The works of John Dryden :: :: University of Virginia Library

King Latinus entertains Æneas, and promises him his only daughter, Lavinia, the heiress of his crown. Turnus, being in love with her, favoured by her mother, and stirred up by Juno nd Alecto, breaks the treaty which was made, and engages in his quarrel Mezentius, Camilla, Messapus, and many other of the neighbouring princes; whose forces, and the names of their commanders, are particularly related.

And thou, O matron of immortal fame!
Here dying, to the shore hast left thy name;
Caieta still the place is called from thee,
The nurse of great Æneas' infancy.
Here rest thy bones in rich Hesperia's plains;
Thy name ('tis all a ghost can have) remains.

Now, when the prince her funeral rites had paid,
He ploughed the Tyrrhene seas with sails displayed.
From land a gentle breeze arose by night,
Serenely shone the stars, the moon was bright,
And the sea trembled with her silver light.

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Now near the shelves of Circe's shores they run
(Circe the rich, the daughter of the Sun),
A dangerous coast!—The goddess wastes her days
In joyous songs; the rocks resound her lays.
In spinning, or the loom, she spends the night,
And cedar brands supply her father's light.
From hence were heard, rebellowing to the main,
The roars of lions that refuse the chain,
The grunts of bristled boars, and groans of bears,
And herds of howling wolves that stun the sailors' ears.
These from their caverns, at the close of night,
Fill the sad isle with horror and affright.
Darkling they mourn their fate, whom Circe's power
(That watched the moon, and planetary hour),
With words and wicked herbs, from humankind
Had altered, and in brutal shapes confined.
Which monsters lest the Trojans' pious host
Should bear, or touch upon the enchanted coast,
Propitious Neptune steered their course by night,
With rising gales, that sped their happy flight.
Supplied with these, they skim the sounding shore,
And hear the swelling surges vainly roar.
Now, when the rosy morn began to rise,
And waved her saffron streamer through the skies,
When Thetis blushed in purple, not her own,
And from her face the breathing winds were blown,
A sudden silence sate upon the sea,
And sweeping oars, with struggling, urge their way.

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The Trojan, from the main, beheld a wood,
Which thick with shades, and a brown horror, stood:
Betwixt the trees the Tiber took his course,
With whirlpools dimpled; and with downward force,
That drove the sand along, he took his way,
And rolled his yellow billows to the sea.
About him, and above, and round the wood,
The birds that haunt the borders of his flood,
That bathed within, or basked upon his side,
To tuneful songs their narrow throats applied.
The captain gives command; the joyful train
Glide through the gloomy shade, and leave the main.

Now, Erato! thy poet's mind inspire,
And fill his soul with thy celestial fire.
Relate what Latium was; her ancient kings;
Declare the past and present state of things,
When first the Trojan fleet Ausonia sought,
And how the rivals loved, and how they fought.
These are my theme, and how the war began,
And how concluded by the godlike man:
For I shall sing of battles, blood, and rage,
Which princes and their people did engage;
And haughty souls, that, moved with mutual hate,
In fighting fields pursued and found their fate;
That roused the Tyrrhene realm with loud alarms,
And peaceful Italy involved in arms.
A larger scene of action is displayed;
And, rising hence, a greater work is weighed.

Latinus, old and mild, had long possessed
The Latian sceptre, and his people blessed:
His father Faunus: a Laurentian dame
His mother; fair Marica was her name.
But Faunus came from Picus: Picus drew
His birth from Saturn, if records be true.

445

Thus king Latinus, in the third degree,
Had Saturn author of his family.
But this old peaceful prince, as heaven decreed,
Was blessed with no male issue to succeed;
His sons in blooming youth were snatched by fate:
One only daughter heired the royal state.
Fired with her love, and with ambition led,
The neighbouring princes court her nuptial bed.
Among the crowd, but far above the rest,
Young Turnus to the beauteous maid addressed.
Turnus, for high descent and graceful mien,
Was first, and favoured by the Latian queen;
With him she strove to join Lavinia's hand;
But dire portents the purposed match withstand.

Deep in the palace, of long growth, there stood
A laurel's trunk, a venerable wood;
Where rites divine were paid; whose holy hair
Was kept and cut with superstitious care.
This plant Latinus, when his town he walled,
Then found, and from the tree Laurentum called:
And last, in honour of his new abode,
He vowed the laurel to the laurel's god.
It happened once (a boding prodigy!)
A swarm of bees, that cut the liquid sky
(Unknown from whence they took their airy flight),
Upon the topmost branch in clouds alight;
There, with their clasping feet, together clung,
And a long cluster from the laurel hung.
An ancient augur prophesied from hence:—
“Behold on Latian shores a foreign prince!
From the same parts of heaven his navy stands,
To the same parts on earth; his army lands;
The town he conquers, and the tower commands.”
Yet more, when fair Lavinia fed the fire
Before the gods, and stood beside her sire,

446

(Strange to relate!) the flames, involved in smoke
Of incense, from the sacred altar broke,
Caught her dishevelled hair, and rich attire;
Her crown and jewels crackled in the fire:
From thence the fuming trail began to spread,
And lambent glories danced about her head.
This new portent the seer with wonder views,
Then pausing, thus his prophecy renews:—
“The nymph, who scatters flaming fires around,
Shall shine with honour, shall herself be crowned,
But, caused by her irrevocable fate,
War shall the country waste, and change the state.”
Latinus, frighted with this dire ostent,
For counsel to his father Faunus went,
And sought the shades renowned for prophecy,
Which near Albunea's sulphurous fountain lie.
To those the Latian and the Sabine land
Fly, when distressed, and thence relief demand.
The priest on skins of offerings takes his ease,
And nightly visions in his slumber sees;
A swarm of thin aërial shapes appears,
And, fluttering round his temples, deafs his ears.

