by Virgil
Yea, I will give thee Pallas here, my hope and darling joy,
And bid him ‘neath thy mastery learn in battle to be bold,
And win the heavy work of Mars, and all thy deeds behold;
And, wondering at thy valiancy, win through his earliest years.
Two hundred knights of Arcady, the bloom of all it bears,
I give thee; in his own name, too, like host shall Pallas bring.”
Scarce had he said, and still their gaze unto the earth did cling,
Æneas of Anchises born and his Achates true,
For many thoughts of matters hard their minds were running through,
When Cytherea gave a sign amid the open sky;
For from the left a flash of light went quivering suddenly,
And sound went with it, and all things in utter turmoil fared,
And clangour of the Tyrrhene trump along the heavens blared.
They look up; ever and anon a mighty clash they hear,
And gleams they see betwixt the clouds, amid the sky-land clear,
The glitter of the arms of God, the thunder of their clang.
The man of Troy, while others’ hearts amazed and fearful hang,
Knoweth the sound, the promised help, his Goddess-mother’s meed.
He saith: “Yea, verily, O host, to ask is little need
What hap this portent draweth on: the Gods will have me wend;
The God that made me promised erst such heavenly signs to send
If war were toward; and through the sky she promised to bear down
Arms Vulcan-fashioned for my need.
Woe’s me for poor Laurentium’s folk! what death, what bloody graves!
— Ah, Turnus, thou shalt pay it me! — how many ‘neath thy waves,
O Father Tiber, shalt thou roll the shields and helms of men,
And bodies of the mighty ones! Cry war, oath-breakers, then!”
And as he spake the word he rose from off the lofty throne,
And the slaked fire of Hercules roused on the altar-stone;
And joyfully he drew anear the God of yesterday
And little House-Gods: chosen ewes in manner due they slay,
Evander and the youth of Troy together side by side.
Then to the ships they wend their ways, where yet their fellows bide:
There men to follow him in fight he chooseth from the peers,
The flower of hardy hearts; the rest the downlong water bears;
Deedless they swim adown the stream, Ascanius home to bring
The tidings of his coming sire and matters flourishing.
But horses get such Teucrian men as are for Tyrrhene mead;
By lot they choose Æneas one which yellow lion’s weed
Goes all about; full fair it shone, for it was golden-clawed.
Then sudden through the little town the rumour flies abroad,
That knights will speedily ride forth to Tyrrhene kingly stead.
Then fear redoubleth mothers’ prayers, and nigher draweth dread
In peril’s hand, and greater still the face of Mars doth grow.
Father Evander strains the hand of him that needs must go,
Clinging with tears insatiate, and such a word doth say:
“O me! would Jove bring back again the years long worn away!
Were I as when the foremost foes upon Præneste’s field
I felled, and burnt victoriously a heap of shield on shield:
When with this very hand I sent King Herilus to Hell,
Whose dam, Feronia, at his birth, — wild is the tale to tell, —
Had given him gift of threefold life; three times the sword to shake,
And thrice to fall upon the field: yet did this right hand take
That threefold life away from him, thrice spoiled him of his gear.
O were I such, ne’er would I break from thine embracing dear,
O son; nor had Mezentius erst, the tyrant neighbour lord,
In my despite so many deaths wrought with his cruel sword,
Nor widowed this our city here of such a host of sons.
But ye, O Gods! — thou Mightiest, King of all heavenly ones,
O Jove, have pity now, I pray, upon the Arcadian King,
And hear a father’s prayers! for if your mighty governing, —
If Fate shall keep my Pallas safe, and I may live to see
His face again, — if he return to keep our unity,
Then may I live, and any toil, such as ye will, abide!
But, Fortune, if thou threatenest ill, and misery betide,
Then let me now, yea, now indeed, the cruel life break through,
While yet my fear is unfulfilled and hope may yet come true;
While thee, belovèd joy of eld, I wrap mine arms around,
Ere yet the tale of evil hap mine ancient ears may wound.”
Thus at their last departing-tide the father poured the prayer,
Whom, fainting now, the serving-men back within doors must bear;
While forth from out the open gate the host of horsemen ride,
Æneas and Achates leal in forefront of their pride,
And then the other Trojan lords: amidst the company,
In cloak adorned and painted arms, was Pallas fair to see:
E’en such as Lucifer, when he bathed in the ocean stream,
The light beloved of Venus well o’er every starry beam,
Hath raised his holy head in heaven and down the darkness rent.
The fearful mothers on the walls their eyen after sent,
Following the dusty cloud of them and ranks of glittering brass.
But mid the thicket places there by nighest road they pass
Unto their end in weed of war: with shout and serried band
The clattering hooves of four-foot things shake down the dusty land.
There is a mighty thicket-place by chilly Cæres’ side,
By ancient dread of fathers gone held holy far and wide:
A place that hollow hills shut in and pine-wood black begirds.
Men say that to Silvanus erst, the God of fields and herds,
The old Pelasgi hallowed it, and made a holy day,
E’en those who in the time agone on Latin marches lay.
