to bring passion and pain; to stay the river-waters and turn the stars backward: she calls up ghosts by night; thou shalt see earth moaning under foot and mountain-ashes descending from the hills. i take heaven, sweet, to witness, and thee, mine own darling sister, i do not willingly arm myself with the arts of magic. do thou secretly raise a pyre in the inner court, and let them lay on it the arms that the accursed one left hanging in our chamber, and all the dress he wore, and the bridal bed where i fell. it is good to wipe out all the wretch's traces, and the priestess orders thus.' so speaks she, and is silent, while pallor overruns her face. yet anna deems not her sister veils death behind these strange rites, and grasps not her wild purpose, nor fears aught deeper than at sychaeus' death. so she makes ready as bidden. . . . [ - ]but the queen, the pyre being built up of piled faggots and sawn ilex in the inmost of her dwelling, hangs the room with chaplets and garlands it with funeral boughs: on the pillow she lays the dress he wore, the sword he left, and an image of him, knowing what was to come. altars are reared around, and the priestess, with hair undone, thrice peals from her lips the hundred gods of erebus and chaos, and the triform hecate, the triple-faced maidenhood of diana. likewise she had sprinkled pretended waters of avernus' spring, and rank herbs are sought mown by moonlight with brazen sickles, dark with milky venom, and sought is the talisman torn from a horse's forehead at birth ere the dam could snatch it. . . . herself, the holy cake in her pure hands, hard by the altars, with one foot unshod and garments flowing loose, she invokes the gods ere she die, and the stars that know of doom; then prays to whatsoever deity looks in righteousness and remembrance on lovers ill allied. night fell; weary creatures took quiet slumber all over earth, and woodland and wild waters had sunk to rest; now the stars wheel midway on their gliding path, now all the country is silent, and beasts and gay birds that haunt liquid levels of lake or thorny rustic thicket lay couched asleep under the still night. but not so the distressed phoenician, nor does she ever sink asleep or take the night upon eyes or breast; her pain redoubles, and her love swells to renewed madness, as she tosses on the strong tide of wrath. even so she begins, and thus revolves with her heart alone: 'see, what do i? shall i again make trial of mine old wooers that will scorn me? and stoop to sue for a numidian marriage among those whom already over and over i have disdained for husbands? then shall i follow the ilian fleets and the uttermost bidding of the teucrians? because it is good to think they were once raised up by my [ - ]succour, or the grace of mine old kindness is fresh in their remembrance? and how should they let me, if i would? or take the odious woman on their haughty ships? art thou ignorant, ah me, even in ruin, and knowest not yet the forsworn race of laomedon? and then? shall i accompany the triumphant sailors, a lonely fugitive? or plunge forth girt with all my tyrian train? so hardly severed from sidon city, shall i again drive them seaward, and bid them spread their sails to the tempest? nay die thou, as thou deservest, and let the steel end thy pain. with thee it began; overborne by my tears, thou, o my sister, dost load me with this madness and agony, and layest me open to the enemy. i could not spend a wild life without stain, far from a bridal chamber, and free from touch of distress like this! o faith ill kept, that was plighted to sychaeus' ashes!' thus her heart broke in long lamentation. now aeneas was fixed to go, and now, with all set duly in order, was taking hasty sleep on his high stern. to him as he slept the god appeared once again in the same fashion of countenance, and thus seemed to renew his warning, in all points like to mercury, voice and hue and golden hair and limbs gracious in youth. 'goddess-born, canst thou sleep on in such danger? and seest not the coming perils that hem thee in, madman! nor hearest the breezes blowing fair? she, fixed on death, is revolving craft and crime grimly in her bosom, and swells the changing surge of wrath. fliest thou not hence headlong, while headlong flight is yet possible? even now wilt thou see ocean weltering with broken timbers, see the fierce glare of torches and the beach in a riot of flame, if dawn break on thee yet dallying in this land. up ho! linger no more! woman is ever a fickle and changing thing.' so spoke he, and melted in the black night. [ - ]then indeed aeneas, startled by the sudden phantom, leaps out of slumber and bestirs his crew. 'haste and awake, o men, and sit down to the thwarts; shake out sail speedily. a god sent from high heaven, lo! again spurs us to speed our flight and cut the twisted cables. we follow thee, holy one of heaven, whoso thou art, and again joyfully obey thy command. o be favourable; give gracious aid and bring fair sky and weather.' he spoke, and snatching his sword like lightning from the sheath, strikes at the hawser with the drawn steel. the same zeal catches all at once; rushing and tearing they quit the shore; the sea is hidden under their fleets; strongly they toss up the foam and sweep the blue water. and now dawn broke, and, leaving the saffron bed of tithonus, shed her radiance anew over the world; when the queen saw from her watch-tower the first light whitening, and the fleet standing out under squared sail, and discerned shore and haven empty of all their oarsmen. thrice and four times she struck her hand on her lovely breast and rent her yellow hair: 'god!' she cries, 'shall he go? shall an alien make mock of our realm? will they not issue in armed pursuit from all the city, and some launch ships from the dockyards? go; bring fire in haste, serve weapons, swing out the oars! what do i talk? or where am i? what mad change is on my purpose? alas, dido! now thou dost feel thy wickedness; that had graced thee once, when thou gavest away thy crown. behold the faith and hand of him! who, they say, carries his household's ancestral gods about with him! who stooped his shoulders to a father outworn with age! could i not have riven his body in sunder and strewn it on the waves? and slain with the sword his comrades and his dear ascanius, and served him for the banquet at his father's table? but the chance of battle had been dubious. if it had! whom did i fear [ - ]with my death upon me? i should have borne firebrands into his camp and filled his decks with flame, blotted out father and son and race together, and flung myself atop of all. sun, whose fires lighten all the works of the world, and thou, juno, mediatress and witness of these my distresses, and hecate, cried on by night in crossways of cities, and you, fatal avenging sisters and gods of dying elissa, hear me now; bend your just deity to my woes, and listen to our prayers. if it must needs be that the accursed one touch his haven and float up to land, if thus jove's decrees demand, and this is the appointed term,--yet, distressed in war by an armed and gallant nation, driven homeless from his borders, rent from iülus' embrace, let him sue for succour and see death on death untimely on his people; nor when he hath yielded him to the terms of a harsh peace, may he have joy of his kingdom or the pleasant light; but let him fall before his day and without burial on a waste of sand. this i pray; this and my blood with it i pour for the last utterance. and you, o tyrians, hunt his seed with your hatred for all ages to come; send this guerdon to our ashes. let no kindness nor truce be between the nations. arise out of our dust, o unnamed avenger, to pursue the dardanian settlement with firebrand and steel. now, then, whensoever strength shall be given, i invoke the enmity of shore to shore, wave to water, sword to sword; let their battles go down to their children's children.' so speaks she as she kept turning her mind round about, seeking how soonest to break away from the hateful light. thereon she speaks briefly to barce, nurse of sychaeus; for a heap of dusky ashes held her own, in her country of long ago: 'sweet nurse, bring anna my sister hither to me. bid her haste and sprinkle river water over her body, and bring [ - ]with her the beasts ordained for expiation: so let her come: and thou likewise veil thy brows with a pure chaplet. i would fulfil the rites of stygian jove that i have fitly ordered and begun, so to set the limit to my distresses and give over to the flames the funeral pyre of the dardanian.' so speaks she; the old woman went eagerly with quickened pace. but dido, fluttered and fierce in her awful purpose, with bloodshot restless gaze, and spots on her quivering cheeks burning through the pallor of imminent death, bursts into the inner courts of the house, and mounts in madness the high funeral pyre, and unsheathes the sword of dardania, a gift asked for no use like this. then after her eyes fell on the ilian raiment and the bed she knew, dallying a little with her purpose through her tears, she sank on the pillow and spoke the last words of all: 'dress he wore, sweet while doom and deity allowed! receive my spirit now, and release me from my distresses. i have lived and fulfilled fortune's allotted course; and now shall i go a queenly phantom under the earth. i have built a renowned city; i have seen my ramparts rise; by my brother's punishment i have avenged my husband of his enemy; happy, ah me! and over happy, had but the keels of dardania never touched our shores!' she spoke; and burying her face in the pillow, 'death it will be,' she cries, 'and unavenged; but death be it. thus, thus is it good to pass into the dark. let the pitiless dardanian's gaze drink in this fire out at sea, and my death be the omen he carries on his way.' she ceased; and even as she spoke her people see her sunk on the steel, and blood reeking on the sword and spattered on her hands. a cry rises in the high halls; rumour riots down the quaking city. the house resounds with lamentation and sobbing and bitter crying of women; [ - ]heaven echoes their loud wails; even as though all carthage or ancient tyre went down as the foe poured in, and the flames rolled furious over the roofs of house and temple. swooning at the sound, her sister runs in a flutter of dismay, with torn face and smitten bosom, and darts through them all, and calls the dying woman by her name. 'was it this, mine own? was my summons a snare? was it this thy pyre, ah me, this thine altar fires meant? how shall i begin my desolate moan? didst thou disdain a sister's company in death? thou shouldst have called me to share thy doom; in the self-same hour, the self-same pang of steel had been our portion. did these very hands build it, did my voice call on our father's gods, that with thee lying thus i should be away as one without pity? thou hast destroyed thyself and me together, o my sister, and the sidonian lords and people, and this thy city. give her wounds water: i will bathe them and catch on my lips the last breath that haply yet lingers.' so speaking she had climbed the high steps, and, wailing, clasped and caressed her half-lifeless sister in her bosom, and stanched the dark streams of blood with her gown. she, essaying to lift her heavy eyes, swoons back; the deep-driven wound gurgles in her breast. thrice she rose, and strained to lift herself on her elbow; thrice she rolled back on the pillow, and with wandering eyes sought the light of high heaven, and moaned as she found it. then juno omnipotent, pitying her long pain and difficult decease, sent iris down from heaven to unloose the struggling life from the body where it clung. for since neither by fate did she perish, nor as one who had earned her death, but woefully before her day, and fired by sudden madness, not yet had proserpine taken her lock from the golden head, nor sentenced her to the stygian under world. so iris on dewy saffron pinions flits down through the sky [ - ]athwart the sun in a trail of a thousand changing dyes, and stopping over her head: 'this hair, sacred to dis, i take as bidden, and release thee from that body of thine.' so speaks she, and cuts it with her hand. and therewith all the warmth ebbed forth from her, and the life passed away upon the winds. book fifth the games of the fleet meanwhile aeneas and his fleet in unwavering track now held mid passage, and cleft the waves that blackened under the north, looking back on the city that even now gleams with hapless elissa's funeral flame. why the broad blaze is lit lies unknown; but the bitter pain of a great love trampled, and the knowledge of what woman can do in madness, draw the teucrians' hearts to gloomy guesses. when their ships held the deep, nor any land farther appears, the seas all round, and all round the sky, a dusky shower drew up overhead, carrying night and storm, and the wave shuddered and gloomed. palinurus, master of the fleet, cries from the high stern: 'alas, why have these heavy storm-clouds girt the sky? lord neptune, what wilt thou?' then he bids clear the rigging and bend strongly to the oars, and brings the sails across the wind, saying thus: 'noble aeneas, not did jupiter give word and warrant would i hope to reach italy under such a sky. the shifting winds roar athwart our course, and blow stronger out of the black west, and the air thickens into mist: nor are we fit to force our way on and across. fortune is the stronger; let us follow her, and turn our course whither she calls. [ - ]not far away, i think, are the faithful shores of thy brother eryx, and the sicilian haven, if only my memory retraces rightly the stars i watched before.' then good aeneas: 'even i ere now discern the winds will have it so, and thou urgest against them in vain. turn thou the course of our sailing. could any land be welcomer to me, or where i would sooner choose to put in my weary ships, than this that hath dardanian acestes to greet me, and laps in its embrace lord anchises' dust?' this said, they steer for harbour, while the following west wind stretches their sails; the fleet runs fast down the flood, and at last they land joyfully on the familiar beach. but acestes high on a hill-top, amazed at the friendly squadron approaching from afar, hastens towards them, weaponed and clad in the shaggy skin of a libyan she-bear. him a trojan mother conceived and bore to crimisus river; not forgetful of his parentage, he wishes them joy of their return, and gladly entertains them on his rustic treasure and comforts their weariness with his friendly store. so soon as the morrow's clear daylight had chased the stars out of the east, aeneas calls his comrades along the beach together, and from a mounded hillock speaks: 'great people of dardanus, born of the high blood of gods, the yearly circle of the months is measured out to fulfilment since we laid the dust in earth, all that was left of my divine father, and sadly consecrated our altars. and now the day is at hand (this, o gods, was your will), which i will ever keep in grief, ever in honour. did i spend it an exile on gaetulian quicksands, did it surprise me on the argolic sea or in mycenae town, yet would i fulfil the yearly vows and annual ordinance of festival, and pile the altars with their due gifts. now we are led hither, to the very dust and ashes of our father, not as i deem without [ - ]divine purpose and influence, and borne home into the friendly haven. up then and let us all gather joyfully to the sacrifice: pray we for winds, and may he deign that i pay these rites to him year by year in an established city and consecrated temple. two head of oxen acestes, the seed of troy, gives to each of your ships by tale: invite to the feast your own ancestral gods of the household, and those whom our host acestes worships. further, so the ninth dawn uplift the gracious day upon men, and her shafts unveil the world, i will ordain contests for my trojans; first for swift ships; then whoso excels in the foot-race, and whoso, confident in strength and skill, comes to shoot light arrows, or adventures to join battle with gloves of raw hide; let all be here, and let merit look for the prize and palm. now all be hushed, and twine your temples with boughs.' so speaks he, and shrouds his brows with his mother's myrtle. so helymus does, so aletes ripe of years, so the boy ascanius, and the rest of the people follow. he advances from the assembly to the tomb among a throng of many thousands that crowd about him; here he pours on the ground in fit libation two goblets of pure wine, two of new milk, two of consecrated blood, and flings bright blossoms, saying thus: 'hail, holy father, once again; hail, ashes of him i saved in vain, and soul and shade of my sire! thou wert not to share the search for italian borders and destined fields, nor the dim ausonian tiber.' thus had he spoken; when from beneath the sanctuary a snake slid out in seven vast coils and sevenfold slippery spires, quietly circling the grave and gliding from altar to altar, his green chequered body and the spotted lustre of his scales ablaze with gold, as the bow in the cloud darts a thousand changing dyes athwart the sun: aeneas stood amazed at the sight. at last he wound [ - ]his long train among the vessels and polished cups, and tasted the feast, and again leaving the altars where he had fed, crept harmlessly back beneath the tomb. doubtful if he shall think it the genius of the ground or his father's ministrant, he slays, as is fit, two sheep of two years old, as many swine and dark-backed steers, pouring the while cups of wine, and calling on the soul of great anchises and the ghost rearisen from acheron. therewithal his comrades, as each hath store, bring gifts to heap joyfully on the altars, and slay steers in sacrifice: others set cauldrons arow, and, lying along the grass, heap live embers under spits and roast the flesh. the desired day came, and now the ninth dawn rode up clear and bright behind phaëthon's coursers; and the name and renown of illustrious acestes had stirred up all the bordering people; their holiday throng filled the shore, to see aeneas' men, and some ready to join in contest. first of all the prizes are laid out to view in the middle of the racecourse; tripods of sacrifice, green garlands and palms, the reward of the conquerors, armour and garments dipped in purple, talents of silver and gold: and from a hillock in the midst the trumpet sounds the games begun. first is the contest of rowing, and four ships matched in weight enter, the choice of all the fleet. mnestheus' keen oarsmen drive the swift dragon, mnestheus the italian to be, from whose name is the memmian family; gyas the huge bulk of the huge chimaera, a floating town, whom her triple-tiered dardanian crew urge on with oars rising in threefold rank; sergestus, from whom the sergian house holds her name, sails in the tall centaur; and in the sea-coloured scylla cloanthus, whence is thy family, cluentius of rome. apart in the sea and over against the foaming beach, lies a rock that the swoln waves beat and drown what time the [ - ]north-western gales of winter blot out the stars; in calm it rises silent out of the placid water, flat-topped, and a haunt where cormorants love best to take the sun. here lord aeneas set up a goal of leafy ilex, a mark for the sailors to know whence to return, where to wheel their long course round. then they choose stations by lot, and on the sterns their captains glitter afar, beautiful in gold and purple; the rest of the crews are crowned with poplar sprays, and their naked shoulders glisten wet with oil. they sit down at the thwarts, and their arms are tense on the oars; at full strain they wait the signal, while throbbing fear and heightened ambition drain their riotous blood. then, when the clear trumpet-note rang, all in a moment leap forward from their line; the shouts of the sailors strike up to heaven, and the channels are swept into foam by the arms as they swing backward. they cleave their furrows together, and all the sea is torn asunder by oars and triple-pointed prows. not with speed so headlong do racing pairs whirl the chariots over the plain, as they rush streaming from the barriers; not so do their charioteers shake the wavy reins loose over their team, and hang forward on the whip. all the woodland rings with clapping and shouts of men that cheer their favourites, and the sheltered beach eddies back their cries; the noise buffets and re-echoes from the hills. gyas shoots out in front of the noisy crowd, and glides foremost along the water; whom cloanthus follows next, rowing better, but held back by his dragging weight of pine. after them, at equal distance, the dragon and the centaur strive to win the foremost room; and now the dragon has it, now the vast centaur outstrips and passes her; now they dart on both together, their stems in a line, and their keels driving long furrows through the salt water-ways. and now they drew nigh the rock, and were hard [ - ]on the goal; when gyas as he led, winner over half the flood, cries aloud to menoetes, the ship's steersman: 'whither away so far to the right? this way direct her path; kiss the shore, and let the oarblade graze the leftward reefs. others may keep to deep water.' he spoke; but menoetes, fearing blind rocks, turns the bow away towards the open sea. 'whither wanderest thou away? to the rocks, menoetes!' again shouts gyas to bring him back; and lo! glancing round he sees cloanthus passing up behind and keeping nearer. between gyas' ship and the echoing crags he scrapes through inside on his left, flashes past his leader, and leaving the goal behind is in safe water. then indeed grief burned fierce through his strong frame, and tears sprung out on his cheeks; heedless of his own dignity and his crew's safety, he flings the too cautious menoetes sheer into the sea from the high stern, himself succeeds as guide and master of the helm, and cheers on his men, and turns his tiller in to shore. but menoetes, when at last he rose struggling from the bottom, heavy with advancing years and wet in his dripping clothes, makes for the top of the crag, and sits down on a dry rock. the teucrians laughed out as he fell and as he swam, and laugh to see him spitting the salt water from his chest. at this a joyful hope kindled in the two behind, sergestus and mnestheus, of catching up gyas' wavering course. sergestus slips forward as he nears the rock, yet not all in front, nor leading with his length of keel; part is in front, part pressed by the dragon's jealous prow. but striding amidships between his comrades, mnestheus cheers them on: 'now, now swing back, oarsmen who were hector's comrades, whom i chose to follow me in troy's extremity; now put forth the might and courage you showed in gaetulian quicksands, amid ionian seas and malea's chasing waves. not the first [ - ]place do i now seek for mnestheus, nor strive for victory; though ah!--yet let them win, o neptune, to whom thou givest it. but the shame of coming in last! win but this, fellow-citizens, and avert that disaster!' his men bend forward, straining every muscle; the brasswork of the ship quivers to their mighty strokes, and the ground runs from under her; limbs and parched lips shake with their rapid panting, and sweat flows in streams all over them. mere chance brought the crew the glory they desired. for while sergestus drives his prow furiously in towards the rocks and comes up with too scanty room, alas! he caught on a rock that ran out; the reef ground, the oars struck and shivered on the jagged teeth, and the bows crashed and hung. the sailors leap up and hold her with loud cries, and get out iron-shod poles and sharp-pointed boathooks, and pick up their broken oars out of the eddies. but mnestheus, rejoicing and flushed by his triumph, with oars fast-dipping and winds at his call, issues into the shelving water and runs down the open sea. as a pigeon whose house and sweet nestlings are in the rock's recesses, if suddenly startled from her cavern, wings her flight over the fields and rushes frightened from her house with loud clapping pinions; then gliding noiselessly through the air, slides on her liquid way and moves not her rapid wings; so mnestheus, so the dragon under him swiftly cleaves the last space of sea, so her own speed carries her flying on. and first sergestus is left behind, struggling on the steep rock and shoal water, and shouting in vain for help and learning to race with broken oars. next he catches up gyas and the vast bulk of the chimaera; she gives way, without her steersman. and now on the very goal cloanthus alone is left; him he pursues and presses hard, straining all his strength. then indeed the shouts redouble, as all together eagerly cheer on the pursuer, and [ - ]the sky echoes their din. these scorn to lose the honour that is their own, the glory in their grasp, and would sell life for renown; to these success lends life; power comes with belief in it. and haply they had carried the prize with prows abreast, had not cloanthus, stretching both his open hands over the sea, poured forth prayers and called the gods to hear his vows: 'gods who are sovereign on the sea, over whose waters i run, to your altars on this beach will i bring a snow-white bull, my vow's glad penalty, and will cast his entrails into the salt flood and pour liquid wine.' he spoke, and far beneath the flood maiden panopea heard him, with all phorcus' choir of nereids, and lord portunus with his own mighty hand pushed him on his way. the ship flies to land swifter than the wind or an arrow's flight, and shoots into the deep harbour. then the seed of anchises, summoning all in order, declares cloanthus conqueror by herald's outcry, and dresses his brows in green bay, and gives gifts to each crew, three bullocks of their choice, and wine, and a large talent of silver to take away. for their captains he adds special honours; to the winner a scarf wrought with gold, encircled by a double border of deep meliboean purple; woven in it is the kingly boy on leafy ida, chasing swift stags with javelin and racing feet, keen and as one panting; him jove's swooping armour-bearer hath caught up from ida in his talons; his aged guardians stretch their hands vainly upwards, and the barking of hounds rings fierce into the air. but to him who, next in merit, held the second place, he gives to wear a corslet triple-woven with hooks of polished gold, stripped by his own conquering hand from demoleos under tall troy by the swift simoïs, an ornament and safeguard among arms. scarce could the straining shoulders of his servants phegeus and sagaris carry its heavy folds; yet with it on, demoleos at [ - ]full speed would chase the scattered trojans. the third prize he makes twin cauldrons of brass, and bowls wrought in silver and rough with tracery. and now all moved away in the pride and wealth of their prizes, their brows bound with scarlet ribbons; when, hardly torn loose by all his art from the cruel rock, his oars lost, rowing feebly with a single tier, sergestus brought in his ship jeered at and unhonoured. even as often a serpent caught on a highway, if a brazen wheel hath gone aslant over him or a wayfarer left him half dead and mangled with the blow of a heavy stone, wreathes himself slowly in vain effort to escape, in part undaunted, his eyes ablaze and his hissing throat lifted high; in part the disabling wound keeps him coiling in knots and twisting back on his own body; so the ship kept rowing slowly on, yet hoists sail and under full sail glides into the harbour mouth. glad that the ship is saved and the crew brought back, aeneas presents sergestus with his promised reward. a slave woman is given him not unskilled in minerva's labours, pholoë the cretan, with twin boys at her breast. this contest sped, good aeneas moved to a grassy plain girt all about with winding wooded hills, and amid the valley an amphitheatre, whither, with a concourse of many thousands, the hero advanced and took his seat on a mound. here he allures with rewards and offer of prizes those who will try their hap in the fleet foot-race. trojans and sicilians gather mingling from all sides, nisus and euryalus foremost . . . euryalus in the flower of youth and famed for beauty, nisus for pure love of the boy. next follows renowned diores, of priam's royal line; after him salius and patron together, the one acarnanian, the other tegean by family and of arcadian blood; next two men of sicily, helymus and panopes, foresters and attendants on old acestes; many besides whose fame is hid in [ - ]obscurity. then among them all aeneas spoke thus: 'hearken to this, and attend in good cheer. none out of this number will i let go without a gift. to each will i give two glittering gnosian spearheads of polished steel, and an axe chased with silver to bear away; one and all shall be honoured thus. the three foremost shall receive prizes, and have pale olive bound about their head. the first shall have a caparisoned horse as conqueror; the second an amazonian quiver filled with arrows of thrace, girt about by a broad belt of gold, and on the link of the clasp a polished gem; let the third depart with this argolic helmet for recompense.' this said, they take their place, and the signal once heard, dart over the course and leave the line, pouring forth like a storm-cloud while they mark the goal. nisus gets away first, and shoots out far in front of the throng, fleeter than the winds or the winged thunderbolt. next to him, but next by a long gap, salius follows; then, left a space behind him, euryalus third . . . and helymus comes after euryalus; and close behind him, lo! diores goes flying, just grazing foot with foot, hard on his shoulder; and if a longer space were left, he would creep out past him and win the tie. and now almost in the last space, they began to come up breathless to the goal, when unfortunate nisus trips on the slippery blood of the slain steers, where haply it had spilled over the ground and wetted the green grass. here, just in the flush of victory, he lost his feet; they slid away on the ground they pressed, and he fell forward right among the ordure and blood of the sacrifice. yet forgot he not his darling euryalus; for rising, he flung himself over the slippery ground in front of salius, and he rolled over and lay all along on the hard sand. euryalus shoots by, wins and holds the first place his friend gave, and flies on amid prosperous clapping and cheers. behind helymus comes [ - ]up, and diores, now third for the palm. at this salius fills with loud clamour the whole concourse of the vast theatre, and the lords who looked on in front, demanding restoration of his defrauded prize. euryalus is strong in favour, and beauty in tears, and the merit that gains grace from so fair a form. diores supports him, who succeeded to the palm, so he loudly cries, and bore off the last prize in vain, if the highest honours be restored to salius. then lord aeneas speaks: 'for you, o boys, your rewards remain assured, and none alters the prizes' order: let me be allowed to pity a friend's innocent mischance.' so speaking, he gives to salius a vast gaetulian lion-skin, with shaggy masses of hair and claws of gold. 'if this,' cries nisus, 'is the reward of defeat, and thy pity is stirred for the fallen, what fit recompense wilt thou give to nisus? to my excellence the first crown was due, had not i, like salius, met fortune's hostility.' and with the words he displayed his face and limbs foul with the wet dung. his lord laughed kindly on him, and bade a shield be brought forth, the workmanship of didymaon, torn by him from the hallowed gates of neptune's grecian temple; with this special prize he rewards his excellence. thereafter, when the races are finished and the gifts fulfilled: 'now,' he cries, 'come, whoso hath in him valour and ready heart, and lift up his arms with gauntleted hands.' so speaks he, and sets forth a double prize of battle; for the conqueror a bullock gilt and garlanded; a sword and beautiful helmet to console the conquered. straightway without pause dares issues to view in his vast strength, rising amid loud murmurs of the people; he who alone was wont to meet paris in combat; he who, at the mound where princely hector lies, struck down as he came the vast bulk upborne by conquering butes, of amycus' bebrycian line, and stretched him in [ - ]death on the yellow sand. such was dares; at once he raises his head high for battle, displays his broad shoulders, and stretches and swings his arms right and left, lashing the air with blows. for him another is required; but none out of all the train durst approach or put the gloves on his hands. so he takes his stand exultant before aeneas' feet, deeming he excelled all in victories; and thereon without more delay grasps the bull's horn with his left hand, and speaks thus: 'goddess-born, if no man dare trust himself to battle, to what conclusion shall i stand? how long is it seemly to keep me? bid me carry off thy gifts.' therewith all the dardanians murmured assent, and bade yield him the promised prize. at this aged acestes spoke sharply to entellus, as he sate next him on the green cushion of grass: 'entellus, bravest of heroes once of old in vain, wilt thou thus idly let a gift so great be borne away uncontested? where now prithee is divine eryx, thy master of fruitless fame? where thy renown over all sicily, and those spoils hanging in thine house?' thereat he: 'desire of glory is not gone, nor ambition checked by fear; but torpid age dulls my chilly blood, and my strength of limb is numb and outworn. if i had what once was mine, if i had now that prime of years, yonder braggart's boast and confidence, it had taken no prize of goodly bullock to allure me; nor heed i these gifts.' so he spoke, and on that flung down a pair of gloves of giant weight, with whose hard hide bound about his wrists valiant eryx was wont to come to battle. they stood amazed; so stiff and grim lay the vast sevenfold oxhide sewed in with lead and iron. dares most of all shrinks far back in horror, and the noble son of anchises turns round this way and that their vast weight and voluminous folds. then the old man spoke thus in deep accents: 'how, had they seen the gloves [ - ]that were hercules' own armour, and the fatal fight on this very beach? these arms thy brother eryx once wore; thou seest them yet stained with blood and spattered brains. in them he stood to face great alcides; to them was i used while fuller blood supplied me strength, and envious old age had not yet strewn her snows on either temple. but if dares of troy will have none of these our arms, and good aeneas is resolved on it, and my patron acestes approves, let us make the battle even. see, i give up the gauntlets of eryx; dismiss thy fears; and do thou put off thy trojan gloves.' so spoke he, and throwing back the fold of his raiment from his shoulders, he bares the massive joints and limbs, the great bones and muscles, and stands up huge in the middle of the ground. then anchises' lordly seed brought out equal gloves and bound the hands of both in matched arms. straightway each took his stand on tiptoe, and undauntedly raised his arms high in air. they lift their heads right back and away out of reach of blows, and make hand play through hand, inviting attack; the one nimbler of foot and confident in his youth, the other mighty in mass of limb, but his knees totter tremulous and slow, and sick panting shakes his vast frame. many a mutual blow they deliver in vain, many an one they redouble on chest and side, sounding hollow and loud: hands play fast about ear and temple, and jawbones clash under the hard strokes. old entellus stands immoveable and astrain, only parrying hits with body and watchful eye. the other, as one who casts mounts against some high city or blockades a hill-fort in arms, tries this and that entrance, and ranges cunningly over all the ground, and presses many an attack in vain. entellus rose and struck clean out with his right downwards; his quick opponent saw the descending blow before it came, [ - ]and slid his body rapidly out of its way. entellus hurled his strength into the air, and all his heavy mass, overreaching, fell heavily to the earth; as sometime on erymanthus or mighty ida a hollow pine falls torn out by the roots. teucrians and men of sicily rise eagerly; a cry goes up, and acestes himself runs forward, and pityingly lifts his friend and birthmate from the ground. but the hero, not dulled nor dismayed by his mishap, returns the keener to battle, and grows violent in wrath, while shame and resolved valour kindle his strength. all afire, he hunts dares headlong over the lists, and redoubles his blows now with right hand, now with left; no breath nor pause; heavy as hailstones rattle on the roof from a storm-cloud, so thickly shower the blows from both his hands as he buffets dares to and fro. then lord aeneas allowed not wrath to swell higher or entellus to rage out his bitterness, but stopped the fight and rescued the exhausted dares, saying thus in soothing words: 'unhappy! what height of madness hath seized thy mind? knowest thou not the strength is another's and the gods are changed? yield thou to heaven.' and with the words he proclaimed the battle over. but him his faithful mates lead to the ships dragging his knees feebly, swaying his head from side to side, and spitting from his mouth clotted blood mingled with teeth. at summons they bear away the helmet and shield, and leave palm and bull to entellus. at this the conqueror, swelling in pride over the bull, cries: 'goddess-born, and you, o trojans! learn thus what my strength of body was in its prime, and from what a death dares is saved by your recall.' he spoke, and stood right opposite in face of the bullock as it stood by, the prize of battle; then drew back his hand, and swinging the hard gauntlet sheer down between the horns, smashed the bones in upon the shattered brain. the ox rolls over, and quivering and [ - ]lifeless lies along the ground. above it he utters these deep accents: 'this life, eryx, i give to thee, a better payment than dares' death; here i lay down my gloves and unconquered skill.' forthwith aeneas invites all that will to the contest of the swift arrow, and proclaims the prizes. with his strong hand he uprears the mast of serestus' ship, and on a cord crossing it hangs from the masthead a fluttering pigeon as mark for their steel. they gather, and a helmet of brass takes the lots as they throw them in. first in rank, and before them all, amid prosperous cheers, comes out hippocoön son of hyrtacus; and mnestheus follows on him, but now conqueror in the ship race, mnestheus with his chaplet of green olive. third is eurytion, thy brother, o pandarus, great in renown, thou who of old, when prompted to shatter the truce, didst hurl the first shaft amid the achaeans. last of all, and at the bottom of the helmet, sank acestes, he too venturing to set hand to the task of youth. then each and all they strongly bend their bows into a curve and pull shafts from their quivers. and first the arrow of the son of hyrtacus, flying through heaven from the sounding string, whistles through the fleet breezes, and reaches and sticks fast full in the mast's wood: the mast quivered, and the bird fluttered her feathers in affright, and the whole ground rang with loud clapping. next valiant mnestheus took his stand with bow bent, aiming high with levelled eye and arrow; yet could not, unfortunate! hit the bird herself with his steel, but cut the knotted hempen bands that tied her foot as she hung from the masthead; she winged her flight into the dark windy clouds. then eurytion, who ere now held the arrow ready on his bended bow, swiftly called in prayer to his brother, marked the pigeon as she now went down the empty sky exultant on clapping wings; and as she passed under a dark cloud, [ - ]struck her: she fell breathless, and, leaving her life in the aery firmament, slid down carrying the arrow that pierced her. acestes alone was over, and the prize lost; yet he sped his arrow up into the air, to display his lordly skill and resounding bow. at this a sudden sign meets their eyes, mighty in augural presage, as the high event taught thereafter, and in late days boding seers prophesied of the omen. for the flying reed blazed out amid the swimming clouds, traced its path in flame, and burned away on the light winds; even as often stars shooting from their sphere draw a train athwart the sky. trinacrians and trojans hung in astonishment, praying to the heavenly powers; neither did great aeneas reject the omen, but embraces glad acestes and loads him with lavish gifts, speaking thus: 'take, my lord: for the high king of heaven by these signs hath willed thee to draw the lot of peculiar honour. this gift shalt thou have as from aged anchises' own hand, a bowl embossed with figures, that once cisseus of thrace gave my father anchises to bear, in high token and guerdon of affection.' so speaking, he twines green bay about his brows, and proclaims acestes conqueror first before them all. nor did gentle eurytion, though he alone struck the bird down from the lofty sky, grudge him to be preferred in honour. next comes for his prize he who cut the cord; he last, who pierced the mast with his winged reed. but lord aeneas, ere yet the contest is sped, calls to him epytides, guardian and attendant of ungrown iülus, and thus speaks into his faithful ear: 'up and away, and tell ascanius, if he now holds his band of boys ready, and their horses arrayed for the charge, to defile his squadrons to his grandsire's honour in bravery of arms.' so says he, and himself bids all the crowding throng withdraw from the long racecourse and leave the lists free. the boys move in before their parents' faces, glittering in rank on their [ - ]bitted horses; as they go all the people of troy and trinacria murmur and admire. on the hair of them all rests a garland fitly trimmed; each carries two cornel spear-shafts tipped with steel; some have polished quivers on their shoulders; above their breast and round their neck goes a flexible circlet of twisted gold. three in number are the troops of riders, and three captains gallop up and down; following each in equal command rides a glittering division of twelve boys. one youthful line goes rejoicingly behind little priam, renewer of his grandsire's name, thy renowned seed, o polites, and destined to people italy; he rides a thracian horse dappled with spots of white, showing white on his pacing pasterns and white on his high forehead. second is atys, from whom the latin atii draw their line, little atys, boy beloved of the boy iülus. last and excellent in beauty before them all, iülus rode in on a sidonian horse that dido the bright had given him for token and pledge of love. the rest of them are mounted on old acestes' sicilian horses. . . . the dardanians greet their shy entrance with applause, and rejoice at the view, and recognise the features of their parents of old. when they have ridden merrily round all the concourse of their gazing friends, epytides shouts from afar the signal they await, and sounds his whip. they gallop apart in equal numbers, and open their files three and three in deploying bands, and again at the call wheel about and bear down with levelled arms. next they start on other charges and other retreats in corresponsive spaces, and interlink circle with circle, and wage the armed phantom of battle. and now they bare their backs in flight, now turn their lances to the charge, now plight peace and ride on side by side. as once of old, they say, the labyrinth in high crete had a tangled path between blind walls, and a thousand ways of doubling treachery, where tokens to follow failed in the [ - ]maze unmastered and irrecoverable: even in such a track do the children of troy entangle their footsteps and weave the game of flight and battle; like dolphins who, swimming through the wet seas, cut carpathian or libyan. . . . this fashion of riding, these games ascanius first revived, when he girt alba the long about with walls, and taught their celebration to the old latins in the way of his own boyhood, with the youth of troy about him. the albans taught it their children; on from them mighty rome received it and kept the ancestral observance; and now it is called troy, and the boys the trojan troop. thus far sped the sacred contests to their holy lord. just at this fortune broke faith and grew estranged. while they pay the due rites to the tomb with diverse games, juno, daughter of saturn, sends iris down the sky to the ilian fleet, and breathes a gale to speed her on, revolving many a thought, and not yet satiate of the ancient pain. she, speeding her way along the thousand-coloured bow, runs swiftly, seen of none, down her maiden path. she discerns the vast concourse, and traverses the shore, and sees the haven abandoned and the fleet left alone. but far withdrawn by the solitary verge of the sea the trojan women wept their lost anchises, and as they wept gazed all together on the fathomless flood. 'alas! after all those weary waterways, that so wide a sea is yet to come!' such is the single cry of all. they pray for a city, sick of the burden of their sea-sorrow. so she darts among them, not witless to harm, and lays by face and raiment of a goddess: she becomes beroë, the aged wife of tmarian doryclus, who had once had birth and name and children, and in this guise goes among the dardanian matrons. 'ah, wretched we,' she cries, 'whom hostile achaean hands did not drag to death beneath our native city! ah hapless race, for what destruction does fortune hold thee back? the [ - ]seventh summer now declines since troy's overthrow, while we pass measuring out by so many stars the harbourless rocks over every water and land, pursuing all the while over the vast sea an italy that flies us, and tossing on the waves. here are our brother eryx' borders, and acestes' welcome: who denies us to cast up walls and give our citizens a city? o country, o household gods vainly rescued from the foe! shall there never be a trojan town to tell of? shall i nowhere see a xanthus and a simoïs, the rivers of hector? nay, up and join me in burning with fire these ill-ominous ships. for in sleep the phantom of cassandra the soothsayer seemed to give me blazing brands: _here seek your troy_, she said; _here is your home_. now is the time to do it; nor do these high portents allow delay. behold four altars to neptune; the god himself lends the firebrand and the nerve.' speaking thus, at once she strongly seizes the fiery weapon, and with straining hand whirls it far upreared, and flings: the souls of the ilian women are startled and their wits amazed. at this one of their multitude, and she the eldest, pyrgo, nurse in the palace to all priam's many children: 'this is not beroë, i tell you, o mothers; this is not the wife of doryclus of rhoeteum. mark the lineaments of divine grace and the gleaming eyes, what a breath is hers, what a countenance, and the sound of her voice and the steps of her going. i, i time agone left beroë apart, sick and fretting that she alone must have no part in this our service, nor pay anchises his due sacrifice.' so spoke she. . . . but the matrons at first, dubious and wavering, gazed on the ships with malignant eyes, between the wretched longing for the land they trod and the fated realm that summoned them: when the goddess rose through the sky on poised wings, and in her flight drew a vast bow beneath the clouds. then indeed, amazed at the tokens and driven by madness, they raise a cry and snatch fire from the [ - ]hearths within; others plunder the altars, and cast on brushwood boughs and brands. the fire-god rages with loose rein over thwarts and oars and hulls of painted fir. eumelus carries the news of the burning ships to the grave of anchises and the ranges of the theatre; and looking back, their own eyes see the floating cloud of dark ashes. and in a moment ascanius, as he rode gaily before his cavalry, spurred his horse to the disordered camp; nor can his breathless guardians hold him back. 