Book VII

Thou too, Caieta, dying, a deathless fame,
Nurse of Aeneas, to our shores hast given;
And still thy glory guards thy place of rest,
And the name marks, if such renown be aught.
Thy bones in great Hesperia. But, the rites
Of death paid duly, and a funeral mound
Reared, good Aeneas, now the deep was stilled,
Sails on his journey, and leaves port behind.
The gales breathe on into the night; the moon
White-orbed their course denies not; all the deep
Glitters beneath her quivering beam. From hence
Next skirted are the shores of Circe’s land,
Where the rich daughter of the Sun makes ring
With ceaseless singing her unfooted groves.
And in proud hall burns odorous cedar-wood
For light in darkness, with shrill-whirring comb
Crossing the subtle web. From hence are heard
The growls and wrath of lions, against their chains
Rebellious, roaring late into the night,
And bristly swine, and bears within their pens
Raging, and howling of huge wolfish forms.
Whom Circe, goddess fell, with drugs of power.
Stripped of man’s likeness, had arrayed in hides
And features bestial. Which so monstrous change
Lest the good Trojans suffer, into port
Once wafted, or draw nigh the dreadful shore,
With favouring breezes Neptune filled their sails,
Sped flying, and bore them past the seething shoals.
Now ’gan the sea with ruddy beams to blush.
And in high heaven the dawn on roseate car
Shone saffron-tinted, when down dropped the breeze.
And every breath of wind sank suddenly.
And on the slow smooth surface toil their oars.
Thereat Aeneas from out the deep descries
A mighty grove before him; cleaving it,
Lo! Tiber’s pleasant stream in hurrying swirls,
And yellow with much sand, bursts forth to sea.
Around, above, were birds of various plume.
Haunters of bank and river-bed, that charmed
The air with song, and fluttered through the grove.
He bids the crew shift course, and shoreward steer,
And, blithe of heart, enters the shady stream.
Now aid me, Erato; what kings had sway,
The times of what befel, how stood the weal
Of ancient Latium, when the outland host
First beached their galleys on Ausonia’s shore,
I will unfold, and of the opening strife
Recall the prelude. Do thou teach thy bard,
Thou goddess. I will tell of grisly wars.
Tell of embattled hosts, kings to their death
By fury driven, and the Tyrrhenian ranks.
And all Hesperia gathered under arms.
A mightier roll of exploit opens up
Before me, and a mightier task I try.
O’er fields and cities lulled in lasting peace
Reigned King Latinus yet, now full of years;
Son he to Faunus and Laurentum’s nymph
Marica, saith the legend. Faunus’ sire
Was Picus; from thy loins, O Saturn, he
Claims lineage; of his blood first founder thou.
Son and male heir the king had none, cut off
By doom of heaven in youth’s first dawn. His home
And stately palace one sole daughter kept,
Now ripe for husband, of full age to wed.
From Latium’s breadth, Ausonia’s utmost bounds,
Came many a wooer; before all who came,
Turnus the goodliest, mighty by descent
From sires and grandsires, whom as son to clasp
The royal consort yearned with wild desire.
But heaven with many a fearful sign forbad.
There was a laurel in the secluded depth
Midmost the palace-court, of sacred leaf.
And cherished many a year with awe, which sire
Latinus finding, as he laid, folk say.
The citadel’s foundation, had himself
To Phoebus dedicated, and from thence
Gave to his settlers their Laurentian name.
Upon its topmost point a cloud of bees.
Wondrous to tell, with mighty buzzing borne
Across the clear air, settled, foot with foot
Linked fast together, and from the leafy bough
Hung there, a sudden swarm. Forthwith the seer:

“A foreign hero I descry,” quoth he,
“Hither approaching, and a host that seek
The selfsame quarter by the selfsame way.
And lord it in the topmost citadel.”
Moreover, while the altar with pure torch
She kindles, and beside her father stands.
The maid Lavinia in her flowing locks
O horror! seemed to catch the flame, and all
Her head-gear to let burn with crackling fire —
Ablaze her queenly tresses, and ablaze
The jewelled splendour of her coronal —
Till, wrapped in a dun glare of smoky light.
She spread the fire-god all the palace through.
Fearful in sooth and wondrous to behold
That sight was rumoured: for herself, they sang,
Should be renowned in fortune and in fame;
But to her folk it boded mighty war.
Vexed by such portents, to the oracle
Of Faunus, his prophetic sire, the king
Betakes him, and consults the grove ’neath high
Albunea, that, of woods the mightiest.
Rings with her haunted well, and through the gloom
Breathes forth a deadly vapour. Hence the tribes
Of Italy and all the Oenotrian land
In doubt seek answers. Hither when the priest
His gifts hath borne, on fleeces of slain sheep
Stretched him ’neath hush of night, and sought repose.
Full many a phantom flitting he discerns
In wondrous wise, and divers voices hears.
Enjoys communion with the gods, and holds
Converse with Acheron in Avernus’ depth.
Here sire Latinus, too, then suing himself
For answers, with a hundred woolly sheep
Did sacrifice, and propped upon their hides
And outspread fells was lying, when suddenly
A voice gave utterance from the forest-depth:

“Seek not in Latin wedlock to unite
Thy daughter, O mine offspring, nor put faith
In bridal bowers made ready; sons from far
Are coming, whose blood must bear our name to heaven.
And whose posterity, where the circling sun
Views either ocean, shall the whole world see
Move ’neath their feet obedient”. Such response
Of his sire Faunus, and such warning given
Beneath the hush of night, within his lips
Latinus locks not; but Fame flitting wide.
