M. Grant Daniell 
 
THE 
 
 V/ORKS- OF VlRGILltZ-^JM^' 
 
 ii 
 
 TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH PROSE 
 
 AN ESSAY ON THE ENGLISH TRANSLATORS; QF mGIL 
 
 JOHN CONINGTON 
 
 LATE CCfRPUS PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE 
 OXFORD 
 
 BOSTON 
 WILLARD SMALL; LEE AND SHEPARD 
 - NEW YORK CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 
 1880 
 

 Uiw/ERsiTY Press : John Wilson & Son, 
 Cambridge. 
 
MCb^ 
 
 \eeo 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The English Translators op Virgil, ... i 
 
 WORKS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 The Bucolics, 7 
 
 The Georgics, 40 
 
 The ^neid, 120 
 
 843348 
 
THE 
 \ 
 
 ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 To attempt an exhaustive account of all the transla- 
 tions of the whole or parts of Yirgil which have been 
 made in English is a task which would exceed our own 
 opportunities, as it probably would the wishes of our 
 readers. Many of these productions are doubtless un- 
 known to us : with others we are acquainted by name 
 or by character, but they do not happen to be within 
 our reach. It is obvious, too, that there must be a 
 considerable number which do not deserve even the 
 slender honor of a passing commemoration. Here, as 
 elsewhere, something will depend on the date and con- 
 sequent rarity of the book. A worthless translation 
 of the nineteenth century calls for no mention at all ; 
 the work can be procured without difficulty, or the 
 reader, if he pleases, can himself produce something 
 of the same character. A worthless translation of the 
 sixteenth century has an adventitious value : it is prob- 
 ably rare, and, at any rate, the power of producing 
 anything similar is gone for ever. While, therefore, 
 we do not cater for professed antiquaries, we may, 
 perhaps, hope to interest those who care to see how 
 Virgil has fared at the hands of writers, great and 
 small, belonging to the various schools of English 
 poetr}^ — who, for the sake of a few instances of 
 
 i 
 
ii ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 beauty and ingenuity, will pardon a good deal of quaint- 
 ness, and even some dullness, and are not too severe 
 to smile at occasional passages of rampant extrava- 
 gance and undisguised absurdit}^. 
 
 A very few words are all that need be spent on the 
 first translation of Virgil into English by Caxton. 
 The title, or rather tail-piece, runs as follows : ' Here 
 fynyssheth the boke of Eneydos, compyled by Vyrgyle, 
 whiche hathe be translated oute of latyne in to frenshe, 
 And oute of frenshe reduced in to Englysshe by me 
 Wyllm Caxton the xxii. daye of luyn, the yeare of our 
 lorde m.iiii. clxxxx. The fythe yeare of the Regne 
 of Kynge Henry the seuenth.' Some account of the 
 original work (by Guillaume de Roy) may be found 
 in Warton's ' History of English Poetr}^,' Section xxiv. 
 It seems, in fact, to be a romance made out of the 
 '^neid' by numerous excisions and some additions, 
 the bulk of the whole being comparatively small. We 
 have only glanced at the translation, the printing as 
 well as the language of which is calculated to repel 
 all but black-letter students ; but its chief characteristic 
 seems to be excessive amplification of the Latin. This 
 is apparently the version of Virgil's two lines ('^n.* 
 iv. 9, 10) : — 
 
 Anna soror, quae me suspensam insomnia terrent? 
 Quis novus hie nostris successlt sedibus hospes ? 
 
 Anne my suster and frende I am in ryghte gret thoughte 
 strongely troubled and incyted, by dremes admonested whiche 
 excyte my courage tenquire the maners «& lygnage of this man 
 thus valyaunt, strong, & puyssaunt, whiche deliteth hym stronge- 
 ly to speke, in deuysing the hie fayttes of armes and perillys 
 daungerous whiche he sayth to haue passed, neweli hither comyn 
 to soiourne in our countreys. I am so persuaded of grete ad- 
 monestraents that all my entendement is obfusked, endullyd 
 and rauysshed. 
 
DOUGLAS AND CAXTON. iU 
 
 It was not long before Caxton was to meet with one 
 who proved himself both a severe critic and a success- 
 ful rival. This was ' the Reverend Father in God, 
 Mayster Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkel, and unkil 
 to the Erie of Angus,' whose ' xiii Bukes of Eneados 
 of the famose Poete Virgill translatet out of Latyne 
 verses into Scottish metir,' though not published till 
 1553, was written forty years earlier. In the poetical 
 preface to this work — a composition of some five 
 hundred lines — there is a long paragraph, entitled in 
 the margin ' Caxtoun's faultes,' which passes in review 
 the various delinquencies of the father of printing ; 
 his omission of the greater part of the ' thre first 
 bukis,' his assertion that the storm in Book I. was 
 sent forth by ^olus and Neptune^ the ' prolixt and tedi- 
 ous fassyoun ' in which he deals with the story of Dido, 
 his total suppression of the Fifth Book, his ridiculous 
 rejection of the descent into the shades as fabulous, 
 his confusion of the Tiber with the Tover, his substitu- 
 tion of Crispina for Deiphobe as the name of the Sibyl, 
 the whole being summed up b}^ the assurance that — 
 
 His buk is na mare like Virgil, dar I lay, 
 Than the nyght oule resemblis the papingay. 
 
 The Bishop's own Aversion has been highly praised by 
 competent judges, and we think deservedly. One spe- 
 cimen we will give, and it shall be from the exordium 
 of Book I. : — 
 
 The battellis and the man I will discriue, 
 Fra Troyis boundis first that fugitiue 
 By fate to Italic come and coist lauyne, 
 Ouer land and se cachit with meikill pyne 
 By force of goddis aboue fra euery stede 
 Of cruel luno throw auld remembrit feid : 
 Grete payne in batelles sufferit he also, 
 Or he his goddis brocht in Latio 
 
iv ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 And belt the ciete, fra quham of nobil fame 
 The latyne peopill taken has thare name, 
 And eke the faderis, princis of Alba, 
 Come, and the walleris of grete Rome alsiia. 
 
 The reader of these lines will not fail to remark their 
 general closeness to the original, at the same time that 
 he will be struck with a certain ditfuseness, such as 
 seems to be an inseparable adjunct of all early poetry. 
 To expect that such rude and primitive workmanship 
 should represent adequately Virgil's peculiar graces 
 would, of course, be absurd ; but the effort was a great 
 one for the time when it was made, and our northern 
 neighbors may well be proud of it. 
 
 Not less marked, though not altogether of the same 
 character, is the interest attaching to the next trans- 
 lation, or rather fragment of translation. The Earl 
 of Surrey may or may not have died too soon for the 
 political well-being of England, but his fate was un- 
 doubtedly an untimely one for her literature, and the 
 historian who denies his claim to our sympathy ex- 
 pressly acknowledges his ' brilliant genius.' * His 
 Aversion, which embraces the Second and Fourth Books 
 of the '^neid,' deserves attention, not only for its 
 own sake, but as the first known specimen of Enghsh 
 blank verse. As might be expected, the versification 
 is not entitled to any very high positive praise. It is 
 languid and monotonous, and sometimes unmetrical 
 and inharmonious ; but the advance upon Gawin Doug- 
 las is Tery perceptible. The language is chiefly re- 
 markable for its purity and simplicity; occasionally 
 there is a forcible expression, but in general a uniform 
 medium is kept, and a medern reader will still com- 
 plain a little of prolixity, though he will acknowledge 
 * Froude's Hist, of England, vol. iv. p. 509. 
 
SURREY'S BLANK VERSE. y 
 
 that the fault is being gradually corrected. Dr. Nott 
 has remarked that some parts of the translation are 
 more highly- wrought than others ; and while he draws 
 attention to the fact that Surrey has frequently copied j 
 Douglas, whose work must have been known to him j ' 
 in MS., he notes that these obligations are much 
 more frequent in the Second Book than in the Fourth. 
 The following extract (we quote from Dr. Nott's edi- ^ 
 tion) will, perhaps, give an adequate notion of Sur- 
 rey's manner {'- Mn.' ii. 228, ' Tum vero tremefacta,' 
 &c.) : — 
 
 New gripes of dread then pierce our trembling breasts. 
 
 They said, Lacon's deserts had dearly bought 
 
 His heinous deed, that pierced had with steel 
 
 The sacred bulk, and thrown the wicked lance. 
 
 The people cried with sundry greeing shouts 
 
 To bring the horse to Pallas' temple blive, 
 
 In hope thereby the goddess' wrath to appease. 
 
 We cleft the walls and closures of the town, 
 
 Whereto all help, and underset the feet 
 
 With sliding rolls, and bound his neck with ropes. 
 
 This fatal gin thus overclamb our walls, 
 
 Stuft with arm'd men ; about the which there ran 
 
 Children and maids, that holy carols sang; 
 
 And well were they whose hands might touch the cords. 
 
 The next translator, like Surrey, onl}^ lived to accom- 
 plish a portion of the * ^neid ; ' but it was a much 
 larger portion, and it had the good fortune to be com- 
 pleted by another hand. Thomas Phaer, at one time 
 * sollicitour to the king and queue's majesties, attend- 
 ing their honourable counsaile in the marchies of 
 Wales,' afterwards ' doctour of physike,' published 
 seven Books of the '-^neid' in 1558. At his death, 
 two years afterwards, he left a version of the Eighth 
 and Ninth Books, and a part of the Tenth; and in 
 
\\ 
 
 Vi ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 1573 ' the residue ' was ' supplied and the whole worke 
 I together newly set forth by Thomas Twyne, gentle- 
 \ man.' This translation is in the long fourteen-sy liable 
 ) or ballad meter, which had then come into vogue, 
 being used even in versions from the drama,* and 
 which was afterwards adopted by Chapman in render- 
 ing the ' Iliad.' It is of Chapman, indeed, that the 
 ordinary reader will most naturally think in turning 
 over Phaer's pages. Not to dwell on the essential 
 difference between the two involved in the choice of 
 subject, the ballad-measure of Queen Mary's time being 
 as ill suited to the Virgilian hexameter as the ballad- 
 measure of King James's may be well suited to the 
 Homeric, we shall probably be justified in saying that 
 Phaer's inferiority in original power makes him. more 
 faithful as a translator, though less interesting as a 
 { writer, and that his greater prolixity gives him a 
 \ certain advantage in dealing with a measure which, 
 from its enormous length, can hardly be made attrac- 
 tive, when written, as Chapman has written it, in 
 couplets closely interlaced and complicated with each 
 other. But Phaer has little or nothing of that ' daring 
 fiery spirit' which, as Pope saj^s, made Chapman write 
 like an immature Homer ; and though his language is 
 not without merit, not many expressions can be quoted 
 from him which would appear felicitous to a modern 
 taste. His greatest eulogist is Godwin,! who pro- 
 nounces his book ' the most wonderful depository of 
 living description and fervent feeling that is to be 
 found, perhaps, in all the circle of literature ; ' and, 
 
 * See "Warton's account of * Seneca his tenne Tragedies trans- 
 lated into English,' 1581 (^Hist. of Eng. Poetry, § Ivii.). 
 
 t Lives of Edward and John Philips (London, 1815), pp. 
 247 foil. 
 
GODWIN'S PRAISE OF PHAER. yii 
 
 after, quoting various passages with the highest com- 
 mendation, says that whoever shall read his version 
 of Anchises's speech about Marcellus, at the end of 
 the Sixth Book, will cease to wonder that the imperial 
 court was dissolved in tears at Virgil's recital. Let 
 us see if we can transcribe it dry-eyed : — 
 
 ^neas there (for walke with him he saw a seemly knight, 
 A goodly springold yong in glistring armour shining bright, 
 But nothing glad in face, his eyes downcast did shewe no 
 
 cheere), 
 O father, what is he that walkes with him as equall peere ? 
 His onely son? or of his stock some child of noble race? 
 What bustling makes his mates ? how great he goth with portly 
 
 grace ? 
 But cloud of louring night his head full heauy wrappes about. 
 Then lord Anchises spake, and from his eyes the teares brake 
 
 out, 
 O son, thy peoples huge lamented losse seeke not to knowe. . 
 The destnies shall this child onto the world no more but 
 
 showe, 
 Nor suffer long to Hue : O Gods, though Rome you think to 
 
 strong 
 And ouermuch to match, for enuie yet do us no wrong. 
 What wailings loude of men in stretes, in feeldes, what mourn- 
 ing cries 
 In mighty campe of Mars, at this mans death in Rome shall 
 
 rise ? 
 What funeralls, what numbers dead of corpses shalt thou see, 
 O Tyber flood, whan fleeting nere his new tombe thou shalt 
 
 flee? 
 Nor shall there neuer child from Troian line that shal proceede 
 Exalt his graunsirs hope so hie, nor nener Rome shal breede 
 An impe of maruel more, nor more on man may iustly host. 
 O vertue, O prescribid faith, O righthand valiaunt most \ 
 Durst no man him haue met in armes conflicting, foteman 
 
 fearce, 
 Or wold he fomy horses sides with spurres encountring pearce. 
 O piteous child, if euer thou thy destnies hard maist breake, 
 
viii ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 Marcellus thou shalt be. Now reatche me Lillies, Lilly flours, 
 
 Giue purple Violetts to me, this neuews soule of ours 
 
 With giftes that I may spreade, and though my labour be but 
 
 vayne, 
 Yet do my duety deere I shall. Thus did they long com- 
 
 playne.' 
 
 The remaining attempts in the sixteenth century 
 deserve registering, chiefly as curious and grotesque 
 experiments. Abraham Fleming, indeed, gave prom- 
 ise of something better in his ' Bucolikes of Publius 
 Virgilius Maro, with alphabetical! Annotations upon 
 proper nams of Gods. Goddesses, men, women, hilles, 
 flouddes, cities, townes, and villages, &c., orderly 
 placed in the margent. Dravvne into plaine and famil- 
 iar Englishe, verse for verse' (London, 1575), vrhich ' 
 is in rhymed fourteen-syllable measure in the style of 
 Phaer. But in 1589 he published another version of 
 the 'Eclogues,' along with one of the ' Georgics,' in 
 which he discarded ' foolish rime, the nise observation 
 whereof many times darkeneth, corrupteth, peruerteth, 
 and falsifieth both the sense and the signification,' in 
 favor of unrhymed lines of fourteen or fifteen syllables, 
 not very graceful in themselves, and rendered addition- 
 ally quaint by a strange fashion of introducing into 
 the middle of the text explanatory notes, which form 
 part and parcel of the meter. Thus he makes Virgil 
 comphment his patron on — 
 
 Thy verses, which alone are worthy of 
 The buskins [brave] of Sophocles [I meane his stately stile], 
 
 and mentions, among the prognostics of fair weather — 
 
 And Nisus [of Megera king and turned to a falcon] 
 Capers aloft in skie so cleere, and Scylla [Nisus daughter 
 Changed into a larke] doth smart for [his faire] purple haire. 
 
ELIZABETHAN HEXAMETERS. ix 
 
 The prevalent mania, too, for reviving classic meter, 
 which infected even Sidney and Spenser, took hold, as 
 might be expected, of the would-be translators of Virgil. 
 Webbe, in his ' Discourse of English Poetrie ' (London, 
 1586), ' blundered,' as he aptly as well as modestly ex- 
 presses it, upon a hexametrical version of the two first 
 '^glogues,' in which Meliboeus tells his ' kidlings' : — 
 
 Neuer again shall I now in a greene bowre sweetlie reposed 
 See ye in queachie briers farre a loofe clambring on a high hill, 
 Now shall I sing no lygges, nor whilst I doo fall to my iunkets, 
 Shall ye, my Goates, cropping sweete flowers and leaues sit 
 about me. 
 
 But the most considerable, and by far the most 
 extraordinary feat of this nature was performed by 
 Richard Stanyhurst, in his ' First Foure Bookes of 
 Virgil's ^neis translated into English Heroical Verse, 
 with other PoeticU devises thereto annexed' (Lon- 
 don, 1583). His remarks on his own translation are a 
 curiosity in themselves, and may remind us of Chap- 
 man's ' Mysteries revealed in Homer.* ' Virgil,' he 
 says, ' in diuerse places inuesteth luno with this epi- 
 theton, Saturnia. M. Phaer ouerpasseth it, as if it 
 were an idle word shuffled in by the authour to damme 
 vp the chappes of yawning verses. I never to my re- 
 membrance omitted it, as indeed a terme that carieth 
 meate in his mouth, and so emphaticall, as that the 
 ouerslipping of it were in effect the choaking of the 
 Poets discourse, in such hanking wise as if he were 
 throtled with the qhincoughe. And to inculcate that 
 clause the better, where the mariage is made in the 
 fourth boke betwene Dido and Aeneas, I adde in my 
 verse Watry luno. Although mine Author vsed not 
 the epitheton, Watry e, but onlye made mention of 
 earth, ayer, and fier, yet I am well assured that word 
 
\ 
 
 X ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 throughly conceiued of an hedeful student may giue 
 him such light as maj- ease him of six moneths trauaile : 
 whj'che were well spent, if that Wedlocke were wel 
 understoode.* His practice was not less remarkable 
 than his theory. Phaer had talked of ' Sir Gj^as ' and 
 ' Sir Cloanthus,' made Isis masquerade as ' Dame Rain- 
 b6we,' and turned ' Galium rebellem ' into ' rebell 
 French.' Stanyhurst (we take the instances given by 
 Warton) calls Coroebus a ' bedlamite ; ' arms Priam 
 with his sword ' Morglay,' a blade that figures in Gothic 
 romance ; makes Dido's ' parvulus ^neas ' into ' a 
 cockney, a dandiprat hop-thumb,' and says that when 
 Jupiter ' oscula libavit natse' he ' bust his pretty prat- 
 ing parrot.' But he shall exhibit himself more at 
 length, and somewhat more favorably, in a passage 
 from the end of the First ^neid (v. 736, ' Dixit, et in 
 mensam,' &c.) : — 
 
 Thus sayd, with sipping in vessel nicely she dipped. 
 Shee chargeth Bicias : at a blow hee lustily swapping 
 Thee wine fresh spuming with a draught swild up to the bottom. 
 Thee reranaunt lordings him pledge : Then curled iGppas 
 Twang'd on his harp golden what he whillon learned of Atlas. 
 How the moone is trauers'd, how planet soonnie reuolueth, 
 He chaunts : how mankind, how beasts dooe carrie their off- 
 spring : 
 How flouds be engendered, so how fire, celestial Arcture, 
 Thee raine breede sev'n stars, with both the Trionical orders : 
 Why the sun at westward so timely in winter is housed, 
 And why the night seasons in summer swiftly be posting. 
 The Moores hands clapping, thee Troians plaudite flapped. 
 
 In passing to the seventeenth century we feel that a 
 change has already set in. The meters adopted are 
 such as commend themselves to modern ears ; the lan- 
 guage, though varying according to the greater or less 
 skill of the individual writer, is not in general marked 
 
TRANSLATIONS OF THE 17th CENTURY, xi 
 
 by much quaintness or redundancy. Let us take a 
 specimen from the earliest version with which we are 
 acquainted * — ' Dido's Death ; Translated out of the 
 best of Latine Poets into the best of vulgar Languages. 
 By one that hath no name' (London, 1622). ' Prse- 
 terea fuit in tectis,' &c. (Book iv., v. 457) : — 
 
 In her house of stone 
 A temple too she had, of former spouse, 
 By her much Reuerenc't, with holy bowes 
 And Snowwhite Wool! adorn'd, whence oft she hears 
 A voice that like her husbands call appeares, 
 When darke night holds the world. The ellenge Owle 
 Oft on her housetop dismall tunes did houle, 
 Lamenting wofuU notes at length outdrawing : 
 And many former Fortune-tellers' awing 
 Porewarnings fright : AEneas too in Dreames 
 ^ Makes her runne mad : left by her selfe, she seemes ' 
 Alone some vncouth foule long M^ay to haue taken, 
 . Tyrians to seeke in desert Land forsaken. 
 
 The vogue which these translations obtained does not 
 seem always to have been proportioned to their merits. 
 In 1628 were published ' Virgil's Georgicks Englished 
 by Thomas May, Esq^.,' and ' Virgil's Eclogves trans- 
 lated into English by W. L.' (William Lisle). The 
 former, if little read, has been not unfrequently men- 
 tioned since ; the very existence of the latter has been 
 forgotten. t Yet our readers, if we mistake not, will 
 
 * When we wrote the above, we had not met with a translation 
 of the Second ^neid pubhshed in 1620 by Sir Thomas Wroth, 
 under the title of The Destruction of Troy, or the Acts of Aeneas, 
 a copy of which is in the British Museum. Our space will only 
 allow us to say that the meter is Phaer's, but the style more 
 modern. 
 
 t An account of Lisle, who was an Anglo-Saxon scholar and 
 antiquary, is given in Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary ; but 
 
xii ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL, 
 
 peruse the following extract from Maj-'s heroics witji 
 comparative indifference, while they will thank us for 
 selecting two of Lisle's stanzas. ('Felix qui potuit,* 
 &c., 'Georg.' ii. 490): — 
 
 Happy is he that knowes the cause of things, 
 That all his feares to due subjection brings, 
 Yea, fate itselfe, and greedy Acheron ! 
 Yea, happy sure is he, who ere has knowen 
 The rurall Gods, Sylvanus, and great Pan, 
 And all the sister Nymphs ! that happy man 
 Nor peoples voices, nor kings purple moue, 
 Nor dire ambition sundring brothers loue, 
 Nor th' Istrian Dacians fierce conspiracies. 
 Nor Romes estate, nor falling monarchies. 
 
 ' Quem fugis, ah demens,' &c. (' Eel.' ii. 60) : — 
 
 (Ah foolish Fon) whom dost thou seek to shun? 
 Why, Dardan Paris (that same shepheard knight). 
 Yea, e'ne the gods themselves, the woods did woon i 
 Let Pallas praise her Towres goodly hight, 
 And in her pompous Palaces delight 
 
 nothing is said of this translation. He appears, however, to 
 have dedicated an edition of a treatise by JElfric to Prince 
 Charles in a copy of verses ' by way of Eclogue, imitating the 
 4th of Virgile,* besides being the author of a version from Du 
 Bartas, and of The Fair Ethiopian^ which Chalmers calls a 
 long poem of very indifferent merit. 
 
 Benson, whom we shall have occasion to mention below, says 
 that almost 100 of May's lines are adopted by Dryden with very 
 little alteration. The first two lines of May seem to have been 
 copied by Ogilby. 
 
 What makes rich crops, what season most inclines 
 
 To plowing th' earth, and marrying elms with vines. — May. 
 
 What makes Rich Grounds, in what Caelestial Signs 
 
 'Tis good to Plow, and marry Elms with Vines. — Ogtlby, 
 
 Dryden borrows also once at least from Lisle. But of his pla- 
 giarisms more below. 
 
VICARS AND SANDYS, xiu 
 
 "Which shee hath builded : but of all the rest, 
 In my conceit, the Forrest-Life is best. 
 The crewell grim-faced Lionesse pursues 
 The bloody Woolfe : the Woolfe the kid so free ; 
 The wanton capring kidd doth chiefly chuse 
 Amongst the flowring Cythisus to bee : 
 And Corydon (Alexis) foUowes thee : 
 So each thing as it likes : and all aflfect 
 According as their nature doth direct. 
 
 We must confess, however, that Llsle's ' Eclogues,' 
 which are in a variety of meters, contain other passages 
 less attractive than this. Nor should it be forgotten 
 that much of the charm of these stanzas consists in 
 their reminding us of strains which, when Lisle wrote, 
 already belonged to the past — the pastoral poetry of 
 Spenser. May's notes are less sweet, but they are 
 probably more his own ; they reach forward, not back- 
 ward ; they contain not an echo of Spenser, but a 
 prophecy of Dry den. 
 
 The 3' ear 1632 saw a complete version of the ^^neid' 
 by Vicars,* and a translation of the First Book by 
 Sandys. Vicars, a Parliamentar}^ fanatic, is known to 
 the world as a poet only by the savage lines in ' Hudl- 
 bras,' where he is coupled with Withers and Prynne as 
 ' inspired with ale and viler liquors to write in spite of 
 nature and his stars.' Sandys is celebrated as the 
 author of the translation of Ovid which Pope read as 
 a child and (not an invariable consequence with him) 
 praised as a man. There seems to be no merit in 
 Vicars. Sandys is perhaps superior to May, but, like 
 
 * The title of Vicars's work is The Xll Aeneids of Virgil, the 
 most renowned Laureat- Prince of Latine Poets, translated into 
 English decasyllahles, hy John Vicars. Sandys's is added to an 
 edition of his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1632), and 
 entitled, An Essay to the Translation of VirgiVs JEneis. 
 
xiv ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 him, he pleases chiefl}- as the harbinger of better things 
 in language and versification. Here is a favorable 
 specimen (' Est in secessu,' &c., '^n.' i. 159) ; — 
 
 Deepe in a Bay an He with strecht-out sides 
 
 A harbor makes, and breakes the justling tides : 
 
 The parting floods into a landlockt sound 
 
 Their streams discharge, with rocks invirond round, 
 
 Whereof two, equal lofty, threat the skies. 
 
 Under whose lee the safe Sea silent liogs : 
 
 Their browes with dark and trembling woods arayd, 
 
 Whose spreading branches cast a dreadfull shade. 
 
 Sir John Denham's translation of the Second ^neid 
 is said to have been made in 1636. We know not 
 whether his ' Passion of Dido for -^neas * was written 
 at the same time, but it seems rather the better of the 
 two. In both, however, Denham is very unequal ; a 
 series of vigorous couplets will be followed by passages 
 written in ' concatenated metre,' as Johnson calls it, 
 and disfigured by bad or feeble rhymes. He is fond, 
 too, of ingrafting comments and conceits upon his orig- 
 inal, as when Dido tells ^neas — 
 
 Thou shouldst mistrust a wind 
 False as thy Vows, and as thy heart unkind. 
 
 The Queen's djdng speech is a fair example of his bet- 
 ter manner (' Dulces exuviae,' &c., ' ^n.' iv. 651) : — 
 
 Dear Reliques whilst that Gods and Fates gave leave, 
 Free me from care, and my glad soul receive : 
 That date which fortune gave I now must end 
 And to the shades a noble Ghost descend : 
 Sichaeus blood by his false Brother spilt 
 I have reveng'd, and a proud City built : 
 Happy alas I too happy I had liv'd. 
 Had not the Trojan on my Coast arriv'd : 
 
OGILBY, THE LITERARY ADVENTURER, xv 
 
 But shall I dye without revenge? yet dye, 
 Thus, thus with joy to thy Sichaeus flye. 
 My conscious Foe my Funeral fire shall view 
 From Sea, and may that Omen him pursue. 
 
 A better translation of this Fourth Book appeared in 
 1648 by Sir Richard Fanshaw, a friend of Denham*s, 
 who does justice to his powers in an excellent copy of 
 verses recommendatory of his version of Pastor Fido. 
 Fanshaw's case is not unlike Lisle's : instead of prose- 
 cuting the cultivation of the heroic, he revives that of 
 the Spenserian stanza. The choice was not a happy 
 one under the circumstances : Virgil did not write in 
 periods of nine lines, and Fanshaw, not being a diffuse 
 writer, is led in consequence to run stanza into stanza, 
 so that the versification does not enable us to follow 
 the sense. Where, however, sense and meter happen 
 to coincide, he may be read with real pleasure, as in 
 the following passage (' Dissimulare etiam sperasti,* 
 &c., ' JEn.' iv. 305) : — 
 
 Didst thott hope too by stealth to leave my land, 
 And that such treason could be unbetrayed. 
 Nor should my love, nor thy late plighted hand, 
 Nor Dido, who would die, thy flight have stayed? 
 Must too this voyage be in winter made ? 
 Through storms ? O cruel to thyself and me ! 
 Didst thou not hunt strange lands and sceptres swayed 
 By others, if old Troy revived should be, 
 Should Troy itself be sought through a tempestuous sea? 
 
 We now come to the first translation of the whole of 
 Virgil, ' The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro, Trans- 
 lated by John Ogiiby, and Adorn'd with Sculp tur,' first | 
 published in 1649-50, and afterwards, we believe, * 
 three times reprinted. This indefatigable adventurer, 
 who practiced successively or simultaneously the call- 
 
xvi ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 ings of dancing-master, original poet, translator from 
 the classics, and liter ar}^ projector, frequently- ruined, 
 but always recovering himself, learned Latin in middle 
 life, and proceeded to translate Virgil, as he afterwards 
 learned Greek and translated Homer. In his way he 
 must be pronounced successful ; he was ridiculed, but 
 his version continued to be bought till Drj^den's came 
 into the market; and the 'Sculpturs' (engravings), 
 which form a prominent feature in this, as in his other 
 books, were considered good enough to be borrowed by 
 his rival, who did not like to go to the expense of new 
 plates. Nay, he seems to have found admirers still 
 later : his work heads the list of the Lad3^'s Library in 
 the ' Spectator,* Dryden's ' Juvenal ' coming second ; 
 and we happen to know that it not only is included 
 among the books recommended for examination to the 
 fraternity of laborers whom the Dean of Westminster 
 is marshaling with a view to the production of a new 
 English dictionar}', but that a member of the band has 
 undertaken to study it. In its da}^ it was doubtless a 
 useful and — in the absence of anything better suited 
 to the taste of that generation — even a readable book. 
 It is sufficiently close to the words of Virgil — much 
 more so than Dryden. Its margin is furnished with a 
 collection of notes from the old commentators, done in 
 a tolerably business-like style ; and though the author 
 shows no trace of poetical feeling, no real appreciation 
 of poetical language, he writes in general fair common- 
 place prosaic Enghsh, while his mastery over the heroic 
 couplet will probably be pronounced creditable by those 
 who, like our readers, have the means of comparing 
 him with his predecessors and contemporaries. Ad 
 aperturam libri, we select the opening of his Sixth 
 ^neid: — 
 
VERSIONS OF THE FOURTH ^NEID. xvii 
 
 Weeping he said : at last with Sails a-trip, 
 
 To the Euboick Confines steers his Ship : 
 
 Then sharpflook'd Anchors they cast out before, 
 
 And the tall Navy fring'd the edging Shore. 
 
 To Latian Shores the youthful Trojans leap'd : 
 
 Some seek the hidden Seeds of Fire that slept 
 
 In Veins of Flint; Beasts shadie Holds, the Woods 
 
 Others cut down, and find concealed Floods : 
 
 But those high Tow'rs pious ^neassought, 
 
 Where Phoebus reign'd, dread Sybils spacious vault, 
 
 Whom Delius had inspired with future Fates. 
 
 They enter Trivia's Grove, and Golden Gates. 
 
 Daedalus leaving Crete (as Stories say) 
 Trusting swift Wings, through skies, no usual way, 
 Made to the colder north a desperate Flight, 
 And did at last on Chalcis Tow'r alight : 
 There he his Wings to thee, O Phoebus, paid, 
 And wide Foundations of a Temple laid. 
 The stately porch Androgeus death adorn'd. 
 Then the Athenians, punish'd, early mourn'd 
 For seven slain children : there the Lottery stood ; 
 High Crete against it overlook'd the Flood. 
 
 Ogilby's elaborate work may possibly have stood in 
 the T^y of other attempts on a large scale, but it did 
 not deter ' holiday-authors,' as Dryden calls them, who 
 felt they could do better, from exhibiting specimens of 
 their powers in translating portions of Virgil. The 
 Fourth Book of the '^neid' still continued to be pop- 
 ular with this class of writers, three or four of whom 
 attempted it about this time — Edmund Waller and 
 Sidney Godolphin (1658), Sir Robert Howard (1660), 
 and Sir Robert Stapylton. None of them are memora- 
 ble ; but as some slight interest may be felt in compar- 
 ing them, we give their versions of the end of the book 
 in juxtaposition : — , 
 
xviii ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 From heaven then Iris with So dewy rose-winged Iris,* 
 
 dewy wings, having won 
 
 On which the Sun a thousand Thousand strange colours 
 
 glories flings, from the adverse Sun, 
 
 Flies to her head : This to the Slides down, stands on her 
 
 dark abode head : I bear this, charged, 
 
 I bear, and free thee from this Sacred to Dis : be from this 
 
 body's load, flesh enlarged. 
 
 She said: then with her right Thus says, and cuts her hair: 
 
 hand cuts her hair, together slides 
 
 And her enlarged breath slides All heat, and into air her 
 
 into air. — Howard. spirit glides. — Stapylton. 
 
 Godolphin makes such short work of Dido's death, 
 that we are compelled to begin our extract from hun 
 some lines earlier : — 
 
 Then Juno, looking with a pitying eye 
 
 Upon so sad and lasting misery, 
 
 Since deepest wounds can no free passage give 
 
 To self-destroyers who refuse to live, 
 
 Sent Iris down to cut the fatal hair ; 
 
 Which done, her whole life vanished into air. 
 
 Waller's work merely embraces about a hundred 
 lines, which were not translated by Godolphin. The 
 following lines will show that it is well for him that 
 his reputation as an English poet does not rest on his 
 translation. ' Tu lacrimis evicta meis ' (v. 548) : — 
 Ah sister ! vanquished with my passion, thou 
 Betrayedst me first, dispensing with my vow. 
 Had I been constant to Sychaeus still. 
 And single-lived, t I had not known this ill. 
 
 * * Dewy rose-winged Iris ' also appears in Ogilby, who resem- 
 bles Stapylton likewise in his version of ' teque isto corpore solvo.' 
 
 t * Single-lived ' is the spelling of the copy before us (1658) ; 
 but it may be doubted whether the writer did not intend ' lived ' 
 for a verb. In that case the compound adjective would be 
 rather a felicitous blunder. 
 
JAMES HARRINGTON. xix 
 
 Such thoughts torment the Queen's enraged breast, 
 "While the Dardanian does securely rest 
 In his tall ship, for sudden flight prepared : 
 To whom once more the son of Jove appeared. 
 
 More remarkable than any of these experiments on 
 Dido's stor}^ is ' An Essay upon Two of Virgil's Ec- 
 logues, and Two Books of his -^neis (if this be not 
 enough) towards the Translation of the whole. By 
 James Harrington, 1658. The author, Sir James 
 Harrington, better known by his ' Oceana,' is com- 
 pared to Vicars by Butler, who, disliking his politics, 
 chose to sneer at his poetry ; but those who have seen 
 his Essay will feel that the sneer falls pointless. Un- 
 equal, and occasionally grotesque, he 3^et shows unde- 
 niable signs of vigor and ability, reminding us of 
 Cowle}^ both in his better and his worse manner. His 
 felicities are not indeed Virgilian, as when he translates 
 ' Oscula libavit natae ' 
 
 Jove, with the smiles that clear the weitther, dips 
 His coral in the nectar of her lips, 
 
 or speaks of ^neas among the paintings at Carthage as 
 
 wandering through a world the pencil struck 
 As out of Chaos with stupendous luck : 
 
 but they are felicities nevertheless : nor need we deny 
 him the praise of ingenuity when he tells us that Dido 
 
 brings the Trojan to her court, 
 And sends a royal present to the port, 
 A hundred ewes and lambs, a hundred sows ; 
 And Bacchus rides upon a drove of cows. 
 
 The first simile in the ' jEneid ' is rendered thus : — 
 
 As when some mighty city bursteth out 
 Into sedition, the ignoble rout 
 
XX ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 Assault the palaces, usurp the street 
 
 With stones, or brands, or anything they meet 
 
 (For Fury's armoury is everywhere) : 
 
 But, if a man of gravity appear 
 
 Whose worth they own, whose piety they know, 
 
 Are mute, arc planted in the place, and grow 
 
 Unto his lips, that smooth, that melt their souls : 
 
 So hush the waves where Neptune's chariot rolls. 
 
 As might be expected, the number of holiday-authors 
 increased formidably after the Restoration — so formi- 
 dably that it would be impossible within our present 
 limits to give any adequate account of their several 
 performances. Not one of the six volumes of Ton- 
 son's ' Miscellany ' is without some pieces of Virgilian 
 translation : one of them, the first, contains a complete 
 translation of the ' Eclogues ' by various hands ; a col- 
 lection which Dryden enriched by two of his own ver- 
 sions, and from which he afterwards did not disdain to 
 borrow.* Of these studies by far the most noteworthy 
 is ' The Last Eclogue, translated, or rather imitated, in 
 the year 1666, by Sir William Temple, Bart.,' a re- 
 markably flowing and vigorous paraphrase, some lines 
 of which might challenge comparison with Dr3^den's 
 own. As it appears now to be quite forgotten, we 
 shall not apologize for extracting from it rather co- 
 piously : — 
 
 One labour more, O Arethusa, yield, 
 Before I leave the shepherds and the field : 
 
 * Dryden's chief plagiarisms are from the version of Eclogue 
 I., 'by John Caryll, Esq".,' twenty-four of whose lines he appro- 
 priates, with slight changes. But there are cases of obligation 
 in subsequent Eclogues which a future editor of Dryden's Virgil 
 will do well to note. 
 
TEMPLE'S 'LAST ECLOGUE: xxi 
 
 Some verses to my Gallus ere we part, 
 Such as may one day break Lycoris' heart, 
 As she did his. Who can refuse a song 
 To one that loved so well, and died so young ? 
 Begin, afnd sing Gallus' unhappy fires, 
 While yonder goat to yonder branch aspires 
 Out of his reach. We sing not to the deaf: 
 An answer comes from every trembling leaf. 
 
 Under a lonely tree he lay and pined, 
 His flock about him feeding on the wind. 
 As he on love : such kind and gentle sheep 
 E'en fair Adonis would be proud to keep. 
 
 What shakes the branches ? what makes all the trees 
 
 Begin to bow their heads, the goats their knees? 
 
 Oh ! 'tis Silvanus, with his mossy beard 
 
 And leafy crown, attended by a herd 
 
 Of wood-born satyrs : see ! he shakes his spear, 
 
 A green young oak, the tallest of the year. 
 
 Would it had pleased the Gods I had been born 
 Just one of you, and taught to wind a horn, 
 Or wield a hook, or prune a branching vine, 
 And known no otlier love but, Phyllis, thine. 
 Or thine, Amyntas : what though both are brown ? 
 So are the nuts and berries on the down ; 
 Amongst the vines, the willows, and the springs 
 Phyllis makes garlands, and Amyntas sings. 
 No cruel absence calls my love away 
 Further than bleating sheep can go astray : 
 Here, my Lycoris, here are shady groves. 
 Here fountains cool and meadows soft : our loves 
 And lives may here together wear and end : 
 O, the true joys of such a fate and friend ! 
 
 Meantime, while veteran diplomatists, rising peers, 
 and future secretaries of state were emplojing them- 
 selves with these occasional performances, the whole 
 
xxii ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL, 
 
 of Virgil was being undertaken by a patrician author, 
 Richard Maitland, Earl of Lauderdale. Unfortunatel}^ 
 for his reputation, his lordship appears to have hesitat- 
 ed about pubhshing, and, while he hesitated, the time 
 went by. The version of the First Georgic appeared in 
 the third volume of the ' Miscellany,' in 1694 : the 
 '^neid' was communicated to Dryden before he had 
 embarked in his own great undertaking, and suffered 
 to remain in his hands afterwards. At length it was 
 resolved that it should be given to the world, but the 
 design was prevented b}' the author's death. Two years 
 later Dryden took his place as the translator of Virgil, 
 and the chance was gone for even a temporary occupa- 
 tion of the throne. When the great poet, in the pref- 
 ace to his '^neid,' complimented his noble friend's 
 work, acknowledging some of his obligations to it, and 
 concealing others, he spoke as if he did not expect that 
 it would ever see the light. Eventually, however, the 
 entire translation found an editor, who supposed, or 
 affected to suppose, that if it could no longer reign 
 alone, the crown might at any rate be divided. ' They 
 who do not place my Lord Lauderdale upon the same 
 foot with Mr. Dr3^den,' says this friendly critic, ' must 
 be equall}^ injurious to the one's judgment and to the 
 other's translation ; for 'twill be easj^ to find upon the 
 parallel that the poetry of South and North Britain is 
 no more incompatible than the constitution.' But the 
 union did not extend to translations of Virgil. The 
 North British version seems to have attracted no atten- 
 tion : Trapp praises it, and Martyn and Davidson quote 
 it ; but it probably was never read. Any one who will 
 now take the trouble to look at it will see that it is not 
 without merit. But though the noble translator was a 
 better versifier and a greater master of English than 
 
LAUDERDALE'S TRANSLATLON. xxiii 
 
 Ogilb}', he had studied in a school which is on the 
 whole less favorable to a writer of limited powers : in- 
 stead of copying his original closel}', he sometimes 
 transforms and adds to it ; and his transformations and 
 additions are hardly, in Denham's language, true to 
 Virgil's fame. The following is an extract from the 
 version of the ' Georgics,' which is more flowing than 
 that of the 'JEneid' (' Nocte leves melius stipulse,' 
 &c, ' Georg.' i. 289) : — 
 
 Parched meadows and dry stubble mow by night : 
 Then moisture reigns, which flies Apollo's light. 
 Some watch, and torches sharp with cleaving knives 
 Till late by winter fires : their careful wives, 
 To ease their labour, glad the homely rooms 
 "With cheerful notes, while weaving on their looms, 
 Or else in kettles boil new wine, and skim 
 The dregs with leaves, when they o'erflow the brim. 
 But reap your yellow grain with glowing heat, 
 And on your floor with scorching Phoebus beat. 
 When days are clear, then naked till and sow : 
 In lazy winter labourers lazy grow : 
 For that's a jovial time, when jovial swains 
 Meet, and in fea^g^g waste their summer gains, 
 As seamen, come to port from stormy seas, 
 Pirst crown their vessels, then indulge their ease. 
 
 In 1696, as we have already intimated, Drj^den's 
 translation was published. Of its surpassing merits we 
 must defer speaking till we have finished our chrono- 
 logical enumeration, as they are not of a nature which 
 will bear dismissing in a few sentences. Standing as 
 it does nearl}' midway in the history of Virgilian trans- 
 lations, it throws into the shade not onl}^ all that 
 preceded, but all that have followed it. If Dryden's 
 successors are less incapable of being put into compari- 
 son with him than his predecessors, it is to Drjrden 
 
J 
 
 xxiv ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 himself that the advantage, such as it is, is in some 
 measure due. 
 
 Diyden's successors did not, in the first instance, 
 attempt to meet him on his own ground. He had him- 
 self expressed an opinion, whether deliberate!}' formed 
 or not, in favor of translations into blank verse ; and 
 translations into blank verse soon became as popular 
 among writers, if not among readers, of poetry as 
 translations into rhyme. The illustrious examples of 
 Shakspeare and Milton, long slighted, had at last done 
 their work, the one restoring blank verse in tragedy, 
 the other reinstating it in epic poetry : the new measure 
 was doubtless felt to be easier than the old ; and criti- 
 cism was beginning to find out that a translation which 
 should represent the words as well as the general mean- 
 ing of an author could hardly be executed in such 
 rhyme as the literary public of the eighteenth century 
 would care to read. Accordingly, when Dr. Brady, 
 Nahum Tate's coadjutor in the New Version of the 
 Psalms, turned to translating the ' ^neid ' (1716- 
 1726) , he translated it into blank verse. His attempt is 
 characterized contemptuously enoit^h by Johnson, whose 
 opinion we do not feel inclined to dispute. The next 
 blank- verse experiment is better known to ourselves, 
 and probably to our readers also. In the last volume 
 of Tonson's ' Miscellany,' Trapp appeared as a transla- 
 tor of the Tenth Eclogue into rhyme, and of the end of 
 the First Georgic into blank verse : he was afterwards 
 to execute a blank version of the whole of Virgil's three 
 poems, publishing the ' ^neid ' in 1717 or 1718, the 
 ' Bucolics ' and ' Georgics ' about 1731. We may per- 
 ha;ps speak of his work more in. detail hereafter ; for the 
 jjresent it is sufficient to say, that whether owing to the 
 university reputation of the author, who was the first 
 
TRANSLATIONS IN BLANK VERSE, xxv 
 
 Oxford Professor of Poetrj^ or to the more substantial 
 recommendations of a version which, as Johnson says, 
 might serve as the clandestine refuge of schoolbojs, and 
 of a commentary containing a good deal of information 
 and not a little prosaic good sense, the book reached 
 the honors of a third edition in 1735. 
 
 In 1764 Trapp's example was followed by another 
 ex-Professor of Poetry, Hawkins by name. If we are 
 unable to give any account of his version of the 
 ' -/Eneid,' we maj- plead as our excuse that it is not to 
 be found in the library of the University of which the 
 translator was a professor, nor in that of the college 
 (Pembroke) of which he was a Fellow, nor again in 
 that of the British Museum. By way of amends, how- 
 ever, we can tell our readers something of the transla- 
 tion which appeared next in order of time, ' The Works 
 of Virgil Englished by Robert Andrews, 1766.' The 
 author, who was fortunate enough to secure Baskerville 
 for his printer, and thus to make his work externally, 
 at an}^ rate, a most attractive one, imputes the short- 
 comings of former translators to their adoption of 
 rhyme. ' The best of 'em had not doft their Gothic 
 shackles when the}' dared to the race the most rapid of 
 the poets : how then should they save their distance ? ' 
 Here is this unshackled runner's own start : — 
 
 M. You, Tityro, lolling 'neath the spreading beech, 
 Muse on your slender straw the sylvan song. 
 We leave our country, oar sweet meadows quit, 
 Our country fly. You, Tityro, soft imbowered. 
 Prompt fair Amarilla to the echoing woods. 
 
 T. A God, Meliboee ! gave us these calm hours. 
 
 » 
 
 This singular fashion of manipulating proper names 
 runs through the book, and is indeed one of its chief 
 
xxvi ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 characteristics. Thus we have Daphny, Alexy, Mop- 
 sy, Phill}^, Lycid (a name which may perhaps show 
 that Mr. Andrews conceived himself only to be taking 
 a Miltonic liberty) , Thyrse, Menalca, Paleme, Cloanth, 
 Helnor and Lyke (for Helenor and Lycus), Mezente, 
 and Jutna (for Juturna) . 
 
 In 1767 was published ' The ^neid of Virgil, trans- 
 lated into Blank Verse by Alexander Strahan, Esq.,' 
 who had already twice before attempted portions of the 
 poem. He professes to have ' kept as close to his 
 author as the late Dr. Trapp in respect of his sense, 
 but to have taken a little more compass for the sake 
 of harmony.' The experiment issues in lines like these 
 (' Quae te tarn laeta tulerunt,' '^n.' i. 605) : — 
 
 What happy ages gave you to the world ? 
 
 What parents such perfection could produce ? 
 
 While to their mother sea the rivers flow, 
 
 While mountains cast their spreading shadows round, 
 
 While ^ther feeds the stars, your sacred name, 
 
 Your bright idea shall for ever last, 
 
 Where'er my fate may bear me o'er the globe. 
 
 The Tenth and Twelfth Books were contributed by 
 Dobson, the same who gave a Latin dress to the ' Para- 
 dise Lost.' 
 
 More than thirty years remained to the end of the 
 century ; but it was not till 1794 that another blank 
 verse translator of Virgil showed himself. This was 
 the Rev. James Beresford, Fellow of Merton College, 
 otherwise known as the author of a popular jeu d^ esprit 
 called the ' Miseries of Human Life,' and of a less 
 successful polemic against Calvinism. Cowper's ' Ho- 
 mer ' had recently appeared, and had been recognized 
 to be, what it certainly is, a work of rare merit ; and 
 it was tempting to try whether the same process could 
 
TRANSLATIONS IN BLANK VERSE, xxvii 
 
 not after all be made to answer with Virgil. But 
 Cowper's success, whatever it may have been, was 
 due, not to the theories of his preface, but to his 
 practice as an original poet : it established a case for 
 blank verse as wielded by Cowper, not as wielded by 
 Mr. Beresford. As usual, we give a specimen of his 
 translation (' Tempus erat, quo prima,' ' -^n.' 11. 
 268) : — 
 
 'Twas at the hour when first oblivious rest 
 
 To care-sick mortals comes, and, gift of gods, 
 
 Of all their gifts best welcome, steals unfelt, 
 
 When, as I slept, before my eyes, behold, 
 
 Hector, all woe-begone, appeared to come 
 
 In present sight, and pour down copious tears, 
 
 As dragged ere while fast by the chariot wheels 
 
 Sordid with bloody dust, his big-swoln feet 
 
 With thongs transpierced. Ah me I what seemed he then! 
 
 How from that Hector changed, who late returned 
 
 Clad in the glorious spoils of Peleus' son, 
 
 Or fresh from hurling on the barks of Greece 
 
 His Phrygian fires ! Now — squalid was his beard, 
 
 His locks blood-knotted, and those gashes too 
 
 Were seen, which round his parent country's walls, 
 
 In fights of yore, he, numberless, had borne. 
 
 Melting in tears, I seemed to accost the shade 
 
 Spontaneous, and these mournful words draw forth. 
 
 Dr. Symmons — who speaks of blank verse rather 
 happily,* as ' only a laborious and doubtful struggle 
 to escape from the fangs of prose,' adding that, ' if it 
 ever ventures to relax into simple and natural phrase- 
 ology, it instantly becomes tame, and the prey of its 
 pursuer' — has passed a censure which, inapplicable 
 to Cowper, for whom it was intended, is not more than 
 a just description of what has been accomplished by 
 Cowper's Virgilian follower. 
 
 * Preface to j^neid, p. 22 (2d edition). 
 
xxviii ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 The rhyming translators of Virgil during the eigh- 
 teenth century were fewer, but they were men of more 
 mark. Some portion of their success is doubtless due 
 to the vehicle which they chose. The heroic couplet, 
 as managed by Dryden, is far more open to imitation 
 than the blank verse of the ' Paradise Lost ; ' the 
 sources of the pleasure which it creates lie nearer 
 to the surface, and are more accessible to an ordinarj^ 
 writer. And if Dryden is more imitable than Milton, 
 Pope is more imitable than Dr3'den. Dryden was es- 
 sentially capricious : sometimes vigorous and splendid, 
 at others flat and slovenly. He was a critic, but his 
 canons of criticism are constantly varying, and the 
 astonishing effects which he at times produces are due 
 to ear and natural instinct rather than to deliberate 
 judgment. "With Pope, on the other hand, all was 
 conscious art ; he took his measure, such as it was, of 
 the capabilities of the heroic couplet, and with steady 
 and unwearied patience set himself to realize them in 
 his practice ; and his successors, after admiring the 
 marvelous result, might reasonably hope, by the exer- 
 tion of moderate powers of analysis, to attain to some 
 notion of the process. In or before 1724, after the 
 completion of the English ' Iliad,' Benson, celebrated 
 by Pope as the admirer of Milton and Johnston's 
 Psalms, being dissatisfied with the way in which Dry- 
 den had dealt with the poetry and the agriculture of 
 Virgil, published ' Virgil's Husbandr}^ ; or an Essay 
 on the Georgics ; ' a version of the Second Book, with 
 explanatory notes, following it up next j^ear with a simi- 
 lar ' Essay ' on the First. The subjoined extract, 
 if it has no other interest, will show, at an}" rate, that 
 Pope's influence was alreadj' beginning to tell (' Nee 
 requies quin aut pomis,' ' Georg.' ii. 516) : — 
 
RETURN TO RHYMED COUPLETS. xxix 
 
 Nor rests the year, but still with fruit abounds 
 Or vast increase of herds, or loads the grounds 
 With piles unnumbered of promiscuous grain. 
 Subdues the barns, and triumphs on the plain. 
 A storm descends : Sicyonian berries feel 
 The nimble poundings of the clattering steel : 
 The falling acorns rustle in the wood. 
 And swine run homeward cheerful with their food : 
 The copse her wildings gives from shattered bowers, 
 And teeming autumn lays down all her stores. 
 Whilst high on sunny rocks the clustered vine 
 Boils into juice and reddens into wine. 
 
 A much more memorable attempt to beat Dryden 
 with Pope's weapons was made by Pitt, who, after 
 dallying for some time with a new version of the 
 ' ^neid,' completed it at last, and published it in 
 1740. Pitt was intimate with Spence, the friend of 
 Pope ; and the great poet, in words which seem not 
 to have been preserved, signified his approval of an 
 experiment which but for him would scarcely have been 
 possible. After the author's death, Joseph Warton, 
 a brother Wykehamist, completed the translatian by 
 the addition of the ' Eclogues ' and ' Georgics,' and 
 repubhshed it with a dedication to the first Lord 
 Lyttelton, in which he finds fault with Dryden, and 
 asserts Pitt's superiorit}^ : a judgment, the merits of 
 which, as well as those of Warton's own translation, 
 we hope shortly to consider. Sotheby's version of 
 the ' Georgics,' the first edition of which (1800) is 
 just included in the eighteenth centurj', will come in 
 for its share of notice most appropriately at the same 
 time. All three were conspicuously inferior to Dry- 
 den, but they were in some sense foemen worthy of 
 his steel, and it is well that they should have an op- 
 portunity of exhibiting themselves along with him. 
 
XXX ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 We have been in some doubt whether to reserve our 
 judgment of Beattie's ' Eclogues ; * but a comparison 
 of his translation with Dr3Tlen's and Warton's, by a 
 favorable though not undiscriminating judge, is included 
 in his Life bj' Sir William Forbes, and may be con- 
 sulted there. The translation seems not to have been 
 greatly valued by the author, who apparently did not 
 reprint it, nor is it to be found in all collections of his 
 poems. In his original compositions Beattie is pleas- 
 ing rather than vigorous, and this is very much the 
 character, both positivel}' and negatively, of his trans- 
 lation, which is freely executed, and contains at least 
 as much of the author as of his Latin model. The 
 following lines will exhibit at once his better and his 
 worse qualities (' Muscosi fontes,* &c. ' Eel.' vii. 
 45): — 
 
 Corydon. Ye mossy fountains, warbling as ye flow, 
 And, softer than the slumbers ye bestow. 
 Ye grassy banks ! ye trees with verdure crowned, 
 Whose leaves a glimmering shade diffuse around! 
 Grant to my weary flocks a cool retreat. 
 And screen them from the summer's raging heat! 
 For now the year in brightest glory shines, 
 Now reddening clusters deck the bending vines. 
 
 Thyrsis. Here 's wood for fuel : here the fire displays 
 To all around its animating blaze ; 
 Black with continual smoke our posts appear, 
 Nor dread we more the rigour of the year 
 Than the fell wolf the fearful lambkins dreads 
 When he the helpless fold by night invades, 
 Or swelling torrents, headlong as they roll, 
 The weak resistance of the shattered mole. 
 
 The one other translator of the eighteenth century 
 whose work has fallen in our way, is a Mr. John Theo- 
 bald, whose ' Second Book of Virgil's iEneid, in Four 
 
TRANSLATIONS OF THE V^th CENTURY, xxxi 
 
 Cantos, with Notes ' — a handsome quarto — bears no 
 date, but has the appearance of having been published 
 some time after the middle of the centur}^ His lines 
 are such as Surrey or Phaer would doubtless have 
 envied for their smoothness and finish ; but a reader 
 of the present da3^ will hardlj' regret that the four can- 
 tos were not extended to forty-eight. 
 
 The course of Virgilian translation in the nineteenth 
 century is as illustrative of the general literary history 
 of the period as the corresponding phase in the eigh- 
 teenth. In the first thirty years several translations 
 appeared, marked more or less b}' the characteristics 
 of the preceding* century : since that time, the old 
 notion of translation — that which aims at substituting , 
 a pleasing English poem for an admired original — 
 has been well-nigh abandoned, and experiments as 
 multiform as those practiced by the Elizabethan schol- 
 ars and poets have become the order of the da}'. We 
 are reminded, not of Dryden or Warton, but of Webbe, 
 Fleming, and Stanyhurst. These revolutionary aspects 
 constitute a new division of our subject, and call, in 
 fact, for a separate discussion. Of the translations 
 that remain, by far the most considerable is the ' ^neis * 
 of Dr. Symmons, which appeared in 1816, and was 
 reprinted in 1820. It is worth reserving for further 
 notice, and we reserve it accordingly. 
 
 The only other attempt we need mention is the ver- 
 sion of the ' Eclogues * made about 1830 by Archdea- 
 con Wrangham, an accomplished scholar and versifier, 
 whose name has not yet died out of remembrance. 
 His lines are elegant, but artificial and involved ; they 
 show the man of taste, not the genuine poet or the 
 master of vigorous English. Take the end of the 
 ' PoUio ' (' Aggredere, O magnos,' ' Eel.' iv. 48) : — 
 
xxxii ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. : 
 
 These honours thou — 'tis now the time — approve, 
 Child of the skies, great progeny of Jove ! 
 Beneath the solid orb's vast convex bent, 
 See on the coming year the world intent : 
 See earth and sea and highest heaven rejoice : 
 All but articulate their grateful voice. 
 
 O reach so far my long life's closing strain ! 
 My breath so long to hymn thy deeds remain! 
 Orpheus nor Linus should my verse excel, 
 Though even Calliope her Orpheus' shell 
 Should string, and (anxious for the son the sire) 
 His Linus' numbers Phoebus should inspire ! 
 Should Pan himself before his Arcady 
 Contend, he'd own his song surpassed by me. 
 
 Know then, dear Boy, thy mother by her smile : 
 Enough ten months have given of pain and toil. 
 Know her, dear Boy, — who ne'er such smile has known, 
 Nor board nor bed divine 'tis his to own. 
 
 Thus far we have seen what has been accomplished 
 by the different translators of Virgil, down to a few 
 3^ears from the time at which we are now Writing. 
 Their object, in general, has been, as we said just now, 
 to substitute a pleasmg English poem for an admired 
 original. This being the case, it was naturally to be 
 expected that the one who happened to be the best 
 English poet should be the best translator. Perhaps 
 it might be necessary to stipulate that there should be 
 some similarity between the genius of the poet trans- 
 lating and that of the poet translated. A ' Virgil ' by 
 Shelley would have been un-Virgilian, though scarcely 
 more so than Pope's ' Homer ' is un-Homeric ; but where 
 any scope is given for the exhibition of native poetical 
 power, a true poet, however careless, is sure to please 
 more than the most fastidiously elegant versifier. And 
 this is just what has happened. "Whatever a few crit- 
 ics may have thought and said, Dryden^s js the only 
 
THE TRUE POETS OWN STYLE, xxxiii 
 
 English ' Virgil ' of which the bulk of English readers 
 know anj^thing. 
 
 It is doubtless true, as a critical theory, that a trans- 
 lator ought to endeavor not onl}^ to say what his author 
 has said, but to say it as he has said it. In the greatest 
 writers, thought and language may possibly be distin- 
 guished, but can scarcel}^ be dissociated. Every true 
 poet has a style of his own : a st^^le which probably 
 forms half of what makes him please, and more than 
 half of that which makes him remembered. And if 
 this be true of other writers, it is especially true of 
 Virgil. He has chosen to trust, as scarcely any one 
 else has done, to expression — to the preference not 
 merely of one word to another, but of one arrange- 
 ment of words to another. He insinuates new thoughts 
 through the medium of apparent tautologies ; he calls 
 in old phrases, recasts them, and produces new effects. 
 On the other hand, it cannot be denied that few of 
 the translators of Virgil have trusted to themselves 
 so entirely as Dryden. He worked hurriedly and 
 under pressure ; he was hardly likel}' to be more at- 
 tentive to his author's language than in his original 
 compositions ; nay, the very vigor of his genius re- 
 quired that he should abandon himself to his own im- 
 pulses and express himself in his own way. He was 
 constantly adding to his original, and that in the most 
 willful and reckless manner. There were elements in 
 his nature peculiarly repugnant to the Virgilian ideal, 
 and those elements he was at no great pains to conceal. 
 When he chose he could be not only careless and 
 slovenl}^, but offensively coarse and vulgar, and he is 
 so *in his ' Virgil ' a hundred times. From the very 
 first he made himself fair game for his rivals and crit- 
 ics, and they have taken their full advantage. From 
 c 
 
xxxiv ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 Milbourne and Trapp down to the Messrs. Kennedy, 
 every aspiring translator has been able to quote a long 
 list of passages where Dryden has failed grossly, and 
 has argued in consequence that a true translation of 
 Virgil has yet to be made. Yet their case, as we ven- 
 ture to think, easily proved in theory, has uniformly 
 broken down in practice. The fact is, that what they 
 have proved has been proved not merely against Dr}^- 
 den, but against themselves. The question of fidelity 
 of rendering, in the case of a writer like Virgil, can 
 hardly be made one of degree. It is idle to discuss 
 who has come nearest to the st^^le and language of 
 Virgil, when no one has come within any appreciable 
 distance. A blank versifier may flatter himself that 
 he can do more than a rhymer, but it will probably 
 be because he is less capable of producing something 
 which may be read with pleasure as an original poem. 
 The rh3'mers, at an}' rate, are placed iipso facto on 
 terms of virtual equalit}^ so far as resemblance to Vir- 
 gil's manner is concerned. The}^ are compelled to 
 sacrifice all that makes that manner what it is, and 
 the one thing that the public has to care for is the 
 goodness or badness of the substitute they oflfer. 
 Here it is that Drj^den's greatness comes out. Com- 
 pare him with other translators, and it will be seen 
 that while none of them have anj'thing of Virgil's indi- 
 viduality, he alone has an individuality of his own of 
 sufficient mark to interest and impress the reader. 
 Let us make our meaning clear by an instance or two. 
 We will take four lines near the opening of the First 
 JEneid, and see how the}" have been dealt with by the 
 chief rhyming translators : — » 
 
 Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso, 
 Quidve dolens regina DeClm tot volvere casus 
 
TRANSLATORS COMPARED. xxxv 
 
 Insignem pietate virum, tot adire labores 
 Impulerit. Tantaene animis gaelestibus irae? 
 
 Dryden. 
 
 O Muse ! the causes and the crimes relate ; 
 
 What goddess was provoked, and whence her hate ; 
 
 For what offence the queen of heaven began 
 
 To persecute so brave, so just a man, 
 
 Involved his anxious life in endless cares, 
 
 Exposed to want and hurried into wars. 
 
 Can heavenly minds such high resentment show, 
 
 Or exiercise their spite in human woe ? 
 
 Pitt. 
 
 Say, Muse, what causes could so far incense 
 Celestial powers, and what the dire offence 
 That moved heaven's awful empress to impose 
 On such a pious prince a weight of woes, 
 Exposed to dangers, and with toils opprest. 
 Can rage so fierce inflame a heavenly breast ? 
 
 Symmons. 
 
 Speak, Muse ! the causes of effects so great : 
 
 What god was wronged? or why, incensed with hate', 
 
 Should Heaven's high queen with toils on toils confound 
 
 The man for piety to heaven renowned, 
 
 And urge him with a ceaseless tide of ills? 
 
 Ah! can such passions goad celestial wills? 
 
 Here, if we make it a question of degrees, there is 
 doubtless much to be urged against Dryden, who has 
 expanded into eight lines what the others have been 
 content to express in six, and a closer pressure, such 
 as Sotheb}' occasionally^ practiced, might possibly have 
 reduced to four. But if we look closely at the original, 
 we shall see that its peculiar characteristics have really 
 been preserved b}^ none of the three. Which of them 
 
xxxvi ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 gives any conception of the Virgilian rhythm ? and yet 
 what would a passage of Virgil be without this ? Who 
 has imitated the peculiarity of ' quo numine laeso ' — 
 that expression which still continues to be the crux of 
 commentators ? Or, if it be thought too much to expect 
 that a translator should adumbrate what no annotator 
 has succeeded in fixing, what have we in any of the 
 three to represent that most Virgilian of phrases — half- 
 inverted, half-direct — 'tot volvere casus'? Dryden 
 has ' involved ; ' Pitt talks of ' a weight of woes ; ' S3^m- 
 mons of ' confounding with toils on toils ; ' but none of 
 these is what Virgil has said, though any of them will 
 serve to express roughly what he meant. Looking to 
 Virgil's general meaning, we see no reason to doubt 
 that it is fairl}^ conveyed by 4)ryden's eight lines — 
 eight lines which seem to us the ver}^ perfection of clear 
 unaffected musical English. It is needless to compare 
 them in detail with those of Pitt and Symmons ; they 
 are obviously such as only a master like Dryden could 
 have written : — 
 
 Haec miscere nefas : nee eura sis eetera fossor, 
 Tres tantum ad numeros Satyrum moveare Bathylli. 
 
 The same easy strength is observable throughout 
 Dryden's version of the ' Georgics.' Even where it is 
 evident that he is not putting forth his full power, he 
 will generally be found to distance his competitors. 
 Let us try them in a tolerably simple passage from the 
 Second Book (v. 362) ;— 
 
 Ae dum prima novis adolescit frondibus aetas, 
 Pareendum teneris : et dum se laBtus ad auras 
 Palmes agit, laxis per purum immissus habenis. 
 Ipsa acies nondum falcis tentanda, sed uncis 
 Carpendae manibus frondes interque legendae. 
 
DRYDEN'S SUPERIORITY. xxxvii 
 
 Inde ubi jam validis amplexse stirpibus almos 
 Exierint, turn stringe comas, turn brachia tonde : 
 Ante reformidant ferrum : turn denique dura 
 Exerce imperia, et ramos compesce fluentes. 
 
 Dryden. 
 
 But in their tender nonage, while they spread 
 Their springing leaves, and lift their infant head, 
 And upward while they shoot in open air. 
 Indulge their childhood, and the nursling spare : 
 Nor exercise thy rage on new-born life, 
 But let thy hand supply the pruning-knife, 
 And crop luxuriant stragglers, nor be loth 
 To strip the branches of their leafy growth. 
 But when the rooted vines with steady hold 
 Can grasp their elms, then, husbandman, be bold 
 To lop the disobedient boughs, that strayed 
 Beyond their ranks : let crooked steel invade 
 The lawless troops which discipline disclaim. 
 And their superfluous growth with rigour tame. 
 
 Warton. 
 
 The new-born buds, the tender foliage spare : 
 
 The shoots that vigorous dart into the air, 
 
 Disdaining bonds, all free and full of life, 
 
 O dare not wound too soon with sharpened knife ! 
 
 Insert your bending fingers, gently cull 
 
 The roving shoots, and reddening branches pull. 
 
 But when they clasp their elms with strong embrace, 
 
 Lop the luxuriant boughs, a lawless race : 
 
 Ere this they dread the steel : now, now reclaim 
 
 The flowing branches, the bold wanderers tame. 
 
 SOTHEBY. 
 
 When the new leaf in Spring's luxuriant time 
 Clothes the young shoot, oh ! spare its tender prime : 
 And when the gadding tendril wildly gay 
 Darts into air and wantons on its way, 
 
xxxviii ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 Indulgent yet the knife's keen edge forbear. 
 But nip the leaves, and lighten here and there : 
 But when in lusty strength the o'ershadowing vine 
 Clings with strong shoots that all the elm entwine, 
 Range with free steel, exert tyrannic sway, 
 Lop the rank bough, and curb the exuberant spray. 
 
 As usual, Drj^den allows himself more license than 
 the rest, and his freedom has led him into a misconcep- 
 tion of the meaning of the first sentence, which the 
 other two, owing to their greater fidelit}^ avoid, or 
 appear to avoid. He confuses the earliest stage, when 
 the leaves are not to be touched at all, with the second, 
 when they are not to be touched b}" the pruning-hook. 
 But in spite of this, and in spite of the general latitude 
 of his rendering, we are mistaken if our readers fail to 
 perceive his great superiorit}'. Sotheby keeps much 
 closer to Virgil, but it is a closeness bj which we set 
 very little store, failing, as it does, to bring out the 
 chief points of his author's language, — the ' laxis per 
 purum immissus habenis,' and even the ' tum — tum — 
 tum denique.' The military metaphor in Dryden's last 
 lines may seem rather a bold expansion of ' dura exerce 
 imperia ; ' but it is thoroughl^^ in the spirit of the origi- 
 nal. Every line of Virgil shows that he regarded the 
 vine-branch as a living thing ; that is the key-note of 
 the paragraph, and no one has seen this so clearlj^ or 
 brought it out so vividly as Dr3'den. * 
 
 Our judgment then is, that Pitt and Warton, Sym- 
 mons and Sotheby, fail as translators preciselj' because 
 the}' fail as original poets. The}' cannot help being 
 more or less original, substituting, that is, their own 
 mode of expression for Virgil's ; and their originality^ is 
 comparatively uninteresting. The}' are not great poets, 
 but simply accomplished versifiers. Each has his own 
 
TRANSLATORS COMPARED, xxxix 
 
 merits ; each shows his weakness in his own w^a}^ Pitt 
 wrote with the echoes of Pope in his ears, and may re- 
 mind his readers of the English '- Homer ' as long as 
 they have not the English 'Homer' by them. Those 
 who wish to estimate his real relation to his master 
 may compare a translation of his from the Twent}^- 
 third Odyssey, printed in ' Pope's Letters,' * with 
 Pope's own. His chief fault is a general mediocritj^ of 
 expression: a monotonous level, which is neither high 
 poetr}^ nor good prose. Dryden's narrative is easy andj 
 straightforward ; Pitt's indefinite and conventional.! 
 He has, as it were, a certain cycle of rhymes which 
 Pope has made classical, and he rarely ventures to 
 deviate from it. We open his translation at random, 
 glance down a page, and find the couplets end as fol- 
 lows : Tyre^ fi^e; rounds crowned, joy^ Troy; Jiour, 
 o'er; grace , race; gloivs, rows; delay, way; designed, 
 mind; come, room; inspire, fire; place, race; rest, 
 addrest; above, Jove; implore, adore; tost, coast; know, 
 woe. Ex pede Herculem, when w^e see tost and coast, in- 
 spire and fire, in a writer of the school of Pope, we know 
 pretty well what the rest of the line is likely to have 
 been. One of Pitt's most enthusiastic admirers ob- 
 serves, not without truth, that he is peculiarly unfortu- 
 nate in his versions of similes. A simile is one of those 
 things in which weakness of handling is most likely to 
 come out ; as managed by Virgil it is commonly a 
 description in itself, and the features in it which are 
 not intended to be made prominent will often escape 
 an inattentive reader. Warton was heavier and more 
 prosaic than Pitt, without being much less conventional. 
 
 * Pitt to Spence in Pope's Letters ( Works^ by Bowles, vol. 
 viii. p. 352) . The Twenty-third Book was translated by Broome, 
 but Pope doubtless altered it. 
 
xl ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL, 
 
 His ear was worse, his command of poetical language 
 more restricted ; yet he sighs, in his dedication, over 
 the necessity of using ' coarse and common words ' in 
 his translation of the ' Georgics,* viz. plough and sow, 
 wheat, dung^ ashes^ horse^ and cow^ &c. ; words which 
 he fears ^ will unconquerably disgust many a delicate 
 reader.' "When Virgil rises, Warton does not rise with 
 him ; his version of the ' Pollio ' and of the Praises of 
 Italy may be read without kindling an}^ spark of enthu- 
 siasm. Who, with genuine poetry in his soul, could 
 have thus rendered ' Salve, magna parens frugum,' &c. 
 ('Georg.' ii. 173)? — 
 
 # All hail, Saturnian soil ! immortal source 
 Of mighty men and plenty's richest stores I 
 For thee my lays inquisitive impart 
 
 This useful argument of ancient art : 
 
 For thee I dare unlock the sacred spring, 
 
 And through thy streets Ascraean numbers sing. 
 
 Sotheby and S3'mmons ma}^ be contrasted as well as 
 paralleled with Warton and Pitt. When they wrote, 
 the language of English classical poetry had become 
 still more artificial, the structure of the heroic couplet 
 still more conventional. Sotheby's ' Georgics ' run, in 
 fact, to the tune of the ' Pleasures of Hope.' It would 
 be too much to ascribe any very direct influence to a. 
 poem published onl}' a year previousl3\ Still the secret 
 of their weakness could hardly be better described than 
 in the words which Hazlitt apphes to Campbell's poem. 
 ' A painful attention is paid to the expression in pro- 
 portion as there is little to express, and the decom- 
 position of prose is substituted for the composition of 
 poetry.' * There are man}^ well-wrought lines ; some- 
 
 * Lectures on the ^English Poets, p. 294 (1st edition). Haz- 
 litt censures Rogers — who, as he truly says, is a poet of the 
 
SOTHEBY AND SYMMONS. xli 
 
 times we may find a whole passage which has been 
 successfully labored ; but we miss throughout that per- 
 vading vigor which works from within, not from with- 
 out — which expresses itself poeticall}-, because it has 
 first learned to express itself in English. Nowhere 
 is the power of writing English more needed than in 
 translating the ' Georgics.' Even as it is, Virgil's 
 didactics are well-nigh crushed under a load of orna- 
 ment : there is everything to tempt a translator not to 
 say a plain thing in a plain way ; and the slightest 
 additional bias in favor of the indirect chicaneries of 
 language is sure to be fatal. Here are Sotheby's direc- 
 tions for the construction of bee-hives (' Ipsa autem, 
 seu corticibus tibi suta cavatis,' &c. ' Georg.' iv. 33) : — 
 
 Alike, if hollow cork their fabric form, 
 Or flexile twigs enclose the settled swarm, 
 With narrow entrance guard, lest frosts congeal, 
 Or summer suns the melting cells unseal. 
 Hencd not in vain the bees their domes prepare, 
 And smear the chinks that open to the air, 
 With flowers and fucus close each pervious pore, 
 With wax cement, and thicken o'er and o'er. 
 Stored for this use they hive the clammy dew. 
 And load their garners with tenacious glue, 
 As birdlime thick, or pitch, that slow distils 
 In unctuous drops on Ida's pine-crowned hills. 
 And oft, 'tis said, they delve beneath the earth, 
 Hide in worn stones and hollow trees their birth : 
 Aid thou their toil : with mud their walls o'erlay, 
 And lightly shade the roof with leafy spray. 
 
 Every line here gives evidence of taste and refine- 
 ment : some of them show considerable power of con- 
 densed expression, yet who would care to read page 
 
 same school — in language still more severe, but, with all its ex- 
 aggeration, not wholly undeserved. 
 
xlii ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 after page of poetr3' of this sort, apart from the associ- 
 ations of the Latin? ' Decipit exemplar vitiis imita- 
 bile.' Sotheby knew and felt that one of Virgil's 
 greatest charms was his diction ; he was doubtless 
 conscious that his own strength lay in elegance of 
 expression ; and he may not unreasonably have been 
 led to believe that he was well qualified to succeed in a 
 translation of the ' Georgics.' But though his ' Virgil,' 
 the task of his youth, is very superior to his ' Homer,' 
 the labor of his old age, not onlj' from the greater con- 
 geniality of the subject, but in itself, as an original 
 poem, few, we apprehend, would be found now to 
 indorse the opinion expressed by several of his contem- 
 poraries, that he has contrived to occupy a place which 
 the carelessness and slovenliness of Dryden had left 
 vacant. One cause of the want of interest with which 
 we read his ' Georgics ' may be the wearying monotonj' 
 ^j of their versification. The heroic couplet is there as it 
 / passed from Pope to Darwin, and from Darwin to 
 Campbell ; but an unbroken series of such couplets is 
 a poor substitute for the interwoven harmonies of 
 Virgil. When a strong or even a rough line is wanted, 
 Sotheby has no objection to introducing it, any more 
 than Pope had before him ; but to fuse couplet into 
 couplet, var3ing the cadences till the entire paragraph 
 becomes a complex rhythmical whole, was a gift which 
 nature denied him, and art did not supply. 
 
 Symmons is, as we have intimated, a writer of the 
 same school as Sotheby, preferable in some respects, 
 inferior in others. Probably he has not as many good 
 lines, but he produces less the effect of sameness : he 
 is not so conventional, but he is more of a pedant. On 
 the whole, however, the family likeness between them 
 is considerable, as will be seen from the following 
 
so THEB Y AND S YMMONS. xlUi 
 
 extract from the boat-race in the Fifth ^neid (' Quo 
 diversus abis,' &c., v. 166) : — 
 
 Why thus, Menoetes, still licentious stray? 
 Keep to the rock ! be frugal of the way ! 
 Gyas again exclaims : and close behind 
 Beholds Cloanthus to the rock inclined. 
 He 'twixt the ship of Gyas and the steep 
 Steers with nice judgment, and attains the deep : 
 Then, as he there in fearless triumph rides, 
 From the late victor and the goal he glides. 
 But rage and anguish swell in Gyas' breast, 
 Nor stands within his eye the tear repressed. 
 His rank forgetting, and the care he owes 
 /: To his ship's safety, from the stern he throws 
 
 The tardy master headlong on the tide, 
 And his own hands the vacant steerage guide. 
 Become the pilot and the captain too, 
 Landward he turns the helm and cheers his crew. 
 But, scarcely rising from the deep at length. 
 With his drenched clothes and age-diminished strength, 
 Menoetes to the rock with labour swims. 
 And on its sunny forehead dries his limbs. 
 Him in his plunge, and in his dripping plight, 
 The Trojans view, diverted at the sight. 
 And, as the briny draught his breast restores, 
 Loud peals of laughter rattle through the shores. 
 
 This is carefully done, and undoubtedly keeps closer 
 to the Latin than Dryden's version ; but it is not the 
 narrative of Virgil ; nor was it likely to make the read- 
 ers of 181 6 forget the ' Corsair * and ' Lara.' 
 
 The moral which we would draw from this part of 
 our criticism is, that no one is likely to attain as a 
 poetical translator the excellence which would be denied 
 to him as an original writer. In prose the case is dif- 
 ferent, as there the translator has to draw far less on 
 his own powers ; though even there it will be true that 
 
xliv ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 a man who is best able to express his own thoughts will 
 be best able — we do not say most willing — to express 
 the thoughts of another. But the poetical translator is 
 really an original poet ; and the stream cannot rise 
 higher than its source. 
 
 One great poet there has been who once conceived 
 the thought of disputing Drj'den's supremacy as a 
 translator of the '^neid.' Wordsworth saw, as many 
 others have seen, that Dryden*s genius did not cor- 
 respond to Virgil's — that there is no analogy between 
 the Latin and the English 'JEneid,' the peculiar charm 
 of the one being different from the peculiar charm of 
 the other ; and he thought that, by submitting to a 
 more exacting self-criticism than Dr3'den's, he might 
 produce something more Virgilian. But he found him- 
 self surrounded with difficulties. In his own mind he 
 was convinced that the proper equivalent to the hexam- 
 eter of Virgil was the blank verse of Milton, which he 
 conceived to have been actually modeled upon it ; but 
 he did not venture to adopt it, feeling that a poem so 
 / remote in its whole complexion from the S3'mpathies of 
 modern England would not be read with interest with- 
 out the obvious attractions of rhjme. He found, too, 
 / that in spite of the resolution with which he had set 
 / out, not to introduce anything for which there was no 
 warrant in the original, he had to admit the rule of 
 compensation — a give and take principle, conferring 
 on Virgil some new beaut}^ in return for having deprived 
 him of an old one. His sense of the discouraging 
 nature of his task at last made him give it up, but not 
 before he had accomplished several books. One or 
 two passages from his translation are given in letters 
 quoted in his Life, the source to which we are indebted 
 for the facts we have just mentioned ; but by far the 
 
WORDSWORTH AND DRYDEN. xlv 
 
 most satisfactory specimen is a long extract of one 
 hundred lines, published in the ' Philological Museum' 
 (vol. i. pp. 382 fol.), to which he was induced to com- 
 municate it by his friendship to the editor, the late 
 Archdeacon Hare. Judging from this sample, we in- 
 cline to think that he acted wiseh' in retiring from the 
 contest. He may have had a more dehcate sense of 
 language, and perhaps a subtler feeling for meter, 
 than Dryden, but his own poetical art was scarcely 
 equal to his power of conception ; and the philosophical \ 
 and reflective character of his genius, which could not \ 
 but be impressed on ever}' thing he wrote, was quite 1 
 unlike the reflectiveness of Virgil. In particular, he i 
 wanted that rapidity of movement which is absolutely" \ 
 necessary to an epic narrative, and which Dryden pos- 
 sessed to a degree greater perhaps than any other 
 English poet. We give one passage — the one where 
 it appears to us Wordsworth has succeeded best in 
 representing what, as he justl}^ observes, Drj'den habit- 
 ually neglects, the peculiar rhythm of his original : and 
 we subjoin to it Dryden's lines, that the two may be 
 compared as jneces of independent poetry (' Prsecipue 
 infelix,' '^n.' i. 712) : — 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 But chiefly Dido, to the coming ill 
 
 Devoted, strives in vain her vast desires to fill ; 
 
 She views the gifts : upon the child then turns 
 
 Insatiable looks, and gazing burns. 
 
 To ease a father's cheated love he hung 
 
 Upon ^neas, and around him clung : 
 
 Then seeks the queen : with her his arts he tries : 
 
 She fastens on the boy enamoured eyes, 
 
 Clasps in her arms, nor weens (0 lot unblest I 
 
 How great a god, incumbent o'er her breast, 
 
xlvi ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 Would fill it with his spirit. He, to please 
 
 His Acidalian mother, by degrees 
 
 Blots out Sichaeus, studious to remove 
 
 The dead by influx of a living love, 
 
 By stealthy entrance of a perilous guest 
 
 Troubling a heart that had been long at rest. 
 
 Dryden. 
 
 But, far above the rest, the royal dame, 
 
 Already doomed to love's disastrous flame, 
 
 With eyes insatiate and tumultuous joy 
 
 Beholds the present, and admires the boy. 
 
 The guileful god about the hero long 
 
 With children's play and false embraces hung : 
 
 Then sought the queen : she took him to her arms 
 
 With greedy pleasure, and devoured his charms. 
 
 Unhappy Dido little thought what guest. 
 
 How dire a god, she drew so near her breast. 
 
 But he, not mindless of his mother's prayer. 
 
 Works in the pliant bosom of the fair. 
 
 And moulds her heart anew, and blots her former care : 
 
 The dead is to the living love resigned. 
 
 And all iEneas enters in her mind. 
 
 Dryden is here not at his strongest ; while Wordsworth, 
 as we think, has succeeded better than in any other 
 part of the specimen. Yet we should not wonder if the 
 English reader should like Drj^den best. He has 
 fewer delicate touches, and generally preserves less of 
 Virgil's manner ; but he is as usual easy, vigorous, and 
 masterly : his language is what Wordsworth wished the 
 language of poetry to be, the language of good prose, 
 mutatis mutandis; aiid the measure, if not Virgilian, 
 has at an}^ rate the same effect as Virgil's, carrying the 
 reader along without anything to interrupt the sense 
 of intellectual satisfaction. 
 
 Here accordingly we leave the question of the trans- 
 
DRYDEN'S VERSION THE BEST. xlvii 
 
 lation of Virgil into verse, its practice and its theory. 
 England, we think, is to be congratulated on the pos- 
 session of one really fine poem, not more unlike Virgil 
 than its rivals in external feature, while possessing to 
 an infinitely greater degree than any of them that 
 * energy divine ' which constitutes the essence of all 
 poetry, ancient or modern. That a better version — 
 one more Virgiiian, and not less attractive — might not 
 conceivably be produced, we do not say. Mr. Tenny- 
 son is yet among us, and we would not presume to 
 limit the capabilities of so great a master of language 
 and meter. But the change which has taken place in 
 literary taste forbids us to think it likely that any great 
 poet will ever make the attempt. The work of transla- 
 tion was found irksome even by Pope ; it would be 
 doubly irksome now, when imitative classical poetry 
 has ceased to be the order of the day ; and the advance 
 in critical perception, which has raised infinitely the 
 ideal of what a translation should be, in perfecting the 
 theory has removed the practice to an indefinite dis- 
 tance. In the meantime we may congratulate ourselves 
 on the possession of a splendid English epic, in which 
 most of the thoughts are Virgil's, and most of the lan- 
 guage Dryden's. 
 
 But a further inquiry remains behind. If in one 
 sense the demand for translations of the classics has 
 greatly diminished, in another it has increased. The 
 success of Mr. Bohn's Classical Librar}' — success 
 attained against considerable disadvantages, the au- 
 thors in many cases being far from popular, while the 
 translators are not alwaj's absolutely competent — is a 
 proof that a considerable portion of the reading public, 
 for different reasons, desires to have the classics made 
 accessible in English. Schoolboy's are as fond of ' clan- 
 
xlviii ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 destine refuges ' now as they were in Trapp's daj's : 
 schoolmasters are, we fanc}^ beginning to tolerate, 
 under certain modifications, what they cannot extermi- 
 nate, while they see that among their elder pupils at 
 any rate the practice of translation into English — one 
 of the most valuable parts of a classical education — 
 may be greatl}' facilitated by the use of good models ; 
 those who acquire the classical languages with little or 
 no help from masters — probabl}' an increasing class — 
 find the book a natural substitute for the living teach- 
 er ; and there is a large class of readers to whom Latin 
 and Greek are as unattainable as Coptic, yet who are 
 interested in knowing what the ancients thought and 
 said.* The question. How may classical poetry be best 
 represented in English? which had long been supposed 
 to be confined to the single issue of Rhyme v. Blank 
 Verse, has come in again for hearing, and has been 
 found to open into numberless ramifications. The case 
 for translation into prose, once contemptuously dis- 
 missed, has been brought on again by such writers as 
 Mr. Haj'ward, and has proved to be at least worthy of 
 discussion. Writing prose is now prett}^ well under- 
 stood to be as much an art as writing verse ; and it is 
 seen consequentl}' that a prose translator does not ipso 
 facto abandon all pretension to grace and elaboration 
 of style. Blank verse is cultivated for purposes of 
 translation, not by imitators of Milton and Thomson, 
 
 * In Germany, where translations of the classics are far more 
 numerous than in England, as may he seen from the fact that 
 Seneca's Tragedies have been three times translated since the 
 beginning of the present century, the demand is said to arise 
 to a great extent from ladies' schools, where girls are taught to 
 read in the vernacular what their brothers are reading in the 
 original. 
 
MERITS OF PROSE VERSIONS. xlix 
 
 but by writers who wish to unite the fidelit}^ of a prose 
 version with something of metrical ornament. At- 
 tempts are made to cut in between prose and blank 
 verse by the introduction of a sort of rhythmical prose, 
 which again subdivides itself into prose written as prose 
 with a rhythmical cadence, and irregular verse, rather 
 rhythmical than metrical, but still more or less uniform 
 in its structure. Lastl3', the old fashion of imitating 
 ancient meters is revived, and the English hexameter 
 in particular is practiced with an assiduit}^ worthy of a 
 more promising object, though as yet its fanciers seem 
 scarce^ to have extended their experiments from Ho- 
 mer to Virgil. This part of the subject accordinglj- 
 requires a few remarks from us. As before, we shall 
 speak not onh^ of what may be done, but of what has 
 been done, holding ourselves absolved, however, by 
 the circumstances of the case, as well as by the scanti- 
 ness of our own knowledge, from saying more than a 
 very few words on the antiquarian part of the question. 
 A portion of the ground, indeed, has been previously 
 traveled in what we said of the translations of the 
 sixteenth century. There was then no sharp line of 
 demarcation between the two kinds of literary activitj' 
 — that which aspires to poetical honors, and that 
 which aims at producing translations for practical ob- 
 jects. All readers, in one sense or another, were learn- 
 ers ; and the office of the translator was virtually that 
 of the commentator, to give his countrymen the means 
 of entering into a new world. But, as time went on, 
 the division of labor came in. The only translation 
 of the kind in the seventeenth century which we hap- 
 pen to have met with, is entitled ' Virgils Eclogves, 
 with his Booke De Apibus, concerning the Governement 
 and Ordering of Bees u Translated Grammatically, and 
 
1 ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL, 
 
 also according to the proprietie of our English tongue, 
 so farre as Grammar and the verse will well permit. 
 Written chiefly for the good of Schooles, to be used 
 according to the directions in the Preface to the pain- 
 full Schoole-Master, and more full}^ in the Booke called 
 Ludus Literarius, or the Grammer-Schoole, Chap. 8. 
 London, 1633.' In its full form the page consists of 
 four columns, containing respectively an analysis of 
 the sense, a translation of the words, a verbal com- 
 mentary, and notes on matters of fact, points of 
 rhetoric, &c. 
 
 What precise chronological place among the prose 
 translators of Virgil is occupied b}?^ Davidson we 
 cannot say, but there can be no doubt that he has 
 been the most popular. His work was published as 
 earty as 1754, if not earlier, and it still continues to be 
 reprinted, even Mr. Bohn being content with present- 
 ing it to the world in a revised edition. In its com- 
 plete form it may certainly claim the praise of compre- 
 hensiveness, containing, as it does, not only a transla- 
 tion, ' as near the original as the different idioms of the 
 Latin and English languages will allow,' but ' the Latin 
 text and order of construction on the same page, 
 and critical, historical, geographical, and classical 
 notes in English, from the best commentators, both 
 ancient and modern, beside a very great number of 
 notes entirel}^ new ; ' a most ample provision ' for the 
 use of schools, as well as of private gentlemen,' espe- 
 cially if we throw in some seventy-five pages of prefa- 
 tory matter. Its literary characteristics are such as 
 will sufficiently account for its success, though they 
 are not of that rare order which might have been 
 expected to place it bej'^ond the reach of future rivalry. 
 It keeps fairly close to the Latin, at the same time 
 
DAVIDSON'S VERSION. li 
 
 that it is written in a fluent, respectable English style, 
 such as might easily commend itself to a person with- 
 out much poetical taste — the style of an ordinary 
 newspaper or of a Polite Letter-writer. Sometimes 
 the verbiage is too glaringl}^ anti-poetical, and may 
 move even a prosaic reader to a smile, as where ' fcede- 
 ra jungi ' is rendered ' the formation of an incorporative 
 alliance,' or ' heu miserande puer * ' Ah, youthful ob- 
 ject of sincere commiseration ; ' but in general there is 
 not much to find fault with in the language as tried by 
 an ordinary standard. Here is Davidson's version of 
 a famous passage in the Sixth -^neid (' Quis te, magne 
 Cato,' &c., V. 841):-— 
 
 Who can in silence pass over thee, great Cato, or thee, Cos- 
 sus, who the family of Gracchus, or both the Scipios, those two 
 thunderbolts of war, the bane of Africa, and Fabricius, in low 
 fortune exalted? or thee, Serranus, sowing in the furrow which 
 thine own hands had made? Whither, ye Tabii, do ye hurry 
 rae already tired? Thou art that Fabius, justly styled the 
 greatest, who alone shalt repair our sinking state by wise delay. 
 Others, I grant indeed, shall with more delicacy mould the breath- 
 ing animated brass; from marble draw the features to the life: 
 plead causes better : describe with the astronomer's rod the 
 courses of the heavens, and explain the rising stars : hut to rule 
 the nations with imperial sway be thy care, Roman ! these 
 shall be thy arts ; to impose terms of peace, to spare the hum- 
 bled, and crush the proud stubborn foes. (The italics, which 
 are the translator's, represent his additions to the original.) 
 
 There is not much rh3'thm here, not much of strictly 
 poetical expression, and no attempt to preserve the 
 peculiar character of Virgil's style ; but the language is 
 such as an Englishman might speak or write, and we 
 appeal to the class to whom Davidson dedicates his 
 labors, ' those gentlemen who have the imfaediate care 
 of education,' whether that is not something. 
 
iii ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL, 
 
 But it is in the last few years, as we intimated a 
 short time ago, that these more practical and closer 
 versions of Virgil have chiefly been attempted. 
 
 In 1846 Dr. Sewell published a blank version of the 
 ' Georgics,' intended as a help to teachers and pupils 
 in the practice of translation. His object is to make 
 a practical protest against the habit of bald prosaic 
 rendering so common in schools, by substituting a 
 mode of translating which shall be sharply discrimi- 
 nated from prose, both in meter and in language. For 
 this purpose he adopts the ordinary measure of blank 
 heroic verse, and chooses words which are expresslj' 
 intended to recall, not the ordinary conversational 
 st3de of the present da^', but the distinctive phraseol- 
 ogy of the Elizabethan and sixteenth-century writers. 
 In 1854 he brought out a second edition, in which the 
 translation, as he tells us, is entirely rewritten. We 
 have not the means of comparing the two ; but it 
 strikes us that, as usual, second thoughts are best. 
 Some expressions, which we remember as uncouth in 
 the first edition, we are glad to find effaced from the 
 second, such as ' pacts eterne,' a version of ' seterna 
 foedera,' now exchanged for ' changeless pacts ; ' but 
 the fault of which the word ' eterne ' is a symbol may 
 still be observed — a tendency to use words simply 
 because they happen to have the sanction of one or 
 other of the great English poets, without considering 
 whether they harmonize \vith the general style of the 
 translation, or whether the effect they produce is anal- 
 ogous to an3^thing in Virgil's own language. In at- 
 tempting, too, to bring out the force of expressions in 
 Virgil, Dr. Sewell is too apt to exaggerate them, as 
 when he renders ' magnos canibus circumdare saltus,* 
 ' vasty lawns with hounds to helt^ or ' atrse picis * 
 
SEW ELL AND KENNEDY. liii 
 
 * inky pitch.' The following version of part of the 
 storm in the First Georgic is, we think, a favorable 
 specimen. ' Implentur fossae ' (v. 326) : — 
 
 The dykes are brimming high, and hollow floods 
 Are swelling with a roar, and ocean seethes 
 With steaming friths. The sire himself of gods, 
 Throned midst a night of storms, launches his bolts 
 With red right hand. Commotion, wherewithal 
 Quakes the huge earth : fled have the forest tribes, 
 And througii the nations grovelling panic fear 
 Low hath laid mortal hearts. With blazing bolt 
 He doth or Atho or lihodope or heights 
 Ceraunian dash on earth. Peal upon peal 
 Follow south blasts, and thickest sheeted showers. 
 Now groves, now strands, roar 'neath the tempest wild. 
 
 The next version which we have to note is one 
 which perhaps in strictness should have been men- 
 tioned earlier in the article, as it is professedl}" a blank 
 version of the same sort as those which were produced 
 in the eighteenth century — in theory opposed to Dry- 
 den, but aiming at the same object — the production of 
 a readable English poem. But, though the Messrs. 
 Kennedy may belong rather to the conservative than 
 to the revolutionary school of translators, we think we 
 are not disparaging their labors in exhibiting them in 
 connection with those of others, who, like them, desire 
 to adhere to the letter of the original, where such adhe- 
 rence can be made not less poetical than a deviation 
 from it. Their translation shows what blank verse is 
 likely to be in fairly competent hands — how far it is 
 likely to give us such a representation of Virgil as can- 
 not be attained by a method like Dry den's. At the 
 same time, as the passage which we intend to examine 
 will be taken from the part of the work performed by 
 Mr. Kennedy sen., we may say at once that we think 
 
liv ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 Mr. Charles Kennedy the superior artist, more terse 
 and forcible than his father, without being less poetical.* 
 What measure of absolute success he has achieved may 
 be seen from the following passage from the Fifth 
 Eclogue, V. 56, ' Candidus insuetum,' &c. : — 
 
 New wonders now fair Daphnis doth behold, 
 The Olympian threshold, and beneath his feet 
 The clouds and stars. Therefore doth new delight 
 Exhilarate the woods and rural scenes, 
 Pan and the sl\epherds, and the Dryad maids : 
 Wolves prowl not for the flock, nor toils intend 
 Harm to the deer : peace gentle Daphnis loves. 
 The unshorn mountains joyful to the stars 
 Send a spontaneous cry : the rocks, the groves 
 Unbidden sing : a God, a God is he. 
 
 A version of the whole of Virgil, on a plan substan- 
 tially the same as Dr. Sewell's, has just been completed 
 by his predecessor at Kadley, Mr. Singleton, the first 
 volume having been published in 1855. The chief dif- 
 ference lies in the somewhat greater flexibility of the 
 form, which is rhjthmical rather than metrical ; but, 
 even in this respect, the two versions are not easilj^ 
 distinguishable, as, while Dr. Sewell has not been con- 
 cerned greatly to elaborate his blank verse, Mr. Single- 
 ton's is in reality blank verse with occasional licenses, 
 a syllable or foot being sometimes added to, sometimes 
 deducted from, the ordinary heroic standard. Mr. 
 Singleton's theory is expounded, not, like Dr. Sewell's, 
 in a short advertisement, but in a long and interesting 
 preface ; and he consults further for the poetical taste 
 of his readers by subjoining in foot-notes parallel 
 passages ' from British poets of the sixteenth, seven- 
 
 * Mr. Charles Kennedy has since translated the whole of Vir- 
 gil on his own account (Bohn, 1861) ; but we have no space to 
 examine his version. 
 
DR. HENRY'S LABORS. Iv 
 
 teenth, and eighteenth centuries.' What his success has 
 been we shall see by and by ; meantime, we must men- 
 tion a translator whom he has honored with his appro- 
 bation — Dr. Henry Owgan, of Trinity College, Dublin, 
 whose prose version of the whole of ' Virgil ' he classes 
 with Dr. Isaac Butt's prose version of the ' Georgics ' 
 as ' very far the most poetical ' of all those which he 
 has had an opportunity^ of seeing. Dr. Butt's we have 
 unfortunatel}^ been unable to procure. To Dr. Owgan's 
 we shall return presently'. Last on the list, though 
 not last in order of time, comes a translation of the 
 First Six Books of the '^neid/ by Dr. James Henry, 
 also an Irishman, under the quaint title of ' Six Photo- 
 graphs of the Heroic Times.' This work again is not 
 metrical, but rhythmical, its peculiarity being that the 
 rhythm is changed from time to time to suit the trans- 
 lator's convenience, pages of trochaic time being suc- 
 ceeded by others where anapaests are predominant, and 
 these again by ordinary blank verse, a measure which 
 is preserved through the whole of the Fourth Book. 
 The translator had made many experiments before he 
 satisfied himself; and this somewhat heterogeneous 
 assemblage of varieties is the result. If we cannot 
 praise it very highly, we are glad to be able to add 
 that Dr. Henry's labors have been far more successful 
 in another part of the Virgilian field. About the same 
 time with his translation appeared a commentary on 
 the same portion of the '^neid,' to which he has 
 given a title not less quaint — ' Notes of a Twelve 
 Years' Voyage of Discover}^ in the First feix Books of 
 Virgil's uEneis ' — a work which, though somewhat 
 cumbrous in its form, and disfigured by too frequent 
 an obtrusion of the author's individuality, contains a 
 very great deal that appears to us at once new and 
 
Ivi ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL, 
 
 true. A writer who has shown himself one of the 
 best commentators on Virgil's poem need not repine 
 that he has not the additional honor of being one of its 
 best translators. 
 
 We are now in a position to test these different modes 
 of translation by a comparison of some of their re- 
 sults. Let us take a passage from the Second ^neid, 
 that in which the bursting of the Greeks into Priam's 
 palace is described with so much power and energy. 
 We give the Latin, as our intention is to scrutinize 
 closel}^ the conformity of the translations. Our list will 
 be headed by an extract from Trapp, of w^hom we 
 promised to speak again : — 
 
 Fit via vi : rumpunt aditus, primosque trucidant 
 Immissi Danai, et late loca milite complent. 
 Non sic aggeribus ruptis cum spumeus amnis 
 Exiit, oppositasque evicit gurgite moles, 
 Fertur in arva furens cumulo, camposque per omnes 
 Cum stabulis armenta trahit. Vidi ipse furentem 
 Caede Neoptolemum, geminosque in limine Atridas : 
 Vidi Hecubam, centumque nurus, Priamumque per aras 
 Sanguine foedantem quos ipse sacraverat ignes. 
 Quinquaginta illi thalami, spes tanta nepotum, 
 Barbarico postes auro spoliisque superbi, 
 Procubuere. Tenent Danai qua deficit ignis. 
 
 w. 494—505. 
 Trapp. 
 
 A spacious breach 
 Is made : the thronging Greeks break in, then kill 
 The first they meet, and with armed soldiers crowd 
 The rich apartments. With less rapid force 
 A foamy river, when the opposing dams 
 Are broken down, rolls rushing o'er the plain, 
 And sweeping whirls the cattle with their folds. 
 These eyes saw Pyrrhus raging, smeared with gore, 
 And both the Atridae in the entrance storm, 
 Amidst a hundred daughters saw the queen, 
 
FIVE VERSIONS COMPARED, * Ivii 
 
 And Priam on the altars with his blood 
 
 Pollute those hallowed fires, which he himself 
 
 Had consecrated. Fifty bridal rooms, 
 
 So great their hopes of numerous future heirs, 
 
 The posts, with trophies and barbaric gold 
 
 Magnificent, lay smoking on the ground : 
 
 Where the flames fail, the Greeks supply their place. 
 
 Kennedy. 
 
 An ingress made by force, 
 The Greeks admitted slay the first they meet, 
 And crowd the places all around with troops. 
 Not with such rage a river pours o'er lands 
 A swollen flood, and herds with stalls bears down 
 Through all the plains when it has burst away 
 From broken banks, and with a foamy whirl 
 O'ercome opposing mounds. These eyes beheld 
 Pyrrhus with slaughter rage, and at the gates 
 The two Atridae. Hecuba I saw. 
 Wives of her sons a hundred, and at shrines 
 Priam the king, defiling with his blood 
 The fires which he himself had sacred made. 
 The fifty bridal chambers, wliich had raised 
 Hopes of a long posterity, their posts. 
 Proud with barbaric gold and spoils, fall down. 
 Greeks plant their footsteps where the flames relent. 
 
 Singleton. 
 
 A way is made by force : the Greeks poured in, 
 
 Burst passage, and the foremost massacre, 
 
 And wide with soldiery the places fill. 
 
 Not so [resistless] when from bursten dams 
 
 The foamy river hath escaped away, 
 
 And mastered in its eddy barrier mounds, 
 
 'Tis carried in a pile upon the tilths 
 
 In frenzy, and throughout the champaigns all 
 
 The cattle with their cotes it sweepeth off. 
 
 I Neoptolemus beheld myself 
 
 Raving with butchery, and in the gate 
 
Iviii ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 Atreus' twain sons ; I Hecuba beheld 
 
 And lier one hundred daughters ; Priam too 
 
 Among the altars staining with his blood 
 
 The fires which he himself had sanctified. 
 
 Those fifty nuptial couches, hope so great 
 
 Of children's children, doors with foreign gold 
 
 And trophies haught, down tumbled to the earth. 
 
 Possess the Danai where fails the flame. 
 
 OWGAN. 
 
 A path is cleared by force : the thronging Greeks force their 
 way and massacre the foremost, and fill the open space with 
 soldiers. Not so resistless the foaming torrent, when it o'er- 
 flows its broken banks and washes down with its flood the ob- 
 structing dams, rushes upon the fields in a mass, and from every 
 plain sweeps herds and stalls. I saw myself Neoptolemus rev- 
 elling in slaughter, and the two Atridas in the gate : I saw Hecu- 
 ba and .her hundred daughters-in-law, and Priam amid the altars 
 staining with blood the fires his hands had consecrated. Those 
 fifty chambers, so rich a promise of descendants, the doorways 
 rich with barbaric gold, lay prostrate. The Greeks are masters 
 where the fire dies out. 
 
 Henry. 
 
 Main strength bursts a passage, 
 The entrance is forced, 
 * In rush the Danai, 
 
 Slaughter the foremost, 
 
 And the whole place with soldiery 
 
 Fill far and wide. 
 
 Less furiously the foaming river, 
 Whose gushing flood has overcome 
 And burst the dam's opposing mass 
 And left its channel, on the fields 
 Rushes aheap, and drags along 
 Cattle and stall o'er all the plain. 
 
 Myself have seen upon the threshold 
 Neoptolemus and the twain Atridae, 
 
MINOR POINTS OF CRITICISM. lix 
 
 Furious and reeking slaughter : 
 Hecuba and her hundred daughters 
 Myself have seen, and midst the altars 
 Priam defiling with his blood 
 The fires himself had consecrated. 
 Low lie those fifty spousal chambers, 
 So rich hope of a teeming offspring, 
 Low lie those fifty doors superb 
 With conquered spoils and gold barbaric : 
 The Danai or the fire have all. 
 
 Of the three blank versions of this passage we in- 
 cline to put Mr. Singleton's first. It does not pretend 
 to Miltonic grandeur, but it is not worse versified than 
 its rivals, and its language gains strength from its 
 closeness to the original. •• Tilths,' a word by which 
 he pregnantly renders* ' arva,' is quaint; but it is im- 
 portant here that we should conceive of the fields as 
 tilled, so we prefer it to Mr. Kennedy's ' lands,' or the 
 simple ' fields ' of other translators. ' I Neoptolemus 
 beheld myself is ambiguous, and therefore awkward. 
 * Couches ' is of course a mistranslation for ' chambers.' 
 ' Possess the Danai where fails the flame ' is needlessly 
 harsh, though it preserves something of the epigram- 
 matic character of the Latin. Trapp perhaps comes 
 next, as he has more rapidity than Mr. Kennedy ; and 
 in a passage like this rapidity is indispensable. But 
 he has various shortcomings, and not a few blemishes. 
 ' Fit via vi,' which he tells us in his note is no pun, but 
 a likeness of sound, which sounds prettily, he practi- 
 cally slurs over altogether. * The rich apartments ' is 
 a poor substitute for ' loca,' and ' late ' is left out. 
 The simile is shortened by being stripped of two 
 pieces of Virgilian iteration, ' aggeribus ruptis' being 
 fused with ' oppositas evicit gurgite moles,' and ' cam- 
 pos per omnes ' dropped after ' in arva.' ' Nepotum,' 
 
Ix ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 which is meant especially to fix our thoughts on Priam 
 and Hecuba, is lost in the generality of ' numerous 
 future heirs,' and the precise meaning of ' spes tanta * 
 apparently misunderstood. ' Raging, smeared with 
 gore,' is very far from ' furentem csede,' which is best 
 rendered by Mr. Singleton's ' raving with butcher3^' 
 Mr. Kennedy seems to us to fail in strength through- 
 out. He is injudicious in his management of the 
 simile, reversing the order of the clauses, so as to put 
 the triumph of the torrent in the foreground, and its 
 struggle with obstacles afterwards ; whereas Virgil evi- 
 dently intended us to pause a while on the struggle, 
 like the torrent itself, and then to hurry along — like 
 the torrent itself, stronger for the delay. ' These 
 ej^es beheld ' should not have been exchanged for ' I 
 saw,' thus ignoring Virgil's emphatic repetition of 
 * vidi.' 'Which had raised hopes of a long posterit}^' 
 is not poetr}", but prose. ' Fall down ' does not give 
 the force of the perfect ' procubuere.* ' Greeks plant 
 their footsteps where the flames relent' is pointless 
 where point is wanted : ' plant their footsteps ' does 
 not answer to ' tenent,' nor ' relent ' to ' deficit.' 
 
 Dr. Owgan's translation is respectable, but there is 
 nothing in it which can be called striking ; and the 
 exact force of the Latin is not always given any more 
 than in the metrical versions. ' Open space ' is poor 
 for ' late loca,' which is doubtless meant to give us a 
 vague, illimitable notion of the royal palace. ' O'er- 
 flows ' and ' washes down ' miss the tense, which Virgil 
 evidently meant to discriminate from that of * fertur ' 
 and ' trahit.' Nor does ' washes down ' represent ' evi- 
 cit.' ' Herds and stalls ' hardly gives the sense of ' cum 
 stabulis armenta,' not indicating the close connection 
 between the two, ' the herds and their stalls,' or ' herd, 
 
PROSE SUPERIOR TO BLANK VERSE. Ixi 
 
 stall, and all.* ' From every plain ' seems to us an 
 unhappy use of the distributive ; and we see no reason 
 for changing ' per * into ' from.' ' Descendants ' is 
 not ' nepotum ; * and whether ' postes ' are the door- 
 posts or the doors, they are certainly not the door- 
 ways, which could not have been ' rich with spoils.* 
 ' Lay prostrate * turns the perfect into an aorist. The 
 best part of the version is the last sentence, where 
 * tenent ' and * deficit ' are both well rendered. 
 
 Putting aside the question of the propriety of its 
 Pindaric rhythm, we must allow that Dr. Henry's ver- 
 sion has its merits. The first strophe (so to call it) 
 is well done ; the second not so well ; the third worst 
 of all. ' M^'self have seen ' is, we think, a mistake, as 
 the sense seems to require the past, not the perfect ; 
 at any rate we ma}^ say that the former is the predomi- 
 nant notion. ' Furious and reeking slaughter ' is a 
 most unfortunate dilution. ' So rich hope of a teem- 
 ing oflTspring ' is another instance of blindness to the 
 real force of ' nepotum.' ' The Danai or the fire have 
 all ' gives the epigram, but we are not told, what Vir- 
 gil certainly intended us to understand, that of the 
 two enemies the Greeks were the more indefatigable. 
 
 Were it not for fear of tiring our readers, we would 
 gladly continue our examination of these competing 
 translations, feeling as we do that to produce a single 
 passage from each is a little like the uncritical pro- 
 cedure of the man who brought a brick as a specimen 
 of his house. Perhaps, however, we have quoted 
 enough, if not to determine the rank of the transla- 
 tors, at am^ rate to justify our opinion of the various 
 styles which they have attempted. Not wishing to 
 prejudge the success of any coming poet, who may 
 reclaim for Virgil the rhythm for which Milton it 
 
Ixii ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL. 
 
 seems is indebted to him, we cannot think blank verse 
 well chosen as a vehicle for close rendering. It has, 
 perhaps, its advantages as an exercise for boys, who 
 may be supposed to be unacquainted with the possible 
 harmonies of poetical prose, and to be incapable of 
 recognizing anything as poetry which does not run to 
 the eye in measured lines. But one who can really 
 wield prose will, we think, find it beyond comparison 
 the better instrument. We do not of course deny that 
 English verse per se is a better representative of Latin 
 verse than English prose. Mr. Singleton may be right 
 in saying, that if Virgil and Cicero could be got to trans- 
 late Homer closely into Latin, Virgil's translation would 
 be the one we should prefer. But we are dealing with 
 those who are neither Virgils nor Ciceros, but simply 
 men of culture, with a good command over their own 
 language, and a good eye for the beauties of their 
 author ; and such men, we conceive, will do wisely to 
 try the 3xt unexhausted resources of prose. Only a 
 great master can handle blank verse so as to give 
 real pleasure to his readers. A versifier of ver3' mod- 
 erate pretensions may write it with ease, but no one 
 will thank him for it. Blank verse, like other verse, 
 presupposes and promises a certain sustained pitch 
 of poetical elevation, and any descent from it is felt 
 and resented at once. Prose, on the other hand, 
 promises far less ; and anj^thing which it gives bej'ond 
 its promise is accepted with pleasure and surprise. 
 The indeterminate character of its rhythm, which does 
 not require that emphasis should be placed on this or 
 that word, much less on this or that syllable, allows 
 to admit unhesitatingly words which, if introduced 
 into blank verse at all, would be felt to be feeble and 
 burdensome. The passage which we have just been 
 
ADVANTAGES OF PROSE, Ixiii 
 
 examining supplies an instance in point. Virgil talks 
 of ' Hecubam centumque nurus.' A prose translation 
 need not shrink from the word ' daughters-in-law,' nor 
 from the use of many words which embarrass the 
 writers of verse, and which, though essential to a 
 lucid representation of the sense, add nothing to the 
 poetical dignity of the passage. Thus a vigorous 
 Latin line is turned by Mr. Singleton into two feeble 
 lines of English : — 
 
 Si qua est cselo pietas quae talia curet 
 becomes — 
 
 If any righteousness exist in heaven 
 Which may concern itself about the like. 
 
 If the writer of rhj^thmical prose cannot be said to 
 be free either from the temptation or from the compul- 
 sion to expand himself, he does himself and his author 
 far less harm by yielding to them. No doubt, as 
 Sydne}' Smith said, a prose style may often be greatly 
 improved by striking out every other word from each 
 sentence when written ; but there are occasions where 
 diffuseness is graceful, and a certain amount of sur- 
 plusage may sometimes be admitted into harmonious 
 prose for no better reason than to sustain the balance 
 of clause against clause, and to bring out the general 
 rhythmical effect. Brevity is of course the preferable 
 extreme ; but redundancy has its charms if a writer 
 knows when to be redundant, as the readers of Mr. 
 De Quincey and Mr. Ruskin are well aware. On the 
 other hand, such rhj'thmical writing as Dr. Henry's, 
 or Mr. Singleton's, where he is not actually metrical, 
 has no real advantage that we can see over more 
 recognized modes of composition. It gives up the 
 benefits of association, no one in reading it being 
 
Ixiv ENGLISH TRANSLATORS OF VIRGIL, 
 
 reminded of anything already existing in English, while 
 the uniformity of its structure imposes virtually as 
 great a restraint on a writer as actual meter. John- 
 son advised poets who did not think themselves capa- 
 ble of astonishing, and hoped only to please, to 
 condescend to rhyme. Translators who despair of 
 imitating Virgil's diction, and are ambitious only of 
 giving his meaning in a pleasing form, may reasonably 
 be content with prose. 
 
THE BUCOLICS, 
 
 ECLOGUE I. 
 
 TITYRUS. ; 
 
 Jf. You, Tityrus, as you lie under the covert of the 
 spreading beech, are studying the woodland Muse on 
 your slender reed, while we are leaving our country's 
 borders and the fields of our love — we are exiles from 
 our country, while you, Tityrus, at ease in the shade, are 
 teaching the woods to resound the charms of Amaryllis. 
 
 T. O Melibceus, it is a god who has given us the 
 peace 3'ou see — for a god he shall ever be to me ; his 
 altar shall often be wet with the blood of a tender lamb 
 from our folds. He it is that has made my oxen free 
 to wander at large, and myself to play at my pleasure 
 on my rural pipe. 
 
 M. I do not grudge you, I. It is rather that I won- 
 der, so great is the unsettledness in the whole countr}- 
 round. Look at me here ! I am driving mj^ goats 
 feebly on before me ; and here is one, Tityrus, which I 
 can but just drag along. Why, it was here among these 
 thick hazels only just now that she dropped twins, after 
 hard labor — the last hope of my flock — alas ! on the 
 bare flint. Ah ! often and often, I mind, this mischief 
 was foretold me, had I but had sense, b}' the lightning 
 striking the oak. However, do kindty tell me, Tityrus, 
 who this god of yours is. 
 
 7 
 
8 THE BUCOLICS. 
 
 ZVj<M ^- That city which they call Rome I thought, Meli- 
 
 boeus, was like this of ours, where we shepherds are in 
 the habit of weaning and driving our young lambs. It 
 was so that I had observed puppies to be like dogs, and 
 kids like their dams ; so, in short, that I used to com- 
 pare big things to little. But I found her carrying her 
 head as high among all other cities as cj'presses do 
 among your bending hedgerow trees. 
 
 M. And what was the mighty reason of your visiting 
 Rome? 
 
 T. Freedom, which cast an ej^e on me in m}- laziness, 
 late as it was, after my beard was beginning to look 
 gray as it fell under the barber's shears. However, it 
 did cast an eye on me, and came, though itf was long 
 first, after Amaryllis got the hold she has of me, and 
 Galatea took leave of me. For, to tell the truth, while 
 I was under Galatea I never looked forward to freedom 
 nor attended to my pelf; though I had man}^ a sheep for 
 sacrifice going out of my folds, and many a rich cream- 
 cheese made for the thankless town, 3^et mj" hand used 
 never to come home with a load of money in it. 
 
 M. Aye, Amaryllis, I used to wonder why you were 
 calling on the gods so piteously — for whom it was that 
 you were letting the apj)les hang on their trees. It was 
 TitjTus that was away. Why, Tityrus, the pines, and 
 the springs, and the vinej^ards here, used all to call for 
 you as loudl}^ as she did. 
 