No great way hence the Tuscan folk and Tarcho held them still
In guarded camp; the host of them from rising of a hill
Might now be seen, as far and wide they spread about the field.
Father Æneas and his folk, the mighty under shield,
Speed hither, and forewearied now their steeds and bodies tend.
But through the clouds of heavenly way doth fair white Venus wend,
Bearing the gift; who when she saw in hidden valley there
Her son afar, apart from men by river cool and fair,
Then kind she came before his eyes, and in such words she spake:
“These promised gifts, my husband’s work, O son, I bid thee take:
So shalt thou be all void of doubt, O son, when presently
Laurentines proud and Turnus fierce thou bidst the battle try.”
So spake the Cytherean one and sought her son’s embrace,
And hung the beaming arms upon an oak that stood in face.
But he, made glad by godhead’s gift, and such a glory great,
Marvelleth and rolleth o’er it all his eyes insatiate,
And turns the pieces o’er and o’er his hands and arms between;
The helm that flasheth flames abroad with crest so dread beseen:
The sword to do the deeds of Fate; the hard-wrought plates of brass,
Blood-red and huge; yea, e’en as when the bright sun brings to pass
Its burning through the coal-blue clouds and shines o’er field and fold:
The light greaves forged and forged again of silver-blend and gold:
The spear, and, thing most hard to tell, the plating of the shield.
For there the tale of Italy and Ro
man joy afield
That Master of the Fire had wrought, not unlearned of the seers,
Or blind to see the days before. The men of coming years,
Ascanius stem, all foughten fields, were wrought in due array.
In the green den of Mavors there the fostering she-wolf lay,
The twin lads sporting round the beast, clung to her udders there,
And sucked the nursing mother-wolf, and nothing knew of fear;
But she, with lithe neck turned about, now this now that caressed,
And either body with her tongue for hardy shaping pressed.
Rome had he done anigh thereto and Sabine maidens caught
From concourse of the hollow seats when roundway games were wrought
There for the sons of Romulus the sudden war upstarts
With Tatius, the old king of days, and Cures’ hardy hearts.
Then those two kings, the battle quenched, yet clad in battle-gear,
Stand with the bowl in hand before the fire of Jupiter,
As each to each o’er slaughtered sow the troth of peace they plight.
Anigh is Metius piecemeal dragged by foursome chariots light.
— Ah, Alban, by the troth of words ‘twere better to abide! —
There Tullus strews his lying flesh about the thicket wide,
Nor sprinkling of a traitor’s blood the bramble-bushes lack.
There was Porsena bidding men take outcast Tarquin back,
The while his mighty leaguer lay about the city’s weal.
For freedom there Æneas’ sons were rushing on the steel:
As full of wrath, as one who threats, might ye behold his frown,
Because that Cocles was of heart to break the bridge adown;
And Cloelia from her bursten bonds was swimming o’er the flood.
On topmost of Tarpeian burg the warden Manlius stood
Before the house of God, and held the Capitol high-set;
Whereon with straw of Romulus the roof was bristling yet.
There fluttering mid the golden porch the silver goose was done,
The seer that told of Gaulish feet unto the threshold won:
Then through the brake the Gauls were come, and held the castle’s height,
Beneath the shielding of the mirk and gift of shadowy night.
All golden are the locks of these, and golden is their gear,
And fair they shine in welted coats; their milk-white necks do bear
The twisted gold; each one in hand two Alpine spears doth wield,
And guarded are their bodies well with plenteous length of shield.
The Salii in their dancing game; the naked Luperci,
With crests that bore the tuft of wool and shields from out the sky,
There had he wrought: the mothers chaste in softly-gliding car
Bore holy things the city through. Yea, he had wrought afar
The very house of Tartarus, and doors of Dis the deep,
And dooms of evil: there wert thou hung on the beetling steep,
O Catiline, and quaking sore ‘neath many a fiendly face;
While Cato gave the good their laws in happy hidden place.
The image of the swelling sea amidst of these there lay
All golden, with the blue o’erfoamed with flecks of hoary spray,
And dolphins shining silver-white with tail-stroke swept the wave,
And gathered in an orbèd band the flowing waters clave.
And in the midst were brazen fleets and show of Actium’s wars
And all Leucate set a-boil with ordered game of Mars
There might ye see; and all the flood lit up with golden light.
Augustus Cæsar, leading on Italian men to fight
With Father-folk, and Household Gods, and Gods of greater name,
Stood high on deck: his joyful brow flashed forth a twofold flame,
His father’s star above his head is shining glory-clear.
With wind to aid and God to aid, Agrippa otherwhere
Leads on the host from high; whose brows with glorious battle-sign
Are decked; for with the crown of beaks, the ship-host’s prize, they shine.
But Antony, with outland force and arms wrought diversely,
Victorious from the morning-folks and ruddy-stranded sea,
Bore Egypt and the Eastland might and Bactria’s outer ends;
And after him — O shame to tell! — a wife of Egypt wends.
They rush together; all the sea is beaten into foam,
Torn by the great three-tynèd beaks and oar-blades driven home:
They seek the deep: ye might have thought that uptorn Cyclades
Swam o’er the main, that mountains met high mountains on the seas,
With such a world of towered ships fall on those folks of war.