Had through the Ausonian cities borne the tale,
When now the children of Laomedon
Made fast their galleys to the grassy bank.
Aeneas and his chief captains, with fair-faced
Iulus, stretch their limbs beneath the boughs
Of a tall tree, and set the banquet on,
And ’neath the viands along the sward lay cakes
Of sacrificial meal — great Jupiter
So bade them — and with country fruits pile high
The wheaten floor. All else, it chanced, consumed,
When, driven by lack of food, they turned to munch
The thin flour-fare, with hand and venturous teeth
Invade the circle of the fateful crust.
Nor from the out-pressed squares refrain them; “Ha!
Eat we our tables too? “Iulus cries
Jesting, and adds no more. That utterance heard
First set a term to trouble; and at once
Catching it, as it left the lip, his sire
Checked him, astounded at the sign from heaven.
Then, “Hail, O land, from destiny my due.
And ye, Troy’s faithful hearth-gods,” he exclaimed,
“Here is our home, and this our country; yea.
My sire Anchises — I recall it now —
Bequeathed me these dark words of destiny:
When wafted to an unknown shore, my son,
Hunger compels thee, as food fails, to eat
Thy tables, then remember, look to find
A home, way-wearied; thy first dwellings then
Found, and entrench them with a rampart.’ This,
This was that hunger that till last remained,
To mark destruction’s utmost. Wherefore come,
Blithely explore we, with first ray of dawn.
What is this place, or what folk dwell therein,
And where the nation’s city, in divers ways
Forth faring from the harbour. Now to Jove
Bowls of libation pour ye, and with prayers
Call on my sire Anchises, and set fresh
The wine-cup on the board.” So saying he binds
With leafy branch his temples, and adores
The Genius of the spot, and, first of gods,
Earth, and the nymphs and streams unknown as yet:
Then Night too, and the rising signs of Night,
And Ida’s Jove invokes, and in due course
The Phrygian Mother, and his parents twain
In heaven and Erebus. Then from the height
The Almighty Sire thrice thundered clear, and shook
And from the sky with his own hand displayed
A cloud resplendent with bright shafts of gold.
Here through the Trojan ranks swift rumour spreads,
The day has come their destined walls to found.
Eagerly they renew the feast, and cheered
By the great sign from heaven, set on the bowls.
And crown the wine-cups. Soon as next day’s dawn
’Gan earth with light to sprinkle, scattering wide.
They explore the nation’s city, bounds, and coast;
These are the waters of Numicius’ fount.
This Tiber stream; here the brave Latins dwell.
Then chose Anchises’ son from every rank
A hundred envoys, bidding them repair
To the king’s stately ramparts, all decked ov’
With boughs of Pallas, bear the hero gifts.
And for the Teucrians claim his clemency.
They tarry not, but at his bidding speed.
Borne with swift strides along. Himself marks out
The ramparts with low trench, prepares a site.
And the first dwelling camp-wise girds about.
There on the shore, with battlements and mound.
And now the warriors, all their journey done.
Beheld the Latin towers and roofs arise,
And to the wall draw near. Before the town
Boys, see, and youths in manhood’s opening bloom.
Ply horsemanship, and tame amid the dust
Their chariot-teams, or stretch the eager bow.
Or the tough javelin hurl with strength of arm,
Or challenge to the race and boxing-bout;
When, spurring forward, lo! a messenger.
Who to the aged monarch’s ear brings word
Of mighty men in uncouth garb at hand.
Into the palace he bids summon them.
And midmost sits on his ancestral throne.
The stately pile, gigantic, reared aloft
On hundred columns in the city’s top.
Once palace of Laurentian Picus, stood,
Awful with groves and olden sanctity.
Here ’twas auspicious that kings first receive
The sceptre, and uplift the rods of power.
This temple was their senate-house, and this
Their holy feast-hall: here the elders wont,
After ram slain, at the long boards to sit.
Ay, and the forms of their forefathers, ranged
A row of ancient cedar, Italus,
And sire Sabinus, planter of the vine,
In semblance holding still a curved hook,
And hoary-headed Saturn, and the shape
Of two-faced Janus, in the entry stood.
And other kings primaeval, and who else
Fighting for country had borne wounds in war.
And on the sacred doors great store of arms.
As captive chariots, curved axes, hung.
And helmet-crests, and massy bars of gates.
Javelins, and shields, and beaks from vessels torn.
Himself too, with Quirinal augur-staff.
And scanty toga girt, was seated there.
And in his left hand held the sacred shield,
Picus, of steeds the tamer, whom his bride
Circe, love-maddened, smote with golden rod.
With drugs transformed into a bird, and flecked
His wings with colours. Such the shrine wherein
Latinus, sitting on his father’s seat.
Summoned the Teucrians to his presence-hall,
And hailed them, entered, with these words of peace:

“O sons of Dardanus — for not to us
Unknown your race and city, and we have heard
Of your sea-faring hither— what seek ye? say;
What cause, what need, hath borne your barks so far
O’er the blue billows to Ausonia’s strand?
Whether track lost, or tempest-driven — such hap
As sailors suffer oft on the high sea —
Ye have passed between our river-banks, and safe
In haven ride, shun not our welcoming,
And know the Latins are of Saturn’s seed,
A race made righteous by no bond of law,
But of their own free will refraining them.
And by the fashion of their ancient god.
And I indeed, though dim with years the tale.
Still mind me of the Auruncan elders saying
How from these fields sprang Dardanus, from hence
To Phrygian Ida’s cities won his way.
And Thracian Samos, now named Samothrace.
Hence from the Tuscan house of Corythus
Forth fared the hero: now upon a throne
The golden palace of the starry sky
Holds him, and swells the altar-roll of heaven.”