447

These he consults, the future fates to know,
From powers above, and from the fiends below.
Here, for the god's advice, Latinus flies,
Offering a hundred sheep for sacrifice:
Their woolly fleeces, as the rites required,
He laid beneath him, and to rest retired.
No sooner were his eyes in slumber bound,
When, from above, a more than mortal sound
Invades his ears; and thus the vision spoke:—
“Seek not, my seed, in Latian bands to yoke
Our fair Lavinia, nor the gods provoke.
A foreign sun upon thy shore descends,
Whose martial fame from pole to pole extends.
His race, in arms and arts of peace renowned,
Not Latium shall contain, nor Europe bound:
'Tis theirs whate'er the sun surveys around.”
These answers, in the silent night received,
The king himself divulged, the land believed:
The fame through all the neighbouring nations flew,
When now the Trojan navy was in view.

Beneath a shady tree, the hero spread
His table on the turf, with cakes of bread;
And, with his chiefs, on forest fruits he fed.
They sate; and (not without the god's command)
Their homely fare dispatched, the hungry band
Invade their trenchers next, and soon devour,
To mend the scanty meal, their cakes of flour.
Ascanius this observed, and, smiling, said,—
“See! we devour the plates on which we fed.”
The speech had omen, that the Trojan race
Should find repose, and this the time and place.
Æneas took the word, and thus replies
(Confessing fate with wonder in his eyes):
“All hail, O earth! all hail, my household gods!
Behold the destined place of your abodes!

448

For thus Anchises prophesied of old,
And this our fatal place of rest foretold:—
‘When, on a foreign shore, instead of meat,
By famine forced, your trenchers you shall eat,
Then ease your weary Trojans will attend,
And the long labours of your voyage end.
Remember on that happy coast to build,
And with a trench inclose the fruitful field.’
This was that famine, this the fatal place,
Which ends the wandering of our exiled race.
Then, on to-morrow's dawn, your care employ,
To search the land, and where the cities lie,
And what the men; but give this day to joy.
Now pour to Jove; and, after Jove is blest,
Call great Anchises to the genial feast:
Crown high the goblets with a cheerful draught;
Enjoy the present hour; adjourn the future thought.”

Thus having said, the hero bound his brows
With leafy branches, then performed his vows;
Adoring first the genius of the place,
Then Earth, the mother of the heavenly race,
The nymphs, and native godheads yet unknown,
And Night, and all the stars that gild her sable throne,
And ancient Cybel, and Idæan Jove,
And last his sire below, and mother queen above.
Then heaven's high monarch thundered thrice aloud,
And thrice he shook aloft a golden cloud.
Soon through the joyful camp a rumour flew,
The time was come their city to renew.
Then every brow with cheerful green is crowned,
The feasts are doubled, and the bowls go round.

When next the rosy morn disclosed the day,
The scouts to several parts divide their way,

449

To learn the natives' names, their towns explore,
The coasts, and trendings of the crooked shore:
Here Tiber flows, and here Numicus stands;
Here warlike Latins hold the happy lands.
The pious chief, who sought by peaceful ways
To found his empire, and his town to raise,
A hundred youths from all his train selects,
And to the Latian court their course directs
(The spacious palace where their prince resides),
And all their heads with wreaths of olive hides.
They go commissioned to require a peace,
And carry presents to procure access.
Thus while they speed their pace, the prince designs
The new-elected seat, and draws the lines.
The Trojans round the place a rampire cast,
And palisades about the trenches placed.

Meantime the train, proceeding on their way,
From far the town and lofty towers survey;
At length approach the walls. Without the gate,
They see the boys and Latian youth debate
The martial prizes on the dusty plain:
Some drive the cars, and some the coursers rein;
Some bend the stubborn bow for victory,
And some with darts their active sinews try.
A posting messenger, dispatched from hence,
Of this fair troop advised their aged prince,
That foreign men, of mighty stature, came;
Uncouth their habit, and unknown their name.
The king ordains their entrance, and ascends
His regal seat, surrounded by his friends.
The palace built by Picus, vast and proud,
Supported by a hundred pillars stood,
And round encompassed with a rising wood.
The pile o'erlooked the town, and drew the sight,
Surprised at once with reverence and delight.

