his mother high above and his father down below.
The Almighty Father answered, three times over,
rending the cloudless sky with claps of thunder,
flourishing high in his own hand from heaven’s peak
a cloud on fire with rays of gold, with radiance.
The rumor spread at once through Trojan ranks
that the day had come to build their destined city.
Impelled by the great omen, hearts filled with joy,
they rush to refresh the banquet, set out bowls
and crown the wine with wreaths.
The next day,
when the sun’s first torch had flared across the earth,
taking different routes they explore the town,
the borderlands and coasts these people hold.
Here are the pools where Numicus’ springs rise
and here is the Tiber River,
here the hardy Latins make their homes.
And then Aeneas orders a hundred envoys,
picked from all ranks, to approach the king’s
imperial city—bearing an olive branch of Pallas
wound in wool, bearing gifts for the great man—
and sue for peace for all the Trojan people.
They waste no time, moving out on command,
setting a brisk pace.
And Aeneas himself lines up
his walls with a shallow trench, he starts to work the site
and rings his first settlement on the coast with mounds,
redoubts and ramparts built like an armed camp.
Soon his envoys, having covered the distance,
sight the Latins’ rising roofs and towers
and go up under the walls. There before the city,
boys and young men in their vibrant pride of strength
are training as riders, breaking teams in the whirling dust,
bending their tough, lithe bows, and hurling honed javelins,
full shoulder throws, challenging friends to race or box,
when a herald comes riding up ahead of the Trojans,
bringing news to the old king’s ears: “Powerful men
in strangers’ dress, they’re on their way here now!”
King Latinus has them summoned into the palace
and takes his fathers’ throne amidst them all.
August,
immense, its hundred columns soaring, the house
commanded the city heights, Laurentine Picus’ home
with its shuddering grove and ancestral, awesome aura.
Here ritual said that kings should receive the scepter,
first raise the rods of power. This shrine is their senate,
this the site of their sacred banquets. Here the elders
slaughtered rams, then sat to dine at an endless line of trestles.
Yes, and here, carved in seasoned cedar, rows of statues,
rows of the founding forebears: Italus, Father Sabinus,
the vintner’s figure still wielding his hooked knife;
old Saturn and Janus’ figure facing right and left.
All stand in the forecourt, and all the other kings
from the start of time, and those who had taken
wounds in war, fighting to save their country.
Many weapons, too, hang on the hallowed doors,
captured chariots, curved axes, crested helmets,
enormous bolts from gates, and lances, shields
and ramming beaks ripped from the prows of ships.
There with the augur’s staff sat Picus to the life,
girt up in the short robe of state, his left hand
holding the sacred buckler. Picus, breaker of horses,
whom his bride, Circe—seized with a blinding passion—
struck with her golden wand and then with magic potions
turned him into a bird and splashed his wings with color.
So grand, the temple of the gods where King Latinus
assumed his fathers’ throne and summoned the Trojans
to him in the halls. As they came marching in,
he hailed them first with peaceful words of welcome:
“Tell us, sons of Dardanus—for we know your city,
your stock, and we heard that you were sailing here—
what do you search for now? What cause, what craving
has sailed your ships to Italy, crossing many seas?
Whether you’re lost or storms have swept you far off course,
dangers that sailors often suffer, facing open ocean—
shielded now by our riverbanks, you ride at anchor.
Don’t resist our welcome. Never forget the Latins
are Saturn’s people, fair and just, and not because
we are bound by curbs or laws, but kept in check
of our own accord: the way of our ancient god.
I can recall, though the years have blurred the tale,
that Auruncan elders liked to tell how Dardanus
sprang up in these fields, then wandered East
to the towns of Phrygian Ida, Thracian Samos,
called Samothrace these days. From here,
his old Tuscan home of Corythus, he set sail,
and now a golden palace high in the starry heavens
welcomes him to a throne, and his altars add
a name to the growing roster of the gods.”
As Latinus ended, Ilioneus followed:
“King, great son of Faunus, no black gales,
no stormy seas have swept us here to your country,
nor did the stars or landmarks throw us far off course.
With a firm resolve and willing hearts we’ve reached your city,
driven out of our own kingdom, once the grandest realm
the wheeling Sun could see from Olympus’ heights.
Our race takes root from Jove, the sons of Dardanus
triumph in Father Jove—of the Father’s highest stock,
our king himself, Aeneas of Troy, who sent us to your gates.
How savage the storm that broke from brute Mycenae,
scourging Ida’s plains! How Fate compelled
the worlds of Europe and Asia to clash in war!
All people know the story, all at the earth’s edge,
cut off where the rolling Ocean pounds them back,
and all whom the ruthless Sun in the torrid zone,
arching amidst the four cool zones of earth,
sunders far from us.