'what strange madness is this?' he cries; 'whither now hasten you, whither, alas and woe! o citizens? not on the foe nor on some hostile argive camp; it is your own hopes you burn. behold me, your ascanius!' and he flung before his feet the empty helmet, put on when he roused the mimicry of war. aeneas and the trojan train together hurry to the spot. but the women scatter apart in fear all over the beach, and stealthily seek the woods and the hollow rocks they find: they loathe their deed and the daylight, and with changed eyes know their people, and juno is startled out of their breast. but not thereby do the flames of the burning lay down their unconquered strength; under the wet oak the seams are alive, spouting slow coils of smoke; the creeping heat devours the hulls, and the destroyer takes deep hold of all: nor does the heroes' strength avail nor the floods they pour in. then good aeneas rent away the raiment from his shoulders and called the gods to aid, stretching forth his hands: 'jupiter omnipotent, if thou hatest not troy yet wholly to her last man, if thine ancient pity looks at all on human woes, now, o lord, grant our fleet to escape the flame, and rescue from doom the slender teucrian estate. or do thou plunge to death this remnant, if i deserve it, with levelled thunderbolt, and here with thine own hand smite us down.' scarce had he uttered this, when a black tempest rages in streaming showers; earth trembles [ - ]to the thunder on plain and steep; the water-flood rushes in torrents from the whole heaven amid black darkness and volleying blasts of the south. the ships are filled from overhead, the half-burnt timbers are soaking; till all the heat is quenched, and all the hulls, but four that are lost, are rescued from destruction. but lord aeneas, dismayed by the bitter mischance, revolved at heart this way and that his shifting weight of care, whether, forgetting fate, he should rest in sicilian fields, or reach forth to the borders of italy. then old nautes, whom tritonian pallas taught like none other, and made famous in eminence of art--she granted him to reply what the gods' heavy anger menaced or what the order of fate claimed--he then in accents of comfort thus speaks to aeneas: 'goddess-born, follow we fate's ebb and flow, whatsoever it shall be; fortune must be borne to be overcome. acestes is of thine own divine dardanian race; take him, for he is willing, to join thee in common counsel; deliver to him those who are over, now these ships are lost, and those who are quite weary of thy fortunes and the great quest. choose out the old men stricken in years, and the matrons sick of the sea, and all that is weak and fearful of peril in thy company. let this land give a city to the weary; they shall be allowed to call their town acesta by name.' then, indeed, kindled by these words of his aged friend, his spirit is distracted among all his cares. and now black night rose chariot-borne, and held the sky; when the likeness of his father anchises seemed to descend from heaven and suddenly utter thus: 'o son, more dear to me than life once of old while life was yet mine; o son, hard wrought by the destinies of ilium! i come hither by jove's command, who drove the [ - ]fire from thy fleets, and at last had pity out of high heaven. obey thou the fair counsel aged nautes now gives. carry through to italy thy chosen men and bravest souls; in latium must thou war down a people hard and rough in living. yet ere then draw thou nigh the nether chambers of dis, and in the deep tract of hell come, o son, to meet me. for i am not held in cruel tartarus among wailing ghosts, but inhabit elysium and the sweet societies of the good. hither with much blood of dark cattle shall the holy sibyl lead thee. then shalt thou learn of all thy line, and what city is given thee. and now farewell; dank night wheels her mid-career, and even now i feel the stern breath of the panting horses of the east.' he ended, and retreated like a vapour into thin air. 'ah, whither hurriest thou?' cries aeneas; 'whither so fast away? from whom fliest thou? or who withholds thee from our embrace?' so speaking, he kindles the sleeping embers of the fire, and with holy meal and laden censer does sacrifice to the tutelar of pergama and hoar vesta's secret shrine. straightway he summons his crews and acestes first of all, and instructs them of jove's command and his beloved father's precepts, and what is now his fixed mind and purpose. they linger not in counsel, nor does acestes decline his bidden duty: they enrol the matrons in their town, and plant a people there, souls that will have none of glory. the rest repair the thwarts and replace the ships' timbers that the flames had gnawed upon, and fit up oars and rigging, little in number, but alive and valiant for war. meanwhile aeneas traces the town with the plough and allots the homesteads; this he bids be ilium, and these lands troy. trojan acestes, rejoicing in his kingdom, appoints a court and gathers his senators to give them statutes. next, where the crest of eryx is neighbour to the stars, a dwelling is founded to venus the idalian; [ - ]and a priest and breadth of holy wood is attached to anchises' grave. and now for nine days all the people hath feasted, and offering been paid at the altars; quiet breezes have smoothed the ocean floor, and the gathering south wind blows, calling them again to sea. a mighty weeping arises along the winding shore; a night and a day they linger in mutual embraces. the very mothers now, the very men to whom once the sight of the sea seemed cruel and the name intolerable, would go on and endure the journey's travail to the end. these aeneas comforts with kindly words, and commends with tears to his kinsman acestes' care. then he bids slay three steers to eryx and a she-lamb to the tempests, and loose the hawser as is due. himself, his head bound with stripped leaves of olive, he stands apart on the prow holding the cup, and casts the entrails into the salt flood and pours liquid wine. a wind rising astern follows them forth on their way. emulously the crews strike the water, and sweep through the seas. but venus meanwhile, wrought upon with distress, accosts neptune, and thus pours forth her heart's complaint: 'juno's bitter wrath and heart insatiable compel me, o neptune, to sink to the uttermost of entreaty: neither length of days nor any goodness softens her, nor doth jove's command and fate itself break her to desistence. it is not enough that her accursed hatred hath devoured the phrygian city from among the people, and exhausted on it the stores of vengeance; still she pursues this remnant, the bones and ashes of murdered troy. i pray she know why her passion is so fierce. thyself art my witness what a sudden stir she raised of late on the libyan waters, flinging all the seas to heaven in vain reliance on aeolus' blasts; this she dared in thy realm. . . . lo too, driving the trojan matrons into guilt, she hath foully [ - ]burned their ships, and forced them, their fleet lost, to leave the crews to an unknown land. let the remnant, i beseech thee, give their sails to thy safe keeping across the seas; let them reach laurentine tiber; if i ask what is permitted, if fate grants them a city there.' then the son of saturn, compeller of the ocean deep, uttered thus: 'it is wholly right, o cytherean, that thy trust should be in my realm, whence thou drawest birth; and i have deserved it: often have i allayed the rage and full fury of sky and sea. nor less on land, i call xanthus and simoïs to witness, hath been my care of thine aeneas. when achilles pursued the trojan armies and hurled them breathless on their walls, and sent many thousands to death,--when the choked rivers groaned and xanthus could not find passage or roll out to sea,--then i snatched aeneas away in sheltering mist as he met the brave son of peleus outmatched in strength and gods, eager as i was to overthrow the walls of perjured troy that mine own hands had built. now too my mind rests the same; dismiss thy fear. in safety, as thou desirest, shall he reach the haven of avernus. one will there be alone whom on the flood thou shalt lose and require; one life shall be given for many. . . .' with these words the goddess' bosom is soothed to joy. then their lord yokes his wild horses with gold and fastens the foaming bits, and letting all the reins run slack in his hand, flies lightly in his sea-coloured chariot over the ocean surface. the waves sink to rest, and the swoln water-ways smooth out under the thundering axle; the storm-clouds scatter from the vast sky. diverse shapes attend him, monstrous whales, and glaucus' aged choir, and palaemon, son of ino, the swift tritons, and phorcus with all his army. thetis and melite keep the left, and maiden panopea, nesaea and spio, thalia and cymodoce. [ - ]at this lord aeneas' soul is thrilled with soft counterchange of delight. he bids all the masts be upreared with speed, and the sails stretched on the yards. together all set their sheets, and all at once slacken their canvas to left and again to right; together they brace and unbrace the yard-arms aloft; prosperous gales waft the fleet along. first, in front of all, palinurus steered the close column; the rest under orders ply their course by his. and now dewy night had just reached heaven's mid-cone; the sailors, stretched on their hard benches under the oars, relaxed their limbs in quiet rest: when sleep, sliding lightly down from the starry sky, parted the shadowy air and cleft the dark, seeking thee, o palinurus, carrying dreams of bale to thee who dreamt not of harm, and lit on the high stern, a god in phorbas' likeness, dropping this speech from his lips: 'palinurus son of iasus, the very seas bear our fleet along; the breezes breathe steadily; for an hour rest is given. lay down thine head, and steal thy worn eyes from their toil. i myself for a little will take thy duty in thy stead.' to whom palinurus, scarcely lifting his eyes, returns: 'wouldst thou have me ignorant what the calm face of the brine means, and the waves at rest? shall i have faith in this perilous thing? how shall i trust aeneas to deceitful breezes, and the placid treachery of sky that hath so often deceived me?' such words he uttered, and, clinging fast to the tiller, slackened hold no whit, and looked up steadily on the stars. lo! the god shakes over either temple a bough dripping with lethean dew and made slumberous with the might of styx, and makes his swimming eyes relax their struggles. scarcely had sleep begun to slacken his limbs unaware, when bending down, he flung him sheer into the clear water, tearing rudder and half the stern away with him, and many a time crying vainly on his comrades: himself [ - ]he rose on flying wings into the thin air. none the less does the fleet run safe on its sea path, and glides on unalarmed in lord neptune's assurance. yes, and now they were sailing in to the cliffs of the sirens, dangerous once of old and white with the bones of many a man; and the hoarse rocks echoed afar in the ceaseless surf; when her lord felt the ship rocking astray for loss of her helmsman, and himself steered her on over the darkling water, sighing often the while, and heavy at heart for his friend's mischance. 'ah too trustful in sky's and sea's serenity, thou shalt lie, o palinurus, naked on an alien sand!' book sixth the vision of the under world so speaks he weeping, and gives his fleet the rein, and at last glides in to euboïc cumae's coast. they turn the prows seaward; the ships grounded fast on their anchors' teeth, and the curving ships line the beach. the warrior band leaps forth eagerly on the hesperian shore; some seek the seeds of flame hidden in veins of flint, some scour the woods, the thick coverts of wild beasts, and find and shew the streams. but good aeneas seeks the fortress where apollo sits high enthroned, and the lone mystery of the awful sibyl's cavern depth, over whose mind and soul the prophetic delian breathes high inspiration and reveals futurity. now they draw nigh the groves of trivia and the roof of gold. daedalus, as the story runs, when in flight from minos' realm he dared to spread his fleet wings to the sky, glided on his unwonted way towards the icy northern star, and at length lit gently on the chalcidian fastness. here, on the first land he retrod, he dedicated his winged oarage to thee, o phoebus, in the vast temple he built. on the doors is androgeus' death; thereby the children of cecrops, bidden, ah me! to pay for yearly ransom seven souls of their sons; the urn stands there, and the lots are drawn. right [ - ]opposite the land of gnosus rises from the sea; on it is the cruel love of the bull, the disguised stealth of pasiphaë, and the mingled breed and double issue of the minotaur, record of a shameful passion; on it the famous dwelling's laborious inextricable maze; but daedalus, pitying the great love of the princess, himself unlocked the tangled treachery of the palace, guiding with the clue her lover's blind footsteps. thou too hadst no slight part in the work he wrought, o icarus, did grief allow. twice had he essayed to portray thy fate in gold; twice the father's hands dropped down. nay, their eyes would scan all the story in order, were not achates already returned from his errand, and with him the priestess of phoebus and trivia, deïphobe daughter of glaucus, who thus accosts the king: 'other than this are the sights the time demands: now were it well to sacrifice seven unbroken bullocks of the herd, as many fitly chosen sheep of two years old.' thus speaks she to aeneas; nor do they delay to do her sacred bidding; and the priestess calls the teucrians into the lofty shrine. a vast cavern is scooped in the side of the euboïc cliff, whither lead an hundred wide passages by an hundred gates, whence peal forth as manifold the responses of the sibyl. they had reached the threshold, when the maiden cries: _it is time to enquire thy fate: the god, lo! the god!_ and even as she spoke thus in the gateway, suddenly countenance nor colour nor ranged tresses stayed the same; her wild heart heaves madly in her panting bosom; and she expands to sight, and her voice is more than mortal, now the god breathes on her in nearer deity. 'lingerest thou to vow and pray,' she cries, 'aeneas of troy? lingerest thou? for not till then will the vast portals of the spellbound house swing open.' so spoke she, and sank to silence. a cold shiver ran through the teucrians' iron frames, and the king pours heart-deep supplication: [ - ]'phoebus, who hast ever pitied the sore travail of troy, who didst guide the dardanian shaft from paris' hand full on the son of aeacus, in thy leading have i pierced all these seas that skirt mighty lands, the massylian nations far withdrawn, and the fields the syrtes fringe; thus far let the fortune of troy follow us. you too may now unforbidden spare the nation of pergama, gods and goddesses to whomsoever ilium and the great glory of dardania did wrong. and thou, o prophetess most holy, foreknower of the future, grant (for no unearned realm does my destiny claim) a resting-place in latium to the teucrians, to their wandering gods and the storm-tossed deities of troy. then will i ordain to phoebus and trivia a temple of solid marble, and festal days in phoebus' name. thee likewise a mighty sanctuary awaits in our realm. for here will i place thine oracles and the secrets of destiny uttered to my people, and consecrate chosen men, o gracious one. only commit not thou thy verses to leaves, lest they fly disordered, the sport of rushing winds; thyself utter them, i beseech thee.' his lips made an end of utterance. but the prophetess, not yet tame to phoebus' hand, rages fiercely in the cavern, so she may shake the mighty godhead from her breast; so much the more does he tire her maddened mouth and subdue her wild breast and shape her to his pressure. and now the hundred mighty portals of the house open of their own accord, and bring through the air the answer of the soothsayer: 'o past at length with the great perils of the sea! though heavier yet by land await thee, the dardanians shall come to the realm of lavinium; relieve thy heart of this care; but not so shall they have joy of their coming. wars, grim wars i discern, and tiber afoam with streams of blood. a simoïs shall not fail thee, a xanthus, a dorian camp; another achilles is already found for latium, he too [ - ]goddess-born; nor shall juno's presence ever leave the teucrians; while thou in thy need, to what nations or what towns of italy shalt thou not sue! again is an alien bride the source of all that teucrian woe, again a foreign marriage-chamber. . . . yield not thou to distresses, but all the bolder go forth to meet them, as thy fortune shall allow thee way. the path of rescue, little as thou deemest it, shall first open from a grecian town.' in such words the sibyl of cumae chants from the shrine her perplexing terrors, echoing through the cavern truth wrapped in obscurity: so does apollo clash the reins and ply the goad in her maddened breast. so soon as the spasm ceased and the raving lips sank to silence, aeneas the hero begins: 'no shape of toil, o maiden, rises strange or sudden on my sight; all this ere now have i guessed and inly rehearsed in spirit. one thing i pray; since here is the gate named of the infernal king, and the darkling marsh of acheron's overflow, be it given me to go to my beloved father, to see him face to face; teach thou the way, and open the consecrated portals. him on these shoulders i rescued from encircling flames and a thousand pursuing weapons, and brought him safe from amid the enemy; he accompanied my way over all the seas, and bore with me all the threats of ocean and sky, in weakness, beyond his age's strength and due. nay, he it was who besought and enjoined me to seek thy grace and draw nigh thy courts. have pity, i beseech thee, on son and father, o gracious one! for thou art all-powerful, nor in vain hath hecate given thee rule in the groves of avernus. if orpheus could call up his wife's ghost in the strength of his thracian lyre and the music of the strings,--if pollux redeemed his brother by exchange of death, and passes and repasses so often,--why make mention of great theseus, why of alcides? i too am of jove's sovereign race.' [ - ]in such words he pleaded and clasped the altars; when the soothsayer thus began to speak: 'o sprung of gods' blood, child of anchises of troy, easy is the descent into hell; all night and day the gate of dark dis stands open; but to recall thy steps and issue to upper air, this is the task and burden. some few of gods' lineage have availed, such as jupiter's gracious favour or virtue's ardour hath upborne to heaven. midway all is muffled in forest, and the black coils of cocytus circle it round. yet if thy soul is so passionate and so desirous twice to float across the stygian lake, twice to see dark tartarus, and thy pleasure is to plunge into the mad task, learn what must first be accomplished. hidden in a shady tree is a bough with leafage and pliant shoot all of gold, consecrate to nether juno, wrapped in the depth of woodland and shut in by dim dusky vales. but to him only who first hath plucked the golden-tressed fruitage from the tree is it given to enter the hidden places of the earth. this hath beautiful proserpine ordained to be borne to her for her proper gift. the first torn away, a second fills the place in gold, and the spray burgeons with even such ore again. so let thine eyes trace it home, and thine hand pluck it duly when found; for lightly and unreluctant will it follow if thine is fate's summons; else will no strength of thine avail to conquer it nor hard steel to cut it away. yet again, a friend of thine lies a lifeless corpse, alas! thou knowest it not, and defiles all the fleet with death, while thou seekest our counsel and lingerest in our courts. first lay him in his resting-place and hide him in the tomb; lead thither black cattle; be this first thine expiation; so at last shalt thou behold the stygian groves and the realm untrodden of the living.' she spoke, and her lips shut to silence. aeneas goes forth, and leaves the cavern with fixed eyes and sad countenance, his soul revolving inly the unseen [ - ]issues. by his side goes faithful achates, and plants his footsteps in equal perplexity. long they ran on in mutual change of talk; of what lifeless comrade spoke the soothsayer, of what body for burial? and even as they came, they see on the dry beach misenus cut off by untimely death, misenus the aeolid, excelled of none other in stirring men with brazen breath and kindling battle with his trumpet-note. he had been attendant on mighty hector; in hector's train he waged battle, renowned alike for bugle and spear: after victorious achilles robbed him of life the valiant hero had joined dardanian aeneas' company, and followed no meaner leader. but now, while he makes his hollow shell echo over the seas, ah fool! and calls the gods to rival his blast, jealous triton, if belief is due, had caught him among the rocks and sunk him in the foaming waves. so all surrounded him with loud murmur and cries, good aeneas the foremost. then weeping they quickly hasten on the sibyl's orders, and work hard to pile trees for the altar of burial, and heap it up into the sky. they move into the ancient forest, the deep coverts of game; pitch-pines fall flat, ilex rings to the stroke of axes, and ashen beams and oak are split in clefts with wedges; they roll in huge mountain-ashes from the hills. aeneas likewise is first in the work, and cheers on his crew and arms himself with their weapons. and alone with his sad heart he ponders it all, gazing on the endless forest, and utters this prayer: 'if but now that bough of gold would shew itself to us on the tree in this depth of woodland! since all the soothsayer's tale of thee, misenus, was, alas! too truly spoken.' scarcely had he said thus, when twin doves haply came flying down the sky, and lit on the green sod right under his eyes. then the kingly hero knows them for his mother's birds, and joyfully prays: 'ah, be my guides, if way there be, and direct your aëry passage into the groves [ - ]where the rich bough overshadows the fertile ground! and thou, o goddess mother, fail not our wavering fortune.' so spoke he and stayed his steps, marking what they signify, whither they urge their way. feeding and flying they advance at such distance as following eyes could keep them in view; then, when they came to avernus' pestilent gorge, they tower swiftly, and sliding down through the liquid air, choose their seat and light side by side on a tree, through whose boughs shone out the contrasting flicker of gold. as in chill mid-winter the woodland is wont to blossom with the strange leafage of the mistletoe, sown on an alien tree and wreathing the smooth stems with burgeoning saffron; so on the shadowy ilex seemed that leafy gold, so the foil tinkled in the light breeze. immediately aeneas seizes it and eagerly breaks off its resistance, and carries it beneath the sibyl's roof. and therewithal the teucrians on the beach wept misenus, and bore the last rites to the thankless ashes. first they build up a vast pyre of resinous billets and sawn oak, whose sides they entwine with dark leaves and plant funereal cypresses in front, and adorn it above with his shining armour. some prepare warm water in cauldrons bubbling over the flames, and wash and anoint the chill body, and make their moan; then, their weeping done, lay his limbs on the pillow, and spread over it crimson raiment, the accustomed pall. some uplift the heavy bier, a melancholy service, and with averted faces in their ancestral fashion hold and thrust in the torch. gifts of frankincense, food, and bowls of olive oil, are poured and piled upon the fire. after the embers sank in and the flame died away, they soaked with wine the remnant of thirsty ashes, and corynaeus gathered the bones and shut them in an urn of brass; and he too thrice encircled his comrades with fresh water, and cleansed them with light spray sprinkled from a [ - ]bough of fruitful olive, and spoke the last words of all. but good aeneas heaps a mighty mounded tomb over him, with his own armour and his oar and trumpet, beneath a skyey mountain that now is called misenus after him, and keeps his name immortal from age to age. this done, he hastens to fulfil the sibyl's ordinance. a deep cave yawned dreary and vast, shingle-strewn, sheltered by the black lake and the gloom of the forests; over it no flying things could wing their way unharmed, such a vapour streamed from the dark gorge and rose into the overarching sky. here the priestess first arrays four black-bodied bullocks and pours wine upon their forehead; and plucking the topmost hairs from between the horns, lays them on the sacred fire for first-offering, calling aloud on hecate, mistress of heaven and hell. others lay knives beneath, and catch the warm blood in cups. aeneas himself smites with the sword a black-fleeced she-lamb to the mother of the eumenides and her mighty sister, and a barren heifer, proserpine, to thee. then he uprears darkling altars to the stygian king, and lays whole carcases of bulls upon the flames, pouring fat oil over the blazing entrails. and lo! about the first rays of sunrise the ground moaned underfoot, and the woodland ridges began to stir, and dogs seemed to howl through the dusk as the goddess came. 'apart, ah keep apart, o ye unsanctified!' cries the soothsayer; 'retire from all the grove; and thou, stride on and unsheath thy steel; now is need of courage, o aeneas, now of strong resolve.' so much she spoke, and plunged madly into the cavern's opening; he with unflinching steps keeps pace with his advancing guide. gods who are sovereign over souls! silent ghosts, and chaos and phlegethon, the wide dumb realm of night! as i have heard, so let me tell, and according to your will unfold things sunken deep under earth in gloom. [ - ]they went darkling through the dusk beneath the solitary night, through the empty dwellings and bodiless realm of dis; even as one walks in the forest beneath the jealous light of a doubtful moon, when jupiter shrouds the sky in shadow and black night blots out the world. right in front of the doorway and in the entry of the jaws of hell grief and avenging cares have made their bed; there dwell wan sicknesses and gloomy eld, and fear, and ill-counselling hunger, and loathly want, shapes terrible to see; and death and travail, and thereby sleep, death's kinsman, and the soul's guilty joys, and death-dealing war full in the gateway, and the furies in their iron cells, and mad discord with bloodstained fillets enwreathing her serpent locks. midway an elm, shadowy and high, spreads her boughs and secular arms, where, one saith, idle dreams dwell clustering, and cling under every leaf. and monstrous creatures besides, many and diverse, keep covert at the gates, centaurs and twy-shaped scyllas, and the hundredfold briareus, and the beast of lerna hissing horribly, and the chimaera armed with flame, gorgons and harpies, and the body of the triform shade. here aeneas snatches at his sword in a sudden flutter of terror, and turns the naked edge on them as they come; and did not his wise fellow-passenger remind him that these lives flit thin and unessential in the hollow mask of body, he would rush on and vainly lash through phantoms with his steel. hence a road leads to tartarus and acheron's wave. here the dreary pool swirls thick in muddy eddies and disgorges into cocytus with its load of sand. charon, the dread ferryman, guards these flowing streams, ragged and awful, his chin covered with untrimmed masses of hoary hair, and his glassy eyes aflame; his soiled raiment hangs knotted from his shoulders. himself he plies the pole and trims the sails of his vessel, the steel-blue galley with freight [ - ]of dead; stricken now in years, but a god's old age is lusty and green. hither all crowded, and rushed streaming to the bank, matrons and men and high-hearted heroes dead and done with life, boys and unwedded girls, and children laid young on the bier before their parents' eyes, multitudinous as leaves fall dropping in the forests at autumn's earliest frost, or birds swarm landward from the deep gulf, when the chill of the year routs them overseas and drives them to sunny lands. they stood pleading for the first passage across, and stretched forth passionate hands to the farther shore. but the grim sailor admits now one and now another, while some he pushes back far apart on the strand. moved with marvel at the confused throng: 'say, o maiden,' cries aeneas, 'what means this flocking to the river? of what are the souls so fain? or what difference makes these retire from the banks, those go with sweeping oars over the leaden waterways?' to him the long-lived priestess thus briefly returned: 'seed of anchises, most sure progeny of gods, thou seest the deep pools of cocytus and the stygian marsh, by whose divinity the gods fear to swear falsely. all this crowd thou discernest is helpless and unsepultured; charon is the ferryman; they who ride on the wave found a tomb. nor is it given to cross the awful banks and hoarse streams ere the dust hath found a resting-place. an hundred years they wander here flitting about the shore; then at last they gain entrance, and revisit the pools so sorely desired.' anchises' son stood still, and ponderingly stayed his footsteps, pitying at heart their cruel lot. there he discerns, mournful and unhonoured dead, leucaspis and orontes, captains of the lycian squadron, whom, as they sailed together from troy over gusty seas, the south wind overwhelmed and wrapped the waters round ship and men. [ - ]lo, there went by palinurus the steersman, who of late, while he watched the stars on their libyan passage, had slipped from the stern and fallen amid the waves. to him, when he first knew the melancholy form in that depth of shade, he thus opens speech: 'what god, o palinurus, reft thee from us and sank thee amid the seas? forth and tell. for in this single answer apollo deceived me, never found false before, when he prophesied thee safety on ocean and arrival on the ausonian coasts. see, is this his promise-keeping?' and he: 'neither did phoebus on his oracular seat delude thee, o prince, anchises' son, nor did any god drown me in the sea. for while i clung to my appointed charge and governed our course, i pulled the tiller with me in my fall, and the shock as i slipped wrenched it away. by the rough seas i swear, fear for myself never wrung me so sore as for thy ship, lest, the rudder lost and the pilot struck away, those gathering waves might master it. three wintry nights in the water the blustering south drove me over the endless sea; scarcely on the fourth dawn i descried italy as i rose on the climbing wave. little by little i swam shoreward; already i clung safe; but while, encumbered with my dripping raiment, i caught with crooked fingers at the jagged needles of mountain rock, the barbarous people attacked me in arms and ignorantly deemed me a prize. now the wave holds me, and the winds toss me on the shore. by heaven's pleasant light and breezes i beseech thee, by thy father, by iülus thy rising hope, rescue me from these distresses, o unconquered one! either do thou, for thou canst, cast earth over me and again seek the haven of velia; or do thou, if in any wise that may be, if in any wise the goddess who bore thee shews a way,--for not without divine will do i deem thou wilt float across these vast rivers and the stygian pool,--lend me a pitying [ - ]hand, and bear me over the waves in thy company, that at least in death i may find a quiet resting-place.' thus he ended, and the soothsayer thus began: 'whence, o palinurus, this fierce longing of thine? shalt thou without burial behold the stygian waters and the awful river of the furies? cease to hope prayers may bend the decrees of heaven. but take my words to thy memory, for comfort in thy woeful case: far and wide shall the bordering cities be driven by celestial portents to appease thy dust; they shall rear a tomb, and pay the tomb a yearly offering, and for evermore shall the place keep palinurus' name.' the words soothed away his distress, and for a while drove grief away from his sorrowing heart; he is glad in the land of his name. so they complete their journey's beginning, and draw nigh the river. just then the waterman descried them from the stygian wave advancing through the silent woodland and turning their feet towards the bank, and opens on them in these words of challenge: 'whoso thou art who marchest in arms towards our river, forth and say, there as thou art, why thou comest, and stay thine advance. this is the land of shadows, of sleep, and slumberous night; no living body may the stygian hull convey. nor truly had i joy of taking alcides on the lake for passenger, nor theseus and pirithoüs, born of gods though they were and unconquered in might. he laid fettering hand on the warder of tartarus, and dragged him cowering from the throne of my lord the king; they essayed to ravish our mistress from the bridal chamber of dis.' thereto the amphrysian soothsayer made brief reply: 'no such plot is here; be not moved; nor do our weapons offer violence; the huge gatekeeper may bark on for ever in his cavern and affright the bloodless ghosts; proserpine may keep her honour within her uncle's gates. aeneas of troy, renowned [ - ]in goodness as in arms, goes down to meet his father in the deep shades of erebus. if the sight of such affection stirs thee in nowise, yet this bough' (she discovers the bough hidden in her raiment) 'thou must know.' then his heaving breast allays its anger, and he says no more; but marvelling at the awful gift, the fated rod so long unseen, he steers in his dusky vessel and draws to shore. next he routs out the souls that sate on the long benches, and clears the thwarts, while he takes mighty aeneas on board. the galley groaned under the weight in all her seams, and the marsh-water leaked fast in. at length prophetess and prince are landed unscathed on the ugly ooze and livid sedge. this realm rings with the triple-throated baying of vast cerberus, couched huge in the cavern opposite; to whom the prophetess, seeing the serpents already bristling up on his neck, throws a cake made slumberous with honey and drugged grain. he, with threefold jaws gaping in ravenous hunger, catches it when thrown, and sinks to earth with monstrous body outstretched, and sprawling huge over all his den. the warder overwhelmed, aeneas makes entrance, and quickly issues from the bank of the irremeable wave. immediately wailing voices are loud in their ears, the souls of babies crying on the doorway sill, whom, torn from the breast and portionless in life's sweetness, a dark day cut off and drowned in bitter death. hard by them are those condemned to death on false accusation. neither indeed are these dwellings assigned without lot and judgment; minos presides and shakes the urn; he summons a council of the silent people, and inquires of their lives and charges. next in order have these mourners their place whose own innocent hands dealt them death, who flung away their souls in hatred of the day. how fain were they now in upper air to endure their poverty and [ - ]sore travail! it may not be; the unlovely pool locks them in her gloomy wave, and styx pours her ninefold barrier between. and not far from here are shewn stretching on every side the wailing fields; so they call them by name. here they whom pitiless love hath wasted in cruel decay hide among untrodden ways, shrouded in embosoming myrtle thickets; not death itself ends their distresses. in this region he discerns phaedra and procris and woeful eriphyle, shewing on her the wounds of her merciless son, and evadne and pasiphaë; laodamia goes in their company, and she who was once caeneus and a man, now woman, and again returned by fate into her shape of old. among whom dido the phoenician, fresh from her death-wound, wandered in the vast forest; by her the trojan hero stood, and knew the dim form through the darkness, even as the moon at the month's beginning to him who sees or thinks he sees her rising through the vapours; he let tears fall, and spoke to her lovingly and sweet: 'alas, dido! so the news was true that reached me; thou didst perish, and the sword sealed thy doom! ah me, was i cause of thy death? by the stars i swear, by the heavenly powers and all that is sacred beneath the earth, unwillingly, o queen, i left thy shore. but the gods, at whose orders now i pass through this shadowy place, this land of mouldering overgrowth and deep night, the gods' commands drove me forth; nor could i deem my departure would bring thee pain so great as this. stay thy footstep, and withdraw not from our gaze. from whom fliest thou? the last speech of thee fate ordains me is this.' in such words and with starting tears aeneas soothed the burning and fierce-eyed soul. she turned away with looks fixed fast on the ground, stirred no more in countenance by the speech he essays than if she stood in iron flint or marpesian stone. at length she started, and fled wrathfully [ - ]into the shadowy woodland, where sychaeus, her ancient husband, responds to her distresses and equals her affection. yet aeneas, dismayed by her cruel doom, follows her far on her way with pitying tears. thence he pursues his appointed path. and now they trod those utmost fields where the renowned in war have their haunt apart. here tydeus meets him; here parthenopaeus, glorious in arms, and the pallid phantom of adrastus; here the dardanians long wept on earth and fallen in the war; sighing he discerns all their long array, glaucus and medon and thersilochus, the three children of antenor, and polyphoetes, ceres' priest, and idaeus yet charioted, yet grasping his arms. the souls throng round him to right and left; nor is one look enough; lingering delighted, they pace by his side and enquire wherefore he is come. but the princes of the grecians and agamemnon's armies, when they see him glittering in arms through the gloom, hurry terror-stricken away; some turn backward, as when of old they fled to the ships; some raise their voice faintly, and gasp out a broken ineffectual cry. and here he saw deïphobus son of priam, with face cruelly torn, face and both hands, and ears lopped from his mangled temples, and nostrils maimed by a shameful wound. barely he knew the cowering form that hid its dreadful punishment; then he springs to accost it in familiar speech: 'deïphobus mighty in arms, seed of teucer's royal blood, whose wantonness of vengeance was so cruel? who was allowed to use thee thus? rumour reached me that on that last night, outwearied with endless slaughter, thou hadst sunk on the heap of mingled carnage. then mine own hand reared an empty tomb on the rhoetean shore, mine own voice thrice called aloud upon thy ghost. thy name and armour keep the spot; thee, o my friend, i could not see nor lay in the native earth i left.' [ - ]whereto the son of priam: 'in nothing, o my friend, wert thou wanting; thou hast paid the full to deïphobus and the dead man's shade. but me my fate and the laconian woman's murderous guilt thus dragged down to doom; these are the records of her leaving. for how we spent that last night in delusive gladness thou knowest, and must needs remember too well. when the fated horse leapt down on the steep towers of troy, bearing armed infantry for the burden of its womb, she, in feigned procession, led round our phrygian women with bacchic cries; herself she upreared a mighty flame amid them, and called the grecians out of the fortress height. then was i fast in mine ill-fated bridal chamber, deep asleep and outworn with my charge, and lay overwhelmed in slumber sweet and profound and most like to easeful death. meanwhile that crown of wives removes all the arms from my dwelling, and slips out the faithful sword from beneath my head: she calls menelaus into the house and flings wide the gateway: be sure she hoped her lover would magnify the gift, and so she might quench the fame of her ill deeds of old. why do i linger? they burst into the chamber, they and the aeolid, counsellor of crime, in their company. gods, recompense the greeks even thus, if with righteous lips i call for vengeance! but come, tell in turn what hap hath brought thee hither yet alive. comest thou driven on ocean wanderings, or by promptings from heaven? or what fortune keeps thee from rest, that thou shouldst draw nigh these sad sunless dwellings, this disordered land?' in this change of talk dawn had already crossed heaven's mid axle on her rose-charioted way; and haply had they thus drawn out all the allotted time; but the sibyl made brief warning speech to her companion: 'night falls, aeneas; we waste the hours in weeping. here is the place where the road disparts; by this that runs to the right [ - ]under great dis' city is our path to elysium; but the leftward wreaks vengeance on the wicked and sends them to unrelenting hell.' but deïphobus: 'be not angered, mighty priestess; i will depart, i will refill my place and return into darkness. go, glory of our people, go, enjoy a fairer fate than mine.' thus much he spoke, and on the word turned away his footsteps. aeneas looks swiftly back, and sees beneath the cliff on the left hand a wide city, girt with a triple wall and encircled by a racing river of boiling flame, tartarean phlegethon, that echoes over its rolling rocks. in front is the gate, huge and pillared with solid adamant, that no warring force of men nor the very habitants of heaven may avail to overthrow; it stands up a tower of iron, and tisiphone sitting girt in bloodstained pall keeps sleepless watch at the entry by night and day. hence moans are heard and fierce lashes resound, with the clank of iron and dragging chains. aeneas stopped and hung dismayed at the tumult. 'what shapes of crime are here? declare, o maiden; or what the punishment that pursues them, and all this upsurging wail?' then the soothsayer thus began to speak: 'illustrious chief of troy, no pure foot may tread these guilty courts; but to me hecate herself, when she gave me rule over the groves of avernus, taught how the gods punish, and guided me through all her realm. gnosian rhadamanthus here holds unrelaxing sway, chastises secret crime revealed, and exacts confession, wheresoever in the upper world one vainly exultant in stolen guilt hath till the dusk of death kept clear from the evil he wrought. straightway avenging tisiphone, girt with her scourge, tramples down the shivering sinners, menaces them with the grim snakes in her left hand, and summons forth her sisters in merciless train. then at last the sacred gates are flung open and grate on the jarring hinge. markest thou what sentry is seated in [ - ]the doorway? what shape guards the threshold? more grim within sits the monstrous hydra with her fifty black yawning throats: and tartarus' self gapes sheer and strikes into the gloom through twice the space that one looks upward to olympus and the skyey heaven. here earth's ancient children, the titans' brood, hurled down by the thunderbolt, lie wallowing in the abyss. here likewise i saw the twin aloïds, enormous of frame, who essayed with violent hands to pluck down high heaven and thrust jove from his upper realm. likewise i saw salmoneus in the cruel payment he gives for mocking jove's flame and olympus' thunders. borne by four horses and brandishing a torch, he rode in triumph midway through the populous city of grecian elis, and claimed for himself the worship of deity; madman! who would mimic the storm-cloud and the inimitable bolt with brass that rang under his trampling horse-hoofs. but the lord omnipotent hurled his shaft through thickening clouds (no firebrand his nor smoky glare of torches) and dashed him headlong in the fury of the whirlwind. therewithal tityos might be seen, fosterling of earth the mother of all, whose body stretches over nine full acres, and a monstrous vulture with crooked beak eats away the imperishable liver and the entrails that breed in suffering, and plunges deep into the breast that gives it food and dwelling; nor is any rest given to the fibres that ever grow anew. why tell of the lapithae, of ixion and pirithoüs? over whom a stone hangs just slipping and just as though it fell; or the high banqueting couches gleam golden-pillared, and the feast is spread in royal luxury before their faces; couched hard by, the eldest of the furies wards the tables from their touch and rises with torch upreared and thunderous lips. here are they who hated their brethren while life endured, or struck a parent or entangled a client in wrong, or who brooded [ - ]alone over found treasure and shared it not with their fellows, this the greatest multitude of all; and they who were slain for adultery, and who followed unrighteous arms, and feared not to betray their masters' plighted hand. imprisoned they await their doom. seek not to be told that doom, that fashion of fortune wherein they are sunk. some roll a vast stone, or hang outstretched on the spokes of wheels; hapless theseus sits and shall sit for ever, and phlegyas in his misery gives counsel to all and witnesses aloud through the gloom, _learn by this warning to do justly and not to slight the gods._ this man sold his country for gold, and laid her under a tyrant's sway; he set up and pulled down laws at a price; this other forced his daughter's bridal chamber and a forbidden marriage; all dared some monstrous wickedness, and had success in what they dared. not had i an hundred tongues, an hundred mouths, and a voice of iron, could i sum up all the shapes of crime or name over all their punishments.' thus spoke phoebus' long-lived priestess; then 'but come now,' she cries; 'haste on the way and perfect the service begun; let us go faster; i descry the ramparts cast in cyclopean furnaces, and in front the arched gateway where they bid us lay the gifts foreordained.' she ended, and advancing side by side along the shadowy ways, they pass over and draw nigh the gates. aeneas makes entrance, and sprinkling his body with fresh water, plants the bough full in the gateway. now at length, this fully done, and the service of the goddess perfected, they came to the happy place, the green pleasances and blissful seats of the fortunate woodlands. here an ampler air clothes the meadows in lustrous sheen, and they know their own sun and a starlight of their own. some exercise their limbs in tournament on the greensward, contend in games, and wrestle on the yellow sand. some [ - ]dance with beating footfall and lips that sing; with them is the thracian priest in sweeping robe, and makes music to their measures with the notes' sevenfold interval, the notes struck now with his fingers, now with his ivory rod. here is teucer's ancient brood, a generation excellent in beauty, high-hearted heroes born in happier years, ilus and assaracus, and dardanus, founder of troy. afar he marvels at the armour and chariots empty of their lords: their spears stand fixed in the ground, and their unyoked horses pasture at large over the plain: their life's delight in chariot and armour, their care in pasturing their sleek horses, follows them in like wise low under earth. others, lo! he beholds feasting on the sward to right and left, and singing in chorus the glad paean-cry, within a scented laurel-grove whence eridanus river surges upward full-volumed through the wood. here is the band of them who bore wounds in fighting for their country, and they who were pure in priesthood while life endured, and the good poets whose speech abased not apollo; and they who made life beautiful by the arts of their invention, and who won by service a memory among men, the brows of all girt with the snow-white fillet. to their encircling throng the sibyl spoke thus, and to musaeus before them all; for he is midmost of all the multitude, and stands out head and shoulders among their upward gaze: 'tell, o blissful souls, and thou, poet most gracious, what region, what place hath anchises for his own? for his sake are we come, and have sailed across the wide rivers of erebus.' and to her the hero thus made brief reply: 'none hath a fixed dwelling; we live in the shady woodlands; soft-swelling banks and meadows fresh with streams are our habitation. but you, if this be your heart's desire, scale this ridge, and i will even now set you on an easy [ - ]pathway.' he spoke, and paced on before them, and from above shews the shining plains; thereafter they leave the mountain heights. but lord anchises, deep in the green valley, was musing in earnest survey over the imprisoned souls destined to the daylight above, and haply reviewing his beloved children and all the tale of his people, them and their fates and fortunes, their works and ways. and he, when he saw aeneas advancing to meet him over the greensward, stretched forth both hands eagerly, while tears rolled over his cheeks, and his lips parted in a cry: 'art thou come at last, and hath thy love, o child of my desire, conquered the difficult road? is it granted, o my son, to gaze on thy face and hear and answer in familiar tones? thus indeed i forecast in spirit, counting the days between; nor hath my care misled me. what lands, what space of seas hast thou traversed to reach me, through what surge of perils, o my son! how i dreaded the realm of libya might work thee harm!' and he: 'thy melancholy phantom, thine, o my father, came before me often and often, and drove me to steer to these portals. my fleet is anchored on the tyrrhenian brine. give thine hand to clasp, o my father, give it, and withdraw not from our embrace.' so spoke he, his face wet with abundant weeping. thrice there did he essay to fling his arms about his neck; thrice the phantom vainly grasped fled out of his hands even as light wind, and most like to fluttering sleep. meanwhile aeneas sees deep withdrawn in the covert of the vale a woodland and rustling forest thickets, and the river of lethe that floats past their peaceful dwellings. around it flitted nations and peoples innumerable; even as in the meadows when in clear summer weather bees settle on the variegated flowers and stream round the snow-white [ - ]lilies, all the plain is murmurous with their humming. aeneas starts at the sudden view, and asks the reason he knows not; what are those spreading streams, or who are they whose vast train fills the banks? then lord anchises: 'souls, for whom second bodies are destined and due, drink at the wave of the lethean stream the heedless water of long forgetfulness. these of a truth have i long desired to tell and shew thee face to face, and number all the generation of thy children, that so thou mayest the more rejoice with me in finding italy.'--'o father, must we think that any souls travel hence into upper air, and return again to bodily fetters? why this their strange sad longing for the light?' 'i will tell,' rejoins anchises, 'nor will i hold thee in suspense, my son.' and he unfolds all things in order one by one. 