 T. How could I help it ? I had no other way of 
 quitting slavery, and no other place where I could find 
 gods so read}^ to help me. Here it was, Meliboeus, that 
 I saw that youth for whom I make my altars smoke 
 twelve daj^s a year. Here it was that I got from him 
 m}" first gracious answer to my suit, ' Go on, swains, 
 feeding your oxen as before, and breeding your bulls.* 
 
ECLOGUE I. 9 
 
 M. Happ3^ old man ! so your land will remain your 
 own, and enough, too, for your wants, though there ma}' 
 be bare flints all over it, and the marsh covering the 
 pastures with slime and reeds. Still, no strange fodder 
 will trouble your breeding ewes — no baleful contagion 
 from" a neighbor's flock will harm them. Happy old 
 man ! here you will lie among the streams you know so 
 well, and the sacred springs, courting the coolness of 
 the shade — from here, on the border of j^our neighbor's 
 land, that hedge, whose willow-blossoms are browsed 
 by Hybla's bees, shall often tempt you to sleep, as it 
 has ever done, with its light whispering — from here, 
 under the high rock's shelter, the dresser shall sing out 
 into the air — while the hoarse wood-pigeons, those 
 favorites of yours, and the turtle will still go on com- 
 plaining from the skyey elm-top. 
 
 T, Yes ; sooner shall the stags become buoyant and 
 pasture in the sky, and the seas leave their fish bare on 
 the shore — sooner shall the Parthian and German 
 wander over each other's frontiers, one to drink the 
 Arar in his exile, the other the Tigris — than that 
 gracious look of his shall fade from my mind. 
 
 M. Meanwhile we are leaving our home ; some going 
 among the thirsty Africans, while others will reach 
 Sc3'thia, and Crete's swift Oaxes, and Britain, cut off 
 utterly from the whole world. Tell me, will there ever 
 be a day when I shall gaze wonderingly, after long 
 years, on my native fields, and the turf-heaped roof of 
 my homel}^ cottage, surveying my old domains, then, 
 perhaps, a few ears of corn ? Is a lawless soldier to 
 be master of lands that I have broken up and tilled so 
 well — a barbarian, of such crops as these? See ^^ \ ^^QO^'^'ci^yr^^ 
 what a point civil discord has brought a w^-etched coun-J ^^ 
 ti}' ! See for whom it is that we have sown our fields ! 
 
10 THE BUCOLICS. 
 
 Aye, Meliboeus, go on grafting 3'our pears and setting 
 your vines in rows ! Away, my goats, away — you that 
 were once so happ}- ! No more shall I see 3'ou, as I lie 
 in some green cavern, in the distance hanging from a 
 briery crag — no more verses for me to sing — no more 
 flowering lucern and bitter willow leaves for you to 
 crop, my goats, with me to tend you ! 
 
 T. This night, at all events, j^ou might rest here with 
 me on a couch of green leaves. We have ripe apples, 
 mealy chestnuts, and milk-cheeses in good store ; and 
 now the farmhouse tops are smoking in the distance, 
 and the shadows are falling larger from the mountain 
 heights. 
 
 ECLOGUE 11. 
 ALEXIS. 
 
 Corydon, the shepherd, was burning for the lovely 
 Alexis, his master's darling, with no prospect for his 
 hope. All he could do was to come daily among the 
 thick beeches, with their shad}^ summits, and there all 
 alone to pour out wildly to the mountains and woods 
 such unstudied strains as these in unavailing passion : 
 
 ' Cruel Alexis ! have you no care for my songs ? no 
 pity for me ? You will drive me to death at last. It is 
 the hour when even cattle are seeking the shade and its 
 coolness — the hour when even green lizards are shelter- 
 ing themselves in the brakes, and Thestylis is making 
 for the reapers, as they come back spent with the ve- 
 hement heat, her savory mess of bruised garlic and wild 
 thyme ; but I, as I am scanning the prints of your feet, 
 am left with a choir of hoarse cicalas that make the 
 plantations ring again under the blazing sun. Was there 
 not satisfaction in bearing Amaryllis's storms of passion 
 
, ECLOGUE TL \\ 
 
 and her scornful humors ? or Menalcas, again — dark as 
 he was — fair as are you ? Do not, loveliest boy, do not 
 presume too much on that bright bloom — white privet 
 is left to fall, dark hyacinths are gathered for posies. 
 
 * You think scorn of me, Alexis, without even asking 
 what I am — how rich I am in cattle, how overflowing 
 in milk white as snow. Why, I have a thousand ewe 
 lambs straying at large over the mountains of Sicily — 
 new milk never fails me either summer or winter. I can 
 sing as Amphion of Dirce sang when calling the flocks 
 home on the Attic Arac3'nthus. I am not so unsightly 
 either — the other da}^ on the sea-shore I looked at my- 
 self, as the sea was standing all glassy in a calm. I 
 should not fear competing with Daphnis in your judg- 
 ment, if the reflection never plaj's false. 
 
 ' O if you would but take a fancy to live with me a 
 homely country life in a humble cottage, shooting the 
 deer, and driving the herds of kids a-field to the green 
 mallows ! Living with me, you shall soon rival Pan in 
 singing in the woodland. Pan it was that first taught 
 the fashion of fastening several reeds together with wax. 
 Pan it is that cares for sheep and shepherds. Do not 
 think 3"ou would be sorr}" to chafe 3'our lip with a reed 
 — to learn this same lesson, what used not Amyntas to 
 go through ? I have a pipe made out of seven uneven 
 hemlock stalks, which Damcetas once gave me as a 
 present — his djdng words were, " It is yours now, as my 
 next heir." So said Damcetas. Amj-ntas, in his folly, 
 felt jealous. Besides, I have two 3'oung roes, which I 
 found in a dangerous valle}^ their skins still sprinkled 
 with white, sucking the same ewe twice a day. I am 
 keeping them for you. Thest3dis, to be sure, has been 
 long begging to get them away from me — and so she 
 shall, as you think my presents so mean. Come to me, 
 
12 THE BUCOLICS. 
 
 loveliest boj' — see, the nj^mphs are bringing basketsful 
 of lilies, all for you — for you, the fair naiad plucks 
 yellow violets and poppy heads, and puts them with 
 the narcissus and the fragrant fennel flower, twines them 
 with cassia and other pleasant plants, and picks out the 
 delicate hj'acinth with the yellow marigold ! I will 
 gather you m3'self quinces with their soft white down, 
 and chestnuts, which my A'marj'llis used to love so, and 
 put in waxen plums — this fruit, too, shall come in for 
 honor. You, too, I will pluck, ye bays, and you, myr- 
 tle, that always go with them — so placed you make a 
 union of sweet smells. 
 
 ' Cor3Tlon, 3'ou are nothing but a clown. Alexis cares 
 nothing for such presents ; naj', if presents are to be 
 your weapons, lollas will not yield the day to you. 
 Alas, alas! what wretched wish have I been forming? 
 I have been madman enough to let the south wind into 
 my flower-beds, and the boars into my clear springs. 
 Do you know whom you are flying from, infatuate as 
 you are ? Why, even the gods have lived in the coun- 
 try, aye, and Dardan Paris. Leave Pallas to live by 
 herself in the great city towns she has built ; let us love 
 the country beyond an}^ other place. The grim lioness 
 goes after the wolf, the w^olf, for his part, after the goat, 
 the playful goat after the flowering lucern, Corydon 
 after you, Alexis — each is drawn ])y his peculiar pleas- 
 ure. Look, the bullocks are drawing home the plough, 
 with its share slung up, and the sun, as he withdraws, 
 is doubling the lengthening shadows — yet still love is 
 burning me up — for how should there be any stint for 
 love? Ah, Corydon, Corydon ! what madness has pos- 
 sessed 3'Ou? Here are your vines half-pruned, and the 
 elms they hang on overgrown with leaves. Come, 3'ou 
 had better set about plaiting out some work for needful 
 
ECLOGUE III. 13 
 
 occasions with twigs or pliant rushes. You will find 
 another Alexis, though the present one may scorn you.* 
 
 ECLOGUE III. 
 PAL^MON. 
 
 M. Tell me, Damoetas, whose cattle? Meliboeus's? 
 
 D. No ; but -Agon's. They were just now handed 
 over to me b}^ jEgon. 
 
 M. Poor creatures, alwaj^s unlucky ! He is courting 
 Nesera, all afraid that she will be preferring me to him, 
 while his hireling performs a shepherd's dut}^ b}' milking 
 the sheep twice an hour, and so the cattle are robbed 
 of their life-juice, and the lambs of their milk. 
 
 M. Aye, of course, when they saw me with my felon- 
 knife notching Micon's plantations of young vines. 
 
 D. Or rather, we will say, by the old beeches here, 
 when you broke Daphnis's bow and arrows, which you 
 were vexed about at the time — yow with your crooked 
 ways — when jom saw the boy get his present, and 
 afterward, if you had not found some wa}* of spiting 
 him, you would have died. 
 
 M. What are masters likely to do, if knaves venture 
 so far? Did not I see you, you scoundrel, snapping up 
 stealthily Damon's goat, while his mongrel was barking 
 furiously? And then, when I was calling out, ' Where's 
 he off to now ? Tityrus, muster yonv flock ! ' you 
 skulked behind the sedge. 
 
 D. Why, after a fair beating in singing, was he not to >, 
 pay me the goat which my pipe had earned for me b}^ . 
 its songs? If you must know, that goat was mine, and / 
 Damon owned it to me himself, but said he would not pay. 
 
14 THE BUCOLICS, 
 
 Ml 
 
 M. You beat him in singing ? Why, had you ever a 
 pipe jointed with wax ? Used you not to perform at the 
 crossings, executing vile, miserable songs, like an un- 
 educated dolt, as you are, on a screaking straw ? 
 
 D. Well, what do you say to our trying together what 
 each is made of, turn and turn about ? This heifer — 
 don't back out of it — she comes twice a day to the 
 milk-pail and suckles a couple of calves — shall be my 
 stake. Do you name what wager you will go in upon. 
 
 M. Why, out of my flock I dare not stake anything 
 with you. The fact is, I have a father at home, aje, and 
 I have a harsh step-mother ; both count the flock twice 
 a day, and one of them the kids too. But I will make 
 what 3'ou will yourself own to be a greater venture, as 
 you are minded to play so mad a game. I will stake a 
 pair of cups of beechwood, the embossed work of the 
 divine Alcimedon ; the plastic graving-tool has wreathed 
 them round with a limber vine, entwined with spreading 
 clusters of pale-yellow ivy. In the field there are two 
 figures, Conon and — who was the other, who marked 
 out with his rod the whole heavens for mankind, that 
 they might know the seasons which the reaper and the 
 stooping ploughman were to have for their own? I 
 have not yet put my lips to them either, but keep them 
 in store. 
 
 D, Yes. I have two cups, too, made for me by the 
 same Alcimedon, who has clasped their handles with 
 pliant acanthus, and drawn Orpheus on the field and 
 the woods going after him. I have not yet put my lips 
 to them either, but keep them in store. However, if 
 you once look to the heifer, you will have nothing to 
 say for the cups. 
 
 M. You are not going to run awaj^ this time. I will 
 meet you wherever you appoint — only let there be some 
 
ECLOGUE III, 15 
 
 one to hear us. Palsemon — don't you see hiia coming • 
 up ? — will do. I will take care that you challenge no- 
 body to sing for the future. 
 
 D. Naj^, come on, if you can ; there will be no hin- » 
 derance on my side. I don't run away from anybody — 
 only, neighbor Palaemon, give your best attention to 
 this : it is no trifling matter. 
 
 P. Sing, then, now that we are seated on the soft 
 grass. It is the time when every field and every tree 
 is 3'ielding its fruit ; the time when the woods are in 
 leaf, and the year is at its loveliest. Begin, Damcetas ; 
 you follow him, Menalcas. You shall sing by turns ; 
 singing by turns is what the Muses love. 
 
 D. Jove shall be our first word, Muses. Jove is the j 
 filler of all things : he makes the earth fruitful, and he / 
 has a thought for verses like mine. 
 
 M. I am Phoebus's favorite. Phoebus always finds 
 with me his own peculiar presents, the bay and the 
 sweet ruddy hyacinth. 
 
 D. Galatea flings an apple at me, like a saucy girl, 
 as she is, and then runs off to the willows, and would " 
 like to be seen first. 
 
 M. But I have my darling Am3mtas, putting himself 
 in my way unasked, so that my dogs have got to know 
 him now as well as Delia. 
 
 D. I have got a present ready for my goddess. I 
 have marked the spot with my own eyes where the 
 wood-pigeons have been building up in the sky. 
 
 M. I have done my best for to-da}- ; ten golden ap- 
 ples, picked from a tree in the orchard, I have sent my 
 boy ; to-morrow I will send as many more. 
 
 D. O the times Galatea has talked to me and the 
 things she has said ! Carry some of them, ye winds, to 
 the ears of the gods I 
 
16 THE BUCOLICS, 
 
 M. What good is it that at heart 3'ou do not scorn 
 me, Am3^ntas, if while you are following the boars, I 
 am always watching the nets ? 
 
 D. Send me Ph3ilis : it is my birthday, loUas. When 
 I sacrifice a heifer for the harvest, come yourself. 
 
 M, Ph^^Uis is laiy own dearest love. Why, she wept 
 on parting from me, and dwelt long on the words, 
 ' Farewell, farewell, my lovel}^ lollas ! ' 
 
 D, The bane of the folds is the wolf, of the ripe 
 crops the rain, of the trees the sirocco — mine is 
 Amar^Tllis's storms of passion. 
 
 M. The J03" of the 3'oung corn is moisture, of weaned 
 kids the arbute, of breeding cattle the limber willow — 
 mine is none but Am^ntas. 
 
 D. PoUio loves my muse — countr^'-bred though she 
 be. Pierian goddesses, breed a heifer for 3^our gentle 
 reader. 
 
 M. PoUio writes fresh verses himself. Breed a bull 
 old enough to butt with the horn and spurn the sand 
 with the hoof. 
 
 • D. The man that loves yoxx^ Pollio, let him arrive 
 where he is glad to see you ; for him let honey distil, 
 and let the prickly thorn-bush bear spices. 
 
 M, The man that hates not Bavins, let him love your 
 verses, Msevius ; let him, moreover, plough with a team 
 of foxes, and milk he-goats. 
 
 D, You who gather flowers and strawberries that 
 grow on the ground, there is a cold snake — off with 
 3^ou, my boys ! — lurking in this grass. 
 
 M. Don't go on venturing too far, my sheep ; the 
 bank is not to be trusted. Why, the ram himself is 
 just now dr3dng his coat. 
 
 D. Tityrus, sling away those goats that are grazing 
 there from the river. I'll wash them all myself in due 
 time at the spring. 
 
ECLOGUE IV, 17 
 
 M. Get yaur sheep into the shade, my boys ; if the 
 heat steal a inarch on the milk, as it did the other day, 
 it will be in vain that we shall tug at the udders. 
 
 D. Dear, dear, how lean my bull is among the fat- 
 tening tares ! it is the same love that wastes the cattle 
 and the cattle's master. 
 
 M, These of mine certainly have not less the matter 
 with them either — the flesh scarcely covers the bones ; 
 it must be some one's evil eye that bewitches such 
 young lambs as mine are. 
 
 D, Tell me in what country — and you shall be my 
 grand Apollo — the horizon is no broader than three 
 ells across. 
 
 M. Tell me in what country flowers grow with the 
 names of kings written on them, and have Phyllis all 
 to yourself. 
 
 P. I am not the man to settle a difierence like this 
 between you. You deserve the heifer, and so does he ; 
 and every one who shall either mistrust love's sweets 
 or taste its bitters as you have done. Shut off the 
 water now, my boys ; the meadows have had enough to 
 drink. 
 
 ECLOGUE IV. 
 POLLIO. 
 
 Muses of Sicily, let us strike a somewhat louder 
 chord. It is not for all that plantations have charms, 
 or groundling tamarisks. If we are to sing of the 
 woodland, let the woodland rise to a consul's dignity. 
 
 The last era of the song of Cumse has come at length ; 
 
 the grand file of the ages is being born anew ; at length 
 
 the virgin is returning, returning too the reign of Saturn ; 
 
 at length a new generation is descending from heaven 
 
 2 
 
18 THE BUCOLICS. 
 
 on high. Do but thou smile thy pure smile on the birth 
 of the boy who shall at last bring the race of iron to an 
 end, and bid the golden race spring up all the world 
 over — thou, Lucina — thine own Apollo is at length on 
 his throne. In thy consulship it is — in thine, Pollio — 
 that this glorious time shall come on, and the mighty 
 months begin their march. Under th}^ conduct, any re- 
 maining trace of our national guilt shall become void, 
 and release the world from the thralldom of perpetual 
 fear. He shall have the life of the gods conferred on 
 him, and shall see gods and heroes mixing together, 
 and shall himself be seen of them, and with his father's 
 virtues shall govern a world at peace. 
 
 For thee, sweet boy, the earth of her own unforced 
 will shall pour forth a child's first presents — gadding 
 ivy and foxglove everywhere, and Egj-ptian bean blend- 
 ing with the bright smiling acanthus. Of themselves, 
 the goats shall carry home udders distended with milk ; 
 nor shall the herds fear huge lions in the way. Of 
 itself, thy grassy cradle shall pour out flowers to caress 
 thee. Death to the serpent, and to the treacherous 
 plant of poisoned juice. Assyrian spices shall spring 
 up by the wayside. 
 
 But soon as thou shalt be of an age to read at length 
 of the glories of heroes and thy father's deeds, and to 
 acquaint th^^self with the nature of manly work, the 
 yellow of the waving corn shall steal graduall}^ over 
 the plain, and from briers, that know naught of culture, 
 grapes shall hang in purple clusters, and the stubborn 
 heart of oak shall exude dews of honey. Still, under all 
 this show, some few traces shall remain of the sin and 
 guile of old — such as may prompt men to defy the ocean 
 goddess with their ships, to build towns with walls 
 round them, to cleave furrows in the soil of earth. A 
 
ECLOGUE IV. 19 
 
 second Tiphys shall there be in those days — a second 
 Argo to convey the flower of chivalry ; a second war of 
 heroes, too, shall there be, and a second time shall 
 Achilles be sent in his greatness to Troy. 
 
 Afterwards, when ripe years have at length made thee 
 man, even the peaceful sailor shall leave the sea, nor 
 shall the good ship of pine exchange merchandise — 
 all lands shall produce all things ; the ground shall not 
 feel the harrow, nor the vineyard the pruning-hook ; the 
 sturdy ploughman, too, shall at length set his bullocks 
 free from the yoke ; nor shall wool be taught to counter- 
 feit varied hues, but of himself, as he feeds in the 
 meadows, the ram shall transform his fleece, now into 
 a lovely purple dye, now into saflTron-yellow — of its 
 own will, scarlet shall clothe the lambs as they graze. 
 Ages like these, flow on ! — so cried to their spindles 
 the Fates, uttering in concert the fixed will of destiny. 
 
 Assume thine august dignities — the time is at length 
 at hand — thou best-loved off*spring of the gods, august 
 scion of Jove ! Look upon the world as it totters be- 
 neath the mass of its overhanging dome — earth and 
 the expanse of sea and the deep of heaven — look how 
 all are rejoicing in the age that is to be ! O may my 
 life's last days last long enough and breath be granted 
 me enough to tell of thy deeds ! I will be overmatched 
 in song by none — not by Orpheus of Thrace, nor by 
 Linus, though that were backed by his mother, and 
 this by his father — Orpheus by Calliope, Linus by 
 Apollo in his beauty. Were Pan himself, with Arcady 
 looking on, to enter the lists with me. Pan himself, 
 Arcady looking on, should own himself vanquished 
 
 Begin, sweet child, with a smile, to take notice of thy 
 mother — that mother has had ten months of tedious 
 sickness and loathing. Begin, sweet child — the babe 
 
 •cady 
 with / 
 
20 THE BUCOLICS. 
 
 on whom never parent smiled, never grew to deserve 
 the table of a god or the bed of a goddess ! 
 
 ECLOGUE V. 
 DAPHNIS. 
 
 Me, Why not sit down together, Mopsus, as we 
 happen to have met, both good in our way — you at 
 filling slender reeds with your breath, I at singing 
 songs — here among this clump of elms and hazels ? 
 
 Mo, You are my elder ; you have a right to give me 
 the word, Menalcas, whether we should retire under 
 those flickering shades which the zephyrs keep agitat- 
 ing, or rather into the cave. See how the cave is 
 covered by the wild vine's straggling tendrils. 
 
 Me, In these hills of ours you have no rival but 
 Amyntas. 
 
 Mo. What if he were to rival Phoebus, too, for the 
 prize of singing? 
 
 Me. You go on first, Mopsus. If j^ou happen to 
 have any song about Phyllis's flame, or Alcon's glories, 
 or Codrus's quarrels, go on. Tityrus will look after 
 the kids while grazing. 
 
 Mo, I w^ould rather try my hand at some verses 
 which I wrote out the other day on the green beechen 
 bark, and set them to music, with marks for the flute and 
 voice. When I have done, put on my rival, Amyntas. 
 
 Me, As far as the limber willow is below the yellow- 
 green olive, or the groundling Celtic nard below the 
 bright red rose-beds, so far in my judgment does 
 Amyntas rank lower than 3-ou. 
 
 Mo, Well, my boj^, say no more ; we are getting in- 
 to the cave. • 
 
ECLOGUE V. 21 
 
 Over Daphnis, cut off b}^ so cruel a fate, the m^mphs 
 were weeping ; hazels and rivers, you heard the 
 nymphs, when his mother, clasping her son's piteous 
 corpse, is crjdng out on the cruelty of the gods and the 
 stars, as only a mother can. None were there in those 
 dreary days, Daphnis, to feed the oxen, and drive them 
 down to the cool streams ; no beast was there that 
 tasted the river, or touched the blades of grass. Daph- 
 nis, thy death drew groans even from the lions of Car- 
 thage, so say the echoes of those wild mountains and 
 forests. Daphnis, too, it was that set the fashion of 
 harnessing the tigers of Armenia to the car. Daph- 
 nis, that showed how to bring on companies of Bac- 
 chanals, and twine quivering spear-shafts with soft 
 foliage. As the vine is the glory of the trees it clasps, 
 as the grapes of the vine, as the bull of the herd, as 
 the standing corn of the fruitful field, thou and thou 
 alone art the glory of those who love thee. Since the 
 Fates have swept fe^ off. Pales has taken lier leave /M^ 
 of the country, aye, and Apollo Ms. Often nowadays, 
 in the verj^ furrows to whose care we give our largest 
 barley grains, we see growing ungenerous darnel and 
 unfruitful oats. In place of the delicate violet and 
 the dazzling bright narcissus springs up the thistle, 
 and the thorn with its sharp spikes. ^Sow the turf 
 with flowers, embower the springs in shade, ye shep- 
 herds ! It is Daphnis' charge that this should be done 
 for him ; and raise a tomb, and to the tomb append a 
 verse, ' Here lie I, Daphnis, the wocillander, whose 
 name is known from here to the stars ; a lovely flock 
 I had to keep, but I was more lovely than they.' 
 
 Me. Sweet is your strain to my ears, heavenly poet, 
 as is sleep to tired limbs on the grass, as is the quench- 
 ing of thirst in mid-day heat in the stream where sweet 
 
22 THE BUCOLICS. 
 
 waters play. It is not only in piping, but in singing 
 that 5'ou match j'our teacher. Happy shepherd boy ! 
 now you will be his fitting successor. Still, however, 
 I will sing 3'ou in turn, as I best may, a strain here 
 of my own, and will exalt your Daphnis to heaven. 
 Yes, Daphnis I will carry up to heaven. I, too, was 
 beloved by Daphnis. 
 
 Mo, As if there were anything I should value more 
 than a boon like this. That glorious boy was a theme 
 worthy of any one's song, and Stimicon ere now has 
 dwelt to me with rapture on those strains of yours. 
 
 Me, Dazzling in beauty himself, Daphnis is now 
 marveling at the strange splendor of heaven's thresh- 
 old as he crosses it, and looking down on the clouds 
 and stars under his feet, whereat a wild and eager 
 rapture is taking hold of the woods and the rest of 
 rustic life, seizing on Pan and the shepherds, and the 
 Dr^^ad maids. No more does the wolf plan surprises 
 for the cattle or the snares for the deer, for they know 
 that the gracious Daphnis loves all to be at peace. 
 The very mountains in their unshorn strength are fling- 
 ing the sound exultingly to the sky. The very rocks, 
 the plantations, too, are already taking up the song, 
 ' We have a new god, a new god, Menalcas ! ' Be 
 gracious and f)ropitious to thy worshipers ! See, here 
 are four altars — two, see, for thee, Daphnis ; two of a 
 larger build for Phoebus ; two cups, with new milk, foam- 
 ing over the brim each 3^ear, and two bowls will I set 
 up for thee of* rich olive oil ; and, above all, cheering 
 the feast with abundance of the wine-god's juice before 
 the fire, if it be winter ; if harvest-time, in the shade, I 
 will pour out into goblets the fresh nectar of Ariusian 
 wine. I will have songs sung by Damaetas and JEgon 
 of Lycta ; the dances of the Satyrs shall be imitated by 
 
ECLOGUE VI. 23 
 
 Alphesiboeus. Such honors shall be thine for ever, both 
 when we pay our j^early vows to the nymphs, and when 
 we have our lustral survey of the country. So long as 
 the wild boar shall love the mountain ridges, and the fish 
 the running stream ; so long as thyme shall be the food 
 of the bee, and dew of the grasshopper, so long shall 
 thy honor, and thy name, and thy glory for ever remain. 
 Like Bacchus and Ceres, thou shalt have vows paid 
 thee yearly by the countrymen. Thou, like them, shalt 
 make thy worshipers thy debtors. 
 
 Mo. What present, what shall I give you for a song 
 like this ? Wh}' , the whisper of the rising south is not 
 so charming to my ear, nor the beating of the waves on 
 the shore, nor the streams that run down among the 
 rocky glens. 
 
 Me. Here is my present to you first — this frail reed ; 
 it was this from which I learnt ' Corydon was burning 
 for the lovel}^ Alexis,' and that other lesson, ' Whose 
 cattle, Meliboeus?' 
 
 Mo. But you must accept this sheep-hook, which, in 
 spite of his frequent begging, Antigenes never got /rom 
 me — and there was much to love in him, too, in those 
 days — a handsome one, with regular knots and brass 
 about it, Menalcas. 
 
 ECLOGUE VI. 
 
 VARUS. 
 
 First of all, my muse deigned to disport herself in the 
 strains of pastoral Syracuse, and disdained not to make 
 her home in the woods, goddess as she was. When I was 
 venturing to sing of kings and battles, the Cynthian god 
 touched my ear, and appealed to my memorj'. ' It is a 
 shepherd's part, Tityrus, that the sheep that he feeds 
 
mP 
 
 24 THE BUCOLICS. ^ 
 
 siiould be fat, and the songs that he sing^Jliin.* So 
 now I — for there will be enough and to spare, whose 
 desire it will be to sing thy praises. Varus, and make 
 battles their tragic theme — will choose the woodland 
 muse for my stud}^, and the slender reed for my instru- 
 ment. It is not for me to sing strains unbidden. Still, 
 if there sliould be anj', any to read even a lowly lay like 
 this with fond regard, thou, Varus, shouldst be the song 
 of these tamarisks of mine — the song of the whole for- 
 estry — for Phoebus knows no more welcome page than 
 that which bears on its front the name of Varus. 
 
 Proceed, Pierian maids. Young Chromis and Mnasy- 
 los saw old Silenus lying asleep in a cave, his veins 
 swollen, as is his constant wont, by the wine-god, his 
 friend of yesterday. There were the garlands a short 
 way off, l3'ing just as they dropped from his head, and 
 his heavy jug was hanging b}' its battered handle. They 
 commence the attack (for the old god had often balked 
 both of a promised song) , and put him in fetters made 
 out of his own garlands. A companion comes up to 
 reasgure their faltering, -^gle, -3Sgle, fairest of the 
 Naiads, and as he begins to open his eyes, paints his 
 forehead and his temples blood-red with mulberry juice. 
 He, with a laugh at the stratagem, exclaims, ' What do 
 you want with binding me ? Untie me, boys ; be con- 
 tent with the credit of having me in your power. The 
 song 3'OU want is at your service.' With that he begins. 
 That was the signal for fauns and wild beasts — you 
 might see them — frolicking in measured dance, and 
 stately unbending oaks nodding their tops to and fro ; 
 and as for the mountains, the rock of Parnassus is never 
 so enraptured with Phcebus, nor are Rhodope and Is- 
 marus so entranced by Orpheus. 
 
 For he began to sing how through the mighty void 
 
ECLOGUE VL 25 
 
 had been brought together the elements of earth and air 
 and sea and streaming fire all at once ; how from them 
 as their origin all things had a beginning, and the new- 
 born orb of the universe grew into shape. Next, the soil 
 began to harden, and leave Nereus to be shut up in the 
 sea, and by degrees to assume the forms of things, so 
 that at length the earth is surprised to see a new sun 
 break into light above it, and the rain has a longer fall 
 as the clouds are drawn up higher, just as the woods first 
 begin to rise from the ground, and living things wander 
 thinly over mountains that never saw them before. 
 
 From this he comes to tell of the stones that Pj^rrha 
 threw behind her, the golden reign of Saturn, and the 
 birds of Caucasus, and the theft of Prometheus. With 
 this he couples the tale, how Hylas was left behind at 
 the springs and his shipmates called for him till the 
 shore rang with Hylas ! Hylas ! from end to end. 
 Turning -next to her who would have been happy indeed 
 had cattle never been created, Pasiphae, he soothes her 
 with her passion for the snow-white bull. Unhappy 
 girl ! how came such frenzy to take hold of thee ? 
 Proetus' daughters once filled the pastures with their 
 counterfeited lo wings, yet none of them ever fell to 
 such disgrace, often as she shrank from the thought of 
 the yoke on her neck, and felt for horns on her smooth 
 woman's brow. Unhappy girl ! yes, thou art wandering 
 over the hills, while he, with that snowy side pillowed 
 on soft hyacinths, is chewing the yellow green grass 
 under the dark holm-oak, or going after some heifer in 
 the populous herd. Close, ye nymphs, ye nymphs of 
 Dicte, haste and close the glades of the forest, if by any 
 chance my eyes may fall on the bull's truant footsteps ; 
 perhaps he may have been attracted by a patch of 
 green herbage, or may have gone after the herd, and 
 
26 THE BUCOLICS. 
 
 some of the cows may bring him home to the stalls of 
 Gortyna. 
 
 Then he sings of the maiden who stopped to admire 
 the apples of the Hesperides ; next he clothes the sisters 
 of Phaethon with a mossy bark of bitter taste, and bids 
 them rise from the ground as tall alders. Next he sings 
 how, as Gallus was wandering by the waters of Per- 
 messus, one of the sisters took him up to the Aonian 
 hills, and how the whole choir of Phoebus stood up to 
 receiv^e their noble visitant ; how Linus, shepherd and 
 heavenly poet in one, his locks wreathed with flowers 
 and bitter parsley leaves, bespoke him thus : — ' These 
 reeds the Muses present to thee, here they are. The 
 same which they gave the old bard of Ascra before 
 f tiiee. The same with which he, as he sang to them, 
 psed to bring stately unbending ashes down from the 
 /mountain-side. With these do thou tell the story of 
 the planting of the Grynean forest, and tell it so that 
 there may be no grove on which Apollo prides himself 
 ^i more.* 
 
 What need to repeat how he told of Scylla, Nisus' 
 
 daughter, her to whom the story clings, that, with a 
 
 girdle of howling monsters round her beauteous form, 
 
 she made havoc of the Dulichian vessels, and in the 
 
 depths of the eddying waters gave the poor trembling 
 
 sailors to be torn limb from limb by the dogs of the sea ; 
 
 or how he told of Tereus' transformed shape, of the 
 
 food and the present which Philomela got ready for 
 
 him, of the strange speed with which she made for the 
 
 desert, and of the wings on which the unhappy queen 
 
 hovered over the palace once her own ? 
 
 / All the themes, in short, to which, as once sung by 
 
 I Phoebus, Eurotas listened in ecstas}^, and bade his bays 
 
 I get them by heart, Silenus sings : the valleys feel the 
 
ECLOGUE VI L 27 
 
 shock of song and pass it on to the stars, till Vesper 
 gave the word to fold the flocks and report the number, 
 and began his unwelcome march over Ol^'mpus. 
 
 ECLOGUE VII. 
 MELIBCEUS. 
 
 Daphnis happened just to have seated himself under 
 a holm-oak that gave tongue to the wind, and Corjdon 
 and ThjTsis had driven their flocks to the same spot — 
 Thyrsis' sheep, Corydon's goats swelling with milk — 
 both in the bloom of life, Arcadians both, ready to sing 
 first or second in a match. Just then, as I was busy 
 sheltering some myrtles from the cold, m}^ he-goat, the 
 lord and master of the herd, had strayed to where they 
 were, and I catch sight of Daphnis. As soon as he 
 meets my eye — ' Quick,' he says, ' come here, Meli- 
 boeus, your goat and kids are all safe, and if you can 
 afford to be idle a little, rest under the shade. Where 
 we are, your bullocks will come over the meadows of 
 themselves to drink ; here is Mincius fringing his green 
 banks with a border of soft waving reeds, and there is 
 a swarm humming from Jupiter's favorite oak.* What 
 was I to do ? On the one hand I had no Alcippe or 
 Phyllis, to shut up my new-weaned lambs at home, and 
 the match coming off*, Corydon against Thyrsis, was 
 sure to be great. However, I let their play take 
 precedence of my work. So in alternate songs they 
 began to compete. Alternate songs were what the 
 Muses within them chose to recall. These were repeat- 
 ed by Corydon, those by Thyrsis in regular order. 
 
 C Nymphs of Libethra, my heart's delight, either 
 vouchsafe me a strain such as jou gave my Codrus — 
 
28 THE BUCOLICS, 
 
 the songs lie makes come next to Phoebus' own — or, 
 if such power is not for all of us, see, my tuneful pipe 
 shall be hung up here on 3'our consecrated pine. 
 
 T, Shepherds, deck your rising poet with a crown of 
 ivy ; ye of Arcadia, that Codrus' sides may burst with 
 envy ; or should he try the power of extravagant praise, 
 bind foxglove on my brows, that the ill tongue may do 
 no harm to the bard that is to be. 
 
 C. This for thee, Delia, the head of a bristly boar, 
 from young Micon, and the branchy horns of a long- 
 lived stag. Should such luck be secured to him by 
 right, thou shalt be set up full length in polished mar- 
 ble, with purple buskins tied round thy legs. 
 
 T. A bowl of milk and these cakes, Priapus, are 
 enough for thee to look for year by 3'ear ; the orchard 
 thou guardest is but a poor one, so we have had to 
 make thee marble with our present means ; but if this 
 3'ear's births fill up our herds, then be of gold. 
 
 G. Galatea, child of Nereus, sweeter to me than 
 Hybla's thyme, whiter than the swan, more delicate than 
 the palest ivy, soon as the bullocks return home from 
 pasture to their stalls, if thou hast any regard for thy 
 Cory don, come, O come ! 
 
 T. Nay, rather think me bitterer than Sardinian herb- 
 age, rougher than gorse, more worthless than the weed 
 that rots on the shore, if I do not find this da^^ longer 
 already than a whole 3'ear. Home with you from 3'our 
 pasture ; for shame, home with 3-0 u, lazj^ bullocks ! 
 
 C. Mossy springs, and grass more downj'-soft than 
 sleep, and the arbute that embowers you greenly with 
 its straggling shade, keep the solstice heat from my 
 flock ; already summer is coming on in its fierceness, 
 already buds are swelling on the vine's luxuriant 
 tendrils. 
 
ECLOGUE VII. 29 
 
 T, Here we have a good hearth, and pinewood with 
 plenty of pitch, and a large fire always blazing, and the 
 posts of our door black with continual soot ; here as 
 we sit we care for north winds and cold weather about 
 as much as the wolf for the size of the flock, or ton-ents 
 for their banks. • 
 
 C. Here stand junipers and prickly chestnuts — 
 there He the fruits of summer scattered each under its 
 parent tree — just now all nature is smiling ; but if our 
 lovely Alexis were to go away from these hills of ours, 
 you would see even the rivers dried up. 
 
 T, The country is parched up ; the grass is dying 
 for thirst from the sickly air ; the wine god grudges the 
 hills the shade of the vine they love ; but when my 
 own Phyllis arrives, all the woodland shall be green 
 again, and Jupiter shall come down plenteously in fer- 
 tilizing showers. 
 
 C The poplar is the favorite of Alcides, the vine of 
 Bacchus, the myrtle of Venus, beauty's queen, the bay 
 of Phoebus : Phyllis' passion is for the hazel — while 
 Phyllis' passion lasts, the myrtle shall not take rank 
 above the hazel, nor yet the bay of Phoebus. 
 
 T. The ash is the fairest in the woods, the pine in 
 the gardens, the poplar on the river banks, the fir on 
 the mountain heights ; but if thou, Lycidas, beauty's 
 king, shouldst visit me often and often, the ash would 
 soon bow to thee in the woods, the pine in the gardens. 
 
 M. So much I remember, and how Th3Tsis failed in 
 the match. From that day forward it is all Cory don, 
 Corydon with us. 
 
30 THE BUCOLICS, 
 
 ECLOGUE VIII. 
 
 PHARMACEUTRIA. 
 
 The pastoral Muse that inspired l^amon and Alphesi- 
 boeus, at whose contention the heifer stood wondering 
 and forgot to graze, whose strains held l^-nxes spell- 
 bound, and made rivers suffer change, and arrest their 
 flow — the Muse that inspired Damon and Alphesiboeus 
 shall be our song. 
 
 But thou, whether m}^ heart is with thee as thou art 
 surmounting the rocks of might}' Timavus or coasting 
 the shore of the IlljTian sea, will that day ever come 
 that will find me free to tell of thy deeds ? Shall I ever 
 be free to publish the whole world through those strains 
 of thine, alone worthy of Sophocles' tragic march? 
 From thee is my beginning, for thee shall be the end. 
 Accept these strains commenced at th}- bidding, and 
 suflfer this ivy to wind itself round thy brows among 
 thy triumphal baj's. 
 
 Scarce had night's cold shade parted from the sky, 
 just at the time that the dew on the tender grass is 
 sweetest to the cattle, when leaning on his smooth 
 ohve wand Damon thus began : — 
 
 Rise, Lucifer, and usher in the da}", the genial day, 
 while I, deluded by a bridegroom's unworthy passion 
 for my Nisa, make my complaint, and turning myself 
 to the gods, little as their witness has stood me in 
 stead, address them nevertheless, a dying man at this 
 very last hour. Take up with me, my pipe, the song 
 of Msenalus. 
 
 Msenalus it is whose forests are ever tuneful, and his 
 pines ever vocal ; he is ever listening to the loves of 
 
ECLOGUE VIII. 31 
 
 shepherds, and to Pan, the first who would not have 
 the reeds left unemployed. Take up with me, my pipe, 
 the song of Maenalus. 
 
 Mopsus has Nisa given him : what may not we lovers 
 expect to see ? Matches will be made by this between 
 griffins and horses, and in the age to come hounds will 
 accompany timid does to their draught. Mopsus, cut 
 fresh brands for to-night ; it is to you thej^ are bringing 
 home a wife. Fling about nuts as a bridegroom should 5 
 it is for you that Hesperus is leaving his rest on (Eta. 
 Take up with me, my pipe, the song of Maenalus. 
 
 O worthy mate of a worthy lord ! There as you 
 look down on all the world, and are disgusted with m}^ 
 pipe and mj- goats, and my shaggy brow, and this 
 beard that I let grow, and do not believe that any god 
 cares aught for the things of men. Take up with me, 
 my pipe, the song of Maenalus. 
 
 It was in our enclosure I saw j^ou gathering apples 
 with the dew on them. I m3'self showed 3'ou the way, 
 in company with my mother — my twelfth year had 
 just bidden me enter on it. I could just reach from the 
 ground to the boughs that snapped so easily. What a 
 sight ! what ruin to me ! what a fatal frenzy swept me 
 away ! Take up with me, my pipe, the song of 
 Maenalus. 
 
 Now know I what love is ; it is among savage rocks 
 that he is produced by Tmarus, or Ehodope, or the 
 Garamantes at earth's end ; no child of lineage or 
 blood like ours. Take up with me, my pipe, the song 
 of Maenalus. 
 
 Love, the cruel one, taught the mother to imbrue 
 her hands in her children's blood ; hard too was thy 
 heart, mother. Was the mother's heart harder, or the 
 boy god's malice more wanton ? Walton was the boy 
 
32 THE BUCOLICS. 
 
 god's malice ; hard too thy heart, mother. Take up 
 with me, m}^ pipe, the song of Msenalus. 
 
 Aye, now let the wolf even run away from the sheep ; 
 let golden apples grow out of the tough heart of oak ; 
 let narcissus blossom on the alder ; let the tamarisk's 
 bark sweat rich drops of amber ; rivalry let there be 
 between swans and screechowls ; let Tityrus become 
 Orpheus — Orpheus in the woodland, Arion among the 
 dolphins. Take up with me, my pipe, the song of 
 Msenalus. 
 
 Nay, let all be changed to the deep sea. Farewell, 
 ye woods ! Headlong from the airy mountain's watch- 
 tower I will plunge into the waves ; let this come to 
 her as the last gift of the djing. Cease, my pipe, cease 
 at length the song of Maenalus. 
 
 Thus far Damon ; for the reply of Alphesiboeus, do 
 ye recite it, Pierian maids ; it is not for all of us to 
 have command of all. 
 
 Bring out water and bind the altars here with a soft 
 woolen fillet, and burn twigs full of sap and male 
 frankincense, that I may try the effect of magic rites in 
 turning my husband's mind fro^ its soberness ; there is 
 nothing but charms wanting here. Bring me home 
 from the town, my charms, bring me my Daphnis. 
 
 Charms have power even to draw the moon down 
 from heaven ; by charms Circe transformed the com- 
 panions of Ulysses ; the cold snake as he lies in the 
 fields is burst asunder by chanting charms. Bring me 
 home from the town, my charms, bring me my Daphnis. 
 
 These three threads distinct with three colors I wind 
 round thee first, and thrice draw the image round the 
 altar thus ; heaven delights in an uneven number. 
 Twine in three knots, Amaryllis, the three colors ; twine 
 them, Amaryllis, do, and say, ' I am twining the 
 
ECLOGUE VTIL 33 
 
 bonds of Love.' Bring me home from the town, my 
 charms, bring me my Daphnis. 
 
 Just as this cla}' is hardened, and this wax melted, 
 b}^ one and the same fire, so may my love act doubly 
 on Daphnis. Crumble the salt cake, and kindle the 
 crackling bay leaves with bitumen. Daphnis, the 
 wretch, is setting me on fire ; I am setting this bay on 
 fire about Daphnis. Bring me home from the town, my 
 charms, bring me my Daphnis. 
 
 May such be Daphnis' passion, like a heifer's, T#ien, 
 weary of looking for her mate through groves and tall 
 forests, she throws herself down by a stream of water 
 on the green sedge, all undone, and forgets to rise and 
 make waj' for the fargone night — may such be his en- 
 thralling passion, nor let me have a mind to relieve it. 
 Bring me home from the town, my charms, bring me 
 my Daphnis. 
 
 These cast-off relics that faithless one left me days 
 ago, precious pledges for himself, them I now intrust to 
 thee, Earth, burying them even on the threshold ; thej^ 
 are bound as pledges to give me back Daphnis. Bring 
 me home from the town, my charms, bring me my 
 Daphnis. 
 
 These plants and these poisons culled from Pontus I 
 had from Mseris' own hand. They grow in plent}^ at 
 Pontus. By the strength of these often I have seen 
 Mseris turn to a wolf and plunge into the forest, often 
 call up spirits from the bottom of the tomb, and remove 
 standing crops from one field to another. Bring me 
 home from the town, my charms, bring me my Daphnis. 
 
 Carry the embers out of doors, Amaryllis, and fling 
 
 them into the running stream over your head ; and do 
 
 not look behind you. This shall be my device against 
 
 Daphnis. As for gods or charms, he cares for none of 
 
 3 
 
34 THE BUCOLICS. 
 
 them. Bring me home from the town, my charms, 
 bring me my Daphnis. 
 
 Look, look ! the flickering flame has caught the altar 
 of its own accord, shot up from the embers, before I 
 have had time to take them up, all of themselves. 
 Good luck, I trust ! . . . Yes, there is something, I 
 am sure . . . and Hylax is barking at the gate. Can 
 I trust myself? or is it that lovers make their own 
 dreams ? Stop, he is coming from town ; stop now, 
 chaAis, my Daphnis ! 
 
 ECLOGUE IX. 
 
 M^RIS. 
 
 L. Whither away on foot, Mseris ; following the road 
 to the town ? 
 
 M, O Lj'cidas ! we have been kept on alive, to hear 
 a stranger . . . what our fears never looked for . . . 
 now, owner of our little farm, say to us, ' I am master 
 here ; you old tenants, take yourselves away ; ' and so 
 now, beaten and cowed, since Fortune's wheel is on the 
 roll everywhere, we are carrying him these kids, with a 
 mischief to him. 
 
 L. Why, surely I had heard that all the land from 
 where the hills begin to draw themselves up from the 
 plain, and then let down the ridge with a gentle slope, on 
 to the water, and those old beeches with their battered 
 tops, your Menalcas had succeeded in saving by his 
 songs. 
 
 M, Aye, so you had, and so the story went ; but our 
 ( songs, I can tell you, Lycidas, have as much power in 
 i the clatter of weapons of war as the doves of Chaonia, 
 I they say, have when the eagle is coming. So if I had 
 
ECLOGUE IX. 35 
 
 not been warned beforehand anyhow to cut this new 
 quarrel short by the raven on the left from the hollow 
 holm-oak, you would not have seen your servant Maeris 
 here, nor Menalcas himself alive. 
 
 L. Alas ! could any one be guilty of such a crime ? 
 alas ! were we so nearlj^ losing all the comfort you give 
 us, along with 3'ourself, Menalcas? Who would there 
 be to sing of the nymphs ? Who to sow the turf with 
 flowers and herbage, and embower the springs in green 
 shade ? Or who would give us songs like that I caught 
 slily from you the other day when you were making your 
 way to that darling Amarylhs of ours ? — ' Tityrus, 
 whilst I come back — it will not be long — feed my 
 goats for me ; and when fed drive them to water, Tity- 
 rus, and in driving them don't come across the he-goat 
 — he has a trick of butting, beware.' 
 
 M. Or this, j^ou might have said, the song he was 
 making for Varus and had not finished : — ' Varus, thy 
 name — only let Mantua be spared us ; Mantua, too 
 near a neighbor, alas ! to ill-starred Cremona — our 
 swans in their songs shall carry aloft to the stars.' 
 
 X. If you would have your swarms fail to light on the 
 yews of Corsica, and your heifers swell their udders 
 with milk from browsing on lucern, begin with anything 
 you have in your mind. I, too, have been made a poet 
 by the Muses, and have verses, too, of my own. I am 
 called a bard myself by the shepherds, but I have no 
 mind to trust them ; for as j^et I cannot think my sing- 
 ing worthy of Varius or of Cinna ; no, it is the mere 
 cackling of a goose among the melody of swans. 
 
 M. That is what I am tr3'ing to do, turning over in 
 m3" mind, Lycidas, while you have been speaking, in the 
 hope of being able to recollect ; for it is no vulgar song. 
 ' Hither to me, Galatea ! why, what sport can there be 
 
S6 ' THE BUCOLICS. 
 
 in the water? Here are the glorious hues of spring, 
 here is the ground pouring forth flowers of all dyes on 
 the river-bank, here is the fair white poplar stooping 
 over the cave, and the limber vines weaving a bower 
 of shelter. Hither to me, and let the mad waves beat 
 the shore as they please.' 
 
 L, What of the song I heard j^ou singing that clear 
 night all alone? I remember the tune if I could but 
 get the words. 
 
 M. ' Daphnis, why that upturned look at the old con- 
 stellations rising ? See, the star of Caesar, Dione's dar- 
 ling, has begun its march — a star to make the corn-fields 
 glad with produce, and the color deepen on the grape in 
 the sunny hills. Graft your pears, Daphnis, and spare 
 not ; the fruit you grow will be gathered by the next 
 generation.' Everything goes with time, the brain 
 among the rest. Many were the long summer days, I 
 remember, I used to send to their grave with singing as 
 a boy, and now all m}' store of songs is forgotten. Na}^ 
 Mseris' voice is taking leave of him too ; wolves have 
 set ej^es on Maeris first. But what you want you can 
 hear repeated often enough b}- Menalcas. 
 
 X. All 3'our put-oflTs only make my longing greater. 
 Besides, just now the sea is all laid and hushed to hear 
 3^ou, and ever}^ breath of murmuring wind, as j^ou may 
 see, has fallen dead. Here we are just half-way, for the 
 tomb of Bianor is becoming visible ; here, where the 
 husbandmen are lopping those thick leaves ; here, Mseris, 
 let us stop and sing ; here put your kids down ; we shall 
 get to the town for all that ; or, if we are afraid that 
 night will get up a shower first, there is nothing to 
 hinder our singing — it makes the journe^^ hurt less — 
 as we go right on. So now, that we ma}- sing as we 
 go, I will relieve you of this load of yours. 
 
ECLOGUE X. 37 
 
 M, Press me no more, my boy ; let us think only of 
 what is before us ; the songs we shall have a better 
 voice for when we see Mm with us again. 
 
 ECLOGUE X. 
 
 GALLUS. 
 
 This my last effort, Arethusa, do thou vouchsafe me. 
 A song for my Gallus, brief, yet such as may win even 
 Lycoris' ear, I have to sing — who would refuse a song 
 to Gallus? If, as thou glidest under the Sicilian bil- 
 lows, thou wouldest not have the salt goddess of Ocean 
 mingle her waters with thine, begin the lay ; let its theme 
 be Gallus' vexing passion, while the silly flat-nosed 
 goats are browsing on the growing brakes. Our songs 
 are not to deaf ears : every note is echoed by the woods. 
 
 Whatiforests, what lawns were 3'our abode, virgin 
 nymphs of the fountains, when Gallus was wasting under 
 an unworthy passion? What indeed? for it was not any 
 spot in the ridges of Parnassus or of Pindus that kept 
 3^ou there ; no, nor Aonian Aganippe. Yet over him 
 even the bays, even the tamarisks shed their tears ; over 
 him as he lay under the lonely rock even the pine-crowned 
 head of Msenalus shed a tear, and the dull stones of cold 
 Lycseus. There, too, standing about him are his sheep ; 
 they are not ashamed of humanity, nor do thou be 
 ashamed of thy flock, heavenl}^ poet as thou art ; even 
 Adonis in his beauty once fed sheep b}^ the water. Up 
 came the shepherd too : slowly up came the swineherds ; 
 dripping from the winter's mast up came Menalcas. 
 Every mouth cries. Whence this passion of thine? Up 
 came Apollo — Gallus, says he, why be a madman? thy 
 heart's queen, Ly coils, has braved the snow and the 
 
38 THE BUCOLICS. 
 
 savage life of camps to follow another. Up, too, came 
 Silvanus with his woodland honors green on his brow, 
 nodding his fennels in bloom and his giant lilies. Pan 
 came, Arcadia's own god; him we saw with our. own 
 eyes, crimsoned all over with blood-red elderberries and 
 vermilion. Is there ever to be an end of this? he cries. 
 As for Love, such things move him not. Tears will no 
 more sate Love's cruelty than sluices will 3' our grass, 
 or lucern 3'our bees, or fodder 3'our goats. His answer 
 came with a sigh — You will sing of me though. Arca- 
 dians, when I am gone, in the ears of your mountains ; 
 none know how to sing but Arcadians. O how soft a 
 sleep would my bones enjoy, could I but feel that a pipe 
 of 3'ours one da^^ would tell of my passion ! Nay, 
 indeed, would that I had been one of 3'ou m3^self — the 
 shepherd of a flock of 3^ours, or the dresser of those full 
 ripe grapes ! Then at least, whether it had been Ph3ilis, 
 or Amyntas, or an3^ other love ; and what if ^myntas 
 be brown? violets are dark too, and so are h3^acinths 
 dark — I should have had them ever by my side, among 
 the willows, under the limber vine ; PhyUis plucking me 
 flowers for a wreath, Amyntas singing. See, here are 
 cold springs and soft meadows, Lycoris, and a forest 
 of trees ; here I could wear away with thee by mere 
 lapse of time. And now this mad passion for the sav- 
 age war-god is keeping me here in arms, with weapons 
 all about me and enemies drawn up before me, while 
 thou, far away from th3' native land — would it were 
 not mine to beheve the tale — art looking with those 
 cruel, cruel e3^es on the Alpine snows and the frost-bound 
 Rhine, alone without me at thy side. Oh ! may the frost 
 forbear to harm thee ! may the sharp ice be kept from 
 wounding thy tender feet ! I will be gone, and set the 
 strains which I have framed in the measure of Chalcis 
 
ECLOGUE X. 
 
 39 
 
 to the reed of the Sicilian shepherd. Sure am I that it 
 will be better to bear 1113^ fate in the woods, with the 
 dens of wild beasts round me, and engrave m}- love on 
 the 5'oung growing trees ; they will shoot up, and my 
 love will shoot up with them. Meantime I will scour 
 Maenalus along with the nymphs, or have a hunt of fierce 
 boars. No stress of winter shall keep me from besetting 
 with my hounds the lawns of mount Parthenius. Yes, 
 I can see myself already on the move over rocks or 
 amid the cry of the woods ; I feel the pleasure of wing- 
 ing shafts of Cydon from a bow of Parthia, as though ^ 
 this were a medicine for madness like mine, or that ^ 
 tjTant god would ever learn compassion for human 
 suffering ! It is gone — wood nj-mphs have no charm 
 for me now, nor songs either. Woodlands, I must 
 part from you, too, now. He is a god whom no en- 
 durance of ours can change. No, not if in midwinter 
 we were to drink the waters of Hebrus, or submit our- 
 selves to the snows of Sithonia and its sleety cold. All 
 are conquered by Love ; and let us, too, yield ourselves 
 Love's captives. 
 
 Let thus much suffice. Goddesses, for your poet's 
 song, sung as he sits and weaves a basket of slender 
 willow. Goddesses of Pieria, you will enhance its worth 
 to the highest in Gallus's eyes. Gallus, the love of 
 whom grows on me hour by hour as fast as the green 
 alder shoots up from the earth when the spring is new. 
 Now let us rise ; there is apt to be danger to singers in 
 the shade ; danger in the juniper's shade, and crops too 
 sufler from shade. Home with you, such a meal as you 
 have eaten. Hesper is coming, home with you, my 
 goats. 
 
 
THE GEORGICS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 What makes a corn-field smile ; what star suits best 
 for turning up the soil, and marrying the vine to the 
 elm ; what care oxen need ; what is the method of breed- 
 ing cattle ; and what weight of men's experience pre- 
 serves the frugal commonwealth of bees : such is the 
 song I now essa3\ Brightest lights of the world, that 
 guide the j^ear's smooth course through heaven : father 
 Liber and mother Ceres ; if it was by your bounty that 
 Earth changed the acorn of Chaonia for the plump well- 
 favored corn-ear, and found the grape wiierewith to 
 temper her draught of Achelous : you too, Fauns, the 
 countryman's propitious deities, trip hither in time, 
 Fauns and Drj^ad maidens, I sing of your bount}^ too : 
 and thon, for whom Earth first teemed forth the fiery 
 horse under the stroke of thy might^^ trident, Neptune ; 
 and thou, dresser of woods and groves, to pleasure 
 whom Ceos' luxuriant brakes are browsed b}' three hun- 
 dred snow-white bullocks ; come thou, too, in thy power, 
 from thy forest home and the Lj^caean lawns. Pan, tender 
 of sheep, by the love thou bearest thy Msenalus, O stand 
 graciousl}^ at my side, god of Tegea ; and thou, Minerva, 
 who foundest the olive for man ; and thou, blessed youth, 
 who showedst him the crooked plough ; and Silvanus, 
 carrying a young cypress, fresh torn up by its roots — 
 gods and goddesses all, whose province is the guardian- 
 ship of the country — both ye who foster the new-born 
 
 40 
 
BOOK L 41 
 
 produce that springs up unsown, and 3'e who send down 
 on the sown crop plenteous rain from heaven. And 
 thou, last not least, of whom we know not in what 
 house of gods thou art in good time to sit — whether 
 it be our Caesar's pleasure to preside over cities and 
 take charge of the earth, that so the vast world may 
 welcome thee as the giver of its increase, and lord of 
 its changeful seasons, crowning th}' brows with thy 
 mother's own mj^tle ; or whether thy coming shall be 
 as the god of the unmeasured sea, the sole power to 
 claim the seaman's homage, with furthest Thule for thy 
 handmaid, and Tethys, buying thee for her daughter 
 with the dower of all her waves ; or whether thou art 
 to give us a new star to quicken our lazy months, just 
 where a space opens itself between Erigone and the 
 Claws that come next in order : — see, there is the fiery 
 Scorpion, already drawing in his arms for thee, and 
 leaving thee more than thy fair share of the sky. / 
 Whatever thy future place — for let not Tartarus hope 
 to have thee for its king, nor mayest thou ever feel so 
 monstrous an ambition ; though Greece see charms in 
 her Elysian fields, and Proserpine, spite of her mother's 
 journey, refuse to follow her back to earth — vouchsafe 
 me a smooth course, and smile on my bold endeavors, 
 and in pity, like mine, for the countryman as he wan- 
 ders blind and unguided, assume the god, and attune 
 thine ear betimes to the voice of pra3'er. 
 
 In the dawn of spring, when ic}^ streams trickle melt- 
 ing from the hoar mountains, and the crumbling clod 
 breaks its chain at the west wind's touch, even then I 
 would fain see the plough driven deep till the bull groans 
 again, and the share rubbed in the furrow till it shines, x 
 That is the corn-field to give an answer, full though late, 
 to the grasping farmer's pra} er, which has twice been 
 
42 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 laid bare to summer heat, and twice to winter cold — 
 that is the corn-field to burst the barns with its un- 
 measured crop. Before, however, our share breaks the 
 crust of an unknown soil, our care should be to under- 
 stand the winds, and the divers humors of the sky, and 
 tl>e traditional culture and habitude of the land, what 
 each clime produces and what each disowns. Here you 
 see corn crops, there grapes have kindlier growth : other 
 spots are green with the j'oung of trees and grass that 
 comes unbidden. Onl}^ see how it is Tmolus that sends 
 us its saffron fragrance, India its ivory, the soft Arab 
 his frankincense, the great naked Chalybs, again, his 
 iron, Pontus its potent castor, Epirus the prizes of the 
 mares of Elis ! Such is the chain of law, such the 
 eternal covenant with which Nature has bound certain 
 climes, from the day when Deucalion first hurled his 
 stones on the unpeopled earth — stones, whence sprang 
 man's race, hard as the3\ Come, then, and let your 
 rich soil, soon as ever the year begins, be turned up by 
 the bullock's strength — let the clods be exposed for 
 Summer to bake them to dust with its full mellow suns ; 
 but if the land be not fertile, be content to wait till 
 Arcturus, and then just raise the surface wdth a shallow 
 furrow — in the one case, that a luxuriant crop may 
 not be choked with weeds ; in the other, that the barren 
 seed ma}' not lose the little moisture it has. 
 
 Moreover, in alternate years, you will let j^our fields 
 lie fallow after reaping, and suffer the scurf to harden 
 on the inactive plain ; or you will sow your golden spelt 
 when another star arises ; where you lately took off the 
 rattling pods of a luxuriant bean crop, or the yield of 
 the slender vetch and the bitter lupine's brittle stems 
 and echoing jungle. For a plain is parched b}^ a crop 
 of flax ; parched by the oat, parched by the poppy 
 
 k 
 
\ 
 
 BOOK I. 43 
 
 steeped in slumberous Lethe. Yet rotation will lighten 
 the strain ; only think of the dried-up soil, and be not 
 afraid to give it its fill of rich manure — think of the 
 exhausted field, and fling about the grimy ashes broad- 
 cast. Then, under the change of produce, the land 
 gets equal rest, and you escape the thanklessness of an 
 unploughed soil. Oft, too, has it been found of use to 
 set a barren field on fire, and let the crackling flames 
 burn up the light stubble. Whether it be that the land 
 derives hidden strength and fattening nourishment from 
 the process, or that the fire bakes out any distemper it 
 may have, and sweats out its superfluous moisture, or 
 that the heat opens fresh passages and secret apertures 
 through which life-juice ma}^ come to the tender blades, 
 or that it makes the land harder, and binds up its gap- 
 ing pores that so the subtle shower and the fierce sun*s 
 unusual tyranny, and the north wind's searching cold 
 may have no power to parch it to tlie quick. Great, 
 aye, great are his services to the land who breaks up 
 its sluggish clods with the harrow, and drags over them 
 his wicker hurdles : the golden corn-goddess e3^es him 
 from her Olympian height with no idle regard ; great, 
 too, his, who having once broken through the land's 
 crust, and made it lift its ridgy back, turns his plough, 
 and drives through it a second time crosswise, and plies 
 earth again and again, and bows her fields to his will. 
 
 A wet summer and a fine winter should be the farm- 
 er's prayer. From winter's dust comes great jo}^ to the 
 corn, joy to the land. No tillage gives Mysia such 
 cause for boasting, or Gargarus for wondering at his 
 own harvest.. Why talk of the man who having cast his 
 seed, follows up the blow with his rake, and levels the 
 bare sandy ridges, and then when the corn is springing 
 up, brings on its streaming waters, that follow as he 
 
44 ^ THE GEORGICS. 
 
 leads ; and when the scorched land is in a glow, and the 
 corn-blades djing — joy! from the brow of the 
 channeled slope entices the floods ? See ! down it tum- 
 bles, waking hoarse murmurs among the smooth stones, 
 and allaying the sunstruck ground as it bubbles on. 
 Why talk of him, who in his care lest the weight of the 
 ear should overbear the stems, grazes down the luxuri- 
 ance of the crop while yet in the blade, when the 
 springing corn has just reached the furrow's top ; or of 
 him, who. drains oflT the whole watery contents of a 
 marsh by absorbent sand — especially where, in the 
 treacherous seasons, a river overflows, and covers whole 
 acres with a coat of mud, making the hollow furrows 
 steam again with the reeking moisture ? 
 
 Do not think either, after all that the labor of man 
 and beast has goile through in turning the soil over and 
 over, that no harm is to be feared from the tormenting 
 goose, the crane from the Str3'mon, or the bitter fibers 
 of chicory ; no injury from excess of shade. No, the 
 wise Father of all has willed that the farmer's path 
 should be no easy one. He was the first to break up 
 the land by human skill, using care to sharpen men's 
 wits, nor letting the realm he had made his own grow 
 dull under the weight of lethargy. Before Jove's time 
 never husbandman subdued the country. Even to set 
 a mark on the champaign or divide it with a boundary 
 line was a thing unlawful. Men's gettings were for the 
 common stock, and earth of her own free will produced 
 everything, and that more freely than now, though none 
 asked it of her. He it was that gave the black snake 
 its ballful venom, and ordered the wolf to prowl and 
 the sea to swell, stripped the leaves of their honey, 
 and put the fire away, and stopped the wine that used 
 to flow in common ' river-beds — that experience. 
 
BOOK I. 45 
 
 through patient thought, might hammer out divers arts 
 by slow degrees — might get at the corn-blade by delv- 
 ing the furrow, and smite out from the heart of the flint 
 the hidden fire. Then it was that the hollowed alder 
 first touched the river — then the mariner numbered and 
 named the stars — Pleiades, and Hyades, and Lj^caon's 
 glittering child, the Bear. Then men found how to cap- 
 ture game with the noose, to beguile them with lime, 
 and how to let their hounds round the mighty lawns. 
 And one man has learned already to flog a wide river with 
 his casting net, making for the deep, while another is 
 dragging his dripping meshes through the sea. Then 
 came stubborn iron and the thin creaking saw — for the 
 first men clove their wood with the wedge — then came 
 the divers arts of life. So Toil conquered the world, 
 relentless Toil, and Want that grinds in adversity. 
 
 Ceres was the first to 'teach men to break up the earth 
 with iron, in da3's when the sacred forests had begun to 
 fall short in acorns and arbutes, and Dodona to withhold 
 her sustenance. Soon, however, the wheat had plagues 
 of its own — the baleful mildew was bidden to eat the 
 stems, and the laz}^ thistle to set up its spikes in the 
 fields. The crops begin to die, and a prickly jungle 
 steals into their place, burrs, caltrops and the like ; and 
 among the glistening corn towers like a king the un- 
 kindl}' darnel and the unfruitful oat. So, unless 3'our 
 rake is ever ready to exterminate weeds, your shout to 
 scare awa}* birds, your hook to restrain the shade which 
 darkens the land, and your pra3'ers to call down rain, 
 poor man, y ou w ill gaze on_your neighbor's big heap of 
 grain with unavailing env3\ Betake 3'ourself to the 
 woods again, and shake the oak to allay j^our hunger.. 
 
 I must tell you, too, what are the stout farmer's 
 weapons of war, without whose aid none has ever sown 
 
46 THE GEORGICS, 
 
 or raised a crop. First the share, and the bent plough's 
 heavy wood, and the slow lumbering wains of the mighty 
 Mother of Eleusis, sledges and ^rags, and the rakes 
 with their cruel weight, and the cheap wicker-work fur- 
 niture of Celeus, bush-harrows of arbute twigs, and 
 lacchus* mj^stic fan — implements these which 3'ou will 
 remember to store up long before the da}^ of need, if 
 you are destined to win and wear the full glories of the 
 divine countr3\ From its 3'outh up in the woods the 
 i^yiO^j elm is bent by main force and trained into a beam, 
 taking the form of the crooked plough ; to suit this a 
 pole is shaped, stretching eight feet in length with two 
 earth-boards, and a share-beam with its back on each 
 side. So the light linden tree is cut down betimes for 
 the yoke, and the tall beech which is to be the handle 
 to guide the carriage from behind, and the wood is 
 hung up over the hearth for the smoke to season it. 
 
 I could repeat to you many rules of old experience, 
 but I see you §tart off and wear^^ of listening to such 
 pett}^ cares. The threshing-floor in particular has to be 
 smoothed with a heavy roller, kneaded with the hand, 
 and made solid with astringent chalk, lest weeds 
 should creep into it, or dust get into it and break it 
 into holes, and then all manner of plagues make their 
 game of it — the tiny mouse for example often sets up 
 a home and builds a granary underground, or the blind 
 mole scrapes out a lurking-place, or toads are found in 
 the hollows, and all the other loathl}^ creatures that the 
 earth produces, and ravages are made in a huge heap 
 of corn by the weevil, and the ant which ever fears for 
 an old age of poverty. 
 
 Observe, too, when the walnut-tree in the plantation 
 bursts into blossom all over and makes its fragrant 
 boughs bend again, if the bulk of them turn to fruit. 
 
BOOK L 
 
 47 
 
 grain will follow in like proportion, and there will be a 
 great day for the threshing and a great one for the heat ; 
 but if it is a luxuriance of leaves that makes the shade 
 so abundant, the threshing-floor will be tasked in vain, 
 bruising stems laden only with chaff. 
 
 As for pulse, I have known many men steep it ere 
 they sowed it, drenching it first with niter and black 
 mother-of-oil, that the treacherous pods might yield a 
 larger produce, and one that would boil readily over a 
 small fire. Yet spite of all patience in choosing, spite 
 of all pains in examining, I have seen the race die out, 
 unless where men's power, year by year, picked out the 
 largest one by one. So is it — all earthly things jre^ 
 doomed to fall away and slip back into chaos, like a 
 boatman who just manages to make head against the 
 stream, if the tension of his arms happens to relax, and 
 the current whirls away the boat headlong down the. 
 river's bed. 
 
 Moreover it is as much our interest to watch Arc turns' 
 sign, and the rising of the Kids, and the glittering Snake, 
 as theirs who sailing homeward over the stormj^ water 
 explore Pontus and the jaws of 03^ster-breeding Abj'dus. 
 When the Balance has apportioned the hours equally 
 between daytime and sleep, and is giving half the circle 
 of the sky to light and half to shade ; come, my brave 
 men, task your oxen,^ow barley broadcast over the 
 field, till the very verge of the cold winter rains, when 
 no hand can be put to work. Then, too, is the time to 
 bury in the earth your future crop of flax, and the poppy 
 that the corn-goddess loves, aye, and more than time 
 to stoop vigorously over the plough, while the drj- earth 
 will let you, while the clouds hang unbroken. Spring 
 is the sowing time for beans — then, too, the lucern 
 is welcomed by the fallow furrows, and millet claims its 
 
48 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 yearly care, when the snow-white Bull with his gilded 
 horns throws open the year, and the Dog sets in retreat 
 before the star's advancing front. But if it is for a 
 harvest of wheat and hardy spelt that you would task 
 the soil, pressing on with ardor which only corn can 
 satisfy, first see Atlas' children take their morning de- 
 parture, and the star of Gnossus, the blazing crown, 
 recede from view, ere jovl charge the furrows with the 
 seed they have begun to want, or force the care of a 
 whole year's losses on a reluctant soil. Many have 
 begun ere the setting of Maia ; but they have found 
 their expected crop mock them with a show of empty 
 corn-ears. But if j^ou are for sowing vetches and cheap 
 kidne^^-beans, and do not think time ill-spent over the 
 lentil of Pelusium, you cannot misread the prognostic 
 given by Bootes at his setting — begin, and carr\^ on 
 your sowing into the heart of the frosty season. 
 n p tV /' It is to this, end that the orbit of the golden sun, 
 ^ ►.^^P divided into fixed portions, is guided through the world's 
 
 ujL rfu^*- twelve signs. Five zones comprise the heaven; one 
 
 f\^^ of them, ever glowing under the sun's glance, ever 
 
 scorched by his flame ; on each side of which, right and 
 left, two others stretch away into the far distance — 
 frozen homes of dull green ice and black storms. Be- 
 tween these and the central zone yet other twain have 
 been vouchsafed to overtoiled humanity by the clemency 
 of heaven, and betwixt them has been cut a path, along 
 which the succession of the signs may turn obliquely. 
 High as the globe rises towards Scythia and the pin- 
 nacles of Rbipsean hills, so deep is its downward slope 
 to Libya and its southern clime. The one pole ever 
 stands towering above our heads ; the other is thrust 
 down beneath the feet of murky Styx and her ab3'smal 
 specters. Here, with his monstrous spiral coils, shoots 
 
 n' 
 
Vi.^^' 
 
 BOOK L 49 
 
 out the Snake, winding like a river around and between 
 the two Bears — the Bears who ever shrink from the 
 touch of ocean's waters. There, some saj, all is wrapped 
 in eternal night, with its silence that knows no seasons, 
 and its thick pall deepening the gloom ; or, as others 
 think, Aurora visits them when she leaves us, and brings 
 them back the day ; and as we feel the first breath of 
 her orient steeds panting up our sky, among them Ves- 
 per, all crimson, is lighting its evening torch. Hence ^ ^• 
 it is that we can foretell the changes of the fitful hea- I qJ>^^^^ 
 ven, the harvest-tide, and the time for sowing, and what 
 season is the best for breaking with our oars the sea's 
 treacherous calm ; what for rigging and launching a 
 fleet, or laying low the pine among its forest brethren 
 when its time is come. Aye, hence it is that we watch, 
 not in vain, for the signs as they rise and set, and for . 
 the four Seasons whose diversity regulates the year, y'''' 
 
 Whenever a cold rainj" day keeps the farmer a pris- 
 oner, it is but a boon, enabling him to get read}' in time 
 many things which he would have had to hurry through 
 ere long in fine weather. See, the ploughman sits ham- 
 mering out the fang of his ploughshare, which has been 
 blunted, or hollowing a trough out of a tree, or he has 
 set marks on his cattle, or numbers on his corn-sacks ; 
 others are sharpening stakes and two-pronged forks, 
 and making bands of Amerian willows for tying up the 
 limber vine. Now is your time ; plait baskets of the 
 pliant bramble- twig, parch your corn at the fire, or bruise 
 it with the millstone. Wh}', even on holy-days, some 
 work is permitted b}' the laws of heaven and earth. 
 The strictest worshiper has never scrupled to let off" a 
 river, plant a hedge to protect his crop, set traps for 
 birds, fire the brambles, or wash his bleating flock for 
 health's sake in the stream. Often, too, has the slow 
 4 
 
50 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 ass his sides laden with oil or plent}^ of cheap apples by 
 his driver, who comes back from town with a dented 
 millstone, or a lump of black pitch for his trouble. 
 
 The moon herself has assigned her several days to 
 man, as each in its several degree propitious to labor. 
 Avoid the fifth ; then was born the ghastly God of Death 
 and the Furies ; then it was that the Earth produced her 
 monster brood — Coeus and lapetus and fell Typhoeus, 
 and the brethren who banded together to tear down 
 heaven's gates. Thrice, indeed, did they essay to heap 
 Ossa on Pelion, and upheave on to Ossa the forests of 
 Olympus ; thrice the Father with his thunderbolt dashed 
 their mountain pile to pieces. The seventeenth is lucky 
 for planting out the vine, taking and breaking in young 
 oxen, and adding the leashes to the warp. The ninth 
 smiles on runaways, but frowns on thieving. 
 
 Nay, there are many cases where nature submits tO 
 man more readily in chilly night, or w^hen the sun is 
 young, and the morning star sends dew on the earth. 
 Night is the best for cutting the light stubble, night for 
 the dry meadows ; night has always good store of moist- 
 ure to supple the grass. I know a man who will sit by 
 the light of a winter fire the whole night through, with a 
 sharp knife notching his brands, w^hile his wife, solacing 
 her tedious task with song, draws her shrill comb quickly 
 over the warp, or with the fire-god's help boils down 
 the sweet liquid must, and skims with a leaf the wave 
 of the simmering caldron. 
 
 But the ruddy corn-goddess is reaped in midsummer 
 heat, and in midsummer heat the parched ears are 
 bruised on the threshing-floor. Strip to plough, strip 
 to sow ; ;winter is a lazy time for the farmer. In cold 
 weather the husbandman thinks rather of enjoying what 
 he has got, and making merry with his neighbors in 
 
BOOK I. . 51 
 
 friendly companies. Winter is the entertainer, calling 
 out man's happier self, and unbinding his load of care, 
 as it were the end of a long voj^age, when the heavy- 
 laden vessel has at length touched the harbor's bar, and 
 the sailors in ecstasy are wreathing her stern with gar- 
 lands. Then, however, is the time to strip acorns for 
 fodder, and the berries of the bay, the olive, and the 
 blood-red myrtle ; the time to set springes for cranes 
 and nets for deer, and chase the long-eared hare ; the 
 time to strike the doe with a vigorous sweep of the 
 hempen lash of your Balearic sling, in the days when 
 the snow lies in deep drifts, when the floods roll down 
 their ice. 
 
 Why talk of the fitful changes of Autumn and its 
 signs, and the dangers against which men must watch 
 when the days begin to shorten, and the summer heat 
 to soften ! or when Spring pours down in showers, 
 when the plain already bristles with waving ears, and 
 the corn on its green stem is swelling with milky juice? 
 Oft have I, when the farmer was taking his reaper into 
 the yellow field, and just beginning to top the barley's 
 frail stalk, seen all the armies of the winds meet in the 
 shock of battle, tearing up by the roots whole acres of 
 heavy corn, and whirling it on high, just as a common 
 hurricane would sweep down its dark current light straw 
 and flying stubble. Oft, too, comes rushing from the 
 sky a vast column of waters, the clouds, mustering 
 from the length and breadth of heaven, and making 
 their dark storms into one great murky tempest ; down 
 crashes the whole dome of the firmament, washing 
 away before the mighty rain-deluge all those smiling 
 crops, all for which the ox toiled so hard. The dikes 
 are filled, the deep streams swell with a roar, and the 
 sea glows again through every panting inlet. The great 
 
62 , THE GEORGICS. 
 
 Father himself, intrenched in a night of storm-clouds, 
 wields the huge thunderbolt with flashing arm : at that 
 shock the giant earth trembles, the beasts have disap- 
 peared, and men's hearts all the world over lie quailing 
 low in terror ; he with his blazing javelin strikes Athos 
 or Rhodope or the high Ceraunian range : doubly loud 
 howls the south wind, doubly thick gathers the cloud 
 of rain, and under the blast's mighty stroke forest and 
 shore by turns wail in agony. 
 
 With this terror before you, look watchfully to the 
 heaven, its seasons and its signs. Mark into what 
 drear}^ regions Saturn's cold star withdraws itself; what 
 celestial orbit comprises the wanderings of the C3'llenian 
 fire. First of all, worship the gods, and year by 3'ear 
 pay great Ceres her recurring honor, with a sacrifice on 
 the luxuriant sward, when winter has at last fallen, and 
 spring begins to clear the sky. Those are the days 
 when lambs are fat, and wine at its mellowest, when 
 sleep is pleasant, and the trees on the mountains thick 
 of shade. Then summon all your rustic force to wor- 
 ship Ceres ; to pleasure her, mix the honeycomb with 
 milk, and the wine-god's mellow juice, and thrice let 
 the auspicious victim be led round the 3'oung corn, 
 with the whole choir of your mates following it in tri- 
 umph, and shouting invitations to Ceres to come and 
 dwell with them ; nor let any put the sickle into the ripe 
 corn, ere in Ceres' honor he wreathe his brow with the 
 oaken chaplet, join in the uncouth dance, and take part 
 in the song ! 
 
 Moreover, it is that these dangers may be known to 
 us by infallible tokens — the heat, I mean, and the rain, 
 and the wind that brings the cold — that the great 
 Father himself has ordained what should be the lesson 
 taught by each month's moon, what the signal for the 
 
BOOK L 53 
 
 south wind to fall asleep, what the symptom which, 
 repeatedly observed, makes the husbandman keep his 
 herds within sight of their stalls. From the first, when 
 the wind is getting up, either the inlets of the sea begin 
 to work and swell, and a dry crashing sound is heard 
 shivering down the high mountains, or a confused roar 
 echoes far along the beach, and the whispering of the 
 forests comes fast and thick. By this time the wave can 
 scarcely keep itself from falling on the vessel's keel, at 
 the moment when the gulls fly swiftly home from over 
 the sea, and their noise travels with them to the shore ; 
 at the moment, when the cormorants, whose element is 
 the water, are sporting on the land, and the heron for- 
 sakes its home in the marsh, and flies aloft above the 
 clouds. Often, too, when wind is near, you will see stars 
 shooting headlong from the sky, with long trails of flame 
 behind them, glimmering white through the blackness of 
 night ; often you will see light chaff and fallen leaves 
 flying about, and films of gossamer in sportive conjunc- 
 tion floating on the water's brim. But when from the 
 quarter of the savage North come lightnings, and thun- 
 der rolls through the halls of the East and the West, 
 every field is flooded from the dike's overflow, and 
 every sailor afloat furls his dripping sails. Never man 
 was surprised by rain at unawares. He might either 
 have seen the crows dropping from the sky to the 
 depths of the valley, to shelter themselves from it as it 
 rises, or the heifer turning its face to heaven and sniflf- 
 ing up the air with its broad nostrils, or the swallow 
 flying twitteringly round and round the pool, and the 
 frogs sitting in the slime, and singing their old com- 
 plaining note. Often, too, the ant is seen carrying its 
 eggs out of its secret cells along that narrow well-worn 
 path, and the great rainbow drinking, and the army of 
 
54 • THE GEORGICS, 
 
 rooks, as it draws off from its pasture in long column, 
 crying and flapping its serried wings. Again, the tribes 
 of sea-birds, and such as dig for treasure far and wide 
 in the Asian meads among Cayster's sweet waters, may 
 be observed in rivalry with each other, pouring showers 
 of spray over their backs, now presenting their heads 
 to the waves, now running into the sea, rejoicing, as it 
 were, in the mere aimless delight of bathing. Then the 
 raven, in her deep tones, like an ill spirit, calls down 
 the rain, and stalks in stately solitude along the dry 
 sea-sand. Even at night, maidens at their task can still 
 tell storm\^ weather, when in the blazing lamp the}^ see 
 the oil sputter, and fungus clots form round the wick. 
 
 Not less sure are the signs b}" which to foresee and 
 learn a change from rain to sunshine and clear open 
 sk}'. Then there is no bluntness about the edge of the 
 stars, nor does the moon seem to rise in deep debt to 
 her brother's light, nor are thin fleeces of wool seen to 
 float over the sky. Nor do the Halcj-^ons, whom the 
 sea-goddess loves, stand on the shore, spreading their 
 wings to the warm sun ; nor does it occur to the un- 
 cleanly swine to toss in their snouts loosened wisps of 
 hay. But the clouds fly lower ' and stretch themselves 
 along the plain, and as she watches the sunset on her 
 tower, the owl, all for nothing, keeps plying her weary 
 task of song. Nisus is seen soaring in the clear sky, 
 while Scylla suffers vengeance for the purple ringlet. 
 Wherever her flying wings cut through the thin ether, 
 see there is Nisus, her savage foe, with a mightj^ sound 
 chasing her through the air. Where Nisus flies up into 
 the air there is she, with her flying wings cutting scud- 
 dingly through the thin ether. Then the rooks, nar- 
 rowing their throats, utter a clear note, three or four 
 times over, and repeatedly in their nests on the tree- 
 
BOOK L 55 
 
 top, moved by some mj'sterious ecstasy beyond their 
 wont, make a chatter among the leaves for pleasure 
 belike, when the rain is over, at seeing their young and 
 their own dear nests again. Not, if I may judge, that 
 Heaven has given them any spark of wit like ours, or 
 Fate any deeper insight into things, but that when the 
 weather and the fitful moisture of the sky has changed 
 its course, and the god of the air with his wet gales 
 from the south condenses particles, which erewhile 
 were thin, and releases what was dense, there is a 
 change in the phases of their life, and movements rise 
 in their breasts, unlike those the}' felt while the wind 
 was gathering the clouds. There lies the secret of the 
 birds' rural chorus, and the ecstasy of the cattle, and 
 the rooks' triumphant psean. 
 
 But if you will watch the whirling sun and the array 
 of the moon, the morrow will never pla}' you false, nor 
 will you fall into the snare set by a clear night. When 
 the moon if first mustering her rallied fires, if her horns 
 are dull, with dark atmosphere between, there will be a 
 mighty storm brewing for farming-men and sea. But 
 if her face should be suffused with a maiden blush, then 
 there will be wind : the approach of wind ever flushes 
 the cheek of golden Phoebe. But if, on her fourth rising, 
 for that is your Safest counselor, she shall sail through 
 the sk}' clear, and with unblunted horn, then that whole 
 day, aye, and the da3-s which shall be born from it to 
 the month's end, shall be untroubled by rain or wind, 
 and seamen safely landed, shall paj^ their vows on the 
 beach to Glaucus andPanopea, and Ino's darling, Meli- 
 certa. 
 
 The sun, too, alike when rising and when going under 
 the wave, will give you tokens : no train of tokens is 
 surer than the sun's, those which attend his morning 
 
56 THE GEORGICS, 
 
 return, and those which recur with the rising stars. 
 For him, when j^-ou find him flecking his infant dawn 
 with spots, buried in a cloud, and shrinking from the 
 middle of his disk, beware of showers : for there is 
 looming overhead a south wind, foe to tree, and crop, 
 and cattle. Again, when at daybreak his rays come 
 shivered and scattered through a thick mass of cloud, 
 or when Aurora rises pale from Tithonus' saffron bed, 
 alas, the vine-branch that da}^ will be a poor shelter to 
 your ripe grapes, so pelting are the spokes of hail that 
 bound and crackle on your roof. This warning, too, it 
 will serve you more to bear in mind when he has finished 
 his course, and is quitting the sky, for then we often 
 see various hues wandering over his countenance : the 
 dusky portends rain, the fier3'-red east winds ; but if 
 dark spots and red fire begin to blend, then you will see 
 the whole firmament in one fierce turmoil of wind and 
 storm-cloud. Let no one advise me to take a journey 
 on the sea that night, or pluck the cable fro A the shore. 
 But if both when he restores the day, and when he hides 
 away again the restored treasure, his disk is bright, 
 your alarms of storm-clouds will be vain, and you will 
 see the woods swaying to and fro in a clear north wind. 
 In short, the secrets which evening carries on his 
 wing, the quarter whence a fair wind will blow to drive 
 away the clouds, the hidden purposes of the rainy South, 
 of all these the Sun will give you prognostics. The 
 Sun — who will dare to call him untrue? Nay, he it 
 is who often betrays the stealthy approach of battle 
 alarms, the heavings of treason and concealed rebellion. 
 Nay, he it was that had compassion for Rome at her 
 Caesar's death, when he veiled his shining head with a 
 gloom of iron-gray, and a godless world was afraid of 
 everlasting night. Though that in truth was a crisis 
 
BOOK I. 57 
 
 when Earth and the expanse of Ocean, dogs of evil 
 name and birds of ill omen gave their prognostics too. 
 How often have we seen the fire-god's cells burst, and 
 JEtna in a stream blazing forth on the Cyclops' domain, 
 with balls of flame and molten stones sweeping along ! 
 The clashing of arms was heard by Germany from sky 
 to sky ; strange convulsions sent a trembling through 
 the Alps. There was a voice, too, heard by many 
 through the still temple-groves, deeper than human ; 
 and specters of unearthly pallor were seen at the dead 
 of night, and cattle — the tale is too dire to tell — spoke 
 like men : see ! the rivers stay their courses, the earth 
 yawns, the ivory in the fanes sheds tears for sorrow, 
 and the brass sweats. With the sweep of its frenzied 
 torrent it bears down whole forests, that king of rivers, 
 Eridanus, hurling before it far as the plain extends, 
 stall and cattle alike. No respite was there in those 
 fearful days to the threatening filaments that overcast 
 the entrails with sadness, or to the blood that welled 
 from springs in the ground, or to the howling of wolves 
 b}^ night, echoing through our steep-built towns. Never 
 also fell there more thunder-bolts from a clear sky ; 
 never blazed comets with frequence so appalling. 
 Hence it was that the spectacle of two Roman hosts, 
 armed alike, meeting in the shock of fight, was seen 
 once more by Philippi, nor did the Powers above think 
 it shame that our best blood should twice serve to fatten 
 the land of Emathia and Hsemus' broad plains. Yes, 
 and the time will come when in those borders the hus- 
 bandman, as with his crooked plough he upheaves the 
 f mass of earth, will find, devoured b}" a scurf of rust, 
 Roman javelins, or strike his heavy rake on empty 
 helms, and gaze astounded on the gigantic bones that 
 start from their broken sepulchers. 
 
58 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 Gods of our fathers, native powers, and Romulus and 
 Vesta, our great mother, who preservest the Etruscan 
 Tiber and Rome's ]3alaces, at least Jet this j'Wng^r 
 £hampion come to the aid of a world o'erthrown^^with 
 none to hinder him. To the full, long since, has our 
 blessed blood atoned for the perjuries of Laomedon and 
 his Troy. Long since, Caesar, has heaven's kingly home 
 been grudging thee to this our earth, complaining tJiat 
 thj^ thoughts are all for human triumphs — triumphs 
 among a race where right and wrong are confounded, 
 in a globe that teems with war and swarms with the 
 myriad forms of crime ; where the plough meets with 
 naught of its due lienor ; where the tiller is swept off 
 ' and the land left to weeds, and the hook has its curve 
 straightened into the swordblade. In the East, Eu- 
 phrates is stirring up war, in the West Germany ; nay, 
 / close-neighboring cities break their mutual league and 
 f draw the sword — and the war-god's unhallovv-ed fury 
 * rages the whole earth through ; even as when in the 
 ' Circus the chariots burst from their floodgates, they 
 dash into the course, and pulling desperately at the 
 ^\ reins, the driver lets the horses drive him, and the car 
 U is deaf to the curb. 
 
BOOK II. 69 
 
 BOOK 11. 
 
 Thus far of the tillage of the fields and of the stars 
 of heaven. Now of thee, Bacchus, will I sing, and of 
 the young forest trees as united with thee, and of the 
 progeny of the slowly-growing olive. Come hither, 
 father of the wine-press — everything here is filled with 
 thy gifts — for thee the land looks gay, as it teems with 
 the viny harvest, the vintage is foaming in the brim- 
 ming vats. Come hither, father of the wine-press — 
 strip off thy buskins, bare th}^ legs, and plunge them 
 with me into the new must. 
 
 First, the law of the production of trees is various. 
 For some, under no compulsion from men, grow up of 
 themselves, of their own accord, and spread widely over 
 the plains and the winding river-banks, like the pliant 
 osier and the limber broom, the poplar, and the willow 
 groves that look so hoar}^ with their gray leaves. Some 
 again spring up from the dropping of seed, like the tall 
 chestnuts, and the forest-monarch which puts forth its 
 ro3'al leaves for Jove, the sesculus, and the oaks, in 
 Greece deemed oracular. With others a dense forest 
 of suckers shoots up from their roots, as with cherr}-- 
 trees and elms — nay, the bay of Parnassus rears its 
 infant head under the mighty covert of its mother's 
 shade. These are the modes which Nature first gave 
 to men unasked- — to these the whole race of forest- 
 trees and shrubs and sacred groves owe their verdure. 
 
 Other modes there are which experience, working by 
 method, has found out for itself One has thought of 
 tearing off suckers from their mother's tender frame, 
 
60 772^^ GEORGICS. 
 
 and planting them in furrows ; another has buried 
 stocks in the ground, truncheons cleft in four, and 
 stakes sharpened to a point. Some forest-trees yearn 
 for the arch of ^he depressed layer, and for slips which 
 partake of their life and spring from their soil. Others 
 want nothing of the root ; the gardener as he prunes 
 the tree confidently takes the topmost branch and re- 
 stores it as a trust to its native earth. Na}^ the olive, 
 when cut down to a stump, marveloustcrrelate, strikes 
 a root out of the dry wood. Often, too, we see the 
 branches of one tree transformed to those of another 
 by harmless magic — the pear-tree is changed and bears 
 a crop of engrafted apples — the stony cornels look red 
 on the plum-tree. 
 
 Come, then, husbandmen, and learn the culture 
 proper to each according to its kind, and so mellow 
 your wild fruits by cultivation, nor let the ground lie 
 idle. What joy, to plant Ismarus all over with the 
 progeny of Bacchus, and clothe the mighty sides of 
 Taburnus with a garment of olives. Be thou, too, at 
 my side, and traverse with me the task that I have 
 essayed, thou who art my glory, to whom the largest 
 share of my fame of right belongs, and spread thy fly- 
 ing sails over this broad ocean. Not that I aim at em- 
 bracing all with my song. I could not, had I a hundred 
 tongues, a hundred mouths, a voice of brass. Come 
 with me and coast along the line of the shore — the land 
 is close at hand. I will not detain thee here with mythic 
 strains, or circuitous detail, or lengthy preambles. 
 
 The trees which of their own accord rear themselves 
 up into the realms of light grow up unfruitful, but luxu- 
 riant and vigorous — for there are latent forces of na- 
 ture in the soil. Yet unfruitful as they are, if grafted 
 with others or transplanted to pits where the earth has 
 
BOOK 11. 61 
 
 been well worked, they will be found to have put off 
 their savage temper, and under constant cultivation to 
 learn readil}^ whatever lessons you may choose to teach 
 them. So with the barren sucker that springs from the 
 root, if it be planted out with clear ground to expatiate 
 in — as it now is, the towering foliage and branches of 
 its mother overshadow it, and rob it of its fruit as it 
 grows up, and wither up the productive powers it exerts. 
 Again, the tree which owes its birth to chance-dropped 
 seed comes up slowly, reserving its shade for generations 
 yet unborn — apples degenerate, having lost the tradi- 
 tions of their ancient flavor, and the vine bears ignoble 
 clusters for birds to pillage. The fact is, all must have 
 labor spent on them — all must be drilled into trenches 
 and subdued with toil and pain. Olives, however, an- 
 swer best from truncheons, vines from layers, Paphian 
 myrtles from the solid wood. From suckers are raised 
 the sturdy hazels, and the huge ash, and the tree whose 
 sh^de crowns the brows of Hercules, and the acorns of 
 our Chaonian father — raised, too, is the lofty palm, 
 and the fir which will one da}^ behold the disasters of 
 the deep. But the prickly arbutus is grafted with the 
 fruit of the nut, and plane-trees, though barren, have 
 borne heavy apples in their day — the chestnut's blos- 
 som has whitened the beech, the pear's the mountain 
 ash, and swine have crunched acorns that they found 
 under the elm. Nor is the method of grafting and of 
 inoculation one and the same. Where the buds sprout 
 forth from the middle of the bark and burst the thin 
 coats, there is a small orifice in the knot thus caused ; 
 into it they introduce a bud from a strange tree, and 
 teach it to grow into the bark that gives it the sap of 
 life. Or again incision is made in the stem where there 
 are no knots, and a deep passage is cloven by wedges 
 
62 . THE GEORGTCS. 
 
 into solid wood. Then shoots that will bear are let in 
 
 — a little while, and the tree has started up toward 
 the sky with a weight of teeming branches, marveling 
 at its strange foliage, and a fruitage not its own. 
 
 Further, there is not one kind onlj' of stalwart elms, 
 or of the wallow and the lotus, or the cj^presses of Ida, 
 nor are fat olives all produced after one tj^pe — orchads 
 and radii — and pausians with their bitter fruit; nor 
 yet the apple-forests of Alcinous ; nor is the scion the 
 same which produces S3Tian and Crustumian pears and 
 big hand-fillers. The vintage that hangs from our trees 
 is not the same which Lesbos gathers from the tendrils 
 of Meth3^mna. There are Thasian vines, there are 
 Mareotids, which are white ; these suited for rich soils, 
 those for the lighter sort ; and the Psithian, which does 
 better for raisin- wine ; and the Lageos, whose thin 
 light juice will one da}' trouble the feet and tie up the 
 tongue ; and purples, and early -ripes — thou, too, grape 
 of Khsetia, how shall I sing thy praises? Yet measure 
 not thyself, therefore, against cellars of Falernum. 
 Then there are the Aminaean vines — best of wines to 
 keep — to which the Tmolian veils his crest, and the 
 roj^al Phanseus himself, and the lesser Argitis, with 
 which none will be found to vie, either for the streams 
 of juice that it 3'ields, or for the length of years that it 
 lasts. Far be it from me to pass over thee, Rhodian — 
 welcome to the gods and to the banquet's second course 
 
 — or Bumastus, with thy big swelling clusters. But 
 there is no number to tell how man}' kinds there are, or 
 what their names ; indeed, it skills not to measure 
 them by number. The man who would have such 
 knowledge would wish also to know how many sand- 
 grains are lashed by the zephyr on the Libyan waste, 
 or when the east wind falls with violence on the ship- 
 
BOOK IL 63 
 
 ping, to tell how many waves the Ionian sea sends 
 rolling to the shore. 
 
 Nor, indeed, is every soil able to produce everything. 
 Willows grow, by rivers, alders in rank boggy ground, 
 barren ashes in a stony mountainous country. The 
 most luxuriant myrtle groves are on the shore. Lastly, 
 Bacchus is partial to broad sunny hills, the yew-tree 
 to north winds and cold. Look also at the extremities 
 of the earth as subdued by tillage, the Eastern homes 
 of the Arabs and the tattooed Gelonians. There you 
 will find trees with their countries portioned out to them. 
 None but India produces black ebony ; the spray of 
 frankincense belongs to none but the Sabseans. Why 
 tell thee of the balsams, the sweat of the fragrant wood, 
 or of the berries of the evergreen acanthus? Why 
 speak of the woods of the Ethiopians, with their hoary 
 locks of soft wool, or how the Seres comb silky fleeces 
 from the lambs? Or the forests which India bears, 
 hard by the ocean, the utmost corner of the world — 
 forests where no shot of an arrow can reach the sky that 
 tops the trees ; and the natives are not slow, either, 
 when they take up the quiver? Media produces the 
 bitter juice and lingering flavor of the benignant citron ; 
 no more present help than that, if ever cruel stepdames 
 have drugged the draught, mingling herbs and charms 
 not less baleful, to come and expel the deadly poison 
 from the frame. The tree itself is large, and ver}' like 
 a bay to look at ; nay, if the scent it flings about were 
 not different, a bay it had been. No wound can make 
 it shed its leaves, and the blossom, too, holds fast as 
 few. The Medes use it for purifying noisome breath, 
 and relieving the asthma of old age. 
 
 But neither Median forests, wealthiest of climes, nor 
 lovely Ganges, nor Ilermus, whose mud is gold, may 
 
64 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 vie with the glories of Italy. No, nor Bactria, nor Ind, 
 nor Panchaia, with all the riches of its incense-bearing 
 sands. Here is a land where no bulls, breathing fire from 
 their nostrils, have ploughed the soil ; where no enor- 
 mous dragons' teeth were ever sown ; where no human 
 harvest started up, bristling with helms and crowded 
 lances ; but teeming corn and the vine-god's Massic 
 juice have made it their own ; its tenants are olives and 
 luxuriant herds of cattle. Hence comes the war-horse, 
 that prances proudly into the battle-field. Hence, 
 Clitumnus, those white flocks, and the bull, that majes- 
 tic victor, which oft ere now, bathed in th}' sacred flood, 
 have ushered a Roman triumph to the temples of the 
 gods. Here is ceaseless spring, and summer in months 
 where summer is strange. Twice the cattle give in- 
 crease, twice the tree fields its service of fruit. But 
 far away are fierce tigers and the savage seed of lions ; 
 nor does aconite grow to beguile the wretched herb- 
 gatherer ; nor does the serpent roll his huge circle swiftly 
 along the ground, or gather his scales into a coil with 
 so vast a sweep. Think, too, of all those stately cities 
 and trophies of human toil, all those towns piled by man's 
 hand on beetling rocks, with rivers flowing beneath their 
 time-honored walls. Or shall I speak of the two seas 
 that wash it above and below ? or of thpse mighty lakes 
 — of thee, Larius, the greatest, and thee, Benacus, 
 heaving with the swell and the roar of ocean ? or tell 
 of the harbors and the barrier thrown across the Lucrine, 
 and the rage and loud thunder of the bafliied waters, 
 where the sound of the sea beaten back echoes far over 
 the Julian wave, and the Tyrrhenian billows come foam- 
 ing up into the creeks of Avernus? It is a land, too, 
 which has disclosed currents of silver and of copper ore 
 mantling in its veins, and has streamed profusely with 
 
BOOK IL 65 
 
 gold — a land that has produced tribes of manljr tem- 
 per — the Marsian, the Sabine stock, the Ligurian, 
 inured to hardship, and the Volscian spearmen ; the 
 families of the Decii and the great CamilH, the Scipios 
 — those iron warriors — and thee, Caesar, greatest of 
 all, who now, crowned with conquest in Asia's utmost 
 bounds, art driving back the unwarlike Indian from the 
 towers of Rome. Hail to thee, land of Saturn, mighty 
 mother of noble fruits and noble men ! For thee I 
 essa}^ the theme of the glory and the skill of olden days. 
 For thee I adventure to break the seal of those hallowed 
 springs, and sing the song of Ascra through the towns 
 of Rome. 
 
 Now for the tempers of fields — what are the powers 
 of each, what the distinguishing color, and what the 
 natural aptitude for gendering things. First, then, those 
 churlish soils and niggard I3' hills, where hungrj^ marl and 
 gravel form a bed for brambles, rejoice in the forest- 
 growth of Minerva's long-lived olive. You may tell 
 it by the many wild olives that spring up in the same 
 line of country, and the ground strewn all over with 
 their woodland berries. But a rich soil, which luxuri- 
 ates in the moisture of fresh springs, a plain with abun- 
 dant herbage and a teeming bosom, such as we often see 
 at the bottom of a mountain hollow — for the streams 
 pour down into it from the tops of the rocks, and carry 
 with them fertilizing slime ; a plain which rises to the 
 south, and produces fern, that enemy of the crooked 
 ploughshare ; such a soil will one day bear \'0U good 
 store of vines of excellent health, and yielding rivers 
 of Bacchic juice : it will teem with grapes, and with 
 liquor, such as we pour in libations from golden cups, 
 when the plump Etruscan at the altar blows through the 
 pipe, and we offer entrails smoking hot in chargers that 
 5 
 
66 THE GEORGICS, 
 
 bend under the weight. But if your care be rather to 
 rear cattle, bullocks, lambs, or goats that kill young 
 shoots, go to the distant lawns of luxuriant Tarentum, 
 or plains such as that which poor Mantua lost, support- 
 ing silver swans with its weedy stream : there will be no 
 lack of clear springs or grass for your cattle. Nay, all 
 that your herds can devour on a summer's day, will be 
 replaced by the cold fresh dew of one short night. 
 
 For corn, the best land in the main is that which is 
 black, and shows itself rich when the ploughshare is 
 driven into it, and whose soil is crumbling, that being 
 what we seek to reproduce by ploughing ; there is no 
 sort of ground from which jou will see more wains 
 dragged home by sturd}- toiling bullocks ; or again, land 
 from which timber has been carted away by the pro- 
 voked husbandman, leveling wood which has been doing 
 no good these many years, and upsetting the leafy homes 
 of the birds, roots and all — the tenants, ejected from 
 their nests, have gone up into the air, while the rude 
 field has been brightened up by dint of the ploughshare. 
 As for the hungry gravel of the Hill countr}^, it can 
 barely furnish shrubs like cassia and rosemary for bees ; 
 and the rugged tufa and the marl all eaten awa}^ by black 
 snakes, tell you plainly that no other ground is so good 
 at suppljing serpents with food that they like, and holes 
 where they may wind and lurk. But the land which 
 exhales thin vapors and light steam, which drinks in 
 moisture, and gives it off again at jDleasure, which keeps 
 itself constantly clothed with the verdure of its own 
 grass, and breeds no scurfy salt rust to corrode the 
 plough — here is a land which will yield j^ou luxuriant 
 vines to twine round your elms — a land which produces 
 olives abundantly — a land which the experience of cul- 
 tivation will show to be at once well natured for cattle 
 
BOOK 11. 67 
 
 and submissive to the crooked share. Such is the land 
 that is fenced by wealthy Capua and the coast neigh- 
 boring the Vesuvian ridge, and Clanius, the oppressor 
 of desolate Acerrae. 
 
 Now I will tell 3^ou how you may distinguish each. 
 If 3'ou want to know whether a soil be loose or exceed- 
 ingly stiff, seeing that the one is partial to corn, the 
 other to vines ; the stiffer to the corn goddess, the 
 loosest to the wine-god, fix on a spot of ground, and 
 cause a pit to be sunk in the solid earth, then put all 
 the mold back again, and stamp the surface level. If 
 there is too little, the soil will be loose and more suited 
 for pasture and fruitful vines ; but if it refuses to go 
 into its place, so that when the hole is full the earth 
 still dominates, the clay is thick — prepare 3'ourself for 
 resistance in the clods and stiffness in the ridges, and 
 let the oxen with which you break up the ground be 
 strong. 
 
 As for a salt or bitter soil, as it is called, which is 
 unkindly to produce, never softening under ploughing 
 — where the grape is not true to its race, or the apple 
 to its name, it will test itself thus : pull down from your 
 smoke-dried roof the thick plaited baskets and wine- 
 strainers, and into them stamp to the full that malig- 
 nant land, along with fresh water from the spring — all 
 the water, you will see, will force itself out, and big 
 drops will trickle through the plaits — the taste will tell 
 the tale plainly, warping the mouths of the triers into a 
 frown by the sense of bitterness. 
 
 Again, the fatness of a soil, to be brief, is ascertained 
 in this way : toss it about in the hand, it never crumbles, 
 but in the act of holding clings to the fingers like pitch. 
 A moist soil grows large weeds, and its powers of pro- 
 duction are more luxuriant than need be. Ah ! may I 
 
68 THE GEORGICS, 
 
 never be troubled b}' its over-fertilitj^, or the excess of 
 strength that it puts forth for a first crop ! As for heavy 
 or Hght soils, their weight betrays them without a word 
 said. Your e3'e will tell 3'ou at once which is black, 
 and, in short, which is of what color. But the detec- 
 tion of that vile cold is difficult ; all that can be said is, 
 that pines, and noxious 3'ews, and black ivy, occasion- 
 ally give signs of it. 
 
 All this duly observed, remember to get the ground 
 TV-ell baked, and the mountains ploughed up with trenches 
 through their length and breadth, and the clods all 
 turned up and exposed to the north winds before j^ou, 
 plant the scion of the luxuriant vine. Fields where 
 the soil is crumbling are the best ; for that we must 
 thank winds and sharp frosts, and the main force of the 
 spade laborer, disturbing and loosening the ground. But 
 men, whose watchfulness nothing escapes, look out first 
 for two similar soils, where the 3'oung shoots are to be 
 nursed for the trees, and where they are afterwards to 
 be taken and transplanted, that the sudden change ma^^ 
 not make the plants feel strangely to their mother. 
 Nay, the}'^ mark the quarter of the heavens on the bark, 
 that the}' may be able to reproduce the way in which 
 each used to stand, the part on which it bore the brunt 
 of the southern heat, the side which it presented to the 
 north pole. So powerful are habits formed in tender 
 years. 
 
 Let your first question be, whether the -vine would be 
 better planted on a hill or on the plain. If you decide 
 on laying out tracts of rich level ground, plant thick ; 
 thick setting will not dull the powers of the wine-god. 
 But if you fix on land rising into hillocks and broad 
 slopes, give free scope to your rows — all the same let 
 the line of each avenue that 3'ou draw tally with the 
 
BOOK 11. 69 
 
 rest when the trees are planted — as you may often see 
 when a legion has deploj^ed at full length into cohorts 
 for a great battle, and the column has taken its stand 
 in the open plain, and the lines are drawn out and all 
 the earth is gleaming like a sea with the wavy sheen of 
 brass, while the grim melee of the fight has not yet 
 begun, but the war-god hovers dubiously between the 
 armies. Let all be laid out in regular symmetrical 
 avenues, not only that the view may feed the idle 
 fancy, but because there is no other way of getting the 
 earth to give an equal share of support to all, or en- 
 abling the branches to spread freely into open air. 
 
 Perhaps too you may like to know about the depth 
 of your pits. I would not mind trusting the vine to a 
 shallow trench, but its supporter strikes down deeper 
 into the heart of the earth, especially the sesculus, which 
 does not push its head further towards the altitudes of 
 heaven than it pushes its roots towards the dark world 
 beneath. Hence it is that winter storm and blast and 
 rain cannot tear it from its seat : it abides unmoved : 
 manj^ are the posterities, man}' the generations of men 
 that it rolls along and lives down victoriouslj' ; while 
 stretching out its sinew}^ branching arms on all sides, it 
 supports with its central bulk the vast weight of their 
 shade. 
 
 Do not let your vineyards slant towards the setting 
 sun, nor plant a hazel among your vines, nor take the 
 topmost spray of the vine, or pluck the suckers that are 
 to support it from the top of the tree — the affection for 
 the soil is so great — nor injure your buds bj^ using 
 blunt steel, nor plant truncheons of wild olive in 3'our 
 vineyard ; for careless husbandmen will often drop a 
 spark, which after being first concealed and sheltered 
 under the unctuous rind, catching the tree, mounts in a 
 
70 THE GEORGICS, 
 
 moment into the foliage, and sends a loud sound up into 
 the air, then runs along and dominates victoriously 
 among the branches and the summits that tower so 
 high, and wraps the whole plantation in flame, and 
 throws up black clouds of thick pitchy vapor to the 
 sk}', especially if a gale happens to come sweeping 
 down over the woods and a driving wind gathers and 
 spreads the blaze. In an event like this, the power of ^ 
 the root is gone ; they cannot be restored by amputa- 
 tion, or shoot up green as before from the depth of the 
 soil : the wild olive with its bitter leaves is left master 
 of the field. 
 
 Let no adviser have such credit for foresight as to 
 persuade 3'ou to meddle with the earth while it is lying 
 stiff under the breath of the northern blasts, for then 
 winter seals up the ground with cold and does not 
 suffer the plant when set to strike its frozen root into 
 the soil. The best planting season for vines is the 
 bloom of spring, at the return of that white bird, which 
 the long vipers hate so, or in the first cold days of 
 autumn, when the sun's fierj^ coursers have not yet 
 reached winter, though summer is well over. Spring 
 it is, spring that does good to woodland foliage and 
 forestry ; in spring the soil swells and demands im- 
 pregnation. It is then that ^ther, the Almighty Fa- 
 ther of Nature, penetrates the womb of earth with his 
 fruitful showers and blending his might}^ frame with 
 hers gives life to all the embrj^os within. It is then 
 that the pathless brakes are vocal with the songs of 
 birds, and the cattle pair in their season. The parent 
 soil brings forth, and the warm western breezes unseal 
 the womb of the fields. A gentle moisture rises over 
 all, and as the new suns dawn, the herbage ventures to 
 encounter them with safety, and the young vine-branch 
 
BOOK 11, 71 
 
 has no fear that the south wind will get up or that the 
 mighty north will shed a burst of rain from the sky, 
 but puts out its buds and unfolds all its leaves. \ I do 
 not believe that the days were brighter or their course 
 more blissful when the young world first came into 
 being : it was spring then — it was spring-tide that the 
 great globe was keeping, and the east winds of winter 
 were forbearing to blow, when the earliest cattle opened 
 their eyes on the light, and an iron race of men rose 
 from the hard soil of earth, and beasts were turned 
 into the woods, and stars into the sky. Indeed things 
 so delicate would not be able to endure such hardships, 
 unless there were a great breathing time like this com- 
 ing between cold and heat, and a clement sky ready to 
 receive the earth. 
 
 For the rest, whatever cuttings you set in 3- our land, 
 be sure to sprinkle them with rich manure and cover 
 them with plenty of earth ; or bury with them a porous 
 stone or rough shells, for the water will penetrate be- 
 tween the crevices, and the searching breath of air will 
 steal in, and the sets will pluck up heart. Men too 
 have been known ere now to place a stone over them or 
 a great heav}' potsherd, as a protection against showers 
 of rain, or when the sultry dog-star splits the thirsty 
 jaws of the soil. 
 
 When your sets are planted, you have to loosen the 
 ground repeatedly about the roots, and make play with 
 your strong spades, or work the earth by dint of the 
 ploughshare, and even turn your restive team between 
 the rows of your vineyard ; further, you must get ready 
 smooth canes and spearlike wands of peeled rods and 
 stakes of the ash, and stout forks, by whose support 
 the vines may be trained to climb and defy the winds, 
 and run from story to story along the elm-tops. 
 
72 THE GEORGICS, 
 
 In the time of their young growth and their first 
 leaves you should spare their infancy, and even when 
 the vine-branch is pushing its way exultingl^^ into the 
 sky, launched into the void in full career, the tree 
 should not as yet be operated on b}' the pruning-hook, 
 but the leaves should be gathered by the fingers and 
 picked off here and there. Then when they have shot 
 up their stems strong and closely wound round the 
 elms, it is time to lop the leaves and clip the branches ; 
 before that they shrink from the knife. Then is the 
 time to set up a strong government and keep down the 
 luxuriance of the boughs. 
 
 You must make close hedges too and keep out cattle 
 of every sort, especially while the branches are 3^oung 
 and unaccustomed to rough living. Besides the danger 
 from cruel winters and oppressive suns, wild buffaloes 
 and restless goats are constantly disporting themselves 
 with it. Sheep and heifers feed on it greedily. Indeed 
 no cold that hoarfrost ever congealed, no summer that 
 ever smote heavily on the parching rocks has been so 
 fatal to it as the flocks and the venom of their sharp 
 tooth, and the wound impressed on the stem that they 
 have gnawed to the quick. It is in fact for this crime 
 that the goat appears at all altars as a victim to Bac- 
 chus, when the favorite old plays are brought on the 
 stage. So the sons of Theseus set up prizes for wit in 
 their village and cross-road gatherings, and in drunken 
 jollity jumped over greased bags of goatskin in the 
 velvet meads. The Ausonian rustics, too, who owe 
 their descent to Tro}^ have their sport in artless verses 
 and unbridled laughter, and put on frightful masks of 
 hollowed bark and call on thee, Bacchus, in songs of 
 joy, and in thy honor hang up images with pleasant 
 faces to swing from the tall pine. This makes every 
 
BOOK II. 73 
 
 vineyard luxuriate in plenteous increase. There is 
 fullness in hollow valley and deep hill-gorge, and in 
 every place to which the god has turned his comely 
 head. Duly then will we husbandmen give Bacchus the 
 celebration he claims in the songs our fathers sung, with 
 offerings of loaded platters and steaming cakes ; led by 
 the horn the consecrated goat shall be set before the 
 altar, and the dainty entrails shall be roasted on spits 
 of hazel. 
 
 Again, too, there is that other heavy toil of dressing 
 vines, a drain which is never satisfied ; for the whole 
 soil has to be broken up every year thrice and again, 
 and the clods to be crushed incessantl}^ with the hoe's 
 back ; the whole plantation has to be lightened of its 
 foliage. Back upon the husbandman comes his labor 
 in a round, as the year retraces its own footsteps and 
 rolls round upon itself. And now already" when the^ 
 vineyard has shed its lingering leaves, and the cold 
 north wind has stripped the woods of their beauty, 
 even thus early a keen farmer stretches his fore- 
 thought to meet the coming year, and with Saturn's 
 hooked fang in hand pursues the forlorn vine, clipping 
 it as it grows, and prunes it to the shape he will. Be 
 the first to dig the ground, the first to cast away and 
 burn the lopped boughs, the first to carryback the poles 
 under cover, the last to put in the sickle. Twice a year 
 the leaves encroach on the vines ; twice a year the crop 
 is overgrown with weeds and clustering briers ; the one 
 task is as hard as the other. Praise a large estate as 
 you will, but farm a small one. Then, too, there are 
 the rough twigs of butchers' broom to be cut up and 
 down the woods, and the water-reed on the river-side, 
 and the dressing of the untended willow to keep your 
 hand at work. And now suppose that the vines are 
 
74 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 tied up, the plantations have done with the pruning- 
 hook, and the last dresser is singing the song of ' all 
 rows finished,' still there is the earth to be disturbed 
 and the dust raised, and the grape when fully ripe has 
 to meet the terrors of Jupiter. 
 
 On the other hand olives need no dressing at all ; 
 they claim nothing from curving hook or tearing rake, 
 when once they have struck root into the soil and 
 weathered the air. The earth itself, when the crooked 
 fang unlocks it, gives the young plants moisture, and 
 yields teeming produce by the ploughshare's aid. Do 
 this, and rear the olive to the fatness which makes it 
 Peace's darling. 
 
 Apples again, so soon as they have felt their trunks 
 firm under them and come into their strength, climb 
 their way rapidh- to the sky by their own power, and 
 need no help from us. 
 
