Death of Virgil

by Hermann Broch

  “Charmed is Aeneas, and letting his eyes rove in quick admiration,

  Scans the whole region about him, notes all and lets nothing escape him,

  Asks for and hears with delight the record of earlier heroes,

  Told by Evander the king, the founder of Rome’s early stronghold:

  ’Native-born satyrs and nymphs once ranged about this very woodland,

  Likewise a genus of men who emerged from the hard grain of oak-trees;

  Art they had none, neither wont, they knew naught of yoking the oxen,

  Knew not to harvest or till, nor how to lay by of their plenty,

  Living from fruit of the trees, from the rude, ruddy fare of the huntsman.

  First from the heights of Olympus came Saturn who, hurried and headlong,

  Fleeing the weapons of Jove, his own realms abandoned in forfeit,

  Gathered this unruly folk, dispersed over mountain and hill-top,

  Bound them together with laws and chose for this place the name Latium:

  (Being the latent land which had sheltered and kept him in safety.)

  Under his reign came to pass the fabulous age we call golden—

  Such the perfection of peace in which he governed his people—

  Till in a gradual decline there followed an age of dishonor, Baser and wanting in light, an epoch of greed and of warfare.

  Then the Ausonian hosts, the Sicanian hordes followed after, Frequently lost to the land was the name it was given by Saturn.

  New kings arose and then Thybris, a giant of turbulent power,

  Thenceforth his name we Italians gave to our river, the Tiber,

  Letting its true name of Albula fade in the dawn of tradition.

  I was an exile from home, a wanderer over the waters, Cast on these shores by the order of fate and by almighty fortune,

  Forced to this land by the ominous words of my mother, Carmentis,

  One of the nymphs; divinely enjoined by command of Apollo.’

  Scarce was his speaking done when he walked further on to an altar,

  Showing Aeneas the gate which the Romans have called Carmentalis,

  Set up of old as a shrine to honor Carmentis the wood-nymph,

  Destiny’s seeress was she, the first to foretell the true greatness

  Due to the Aenean line, the glory of proud Pallenteum.

  Next he made pause at the grove where Romulus, wise and intrepid,

  Made his Asylum known beneath cold Lupercal, the wolf-hill,

  Named for Lycean Pan in accord with Arcadian custom;

  Also the sacred grove, Argilentum, he showed to Aeneas,

  Treacherous Argus he named, who died here of drinking the Lethe;

  Thence to the rock of Tarpeia and on to the Capitol, golden,

  Shining today where of yore lay a thorny, impassable thicket.

  Yet, even now, a reverent awe moves the hearts of the peasants,

  Bidding them pause and reflect as they pass by the rock and the forest.

  ‘Deep in this grove,’ he cried, ’its trees rising dense to the summit,

  Lives, it is said, a god, but one whose divine name we know not:

  Simple Arcadians think they have often beheld the dark Aegis

  Shake in the right hand of Jove as he summons the clouds and the lightning.

  Look now beyond to those forts, their ramparts and towers dismantled,

  Relics of bygone days, memorials left by our fathers,

  Janus the builder of one and Saturn who raised up the other,

  This one Janiculum called and that with the name of Saturnia.’

  Talking together in this way they came to the cot of Evander,

  Cattle were lowing about, the very same field where they pastured

  Bears now the Forum of Rome and houses the brilliant Carinae.

  Reaching his humble door, ‘Take heed,’ he said, ‘of the threshold

  Hercules crossed in his pride: the god made his home in this dwelling.

  Opulence dare to despise, Illustrious Guest, let thy spirit

  Follow the path of the god, our poverty never disdaining.’

  Thereupon said he no more, but ushered the noble Aeneas

  Under the roof of his hut and offered a couch for his slumber,

  Freshly bestrewed it with leaves and decked it with Libyan bear-skin.

  Night came apace, enwrapping the world in her shadowy pinions.”