He spake, and Ilioneus took up the word:

“King, peerless son of Faunus, nor wave-driven
Hath louring storm compelled us to your coast,
Nor star or shore from the right course beguiled:
Of purpose sail we all with willing hearts
To this your city, outcasts from a realm,
Erewhile the mightiest which the sun beheld
In his far journey from the ends of heaven.
From Jove our lineage springs; in Jove for sire
Exult the Dardan youth; our king himself
Is of Jove’s lofty line, Aeneas of Troy,
Who to thy doors hath sent us. What wild storm.
Poured forth from fierce Mycenae, swept the plains
Of Ida, by what destinies impelled
Europe met Asia, and world clashed with world,
Even he hath heard whom earth’s remotest bound
Withdraws by ocean’s baffled rim, or whom
The zone of the sun’s fury, that lies stretched
Midmost the four zones, severs from his kind.
Forth from that deluge over the wide waste
Of waters borne, we for our country’s gods
Crave a scant home, a harmless gift of coast.
And air and water, free alike to all.
No blot upon your kingdom shall we be.
Nor light your fame be bruited, or the grace
Of deed so noble perish; nor shall e’er
Ausonia’s sons repent them to have clasped
Troy to their bosom. By the fates I swear
Of lord Aeneas, and by the strong right hand.
Whether in troth or arms and battle tried:
Full many a race and nation — scorn us not
That we come proffering garlands in our hands
And prayers upon our lips — have wooed and willed
To knit us to themselves; but heaven’s decrees
With their high mandate drave us to seek out
No land but yours. From hence sprang Dardanus;
Hither Apollo bids us back, and goads
Toward Tuscan Tiber and the sacred pools
Of fount Numicius with his high behests.
Some slender offerings of his former state.
Beside he gives thee, from the flames of Troy
A remnant rescued. With this gold his sire
Anchises at the altar poured the wine:
This was the gear of Priam, when, as wont,
Unto the assembled nations he gave law —
Sceptre, to wit, and sacred diadem,
And robes, the handiwork of Ilian dames.”
As thus spake Ilioneus, Latinus held
His face set firmly in one downward stare.
And to the earth cleaves motionless, his eyes
Rolling intently. Nor doth broidered robe
Of purple, no, nor Priam’s sceptre stir
The king so deeply, as in thought he broods
Upon his daughter’s bridal troth and bower.
And ponders in heart’s core the oracle
Of ancient Faunus. This then is the man,
That traveller from an outland home, and son
By fate predicted, summoned with like sway
To share his kingdom; he, whose race should prove
In valour peerless, destined by their might
To hold the universe in fee. At length
Joyful he cries; “Heaven prosper our intent.
And its own presage! granted be thy suit,
O Trojan! nor spurn I the gifts. While reigns
Latinus, a rich land’s fertility
Lack shall ye never, nor the wealth of Troy.
Let but Aeneas, if his heart so yearn
To US-ward, if for hospitable ties
Impatient, and the name of fellowship.
Himself draw near, nor shrink before the gaze
Of friendly faces. Of my terms of peace
This shall be part, your prince’s hand to press.
Ye now in turn this message bear from me
Back to your king. A maiden child have I,
Whom with a lord of our own race to wed
Nor oracles from out my father’s shrine,
Nor many a prodigy from heaven permits.
Sons from an outland country are to come —
So chant they Latium’s destiny — whose blood
Must raise our name to heaven. That this is he
By fate demanded I both deem, and, if
My mind of truth aught presage, him adopt.”
So saying, the sire from out his whole array
Picks chosen steeds: three hundred stood there sleek
In lofty stalls: these bids he straight be led
Wing-footed forth, for every Teucrian one,
With purple and with broidered housings decked;
Droop to their chests gold necklets; trapped with gold.
Red-gold the bits between their champing teeth;
But for Aeneas, for their absent king,
Car and twin coursers of celestial strain,
With nostrils snorting fire, sprung from the stock
Of those which subtle Circe to her sire
Raised, and by stealthy mating mixed the breed.
So dowered, so greeted by the king, Troy’s sons,
Towering on steed, hie homeward and bring peace.
But from Inachian Argos, as she came,
Lo! the fierce spouse of Jove her airy voyage
Was holding, when from heaven far off as lies
Sicilian Pachynus, she espied
Aeneas rejoicing, and the Dardan fleet.
E’en now she sees them building homes, e’en now,
Their barks abandoned, trusting to the shore.
Stabbed with sharp agony she stopped, and then,
Shaking her head, this heart-wrung utterance poured:

“Ah! loathed stock, ah! Phrygian destinies
At odds with ours! upon Sigeum’s plain
Say could they perish, or in captivity
Be captured? did the flames of Troy burn up
Her warriors? through arm’d hosts, through fire, they have
An outlet. But my deity belike
At length lies spent; or, surfeited with hate,
I have turned me to my rest: nay, even when hurled
From home and country, o’er the billows I
Relentless spared not to pursue them still,
And bar the exiles’ path on every main.
Upon the Teucrians have been spent the powers
Of sky and ocean. What did Syrtes, say,
Or Scylla, or Charybdis’ weltering waste
Avail me? In the Tiber’s wished-for bed
They shroud them, careless of the main and me.
Mars on the monstrous Lapithaean brood
Could ruin wreak; the Sire of gods himself
To Dian’s wrath old Calydon consigned —
For what desert of sin so heinous doomed
Or Lapithae or Calydon? But I,
Jove’s mighty consort, who have deigned to leave
Nothing undared — ah! wretched, to all shifts
Have turned me — by Aeneas am subdued.
