Aeneid

Virgil

Vergil. The Aeneid of Virgil. Williams, Theodore, C, translator. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910.

So did Anchises speak, then, after pause,
Thus to their wondering ears his word prolonged:
“Behold Marcellus, bright with glorious spoil,
In lifted triumph through his warriors move!
The Roman power in tumultuous days
He shall establish; he rides forth to quell
Afric and rebel Gaul; and to the shrine
Of Romulus the third-won trophy brings.”
Then spoke Aeneas, for he now could see
A beauteous youth in glittering dress of war,
Though of sad forehead and down-dropping eyes:
“Say, father, who attends the prince? a son?
Or of his greatness some remoter heir?
How his friends praise him, and how matchless he!
But mournful night Tests darkly o'er his brow.”
With brimming eyes Anchises answer gave:
“Ask not, 0 son, what heavy weight of woe
Thy race shall bear, when fate shall just reveal
This vision to the world, then yield no more.
0 gods above, too glorious did ye deem
The seed of Rome, had this one gift been sure?
The lamentation of a multitude
Arises from the field of Mars, and strikes
The city's heart. 0 Father Tiber, see
What pomp of sorrow near the new-made tomb
Beside thy fleeting stream! What Ilian youth
Shall e'er his Latin kindred so advance
In hope of glory? When shall the proud land
Of Romulus of such a nursling boast?
Ah, woe' is me! 0 loyal heart and true!
0 brave, right arm invincible! What foe
Had 'scaped his onset in the shock of arms,
Whether on foot he strode, or if he spurred
The hot flanks of his war-horse flecked with foam?
0 lost, lamented child! If thou evade
Thy evil star, Marcellus thou shalt be.
0 bring me lilies! Bring with liberal hand!
Sad purple blossoms let me throw—the shade
Of my own kin to honor, heaping high
My gifts upon his grave! So let me pay
An unavailing vow!”
Then, far and wide
Through spacious fields of air, they wander free,
Witnessing all; Anchises guides his son
From point to point, and quickens in his mind
Hunger for future fame. Of wars he tells
Soon imminent; of fair Laurentum's tribes;
Of King Latinus' town; and shows what way
Each task and hardship to prevent, or bear.

Now Sleep has portals twain, whereof the one
Is horn, they say, and easy exit gives
To visions true; the other, gleaming white
With polished ivory, the.dead employ
To people night with unsubstantial dreams.
Here now Anchises bids his son farewell;
And with Sibylla, his companion sage,
Up through that ivory portal lets him rise.
Back to his fleet and his dear comrades all
Aeneas hastes.Then hold they their straight course
Into Caieta's bay. An anchor holds
Each lofty prow; the sterns stand firm on shore.

One more immortal name thy death bequeathed,
Nurse of Aeneas, to Italian shores,
Caieta; there thy honor hath a home;
Thy bones a name: and on Hesperia's breast
Their proper glory.When Aeneas now
The tribute of sepulchral vows had paid
Beside the funeral mound, and o'er the seas
Stillness had fallen, he flung forth his sails,
And leaving port pursued his destined way.
Freshly the night-winds breathe; the cloudless moon
Outpours upon his path unstinted beam,
And with far-trembling glory smites the sea.
Close to the lands of Circe soon they fare,
Where the Sun's golden daughter in far groves
Sounds forth her ceaseless song; her lofty hall
Is fragrant every night with flaring brands
Of cedar, giving light the while she weaves
With shrill-voiced shuttle at her linens fine.
From hence are heard the loud lament and wrath
Of lions, rebels to their linked chains
And roaring all night long; great bristly boars
And herded bears, in pinfold closely kept,
Rage horribly, and monster-wolves make moan;
Whom the dread goddess with foul juices strong
From forms of men drove forth, and bade to wear
the mouths and maws of beasts in Circe's thrall.
But lest the sacred Trojans should endure
such prodigy of doom, or anchor there
on that destroying shore, kind Neptune filled
their sails with winds of power, and sped them on
in safety past the perils of that sea.

Now morning flushed the wave, and saffron-garbed
Aurora from her rose-red chariot beamed
in highest heaven; the sea-winds ceased to stir;
a sudden calm possessed the air, and tides
of marble smoothness met the laboring oar.
Then, gazing from the deep, Aeneas saw
a stretch of groves, whence Tiber's smiling stream,
its tumbling current rich with yellow sands,
burst seaward forth: around it and above
shore-haunting birds of varied voice and plume
flattered the sky with song, and, circling far
o'er river-bed and grove, took joyful wing.
Thither to landward now his ships he steered,
and sailed, high-hearted, up the shadowy stream.