'first of all, heaven and earth and the liquid fields, the shining orb of the moon and the titanian star, doth a spirit sustain inly, and a soul shed abroad in them sways all their members and mingles in the mighty frame. thence is the generation of man and beast, the life of winged things, and the monstrous forms that ocean breeds under his glittering floor. those seeds have fiery force and divine birth, so far as they are not clogged by taint of the body and dulled by earthy frames and limbs ready to die. hence is it they fear and desire, sorrow and rejoice; nor can they pierce the air while barred in the blind darkness of their prison-house. nay, and when the last ray of life is gone, not yet, alas! does all their woe, nor do all the plagues of the body wholly leave them free; and needs must be that many a long ingrained evil should take root marvellously deep. therefore they are schooled in punishment, and pay all the forfeit of a lifelong ill; some are hung stretched to the viewless winds; some have the taint of guilt washed out beneath the dreary deep, or burned away in fire. we [ - ]suffer, each a several ghost; thereafter we are sent to the broad spaces of elysium, some few of us to possess the happy fields; till length of days completing time's circle takes out the ingrained soilure and leaves untainted the ethereal sense and pure spiritual flame. all these before thee, when the wheel of a thousand years hath come fully round, a god summons in vast train to the river of lethe, that so they may regain in forgetfulness the slopes of upper earth, and begin to desire to return again into the body.' anchises ceased, and leads his son and the sibyl likewise amid the assembled murmurous throng, and mounts a hillock whence he might scan all the long ranks and learn their countenances as they came. 'now come, the glory hereafter to follow our dardanian progeny, the posterity to abide in our italian people, illustrious souls and inheritors of our name to be, these will i rehearse, and instruct thee of thy destinies. he yonder, seest thou? the warrior leaning on his pointless spear, holds the nearest place allotted in our groves, and shall rise first into the air of heaven from the mingling blood of italy, silvius of alban name, the child of thine age, whom late in thy length of days thy wife lavinia shall nurture in the woodland, king and father of kings; from him in alba the long shall our house have dominion. he next him is procas, glory of the trojan race; and capys and numitor; and he who shall renew thy name, silvius aeneas, eminent alike in goodness or in arms, if ever he shall receive his kingdom in alba. men of men! see what strength they display, and wear the civic oak shading their brows. they shall establish nomentum and gabii and fidena city, they the collatine hill-fortress, pometii and the fort of inuus, bola and cora: these shall be names that are now nameless lands. nay, romulus likewise, seed of mavors, shall join [ - ]his grandsire's company, from his mother ilia's nurture and assaracus' blood. seest thou how the twin plumes straighten on his crest, and his father's own emblazonment already marks him for upper air? behold, o son! by his augury shall rome the renowned fill earth with her empire and heaven with her pride, and gird about seven fortresses with her single wall, prosperous mother of men; even as our lady of berecyntus rides in her chariot turret-crowned through the phrygian cities, glad in the gods she hath borne, clasping an hundred of her children's children, all habitants of heaven, all dwellers on the upper heights. hither now bend thy twin-eyed gaze; behold this people, the romans that are thine. here is caesar and all iülus' posterity that shall arise under the mighty cope of heaven. here is he, he of whose promise once and again thou hearest, caesar augustus, a god's son, who shall again establish the ages of gold in latium over the fields that once were saturn's realm, and carry his empire afar to garamant and indian, to the land that lies beyond our stars, beyond the sun's yearlong ways, where atlas the sky-bearer wheels on his shoulder the glittering star-spangled pole. before his coming even now the kingdoms of the caspian shudder at oracular answers, and the maeotic land and the mouths of sevenfold nile flutter in alarm. nor indeed did alcides traverse such spaces of earth, though he pierced the brazen-footed deer, or though he stilled the erymanthian woodlands and made lerna tremble at his bow: nor he who sways his team with reins of vine, liber the conqueror, when he drives his tigers from nysa's lofty crest. and do we yet hesitate to give valour scope in deeds, or shrink in fear from setting foot on ausonian land? ah, and who is he apart, marked out with sprays of olive, offering sacrifice? i know the locks and hoary chin of the king of rome who shall establish the infant city in his [ - ]laws, sent from little cures' sterile land to the majesty of empire. to him tullus shall next succeed, who shall break the peace of his country and stir to arms men rusted from war and armies now disused to triumphs; and hard on him over-vaunting ancus follows, even now too elate in popular breath. wilt thou see also the tarquin kings, and the haughty soul of brutus the avenger, and the fasces regained? he shall first receive a consul's power and the merciless axes, and when his children would stir fresh war, the father, for fair freedom's sake, shall summon them to doom. unhappy! yet howsoever posterity shall take the deed, love of country and limitless passion for honour shall prevail. nay, behold apart the decii and the drusi, torquatus with his cruel axe, and camillus returning with the standards. yonder souls likewise, whom thou discernest gleaming in equal arms, at one now, while shut in night, ah me! what mutual war, what battle-lines and bloodshed shall they arouse, so they attain the light of the living! father-in-law descending from the alpine barriers and the fortress of the dweller alone, son-in-law facing him with the embattled east. nay, o my children, harden not your hearts to such warfare, neither turn upon her own heart the mastering might of your country; and thou, be thou first to forgive, who drawest thy descent from heaven; cast down the weapons from thy hand, o blood of mine. . . . he shall drive his conquering chariot to the capitoline height triumphant over corinth, glorious in achaean slaughter. he shall uproot argos and agamemnonian mycenae, and the aeacid's own heir, the seed of achilles mighty in arms, avenging his ancestors in troy and minerva's polluted temple. who might leave thee, lordly cato, or thee, cossus, to silence? who the gracchan family, or these two sons of the scipios, a double thunderbolt of war, libya's bale? and fabricius potent in poverty, or [ - ]thee, serranus, sowing in the furrow? whither whirl you me all breathless, o fabii? thou art he, the most mighty, the one man whose lingering retrieves our state. others shall beat out the breathing bronze to softer lines, i believe it well; shall draw living lineaments from the marble; the cause shall be more eloquent on their lips; their pencil shall portray the pathways of heaven, and tell the stars in their arising: be thy charge, o roman, to rule the nations in thine empire; this shall be thine art, to lay down the law of peace, to be merciful to the conquered and beat the haughty down.' thus lord anchises, and as they marvel, he so pursues: 'look how marcellus the conqueror marches glorious in the splendid spoils, towering high above them all! he shall stay the roman state, reeling beneath the invading shock, shall ride down carthaginian and insurgent gaul, and a third time hang up the captured armour before lord quirinus.' and at this aeneas, for he saw going by his side one excellent in beauty and glittering in arms, but his brow had little cheer, and his eyes looked down: 'who, o my father, is he who thus attends him on his way? son, or other of his children's princely race? how his comrades murmur around him! how goodly of presence he is! but dark night flutters round his head with melancholy shade.' then lord anchises with welling tears began: 'o my son, ask not of the great sorrow of thy people. him shall fate but shew to earth, and suffer not to stay further. too mighty, lords of heaven, did you deem the brood of rome, had this your gift been abiding. what moaning of men shall arise from the field of mavors by the imperial city! what a funeral train shalt thou see, o tiber, as thou flowest by the new-made grave! neither shall the boyhood of any [ - ]of ilian race raise his latin forefathers' hope so high; nor shall the land of romulus ever boast of any fosterling like this. alas his goodness, alas his antique honour, and right hand invincible in war! none had faced him unscathed in armed shock, whether he met the foe on foot, or ran his spurs into the flanks of his foaming horse. ah me, the pity of thee, o boy! if in any wise thou breakest the grim bar of fate, thou shalt be marcellus. give me lilies in full hands; let me strew bright blossoms, and these gifts at least let me lavish on my descendant's soul, and do the unavailing service.' thus they wander up and down over the whole region of broad vaporous plains, and scan all the scene. and when anchises had led his son over it, each point by each, and kindled his spirit with passion for the glories on their way, he tells him thereafter of the war he next must wage, and instructs him of the laurentine peoples and the city of latinus, and in what wise each task may be turned aside or borne. there are twin portals of sleep, whereof the one is fabled of horn, and by it real shadows are given easy outlet; the other shining white of polished ivory, but false visions issue upward from the ghostly world. with these words then anchises follows forth his son and the sibyl together there, and dismisses them by the ivory gate. he pursues his way to the ships and revisits his comrades; then bears on to caieta's haven straight along the shore. the anchor is cast from the prow; the sterns are grounded on the beach. book seventh the landing in latium, and the roll of the armies of italy thou also, caieta, nurse of aeneas, gavest our shores an everlasting renown in death; and still thine honour haunts thy resting-place, and a name in broad hesperia, if that be glory, marks thy dust. but when the last rites are duly paid, and the mound smoothed over the grave, good aeneas, now the high seas are hushed, bears on under sail and leaves his haven. breezes blow into the night, and the white moonshine speeds them on; the sea glitters in her quivering radiance. soon they skirt the shores of circe's land, where the rich daughter of the sun makes her untrodden groves echo with ceaseless song; and her stately house glows nightlong with burning odorous cedarwood, as she runs over her delicate web with the ringing comb. hence are heard afar angry cries of lions chafing at their fetters and roaring in the deep night; bears and bristly swine rage in their pens, and vast shapes of wolves howl; whom with her potent herbs the deadly divine circe had disfashioned, face and body, into wild beasts from the likeness of men. but lest the good trojans might suffer so dread a change, might enter her haven or draw nigh the ominous shores, neptune filled [ - ]their sails with favourable winds, and gave them escape, and bore them past the seething shallows. and now the sea reddened with shafts of light, and high in heaven the yellow dawn shone rose-charioted; when the winds fell, and every breath sank suddenly, and the oar-blades toil through the heavy ocean-floor. and on this aeneas descries from sea a mighty forest. midway in it the pleasant tiber stream breaks to sea in swirling eddies, laden with yellow sand. around and above fowl many in sort, that haunt his banks and river-channel, solaced heaven with song and flew about the forest. he orders his crew to bend their course and turn their prows to land, and glides joyfully into the shady river. * * * * * forth now, erato! and i will unfold who were the kings, what the tides of circumstance, how it was with ancient latium when first that foreign army drew their fleet ashore on ausonia's coast; i will recall the preluding of battle. thou, divine one, inspire thou thy poet. i will tell of grim wars, tell of embattled lines, of kings whom honour drove on death, of the tyrrhenian forces, and all hesperia enrolled in arms. a greater history opens before me, a greater work i essay. latinus the king, now growing old, ruled in a long peace over quiet tilth and town. he, men say, was sprung of faunus and the nymph marica of laurentum. faunus' father was picus; and he boasts himself, saturn, thy son; thou art the first source of their blood. son of his, by divine ordinance, and male descent was none, cut off in the early spring of youth. one alone kept the household and its august home, a daughter now ripe for a husband and of full years for marriage. many wooed her from wide latium and all ausonia. fairest and foremost of all [ - ]is turnus, of long and lordly ancestry; but boding signs from heaven, many and terrible, bar the way. within the palace, in the lofty inner courts, was a laurel of sacred foliage, guarded in awe through many years, which lord latinus, it was said, himself found and dedicated to phoebus when first he would build his citadel; and from it gave his settlers their name, laurentines. high atop of it, wonderful to tell, bees borne with loud humming across the liquid air girt it thickly about, and with interlinked feet hung in a sudden swarm from the leafy bough. straightway the prophet cries: 'i see a foreigner draw nigh, an army from the same quarter seek the same quarter, and reign high in our fortress.' furthermore, while maiden lavinia stands beside her father feeding the altars with holy fuel, she was seen, oh, horror! to catch fire in her long tresses, and burn with flickering flame in all her array, her queenly hair lit up, lit up her jewelled circlet; till, enwreathed in smoke and lurid light, she scattered fire over all the palace. that sight was rumoured wonderful and terrible. herself, they prophesied, she should be glorious in fame and fortune; but a great war was foreshadowed for her people. but the king, troubled by the omen, visits the oracle of his father faunus the soothsayer, and the groves deep under albunea, where, queen of the woods, she echoes from her holy well, and breathes forth a dim and deadly vapour. hence do the tribes of italy and all the oenotrian land seek answers in perplexity; hither the priest bears his gifts, and when he hath lain down and sought slumber under the silent night on the spread fleeces of slaughtered sheep, sees many flitting phantoms of wonderful wise, hears manifold voices, and attains converse of the gods, and hath speech with acheron and the deep tract of hell. here then, likewise seeking an answer, lord latinus paid fit sacrifice of an hundred woolly ewes, and [ - ]lay couched on the strewn fleeces they had worn. out of the lofty grove a sudden voice was uttered: 'seek not, o my child, to unite thy daughter in latin espousals, nor trust her to the bridal chambers ready to thine hand; foreigners shall come to be thy sons, whose blood shall raise our name to heaven, and the children of whose race shall see, where the circling sun looks on either ocean, all the rolling world swayed beneath their feet.' this his father faunus' answer and counsel given in the silent night latinus restrains not in his lips; but wide-flitting rumour had already borne it round among the ausonian cities, when the children of laomedon moored their fleet to the grassy slope of the river bank. aeneas, with the foremost of his captains and fair iülus, lay them down under the boughs of a high tree and array the feast. they spread wheaten cakes along the sward under their meats--so jove on high prompted--and crown the platter of corn with wilding fruits. here haply when the rest was spent, and scantness of food set them to eat their thin bread, and with hand and venturous teeth do violence to the round cakes fraught with fate and spare not the flattened squares: _ha! are we eating our tables too?_ cries iülus jesting, and stops. at once that accent heard set their toils a limit; and at once as he spoke his father caught it from his lips and hushed him, in amazement at the omen. straightway 'hail, o land!' he cries, 'my destined inheritance! and hail, o household gods, faithful to your troy! here is home; this is our native country. for my father anchises, now i remember it, bequeathed me this secret of fate: "when hunger shall drive thee, o son, to consume thy tables where the feast fails, on the unknown shores whither thou shalt sail; then, though outwearied, hope for home, and there at last let thine hand remember to set thy house's foundations and bulwarks." this was [ - ]the hunger, this the last that awaited us, to set the promised end to our desolations . . . up then, and, glad with the first sunbeam, let us explore and search all abroad from our harbour, what is the country, who its habitants, where is the town of the nation. now pour your cups to jove, and call in prayer on anchises our father, setting the wine again upon the board.' so speaks he, and binding his brows with a leafy bough, he makes supplication to the genius of the ground, and earth first of deities, and the nymphs, and the rivers yet unknown; then calls on night and night's rising signs, and next on jove of ida, and our lady of phrygia, and on his twain parents, in heaven and in the under world. at this the lord omnipotent thrice thundered sharp from high heaven, and with his own hand shook out for a sign in the sky a cloud ablaze with luminous shafts of gold. a sudden rumour spreads among the trojan array, that the day is come to found their destined city. emulously they renew the feast, and, glad at the high omen, array the flagons and engarland the wine. soon as the morrow bathed the lands in its dawning light, they part to search out the town, and the borders and shores of the nation: these are the pools and spring of numicus; this is the tiber river; here dwell the brave latins. then the seed of anchises commands an hundred envoys chosen of every degree to go to the stately royal city, all with the wreathed boughs of pallas, to bear him gifts and desire grace for the teucrians. without delay they hasten on their message, and advance with swift step. himself he traces the city walls with a shallow trench, and builds on it; and in fashion of a camp girdles this first settlement on the shore with mound and battlements. and now his men had traversed their way; they espied the towers and steep roofs of the latins, and drew near the wall. before the city boys and men in their early [ - ]bloom exercise on horseback, and break in their teams on the dusty ground, or draw ringing bows, or hurl tough javelins from the shoulder, and contend in running and boxing: when a messenger riding forward brings news to the ears of the aged king that mighty men are come thither in unknown raiment. he gives orders to call them within his house, and takes his seat in the midst on his ancestral throne. his house, stately and vast, crowned the city, upreared on an hundred columns, once the palace of laurentian picus, amid awful groves of ancestral sanctity. here their kings receive the inaugural sceptre, and have the fasces first raised before them; this temple was their senate-house; this their sacred banqueting-hall; here, after sacrifice of rams, the elders were wont to sit down at long tables. further, there stood arow in the entry images of the forefathers of old in ancient cedar, italus, and lord sabinus, planter of the vine, still holding in show the curved pruning-hook, and gray saturn, and the likeness of janus the double-facing, and the rest of their primal kings, and they who had borne wounds of war in fighting for their country. armour besides hangs thickly on the sacred doors, captured chariots and curved axes, helmet-crests and massy gateway-bars, lances and shields, and beaks torn from warships. he too sat there, with the divining-rod of quirinus, girt in the short augural gown, and carrying on his left arm the sacred shield, picus the tamer of horses; he whom circe, desperate with amorous desire, smote with her golden rod and turned by her poisons into a bird with patches of colour on his wings. of such wise was the temple of the gods wherein latinus, sitting on his father's seat, summoned the teucrians to his house and presence; and when they entered in, he thus opened with placid mien: 'tell, o dardanians, for we are not ignorant of your city and race, nor unheard of do you bend your course [ - ]overseas, what seek you? what the cause or whereof the need that hath borne you over all these blue waterways to the ausonian shore? whether wandering in your course, or tempest-driven (such perils manifold on the high seas do sailors suffer), you have entered the river banks and lie in harbour; shun not our welcome, and be not ignorant that the latins are saturn's people, whom no laws fetter to justice, upright of their own free will and the custom of the god of old. and now i remember, though the story is dimmed with years, thus auruncan elders told, how dardanus, born in this our country, made his way to the towns of phrygian ida and to the thracian samos that is now called samothrace. here was the home he left, tyrrhenian corythus; now the palace of heaven, glittering with golden stars, enthrones and adds him to the ranged altars of the gods.' he ended; and ilioneus pursued his speech with these words: 'king, faunus' illustrious progeny, neither hath black tempest driven us with stress of waves to shelter in your lands, nor hath star or shore misled us on the way we went. of set purpose and willing mind do we draw nigh this thy city, outcasts from a realm once the greatest that the sun looked on as he came from olympus' utmost border. from jove hath our race beginning; in jove the men of dardania rejoice as ancestor; our king himself of jove's supreme race, aeneas of troy, hath sent us to thy courts. how terrible the tempest that burst from fierce mycenae over the plains of ida, driven by what fate europe and asia met in the shock of two worlds, even he hath heard who is sundered in the utmost land where the ocean surge recoils, and he whom stretching midmost of the four zones the zone of the intolerable sun holds in severance. borne by that flood over many desolate seas, we crave a scant dwelling [ - ]for our country's gods, an unmolested landing-place, and the air and water that are free to all. we shall not disgrace the kingdom; nor will the rumour of your renown be lightly gone or the grace of all you have done fade away; nor will ausonia be sorry to have taken troy to her breast. by the fortunes of aeneas i swear, by that right hand mighty, whether tried in friendship or in warlike arms, many and many a people and nation--scorn us not because we advance with hands proffering chaplets and words of supplication--hath sought us for itself and desired our alliance; but yours is the land that heaven's high ordinance drove us forth to find. hence sprung dardanus: hither apollo recalls us, and pushes us on with imperious orders to tyrrhenian tiber and the holy pools of numicus' spring. further, he presents to thee these small guerdons of our past estate, relics saved from burning troy. from this gold did lord anchises pour libation at the altars; this was priam's array when he delivered statutes to the nations assembled in order; the sceptre, the sacred mitre, the raiment wrought by the women of ilium. . . .' at these words of ilioneus latinus holds his countenance in a steady gaze, and stays motionless on the floor, casting his intent eyes around. nor does the embroidered purple so move the king, nor the sceptre of priam, as his daughter's marriage and the bridal chamber absorb him, and the oracle of ancient faunus stirs deep in his heart. this is he, the wanderer from a foreign home, foreshewn of fate for his son, and called to a realm of equal dominion, whose race should be excellent in valour and their might overbear all the world. at last he speaks with good cheer: 'the gods prosper our undertaking and their own augury! what thou desirest, trojan, shall be given; nor do i spurn your gifts. while latinus reigns you shall not [ - ]lack foison of rich land nor troy's own riches. only let aeneas himself come hither, if desire of us be so strong, if he be in haste to join our friendship and be called our ally. let him not shrink in terror from a friendly face. a term of the peace for me shall be to touch your monarch's hand. do you now convey in answer my message to your king. i have a daughter whom the oracles of my father's shrine and many a celestial token alike forbid me to unite to one of our own nation; sons shall come, they prophesy, from foreign coasts, such is the destiny of latium, whose blood shall exalt our name to heaven. he it is on whom fate calls; this i think, this i choose, if there be any truth in my soul's foreshadowing.' thus he speaks, and chooses horses for all the company. three hundred stood sleek in their high stalls; for all the teucrians in order he straightway commands them to be led forth, fleet-footed, covered with embroidered purple: golden chains hang drooping over their chests, golden their housings, and they champ on bits of ruddy gold: for the absent aeneas a chariot and pair of chariot horses of celestial breed, with nostrils breathing flame; of the race of those which subtle circe bred by sleight on her father, the bastard issue of a stolen union. with these gifts and words the aeneadae ride back from latinus carrying peace. and lo! the fierce wife of jove was returning from inachian argos, and held her way along the air, when out of the distant sky, far as from sicilian pachynus, she espied the rejoicing of aeneas and the dardanian fleet. she sees them already house-building, already trusting in the land, their ships left empty. she stops, shot with sharp pain; then shaking her head, she pours forth these words: 'ah, hated brood, and doom of the phrygians that thwarts our doom! could they perish on the sigean [ - ]plains? could they be ensnared when taken? did the fires of troy consume her people? through the midst of armies and through the midst of flames they have found their way. but, i think, my deity lies at last outwearied, or my hatred sleeps and is satisfied? nay, it is i who have been fierce to follow them over the waves when hurled from their country, and on all the seas have crossed their flight. against the teucrians the forces of sky and sea are spent. what hath availed me syrtes or scylla, what desolate charybdis? they find shelter in their desired tiber-bed, careless of ocean and of me. mars availed to destroy the giant race of the lapithae; the very father of the gods gave over ancient calydon to diana's wrath: for forfeit of what crime in the lapithae, what in calydon? but i, jove's imperial consort, who have borne, ah me! to leave naught undared, who have shifted to every device, i am vanquished by aeneas. if my deity is not great enough, i will not assuredly falter to seek succour where it may be; if the powers of heaven are inflexible, i will stir up acheron. it may not be to debar him of a latin realm; well; and lavinia is destined his bride unalterably. but it may be yet to defer, to make all this action linger; but it may be yet to waste away the nation of either king; at such forfeit of their people may son-in-law and father-in-law enter into union. blood of troy and rutulia shall be thy dower, o maiden, and bellona is the bridesmaid who awaits thee. nor did cisseus' daughter alone conceive a firebrand and travail of bridal flames. nay, even such a birth hath venus of her own, a second paris, another balefire for troy towers reborn.' these words uttered, she descends to earth in all her terrors, and calls dolorous allecto from the home of the fatal sisters in nether gloom, whose delight is in woeful wars, in wrath and treachery and evil feuds: hateful to [ - ]lord pluto himself, hateful and horrible to her hell-born sisters; into so many faces does she turn, so savage the guise of each, so thick and black bristles she with vipers. and her juno spurs on with words, saying thus: 'grant me, virgin born of night, this thy proper task and service, that the rumour of our renown may not crumble away, nor the aeneadae have power to win latinus by marriage or beset the borders of italy. thou canst set brothers once united in armed conflict, and overturn families with hatreds; thou canst launch into houses thy whips and deadly brands; thine are a thousand names, a thousand devices of injury. stir up thy teeming breast, sunder the peace they have joined, and sow seeds of quarrel; let all at once desire and demand and seize on arms.' thereon allecto, steeped in gorgonian venom, first seeks latium and the high house of the laurentine monarch, and silently sits down before amata's doors, whom a woman's distress and anger heated to frenzy over the teucrians' coming and the marriage of turnus. at her the goddess flings a snake out of her dusky tresses, and slips it into her bosom to her very inmost heart, that she may embroil all her house under its maddening magic. sliding between her raiment and smooth breasts, it coils without touch, and instils its viperous breath unseen; the great serpent turns into the twisted gold about her neck, turns into the long ribbon of her chaplet, inweaves her hair, and winds slippery over her body. and while the gliding infection of the clammy poison begins to penetrate her sense and run in fire through her frame, nor as yet hath all her breast caught fire, softly she spoke and in mothers' wonted wise, with many a tear over her daughter and the phrygian bridal: 'is it to exiles, to teucrians, that lavinia is proffered in marriage, o father? and hast thou no compassion on [ - ]thy daughter and on thyself? no compassion on her mother, whom with the first northern wind the treacherous rover will abandon, steering to sea with his maiden prize? is it not thus the phrygian herdsman wound his way to lacedaemon, and carried leda's helen to the trojan towns? where is thy plighted faith? where thine ancient care for thy people, and the hand turnus thy kinsman hath so often clasped? if one of alien race from the latins is sought for our son, if this stands fixed, and thy father faunus' commands are heavy upon thee, all the land whose freedom severs it from our sway is to my mind alien, and of this is the divine word. and turnus, if one retrace the earliest source of his line, is born of inachus and acrisius, and of the midmost of mycenae.' when in this vain essay of words she sees latinus fixed against her, and the serpent's maddening poison is sunk deep in her vitals and runs through and through her, then indeed, stung by infinite horrors, hapless and frenzied, she rages wildly through the endless city. as whilome a top flying under the twisted whipcord, which boys busy at their play drive circling wide round an empty hall, runs before the lash and spins in wide gyrations; the witless ungrown band hang wondering over it and admire the whirling boxwood; the strokes lend it life: with pace no slacker is she borne midway through towns and valiant nations. nay, she flies into the woodland under feigned bacchic influence, assumes a greater guilt, arouses a greater frenzy, and hides her daughter in the mountain coverts to rob the teucrians of their bridal and stay the marriage torches. 'hail, bacchus!' she shrieks and clamours; 'thou only art worthy of the maiden; for to thee she takes up the lissom wands, thee she circles in the dance, to thee she trains and consecrates her tresses.' rumour flies abroad; and the matrons, their breasts kindled by the furies, run all at once [ - ]with a single ardour to seek out strange dwellings. they have left their homes empty, they throw neck and hair free to the winds; while others fill the air with ringing cries, girt about with fawnskins, and carrying spears of vine. amid them the infuriate queen holds her blazing pine-torch on high, and chants the wedding of turnus and her daughter; and rolling her bloodshot gaze, cries sudden and harsh: 'hear, o mothers of latium, wheresoever you be; if unhappy amata hath yet any favour in your affection, if care for a mother's right pierces you, untie the chaplets from your hair, begin the orgies with me.' thus, amid woods and wild beasts' solitary places, does allecto goad the queen with the encircling bacchic madness. when their frenzy seemed heightened and her first task complete, the purpose and all the house of latinus turned upside down, the dolorous goddess flies on thence, soaring on dusky wing, to the walls of the gallant rutulian, the city which danaë, they say, borne down on the boisterous south wind, built and planted with acrision's people. the place was called ardea once of old; and still ardea remains a mighty name; but its fortune is no more. here in his high house turnus now took rest in the black midnight. allecto puts off her grim feature and the body of a fury; she transforms her face to an aged woman's, and furrows her brow with ugly wrinkles; she puts on white tresses chaplet-bound, and entwines them with an olive spray; she becomes aged calybe, priestess of juno's temple, and presents herself before his eyes, uttering thus: 'turnus, wilt thou brook all these toils poured out in vain, and the conveyance of thy crown to dardanian settlers? the king denies thee thy bride and the dower thy blood had earned; and a foreigner is sought for heir to the kingdom. forth now, dupe, and face thankless perils; forth, cut down the tyrrhenian lines; give the [ - ]latins peace in thy protection. this saturn's omnipotent daughter in very presence commanded me to pronounce to thee, as thou wert lying in the still night. wherefore arise, and make ready with good cheer to arm thy people and march through thy gates to battle; consume those phrygian captains that lie with their painted hulls in the beautiful river. all the force of heaven orders thee on. let king latinus himself know of it, unless he consents to give thee thy bridal, and abide by his words, when he shall at last make proof of turnus' arms.' but he, deriding her inspiration, with the words of his mouth thus answers her again: 'the fleets ride on the tiber wave; that news hath not, as thou deemest, escaped mine ears. frame not such terrors before me. neither is queen juno forgetful of us. . . . but thee, o mother, overworn old age, exhausted and untrue, frets with vain distress, and amid embattled kings mocks thy presage with false dismay. thy charge it is to keep the divine image and temple; war and peace shall be in the hands of men and warriors.' at such words allecto's wrath blazed out. but amid his utterance a quick shudder overruns his limbs; his eyes are fixed in horror; so thickly hiss the snakes of the fury, so vast her form expands. then rolling her fiery eyes, she thrust him back as he would stammer out more, raised two serpents in her hair, and, sounding her whip, resumed with furious tone: 'behold me the overworn! me whom old age, exhausted and untrue, mocks with false dismay amid embattled kings! look on this! i am come from the home of the dread sisters: war and death are in my hand. . . .' so speaking, she hurled her torch at him, and pierced his breast with the lurid smoking brand. he breaks from sleep in overpowering fear, his limbs and body bathed in [ - ]sweat that breaks out all over him; he shrieks madly for arms, searches for arms on his bed and in his palace. the passion of the sword rages high, the accursed fury of war, and wrath over all: even as when flaming sticks are heaped roaring loud under the sides of a seething cauldron, and the boiling water leaps up; the river of water within smokes furiously and swells high in overflowing foam, and now the wave contains itself no longer; the dark steam flies aloft. so, for the stain of the broken peace, he orders his chief warriors to march on king latinus, and bids prepare for battle, to defend italy and drive the foe from their borders; himself will suffice for trojans and latins together. when he uttered these words and called the gods to hear his vows, the rutulians stir one another up to arms. one is moved by the splendour of his youthful beauty, one by his royal ancestry, another by the noble deeds of his hand. while turnus fills the rutulian minds with valour, allecto on stygian wing hastens towards the trojans. with fresh wiles she marked the spot where beautiful iülus was trapping and coursing game on the bank; here the infernal maiden suddenly crosses his hounds with the maddening touch of a familiar scent, and drives them hotly on the stag-hunt. this was the source and spring of ill, and kindled the country-folk to war. the stag, beautiful and high-antlered, was stolen from his mother's udder and bred by tyrrheus' boys and their father tyrrheus, master of the royal herds, and ranger of the plain. their sister silvia tamed him to her rule, and lavished her care on his adornment, twining his antlers with delicate garlands, and combed his wild coat and washed him in the clear spring. tame to her hand, and familiar to his master's table, he would wander the woods, and, however late the night, return home to the door he knew. far astray, he floated idly down the stream, and allayed his heat on the green bank, when iülus' [ - ]mad hounds started him in their hunting; and ascanius himself, kindled with desire of the chief honour, aimed a shaft from his bended bow. a present deity suffered not his hand to stray, and the loud whistling reed came driven through his belly and flanks. but the wounded beast fled within the familiar roof and crept moaning to the courtyard, dabbled with blood, and filling all the house with moans as of one beseeching. sister silvia, smiting her arms with open hands, begins to call for aid, and gathers the hardy rustics with her cries. they, for a fell destroyer is hidden in the silent woodland, are there before her expectation, one armed with a stake hardened in the fire, one with a heavy knotted trunk; what each one searches and finds, wrath turns into a weapon. tyrrheus cheers on his array, panting hard, with his axe caught up in his hand, as he was haply splitting an oaken log in four clefts with cross-driven wedges. but the grim goddess, seizing from her watch-tower the moment of mischief, seeks the steep farm-roof and sounds the pastoral war-note from the ridge, straining the infernal cry on her twisted horn; it spread shuddering over all the woodland, and echoed through the deep forests: the lake of trivia heard it afar; nar river heard it with white sulphurous water, and the springs of velinus; and fluttered mothers clasped their children to their breast. then, hurrying to the voice of the terrible trumpet-note, on all sides the wild rustics snatch their arms and stream in: therewithal the men of troy pour out from their camp's open gates to succour ascanius. the lines are ranged; not now in rustic strife do they fight with hard trunks or burned stakes; the two-edged steel sways the fight, the broad cornfields bristle dark with drawn swords, and brass flashes smitten by the sunlight, and casts a gleam high into the cloudy air: as when the wind begins to blow and the flood [ - ]to whiten, gradually the sea lifts his waves higher and yet higher, then rises from the bottom right into the air. here in the front rank young almo, once tyrrheus' eldest son, is struck down by a whistling arrow; for the wound, staying in his throat, cut off in blood the moist voice's passage and the thin life. around many a one lies dead, aged galaesus among them, slain as he throws himself between them for a peacemaker, once incomparable in justice and wealth of ausonian fields; for him five flocks bleated, a five-fold herd returned from pasture, and an hundred ploughs upturned the soil. but while thus in even battle they fight on the broad plain, the goddess, her promise fulfilled, when she hath dyed the war in blood, and mingled death in the first encounter, quits hesperia, and, glancing through the sky, addresses juno in exultant tone: 'lo, discord is ripened at thy desire into baleful war: tell them now to mix in amity and join alliance. insomuch as i have imbued the trojans in ausonian blood, this likewise will i add, if i have assurance of thy will. with my rumours i will sweep the bordering towns into war, and kindle their spirit with furious desire for battle, that from all quarters help may come; i will sow the land with arms.' then juno answering: 'terror and harm is wrought abundantly. the springs of war are aflow: they fight with arms in their grasp, the arms that chance first supplied, that fresh blood stains. let this be the union, this the bridal that venus' illustrious progeny and latinus the king shall celebrate. our lord who reigns on olympus' summit would not have thee stray too freely in heaven's upper air. withdraw thy presence. whatsoever future remains in the struggle, that i myself will sway.' such accents uttered the daughter of saturn; and the [ - ]other raises her rustling snaky wings and darts away from the high upper air to cocytus her home. there is a place midmost of italy, deep in the hills, notable and famed of rumour in many a country, the vale of amsanctus; on either hand a wooded ridge, dark with thick foliage, hems it in, and midway a torrent in swirling eddies shivers and echoes over the rocks. here is shewn a ghastly pool, a breathing-hole of the grim lord of hell, and a vast chasm breaking into acheron yawns with pestilential throat. in it the fury sank, and relieved earth and heaven of her hateful influence. but therewithal the queenly daughter of saturn puts the last touch to war. the shepherds pour in full tale from the battlefield into the town, bearing back their slain, the boy almo and galaesus' disfigured face, and cry on the gods and call on latinus. turnus is there, and amid the heat and outcry at the slaughter redoubles his terrors, crying that teucrians are bidden to the kingdom, that a phrygian race is mingling its taint with theirs, and he is thrust out of their gates. they too, the matrons of whose kin, struck by bacchus, trample in choirs down the pathless woods--nor is amata's name a little thing--they too gather together from all sides and weary themselves with the battle-cry. omens and oracles of gods go down before them, and all under malign influence clamour for awful war. emulously they surround latinus' royal house. he withstands, even as a rock in ocean unremoved, as a rock in ocean when the great crash comes down, firm in its own mass among many waves slapping all about: in vain the crags and boulders hiss round it in foam, and the seaweed on its side is flung up and sucked away. but when he may in nowise overbear their blind counsel, and all goes at fierce juno's beck, with many an appeal to gods and void sky, 'alas!' he cries, 'we are broken of fate and driven helpless in the [ - ]storm. with your very blood will you pay the price of this, o wretched men! thee, o turnus, thy crime, thee thine awful punishment shall await; too late wilt thou address to heaven thy prayers and supplication. for my rest was won, and my haven full at hand; i am robbed but of a happy death.' and without further speech he shut himself in the palace, and dropped the reins of state. there was a use in hesperian latium, which the alban towns kept in holy observance, now rome keeps, the mistress of the world, when they stir the war-god to enter battle; whether their hands prepare to carry war and weeping among getae or hyrcanians or arabs, or to reach to india and pursue the dawn, and reclaim their standards from the parthian. there are twain gates of war, so runs their name, consecrate in grim mars' sanctity and terror. an hundred bolts of brass and masses of everlasting iron shut them fast, and janus the guardian never sets foot from their threshold. there, when the sentence of the fathers stands fixed for battle, the consul, arrayed in the robe of quirinus and the gabine cincture, with his own hand unbars the grating doors, with his own lips calls battles forth; then all the rest follow on, and the brazen trumpets blare harsh with consenting breath. with this use then likewise they bade latinus proclaim war on the aeneadae, and unclose the baleful gates. he withheld his hand, and shrank away averse from the abhorred service, and hid himself blindly in the dark. then the saturnian queen of heaven glided from the sky, with her own hand thrust open the lingering gates, and swung sharply back on their hinges the iron-bound doors of war. ausonia is ablaze, till then unstirred and immoveable. some make ready to march afoot over the plains; some, mounted on tall horses, ride amain in clouds of dust. all seek out arms; and now they rub their shields smooth and make their spearheads glitter with [ - ]fat lard, and grind their axes on the whetstone: rejoicingly they advance under their standards and hear the trumpet note. five great cities set up the anvil and sharpen the sword, strong atina and proud tibur, ardea and crustumeri, and turreted antemnae. they hollow out head-gear to guard them, and plait wickerwork round shield-bosses; others forge breastplates of brass or smooth greaves of flexible silver. to this is come the honour of share and pruning-hook, to this all the love of the plough: they re-temper their fathers' swords in the furnace. and now the trumpets blare; the watchword for war passes along. one snatches a helmet hurriedly from his house, another backs his neighing horses into the yoke; and arrays himself in shield and mail-coat triple-linked with gold, and girds on his trusty sword. open now the gates of helicon, goddesses, and stir the song of the kings that rose for war, the array that followed each and filled the plains, the men that even then blossomed, the arms that blazed in italy the bountiful land: for you remember, divine ones, and you can recall; to us but a breath of rumour, scant and slight, is wafted down. first from the tyrrhene coast savage mezentius, scorner of the gods, opens the war and arrays his columns. by him is lausus, his son, unexcelled in bodily beauty by any save laurentine turnus, lausus tamer of horses and destroyer of wild beasts; he leads a thousand men who followed him in vain from agylla town; worthy to be happier in ancestral rule, and to have other than mezentius for father. after them beautiful aventinus, born of beautiful hercules, displays on the sward his palm-crowned chariot and victorious horses, and carries on his shield his father's device, the hundred snakes of the hydra's serpent-wreath. him, in the wood of the hill aventine, rhea the priestess [ - ]bore by stealth into the borders of light, a woman mingled with a god, after the tirynthian conqueror had slain geryon and set foot on the fields of laurentum, and bathed his iberian oxen in the tuscan river. these carry for war javelins and grim stabbing weapons, and fight with the round shaft and sharp point of the sabellian pike. himself he went on foot swathed in a vast lion skin, shaggy with bristling terrors, whose white teeth encircled his head; in such wild dress, the garb of hercules clasped over his shoulders, he entered the royal house. next twin brothers leave tibur town, and the people called by their brother tiburtus' name, catillus and valiant coras, the argives, and advance in the forefront of battle among the throng of spears: as when two cloud-born centaurs descend from a lofty mountain peak, leaving homole or snowy othrys in rapid race; the mighty forest yields before them as they go, and the crashing thickets give them way. nor was the founder of praeneste city absent, the king who, as every age hath believed, was born of vulcan among the pasturing herds, and found beside the hearth, caeculus. on him a rustic battalion attends in loose order, they who dwell in steep praeneste and the fields of juno of gabii, on the cool anio and the hernican rocks dewy with streams; they whom rich anagnia, and whom thou, lord amasenus, pasturest. not all of them have armour, nor shields and clattering chariots. the most part shower bullets of dull lead; some wield in their hand two darts, and have for head-covering caps of tawny wolfskin; their left foot is bare wherewith to plant their steps; the other is covered with a boot of raw hide. but messapus, tamer of horses, the seed of neptune, whom none might ever strike down with steel or fire, calls quickly to arms his long unstirred peoples and bands [ - ]disused to war, and again handles the sword. these are of the fescennine ranks and of aequi falisci, these of soracte's fortresses and the fields of flavina, and ciminus' lake and hill, and the groves of capena. they marched in even time, singing their king; as whilome snowy swans among the thin clouds, when they return from pasturage, and utter resonant notes through their long necks; far off echoes the river and the smitten asian fen. . . . nor would one think these vast streaming masses were ranks clad in brass; rather that, high in air, a cloud of hoarse birds from the deep gulf was pressing to the shore. lo, clausus of the ancient sabine blood, leading a great host, a great host himself; from whom now the claudian tribe and family is spread abroad since rome was shared with the sabines. alongside is the broad battalion of amiternum, and the old latins, and all the force