Well, if my deity lack might enow,
I’d spurn not to ask aid from whence-so-e’er;
If powerless to bend heaven, I’ll stir up hell.
’Twill not be mine to bar him from the throne
Of Latium — be it so; and Lavinia stands
Immutably his fate-appointed bride:
Yet stay the hour, heap hindrances on hopes
So mighty — this I may, and extirpate
Of either prince the people: at such cost
Of their own kin let son with sire unite!
O maid, with Trojan and Rutulian blood
Shalt thou be dowered, and for thy brideswoman
Bellona waits thee. Nor did Cisseus’ child
Alone of women travail with a brand,
And bring forth nuptial fires; nay, Venus too
Hath the like offspring — a new Paris — borne,
A bale-torch to the towers of Troy re-risen.”
So saying, she dropped to earth, an awful form,
And from the dwelling of the Sisters dread.
E’en from the nether darkness, summons forth
Baneful Allecto, to whom dolorous wars,
Wraths, treacheries, and disastrous feuds, are dear.
Loathed e’en by Pluto, who begat her, loathed
By her own hellish sisters, is the pest;
So many her changing shapes, so fierce her forms.
So thick she bristles with black-sprouting snakes.
Her Juno thus bespoke, and whet with words:

“Grant me this service, this thy proper task,
O Night-born maiden, lest mine honour fail.
Or fame fall shattered, and the sons of Troy
With marriage-bonds be able to win o’er
Latinus, or Italia’s bounds beset.
Thou canst arm brothers of one mind for strife.
With hate wreck houses, on the homes of men
Fling scourge and funeral-torch; a thousand names
To thee belong, a thousand arts of ill.
Stir thy rife bosom, snap the cords of peace.
Sow battle’s rancorous seed; let all at once
Desire, demand, and clutch the tools of war.”
Forthwith Allecto, steeped in Gorgon-bane,
To Latium first repairs, and the proud halls
Of the Laurentian monarch, and besets
Amata’s silent bower, who, as she mused
Upon the coming of the Teucrian lords.
And Turnus’ bridal troth, was seething hot
With all a woman’s grief, a woman’s ire.
At her the goddess from her steely locks
A serpent hurls, and in her bosom plants
Hard by the heart; that, maddened with the pest.
She may the whole house in confusion whelm.
’Twixt robe and ivory bosom in it creeps.
Glides without touch, and maddens unaware,
Its vipery brea.th instilling: the great snake,
Becomes the twisted gold about her throat,
Becomes the hanging head-band, wreathes her hair.
And o’er her body winds its slippery way.
Now, while the first contagion creeping in
With clammy poison penetrates her sense,
And wraps her bones in fire, ere yet the soul
Through all her bosom’s depth had caught the flame,
Mildly she spoke, in mother’s wonted wise,
Over her daughter shedding many a tear.
And at the Phrygian bridal: “Is it then
To Teucrian exiles that Lavinia’s hand.
Good father, must be given? Hast thou no touch
Of pity for thy daughter and thyself?
None for her mother, whom, with the first north wind.
Yon faithless rover will leave desolate,
Flying o’er ocean with his maiden-prey?
Was it not thus the Phrygian shepherd thrid
His way to Lacedaemon, and from thence
Bore Leda’s Helen to the towns of Troy?
What of thy plighted word? Where now the love
Of old time for thy people, the right hand
So oft to Turnus, to thy kinsman, given?
If from a foreign race must needs be sought
A son for Latium, and that purpose hold,
And thy sire Faunus’ word upon thee weigh,
Then I deem foreign every land self-ruled
That from our sway lies severed, and that thus
The gods declare it. Ay, for Turnus too.
If back to its first fount his line be traced.
From Inachus and sire Acrisius sprang.
And mid Mycenae.”
When, with such-like words
Making vain trial, she sees Latinus still
Withstand her, and the serpent’s raging bane
Deep in her very heart has sunk, and now
Pervades her wholly, then the unhappy queen.
Goaded by monstrous horrors, unrestrained
Storms, like a thing possessed, from end to end
Of the broad city. As at times a top
Scuds ’neath the twisted whip-cord, which boys drive
In a great circle round some empty hall,
Intent upon their sport; it, lash-impelled,
Careers in curved courses; o’er it gape
The silly youthful throng, and still admire
The whirling box-wood; their blows lend it life:
She at no tardier speed is onward borne
Through midst of cities and impetuous tribes.
Nay, to the forest, under feigned spell
Of Bacchic power, essaying mightier crime,
Launched on a mightier madness, forth she flies.
And hides her daughter on the wooded heights.
To rob the Teucrians of their bride, and stay
The nuptial torches, wildly clamouring
“Evoe Bacchus! “shrieking “thou alone
Art worthy of the maid, in that she. wields
For thee the pliant wand, thee celebrates
In dances, trims the sacred lock for thee.”
The rumour flies, and lo! the matrons all,
A sudden frenzy kindling in their breasts.
The self-same passion at one moment drives
To seek new dwellings. They have left their homes,
Bared necks and tresses to the breeze; but some
With quivering shrieks fill heaven, and clad in skins
Bear wands of vine-wood. Midmost, all aglow.
Herself uplifts a blazing pine, and chants
The marriage-song of Turnus and her child,
Rolling a blood-shot eye, and sudden shouts
Fiercely: “Ho! Latian mothers, wheresoe’er.
Hearken! If any kindness yet survive
For poor Amata in your loving hearts.
Pricks you compunction for a mother’s right.
Loose from your locks the wreaths, take up with me
The revel.” So ’mid forest depths, amid
The wild beasts’ lonely covert, far and wide
With Bacchic goad Allecto drives the queen.