450

There kings received the marks of sovereign power;
In state the monarchs marched; the lictors bore
Their awful axes and the rods before.
Here the tribunal stood, the house of prayer,
And here the sacred senators repair;
All at large tables, in long order set,
A ram their offering, and a ram their meat.
Above the portal, carved in cedar wood,
Placed in their ranks, their godlike grandsires stood;
Old Saturn, with his crooked scythe, on high;
And Italus, that led the colony;
And ancient Janus, with his double face,
And bunch of keys, the porter of the place.
There stood Sabinus, planter of the vines;
On a short pruning-hook his head reclines,
And studiously surveys his generous wines;
Then warlike kings, who for their country fought,
And honourable wounds from battle brought.
Around the posts, hung helmets, darts, and spears,
And captive chariots, axes, shields, and bars,
And broken beaks of ships, the trophies of their wars.
Above the rest, as chief of all the band,
Was Picus placed, a buckler in his hand,
His other waved a long divining wand.
Girt in his Gabine gown the hero sate,
Yet could not with his art avoid his fate:
For Circe long had loved the youth in vain,
Till love, refused, converted to disdain:
Then, mixing powerful herbs, with magic art,
She changed his form, who could not change his heart;
Constrained him in a bird, and made him fly,
With party-coloured plumes, a chattering pie.

451

In this high temple, on a chair of state,
The seat of audience, old Latinus sate;
Then gave admission to the Trojan train;
And thus, with pleasing accents, he began:—
“Tell me, ye Trojans, for that name you own,
Nor is your course upon our coasts unknown—
Say what you seek, and whither were you bound;
Were you by stress of weather cast aground?
(Such dangers of the sea are often seen,
And oft befall to miserable men),
Or come, your shipping in our ports to lay,
Spent and disabled in so long a way?
Say what you want: the Latians you shall find
Not forced to goodness, but by will inclined;
For, since the time of Saturn's holy reign,
His hospitable customs we retain.
I call to mind (but time the tale has worn)
The Aurunci told, that Dardanus, though born
On Latian plains, yet sought the Phrygian shore,
And Samothracia, Samos called before.
From Tuscan Corythum he claimed his birth;
But after, when exempt from mortal earth,
From thence ascended to his kindred skies,
A god, and as a god, augments their sacrifice.”
He said.—Ilioneus made this reply:
“O king, of Faunus' royal family!
Nor wintry winds to Latium forced our way,
Nor did the stars our wandering course betray.
Willing we sought your shores; and, hither bound,
The port, so long desired, at length we found;
From our sweet homes and ancient realms expelled;
Great as the greatest that the sun beheld,
The god began our line, who rules above;
And, as our race, our king descends from Jove:
And hither are we come, by his command,
To crave admission in your happy land.

452

How dire a tempest, from Mycenæ poured,
Our plains, our temples, and our town, devoured;
What was the waste of war, what fierce alarms
Shook Asia's crown with European arms;
Even such have heard, if any such there be,
Whose earth is bounded by the frozen sea;
And such as, born beneath the burning sky
And sultry sun, betwixt the tropics lie.
From that dire deluge, through the watery waste,
(Such length of years, such various perils past),
At last escaped, to Latium we repair,
To beg what you without your want may spare—
The common water, and the common air;
Sheds which ourselves will build, and mean abodes,
Fit to receive and serve our banished gods.
Nor our admission shall your realm disgrace,
Nor length of time our gratitude efface—
Besides what endless honour you shall gain,
To save and shelter Troy's unhappy train.
Now, by my sovereign, and his fate, I swear—
Renowned for faith in peace, for force in war—
Oft our alliance other lands desired,
And, what we seek of you, of us required.
Despise not then, that in our hands we bear
These holy boughs, and sue with words of prayer.
Fate and the gods, by their supreme command,
Have doomed our ships to seek the Latian land.
To these abodes our fleet Apollo sends;
Here Dardanus was born, and hither tends;
Where Tuscan Tiber rolls with rapid force,
And where Numicus opes his holy source.
Besides, our prince presents, with his request,
Some small remains of what his sire possessed.
This golden charger, snatched from burning Troy,
Anchises did in sacrifice employ:

453

This royal robe and this tiara wore
Old Priam, and this golden sceptre bore,
In full assemblies, and in solemn games;
These purple vests were weaved by Dardan dames.”

Thus while he spoke, Latinus rolled around
His eyes, and fixed a while upon the ground.
Intent he seemed, and anxious in his breast;
Not by the sceptre moved, or kingly vest,
But pondering future things of wondrous weight—
Succession, empire, and his daughter's fate.
On these he mused within his thoughtful mind,
And then revolved what Faunus had divined
This was the foreign prince, by fate decreed
To share his sceptre, and Lavinia's bed:
This was the race, that sure portents foreshew
To sway the world, and land and sea subdue.
At length he raised his cheerful head, and spoke:—
“The powers,” said he, “the powers we both invoke,
To you, and yours, and mine, propitious be,
And firm our purpose with their augury!
Have what you ask; your presents I receive;
Land, where and when you please, with ample leave;
Partake and use my kingdom as your own;
All shall be yours, while I command the crown.
And, if my wished alliance please your king,
Tell him he should not send the peace, but bring:
Then let him not a friend's embraces fear;
The peace is made when I behold him here.
Besides this answer, tell my royal guest,
I add to his commands my own request:

