THE AENEID
Virgil

History of Collins

In 1819, millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the first dictionary William published in 1824, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a licence to print and publish the Bible.

Soon after, William published the first Collins novel, Ready Reckoner; however, it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.

Aged 30, William’s son, William II took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly ‘Victorian’ in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeare’s works and The Pilgrim’s Progress, making them available to the masses for the first time. A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientific books, encyclopaedias and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time.

In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of ‘books for the millions’ was developed. Affordable editions of classical literature were published and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 titles in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year, The Everyman’s Library was also instituted, with the idea of publishing an affordable library of the most important classical works, biographies, religious and philosophical treatments, plays, poems, travel and adventure. This series eclipsed all competition at the time and the introduction of paperback books in the 1950s helped to open that market and marked a high point in the industry.

HarperCollins is and has always been a champion of the classics and the current Collins Classics series follows in this tradition – publishing classical literature that is affordable and available to all. Beautifully packaged, highly collectible and intended to be reread and enjoyed at every opportunity.

Life & Times
Virgil as Propagandist

The Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BCE) lived and died during the period of transition from Roman Republic to Roman Empire. It was a time when Romans saw the potential in expanding their territory to gain access to material resources and to enslave other peoples for manpower. The success of the burgeoning Roman Empire relied in part on a sort of branding, and this is where Virgil’s work had its greatest significance. The Aeneid is an epic poem, telling the legendary story of the genesis of the Roman Republic several hundred years before the birth of the empire. It was the perfect tool to provide the empire with administrative cohesion, so that personnel in increasingly far-flung regions would still have the stamp of Roman identity. Had the Roman government not maintained its hold on the expanding empire by promoting and perpetuating the Roman brand, the empire would surely have fragmented far sooner than it eventually did, some 350 years on, in BC 330.

Just as the Christians would soon have Adam as their progenitor, so Virgil gave the Romans their progenitor in the shape of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled from Troy, in present-day Turkey, to Italy. The character Aeneas was already known to the Romans from the story of the The Iliad, written by the ancient Greek poet Homer. In The Iliad, Aeneas is the heroic son of prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite (Venus). Following the destruction of Troy by the Greeks, Aeneas finds himself with no fixed abode, which is the catalyst for his wanderings. Virgil took the thread of this minor subplot within The Iliad and expanded upon it to create the legend of Aeneas becoming the ancestor of all Romans.

During Virgil’s upbringing, many myths and legends mentioning Aeneas circulated among the story-tellers and scholars of Rome. A century before Virgil, Cato the Elder had written an account of the origins of the Romans, titled Origines, which began the process of providing Rome with its historical branding. So, Virgil was nurtured in a social environment with a keen appetite for tales of Roman pedigree. It made perfect sense to transform the hero Aeneas into the man from whom all Romans could claim descent. Of course, there may also have been some truth to the legend, as it may be that a number of displaced Trojans did indeed find their way to the Italian peninsula.

Aeneas as the Father of the Romans

In Virgil’s poem, Aeneas and a few others who have survived the Trojan War are commanded by their gods to escape the region and set up home elsewhere. This begins their six-year voyage around the Mediterranean, looking for a suitable place to colonise.

The pre-eminent status of the Roman Empire really began with its victory over Carthage, in Tunisia, during the Punic Wars (264–146 BCE). Virgil tied this into the tale by the inclusion of an affair between Aeneas and Dido, queen of Carthage, which began lovingly but ended acrimoniously, so that Carthage would subsequently become the traditional enemy of Rome in the centuries to come.

During Aeneas’ adventures, he carries with him statues of his house gods Lares and Penates, which symbolise his search for somewhere to settle his people, with the intention that the statues will ultimately be placed at the chosen location. The city Aeneas founded was Lavinium, situated about 50 kilometres south of Rome, on the western coast of Italy. Before he could establish Lavinium, he had to do battle with the Rutuli people, under the leadership of Turnus. Thus, Livinium became the epicentre of the embryonic Roman tribe, which would subsequently found Rome as the capital of the Roman Republic. When Aeneas eventually dies, he is deified to become the god Jupiter Indiges (Indigenous Jupiter), otherwise known as the Pater Indiges, which translates as Father of the Romans. The foundation myth of Rome itself surrounds the story of Romulus and Remus, who are fifteenth-generation descendants of Aeneas.

The Power of Poetry

The Aeneid comprises just short of 10,000 lines in a metre known as dactylic hexameter, which copied Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. It essentially means that each line is broken into six rhythmic components. The Aeneid is divided into twelve books – six relate the story of Aeneas’ travels, and the other six relate his efforts to colonise the Italian coast against considerable local resistance.

The reason why The Aeneid is classified as a poem and not prose is that poetry was considered the higher form of literature by the Romans, hence the term ‘prosaic’ taken from prose, which is often used to mean ‘commonplace’. Poetry was viewed as a high-art form, because it took great skill to shoehorn language in such a way that it obeyed the rules of the chosen metre. Virgil took this discipline very seriously and even used his line structures in an onomatopoeic way to imitate the actions he was describing, such as the galloping of horses. This was important, because poems were performed to an audience, rather than simply recited, so a well-written poem allowed for vocal and physical gesture as part of the show. This brought the story to life in the minds of the audience, so that they were more readily engaged by the events being described.

When Virgil died, in 19 BCE, he was still in the process of editing his masterpiece and wanted the manuscript to be destroyed. However, Augustus, the first emperor of the Roman Empire, ordered that the manuscript should be published and that it should be as true to Virgil’s final edit as possible. As a result, literary scholars consider a few of the lines to be work in progress, because they do not obey the dactylic hexameter. It seems that Virgil worked by first drafting his poetry in rough form, just to flesh out the story, and then painstakingly honed his words until they dropped into his chosen poetic template.

Virgil apparently took around ten years to complete The Aeneid. Although Virgil was not content with its form upon his death, Emperor Augustus saw enormous propaganda value in the work. It became part of the branding package that enabled the Romans to expand their empire and to continue governing it over such a vast expanse of territory. The Aeneid reminded Romans, both distant and near, to be proud of their heritage and to maintain their allegiance to the emperor, because they, like he, were descended from greatness.

The same legend told in prose would not have had the same impact as Virgil’s poetic work, because it needed to be both entertaining and informative. Saving Virgil’s work and sharing it widely meant that public performances could be held across the empire, where communities came together to share the experience. That way there could be no excuse for new generations, who might have never been anywhere near Rome, to think of themselves as anything but Roman. It was a cultural meme that served to keep everyone in the same meme pool – young and old, male and female, rich and poor. The message was that one didn’t need to live or have been raised in Rome to be Roman. All that mattered was that allegiance to Rome was perpetuated via exposure to education about the Roman legend. It was a cultural franchise that continued to work extremely well for a few hundred years after the lives of Virgil and Augustus.

Contents

Title Page

History of Collins

Life & Times

Book I

Book II

Book III

Book IV

Book V

Book VI

Book VII

Book VIII

Book IX

Book X

Book XI

Book XII

Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from the Collins English Dictionary

Copyright

About the Publisher

BOOK I

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate,

And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,

Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore.

Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,

And in the doubtful war, before he won

The Latian realm, and built the destin’d town;

His banish’d gods restor’d to rites divine,

And settled sure succession in his line,

From whence the race of Alban fathers come,

And the long glories of majestic Rome.

O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;

What goddess was provok’d, and whence her hate;

For what offense the Queen of Heav’n began

To persecute so brave, so just a man;

Involv’d his anxious life in endless cares,

Expos’d to wants, and hurried into wars!

Can heav’nly minds such high resentment show,

Or exercise their spite in human woe?

Against the Tiber’s mouth, but far away,

An ancient town was seated on the sea;

A Tyrian colony; the people made

Stout for the war, and studious of their trade:

Carthage the name; belov’d by Juno more

Than her own Argos, or the Samian shore.

Here stood her chariot; here, if Heav’n were kind,

The seat of awful empire she design’d.

Yet she had heard an ancient rumor fly,

(Long cited by the people of the sky,)

That times to come should see the Trojan race

Her Carthage ruin, and her tow’rs deface;

Nor thus confin’d, the yoke of sov’reign sway

Should on the necks of all the nations lay.

She ponder’d this, and fear’d it was in fate;

Nor could forget the war she wag’d of late

For conqu’ring Greece against the Trojan state.

Besides, long causes working in her mind,

And secret seeds of envy, lay behind;

Deep graven in her heart the doom remain’d

Of partial Paris, and her form disdain’d;

The grace bestow’d on ravish’d Ganymed,

Electra’s glories, and her injur’d bed.

Each was a cause alone; and all combin’d

To kindle vengeance in her haughty mind.

For this, far distant from the Latian coast

She drove the remnants of the Trojan host;

And sev’n long years th’ unhappy wand’ring train

Were toss’d by storms, and scatter’d thro’ the main.

Such time, such toil, requir’d the Roman name,

Such length of labor for so vast a frame.

Now scarce the Trojan fleet, with sails and oars,

Had left behind the fair Sicilian shores,

Ent’ring with cheerful shouts the wat’ry reign,

And plowing frothy furrows in the main;

When, lab’ring still with endless discontent,

The Queen of Heav’n did thus her fury vent:

“Then am I vanquish’d? must I yield?” said she,

“And must the Trojans reign in Italy?

So Fate will have it, and Jove adds his force;

Nor can my pow’r divert their happy course.

Could angry Pallas, with revengeful spleen,

The Grecian navy burn, and drown the men?

She, for the fault of one offending foe,

The bolts of Jove himself presum’d to throw:

With whirlwinds from beneath she toss’d the ship,

And bare expos’d the bosom of the deep;

Then, as an eagle gripes the trembling game,

The wretch, yet hissing with her father’s flame,

She strongly seiz’d, and with a burning wound

Transfix’d, and naked, on a rock she bound.

But I, who walk in awful state above,

The majesty of heav’n, the sister wife of Jove,

For length of years my fruitless force employ

Against the thin remains of ruin’d Troy!

What nations now to Juno’s pow’r will pray,

Or off’rings on my slighted altars lay?”

Thus rag’d the goddess; and, with fury fraught.

The restless regions of the storms she sought,

Where, in a spacious cave of living stone,

The tyrant Aeolus, from his airy throne,

With pow’r imperial curbs the struggling winds,

And sounding tempests in dark prisons binds.

This way and that th’ impatient captives tend,

And, pressing for release, the mountains rend.

High in his hall th’ undaunted monarch stands,

And shakes his scepter, and their rage commands;

Which did he not, their unresisted sway

Would sweep the world before them in their way;

Earth, air, and seas thro’ empty space would roll,

And heav’n would fly before the driving soul.

In fear of this, the Father of the Gods

Confin’d their fury to those dark abodes,

And lock’d ’em safe within, oppress’d with mountain loads;

Impos’d a king, with arbitrary sway,

To loose their fetters, or their force allay.

To whom the suppliant queen her pray’rs address’d,

And thus the tenor of her suit express’d:

“O Aeolus! for to thee the King of Heav’n

The pow’r of tempests and of winds has giv’n;

Thy force alone their fury can restrain,

And smooth the waves, or swell the troubled main-

A race of wand’ring slaves, abhorr’d by me,

With prosp’rous passage cut the Tuscan sea;

To fruitful Italy their course they steer,

And for their vanquish’d gods design new temples there.

Raise all thy winds; with night involve the skies;

Sink or disperse my fatal enemies.

Twice sev’n, the charming daughters of the main,

Around my person wait, and bear my train:

Succeed my wish, and second my design;

The fairest, Deiopeia, shall be thine,

And make thee father of a happy line.”

To this the god: “’Tis yours, O queen, to will

The work which duty binds me to fulfil.

These airy kingdoms, and this wide command,

Are all the presents of your bounteous hand:

Yours is my sov’reign’s grace; and, as your guest,

I sit with gods at their celestial feast;

Raise tempests at your pleasure, or subdue;

Dispose of empire, which I hold from you.”

He said, and hurl’d against the mountain side

His quiv’ring spear, and all the god applied.

The raging winds rush thro’ the hollow wound,

And dance aloft in air, and skim along the ground;

Then, settling on the sea, the surges sweep,

Raise liquid mountains, and disclose the deep.

South, East, and West with mix’d confusion roar,

And roll the foaming billows to the shore.

The cables crack; the sailors’ fearful cries

Ascend; and sable night involves the skies;

And heav’n itself is ravish’d from their eyes.

Loud peals of thunder from the poles ensue;

Then flashing fires the transient light renew;

The face of things a frightful image bears,

And present death in various forms appears.

Struck with unusual fright, the Trojan chief,

With lifted hands and eyes, invokes relief;

And, “Thrice and four times happy those,” he cried,

“That under Ilian walls before their parents died!

Tydides, bravest of the Grecian train!

Why could not I by that strong arm be slain,

And lie by noble Hector on the plain,

Or great Sarpedon, in those bloody fields

Where Simois rolls the bodies and the shields

Of heroes, whose dismember’d hands yet bear

The dart aloft, and clench the pointed spear!”

Thus while the pious prince his fate bewails,

Fierce Boreas drove against his flying sails,

And rent the sheets; the raging billows rise,

And mount the tossing vessels to the skies:

Nor can the shiv’ring oars sustain the blow;

The galley gives her side, and turns her prow;

While those astern, descending down the steep,

Thro’ gaping waves behold the boiling deep.

Three ships were hurried by the southern blast,

And on the secret shelves with fury cast.

Those hidden rocks th’ Ausonian sailors knew:

They call’d them Altars, when they rose in view,

And show’d their spacious backs above the flood.

Three more fierce Eurus, in his angry mood,

Dash’d on the shallows of the moving sand,

And in mid ocean left them moor’d aland.

Orontes’ bark, that bore the Lycian crew,

(A horrid sight!) ev’n in the hero’s view,

From stem to stern by waves was overborne:

The trembling pilot, from his rudder torn,

Was headlong hurl’d; thrice round the ship was toss’d,

Then bulg’d at once, and in the deep was lost;

And here and there above the waves were seen

Arms, pictures, precious goods, and floating men.

The stoutest vessel to the storm gave way,

And suck’d thro’ loosen’d planks the rushing sea.

Ilioneus was her chief: Alethes old,

Achates faithful, Abas young and bold,

Endur’d not less; their ships, with gaping seams,

Admit the deluge of the briny streams.

Meantime imperial Neptune heard the sound

Of raging billows breaking on the ground.

Displeas’d, and fearing for his wat’ry reign,

He rear’d his awful head above the main,

Serene in majesty; then roll’d his eyes

Around the space of earth, and seas, and skies.

He saw the Trojan fleet dispers’d, distress’d,

By stormy winds and wintry heav’n oppress’d.

Full well the god his sister’s envy knew,

And what her aims and what her arts pursue.

He summon’d Eurus and the western blast,

And first an angry glance on both he cast;

Then thus rebuk’d: “Audacious winds! from whence

This bold attempt, this rebel insolence?

Is it for you to ravage seas and land,

Unauthoriz’d by my supreme command?

To raise such mountains on the troubled main?

Whom I—but first ’t is fit the billows to restrain;

And then you shall be taught obedience to my reign.

Hence! to your lord my royal mandate bear—

The realms of ocean and the fields of air

Are mine, not his. By fatal lot to me

The liquid empire fell, and trident of the sea.

His pow’r to hollow caverns is confin’d:

There let him reign, the jailer of the wind,

With hoarse commands his breathing subjects call,

And boast and bluster in his empty hall.”

He spoke; and, while he spoke, he smooth’d the sea,

Dispell’d the darkness, and restor’d the day.

Cymothoe, Triton, and the sea-green train

Of beauteous nymphs, the daughters of the main,

Clear from the rocks the vessels with their hands:

The god himself with ready trident stands,

And opes the deep, and spreads the moving sands;

Then heaves them off the shoals. Where’er he guides

His finny coursers and in triumph rides,

The waves unruffle and the sea subsides.

As, when in tumults rise th’ ignoble crowd,

Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud;

And stones and brands in rattling volleys fly,

And all the rustic arms that fury can supply:

If then some grave and pious man appear,

They hush their noise, and lend a list’ning ear;

He soothes with sober words their angry mood,

And quenches their innate desire of blood:

So, when the Father of the Flood appears,

And o’er the seas his sov’reign trident rears,

Their fury falls: he skims the liquid plains,

High on his chariot, and, with loosen’d reins,

Majestic moves along, and awful peace maintains.

The weary Trojans ply their shatter’d oars

To nearest land, and make the Libyan shores.

Within a long recess there lies a bay:

An island shades it from the rolling sea,

And forms a port secure for ships to ride;

Broke by the jutting land, on either side,

In double streams the briny waters glide.

Betwixt two rows of rocks a sylvan scene

Appears above, and groves for ever green:

A grot is form’d beneath, with mossy seats,

To rest the Nereids, and exclude the heats.

Down thro’ the crannies of the living walls

The crystal streams descend in murm’ring falls:

No haulsers need to bind the vessels here,

Nor bearded anchors; for no storms they fear.

Sev’n ships within this happy harbor meet,

The thin remainders of the scatter’d fleet.

The Trojans, worn with toils, and spent with woes,

Leap on the welcome land, and seek their wish’d repose.

First, good Achates, with repeated strokes

Of clashing flints, their hidden fire provokes:

Short flame succeeds; a bed of wither’d leaves

The dying sparkles in their fall receives:

Caught into life, in fiery fumes they rise,

And, fed with stronger food, invade the skies.

The Trojans, dropping wet, or stand around

The cheerful blaze, or lie along the ground:

Some dry their corn, infected with the brine,

Then grind with marbles, and prepare to dine.

Aeneas climbs the mountain’s airy brow,

And takes a prospect of the seas below,

If Capys thence, or Antheus he could spy,

Or see the streamers of Caicus fly.

No vessels were in view; but, on the plain,

Three beamy stags command a lordly train

Of branching heads: the more ignoble throng

Attend their stately steps, and slowly graze along.

He stood; and, while secure they fed below,

He took the quiver and the trusty bow

Achates us’d to bear: the leaders first

He laid along, and then the vulgar pierc’d;

Nor ceas’d his arrows, till the shady plain

Sev’n mighty bodies with their blood distain.

For the sev’n ships he made an equal share,

And to the port return’d, triumphant from the war.

The jars of gen’rous wine (Acestes’ gift,

When his Trinacrian shores the navy left)

He set abroach, and for the feast prepar’d,

In equal portions with the ven’son shar’d.