When the first rage seemed whetted to her will,
Latinus’ counsel to confusion turned,
And all his house, forthwith on murky wing
Floats the grim goddess to the city-walls
Of the bold Rutule, which fair Danae
For her Acrisian settlers, as folk tell.
Founded, borne shoreward by the furious South.
By men of old the place was Ardea called;
And Ardea still her mighty name retains,
Though fall’n in fortune. Here in his high halls
Turnus at murk midnight deep slumber drew.
Allecto doffs grim face and fury-form,
Shifts to an old wife’s semblance, and ploughs up
Her baleful brow with wrinkles: hoary locks
She dons and fillet, then, twining therewithal
An olive-sprig, takes shape as Calybe,
The priestess old of Juno and her shrine.
And with these words confronts the warrior’s sight:

“Turnus, wilt suffer to see all thy toils
Poured out in vain, the crown that is thine own
Signed o’er to Dardan settlers? Lo! the king
Denies thee bride alike and blood-bought dower;
And for his throne is sought an outland heir.
Go now, face thankless perils, jeers for pay;
Go, tread the Etruscan armies down, protect
With peace the Latins. Such the very words
Saturn’s almighty daughter, self-revealed.
Bade utter in thine ear, when thou should’st be
Lapped in the hush of night. Uprouse thee then.
And blithely bid thy warriors arm and march
Forth from the gates to battle, and burn up
These that have moored them in our river fair,
The Phrygian captains and their painted keels.
The mighty power of heaven commands it. Yea,
Let King Latinus’ self, an he demur
To yield thee bridal and his oath obey,
Now taste and prove the power of Turnus armed.”
Then, jeering at the prophetess, thus oped
The youth his lips in answer: “Of a fleet
Arrived in Tiber’s water-way the tale
Hath not escaped my hearing, as thou deem’st.
Fashion me no such terrors: nor of us
Unmindful is queen Juno; but thyself
Old age, good mother, quelled with slow decay,
Of truth wax’d barren, vexeth with vain cares,
And fools thee, prophetess, ’mid warring kings
With empty fear. Thy task it is to guard
Gods’ images and altars; wars and peace
Leave men to manage, by whom wars are waged.”
Allecto at such words blazed out in wrath.
But in mid utterance a swift shudder seized
The warrior’s limbs; his eyes grew stony-stiff;
So thick with myriad serpents hissed the fiend,
So vast her form expanded. Rolling then
Her fiery eyes, as he lay faltering there.
Searching what more to say, she spurned him back,
Reared from her locks twin serpents, cracked her whips.
And with wild utterance added: “It is I,
Look you, whom, quelled with slow decay, old age.
Of truth wax’d barren, fools ’mid warring kings
With empty fear! Turn thee and look on these.
From the dread Sisters’ dwelling am I come,
And in my hand I carry wars and death.”
So saying, a torch she hurled at him, and fixed
The fire-brand all a-smoke with murky light
Deep in his breast. Vast terror brake his sleep,
And a sweat bursting forth bathed all his frame,
Body and bone. For arms he wildly shouts,
Ransacks for arms both couch and castle; then
Lust of the sword and frenzy of cruel war
Storm high within him, wrath to boot: as, when
With mighty roar a faggot-fire is heaped
Under a seething cauldron’s sides, up-dance
With heat the waters; the pent flood within
Rages and reeks and surges high with foam;
Nor can the wave now hold itself; anon
Flies the dark vapour to the void. He then
Calls on his captains, outraging fair peace,
To march on King Latinus; bids all arms
Be ready, to compass Italy and thrust
The foeman from the land: himself for both,
Teucrian and Latin too, would sole suffice.
When thus he had said, called heaven to hear his vows,
Rutule cheers Rutule eagerly to the fray:
One the rare charm of youth and beauty moves.
One his ancestral royalties, and one
His deed-renowned hand.
While Turnus thus
With breath of valour fills each Rutule breast,
Allecto hies on Stygian wing to seek
The Teucrians, marking, with a new device.
The spot where fair Iulus on the bank
Snares the wild quarry, or on foot pursues.
Here flings upon his hounds the maid of hell
A sudden fury, and with the well-known scent
Infects their nostrils for the stag’s hot chase —
First source of ill, which set the rustic heart
Afire for war. A stag of matchless mould
There was, and spreading antlers, from its dam
Stolen and nourished up by Tyrrheus’ sons
And their sire Tyrrheus, of the royal herds
Ruler, and ranger of the wide domain.
Their sister Silvia with all tenderness
Had tamed it to obedience, and would deck
Its antlers and with pliant wreaths entwine,
Comb the wild thing, and in pure water lave.
Trained to her hand, and at the master’s board
Familiar, it would wander in the woods,
And of itself again, how late soe’er.
Home to the well-known threshold wend its way.
Now wandering wide, lulus’ ravening hounds
Amid their hunt aroused it, as down stream
It chanced to float, or on the grassy bank
The heat allayed. Ascanius, too, himself
Fired with the love of peerless praise, bent bow
And levelled shaft, nor swerved his hand for lack
Of a god guiding; and with loud whirr, driven
Through belly and through flank, the bolt sped home.
But, to the well-known roof for shelter fled
The stricken beast, into the homestead crept
Moaning, and, blood-bedabbled, with loud plaint.
As supplicating aid, filled all the house.
First sister Silvia, smiting hand on arm,
Cries out for help, and summons the stout hinds.
They, for within the silent forest yet
Lurks the fell pest, ere looked for, are at hand.
One with fire-hardened stake for weapon, one
With heavily knotted club: what every hand
First groping found, wrath makes a tool of war.