 Meanwhile the whole forest is teeming with 3'oung 
 life no less, and the birds' wild haunts are ablush with 
 blood-red berries. The lucern is eaten for fodder, the 
 tall wood supplies pine torches, and night-fires are fed 
 and give light to the house. And can men stand in 
 doubt about planting and expending pains? Why go 
 through the greater trees ? take but willows and lowl}^ 
 brooms, even they aflTord leaves for cattle and shelter 
 for shepherds, hedges for crops and food for honey. 
 Ay, and what joy to gaze on Cj'torus all waving with 
 box, and those groves of Nar3xian pitch ! what joy to 
 look on fields that owe no debt to the rake, none to 
 aught of man's culture ! Nay, those barren forests on 
 the top of Caucasus, which the gusty eastern blasts are 
 forever wasting and whirling, yield each tree a produce 
 of its own, yield good timber for shipping in their 
 pines, for houses in their cedars and cypresses. Hence 
 
BOOK II. 75 
 
 the farmer turns spokes for wheels, drum- boards for 
 wagons, and curved keels for vessels. Twigs are 
 freely yielded b}^ the willow, leaves by the elm, strong 
 spear-shafts by the myrtle and the cornel, the warrior's 
 friend ; yews are bent into Itursean bows. Nor does 
 the smooth linden or the lathe-polished box refuse to 
 take shape and be hollowed by the sharp steel. The 
 light alder, too, swims the torrent wave, sped down the 
 Po ; bees too hive their swarms in the hollow cork-bark 
 and the trough of the decaying ilex. What of equal 
 account has come from Bacchus' gifts to manf Bac- 
 chus ! he has even given occasion to crime ; it was he 
 that tamed with the death-stroke the Centaurs he had 
 first maddened, their Rhoetus and their Pholus, and 
 their Hylaeus, menacing the Lapithse with his mighty 
 bowl. 
 
 ' O happy, beyond human happiness, had they but a 
 sense of their blessings, the husbandmen, for whom of 
 herself, far away from the shock of arms, Earth, that 
 gives all their due, pours out from her soil plenteous 
 sustenance. What if they have not a lofty palace 
 with proud gates disgorging from every room a vast 
 tide of morning visitors ; if they have not doors in- 
 laid with sumptuous tortoise-shell to gloat on, and 
 tapestry with fancy work of gold, and bronzes of 
 Ephyra ; if their white wool is not stained by Ass3'riau 
 drugs, or their clear oil's service spoiled by the bark of 
 cassia still they have repose without care and a life 
 where fraud and pretense are unknown, with stores of 
 manifold wealth ; they have the liberty of broad do- 
 mains, grottoes, and natural lakes, cool Tempe-like 
 valleys, and the - lowing of oxen, and luxurious slum- 
 bers in the shade are there at their call. There are 
 lawns and dens where wild beasts hide, and a youth 
 
76 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 strong to labor and inured to scanty fare. Here, too, 
 is religion and reverend elders ; among them it was 
 that Justice left the last print of her feet as she with- 
 drew from earth. 
 
 As for me, first of all I would pra}^ that the charm- 
 ing Muses, whose minister I am, for the great love that 
 has smitten me, would receive me graciously, and teach 
 me the courses of the stars in heaven, the various 
 eclipses of the sun and the agonies of the moon, whence 
 come quakings of the earth, what is the force by which 
 the deep seas swell to the bursting of their barriers and 
 settle down again on themselves — wh}" the winter suns 
 make such haste to dip in ocean, or what is the retard- 
 ing cause which makes the nights move slowly. But if 
 I should be restrained from sounding these depths of 
 nature by cold sluggish blood stagnating about my 
 heart, then let me delight in the country-, and the 
 streams that freshen the valle3^s — let me love river 
 and woodland with an unambitious love. O for those 
 plains — for Spercheius and Taj^gete, the revel-ground 
 of Spartan maidens ! O for one to set me down in the 
 cool glens of Haemus, and shelter me beneath the giant 
 shade of its boughs ! 
 
 ^ Happ3' the man who has gained a knowledge of the 
 causes of things, and so trampled under foot all fears 
 and fate's relentless decree, and the roar of insatiate 
 Acheron. Yet not the less blest is he who has won 
 the friendship of the rural gods, Paji and old Silvanus, 
 and the sisterhood of Nymphs. He is not moved by 
 honors that the people confer, or the purple of empire, 
 or civil feuds, that make brothers swerve from brothers* 
 dut}' ; or the Daciaii coming down from the Hister, his 
 sworn ally ; no, nor by the great -Roman state and the 
 death throes of subject kingdoms : he never felt the 
 
T^ 
 
 BOOK IL 11 
 
 pang of pity for the poor, or of envy for the rich. The 
 fruits which the arms of the trees present, which the 
 country yields cheerfull}" of its own sweet will, these 
 he gathers ; the iron rigor of law, the mad turmoil of 
 the forum, the public archives, he has looked on none 
 of them. Others are disturbing the darkness of the 
 deep with their oars, rushing on the sword's point, 
 winding their way into courts and kings' chambers. 
 One is carrying havoc into a city and its wretched 
 homes, all that he ma}^ have a gem to drink out of, and 
 Tyrian purple to sleep on ; another is hoarding up 
 wealth, and lying on the bur3ung-place of his gold ; one 
 is staring in rapt admiration at the Rostra ; another, 
 open-mouthed, is swept awaj^ by the plaudits of com- 
 mons and senate as they roll, a}-, again and again 
 along the benches ; men are bathed in their brothers' 
 blood, and glory in it ; they exchange the home and 
 hearth-stone of their love for a life of exile, and seek 
 out a countr}' that lies under another sun. Meanwhile 
 the husbandman has displaced the soil with his crooked 
 ploughshare — thence comes his 3'ear's emplo3'ment — 
 thence comes sustenance for his country and his own 
 little homestead alike, and for his herds of oxen and 
 the bullocks that have served him so well. ^The stream 
 of plenty knows no pause ; the year is alwa3-s teeming 
 either with apples or with animal produce, or the sheaf i^Q^A' 
 of Ceres' corn-ears, loading the furrows with increase, 
 and bursting the barns. Winter is come : the berr}' of 
 Sicyon is being bruised in the oil-presses ; see how fat 
 the swine come off from their meal of acorns ; there are 
 arbutes in the woods for the picking, or for a change, 
 autumn is dropping its various produce at his feet, 
 and high up on the sunny rocks the vintage is being 
 baked into ripeness. Then, too, there are his sweet 
 
 
78 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 children ever hanging on his lips — his virtuous house- 
 ^ hold keeps the tradition of purity ; the cows are letting 
 
 x^) down their milky udders, and fat kids in grass luxuri- 
 
 ant as the}', are engaging together horn against horn. 
 He, the master, keeps holiday's, and stretched at ease 
 on the grass, with a turf fire in the middle, and a merrj^ 
 company wreathing the bowl, calls on thee, god of the 
 wine-press, with a libation, and sets up on the elm a 
 mark for spearing matches among the herdsmen, and 
 they strip their bodies, hard as iron, for a country 
 wrestle. Such were the arts of cultivation practiced 
 of old by the Sabines, and by Remus and his brother ; 
 such, in fact, the life in which Etruria grew to strength, 
 
 . ^ , and in which Rome has become the glory of the earth, 
 
 \^y* embracing seven hills with the wall of a single city. 
 
 Naj^, in days before the rule of the Cretan king, before 
 our race in its impietj' began to regale itself on slaugh- 
 tered bullocks — this was the life that was led on earth 
 by Saturn, monarch of the- golden age — days when 
 the blast of the trumpet and the hammering of the 
 sword on the stubborn anvil were sounds unknown. 
 
 But we have traversed a tract of boundless length 
 and breadth, and it is high time to unyoke the steam- 
 ing necks of our horses. 
 
BOOK III, 79 
 
 BOOK rrr. 
 
 Op thee, too, mighty Pales, shall be my song, and of 
 thee, the poet's worthy theme, the swain from Amphry- 
 sus' bank — of you also, j'e woods and streams of Ly- 
 caeus. Other subjects, which once could have laid on 
 the idle mind the spell of poesy, are all of them hack- 
 neyed now. Who knows not Eurj^stheus, hardest of 
 masters, or the altars of Busiris, whom never tongue 
 praised? Who has not told the tale of the lost boy 
 Hylas, of Latona and her Delos, of Hippodamia and 
 Pelops, hero of the ivory shoulder and keen charioteer? 
 I must essaj^ a course by which I too may rise from the 
 ground, and ride in triumph over the heads of mankind. 
 Yes, I will be the first, if but lip hold out, to dislodge 
 the Aonian muses from their mountain home, and carry 
 them with me in my victorious progress into my native 
 land. I will be the first to bring back to thee, my Man- 
 tua, the palms of Idumea, and on the broad greensward 
 I will build a temple of marble by the water's side, where 
 Mincius trails his great breadth along in lazy windings, 
 and fringes his banks with soft rushes as he goes. In 
 the shrine I will have Caesar, the tutelar god of the 
 temple. In his honor I, the hero of the day, in full 
 pomp of Tyrian purple, will have driven by the river's 
 bank a hundred four-horse cars. My fame shall draw 
 all Greece away from Alpheus and the grove of Molor- 
 chus, to contend in the footrace and with the gloves of 
 raw hide, while I with stripped olive leaves wreathed 
 round my brow, will oflfer gifts at the altar. The time 
 is come — what joy, to lead the stately procession to 
 
80 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 the temple, and see the bullocks slaughtered, or to mark 
 on the stage how the fronts turn round and the scene 
 withdraws, and how the embroidered Britons lift that 
 grand purple curtain from the ground ! On the temple 
 doors I will have sculptured, all of gold and solid ivory, 
 the battle of the Ganges, and the conquering arms of our 
 own Quirinus ; ay, and there, in full tide of war, swell- 
 ing higli, shall be seen the Nile, and columns built high 
 with sailors' brass. I will throw in, too, Asia's van- 
 quished cities, and Niphates with his shattered crest, 
 and the Parthian, who stakes his all on flight and 
 treacherous volleys from behind, and those two trophies 
 torn from foes at the two ends of earth — those two 
 nations led in triumph from the two coasts of ocean. I 
 will set up, too, Parian marble in breathing statues, the 
 lineage of Assaracus, and the great names of the house 
 that comes down from Jove, old father Tros, and the 
 builder of Tro3% the Cynthian god — while Envy shall 
 be seen, hiding her miserable head from the Furies and 
 the gloomy flood of Coc3'tus, and the snakes that coil 
 round Ixion, the enormous wheel, and the never baflfled 
 stone. Meanwhile, pursue we tlie Dr3'ads' woods and 
 glades, virgin as they, the hard task that you have laid 
 • on me, m}^ MiEcenas. Uninspired b}^ 3'ou, no lofty work 
 can my mind essa3'. Come along — no loitering or de- 
 la3^ — here is Cithaeron calling us in full cry, and the 
 hounds of Ta3'gete, and Epidaurus with her well-trained 
 horses — a cr3^ rebounding in echoes from the applaud- 
 ing woods. But erelong I will gird myself to sing of 
 those fier3^ fights of Caesar, and waft his name in glorv' 
 down a length of centuries, long as those which sepa- 
 rate the cradle of Tithonus from Csesar himself. 
 
 Whether a man in admiring ambition of the prize of 
 the Ol3^mpic palm, breed horses, or breed bullocks, that 
 
BOOK III. 81 
 
 shall be strong for ploughing, let his first care be to 
 choose dams of the mold required. That cow is best 
 shaped that is grim-looking, with an ugly head, an abun- 
 dance of neck, and dewlaps hanging down from jaw to 
 leg ; with no end to length of her side, and ever3'thing 
 large about her down to her foot, her horns curved in- 
 wards and her ears under them hairy. Nor should I 
 dislike to see her dappled with spots of white or rebel- 
 ling against the yoke, and sometimes savage with her 
 horns, her countenance approaching a bull's, tall alto- 
 gether, and, as she moves, sweeping her footsteps with 
 the tip of her tail. The age for service to the child-birth 
 goddess and the just claims of wedlock is over before 
 ten years, as it begins after four ; in the rest of life there 
 is no aptness for breeding, no strength for the plough. 
 Meantime, while the luxuriance of j^our cattle's youth 
 is still unspent give your males liberty ; be the first to 
 send in j^our herds, and supply race after race by suc- 
 cessive propagation. Poor mortals that we are, ourM 
 brightest dajs of life are ever the first to flj^ ; on creeps 
 disease and the gloom of age, and suffering sweeps us 
 off", and the ruthless cruelty of death. Constantlj' there 
 will be those whose weakly mold you would gladly ex- 
 change ; as constantly recruit j'-our stock ; and that you 
 may not deplore losses when too late, prevent them, 
 and every year x)ick for your herd a young supply. 
 
 Your breed of horses, loo, must be chosen with no 
 less care. Mark me, and let those whom you mean to 
 rear as the propagators of their line have even from their 
 first youth the advantage of j^our special pains. See, 
 from the day of his birth, a colt of a noble family, how 
 high he steps in the pasture, and with what spring he 
 brings down his legs. Fearlessly he leads the way, is 
 the first to brave the threatening flood and trust his 
 6 
 
82 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 weight on the untried bridge — no terror for him have 
 idle ala^^ms. Look at the height of his neck, the sharp 
 cut of his head, the shortness of his belly, the plump- 
 ness of his back, and the luxuriance of the firm flesh about 
 that chest which swells so with life. For color, j'our 
 best are bay and blue-gray ; the white and the dun are 
 the worst. Now, if he happens to hear the sound of 
 arms in the distance, no standing still for him ; he pricks 
 his ears, his whole body quivers, he snorts, and works 
 in his nostrils the gathered fire. His mane is thick, 
 and as he tosses it, rests on his right shoulder. The 
 spine which runs between his loins is hollow ; his hoof 
 goes deep into the ground, and has the deep ring of 
 solid horn. Such was the steed that learned to obey the 
 rein of Amyclsean Pollux, C^llarus, and those of which 
 Greek song has preserved the memory, the horses of 
 Mars, and the pair of the mighty Achilles ; ay, such 
 was the great god, Saturn, when quick as lightning he 
 flung his mane over that horse's neck of his as he heard 
 his wife's step, and as he ran, thrilled through the height 
 and depth of Pelion with his clear sharp neigh. 
 
 Yet even him too, when the burden of disease or the 
 increasing slowness of years makes him fail, you must 
 shut up at home, nor suff*er his old age to be a disgrace ; 
 for an old horse is a cold lover.* 
 
 Your first care then will be in each case to take note 
 of the horse's spirit, and of his age ; passing thence to 
 observe the rest of his character, the breed of his sire 
 and dam, and how keen the pang of^ defeat or the thrill 
 of victory. Who has not watched the headlong speed 
 of a racer, the chariots swallowing the ground before 
 
 * The MS. is interrupted for three lines. — [Ed.] 
 
BOOK III. 83 
 
 them as they pour along in a torrent from their flood- 
 gates, when the drivers' youthful hopes are at their 
 height, and the bounding heart is drained by each eager 
 pulsation ? There are they, with their ever ready lash 
 circhng in the air, bending forward to let the reins go ; 
 on flies the wheel, swift and hot as fire ; now they ride 
 low, now they seem to tower aloft, shooting through the 
 void air, and rising against the sky ; no stint, no stay, 
 while the 3'ellow sand mounts up in a cloud, and each 
 is sprinkled with the foam and breath of those behind 
 him : that is what ambition can do, that is the measure 
 of their zeal for success. Erichthonius was the first 
 who rose to the feat of coupling a car and four horses 
 together, standing erect above the wheels that swept 
 him on in triumph. The bridle and the ring were a 
 present from the Lapithse of Mount Pelion, who 
 mounted the steed's back, and taught the horseman, 
 arms and all, to spurn the ground and complicate his 
 haughty paces. Each task is arduous alike ; for each 
 the trainer looks out for a young one, with a high spirit 
 and a fleet foot ; though the veteran may have turned 
 the foe to flight in many a battle, though his birthplace 
 be Epirus or good Mycenae itself, and the founder of 
 his line no less than Neptune. 
 
 These points first noted, they are all zeal as the time 
 draws near, and bestow their whole pains to swell out 
 with firm fat the horse whom they have chosen as the 
 leader of the herd and named as its lord. They cut for 
 him flowering herbage and ply him with springs and 
 with corn, lest he prove unequal to the task he loves, 
 and the sire's insuflSciency be reflected in a weak oflT- 
 spring. But the herd itself, of set purpose the}^ bring 
 down and make lean, and when the first promptings of 
 love are felt, refuse them fodder and keep them oflT 
 
84 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 from running streams. Often too they shake them with 
 galloping and tire them in the sun, when the threshing- 
 floor is groaning heavily with the pounding of the corn, 
 and when the empty chaff is tossed to the rising west- 
 ern breeze. 
 
 Now the care of the sires begins to wane, and that of 
 the dams to take its place. When the mares' time is 
 out and the}^ go about in foal, let no one suffer them 
 to pull in harness to a heavy wagon, or clear the road 
 with a high leap, scour the plain with the speed of fire, 
 or breast a violent torrent. Wide lawns are the places 
 for them to graze in, and the sides of brimming rivers, 
 where they may have moss and a bank of the greenest 
 grass, and the shelter of a cave, and the shadow of a 
 rock flung full over the ground. About the groves of 
 Silarus and the oaks that make Alburnum so green, 
 swarms an insect whose Latin name is asilus^ rendered 
 in Greek by cestrus, a pest with a harsh loud hum, 
 which scares the cattle and makes them fly right and 
 left through the woodland, while the air is stunned and 
 maddened with their bellowings, the air and the wood- 
 land and the banks of Tanager which runs dr}- in the 
 sun. This was the monster of old with which Juno 
 wreaked that fearful vengeance of hers, the scourge 
 which she devised for the heifer of Inachus, and so 3'ou 
 too — for midday heat makes its persecutions more 
 savage — should shield j^our teeming herds from its 
 sting, letting them graze only when the sun is just up 
 or the stars are ushering in the night. 
 
 After delivery, the farmer's whole care is transferred 
 to the calves. At once he brands them with tokens 
 and names to mark the race, distinguishing those whom 
 he chooses to rear for breeding, those whom he prefers 
 to reserve for the altar's sacred uses, and those who are 
 
BOOK in. 85 
 
 meant to break up the ground.* The rest of the cattle 
 are grazing, as well they may, wherever the grass is 
 green. Meantime do you take those whom you would 
 train to the love and service of the land, school them 
 while the}^ are yet calves, and set out on the path of dis- 
 cipline while the youthful mind is docile and the time of 
 life pliable. Let loose rings of slender osier be their 
 first collars. Then, when the freeborn neck has grown 
 familiar with bondage, use these necklaces as the means 
 of yoking them together in a well-matched pair, and 
 make them step side by side. By this time too let them 
 have an empty wagon often and often dragged at their 
 heels, just printing the wheel-rut on the surface-dust. 
 That done, you should next have the rattle of the 
 beechen axle, as it pulls against a good stout weight, 
 and. a copper-plated pole to draw the wheels thereto at- 
 tached. Meantime, ere their youth is broken in, you 
 will not onl3" give them grass or starveling willow leaves 
 and marsh sedge, but standing corn plucked by the 
 hand ; and again, when j^our cows have just been bear- 
 ing, do not, as our fathers did, force them to fill the 
 snowy milk-pail, but let them spend their udders entire 
 on the offspring they love. 
 
 But if 3-our bent is rather towards battle and fierce 
 brigades, or to glide at Pisa by Alpheus* waters on 
 wheels smooth as' they, and in the grove of Jupiter drive 
 the flying car, learn that a horse's first task is to bear 
 the sight of martial fury and the harness of war, the 
 sound of the clarion, the long-drawn rumbling of the 
 wheel, and the jingle of the bridle as he stands in the 
 stall ; keener, too, and keener should grow his pleasure 
 
 * This phrase stands in the MS. for : — 
 
 Aut scindere terram, 
 Et campum horrentem fractis invertere glebis. — [Ed.] 
 
86 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 in his master's caressing voice, and more intense the 
 liixur}^ as he hears his neck patted. To this he should 
 he inured from the moment of his weaning from his 
 mother's milk ; ever and anon too he should submit his 
 head to bands of soft osier, ere his strength is set, or 
 his nerves steady, or his hold on life firm. But when 
 three summers are past and the fourth arrived, let him 
 begin at once to scour the ring, his paces ringing a 
 regular time, and his legs successively gathered into a 
 curve, and let him show that he is working against his 
 will ; then, then let him challenge the winds to a race, 
 flying along over the open spaces, as if he had no bridle 
 in his mouth, and scarcely setting his footprint on the 
 sand's surface — as when from polar climes the north 
 wind stoops in full force, driving before him the storms 
 of Scythia and the rainless clouds ; the tall waving 
 corn and the billow}' plains are ruffled by the first light 
 breeze, and a rustling is heard in the forest tops, and 
 the long waves come pushing to the shore — on he flies, 
 on wings that sweep land and sea ahke. A horse like 
 this will be seen all sweat at the goal of Elis and its 
 mighty circles, spurting out flakes of bloody foam, or 
 will draw the Belgian car with a grace, with that gentle 
 neck of his. Then at last let their mighty bulk be dis- 
 tended at will with the fattening corn mess after the 
 breaking-in is well over — for before, such food will 
 raise their spirit too high, and make them refuse to bear 
 the education of the pliant lash, or obey the sharp curb. 
 But there is nothing that tells more towards invigor- 
 ating their strength, than to shield them with all 3'our 
 care from the stings of secret passion, whether your 
 preference is for the service of oxen or of horses. To 
 that end, the bull is sent into distant exile in solitary 
 pastures, with a mountain before and a broad river be- 
 
BOOK III. 87 
 
 tween him and his home ; or is shut in close confinement 
 in his well-stored crib. For the female keeps insensibly 
 preying on his strength, and consuming it by the very 
 sight of her, and leaves him no thought for forest shelter 
 or grassy food. Nay, those endearing charms of hers 
 often drive her haughtj^ lovers to use their horns for 
 settling their rival claims. There she is grazing in Sila^s 
 mighty wood, the lovety heifer ; they are in the thick of 
 battle, dealing wounds with all their force, now one, now 
 another ; the black blood is bathing their frames, and 
 pushing horn meets pushing horn with loud bellowing, 
 that echoes through the woods and the length of the fir- 
 mament* Nor, when all is over, are the combatants 
 wont to stall together ; the beaten champion retires to 
 distant banishment in an unknown clime, with many a 
 groan for his disgrace and the cruel wounds of his 
 haughtj' conqueror, and many for his unredressed loss, 
 the loss of his love — a wistful look at his stall, and the 
 king has quitted his ancestral domain. So now all his 
 care is to practice his powers — on the hard rocks the 
 whole night long he makes his unpillowed bed — his 
 food the bristly leaf and the pointed sedge ; and he 
 proves himself, and learns to throw his rage into his 
 horns by butting at a tree's trunk, and assails the winds 
 with his blows, and spurns the filing sand in prelude 
 for the fray. Then, when his powers are mustered, and 
 his strength recruited, he raises the standard, and comes 
 headlong down on his oblivious foe — like a billow that 
 begins to whiten far away in the mid sea, and draws up 
 from the main its bellying curve — like it, too, when 
 rolling to the shore, it roars terrific among the rocks, and 
 bursts in bulk as huge as their parent cliff — while the 
 water below boils up in foaming eddies, and discharges 
 from its depths the murky sand. 
 
88 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 Nay, it is the wont of the whole race of men and 
 beasts all the world through, the tribes of the waters, 
 cattle, and gaj'-colored birds, to rush headlong into this 
 fiery madness ; love fastens oli all alike. At no other 
 season has the lioness forgotten her cubs, and roamed 
 the plains in fiercer mood ; never has the monstrous bear 
 spread death and havoc more widely through the forest ; 
 then is the wild boar savage, then the tigress at her 
 worst. Ah ! it is bad wandering then alone in the Lib- 
 yan waste. Mark you not how horses thrill through their 
 whole frame, if but a scent conveys to them the breath 
 they know so well ? No power to check them now has 
 the rider's rein or the lash plied with fury, or rocks and 
 beetling crags, or rivers crossing their path, tearing up 
 mountains and hurling them down the tide. See ! there 
 is the great Sabine boar, rushing along and sharpening 
 his tusks, pounding the earth before him with his feet, 
 rubbing his sides against a tree, and in this way and 
 that hardening his shoulders against wounds. What of 
 the 3"outh, whose marrow the fierceness of love has 
 turned to flame ? The storm has broken loose, and the 
 night is dark, yet he swims the troubled sea ; over his 
 head thunders heaven's huge gate, and the waves that 
 dash on the rocks shout in his ears ; in vain ; nor can 
 the tears of his parents call him back, nor the maiden 
 of his love, whose cruel death must follow his. What 
 of Bacchus' spotted lynxes, and the fierce tribes of 
 wolves and dogs? What of the fight which un warlike 
 stags are known to show ? Them I pass by ; for indeed 
 above all others conspicuous is the rage of the mares 
 — such was the boon with which Venus' grace endowed 
 them, what time Glaucus had his limbs devoured by his 
 Potnian chariot-steeds. On they are drawn by love, 
 over Gargarus, over the roar of Ascanius ; the moun- 
 
BOOK III. 8^ 
 
 tain they scale, the river they swim ; and soon as ever 
 the spark touches their craving marrow, in spring chiefly, 
 for it is in spring that heat revisits their frames, they 
 stand all of them with their faces turned westward on 
 the cliff-top, and catch the light-floating breezes ; and 
 oft, without wedlock of any sort, impregnated by the 
 wind, over hill and rock and dipping vale, they fly here 
 and there — not towards thj' birthplace, Eur us, or the 
 Sun's, but to north, or north-west, or where the south, 
 blackest of winds, is born, to sadden heaven's face with 
 his rain and chill. Then it is there trickles from them 
 a thick fluid which the shepherds rightly call horse- 
 madness — horse-madness, which fell step-dames have 
 oft gathered up, to form a mess with herbs and charms 
 as baleful. 
 
 But time is flying, flying past recall, while we in fond 
 interest are making our circuit from point to point. 
 Enough of herds, another part of our charge is 3'et to do 
 — the treatment of wooll}' flocks and hairy goats. Here 
 is a task indeed ; here fix your hopes of renown, ye 
 brave sons of the soil. For myself, I too am well as- 
 sured how hard the struggle will be for language to plant 
 her standard here, and invest a theme so slender with 
 her own peculiar glory ; but there is a rapturous charm 
 that whirls me along over Parnassus' lonel}^ steeps — a 
 joy in surmounting heights where no former wheel has 
 worn a way, no easy slope leads down to the Castalian 
 spring. 
 
 Now, dread Pales, now for a louder and loftier strain. 
 On my inauguration I proclaim that the sheep crop their 
 grass in soft-laid sheds till summer, in due course, comes 
 back with its leaves, and that plenty of straw and hand- 
 fuls of fern be strewn on the hard ground under them, 
 lest the chill of the ice harm your delicate cattle, and 
 
90 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 engender scab and foot-rot, to your disgrace and dis- 
 gust. Passing thence, I order that the goats have good 
 store of arbute leaves and supplies of fresh running 
 water, and that their sheds be placed away from the 
 wind, full fronting the winter sun in his mid-da}' quar- 
 ter, at the time when the cold bearer of the water urn is 
 setting and sprinkling the skirts of the departing year. 
 Yes, our goats should be shielded with care as serious 
 as our sheep ; nor will their service stand you in less 
 stead, high as is the rate of exchange of Milesian wool 
 engrained deep with Tyrian scarlet. From them comes 
 a more swarming progeny, from them milk in plenteous 
 abundance ; the fuller the froth of 3'our morning's pail 
 from the drj'-drained teat, the more luxuriant will flow 
 the stream from the same udder when pressed at 
 night. Nor is this all — the he-goat of Cinyps has his 
 beard and hoary chin, aye, all his shaggy hair, clipped 
 for the use of the camp, or to cover some poor shiver- 
 ing seaman. For their food, the}' graze among the for- 
 ests and the summits of Lycseus, among stiff prickl}^ 
 bushes and brakes that cling to the heights, and of 
 themselves, with never-failing memory, they come back 
 home, showing their 3'oung the way, and just heave 
 their full-charged udders over the threshold. Spend 
 all your pains then in fencing them from ice and sleety 
 blasts, considering how few their calls on the care of 
 man ; give them provender and twigs for food with lux- 
 uriant hand, and put no lock on your hayloft the whole 
 winter through. 
 
 But when the zephyr's call is heard, and summer's 
 genial smile sends both flocks alike into mountain lawn 
 and mountain pasture, then let us be read}' with the 
 first dawn of the morning star to batten on the cool 
 fresh fields while daybreak is young, while the grass is 
 
BOOK in. 91 
 
 hoar, and the dew on the tender herbage is most grate- 
 ful to cattle. Afterwards, when a sense of tlnrst crowds 
 on the fourth hour of the day, and the cicalas split the 
 woods with their plaintive note, bid j^our flocks stand 
 at the well-side, or by the deep pool, to drink water 
 running through oaken troughs ; but in mid-day heat 
 let them hunt out a shady vale, where, belike, Jove's 
 mighty oak, strong in time-honored power, spreads its 
 enormous boughs ; or where the grove, black with 
 countless ilexes, reposes in hallowed shadow. Then 
 once more give them the thin clear stream, once more 
 feed them till set of sun, when the cool of eve allays the 
 air, and the dews now falling from the moon revive the, 
 lawns, and the kingfisher sings along the shore, the 
 goldfinch through the brake. 
 
 Why should my verse take you along with the shep- 
 herds of Lib3^a, their pastures, and their camps, settle- 
 ments of thin-spread huts ? Often, daj^ and niglft to- 
 gether, and a whole month in succession, their cattle 
 graze, traveling on into a length of desert, without 
 shelter of any sort, so vast is the extent of plain. The 
 African herdsman carries with him all his goods — 
 house, and hearth, and arms ; his dog from Amycla?, 
 and his quiver from Crete — just as the keen Eoman, 
 when, armed and equipped in Roman fashion, he makes 
 his march under his tyrannous load, and, ere he is looked 
 for, has his camp ready pitched, and is drawn up before 
 his foe. What a change to the tribes of Scythia and 
 the water of Mseotis— to the scene where Ister rolls 
 turbidly his yellow sands, and Rhodope stretches her- 
 self full under the pole, and turns again ! There they 
 keep their herds shut up in stalls — never a blade of 
 grass is seen on the plain, never a leaf on the tree ; but 
 the land lies a formless mass of snowy heaps and deep 
 
92 THE GEORGICS, 
 
 ice, and rises seven ells high. Every da}' is winter, 
 every air the north wind's frosty breath. Nay, the sun 
 never dispels the wan shades of night, not when he 
 mounts his car and scales the height of the sky, nor 
 when he laves his headlong wheels in ocean's glowing 
 flood. Sudden crusts form on the running stream, and 
 the water can now support on its back the iron-bound 
 wheel — the water that once welcomed ships, and now 
 welcomes the broad wain. Coppers are daily split, and 
 clothes congeal on the back, and clear-flowing wine is 
 chopped with hatchets ; whole pools are turned to solid 
 ice, and stiflening icicles harden on the untrimmed beard. 
 ^Meantime, as if there were no frost, snow is falling from 
 all the sky : the cattle perish — great hulks of oxen 
 stand with frost all about them — stags massed into a 
 troop are numbed b}' a weight not their own, and hardly 
 lift the tips of their horns above it. No need of letting 
 in dogs on them, hunting them with nets, or scaring 
 them with the terror of the crimson feather ; as they are 
 pushing in vain with their chests at the mountain of 
 snow, men kill them weapon in hand, butcher them bel- 
 lowing loud, and carry them oft* with shouts of triumph. 
 For the people, they keep careless holiday in caves 
 delved deep under the earth, with store of timber, nay, 
 whole elms pushed up to the hearth, and heaped on the 
 blaze — there they lengthen out the night in games, and 
 jovialty imitate draughts of the vine with fermented 
 grains and acid service-juice. Such is the life of that 
 ungoverned race of men who dwell exposed to the 
 seven Hj^perborean stars, ever buffeted by the east 
 winds of a Rhipsean sky, ever sheltering their frames 
 with the rough tawny coats of beasts. 
 
 If wool be your care, first remove the prickly jungle, 
 burrs, caltrops, and the like ; avoid luxuriant pastures, 
 
BOOK III. 93 
 
 and at once choose flocks with white, soft fleeces. But 
 the ram, however white himself, who has but a black 
 tongue under his mouth's moist roof, set aside, lest he 
 blur the fleece of the young lambs with dark spots, and 
 look about the teeming plain till you find another. It 
 was thus, with a present of wool, white as snow, if we 
 ma}^ trust the tale, that Pan, Arcadia's patron, beguiled 
 thee, bright goddess of the Moon, calling thee under 
 the tall forest trees ; nor didst thou slight the call. 
 
 But if milk is the farmer's passion, let him with his 
 own hand carry to the stalls liicern and lotus in plenty, 
 and salted herbage. Hence they love the water more, 
 and have their udders more distended, and reproduce 
 in their milk a hidden flavor of salt. Many separate 
 the kid from its dam when fresh dropped, and at once 
 front its mouth with an iron-pointed muzzle. The milk 
 they have taken at dawn and in hours of daylight they 
 churn at night ; the milk taken at twilight and at sun- 
 down they carry away in baskets at daybreak (it is a 
 shepherd's visit to town) , or sprinkle it sparingly with 
 salt, and lay it by for winter. 
 
 Nor let 3'our dogs be the last thing thought of; but 
 bring up together swift Spartan hounds and a keen 
 Molossian on fattening whey. Never, with them to 
 guard you, need 3'ou quake for j^our stalls at a nightly 
 robber or an invasion of wolves, or at Iberian outlaws 
 in 3^our rear. Often, too, 3'ou will chase the wild ass, 
 so quickly scared, and hark your hounds on the hare, 
 your hounds on the doe. Often you will rouse the wild 
 boar, and dislodge him from his woody lair, baying and 
 driving; and along the steep mountains, in full cry, 
 force into your net an enormous stag. 
 
 Be taught also to burn fragrant cedar in 3'our stalls, 
 and with the steam of the Syrian gum chase away 
 
94 THE GEORGICS, 
 
 noisome serpents. Often under sheds long undisturbed 
 you find that a viper, ill to handle, has been lurking, 
 escaped in fear from the light of day ; or a cobra, fond 
 of haunting the shelter and the shade, and scattering 
 its venom on the cattle — cruel scourge of oxen — has 
 nestled in the ground. Quick, shepherds, quick, with 
 your stones and staves — - his terrors are rising, his 
 throat swollen and hissing — smite him down. See ! he 
 is flying, his timid head already deep in the ground, 
 while his writhing body and the waving line of his tail 
 are untwisting themselves, and the final coil is dragging 
 its slow spires along. Then, too, there is that deadly 
 serpent in the gorges of Calabria, with breast erect and 
 wreathed scaly back, flecked with great spots through- 
 out his bell3'*s length ; who, while there are any rivers 
 welling from their fountains, and while the earth is wet 
 with the moist spring and the rainy south, haunts the 
 still waters, and, dwelling on the banks there, with fish 
 and clamorous frogs satiates the glutton craving of his 
 black swollen maw. Then, after the pool is burned to the 
 bottom, and the earth is gaping with heat, leaps to land, 
 and, rolling eyes of fire, carries death into the fields, 
 savage with thirst, and maddened by the sunstroke. 
 May it never enter my mind to indulge the pleasure 
 of open-air sleep, or to lie on the grass on the moun- 
 tain's wood-grown ridge, at the moment when he, his 
 skin shed, in new life and in the beauty of youth, leav- 
 ing his young at home, hatched or in the shell, gathers 
 himself up, towering to the sun, and flashes in his 
 mouth his three-forked tongue. 
 
 About diseases, too, I will tell you, their causes and 
 their symptoms. Sheep are tormented b}^ a noisome 
 scab, when the cold rain and hoar-frost of cruel winter 
 have sunk deep into their flesh ; or when, after shear- 
 
BOOK III. 95 
 
 ing, sweat unwashed has clung to the skin, or rough 
 brambles have wounded the body. For fear of this, 
 shepherds bathe the whole flock with fresh streams, and 
 the ram is plunged into the flood, his wool all wet about 
 him, and once launched, goes floating down the river ; 
 or they anoint the body after shearing with bitter 
 mother-of-oil, and mix scum of silver, and native sul- 
 phur, and pitch from Ida, and wax softened by oil, and 
 sea onions and potent hellebore, and black bitumen. 
 But never is the fortune of the distemper so gracious 
 as when a man has the nerve to open the mouth of the 
 sore with the knife : the mischief keeps thriving, and 
 lives upon concealment, while the shepherd is refusing 
 to appty a healing hand to the wound, or sits praying 
 the gods to send more favorable prognostics. More- 
 over, when the pain has pierced to the bleating suffer- 
 er's bones, and is raging there, and a parching fever is 
 preying on its limbs, it has been found well to carry 
 off" the fiery heat b}- opening a vein full throbbing with 
 blood at the bottom of the foot, as is the wont of the 
 Bisaltse and the keen Gelonian, when he flies to Rho- 
 dope and to the steppes of the Getse, and drinks milk 
 curdled with mare's blood. If j^ou observe a sheep 
 often seeking refuge in the luxurious shade, or indo- 
 lently browsing the tops of the herbage, lagging after 
 3'ou the last, or lying down in the middle of the field 
 while grazing, and at last retiring all alone before the 
 late approach of night, check the evil at once with the 
 knife, ere the dire contagion spread through the un- 
 wary multitude. Not so fast sweeps a whirlwind over 
 the sea, with a storm in its train, as the thousand dis- 
 tempers that seize on cattle. It is not single bodies 
 here and there that the plague bears off", but the whole 
 of a summer's fold all in a moment — the flock of 
 
96 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 the future with that which now is — an entire tribe, 
 root and branch. Let him become my witness who 
 chances to see the skyey Alps, and the hillside forts of 
 Noricum, and the fields of lapydian Timavus, even as 
 they now are, after time has done so much — the shep- 
 herds' domain unpeopled, and the lawns desolate 
 through their length and breadth. 
 
 Here once, from a distemper of the sky, a season 
 of piteous ruin set in, glowing with all the furnace-heat 
 of autumn, and swept off to death the whole race of 
 beasts, tame and wild ; tainted the pools of water, 
 and infected the herbage" with venom. Nor was the 
 path of death straight and without turning : but after 
 fiery thirst, coursing through ever}^ vein, had drawn 
 the poor limbs close together, there was a fresh over- 
 flow of fluid moistures, absorbing into itself piece by 
 piece the whole bony frame, dissolved by pestilence. 
 Often, in the middle of a sacrifice, as the victim was 
 standing at the altar, and the snowy band of the woolen 
 fillet was being placed round its brow, it fell dying be- 
 tween the attendants' faltering hands ; or if the steel of 
 the priest had given any an earlier death, that victim's 
 entrails make no blaze on the altar thej^ load, nor can 
 the prophet learn from them responses, to the votar3^'s 
 questions. A thrust from beneath scarcely stains the 
 knives with blood, and the thin gore but just darkens the 
 surface of the sand. Thus 3'ou might see calves dying 
 everywhere among luxuriant herbage, or yielding the 
 lives they love at the well-filled crib they cannot taste. 
 Thus madness comes on the dog, man's playfellow, 
 and a panting cough shakes the diseased swine, and 
 stops the breath in their swollen throats. See ! he 
 droops, his occupation gone, his pasture neglected, the 
 victorious steed ; he recoils from running streams, and 
 
BOOK III. 97 
 
 beats the ground rapidty with his hoof; his ears drop, 
 a fitful sweat breaks out on them, striking cold as 
 death draws on ; the skin is dry, and when touched, 
 meets the hand with hardness. Such are the signs that 
 go before death in the early daj'S of the malady ; but 
 when in its advance it begins to grow fierce, then at 
 last the ej^es are ablaze, the breath deep-drawn, and 
 sometimes groaningly heavy ; they distend their flanks 
 to the bottom with a long-heaved sob, black blood 
 trickles from their nostrils, and their obstructed jaws 
 are closed on a roughened tongue. It was found well 
 to drench them with the wine-god's breams, through a 
 horn placed in the mouth ; this seemed the one way of 
 life to the dj'ing ; soon, that too was seen to lead to 
 death : they were revived by madness into fever-heat, 
 and, even in the weakness of dissolution (grant, ye 
 gods, better things to us 3'our worshipers, and reserve 
 this delusion for our foes) , with their own bare teeth 
 mangled their own rent flesh. Look there — the bull, 
 smoking under the ploughshare's stubborn weight, falls 
 in a heap, disgorges from his mouth blood mingled 
 with foam, and heaves a last sigh. The ploughman 
 moves sadl}" awa}^, unyokes the surviving bullock, 
 itself mourning for its brother's fate, and leaves the 
 work half done, and the plough still buried in the soil. 
 The tall forest's shade, the soft meadow grass, cannot 
 quicken that failing heart ;— no, nor the river that tum- 
 bles down the stones, purer than amber, and hurries to 
 the plain : the flank is relaxed from end to end ; a stu- 
 por weighs the heavy eyelids down, and the weight of 
 the neck bears it drooping to the earth. What profit 
 has he of his labor and his good deeds to man? what 
 of all the heav}^ clods that he has upturned with the 
 share ? Yet he and such as he have never known the 
 7 
 
98 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 poison of the wine-god's Massic gifts, nor of feast suc- 
 ceeding feast ; they feed on leaves, on the diet of un- 
 dressed herbage. Their cups are clear springs and 
 rivers that freshen as they run ; and care never comes 
 to break short their healthful slumbers. Then and 
 then only in that country — * 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 I AM now in due order to tell of Heaven's gift, the 
 honey of the sky. To this, as to the rest of my task, 
 Maecenas, vouchsafe your regard. A marvelous exhi- 
 bition of things shght in themselves — high-souled 
 leaders, and the life of a whole nation, its character, 
 its genius, its races, its battles, shall all be successive- 
 ly unfolded to you. It is a small field for labor, but 
 far from small is the glor}' to be reaped by one, if there 
 be such, whose evil star leaves him free, and whose 
 invoking voice is heard of Apollo. 
 
 First of all, the bees must have a settlement and a 
 station found them, in a spot to which the winds have 
 no access — for the winds will not let them carry their 
 food home — and where no sheep or wanton kids are 
 likely to trample on the flowers, no wandering heifer to 
 brush the dew from the meadow and beat down the 
 rising herbage. Nor let the speckled lizard's scaly 
 back be seen in their precious homesteads, nor the 
 apiaster nor other birds ; no, nor Procne, with the 
 
 * Here the MS. of this part of the translation ceases abruptly. 
 I cannot find that the third Georgic was ever completed by Pro- 
 fessor Conington. — Ed. 
 
BOOK IV. 99 
 
 marks of her bloody hands still on her breast — for 
 the}^ spread havoc through the domain far and wide, 
 and catching its owners on the wing, carry them in 
 their mouths to their ungentle nestlings a delicate 
 morsel. But let there be a clear spring close at hand, 
 and a pool fringed with green moss, and a thread of 
 water coursing through the grass, and let a palm-tree 
 or a tall wild olive throw its shade over the vestibule, 
 that, when the infant swarm marches out under their 
 new kings in the spring that they love, and the 3'outh 
 issuing from the comb disport themselves at will, there 
 may be a bank hard by, to tempt them to retire from 
 the heat, and a tree in the way to keep them long under 
 its leafy shelter. Into the middle of the water, whether 
 it be sluggish and standing, or fresh and running, 
 throw willows crosswise and huge stones, that there 
 may be frequent bridges for them to settle on and 
 spread their wings to the summer sun, in case the east 
 wind should have sprinkled them while pausing in their 
 flight, or sent them headlong into Neptune's lap. All 
 about let there be a luxuriant growth of green cassia, 
 and wild thyme with its spreading perfume, and abun- 
 dance of stronglj'-scented savorj^, and beds of violets 
 to drink in the irrigation of the spring. As for your 
 hives, whether they be stitched, of hollow cork, or 
 woven, of pliant osier, let them have narrow entrances 
 — for in cold the wintr3' air congeals the honey, while 
 heat melts it and sets it free. Each is a t3'rant that 
 the bees have alike to dread ; nor is it in vain that with 
 emulous zeal the}' smear the tiny crevices in their dwell- 
 ings with wax, and fill up the orifices with the pollen 
 of flowers, and keep a store of glue laid up for that 
 ver}' purpose, more tenacious than birdlime or than the 
 pitch of Phrygian Ida. Often, too, in holes under- 
 
100 THE GEORGICS, 
 
 ground, if fame speak truth, they have made them a 
 warm home, and have been found deep in the hollow of 
 a porous rock, and in the cavern of a decayed tree. 
 Nevertheless do you give their crannied chambers the 
 warmth of a smooth mud plaister, and strew them with 
 a sprinkling of leaves. Do not suffer a yew-tree near 
 their dwelling, nor roast scarlet crabs at the fire, nor 
 put any faith in a deep swamp}^ place, or where the 
 mire smells strong, or where the hollow rock rings with 
 the impact of sound, and the reflection of the voice 
 strikes it and rebounds again. 
 
 For the rest, when the golden sun has driven winter td 
 hide his vanquished head under the earth, and thrown 
 open the gates of heaven by the force of summer's 
 rajs, immediately they are ranging lawn and woodland 
 through, cropping the bright-hued flowers, and sipping 
 the streamlet's brim with their tiny mouths. Hence it 
 is that with a delicious sense of unknown sweetness 
 they cherish tlieir nestling young ; hence it is that with 
 workman's skill they forge fresh wax and mold the 
 clammy hone3\ So then when looking up you see the 
 body of bees issuing at last from their prison towards 
 the sk}' and all afloat in the clear summer-tide, and 
 wonder at the murk^^ cloud which the wind is swaying 
 to and fro, mark tliem well ; they always make for 
 fresh water and sheltering foliage. There then sprinkle 
 the odors I prescribe, bruised balm, and the wax-flower, 
 mean weed though it be, and raise a tinkling noise, and 
 beat the cj^mbals of the mighty mother all around : un- 
 bidden they will settle on the medicated spot, unbid- 
 den they will 'nestle, as is their wont, in the furthest 
 corners of their new cradle. 
 
 But if it is for battle that they have left the hive — 
 for oft when there are two kings strife visits them 
 
BOOK IV, 101 
 
 with her dire convulsions, ^nd at once you may learn 
 even from a distance the temper of the masses, and 
 hear their very hearts beating for war, for there is that 
 hoarse brazen music that the war-goa loves stirring up 
 the loiterers, and a note is heard imitating the trum- 
 pet's short broken' blasts ; then in eager alarm they 
 flock together, and flash their wings, and sharpen their 
 beaks, and string their arms, and throng and swarm 
 round their king and about the ver}^ door of the royal 
 tent, and with loud cries bid the foe come on. So 
 when then thej' have got a clear spring da}^, and the 
 field is open before them, forth the}^ rush for the gates ; 
 the battle joins high in air ; the din mounts up ; they 
 are mingled and massed into a mighty ball, and come 
 tumbling down. Never hail fell thicker through the 
 air, never did shaken oak rain such a shower of acorns. 
 The monarchs themselves move through the ranks, dis- 
 tinguished by their wings, their giant souls ranging 
 through their pigm}' bosoms, firm-set never to give way 
 till the conqueror's heavy hand has forced one or other 
 of the hosts to turn its back in flight. These storms 
 of passion, this conflict of giants, the sprinkling of a 
 little dust controls and la3'S to rest. 
 
 But when you have succeeded in recalling the two 
 generals from the field, take him who looks the worse, 
 and save the hive from the harmful excess b}' doing 
 him to death ; let the better reign in solitary state. 
 One you will find emblazed with stiffening drops of 
 gold — for there are two roj-al races, the better of dis- 
 tinguished mien, brilliant with red flashing scales ; the 
 other sunk in squalor and inaction, and dragging with 
 him the ignoble weight of a huge belly. As the royal 
 features are of two kinds, so are the bodies of the com- 
 monalty ; for one sort are loathly and squalid, like the 
 
l62 777^ GEORGICS. 
 
 traveler when he emerges from his bath of dust, and 
 spits the clay from his dr3" throat, parched and thirsty ; 
 the others shine out and* flash resplendently, blazing in 
 gold, and with regular spots flecking their bodies. 
 This is the worthier progeny ; this, in the skj^'s due 
 season, will give you sweet hone}' to strain, and not 
 onl}' sweet, but clear, and of power to subdue the wine- 
 god's harsher flavor. 
 
 But when the swarms fly aimlessly about and disport 
 them in the sk} , scorning their cells, and leaving their 
 homes to chill, 3'ou must restrain their fickle spirits 
 from such empty trifling. Nor is restraint a hard task 
 — do 3'ou deprive the monarchs of their wings : when 
 they hang back, no subject will venture to encounter 
 the upward journe}', or pluck up the standard from the 
 encampment. Let there be a garden to tempt them 
 with the fragrance of its saffron flowers, and the guar- 
 dianship of Priapus, god of the Hellespont, standing 
 sentinel against thieves and birds with scythe of willow, 
 to keep them safe. Let him, and none other, carry 
 th3me and pine-trees down from the mountain-tops, 
 and set them all about the hive, whose charge such 
 things are ; let him, and none other, make the hand 
 sore with hard toil ; let him, and none other, put into 
 the ground plants that will bear, and sprinkle the 
 friendly' shower. 
 
 A3'e, and for myself — were I not now at the very 
 end of my enterprise, furling my sails, and hastening 
 to bring m}' prow to land, it ma^^ be that I should 
 extend viv^^ song to the luxuriant garden. What care 
 of husbandry' decks it with flowers, and the rosaries of 
 twice-bearing Psestum ; and what is the }oy that the 
 endive feels in the stream which it drinks, and the 
 green banks in the parsley that fringes them, and how 
 
BOOK IV, 103 
 
 the cucumber winds along the grass and swells into a 
 bell}' ; nor had I passed in silence the late-flowering 
 narcissus, or the acanthus' bending stem, or the pale 
 3'ellow ivy, or the myrtle that loves the coast. For I 
 remember how once, under the shadow of CEbalia's 
 lofty towers, where dark Galsesus bathes the 3'ellow 
 fields, I saw an old man of Corj'cus, who had a few 
 acres of unappropriated land, soil with no productive- 
 ness for bullocks, no fitness for cattle, no friendliness 
 for the wine-god. Yet he, while planting pot-herbs 
 thinlj' among the boskage, and round them white liUes, 
 and vervain, and scant poppies, had a heart that matched 
 the wealth of kings ; and often as he came home at night, 
 he would pile his table high with unbought viands. 
 None so early as he to pluck the rose in spring, the 
 apple in autumn ; and when winter in its bitterest mood 
 was still splitting the very rocks with the frost, and 
 bridling with ice the rush of the water, there was he, 
 already gathering the hj-acinth's delicate flower, with 
 man}' a gibe at that late summer and those loitering 
 zephyrs. Thus he was the first to swarm with mother- 
 bees and their plenteous young, and to collect the honey 
 as it frothed out from the squeezed comb ; for he had 
 limes and pines in luxuriant plent}^ ; and all the fruit 
 with which each prolific tree had clad itself in its early 
 bloom, it retained undiminished in the ripeness of 
 autumn. He, too, had been known to plant out in 
 rows elms, well on in life, and pears grown hard as 
 iron, and thorns which had begun to bear plums, and 
 plane-trees, already tendering to drinkers the service 
 of their shade. All this, however, I must pass by for 
 myself, precluded as I am by my ungracious limits, and 
 leave to others to record when my work is over. 
 
 Now listen, and I will tell of the nature which al- 
 
104 THE GEORGICS, 
 
 mighty Jove of his own act conferred on the bees, the 
 wages for wliich they went after the musical sounds of 
 the Curetes and the tinkling of the brass, and fed the 
 king of Heaven under the cave of Dicte. They alone 
 have their children in common, their dwellings associated 
 into a cit}' ; thej^ alone lead a life of submission to the 
 majesty of law ; the}^ alone know the claims of country 
 and the permanence of home, think of winter before it 
 comes, tr}' in summer what toil can do, and lay up in 
 store what each has earned for the public. For some 
 with sleepless care watch over the general sustenance, 
 and go out by a set rule to labor abroad ; some within 
 the walls of their homes lay down the narcissus* tear 
 and the clammy gum from the bark of trees as the first 
 foundation of the comb, and then hang in air the roof 
 of clinging wax ; others lead out the nation's hope, the 
 young now grown ; others again mass together honey 
 of the purest water, and strain the cells to bursting with 
 its clear nectarous sweets ; some there are on whom the 
 sentry's work of the gates devolves by lot, and who 
 take their turn in looking out for showers and gathering 
 clouds, or relieve those who are coming in of their bur- 
 dens, or collect a troop and expel from their stalls the 
 drones — that laz}', thriftless herd. The work is all 
 lire, and a scent of thyme breathes from the fragrant 
 honej^ Even as when the C3'clopes to meet a sudden 
 call are forging thunderbolts from the reluctant ore — 
 some with their leathern bellows are taking in and giv- 
 ing out the wind, others are dipping the hissing copper 
 ill the lake, while ^tna groans under the anvil's weight ; 
 the}", one with another, with all a giant's strength, are 
 lifting their arms in measured cadence, and turning with 
 their griping tongs the iron here and there — so, if it be 
 right to compare small things with great, the bees of 
 
BOOK IV. 105 
 
 Cecrops* clime are stimulated to labor by an inborn love 
 of acquiring, each in his own function. The old have 
 charge of the town, of rearing walls of comb, and build- 
 ing dwellings of cunning frame ; the younger sort drag 
 themselves home late at night, tired, with their thighs 
 laden with thyme ; the}" feed dispersedly on arbutes and 
 gray willow leaves, and cassia and crocus glowing red, 
 and luxuriant limes, and purple hyacinths. All have 
 one time for rest from their work, all have one time for 
 labor : at daybreak they pour from the gates — no 
 delaying ; again, when the star of eve has warned them 
 to quit their pasture at last, and withdraw from the 
 plains, at once the}* seek their homes, at once they be- 
 think them of refreshment ; a noise is heard — they 
 hum about the entrance and on the threshold. After- 
 wards, when they have settled into their beds, there is 
 silence for the night, and their weary limbs are lapped 
 in the sleep that they love. Again, they do not go far 
 awa}^ from their stalls when there is rain overhead, or 
 put faith in the sky while east winds are on the wing, 
 but about the hive, under the shelter of the city's wall, 
 the}' fetch in water, and tr}^ short excursions, and often 
 take up pebbles, as the tossing wave makes unsteady 
 boats take up ballast, and wuth these balance them- 
 selves as the}' move through the unsubstantial clouds. 
 There is another custom which you will wonder should 
 have found favor with the bees, that they do not give 
 way to sexual intercourse, but unaided pick up their 
 young in their mouths from leaves and grateful herbage ; 
 unaided they supply their Rome with a new monarch 
 and tiny citizens, and so remodel the palace and the 
 whole waxen realm. Often, too, while straying among 
 rugged rocks, they have been known to crush their 
 wings and yield their patriot lives under their load — 
 
106 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 so intense is their love of flowers, so paramount the 
 pride of gendering honey. Hence it is, that though 
 each single bee is born to a narrow span of life — for 
 their summers never stretch beyond the seventh — the 
 famil}' abides undying, and for many, many years, the 
 star of the house dela3^s to go down, and fathers' fathers 
 of fathers' fathers are counted on the roll. 
 
 Moreover, ro^altj- never receives'such homage from 
 Egypt, or from mighty Lydia, from the nations of 
 Parthia, or from Median Hydaspes. While the king is 
 safe, all are of one mind ; when he perishes, the bond 
 is broken ; the}' themselves plunder the honey that they 
 stored with such skill, and tear in pieces the comb's 
 cunning wickerwork. He is the master of the works ; 
 to him they look up ; the whole nation surrounds him, 
 thronging and humming, and swarms as a guard about 
 his person ; and often they lift him on their shoulders, 
 and shield him with their bodies from the shock of 
 battle, and in the shower of wounds seek a glorious 
 death. 
 
 From these tokens, and with these instances to guide 
 them, some have said that bees have received a share 
 of the divine intelligence, a draught of the pure ethereal 
 stream : the Deity, they tell us, pervades all, earth and 
 the expanse of sea, and the deep vault of heaven ; from 
 Him flocks, herds, men, wild beasts of every sort, each 
 creature at its birth draws the bright thread of life ; 
 further, to Him all things return, are restored and re- 
 duced — death has no place among them ; but they fly 
 up alive into the ranks of the stars, and take their seats 
 aloft in the sky. 
 
 If ever you would break the seal of their narrow 
 dwelling, and of the treasury where their honey is 
 stored, first cleanse your mouth with a sprinkling draught 
 
BOOK IV. 107 
 
 of water, and arm 3'oiir hand with the searching power 
 of smoke. Twice they gather in their teeming produce, 
 twice a 3'ear comes their harvest — once when Taygete, ^ 
 the Pleiad, displays to the earth her graceful head, and 
 spurns the ocean stream with her scornful foot ; and 
 again when, flying from the sign of the watery Fish, 
 she makes her sad descent from heaven into the wintry 
 wave. Their fury, too, is all in excess : hurt them, and 
 they shoot poison into the bite the}^ give, fasten on a 
 vein, and leave in it their unseen stings, and thus bury 
 their own lives in the wound. 
 
 But if you fear for them the tyranny of winter, and 
 so would deal gently with their future, pitying the 
 thought of a nation's spirit crushed and a common 
 weal ruined, yet to fumigate the hive with th3'me, and 
 to cut away the empty cells of wax, who would shrink 
 from that? for often has the comb been gnawed away^ ^ , 
 
 unknown .by the *eft and by the cradled 3'oung of the ^ ^ 
 hght-hating beetle ; and the drone, who sits down, an 
 unworking citizen, to another's food ; or the fierce 
 hornet has dashed among their unequal forces ; or 
 moths, a terrible race ; or Minerva's foe, the spider, 
 has hung her loose-threaded nets across their doorway. 
 The greater the drain on them has been, the greater the 
 zeal with which all will exert themselves to repair the 
 wreck of the fallen house, filling up the rows of their 
 cells, and planking their granaries with the spoils of the 
 flowers. 
 
 But if, seeing that bees, like men, must meet the 
 chances of life, their frames should be unstrung by 
 grievous sickness — a thing which you will be able to 
 tell at once by signs of no doubtful meaning — as they 
 sicken their color at once changes, a squalid leanness 
 disfigures their features ; soon they carry out from their . 
 
lOa THE GEORGICS. 
 
 homes the corpses of those who have lost life's light, 
 and lead the melancholy procession to the grave ; either 
 they hang about the door with their feet linked to- 
 gether, or keep lingering within in their closed dwelling, 
 one and all languid with hunger and torpid with pinch- 
 ing cold. Then a hoarse noise strikes the ear, and they 
 hum droningly and long, like the sigh of the bleak 
 south through the forest, like the crash of the troubled 
 sea as its waves retire from the beach, like the roar of 
 the surging blaze in the closed furnace. Now, aye and 
 before now, I would counsel you to burn the scent of 
 galbanum, and to convey honey through pipes of reed, 
 
 / anticipating them with your encouragement, and invit- 
 ing the poor tired creatures to the food they know and 
 love. It will be well too to mix with the honey the 
 flavor of pounded galls, and dried rose-leaves, or wine 
 thickened to s} rup over a hot fire, or the juice of the 
 raisin-cluster from the Psithian vine, and the thyme of 
 Cecrops' land, and the pungent-smelling centaury. A 
 flower, too, there grows in the meadows, to which the 
 countrymen have attached the name of amellus, a plant 
 which gives little trouble to those who seek it, for it 
 shoots up a great vegetation from the one spot of turf 
 where it springs : itself of golden hue, but in the leaves 
 which cluster round that golden center there are gleams 
 of purple under a dark violet tint ; many a time have 
 the altars of the gods been decked with its twined fes- 
 toons ; it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth : among the 
 nibbled herbage of the valley, the shepherds gather it, 
 near the winding stream of Mella. Take it and boil its 
 roots in the wine-god's generous perfume, and place it 
 for their food in the doorwa}' in piled baskets. 
 
 ^ But should there be an^- whose whole stock has failed 
 \ him suddenly, and left no means of calling back the 
 
BOOK IV. 109 
 
 line to life in a new race, it is time that I should also dis- 
 close the memorable discovery of the great Arcadian 
 keeper, and the way in which, oft ere now, from the 
 slaughter of bullocks, tainted gore has generated bees. 
 I will expound the whole legend, mounting up to the 
 source, and tracing it thence. For where the favored 
 race of Macedon's Canopus dwell by the stagnant Nile 
 and its overflowing waters, and travel in painted boats 
 about the lands the}" till, where quivered Persia's con- 
 tiguity presses hard on the frontier, and the rapid river 
 parts into seven separate mouths, and with its black 
 slime fertilizes the green land of Egypt — the river that 
 has come down all the wa}^ from among the sun-baked 
 Indians — th^t entire clime rests the weal of its hives 
 with confidence on this device. 
 
 In the first place, a spot small and confined for the 
 very purpose is chosen out ; this the}" close in with nar- 
 row roof-tiling, and straitened walls, and insert four 
 windows, with slanting light from the four quarters of 
 heaven. Next the}" look out for a bull-calf, whose horns 
 have begun to arch over a brow that has seen two sum- 
 mers ; they take him and seal up his two nostrils and 
 his mouth's breath, spite of furious struggles ; and after 
 he has been slain by their blows, his flesh through his 
 unbroken hide is beaten to a jell}". As he lies, they 
 leave him in his barred prison, placing under his ribs 
 broken bits of bough, and thyme, and fresh-plucked 
 cassia. This goes on when the west winds first play 
 upon the waters, ere the meadows are empurpled with 
 fresh spring-tide hues, ere the chattering swallow hangs 
 her nest from the rafters. Meanwhile, in his softened 
 bones the sap has been heated and begins to ferment, 
 and living things of strange manner to look upon, at 
 first with no feet to crawl on, but soon even with wings 
 
110 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 to buzz and fly with, swarm confusedly, and skim the 
 empty air more and more, till, like a burst of rain from 
 a summer cloud, out they break, or like arrows from 
 the rebounding cord, whenever the light-armed Parthian 
 strikes up the prelude of the battle. 
 
 Who of the gods, ye muses, who, beat out for us men 
 this skilled device? Whence did this fresh growth of 
 men's experience take its rise? 
 
 "" It was the shepherd, Aristaeus, turning his back on 
 Tempe and her Peneus, when his bees were all dead — 
 so runs the tale — of disease and famine, that stood in 
 sorrow at the sacred head where the river rises, with 
 many a plaint, and in words like these bespoke her that 
 bore him : ' Mothei* Cyrene, mother, whose dwelling is 
 at the bottom of this gulf, why didst thou bear me, a 
 son of an illustrious line of gods — if at least he of 
 whom thou tellest me is my father, Thymbra's Apollo 
 — to a life under an evil star ? Whither has thy love 
 for me and mine been banished ? Wherefore didst thou 
 bid me look forward to the sky? See now, even this 
 very crown of m}' poor mortality, which a life of skill- 
 ful watching over corn and cattle had barel}^ won for 
 me, every effort tried, I must resign — and thou art my 
 mother still! Why then, come on — put thine own 
 hand to the work, uproot m}" fruitful forests, bring into 
 m}- stalls the fire they hate, kill my crops, burn my 
 young plants, and wield against my vines the heaviest 
 ax thou canst find, if the access of th}' disgust at hear- 
 ing me praised be indeed so strong.' 
 
 But his mother caught the sound as she sat in the 
 bed-chamber of the • deep stream. Around her the 
 nymphs were spinning wool of Miletus, ingrained with 
 hyaline's saturating dye, Drymo, and Xantho, and 
 Ligeia, and Phyllodoce, their bright locks floating over 
 
BOOK IV. Ill 
 
 their snowy necks, and Cydippe, and yellow-haired 
 Lycorias — a maiden one, the other having just proved 
 the first pangs of the goddess of travail — and Clio, 
 and Beroe, her sister, children of Ocean both, both girt 
 with gold, both with dresses of dappled hide, and 
 Ephyre, and Opis, and Asian Deiopeia, and Arethusa 
 fleet of foot, her huntress* shafts at last laid by ; among 
 them Clymene was telling the tale of Vulcan's vain jeal- 
 ousy, of Mars' stratagem and the joy he stole, and from 
 chaos downwards was counting the crowded muster-roll 
 of the loves of the gods. As they sit entranced by the 
 song, and the spindle carries down their fleecy tasks, 
 yet again there smote on the mother's ear the wail of 
 Aristseus, and all were confounded on their crystal 
 seats ; but Arethusa, anticipating the rest of the sister- 
 hood, looked forth, and raised her j^ellow head from the 
 water's surface, and cried from the distance — ' O thou 
 whom a groan so loud has not scared for naught, sister 
 C3Tene, it is himself, thy chiefest care, Aristseus, that 
 stands at the wave of our father Peneus weeping to '>^^C> 
 thee, and calling on thy cruel name.' Struck to the 
 soul with a strange terror, ' Go, bring him, bring him 
 to us ; he may touch the floor that gods tread,' cries 
 the mother. With that she bids the deep stream retire 
 far and wide, making a path on which the 3-outh might 
 walk. Round him closed the wave arched into moun- 
 tain form, took him into its giant bosom, and sped him 
 down under the river. And now he is on his way 
 marveling at his mother's palace and the whole watery 
 realm, pools locked by caves and forests echoing wide, * 
 and, all confounded b^^ the might}' rush of the waters, 
 is gazing on all the rivers of earth as they flow under 
 its vast surface each in its several bed — Phasis, and 
 Lycus, and the source whence first breaks forth the 
 
.0\^' 
 
 112 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 deep Enipeus, whence Tiber, the Roman's father, and 
 whence the streams of Anio, and rocky roaring Hypa- 
 nis, and Mysian Caicus, and he that bears two gilded 
 horns on his bull's brow, Eridanus, than whom no river 
 pours himself more forcefully through his rich cultured 
 plains into the blue flushing deep. After he had come 
 under the chamber's stone-hung roof, and Cyrene had 
 taken knowledge of her son's bootless weeping, the 
 sisterhood, each in her course, offer him clear spring- 
 water for his hands, and present towels with the nap 
 dul}^ shorn, while others load the table with viands, 
 and set on cups brimming again and again : the altars 
 mount up with Panchaian fires ; and 'Take,' says the 
 mother, ' the bowl of Mseonia's wine-god ; make we 
 libation to Ocean.' So speaking, she offers herself a 
 prayer to Ocean, father of creation, and the sisterhood 
 of nymphs, the hundred guardians of the woods, the 
 hundred of the rivers. Thrice with the clear nectar 
 she sprinkled the blazing fire-queen ; thrice the flame 
 shot up to the roof-top and shone again. Cheering his 
 heart with the omen, she thus begins her speech : — 
 
 ' In the sea-god's Carpathian gulf there lives a seer, 
 Proteus , of the sea's own hue, who takes the measure of 
 the mighty deep with his fishes, even with his harnessed 
 car of two-legged steeds. He is at this moment visit- 
 ing again the havens of Emathia and Pallene, the coun- 
 ^^ try of his birth. To him we nymphs all do reverence, 
 aye, and Nereus too, the old and gray ; for all things 
 are known to the seer, those which are, those which 
 . have been, those which drag their length through the 
 advancing future. So it seemed good to Neptune, 
 whose monstrous herds of loathly sea-calves he pastures 
 under the deep. Him, my son, you must first make 
 prisoner and bind, that he may unfold all the history 
 
BOOK IV. 118 
 
 of the disease and prosper the issue. For without 
 force he will give no counsel, nor will your praying 
 bend him ; force, stern force, and fetters must be put 
 upon the captive ; against them his baffled wiles will at 
 last be broken. ^/^^myself, when the sun has kindled O^v^ 
 his mid-da}^ furnace, when the herbage is athirst, and 
 cattle begin to feel the joy of the shade, will lead jog, 
 into the old one's privacy, the place where he retires 
 from his labors in the water, that you may easily fall 
 on him as he lies asleep. But when you have caught 
 him in the grasp of hand and fetter, then the divers 
 forms and features of wild beasts will be put on to 
 mock you. He will change suddenly to a bristly boar, 
 and a. grim black tiger, a scaly dragon, and a lioness 
 with tawny mane ; or he will send forth the sharp 
 crackling of flame, and thus slip out of your bonds, or 
 will trickle away into unsubstantial water and be gone. 
 But the more you find him turn himself into shape 
 after shape, the tighter, my son, strain the gripe of 
 your bonds, till, his last change over, he appear in the ^ 
 
 form in which 3^ou saw him when sleep had set in and 
 his ej^es were curtained.' 
 
 So saying, she bids ambrosia send forth its liquid 
 perfume, which she spread over her son's whole frame ; 
 at once he felt his new- trimmed locks exhale a breath 
 of fragrance, and a supple vigor pass into his limbs. 
 There is a vast cave eaten out in a mountain's side, 
 whereinto wave upon wave is driven by the wind, and 
 breaks in the retreating inlet — to the mariner, when (j Vwa' 
 the storm is upon him, at times a roadstead of safest ^^ Ct>*^ 
 shelter. There, far within, Proteus screens himself 
 with the barrier of an enormous rock. Here the nymph 
 places the youth in hiding, away from the light ; she 
 herself stands off in the dusk of a mist she raises. Al- 
 8 
 
114 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 ready Sirius was all ablaze in the sky, with that fierce 
 glow that scorches the Indians with thirst, and the 
 sun's fiery car had exhausted the half of its circuit ; the 
 herbage was parching, and the hollow rivers, their dry 
 jaws agape, were being baked by the sunbeams into a 
 heated mass of mud, when Proteus was on his way 
 from the surge, making for the accustomed cave; 
 around him the moist generation of the broad sea, 
 leaping gamesomely, flung about the salt spra3\ They 
 lay themselves to sleep, the sea-calves here and there 
 along the beach ; he, like the warder of a fold one daj^ 
 among the hills, when the star of eve brings the calves 
 home from pasture, and the sound of the lamb's bleat- 
 ing whets the wolf's maw, sits down in the middle of 
 the rock and tells over their tale. Soon as_Ari st8eus 
 saw the facility within his grasp, scarcely giving the 
 old one time to settle his tired limbs, he bursts on him 
 with a tremendous cr}^, and invades him with manacles 
 there as he lies. The god on his part, his craft then, 
 as ever, in his mind, transforms himself into all that is 
 
 r> VjvulA'' \ ' ^inonstrous in nature — the fire, the hideous beast, the 
 \^ \~^^^ flowing stream. But when no stratagem finds him 
 
 ^jCk>>^\ escape, vanquished, he becomes himself again, and at 
 
 last from human lips speaks thus : — ' Wh}^, who has 
 bid thee, most assured of all youths that are, to visit 
 us in our home ? or what wouldst thou have hence ? ' 
 But he, ' Thou knowest, Proteus, thou knowest of thy- 
 self — naught can cheat thee ; but do thou leave off" the 
 will to cheat. Following the instructions of gods I am 
 come, to ask an oracle for my o'erlabored fortunes.' 
 So far he spoke. At this the seer at length, with mighty 
 force, darted on him the glass-green glare of his fiery 
 eyes, and heavily gnashing his teeth, thus broke the 
 seal of his lips with the voice of destiny : — 
 

 Ck^^'^ 
 
 BOOK IV. 115 
 
 * No — think not it is no angrj god that has laid his 
 hand on thee --thj_suffering is for a great crime : this 
 th}' punishment Orpheus, a wretched man b}^ no fault ^>va '^V.jqJ/^'' 
 of his own, should fate not interpose, is still stinging ^o*^ \ ^\f 
 
 into life, still raging implacably for his ravished bride. \ > fl"^"^^^^^ rSL 
 She, in her headlong flight from thee, along the river q Cji^ 
 meadow, saw not, the young doomed one that she was, ^ 
 in the deep grass an enormous water-serpent right 
 before her feet, keeping ward over the river-bank. But 
 the choir of her peers, the Dr3^ads, filled the very moun- 
 tain-peaks with their cr3'ing : her dirge was sung by the 
 steeps of Rhodope, and high Pangsea and Rhesus' land, 
 the land of the war-god, by the Getse, by Hebrus, and 
 Orithyia, Acte's child ; while he, solacing with the 
 hollow shell his distempered love, made thee, darling 
 wife, thee, all to himself on the lonely shore, thee at 
 dawn of day, thee at set of sun, his unending song. ^ 
 Aye, and he entered the jaws of Taenarus, the abysmal 
 gates of Pluto's court, and the grove that darkles with . . AtAtM^ 
 a horror of blackness ; he went to the shades, and their ^^ -Wcui^ 
 terrible king, and knocked at the heart which never '^ 
 learnt to soften at human prayer. Startled by the 
 song, came trooping from Erebus' deepest prison thin 
 specters and phantoms of those who lie in darkness, 
 many as the myriads of birds that hide them in the 
 leaves, when eve or winter's rain chases them from the 
 hills — matrons, and husbands, and frames of high- 
 souled heroes discharged of life, boys and unwedded 
 girls, and 3'ouths that had been carried to death in their 
 parents' sight, round whom the blackening ooze and 
 the loathly reeds of Cocytus, and the sluggish waters 
 of that unlovely swamp throw their chains, and Styx, 
 wound nine times about them, holds them in durance. 
 Nay, a charm fell on the very house of death, on the 
 
116 THE GEORGICS. 
 
 abj^ss of Tartarus itself, and the Furies, with livid 
 snakes wreathing in their hair, and Cerberus riveted 
 his three mouths attentive and agape, and Ixion's cir- 
 cling wheel stood fixed in wind-bound slumber. And 
 now he was returning home, and every chance was just 
 escaped, and Eurydice, surrendered to his pra3'er, was 
 passing into the air of heaven, following behind — for 
 such the condition that Proserpine had imposed — when 
 a sudden frenzy took hold of the unthinking lover — a 
 sin that might plead for pardon, were pardon an art 
 known to the shades — he stopped. Eurj^dice was now 
 his own, treading on the very threshold of daylight — 
 his memory fled, alas! his soul was mastered — he 
 . ^ V looked back on her. That instant all his pains were 
 ^^\f^ spilt like so much water, the covenant of the ruthless 
 ^^ ^^ monarch was broken, and a thunder peal was heard 
 , " C;^ \ thrice through Avernus' sluggish depths. She cried — 
 
 S^ " Oh ! what madness, what monstrous madness has un- 
 
 done me, poor me, and thee too, my Orpheus? Look ! 
 again that cruel destiny is calling me back, and sleep 
 is burying my swimming ej'es. And now farewell. I am 
 borne awa}', swathed in night's vast pall, and stretch- 
 ing towards thee powerless hands — thine own, alas! 
 no longer." She said, and suddenly from his sight, 
 like smoke that mingles with thin air, she fled b}^ an- 
 other waj', and though he caught in vain at the shadows, 
 and essayed to sa}' a thousand things, never saw him 
 more : nor did the ferryman of Orcus suffer him any 
 further to pass the barrier of marsh-water. What was 
 he to do? whither was he to turn him, thus widowed a 
 second time ? where was there a new wail to touch the 
 shades, new accents to melt the gods below? And she 
 — she was floating off" in the boat of Styx, death-chilled 
 
td^ 
 
 BOOK IV. 117 
 
 already y/ Seven whole months, one with another, they 
 say, under a sk^-ey rock, by the waters of lonely Stry- 
 inon, he made his moan, and unfolded this his tale be- 
 neath the wintry caverns, in strains that softened the 
 tiger and drew the oak to follow him — as the nightin- 
 gale wailing in the poplar shade plains for her lost 
 young, that the rustic churl, with his prying eye, has 
 taken unfledged from the nest: while she weeps the 
 night through, and sitting on a bough, reproduces her 
 piteous melody, and fills the country round with the 
 plaints of her sorrow. No queen of love, no bridal 
 rites had power over his soul. Alone, over H3^per- 
 borean ice, and Tanais the snowy, and fields whose 
 marriage-bond with Rhipsean frost is never severed, he 
 would ramble, sorrowing for his lost Eurydice and 
 Pluto's canceled boon — a service resented as scorn 
 b}' the Cicon dames, who, on a night of sacrifice fy^^-Xj'-*'^ 
 to heaven and orgies to Bacchus, tore the youth in ^-ii>cX*^ 
 pieces, and scattered him broadcast over the plain. 
 Even then, while the head, rent from that pale marble \ ^ ^ijCsL 
 neck, was swept floating down the midst of CEagrian \,*^^^'*f^jp 
 
 Ilebrus' flood, Eurydice^ the bare voice of the cold 
 tongue — All ! my poor Eurydice — kept calling as life 
 parted. Eurydice^ the banks returned all down the 
 'stream.' 
 
 So far Proteus, and flounced into the deep sea, and 
 when he plunged wreathed the water in foam under the 
 circling eddy. 
 
 Not s o Cyrene — at once she turned to the trembling 
 listener : — ' My son, you are free to unburden your 
 mind of its grievous care. . This is the whole secret of 
 the plague : for this the nymphs, with whom she wont 
 to dance in the tall green wood, have sent among your 
 
 iyOA'*^^ 
 
118 THE GEORGJCS, 
 
 bees such piteous haA^oc. Be it 3'ours to tender a sup- 
 pliant's offerings, pra3ing to be reconciled, and pay 
 homage to the gracious sisters of the groves : for they 
 will grant forgiveness at 3'our pra3'er, and abate their 
 wrath. But the method of supplication shall first be 
 explained in due course. Pick out four choice bulls of 
 goodl}^ frame, now grazing among thj^ herds on the top 
 of green L^caeus, and as man}' heiferfj whose neck never 
 yoke has touched. For these set up four altars by the 
 gods' lofty fanes, and let from their throats the stream 
 of sacred blood, and leave the bodies of the kine to 
 themselves in the leafy grove. After, when the ninth 
 morn-goddess shall have displayed the dawn, to Or- 
 pheus you will send a funeral sacrifice of Lethe's pop- 
 pies, and sla}' a black sheep, and visit the grove again : 
 then, when 3'ou find Eur3'dice appeased, 3'ou will pay 
 her the thank-offering of a slaughtered calf.' 
 
 Not an hour's dela3^ : at once he does his mother's 
 bidding : to the fane he comes : he uprears the pre- 
 scribed altars, four choice bulls of goodly frame he 
 leads thither, and as many heifers whose neck never 
 3'oke has touched. After, when the ninth morn-god- 
 dess had ushered in the dawn, he sends to Orpheus a 
 funeral sacrifice, and visits the grove again. And now 
 a portent, sudden and marvelous to tell, meets their 
 view : through the whole length of the kine's dissolving 
 flesh bees are seen, buzzing in the belly and boiling out 
 through the bursten ribs, and huge clouds lengthen and 
 swa3^ till at last the}^ pour altogether to the tree's top, 
 and let down a cluster from the bending boughs. 
 / Such was the song I was making ; a song of the hus- 
 band r3' of fields and cattle, and of trees ; while Caesar, 
 the great, is flashing war's thunderbolt over the depths 
 
BOOK IV, 119 
 
 of Euphrates, and dispensing among willing nations a 
 conqueror's law, and setting his foot on the road to the 
 sk}'. In those da3's I was being nursed in Parthenope's 
 delicious lap, embowered in the pursuits of inglorious 
 peace — I, Virgil, who once dallied with the shepherd's 
 muse, and with a 3'oung man's boldness, sang of thee, 
 Tityrus, under the spreading beechen shade. 
 
THE iENEID. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Arms and the man I sing, who at the first from Troy's 
 shores, the exile of destiny, won his way to Italy and 
 her Latian coast — a man much buffeted on land and 
 on the deep bj" violence from above, to sate the unfor- 
 getting wrath of Juno the cruel — much scourged too 
 in war, as he struggled to build him a city, and find his 
 gods a home in Latium — himself the father of the 
 Latian people, and the chiefs o^Alba's houses, and the 
 walls of high towering Rome. 
 
 Bring to my mind, O Muse, the causes — for what 
 treason against her godhead, or what pain received, the 
 queen of heaven drove a man of piety so signal to turn 
 the wheel of so many calamities, to bear the brunt of 
 so many hardships ! Can heavenly natures hate so 
 fiercely and so long ? 
 
 Of old there was a citj^, its people emigrants from 
 Tyre, Carthage, over against Italy and Tiber's mouths, 
 yet far removed — rich and mighty, and formed to all 
 roughness by war's iron trade — a spot w^here Juno, it 
 was said, loved to dwell more than in all the world 
 beside, Samos holding but the second place. Here was 
 her armor, here her chariot — here to fix b}" her royal 
 act the empire of the nations, could Fate be brought to 
 assent, was even then her aim, her cherished scheme. 
 But she had heard that the blood of Troy was sowing 
 
 120 
 
BOOK I. 121 
 
 the seed of a race to overturn one day those Tyrian 
 towers — from that seed a nation, monarch of broad 
 realms and glorious in war, was to bring ruin on Libya 
 
 — such the turning of Fate's wheel. With these fears 
 Saturn's daughter, and with a lively memory of that old 
 war which at first she had waged at Tro}^ for her loved 
 Argos' sake — nor indeed had the causes of that feud 
 and the bitter pangs they roused yet vanished from her 
 mind — no, stored up in her soul's depths remains the 
 judgment of Paris, and the wrong done to her slighted 
 beauty, and the race abhorred from the womb, and the 
 state enjo3^ed by the ravished Gan3aiiede. With this 
 fuel added to the fire, the Trojans, poor remnants of 
 Danaan havoc and Achilles' ruthless spear, she was 
 tossing from sea to sea, and keeping far away from 
 Latium ; and for many long years they were wandering, 
 with destiny still driving them, the whole ocean round. 
 So vast the effort it cost to build up the Roman nation ! 
 
 Scarce out of sight of the land of Sicily were they 
 spreading their sails merrily to the deep, and scattering 
 with their brazen prows the brin}^ spra}', when Juno, 
 the everlasting wound still rankling in her heart's core, 
 thus communed with herself: 'And am I to give up 
 what I have taken in hand, baffled, nor have power to 
 prevent the king of the Teucrians from reaching Italy 
 
 — because, forsooth, the Fates forbid me? What! 
 was Pallas strong enough to burn up utterly the Grecian 
 fleet, and whelm the crews in the sea, for the offense 
 of a single man, the frenzy of Ajax, Oileus' son? 
 Aye, she with her own hand launched from the clouds 
 Jove's winged fire, dashed the ships apart, and turned 
 up the sea-floor with the wind — him, gasping out the 
 flame which pierced his bosom, she caught in the blast, 
 and impaled on a rock's point — while I, who walk the 
 
122 THE ^NEID. 
 
 skj^ as its queen, Jove's sister and consort both, am 
 battling with a single nation these many years. And 
 are there any found to pray to Juno's deity after this, 
 or lay on her altar a suppliant's gift ? ' 
 
 With such thoughts sweeping through the solitude of 
 her enkindled breast, the goddess comes to the storm- 
 cloud's birthplace, the teeming womb of fierce southern 
 blasts, JEolia. Here, in a vast cavern. King ^olus is 
 bowing to his sway struggHng winds and howling tem- 
 pests, and bridling them with bond and prison. They, 
 in their passion, are raving at the closed doors, while 
 the huge rock roars responsive : -/Eolus is sitting aloft 
 in his fortress, his scepter in his hand, soothing their 
 moods and allaying their rage ; were he to fail in this, why 
 sea and land, and the deep of heaven, would all be 
 forced along by their blast, and swept through the air. 
 But the almighty sire has buried them in caverns dark 
 and deep, with this fear before his ej^es, and placed 
 over them giant bulk and tall mountains, and given them 
 a king who, by the terms of his compact, should know 
 how to tighten or slacken the reins at his patron's will. 
 To him it was that Juno then, in these words, made her 
 humble request : — 
 
 * JEolus — for it is to thee that the sire of gods and 
 king of men has given it with the winds now to calm, 
 now to rouse the billows — there is a race which I love 
 not now sailing the T3Trhene sea, carrying Ilion into 
 Italy and Ilion's vanquished gods ; do thou lash the 
 winds to fury, sink and whelm their ships, or scatter 
 them apart, and strew the ocean with their corpses. 
 Twice seven nymphs are of my train, all of surpassing 
 beauty ; of these her whose form is fairest, Deiopea, I 
 will unite to thee in lasting wedlock, and consecrate her 
 thy own, that all her days, for a service so great, she 
 
BOOK I. 123 
 
 may pass with thee, and make thee father of a goodly 
 progeny/ 
 
 ^olus returns : * Thine, great Queen, is the task to 
 search out on what thou mayest fix thy heart ; for me 
 to do thy bidding is but right. Thou makest this poor 
 realm mine, mine the scepter and Jove's smile ; thou 
 givest me a couch at the banquets of the gods, and 
 makest me lord of the storm-cloud and of the tempest.' 
 
 So soon as this was said, he turned his spear, and 
 pushed the hollow mountain on its side ; and the winds, 
 as though in column formed, rush forth where they see 
 an outlet, and sweep over the earth in hurricane. 
 Heavily they fall on the sea, and from its ver}^ bottom 
 crash down the whole expanse — one and all, east and 
 south, and south-west, with his storms thronging at 
 his back, and roll huge billows shoreward. Hark to the 
 shrieks of the crew, and the creaking of the cables ! 
 In an instant the clouds snatch sky and daylight from 
 the Teucrians' eyes — night lies on the deep, black and 
 heav}" — pole thunders to pole ; heaven flashes thick 
 with fires, and all nature brandishes instant death in the 
 seaman's face. At once Eneas' limbs are unstrung and 
 chilled — he groans aloud, and, stretching his clasped 
 hands to the stars, fetches from his breast words like 
 these : — ' O happy, thrice and again, whose lot it was, 
 in their fathers' sight, under Troy's high walls to meet 
 death ! O thou, the bravest of the Danaan race, 
 Tydeus' son, why was it not mine to lay me low on 
 Ilion's plains, and 3-ield this fated life to thy right 
 hand? Aye, there it is that Hector, stern as in life, 
 lies stretched by the spear of ^acides — there lies 
 Sarpedon's giant bulk — there it is that Simois seizes 
 and sweeps down her channel those many shields and 
 helms, and bodies of the brave ! ' 
 
124 THE jENEID. 
 
 Such words as he flung wildly forth, a blast roaring 
 from the north strikes his sail full in front and lifts 
 the billows to the stars. Shattered are the oars ; then 
 the prow turns and presents the ship's side to the 
 waves ; down crashes in a heap a craggy mountain of 
 water. Look ! these are hanging on the surge's crest 
 — to those the yawning deep is giving a glimpse of 
 land down among the billows ; surf and sand are rav- 
 ing together. Three ships the south catches, and flings 
 upon hidden rocks — rocks which, as they stand with the 
 waves all about them, the Italians call Altars, an enor- 
 mous ridge rising above the sea. Three the east drives 
 from the main on to shallows and SjTtes, a piteous 
 sight, and dashes them on shoals, and embanks them in 
 mounds of sand. One in which the Ljxians were sail- 
 ing, and true Orontes, a mighty sea strikes from high on 
 the stem before Eneas' ver}' e^^es ; down goes the helms- 
 man, washed from his post, and topples on his head, 
 while she is thrice whirled round by the billow in the 
 spot where she lay, and swallowed at once by the greedy 
 gulf. You might see them here and there swimming in 
 that vast ab3^ss — heroes' arms, and planks, and Troy's 
 treasures glimmering through the water. Already 
 Ilioneus' stout ship, alread}' brave Achates', and that 
 in which Abas sailed, and that which carried old Aletes, 
 are worsted by the storm ; their side-jointings loosened, 
 one and all give entrance to the watery foe, and part 
 failingly asunder. 
 
 Meantime the roaring riot of the ocean and the storm 
 let loose reached the sense of Neptune, and the still 
 waters disgorged from their deep beds, troubling him 
 grievously ; and casting a broad glance over the main 
 he raised at once his tranquil brow from the water's 
 surface. , There he sees Eneas' fleet tossed hither and 
 
BOOK r. 125 
 
 thither over the whole expanse — the Trojans whelmed 
 under the billows, and the crashing ruin of the sky — 
 nor failed the brother to read Juno's craft and hatred 
 there. East and West he calls before him, and bespeaks 
 them thus : — ' Are ye then so whollj^ o'ermastered by 
 the pride of your birth? Have ye come to this, ye 
 Winds, that, without sanction from me, 3'e dare to con- 
 found sea and land, and upheave these mighty moun- 
 tains? 3"e ! whom I but it were best to calm the 
 
 billows 3^6 have troubled. Henceforth ye shall paj^ me 
 for 3'our crimes in far other coin. Make good speed 
 With 3^our flight, and give your king this message. 
 Not to him did the lot assign the empire of the sea and 
 the terrible trident, but to me. His swaj^ is over those 
 enormous rocks, where you, Eurus, dwell, and such as 
 you ; in that court let ^olus lord it, and rule in the 
 prison-house of the winds when its doors are barred.' 
 
 He speaks, and ere his words are done soothes the 
 swelling waters, and routs the mustered clouds, and 
 brings back the sun in triumph. Cj'mothoe and Triton 
 combine their efforts to push off the vessels from the 
 sharp-pointed rock. The god himself upheaves them 
 with his own trident, and levels the great quicksands, 
 and alias's the sea, and on chariot-wheels of lightest 
 motion glides along the water's top. Even as when in 
 a great crowd tumult is oft stirred up, and the base 
 herd waxes wild and frantic, and brands and stones 
 are flying already, rage suiting the weapon to the hand 
 — at that moment, should their eyes fall on some man 
 of weight, for duty done and public worth, tongues are 
 hushed and ears fixed in attention, while his words 
 sway the spirit and soothe the breast — so fell all the 
 thunders of the ocean, so soon as the great father, 
 with the waves before him in prospect, and the clear 
 
126 THE yENEID. 
 
 sk}^ all about him, guides his steeds at will, and as he 
 flies, flings out the reins freely to his obedient car. 
 
 Spent with toil, the family of ^neas labor to gain 
 the shore that may be nearest, and are carried to the 
 coasts of Libya. There is a spot retiring deep into 
 the -land, where an island forms a haven by the barrier 
 of its sides, which break every billow from the main 
 and send it shattered into the deep indented hollows. 
 On either side of the bay are huge rocks, and two great 
 crags rising in menace to the sky ; under their summits 
 far and wide the water is hushed in shelter, while a 
 theatric background of waving woods, a black forest of 
 stiffening shade, overhangs it from the height. Under 
 the brow that fronts the deep is a cave with pendent 
 crags ; within there are fresh springs and seats in the 
 living rock — the home of the nymphs ; no need of 
 cable here to confine the weary bark or anchor's crook- 
 ed fang to grapple her to the shore. Here with seven 
 ships mustered from his whole fleet ^neas entejs ; 
 and with intense yearning for dry land the Trojans dis- 
 embark and take possession of the wished-for shore, 
 and lay their brine-drenched limbs upon the beach. 
 And first Achates from a flint struck out a spark, and 
 received the fire as it dropped in a cradle of leaves, and 
 placed dry wood all about it, and spread the strong 
 blaze among the tinder. Then their corn, soaked and 
 spoiled as it was, and the corn-goddess' armor}^ they 
 bring out, sick of fortune ; and make ready to parch 
 the rescued grain at the fire, and crush it with the 
 millstone. 
 
 ^neas meanwhile clambers up a rock, and tries to 
 get a full view far and wide over the sea, if haply he 
 ma}" see aught of Antheus, driven by the gale, and the 
 Phrygian biremes, or Cap3S, or high on the stern the 
 
BOOK L 127 
 
 arms of Caicus. Sail there is none in sight ; three 
 stags he sees at distance straying on the shore ; these 
 the whole herd follows in the rear, and grazes along 
 the hollows in long array. At once he took his stand, 
 and caught up a bow and fleet arrows, which true 
 Achates chanced to be carrying, and la3-s low first the 
 leaders themselves, as they bear their heads aloft with 
 tree-like antlers, then the meaner sort, and scatters 
 with his pursuing shafts the whole rout among the leafy 
 woods ; nor stays his hand till he stretches on earth 
 victoriously seven huge bodies, and makes the sum of 
 them even with his ships. Then he returns to the 
 haven and gives all his comrades their shares. The 
 wine next, w^liich that good Acestes had stowed in 
 casks on the Trinacrian shore, and given them at part- 
 ing with his own princel3' hand, he portions out, and 
 speaks words of comfort to their sorrowing hearts : = — 
 
 ' Comrades ! for comrades we are, no strangers to 
 hardships already ; hearts that have felt deeper wounds ! 
 for these too heaven will find a balm. Wh}-, men, 30U 
 have even looked on Scylla in her madness, and heard 
 those 3'ells that thrill the rocks ; 3'ou have even made 
 trial of the crags of the Cyclops. Come, call your 
 spirits back, and banish these doleful fears — who 
 knows but some da3^ this too will be remembered with 
 pleasure? Through manifold chances, through these 
 man3" perils of fortune, we are making our way to La- 
 tium, where the Fates hold out to us a quiet settle- 
 ment ; there Troy's empire has leave to rise again from 
 its ashes. Bear up, and reserve yourselves for brighter 
 days.' 
 
 Such were the words his tongue uttered ; heart-sick 
 with overwhelming care, he wears the semblance of 
 hope in his face, but has grief deep buried in his heart. 
 
128 THE AlNEID. 
 
 They gird themselves to deal with the game, their 
 forthcoming meal ; strip the hide from the ribs, and 
 laj' bare tlie flesli — some cut it into pieces, and impale 
 it yet quivering on spits, otliers set up the caldrons 
 on the beach, and suppl}^ them with flame. Then with 
 food they recall their strength, and, stretched along 
 the turf, feast on old wine and fat venison to their 
 hearts' content. Their hunger sated by the meal, and 
 the boards removed, they vent in long talk their anx- 
 ious yearning for their missing comrades — balanced 
 between hope and fear, whether to think of them as 
 alive, or as suffering the last change, and deaf already 
 to the voice that calls on them. But good .Eneas' 
 grief exceeds the rest ; one moment he groans for bold 
 Orontes' fortune, another for Am^xus', and in the 
 depth of his spirit laments for the cruel fate of Lycus ; 
 for the gallant Gj'as and the gallant Cloanthus. 
 
 And now at last their mourning had an end, when 
 Jupiter from the height of etlier, looking down on the 
 sea with its fluttering sails, on the flat surface of earth, 
 tlie shores, and the broad tribes of men, paused thus 
 upon heaven's ver}^ summit, and fixed his downward 
 gaze on Libya's realms. To him, revolving in his 
 breast such thoughts as these, sad beyond her wont, 
 with tears suffusing her starry eyes, speaks Venus : ' O 
 thou, who b}' thy everlasting laws swayest the two 
 commonwealths of men and gods, and awest them by 
 th}' lightning ! What can my poor iEneas have done 
 to merit thy wrath? What can the Trojans? yet the}', 
 after the man}' deaths they have suffered already, still 
 find the whole world barred against them for Italy's 
 sake. From them assuredly it was that the Romans, 
 as years rolled on — from them were to spring those 
 warrior chiefs, aye from Teucer's blood revived, who 
 
BOOK I. 129 
 
 should rule sea and land with absolute sway — such 
 was th}' promise : how has th}^ purpose, O my father, 
 wrought a change in thee? This, I know, was mj^ con- 
 stant solace when Troy's star set in grievous ruin, as I 
 sat balancing destin}^ against destiny. And now here 
 is the same Fortune, pursuing the brave men she has 
 so oft discomfited alread}'. Mighty king, what end of 
 sufferings hast thou to give them? Antenor, indeed, 
 found means to escape through the midst of the 
 Achseans, to thread in safety the windings of the Illy- 
 rian coast, and the realms of the Liburnians, up at the 
 gulf's head, and to pass the springs of Timavus, whence 
 through nine morfths, 'mid the rocks' responsive roar, 
 the sea comes bursting up, and deluges the fields with 
 its thundering billows. Yet in that spot he built the 
 city of Patavium for his Trojans to dwell in, and gave 
 them a place and a name among the nations, and set 
 up a rest for the arms of Troy : now he reposes, lapped 
 in the calm of peace. Meantime we, of thine own blood, 
 to whom th}^ nod secures the pinnacle of heaven, our 
 ships, most monstrous, lost, as thou seest, all to sate 
 the malice of one cruel heart, are given up to ruin, and 
 severed far from the Italian shores. Is this the reward 
 of piet}^ ? Is this to restore a king to his throne ? ' 
 
 Smiling on her, the planter of gods and men, with 
 that face which calms the fitful moods of the sky, 
 touched with a kiss his daughter's lips, then addressed 
 her thus : ' Give thy fears a respite, lady of Cythera : 
 th}' people's destiny abides still unchanged for thee ; 
 thine eyes shall see the city of th}^ heart, the promised 
 walls of Lavinium ; thine arms shall bear aloft to the 
 stars of heaven thy hero ^neas ; nor has my purpose 
 wrought a change in me. Thy hero — for I will speak 
 out, in pity for the care that rankles yet, and awaken 
 9 
 
130 THE ^NEID, 
 
 the secrets of Fate's book from the distant pages where 
 they slumber — thy hero shall wage a mighty war in 
 Italy, crush its haughty tribes, and set up for his war- 
 riors a polity and a city, till the third summer shall 
 have seen him king over Latium, and three winters in 
 camp shall have passed over the Rutulians' defeat. But 
 the boy Ascanius, who has now the new name of lulus 
 — Ilus he was, while the roj^alty of Ilion's state stood 
 firm — shall let thirty of the sun's great courses fulfil 
 their monthly rounds while he is sovereign, then trans- 
 fer the empire from Lavinium's seat, and build Alba the 
 Long, with power and might. Here for full three hun- 
 dred years the crown shall be worn by Hector's line, 
 till a royal priestess, teeming by the war-god. Ilia, shall 
 be the mother of twin sons. Then shall there be one, 
 proud to wear the tawny hide of the wolf that nursed 
 him, Romulus, who will take up the scepter, and build 
 a new city, the city of Mars, and give the people his 
 own name of Roman. To them I assign no limit, no 
 date of empire : m}^ grant to them is dominion with- 
 out end. Nay, Juno, thy savage foe, who now, in 
 her blind terror, lets neither sea, land, nor heaven rest, 
 shall amend her counsels, and vie with me in watching 
 over the Romans, lords of earth, the great nation of the 
 gown. So it is willed. The time shall come, as Rome's 
 years roll on, when the house of Assaracus shall bend 
 to its 3^oke Phthia and renowned Mycenae, and queen it 
 over vanquished Argos. Then shall be born the child 
 of an illustrious line, one of thine own Trojans, Caesar, 
 born to extend his empire to the ocean, his glor}^ to the 
 stars — Julius, in name as in blood the heir of great 
 lulus. Him thou shalt one day welcome in safety to 
 the sky, a warrior laden with Eastern spoils ; to him, 
 as to -^neas, men shall pray and make their vows. In 
 
BOOK I. 131 
 
 his days war shall cease, and savage times grow mild. 
 Faith with her hoar}' head, and Vesta, Quirinus, and 
 Remus his brother, shall give law to the world : grim, 
 iron-bound, closely welded, the gates of war shall be 
 closed ; the fiend of Discord a prisoner within, seated 
 on a pile of arms deadly as himself, his hands bound 
 behind his back with a hundred brazen chains, shall 
 roar ghastl}' from his throat of blood.* 
 
 So saying, he sends down from on high the son of 
 Maia, that Carthage the' new, her lands and her towers, 
 may open themselves to welcome in the Teucrians, lest 
 Dido, in her ignorance of Fate, should drive them from 
 her borders. Down flies Mercury through the vast 
 abyss of air, with his wings for oars, and has speedily 
 alighted on the shore of Lib3^a. See ! he is doing his 
 bidding already : the Punic nation is resigning the 
 fierceness of its nature at the god's pleasure ; above all 
 the rest, the queen is admitting into her bosom thoughts 
 of peace towards the Teucrians, and a heart of kind- 
 ness. 
 
 But ^neas the good, revolving man}^ things the 
 whole night through, soon as the gracious dawn is 
 vouchsafed, resolves to go out and explore this new 
 region ; to inquire what shores be these on which the 
 wind has driven him ; who their dwellers, for he sees it 
 is a wilderness, men or beasts ; and bring his comrades 
 back the news. Ilis fleet he hides in the wooded cove 
 under a hollow^-ock, with a wall of trees and stiffening 
 shade on each side. lie moves on with Achates, his 
 single companion, wielding in his hands two spear- 
 shafts, with heads of broad iron. He had reached the 
 middle of the wood, when his way was crossed by his 
 mother, wearing a maiden's mien and dress, and a 
 maiden's armor, Spartan, or even as Harpalyce of 
 
^18^ THE ^NEID. 
 
 Thrace, tires steed after steed, and heads the swift 
 waters of her own Hebrus as she flies along. For she 
 had a shapel}' bow duly slung from her shoulders in true 
 huntress fashion, and her hair streaming in the wind, 
 her knee bare, and her flowing scarf gathered round her 
 in a knot. Soon as she sees them, ' Ho ! 3'ouths,' cries 
 she, ' if you have chanced to see one of my sisters wan- 
 dering in these parts, tell me where to find her — wan- 
 dering with a quiver, and a spotted Ij-nx-hide fastened 
 about her ; or, it ma}' be, pressing on the heels of the 
 foaming boar with her hounds in full cry.' 
 
 Thus Venus spoke, and Venus* son replied : — ' No 
 sight or hearing have we had of an}' sister of thine, O 
 thou — what name shall I give thee ? maiden ; for thy 
 face is not of earth, nor the tone of thy voice human : 
 some goddess surely thou art. Phoebus' sister belike, 
 or one of the blood of the nymphs ? be gracious, whoe'er 
 thou art, and relieve our hardship, and tell us under 
 what sk}^ now, on what realms of earth we are thrown. 
 Utter strangers to the men and the place, we are wan- 
 dering, as thou seest, by the driving of the wind and 
 of the might}^ waters. Do this, and many a victim 
 shall fall to thee at the altar b}^ this hand of mine.' 
 
 Then Venus : — ' Na}', I can lay claim to no such 
 honors. Tyrian maidens, like me, are wont to carrj^ 
 the quiver, and tie the purple buskin high up the calf. 
 This that 3'ou now see is the Punic realm, the nation 
 Tyrian and the town Agenor's ; but on the frontiers are 
 the Libyans, a race ill to handle in war. The queen is 
 Dido, who left her home in Tyre to escape from her 
 brother. Lengthy is her tale of wTong, lengthy the 
 windings of its course ; but I will pass rapidly from 
 point to point. Her husband was Sychseus, wealthiest 
 of Phoenician land-owners, and loved by his poor wife 
 
BOOK L 133 
 
 with fervid passion ; on him her father had bestowed 
 her in her maiden bloom, Unking them together by the 
 omens of a first bridal. But the crown of Tyre was on 
 the head of her brother, Pygmahon, in crime monstrous 
 beyond the rest of men. They were two, and fury 
 came between them. Impious that he was, at the very 
 altar of the palace, the love of gold blinding his eyes, 
 he surprises Sychseus with his stealthy steel, and lays 
 him low, without a thought for his sister's passion ; he 
 kept the deed long concealed, and with many a base 
 coinage sustained the mockery of false hope in her pin- 
 ing love-lorn heart. But lo ! in her sleep there came to 
 her no less than the semblance of her unburied spouse, 
 lifting up a face of strange unearthly pallor ; the ruth- 
 less altar and his breast gored with the steel, he laid 
 bare the one and the other, and unveiled from first to 
 last the dark domestic crime. Then he urges her to 
 speed her flight, and quit her home forever, and in 
 aid of her journe}^ unseals a hoard of treasure long hid 
 in the earth, a mass of silver and gold which none 
 else knew. Dido's soul was stirred ; she began to make 
 read}' her flight, and friends to share it. There they 
 meet, all whose hate of the tyrant was fell or whose 
 fear was bitter ; ships, that chanced to lie ready in the 
 harbor, thej^ seize, and freight with gold. Awa}' it floats 
 over the deep, the greedy Pj^gmalion's wealth ; and 
 who heads the enterprise ? a woman ! So they came to 
 the spot where 3'ou now see yonder those lofty walls, 
 and the rising citadel of Carthage the new ; there they 
 bought ground, which got from the transaction the name 
 of Byrsa, as much as they could compass round with a 
 bull's hide. But who are you after all? What coast 
 are 3'ou come from, or whither are you holding on your 
 journey?' That question he answers thus, with a 
 
134 THE ^NEID. 
 
 heavy sigh, and a voice fetched from the bottom of bis 
 heart : — 
 
 ' Fair goddess ! should I begin from the first and pro- 
 ceed in order, and hadst thou leisure to listen to the 
 chronicle of our sufferings, eve would first close the 
 Olympian gates and la3^ the day to sleep. For us, 
 bound from ancient Troy, if the name of Troy has ever 
 chanced to pass through a Tyrian ear, wanderers over 
 divers seas already, we have been driven by a istorm's 
 wild will upon your Libyan coasts. I am ^neas, 
 styled the good, who am bearing with me in my fleet 
 the gods of Troy rescued from the foe ; a name blazed 
 by rumor above the stars. I am in quest of Italy, 
 looking there for an ancestral home, and a pedigree 
 drawn from high Jove himself. With twice ten ships 
 I climbed the Phrygian main, with a goddess mother 
 guiding me on my way, and a chart of oracles to fol- 
 low. Scarce seven remain to me now, shattered by 
 wind and wave. Here am 1, a stranger, nay, a beggar, 
 wandering over your Libyan deserts, driven from Europe 
 and Asia alike.' Venus could bear the complaint no 
 longer, so she thus struck into the middle of his sor- 
 rows : — 
 
 ' Whoever you are, it is not, I trow, under the frown 
 of heavenly powers that you draw the breath of life, 
 thus to have arrived at our Tyrian town. Only go on, 
 and make your way straight hence to the queen's pal- 
 ace. For I give you news that your comrades are re- 
 turned and your fleet brought back, wafted into shelter 
 by shifting gales, unless m}- learning of augury was 
 vain, and the parents who taught me cheats. Look at 
 these twelve swans exultant in victorious column, which 
 the bird of Jove, swooping from the height of ether, 
 was just now driving in confusion over the wide un- 
 
BOOK I. 135 
 
 sheltered skj^ ; see now how their line stretches, some 
 alighting on the ground, others just looking down on 
 those alighted. As they, thus rallied, ply their whirring 
 wings in sport, spreading their train round the sky, and 
 uttering songs of triumph, even so your vessels and 
 your gallant crews are either safe in the port, or en- 
 tering the haven with sails full spread. Only go on, 
 and where the way leads you direct your steps.' 
 
 She said, and as she turned away, flashed on their 
 sight her neck's roseate hue ; her ambrosial locks 
 breathed from her head a heavenly fragrance ; her robe 
 streamed down to her very feet ; and in her walk was 
 revealed the true goddess. Soon as he knew his 
 mother, he pursued her flying steps with words like 
 these : — ' Why wilt thou be cruel like the rest, mock- 
 ing thy son these man}' times with feigned semblances ? 
 Why is it not mine to grasp thy hand in my hand, and 
 hear and return the true language of the heart ? * Such 
 are his upbraidings, while he yet bends his way to the 
 town. But Venus fenced them round with a dim cloud 
 as they moved, and wrapped them as a goddess only 
 can in a spreading mantle of mist, that none anight be 
 able to see them, none to touch them, or put hinderances 
 in their path, or ask the reason of their coming. She 
 takes her way aloft to Paphos, glad to revisit the abode 
 she loves, where she has a temple and a hundred altars, 
 smoking with Sabaean incense, and fragrant with gar- 
 lands ever new. 
 
 They, meanwhile, have pushed on their way, where 
 the path guides them, and already they are climbing the 
 hill which hangs heavily over the city, and looks from 
 above on the towers that rise to meet it. JEneas mar- 
 vels at the mass of building, once a mere village of 
 huts ; marvels at the gates, and the civic din, and the 
 
136 THE jENEID, 
 
 paved ways. The T3Tians are alive and on fire — in- 
 tent, some on carrjdng the walls aloft and upheaving 
 the citadel, and rolling stones from underneath bj^ force 
 of hand ; some on making choice of a site for a dwell- 
 ing, and enclosing it with a trench. They are ordain- 
 ing the law and its guardians, and the senate's sacred 
 majesty. Here are some digging out havens ; there are 
 others laying deep the foundations of a theater, and 
 hewing from the rocks enormous columns, the lofty 
 ornaments of a stage that is to be. Such are the toils 
 that keep the commonwealth of bees at work in the sun 
 among the flowery meads when summer is new, what 
 time the}" lead out the nation's hope, the 3'oung now 
 grown, or mass together honey, clear and flowing, and 
 strain the cells to bursting with its nectarous sweets, 
 or relieve those who are coming in of their burdens, or 
 collect a troop and expel from their stalls the drones, 
 that lazy, thriftless herd. The work is all fire, and a 
 scent of thyme breathes from the fragrant honey. ' O 
 happy the}', whose city is rising already ! * cries JEneas, 
 as he looks upward to roof and dome. In he goes, 
 close fenced b}- his cloud, miraculous to tell, threads 
 his way through the midst, and mingles with the cit- 
 izens, unperceived of all. 
 
 A grove there was in the heart of the city, most 
 plenteous of shade — the spot where first, fresh from 
 the buflfeting of wave and wind, the Punic race dug up 
 the token which queenly Juno had bidden them expect, 
 the head of a fiery steed — for even thus, said she, the 
 nation should be renowned in war and rich in sus- 
 tenance for a life of centuries. Here Dido, Sidon's 
 daughter, was building a vast temple to Juno, rich in 
 offerings and in the goddess's especial presence ; of 
 brass was the threshold with its rising steps, clamped 
 
BOOK T, 137 
 
 with brass the door-posts, the hinge creaked on a door 
 of brass. In this grove it was that first a new object 
 appeared, as before, to sootlie away fear : here it was 
 that ^neas first dared to hope that all was safe, and to 
 place a better trust in his shattered fortunes. For 
 while his eye ranges over each part under the temple's 
 massy roof, as he waits there for the queen — while he 
 is marveling at the city's prosperous star, the various 
 artist-hands vying with each other, their tasks and the 
 toil they cost, he beholds, scene after scene, the battles 
 of Ilion, and the war that Fame had already blazed the 
 whole world over — Atreus' sons, and Priam, and the 
 enem}^ of both, Achilles. He stopped short, and 
 breaking into tears, 'What place is there left?' he 
 cries, ' Achates, what clime on earth that is not full of 
 our sad story? See there Priam. Here, too, worth 
 finds its due reward ; here, too, there are tears for 
 human fortune, and hearts that are touched by mortal- 
 ity. Be free from fear : this renown of ours will bring 
 you some measure of safety.' So speaking, he feeds 
 his soul on the empty portraiture, with many a sigh, 
 and lets copious rivers run down his cheeks. For he 
 still saw how, as thej^ battled round Pergamus, here 
 the Greeks were flying, the Trojan 3'outh in hot pur- 
 suit ; here the Phrj'gians, at their heels in his car 
 Achilles, with that dreadful crest. Not far from this 
 he recognizes with tears the snow}^ canvas of Rhesus' 
 tent, which, all surprised in its first sleep, Tydeus' son 
 was devastating with wide carnage, himself bathed in 
 blood — see ! he drives off the fiery steeds to his own 
 camp, ere they have had time to taste the pastures of 
 Tro}' or drink of Xanthus. There in another part is 
 Troilus in flight, his arms fallen from him — unhappy 
 boy, confronted with Achilles in unequal combat — 
 
138 THE ^NEID, 
 
 hurried away by his horses, and hanging half out of 
 the empty car, with his head thrown back, but the reins 
 still in his hand ; his neck and his hair are being trailed 
 along the ground, and his inverted spear is drawing 
 lines in the dust. Meanwhile to the temple of Pallas, 
 not their friend, were moving the Trojan dames with 
 locks disheveled, carrying the sacred robe, in suppliant 
 guise of mourning, their breasts bruised with their 
 hands — the goddess was keeping her e3'es riveted on 
 the ground, with her face turned away. Thrice had 
 Achilles dragged Hector round the walls of Ilion, and 
 was now selling for gold his body, thus robbed of breath. 
 Then, indeed, heavy was the groan that he gave from 
 the bottom of his heart, when he saw the spoils, the 
 car, the very body of his friend, and Priam, stretching 
 out those helpless hands. Himself, too, he recognizes 
 in the forefront of the Achaean ranks, and the squad- 
 rons of the East, and the arms of the swarthy Mem- 
 non. There, leading the columns of her Amazons, 
 with their moony shields, is Penthesilea in her martial 
 frenzy, blazing out, the center of thousands, as she 
 loops up her protruded breast with a girdle of gold, 
 the warrior queen, and nerves herself to the shock of 
 combat, a maiden against men. 
 
 While these things are meeting the wondering eyes 
 of ^neas the Dardan — while he is standing bewil- 
 dered, and continues riveted in one set gaze — the 
 queen has moved towards the temple. Dido, of loveliest 
 presence, with a vast train of 3^ouths thronging round 
 her. Like as on Eurotas' banks, or along the ridges of 
 C3'ntlms, Diana is footing the dance, while attending 
 her, a thousand mountain nymphs are massing them- 
 selves on either side ; she, her quiver on her shoulder, 
 as she steps, towers over the whole goddess sisterhood, 
 
BOOK I. 189 
 
 while Latona's bosom thrills silently with delight ; such 
 was Dido — such she bore herself triumphant through 
 the midst, to speed the work which had empire for its 
 prospect. Then, at the doors of the goddess, under 
 the midmost vaulting of the temple, with a fence of 
 arms round her, supported high on a throne, she took 
 her seat. There she was giving laws and judgments to 
 her citizens, and equalizing the burden of their tasks 
 by fair partition, or draughting it by lot, when suddenly 
 -^neas sees coming among the great crowd Antheus and 
 Sergestus, and brave Cloanthus, and others of the Tea- 
 crians, whom the black storm had scattered over the 
 deep, and carried far away to other coasts. Astounded 
 was he, overwhelmed, too, was Achates, all for joy and 
 fear : eagerlj^ were they burning to join hands with 
 theirs, but the unexplained mystery confounds their 
 minds. They carry on the concealment, and look out 
 from the hollow cloud that wraps them, to learn what 
 fortune their mates have had, on what shore they are 
 leaving their fleet, what is their errand here — for they 
 were on their way, a deputation from all the crews, 
 suing for grace, and were making for the temple with 
 loud cries. 
 
 After they had gained an entrance, and had obtained 
 leave to speak in the presence, Ilioneus, the eldest, 
 thus began, calm of soul : — 
 
 ' Gracious queen, to whom Jupiter has given to 
 found a new city, and to restrain by force of law the 
 pride of savage nations, we, hapless Trojans, driven by 
 the winds over every sea, make our prayer to 3^ou — 
 keep oflf from our ships the horrors of fire, have pity 
 on a pious race, and vouchsafe a nearer view to our 
 affairs. We are not come to carry the havoc of the 
 sword into the homes of Libya — to snatch booty and 
 
140 THE ^NEID. 
 
 hurry it to the shore ; such violence is not in our na- 
 ture ; such insolence were not for the vanquished. 
 There is a place — the Greeks call it Hesperia — a land 
 old in stor}', strong in arms and in the fruitfulness of 
 its soil ; the (Enotrians were its settlers ; now report 
 says that later generations have called the nation Italian, 
 from the name of their leader. Thither were we voy- 
 aging, when, rising with a sudden swell, Orion, lord of 
 the storm, carried us into hidden shoals, and far away 
 by the stress of reckless gales over the water, the surge 
 mastering us, and over pathless rocks scattered us here 
 and there : a small remnant, we drifted hither on to 
 your shores. What race of men have we here ? What 
 country is so barbarous as to sanction a native usage 
 like this ? Even the hospitality of the sand is forbid- 
 den us — they draw the sword, and will not let us set 
 foot on the land's edge. If you defy the race of men, 
 and the weapons that mortals wield, j^et look to have 
 to do with gods, who watch over the right and the 
 wrong. iEneas was our king, than whom never man 
 breathed more just, more eminent in piet}^, or in war 
 and martial prowess. If the Fates are keeping our 
 hero alive — if he is feeding on this upper air, and not 
 yet lying down in death's cruel shade — all our fears 
 are over, nor need you be sorry to have made the first 
 advance in the contest of kindly courtesy. The realm 
 of Sicily, too, has cities for us, and store of arms, and 
 a hero-king of Trojan blood, Acestes. Give us leave 
 but to laj' up on shore our storm-beaten fleet, to fashion 
 timber in your forests, and strip boughs for our oars, 
 tliat, if we are allowed to sail for Italy, our comrades 
 and khig restored to us, we may make our joA'ful way 
 to Italy and to Latium ; or, if our safety is swallowed 
 up, and thoQ, best father of the Teucrians, art the prey 
 
BOOK L 141 
 
 of the Libyan deep, and a nation's hope lives no longer 
 in lulus, then, at least, we may make for Sicania's 
 straits, and the houses standing to welcome us, whence 
 we came hither, and may find a king in Acestes.' Such 
 was the speech of Ilioneus ; an accordant clamor burst 
 at once from all the sons of Dardanus. 
 