454

Only one daughter heirs my crown and state,
Whom not our oracles, nor heaven, nor fate,
Nor frequent prodigies, permit to join
With any native of the Ausonian line.
A foreign son-in-law shall come from far
(Such is our doom), a chief renowned in war,
Whose race shall bear aloft the Latian name,
And through the conquered world diffuse our fame.
Himself to be the man the fates require,
I firmly judge, and, what I judge, desire.”
He said, and then on each bestowed a steed.
Three hundred horses, in high stables fed,
Stood ready, shining all, and smoothly dressed:
Of these he chose the fairest and the best,
To mount the Trojan troop. At his command,
The steeds caparisoned with purple stand,
With golden trappings, glorious to behold,
And champ betwixt their teeth the foaming gold.
Then to his absent guest the king decreed
A pair of coursers born of heavenly breed,
Who from their nostrils breathed ethereal fire;
Whom Circe stole from her celestial sire,

455

By substituting mares produced on earth,
Whose wombs conceived a more than mortal birth.
These draw the chariot which Latinus sends,
And the rich present to the prince commends.
Sublime on stately steeds the Trojans borne,
To their expecting lord with peace return.

But jealous Juno, from Pachynus' height,
As she from Argos took her airy flight,
Beheld, with envious eyes, this hateful sight.
She saw the Trojan, and his joyful train,
Descend upon the shore, desert the main,
Design a town, and, with unhoped success,
The ambassadors return with promised peace.
Then, pierced with pain, she shook her haughty head,
Sighed from her inward soul, and thus she said:—
“O hated offspring of my Phrygian foes!
O fates of Troy, which Juno's fates oppose!
Could they not fall unpitied on the plain,
But slain revive, and taken 'scape again?
When execrable Troy in ashes lay,
Through fires and swords and seas they forced their way.
Then vanquished Juno must in vain contend,—
Her rage disarmed, her empire at an end!
Breathless and tired, is all my fury spent?
Or does my glutted spleen at length relent?
As if 'twere little from their town to chase,
I through the seas pursued their exiled race;
Engaged the heavens, opposed the stormy main;
But billows roared, and tempests raged in vain.
What have my Scyllas and my Syrtes done,
When these they overpass, and those they shun?
On Tiber's shores they land, secure of fate,
Triumphant o'er the storm's and Juno's hate!

456

Mars could in mutual blood the Centaurs bathe,
And Jove himself gave way to Cynthia's wrath,
Who sent the tusky boar to Calydon;
(What great offence had either people done?)
But I, the consort of the Thunderer,
Have waged a long and unsuccessful war,
With various arts and arms in vain have toiled,
And by a mortal man at length am foiled!
If native power prevail not, shall I doubt
To seek for needful succour from without?
If Jove and heaven my just desires deny,
Hell shall the power of heaven and Jove supply.
Grant that the fates have firmed, 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 to 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 endowed
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 her native land!
A second Paris, differing 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 the 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.
Even Pluto hates his own misshapen race;
Her sister Furies fly her hideous face;

457

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 labour, to sustain
My right, and execute my just disdain.
Let not the Trojans, with a feigned pretence
Of proffered peace, delude the Latian prince.
Expel from Italy that odious name,
And let not Juno suffer in her fame.
'Tis 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 funeral torch displays,
And forms a thousand ills ten thousand ways.
Now shake, from out thy fruitful breast, the seeds
Of envy, discord, and of cruel deeds:
Confound the peace established, and prepare
Their souls to hatred, and their hands to war.”
Smeared as she was with black Gorgonian blood,
The Fury sprang above the Stygian flood;
And on her wicker wings, sublime through night,
She to the Latian palace took her flight:
There sought the queen's apartments, stood before
The peaceful threshold, and besieged the door.
Restless Amata lay, her swelling breast
Fired with disdain for Turnus dispossessed,
And the new nuptials of the Trojan guest.
From her black bloody locks the Fury shakes
Her darling plague, the favourite of her snakes:
With her full force she threw the poisonous dart,
And fixed it deep within Amata's heart,
That, thus envenomed, she might kindle rage,
And sacrifice to strife her house and husband's age,
Unseen, unfelt, the fiery serpent skims
Betwixt her linen and her naked limbs,

458

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 seized her cooler senses by degrees;
Then, ere the infected mass was fired too far,
In plaintive accents she began the war,
And thus bespoke her husband:—“Shall,” she said,
“A wandering 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 would, 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 show of friendship sought the Spartan shore,
And ravished 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 derived 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 fixed intent,
She flew to rage; for now the snake possessed
Her vital parts, and poisoned all her breast.
She raves, she runs with a distracted pace,
And fills, with horrid howls, the public place.

459

And, as young striplings whip the top for sport,
On the smooth pavement of an empty court;
The wooden engine flies and whirls about,
Admired, with clamours, of the beardless rout;
They lash aloud; each other they provoke,
And lend their little souls at every 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 contrived before:
She flies the town, and, mixing with a throng
Of madding matrons, bears the bride along,
Wandering through woods and wilds, and devious ways,
And with these arts the Trojan match delays.
She feigned the rites of Bacchus; cried aloud,
And to the buxom god the virgin vowed.
“Evœ! O Bacchus!” thus began the song;
And “Evœ!” answered 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 seized the rest: the progress known,
All seek the mountains, and forsake the town:
All, clad in skins of beasts, the javelin bear,
Give to the wanton winds their flowing hair,
And shrieks and shoutings rend the suffering air.
The queen herself, inspired with rage divine,
Shook high above her head a flaming pine,
Then rolled her haggard eyes around the throng,
And sung, in Turnus' name, the nuptial song:—
“Iö! ye Latian dames, if any here
Hold your unhappy queen, Amata, dear;

460

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 embroiled in civil war,
Raised 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 Danaë, pregnant with almighty gold,
Who fled her father's rage, and, with a train
Of following Argives, through the stormy main,
Driven by the southern blasts, was fated here to reign.

