by Virgil
With various arts and arms in vain have toil’d,
And by a mortal man at length am foil’d.
If native pow’r prevail not, shall I doubt
To seek for needful succor from without?
If Jove and Heav’n my just desires deny,
Hell shall the pow’r of Heav’n and Jove supply.
Grant that the Fates have firm’d, by their decree,
The Trojan race to reign in Italy;
At least I can defer the nuptial day,
And with protracted wars the peace delay:
With blood the dear alliance shall be bought,
And both the people near destruction brought;
So shall the son-in-law and father join,
With ruin, war, and waste of either line.
O fatal maid, thy marriage is endow’d
With Phrygian, Latian, and Rutulian blood!
Bellona leads thee to thy lover’s hand;
Another queen brings forth another brand,
To burn with foreign fires another land!
A second Paris, diff’ring but in name,
Shall fire his country with a second flame.”
Thus having said, she sinks beneath the ground,
With furious haste, and shoots the Stygian sound,
To rouse Alecto from th’ infernal seat
Of her dire sisters, and their dark retreat.
This Fury, fit for her intent, she chose;
One who delights in wars and human woes.
Ev’n Pluto hates his own misshapen race;
Her sister Furies fly her hideous face;
So frightful are the forms the monster takes,
So fierce the hissings of her speckled snakes.
Her Juno finds, and thus inflames her spite:
“O virgin daughter of eternal Night,
Give me this once thy labor, to sustain
My right, and execute my just disdain.
Let not the Trojans, with a feign’d pretense
Of proffer’d peace, delude the Latian prince.
Expel from Italy that odious name,
And let not Juno suffer in her fame.
‘T is thine to ruin realms, o’erturn a state,
Betwixt the dearest friends to raise debate,
And kindle kindred blood to mutual hate.
Thy hand o’er towns the fun’ral torch displays,
And forms a thousand ills ten thousand ways.
Now shake, out thy fruitful breast, the seeds
Of envy, discord, and of cruel deeds:
Confound the peace establish’d, and prepare
Their souls to hatred, and their hands to war.”
Smear’d as she was with black Gorgonian blood,
The Fury sprang above the Stygian flood;
And on her wicker wings, sublime thro’ night,
She to the Latian palace took her flight:
There sought the queen’s apartment, stood before
The peaceful threshold, and besieg’d the door.
Restless Amata lay, her swelling breast
Fir’d with disdain for Turnus dispossess’d,
And the new nuptials of the Trojan guest.
From her black bloody locks the Fury shakes
Her darling plague, the fav’rite of her snakes;
With her full force she threw the poisonous dart,
And fix’d it deep within Amata’s heart,
That, thus envenom’d, she might kindle rage,
And sacrifice to strife her house husband’s age.
Unseen, unfelt, the fiery serpent skims
Betwixt her linen and her naked limbs;
His baleful breath inspiring, as he glides,
Now like a chain around her neck he rides,
Now like a fillet to her head repairs,
And with his circling volumes folds her hairs.
At first the silent venom slid with ease,
And seiz’d her cooler senses by degrees;
Then, ere th’ infected mass was fir’d too far,
In plaintive accents she began the war,
And thus bespoke her husband: “Shall,” she said,
“A wand’ring prince enjoy Lavinia’s bed?
If nature plead not in a parent’s heart,
Pity my tears, and pity her desert.
I know, my dearest lord, the time will come,
You in vain, reverse your cruel doom;
The faithless pirate soon will set to sea,
And bear the royal virgin far away!
A guest like him, a Trojan guest before,
In shew of friendship sought the Spartan shore,
And ravish’d Helen from her husband bore.
Think on a king’s inviolable word;
And think on Turnus, her once plighted lord:
To this false foreigner you give your throne,
And wrong a friend, a kinsman, and a son.
Resume your ancient care; and, if the god
Your sire, and you, resolve on foreign blood,
Know all are foreign, in a larger sense,
Not born your subjects, or deriv’d from hence.
Then, if the line of Turnus you retrace,
He springs from Inachus of Argive race.”
But when she saw her reasons idly spent,
And could not move him from his fix’d intent,
She flew to rage; for now the snake possess’d
Her vital parts, and poison’d all her breast;
She raves, she runs with a distracted pace,
And fills with horrid howls the public place.
And, as young striplings whip the top for sport,
On the smooth pavement of an empty court;
The wooden engine flies and whirls about,
Admir’d, with clamors, of the beardless rout;
They lash aloud; each other they provoke,
And lend their little souls at ev’ry stroke:
Thus fares the queen; and thus her fury blows
Amidst the crowd, and kindles as she goes.
Nor yet content, she strains her malice more,
And adds new ills to those contriv’d before:
She flies the town, and, mixing with a throng
Of madding matrons, bears the bride along,
Wand’ring thro’ woods and wilds, and devious ways,
And with these arts the Trojan match delays.