Hail, Erato! while olden kings and thrones
and all their sequent story I unfold!
How Latium's honor stood, when alien ships
brought war to Italy, and from what cause
the primal conflict sprang, O goddess, breathe
upon thy bard in song. Dread wars I tell,
array of battle, and high-hearted kings
thrust forth to perish, when Etruria's host
and all Hesperia gathered to the fray.
Events of grander march impel my song,
and loftier task I try. Latinus, then
an aged king, held long-accepted sway
o'er tranquil vales and towns. He was the son
of Faunus, so the legend tells, who wed
the nymph Marica of Laurentian stem.
Picus was Faunus' father, whence the line
to Saturn's Ioins ascends. O heavenly sire,
from thee the stem began! But Fate had given
to King Latinus' body no heirs male:
for taken in the dawning of his day
his only son had been; and now his home
and spacious palace one sole daughter kept,
who was grown ripe to wed and of full age
to take a husband. Many suitors tried
from all Ausonia and Latium's bounds;
but comeliest in all their princely throng
came Turnus, of a line of mighty sires.
Him the queen mother chiefly loved, and yearned
to call him soon her son. But omens dire
and menaces from Heaven withstood her will.
A laurel-tree grew in the royal close,
of sacred leaf and venerated age,
which, when he builded there his wall and tower,
Father Latinus found, and hallowed it
to Phoebus' grace and power, wherefrom the name
Laurentian, which his realm and people bear.
Unto this tree-top, wonderful to tell,
came hosts of bees, with audible acclaim
voyaging the stream of air, and seized a place
on the proud, pointing crest, where the swift swarm,
with interlacement of close-clinging feet,
swung from the leafy bough. “Behold, there comes,”
the prophet cried, “a husband from afar!
To the same region by the self-same path
behold an arm'd host taking lordly sway
upon our city's crown!” Soon after this,
when, coming to the shrine with torches pure,
Lavinia kindled at her father's side
the sacrifice, swift seemed the flame to burn
along her flowing hair—O sight of woe!
Over her broidered snood it sparkling flew,
lighting her queenly tresses and her crown
of jewels rare: then, wrapt in flaming cloud,
from hall to hall the fire-god's gift she flung.
This omen dread and wonder terrible
was rumored far: for prophet-voices told
bright honors on the virgin's head to fall
by Fate's decree, but on her people, war.

The King, sore troubled by these portents, sought
oracular wisdom of his sacred sire,
Faunus, the fate-revealer, where the groves
stretch under high Albunea, and her stream
roars from its haunted well, exhaling through
vast, gloomful woods its pestilential air.
Here all Oenotria's tribes ask oracles
in dark and doubtful days: here, when the priest
has brought his gifts, and in the night so still,
couched on spread fleeces of the offered flock,
awaiting slumber lies, then wondrously
a host of flitting shapes he sees, and hears
voices that come and go: with gods he holds
high converse, or in deep Avernian gloom
parleys with Acheron. Thither drew near
Father Latinus, seeking truth divine.
Obedient to the olden rite, he slew
a hundred fleecy sheep, and pillowed lay
upon their outstretched skins. Straightway a voice
out of the lofty forest met his prayer.
“Seek not in wedlock with a Latin lord
to join thy daughter, O my son and seed!
Beware this purposed marriage! There shall come
sons from afar, whose blood shall bear our name
starward; the children of their mighty loins,
as far as eve and morn enfold the seas,
shall see a subject world beneath their feet
submissive lie.” This admonition given
Latinus hid not. But on restless wing
rumor had spread it, when the men of Troy
along the river-bank of mounded green
their fleet made fast.Aeneas and his chiefs,
with fair Iulus, under spreading boughs
of one great tree made resting-place, and set
the banquet on. Thin loaves of altar-bread
along the sward to bear their meats were laid
(such was the will of Jove), and wilding fruits
rose heaping high, with Ceres' gift below.
Soon, all things else devoured, their hunger turned
to taste the scanty bread, which they attacked
with tooth and nail audacious, and consumed
both round and square of that predestined leaven.
“Look, how we eat our tables even!” cried
Iulus, in a jest. Such was the word
which bade their burdens fall. From his boy's lip
the father caught this utterance of Fate,
silent with wonder at the ways of Heaven;
then swift he spoke: “Hail! O my destined shore,
protecting deities of Ilium, hail!
Here is our home, our country here! This day
I publish the mysterious prophecy
by Sire Anchises given: ‘My son,’ said he,
‘When hunger in strange lands shall bid devour
the tables of thy banquet gone, then hope
for home, though weary, and take thought to build
a dwelling and a battlement.’ Behold!
This was our fated hunger! This last proof
will end our evil days. Up, then! For now
by morning's joyful beam we will explore
what men, what cities, in this region be,
and, leaving ship, our several errands ply.
Your gift to Jove outpour! Make thankful prayer
unto Anchises' shade! To this our feast
bring back the flowing wine!” Thereat he bound
his forehead with green garland, calling loud
upon the Genius of that place, and Earth,
eldest of names divine; the Nymphs he called,
and river-gods unknown; his voice invoked
the night, the omen-stars through night that roll.
Jove, Ida's child, and Phrygia's fertile Queen:
he called his mother from Olympian skies,
and sire from Erebus. Lo, o'er his head
three times unclouded Jove omnipotent
in thunder spoke, and, with effulgent ray
from his ethereal tract outreaching far,
shook visibly the golden-gleaming air.
Swift, through the concourse of the Trojans, spread
news of the day at hand when they should build
their destined walls. So, with rejoicing heart
at such vast omen, they set forth a feast
with zealous emulation, ranging well
the wine-cups fair with many a garland crowned.