Tyrrheus, just cleaving, as it chanced, an oak
With wedges’ force split four-wise, gripped an axe.
And breathing out fierce rage, cheers on the band.
But from her watch-tower the grim goddess now,
Seizing the hour for mischief, to the stall’s
High roof repairs, and from its summit winds
A pastoral point of war, on wreathed horn
Straining the belli sh note: from end to end
Shuddered the whole grove, and the forest-depths
Re-echoed: heard it Trivia’s lake afar,
Heard it Nar’s river, white with sulphurous wave,
And Velia’s springs; and mothers at the sound
Trembled, and clasped their children to their breasts.
Then, hurrying at the call, the signal-blast
By the dread trumpet given, from every side
The dauntless husbandmen snatch arms and rush
Together: nor less the Trojan youth pour forth
Aid for Ascanius through the open gates.
The ranks are set: no more in rustic strife
Is plied the knotty club or fire-seared stake;
Nay, but with two-edged steel they fight it out.
While the dark harvest bristles far and wide
With naked sword-blades, and the flash of brass
Sun-fretted darts its radiance to the clouds:
As, when a wave beneath the rising gale
‘Gins whiten, the sea slowly heaves, and rears
Its billows higher, then from the lowest deep
Mounts in one mass to heaven. And hereupon
First of the foremost by a whizzing shaft
Young Almo is struck down, once eldest-born
Of Tyrrheus; for the wound within his throat
Clave, and choked up the channel of moist speech
And the thin life with blood. Around him fell
Full many a warrior-form, and with them old
Galaesus, as for peace he interposed;
Erewhile of all men the most upright he.
And wealthiest in Ausonian soil. For him
Five bleating flocks, five herds, from pasture came,
And with a hundred ploughs he turned the sod.
While on a doubtful field so sways the fight.
The goddess, proved no weaker than her word.
Thus having dipt the war in blood and oped
With death the onset, quits Hesperia’s land,
Wheels through the sky-way, and to Juno thus
Speaks in proud tone triumphant: “At thy suit
See discord ripened into dolorous war!
Bid them knit friendship or strike treaty now!
I, who have sprinkled with Ausonian blood
The Teucrians, will add this beside — so be
Thy will assured to me — draw neighbouring towns
With rumours to the fray, and fire their hearts
With the mad war-god’s lust, from far and near
To aid them. I will sow the land with arms.”
Juno replies: “Enough of fears and plots;
Firm stand the grounds of quarrel; in arm’d fight
Man grapples man; the weapons chance supplied
Reek with fresh blood to-day. Such nuptial rite,
Such bridal let them hold — the peerless seed
Of Venus and great Latium’s king. That thou
With freer foot should’st roam the air of heaven,
The mighty Sire, lord of Olympus’ height.
Would suffer not; give place; what further toil
May hap, myself will cope with.” Such the words
Saturnia spake. But the other rears aloft
Her serpent-hissing pinions, quits the vault
Of heaven, and homeward to Cocytus hies.
There is a spot midmost of Italy
Beneath tall mountains, famous, and renowned
In many a land, Ampsanctus-vale; ’tis hemmed
On this side and on that by wooded walls
Dark with dense foliage; and amidst it boils
And swirls among the rocks with broken roar
A torrent. Here is shown an awful cave.
Outlet of cruel Dis; and a vast chasm.
Where up bursts Acheron, opes its noisome jaws;
Thereinto plunged the Fury, loathed power,
And lightened earth and heaven.
Nor less meanwhile
Sets Queen Saturnia to the work of war
Her consummating hand. From field to town
Rush the whole shepherd-rout, bear home their slain —
Young Almo, and Galaesus’ mangled face —
Conjure the gods, and on Latinus call.
Turnus is there, ’mid fiery cries on blood
Redoubling terror: “Teucrians called to reign —
A Phrygian shoot engrafted — he himself
Spurned from the door! “Then they, whose matrons still,
Blinded by Bacchus, foot the pathless groves
In dance — for mighty is Amata’s name —
Muster from all sides, and importune war.
Straight, one and all, in spite of signs, in spite
Of dooms from heaven, by some thwart power beguiled.
Clamour for cursed strife. With emulous zeal
Round King Latinus’ palace-gates they swarm.
He like an unmoved ocean-cliff withstands — -
An ocean-cliff, which, when a great crash falls.
And multitudinous billows bark around.
Holds steadfast by sheer bulk: in vain the crags
And foamy rocks roar round it; and the weed.
Dashed on its bases, is washed idly back.
But when no power to quell their blind resolve
Is given, and at fierce Juno’s beck goes all.
Then, heaven and the void air invoking oft,
“Ah! broken,” cried the sire, “by fate are we.
And driven before the tempest! Ye yourselves
Will with your impious blood atone for this.
Fond wretches! Thee, O Turnus, thee the crime
And its dread reckoning shall await; and thou
Wilt sue to heaven too late for prayers to aid.
My rest is won, and, hard on harbour’s verge,
’Tis but a happy death I miss.” Therewith
He ceased to speak, within his palace doors
Immured him, and let go the reins of power.
There was a wonted rite in Latium’s realm
Hesperian, holy held from age to age
By Alba’s cities, as to-day by Rome,
Earth’s mightiest, when they rouse the god of war
To battle, whether against Getic foes
Intent to launch amain the dolorous fray,
Or Arabs, or Hyrcanians, or to march
On India’s sons, or track the morning-star.
And from the Parthian their lost standards claim.
There are twin gates of War — so named and known —
By holy fear and terror of fell Mars
Made venerable: a hundred brazen bolts
Constrain them, and the eternal strength of iron,
Nor Janus on the threshold slacks his guard.