of eretum and the mutuscan oliveyards; they who dwell in nomentum town, and the rosean country by velinus, who keep the crags of rough tetrica and mount severus, casperia and foruli, and the river of himella; they who drink of tiber and fabaris, they whom cold nursia hath sent, and the squadrons of horta and the tribes of latinium; and they whom allia, the ill-ominous name, severs with its current; as many as the waves that roll on the libyan sea-floor when fierce orion sets in the wintry surge; as thick as the ears that ripen in the morning sunlight on the plain of the hermus or the yellowing lycian tilth. their shields clatter, and earth is amazed under the trampling of their feet. here agamemnonian halaesus, foe of the trojan name, yokes his chariot horses, and draws a thousand warlike peoples to turnus; those who turn with spades the massic soil that is glad with wine; whom the elders of aurunca sent from their high hills, and the sidicine low country [ - ]hard by; and those who leave cales, and the dweller by the shallows of volturnus river, and side by side the rough saticulan and the oscan bands. polished maces are their weapons, and these it is their wont to fit with a tough thong; a target covers their left side, and for close fighting they have crooked swords. nor shalt thou, oebalus, depart untold of in our verses, who wast borne, men say, by the nymph sebethis to telon, when he grew old in rule over capreae the teleboïc realm: but not so content with his ancestral fields, his son even then held down in wide sway the sarrastian peoples and the meadows watered by sarnus, and the dwellers in rufrae and batulum, and the fields of celemnae, and they on whom from her apple orchards abella city looks down. their wont was to hurl lances in teutonic fashion; their head covering was stripped bark of the cork tree, their shield-plates glittering brass, glittering brass their sword. thee too, ufens, mountainous nersae sent forth to battle, of noble fame and prosperous arms, whose race on the stiff aequiculan clods is rough beyond all other, and bred to continual hunting in the woodland; they till the soil in arms, and it is ever their delight to drive in fresh spoils and live on plunder. furthermore there came, sent by king archippus, the priest of the marruvian people, dressed with prosperous olive leaves over his helmet, umbro excellent in valour, who was wont with charm and touch to sprinkle slumberous dew on the viper's brood and water-snakes of noisome breath. yet he availed not to heal the stroke of the dardanian spear-point, nor was the wound of him helped by his sleepy charms and herbs culled on the massic hills. thee the woodland of angitia, thee fucinus' glassy wave, thee the clear pools wept. . . . likewise the seed of hippolytus marched to war, virbius [ - ]most excellent in beauty, sent by his mother aricia. the groves of egeria nursed him round the spongy shore where diana's altar stands rich and gracious. for they say in story that hippolytus, after he fell by his stepmother's treachery, torn asunder by his frightened horses to fulfil a father's revenge, came again to the daylight and heaven's upper air, recalled by diana's love and the drugs of the healer. then the lord omnipotent, indignant that any mortal should rise from the nether shades to the light of life, launched his thunder and hurled down to the stygian water the phoebus-born, the discoverer of such craft and cure. but trivia the bountiful hides hippolytus in a secret habitation, and sends him away to the nymph egeria and the woodland's keeping, where, solitary in italian forests, he should spend an inglorious life, and have virbius for his altered name. whence also hoofed horses are kept away from trivia's temple and consecrated groves, because, affrighted at the portents of the sea, they overset the chariot and flung him out upon the shore. notwithstanding did his son train his ruddy steeds on the level plain, and sped charioted to war. himself too among the foremost, splendid in beauty of body, turnus moves armed and towers a whole head over all. his lofty helmet, triple-tressed with horse-hair, holds high a chimaera breathing from her throat aetnean fires, raging the more and exasperate with baleful flames, as the battle and bloodshed grow fiercer. but on his polished shield was emblazoned in gold io with uplifted horns, already a heifer and overgrown with hair, a lofty design, and argus the maiden's warder, and lord inachus pouring his stream from his embossed urn. behind comes a cloud of infantry, and shielded columns thicken over all the plains; the argive men and auruncan forces, the rutulians and old sicanians, the sacranian ranks and labicians with [ - ]painted shields; they who till thy dells, o tiber, and numicus' sacred shore, and whose ploughshare goes up and down on the rutulian hills and the circaean headland, over whose fields jupiter of anxur watches, and feronia glad in her greenwood: and where the marsh of satura lies black, and cold ufens winds his way along the valley-bottoms and sinks into the sea. therewithal came camilla the volscian, leading a train of cavalry, squadrons splendid with brass: a warrior maiden who had never used her woman's hands to minerva's distaff or wool-baskets, but hardened to endure the battle shock and outstrip the winds with racing feet. she might have flown across the topmost blades of unmown corn and left the tender ears unhurt as she ran; or sped her way over mid sea upborne by the swelling flood, nor dipt her swift feet in the water. all the people pour from house and field, and mothers crowd to wonder and gaze at her as she goes, in rapturous astonishment at the royal lustre of purple that drapes her smooth shoulders, at the clasp of gold that intertwines her tresses, at the lycian quiver she carries, and the pastoral myrtle shaft topped with steel. book eighth the embassage to evander when turnus ran up the flag of war on the towers of laurentum, and the trumpets blared with harsh music, when he spurred his fiery steeds and clashed his armour, straightway men's hearts are in tumult; all latium at once flutters in banded uprisal, and her warriors rage furiously. their chiefs, messapus, and ufens, and mezentius, scorner of the gods, begin to enrol forces on all sides, and dispeople the wide fields of husbandmen. venulus too is sent to the town of mighty diomede to seek succour, to instruct him that teucrians set foot in latium; that aeneas in his fleet invades them with the vanquished gods of his home, and proclaims himself the king summoned of fate; that many tribes join the dardanian, and his name swells high in latium. what he will rear on these foundations, what issue of battle he desires, if fortune attend him, lies clearer to his own sight than to king turnus or king latinus. thus was it in latium. and the hero of laomedon's blood, seeing it all, tosses on a heavy surge of care, and throws his mind rapidly this way and that, and turns it on all hands in swift change of thought: even as when the quivering light of water brimming in brass, struck back [ - ]from the sunlight or the moon's glittering reflection, flickers abroad over all the room, and now mounts aloft and strikes the high panelled roof. night fell, and over all lands weary creatures were fast in deep slumber, the race of fowl and of cattle; when lord aeneas, sick at heart of the dismal warfare, stretched him on the river bank under the cope of the cold sky, and let sleep, though late, overspread his limbs. to him the very god of the ground, the pleasant tiber stream, seemed to raise his aged form among the poplar boughs; thin lawn veiled him with its gray covering, and shadowy reeds hid his hair. thereon he addressed him thus, and with these words allayed his distresses: 'o born of the family of the gods, thou who bearest back our trojan city from hostile hands, and keepest troy towers in eternal life; o long looked for on laurentine ground and latin fields! here is thine assured home, thine home's assured gods. draw not thou back, nor be alarmed by menace of war. all the anger and wrath of the gods is passed away . . . and even now for thine assurance, that thou think not this the idle fashioning of sleep, a great sow shall be found lying under the oaks on the shore, with her new-born litter of thirty head: white she couches on the ground, and the brood about her teats is white. by this token in thirty revolving years shall ascanius found a city, alba of bright name. my prophecy is sure. now hearken, and i will briefly instruct thee how thou mayest unravel and overcome thy present task. an arcadian people sprung of pallas, following in their king evander's company beneath his banners, have chosen a place in these coasts, and set a city on the hills, called pallanteum after pallas their forefather. these wage perpetual war with the latin race; these do thou take to thy camp's alliance, and join with them in league. myself i [ - ]will lead thee by my banks and straight along my stream, that thou mayest oar thy way upward against the river. up and arise, goddess-born, and even with the setting stars address thy prayers to juno as is meet, and vanquish her wrath and menaces with humble vows. to me thou shalt pay a conqueror's sacrifice. i am he whom thou seest washing the banks with full flood and severing the rich tilth, glassy tiber, best beloved by heaven of rivers. here is my stately home; my fountain-head is among high cities.' thus spoke the river, and sank in the depth of the pool: night and sleep left aeneas. he arises, and, looking towards the radiant sky of the sunrising, holds up water from the river in fitly-hollowed palms, and pours to heaven these accents: 'nymphs, laurentine nymphs, from whom is the generation of rivers, and thou, o father tiber, with thine holy flood, receive aeneas and deign to save him out of danger. what pool soever holds thy source, who pitiest our discomforts, from whatsoever soil thou dost spring excellent in beauty, ever shall my worship, ever my gifts frequent thee, the hornèd river lord of hesperian waters. ah, be thou only by me, and graciously confirm thy will.' so speaks he, and chooses two galleys from his fleet, and mans them with rowers, and withal equips a crew with arms. and lo! suddenly, ominous and wonderful to tell, the milk-white sow, of one colour with her white brood, is espied through the forest couched on the green brink; whom to thee, yes to thee, queenly juno, good aeneas offers in sacrifice, and sets with her offspring before thine altar. all that night long tiber assuaged his swelling stream, and silently stayed his refluent wave, smoothing the surface of his waters to the fashion of still pool and quiet mere, to spare [ - ]labour to the oar. so they set out and speed on their way with prosperous cries; the painted fir slides along the waterway; the waves and unwonted woods marvel at their far-gleaming shields, and the gay hulls afloat on the river. they outwear a night and a day in rowing, ascend the long reaches, and pass under the chequered shadows of the trees, and cut through the green woodland in the calm water. the fiery sun had climbed midway in the circle of the sky when they see afar fortress walls and scattered house roofs, where now the might of rome hath risen high as heaven; then evander held a slender state. quickly they turn their prows to land and draw near the town. it chanced on that day the arcadian king paid his accustomed sacrifice to the great son of amphitryon and all the gods in a grove before the city. with him his son pallas, with him all the chief of his people and his poor senate were offering incense, and the blood steamed warm at their altars. when they saw the high ships, saw them glide up between the shady woodlands and rest on their silent oars, the sudden sight appals them, and all at once they rise and stop the banquet. pallas courageously forbids them to break off the rites; snatching up a spear, he flies forward, and from a hillock cries afar: 'o men, what cause hath driven you to explore these unknown ways? or whither do you steer? what is your kin, whence your habitation? is it peace or arms you carry hither?' then from the lofty stern lord aeneas thus speaks, stretching forth in his hand an olive bough of peace-bearing: 'thou seest men born of troy and arms hostile to the latins, who have driven us to flight in insolent warfare. we seek evander; carry this message, and tell him that chosen men of the dardanian captains are come pleading for an armed alliance.' pallas stood amazed at the august name. 'descend,' [ - ]he cries, 'whoso thou art, and speak with my father face to face, and enter our home and hospitality.' and giving him the grasp of welcome, he caught and clung to his hand. advancing, they enter the grove and leave the river. then aeneas in courteous words addresses the king: 'best of the grecian race, thou whom fortune hath willed that i supplicate, holding before me boughs dressed in fillets, no fear stayed me because thou wert a grecian chief and an arcadian, or allied by descent to the twin sons of atreus. nay, mine own prowess and the sanctity of divine oracles, our ancestral kinship, and the fame of thee that is spread abroad over the earth, have allied me to thee and led me willingly on the path of fate. dardanus, who sailed to the teucrian land, the first father and founder of the ilian city, was born, as greeks relate, of electra the atlantid; electra's sire is ancient atlas, whose shoulder sustains the heavenly spheres. your father is mercury, whom white maia conceived and bore on the cold summit of cyllene; but maia, if we give any credence to report, is daughter of atlas, that same atlas who bears up the starry heavens; so both our families branch from a single blood. in this confidence i sent no embassy, i framed no crafty overtures; myself i have presented mine own person, and come a suppliant to thy courts. the same daunian race pursues us and thee in merciless warfare; we once expelled, they trust nothing will withhold them from laying all hesperia wholly beneath their yoke, and holding the seas that wash it above and below. accept and return our friendship. we can give brave hearts in war, high souls and men approved in deeds.' aeneas ended. the other ere now scanned in a long gaze the face and eyes and all the form of the speaker; then thus briefly returns: 'how gladly, bravest of the teucrians, do i hail and [ - ]own thee! how i recall thy father's words and the very tone and glance of great anchises! for i remember how priam son of laomedon, when he sought salamis on his way to the realm of his sister hesione, went on to visit the cold borders of arcadia. then early youth clad my cheeks with bloom. i admired the teucrian captains, admired their lord, the son of laomedon; but anchises moved high above them all. my heart burned with youthful passion to accost him and clasp hand in hand; i made my way to him, and led him eagerly to pheneus' high town. departing he gave me an adorned quiver and lycian arrows, a scarf inwoven with gold, and a pair of golden bits that now my pallas possesses. therefore my hand is already joined in the alliance you seek, and soon as to-morrow's dawn rises again over earth, i will send you away rejoicing in mine aid, and supply you from my store. meanwhile, since you are come hither in friendship, solemnise with us these yearly rites which we may not defer, and even now learn to be familiar at your comrades' board.' this said, he commands the feast and the wine-cups to be replaced whence they were taken, and with his own hand ranges them on the grassy seat, and welcomes aeneas to the place of honour, with a lion's shaggy fell for cushion and a hospitable chair of maple. then chosen men with the priest of the altar in emulous haste bring roasted flesh of bulls, and pile baskets with the gift of ground corn, and serve the wine. aeneas and the men of troy with him feed on the long chines of oxen and the entrails of the sacrifice. after hunger is driven away and the desire of food stayed, king evander speaks: 'no idle superstition that knows not the gods of old hath ordered these our solemn rites, this customary feast, this altar of august sanctity; saved from bitter perils, o trojan guest, do we worship, and [ - ]most due are the rites we inaugurate. look now first on this overhanging cliff of stone, where shattered masses lie strewn, and the mountain dwelling stands desolate, and rocks are rent away in vast ruin. here was a cavern, awful and deep-withdrawn, impenetrable to the sunbeams, where the monstrous half-human shape of cacus had his hold: the ground was ever wet with fresh slaughter, and pallid faces of men, ghastly with gore, hung nailed on the haughty doors. this monster was the son of vulcan, and spouted his black fires from his mouth as he moved in giant bulk. to us also in our desire time bore a god's aid and arrival. for princely alcides the avenger came glorious in the spoils of triple geryon slain; this way the conqueror drove the huge bulls, and his oxen filled the river valley. but savage cacus, infatuate to leave nothing undared or unhandled in craft or crime, drives four bulls of choice shape away from their pasturage, and as many heifers of excellent beauty. and these, that there should be no straightforward footprints, he dragged by the tail into his cavern, the track of their compelled path reversed, and hid them behind the screen of rock. no marks were there to lead a seeker to the cavern. meanwhile the son of amphitryon, his herds filled with food, was now breaking up his pasturage and making ready to go. the oxen low as they depart; all the woodland is filled with their complaint as they clamorously quit the hills. one heifer returned the cry, and, lowing from the depth of the dreary cave, baffled the hope of cacus from her imprisonment. at this the grief and choler of alcides blazed forth dark and infuriate. seizing in his hand his club of heavy knotted oak, he seeks with swift pace the aery mountain steep. then, as never before, did we see cacus afraid and his countenance troubled; he goes flying swifter than the wind and seeks his cavern; fear wings his feet. as he shut himself in, and, bursting the [ - ]chains, dropped the vast rock slung in iron by his father's craft, and blocked the doorway with its pressure, lo! the tirynthian came in furious wrath, and, scanning all the entry, turned his face this way and that and ground his teeth. thrice, hot with rage, he circles all mount aventine; thrice he assails the rocky portals in vain; thrice he sinks down outwearied in the valley. there stood a sharp rock of flint with sides cut sheer away, rising over the cavern's ridge a vast height to see, fit haunt for foul birds to build on. this--for, sloping from the ridge, it leaned on the left towards the river--he loosened, urging it from the right till he tore it loose from its deep foundations; then suddenly shook it free; with the shock the vast sky thunders, the banks leap apart, and the amazed river recoils. but the den, cacus' huge palace, lay open and revealed, and the depths of gloomy cavern were made manifest; even as though some force tearing earth apart should unlock the infernal house, and disclose the pallid realms abhorred of heaven, and deep down the monstrous gulf be descried where the ghosts flutter in the streaming daylight. on him then, surprised in unexpected light, shut in the rock's recesses and howling in strange fashion, alcides from above hurls missiles and calls all his arms to aid, and presses hard on him with boughs and enormous millstones. and he, for none other escape from peril is left, vomits from his throat vast jets of smoke, wonderful to tell, and enwreathes his dwelling in blind gloom, blotting view from the eyes, while in the cave's depth night thickens with smoke-bursts in a darkness shot with fire. alcides broke forth in anger, and with a bound hurled himself sheer amid the flames, where the smoke rolls billowing and voluminous, and the cloud surges black through the enormous den. here, as cacus in the darkness spouts forth his idle fires, he grasps and twines tight round him, till his eyes start out and his throat [ - ]is drained of blood under the strangling pressure. straightway the doors are torn open and the dark house laid plain; the stolen oxen and forsworn plunder are shewn forth to heaven, and the misshapen carcase dragged forward by the feet. men cannot satisfy their soul with gazing on the terrible eyes, the monstrous face and shaggy bristling chest, and the throat with its quenched fires. thenceforth this sacrifice is solemnised, and a younger race have gladly kept the day; potitius the inaugurator, and the pinarian family, guardians of the rites of hercules, have set in the grove this altar, which shall ever be called of us most mighty, and shall be our mightiest evermore. wherefore arise, o men, and enwreathe your hair with leafy sprays, and stretch forth the cups in your hands; call on our common god and pour the glad wine.' he ended; when the twy-coloured poplar of hercules hid his shaded hair with pendulous plaited leaf, and the sacred goblet filled his hand. speedily all pour glad libation on the board, and supplicate the gods. meanwhile the evening star draws nigher down the slope of heaven, and now the priests went forth, potitius at their head, girt with skins after their fashion, and bore torches aflame. they renew the banquet, and bring the grateful gift of a second repast, and heap the altars with loaded platters. then the salii stand round the lit altar-fires to sing, their brows bound with poplar boughs, one chorus of young men, one of elders, and extol in song the praises and deeds of hercules; how first he strangled in his gripe the twin terrors, the snakes of his stepmother; how he likewise shattered in war famous cities, troy and oechalia; how under eurystheus the king he bore the toil of a thousand labours by juno's malign decrees. thine hand, unconquered, slays the cloud-born double-bodied race, hylaeus and pholus, the cretan monster, and the huge lion in the hollow nemean rock. before thee the stygian pools [ - ]shook for fear, before thee the warder of hell, couched on half-gnawn bones in his blood-stained cavern; to thee not any form was terrible, not typhoeus' self towering in arms; thou wast not bereft of counsel when the snake of lerna encompassed thee with thronging heads. hail, true seed of jove, deified glory! graciously visit us and these thy rites with favourable feet. such are their songs of praise; they crown all with the cavern of cacus and its fire-breathing lord. all the woodland echoes with their clamour, and the hills resound. thence all at once, the sacred rites accomplished, retrace their way to the city. the age-worn king walked holding aeneas and his son by his side for companions on his way, and lightened the road with changing talk. aeneas admires and turns his eyes lightly round about, pleased with the country; and gladly on spot after spot inquires and hears of the memorials of earlier men. then king evander, founder of the fortress of rome: 'in these woodlands dwelt fauns and nymphs sprung of the soil, and a tribe of men born of stocks and hard oak; who had neither law nor grace of life, nor did they know to yoke bulls or lay up stores or save their gains, but were nurtured by the forest boughs and the hard living of the huntsman. long ago saturn came from heaven on high in flight before jove's arms, an exile from his lost realm. he gathered together the unruly race scattered on the mountain heights, and gave them statutes, and chose latium to be their name, since in these borders he had found a safe hiding-place. beneath his reign were the ages named of gold; thus, in peace and quietness, did he rule the nations; till gradually there crept in a sunken and stained time, the rage of war, and the lust of possession. then came the ausonian clan and the tribes of sicania, and many a time the land of saturn put away her name. then were kings, [ - ]and fierce thybris with his giant bulk, from whose name we of italy afterwards called the tiber river, when it lost the true name of old, albula. me, cast out from my country and following the utmost limits of the sea, fortune the omnipotent and irreversible doom settled in this region; and my mother the nymph carmentis' awful warnings and apollo's divine counsel drove me hither.' scarce was this said; next advancing he points out the altar and the carmental gate, which the romans call anciently by that name in honour of the nymph carmentis, seer and soothsayer, who sang of old the coming greatness of the aeneadae and the glory of pallanteum. next he points out the wide grove where valiant romulus set his sanctuary, and the lupercal in the cool hollow of the rock, dedicate to lycean pan after the manner of parrhasia. therewithal he shows the holy wood of argiletum, and calls the spot to witness as he tells the slaying of his guest argus. hence he leads him to the tarpeian house, and the capitol golden now, of old rough with forest thickets. even then men trembled before the wood and rock. 'this grove,' he cries, 'this hill with its leafy crown, is a god's dwelling, though whose we know not; the arcadians believe jove himself hath been visible, when often he shook the darkening aegis in his hand and gathered the storm-clouds. thou seest these two towns likewise with walls overthrown, relics and memorials of men of old. this fortress lord janus built, this saturn; the name of this was once janiculum, of that saturnia.' with such mutual words they drew nigh the house of poor evander, and saw scattered herds lowing on the roman forum and down the gay carinae. when they reached his dwelling, 'this threshold,' he cries, 'alcides the conqueror stooped to cross; in this palace he rested. dare thou, my guest, to despise riches; mould thyself to [ - ]like dignity of godhead, and come not exacting to our poverty.' he spoke, and led tall aeneas under the low roof of his narrow dwelling, and laid him on a couch of stuffed leaves and the skin of a libyan she-bear. night falls and clasps the earth in her dusky wings. but venus, stirred in spirit by no vain mother's alarms, and moved by the threats and stern uprisal of the laurentines, addresses herself to vulcan, and in her golden bridal chamber begins thus, breathing divine passion in her speech: 'while argolic kings wasted in war the doomed towers of troy, the fortress fated to fall in hostile fires, no succour did i require for her wretched people, no weapons of thine art and aid: nor would i task, dear my lord, thee or thy toils for naught, though i owed many and many a debt to the children of priam, and had often wept the sore labour of aeneas. now by jove's commands he hath set foot in the rutulian borders; i now therefore come with entreaty, and ask armour of the god i worship. for the son she bore, the tears of nereus' daughter, of tithonus' consort, could melt thine heart. look what nations are gathering, what cities bar their gates and sharpen the sword against me for the desolation of my children.' the goddess ended, and, as he hesitates, clasps him round in the soft embrace of her snowy arms. he suddenly caught the wonted flame, and the heat known of old pierced him to the heart and overran his melting frame: even as when, bursting from the thunder peal, a sparkling cleft of fire shoots through the storm-clouds with dazzling light. his consort knew, rejoiced in her wiles, and felt her beauty. then her lord speaks, enchained by love the immortal: 'why these far-fetched pleas? whither, o goddess, is thy trust in me gone? had like distress been thine, [ - ]even then we might unblamed have armed thy trojans, nor did doom nor the lord omnipotent forbid troy to stand, and priam to survive yet ten other years. and now, if thou purposest war, and this is thy counsel, whatever charge i can undertake in my craft, in aught that may be made of iron or molten electrum, whatever fire and air can do, cease thou to entreat as doubtful of thy strength.' these words spoken, he clasped his wife in the desired embrace, and, sinking in her lap, wooed quiet slumber to overspread his limbs. thereon, so soon as sleep, now in mid-career of waning night, had given rest and gone; soon as a woman, whose task is to sustain life with her distaff and the slender labours of the loom, kindles the ashes of her slumbering fire, her toil encroaching on the night, and sets a long task of fire-lit spinning to her maidens, that so she may keep her husband's bed unsullied and nourish her little children,--even so the lord of fire, nor slacker in his hours than she, rises from his soft couch to the work of his smithy. an island rises by the side of sicily and aeolian lipare, steep with smoking cliffs, whereunder the vaulted and thunderous aetnean caverns are hollowed out for cyclopean forges, the strong strokes on the anvils echo in groans, ore of steel hisses in the vaults, and the fire pants in the furnaces: the house of vulcan, and vulcania the land's name. hither now the lord of fire descends from heaven's height. in the vast cavern the cyclopes were forging iron, brontes and steropes and pyracmon with bared limbs. shaped in their hands was a thunderbolt, in part already polished, such as the father of heaven hurls down on earth in multitudes, part yet unfinished. three coils of frozen rain, three of watery mist they had enwrought in it, three of ruddy fire and winged south wind; now they were mingling in their work the awful splendours, the sound and terror, and the [ - ]angry pursuing flames. elsewhere they hurried on a chariot for mars with flying wheels, wherewith he stirs up men and cities; and burnished the golden serpent-scales of the awful aegis, the armour of wrathful pallas, and the entwined snakes on the breast of the goddess, the gorgon head with severed neck and rolling eyes. 'away with all!' he cries: 'stop your tasks unfinished, cyclopes of aetna, and attend to this; a warrior's armour must be made. now must strength, now quickness of hand be tried, now all our art lend her guidance. fling off delay.' he spoke no more; but they all bent rapidly to the work, allotting their labours equally. brass and ore of gold flow in streams, and wounding steel is molten in the vast furnace. they shape a mighty shield, to receive singly all the weapons of the latins, and weld it sevenfold, circle on circle. some fill and empty the windy bellows of their blast, some dip the hissing brass in the trough. they raise their arms mightily in responsive time, and turn the mass of metal about in the grasp of their tongs. while the lord of lemnos is busied thus in the borders of aeolia, evander is roused from his low dwelling by the gracious daylight and the matin songs of birds from the eaves. the old man arises, and draws on his body raiment, and ties the tyrrhene shoe latchets about his feet; then buckles to his side and shoulder his tegeaean sword, and swathes himself in a panther skin that droops upon his left. therewithal two watch-dogs go before him from the high threshold, and accompany their master's steps. the hero sought his guest aeneas in the privacy of his dwelling, mindful of their talk and his promised bounty. nor did aeneas fail to be astir with the dawn. with the one went his son pallas, with the other achates. they meet and clasp hands, and, sitting down within the house, at length enjoy unchecked converse. the king begins thus: . . . [ - ]'princely chief of the teucrians, in whose lifetime i will never allow the state or realm of troy vanquished, our strength is scant to succour in war for so great a name. on this side the tuscan river shuts us in; on that the rutulian drives us hard, and thunders in arms about our walls. but i purpose to unite to thee mighty peoples and the camp of a wealthy realm; an unforeseen chance offers this for thy salvation. fate summons thy approach. not far from here stands fast agylla city, an ancient pile of stone, where of old the lydian race, eminent in war, settled on the etruscan ridges. for many years it flourished, till king mezentius ruled it with insolent sway and armed terror. why should i relate the horrible murders, the savage deeds of the monarch? may the gods keep them in store for himself and his line! nay, he would even link dead bodies to living, fitting hand to hand and face to face (the torture!), and in the oozy foulness and corruption of the dreadful embrace so slay them by a lingering death. but at last his citizens, outwearied by his mad excesses, surround him and his house in arms, cut down his comrades, and hurl fire on his roof. amid the massacre he escaped to the refuge of rutulian land and the armed defence of turnus' friendship. so all etruria hath risen in righteous fury, and in immediate battle claim their king for punishment. over these thousands will i make thee chief, o aeneas; for their noisy ships crowd all the shore, and they bid the standards advance, while the aged diviner stays them with prophecies: "o chosen men of maeonia, flower and strength of them, of old time, whom righteous anger urges on the enemy, and mezentius inflames with deserved wrath, to no italian is it permitted to hold this great nation in control: choose foreigners to lead you." at that, terrified by the divine warning, the etruscan lines have encamped on the plain; tarchon himself hath sent ambassadors to me with the crown [ - ]and sceptre of the kingdom, and offers the royal attire will i but enter their camp and take the tyrrhene realm. but old age, frozen to dulness, and exhausted with length of life, denies me the load of empire, and my prowess is past its day. i would urge it on my son, did not the mixture of blood by his sabellian mother make this half his native land. thou, to whose years and race alike the fates extend their favour, on whom fortune calls, enter thou in, a leader supreme in bravery over teucrians and italians. mine own pallas likewise, our hope and comfort, i will send with thee; let him grow used to endure warfare and the stern work of battle under thy teaching, to regard thine actions, and from his earliest years look up to thee. to him will i give two hundred arcadian cavalry, the choice of our warlike strength, and pallas as many more to thee in his own name.' scarce had he ended; aeneas, son of anchises, and trusty achates gazed with steadfast face, and, sad at heart, were revolving inly many a labour, had not the cytherean sent a sign from the clear sky. for suddenly a flash and peal comes quivering from heaven, and all seemed in a moment to totter, and the tyrrhene trumpet-blast to roar along the sky. they look up; again and yet again the heavy crash re-echoes. they see in the serene space of sky armour gleam red through a cloud in the clear air, and ring clashing out. the others stood in amaze; but the trojan hero knew the sound for the promise of his goddess mother; then he speaks: 'ask not, o friend, ask not in any wise what fortune this presage announces; it is i who am summoned of heaven. this sign the goddess who bore me foretold she would send if war assailed, and would bring through the air to my succour armour from vulcan's hands. . . . ah, what slaughter awaits the wretched laurentines! what a price, o turnus, wilt thou pay me! how many shields and helmets and brave bodies of men shalt thou, [ - ]lord tiber, roll under thy waves! let them call for armed array and break the league!' these words uttered, he rises from the high seat, and first wakes with fresh fire the slumbering altars of hercules, and gladly draws nigh his tutelar god of yesternight and the small deities of the household. alike evander, and alike the men of troy, offer up, as is right, choice sheep of two years old. thereafter he goes to the ships and revisits his crew, of whose company he chooses the foremost in valour to attend him to war; the rest glide down the water and float idly with the descending stream, to come with news to ascanius of his father's state. they give horses to the teucrians who seek the fields of tyrrhenia; a chosen one is brought for aeneas, housed in a tawny lion skin that glitters with claws of gold. rumour flies suddenly, spreading over the little town, that they ride in haste to the courts of the tyrrhene king. mothers redouble their prayers in terror, as fear treads closer on peril and the likeness of the war god looms larger in sight. then evander, clasping the hand of his departing son, clings to him weeping inconsolably, and speaks thus: 'oh, if jupiter would restore me the years that are past, as i was when, close under praeneste, i cut down their foremost ranks and burned the piled shields of the conquered! then this right hand sent king erulus down to hell, though to him at his birth his mother feronia (awful to tell) had given three lives and triple arms to wield; thrice must he be laid low in death; yet then this hand took all his lives and as often stripped him of his arms. never should i now, o son, be severed from thy dear embrace; never had the insolent sword of mezentius on my borders dealt so many cruel deaths, widowed the city of so many citizens. but you, o heavenly powers, and thou, jupiter, lord and governor of heaven, have compassion, i pray, on [ - ]the arcadian king, and hear a father's prayers. if your deity and decrees keep my pallas safe for me, if i live that i may see him and meet him yet, i pray for life; any toil soever i have patience to endure. but if, o fortune, thou threatenest some dread calamity, now, ah now, may i break off a cruel life, while anxiety still wavers and expectation is in doubt, while thou, dear boy, my one last delight, art yet clasped in my embrace; let no bitterer message wound mine ear.' these words the father poured forth at the final parting; his servants bore him swooning within. and now the cavalry had issued from the open gates, aeneas and trusty achates among the foremost, then other of the trojan princes, pallas conspicuous amid the column in scarf and inlaid armour; like the morning star, when, newly washed in the ocean wave, he shews his holy face in heaven, and melts the darkness away. fearful mothers stand on the walls and follow with their eyes the cloud of dust and the squadrons gleaming in brass. they, where the goal of their way lies nearest, bear through the brushwood in armed array. forming in column, they advance noisily, and the horse hoof shakes the crumbling plain with four-footed trampling. there is a high grove by the cold river of caere, widely revered in ancestral awe; sheltering hills shut it in all about and girdle the woodland with their dark firs. rumour is that the old pelasgians, who once long ago held the latin borders, consecrated the grove and its festal day to silvanus, god of the tilth and flock. not far from it tarchon and his tyrrhenians were encamped in a protected place; and now from the hill-top the tents of all their army might be seen outspread on the fields. lord aeneas and his chosen warriors draw hither and refresh their weary horses and limbs. but venus the white goddess drew nigh, bearing her gifts through the clouds of heaven; and when she saw her [ - ]son withdrawn far apart in the valley's recess by the cold river, cast herself in his way, and addressed him thus: 'behold perfected the presents of my husband's promised craftsmanship: so shalt thou not shun, o my child, soon to challenge the haughty laurentines or fiery turnus to battle.' the cytherean spoke, and sought her son's embrace, and laid the armour glittering under an oak over against him. he, rejoicing in the magnificence of the goddess' gift, cannot have his fill of turning his eyes over it piece by piece, and admires and handles between his arms the helmet, dread with plumes and spouting flame, as when a blue cloud takes fire in the sunbeams and gleams afar; then the smooth greaves of electrum and refined gold, the spear, and the shield's ineffable design. there the lord of fire had fashioned the story of italy and the triumphs of the romans, not witless of prophecy or ignorant of the age to be; there all the race of ascanius' future seed, and their wars fought one by one. likewise had he fashioned the she-wolf couched after the birth in the green cave of mars; round her teats the twin boys hung playing, and fearlessly mouthed their foster-mother; she, with round neck bent back, stroked them by turns and shaped their bodies with her tongue. thereto not far from this he had set rome and the lawless rape of the sabines in the concourse of the theatre when the great circensian games were celebrated, and a fresh war suddenly arising between the people of romulus and aged tatius and austere cures. next these same kings laid down their mutual strife and stood armed before jove's altar with cup in hand, and joined treaty over a slain sow. not far from there four-horse chariots driven apart had torn mettus asunder (but thou, o alban, shouldst have kept by thy words!), and tullus tore the flesh of the liar through the forest, his splashed blood dripping from the briars. therewithal porsena commanded [ - ]to admit the exiled tarquin, and held the city in the grasp of a strong blockade; the aeneadae rushed on the sword for liberty. him thou couldst espy like one who chafes and like one who threatens, because cocles dared to tear down the bridge, and cloelia broke her bonds and swam the river. highest of all manlius, warder of the tarpeian fortress, stood with the temple behind him and held the high capitoline; and the thatch of romulus' palace stood rough and fresh. and here the silver goose, fluttering in the gilded colonnades, cried that the gauls were there on the threshold. the gauls were there among the brushwood, hard on the fortress, secure in the darkness and the dower of shadowy night. their clustering locks are of gold, and of gold their attire; their striped cloaks glitter, and their milk-white necks are entwined with gold. two alpine pikes sparkle in the hand of each, and long shields guard their bodies. here he had embossed the dancing salii and the naked luperci, the crests wreathed in wool, and the sacred shields that fell from heaven; in cushioned cars the virtuous matrons led on their rites through the city. far hence he adds the habitations of hell also, the high gates of dis and the dooms of guilt; and thee, o catiline, clinging on the beetling rock, and shuddering at the faces of the furies; and far apart the good, and cato delivering them statutes. amidst it all flows wide the likeness of the swelling sea, wrought in gold, though the foam surged gray upon blue water; and round about dolphins, in shining silver, swept the seas with their tails in circle as they cleft the tide. in the centre were visible the brazen war-fleets of actium; thou mightest see all leucate swarm in embattled array, and the waves gleam with gold. here caesar augustus, leading italy to battle with fathers and people, with gods of household and of state, stands on the lofty stern; prosperous flames jet round his brow, and his [ - ]ancestral star dawns overhead. elsewhere agrippa, with favouring winds and gods, proudly leads on his column; on his brows glitters the prow-girt naval crown, the haughty emblazonment of the war. here antonius with barbarian aid and motley arms, from the conquered nations of the dawn and the shore of the southern sea, carries with him egypt and the eastern forces of utmost bactra, and the shameful egyptian woman goes as his consort. all at once rush on, and the whole ocean is torn into foam by straining oars and triple-pointed prows. they steer to sea; one might think that the cyclades were uptorn and floated on the main, or that lofty mountains clashed with mountains, so mightily do their crews urge on the turreted ships. flaming tow and the winged steel of darts shower thickly from their hands; the fields of ocean redden with fresh slaughter. midmost the queen calls on her squadron with the timbrel of her country, nor yet casts back a glance on the twin snakes behind her. howling anubis, and gods monstrous and multitudinous, level their arms against neptune and venus and against minerva; mars rages amid the havoc, graven in iron, and the fatal sisters hang aloft, and discord strides rejoicing with garment rent, and bellona attends her with blood-stained scourge. looking thereon, actian apollo above drew his bow; with the terror of it all egypt and india, every arab and sabaean, turned back in flight. the queen herself seemed to call the winds and spread her sails, and even now let her sheets run slack. her the lord of fire had fashioned amid the carnage, wan with the shadow of death, borne along by the waves and the north-west wind; and over against her the vast bulk of mourning nile, opening out his folds and calling with all his raiment the conquered people into his blue lap and the coverture of his streams. but caesar rode into the city of rome in triple triumph, and dedicated his vowed [ - ]offering to the gods to stand for ever, three hundred stately shrines all about the city. the streets were loud with gladness and games and shouting. in all the temples was a band of matrons, in all were altars, and before the altars slain steers strewed the ground. himself he sits on the snowy threshold of phoebus the bright, reviews the gifts of the nations and ranges them on the haughty doors. the conquered tribes move in long line, diverse as in tongue, so in fashion of dress and armour. here mulciber had designed the nomad race and the ungirt africans, here the leleges and carians and archer gelonians. euphrates went by now with smoother waves, and the morini utmost of men, and the hornèd rhine, the untamed dahae, and araxes chafing under his bridge. these things he admires on the shield of vulcan, his mother's gift, and rejoicing in the portraiture of unknown history, lifts on his shoulder the destined glories of his children. book ninth the siege of the trojan camp and while thus things pass far in the distance, juno daughter of saturn sent iris down the sky to gallant turnus, then haply seated in his forefather pilumnus' holy forest dell. to him the child of thaumas spoke thus with roseate lips: 'turnus, what no god had dared promise to thy prayer, behold, is brought unasked by the circling day. aeneas hath quitted town and comrades and fleet to seek evander's throne and palatine dwelling-place. nor is it enough; he hath pierced to corythus' utmost cities, and is mustering in arms a troop of lydian rustics. why hesitate? now, now is the time to call for chariot and horses. break through all hindrance and seize the bewildered camp.' she spoke, and rose into the sky on poised wings, and flashed under the clouds in a long flying bow. he knew her, and lifting either hand to heaven, with this cry pursued her flight: 'iris, grace of the sky, who hath driven thee down the clouds to me and borne thee to earth? whence is this sudden sheen of weather? i see the sky parting asunder, and the wandering stars in the firmament. i follow the high omen, whoso thou art that callest me to arms.' and with these words he drew nigh the wave, and [ - ]caught up water from its brimming eddy, making many prayers to the gods and burdening the air with vows. and now all the army was advancing on the open plain, rich in horses, rich in raiment of broidered gold. messapus rules the foremost ranks, the sons of tyrrheus the rear. turnus commands the centre: even as ganges rising high in silence when his seven streams are still, or the rich flood of nile when he ebbs from the plains, and is now sunk into his channel. on this the teucrians descry a sudden cloud of dark dust gathering, and the blackness rising on the plain. caïcus raises a cry from the mound in front: 'what mass of misty gloom, o citizens, is rolling hitherward? to arms in haste! serve out weapons, climb the walls. the enemy approaches, ho!' with mighty clamour the teucrians pour in through all the gates and fill the works. for so at his departure aeneas the great captain had enjoined; were aught to chance meanwhile, they should not venture to range their line or trust the plain, but keep their camp and the safety of the entrenched walls. so, though shame and wrath beckon them on to battle, they yet bar the gates and do his bidding, and await the foe armed and in shelter of the towers. turnus, who had flown forward in advance of his tardy column, comes up suddenly to the town with a train of twenty chosen cavalry, borne on a thracian horse dappled with white, and covered by a golden helmet with scarlet plume. 