“Escaping that flood
and sailing here over many barren seas,
now all we ask is a modest resting place
for our fathers’ gods, safe haven on your shores,
water, and fresh air that’s free for all to breathe.
We will never shame your kingdom, nor will your fame
be treated lightly, no, our thanks for your kind work
will never die. Nor will Italy once regret
embracing Troy in her heart.
I swear by Aeneas’ fate, by his right hand
proved staunch in loyalty, strong in feats of arms,
that many nations, many—and don’t slight us now
because we come with an olive branch held out
and desperate pleas—that many people have
urged us, strongly, to join them as allies.
But the gods’ will spurred us on to seek your land,
their power forced us here. Here Dardanus was born.
Here the clear commands of Apollo call him back
as the god impels us toward the Tuscan Tiber,
the Numicus’ sacred springs.
“Aeneas, moreover,
offers you these gifts, remains of his former riches,
meager relics plucked from the fires of burning Troy.
From this gold goblet Father Anchises tipped the wine
at the high altars. This was Priam’s regalia when,
in the way he liked to rule,
he handed down the laws
to his gathered people—the scepter, the holy coronet
and the robes that Trojan women used to weave.”
As Ilioneus ends his appeal, Latinus keeps on
looking down at the ground, stock-still,
only his eyes moving, rapt in concentration.
The brocaded purple stirs him, king that he is,
and Priam’s scepter too, but he is stirred far more,
dwelling long on his daughter’s marriage, her wedding bed,
and mulling deeply over the vision of old Faunus. “So this,”
he thinks, “is the man foretold by Fate. That son-in-law
from a foreign home, and he’s called to share my throne
with equal power! His heirs will blaze in courage,
their might will sway the world.”
And at last he speaks out, filled with joy:
“May the gods speed the plans that we launch here,
their own omens too! Your wish will be my command,
Trojan, I embrace your gifts. While Latinus rules,
you’ll never lack rich plowland, bounty great as Troy’s.
Just let Aeneas—if he needs us so, and presses so
to join in alliance and take the name of comrade—
come in person and never shy from the eyes of friends.
Let this be part of our peace, to grasp your leader’s hand.
Take back to your king this answer I give you now.
I have a daughter. Signs from my father’s shrine
and a host of omens from the skies forbid me
to wed her to a bridegroom chosen from our race.
Our sons-in-law will arrive from foreign shores:
that is the fate in store for Latium, so the prophets say,
a stranger’s blood will raise our name to the stars.
This is the one the Fates demand. So I believe
and if I can read the future with any truth,
I welcome him as ours.”
On that warm note
Latinus picks out horses from his entire stable:
three hundred strong, standing sleek in their lofty stalls.
At once he orders them led out to the Trojans, one for each,
swift with their winging hoofs, decked in embroidered
purple saddle-blankets, golden medallions dangling
from their chests, their trappings gold, pure gold
the bridle bits they champ between their teeth.
For absent Aeneas, a chariot, twin chargers too,
sprung from immortal stock, their nostrils flaring fire,
born of the mixed breed that crafty Circe bred,
making off with one of her father’s stallions
to mate him with a mare.
Riding high with Latinus’ gifts and words,
Aeneas’ envoys bring back news of peace.
But look,
the merciless wife of Jove was winging back from Argos,
Inachus’ city, holding course through the heavens when,
from far in the air, as far as Sicily’s Cape Pachynus,
she spied Aeneas exulting, Trojan ships at anchor.
Men building their homes already, trusting the land
already, their fleet abandoned now. Juno stopped,
transfixed with anguish, then, shaking her head,
this exclamation came pouring from her heart:
“That cursed race I loathe—their Phrygian fate
that clashes with my own! So, couldn’t they die
on the plains of Troy? So, couldn’t they stay
defeated in defeat? Couldn’t the fires of Troy
cremate the Trojans? No, through the shocks of war,
through walls of fire, they’ve found a way! What,
am I to believe my powers broken down at last,
glutted with hatred, now I rest in peace? Oh no,
when they were flung loose from their native land
I dared to hunt those exiles through the breakers,
battle them down the ocean far and wide. I’ve spent
all power of sea and sky against those Trojans.
What good have the Syrtes been to me, or Scylla
or gaping Charybdis? The Trojans have settled down
secure in the Tiber channel they so craved,
safe from the waves—and me.