Thus while he dealt it round, the pious chief

With cheerful words allay’d the common grief:

“Endure, and conquer! Jove will soon dispose

To future good our past and present woes.

With me, the rocks of Scylla you have tried;

Th’ inhuman Cyclops and his den defied.

What greater ills hereafter can you bear?

Resume your courage and dismiss your care,

An hour will come, with pleasure to relate

Your sorrows past, as benefits of Fate.

Thro’ various hazards and events, we move

To Latium and the realms foredoom’d by Jove.

Call’d to the seat (the promise of the skies)

Where Trojan kingdoms once again may rise,

Endure the hardships of your present state;

Live, and reserve yourselves for better fate.”

These words he spoke, but spoke not from his heart;

His outward smiles conceal’d his inward smart.

The jolly crew, unmindful of the past,

The quarry share, their plenteous dinner haste.

Some strip the skin; some portion out the spoil;

The limbs, yet trembling, in the caldrons boil;

Some on the fire the reeking entrails broil.

Stretch’d on the grassy turf, at ease they dine,

Restore their strength with meat, and cheer their souls with wine.

Their hunger thus appeas’d, their care attends

The doubtful fortune of their absent friends:

Alternate hopes and fears their minds possess,

Whether to deem ’em dead, or in distress.

Above the rest, Aeneas mourns the fate

Of brave Orontes, and th’ uncertain state

Of Gyas, Lycus, and of Amycus.

The day, but not their sorrows, ended thus.

When, from aloft, almighty Jove surveys

Earth, air, and shores, and navigable seas,

At length on Libyan realms he fix’d his eyes—

Whom, pond’ring thus on human miseries,

When Venus saw, she with a lowly look,

Not free from tears, her heav’nly sire bespoke:

“O King of Gods and Men! whose awful hand

Disperses thunder on the seas and land,

Disposing all with absolute command;

How could my pious son thy pow’r incense?

Or what, alas! is vanish’d Troy’s offense?

Our hope of Italy not only lost,

On various seas by various tempests toss’d,

But shut from ev’ry shore, and barr’d from ev’ry coast.

You promis’d once, a progeny divine

Of Romans, rising from the Trojan line,

In after times should hold the world in awe,

And to the land and ocean give the law.

How is your doom revers’d, which eas’d my care

When Troy was ruin’d in that cruel war?

Then fates to fates I could oppose; but now,

When Fortune still pursues her former blow,

What can I hope? What worse can still succeed?

What end of labors has your will decreed?

Antenor, from the midst of Grecian hosts,

Could pass secure, and pierce th’ Illyrian coasts,

Where, rolling down the steep, Timavus raves

And thro’ nine channels disembogues his waves.

At length he founded Padua’s happy seat,

And gave his Trojans a secure retreat;

There fix’d their arms, and there renew’d their name,

And there in quiet rules, and crown’d with fame.

But we, descended from your sacred line,

Entitled to your heav’n and rites divine,

Are banish’d earth; and, for the wrath of one,

Remov’d from Latium and the promis’d throne.

Are these our scepters? these our due rewards?

And is it thus that Jove his plighted faith regards?”

To whom the Father of th’ immortal race,

Smiling with that serene indulgent face,

With which he drives the clouds and clears the skies,

First gave a holy kiss; then thus replies:

“Daughter, dismiss thy fears; to thy desire

The fates of thine are fix’d, and stand entire.

Thou shalt behold thy wish’d Lavinian walls;

And, ripe for heav’n, when fate Aeneas calls,

Then shalt thou bear him up, sublime, to me:

No councils have revers’d my firm decree.

And, lest new fears disturb thy happy state,

Know, I have search’d the mystic rolls of Fate:

Thy son (nor is th’ appointed season far)

In Italy shall wage successful war,

Shall tame fierce nations in the bloody field,

And sov’reign laws impose, and cities build,

Till, after ev’ry foe subdued, the sun

Thrice thro’ the signs his annual race shall run:

This is his time prefix’d. Ascanius then,

Now call’d Iulus, shall begin his reign.

He thirty rolling years the crown shall wear,

Then from Lavinium shall the seat transfer,

And, with hard labor, Alba Longa build.

The throne with his succession shall be fill’d

Three hundred circuits more: then shall be seen

Ilia the fair, a priestess and a queen,

Who, full of Mars, in time, with kindly throes,

Shall at a birth two goodly boys disclose.

The royal babes a tawny wolf shall drain:

Then Romulus his grandsire’s throne shall gain,

Of martial tow’rs the founder shall become,

The people Romans call, the city Rome.

To them no bounds of empire I assign,

Nor term of years to their immortal line.

Ev’n haughty Juno, who, with endless broils,

Earth, seas, and heav’n, and Jove himself turmoils;

At length aton’d, her friendly pow’r shall join,

To cherish and advance the Trojan line.

The subject world shall Rome’s dominion own,

And, prostrate, shall adore the nation of the gown.

An age is ripening in revolving fate

When Troy shall overturn the Grecian state,

And sweet revenge her conqu’ring sons shall call,

To crush the people that conspir’d her fall.

Then Caesar from the Julian stock shall rise,

Whose empire ocean, and whose fame the skies

Alone shall bound; whom, fraught with eastern spoils,

Our heav’n, the just reward of human toils,

Securely shall repay with rites divine;

And incense shall ascend before his sacred shrine.

Then dire debate and impious war shall cease,

And the stern age be soften’d into peace:

Then banish’d Faith shall once again return,

And Vestal fires in hallow’d temples burn;

And Remus with Quirinus shall sustain

The righteous laws, and fraud and force restrain.

Janus himself before his fane shall wait,

And keep the dreadful issues of his gate,

With bolts and iron bars: within remains

Imprison’d Fury, bound in brazen chains;

High on a trophy rais’d, of useless arms,

He sits, and threats the world with vain alarms.”

He said, and sent Cyllenius with command

To free the ports, and ope the Punic land

To Trojan guests; lest, ignorant of fate,

The queen might force them from her town and state.

Down from the steep of heav’n Cyllenius flies,

And cleaves with all his wings the yielding skies.

Soon on the Libyan shore descends the god,

Performs his message, and displays his rod:

The surly murmurs of the people cease;

And, as the fates requir’d, they give the peace:

The queen herself suspends the rigid laws,

The Trojans pities, and protects their cause.

Meantime, in shades of night Aeneas lies:

Care seiz’d his soul, and sleep forsook his eyes.

But, when the sun restor’d the cheerful day,

He rose, the coast and country to survey,

Anxious and eager to discover more.

It look’d a wild uncultivated shore;

But, whether humankind, or beasts alone

Possess’d the new-found region, was unknown.

Beneath a ledge of rocks his fleet he hides:

Tall trees surround the mountain’s shady sides;

The bending brow above a safe retreat provides.

Arm’d with two pointed darts, he leaves his friends,

And true Achates on his steps attends.

Lo! in the deep recesses of the wood,

Before his eyes his goddess mother stood:

A huntress in her habit and her mien;

Her dress a maid, her air confess’d a queen.

Bare were her knees, and knots her garments bind;

Loose was her hair, and wanton’d in the wind;

Her hand sustain’d a bow; her quiver hung behind.

She seem’d a virgin of the Spartan blood:

With such array Harpalyce bestrode

Her Thracian courser and outstripp’d the rapid flood.

“Ho, strangers! have you lately seen,” she said,

“One of my sisters, like myself array’d,

Who cross’d the lawn, or in the forest stray’d?

A painted quiver at her back she bore;

Varied with spots, a lynx’s hide she wore;

And at full cry pursued the tusky boar.”

Thus Venus: thus her son replied again:

“None of your sisters have we heard or seen,

O virgin! or what other name you bear

Above that style—O more than mortal fair!

Your voice and mien celestial birth betray!

If, as you seem, the sister of the day,

Or one at least of chaste Diana’s train,

Let not an humble suppliant sue in vain;

But tell a stranger, long in tempests toss’d,

What earth we tread, and who commands the coast?

Then on your name shall wretched mortals call,

And offer’d victims at your altars fall.”

“I dare not,” she replied, “assume the name

Of goddess, or celestial honors claim:

For Tyrian virgins bows and quivers bear,

And purple buskins o’er their ankles wear.

Know, gentle youth, in Libyan lands you are—

A people rude in peace, and rough in war.

The rising city, which from far you see,

Is Carthage, and a Tyrian colony.

Phoenician Dido rules the growing state,

Who fled from Tyre, to shun her brother’s hate.

Great were her wrongs, her story full of fate;

Which I will sum in short. Sichaeus, known

For wealth, and brother to the Punic throne,

Possess’d fair Dido’s bed; and either heart

At once was wounded with an equal dart.

Her father gave her, yet a spotless maid;

Pygmalion then the Tyrian scepter sway’d:

One who condemn’d divine and human laws.

Then strife ensued, and cursed gold the cause.

The monarch, blinded with desire of wealth,

With steel invades his brother’s life by stealth;

Before the sacred altar made him bleed,

And long from her conceal’d the cruel deed.

Some tale, some new pretense, he daily coin’d,

To soothe his sister, and delude her mind.

At length, in dead of night, the ghost appears

Of her unhappy lord: the specter stares,

And, with erected eyes, his bloody bosom bares.

The cruel altars and his fate he tells,

And the dire secret of his house reveals,

Then warns the widow, with her household gods,

To seek a refuge in remote abodes.

Last, to support her in so long a way,

He shows her where his hidden treasure lay.

Admonish’d thus, and seiz’d with mortal fright,

The queen provides companions of her flight:

They meet, and all combine to leave the state,

Who hate the tyrant, or who fear his hate.

They seize a fleet, which ready rigg’d they find;

Nor is Pygmalion’s treasure left behind.

The vessels, heavy laden, put to sea

With prosp’rous winds; a woman leads the way.

I know not, if by stress of weather driv’n,

Or was their fatal course dispos’d by Heav’n;

At last they landed, where from far your eyes

May view the turrets of new Carthage rise;

There bought a space of ground, which (Byrsa call’d,

From the bull’s hide) they first inclos’d, and wall’d.

But whence are you? what country claims your birth?

What seek you, strangers, on our Libyan earth?”

To whom, with sorrow streaming from his eyes,

And deeply sighing, thus her son replies:

“Could you with patience hear, or I relate,

O nymph, the tedious annals of our fate!

Thro’ such a train of woes if I should run,

The day would sooner than the tale be done!

From ancient Troy, by force expell’d, we came—

If you by chance have heard the Trojan name.

On various seas by various tempests toss’d,

At length we landed on your Libyan coast.

The good Aeneas am I call’d—a name,

While Fortune favor’d, not unknown to fame.

My household gods, companions of my woes,

With pious care I rescued from our foes.

To fruitful Italy my course was bent;

And from the King of Heav’n is my descent.

With twice ten sail I cross’d the Phrygian sea;

Fate and my mother goddess led my way.

Scarce sev’n, the thin remainders of my fleet,

From storms preserv’d, within your harbor meet.

Myself distress’d, an exile, and unknown,

Debarr’d from Europe, and from Asia thrown,

In Libyan desarts wander thus alone.”

His tender parent could no longer bear;

But, interposing, sought to soothe his care.

“Whoe’er you are—not unbelov’d by Heav’n,

Since on our friendly shore your ships are driv’n—

Have courage: to the gods permit the rest,

And to the queen expose your just request.

Now take this earnest of success, for more:

Your scatter’d fleet is join’d upon the shore;

The winds are chang’d, your friends from danger free;

Or I renounce my skill in augury.

Twelve swans behold in beauteous order move,

And stoop with closing pinions from above;

Whom late the bird of Jove had driv’n along,

And thro’ the clouds pursued the scatt’ring throng:

Now, all united in a goodly team,

They skim the ground, and seek the quiet stream.

As they, with joy returning, clap their wings,

And ride the circuit of the skies in rings;

Not otherwise your ships, and ev’ry friend,

Already hold the port, or with swift sails descend.

No more advice is needful; but pursue

The path before you, and the town in view.”

Thus having said, she turn’d, and made appear

Her neck refulgent, and dishevel’d hair,

Which, flowing from her shoulders, reach’d the ground.

And widely spread ambrosial scents around:

In length of train descends her sweeping gown;

And, by her graceful walk, the Queen of Love is known.

The prince pursued the parting deity

With words like these: “Ah! whither do you fly?

Unkind and cruel! to deceive your son

In borrow’d shapes, and his embrace to shun;

Never to bless my sight, but thus unknown;

And still to speak in accents not your own.”

Against the goddess these complaints he made,

But took the path, and her commands obey’d.

They march, obscure; for Venus kindly shrouds

With mists their persons, and involves in clouds,

That, thus unseen, their passage none might stay,

Or force to tell the causes of their way.

This part perform’d, the goddess flies sublime

To visit Paphos and her native clime;

Where garlands, ever green and ever fair,

With vows are offer’d, and with solemn pray’r:

A hundred altars in her temple smoke;

A thousand bleeding hearts her pow’r invoke.

They climb the next ascent, and, looking down,

Now at a nearer distance view the town.

The prince with wonder sees the stately tow’rs,

Which late were huts and shepherds’ homely bow’rs,

The gates and streets; and hears, from ev’ry part,

The noise and busy concourse of the mart.

The toiling Tyrians on each other call

To ply their labor: some extend the wall;

Some build the citadel; the brawny throng

Or dig, or push unwieldly stones along.

Some for their dwellings choose a spot of ground,

Which, first design’d, with ditches they surround.

Some laws ordain; and some attend the choice

Of holy senates, and elect by voice.

Here some design a mole, while others there

Lay deep foundations for a theater;

From marble quarries mighty columns hew,

For ornaments of scenes, and future view.

Such is their toil, and such their busy pains,

As exercise the bees in flow’ry plains,

When winter past, and summer scarce begun,

Invites them forth to labor in the sun;

Some lead their youth abroad, while some condense

Their liquid store, and some in cells dispense;

Some at the gate stand ready to receive

The golden burthen, and their friends relieve;

All with united force, combine to drive

The lazy drones from the laborious hive:

With envy stung, they view each other’s deeds;

The fragrant work with diligence proceeds.

“Thrice happy you, whose walls already rise!”

Aeneas said, and view’d, with lifted eyes,

Their lofty tow’rs; then, entering at the gate,

Conceal’d in clouds (prodigious to relate)

He mix’d, unmark’d, among the busy throng,

Borne by the tide, and pass’d unseen along.

Full in the center of the town there stood,

Thick set with trees, a venerable wood.

The Tyrians, landing near this holy ground,

And digging here, a prosp’rous omen found:

From under earth a courser’s head they drew,

Their growth and future fortune to foreshew.

This fated sign their foundress Juno gave,

Of a soil fruitful, and a people brave.

Sidonian Dido here with solemn state

Did Juno’s temple build, and consecrate,

Enrich’d with gifts, and with a golden shrine;

But more the goddess made the place divine.

On brazen steps the marble threshold rose,

And brazen plates the cedar beams inclose:

The rafters are with brazen cov’rings crown’d;

The lofty doors on brazen hinges sound.

What first Aeneas this place beheld,

Reviv’d his courage, and his fear expell’d.

For while, expecting there the queen, he rais’d

His wond’ring eyes, and round the temple gaz’d,

Admir’d the fortune of the rising town,

The striving artists, and their arts’ renown;

He saw, in order painted on the wall,

Whatever did unhappy Troy befall:

The wars that fame around the world had blown,

All to the life, and ev’ry leader known.

There Agamemnon, Priam here, he spies,

And fierce Achilles, who both kings defies.

He stopp’d, and weeping said: “O friend! ev’n here

The monuments of Trojan woes appear!

Our known disasters fill ev’n foreign lands:

See there, where old unhappy Priam stands!

Ev’n the mute walls relate the warrior’s fame,

And Trojan griefs the Tyrians’ pity claim.”

He said (his tears a ready passage find),

Devouring what he saw so well design’d,

And with an empty picture fed his mind:

For there he saw the fainting Grecians yield,

And here the trembling Trojans quit the field,

Pursued by fierce Achilles thro’ the plain,

On his high chariot driving o’er the slain.

The tents of Rhesus next his grief renew,

By their white sails betray’d to nightly view;

And wakeful Diomede, whose cruel sword

The sentries slew, nor spar’d their slumb’ring lord,

Then took the fiery steeds, ere yet the food

Of Troy they taste, or drink the Xanthian flood.

Elsewhere he saw where Troilus defied

Achilles, and unequal combat tried;

Then, where the boy disarm’d, with loosen’d reins,

Was by his horses hurried o’er the plains,

Hung by the neck and hair, and dragg’d around:

The hostile spear, yet sticking in his wound,

With tracks of blood inscrib’d the dusty ground.

Meantime the Trojan dames, oppress’d with woe,

To Pallas’ fane in long procession go,

In hopes to reconcile their heav’nly foe.

They weep, they beat their breasts, they rend their hair,

And rich embroider’d vests for presents bear;

But the stern goddess stands unmov’d with pray’r.

Thrice round the Trojan walls Achilles drew

The corpse of Hector, whom in fight he slew.

Here Priam sues; and there, for sums of gold,

The lifeless body of his son is sold.

So sad an object, and so well express’d,

Drew sighs and groans from the griev’d hero’s breast,

To see the figure of his lifeless friend,

And his old sire his helpless hand extend.

Himself he saw amidst the Grecian train,

Mix’d in the bloody battle on the plain;

And swarthy Memnon in his arms he knew,

His pompous ensigns, and his Indian crew.

Penthisilea there, with haughty grace,

Leads to the wars an Amazonian race:

In their right hands a pointed dart they wield;

The left, for ward, sustains the lunar shield.

Athwart her breast a golden belt she throws,

Amidst the press alone provokes a thousand foes,

And dares her maiden arms to manly force oppose.

Thus while the Trojan prince employs his eyes,

Fix’d on the walls with wonder and surprise,

The beauteous Dido, with a num’rous train

And pomp of guards, ascends the sacred fane.

Such on Eurotas’ banks, or Cynthus’ height,

Diana seems; and so she charms the sight,

When in the dance the graceful goddess leads

The choir of nymphs, and overtops their heads:

Known by her quiver, and her lofty mien,

She walks majestic, and she looks their queen;

Latona sees her shine above the rest,

And feeds with secret joy her silent breast.

Such Dido was; with such becoming state,

Amidst the crowd, she walks serenely great.