'who will be with me, my men, to be first on the foe? see!' he cries; and sends a javelin spinning into the air to open battle, and advances towering on the plain. his comrades take up the cry, and follow with dreadful din, wondering at the teucrians' coward hearts, that they issue not on even field nor face them in arms, but keep in shelter of the camp. hither and thither he rides furiously, tracing the walls, and seeking entrance where way is none. and as a wolf prowling [ - ]about some crowded sheepfold, when, beaten sore of winds and rains, he howls at the pens by midnight; safe beneath their mothers the lambs keep bleating on; he, savage and insatiate, rages in anger against the flock he cannot reach, tired by the long-gathering madness for food, and the throat unslaked with blood: even so the rutulian, as he gazes on the walled camp, kindles in anger, and indignation is hot in his iron frame. by what means may he essay entrance? by what passage hurl the imprisoned trojans from the rampart and fling them on the plain? close under the flanking camp lay the fleet, fenced about with mounds and the waters of the river; it he attacks, and calls for fire to his exultant comrades, and eagerly catches a blazing pine-torch in his hand. then indeed they press on, quickened by turnus' presence, and all the band arm them with black faggots. the hearth-fires are plundered; the smoky brand trails a resinous glare, and the fire-god sends clouds of glowing ashes upward. what god, o muses, guarded the trojans from the rage of the fire? who repelled the fierce flame from their ships? tell it; ancient is the assurance thereof, but the fame everlasting. what time aeneas began to shape his fleet on phrygian ida, and prepared to seek the high seas, the berecyntian, they say, the very mother of gods, spoke to high jove in these words: 'grant, o son, to my prayer, what her dearness claims who bore thee and laid olympus under thy feet. my pine forest beloved of me these many years, my grove was on the mountain's crown, whither men bore my holy things, dim with dusky pine and pillared maples. these, when he required a fleet, i gave gladly to the dardanian; now fear wrings me with sharp distress. relieve my terrors, and grant a mother's prayers such power that they may yield to no stress of voyaging or of stormy gust: be birth on our hills their avail.' [ - ]thus her son in answer, who wheels the starry worlds: 'o mother, whither callest thou fate? or what dost thou seek for these of thine? may hulls have the right of immortality that were fashioned by mortal hand? and may aeneas traverse perils secure in insecurity? to what god is power so great given? nay, but when, their duty done, they shall lie at last in their ausonian haven, from all that have outgone the waves and borne their dardanian captain to the fields of laurentum, will i take their mortal body, and bid them be goddesses of the mighty deep, even as doto the nereïd and galatea, when they cut the sea that falls away from their breasts in foam.' he ended; and by his brother's stygian streams, by the banks of the pitchy black-boiling chasm he nodded confirmation, and shook all olympus with his nod. so the promised day was come, and the destinies had fulfilled their due time, when turnus' injury stirred the mother to ward the brands from her holy ships. first then a strange light flashed on all eyes, and a great glory from the dawn seemed to dart over the sky, with the choirs of ida; then an awful voice fell through air, filling the trojan and rutulian ranks: 'disquiet not yourselves, o teucrians, to guard ships of mine, neither arm your hands: sooner shall turnus burn the seas than these holy pines. you, go free; go, goddesses of the sea; the mother bids it.' and immediately each ship breaks the bond that held it, as with dipping prows they plunge like dolphins deep into the water: from it again (o wonderful and strange!) they rise with maidens' faces in like number, and bear out to sea. the rutulians stood dumb: messapus himself is terror-stricken among his disordered cavalry; even the stream of tiber pauses with hoarse murmur, and recoils from sea. but bold turnus fails not a whit in confidence; nay, he [ - ]raises their courage with words, nay, he chides them: 'on the trojans are these portents aimed; jupiter himself hath bereft them of their wonted succour; nor do they abide rutulian sword and fire. so are the seas pathless for the teucrians, nor is there any hope in flight; they have lost half their world. and we hold the land: in all their thousands the nations of italy are under arms. in no wise am i dismayed by those divine oracles of doom the phrygians insolently advance. fate and venus are satisfied, in that the trojans have touched our fruitful ausonian fields. i too have my fate in reply to theirs, to put utterly to the sword the guilty nation who have robbed me of my bride; not the sons of atreus alone are touched by that pain, nor may mycenae only rise in arms. but to have perished once is enough! to have sinned once should have been enough, in all but utter hatred of the whole of womankind. trust in the sundering rampart, and the hindrance of their trenches, so little between them and death, gives these their courage: yet have they not seen troy town, the work of neptune's hand, sink into fire? but you, my chosen, who of you makes ready to breach their palisade at the sword's point, and join my attack on their fluttered camp? i have no need of vulcanian arms, of a thousand ships, to meet the teucrians. all etruria may join on with them in alliance: nor let them fear the darkness, and the cowardly theft of their palladium, and the guards cut down on the fortress height. nor will we hide ourselves unseen in a horse's belly; in daylight and unconcealed are we resolved to girdle their walls with flame. not with grecians will i make them think they have to do, nor a pelasgic force kept off till the tenth year by hector. now, since the better part of day is spent, for what remains refresh your bodies, glad that we have done so well, and expect the order of battle.' [ - ]meanwhile charge is given to messapus to blockade the gates with pickets of sentries, and encircle the works with watchfires. twice seven are chosen to guard the walls with rutulian soldiery; but each leads an hundred men, crimson-plumed and sparkling in gold. they spread themselves about and keep alternate watch, and, lying along the grass, drink deep and set brazen bowls atilt. the fires glow, and the sentinels spend the night awake in games. . . . down on this the trojans look forth from the rampart, as they hold the height in arms; withal in fearful haste they try the gates and lay gangways from bastion to bastion, and bring up missiles. mnestheus and valiant serestus speed the work, whom lord aeneas appointed, should misfortune call, to be rulers of the people and governors of the state. all their battalions, sharing the lot of peril, keep watch along the walls, and take alternate charge of all that requires defence. on guard at the gate was nisus son of hyrtacus, most valiant in arms, whom ida the huntress had sent in aeneas' company with fleet javelin and light arrows; and by his side euryalus, fairest of all the aeneadae and the wearers of trojan arms, showing on his unshaven boy's face the first bloom of youth. these two were one in affection, and charged in battle together; now likewise their common guard kept the gate. nisus cries: 'lend the gods this fervour to the soul, euryalus? or does fatal passion become a proper god to each? long ere now my soul is restless to begin some great deed of arms, and quiet peace delights it not. thou seest how confident in fortune the rutulians stand. their lights glimmer far apart; buried in drunken sleep they have sunk to rest; silence stretches all about. learn then what doubt, what purpose, now rises in my spirit. people and senate, they all cry that aeneas [ - ]be summoned, and men be sent to carry him tidings. if they promise what i ask in thy name--for to me the glory of the deed is enough--methinks i can find beneath yonder hillock a path to the walls of pallanteum town.' euryalus stood fixed, struck through with high ambition, and therewith speaks thus to his fervid friend: 'dost thou shun me then, nisus, to share thy company in highest deeds? shall i send thee alone into so great perils? not thus did my warrior father opheltes rear and nurture me amid the argive terror and the agony of troy, nor thus have i borne myself by thy side while following noble aeneas to his utmost fate. here is a spirit, yes here, that scorns the light of day, that deems lightly bought at a life's price that honour to which thou dost aspire.' to this nisus: 'assuredly i had no such fear of thee; no, nor could i; so may great jupiter, or whoso looks on earth with equal eyes, restore me to thee triumphant. but if haply--as thou seest often and often in so forlorn a hope--if haply chance or deity sweep me to adverse doom, i would have thee survive; thine age is worthier to live. be there one to commit me duly to earth, rescued or ransomed from the battlefield: or, if fortune deny that, to pay me far away the rites of funeral and the grace of a tomb. neither would i bring such pain on thy poor mother, she who singly of many matrons hath dared to follow her boy to the end, and slights great acestes' city.' and he: 'in vain dost thou string idle reasons; nor does my purpose yield or change its place so soon. let us make haste.' he speaks, and rouses the watch; they come up, and relieve the guard; quitting their post, he and nisus stride on to seek the prince. the rest of living things over all lands were soothing their cares in sleep, and their hearts forgot their pain; the foremost trojan captains, a chosen band, held council [ - ]of state upon the kingdom; what should they do, or who would now be their messenger to aeneas? they stand, leaning on their long spears and grasping their shields, in mid level of the camp. then nisus and euryalus together pray with quick urgency to be given audience; their matter is weighty and will be worth the delay. iülus at once heard their hurried plea, and bade nisus speak. thereon the son of hyrtacus: 'hear, o people of aeneas, with favourable mind, nor regard our years in what we offer. sunk in sleep and wine, the rutulians are silent; we have stealthily spied the open ground that lies in the path through the gate next the sea. the line of fires is broken, and their smoke rises darkly upwards. if you allow us to use the chance towards seeking aeneas in pallanteum town, you will soon descry us here at hand with the spoils of the great slaughter we have dealt. nor shall we miss the way we go; up the dim valleys we have seen the skirts of the town, and learned all the river in continual hunting.' thereon aged aletes, sage in counsel: 'gods of our fathers, under whose deity troy ever stands, not wholly yet do you purpose to blot out the trojan race, when you have brought us young honour and hearts so sure as this.' so speaking, he caught both by shoulder and hand, with tears showering down over face and feature. 'what guerdon shall i deem may be given you, o men, what recompense for these noble deeds? first and fairest shall be your reward from the gods and your own conduct; and aeneas the good shall speedily repay the rest, and ascanius' fresh youth never forget so great a service.'--'nay,' breaks in ascanius, 'i whose sole safety is in my father's return, i adjure thee and him, o nisus, by our great household gods, by the tutelar spirit of assaracus and hoar vesta's sanctuary--on your knees i lay all my fortune and trust--recall my father; [ - ]give him back to sight; all sorrow disappears in his recovery. i will give a pair of cups my father took in vanquished arisba, wrought in silver and rough with tracery, twin tripods, and two large talents of gold, and an ancient bowl of sidonian dido's giving. if it be indeed our lot to possess italy and grasp a conquering sceptre, and to assign the spoil; thou sawest the horse and armour of turnus as he went all in gold; that same horse, the shield and the ruddy plume, will i reserve from partition, thy reward, o nisus, even from now. my father will give besides twelve mothers of the choicest beauty, and men captives, all in their due array; above these, the space of meadow-land that is now king latinus' own domain. thee, o noble boy, whom mine age follows at a nearer interval, even now i welcome to all my heart, and embrace as my companion in every fortune. no glory shall be sought for my state without thee; whether peace or war be in conduct, my chiefest trust for deed and word shall be in thee.' answering whom euryalus speaks thus: 'let but the day never come to prove me degenerate from this daring valour; fortune may fall prosperous or adverse. but above all thy gifts, one thing i ask of thee. my poor mother of priam's ancient race, whom neither the ilian land nor king acestes' city kept from following me forth, her i now leave in ignorance of this danger, such as it is, and without a farewell, because--night and thine hand be witness!--i cannot bear a parent's tears. but thou, i pray, support her want and relieve her loneliness. let me take with me this hope in thee, i shall go more daringly to every fortune.' deeply stirred at heart, the dardanians shed tears, fair iülus before them all, as the likeness of his own father's love wrung his soul. then he speaks thus: . . . 'assure thyself all that is due to thy mighty enterprise; [ - ]for she shall be a mother to me, and only in name fail to be creüsa; nor slight is the honour reserved for the mother of such a son. what chance soever follow this deed, i swear by this head whereby my father was wont to swear, what i promise to thee on thy prosperous return shall abide the same for thy mother and kindred.' so speaks he weeping, and ungirds from his shoulder the sword inlaid with gold, fashioned with marvellous skill by lycaon of gnosus and fitly set in a sheath of ivory. mnestheus gives nisus the shaggy spoils of a lion's hide; faithful aletes exchanges his helmet. they advance onward in arms, and as they go all the company of captains, young and old, speed them to the gates with vows. likewise fair iülus, with a man's thought and a spirit beyond his years, gave many messages to be carried to his father. but the breezes shred all asunder and give them unaccomplished to the clouds. they issue and cross the trenches, and through the shadow of night seek the fatal camp, themselves first to be the death of many a man. all about they see bodies strewn along the grass in drunken sleep, chariots atilt on the shore, the men lying among their traces and wheels, with their armour by them, and their wine. the son of hyrtacus began thus: 'euryalus, now for daring hands; all invites them; here lies our way; see thou that none raise a hand from behind against us, and keep far-sighted watch. here will i deal desolation, and make a broad path for thee to follow.' so speaks he and checks his voice; therewith he drives his sword at lordly rhamnes, who haply on carpets heaped high was drawing the full breath of sleep; a king himself, and king turnus' best-beloved augur, but not all his augury could avert his doom. three of his household beside him, lying carelessly among their arms, and the armour-bearer and charioteer of remus go [ - ]down before him, caught at the horses' feet. their drooping necks he severs with the sword, then beheads their lord likewise and leaves the trunk spouting blood; the dark warm gore soaks ground and cushions. therewithal lamyrus and lamus, and beautiful young serranus, who that night had played long and late, and lay with the conquering god heavy on every limb; happy, had he played out the night, and carried his game to day! even thus an unfed lion riots through full sheepfolds, for the madness of hunger urges him, and champs and rends the fleecy flock that are dumb with fear, and roars with blood-stained mouth. nor less is the slaughter of euryalus; he too rages all aflame; an unnamed multitude go down before his path, and fadus and herbesus and rhoetus and abaris, unaware; rhoetus awake and seeing all, but he hid in fear behind a great bowl; right in whose breast, as he rose close by, he plunged the sword all its length, and drew it back heavy with death. he vomits forth the crimson life-blood, and throws up wine mixed with blood in the death agony. the other presses hotly on his stealthy errand, and now bent his way towards messapus' comrades, where he saw the last flicker of the fires go down, and the horses tethered in order cropping the grass; when nisus briefly speaks thus, for he saw him carried away by excess of murderous desire; 'let us stop; for unfriendly daylight draws nigh. vengeance is sated to the full; a path is cut through the enemy.' much they leave behind, men's armour wrought in solid silver, and bowls therewith, and beautiful carpets. euryalus tears away the decorations of rhamnes and his sword-belt embossed with gold, a gift which caedicus, wealthiest of men of old, sends to remulus of tibur when plighting friendship far away; he on his death-bed gives them to his grandson for his own; after his death the rutulians captured them as spoil of war; these he fits on the shoulders valiant [ - ]in vain, then puts on messapus' light helmet with its graceful plumes. they issue from the camp and make for safety. meanwhile an advanced guard of cavalry were on their way from the latin city, while the rest of their marshalled battalions linger on the plains, and bore a reply to king turnus; three hundred men all under shield, in volscens' leading. and now they approached the camp and drew near the wall, when they descry the two turning away by the pathway to the left; and in the glimmering darkness of night the forgotten helmet betrayed euryalus, glittering as it met the light. it seemed no thing of chance. volscens cries aloud from his column: 'stand, men! why on the march, or how are you in arms? or whither hold you your way?' they offer nothing in reply, but quicken their flight into the forest, and throw themselves on the night. on this side and that the horsemen bar the familiar crossways, and encircle every outlet with sentinels. the forest spread wide in tangled thickets and dark ilex; thick growth of briars choked it all about, and the muffled pathway glimmered in a broken track. hampered by the shadowy boughs and his cumbrous spoil, euryalus in his fright misses the line of way. nisus gets clear; and now unthinkingly he had passed the enemy, and the place afterwards called albani from alba's name; then the deep coverts were of king latinus' domain; when he stopped, and looked back in vain for his lost friend. 'euryalus, unhappy! on what ground have i left thee? or where shall i follow, again unwinding all the entanglement of the treacherous woodland way?' therewith he marks and retraces his footsteps, and wanders down the silent thickets. he hears the horses, hears the clatter and signal-notes of the pursuers. nor had he long to wait, when shouts reach his ears, and he sees euryalus, whom even now, in the perplexity of ground and [ - ]darkness, the whole squadron have borne down in a sudden rush, and seize in spite of all his vain struggles. what shall he do? with what force, what arms dare his rescue? or shall he rush on his doom amid their swords, and find in their wounds a speedy and glorious death? quickly he draws back his arm with poised spear, and looking up to the moon on high, utters this prayer: 'do thou give present aid to our enterprise, o latonian goddess, glory of the stars and guardian of the woodlands: by all the gifts my father hyrtacus ever bore for my sake to thine altars, by all mine own hand hath added from my hunting, or hung in thy dome, or fixed on thy holy roof, grant me to confound these masses, and guide my javelin through the air.' he ended, and with all the force of his body hurls the steel. the flying spear whistles through the darkness of the night, and comes full on the shield of sulmo, and there snaps, and the broken shaft passes on through his heart. spouting a warm tide from his breast he rolls over chill in death, and his sides throb with long-drawn gasps. hither and thither they gaze round. lo, he all the fiercer was poising another weapon high by his ear; while they hesitate, the spear went whizzing through both tagus' temples, and pierced and stuck fast in the warm brain. volscens is mad with rage, and nowhere espies the sender of the weapon, nor where to direct his fury. 'yet meanwhile thy warm blood shalt pay me vengeance for both,' he cries; and unsheathing his sword, he made at euryalus. then indeed frantic with terror nisus shrieks out; no longer could he shroud himself in darkness or endure such agony. 'on me, on me, i am here, i did it, on me turn your steel, o rutulians! mine is all the guilt; he dared not, no, nor could not; to this heaven i appeal and the stars that know; he only loved his hapless friend too well.' such words he was uttering; but the sword driven hard home is gone [ - ]clean through his ribs and pierces the white breast. euryalus rolls over in death, and the blood runs over his lovely limbs, and his neck sinks and settles on his shoulder; even as when a lustrous flower cut away by the plough droops in death, or weary-necked poppies bow down their head if overweighted with a random shower. but nisus rushes amidst them, and alone among them all makes at volscens, keeps to volscens alone: round him the foe cluster, and on this side and that hurl him back: none the less he presses on, and whirls his sword like lightning, till he plunges it full in the face of the shrieking rutulian, and slays his enemy as he dies. then, stabbed through and through, he flung himself above his lifeless friend, and there at last found the quiet sleep of death. happy pair! if my verse is aught of avail, no length of days shall ever blot you from the memory of time, while the house of aeneas shall dwell by the capitoline's stedfast stone, and the lord of rome hold sovereignty. the victorious rutulians, with their spoils and the plunder regained, bore dead volscens weeping to the camp. nor in the camp was the wailing less, when rhamnes was found a bloodless corpse, and serranus and numa and all their princes destroyed in a single slaughter. crowds throng towards the corpses and the men wounded to death, the ground fresh with warm slaughter and the swoln runlets of frothing blood. they mutually recognise the spoils, messapus' shining helmet and the decorations that cost such sweat to win back. and now dawn, leaving the saffron bed of tithonus, scattered over earth her fresh shafts of early light; now the sunlight streams in, now daylight unveils the world. turnus, himself fully armed, awakes his men to arms, and each leader marshals to battle his brazen lines and whets their ardour with varying rumours. nay, pitiable sight! they [ - ]fix on spear-points and uprear and follow with loud shouts the heads of euryalus and nisus. . . . the aeneadae stubbornly face them, lining the left hand wall (for their right is girdled by the river), hold the deep trenches and stand gloomily on the high towers, stirred withal by the faces they know, alas, too well, in their dark dripping gore. meanwhile rumour on fluttering wings rushes with the news through the alarmed town and glides to the ears of euryalus' mother. but instantly the warmth leaves her woeful body, the shuttle starts from her hand and the threads unroll. she darts forth in agony, and with woman's wailing and torn hair runs distractedly towards the walls and the foremost columns, recking naught of men, naught of peril or weapons; thereon she fills the air with her complaint: 'is it thus i behold thee, o euryalus? couldst thou, the latest solace of mine age, leave me alone so cruelly? nor when sent into such danger was one last word of thee allowed thine unhappy mother? alas, thou liest in a strange land, given for a prey to the dogs and fowls of latium! nor was i, thy mother, there for chief mourner, to lay thee out or close thine eyes or wash thy wounds, and cover thee with the garment i hastened on for thee whole nights and days, an anxious old woman taking comfort from the loom. whither shall i follow? or what land now holds thy mangled corpse, thy body torn limb from limb? is this all of what thou wert that returns to me, o my son? is it this i have followed by land and sea? strike me through of your pity, on me cast all your weapons, rutulians; make me the first sacrifice of your steel. or do thou, mighty lord of heaven, be merciful, and with thine own weapon hurl this hateful life to the nether deep, since in no wise else may i break away from life's cruelty.' at this weeping cry their courage falters, and a sigh of sorrow passes all along; their strength is benumbed and broken for battle. her, while [ - ]her grief kindled, at ilioneus' and weeping iülus' bidding idaeus and actor catch up and carry home in their arms. but the terrible trumpet-note afar rang on the shrill brass; a shout follows, and is echoed from the sky. the volscians hasten up in even line under their advancing roof of shields, and set to fill up the trenches and tear down the palisades. some seek entrance by scaling the walls with ladders, where the defenders' battle-line is thin, and light shows through gaps in the ring of men. the teucrians in return shower weapons of every sort, and push them down with stiff poles, practised by long warfare in their ramparts' defence: and fiercely hurl heavy stones, so be they may break the shielded line; while they, crowded under their shell, lightly bear all the downpour. but now they fail; for where the vast mass presses close, the teucrians roll a huge block tumbling down that makes a wide gap in the rutulians and crashes through their armour-plating. nor do the bold rutulians care longer to continue the blind fight, but strive to clear the rampart with missiles. . . . elsewhere in dreadful guise mezentius brandishes his etruscan pine and hurls smoking brands; but messapus, tamer of horses, seed of neptune, tears away the palisading and calls for ladders to the ramparts. thy sisterhood, o calliope, i pray inspire me while i sing the destruction spread then and there by turnus' sword, the deaths dealt from his hand, and whom each warrior sent down to the under world; and unroll with me the broad borders of war. a tower loomed vast with lofty gangways at a point of vantage; this all the italians strove with main strength to storm, and set all their might and device to overthrow it; the trojans in return defended it with stones and hurled showers of darts through the loopholes. turnus, leading the attack, threw a blazing torch that caught flaming on the [ - ]side wall; swoln by the wind, the flame seized the planking and clung devouring to the standards. those within, in hurry and confusion, desire retreat from their distress; in vain; while they cluster together and fall back to the side free from the destroyer, the tower sinks prone under the sudden weight with a crash that thunders through all the sky. pierced by their own weapons, and impaled on hard splinters of wood, they come half slain to the ground with the vast mass behind them. scarcely do helenor alone and lycus struggle out; helenor in his early prime, whom a slave woman of licymnos bore in secret to the maeonian king, and sent to troy in forbidden weapons, lightly armed with sheathless sword and white unemblazoned shield. and he, when he saw himself among turnus' encircling thousands, ranks on this side and ranks on this of latins, as a wild beast which, girt with a crowded ring of hunters, dashes at their weapons, hurls herself unblinded on death, and comes with a bound upon the spears; even so he rushes to his death amid the enemy, and presses on where he sees their weapons thickest. but lycus, far fleeter of foot, holds by the walls in flight midway among foes and arms, and strives to catch the coping in his grasp and reach the hands of his comrades. and turnus pursuing and aiming as he ran, thus upbraids him in triumph: 'didst thou hope, madman, thou mightest escape our hands?' and catches him as he clings, and tears him and a great piece of the wall away: as when, with a hare or snowy-bodied swan in his crooked talons, jove's armour-bearer soars aloft, or the wolf of mars snatches from the folds some lamb sought of his mother with incessant bleating. on all sides a shout goes up. they advance and fill the trenches with heaps of earth; some toss glowing brands on the roofs. ilioneus strikes down lucetius with a great fragment of mountain rock as, carrying fire, he draws [ - ]nigh the gate. liger slays emathion, asylas corinaeus, the one skilled with the javelin, the other with the stealthy arrow from afar. caeneus slays ortygius; turnus victorious caeneus; turnus itys and clonius, dioxippus, and promolus, and sagaris, and idas where he stood in front of the turret top; capys privernus: him themillas' spear had first grazed lightly; the madman threw down his shield to carry his hand to the wound; so the arrow winged her way, and pinning his hand to his left side, broke into the lungs with deadly wound. the son of arcens stood splendid in arms, and scarf embroidered with needlework and bright with iberian blue, the beautiful boy sent by his father arcens from nurture in the grove of our lady about the streams of symaethus, where palicus' altar is rich and gracious. laying down his spear, mezentius whirled thrice round his head the tightened cord of his whistling sling, pierced him full between the temples with the molten bullet, and stretched him all his length upon the sand. then, it is said, ascanius first aimed his flying shaft in war, wont before to frighten beasts of the chase, and struck down a brave numanian, remulus by name, but lately allied in bridal to turnus' younger sister. he advancing before his ranks clamoured things fit and unfit to tell, and strode along lofty and voluble, his heart lifted up with his fresh royalty. 'take you not shame to be again held leaguered in your ramparts, o phrygians twice taken, and to make walls your fence from death? behold them who demand in war our wives for theirs! what god, what madness, hath driven you to italy? here are no sons of atreus nor glozing ulysses. a race of hardy breed, we carry our newborn children to the streams and harden them in the bitter icy water; as boys they spend wakeful nights over the chase, and tire out the woodland; but in manhood, [ - ]unwearied by toil and trained to poverty, they subdue the soil with their mattocks, or shake towns in war. every age wears iron, and we goad the flanks of our oxen with reversed spear; nor does creeping old age weaken our strength of spirit or abate our force. white hairs bear the weight of the helmet; and it is ever our delight to drive in fresh spoil and live on our plunder. yours is embroidered raiment of saffron and shining sea-purple. indolence is your pleasure, your delight the luxurious dance; you wear sleeved tunics and ribboned turbans. o right phrygian women, not even phrygian men! traverse the heights of dindymus, where the double-mouthed flute breathes familiar music. the drums call you, and the berecyntian boxwood of the mother of ida; leave arms to men, and lay down the sword.' as he flung forth such words of ill-ominous strain, ascanius brooked it not, and aimed an arrow on him from the stretched horse sinew; and as he drew his arms asunder, first stayed to supplicate jove in lowly vows: 'jupiter omnipotent, deign to favour this daring deed. my hands shall bear yearly gifts to thee in thy temple, and bring to stand before thine altars a steer with gilded forehead, snow-white, carrying his head high as his mother's, already pushing with his horn and making the sand fly up under his feet.' the father heard and from a clear space of sky thundered on the left; at once the fated bow rings, the grim-whistling arrow flies from the tense string, and goes through the head of remulus, the steel piercing through from temple to temple. 'go, mock valour with insolence of speech! phrygians twice taken return this answer to rutulians.' thus and no further ascanius; the teucrians respond in cheers, and shout for joy in rising height of courage. then haply in the tract of heaven tressed apollo sate looking down from his cloud on the [ - ]ausonian ranks and town, and thus addresses triumphant iülus: 'good speed to thy young valour, o boy! this is the way to heaven, child of gods and parent of gods to be! rightly shall all wars fated to come sink to peace beneath the line of assaracus; nor art thou bounded in a troy.' so speaking, he darts from heaven's height, and cleaving the breezy air, seeks ascanius. then he changes the fashion of his countenance, and becomes aged butes, armour-bearer of old to dardanian anchises, and the faithful porter of his threshold; thereafter his lord gave him for ascanius' attendant. in all points like the old man apollo came, voice and colour, white hair, and grimly clashing arms, and speaks these words to eager iülus: 'be it enough, son of aeneas, that the numanian hath fallen unavenged beneath thine arrows; this first honour great apollo allows thee, nor envies the arms that match his own. further, o boy, let war alone.' thus apollo began, and yet speaking retreated from mortal view, vanishing into thin air away out of their eyes. the dardanian princes knew the god and the arms of deity, and heard the clash of his quiver as he went. so they restrain ascanius' keenness for battle by the words of phoebus' will; themselves they again close in conflict, and cast their lives into the perilous breach. shouts run all along the battlemented walls; ringing bows are drawn and javelin thongs twisted: all the ground is strewn with missiles. shields and hollow helmets ring to blows; the battle swells fierce; heavy as the shower lashes the ground that sets in when the kids are rainy in the west; thick as hail pours down from storm-clouds on the shallows, when the rough lord of the winds congeals his watery deluge and breaks up the hollow vapours in the sky. pandarus and bitias, sprung of alcanor of ida, whom woodland iaera bore in the grove of jupiter, grown now [ - ]tall as their ancestral pines and hills, fling open the gates barred by their captain's order, and confident in arms, wilfully invite the enemy within the walls. themselves within they stand to right and left in front of the towers, sheathed in iron, the plumes flickering over their stately heads: even as high in air around the gliding streams, whether on padus' banks or by pleasant athesis, twin oaks rise lifting their unshorn heads into the sky with high tops asway. the rutulians pour in when they see the entrance open. straightway quercens and aquicolus beautiful in arms, and desperate tmarus, and haemon, seed of mars, either gave back in rout with all their columns, or in the very gateway laid down their life. then the spirits of the combatants swell in rising wrath, and now the trojans gather swarming to the spot, and dare to close hand to hand and to sally farther out. news is brought to turnus the captain, as he rages afar among the routed foe, that the enemy surges forth into fresh slaughter and flings wide his gates. he breaks off unfinished, and, fired with immense anger, rushes towards the haughty brethren at the dardanian gate. and on antiphates first, for first he came, the bastard son of mighty sarpedon by a theban mother, he hurls his javelin and strikes him down; the italian cornel flies through the yielding air, and, piercing the gullet, runs deep into his breast; a frothing tide pours from the dark yawning wound, and the steel grows warm where it pierces the lung. then meropes and erymas, then aphidnus goes down before his hand; then bitias, fiery-eyed and exultant, not with a javelin; for not to a javelin had he given his life; but the loud-whistling pike came hurled with a thunderbolt's force; neither twofold bull's hide kept it back, nor the trusty corslet's double scales of gold: his vast limbs sink in a heap; earth utters a groan, and the great shield clashes [ - ]over him: even as once and again on the euboïc shore of baiae falls a mass of stone, built up of great blocks and so cast into the sea; thus does it tumble prone, crashes into the shoal water and sinks deep to rest; the seas are stirred, and the dark sand eddies up; therewith the depth of prochyta quivers at the sound, and the couchant rocks of inarime, piled above typhoeus by jove's commands. on this mars armipotent raised the spirit and strength of the latins, and goaded their hearts to rage, and sent flight and dark fear among the teucrians. from all quarters they gather, since battle is freely offered; and the warrior god inspires. . . . pandarus, at his brother's fall, sees how fortune stands, what hap rules the day; and swinging the gate round on its hinge with all his force, pushes it to with his broad shoulders, leaving many of his own people shut outside the walls in the desperate conflict, but shutting others in with him as they pour back in retreat. madman! who saw not the rutulian prince burst in amid their columns, and fairly shut him into the town, like a monstrous tiger among the silly flocks. at once strange light flashed from his eyes, and his armour rang terribly; the blood-red plumes flicker on his head, and lightnings shoot sparkling from his shield. in sudden dismay the aeneadae know the hated form and giant limbs. then tall pandarus leaps forward, in burning rage at his brother's death: 'this is not the palace of amata's dower,' he cries, 'nor does ardea enclose turnus in her native walls. thou seest a hostile camp; escape hence is hopeless.' to him turnus, smiling and cool: 'begin with all thy valiance, and close hand to hand; here too shalt thou tell that a priam found his achilles.' he ended; the other, putting out all his strength, hurls his rough spear, knotty and unpeeled. the breezes caught it; juno, daughter of saturn, [ - ]made the wound glance off as it came, and the spear sticks fast in the gate. 'but this weapon that my strong hand whirls, this thou shalt not escape; for not such is he who sends weapon and wound.' so speaks he, and rises high on his uplifted sword; the steel severs the forehead midway right between the temples, and divides the beardless cheeks with ghastly wound. he crashes down; earth shakes under the vast weight; dying limbs and brain-spattered armour tumble in a heap to the ground, and the head, evenly severed, dangles this way and that from either shoulder. the trojans scatter and turn in hasty terror; and had the conqueror forthwith taken thought to burst the bars and let in his comrades at the gate, that had been the last day of the war and of the nation. but rage and mad thirst of slaughter drive him like fire on the foe. . . . first he catches up phalaris; then gyges, and hamstrings him; he plucks away their spears, and hurls them on the backs of the flying crowd; juno lends strength and courage. halys he sends to join them, and phegeus, pierced right through the shield; then, as they ignorantly raised their war-cry on the walls, alcander and halius, noëmon and prytanis. lynceus advanced to meet him, calling up his comrades; from the rampart the glittering sword sweeps to the left and catches him; struck off by the one downright blow, head and helmet lay far away. next amycus fell, the deadly huntsman, incomparable in skill of hand to anoint his arrows and arm their steel with venom; and clytius the aeolid, and cretheus beloved of the muses, cretheus of the muses' company, whose delight was ever in songs and harps and stringing of verses; ever he sang of steeds and armed men and battles. at last, hearing of the slaughter of their men, the teucrian captains, mnestheus and gallant serestus, come up, and see their comrades in disordered flight and the foe [ - ]let in. and mnestheus: 'whither next, whither press you in flight? what other walls, what farther city have you yet? shall one man, and he girt in on all sides, fellow-citizens, by your entrenchments, thus unchecked deal devastation throughout our city, and send all our best warriors to the under world? have you no pity, no shame, cowards, for your unhappy country, for your ancient gods, for great aeneas?' kindled by such words, they take heart and rally in dense array. little by little turnus drew away from the fight towards the river, and the side encircled by the stream: the more bravely the teucrians press on him with loud shouts and thickening masses, even as a band that fall on a wrathful lion with levelled weapons, but he, frightened back, retires surly and grim-glaring; and neither does wrath nor courage let him turn his back, nor can he make head, for all that he desires it, against the surrounding arms and men. even thus turnus draws lingeringly backward, with unhastened steps, and soul boiling in anger. nay, twice even then did he charge amid the enemy, twice drove them in flying rout along the walls. but all the force of the camp gathers hastily up; nor does juno, daughter of saturn, dare to supply him strength to countervail; for jupiter sent iris down through the aery sky, bearing stern orders to his sister that turnus shall withdraw from the high trojan town. therefore neither with shield nor hand can he keep his ground, so overpoweringly from all sides comes upon him the storm of weapons. about the hollows of his temples the helmet rings with incessant clash, and the solid brass is riven beneath the stones; the horsehair crest is rent away; the shield-boss avails not under the blows; mnestheus thunders on with his trojans, and pours in a storm of spears. all over him the sweat trickles and pours in swart stream, and no breathing space is given; sick gasps shake [ - ]his exhausted limbs. then at last, with a headlong bound, he leapt fully armed into the river; the river's yellow eddies opened for him as he came, and the buoyant water brought him up, and, washing away the slaughter, returned him triumphant to his comrades. book tenth the battle on the beach meanwhile the heavenly house omnipotent unfolds her doors, and the father of gods and king of men calls a council in the starry dwelling; whence he looks sheer down on the whole earth, the dardanian camp, and the peoples of latium. they sit down within from doorway to doorway: their lord begins: 'lords of heaven, wherefore is your decree turned back, and your minds thus jealously at strife? i forbade italy to join battle with the teucrians; why this quarrel in face of my injunction? what terror hath bidden one or another run after arms and tempt the sword? the due time of battle will arrive, call it not forth, when furious carthage shall one day sunder the alps to hurl ruin full on the towers of rome. then hatred may grapple with hatred, then hostilities be opened; now let them be, and cheerfully join in the treaty we ordain.' thus jupiter in brief; but not briefly golden venus returns in answer: . . . 'o lord, o everlasting governor of men and things--for what else may we yet supplicate?--beholdest thou how the rutulians brave it, and turnus, borne charioted through the ranks, proudly sweeps down the tide of battle? bar [ - ]and bulwark no longer shelter the trojans; nay, within the gates and even on the mounded walls they clash in battle and make the trenches swim with blood. aeneas is away and ignorant. wilt thou never then let our leaguer be raised? again a foe overhangs the walls of infant troy; and another army, and a second son of tydeus rises from aetolian arpi against the trojans. truly i think my wounds are yet to come, and i thy child am keeping some mortal weapons idle. if the trojans steered for italy without thy leave and defiant of thy deity, let them expiate their sin; aid not such with thy succour. but if so many oracles guided them, given by god and ghost, why may aught now reverse thine ordinance or write destiny anew? why should i recall the fleets burned on the coast of eryx? why the king of storms, and the raging winds roused from aeolia, or iris driven down the clouds? now hell too is stirred (this share of the world was yet untried) and allecto suddenly let loose above to riot through the italian towns. in no wise am i moved for empire; that was our hope while fortune stood; let those conquer whom thou wilt. if thy cruel wife leave no region free to teucrians, by the smoking ruins of desolated troy, o father, i beseech thee, grant ascanius unhurt retreat from arms, grant me my child's life. aeneas may well be tossed over unknown seas and follow what path soever fortune open to him; him let me avail to shelter and withdraw from the turmoil of battle. amathus is mine, high paphos and cythera, and my house of idalia; here, far from arms, let him spend an inglorious life. bid carthage in high lordship rule ausonia; there will be nothing there to check the tyrian cities. what help was it for the trojans to escape war's doom and thread their flight through argive fires, to have exhausted all those perils of sea and desolate lands, while they seek latium and the towers of a troy rebuilt? were it not better to have [ - ]clung to the last ashes of their country, and the ground where once was troy? give back, i pray, xanthus and simoïs to a wretched people, and let the teucrians again, o lord, circle through the fates of ilium.' then queen juno, swift and passionate: 'why forcest thou me to break long silence and proclaim my hidden pain? hath any man or god constrained aeneas to court war or make armed attack on king latinus? in oracular guidance he steered for italy: be it so: he whom raving cassandra sent on his way! did we urge him to quit the camp or entrust his life to the winds? to give the issue of war and the charge of his ramparts to a child? to stir the loyalty of tyrrhenia or throw peaceful nations into tumult? what god, what potent cruelty of ours, hath driven him on his hurt? where is juno in this, or iris sped down the clouds? it shocks thee that italians should enring an infant troy with flame, and turnus set foot on his own ancestral soil--he, grandchild of pilumnus, son of venilia the goddess: how, that the dark brands of troy assail the latins? that trojans subjugate and plunder fields not their own? how, that they choose their brides and tear plighted bosom from bosom? that their gestures plead for peace, and their ships are lined with arms? thou canst steal thine aeneas from grecian hands, and spread before them a human semblance of mist and empty air; thou canst turn his fleet into nymphs of like number: is it dreadful if we retaliate with any aid to the rutulians? aeneas is away and ignorant; away and ignorant let him be. paphos is thine and idalium, thine high cythera; why meddlest thou with fierce spirits and a city big with war? is it we who would overthrow the tottering state of phrygia? we? or he who brought the achaeans down on the hapless trojans? who made europe and asia bristle up in arms, and whose theft shattered the alliance? was it in my guidance the [ - ]adulterous dardanian broke into sparta? or did i send the shafts of passion that kindled war? then terror for thy children had graced thee; too late now dost thou rise with unjust complaints, and reproaches leave thy lips in vain.' thus juno pleaded; and all the heavenly people murmured in diverse consent; even as rising gusts murmur when caught in the forests, and eddy in blind moanings, betraying to sailors the gale's approach. then the lord omnipotent and primal power of the world begins; as he speaks the high house of the gods and trembling floor of earth sink to silence; silent is the deep sky, and the breezes are stilled; ocean hushes his waters into calm. 