Aeneid

Virgil

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

“Great leader of the Teucrians, while thy life
in safety stands, I call not Trojan power
vanquished or fallen. But to help thy war
my small means match not thy redoubled name.
Yon Tuscan river is my bound. That way
Rutulia thrusts us hard and chafes our wall
with loud, besieging arms. But I propose
to league with thee a numerous array
of kings and mighty tribes, which fortune strange
now brings to thy defence. Thou comest here
because the Fates intend. Not far from ours
a city on an ancient rock is seen,
Agylla, which a warlike Lydian clan
built on the Tuscan hills. It prospered well
for many a year, then under the proud yoke
of King Mezentius it came and bore
his cruel sway. Why tell the loathsome deeds
and crimes unspeakable the despot wrought?
May Heaven requite them on his impious head
and on his children! For he used to chain
dead men to living, hand on hand was laid
and face on face,—torment incredible!
Till, locked in blood-stained, horrible embrace,
a lingering death they found. But at the last
his people rose in furious despair,
and while he blasphemously raged, assailed
his life and throne, cut down his guards
and fired his regal dwellings; he, the while,
escaped immediate death and fied away
to the Rutulian land, to find defence
in Turnus hospitality. To-day
Etruria, to righteous anger stirred,
demands with urgent arms her guilty King.
To their large host, Aeneas, I will give
an added strength, thyself. For yonder shores
re-echo with the tumult and the cry
of ships in close array; their eager lords
are clamoring for battle. But the song
of the gray omen-giver thus declares
their destiny: ‘O goodly princes born
of old Maeonian lineage! Ye that are
the bloom and glory of an ancient race,
whom just occasions now and noble rage
enflame against Mezentius your foe,
it is decreed that yonder nation proud
shall never submit to chiefs Italian-born.
Seek ye a king from far!’ So in the field
inert and fearful lies Etruria's force,
disarmed by oracles. Their Tarchon sent
envoys who bore a sceptre and a crown
even to me, and prayed I should assume
the sacred emblems of Etruria's king,
and lead their host to war. But unto me
cold, sluggish age, now barren and outworn,
denies new kingdoms, and my slow-paced powers
run to brave deeds no more. Nor could I urge
my son, who by his Sabine mother's line
is half Italian-born. Thyself art he,
whose birth illustrious and manly prime
fate favors and celestial powers approve.
Therefore go forth, O bravest chief and King
of Troy and Italy! To thee I give
the hope and consolation of our throne,
pallas, my son, and bid him find in thee
a master and example, while he learns
the soldier's arduous toil. With thy brave deeds
let him familiar grow, and reverence thee
with youthful love and honor. In his train
two hundred horsemen of Arcadia,
our choicest men-at-arms, shall ride; and he
in his own name an equal band shall bring
to follow only thee.” Such the discourse.
With meditative brows and downcast eyes
Aeneas and Achates, sad at heart,
mused on unnumbered perils yet to come.
But out of cloudless sky Cythera's Queen
gave sudden signal: from th' ethereal dome
a thunder-peal and flash of quivering fire
tumultuous broke, as if the world would fall,
and bellowing Tuscan trumpets shook the air.
All eyes look up. Again and yet again
crashed the terrible din, and where the sky
looked clearest hung a visionary cloud,
whence through the brightness blazed resounding arms.
All hearts stood still. But Troy's heroic son
knew that his mother in the skies redeemed
her pledge in sound of thunder: so he cried,
“Seek not, my friend, seek not thyself to read
the meaning of the omen. 'T is to me
Olympus calls. My goddess-mother gave
long since her promise of a heavenly sign
if war should burst; and that her power would bring
a panoply from Vulcan through the air,
to help us at our need. Alas, what deaths
over Laurentum's ill-starred host impend!
O Turnus, what a reckoning thou shalt pay
to me in arms! O Tiber, in thy wave
what helms and shields and mighty soldiers slain
shall in confusion roll! Yea, let them lead
their lines to battle, and our league abjure!”

He said: and from the lofty throne uprose.
Straightway he roused anew the slumbering fire
sacred to Hercules, and glad at heart
adored, as yesterday, the household gods
revered by good Evander, at whose side
the Trojan company made sacrifice
of chosen lambs, with fitting rites and true.
Then to his ships he tried him, and rejoined
his trusty followers, of whom he took
the best for valor known, to lend him aid
in deeds of war. Others he bade return
down stream in easy course, and tidings bear
to young Ascanius of the new event,
and of his father. Horses then were brought
for all the Teucrians to Etruria bound;
and for Aeneas one of rarest breed,
o'er whom a tawny robe descended low,
of lion-skin, with claws of gleaming gold.

Noised swiftly through the little town it flies
that to the precinct of the Tuscan King
armed horsemen speed. Pale mothers in great fear
unceasing pray; for panic closely runs
in danger's steps; the war-god drawing nigh
looms larger; and good sire Evander now
clings to the hand of his departing son
and, weeping without stay, makes sad farewell:
“O, that great Jove would give me once again
my vanished years! O, if such man I were,
as when beneath Praeneste's wall I slew
the front ranks of her sons, and burned for spoil
their gathered shields on my triumph day;
or when this right hand hurled king Erulus
to shades below, though—terrible to tell —
Feronia bore him with three lives, that thrice
he might arise from deadly strife o'erthrown,
and thrice be slain—yet all these lives took I,
and of his arms despoiled him o'er and o'er:
not now, sweet son (if such lost might were mine),
should I from thy beloved embrace be torn;
nor could Mezentius with insulting sword
do murder in my sight and make my land
depopulate and forlorn. O gods in Heaven,
and chiefly thou whom all the gods obey,
have pity, Jove, upon Arcadia's King,
and hear a father's prayer: if your intent
be for my Pallas a defence secure,
if it be writ that long as I shall live,
my eyes may see him, and my arms enfold,
I pray for life, and all its ills I bear.
But if some curse, too dark to tell, impend
from thee, O Fortune blind! I pray thee break
my thread of miserable life to-day;
to-day, while fear still doubts and hope still smiles
on the unknown to-morrow, as I hold
thee to my bosom, dearest child, who art
my last and only joy; to-day, before
th' intolerable tidings smite my ears.”
Such grief the royal father's heart outpoured
at this last parting; the strong arms of slaves
lifted him, fallen in swoon, and bore him home.