Their labor to her future sway she speeds,

And passing with a gracious glance proceeds;

Then mounts the throne, high plac’d before the shrine:

In crowds around, the swarming people join.

She takes petitions, and dispenses laws,

Hears and determines ev’ry private cause;

Their tasks in equal portions she divides,

And, where unequal, there by lots decides.

Another way by chance Aeneas bends

His eyes, and unexpected sees his friends,

Antheus, Sergestus grave, Cloanthus strong,

And at their backs a mighty Trojan throng,

Whom late the tempest on the billows toss’d,

And widely scatter’d on another coast.

The prince, unseen, surpris’d with wonder stands,

And longs, with joyful haste, to join their hands;

But, doubtful of the wish’d event, he stays,

And from the hollow cloud his friends surveys,

Impatient till they told their present state,

And where they left their ships, and what their fate,

And why they came, and what was their request;

For these were sent, commission’d by the rest,

To sue for leave to land their sickly men,

And gain admission to the gracious queen.

Ent’ring, with cries they fill’d the holy fane;

Then thus, with lowly voice, Ilioneus began:

“O Queen! indulg’d by favor of the gods

To found an empire in these new abodes,

To build a town, with statutes to restrain

The wild inhabitants beneath thy reign,

We wretched Trojans, toss’d on ev’ry shore,

From sea to sea, thy clemency implore.

Forbid the fires our shipping to deface!

Receive th’ unhappy fugitives to grace,

And spare the remnant of a pious race!

We come not with design of wasteful prey,

To drive the country, force the swains away:

Nor such our strength, nor such is our desire;

The vanquish’d dare not to such thoughts aspire.

A land there is, Hesperia nam’d of old;

The soil is fruitful, and the men are bold—

Th’ Oenotrians held it once—by common fame

Now call’d Italia, from the leader’s name.

To that sweet region was our voyage bent,

When winds and ev’ry warring element

Disturb’d our course, and, far from sight of land,

Cast our torn vessels on the moving sand:

The sea came on; the South, with mighty roar,

Dispers’d and dash’d the rest upon the rocky shore.

Those few you see escap’d the Storm, and fear,

Unless you interpose, a shipwreck here.

What men, what monsters, what inhuman race,

What laws, what barb’rous customs of the place,

Shut up a desart shore to drowning men,

And drive us to the cruel seas again?

If our hard fortune no compassion draws,

Nor hospitable rights, nor human laws,

The gods are just, and will revenge our cause.

Aeneas was our prince: a juster lord,

Or nobler warrior, never drew a sword;

Observant of the right, religious of his word.

If yet he lives, and draws this vital air,

Nor we, his friends, of safety shall despair;

Nor you, great queen, these offices repent,

Which he will equal, and perhaps augment.

We want not cities, nor Sicilian coasts,

Where King Acestes’ Trojan lineage boasts.

Permit our ships a shelter on your shores,

Refitted from your woods with planks and oars,

That, if our prince be safe, we may renew

Our destin’d course, and Italy pursue.

But if, O best of men, the Fates ordain

That thou art swallow’d in the Libyan main,

And if our young Iulus be no more,

Dismiss our navy from your friendly shore,

That we to good Acestes may return,

And with our friends our common losses mourn.”

Thus spoke Ilioneus: the Trojan crew

With cries and clamors his request renew.

The modest queen a while, with downcast eyes,

Ponder’d the speech; then briefly thus replies:

“Trojans, dismiss your fears; my cruel fate,

And doubts attending an unsettled state,

Force me to guard my coast from foreign foes.

Who has not heard the story of your woes,

The name and fortune of your native place,

The fame and valor of the Phrygian race?

We Tyrians are not so devoid of sense,

Nor so remote from Phoebus’ influence.

Whether to Latian shores your course is bent,

Or, driv’n by tempests from your first intent,

You seek the good Acestes’ government,

Your men shall be receiv’d, your fleet repair’d,

And sail, with ships of convoy for your guard:

Or, would you stay, and join your friendly pow’rs

To raise and to defend the Tyrian tow’rs,

My wealth, my city, and myself are yours.

And would to Heav’n, the Storm, you felt, would bring

On Carthaginian coasts your wand’ring king.

My people shall, by my command, explore

The ports and creeks of ev’ry winding shore,

And towns, and wilds, and shady woods, in quest

Of so renown’d and so desir’d a guest.”

Rais’d in his mind the Trojan hero stood,

And long’d to break from out his ambient cloud:

Achates found it, and thus urg’d his way:

“From whence, O goddess-born, this long delay?

What more can you desire, your welcome sure,

Your fleet in safety, and your friends secure?

One only wants; and him we saw in vain

Oppose the Storm, and swallow’d in the main.

Orontes in his fate our forfeit paid;

The rest agrees with what your mother said.”

Scarce had he spoken, when the cloud gave way,

The mists flew upward and dissolv’d in day.

The Trojan chief appear’d in open sight,

August in visage, and serenely bright.

His mother goddess, with her hands divine,

Had form’d his curling locks, and made his temples shine,

And giv’n his rolling eyes a sparkling grace,

And breath’d a youthful vigor on his face;

Like polish’d ivory, beauteous to behold,

Or Parian marble, when enchas’d in gold:

Thus radiant from the circling cloud he broke,

And thus with manly modesty he spoke:

“He whom you seek am I; by tempests toss’d,

And sav’d from shipwreck on your Libyan coast;

Presenting, gracious queen, before your throne,

A prince that owes his life to you alone.

Fair majesty, the refuge and redress

Of those whom fate pursues, and wants oppress,

You, who your pious offices employ

To save the relics of abandon’d Troy;

Receive the shipwreck’d on your friendly shore,

With hospitable rites relieve the poor;

Associate in your town a wand’ring train,

And strangers in your palace entertain:

What thanks can wretched fugitives return,

Who, scatter’d thro’ the world, in exile mourn?

The gods, if gods to goodness are inclin’d;

If acts of mercy touch their heav’nly mind,

And, more than all the gods, your gen’rous heart.

Conscious of worth, requite its own desert!

In you this age is happy, and this earth,

And parents more than mortal gave you birth.

While rolling rivers into seas shall run,

And round the space of heav’n the radiant sun;

While trees the mountain tops with shades supply,

Your honor, name, and praise shall never die.

Whate’er abode my fortune has assign’d,

Your image shall be present in my mind.”

Thus having said, he turn’d with pious haste,

And joyful his expecting friends embrac’d:

With his right hand Ilioneus was grac’d,

Serestus with his left; then to his breast

Cloanthus and the noble Gyas press’d;

And so by turns descended to the rest.

The Tyrian queen stood fix’d upon his face,

Pleas’d with his motions, ravish’d with his grace;

Admir’d his fortunes, more admir’d the man;

Then recollected stood, and thus began:

“What fate, O goddess-born; what angry pow’rs

Have cast you shipwrack’d on our barren shores?

Are you the great Aeneas, known to fame,

Who from celestial seed your lineage claim?

The same Aeneas whom fair Venus bore

To fam’d Anchises on th’ Idaean shore?

It calls into my mind, tho’ then a child,

When Teucer came, from Salamis exil’d,

And sought my father’s aid, to be restor’d:

My father Belus then with fire and sword

Invaded Cyprus, made the region bare,

And, conqu’ring, finish’d the successful war.

From him the Trojan siege I understood,

The Grecian chiefs, and your illustrious blood.

Your foe himself the Dardan valor prais’d,

And his own ancestry from Trojans rais’d.

Enter, my noble guest, and you shall find,

If not a costly welcome, yet a kind:

For I myself, like you, have been distress’d,

Till Heav’n afforded me this place of rest;

Like you, an alien in a land unknown,

I learn to pity woes so like my own.”

She said, and to the palace led her guest;

Then offer’d incense, and proclaim’d a feast.

Nor yet less careful for her absent friends,

Twice ten fat oxen to the ships she sends;

Besides a hundred boars, a hundred lambs,

With bleating cries, attend their milky dams;

And jars of gen’rous wine and spacious bowls

She gives, to cheer the sailors’ drooping souls.

Now purple hangings clothe the palace walls,

And sumptuous feasts are made in splendid halls:

On Tyrian carpets, richly wrought, they dine;

With loads of massy plate the sideboards shine,

And antique vases, all of gold emboss’d

(The gold itself inferior to the cost),

Of curious work, where on the sides were seen

The fights and figures of illustrious men,

From their first founder to the present queen.

The good Aeneas, paternal care

Iulus’ absence could no longer bear,

Dispatch’d Achates to the ships in haste,

To give a glad relation of the past,

And, fraught with precious gifts, to bring the boy,

Snatch’d from the ruins of unhappy Troy:

A robe of tissue, stiff with golden wire;

An upper vest, once Helen’s rich attire,

From Argos by the fam’d adultress brought,

With golden flow’rs and winding foliage wrought,

Her mother Leda’s present, when she came

To ruin Troy and set the world on flame;

The scepter Priam’s eldest daughter bore,

Her orient necklace, and the crown she wore

Of double texture, glorious to behold,

One order set with gems, and one with gold.

Instructed thus, the wise Achates goes,

And in his diligence his duty shows.

But Venus, anxious for her son’s affairs,

New counsels tries, and new designs prepares:

That Cupid should assume the shape and face

Of sweet Ascanius, and the sprightly grace;

Should bring the presents, in her nephew’s stead,

And in Eliza’s veins the gentle poison shed:

For much she fear’d the Tyrians, double-tongued,

And knew the town to Juno’s care belong’d.

These thoughts by night her golden slumbers broke,

And thus alarm’d, to winged Love she spoke:

“My son, my strength, whose mighty pow’r alone

Controls the Thund’rer on his awful throne,

To thee thy much-afflicted mother flies,

And on thy succor and thy faith relies.

Thou know’st, my son, how Jove’s revengeful wife,

By force and fraud, attempts thy brother’s life;

And often hast thou mourn’d with me his pains.

Him Dido now with blandishment detains;

But I suspect the town where Juno reigns.

For this ’tis needful to prevent her art,

And fire with love the proud Phoenician’s heart:

A love so violent, so strong, so sure,

As neither age can change, nor art can cure.

How this may be perform’d, now take my mind:

Ascanius by his father is design’d

To come, with presents laden, from the port,

To gratify the queen, and gain the court.

I mean to plunge the boy in pleasing sleep,

And, ravish’d, in Idalian bow’rs to keep,

Or high Cythera, that the sweet deceit

May pass unseen, and none prevent the cheat.

Take thou his form and shape. I beg the grace

But only for a night’s revolving space:

Thyself a boy, assume a boy’s dissembled face;

That when, amidst the fervor of the feast,

The Tyrian hugs and fonds thee on her breast,

And with sweet kisses in her arms constrains,

Thou may’st infuse thy venom in her veins.”

The God of Love obeys, and sets aside

His bow and quiver, and his plumy pride;

He walks Iulus in his mother’s sight,

And in the sweet resemblance takes delight.

The goddess then to young Ascanius flies,

And in a pleasing slumber seals his eyes:

Lull’d in her lap, amidst a train of Loves,

She gently bears him to her blissful groves,

Then with a wreath of myrtle crowns his head,

And softly lays him on a flow’ry bed.

Cupid meantime assum’d his form and face,

Foll’wing Achates with a shorter pace,

And brought the gifts. The queen already sate

Amidst the Trojan lords, in shining state,

High on a golden bed: her princely guest

Was next her side; in order sate the rest.

Then canisters with bread are heap’d on high;

Th’ attendants water for their hands supply,

And, having wash’d, with silken towels dry.

Next fifty handmaids in long order bore

The censers, and with fumes the gods adore:

Then youths, and virgins twice as many, join

To place the dishes, and to serve the wine.

The Tyrian train, admitted to the feast,

Approach, and on the painted couches rest.

All on the Trojan gifts with wonder gaze,

But view the beauteous boy with more amaze,

His rosy-color’d cheeks, his radiant eyes,

His motions, voice, and shape, and all the god’s disguise;

Nor pass unprais’d the vest and veil divine,

Which wand’ring foliage and rich flow’rs entwine.

But, far above the rest, the royal dame,

(Already doom’d to love’s disastrous flame,)

With eyes insatiate, and tumultuous joy,

Beholds the presents, 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 devour’d 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 pray’r,

Works in the pliant bosom of the fair,

And molds her heart anew, and blots her former care.

The dead is to the living love resign’d;

And all Aeneas enters in her mind.

Now, when the rage of hunger was appeas’d,

The meat remov’d, and ev’ry guest was pleas’d,

The golden bowls with sparkling wine are crown’d,

And thro’ the palace cheerful cries resound.

From gilded roofs depending lamps display

Nocturnal beams, that emulate the day.

A golden bowl, that shone with gems divine,

The queen commanded to be crown’d with wine:

The bowl that Belus us’d, and all the Tyrian line.

Then, silence thro’ the hall proclaim’d, she spoke:

“O hospitable Jove! we thus invoke,

With solemn rites, thy sacred name and pow’r;

Bless to both nations this auspicious hour!

So may the Trojan and the Tyrian line

In lasting concord from this day combine.

Thou, Bacchus, god of joys and friendly cheer,

And gracious Juno, both be present here!

And you, my lords of Tyre, your vows address

To Heav’n with mine, to ratify the peace.”

The goblet then she took, with nectar crown’d

(Sprinkling the first libations on the ground,)

And rais’d it to her mouth with sober grace;

Then, sipping, offer’d to the next in place.

’Twas Bitias whom she call’d, a thirsty soul;

He took challenge, and embrac’d the bowl,

With pleasure swill’d the gold, nor ceas’d to draw,

Till he the bottom of the brimmer saw.

The goblet goes around: Iopas brought

His golden lyre, and sung what ancient Atlas taught:

The various labors of the wand’ring moon,

And whence proceed th’ eclipses of the sun;

Th’ original of men and beasts; and whence

The rains arise, and fires their warmth dispense,

And fix’d and erring stars dispose their influence;

What shakes the solid earth; what cause delays

The summer nights and shortens winter days.

With peals of shouts the Tyrians praise the song:

Those peals are echo’d by the Trojan throng.

Th’ unhappy queen with talk prolong’d the night,

And drank large draughts of love with vast delight;

Of Priam much enquir’d, of Hector more;

Then ask’d what arms the swarthy Memnon wore,

What troops he landed on the Trojan shore;

The steeds of Diomede varied the discourse,

And fierce Achilles, with his matchless force;

At length, as fate and her ill stars requir’d,

To hear the series of the war desir’d.

“Relate at large, my godlike guest,” she said,

“The Grecian stratagems, the town betray’d:

The fatal issue of so long a war,

Your flight, your wand’rings, and your woes, declare;

For, since on ev’ry sea, on ev’ry coast,

Your men have been distress’d, your navy toss’d,

Sev’n times the sun has either tropic view’d,

The winter banish’d, and the spring renew’d.”

BOOK II

All were attentive to the godlike man,

When from his lofty couch he thus began:

“Great queen, what you command me to relate

Renews the sad remembrance of our fate:

An empire from its old foundations rent,

And ev’ry woe the Trojans underwent;

A peopled city made a desart place;

All that I saw, and part of which I was:

Not ev’n the hardest of our foes could hear,

Nor stern Ulysses tell without a tear.

And now the latter watch of wasting night,

And setting stars, to kindly rest invite;

But, since you take such int’rest in our woe,

And Troy’s disastrous end desire to know,

I will restrain my tears, and briefly tell

What in our last and fatal night befell.

“By destiny compell’d, and in despair,

The Greeks grew weary of the tedious war,

And by Minerva’s aid a fabric rear’d,

Which like a steed of monstrous height appear’d:

The sides were plank’d with pine; they feign’d it made

For their return, and this the vow they paid.

Thus they pretend, but in the hollow side

Selected numbers of their soldiers hide:

With inward arms the dire machine they load,

And iron bowels stuff the dark abode.

In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an isle

(While Fortune did on Priam’s empire smile)

Renown’d for wealth; but, since, a faithless bay,

Where ships expos’d to wind and weather lay.

There was their fleet conceal’d. We thought, for Greece

Their sails were hoisted, and our fears release.

The Trojans, coop’d within their walls so long,

Unbar their gates, and issue in a throng,

Like swarming bees, and with delight survey

The camp deserted, where the Grecians lay:

The quarters of the sev’ral chiefs they show’d;

Here Phoenix, here Achilles, made abode;

Here join’d the battles; there the navy rode.

Part on the pile their wond’ring eyes employ:

The pile by Pallas rais’d to ruin Troy.

Thymoetes first (’tis doubtful whether hir’d,

Or so the Trojan destiny requir’d)

Mov’d that the ramparts might be broken down,

To lodge the monster fabric in the town.

But Capys, and the rest of sounder mind,

The fatal present to the flames designed,

Or to the wat’ry deep; at least to bore

The hollow sides, and hidden frauds explore.

The giddy vulgar, as their fancies guide,

With noise say nothing, and in parts divide.

Laocoon, follow’d by a num’rous crowd,

Ran from the fort, and cried, from far, aloud:

‘O wretched countrymen! what fury reigns?

What more than madness has possess’d your brains?

Think you the Grecians from your coasts are gone?

And are Ulysses’ arts no better known?

This hollow fabric either must inclose,

Within its blind recess, our secret foes;

Or ’tis an engine rais’d above the town,

T’ o’erlook the walls, and then to batter down.

Somewhat is sure design’d, by fraud or force:

Trust not their presents, nor admit the horse.’

Thus having said, against the steed he threw

His forceful spear, which, hissing as flew,

Pierc’d thro’ the yielding planks of jointed wood,

And trembling in the hollow belly stood.

The sides, transpierc’d, return a rattling sound,

And groans of Greeks inclos’d come issuing thro’ the wound

And, had not Heav’n the fall of Troy design’d,

Or had not men been fated to be blind,

Enough was said and done t’inspire a better mind.

Then had our lances pierc’d the treach’rous wood,

And Ilian tow’rs and Priam’s empire stood.

Meantime, with shouts, the Trojan shepherds bring

A captive Greek, in bands, before the king;

Taken to take; who made himself their prey,

T’ impose on their belief, and Troy betray;

Fix’d on his aim, and obstinately bent

To die undaunted, or to circumvent.

About the captive, tides of Trojans flow;

All press to see, and some insult the foe.

Now hear how well the Greeks their wiles disguis’d;

Behold a nation in a man compris’d.