Soon as the morrow with the lamp of dawn
looked o'er the world, they took their separate ways,
exploring shore and towns; here spread the pools
and fountain of Numicius; here they see
the river Tiber, where bold Latins dwell.
Anchises' son chose out from his brave band
a hundred envoys, bidding them depart
to the King's sacred city, each enwreathed
with Pallas' silver leaf; and gifts they bear
to plead for peace and friendship at his throne.
While on this errand their swift steps are sped,
Aeneas, by a shallow moat and small,
his future city shows, breaks ground, and girds
with mound and breastwork like a camp of war
the Trojans' first abode. Soon, making way
to where the Latin citadel uprose,
the envoys scanned the battlements, and paused
beneath its wall. Outside the city gates
fair youths and striplings in life's early bloom
course with swift steeds, or steer through dusty cloud
the whirling chariot, or stretch stout bows,
or hurl the seasoned javelin, or strive
in boxing-bout and foot-race: one of these
made haste on horseback to the aged King,
with tidings of a stranger company
in foreign garb approaching. The good King
bade call them to his house, and took his seat
in mid-court on his high, ancestral throne.

Large and majestical the castle rose:
a hundred columns lifted it in air
upon the city's crown—the royal keep
of Picus of Laurentum; round it lay
deep, gloomy woods by olden worship blest.
Here kings took sceptre and the fasces proud
with omens fair; the selfsame sacred place
was senate-house and temple; here was found
a hall for hallowed feasting, where a ram
was offered up, and at long banquet-boards
the nation's fathers sat in due array.
Here ranged ancestral statues roughly hewn
of ancient cedar-wood: King Italus;
Father Sabinus, planter of the vine,
a curving sickle in his sculptured hand;
gray-bearded Saturn; and the double brow
of Janus' head; and other sires and kings
were wardens of the door, with many a chief
wounded in battle for his native land.
Trophies of arms in goodly order hung
along the columns: chariots of war
from foeman taken, axes of round blade,
plumed helmets, bolts and barriers of steel
from city-gates, shields, spears, and beaks of bronze
from captured galleys by the conqueror torn.
Here, wielding his Quirinal augur-staff,
girt in scant shift, and bearing on his left
the sacred oval shield, appeared enthroned
Picus, breaker of horses, whom his bride,
enamoured Circe, smote with golden wand,
and, raining o'er him potent poison-dew,
changed to a bird of pied and dappled wings.

In such a temple of his gods did Sire
Latinus, on hereditary throne,
welcome the Trojans to his halls, and thus
with brow serene gave greeting as they came:
“O sons of Dardanus, think not unknown
your lineage and city! Rumored far
your venturous voyage has been. What seek ye here?
What cause, what quest, has brought your barks and you
o'er the blue waters to Ausonia's hills?
What way uncharted, or wild stress of storm,
or what that sailors suffer in mid-sea,
unto this river bank and haven bore?
Doubt not our welcome! We of Latin land
are Saturn's sons, whose equitable minds,
not chained by statute or compulsion, keep
in freedom what the god's good custom gave.
Now I bethink me our Ausonian seers
have dark, dim lore that 't was this land gave birth
to Dardanus, who after took his way
through Phrygian Ida's towns and Samothrace.
Once out of Tuscan Corythus he fared;
but now in golden house among the stars
he has a throne, and by his altars blest
adds to the number of the gods we praise.”