Now forth beneath the wide-swung city-gates
the mounted squadron poured; Aeneas rode,
companioned of Achates, in the van;
then other lords of Troy. There Pallas shone
conspicuous in the midmost line, with cloak
and blazoned arms, as when the Morning-star
(To Venus dearest of all orbs that burn),
out of his lucent bath in ocean wave
lifts to the skies his countenance divine,
and melts the shadows of the night away.
Upon the ramparts trembling matrons stand
and follow with dimmed eyes the dusty cloud
whence gleam the brazen arms. The warriors ride
straight on through brake and fell, the nearest way;
loud ring the war-cries, and in martial line
the pounding hoof-beats shake the crumbling ground.
By Caere's cold flood lies an ample grove
revered from age to age. The hollowing hills
enclasp it in wide circles of dark fir,
and the Pelasgians, so the legends tell,
primaeval settlers of the Latin plains,
called it the haunt of Silvan, kindly god
of flocks and fields, and honoring the grove
gave it a festal day. Hard by this spot
had Tarchon with the Tuscans fortified
his bivouac, and from the heights afar
his legions could be seen in wide array
outstretching through the plain. To meet them there
Aeneas and his veteran chivalry
made sure advance, and found repose at eve
for warrior travel-worn and fainting steed.

But now athwart the darkening air of heaven
came Venus gleaming bright, to bring her son
the gifts divine. In deep, sequestered vale
she found him by a cooling rill retired,
and hailed him thus: “Behold the promised gift,
by craft and power of my Olympian spouse
made perfect, that my son need never fear
Laurentum's haughty host, nor to provoke
fierce Turnus to the fray.” Cythera's Queen
so saying, embraced her son, and hung the arms,
all glittering, on an oak that stood thereby.
The hero, with exultant heart and proud,
gazing unwearied at his mother's gift,
surveys them close, and poises in his hands
the helmet's dreadful crest and glancing flame,
the sword death-dealing, and the corselet strong,
impenetrable brass, blood-red and large,
like some dark-lowering, purple cloud that gleams
beneath the smiting sun and flashes far
its answering ray; and burnished greaves were there,
fine gold and amber; then the spear and shield —
the shield—of which the blazonry divine
exceeds all power to tell. Thereon were seen
Italia's story and triumphant Rome,
wrought by the Lord of Fire, who was not blind
to lore inspired and prophesying song,
fore-reading things to come. He pictured there
Iulus' destined line of glorious sons
marshalled for many a war. In cavern green,
haunt of the war-god, lay the mother-wolf;
the twin boy-sucklings at her udders played,
nor feared such nurse; with long neck backward thrown
she fondled each, and shaped with busy tongue
their bodies fair. Near these were pictured well
the walls of Rome and ravished Sabine wives
in the thronged theatre violently seized,
when the great games were done; then, sudden war
of Romulus against the Cures grim
and hoary Tatius; next, the end of strife
between the rival kings, who stood in arms
before Jove's sacred altar, cup in hand,
and swore a compact o'er the slaughtered swine.
Hard by, behold, the whirling chariots tore
Mettus asunder (would thou hadst been true,
false Alban, to thy vow!); and Tullus trailed
the traitor's mangled corse along the hills,
the wild thorn dripping gore. Porsenna, next,
sent to revolted Rome his proud command
to take her Tarquin back, and with strong siege
assailed the city's wall; while unsubdued
Aeneas' sons took arms in freedom's name.
there too the semblance of the frustrate King,
a semblance of his wrath and menace vain,
when Cocles broke the bridge, and Cloelia burst
her captive bonds and swam the Tiber's wave.
Lo, on the steep Tarpeian citadel
stood Manlius at the sacred doors of Jove,
holding the capitol, whereon was seen
the fresh-thatched house of Romulus the King.
There, too, all silver, through arcade of gold
fluttered the goose, whose monitory call
revealed the foeman at the gate: outside
besieging Gauls the thorny pathway climbed,
ambushed in shadow and the friendly dark
of night without a star; their flowing hair
was golden, and their every vesture gold;
their cloaks were glittering plaid; each milk-white neck
bore circlet of bright gold; in each man's hand
two Alpine javelins gleamed, and for defence
long shields the wild northern warriors bore.
There, graven cunningly, the Salian choir
went leaping, and in Lupercalian feast
the naked striplings ran; while others, crowned
with peaked cap, bore shields that fell from heaven;
and, bearing into Rome their emblems old,
chaste priestesses on soft-strewn litters passed.
But far from these th' artificer divine
had wrought a Tartarus, the dreadful doors
of Pluto, and the chastisements of sin;
swung o'er a threatening precipice, was seen
thy trembling form, O Catiline, in fear
of fury-faces nigh: and distant far
th' assemblies of the righteous, in whose midst
was Cato, giving judgment and decree.