“Why, Mars had the force
to destroy the giant Lapith race! And Father Jove
in person gave old Calydon up to Diana’s rage,
and for what foul crimes did Calydon and the Lapiths
merit so much pain? Oh but I, powerful Juno,
wife of Jove, wretched Juno, I endured it all,
left nothing undared, I stooped to any tactic,
still he defeats me—Aeneas! But if my forces
are not enough, I am hardly the one to relent,
I’ll plead for the help I need, wherever it may be—
if I cannot sway the heavens, I’ll wake the powers of hell!
It’s not for me to deny him his Latin throne? So be it.
Let Lavinia be his bride. An iron fact of Fate.
But I can drag things out, delay the whole affair:
that I can do, and destroy them root and branch,
the people of either king. What a price they’ll pay
for the father and son-in-law’s alliance here! Yes,
Latin and Trojan blood will be your dowry, princess—
Bellona, Goddess of War, your maid-of-honor! So,
Hecuba’s not the only one who spawned a firebrand,
who brought to birth a wedding torch of a son.
Venus’ son will be the same—a Paris reborn,
a funeral torch to consume a second Troy!”
That said,
the terrible goddess swooped down to the earth and
stirred Allecto, mother of sorrows, up from her den
where nightmare Furies lurk in hellish darkness.
Allecto—a joy to her heart, the griefs of war,
rage, and murderous plots, and grisly crimes.
Even her father, Pluto, loathes the monster,
even her own infernal sisters loathe her since
she shifts into so many forms, their shapes so fierce,
the black snakes of her hair that coil so thickly.
Juno whips her on with a challenge like a lash:
“Do me this service, virgin daughter of Night,
a labor just for me! Don’t let my honor, my fame
be torn from its high place, or the sons of Aeneas
bring Latinus round with their lures of marriage,
besieging Italian soil. You can make brothers
bound by love gear up for mutual slaughter,
demolish a house with hatred, fill it to the roofs
with scourges, funeral torches. You have a thousand names,
a thousand deadly arts. Shake them out of your teeming heart,
sunder their pact of peace, sow crops of murderous war!
Now at a stroke make young men thirst for weapons,
demand them, grasp them—now!”
In the next breath,
bloated with Gorgon venom, Allecto launches out,
first for Latium, King Latinus’ lofty halls,
and squats down at the quiet threshold of Amata
seething with all a woman’s anguish, fire and fury
over the Trojans just arrived and Turnus’ marriage lost.
Allecto flings a snake from her black hair at the queen
and thrusts it down her breast, the very depths of her heart,
and the horror drives her mad to bring the whole house down.
It glides between her robes and her smooth breasts but she
feels nothing, no shudder of coils, senses nothing at all
as the viper breathes its fire through the frenzied queen.
The enormous snake becomes the gold choker around her throat,
<
br /> the raveling end of a headband braiding through her hair,
writhing over her body.
At the fever’s first attack
with its clammy poison still stealing over the queen,
trickling through her wits and twining her bones with fire—
before her mind was seized by the flames within her spirit
she could still speak softly, a mother’s tender way,
sobbing over her daughter’s marriage to a Phrygian:
“So, Lavinia goes in wedlock to these Trojans—exiles?
You, her father, have you no pity for your daughter,
none for yourself? No pity for me, her mother? Wait,
with the first Northwind that lying pirate will desert us,
setting sail on the high seas, our virgin as his loot!
Isn’t that how the Phrygian shepherd breached Sparta
and carried Leda’s Helen off to the towns of Troy?
What of your sacred word? Your old affection
for your people? Your right hand pledged,
time and again, to Turnus, your blood kin?
Now, if the Latin people must seek a son
of strangers’ stock, if that is fixed in stone
and your father Faunus’ orders press you hard,
well then I’d say all countries free of our rule
are total strangers. That’s what the gods must mean.
And Turnus too: track down the roots of his house
and who are his forebears? Inachus and Acrisius,
Mycenae to the core!”
Desperate appeals—no use.
When she sees Latinus steeling himself against her,
when the serpent’s crazing venom has sunk into her flesh,
the fever raging through her entire body, then indeed
the unlucky queen, whipped insane by ghastly horrors,
raves in her frenzy all throughout the city.
Wild as a top, spinning under a twisted whip
when boys, obsessed with their play, drive it round
an empty court, the whip spinning it round in bigger rings
and the boys hovering over it, spellbound, wonderstruck—
the boxwood whirling, whip-strokes lashing it into life—
swift as a top Amata whirls through the midst of cities,
people fierce in arms. She even darts into forests,
feigning she’s in the grip of Bacchus’ power,
daring a greater outrage, rising to greater fury,
hiding her daughter deep in the mountains’ leafy woods
to rob the Trojans of marriage, delay the marriage torch.
“Bacchus, hail!” she shouts. “You alone,” she cries,
“you deserve the virgin! For you, I say, she lifts
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