'take then to heart and lay deep these words of mine. since it may not be that ausonians and teucrians join alliance, and your quarrel finds no term, to-day, what fortune each wins, what hope each follows, be he trojan or rutulian, i will hold in even poise; whether it be italy's fate or trojan blundering and ill advice that holds the camp in leaguer. nor do i acquit the rutulians. each as he hath begun shall work out his destiny. jupiter is one and king over all; the fates will find their way.' by his brother's infernal streams, by the banks of the pitchy black-boiling chasm he signed assent, and made all olympus quiver at his nod. here speaking ended: thereon jupiter rises from his golden throne, and the heavenly people surround and escort him to the doorway. meanwhile the rutulians press round all the gates, dealing grim slaughter and girdling the walls with flame. but the army of the aeneadae are held leaguered within their trenches, with no hope of retreat. they stand helpless and disconsolate on their high towers, and their thin ring girdles the walls,--asius, son of imbrasus, and thymoetes, son of hicetaon, and the two assaraci, and castor, and old thymbris together in the front rank: by them clarus and [ - ]themon, both full brothers to sarpedon, out of high lycia. acmon of lyrnesus, great as his father clytius, or his brother mnestheus, carries a stone, straining all his vast frame to the huge mountain fragment. emulously they keep their guard, these with javelins, those with stones, and wield fire and fit arrows on the string. amid them he, venus' fittest care, lo! the dardanian boy, his graceful head uncovered, shines even as a gem set in red gold on ornament of throat or head, or even as gleaming ivory cunningly inlaid in boxwood or orician terebinth; his tresses lie spread over his milk-white neck, bound by a flexible circlet of gold. thee, too, ismarus, proud nations saw aiming wounds and arming thy shafts with poison,--thee, of house illustrious in maeonia, where the rich tilth is wrought by men's hands, and pactolus waters it with gold. there too was mnestheus, exalted in fame as he who erewhile had driven turnus from the ramparts; and capys, from whom is drawn the name of the campanian city. they had closed in grim war's mutual conflict; aeneas, while night was yet deep, clove the seas. for when, leaving evander for the etruscan camp, he hath audience of the king, and tells the king of his name and race, and what he asks or offers, instructs him of the arms mezentius is winning to his side, and of turnus' overbearing spirit, reminds him what is all the certainty of human things, and mingles all with entreaties; delaying not, tarchon joins forces and strikes alliance. then, freed from the oracle, the lydian people man their fleet, laid by divine ordinance in the foreign captain's hand. aeneas' galley keeps in front, with the lions of phrygia fastened on her prow, above them overhanging ida, sight most welcome to the trojan exiles. here great aeneas sits revolving the changing issues of war; and pallas, clinging on his left side, asks now [ - ]of the stars and their pathway through the dark night, now of his fortunes by land and sea. open now the gates of helicon, goddesses, and stir the song of the band that come the while with aeneas from the tuscan borders, and sail in armed ships overseas. first in the brazen-plated tiger massicus cuts the flood; beneath him are ranked a thousand men who have left clusium town and the city of cosae; their weapons are arrows, and light quivers on the shoulder, and their deadly bow. with him goes grim abas, all his train in shining armour, and a gilded apollo glittering astern. to him populonia had given six hundred of her children, tried in war, but ilva three hundred, the island rich in unexhausted mines of steel. third asilas, interpreter between men and gods, master of the entrails of beasts and the stars in heaven, of speech of birds and ominous lightning flashes, draws a thousand men after him in serried lines bristling with spears, bidden to his command from pisa city, of alphaean birth on etruscan soil. astyr follows, excellent in beauty, astyr, confident in his horse and glancing arms. three hundred more--all have one heart to follow--come from the householders of caere and the fields of minio, and ancient pyrgi, and fever-stricken graviscae. let me not pass thee by, o cinyras, bravest in war of ligurian captains, and thee, cupavo, with thy scant company, from whose crest rise the swan plumes, fault, o love, of thee and thine, and blazonment of his father's form. for they tell that cycnus, in grief for his beloved phaëthon, while he sings and soothes his woeful love with music amid the shady sisterhood of poplar boughs, drew over him the soft plumage of white old age, and left earth and passed crying through the sky. his son, followed on shipboard with a band of like age, sweeps the huge centaur forward with his oars; he leans over the water, and [ - ]threatens the waves with a vast rock he holds on high, and furrows the deep seas with his length of keel. he too calls a train from his native coasts, ocnus, son of prophetic manto and the river of tuscany, who gave thee, o mantua, ramparts and his mother's name; mantua, rich in ancestry, yet not all of one blood, a threefold race, and under each race four cantons; herself she is the cantons' head, and her strength is of tuscan blood. from her likewise hath mezentius five hundred in arms against him, whom mincius, child of benacus, draped in gray reeds, led to battle in his advancing pine. aulestes moves on heavily, smiting the waves with the swinging forest of an hundred oars; the channels foam as they sweep the sea-floor. he sails in the vast triton, who amazes the blue waterways with his shell, and swims on with shaggy front, in human show from the flank upward; his belly ends in a dragon; beneath the monster's breast the wave gurgles into foam. so many were the chosen princes who went in thirty ships to aid troy, and cut the salt plains with brazen prow. and now day had faded from the sky, and gracious phoebe trod mid-heaven in the chariot of her nightly wandering: aeneas, for his charge allows not rest to his limbs, himself sits guiding the tiller and managing the sails. and lo, in middle course a band of his own fellow-voyagers meets him, the nymphs whom bountiful cybele had bidden be gods of the sea, and turn to nymphs from ships; they swam on in even order, and cleft the flood, as many as erewhile, brazen-plated prows, had anchored on the beach. from far they know their king, and wheel their bands about him, and cymodocea, their readiest in speech, comes up behind, catching the stern with her right hand: her back rises out, and her left hand oars her passage through the silent water. then she thus [ - ]accosts her amazed lord: 'wakest thou, seed of gods, aeneas? wake, and loosen the sheets of thy sails. we are thy fleet, idaean pines from the holy hill, now nymphs of the sea. when the treacherous rutulian urged us headlong with sword and fire, unwillingly we broke thy bonds, and we search for thee over ocean. this new guise our lady made for us in pity, and granted us to be goddesses and spend our life under the waves. but thy boy ascanius is held within wall and trench among the latin weapons and the rough edge of war. already the arcadian cavalry and the brave etruscan together hold the appointed ground. turnus' plan is fixed to bar their way with his squadrons, that they may not reach the camp. up and arise, and ere the coming of the dawn bid thy crews be called to arms; and take thou the shield which the lord of fire forged for victory and rimmed about with gold. to-morrow's daylight, if thou deem not my words vain, shall see rutulians heaped high in slaughter.' she ended, and, as she went, pushed the tall ship on with her hand wisely and well; the ship shoots through the water fleeter than javelin or windswift arrow. thereat the rest quicken their speed. the son of anchises of troy is himself deep in bewilderment; yet the omen cheers his courage. then looking on the heavenly vault, he briefly prays: 'o gracious upon ida, mother of gods, whose delight is in dindymus and turreted cities and lions coupled to thy rein, do thou lead me in battle, do thou meetly prosper thine augury, and draw nigh thy phrygians, goddess, with favourable feet.' thus much he spoke; and meanwhile the broad light of returning day now began to pour in, and chased away the night. first he commands his comrades to follow his signals, brace their courage to arms and prepare for battle. and now his trojans and his camp are in his sight as he stands high astern, when next he lifts the [ - ]blazing shield on his left arm. the dardanians on the walls raise a shout to the sky. hope comes to kindle wrath; they hurl their missiles strongly; even as under black clouds cranes from the strymon utter their signal notes and sail clamouring across the sky, and noisily stream down the gale. but this seemed marvellous to the rutulian king and the captains of ausonia, till looking back they see the ships steering for the beach, and all the sea as a single fleet sailing in. his helmet-spike blazes, flame pours from the cresting plumes, and the golden shield-boss spouts floods of fire; even as when in transparent night comets glow blood-red and drear, or the splendour of sirius, that brings drought and sicknesses on wretched men, rises and saddens the sky with malignant beams. yet gallant turnus in unfailing confidence will prevent them on the shore and repel their approach to land. 'what your prayers have sought is given, the sweep of the sword-arm. the god of battles is in the hands of men. now remember each his wife and home: now recall the high deeds of our fathers' honour. let us challenge meeting at the water's edge, while they waver and their feet yet slip as they disembark. fortune aids daring. . . .' so speaks he, and counsels inly whom he shall lead to meet them, whom leave in charge of the leaguered walls. meanwhile aeneas lands his allies by gangways from the high ships. many watch the retreat and slack of the sea, and leap boldly into the shoal water; others slide down the oars. tarchon, marking the shore where the shallows do not seethe and plash with broken water, but the sea glides up and spreads its tide unbroken, suddenly turns his bows to land and implores his comrades: 'now, o chosen crew, bend strongly to your oars; lift your ships, make them go; let the prows cleave this hostile land and the keel plough [ - ]herself a furrow. i will let my vessel break up on such harbourage if once she takes the land.' when tarchon had spoken in such wise, his comrades rise on their oar-blades and carry their ships in foam towards the latin fields, till the prows are fast on dry land and all the keels are aground unhurt. but not thy galley, tarchon; for she dashes on a shoal, and swings long swaying on the cruel bank, pitching and slapping the flood, then breaks up, and lands her crew among the waves. broken oars and floating thwarts entangle them, and the ebbing wave sucks their feet away. nor does turnus keep idly dallying, but swiftly hurries his whole array against the trojans and ranges it to face the beach. the trumpets blow. at once aeneas charges and confounds the rustic squadrons of the latins, and slays theron for omen of battle. the giant advances to challenge aeneas; but through sewed plates of brass and tunic rough with gold the sword plunges in his open side. next he strikes lichas, cut from his mother already dead, and consecrated, phoebus, to thee, since his infancy was granted escape from the perilous steel. near thereby he struck dead brawny cisseus and vast gyas, whose clubs were mowing down whole files: naught availed them the arms of hercules and their strength of hand, nor melampus their father, ever of alcides' company while earth yielded him sore travail. lo! while pharus utters weak vaunts the hurled javelin strikes on his shouting mouth. thou too, while thou followest thy new delight, clytius, whose cheeks are golden with youthful down--thou, luckless cydon, struck down by the dardanian hand, wert lying past thought, ah pitiable! of the young loves that were ever thine, did not the close array of thy brethren interpose, the children of phorcus, seven in number, and send a sevenfold shower of darts. some glance ineffectual from helmet and shield; [ - ]some venus the bountiful turned aside as they grazed his body. aeneas calls to trusty achates: 'give me store of weapons; none that hath been planted in grecian body on the plains of ilium shall my hand hurl at rutulian in vain.' then he catches and throws his great spear; the spear flies grinding through the brass of maeon's shield, and breaks through corslet and through breast. his brother alcanor runs up and sustains with his right arm his sinking brother; through his arm the spear passes speeding straight on its message, and holds its bloody way, and the hand dangles by the sinews lifeless from the shoulder. then numitor, seizing his dead brother's javelin, aims at aeneas, but might not fairly pierce him, and grazed tall achates on the thigh. here clausus of cures comes confident in his pride of strength, and with a long reach strikes dryops under the chin, and, urging the stiff spear-shaft home, stops the accents of his speech and his life together, piercing the throat; but he strikes the earth with his forehead, and vomits clots of blood. three thracians likewise of boreas' sovereign race, and three sent by their father idas from their native ismarus, fall in divers wise before him. halesus and his auruncan troops hasten thither; messapus too, seed of neptune, comes up charioted. this side and that strive to hurl back the enemy, and fight hard on the very edge of ausonia. as when in the depth of air adverse winds rise in battle with equal spirit and strength; not they, not clouds nor sea, yield one to another; long the battle is doubtful; all stands locked in counterpoise: even thus clash the ranks of troy and ranks of latium, foot fast on foot, and man crowded up on man. but in another quarter, where a torrent had driven a wide path of rolling stones and bushes torn away from the banks, pallas saw his arcadians, unaccustomed to move as infantry, giving back before the latin pursuit, when the [ - ]roughness of the ground bade them dismount. this only was left in his strait, to kindle them to valour, now by entreaties, now by taunts: 'whither flee you, comrades? by your deeds of bravery, by your leader evander's name, by your triumphant campaigns, and my hope that now rises to rival my father's honour, trust not to flight. our swords must hew a way through the enemy. where yonder mass of men presses thickest, there your proud country calls you with pallas at your head. no gods are they who bear us down; mortals, we feel the pressure of a mortal foe; we have as many lives and hands as he. lo, the deep shuts us in with vast sea barrier; even now land fails our flight; shall we make ocean or troy our goal?' so speaks he, and bursts amid the serried foe. first lagus meets him, drawn thither by malign destiny; him, as he tugs at a ponderous stone, hurling his spear where the spine ran dissevering the ribs, he pierces and wrenches out the spear where it stuck fast in the bone. nor does hisbo catch him stooping, for all that he hoped it; for pallas, as he rushes unguarded on, furious at his comrade's cruel death, receives him on his sword and buries it in his distended lungs. next he attacks sthenius, and anchemolus of rhoetus' ancient family, who dared to violate the bridal chamber of his stepmother. you, too, the twins larides and thymber, fell on the rutulian fields, children of daucus, indistinguishable for likeness and a sweet perplexity to your parents. but now pallas made cruel difference between you; for thy head, thymber, is swept off by evander's sword; thy right hand, larides, severed, seeks its master, and the dying fingers jerk and clutch at the sword. fired by his encouragement, and beholding his noble deeds, the arcadians advance in wrath and shame to meet the enemy in arms. then pallas pierces rhoeteus as he flies past in his chariot. this space, this [ - ]much of respite was given to ilus; for at ilus he had aimed the strong spear from afar, and rhoeteus intercepts its passage, in flight from thee, noble teuthras and tyres thy brother; he rolls from the chariot in death, and his heels strike the rutulian fields. and as the shepherd, when summer winds have risen to his desire, kindles the woods dispersedly; on a sudden the mid spaces catch, and a single flickering line of fire spreads wide over the plain; he sits looking down on his conquest and the revel of the flames; even so, pallas, do thy brave comrades gather close to sustain thee. but warrior halesus advances full on them, gathering himself behind his armour; he slays ladon, pheres, demodocus; his gleaming sword shears off strymonius' hand as it rises to his throat; he strikes thoas on the face with a stone, and drives the bones asunder in a shattered mass of blood and brains. halesus had his father the soothsayer kept hidden in the woodland: when the old man's glazing eyes sank to death, the fates laid hand on him and devoted him to the arms of evander. pallas aims at him, first praying thus: 'grant now, lord tiber, to the steel i poise and hurl, a prosperous way through brawny halesus' breast; thine oak shall bear these arms and the dress he wore.' the god heard it; while halesus covers imaon, he leaves, alas! his breast unarmed to the arcadian's weapon. yet at his grievous death lausus, himself a great arm of the war, lets not his columns be dismayed; at once he meets and cuts down abas, the check and stay of their battle. the men of arcadia go down before him; down go the etruscans, and you, o teucrians, invincible by greece. the armies close, matched in strength and in captains; the rear ranks crowd in; weapons and hands are locked in the press. here pallas strains and pushes on, here lausus opposite, nearly matched in age, excellent in beauty; but fortune [ - ]had denied both return to their own land. yet that they should meet face to face the sovereign of high olympus allowed not; an early fate awaits them beneath a mightier foe. meanwhile turnus' gracious sister bids him take lausus' room, and his fleet chariot parts the ranks. when he saw his comrades, 'it is time,' he cried, 'to stay from battle. i alone must assail pallas; to me and none other pallas is due; i would his father himself were here to see.' so speaks he, and his rutulians draw back from a level space at his bidding. but then as they withdrew, he, wondering at the haughty command, stands in amaze at turnus, his eyes scanning the vast frame, and his fierce glance perusing him from afar. and with these words he returns the words of the monarch: 'for me, my praise shall even now be in the lordly spoils i win, or in illustrious death: my father will bear calmly either lot: away with menaces.' he speaks, and advances into the level ring. the arcadians' blood gathers chill about their hearts. turnus leaps from his chariot and prepares to close with him. and as a lion sees from some lofty outlook a bull stand far off on the plain revolving battle, and flies at him, even such to see is turnus' coming. when pallas deemed him within reach of a spear-throw, he advances, if so chance may assist the daring of his overmatched strength, and thus cries into the depth of sky: 'by my father's hospitality and the board whereto thou camest a wanderer, on thee i call, alcides; be favourable to my high emprise; let turnus even in death discern me stripping his blood-stained armour, and his swooning eyes endure the sight of his conqueror.' alcides heard him, and deep in his heart he stifled a heavy sigh, and let idle tears fall. then with kindly words the father accosts his son: 'each hath his own appointed day; short and irrecoverable [ - ]is the span of life for all: but to spread renown by deeds is the task of valour. under high troy town many and many a god's son fell; nay, mine own child sarpedon likewise perished. turnus too his own fate summons, and his allotted period hath reached the goal.' so speaks he, and turns his eyes away from the rutulian fields. but pallas hurls his spear with all his strength, and pulls his sword flashing out of the hollow scabbard. the flying spear lights where the armour rises high above the shoulder, and, forcing a way through the shield's rim, ceased not till it drew blood from mighty turnus. at this turnus long poises the spear-shaft with its sharp steel head, and hurls it on pallas with these words: _see thou if our weapon have not a keener point._ he ended; but for all the shield's plating of iron and brass, for all the bull-hide that covers it round about, the quivering spear-head smashes it fair through and through, passes the guard of the corslet, and pierces the breast with a gaping hole. he tears the warm weapon from the wound; in vain; together and at once life-blood and sense follow it. he falls heavily on the ground, his armour clashes over him, and his bloodstained face sinks in death on the hostile soil. and turnus standing over him . . .: 'arcadians,' he cries, 'remember these my words, and bear them to evander. i send him back his pallas as was due. all the meed of the tomb, all the solace of sepulture, i give freely. dearly must he pay his welcome to aeneas.' and with these words, planting his left foot on the dead, he tore away the broad heavy sword-belt engraven with a tale of crime, the array of grooms foully slain together on their bridal night, and the nuptial chambers dabbled with blood, which clonus, son of eurytus, had wrought richly in gold. now turnus exults in spoiling him of it, and rejoices at his prize. ah spirit of man, ignorant of fate and the allotted future, or to keep bounds when elate with prosperity!--the day will [ - ]come when turnus shall desire to have bought pallas' safety at a great ransom, and curse the spoils of this fatal day. but with many moans and tears pallas' comrades lay him on his shield and bear him away amid their ranks. o grief and glory and grace of the father to whom thou shalt return! this one day sent thee first to war, this one day takes thee away, while yet thou leavest heaped high thy rutulian dead. and now no rumour of the dreadful loss, but a surer messenger flies to aeneas, telling him his troops are on the thin edge of doom; it is time to succour the routed teucrians. he mows down all that meets him, and hews a broad path through their columns with furious sword, as he seeks thee, o turnus, in thy fresh pride of slaughter. pallas, evander, all flash before his eyes; the board whereto but then he had first come a wanderer, and the clasped hands. here four of sulmo's children, as many more of ufens' nurture, are taken by him alive to slaughter in sacrifice to the shade below, and slake the flames of the pyre with captive blood. next he levelled his spear full on magus from far. he stoops cunningly; the spear flies quivering over him; and, clasping his knees, he speaks thus beseechingly: 'by thy father's ghost, by iülus thy growing hope, i entreat thee, save this life for a child and a parent. my house is stately; deep in it lies buried wealth of engraven silver; i have masses of wrought and unwrought gold. the victory of troy does not turn on this, nor will a single life make so great a difference.' he ended; to him aeneas thus returns answer: 'all the wealth of silver and gold thou tellest of, spare thou for thy children. turnus hath broken off this thy trafficking in war, even then when pallas fell. thus judges the ghost of my father anchises, thus iülus.' so speaking, he grasps his helmet with his left hand, and, bending back his neck, drives his [ - ]sword up to the hilt in the suppliant. hard by is haemonides, priest of phoebus and trivia, his temples wound with the holy ribboned chaplet, all glittering in white-robed array. him he meets and chases down the plain, and, standing over his fallen foe, slaughters him and wraps him in great darkness; serestus gathers the armour and carries it away on his shoulders, a trophy, king gradivus, to thee. caeculus, born of vulcan's race, and umbro, who comes from the marsian hills, fill up the line. the dardanian rushes full on them. his sword had hewn off anxur's left arm, with all the circle of the shield--he had uttered brave words and deemed his prowess would second his vaunts, and perchance with spirit lifted up had promised himself hoar age and length of years--when tarquitus in the pride of his glittering arms met his fiery course, whom the nymph dryope had borne to faunus, haunter of the woodland. drawing back his spear, he pins the ponderous shield to the corslet; then, as he vainly pleaded and would say many a thing, strikes his head to the ground, and, rolling away the warm body, cries thus over his enemy: 'lie there now, terrible one! no mother's love shall lay thee in the sod, or place thy limbs beneath thine heavy ancestral tomb. to birds of prey shalt thou be left, or borne down sunk in the eddying water, where hungry fish shall suck thy wounds.' next he sweeps on antaeus and lucas, the first of turnus' train, and brave numa and tawny-haired camers, born of noble volscens, who was wealthiest in land of the ausonians, and reigned in silent amyclae. even as aegaeon, who, men say, had an hundred arms, an hundred hands, fifty mouths and breasts ablaze with fire, and arrayed against jove's thunders as many clashing shields and drawn swords: so aeneas, when once his sword's point grew warm, rages victorious over all the field. nay, lo! he darts full in face on niphaeus' four-horse chariot; before his long strides [ - ]and dreadful cry they turned in terror and dashed back, throwing out their driver and tearing the chariot down the beach. meanwhile the brothers lucagus and liger drive up with their pair of white horses. lucagus valiantly waves his drawn sword, while his brother wheels his horses with the rein. aeneas, wrathful at their mad onslaught, rushes on them, towering high with levelled spear. to him liger . . . 'not diomede's horses dost thou discern, nor achilles' chariot, nor the plains of phrygia: now on this soil of ours the war and thy life shall end together.' thus fly mad liger's random words. but not in words does the trojan hero frame his reply: for he hurls his javelin at the foe. as lucagus spurred on his horses, bending forward over the whip, with left foot advanced ready for battle, the spear passes through the lower rim of his shining shield and pierces his left groin, knocks him out of the chariot, and stretches him in death on the fields. to him good aeneas speaks in bitter words: 'lucagus, no slackness in thy coursers' flight hath betrayed thee, or vain shadow of the foe turned them back; thyself thou leapest off the harnessed wheels.' in such wise he spoke, and caught the horses. his brother, slipping down from the chariot, pitiably outstretched helpless hands: 'ah, by the parents who gave thee birth, great trojan, spare this life and pity my prayer.' more he was pleading; but aeneas: 'not such were the words thou wert uttering. die, and be brother undivided from brother.' with that his sword's point pierces the breast where the life lies hid. thus the dardanian captain dealt death over the plain, like some raging torrent stream or black whirlwind. at last the boy ascanius and his troops burst through the ineffectual leaguer and issue from the camp. meanwhile jupiter breaks silence to accost juno: 'o sister and wife best beloved, it is venus, as thou deemedst, [ - ]nor is thy judgment astray, who sustains the forces of troy; not their own valour of hand in war, and untamable spirit and endurance in peril.' to whom juno beseechingly: 'why, fair my lord, vexest thou one sick at heart and trembling at thy bitter words? if that force were in my love that once was, and that was well, never had thine omnipotence denied me leave to withdraw turnus from battle and preserve him for his father daunus in safety. now let him perish, and pay forfeit to the trojans of his innocent blood. yet he traces his birth from our name, and pilumnus was his father in the fourth generation, and oft and again his bountiful hand hath heaped thy courts with gifts.' to her the king of high heaven thus briefly spoke: 'if thy prayer for him is delay of present death and respite from his fall, and thou dost understand that i ordain it thus, remove thy turnus in flight, and snatch him from the fate that is upon him. for so much indulgence there is room. but if any ampler grace mask itself in these thy prayers, and thou dreamest of change in the whole movement of the war, idle is the hope thou nursest.' and juno, weeping: 'ah yet, if thy mind were gracious where thy lips are stern, and this gift of life might remain confirmed to turnus! now his portion is bitter and guiltless death, or i wander idly from the truth. yet, oh that i rather deluded myself with false alarms, and thou who canst wouldst bend thy course to better counsels.' these words uttered, she darted through the air straight from high heaven, cloud-girt in driving tempest, and sought the ilian ranks and camp of laurentum. then the goddess, strange and ominous to see, fashions into the likeness of aeneas a thin and pithless shade of hollow mist, decks it with dardanian weapons, and gives it the mimicry of shield and divine helmet plume, gives unsubstantial [ - ]words and senseless utterance, and the mould and motion of his tread: like shapes rumoured to flit when death is past, or dreams that delude the slumbering senses. but in front of the battle-ranks the phantom dances rejoicingly, and with arms and mocking accents provokes the foe. turnus hastens up and sends his spear whistling from far on it; it gives back and turns its footsteps. then indeed turnus, when he believed aeneas turned and fled from him, and his spirit madly drank in the illusive hope: 'whither fliest thou, aeneas? forsake not thy plighted bridal chamber. this hand shall give thee the land thou hast sought overseas.' so clamouring he pursues, and brandishes his drawn sword, and sees not that his rejoicing is drifting with the winds. the ship lay haply moored to a high ledge of rock, with ladders run out and gangway ready, wherein king osinius sailed from the coasts of clusium. here the fluttering phantom of flying aeneas darts and hides itself. nor is turnus slack to follow; he overleaps the barriers and springs across the high gangways. scarcely had he lighted on the prow; the daughter of saturn snaps the hawser, and the ship, parted from her cable, runs out on the ebbing tide. and him aeneas seeks for battle and finds not, and sends many a man that meets him to death. then the light phantom seeks not yet any further hiding-place, but, flitting aloft, melts in a dark cloud; and a blast comes down meanwhile and sweeps turnus through the seas. he looks back, witless of his case and thankless for his salvation, and, wailing, stretches both hands to heaven: 'father omnipotent, was i so guilty in thine eyes, and is this the punishment thou hast ordained? whither am i borne? whence came i? what flight is this, or in what guise do i return? shall i look again on the camp or walls of laurentum? what of that array of men who followed me to arms? whom--oh horrible!--i have abandoned all amid [ - ]a dreadful death; and now i see the stragglers and catch the groans of those who fall. what do i? or how may earth ever yawn for me deep enough? do you rather, o winds, be pitiful, carry my bark on rock or reef; it is i, turnus, who desire and implore you; or drive me on the cruel shoals of the syrtis, where no rutulian may follow nor rumour know my name.' thus speaking, he wavers in mind this way and that: maddened by the shame, shall he plunge on his sword's harsh point and drive it through his side, or fling himself among the waves, and seek by swimming to gain the winding shore, again to return on the trojan arms? thrice he essayed either way; thrice queenly juno checked and restrained him in pity of heart. cleaving the deep, he floats with the tide down the flood, and is borne on to his father daunus' ancient city. but meanwhile at jove's prompting fiery mezentius takes his place in the battle and assails the triumphant teucrians. the tyrrhene ranks gather round him, and all at once in unison shower their darts down on the hated foe. as a cliff that juts into the waste of waves, meeting the raging winds and breasting the deep, endures all the threatening force of sky and sea, itself fixed immovable, so he dashes to earth hebrus son of dolichaon, and with him latagus, and palmus as he fled; catching latagus full front in the face with a vast fragment of mountain rock, while palmus he hamstrings, and leaves him rolling helpless; his armour he gives lausus to wear on his shoulders, and the plumes to fix on his crest. with them fall evanthes the phrygian, and mimas, fellow and birthmate of paris; for on one night theano bore him to his father amycus, and the queen, cisseus' daughter, was delivered of paris the firebrand; he sleeps in his fathers' city; mimas lies a stranger on the laurentian coast. and as the boar driven by snapping hounds from the mountain heights, [ - ]many a year hidden by vesulus in his pines, many an one fed in the laurentian marsh among the reedy forest, once come among the nets, halts and snorts savagely, with shoulders bristling up, and none of them dare be wrathful or draw closer, but they shower from a safe distance their darts and cries; even thus none of those whose anger is righteous against mezentius have courage to meet him with drawn weapon: far off they provoke him with missiles and huge clamour, and he turns slow and fearless round about, grinding his teeth as he shakes the spears off his shield. from the bounds of ancient corythus acron the greek had come, leaving for exile a bride half won. seeing him afar dealing confusion amid the ranks, in crimson plumes and his plighted wife's purple,--as an unpastured lion often ranging the deep coverts, for madness of hunger urges him, if he haply catches sight of a timorous roe or high-antlered stag, he gapes hugely for joy, and, with mane on end, clings crouching over its flesh, his cruel mouth bathed in reeking gore. . . . so mezentius darts lightly among the thick of the enemy. hapless acron goes down, and, spurning the dark ground, gasps out his life, and covers the broken javelin with his blood. but the victor deigned not to bring down orodes with the blind wound of his flying lance as he fled; full face to face he meets him, and engages man with man, conqueror not by stealth but armed valour. then, as with planted foot, he thrust him off the spear: 'o men,' he cries, 'orodes lies low, no slight arm of the war.' his comrades shout after him the glad battle chant. and the dying man: 'not unavenged nor long, whoso thou art, shalt thou be glad in victory: thee too an equal fate marks down, and in these fields thou shalt soon lie.' and smiling on him half wrathfully, mezentius: 'now die thou. but of me let the father of gods and king of men take counsel.' so saying, he drew the weapon out of his body. [ - ]grim rest and iron slumber seal his eyes; his lids close on everlasting night. caedicus slays alcathoüs, sacrator hydaspes, rapo parthenius and the grim strength of orses, messapus clonius and erichaetes son of lycaon, the one when his reinless horse stumbling had flung him to the ground, the other as they met on foot. and agis the lycian advanced only to be struck from horseback by valerus, brave as his ancestry; and thronius by salius, and salius by nealces with treacherous arrow-shot that stole from far. now the heavy hand of war dealt equal woe and counterchange of death; in even balance conquerors and conquered slew and fell; nor one nor other knows of retreat. the gods in jove's house pity the vain rage of either and all the agonising of mortals. from one side venus, from one opposite juno, daughter of saturn, looks on; pale tisiphone rages among the many thousand men. but now, brandishing his huge spear, mezentius strides glooming over the plain, vast as orion when, with planted foot, he cleaves his way through the vast pools of mid-ocean and his shoulder overtops the waves, or carrying an ancient mountain-ash from the hilltops, paces the ground and hides his head among the clouds: so moves mezentius, huge in arms. aeneas, espying him in the deep columns, makes on to meet him. he remains, unterrified, awaiting his noble foe, steady in his own bulk, and measures with his eye the fair range for a spear. 'this right hand's divinity, and the weapon i poise and hurl, now be favourable! thee, lausus, i vow for the live trophy of aeneas, dressed in the spoils stripped from the pirate's body.' he ends, and throws the spear whistling from far; it flies on, glancing from the shield, and pierces illustrious antores hard by him sidelong in the flank; antores, companion of hercules, who, sent thither from argos, had stayed by evander, and [ - ]settled in an italian town. hapless he goes down with a wound not his own, and in death gazes on the sky, and argos is sweet in his remembrance. then good aeneas throws his spear; through the sheltering circle of threefold brass, through the canvas lining and fabric of triple-sewn bull-hide it went, and sank deep in his groin; yet carried not its strength home. quickly aeneas, joyful at the sight of the tyrrhenian's blood, snatches his sword from his thigh and presses hotly on his struggling enemy. lausus saw, and groaned deeply for love of his dear father, and tears rolled over his face. here will i not keep silence of thy hard death-doom and thine excellent deeds (if in any wise things wrought in the old time may win belief), nor of thyself, o fitly remembered! he, helpless and trammelled, withdrew backward, the deadly spear-shaft trailing from his shield. the youth broke forward and plunged into the fight; and even as aeneas' hand rose to bring down the blow, he caught up his point and held him in delay. his comrades follow up with loud cries, so the father may withdraw in shelter of his son's shield, while they shower their darts and bear back the enemy with missiles from a distance. aeneas wrathfully keeps covered. and as when storm-clouds pour down in streaming hail, all the ploughmen and country-folk scatter off the fields, and the wayfarer cowers safe in his fortress, a stream's bank or deep arch of rock, while the rain falls, that they may do their day's labour when sunlight reappears; thus under the circling storm of weapons aeneas sustains the cloud of war till it thunders itself all away, and calls on lausus, on lausus, with chiding and menace: 'whither runnest thou on thy death, with daring beyond thy strength? thine affection betrays thee into rashness.' but none the less he leaps madly on; and now wrath rises higher and fiercer in the dardanian captain, and the fates pass lausus' last [ - ]threads through their hand; for aeneas drives the sword strongly right through him up all its length: the point pierced the light shield that armed his assailant, and the tunic sewn by his mother with flexible gold: blood filled his breast, and the life left the body and passed mourning through the air to the under world. but when anchises' son saw the look on the dying face, the face pale in wonderful wise, he sighed deeply in pity, and reached forth his hand, as the likeness of his own filial affection flashed across his soul. 'what now shall good aeneas give thee, what, o poor boy, for this thy praise, for guerdon of a nature so noble? keep for thine own the armour thou didst delight in; and i restore thee, if that matters aught at all, to the ghosts and ashes of thy parents. yet thou shalt have this sad comfort in thy piteous death, thou fallest by great aeneas' hand.' then, chiding his hesitating comrades, he lifts him from the ground, dabbling the comely-ranged tresses with blood. meanwhile his father, by the wave of the tiber river, stanched his wound with water, and rested his body against a tree-trunk. hard by his brazen helmet hangs from the boughs, and the heavy armour lies quietly on the meadow. chosen men stand round; he, sick and panting, leans his neck and lets his beard spread down over his chest. many a time he asks for lausus, and sends many an one to call him back and carry a parent's sad commands. but lausus his weeping comrades were bearing lifeless on his armour, mighty and mightily wounded to death. afar the soul prophetic of ill knew their lamentation: he soils his gray hairs plenteously with dust, and stretches both hands on high, and clings on the dead. 'was life's hold on me so sweet, o my son, that i let him i bore receive the hostile stroke in my room? am i, thy father, saved by these wounds of thine, and living by thy death? alas and woe! [ - ]now at last exile is bitter! now the wound is driven deep! and i, even i, o my son, stained thy name with crime, driven in hatred from the throne and sceptre of my fathers. i owed vengeance to my country and my people's resentment; might mine own guilty life but have paid it by every form of death! now i live, and leave not yet man and day; but i will.' as he speaks thus he raises himself painfully on his thigh, and though the violence of the deep wound cripples him, yet unbroken he bids his horse be brought, his beauty, his comfort, that ever had carried him victorious out of war, and says these words to the grieving beast: 'rhoebus, we have lived long, if aught at all lasts long with mortals. this day wilt thou either bring back in triumph the gory head and spoils of aeneas, and we will avenge lausus' agonies; or if no force opens a way, thou wilt die with me: for i deem not, bravest, thou wilt deign to bear an alien rule and a teucrian lord.' he spoke, and took his welcome seat on the back he knew, loading both hands with keen javelins, his head sheathed in glittering brass and shaggy horse-hair plumes. thus he galloped in. through his heart sweep together the vast tides of shame and mingling madness and grief. and with that he thrice loudly calls aeneas. aeneas knew the call, and makes glad invocation: 'so the father of gods speed me, so apollo on high: do thou essay to close hand to hand. . . .' thus much he utters, and moves up to meet him with levelled spear. and he: 'why seek to frighten me, fierce man, now my son is gone? this was thy one road to my ruin. we shrink not from death, nor relent before any of thy gods. cease; for i come to my death, first carrying these gifts for thee.' he spoke, and hurled a weapon at his enemy; then plants another and yet another as he darts round in a wide circle; but they are stayed on the boss of gold. thrice he rode wheeling close round him by the [ - ]left, and sent his weapons strongly in; thrice the trojan hero turns round, taking the grim forest on his brazen guard. then, weary of lingering in delay on delay, and plucking out spear-head after spear-head, and hard pressed in the uneven match of battle, with much counselling of spirit now at last he bursts forth, and sends his spear at the war-horse between the hollows of the temples. the creature raises itself erect, beating the air with its feet, throws its rider, and coming down after him in an entangled mass, slips its shoulder as it tumbles forward. the cries of trojans and latins kindle the sky. aeneas rushes up, drawing his sword from the scabbard, and thus above him: 'where now is gallant mezentius and all his fierce spirit?' thereto the tyrrhenian, as he came to himself and gazing up drank the air of heaven: 'bitter foe, why these taunts and menaces of death? naught forbids my slaughter; neither on such terms came i to battle, nor did my lausus make treaty for this between me and thee. this one thing i beseech thee, by whatsoever grace a vanquished enemy may claim: allow my body sepulture. i know i am girt by the bitter hatred of my people. stay, i implore, their fury, and grant me and my son union in the tomb.' so speaks he, and takes the sword in his throat unfalteringly, and the lifeblood spreads in a wave over his armour. book eleventh the council of the latins, and the life and death of camilla meanwhile dawn arose forth of ocean. aeneas, though the charge presses to give a space for burial of his comrades, and his mind is in the tumult of death, began to pay the gods his vows of victory with the breaking of the east. he plants on a mound a mighty oak with boughs lopped away on every hand, and arrays it in the gleaming arms stripped from mezentius the captain, a trophy to thee, mighty lord of war; he fixes on it the plumes dripping with blood, the broken spears, and the corslet struck and pierced in twelve places; he ties the shield of brass on his left hand, and hangs from his neck the ivory sword. then among his joyous comrades (for all the throng of his captains girt him close about) he begins in these words of cheer: 'the greatest deed is done, o men; be all fear gone for what remains. these are the spoils of a haughty king, the first-fruits won from him; my hands have set mezentius here. now our way lies to the walls of the latin king. prepare your arms in courage, and let your hopes anticipate the war; let no ignorant delay hinder or tardy thoughts of fear keep us back, so soon as heaven grant us to pluck up the standards and lead our army from the camp. [ - ]meanwhile let us commit to earth the unburied bodies of our comrades, since deep in acheron this honour is left alone. go,' says he, 'grace with the last gifts those noble souls whose blood won us this land for ours; and first let pallas be sent to evander's mourning city, he whose valour failed not when the day of darkness took him, and the bitter wave of death.' so speaks he weeping, and retraces his steps to the door, where aged acoetes watched pallas' lifeless body laid out for burial; once armour-bearer to evander in parrhasia, but now gone forth with darker omens, appointed attendant to his darling foster-child. around is the whole train of servants, with a crowd of trojans, and the ilian women with hair unbound in mourning after their fashion. when aeneas entered at the high doorway they beat their breasts and raise a loud wail aloft, and the palace moans to their grievous lamentation. himself, when he saw the pillowed head and fair face of pallas, and on his smooth breast the gaping wound of the ausonian spear-head, speaks thus with welling tears: 'did fortune in her joyous coming,' he cries, 'o luckless boy, grudge thee the sight of our realm, and a triumphal entry to thy father's dwelling? not this promise of thee had i given to evander thy sire at my departure, when he embraced me as i went and bade me speed to a wide empire, and yet warned me in fear that the men were valiant, the people obstinate in battle. and now he, fast ensnared by empty hope, perchance offers vows and heaps gifts on his altars; we, a mourning train, go in hollow honour by his corpse, who now owes no more to aught in heaven. unhappy! thou wilt see thy son cruelly slain; is this our triumphal return awaited? is this my strong assurance? ah me, what a shield is lost, mine iülus, to ausonia and to thee!' [ - ]this lament done, he bids raise the piteous body, and sends a thousand men chosen from all his army for the last honour of escort, to mingle in the father's tears; a small comfort in a great sorrow, yet the unhappy parent's due. others quickly plait a soft wicker bier of arbutus rods and oak shoots, and shadow the heaped pillows with a leafy covering. here they lay him, high on their rustic strewing; even as some tender violet or drooping hyacinth-blossom plucked by a maiden's finger, whose sheen and whose grace is not yet departed, but no more does earth the mother feed it or lend it strength. then aeneas bore forth two purple garments stiff with gold, that sidonian dido's own hands, happy over their work, had once wrought for him, and shot the warp with delicate gold. one of these he sadly folds round him, a last honour, and veils in its covering the tresses destined to the fire; and heaps up besides many a laurentine battle-prize, and bids his spoils pass forth in long train; with them the horses and arms whereof he had stripped the enemy, and those, with hands tied behind their back, whom he would send as nether offering to his ghost, and sprinkle the blood of their slaying on the flame. also he bids his captains carry stems dressed in the armour of the foe, and fix on them the hostile names. unhappy acoetes is led along, outworn with age, he smites his breast and rends his face, and flings himself forward all along the ground. likewise they lead forth the chariot bathed in rutulian blood; behind goes weeping aethon the war-horse, his trappings laid away, and big drops wet his face. others bear his spear and helmet, for all else is turnus' prize. then follow in mourning array the teucrians and all the tyrrhenians, and the arcadians with arms reversed. when the whole long escorting file had taken its way, aeneas stopped, and sighing deep, pursued thus: 'once again war's dreadful destiny calls us hence to other tears: [ - ]hail thou for evermore, o princely pallas, and for evermore farewell.' and without more words he bent his way to the high walls and advanced towards his camp. and now envoys were there from the latin city with wreathed boughs of olive, praying him of his grace to restore the dead that lay strewn by the sword over the plain, and let them go to their earthy grave: no war lasts with men conquered and bereft of breath; let this indulgence be given to men once called friends and fathers of their brides. to them aeneas grants leave in kind and courteous wise, spurning not their prayer, and goes on in these words: 'what spite of fortune, o latins, hath entangled you in the toils of war, and made you fly our friendship? plead you for peace to the lifeless bodies that the battle-lot hath slain? i would fain grant it even to the living. neither have i come but because destiny had given me this place to dwell in; nor wage i war with your people; your king it is who hath broken our covenant and preferred to trust himself to turnus' arms. fitter it were turnus had faced death to-day. if he will fight out the war and expel the teucrians, it had been well to meet me here in arms; so had he lived to whom life were granted of heaven or his own right hand. now go, and kindle the fire beneath your hapless countrymen.' aeneas ended: they stood dumb in silence, with faces bent steadfastly in mutual gaze. then aged drances, ever young turnus' assailant in hatred and accusation, with the words of his mouth thus answers him again: 'o trojan, great in renown, yet greater in arms, with what praises may i extol thy divine goodness? shall thy righteousness first wake my wonder, or thy toils in war? we indeed will gratefully carry these words to our fathers' city, and, if fortune grant a way, will make thee at one with king latinus. let turnus seek his own alliances. nay, [ - ]it will be our delight to rear the massy walls of destiny and stoop our shoulders under the stones of troy.' he ended thus, and all with one voice murmured assent. twelve days' truce is struck, and in mediation of the peace teucrians and latins stray mingling unharmed on the forest heights. the tall ash echoes to the axe's strokes; they overturn pines that soar into the sky, and busily cleave oaken logs and scented cedar with wedges, and drag mountain-ashes on their groaning waggons. and now flying rumour, harbinger of the heavy woe, fills evander and evander's house and city with the same voice that but now told of pallas victorious over latium. the arcadians stream to the gates, snatching funeral torches after their ancient use; the road gleams with the long line of flame, and parts the fields with a broad pathway of light; the arriving crowd of phrygians meets them and mingles in mourning array. when the matrons saw all the train approach their dwellings they kindle the town with loud wailing. but no force may withhold evander; he comes amid them; the bier is set down; he flings himself on pallas, and clasps him with tears and sighs, and scarcely at last does grief leave his voice's utterance free. 