The hempen flame they fling from hand; they cast the dart afar
Of wingèd steel, and Neptune’s lea reddens with death anew.
The Queen amidst calls on her host with timbrel fashioned due
In Egypt’s guise, nor looks aback the adders twain to see;
Barking Anubis, shapes of God wild-wrought and diversely
‘Gainst Neptune and ‘gainst Venus fair, and ‘gainst Minerva’s weal
Put forth the spear; and Mavors’ wrath was fashioned forth in steel
Amidst the fight: the Dreadful Ones stooped evil-wrought from heaven,
And Discord stalked all glad at heart beneath her mantle riven;
And after her, red scourge in hand, did dire Bellona go.
All this Apollo, Actian-housed, beheld, and bent his bow
From high aloft, and with his fear all Egypt fell to wrack,
And Ind and Araby; and all Sabæans turned the back.
Then once again the Queen was wrought, who on the winds doth cry,
And spreadeth sail; and now, and now, the slackened sheet lets fly.
The Lord of Fire had wrought her there wan with the death to be,
Borne on, amid the death of men, by wind and following sea.
But Nile was wrought to meet them there, with body great to grieve,
And in the folding of his cloak the vanquished to receive,
To take them to his bosom grey, his flood of hidden home.
There Cæsar threefold triumphing, borne on amidst of Rome,
Three hundred shrines was hallowing to Gods of Italy
Through all the city; glorious gift that nevermore shall die;
The while all ways with joy and game and plenteous praising rang.
In all the temples altars were; in all the mothers sang
Before the altars; on the earth the steers’ due slaughter lay.
But on the snow-white threshold there of Phoebus bright as day
He sat and took the nations’ gifts, and on the glorious door
He hung them up: in long array the tamed folks went before,
As diverse in their tongues as in their arms and garments’ guise.
The Nomads had he fashioned there, that Mulciber the wise,
And Afric’s all ungirded folk; Carians and Leleges,
Shafted Geloni: softlier there Euphrates rolled his seas;
The Morini, the last of men, the hornèd Rhine, were there,
Danæ untamed, Araxes loth the chaining bridge to bear.
So on the shield, his mother’s gift by Vulcan fashioned fair,
He wondereth, blind of things to come but glad the tale to see,
And on his shoulder bears the fame and fate of sons to be.
BOOK IX.
ARGUMENT.
IN THE MEANTIME THAT ÆNEAS IS AWAY, TURNUS AND THE LATINS BESET THE TROJAN ENCAMPMENT, AND MISS BUT A LITTLE OF BRINGING ALL THINGS TO RUIN.
Now while a long way off therefrom do these and those such deed,
Saturnian Juno Iris sends from heaven aloft to speed
To Turnus of the hardy heart, abiding, as doth hap,
Within his sire Pilumnus’ grove in
shady valley’s lap;
Whom Thaumas’ child from rosy mouth in suchwise doth bespeak:
“Turnus, what no one of the Gods might promise, didst thou seek,
The day of Fate undriven now hath borne about for thee:
Æneas, he hath left his town, and ships, and company,
And sought the lordship Palatine and King Evander’s house;
Nay more, hath reached the utmost steads, the towns of Corythus
And host of Lydians, where he arms the gathered carles for war.
Why doubt’st thou? now is time to call for horse and battle-car.
Break tarrying off, and make thy stoop upon their camp’s dismay.”
She spake, and on her poisèd wings went up the heavenly way,
And in her flight with mighty bow cleft through the cloudy land.
The warrior knew her, and to heaven he cast up either hand,
And with such voice of spoken things he followed as she fled:
“O Iris, glory of the skies, and who thy ways hath sped
Amidst the clouds to earth and me? Whence this so sudden clear
Of weather? Lo, the midmost heaven I see departed shear,
And through the zenith stray the stars: such signs I follow on,
Whoso ye be that call to war.”
And therewithal he won
Unto the stream, and from its face drew forth the water fair,
Praying the Gods, and laid a load of vows upon the air.
And now the host drew out to war amid the open meads,
With wealth of painted gear and gold, and wealth of noble steeds.
Messapus leads the first array, and Tyrrheus’ children ward
The latter host, and in the midst is Turnus’ self the lord.
Such is the host as Ganges deep, arising mid the hush
With sevenfold rivers’ solemn flow, or Nile-flood’s fruitful rush,
When he hath ebbed from off the fields and hid him in his bed.
But now the Teucrians see the cloud of black dust grow to head
From far away, and dusty-dark across the plain arise:
And first from off the mound in face aloud Caïcus cries:
“Ho! what is this that rolleth on, this misty, mirky ball?
Swords, townsmen, swords! Bring point and edge; haste up to climb the wall.
Ho, for the foeman is at hand!”
Then, with a mighty shout,
The Trojans swarm through all the gates and fill the walls about;
For so Æneas, war-lord wise, had bidden them abide
At his departing; if meantime some new hap should betide,
They should not dare nor trust themselves to pitch the fight afield,