 Then briefly Dido, with downcast look, makes reply : 
 — ' Teucrians ! unburden your hearts of fear, lay your 
 anxieties aside. It is the stress of danger and the in- 
 fancy of my kingdom that make me put this policy in 
 motion and protect my frontiers with a guard all about. 
 The men of ^neas and the city of Troy — who can be 
 ignorant of them? — the deeds and the doers, and 'all 
 the blaze of that might}^ war? Not so blunt are the 
 wits we Punic folk carry with us, not so wholly does 
 the sun turn his back on our Tyrian town when he har- 
 nesses his steeds. Whether you make your choice of 
 Hesperia the great, and the old realm of Saturn, or of 
 the borders of Er3^x and their king Acestes, I will send 
 you on your wa}^ with an escort to protect 3-ou, and 
 will supply 3-0U with stores. Or would you like to settle 
 along with me in mj^ kingdom here ? Look at the city 
 I am building, it is yours, lay up your ships, Trojan 
 and T^^rian shall be dealt with by me without distinc- 
 tion. Would to heaven 3^our king were here too, driven 
 by the gale that drove you hither — iEneas himself! 
 For mj^self, I will send trusty messengers along the 
 coast, with orders to traverse the furthest parts of 
 Lib3-a, in case he should be shipwrecked and wander- 
 ing anywhere in forest or town.' 
 
 Excited b^^ her words, brave Achates and father 
 -^neas, too, were burning long ere this to break out of 
 their cloud. Achates first accosts iEneas : — * God- 
 dess-born, what purpose now is foremost in your mind? 
 
142 THE ^NEID. 
 
 All 3^ou see is safe, our fleet and our mates are restored 
 to us. One is missing, whom our own e^'es saw in the 
 midst of the surge swallowed up, all the rest is even as 
 your mother told us.' 
 
 Scarce had he spoken when the cloud that enveloped 
 them suddenly parts asunder and clears into the open 
 skj^ Out stood ^neas, and shone again in the bright 
 sunshine, his face and his bust the image of a god, for 
 his great mother had shed graceful tresses over her 
 son's brow, and the glowing flush of youth, and had 
 breathed the breath of beauty and gladness into his 
 eyes, loveliness such as the artist's touch imparts to 
 ivory, or when silver or Parian marble is enchased with 
 yellow gold. Then he addresses the queen, and speaks 
 suddenly to the astonishment of all : — ' Here am I 
 whom you are seeking, before you. JEneas, the Trojan, 
 snatched from the jaws of the Lib}- an wave. O heart 
 that alone of all has found pity for Troy's cruel agonies 
 — that makes us, poor remnants of Dansean fury, ut- 
 terly spent by all the chances of land and sea, desti- 
 tute of all, partners of its city, of its very palace ! 
 To pay such a debt of gratitude. Dido, is more than 
 we can do — more than can be done by all the survi- 
 vors of the Dardan nation, now scattered the wide 
 world over. May the gods — if there are powers that 
 regard the pious, if justice and conscious rectitude 
 count for aught anywhere on earth — may they give 
 you the reward you merit ! What age had the happi- 
 ness to bring j-ou forth? what godlike parents gave 
 such nobleness to the world ? While the rivers run into 
 the sea, while the shadows sweep along the mountain- 
 sides, while the stars draw life from the sky, j'our glory 
 and your name and your praise shall still endure, what- 
 ever the land whose call I must obey.' So saying, he 
 
BOOK L 143 
 
 stretches out his right hand to his friend Ilioneus, his 
 left to Serestus, and so on to others, gallant Gyas and 
 gallant Cloanthus. 
 
 Astounded was Dido, Sidon's daughter, first at- the 
 hero's presence, then at his enormous sufferings, and 
 she bespoke him thus : — ' What chance is it, goddess- 
 born, that is hunting you through such a wilderness of 
 perils ? what violence throws you on our savage coasts ? 
 Are you, indeed, the famed ^neas, whom to Anchises 
 the Dardan, Venus, queen of light and love, bore by the 
 stream of Simois? Aye, I remember Teucer coming 
 to Sidon, driven from the borders of his fatherland, 
 hoping to gain a new kingdom by the aid of Belus. 
 Belus, m}' sire, was then laying waste the rich fields of 
 Cyprus, and ruling the isle with a conqueror's sway. 
 Ever since that time I knew the fate of the Trojan city, 
 and 3'our name, and the Pelasgian princes. Foe as he 
 was, he would alwaj's extol the Teucrians with signal 
 praise, and profess that he himself came of the ancient 
 Teucrian stock. Come then, brave men, and make 
 our dwelhngs your home. I, too, have had a fortune 
 like yours, which, after the buffeting of countless suf- 
 ferings, has been pleased that I should find rest in this 
 land at last. Myself no stranger to sorrow, I am 
 learning to succor the unhappy.' With these words, at 
 the same moment she ushers JEneas into her queenly 
 palace, and orders a solemn sacrifice at the temples of 
 the gods. Meantime, as if this were naught, she sends 
 to his comrades at the shore twenty bulls, a hundred 
 huge swine with backs all bristling, a hundred fat 
 lambs with their mothers, and the wine-god's jovial 
 bounty. 
 
 But the palace within is laid out with all the splendor 
 of regal luxury, and in the center of the mansion they 
 
144 THE ^NEID. 
 
 are making ready for the banquet ; the coverlets are 
 embroidered, and of princel}^ pul-ple — on the tables is 
 massy silver, and chased on gold the gallant exploits 
 of Tyrian ancestors, a long, long chain of story, de- 
 rived through hero after hero ever since the old nation 
 was young. 
 
 -^neas, for his fatherly love would not leave his 
 heart at rest, sends on Achates with speed to the ships 
 to tell Ascanius the news and conduct him to the city. 
 On Ascanius all a fond parent's anxieties are centered. 
 Presents, moreover, rescued from the ruins of Ilion, he 
 bids him bring — a pall stiff with figures of gold, and 
 a veil with a border of yellow acanthus, adornments of 
 Argive Helen, which she carried away from M3xense, 
 when she went to Troy and to her unblessed bridal, 
 her mother Leda's marvelous gift ; the scepter, too, 
 which Hi one had once borne, the eldest of Priam's 
 daughters, and the string of pearls for the neck, and 
 the double coronal of jewels and gold. With this to 
 dispatch. Achates was bending his way to the ships. 
 
 But the lady of Cythera is casting new wiles, new 
 devices in her breast, that Cupid, form and feature 
 changed, may arrive in the room of the charmer Asca- 
 nius, and bj^ the presents he brings influence the queen 
 to madness, and turn the very marrow of her bones 
 to fire. She fears the two-faced generation, the 
 double-tongued sons of T^tc ; Juno's hatred scorches 
 her like a flame, and as night draws on the care comes 
 back to her. So then with these words she addresses 
 her winged Love : — ' My son, who art alone my 
 strength and my mighty power, my son, who laughest 
 to scorn our great father's T3'phoean thunderbolts, to 
 thee I flj^ for aid, and make suppliant prayer of th}' 
 majesty. How thy brother -^neas is tossed on the 
 
BOOK L 145 
 
 ocean the whole world over by Juno*s implacable ran- 
 cor I need not tell thee — nay, thou hast often mingled 
 thy grief with mine. He is now the guest of Dido, the 
 Phoenician woman, and the spell of a courteous tongue 
 is laid on him, and I fear what may be the end of 
 taking shelter under Juno's wing ; she will never be 
 idle at a time on which so much hangs. Thus then 
 I am planning to be first in the field, surprising the 
 queen by stratagem, and encompassing her with fire, 
 that no power may be able to work a change in her, but 
 that a mighty passion for ^neas may keep her mine. 
 For the way in which thou may est bring this about, 
 listen to what I have been thinking. The young heir 
 of royalty, at his loved father's summons, is making 
 ready to go to this Sidonian city — m}^- soul's darling 
 that he is — the bearer of presents that have survived 
 the sea and the flames of Troy. Him I will lull in 
 deep sleep and hide him in my hallowed dwelling high 
 on Cythera or Idalia, that by no chance he may know 
 or mar our plot. Do thou then for a single night, no 
 more, artfull}' counterfeit his form, and put on the 
 boy's usual look, th3"self a bo}', that when Dido, at the 
 height of her jo}', shall take thee into her lap, while the 
 princely board is laden with the vine-god's liquor flow- 
 ing, when she shall be caressing thee and printing her 
 fondest kisses on thy cheek, thou mayest breathe con- 
 cealed fire into her veins, and steal upon her with 
 poison.' 
 
 At once Love complies with his fond mother's words, 
 puts off his wings, and walks rejoicing in the gait of 
 lulus. As for Ascanius, Venus sprinkles his form all 
 over with the dew of gentle slumber, and carries him, 
 as a goddess may, lapped in her bosom, into Idalia's 
 lofty groves, where a soft couch of amaracus enfolds 
 10 
 
146 THE yENEID. 
 
 him with its flowers, and the fragrant breath of its 
 sweet shade. Meanwhile Cupid was on his way, all 
 obedience, bearing the royal presents to the Tyrians, 
 and glad to follow Achates. When he arrives, he finds 
 the queen already settled on the gorgeous tapestry of 
 a golden couch, and occupying the central place. Al- 
 ready' father -^neas, already the chivalry of Troy are 
 flocking in, and stretching themselves here and there 
 on coverlets of purple. There are servants offering 
 them water for their hands, and deftly producing the 
 bread from the baskets, and presenting towels with 
 shorn nap. Within are fifty maidens, whose charge is 
 in course to pile up provisions in lasting store, and 
 light up with fire the gods of the hearth. A hundred 
 others there are, and male attendants of equal number 
 and equal age, to load the table with dishes, and set 
 on the cups. The Tyrians, too, have assembled in 
 crowds through the festive hall, and scatter themselves 
 as invited over the embroidered couches. There is mar- 
 veling at Eneas' presents, marveling at lulus, at those 
 glowing features, where the god shines through, and 
 those words which he feigns so well, and at the robe 
 and the veil with the yellow acanthus border. Chief of 
 all, the unhappy victim of coming ruin cannot satisfy 
 herself with gazing, and kindles as she looks, the Phoe- 
 nician woman, charmed with the boy and the presents 
 alike. He, after he has hung long in Eneas' arms and 
 round his neck, gratifjing the intense fondness of the 
 sire he feigned to be his, finds his way to- the queen. 
 She is riveted by him — riveted eye and heart, and 
 ever and anon fondles him in her lap — poor Dido, un- 
 conscious how great a god is sitting heavy on th^t 
 wretched bosom. But he, with his mind still bent on 
 his Acidalian mother, is beginning to efface the name 
 
BOOK L 147 ,^^ 
 
 of Sychseus letter by letter, and endeavoring to ^ws- yXJ.AAJ^-^''-^ 
 prise by a living passion affections long torpid, and a 
 heart long unused to love. 
 
 When the banquet's first lull was come, and the 
 board removed, then they set up the huge bowls and 
 wreathe the wine. A din rings to the roof — the voice 
 rolls through those spacious halls ; lamps hang from 
 the gilded ceiling, burning brightly, and flambeau-fires 
 put out the night. Then the queen called for a cup, 
 heavy with jewels and gold, and filled it with unmixed 
 wine ; the same which had been used b}^ Belus, and 
 every king from Belus downward. Then silence was 
 commanded through the hall. ' Jupiter, for thou hast 
 the name of lawgiver for guest and host, grant that this 
 day may be auspicious alike for the Tyrians and the 
 voyagers from Troy, and that its memory may long 
 live among our posterity. Be with us, Bacchus, the 
 giver of jollity, and Juno, the queen of our blessings ; 
 and 3'ou, the lords of Tjtc, may your goodwill grace 
 this meeting.' She said, and poured on the table an 
 offering of the wine, and, the libation made, touched 
 the cup first with her lips, then handed it to Bitias, ral- 
 lying his slowness. Eagerly he quaffed the foaming 
 goblet, and drenched himself deep with its brimming 
 gold. Then came the other lords in order. lopas, the 
 long-haired bard, takes his gilded lyre, and fills the 
 hall with music ; he, whose teacher was the mighty 
 Atlas. His song is of the wanderings of the moon and 
 the agonies of the sun, whence sprung man's race and 
 the cattle, whence rain-water and fire ; of Arcturus 
 and the showery Hyades, and the twin Bears ; why the 
 winter suns make such haste to dip in ocean, or what 
 is the retarding cause that bids the nights move slowly. 
 Plaudits redouble from the Tyrians, and the Trojans 
 
148 THE JENEID. 
 
 follow the lead. With varied talk, too, she kept length- 
 ening out the night, unhappy Dido, drinking draughts 
 of love long and deep, as she asked much about Priam, 
 about Hector much ; now what were the arms in which 
 Aurora's son had come to battle ; now what Diomede's 
 steeds were like ; now how great was Achilles. ' Or 
 rather, gentle guest,' cries she, ' tell us the story from 
 the very first — all about the stratagems of the Dana- 
 ans, and the sad fate of your country, and your own 
 wanderings — for this is now the seventh summer that 
 is wafting you a wanderer still over every land and 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 Every tongue was hushed, and every eye fixed in- 
 tentlj', when, from his high couch, father ^neas began 
 thus : — 
 
 ' Too cruel to be told, great queen, is the sorrow you 
 bid me revive — how the power of Troy and its empire 
 met with piteous overthrow from the Danaans — the 
 heart-rending sights which my own eyes saw, and the 
 scenes where I had a large part to play. Who, in such 
 recital — be he of the Myrmidons or the Dolopes, or a 
 soldier of ruthless Ulysses' band — would refrain from 
 tears ? And now, too, night is rushing in dews down 
 the steep of heaven, and the setting stars counsel re- 
 pose. Still, if so great be your longing to acquaint 
 yourself with our disasters, and hear the brief tale of 
 Troy's last agony, though my mind shudders at the 
 remembrance, and starts back in sudden anguish, I will 
 essay the task. 
 
 ' Broken by war and foiled by destiny, the chiefs of 
 
BOOK IL 149 
 
 the Danaans, now that the flying years were numbering 
 so many, build a horse of mountain size, by the inspira- 
 tion of Pallas' skill, and interlace its ribs with planks 
 of fir. A vow for their safe journey home is the pre- 
 text : such the fame that spreads. In this they secretly 
 enclose chosen men of sinew, picked out by lot, in the 
 depth of its sides, and fill every corner of those mighty 
 caverns, the belly of the monster, with armed warriors. 
 
 ' In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an island of wide- 
 spread renown, powerful and rich while Priam's empire 
 yet was, now a mere bay, a treacherous roadstead for 
 ships. Thus far the}' sail out, and hide themselves on 
 the forsaken coast. We thought them gone off with a 
 fair wind for Mycenae. And so all Trojan land shakes 
 off the agony of years. Open fly the gates ; what 
 pleasure to go and see the Dorian camp, and the 
 places deserted, and the shore forsaken ! Yes, here 
 were the troops of the Dolopes ; here the tent of that sav- 
 age Achilles ; here the ships were drawn up ; here they 
 used to set the battle in array. Some of us are stand- 
 ing agaze at the fatal offering to the virgin goddess, and 
 wondering at the hugeness of the horse ; and Thj-mseteS 
 takes the lead, urging to have it dragged within the 
 walls, and lodged in the citadel, either with treasonable 
 intent, or that the fate of Troy had begun to set that 
 way. But Cap3's, and the men of saner judgment, bid 
 us send this snare of the Danaans, this suspicious pres- 
 ent, "headlong into the sea, or light a fire under and 
 burn it ; or, if not that, to pierce and probe that hollow 
 womb that might hide so much. The populace, unstable 
 as ever, divides off into opposite factions. 
 
 ' Throwing himself before all, with a great crowd at 
 his back, Laocoon, all on fire, comes running down the 
 steep of the citadel, crying in the distance, "What 
 
150 THE ^NEID. 
 
 strange madness is this, my unhappy countrymen? 
 Think you that the enemy has sailed off, or that a 
 Danaan could ever make a present that had no treach- 
 ery in it ? Is this your knowledge of Ulysses ? Either 
 the Achaeans are shut up and hiding in this piece of 
 wood, or it is an engine framed against our walls, to 
 command the houses and come down on the city from 
 above, or there is some other secret trick. Men of 
 Troy, put no faith in the horse^\ Whatever it be, I 
 fear a Greek even with a gift in hisjiand.^* With these 
 words he hurled a mighty spear with all his force against 
 the beast's side, the jointed arch of its belly. It 
 lodged, and stood quivering ; the womb shook again, 
 and an echo and a groan rang hollow from its caverns ; 
 and then, had but heaven's destiny and man's judgment 
 been un warped, he had led us to carry sword and 
 haA^oc into the Argive lurking-place, and Troy would 
 now be standing, and thou, Priam's tall fortress, still 
 in being. 
 yv ' Meanwhile, see ! some Dardan shepherds are drag- 
 ^ ging with loud shouts before the king a young man 
 with his hands tied behind him, who had thrown him- 
 self, a stranger, across their way, to compass this very 
 thing, and thus let the Achaeans into Troy — bold of 
 heart, and ready for either issue, either to play off his 
 stratagem, or to meet inevitable death. From all sides, 
 in eager curiosit}', the Trojan youth come streaming 
 round, vying in their insults to the prisoner. Now 
 then, listen to the tale of Danaan fraud, and from one 
 act of guilt learn what the whole nation is. There as 
 he stood, with all eyes bent on him, bewildered, de- 
 fenseless, and looked round on the Phr3'gian bands, 
 '' Alas ! " he cries, " where is there a spot of earth or 
 sea that will give me shelter now ? or what last resource 
 
BOOK IL 151 
 
 is left for a wretch like me — one who has no place 
 among the Danaans to hide my head — while the chil- 
 dren of Dardanus no less are in arms against me, cry- 
 ing for blood}" vengeance ? " At that piteous cry our 
 mood was changed, and every outrage checked. We 
 encourage him to speak — to tell us what his parentage 
 is ; what his business ; what he has to rest on as a pris- 
 oner. " All, my lord, shall be avowed to you truly, 
 whatever be the issue. I will not deny that I am an 
 (^ Argive by nation ; this to begin with. Nor if Fortune,' 
 has made a miserable man out of Sinon, shall her base 
 schooling make him deceiver and liar as well. If haply 
 in talk your ears ever caught the name of Palamedes, 
 of the house of Belus, and his wide-spread renown — ■ 
 his, whom under false accusation, an innocent man, 
 charged by the blackest calumn}^, all because his voice 
 was against the war, the Pelasgians sent down to death, 
 and now, when he is laid in darkness, lament him too 
 late — know that it was as his comrade and near kins- 
 man I was sent by a needy father to a soldier's life in 
 earliest youth. While he stood with his ro3"al state 
 unimpaired, an honored member of the kingly council, 
 I, too, enjoyed my measure of name and dignity ; but 
 after the jealousy of false Ulysses — you know the tale 
 — removed him from ^his upper clime — dashed from 
 my height, I dragged on life in darkness and sorrow, 
 and vented to my own heart my rage at the disaster of 
 my innocent friend. Nor did I keep silence — madman 
 that I was ! No, if ever the chance were given me — 
 if ever I came back with glory to my native Argos — I 
 vowed myself his avenger, and my words stirred up 
 bitter enmity. From that time my ruin began ; from 
 that time Ulysses was ever threatening me with some 
 new charge, ever scattering abroad words of mystery, 
 
152 THE jENEID, 
 
 and looking for allies to plot with. Nor did he rest till 
 by Calchas' agency — but why recall this unwelcome 
 stor}" with no end to gain ? Wh}^ waste your time, if 
 3"ou hold all Acliseans alike, and to hear tliat is to hear 
 enough? Take the vengeance you should have taken 
 long ago. It is just what would please the Ithacan, 
 and earn a large reward from the sons of Atreus ! " 
 
 ' This makes us burn, indeed, to explore and inquire 
 into the reason of his tale, not knowing that crime 
 ' could be so monstrous, and Pelasgian art so cunning. 
 He resumes, in faltering tones, spoken from his false 
 heart : — 
 
 ' "Often have the Danaans designed to turn their 
 back on Troy and accomplish a retreat, and abandon 
 the war that had wearied them so long ; and would they 
 bad done it ! As often has the fierce inclemency of the 
 deep barred their purpose, and the south wind fright- 
 ened them from sailing. Especially, when this horse 
 was set up at last, a compacted mass of maple planks, 
 the thunder of the storm-clouds was heard the whole 
 firmament over. In our perplexity we send Eurypylus 
 to inquire of Phoebus's oracle, and this is the gloomy 
 message that he brings back from the shrine ; ' With 
 blood it was 3'e appeased the winds, even with a 
 maiden's slaughter, when first ye came, Danaans, to 
 the shore of Ilion. With blood it is ye must buy your 
 return, and propitiate heaven by the Mfe of an Argive ! ' 
 Soon as the news reached the public ear, every mind was 
 cowed, and a cold shudder thrilled the depths of every 
 heart. For whom has Fate a summons ? Whom does 
 Apollo demand as his prey? And now the Ithacan, 
 with boisterous vehemence, drags forward the prophet 
 Calchas, insists on knowing what that announcement 
 of heaven's will may mean ; and many even then were 
 
BOOK II. 153 
 
 the prophetic mouths that warned me of the trickster's 
 cruel villainy, and many the eyes that silently foresaw 
 the future. Ten days the seer holds his peace, and 
 keeps his tent, refusing to utter a word that should dis- 
 close any name or sacrifice any life. At last, goaded 
 by the Ithacan's vehement clamor, he breaks into a con- 
 certed utterance, and dooms me to the altar. All 
 assented, well content that the danger which each 
 feared for himself should be directed to the extinction 
 of one poor wretch. And now the day of horror was 
 come ; all was being ready for my sacrifice — • the salt 
 cakes for the fire, and the fillet to crown my brow — when 
 I escaped, I own it, from death, and broke my bonds, 
 and hid myself that night in a muddy marsh in the 
 covert of the rushes, while they should be sailing, in 
 the faint hope that they had sailed. My old country, 
 I never expect to see it again, nor my darling children, 
 and the father I have longed so for ! No ! they are 
 likely to visit them with vengeance for my escape, and 
 expiate this guilt of mine by taking their poor lives. ' 
 O ! by the gods above, and the powers that know when 
 truth is spoken, if there is yet abiding anywhere among 
 men such a thing as unsullied faith, I conjure you, have 
 pity on this weight of suflering, have pity on a soul 
 that is unworthily borne down ! " 
 
 ' Such a tearful appeal gains him his life, and our 
 compassion too. Priam himself is first to bid them re- 
 lieve the man of his manacles and the chains that bound 
 him, and addresses him in words of kindness, ''Who- 
 ever you are, from this time forth have done with the 
 Greeks, and forget them. I make you my man, and 
 bid you answer truly the questions I shall put. What 
 do they mean by setting up this huge mountain of a 
 horse? Who was the prompter of it? What is their 
 
154 ° THE ^NEID. 
 
 object? Some religious offering, or some engine of 
 war?" 
 
 ' Thus Priam : the prisoner, with all his Pelasgian 
 craft and cunning about him, raised his unfettered hands 
 to the stars : — 
 
 ' "You, eternal fires, with your inviolable majesty, 
 be my witnesses ; you, altars and impious swords, from 
 which I fled ; and 3'ou, hallowed fillets, which I wore 
 for the sacrifice ! I am free to break all the sacred ties 
 that bound me to the Greeks. I am free to treat them 
 as m}' foes, and disclose all their secrets to the light of 
 da}', all the claims of tlie land of my birth notwith- 
 standing. Only do thou abide by thy plighted word, 
 and preserve faith with thy preserver, land of Troy, if 
 he tells thee true, and makes thee large returns. 
 
 ' " The strength of the Danaan hopes, and the soul 
 of their confidence in the war they j^lunged into, has 
 ever been the aid of Pallas. From the time when 
 Tydeus' impious son and Ulysses, that coiner of villainy, 
 dared to drag away from her hallowed temple the fate- 
 ful Palladium, slaughtering the guards who watched 
 the citadel's height, thenceforth there was an ebb and 
 a backsliding in the Danaan hopes, their forces shat- 
 tered, the goddess estranged. Nor were the portents 
 dubious that betokened Tritonia*s change of mood. 
 Scarce was the image lodged in the camp, when flash- 
 ing fire glowed in her uplifted eyes, and salt sweat 
 trickled over her frame, and thrice of herself she leaped 
 from the ground, marvelous to relate, shield and quiver- 
 ing lance and all. Forthwith Calchas sounds the note 
 for flight over the perilous deep, for that Pergamus can 
 never be razed b}' Argive steel, unless the}^ go to 
 Argos for fresh omens, and bring back the divine aid 
 which their crooked keels bore with them aforetime 
 
BOOK IT. 155 tXX^ 
 
 over the sea. And now this their voyage home to 
 M3^cen8e is to get new forces and gods to sail with 
 them ; they will recross the deep, and come upon you 
 unforeseen. Such is Calchas* scanning of the omens. 
 As for this image, he warned them to set it up in ex- 
 change for the Palladium, and, in expiation of injured 
 deity, to atone for their fatal crime. Calchas, how- 
 ever, bade them raise it to the vast height you see, 
 knitting plank to plajik^ till it was brought near to 
 heaven, that it mightjiotjbe admitted at the gates or 
 dragged within the walls, and thus restore to the peo- 
 ple the bulwark of their old worship. For if your 
 hand should profane Mhierva's offering, then (said he) 
 a mighty destruction — ma}" the gods turn the omen 
 on his head ere it falls on yours ! — would come on the 
 empire of Priam and the Phrygian nation ; but if these 
 hands of yours should help it to scale yoxxv city's 
 height, Asia w^ould roll the mighty tide of invasion 
 on the walls of Pelops, and our posterity would have 
 to meet the fate he threatened." 
 
 ' Such was the stratagem — the cursed art of per- 
 jured Sinon — that gained credence for the tale,; and 
 such the victory won over us by wiles and constrained 
 tears — over us, whom not T3^deus' son, nor Achilles 
 of Larissa, nor ten years of war subdued, nor a fleet 
 of a thousand sail. 
 
 ' And now another object, greater and far more ter- 
 rible, is forced on my poor countrymen, to the con- 
 fusion of their unprophetic souls. Laocoon, drawn by 
 lot as Neptune's priest, was sacrificing a mighty bull 
 at the wonted altar — wherT behold from Tenedos, 
 over the still deep — I shudder as I recount the tale 
 — two serpents coiled in vast circles are seen breasting 
 the sea, and moving side by side towards the shore. 
 
156 THE ^NEID. 
 
 Their breasts rise erect among the waves ; their manes, 
 of blood-red hue, tower over the water, the rest of 
 them floats behind on the main, trailing a huge undu- 
 lating length ; the brine foams and dashes about them ; 
 they are already on shore, in the plain — with their 
 glowing eyes bloodshot and fiery, and their forked 
 tongues pla^'ing in their hissing mouths. We fly all 
 wa^'s in pale terror : the}', in an unswerving column, 
 make for Laocoon, and first each serpent folds round 
 one of his two sons, clasping the youthful body, and 
 greedily devouring the poor limbs. Afterwards, as 
 the father comes to the rescue, weapon in hand, they 
 fasten on him and lash their enormous spires tight 
 round him — and now twice folded round his middle, 
 twice embracing his neck with their scal}^ length, they 
 tower over him with uplifted head and crest. He is 
 straining with agonizing clutch to pull the knots 
 asunder, his priestly fillets all bedewed with gore and 
 black poison, and raising all the while dreadful cries 
 to heaven — like the bellowing, when a wounded bull 
 darts away from the altar, dashing off from his neck 
 the ill- aimed ax. But the two serpents escape glid- 
 ingly to the temple top, making for the height where 
 ruthless Tritonia is enthroned, and there shelter them- 
 selves under the goddess's feet and the round of her 
 shield. Then, indeed, every breast is cowed and 
 thrilled through by a new and strange terror — every 
 voice cries that Laocoon has been duly punished for 
 his crime, profaning the sacred wood with his weap- 
 on's point, and hurhng his guilty lance against the 
 back of the steed. Let the image be drawn to her 
 temple, and let prayer be made to the goddess, is the 
 general cry — we break through the walls and open 
 the town within. All gird them to the work, putting 
 
BOOK IL 157 
 
 wheels to run easily under its feet, and throwing 
 lengths of hempen tie round its neck. It scales the 
 walls, that fateful engine, with its armed brood — 
 boys and un wedded girls, standing about it, chant 
 sacred hymns, delighted to touch the rope. In it 
 moves, rolling with threatening brow into the heart of 
 the cit3^ O my country ! O Ilion, home of the gods ! 
 O ye, Dardan towers, with your martial fame ! Yes 
 — four times on the gateway's very threshold it stopped, 
 four times the arms rattled in its womb. On, however, 
 we press, unheeding, in the blindness of our frenzy, 
 and lodge the ill-starred portent in our hallowed cita- 
 del. Even then Cassandra unseals to speak of future 
 fate those lips which by the g(fd's command no Trojan 
 ever believed — while we, alas ! we, spend the day 
 that was to be our last in crowning the temples of the 
 gods with festal boughs the whole city through. 
 
 ' Meantime round rolls the sky, and on comes night 
 from the ocean, wrapping in its mighty shade earth 
 and heaven and Myrmidon wiles : through the citj' 
 the Trojans are hushed in careless repose, their tired 
 limbs in the arms of sleep. Already was the Argive 
 host on its way from Tenedos, through the friendly 
 stillness of the quiet moon, making for the well-known 
 shore, when see ! the royal ship mounts its fire sig- 
 nal, and Sinon, Sheltered by heaven's partial decree, 
 stealthily"Set§^ large the Danaans, hid in that treach- 
 erous womb, and opens the pine- wood door : they as 
 the horse opens are restored to upper air, and leap 
 forth with jo}^ from the hollow timber, Thessander 
 and Sthenelus leading the way, and the dreaded Ulys- 
 ses, gliding down the lowered rope, and Achamas and 
 Thoas, and Neoptolemus of Peleus' line, and first 
 Machaon, and Menelaus, and the framer of the cheat 
 
158 THE uENEID. 
 
 himself, Epeus. They rush on the town as it lies 
 drowned in sleep and revelr3\ The watchers are put 
 to the sword, the gates thrown open, and all are wel- 
 coming their comrades, and uniting with the conspiring 
 bands. 
 
 ' It was just the time when first slumber comes to 
 heal human suffering, stealing on men by heaven's 
 blessing with balmiest influence. Lo ! as I slept, before 
 my eyes Hector, in deepest sorrow, seemed to be stand- 
 ing by me, shedding rivers of tears — mangled from 
 dragging at the car, as I remember him of old, and 
 black with gory dust, and with his swollen feet bored 
 by the thong. Ay me ! what a sight was there ! what 
 a change from that Hector of ours, who comes back to 
 us clad in the spoils of Achilles, or from hurling Phry- 
 gian fire on Danaan vessels ! with stiffened beard and 
 hair matted with blood, and those wounds fresh about 
 him, which fell on him so thickly round his country's 
 walls. Methought I addressed him first with tears like 
 his own, fetching from my breast the accents of sorrow 
 — " O light.of Dardan land, surest hope that Trojans 
 ever had ! What dela}" has kept you so long ? From 
 what clime is the Hector of our longings returned to us 
 at last? O the ej'es with which, after long months of 
 death among your people, months of manifold suffering 
 to Troj^ and her sons, spent and weary, we look upon 
 you now ! What unworth}' cause has marred the clear 
 beauty of those features, or why do I behold these 
 wounds ? " He answers naught, and gives no idle heed 
 to my vain inquiries, but with a deep sigh, heaved from 
 the bottom of his heart — " Ah ! fly, goddess-born ! " 
 cries he, "and escape from these flames — the walls 
 are in the enemy's hand — Troy is tumbling from its 
 summit — the claims of country and king are satisfied 
 
BOOK IL 159 
 
 — if Pergamus could be defended by force of hand, it 
 would have been defended by mine, in my day. Your 
 country's worship and her _gods are what she intrusts j 
 to you now — take them to share your destin}^ — seek / 
 for them a mighty city, which you shall one day build / 
 when you have wandered the ocean over." With these ' 
 words he brings out Queen Vesta with her fillets and 
 the ever-burning fire from the secret shrine. 
 
 ' Meanwhile the city in its various quarters is being 
 convulsed with agony — and ever more and more, 
 though mj^ father Anchises' palace was retired in the 
 privacy of embosoming trees, the sounds deepen, and 
 the alarm of battle swells. I start up from sleep, mount 
 the sloping roof, and stand intently listening — even 
 as when among standing corn a spark falls with a fierce 
 south wind to fan it, or the impetuous stream of a 
 mountain torrent sweeps the fields, sweeps the joyous 
 crops and the bullocks' toil, and drives the woods 
 headlong before it, in perplexed amazement a shep- 
 herd takes in the crash from a rock's tall summit. 
 Then, indeed, all doubt was over, and the wiles of the 
 Danaans stood confessed. Alreadj- Deiphobus' palace 
 has fallen with a mighty overthrow before the master- 
 ing fire-god — already his neighbor Ucalegon is in 
 flames — the expanse of the Sigean sea shines again 
 with the blaze. Up rises at once the shouting of men 
 and the braying of trumpets. To arms I rush in 
 frenz}^ — not that good cause is shown for arms — but 
 to muster a troop for fight, and run to the citadel with 
 my comrades is m}^ first burning impulse — madness 
 and rage drive my mind headlong, and I think how 
 glorious to die with arms in my hand. 
 
 ' But see ! Panthus, escaped from an Achaean vollej'. 
 Pan thus, Othrys' son, priest of Phoebus in the citadel, 
 
160 THE JENEID. 
 
 comes dragging along with his own hand the van- 
 quished gods of his worship and his young grandchild, 
 and making distractedly for my door. " How goes the 
 day, Panthus ? What hold have we of the citadel ? " 
 The words were scarcely uttered when with a groan he 
 replies, *'It is come, the last da}^, the inevitable hour 
 — on Dardan land no more Trojans ; no more of lUon, 
 and the great renown of the sons of Teucer ; Jove, in 
 his cruelty, has carried all over to Argos ; the town is 
 on fire, and the Danaans are its masters. There, plant- 
 ed high in the heart of the city, the horse is pouring 
 out armed men, and Sinon is flinging about fire in the 
 insolence of conquest; some are crowding into the 
 unfolded gates — thousands, many as ever came from 
 huge Mycenae ; some are blocking up the narrow 
 streets, with weapons pointed at all comers ; the sharp 
 steel with its gleaming blade stands drawn, ready for 
 slaughter ; hardly, even on the threshold, the sentinels 
 of the gates are attempting resistance, in a struggle 
 where the powers of war are Wind." 
 
 * At these words of the son of Othrys, and heaven's 
 will thus expressed, I plunge into the fire and the 
 battle, following the war-fiend's 3^ell, the din of strife, 
 and the shout that rose to the sky. There join me 
 Rhipeus and Epj^tus, bravest in fight, crossing my way 
 in the moonlight, as also Hypanis and Dymas, and 
 form at my side ; 3'oung Coroebus, too, Mygdon's son ; 
 he happened to be just then come to Troy, with a fran- 
 tic passion for Cassandra, and was bringing a son-in- 
 law's aid to Priam and his Phrj'gians — poor boy ! to 
 have given no heed to the warning of his heaven-struck 
 bride ! Seeing them gathered in a mass and nerved for 
 battle, I begin thereon : — " Young hearts, full of una- 
 vailing valor, if your desire is set to follow a desperate 
 
BOOK II, 161 
 
 man, 3^011 see what the plight of our affairs is — gone 
 in a body from shrine and altar are the gods who up- 
 held this our empire — the citj^ you succor is a blazing 
 ruin ; choose we then death, and rush we into the thick 
 of the fight. The one safety for vanquished men is to 
 hope for none." These words stirred their 3'oung spir- 
 its to madness : then, like ravenous wolves in night's 
 dark cloud, driven abroad by the blind rage of lawless 
 hunger, with their cubs left at home waiting their re- 
 turn with parched jaws, among javelins, among foe- 
 men, on we go with no uncertain fate before us, keep- 
 ing our way through the heart of the town, while night 
 flaps over us its dark, overshadowing wings. Who 
 could unfold in speech the carnage, the horrors of that 
 night, or make his tears keep pace with our suffering? 
 It is an ancient cit}*, falling from the height where she 
 queened it many a year; and heaps of unresisting 
 bodies are Ij'ing confusedly in the streets, in the 
 houses, on the hallowed steps of temples. Nor is it 
 on Teucer's sons alone that blood^^ vengeance lights. 
 There are times when even the vanquished feel courage 
 rushing back to their hearts, and the conquering Dana- 
 ans fall. Everywhere is relentless agony ; everj'where 
 terror, and the vision of death in many a manifestation. 
 ' First of the Danaans, with a large band at his back, 
 Androgeos crosses our way, taking us for a troop of 
 bis friends in his ignorance, and hails us at once in 
 w^ords of fellowship: "Come, m^^ men, be quick. 
 Whj', what sloth is keeping 3'ou so late ? Pergamus is 
 on fire, and the rest of us are spoiling and sacking 
 it, and here are you, but just disembarked from your 
 tall ships." He said, and instantly, for no reply was 
 forthcoming to reassure him, saw that he had fallen 
 into the thick of the enemy. Struck with consternation, 
 11 
 
162 THE ^NEID. 
 
 he drew back foot and tongue. Just as a man who at 
 unawares has trodden on a snake among thorns and 
 briers in his walk, and recoils at once in sudden alarm 
 from the angry uplifted crest and the black swelling 
 neck, so Androgeos, appalled at the sight, was retir- 
 ing. But we rush on him, and close round, weapons in 
 hand ; and, in their ignorance of the ground, and the 
 surprise of their terror, they fall before us everywhere. 
 Fortune smiles on our first encounter. Hereon Coroe- 
 bus, flushed with success and daring, " Come, my 
 friends," he cries, " where Fortune at starting directs 
 us to the path of safety, and reveals herself as our ally, 
 be it ours to follow on. Let us change shields, and see 
 if Danaan decorations will fit us. Trick or strength of 
 hand, who, in dealing with an enemy, asks which? 
 Thej^ shall arm us against themselves." So saying, he 
 puts on Androgeos' crested helm, and his shield with 
 its goodlj^ device, and fastens to his side an Argive 
 sword. So does Rhipeus, so Dymas too, and all our 
 company, with youthful exultation, each arming him- 
 self out of the new- won spoils. On we go, mixing 
 with the Greeks, under auspices not our own, and 
 many are the combats in which we engage in the blind- 
 ness of night, many the Danaans whom we send down 
 to the shades. They fly on all hands : some to the 
 ships, making at full speed for safety on the shore ; 
 others, in the debasement of terror, climb once more 
 the horse's huge sides, and hide (hemselves in the 
 womb they knew so well. 
 
 ' Alas ! it is not for man to throw himself on the 
 gods against their will ! 
 
 ' Lo ! there was a princess of Priam's house being 
 dragged by her disheveled hair from the temple, from 
 the very shrine of Minerva, Cassandra, straining her 
 
BOOK II. 163 
 
 flashing eyes to heaven in vain — her eyes — for those 
 delicate hands were confined by manacles. The sight 
 was too much for the infuriate mind of Coroebus : rush- 
 ing to his doom, he flung himself into the middle of the 
 hostile force. One and all, we follow, close our ranks, 
 and fall on. And now, first from the temple's lofty top 
 we are overwhelmed by a shower of our own country- 
 men's darts, and a most piteous carnage ensues, all 
 along of the appearance of our arms and our mistaken 
 Grecian crests. Then the Danaans, groaning and en- 
 raged at the rescue of the maiden, rally from all sides, 
 and fall on us. Ajax, in all his fury, and the two sons 
 of Atreus, and the whole array of the Dolopes — even 
 as one day when the tempest is broken loose, and wind 
 meets wind — west, and south, and east exulting in his 
 orient steeds — there is crashing in the woods, and Ne- 
 reus, in a cloud of foam, is plying his ruthless trident, 
 and stirring up the sea from its very bottom. Such of 
 the foe, moreover, as in the darkness of night we had 
 driven routed through the gloom — thanks to our strat- 
 agem — and scattered the whole city over, rally again : 
 the}^ are the first to recognize the imposture of shield 
 and weapon, and to mark the different sound of our 
 speech. All is over — we are overwhelmed by num- 
 bers : first of all Coroebus is stretched low ; his slayer 
 Peneleos, his place of death the altar of the Goddess of 
 Arms ; slain, too, is Rhipeus, the justest and most 
 righteous man in Troy — but Heaven's will is not ours 
 — down go Hypanis and Dymas both, shot by their 
 friends ; nor could all your acts of piety, good Pan- 
 thus, shield you in your fall ; no, nor the fillet of Apollo 
 on 3^our brow. Ye ashes of Ilion, and thou, funeral 
 fire of those I loved, witness ye that in your day of 
 doom I shrank from no Danaan dart, no hand-to-hand 
 
164 THE jENEID. 
 
 encounter; nay, that had my fate been to fall, my 
 hand had earned it well. We are parted from the rest, 
 Iphitus, Pelias, and I. Iphitus, a man on whom j^ears 
 were already pressing ; Pelias, crippled by a wound 
 from Ulysses — all three summoned by the shouting to 
 Priam's palace. 
 
 ' Here, indeed, the conflict was gigantic — just as if 
 the rest of the war were nowhere — as if none were 
 dying in the whole city beside : even such was the sight 
 we saw — the war-god raging untamed, the Danaans 
 streaming up to the roof, the door blockaded by a long 
 penthouse of shields. The scaling-ladders are clasp- 
 ing the walls ; close to the ver}' door men are climbing, 
 with their left hands presenting the buckler to shelter 
 them from darts, while with their right they are clasp- 
 ing the battlements. The Dardans, on their part, are 
 tearing up from the palace turret and roof — such the 
 weapons with which, in their dire extremity, in the last 
 death-struggle, they make ready for their defense — 
 gilded rafters, the stately ornaments of elder days, 
 the}' are hurling down ; while others, their swords 
 drawn, are stationed at the doors at the bottom, and 
 guarding them in close array. The fire revived within 
 me, to bring succor to the ro3'al roof, and relieve 
 those brave men, and breathe new daring into the van- 
 quished. 
 
 ' A door there was, a hidden entrance, a thorough- 
 fare through Priam's palace, a postern which you leave 
 in the rear; by it the hapless Andromache, while yet 
 the throne was standing, used often to repair unat- 
 tended to her husband's parents, and pull the boy As- 
 tyanax into his grandsire's presence. Through it I 
 make my waj^ to the summit of the roof, whence the 
 wretched Teucrians were hurling darts without avail. 
 
BOOK IL 165 
 
 There was a tower standing precipitous, its roof reajjed 
 .high to the stars, whence could be seen all Troy, and 
 the Danaan fleet, and the Achaean camp ; to this we 
 applied our weapons, just where the loft}' flooring made 
 the joining insecure ; we wrench it from its eminence, 
 we have toppled it over — down it falls at once, a 
 liuge crashing ruin, and tumbles far and wide over the 
 Danaan ranks. But others fill their place ; while stones 
 and every kind of missile keep raining unabated. 
 
 ' There in the entry, at the very gate, is Pyrrhus in) 
 his glor}^, gleaming with spear and sword, and with all 
 the brilliance of steel. Even as against the daylight a 
 serpent gorged with baleful herbage, whom winter's 
 cold of late was keeping swollen underground. Now, 
 his skin shed, in new life and in the beauty of youth, 
 rears his breast erect, and wreathes his shining scales, 
 towering to the sun, and flashes in his mouth his three- 
 forked tongue. With him gigantic Periphas and Au- 
 tomedon, his armor-bearer, once Achilles' charioteer, 
 with him the whole chivalry of Scyros press to the walls, 
 and hurl up fire to the roof. Himself among the fore- 
 most, a two-edged ax in hand, is bursting through the 
 stubborn door and forcing from their hinges the valves 
 copper-sheathed ; see ! now he has cut out a plank and 
 delved into that stout heart of oak, and made a wide 
 gaping window in the middle. There is seen the house 
 within, and the long vista of the hall ; there is seen the 
 august retirement of Priam, and the monarchs of past 
 da3's, and armed warriors are disclosed standing in the 
 entrance. 
 
 ' But the palace within is a confused scene of shriek- 
 ing and piteous disorder ; the vaulted chambers wail 
 from their hollow depths with female lamentation ; the 
 noise strikes the golden stars above. The terror- 
 
166 THE AlNEID. 
 
 stricken matrons are running to and fro through the 
 spacious courts, cHnging claspinglj- to the gates and 
 printing them with kisses. On presses Pyrrhus with 
 all his father's might ; neither barrier of oak nor yet 
 living guard can resist him ; the door gives way under 
 the thick strokes of the battery, and the valves are 
 torn from their hinges and brought down. Force finds 
 its Yfdij ; the Danaans burst a passage, rush in, and 
 slaughter those they meet, and the whole wide space is 
 flooded with soldiers. With far less fury, when the 
 river, all foam, has broken the prison of its banks and 
 streamed with triumphant tide over the barriers set to 
 check it, down it comes tumbhng along the corn-fields, 
 and along the whole country sweeps away herd and 
 stall. With my own eyes I. saw Neoptolemus, mad 
 with carnage, and the two Atridse on the palace-floor. 
 I saw Hecuba and her hundred daughters-in-law, and 
 Priam at the altar, polluting with his blood the flames 
 he had himself made hol}^ Those fift}' marriage- 
 chambers, the splendid promise of children's children, 
 doors gorgeous with barbaric gold and plundered treas- 
 ure, all sank in dust. Where the fire flags, the Danaans 
 are masters. 
 
 ' Perhaps, too, you may be curious to hear the fate 
 of Priam. When he saw his city fallen and captured, 
 the doors of his palace burst open, the foe in the heart 
 of his home's sanctuar}", poor old man ! helplessly and 
 hopelessly he puts about his shoulders, trembling with 
 age, his armor, long disused, and girds on his unavail- 
 ing sword, and is going to his doom among the thick of 
 the foe. In the midst of the palace, under the naked 
 height of the sk}^, stood a great altar, and by it a ba}-- 
 tree of age untold, leaning over the altar and enfolding 
 the household gods in its shade. Here about the altar 
 
BOOK II. 167 
 
 Hecuba and her daughters, all helpless, like doves 
 driven headlong down by a murky tempest, huddled 
 together and clinging to the statues of the gods, were 
 sitting. But when she saw Priam — yes, Priam — 
 wearing the arms of his youth — "What monstrous 
 thought," cries she, " my most wretched spouse, has 
 moved you to gird on these weapons ? or to what are 
 you hurrying ? It is not help like this, nor protections 
 like those you wear, that the crisis needs. No, not 
 even if m}" lost Hector were now at our side. Come, 
 join us here at last ; this altar shall be a defense for us 
 all, or we will die together." With these words she 
 took him to where she was, and lodged his aged frame 
 in the hallowed resting-place. 
 
 ' But, see ! here is Polites, one of Priam's sons es- 
 caped from Pyrrhus* murderous hand, through showers 
 of darts and masses of foemen, flying down the long 
 corridors and traversing the empty courts, sore and 
 wounded, while Pyrrhus, all on fire, is pursuing hiin 
 with a deadly stroke, his hand all but grasping him, his 
 spear close upon him. Just as at last he won his way 
 into the view and presence of his parents, down he fell 
 and poured out his life in a gush of blood. Hereon 
 Priam, though hemmed in b}- death on all sides, could 
 not restrain himself, or control voice and passion. 
 " Aye," cries he, " for a crime, for an outrage like this, 
 ma3^ the gods, if there is any sense of right in heaven 
 to take cognizance of such deeds, give you the full 
 thanks you merit, and pay you ^'^our due reward ; you, 
 who have made me look with my own ej'es on my son's 
 death, and stained a father's presence with the sight of 
 blood. But he whom 3 our lying tongue calls your sire, 
 Achilles, dealt not thus with Priam his foe — he had 
 a cheek that could crimson at a suppliant's rights, a 
 
yAiW 
 
 168 THE ^NEID, 
 
 suppliant's honor. Hector's lifeless body he gave back 
 to the tomb, and sent me home to my realms in peace." 
 So said the poor old man, and hurled at him a dart un- 
 warlike, unwound ing, which the ringing brass at once 
 shook off, and left hanging helplessly from the end of 
 the shield's boss. PjTrhus retorts: ''You shall take 
 your complaint, then, and carry 3"our news to my father, 
 Pelides. Tell him about my shocking deeds, about his 
 degenerate Neoptolemus, and do not forget. Now 
 die." With these words he dragged him to the very 
 altar, palsied and sliding in a pool of his son's blood, 
 wreathed his left hand in his hair, and with his right 
 flashed forth and sheathed in his side the sword to the 
 hilt. Such was the end of Priam's fortunes, such 
 the fatal lot that fell upon him, with Troy blazing and 
 Pergamus in ruins before his eyes — upon him, once the 
 haught}^ ruler of those many nations and kingdoms, the 
 sovereign lord of Asia ! There he lies on the shore, a 
 gigantic trunk, a head severed from the shoulders, a 
 body without a name. 
 
 * Now, for the first time grim horror prisoned me 
 round — I was wildered — there rose up the image of 
 mj' dear father, as I saw the king, his fellow in age, 
 breathing out his life through that ghastly wound. 
 There rose up Creusa unprotected, my house, now 
 plundered, and the chance to which I had left my little 
 lulus. I cast my ej^es back and look about to see what 
 strength there is round me. All had forsaken me, too 
 tired to stay ; they had leapt to the ground, or dropped 
 helplessly into the flames. And now I was there alone. 
 When lodged in the temple of Vesta, and crouching 
 mutely in its darkest recess, the daughter of Tyndareus 
 meets ray eye ; the brilliant blaze gives light to my 
 wandering feet and ranging glance. Yes, she in her 
 
BOOK 11. 169 
 
 guilty fears, dreading at once the Teucrians whom the 
 overthrow of Perganius had made her foes, and the 
 vengeance of the Danaans, and the wrath of the hus- 
 band she abandoned — she, the common fiend of Troy 
 and of her countrj^, had hid herself away, and was 
 sitting in hateful solitude at the altar. My spirit kin- 
 dled into flame — a fury seized me to avenge my country 
 in its fall, and to do justice on a wretch. " So she is 
 to see Sparta and her native M3Tenae again in safety, 
 and is to move as a queen in a triumph of her own ? 
 She is to look upon her lord and her old home, her 
 children and her parents, with a crowd of our Trojan 
 ladies and Phrygian captives to wait on her? Shall it 
 be for this that Priam has died bj' the sword, that Troy 
 has been burnt with fire, that the Dardan shore has 
 gushed so oft with the sweat of blood ? No, never — 
 for though there are no proud memories to be won by 
 vengeance on a woman, no laurels to be reaped from a 
 conquest like this, yet the extinction of so base a life 
 and the exaction of vengeance so merited will count as 
 a praise, and it will be a joy to have glutted my spirit 
 with the flame of revenge and slaked the thirsty ashes 
 of those I love." Such were the wild words I was ut- 
 tering, such the impulse of my infuriate heart, when 
 suddenly there appeared to me, brighter than I had 
 ever seen her before, and shone forth in clear radiance 
 through the night, my gracious mother, all her deity 
 confessed, with the same mien and stature by which she 
 is known to the dwellers in heaven. She seized me by 
 the hand and stayed me, seconding her action with 
 these words from her roseate lips: -'M}^ son, what 
 might}^ agon}^ is it that stirs up this untamed passion? 
 What means your frenzy ? or whither has fled your care 
 for me ? Will you not first see where you have left 
 
170 THE yENEID. 
 
 your father Anchises, spent with age as he is? whether 
 your wife, Creusa, be yet alive, and your child Asca- 
 nius ? All about them the Grecian armies are ranging 
 to and fro, and were not my care exerted to rescue 
 them, ere this they had been snatched by the flame, 
 devoured by the foeman's sword. It is not the hated 
 beauty of the daughter of Tyndareus, the Spartan 
 woman — not the reviled Paris. No, it is heaven, un- 
 pitying heaven that is overturning this great empire 
 and leveling Tro}^ from its summit. See here — for I 
 will take away wholly the cloud whose veil, cast over 
 your eyes-, dulls 3'our mortal vision and darkles round 
 3 ou damp and thick — do you on your part shrink in 
 naught from 3'our mother's commands, nor refuse to 
 obey the instructions she gives. Here, where 3'ou see 
 huge masses rent asunder, and stones wrenched from 
 stones, and blended torrents of smoke and dust, is 
 Neptune with his mighty trident shaking the walls and 
 upheaving the very foundations ; here is Juno, crudest 
 of foes, posted at the entry of the Scsean gate, and 
 summoning in tones of fury from the ships her confed- 
 erate band, herself girt with steel like them. Look 
 behind you — there is Tritonian Pallas, seated already 
 on the summit of our towers, in the lurid glare of her 
 storm-cloud and grim Gorgon's head. The great Fa- 
 ther himself is nerving the Danaans with courage and 
 strength for victory — himself leading the gods against 
 our Dardan forces. Come, my son, catch at flight 
 while you may and bring the struggle to an end. I 
 will not leave you, till I have set you in safet}' at j^our 
 father's door." She had ceased, and veiled herself at 
 once in night's thickest shadows. I see a vision of 
 awful shapes — mighty presences of gods arrayed 
 against Troy. 
 
BOOK 11. 171 
 
 'Then, indeed, I beheld all Ilion sinking into flame, 
 and Neptune's city, Troy, overturned from its base. 
 Even as an ancient ash on the mountain-top, which 
 woodmen have hacked with steel and repeated hatchet 
 strokes, and are trjdng might and main to dislodge — 
 it keeps nodding menacingly, its leafy head palsied and 
 shaken, till at last, gradually overborne hj wound after 
 wound, it has given its death-groan, and fallen uprooted 
 in ruined length along the hill. I come down, and, fol- 
 lowing my heavenly guide, thread my way through 
 flames and foemen, while weapons glance aside and 
 flames retire. 
 
 ' Now when at last I had reached the door of my 
 father's house, that old house I knew so well, my sire, 
 whom it was my first resolve to carry away high up the 
 hills — who was the first object I sought — refuses to 
 survive the razing of Tro}' and submit to banishment. 
 " You, whose young blood is untainted, whose strength 
 is firmly based and self-sustained, it is for you to think 
 of flight. For me, had the dwellers in heaven willed 
 me to prolong my life, they would have preserved for 
 me my home. It is enough and more than enough to 
 have witnessed one sack, to have once outlived the 
 capture of my cit}'. Here, O here as I lie, bid fare- 
 well to my corpse and begone. I will find me a war- 
 rior's death. The enemy wall have mercy on me, and 
 my spoils will tempt him. The loss of a toftib will fall 
 on me lightl}^ Long, long have I been a clog on time, 
 hated of heaven and useless to earth, from the day 
 when the father of gods and sovereign of men blasted 
 me with the wind of his lightning, and laid on me the 
 finger of flame." 
 
 ' Such the words he kept on repeating and continued 
 unshaken, while we were shedding our hearts in teai's 
 
172 THE ^NEID. 
 
 — Creusa, my wife, and Ascanius and my whole house, 
 imploring my father not to be bent on dragging all with 
 him to ruin, and lending his weight to the avalanche of 
 destiny. But he refuses, and will not be moved from 
 his purpose or his horfe. Once more I am plunging into 
 battle, and choosing death in the agony of my wretch- 
 edness — for what could wisdom or fortune do for me 
 now? What, my father? that I could stir a step to 
 escape, leaving you behind ? was this 3'our expectation ? 
 could aught so shocking fall from a parent's lips ? No 
 
 — if it is the will of heaven that naught of this might}' 
 cit}' should be spared — if 3"0ur purpose is fixed, and 
 you find pleasure in throwing j'ourself and yours on 
 Troy's blazing pile, the door stands open for the death 
 you crave. P^'rrhus will be here in a moment, fresh 
 from bathing in Priam's blood — P3'rrhus, who butch- 
 ers the son before the father's face, who butchers the 
 father at the altar. Gracious Mother I was it for this 
 that thou rescuest me from fire and sword — all that I 
 ma}' see the foe in the heart of my home's sanctuary' — 
 ma}^ see m}' Ascanius, and my father, and my Creusa 
 b}^ them sacrificed in a pool of each other's blood ? M}' 
 arms, friends, bring me my arms ! the call of the day 
 of death rings in the ears of the conquered. Give me 
 back to the Danaans, let me return and renew the 
 combat. Never shall this day see us all slaughtered 
 unresisting. 
 
 ' Now I gird on m}^ sword again, and was buckling 
 and fitting my shield to my left arm, and making my 
 way out of the house — when lo ! my wife on the 
 threshold, began to clasp and cling to my feet, holding 
 out my little lulus to his father. "If it is to death 
 you are going, then carry us with 3'ou to death and all, 
 but if experience gives you an3' hope in the arms 3'ou 
 
BOOK 11. 173 
 
 are resuming, let your first stand be made at your 
 home. To whom, think you, are you leaving youv 
 little lulus — your father, and me who was once styled 
 your wife ? " 
 
 ' Thus she was crying, while her moaning filled the 
 house, when a portent appears, sudden and marvelous 
 to relate. Even while the hands and e}' es of his 
 grieving parents were upon him, lo, a flickering tongue 
 of flame on the top of lulus' head was seen to shoot 
 out light, pla} ing round his soft curly locks with innoc- 
 uous contact, and pasturing about his temples. We 
 are all hurry and alarm, shaking out his blazing hair 
 and quenching the sacred fire with water from the 
 spring — but Anchises my father raised his eyes in 
 ecstasy to heaven, directing hand and voice to the 
 stars: "Almighty Jove, if any prayer can bow thy 
 will, look down on us — 'tis all I crave — and if our 
 piety have earned requital, grant us thy succor, father, 
 and ratify the omen we now see." Scarce had the old 
 man spoken, when there came a sudden peal of thunder 
 on the left, and a star fell from heaven and swept 
 through the gloom with £^ torchlike train and a blaze of 
 light. Over the top of the house we see it pass, and 
 mark its course along the sky till it buries itself lus- 
 trously in Ida's wood — then comes a long furrowed 
 line of light, and a sulphurous smoke fills the space all 
 about. Then at length overcome, my father raises 
 himself towards the sky, addresses the gods, and does 
 reverence to the sacred meteor: "No more, no more 
 delay from me. I follow j'our guidance, and am 
 already in the way by which you would lead me. Gods 
 of my country ! preserve my house, preserve my grand- 
 child. Yours is this augury — your shield is stretched 
 over Troy. Yes, my son, I give way, and shrink not 
 
174 THE ^NEID, 
 
 from accompanying your flight." He said — and by 
 this the blaze is heard louder and louder through the 
 streets, and the flames roll their hot volumes nearer. 
 *' Come then, dear father, take your seat on my back, 
 my shoulders shall support you, nor shall I feel the 
 task a burden. Fall things as they may, we twain will 
 share the peril, share the deliverance. Let my little 
 lulus walk by my side, while my wife follows our steps 
 at a distance. You, our servants, attend to what I 
 now say. As you leave the city there is a mound, 
 where stands an ancient temple of Ceres all alone, and 
 by it an old cj^press, observed these many years by the 
 reverence of our sires. This shall be our point of 
 meeting in one place from many quarters. You, my 
 father, take in yoUr hand these sacred things, our 
 country's household gods. For me, just emerged from 
 this mighty war, with the stains of carnage fresh upon 
 me, it were sacrilege to touch them, till I have cleansed 
 me in the running stream." 
 
 ' So saying, I spread out my shoulders, bow my 
 neck, cover them with a robe, a lion's tawny hide, and 
 take up the precious burden. M}^ little lulus has 
 fastened his hand in mine, and is following his father 
 with ill-matched steps, my wife comes on behind. On 
 we go, keeping in the shade — and I, who ere while 
 quailed not for a moment at the darts that rained upon 
 me or at the masses of Greeks that barred my path, 
 now am scared by every breath of air, startled by every 
 sound, fluttered as I am, and fearing alike for him 
 who holds my hand and him I carry. And now I was 
 nearing the gates, and the whole journey seemed accom- 
 plished, when suddenly the noise of thick trampling 
 feet came to my ear, and m}^ father looks onward 
 through the darkness. *' Son, son," he cries, "fly: 
 
BOOK II . 175 
 
 they are upon us. I distinguish the flashing of their 
 shields and the gleam of their steel." In this alarm 
 some unfriendly power perplexed and took away my 
 judgment. For, while I was tracking places where 
 no track was, and swerving from the wonted line of 
 road, woe is me ! destiny tore from me my wife Creu- 
 sa. Whether she stopped, or strayed from the road, 
 or sat down fatigued, I never knew — nor was she 
 ever restored to my eyes in life. Nay, I did not look 
 back to discover my loss, or turn my thoughts that 
 way till we had come to the mound and temple of 
 ancient Ceres ; then at last, when all were mustered, 
 she alone was missing, and failed those who should 
 have traveled with her, her son and husband both. 
 Whom of gods or men did my upbraiding voice spare ? 
 what sight in all the ruin of the city made my heart 
 bleed more? Ascanius and Anchises my father and 
 the Teucrian household gods I give to my comrades' 
 care, and lodge them in the winding glade. I re- 
 pair again to the city and don my shining armor. 
 My mind is set to try everj^ hazard again, and retrace 
 my path through the whole of Troy, and expose my 
 life to peril once more. First I repair again to the 
 city walls, and the gate's dark entry by which I had 
 passed out. I track and follow my footsteps back 
 through the night, and traverse the ground with my 
 eye. Everywhere my sense is scared by the horror, 
 scared b}^ the very stillness. Next I betake me home, 
 in the hope, the faint hope that she may have turned 
 her steps thither. The Danaans had broken in and 
 were lodged in every, chamber. All is over — the 
 greedy flame is wafted by the wind to the roof, the 
 fire towers triumphant — the glow streams madly heav- 
 enwards. I pass on, and look again at Priam's pal- 
 
176 THE ^NEID. 
 
 ace and the citadel. There already in the empty 
 cloisters, j'es, in Juno's sanctuarj^, chosen guards, 
 Phoenix and Ulysses the terrible, were watching the 
 spoil. Here are gathered the treasures of Troy torn 
 from blazing shrines, tables of gods, bowls of solid 
 gold and captive vestments in one great heap. Boys 
 and mothers stand trembling all about in long array. 
 
 * Nay, I was emboldened even to fling random cries 
 through the darkness. I filled the streets with shouts, 
 and in m}^ agony called again and again on my Creusa 
 with unavailing iteration. As I was thus making my 
 search and raving unceasing!}' the whole city through, 
 the hapless shade, the specter of my own Creusa ap- 
 peared in my presence — a likeness larger than the 
 life. I was aghast, my hair stood erect, my tongue 
 clove to my mouth, while she began to address me 
 thus, and relieve my trouble with words like these : 
 "Whence this strange pleasure in indulging frantic 
 grief, my darling husband ? it is not without Heaven's 
 will that these things are happening : that you should 
 carry j^our Creusa with 3'ou on your journey is forbid- 
 den by fate, forbidden by the mighty ruler of Heaven 
 above. You have long 3'ears of exile, a vast expanse 
 of ocean to traverse — and then you will arrive at the 
 land of Hesperia, where Tiber, L^^dia's river, rolls his 
 gentle volumes through rich and cultured plains. There 
 you have a smiling future, a kingdom and a ro3'al bride 
 waiting your coming. Drj' your tears for Creusa, your 
 heart's choice though she be. I am not to see the face 
 of Myrmidons or Dolopes in their haughty homes, or 
 to enter the service of some Grecian matron — I, a 
 Dardan princess, daughter by marriage of Venus the 
 immortal. No, T am kept in this countrj^ by Heaven's 
 mighty mother. And now farewell, and continue to 
 
BOOK III. VII 
 
 love your son and mine.'* Thus having spoken, 
 spite of my tears, spite of the thousand things I 
 longed to say, she left me and vanished into unsub- 
 stantial air. Thrice, as I stood, I essayed to fling 
 my arms round her neck — thrice the phantom escaped 
 the hands that caught at it in vain — impalpable as the 
 wind, fleeting as the wings of sleep. 
 
 ' So passed my night, and such was my return to my 
 comrades. Arrived there, I find with wonder their 
 band swelled b}^ a vast multitude of new companions, 
 matrons and warriors both, an army mustered for 
 exile, a crowd of the wretched. From every side they 
 were met, prepared in heart as in fortune to follow me 
 over the sea to any land where I might take them to 
 settle. And now the morning star was rising over 
 Ida's loftiest ridge with the day in its train — Danaan 
 sentinels were blocking up the entry of the gates, 
 and no hope of succor appeared. I retired at last, 
 took up my father, and made for the mountains. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 ' After that it had seemed well to the powers above 
 to overthrow Asia's fortunes and Priam's guiltless 
 nation ; after that Ilion fell headlong from its pride, 
 and Troj^, which Neptune reared, became one leveled 
 smoking ruin, we are driven by auguries from heaven 
 to look elsewhere for the exile's home in lands yet un- 
 peopled. We build us a fleet under the shadow of 
 Antandros and the range of our own Phrygian Ida, all 
 uncertain whither fate may carry us, where it may be 
 our lot to settle, and muster men for sailing. Scarcely 
 12 
 
178 THE ^NEID. 
 
 had summer set in, when my father, Anchises, was 
 bidding us spread our sails to destiny. Tlien I give 
 my last tearful look to my country's shores and her 
 harbors, and those plains where Troy once stood but 
 stands no longer. A banished man, I am wafted into 
 the deep with my comrades and my son, my house- 
 hold gods and their mighty brethren. 
 
 ' In the distance lies the land of the war-god, inhab- 
 ited, in vast extent — the Thracians are its tillers — 
 subject erewhile to Lycurgus' savage sway, bound by 
 old hospitality to Troy, their household gods friends of 
 ours, while our star yet shone. Hither I am wafted, 
 and on the bending line of coast trace the outline of a 
 cit}", a commencement made in an evil hour, and call 
 the new nation uiEneadse, after my own name. 
 
 * I was sacrificing to my parent, Dione's daughter, 
 and the rest of the gods, that they might bless the 
 work I had begun, and was slajing to the heavenly 
 monarch of the powers above a bull of shining white- 
 ness on the shore. It happened that there was a 
 mound near, on whose top wxre plants of cornel, and 
 a m3Ttle bristling thick with spear-like wands. I drew 
 near, and essayed to pull up from the ground the green 
 forest growth, that I might have leafy boughs where- 
 with to shadow the altar, when I see a portent dreadful 
 and marvelous to tell. For the first tree that I pull up 
 from the soil, severing its roots, from that tree trickle 
 drops of black blood, staining the earth with gore. 
 For me, a freezing shudder palsies my frame, and my 
 chilled blood curdles with affright. Again I go on to 
 pluck the reluctant fibers of a second tree, and thus 
 probe the hidden cause to the bottom ; as surely from 
 the bark of that second tree the black blood follows. 
 Much musing in my mind, I began to call on the 
 
BOOK III. 179 
 
 n3'niphs of the wood, and Gradivus, our father, patron 
 
 of the land of Thrace, that they might duh' turn the 
 
 appearance to good, and make the heav}^ omen light. 
 
 But when I come to tear up a third spear-shaft with a 
 
 still greater effort, straining with my knees against the 
 
 sand which pressed on them — ought I to tell the tale 
 
 or hold my peace ? — a lamentable groan is heard from 
 
 the bottom of the mound, and the utterance of a human 
 
 voice reaches my ear : " Why, ^neas, mangle a wretch 
 
 like me? Spare me at length in my grave — spare 
 
 those pious hands the stain of guilt. It was not -an 
 
 alien to you that Troy bore injbearing me — it is^itf '^ 
 
 tdr&n^ blood -^febftt-is-trickhng^irom the stem. Ah ! fly 
 
 from this land of cruelt}^, fly from this shore of greed, 
 
 for I am Pol3'dorus. Here I lie, pierced and buried by 
 
 a growing crop of spears that has shot into sharp 
 
 javelins." - 
 
 ^ ' Then, indeed, terror, blank and irresolute, came 
 
 over me — I was aghast — my hair stood erect, my 
 tongue clove to m}^ mouth. Yes, this Polydorus had 
 long ago been sent secretl}^ by Priam, unhappy then 
 as ever, with a vast weight of gold, to be brought 
 up by the king of Thrace, when he had already come 
 to despair of- the arms of Dardania, and saw the siege 
 folding closer round his city. When the power of the 
 ^-5 Thracjans had been broken, and their star set, the 
 Thracian followed Agamemnon's fortunes, and joined 
 the standard of the conqueror — every tie of duty is 
 snapped — he murders Polydorus, and by violence pos- 
 sesses himself of the gold. Cursed lust of gold, to 
 what dost thou not force the heart of man ? After the 
 cold shuddering had ceased to tingle in my marrow, I 
 lay this portent from heaven before the select senate of 
 our nation, and my father as their chief, and ask them 
 
 L 
 
ISO THE JENEID. 
 
 what they think. All are of the same mind, to depart 
 from the land of crime, to leave the home of violated 
 friendship, and indulge our fleet with the gales that 
 wooed it. So we give Polydorus a solemn funeral : 
 earth is heaped high upon his mound ; there stand the 
 altars reared to his manes, in all the woe of dark fillets 
 and sad-colored cj'press : and round them are daugh- 
 ters of Ilion, their hair unbound in mourner fashion : 
 we offer bowls- of new milk warm and frothing, and 
 dishes of consecrated blood : so we lay the spirit to 
 rest in its grave, and with a loud voice give the fare- 
 well call. 
 
 * Then, when the deep first looks friendly, and the 
 winds offer a smooth sea, and the south's gentle 
 whisper invites us to the main, our crews haul down 
 their ships and crowd the shore. We sail out of the 
 harbor, land and town leaving us fast. There is a 
 sacred country with water all round it, chief favorite 
 of the mother of the Nereids and the god of the ^gean. ■ 
 Once it drifted among the coasts and seaboards round 
 about, till the heavenly archer in filial gratitude moored 
 it to the rock of M3'conos and to Gyaros, and gave it 
 to be a fixed dwelUng-place henceforth, and to laugh 
 at the winds. Hither I sail : here it is that in a shel- 
 tered harbor our weary crews find gentlest welcome. 
 We land, and worship the city of Apollo. King Anius, 
 king of men at once and priest of Phoebus, his temples 
 wreathed with fillets and hallowed bay, comes running 
 up ; in Anchises he owns an old friend, we knit hand 
 to hand in hospitalit}^ and enter his roof. 
 
 ' Behold me now worshiping the temple of the god, 
 built of ancient stone. " Give us, god of Thymbra, a 
 home that we can call our own : give us weary men a 
 walled habitation, a posterit}^, a city that will last: 
 
BOOK in. 181 
 
 keep from ruin Troy's second Pergamus, all that was 
 left by the Danaans and their ruthless Achilles ! Who 
 is our guide? Whither wouldst thou have us go? 
 where set up our roof-tree? Vouchsafe us a response, 
 great father, and steal with power upon our souls ! " 
 
 ' Scarce had I spoken, when methought suddenly 
 came a trembling on the whole place, temple-gate and ' 
 
 hallowed bay, a stir in the mountain from height to 
 depth, a muttering from the tripod as the door of the 
 shrine flew open. We fall low on earth, and a voice 
 is wafted to our ears : " Sons of Dardanus, strong to c^Ac^cJ^je. ^, 
 endure, the land which first gave you birth from your 
 ancestral tree, the same land shall welcome you back, 
 restored to its fruitful bosom : seek for your old mother 
 till 3'ou find her. There it is that the house of ^neas 
 shall set up a throne over all nations, they, and their . 
 children's children, and those that shall j'ct come after." 
 Thus Phoebus ; and a mighty burst succeeds of wild 
 multitudinous jo}', all asking as one man what that city 
 is — whither is Phoebus calling the wanderers, and bid- 
 ding them return. Then my father, revolving the 
 traditions of men of old: "Listen," he cries, "lords 
 of Troy, and learn where your hopes are. Crete lies 
 in the midst of the deep, the island of might}' Jove. 
 There is Mount Ida, and there the cradle of our race. 
 It has a hundred peopled cities, a realm of richest 
 plenty. Thence it was that our first father, Teucer, if 
 I rightly recall what I have heard, came in the begin- 
 ning to the Rhoetean coast, and fixed on the site of 
 empire : Ilion and the towers of Pergamus had not yet 
 been reared : the people dwelt low in the valley. 
 Hence came our mighty mother, the dweller on Mount 
 Cybele, and the s^^mbols of the Corybants, and the ' 
 forest of Ida : hence the inviolate mystery of her wor- 
 
 \ 
 
182 THE JENEID. 
 
 ship, and the lions harnessed to the car of their queen. 
 Come, then, and let us follow where the ordinance of 
 heaven points the waj^ : let us propitiate the winds, 
 and make for the realm of Gnossus — the vo3^age is no 
 long one — let but Jupiter go with us, and the third 
 da}^ will land our fleet on the Cretan shore." He said, 
 and offered on the altar the sacrifice that was meet — a 
 bull to Neptune, a bull to thee, beauteous Apollo — a 
 black lamb to the storm- wind, to the favoring Zephyrs 
 a white one. 
 
 ' Fame flies abroad that king Idomeneus has been 
 driven to quit his paternal realm, that the shores of 
 Crete are abandoned, houses cleared of the enemj^, 
 dwellings standing empty to receive us. So we leave 
 Ortygia's harbor, and fly along the deep, past Naxos' 
 bacchant mountains, and green Donysa, Olearos, and 
 snowy Paros, and the Cyclades sprinkled over the 
 waves, and seas thick sown with islands. Up rises the 
 seaman's shout amid strain and struggle — • each en- 
 courages his comrades, " For Crete and our forefathers, 
 ho ! " A wind gets up from the stern and escorts us 
 on our way, and at length we are wafted to the Curetes' 
 time-honored shore. 
 
 'And now the site is chosen, and I am rearing a 
 city's walls and calling it Pergamia : the new nation is 
 proud to bear the name of the old : I bid them love 
 hearth and home, and raise and roof the citadel. Al- 
 ready the ships had been hauled up high and dry on 
 the shore, the crews were busied with marriage and 
 tilling the new country, and I was appointing laws to 
 live by, and houses to dwell in — when suddenly there 
 came on the human frame a wasting sickness, shed from 
 the whole tainted expanse of the sky, a piteous blight 
 on trees and crops, a year charged with death. There 
 
BOOK IIL 183 
 
 were men leaving the lives they loved, or dragging with 
 them the bodies that burdened them, while Sirius baked 
 the fields into barrenness, the herbage was parching, 
 the corn was sickening, and would not jdeld its food. 
 Back again to Phoebus and his Ort} gian oracle over the 
 sea my father bids us go, and there sue for grace, ask- 
 ing the god to what haven he means to bring our over- 
 toiled fortunes, whence he orders us to seek for help in 
 our sufferings — whither to djrect our course. 
 
 ' It was night and all living things on earth were in 
 the power of sleep, when methought the sacred images 
 of the gods, the Phrj-gian household deities, whom I 
 had borne away with me from Troy, even from the 
 midst of the blazing town, stood before ras eyes as I 
 lay in slumber, clear in a flood of light, where the full 
 moon was streaming through the windows of the house. 
 Then they began to address me thus, and relieve my 
 trouble with words Kke these: "The answer which 
 Apollo has read}' to give 3'ou when 3'ou reach Ortygia, he 
 delivers here, sending us, see, of his own motion to your 
 very door. We, the followers of you and your fortune 
 since Dardan land sunk in flame — we, the comrades of 
 the fleet which you have been guiding over the swollen 
 main — we it is that will raise to the stars the posterity 
 that shall come after 3'ou, and crown your city with 
 imperial sway. Be it yours to build mighty walls for 
 mighty dwellers, and not abandon the task of flight for 
 its tedious length. Change your settlement : it is not 
 this coast that the Dehan god moved you to accept — 
 not in Crete that Apollo bade you sit down. No, there 
 is a place — the Greeks call it Hesperia — a land old in 
 story, strong in arms and in the fruitfulness of its soil 
 — the CEnotrians were its settlers. Now report says 
 that later generations have called the nation Italian 
 
184 THE JSNEID. 
 
 from the name of their leader. That is our true home : 
 thence sprung Dardanus and father lasius, the first 
 founder of our line. Quick ! rise, and tell the glad tale, 
 which brooks no question, to your aged sire: tell him 
 that he is to look for Corythus and the country of Au- 
 sonia. Jupiter bars you from the fields of Dicte." 
 Thus astonished by visions and voices of heaven — for 
 sleep it was not : no — methought I saw them face to 
 face, their wreathed locks., and their features all in full 
 view ; and a cold sweat, too, trickled down my whole 
 frame. I leap from the bed, and direct upturned hand 
 and voice to heaven, and pour on the hearth the unde- 
 filed libation. The sacrifice paid, with joy I inform 
 Anchises, and expound the whole from first to last. 
 He owns the double pedigree and the rival ancestors, 
 and his own new mistake about the two old countries. 
 Then he sa3's : "My son, trained in the school of 
 Troy's destiny, Cassandra's was the one voice which 
 used to chant to me of this chance. Now I recollect, 
 this was the fortune she presaged as appointed for our 
 line, calling often for Hesperia, often for the land of 
 Italy. But could any one think that Teucrians would 
 ever reach the Hesperian shore? Could Cassandra's 
 prophesying in those days gain any one's credence? 
 Let us give way to Phoebus, and follow the better 
 course enjoined." He said, and with one consent we 
 gladly obey. So we quit this settlement as we quitted 
 the last, and leaving a few behind, set sail, and make 
 our hollow bark fiy over the vast world of waters. 
 
 ' Soon as the ships had gained the mid-sea, and land 
 was no more to be seen, sky on every side, on every 
 side ocean, then came a murky storm-cloud and stood 
 over my head, charged with night and winter tempest, 
 and darkness ruffled the billow's crest. At once the 
 
BOOK III. 185 
 
 winds lay the sea in heaps, and the waters rise moun- 
 tains high : a scattered fleet, we are tossed upon the 
 vast abyss : clouds enshrouded the day, and dank night 
 robbed us of the sky, while fire flashes momently from 
 the bursting clouds. We are dashed out of our track, 
 and wander blindly over the blind waters. Na}^, even 
 Palinurus owns he cannot tell day from, night in a 
 heaven like this, or recollect the footpath in the watery 
 wilderness. Three dreary suns, blotted by blinding 
 darkness, we wander on the deep : three nights with 
 never a star. On the fourth day, at last, land was first 
 seen to rise, and mountains with curling smoke- wreaths 
 to dawn in distant prospect. Down drop the sails : we 
 rise on our oars : incessantly the crews, straining every 
 nerve, toss the foam and sweep the blue. 
 
 ' Escaped from the sea, I am fir^t welcomed by the 
 coast of the Strophades — the Strophades are known by 
 the name Greece gave them, islands in the great Ionian, 
 which fell Celseno and the rest of the Harpies have 
 made their home, ever since Phineus' doors were closed 
 against them, and fear drove them from the board 
 which once fed them. A more baleful portent than 
 this — a fiercer plague of heaven's vengeance never 
 crawled out of the Stygian flood. Birds with maidens* 
 faces, a foul discharge, crooked talons, and on their 
 cheeks the pallor of eternal famine. 
 
 * On our arrival here, and entering the harbor, see ! 
 we behold luxuriant herds of oxen grazing dispersedly 
 in the fields, and goats all along the grass, with none 
 to tend them. On we rush, sword in hand, inviting the 
 gods and Jove himself to share the spoil with us : and 
 then on the winding shore pile up couches for the ban- 
 quet, and regale on the dainty fare. But on a sudden, 
 with an appalling swoop from the hills, the Harpies are 
 
186 THE ^NEID. 
 
 upon us, flapping their wings with a mighty noise — 
 they tear the food in pieces, and spoil all with their 
 filthy touch, while fearful screeches blend with foul 
 smells. Again, in a deep retreat under a hollow rock, 
 with trees and crisp foliage all about us, we set out the 
 board and put new fire on new altars. Again, from 
 another quarter of the sky, out of their hidden lair, 
 comes the troop, all rush and sound, flying about the 
 pre}^ with their hooked talons, tainting the food with 
 their loathsome mouths. I give the word to my com- 
 rades to seize their arms and wage war with the fell 
 tribe. As I ordered they do — they arrange their 
 swords in hiding about the grass, and cover and con- 
 ceal their shields. So soon as the noise of their swoop 
 was heard along the winding shore, Misenus, from his 
 lofty watch-tower, makes the hollow brass sound the 
 alarm. On rush m}^ comrades, and essay a combat of a 
 new sort, to spoil with their swords the plumage of 
 these foul sea-birds. But no violence will ruflfie their 
 feathers, no wounds pierce their skin : they are off in 
 rapid flight high in the air, leaving their half-eaten prey 
 and their filthy trail behind them. One of them, Celaeno, 
 perches on a rock of vast height — ill-boding prophetess 
 — and gives vent to words like these: "What, is it 
 war, for the oxen you have slain and the bullocks you 
 have felled, true sons of Laomedon? is it war that you 
 are going to make on ws, to expel us, blameless Har- 
 pies, from our ancestral realm ? Take then into 3'our 
 minds these my words, and print them there. The 
 prophecy which the Almighty Sire imparted to Phoebus, 
 Phoebus Apollo to me, I, the chief of the Furies, make 
 known to you. For Italy, I know, 3'ou are crowding 
 all sail : well, the winds shall be at 3'our call as you go 
 to Italy, and you shall be free to enter its harbors : but 
 
BOOK III. 187 
 
 you shall not build walls round your fated citj^, before 
 fell hunger and your murderous wrong against us drive 
 yon to gnaw and eat up your very tables." She said, 
 and her wings carried her swiftly into the wood. But 
 for m^^ friends, a sudden terror curdled their blood, their 
 hearts died within them ; no more arms — no, we must 
 sue for grace, with vows and prayers, be the creatures 
 goddesses or fell and loathsome birds. And my father 
 Anchises, spreading his hands from the shore, invokes 
 the might}^ powers, and ordains meet sacrifice — " Great 
 gods, forefend these menaces ! Great gods, avert a 
 chance like this, and let your blessing shield 3'our 
 worshipers ! " Then he bids us tear our moorings from 
 the shore, and uncoil and stretch our ropes. 
 
 ' The winds swell our sails, we scud over the foam- 
 ing surge, where gale and pilot bid us go. Now rising 
 from the wave are seen the woods of Zacynthos, and 
 Dulichium, and Samos, and the tall cliffs of Neritos : 
 we fly past the rocks of Ithaca, Laertes' realm, breath- 
 ing a curse for the land that nursed the hard heart of 
 Ulysses. Soon, too, the storm-capped peaks of Leu- 
 cata dawn on the view, and their Apollo, the terror of 
 sailors. In our weariness we make for him, and enter 
 the little town :■ our anchors are thrown from the prow, 
 our sterns ranged on the coast. 
 
 ' So now, masters of the land beyond our hope, we 
 perform lustrations to Jove, and set the altars ablaze 
 with our vows, and solemnize the shores of Actium 
 with the native games of Troy. My comrades strip, 
 and practice the wrestle of the old country, all shppery 
 with oil : what J03' to have passed in safety by all those 
 Argive cities, and held on our flight through the heart 
 of the foe ! Meanwhile the sun rolls round the mighty 
 year, and the north winds of icy winter roughen the 
 
188 THE ^NEID. 
 
 sea. A shield of hollow brass, once borne by the great 
 Abas, I fasten up full on the temple gate, and signahze 
 the deed with a verse: " These arms are the offering 
 of uS^neas, won from his Danaan conquerors." Then 
 I give the word to leave the haven and take seat on the 
 benches. Each V3'ing with each, the crews strike the 
 water and sweep the marble surface. In due course 
 we hide from view the airy summits of Phaeacian land, 
 coast the shore of Epirus, enter the Chaonian haven^ 
 and approach Buthrotum's lofty tower. 
 
 ' Here a rumor of events past belief takes hold of our 
 ears — that Helenus, son of Priam, is reigning among 
 Grecian cities, lord of the wife and crown of P3Trhus, 
 Achilles' very son, and that Andromache had again 
 been given to a husband of her own nation. I was 
 astounded : mj^ heart kindled with a strange longing to 
 have speech of my old friend, and learn all about this 
 wondrous stroke of fortune. So I advance into the 
 country from the haven, leaving fleet and coast behind, 
 at the very time when Andromache, before the city, in 
 a grove, by the wave of a mock Simois, was celebrating 
 a yearly banquet, the offering of sorrow, to the dead, 
 and invoking her Hector's shade at a tomb called by 
 his name, an empty mound of green turf which she had 
 consecrated to him with two altars, that she might have 
 the privilege of weeping. Soon as her wild e3'e saw me 
 coming with the arms of Troy all about me, scared out 
 of herself by the portentous sight, she stood chained to 
 earth while yet gazing — life's warmth left her frame — 
 she faints, and after long time scarce finds her speech : 
 — " Is it a real face that I see ? are those real lips that 
 bring me news? Goddess-born, are you among the 
 living? or, if the blessed light has left you, where is 
 my Hector? " She spoke — her tears flowed freely, and 
 
BOOK III. 189 
 
 the whole place was filled with her shrieks. Few, and 
 formed with labor, are the words I address to her fren- 
 zied ear, broken and confused the accents I utter : — 
 " Aye, I live, sure enough, and through the worst of 
 fortunes am dragging on life still. Doubt it not, 3'our 
 eye tells you true. Alas ! on what chance have you 
 alit, fallen from the height where your first husband 
 throned 3'ou ? What smile has Fortune bright enough 
 to throw back on Hector's Andromache ? is it Pyrrhus' 
 bed 3'ou are still tending?" She dropped her e^^es, and 
 spoke with bated breath: — "O blest pre-eminently 
 over all, Priam's virgin daughter, bidden to die at the 
 grave of her foe, under Troy's lofty walls ! she that had 
 not to brook the chance of the lot, or a slave and a 
 captive to touch the bed of her lord and conqueror ! 
 "While we, after the burning of our cit}', carried over 
 this sea and that, have stooped to the scorn, the 3'outh- 
 ful insolence of Achilles' heir, the slave-mother of his 
 child ; he, after this, goes in quest of Leda's Hermione 
 and her Spartan alliance, and gives me over to Helenus, 
 the bondwoman to be the bondman's mate I Him, how- 
 ever, Orestes, fired b}" desperate passion for a ravished 
 bride, and maddened by the frenzy-fiend of crime, sur- 
 prises at unawares, and slays at his sire's own altar. 
 At Neoptolemus' death a portion of this kingdom passed 
 to Helenus, who called the fields Chaonian, and the land 
 itself Chaonia, from Chaon, their Trojan namesake, and 
 crowned, as 3'ou see, these heights with a new Per- 
 gamus, the citadel of Ilion. But you — what wind, 
 what destiny has shaped your voyage ? What god has 
 driven you on a coast which you know not to be ours ? 
 What of the boy Ascanius ? is he alive and breathing 
 upper air? he, whom you on that night at Troy — say, 
 can his boyish mind feel 3^et for the mother he has lost? 
 
190 THE uENEID. 
 
 Is he enkindled at all to the valor of old da^'S, the 
 prowess of a grown man, by a father like ^neas, an 
 uncle like Hector ? " 
 
 ' Such were the sorrow^s she kept pouring out, weep- 
 ing long and fruitlessly, when Priam's noble son, He- 
 lenas, presents himself from the city, with a train of 
 followers, and knows his friends again, and joyfully 
 leads them to his home, many a tear interrupting his 
 utterance. As I go on, I recognize a miniature Troy, 
 a Pergamus copied from the great one, a dry rivulet 
 the namesake of Xanthus, and throw my arms round a 
 Scaean gate. My Trojan comrades, too, are made free 
 of the friendly town. The king made entertainment 
 for them in spacious cloisters. There, in the midst of 
 the hall, they were pouring libations fro^i cups of wine, 
 their meat served on gold, and goblets in their hands. 
 
 ' And now suppose a day past, and yet another day : 
 the breeze is inviting the sail, the swelling south inflat- 
 ing the canvas, when I accost the prophet with these 
 words, and put to him the question I tell you : — " True 
 Trojan born, heaven's interpreter,* whose senses inform 
 you of the stars, and of the tongue of birds, and of the 
 omens of the flying wing, tell me now — for revelation 
 has spoken in auspicious words of the whole of my 
 voyage, and all the gods have urged me with one voice 
 of power to make for Italy, and explore that hidden 
 clime. One alone, the Harpy Celseno, forebodes a 
 strange portent, too horrible to tell, denouncing fierce 
 vengeance and unnatural hunger. Tell me then, what 
 perils do I shun first, or what must I observe to sur- 
 mount the tremendous hardships before me?" Then 
 Helenus first implores the favor of Heaven by a solemn 
 
 * It will be observed that Mr. Conington has missed a line 
 in his translation here. — [Ed.] 
 
BOOK III. 191 
 
 sacrifice of bullocks, and unbinds the fillet from his 
 consecrated brow, and with his own hand leads me to 
 thy temple, Phoebus, my mind Ufted from its place 
 by the effluence of divine power; which done, that 
 priestly mouth chants these words from its prophetic 
 lips : — 
 
 ' " Goddess-born — for that presages of mighty bless- 
 ing are attending you over the deep is clear beyond 
 doubt — such is the casting of the lot of fate by 
 heaven's king as he rolls event after event — such the 
 ordained succession — a few things out of many, to 
 make your voyage through strange waters safer, 5'our 
 settlement in Ausonia's haven more assured. My 
 speech shall unfold to j^ou but a few — for the rest 
 the fatal sisters keep from Helenus' knowledge, and 
 Saturnian Juno seals his lips. First then for Italy, 
 which you think close at hand, read}^ in your blindness 
 to rush into the harbors that neighbor us, the length of 
 a wa}' where no wa}^ is, severs you from its length of 
 territor3\ First must the oar be suppled in Trinacrian 
 waters, and your ships must traverse the expanse of the 
 Ausonian brine, and the spectral lake, and the isle of 
 JEsean Circe, ere you can find a safe spot to build a 
 peaceful city. I will tell you the tokens, be it 3'ours 
 to keep them lodged in 3'our mind. When on an 
 anxious day, b}^ the side of a sequestered river, 3'ou 
 shall find an enormous swine 13'ing under the oaks on 
 the bank with a litter of thirty head just born, white 
 herself through all her lazj- length, her children round 
 her breasts as white as she — that shall be the site 
 of your city — that 3'our assured rest from toil and 
 trouble. Nor need you shudder beforehand at the 
 prospect of gnawing your tables — the fates will find 
 you a path, and a prayer will bring you Apollo. But 
 
192 THE jENEID. 
 
 as for these lands, and this line of the Italian coast, 
 which lies close at hand, and is washed by the spray 
 of our waters, this you must fly : the cities, one and 
 all, are peopled b}- enemies from Greece. Here the 
 Narycian Locrians have built them cities, and the 
 Sallentine fields have been occupied with an army by 
 L3'ctian Idomeneus : here is the Meliboean chief Phi- 
 loctetes' tin}' town Patella, with a strong wall to prop 
 it. Further, when your fleet stands moored on the 
 other side the water, and 30U build altars and pay vows 
 on the coast, shroud 3'our head with the covering of a 
 purple robe, lest, while the hallowed fires are blazing, 
 and the worship of the gods yet unfinished, some 
 enemy's eye should meet 3'ours, and make the omens 
 void. Be this ritual custom maintained by your com- 
 rades as by yourself: let the piety of generations to 
 come abide in this observance. But when leaving 
 Italy you are carried by the wind near the Sicilian 
 coast, and Pelorus' narrow bars dimly open, make for 
 the left shore, for the left water, long as the circuit 
 round may be ; avoid the right, its land and its seas. 
 This whole region hj the forceful throes of a mighty 
 convulsion — s.uch power of change is there in long 
 centuries of olden time — was rent in twain, so runs 
 the stor}', the two countries before having been one 
 and unbroken ; at last the sea poured in violently be- 
 tween, and with its waters cut off the Hesperian from 
 the Sicilian side, washing between fields and cities, 
 their seaboards now parted, with the waves of its nar- 
 row channel. There the right-hand coast is held by 
 Scylla, the left b}- Char^'bdis, ever hungering, who, at 
 the bottom of the whirling abyss, thrice a day draws 
 the huge waves down her precipitous throat, and in 
 turn upheaves them to the sky, and lashes the stars 
 
BOOK III. ' 193 
 
 with their spray. But Scylla is confined in the deep 
 recesses of a cave, whence she thrusts out her mouths, 
 and drags vessels on to her rocks. At top, a human 
 face, a maiden with beauteous bosom ; at bottom an 
 enormous sea-monster — dolphins' tails attached to a 
 belly all of wolves' heads. Better far wearily to round 
 the goal of Trinacrian Pachynus and fetch about a 
 tedious compass, than once to have looked on the 
 monster Scylla in her enormous cave, and the rocks 
 that echo with her sea-colored dogs. Moreover, if 
 there be any foresight in Helenus, if you give an}' 
 credence to his prophetic tongue, if his mind be a 
 fountain of Apollo's truth, one thing there is, goddess- 
 born, one thing outweighing all beside which I will 
 foreshow j^ou, reiterating the warning again and again 
 — be Juno, great Juno, the first whose deity you wor- 
 ship — to Juno chant your willing prayers ; subdue 
 that might}' empress by suppliant offerings : thus at 
 last victorious 3'ou will leave Trinacria behind, and be 
 sped to the borders of Ital}'. When j'ou are there at 
 length, and have come to the city of Cumse, and the 
 haunted lake, and the woods that rustle over Avernus, 
 you will have sight of the frenzied prophetess, who, 
 in. the cavern under the rock, chants her fateful strain, 
 and commits characters and words to the leaves of 
 trees. All the strains that the maid has written on 
 these leaves she arranges in order, shuts them up in 
 her cave, and leaves them there. They remain as 
 she has left them, their disposition unchanged. But, 
 strange to say, when the hinge is turned, and a breath 
 of air moves the leaves, and the opened door throws 
 their light ranks into confusion, henceforth she never 
 troubles herself for a moment to catch them as they 
 fly about the cavern, to restore them to their places, or 
 13 
 
194 THE J^NEID. 
 
 to fit eacli strain to each. The inquirers retire with 
 their doubts unsolved, and a hatred of the sibyl's seat. 
 Arrived here, let no cost of time or delay weigh with 
 you so much — though your comrades should chide^ 
 and the voj^age loudly call your sails to sea, and a 
 sheet- full of fair wind be there at your choice — but 
 that you visit the prophetess, and beg and pray her 
 herself to chant the oracle, loosing speech and tongue 
 with a ready will. She shall tell you of the nations of 
 Italy, and the wars of the future, and the way to shun 
 or stand the shock of every peril, and shall vouchsafe 
 to your prayer the boon of a prosperous voyage. Such 
 are the counsels which it is given you to receive from 
 my lips. Go on your way, and by your own actions 
 lift to heaven the greatness of Troy." 
 
 ' Soon as the seer had thus uttered these words of 
 kindness, he next orders massy gifts of gold and 
 carved ivory to be carried on shipboard, and stores in 
 the keels, a weight of silver and caldrons of Dodona, 
 a cuirass of chain-mail, three- threaded in gold, and a 
 splendid helmet with cone and flowing crest, the armor 
 of Neoptolemus. My father, too, has presents of his 
 own. Horses, too, he gives, and guides too ; makes up 
 the complement of oars, and arms the crews. Mean- 
 while Anchises was giving the word to rig the fleet, 
 not to wear out the patience of a fair wind. Him the 
 interpreter of Phoebus addresses with much pomp of 
 courtesy: " Anchises, graced with the proud privilege 
 of Venus's wedded love, the special care of the gods, 
 whom they twice interposed to save from the fall of 
 Pergamus, lo ! there lies Ausonia's land; for this 
 make all sail. Yet what have I said ? This coast you 
 must needs sail past ; far away yonder lies that part 
 of Ausonia which Apollo reveals to you. Go on your 
 
BOOK in. 195 
 
 way," cries he, " blessed in a son so duteous! Why 
 proceed further, and make the rising gales wait while I 
 talk?" As freely, too, Andromache, saddened with 
 the grief of parting, presents Ascanius with robes pic- 
 tured with gold embroidery, and a Phr3^gian scarf. She 
 tires not in her bount}^, but loads him with gifts of 
 needlework, and bespeaks him thus : " Take, too, these, 
 dear bo}^, to be a memorial of what my hands can do — 
 a token for long years of the affection of Andromache, 
 Hector's wife. Yes, take the last presents your kin 
 can bestow, O, sole surviving image of my own As- 
 tyanax ! Those eyes are his eyes, those hands his 
 hands, that face his face, and he would now be growing 
 to manhood by your side, in bloom like yo\XT% ! " Tears 
 started forth, as I addressed my parting words to the 
 royal pair : " Live long and happily, as those should for 
 whom the book of Fortune is closed. We, alas ! are 
 still called to turn page after page. You have won 
 your rest : you have no expanse of sea to plough, no 
 Ausonian fields to chase, still retiring as you advance. 
 Your eyes look upon a copy of the old Xanthus, upon 
 a Tro}^ which your own hands have made — made, I 
 would hope and praj', with happier auspices, and with 
 less peril of a visit from Greece. If the day ever ar- 
 rive when I shall enter Tiber and the fields that neigh- 
 bor Tiber, and look on the walls which Fate has made 
 over to Toy people, then we will have our two kindred 
 cities, our two fraternal nations — the one in Epirus, 
 the other in Hesperia, with a common founder, Dar- 
 danus, and a common history — animated by one heart, 
 till they come to be one Troy. Be this the destined 
 care of our posterity ! " 
 
 * We push on over the sea under Ceraunia's neigh- 
 boring range, whence there is a way to Italy, the 
 
196 THE jENEID. 
 
 shortest course through the water. Meantime the sun 
 drops, and the mountains are veiled in shadow. We 
 stretch ourselves gladl}^ on the lap of earth by the 
 water's side, having cast lots for the oars, and take our 
 ease dispersedly along the dry beach. Sleep's dew 
 sprinkles our wearied limbs. Not yet was night's car, 
 entering the middle of its circle, drawn by the unflag- 
 ging hours, when Palinurus, with no thought of sloth, 
 springs from his bed, explores everj^ wind, and catches 
 with his ears the voices of the air. All the stars he 
 notes, as they swim through the silent sky, looking 
 round on Arcturus, and the showery Hyades, and the 
 twin Bears, and Orion in his panoply of gold. Soon as 
 he sees them all set in a heaven of calm, he gives a 
 clear signal from the stern. We break up our quarters, 
 essay our flight, and spread the wings of our sails. 
 And now the stars were fled, and Aurora was just 
 reddening in the sky, when in the distance we see the 
 dim hills and low plains of Italy. " Italy!" Achates 
 was the first to cry. Italj', our crews welcome with a 
 shout of rapture. Then my father, Anchises, wreathed 
 a mighty bowl with a garland, and filled it with wine, 
 and called on the gods, standing upon the tall stern : 
 ''Ye powers that rule sea and land and weather, waft 
 us a fair wind and a smooth passage, and breathe au- 
 spiciously ! " The breeze we wished for freshens ; the 
 harbor opens as we near it, and the temple of Minerva 
 is seen crowning the height. The crews furl the sails, 
 and turn their prows coast ward. The harbor is curved 
 into an arch by the easterty waves ; a barrier of cliffs 
 on each side foams again with the briny spray ; be- 
 tween them the haven lies concealed ; the towery rocks 
 let down their arms like two walls, and the temple re- 
 tires from the shore. Here on the grass I saw four 
 
BOOK in. 197 
 
 horses, the first token of heaven's will, browsing the 
 meadow at large, of snowy whiteness. And Anchises, 
 my father, breaks forth: "War is on thy front, land 
 of the stranger ; for war thy horses are prepared ; war 
 is threatened by the cattle we see. Still, these beasts 
 no less are trained one day to stoop to the car, and 
 carry harness and curb in harmon}^ with the yoke; 
 yes," cries he, " there is hope of peace, too." With 
 that we make our prayers to the sacred majesty of 
 Pallas, queen of clanging arms, the first to welcome us 
 in the hour of our joy ; and, according to Helenus' 
 order, that order which he gave so earnestly, we duly 
 solemnize to Juno of Argos the . prescribed honors. 
 Then, without dallying, soon as our vows were paid in 
 course, we turn landward the horns of our covered sail- 
 yards, and leave the homes of the sons of Greece, and 
 the fields we could not trust. Next we sight the bay 
 of Tarentum, the city, if legend say true, of Hercules ; 
 right against us rises the goddess of Lacinium, and the 
 towers of Caulon, and Scylaceum, wrecker of ships. 
 Then, in the distance, from the surge is seen Trina- 
 crian ^tna ; and the heavy groaning of the sea and the 
 beating of the rocks is heard from afar, and broken 
 voices on the beach and the depths leap up to sight, 
 and the sands are in a turmoil with the surge. Then, 
 my father, Anchises : " No doubt this is that Charj'b- 
 dis ; these the cUfi's, these the frightful rocks of He- 
 lenus* song. Snatch us from them, comrades ; rise on 
 your oars as one man." They do no less than bidden ; 
 first of all Palinurus turned the plashing prow to the 
 waters on the left ; for the left makes the whole fleet, 
 oars, winds, and all. Up we go to heaven on the 
 arched back of the wave ; down again, as the water 
 gives way under us, we sink to the place of death be- 
 
198 THE jENEID, 
 
 low. Thrice the rocks shouted in our ears deep in their 
 ston}' hollows ; twice we saw the foam dashed up, and 
 the stars all dripping. Meanwhile, tired and spent, we 
 lose wind and sunlight at once, and, in our ignorance 
 of the wa}', float to the land of the Cyclops. 
 
 ' There is a haven, sheltered from the approach of 
 the winds, and spacious, were that all ; but JEtna is 
 near, thundering with appalUng crashes ; at one time it 
 hurls to the sky a black cloud, a smoky whirlwind of 
 soot and glowing ashes, and upheaves balls of fire, and 
 licks the stars ; at another it raises rocks, torn from the 
 mountain's bowels, and whirls heaps of molten stones 
 into the air with a groan, and boils up from its very 
 foundations. The legend is, that the body of Ence- 
 ladus, blasted by lightning, is kept down by this mighty 
 weight, and that the giant bulk of jEtna, piled on him, 
 breathes forth penal fire through passages which that 
 fire has burst; and ever, as he shifts his side from 
 weariness, all Trinacria quakes and groans, and draws 
 up a curtain of smoke over the skj^ That night, in the 
 shelter of the woods, we endure the visitation of mon- 
 strous portents, yet see not what cause produces the 
 sound. For there was no starlight, no sk}^, bright with 
 a heaven of constellations, but the firmament was dim 
 and murky, and dead night was keeping the moon in a 
 prison of storm-clouds. 
 
 ' And now the next day was breaking in early dawn, 
 and Aurora had drawn off the dewy shadow from the 
 sk}', when suddenly from the woods comes forth the 
 strange figure of a man unknown, in piteous trim — a 
 picture completed by Famine's master-stroke, and 
 stretches his hands in supplication to the shore. We 
 look back : there was filth to make us shudder, a length 
 of beard, a covering fastened with thorns ; yet the rest 
 
BOOK III. 199 
 
 betokened a Greek, who had once been sent to Troy in 
 the army of his nation. As for him, when he saw from 
 afar the dress of Dardan land and the arms of Troy, 
 for a moment he faltered, scared by the sight, and 
 checked his steps ; soon he ran headlong to the shore, 
 crying and praying: " By the stars I adjure you, by 
 the powers above, by this blessed light of heaven we 
 breathe, take me with you, Teucrians ; carry me off to 
 any land you will ; this will be enough. I know I am 
 one of the Danaan crews ; I own that I carried war 
 into your Trojan homes ; for which, if the guilt of my 
 crime is so black, fling me piecemeal to the waves, 
 drown me deep in the great sea. If I am to die, there 
 will be pleasure in dying by the hands of men." His 
 speech was over, and he was clinging about us, clasp- 
 ing our knees, and writhing round them. We encour- 
 age him to tell us who he is, of what race sprung, to 
 reveal what fortune has since made him its sport. My 
 father, Anchises, after no long pause, himself gives his 
 hand to the 3'outh, and reassures him b}" the powerful 
 pledge. He at length lays aside his fear, and speaks 
 as follows : — 
 
 ' ^' I come from Ithaca, a comrade of the ill-starred 
 Ulysses, my name Achemenides. I went to Troy, leav- 
 ing my father, Adamastus, who was poor. Would that 
 his lot had remained mine! Here, in their hurry to 
 leave the door of the slaughter-house, my comrades for- 
 got me, and so left me behind in the Cyclops' enormous 
 den. It is a house of gore and bloody feasting, deep, 
 and dark, and huge ; its master towers aloft, and 
 strikes the stars on high (ye gods, remove from the 
 earth a plague like this !), whom no eye rests on with 
 pleasure, no tongue dare accost. The flesh of wretched 
 men and their black blood are the food he feeds on. 
 
200 THE ^NEID. 
 
 These eyes saw, when two bodies from our company, 
 caught by his huge hand, as he threw back his head in 
 the midst of the den, were being brained against the 
 rock, and the floor was plashed and swimming with 
 blood — thej^ saw, when he was crunching their hmbs, 
 dripping with black gore, and the warm joints were 
 quivering under his teeth. He did it, but not unpun- 
 ished. Ulysses was not the man to brook a deed like 
 this ; the brain of Ithaca was not wanting to itself 
 when the need was so great. For soon as, gorged with 
 his food and buried in wine, he bent and dropped his 
 neck, and lay all along the den in unmeasured length, 
 belching out gore in his sleep, and gobbets mixed with 
 bloody wine ; then we, having made our prayer to the 
 great gods and drawn our places by lot, surround 
 him on all sides as one man, and with a sharp weapon 
 bore out his eye, that vast ej^e, which used to lie single 
 and sunk under his grim brow,* and thus at last take 
 triumphant vengeance for our comrades' shades. But 
 fly, unhappy men, fly, and tear your cable from the 
 shore. For hideous and huge as is Polyphemus, fold- 
 ing in his den his woolly flocks and pressing their ud- 
 ders, as hideous and huge are a hundred others that 
 dwell everywhere along this coast, monster Cyclops, 
 and stalk over the tall mountains. It is now the third 
 moon, whose horns are filling out with light, that I am 
 dragging along my life in the woods, among the lonely 
 lairs where wild beasts dwell, and looking forth on the 
 huge Cyclops as they stalk from rock to rock, and 
 trembling at their tread and at the sound of their voices. 
 M}^ wretched fare, berries and stony cornels, is sup- 
 plied by the boughs, and herbage uprooted yields me 
 food. As I turned my eyes all about, this fleet of 
 * Another hne omitted in the translation. — [Ed.] 
 
BOOK IIL 201 
 
 yours at last I saw advancing to the shore ; with this, 
 prove it what might, I cast in my lot ; it is enough to 
 have escaped this race of monsters. Sooner do you 
 destroy this life by any death you please." 
 
 ' Scarce had he ended, when on the mountain-top we 
 see the giant himself, moving along with his enormous 
 bulk among his cattle, and making for the well-known 
 shore — a monster dreadful, hideous, huge, with his 
 eye extinguished. A pine, lopped by his own hand, 
 guides him and steadies his footsteps. His woolly 
 sheep accompany him — there is his sole pleasure, the 
 solace of his suffering. After he had touched the 
 waves of the deep and come to the sea, he washes with 
 its water the gore that trickles from his scooped -out 
 eye, gnashing his teeth with a groan ; and he steps 
 through the sea, now at main height, while the wave 
 has not yet wetted his tall sides. We, in alarm, hasten 
 our flight from the place, taking on board the suppliant, 
 who had thus made good his claim, and silently cut the 
 cable ; then throw ourselves forward, and with emu- 
 lous oars sweep along the sea. He perceived it, and 
 turned his steps towards the noise he heard. But when 
 he finds he has no means of grasping at us with his 
 hand, no power of keeping pace with the Ionian waves 
 in pursuit, he raises a gigantic roar, at which the sea 
 and all its waters trembled inwardly, and the land of 
 Italy shuddered to its core, and ^tna bellowed through 
 her winding caverns. But the tribe of the Cyclops, 
 startled from wood and lofty mountain, rush to the 
 haven and fill the shore. There we see them standing, 
 each with the empty menace of his grim eye, the breth- 
 ren of ^tna, lifting their tall heads to heaven, a dire 
 assemblage — like as on some tall peak, sk^yey oaks or 
 cone-bearing cypresses stand together, a lofty forest of 
 
202 THE ^NEID. 
 
 Jupiter, or a grove of Diana. Headlong our crews are 
 driven b}' keen terror to fling out the ropes anywhither, 
 and stretch their sails to the winds that would catch 
 them. On the other hand, Helenus' warning bids them 
 not to hold on their way between Scylla and Charybdis, 
 a passage on either side removed but a hair's breadth 
 from death ; so our purpose stands to spread our sails 
 backward. "When lo ! the north wind is upon us, sped 
 from Pelorus' narrow strait. On I fly, past Pantagia's 
 mouth of living rock, and the bay of Megara, and low- 
 lying Thapsus. Such were the coasts named to us by 
 Achemenides, as he retraced his former wanderings — 
 Achemenides, comrade of the ill-starred Ulysses. 
 
 ' Stretched before the Sicanian bay lies an island, 
 over against Plemyrium the billowy — former ages 
 named it Ortj'gia. Hither, the legend is, Alpheus, the 
 river of Elis, made himself a secret passage under the 
 sea ; and he now, through thj^ mouth, Arethusa, blends 
 with the waters of Sicil3\ Obedient to command, we 
 worship the mighty gods of the place ; and from thence 
 I pass the over-rich soil of Helorus the marshy. Hence 
 we skirt the tall crags and jutting rocks of Pachj^nus, 
 and Camarina is seen in the distance. Camarina, which 
 the oracle gave no man leave to disturb, and the plains 
 of Gela, and Gela itself, mighty cit}-, called from the 
 stream that laves it. Next Acragas the craggy dis- 
 plays from afar its lofty walls, one day the breeder of 
 generous steeds. Thee, too, I leave, by favor of the 
 winds, palmy Selinus, and pick my way through the 
 sunk rocks that make Lilybeium's waters perilous. 
 Hence Drepanum receives me, with its haven and its 
 joyless coast. Here, after so many storms on the sea 
 had done their worst, woe is me ! I lose him that had 
 made every care and danger light, my father, Anchises. 
 
BOOK IV. 203 
 
 Here, best of sires, you leave jour son, lone and wear}', 
 you, who had been snatched from those fearful dangers, 
 alas ! in vain. Helenus, the seer, among the thousand 
 horrors he foretold, warned me not of this agony ; no, 
 nor dread Celseno. This was m}^ last suffering, this 
 the goal of my long journey ings. It was on parting 
 hence that Heaven drove me on your coast.* 
 
 Thus father ^neas, alone, amid the hush of all 
 around, was recounting Heaven's destined dealings, 
 and teUing of his voyages ; and now, at length, he was 
 silent, made an end, and took his rest. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 But the queen, pierced long since by love's cruel 
 shaft, is feeding the wound with her life-blood, and 
 wasting under a hidden fire. Man}^ times the hero's 
 own worth comes back to her mind, many times the 
 glory of his race ; his every look remains imprinted on 
 her breast, and his every word, nor will trouble let 
 soothing sleep have access to her frame. 
 
 The dawn-goddess of the iporrow was surveying the 
 earth with Phoebus' torch in her hand, and had already 
 withdrawn the dewy shadow from the sky, when she, 
 sick of soul, thus bespoke the sister whose heart was 
 one with hers : — ' Anna, my sister, what dreams are 
 these that confound and appall me ? Who is this new 
 guest that has entered our door? What a face and 
 carriage ! What strength of breast and shoulders ! I 
 do believe — it is no mere fancy — that he has the 
 blood of gods in his veins. An ignoble soul is known 
 by the coward's brand. Ah! by what fates he has 
 
204 THE yENEID. 
 
 been tossed! What wars he was recounting, every 
 pang of them borne by himself! Were it not the 
 fixed, immovable purpose of my mind never to consent 
 to join myself with any in wedlock's bands, since my 
 first love played me false and made me the dupe of 
 death — had I not been weary of bridal bed and nup- 
 tial torch, perchance I might have stooped to this one 
 reproach. Anna — for I will own the truth — since 
 the fate of S3'ch8eus, my poor husband — since the 
 sprinkling of the gods of my home with the blood 
 my brother shed, he and he only has touched my heart 
 and shaken my resolution till it totters. I recognize 
 the traces of the old flame. But first I would pray that 
 earth may 3'awn for me from her foundations, or the 
 all-powerful sire hurl me thunder-stricken to the shades, 
 to the wan shades of Erebus and ab^^smal night, ere I 
 violate thee, my woman's honor, or unknit the bonds 
 thou tiest. He who first wedded me, he has carried 
 off my heart — let him keep it all his own, and retain 
 it in his grave.' Thus having said, she deluged her 
 bosom with a burst of tears. 
 
 Anna replies : — ' Sweet love, dearer than the light 
 to your sister's ej'e, are you to pine and grieve in lone- 
 liness through life's long spring, nor know aught of a 
 mother's joy in her children, nor of the prizes Venus 
 gives ? Think 3'ou that dead ashes and ghosts low in 
 the grave take this to heart? Grant that no husbands 
 have touched 3'our bleeding heart in times gone by, 
 none now in Libya, none before in Tjtc ; yes, larbas 
 has been slighted, and the other chieftains whom Afric, 
 rich in triumphs, rears as its own — will 3'ou fight 
 against a welcome, no less than an unwelcome passion? 
 Nor does it cross your mind in whose territories you 
 are settled? On one side the cities of the Gaetulians, 
 
BOOK IK 205 
 
 a race invincible in war, and the Numidians environ 
 3"ou, unbridled as their steeds, and the inhospitable 
 Syrtis ; on another, a region unpeopled by drought, 
 and the wide-spread barbarism of the nation of Barce. 
 What need to talk of the war-cloud threatening from 
 T3^re, and the menaces of our brother? It is under 
 Heaven's auspices, I deem, and by Juno's blessing, 
 that the vessels of Ilion have made this voyage hither. 
 What a cit}^, my sister, will ours become before your 
 eyes ! what an empire will grow out of a marriage like 
 this ! With the arms of the Teucrians at its back, to 
 what a height will the glory of Carthage soar ! Only 
 be it 3'ours to implore the favor of Heaven, and having 
 won its acceptance, give free course to hospitality and 
 weave a chain of pleas for delaj^, while the tempest is 
 raging its full on the sea, and Orion, the star of rain, 
 while his ships are still battered, and the rigor of the 
 sk}" still un3ielding.' By these words she added fresh 
 fuel to the fire of love, gave confidence to her wavering 
 mind, and loosed the ties of woman's honor. 
 