Trembling the miscreant stood, unarm’d and bound;

He star’d, and roll’d his haggard eyes around,

Then said: ‘Alas! what earth remains, what sea

Is open to receive unhappy me?

What fate a wretched fugitive attends,

Scorn’d by my foes, abandon’d by my friends?’

He said, and sigh’d, and cast a rueful eye:

Our pity kindles, and our passions die.

We cheer youth to make his own defense,

And freely tell us what he was, and whence:

What news he could impart, we long to know,

And what to credit from a captive foe.

“His fear at length dismiss’d, he said: ‘Whate’er

My fate ordains, my words shall be sincere:

I neither can nor dare my birth disclaim;

Greece is my country, Sinon is my name.

Tho’ plung’d by Fortune’s pow’r in misery,

’Tis not in Fortune’s pow’r to make me lie.

If any chance has hither brought the name

Of Palamedes, not unknown to fame,

Who suffer’d from the malice of the times,

Accus’d and sentenc’d for pretended crimes,

Because these fatal wars he would prevent;

Whose death the wretched Greeks too late lament—

Me, then a boy, my father, poor and bare

Of other means, committed to his care,

His kinsman and companion in the war.

While Fortune favor’d, while his arms support

The cause, and rul’d the counsels, of the court,

I made some figure there; nor was my name

Obscure, nor I without my share of fame.

But when Ulysses, with fallacious arts,

Had made impression in the people’s hearts,

And forg’d a treason in my patron’s name

(I speak of things too far divulg’d by fame),

My kinsman fell. Then I, without support,

In private mourn’d his loss, and left the court.

Mad as I was, I could not bear his fate

With silent grief, but loudly blam’d the state,

And curs’d the direful author of my woes.

’Twas told again; and hence my ruin rose.

I threaten’d, if indulgent Heav’n once more

Would land me safely on my native shore,

His death with double vengeance to restore.

This mov’d the murderer’s hate; and soon ensued

Th’ effects of malice from a man so proud.

Ambiguous rumors thro’ the camp he spread,

And sought, by treason, my devoted head;

New crimes invented; left unturn’d no stone,

To make my guilt appear, and hide his own;

Till Calchas was by force and threat’ning wrought-

But why—why dwell I on that anxious thought?

If on my nation just revenge you seek,

And ’tis t’appear a foe, t’appear a Greek;

Already you my name and country know;

Assuage your thirst of blood, and strike the blow:

My death will both the kingly brothers please,

And set insatiate Ithacus at ease.’

This fair unfinish’d tale, these broken starts,

Rais’d expectations in our longing hearts:

Unknowing as we were in Grecian arts.

His former trembling once again renew’d,

With acted fear, the villain thus pursued:

“‘Long had the Grecians (tir’d with fruitless care,

And wearied with an unsuccessful war)

Resolv’d to raise the siege, and leave the town;

And, had the gods permitted, they had gone;

But oft the wintry seas and southern winds

Withstood their passage home, and chang’d their minds.

Portents and prodigies their souls amaz’d;

But most, when this stupendous pile was rais’d:

Then flaming meteors, hung in air, were seen,

And thunders rattled thro’ a sky serene.

Dismay’d, and fearful of some dire event,

Eurypylus t’ enquire their fate was sent.

He from the gods this dreadful answer brought:

“O Grecians, when the Trojan shores you sought,

Your passage with a virgin’s blood was bought:

So must your safe return be bought again,

And Grecian blood once more atone the main.”

The spreading rumor round the people ran;

All fear’d, and each believ’d himself the man.

Ulysses took th’ advantage of their fright;

Call’d Calchas, and produc’d in open sight:

Then bade him name the wretch, ordain’d by fate

The public victim, to redeem the state.

Already some presag’d the dire event,

And saw what sacrifice Ulysses meant.

For twice five days the good old seer withstood

Th’ intended treason, and was dumb to blood,

Till, tir’d, with endless clamors and pursuit

Of Ithacus, he stood no longer mute;

But, as it was agreed, pronounc’d that I

Was destin’d by the wrathful gods to die.

All prais’d the sentence, pleas’d the storm should fall

On one alone, whose fury threaten’d all.

The dismal day was come; the priests prepare

Their leaven’d cakes, and fillets for my hair.

I follow’d nature’s laws, and must avow

I broke my bonds and fled the fatal blow.

Hid in a weedy lake all night I lay,

Secure of safety when they sail’d away.

But now what further hopes for me remain,

To see my friends, or native soil, again;

My tender infants, or my careful sire,

Whom they returning will to death require;

Will perpetrate on them their first design,

And take the forfeit of their heads for mine?

Which, O! if pity mortal minds can move,

If there be faith below, or gods above,

If innocence and truth can claim desert,

Ye Trojans, from an injur’d wretch avert.’

“False tears true pity move; the king commands

To loose his fetters, and unbind his hands:

Then adds these friendly words: ‘Dismiss thy fears;

Forget the Greeks; be mine as thou wert theirs.

But truly tell, was it for force or guile,

Or some religious end, you rais’d the pile?’

Thus said the king. He, full of fraudful arts,

This well-invented tale for truth imparts:

‘Ye lamps of heav’n!’ he said, and lifted high

His hands now free, ‘thou venerable sky!

Inviolable pow’rs, ador’d with dread!

Ye fatal fillets, that once bound this head!

Ye sacred altars, from whose flames I fled!

Be all of you adjur’d; and grant I may,

Without a crime, th’ ungrateful Greeks betray,

Reveal the secrets of the guilty state,

And justly punish whom I justly hate!

But you, O king, preserve the faith you gave,

If I, to save myself, your empire save.

The Grecian hopes, and all th’ attempts they made,

Were only founded on Minerva’s aid.

But from the time when impious Diomede,

And false Ulysses, that inventive head,

Her fatal image from the temple drew,

The sleeping guardians of the castle slew,

Her virgin statue with their bloody hands

Polluted, and profan’d her holy bands;

From thence the tide of fortune left their shore,

And ebb’d much faster than it flow’d before:

Their courage languish’d, as their hopes decay’d;

And Pallas, now averse, refus’d her aid.

Nor did the goddess doubtfully declare

Her alter’d mind and alienated care.

When first her fatal image touch’d the ground,

She sternly cast her glaring eyes around,

That sparkled as they roll’d, and seem’d to threat:

Her heav’nly limbs distill’d a briny sweat.

Thrice from the ground she leap’d, was seen to wield

Her brandish’d lance, and shake her horrid shield.

Then Calchas bade our host for flight

And hope no conquest from the tedious war,

Till first they sail’d for Greece; with pray’rs besought

Her injur’d pow’r, and better omens brought.

And now their navy plows the wat’ry main,

Yet soon expect it on your shores again,

With Pallas pleas’d; as Calchas did ordain.

But first, to reconcile the blue-ey’d maid

For her stol’n statue and her tow’r betray’d,

Warn’d by the seer, to her offended name

We rais’d and dedicate this wondrous frame,

So lofty, lest thro’ your forbidden gates

It pass, and intercept our better fates:

For, once admitted there, our hopes are lost;

And Troy may then a new Palladium boast;

For so religion and the gods ordain,

That, if you violate with hands profane

Minerva’s gift, your town in flames shall burn,

(Which omen, O ye gods, on Graecia turn!)

But if it climb, with your assisting hands,

The Trojan walls, and in the city stands;

Then Troy shall Argos and Mycenae burn,

And the reverse of fate on us return.’

“With such deceits he gain’d their easy hearts,

Too prone to credit his perfidious arts.

What Diomede, nor Thetis’ greater son,

A thousand ships, nor ten years’ siege, had done—

False tears and fawning words the city won.

“A greater omen, and of worse portent,

Did our unwary minds with fear torment,

Concurring to produce the dire event.

Laocoon, Neptune’s priest by lot that year,

With solemn pomp then sacrific’d a steer;

When, dreadful to behold, from sea we spied

Two serpents, rank’d abreast, the seas divide,

And smoothly sweep along the swelling tide.

Their flaming crests above the waves they show;

Their bellies seem to burn the seas below;

Their speckled tails advance to steer their course,

And on the sounding shore the flying billows force.

And now the strand, and now the plain they held;

Their ardent eyes with bloody streaks were fill’d;

Their nimble tongues they brandish’d as they came,

And lick’d their hissing jaws, that sputter’d flame.

We fled amaz’d; their destin’d way they take,

And to Laocoon and his children make;

And first around the tender boys they wind,

Then with their sharpen’d fangs their limbs and bodies grind.

The wretched father, running to their aid

With pious haste, but vain, they next invade;

Twice round his waist their winding volumes roll’d;

And twice about his gasping throat they fold.

The priest thus doubly chok’d, their crests divide,

And tow’ring o’er his head in triumph ride.

With both his hands he labors at the knots;

His holy fillets the blue venom blots;

His roaring fills the flitting air around.

Thus, when an ox receives a glancing wound,

He breaks his bands, the fatal altar flies,

And with loud bellowings breaks the yielding skies.

Their tasks perform’d, the serpents quit their prey,

And to the tow’r of Pallas make their way:

Couch’d at her feet, they lie protected there

By her large buckler and protended spear.

Amazement seizes all; the gen’ral cry

Proclaims Laocoon justly doom’d to die,

Whose hand the will of Pallas had withstood,

And dared to violate the sacred wood.

All vote t’ admit the steed, that vows be paid

And incense offer’d to th’ offended maid.

A spacious breach is made; the town lies bare;

Some hoisting-levers, some the wheels prepare

And fasten to the horse’s feet; the rest

With cables haul along th’ unwieldly beast.

Each on his fellow for assistance calls;

At length the fatal fabric mounts the walls,

Big with destruction. Boys with chaplets crown’d,

And choirs of virgins, sing and dance around.

Thus rais’d aloft, and then descending down,

It enters o’er our heads, and threats the town.

O sacred city, built by hands divine!

O valiant heroes of the Trojan line!

Four times he struck: as oft the clashing sound

Of arms was heard, and inward groans rebound.

Yet, mad with zeal, and blinded with our fate,

We haul along the horse in solemn state;

Then place the dire portent within the tow’r.

Cassandra cried, and curs’d th’ unhappy hour;

Foretold our fate; but, by the god’s decree,

All heard, and none believ’d the prophecy.

With branches we the fanes adorn, and waste,

In jollity, the day ordain’d to be the last.

Meantime the rapid heav’ns roll’d down the light,

And on the shaded ocean rush’d the night;

Our men, secure, nor guards nor sentries held,

But easy sleep their weary limbs compell’d.

The Grecians had embark’d their naval pow’rs

From Tenedos, and sought our well-known shores,

Safe under covert of the silent night,

And guided by th’ imperial galley’s light;

When Sinon, favor’d by the partial gods,

Unlock’d the horse, and op’d his dark abodes;

Restor’d to vital air our hidden foes,

Who joyful from their long confinement rose.

Lysander bold, and Sthenelus their guide,

And dire Ulysses down the cable slide:

Then Thoas, Athamas, and Pyrrhus haste;

Nor was the Podalirian hero last,

Nor injur’d Menelaus, nor the fam’d

Epeus, who the fatal engine fram’d.

A nameless crowd succeed; their forces join

T’ invade the town, oppress’d with sleep and wine.

Those few they find awake first meet their fate;

Then to their fellows they unbar the gate.

“’Twas in the dead of night, when sleep repairs

Our bodies worn with toils, our minds with cares,

When Hector’s ghost before my sight appears:

A bloody shroud he seem’d, and bath’d in tears;

Such as he was, when, by Pelides slain,

Thessalian coursers dragg’d him o’er the plain.

Swoln were his feet, as when the thongs were thrust

Thro’ the bor’d holes; his body black with dust;

Unlike that Hector who return’d from toils

Of war, triumphant, in Aeacian spoils,

Or him who made the fainting Greeks retire,

And launch’d against their navy Phrygian fire.

His hair and beard stood stiffen’d with his gore;

And all the wounds he for his country bore

Now stream’d afresh, and with new purple ran.

I wept to see the visionary man,

And, while my trance continued, thus began:

‘O light of Trojans, and support of Troy,

Thy father’s champion, and thy country’s joy!

O, long expected by thy friends! from whence

Art thou so late return’d for our defense?

Do we behold thee, wearied as we are

With length of labors, and with toils of war?

After so many fun’rals of thy own

Art thou restor’d to thy declining town?

But say, what wounds are these? What new disgrace

Deforms the manly features of thy face?’

“To this the specter no reply did frame,

But answer’d to the cause for which he came,

And, groaning from the bottom of his breast,

This warning in these mournful words express’d:

‘O goddess-born! escape, by timely flight,

The flames and horrors of this fatal night.

The foes already have possess’d the wall;

Troy nods from high, and totters to her fall.

Enough is paid to Priam’s royal name,

More than enough to duty and to fame.

If by a mortal hand my father’s throne

Could be defended, ’twas by mine alone.

Now Troy to thee commends her future state,

And gives her gods companions of thy fate:

From their assistance walls expect,

Which, wand’ring long, at last thou shalt erect.’

He said, and brought me, from their blest abodes,

The venerable statues of the gods,

With ancient Vesta from the sacred choir,

The wreaths and relics of th’ immortal fire.

“Now peals of shouts come thund’ring from afar,

Cries, threats, and loud laments, and mingled war:

The noise approaches, tho’ our palace stood

Aloof from streets, encompass’d with a wood.

Louder, and yet more loud, I hear th’ alarms

Of human cries distinct, and clashing arms.

Fear broke my slumbers; I no longer stay,

But mount the terrace, thence the town survey,

And hearken what the frightful sounds convey.

Thus, when a flood of fire by wind is borne,

Crackling it rolls, and mows the standing corn;

Or deluges, descending on the plains,

Sweep o’er the yellow year, destroy the pains

Of lab’ring oxen and the peasant’s gains;

Unroot the forest oaks, and bear away

Flocks, folds, and trees, and undistinguish’d prey:

The shepherd climbs the cliff, and sees from far

The wasteful ravage of the wat’ry war.

Then Hector’s faith was manifestly clear’d,

And Grecian frauds in open light appear’d.

The palace of Deiphobus ascends

In smoky flames, and catches on his friends.

Ucalegon burns next: the seas are bright

With splendor not their own, and shine with Trojan light.

New clamors and new clangors now arise,

The sound of trumpets mix’d with fighting cries.

With frenzy seiz’d, I run to meet th’ alarms,

Resolv’d on death, resolv’d to die in arms,

But first to gather friends, with them t’ oppose

(If fortune favor’d) and repel the foes;

Spurr’d by my courage, by my country fir’d,

With sense of honor and revenge inspir’d.

“Pantheus, Apollo’s priest, a sacred name,

Had scap’d the Grecian swords, and pass’d the flame:

With relics loaden. to my doors he fled,

And by the hand his tender grandson led.

‘What hope, O Pantheus? whither can we run?

Where make a stand? and what may yet be done?’

Scarce had I said, when Pantheus, with a groan:

‘Troy is no more, and Ilium was a town!

The fatal day, th’ appointed hour, is come,

When wrathful Jove’s irrevocable doom

Transfers the Trojan state to Grecian hands.

The fire consumes the town, the foe commands;

And armed hosts, an unexpected force,

Break from the bowels of the fatal horse.

Within the gates, proud Sinon throws about

The flames; and foes for entrance press without,

With thousand others, whom I fear to name,

More than from Argos or Mycenae came.

To sev’ral posts their parties they divide;

Some block the narrow streets, some scour the wide:

The bold they kill, th’ unwary they surprise;

Who fights finds death, and death finds him who flies.

The warders of the gate but scarce maintain

Th’ unequal combat, and resist in vain.’

“I heard; and Heav’n, that well-born souls inspires,

Prompts me thro’ lifted swords and rising fires

To run where clashing arms and clamor calls,

And rush undaunted to defend the walls.

Ripheus and Iph’itus by my side engage,

For valor one renown’d, and one for age.

Dymas and Hypanis by moonlight knew

My motions and my mien, and to my party drew;

With young Coroebus, who by love was led

To win renown and fair Cassandra’s bed,

And lately brought his troops to Priam’s aid,

Forewarn’d in vain by the prophetic maid.

Whom when I saw resolv’d in arms to fall,

And that one spirit animated all:

‘Brave souls!’ said I,—‘but brave, alas! in vain—

Come, finish what our cruel fates ordain.

You see the desp’rate state of our affairs,

And heav’n’s protecting pow’rs are deaf to pray’rs.

The passive gods behold the Greeks defile

Their temples, and abandon to the spoil

Their own abodes: we, feeble few, conspire

To save a sinking town, involv’d in fire.

Then let us fall, but fall amidst our foes:

Despair of life the means of living shows.’

So bold a speech incourag’d their desire

Of death, and added fuel to their fire.

“As hungry wolves, with raging appetite,

Scour thro’ the fields, nor fear the stormy night—

Their whelps at home expect the promis’d food,

And long to temper their dry chaps in blood—

So rush’d we forth at once; resolv’d to die,

Resolv’d, in death, the last extremes to try.

We leave the narrow lanes behind, and dare

Th’ unequal combat in the public square:

Night was our friend; our leader was despair.

What tongue can tell the slaughter of that night?

What eyes can weep the sorrows and affright?

An ancient and imperial city falls:

The streets are fill’d with frequent funerals;

Houses and holy temples float in blood,

And hostile nations make a common flood.

Not only Trojans fall; but, in their turn,

The vanquish’d triumph, and the victors mourn.

Ours take new courage from despair and night:

Confus’d the fortune is, confus’d the fight.

All parts resound with tumults, plaints, and fears;

And grisly Death in sundry shapes appears.

Androgeos fell among us, with his band,

Who thought us Grecians newly come to land.

‘From whence,’ said he, ‘my friends, this long delay?

You loiter, while the spoils are borne away:

Our ships are laden with the Trojan store;

And you, like truants, come too late ashore.’

He said, but soon corrected his mistake,

Found, by the doubtful answers which we make:

Amaz’d, he would have shunn’d th’ unequal fight;

But we, more num’rous, intercept his flight.

As when some peasant, in a bushy brake,

Has with unwary footing press’d a snake;

He starts aside, astonish’d, when he spies

His rising crest, blue neck, and rolling eyes;

So from our arms surpris’d Androgeos flies.

In vain; for him and his we compass’d round,

Possess’d with fear, unknowing of the ground,

And of their lives an easy conquest found.

Thus Fortune on our first endeavor smil’d.