'Twas Ardua once: now Ardea's name it bears;
Once a fair city, now consumed 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 the infernal form to hide.
Propped on a staff, she takes a trembling mien:
Her face is furrowed, 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 crowned.
Old Chalybe, who kept the sacred fane
Of Juno, now she seemed, 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?

461

The bride and sceptre, 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-powerful Juno sends; I bear
Her mighty mandates, and her words you hear.
Haste! arm your Ardeans; issue to the plain;
With faith 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 power of Turnus prove,
And learn to fear whom he disdains to love.
For such is heaven's command.”—The youthful prince
With scorn replied, and made this bold defence:—
“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, imagined 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 stiffened, 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:

462

Then, darting fire from her malignant eyes,
She cast him backward as he strove to rise,
And, lingering, 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, imagined in her lonely cell!
Behold the Fates' infernal minister!
War, death, destruction, in my hand I bear.”

Thus having said, her smouldering torch, impressed
With her full force, she plunged into his breast.
Aghast he waked; 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 vapours climb aloft, and cloud the day.

The peace polluted thus, a chosen band
He first commissions to the Latian land,
In threatening embassy; then raised the rest,
To meet in arms the intruding Trojan guest,
To force the foes from the Lavinian shore,
And Italy's endangered peace restore.
Himself alone an equal match he boasts,
To fight the Phrygian and Ausonian hosts.
The gods invoked, the Rutuli prepare
Their arms, and warm each other to the war.
His beauty these, and those his blooming age,
The rest his house and his own fame engage.

463

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, the infernal maid prepares
The country churls to mischief, hate, and wars.

The stately beast the two Tyrrhidæ bred,
Snatched from his dam, and the tame youngling fed.
Their father Tyrrheus did his fodder bring,
Tyrrheus, chief ranger to the Latian king:
Their sister Silvia cherished with her care
The little wanton, and did wreaths prepare
To hang his budding horns, with ribbons tied
His tender neck, and combed his silken hide,
And bathed his body. Patient of command
In time he grew, and, growing used to hand,
He waited at his master's board for food;
Then sought his savage 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 used the woodland grounds,
Was viewed 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:

464

But the dire fiend the fatal arrow guides,
Which pierced his bowels through his panting sides.
The bleeding creature issues from the floods,
Possessed 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 succour from the clownish neighbourhood:
The churls assemble; for the fiend, who lay
In the close woody covert, urged their way.
One with a brand yet burning from the flame,
Armed 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 clenched 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, exercised in ill,
Who watched 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 the 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 possessed,
And strain their helpless infants to their breast.

The clowns, a boisterous, rude, ungoverned crew,
With furious haste to the loud summons flew.

465

The powers of Troy, then issuing on the plain,
With fresh recruits their youthful chief sustain:
Not theirs a raw and unexperienced train,
But a firm body of embattled men.
At first, while fortune favoured neither side,
The fight with clubs and burning brands was tried:
But now, both parties reinforced, 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-browed gust begins to rise,
White foam at first on the curled 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,
Pierced with an arrow from the distant war:
Fixed in his throat the flying weapon stood,
And stopped 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 preached in vain,
Amidst the madness of the unruly train:
Five herds, five bleating flocks, his pastures filled;
His lands a hundred yoke of oxen tilled.
Thus, while in equal scales their fortune stood,
The Fury bathed them in each other's blood;
Then, having fixed the fight, exulting flies,
And bears fulfilled her promise to the skies.
To Juno thus she speaks:—“Behold! 'tis done,
The blood already drawn, the war begun;

466

The discord is complete; nor can they cease
The dire debate, nor you command the peace.
Now, since the Latian and the Trojan brood
Have tasted vengeance, and the sweets of blood;
Speak, and my power shall add this office more:
The neighbouring nations of the Ausonian shore
Shall hear the dreadful rumour, from afar,
Of armed invasion, and embrace the war.”
Then Juno thus:—“The grateful work is done,
The seeds of discord sowed, the war begun:
Frauds, fears, and fury, have possessed the state,
And fixed the causes of a lasting hate.
A bloody Hymen shall the alliance join
Betwixt the Trojan and Ausonian line:
But thou with speed to night and hell repair;
For not the gods, nor angry Jove, will bear
Thy lawless wandering walks in upper air.
Leave what remains to me.” Saturnia said:
The sullen fiend her sounding wings displayed,
Unwilling left the light, and sought the nether shade.

In midst of Italy, well known to fame,
There lies a lake (Amsanctus is the name)
Below the lofty mounts: on either side
Thick forests the forbidden entrance hide.
Full in the centre of the sacred wood,
An arm arises of the Stygian flood,
Which, breaking from beneath with bellowing sound,
Whirls the black waves and rattling stones around.
Here Pluto pants for breath from out his cell,
And opens wide the grinning jaws of hell.
To this infernal lake the Fury flies;
Here hides her hated head, and frees the labouring skies.