'other than this, o pallas! was thy promise to thy father, that thou wouldst not plunge recklessly into the fury of battle. i knew well how strong was the fresh pride of arms and the sweetness of honour in a first battle. ah, unhappy first-fruits of his youth and bitter prelude of the war upon our borders! ah, vows and prayers of mine that no god heard! and thou, pure crown of wifehood, happy that thou art dead and not spared for this sorrow! but i have outgone my destiny in living, to stay here the survivor of my child. would i had followed the allied arms of troy, to be overwhelmed by rutulian weapons! would my life had been given, and i and not my pallas were borne home in this [ - ]procession! i would not blame you, o teucrians, nor our treaty and the friendly hands we clasped: our old age had that appointed debt to pay. yet if untimely death awaited my son, it will be good to think he fell leading the teucrians into latium, and slew his volscian thousands before he fell. nay, no other funeral than this would i deem thy due, my pallas, than good aeneas does, than the mighty phrygians, than the tyrrhene captains and all the army of tyrrhenia. great are the trophies they bring on whom thine hand deals death; thou also, turnus, wert standing now a great trunk dressed in arms, had his age and his strength of years equalled thine. but why, unhappy, do i delay the trojan arms? go, and forget not to carry this message to your king: thine hand it is that keeps me lingering in a life that is hateful since pallas fell, and turnus is the debt thou seest son and father claim: for thy virtue and thy fortune this scope alone is left. i ask not joy in life; i may not; but to carry this to my son deep in the under world.' meanwhile dawn had raised her gracious light on weary men, bringing back task and toil: now lord aeneas, how tarchon, have built the pyres on the winding shore. hither in ancestral fashion hath each borne the bodies of his kin; the dark fire is lit beneath, and the vapour hides high heaven in gloom. thrice, girt in glittering arms, they have marched about the blazing piles, thrice compassed on horseback the sad fire of death, and uttered their wail. tears fall fast upon earth and armour; cries of men and blare of trumpets roll skyward. then some fling on the fire latin spoils stripped from the slain, helmets and shapely swords, bridles and glowing chariot wheels; others familiar gifts, the very shields and luckless weapons of the dead. around are slain in sacrifice oxen many in number, and bristly swine and cattle gathered out of all the country [ - ]are slaughtered over the flames. then, crowding the shore, they gaze on their burning comrades, and guard the embers of the pyres, and cannot tear themselves away till dewy night wheels on the star-spangled glittering sky. therewithal the unhappy latins far apart build countless pyres and bury many bodies of men in the ground; and many more they lift and bear away to the neighbouring country, or send them back to the city; the rest, a vast heap of undistinguishable slaughter, they burn uncounted and unhonoured; on all sides the broad fields gleam with crowded rivalry of fires. the third dawn had rolled away the chill shadow from the sky; mournfully they piled high the ashes and mingled bones from the embers, and heaped a load of warm earth above them. now in the dwellings of rich latinus' city the noise is loudest and most the long wail. here mothers and their sons' unhappy brides, here beloved sisters sad-hearted and orphaned boys curse the disastrous war and turnus' bridal, and bid him his own self arm and decide the issue with the sword, since he claims for himself the first rank and the lordship of italy. drances fiercely embitters their cry, and vouches that turnus alone is called, alone is claimed for battle. yet therewith many a diverse-worded counsel is for turnus, and the great name of the queen overshadows him, and he rises high in renown of trophies fitly won. among their stir, and while confusion is fiercest, lo! to crown all, the envoys from great diomede's city bring their gloomy message: nothing is come of all the toil and labour spent; gifts and gold and strong entreaties have been of no avail; latium must seek other arms, or sue for peace to the trojan king. for heavy grief king latinus himself swoons away. the wrath of heaven and the fresh graves before his eyes warn him that aeneas is borne on by fate's evident will. so he sends imperial summons to [ - ]his high council, the foremost of his people, and gathers them within his lofty courts. they assemble, and stream up the crowded streets to the royal dwelling. latinus, eldest in years and first in royalty, sits amid them with cheerless brow, and bids the envoys sent back from the aetolian city tell the news they bring, and demands a full and ordered reply. then tongues are hushed; and venulus, obeying his word, thus begins to speak: 'we have seen, o citizens, diomede in his argive camp, and outsped our way and passed all its dangers, and touched the hand whereunder the land of ilium fell. he was founding a town, named argyripa after his ancestral people, on the conquered fields of iapygian garganus. after we entered in, and licence of open speech was given, we lay forth our gifts, we instruct him of our name and country, who are its invaders, and why we are drawn to arpi. he heard us, and replied thus with face unstirred: '"o fortunate races, realm of saturn, ausonians of old, how doth fortune vex your quiet and woo you to tempt wars you know not? we that have drawn sword on the fields of ilium--i forbear to tell the drains of war beneath her high walls, the men sunken in yonder simoïs--have all over the world paid to the full our punishment and the reward of guilt, a crew priam's self might pity; as minerva's baleful star knows, and the euboïc reefs and caphereus' revenge. from that warfaring driven to alien shores, menelaus son of atreus is in exile far as proteus' pillars, ulysses hath seen the cyclopes of aetna. shall i make mention of the realm of neoptolemus, and idomeneus' household gods overthrown? or of the locrians who dwell on the libyan beach? even the lord of mycenae, the mighty achaeans' general, sank on his own threshold edge under his accursed wife's hand, where the adulterer crouched over conquered asia. aye, or that the gods grudged it me to return to [ - ]my ancestral altars, to see the bride of my desire, and lovely calydon! now likewise sights of appalling presage pursue me; my comrades, lost to me, have soared winging into the sky, and flit birds about the rivers--ah me, dread punishment of my people!--and fill the cliffs with their melancholy cries. this it was i had to look for even from the time when i madly assailed celestial limbs with steel, and sullied the hand of venus with a wound. do not, ah, do not urge me to such battles. neither have i any war with troy since her towers are overthrown, nor do i remember with delight the woes of old. turn to aeneas with the gifts you bear to me from your ancestral borders. we have stood to face his grim weapons, and met him hand to hand; believe one who hath proved it, how mightily he rises over his shield, in what a whirlwind he hurls his spear. had the land of ida borne two more like him, dardanus had marched to attack the towns of inachus, and greece were mourning fate's reverse. in all our delay before that obstinate trojan city, it was hector and aeneas whose hand stayed the grecian victory and bore back its advance to the tenth year. both were splendid in courage, both eminent in arms; aeneas was first in duty. let your hands join in treaty as they may; but beware that your weapons close not with his." 'thou hast heard, most gracious king, at once what is the king's answer, and what his counsel for our great struggle.' scarcely thus the envoys, when a diverse murmur ran through the troubled lips of the ausonians; even as, when rocks delay some running river, it plashes in the barred pool, and the banks murmur nigh to the babbling wave. so soon as their minds were quieted, and their hurrying lips hushed, the king, first calling on the gods, begins from his lofty throne: [ - ]'ere now could i wish, o latins, we had determined our course of state, and it had been better thus; not to meet in council at such a time as now, with the enemy seated before our walls. we wage an ill-timed war, fellow-citizens, with a divine race, invincible, unbroken in battle, who brook not even when conquered to drop the sword. if you had hope in appeal to aetolian arms, abandon it; though each man's hope is his own, you discern how narrow a path it is. beyond that you see with your eyes and handle with your hands the total ruin of our fortunes. i blame no one; what valour's utmost could do is done; we have fought with our whole kingdom's strength. now i will unfold what i doubtfully advise and purpose, and with your attention instruct you of it in brief. there is an ancient land of mine bordering the tuscan river, stretching far westward beyond the sicanian borders. auruncans and rutulians sow on it, work the stiff hills with the ploughshare, and pasture them where they are roughest. let all this tract, with a pine-clad belt of mountain height, pass to the teucrians in friendship; let us name fair terms of treaty, and invite them as allies to our realm; let them settle, if they desire it so, and found a city. but if they have a mind to try other coasts and another people, and can abide to leave our soil, let us build twice ten ships of italian oak, or as many more as they can man; timber lies at the water's edge for all; let them assign the number and fashion of the vessels, and we will supply brass, labour, dockyards. further, it is our will that an hundred ambassadors of the highest rank in latium shall go to bear our words and ratify the treaty, holding forth in their hands the boughs of peace, and carrying for gifts weight of gold and ivory, and the chair and striped robe, our royal array. give counsel openly, and succour our exhausted state.' then drances again, he whose jealous ill-will was [ - ]wrought to anger and stung with bitterness by turnus' fame, lavish of wealth and quick of tongue though his hand was cold in war, held no empty counsellor and potent in faction--his mother's rank ennobled a lineage whose paternal source was obscure--rises, and with these words heaps and heightens their passion: 'dark to no man and needing no voice of ours, o gracious king, is that whereon thou takest counsel. all confess they know how our nation's fortune sways; but their words are choked. let him grant freedom of speech and abate his breath, he by whose disastrous government and perverse way (i will speak out, though he menace me with arms and death) we see so many stars of battle gone down and all our city sunk in mourning; while he, confident in flight, assails the trojan camp and makes heaven quail before his arms. add yet one to those gifts of thine, to all the riches thou bidst us send or promise to the dardanians, most gracious of kings, but one; let no man's passion overbear thee from giving thine own daughter to an illustrious son and a worthy marriage, and binding this peace by perpetual treaty. yet if we are thus terror-stricken heart and soul, let us implore him in person, in person plead him of his grace to give way, to restore king and country their proper right. why again and again hurlest thou these unhappy citizens on peril so evident, o source and spring of latium's woes? in war is no safety; peace we all implore of thee, o turnus, and the one pledge that makes peace inviolable. i the first, i whom thou picturest thine enemy, as i care not if i am, see, i bow at thy feet. pity thine allies; relent, and retire before thy conqueror. enough have we seen of rout and death, and desolation over our broad lands. or if glory stir thee, if such strength kindle in thy breast, and if a palace so delight thee for thy dower, be bold, and advance stout-hearted upon the foe. we verily, that turnus [ - ]may have his royal bride, must lie scattered on the plains, worthless lives, a crowd unburied and unwept. do thou also, if thou hast aught of might, if the war-god be in thee as in thy fathers, look him in the face who challenges. . . .' at these words turnus' passion blazed out. he utters a groan, and breaks forth thus in deep accents: 'copious indeed, drances, and fluent is ever thy speech at the moment war calls for action; and when the fathers are summoned thou art there the first. but we need no words to fill our senate-house, safely as thou wingest them while the mounded walls keep off the enemy, and the trenches swim not yet with blood. thunder on in rhetoric, thy wonted way: accuse thou me of fear, drances, since thine hand hath heaped so many teucrians in slaughter, and thy glorious trophies dot the fields. trial is open of what live valour can do; nor indeed is our foe far to seek; on all sides they surround our walls. are we going to meet them? why linger? will thy bravery ever be in that windy tongue and those timorous feet of thine? . . . _my conqueror?_ shall any justly flout me as conquered, who sees tiber swoln fuller with ilian blood, and all the house and people of evander laid low, and the arcadians stripped of their armour? not such did bitias and huge pandarus prove me, and the thousand men whom on one day my conquering hand sent down to hell, shut as i was in their walls and closed in the enemy's ramparts. _in war is no safety._ fool! be thy boding on the dardanian's head and thine own fortunes. go on; cease not to throw all into confusion with thy terrors, to exalt the strength of a twice vanquished race, and abase the arms of latinus before it. now the princes of the myrmidons tremble before phrygian arms, now tydeus' son and achilles of larissa, and aufidus river recoils from the adriatic wave. or when the scheming villain [ - ]pretends to shrink at my abuse, and sharpens calumny by terror! never shall this hand--keep quiet!--rob thee of such a soul; with thee let it abide, and dwell in that breast of thine. now i return to thee, my lord, and thy weighty resolves. if thou dost repose no further hope in our arms, if all hath indeed left us, and one repulse been our utter ruin, and our fortune is beyond recovery, let us plead for peace and stretch forth unarmed hands. yet ah! had we aught of our wonted manhood, his toil beyond all other is blessed and his spirit eminent, who rather than see it thus, hath fallen prone in death and once bitten the ground. but if we have yet resources and an army still unbroken, and cities and peoples of italy remain for our aid; but if even the trojans have won their glory at great cost of blood (they too have their deaths, and the storm fell equally on all), why do we shamefully faint even on the threshold? why does a shudder seize our limbs before the trumpet sound? often do the days and the varying change of toiling time restore prosperity; often fortune in broken visits makes man her sport and again establishes him. the aetolian of arpi will not help us; but messapus will, and tolumnius the fortunate, and the captains sent by many a nation; nor will fame be scant to follow the flower of latium and the laurentine land. camilla the volscian too is with us, leading her train of cavalry, squadrons splendid in brass. but if i only am claimed by the teucrians for combat, if that is your pleasure, and i am the barrier to the public good, victory does not so hate and shun my hands that i should renounce any enterprise for so great a hope. i shall meet him in courage, did he outmatch great achilles and wear arms like his forged by vulcan's hands. to you and to my father latinus i turnus, unexcelled in bravery by any of old, consecrate my life. _aeneas calls on him alone_: let him, i implore: let not drances rather appease with his [ - ]life this wrath of heaven, if such it be, or win the renown of valour.' thus they one with another strove together in uncertainty; aeneas moved from his camp to battle. lo, a messenger rushes spreading confusion through the royal house, and fills the town with great alarms: the teucrians, ranged in battle-line with the tyrrhene forces, are marching down by the tiber river and filling the plain. immediately spirits are stirred and hearts shaken and wrath roused in fierce excitement among the crowd. hurrying hands grasp at arms; for arms their young men clamour; the fathers shed tears and mutter gloomily. with that a great noise rises aloft in diverse contention, even as when flocks of birds haply settle on a lofty grove, or swans utter their hoarse cry among the vocal pools on the fish-filled river of padusa. 'yes, citizens!' cries turnus, seizing his time: 'gather in council and sit praising peace, while they rush on dominion in arms!' without more words he sprung up and issued swiftly from the high halls. 'thou, volusus,' he cries, 'bid the volscian battalions arm, and lead out the rutulians. messapus, and coras with thy brother, spread your armed cavalry widely over the plain. let a division entrench the city gates and man the towers: the rest of our array attack with me where i command.' the whole town goes rushing to the walls; lord latinus himself, dismayed by the woeful emergency, quits the council and puts off his high designs, and chides himself sorely for not having given aeneas unasked welcome, and made him son and bulwark of the city. some entrench the gates, or bring up supply of stones and poles. the hoarse clarion utters the ensanguined note of war. a motley ring of boys and matrons girdle the walls. therewithal the queen with a crowd of mothers ascends bearing gifts to pallas' towered temple, and by her side goes maiden lavinia, source of all that woe, [ - ]her beautiful eyes cast down. the mothers enter in, and while the temple steams with their incense, pour from the high doorway their mournful cry: 'maiden armipotent, tritonian, sovereign of war, break with thine hand the spear of the phrygian plunderer, hurl him prone to earth and dash him down beneath our lofty gates.' turnus arrays himself in hot haste for battle, and even now hath done on his sparkling breastplate with its flickering scales of brass, and clasped his golden greaves, his brows yet bare and his sword buckled to his side; he runs down from the fortress height glittering in gold, and exultantly anticipates the foe. thus when a horse snaps his tether, and, free at last, rushes from the stalls and gains the open plain, he either darts towards the pastures of the herded mares, or bathing, as is his wont, in the familiar river waters, dashes out and neighs with neck stretched high, glorying, and his mane tosses over collar and shoulder. camilla with her volscian array meets him face to face in the gateway; the princess leaps from her horse, and all her squadron at her example slide from horseback to the ground. then she speaks thus: 'turnus, if bravery hath any just self-confidence, i dare and promise to engage aeneas' cavalry, and advance to meet the tyrrhene horse. permit my hand to try war's first perils: do thou on foot keep by the walls and guard the city.' to this turnus, with eyes fixed on the terrible maiden: 'o maiden flower of italy, how may i essay to express, how to prove my gratitude? but now, since that spirit of thine excels all praise, share thou the toil with me. aeneas, as the report of the scouts i sent assures, hath sent on his light-armed horse to annoy us and scour the plains; himself he marches on the city across the lonely ridge of the mountain steep. i am arranging a stratagem of [ - ]war in his pathway on the wooded slope, to block a gorge on the highroad with armed troops. do thou receive and join battle with the tyrrhene cavalry; with thee shall be gallant messapus, the latin squadrons, and tiburtus' division: do thou likewise assume a captain's charge.' so speaks he, and with like words heartens messapus and the allied captains to battle, and advances towards the enemy. there is a sweeping curve of glen, made for ambushes and devices of arms. dark thick foliage hems it in on either hand, and into it a bare footpath leads by a narrow gorge and difficult entrance. right above it on the watch-towers of the hill-top lies an unexpected level, hidden away in shelter, whether one would charge from right and left or stand on the ridge and roll down heavy stones. hither he passes by a line of way he knew, and, seizing his ground, occupies the treacherous woods. meanwhile in the heavenly dwellings latona's daughter addressed fleet opis, one of her maiden fellowship and sacred band, and sadly uttered these accents: 'camilla moves to fierce war, o maiden, and vainly girds on our arms, dear as she is beyond others to me. for her love of diana is not newly born, nor her spirit stirred by sudden affection. driven from his kingdom through jealousy of his haughty power, metabus left ancient privernum town, and bore his infant with him in his flight through war and battle, the companion of his exile, and called her by her mother casmilla's name, with a little change, camilla. carrying her before him on his breast, he sought a long ridge of lonely woodland; on all sides angry weapons pressed on him, and volscian soldiery spread hurrying round about. lo, in mid flight swoln amasenus ran foaming with banks abrim, so heavily had the clouds burst in rain. he would swim it; but love of the infant holds him back in alarm for so dear a burden. inly revolving [ - ]all, he settled reluctantly on a sudden resolve: the great spear that the warrior haply carried in his stout hand, of hard-knotted and seasoned oak, to it he ties his daughter swathed in cork-tree bark of the woodland, and binds her balanced round the middle of the spear; poising it in his great right hand he thus cries aloft: "gracious one, haunter of the woodland, maiden daughter of latona, a father devotes this babe to thy service; thine is this weapon she holds, thine infant suppliant, flying through the air from her enemies. accept her, i implore, o goddess, for thine own, whom now i entrust to the chance of air." he spoke, and drawing back his arm, darts the spinning spear-shaft: the waters roar: over the racing river poor camilla shoots on the whistling weapon. but metabus, as a strong band now presses nigher, plunges into the river, and triumphantly pulls spear and girl, his gift to trivia, from the grassy turf. no cities ever received him within house or rampart, nor had his savagery submitted to it; he led his life on the lonely pastoral hills. here he nursed his daughter in the underwood among tangled coverts, on the milk of a wild brood-mare's teats, squeezing the udder into her tender lips. and so soon as the baby stood and went straight on her feet, he armed her hands with a sharp javelin, and hung quiver and bow from her little shoulders. instead of gold to clasp her tresses, instead of the long skirted gown, a tiger's spoils hang down her back. even then her tender hand hurled childish darts, and whirled about her head the twisted thong of her sling, and struck down the crane from strymon or the milk-white swan. many a mother among tyrrhenian towns destined her for their sons in vain; content with diana alone, she keeps unsoiled for ever the love of her darts and maidenhood. would she had not plunged thus into warfare and provoked the trojans by attack! so were she now dear to me and one of my [ - ]company. but since bitter doom is upon her, up, glide from heaven, o nymph, and seek the latin borders, where under evil omen they join in baleful battle. take these, and draw from the quiver an avenging shaft; by it shall he pay me forfeit of his blood, whoso, trojan or italian alike, shall sully her sacred body with a wound. thereafter will i in a sheltering cloud bear body and armour of the hapless girl unspoiled to the tomb, and lay them in her native land.' she spoke; but the other sped lightly down the aery sky, girt about with dark whirlwind on her echoing way. but meanwhile the trojan force nears the walls, with the etruscan captains and their whole cavalry arrayed in ordered squadrons. their horses' trampling hoofs thunder on all the field, as, swerving this way and that, they chafe at the reins' pressure; the iron field bristles wide with spears, and the plain is aflame with uplifted arms. likewise messapus and the latin horse, and coras and his brother, and maiden camilla's squadron, come forth against them on the plain, and draw back their hands and level the flickering points of their long lances, in a fire of neighing horses and advancing men. and now each had drawn within javelin-cast of each, and drew up; with a sudden shout they dart forth, and urge on their furious horses; from all sides at once weapons shower thick like snow, and veil the sky with their shadow. in a moment tyrrhenus and fiery aconteus charge violently with crossing spears, and are the first to fall; they go down with a heavy crash, and their beasts break and shatter chest upon chest. aconteus, hurled off like a thunderbolt or some mass slung from an engine, is dashed away, and scatters his life in air. immediately the lines waver, and the latins wheeling about throw their shields behind them and turn their horses towards the town. the trojans pursue; asilas heads and leads on [ - ]their squadrons. and now they drew nigh the gates, and again the latins raise a shout and wheel their supple necks about; the pursuers fly, and gallop right back with loosened rein: as when the sea, running up in ebb and flow, now rushes shoreward and strikes over the cliffs in a wave of foam, drenching the edge of the sand in its curving sweep; now runs swirling back, and the surge sucks the rolling stones away. twice the tuscans turn and drive the rutulians towards the town; twice they are repelled, and look back behind them from cover of their shields. but when now meeting in a third encounter, the lines are locked together all their length, and man singles out his man; then indeed, amid groans of the dying, deep in blood roll armour and bodies, and horses half slain mixed up with slaughtered men. the battle swells fierce. orsilochus hurled his spear at the horse of remulus, whom himself he shrank to meet, and left the steel in it under the ear; at the stroke the charger rears madly, and, mastered by the wound, lifts his chest and flings up his legs: the rider is thrown and rolls over on the ground. catillus strikes down iollas, and herminius mighty in courage, mighty in limbs and arms, bareheaded, tawny-haired, bare-shouldered; undismayed by wounds, he leaves his vast body open against arms. through his broad shoulders the quivering spear runs piercing him through, and doubles him up with pain. everywhere the dark blood flows; they deal death with the sword in battle, and seek a noble death by wounds. but amid the slaughter camilla rages, a quivered amazon, with one side stripped for battle, and now sends tough javelins showering from her hand, now snatches the strong battle-axe in her unwearying grasp; the golden bow, the armour of diana, clashes on her shoulders; and even when forced backward in retreat, she turns in flight and [ - ]aims darts from her bow. but around her are her chosen comrades, maiden larina, tulla, tarpeia brandishing an axe inlaid with bronze, girls of italy, whom camilla the bright chose for her own escort, good at service in peace and war: even as thracian amazons when the streams of thermodon clash beneath them as they go to war in painted arms, whether around hippolyte, or while martial penthesilea returns in her chariot, and the crescent-shielded columns of women dance with loud confused cry. whom first, whom last, fierce maiden, does thy dart strike down? first euneus, son of clytius; for as he meets her the long fir shaft crashes through his open breast. he falls spouting streams of blood, and bites the gory ground, and dying writhes himself upon his wound. then liris and pagasus above him; who fall headlong and together, the one thrown as he reins up his horse stabbed under him, the other while he runs forward and stretches his unarmed hand to stay his fall. to these she joins amastrus, son of hippotas, and follows from far with her spear tereus and harpalycus and demophoön and chromis: and as many darts as the maiden sends whirling from her hand, so many phrygians fall. ornytus the hunter rides near in strange arms on his iapygian horse, his broad warrior's shoulders swathed in the hide stripped from a bullock, his head covered by a wolf's wide-grinning mouth and white-tusked jaws; a rustic pike arms his hand; himself he moves amid the squadrons a full head over all. catching him up (for that was easy amid the rout), she runs him through, and thus cries above her enemy: 'thou wert hunting wild beasts in the forest, thoughtest thou, tyrrhenian? the day is come for a woman's arms to refute thy words. yet no light fame shalt thou carry to thy fathers' ghosts, to have fallen under the weapon of camilla.' next orsilochus and butes, the two mightiest of mould among the teucrians; butes she pierces in the [ - ]back with her spear-point between corslet and helmet, where the neck shews as he sits, and the shield hangs from his left shoulder; orsilochus she flies, and darting in a wide circle, slips into the inner ring and pursues her pursuer; then rising her full height, she drives the strong axe deep through armour and bone, as he pleads and makes much entreaty; warm brain from the wound splashes his face. one met her thus and hung startled by the sudden sight, the warrior son of aunus haunter of the apennine, not the meanest in liguria while fate allowed him to deceive. and he, when he discerns that no fleetness of foot may now save him from battle or turn the princess from pursuit, essays to wind a subtle device of treachery, and thus begins: 'how hast thou glory, if a woman trust in her horse's strength? debar retreat; trust thyself to level ground at close quarters with me, and prepare to fight on foot. soon wilt thou know how windy boasting brings one to harm.' he spoke; but she, furious and stung with fiery indignation, hands her horse to an attendant, and takes her stand in equal arms on foot and undismayed, with naked sword and shield unemblazoned. but he, thinking his craft had won the day, himself flies off on the instant, and turning his rein, darts off in flight, pricking his beast to speed with iron-armed heel. 'false ligurian, in vain elated in thy pride! for naught hast thou attempted thy slippery native arts, nor will thy craft bring thee home unhurt to treacherous aunus.' so speaks the maiden, and with running feet swift as fire crosses his horse, and catching the bridle, meets him in front and takes her vengeance in her enemy's blood: as lightly as the falcon, bird of bale, swoops down from aloft on a pigeon high in a cloud, and pounces on and holds her, and disembowels her with taloned feet, while blood and torn feathers flutter down the sky. but the creator of men and gods sits high on olympus' [ - ]summit watching this, not with eyes unseeing: he kindles tyrrhenian tarchon to the fierce battle, and sharply goads him on to wrath. so tarchon gallops amid the slaughter where his squadrons retreat, and urges his troops in changing tones, calling man on man by name, and rallies the fliers to fight. 'what terror, what utter cowardice hath fallen on your spirits, o never to be stung to shame, o slack alway? a woman drives you in disorder and routs our ranks! why wear we steel? for what are these idle weapons in our hands? yet not slack in venus' service and wars by night, or, when the curving flute proclaims bacchus' revels, to look forward to the feast and the cups on the loaded board (this your passion, this your desire!) till the soothsayer pronounce the offering favourable, and the fatted victim invite you to the deep groves.' so speaking, he spurs his horse into the midmost, ready himself to die, and bears violently down full on venulus; and tearing him from horseback, grasps his enemy and carries him away with him on the saddle-bow by main force. a cry rises up, and all the latins turn their eyes. tarchon flies like fire over the plain, carrying the armed man, and breaks off the steel head from his own spear and searches the uncovered places, trying where he may deal the mortal blow; the other struggling against him keeps his hand off his throat, and strongly parries his attack. and, as when a golden eagle snatches and soars with a serpent in his clutch, and his feet are fast in it, and his talons cling; but the wounded snake writhes in coiling spires, and its scales rise and roughen, and its mouth hisses as it towers upward; the bird none the less attacks his struggling prize with crooked beak, while his vans beat the air: even so tarchon carries tiburtus out of the ranks, triumphant in his prize. following their captain's example and issue the men of maeonia charge in. then arruns, due to his [ - ]doom, circles in advance of fleet camilla with artful javelin, and tries how fortune may be easiest. where the maiden darts furious amid the ranks, there arruns slips up and silently tracks her footsteps; where she returns victorious and retires from amid the enemy, there he stealthily bends his rapid reins. here he approaches, and here again he approaches, and strays all round and about, and untiringly shakes his certain spear. haply chloreus, sacred to cybele and once her priest, glittered afar, splendid in phrygian armour; a skin feathered with brazen scales and clasped with gold clothed the horse that foamed under his spur; himself he shone in foreign blue and scarlet, with fleet gortynian shafts and a lycian horn; a golden bow was on his shoulder, and the soothsayer's helmet was of gold; red gold knotted up his yellow scarf with its rustling lawny folds; his tunics and barbarian trousers were wrought in needlework. him, whether that she might nail armour of troy on her temples, or herself move in captive gold, the maiden pursued in blind chase alone of all the battle conflict, and down the whole line, reckless and fired by a woman's passion for spoils and plunder: when at last out of his ambush arruns chooses his time and darts his javelin, praying thus aloud to heaven: 'apollo, most high of gods, holy soracte's warder, to whom we beyond all do worship, for whom the blaze of the pinewood heap is fed, where we thy worshippers in pious faith print our steps amid the deep embers of the fire, grant, o lord omnipotent, that our arms wipe off this disgrace. i seek not the dress the maiden wore, nor trophy or any spoil of victory; other deeds shall bring me praise; let but this dread scourge fall stricken beneath my wound, i will return inglorious to my native towns.' phoebus heard, and inly granted half his vow to prosper, half he shred into the flying breezes. to surprise and strike down camilla in sudden death, this he [ - ]yielded to his prayer; that his high home might see his return he gave not, and a gust swept off his accents on the gale. so, when the spear sped from his hand hurtled through the air, all the volscians marked it well and turned their eyes on the queen; and she alone knew not wind or sound of the weapon on its aery path, till the spear passed home and sank where her breast met it, and, driven deep, drank her maiden blood. her companions run hastily up and catch their sinking mistress. arruns takes to flight more alarmed than all, in mingled fear and exultation, and no longer dares to trust his spear or face the maiden's weapons. and as the wolf, some shepherd or great bullock slain, plunges at once among the trackless mountain heights ere hostile darts are in pursuit, and knows how reckless he hath been, and drooping his tail lays it quivering under his belly, and seeks the woods; even so does arruns withdraw from sight in dismay, and, satisfied to escape, mingles in the throng of arms. the dying woman pulls at the weapon with her hand; but the iron head is fixed deep in the wound up between the rib-bones. she swoons away with loss of blood; chilling in death her eyes swoon away; the once lustrous colour leaves her face. then gasping, she thus accosts acca, one of her birthmates, who alone before all was true to camilla, with whom her cares were divided; and even so she speaks: 'thus far, acca my sister, have i availed; now the bitter wound overmasters me, and all about me darkens in haze. haste away, and carry to turnus my last message; to take my place in battle, and repel the trojans from the town. and now goodbye.' even with the words she dropped the reins and slid to ground unconscious. then the unnerving chill overspread her, her neck slackened, her head sank overpowered by death, and her arms fell, and with a moan the life fled indignant into the dark. then indeed an [ - ]infinite cry rises and smites the golden stars; the battle grows bloodier now camilla is down; at once in serried rants all the teucrian forces pour in, with the tyrrhene captains and evander's arcadian squadrons. but opis, trivia's sentinel, long ere now sits high on the hill-tops, gazing on the battle undismayed. and when afar amid the din of angry men she espied camilla done woefully to death, she sighed and uttered forth a deep cry: 'ah too, too cruel, o maiden, the forfeit thou hast paid for daring armed attack on the teucrians! and nothing hath availed thee thy lonely following of diana in the woodlands, nor wearing our quiver on thy shoulder. yet thy queen hath not left thee unhonoured now thy latter end is come; nor will this thy death be unnamed among the nations, nor shalt thou bear the fame of one unavenged; for whosoever hath sullied thy body with a wound shall pay death for due.' under the mountain height was a great earthen mound, tomb of dercennus, a laurentine king of old, shrouded in shadowy ilex. hither the goddess most beautiful first swoops down, and marks arruns from the mounded height. as she saw him glittering in arms and idly exultant: 'why,' she cries, 'wanderest thou away? hitherward direct thy steps; come hither to thy doom, to receive thy fit reward for camilla. shalt thou die, and by diana's weapons?' the thracian spoke, and slid out a fleet arrow from her gilded quiver, and stretched it level on the bow, and drew it far, till the curving tips met one another, and now her hands touched in counterpoise, the left the steel edge, the string in the right her breast. at once and in a moment arruns heard the whistle of the dart and the resounding air, as the steel sank in his body. his comrades leave him forgotten on the unknown dust of the plain, moaning his last and gasping his life away; opis wings her flight to the skyey heaven. [ - ]at once the light squadron of camilla retreat now they have lost their mistress; the rutulians retreat in confusion, brave atinas retreats. scattered captains and thinned companies make for safety, and turn their horses backward to the town. nor does any avail to make stand against the swarming death-dealing teucrians, or bear their shock in arms; but their unstrung bows droop on their shoulders, and the four-footed galloping horse-hoof shakes the crumbling plain. the eddying dust rolls up thick and black towards the walls, and on the watch-towers mothers beat their breasts and the cries of women rise up to heaven. on such as first in the rout broke in at the open gates the mingling hostile throng follows hard; nor do they escape death, alas! but in the very gateway, within their native city and amid their sheltering homes, they are pierced through and gasp out their life. some shut the gates, and dare not open to their pleading comrades nor receive them in the town; and a most pitiful slaughter begins between armed men who guard the entry and others who rush upon their arms. barred out before their weeping parents' eyes and faces, some, swept on by the rout, roll headlong into the trenches; some, blindly rushing with loosened rein, batter at the gates and stiffly-bolted doorway. the very mothers from the walls in eager heat (true love of country points the way, when they see camilla) dart weapons with shaking hand, and eagerly make hard stocks of wood and fire-hardened poles serve for steel, and burn to die among the foremost for their city's sake. meanwhile among the forests the terrible news pours in on turnus, and acca brings him news of the mighty invasion; the volscian lines are destroyed; camilla is fallen; the enemy thicken and press on, and have swept all before them down the tide of battle. raging he leaves the hills he had beset--jove's stern will ordains it [ - ]so--and quits the rough woodland. scarcely had he marched out of sight and gained the plain when lord aeneas enters the open defiles, surmounts the ridge, and issues from the dim forest. so both advance swiftly to the town with all their columns, no long march apart, and at once aeneas descried afar the plains all smoking with dust, and saw the laurentine columns, and turnus knew aeneas terrible in arms, and heard the advancing feet and the neighing of the horses. and straightway would they join battle and essay the conflict, but that ruddy phoebus even now dips his weary coursers in the iberian flood, and night draws on over the fading day. they encamp before the city, and draw their trenches round the walls. book twelfth the slaying of turnus when turnus sees the latins broken and fainting in the thwart issue of war, his promise claimed for fulfilment, and men's eyes pointed on him, his own spirit rises in unappeasable flame. as the lion in phoenician fields, his breast heavily wounded by the huntsmen, at last starts into arms, and shakes out the shaggy masses from his exultant neck, and undismayed snaps the brigand's planted weapon, roaring with blood-stained mouth; even so turnus kindles and swells in passion. then he thus addresses the king, and so furiously begins: 'turnus stops not the way; there is no excuse for the coward aeneadae to take back their words or renounce their compact. i join battle; bring the holy things, my lord, and swear the treaty. either this hand shall hurl to hell the dardanian who skulks from asia, and the latins sit and see my single sword wipe out the nation's reproach; or let him rule his conquest, and lavinia pass to his espousal.' to him latinus calmly replied: 'o excellent young man! the more thy hot valour abounds, the more intently must i counsel, and weigh fearfully what may befall. thou hast thy father daunus' realm, hast many towns taken by [ - ]thine hand, nor is latinus lacking in gold and goodwill. there are other maidens unwedded in latium and laurentine fields, and of no mean birth. let me unfold this hard saying in all sincerity: and do thou drink it into thy soul. i might not ally my daughter to any of her old wooers; such was the universal oracle of gods and men. overborne by love for thee, overborne by kinship of blood and my weeping wife's complaint, i broke all fetters, i severed the maiden from her promised husband, i took up unrighteous arms. since then, turnus, thou seest what calamities, what wars pursue me, what woes thyself before all dost suffer. twice vanquished in pitched battle, we scarce guard in our city walls the hopes of italy: the streams of tiber yet run warm with our blood, and our bones whiten the boundless plain. why fall i away again and again? what madness bends my purpose? if i am ready to take them into alliance after turnus' destruction, why do i not rather bar the strife while he lives? what will thy rutulian kinsmen, will all italy say, if thy death--fortune make void the word!--comes by my betrayal, while thou suest for our daughter in marriage? cast a glance on war's changing fortune; pity thine aged father, who now far away sits sad in his native ardea.' in nowise do the words bend turnus' passion: he rages the more fiercely, and sickens of the cure. so soon as he found speech he thus made utterance: 'the care thou hast for me, most gracious lord, for me lay down, i implore thee, and let me purchase honour with death. our hand too rains weapons, our steel is strong; and our wounds too draw blood. the goddess his mother will be far from him to cover his flight, woman-like, in a cloud and an empty phantom's hiding.' but the queen, dismayed by the new terms of battle, wept, and clung to her fiery son as one ready to die: [ - ]'turnus, by these tears, by amata's regard, if that touches thee at all--thou art now the one hope, the repose of mine unhappy age; in thine hand is latinus' honour and empire, on thee is the weight of all our sinking house--one thing i beseech thee; forbear to join battle with the teucrians. what fate soever awaits thee in the strife thou seekest, it awaits me, turnus, too: with thee will i leave the hateful light, nor shall my captive eyes see aeneas my daughter's lord.' lavinia tearfully heard her mother's words with cheeks all aflame, as deep blushes set her face on fire and ran hotly over it. even as indian ivory, if one stain it with sanguine dye, or where white lilies are red with many a rose amid: such colour came on the maiden's face. love throws him into tumult, and stays his countenance on the girl: he burns fiercer for arms, and briefly answers amata: 'do not, i pray thee, do not weep for me, neither pursue me thus ominously as i go to the stern shock of war. turnus is not free to dally with death. thou, idmon, bear my message to the phrygian monarch in this harsh wording: so soon as to-morrow's dawn rises in the sky blushing on her crimson wheels, let him not loose teucrian or rutulian: let teucrian and rutulian arms have rest, and our blood decide the war; on that field let lavinia be sought in marriage.' these words uttered, withdrawing swiftly homeward, he orders out his horses, and rejoicingly beholds them snorting before his face: those that orithyia's self gave to grace pilumnus, such as would excel the snows in whiteness and the gales in speed. the eager charioteers stand round and pat their chests with clapping hollowed hands, and comb their tressed manes. himself next he girds on his shoulders the corslet stiff with gold and pale mountain-bronze, and buckles on the sword and shield and scarlet-plumed [ - ]helmet-spikes: that sword the divine lord of fire had himself forged for his father daunus and dipped glowing in the stygian wave. next, where it stood amid his dwelling leaning on a massy pillar, he strongly seizes his stout spear, the spoil of actor the auruncan, and brandishes it quivering, and cries aloud: 'now, o spear that never hast failed at my call, now the time is come; thee princely actor once, thee turnus now wields in his grasp. grant this strong hand to strike down the effeminate phrygian, to rend and shatter the corslet, and defile in dust the locks curled with hot iron and wet with myrrh.' thus madly he runs on: sparkles leap out from all his blazing face, and his keen eyes flash fire: even as the bull when before his first fight he bellows awfully, and drives against a tree's trunk to make trial of his angry horns, and buffets the air with blows or scatters the sand in prelude of battle. and therewithal aeneas, terrible in his mother's armour, kindles for warfare and awakes into wrath, rejoicing that offer of treaty stays the war. comforting his comrades and sorrowing iülus' fear, he instructs them of destiny, and bids bear answer of assurance to king latinus, and name the laws of peace. scarcely did the morrow shed on the mountain-tops the beams of risen day, as the horses of the sun begin to rise from the deep flood and breathe light from their lifted nostrils; rutulian and teucrian men measured out and made ready a field of battle under the great city's ramparts, and midway in it hearth-fires and grassy altars to the gods of both peoples; while others bore spring water and fire, draped in priestly dress and their brows bound with grass of the field. the ausonian army issue forth, and crowd through the gates in streaming serried columns. on this side all the trojan and tyrrhenian host pour in diverse armament, girt with iron even as though the harsh battle-strife [ - ]called them forth. therewith amid their thousands the captains dart up and down, splendid in gold and purple, mnestheus, seed of assaracus, and brave asilas, and messapus, tamer of horses, brood of neptune: then each on signal given retired to his own ground; they plant their spears in the earth and lean their shields against them. mothers in eager abandonment, and the unarmed crowd and feeble elders beset towers and house-roofs, or stand at the lofty gates. but juno, on the summit that is now called the alban--then the mountain had neither name nor fame or honour--looked forth from the hill and surveyed the plain and double lines of laurentine and trojan, and latinus' town. straightway spoke she thus to turnus' sister, goddess to goddess, lady of pools and noisy rivers: such worship did jupiter the high king of air consecrate to her for her stolen virginity: 'nymph, grace of rivers, best beloved of our soul, thou knowest how out of all the latin women that ever rose to high-hearted jove's thankless bed, thee only have i preferred and gladly given part and place in heaven. learn thy woe, that thou blame not me for it, juturna. where fortune seemed to allow and the destinies granted latinus' estate to prosper, i shielded turnus and thy city. now i see him joining battle with unequal fates, and the day of doom and deadly force draws nigh. mine eyes cannot look on this battle and treaty: thou, if thou darest aught of more present help for the brother of thy blood, go on; it befits thee. haply relief shall follow misery.' scarcely thus: when juturna's eyes overbrimmed with tears, and thrice and again she smote her hand on her gracious breast. 