Coroebus then, with youthful hopes beguil’d,

Swoln with success, and a daring mind,

This new invention fatally design’d.

‘My friends,’ said he, ‘since Fortune shows the way,

’Tis fit we should th’ auspicious guide obey.

For what has she these Grecian arms bestow’d,

But their destruction, and the Trojans’ good?

Then change we shields, and their devices bear:

Let fraud supply the want of force in war.

They find us arms.’ This said, himself he dress’d

In dead Androgeos’ spoils, his upper vest,

His painted buckler, and his plumy crest.

Thus Ripheus, Dymas, all the Trojan train,

Lay down their own attire, and strip the slain.

Mix’d with the Greeks, we go with ill presage,

Flatter’d with hopes to glut our greedy rage;

Unknown, assaulting whom we blindly meet,

And strew with Grecian carcasses the street.

Thus while their straggling parties we defeat,

Some to the shore and safer ships retreat;

And some, oppress’d with more ignoble fear,

Remount the hollow horse, and pant in secret there.

“But, ah! what use of valor can be made,

When heav’n’s propitious pow’rs refuse their aid!

Behold the royal prophetess, the fair

Cassandra, dragg’d by her dishevel’d hair,

Whom not Minerva’s shrine, nor sacred bands,

In safety could protect from sacrilegious hands:

On heav’n she cast her eyes, she sigh’d, she cried—

’Twas all she could—her tender arms were tied.

So sad a sight Coroebus could not bear;

But, fir’d with rage, distracted with despair,

Amid the barb’rous ravishers he flew:

Our leader’s rash example we pursue.

But storms of stones, from the proud temple’s height,

Pour down, and on our batter’d helms alight:

We from our friends receiv’d this fatal blow,

Who thought us Grecians, as we seem’d in show.

They aim at the mistaken crests, from high;

And ours beneath the pond’rous ruin lie.

Then, mov’d with anger and disdain, to see

Their troops dispers’d, the royal virgin free,

The Grecians rally, and their pow’rs unite,

With fury charge us, and renew the fight.

The brother kings with Ajax join their force,

And the whole squadron of Thessalian horse.

“Thus, when the rival winds their quarrel try,

Contending for the kingdom of the sky,

South, east, and west, on airy coursers borne;

The whirlwind gathers, and the woods are torn:

Then Nereus strikes the deep; the billows rise,

And, mix’d with ooze and sand, pollute the skies.

The troops we squander’d first again appear

From several quarters, and enclose the rear.

They first observe, and to the rest betray,

Our diff’rent speech; our borrow’d arms survey.

Oppress’d with odds, we fall; Coroebus first,

At Pallas’ altar, by Peneleus pierc’d.

Then Ripheus follow’d, in th’ unequal fight;

Just of his word, observant of the right:

Heav’n thought not so. Dymas their fate attends,

With Hypanis, mistaken by their friends.

Nor, Pantheus, thee, thy miter, nor the bands

Of awful Phoebus, sav’d from impious hands.

Ye Trojan flames, your testimony bear,

What I perform’d, and what I suffer’d there;

No sword avoiding in the fatal strife,

Expos’d to death, and prodigal of life;

Witness, ye heavens! I live not by my fault:

I strove to have deserv’d the death I sought.

But, when I could not fight, and would have died,

Borne off to distance by the growing tide,

Old Iphitus and I were hurried thence,

With Pelias wounded, and without defense.

New clamors from th’ invested palace ring:

We run to die, or disengage the king.

So hot th’ assault, so high the tumult rose,

While ours defend, and while the Greeks oppose

As all the Dardan and Argolic race

Had been contracted in that narrow space;

Or as all Ilium else were void of fear,

And tumult, war, and slaughter, only there.

Their targets in a tortoise cast, the foes,

Secure advancing, to the turrets rose:

Some mount the scaling ladders; some, more bold,

Swerve upwards, and by posts and pillars hold;

Their left hand gripes their bucklers in th’ ascent,

While with their right they seize the battlement.

From their demolish’d tow’rs the Trojans throw

Huge heaps of stones, that, falling, crush the foe;

And heavy beams and rafters from the sides

(Such arms their last necessity provides)

And gilded roofs, come tumbling from on high,

The marks of state and ancient royalty.

The guards below, fix’d in the pass, attend

The charge undaunted, and the gate defend.

Renew’d in courage with recover’d breath,

A second time we ran to tempt our death,

To clear the palace from the foe, succeed

The weary living, and revenge the dead.

“A postern door, yet unobserv’d and free,

Join’d by the length of a blind gallery,

To the king’s closet led: a way well known

To Hector’s wife, while Priam held the throne,

Thro’ which she brought Astyanax, unseen,

To cheer his grandsire and his grandsire’s queen.

Thro’ this we pass, and mount the tow’r, from whence

With unavailing arms the Trojans make defense.

From this the trembling king had oft descried

The Grecian camp, and saw their navy ride.

Beams from its lofty height with swords we hew,

Then, wrenching with our hands, th’ assault renew;

And, where the rafters on the columns meet,

We push them headlong with our arms and feet.

The lightning flies not swifter than the fall,

Nor thunder louder than the ruin’d wall:

Down goes the top at once; the Greeks beneath

Are piecemeal torn, or pounded into death.

Yet more succeed, and more to death are sent;

We cease not from above, nor they below relent.

Before the gate stood Pyrrhus, threat’ning loud,

With glitt’ring arms conspicuous in the crowd.

So shines, renew’d in youth, the crested snake,

Who slept the winter in a thorny brake,

And, casting off his slough when spring returns,

Now looks aloft, and with new glory burns;

Restor’d with poisonous herbs, his ardent sides

Reflect the sun; and rais’d on spires he rides;

High o’er the grass, hissing he rolls along,

And brandishes by fits his forky tongue.

Proud Periphas, and fierce Automedon,

His father’s charioteer, together run

To force the gate; the Scyrian infantry

Rush on in crowds, and the barr’d passage free.

Ent’ring the court, with shouts the skies they rend;

And flaming firebrands to the roofs ascend.

Himself, among the foremost, deals his blows,

And with his ax repeated strokes bestows

On the strong doors; then all their shoulders ply,

Till from the posts the brazen hinges fly.

He hews apace; the double bars at length

Yield to his ax and unresisted strength.

A mighty breach is made: the rooms conceal’d

Appear, and all the palace is reveal’d;

The halls of audience, and of public state,

And where the lonely queen in secret sate.

Arm’d soldiers now by trembling maids are seen,

With not a door, and scarce a space, between.

The house is fill’d with loud laments and cries,

And shrieks of women rend the vaulted skies;

The fearful matrons run from place to place,

And kiss the thresholds, and the posts embrace.

The fatal work inhuman Pyrrhus plies,

And all his father sparkles in his eyes;

Nor bars, nor fighting guards, his force sustain:

The bars are broken, and the guards are slain.

In rush the Greeks, and all the apartments fill;

Those few defendants whom they find, they kill.

Not with so fierce a rage the foaming flood

Roars, when he finds his rapid course withstood;

Bears down the dams with unresisted sway,

And sweeps the cattle and the cots away.

These eyes beheld him when he march’d between

The brother kings: I saw th’ unhappy queen,

The hundred wives, and where old Priam stood,

To stain his hallow’d altar with his brood.

The fifty nuptial beds (such hopes had he,

So large a promise, of a progeny),

The posts, of plated gold, and hung with spoils,

Fell the reward of the proud victor’s toils.

Where’er the raging fire had left a space,

The Grecians enter and possess the place.

“Perhaps you may of Priam’s fate enquire.

He, when he saw his regal town on fire,

His ruin’d palace, and his ent’ring foes,

On ev’ry side inevitable woes,

In arms, disus’d, invests his limbs, decay’d,

Like them, with age; a late and useless aid.

His feeble shoulders scarce the weight sustain;

Loaded, not arm’d, he creeps along with pain,

Despairing of success, ambitious to be slain!

Uncover’d but by heav’n, there stood in view

An altar; near the hearth a laurel grew,

Dodder’d with age, whose boughs encompass round

The household gods, and shade the holy ground.

Here Hecuba, with all her helpless train

Of dames, for shelter sought, but sought in vain.

Driv’n like a flock of doves along the sky,

Their images they hug, and to their altars fly.

The Queen, when she beheld her trembling lord,

And hanging by his side a heavy sword,

‘What rage,’ she cried, ‘has seiz’d my husband’s mind?

What arms are these, and to what use design’d?

These times want other aids! Were Hector here,

Ev’n Hector now in vain, like Priam, would appear.

With us, one common shelter thou shalt find,

Or in one common fate with us be join’d.’

She said, and with a last salute embrac’d

The poor old man, and by the laurel plac’d.

Behold! Polites, one of Priam’s sons,

Pursued by Pyrrhus, there for safety runs.

Thro’ swords and foes, amaz’d and hurt, he flies

Thro’ empty courts and open galleries.

Him Pyrrhus, urging with his lance, pursues,

And often reaches, and his thrusts renews.

The youth, transfix’d, with lamentable cries,

Expires before his wretched parent’s eyes:

Whom gasping at his feet when Priam saw,

The fear of death gave place to nature’s law;

And, shaking more with anger than with age,

‘The gods,’ said he, ‘requite thy brutal rage!

As sure they will, barbarian, sure they must,

If there be gods in heav’n, and gods be just—

Who tak’st in wrongs an insolent delight;

With a son’s death t’ infect a father’s sight.

Not he, whom thou and lying fame conspire

To call thee his—not he, thy vaunted sire,

Thus us’d my wretched age: the gods he fear’d,

The laws of nature and of nations heard.

He cheer’d my sorrows, and, for sums of gold,

The bloodless carcass of my Hector sold;

Pitied the woes a parent underwent,

And sent me back in safety from his tent.’

“This said, his feeble hand a javelin threw,

Which, flutt’ring, seem’d to loiter as it flew:

Just, and but barely, to the mark it held,

And faintly tinkled on the brazen shield.

“Then Pyrrhus thus: ‘Go thou from me to fate,

And to my father my foul deeds relate.

Now die!’ With that he dragg’d the trembling sire,

Slidd’ring thro’ clotter’d blood and holy mire,

(The mingled paste his murder’d son had made,)

Haul’d from beneath the violated shade,

And on the sacred pile the royal victim laid.

His right hand held his bloody falchion bare,

His left he twisted in his hoary hair;

Then, with a speeding thrust, his heart he found:

The lukewarm blood came rushing thro’ the wound,

And sanguine streams distain’d the sacred ground.

Thus Priam fell, and shar’d one common fate

With Troy in ashes, and his ruin’d state:

He, who the scepter of all Asia sway’d,

Whom monarchs like domestic slaves obey’d.

On the bleak shore now lies th’ abandon’d king,

A headless carcass, and a nameless thing.

“Then, not before, I felt my cruddled blood

Congeal with fear, my hair with horror stood:

My father’s image fill’d my pious mind,

Lest equal years might equal fortune find.

Again I thought on my forsaken wife,

And trembled for my son’s abandon’d life.

I look’d about, but found myself alone,

Deserted at my need! My friends were gone.

Some spent with toil, some with despair oppress’d,

Leap’d headlong from the heights; the flames consum’d the rest.

Thus, wand’ring in my way, without a guide,

The graceless Helen in the porch I spied

Of Vesta’s temple; there she lurk’d alone;

Muffled she sate, and, what she could, unknown:

But, by the flames that cast their blaze around,

That common bane of Greece and Troy I found.

For Ilium burnt, she dreads the Trojan sword;

More dreads the vengeance of her injur’d lord;

Ev’n by those gods who refug’d her abhorr’d.

Trembling with rage, the strumpet I regard,

Resolv’d to give her guilt the due reward:

‘Shall she triumphant sail before the wind,

And leave in flames unhappy Troy behind?

Shall she her kingdom and her friends review,

In state attended with a captive crew,

While unreveng’d the good old Priam falls,

And Grecian fires consume the Trojan walls?

For this the Phrygian fields and Xanthian flood

Were swell’d with bodies, and were drunk with blood?

’Tis true, a soldier can small honor gain,

And boast no conquest, from a woman slain:

Yet shall the fact not pass without applause,

Of vengeance taken in so just a cause;

The punish’d crime shall set my soul at ease,

And murm’ring manes of my friends appease.’

Thus while I rave, a gleam of pleasing light

Spread o’er the place; and, shining heav’nly bright,

My mother stood reveal’d before my sight

Never so radiant did her eyes appear;

Not her own star confess’d a light so clear:

Great in her charms, as when on gods above

She looks, and breathes herself into their love.

She held my hand, the destin’d blow to break;

Then from her rosy lips began to speak:

‘My son, from whence this madness, this neglect

Of my commands, and those whom I protect?

Why this unmanly rage? Recall to mind

Whom you forsake, what pledges leave behind.

Look if your helpless father yet survive,

Or if Ascanius or Creusa live.

Around your house the greedy Grecians err;

And these had perish’d in the nightly war,

But for my presence and protecting care.

Not Helen’s face, nor Paris, was in fault;

But by the gods was this destruction brought.

Now cast your eyes around, while I dissolve

The mists and films that mortal eyes involve,

Purge from your sight the dross, and make you see

The shape of each avenging deity.

Enlighten’d thus, my just commands fulfil,

Nor fear obedience to your mother’s will.

Where yon disorder’d heap of ruin lies,

Stones rent from stones; where clouds of dust arise—

Amid that smother Neptune holds his place,

Below the wall’s foundation drives his mace,

And heaves the building from the solid base.

Look where, in arms, imperial Juno stands

Full in the Scaean gate, with loud commands,

Urging on shore the tardy Grecian bands.

See! Pallas, of her snaky buckler proud,

Bestrides the tow’r, refulgent thro’ the cloud:

See! Jove new courage to the foe supplies,

And arms against the town the partial deities.

Haste hence, my son; this fruitless labor end:

Haste, where your trembling spouse and sire attend:

Haste; and a mother’s care your passage shall befriend.’

She said, and swiftly vanish’d from my sight,

Obscure in clouds and gloomy shades of night.

I look’d, I listen’d; dreadful sounds I hear;

And the dire forms of hostile gods appear.

Troy sunk in flames I saw (nor could prevent),

And Ilium from its old foundations rent;

Rent like a mountain ash, which dar’d the winds,

And stood the sturdy strokes of lab’ring hinds.

About the roots the cruel ax resounds;

The stumps are pierc’d with oft-repeated wounds:

The war is felt on high; the nodding crown

Now threats a fall, and throws the leafy honors down.

To their united force it yields, tho’ late,

And mourns with mortal groans th’ approaching fate:

The roots no more their upper load sustain;

But down she falls, and spreads a ruin thro’ the plain.

“Descending thence, I scape thro’ foes and fire:

Before the goddess, foes and flames retire.

Arriv’d at home, he, for whose only sake,

Or most for his, such toils I undertake,

The good Anchises, whom, by timely flight,

I purpos’d to secure on Ida’s height,

Refus’d the journey, resolute to die

And add his fun’rals to the fate of Troy,

Rather than exile and old age sustain.

‘Go you, whose blood runs warm in ev’ry vein.

Had Heav’n decreed that I should life enjoy,

Heav’n had decreed to save unhappy Troy.

’Tis, sure, enough, if not too much, for one,

Twice to have seen our Ilium overthrown.

Make haste to save the poor remaining crew,

And give this useless corpse a long adieu.

These weak old hands suffice to stop my breath;

At least the pitying foes will aid my death,

To take my spoils, and leave my body bare:

As for my sepulcher, let Heav’n take care.

’Tis long since I, for my celestial wife

Loath’d by the gods, have dragg’d a ling’ring life;

Since ev’ry hour and moment I expire,

Blasted from heav’n by Jove’s avenging fire.’

This oft repeated, he stood fix’d to die:

Myself, my wife, my son, my family,

Intreat, pray, beg, and raise a doleful cry—

‘What, will he still persist, on death resolve,

And in his ruin all his house involve!’

He still persists his reasons to maintain;

Our pray’rs, our tears, our loud laments, are vain.

“Urg’d by despair, again I go to try

The fate of arms, resolv’d in fight to die:

‘What hope remains, but what my death must give?

Can I, without so dear a father, live?

You term it prudence, what I baseness call:

Could such a word from such a parent fall?

If Fortune please, and so the gods ordain,

That nothing should of ruin’d Troy remain,

And you conspire with Fortune to be slain,

The way to death is wide, th’ approaches near:

For soon relentless Pyrrhus will appear,

Reeking with Priam’s blood—the wretch who slew

The son (inhuman) in the father’s view,

And then the sire himself to the dire altar drew.

O goddess mother, give me back to Fate;

Your gift was undesir’d, and came too late!

Did you, for this, unhappy me convey

Thro’ foes and fires, to see my house a prey?

Shall I my father, wife, and son behold,

Welt’ring in blood, each other’s arms infold?

Haste! gird my sword, tho’ spent and overcome:

’Tis the last summons to receive our doom.

I hear thee, Fate; and I obey thy call!

Not unreveng’d the foe shall see my fall.

Restore me to the yet unfinish’d fight:

My death is wanting to conclude the night.’

Arm’d once again, my glitt’ring sword I wield,

While th’ other hand sustains my weighty shield,

And forth I rush to seek th’ abandon’d field.

I went; but sad Creusa stopp’d my way,

And cross the threshold in my passage lay,

Embrac’d my knees, and, when I would have gone,

Shew’d me my feeble sire and tender son:

‘If death be your design, at least,’ said she,

‘Take us along to share your destiny.

If any farther hopes in arms remain,

This place, these pledges of your love, maintain.

To whom do you expose your father’s life,

Your son’s, and mine, your now forgotten wife!’

While thus she fills the house with clam’rous cries,

Our hearing is diverted by our eyes:

For, while I held my son, in the short space

Betwixt our kisses and our last embrace;

Strange to relate, from young Iulus’ head

A lambent flame arose, which gently spread

Around his brows, and on his temples fed.

Amaz’d, with running water we prepare

To quench the sacred fire, and slake his hair;

But old Anchises, vers’d in omens, rear’d

His hands to heav’n, and this request preferr’d:

‘If any vows, almighty Jove, can bend

Thy will; if piety can pray’rs commend,

Confirm the glad presage which thou art pleas’d to send.’

Scarce had he said, when, on our left, we hear

A peal of rattling thunder roll in air:

There shot a streaming lamp along the sky,

Which on the winged lightning seem’d to fly;

From o’er the roof the blaze began to move,

And, trailing, vanish’d in th’ Idaean grove.