Here, be the fathers’ will on battle bent,
The Consul in Quirinal robe arrayed
And Gabine cincture, the harsh-griding valves
Himself unbars, himself invokes the fray.
Then all the war-host follow, and with one throat
The brazen clarions blare their hoarse assent.
Now too on this wise was Latinus bidden
War to proclaim against the sons of Troy,
Unclose the sullen portals. From their touch
The sire recoiled, turned from the loathed task
Shrinking, and shrouded him in eyeless gloom.
Then, gliding from on high, the queen of heaven
With her own hand the lingering portals pushed.
And Saturn’s daughter upon back-swung hinge
Asunder burst the iron-bound gates of war.
Ausonia, erst supine, immovable,
Anon takes fire. Some gird them o’er the plain
To march afoot; some, mounted on tall steeds,
Storm through a cloud of dust; all shout for arms.
Some furbish with rich lard the buckler smooth.
The javelin bright, or on the whetstone wear
Their axes to an edge: with joy they thrill
To advance the standard, hear the trumpet bray.
Five mighty cities set their anvils up
To fashion arms anew — Atina strong,
Proud Tibur, Ardea, and Crustumeri,
And turret-crowned Antemnae. For head-gear
Helmets they hollow, and for the boss of shields
Bend wicker-plait; some corslets beat from brass,
Smooth greaves from pliant silver. E’en to this
The pride of share and hook, to this hath fall’n
All passion for the plough: their fathers’ swords
I’ the furnace they re-temper. And now sounds
The clarion, speeds the watchword for the war.
One in hot haste plucks helm from house-wall; one
Couples his snorting coursers to the yoke,
In shield and hauberk triple-twilled with gold
Arrays him, and girds trusty sword on thigh.
Now, Muses, ope the gates of Helicon
And wake the song — what kings were roused to war,
What hosts behind them following filled the plain;
Bloomed with what heroes, with what armour burned.
E’en then the nursing soil of Italy:
For, being maids immortal, ye both mind
And can recount them: scarcely to our ears
Floats through the ages a thin breath of fame.
First to the field, despiser of the gods,
Speeds fierce Mezentius from the Tyrrhene coast,
And arms his ranks for battle; hard by him
Lausus his son, than whom no goodlier man.
Save Turnus of Laurentum. At his back
Lausus, steed-tamer, beast-destroyer, leads
His thousand from Agylla’s town — in vain;
Worthy of happier service as a son,
And other than Mezentius for his sire.
Behind them on the grassy sward displays
His palm-crown’d chariot and victorious steeds
A hero, sprung from Hercules the fair,
Fair Aventinus: on his shield he bears
A hundred serpents, his ancestral sign.
The snake-encircled Hydra. Him by stealth
The priestess Rhea on wood-clothed Aventine,
Woman with god commingling, bare to light.
When the Tirynthian victor, Geryon quelled,
Arrived the fields Laurentian, and there bathed
His kine Iberian in the Tuscan stream.
Javelins and cruel pikes they wield for war.
And fight with tapering-tipped Sabellian dart.
Himself, swinging a lion’s monstrous fell
Shaggy with fearful bristles, o’er his head
Flung with its flashing teeth, thus strode on foot
Into the palace, grisly-rough, the garb
Of Hercules about his shoulders clasped.
Then brethren twain from Tibur’s hold, a folk
Called from their brother’s name Tiburtus, come,
Catillus and keen Coras, Argive youths.
First of the foremost, on they press, where darts
Throng thickest: as when from some tall mountain-top
Descend two cloud-born Centaurs, Homole
Or snow-capped Othrys quitting with swift stride;
The mighty forest as they go gives place,
And with loud crash the thickets yield them way.
Nor lacked the founder of Praeneste’s town.
King sprung from Vulcan ’mid the pasturing herds,
And by the fireside found, as every age
Hath deemed him — Caeculus. A rustic band
Spread wide attends him, those that dwell on steep
Praeneste’s height, or Gabian Juno’s fields,
Chill Anio, or the stream-dewed Hemic rocks;
Whom rich Anagnia nurtures, or whom thou.
Sire Amasenus. Arms they have not all.
Nor shield, nor sounding chariot. The more part
Sling bullets of blue lead. Some javelins twain
Brandish in hand, with tawny wolfskin cap
For head-gear: the left foot bare-soled they plant;
The other a raw bull’s hide sandal sheathes.
Messapus, the steed-tamer, Neptune’s child.
Whom none with fire, nor yet with steel, may quell,
Tribes long inert and ranks to battle strange
Calls suddenly to arms, grasps sword once more.
These have Fescennine warriors in their host,
And Aequi of Falerium; these hold high
Soracte and Flavinian fields, the lake
And hill of Ciminus, and Capena’s groves.
In measured time they march and chant their king:
As snow-white swans that, through the liquid clouds
From food returning, utter forth their full
Long-throated strains. The stream and Asia’s fen
Afar ring smitten. Nor had one deemed them there
A mail-clad army blent in vast array.
But rather of hoarse birds an airy cloud,
That from the deep mid-ocean shoreward ply.
Lo! Clausus of old Sabine blood, who leads
A mighty host, himself a host in might!
From whom the Claudian tribe and clan to-day,
Since Rome was with the Sabine shared, spreads wide
Through Latium: and along with them the vast
Cohort of Amiternum and old-world
Quirites, all Eretum’s folk, and they
Of olive-rife Mutusca; men who throng
Nomentum’s city and the Rosean plain
Hard by Velinus; who the rugged rocks
Of Tetrica, and mount Severus hold,
Casperia’s town, and Foruli, and where flows
Himella’s stream; who drink of Tiber’s wave
And Fabaris, or whom chilly Nursia sends.