'this is not time for tears,' cries juno, daughter of saturn: 'hasten and snatch thy brother, if it may be, from his death; or do thou waken war, and make [ - ]the treaty abortive. i encourage thee to dare.' with such urgence she left her, doubting and dismayed, and grievously wounded in soul. meanwhile the kings go forth; latinus in mighty pomp rides in his four-horse chariot; twelve gilded rays go glittering round his brows, symbol of the sun his ancestor; turnus moves behind a white pair, clenching in his hand two broad-headed spears. on this side lord aeneas, fount of the roman race, ablaze in starlike shield and celestial arms, and close by ascanius, second hope of mighty rome, issue from the camp; and the priest, in spotless raiment, hath brought the young of a bristly sow and an unshorn sheep of two years old, and set his beasts by the blazing altars. they, turning their eyes towards the sunrising, scatter salted corn from their hands and clip the beasts with steel over the temples, and pour cups on the altars. then aeneas the good, with sword drawn, thus makes invocation: 'be the sun now witness, and this earth to my call, for whose sake i have borne to suffer so sore travail, and the lord omnipotent, and thou his wife, at last, divine daughter of saturn, at last i pray more favourable; and thou, mighty mavors, who wieldest all warfare in lordship beneath thy sway; and on the springs and rivers i call, and the dread of high heaven, and the divinities of the blue seas: if haply victory fall to turnus the ausonian, the vanquished make covenant to withdraw to evander's city; iülus shall quit the soil; nor ever hereafter shall the aeneadae return in arms to renew warfare, or attack this realm with the sword. but if victory grant battle to us and ours (as i think the rather, and so the rather may the gods seal their will), i will not bid italy obey my teucrians, nor do i claim the realm for mine; let both nations, unconquered, join treaty for ever under equal law. gods [ - ]and worship shall be of my giving: my father latinus shall bear the sword, and have a father's prescribed command. for me my teucrians shall establish a city, and lavinia give the town her name.' thus aeneas first: thereon latinus thus follows: 'by these same i swear, o aeneas, by earth, sea, sky, and the twin brood of latona and janus the double-facing, and the might of nether gods and grim pluto's shrine; this let our father hear, who seals treaties with his thunderbolt. i touch the altars, i take to witness the fires and the gods between us; no time shall break this peace and truce in italy, howsoever fortune fall; nor shall any force turn my will aside, not if it dissolve land into water in turmoil of deluge, or melt heaven in hell: so surely as this sceptre' (for haply he bore a sceptre in his hand) 'shall never burgeon into thin leafage and shady shoot, since once in the forest cut down right to the stem it lost its mother, and the steel lopped away its tressed arms: a tree of old: now the craftsman's hand hath bound it in adornment of brass and given it to our latin fathers' bearing.' with such words they sealed mutual treaty midway in sight of the princes. then they duly slay the consecrated beasts over the flames, and tear out their live entrails, and pile the altars with laden chargers. but long ere this the rutulians deemed the battle unequal, and their hearts are stirred in changeful motion; and now the more, as they discern nigher that in ill-matched strength . . . . heightened by turnus, as advancing with noiseless pace he humbly worships at the altar with downcast eye, by his wasted cheeks and the pallor on his youthful frame. soon as juturna his sister saw this talk spread, and the people's mind waver in uncertainty, into the mid ranks, in feigned form of camertus--his family was high in long ancestry, and his father's name [ - ]for valour renowned, and himself most valiant in arms--into the mid ranks she glides, not ignorant of her task, and scatters diverse rumours, saying thus: 'shame, o rutulians! shall we set one life in the breach for so many such as these? are we unequal in numbers or bravery? see, troy and arcadia is all they bring, and those fate-bound bands that etruria hurls on turnus. scarce is there an enemy to meet every other man of ours. he indeed will ascend to the gods for whose altars he devotes himself, and move living in the lips of men: we, our country lost, shall bow to the haughty rigour of our lords, if we now sit slackly on the field.' by such words the soldiers' counsel was kindled yet higher and higher, and a murmur crept through their columns; the very laurentines, the very latins are changed; and they who but now hoped for rest from battle and rescue of fortune now desire arms and pray the treaty were undone, and pity turnus' cruel lot. to this juturna adds a yet stronger impulse, and high in heaven shews a sign more potent than any to confuse italian souls with delusive augury. for on the crimsoned sky jove's tawny bird flew chasing, in a screaming crowd, fowl of the shore that winged their column; then suddenly stooping to the water, pounces on a noble swan with merciless crooked talons. the startled italians watch, while all the birds together clamorously wheel round from flight, wonderful to see, and dim the sky with their pinions, and in thickening cloud urge their foe through air, till, conquered by their attack and his heavy prey, he yielded and dropped it from his talons into the river, and winged his way deep into the clouds. then indeed the rutulians clamorously greet the omen, and their hands flash out. and tolumnius the augur cries before them all: 'this it was, this, that my vows often have sought; i welcome and know a deity; [ - ]follow me, follow, snatch up the sword, o hapless people whom the greedy alien frightens with his arms like silly birds, and with strong hand ravages your shores. he too will take to flight, and spread his sails afar over ocean. do you with one heart close up your squadrons, and defend in battle your lost king.' he spoke, and darting forward, hurled a weapon full on the enemy; the whistling cornel-shaft sings, and unerringly cleaves the air. at once and with it a vast shout goes up, and all their rows are amazed, and their hearts hotly stirred. the spear flies on; where haply stood opposite in ninefold brotherhood all the beautiful sons of one faithful tyrrhene wife, borne of her to gylippus the arcadian, one of them, midway where the sewn belt rubs on the flank and the clasp bites the fastenings of the side, one of them, excellent in beauty and glittering in arms, it pierces clean through the ribs and stretches on the yellow sand. but of his banded brethren, their courage fired by grief, some grasp and draw their swords, some snatch weapons to throw, and rush blindly forward. the laurentine columns rush forth against them; again from the other side trojans and agyllines and arcadians in painted armour flood thickly in: so hath one passion seized all to make decision by the sword. they pull the altars to pieces; through all the air goes a thick storm of weapons, and faster falls the iron rain. bowls and hearth-fires are carried off; latinus himself retreats, bearing the outraged gods of the broken treaty. the others harness their chariots, or vault upon their horses and come up with swords drawn. messapus, eager to shatter the treaty, rides menacingly down on aulestes the tyrrhenian, a king in a king's array. retreating hastily, and tripped on the altars that meet him behind, the hapless man goes down on his head and shoulders. but messapus flies up with wrathful spear, and strikes him, as he pleads sore, a deep downward [ - ]blow from horseback with his beam-like spear, saying thus: _that for him: the high gods take this better victim._ the italians crowd in and strip his warm limbs. corynaeus seizes a charred brand from the altar, and meeting ebysus as he advances to strike, darts the flame in his face; his heavy beard flamed up, and gave out a scorched smell. following up his enemy's confusion, the other seizes him with his left hand by the hair, and bears him to earth with a thrust of his planted knee, and there drives the unyielding sword into his side. podalirius pursues and overhangs with naked sword the shepherd alsus as he rushes amid the foremost line of weapons; alsus swings back his axe, and severs brow and chin full in front, wetting his armour all over with spattered blood. grim rest and iron slumber seal his eyes; his lids close on everlasting night. but good aeneas, his head bared, kept stretching his unarmed hand and calling loudly to his men: 'whither run you? what is this strife that so spreads and swells? ah, restrain your wrath! truce is already stricken, and all its laws ordained; mine alone is the right of battle. leave me alone, and my hand shall confirm the treaty; these rites already make turnus mine.' amid these accents, amid words like these, lo! a whistling arrow winged its way to him, sped from what hand or driven by what god, none knows, or what chance or deity brought such honour to the rutulians; the renown of the high deed was buried, nor did any boast to have dealt aeneas' wound. turnus, when he saw aeneas retreating from the ranks and his captains in dismay, burns hot with sudden hope. at once he calls for his horses and armour, and with a bound leaps proudly into his chariot and handles the reins. he darts on, dealing many a brave man's body to death; many an one he rolls half-slain, or crushes whole files under his chariot, or seizes and showers spears on the fugitives. as [ - ]when by the streams of icy hebrus mavors kindles to bloodshed and clashes on his shield, and stirs war and speeds his furious coursers; they outwing south winds and west on the open plain; utmost thrace groans under their hoof-beats; and around in the god's train rush the faces of dark terror, and wraths and ambushes; even so amid the battle turnus briskly lashes on his reeking horses, trampling on the foes that lie piteously slain; the galloping hoof scatters bloody dew, and spurns mingled gore and sand. and now hath he dealt sthenelus to death, and thamyrus and pholus, him and him at close quarters, the other from afar; from afar both the sons of imbrasus, glaucus and lades, whom imbrasus himself had nurtured in lycia and equipped in equal arms, whether to meet hand to hand or to outstrip the winds on horseback. elsewhere eumedes advances amid the fray, ancient dolon's brood, illustrious in war, renewing his grandfather's name, his father's courage and strength of hand, who of old dared to claim pelides' chariot as his price if he went to spy out the grecian camp; to him the son of tydeus told out another price for his venture, and he dreams no more of achilles' horses. him turnus descried far on the open plain, and first following him with light javelin through long space of air, stops his double-harnessed horses and leaps from the chariot, and descends on his fallen half-lifeless foe, and, planting his foot on his neck, wrests the blade out of his hand and dyes its glitter deep in his throat, adding these words withal: 'behold, thou liest, trojan, meting out those hesperian fields thou didst seek in war. such guerdon is theirs who dare to tempt my sword; thus do they found their city.' then with a spear-cast he sends asbutes to follow him, and chloreus and sybaris, dares and thersilochus, and thymoetes fallen flung over his horse's neck. and as when [ - ]the edonian north wind's wrath roars on the deep aegean, and the wave follows it shoreward; where the blast comes down, the clouds race over the sky; so, wheresoever turnus cleaves his way, columns retreat and lines turn and run; his own speed bears him on, and his flying plume tosses as his chariot meets the breeze. phegeus brooked not his proud approach; he faced the chariot, and caught and twisted away in his right hand the mouths of his horses, spurred into speed and foaming on the bit. dragged along and hanging by the yoke he is left uncovered; the broad lance-head reaches him, pins and pierces the double-woven breastplate, and lightly wounds the surface of his body. yet turning, he advanced on the enemy behind his shield, and sought succour in the naked point; when the wheel running forward on its swift axle struck him headlong and flung him to ground, and turnus' sword following it smote off his head between the helmet-rim and the upper border of the breastplate, and left the body on the sand. and while turnus thus victoriously deals death over the plains, mnestheus meantime and faithful achates, and ascanius by their side, set down aeneas in the camp, dabbled with blood and leaning every other step on his long spear. he storms, and tries hard to pull out the dart where the reed had broken, and calls for the nearest way of remedy, to cut open the wound with broad blade, and tear apart the weapon's lurking-place, and so send him back to battle. and now iapix son of iasus came, beloved beyond others of phoebus, to whom once of old, smitten with sharp desire, apollo gladly offered his own arts and gifts, augury and the lyre and swift arrows: he, to lengthen out the destiny of a parent given over to die, chose rather to know the potency of herbs and the practice of healing, and deal in a silent art unrenowned. aeneas stood chafing bitterly, propped on his vast spear, mourning [ - ]iülus and a great crowd of men around, unstirred by their tears. the aged man, with garment drawn back and girt about him in paeonian fashion, makes many a hurried effort with healing hand and the potent herbs of phoebus, all in vain; in vain his hand solicits the arrow-head, and his pincers' grasp pulls at the steel. fortune leads him forward in nowise; apollo aids not with counsel; and more and more the fierce clash swells over the plains, and the havoc draws nigher on. already they see the sky a mass of dust, the cavalry approaching, and shafts falling thickly amid the camp; the dismal cry uprises of warriors fighting and falling under the war-god's heavy hand. at this, stirred deep by her son's cruel pain, venus his mother plucked from cretan ida a stalk of dittamy with downy leaves and bright-tressed flowers, the plant not unknown to wild goats when winged arrows are fast in their body. this venus bore down, her shape girt in a dim halo; this she steeps with secret healing in the river-water poured out and sparkling abrim, and sprinkles life-giving juice of ambrosia and scented balm. with that water aged iapix washed the wound, unwitting; and suddenly, lo! all the pain left his body, all the blood in the deep wound was stanched. and now following his hand the arrow fell out with no force, and strength returned afresh as of old. 'hasten! arms for him quickly! why stand you?' cries iapix aloud, and begins to kindle their courage against the enemy; 'this comes not by human resource or schooling of art, nor does my hand save thee, aeneas: a higher god is at work, and sends thee back to higher deeds.' he, eager for battle, had already clasped on the greaves of gold right and left, and scorning delay, brandishes his spear. when the shield is adjusted by his side and the corslet on his back, he clasps ascanius in his armed embrace, and lightly kissing him through the helmet, cries: 'learn of me, o boy, valour [ - ]and toil indeed, fortune of others. now mine hand shall give thee defence in war, and lead thee to great reward: do thou, when hereafter thine age ripens to fulness, keep this in remembrance, and as thou recallest the pattern of thy kindred, let thy spirit rise to thy father aeneas, thine uncle hector.' these words uttered, he issued towering from the gates, brandishing his mighty spear: with him in serried column rush antheus and mnestheus, and all the throng streams forth of the camp. the field drifts with blinding dust, and the startled earth trembles under the tramp of feet. from his earthworks opposite turnus saw and the ausonians saw them come, and an icy shudder ran deep through their frame; first and before all the latins juturna heard and knew the sound, and in terror fled away. he flies on, and hurries his dark column over the open plain. as when in fierce weather a storm-cloud moves over mid sea to land, with presaging heart, ah me, the hapless husbandmen shudder from afar; it will deal havoc to their trees and destruction to their crops, and make a broad path of ruin; the winds fly before it, and bear its roar to the beach; so the rhoetean captain drives his army full on the foe; one and all they close up in wedges, and mass their serried ranks. thymbraeus smites massive osiris with the sword, mnestheus slays arcetius, achates epulo, gyas ufens: tolumnius the augur himself goes down, he who had hurled the first weapon against the foe. their cry rises to heaven, and in turn the routed rutulians give backward in flight over the dusty fields. himself he deigns not to cut down the fugitives, nor pursue such as meet him fair on foot or approach in arms: turnus alone he tracks and searches in the thick haze, alone calls him to conflict. then panic-stricken the warrior maiden flings turnus' charioteer out over his reins, and leaving him far where he slips from the [ - ]chariot-pole, herself succeeds and turns the wavy reins, tones and limbs and armour all of metiscus' wearing. as when a black swallow flits through some rich lord's spacious house, and circles in flight the lofty halls, gathering her tiny food for sustenance to her twittering nestlings, and now swoops down the spacious colonnades, now round the wet ponds; in like wise dart juturna's horses amid the enemy, and her fleet chariot passes flying over all the field. and now here and now here she displays her triumphant brother, nor yet allows him to close, but flies far and away. none the less does aeneas thread the circling maze to meet him, and tracks his man, and with loud cry cries on him through the scattered ranks. often as he cast eyes on his enemy and essayed to outrun the speed of the flying-footed horses, so often juturna wheeled her team away. alas, what can he do? vainly he tosses on the ebb and flow, and in his spirit diverse cares make conflicting call; when messapus, who haply bore in his left hand two tough spear-shafts topped with steel, runs lightly up and aims and hurls one of them upon him with unerring stroke. aeneas stood still, and gathered himself behind his armour, sinking on bended knee; yet the rushing spear bore off his helmet-spike, and dashed the helmet-plume from the crest. then indeed his wrath swells; and forced to it by their treachery, while chariot and horses disappear, he calls jove oft and again to witness, and the altars of the violated treaty, and now at last plunges amid their lines. sweeping terrible down the tide of battle he wakens fierce indiscriminate carnage, and flings loose all the reins of wrath. what god may now unfold for me in verse so many woes, so many diverse slaughters and death of captains whom now turnus, now again the trojan hero, drives over all the field? was it well, o god, that nations destined to everlasting peace should clash in so vast a shock? aeneas [ - ]meets sucro the rutulian; the combat stayed the first rush of the teucrians, but delayed them not long; he catches him on the side, and, when fate comes quickest, drives the harsh sword clean through the ribs where they fence the breast. turnus brings down amycus from horseback with his brother diores, and meets them on foot; him he strikes with his long spear as he comes, him with his sword-point, and hangs both severed heads on his chariot and carries them off dripping with blood. the one sends to death talos and tanaïs and brave cethegus, three at one meeting, and gloomy onites, of echionian name, and peridia the mother that bore him; the other those brethren sent from lycia and apollo's fields, and menoetes the arcadian, him who loathed warfare in vain; who once had his art and humble home about the river-fisheries of lerna, and knew not the courts of the great, but his father was tenant of the land he tilled. and as fires kindled dispersedly in a dry forest and rustling laurel-thickets, or foaming rivers where they leap swift and loud from high hills, and speed to sea each in his own path of havoc; as fiercely the two, aeneas and turnus, dash amid the battle; now, now wrath surges within them, and unconquerable hearts are torn; now in all their might they rush upon wounds. the one dashes murranus down and stretches him on the soil with a vast whirling mass of rock, as he cries the names of his fathers and forefathers of old, a whole line drawn through latin kings; under traces and yoke the wheels spurned him, and the fast-beating hoofs of his rushing horses trample down their forgotten lord. the other meets hyllus rushing on in gigantic pride, and hurls his weapon at his gold-bound temples; the spear pierced through the helmet and stood fast in the brain. neither did thy right hand save thee from turnus, o cretheus, bravest of the greeks; nor did his gods shield cupencus when aeneas came; he gave his [ - ]breast full to the steel, nor, alas! was the brazen shield's delay aught of avail. thee likewise, aeolus, the laurentine plains saw sink backward and cover a wide space of earth; thou fallest, whom argive battalions could not lay low, nor achilles the destroyer of priam's realm. here was thy goal of death; thine high house was under ida, at lyrnesus thine high house, on laurentine soil thy tomb. the whole battle-lines gather up, all latium and all dardania, mnestheus and valiant serestus, with messapus, tamer of horses, and brave asilas, the tuscan battalion and evander's arcadian squadrons; man by man they struggle with all their might; no rest nor pause in the vast strain of conflict. at this aeneas' mother most beautiful inspired him to advance on the walls, directing his columns on the town and dismaying the latins with sudden and swift disaster. as in search for turnus he bent his glance this way and that round the separate ranks, he descries the city free from all this warfare, unpunished and unstirred. straightway he kindles at the view of a greater battle; he summons mnestheus and sergestus and brave serestus his captains, and mounts a hillock; there the rest of the teucrian army gathers thickly, still grasping shield and spear. standing on the high mound amid them, he speaks: 'be there no delay to my words; jupiter is with us; neither let any be slower to move that the design is sudden. this city to-day, the source of war, the royal seat of latinus, unless they yield them to receive our yoke and obey their conquerors, will i raze to ground, and lay her smoking roofs level with the dust. must i wait forsooth till turnus please to stoop to combat, and choose again to face his conqueror? this, o citizens, is the fountain-head and crown of the accursed war. bring brands speedily, and reclaim the treaty in fire.' he ended; all with spirit alike emulous form a wedge and advance in serried masses to the walls. ladders are run [ - ]up, and fire leaps sudden to sight. some rush to the separate gates, and cut down the guards of the entry, others hurl their steel and darken the sky with weapons. aeneas himself among the foremost, upstretching his hand to the city walls, loudly reproaches latinus, and takes the gods to witness that he is again forced into battle, that twice now do the italians choose warfare and break a second treaty. discord rises among the alarmed citizens: some bid unbar the town and fling wide their gates to the dardanians, and pull the king himself towards the ramparts; others bring arms and hasten to defend the walls: as when a shepherd tracks bees to their retreat in a recessed rock, and fills it with stinging smoke, they within run uneasily up and down their waxen fortress, and hum louder in rising wrath; the smell rolls in darkness along their dwelling, and a blind murmur echoes within the rock as the smoke issues to the empty air. this fortune likewise befell the despairing latins, this woe shook the whole city to her base. the queen espies from her roof the enemy's approach, the walls scaled and firebrands flying on the houses; and nowhere rutulian ranks, none of turnus' columns to meet them; alas! she deems him destroyed in the shock of battle, and, distracted by sudden anguish, shrieks that she is the source of guilt, the spring of ill, and with many a mad utterance of frenzied grief rends her purple attire with dying hand, and ties from a lofty beam the ghastly noose of death. and when the unhappy latin women knew this calamity, first her daughter lavinia tears her flower-like tresses and roseate cheeks, and all the train around her madden in her suit; the wide palace echoes to their wailing, and from it the sorrowful rumour spreads abroad throughout the town. all hearts sink; latinus goes with torn raiment, in dismay at his wife's doom and his city's downfall, defiling his hoary hair with soilure of sprinkled dust. [ - ]meanwhile on the skirts of the field turnus chases scattered stragglers, ever slacker to battle, ever less and less exultant in his coursers' victorious speed. the confused cry came to him borne in blind terror down the breeze, and his startled ears caught the echoing tumult and disastrous murmur of the town. 'ah me! what agony shakes the city? or what is this cry that fleets so loud from the distant town?' so speaks he, and distractedly checks the reins. and to him his sister, as changed into his charioteer metiscus' likeness she swayed horses and chariot-reins, thus rejoined: 'this way, turnus, let us pursue the brood of troy, where victory opens her nearest way; there are others whose hands can protect their dwellings. aeneas falls fiercer on the italians, and closes in conflict; let our hand too deal pitiless death on his teucrians. neither in tale of dead nor in glory of battle shalt thou retire outdone.' thereat turnus: . . . 'ah my sister, long ere now i knew thee, when first thine arts shattered the treaty, and thou didst mingle in the strife; and now thy godhead conceals itself in vain. but who hath bidden thee descend from heaven to bear this sore travail? was it that thou mightest see thy hapless brother cruelly slain? for what do i, or what fortune yet gives promise of safety? before my very eyes, calling aloud on me, i saw murranus, than whom none other is left me more dear, sink huge to earth, borne down by as huge a wound. hapless ufens is fallen, not to see our shame; corpse and armour are in teucrian hands. the destruction of their households, this was the one thing yet lacking; shall i suffer it? shall my hand not refute drances' jeers? shall i turn my back, and this land see turnus a fugitive? is death all so bitter? do you, o shades, be gracious to me, since the powers of heaven are estranged; to you shall i go down, a pure spirit and [ - ]ignorant of your blame, never once unworthy of my mighty fathers of old.' scarce had he spoken thus; lo! saces, borne flying on his foaming horse through the thickest of the foe, an arrow-wound right in his face, darts, beseeching turnus by his name. 'turnus, in thee is our last safety; pity thy people. aeneas thunders in arms, and threatens to overthrow and hurl to destruction the high italian fortress; and already firebrands are flying on our roofs. on thee, on thee the latins turn their gazing eyes; king latinus himself mutters in doubt, whom he is to call his sons, to whom he shall incline in union. moreover the queen, thy surest stay, hath fallen by her own hand and in dismay fled the light. alone in front of the gates messapus and valiant atinas sustain the battle-line. round about them to right and left the armies stand locked and the iron field shivers with naked points; thou wheelest thy chariot on the sward alone.' at the distracting picture of his fortune turnus froze in horror and stood in dumb gaze; together in his heart sweep the vast mingling tides of shame and maddened grief, and love stung to frenzy and resolved valour. so soon as the darkness cleared and light returned to his soul, he fiercely turned his blazing eyeballs towards the ramparts, and gazed back from his wheels on the great city. and lo! a spire of flame wreathing through the floors wavered up skyward and held a turret fast, a turret that he himself had reared of mortised planks and set on rollers and laid with high gangways. 'now, o my sister, now fate prevails: cease to hinder; let us follow where deity and stern fortune call. i am resolved to face aeneas, resolved to bear what bitterness there is in death; nor shalt thou longer see me shamed, sister of mine. let me be mad, i pray thee, with this madness before the end.' he spoke, and leapt swiftly from his chariot to the field, and darting through weapons [ - ]and through enemies, leaves his sorrowing sister, and bursts in rapid course amid their columns. and as when a rock rushes headlong from some mountain peak, torn away by the blast, or if the rushing rain washes it away, or the stealing years loosen its ancient hold; the reckless mountain mass goes sheer and impetuous, and leaps along the ground, hurling with it forests and herds and men; thus through the scattering columns turnus rushes to the city walls, where the earth is wettest with bloodshed and the air sings with spears; and beckons with his hand, and thus begins aloud: 'forbear now, o rutulians, and you, latins, stay your weapons. whatsoever fortune is left is mine: i singly must expiate the treaty for you all, and make decision with the sword.' all drew aside and left him room. but lord aeneas, hearing turnus' name, abandons the walls, abandons the fortress height, and in exultant joy flings aside all hindrance, breaks off all work, and clashes his armour terribly, vast as athos, or as eryx, or as the lord of apennine when he roars with his tossing ilex woods and rears his snowy crest rejoicing into air. now indeed rutulians and trojans and all italy turned in emulous gaze, and they who held the high city, and they whose ram was battering the foundations of the wall, and unarmed their shoulders. latinus himself stands in amaze at the mighty men, born in distant quarters of the world, met and making decision with the sword. and they, in the empty level field that cleared for them, darted swiftly forward, and hurling their spears from far, close in battle shock with clangour of brazen shields. earth utters a moan; the sword-strokes fall thick and fast, chance and valour joining in one. and as in broad sila or high on taburnus, when two bulls rush to deadly battle forehead to forehead, the herdsmen retire in terror, all the herd stands dumb in dismay, and the heifers murmur in doubt which shall be [ - ]lord in the woodland, which all the cattle must follow; they violently deal many a mutual wound, and gore with their stubborn horns, bathing their necks and shoulders in abundant blood; all the woodland moans back their bellowing: even thus aeneas of troy and the daunian hero rush together shield to shield; the mighty crash fills the sky. jupiter himself holds up the two scales in even balance, and lays in them the different fates of both, trying which shall pay forfeit of the strife, whose weight shall sink in death. turnus darts out, thinking it secure, and rises with his whole reach of body on his uplifted sword; then strikes; trojans and latins cry out in excitement, and both armies strain their gaze. but the treacherous sword shivers, and in mid stroke deserts its eager lord. if flight aid him not now! he flies swifter than the wind, when once he descries a strange hilt in his weaponless hand. rumour is that in his headlong hurry, when mounting behind his yoked horses to begin the battle, he left his father's sword behind and caught up his charioteer metiscus' weapon; and that served him long, while teucrian stragglers turned their backs; when it met the divine vulcanian armour, the mortal blade like brittle ice snapped in the stroke; the shards lie glittering upon the yellow sand. so in distracted flight turnus darts afar over the plain, and now this way and now that crosses in wavering circles; for on all hands the teucrians locked him in crowded ring, and the dreary marsh on this side, on this the steep city ramparts hem him in. therewith aeneas pursues, though ever and anon his knees, disabled by the arrow, hinder and stay his speed; and foot hard on foot presses hotly on his hurrying enemy: as when a hunter courses with a fleet barking hound some stag caught in a river-loop or girt by the crimson-feathered toils, and he, in terror of the snares and the high river-bank, [ - ]darts back and forward in a thousand ways; but the keen umbrian clings agape, and just catches at him, and as though he caught him snaps his jaws while the baffled teeth close on vacancy. then indeed a cry goes up, and banks and pools answer round about, and all the sky echoes the din. he, even as he flies, chides all his rutulians, calling each by name, and shrieks for the sword he knew. but aeneas denounces death and instant doom if one of them draw nigh, and doubles their terror with threats of their city's destruction, and though wounded presses on. five circles they cover at full speed, and unwind as many this way and that; for not light nor slight is the prize they seek, but turnus' very lifeblood is at issue. here there haply had stood a bitter-leaved wild olive, sacred to faunus, a tree worshipped by mariners of old; on it, when rescued from the waves, they were wont to fix their gifts to the god of laurentum and hang their votive raiment; but the teucrians, unregarding, had cleared away the sacred stem, that they might meet on unimpeded lists. here stood aeneas' spear; hither borne by its own speed it was held fast stuck in the tough root. the dardanian stooped over it, and would wrench away the steel, to follow with the weapon him whom he could not catch in running. then indeed turnus cries in frantic terror: 'faunus, have pity, i beseech thee! and thou, most gracious earth, keep thy hold on the steel, as i ever have kept your worship, and the aeneadae again have polluted it in war.' he spoke, and called the god to aid in vows that fell not fruitless. for all aeneas' strength, his long struggling and delay over the tough stem availed not to unclose the hard grip of the wood. while he strains and pulls hard, the daunian goddess, changing once more into the charioteer metiscus' likeness, runs forward and passes her brother his sword. but venus, indignant that the [ - ]nymph might be so bold, drew nigh and wrenched away the spear where it stuck deep in the root. erect in fresh courage and arms, he with his faithful sword, he towering fierce over his spear, they face one another panting in the battle shock. meanwhile the king of heaven's omnipotence accosts juno as she gazes on the battle from a sunlit cloud. 'what yet shall be the end, o wife? what remains at the last? heaven claims aeneas as his country's god, thou thyself knowest and avowest to know, and fate lifts him to the stars. with what device or in what hope hangest thou chill in cloudland? was it well that a deity should be sullied by a mortal's wound? or that the lost sword--for what without thee could juturna avail?--should be restored to turnus and swell the force of the vanquished? forbear now, i pray, and bend to our entreaties; let not the pain thus devour thee in silence, and distress so often flood back on me from thy sweet lips. the end is come. thou hast had power to hunt the trojans over land or wave, to kindle accursed war, to put the house in mourning, and plunge the bridal in grief: further attempt i forbid thee.' thus jupiter began: thus the goddess, daughter of saturn, returned with looks cast down: 'even because this thy will, great jupiter, is known to me for thine, have i left, though loth, turnus alone on earth; nor else wouldst thou see me now, alone on this skyey seat, enduring good and bad; but girt in flame i were standing by their very lines, and dragging the teucrians into the deadly battle. i counselled juturna, i confess it, to succour her hapless brother, and for his life's sake favoured a greater daring; yet not the arrow-shot, not the bending of the bow, i swear by the merciless well-head of the stygian spring, the single ordained dread of the gods in heaven. and now i retire, and leave the battle in loathing. [ - ]this thing i beseech thee, that is bound by no fatal law, for latium and for the majesty of thy kindred. when now they shall plight peace with prosperous marriages (be it so!), when now they shall join in laws and treaties, bid thou not the native latins change their name of old, nor become trojans and take the teucrian name, or change their language, or alter their attire: let latium be, let alban kings endure through ages, let italian valour be potent in the race of rome. troy is fallen; let her and her name lie where they fell.' to her smilingly the designer of men and things: 'jove's own sister thou art, and second seed of saturn, such surge of wrath tosses within thy breast! but come, allay this madness so vainly stirred. i give thee thy will, and yield thee ungrudged victory. ausonia shall keep her native speech and usage, and as her name is, it shall be. the trojans shall sink mingling into their blood; i will add their sacred law and ritual, and make all latins and of a single speech. hence shall spring a race of tempered ausonian blood, whom thou shalt see outdo men and gods in duty; nor shall any nation so observe thy worship.' to this juno assented, and in gladness withdrew her purpose; meanwhile she quits her cloud, and retires out of the sky. this done, the father revolves inly another counsel, and prepares to separate juturna from her brother's arms. twin monsters there are, called the dirae by their name, whom with infernal megaera the dead of night bore at one single birth, and wreathed them in like serpent coils, and clothed them in windy wings. they appear at jove's throne and in the courts of the grim king, and quicken the terrors of wretched men whensoever the lord of heaven deals sicknesses and dreadful death, or sends terror of war upon guilty cities. one of these jupiter sent swiftly down from heaven's height, and bade her meet juturna for a [ - ]sign. she wings her way, and darts in a whirlwind to earth. even as an arrow through a cloud, darting from the string when parthian hath poisoned it with bitter gall, parthian or cydonian, and sped the immedicable shaft, leaps through the swift shadow whistling and unknown; so sprung and swept to earth the daughter of night. when she espies the ilian ranks and turnus' columns, suddenly shrinking to the shape of a small bird that often sits late by night on tombs or ruinous roofs, and vexes the darkness with her cry, in such change of likeness the monster shrilly passes and repasses before turnus' face, and her wings beat restlessly on his shield. a strange numbing terror unnerves his limbs, his hair thrills up, and the accents falter on his tongue. but when his hapless sister knew afar the whistling wings of the fury, juturna unbinds and tears her tresses, with rent face and smitten bosom. 'how, o turnus, can thine own sister help thee now? or what more is there if i break not under this? what art of mine can lengthen out thy day? can i contend with this ominous thing? now, now i quit the field. dismay not my terrors, disastrous birds; i know these beating wings, and the sound of death, nor do i miss high-hearted jove's haughty ordinance. is this his repayment for my maidenhood? what good is his gift of life for ever? why have i forfeited a mortal's lot? now assuredly could i make all this pain cease, and go with my unhappy brother side by side into the dark. alas mine immortality! will aught of mine be sweet to me without thee, my brother? ah, how may earth yawn deep enough for me, and plunge my godhead in the under world!' so spoke she, and wrapping her head in her gray vesture, the goddess moaning sore sank in the river depth. but aeneas presses on, brandishing his vast tree-like spear, and fiercely speaks thus: 'what more delay is there [ - ]now? or why, turnus, dost thou yet shrink away? not in speed of foot, in grim arms, hand to hand, must be the conflict. transform thyself as thou wilt, and collect what strength of courage or skill is thine; pray that thou mayest wing thy flight to the stars on high, or that sheltering earth may shut thee in.' the other, shaking his head: 'thy fierce words dismay me not, insolent! the gods dismay me, and jupiter's enmity.' and no more said, his eyes light on a vast stone, a stone ancient and vast that haply lay upon the plain, set for a landmark to divide contested fields: scarcely might twelve chosen men lift it on their shoulders, of such frame as now earth brings to birth: then the hero caught it up with trembling hand and whirled it at the foe, rising higher and quickening his speed. but he knows not his own self running nor going nor lifting his hands or moving the mighty stone; his knees totter, his blood freezes cold; the very stone he hurls, spinning through the empty void, neither wholly reached its distance nor carried its blow home. and as in sleep, when nightly rest weighs down our languorous eyes, we seem vainly to will to run eagerly on, and sink faint amidst our struggles; the tongue is powerless, the familiar strength fails the body, nor will words or utterance follow: so the disastrous goddess brings to naught all turnus' valour as he presses on. his heart wavers in shifting emotion; he gazes on his rutulians and on the city, and falters in terror, and shudders at the imminent spear; neither sees he whither he may escape nor how rush violently on the enemy, and nowhere his chariot or his sister at the reins. as he wavers aeneas poises the deadly weapon, and, marking his chance, hurls it in from afar with all his strength of body. never with such a roar are stones hurled from some engine on ramparts, nor does the thunder burst in so loud a peal. carrying grim death with it, the spear flies in fashion of some dark whirlwind, and [ - ]opens the rim of the corslet and the utmost circles of the sevenfold shield. right through the thigh it passes hurtling on; under the blow turnus falls huge to earth with his leg doubled under him. the rutulians start up with a groan, and all the hill echoes round about, and the width of high woodland returns their cry. lifting up beseechingly his humbled eyes and suppliant hand: 'i have deserved it,' he says, 'nor do i ask for mercy; use thy fortune. if an unhappy parent's distress may at all touch thee, this i pray; even such a father was anchises to thee; pity daunus' old age, and restore to my kindred which thou wilt, me or my body bereft of day. thou art conqueror, and ausonia hath seen me stretch conquered hands. lavinia is thine in marriage; press not thy hatred farther.' aeneas stood wrathful in arms, with rolling eyes, and lowered his hand; and now and now yet more the speech began to bend him to waver: when high on his shoulder appeared the sword-belt with the shining bosses that he knew, the luckless belt of the boy pallas, whom turnus had struck down with mastering wound, and wore on his shoulders the fatal ornament. the other, as his eyes drank in the plundered record of his fierce grief, kindles to fury, and cries terrible in anger: 'mayest thou, thou clad in the spoils of my dearest, escape mine hands? pallas it is, pallas who now strikes the sacrifice, and exacts vengeance in thy guilty blood.' so saying, he fiercely plunges the steel full in his breast. but his limbs grow slack and chill, and the life with a moan flies indignantly into the dark. the end. notes book first l. --_accipiunt inimicum imbrem._ inimica non tantum hostilia sed perniciosa.--serv. on ix. . the word often has this latter sense in virgil. l. --_aut capere aut captas iam despectare videntur._ henry seems unquestionably right in explaining _captas despectare_ of the swans rising and hovering over the place where they had settled, this action being more fully expressed in the next two lines. the parallelism between ll. and exists, but it is inverted, _capere_ corresponding to _subit_, _captas despectare_ to _tenet_. l. --_lata theatris_ with the balance of ms. authority. l. --_arvaque_ after med. and pal.; _armaque_ con. l. --_munera laetitiamque die_ ('ut multi legunt,' says serv.), though it has little ms. authority, has been adopted because it is strongly probable on internal grounds, as giving a basis for the other two readings, _dei_ and _dii_. l. --_the long-since-unstirred spirit._ and weep afresh love's long-since-cancell'd woe. shakespeare, sonnet xxx. l. --_dependent lychni laquearibus aureis._ serv. on viii. , _summique ferit laquearia tecti_, says 'multi lacuaria legunt. nam lacus dicuntur: unde est . . . lacunar. non enim a laqueis dicitur.' as prof. nettleship has pointed out, this seems to indicate that there are two words, _laquear_ from _laqueus_, meaning chain or network, and _lacuar_ or _lacunar_ from _lacus_, meaning sunk work. book second l. --_classibus hic locus._ ad equites referre debemus.--serv. cf. also vii. . l. --omitted with the best mss. l. --_moenia pandimus urbis._ moenia cetera urbis tecta vel aedes accipiendum.--serv. this is the sense which the word generally has in virgil: it is often used in contrast with _muri_, or as a synonym of _urbs_; and in most cases _city_ is its nearest english equivalent. l. --_caerula colla tumentem._ caerulum est viride cum nigro.--serv. on vii. . cf. iii. , where it is used of the colour of the sea after a storm. l. --_nimbo effulgens._ est fulgidum lumen quo deorum capita cinguntur. sic etiam pingi solet.--serv. cf. xii. . book third l. --_freta concita terris_ with all the best mss.; _consita_ con. l. --_qua se plena per insertas fundebat luna fenestras._ the usual explanation, which makes _insertas_ an epithet transferred by a sort of hypallage from _luna_ to _fenestras_, is extremely violent, and makes the word little more than a repetition of _se fundebat_. servius mentions two other interpretations; _non seratas, quasi inseratas_, and _clatratas_; the last has been adopted in the translation. in the passage of lucretius (ii. ) which virgil has imitated here, contemplator enim cum solis lumina . . . inserti fundunt radii per opaca domorum, it is possible that _clatris_ may be the lost word. l. -- _contra iussa monent heleni, scyllam atque charybdim inter, utramque viam leti discrimine parvo ni teneant cursus._ in this difficult passage it is probably best to take _cursus_ as the subject to teneant (_cursus teneant_, id est agantur.--serv. cf. also l. above, _quamvis vi cursus in altum vela vocet_), _viam_ being either the direct object of _teneant_, or in loose apposition to _scyllam atque charybdim_. l. --_tempestatibus actis_ with rom. and pal.; _actus_ con. after med. book fourth totus hic liber . . . in consiliis et subtilitatibus est. nam paene comicus stilus est. nec mirum, ubi de amore tractatur.--serv. l. --omitted with the best mss. l. --omitted with the best mss. book fifth l. --_iuduntque per undas_, omitted with the preponderance of ms. authority. book sixth l. --omitted with the balance of ms. authority. l. --_virtutem extendere factis_ with med.; _virtute extendere vires_ con. book eighth l. --omitted with the majority of the best mss. l. --_arma rogo. genetrix nato te filia nerei_. _arma rogo._ hic distinguendum, ut cui petat non dicat, sed relinquat intellegi . . . _genetrix nato te filia nerei._ hoc est, soles hoc praestare matribus.--serv. book ninth l. --omitted with all the best mss. l. --omitted with all the best mss. l. -- _me nulla dies tam fortibus ausis dissimilem arguerit tantum, fortuna secunda aut adversa cadat._ with some hesitation i have adopted this reading as the one open to least objection, though the balance of authority is decidedly in favour of _haud adversa_. for the position of _tantum_ cf. ecl. x. , according to the 'subtilior explicatio' now generally adopted. l. -- _et venit adversi in tergum sulmonis ibique frangitur, et fisso transit praecordia ligno._ the phrase _in tergum_ occurs twice elsewhere: ix. --meaning 'on the back'; and xi. --meaning 'backward'; and in x. the uncertainty about the order of the lines makes it possible that _tergo decutit hastas_ was meant to refer to the boar, not to mezentius. but the passages quoted by the editors there shew that the word might be used in the sense of 'shield'; and this being so we are scarcely justified in reading _aversi_ against all the good mss. l. --omitted with most mss. book tenth l. --omitted with the best mss. l. --_insidiis, iaculo et longe fallente sagitta._ the ms. authority is decidedly in favour of this, the more difficult reading; and the hendiadys is not more violent than those in georg. ii. , aen. iii. . book twelfth l. --_tum magis, ut propius cernunt non viribus aequis._ with ribbeck i believe that there is a gap in the sense here, and have marked one in the translation. l. --_limina_ with med. _munera_ con. ll. , --omitted with the best mss. l. --_venator cursu canis et latratibus instat._ i take _cursu canis_ as equivalent to _currente cane_, as in i. , _spumantis apri cursum clamore prementem_. _printed by_ r. & r. clark, _edinburgh_. * * * * * transcriber's notes the following words appear with and without a hyphen. spelling has been left as in the original. blood-stained bloodstained hill-tops hilltops horse-hair horsehair life-blood lifeblood new-born newborn spear-shaft spearshaft water-ways waterways the following words are spelled in multiple ways. spelling has been left as in the original. aery aëry horned hornèd nereids nereïd pergama pergamea the following corrections have made to the text: page --'[quotation mark missing in original]nymphs, laurentine nymphs page --in name fail to be creüsa[original has crëusa] page --rumour on fluttering[original has flutttering] wings page --the rhoetean[original has rhoeteian] captain drives his army the first occurrence of phoebus was rendered with an oe ligature in the original. ellipses match the original.