It swept a path in heav’n, and shone a guide,

Then in a steaming stench of sulphur died.

“The good old man with suppliant hands implor’d

The gods’ protection, and their star ador’d.

‘Now, now,’ said he, ‘my son, no more delay!

I yield, I follow where Heav’n shews the way.

Keep, O my country gods, our dwelling place,

And guard this relic of the Trojan race,

This tender child! These omens are your own,

And you can yet restore the ruin’d town.

At least accomplish what your signs foreshow:

I stand resign’d, and am prepar’d to go.’

“He said. The crackling flames appear on high.

And driving sparkles dance along the sky.

With Vulcan’s rage the rising winds conspire,

And near our palace roll the flood of fire.

‘Haste, my dear father, (’tis no time to wait,)

And load my shoulders with a willing freight.

Whate’er befalls, your life shall be my care;

One death, or one deliv’rance, we will share.

My hand shall lead our little son; and you,

My faithful consort, shall our steps pursue.

Next, you, my servants, heed my strict commands:

Without the walls a ruin’d temple stands,

To Ceres hallow’d once; a cypress nigh

Shoots up her venerable head on high,

By long religion kept; there bend your feet,

And in divided parties let us meet.

Our country gods, the relics, and the bands,

Hold you, my father, in your guiltless hands:

In me ’tis impious holy things to bear,

Red as I am with slaughter, new from war,

Till in some living stream I cleanse the guilt

Of dire debate, and blood in battle spilt.’

Thus, ord’ring all that prudence could provide,

I clothe my shoulders with a lion’s hide

And yellow spoils; then, on my bending back,

The welcome load of my dear father take;

While on my better hand Ascanius hung,

And with unequal paces tripp’d along.

Creusa kept behind; by choice we stray

Thro’ ev’ry dark and ev’ry devious way.

I, who so bold and dauntless, just before,

The Grecian darts and shock of lances bore,

At ev’ry shadow now am seiz’d with fear,

Not for myself, but for the charge I bear;

Till, near the ruin’d gate arriv’d at last,

Secure, and deeming all the danger past,

A frightful noise of trampling feet we hear.

My father, looking thro’ the shades, with fear,

Cried out: ‘Haste, haste, my son, the foes are nigh;

Their swords and shining armor I descry.’

Some hostile god, for some unknown offense,

Had sure bereft my mind of better sense;

For, while thro’ winding ways I took my flight,

And sought the shelter of the gloomy night,

Alas! I lost Creusa: hard to tell

If by her fatal destiny she fell,

Or weary sate, or wander’d with affright;

But she was lost for ever to my sight.

I knew not, or reflected, till I meet

My friends, at Ceres’ now deserted seat.

We met: not one was wanting; only she

Deceiv’d her friends, her son, and wretched me.

“What mad expressions did my tongue refuse!

Whom did I not, of gods or men, accuse!

This was the fatal blow, that pain’d me more

Than all I felt from ruin’d Troy before.

Stung with my loss, and raving with despair,

Abandoning my now forgotten care,

Of counsel, comfort, and of hope bereft,

My sire, my son, my country gods I left.

In shining armor once again I sheathe

My limbs, not feeling wounds, nor fearing death.

Then headlong to the burning walls I run,

And seek the danger I was forc’d to shun.

I tread my former tracks; thro’ night explore

Each passage, ev’ry street I cross’d before.

All things were full of horror and affright,

And dreadful ev’n the silence of the night.

Then to my father’s house I make repair,

With some small glimpse of hope to find her there.

Instead of her, the cruel Greeks I met;

The house was fill’d with foes, with flames beset.

Driv’n on the wings of winds, whole sheets of fire,

Thro’ air transported, to the roofs aspire.

From thence to Priam’s palace I resort,

And search the citadel and desart court.

Then, unobserv’d, I pass by Juno’s church:

A guard of Grecians had possess’d the porch;

There Phoenix and Ulysses watch prey,

And thither all the wealth of Troy convey:

The spoils which they from ransack’d houses brought,

And golden bowls from burning altars caught,

The tables of the gods, the purple vests,

The people’s treasure, and the pomp of priests.

A rank of wretched youths, with pinion’d hands,

And captive matrons, in long order stands.

Then, with ungovern’d madness, I proclaim,

Thro’ all the silent street, Creusa’s name:

Creusa still I call; at length she hears,

And sudden thro’ the shades of night appears—

Appears, no more Creusa, nor my wife,

But a pale specter, larger than the life.

Aghast, astonish’d, and struck dumb with fear,

I stood; like bristles rose my stiffen’d hair.

Then thus the ghost began to soothe my grief

‘Nor tears, nor cries, can give the dead relief.

Desist, my much-lov’d lord,’t indulge your pain;

You bear no more than what the gods ordain.

My fates permit me not from hence to fly;

Nor he, the great controller of the sky.

Long wand’ring ways for you the pow’rs decree;

On land hard labors, and a length of sea.

Then, after many painful years are past,

On Latium’s happy shore you shall be cast,

Where gentle Tiber from his bed beholds

The flow’ry meadows, and the feeding folds.

There end your toils; and there your fates provide

A quiet kingdom, and a royal bride:

There fortune shall the Trojan line restore,

And you for lost Creusa weep no more.

Fear not that I shall watch, with servile shame,

Th’ imperious looks of some proud Grecian dame;

Or, stooping to the victor’s lust, disgrace

My goddess mother, or my royal race.

And now, farewell! The parent of the gods

Restrains my fleeting soul in her abodes:

I trust our common issue to your care.’

She said, and gliding pass’d unseen in air.

I strove to speak: but horror tied my tongue;

And thrice about her neck my arms I flung,

And, thrice deceiv’d, on vain embraces hung.

Light as an empty dream at break of day,

Or as a blast of wind, she rush’d away.

“Thus having pass’d the night in fruitless pain,

I to my longing friends return again,

Amaz’d th’ augmented number to behold,

Of men and matrons mix’d, of young and old;

A wretched exil’d crew together brought,

With arms appointed, and with treasure fraught,

Resolv’d, and willing, under my command,

To run all hazards both of sea and land.

The Morn began, from Ida, to display

Her rosy cheeks; and Phosphor led the day:

Before the gates the Grecians took their post,

And all pretense of late relief was lost.

I yield to Fate, unwillingly retire,

And, loaded, up the hill convey my sire.”

BOOK III

“When Heav’n had overturn’d the Trojan state

And Priam’s throne, by too severe a fate;

When ruin’d Troy became the Grecians’ prey,

And Ilium’s lofty tow’rs in ashes lay;

Warn’d by celestial omens, we retreat,

To seek in foreign lands a happier seat.

Near old Antandros, and at Ida’s foot,

The timber of the sacred groves we cut,

And build our fleet; uncertain yet to find

What place the gods for our repose assign’d.

Friends daily flock; and scarce the kindly spring

Began to clothe the ground, and birds to sing,

When old Anchises summon’d all to sea:

The crew my father and the Fates obey.

With sighs and tears I leave my native shore,

And empty fields, where Ilium stood before.

My sire, my son, our less and greater gods,

All sail at once, and cleave the briny floods.

“Against our coast appears a spacious land,

Which once the fierce Lycurgus did command,

(Thracia the name—the people bold in war;

Vast are their fields, and tillage is their care,)

A hospitable realm while Fate was kind,

With Troy in friendship and religion join’d.

I land; with luckless omens then adore

Their gods, and draw a line along the shore;

I lay the deep foundations of a wall,

And Aenos, nam’d from me, the city call.

To Dionaean Venus vows are paid,

And all the pow’rs that rising labors aid;

A bull on Jove’s imperial altar laid.

Not far, a rising hillock stood in view;

Sharp myrtles on the sides, and cornels grew.

There, while I went to crop the sylvan scenes,

And shade our altar with their leafy greens,

I pull’d a plant—with horror I relate

A prodigy so strange and full of fate.

The rooted fibers rose, and from the wound

Black bloody drops distill’d upon the ground.

Mute and amaz’d, my hair with terror stood;

Fear shrunk my sinews, and congeal’d my blood.

Mann’d once again, another plant I try:

That other gush’d with the same sanguine dye.

Then, fearing guilt for some offense unknown,

With pray’rs and vows the Dryads I atone,

With all the sisters of the woods, and most

The God of Arms, who rules the Thracian coast,

That they, or he, these omens would avert,

Release our fears, and better signs impart.

Clear’d, as I thought, and fully fix’d at length

To learn the cause, I tugged with all my strength:

I bent my knees against the ground; once more

The violated myrtle ran with gore.

Scarce dare I tell the sequel: from the womb

Of wounded earth, and caverns of the tomb,

A groan, as of a troubled ghost, renew’d

My fright, and then these dreadful words ensued:

‘Why dost thou thus my buried body rend?

O spare the corpse of thy unhappy friend!

Spare to pollute thy pious hands with blood:

The tears distil not from the wounded wood;

But ev’ry drop this living tree contains

Is kindred blood, and ran in Trojan veins.

O fly from this unhospitable shore,

Warn’d by my fate; for I am Polydore!

Here loads of lances, in my blood embrued,

Again shoot upward, by my blood renew’d.’

“My falt’ring tongue and shiv’ring limbs declare

My horror, and in bristles rose my hair.

When Troy with Grecian arms was closely pent,

Old Priam, fearful of the war’s event,

This hapless Polydore to Thracia sent:

Loaded with gold, he sent his darling, far

From noise and tumults, and destructive war,

Committed to the faithless tyrant’s care;

Who, when he saw the pow’r of Troy decline,

Forsook the weaker, with the strong to join;

Broke ev’ry bond of nature and of truth,

And murder’d, for his wealth, the royal youth.

O sacred hunger of pernicious gold!

What bands of faith can impious lucre hold?

Now, when my soul had shaken off her fears,

I call my father and the Trojan peers;

Relate the prodigies of Heav’n, require

What he commands, and their advice desire.

All vote to leave that execrable shore,

Polluted with the blood of Polydore;

But, ere we sail, his fun’ral rites prepare,

Then, to his ghost, a tomb and altars rear.

In mournful pomp the matrons walk the round,

With baleful cypress and blue fillets crown’d,

With eyes dejected, and with hair unbound.

Then bowls of tepid milk and blood we pour,

And thrice invoke the soul of Polydore.

“Now, when the raging storms no longer reign,

But southern gales invite us to the main,

We launch our vessels, with a prosp’rous wind,

And leave the cities and the shores behind.

“An island in th’ Aegaean main appears;

Neptune and wat’ry Doris claim it theirs.

It floated once, till Phoebus fix’d the sides

To rooted earth, and now it braves the tides.

Here, borne by friendly winds, we come ashore,

With needful ease our weary limbs restore,

And the Sun’s temple and his town adore.

“Anius, the priest and king, with laurel crown’d,

His hoary locks with purple fillets bound,

Who saw my sire the Delian shore ascend,

Came forth with eager haste to meet his friend;

Invites him to his palace; and, in sign

Of ancient love, their plighted hands they join.

Then to the temple of the god I went,

And thus, before the shrine, my vows present:

‘Give, O Thymbraeus, give a resting place

To the sad relics of the Trojan race;

A seat secure, a region of their own,

A lasting empire, and a happier town.

Where shall we fix? where shall our labors end?

Whom shall we follow, and what fate attend?

Let not my pray’rs a doubtful answer find;

But in clear auguries unveil thy mind.’

Scarce had I said: he shook the holy ground,

The laurels, and the lofty hills around;

And from the tripos rush’d a bellowing sound.

Prostrate we fell; confess’d the present god,

Who gave this answer from his dark abode:

‘Undaunted youths, go, seek that mother earth

From which your ancestors derive their birth.

The soil that sent you forth, her ancient race

In her old bosom shall again embrace.

Thro’ the wide world th’ Aeneian house shall reign,

And children’s children shall the crown sustain.’

Thus Phoebus did our future fates disclose:

A mighty tumult, mix’d with joy, arose.

“All are concern’d to know what place the god

Assign’d, and where determin’d our abode.

My father, long revolving in his mind

The race and lineage of the Trojan kind,

Thus answer’d their demands: ‘Ye princes, hear

Your pleasing fortune, and dispel your fear.

The fruitful isle of Crete, well known to fame,

Sacred of old to Jove’s imperial name,

In the mid ocean lies, with large command,

And on its plains a hundred cities stand.

Another Ida rises there, and we

From thence derive our Trojan ancestry.

From thence, as ’tis divulg’d by certain fame,

To the Rhoetean shores old Teucrus came;

There fix’d, and there the seat of empire chose,

Ere Ilium and the Trojan tow’rs arose.

In humble vales they built their soft abodes,

Till Cybele, the mother of the gods,

With tinkling cymbals charm’d th’ Idaean woods,

She secret rites and ceremonies taught,

And to the yoke the savage lions brought.

Let us the land which Heav’n appoints, explore;

Appease the winds, and seek the Gnossian shore.

If Jove assists the passage of our fleet,

The third propitious dawn discovers Crete.’

Thus having said, the sacrifices, laid

On smoking altars, to the gods he paid:

A bull, to Neptune an oblation due,

Another bull to bright Apollo slew;

A milk-white ewe, the western winds to please,

And one coal-black, to calm the stormy seas.

Ere this, a flying rumor had been spread

That fierce Idomeneus from Crete was fled,

Expell’d and exil’d; that the coast was free

From foreign or domestic enemy.

“We leave the Delian ports, and put to sea;

By Naxos, fam’d for vintage, make our way;

Then green Donysa pass; and sail in sight

Of Paros’ isle, with marble quarries white.

We pass the scatter’d isles of Cyclades,

That, scarce distinguish’d, seem to stud the seas.

The shouts of sailors double near the shores;

They stretch their canvas, and they ply their oars.

‘All hands aloft! for Crete! for Crete!’ they cry,

And swiftly thro’ the foamy billows fly.

Full on the promis’d land at length we bore,

With joy descending on the Cretan shore.

With eager haste a rising town I frame,

Which from the Trojan Pergamus I name:

The name itself was grateful; I exhort

To found their houses, and erect a fort.

Our ships are haul’d upon the yellow strand;

The youth begin to till the labor’d land;

And I myself new marriages promote,

Give laws, and dwellings I divide by lot;

When rising vapors choke the wholesome air,

And blasts of noisome winds corrupt the year;

The trees devouring caterpillars burn;

Parch’d was the grass, and blighted was the corn:

Nor ’scape the beasts; for Sirius, from on high,

With pestilential heat infects the sky:

My men—some fall, the rest in fevers fry.

Again my father bids me seek the shore

Of sacred Delos, and the god implore,

To learn what end of woes we might expect,

And to what clime our weary course direct.

“’Twas night, when ev’ry creature, void of cares,

The common gift of balmy slumber shares:

The statues of my gods (for such they seem’d),

Those gods whom I from flaming Troy redeem’d,

Before me stood, majestically bright,

Full in the beams of Phoebe’s ent’ring light.

Then thus they spoke, and eas’d my troubled mind:

‘What from the Delian god thou go’st to find,

He tells thee here, and sends us to relate.

Those pow’rs are we, companions of thy fate,

Who from the burning town by thee were brought,

Thy fortune follow’d, and thy safety wrought.

Thro’ seas and lands as we thy steps attend,

So shall our care thy glorious race befriend.

An ample realm for thee thy fates ordain,

A town that o’er the conquer’d world shall reign.

Thou, mighty walls for mighty nations build;

Nor let thy weary mind to labors yield:

But change thy seat; for not the Delian god,

Nor we, have giv’n thee Crete for our abode.

A land there is, Hesperia call’d of old,

(The soil is fruitful, and the natives bold-

Th’ Oenotrians held it once,) by later fame

Now call’d Italia, from the leader’s name.

Iasius there and Dardanus were born;

From thence we came, and thither must return.

Rise, and thy sire with these glad tidings greet.

Search Italy; for Jove denies thee Crete.’

“Astonish’d at their voices and their sight,

(Nor were they dreams, but visions of the night;

I saw, I knew their faces, and descried,

In perfect view, their hair with fillets tied;)

I started from my couch; a clammy sweat

On all my limbs and shiv’ring body sate.

To heav’n I lift my hands with pious haste,

And sacred incense in the flames I cast.

Thus to the gods their perfect honors done,

More cheerful, to my good old sire I run,

And tell the pleasing news. In little space

He found his error of the double race;

Not, as before he deem’d, deriv’d from Crete;

No more deluded by the doubtful seat:

Then said: ‘O son, turmoil’d in Trojan fate!

Such things as these Cassandra did relate.

This day revives within my mind what she

Foretold of Troy renew’d in Italy,

And Latian lands; but who could then have thought

That Phrygian gods to Latium should be brought,

Or who believ’d what mad Cassandra taught?

Now let us go where Phoebus leads the way.’

“He said; and we with glad consent obey,

Forsake the seat, and, leaving few behind,

We spread our sails before the willing wind.

Now from the sight of land our galleys move,

With only seas around and skies above;

When o’er our heads descends a burst of rain,

And night with sable clouds involves the main;

The ruffling winds the foamy billows raise;

The scatter’d fleet is forc’d to sev’ral ways;

The face of heav’n is ravish’d from our eyes,

And in redoubled peals the roaring thunder flies.

Cast from our course, we wander in the dark.

No stars to guide, no point of land to mark.

Ev’n Palinurus no distinction found

Betwixt the night and day; such darkness reign’d around.

Three starless nights the doubtful navy strays,

Without distinction, and three sunless days;

The fourth renews the light, and, from our shrouds,

We view a rising land, like distant clouds;

The mountain-tops confirm the pleasing sight,

And curling smoke ascending from their height.

The canvas falls; their oars the sailors ply;

From the rude strokes the whirling waters fly.

At length I land upon the Strophades,

Safe from the danger of the stormy seas.

Those isles are compass’d by th’ Ionian main,

The dire abode where the foul Harpies reign,

Forc’d by the winged warriors to repair

To their old homes, and leave their costly fare.

Monsters more fierce offended Heav’n ne’er sent

From hell’s abyss, for human punishment:

With virgin faces, but with wombs obscene,

Foul paunches, and with ordure still unclean;

With claws for hands, and looks for ever lean.

“We landed at the port, and soon beheld

Fat herds of oxen graze the flow’ry field,

And wanton goats without a keeper stray’d.