She feign’d the rites of Bacchus; cried aloud,
And to the buxom god the virgin vow’d.
“Evoe! O Bacchus!” thus began the song;
And “Evoe!” answer’d all the female throng.
“O virgin! worthy thee alone!” she cried;
“O worthy thee alone!” the crew replied.
“For thee she feeds her hair, she leads thy dance,
And with thy winding ivy wreathes her lance.”
Like fury seiz’d the rest; the progress known,
All seek the mountains, and forsake the town:
All, clad in skins of beasts, the jav’lin bear,
Give to the wanton winds their flowing hair,
And shrieks and shoutings rend the suff’ring air.
The queen herself, inspir’d with rage divine,
Shook high above her head a flaming pine;
Then roll’d her haggard eyes around the throng,
And sung, in Turnus’ name, the nuptial song:
“Io, ye Latian dames! if any here
Hold your unhappy queen, Amata, dear;
If there be here,” she said, who dare maintain
My right, nor think the name of mother vain;
Unbind your fillets, loose your flowing hair,
And orgies and nocturnal rites prepare.”
Amata’s breast the Fury thus invades,
And fires with rage, amid the sylvan shades;
Then, when she found her venom spread so far,
The royal house embroil’d in civil war,
Rais’d on her dusky
wings, she cleaves the skies,
And seeks the palace where young Turnus lies.
His town, as fame reports, was built of old
By Danae, pregnant with almighty gold,
Who fled her father’s rage, and, with a train
Of following Argives, thro’ the stormy main,
Driv’n by the southern blasts, was fated here to reign.
‘T was Ardua once; now Ardea’s name it bears;
Once a fair city, now consum’d with years.
Here, in his lofty palace, Turnus lay,
Betwixt the confines of the night and day,
Secure in sleep. The Fury laid aside
Her looks and limbs, and with new methods tried
The foulness of th’ infernal form to hide.
Propp’d on a staff, she takes a trembling mien:
Her face is furrow’d, and her front obscene;
Deep-dinted wrinkles on her cheek she draws;
Sunk are her eyes, and toothless are her jaws;
Her hoary hair with holy fillets bound,
Her temples with an olive wreath are crown’d.
Old Chalybe, who kept the sacred fane
Of Juno, now she seem’d, and thus began,
Appearing in a dream, to rouse the careless man:
“Shall Turnus then such endless toil sustain
In fighting fields, and conquer towns in vain?
Win, for a Trojan head to wear the prize,
Usurp thy crown, enjoy thy victories?
The bride and scepter which thy blood has bought,
The king transfers; and foreign heirs are sought.
Go now, deluded man, and seek again
New toils, new dangers, on the dusty plain.
Repel the Tuscan foes; their city seize;
Protect the Latians in luxurious ease.
This dream all-pow’rful Juno sends; I bear
Her mighty mandates, and her words you hear.
Haste; arm your Ardeans; issue to the plain;
With fate to friend, assault the Trojan train:
Their thoughtless chiefs, their painted ships, that lie
In Tiber’s mouth, with fire and sword destroy.
The Latian king, unless he shall submit,
Own his old promise, and his new forget-
Let him, in arms, the pow’r of Turnus prove,
And learn to fear whom he disdains to love.
For such is Heav’n’s command.” The youthful prince
With scorn replied, and made this bold defense:
“You tell me, mother, what I knew before:
The Phrygian fleet is landed on the shore.
I neither fear nor will provoke the war;
My fate is Juno’s most peculiar care.
But time has made you dote, and vainly tell
Of arms imagin’d in your lonely cell.
Go; be the temple and the gods your care;
Permit to men the thought of peace and war.”
These haughty words Alecto’s rage provoke,
And frighted Turnus trembled as she spoke.
Her eyes grow stiffen’d, and with sulphur burn;
Her hideous looks and hellish form return;
Her curling snakes with hissings fill the place,
And open all the furies of her face:
Then, darting fire from her malignant eyes,
She cast him backward as he strove to rise,
And, ling’ring, sought to frame some new replies.
High on her head she rears two twisted snakes,
Her chains she rattles, and her whip she shakes;
And, churning bloody foam, thus loudly speaks:
“Behold whom time has made to dote, and tell
Of arms imagin’d in her lonely cell!
Behold the Fates’ infernal minister!
War, death, destruction, in my hand I bear.”
Thus having said, her smold’ring torch, impress’d
With her full force, she plung’d into his breast.
Aghast he wak’d; and, starting from his bed,
Cold sweat, in clammy drops, his limbs o’erspread.
“Arms! arms!” he cries: “my sword and shield prepare!”
He breathes defiance, blood, and mortal war.
So, when with crackling flames a caldron fries,
The bubbling waters from the bottom rise:
Above the brims they force their fiery way;
Black vapors climb aloft, and cloud the day.