Saturnian Juno now, with double care,
Attends the fatal process of the war.

467

The clowns, returned from battle, bear the slain,
Implore the gods, and to their king complain.
The corpse of Almon, and the rest, are shown:
Shrieks, clamours, murmurs, fill the frighted town.
Ambitious Turnus in the press appears,
And, aggravating crimes, augments their fears;
Proclaims his private injuries aloud,
A solemn promise made, and disavowed;
A foreign son is sought, and a mixed mongrel brood.
Then they, whose mothers, frantic with their fear,
In woods and wilds the flags of Bacchus bear,
And lead his dances with dishevelled hair,
Increase the clamour, and the war demand
(Such was Amata's interest in the land),
Against the public sanctions of the peace,
Against all omens of their ill success.
With fates averse, the rout in arms resort,
To force their monarch, and insult the court.
But, like a rock unmoved, a rock that braves
The raging tempest and the rising waves—
Propped on himself he stands; his solid sides
Wash off the sea-weeds, and the sounding tides—
So stood the pious prince unmoved, and long
Sustained the madness of the noisy throng.
But, when he found that Juno's power prevailed,
And all the methods of cool counsel failed,
He calls the gods to witness their offence,
Disclaims the war, asserts his innocence.
“Hurried by fate,” he cries, “and borne before
A furious wind, we leave the faithful shore!
O more than madmen! you yourselves shall bear
The guilt of blood and sacrilegious war:
Thou, Turnus, shalt atone it by thy fate,
And pray to heaven for peace, but pray too late.

468

For me, my stormy voyage at an end,
I to the port of death securely tend.
The funeral pomp which to your kings you pay,
Is all I want, and all you take away.”
He said no more, but, in his walls confined,
Shut out the woes which he too well divined;
Nor with the rising storm would vainly strive,
But left the helm, and let the vessel drive.

A solemn custom was observed of old,
Which Latium held, and now the Romans hold,
Their standard when in fighting fields they rear
Against the fierce Hyrcanians, or declare
The Scythian, Indian, or Arabian war—
Or from the boasting Parthians would regain
Their eagles, lost in Carræ's bloody plain.
Two gates of steel (the name of Mars they bear,
And still are worshipped with religious fear)
Before his temple stand: the dire abode,
And the feared issues of the furious god,
Are fenced with brazen bolts; without the gates,
The wary guardian Janus doubly waits.
Then, when the sacred senate votes the wars,
The Roman consul their decree declares,
And in his robes the sounding gates unbars.
The youth in military shouts arise,
And the loud trumpets break the yielding skies.
These rites, of old by sovereign princes used,
Were the king's office: but the king refused,
Deaf to their cries, nor would the gates unbar
Of sacred peace, or loose the imprisoned war;
But hid his head, and, safe from loud alarms,
Abhorred the wicked ministry of arms.
Then heaven's imperious queen shot down from high;
At her approach the brazen hinges fly;
The gates are forced, and every falling bar;
And, like a tempest, issues out the war.

469

The peaceful cities of the Ausonian shore,
Lulled in their ease, and undisturbed before,
Are all on fire; and some, with studious care,
Their restive steeds in sandy plains prepare;
Some their soft limbs in painful marches try,
And war is all their wish, and arms the general cry.
Part scour their rusty shields with seam; and part
New grind the blunted axe, and point the dart:
With joy they view the waving ensigns fly,
And hear the trumpet's clangour pierce the sky.
Five cities forge their arms—the Atinian powers,
Antemne, Tibur with her lofty towers,
Ardea the proud, the Crustumerian town:
All these of old were places of renown.
Some hammer helmets for the fighting field;
Some twine young sallows to support the shield;
The corselet some, and some the cuishes mould,
With silver plated, and with ductile gold.
The rustic honours of the scythe and share
Give place to swords and plumes, the pride of war.
Old falchions are new tempered in the fires:
The sounding trumpet every soul inspires.
The word is given; with eager speed they lace
The shining head-piece, and the shield embrace.
The neighing steeds are to the chariots tied;
The trusty weapon sits on every side.

And, now the mighty labour is begun,
Ye Muses, open all your Helicon.
Sing you the chiefs that swayed the Ausonian land,
Their arms, and armies under their command;
What warriors in our ancient clime were bred;
What soldiers followed, and what heroes led.

470

For well you know, and can record alone,
What fame to future times conveys but darkly down.

Mezentius first appeared upon the plain:
Scorn sate upon his brows, and sour disdain,
Defying earth and heaven. Etruria lost,
He brings to Turnus' aid his baffled host.
The charming Lausus, full of youthful fire,
Rode in the rank, and next his sullen sire;
To Turnus only second in the grace
Of manly mien, and features of the face.
A skilful horseman, and a huntsman bred,
With fates averse a thousand men he led:
His sire unworthy of so brave a son;
Himself well worthy of a happier throne.