 First they approach the temples and inquire for par- 
 don from altar to altar ; duly they slaughter chosen 
 sheep to Ceres the lawgiver, to Phoebus, and to father 
 Lyseus — above all to Juno, who makes marriage bonds 
 her care. Dido herself, in all her beaut}', takes a goblet 
 in her hand, and pours it out full between the horns of a 
 heifer of gleaming white, or moves majestic in the pres- 
 ence of the gods towards the richlj^-laden altars, and 
 solemnizes the day with offerings, and gazing greedily 
 on the victims' opened breasts, consults the entrails 3'et 
 quivering with life. Alas ! how blind are the eyes of 
 seers ! What can vows, what can temples do for the 
 madness of love ? All the while a flame is preying on 
 the very marrow of her bones, and deep in her breast 
 
206 THE ^NEID. 
 
 a wound keeps noiselessly alive. She is on fire, the ill- 
 fated Dido, and in her madness ranges the whole city 
 through, like a doe from an arrow-shot, whom, un- 
 guarded in the thick of the Cretan woods, a shepherd, 
 chasing her with his darts, has pierced from a distance, 
 and left the flying steel in the wound, unknowing of his 
 prize ; she at full speed scours the forests and lawns of 
 Dicte ; the deadly reed still sticks in her sfde. Now 
 she leads ^neas with her through the heart of the 
 town, and displays the wealth of Sidon, and the city 
 built to dwell in. She begins to speak, and stops mid- 
 way in the utterance. Now, as the day fades, she 
 seeks again the banquet of yesterday, and once more in 
 frenzy asks to hear of the agonies of Troy, and hangs 
 once more on his lips as he tells the tale. Afterwards, 
 when the guests are gone, and the dim moon in turn is 
 hiding her light, and the setting stars invite to slumber, 
 alone she mourns in the empty hall, and presses the 
 couch he has just left ; him far away she sees and hears, 
 herself far away ; or holds Ascanius long in her lap, 
 spellbound by his father's image, to cheat, if she can, 
 her ungovernable passion. The towers that were rising 
 rise no longer ; the j'outh ceases to practice arms, or to 
 make ready havens and bulwarks for safety in war ; the 
 works are broken and suspended, the giant frowning of 
 the walls, and the engine level with the sky. 
 
 Soon as Jove's loved wife saw that she was so mas- 
 tered by the plague, and that good name could not stand 
 in the face of passion, she, the daughter of Saturn, be- 
 speaks Venus thus : — ' Brilliant truly is the praise, 
 ample the spoils you are carrying off, you and your boy 
 — great and memorable the fame, if the plots of two gods 
 have really conquered one woman. No ; I am not so 
 blind either to your fears of my city, to your suspicions 
 
BOOK IV. 207 
 
 of the open doors of my statety Carthage. But when 
 is this to end ? or what call now for such terrible con- 
 tention ? Suppose for a change we establish perpetual 
 peace and a firm marriage bond. You have gained 
 what your whole heart went to seek. Dido is ablaze 
 with love, and the madness is coursing through her 
 frame. Jointly then let us rule this nation, each with 
 full sovereignty ; let her stoop to be the slave of a 
 Phrygian husband, and make over her Tyrians in place 
 of dowrj' to 3'our control.' 
 
 , To her — for she saw that she had spoken with a 
 feigned intent, meaning to divert the Italian empire to 
 the coast of Lib3^a — Yenus thus replied : — ' Who 
 would be so mad as to spurn offers like these, and pre- 
 fer your enmity to your friendship, were it but certain 
 that the issue you name would bring good fortune in 
 its train ? But I am groping blindly after destiny — 
 whether it be Jupiter's will that the Tj^ians and the 
 voyagers from Troy should have one city — whether 
 he would have the two nations blended and a league 
 made between them. You are his wife ; it is 3'our 
 place to approach him b}^ entreaty. Go on, I will fol- 
 low.' Imperial Juno rejoined thus : — ' That task shall 
 rest with. me. Now, in what way our present purpose 
 can be contrived, lend me 3'our attention, and I will 
 explain in brief, ^neas and Dido, poor sufferer ! are 
 proposing to go hunting in the forest, when first to- 
 morrow's sun displays his rising, and with his beams 
 uncurtains the globe. On them I will pour from above 
 a black storm of mingled rain and hail, just when the 
 horsemen are all astir, and spreading their toils before 
 the wood- walks, and the whole heaven shall be con- 
 vulsed with thunder. The train shall fly here and there, 
 and be lost in the thick darkness. Dido and the Tro- 
 
208 THE JENEID. 
 
 jan chief shall find themselves in the same cave. I 
 will be there, and, if I may count on your sanction, 
 will unite her to him in lasting wedlock, and conse- 
 crate her his for life. Thus shall Hymen give us his 
 presence.* The Queen of Cythera makes no demur, 
 but nods assent, smiling at the trick she has found out. 
 Meanwhile Aurora has risen, and left the oc^an. 
 Rising with the day-star, the chivalrj- of Carthage 
 streams through the gates, their woven toils, and nets, 
 and hunting-spears tipped with broad iron, and Mas- 
 sylian horsemen hurry along, and a force of keen- 
 scented hounds. There are the Punic princes, waiting 
 for the queen, who still lingers in her chamber ; there 
 stands her palfrey, conspicuous in purple and gold, 
 fiercely champing the foaming bit. At length she comes 
 forth, with a mighty train attending, a T^'rian scarf 
 round her, itself surrounded by an embroidered border ; 
 her quiver of gold, her hair knotted up wdth gold, her 
 purple robe fastened with a golden clasp. The Phrj^- 
 gian train, too, are in motion, and lulus, all exultation, 
 ^neas himself, comelj^ be3^ond all the rest, adds his 
 presence to theirs, and joins the procession ; like 
 Apollo, when he leaves his Lycian winter-seat and the 
 stream of Xanthus, and visits Delos, his mother's isle, 
 and renews the dance ; while with mingled voices round 
 the altar shout Cretans and Dr3'opians, and tattooed 
 Agathyrsians. The god in majesty walks on the 
 heights of Cynthus, training his luxuriant hair with the 
 soft pressure of a wreath of leaves, and twining it 
 with gold ; his arrows rattle on his shoulders. Not 
 with less ease than he moved ^neas ; such the beauty 
 that sparkles in that peerless countenance. When 
 they reach the high mountains and the pathless coverts, 
 see! the wild goats, dropping from the tops of the 
 
BOOK IV, 209 
 
 crags, have run down the slopes ; in another quarter 
 the deer are scouring the open plains, massing their 
 herds as the}^ fly in a whirlwind of dust, and leaving 
 the mountains. But j^oung Ascanius is in the heart 
 of the glens, exulting in his fiery courser. Now he 
 passes one, now another of his comrades at full speed, 
 and pra3^s that in the midst of such spiritless game he 
 ma}^ be blest with the sight of a foaming boar, or that 
 a tawny lion ma}' come down the hill. Meantime the 
 sky begins to be convulsed with a mighty turmoil ; a 
 storm-cloud follows of mingled rain and hail. The 
 T3Tian train, all in confusion, and the chivalry of Troy, 
 and the hope of Dardania, Venus' grandson, have 
 sought shelter in their terror up and down the country, 
 some here, some there. The streams run in torrents 
 down the hills. Dido and the Trojan chief find them- 
 selves in the same cave. Earth, the mother of all, and 
 Juno give the sign. 
 
 Lightnings blaze, and heaven flashed in sympathy 
 with the bridal ; and from mountain-tops the nymphs 
 give the nuptial shout. That day was the birthday of 
 death, the birthda}" of woe. Henceforth she has no 
 thought for the common ej^e, or the common tongue ; 
 it is not a stolen passion that Dido has now in her mind 
 — no, she calls it marriage ; that name is the screen of 
 her sin. 
 
 Instantly Fame takes her journey through Libya's 
 great cities — Fame, a monster surpassed in speed by 
 none ; her nimbleness lends her life, and she gains 
 strength as she goes. At first fear keeps her low; 
 soon she rears herself skj^ward, and treads on the 
 ground, while her head is hidden among the clouds. 
 Earth, her parent, provoked to anger against the gods, 
 brought her forth, they say, the youngest of the family 
 14 
 
210 THE ^NEID. 
 
 of Coeus and Enceladns — swift of foot and untiring 
 of wing, a portent terrible and vast — who, for every 
 feather on her body has an ever-wakeful ej^e beneath, 
 marvelous to tell, for every eye a loud tongue and 
 mouth, and a pricked-up ear. At night she flies mid- 
 way between heaven and earth, hissing through the 
 darkness, nor ever yields her ejxs to the sweets of 
 sleep. In the daj-light she sits sentinel on a high house- 
 top, or on a loft}^ turret, and makes great cities afraid ; 
 as apt to cling to falsehood and wrong as to proclaim 
 the truth. So then she was filling the public ear 
 with a thousand tales — things done and things never 
 done alike the burden of her song — how that ^neas, 
 a prince of Trojan blood, had arrived at Carthage, a 
 hero whom lovely Dido deigned to make her hus- 
 band, and now in luxurious ease they were wearing 
 away the length of winter together, forgetful of the 
 crowns they wore or hoped to wear, and enthralled by 
 unworthy passion. Such are the tales the fiendlike 
 goddess spreads from tongue to tongue. Then, in due 
 course, she turns her steps to King larbas, and in- 
 flames him with her rumors, and piles his indignation 
 high. He, the son of Ammon, from the ravished em- 
 brace of a Garamantian nymph, built within his broad 
 realms a hundred temples to Jove, and in each temple 
 an altar ; there he had consecrated an ever-wakeful 
 fire, the god's unsleeping sentrj^, a floor thick with 
 victims' blood, and doors wreathed with particolored 
 garlands. And he, frenzied in soul, and stung by the 
 bitter tidings, is said, as he stood before the altars, with 
 the majesty of Heaven all around him, to have prayed 
 long and earnestly to Jove with upturned hands : — 
 * Jove, the Almightj^, to whom in this my reign the 
 Moorish race, feasting on embroidered couches, pour 
 
BOOK IV. 211 
 
 out the offering of the vintage, seest thou this ? or is 
 our dread of thee, Father, when thou hurlest thy 
 lightnings, an idle panic? are those aimless fires in 
 the clouds that appall us ? have their confused rum- 
 blings no meaning? See here : a woman, who, wander- 
 ing in our territories, bought leave to build a petty 
 town, to whom we made over a strip of land for till- 
 age, with its rights of lordship, she has rejected an 
 alliance with us, and received ^neas into her king- 
 dom, to be its lord and hers. And now that second 
 Paris, with his emasculate following, a Mseonian cap 
 supporting his chin and his essenced hair, is enjoying 
 his prize, while we, forsooth, are making offerings 
 to temples of thine, and keeping alive an idle rumor.' 
 Thus as he prayed, his hands grasping the altar, the 
 almighty one heard him, and turned his e3'es to the 
 queenly city and the guilty pair, lost to their better 
 fame. Then thus he bespeaks Mercury, and gives him 
 a charge like this : — ' Go, haste, my son, summon the 
 Zephyrs, and float on thy wings ; address the Dardan 
 chief, who is now dallying in Tyrian Carthage and 
 giving no thought to the city which Destiny makes his 
 own ; carry him my commands through the flying air. 
 It was not a man like that whom his beauteous mother 
 promised us in him, and on the strength of her word 
 twice rescued him from the sword of Greece. No, he 
 was to be one who should govern Italy — Ital}^ with its 
 brood of unborn empires, and the war-cry bursting from 
 its heart — who should carry down a line sprung from 
 the grand fountain-head of Teucer's blood, and should 
 force the whole world to bow to the laws he makes. 
 If he is fired by no spark of ambition for greatness 
 like this, and will not rear a toilsome fabric for his own 
 praise, is it a father's heart that grudges Ascanius the 
 
212 THE ^NEID, 
 
 hills of Rome ? What is he building ? What does he 
 look to in lingering on among a nation of enemies, with 
 no thought for the great Ausonian familj^, or for the 
 fields of Lavinium ? Away with him to sea ! This is 
 our sentence ; thus far be our messenger.' 
 
 Jove had spoken, and Mercury was preparing to 
 execute the great sire's command : first he binds to his 
 feet his sandals, all of gold, which carry him, uplifted 
 by their pinions, over sea no less than land, with the 
 swiftness of the wind that wafts him. Then he takes 
 his rod — the rod with which he is wont to call up 
 pale specters from the place of death — to send others 
 on their melancholy way to Tartarus, to give sleep or 
 take it away, and to open the eyes when death is past. 
 With this in hand, he drives the winds before him, and 
 makes a path through the sea of clouds. And now in 
 his flight he espies the crest and the tall sides of Atlas 
 the rugged, who with his top supports the sky — Atlas, 
 whose pine-crowned head, ever wreathed with dark 
 clouds, is buffeted by wind and rain. A mantle of 
 snow wraps his shoulders ; rivers tumble from his hoary 
 chin, and his grisly beard is stiff with ice. Here first 
 Cyllene's god poised himself on his wings and rested ; 
 then from his stand stooping his whole body, he sent 
 himselt headlong to the sea, hke a bird which haunting 
 the coast and the fish}" rocks flies low, close to the 
 water. Even so was he flying between earth and 
 heaven, between Libj^a's sand}- coast and the winds 
 that swept it, leaving his mother's father behind, him- 
 self Cyllene's progeny. 
 
 Soon as his winged feet alit among the huts of Car- 
 thage, he sees ^neas founding towers and making 
 houses new. A sword was at his side, starred with 
 yellow jaspers, and a mantle drooped from his shoul- 
 
BOOK IV. 213 
 
 ders, ablaze with TjTian purple — a costly gift which 
 Dido had made, varying the web with threads of gold. 
 Instantly he assails him : — ' And are you at a time 
 like this laying the foundations of stately Carthage, 
 and building, like a fond husband, j^our wife's goodly 
 city, forgetting, alas ! your own kingdom and the cares 
 that should be yours ? It is no less than the ruler of 
 the gods who sends me down to you from his bright 
 Olympus — he whose nod sways heaven and earth ; it 
 is he that bids me carry his commands through the 
 flying air. What are you building ? what do you look 
 to in squandering your leisure in Libyan land? If you 
 are fired by no spark of ambition for the greatness in 
 your view, and will not rear a toilsome fabric for your 
 own praise, think of Ascanius rising into youth, think 
 of lulus, your heir and j^our hope, to whom you owe 
 the crown of Italy and the realm of Rome.* With 
 these words Cyllene's god quitted mortal sight ere he 
 had well ceased to speak, and vanished away from the 
 e3'e into unsubstantial air. 
 
 The sight left ^neas dumb and aghast indeed ; his 
 hair stood shudderingly erect ; his speech clave to his 
 throat. He burns to take flight and leave the land of 
 pleasure, as his ears ring with the thunder of Heaven's 
 imperious warning. What — ah ! what is he to do ? 
 with what address can he now dare to approach the 
 impassioned queen ? what first advances can he employ ? 
 And tlius he dispatches his rapid thought hither and 
 thither, hurrying it east and west, and sweeping every 
 corner of the field. So balancing, at last he thought 
 this judgment the best. He calls Mnestheus and Ser- 
 gestus and brave Serestus ; bids them quietly get ready 
 the fleet, muster the crews on the shore, with their arms 
 in their hands, hiding the reason for so sudden a 
 
214 THE jENEID. 
 
 change. Meantime he, while Dido, kindest of friends, 
 is in ignorance, deeming love's chain too strong to be 
 snapped, will feel his way, and find what are the hap- 
 piest moments for speech, what the right hold to take 
 of circumstance. At once all gladly obe}^ his com- 
 mand, and are busj' on the tasks enjoined. 
 
 But the queen (who can cheat a lover's senses?) 
 scented the plot, and caught the first sound of the 
 coming stir, alive to fear in the midst of safety. Fame, 
 as before, the same baleful fiend, whispered in her 
 frenzied ear that the fleet was being equipped and the 
 voyage got ready. She storms in impotence of soul, 
 and, all on fire, goes raving through the city, like a 
 Maenad starting up at the rattle of the sacred emblems, 
 when the triennial orgies lash her with the cry of Bac- 
 chus, and Cithseron's yell calls her into the night. At 
 length she thus bespeaks -^neas, unaddressed by 
 him : — 
 
 ' To hide, 3'es, hide your enormous crime, perfidious 
 wretch, did you hope tliat might be done — to steal 
 away in silence from my realm? Has our love no 
 power to keep you? has our troth, once plighted, none, 
 nor she whom you doom to a cruel death, your Dido? 
 Nay, are you fitting out j^our fleet with winter's sky 
 overhead, and hastening to cross the deep in the face 
 of all the northern winds, hard-hearted as you are? 
 Wh}^ suppose you were not seeking a strange clime 
 and a home you know not — suppose old Troy were 
 still standing — would even Troy draw you to seek her 
 across a billowy sea? Flying, and from me ! By the 
 tears I shed, and by your plighted hand, since my own 
 act, alas ! has left me naught else to plead — by our 
 union — by the nuptial rites thus prefaced — if I have 
 ever deserved well of you, or aught of mine ever gave 
 
BOOK IV. 215 
 
 3^011 pleasure — have pity on a falling house, and strip 
 off, I conjure you, if prayer be not too late, the mind 
 that clothes 3'ou. It is owing to 3'ou that the Lib^'an 
 tribes and the Nomad chiefs hate me, that m}' own 
 Tyrians are estranged ; owing to you, yes, 3'ou, that 
 my woman's honor has been put out, and that which 
 was m^' one passport to immortality^, my former fame. 
 To whom are jrou abandoning a dying woman, mj' 
 guest ? — since the name of husband has dwindled to 
 that. Wh}^ do I live an^' longer? — to give my brother 
 Pygmalion time to batter down m^- walls, or larbas the 
 Moor to carrj' me away captive ? Had I but borne any 
 offspring of 30U before 3'our flight, were there some 
 tinj' ^neas to plaj^ in mj' hall, and remind me of 3'ou, 
 though but in look, I should not then feel utterly cap- 
 tive and forlorn.' 
 
 She ceased. He all the while, at Jove's command, 
 was keeping his ej'es unmoved, and shutting up in his 
 heart his great love. At length he answers in brief: — 
 ' Fair queen, name all the claims to gratitude you can. 
 I shall never gainsa}^ one, nor will the thought of Elissa 
 ever be unwelcome while memory' lasts, while breath 
 animates this frame. A few words I will saj', as the 
 case admits. I never counted — do not dream it — on 
 stealthily concealing m^- flight. I never came with a 
 bridegroom's torch in mj' hand, nor was this the alli- 
 ance to which I agreed. For me, were the Fates to 
 suffer me to live under a star of my own choosing, and 
 to make with care the terms I would, the city of Troy, 
 first of all the dear remains of what was mine, would 
 claim m}' tendance. Priam's tall roof-tree would still 
 be standing, and my hand would have built a restored 
 Pergamus, to solace the vanquished. But now to 
 princely Italy Grynean Apollo, to Italy his Lyciau 
 
216 THE ^NEID, 
 
 oracles bid me repair. There is my heart, there my 
 fatherland. If you are riveted here by the sight of your 
 stately Carthage, a daughter of Phoenicia by a Libyan 
 town, why, I would ask, should jealousy forbid Teu- 
 crians to settle in Ausonian land? We, like you, have 
 the right of looking for a foreign realm. There is my 
 father Anchises, oft as night's dewy shades invest the 
 earth, oft as the fiery stars arise, warning me in dreams 
 and appalling me by his troubled presence. There is 
 my son Ascanius, and the wrongs heaped on his dear 
 head every day that I rob him of the crown of Hesperia, 
 and of the land that fate makes his. Now, too, the 
 messenger of the gods, sent down from Jove himself 
 (I swear by both our lives) has brought me orders 
 through the flying air. With my own eyes I saw the 
 god in clear daj^light entering the walls, and took in 
 his words with the ears that hear you now. Cease then 
 to haiTow up both our souls by 3'our reproaches : my 
 quest of Italy is not of my own motion.' 
 
 Long ere he had done this speech she was glaring at 
 him askance, rolling her eyes this way and that, and 
 scanning the whole man with her silent glances, and 
 thus she bursts forth all ablaze : — ' No goddess was 
 mother of yours, no Dardanus the head of your line, 
 perfidious wretch ! — no, your parent was CBjcasus, 
 rugged and craggy, and HjTcanian tigresses put their 
 breasts to your lips. For why should I suppress aught? 
 or for what worse evil hold myself in reserve ? Did he 
 groan when I wept ? did he move those hard e3^es ? did 
 he yield and shed tears, or pit}^ her that loved him ? 
 What first? what last? Now, neither Juno, queen of 
 all, nor Jove, the almighty Father, eyes us with im- 
 partial regard. Nowhere is there aught to trust — no- 
 where. A shipwrecked beggar, I welcomed him, and 
 
BOOK IV, 217 
 
 hiadty gave him a share of my realm ; his lost fleet, his 
 crews ^ I brought back from death's door. Ah ! Fury- 
 sets me on fire, and whirls me round ! Now, prophet 
 Apollo, now the Lycian oracles. Now the messenger 
 of the gods, sent down by Jove himself, bears his grim 
 bidding through the air ! Aye, of course, that is the 
 employment of the powers above, those the cares that 
 break their repose ! I retain not your person, nor 
 refute your talk. Go, chase Italy with the winds at 
 your back ; look for realms with the whole sea between 
 you. I have hope that on the rocks midway, if the 
 gods are as powerful as the}^ are good, you will drain 
 the cup of punishment, with Dido's name ever on your 
 lips. I will follow, you with murky fires when I am far 
 away ; and when cold death shall have parted soul and 
 body, my shade shall haunt you everywhere. Yes, 
 wretch, you shall suffer. I shall hear it — the news will 
 reach me down among the dead.' So saying, she snaps 
 short her speech, and flies with loathing from the da}"- 
 light, and breaks and rushes from his sight, leaving him 
 hesitating, and fearing, and thinking of a thousand things 
 to say. Her maidens support her, and carry her sinking 
 frame into her marble chamber, and lay her on her bed. 
 But good JEneas, though yearning to solace and soothe 
 her agonized spirit, and by his words to check the onset 
 of sorrow, with many a groan, his whole soul upheaved 
 by the force of love, goes nevertheless about the com- 
 mands of Heaven, and repairs to his fleet. The Teu- 
 crians redouble their efforts, and along the whole range 
 of the shore drag their tall ships down. The keels are 
 careened and floated. They carry oars with their leaves 
 still on, and timber unfashioned as it stood in the woods, 
 so strong their eagerness to fly. You may see them all 
 in motion, streaming from every part of the city. Even 
 
218 THE JENEID. 
 
 as ants when they are sacking a huge heap of wheat, 
 provident of winter days, and laying up the plunder in 
 their stores ; a black column is seen moving through 
 the plain, and the}^ convey their booty along the grass 
 in a narrow path : some are putting their shoulders to 
 the big grains, and pushing them along ; others are 
 rallying the force and punishing the stragglers ; the 
 whole track is in a glow of work. What were your 
 feeUngs then, poor Dido, at a sight hke this ! How 
 deep the groans j^ou heaved, when you looked out from 
 your lofty tower on a beach all seething and swarming, 
 and saw the whole sea before you deafened with that 
 hubbub of voices ! Tyrant love ! what force dost thou 
 not put on human hearts? Again she has to conde- 
 scend to tears, again to use the weapons of entreaty, 
 and bow her spirit in suppliance under love's yoke, lest 
 she should have left aught untried, and be rushing on a 
 needless death. 
 
 '- Anna, you see there is hurrying all over the shore 
 — the}' are met from every side ; the canvas is already 
 wooing the gale, and the joyful sailors have wreathed 
 the sterns. If I have had the foresight to anticipate so 
 heav3' a blow, I shall have the power to bear it too, my 
 sister. Yet, Anna, in my miserj', perform me this one 
 service. You, and you onU', the perfidious man was 
 wont to make his friend — aye, even . to trust you with 
 his secret thoughts. You, and 3'ou only, know the 
 subtle approaches to his heart, and the times of essay- 
 ing them. Go, then, my sister, and supplicate our 
 haughty foe. Tell him I was no part}^ to the Danaan 
 league at Aulis to destroy the Trojan nation ; I sent no 
 ships to Pergamus ; I never disinterred his father An- 
 chises, his dust or his spirit. Why will he not let my 
 words sink down into his obdurate ears ? Whither is 
 
BOOK IV. 219 
 
 he hurrying? Let him grant this last boon to her who 
 loves him so wildly ; let him wait till the way is 
 smoothed for his flight, and there are winds to waft 
 him. I am not asking him now to renew our old vows 
 which he has forsworn. I am not asking him to forego 
 his fair Latiiim, and resign his crown. I entreat but a 
 few vacant hours, a respite and breathing-space for my 
 passion, till mj- fortune shall have taught baffled love 
 how to grieve. This is my last request of you. Oh, 
 pity your poor sister ! — a request which when granted 
 shall be returned with interest in death.' 
 
 Such was her appeal — such the wailing which her 
 afflicted sister bears to him, and bears again ; but no 
 wailing moves him, no words find him a gentle listener. 
 Fate bars the wa}^, and Heaven closes the hero's relent- 
 ing ears. Even as an aged oak, still hale and strong, 
 which Alpine winds, blowing now here, now there, - 
 strive emulously to uproot — a loud noise is heard, 
 and, as the stem rocks, heaps of leaves pile the ground ; 
 but the tree cleaves firmly' to the cliff; high as its head 
 strikes into the air, so deep its root strikes down to the 
 abyss — even thus the hero is assailed on all sides 'hy a 
 storm of words : his mighty breast thrills through and 
 through with agony; but his mind is unshaken, and 
 tears are showered in vain. 
 
 Then at last, maddened by her destiny, poor Dido 
 prays for death : heaven's vault is a weariness to look 
 on. To confirm her in pursuing her intent, and closing 
 her eyes on the sun, she saw, as she was laying her 
 offerings on the incense-steaming altars — horrible to 
 tell — the sacred liquor turn black, and the streams of 
 wine curdle into loathly gore. This appearance she 
 told to none, not even to her sister. Moreover, there 
 was in her palace a marble chapel to her former bus- 
 
r 
 
 220 THE ^NEID. 
 
 band, to which she u^d to pa}^ singular honors, wreath- 
 ing it with snowy fillets and festal boughs ; from it she 
 thought she heard a voice, the accents of the dead man 
 calling her, when the darkness of night was shrouding 
 'the earth ; and on the roof a lonely owl in funereal 
 tones kept complaining again and again, and drawing 
 out wailingh' its protracted notes ; and a thousand pre- 
 dictions of seers of other days come back on her, terri- 
 fying her with their awful warnings. When she dreams, 
 there is ^neas himself driving her in furious chase : 
 she seems alwaj's being left alone to herself, always 
 pacing companionless on a never-ending road, and look- ' 
 ing for her T3'rians in a realm without inhabitants — 
 like Pentheus, when in frenzy he sees troops of Furies, 
 and two s/^ns, and a double Thebes rising round him ; 
 or Agamemnon's Orestes rushing over the stage, as he 
 flies from his mother, who is armed with torches and 
 deadly snakes, while the avenging fiends sit couched on 
 the threshold. 
 
 So when, spent with agony, she gave conception to 
 the demon, and resolved on death, she settled with her- 
 self time and means, and thus bespoke her grieving 
 sister, her face disguising her intent, and hope smiling 
 on her brow : — ' Dearest, I have found a way ^ wish 
 me joy, as a sister should — to bring him back to me, 
 or to loose me from the love which binds me to him. 
 Hard by the bound of ocean and the setting sun lies 
 the extreme Ethiopian clime, where mighty Atlas turns 
 round on his shoulders the pole, studded with burning 
 stars. From that chme, I have heard of a priestess of 
 the Massylian race, once guardian of the temple of the 
 Hesperides, who used to give the dragon his food, and 
 so preserve the sacred boughs on the tree, sprinkUng 
 for him moist honey and drowsy poppy-seed. She, by 
 
BOOK IV. 221 
 
 her spells, undertakes to release souls at her pleasure, 
 while into others she shoots cruel pangs ; she stops the 
 water in the river-bed, and turns back the stars in their 
 courses, and calls ghosts from realms of night. You 
 will see the earth bellowing under you, and the ashes 
 coming down from the mountain-top. By the gods I 
 swear, dearest sister, by you and your dear life, that 
 unwillingly I gird on the weapons of magic. Do you, 
 in the privacy of the inner court, build a pile to the 
 open sky ; lay on it the arms which that godless man 
 left hanging in the chamber, and all his doffed apparel, 
 and the nuptial bed which was m}^ undoing. To de- 
 stroy every memorial of the hateful wretch is my pleas- 
 ure, and the priestess' bidding.' This said, she is 
 silent — ■ paleness overspreads her face. Yet Anna does 
 not dream that these strange rites are a veil to hide her 
 sister's death : she cannot grasp frenzy like that ; she 
 fears no darker day than that of their mourning for 
 Sychseus, and so she does her bidding. 
 
 But the queen, when the pile had been built in the 
 heart of the palace to the open sky, a giant mass of 
 pine-wood and hewn oak, spans the place with gar- 
 lands, and crowns it with funeral boughs. High above 
 it on the couch she sets the doffed apparel, and the 
 sword that had been left, and the image of the false 
 lover, knowing too well what was to come. Altars rise 
 here and there ; the priestess, with hair disheveled, 
 thunders out the roll of three hundred gods, Erebus 
 and Chaos, and Hecate with her triple form — the three 
 faces borne by maiden Dia'n. See ! she has sprinkled 
 water, brought, so she feigns, from Avernus' spring, 
 and she is getting green downy herbs, cropped by 
 moonlight with brazen shears, whose sap is the milk of 
 deadly poison, and the love-charm, torn from the brow 
 
222 THE ^NEID. 
 
 of the new-born fofil, ere the mother could snatch it. 
 Dido herself, with salted cake and pure hands at the 
 altars, one foot unshod, her vest ungirdled, makes her 
 d3'ing appeal to the gods and to the stars who share 
 Fate's counsels, begging the powers, if an}- there be, 
 that watch, righteous and uuforgetting, over ill-3'oked 
 lovers, to hear her pra3'er. 
 
 It was night, and overtoiled mortalit}' throughout the 
 earth was enjoying peaceful slumber ; the woods were 
 at rest, and the raging waves — the hour when the stars 
 are rolling midway in their smooth courses, when all 
 the land is hushed, cattle, and ga3'-plumed birds, 
 haunters far and wide of clear waters and rough forest- 
 ground, lapped in sleep w4th still3' night overhead, 
 their troubles assuaged, their hearts dead to care. Not 
 so the vexed spirit of Phoenicia's daughter ; she never 
 relaxes into, slumber, or welconies the night to e3'e or 
 bosom ; sorrow doubles peal on peal ; once more love 
 swells, and storms, and surges, with a might3' tempest 
 of passion. Thus, then, she plunges into speech, and 
 whirls her thoughts about thus in the depths of her 
 soul: — 'What am I about? Am I to make fresh 
 proof of m3' former suitors, with scorn before me? 
 Must I stoop to court Nomad bridegrooms, whose 
 offered hand I have spurned so often? Well, then, 
 shall I follow the fleet of Ilion, and be at the beck and 
 call of Teucrian masters ? Is it that the3^ think with 
 pleasure on the succor once rendered them ? that grati- 
 tude for past kindness 3'et lives in their memor3' ? But 
 ev^en if I wished it, who will give me leave, or admit 
 the unwelcome guest to his haught3' ships ? Are 3'ou 
 so ignorant, poor wretch ? Do you not 3'et understand 
 the perjury of the race of Laomedon? What then? 
 Shall I fl3^ alone, and swell the triumph of their crews ? 
 
BOOK IV, 223 
 
 or shall I put to sea, with the Tyrians and the whole 
 force of my people at my back, dragging those whom 
 it was so hard to uproot from their Sidonian home 
 again into the deep, and bidding them spread sail to 
 the winds ? No ! — die the death yoxx. have merited, 
 and let the sword put your sorrow to flight. You, 
 sister, are the cause ; overmastered by my tears, you 
 heap this deadly fuel on my flame, and fling me upon 
 my enemy. Why could I not forswear wedlock, and 
 live an unblamed life in savage freedom, nor meddle 
 with troubles Hke these? Why did I not keep the 
 faith I vowed to the ashes of Sychseus ? * Such were 
 the reproaches that broke from that bursting heart. 
 
 Meanwhile ^neas, resolved on his journey, was slum- 
 bering in his vessel's tall stern, all being now in readi- 
 ness. To him a vision of the god appearing again with 
 the same countenance, presented itself as he slept, and 
 seemed to give this second warning — the perfect pic- 
 ture of Mercur}', his voice, his blooming hue, his 3^el- 
 low locks, and the 3'buthful grace of his frame :^ 
 ' Goddess-born, at a crisis like this can 3'ou slumber on? 
 Do you not see the wall of danger which is fast rising 
 round you, infatuate that you are, nor hear the favor- 
 ing whisper of the western gale ? She is revolving in 
 her bosom thoughts of craft and crueKy, resolved on 
 death, and surging with a changeful tempest of passion. 
 Will you not haste away while haste is in j'oiir power? 
 You will look on a sea convulsed with ships, an array 
 of fierce torch-fires, a coast glowing with flame, if the 
 dawn-goddess shall have found 3'ou loitering here on 
 land. Quick ! — burst through delay. A thing of 
 moods and changes is woman ever.' He said, and was 
 lost in the darkness of night. 
 
 At once ^neas, scared by the sudden apparition, . 
 
224 THE ^NEID. 
 
 springs up from sleep, and rouses his comrades. 
 ' Wake in a moment, my friends, and seat you on the 
 benches. Unfurl the sails with all speed. See ! here is 
 a god sent down from heaven on high, urging us again 
 to hasten our flight, and cut the twisted cables. Yes ! 
 sacred power, we follow thee, whoever thou art, and a 
 second time with joy obey thy behest. Be thou with 
 us, and graciouslj- aid us, and let propitious stars be 
 ascendant in the sk}^' So saying, he snatches from the 
 scabbard his flashing sword, and with the drawn blade 
 cuts the hawsers. The spark flies from man to man ; 
 they scour, the}^ scud, they have left the shore behind ; 
 you cannot see the water for ships. With strong 
 strokes they dash the foam, and sweep the blue. 
 
 And now Aurora was beginning to sprinkle the earth 
 with fresh light, rising from Tithonus' saffron couch. 
 Soon as the queen from her watch-tower saw the gray 
 dawn brighten, and the fleet moving on with even can- 
 vas, and coast and haven forsaken, with never an oar 
 left, thrice and again smiting her beauteous breast with 
 her hands, and rending her golden locks, '• Great Jupi- 
 ter!' cries she, 'shall he go? Shall a chance-comer 
 boast of having flouted our realm? Will the3^not get 
 their arms at once, and give chase from all the town, 
 and pull, some of them, the ships from the docks? 
 Away ! bring fire ; quick ! get darts, ply oars ! What 
 am I saying ? Where am I ? What madness turns my 
 brain ? Wretched Dido ! do your sins sting 3'ou now ? 
 They should have done so then, when you were giving 
 your crown away. What truth ! what fealty ! — the 
 man who, they say, carries about with him the gods 
 of his country, and took up on his shoulders his old 
 worn-out father ! Might I not have caught and torn 
 him piecemeal, and scattered him to the waves? — de- 
 
BOOK IV. -225 
 
 stroyed his friends, aye, and his own Ascanius, and 
 served up the boy for his father's meal? But the 
 chance of a battle would have been doubtful. Let it 
 have been. I was to die, and whom had I to fear? 
 I would have flung torches into his camp, filled his 
 decks with flame, consumed son and sire and the whole 
 line, and leapt myself upon the pile. Sun, whose torch 
 shows thee all that is done on earth, and thou, Juno, 
 revealer and witness of these stirrings of the heart, 
 and Hecate, whose name is yelled in civic crossways 
 by night, avenging fiends, and gods of dying Elissa, 
 listen to this ! Let your power stoop to ills that call 
 for it, and hear what I- now pray ! If it must needs be 
 that the accursed wretch gain the haven and float to 
 shore — if such the requirement of Jove's destiny, 
 such the fixed goal — 3'et grant that, harassed by the 
 sword and battle of a warlike nation, a wanderer from 
 his own confines, torn from his lulus' arms, he may pray 
 for succor, and see his friends d3'ing miserably round 
 him ! Nor when he has 3 ielded to the terms of an un- 
 just peace, ma}" he enjoy his crown, or the life he 
 loves ; but ma^^ he fall before his time, and he un- 
 buried in the midst of the plain ! This is m^' prayer 
 — these the last accents that flow from me with mj' life- 
 blood. And 3'ou, m3" T3Tians, let 3^our hatred perse- 
 cute the race and people for all time to come. Be this 
 the oflTering 3'ou send down to m3' ashes : never be 
 there love or league between nation and nation. Arise 
 from m3' bones, m3^ unknown avenger, destined with 
 fire and sword to pursue the Dardanian settlers, now 
 or in after days, whenever strength shall be given ! 
 Let coast be at war with coast, water with wave, army 
 with army ; fight they, and their sons, and their sons* 
 
 sons I 
 
 1 ♦ 
 
 15 
 
226 THE AlNEID. 
 
 Thus she said, as she whirled her thought to this side 
 and that, seeking at once to cut short the life she now- 
 abhorred. Then briefly she spoke to Barce, Sychseus' 
 nurse, for her own was left in her old country, in the 
 black ashes of the grave : — ' Fetclip me here, dear 
 nurse, my sister Anna. Bid her hasten to sprinkle 
 herself with water from the stream, and bring with 
 her the cattle and the atoning offerings prescribed. 
 Let her come with these ; and do you cover your brow 
 with the holy fillet. The sacrifice to Stygian Jove, 
 which I have duly commenced and made ready, I wish 
 now to accomplish, and with it the end of my sorrows, 
 giving to the flame the pile that pillows the Dardan 
 head ! ' She said : the nurse began to quicken her 
 pace with an old wife's zeal. 
 
 But Dido, wildered and maddened by her enormous 
 resolve, rolling her bloodshot eye, her quivering cheeks 
 stained with fiery streaks, and pale with the shadow of 
 death, bursts the door of the inner palace, and fran- 
 tically climbs the tall pile, and unsheathes the Dardan 
 sword, a gift procured for a far diff*erent end. Then, 
 after surve^'ing the Trojan garments and the bed, too 
 well known, and pausing a while to weep and think, 
 she pressed her bosom to the couch, and uttered her 
 last words : — 
 
 ' Relics, once darlings of mine, while Fate and 
 Heaven gave leave, receive this my soul, and release 
 me from these my sorrows. I have lived my life — 
 the course assigned me by Fortune is run, and now the 
 august phantom of Dido shall pass underground. I 
 have built a splendid city. I have seen my walls com- 
 pleted. In vengeance for a husband, I have punished 
 a brother that hated me — blest, ah ! blest beyond 
 human bliss, if only Dardan ships had never touched 
 
BOOK IV, 227 
 
 coasts of ours ! ' She spoke — and kissing the couch : 
 * Is it to be death without revenge ? But be it death/ 
 she cries — ' this, this is the road by which I love to 
 pass to the shades. Let the heartless Dardanian's 
 eyes drink in this flame from the deep, and let him 
 carry with him the presage of my death.' 
 
 She spoke, and even while she was 3'et speaking, 
 her attendants see her fallen on the sword, the blade 
 spouting blood, and her hands dabbled in it. Their 
 shrieks rise to the lofty roof; Fame runs wild through 
 the convulsed oMy. With wailing and groaning, and 
 screams of w^omen, the palace rings ; the sky resounds 
 with mighty cries and beating of breasts — even as if 
 the foe were to burst the gates and topple down Car- 
 thage or ancient Tyre, and the infuriate flame were 
 leaping from roof to roof among the dwellings of men 
 and gods. 
 
 Her sister heard it. Breathless and frantic, with 
 wild speed, disfiguring her cheeks with her nails, her 
 bosom with her fists, she bursts through the press, and 
 calls by name on the d3ing queen : — ' Was this your 
 secret, sister? Were jou plotting to cheat me? Was 
 this what your pile was preparing for me, 3'our fires, 
 and your altars ? What should a lone heart grieve for 
 first ? Did you disdain 3^ our sister's company in death ? 
 You should have called me to share your fate — the 
 same keen sword-pang, the same hour, should have 
 been the end of both. And did these hands build the 
 pile, this voice call on the gods of our house, that 3'ou 
 might lie there, while I, hard-hearted wretch, was 
 away? Yes. sister, 3'ou have destro3'ed 3'ourself and 
 me, the people and the elders of Sidon, and your own 
 fair city. Let in the water to the wounds ; let me 
 cleanse them, and if an3^ remains of breath be still 
 
228 THE yENEID. 
 
 flickering, catch them in my mouth ! ' As she thus 
 spoke, she was at the top of the lofty steps, and was 
 embracing and fondling in her bosom her dying sister, 
 and stanching with her robe the black streams of blood. 
 Dido strives to raise her hea\y eyes, and sinks down 
 again, the deep stab gurgles in her breast. Thrice, 
 with an effort, she lifted and reared herself up 'on her 
 elbow ; thrice she fell back on the couch, and with 
 helpless wandering eyes aloft in the sky, sought for the 
 light and groaned when she found it. 
 
 Then Juno almighty, in compassion for her length- 
 ened agony and her trouble in d3-ing, sent down Iris 
 from Olympus to part the struggling soul and its prison 
 of flesh. For, as she was dying, not in the course of 
 fate, nor for any crime of hers, but in mere miser3', be- 
 fore her time, the victim of sudden frenz}-, not 3'et had 
 Proserpine earned off a lock of her yellow hair, and 
 thus doomed her head to Stj^x and the place of death. 
 So then Iris glides down the skj^ with saffron wings 
 dew-besprent, trailing a thousand various colors in the 
 face of the sun, and alights above her head. •• This I 
 am bidden to bear away as an offering to Pluto, and 
 hereb}' set you free from the bod3\* So saying, she 
 stretches her hand and cuts the lock : at once all heat 
 parts from the frame, and the life has passed into air. 
 
BOOK V. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 ^NEAS, meantime, was well on his road, holding with 
 set purpose on the watery way, and cutting through 
 billows gloomed by the North wind, with e3'es ever and 
 anon turned back to the cit}', which poor Elissa's fu- 
 neral flame now began to illumine. What cause has lit 
 up a blaze so mighty thej^ cannot tell ; but as they think 
 of the cruel pangs which follow outrage done on great 
 love, and their knowledge what a frantic woman can 
 do, the Teucrian hearts are swept through a train of 
 dismal presage. 
 
 Soon as the ships gained the mid-ocean, and no land 
 met the view any more — waters everywhere and every- 
 where skies — a dark rain-cloud arose and stood over 
 the hero's head, charged with night and winter tempest, 
 and darkness ruffled the billow's crest. Palinurus him- 
 self, the pilot, was heard from the loft}^ stern : — ' Ah ! 
 whj' has such an army of storms encompassed the 
 heaven ? What hast thou for us now, old Father Nep- 
 tune?' No sooner said than he bids them gather up 
 the tackle and pl^' the lust}' oar, and shifts the sheet to 
 the wind, and speaks thus: — 'Noble ^neas, though 
 Jove himself were to pledge me his faith, I could not 
 hope to reach Italy with a skj^ like this. The winds 
 shift and storm crosswise, ever rising from the blacken- 
 ing West, and the mist is being massed into clouds. 
 We cannot make head against them, or struggle as we 
 should. Well, since Fortune exerts her tyranny, let 
 us follow, and turn our faces as she pulls the rein. I 
 take it, too, we are not far from the friendl}^ brother- 
 
2Stf THE jENEID, 
 
 coast of your Eryx, and the havens of Sicania, if my 
 memory serves me as I retrace the stars I watched long 
 ago.' To him good ^neas : — *I have seen myself 
 this long time that such is the winds' will, anS all your 
 counter-efforts vain. Turn sail and ship. Could any 
 land indeed be welcomer, an}- that I would sooner 
 choose to harbor my weary ships, than the land 'which 
 keeps for me above ground the Dardan Acestes, and 
 laps in its breast the bones of my sire Anchises ? ' 
 This said, they make for the haven ; favoring zephyrs 
 swell their sail, the fleet rides swiftly over the flood, and 
 at last the3- touch with joy the strand they know so 
 w^ell. 
 
 From a hill's tall top Acestes had marked with won- 
 der afar off" the new arrival, and the friendly vessels ; 
 up he runs, all in the savage trim of hunting-spear and 
 Libyan bearskin — Acestes, son of a Trojan mother by 
 the river Crimisus. The ancestral blood quickens in 
 his veins as he gives them joy of their safe arrival, 
 welcomes them with the plent}' of rustic royalty, and 
 soothes their weariness with every kind appliance. 
 
 On the morrow, when the first dawn of the bright 
 dayspring had put the stars to flight, -^neas calls his 
 comrades to a gathering from all the shore, and stand- 
 ing on a heaped mound bespeaks them thus : — ' Mighty 
 sons of Dardanus, race of Heaven's high parentage, the 
 months are all past and the year has fulfilled its cycle, 
 since we gave to the earth the earthly relics, the ashes 
 of m}' deilied sire, and consecrated the altars of mourn- 
 ing. And now, if I err not, the very day is here — 
 that day which for me shall ever be a day of weeping, 
 ever a da}' of honor, since you, ye gods, have willed it 
 80. Though this da}' were to find me among the Gsetu- 
 lian Syrtes, a homeless wanderer — were it to surprise 
 
BOOK V, 231 
 
 me in the Argive main or in the streets of Mjcense — 
 still would I pay my yearly vows and the pomp of 
 solemn 'observance, and would pile the altars with their 
 proper gifts. And now, behold, by an unsought chance 
 we are standing — not in truth I deem without the 
 providence, the beckoning hand of Heaven — at the very 
 grave, the buried ashes of my sire, driven as we are 
 into this friendly haven. Come, then, solemnize we all 
 the glad celebration ; pray we for winds, and may he 
 be pleased that I should offer these rites yearly in a city 
 of my own building, in a temple dedicated to himself. 
 Two head of oxen Acestes, like a true son of Troy, gives 
 you for each ship ; call to the feasts the gods of the 
 hearth, both those of our fathers and those worshiped 
 by Acestes our host. Furthermore, if the ninth day 
 hence the dawn-goddess restore to mortals the genial 
 light, and make the world visible with sunshine, I will 
 set up, first of all, for all Teucrian comers, a match 
 among our swift fleet ; then let him that is light of foot, 
 and him that, glorying in his strength, bears himself 
 more proudly with the dart and the flying arrow, or has 
 confidence to join battle in gauntlets of raw hide, let 
 one and all be here, and look for the prizes that victory 
 earns. Give me your auspicious voices, and bind your 
 brows with green.' 
 
 This spoken, he shrouds his own brows with his 
 mother's myrtle. So does Helymus, so does veteran 
 Acestes, so young Ascanius — so the whole multitude 
 of warriors. He was already on his way from the 
 council to the tomb with many thousands round him, 
 the center of a great company. Here in due libation 
 he pours on the ground two bowls of the wine-god's 
 pure juice, two of new milk, two of sacrificial blood ; he 
 flings bright flowers, and makes this utterance : — ' Hail 
 
232 THE jENEID. 
 
 to thee, blessed sire, once more ! hail to jou, ashes of 
 one rescued in vain, sj^irit and shade of my father ! It 
 was not in Fate that thou shouldst journey with me to 
 the Italian frontier and the fields of Destiny, or see the 
 Ausonian Tiber, whatever that name ma^' import.' He 
 had said this, when from the depth of the grave a 
 smooth shining serpent trailed along seven spires, seven 
 volumes of giant length, coiling peacefull}- round the 
 tomb and gliding between the altars : dark green flecks 
 were on its back; its scales were all ablaze with spots 
 of golden luster, even as the bow in the clouds showers 
 a thousand various colors in the face of the sun. ^ne- 
 as stood wonder-struck : the creature, winding its long 
 column among the dishes and the polished goblets, 
 tasted of the viands, and then, innocent of harm, re- 
 entered the tomb at its base, leaving the altars where 
 its mouth had been. Quickened by this, the hero re- 
 sumes the work of homage to his sire, not knowing 
 whether to think this the genius of the spot or his 
 father's menial spirit : duly he slays two 3'oung sheep, 
 two swine, two black-skinned bullocks ; again and 
 again he pours goblets of wine, again and again he calls 
 on the soul of great Anchises and the shade loosed 
 from Acheron's prison. His comrades, too, each ac- 
 cording to his means, give glad offerings — they pile 
 the altars, they slay the bullocks ; others in their func- 
 tion set on the caldrons, and, stretched along the ^rass, 
 hold the spits over the embers and roast the flesh. 
 
 And now the expected day was come : the steeds of 
 Phaethon were ushering in the goddess of the ninth dawn 
 through a heaven of clear hght ; the rumored spectacle 
 and the great name of Acestes had brought the neigh- 
 boring people from their homes ; the holiday crowd was 
 flooding the shore, to gaze on the family of ^neas, 
 
BOOK V, 233 
 
 and some too ready to dispute the prizes. First, in 
 sight of all, the gifts are bestowed in the midst of the 
 ring — hallowed tripods and verdant chaplets, and 
 palms, the conquerors' special guerdon — armor and 
 raiment of purple dye^a talent's weight of silver and 
 gold ; and from a mound in the center the shrill trum- 
 pet proclaims the sports begun. The first contest, 
 waged with laboring oars, is entered by four ships, the 
 flower of the entire fleet. There is Mnestheus, with 
 his fiery crew, speeding along the swift Shark — Mnes- 
 theus, hereafter a prince of Italy, who gives his name 
 to the Memmian line ; there is Gyas with his monster 
 Chimaera, that monster mass* which three tiers of 
 stout Dardans are pulling on, the oars rising in a triple 
 bank ; Sergestus, from whom the Sergian house gains 
 the name it keeps, sails in the mighty Centaur ; and 
 in the se;i-green Scylla Cloanthus, your great fore- 
 father, Cluentius of Rome. 
 
 At a distance in the sea is a rock, over against the 
 spray- washed shore — sometimes covered by the swell- 
 ing waves that beat on it, when the wintry North winds 
 hide the stars from view — in a calm it rests in peace, 
 and rises over the unruffled waters, a broad table-land, 
 a welcome basking-ground for the sea-bird. Here 
 ^neas set up a green stem of leafy oak with his own 
 ro3'al hand — a sign for the sailors, that the}' might 
 know whence to begin their return, and where to double 
 round their long voyage. Then the}^ choose their 
 places b}' lot : there are the captains on the sterns, 
 a glorious sight, gleaming far ^ith gold and purple ; 
 the crews are crowned with thick poplar leaves, and 
 their bare shoulders shine with the oil that has rubbed 
 them. They seat them on the benches, every arm is 
 * A caret in the MS. notes the omission of Urhis opus. — [Ed.] 
 
234 THE ^NEID, 
 
 strained on the oar — straining they expect the signal, 
 and their beating hearts are drained at each stroke b}' 
 panting fear and high-strung ambition. Then, when 
 the shrill trumpet has uttered its voice, all in a moment 
 dart forward from their bounds, the seaman's shout 
 pierces the sk}^ ; the upturned seas foam as the arm is 
 drawn back to the chest. With measured strokes they 
 plough their furrows ; the water is one yawning chasm, 
 rent asunder by the oar and the pointed beak. Not 
 such the headlong speed when in two-horse race the 
 chariots dash into the plain and pour along from their 
 floodgates, or when the drivers shake the streaming 
 reins over their flying steeds, and hang floating over the 
 lash. Then plaudits, and shouts of manh^ voices, and 
 the clamorous fervor of the backers, make the whole 
 woodland ring ; the pent-up shores keep the sound roll- 
 ing ; the hills send back the blows of the noise. See ! 
 flying ahead of the rest, ghding over the first water 
 in the midst of crowd and hubbub, is G3^as ; next him 
 comes Cloanthus, with better oars, but the slow pine- 
 wood's weight keeps him bacli* After them at equal 
 distance the Shark and the Centaur strive to win prece- 
 dence. And now the Shark has it. Now she is beaten 
 and passed by the Centaur. Now the two ride abreast 
 stem to stem, cutting with their long keels the salt 
 waves. And now the}- were nearing the rock, and the 
 goal was just in their grasp, when Gyas, the leader, 
 the victor of the half-way passage, calls aloud to his 
 ship's pilot Mencetes ; — ' Whither away so far to my 
 right ? Steer us hithe'r ; hug the shore ; let the oar- 
 blade graze the cliffs on the left; leave the deep to 
 others.' Thus he; but Mencetes, afraid of hidden 
 rocks, keeps turning the prow well towards the sea. 
 ' Whither away from the right course ? Make for the 
 
BOOK V, 235 
 
 rocks, Menoetes ! ' shouted G3"as again ; and see ! look- 
 ing back, he perceives Cloanthus gaining on him close 
 behind. Between G3'as' ship and the sounding rocks 
 he threads his way to the left, steering inward, and in 
 an instant passes tlie winner, leaves the goal behind, 
 and gains the smooth open sea. Grief turned the 
 youth's very marrow to flame, nor were his cheeks free 
 from tears ; he seizes the slow Menoetes, forgetting at 
 once his own decenc}^ and his crew's safety, and flings 
 him headlong from the lofty stern into the sea. Him- 
 self becomes their guide at the helm, himself their pilot, 
 cheering on the rowers, and turning the rudder to the 
 shore. But Menoetes, when at last disgorged from the 
 bottom of the sea, heavy with age, and wdth his drip- 
 ping clothes all hanging about him, climbs the cliff"- top, 
 and seats himself on a dry rock. The Teucrians laughed 
 as he was faUing, laughed as he was swimming, and 
 now they laugh- as he discharges from his chest the 
 draught of brine. Then sprung up an ecstatic hope in 
 the two last, Sergestus and Mnestheus, of passing the 
 lagging Gyas. Sergestus gets the choice of water and 
 comes nearer the rock — not first, however, he by a 
 whole vessel's length — half his ship is ahead, half is 
 overlapped by the beak of his rival, the Shark. Mnes- 
 theus walks through the ship among the crew and 
 cheers them on. ' Now, rise to 3'our oars, old Hector's 
 men, whom I chose to follow me at Troy's last gasp ; 
 now put out the strength, the spirit I saw you exert in 
 the Ggetulian Syrtes, the Ionian Sea, the entanghng 
 waves of Malea. It is not the first place I look for. I 
 am not the man ; this is no struggle for victory — yet 
 might it be! — but conquest is for them, Neptune, to 
 whom thou givest it. Let our shame be to come in 
 last ; be this your victory, friends, to keep ofl" disgrace.* 
 
236 THE JSNEID. 
 
 Straining every nerve, they throw themselves forward ; 
 their mighty strokes make the brazen keel quiver, the 
 ground flies from under them ; thick panting shakes 
 their limbs, their parched throats ; sweat flows down 
 in streams. 
 
 A mere chance gave them the wished pre-eminence ; 
 for while Sergestus, blind with passion, feeeps driving 
 his prow towards the rock nearer and nearer, and 
 pressing through the narrow passage, his ill star en- 
 tangled him with a projecting crag. The cliffs were 
 jarred, the oars cracked as the}' met the sharp flint, and 
 the prow hung where it had lodged. Up spring the 
 sailors with loud shout, while the ship stands still. 
 They bring out their iron-shod poles and pointed boat- 
 hooks, and pick up the broken oars in the water. But 
 Mnestheus, rejoicing, and keener for success, with 
 quick-plashing oars, and the winds at his call, makes 
 for the seas that shelve to the coast and speeds along 
 the clear expanse. Like as a dove, suddenly startled 
 in a cave, where in the hollow of the rock are her home 
 and her loved nestlings, issues out to fly over the plain, 
 clapping loud her pinions in terror in the cell — then, 
 gliding smooth through the tranquil air, she winnows 
 her liquid way without a motion of her rapid wings — 
 so with Mnestheus, so the Shark, flying of herself, cuts 
 through the last water of the course, so the mere im- 
 pulse bears her speeding on. First he takes leave of 
 Sergestus, struggling with the tall rock and the shallow 
 water, and in vain calling for help, and learning to run 
 along with broken oars. Then he comes up with Gyas 
 and the great monster Chimsera itself; she 3'ields, be- 
 cause deprived of her pilot. And now there remains 
 Cloanthus alone, just at the very end of the race ; him 
 he makes for, and presses on him with all the force of 
 
BOOK V. 237 
 
 effort. Then, indeed, the shouting redoubles — all 
 lend their goodwill to spur on the second man, and the 
 skj^ echoes with the din. These think it shante to lose 
 the glory that they have won, the prize that is already 
 their own, and would fain barter life for renown ; these 
 are feeding on success, they feel strong because they 
 feel that they are thought stit)ng. And perhaps their 
 beaks would have been even and the prize divided, had 
 not Cloanthus, stretching out both hands over the deep, 
 breathed a prayer and called the gods to hear his vow : 
 — ' Powers whose is the rule of ocean, whose waters I 
 ride, for you with glad heart will I lead to your altars 
 on this shore a snow-white bull, as a debtor should ; I 
 will throw the entrails afar into the salt waves, and 
 pour out a clear stream of wine.' He said, and deep 
 down among the billows there heard him all the Nereids 
 and Phorcus' train, and maiden Panopea, and father 
 Portunus himself, with his own great hand, pushed the 
 ship as she moved ; fleeter than southwind or winged 
 arrow he flies to the land and is lodged already deep in 
 the haven. 
 
 Then Anchises' son, duly summoning the whole com- 
 pany, proclaims by a loud-voiced herald Cloanthus con- 
 queror, and drapes his brow with green bay ; he gives 
 each crew a gift at its choice, three bullocks, and wine, 
 and the present of a great talent of silver. To the 
 captains themselves he further gives especial honors, 
 to the conqueror a gold-broidered scarf, round which 
 runs a length of Meliboean purple with a double Msean- 
 der ; enwoven therein is the royal boy on leafy Ida, 
 plying the swift stag with the javelin and the chase, 
 keen of ej^e, his chest seeming to heave ; then, swoop- 
 ing down from Ida, the bearer of Jove's armor has 
 snatched him up aloft in his crooked talons, while his 
 
238 THE jENEID. 
 
 aged guardians are stretching in vain their hands to 
 heaven, and the barking of the hounds streams furious 
 to the sky. But for him whose prowess gained him the 
 second place there is a cuirass of hnked chain-mail, 
 three-threaded with gold, which the hero himself had 
 stripped with a conqueror's hand from Demoleos on 
 swift Simois' bank under the shadow of Troy ; this 
 he gives the warrior for his own, a glory and a defense 
 in the battle. Scarce could the two servants, Phegeus 
 and Sagaris, support its man}^ folds, pushing shoulder 
 to shoulder ; j^et Demoleos, in his daj-, with it on his 
 breast, used to drive the Trojans in flight before him. 
 The third present he makes a pair of brazen caldrons, 
 and two cups of wrought silver, rough with fretwork. 
 
 And now all had received their presents, and each, 
 glorying in his treasure, was walking along with purple 
 festooning round his brows, when Sergestus, at last 
 with great pain dislodged from the cruel rock, his oars 
 lost and one whole side crippled, was seen propelling 
 among jeers his inglorious vessel. Like as a serpent 
 surprised on the highway, whom a brazen wheel has 
 driven across, or a traveler, heavy of hand, has left 
 half dead and mangled by a stone, writhes its long 
 body in ineffectual flight, its upper part all fury, its 
 eyes blazing, its hissing throat reared aloft, the lower 
 part, disabled by \h^ wound, clogs it as it wreathes its 
 spires and doubles upon its own joints. Such was the 
 oarage with which the ship pushed herself slowly along : 
 she makes sail, however, and enters the haven with 
 canvas flying. To Sergestus ^neas gives the present 
 he had promised, delighted to see the ship rescued and 
 the crew brought back. His prize is a slave, not un- 
 versed in Pallas' labors, Pholoe, Cretan born, with twin 
 sons at her breast. 
 
BOOK V, 239 
 
 This match dismissed, good JEneas takes his way to 
 a grassy plain, surrounded on all sides with woods and 
 sloping hills : in the middle of the valley was a circle, 
 as of a theater ; thither it was that the hero repaired 
 with many thousands, the center of a vast assembl}^ 
 and sat on a raised throne. Then he invites with hope 
 of reward, the bold spirits who may wish to contend in 
 the swift foot-race, and sets up the prizes. Candidates 
 flock from all sides, Teucrian and Sicanian mixed. 
 Nisus and Euryalus the foremost. Eurj^alus conspic- 
 uous for beauty and blooming youth, Nisus for the pure 
 love he bore the boy ; following them came Diores, a 
 ro3'al scion of Priam's illustrious stock ; then S alius 
 and Patron together, one from Acarnania, the other 
 from Tegea, an Arcadian by blood ; next two Trina- 
 crian youths, Hetymus and Panopes, trained foresters, 
 comrades of their elder friend, Acestes, and many 
 others, whom dim tradition leaves in darkness. As 
 the}" crowd round him, ^neas bespeaks them thus : — 
 ' Hear what I have to say, and give the heed of a glad 
 heart. No one of this company shall go awa}' unguer- 
 doned by me. I will give a pair of Gnossian darts, 
 shining with polished steel, and an ax chased with 
 silver for the hand to wield. This honor all shall ob- 
 tain alike. The three first shall receive prizes, and 
 shall wear also wreaths of j^ellow-green olive. Let 
 the first, as conqueror, have a horse, full decorated 
 with trappings ; the second an Amazonian quiver, full 
 of Thracian shafts, with a belt of broad gold to en- 
 compass it, and a buckle of a polished jewel to fasten 
 it; let the third go away content with this Argive hel- 
 met.' This said, they take their places, and suddenly, 
 on hearing the signal, dash into the course, and leave 
 the barrier behind, pouring on like a burst of rain, 
 
240 THE ^NEID. 
 
 their eyes fixed on the goal. First of all, away goes 
 Nisus, his limbs fl3'ing far before all the rest, swifter 
 than wind and winged thunderbolt ; next to him, but 
 next at a long distance, follows Salius ; then, at a 
 shorter space, Euryalus third. After Eur3'alus comes 
 Hel3*mus ; close on him, see ! flies Diores, heel touch- 
 ing heel and shoulder shoulder : were the course but 
 longer, he would be shooting on and darting beyond 
 him, and turning a doubtful race to a victory. 
 
 Now they were just at the end of the course, all 
 panting as the}^ reached the goal, when Nisus, the ill- 
 starred, shdes in a puddle of blood, which lay there 
 just as it had been spilt after a sacrifice of bullocks, 
 soaking the ground and the growing grass. Poor 
 youth ! just in the moment of triumph, he could not 
 keep his sliddery footing on the soil he trod, but fell 
 flat in the very middle of unclean ordure and sacrificial 
 gore. But he forgot not Euryalus — forgot not his 
 love — no ! he threw himself in Salius' way, rising in 
 that slippery place — and Salius lay there too, flung on 
 the puddled floor. Forth darts Euryalus, and gains 
 the first place, a winner, thanks to his friend, cheered 
 in his flight by plaudit and shouting. ^ Next comes in 
 Helymus and Diores, thus made the third prize. But 
 now Salius is heard, deafening with his clamor the 
 whole company in the ring and the seniors in the first 
 rank, and insisting that the prize, which he had lost 
 by a trick, be restored him. Euryalus is supported by 
 the popular voice, by the tears he sheds so gracefully, 
 and the greater loveliness of worth when seen in a 
 beauteous form. Diores backs his claim with loud ap- 
 pealing shouts ; he had just won the prize, and his at- 
 tainment of the third place was all for nothing if the 
 first reward were to be given to Salius. To whom 
 
BOOK V. 241 
 
 father JEneas : — ' Your rewards, boys, remain fixed 
 as the}' ever were ; no one disturbs the palm once ar- 
 ranged : suffer me to show pit}- to a friend's undeserved 
 misfortune.' So saying, he gives Salius the enormous 
 hide of a Gsetulian lion, loaded with shaggy hair and 
 talons of gold. On which Nisus : — 'If the van- 
 quished are rewarded so largely — if you can feel for 
 tumblers — what prize will be great enough for Nisus' 
 claims ? My prowess had earned me the first chaplet, 
 had not unkind Fortune played me foul, as she pla3'ed 
 Salius ; ' and with these words he displayed his features 
 and his limbs, all dishonored by slime and ordure. The 
 gracious prince smiled at him, and bade them bring out 
 a shield of Didymaon*s workmanship, once wrested 
 by the Danaans from Neptune's hallowed gate, and 
 with this signal present he endows the illustrious youth. 
 Next, when the race was finished, and the prizes 
 duly given : — ' Now, whoever has courage, and a vig- 
 orous collected mind in his breast, let him come for- 
 ward, bind on the gloves, and lift his arms.' Thus 
 speaks ^neas, and sets forth two prizes for the con- 
 test : for the conqueror, a bullock with gilded horns 
 and fillet festoons ; a sword and a splendid helmet, as 
 a consolation to the vanquished. In a moment, with 
 all the thews of a giant, rises Dares, uprearing himself 
 amid a loud hum of applause — the sole champion who 
 used to enter the lists with Paris : once at the tomb 
 where mighty Hector lies buried, he encountered the 
 great conqueror Butes, who carried his enormous bulk 
 to the field with all the pride of Amycus' Bebrycian 
 blood — struck him down, and stretched him in death 
 on the yellow sand. Such are Dares' powers, as he 
 lifts high his crest for the battle, displays his broad 
 shoulders, throws out his arms alternately, and strikes 
 16 
 
242 THE uENEID. 
 
 the air with his blows. How to find his match is the 
 cry ; no one of all that company dares to confront such 
 a champion, and draw on the gauntlets. So with con- 
 fident action, thinking that all were retiring from the 
 prize, he stands before ^neas, and without further pre- 
 lude grasps with his left hand the bull by the horn, and 
 bespeaks him thus : — ' Goddess-born, if no one dares 
 to take the risk of the fight, how long are we to stand 
 still? How long is it seemly to keep me waiting? 
 Give the word for me to carry off the prize.* A simul- 
 taneous shout broke from the sons of Dardanus, all 
 voting that their champion should have the promised 
 gift made good. 
 
 On this Acestes, with grave severity of speech, re- 
 bukes Entellus, just as he chanced to be seated next 
 him on the verdant grassy couch. ' Entellus, once 
 known as the bravest of heroes, and all for naught, 
 will you brook so calmly that a prize so great be car- 
 ried off without a blow? Where are we now to look 
 for that mighty deity your master, Er^'x, vaunted so 
 often and so idly ? Where is that glory which spread all 
 Trinacria through, and those spoils that hang from 3'our 
 roof? ' He replied : ' It is not the love of praise, not 
 ambition, that has died out, extinguished by fear. No, 
 indeed ; but my blood is dulled and chilled by the frost 
 of age, and the strength in m}'- limbs withered and ice- 
 bound. Had I now what I once had, what is now the 
 glory and the boast of that loud braggart there ; had I 
 but the treasure of youth, I should not have needed the 
 reward and the goodly bullock to bring me into the 
 field ; nor are gifts what I care for.' So saying, he 
 flung into the midst a pair of gauntlets of enormous 
 weight, with which the fiery Eryx was wont to deal his 
 blows in combat, stringing his arms with the tough 
 
BOOK V. 243 
 
 hide. Every heart was amazed, so vast were the seven 
 huge bnll-hides, hardened with patches of lead and 
 iron. More than all the rest Dares is astonished, and 
 recoils many paces ; and the hero himself, Anchises' 
 son, stands turning in his hands the massive weight 
 and the enormous wrappers of twisted thong. Then 
 the old man fetched from his heart words like these : — 
 ' What if any one here had seen those mightier weapons, 
 Hercules* own gauntlets, and the fatal combat on this 
 very strand? These are the arms that Eryx, your 
 brother, once wielded ; you see on them still the stains 
 of blood and sprinkled brains. With these he stood 
 up against the great Alcides. These I was trained to 
 use while fresher blood inspired me with strength, and 
 the snows of age, my jealous rival, were not yet 
 sprinkled on my brows. But if Dares the Trojan re- 
 fuses our Sicilian weapons, and that is good -Eneas' 
 fixed wish, approved by Acestes, m}' backer in the 
 fight, make we the contest even. I spare you the bull- 
 hides of Eryx — never fear — and do you put off your 
 Trojan gauntlets.* So saying, he flung off from his 
 shoulders his double garment, and displays the giant 
 joints of his limbs, the giant bone- work of his arms, 
 and stands, a mighty frame, in the midst of the sand. 
 
 Then Anchises* son brought out with his royal hand 
 two pairs of equal gauntlets, and bound round the fists 
 of the twain weapons of even force. At once each 
 rose on tiptoe, and raised his arms undaunted to the 
 air of heaven. They draw back their towering heads 
 out of the reach of blows, and make their fists meet in 
 the melee, and provoke the battle. The one is better 
 in quick movement of the foot, and youth lends him 
 confidence; the other's strength is in brawny limbs 
 and giant bulk, but his knees are heavy and unstable. 
 
244 THE ^NEID. 
 
 and a troubled panting shakes that vast frame. Many 
 the blows that the champions hail on each other in 
 vain ; many are showered on the hollow side, and draw 
 loud echoes from the chest. The fist keeps playing 
 round ear and temple ; the teeth chatter under the cruel 
 blow. Heavily stands Entellus, unmoved, in the same 
 strained posture ; his bending body and watchful eye 
 alone withdraw him from the volley. His rival, like a 
 general who throws up mounds round a high-walled 
 town, or sits down with his army before a mountain 
 fort, tries now this approach, now that, reconnoiters 
 the whole stronghold, and plies him with manifold 
 assaults, baffled in each. Rising to the stroke, En- 
 tellus put forth his right hand, and raised it aloft ; the 
 other's quick eye foresaw the downcoming blow, and 
 his lithe frame darts beyond its range. Entellus has 
 flung his whole force on air ; at once, untouched by 
 his foe, the heavy giant, with heavy giant weight, falls 
 to earth, even as one day falls hollow-hearted with 
 hollow crash on Erymanthus or loft}* Ida, uptorn by 
 the roots, a mighty pine. Eagerly start up at once 
 the Teucrian and Trinacrian chivalry ; up soars a shout 
 to heaven ; and first runs up Acestes, and soothingly- 
 raises from the ground his friend, aged as he. But 
 not slackened by his overthrow, nor daunted, the hero 
 comes back fiercer to the field, with anger goading 
 force; that mass of strength is enkindled at last by 
 shame and conscious prowess. All on fire, he drives 
 Dares headlong over the whole plain, now with his 
 right hand showering blows, now with his giant left. 
 No stint, no stay; thick as the hail with which the 
 storm-clouds rattle on the roof, so thick the blows with 
 which the hero, crowding on with both hands, is batter- 
 ing and whirhng Dares. Then father ^neas thought 
 
BOOK V. 245 
 
 fit to stem the tide of fury, nor suffered Entellus' 
 wounded spirit to glut its rage further, but put an end 
 to the fra}^ and rescued the gasping Dares with sooth- 
 ing words, and bespeaks him thus : — ' My poor 
 friend ! what monstrous madness has seized you ? See 
 you not that strength has passed over — that the gods 
 have changed their sides? Give way to Heaven.' 
 He said, and his word closed the fight. But Dares 
 is in the hands of his faithful comrades, dragging after 
 him his feeble knees, dropping his head on this side 
 and on that, discharging from his mouth clotted gore, 
 teeth and blood together. Thus they lead him to the 
 ships ; summoned, they receive for him the helmet and 
 the sword ; the palm and the bull they leave to Entel- 
 lus. Hereon the conqueror, towering in pride of soul, 
 and exulting in his prize, the bull : ' Goddess-born,' 
 cries he, ' and you, Teucrians, take measure at once 
 of the strength which dwelt in my frame, while that 
 frame was young, and the death from whose door you 
 have called back, and are still keeping, your Dares.* 
 So sa3'ing, he took his stand full before the face of the 
 bullock, which was there as the prize of the fray, and 
 with arm drawn back, swung the iron gauntlet right 
 between the horns, rising to his full height, crashed 
 down on the bone, and shattered the brain. Pros- 
 trated, breathless, and quivering, on earth lies the 
 bull. He from his bosom's depth speaks thus over 
 the dead : — ' This Hfe, Eryx, I render to thee — a 
 better substitute for Dares' death; here, as a con- 
 queror ma}', I resign the gauntlets and the game.' 
 
 Next ^neas invites those who may care to vie in 
 shooting the fleet arrow, and sets forth the prizes. 
 With his own giant hand he rears upright the mast 
 from Serestus' ship, and from its lofty summit ties a 
 
246 THE yENEID. 
 
 fluttering dove with a cord passed round the mast — a 
 mark for aiming the steel. The archers are met ; the 
 lot has been thrown and received by the brazen helmet. 
 See ! first, among the shouts of his friends, comes out 
 before all the place of Hyrtacus' son, Hippocoon, who 
 is followed by Mnestheus, late conqueror in the ship- 
 race — Mnestheus, crowned with the green ohve-wreath. 
 Third comes Eurjtion, thy brother, thrice glorious 
 Pandarus, who in elder days, bidden to destroy the 
 truce, was the first to wing thy weapon into the 
 Achaean ranks. Last is Acestes, sunk at the bottom 
 of the helm, the old man's spirit nerving his arm to 
 essay the task of the young. And now, with stern 
 strength, the}^ bend and arch their bows, each hero 
 his own, and draw forth the shaft from the quiver. 
 First through heaven from the twanging string the 
 arrow of Hyrtacus' youthful son pierces sharp and 
 shrill the flying air: it hits — it is lodged full in the 
 n',^0^ mast-tree.^ After him stood keen Mnestheus, his bow- 
 string drawn to his breast, his bow pointing upwards, 
 . ej^e and shaft leveled at once. But the bird itself, 
 hapless man ! his arrow had not power to touch that ; 
 it cut the knot and the hempen fastening by which she 
 hung, tied by the foot, from the mast's top. Away 
 she flew, all among the south winds and their murky 
 clouds. Then, quick as thought, his bow long since 
 ready, and his shaft poised on the string, Eurytion 
 breathed a vow to his brother, fixing his eye on her 
 in the moment of her triumph high up in the open 
 sky, and as she claps her wings, pierces the dark 
 cloudy covert, and strikes the dove. Down she drops 
 unnerved, leaving her life among the stars of ether, 
 and as she tumbles to earth, brings back the arrow in 
 her breast. Acestes remained alone, a champion with 
 
BOOK V, 247 
 
 no prize to gain ; 3*et he shot his weapon into the air 
 aloft, displaying at once his veteran skill and the force 
 of his twanging bow. And now their eyes are met 
 by a sudden portent, drawing a mighty augur}' in its 
 train. In after days the vast issue told the tale, and 
 terror-striking seers shrieked their omens too late. 
 For as it flew in the clouds of heaven, the reed took 
 fire, and marked its way with a trail of flame, and 
 wasted and vanished wholly into unsubstantial air'; 
 even as stars unfastened from the firmament oft 
 sweep across and drag their blazing hair as they fly. 
 Fixed aghast to the spot, in prayer to Heaven, hung 
 the stout sons of Trinacria and Troy ; nor does JEneas* 
 sovran judgment reject the omen. He clasps the glad 
 Acestes to his heart, loads him with costly gifts, and 
 bespeaks him thus : — ' Take them, my father ; for 
 Olympus* might}^ monarch has said by the voice of 
 these omens that 3'ours is to be a prize drawn without 
 a lot. From Anchises the aged himself comes the 
 present I now bestow — a bowl embossed with figures, 
 which in old da3's Cisseus gave to my sire Anchises in 
 ro^'al bount}', a standing remembrance of himself and 
 a testimony of his love.' So saj-ing, he crowns his 
 brow with verdant bays, and proclaims, first of all, the 
 conquering name of Acestes. Nor did good Eurytion 
 grudge the pre-eminence, though he and none but he 
 brought down the bird from the sky. Next steps into 
 the prize he who cut the cord ; last, he whose quiver- 
 ing arrow nailed the mast. 
 
 But father ^neas, ere the match was over, calls to 
 his side the guardian and companion of lulus* tender 
 years, Epytides, and thus speaks into his ear in secret : 
 — ' Go now and tell Ascanius,' if his company of boys 
 is ready, and the movements of his young cavalry duly 
 
248 THE ^NEID. 
 
 marshaled, to bring them into the field in his grand- 
 sire's honor, and show himself in arms.' He, by his 
 own voice, bids the whole surging crowd retire from 
 the length of the circus, and leave the field clear. The 
 boys come prancing in on well-reined steeds, in even 
 lines of light brightening their parents' eyes ; and as 
 they pass, an admiring shout breaks from the gathered 
 chivalry of Sicily and Troy. All alike have their 
 flowing hair, duly cinctured with stripped leaves ; 
 each bears two cornel javelins tipped with steel ; some 
 have polished quivers at their backs ; round the top 
 of the chest goes a pliant chain of twisted gold cir- 
 cling the neck. Three are the companies of horse, 
 three the leaders that scour the plain ; twelve boys 
 follow each, a glittering show, in equal divisions and 
 commanded alike. The first of the youthful banda 
 is led as to victory by a young Priam, who revives his 
 grandsire's name, thy princely ofi'spring, Polites, des- 
 tined to people Italy ; him a Thracian steed carries, 
 dappled with spots of white, with white on the ex- 
 tremes of his prancing feet, and white on his towering 
 brow. Next is Atj's, whence comes the house of 
 Roman Atii — At3's the 3'oung, the bo3ish friend of 
 the boy lulus. Last of all, and excelling all in 
 beaut}', lulus rides in on a Sidonian steed, bestowed 
 on him by Dido the fair, in remembrance of herself, 
 and in testimonj- of her love. The remaining youth 
 are borne on Trinacrian horses from old Acestes' stalls. 
 The Dardans welcome them with reassuring plaudits, 
 and gaze on them with rapture, and trace in their 
 young faces the features of their old sires. Soon as 
 the riders have made their joyous survey of the whole 
 gazing crowd and of their friends' loving eyes, Epyti- 
 des gives the expected signal with far-reaching shout 
 
BOOK V. 249 
 
 and loud cracking whip. In regular order they gal- 
 lop asunder, the three companies breaking and parting 
 right and left ; and again, at the word of command, 
 they wheel round, and charge each other with leveled 
 lances. Then they essay other advances and other 
 retreats in quarters still opposite, each entangling 
 each in circles within circles, and in their real armor 
 raise an image of battle. Now they expose their 
 backs in flight, now they turn their spear-points in 
 charge, now as in truce they ride along side by side. 
 Even as men tell of that old lab3Tinth in loft}- Crete, 
 its way cunningly woven with blind high walls, and 
 the ambiguous mystery of its thousand paths, wind- 
 ing till the pursuer's every trace was baffled b^^ a maze 
 without solution and without return, not unlike are the 
 courses in which these sons of the Teucrians inter- 
 lace their movements — ■ a gamesome tangle of flying 
 and fighting, as it were dolphins that swimming the 
 water}' seas dart through the Carpathian and the Liby- 
 an, and sport along the billows. Such was the form of 
 exercise, and such the game that Ascanius, when he 
 built the cincturing walls of Alba the Long, was the 
 first to revive, and taught the early Latians to celebrate 
 it as he had done in his boyhood, he and the 3'outh of 
 Troy with him ; the men of Alba taught their sons ; 
 from them mighty Rome received the tradition and 
 maintained the observance of her sires ; and the boys 
 still bear the name of Troy, and their band is styled 
 the band of Troy. Thus far went the solemn games in 
 honor of the deified sire. 
 
 Now it was that Fortune exchanged her old faith for 
 new. While they are rendering to the tomb the due 
 solemnities of the varied gamee, Juno, Saturn's daugh- 
 ter, has sped down Iris from heaven to the fleet of 
 
250 THE yENEID. 
 
 Ilion, with breath of winds to waft her on her wa}^ — 
 Juno, deep-brooding over many thoughts, her ancient 
 wrath yet unsated. Speeding along her many-colored 
 bow, seen of none, runs swiftly down the celestial 
 maid. She beholds that mighty concourse ; she looks 
 round on the coast, and sees harbor abandoned and 
 fleet forsaken. Far away, in the privacy of a solitary 
 beach, the Trojan dames were weeping for lost Anchi- 
 ses, and, as they wept, were gazing, one and all, wist- 
 fully on the great deep. Alas, that wearied souls 
 should still have those many waters to pass, and that 
 vast breadth of sea ! Such the one cry of every heart. 
 Oh for a city ! the toils of the main are a weariness to. 
 bear ! So, then, in the midst of them, she suddenly 
 alights — no novice in the ways of doing hurt — and 
 lays by her heavenly form and heavenly raiment. She 
 takes the shape of Beroe, the aged wife of Doryclus of 
 Tmaros, a dame who once had had race and name and 
 children, and in this guise stands in the midst of the 
 Dardan matrons. ' Wretched women,' cries she, ' not 
 to have been dragged to the death of battle by the 
 force of Achaia under our country's walls ! Hapless 
 nation ! What worse than death has Fortune in store 
 for you ? Here is the seventh summer rolling on since 
 Troy's overthrow, and all the while we are being 
 driven, land and ocean over, among all the rocks of an 
 unfriendly sea, under all the stars of heaven, as through 
 the great deep we follow after retreating Italy, and are 
 tossed from wave to wave. Here is the brother-land 
 of Er^'x ; here is Acestes, our ancient friend. Who 
 shall gainsay digging a foundation, and giving a people 
 the city thej^ crave? O my country ! O gods of our 
 homes, snatched in vain from the foe ! Shall there never 
 be walls named with the name of Troy ? Shall I never 
 
BOOK V, 251 
 
 on earth see the streams that Hector loved — his Xan- 
 thus and his Simois? Come, join me in burning up 
 these accursed ships. For in my sleep methought the 
 likeness of Cassandra the seer put blazing torches into 
 my hands. Here,* she said, ' and here onl}', look for 
 Troy ; here, and here only, is your home. The hour 
 for action is come. Heaven's wonders brook not man's 
 dela}'. See here ! four altars to Neptune. The god 
 himself gives us the fire and the will.' 
 
 So saying, she is the first to snatch the baleful brand 
 — swinging back her hand on high ; with strong effort 
 she whirls and flings it. The dames of Ilion gaze with 
 straining mind and wildered brain. Then one of the 
 crowd, the eldest of all, Pyrgo, the royal nurse of 
 Priam's man}' sons : ' No Beroe have you here, matrons 
 — this is not Dor^'clus' wife, of Rhoeteum -^ mark those 
 signs of heavenly beauty, those glowing eyes — what a 
 presence is there — what features — what a tone in her 
 voice — what majesty in *her gait! Beroe,. I myself 
 parted from but now, and left her sick and sullen to 
 think that she alone should fail at this observance, nor 
 pay Anchises the honor that is his due.' Such were 
 her words, while the matrons, doubtful at first, were 
 looking on the ships with evil eyes, distracted between 
 their fatal yearning for a countr}^ now theirs, and the 
 voice of destiny from realms be3^ond the sea — when the 
 goddess, spreading her two wings, soared up into the 
 sky and severed the clouds as she flew with the giant 
 span of her bow. Then indeed, maddened by the por- 
 tent, goaded by frenz}^, they shriek one and all, and 
 snatch fire from house and hearth — some strip the 
 altars, and fling on the vessels leaf and bough and 
 brand. The fire-god revels in full career along bench 
 and oar, and painted pine-wood stern. The news of the 
 
252 THE jENEID, 
 
 fleet on fire is carried by Eumelus to Anchises' tomb, 
 and the seats in the circus. They look back, and with 
 their own eyes see sparks and smoke in a black flicker- 
 ing cloud. First of all Ascanius, riding in triumph at 
 the head of his cavalry, spurred his horse just as he 
 was to the wildering camp, while his breathless guar- 
 dians strive in vain to stay him. ' What strange mad- 
 ness this? whither now, whither would ye go,' cries he, 
 ' my poor countrywomen ? It is not the Argive foe and 
 his hated camp — it is your own hopes that you are 
 burning. See, I am your own Ascanius ' — at his feet 
 he flung his empty helmet which he was wearing in 
 sport as he helped to raise the image of war. Quick 
 follows JEneas, quick the Teucrian host at his heels. 
 But the matrons are flying in panic along the coast, 
 now here, now there, stealing to the thickest woods 
 and the deepest caves. They loathe the deed and the 
 daylight. Sobered, the}' know their friends again, and 
 Juno is exorcised from their souls. But not for all 
 this will blaze and burning resign their unslaked pow- 
 ers : deep among the moistened timber smolders the 
 quick tow, discharging a slow lazy smoke : the crawl- 
 ing heat prej'S on the keels, and the plague sinks down 
 into the vessels' everj^ limb, and strength of giant 
 warriors and streaming water-floods are all of no avail. 
 Then good -^neas began to tear his raiment from his 
 back and call the gods for aid, and raise his hands in 
 prayer : ' Jove Almighty, if thy hate would not yet 
 sweep off the whole Trojan race to a man, if thy ancient 
 goodness has yet any regard for human suffering, grant 
 the fleet to escape from flame now, Father, even now, 
 and rescue from death the shattered commonweal of 
 Troy. Or else do thou with thy wrathful bolt send 
 down this poor remnant to the grave, if that is my fit 
 
BOOK V. 253 
 
 reward, and here with th}^ own right hand overwhelm 
 us all.' Scarce had the words been breathed, when a 
 black tempest is set loose, raging with fierce bursts of 
 rain : the thunder peals thrill through highland and 
 lowland — down from the whole sk^^ pours a torrent of 
 blinding water, thickened to blackness by the southern 
 winds — the ships are filled, the smoldering timbers 
 soaked — till every spark is quenched at last, and all 
 the vessels, with the loss of four, rescued from the 
 deadly plague. 
 
 But father ^neas, staggering under this cruel blow, 
 began to shift from side to side a vast burden of care, 
 as he pondered should he settle in the plains of Sicily, 
 shutting his ears to Fate's voice, or still make for the 
 shores of Ital3^ Then Nautes the aged — whom Tri- 
 tonian Pallas singled from his kind, to teach her lore 
 and dower him with the fame of abundant wisdom — 
 hers the oracular utterances which told what Heaven's 
 awful wrath portended, or what the stern sequence of 
 destin}' required — he it was that addressed ^neas 
 thus in words of comfort : ' Goddess-born, be it ours 
 to follow as Fate pulls us to or fro ; come what may, 
 there is no conquering fortune but b}' endurance. Here 
 you have Acestes, the blood of Dardanus and of gods 
 mingling in his veins — make him the partner of your 
 thoughts, and invite the aid he will gladly give. Con- 
 sign to him the crews whom your missing ships have 
 left homeless, and those who are tired of high emprise 
 and of following your fortunes — the old, old men, and 
 the matrons, wear}- of ocean, and whatever you have 
 that is weak and timorsome — set these apart, and 
 suffer them to have in this land a city of rest. The 
 town's name, with leave given, they shall call Acesta.* 
 
 The fire thus kindled by the words of his aged friend, 
 
254 THE jENEID. 
 
 now indeed the thoughts of his mind distract him utterty. 
 And now black Night, car-borne, was mounting the sk}^, 
 when the semblance of his sire Anchises, gliding from 
 heaven, seemed to break on his musings in words like 
 these : ' My sOn, dearer to me of old than life, while 
 life was yet mine — my son, trained in the school of 
 Troy's destiny, I come hither at the command of Jove 
 — of him who chased the fire from your ships, and 
 looked down on your need in pitj^ from on high. Obey 
 the counsel which Nautes the aged now so wisely gives 
 you. The flower of 3^our 3'outb, the stoutest hearts you 
 have, let these and these only follow you to Italy — 
 hard and of iron grain is the race you have to war down 
 in Latium. Still, ere }■ ou go there, come to the infernal 
 halls of Dis, and travel through Avernus' deep shades 
 till you meet your father. No, my son, godless Tar- 
 tarus and its specters of sorrow have no hold on me — 
 the company of the good is my loved resort and Elysium 
 my dwelling. The virgin Sibyl shall point 3'ou the wa}*, 
 and the streaming blood of black cattle unlock the gate. 
 There j^ou shall hear of your whole posterity, and the 
 city that Fate has in store. And now farewell, dark 
 Night has reached the midst of her swift career, and 
 the relentless Daystar has touched me with the breath 
 of his panting steeds.' He said, and vanished, like 
 smoke, into unsubstantial air. ' Whither away now ! ' 
 cries ^neas : ' whither in such haste ? from whom are 
 you flying? what power v^^ithholds you from Tcij em- 
 brace ? ' With these words he wakes to life the embers 
 and their slumbering flame, and in suppliance worships 
 the god of Pergamus and hoary Vesta's shrine with 
 duteous meal and a full-charged censer. 
 
 At once he calls his friends to his side, and Acestes, 
 first of all, shows to them the command of Jove, and 
 
BOOK V. 255 
 
 his loved father's precept, and what is now the settled 
 judgment of his mind. Brief is the parle}', nor does 
 Acestes gainsay his bidding. Thej^ remove the matrons 
 to the new cit3^'s roll, and disembark a willing crew of 
 hearts that need not the stir of great renown. For 
 themselves they repair the benches and restore the ves- 
 sels' half-burnt timber, shape the oars and fit the ropes, 
 a little band, but a living well-spring of martial worth. 
 ^Eneas, meanwhile, is marking out the city with the 
 plough, and assigning the dwellings by lot, creating an 
 Ilium here, and there a Troy. Acestes, true Trojan, 
 wields with joy his new scepter, and proclaims a court, 
 and gives laws to his assembled senate.* 
 
 And now the whole nation had enjoj^ed a nine days' 
 banquet, and the altars had received due observance ; 
 the sleeping winds have lulled the waves, and the re- 
 peated whispers of the south invite to the deep once 
 more. Uprises along the winding shore a mighty sound 
 of weeping ; prolonged embraces make day and night 
 move slow. Even the matrons, even the weaklings, 
 who so latety shuddered at the look of the sea, and 
 could not bear its name, would now fain go and endure 
 all the weariness of the journey. Them the good 
 ^neas cheers with words of kindness, and tearfull}- 
 commends them to Acestes, his kinsman and theirs. 
 Then he bids slay three calves to Eryx, and a ewe-lamb 
 to the weather gods, and in due course has the cable 
 cut, while he, his head wreathed with stript olive leaves, 
 stands aloft in the prow with a charger in hand, and 
 far into the briny waves flings the entrails, and pours 
 the sparkling wine. A wind gets up from the stern, 
 and escorts them on their wa3^ Each vying with each, 
 
 ♦ Three lines omitted in the MS. — [Ed.] 
 
256 THE jENEID. 
 
 the crews strike the water and sweep the marble sur- 
 face. 
 
 Meanwhile Venus, harassed with care, bespeaks Nep- 
 tune, and utters from her heart plaints like these : ' The 
 fell wrath of Juno's bottomless heart constrains me, 
 Neptune, to stoop to all the abasement of prayer — 
 wrath that no length of time softens, no piety of man, 
 unconquered and unsilenced by Jove's behest, b}' des- 
 tiny itself. It is not enough that her monstrous malice 
 has torn the heart from the breast of Phrygia, and 
 dragged a city through an infinity of vengeance — the 
 remnants of Tro}', the very ashes and bones of the slain 
 — these she pursues ; rage so fiendish let Mr trace to 
 its source. Thou th3'self canst bear me witness but 
 now in the Libyan waters, what mountains she raised 
 all in a moment — all ocean she confounded with 
 heaven, blindly relying on -(Eolus' storms to convulse 
 a realm where thou art master. See now — goading 
 the matrons of Tro}^ to crime, she has basel}^ burnt 
 their ships, and driven them in the ruins of their fleet 
 to leave their mates to a home on an unknown shore. 
 These poor relics, then, let tliem^ I beg, spread the sail 
 in safet}' along thy waters ; let them touch the mouth 
 of Laurentian Tiber, if my prayer is lawful, if that city 
 is granted them of Fate.' 
 
 Then thus spake Saturn's son, lord of the ocean deep : 
 ' All right hast thou, queen of Cythera, to place thy 
 trust in these realms of mine, whence thou drawest th}^ 
 birth. And I have earned it too — often have I checked 
 the madness, the mighty raving of sky and sea ; nor 
 less on earth (bear witness Xanthus and Simois !) has 
 thy ^neas known my care. When Achilles was chas- 
 ing Troy's gasping bands, forcing them against their 
 own ramparts, and offering whole hecatombs to Death, 
 
BOOK V. 257 
 
 till the choked rivers groaned again, and Xanthus could 
 not thread his wa}', or roll himself into the sea — in 
 that da\' , as ^neas confronted Peleus' mighty son with 
 weaker arm and weaker aid from heaven, I snatched 
 him away in a circling cloud, even while my whole 
 heart was bent on overthrowing from their base the 
 buildings of mj^ own hand, the walls of perjured 
 Troy. As my mind was then, it abides now. Banish 
 thy fears ; safely, according to thy pra3^er, he shall 
 reach Avernus' haven. One there shall be, and one 
 only, whom thou shalt ask in vain from the ingulfing 
 surge — one life, and one only, shall be given for 
 thousands.' 
 
 With these words, having soothed to joy the goddess' 
 heart, the august Father yokes his steeds with a yoke 
 of gold, and puts to their fierce mouths the foaming 
 bit, and gives full course to his flowing reins. The 
 azure car glides lightly over the water's surface — the 
 waves sink down, the swelling sea stills its waters 
 under the wheels of thunder — the storm-clouds fly 
 away over the wide waste of heaven. Then come the 
 hundred shapes of attendant powers : enormous whales 
 and Glaucus' aged train, and Ino's 3'oung Palsemon, and 
 rapid Tritons, and the whole host that Phorcus leads ; 
 on the left are Thetis, and Melite, and maiden Pano- 
 pea, Nesaee, and Spio, and Thalia, and Cymodoce. 
 
 And now father ^neas feels a soft thrill of succeed- 
 ing joy shoot through his anxious bosom ; at once he 
 bids every mast be reared, every sail stretched on its 
 yard-arm. One and all strain the rope and loosen the 
 sheet, now right, now loft — one and all turn to and 
 fro the sailyard's lofty horns ; the fleet is wafted by the 
 gales it loves. First, before all, Palinurus led the crowd- 
 ing ranks ; after him the rest, as bidden, shaped their 
 17 
 
258 THE jENEID. 
 
 course. And now dewy Night had well-nigh reached 
 the cope of heaven's arch — in calm repose the sailors 
 were relaxing their limbs, stretched each by his oar 
 along the hard benches — when Sleep's power, drop- 
 ping lightly down from the stars of heaven, parted the 
 dusky air, and swam through the night, in quest of 
 you, poor Pahnurus, with a fatal freight of dreams for 
 your guiltless head. The god has sat down high on 
 the stern, in the likeness of Phorbas, and these are the 
 words he utters : ' Son of lasus, Pahnurus, the sea 
 itself is steering the fleet ; the winds breathe evenly 
 and fully ; it is slumber's own hour ; come, relax that 
 strained head, and let those weary eyes play truant 
 from their toil. I myself will undertake 3^our functions 
 awhile in j^our stead.' Hardly raising his eyes, Pali- 
 nurus answered him thus : — '7 blind m3-self to smil- 
 ing seas and sleeping waves : is that 3"our will ? / 
 place my faith on this fickle monster? What? trust 
 JEneas to lying gales and fair skies, whose fraud I have 
 rued so often? ' So he said, and went on cleaving and 
 clinging, never dropping his hand from the rudder, nor 
 his eye from the stars. When lo ! the god waves over 
 his two temples a bough dripping with Lethe's dews, 
 and drugged by the charms of Styx, and in his own 
 despite closes his swimming eyes. Scarce had sudden 
 slumber begun to unstring his limbs, when the power, 
 leaning over him, hurled him headlong into the stream- 
 ing waves, tearing away part of the vessel's stern and 
 the rudder as he fell, with many a cry for help that 
 never came, while Sleep himself soared high on his 
 wings into the yielding air. Safely, nevertheless, rides 
 the fleet over the water, traveling undaunted in the 
 strength of Neptune's roj-al promise. And now it was 
 nearing the cliflfe of the Sirens' isle, clifls unfriendly in 
 
BOOK VI, 259 
 
 days of old, and white with raany a seaiiian*s bones, 
 and the rocks were sounding hollow from afar with the 
 untiring surge, when the great Father perceived the 
 unstead}' reel of the masterless ship, and guided it him- 
 self through the night of waters, groaning oft, and stag- 
 gering under the loss of his friend : ' Victim of faith 
 in the calm of sky and sea, you will lie, Palinurus, a 
 naked torpse on a strand unknown.* 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 So saying and weeping, he gives rope to his fleet, 
 and in due time is wafted smoothly to Cumae's shores 
 of Euboean fame. They turn their prows seaward : 
 then the anchor with griping fang began to moor vessel 
 after vessel, and crooked keels fringe all the coast. 
 Wrth fiery zeal the crews leap out on the Hesperian 
 shore : some look for the seed of fire where it lies deep 
 down in the veins of flint : some strip the woods, the 
 wild beast's shaggy covert, and point with joy t^ the 
 streams the}' find. But good -^neas repairs to the 
 heights on which Apollo sits exalted, and the privacy 
 of the dread Sibyl, stretching far away into a vast 
 cavern — the Sibyl, into whose breast the prophet that 
 speaks at Delos breathes his own mighty mind and 
 sou!, and opens the future to her e^ye. And now the}' 
 are entering the groves of the Trivian goddess and the 
 golden p'^lace. 
 
 Daedalus, so runs the legend, flying from Minos' 
 scepter, dared to trust himself in air on swift wings 
 of his own workmanship, sailed to the cold north 
 along an unwonted way, and at last stood buoyant on 
 
260 THE uENEID. 
 
 the top of this Eubosan hill. Grateful to the land that 
 first received him, he dedicated to thee, Phoebus, his 
 feathery oarage, and raised a mighty temple. On the 
 doors was seen Androgeos' death : there too were the 
 sons of Cecrops, constrained — O cruel woe ! — to pay 
 in penalty the yearly tale of seven of their sons' lives : 
 the urn is standing, and the lots drawn out. On the 
 other side, breasting the wave, the Gnossian land 
 frowns responsive. • There is Pasiphae's tragic passion 
 for the bull, and the mingled birth, the Minotaur, 
 half man, half brute, a monument of monstrous love. 
 There is the edifice, that marvel of toiling skill, and 
 its inextricable maze — inextricable, had not Daedalus 
 in pity for the enthralling passion of the royal prin- 
 cess, himself unraveled the craft and mystery of those 
 chambers, guiding the lover's dark steps with a clue 
 of thread. You too, poor Icarus, had borne no mean 
 part in that splendid portraiture, would grief have 
 given art its way. Twice the artist essayed to rep- 
 resent the tragedy in gold : twice the father's hands 
 dropped down palsied. So they would have gone on 
 scanning all in succession, had not Achates returned 
 from his eiTand, and with him the priestess of Phoebus 
 and Diana, Deiphobe, Glaucus' daughter, who thus 
 bespeaks the king : ' Not this the time for shows like 
 these ; your present work is to sacrifice seven bullocks 
 untouched by the yoke, seven sheep duly chosen.' 
 
 This said to JEneas, whose followers swiftly perform 
 the prescribed rites, she summons the Teucrians into 
 the lofty temple, herself its priestess. One huge side 
 of the Euboean cliff has been hollowed into a cave, 
 approached by a hundred broad avenues, a hundred 
 mouths — from these a hundred voices are poured, the 
 responses of the Sibyl. Just as they were on the 
 
BOOK VI. 261 
 
 threshold, ' It is the moment to pray for the oracle/ 
 cries the maiden ; ' the god, the god is here.' Thus as 
 she spoke at the gate, her visage, her hue changed sud- 
 denl}- — her hair started from its braid — her bosom 
 heaves and pants, her wild soul swells with frenzj' — 
 she grows larger to the view, and her tones are not of 
 eartl^ as the breath of the divine presence comes on 
 her nearer and nearer. ' What ! a laggard at vows 
 and praj'ers ? -^neas of Tro}- a laggard ? for that is 
 the onl}' spell to part asunder the great closed lips of 
 the terror-smitten shrine.' She said, and was^ mute. 
 A cold shudder runs through the Teucrians' iron frames, 
 and their king pours out his very soul in prayer: 
 ' Phoebus, ever Tro3''s pit3'ing friend in her cruel 
 agonies ^— thou who didst level Paris' Dardan bow and 
 string his Dardan arm against the vast frame of ^aci- 
 des — by thy guidance I have penetrated all these un- 
 known seas that swathe might}' continents. The Massj'- 
 lian tribes, thrust away by Nature out of view, and the 
 quicksands that environ their coasts — now at last our 
 hands are on the flying skirts of Italy. Oh, let it suffice 
 Tro3''s fortune to have followed us thus far ! Ye too 
 may now justl}' spare our nation of Pergamus, gods 
 and goddesses all, whose ejes were affronted by Troy 
 and the great glories of Dardan land. And thou, most 
 holy prophetess, that canst read the future as the pres- 
 ent, grant me — I am asking for no crown that Fate 
 does not owe me — grant a settlement in Latium to the 
 Teucrians, their wandering gods, even the travel-tossed 
 deities of Troy. Then to Phoebus and his Trivian 
 sister I will set up a temple of solid marble, and appoint 
 feast-da3's in Phoebus' name. For thee too an august 
 shrine is in store in that our future realm. For there I 
 will lodge thy oracles and the secret words of destiny 
 
262 THE jENEID. 
 
 which thou shalt speak to my nation, and consecrate 
 chosen men to thy gracious service. Only commit not 
 thy strains to leaves, lest they float all confusedly the 
 sport of the whirling winds. Utter them with thine 
 own mouth, I implore thee.' So his prayer ended. 
 
 But the prophetess, not yet Phoebus' willing slave, is 
 storming with giant frenzy in her cavern, as thoug|^ she 
 hoped to unseat from her bosom the mighty god. All 
 the more sharpl}' he plies her mouth with his bit till its 
 fury flags, tames her savage soul, and molds her to his 
 will by strong constraint. And now the hundred mighty 
 doors of the chamber have flown open of their own 
 accord, and are wafting through the air the voice of 
 prophecy : ' O you whose vast perils b}^ sea are over at 
 length ! but on land there are heavier 3^et in store. 
 The sons of Dardanus shall come to the realm of Lavi- 
 nium — from this care set jour mind at rest — but 
 think not that they shall also have joy of their coming. 
 War, savage war, and the Tiber foaming with surges 
 of blood, is the vision I see. No lack for you of Simois, 
 or Xanthus, or a Dorian camp. Another Achilles is 
 reserved for Latium, he too goddess-born — nor will 
 Juno ever be seen to quit her fastened hold on Troy — 
 while you, a needy suppUant — what nation, what city 
 in Italy will not have had you knocking at its gates ! 
 Once more will an alien bride bring on the Teucrians 
 all this woe — once more a foreign bed. But you, yield 
 not to affliction, but go forth all the bolder to meet it, 
 so far as your destiny gives you leave. The first 
 glimpse of safety, little as you dream it, shall dawn on 
 you from a Grecian town.' 
 
 Such are the words with which Cumse's Sibyl from 
 her cell shrills forth awful mysteries and booms again 
 from the cavern, robing her truth in darkness — such 
 
BOOK VL 263 
 
 the violence with which Apollo shakes the bridle in her 
 frenzied mouth and plies her bosom with his goad. 
 Soon as her frenzy abated and the madness of her lips 
 grew calm, ^neas the hero began : ' Ko feature, awful 
 maiden, that suffering can show rises on m}' sight new 
 or unlooked-for — I have foreseen all and scanned all 
 in fancy alread}". I have but one prater to make : 
 since here it is that Fame tells of the gate of the in- 
 fernal monarch, and the murky pool of Acheron's over- 
 flow, grant me to pass to the sight, to the presence of 
 my loved father — teach the wa3', and unlock the sacred 
 doors. Him I bore away through flames and a driving 
 tempest of darts on these my shoulders and rescued 
 him from the midst of the foe : he was the companion 
 of m}' journc}', and encountered with me all the waves 
 of ocean, all the terrors of sea and sky in his own feeble 
 frame, beyond the strength and the day of old age. 
 Nay more — that I would kneel to thee and approach 
 thy dwelling — this was his charge, his oft-repeated 
 prayer. Oh, of thy grace, pit^' the son and the sire ; 
 for thou art all-powerful, nor is it for naught that 
 Hecate has set thee over the groves of Avernus. If 
 Orpheus had the power to fetch back the shade of his 
 wife, by the help of his Thracian lyre and its sounding 
 strings — if Pollux redeemed his brother by dying in 
 turn with -him, and went and returned on the path those 
 many times — wh}- talk of Theseus, why of great Al- 
 cidcs? my line, like theirs, is from Jove most high.' 
 
 Such were his pra3'ers, while his hands clasped the 
 altar, when thus the prophetess began : ' Heir of the 
 blood of gods, son of Anchises of Tro}', easy is the 
 going down to Avernus — all night and all day the gate 
 of gloomy Pluto stands unbarred ; but to retrace your 
 footsteps, and win your way back to the upper air, that 
 
264 THE jENEID. 
 
 is the labor, that the task. There have been a few, 
 favorites of gracious Jove, or exalted to heaven by the 
 blaze of inborn worth, themselves sprung from the gods, 
 who have had the power. The whole intervening space 
 is possessed by woods, and lapped lound by the black 
 windings of Cocytus' stream. And now, if j^our heart's 
 yearning is so great, your passion so strong, twice to 
 stem the Stygian pool, twice to gaze on the night of 
 Tartarus — if it be your jo}' to give scope to a mad- 
 man's striving — hear what must first be done. Deep 
 in the shade of a tree lurks a branch, all of gold, foliage 
 ahke and limber twig, dedicated to the service of the 
 Juno of the shades ; it is shrouded by the whole lab}'- 
 rinth of the forest, closed in b}' the boskage that darkens 
 the glens. Yet none ma}' pierce the subterranean m3's- 
 tery, till a man have gathered from the tree that leafy 
 sprout of gold, for this it is that fair Proserpine has 
 ordained to be brought her as her own proper tribute. 
 Pluck off one, another is there unfailingl}-, of gold as 
 pure, a twig burgeoning with as fine an ore. Let then 
 your eye be keen to explore it, 3'our hand quick to 
 pluck it when dul}" found, for it will follow the touch 
 with willingness and, ease, if you have a call from Fate ; 
 if not, no strength of 3'ours will overcome it, no force 
 of steel tear it away. But, besides this, you have the 
 breathless corpse of a friend lying unburied — alas ! 
 you know it not — tainting 3'our whole fleet with the air 
 of death, while 3'ou are asking Heaven's will, and linger- 
 ing on this our threshold. Him first consign to his 
 proper place, and hide him in the grave. Lead black 
 cattle to the altar : be this the expiation to pave 3'our 
 wa}'. Thus at last you shall look on the groves of St3'x 
 and tlie realms untrodden of the living.' She said, and 
 closed her lips in silence. 
 
BOOK VI. 265 
 
 JEneas, with saddened face and steadfast eye, moves 
 on, leaving the cave behind, and revolves in his mind 
 the secrets of the future. Achates, ever faithful, walks 
 at his side, and plants his foot with no less conscious- 
 ness of care. ^ Many were the things exchanged in 
 their ranging talk — who could be the dead comrade 
 that the priestess spoke of, what the corpse that needed 
 burial. And lo ! Misenus, soon as they came, there 
 on the dry beach they see him, snatched by death that 
 should have spared him — Misenus, sonof JEolus, than 
 whom none was mightier to stir men's hearts with his 
 clarion, and kindle with music the war-god's flame. 
 Hector the great had been his chief: in Hector's ser- 
 vice he performed a warrior's part, famous alike with 
 the trumpet and the spear. But after the conquering 
 arm of Achilles robbed his master of hfe, valiant hero, 
 he made hijnself the comrade of the Dardan -^neas, 
 nor found the standard he followed meaner than of old. 
 But in those days, as he was making his hollow shell 
 ring over the waters, infatuate mortal, challenging the 
 gods to compete, Triton, roused to jealousy, seized 
 him, if the story be true, and plunged him in a moment 
 in the billow that laps among the rocks. So thej* all 
 stood round, uttering loud shrieks ; louder than the 
 rest -^neas the good. And then without delay they 
 set about the Sib3'rs bidding, weeping sore, and in 
 mournful rivalry heap np the funeral f)yre with trees, 
 and carr}' it into the sk}'. 
 
 Awa}" they go to an ancient wood, the wild beast's tall 
 covert — down go the pitch-trees ; the holm-oak rings 
 with the ax's blows, and so do the ashen beams ; the 
 wedge cleaves through the fissile oak ; they roll down 
 from the heights huge mountain ashes. There is 
 ^neas, in this, as in other labors, the first to cheer on 
 
266 THE yENEID. 
 
 his comrades, and wielding a weapon like theirs ; and 
 thus he ponders in the sad silence of his own breast, 
 looking at the immeasurable wood, and thus gives ut- 
 terance to his prajer : ' Oh that at this moment that 
 golden branch on the tree would reveal itself to our 
 sight in all this depth of forest ! for I see that in all 
 things the prophetess has told us of you, Misenus, 
 alas ! too truly/ Scarce had he spoken, when, as by 
 chance, a pair of doves come flying along the sk}^, 
 under the hero's verj^ eyes, and settle on the turf at 
 his feet. At once the mighty chief recognizes his 
 mother's birds, and gladly breathes a second prayer : 
 ' Oh guide us on our waj^, wherever it be, and as ye fly 
 direct our steps into the grove where the precious 
 branch casts its shade on the rich ground ! Thou too 
 forsake not our perplexity, O 'goddess mother ! ' Thus 
 much he said, and checked his advancing foot, watch- 
 ing to see what prognostics they bring, whither they 
 aim their onward course. They, as they graze, go 
 ever forward on the wing, as far as the eyes of the 
 travelers can keep them in view. Then when they 
 come to Avernus' noisome jaws, swiftly they soar aloft, 
 and gliding through the clear sky settle twain on the 
 same tree, their chosen seat, whence there flashed 
 through the branches the contrasted gleam of gold. 
 Even as in the woods, in the cold of midwinter, the 
 mistletoe is woi* to put forth new leaves, a vegetable 
 growth, but of no parent tree, and with its yellow pro- 
 duce to surround the tapering boles, so looked the leafy 
 gold among the holm-oak's dark shade — so in the 
 light breeze tinkled the foil. JEneas snatches it at 
 once, plucks it off with eagerness, overpowering its 
 delay, and carries it to the home of the prophetic 
 Sibyl. 
 
BOOK VI. 267 
 
 Meantime, with not less zeal, the Teucrians on the 
 shore were mourning for Miseniis, and pa3'ing the last 
 honor to the thankless ashes. First the}^ raised a pile, 
 unctuous with pine-wood, and high-heaped with planks 
 of oak : the}' wreathe its sides with gloomy foliage, and 
 set up before it funeral cypresses, and adorn it with a 
 covering of refulgent armor. Some make ready heated 
 water and caldrons bubbling over the fire, and wash and 
 anoint the cold corpse. Loud rings the wail : then, the 
 dirge over, they place the limbs on the couch that 
 claims them, and fling over them purple garments, the 
 dead men's usual covering. Some put their shoulders 
 to the heav}' bier in melancholy service, and after an- 
 cestral fashion, with averted e^'es, appl}^ the torch from 
 under. The rich heap is ablaze — offerings of incense, 
 sacrificial viands, oil streaming from the bowl. After 
 that the ashes were fallen in and the blaze was lulled, 
 the}' drenched with wine the relics and the thirsty em- 
 bers on the pyre, and Corynseus gathered up the bones, 
 and stored them in a brazen urn. He, too, carried 
 round pure water, and sprinkled thrice the comrades of 
 the dead, scattering the thin drops with a branch of 
 fruitful olive — so he expiated the company, and spoke 
 the last solemn words. But good jEneas raises over 
 the dead a monument of massive size, setting up for 
 the hero his own proper arms, the oar and the trumpet, 
 under a skyey mountain, which is now from him called 
 Misenus, and retains from age to age the everlasting 
 name. 
 
 This done, he hastens to execute the Sibyl's bidding. 
 A deep cave there was, yawning wide with giant 
 throat, rough and shingly, shadowed by the black pool 
 and the gloom of the forest — a cave, over whose 
 mouth no winged thing could fly unharmed, so poison- 
 
268 THE JENEJD. 
 
 OU8 the breath that exhaling from its pitchy jaws 
 steamed up to the sky — whence Greece has given the 
 spot the name Aornos. Here first the priestess places 
 in sacrificial station four black-skinned bullocks, and 
 empties wine over their brows, and plucking from be- 
 tween their horns the hairs of the crown, throws them 
 into the hallowed flame, as the first-fruits of worship, 
 with loud cries on Hecate, queen in heaven, and Erebus 
 both. Others put the knife to the throat, and catch in 
 chargers the steaming blood. With his own svv^ord 
 ^neas strikes down a lamb of sable fleece, for the Fu- 
 ries' mother and her mighty sister, and a barren heifer 
 for thee, dread Proserpine. Then to the St3'gian mon- 
 arch he rears altars, blazing through the darkness, and 
 piles on the flame the bulls' carcasses entire, pouring fat 
 oil on the entrails all aglow. When, hark ! as the sun 
 began to glimmer and dawn, the ground is bellowing 
 under their feet, and the wood-crowned heights are 
 nodding, and the baying of dogs sounds through the 
 gloom, for the goddess is at hand. ' Hence, hence with 
 3'our unhallowed feet!' clamors the prophetess, 'and 
 rid the whole grove of your presence. And you — 
 strike into the road, and pluck your sword from his 
 scabbard — now is the hour for courage, ^neas, now 
 for a stout heart.' No more she said, but flung herself 
 wildly into the cavern's mouth ; and he, with no falter- 
 ing step, keeps pace with his guide. 
 
 Ye gods, whose empire is the shades — spirits of 
 silence. Chaos and Phlegethon, stretching wide in the 
 stillness of night, suffer me to tell what has reached 
 my ears ; grant me your aid to reveal things buried 
 underground, deep and dark. 
 
 On they went, darkUng in solitary night, far into the 
 gloom, through Pluto's void halls and ghostly realms — 
 
BOOK VI. 269 
 
 like a journej^ in a wood under the niggard beams of a 
 doubtful moon, when Jupiter has shrouded heaven in 
 shadow, and black Night has stolen the color from Na- 
 ture's face. There before the threshold, in the verj^ 
 mouth of Hell, Agony and the fiends of Remorse have 
 made their lair : there dwell wan Diseases, and woful 
 Age, and Terror, and Hunger that prompts to Sin, and 
 loathly Want — shapes of hideous view — and Death, 
 and Suffering ; then comes Sleep, Death's blood- 
 brother, and the soul's guilty joys, and deadly War 
 couched in the gate, and the Furies' iron chambers, 
 and frantic Strife, with bloody fillets wreathed in her 
 snaky hair. 
 