With weapons we the welcome prey invade,

Then call the gods for partners of our feast,

And Jove himself, the chief invited guest.

We spread the tables on the greensward ground;

We feed with hunger, and the bowls go round;

When from the mountain-tops, with hideous cry,

And clatt’ring wings, the hungry Harpies fly;

They snatch the meat, defiling all they find,

And, parting, leave a loathsome stench behind.

Close by a hollow rock, again we sit,

New dress the dinner, and the beds refit,

Secure from sight, beneath a pleasing shade,

Where tufted trees a native arbor made.

Again the holy fires on altars burn;

And once again the rav’nous birds return,

Or from the dark recesses where they lie,

Or from another quarter of the sky;

With filthy claws their odious meal repeat,

And mix their loathsome ordures with their meat.

I bid my friends for vengeance then prepare,

And with the hellish nation wage the war.

They, as commanded, for the fight provide,

And in the grass their glitt’ring weapons hide;

Then, when along the crooked shore we hear

Their clatt’ring wings, and saw the foes appear,

Misenus sounds a charge: we take th’ alarm,

And our strong hands with swords and bucklers arm.

In this new kind of combat all employ

Their utmost force, the monsters to destroy.

In vain—the fated skin is proof to wounds;

And from their plumes the shining sword rebounds.

At length rebuff’d, they leave their mangled prey,

And their stretch’d pinions to the skies display.

Yet one remain’d—the messenger of Fate:

High on a craggy cliff Celaeno sate,

And thus her dismal errand did relate:

‘What! not contented with our oxen slain,

Dare you with Heav’n an impious war maintain,

And drive the Harpies from their native reign?

Heed therefore what I say; and keep in mind

What Jove decrees, what Phoebus has design’d,

And I, the Furies’ queen, from both relate—

You seek th’ Italian shores, foredoom’d by fate:

Th’ Italian shores are granted you to find,

And a safe passage to the port assign’d.

But know, that ere your promis’d walls you build,

My curses shall severely be fulfill’d.

Fierce famine is your lot for this misdeed,

Reduc’d to grind the plates on which you feed.’

She said, and to the neighb’ring forest flew.

Our courage fails us, and our fears renew.

Hopeless to win by war, to pray’rs we fall,

And on th’ offended Harpies humbly call,

And whether gods or birds obscene they were,

Our vows for pardon and for peace prefer.

But old Anchises, off’ring sacrifice,

And lifting up to heav’n his hands and eyes,

Ador’d the greater gods: ‘Avert,’ said he,

‘These omens; render vain this prophecy,

And from th’ impending curse a pious people free!’

“Thus having said, he bids us put to sea;

We loose from shore our haulsers, and obey,

And soon with swelling sails pursue the wat’ry way.

Amidst our course, Zacynthian woods appear;

And next by rocky Neritos we steer:

We fly from Ithaca’s detested shore,

And curse the land which dire Ulysses bore.

At length Leucate’s cloudy top appears,

And the Sun’s temple, which the sailor fears.

Resolv’d to breathe a while from labor past,

Our crooked anchors from the prow we cast,

And joyful to the little city haste.

Here, safe beyond our hopes, our vows we pay

To Jove, the guide and patron of our way.

The customs of our country we pursue,

And Trojan games on Actian shores renew.

Our youth their naked limbs besmear with oil,

And exercise the wrastlers’ noble toil;

Pleas’d to have sail’d so long before the wind,

And left so many Grecian towns behind.

The sun had now fulfill’d his annual course,

And Boreas on the seas display’d his force:

I fix’d upon the temple’s lofty door

The brazen shield which vanquish’d Abas bore;

The verse beneath my name and action speaks:

‘These arms Aeneas took from conqu’ring Greeks.’

Then I command to weigh; the seamen ply

Their sweeping oars; the smoking billows fly.

The sight of high Phaeacia soon we lost,

And skimm’d along Epirus’ rocky coast.

“Then to Chaonia’s port our course we bend,

And, landed, to Buthrotus’ heights ascend.

Here wondrous things were loudly blaz’d fame:

How Helenus reviv’d the Trojan name,

And reign’d in Greece; that Priam’s captive son

Succeeded Pyrrhus in his bed and throne;

And fair Andromache, restor’d by fate,

Once more was happy in a Trojan mate.

I leave my galleys riding in the port,

And long to see the new Dardanian court.

By chance, the mournful queen, before the gate,

Then solemniz’d her former husband’s fate.

Green altars, rais’d of turf, with gifts she crown’d,

And sacred priests in order stand around,

And thrice the name of hapless Hector sound.

The grove itself resembles Ida’s wood;

And Simois seem’d the well-dissembled flood.

But when at nearer distance she beheld

My shining armor and my Trojan shield,

Astonish’d at the sight, the vital heat

Forsakes her limbs; her veins no longer beat:

She faints, she falls, and scarce recov’ring strength,

Thus, with a falt’ring tongue, she speaks at length:

“‘Are you alive, O goddess-born?’ she said,

‘Or if a ghost, then where is Hector’s shade?’

At this, she cast a loud and frightful cry.

With broken words I made this brief reply:

‘All of me that remains appears in sight;

I live, if living be to loathe the light.

No phantom; but I drag a wretched life,

My fate resembling that of Hector’s wife.

What have you suffer’d since you lost your lord?

By what strange blessing are you now restor’d?

Still are you Hector’s? or is Hector fled,

And his remembrance lost in Pyrrhus’ bed?’

With eyes dejected, in a lowly tone,

After a modest pause she thus begun:

“‘O only happy maid of Priam’s race,

Whom death deliver’d from the foes’ embrace!

Commanded on Achilles’ tomb to die,

Not forc’d, like us, to hard captivity,

Or in a haughty master’s arms to lie.

In Grecian ships unhappy we were borne,

Endur’d the victor’s lust, sustain’d the scorn:

Thus I submitted to the lawless pride

Of Pyrrhus, more a handmaid than a bride.

Cloy’d with possession, he forsook my bed,

And Helen’s lovely daughter sought to wed;

Then me to Trojan Helenus resign’d,

And his two slaves in equal marriage join’d;

Till young Orestes, pierc’d with deep despair,

And longing to redeem the promis’d fair,

Before Apollo’s altar slew the ravisher.

By Pyrrhus’ death the kingdom we regain’d:

At least one half with Helenus remain’d.

Our part, from Chaon, he Chaonia calls,

And names from Pergamus his rising walls.

But you, what fates have landed on our coast?

What gods have sent you, or what storms have toss’d?

Does young Ascanius life and health enjoy,

Sav’d from the ruins of unhappy Troy?

O tell me how his mother’s loss he bears,

What hopes are promis’d from his blooming years,

How much of Hector in his face appears?’

She spoke; and mix’d her speech with mournful cries,

And fruitless tears came trickling from her eyes.

“At length her lord descends upon the plain,

In pomp, attended with a num’rous train;

Receives his friends, and to the city leads,

And tears of joy amidst his welcome sheds.

Proceeding on, another Troy I see,

Or, in less compass, Troy’s epitome.

A riv’let by the name of Xanthus ran,

And I embrace the Scaean gate again.

My friends in porticoes were entertain’d,

And feasts and pleasures thro’ the city reign’d.

The tables fill’d the spacious hall around,

And golden bowls with sparkling wine were crown’d.

Two days we pass’d in mirth, till friendly gales,

Blown from the south supplied our swelling sails.

Then to the royal seer I thus began:

‘O thou, who know’st, beyond the reach of man,

The laws of heav’n, and what the stars decree;

Whom Phoebus taught unerring prophecy,

From his own tripod, and his holy tree;

Skill’d in the wing’d inhabitants of air,

What auspices their notes and flights declare:

O say—for all religious rites portend

A happy voyage, and a prosp’rous end;

And ev’ry power and omen of the sky

Direct my course for destin’d Italy;

But only dire Celaeno, from the gods,

A dismal famine fatally forebodes—

O say what dangers I am first to shun,

What toils vanquish, and what course to run.’

“The prophet first with sacrifice adores

The greater gods; their pardon then implores;

Unbinds the fillet from his holy head;

To Phoebus, next, my trembling steps he led,

Full of religious doubts and awful dread.

Then, with his god possess’d, before the shrine,

These words proceeded from his mouth divine:

‘O goddess-born, (for Heav’n’s appointed will,

With greater auspices of good than ill,

Foreshows thy voyage, and thy course directs;

Thy fates conspire, and Jove himself protects,)

Of many things some few I shall explain,

Teach thee to shun the dangers of the main,

And how at length the promis’d shore to gain.

The rest the fates from Helenus conceal,

And Juno’s angry pow’r forbids to tell.

First, then, that happy shore, that seems so nigh,

Will far from your deluded wishes fly;

Long tracts of seas divide your hopes from Italy:

For you must cruise along Sicilian shores,

And stem the currents with your struggling oars;

Then round th’ Italian coast your navy steer;

And, after this, to Circe’s island veer;

And, last, before your new foundations rise,

Must pass the Stygian lake, and view the nether skies.

Now mark the signs of future ease and rest,

And bear them safely treasur’d in thy breast.

When, in the shady shelter of a wood,

And near the margin of a gentle flood,

Thou shalt behold a sow upon the ground,

With thirty sucking young encompass’d round;

The dam and offspring white as falling snow-

These on thy city shall their name bestow,

And there shall end thy labors and thy woe.

Nor let the threaten’d famine fright thy mind,

For Phoebus will assist, and Fate the way will find.

Let not thy course to that ill coast be bent,

Which fronts from far th’ Epirian continent:

Those parts are all by Grecian foes possess’d;

The salvage Locrians here the shores infest;

There fierce Idomeneus his city builds,

And guards with arms the Salentinian fields;

And on the mountain’s brow Petilia stands,

Which Philoctetes with his troops commands.

Ev’n when thy fleet is landed on the shore,

And priests with holy vows the gods adore,

Then with a purple veil involve your eyes,

Lest hostile faces blast the sacrifice.

These rites and customs to the rest commend,

That to your pious race they may descend.

“‘When, parted hence, the wind, that ready waits

For Sicily, shall bear you to the straits

Where proud Pelorus opes a wider way,

Tack to the larboard, and stand off to sea:

Veer starboard sea and land. Th’ Italian shore

And fair Sicilia’s coast were one, before

An earthquake caus’d the flaw: the roaring tides

The passage broke that land from land divides;

And where the lands retir’d, the rushing ocean rides.

Distinguish’d by the straits, on either hand,

Now rising cities in long order stand,

And fruitful fields: so much can time invade

The mold’ring work that beauteous Nature made.

Far on the right, her dogs foul Scylla hides:

Charybdis roaring on the left presides,

And in her greedy whirlpool sucks the tides;

Then spouts them from below: with fury driv’n,

The waves mount up and wash the face of heav’n.

But Scylla from her den, with open jaws,

The sinking vessel in her eddy draws,

Then dashes on the rocks. A human face,

And virgin bosom, hides her tail’s disgrace:

Her parts obscene below the waves descend,

With dogs inclos’d, and in a dolphin end.

’Tis safer, then, to bear aloof to sea,

And coast Pachynus, tho’ with more delay,

Than once to view misshapen Scylla near,

And the loud yell of wat’ry wolves to hear.

“‘Besides, if faith to Helenus be due,

And if prophetic Phoebus tell me true,

Do not this precept of your friend forget,

Which therefore more than once I must repeat:

Above the rest, great Juno’s name adore;

Pay vows to Juno; Juno’s aid implore.

Let gifts be to the mighty queen design’d,

And mollify with pray’rs her haughty mind.

Thus, at the length, your passage shall be free,

And you shall safe descend on Italy.

Arriv’d at Cumae, when you view the flood

Of black Avernus, and the sounding wood,

The mad prophetic Sibyl you shall find,

Dark in a cave, and on a rock reclin’d.

She sings the fates, and, in her frantic fits,

The notes and names, inscrib’d, to leafs commits.

What she commits to leafs, in order laid,

Before the cavern’s entrance are display’d:

Unmov’d they lie; but, if a blast of wind

Without, or vapors issue from behind,

The leafs are borne aloft in liquid air,

And she resumes no more her museful care,

Nor gathers from the rocks her scatter’d verse,

Nor sets in order what the winds disperse.

Thus, many not succeeding, most upbraid

The madness of the visionary maid,

And with loud curses leave the mystic shade.

“‘Think it not loss of time a while to stay,

Tho’ thy companions chide thy long delay;

Tho’ summon’d to the seas, tho’ pleasing gales

Invite thy course, and stretch thy swelling sails:

But beg the sacred priestess to relate

With willing words, and not to write thy fate.

The fierce Italian people she will show,

And all thy wars, and all thy future woe,

And what thou may’st avoid, and what must undergo.

She shall direct thy course, instruct thy mind,

And teach thee how the happy shores to find.

This is what Heav’n allows me to relate:

Now part in peace; pursue thy better fate,

And raise, by strength of arms, the Trojan state.’

“This when the priest with friendly voice declar’d,

He gave me license, and rich gifts prepar’d:

Bounteous of treasure, he supplied my want

With heavy gold, and polish’d elephant;

Then Dodonaean caldrons put on board,

And ev’ry ship with sums of silver stor’d.

A trusty coat of mail to me he sent,

Thrice chain’d with gold, for use and ornament;

The helm of Pyrrhus added to the rest,

That flourish’d with a plume and waving crest.

Nor was my sire forgotten, nor my friends;

And large recruits he to my navy sends:

Men, horses, captains, arms, and warlike stores;

Supplies new pilots, and new sweeping oars.

Meantime, my sire commands to hoist our sails,

Lest we should lose the first auspicious gales.

“The prophet bless’d the parting crew, and last,

With words like these, his ancient friend embrac’d:

‘Old happy man, the care of gods above,

Whom heav’nly Venus honor’d with her love,

And twice preserv’d thy life, when Troy was lost,

Behold from far the wish’d Ausonian coast:

There land; but take a larger compass round,

For that before is all forbidden ground.

The shore that Phoebus has design’d for you,

At farther distance lies, conceal’d from view.

Go happy hence, and seek your new abodes,

Blest in a son, and favor’d by the gods:

For I with useless words prolong your stay,

When southern gales have summon’d you away.’

“Nor less the queen our parting thence deplor’d,

Nor was less bounteous than her Trojan lord.

A noble present to my son she brought,

A robe with flow’rs on golden tissue wrought,

A phrygian vest; and loads with gifts beside

Of precious texture, and of Asian pride.

‘Accept,’ she said, ‘these monuments of love,

Which in my youth with happier hands I wove:

Regard these trifles for the giver’s sake;

’Tis the last present Hector’s wife can make.

Thou call’st my lost Astyanax to mind;

In thee his features and his form I find:

His eyes so sparkled with a lively flame;

Such were his motions; such was all his frame;

And ah! had Heav’n so pleas’d, his years had been the same.’

“With tears I took my last adieu, and said:

‘Your fortune, happy pair, already made,

Leaves you no farther wish. My diff’rent state,

Avoiding one, incurs another fate.

To you a quiet seat the gods allow:

You have no shores to search, no seas to plow,

Nor fields of flying Italy to chase:

(Deluding visions, and a vain embrace!)

You see another Simois, and enjoy

The labor of your hands, another Troy,

With better auspice than her ancient tow’rs,

And less obnoxious to the Grecian pow’rs.

If e’er the gods, whom I with vows adore,

Conduct my steps to Tiber’s happy shore;

If ever I ascend the Latian throne,

And build a city I may call my own;

As both of us our birth from Troy derive,

So let our kindred lines in concord live,

And both in acts of equal friendship strive.

Our fortunes, good or bad, shall be the same:

The double Troy shall differ but in name;

That what we now begin may never end,

But long to late posterity descend.’

“Near the Ceraunian rocks our course we bore;

The shortest passage to th’ Italian shore.

Now had the sun withdrawn his radiant light,

And hills were hid in dusky shades of night:

We land, and, on the bosom of the ground,

A safe retreat and a bare lodging found.

Close by the shore we lay; the sailors keep

Their watches, and the rest securely sleep.

The night, proceeding on with silent pace,

Stood in her noon, and view’d with equal face

Her steepy rise and her declining race.

Then wakeful Palinurus rose, to spy

The face of heav’n, and the nocturnal sky;

And listen’d ev’ry breath of air to try;

Observes the stars, and notes their sliding course,

The Pleiads, Hyads, and their wat’ry force;

And both the Bears is careful to behold,

And bright Orion, arm’d with burnish’d gold.

Then, when he saw no threat’ning tempest nigh,

But a sure promise of a settled sky,

He gave the sign to weigh; we break our sleep,

Forsake the pleasing shore, and plow the deep.

“And now the rising morn with rosy light

Adorns the skies, and puts the stars to flight;

When we from far, like bluish mists, descry

The hills, and then the plains, of Italy.

Achates first pronounc’d the joyful sound;

Then, ‘Italy!’ the cheerful crew rebound.

My sire Anchises crown’d a cup with wine,

And, off’ring, thus implor’d the pow’rs divine:

‘Ye gods, presiding over lands and seas,

And you who raging winds and waves appease,

Breathe on our swelling sails a prosp’rous wind,

And smooth our passage to the port assign’d!’

The gentle gales their flagging force renew,

And now the happy harbor is in view.

Minerva’s temple then salutes our sight,

Plac’d, as a landmark, on the mountain’s height.

We furl our sails, and turn the prows to shore;

The curling waters round the galleys roar.

The land lies open to the raging east,

Then, bending like a bow, with rocks compress’d,

Shuts out the storms; the winds and waves complain,

And vent their malice on the cliffs in vain.

The port lies hid within; on either side

Two tow’ring rocks the narrow mouth divide.

The temple, which aloft we view’d before,

To distance flies, and seems to shun the shore.

Scarce landed, the first omens I beheld

Were four white steeds that cropp’d the flow’ry field.

‘War, war is threaten’d from this foreign ground,’

My father cried, ‘where warlike steeds are found.

Yet, since reclaim’d to chariots they submit,

And bend to stubborn yokes, and champ the bit,

Peace may succeed to war.’ Our way we bend

To Pallas, and the sacred hill ascend;

There prostrate to the fierce virago pray,

Whose temple was the landmark of our way.

Each with a Phrygian mantle veil’d his head,

And all commands of Helenus obey’d,

And pious rites to Grecian Juno paid.

These dues perform’d, we stretch our sails, and stand

To sea, forsaking that suspected land.