Next Aventinus drives his chariot round
The Latian plains, with palms and laurels crowned.
Proud of his steeds, he smokes along the field;
His father's hydra fills his ample shield:
A hundred serpents hiss about the brims;
The son of Hercules he justly seems,
By his broad shoulders and gigantic limbs—
Of heavenly part, and part of earthly blood,
A mortal woman mixing with a god.
For strong Alcides, after he had slain
The triple Geryon, drove from conquered Spain
His captive herds; and, thence in triumph led,
On Tuscan Tiber's flowery banks they fed.
Then, on mount Aventine, the son of Jove
The priestess Rhea found, and forced to love.

For arms, his men long piles and javelins bore;
And poles with pointed steel their foes in battle gore.
Like Hercules himself, his son appears
In savage pomp; a lion's hide he wears;
About his shoulders hangs the shaggy skin;
The teeth and gaping jaws severely grin.

471

Thus, like the god his father, homely drest,
He strides into the hall, a horrid guest.
Then two twin-brothers from fair Tibur came,
(Which from their brother Tiburs took the name),
Fierce Coras and Catillus, void of fear:
Armed Argive horse they led, and in the front appear,
Like cloud-born Centaurs, from the mountain's height
With rapid course descending to the fight;
They rush along, the rattling woods give way;
The branches bend before their sweepy sway.

Nor was Præneste's founder wanting there,
Whom fame reports the son of Mulciber:
Found in the fire, and fostered in the plains,
A shepherd and a king at once he reigns,
And leads to Turnus' aid his country swains.
His own Præneste sends a chosen band,
With those who plough Saturnia's Gabine land;
Besides the succour which cold Anien yields,
The rocks of Hernicus, and dewy fields,
Anagnia fat, and father Amasene—
A numerous rout, but all of naked men:
Nor arms they wear, nor swords and bucklers wield,
Nor drive the chariot through the dusty field,
But whirl from leathern slings huge balls of lead,
And spoils of yellow wolves adorn their head;
The left foot naked, when they march to fight
But in a bull's raw hide they sheathe the right.

Messapus next (great Neptune was his sire),
Secure of steel, and fated from the fire,
In pomp appears, and with his ardour warms
A heartless train, unexercised in arms:
The just Faliscans he to battle brings,
And those who live where lake Ciminius springs;

472

And where Feronia's grove and temple stands,
Who till Fescennian or Flavinian lands:
All these in order march, and marching sing
The warlike actions of their sea-born king;
Like a long team of snowy swans on high,
Which clap their wings, and cleave the liquid sky,
When, homeward from their watery pastures borne,
They sing, and Asia's lakes their notes return.
Not one, who heard their music from afar,
Would think these troops an army trained to war,
But flocks of fowl, that, when the tempests roar,
With their hoarse gabbling seek the silent shore.

Then Clausus came, who led a numerous band
Of troops embodied from the Sabine land,
And, in himself alone, an army brought.
'Twas he the noble Claudian race begot,
The Claudian race, ordained, in times to come,
To share the greatness of imperial Rome.
He led the Cures forth of old renown,
Mutuscans from their olive-bearing town,
And all the Eretian powers; besides a band
That followed from Velinum's dewy land,
And Amiternian troops, of mighty fame,
And mountaineers, that from Severus came,
And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica,
And those where yellow Tiber takes his way,
And where Himella's wanton waters play.
Casperia sends her arms, with those that lie
By Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli:
The warlike aids of Horta next appear,
And the cold Nursians come to close the rear
Mixed with the natives born of Latine blood,
Whom Allia washes with her fatal flood.
Not thicker billows beat the Libyan main,
When pale Orion sets in wintry rain,

473

Nor thicker harvests on rich Hermus rise,
Or Lycian fields, when Phœbus burns the skies,
Than stand these troops: their bucklers ring around;
Their trampling turns the turf, and shakes the solid ground.

High in his chariot then Halesus came,
A foe by birth to Troy's unhappy name:
From Agamemnon born—to Turnus' aid,
A thousand men the youthful hero led,
Who till the Massic soil, for wine renowned,
And fierce Auruncans from their hilly ground,
And those who live by Sidicinian shores,
And where with shoaly fords Vulturnus roars,
Cales' and Osca's old inhabitants,
And rough Saticulans, inured to wants.
Light demi-lances from afar they throw,
Fastened with leathern thongs, to gall the foe.
Short crooked swords in closer fight they wear,
And on their warding arm light bucklers bear.

Nor, Œbalus, shalt thou be left unsung,
From nymph Sebethis and old Telon sprung,
Who then in Teleboan Capri reigned;
But that short isle the ambitious youth disdained,
And o'er Campania stretched his ample sway,
Where swelling Sarnus seeks the Tyrrhene sea—
O'er Batulum, and where Abella sees,
From her high towers, the harvest of her trees.

474

And these (as was the Teuton use of old)
Wield brazen swords, and brazen bucklers hold;
Sling weighty stones when from afar they fight;
Their casques are cork, a covering thick and light.

Next these in rank, the warlike Ufens went,
And led the mountain troops that Nursia sent.
The rude Æquiculæ his rule obeyed;
Hunting their sport, and plundering was their trade.
In arms they ploughed, to battle still prepared:
Their soil was barren, and their hearts were hard.