The peace polluted thus, a chosen band
He first commissions to the Latian land,
In threat’ning embassy; then rais’d the rest,
To meet in arms th’ intruding Trojan guest,
To force the foes from the Lavinian shore,
And Italy’s indanger’d peace restore.
Himself alone an equal match he boasts,
To fight the Phrygian and Ausonian hosts.
The gods invok’d, the Rutuli prepare
Their arms, and warn each other to the war.
His beauty these, and those his blooming age,
The rest his house and his own fame ingage.
While Turnus urges thus his enterprise,
The Stygian Fury to the Trojans flies;
New frauds invents, and takes a steepy stand,
Which overlooks the vale with wide command;
Where fair Ascanius and his youthful train,
With horns and hounds, a hunting match ordain,
And pitch their toils around the shady plain.
The Fury fires the pack; they snuff, they vent,
And feed their hungry nostrils with the scent.
’Twas of a well-grown stag, whose antlers rise
High o’er his front; his beams invade the skies.
From this light cause th’ infernal maid prepares
The country churls to mischief, hate, and wars.
The stately beast the two Tyrrhidae bred,
Snatch’d from his dams, and the tame youngling fed.
Their father Tyrrheus did his fodder bring,
Tyrrheus, chief ranger to the Latian king:
Their sister Silvia cherish’d with her care
The little wanton, and did wreaths prepare
To hang his budding horns, with ribbons tied
His tender neck, and comb’d his silken hide,
And bathed his body. Patient of command
In time he grew, and, growing us’d to hand,
He waited at his master’s board for food;
Then sought his salvage kindred in the wood,
Where grazing all the day, at night he came
To his known lodgings, and his country dame.
This household beast, that us’d the woodland grounds,
Was view’d at first by the young hero’s hounds,
As down the stream he swam, to seek retreat
In the cool waters, and to quench his heat.
Ascanius young, and eager of his game,
Soon bent his bow, uncertain in his aim;
But the dire fiend the fatal arrow guides,
Which pierc’d his bowels thro’ his panting sides.
The bleeding creature issues from the floods,
Possess’d with fear, and seeks his known abodes,
His old familiar hearth and household gods.
He falls; he fills the house with heavy groans,
Implores their pity, and his pain bemoans.
Young Silvia beats her breast, and cries aloud
For succor from the clownish neighborhood:
The churls assemble; for the fiend, who lay
In the close woody covert, urg’d their way.
One with a brand yet burning from the flame,
Arm’d with a knotty club another came:
Whate’er they catch or find, without their care,
Their fury makes an instrument of war.
Tyrrheus, the foster father of the beast,
Then clench
’d a hatchet in his horny fist,
But held his hand from the descending stroke,
And left his wedge within the cloven oak,
To whet their courage and their rage provoke.
And now the goddess, exercis’d in ill,
Who watch’d an hour to work her impious will,
Ascends the roof, and to her crooked horn,
Such as was then by Latian shepherds borne,
Adds all her breath: the rocks and woods around,
And mountains, tremble at th’ infernal sound.
The sacred lake of Trivia from afar,
The Veline fountains, and sulphureous Nar,
Shake at the baleful blast, the signal of the war.
Young mothers wildly stare, with fear possess’d,
And strain their helpless infants to their breast.
The clowns, a boist’rous, rude, ungovern’d crew,
With furious haste to the loud summons flew.
The pow’rs of Troy, then issuing on the plain,
With fresh recruits their youthful chief sustain:
Not theirs a raw and unexperienc’d train,
But a firm body of embattled men.
At first, while fortune favor’d neither side,
The fight with clubs and burning brands was tried;
But now, both parties reinforc’d, the fields
Are bright with flaming swords and brazen shields.
A shining harvest either host displays,
And shoots against the sun with equal rays.
Thus, when a black-brow’d gust begins to rise,
White foam at first on the curl’d ocean fries;
Then roars the main, the billows mount the skies;
Till, by the fury of the storm full blown,
The muddy bottom o’er the clouds is thrown.
First Almon falls, old Tyrrheus’ eldest care,
Pierc’d with an arrow from the distant war:
Fix’d in his throat the flying weapon stood,
And stopp’d his breath, and drank his vital blood
Huge heaps of slain around the body rise:
Among the rest, the rich Galesus lies;
A good old man, while peace he preach’d in vain,
Amidst the madness of th’ unruly train:
Five herds, five bleating flocks, his pastures fill’d;
His lands a hundred yoke of oxen till’d.
Thus, while in equal scales their fortune stood
The Fury bath’d them in each other’s blood;
Then, having fix’d the fight, exulting flies,
And bears fulfill’d her promise to the skies.
To Juno thus she speaks: “Behold! It is done,
The blood already drawn, the war begun;