With Horta’s squadrons and the Latian tribes,
And they whom Allia, evil-boding name,
Parts with dividing current: numberless
As billows that on Libya’s sea-floor roll,
When fierce Orion sets in wintry wave,
Or thick as clustering corn-ears, that beneath
The young sun ripen, or on Hermus’ plain,
Or Lycia’s yellowing fields. Their bucklers clang,
And the earth quakes for terror as they tread.
Halaesus next, of Agamemnon’s stock.
Foe to the name of Troy, yokes steed to car.
And whirls a thousand warlike tribes along
To fight for Turnus, men who till with hoe
The wine-blest Massic region, or sent forth
From their high hills by the Auruncan sires.
Or Sidicine low-dwellers hard at hand;
Comers from Gales, and who dwell beside
Volturnus’ shoaly river, and with these
The rough Saticulan, and the Oscan band;
Smooth-polished clubs for missiles, ’tis their wont
With a tough thong to fit them; the left arm
A leathern target shields; curv’d swords they bear
For close encounter.
Nor must thou depart
Unhonoured of our song, O Oebalus,
Whom, as folk tell, the nymph Sebethis bare
To Telon, when now full of years he ruled
The Teleboic realm of Capreae.
But, with his sire’s domain wax’d ill-content,
E’en then the son was curbing ’neath his sway
The wide Sarrastian peoples, and the plains
By Sarnus washed, folk that in Rufrae dwell
And Batulum and Celemna’s furrowed fields.
And those on whom the battlements look down
Of apple-boughed Abella. These were wont
In Teuton wise long darts to hurl amain:
Peeled cork-tree bark for head-gear, their slight shields
Are glittering brass, and glittering brass their swords.
And thee too, Ufens, from her mountain-perch
Nersae sent forth to battle, fame-renowned.
And fortunate in war, whose Aequian folk
On their stiff clods are rugged beyond all,
And to hard hunting in the woods inured.
In arms they task the furrow, and evermore
Amass new plunder, and by rapine live.
Ay, and a priest of race Marruvian came,
His head with garland of rich olive dight,
By King Archippus sent, Umbro the brave.
Who on the viper’s brood and water-snakes
Of baneful breath, with charm of voice and touch
Shed slumber, and assuaged their wrath, his craft
Their bites allaying. But stroke of Dardan spear
To heal he skilled not, nor his slumberous charms
Availed against their wounds, nor herbs with care
Culled on the Marsian mountains. Wept for thee
Anguitia’s grove, for thee the glassy wave
Of Fucinus, the crystal pools for thee.
There Virbius to the war in beauty strode,
Son of Hippolytus, whom in flower of fame
His mother sent, Aricia; nursed he was
In groves Egerian round the humid shores,
Where Dian’s rich and gracious altar stands.
Ay, for Hippolytus, so runs the tale,
By stepdame’s treachery done to death, and torn
By his scared steeds, to glut a sire’s revenge.
Came back to daylight and the air of heaven,
Called by the Healer’s herbs and Dian’s love,
Then, wroth that mortal should from shades of hell
Rise to the light of life, the Almighty Sire
With his own levin-bolt to Stygian wave
Thrust down the finder of such craft and cure,
Phoebus-born. But Trivia of her grace
In a dim dwelling hides Hippolytus,
To nymph Egeria and her grove consigned,
Alone, obscure, in woods of Italy
With altered name, as Virbius, to live on.
Whence too, from Trivia’s shrine and hallowed groves
Horn-hoofed steeds are banished, for that they.
Frighted by ocean-monsters, on the shore
Flung car and warrior. But the son no less
His fiery steeds along the level plain
Was driving, and rushed charioted to war.
Himself too Turnus, of surpassing mould,
Amid the foremost moving, arms in hand,
By a whole head o’ertops them; his proud helm,
Tressed with a triple plume, Chimaera bears
Out-breathing from her jaws Aetnean fires.
The madlier raging with more baleful flames
As deeplier the red field with carnage ran.
But his smooth shield lo with lifted horns
In gold emblazoned, now with hair o’ergrown,
Now turned to heifer, a stupendous sign.
And Argus, the maid’s warder, and therewith,
His flood outpouring from a graven urn,
Sire Inachus. Behind the hero comes
A cloud of footmen, and o’er all the plain
The shielded ranks are thickening, Argive men,
The Auruncan musters with the Rutule ranks;
And old Sicani, the Sacranian host
And gay-shielded Labici; who thy lawns,
O Tiber, and Numicius’ sacred shore
Till, or with ploughshare tame the Rutule heights
And Circe’s ridge; over whose fields enthroned
Rules Jove of Anxur, and Feronia sits
Rejoicing in her greenwood; where out-stretched
Lies the black marsh of Satura, and where
Along the valley-bottoms winds his way
Cold Ufens, till he plunges in the deep.
To crown them comes Camilla, Volscian-bred,
Heading her horse-troop, squadrons bright with brass,
A warrior-maid, her woman’s hands unused
To loom or basket of Minerva’s wool,
But strong to bide the battle, and on foot
Out-race the breezes: she might e’en have sped
Over the unlopped harvest-blades, nor bruised
The tender ears in running, or have skimmed
Mid-ocean, poised upon the billow’s swell.
Nor in the surges dipped her flying feet.
At her, astonied, youths and maidens all
From house and field throng gazing, as she goes.
Agape with wonder at the royal pomp
Of purple draped about her shoulders smooth.
Her tresses intertwined with clasp of gold —
To mark the Lycian quiver that she bears,
And pastoral wand of myrtle tipped with steel.