 In the midst there stands, with boughs and aged 
 arms outspread, a massive elm, of broad shade, the 
 chosen seat, so Rumor tells, of bodiless dreams, which 
 cling close to its ever}' leaf. There, too, are a hundred 
 monstrous shapes of wild beasts of divers kinds. 
 Centaurs stalled in the entrance, and two-formed Scyl- 
 las, and Briareus, the hundred-handed, and the portent 
 of Lerna, hissing fearfull}', and Chimaera in her pan- 
 oply of flames, Gorgons, and Harpies, and the sem- 
 blance of the three-bodied specter. At once jEneas 
 grasps his sword, in the haste of sudden alarm, and 
 meets their advance with its drawn blade ; and did not 
 his companion warn him, of her own knowledge, that 
 they are but thin unbodied spirits flitting in a hollow 
 mask of substance, he would be rushing among them, 
 and slashing shadows asunder with the steel's unavail- 
 ing blows. 
 
 Hence runs the road that leads to the waters of Tar- 
 tarean Acheron, whose gulfy stream, churning mud in 
 its monstrous depths, is all aglow, and disgorges into 
 Cocytus the whole of its sand. These waters are 
 
270 THE MNEID. 
 
 guarded by a grisly ferryman, frightful and foul — 
 Charon; his chin an uncleared forest of hoary hair; 
 his eyes a mass of flame ; while his uncleanly garb 
 hangs from his shoulders, gathered into a knot. With 
 his own hand he pushes on the craft with a pole, and 
 trims the sails, and moves the dead heavily along in 
 his boat of iron-gray, himself already in years ; but a 
 god's old age is green and vigorous. Towards him the 
 whole crowd was pouring to the bank : matrons and 
 warriors, and bodies of mighty heroes discharged of 
 life, boys and un wedded maidens, and youths laid on 
 the pile of death in their parents' eyes — many as are 
 the leaves that drop and fall in the woods in autumn's 
 early cold, or many as are the birds that flock massed 
 together from the deep to the land, when the wintry 
 year drives them over sea to tenant a sunnier clime. 
 There they stood, each praying that he might be the 
 first to cross, with hands yearningly outstretched to- 
 wards the further shore ; but the grim boatman takes 
 on board now these, now those, vrhile others he drives 
 away, and bars them from the river's brink, ^neas, 
 cries as a man perplexed and startled by the tumult : 
 * Tell me, dread maiden, what means this concourse to 
 the stream ? Of what are these spirits in quest ? What 
 choice decides that these shall retire from the shore, 
 while those are rowing through that leaden pool ? ' To 
 him in brief returned the aged priestess : ' Son of 
 Anchises, Heaven's undoubted offspring, before you 
 are Cocytus' depths and the marsh^^ flood of Styx, 
 that power b}^ whose name the gods fear to swear in 
 vain. The whole multitude you see here is helpless 
 and tombless ; Charon is the ferryman ; those who ride 
 the wave are the buried. He ma}^ not ferry them from 
 the dreadful banks across that noisy current till their 
 
BOOK VT. 271 
 
 bones have found a place of rest. A hundred jears 
 they wander hovering about these shores ; then at last 
 they embark, and see again the flood of their longing.' 
 Anchises' son stood and paused, musing deeply, and 
 pitying at his heart a lot so unkind. Yes, there he 
 sees, sadly wandering without death's last tribute, 
 Leucaspis and Orontes, the captain of Lycia's fleet: 
 both had sailed with him from Troy over the stormy 
 water, and the south wind whelmed them both, ingulf- 
 ing the vessel and its crew. 
 
 Lo ! he sees his pilot, Palinurus, moving along — 
 Pahnurus, who but now, while voyaging from Lib3^a, 
 his eyes bent on the stars, had fallen from the stern, 
 flung out into the wide waste of waters. So when he 
 had at lajt taken knowledge of his features, now 
 saddened, in the deep gloom, he thus accosts him 
 first: 'Who was it, Palinurus, of all the gods, that 
 tore you from us, and whelmed you in the wide sea? 
 Tell me who. Till now I never found him false ; but 
 in this one response Apollo has proved a cheat, fore- 
 telling that you would be unharmed on the deep, and 
 win your way to the Ausonian frontier, and thus it is 
 that he keeps his word ! ' ' Nay,' returned he, ' my 
 chief, Anchises' son, Phoebus' tripod has told you no 
 lie, nor did anj* god whelm me in the sea. No, I 
 chanced to fall, tearing away by main force the rud- 
 der, to which I was clinging like sentry to his post, 
 as I guided your course, and dragging it with me in 
 my headlong whirl. Witness those cruel waters, I 
 felt no fear for my own life like that which seized me 
 for your ship, lest, disarmed and disabled, shaken 
 loose from her ruler's hand, she should give way under 
 the great sea that was rising then. Three long nights 
 of storm the south wind swept me over the vast wilder- 
 
272 THE jENEID. 
 
 ness of convulsed ocean. Hardly at last, at the fourth 
 dawn, I looked out aloft upon Italy from the crest 
 of the wave. Stroke by stroke I was swimming to 
 shore ; and now I was just la3'ing hold on safety- , had 
 not the savage natives come on me, sword in hand, 
 clogged as I was with mj' dripping clothes, and clutch- 
 ing with talon fingers the steep mountain-top, and 
 deemed hlindly they had found a prize. Now the 
 wave is m}- home, and the winds keep tossing me on 
 the beach. Oh, by heaven's pleasant sunshine and 
 bright sk}^ ; b}^ 3'our father, I adjure you; by the 
 promise growing up with your lulus, rescue me with 
 that unconquered arm from this cruel fate : be 3'our- 
 self, and either spread earth upon me, for that j'ou 
 can surel}' do, and put back to Veha's h^^en ; or, if 
 any wa}' there be, any that 3-our goddess mother can 
 reveal — for well I ween it is not without Heaven's leave 
 that you purpose to stem these fearful tides and the 
 reluctant pool of Stj^x — stretch 3'our hand to 3^our 
 poor friend, and take me with 3'ou over the water, 
 that at least I may find in death a place of rest and 
 peace.' So had he spoken, when thus the priest- 
 ess begins: 'What demon, Palinurus, has set on 3'ou 
 so monstrous a desire? You, unburied, look on the 
 Stygian water, and the dread river of the furies? 
 You set foot on the bank unbidden? Cease to dream 
 that Heaven's destin3' can be swa3'ed 1)3' pra3'er. Yet 
 hear and retain a word which may console 3'our hard 
 lot. For know that the dwellers in that fatal border, 
 goaded far and wide through their cities by prodigies 
 from heaven, shall propitiate your dust: the3^ shall 
 erect a tomb, and through that tomb send down y out- 
 funeral dues, and the spot shall bear for ever the 
 name of Palinurus.' These words allayed his cares, 
 
BOOK VI. 273 
 
 and banished for a while grief from that sad bosom : 
 his heart leaps to the land that is called by his name. 
 
 They according^ continue their journey, and approach 
 the river. Soon as the boatman saw them, at the mo- 
 ment, from the wave of Styx, moving through the stilly 
 forest, and turning their steps to the bank, he first 
 bespeaks them thus, and assails them unaccosted : ' You, 
 whoever you are, that are making for these waters of 
 ours in warlike trim, speak your errand from the spot 
 where you are, and come no nearer. This is the place 
 for the shadows, for Sleep and slumbrous Night. The 
 l3odies of the living may not be ferried in my Stygian 
 barque. Nay, it was not to my joy that I gave Alci- 
 des a passage over the lake, nor Theseus and Pirithous, 
 born of gods though they were, and of strength unsub- 
 dued. The one laid a jailer*s hand on the warder of 
 Tartarus, ^en at the foot of the king's own throne, 
 and dragged him trembling along : the others essayed 
 to carry off the queen from Pluto's bridal chamber.* 
 To which the Amphrysian priestess repUed in brief: 
 ' Here there are no stratagems like those ; be not dis- 
 composed ; these weapons are not borne for violence ; 
 the monstrous guardian of your gate is free to terrify 
 the bloodless specters from his den with his unending 
 bark ; Proserpine is free to keep her uncle's home as 
 faithful wife should. This is -^neas of Troy, renowned 
 for piety and arms alike : it is to see his father that he 
 is going down to Erebus' lowest depth of gloom. If 
 thou art moved in naught by the spectacle of piety so 
 signal, yet let this branch ' — she uncovered the branch 
 which was concealed in her robe — ' claim recognition.' 
 At once the angry swell subsides, and the breast is 
 calm. No further parley. Gazing in wonder at the 
 sacred offering of the fated bough, last seen so long 
 18 
 
274 THE jENEID. 
 
 ago, he turns to them the sea-green * boat, and draws 
 near the bank. Then he dislodges other ghostly pas- 
 sengers who were sitting along the benches, and clears 
 the gangways, while he takes into the vessel's hollow 
 the mighty ^neas. The sutures of the boat cracked 
 beneath the weight, as through its rents it drew in large 
 draughts of marsh-water. At length priestess and 
 prince are safe across the flood, set down amid feature- 
 less mud and blue-green rushes. 
 
 Cerberus, the monster, makes the whole realm ring 
 with his three barking throats, as he lies in giant length 
 fronting them in his den's mouth. The priestess, see- 
 ing the snakes already bristling on his neck, throws 
 him a morsel steeped in the slumber of honey and med- 
 icated meal. He, in the frenzy of hunger, opens his 
 triple jaws to catch it as it comes, and stretches his 
 enormous back at length on the ground, till his huge 
 bulk covers the den. -^neas masters the approach 
 while the warder sleeps, and swiftly passes from the 
 bank of the river without return. 
 
 At once there breaks on his ear a voice of mighty 
 wailing, infant spirits sobbing and crying on the thresh- 
 old, babes that, portionless of the sweets of life, were 
 snatched from the breast by the black death- day's 
 tyrann}^, and whelmed in untimely night. Next to 
 them are those who were done to death b}- false accu- 
 sation. Yet let none think that the lot of award or the 
 judge's sentence are wanting here. There sits Minos, 
 the president, urn in hand : he summons an assembly 
 of the speechless, and takes cognizance of earthly lives 
 and earthly sins. 
 
 ♦ So the MS. reads as a translation of Cceruleam which in his 
 note on this passage, Mr. Conington explains as the same as 
 ferrugineam translated ' iron-gray * above. — [Ed.] 
 
BOOK VI. 275 
 
 Next to them comes the dwelling-place of the sons 
 of sorrow, who, though guiltless, procured their own 
 death bj"^ violence, and, for mere hatred of the sun- 
 shine, flung their lives away. Oh, how gladly would 
 they now, in the air above, bear to the end the load of 
 poverty and the full extremity of toil ! But Fate bars 
 the way : the unlovely pool swathes them round in her 
 doleful waters, and Styx, with her ninefold windings, 
 keeps them fast, 
 
 Not far hence the traveler's eye sees stretching on 
 every side the Mourning Fields : such the name they 
 bear. Here dwell those whom cruel Love's consuming 
 tooth has eaten to the heart, in the privacy of hidden 
 walks and an enshrouding m3Ttle wood : their tender 
 sorrows quit them not even in death. In this region he 
 sees Phaedra and Procris, and sad Eriphyle, pointing 
 to the wounds of her ruthless son, and Evadne, and 
 Pasiphae : along with them moves Laodamia, and Cae- 
 neus, once a man, now a woman, brought back by the 
 turn of fate to her former self. Among these was Phoe- 
 nicia's daughter, Dido, fresh from her death-wound, 
 wandering in that mighty wood : soon as the Trojan 
 hero stood at her side, and knew her, looming dimly 
 through the dusk — as a man sees or thinks he sees 
 through the clouds, when the month is young, the 
 rising moon — his tears broke forth, and he addressed 
 her tenderly and lovingly. ' Unhapp}^ Dido ! and was 
 it then a true messenger that reached me with the tale 
 that 3^ou were dead : that the sword had done its 
 worst? Was it, alas, to a grave that I brought you? 
 By the stars of heaven I swear, by the powers above, 
 by all that is most sacred here underground, against 
 mj^ will, fair queen, I quitted your coast. No ; it was 
 the command of the gods ; the same stern force which 
 
276 THE ^NEID. 
 
 compels me now to pass through this realm of shade, 
 this wilderness of squalor and abj^smal night ; it was 
 that which drove me by its uttered will : nor could I 
 have thought that my departure would bring on you 
 such violence of grief. Stay your step and withdraw not 
 from the look I bend on you. Whom would you shun? 
 the last word which fate suffers me to address you is 
 this.' With words like these, JEneas kept soothing the 
 soul that blazed forth through those scowling eyes, and 
 moving himself to tears. She stood with averted head 
 and eyes on the ground, her features as little moved by 
 the* speech he essayed as if she held the station of a 
 stubborn flint, or a crag of Marpessa. At length she 
 flung herself away, and, unforgiving still, fled into the 
 shadow of the wood, where her former lord, S^chaeus, 
 answers her sorrows with his, and gives her full meas- 
 ure for her love. Yet, none the less, -^neas, thrilled 
 through and through by her cruel fate, follows far on 
 her track with tears, and sends his pity along with her. 
 Thence he turns, to encounter the appointed way. 
 And now they were already in the furthest region, the 
 separate place tenanted by the great heroes of war. 
 Here there meets him Tj'deus, here Parthenopseus, 
 illustrious in arms, and the specter of pale Adrastus. 
 Here are chiefs of Dardan line, wailed long and loudly 
 in the upper air as they lay low in fight: as he saw 
 them all in long array, he groaned heavily. Glaucus 
 and Medon, and Thersilochus, the three sons of Ante- 
 nor, and Polyphcetes, Ceres' priest, and Idseus, with 
 his hand still on the car, still on the armor. They sur- 
 round him, right and left, the ghostl}' crowd ; one look 
 is not suflScient : they would fain linger on and on, and 
 step side by side with him, and learn the cause of his 
 coming. But the nobles of the Danaans, and the flower 
 
BOOK VI, 277 
 
 of Agamemnon's bands, when they saw the hero and his 
 armor gleaming through the shade, were smitten with 
 strange alarm : some turn their backs in flight, as erst 
 the}^ fled to the ships : others raise a feeble war-shout. 
 The cry they essay mocks their straining throats. 
 
 Here it is that he sees Priam's son, mangled all over, 
 Deiphobus, his face cruell}^ marred — face and both 
 hands — his temples despoiled of his ears, and his nose 
 lopped by unseemly carnage. Scarce, in truth, he re- 
 cognized him, trembling as he was, and trying to hide 
 the terrible vengeance wreaked on him : unaccosted, he 
 addresses him in the tones he knew of old : ' Deipho- 
 bus, mighty warrior, scion of Teucer's illustrious stock, 
 who has had the ambition to avenge himself so cruelly ? 
 who has had his will of you thus? For me. Rumor 
 told me on that fatal night that you had sunk down, 
 tired with the work of slaughtering the Greeks, on a 
 heap of undistinguished carnage. Then with my own 
 hand, I set up an empty tomb on the Rhoetean shore, 
 and thrice with a loud voice invoked your spirit. There 
 are j^our name and your arms to keep the spot in mem- 
 ory : yourself, dear friend, I could not see, so as to 
 give you repose in the fatherland I was leaving.' To 
 whom the son of Priam: ' Dear friend, 3'ou have failed 
 in naught: all that Deiphobus could claim has been 
 paid by 3^ou to him and to his shade. No ; it was my 
 own destiny and the deadly wickedness of the Spartan 
 woman that plunged me thus deep in ill : these tokens 
 are of her leaving. How we spent that fatal night in 
 treacherous joyance you know well : too good cause is 
 there to bear it in mind. When the fateful horse at one 
 bound surmounted the height of Pergamus, and brought 
 a mail-clad infantry in its laden womb, she feigned a 
 solemn dance, and led round the city Phrygian dames 
 
27B THE jENEID. 
 
 in Bacchic ecstasy: herself in their midst raising a 
 mighty torch aloft, and calling to the Danaans from 
 the top of the citadel. That hour I spent with care, 
 and overborne with sleep, was in the hold of our ill- 
 starred bridal chamber, weighed down as I lay, by 
 slumber sweet and sound, the very image of the deep 
 calm of death. Meantime, m}' peerless helpmate re- 
 moves from the house arms of every sort : yes, my 
 trusty sword she had withdrawn from my pillow, and 
 now she calls Menelaus to come in, and throws wide 
 the door, hoping, I doubt not, that the greatness of 
 the boon would soften her lover's heart, and' that the 
 memory of her crime of old could thus be wiped from 
 men's minds. Why make the story long ? They burst 
 into the chamber, along with them that child of .^olus, 
 then as ever the counselor of evil. Recompense, j'e 
 gods, the Greeks in kind, if these lips, that ask for 
 retribution, are pure and loyal. But 3'ou ; what chance 
 has brought you here in your life-time, let me ask in 
 turn ? Are you come under the spell of ocean-wander- 
 ing, or bj' the command of heaven ? or what tyranny 
 of fortune constrains 3^ou to visit these sad, sunless 
 dweUings, the abode of confusion ? ' 
 
 In this interchange of talk, the Dawn-goddess in her 
 flushing car, careering through the sky, had well passed 
 the summit of the arch ; and perchance they had spent 
 all their allotted time in converse like this, had not the 
 Sibyl vi^arned her companion with brief address : 
 ^ Night is hastening, ^neas ; and we, as we weep, are 
 making hours pass. This is the spot where the road 
 parts in twain. The right, which goes under the palace- 
 wall of mighty Dis — there lies our way to Elysium ; 
 the left puts in motion the tortures of the wicked, and 
 sends them to Tartarus, the home of crime.' Deipho- 
 
BOOK VI. 279 
 
 bus replied : ' Frown not, dread priestess, I depart, to 
 make the ghostl}^ number complete, and plunge again 
 in darkness. Go on j'our way, our nation's glory, go ; 
 may your experience of fate be more blest.' He said, 
 and, while yet speaking, turned aw a}'. 
 
 Suddenly, -^neas looks back, and, under a rock on 
 the left, sees a broad stronghold, girt by a triple wall ; 
 a fierce stream surrounds it with surges of fire, Tarta- 
 rean Phlegethon, and tosses craggy fragments in 
 thunder. Full in front is a vast gate, its pillars of 
 solid adamant. No force of man, not even the em- 
 battled powers of heavien, could break it down. Ris- 
 ing in air is a turret of iron, and Tisiphone, with a 
 gory robe girt round her, sits at the vestibule with 
 sleepless vigilance night and day. Hence sounds of 
 wailing meet the ear, and the crack of remorseless 
 whips ; the clank of steel follows, and the trailing of 
 the chain, ^neas stood still, riveted by the terror of 
 the noise. ' What shapes is guilt wearing now ? tell 
 me, dread maiden. What are the torments that lie on 
 it so hard ? what mean these loud upsoaring shrieks ? * 
 The priestess returned ; ' Noble leader of the Teucrians, 
 no innocent foot may tread that guilty threshold ; but 
 the day when Hecate set me over the groves of Avernus, 
 she taught me from her own lips the punishments of 
 Heaven, and led me through from end to end. Here 
 rules Gnosian Rhadamanthus, a reign of iron — aven- 
 ger, at once, and judge of cowering guilt, he compels 
 a confession of what crimes soever men in upper air, 
 blindly rejoicing in the cheat, have kept secret till the 
 hour of death, to be expiated then. In a moment, 
 Tisiphone the torturer, with uplifted scourge, lashes 
 from side to side the spurned and guilty soul: and 
 brandishing in her left grim knots of serpents, sum- 
 
280 THE jENEID, 
 
 mons her uni^itying sisterhood. Then at last, grating 
 on their dread-sounding hinge, the awfnl gates are 
 opened. See j-ou what manner of sentry is seated at 
 the entrance ? what a presence is guarding the thresh- 
 old ? Know that a Hydra fiercer yet with fifty mon- 
 strous throats, each a yawning pit, holds her seat 
 within. Then there is the ab3'ss of Tartarus in sheer 
 descent, extending under the shades, twice as far as 
 man's skyward gaze from earth to the heaven of Olym- 
 pus. Here are earth's anpient progeny, the Titan 
 brood, hurled down by the thunderbolt to wallow in 
 the depths of the gulf. Here too saw I the twin sons 
 of Aloeus, frames of giant bulk, who essayed by force 
 of hand to pluck down the mighty heavens, and dis- 
 lodge Jove from his realm in the sky. I saw too Sal- 
 moneus, smitten with cruel vengeance, while mimicking 
 the fires of Jove and the rumblings of Olj^mpus. 
 Borne in a four-horse car, a flaring torch in hand, he 
 was making his triumphal progress through the tribes 
 of Greece, and the midst of Elis' city, and bidding 
 men accord him a god's homage. Madman ! to coun- 
 terfeit the storm-cloud and the unrivaled thunderbolt 
 with the rattle of brass and the beat of horses' horny 
 hoofs. But the almighty sire from the depth of his 
 cloudy dwelling, hurled his weapon — no futile fire- 
 brand his, no pinewood's smoky glare — and dashed 
 him headlong down with that tremendous blast. Tityos, 
 too, the foster-child of Earth's common breast, it was 
 mine to see : his body lies extended over nine whole 
 acres, and there is a monstrous vulture with hooked 
 beak shearing away his imperishable liver, and reaping 
 a harvest of suff'ering from his vitals, as it digs deep 
 for its meal, and burrows in the cavern of his breast, 
 nor gives the new-growing filaments rest or respite. 
 
BOOK VI. 281 
 
 What need to tell of the Lapithse, of Ixion and Piri- 
 thoiis — men who live under a black crag, ever falling, 
 and just in act to drop ? The lofty couch is spread for 
 the banquet, and the pillar of gold gleams underneath ; 
 the feast is before them, served in kingly luxury ; but 
 the eldest of the Furies is couched at their side : she 
 will not let them stretch a hand to the board : she starts 
 up with torch uplifted and thunder in her tones. Here 
 are they who lived in hatred with their brethren while 
 life yet was ; who smote a parent or wove for a client 
 the web of fraud ; who gained a treasure and brooded 
 over it alone, and never shared it with their kin — 
 a mighty number these — adulterers, who were slain 
 for their crime ; citizens who followed the standard of 
 treason ; slaves who shrunk not from breaking their 
 troth to their lords : all in prison awaiting their doom. 
 Ask not wliat doom is theirs, what phase, what fate has 
 whelmed them so deep. Others roll the huge stone up 
 the hill, or hang dispread from the spokes of the wheel : 
 there sits, as he will sit for evermore, unhappy The- 
 seus : and Phlegyas, from the depth of his agony, 
 keeps warning all, and proclaiming with a voice of 
 terror through the shades : ' ' Learn hereby to be 
 righteous, and not to scorn the gods." This sold his 
 country for gold, and^ saddled her with a tyrant ; for 
 gain he made and unmade laws : this assailed his 
 daughter's bed, and essayed a forbidden union: all 
 dared some monstrous crime, and enjoyed their daring. 
 No ; had I even a hundred tongues, and a hundred 
 mouths, and lungs of iron, not then could I embrace 
 all the types of crime, or rehearse the whole muster- 
 roll of vengeance.' 
 
 So spoke Apollo's aged priestess ; and then resum- 
 ing : 'But come,' she cries, ' speed on your way, and 
 
282 THE ^NEID. 
 
 fulfil the duty you have essayed : quicken we our pace. 
 I see the walls which the Cyclopian forge raised in air, 
 and the arched gates confronting us, where sacred rule 
 bids us set down our offering.' As she spoke, they step 
 side by side through the dusky ways, dispatch the in- 
 terval of distance, and draw near the gate. JEneas 
 masters the approach, sprinkles his body with pure 
 spring water, and fixes the branch on the portal's 
 front. 
 
 And now these things done at length, and the oflfer- 
 ing to the goddess accompUshed, they have reached the 
 regions of bliss, green pleasaunces of happy groves, and 
 the abodes of the blest. Here ether clothes the plains 
 with an ampler plenitude and a dazzling luster ; and the 
 eye beholds a sun and stars of its own. There are some, 
 plying their limbs on the grass}^ wrestling-ground, con- 
 flicting in sport, and grappling each other on the 3^ellow 
 sand : some are beating their feet in the dance, and 
 chanting songs. There, too, is the Thracian priest in 
 his flowing robe, singing the seven notes in unison with 
 the dancers' measure, and striking them now with his 
 fingers, now with the quill of ivory. Here are the old 
 race of Teucer, a goodly family, heroes of lofty soul, born 
 in earth's better da3's, llus and Assaracus, and Dar- 
 danus, founder of Troj'. From afar he gazes wonder- 
 ingly on their warrior arms and their ghostly chariots. 
 Their spears stand rooted in the ground, and their un- 
 yoked steeds graze dispersedl}' over the meadow. All 
 the delight they took when alive in chariots and armor, 
 all their pride in grooming and feeding their horses, 
 goes with them underground, and animates them there! 
 See, too, his eye rests on others regaling on either hand 
 upon the grass, and singing in chorus a joyous psean, 
 all in a fragrant grove of bay, the source whence well- 
 
BOOK VI. 283 
 
 ing forth into the upper world, Eridanus flows in broad 
 current between his wooded banks. Here is a noble 
 company who braved wounds in fight for fatherland ; all 
 the priests who kept their purity while life was ; all the 
 poets whose hearts were clean, and their songs worthy 
 Phcebus' ear ; all who by cunning inventions gave a 
 grace to life, and whose worthy deeds made their fellows 
 think of them with love : each has his brow cinctured 
 with a snow-white fillet. Looking on the multitude as 
 it streamed around, the Sibyl bespoke them thus — 
 Musaeus before all ; for he stands the center of that 
 vast crowd, which looks up to him, as with rising 
 shoulders he towers above them : ' Tell us, happy 
 spirits, and you, best of bards, which is Anchises* 
 haunt ? which his home ? for it is to see him that we have 
 come hither, and won our way over the mighty river 
 of Erebus.' Instant the hero replied in brief: 'Here 
 there are no fixed abodes : our dwellings are in shadowy 
 groves : our settlements on the velvet slope of banks 
 and meadows fresh with running streams. But come, 
 if you will, climb this hill with me, and I will set 3'our 
 feet at once on a road that will lead you.' So saying, 
 he moves on before, and from the top of the ridge points 
 to broad fields of light, while they descend from the 
 summit. 
 
 But father Anchises, down in the depth of the green 
 dell, was surveying with fond observance the spirits 
 now confined there, but hereafter to pass into the hght 
 of day, and scanning, as chance would have it, the 
 whole multitude of his people, even his loved posterity, 
 their destinies, their warrior deeds, their ways and their 
 works. Soon as he saw JEneas advancing through the 
 grass to meet him, he stretched out both his hands with 
 eager movement, tears gushed over his cheeks, and 
 
284 THE yENEID, 
 
 words escaped his lips: 'And are you come at last? 
 has love fulfilled a father's hopes and surmounted the 
 perils of the way? is it mine to look on your face, my 
 son, and listen and reply as we talked of old ? Yes ; I 
 was even thinking so in my own mind. I was reckon- 
 ing that it would be, counting over the days. Nor has 
 my longing played me false. Oh, the lands and the 
 mighty seas from which you have come to m^^ presence ! 
 the dangers, m}' son, that have tossed and smitten you ! 
 Oh, how I have feared lest you should come to harm in 
 that realm of Libya ! ' The son replied : ' Your shade 
 it was, father, 3'our melancholy shade, that, coming to 
 me oft and oft, constrained me to knock at these doors : 
 here, in the Tjrrhene deep my ships are riding at an- 
 chor. Let us grasp hand in hand : let us, my father ! 
 Oh, withdraw not from my embrace ! ' As he spoke, 
 the streaming tears rolled down his face. Thrice, as 
 he stood, he essayed to fling his arms round that dear 
 neck : thrice the phantom escaped the hands that caught 
 at it in vain, impalpable, as the wind, fleeting as the 
 wings of sleep. 
 
 Meanwhile JEneas sees in the retired vale a secluded 
 grove with brakes and rustling woods, and the river of 
 Lethe, which floats along by those abodes of peace. 
 Round it were fl^'ing races and tribes untold : even as 
 in the meadows when bees in calm summer-tide settle 
 on flower after flower, and stream over the milk-white 
 lilies, the humming fills the plain. Startled at the sud- 
 den sight, ^neas wonderingl}' inquires what it means, 
 what are those waters in the distance, or who the men 
 that are thronging the banks in crowds so vast. To 
 him his father Anchises : ' They are spirits to whom 
 Destiny has promised new bodies, there at the side of 
 Lethe's water, drinking the wave of carelessness, and 
 
BOOK VL 285 
 
 the long draught of oblivion. In truth I have long 
 wished to tell you of them and show them before you, 
 to recount the long line of my kindred, that you may 
 rejoice with me now that Italy is found.' ' Oh, my 
 father ! and must we think that there are souls that fly 
 hence aloft into the upper air, and thus return to the 
 sluggish fellowship of the body ? can their longing for 
 light be so mad as this ? ' 'I will tell you, my son, nor 
 hold you longer in doubt.' So replies Anchises, and 
 unfolds the story in order. 
 
 ' Know, first, that heaven and earth, and the watery 
 plains, and the Moon's lucid ball, and Titan's starry 
 fires are kept alive by a spirit within : a mind pervad- 
 ing each limb stirs the whole frame and mingles with 
 the might}^ mass. Hence spring the races of men and 
 beasts, and living things with wings, and the strange 
 forms that Ocean carries beneath his marble surface. 
 These particles have a fierj^ glow, a heavenly nature, 
 struggling against the clogs of corrupting flesh, the 
 dullness of limbs of clay and bodies ready to die. 
 Hence come their fears and lusts, their joys and griefs : 
 nor can they discern the heavenly light, prisoned as they 
 are in night and blind dungeon walls. Nay, when life's 
 last ray has faded from them, not even then, poor 
 wretches, are they wholly freed from ill, freed from every 
 plague of the flesh : those many taints must needs be 
 ingrained strangely in the being, so long as they have 
 grown with it. So they are schooled with punishment, 
 and pay in suffering for ancient ill : some are hung up 
 and dispread to the piercing winds : others have the 
 stain of wickedness washed out under the whelming 
 gulf, or burnt out with fire: each is chastised in his 
 own spirit : then we are sped through the breadth of 
 Elysium, while some few remain to inhabit these happy 
 
286 THE JENEID. 
 
 plains, till the lapse of ages, when time's ^jycle is 
 complete! has cleansed the ingrained blot and left a 
 pure residue of heavenly intelligence, the flame of 
 essential ether. All of these, when they have rounded 
 the circle of a thousand years, Heaven summons to 
 the stream of Lethe, a mighty concourse, to the end 
 that with memory effaced they may return to the vault 
 of the sky, and learn to wish for a new union with the 
 body.' 
 
 Anchises ended : he draws his son and the Sibyl with 
 him into the midst of the assemblage, the heart of that- 
 buzzing crowd, and mounts an eminence, whence he 
 might see face to face the whole of the long procession, 
 and learn each comer's looks. 
 
 * Now then, for the glories of the Dardan race from 
 this time onward, the posterity reserved for 3"0u in the 
 Italian line, noble spirits, the ordained heirs of our 
 proud name : of these I will tell you, and inform you 
 of your destiny. 
 
 ' He whom you see there, the youth leaning on the 
 pointless spear, his lot is to fill the next place in light : 
 he will be first to rise to upper day, born from the 
 admixture of Italian blood, Silvius, that great Alban 
 name, your latest offspring, whom in your old age at 
 set of life your spouse Lavinia will bear you in the 
 woods, himself a king and the father of kings to be : 
 from him it is that our race shall rule over Alba the 
 Long. Next comes mighty Procas, the pride of the 
 people of Troy, and Capys, and Numitor, and a 
 second bearer of your name, Silvius ^neas, himself 
 renowned alike for piety and for valor, if ever he 
 should come to the throne of Alba. What glorious 
 youths ! look what strength they carry in their port, 
 while their brows are shaded by the civic oak ! These 
 
BOOK VI. 287 
 
 shall uprear for you, high on the mountains, Noraen- 
 tum, and Gabii, and Fidense's town, and the towers 
 of Collatia, Pometii and Inuus' camp, and Bola, and 
 Cora ; names which shall one day be named : now they 
 are mere nameless lands. Romulus, too, the child of 
 Mars, shall come along with his grandsire. Romulus, 
 whom a mother, bearing Ilium's name, shall produce 
 from the blood of Assaracus. See you the two plumes 
 standing on his crest, how his sire marks him even 
 now for the upper world by his own token of honor? 
 Yes, my son, it is by his auspices that our glorious 
 Rome shall extend her empire to earth's end, her am- 
 bition to the skies, and embrace seven hills with the 
 wall of a single city, blest parent of a warrior brood : 
 even as the mighty Berecyntian mother rides tower- 
 crowned through the towns of Phrygia, proud of the 
 gods that have sprung from her, a hundred grand- 
 children at her knee, all dwellers in heaven, all lords 
 of the loft}^ sky. Hither now turn your two rays of 
 vision : look at this family, at Romans of your own. 
 Here is Caesar; here the whole progeny of lulus, as 
 it will pass one day under heaven's mighty cope. 
 This, this is he, the man promised to you so often, 
 Augustus Caesar, true child of a god, who shall estab- 
 lish again for Latium a golden age in that very region 
 where Saturn once reigned, while he stretches his sway 
 alike beyond Garamantian and Indian. See, the land 
 is lying outside the stars, outside the sun's yearl}^ path, 
 where heaven-carrier Atlas turns round on his shoul- 
 der the pole, studded with burning constellations. In 
 view of his approach, a shiver runs alread}' by oracular 
 warning through Caspian realms and Maeotian land, 
 and there is stir and confusion at the mouths of seven- 
 fold Nile. Nay, even Alcides traversed no such length 
 
288 THE ^NEID. 
 
 of earth, though he stalked the brazen-footed deer, 
 or tamed Erjmanthus' savage wilds, and appalled 
 Lerna with his arrows: no, nor he who guides his 
 triumphal car with reins of ivy-leaf, Bacchus, driving 
 his tigers down from Nysa's lofty top. And do we 
 still hesitate to let prowess give scope to power, or 
 does fear prevent our setting foot on Ausonian soil? 
 But who is he in the distance, conspicuous with a 
 wreath of olive, with sacred vessels in his hand ? Ah ! 
 I know the hoary hair and beard of the king of Rome, 
 who shall give the infant city the support of law, sent 
 from his homely Cures and a land of poverty into 
 a mighty empire. Next shall come one doomed to 
 break his country's peace, and stir up with the war- 
 cry of his name, Tullus, warriors rusting in ease and 
 squadrons that have forgotten their triumphs. Ancus 
 follows, a greater boaster, even now too ready to 
 catch the breath of a popular cheer. Would you 
 look too at the kings of Tarquin's house, at the 
 haughty spirit of Brutus the avenger, and the fasces 
 retrieved? He shall be the first to take the consul's 
 power and the axes of doom : the father will bring 
 his rebel sons to death, all for fair freedom's sake. 
 Unhappy man ! let after ages speak of that deed as 
 they will, strong over all will be patriot passion and 
 unmeasured thirst of praise. Look, there are the 
 Drusi and the Decii, and Torquatus with his unpity- 
 ing ax, and Camillus the restorer of the standards. 
 But those whom you see there, dressed alike in gleam- 
 ing armor — spirits at harmony now and so long as 
 they are confined in darkness — alas ! how vast a war 
 will they wage, each with each, if they shall attain 
 the hght of daj^, what arraying of hosts, what carnage 
 will there be ! Father-in-law and son-in-law, the one 
 
BOOK VI. 289 
 
 coming down from Alpine ramparts and the stronghold 
 of Monoecus : the other drawn up against him with the 
 forces of the east. Do not, do not, my children, make 
 wars like these familiar to your spirits r'turn not your 
 country's valor against your country's vitals : and you, 
 restrain yourself the first : 3'ou, whose lineage is from 
 heaven, drop the steel from your grasp, heir of An- 
 chises' blood. See here, a conqueror who shall drive 
 to the lofty Capitol the car of triumph over Corinth, 
 glorious from Achaean slaughter: here one who shall 
 lay Argos in dust, and Agamemnon's own Mycenae, 
 ay, and the heir of ^acus, with Achilles' martial 
 blood in his veins : a Roman's vengeance for his Tro- 
 jan grandsires, and for Pallas' insulted fame. What 
 tongue would leave you unpraised, great Cato, or 
 Cossus, 3'Ou? or the race of the Gracchi, or those 
 twin thunderbolts of war, the Scipios, Libya's ruin, 
 Or Fabricius, princely in his poverty, or you, Serra- 
 nus, sowing your own ploughed fields? When, ye 
 Fabii, will panting praise overtake you? You are 
 in truth our greatest, the single savior of our state 
 by delay. Others, I doubt not, will mold the breath- 
 ing brass to more flesh-like softness, and spread over 
 marble the look of hfe. Others will plead better at 
 the bar, will trace with the rod the courses of heaven, 
 and foretell the risings of the stars. Yours, Roman, 
 be the lesson to govern the nations as their lord ; this 
 is your destined culture, to impose the settled rule of 
 peace, to spare the humbled, and to crush the proud.* 
 
 Father Anchises paused ; and, as they wondered, 
 went on to say : ' See how Marcellus advances in the 
 glory of the general's spoils, towering with conqueror's 
 majesty over all the warriors near! When the state 
 of Rome reels under the invader's shock, he shall stay 
 19 
 
290 THE yENEID. 
 
 it ; his horse's hoofs shall trample the Carthaginian and 
 the revolted Gaul ; and he shall dedicate the third suit 
 of armor to Quirinus the sire.' Hereupon ^neas, for 
 he saw walking at Marcellus' side a youth of goodly 
 presence and in gleaming armor, but with little joy on 
 his brow and downcast eyes : ' Who, my father, is he 
 that thus attends the warrior's march ? his son, or one 
 of the glorious line of his posterity? What a hum 
 runs through the attendant train ! how lofty his own 
 mien ! but the shadow of gloomy night hovers sadden- 
 ing round his head.* Father Anchises began, tears 
 gushing forth the while : ' Alas, my son ! ask not of 
 the heav}^ grief that those of your blood must bear. 
 Of him the fates shall give but a glimpse to earth, nor 
 suffer him to continue longer. Yes, powers of the sky ! 
 Rome's race would have been in your eyes too strong, 
 had a boon like this been its own forever. What 
 groanings of the brave shall be wafted from Mars' 
 broad field to Mars' mighty town ! What a funeral, 
 father Tiber, shall thine e3'es behold, as thou flowest 
 past that new-built sepulcher ! No child of the stock 
 of Ilion shall raise his Latian ancestors to such heights 
 of hope : never while time lasts shall the land of Romu- 
 lus take such pride in any that she has reared. Woe 
 for the piety, for the ancient faith, for the arm uncon- 
 quered in battle ! Never would foeman have met that 
 armed presence unscathed, marched he on foot into the 
 field or tore with bloody spur the flank of his foaming 
 steed. Child of a nation's sorrow ! were there hope of 
 thy breaking the tyranny of fate, thou shalt be Marcel- 
 lus. Bring me handfuls of lilies, that I may strew the 
 grave with their dazzling hues, and crown, if onl}' with 
 these gifts, my young descendant's shade, and perform 
 the vain service of sorrow.' Thus they wander here and 
 
BOOK VIL 291 
 
 ttere through the whole expanse in the broad fields of 
 shadow and take note of all. Soon as Anchises had 
 taken his son from end to end, and fired his mind with 
 the prospect of that glorious history, he then tells the 
 warrior of the battles that he must fight at once, and 
 informs him of the Laurentian tribes and Latinus' town, 
 and how to shun or stand the shock of every peril. 
 
 There are two gates of Sleep : the one, as story tells, 
 of horn, supplying a ready exit for true spirits : the 
 other gleaming with the polish of dazzling ivory, but 
 through it the powers below send false dreams to the 
 world above. Thither Anchises, talking thus, conducts 
 his son and the Sib3'l, and dismisses them by the gate 
 of ivory. JEneas traces his way to the fleet and returns 
 to his comrades ; then sails along the shore for Caieta's 
 haven. The anchor is cast from the prow : the keels 
 are ranged on the beach. 
 
 BOOK vn. 
 
 And thou, too, in thy death, Caieta, nurse of JEneas, 
 hast left to our coast the heritage of an ever-living 
 fame ; still in this later day thy glory hovers over thy 
 resting-place, and a name on Hesperia's mighty sea- 
 board is thy monument, if that be renown. So when 
 good ^neas had paid the last dues and raised a funeral 
 mound, and had waited for the calming of the deep, he 
 spreads sail and leaves the harbor. Nightward the 
 breezes blow, nor does the fair Moon scorn to jshow the 
 way : her rippling light makes the sea shine again. 
 The next land they skirt is the coast of Circe's realm, 
 
292 THE jENEID. 
 
 where in queenly state the daughter of the Sun thrills 
 her forest fastness with never-ending song, and in her 
 haughty mansion burns fragrant cedar to give light by 
 night, as she draws her shrill comb over the delicate 
 warp. From the shore they heard the growling noise 
 of Hons in wrath, disdaining their bonds and roaring in 
 midnight hour, bristly boars and caged bears venting 
 their rage, and shapes of huge wolves fiercely howling : 
 things which Circe, fell goddess, had transformed by 
 her magic drugs from the mien of man to a beast's 
 visage and a beast's hide. So, lest the pious race of 
 Troy should suffer such monstrous change, were they 
 to seek harbor there or approach the perilous shore, 
 Neptune filled their sails with favoring breezes, sped 
 their flight along, and wafted them past the seething 
 waters. 
 
 The sea was just reddening in the dawn, and Aurora 
 was shining down from heaven's height in saffron robe 
 and rosy car, when all at once the winds were laid, and 
 every breath sank in sudden sleep, and the oars pull 
 slowl}^ against the smooth unmoving wave. In the 
 same moment ^neas, looking out from the sea, beholds 
 a mighty forest. Among the trees Tiber, that beauteous 
 river, with his gulfy rapids and the burden of his 3'el- 
 low sand, breaks into the main. Around and above, 
 birds of all plumes, the constant tenants of bank and 
 stream, were lulling the air with their notes and flying 
 among the woods. He bids his comrades turn aside 
 and set their prows landward, and enters with joy the 
 river's shadowed bed. 
 
 Now be with me Erato, and I will unfold who were 
 the kings, what the stage of circumstance, what the 
 condition of ancient Latium, when the stranger host 
 first landed on Ausonian shores, and will recall how the 
 
BOOK VIL 293 
 
 first blood was drawn. Thou, goddess, thou prompt 
 thy poet's memory. Mine is a tale of grisly war, of 
 battle array, and princes in their fury rushing on car- 
 nage — of Tyrrhenian ranks, and all Hesperia mustered 
 in arms. Grander is the pile of events that rises on 
 m}' view, grander the task I essay. It was the time 
 when king Latinus, now stricken in age, was ruling 
 country and city in the calm of years of peace. He, as 
 story tells us, was the son of Faunus and a Laurentine 
 nymph, Marica. Faunus' father was Picus, who owes 
 his birth to thee, great Saturn : thou art the first found- 
 er of the line. No son, no male progeny, so Heaven 
 willed, had Latinus now ; just as it was budding into 
 youth, the branch was cut off. The sole maintainer 
 of the race, the sole guardian of that princely house 
 was a daughter, already ripe for wedlock, already 
 arrived at full-blown womanhood. Many were her 
 wooers from mighty Latium, nay, from all Ausonia. 
 One wooer there was in beauty passing others, Turnus, 
 strong in the glory of sires and grandsires : his alliance 
 the queen with intense yearning was seeking to com- 
 pass ; but heavenly portents bar the way with manifold 
 alarm. There was a laurel in the middle of the palace, 
 in the very heart of ro3^al privacy, sacred in its every 
 leaf, cherished by the awful observance of many years ; 
 men said that father Latinus himself found it there 
 when he first laid the foundation of the tower, dedi- 
 cated it to Phoebus, and thence gave his new people the 
 name of Laurentines. On the top of this tree lodged a 
 dense swarm of bees, marvelous to tell, sailing thither 
 with loud humming noise across the liquid air, and 
 twining their legs together, the cluster in a moment 
 was seen to hang from the leafy bough. At once spoke 
 a prophet : ' There is a stranger approaching : I see 
 
294 THE uENEID. 
 
 him now ; along this self-same path a troop is moving 
 hitherward, and commanding the height of the citadel.' 
 Moreover, while Lavinia is applying the hallowed torch 
 to the altars, as she stands in maiden purity at her 
 father's side, she was seen, oh, monstrous sight! to 
 catch the fire with her long tresses, all her headgear 
 consuming in the crackling flame, her queenly hair, her 
 jeweled coronal all ablaze, till at last she was wrapt in 
 smoke and yellow glare, and scattered the fire-god's 
 sparks the whole palace through. There indeed was a 
 tale of horror, a marvel and a portent ; for, said the 
 wise men, she will herself be illustrious in fame and 
 fortune, but to the nation she bodes tremendous war. 
 Troubled by these prodigies, the king repairs to the 
 oracle of Faunus, his prophetic sire, to question at the 
 groves beneath Albunea's shade — that queen of for- 
 ests, ever vocal with the sacred waters, ever breathing 
 from its dark heart deadly vaporous steam. It is here 
 that the tribes of Italy and all GEnotrian land seek 
 answers in their perplexity ; hither the priestess brings 
 the inquirer's ofiering, lies in the still of night on a 
 couch of slaughtered sheep's skins, and turns to sleep, 
 when she sees many phantoms flitting in marvelous 
 fashion, and hears divers voices, and enjoys commun- 
 ion with the gods, and holds converse with Acheron 
 down in Avernus' deep. Here also king Latinus, in 
 quest of an answer, was sacrificing duly a hundred 
 sheep of the second year, and was lying on their skins, 
 a fleecy bed, when sudden from the depth of the grove 
 an utterance was heard : ' Look not to ally your daugh- 
 ter in wedlock of Latium, O my son ; put not faith in 
 marriage chambers dressed and ready ; there are sons- 
 in-law from a far country now on their way, men des- 
 tined by mixing their blood with ours to exalt our name 
 
BOOK VII. 295 
 
 to the spheres — men whose lineal posterity shall one 
 day look down and see under their feet the whole 
 world, far as the two oceans which the sun surveys in 
 his daily round, revolving beneath them and wielded 
 by their control.' Such was the response of father 
 Faunus, the counsel given at still of night : nor does 
 Latinus hold it shut in the prison of his own lips ; but 
 Fame had flown with the rumor through Ausonia far 
 and wide from city to citj^ when the young chivalry 
 of old Laomedon anchored their ships on the river's 
 grassy bank. 
 
 ^neas and his chief captains, and lulus j'Oung and 
 fair, lay their limbs to rest under the boughs of a lofty 
 tree ; there they spread the banquet, putting cakes of 
 flour along the sward to support the food — such was 
 Jove's high inspiration — and rearing on the wheaten 
 foundation a pile of wilding fruits. It chanced that 
 when the i*est was eaten, the want of meat forced them 
 to pl3^ their tooth on those scanty gifts of Ceres — to 
 profane with venturous hand and mouth the sanctity 
 of the cake's fated circle, nor respect the square im- 
 pressed on its surface. ' What ! eating our tables as 
 well ? ' cries lulus, in his merry vein ; that and no 
 more. That utterance first told the hearers that their 
 toils were over : even as it fell from the boy's mouth 
 his father caught it up and broke it short, wondering 
 in himself at the power of Heaven. Then anon: 
 * Hail to thee, promised land of my destiny ! hail to 
 you,' he cries, ' Troy's faithful gods ! Yes, here is our 
 home — this our country. It was my father — these, 
 I remember, were the mystic words of fate he left me : 
 My son, whenever you are wafted to an unknown coast, 
 and hunger drives you, failing food, to eat your tables, 
 then remember my saying, there look for a home of 
 
296 THE yENEW. 
 
 rest, set up your first roof-tree and strengthen it with 
 mound and rampart. This was the hunger he meant. 
 This was the last strait in store for us, not the begin- 
 ning but the end of death. Come then, take heart, 
 and with the morrow's earliest light explore we what 
 is the place, who its dwellers, where the city of the 
 nation, making from the haven in different wa3^s. 
 Meanwhile pour libations to Jove, invoke in prayer 
 my sire Anchises, and set again the wine on the 
 board.' So having said, he wreathes his brow with 
 the leafy spray, and offers prayer to the genius of the 
 spot ; to Earth the eldest of the gods ; to the nymphs 
 and the streams yet unknown b}' name : after that, 
 to Night and Night's new-born stars, and Ida's Jove, 
 and Phr3^gia's mighty mother, invoking each in turn, 
 and his own two parents in the upper and the nether 
 world. Just then the Almighty Father thundered 
 thrice aloft in a clear sk}^, and with his own right 
 hand flashed in open view from on high a cloud ablaze 
 with rays of golden light. At once the news spreads 
 among the Trojan ranks that the day has arrived when 
 they are., to build their promised city. With emulous 
 haste they celebrate the banquet, and in the power of 
 the august presage set on the bowls exultingl}^, and 
 wreathe the wine. 
 
 Soon as on the morrow the risen day began to 
 illumine the earth with the first sparkle of her torch, 
 some here, some there, they set about exploring the 
 city, the frontiers, the seaboard of the country. This, 
 they learn, is the spring of Numicius, this the river 
 Tiber, this the home of the brave Latian race. There- 
 upon Anchises' son commands an embassy of a. hun- 
 dred, chosen from all classes alike, to go to the 
 monarch's royal city, all of them with wreathed boughs 
 
BOOK VII. 297 
 
 from Pallas' tree, to carry presents for his honored 
 hand, and entreat his friendship for the Teucrians. 
 They delay not, but hasten at his bidding, moving 
 with rapid pace, while he is marking out the cit}^ with 
 a shallow trench, preparing the ground, and surround- 
 ing this their first settlement on the coast, camp-fashion, 
 with battlements and earthworks. Meanwhile the mis- 
 sioned band had performed their journey, and were 
 in sight of the towers and stately homes of Latium, 
 and passing under the city wall. In a space before the 
 town, boys and j^ouths in their prime are exercising on 
 horseback, and breaking in their harnessed cars among 
 clouds of dust, or bending the sharp-springing bow, or 
 hurling from the arm the quivering javelin, or vying 
 on foot or with the gloves, when galloping up, a mes- 
 senger announces, in the aged monarch's ears, that 
 might}^ men have arrived in strange attire. The king 
 bids him summon them into the presence-hall, and 
 takes his seat in the midst on his ancestral throne. 
 It was a reverend pile, of vast proportions, raised 
 high upon a hundred pillars, on the city's topmost 
 ground, the palace of Picus the Laurentine, clothed 
 in the terror of waving woods and hereditary a\^e. 
 Here it was held to be of auspicious presage that 
 kings should first take in hand the scepter, and lift 
 up the fasces : this temple was their senate-house, the 
 hall for their sacrificial feasts : here, when a ram was 
 slain, the seniors were wont to banquet down long lines 
 of tables. Here, too, in succession were the effigies 
 of past generations, carved from ancient cedar. Ita- 
 lus and father Sabinus, planter of the vine, preserving 
 in that mimic form his curved hook, and hoary Saturn, 
 and the image of two-faced Janus, all standing in the 
 vestibule, and other kings from the earliest days, and 
 
298 THE uENEID. 
 
 heroes who had sustained the war-god*s wounds in 
 fighting for their country. Moreover, there was hang- 
 ing on the sacred doors abundance of armor, captive 
 chariots, crooked ax-heads, helmet-crests, ponderous 
 gates, javehns, and shields, and beaks torn from ves- 
 sels. There, as in Ufe, was sitting, decked with Quiri- 
 nal staff and robe of scanty border, in his left hand 
 the sacred shield, Picus, tamer of the steed, he whom, 
 in her bridal jealousy, Circe, by a stroke of her golden 
 rod and the witchery of her drugs, transformed to 
 a bird, and scattered spots over his wings. Such 
 was the temple where Latinus, seated on his ancestral 
 throne, summoned the Teucrians to his presence with- 
 in, and on their entry with placid mien bespoke them 
 thus : — 
 
 ' Tell me, sons of Dardanus — for we know your city 
 and 3'our race, and your coming over the deep has 
 reached our ears — what is your errand? what cause 
 or what necessity has wafted jour ships to our Auso- 
 nian coast through those many leagues of blue water ? 
 Be it from ignorance of the way or stress of weather, 
 or any of the thousand chances that happen to sea- 
 men on the main, that 3 ou have passed between our 
 river's banks, and are resting in the haven, shrink not 
 from our welcome, but know in the Latian race the 
 true people of Saturn, kept in righteousness by no 
 band of law, but by our own instinct and the rule 
 of our parent-god. And now I remember, though 
 years have dulled the freshness of the tale, that aged 
 Auruncans used to tell how in this land Dardanus saw 
 the light, and hence he won his way to the towns of 
 Phrygian Ida and Thracian Samos, which men now call 
 Samothrace. A}^, it was from the house of Tuscan 
 Cory thus he went, and now the golden palace of starry 
 
BOOK VII. 299 
 
 heaven seats him on a throne, and among the altars of 
 the gods makes room for him.' 
 
 He ended ; and Ilioneus followed thus : ' Great king, 
 illustrious son of Faunus, no stress of gloom}^ storm has 
 made us the sport of the waves and driven us on your 
 coast, no sk}- or land misread has beguiled us of our 
 track : of set purpose, with full intent, we are arrived 
 one and all at your city, driven from a realm once the 
 greatest which the sun surveyed in his course from end 
 to end of heaven. From Jove is the origin of our 
 race ; in Jove, as their ancestor, the sons of Dardanus 
 glorj^ ; our monarch himself, sprung of Jove's own 
 pure blood, ^neas of Tro}', has sent us to your doors. 
 How dire a hurricane, launched from fell Mycenae, 
 swept over Ida's plains — how the two worlds of Eu- 
 rope and Asia, fate driving each, met and crashed 
 together — has reached the ears of the man, if such 
 there be, whom earth's last corner withdraws from the 
 wash of ocean, and his too who is parted from his fel- 
 lows by the zone that lies midmost among the four, the 
 zone of the tyrannous sun. From the jaws of that 
 deluge %ing over many and mighty waters, we ask of 
 you for our country's gods a narrow resting-place — 
 the harmless privilege of the coast, and the common 
 liberty of water and air. We shall be no disgrace to 
 30ur kingdom, nor light shall be the fame that men will 
 blaze of 3'ou, nor shall gratitude for your great bounty 
 grow old, nor shall Ausonia mourn the day when she 
 welcomed Troy to her heart. I swear b}^ Eneas' star, 
 by his strong right hand, known as such by all who 
 have proved it in friendship or in war, many have been 
 the peoples, many the nations — nay, scorn us not for 
 that we accost you with fillets of suppliance and words 
 of prayer — who have sued for our company and wished 
 
300 • THE ^NEID. 
 
 to make us one with them. But the oracles of heaven, 
 speaking as they onlj^ can, have driven us to search out 
 3'our realms. Hence sprang Dardanus ; hither Apollo 
 bids us return, with the instance of high command, 
 even to Tuscan Tiber and the sacred waters of Numi- 
 cius* spring. Moreover here are presents from ^neas, 
 the scanty offerings of past prosperit}', relics snatched 
 from the flames of Troy. From this gold his father, 
 Anchises, poured libations at the altar ; this was 
 Priam's royal accouterment, when he gave laws in 
 kingl}' fashion to the assembled people ; this scepter, 
 this sacred diadem, these robes, the work of Trojan 
 dames.' 
 
 Thus, as Ilioneus is speaking, Latinus holds his 
 countenance in set downcast gaze, and sits rooted to 
 his throne, turning his eyes in intense thought. Nor 
 does the broidered purple stir his princely mind ; no, 
 nor the scepter of Priam, so deepty as he ponders on 
 the wedlock, the bridal bed of his daughter, revolving 
 in his breast old Faunus' oracle. This must be that 
 predicted son-in-law, arrived from a foreign home, des- 
 tined to reign in joint sovereignty with himself; thence 
 must be born that glorious progeny, whose prowess is 
 to master the world. At length he breaks out in glad 
 tones : ^ May the gods prosper our intent and ratify 
 their own presage ! Yes, Trojan, you shall have your 
 prayer, nor do I reject your presents. Long as Lati- 
 nus shall reign, you shall not lack the bounty of a 
 fruitful soil, nor miss the wealth of Troy. Let but 
 ^neas himself, if his desire of us is so great, if he 
 covets the tie of hospitality and the style of alliance, 
 come to our presence, nor shrink from eyes that will 
 view him kindly. Peace will be incomplete till I have 
 touched your monarch's hand. And now do you take 
 
BOOK VII. 301 
 
 back to your king this my message : I have a daughter, 
 whose marriage with a husband of our nation is forbid- 
 den by voices from m}^ father's shrine, by countless 
 prodigies from heaven ; sons-in-law are to arrive from 
 foreign climes — such, the}^ say, is Fate's will for La- 
 tium — who by mixing their blood with ours are to 
 exalt our name to the spheres. That he is this chosen 
 one of destiny is my belief, and, if my mind reads the 
 future true, my award.' With these words the old 
 king makes choice of horses from the multitude he 
 possessed. ' Three hundred there were, sleek-coated, 
 standing in their lofty stalls. At once he bids his ser- 
 vants bring for each of the Teucrians a fleet-foot with 
 housings of embroidered purple ; golden poitrels hang 
 down to the chest of each ; there is gold on their cov- 
 erings ; 3'ellow gold under their champing teeth. For 
 the absent ^neas he orders a car and two coursers of 
 ethereal seed, snorting lire from their nostrils, sprung 
 of that brood which artful Circe raised up fraudfully to 
 her father the Sun, a spurious race, from the womb of 
 a mortal dam. Thus graced with gifts and kind 
 speeches, the children of -^neas journey homeward on 
 their tall steeds, and carrj' tidings of peace. 
 
 Meanwhile, there was Jove's relentless spouse travel- 
 ing <back from her own Argos, city of Inachus, and 
 already launched on mid air ; looking from the sky over 
 Sicilian Pachynus, she beheld in distant prospect 
 ^neas in his hour of joy and the Dardan fleet. Al- 
 ready she sees him building his home ; already he has 
 made the soil his friend, and has parted from his ships. 
 Pierced with bitter grief, she stayed her course, and 
 then, shaking her head, pours ft*om her heart words 
 like these : * Ah, that hated stock ! those destinies of 
 Phrygia that hold my destinies in check ! Did the dead 
 
302 THE MNEID, 
 
 really fall on the plains of Sigeum? were the captives 
 captured in truth? did the flames of Troy burn the 
 men of Troy ? Through the heart of the battle, through 
 the heart of the fire they have found a way. Ay, be- 
 like, my power at last lies gasping ..aud spent; my 
 hatred is slaked and I am at peace. I, who followed 
 them with a foe's zeal over the water even when tossed 
 from their country's arms, and met the exiles front to 
 front on every sea ! Spent on these Teucrians is all 
 that sky and surge can do. Have Syrtes, has Scylla, 
 has Charybdis' yawning gulf stood me aught in stead ? 
 They have gained the channel of Tiber, the haven of 
 their wishes, and may laugh at ocean and at me. Mars 
 had strength to destroy the Lapithan nation, huge as 
 they were ; the father of the gods gave up the honored 
 land of Catydon to Diana's vengeance ; and what had 
 Lapithans or Cal3'don done to earn such penal ruin ? 
 But I, Jove's great consort, who have stooped, miser- 
 ably stooped, to leave nothing untried, who have as- 
 sumed every form by turns, am vanquished by JEneas. 
 Well, if my power be not august enough, I would not 
 shrink from suing for other aid, be it found where it 
 may ; if I cannot prevail above, I will stir up the fiends 
 of the deep. It will not be mine to keep him from the 
 crown of Latium — be it so ; fixed for him by fate un- 
 alterably is his bride Lavinia ; but delays and impedi- 
 ments may well be where the matter is so great ; but 
 to cut off the subjects of our two monarchs — this. may 
 be done. So let father and son-in-law embrace, at the 
 cost of their people's lives. The blood of Trojan and 
 Rutulian shall be 3^our dower, fair lady ; Bellona is 
 waiting to lead you to your chamber. Nor is Hecuba 
 the only mother that has teemed with a fire-brand and 
 given birth to a nuptial blaze ; Venus sees the tale 
 
BOOK VII. 303 
 
 repeated in her own offspring — a second Paris — a 
 funeral torch rekindled for reviving Troy.' 
 
 Having vented words like these, she flfew down in 
 black rage to the earth ; and now she summons Alecto 
 the baleful from the dwelling of the dread goddesses 
 and the darkness of the pit — Alecto, whom bitter 
 wars, and strifes, and stratagems, and injurious crimes 
 cheer like a cordial. Hateful even to Pluto her sire is 
 the fiend, hateful to her Tartarean sisters, so many the 
 forms she puts on, so terrible the mien of each, so 
 countless the vipers that burgeon blackly from her 
 head. Her, thus dreadful, Juno lashes to fiercer fury, 
 speaking on this wise : ' Grant me, maiden daughter of 
 Night, a boon all my own — thine undivided aid, that 
 my praise and renown may not be dashed from their 
 pedestal — that the children of ^neas may not be able 
 to ensnare Latinus in a bridal alliance or beset the 
 Italian frontier. Thou canst make brothers of one soul 
 take arms and fight ; canst make peaceful homes dens 
 of strife ; thou canst gain entrance for the scourge 
 and the funeral torch : thou hast a thousand names, a 
 thousand means of ill. Stir up that prolific bosom, 
 snap the formed bands of peace, scatter the incentives 
 of war, let the nation in the same moment desire, de- 
 mand, and seize the sword.' 
 
 So then Alecto, empoisoned with Gorgon venom, 
 first repairs to Latium and the lofty halls of the Lau- 
 rentine monarch, and sits down before the hushed 
 chamber of queen Amata, who, as she mused on the 
 arrival of the Trojans and Turnus' bridal hopes, was 
 glowing and seething with all a woman's passion, a 
 woman's spleen. Snatching a snake from her dark 
 venomed locks, she hurls it at her, and lodges it in the 
 bosom close to the very heart, that, maddened by the 
 
304 THE ^NEID. 
 
 * pest, she may drive the whole house wild. In glides 
 the reptile unfelt, winding between the robe and the 
 marble brea'st, and beguiles her into frenz^^, breathing 
 into her lungs its viperous breath ; the linked gold round 
 her neck turns to the monstrous serpent ; so does the 
 festoon of her long fillet ; it twines her hair, it slides 
 smoothly from limb to limb. And while the first access 
 of contagion, stealing in with clammy poison, is pervad- 
 ing her senses and threading her bones with flame, ere 
 yet the soul has caught fire through the whole compass 
 of the bosom, she speaks with gentle plaint, as mothers 
 wont, shedding many tears over her child and the Phry- 
 gian alliance : ' And are fugitives from Troy to take 
 Lavinia in marriage, good father? have you no com- 
 passion for 3'our daughter and yourself? none for her 
 mother, whom with the first fair gale the faithless pirate 
 will leave and make for the deep, carrying ofi" his 
 maiden prey ? Ay, things were not so when the Phry- 
 gian shepherd stole into Lacedsemon, and bore awaj^ 
 Leda's Helen to Troy town. Where is j^our pledged 
 faith ? where your old tenderness for 3^our own blood, 
 and your hand phghted so oft to your kinsman Turnus ? 
 If Latian folk must have a son-in-law fetched from a 
 foreign stock, and this is unalterabljv fixed, and your 
 father Faunus' command sits heavy on 3^our soul, I hold 
 that every nation is foreign whose independence severs 
 it from our rule, and that such is Heaven's intent. 
 Turnus, too, if you go back to the first foundation of 
 his house, has Inachus and Acrisius for his ancestors, 
 and the heart of Mycenae for his home.' But when, 
 having tried in vain what these words can do, she sees 
 Latinus obstinately bent, and meantime the serpent's 
 fiendish mischief has sunk deep into her vitals, and is 
 thriUing every vein, then at last the miserable queen. 
 
BOOK VIL 305 
 
 unsexed by the portentous enormity, raves in ungov- 
 erned frenzy through the city's length and breadth ; as 
 oft you may see a top spinning under the lash, which 
 boys are flogging round and round in a great ring in an 
 empty courtyard, with every thought on their game: 
 driven by the whip it keeps making circle after circle : 
 the beardless faces hang over it in puzzled wonder, 
 marveling how the boxwood can fly, as though the 
 blows made it a living thing. With motion as furious 
 she courses through crowded streets and unruly peo- 
 ples. Nay, more than this, she feigns the inspiration 
 of Bacchus, nerving herself to more atrocious deeds, 
 and climbing new heights of madness — flies into the 
 woods, and hides her daughter among the leafy hills, 
 all to snatch from the Teucrians the bridal bed and 
 delaj' the kindling of Hymen's torch. '- Evoe Bacchus ! ' 
 is her cry ; ' thou, and none but thou art fit mate for a 
 maid like this. See ! for thee she takes up the sacred 
 wand, for thee she leads the dance, for thee she grows 
 her dedicated hair.' Fame flies abroad ; other mothers 
 are instinct with frenzy, and all have the same mad 
 passion driving them to seek a new home. They have 
 left their houses, and are spreading hair and shoulders 
 to the wind ; while some are filling the sky with quiver- 
 ing shrieks, clad in fawn-skins, and carrying vine-branch 
 spears. There in the middle is the queen all aglow, 
 hfting high a blazing pine, and singing the bridal song 
 of Turnus and her daughter, her ej-e red and glaring ; 
 and sudden she shouts like a savage : ' Ho ! mothers of 
 Latium all, where'er 3^e be, if ye have human hearts and 
 kindness left there for poor Amata, if ye are stung to 
 think of a mother's rights, oflT with the fillets from your 
 hair, and join the orgj' with me.' Such is the queen, 
 20 
 
306 THE yENEID. 
 
 driven among the woods, among the wild beasts' lairs 
 far and wide, by Bacchus' goad in Alecto's hand. 
 
 And now, judging that she had barbed enough the 
 ,3'oung fangs of frenzy, upheaving from their bases the 
 royal purpose and the royal house, the grim goddess 
 next soars in air on her murky wings on to the walls of 
 the bold Rutulian, the city which they say Danae built 
 for her Argive settlers, landing there under stress of 
 wind. Ardea was the name which past generations 
 gave the place, and Ardea still keeps her august title ; 
 but her star is set. Here, in his loft}^ palace, Turnus 
 at deep of night was in the midst of his sleep. Alecto 
 puts off her hideous features and her fiendish shape, 
 transforms herself to an old woman's countenance and 
 furrows her loathly brow with wrinkles, assumes hoary 
 locks and woolen fillet, lastly twines them w^ith an olive 
 spray, and so becomes Calj^be, the aged priestess of 
 Juno's temple ; and presents herself to the young war- 
 rior's e3'es with such words as these : •• And can Turnus 
 calmly see all his toils poured out in vain, and the crown 
 that is his own transferred to settlers from Dardania ? 
 See, the king is refusing you your bride and j^our blood- 
 bought dowry, and search is being made for a foreign 
 heir to fill the throne. Go on now, confront ungracious 
 perils, and earn derision ; go, mow down the Tuscan 
 ranks, and spread over Latium the shield of peace. 
 These very words Saturn's almighty daughter with her 
 own lips bade me say to you when you should be slum- 
 bering in the still of night. Rise, then, bid your sol- 
 diery arm and move from city to camp, set fire to the 
 Phrygian chiefs who have anchored in our fair river 
 and to their painted ships. The dread voice of heaven 
 speaks by me. Nay, let king Latinus, unless he con- 
 sent to give you your bride .^nd respect his promise, 
 
BOOK VII. 307 
 
 feel at last and find what it is to have Turnus for a 
 foe.' 
 
 Laughing scornfulty at the old seer, the youth thus 
 spoke in reply : ' The news that a fleet has arrived in 
 the Tiber has not, as you imagine, escaped my ear. 
 Conjure me no such mighty terrors, nor think that 
 queen Juno has forgotten me. No, it is you, good 
 mother, whom moldering dotage, drained dry of truth, 
 is vexing to no end, mocking your prophetic soul with 
 false alarms in an atmosphere of royal armaments. 
 You are in your place watching over statues and tem- 
 ples ; but war and peace must be wielded by men 
 whose work war is.' 
 
 At these words Alecto kindled into wrath. Even in 
 the act of speaking a shudder seized the youth's frame 
 and his eyes grew stiff and stony, so fierce the hissing 
 of the Fury's thousand snakes, so monstrous the feat- 
 ures that rose on his view. Instant with a roll of her- 
 fiery orbs she thrust him back as he faltered and tried 
 to speak further ; on either brow she upreared a ser- 
 pent lock, and cracked her whip, and with infuriate lips 
 followed thus': ' Here is the moldering mother, whom 
 dotage, drained dry of truth, is mocking with false 
 alarms in an atmosphere of royal armaments. Turn 
 your eyes hither ; I am come from the dwelling of the 
 Dread Sisters : war and death are wielded by this 
 hand.' 
 
 Saying thus, she hurled a torch full at the j^outh, and 
 lodged in his breast the pine- wood with its lurid smoke 
 and glare. The bonds of sleep are broken by the giant 
 terror, and a burst of sweat all over bathes the whole 
 man, bone and limb. ' My sword ! ' he screams in 
 frenzy ; for his sword he searches pillow and palace : 
 the fever of the steel, the guilty madness of bloodshed 
 
308 THE jENEID. 
 
 rage within him, and angry pride tops all: even as 
 when loud-crackling a fire of sticks is heaped round 
 the sides of a waving caldron, and the heat makes the 
 water start; there within is the flood, steaming and 
 storming, and bubbling high in froth, till at last the 
 wave cannot contain itself, and the black vapor flies 
 up into the air. So then, trampling on treaties, he 
 gives the word to the chiefs of his soldiery for a march 
 upon king Latinus, and bids arms be got ready. Italy 
 must be protected, the foe must be driven from the 
 frontier ; he and his men will be enough for both, Teu- 
 crians and Latians. So he says and appeals to Heaven : 
 and the Rutulians with emulous zeal encourage each 
 other to the figlit. This one is fired by his leader's 
 peerless beauty and youth; this by the kings in his 
 .pedigree ; this by the glorious deeds of his hand. 
 
 While Turnus is filling the Rutulians with the spirit 
 of daring, Alecto is putting her infernal wings in mo- 
 tion against the Teucrians. A new device working in 
 her mind, she fixed her e3'e on the spot where on the 
 winding coast lulus was hunting game with the snare 
 and the course. Hereon the maiden of Coc^^tus sud- 
 denly presents to the hounds a maddening lure, and 
 touches their nostrils with the scent they know so well, 
 making them chase a stag in full cry ; which was the 
 first origin of the trouble, and put the spark of war to 
 the spirit of the countryside. There was a stag of beau- 
 teous form and lofty horns, taken by the sons of Tyr- 
 rheus from its mother's breast, and brought up by them 
 and their father Tyrrheus, who had the control of the 
 royal herds and the charge of the whole range of lawn. 
 Trained to obey, it was the chief care of their sister 
 Silvia ; she would deck and wreathe its horns with deli- 
 cate festoons, and comb its rough coat, and wash it in 
 
BOOK VII. 809 
 
 the clear stream. Grown tame to the hand, and accus- 
 tomed to its master's table, it would run free in the 
 forest and take itself back home to the well-known 
 door, however late the night. Now, in one of its wan- 
 derings the maddened hounds of lulus started it in the 
 hunt, as it happened to be floating down the stream or 
 alla3ing its heat on the verdant bank. Ascanius him- 
 self, fired with a proud ambition, bent his bow and lev- 
 eled a shaft : nor did his hand err for want of heavenly 
 aid: the reed sped with a loud hurtling sound and 
 pierced the belly and the flank. The wounded creature 
 took refuge under the roof it knew, and moaning crept 
 into its stall, and bleeding all over filled, like a human 
 suppliant, the house with its piteous plaints. Sister 
 Silvia first, smiting on her arms with her flat hands, 
 calls for help and summons the rough countrj^ folk. 
 They — for the fell fiend is lurking in the silence of the 
 forest — are at her side ere she looks for them, armed 
 one with a seared brand, one with a heavj^ knotted 
 stock : what each first finds as he gropes about, anger 
 makes do weapon's service. Tyrrheus musters the 
 compan}', just as the news found him, splitting an oak 
 in four with convergent wedges, catching up an ax and 
 breathing savage rage. But the cruel goddess, seizing 
 from her watch-tower the moment of mischief, makes 
 for the stall's lofty roof, and from its summit shrills 
 forth the shepherd's clarion, pitching high on the 
 wreathen horn her Tartarean note ; at the sound the 
 whole line of forest was convulsed, and the woods 
 echoed to their depths : it was heard far oflT by Trivia's 
 lake, heard by river Nar with his whitening sulphurous 
 waters, and b}^ the springs of the Veline : and terror- 
 stricken mothers clasped their children to their breasts. 
 At once running to the sound with which the dread 
 
310 THE ^NEID. 
 
 clarion gave the signal, the untamed rustics snatch up 
 their weapons and gather from all sides ; while the 
 forces of Troy, on their part, pour through the camp's 
 open gates their succor for Ascanius. It is no longer a 
 woodman's quarrel waged with heav}' clubs or seared 
 stakes ; they try the issue with two-edged steel ; a 
 dark harvest of drawn swords bristles over the field; 
 the brass shines responsive to the sun's challenge, and 
 flings its radiance skj^ward ; as when the wave has 
 begun to whiten under the rising wind, the ocean grad- 
 ualty upheaves itself, and raises its billows higher and 
 higher, till at last, from its lowest depths, it mounts up 
 to heaven. See ! as the arrow whizzes, a j'oung war- 
 rior in the first rank, once Tj^rrheus' eldest born, Almo, 
 is laid low in death ; for the wound has lodged in his 
 throat, and has cut off, with the rush of blood, the pas- 
 sage of the liquid voice and the vital breath. Round 
 him lie many gallant frames, and among them old Galse- 
 sus, while throwing himself between the armies and 
 pleading for peace ; none so just as he, none so wealthy 
 before to-day in Ausonian land ; five flocks of sheep had 
 he, five herds of oxen went to and fro from his stalls, 
 and his land was furrowed by a hundred ploughs. 
 
 While thus on the plains the impartial war- god deals 
 out fortune, the goddess, having achieved her promise, 
 soon as she had inaugurated the war with blood, and 
 brought the battle to its first murderous shock, flies 
 from Hesperia, and rounding the cope of heaven, ad- 
 dresses Juno in the haughty tones of triumph: ' See 
 here the work of discord complete in the horrors of 
 war ! Now bid them come together in friendship and 
 strike trace. Thou hast seen that I can sprinkle the 
 Trojans with Ausonian blood ; let me but be assured 
 of thy wish, I will give thee a further boon : I will sow 
 
BOOK VIL 311 
 
 rumors and bring the neighboring cities into the war, 
 and inflame their souls with mad martial passion to 
 crowd from all sides with succor ; I will scatter arms 
 broadcast.' Juno returns : ' There is panic and treach- 
 ery enough ; the seeds of war are sown deep ; men are 
 fighting hand to hand ; the weapons which chance first 
 supplied are being seasoned with new-spilt blood. 
 Such be the alliance, such the nuptial rites solemnized 
 by Venus' virtuous son and good king Latinus. For 
 thee to walk the upper air with larger freedom would 
 displease the great Father, the monarch of high Ol3^m- 
 pus. Give place ; should any chance emerge in the 
 struggle, mj'self will deal with it.' So spoke Saturn's 
 daughter : the Fury lifts her wings that hurtle with ser- 
 pent plumage, and seeks her home in Cocytus, leaving 
 the altitudes above. There is a place in the bosom 
 of Italy, under the shadow of lofty hills, known to 
 fame and celebrated in far-off lands, the vale of 
 Amsanctus ; pent between two woody slopes, dark 
 with dense foliage, while at the bottom a broken tor- 
 rent makes a roaring among the rocks along its wind- 
 ing bed. Here men show an awful cavern, the very 
 gorge of the fell infernal god, and a deep gulf through 
 which Acheron breaks open its baleful mouth: there 
 dived the Fur}', and relieved of her loathed presence 
 earth and heaven. 
 
 Meanwhile, for her part, Saturn's roj^al daughter 
 gives the last touch that brings down the war. From 
 the battle-field there pours into the city the whole 
 company of shepherds, with their slain in their arms, 
 young Almo and Galaesus' disfigured countenance, call- 
 ing on the gods and adjuring Latinus. Turnus is on 
 the spot, and, in the fury and fire of the blood-cry, 
 sounds again and again the note of terror : ' The 
 
312 THE jENEID. 
 
 Teucrians are invited to reign in Latium ; a Phrygian 
 shoot is to be grafted on the royal tree ; the palace- 
 gate is closed on himself.' Moreover, the kinsmen 
 of the matrons, who in Bacchic madness are footing 
 the pathless woods — for Amata's name weighs not 
 lightly — muster from all sides, and strain the throat 
 of Mars to hoarseness. All at once, defying omens 
 and oracles, under the spell of a cursed deity, they 
 clamor for an atrocious war. With emulous zeal they 
 swarm round Latinus' palace ; he, like a rock in the 
 sea, stands unshaken ; like a rock in the sea before 
 the rush and crash of waters, which, amid thousands 
 of barking waves, is fixed by its own weight ; the 
 crags and the spray-foamed stones roar about it in 
 vain, and the lashed seaweed falls idly from its side. 
 But when he finds no power given him to counterwork 
 the secret agency, and all is moving at relentless Juno's 
 beck, then with manj^ an appeal to the gods and the 
 soulless skies, ' Alas ! ' exclaims the good sire, ' shat- 
 tered are we by destiny and whirled before the storm ! 
 On you will come the reckoning, and your impious 
 blood will pa}' it, my wretched children ! You, Tur- 
 nus, you will be met by your crime and its fearful 
 vengeance, in a day when it will be too late to pray 
 to Heaven. For me, my rest is assured ; my ship is 
 just dropping into port ; it is but of a happy de- 
 parture that I am robbed.' No more he spoke, but 
 shut himself in an inner chamber, and let the reins of 
 empire go. 
 
 A custom there was in the Hesperian days of Latium, 
 observed as sacred in succession by the Alban cities, 
 and now honored by the observance of Rome, the 
 greatest power on earth, when men first stir up the 
 war-god to battle, whether their purpose be to carry 
 
BOOK VIL 313 
 
 piteous war among the Getse, the Hjrcanians, or the 
 Arabs, or to march as far as India, track the Morning- 
 star to its home, and wrest the standards from the 
 grasp of Parthia. There are two folding-gates of War 
 — such the title they bear — clothed with religious 
 awe and with the terrors of Mars the cruel ; they are 
 closed by a hundred brazen bars and by the everlast- 
 ing strength of iron, and Janus never quits his guard 
 on the threshold. When the fathers finally conclude 
 for battle, the consul himself, in the pride of Quiri- 
 nus' striped robe and the Gabine cincture, unbars the 
 grating portals, and with his own voice invokes battle ; 
 the rest of the warriors take up the crj^, and brazen 
 horns blare out in unison their hoarse assent. Thus, 
 it was that then, too, Latinus was urged to declare 
 war against the family of ^neas and to unclose the 
 grim gates. The good old king recoiled from the 
 touch, turned with averted ej'es from the service he 
 loathed, and shrouded himself in impenetrable gloom. 
 Then darted down from the sk}' the queen of heaven, 
 smote with her own royal hand the unwilling portals, 
 and from their bursten fastenings, as Saturn's daughter 
 might, flung back the valves on their hinges. All 
 Ausonia, sluggish and moveless till then, blazes into 
 fury ; some commence their footmarch over the plain, 
 some from the height of their steeds storm through 
 the dust ; one and all crj' out for arms. Some are 
 rubbing their shields smooth and their javelins bright 
 with unctuous lard, and putting their axes under the 
 grindstone ; there is }oy in the carrying of the stand- 
 ard, joy in the hearing of the trumpet's sound. And 
 now there are five great cities with anvils everj'where 
 set up, giving a new edge to their weapons : Atina 
 the mighty and Tiber the proud, Ardea, and they of 
 
314 THE ^NEID. 
 
 Crustumium, and tower-crowned Antemnse. Helmets 
 are hollowed to guard the head ; willows are twisted 
 into wicker frames for shields ; others are beating out 
 bjass into breastplates, or stretching ductile silver 
 into polished greaves. All the pride of sickle and 
 share, all the passion for the plough are swallowed up 
 in this ; they bring out their fathers' swords, and 
 smelt them anew in the furnace. Here, in wild haste, 
 is one snatching his helm from the chamber- wall ; there 
 is another bringing his snorting steeds to the yoke, 
 clothing himself with shield and corselet of three-piled 
 gold, and girding to his side his trusty sword.* 
 
 BOOK VIII. 
 
 Soon as Turnus set high on Laurentum's tower the 
 ensign of war, and the horns clanged forth their harsh 
 music, soon as he shook the reins in the mouth of his 
 fiery steeds, and clashed his armor, at once came a 
 stirring of men's souls : all Latium conspires in tumult- 
 uous rising, and the warrior bands are inflamed to 
 madness. The generals, Messapus and Ufens and 
 Mezentius, scorner of the gods, assume the lead, 
 mustering succor from all sides and unpeopling the 
 fields of their tillers far and wide. Venulus too is 
 sent to the town of mighty Diomede to entreat help, 
 and set forth that the Teucrians are planting foot in 
 Latium ; that -^neas is arrived by sea and intruding 
 his vanquished home-gods, and announcing himself as 
 the Latians' destined king ; that many tribes are flock- 
 ing to the standard of the Dardan chief, and the con- 
 * The remaining lines of this Book are not translated. — [Ed.] 
 
BOOK VIII. 315 
 
 tagion of his name is spreading over Latium's length 
 and breadth. What is to be the end of such a begin- 
 ning, what, should fortune favor him, he promises to 
 himself as the issue of the battle, Diomede will know 
 better than king Turnus or king Latinus. 
 
 So go things in Latium. The chief of Laomedon's 
 line sees it all, and is tossed on a sea of cares ; now on 
 this point, now on that, he throws in a moment the 
 forces of his mind, hurrying it into all quarters and 
 sweeping the whole range of thought: as in water a 
 flickering beam on a brazen vat, darted back by the 
 sun or the bright moon's image, flits far an(J wide over 
 the whole place, now at last mounting to the sky and 
 striking the ceiling of the roof. Night came, and tired 
 life the earth over, bird and beast alike, were lapped 
 deep in slumber, when ^neas, good king, troubled at 
 heart by the anxious war, stretched himself on the bank 
 under heaven's chilly cope, and let repose at last steal 
 over his frame. Before him appeared in person the 
 god of the place, old Tiber of the pleasant stream, 
 rising among the poplar foliage : a gray mantle of 
 transparent linen floated about him, and his hair was 
 shaded with bush}' reeds : and thus he began to address 
 the chief and relieve his care : ^ O offspring of heaven's 
 stock, who are bringing back to us safe from the foe the 
 city of Troy, and preserving Pergamus in enduring life, 
 yourself looked for long on the Laurentian soil and in the 
 fields of Latium, here is your abiding place of rest, here, 
 distrust it not, permanence for your home-gods : let not 
 war's threatenings make you afraid, the swellings of the 
 anger of heaven have all given way. Even now, that 
 you may not think this the idle coinage of sleep, under 
 the oaks on the bank you shall find an enormous swine 
 lying with a litter of thirty head just born, white her- 
 
316 THE ^NEID. 
 
 self throughout her lazy length, her children round her 
 breasts as white as she : a sign that when thirty years 
 have made their circuit, Ascanius shall found that city 
 known by the illustrious name of the White. Of no 
 doubtful issue are these words of mine. Now for the 
 way in which you may triumphantly unravel the present 
 knot, grant me your attention, and I will show you in 
 brief. On this my coast, Arcadians, a race sprung 
 from Pallas, who have followed king Evander and his 
 banner, have chosen themselves a site and built a city 
 on the hills, called from the name of their ancestor 
 Pallas, Pallanteum. These are for ever engaged in 
 war with the Latian nation : let them join your camp 
 as allies, and make league with them. I mj-^self will 
 lead you between the banks, straight along my stream, 
 that as you journey up 3 our oars may surmount the 
 adverse current. Up then, goddess-born, and ere the 
 stars have well set, offer prayer in due course to Juno, 
 and overbear with suppliant vows her anger and her 
 menace. Once triumphant, 3'ou shall pay yOur worship 
 to me. I am he whom 3'ou see here with brimming 
 flood grazing the banks and threading rich cultured 
 lands, sea-green Tiber, the river whom gods love best. 
 Here rises my royal palace, the crown of lofty cities.' 
 The river-god said, and plunged into his deep pool, 
 down to the bottom ; night and sleep at once fled from 
 ^neas. He rises, and with his eyes fixed on the sun's 
 rays just dawning on the sky, he Hfts iip in due form 
 water from the river in the hollow of his hands, and 
 pours forth to heaven words like these: 'Nymphs, 
 Laurentian nymphs, whence rivers derive their birth, 
 and thou, father Tiber, with thy hallowed flood, take 
 -^neas to your bosom, and at last relieve him from 
 perils. Whatever the spring of the pool where thou 
 
BOOK VIII. 317 
 
 dwellest in thy pity for our troubles, whatever the soil 
 whence thy goodly stream arises, ever shalt thou be 
 honored by me with sacrifice, ever with offerings, the 
 river with the crescent horn, the monarch of Hesperian 
 waters. Be but thou present, and confirm by thy deed 
 thy heavenly tokens.' So saying, he chooses two 
 biremes from the fleet and fits them with rowers, while 
 he gives his comrades arms to wear. 
 
 When lo, a sudden portent marvelous to view — 
 stretched in milk-white length along the sward, herself 
 of one hue with her white litter, conspicuous on the 
 verdant bank is seen a sow, whom pious -^neas to 
 thee, even to thee, mightiest Juno, immolates in sacri- 
 fice, and sets her with all her brood before the altar. 
 That whole night long Tiber smoothed his brimming 
 stream, and so stood with hushed waves, half recoiUng, 
 as to lay down a watery floor as of some gentle lake or 
 peaceful pool, that the oar might have naught to struggle 
 with. So they begin their voyage and speed with au- 
 spicious cheers. Smooth along the surface floats the 
 anointed pine ; marveling stand the waters, marveUng 
 the unwonted wood, to see the warriors' shields gleam- 
 ing far along the stream, and the painted vessels glid- 
 ing between the banks. The rowers give no rest to 
 night or da}', as they surmount the long meanders, 
 sweep under the fringe of diverse trees, and cut through 
 the woods that look green in the still expanse. The 
 sun had cHmbed in full blaze the central cope of heaven, 
 when from afar they see walls, and a citadel, and the 
 roofs of straggling habitations — the place which the 
 power of Rome has now made to mate the skies : then 
 it was but Evander's poor domain. At once they turn 
 their prows to land and approach the town. 
 
 It happened that on that day the Arcadian monarch 
 
318 THE yENEW. 
 
 was performing a yearty sacrifice to Amphitrj^on's 
 mighty child and the heavenl3' brotherhood in a grove 
 before the city. With him his son Pallas, with him all 
 the prime of his warriors and his unambitious senate 
 were offering incense, and the new-shed blood was 
 steaming warm on the altar. Soon as they saw tall 
 ships gliding towards them through the shadowy trees, 
 and plying the oar in silence, alarmed by the sudden 
 apparition, each and all start up from the sacrificial 
 board. Pallas, bolder than the rest, bids them not 
 break the sacred observance, and snatching up a 
 weapon flies himself to meet the strangers, and from a 
 height at distance, ' Warriors,' he cries, ' what cause 
 has led 3'ou to venture on a path yon know not ? whither 
 are you bound? what is 3^our nation, 3'our family? is it 
 peace you bring us or war?' Then father -^neas be- 
 speaks him thus from the lofty stern, stretching forth 
 in his hand a branch of peaceful olive : ' These are 
 Trojans you see. These weapons mean hostility to the 
 Latins, who have driven us from their land b}^ a tjran- 
 nous war. Our errand is to Evander. Take back our 
 message, and say that chosen chiefs of Dardan^^ are at 
 his gate, praying for an armed alliance.' That mighty 
 name struck awe into Pallas. ' Disembark,' he cries, 
 'whoever 3^ou be, and speak to m3^ sire in person, and 
 come beneath our home-gods' hospitable shelter,' and 
 gave his hand in welcome, and clung to the hand he 
 clasped. They advance under the shade of the grove, 
 and leave the river behind. 
 
 Then ^neas addresses the king with friendl3^ cour- 
 tesy : ' Best of the sons of Greece, to whom it has 
 pleased Fortune that I should make my pra3^er and 
 stretch out boughs wreathed with fillets, I felt no fear 
 for that you were a Danaan leader, an Arcadian, allied 
 
BOOK VIIL 319 
 
 by lineage with the two sons of Atreus : I felt that my 
 own worth, and the gods' hallowed oracles, and the old 
 connection of our ancestry, and your world-wide fame, 
 had linked me to you, and brought me before you 
 at once by destiny and of my own will. Dardanus, 
 first father and founder (^ the town of Ilion, born, 
 as Greeks tell, of Electra, daughter of Atlas, came 
 among Teucer's people : Electra's father was mighty 
 Atlas, he that bears up on his shoulders the spheres of 
 heaven. Your progenitor is Mercury, whom beauteous 
 Maia conceived and brought forth on Cyllene's chill 
 summit ; but Maia, if tradition be credited, is the child 
 of Atlas, the same Atlas who lifts up the stars of the 
 firmament. Thus our two races part off from one and 
 the same stock. Trusting to this, I sent no embassy, 
 nor contrived the first approaches to you by rule and 
 method : in m^'self, in my own person, I haA^e made 
 the experiment, and come to your gate as a suppliant. 
 The same tribe which persecutes you, the Daunians, is 
 now persecuting us with cruel war ; should they drive 
 us awa}', they foresee naught to hinder their subduing 
 all Hesperia utterly" to their j'oke, and mastering either 
 sea, that washes it above or below. Take our friend- 
 ship and give us yours. On our side are hearts valiant 
 in war, and a gallant j'outh approved by adventure.* 
 
 ^neas ended. Long ere this the other's eye was 
 scanning the speaker's countenance and e3'es, and sur- 
 veying his whole frame. Then he returns in brief: 
 ' With what joy, bravest of the Teucrians, do I wel- 
 come and acknowledge ye ! how well I call to mind the 
 words, the voice, the look of your sire, the great An- 
 chises ! For I remember how Priam, son of Laomedon, 
 journeying to Salamis, to see the kingdom of his sister 
 Hesione, went on to visit the chill frontier of Arcadia. 
 
320 THE ^NEID. 
 
 In those days the first bloom of youth was clothing my 
 cheeks. I admired the Teiicrian leaders, I admired 
 Laomedon's royal son ; but Anchises' port was nobler 
 than all. My mind kindled with a youth's ardor to 
 accost one so great, and exchange the grasp of the 
 hand. I made my approach, and eagerly conducted 
 him to the walls of Pheneus. On leaving he gave me 
 a beauteous quiver with Lycian arrows, and a scarf 
 embroidered with gold, and two bridles which my 
 Pallas has now, all golden. So now I both plight you 
 herewith the hand you ask, and soon as to-morrow's 
 light shall restore to the earth its blessing, I will send 
 you back rejoicing in an armed succor, and reinforced 
 with stores. Meanwhile, since you are arrived here as 
 my friends, join in gladl}' solemnizing with us this our 
 3'early celebration, which it were sin to postpone, and 
 accustom yourselves thus early to the hospitalities of 
 your new allies.' 
 
 This said, he bids set on again the viands and the 
 cups, erewhile removed, and himself places the war- 
 riors on a seat of turf, welcoming -^neas in especial 
 grace with the heaped cushion of a shaggy lion's hide, 
 and bidding him occup}^ a throne of maple wood. 
 Then chosen youths and the priest of the altar with 
 emulous zeal bring in the roasted carcasses of bulls, 
 pile up in baskets the gifts of the corn-goddess pre- 
 pared by art, and serve the wine-god round, ^neas 
 and the warriors of Troy with him regale themselves 
 on a bull's long chine and on sacrificial entrails. 
 
 When hunger had been quenched and appetite al- 
 layed, king Evander begins: 'Think not that these 
 solemnities of ours, these ritual feastings, this altar so 
 blessed in divine presence, have been riveted on us by 
 idle superstition, unknowing of the gods of old; no, 
 
BOOK VIIL 821 
 
 guest of Troy, it is deliverance from cruel dangers that 
 makes us sacrifice and pay again and again worship 
 . where worship is due. First of all cast your eyes on 
 this rock-hung crag : observe how the masses of stone 
 are flung here and there, how desolate and exposed 
 stands the mountain's recess, and how the rocks have 
 left the trail of a giant downfall. Here once was a 
 cave, retiring in enormous depth, tenanted by a terrible 
 shape, Cacus, half man, half brute : the sun's rays 
 could never pierce it ; the ground was always steaming 
 with fresh carnage ; fixed to its imperious portals were 
 hanging human countenances ghastlj^ with hideous gore. 
 This monster's father was Vulcan : Vulcan's were the 
 murky fires that he disgorged from his mouth as he 
 towered along in enormous bulk. To us also at length . 
 in our yearning need time brought the arrival of a 
 divine helper. For the mightiest of avengers, Alcides, 
 triumphing in the slaughter and the spoils of the triple 
 Geryon, was in our land, ^d was driving by this road 
 as a conqueror those giant oxen, and the cattle were 
 filling valley and river-side. But Cacus, infatuated b}^ 
 fiendish frenzy, not to" leave aught of crime or craft 
 undared or unessayed, carries off from the stalls four 
 bulls of goodly form, and heifers no fewer of surpass- 
 ing beaut}'. And these, that they might leave no 
 traces by their forward motion, he dragged by the tail 
 to his cave, haled them with reversed footprints to tell 
 the story, and so concealed them in the dark rocky den. 
 Thus the seeker found no traces to lead him to the 
 cavern. Meantime, when Amphitryon's son was at 
 last removing from their stalls his feasted herds and 
 preparing to quit the country, the oxen gave a farewell 
 low, filling the whole woodland with their plainings, 
 and taking clamorous leave of the hills. One of the 
 21 
 
322 THE ^NEID, 
 
 heifers returned the sound, lowing from the depth of 
 the vast cavern, and thus baffled the hopes of her 
 jealous guardian. Now, if ever, Alcides' wrath blazed 
 up from the black choler of his heart ; he snatches up 
 his weapons and his club with all its weight of knots, 
 and makes at full speed for the skye^- mountain's height. 
 Then first the men of our country saw Cacus' limbs 
 tremble and his eyes quail : away he flies swifter than 
 the wind, and seeks his den ; fear has winged his feet. 
 Scarce had he shut himself in, and let down from its 
 burst fastenings the huge stone, suspended there by his 
 father's workmanship in iron, and with that barrier 
 fortified his straining doorway, when lo ! the hero of 
 Tir3^ns was there in the fury of his soul : scanning 
 every inlet he turns his face hither and thither, gnash- 
 ing with his teeth. Thrice in white heat of wrath he 
 surveys the whole mass of Aventine ; thrice he at- 
 tempts in vain the stony portal ; thrice, staggering 
 from the efibrt, he sits down in the hollow. Before 
 him stood a pointed crag with abrupt rock}- sides rising 
 over the cave behind, high as the eye can reach, a 
 fitting home for the nests of unclean and hateful birds. 
 This, as sloping down it inclined towards the river on 
 the left, pushing it full on the right he upheaved and 
 tore it loose from its seat, then suddenly sent it down, 
 with a shock at which high heaven thunders, the banks 
 start apart, and the river runs back in terror. Then 
 the cave and the vast halls of Cacus were seen unroofed, 
 and the dark recesses lay open to their depths — even 
 as if earth, by some mighty force laid open to her 
 depths, should burst the doors of the mansions below, 
 and expose the realms of ghastly gloom which the gods 
 hate, and from above the vast abyss were to be seen, 
 and the specters dazzled by the influx of day. So as 
 
BOOK VIIL 323 
 
 Cacus stares surprised by the sudden burst of light, 
 pent by the walls of his cave, and roars in strange and 
 hideous sort, Alcides from above showers down his 
 darts, and calls every weapon to his aid, and rains a 
 tempest of boughs and huge millstones. But he, see- 
 ing that no hope of flight remains, vomits from his 
 throat huge volumes of smoke, marvelous to tell, and 
 wraps the whole place in pitchy darkness, blotting out 
 all prospect from the eyes, and in the depth of the 
 cave masses a smothering night of blended blackness 
 and fire. The rage of Alcides brooked not this : head- 
 long he dashed through the flame, where the smoke 
 surges thickest and the vast cavern seethes with bil- 
 lows of black vapor. Here, while Cacus in the heart 
 of the gloom is vomiting his helpless fires he seizes 
 him, twines his limbs with his own, and in fierce em- 
 brace compresses his strangled e3"eballs and his throat 
 now bloodless and dry. At once the doors are burst 
 and the black den laid bare, and the plundered oxen, 
 the spoil that his oath had disclaimed, are exposed to 
 light, and the hideous carcass is dragged out by the 
 heels. The gazers look unsatisfied on those dreadful 
 e3^es, those grim features, the shaggy breast of the half 
 bestial monster, and the extinguished furnace of his 
 throat. Since then grateful acknowledgments have 
 been paid, and the men of younger time have joyfully 
 observed the day: foremost among them Potitius, 
 founder of the ceremony, and the Pinarian house, cus- 
 todian of the worship of Hercules. He himself set 
 up in the grove this altar, which shall ever be named 
 by us the greatest, and shall ever be the greatest in 
 truth. Come then, warriors, and in honor of worth so 
 glorious wreathe your locks with leaves and present in 
 your hands brimming cups, and invoke our common 
 
324 THE ^NEID. 
 
 deit}^ and pour libations with gladness of heart/ As 
 he ended, the white-green poplar cast its Herculean 
 shade over his locks and hung down with a festoon 
 of leaves, and the sacred goblet charged his hand. At 
 once all with glad hearts pour libations on the board 
 and make pra3'ers to heaven. 
 
 Meantime evening is approaching nearer the slope 
 of heaven, and already the priests and their chief 
 Potitius were in procession, clad in skins in ritual sort, 
 and bearing fire in their hands. They renew the solemn 
 feast, and bring delicious offerings for a fresh repast, 
 and pile the altars with loaded chargers. Then come 
 the Salii to sing round about the blazing altars, their 
 temples wreathed with boughs of poplar, a company 
 of youths and another of old men ; and these extol 
 in song the glories and deeds of Hercules : how in his 
 cradle, by the pressure of his young hand he strangled 
 his stepmother's monstrous messengers, the two ser- 
 pents ; how in war that same hand dashed to pieces 
 mighty cities, Troy and CEchalia ; how he endured 
 those thousand heavy labors, a slave to king Eurj's- 
 theus, by ungentle Juno's fateful will. ' Yes, thou, 
 unconquered hero, thou sla^'est the two-formed chil- 
 dren of the cloud, Hylseus and Pholus, thou slaj'est 
 the portent of Crete, and the enormous lion that dwelt 
 'neath Nemea's rock. > Thou never quailedst at aught 
 in bodily shape, no, noi* at Typhoeus himself, towering 
 high, weapons in hand ; thy reason failed thee not 
 when Lerna's serpent stood round thee with all her 
 throng of heads. Hail to thee, authentic offspring of 
 Jove, fresh ornament of the sky? come to us, come to 
 these thine own rites with favoring smile and auspi- 
 cious gait.' Such things their songs commemorate ; 
 and they crown all with Cacus' cave and the fiend him- 
 
BOOK VIII. 325 
 
 self, the fire panting from his lungs. The entire grove 
 echoes with their voices, and the hills rebound. 
 
 The sacrifice over, the whole concourse returns to 
 the city. There walked the king, mossed over with 
 years, keeping at his side ^neas and his son as he 
 moved along, and lightening the way with various 
 speech, ^neas admires, and turns his quick glance 
 from sight to sight : each scene enthralls him ; and 
 with eager zest he inquires and learns one by one the 
 records of men of old. Then spoke king Evander, 
 the builder of Rome's tower-crowned hill : ' These 
 woodlands were first inhabited by native Fauns and 
 Nymphs, and by a race of men that sprung from 
 trunks of trees and hard oaken core ; no rule of life, 
 no culture had they : they never learned to 3^oke the 
 ox, nor to hive their stores, nor to husband what 
 they got ; the boughs and the chase supplied their sav- 
 age sustenance. The first change came from Saturn, 
 who arrived from skyey Olympus, flying from the arms 
 of Jove, a realmless exile. He brought together the 
 race, untamed as they were and scattered over moun- 
 tain heights, and gave them laws, and chose for the 
 country the name of Latium, because he had found 
 it a safe hiding-place. The golden age of story was 
 when he was king, so calm and peaceful his rule over 
 his people ; till gradually there crept in a race of 
 worse grain and duller hue, and the frenzy of war, 
 and the greed of having. Then came the host of 
 Ausonia and the Sicanian tribes, and again and again 
 Saturn's land changed its name ; then came king after 
 king, savage Thybris with his giant bulk, from whom ' 
 in after days we Italians called the river Tiber : the 
 authentic name of ancient Albula was lost. Myself, 
 an exile from my country, while voyaging to the ends 
 
326 THE ^NEID. 
 
 of the sea, all-powerful Fortune and inevitable Destiny 
 planted here ; at my back were the awful bests of my 
 mother, the nymph Carmentis, and the divine sanction 
 of Apollo.' Scarce had he finished, when moving on 
 he points out the altar and the Carmental gate, as the 
 Romans call it, their ancient tribute to the nymph 
 Carmentis, the soothsaying seer, who first told of the 
 future greatness of -Eneas' sons and of the glories 
 of Pallanteum. Next he points out a mighty grove, 
 which fiery Romulus made the As3^1um of a later day, 
 and embowered by the chill dank rock, the Lupercal, 
 bearing after Arcadian wont the name of Lycaean Pan. 
 He shows, moreover, the forest of hallowed Argiletum, 
 and appeals to the spot, and recounts the death of 
 Argus, once his guest. Thence he leads the way to 
 the Tarpeian temple, even the Capitol, now gay with 
 gold, then rough with untrimmed brushwood. Even 
 in that day the sacred terrors of the spot awed the 
 trembling rustics ; even then they shuddered at the 
 forest and the rock. ' This wood,' he says, ' this 
 hill with the shaggy brow, is the home of a god of 
 whom we know not ; my Arcadians believe that they 
 have seen there great Jove himself, oft and oft, shaking 
 with his right hand the shadowy JEgis and calling up 
 the storm. Here, too, in these two towns, with their 
 ramparts overthrown, you see the relics and the chron- 
 icles of bygone ages. This tower was built by father 
 Janus, that by Saturn ; the one's name Janiculum, 
 the other's Saturnia.' So talking together thej^ came 
 nigh the palace where Evander dwells in poverty, and 
 saw cattle all about lowing in the Roman forum and 
 Carinae*s luxurious precinct. When they reached the 
 gate, ' This door,' said the host, ' Alcidee in his 
 triumph stooped to enter ; this mansion contained his 
 
BOOK VHL 327 
 
 presence. Nerve yourself, my guest, to look down 
 on riches, and make your own soul, like his, such as a 
 god would not disdain, and take in no churlish sort 
 the welcome of poverty.' He said, and beneath the 
 slope of his narrow roof ushered in the great ^neas, 
 and laid him to rest on a couch of leaves and the skin 
 of a Libyan bear. 
 
 Down comes the night, and flaps her sable wings 
 over the earth. But Venus, distracted, and not idly, 
 with a mother's cares, disturbed by the menaces of the 
 Laurentines and the violence of the gathering storm, 
 addresses Vulcan, and in the nuptial privacy of their 
 golden chamber begins her speeclL breathing in every 
 tone the love that gods feel : ' In old days of war, 
 while the Argive kings were desolating Pergamus, 
 their destined prey, and ravaging the towers which 
 were doomed to hostile fire, no help for the sufferers, 
 no arms of thj' resourceful workmanship did I ask ; 
 no, my dearest lord, I chose not to task thee and thy 
 efforts to no end, large as was m}' debt to the sons 
 of Priam, and man}^ the tears that I shed for JEneas' 
 cruel agon3\ Now, by Jove's commands, he has set 
 his foot on Rutulian soil ; so, with the past in m}" 
 mind, I appear as a suppliant, to ask of his power 
 whom I honor most, as a mother may, armor for my 
 son. Thee the daughter of Nereus, thee the spouse 
 of Tithonus, found accessible to tears. See but what 
 nations are mustering, what cities are closing the 
 gate and pointing the steel against me and the lives 
 I love.' The speech was ended, and the goddess is 
 fondling her undecided lord on all sides in the soft 
 embrace of her snowy arms. Suddenly he caught the 
 wonted fire, the well-known heat shot to his vitak and 
 threaded his melting frame, even as on a day when 
 
328 THE MNEID. 
 
 the fiery rent burst by the thunderclap i-uns with gleam- 
 ing flash along the veil of cloud. His spouse saw the 
 triumph of her art and felt what beauty can do. Then 
 spoke the stern old god, subdued by everlasting love : 
 'Why fetch your excuses from so far? whither, my 
 queen, has fled your old affiance in me ? had you then 
 been as anxious, even in those old days it had been 
 allowed to give arms to the Trojans; nor was the 
 almighty sire nor the destinies unwilling that Troy 
 should stand and Priam remain in life for ten years 
 more. And now, if war is your object and so your 
 purpose holds, all the care that it lies within my art to 
 promise, what can Jdc wrought out of iron and molten 
 electrum, as far as fire can burn and wind blow — 
 cease to show by entreaty that you mistrust your 
 power.* This said, he gave the embrace she longed 
 for, and falling on the bosom of his spouse wooed the 
 calm of slumber in every limb. 
 
 Then, soon as rest, first indulged, had driven sleep 
 away, when flying night had run half her course ; just 
 when a woman, compelled to support life bj^ spinning, 
 even by Pallas* slender craft, wakes to light the fire 
 that slumbered in the embers, adding night to her day's 
 work, and keeps her handmaids laboring long by the 
 blaze, all that she may preserve her husband's bed un- 
 sullied, and bring up his infant sons ; even so the lord of 
 fire, at an hour not less slothful, rises from his couch of 
 down to the toils of the artisan. There rises an island 
 hard by the Sicanian coast and JEolian Lipari, tower- 
 ing with fier}^ mountains ; beneath it thunders a cavern, 
 the den of JEtna, blasted out by Cyclop forges ; the 
 sound of mightv blows echoes on anvils : the smeltings 
 of the Chalj^bes hiss through its depths, and the fire 
 pants from the jaws of the furnace ; it is the abode of 
 
BOOK VIIL 329 
 
 Vulcan, and the land bears Vulcan's name. Hither, 
 then, the lord of fire descends from heaven's height. 
 There, in the enormous den, the Cyclops were forging 
 the iron, Brontes, and Steropes, and Pyracmon, the 
 naked giant. In their hands was the rough cast of the 
 thunderbolt, one of those many which the great Father 
 showers down on earth from all quarters of heaven — 
 part was polished for use, part still incomplete. Three 
 spokes of frozen rain, three of watery cloud had they 
 put together, three of ruddy flame and winged southern 
 wind ; and now they were blending with what they had 
 done the fearful flash, and the noise, and the terror, 
 and the fury of untiring fire. In another part they 
 were hurrying on for Mars the car and the flying wheels, 
 with which he rouses warriors to madness, ay, and 
 whole cities ; and with emulous zeal were making 
 bright with golden serpent scales the terrible -^gis, 
 the armor of angry Pallas, snakes wreathed together, 
 and full on the breast of the goddess the Gorgon her- 
 self, her neck severed and her e3'es rolling. ' Away 
 with all this,' cries the god ; ' take your unfinished tasks 
 elsewhere, you Cyclops of JEtna, and give your atten- 
 tion here. Arms are wanted for a fiery warrior. Now 
 is the call for power, now for swiftness of hand, now 
 for all that art can teach. Turn delay into dispatch/ 
 No more he said ; but they with speed put their shoul- 
 der to the work, sharing it in equal parts. Copper 
 flows in streams and golden ore, and steel, that knows 
 how to wound, is molten in the huge furnace. They 
 set up in outline a mighty shield, itself singl}^ matched 
 against all the Latian weapons, and tangle together 
 seven plates, circle and circle. Some with their gasp- 
 ing bellows are taking in and giving out the wind; 
 others are dipping the hissing copper in the lake. The 
 
330 THE JSNEID. 
 
 cave groans under the anvil's weight. The}', one with 
 another, with all a giant's strength, are lifting their 
 arms in measured cadence, and turning with their grii> 
 C^in ing tongs the oar on this side and on that. 
 
 While the father of Lemnos makes this dispatch on 
 the ^olian shores, Evander is roused from his lowly 
 dwelUng by the genial light and the morning songs of 
 birds under the eaves. Up rises the old man, and 
 draws a tunic over his frame, and puts Tyrrhenian 
 sandals round his feet ; next he fastens from below to 
 side and shoulder a sword from Tegea, flinging back 
 over him a panther's hide that drooped from the left. 
 Moreover, two guardian dogs go before him from his 
 palace door, and attend their master's steps. So he 
 made his way to the lodging of his guest, and sought 
 Eneas' privacy, their discourse of yesterday and the 
 gift then promised fresh in his heroic soul. JEneas 
 likewise was astir not less early. This had his^ son 
 Pallas, that had Achates walking by his side. The}' 
 meet, and join hand in hand, and sit them down in the 
 midst of the mansion, and at last enjoy the privilege of 
 mutual talk. The king begins as follows ; — 
 
 ' Mightiest leader of the Teucrians, whom while 
 heaven preserves I shall never own that Troy's powers 
 are vanquished or her realm overturned, we ourselves 
 have but small means of martial aid to back our great 
 name ; on this side we are bounded by the Tuscan 
 river : on that our Rutulian foe beleaguers us, and 
 thunders in arms around our walls. But I have a 
 mighty nation, a host with ah imperial heritage, which 
 I am ready to unite with you — a gleam of safety re- 
 vealed b}^ unexpected chance. •It is at the summons 
 of destiny that you bend your steps thither. Not far 
 hence, built of ancient stone, is the inhabited city of 
 
BOOK VIIL 331 
 
 Agylla, where of old the Lydian nation, renowned in 
 war, took its seat on Etruscan mountains. This city, 
 after long and prosperous years, was held b}^ king 
 Mezentius, by stress of tyrant rule and the terror of 
 the sword. Why should I recount the despot's dread- 
 ful murders and all his savage crimes ? may the gods 
 preserve them in mind, and bring them on his own head 
 and his family's ! Nay, he would even link together 
 the dead and the living, coupling hand with hand and 
 face with face — so inventive is the lust of torture — 
 and in the slime and poison of that sickening embrace 
 would destroy them thus b}^ a lingering dissolution. At 
 last, wearied by oppression, his subjects in arms be- 
 siege the frantic monster himself and his palace, slay 
 his retainers, shower firebrands on his roof. He, mid 
 the carnage, escapes to Rutulian territorj', and shelters 
 himself under Turnus' friendly power. So all Etruria 
 has risen in righteous wrath ; at once, at the sword's 
 point, they demand that the king be surrendered to 
 their vengeance. Of these thousands, ^neas, I will 
 make you general. For along the seaboard's length 
 their ships are swarming and panting for the fra}', and 
 calling on the trumpet to sound, while an aged sooth- 
 sayer is holding them back by his faithful utterance : 
 " Chosen warriors of Maeonian land, the power and 
 soul of an ancient nation, whom just resentment 
 launches against the foe and Mezentius inflames with 
 righteous fury, no Italian may take the reins of a race 
 so proud : choose foreigners to lead 3'ou.'* At this the 
 Etruscan army settled down on yonder plain, awed by 
 the heaventy warning. Tarchon himself has sent me 
 ambassadors with the royal crown and scepter, and 
 given to my hands the ensigns of power, bidding me 
 join the camp, and assume the Tyrrhene throne. But 
 
332 THE ^NEID. 
 
 age, with its enfeebling chill and the exhaustion of its 
 long term of years, grudges me the honor of command ; 
 my day of martial prowess is past. Fain would I en- 
 courage my son to the task, but that the blood of a 
 Sabine mother blending with mine makes his race half 
 Italian. You, in years and in race alike the object 
 of Fate's indulgence — you, the chosen one of Heaven 
 — assume the place that waits you, gallant general 
 of Teucrians and Italians both. Nay, I will give 3^ou, 
 too, Pallas here, the hope and solace of my age ; 
 under your tutelage let him learn to endure military 
 service and the war-god's strenuous labors ; let 3'our 
 actions be Kis pattern, and his young admiration be 
 centered on 'you. To him I will give two hundred 
 Arcadian horsemen, the flower of my chivalry, and 
 Pallas in his own name shall give you as many more.' 
 Scarce had his words been uttered — and the twain 
 were holding their e3'es in downcast thought, JEneas 
 Anchises' son and true Achates, brooding each with his 
 own sad heart on man}' a peril, had not Cythera's god- 
 dess sent a sign from the clear sky. For unforeseen, 
 flashed from the heaven, comes a glare and a peal, and 
 all around seemed crashing down at once, and the clang 
 of the Tyrrhene trumpet appeared to blare through 
 ether. They look up : a second and a third time cracks 
 the enormous sound. Armor enveloped in a cloud in a 
 clear quarter of the firmament is seen to flash redly in 
 the sunlight and to ring as clashed together. The rest 
 were all amazement ; but the Trojan hero recognized 
 the sound and in it the promise of his goddess mother. 
 Then he cries : ' Nay, my host, na}^, ask not in sooth 
 what chance these wonders portend ; it is I that have a 
 call from on high. This was the sign that the goddess 
 who gave me birth foreshowed me that she would send, 
 
BOOK VIIL 333 
 
 should the attack of war come, while she would bring 
 through the air armor from Vulcan for my help. Alas ! 
 how vast the carnage ready to burst on Laurentum's 
 wretched sons !. what vengeance, Turnus, shall be mine 
 from thee ! how man}- a warrior's shield and helm and 
 stalwart frame shalt thou toss beneath thy waters, 
 father Tiber! Ay, clamor for battle, and break your 
 plighted word ! ' 
 
 Thus having said, he rises from his lofty seat, and 
 first of all quickens the altars where the Herculean fires 
 were smoldering, and with glad heart approaches the 
 hearth-god of 3'esterday, and the small household powers; 
 duly they sacrifice chosen sheep, Evander for his part 
 and the Trojan jouth for theirs. Next he moves on to 
 the ships and revisits his crew : from whose number he 
 chooses men to follow him to, the war, eminent in valor : 
 the rest are wafted down the stream and float lazily 
 along with the current at their back, to bring Ascanius 
 news of his father and his fortunes. Horses are given 
 to the Teucrians who are seeking the Tyrrhene territory, 
 and one is led along, reserved for JEneas ; a tawny 
 lion's hide covers it wholly, gleaming forth with talons 
 of gold. 
 