Umbro the priest the proud Marrubians led,
By king Archippus sent to Turnus' aid,
And peaceful olives crowned his hoary head.
His wand and holy words, the viper's rage,
And venomed wounds of serpents, could assuage.
He, when he pleased with powerful juice to steep
Their temples, shut their eyes in pleasing sleep.
But vain were Marsian herbs, and magic art,
To cure the wound given by the Dardan dart.
Yet his untimely fate the Angitian woods
In sighs remurmured to the Fucine floods.
The son of famed Hippolytus was there,
Famed as his sire, and, as his mother, fair;
Whom in Egerian groves Aricia bore,
And nursed his youth along the marshy shore,
Where great Diana's peaceful altars flame,
In fruitful fields; and Virbius was his name.
Hippolytus, as old records have said,
Was by his stepdame sought to share her bed:
But, when no female arts his mind could move,
She turned to furious hate her impious love.
Torn by wild horses on the sandy shore,
Another's crimes the unhappy hunter bore,
Glutting his father's eyes with guiltless gore.
But chaste Diana, who his death deplored,
With Æsculapian herbs his life restored:

475

When Jove, who saw from high, with just disdain,
The dead inspired with vital breath again,
Struck to the centre, with his flaming dart,
The unhappy founder of the godlike art.
But Trivia kept in secret shades alone,
Her care, Hippolytus, to fate unknown;
And called him Virbius in the Egerian grove,
Where then he lived obscure, but safe from Jove.
For this, from Trivia's temple and her wood,
Are coursers driven, who shed their master's blood,
Affrighted by the monsters of the flood.
His son, the second Virbius, yet retained
His father's art, and warrior steeds he reined.

Amid the troops, and like the leading god,
High o'er the rest in arms, the graceful Turnus rode:
A triple pile of plumes his crest adorned,
On which with belching flames Chimæra burned:
The more the kindled combat rises higher,
The more with fury burns the blazing fire.
Fair Iö graced his shield; but Iö now
With horns exalted stands, and seems to low—
A noble charge! Her keeper by her side,
To watch her walks, his hundred eyes applied;
And on the brims her sire, the watery god,
Rolled from his silver urn his crystal flood.
A cloud of foot succeeds, and fills the fields
With swords, and pointed spears, and clattering shields;
Of Argive, and of old Sicanian bands,
And those who plough the rich Rutulian lands;
Auruncan youth, and those Sacrana yields,
And the proud Labicans, with painted shields,
And those who near Numician streams reside,
And those whom Tiber's holy forests hide,
Or Circe's hills from the main land divide;

476

Where Ufens glides along the lowly lands,
Or the black water of Pomptina stands.

Last from the Volscians fair Camilla came,
And led her warlike troops, a warrior dame:
Unbred to spinning, in the loom unskilled,
She chose the nobler Pallas of the field.
Mixed with the first, the fierce virago fought,
Sustained the toils of arms, the danger sought,
Outstripped the winds in speed upon the plain,
Flew o'er the field, nor hurt the bearded grain:
She swept the seas, and, as she skimmed along,
Her flying feet unbathed on billows hung.
Men, boys, and women, stupid with surprise,
Where'er she passes, fix their wondering eyes:
Longing they look, and gaping at the sight,
Devour her o'er and o'er with vast delight;
Her purple habit sits with such a grace
On her smooth shoulders, and so suits her face;
Her head with ringlets of her hair is crowned,
And in a golden caul the curls are bound.
She shakes her myrtle javelin; and, behind,
Her Lycian quiver dances in the wind.

END OF THE FOURTEENTH VOLUME.

VOL. XV.

Virgil, in this place, takes notice of a great secret in the Roman divination: the lambent fires, which rose above the head, or played about it, were signs of prosperity; such were those which he observed in the Second Æneïd, which were seen mounting from the crown of Ascanius—

Ecce, levis summo de vertice visus Iüli
Fundere lumen apex.

Smoky flames (or involved in smoke) were of a mixed omen: such were those which are here described; for smoke signifies tears, because it produces them, and flames happiness. And therefore Virgil says that this ostent was not only mirabile visu, but horrendum.

This has seemed to some an odd passage; that a king should offer his daughter and heir to a stranger prince, and a wanderer, before he had seen him, and when he had only heard of his arrival on his coasts. But these critics have not well considered the simplicity of former times, when the heroines almost courted the marriage of illustrious men. Yet Virgil here observes the rule of decency: Lavinia offers not herself; it is Latinus who propounds the match; and he had been foretold, both by an augur and an oracle, that he should have a foreign son-in-law, who was also a hero;—fathers, in those ancient ages, considering birth and virtue, more than fortune, in the placing of their daughters; which I could prove by various examples; the contrary of which being now practised, I dare not say in our nation, but in France, has not a little darkened the lustre of their nobility. That Lavinia was averse to this marriage, and for what reason, I shall prove in its proper place.

I observe that Virgil names not Nola, which was not far distant from Abella; perhaps because that city (the same in which Augustus died afterwards) had once refused to give him entertainment, if we may believe the author of his life. Homer heartily curses another city which had used him in the same manner; but our author thought his silence of the Nolans a sufficient correction. When a poet passes by a place or person, though a fair occasion offers of remembering them, it is a sign he is, or thinks himself, much disobliged.