“From hence Tarentum’s bay appears in view,

For Hercules renown’d, if fame be true.

Just opposite, Lacinian Juno stands;

Caulonian tow’rs, and Scylacaean strands,

For shipwrecks fear’d. Mount Aetna thence we spy,

Known by the smoky flames which cloud the sky.

Far off we hear the waves with surly sound

Invade the rocks, the rocks their groans rebound.

The billows break upon the sounding strand,

And roll the rising tide, impure with sand.

Then thus Anchises, in experience old:

‘’Tis that Charybdis which the seer foretold,

And those the promis’d rocks! Bear off to sea!’

With haste the frighted mariners obey.

First Palinurus to the larboard veer’d;

Then all the fleet by his example steer’d.

To heav’n aloft on ridgy waves we ride,

Then down to hell descend, when they divide;

And thrice our galleys knock’d the stony ground,

And thrice the hollow rocks return’d the sound,

And thrice we saw the stars, that stood with dews around.

The flagging winds forsook us, with the sun;

And, wearied, on Cyclopian shores we run.

The port capacious, and secure from wind,

Is to the foot of thund’ring Aetna join’d.

By turns a pitchy cloud she rolls on high;

By turns hot embers from her entrails fly,

And flakes of mounting flames, that lick the sky.

Oft from her bowels massy rocks are thrown,

And, shiver’d by the force, come piecemeal down.

Oft liquid lakes of burning sulphur flow,

Fed from the fiery springs that boil below.

Enceladus, they say, transfix’d by Jove,

With blasted limbs came tumbling from above;

And, where he fell, th’ avenging father drew

This flaming hill, and on his body threw.

As often as he turns his weary sides,

He shakes the solid isle, and smoke the heavens hides.

In shady woods we pass the tedious night,

Where bellowing sounds and groans our souls affright,

Of which no cause is offer’d to the sight;

For not one star was kindled in the sky,

Nor could the moon her borrow’d light supply;

For misty clouds involv’d the firmament,

The stars were muffled, and the moon was pent.

“Scarce had the rising sun the day reveal’d,

Scarce had his heat the pearly dews dispell’d,

When from the woods there bolts, before our sight,

Somewhat betwixt a mortal and a sprite,

So thin, so ghastly meager, and so wan,

So bare of flesh, he scarce resembled man.

This thing, all tatter’d, seem’d from far t’ implore

Our pious aid, and pointed to the shore.

We look behind, then view his shaggy beard;

His clothes were tagg’d with thorns, and filth his limbs besmear’d;

The rest, in mien, in habit, and in face,

Appear’d a Greek, and such indeed he was.

He cast on us, from far, a frightful view,

Whom soon for Trojans and for foes he knew;

Stood still, and paus’d; then all at once began

To stretch his limbs, and trembled as he ran.

Soon as approach’d, upon his knees he falls,

And thus with tears and sighs for pity calls:

‘Now, by the pow’rs above, and what we share

From Nature’s common gift, this vital air,

O Trojans, take me hence! I beg no more;

But bear me far from this unhappy shore.

’Tis true, I am a Greek, and farther own,

Among your foes besieg’d th’ imperial town.

For such demerits if my death be due,

No more for this abandon’d life I sue;

This only favor let my tears obtain,

To throw me headlong in the rapid main:

Since nothing more than death my crime demands,

I die content, to die by human hands.’

He said, and on his knees my knees embrac’d:

I bade him boldly tell his fortune past,

His present state, his lineage, and his name,

Th’ occasion of his fears, and whence he came.

The good Anchises rais’d him with his hand;

Who, thus encourag’d, answer’d our demand:

‘From Ithaca, my native soil, I came

To Troy; and Achaemenides my name.

Me my poor father with Ulysses sent;

(O had I stay’d, with poverty content!)

But, fearful for themselves, my countrymen

Left me forsaken in the Cyclops’ den.

The cave, tho’ large, was dark; the dismal floor

Was pav’d with mangled limbs and putrid gore.

Our monstrous host, of more than human size,

Erects his head, and stares within the skies;

Bellowing his voice, and horrid is his hue.

Ye gods, remove this plague from mortal view!

The joints of slaughter’d wretches are his food;

And for his wine he quaffs the streaming blood.

These eyes beheld, when with his spacious hand

He seiz’d two captives of our Grecian band;

Stretch’d on his back, he dash’d against the stones

Their broken bodies, and their crackling bones:

With spouting blood the purple pavement swims,

While the dire glutton grinds the trembling limbs.

“‘Not unreveng’d Ulysses bore their fate,

Nor thoughtless of his own unhappy state;

For, gorg’d with flesh, and drunk with human wine

While fast asleep the giant lay supine,

Snoring aloud, and belching from his maw

His indigested foam, and morsels raw;

We pray; we cast the lots, and then surround

The monstrous body, stretch’d along the ground:

Each, as he could approach him, lends a hand

To bore his eyeball with a flaming brand.

Beneath his frowning forehead lay his eye;

For only one did the vast frame supply—

But that a globe so large, his front it fill’d,

Like the sun’s disk or like a Grecian shield.

The stroke succeeds; and down the pupil bends:

This vengeance follow’d for our slaughter’d friends.

But haste, unhappy wretches, haste to fly!

Your cables cut, and on your oars rely!

Such, and so vast as Polypheme appears,

A hundred more this hated island bears:

Like him, in caves they shut their woolly sheep;

Like him, their herds on tops of mountains keep;

Like him, with mighty strides, they stalk from steep to steep

And now three moons their sharpen’d horns renew,

Since thus, in woods and wilds, obscure from view,

I drag my loathsome days with mortal fright,

And in deserted caverns lodge by night;

Oft from the rocks a dreadful prospect see

Of the huge Cyclops, like a walking tree:

From far I hear his thund’ring voice resound,

And trampling feet that shake the solid ground.

Cornels and salvage berries of the wood,

And roots and herbs, have been my meager food.

While all around my longing eyes I cast,

I saw your happy ships appear at last.

On those I fix’d my hopes, to these I run;

’Tis all I ask, this cruel race to shun;

What other death you please, yourselves bestow.’

“Scarce had he said, when on the mountain’s brow

We saw the giant shepherd stalk before

His following flock, and leading to the shore:

A monstrous bulk, deform’d, depriv’d of sight;

His staff a trunk of pine, to guide his steps aright.

His pond’rous whistle from his neck descends;

His woolly care their pensive lord attends:

This only solace his hard fortune sends.

Soon as he reach’d the shore and touch’d the waves,

From his bor’d eye the gutt’ring blood he laves:

He gnash’d his teeth, and groan’d; thro’ seas he strides,

And scarce the topmost billows touch’d his sides.

“Seiz’d with a sudden fear, we run to sea,

The cables cut, and silent haste away;

The well-deserving stranger entertain;

Then, buckling to the work, our oars divide the main.

The giant harken’d to the dashing sound:

But, when our vessels out of reach he found,

He strided onward, and in vain essay’d

Th’ Ionian deep, and durst no farther wade.

With that he roar’d aloud: the dreadful cry

Shakes earth, and air, and seas; the billows fly

Before the bellowing noise to distant Italy.

The neigh’ring Aetna trembling all around,

The winding caverns echo to the sound.

His brother Cyclops hear the yelling roar,

And, rushing down the mountains, crowd the shore.

We saw their stern distorted looks, from far,

And one-eyed glance, that vainly threaten’d war:

A dreadful council, with their heads on high;

(The misty clouds about their foreheads fly;)

Not yielding to the tow’ring tree of Jove,

Or tallest cypress of Diana’s grove.

New pangs of mortal fear our minds assail;

We tug at ev’ry oar, and hoist up ev’ry sail,

And take th’ advantage of the friendly gale.

Forewarn’d by Helenus, we strive to shun

Charybdis’ gulf, nor dare to Scylla run.

An equal fate on either side appears:

We, tacking to the left, are free from fears;

For, from Pelorus’ point, the North arose,

And drove us back where swift Pantagias flows.

His rocky mouth we pass, and make our way

By Thapsus and Megara’s winding bay.

This passage Achaemenides had shown,

Tracing the course which he before had run.

“Right o’er against Plemmyrium’s wat’ry strand,

There lies an isle once call’d th’ Ortygian land.

Alpheus, as old fame reports, has found

From Greece a secret passage under ground,

By love to beauteous Arethusa led;

And, mingling here, they roll in the same sacred bed.

As Helenus enjoin’d, we next adore

Diana’s name, protectress of the shore.

With prosp’rous gales we pass the quiet sounds

Of still Elorus, and his fruitful bounds.

Then, doubling Cape Pachynus, we survey

The rocky shore extended to the sea.

The town of Camarine from far we see,

And fenny lake, undrain’d by fate’s decree.

In sight of the Geloan fields we pass,

And the large walls, where mighty Gela was;

Then Agragas, with lofty summits crown’d,

Long for the race of warlike steeds renown’d.

We pass’d Selinus, and the palmy land,

And widely shun the Lilybaean strand,

Unsafe, for secret rocks and moving sand.

At length on shore the weary fleet arriv’d,

Which Drepanum’s unhappy port receiv’d.

Here, after endless labors, often toss’d

By raging storms, and driv’n on ev’ry coast,

My dear, dear father, spent with age, I lost:

Ease of my cares, and solace of my pain,

Sav’d thro’ a thousand toils, but sav’d in vain

The prophet, who my future woes reveal’d,

Yet this, the greatest and the worst, conceal’d;

And dire Celaeno, whose foreboding skill

Denounc’d all else, was silent of the ill.

This my last labor was. Some friendly god

From thence convey’d us to your blest abode.”

Thus, to the list’ning queen, the royal guest

His wand’ring course and all his toils express’d;

And here concluding, he retir’d to rest.

BOOK IV

But anxious cares already seiz’d the queen:

She fed within her veins a flame unseen;

The hero’s valor, acts, and birth inspire

Her soul with love, and fan the secret fire.

His words, his looks, imprinted in her heart,

Improve the passion, and increase the smart.

Now, when the purple morn had chas’d away

The dewy shadows, and restor’d the day,

Her sister first with early care she sought,

And thus in mournful accents eas’d her thought:

“My dearest Anna, what new dreams affright

My lab’ring soul! what visions of the night

Disturb my quiet, and distract my breast

With strange ideas of our Trojan guest!

His worth, his actions, and majestic air,

A man descended from the gods declare.

Fear ever argues a degenerate kind;

His birth is well asserted by his mind.

Then, what he suffer’d, when by Fate betray’d!

What brave attempts for falling Troy he made!

Such were his looks, so gracefully he spoke,

That, were I not resolv’d against the yoke

Of hapless marriage, never to be curst

With second love, so fatal was my first,

To this one error I might yield again;

For, since Sichaeus was untimely slain,

This only man is able to subvert

The fix’d foundations of my stubborn heart.

And, to confess my frailty, to my shame,

Somewhat I find within, if not the same,

Too like the sparkles of my former flame.

But first let yawning earth a passage rend,

And let me thro’ the dark abyss descend;

First let avenging Jove, with flames from high,

Drive down this body to the nether sky,

Condemn’d with ghosts in endless night to lie,

Before I break the plighted faith I gave!

No! he who had my vows shall ever have;

For, whom I lov’d on earth, I worship in the grave.”

She said: the tears ran gushing from her eyes,

And stopp’d her speech. Her sister thus replies:

“O dearer than the vital air I breathe,

Will you to grief your blooming years bequeath,

Condemn’d to waste in woes your lonely life,

Without the joys of mother or of wife?

Think you these tears, this pompous train of woe,

Are known or valued by the ghosts below?

I grant that, while your sorrows yet were green,

It well became a woman, and a queen,

The vows of Tyrian princes to neglect,

To scorn Hyarbas, and his love reject,

With all the Libyan lords of mighty name;

But will you fight against a pleasing flame!

This little spot of land, which Heav’n bestows,

On ev’ry side is hemm’d with warlike foes;

Gaetulian cities here are spread around,

And fierce Numidians there your frontiers bound;

Here lies a barren waste of thirsty land,

And there the Syrtes raise the moving sand;

Barcaean troops besiege the narrow shore,

And from the sea Pygmalion threatens more.

Propitious Heav’n, and gracious Juno, lead

This wand’ring navy to your needful aid:

How will your empire spread, your city rise,

From such a union, and with such allies?

Implore the favor of the pow’rs above,

And leave the conduct of the rest to love.

Continue still your hospitable way,

And still invent occasions of their stay,

Till storms and winter winds shall cease to threat,

And planks and oars repair their shatter’d fleet.”

These words, which from a friend and sister came,

With ease resolv’d the scruples of her fame,

And added fury to the kindled flame.

Inspir’d with hope, the project they pursue;

On ev’ry altar sacrifice renew:

A chosen ewe of two years old they pay

To Ceres, Bacchus, and the God of Day;

Preferring Juno’s pow’r, for Juno ties

The nuptial knot and makes the marriage joys.

The beauteous queen before her altar stands,

And holds the golden goblet in her hands.

A milk-white heifer she with flow’rs adorns,

And pours the ruddy wine betwixt her horns;

And, while the priests with pray’r the gods invoke,

She feeds their altars with Sabaean smoke,

With hourly care the sacrifice renews,

And anxiously the panting entrails views.

What priestly rites, alas! what pious art,

What vows avail to cure a bleeding heart!

A gentle fire she feeds within her veins,

Where the soft god secure in silence reigns.

Sick with desire, and seeking him she loves,

From street to street the raving Dido roves.

So when the watchful shepherd, from the blind,

Wounds with a random shaft the careless hind,

Distracted with her pain she flies the woods,

Bounds o’er the lawn, and seeks the silent floods,

With fruitless care; for still the fatal dart

Sticks in her side, and rankles in her heart.

And now she leads the Trojan chief along

The lofty walls, amidst the busy throng;

Displays her Tyrian wealth, and rising town,

Which love, without his labor, makes his own.

This pomp she shows, to tempt her wand’ring guest;

Her falt’ring tongue forbids to speak the rest.

When day declines, and feasts renew the night,

Still on his face she feeds her famish’d sight;

She longs again to hear the prince relate

His own adventures and the Trojan fate.

He tells it o’er and o’er; but still in vain,

For still she begs to hear it once again.

The hearer on the speaker’s mouth depends,

And thus the tragic story never ends.

Then, when they part, when Phoebe’s paler light

Withdraws, and falling stars to sleep invite,

She last remains, when ev’ry guest is gone,

Sits on the bed he press’d, and sighs alone;

Absent, her absent hero sees and hears;

Or in her bosom young Ascanius bears,

And seeks the father’s image in the child,

If love by likeness might be so beguil’d.

Meantime the rising tow’rs are at a stand;

No labors exercise the youthful band,

Nor use of arts, nor toils of arms they know;

The mole is left unfinish’d to the foe;

The mounds, the works, the walls, neglected lie,

Short of their promis’d heighth, that seem’d to threat the sky.

But when imperial Juno, from above,

Saw Dido fetter’d in the chains of love,

Hot with the venom which her veins inflam’d,

And by no sense of shame to be reclaim’d,

With soothing words to Venus she begun:

“High praises, endless honors, you have won,

And mighty trophies, with your worthy son!

Two gods a silly woman have undone!

Nor am I ignorant, you both suspect

This rising city, which my hands erect:

But shall celestial discord never cease?

’Tis better ended in a lasting peace.

You stand possess’d of all your soul desir’d:

Poor Dido with consuming love is fir’d.

Your Trojan with my Tyrian let us join;

So Dido shall be yours, Aeneas mine:

One common kingdom, one united line.

Eliza shall a Dardan lord obey,

And lofty Carthage for a dow’r convey.”

Then Venus, who her hidden fraud descried,

Which would the scepter of the world misguide

To Libyan shores, thus artfully replied:

“Who, but a fool, would wars with Juno choose,

And such alliance and such gifts refuse,

If Fortune with our joint desires comply?

The doubt is all from Jove and destiny;

Lest he forbid, with absolute command,

To mix the people in one common land—

Or will the Trojan and the Tyrian line

In lasting leagues and sure succession join?

But you, the partner of his bed and throne,

May move his mind; my wishes are your own.”

“Mine,” said imperial Juno, “be the care;

Time urges, now, to perfect this affair:

Attend my counsel, and the secret share.

When next the Sun his rising light displays,

And gilds the world below with purple rays,

The queen, Aeneas, and the Tyrian court

Shall to the shady woods, for sylvan game, resort.

There, while the huntsmen pitch their toils around,

And cheerful horns from side to side resound,

A pitchy cloud shall cover all the plain

With hail, and thunder, and tempestuous rain;

The fearful train shall take their speedy flight,

Dispers’d, and all involv’d in gloomy night;

One cave a grateful shelter shall afford

To the fair princess and the Trojan lord.

I will myself the bridal bed prepare,

If you, to bless the nuptials, will be there:

So shall their loves be crown’d with due delights,

And Hymen shall be present at the rites.”

The Queen of Love consents, and closely smiles

At her vain project, and discover’d wiles.

The rosy morn was risen from the main,

And horns and hounds awake the princely train:

They issue early thro’ the city gate,

Where the more wakeful huntsmen ready wait,

With nets, and toils, and darts, beside the force

Of Spartan dogs, and swift Massylian horse.

The Tyrian peers and officers of state

For the slow queen in antechambers wait;

Her lofty courser, in the court below,

Who his majestic rider seems to know,

Proud of his purple trappings, paws the ground,

And champs the golden bit, and spreads the foam around.

The queen at length appears; on either hand

The brawny guards in martial order stand.

A flow’r’d simar with golden fringe she wore,

And at her back a golden quiver bore;

Her flowing hair a golden caul restrains,

A golden clasp the Tyrian robe sustains.

Then young Ascanius, with a sprightly grace,

Leads on the Trojan youth to view the chase.

But far above the rest in beauty shines

The great Aeneas, the troop he joins;

Like fair Apollo, when he leaves the frost

Of wint’ry Xanthus, and the Lycian coast,

When to his native Delos he resorts,

Ordains the dances, and renews the sports;

Where painted Scythians, mix’d with Cretan bands,

Before the joyful altars join their hands:

Himself, on Cynthus walking, sees below

The merry madness of the sacred show.

Green wreaths of bays his length of hair inclose;

A golden fillet binds his awful brows;

His quiver sounds: not less the prince is seen

In manly presence, or in lofty mien.

Now had they reach’d the hills, and storm’d the seat

Of salvage beasts, in dens, their last retreat.

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