 At once flies rumor, blazed through the little citj% 
 that the horsemen are marching with speed to the gates 
 of the TjTrhene king. In alarm the matrons redouble 
 their vows ; fear treads on the heels of danger, and the 
 features of the war-god loom larger on the view. Then 
 Evander, clasping the hand of his departing son, hangs 
 about him with tears that never have their fill, and 
 speaks like this ; ' Ah ! would but Jupiter bring back 
 my bygone years, and make me what I was when under 
 Prseneste's very walls I struck down the first rank and 
 set a conqueror's torch to piles of shields, and with this 
 
334 THE ^NEID, 
 
 my hand sent down to Tartarus king Erulus, whom at 
 his birth his mother Feronia endowed with three lives 
 — fearful to tell — and a frame that could thrice bear 
 arms : thrice had he to be struck down in death : yet 
 from him on that day this hand took all those three 
 lives, and thrice stripped that armor — never should I, 
 as now, be torn, my son, from your loved embrace. 
 Never would Mezentius have laid dishonor on a neigh- 
 bor's crest, dealt with his sword that repeated havoc, 
 and bereaved my city of so many of her sons. But you, 
 great powers above, and thou, Jupiter, mightiest ruler 
 of the gods, have pity, I implore you, on an Arcadian 
 monarch, and give ear to a father's pra3^er ; if your 
 august will, if destiny has in store for me the safe re- 
 turn of my Pallas, if life will make me see him and 
 meet him once more, then I pray that I may live ; 
 there is no trial I cannot bear to outlast. But if thou, 
 dark Fortune, threatenest any unnamed calamit}^, now, 
 oh, now, be it granted me to snap life's ruthless thread, 
 while care wears a double face, while hope cannot spell 
 the future, while you, darling boy, my love and late 
 delight, are still in m}^ arms : nor let m}" ears be pierced 
 by tidings more terrible.' So was the father heard to 
 speak at their last parting ; his servants were seen 
 carrying within doors their fallen lord. 
 
 And now the cavalry had passed the city's open 
 gates, -^neas among the first and true Achates, and 
 after them the other Trojan nobles ; Pallas himself the 
 center of the column, conspicuous with gay scarf and 
 figured armor ; even as the morning-star just bathed in 
 the waves of the ocean, Venus' favorite above all the 
 stellar fires, sets in a moment on the sky his heavenlj' 
 countenance, and melts the darkness. There are the 
 trembUng matrons standing on the walls, following with 
 
BOOK VIII. 335 
 
 their eyes the cloud of dust and the gleam of the brass- 
 clad companies. They in their armor are moving 
 through the underwood, their eye on the nearest path : 
 hark ! a shout mounts up, a column is formed, and the 
 four-foot beat of the hoof shakes the crumbling plain. 
 Near the cool stream of Caere stands a vast grove, 
 clothed by hereditary reverence with wide-spread sanc- 
 tit}' ; on all sides it is shut in by the hollows of hills, 
 which encompass its dark pine- wood shades. Rumor 
 says that the old Pelasgians dedicated it to Silvanus, 
 god of the country and the cattle, a grove with a holi- 
 day — the people who once in early times dwelt on the 
 Latian frontier. Not far from this Tarchon and the 
 Tyrrhenians were encamped in a sheltered place, and 
 from the height of the hill their whole army spread al- 
 ready to the view, as they pitched at large over the 
 plain. Hither come father JEneas and the chosen com- 
 pany of warriors, and refresh the weariness of them- 
 selves and their steeds. 
 
 But Venus had come in her divine beauty through the 
 dark clouds of heaven with the gifts in her hand, and 
 soon as she saw her son far retired in the vale in the 
 privacy of the cool stream, she thus accosted him, ap- 
 pearing suddenly before him : 'See, here is the present 
 completed by my lord's promised skill : now you will 
 not need to hesitate to-morrow about daring to the 
 combat the haughty Laurentians or fiery Turnus' self.' 
 So said the lady of Cythera, and sought her son's em- 
 brace : the arms she set up to glitter under an oak that 
 faced his view. He, exulting in the goddess' gifts, and 
 charmed with their dazzling beauty, cannot feast his 
 eyes enough as he rolls them from point to point, ad- 
 miring and turning over in his hands and arms the 
 helmet with its dread crest, vomiting flaine, the fateful 
 
336 THE MNEID. 
 
 sword, the stiff brazen corselet, blood-red and huge, 
 in hue as when a dark cloud kindles with sunlight and 
 gleams afar; the polished cuishes, too, of electrum and 
 gold smelted oft and oft, and the spear, and the shield's 
 ineffable frame- work. On this was the story of Italy 
 and the triumphs of the Romans wrought by the Lord 
 of the Fire ; no stranger he to prophecy nor ignorant 
 of the time to come: on it was the whole royal line of 
 the future from Ascanius onward, and their foughten 
 fields in long succession. There, too, he had portrayed 
 the mother- wolf stretched in Mars' green cavern; 
 around her teats were the twin boys in play climbing 
 and clinging, and licking their dam .without dread ; 
 while she, her lithe neck bent back, was caressing 
 them by turns and with her tongue shaping their young 
 limbs. Near this he had inserted Rome and the law- 
 less rape of the Sabine maidens amid the crowded 
 circus, while the great games were in course, and the 
 sudden rise of a new war between the sons of Romu- 
 lus and ancient Tatius with his austere Cures. After- 
 wards were seen the two kings, the conflict set at rest, 
 standing in arms before the altar Jdi Jove with goblets 
 in their hands and cementing a treaty with swine's 
 blood. Not far off Mettus had already been torn 
 asunder by the chariots driven apart — ah! false Al- 
 ban, were you but a keeper of your word ! — and 
 TuUus was dragging the traitor's flesh through the 
 woodland, while the bushes were sprinkled with the 
 bloody rain. There, too, was Porsenna insisting that 
 exiled Tarquin should be taken back and leaguering 
 the city with a mighty siege : Eneas' sons were fling- 
 ing themselves on the sword in freedom's cause. In 
 his face might be seen the likeness of wrath, and the 
 likeness of menace, that Codes should have the cour- 
 
BOOK VIIL 337 
 
 age to tear down the bridge, that Cloelia should break 
 her prison and swim the river. There was Manlius 
 standing sentinel on the summit of the Tarpeian for- 
 tress in the temple's front, holding the height of the 
 Capitol, while the Romulean thatch looked fresh and 
 sharp on the palace-roof. And there was the silver 
 goose fluttering its wings in the gilded cloister and 
 shrieking that the Gauls were at the door. The Gauls 
 were at hand marching among the brushwood, and had 
 gained the summit sheltered by the darkness and the 
 kindlj' grace of dusky night. Golden is their hair 
 and golden their raiment ; striped cloaks gleam on 
 their shoulders ; their milk-white necks are twined with 
 gold ; each brandishes two Alpine javelins, his body 
 guarded by the long oval of his shield. There he had 
 shown in relief the Salii in their dances and the naked 
 Luperci, and the W00II3' peaks of their caps, and the 
 sacred shields which fell from heaven : chaste matrons 
 were making solemn progress through the city in their 
 soft-cushioned cars. At distance from these he intro- 
 duces too the mansions of Tartarus, Pluto's j-awning 
 portals, and the torments of crime, and thee, Catiline, 
 poised on the beetling rock and quaiUng at grim Fury- 
 faces ; and the good in their privacy, with Cato as their 
 lawgiver. Stretching in its breadth among these swept 
 the semblance of the swelling sea, all of gold, but the 
 blue was made to foam with whitening billows ; and 
 all about it dolphins of bright silver in joyous circles 
 were lashing the surface with their tails and cutting 
 the tide. In the midst might be seen fleets of brazen 
 ships, the naval war of Actium ; you might remark 
 the whole of Leucate aglow with the war-god's array, 
 and the waves one blaze of gold^ On this side is 
 Augustus Caesar leading the Italians to conflict, with 
 22 
 
338 THE jENEID. 
 
 the senate and the people, the home-gods and their 
 mighty brethren, standing aloft on the stern: his 
 auspicious brows emit twin-born flames, and his an- 
 cestral star dawns over his head. Elsewhere is Agrip- 
 pa with the winds and the gods at his back, towering 
 high as he leads his column ; his brows gleam with the 
 beaked circle of a naval crown, the glorious ornament 
 of war. On that side is Antonius with his barbaric 
 powers and the arms of divers lands, triumphant from 
 the nations of the dawn-goddess and the red ocean's 
 coast, carrying with him Egypt and the strength of the 
 East and the utmost parts of Bactria, and at his side 
 — shame on the profanation ! — his Egyptian spouse. 
 All are seen at once in fierce onward motion: the 
 whole sea-floor foams up, torn by the backward pull 
 of the oars and by the three-fanged beaks. On to the 
 deep ! 5"ou would deem that uprooted Cyclades were 
 swimming the sea, or that tall hills were meeting hills 
 in battle ; such the giant effort with which the warriors 
 urge on their tower-crowned ships. From the hand is 
 scattered a shower of flaming tow and flying steel : the 
 plains of Neptune redden with unwonted carnage. In 
 the midst of them the queen is cheering on her forces 
 with the timbrel of her native land ; casting as yet no 
 glance on the twin-born snakes that threaten her rear. 
 There are the portentous gods of all the nations, and 
 Anubis the barking monster, brandishing their weapons 
 in the face of Neptune and Venus and in the face of 
 Pallas. Midmost in the fray storms Mavors, relieved 
 in iron, and fell Fur3^-fiends swooping from the sky; 
 and Discord sweeps along in the glory of her rent 
 mantle, and at her back Bellona with blood-dropping 
 scourge. There was Actium's Apollo, with his eye on 
 the fray, bending his bow from above ; at whose terror 
 
BOOK VIII. 339 
 
 all Eg3'pt and Ind, all Arabia, all the sons of Saba 
 were turning the back in flight. The queen herself was 
 shown spreading her sails to friendly breezes, and just 
 loosing the sheets. On her face the Lord of the Fire 
 had written the paleness of foreshadowed death, as she 
 drove on among corpses before the tide and the zephjT ; 
 over against her was Nile, his vast body writhing in 
 woe, throwing open his bosom, and with his whole flow- 
 ing raiment inviting the vanquished to his green lap and 
 his sheltering flood. But Caesar, entering the walls of 
 Rome in threefold triumph, was consecrating to the 
 gods of Italy a votive tribute of deathless gratitude, 
 three hundred mightj^ fanes the whole city through. 
 The ways were ringing with gladness and with games 
 and with plausive peal ; in every temple thronged a 
 matron company, in every temple an altar blazed ; in 
 front of the altars slaughtered bullocks strewed the 
 floor. The hero himself, throned on dazzling Phoebus' 
 snow-white threshold, is telling over the offerings of 
 all the nations and hanging them up on the proud 
 temple gates; there in long procession move the con- 
 quered peoples, diverse in tongue, diverse no less in 
 garb and in armor. Here had Mulciber portrayed the 
 Nomad race and the zoneless sons of Afric : here, too, 
 Leleges and Carians and quivered Gelonians : Eu- 
 phrates was flowing with waves subdued already ; and 
 the Morini, furthest of mankind, and Rhine with his 
 crescent horn, and tameless Dahae, and Araxes chafing 
 to be bridged. Such sights ^neas scans with wonder 
 on Vulcan's shield, his mother's gift, and joys in the 
 portraiture of things he knows not, as he heaves on his 
 shoulder the fame and the fate of grandsons yet to be. 
 
340 THE ^NEID, 
 
 BOOK IX. 
 
 While these things are in progress far away, Juno, 
 Saturn's daughter, has sent down Iris from above on 
 an errand to Turnus the bold. It chanced that then 
 Turnus was sitting in the grove of his sire Pihimnus, 
 deep in the hallowed dell. Him then the child of 
 Thaumas bespoke thus from Wier rosy lips : ' Turnus, 
 what no god would have dared to promise to your 
 prayers, lo ! the mere lapse of time has brought to j'ou 
 unasked, ^neas, leaving behind town, comrades, and 
 fleet, is gone to seek the realm of the Palatine, the set- 
 tlement of Evander. Nor is that all : he has won his 
 way to Corythus' farthest towns, and is arming the 
 Lydian bands, the crowds of country folk. Why hesi- 
 tate ? now, now is the moment to call for horse and 
 car ; fling delay to the winds, and come down on the 
 bewildered camp.' So saying,, she raised herself aloft 
 on the poise of her wings, and drew as she fled along 
 the clouds her mighty bow. The warrior knew his 
 visitant, lifted his two hands to heaven, and pursued 
 her flight with words like these : ' Iris, fair glory of the 
 sky, who has sent thee down from heaven to earth on 
 an errand to me ? I see the firmament parting asunder, 
 and the stars reeling about the poles. Yes ! I follow 
 th}' might}' presage, whoe'er thou art thus calling me 
 to arms.' With these words he went to the river-side, 
 and took up water from the brimming flood, calling oft 
 on the gods and burdening heaven with a multitude of 
 vows. 
 
 And now his whole army was in motion along the 
 
BOOK IX, 841 
 
 open plain, richly dowered with horses, richly dowered 
 with gold and broidered raiment. Messapus marshals 
 the van, Tyrrheus' warrior-sons the rear: Turnus him- 
 self, the general, is in the center — like Ganges with 
 his seven calm streams proudly rising through the 
 silence, or Nile when he withdraws from the plain his 
 fertilizing waters and has at last subsided into his bed. 
 Suddenly the Teucrians look forth on a cloud massed 
 with murky dust, and see darkness gathering over the 
 plain. First cries Caicus from the rampart's front: 
 ' What mass have we here, my countrymen, rolling 
 towards us, black as night? Quick with the steel, 
 bring weapons, man the'walls, the enemy is upon us, 
 ho ! ' With loud shouts the Teucrians pour themselves 
 through all the gates and through the bulwarks. For 
 such had been the charge of ^neas, that best of sol- 
 diers, when going on his way ; should aught fall out 
 meantime, let them not venture to draw out their lines 
 or trj' the fortune of the field : enough for them to 
 guard camp and wall safe behind their earthworks. 
 So now, though shame and anger prompt to an engage- 
 ment, the}^ shield themselves nevertheless with closed 
 gates in pursuance of his bidding, and armed, within 
 the covert of their towers, await the foe. Turnus, just 
 as he had galloped on in advance of his tard}' column, 
 appears unforeseen before the gate with a chosen follow- 
 ing of twenty horse : with a Thracian steed to carry 
 him, spotted with white, and a golden helm with scarlet 
 crest to guard his head. * Now, gallants, which of you 
 will venture with me first against the foe? Look 
 there ! ' he cries, and with a whirl sends his javelin into 
 the air, the overture of battle, and proudly prances 
 over the plain. His friends second him with a shout 
 and follow with dreadful cries ; they wonder at the 
 
342 THE jENEID. 
 
 Teucrians' sluggish hearts — inen-at-ai*ms, not to trust 
 themselves to a fair field or fight face to face, but keep 
 nursing their camp. Enraged, he rides round and 
 round the walls, and looks out for an opening where 
 way is none. Even as a wolf, lying in wait to surprise 
 a crowded fold, whines about the enclosure, exposed to 
 wind and rain, at mid of night ; the lambs, nestling safe 
 under their mothers, keep bleating loudly; he mad- 
 dened and reckless, gnashes his teeth at the prey be- 
 yond his reach, tormented by the long gathered rage of 
 hunger and his dr}' bloodless jaws : just so the Rutu- 
 lian scans wall and camp with kindling wrath ; grief 
 fires the marrow of his iron Bones — how to essay an 
 entrance ? what way to dash the prisoned Trojans from 
 the rampart and fling them forth on level ground? 
 Close to the camp's side was lying the fleet, shored 
 round by earthworks and by the river ; this he assails, 
 calHng for fire to his exulting mates, and filling his 
 hand with a blazing pine, himself all aglow. Driven 
 on by Turnus' presence, they double their efforts ; each 
 soldier of the band equips himself with his murky 
 torch. See, the}' have stripped the hearths : the smok- 
 ing brand sends up a pitchy glare, and the Fire-god 
 wafts clouds of soot and flame heaven-high. 
 
 What god, ye Muses, shielded the Teucrians from a 
 fire so terrible ? who warded off from the ships so vast 
 a conflagration? Tell me^ the faith in the tale is old, 
 but its fame is evergreen. 
 
 In early dajs, when ^neas in Phrj^gian Ida was 
 first fashioning his fleet and making ready for the high 
 seas, the great mother of the gods, they say, the 
 Berecyntian queen, thus addressed almighty Jove : 
 ' Grant, my son, to thj^ mother's prayer the boon she 
 asks thee on thy conquest of Olympus. A pine-forest 
 
BOOK IX. 343 
 
 is mine, endeared by the love of many years, a sacred 
 grove on the mountain's height, whither worshipers 
 brought their Offerings, bedarkened with black pitch- 
 trees and trunks of maple : these I was fain to give to 
 the youth of Dardany when he needed a fleet ; now my 
 anxious heart is wrung by disturbing fears. Release 
 me from my dread, and let a mother's pra3'er avail thus 
 much : let them be overcome by no strain of voyage, 
 no violence of wind ; give them good of their birth on 
 m}^ sacred hill.' To her replied her son, who wields 
 the starry sphere : ' O mother, whither wouldst thou 
 WTest the course of fate? what askest thou for 'these 
 thy favorites ? should vessels framed by mortal hand 
 have charter of immortality? should ^neas, himself 
 assured, meet perils all unsure? What god had ever 
 privilege so great? Nay, rather, when their service is 
 over and they gain one day the haA^en of Ausonia, 
 from all such as escape the waves and convoy the 
 Dardan chief safe to Laurentian soil, I will take away 
 their perishable shape, and, summon them to the state 
 of goddesses of the mighty ocean, in form like Nereus' 
 children, Doto and Galatea, when they breast the foam- 
 ing deep.' He said; and b}^ the river of his St3'gian 
 brother, by the banks that seethe with pitch and are 
 washed by the murky torrent, he nodded confirmation, 
 and with his nod made all Olympus tremble. 
 
 So now the promised day was come, and the Desti- 
 nies had fulfilled the time appointed, when Turnus* 
 lawless violence gave warning to the mighty mother to 
 ward off the firebrand from her consecrated ships. 
 Now in a moment a strange light flashed on the ej^es of 
 all, and a great cloud was seen from the quarter of the 
 dawn-goddess running athwart the sky, with the choirs 
 of Ida in its train ; then came darting through the air 
 
344 THE ^NEID. 
 
 a voice of terror, thrilling the ranks of Trojan and 
 Rutulian from end to end : ' Busy not yourselves, ye 
 Teucrians, to defend my ships, nor take weapons into 
 your hands : Turnus shall have leave to burn up the 
 ocean sooner than to consume my sacred pines. Go 
 free, my favorites : go and be goddesses of the sea : 
 it is the mother's voice that bids you.' And at once 
 each ship snaps her cable from the bank, and like a 
 dolphin dips her beak and makes for the bottom. 
 Then all emerge in maiden forms, a marvel to behold, 
 and breast the main, as many as stood a moment ago 
 with their brazen prows to the shore. 
 
 Amazement seized the Rutulians ; terror came on 
 Messapus himself, confusion on his steeds ; even Tiber, 
 the river, pauses, murmuring hoarsel}^ and retraces 
 his seaward course. But bold Turnus' confidence felt 
 no check ; no, his words are ready to encourage and 
 upbraid : ' It is at the Trojans that these portents 
 point : Jove himself has robbed them of their wonted 
 resource; they wait not for Rutulian fire and sword 
 to do the work. Yes, the sea is impassable to the 
 Teucrians ; hope of flight have they none ; one half 
 of nature is taken from them ; as for earth, it is in 
 our hands, thanks to the thousands here standing in 
 arms, the tribes of Italy. I care not for the fateful 
 utterances of heaven that these Phrygians vaunt, be 
 they what they may : fate and Venus have had license 
 enough, in that the Trojans have set foot on the soil 
 of our rich Ausonia. I, too, have a fate of my own, 
 to mow down with the sword the guilty nation that 
 has stolen my bride ; that wrong of theirs comes not 
 home to the Atridae alone, nor has Mycenae alone the 
 privilege of going to war. But one destruction is 
 enough for them — ay, had one transgression been 
 
BOOK IX. 345 
 
 enough, so that they had henceforth loathed the sex 
 well-nigh to a woman. Men who trust in their inter- 
 vening rampart, whom the pause at the trench, those 
 few feet of distance from death, inspires with cour- 
 age. Why, did they not see their city of Troy sink 
 into the fire, though built by the hand of Neptune? 
 But you, my chosen mates, who is there ready to hew 
 down the rampart and rush with me on their bewildered 
 camp ? I need not the arms of Vulcan nor a thousand 
 sail for my Trojan war. Let all Etruria join them in 
 a body. Night alarms, cowardly thefts of their guar- 
 dian image, slaughterings of the sentry on the height, 
 they need fear none of these ; we will not skulk in a 
 horse's murky womb : in broad day, in the sight of all, 
 I stand 'pledged to put a ring of fire round their walls. 
 I will not let them fancy they are dealing with the 
 Danaans and the Pelasgian chivalry, whom Hector 
 kept ten j^ears waiting for their due. Now, since the 
 better part of the day is spent, for what remains, gal- 
 lants, refresh yourselves after your good service, and 
 be assured that battle is getting ready.* 
 
 Meantime the charge is given to Messapus to leaguer 
 the gates with relays of watchmen, and throw a girdle 
 of fire round the ramparts. Twice seven Rutulian 
 chiefs are chosen to keep armed observation of the 
 walls : a hundred warriors attend on each, red with 
 scarlet crests and gleaming with gold. They move 
 from place to place and relieve one another, and 
 stretched on the grass give wine its fling and tilt the 
 brazen bowl. Bright shine the fires: the warders 
 speed the wakeful night with sport and game. 
 
 The Trojans look forth on the scene from their earth- 
 works, as in arms they man the summit ; with anxious 
 fear they test the gates, and link bridge and bulwark. 
 
346 THE ^NEID, 
 
 their weapons in their hands. First in the work are 
 Mnestheus and keen Serestus, whom father -^neas, 
 should adverse crisis call for action, left to command 
 the warriors and govern affairs at home. The whole 
 arm}^ along the wall, dividing the danger, keeps guard, 
 each relieving each at the post assigned. 
 
 The warder of the gate was Nisus, a soldier of keen- 
 est mettle, Hj^tacus' son, whom Ida the huntress sent 
 to attend --Eneas, quick with the dart and the flying 
 arrow: and at his side Eur^^alus, than whom was none 
 fairer among Eneas' children, none that ever donned 
 the arms of Troy, a stripling whose unrazored cheeks 
 just showed the first bloom of youth. Theirs was a 
 common love : side by side they wont to rush into 
 the battle : and even then they were keeping watch at 
 the gate in joint duty. Nisus exclaims : * Is it the 
 gods, Euryalus, that make men's hearts glow thus? 
 or does ea<jh one's ungoverned yearning become his 
 god? My heart has long been astir to rush on war 
 or other mighty deed, nor will peaceful quiet content 
 it. You see the RutuUans there, delivered up to confi- 
 dence in the future : their line of lights gleams broken- 
 ly : unnerved with sleep and wine, yonder they lie : all 
 around is still. Listen on, and learn, on what I am 
 brooding, and what thought is this moment uppermost. 
 *' -Eneas should be recalled" — so cry people and 
 leaders as one man; "messengers should be sent to 
 tell him the truth." If they pledge themselves to 
 what I ask for you — for me the fame of the deed is 
 sufficient — methinks under the mound yonder I could 
 find a way to the city walls of Pallanteum.' A thrill 
 of generous ambition struck wonder into Euryalus, as 
 thus he addressed his glowing friend: 'And would 
 you shrink from taking me with you, Nisus, on this 
 
BOOK IX. 347 
 
 high occasion ? Am I to send you ont alone on such 
 perilous errand ? It was not thus that my father, the 
 veteran Opheltes, reared and bred me among Argive 
 terrors and Trojan agonies, nor have such been my 
 doings at your side, since I followed our hero -^neas 
 and his desperate fate. Here, here, within me is a 
 soul that thinks scorn of happy sunshine, and deems 
 that the glory at which you aim were cheaply bought 
 with life.* ' Nay,* returns Nisus, ' trust me, I had no 
 such fear of 3^ou — none such had been just : so may 
 I return to 3'ou in triumph, by grace of mighty Jove, 
 or whosoever now looks down on us with righteous 
 eyes. But should aught — and a venture like this, 
 you see, has a thousand such — should aught sway 
 things amiss, be it chance or heaven's will, I would 
 fain have you spared : j^ours is the meeter age for 
 life. Let me have one to rescue me in fight, or re- 
 deem me by ransom paid, and so consign me to the 
 burial all receive : or should Fortune grudge even 
 that, to pay me the rites of the absent, and give me 
 the adornment of a tomb. Nor let me be the cause 
 of grief so terrible to that unhappy parent, who alone 
 of many matrons has had a heart to follow you, dear 
 boy, nor cares for the city of great Acestes.* He 
 replied : ' Spinning empty pretexts is idle work : there 
 is no change or faltering in my resolve. Up and dis- 
 patch ! * At once he rouses the guard, who take his 
 place and fulfil their time, while he, departing from the 
 post, walks side by side with Nisus, and they seek the 
 prince together. 
 
 All else that breathed on earth were asleep, their 
 load of care unbound, their hearts oblivious of toil; 
 the chief leaders of the Teucrians, the flower of the 
 host, were holding council on the crisis in their realm*s 
 
348 THE ^NEID. 
 
 fortune, what they should do, or who should at length 
 be sent with the news to ^neas. There they stand 
 propped on their long spears, their shields still in 
 their hands, in the midst of camp and plain. At this 
 moment Nisus and Euryalus eagerly crave instant ad- 
 mission — the affair is great, say they, and well worth 
 the pause it claims. lulus was the first to welcome 
 and reassure them, and bid Nisus speak. Then began 
 the son of Hyrtacus : ' Listen, ye sons of Troy, with 
 kindly heed, nor let these our proffers be judged by 
 our years. The Rutulians, unnerved b}' sleep and 
 wine, are hushed in silence: we have ourselves ob- 
 served a place for a stealthy move, open through the 
 passage of the gate which abuts on the sea. The line 
 of fires is broken, and onl}^ dusky smoke rises to the 
 sky : give us but leave to make use of fortune, and 
 go in quest of ^neas and the walls of Pallanteum, 
 soon shall you see us here again after a mighty car- 
 nage, laden with spoils. Nor can the way mislead us 
 as we go :' we have seen in the dimness of the vale the 
 outskirts of the city while persevering in our hunting, 
 and have made acquaintance with the whole river's 
 course.' Then spoke Aletes, weighty with years and 
 ripe of understanding : ' Gods of our fathers, whose 
 constant presence watches over Troy, not yet in spite 
 of all do ye purpose to make an utter end of us 
 Teucrians, when such are the spirits and so steadfast 
 the hearts ye breed in our youth.' As he said this, 
 he kept embracing the necks and hands of both, and 
 bathing his cheeks in floods of tears. *What guer- 
 dons, gallant men, what can I fancy of worth enough 
 to pay you for glories like these ? First and richest 
 of all will be the praise of heaven and your own 
 hearts ; next to these you will receive the rest without 
 
BOOK IX, 349 
 
 fail from good -^neas and young Ascanius, who will 
 never forget a service so great.' ' Nay,' cries Asca- 
 nius, ' let me speak, me, whose safety is bound up 
 with my sire's return : by our great household gods I 
 adjure you, Nisus, by the deity of Assaracus' house 
 and the shrine of reverend Vesta — all my fortune, 
 all my trust, I place in your hands : bring back my 
 father, let me see him again ; he once restored, all 
 grief is over. I will give you a pair of goblets wrought 
 with silver and rough from the chasing-tool, which my 
 father took when he conquered Arisba, a couple of 
 tripods, two great talents of gold, and an ancient 
 bowl, Sidonian Dido its donor. But if it be our 
 victorious fortune to conquer Italy and attain the 
 crown, and appoint the lot for the booty — you saw 
 the horse which Turnus rode, the arms in which he 
 moved all golden — that horse, that shield, and the 
 scarlet crest I will set apart from the lot, and count 
 it, Nisus, yours alread}^ Moreover, my sire shall 
 give you twelve matron captives of choicest beaut}', 
 male prisoners too, each with his armor, and, to crown 
 all, the portion of domain held by king Latinus him- 
 self. But you, whose 3'ears are followed at nearer 
 distance by my own, revered youth, I take at once to 
 my heart, and fold you there, my comrade for what- 
 ever betides. Never will I seek glory for my own 
 estate apart from you : whether I have peace or war 
 on hand, yours shall be mj' utmost confidence in deed 
 and in word.' To him spoke Euryalus in reply : ' No 
 length of time shall find me false to the promise of my 
 bold essay : let but fortune speed and not thwart us. 
 But one boon I would ask of you beyond all others : 
 I have a mother of Priam's ancient house, whom not 
 the land of Ilium, not the city of king Aotstes, could 
 
350 THE jENEID. 
 
 keep, poor soul, from going with me. Her I am now 
 leaving, ignorant of this peril, be it what it ma}-, with 
 no word of greeting — Night and your right hand are 
 my witnesses — because I could not bear a parent's 
 tears. But you, I pray, comfort her need and sup- 
 port her lonely age. With this trust in you to bear 
 along with me, I shall meet all that happens with a" 
 bolder spirit.' Touched to the heart, the children of 
 Dardanus broke into tears — chief of all the fair 
 lulus, as the picture of his own filial love flashed 
 upon his soul. Thus he speaks : ' Assure 3'ourself 
 that all shall be done that your mighty deeds deserve. 
 Yes, she shall be my own mother, naught wanting 
 but the name to make her Creusa's self; to have 
 borne you lays up no mean store of gratitude. What- 
 ever the fortune that attends your endeavor, I swear 
 by this my head, by which my father has been wont 
 to swear, all t^at I promise to 3-ou in the event 
 of your prosperous return, shall remain in its full- 
 ness assured to your mother and your house.' This 
 he says weeping, and unbelts from his shoulder a 
 gilded sword wrought with rare art by Lycaon of 
 Crete, and fitted for use with a scabbard of ivory. 
 To Nisus Mnestheus gives a skin, a lion's shaggy 
 spoils : Aletes, true of heart, makes an exchange of 
 helmets. Their arming done they march along; and 
 as they go, the whole band of nobles, young and 
 old, escorts them to the gate with prayers for their 
 safety. There too was fair lulus, in heart and fore- 
 thought manUer than his years, giving them many a 
 charge to carry to his father. But the winds scatter 
 all alike, and deliver them canceled to the clouds. 
 
 Passing through the gate, they cross the trenches, 
 and through the midnight shade make for the hostile 
 
BOOK IX. 351 
 
 camp — destined, though, first to be the death' of 
 manj'. All about the grass they see bodies stretched 
 at length b}^' sleep and wine, cars tilted up on the 
 shore, men lying among wheels and harness, with 
 ai-mor and pools of wine about them. First spoke 
 the son of Hyrtacus : ' Euryalus, daring hands are 
 wanted ; the occasion now calls for action ; here lies 
 our way. Do you keep watch and wide look-out, 
 lest an}' hand be lifted against us from behind; I 
 will lay these ranks waste, and give 3'ou a broad path 
 to walk in.' So saying, he checks his voice, and at 
 oncfe with his tyrannous sword assails Rhamnes, who, 
 pillowed on a vast pile of rugs, was breathing from 
 all his breast the breath of sleep — a king himself, 
 and king Turnus' favorite augur ; but his augury 
 availed him not to ward off death. Close by he sur- 
 prises three attendants, stretched carelessly among 
 their weapons, and Remus' armor-bearer and char- 
 ioteer, catching him as he lay at the horses' side : 
 the steel shears through their drooping necks ; then 
 he lops the head of their lord, and leaves the trunk 
 gurgling and spouting blood, while ground and couch 
 are reeking with black streams of gore. Lamyrus 
 too, and Lamus, and 3-oung Serranus, who had plaj'ed 
 long that night in the pride of his beautj^, and was 
 lying with the dream-god's hand heavy upon hint; 
 happ3', had he made his play as long as the night, and 
 pushed it into morning. Like a hungrj' lion mak- 
 ing havoc through a teeming fold — for the madness 
 of famine constrains him — he goes mangling and drag- 
 ging along the feeble cattle, dumb with terror, and 
 gnashing his bloody teeth. JNor less the carnage of 
 Eurj^alus : he, too, all on fire, storms along, and slays 
 on his road a vast and nameless crowd. Fad us and Her- 
 
352 THE MNEID. 
 
 besus, and Rhoetus and Abaris — unconscious these: 
 Rhoetus was awake and saw it all, but in his fear he 
 crouched behind a massive bowl ; whence, as he rose, 
 the conqueror plunged into his fronting breast the 
 length of his sword, and drew it back with a torrent 
 of death. The dying man vomits forth his crimson 
 life, and disgorges mingled wine and blood : the foe 
 pursues his stealthy work. And now he was making 
 for Messapus' followers, for there he saw the flicker 
 of dying fires, and horses tied and browsing at their 
 ease ; when thus spoke Nisus in brief, seeing him hur- 
 ried on by passion and excess of slaughter : ' For- 
 bear we now ; the daylight, our enemy, is at hand ; 
 we have supped on vengeance to the full ; a highway 
 is open through the foe.* Many warriors* arms the}^ 
 leave, wrought of solid silver, many bowls and gor- 
 geous coverlets. Euryalus lays hand on Rhamnes' 
 trappings and his belt with golden studs, sent by 
 wealthy Csedicus of old as a present to Remulus of 
 Tibur, when he fain would make him his friend from 
 a distance ; he, dying, leaves them to his grandson, 
 after whose death the Rutulians won them in battle ; 
 these he strips off, and fits them to his valiant breast, 
 all for naught. Then he puts on Messapus* shapely 
 helm, with its graceful crest. They leave the camp, and 
 pass into safety. 
 
 Meanwhile a troop of horse, sent on from the town 
 of Latium, while the rest of the force abides drawn 
 up on the field, was on its way with a message to king 
 Turnus, three hundred, shield-bearers all, with Vol- 
 scens, their chief. They were just nearing the camp, 
 and passing under the wall, when at distance they spy 
 the two bending to the left, and the helmet, seen in 
 the glimmering twilight, betrayed the heedless Euryalus, 
 
BOOK IX. 853 
 
 as the moonbeam flashed full upon it. The sight fell 
 not on idle eyes. Volscens shouts from his band: 
 * Halt, gallants ; tell 3^our errand, who you are thus 
 armed, and whither you are going.' They venture 
 no reply, but hasten the faster to the woods, and 
 make the night their friend. The horsemen bar each 
 well-known passage right and left and set a guard on 
 every outlet. The wood was shagged with thickets 
 and dark ilex boughs ; impenetrable briers filled it on 
 every side ; through the concealed tracks just gleamed 
 a narrow path. Euryalus is hampered by the dark- 
 ness of the branches, and the incumbrance of his 
 booty, and fear makes him miss the right line of road. 
 Nisus shoots away : and now in his forgetfulness he 
 had escaped the foe, and gained the region afterwards 
 called Alban from Alba's name ; in that day king 
 Latinus had there his stately stalls ; when he halted, 
 and looked back in vain for the friend he could not 
 see. ' My poor Euryalus ! where have I left you ? 
 what way shall I trace 3'OU, unthreading all the tangled 
 path of that treacherous wood?' As he speaks, he 
 scans and retraces each step, and wanders through 
 the stillness of the brakes. He hears the horses, hears 
 the noise and the tokens of pursuit. Pass a few 
 moments, and a shout strikes on his ear, and he sees 
 Euryalus, who is in the hands of the whole crew, the 
 victim of the ground and the night, bewildered by th£ 
 sudden onslaught, hurried along, and making a thou- 
 sand fruitless efforts. What should he do? with what 
 force, what arms can he attempt a rescue ? should he 
 dash through the thick of their swords with death 
 before his eyes, and hurry to a glorious end in a 
 shower of wounds? Soon, with his arm drawn back, 
 he poises his spear-shaft, looking up to the moon in 
 23 
 
354 THE JENEID. 
 
 the sky, and thus prays aloud : ' Thou, goddess, be 
 thou present, and befriend my endeavor, Latona's 
 daughter, glory of the heavens and guardian of the 
 woods : if ever my father Hyrtacus brought gift for 
 me to thine altar, if ever my own hunting swelled the 
 tribute, if ever I hung an offering from thy dome or 
 fastened it on thy hallowed summit, suffer me to con- 
 found this mass, and guide m}^ weapons through the 
 air.' This said, with an effort of his whole frame he 
 hurled the steel. The flying spear strikes through the 
 shades of night, reaches the turned back of Sulmo, 
 there snaps short, and pierces the midriff with the 
 broken wood. Down he tumbles, disgorging from his 
 breast the warm life-torrent that leaves him cold, and 
 long choking gasps smite on his sides. They look 
 round this way and that : while the same fell arm, 
 nerved by success, is leveling, see ! another weapon 
 from the ear-tip. While all is confusion, the spear 
 has passed through Tagus' two temples with whizzing 
 sound, and lies warmly lodged in his cloven brain. 
 Volscens storms with fury, yet sees nowhere the 
 author of the wound, nor on whom to vent his rage : 
 * You, however, shall pay both debts meanwhile with 
 your heart's blood,' cries he ; and speaking, rushes 
 with drawn sword on Euryalus. Then, indeed, in 
 frantic agony, Nisus shouts aloud ; no more care had 
 ^e to hide himself in darkness, no more strength to 
 bear grief so terrible: 'Me, me! behold the doer! 
 make me your mark, O Rutulians ! mine is all the 
 blame ; he had no heart, no hand for such deeds ; this 
 heaven, these stars know that it is true ; it was but 
 that he loved his unhappy friend too well.' Thus he 
 was pleading; but the sword, driven with the arm's 
 full force, has pierced the ribs and is rending the 
 
BOOK IX. 355 
 
 snowy breast. Down falls Euiyalus in death ; over 
 his beauteous limbs gushes the blood, and his power- 
 less neck sinks on his shoulders ; as when a purple 
 flower, severed by the plough, pines in death, or 
 poppies with faint necks droop the head, when rain 
 has chanced to weigh them down. But Nisus rushes 
 full on the foe, Volscens his one object among them 
 all ; he cares for none but Yolscens : the enemy cluster 
 round, and assail him on all sides ; none the less he 
 holds on his way, whirling his lightning blade, till at 
 last he lodges it full in the Rutulian's face, as he 
 shrieks for aid, and dying robs his foe of Hfe. Then 
 he flung himself on his breathless friend, pierced 
 through and through, and there at length slept away 
 in peaceful death. 
 
 Happy pair ! if this my song has aught of potency, 
 no lapse of days shall efface your names from the 
 memory of time, so long as the house of ^neas shall 
 dwell on the Capitol's moveless rock, and a Roman 
 father shall be the world's lord. 
 
 The Rutulian conquerors, enriched with spoil and 
 booty, were bearing Volscens' body to the camp with 
 tears in their eyes. Nor less loud is the wailing in 
 the camp, when they find Rhamnes drained of life, 
 and those many chiefs slain by a single carnage — 
 Serranus, Numa, and the rest. They flock in crowds 
 to the bodies, the warriors yet breathing, the place 
 fresh and reeking with slaughter, and the streams of 
 gore full and foaming. They pass the spoils from 
 hand to hand, and recognize Messapus' gleaming 
 helm, and the trappings which it cost such sweat to 
 recover. 
 
 Now at last the goddess of the dawn was sprinkling 
 the world with new-born Hght, as she rose from Titho- 
 
356 THE jENEID. 
 
 nns* saffron couch : the sun had streamed in and all 
 was revealed b}^ daybreak, when Turnus summons his 
 men to arms, himself sheathed in armor; each gen- 
 eral musters in battle array his brass-mailed bands, 
 and, scattering divers speeches, stings them to fury. 
 Nay, more, on uplifted spears, most piteous sight, 
 they set up the heads, and follow them with deafening 
 shouts — the heads of Euryalus and Nisus. Eneas' 
 sturdy family, on the rampart's left side, set the fight 
 in array — for the right is flanked by the river — guard 
 the broad trenches and stand on the lofty towers, deep 
 in sorrow — touched to see those lifted human counte- 
 nances, which to their grief they knew so well, drip- 
 ping with black corrupted gore. 
 
 Meantime, Fame spreads her wings and flies with the 
 news through the wildered settlement, and reaches the 
 ears of Eur3'alus' mother. At once the vital heat left 
 her wretched frame : the shuttle was dashed from her 
 hands, and the thread ran back. Forth flies the un- 
 happy dame, and with a woman's piercing shriek, her 
 tresses rent, makes madly for the walls and the van 
 of battle, heeding not the eyes of men, heeding not 
 the peril and the shower of javelins, while she fills the 
 heaven with her plaints : ' Is it thus, Euryalus, that 
 I see 3'ou again? have jou, the late solace of my 
 waning years, had the heart to leave me alone, un- 
 pitying? nor, when you ventured on such dangerous 
 errand, might your wretched mother speak her fare- 
 well ? Alas ! on an unknown land you are lying, ex- 
 posed to the ravin of Latium's dogs and birds ; nor 
 have I, your mother, followed your corpse to the 
 tomb, or closed your eyes, or bathed your wounds, 
 shrouding you with the robe which I worked so hard 
 to finish day and night, and made the loom the medi- 
 
BOOK IX, 367 
 
 cine of an old wife's sorrow ! Where shall I seek you ? 
 what land now contains those severed limbs, that muti- 
 lated corpse ? is this the sole relic of yourself that you 
 bring back to me, my son? is this what I followed 
 over land and sea? Pierce me, if you have aught 
 of human feeling — shower on me all your darts, ye 
 Rutulians, let the sword make me its first meal ; or 
 do thou, great sire of the gods, have mercy, and 
 with thy lightning-bolt strike down to Tartarus this 
 hated life, since I cannot otherwise end the cruel pain 
 of being/ Her wail shook every heart to its center ; 
 a groan of sorrow passed through the ranks ; their 
 Hiartial prowess flags and faints. At last, as her 
 agony flames higher, Idaeus and Actor, bidden by Ilio- 
 neus and the tearful lulus, lay hold of her, and carry 
 in their arms within. 
 
 But the trumpet from its brazen throat uttered 
 afar a tremendous blare ; a shout ensues, and heaven 
 returns the roar. Quick speed the Volscians, carry- 
 ing in level line their penthouse of shields, and strive 
 to fill the moat and pluck down the palisade. Some 
 look about for an access, and fain would scale the 
 walls with ladders, where the line of defense is thin, 
 and the ring of men, not too closely set, shows a 
 gleaming interval. The Teucrians, on their part, 
 shower missiles of every sort, and repulse the assail- 
 ants with strong poles, taught by a long war's expe- 
 rience how to guard their walls. Stones, too, they 
 kept rolling of fatal bulk, in hope to break through 
 the foe's sheltered ranks, though beneath so firm a 
 penthouse a soldier may well smile at all that can 
 betide. Ay, and it ceases to avail them: for where 
 a mighty mass threatens the rampart, the Teucrians 
 push forward and roll down an enormous weight, which 
 
358 THE ^NEID. 
 
 made wide havoc among the Rutulians, and burst the 
 joints of their harness. And now the bold Rutulians 
 care no longer to wage war in the dark, but aim at 
 driving them from the ramparts with a storm of mis- 
 siles. In another quarter, terrible to look upon, Me- 
 zentius waves an Etruscan pine and hurls fire and 
 smoke, while Messapus, tamer of the steed, of the 
 race of Neptune, plucks down the palisade, and calls 
 for ladders to the battlement. 
 
 Vouchsafe, Calliope and thy heavenly sisterhood, to 
 aid me while I sing, what slaughter, what deaths were 
 dealt that day in that place by Turnus' sword, what 
 foes each warrior sent down to the grave, and help 
 me to unfold the length and breadth of the mighty 
 war. 
 
 A tower there was, vast to look on from below, 
 with lofty bridges, placed on a vantage-ground, which 
 all the Itahans, with utmost force and utmost strain 
 of might, were essaying to storm, while the Trojans, 
 on their side, were defending it with stones, and 
 hurling showers of darts through its narrow e^^elets. 
 Turnus the first flung a blazing torch and fastened 
 fire on its side ; fanned by the wind, the flame seized 
 the planks and lodged in the consuming doors. The 
 inmates are all in confusion, and in vain seek to es- 
 cape the mischief. While the}^ huddle together and 
 retire upon the part which the plague has spared, in 
 an instant the tower falls heavily down, and the firma- 
 ment thunders with the crash. Half dead they come 
 to the ground, the huge fabric following on their backs, 
 pierced by their own weapons, their breasts impaled by 
 the cruel wood. Barely two escaped, Helenor and Ly- 
 cus — Helenor in prime of youth, whom Licymnia the 
 slave had borne secretly to the Mseonian king, and 
 
BOOK IX. 359 
 
 had sent to Troy in forbidden arms, with the light 
 accouterment of a naked sword, and a shield uncharged 
 by an escutcheon. Soon as he saw himself with Tur- 
 nus' thousands round him, the armies of Latium stand- 
 ing on this side and on that, like a beast that, hemmed 
 in by the hunters' close-set ring, vents her rage on the 
 darts and flings herself deliberately on death, and 
 springs from high on the line of spears, even thus the 
 doomed 3'outh rushes on the midst of the foe, making 
 for where he sees the darts are thickest. But L3"cus, 
 far swifter of foot, winds among ranks of foes and 
 showers of steel and gains the wall, and strives to 
 clutch the fabric's summit and reach the hands of his 
 friends. Whom Turnus, following him at once with 
 foot and javelin, taunts in victorious tone : ' Dreamed 
 3'ou, poor fool, that j-ou could escape my hands? ' and 
 with that he seizes him as he hangs in air, and pulls 
 him down with a great fragment of the wall ; just as 
 the bearer of Jove's thunder trusses in his hooked 
 talons a hare or a snow-white swan and soars into the 
 sky, or one of Mars' wolves snatches from the fold a 
 lamb which its mother's bleatings reclaim in vain. On 
 all sides rises the war-shout. They rush on the trenches 
 and fill them with shattered earthworks, while others 
 fling blazing firebrands to the roofs. Ilioneus with a 
 rock, broken from a mighty mountain, brings down 
 Lucetius as he assails the gates and waves his torch. 
 Liger kills Emathion, Asilas Corynaeus, one skilled 
 with the javelin, one with the arrow that surprises 
 from a distance. Cseneus slays Ortygius, Turnus the 
 conqueror Cseneus, Turnus Itys and Clonius, Dioxippus 
 and Promolus, and Sagaris, and Idas, who was stand- 
 ing on the turret's top. Capys kills Privernus ; The- 
 milla's flying spear had grazed him first; he, poor 
 
860 THE jENEID. 
 
 fool, dropped his buckler and clapped his hand to the 
 wound, so the arrow came on stealthy wing, and the 
 hand was pinned to the left side, and the inmost seat 
 of breath is rent asunder by the deadly wound. There 
 stood the son of Arcens in conspicuous armor, his 
 scarf embroidered with needlework, in the glory of 
 Hiberian purple, fair of form, sent to war by his father 
 Arcens, who had reared him in his mother's grove by 
 the streams of Symaethus, where stands Palicus' rich 
 and gracious altar : flinging his spears aside, Mezen- 
 tius whirled the strained thong of the whizzing sling 
 thrice round his head, and with the molten bullet 
 burst in twain the forehead of the fronting foe, and 
 stretched him at full length on the expanse of sand. 
 
 Then first, they say, Ascanius leveled in war his 
 winged arrow, used till then to terrify the beasts of 
 chase, and laid low by strength of hand the brave 
 Numanus, Remulus by surname, who had lately won 
 and wedded Turnus' younger sister. He was stalking 
 in front of the host, vaunting aloud things meet and 
 unmeet to tell, in the insolence of new-blown ro3"alty, 
 and venting his pride in clamorous tones : ' Are ye 
 not ashamed to be imprisoned yet again in leaguer and 
 rampart, twice-captured Phrygians, and to put your 
 walls between you and death? Lo, these are the 
 men who demand our wives at the sword's edge ! 
 What god, what madness, has driven you to Italy? 
 You will not find the Atridse here, nor Ulysses the 
 forger of speech. A hardy race even from the stock, 
 we bring our sons soon as born to the river's side, 
 and harden them with the water's cruel cold. Our 
 boys spend long days in the chase, and weary out the 
 forest ; their sport is to rein the steed, and level shafts 
 from the bow. Our youth, strong to labor and schooled 
 
BOOK IX. • 361 
 
 by want, subdues the earth with the rake, or shakes 
 the city's walls with battle. All our life we ply the 
 steel ; with the butt of our spears we belabor our cattle ; 
 old age, which dulls all else, impairs not the force of 
 our hearts or changes our fresh vigor ; the hoary head 
 is clasped by the helmet ; our constant joy is to bring 
 home new booty and live by rapine. Yours are em- 
 broidered garments of saffron and gleaming purple ; 
 sauntering and sloth are your delight ; your pleasure is 
 to indulge the dance ; j^our tunics have sleeves and 
 your turbans strings. Phrygian dames in sooth — for 
 Phrj'gian men ye are not — get you to the heights of 
 Dindymus, where the pipe utters its two-doored note 
 to 3'our accustomed ears. The Idsean mother's cym- 
 bals, the Berecyntian flute are calling you to the revel ; 
 leave arms to men, and meddle no more with steel.' 
 
 Such boasting and such ill-omened talk Ascanius 
 could bear no longer ; setting his breast to the bow-string 
 of horsehair he leveled his dart, and drawing his arms 
 wide apart he stood, having first invoked Jove thus in 
 suppliant prayer : ' Jove Almighty, smile on my bold 
 essaj^ ; with my own hand I will bring to thy temple 
 yearly offerings, and will set before thine altar a bul- 
 lock with gilded brow, snowy white, rearing his head 
 to the height of his mother's, fit to butt with the horn 
 and spurn up sand with the hoof.' The father heard 
 and from a cloudless quarter of the sky thundered on 
 the left ; at the same instant twanged the deadly bow. 
 Forth flies the arrow from the string, whizzing fearfully, 
 passes through the head of Remulus, and cleaves with 
 its point his hollow temples. * Go, make valor the 
 sport of your boasting ; the twice-captured Phrygians 
 answer the Rutulians thus.' So far Ascanius : the 
 Teucrians second him with a cry, shout for joy, and 
 
362 • THE jENEID. 
 
 mount heavenward in their exultation. It chanced that 
 then in the realm of skj^ long-haired Apollo was sur- 
 veying the armies of Ausonia and the city, seated on a 
 cloud ; and thus addressed lulus in the moment of 
 triumph : ' Rejoice, brave youth, in your new- won lau- 
 rels ; 'tis thus men climb the stars ; son of gods that 
 are, sire of gods that shall be! Well has Fate 
 ordered that beneath the house of Assaracus the 
 wars of the future shall find their end ; nor can Troy 
 contain your prowess.' So saying he shoots down from 
 heaven, parts before him the breathing gales, and 
 makes for Ascanius. He changes his features to those 
 of ancient Butes, who had once been armor-bearer to 
 Dardanian Anchises and trusty watcher at the gate ; 
 thence Ascanius' sire made him his son's guardian. 
 Apollo moved along, in all things like the aged veteran, 
 the voice, the color, the white locks, the fiercel}^ clank- 
 ing armor ; and thus he spoke to lulus' glowing heart : 
 ' Suffice it, child of ^neas, that Numanus Jias met 
 from your darts an unrequited death : this your 
 maiden glory great Apollo vouchsafes 3'ou freel}', nor 
 looks with jealousy on weapons like his own ; for the 
 rest abstain from war, as stripling should.' So Apollo 
 began, and ere his speech was well done parted from 
 mortal eyes, and vanished from sight into unsubstantial 
 air. The Dardan chiefs knew the god and his divine 
 artillery, and heard his quiver hurtle as he fled. So 
 now at Phoebus' present instance they check Ascanius' 
 ardor for battle ; themselves take their place in the 
 combat once more, and fling their lives into the jaws 
 of danger. All over the walls passes the shout from 
 rampart to rampart; they bend their sharp-springing 
 bows and hurl their lashed javelins — the ground is all 
 strewn with darts ; shields and hollow helms ring with 
 
BOOK IX. 363 
 
 blow on blow ; a savage combat is aroused ; fierce as 
 the rain coming from the west at the setting of the 
 showery kid-stars scourges the earth, plenteous as the 
 hail which the storm-clouds discharge into the sea, 
 when Jove in the sullenness of southern blasts whirls 
 the watery tempest and bursts the misty chambers of 
 the sky. 
 
 Pandarus and Bitias, sons of Idsean Alcanor, brought 
 up by Isera the wood-nj^mph in the grove of Jupiter, 
 youths tall as the pines and peaks of their birthplace, 
 throw open the gate, which the general's order placed in 
 their charge, relying on their good steel, and invite the 
 foe to enter the town. Themselves within right and 
 left stand before the bulwarks, sheathed in iron, the 
 crest waving on their lofty heads : even as high in air 
 beside the flowing streams, on Padus' banks it may be 
 or by pleasant Athesis, uptower two oaks, raising to 
 heaven their unshorn summits and nodding their lofty 
 crowns. In rush the Rutulians when they see the entry 
 clear. In a moment Quercens and Aquicolus in his 
 briUiant armor and headlong Tmarus and Hsemon, 
 scion of Mars, with all their followers are routed and 
 turned to flight, or on the threshold of the gate have 
 resigned their lives. At this the wrath of the com- 
 batants flames yet higher, and the Trojans rally and 
 muster in one spot and venture to engage hand to hand 
 and to advance farther into the plain. 
 
 Turnus, the chief, while venting his rage elsewhere 
 and scattering ranks of warriors, hears tidings that the 
 foe, fevered by the taste of blood, has thrown the 
 gates open. He leaves the work he had begun, and 
 stirred with giant fury hastens to the Dardan gate and 
 the two haughty brethren. Hurling his dart, he first 
 slays Antiphates, who happened first to meet him, 
 
364 THE ^NEID, 
 
 bastard son of great Sarpedon by a Theban mother ; 
 the shaft of Italian cornel flies through the yielding air, 
 and lodging in the throat goes deep down into the 
 chest; the wound's dark pit spouts forth a foaming 
 torrent, and the cold steel grows warm in the lungs it 
 pierces. Then with strong hand he slays Merops and 
 Erymas and then Aphidnus, then Bitias with his blaz- 
 ing eyes and his boiling valor — not with a dart, for to 
 a dart he would not have surrendered his life — no ; it 
 was a whirled phalaric lance that came hurtling fiercely, 
 shot like a thunderbolt, which neither two bulls' hides 
 nor a trusty corselet with double golden plait could 
 withstand : the massive limbs sink and fall : earth 
 groans, and the vast buckler thunders on the body. 
 Even thus sometimes on Baiae's Euboean coast falls a 
 pile of stone, which men compact with mighty blocks 
 and then fling into the sea ; thus it comes down with 
 protracted headlong ruin, and dashing on the shallows 
 settles into its place ; the sea is all disturbed, and the 
 murky sand rises to the surface > the crash shakes 
 Prochyta to her depths, and Inarime's rugged bed, laid 
 by Jove's command upon Typhoeus. 
 
 Now Mars, the lord of arms, inspires the Latians 
 with strength and courage, and plants his stings deep 
 in their bosoms, while among the Teucrians he sends 
 Flight and grisly Terror. They flock from this side 
 and from that, now that scope for battle is given, and 
 the warrior god comes down on their souls. When 
 Pandarus saw his brother's corpse laid low, and knew 
 the posture of fortune and the chance that was sway- 
 ing the da}^, with a mighty eflfort he turns the gate on 
 its hinge, pushing with his broad shoulders, and leaves 
 outside many of his comrades shut out from the camp 
 all in the cruel battle, while others he shuts in with 
 
BOOK IX. 865 
 
 himself, admitting them as they stream onward — mad- 
 man, to have failed to see the king of the Rutulians in 
 the middle of the company storming in, and to have 
 shut him wantonly within the walls, like a monstrous 
 tiger among a herd of helpless cattle ! On the instant 
 a strange light flashed from the eyes of the foe, and his 
 arms gave a fearful clang; on his helm quivers his 
 crest, red as blood, and from his shield he darts gleam- 
 ing lightnings. With sudden confusion the children 
 of u^neas recognize that hated form and those giant 
 limbs. Then forth springs mighty Pandarus, and with 
 all the glow of wrath for his brother's death bespeaks 
 him thus ; ' This is not the bridal palace of Amata, nor 
 is it Ardea that embraces Turnus in the walls of his 
 fathers ; the enemy's camp is before you ; all escape is 
 barred.' To him Turnus, smiling in quiet mood: 
 ' Begin, if you have courage, and engage in combat. 
 Priam shall learn from you that here too you have found 
 an Achilles.' Thus he : Pandarus, with the full strain 
 of his power, hurls his spear, rugged with knots and 
 unpeeled bark. It was launched on the air ; but 
 Saturhian Juno turned aside the coming wound, and 
 the spear lodged in the gate. ' But this my weapon 
 you shall not escape, swayed as it is by my hand's full 
 force ; he from whom wound and weapon come is too 
 strong for that.' So cries Turnus, and rises high upon 
 his lifted sword, and cleaves with the steel the fore- 
 head in twain full between the temples, parting beard- 
 less cheek from cheek with a ghastlj^ wound. A crash 
 is heard : earth is shaken by the enormous weight : the 
 unnerved limbs, the arms splashed with gore and brain 
 are stretched in death on the ground ; and the head, 
 shared in equal parts, hangs right and left from either 
 shoulder. The routed Trojans fly here and there in 
 
366 THE jENEID. 
 
 wildering terror, and had the thought at once seized 
 the conqueror to burst the gates by main force and 
 give entrance to his friends, that day would have ended 
 a war and a nation both. But rage and mad thirst 
 for blood drove him in fury on the foe before him. 
 First he surprises Phalaris and hamstrings Gyges ; 
 plucks forth spears and hurls them on the backs of the 
 fliers ; Juno gives supplies of strength and courage. 
 He sends Halys to join them and Phegeus, pierced 
 through the shield, and cuts down others as they stand 
 unconscious on the walls and stir up the battle, Alcan- 
 der and Halius, and Noemon and Prytanis. As Lj-n- 
 ceus moved to meet him and calls on his comrades, 
 with a sweep of his arm from the rampart on his right 
 he catches him with his whirling sword ; swept off by a 
 single blow hand to hand, the head with the helmet on 
 it lay yards awa}- . Next falls Amycus, the ravager of 
 the forest brood, than who was never man more skilled 
 to anoint the dart and arm the steel with venom, and 
 Clytius, son of JEolus, and Cretheus, darling of the 
 Muses, Cretheus the Muses' playmate, whose delight 
 was ever in minstrelsy and harp, and in stringing notes 
 on the chord ; songs of chargers and warrior arms and 
 battles were ever on his lips. 
 
 At last the Teucrian leaders, hearing of the slaughter 
 of their men, come together to the spot, Mnestheus 
 and keen Serestus, when they see their comrades flying 
 in confusion, and the foe lodged in the camp. Out 
 cries Mnestheus : ' Whither now, whither are ye mak- 
 ing in flight? what further city have ye, what walls 
 beyond? Shall it be said that a single man, and he 
 too, my countrymen, hemmed in on all hands by your 
 ramparts, has spread unavenged such havoc through 
 your streets, has sent down to death so many of your 
 
BOOK IX. 367 
 
 bravest ? As ye think of your unhappy country, your 
 ancient gods, your great ^neas, is there no pity, no 
 shame in your skiggish hearts ?' Roused by these 
 words they rally and halt in close arra3^ Turnus step 
 by step withdraws from the fight, making for the river 
 and the part round which the water runs. All the 
 more keenly the Teucrians press on him with loud 
 shouts and close their ranks : as when a compan}^ of 
 hunters bears down on a savage lion javelin in hand : 
 he, struck with fear, yet fierce and glaring angrily, 
 gives ground ; wrath and courage suffer him not to turn 
 his back, nor yet may he charge, though he fain would 
 do so, through the huntsmen and the spears. Not 
 unlike to him Turnus in doubt retraces his lingering 
 footsteps, while his heart boils with rage. Even then 
 twice had he dashed on the thick of the foe, twice he 
 drives their ranks in huddled flight round the walls ; 
 but the whole army musters in a body from the camp, 
 nor dares Saturnian Juno suppl}^ him with strength to 
 oppose them ; for Jove sent down from the sk}^ celes- 
 tial Iris, with no gentle message for his sister's ear, if 
 Turnus retire not from the Teucrians' lofty ramparts. 
 So now the warrior cannot hold his own with shield or 
 sword ; such a deluge of darts overwhelms him. Round 
 his hollow temples the helmet echoes with ceaseless 
 ringing ; the solid plates of brass give way beneath the 
 stones ; the horsehair crest is struck from his head ; 
 his shield's boss cannot stand the blows ; faster and 
 faster the}" hail their spears, the Trojans and fiery 
 Mnestheus. Over all his frame flows the sweat and 
 trickles in a murk}^ stream, while breathe he cannot; 
 his sinking limbs are shaken with feeble panting. At 
 last with headlong leap he plunged arms and all into 
 the river. Tiber with his yellow gulf received the 
 
368 THE jENEID. 
 
 guest, upbore him on his buoyant waves, and washing 
 off the stains of carnage, restored him in joy to his 
 friends. 
 
 BOOK X. 
 
 Meantime the palace of strong Olympus is thrown 
 open, and the sire of gods and monarch of men sum- 
 mons a council to the starry chamber, whence, throned 
 on high, he looks down on the length and breadth of 
 earth, the camp of the Dardans and the people of La- 
 tium. » They take their seats in the double-gated man- 
 sion ; he himself opens the court : ' Mighty denizens of 
 heaven, wherefore is your judgment turned backward, 
 and whence such discord in your unkindly souls? I 
 had forbidden that Italy should meet the Teucrians in 
 the shock of war. What strife is this in defiance of my 
 law ? What terror has prompted these or those to draw 
 the sword and provoke the fight? There shall come a 
 rightful time for combat — no need for you to hasten it 
 — when fierce Carthage on! day shall launch on the 
 hills of Rome mighty ruin and the opening of Alpine 
 barriers. Then will your rancors be free to contend, 
 your hands to plunder and ravage ; for the present let 
 be, and cheerfully ratify the peace that I have willed.' 
 
 Thus Jupiter in brief ; but not brief was the answer 
 of golden Venus : ' O Father ! O eternal sovereignty of 
 man and nature ! for what else can there be which is 
 left us to implore? Seest thou how the Rutulians 
 insult ? how Turnus is whirled through the battle by his 
 haught}^ coursers, borne on the flood-tide of war? No 
 longer are the Teucrians safe even in the shelter of their 
 
BOOK X. 369 
 
 walls ; within the gates, amidst the very mounds of the 
 ramparts combat is waged, and the trenches overflow 
 with carnage, ^neas is awa^^ in his ignorance. Wilt 
 thou never let us have respite from siege ? Once more 
 the enemy is stooping over the walls of our infant Tro}^ 
 with a second army ; once more T3'deus' son from his 
 ^tolian Arpi is rising against the Teucrians. Ay, ray 
 wounds, I ween, are yet in the future, and I, thine own 
 offspring, am delaying the destined course of a mortal 
 spear. If it is without youx leave and despite your 
 will that the Trojans have won their way to Italy, let 
 them expiate the crime and withdraw from them thine 
 aid : but if they have but followed those many oracles 
 given by powers above and powers underground, how 
 can any now be able to reverse thine ordinance and 
 write anew the page of fate? Why should I remind 
 thee of our fleet consumed on Er^x' shore? why of 
 the monarch of the storms and his raving winds stirred 
 up from -3^olia, oi* of Iris sent down from the clouds ? 
 Now she is even rousing the ghosts below — that por- 
 tion of the world till then was untried — and on a sud- 
 den Alecto is launched on upper air, and rages through 
 the Italian cities. It is not for empire that I am dis- 
 quieted ; for that we hoped in the past, while our star 
 3' et shone : let them conquer whom thou wouldst have 
 conquer. If there is no country on earth which thj^ 
 relentless spouse will allow the Teucrians, I adjure thee, 
 father, by the smoking ruins of Troy overthrown, let 
 me send away Ascanius safe from the war — let m}' 
 grandson survive in life, ^neas, indeed, may be tossed 
 on unknown waters, and follow such course as chance 
 ma\^ give him : Mm let me have the power to screen 
 and withdraw from the horrors of battle. Amathus is 
 mine, and lofty Paphos, and high Cythera, and the man- 
 24 
 
370 THE yENEID. 
 
 sion of Idalia : there let him pass his days unwarlike 
 and inglorious. Let it be thy will that Carthage shall 
 bow Ausonia beneath her tyrannous swaj^ ; the Tyriaii 
 cities need fear no resistance from him. What has it ad- 
 vantaged him to have escaped the plague of war and fled 
 through the hottest of the Argive fires, to have drained 
 to the dregs all those dangers b}^ sea and on broad 
 earth, while the Teucrians are in quest of Latium and 
 a restored Pergamus ? Give back, great sire, to our 
 wretched nation their Xanthus and their Simois, and 
 let the Teucrians enact once more the old traged}' of 
 Ilium.' Then out spoke queenly Juno, goaded by 
 fierce passion : ' Why force you me to break my deep 
 silence, and give forth in words my buried grief ? Your 
 -^neas — was it any man or god that compelled him to 
 draw the sword, and come down as a foe on the Latian 
 king? Grant that he went to Italy at the instance of 
 fate, at the impulse, in truth, of mad Cassandra ; was it 
 our counsel that he should leave his cfamp and place his 
 life at the mercy of the winds ? that he should trust the 
 control of battle and his cit}^ to a boy — should tamper 
 with Tyrrhenian loyalty and stir up a quiet nation? 
 What god, what cruel tyranny of ours drove him thither 
 to his hurt? is there a trace of Juno here, or of Iris 
 sent down from the clouds ? Ay, it is foul shame that 
 the Italians should throw a belt of flame round the 
 infant Troy — that Turnus should plant a foot on the 
 soil of his fathers, Turnus, whose grandsire was Pilum- 
 nus, whose mother the goddess Yenilia. How call you 
 it for the Trojans to invade Latium with their smoking 
 torches, to put their 3 oke on a country that is none of 
 theirs, and harry away its plunder — to choose at will 
 those whose daughters they would wed, and drag the 
 plighted bride from the bosom— to bear suppliant 
 
BOOK X, 371 
 
 tokens in the hand and arm their vessels to the teeth? 
 You have power to withdraw -^neas from the hands of 
 the Greeks, and offer them clouds and thin winds for 
 the man they seek — power to turn a fleet of ships into 
 a bevy of Nymphs ; and is it utterly monstrous for us 
 to give the Rutulians a measure of aid in return? 
 -^neas is away in ignorance, and in ignorance let him 
 bide away. You have your Paphos, j'our IdaHum, 3'our 
 lofty Cythera : why meddle with a cit}^ brimming with 
 war and with ungentle hearts ? Is it we that are labor- 
 ing to overturn from the foundation your feeble Phrj-- 
 gian fortunes? We? or the gallant who brought Greece 
 down on the wretched Trojans? What reason was 
 there that Europe and Asia should stand up to fight, 
 and a league be broken by treachery ? Did I lead your 
 Dardan leman to take Sparta by storm ? did I put 
 weapons in his hand, or fan the flame of war with the 
 gales of love ? Then had there been decency in your 
 fears for j^our friends ; now you are rising too late 
 with unjust complaints, and flinging idly the language 
 of quarrel.' 
 
 Such was the appeal of Juno : and the whole body of 
 immortals murmured assent on this side or on that, 
 like new-born gales when they murmur, caught in the 
 forest, and roll about mysterious sounds, disclosing to 
 the sailor a coming storm. Then begins the almighty 
 sire, whose is the chief sovereignty of the universe : at 
 opening of his mouth the loft}- palace of the gods grows 
 still, and earth shakes to her foundations ; silent is 
 the height of ether ; the Zephyrs are sunk to rest, 
 and Ocean subdues its waves to repose. ' Take then 
 to your hearts and engrave there these m}- words : 
 since it may not be that Ausonian and Teucrian should 
 be united by treaty, and your wranglings brook no con- 
 
372 THE jENEID. 
 
 elusion, be eaeh man's fortune to-daj^ what it may, be 
 the span of each man's hope long or short, Trojan or 
 Rutulian, I will show favor to neither, whether it be by 
 destiny that the Italian leaguer encompasses the camp, 
 or by Troy's baneful error and the warnings of hostile 
 intelhsrence. Nor leave I the Rutulians free. Each 
 man's own endeavors shall yield him, the harvest of 
 labor or fortune. Jove, as king, is alike to all. Des- 
 tiny shall find her own way.' By the river of his Sty- 
 gian brother, by the banks that seethe with pitch and 
 are washed by the murk}^ torrent, he nodded confirma- 
 tion, and with his nod made all Olympus tremble. So 
 ended their debate. Then from his golden throne rises 
 Jove, and the immortals gathering round him usher him 
 4;o his chamber. 
 
 Meantime the Rutulians press round each and all of 
 the gates, eager to slaughter the soldiery and belt the 
 ramparts with flame. But Eneas' army is hemmed 
 within the leaguered encampment without hope of es- 
 cape. In unavailing wretchedness they stand guarding 
 the turrets' height, and form a thin circle round the walls. 
 Asius son of Imbrasus, and Hicetaon's child Thymoe- 
 tes, and the two Assaraci, and Castor and aged Thym- 
 bris are their front rank ; bj^ their side the two brethren 
 of Sarpedon, Clarus and Themon both, come from noble 
 Lycia. There is one carrying with the whole strain of 
 his body a mighty rock, no small portion of a mountain, 
 Acmon of Lyrnessus, a worthy peer of his father Cly- 
 tius and his brother Mnestheus. Some repel the foe 
 with javelins, some with stones ; they launch the fire- 
 brand, they fit the arrow to the string. In the midst 
 is he, Venus' most rightful care, the royal boy of Dar- 
 dany, his beauteous head uncovered : see him shine like 
 a jewel islanded in ^^ellow gold, an ornament for neck 
 
BOOK X. 373 
 
 or head, or as gleams ivory set by artist skill in box- 
 wood or Orician terebinth: his flowing hair streams 
 over a neck of milky white and is gathered up by a 
 ring of ductile gold. Thou, too, Ismarus, wast seen 
 b}' tribes of warriors dealing wounds abroad and arm- 
 ing thy arrows with venom, gallant branch of a Lydian 
 house, from the land whose rich soil is broken up by 
 the husbandmen and washed b}' Pactolus' golden 
 stream. Mnestheus, too, Was there, whom yesterday's 
 triumph over Turnus repulsed from the rampart exalts 
 to the stars, and Capys, who gives his name to Cam- 
 pania's mother city. 
 
 So they on this side and on that had waged all day 
 the conflict of stubborn war ; and now at midnight 
 -^neas was ploughing the main. For soon as, leaving 
 Evander, he entered the Etruscan camp, accosted the 
 king, and told him of his name and his race, for what 
 he sues and what he ofl'ers, explains what arms Mezen- 
 tius musters on his side, and what the excess of Tur- 
 nus' violence, warns him how little faith man can place 
 in fortune, and seconds reasoning by entreaty, without 
 a moment's pause, Tarchon combines his forces and 
 strikes a truce ; and at once, freed from the spell of 
 destinj^, the Lydian race embarks according to heaven's 
 ordinance, under the charge of a foreign leader. First 
 sails the vessel of JEneas, Phr^-gian lions harnessed on 
 the prow ; above them- Ida spreads her shade, of hap- 
 piest augury to exiled Troy. There sits great ^neas, 
 brooding over the doubtful future of the war : and 
 Pallas, close cleaving to his left side, keeps questioning 
 liim, now of the stars, the road-marks of the shadowy 
 night, and now all that he has borne by land and by 
 sea. 
 
 Now,' ye goddesses, open wide your Helicon, and 
 
374 THE jENEID. 
 
 stir up the powers of song, to tell ns what the army 
 now following ^neas from the Tuscan shores, equip- 
 ping its ships for adventure, and sailing over the sea. 
 
 First comes Massicus, cleaving the waters in his 
 brass-sheathed Tiger : in his train a band of a thousand 
 warriors, who have left the walls of Clusium and the 
 city Cosse ; their weapons a sheaf of arrows, light 
 quivers for the shoulder, and a bow of deadly aim. 
 With him grim Abas : his whole band ablaze with 
 gleaming armor, his' vessel shining with a gilded 
 Apollo. Populonia had sent him six hundred of her 
 sons, all versed in war : Ilva three hundred, an island 
 rich in the Chalybes' unexhausted mines. Third comes 
 Asilas, the great interpreter 'tween gods and men, at 
 whose bidding are the victims' entrails, the stars of the 
 sk}', the tongues ofi augurial birds, and the flame of 
 the prophetic lightning. With him hurry a thousand 
 in close array, bristling with spears — subjected to his 
 command by the town of Pisa, which, sprung from 
 Alpheus, took root on Etruscan soil. After these is 
 Astur, fairest of form, Astur, proud of his steed and 
 his glancing armor. Three hundred follow him, all 
 with one lo^^al soul, from those who dwell in Caere and 
 in the plains of Minio, in ancient P3'rgi, and Gravisca's 
 tainted air. 
 
 I would not leave thee unsung, bravest chief of the 
 Ligurians, Cinyras, or Cupavo with scanty retinue, 
 whose helmet is surmounted by plumage of the swan : 
 love was your joint crime ; for love 3'ou wear the cogni- 
 zance of your father's form. For legend tells that 
 Cycnus, all for grief over his darling Phaethon, while 
 in the poplar shade and the leafage of the brotherless 
 sisters he keeps singing and consoling his sad passion 
 by the Muses' aid, drew over his form the soft plumage 
 
BOOK X. 376 
 
 of downj^ eld, mounting up from earth and sending his 
 voice before him to the stars. His son, with a band of 
 martial peers sailing at his side, propels with his oars 
 the enormous Centaur: the monster stands lowering 
 over the water, and threatens the billows with a huge 
 rock from his towering eminence, as he ploughs the 
 deep sea with the length of his keel. 
 
 Great Ocnus too is leading an army from the coasts 
 of his fathers, Ocnus, son of Manto the prophetess and 
 the Etruscan river, who bestowed On thee, Mantua, thy 
 city walls and the name of his mother, Mantua rich in 
 ancestral glories : but not all her sons of the same blood ; 
 three races are there, and under each race range four 
 nations : herself the queen of the nations, her strength 
 from Etruscan blood. Hence, too, Mezentius draws 
 against his life five hundred unfriendly swords — Min- 
 cius, child of Benacus, with his gray covering of reeds, 
 ushers into the deep their hostile bark. 
 
 On moves strong Aulestes, lashing the water as he 
 rises with the stroke of a hundred oars : the sea spouts 
 foam from its upturned surface. His bearer is a huge 
 Triton, whose shell strikes terror into the green bil- 
 lows : his shaggy front, breasting the water, down to the 
 side bespeaks the man ; the belly ends in a sea-mon- 
 ster : under the half bestial bosom the wave froths and 
 roars. 
 
 So many chosen chiefs were journeying in thirty ves- 
 sels to the succor of Troy, and ploughing with brazen 
 beak the expanse of brine. 
 
 And now the da}' had withdrawn from the sky, and 
 gracious Dian was trampling over the cope of heaven 
 with her night-flying steeds : ^neas the while, for care 
 refuses slumber to his frame, is seated at his post, him- 
 self guiding the rudder and trimming the sail — when 
 
376 THE ^NEID. 
 
 lo ! in the middle of his voyage he is met by a fair 
 bevy of comrades of his own : the Nymphs whom gra- 
 cious Cj^bele had invested with the deity of the sea, 
 and changed from ships to goddesses, were swimming 
 abreast and cleaving the billow, a nymph for each of 
 the brazen prows that erst had lined the shore. Far 
 off they recognize their king, and come dancing round 
 him in state : C^modoce, their skillfullest in speech, 
 swimming up behind, lays her right hand on the stern, 
 herself lifted breast-high above the water, while with 
 her left she paddles in the noiseless wave. Then thus 
 she breaks on his wondering ear : ' Wake you, -^neas, 
 seed of the gods? be wakeful still, and let the sail- 
 ropes go. "We it is you see, pines of Ida from the 
 sacred summit, Sea-nymphs now, your sometime fleet. 
 When the false Rutulian was hot at our backs with fire 
 and sword, reluctantly we burst your bonds, and are 
 now in full quest of 3'ou over the sea. This new shape 
 the great mother gave us in her pitj^, and granted us 
 the state of goddesses and lives to lead beneath the 
 water. Meantime young Ascanius is hemmed in by 
 rampart and trench, with serried weapons all around 
 him, and Latians bristling with battle. Already the 
 Arcadian horse mixed with the brave Etruscan has 
 gained the appointed spot : to bar their way with an 
 intervening host and cut them off from the camp is 
 Turnus' fixed intent. Rise, and with the earliest ap- 
 proach of dawn bid your allies be summoned to arms, 
 and take in hand that shield which the Fire-god him- 
 self made to be invincible and bordered with a marge 
 of gold. The morrow's sun, if you will but give cre- 
 dence to my words, shall survey might}' heaps of Rutu- 
 lian carnage.' Her speech was done : and as she 
 parted she gave with her hand an impulse to the loftj^ 
 
BOOK X. 377 
 
 stern, well knowing the due measure of force : on it 
 speeds over the wave, fleeter than dart and wind-swift 
 arrow both. The rest in order mend their speed. 
 Wondering he pauses, the great Trojan of Anchises' 
 line, yet cheers his soul with the omen. Then, looking 
 to the vault above, he prays in brief: ' Gracious mother 
 of the gods, lady of Ida, whose joy is in Dindymus, 
 and in turreted cities and harnessed lions at thy bridle- 
 rein, be thou now to me the controller of the fight, do 
 thou bring the presage nigh, and walk beside the Phr}^- 
 gians, mighty goddess, with favoring step.' Thus much 
 he said : and meanwhile day was returning at speed, 
 with its light grown to full strength, and night had 
 vanished before it. 
 
 First he gives orders to his comrades to obey the 
 heaventy token, and nerve their souls for combat, and 
 make ready for the fight. And now at last from his 
 station on the tall stern he has the Teucrians and his 
 camp in view, when on the instant his blazing shield is 
 raided high on his left arm. Up goes a shout to heaven 
 from the Dardans on their ramparts ; the gleam of hope 
 quickens wrath to fury ; they hurl a shower of javelins : 
 even as amid dark clouds cranes from Str3'mon give 
 token, sweeping sonorously over the sky, and flying 
 from the southern gale with sequacious clamor. But 
 the Rutulian king and the Ausonian generals wonder 
 at the sight, till, looking back, they behold the stems 
 bearing to the shore, and the whole water floating on 
 with vessels. There is a blaze on that helmet's sum- 
 mit, and from the crest on high streams the flame, and 
 the shield's golden boss disgorges mighty fires, even as 
 when on a clear night blood-hued comets glare with 
 gloomy red, or as the Sirian blaze, that harbinger of 
 
378 THE yENEID. 
 
 drought and sickness to weak mortalit}', breaks into 
 birth and saddens heaven with its ill-boding ra3^s. 
 
 Yet pause was none in bold Turnus' confidence to 
 forestall the landing-place, and beat off the comers from 
 the shore. His words are read}^ at the moment to en- 
 courage and upbraid : ' See here the occasion 3'ou longed 
 for, to break through them at the sword's point. A 
 brave man's hand is the War-god's chosen seat. Now 
 let each remember wife and home, recall the mighty 
 deeds that made 3'Our fathers great. Let us meet them 
 at once at the water's edge, while they are in the hurry 
 of landing, and the foot falters in its first tread on 
 shore. Valor has Fortune for its friend.' So saying, 
 he ponders with himself whom to lead to the attack, 
 and to whom he ma}^ trust the leaguer of the walls. 
 
 Meanwhile ^neas is landing his comrades from the 
 tall ship-sides by help of bridges. Many of them watch 
 for the ebb of the faihng sea, and venture a leap among 
 the shallows ; others resort to the oars. Tarchon, spying 
 out a place on the beach where the waters seethe not 
 nor the broken billows roar, but ocean without let 
 glides gently up the shore as the tide advances, sud- 
 denly turns his prows thither, and exhorts his crew : 
 ' Now, ye chosen band, ply your stout oars, lift the 
 vessels and carry them home : cleave with your beaks 
 this land that hates you ; let the keel plough its own 
 furrow. Even from shipwreck in a roadstead hke this 
 I would not shrink, could I once get hold of the soil.' 
 Tarchon having thus said, his crew rise on their oars 
 and bear down on the Latian plains with vessels all 
 foam, till the beaks have gained the dry land, and every 
 keel has come scatheless to its rest. Not so thy ship, 
 Tarchon : for while dashed on a sand-bank it totters on 
 the unequal ridge, poised in suspense a while, and buffet- 
 
BOOK X. 379 
 
 ing the waves, its sides give wa}-, and its men are set 
 down in the midst of the water: broken oars and float- 
 ing benches entangle them, and their feet are carried 
 back by the ebb of the wave. 
 
 No sluggish delay holds Turnus from his work : with 
 fier}^ speed he sweeps his whole army against the Teu- 
 crians, and plants them in the foe's face on the shore. 
 The clarions sound : first dashed ^neas on the rustic 
 ranks, a presage of the fight's fortune, and disarrayed 
 the Latians, slaying Theron, who in his giant strength is 
 assailing ^neas : piercing through quilted brass and 
 tunic stiflT with gold the sword devours his unguarded 
 side. Next he strikes Lycus, who was cut from the 
 womb of his dead mother and consecrated to thee, 
 Apollo, because his bab}' life had been suffered to 
 scape the peril of the steel. Hard by, as iron Cisseus and 
 gigantic Gyas were laying low his host with their clubs, 
 he casts them down in death : naught availed them ; 
 the weapons of Hercules or strong hands to wield them ; 
 or Melampus their sire, Alcides' constant follower, long 
 as earth found for him those grievous tasks. See there, 
 as Pharus is hurling forth words without deeds, he 
 flings at him his javelin and plants it in the bawler's 
 mouth. Thou, too, Cj'don, while following with ill- 
 starred quest the blooming Clytius, thj' latest jo}', hadst 
 lain stretched on the ground by the Dardan hand, a 
 piteous spectacle, at rest from the passions that were 
 ever in thy heart ; but thy brethren met the foe in close 
 band, the progeny of Phorcus : seven their number, 
 seven the darts they throw ; some rebound idl}^ from 
 shield and helm, some as they grazed the frame were 
 turned aside b^^ Venus' gentle power. Quick spoke 
 <^neas to true Achates ; ' Give me store of weapons ; 
 not one shall my hand hurl in vain against the Rutu- 
 
380 THE ^NEID, 
 
 lians, of all that have quivered in Grecian flesh on the 
 plains of Troy.' With that he seizes his mighty spear 
 and launches it : flying on it crashes through the brass 
 of Mason's shield and rends breastplate and breast at 
 once. Swift comes his brother Alcanor and props with 
 his hand the falling man : piercing the arm the spear 
 flies onward and holds its bloody course, and the dying 
 hand dangles b}^ the sinews from the shoulder-blade. 
 Then Numitor, snatching the javelin from his brother's 
 bod}", assails JEneas ; yet it might not lodge in the 
 enemy's front, but just grazed the thigh of mighty 
 Achates. 
 
 Now comes Clausus of Cures in the pride of his 
 3'outhful frame, and strikes Dr3'ops from a distance 
 under the chin with the strong impact of his stark 
 spear, and piercing his throat, robs him even as he 
 speaks of life and breath alike : the wounded man 
 strikes the earth with- his forehead and vomits from his 
 lips clotted blood. Three, too, from Thrace, of Boreas' 
 noblest lineage, and three sent to battle by Idas their 
 sire and Ismarus their country, he lays low by this 
 chance or that. To his side runs Halesus and the 
 Auruncan bands ; comes to his aid, too, the seed of 
 Neptune, steed-famed Messapus. Now these, now 
 those, strain to win the ground : the struggle is on 
 Ausonia's ver}^ threshold. As in the spacious heaven 
 jarring winds meet in battle, alike in spirit and in 
 strength, winds, storm-clouds, and ocean, neither fields 
 to the other : long doubtful hangs the fight ; all stand 
 in death-grips, front to front : even such the meeting 
 of the army of Troy and the army of Latium : foot is 
 set close to foot, and man massed with man. 
 
 But in another part of the field, where a torrent had 
 scattered wide whirling stones and trees uprooted from 
 
BOOK X. 381 
 
 its banks, soon as Pallas saw his Arcadians, unused to 
 wage war on foot, flying before the chase of Latium, in 
 that the cragginess of the soil had driven them to dis- 
 card their steeds, he tries the one remedy in sore dis- 
 tress, and now with prayers, now with bitter speeches, 
 inflames their valor : ' Whither fly ye, mates ? By j'our 
 gallant deeds I conjure 3'ou — by your chief Evander*8 
 name and victories won at his bidding — by m}^ own 
 promise, now shooting up in rivalry with my father's 
 glory — trust not to 3'our feet. It is the sword that must 
 hew us a waj' through the foe. Where yonder host of 
 men presses in thickest mass is the path by which our 
 noble country is calling you and your general Pallas 
 back to her arms. No deities sit lieavy on us : by a 
 mortal foe we are pressed, mortals ourselves : we have 
 as many lives, as many hands as they. Lo there ! the 
 sea hems us in with mighty ocean-barrier ; earth is 
 closed to our flight : shall the sea or Tro}" be our goal ? ' 
 This said, he dashes at the midst of the hostile throng. 
 The first that meets him is Lagus, brought to the spot 
 by fates unkind ; him, while tugging a stone of enor- 
 mous weight, he pierces with his whirled javelin, just 
 where the spine running down the back was parting the 
 ribs, and recovers the weapon from its lodgment among 
 the bones. Nor can Hisbo surprise him in the fact, 
 spite of his hopes ; for Pallas catches him rushing on 
 in blind fury for the pain of his comrade's death, and 
 buries the sword in his distended lungs. Next his blow 
 lights on Sthenelus, and Anchemolus of Rhoetus' ancient 
 line, who dared pollute his stepdame's couch. You, 
 too, twin brethren, fell on those Rutuhan plains, Larides 
 and Thymber, Daucus' resemblant oflspring, undistin- 
 guished even by your kin, a sweet perplexitj^ to those 
 who bore you : but now Pallas has marked you with a 
 
382 THE JSNEW. 
 
 cruel difference ; for you, poor Thymber, have your 
 head shorn off by the Evandrian sword ; your hand, 
 Larides, severed from the arm, is looking in vain for 
 you its master ; the fingers, half alive, are quivering 
 yet and closing again on the steel. 
 
 Arcadia's sons, stung by their chief's rebuke and 
 gazing on his glorious deeds, rush on the foe, strong 
 in the armor of mingled rage and shame. Then Pallas 
 strikes through Rhoetus as he flies past him on his car. 
 So much space and respite from his end did Ilus gain ; 
 for 'twas at Ilus he had launched from the distance his 
 stalwart spear : Rhcetus comes between and catches it, 
 flying from thee, noble Teuthras, and Tyre^s thy brother ; 
 and tumbled from his car he beats with his dying heel 
 the Rutulian plains. Even as when the winds have 
 risen at his wish on a summer's day, a shepherd lets 
 loose his scattered flames among the woods, in a mo- 
 ment catching all that comes between, the Fire-god's 
 army in one bristling line stretches over the broad 
 plains : he from his seat beholds the triumphant blaze 
 with a conqueror's pride : even so the valor of thy 
 friends musters from all sides on one point to aid thee, 
 Pallas. But Halesus, that fier}' warrior, moves against 
 their opposing ranks, gathering himself up into his 
 arms. Ladon he massacres, and Pheres, and Demo- 
 docus : Strymonius' right hand, raised against his 
 throat, he lops away Avith his gleaming sword ; with a 
 stone he strikes the front of Thoas, and has crushed the 
 bones mixed with gory brain. Halesus had been hid- 
 den in the woods b}^ his prophetic sire ; when the old 
 man closed his whitening eyes in death, the Fates 
 claimed their victim, and devoted him to Evander's 
 darts. And now Pallas aims at him, after these words 
 of prayer : ' Grant, Father Tiber, to the flying steel 
 
BOOK X. 383 
 
 poised in m}^ hand a prosperous passage through Ha- 
 lesus' hardy breast ; thine oak shall have his arms and 
 his warrior spoils.' The god gave ear : while Halesus 
 shielded Imaon, he gives his own breast in evil hour 
 unarmed to the Arcadian lance. 
 
 But Lausus, himself a mighty portion of the war, 
 suffers not his troops to be dismayed by the hero's 
 dreadful carnage : first he slays Abas, who had met 
 him front to front, the breakwater and barrier of fight. 
 Down go the sons of Arcadia, down go the Etruscans, 
 and ye, too, Teucrians, whose frames Greece could not 
 destroy. The armies clash, their leaders and their 
 powers the same. The rear ranks close up the battle ; 
 nor weapon nor hand can be moved for the crowd. 
 Here is Pallas pushing and pressing, there Lausus over 
 against him : their years scarceh^ differ ; each has a 
 comely form ; but Fortune had already written that 
 neither should return to his home. Tet were they not 
 suffered to meet man to man bj^ great Ol^^mpus' lord : 
 each has his fate assigned him ere long at the hand of 
 a mightier enem3\ 
 
 Turnus meanwhile is warned by his gracious sister to 
 come to Lausus' aid ; and with his flying car he cleaves 
 the intervening ranks. Soon as he met his comrades' 
 eye : ' You may rest from battle now ; I alone am com- 
 ing against Pallas. Pallas is my due, and mine alone ; 
 would that his sire were here to see us fight.' He said ; 
 and his friends retired from the interdicted space. But 
 as the Rutulians withdraw, the young warrior, mar- 
 veling at the haughty command, gazes astonished on 
 Turnus, rolls his eyes over that giant frame, and 
 sweeps the whole man from afar with fieiy glance, and 
 with words like these meets the words of the monarch : 
 * I shall soon be famous either for kingly trophies won 
 
384 THE jENEID. 
 
 or for an illustrious death ; m}^ sire is equal to either 
 event : a truce to menace.' This said, he marches into 
 the middle space; while the Arcadians' blood chills 
 and curdles about their hearts. Down from his car 
 leaps Turnus, and addresses himself to fight on foot. 
 And as when a lion has seen from a high watch-tower 
 a bull standing at distance in the field and meditating 
 fight, he flies to the spot, even thus looks Turnus as he 
 bounds along. 
 
 Soon as he judged his foe would be within reach of 
 his spear- throw, Pallas begins the combat, in hope that 
 Fortune may help the venture of unequal powers, and 
 utters these words to the mighty heaven : ' By my 
 sire's hospitality and the board where thou satest as a 
 stranger, I pra}^ thee, Alcides, stand by me in m}^ great 
 endeavor. Let Turnus see me strip the bloody arms 
 from his dying frame, and may his glazing eyes endure 
 the sight of a conqueror.' Alcides heard the youth, 
 and stifled a heav}^ groan deep down in his breast, and 
 shed forth unavaihng tears. Then the Almighty Father 
 bespeaks his son with kindly words : ' Each has his 
 fixed day : short and irretrievable is the span of all 
 men ; but to propagate glory by great deeds, this is 
 what worth can do. Think of those many sons of gods 
 who fell beneath Troy's lofty walls : among whom died 
 even Sarpedon, my own offspring. For Turnus, too, 
 the call of his destiny has gone forth, and he has 
 reached the term of his allotted days.' So he speaks, 
 and turns awaj- his ej^es from the Rutulian plain. 
 
 But Pallas with a mighty. effort sends forth his spear, 
 and plucks from the hollow scabbard his flashing sword. 
 On flies the weapon, strikes where the margin of the 
 harness rises towards the shoulder, and forcing its way 
 through the buckler's edge, at last even grazed the 
 
BOOK X. 385 
 
 mighty frame of Turnus. Then Turnus, long poising 
 his beam with its point of sharp steel, hurls it at Pallas, 
 with these words : ' See whether our weapon be not the 
 keener.' So he : while cleaving those many plates of 
 iron and brass, spite of the bull-hides wound oft and 
 oft about, the point strikes through the shield's midst 
 with quivering impact, and pierces the corselet's bar- 
 rier and the mighty breast beyond. In vain the 3 outh 
 tears the reeking dart from the wound : as it parts, 
 blood and life follow on its track. He falls forward on 
 his wound : his arms resound upon him, and with his 
 bloody jaws in death he bites the hostile earth. Stand- 
 ing over him, Turnus began : ' Men of Arcady, take 
 heed and carry my words to Evander : I send back 
 Pallas handled as his sire deserves. If there be any 
 honor in a tomb, any solace in burial, let him take it 
 freely ; his welcome of ^neas will be costly notwith- 
 standing.' Then with his left foot as he spoke, he trod 
 on the dead, tearing away the belt's huge weight and 
 the crime thereon engraved : that band of youths slain 
 foully all on one wedding night, and the chambers dab- 
 bled with blood : Clonus Eurytides had chased it on the 
 broad field of gold : and now Turnus triumphs in the 
 prize, and exults in his winning. Blind are the eyes 
 of man's soul to destiny and doom to be, nor knows it 
 to respect the limit, when upborne by prosperous for- 
 tune ! Turnus shall see the da}" when he will fain have 
 paid a high price for Pallas unharmed, when he will 
 hate the spoils and the hour he won them ! But Pallas' 
 followers, with many a groan and tear, are bearing off 
 their chief on his shield in long procession. Oh, vision 
 of sorrow and great glory, soon to meet thy father's eye ! 
 this day first gave thee to battle, this day withdraws 
 25 
 
386 THE ^NEID. 
 
 the gift, yet vast are the heaps thou leavest of Eutu- 
 lian carnage ! 
 
 And now not the mere rumor of a blow so dreadful, 
 but surer intelligence flies to -^neas, that his army is 
 but a hand-breadth's remove from death — that it is 
 high time to succor the routed Teucrians. With his 
 sword he mows down all that crosses him, and all on 
 fire hews a broad pathway through the ranks ,with the 
 steel, seeking thee, Turnus, fresh flushed with slaughter. 
 Pallas, Evander, the whole scene stands before his 
 eyes — the board where he had first sate as a stranger, 
 the outstretched hands of fellowship. At once he 
 takes alive four youths born of Sulmo, and other four 
 reared by Ufens, that he may offer them as victims to 
 the dead, and sprinkle the funeral flame with their cap- 
 tive gore. Next he had leveled his spear from afar at 
 Magus. Magus deftly runs beneath, while the quiver- 
 ing spear flies over his head, and clasping the enemy's 
 knees, utters these words of suppliance : ' B}^ your dead 
 father's soul, and the dawning promise of lulus, I pray 
 you spare my poor hfe for my son and my sire. I have 
 a lofty palace : deep in its vaults lie talents of chased 
 silver; masses of gold are mine, wrought and un- 
 wrought both. The \dctory of Troy hangs not on my 
 fortunes, nor can a single life make difference so great.' 
 He spoke, and ^neas thus makes reply : ' Those many 
 talents you name of silver and gold, keep them for 
 your sons. Turnus was the first to put an end to such 
 trading usages of war at the moment when he slew 
 Pallas. My sire Anchises' ghost, and my son lulus, 
 speak their thoughts through me.' This said, with his 
 left hand he grasps the helmet and drives his sword 
 hilt-deep through the suppliant's back-drawn neck. 
 Hard by was Haemonides, priest of Phoebus and Trivia, 
 
BOOK X. 387 
 
 Ms temples wreathed with the fillet's sacred band, glit- 
 tering all over with gay raiment and goodly armor. 
 Him he meets, drives over the plain, stands over him 
 fallen, sacrifices the victim, and whelms him in a 
 mighty shade ; the arms are stripped and carried off on 
 Serestus' shoulders, a trophy to thee, royal Gradivus. 
 The ranks are rallied by Cgeculus, scion of Vulcan's 
 stock, and Umbro, who comes from the Volscian hills. 
 The Dardan chief puts forth his rage against them. 
 Already had he mowed down with his sword Anxur's 
 left hand and the whole orb of the shield he bore — 
 that foe, I ween, had uttered a haughty boast, and 
 deemed that his hand would second his tongue, and 
 was swelling in spirit to the stars, with an assured 
 hope of gray hairs and length of days — when Tarqui- 
 tus, in the pride of gleaming armor, borne by the 
 nj^mph Dry ope to woodland Faunus, crossed his fiery 
 path. Drawing back his spear, he hampers the corselet 
 and the buckler's weighty mass ; then he sweeps to the 
 ground the head, as the lips were vainly praying and 
 essaying to say a thousand things, and dashing before 
 him the reeking trunk, utters thus the fierceness of his 
 heart : ' Lie there, doughty warrior ! never shall* your 
 tender mother give 3'ou burial, or pile your father's 
 tomb above your limbs ; no, you will be left to savage 
 birds, or the river will carry you whelmed by its eddies, 
 and hungry fish will lick your wounds.* Next he hunts 
 down Antaeus and Lucas, of Turnus' first rank, and 
 gallant Numa, and yellow Gamers, son of noble Vol- 
 scens, who was wealthiest in land of Ausonia's chil- 
 dren, and reigned over voiceless Amyclae. Even as 
 ^gaeon, who, fable tells, had a hundred arms and a 
 hundred hands, and flashed fire through fifty mouths 
 from the depth of fifty bosoms, what time against 
 
388 THE jENETD. 
 
 Jove's lightning he thundered on fifty strong shields » 
 and drew forth fifty sharp swords, so jEneas slakes 
 his victorious fury the whole field over, when once 
 his blade had grown warm with blood. See ! he is 
 advancing against Niphseus' four harnessed steeds, and 
 setting his breast against theirg. At once they, soon 
 as they saw his lofty stride and his fierce gestures, turn 
 round affrighted, and, rushing backward, unseat their 
 master and hurr}^ the car to the beach. Meanwhile Lu- 
 cagus forces his way into the midst, drawn by two 
 white horses, with Liger his brother ; but the brother 
 guides the steeds with the rein, while Lucagus sweeps 
 fiercely round his naked sword, ^neas brooked not 
 the fury of their fiery onset, but rushed against them, 
 and stood fronting them in his giant bulk with threat- 
 ening spear. To him cried Liger : ' These are not 
 Diomede's steeds you see, nor this Achilles' chariot, 
 nor are these the Phrygian plains ; 3'our warfare and 
 your life shall end here on Italian ground.' So fly 
 abroad the random words of frantic Liger. The chief 
 of Troy seeks not to meet him with words, but hurls 
 his javehn at the foe. Even as Lucagus, bending for- 
 ward over the stroke, pricked on his horses with the 
 steel, and advancing his left foot prepares himself for 
 fight, the spear pierces the last margin of the radiant 
 shield and enters the groin at the left : down he falls 
 from the car and wallows in death on the plain ; while 
 good ^neas bespeaks him with words of gall : ' So, 
 Lucagus, it is no craven flight of your steeds that has 
 played your- car false; no empty shadow cast by the 
 foe has turned them ; no, it is you that spring down 
 from the wheels, and leave the horses \o their fate.' 
 With these words he laid hold of the bridles, while the 
 wretched brother, gliding down from the car, was 
 
BOOK X 389 
 
 stretching Ms recreant hands : ' Oh, by yourself, by the 
 parents that gave such greatness birth, spare this poor 
 life, brave hero of Troy, and let prayer find compas- 
 sion/ ^neas cut short his entreaties : ' Not such were 
 your words a moment ago ; die, and forsake not your 
 brother, as brother should;' and cleaving the bosom 
 with his sword, he laid bare the seat of breath. Such 
 were the deaths that the Dardan leader dealt about the 
 plains, storming along like torrent wave or murky tem- 
 pest. At length the prisoners burst forth and leave 
 their camp, the young Ascanius and the soldiery be- 
 leaguered in vain. 
 
 Jupiter meanwhile first addresses Juno : ' Sister mine 
 and sweetest wife in one, Venus it is, even as thou 
 didst suppose — for thy judgment is never at fault — 
 that upholds the powers of the Trojans, not the war- 
 riors' own keen right hand and the courageous soul that 
 braves everj^ peril.' Juno returned, meekly : ' Why, 
 my fairest lord, dost thou vex a sick spirit that quails 
 before thy cruel speeches ? Had my love the force it 
 once had, and which should still be its own, this at 
 least thou wouldst not deny me, almighty as thou art, 
 the power to withdraw Turnus from the fight and pre- 
 serve him in safety for Daunus his father. As it is, 
 let him perish, and glut the Teucrian vengeance with 
 his righteous blood. Yet he draws his name from our 
 lineage, and Pilumnus is his grandsire's grandsire ; and 
 often has th}' temple been loaded with store of offer- 
 ings from his bounteous hand.' To whom, in brief 
 reply, the lord of skyey Olympus : ' If thy prayer for 
 the doomed youth is respite and breathing-space from 
 present death, and so thou readest my will, bear thou 
 Turnus away in flight, and snatch him from the des- 
 tiny that presses on his heels. Thus far is room for 
 
390 THE jENEID. 
 
 compliance. But if any deeper favor be hidden under 
 these praj^ers of thine, and thou deemest that the war's 
 whole course can be moved or changed, thou art nurs- 
 ing an empty hope/ Juno answered with tears : ' What 
 if thy heart were to grant what thy tongue grudges, 
 and Turnus' life were pledged to continue? As it is, a 
 heavy doom hangs over his guiltless head, or I am void 
 of truth and wandering in delusion. But oh, that I 
 might rather be the sport of lying terrors, and thou, 
 who canst, lead back thy counsels by a better road ! ' 
 
 This said, from the lofty sky she shot forthwith, driv- 
 ing storm before her through the air and girt with the 
 rain-cloud, and sought the army of Ilium and the camp 
 of Laurentum. Then, as goddesses may, she fashions 
 a thin, strengthless shadow of hollow cloud in the 
 likeness of ^neas, a marvel to the eyes, accouters it 
 with Dardau weapons, and counterfeits the shield and 
 the crest of the god-like head, gives it empty words 
 and tones without soul, and renders to the life the step 
 and the gait : even as the shapes that are said to flit 
 when death is past, or the dreams that mock the sense 
 of slumber. So the phantom strides triumphant in the 
 van, goading the enemy with brandished weapons and 
 defiant speech. Turnus comes on, and hurls from far 
 his hurtling spear ; it turns its back and retires. Then, 
 when Turnus thought ^neas flying in retreat, and 
 snatched in the vehemence of his soul at the empty 
 hope : ' Whither so fast, ^neas ? ' cries he : ' nay, 
 leave not your promised bridal; this hand shall give 
 you the soil you have sought for the ocean over.' So 
 with loud shouts he follows, waving his drawn sword, 
 nor sees that the winds are bearing ofl* his triumph. It 
 chanced that a ship was standing moored to the edge 
 of a lofty rock, its ladder let down, its bridge ready to 
 
BOOK X, 391 
 
 cross — the ship which had carried king Osinius from 
 the borders of Chisium. Hither, as in haste, the sem- 
 blance of the fljing ^neas plunged for shelter. Tur- 
 nus follows as fast, bounds over all obstacles, and 
 springs across the high-raised bridge. Scarce had he 
 touched the prow when Saturn's daughter breaks the 
 mooring and sweeps the sundered ship along the reced- 
 ing flood. JEneas meanwhile is claiming the combat 
 with his absent foe, and sending down to death many a 
 warrior frame that crosses his way. Then the air}^ 
 phantom seeks shelter no longer, but soaring aloft 
 blends with the murky atmosphere, while Turnus is 
 borne by the wind down the middle of the tide. Igno- 
 rant of the event, and unthankful for escape, he looks 
 back, his hands and his voice addressed to the sky: 
 ' Almighty sire ! hast thou judged me worthy of an 
 infliction like this, and sentenced me to this depth of 
 suffering ? Whither am I bound ? whence have I come ? 
 what is this flight that is bearing me home, and what 
 does it make of me? Shall I look again on Lauren- 
 tum's camp and city ? what of that warrior troop who 
 followed me and my standard? Are they not those 
 whom I left — horror to tell — all of them in the jaws 
 of a cruel death — whom I now see scattered in rout, 
 and hear their groans as they fall? What can I do? 
 what lowest depth of earth will 3'awn forme? Nay, 
 do you, ye winds, have compassion — on reef, on rock 
 — see, it is I, Turnus, who am fain to plead — dash me 
 this vessel, and lodge it on the sandbank's ruthless 
 shoal, where none that know my shame, Rutuli or 
 rumor, may find me out ! ' So speaking, he swa3's in 
 spirit to this side and to that : should he for disgrace 
 so foul impale his frenzied breast on the sword's point, 
 and drive the stark blade through his ribs, or fling him- 
 
392 THE jENEID. 
 
 self into the midst of the waves, and make by swim- 
 ming for the winding shore, and place himself again 
 among the Teucrian swords ? Thrice he essayed either 
 way : thrice mighty Juno kept him back, and of her 
 great pity withheld the youth from action. On he 
 flies, ploughing the deep with wave and tide to speed 
 him, and is borne safely to the ancient town of Daunus 
 his sire. 
 
 Prompted meanwhile by Jove, Mezentius, all on fire, 
 takes up the war, and charges the triumphant Teucrians. 
 The Tyrrhene host flocks to the spot, bending all their 
 fury, all their showering darts on one, one only man. 
 Even as a rock which juts into the mighty deep, ex- 
 posed to the rage of the wind and braving the sea, 
 bears all the violence and menace of heaven and 
 ocean, itself unshaken, he stands unmoved ; now he 
 lays low Hebrus, Dolichaon's child, and with him Lata- 
 gus and craven Palmus : Latagus he strikes on the 
 face and front with a stone, a hill's enormous fragment, 
 Palmus he suffers to roll hamstrung in his coward- 
 ice ; their harness he gives to Lausus to wear on his 
 shoulders, their crests to adorn his head. Euanthes, 
 too, the Phrygian, and Mimas, Paris' playmate, borne 
 by Theano to Amycus his sire, the self-same night 
 when Cisseus' royal daughter, teeming with a fire- 
 brand, gave birth to Paris; he sleeps beneath his 
 father's walls, while Mimas has his rest on Lauren- 
 tum's unknown shore. Like as the mighty boar driven 
 by fangs of hounds from mountain heights, the boar 
 whom pine-crowned Vesulus or Laurentum's pool shel- 
 ters these many years, pastured on the reedy jungle, 
 soon as he finds himself among the nets, stands at 
 bay, snorting with fury and bristling his back ; none 
 has the courage to flame forth and come near him; 
 
BOOK X. 393 
 
 at safe distance they press him with their darts and 
 their cries ; even so of them who hate Mezentiiis with 
 a righteous hate, none has the heart to face him with 
 drawn steel ; with missiles and deafening shouts they, 
 assail him from afar; while he, undaunted, is pausing 
 now here, now there, gnashing his teeth, and shakes 
 off the javelins from his buckler's hide. There was 
 one Acron from Cory thus' ancient borders, a Grecian 
 wight, who had fled forth leaving his nuptials yet to 
 celebrate ; him, when Mezentius saw at distance scat- 
 tering the intervening ranks,, in pride of crimson plu- 
 mage and the purple of his plighted bride, even as oft 
 a ftimished lion ranging through high-built stalls — for 
 frantic hunger is his prompter — if he chance to mark 
 a flying goat or towering-antlered deer, grins with 
 huge delight, sets up his mane, and hangs over the 
 rent flesh, while loathly blood laves his insatiate jaws 
 — so jo3'fully springs Mezentius on the foe's cluster- 
 ing mass. Down goes ill-starred Acron, spurns the 
 blackened ground in the pangs of death, and d3^es 
 with blood the broken spear. Nor did the chief deign 
 to strike down Orodes as he fled, or deal from a spear- 
 throw a wound unseen : full in front he meets him, 
 and engages him as man should man, prevailing not 
 by guile but by sheer force of steel. Then with foot 
 and lance planted on the back-flung body : ' See, gal- 
 lants, a bulwark of the war has fallen in tall Orodes,' 
 and his comrades shout in unison, taking up the tri- 
 umphal paean. The dying man returns : ' Whoever 
 thou art, thy victorious boasting shall not be long or 
 unavenged ; for thee, too, a like fate is watching, and 
 thou shalt soon lie on these self-same fields.' Mezen- 
 tius answers, with hate mantling in his smile : ' Die 
 now. The sire of gods and king of men shall make 
 
394 THE yENEID. 
 
 his account with me.' So saying, he drew forth the 
 spear from the body : the heav}" rest of iron slumber 
 settles down on its eyes, and their beams are curtained 
 in everlasting night. 
 
 Caedicus slaughters Alcathous, Sacrator Hj^daspes, 
 Rapo kills Parthenius and Orses of iron frame, Messa- 
 pus slays Clonius and Ericetes, Lycaon's son, that 
 groveling on the ground by a fall from his unbridled 
 steed, this encountered foot to foot. Prancing forward 
 came Agis of Lycia ; but Valerus, no unworthy heir of 
 his grandsire's prowess, hurls him down : Thronius 
 falls by Salius, and Salius by Nealces, hero of the 
 javehn and the shaft that surprises from far. 
 
 And now the War-god's heavy hand was dealing out 
 to each equal measures of agony and carnage ; alike 
 they were slaying, alike falling dead, victors and van- 
 quished by turns, flight unthought of both by these and 
 by those. The gods in Jove's palace look pityingly on 
 the idle rage of the warring hosts — alas, that death- 
 doomed men should suffer so terribly ! Here Venus 
 sits spectator, there over against her Saturnian Juno. 
 Tisiphone, ashy pale, is raving among thousands down 
 below. But see ! Mezentius, shaking his giant spear, 
 is striding into the field, an angry presence. Think of 
 the stature of Orion, as he overtops the billows with 
 his shoulders, when he stalks on foot through the very 
 heart of Nereus' mighty depths that part before him, 
 or as carrying an aged ash in triumph from the hill-top 
 he plants his tread on the ground, and hides his head 
 among the clouds above: thus it is that Mezentius in 
 enormous bulk shoulders his way. ^neas spies him 
 along the length of the battle, and makes haste to 
 march against him. He abides undismayed, waiting 
 for his gallant foe, and stands like column on its base ; 
 
BOOK X. 895 
 
 then, measuring with his eye the distance that may 
 suffice for his spear, ' Now let my right hand, the god 
 of my worship, and the missile dart I am poising, 
 vouchsafe their aid I Tvow that you, my Lausus, clad 
 in spoils torn from yonder robber's carcass, shall stand 
 in your own person the trophy of JEneas/ He said, 
 and threw from far his hurtling lance : flying onward, 
 it glances aside from the shield, and strikes in the dis- 
 tance noble Antores 'twixt side and flank, Antores, 
 comrade of Hercules, who, sent from Argos had cloven 
 to Evander's fortunes and sat him down in an Italian 
 home. Now he falls, ill-fated, by a wound meant for 
 other, and gazes on the sky, and dreams in death of 
 his darling Argos. Then good JEneas hurls his spear ; 
 through the hollow disk with its triple plating of brass, 
 through the folds of linen and the texture wherein three 
 bulls joined, it won its way and lodged low down in 
 the groin, but its force held not on. In a moment 
 ^neas, gladdened by the sight of the Tuscan's blood, 
 plucks his sword from his thigh and presses hotly on 
 his unnerved foe. 
 
 Soon as Lausus saw, he gave a heavy groan of ten- 
 derness for the sire he loved, and tears trickled down 
 his face. And here, gallant youth, neither the cruel 
 chance of thy death, nor thy glorious deeds, if antiquity 
 may gain credence for so great a sacrifice, nor thine 
 own most worthy memorj^ shall be unsung through fault 
 of mine. The father, dragging back his foot, disabled 
 and entangled, was quitting the field, his enemy's spear- 
 shaft trailing from his buckler. Forth dashed the 
 youth and mingled in the duel, and even as JEneas was 
 rising with hand and body and bringing down a blow 
 from above, met the shock of the sword, and gave the 
 swordsman pause ; his comrades second him with a 
 
396 THE ^NEID, 
 
 mighty shout, covering the father's retreat as sheltered 
 by his son's shield he withdraws from the fray, hurl a 
 rain of darts, and strive with distant missiles to dis- 
 lodge the foe. JEneas glows with anger, and keeps 
 within the covert of his arms. Even as on a time when 
 storm-clouds sweep down in a burst of hail, every 
 ploughman, every husbandman has fled scattering from 
 the field, and the traveler lies hid in a stronghold of 
 safety, either some river-bank or vault of lofty rock, 
 while the rain is pelting on the lands, in the hope that 
 with the returning sun they may task the day once 
 more, even so, stormed on by javelins from all sides, 
 ^neas endures the thunder-cloud of war till all its 
 artillery be spent, and keeps chiding Lausus and 
 threatening Lausus : ' Whither are you rushing on your 
 death, with aims beyond your strength ? Your duteous 
 heart blinds your reckless valor.' Yet he bates not a 
 jot in his frantic onslaught ; and now the Dardan 
 leader's wrath surges into fury, and the fatal sisters 
 are gathering up Lausus' last thread,, for ^neas drives 
 his forceful blade sheer through the youth's bod}^, and 
 buries it wholly within him. Pierced is the . shield by 
 the edge, the light armor he carried so threateningly, 
 and the tunic embroidered by his mother with delicate 
 golden thread, and his bosom is deluged with blood ; 
 and anon the life flits through the air regretfully to the 
 shades and the body is left tenantless. But when the 
 son of Anchises saw the look and countenance of the 
 dying — the countenance with its strange and varying 
 hues of pallor — heavily he groaned for pity and 
 stretched forth his hand, and the portraiture of filial 
 love stood before his soul. ' What now, hapless boy, 
 what shall the good ^neas give you worthy of your 
 merit and of a heart like yours ? Let the arms wherein 
 
BOOK X. 897 
 
 you took pride be 3'our own still ; yourself I restore to 
 the company of your ancestors, their shades and their 
 ashes, if that be aught to you now. This at least, ill- 
 starred as you are, shall solace the sadness of your 
 death : it is great Eneas' hand that brings you low/ 
 Then without more ado he chides the slackness of his 
 comrades, and lifts their young chief from the earth, 
 as he lay dabbling his trim locks with gore. 
 
 Meanwhile the father at the wave of Tiber's flood 
 was stanching his wounds with water, and giving ease 
 to his frame, leaning on a tree's trunk. His brazen 
 helmet is hanging from a distant bough, and his heavy 
 arms are resting on the mead. Round him stand his 
 bravest warriors : he, sick and panting, is reheving his 
 neck, while his flowing beard scatters over his bosom : 
 many a question asks he about Lausus, many a mes- 
 senger he sends to call him oflf' and convey to him the 
 charge of his grieving sire. But Lausus the while was 
 being carried breathless on his shield by a train of 
 weeping comrades, a mighty spirit quelled by a mighty 
 wound. The distant groan told its tale to that ill- 
 boding heart. He defiles his gray hairs with a shower 
 of dust, stretches his two palms to heaven, and clings 
 to the body. ' My son ! and was I enthralled by so 
 strong a love of life as to suffer you, mine own oflT- 
 spring, to meet the foeman's hand in my stead ? Are 
 these your wounds preserving your sire? is he living 
 through your death ? Alas ! now at length I know the 
 miser}' of banishment ! now the iron is driven home I 
 Ay, it was I, my son, that stained your name with 
 guilt, driven by the hate I gendered from the throne 
 and realm of my father ! Retribution was due to my 
 country anfi to my subjects' wrath : would that I had 
 let out my forfeit life through all the death-wounds 
 
398 THE JENEID. 
 
 they aimed ! And now I live on, nor as yet leave day- 
 light and human kind— but leave them I will.' So 
 saying, he raises himself on his halting thigh, and 
 though the deep wound makes his strength flag, calls 
 for his war-horse with no downcast mien. This was 
 ever his glory and his solace : this still carried him 
 victorious from every battle-field. He addresses the 
 grieving creature and bespeaks it thus : ' Long, 
 Rhaebus, have we twain lived, if aught be long to those 
 who must die. To-day 3'ou shall either bear in victory 
 the bloody spoils and head of ^neas yonder, and join 
 with me to avenge my Lausus* sufferings, or if our 
 force suffice not to clear the way, we will lie down to- 
 gether in death : for never, I ween, m}^ gallant one, 
 will 3^ou stoop to a stranger's bidding and endure a 
 Teucrian lord.' He said, and mounting on its back 
 settled his limbs as he was wont, and charged his two 
 hands with pointed javelins, his head shining with brass 
 and shaggy with horse-hair cres^ So he bounded into 
 the midst — his heart glowing at once with mighty 
 shame, madness and agony commingled. Then with a 
 loud voice he thrice called on JEneas : ay, and ^neas 
 knew it, and prays in ecstasy : ' May the great father 
 of the gods, may royal Apollo grant that you come to 
 the encounter ! ' So much said, he marches to meet 
 him with brandished spear. The other replies : ' Why 
 terrify me, fellest of foes, now you have robbed me of 
 my son? this was the only way by which you could 
 work my ruin. I fear not death, nor give quartet to 
 any deity. Enough: I am coming to die, and send 
 you this my present first.' He said, and flung a javelin 
 at his enemy : then he sends another and another to its 
 mark, wheeling round in a vast ring : but the golden 
 shield bides the blow. Three times, wheeling from 
 
BOOK X. 399 
 
 right to left, he rode round the foe that faced him, 
 flinging darts from his hand : three times the hero of 
 Troy moves round, cariying with him a vast grove 
 planted on his brazen plate. Then, when he begins to 
 tire of the long delaj^ and the incessant plucking out 
 of darts, and feels the unequal combat press him hard, 
 meditating many things, at last he springs from his 
 covert, and hurls his spear full between the hollow 
 temples of the warrior-steed. The gallant beast rears 
 itself upright, lashes the air with its heels, and flinging 
 the rider, falls on and encumbers him, and itself bowed 
 to earth presses with its shoulder the prostrate chief. 
 Up flies ^neas, plucks forth his sword from its scab- 
 bard, and bespeaks the fallen : ' Where now is fierce 
 Mezentius and that his savage vehemence of spirit?' 
 To whom the Tuscan, soon as opening his eyes on the 
 light he drank in the heaven and regained his sense : 
 ' Insulting foe, why reproach me and menace me with 
 death ? You may kill me without crime : I came not 
 to battle to be spared, nor was that the league which 
 my Lausus ratified with you for his father. One boon 
 I ask, in the name of that grace, if any there be, which 
 is due to a vanquished enemy : suffer my corpse to be 
 interred. The hot hatred of my subjects, well I know, 
 is blazing all round me : screen me, I pray, from their 
 fury, and vouchsafe me a share in .the tomb of my 
 son.' So sa3dng, with full resolve he welcomes the 
 sword to his throat, and spreads his life over his armor 
 in broad streams of blood. 
 
400 THE jENEID, 
 
 BOOK XI. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Goddess of Dawn has risen and left 
 the ocean. JEneas, though duty presses to find leisure 
 for interring his friends, and his mind is still wildered 
 b}' the scene of blood, was paying his vows to heaven 
 as conqueror should at the da3'-star's rise. A giant oak, 
 lopped all round of its branches, he sets up on a mound, 
 and arrays it in gleaming arms, the royal spoils of Me- 
 zentius, a trophy to thee, great Lord of War: thereto 
 he attaches the crest j^et raining blood, the warrior's 
 weapons notched and broken, and the hauberk stricken 
 and pierced b}- twelve several wounds : to the left hand 
 he binds the brazen shield, and hangs to the neck the 
 ivory-hilted sword. Then he begins thus to give charge 
 to his triumphant friends, for the whole company of 
 chiefs had gathered to his side : ' A mighty deed, 
 gallants, is achieved already : dismiss all fear for the 
 future : see here the spoils, the tyrant's first-fruits : see 
 here Mezentius as my hands have made him. Now our 
 march is to the king and the walls of Latium. Set the 
 battle in array in your hearts and let hope forestall the 
 fray, that no delay may cheek j^our ignorance at the 
 moment when heaven gives leave to pluck up the stand- 
 ards and lead forth our chivalry from the camp, no 
 coward resolve palsy your steps with fear. Meanwhile, 
 consign we to earth the unburied carcasses of our 
 friends, that solitary honor which is held in account in 
 the pit of Acheron. Go,' he says, ' grace with the last 
 tribute those glorious souls, who have bought for us 
 this our father-land with the price of their blood : and 
 
, BOOK XL 401 
 
 first to Evander's sorrowing town send we Pallas, who, 
 lacking naught of manly worth, has been reft by the 
 evil da}', and whelmed in darkness before his time.' 
 
 So he says weeping, and returns to his tent-door, 
 where the body of breathless Pallas, duly laid out, was 
 being watched by Acoetes the aged, who had in old 
 days been armor-bearer to Evander his Arcadian lord, 
 but then in an hour less happy was serving as the ap- 
 pointed guardian of the pupil he loved. Around the 
 corpse were thronging the retinue of menials and the 
 Trojan train, and dames of Ilion with their hair un- 
 bound in mourning fashion. But soon as JEneas entered 
 the lofty portal, a mighty wail they raise to the stars, 
 smiting on their breasts, and the royal dwelling groans 
 to its center with their agony of woe. He, when he saw 
 the pillowed head and countenance of Pallas in his 
 beauty, and the deep cleft of the Ausonian spear in his 
 marble bosom, thus speaks, breaking into tears : ' Can 
 it be, unhappy bo}^ that Fortune at the moment of her. 
 triumphant flood-tide has grudged you to me, forbid- 
 ding you to look on mj^ kingdom, and ride back victo- 
 rious to your father's home ? Not such was the parting 
 pledge I gave on your behalf to 3'our sire Evander, 
 when, clasping me to his heart, he sent me on my way 
 to mighty empire, and anxiously warned me that the 
 foe was fierce and the rap we should war with stub- 
 born. And now he belike at this very moment in the 
 deep delusion of empty hope is making vows to 
 Heaven and piling the altars with gifts, while we are 
 following his darling, void of life, and owing no dues 
 henceforward to anj^ power on high, with the vain ser- 
 vice of our sorrow. Ill-starred father ! your eyes shall 
 see what cruel death has made of your son. And is this 
 the proud return, the triumph we looked for? has my 
 26 
 
402 THE jENEID. 
 
 solemn pledge shrunk to this ? Yet no beaten coward 
 shall you see, Evander, chastised with unseemly wounds, 
 nor shall the father pray for death to come in its terror 
 while the son survives. Ay me ! how strong a defender 
 is lost to our Ausonian realm, and lost to you, my own 
 lulus ! ' 
 
 So having wailed his fill, he gives order to lift and 
 bear the poor corpse, and sends a thousand men chosen 
 from his whole array to attend the last service of woe, 
 and lend their countenance to the father's tears, a scant 
 solace for that mighty sorrow, yet not the less the 
 wretched parent's due. Others, nothing slack, plait 
 the framework of a pliant bier with shoots of arbute 
 and oaken twigs, and shroud the heaped-up bed with a 
 covering of leaves. Here place they the youth raised 
 high on his rustic litter, even as a flower cropped by 
 maiden's finger, be it of delicate violet or drooping 
 hyacinth, unforsaken as yet of its sparkling hue and its 
 graceful outline, though its parent earth no longer feeds 
 it or supplies it with strength. Then brought forth 
 ^neas two garments stiff" with gold and purple, which 
 Dido had wrought for him in other days with her own 
 hands, delighting in the toil, and had streaked their 
 webs with threads of gold. Of these the mourner 
 spreads one over his youthful friend as a last honor, 
 and muffles the locks on which the flame must feed : 
 moreover he piles in a heap many a spoil from Lauren- 
 turn's fray, and bids the plunder be carried in long 
 procession. The steeds too and weapons he adds of 
 which he had stripped the foe. Already had he bound 
 the victims' hands behind their backs, doomed as a 
 sacrifice to the dead man's spirit, soon to spill their 
 blood over the fire: and now he bids the leaders in 
 person carry tree-trunks clad with hostile arms, and 
 
BOOK XL 403 
 
 has the name of an enemy attached to each. There is 
 Acoetes led along, a lorn old man, marring now his 
 breast with blows, now his face with laceration, and 
 anon he throws himself at his full length on the ground. 
 They lead too the car, all spattered with Rutulian 
 blood. After it the warrior steed, w<Ethon, his trap- 
 pings laid aside, moves weeping, and bathes his visage 
 with big round drops. Others carry the spear and the 
 helm : for the rest of the harness is Turnus' prize. 
 Then follows a mourning army, the Teucrians, and all 
 the Tuscans, and the sons of Arcady with weapons 
 turned downward. And now^after all the retinue had 
 passed on in long array, ^neas stayed, and groaning 
 deeply uttered one word more: 'We are summoned 
 hence by the same fearful destiny of war to shed other 
 tears : I bid you hail for ever, mightiest Pallas, and 
 for ever farewell.' Saying this and this only, he turned 
 to the lofty walls again, and bent his footsteps camp- 
 ward. 
 
 And now appeared the ambassadors from the town 
 of Latium, with the coverings of their olive boughs, 
 entreating an act of grace : the bodies which were tying 
 over the plains as the steel had mowed them down they 
 pray him to restore, and suffer them to pass under the 
 mounded earth : no man wars with the vanquished and 
 with those who have left the sun : let him show mercy 
 to men once known as his hosts and the fathers of 
 his bride. The good ^neas hearkens to a prayer that 
 merits no rebuke, grants them the boon, and withal 
 bespeaks them thus : ' What undeserved ill chance, 
 men of Latium, has entangled you in a war so terrible 
 and made you fly from us your friends? Ask 3'ou 
 peace for the dead, for those on whom the War-god*s 
 die has fallen ? Nay, I would fain grant it to the living 
 
404 THE ^NEID. 
 
 too. I were not here had not fate assigned me a 
 portion and a home : nor wage I war against j^our na- 
 tion : it was the king that abandoned our alliance, and 
 sought shelter rather under Turnus' banner. Fairer 
 it had been that Turnus should have met the death- 
 stroke 3'e mourn. If he seeks to end the war by 
 strength of arm and expel the Trojan enemy, duty 
 bade him confront me with weapons like mine, and 
 that one should have lived who had earned life from 
 heaven or his own right hand. Now go and kindle 
 the flame beneath your ill-starred townsmen.' Eneas' 
 speech was over: they .stood in silent woijder, their 
 eyes and countenances steadfastly fixed on each other. 
 Then Drances, elder in birth, 'ever embroiled with the 
 youthful Turnus by hatred and taunting word, thus 
 speaks in reply : ' O mighty in fame's voice, mightier 
 in your own brave deeds, hero of Troy, what praise 
 shall I utter to match you with the stars? Shall I 
 first admire your sacred love of right, or the toils 
 of your hand in war ? Ours it shall be gratefully to 
 report your answer to our native town, and should 
 any favoring chance allow, make you the friend of 
 king Latinus. Let Turnus look for alliance where he 
 may. Nay, it will be our pride to uprear those mas- 
 sive walls of destin}', and heave on our shoulders the 
 stones of your new Troy.' He spoke, and the rest 
 all murmured assent. For twelve days they make 
 truce, and with amity to mediate, Trojans and Latians 
 mingled roam through the forest on the mountain 
 slopes unharming and unharmed. The loft}^ ash rings 
 with the two-edged steel : the}^ bring low pines erst 
 uplifted to the sky, nor is there pause in cleaving with 
 wedges the oak and fragrant cedar, or in carrying ashen 
 trunks in the groaning wains. 
 
BOOK XL 405 
 
 And now flying Fame, the harbinger of that cruel 
 agony, is filling with her tidings the ears of Evander, 
 his palace and his city. Fame that but few hours 
 back was proclaiming Pallas the conqueror of Latium. 
 Forth stream the Arcadians to the gates, with funeral 
 torches in ancient fashion, snatched up hurriedly ; the 
 road gleams with the long line of fire, which parts the 
 breadth of fields on either hand. To meet them comes 
 the train of Phrygians, and joins the wailing company. 
 Soon as the matrons saw them pass under the shadow 
 of the houses, they set the mourning city ablaze with 
 their shrieks. But Evander — no force can hold him 
 back ; he rushes into the midst : there as they lay 
 down the bier he has flung himself upon Pallas, and 
 is clinging to him with tears and groans, till choking 
 grief at last lets speech find her way : ' No, my Pallas ! 
 this was not your promise to your sire, to trust your- 
 self with caution in the War-god's savage hands. I 
 knew what a spell there lay in the young dawn of a 
 soldier's glory, the enrapturing pride of the first day 
 of battle. Alas for the ill-starred first-fruits of youth, 
 the cruel foretaste of the coming war ! alas for those 
 my vows and prayers, that found no audience with any 
 of the gods ! alas too for thee, my blessed spouse, 
 happy as thou art in the death that spared thee not 
 for this heavy sorrow ! while I, living on, have tri- 
 umphed over my destiny, that I might survive in 
 solitary fatherhood. Had I but followed the friendly 
 standards of Troy, and fallen whelmed by Rutulian 
 javelins ! had I rendered my own life up, so that this 
 funeral train should have borne me home, and not my 
 Pallas ! Nor yet would I blame you, men of Troy, 
 nor the treaty we made, nor the hands we plighted in 
 friendship ; it is but the portion ordained long ago as 
 
406 THE ^NEID. 
 
 fitting for my gra}^ hairs. If it was written that ray 
 son should die ere his time, it shall be well that he 
 fell after slaying his Yolscian thousands, while lead- 
 ing a Teucrian army to the gates of Latium. Nay, 
 my Pallas, I would wish for you no worthier funeral 
 than that accorded to you by JEneas the good and 
 his noble Phrj'gians, by the Tyrrhene leaders, and 
 the whole TjTrhene host. Each bears you a mighty 
 troph}^ whom your right hand sends down to death. 
 And you, too, proud Turnus, would be standing at 
 this moment, a giant trunk hung round with armor, 
 had your age been but as his, the vigor of your years 
 the same. But why should misery like mine hold 
 back the Teucrians from the battle ? Go, and remem- 
 ber to bear my message to your king. If I still drag 
 the wheels of my hated life now my Pallas is slain, 
 it is because of j^our right hand, which owes the debt 
 of Turnus' life to son and sire, j^ourself being witness. 
 This is the one remaining niche for your valor and 3'our 
 fortune to fill. I ask not for triumph to gild my life : 
 that thought were crime : I ask but for tidings that I 
 may bear to my son down in the spectral world.' 
 
 Meantime the Goddess of Dawn had lifted on high 
 her kindly light for suffering mortality, recalling them 
 to task and toil. Already father ^neas, already Tar- 
 chon, have set up their funeral piles along the winding 
 shore. Hither each man brings the body of friend or 
 kinsman as the rites of his sires command ; and as 
 the murky flames are applied below, darkness veils 
 the heights of heaven in gloom. Thrice they ran their 
 courses round the lighted pyres, sheathed in shining 
 armor ; thrice they circled on their steeds the mourn- 
 ful funeral flame, and uttered the voice of wailing. 
 Sprinkled is the earth with theh* tears, sprinkled is the 
 
BOOK XL 407 
 
 harness. Upsoars to heaven at once the shout of war- 
 riors and the blare of trumpets. Others fling upon 
 the fire plunder torn from the Latian slain, helms and 
 shapely swords and bridle-reins and glowing wheels ; 
 some bring in offering the things the dead men wore, 
 their own shields and the weapons that sped so ill. 
 Many carcasses of oxen are sacrificed round the piles : 
 bristly swine and cattle harried from the country round 
 are made to bleed into the flame. Then along the whole 
 line of coast the}^ gaze on their burning friends, and 
 keep sentry over the half-quenched fire-bed, nor let 
 themselves be torn away till dewy night rolls round the 
 sky with its garniture of blazing stars. 
 
 With like zeal the ill-starred Latians in a different 
 quarter set up countless piles ; of the multitude of 
 corpses some they bury in the earth, some they lift 
 up and carry off to neighbor districts, and send them 
 home to the city ; the rest, a mighty mass of promis- 
 cuous carnage, they burn uncounted and unhonored ; 
 and thereon the plains through their length and breadth 
 gleam with the thickening rivalry of funeral fires. The 
 third morrow had withdrawn the chill shadows from the 
 sky : the mourners were leveling the piles of ashes and 
 sweeping the mingled bones from the hearths, and 
 heaping over them mounds of earth where the heat yet 
 lingers. But within the walls, in the city of Latium's 
 wealthy king, the wailing is pre-eminent, and largest the 
 portion of that long agony. Here 'are mothers and 
 their sons' wretched brides, here are sisters' bosoms 
 racked with sorrow and love, and children orphaned 
 of their parents, calling down curses on the terrible 
 war and on Turnus' bridal rites ; he, he hiruself, they 
 cry, should try the issue with arms and the cold steel, 
 who claims for himself the Italian crown and the 
 
408 THE ^NEID. 
 
 honors of sovereignty. Fell Drances casts his weight 
 into the scale, and bears witness that Turnus alone is 
 challenged by the foe, Turnus alone defied to com- 
 bat. Against them many a judgment is ranged in 
 various phrase on Turnus' side, and the queen's au- 
 gust name lends him its shadow ; man}^ an applaud- 
 ing voice upholds the warrior by help of the trophies 
 he has won. 
 
 Amid all this ferment, when the blaze of popular 
 turmoil is at its height, see, as a crowning blow, comes 
 back the sorrowing embassy with tidings from Dio- 
 mede's mighty town : the cost of all their labors has 
 gained them naught: gifts and gold and earnest 
 prayers are alike in vain : the Latians must look for 
 arms elsewhere, or sue for peace from the Trojan 
 chief. King Latinus himself is crushed to earth by 
 the weight of agony. The wrath of the gods, the 
 fresh-made graves before his eyes, tell him plainly 
 that ^neas is the man of destiny, borne on by heav- 
 en's manifest will. So he summons by royal mandate 
 a mighty council, the chiefs of his nation, and gath- 
 ers them within his lofty doors. They have mustered 
 from alljlides, and are streaming to the palace through 
 the crowded streets. In the midst Latinus takes his 
 seat, at once eldest in years and first in kingly state, 
 with a brow that knows not joy. Hereupon he bids 
 the envoys returned from the ^tolian town to report 
 the answers they bear, and bids them repeat each 
 point in order. Silence is proclaimed, and Venulus, 
 obeying the mandate, begins to speak : 
 
 ' Townsmen, we have looked on Diomede and his 
 Argive encampment : the journey is overpast, and every 
 chance surmounted, and we have touched the hand by 
 which the realm of Ilion fell. We found him raising 
 
BOOK XL 409 
 
 his city of Argyripa, the namesake of his ancestral 
 people, in the land of lapygian Garganus which his 
 sword had won. Soon as the presence was gained and 
 liberty of speech accorded, we proffer our gifts, inform 
 him of our name and country, who is our invade?, and 
 what cause has led us to Arpi. He listened, and re- 
 turned as follows with untroubled mien : " O children 
 of fortune, subjects of Saturn's reign, men of old Au- 
 sonia, what caprice of chance disturbs you in your re- 
 pose, and bids you provoke a war ye know not? Know 
 that all of us, whose steel profaned the sanctity of 
 Ilion's soil — I pass the hardships of war, drained to 
 the dregs under those lofty ramparts, the brave hearts 
 which that fatal Simois covers — ^ea, all of us the wide 
 world over have paid the dues of our trespass in agonies 
 unutterable, a company that might have wrung pity 
 even from Priam : witness Minerva's baleful star, and 
 the .crags of Euboea, and Caphereus the avenger. Dis- 
 charged from that warfare, wandering outcasts on 
 diverse shores, Menelaus, Atreus' son, is journeying in 
 banishment even to the pillars of Proteus ; Ulysses has 
 looked upon ^tna and her Cyclop brood. Need I tell 
 of Neoptolemus' portioned realms, of Idomeneus' dis- 
 mantled home, of Locrian settlers on a Libyan coast? 
 Even the monarch of Mycenae, the leader of the great 
 Grecian name, met death on his very threshold at the 
 hand of his atrocious spouse ; Asia fell before fiim, but 
 the adulterer rose in her room. Cruel gods, that would 
 not have me restored to the hearth-fires of my home, to 
 see once more the wife of my longing and my own fair 
 Calydon ! Nay, even my flight is dogged bj portents 
 of dreadful view ; my comrades torn from me are wing- 
 ing the air and haunting the stream as birds — alas that 
 the followers of my fortunes should suffer so! — and 
 
410 THE ^NEID. 
 
 making the rocks ring with the shrieks of their sorrow. 
 Such was the fate I had to look for even from that day 
 when with my frantic steel I assailed the flesh of im- 
 mortals, and impiously wounded Venus' sacred hand. 
 Nay, nay, urge me no longer to a war like this. Since 
 Pergamus fell, my fightings with Troy are ended ; I 
 have no thought, no joy, for the evils of the past. As 
 for the gifts which you bring me from your home, carry 
 them rather to ^neas. I tell you, I have stood against 
 the fury of his weapon, and joined hand to' hand with 
 him in battle ; trust one who knows how strong is his 
 onset as he rises on the shield, how fierce the whirl- 
 wind of his hurthng lance. Had Ida's soil borne but 
 two other so valiant, Dardanus would have marched in 
 his turn to the gates of Inachus, and the tears of Greece 
 would be flowing for a destiny reversed. All those 
 years of lingering at the walls of stubborn Troy, it was 
 Hector's and -Eneas' hand that clogged the wheels of 
 Grecian victory, and delaj^ed her coming till the tenth 
 campaign had begun. High in courage were both, high 
 in the glory of martial prowess ; but piety gave liim 
 the pre-eminence. Join hand to hand in treaty, if so 
 you may ; but see that your arms bide not the shock of 
 ,his." Thus, gracious sire, have you heard at once the 
 king's reply, and the judgment he passed on this our 
 mighty war.' 
 
 The envoys had scarcely finished when a diverse 
 murmur runs along the quivering lips of the sons of 
 Ausonia, as when rapid streams are checked by rocks 
 in their course, confused sounds rise from the im- 
 prisoned torrent, and neighboring banks re-echo with 
 the babbling of the waves. Soon as their passions were 
 allayed, and their chafed countenances settled in calm, 
 
BOOK XL 411 
 
 the monarch, first invoking heaven, begins from his 
 lofty throne : 
 
 ' To have taken your judgment, Latians, ere this on 
 the state of the common-weal, would have been my 
 pleasure, and our truer interest, rather than summon a 
 council at a crisis like this, when the foe has sat down 
 before our walls. A grievous war, my countrymen, we 
 are waging, with the seed of heaven, a nation unsub- 
 dued, whom no battles overtire, nor even in defeat can 
 they be made to drop the sword. For any hope ye 
 have cherished in the alliance of -^tolian arms, resign it 
 for ever. Each is his own hope ; and how slender is this 
 ye ma}^ see for yourselves. As to a'll beside, with what 
 utter ruin it is stricken is palpable to the sight of your 
 eyes, to the touch of your hands. I throw the blame 
 on none : manly worth has 5one the utmost it could : 
 all the sinews of the realm have been strained in the 
 contest. Now then I will set forth what is the judg- 
 ment of my wavering mind, and show you it in few 
 words, if ye will lend me your attention. There is an 
 ancient territory of mine bordering on the Tuscan river, 
 extending lengthwise to the west, even be3'ond the 
 Sicanian frontier ; Auruncans and Rutulians are its 
 tillers, subduing with the ploughshare its stubborn hills, 
 and pasturing their flocks on the rugged slopes. Let 
 this whole district, with the loft}^ mountain and its belt 
 of pines, be our friendly gift to the Teucrians ; let us 
 name equal terms of alliance, and invite them to share 
 our kingdom ; let them settle here, if their passion is so 
 strong, and build them a city. But if they have a mind 
 to compass other lands and another nation, and are free 
 to quit our soil, let us build twenty ships of Italian tim- 
 ber, or more if they have men to fill them : there is the 
 wood ready felled by the river side ; let themselves pre- 
 
412 THE jENEID. 
 
 scribe the size and the number ; let us provide brass, 
 and hands, and naval trim. Moreover, to convey our 
 proffers and ratify the league, I would have an em- 
 bassy of a hundred Latians of the first rank sent with 
 peaceful branches in their hands, carrying also presents, 
 gold and ivory, each a talent's weight, and the chair and 
 striped robe that are badges of our ro3^alty. Give free 
 counsel and help to support a fainting commonwealth.' 
 
 Then Drances, hostile as ever, whom the martial 
 fame of Turnus was ever goading with the bitter stings 
 of sidelong env}^, rich, and prodigal of his riches, a 
 doughty warrior with the tongue, but a feeble hand in 
 the heat of battle, esteemed no mean adviser in debate, 
 and powerful in the arts of faction : his mother's noble 
 blood made proud a lineage which on his father's side 
 was counted obscure: — he rises, and with words like 
 these piles and heaps anger high : 
 
 ' A matter obscure to none, and needing no voice of 
 ours to make it plain is this that you propound, gracious 
 king. All own that i\\Qj know what is the bearing of 
 the state's fortune ; but their tongues can only mutter. 
 Let him accord freedom of speech, and bate his angry 
 blasts, to whose ill-omened leadership and inauspicious 
 temper — ay, I wi7r speak, let him threaten me with 
 duel and death as he may, — we owe it that so many of 
 our army's stars have set before our eyes, and the whole 
 city is sunk in mourning, while he is making his essay 
 of the Trojan camp, with flight always in reserve, and 
 scaring heaven with the din of his arms. One gift there 
 is over and above that long catalogue which you would 
 have us send and promise to the Dardans : add but this 
 to them, most excellent sovereign, nor let any man's 
 violence prevent you from bestowing your daughter in 
 the fullness of a father's right on a noble son-in-law 
 
BOOK XL 413 
 
 and a worthy alliance, and basing the peace we seek on 
 a covenant which shall last for ever. Nay, if the reign 
 of terror is so absolute over our minds and hearts, let 
 us go straight to him with our adjurations and ask for 
 grace at his own hands — ask him to yield, and allow 
 king and country to exercise their rights. Why fling 
 your wretched countrj^men again and again into dan- 
 ger's throat, you, the head and well-spring of the ills 
 which Latium has to bear ? There is no hope from war ; 
 peace we ask of you, one and all — yes, Turnus, peace, 
 and the one suretj^ that can make peace sacred. See, 
 first of all I, whom you give out to be your enemj^ — 
 and I care not though I be — come and throw myself 
 at your feet. Pity those of 3^our own kin, bring down 
 your pride, and retire as beaten man should. Routed 
 we are ; we have looked on corpses enough, and have 
 left leagues enough of land unpeopled. Or if glory 
 stirs you, if you can call up into your breast the cour- 
 age needed, if the dowry of a palace lies so near your 
 heart, be bold for once, and advance with bosom 
 manned to meet the foe. What ! that Turnus may have 
 the blessing of a queenly bride, are we, poor paltry 
 lives, a herd unburied and unwept, to lie weltering on 
 the plain ? It is your turn : if you have any strength, 
 any touch of the War-god of your sires, look him in 
 the face who sends you his challenge.* 
 
 At these words Turnus' violence blazed out : heaving 
 a groan, he vents from the bottom of his heart such 
 utterance as this : ' Copious, Drances, ever is your 
 stream of speech in the hour when war is calling, 
 for hands ; when the senate is summoned, you are first 
 in the field. Yet we want not men to fill our court 
 with talk, that big talk which you hurl from a safe van- 
 tage-ground, while the rampart keeps off. the foe and 
 
414 THE jENEID. 
 
 the moat is not foaming with carnage. Go on pealing 
 your eloquence, as your wont is: let Drances brand 
 Turnus with cowardice, for it is Drances' hand that has 
 piled those very heaps of Teucrian slaughter, and is 
 planting the fields all over with its trophies. What is 
 the power of glowing valor, experiejice may show 3 ou : 
 enemies in sootli are not far to seek : they are standing 
 all about the walls. Well, are we marching to the en- 
 counter ? why so slow ? will you never lodge the War- 
 god better than in that windy tongue, those flying feet? 
 What? beaten? I? who, foulest of slanderers, will 
 justly brand me as beaten, that shall look on Tiber 
 still swelling with Ilion's best blood, on Evander's 
 whole house prostrate root and branch, and his Arca- 
 dians stripped naked of their armor ? It was no beaten 
 arm that Bitias and giant Pandarus found in me, or the 
 thousand that I sent to death in a single day with my 
 conquering hand, shut up within their walls, pent in by 
 the rampart of the foe. No hope from war? Croak 
 your bodings, madman, in the ears of the Dardan and 
 of your own fortunes. Ay, go on without cease, 
 throwing all into measureless panic, heightening the 
 prowess of a nation twice conquered already, and 
 dwarfing no less the arms of your king. See, now the 
 lords of the Myrmidons are quaking at the martial 
 deeds of Phrygia, Tydeus' son, Thessalian Achilles, 
 and the rest, and river Aufidus is in full retreat from 
 the Hadrian sea. Or listen when the trickster in his 
 villainy feigns himself too weak to face a quarrel with 
 me, and points his charges with the sting of terror. 
 Never, I promise you, shall you lose such life as yours 
 by hand of mine — be troubled no longer — let it dwell 
 with you and retain its home in that congenial breast. 
 Now, gracious sire, I return to you and the august 
 
BOOK XL 415 
 
 matter that asks our counsel. If you have no hope 
 beyond in aught our arras can do, if we are so wholly 
 forlorn, destroyed root and branch by one reverse, and 
 our star can never rise again, then pray we for peace 
 and stretch craven hands in suppliance. Yet, oh, had 
 we but one spark of the worth that once was ours, that 
 man I would esteem blessed beyond others in his service 
 and princely of soul, who, sooner than look on aught 
 like this, has lain down in death and once for all bitten 
 the dust. But if we have still store of power, and a 
 harvest of youth yet unreaped, if there are cities and 
 nations of Italy yet to come to our aid, if the Trojans 
 as well* as we have won their glory at much bloodshed's 
 cost — for thej' too have their deaths — the hurricane 
 has swept over all alike — why do we merely falter on 
 the threshold? why are we seized with shivering ere 
 the trumpet blows ? Many ^ man's weal has been re- 
 stored by time and the changeful struggles of shifting 
 days : many a man has Fortune, fair and foul by turns, 
 made her sport and then once more placed on a rock. 
 Grant that we shall have no help from the -^tolian and 
 his Arpi : but we shall from Messapus, and the blessed 
 Tolumnius, and all the leaders that those man}^ nations 
 have sent us ; nor small shall be the glory which will 
 wait on the flower of Latium and the Laurentine land. 
 Ay, and we have Camilla, of the noble Volscian race, 
 with a band of horsemen at her back and troops gleam- 
 ing with brass. If it is I alone that the Teucrians 
 challenge to the fight, and such is your will, and my 
 life is indeed the standing obstacle to the good of all, 
 Victory has not heretofore fled with such loathing from 
 my hands that I should refuse to make my venture for 
 a hope so glorious. No, I will confront him boldly, 
 though he should prove 'great as Achilles, and don 
 
416 THE JENEID. 
 
 harness like his, the work of Vulcan's art. To you and 
 to my royal father-in-law have I here devoted this my 
 life, I, Turnus, second in valor to none that went be- 
 fore me. " For me alone -^neas calls." Vouchsafe 
 that he may so • call! nor let Drances in my stead, if 
 the issue be Heaven's vengeance, forfeit his life, or if it 
 be prowess and glory, bear that prize away ! ' 
 
 So were these contending over matters of doubtful 
 debate : JEneas was moving his army from camp to 
 field. See, there runs a messenger from end to end of 
 the palace amid wild confusion, and fills the town with 
 a mighty terror, how that in marching array the Trojans 
 and the Tuscan force are sweeping down from Tiber's 
 stream over all the plain. In an instant the minds 
 of the people are confounded, their bosoms shaken 
 to the core, their passions goaded by no gentle stings. 
 They clutch at arms, clanjor for arms : arms are the 
 young men's cry : the weeping fathers moan and mut- 
 ter. And now a mighty din, blended of discordant 
 voices, soars up to the skies, even as when hapl}^ flocks 
 of birds have settled down in a lofty grove, or on the 
 fishy stream of Padusa hoarse swans make a noise 
 along the babbling waters. ' Ay, good citizens,' cries 
 Turnus, seizing on his moment, ' assemble your council 
 and sit praising peace ; they are rushing on the realm 
 sword in hand.' Without further speech he dashed 
 away and issued swiftly from the lofty gate. ' You, 
 Volusus,' he cries, ' bid the Volscian squadrons arm, 
 and lead out the Rutulians. You, Messapus, and you, 
 Coras and your brother, spread the horse in battle 
 array over the breadth of the plain. Let some guard 
 the inlets of the city and man the towers; the rest 
 attack with me in the quarter for which I give the 
 word.' At once there is a rush to the ramparts from 
 
BOOK XL 417 
 
 every part of the city : king Latinus leaves the council 
 and the high debate unfinished, and wildered with the 
 unhappy time, adjourns to another day, ofttimes blam- 
 ing himself that he welcomed not with open arms 
 -^neas the Dardan, and bestowed on the city a hus- 
 band for the daughter of Latium. Others dig trenches 
 before the gates or shoulder stones and stakes. The 
 hoarse trumpet gives its deathful warning for battle. 
 The walls are hemmed by a motley ring of matrons and 
 boys : the call of the last struggle rings in each one's 
 ear. Moreover the queen among a vast train of La- 
 tian mothers is drawn to the temple, even to Pallas' 
 tower on the height, with presents in her hand, and at 
 her side the maid Lavinia, cause of this cruel woe, her 
 beauteous eyes cast down. The matrons enter the 
 temple and make it steam with incense, and pour from 
 the august threshold their plaints of sorrow : ' Lady of 
 ai-ms, mistress of the war, Tritonian maiden, stretch 
 forth th}^ hand and break the spear of the Phrygian 
 freebooter, laj^ him prostrate on the ground, and leave 
 him to grovel under our lofty portals.' Tumus with 
 emulous fury arms himself for the battle. And now he 
 has donned his ruddy corselet, and is bristling with 
 brazen scales ; his calves have been sheathed in gold, 
 his temples yet bare, and his sword has been girded to 
 his side, and he shines as he runs all golden from the 
 stjeep of the citadel, bounding high with courage, and 
 in hope already forestalls the foe: even as when a 
 horse, bursting his tether, escapes from the stall, free 
 at last and master of the open champaign, either wends 
 where the herds of mares pasture, or wont to bathe in 
 the well-known river darts forth and neighs with head 
 tossed on high in wanton frolic, while his mane plays 
 loosely about neck and shoulders. His path Camilla 
 27 
 
418 THE jENEID. 
 
 crosses, a Volscian army at her back, and dismounts 
 from her horse at the gate with queenly gesture ; the 
 whole band follow her lead, quit their horses, and swim 
 down to earth, while she bespeaks him thus : ' Turnus, 
 if the brave may feel faith in themselves, I promise 
 boldly to confront the cavalry of Troy and singly ride 
 to meet the Tyrrhene horse. Let me essay the first 
 hazard of the combat ; do yon on foot remain by the 
 walls and be the city's guard.' Turnus replies, gazing 
 steadfastly on the dreadful maid : ' O maiden, glory of 
 Ital}', what thanks shall I strive to speak or render? 
 but seeing that soul of 3^ours soars above all, partake 
 the toil with me. ^neas, as rumor and missioned spies 
 tell me for truth, has cunningly sent on his light-armed 
 cavalry to scour the plain, while he, surmounting the 
 lonely steeps of the hill, is marching townward. I 
 meditate a stratagem of war in that woodland gorge, to 
 beset the narrow thoroughfare with an armed band. 
 Do you in battle array receive the Tuscan horse. With 
 you will be keen Messapus, and the Latian cavalry, 
 and Tiburtus' troop : take your share of a general's 
 charge.' This said, he exhorts Messapus and the fed- 
 erate leaders with like words to the fight, and advances 
 to meet the enemj^ A glen there is, narrow and wind- 
 ing, suited for ambush and stratagems of arms, pent in 
 on both sides by a mountain- wall black with dense foli- 
 age ; a scant pathway leads to it, with straitened gor^e 
 and jealous inlet. Above it on the mountain's watch- 
 tower height lies a concealed table-land, a post of shel- 
 tered privacy, whether one be minded to face the battle 
 right and left, or, standing on the slope, to roll down 
 enormous stones. Hither repairs the warrior along the 
 well-known road: he has occupied the spot and sat 
 him down in the treacherous forest. 
 
BOOK XL 419 
 
 Meantime, in the mansions above Latona^s daughter 
 was addressing Opis the swift, a maiden comrade of 
 her sacred train, and was uttering these words in 
 tones of sorrow : ' Ah, maiden, Camilla is on her way 
 to the ruthless war ; in vain she girds herself with the 
 arms of our sisterhood, dear to me that she is be3'ond 
 all beside : for no new tenderness this that has come 
 on Diana, nor sudden the spell wherewith it stirs her 
 heart. When Metabus, exiled for the hate which 
 tyranny genders, was parting from Privernum, his 
 ancient cit}', as he fled' from the heart of the combat, 
 he bore away his infant child to share his banishment, 
 and varying Casmilla, her mother's name, called her 
 Camilla. The father, carrying her in his bosom, was 
 making for the long mountain slopes of the solitary 
 woods, while bitter javelins were showering all around 
 him, and the Volscians with circling soldiery hovering 
 about : when lo ! intercepting his flight was Amasenus, 
 brimming and foaming over its banks, so vast a del- 
 uge of rain had burst from the clouds. Preparing to 
 plunge in, he is checked by tenderness for his child, 
 and fears for the precious load. At last, as he pon- 
 dered over every course, he hit suddenly on this re- 
 solve. There was a huge weapon, which he chanced 
 to be carrying in his stalwart hand as warriors use, 
 sturd}^ with knots and seasoned timber : to it he fastens 
 his daughter, inclosed in the cork-tree's forest bark, 
 and binds her neatly round the middle of the shaft ; 
 then, poising it in a giant's grasp, he thus exclaims to 
 heaven : '* Gracious lady, dweller in the woods, Lato- 
 na's maiden daughter, I vow to thy service this my 
 child : thine are the first weapons that she wields as 
 she flies from the foe through air to thy protection. 
 Receive, I conjure thee, as thine own her whom I now 
 
420 THE jENEID, 
 
 intrust to the uncertain gale." He said, and, drawing 
 back his arm, hurled the javelin: loud roared the 
 waves, while over the furious stream fled poor Camilla 
 on the hurtling dart. But Metabus, pressed closer 
 and closer b}^ the numerous band, leaps into the river, 
 and in triumph plucks from the grass}^ bank his offer- 
 ing to Trivia, the javelin and the maid. No cities 
 opened to him house or stronghold, for his wild nature 
 had never brooked submission : among the shepherds' 
 lonel}' mountains he passed his days. There in the 
 woods, among beasts' savage lairs, he reared his daugh- 
 ter on milk from the breast of an untamed mare, 
 squeezing the udder into her tender lips. And soon as 
 the child first stood on her feet, he armed her hands 
 with a pointed javelin, and hung from her baby shoul- 
 der a quiver and a bow. For the golden brooch in 
 her hair, for the long sweeping mantle, there hang 
 from her head adown her back a tiger's spoils. Even 
 then she launched with tin}' hand her childish missiles, 
 swung round her head the sling's well-turned thong, 
 and brought down a crane from Strymon or a snow- 
 white swan. Many a mother in T3Trhene town has 
 wooed her for her son in vain : with no thought but 
 for Dian, she cherishes in unsullied purity her love for 
 the hunter's and the maiden's life. Would she had 
 never been pressed for warfare like this, essaying to 
 strike a blow at the Teucrians : so had she still been 
 my darhng and a sister of my train. But come, since 
 cruel destiny is darkening round her, glide down, fair 
 nymph, from the sky, and repair to the Latian frontier, 
 where now in an evil hour the tearful battle is joining. 
 Take these arras, and draw from the quiver an aveng- 
 ing shaft : therewith let the foe, whoever he be, Trojan 
 or Italian, that shall profane with the stroke of death 
 
BOOK XL 421 
 
 that sacred person, make to me in like manner the 
 atonement of his blood. Afterwards in the hollow of 
 a cloud I will bear off the body of my lost favorite 
 undespoiled of its arms, and lay her down in her own 
 land.* Thus she : and Opis hurtled downward through 
 the buoyant air, a black whirlwind ins wathing her form. 
 But the Trojan band meanwhile is nearing the walls 
 with the Etruscan chiefs and the whole arra}" of cav- 
 ahy, marshaled into companies. Steeds are prancing 
 and neighing the whole champaign over, and chafing 
 against the drawn bridle as they face hither and thither : 
 the field, all iron, bristles far and wide with spears, and 
 the plains are ablaze with arms reared on high. Like- 
 wise Messapus on the other side and the swift-paced 
 Latians, and Coras and his brother, and maid Camilla's 
 force appear in the plain against them, couching the 
 lance in their backdrawn hands and brandishing the 
 javelin : and the onset of warriors and the neighing 
 of steeds begin to wax hot. And now each army had 
 halted within a spear-throw of the other : with a sud- 
 den shout they dash forward, and put spurs to their 
 fiery steeds : missiles are showered from all sides in a 
 moment, thick as snow-flakes, and heaven is curtained 
 with the shade. Instantly Tyrrhenus and fierce Acon- 
 teus charge each other spear in hand, and foremost 
 of all crash together with sound as of thunder, so that 
 the chest of either steed is burst against his fellow's ; 
 Aconteus, flung off" like the levin-bolt or a stone 
 hurled from an engine, tumbles headlong in the dis- 
 tance, and scatters his hfe in air. At once the line 
 of battle is broken, and the Latians, turned to flight, 
 sling their shields behind them and set their horses* 
 heads cityward. The Trojans give them chase : Asilas 
 in the van leads their bands. And now they were 
 
422 THE ^NEID. 
 
 nearing the gates, when the Latians in turn set up a 
 shout, and turn their chargers' limber necks ; the others 
 fly, and retreat far away at full speed. As when the 
 sea, advancing with its tide that ebbs and flows, one 
 while sweeps towards the land, deluges the rocks with 
 a shower of spray, and sprinkles the sandy margin 
 with the contents of its bosom, one while flees in hasty 
 retreat, dragging back into the gulf the recaptured 
 stones, and with ebbing waters leaves the shore. Twice 
 the Tuscans drove the RutuHans in rout to their walls ; 
 twice, repulsed, they look behind as they sling their 
 shields backward. But when in the shock of a third 
 encounter the entire armies grapple each other, and 
 man has singled out man, then in truth upsoar the 
 groans of the d^ing, and arms and bodies and death- 
 stricken horses blended with human carnage welter in 
 pools of gore : and a savage combat is aroused. Or- 
 silochus hurls a spear at Remulus' horse — for the 
 rider he feared to encounter — and leaves the steel 
 lodged under the ear. Maddened by the blow, the 
 beast rears erect, and, uplifting its breast, flings its 
 legs on high in the uncontrolled agony of the wound : 
 Remulus unseated rolls on earth. Catillus dismounts 
 loUas, and likewise Herminius, giant in courage, and 
 giant too in stature and girth : his bare head streams 
 with yellow locks, and his shoulders also are bare : 
 wounds have no terrors for him, so vast the sur- 
 face he offers to the weapon. Through his broad 
 shoulders comes the quivering spear, and bows the 
 impaled hero double with anguish. Black streams of 
 gore gush on all sides : the combatants spread slaughter 
 with the steel, and rush on glorious death through a 
 storm of wounds. 
 But Camilla, with a quiver at her back, and one 
 
BOOK XL 423 
 
 breast put forth for the combat, leaps for joy like an 
 Amazon in the midst of carnage: now she scatters 
 thick volleys of quivering javehns, now her arm whirls 
 unwearied the mass}' two-edged ax : while fro'm her 
 shoulder sounds the golden bow, the artillery of Dian. 
 Na}', if ever she be beaten back and retreating rear- 
 ward, she turns her bow and aims shafts in her flight. 
 Around her are her chosen comrades, maid Larina, and 
 Tulla, and Tarpeia, wielding the brazen-helved hatchet, 
 daughters of Italy, whom glorious Camilla herself chose 
 to be her J03' and pride, able to deal alike with peace 
 and war : even as the Amazons of Thrace when they 
 thunder over the streams, of Thermodon and battle with 
 their blazoned arms, encompassing Hippolyte, or when 
 Penthesilea, the War-god's darling, is careering to and 
 fro in her chariot, and the woman army, amid a hubbub 
 of shrill cries, are leaping in ecstasy and shaking their 
 moony shields. Who first, who last, fierce maiden, is 
 unhorsed by your dart? How many stalwart bodies 
 lay you low in death? The first was Euneus, Clytius* 
 son, whose unguarded breast as he stood fronting her she 
 pierces with her long pine-wood spear. Down he goes, 
 disgorging streams of blood, closes his teeth on the gory 
 soil, and d3ung writhes upon his wound. Then Liris, 
 and Pagasus on his body : while that, flung from his 
 stabbed charger, is gathering up the reins, and this is 
 coming to the rescue and stretching his unarmed hand 
 to his falUng comrade, they are overthrown in one head- 
 long ruin. To these she adds Amastrus, son of Hip- 
 potas : then, pressing on the rout, pursues with her 
 spear-throw Tereus, and Harpatycus, and Demophoon, 
 and Chromis : for every dart she launched from her 
 maiden hand there fell a Phrygian warrior. In the 
 distance rides Ornytus accoutered strangely in hunter 
 
424 THE ^NEID. 
 
 fashion on an lapygian steed : a hide stripped from a 
 bullock swathes his broad shoulders in the combat," his 
 head is sheltered by a wolf's huge grinning mouth and 
 jaws with the white teeth projecting, and a rustic pike 
 arms his hand : he goes whirling through the ranks, his 
 whole head overtopping them. Him she catches, an 
 easy task when the hosts are entangled in rout, pierces 
 him through, and thus bespeaks the fallen in the fierce- 
 ness of her spirit : ' Tuscan, you thought 3'ourself still 
 chasing beasts in the forest ; but the day is come which 
 shall refute the vaunts of 3'our nation by a woman's 
 weapons. Yet no slight glory shall 3'ou carry down to 
 3^our fathers' shades, that 3^011 have fallen by the dart 
 of Camilla.' Next follow Orsilochus and Butes, two of 
 the hugest frames of Troy : Butes she speared behind 
 'twixt corselet and helm, where the sitter's neck is seen 
 gleaming, and the shield is hanging from the left arm : 
 Orsilochus, as she pretends to fly and wheels round in 
 a mighty ring, she baffles by ever circling inwards, and 
 chases him that chases her : at last, rising to the stroke, 
 she brings down on the wretch again and again, spite 
 of all his praj^ers, her massy battle-ax that rives armor 
 and bone : the brain spouts over the face through the 
 ghastly wound. Now there stumbles upon her, and 
 pauses in terror at the sudden apparition, the warrior 
 son of Annus, dweller on the Apennine, not the mean- 
 est of Liguria's children while Fate prospered his trick- 
 ery. He, when he sees no speed of flight can escape 
 the combat, or avoid the onset of the dreadful queen, 
 essaying to gain his base end by policy and stratagem, 
 thus begins : ' What great glory is it after all, if you, a 
 woman, trust your mettled steed ? Put away the chance 
 of flight, and dare to meet me hand to hand on equal 
 ground, and gird you for battle on foot : soon shall you 
 
BOOK XL 425 
 
 see which of us gains honor from this windy boasting.* 
 He said : but she, all on fire, stung with bitter grief, 
 gives her horse to her comrade, and stands ready to 
 meet him in arms, fearless though on foot, with naked 
 sword and maiden shield. But the youth, deeming 
 that his wiles had sped, darts away without more ado, 
 and turning his bridle, rides off in flight, and wearies 
 his beast with the strokes of his iron heel. 'False 
 Ligurian, vainly puffed up with overweening fancies, to 
 no end have you tried your sire's slippery craft, nor 
 shall your l3'ing bring jou safe to Annus the liar.' So 
 cries the maiden, and with lightning-like pace crosses 
 at full speed the horse's path, and seizing the reins, 
 fronts and encounters him, and gluts her vengeance 
 with his hated blood : easily as a hawk, the bird of 
 augury, darting from a lofty rock, comes up with a 
 dove high in the clouds, holds her in his gripe, and 
 with crooked talons tears out her heart, while gore and 
 plucked feathers come tumbling from the sky. 
 
 But no blind spectator of the scene is sitting throned 
 on high Olympus, even the father of men and gods. 
 The sire urges Tarchon the Tuscan to the ruthless fray, 
 and goads him to wrath b}^ no gentle stings. So among 
 heaps of carnage and yielding bands Tarchon goes 
 riding, and rouses the cavalry with words of diverse 
 purport, calling each by his name, and gives the beaten 
 new strength for battle. ' What terror, O ye Tuscan 
 hearts that will not feel, that will still be sluggish, 
 what strange cowardice has come on you? To what 
 end is this steel, these idle weapons our right hands 
 bear? But slow ye are not to hear the call of love, or 
 when the wry-necked fife gives the word for the Bacchic 
 dance : ay, there is your passion, there your delight, 
 till the favoring seer announce the sacrificial feast, and 
 
426 THE ^NEID. 
 
 the fat victim invite you to the tall trees of the grove.' 
 So saying, he spurs his steed into the midst, ready for 
 the death he brings to others, and charges in fury on 
 Venulus, snatches the foe from his horse, folds his arms 
 round him, and carries him on his saddle before- him 
 with wild and violent speed. Upsoars a shout to 
 heaven, and every Latian e}^ is turned to the scene. 
 Over the plain like lightning flies Tarchon, bearing the 
 warrior and his arms. Then from the top of the chief's 
 own spear he breaks off the point, and feels for an un- 
 guarded part where to plant the deadly blow : the foe, 
 struggling, keeps off Tarchon's hand from his throat, 
 and repels force with force. As when the golden eagle 
 soaring on high carries a serpent he has caught, trussing 
 it in his claws, and adhering with his taloned gripe ; 
 the wounded reptile writhes its spiral coils, stiffens with 
 erected scales, and hisses from its mouth, surging and 
 swelling ; the eagle, undismaj'ed, plies it despite its 
 struggles with his hooked beak, while his pinions beat 
 the air : even thus Tarchon carries his prize in triumph 
 from the bands of Tibur's folk. Following their chief's 
 auspicious lead, the sons of Mseonia charge the foe. 
 Then Arruns, the man of fate, compasses swift Camilla 
 about, dart in hand, with manj^ a forestalling wile, and 
 tries what chance may be readiest. Wherever the fiery 
 maid dashes into the midst of the battle, Arruns threads 
 his way after her, and scans her steps in silence : wher- 
 ever she returns in triumph, escaping safely from the 
 foe, that way the youth turns his swift and stealthy rein ; 
 now makes proof of this approach, now of that, and 
 traverses the whole circle, and shakes with relentless 
 malice his inevitable lance. It chanced that one Chlo- 
 reus, sacred to C^^bele and once her priest, was shining 
 conspicuous from afar in Phrygian armor, urging on a 
 
BOOK XL 427 
 
 foaming charger, whose covering was a skin adorned 
 with golden clasp and brazen scales set plume-wise. 
 He, in the blaze of foreign purple, was launching 
 Gortynian shafts from a Ljcian bow ; golden was the 
 bow that rang from his shoulder, golden the helm on 
 his sacred head ; his saffron scarf with its rustling 
 gauz}' folds was gathered up by a golden brooch, and 
 his tunic and his hose decked with barbaric broider}-. 
 He it was that the maiden, eager, it maj^ be, to fasten 
 on the temple-gate the arms of Troy, or to flaunt her- 
 self in the golden spoil, singled out from all the battle, 
 and was following with a hunter's blind devotion, raging 
 recklessly through the ranks, enkindled with a woman's 
 love for prey and plunder ; when at length, seizing his 
 opportunity, Arruns awakes his dart from its ambush, 
 and thus prays aloud to heaven : ' Greatest of gods, 
 Apollo, guardian of divine Soracte, whom we are the 
 first to worship, for whom the pine-tree glow is fed by 
 heaps of wood, while ourselves, thy votaries, strong in 
 our piety, walk through the flame over living embers, 
 grant, all-powerful sire, that my arms may wipe this 
 scandal away. I seek no plunder or spoil, no trophy 
 for the conquest of a maid ; the rest of my deeds shall 
 secure my fame ; let but this terrible fiend fall van- 
 quished by wound of mine, I will return to the cities 
 of my fathers an unhonored man.' Phoebus heard, 
 and vouchsafed in his heart that half the vow should 
 speed, while half he scattered among the fiying breezes : 
 to strike and sla}^ Camilla with sudden death-wound, 
 so much he grants the suppliant : to return and meet 
 the eyes of his noble fatherland, this he allows not ; 
 the gusts of air turned the accents into wind. So when 
 the spear, launched from the hand, was heard along the 
 sky, each keen Volscian mind flew to one center, every 
 
428 THE jENEID. 
 
 Volscian eye was bent on the queen. She alone had 
 no thought for wind or sound or weapon sweeping 
 down from heaven, till the spear had made its passage 
 and lodged beneath her protruded breast, and deeply 
 driven, drank her maiden blood. Her comrades run 
 together in alarm, and support their falling mistress. 
 Arruns, more terrified than all, flies awaj^, half joy, 
 half fear, nor puts further confidence in his lance, nor 
 . dares to meet the darts of the maiden. Even as the 
 caitifl" wolf, ere the weapons of vengeance can follow 
 him, has fled at once to the pathless privacy of the 
 mountain steep, on slaying a shepherd or mighty bul- 
 lock, conscious of his daring deed, and drawing back 
 his quivering tail with lithe action has clapped it to his 
 belly and made for the woods, in like manner Arruns 
 all wildered has stolen awaj' from sight, and contented 
 to escape has plunged into the thick of the battle. 
 With dying hand the maiden pulls at the spear ; but 
 ,the steely point stands lodged among the bones at the 
 ribs in the deep wound it made. Drained of blood, 
 she sinks to earth ; sink, too, her death-chilled eyes ; 
 her once bright bloom has left her face. Then at her 
 last gasp she accosts Acca, one of her maiden train, 
 who beyond the rest was Camilla's friend and shared 
 her thoughts, and speaks on this wise : ' Thus far, 
 sister Acca, has strength been given me : now the 
 cruel wound overcomes me ; and all around me grows 
 dim and dark. Haste and carry Turnus my dying 
 charge, to take my place in the battle and keep off the 
 Trojans from the town. And now farewell.' As she 
 spoke she dropped the bridle, swimming down to earth 
 with no willing act. Then as the death-chill grows she 
 gradually discumbers herself of the entire weight of 
 the body, droops her unstrung neck and her head on 
 
BOOK XL 42^ 
 
 which fate has seized, quitting too her armor, and her 
 soul, resenting its lot, flies groaningly to the shades. 
 Then indeed, rising unmeasured, the uproar strikes the 
 golden stars : Camilla overthrown, the fight waxes 
 fiercer: on the}' rush thickening, at once the whole 
 force of the Teucrians, and the TjTrhene leaders, and 
 Evander's Arcad cavalry. 
 
 But Trivia's sentinel Opis has long been seated high 
 on the mountain top, an undismayed spectator of the 
 combat. And when far off, deep among the din of 
 raging warriors, she spied Camilla shent by ruthless 
 death, she groaned, and fetched these words from the 
 bottom of her breast : ' Poor maiden ! too, too cruel 
 the penalty 3'ou have paid for provoking the Teucrians 
 to battle. Naught has it bestead 3'ou at 3'our need to 
 have served Dian in the forest, and carried on 3'our 
 shoulder the shafts of our sisterhood. Yet not un- 
 honored has your queen left you even here in death's 
 extremity ; nor shall this j^our end be without its glor\- 
 in the world, nor yourself bear the ignominy of the 
 unrevenged ; for he, whoever he be, whose wound has 
 profaned 3'our person, shall atone it b3^ the death he 
 has earned.' Under the lofty mountain's shade there 
 stood a vast mound of earth, the tomb of Dercennus, 
 an old Laurentine king, shrouded with dark ilex : here 
 the beauteous goddess first ahghts with a rapid bound, 
 and spies out Arruns from the barrow's height. Soon 
 as she saw him gleaming in his armor, and swelling 
 with vanity, ' Wh3' stra3^ from the path ? ' cries she ; 
 * turn your feet hitherward ! come hither to 3'Our death, 
 and receive Camilla's guerdon ! Alack ! and are you 
 too to be slain b3" the shafts of Dian?* She said, and 
 with the skill of Thracian maiden drew a swift arrow 
 from her gilded quiver, bent the bow with deadl3' aim, 
 
430 THE JSNEID. 
 
 and drew it far apart, till the arching ends met together, 
 and with her two hands she touched, the barb of steel 
 with her left, her breast with her right and the bow- 
 string. Forthwith the hurtling of the shaft and the 
 rush of the breeze reached Arruns' ear at the moment 
 the steel lodged in his body. Him gasping and groan- 
 ing his last his comrades leave unthinking in the un- 
 marked dust of the plain : Opis spreads her wings, 
 and is borne to skyey Olympus. 
 
 First flies, its mistress lost, Camilla's light-armed 
 company ; fly the Rutules in rout, flies keen Atinas ; 
 leaders in disarray and troops in devastation make for 
 shelter, turn round, and gallop to the walls. None can 
 sustain in combat the Teucrians' deadly onset or resist 
 the stream ; they throw their unstrung bows on their 
 unnerved shoulders, and the hoof of four-foot steeds 
 shakes the crumbling plain. On rolls to the ramparts 
 a cloud of dust, thick and murk}^ ; and the matrons 
 from their sentrj-posts, smiting on their breasts, raise 
 a shriek as women wont to the stars of heaven. Who 
 first pour at speed through the open gates are whelmed 
 by a multitude of foemen that blends its crowd with 
 theirs ; they scape not the agon}^ of death, but on the 
 very threshold, with their native walls around them, in 
 the sanctuary of home, they breathe away their lives. 
 Some close the gates : they dare not give ingress to 
 their friends nor take them within the walls, implore as 
 they may : and a piteous carnage ensues, these guard- 
 ing the approach sword in hand, those rushing on the 
 sword's point. Some, borne on by the deluge, stream 
 headlong into the moat ; some in blind agony, spurring 
 their horses, charge as with battering-rams the portals 
 and their stubborn barriers. Nay, the very matrons 
 on the walls in the intensity of the struggle, prompted 
 
BOOK XI. 431 
 
 by true patriot spirit at sight of Camilla, fling darts 
 from their quivering hands, and make hard oak-stakes 
 and seared truncheons do the work of steel, hot and 
 headlong, and fain would be the first to die for their 
 city. 
 
 Meantime the cruel news floods Turnus' ears in his 
 forest-ambush, as Acca tells the warrior her tale of 
 mighty terror : the Volscian ranks destroyed, Camilla 
 slain, the enemy coming on like a torrent, sweeping all 
 before their victorious onslaught, the alarm already 
 wafted to the walls. He, all on fire (for even such is 
 Jove's stern requirement) , quits his post on the hills, 
 leaves the impregnable forest. Scarce had he i^assed 
 from their sight and occupied the plain, when father 
 jEneas, entering the unguarded pass, scales the hill-top, 
 and issues through the shadowy wood. So the two 
 rivals march cityward at full speed, each with all his 
 army, nor long is the intervening distance ; at the same 
 moment ^neas looked far over the plains all smoking 
 with dust, and saw the host of Laurentum, and Turmis 
 was aware of fell ^Eneas in battle arra}-, and heard the 
 onward tramp of feet and the neighing of steeds. In- 
 stantly they were for closing in fight and throwing for 
 the stake of combat ; but the time was come for red- 
 dening Phoebus to bathe his wearied team in the Hibe- 
 rian flood, and bring back night on the steps of re- 
 treating day. So they encamp before the city, and 
 make their ramparts strong. 
 
432 THE MNEID. 
 
 BOOK XII. 
 
 When Turnus sees that the War-god's enmity has 
 broken the spirit of Latiam, that men are beginning to 
 claim his promise, and make him the mark of their 
 eyes, he bursts at once into fury unappeasable, and 
 swells his pride to the height. As in Punic land, when 
 the hunters have wounded him deep in the breast, the 
 lion at last rouses himself to fight, tosses with fierce 
 joy his mane from his neck, snaps fearlessly the bri- 
 gand's spear in the wound, and roars from his gory 
 mouth: even so, Turnus once kindled, his vehemence 
 grows each moment. Then he addresses the king, and 
 dashes hotly into speech : ' Turnus stops not the waj^ : 
 -^neas and his cowards have no plea for retracting 
 their challenge or disowning their plighted word ; I 
 meet the combat ; bring the sacred things, good father, 
 and solemnize the truce. Either will I with my own 
 right hand send the Dardan down to Tartarus, the run- 
 away from Asia — let the Latians sit by and see — and 
 with my single weapon refute the slander of a nation ; 
 or let the vanquished own their master and Lavinia be 
 the conqueror's bride.' 
 
 With calm dignity of soul the king makes answer : 
 'Gallant youth, the greater your impetuous valor, the 
 more watchful must needs be my foresight, the more 
 anxious my scrutiny of all that may happen. You 
 have your father Daunus* kingdom, you have many a 
 town won by your own sword : I that speak have gold 
 and a heart to give it ; in Latium and Laurentum's land 
 are other un wedded maidens, of no unworthy lineage. 
 
BOOK XII. 488 
 
 Suffer me without disguise to give voice to these un- 
 welcome sayings, and take home what I speak further : 
 I was forbidden b}' Fate to give m}^ daughter to any of 
 her early suitors : so sang gods and men alike. Con- 
 quered by my love for you, conquered b}^ the ties of 
 kindred and the sorrow of my weeping queen, I set all 
 pledges at naught, I snatched the bride from her 
 plighted husband. I drew the unhallowed sword. 
 From that fatal day you see what troubles, what wars 
 are let loose upon me ; you know the weight of the 
 sufferings which you are the first to feel. Twice van- 
 quished in a mighty conflict, we scarce protect by our 
 bulwarks the hopes of Italy: Tiber's waters are yet 
 steaming with our blood, and the spacious plains are 
 whitened b}' our bones. Whither am I drifting again 
 and again ? what madness turns my brain ? If on the 
 death of Turnus I am ready to welcome these new 
 allies, wh}^ should I not end the strife while he lives 
 and is safe? What will our Rutulian kinsmen say, 
 what the rest of Italy, if — may Fortune forefend the 
 omen ! — I give you up to death, 3'ou, a suitor for my 
 alliance, for my daughter's hand? Think of the un- 
 certainties of war ; have pity on your aged sire, now 
 biding forlornl}' far away in his Ardean home ! * 
 
 These words abate not Turnus' vehemence a whit : it 
 starts up fiercer, more virulent for the healing hand. 
 Soon as he can find utterance, he thus begins : ' The 
 care 3^ou take for my sake, best of fathers, la}^ down 
 for my sake, I beg, and suffer me to pledge my Ufe for 
 my honor. My hand, too, can scatter darts and fling 
 steel with no feeble force ; my blows, too, fetch blood. 
 He will not have his goddess-mother within call, to 
 hide her craven son in an unmanly cloud, and conceal 
 herself by help of treacherous shadows.' 
 28 
 
434 THE ^NEID. 
 
 But the queen, appalled by the new hazard of the 
 combat, was all in tears, clinging to her fiery son-in- 
 law with the convulsive grasp of death : ' Turnus, by 
 these my tears, by any regard 3'ou cherish for Amata — 
 3'Ou are now our only hope, our only solace in our for- 
 lorn old age — the honor and power of the king are in 
 your hands ; on you, its one pillar, the whole house 
 leans. I ask but this — forbear to cross swords with 
 the Teucrians. "Whatever chance waits on you in this 
 unhappy combat, waits on me, too, my Turnus ; along 
 with you I shall leave the hated light, nor see in JEneas 
 my son-in-law and my conqueror.' 
 
 As Lavinia heard her mother's voice, her glowing 
 cheeks were bathed in tears ; a deep blush kindled a 
 fire, and shot over her flushing face. As when a man 
 has stained Indian ivory with blood-red purple, or like 
 a bed of lilies and roses mixed : such hues were seen 
 on the maiden's countenance. He, bewildered with 
 passion, fixes his eyes upon her : the sight makes him 
 burn the more for battle, and thus he addresses Amata 
 in brief: ' Let me not have tears nor aught so ominous, 
 dear mother, as my escort to the iron battle ; Turnus is 
 not free to postpone the call of death. Go, Idmon, 
 and bear the Phrygian despot a message that will like 
 him not : Soon as the goddess of to-morrow's dawn 
 shall fire the sky with the glow of her chariot, let him 
 not spur the Teucrians against the Rutulians ; let Teu- 
 crian and Rutulian sheathe their swords, while we 
 twain with our own lifeblood decide the war. Let La- 
 vinia' s hand be sought and won in yonder field.' 
 
 So he spoke, and rushed back within doors : he calls 
 for his steeds, and joys to look on them snorting and 
 neighing — the steeds which Orithyia gave as a pres- 
 ent to Pilumnus, to surpass the snows in whiteness, 
 
BOOK XIL 435 
 
 the winds in speed. Round them stand the bustling 
 charioteers, patting their chests with hollow palms and 
 combing their maned necks. Next he throws round 
 his shoulders his hauberk, stiff with scales of gold and 
 dazzling orichalc, and adjusts to his wear the sword, 
 the shield, and the cones of the crimson crest — that 
 sword the Fire-god's own hand had made for his father 
 Daunus, and tempered it glowing in the Stygian wave. 
 Lastly, the spear which was standing in the palace- 
 hall, propped. by a mighty column, the spoil of Aurun- 
 can Actor, he seizes forcefully, sturdy as it is, and 
 shakes till it quivers, crying aloud : ' Now, my good 
 spear, that hast never failed my call, now is the time ; 
 once wast thou swayed by giant Actor, now by Tur- 
 nus : grant that I may lay low the emasculate Phry- 
 gian, strip and rend his hauberk b}' strength of hand, 
 and soil in the dust those ringlets curled with hot iron 
 and moist with myrrh.' So he rages, fur3'-d riven : 
 sparks flash from the furnace of his countenance, 
 lightnings dart from his fiery eyes : as when a bull in 
 view of a fight raises fearful bellowing, and calls up 
 rage into his horns by butting against a tree's -trunk, 
 challenges the wind with his blows, and spurns the fly- 
 ing sand in prelude for the fray. 
 
 With equal fierceness jEneas, clad in his mother's 
 armor, sharpens valor's edge, and lashes his heart with 
 wrath, joying that proflfered truce should end the war. 
 Then he calms his comrades' fear and the grief of 
 lulus, talking of destiny, and sends envoys with an 
 answer to the Latian king, to name the conditions of 
 peace. 
 
 Scarce had the next morrow begun to sprinkle the 
 mountain-tops with light, at the time when the sun's 
 steeds first come up from the deep and breathe flakes 
 
436 THE JENEID. 
 
 of radiance from their upturned nostrils, when Rutu- 
 lians and Teucrians were at work, measuring out lists 
 for combat under the ramparts of the mighty town, 
 with hearths in the midst, and altars of turf for their 
 common gods. Others were carrying fire and spring 
 water, begirt with aprons, vervain wreaths on their 
 brows. Forth moves the Ausonian army, bands with 
 lifted javelins issuing from the crowded gates. From 
 3'onder quarters pours the Trojan and Tuscan force, 
 with the arms of their several countries, harnessed as 
 if summoned by the War-god's bloody fray. In the 
 midst of either squadrons the generals flash along, 
 glorious in gold and purple, Mnestheus, Assaracus' 
 seed, and Asilas the brave, and Messapus, tamer of 
 horses, the progeny of Neptune. At a given signal 
 each army retreats withip its confines ; spears are 
 fixed in the ground, and bucklers rested at ease. 
 Matrons in yearning eagerness, and unarmed masses, 
 and tottering old men, fill turret and roof, or stand by 
 the lofty portals. 
 
 But Juno, from the top of the mount now styled 
 Alban — in those days it had no name, nor glory, nor 
 honor — was looking in prospect on the plain, the two 
 armies, Trojan and Laurentine, and the Latian town. 
 At once she addressed Turnus' sister, a goddess her- 
 self, who presides over the pool and the brawling 
 stream — such dignity Jove, the king of heaven, sol- 
 emnly made hers in return for violated maidenhood : 
 ' Sweet Nymph, glory of the rivers, favorite of my 
 heart, you know how I have preferred you to all Lati- 
 um's daughters who have climbed the odious bed of our 
 great Master and have gladly given you a seat in the 
 sky ; and now, Juturna, learn from me your sorrow, for 
 which I am not to blame. So long as Fortune seemed 
 
BOOK Xir. 437 
 
 favorable and Fate allowed Latium to prosper, I spread 
 m^ shield over Turnus and these your walls : now I see 
 the youth engaged with a destiny mightier than his 
 own, and the day of doom and the power of the enemy 
 are at hand. I cannot look on the combat, nor on the 
 league that ushers it in. If you have the nerve to dare 
 aught for your brother, go on ; it is a sister's part : 
 perhaps the down-trodden have a better lot in store.* 
 Ere she had well ended, Juturna's tears sprang forth, 
 and thrice and again her hand smote on her lovel}' 
 breast. * No time for tears,' cries Saturn's daughter : 
 ' quick, and if any way there be, snatch your brother 
 from death : or at least revive the war, and mar the 
 treaty while yet on their lips. Remember, I warrant the 
 attempt.' With such advice she left her wavering in 
 purpose and staggering under the cruel blow. 
 
 Meantime the monarchs appear, the stately form of 
 the Latian king riding in a four-horse car, his brows 
 gleaming with a circle of twelve gilded rays, the cog- 
 nizance of the Sun his grandsire : Turnus is drawn by 
 a snow-white pair, two spears with broad iron points 
 quivering in his hands. Then comes father uEneas, 
 the parent stock of the Roman tree, blazing with his 
 starr}^ shield and celestial armor, and at his side Asca- 
 nius, the second hope of might}' Rome, both issuing 
 from their camp : while a priest in stainless robe has 
 brought the young of a bristly boar and an undipped 
 sheep of two years old, and placed the victims by the 
 blazing altar. They, turning their eyes to the rising 
 sun, offer the salted barley, score with the steel the 
 brows of the cattle, and make libations from their 
 chargers. Then thus prays good jJEneas, his sword 
 drawn in his hand : ' Let the Sun above and the Earth 
 beneath witness my invocation, this very Earth for 
 
438 THE jENEID. 
 
 which I have had the hear* to endure so much, and the 
 almighty Sire, and thou, his goddess-bride, Saturn's 
 daughter, now — may I hope it? — now at last made 
 gracious: thou, too, glorious Mars, whose princely 
 nod controls every battle : Springs also and Rivers I 
 invoke, all the majesty of the sky, all the deities of the 
 purple deep : if chance award the victory to Turnus 
 the Ausonian, reason claims that the vanquished shall 
 retire to Evander's town : lulus shall quit the land, 
 nor shall -Eneas' children in after days draw the sword 
 again, or threaten this realm with war. But should 
 conquest vouchsafe to us the smiles of the battle-field, 
 as I rather deem, and pray that Heaven will rather 
 grant, I will not bid the Italians be subject to Troy, 
 nor ask I the crown for myself: no, let the two great 
 nations, one unconquered as the other, join on equal 
 terms in an everlasting federation. The gods and their 
 ritual shall be my gift : let my good father-in-law still 
 wield the sword and the lawful rights of empire : the 
 Teucrians shall raise me a city, and Lavinia shall give 
 it her name.' Thus first -^neas : the Latian king 
 follows, with eyes Hfted to heaven, and right hand 
 stretched to the stars : ' I swear as you swore, ^ne- 
 as, by Land and Ocean and Lights above, Latona's 
 twofold offspring, and two-faced Janus, the potency 
 of the gods below and the shrine of relentless Pluto : 
 and let the Father too give ear, who ratifies covenants 
 with thunder. My hand is on the altars ; I adjure the 
 fires and powers that part us : so far as rests with 
 Italy, no length of time shall break this bond of 
 friendship, let things issue as they may : no violence 
 shall make me swerve in will, not though deluge and 
 chaos come again, ruining the earth into the water 
 and crushing down heaven into Tartarus: even as this 
 
BOOK XII. 439 
 
 scepter' — for a scepter chanced to be in his hand — 
 * shall never more burgeon with light foliage into 
 branch or shade, now that once cut down in the woods 
 it is orphaned of that which gave it life, and has re- 
 signed to the ax its le^ives and its sprays — once a 
 tree, now the workman's hand has cased it with seem- 
 ly brass, and given it to be wielded by Latium's eld- 
 ers/ With words like these were they ratifjing the 
 treaty, all the nobles looking on. Then, as the rite 
 ordains, they cut the throats of the hallow^ victims 
 into the fire, flay th6 yet breathing flesh, and pile the 
 altars with laden chargers. 
 
 But the Rutulians have long been thinking the 
 combat unequal : their bosoms are swayed by rival 
 emotions, all the more, the nearer they observe the ill- 
 matched champions. Turnus aids the feeling by the 
 quietness of his step and the downcast reverential 
 look which he turns on the altar, his wan cheeks, and 
 the pallor of his youthful frame. Soon as his sister 
 Juturna heard such whispers spreading, and saw the 
 hearts of the multitude wavering to and fro, she 
 plunges among the ranks, taking the form of Gamers, 
 great in ancestral dignit}^, great in the name of his 
 father's worth, and himself a valiant warrior — plunges 
 among the ranks, knowing well what she would have, 
 and scatters her sayings abroad in words like these : 
 ' Blush ye not, Rutulians, with souls such as yours, to 
 make one a sacrifice for all ? are we not equal to our 
 foes in strength or in numbers ? See, here is their whole 
 army, Trojan and Arcadian, a}', and that fated band 
 of Etruria, which seeks Turnus' life. Though but 
 half of us should engage, each would scarce have an 
 enemy to fight with. He,jno doubt, will rise on the 
 wings of fame to the gods for whose altars he gives 
 
440 THE jENEID. 
 
 himself to die, and will live in the mouths of men : 
 we, stripped of our countr3', shall be the slaves of 
 haughty masters, we, I sa}^, now seated passivel}^ on 
 the ground.' By such words the flame is fanned more 
 and more in those 5'oung warrior hearts, and murmurs 
 run from rank to rank : not Rutulian alone, but Lau- 
 rentian and Latian are changed men. They who a 
 short while since were hoping for their own repose 
 and their state's prosperity, now burn for arms, would 
 have the ^reaty undone, and pity Turnus' cruel fate. 
 And now Juturna gives them onfe thing more, even a 
 sign from heaven, no spell so potent to work on Italian 
 minds and make them dupes of the marvel. Flying 
 through the rudd}' sky, Jove's golden bird was chasing 
 the river fowl, a winged noisy multitude, when sudden- 
 ly swooping on the water he carries off in his tyrant 
 claws a stately swan. The Italians are all attention, 
 when lo ! the whole mass of birds face about with 
 a scream, marvelous to see, their wings darkening the 
 air, and in dense cloud press on their enemy, till over- 
 borne by sheer weight he gives way, drops the booty 
 from his talons into the river, flying aloft, and van- 
 ishes in the distant sky. Oh, then the Rutulians wel- 
 come the omen with a shout and spread their hands 
 on high ; and first of all cries the augur Tolumnius. 
 ' Here, here is the thing I have prayed for so often. 
 I embrace it, I own the hand of Heaven. Follow me 
 — 3'es, me — and seize your weapons, m}^ poor country- 
 men, whom the felon stranger is scaring with battle, as 
 if ye were feeble birds, and ravaging your coasts. He 
 too will turn to flight and sail far away on the deep. 
 Close your ranks with one accord, and rally round the 
 prince of whom the battle, robs you.' He spoke, and 
 running forward hurls his dart full at the enemy : the 
 
BOOK XII. 441 
 
 hurtling cornel sounds, and cuts the air on no doubt- 
 ful errand. A deafening shout follows on the act, the 
 ranks are confused, and men's hearts stirred with mad 
 bewilderment. On flew the spear, just where nine 
 goodl}^ brethren chanced to stand facing it, all born 
 of one true Tuscan mother to Gylippus the Arcadian. 
 One of these just at the waist where the quilted belt 
 chafes against the bell}' and the buckle presses the 
 sides — a youth of goodly form and clad in refulgent 
 armor — it strikes through the ribs and lays him grovel- 
 ing on the yellow sand. But his brothers, a gallant 
 company and stung by grief, draw their swords or 
 seize their javelins, and charge in headlong fury. To 
 meet them rush the Laurentian columns : while from 
 their side surge forth in a flo5d Trojans and Ag^dlans 
 and Arcadians with inlaid harness. All are possessed 
 by one passion, to try the issue with the steel. The 
 altars are stripped bare : through the whole sk}- drives 
 a flickering storm of weapons and an iron sleet comes 
 thick : bowls and hearths are carried awaj- . King 
 Latinus flies, bearing away his gods in discomfiture, 
 the truce unratified. Others rein the chariot, or vault 
 on horseback, with swords ready drawn. 
 
 Messapus, all on fire to annul the treaty, spurs his 
 horse full on the Tuscan Aulestes, a king and wearing 
 kingl}' cognizance : he draws quickly back, and gets 
 entangled in piteous sort with the altars that meet 
 him behind, falling on them head and shoulders. Up 
 flashes Messapus spear in hand, and towering on horse- 
 back brings down on him the massy beam in the midst 
 of his pra3'ers, and delivers himself thus : * He is 
 sped: here is a better victim for the might}^ gods.* 
 The Italians cluster round, and strip the j'et warm 
 body. As Ebusus comes up and aims a blow, Cory- 
 
442 THE ^NEID. 
 
 naeus meets him with a brand half-burnt from the 
 altar and dashes the fire in his face : his long beard 
 burst into a blaze and made a smell of burning hair : 
 the enemy presses on, grasps in his left hand the locks 
 of the wildered man and with the impact of his knee 
 pins him to earth ; then buries the stark falchion in 
 his side. Podalirius gives chase to Alsus the shepherd 
 as he rushed in the first rank through a shower of 
 darts, and hangs over him with naked sword : he 
 swinging back his ax, splits full in front the foe's 
 forehead and chin, and splashes his arms right and 
 left with the blood. The heavy rest of iron slumber 
 settles down on the dying eyes, and their beams are 
 curtained in everlasting night. 
 
 But good ^neas, his Read bare, was stretching forth 
 his unarmed hand and shouting to his men : ' Whither 
 are you driving ? wha^ is this sudden outburst of strife ? 
 Oh, curb your passions ! the truce is stricken, and all 
 the terms arranged : none but I has a right to engage : 
 give way to me and have done with alarm : my sword 
 shall ratify the treaty : this sacrifice has put Turnus in 
 my power.' While he is crying thus and uttering 
 words like these, lo ! full at the chief flies a hurtling 
 arrow, none knew by what hand launched, by what 
 wind wafted, who graced the Rutulians so highly, 
 chance or deit}^ : the glory of the proud achievement 
 was lost, nor was any known to boast of having 
 wounded jEneas. 
 
 Soon as Turnus sees JEneas retiring from the battle, 
 and the Trojan leaders in confusion, he glows with 
 swift access of hope, calls for horses and armor, bounds 
 like a conqueror into the chariot, and takes the reins in 
 hand. Many an heroic frame he slaughters as he whirls 
 along, many he tumbles and leaves to live or die, 
 
BOOK XII. 443 
 
 crushes whole ranks by the onset of his car, or plucks 
 forth spears and hurls them at the fliers. Just as 
 storming along by Hebrus' icy flood gore-stained Mars 
 smites on his shield, and stirring battle lets loose his 
 fiery steeds : they fly over the plains faster than winds 
 southern or western: Thrace groans to her extremity 
 under the beat of their hoofs : around him circle the 
 frowns of black-visaged Terror, and the powers of Wrath 
 and Treachery, liege followers of the god ; with like 
 eagerness through the thickest of the battle Turnus 
 whirls his straining horses, trampling in piteous sort 
 on the slaughtered foe : the flying hoof spirts gory 
 dew, and blood and sand are kneaded in a mass. 
 Sthenelus he has slain already, and Thamyris and 
 Pholus, these hand to hand, that from a distance: a 
 distant death, too, has found the Imbrasidae, Glau- 
 cus and Lades, trained in Lycia by Imbrasus their 
 sire, and by him harnessed alike, warriors who could 
 stand and fight or outride the winds. In another 
 part of the field Eumedes is riding through the fra)', 
 the gallant son of ancient Dolon, with the name of his 
 grandsire, the heart and hand of his sire, wbo of old, 
 offering to spy out the Danaan camp, dared to ask 
 Achilles' chariot as his guerdon ; far other guerdon 
 was it with which Diomed requited his daring, and 
 his hopes are set on Achilles* steeds no longer. Mark- 
 ing him at distance along the plain, Turnus first sends 
 after him a flying spear through the intervening space, 
 then stops the car and dismounts, comes on the wretch 
 gasping and laid low, and setting his foot on his neck, 
 wrests the sword from his hand, bathes it flashing 
 deep in his throat, and thus accompanies the blow : 
 ' Lie there, Trojan, and measure the Hesperian soil 
 you came to invade : such are their guerdons who draw 
 
444 THE jENEID. 
 
 their swords on me ; so build they up their city.' Then 
 with a spear- throw he sends Asbutes to join the dead. 
 Chloreus and Sybaris and Dares and Thersilochus, 
 Thymoetes too, thrown off by a restive horse. As when 
 the blast of Thracian Boreas roars on the deep JEgean 
 and drives the billows to the shore, wherever the winds 
 push on, the clouds scuny over the sky, so when Tur- 
 nus cleaves his path, the ranks give way, the armies 
 turn in rout ; the motion bears him along, and the gale 
 which blows on the car tosses his flickering crest. 
 Phegeus, indignant at his overweening onset, meets the 
 car and grasping the bridle wrenches aside the foaming 
 jaws of the impetuous steeds. While he is dragged 
 along clinging to the yoke, the broad spear-head reaches 
 his unguarded breast, cleaves the two-plated corselet, 
 and tastes the surface of the flesh. Yet he, his shield 
 before him, kept fronting and threatening the foe, and 
 protecting himself with his drawn sword, when the 
 wheel careering onward strikes and flings him on the 
 ground, and Turnus with a sweep of his blade between 
 the bottom of the helmet and the breastplate's topmost 
 rim lias lopped the head and left the trunk to welter. 
 
 While Turnus thus is dealing havoc over the field, 
 Mnestheus, true Achates, and Ascanius have helped 
 JEneas to the camp, all bleeding, and staying his halt- 
 ing steps by the help of a spear. There he frets and 
 struggles to pull out the broken shaft, and calls for help 
 the readiest way, bidding them enlarge the wound with 
 a broad sword, cut the weapon's lodgment to the bot- 
 tom, and send him to combat again. And now at his 
 side was lapis, son of lasus, dearest of mankind to 
 Phoebus, he to whom the god in his passionate fondness 
 would fain have given his own function, his own hand's 
 cunning, the augur's insight, the lyre, the weapons of 
 
BOOK XIL 445 
 
 archer}^ ; but he, wishing to lengthen out the span of his 
 bed-rid sire, chose rather to know the \irtueof simj)les 
 and the laws of the healing art, and to practice in si- 
 lence an unambitious craft. There stood ^neas, fret- 
 ting impatiently, propped on his massy spear, with a 
 warrior concourse about him, and lulus all in tears, yet 
 himself unmoved by their sorrow. The aged leech, his 
 garments swathed round him in Paeon's fashion, is ply- 
 ing busily the heahng hand and Phoebus' sovereign 
 remedies all to no end, all to no end pulling at the dart 
 and griping the steel with the pincer. No Fortune 
 guides the course of skill, no patron Phoebus lends his 
 aid ; and meanwhile the fierce alarms of the field grow 
 louder and louder, and the mischief is nearer at hand. 
 They see dust-clouds propping the sky, the horsemen 
 gallop in, darts fall thick in the midst of the camp, and 
 heavenward mounts the cruel din of warriors battling 
 or falling in the stern affray : — when, lo ! Venus, struck 
 to the heart by her son's undeserved suffering, with a 
 mother's care plucks dittany from Cretan Ida, a plant 
 with downy leaves and a purple flower : wild goats know 
 that simple well, if the fljing arrow should lodge in 
 their flesh. Veiled by a dim cloud, the goddess brings 
 it down ; with it she impregnates the spring water 
 gleaming in the caldron, imparting unseen powers, and 
 sprinkles ambrosia's healthful juice and fragrant pana- 
 cea. The old man rinsed the wound with the water so 
 transformed, all unwitting, and in a moment all pain 
 was fled from the frame, and the blood was stanched in 
 the wound. The arrow obeys the hand, and falls out 
 unforced, and strength is restored as before. ' Quick ! 
 give the warrior his arms ! why so tard}' ? ' cries lapis, 
 himself the first to stir up the martial spirit. ' No 
 human aid has done this, no power of leech-craft ; it is 
 
446 THE ^NEID. 
 
 not my hand, ^neas, that restores you ; a mightier 
 power than man's is at work, sending you back to 
 mightier deeds/ The chief, greedy for the fight, has 
 cased his legs in gold, chafing at delay and brandish- 
 ing his spear. Soon as the shield is fitted to his side, 
 the cuirass to his back, he clasps Ascanius to his mailed 
 breast, and kissing his lips through the helmet addresses 
 him thus : ' Learn valor from me, my son, and genuine 
 hardihood, success from others. To-day it is my hand 
 that shall shield you in war and lead you through the 
 walks of honor ; be it your care, when your age has 
 ripened into manhood, to bear the past in mind, seek 
 patterns among those of your own blood, and be stirred 
 to action by ^neas your sire and Hector your uncle.' 
 
 So having said, he passed towering through the gate, 
 a huge spear quivering in his hand : Antheus and Mnes- 
 theus close their ranks and rush forth, and the whole 
 multitude streams from the empty camp. The field is 
 clouded by blinding dust, and earth throbs and shud- 
 ders with the tramp of feet. Turnus saw them coming 
 towards him from their battlements, the Ausonians saw, 
 and a cold shudder ran through their vitals : first before 
 all the Latians Juturna heard and knew the sound and 
 shrank back in terror. As a storm-cloud bursting 
 through the sky sweeps down to earth along the main : 
 hapless husbandmen know it ere it comes, and shudder 
 at heart ; 3'es, it will bring havoc to their trees, devas- 
 tation to their crops, will lay all low far and wide ; the 
 winds fly before it and waft the sound to the shore : 
 with as strong a rush the Rhoeteian chief sweeps his 
 armj^ full on the foe ; they close in firm masses and 
 form severally at his side. Thymbrseus' sword cuts 
 down mighty Osiris, Mnestheus slays Archetius, Achates 
 Epulo, and G^^as Ufens ; falls too the augur Tolumnius, 
 
BOOK XIT, U7 
 
 the first to fling his javelin at the enemy. The din 
 mounts to the sky, and the Rutulians routed in turn fly 
 through the plains in a whirlwind of dust. The hero 
 himself neither stoops to slaughter the flying nor en- 
 counter such as would fain meet him foot to foot, 
 weapon in hand: Turnus alone he tracks winding 
 through the thick darkness, him alone he challenges to 
 combat. The terror struck Juturna's manly mind : she 
 plucks from his seat Metiscus, Turnus' charioteer, as 
 he drives the horses, and leaves him fallen at distance 
 behind the car : herself takes his place and handles the 
 flowing rein, assuming all that Metiscus had, voice and 
 person and armor. Like a black swallow that flies 
 through the house of some wealthy man and traverses 
 the lofty hall, in quest of scraps of food for her twitter- 
 ing nestlings ; now she is heard in the empt}- cloisters, 
 now about the water-tanks ; so drives Juturna through 
 the thick of the foe, and flies on rapid wheel from spot 
 to spot, now here, now there she gives a glimpse of her 
 victorious brother, yet never lets him stop and fight, 
 but whirls far awa}' in the distance, ^neas for his 
 part winds through sinuous paths in hope to meet him, 
 tracks his steps, and shouts to him aloud across the 
 weltering ranks. Oft as he spies out the foe and tries 
 by running to match the horses' winged speed, each 
 time Juturna wheels the car aside. . What can he do ? 
 he tosses in aimless ebb and flow, thoughts distracting 
 his mind this way and that : — when lo ! Messapus, 
 with sudden movement, happening to carry two limber 
 spear-shafts tipped with steel, levels one at him and 
 flings it true to its mark, ^neas stopped and gathered 
 his arms about him, sinking on his knee ; 3'et the fierce 
 spear took the top of the helmet and struck the crest 
 from the cone. Then at last his wrath mounts high ; 
 
448 THE ^NEID. 
 
 and under the duress of treacher}^ as he sees the 
 steeds and chariot whirling away from him, after many 
 an appeal to Jove and the altars of the violated league, 
 he falls on the ranks before him, and fanned to dread- 
 ful vengeance by the War-god's breath, lets loose a 
 carnage cruel and unsparing, and flings the reins on 
 the neck of his passion. 
 
 And now what god will tell me all those horrors and 
 relate for me in verse the several scenes of slaughter, 
 the deaths of the leaders whom Turnus here, the Tro- 
 jan hero there, is chasing over the plain? Was it thy 
 will, great Jove, that nations destined in time to come 
 to everlasting amity, should first clash in such dread 
 turmoil ? ^neas confronted by Rutulian Sucro (that 
 combat first brought the Trojan onset to a stand) after 
 brief dela}' catches him on the side and drives his 
 stubborn sword death's nearest way through the ribs 
 that fence the bosom. Turnus in foot-encounter slays 
 Amycus, whose horse had thrown him, and his brother 
 Diores, striking one with the spear ere he came up, the 
 other with the sword-blade, lops the heads of both, 
 hangs them from his car, and carries them dripping 
 with blood. That sends down Talon to death and 
 Tanais and brave Cethegus, those at one onslaught, 
 and hapless Onytes, of the house of Echion, brought 
 forth by Peridia : that kills the brethren who came from 
 Apollo's land of Lycia, and young Mencetes the Arca- 
 dian, who shrunk from war in vain ; he plied his craft 
 and lived in poverty by the fishy waters of Lerna, a 
 stranger to the halls of the great ; and his father tilled 
 land for hire. Like two fires launched from different 
 quarters on a dry forest with bushes of crackling bay, 
 or as when two foaming rivers pouring from lofty 
 heights crash along and run towards the ocean, each 
 
BOOK XIL 449 
 
 ploughing his own wild channel: with no less fuiy 
 rush through the fight JEneas and Turnus both : now, 
 now the wrath is boiling within them : their uncon- 
 quered bosoms swell to bursting: they throw their 
 whole force on the wounds the}^ deal. This with the 
 whirl and the blow of a mighty rock dashes Murranus 
 headlong from his car to the ground, Murranus who 
 had ever on his tongue the ancient names of sires and 
 grandsires and a lineage stretching through the series 
 of Latium's kings : the wheels throw forward the fallen 
 man under the reins and yoke, and he is crushed by 
 the quick hoof-beat of the steeds that mind not their 
 lord. That meets Hyllus as he rushed on in vehement 
 fury, and hurls a javelin at his gold-bound brows : the 
 spear pierced the helmet and stood fixed in the brain. 
 Nor did your prowess, Creteus, bravest of Greeks, 
 deliver you from Turnus, nor did the gods Cupencus 
 worshiped shield him from the onset of -^neas : his 
 bosom met the steel, and the check of the brazen 
 buckler stood the wretch in small stead. You, too, 
 great ^olus, the Laurentian plains looked on in death, 
 spreading your frame abroad over their surface : fallen 
 are you, whom the Argive bands could never overthrow, 
 nor Achilles the destro^-er of Priam's realm : here was 
 your fatal goal : a princely home under Ida's shade : at 
 Lyrnesus a princely hope, in Laurentian soil a sepul- 
 cher. The two armies are in hot conflict : all the La- 
 tians, all the sons of Dardanus, Mnestheus, and keen 
 Serestus, and Messapus tamer of the steed, and brave 
 Asilas, the Tuscan band, and Evander's Arcad cavalry, 
 each man for himself straining every nerve : no stint, 
 no stay ; they strive with giant tension. 
 
 And now ^neas had a thought inspired by his 
 beauteous mother, to march. to the walls, throw his 
 29 
 
450 THE jENEID. 
 
 force rapidly on the town, and stun the Latians with a 
 sudden blow. Tracking Turnus through the ranks he 
 swept his ej^es round and round, and beholds the city 
 enjo3ing respite from all that furious war, and lying in 
 unchallenged repose. At once his mind is fired with 
 the vision of a grander battle : Mnestheus he summons 
 and Sergestus and brave Serestus, the first in com- 
 mand, and mounts an eminence round which the rest 
 of the Teucrian army gathers in close ranks, not laying 
 shield or dart aside. Standing on the tall mound, he 
 thus bespeaks them : ' Let nothing stay my orders ; 
 the hand of Jove is here ; nor let any move slower be- 
 cause the enterprise is sudden. The town, the cause 
 of the war, the royal home of the Latian king, unless 
 they submit the yoke and confess themselves A'an- 
 quished, I will overthrow this day, and lay its smoking 
 turrets level with the ground. What? am I to wait 
 till Turnus choose to bide the combat, and once con- 
 quered, meet me a second time? This, my men, is the 
 well-spring, this the head and front of the monstrous 
 war. Bring torches with speed, and reclaim the treaty 
 fire in hand.' He said, and all with emulous spirit of 
 union close their ranks and stream to the walls in com- 
 pact mass. Scaling-ladders and brands are produced 
 suddenly and in a moment. Some run to the several 
 gates and slay those stationed there: some hurl the 
 steel and overshadow the sky with javehns. ^neas 
 himself among the foremost hfts up his hand under the 
 city wall, loudly upbraids the king, and calls the gods 
 to witness that he is once more forced into battle, the 
 Italians twice his foes, the second treaty broken like 
 the first. Strife arises among the wildered citizens: 
 some are for throwing open the town and unbarring the 
 gates to the Dardans : nay, they even drag the monarch 
 
BOOK XII. 451 
 
 to the ramparts : others draw the sword and prepare to 
 guard the walls : as when a countryman has tracked 
 out bees concealed in a cavernous rock and filled their 
 hiding-place with pungent smoke, they in alarm for the 
 common wealth flit about their waxen realm and stir 
 themselves to wrath by vehement buzzing : the murkj- 
 smell winds from chamber to chamber : a dull blind noise 
 fills the cavern : vapors ascend into the ^oid of air. 
 
 Yet another stroke fell on Latium's wearied sons, 
 shaking with its agony the city to her foundations. 
 When the queen from her palace saw the enem}- draw 
 near, the walls assailed, flames flying roofward, the 
 Rutulian army, the soldiers of Turnus nowhere in 
 sight, she deemed, poor wretch, her warrior slain in the 
 combat, and maddened with the access of grief, cries 
 aloud that she alone is the guilty cause, the fountain- 
 head of all this evil ; and flinging out wild words in the 
 fury of her frenzied anguish, rends with desperate hand 
 her purple raiment, and fastens from a loft}^ beam the 
 noose of hideous death. Soon as Latium's wretched 
 dames knew the blow that had fallen, her daughter 
 Lavinia is first to rend yellow hair and roseate cheek, 
 and the rest about her ran as wildly : the palace re- 
 echoes their wail. The miserable story spreads through 
 the town : every heart sinks : there goes the old king 
 with gannents rent, all confounded by his consort's 
 death and his city's ruin : he soils his hoary locks with 
 showers of unseemly dust, and oft and oft upbraids 
 himself that he embraced not sooner ^neas the Dar- 
 dan nor took him for son-in-law of his own free will. 
 
 Turnus, meantime, is plying the war far away on the 
 plain, following here and there a straggler with abated 
 zeal, himself and his steeds alike less buoyant. The 
 air wafted to him the confused din, inspiring unknown 
 
452 THE ^NEID. 
 
 terror, and on his quickened ears smote the sound 
 of the city's turmoil and the noise not of joy. ' Alas ! 
 what is this mighty agony that shakes the walls ? what 
 these loud shouts pouring from this quarter and that ? ' 
 So he cries, and drawing his bridle halts bewildered. 
 His sister, just as she stood in guise of Metiscus the 
 driver, guiding car, horse, and reins, thus meets his 
 question : ' Proceed we still, Turnus, to chase the 
 Trojans, where victory's dawn shows us the way : 
 others there are whose hands can guard the cit^' : 
 -iEneas bears down on the Italians and stirs up the 
 battle : let us send havoc as cruel among his Teu- 
 crians : so shall your slain be as many and your mar- 
 tial fame as high.' Turnus answered : ' Sister, I both 
 knew 3"0u long since, when at first 3'ou artfully dis- 
 turbed the truce and flung yourself into our quarrel, 
 and now you vainly hide the goddess from m}^ eyes. 
 But tell me by whose will you are sent from Olympus 
 to cope with toils like this ? Is it that you ma}^ look 
 on the cruel end of y^our hapless brother ? For what 
 can I do? what chance is there left to give me hope 
 of safety? With my own eyes I saw Murranus die, 
 his giant frame laid low by a giant wound : he called 
 me by name, he, than whom I had no dearer friend. 
 Dead, too, is ill-starred Ufens, all because he would 
 not see me disgraced : his body and his arms are the 
 Teucrians' prize. Am I to let the nation's homes be 
 razed to the ground, the one drop that was wanting 
 to the cup, and not rather with my own right hand 
 give Drances' words the lie? Shall I turn my back? 
 shall this land see Turnus flying? is death after all so 
 bitter? Be gracious to me, gentle powers of the 
 grave, since the gods above are against me^! Yes, 
 I will come down to you a stainless spirit, guiltless of 
 
BOOK XII. 453 
 
 that base charge, worthy in all my acts of my great 
 forefathers.' 
 
 Scarce had he spoken, when lo ! there flies through 
 the midst of the foe, on a foaming steed, Saces, with 
 an arrow full in his face : up he spurs, imploring Tur- 
 nus b}^ name : ' Turnus, our last hope is in you : have 
 compassion on your army, -^neas thunders with sword 
 and spear, and threatens that he will level in dust and 
 give to destruction the Italians' topmost battlements : 
 even now brands are flying to the roofs. Ever}^ Latian 
 face, ever}^ eye turns to you : the king himself mutters 
 in doubt whom to call his son-in-law, to whose alliance 
 to incline. Nay, more, your fastest friend the queen 
 is dead by her own hand, scared and driven out of life. 
 Only Messapus and keen Atinas are at the gates to 
 uphold our forces. About them are closed ranks,, and 
 an iron harvest of naked blades : you are rolling your 
 car over a field from which war has ebbed.' Turnus 
 stood still with silent dull regard, wildered by the 
 thoughts that crowd on his mind : deep shame, grief 
 and madness, frenzy-goaded passion and conscious 
 wrath all surging at once. Soon as the shadows 
 parted and light came back to his intelligence, he 
 darted his blazing eyes cityward with restless vehe- 
 mence, and looked back from his car to the wide- 
 stretching town. Lo ! there was a cone of fire spread- 
 ing from istory to story and flaring to heaven : the 
 flame was devouring the turret which he had built 
 himself of planks welded together, put wheels beneath 
 it, and furnished it with lofty bridges. ' Fate is too 
 strong for me, sister, too strong : hold me back no 
 longer : we needs must follow where Heaven and cruel 
 Fortune are calling us. Yes, I will meet iEneas : I 
 will endure the full bitterness of death : no more, my 
 
454 THE ^NEID, 
 
 love, shall 3^ou see me disgraced: suffer me first to 
 have my hour of madness.' He said, and in a moment 
 leaped to the ground, rushes on through foes, through 
 javelins, leaves his sister to her sorrow, and dashes 
 at full speed through the intervening ranks. Even as 
 from a mountain's top down comes a rock headlong, 
 torn off by the wind, or washed down by vehement 
 rain, or loosened by the lapse of creeping years : down 
 the steep it crashes with giant impulse, that reckless 
 stone, bounding over the ground and rolling along 
 with it trees, herds, and men : so, dashing the ranks 
 apart, rushes Turnus to the city walls, where the earth 
 is wet with plashy blood, and the gale hurtles with 
 spears : he beckons with his hand, and cries with a 
 mighty voice : ' Have done, ye Rutulians ! ye Latians, 
 hold back your darts ! whatever Fortune brings she 
 brings to me : 'tis juster far that I in your stead should 
 singly expiate the treaty's breach and try the issue 
 of the steel.' All at the word part from the midst, and 
 leave him a clear space. 
 
 But father ^neas, hearing Turnus' name, quits his 
 hold on the walls and the battlements that crown them, 
 flings delay to the winds and breaks off the work of war, 
 steps high in triumph, and makes his arms peal dread 
 thunder : vast as Athos, vast as Erj^x, vast as father 
 Apennine himself, when he roars with his quivering 
 holms and lifts his snow3^ crest exultingly to the sky. 
 All turn their eyes with eager contention. Kutulians, 
 Trojans, and Italians, those alike who were manning 
 the towers and those whose battering-rams were assail- 
 ing the foundations. All unbrace their armor. Lati- 
 nus himself stands amazed to see two men so mighty, 
 born in climes so distant each from each, thus met to- 
 gether to try the steel's issue. At once, when a space 
 
BOOK XII. 455 
 
 is cleared on the plain, first hurling their spears, they 
 advance with swift onset, and dash into the combat 
 with shield and ringing harness. Earth groans beneath 
 them : their swords hail blow on blow : chance and 
 valor mingle pell-mell. As when on mighty Sila or 
 Taburnus' summit two bulls, lowering their brows for 
 combat, engage fiercely : the herdsmen retreat in dread : 
 the cattle all stand dumb with terror, the heifers wait 
 in suspense who is to be the monarch of the woodland, 
 whom the herds are to follow henceforth : they each in 
 turn give furious blows, push and lodge their horns, 
 and bathe neck and shoulders with streams of blood : 
 the sound makes the forest bellow again : with no less 
 fury ^neas the Trojan, and the Daunian chief clash 
 shield on shield : the enormous din fills the firmament. 
 Jupiter himself holds aloft his scales poised and level, 
 and lays therein the destinies of the two, to see whom 
 the struggle dooms, and whose the weight that death 
 bears down. Forth darts Turnus, deeming it safe, 
 rises with his whole frame on the uplifted sword, and 
 strikes. Trojans and eager Latians shout aloud : both 
 armies gaze expectant. But the faithless sword snaps 
 in twain and fails its fiery lord midway in the stroke, 
 unless flight should come to his aid. Off he flies 
 swifter than the wind, seeing an unknown hilt in his 
 defenseless hand. Men say that in his headlong haste, 
 when first he was mounting the car harnessed for 
 battle, he left behind his father's falchion and snatched 
 up the steel of Metiscus, his charioteer ; so long as the 
 Teucrians fled straggling before him, the weapon did 
 good service ; soon as it came to the divine Vulcanian 
 armor, the mortal blade, like brittle ice, flew asunder 
 at the stroke: the fragments sparkle on the yellow 
 sand. So now in liis distraction Turnus flies here and 
 
456 THE jENEID. 
 
 there over the plain, weaving vague circles in this 
 place and in that: for the Trojans have closed in 
 circle about him, and here is a spreading marsh, there 
 lofty ramparts to bar the waj^ 
 
 Nor is ^neas wanting, though at times the arrow 
 wound slackens his knees and robs them of their power 
 to run : no, he follows on, and presses upon the flier 
 foot for foot : as when a hound has got a stag pent in 
 by a river, or hedged about b}' the terror of crimson 
 plumage, and chases him running and barking: the 
 stag, frighted by the snare and the steep bank, doubles 
 a thousand times : the keen Umbrian clings open- 
 mouthed to his skirts, all but seizes him, and as 
 though in act to seize, snaps his teeth, and is baffled 
 to find nothing in their gripe. Then, if ever, uprises 
 a shout, echoing along bank and marsh, and heaven 
 rings again with the noise. Turnus, even as he flies, 
 calls fiercelj' on tl^ Rutulians, addressing by name, 
 and clamors for his well-known sword, -^neas, for 
 his part, threatens death and instant destruction, should 
 any come near, and terrifies his trembling foes, swear- 
 ing that he will raze their city to the ground, and 
 presses on in spite of his wound. Five times they 
 circle round, five times they retrace the circle : for no 
 trivial prize is at stake, no guerdon of a game : the 
 contest is for Turnus' life, for his very heart's blood. 
 It chanced that there had stood there a wild olive with 
 its bitter leaves, sacred to Faunus, a tree in old days 
 reverenced by seamen, where when saved from ocean 
 they used to fasten their ofterings to the Laurentian 
 god and hang up their votive garments ; but the unre- 
 specting Trojans had lately lopped the hallowed trunk, 
 that the hsts might be clear for combat. There was 
 lodged Eneas' spear : thither its force had carried it, 
 
BOOK XIL 457 
 
 and was now holding it fast in the unyielding root. 
 The Dardan chief bent over it, fain to wrench forth 
 the steel that his weapon may catch whom his foot 
 cannot overtake. Then cried Turnus in the moment 
 of frenzied agony : ' Have mercy, I conjure thee, 
 good Faunus, and thou, most gracious earth, hold 
 fast the steel if I have ever reverenced your sanctities, 
 which -^neas* crew for their part have caused battle 
 to desecrate.* He said, nor were his vows unanswered 
 by heavenly aid. Hard as he struggled, long as he lin- 
 gered over the stubborn stock, by no force could ^neas 
 make the wood unclose its fangs. While he strains 
 with keen insistence, the Daunian goddess, resuming 
 the guise of charioteer Metiscus, runs forward and 
 restores to her brother his sword. Then Venus, re- 
 senting the freedom taken b}' the presumptuous Nymph, 
 came nigh, and plucks the weapon from the depth of 
 the root. And now towering high, with restored weap- 
 ons and recruited force, this in strong reliance on 
 his sword, that fiercely waving his spear tall as he, the 
 two stand front to front in the breath-draining conflict 
 of war. 
 
 Meanwhile the king of almighty Ol^Tnpus accosts 
 Juno, as from a golden cloud she gazes on the battle : 
 * Where is this to end, fair spouse? what last stroke 
 have you in store? you know j^ourself, by your own 
 confession, that ^neas has his place assured in heav- 
 en among Italia's native gods, that destiny is mak- 
 ing him a ladder to the stars. What plan you now? 
 what hope keeps you seated on those chilly clouds? 
 was it right that mortal wound should harm a god, 
 or that Turnus — for what power could Juturna have 
 apart from you ? — should receive back his lost sword 
 and the vanquished should feel new forces? At length 
 
458 THE ^NEID. 
 
 have done, and let my prayers bow your will. Let this 
 mighty sorrow cease to devour you in silence :" let me 
 hear sounds of sullen disquiet less often from 3'our 
 lovely lips. The barrier has been reached. To toss 
 the Trojans over land and s6a, to kindle an unhal- 
 lowed war, to plunge a home in mourning, to blend 
 a dirge with the bridal song, this it has been yours 
 to do: all further action I forbid.' So spake Jupiter : 
 and so in return Saturn's daughter with downcast 
 look ; ' Even because I knew, great Jove, that such 
 was your pleasure, have I withdrawn against my will 
 from Turnus and from earth : else you would not see 
 me now in the solitude of mj' airy throne, exposed 
 to all that comes, meet or unmeet ; armed with fire- 
 brands, I should stand in the ver}^ line of battle, and 
 force the Teucrians into the hands of their foes. As 
 for Juturna, I counseled her, I own, to succor her 
 wretched brother, and warranted an unusual venture 
 where life was at stake : but naught was said of aiming 
 the shaft or bending the bow : I swear by the inexpi- 
 able fountain-head of Styx, the one sanction that binds 
 us powers above. And now I yield indeed, and quit 
 this odious struggle. Yet there is a boon I would ask, 
 a boon which destiny forefends not. I ask it for the 
 sake of Latium, for the dignity of your own people : 
 when at last peace shall be ratified with a happy bridal, 
 for happy let it be : when bonds of treaty shall be knit 
 at last, let it not be thy will that the native Latians 
 should change their ancient name, become Trojans or 
 take the Teucrian style : let not them alter their lan- 
 guage or their garb. Let there be Latium still: let 
 there be centuries of Alban kings : let there be a Ro- 
 man stock, strong with the strength of Italian man- 
 hood : but let Troy be fallen as she is, name and nation 
 
BOOK XII. 459 
 
 alike.' The Father of men and nature answered with a 
 smile : ' A}', 3'ou are Jove's own sister, the other branch 
 of Saturn's line ; such billows of passion surge in your 
 bosom ! but come, let this ineffectual frenzy give way : 
 I grant 3'our wish, and submit myself in willing obedi- 
 ence. The Ausonians shall keep their native tongue, 
 their native customs: the name shall remain as it is: 
 the Teucrians shall merge in the nation they join — 
 that and no more : their rites and worship shall be my 
 gift : all shall be Latians and speak the Latian tongue. 
 The race that shall arise from this admixture of Auso- 
 nian blood shall transcend in piety earth and heaven 
 itself, nor shall any nation pay 3*ou such honors as 
 they.' Juno nodded assent, and turned her sullenness 
 to pleasure ; meanwhile she departs from the sky, and 
 quits the cloud where she sat. 
 
 This done, the sire meditates a further resolve, and 
 prepares to part Juturna from her brother's side. There 
 are two fiends known as the Furies, whom with Tarta- 
 rean Megsera dismal Night brought forth at one and 
 the same birth, wreathing them alike with coiling ser- 
 pents, and equipping them with wings that fan the air. 
 They are seen beside Jove's throne, at the threshold of 
 his angry sovereignty, goading frail mortalit}- with 
 stings of terror, oft as the monarch of the gods girds 
 himself to send forth disease and frightful death, or 
 appalls guilty towns with war. One of these Jove sped 
 with haste from heaven's summit, and bade her con- 
 front Juturna in token of his will. Forth she flies, 
 borne earthward on the blast of a whirlwind. Swift as 
 the arrow from the string cleaves the cloud, sent forth 
 by Parthian — Parthian or Cydonian — tipped with fell 
 poison's gall, the dealer of a wound incurable, and' 
 skims the flying vapors hurtling and unforeseen, so 
 
460 THE ^NEID, 
 
 went the Daughter of Night and made her way to earth. 
 Soon as she sees the forces of Troj' and the army of 
 Turnus, she huddles herself suddenly into the shape of 
 a puny bird, which oft on tombstone or lonely roof sit- 
 ting by night screams restlessly through the gloom ; in 
 this disguise the fiend again and again flies flapping in 
 Turnus' face, and beats with her wings on his shield. 
 A strange chilly terror unknits his frame, his hair 
 stands shudderingly erect, and his utterance cleaves to 
 his jaws. But when Juturna knew from far the rus- 
 tling of those Fury pinions, she rends, hapless maid, her 
 disheveled tresses, marring, in all a sister's agony, her 
 face with her nails, her breast with her clenched hands : 
 'What now, my Turnus, can your sister avail? what 
 more remains for an obdurate wretch like me ? b}' what 
 expedient can I lengthen your span ? can I face a por- 
 tent like this? At last, at last I quit the field. Cease 
 to appall my fluttering soul, ye birds of ill omen : I 
 know the flapping of your wings and its deathful noise ; 
 nor fail I to read great Jove's tyrannic will. Is this 
 his recompense for lost virginity ? wh}^ gave he me life 
 to last for ever? why ^as the law of death annulled? 
 else might I end this moment the tale of my sorrows, 
 and travel to the shades hand in hand with my poor 
 brother. Can immortality, can aught that I have to 
 boast give me jo}^ without him ? Oh, that earth would 
 but yawn deep enough, and Send me down, goddess 
 though I be, to the powers of the grave ! ' So say- 
 ing, she shrouded her head in her azure robe, with 
 many a groan, and vanished beneath the river of her 
 deity. 
 
 JEneas presses on, front to front, shaking his massy, 
 tree-like spear, and thus speaks in the fierceness of his 
 spirit : ' What is to be the next delay ? wh}^ does 
 
BOOK XIL 461 
 
 Turnus still hang back? ours is no contest of speed, 
 but of stern soldiership, hand to hand. Take all dis- 
 guises 3'ou can : muster all your powers of courage or 
 of skill: mount on wing, if 3'ou list, to the stars aloft, 
 or hide in the cavernous depth of earth.' Shaking his 
 head, he replied : ' I quail not at 3 our fiery words, in- 
 sulting foe: it is Heaven that makes me quail, and 
 Jove my enemy.' No more he spoke : but, sweeping 
 his eyes round, espies a huge stone, a stone ancient 
 and huge, which chanced to be lying on the plain, set 
 as some field's boundarj^ to forefend disputes of owner- 
 ship : scarce could twelve picked men lift it on their 
 shoulders, such puny frames as earth produces nowa- 
 daj^s : he caught it up with hurried grasp and flung it 
 at his foe, rising as he threw, and running rapidl^^ as 
 hero might. And 3^et all the while he knows not that 
 he is running or moving, lifting up or stirring the enor- 
 mous stone : his knees totter under him, and his blood 
 chills and freezes : and so the mass from the warrior's 
 hand, whirled through the empty void, passed not 
 through all the space between nor carried home the 
 blow. Even as in dreams, at night, when heav3^ slum- 
 ber has weighed down the eyes, we seem vainly wish- 
 ing to make eager progress forward and midwa3' in the 
 effort fail helplessl3^ : our tongue has no power, our 
 wonted strength stands not our frames in stead, nor do 
 words or utterance come at our call: so it is with 
 Turnus : whatever means his valor tries, the fell fiend 
 bays them of their issue. And now confused images 
 whirl through his brain : he looks to his Rutulians and 
 to the city, and falters with dread, and quails at the 
 threatening spear : how to escape he knows not, nor 
 how to front the foe, nor sees he anywhere his car or 
 the sister who drives it. 
 
462 THE jENEID, 
 
 Full in that shrinking face .^neas shakes his fatal 
 weapon, taking aim with his eye, and with an effort of 
 his whole frame hurls it forth. Never stone flung from 
 engine of siege roars so loud, never peal so rending 
 follows the thunderbolt. On flies the spear like dark 
 whirlwind with fell destruction on its wing, pierces the 
 edge of the corselet, and the outermost circle of the 
 sevenfold shield, and with a rush cleaves through the 
 thiffh. Down with his knee doubled under him comes 
 Turnus to earth, all his length prostrated b}' the blow. 
 Up start the Rutulians, groaning as one man : the 
 whole mountain round rebellows, and the depths of the 
 forest send back the sound far and wide. He in lowly 
 suppliance lifts up eye and entreating hand : ' It is m}^ 
 due,' he cries, ' and I ask not to be spared it : take 
 what fortune gives you. Yet, if you can feel for a 
 parent's misery — 3'our father, Anchises, was once in 
 like plight — have mercy on Daunus' hoary hairs, and 
 let me, or if you choose my breathless body, be restored 
 to my kin. You are conqueror: the Ausonians have 
 seen my conquered hands outstretched : the royal bride 
 is yours: let hatred be pressed no further.' ^neas 
 stood still, a fiery warrior, his ej'es rolling, and checked 
 his hand : and those suppliant words were working 
 more and more on his faltering purpose, when, alas ! 
 the ill-starred belt was seen high on the shoulder, and 
 light flashed from the well-known studs — the belt of 
 young Pallas, whom Turnus conquered and struck 
 down to earth, and bore on his breast the badge of tri- 
 umphant enmity. Soon as his eyes caught the spoil 
 and drank in the recollection of that cruel grief, kindled 
 into madness and terrible in his wrath : ' What, with 
 my friend's trophies upon you, would you escape my 
 
BOOK XIL 463 
 
 hand? It is Pallas, Pallas, who with this blow makes 
 3'ou his victim, and gluts his vengeance with j'our ac- 
 cursed blood.* With these words, fierce as flame, he 
 plunged the steel into the breast that lay before him. 
 That other's frame grows chill and motionless, and the 
 soul, resenting its lot, flies groaningly to the shades. 
 
mt 
 
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