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

Jupiter, calling a council of the gods, forbids them to engage in either party. At Æneas' return there is a bloody battle: Turnus killing Pallas; Æneas, Lausus and Mezentius. Mezentius is described as an atheist; Lausus, as a pious and virtuous youth. The different actions and death of these two are the subject of a noble episode.

The gates of heaven unfold: Jove summons all
The gods to council in the common hall.
Sublimely seated, he surveys from far
The fields, the camp, the fortune of the war,
And all the inferior world. From first to last,
The sovereign senate in degrees are placed.

Then thus the almighty sire began:—“Ye gods,
Natives or denizens of blest abodes!
From whence these murmurs, and this change of mind,
This backward fate from what was first designed?
Why thus protracted war, when my commands
Pronounced a peace, and gave the Latian lands?
What fear or hope on either part divides
Our heavens, and arms our powers on different sides?

A lawful time of war at length will come
(Nor need your haste anticipate the doom),
When Carthage shall contest the world with Rome;
Shall force the rigid rocks and Alpine chains,
And, like a flood, come pouring on the plains.
Then is your time for faction and debate,
For partial favour, and permitted hate.
Let now your immature dissension cease;
Sit quiet, and compose your souls to peace.”

Thus Jupiter in few unfolds the charge;
But lovely Venus thus replies at large:—
“O power immense! eternal energy!
(For to what else protection can we fly?)
Seest thou the proud Rutulians, how they dare
In fields, unpunished, and insult my care?
How lofty Turnus vaunts amidst his train,
In shining arms triumphant on the plain?
Even in their lines and trenches they contend,
And scarce their walls the Trojan troops defend:
The town is filled with slaughter, and o'erfloats,
With a red deluge, their increasing moats.
Æneas, ignorant, and far from thence,
Has left a camp exposed, without defence.
This endless outrage shall they still sustain?
Shall Troy renewed be forced and fired again?
A second siege my banished issue fears,
And a new Diomede in arms appears.
One more audacious mortal will be found;
And I, thy daughter, wait another wound.
Yet, if, with fates averse, without thy leave,
The Latian lands my progeny receive,
Bear they the pains of violated law,
And thy protection from their aid withdraw.
But, if the gods their sure success foretell—
If those of heaven consent with those of hell,
To promise Italy; who dare debate
The power of Jove, or fix another fate?

What should I tell of tempests on the main,
Of Æolus usurping Neptune's reign?
Of Iris sent, with Bacchanalian heat
To inspire the matrons, and destroy the fleet?
Now Juno to the Stygian sky descends,
Solicits hell for aid, and arms the fiends.
That new example wanted yet above—
An act that well became the wife of Jove!
Alecto, raised by her, with rage inflames
The peaceful bosoms of the Latian dames.
Imperial sway no more exalts my mind
(Such hopes I had indeed, while heaven was kind),
Now let my happier foes possess my place,
Whom Jove prefers before the Trojan race;
And conquer they, whom you with conquest grace.
Since you can spare, from all your wide command,
No spot of earth, no hospitable land,
Which may my wandering fugitives receive
(Since haughty Juno will not give you leave),
Then, father (if I still may use that name),
By ruined Troy, yet smoking from the flame,
I beg you, let Ascanius, by my care,
Be freed from danger, and dismissed the war:
Inglorious let him live, without a crown:
The father may be cast on coasts unknown,
Struggling with fate; but let me save the son.
Mine is Cythera, mine the Cyprian towers:
In those recesses, and those sacred bowers,
Obscurely let him rest; his right resign
To promised empire, and his Julian line.
Then Carthage may the Ausonian towns destroy,
Nor fear the race of a rejected boy.
What profits it my son, to 'scape the fire,
Armed with his gods, and loaded with his sire;
To pass the perils of the seas and wind;
Evade the Greeks, and leave the war behind;

To reach the Italian shores; if, after all,
Our second Pergamus is doomed to fall?
Much better had he curbed his high desires,
And hovered o'er his ill-extinguished fires.
To Simoïs' banks the fugitives restore,
And give them back to war, and all the woes before.”

Deep indignation swelled Saturnia's heart:
“And must I own,” she said, “my secret smart—
What with more decence were in silence kept,
And, but for this unjust reproach, had slept?
Did god or man your favourite son advise,
With war unhoped the Latians to surprise?
By fate, you boast, and by the gods' decree,
He left his native land for Italy!
Confess the truth; by mad Cassandra, more
Than heaven, inspired, he sought a foreign shore.
Did I persuade to trust his second Troy
To the raw conduct of a beardless boy,
With walls unfinished, which himself forsakes,
And through the waves a wandering voyage takes?
When have I urged him meanly to demand
The Tuscan aid, and arm a quiet land?
Did I or Iris give this mad advice?
Or made the fool himself the fatal choice?
You think it hard, the Latians should destroy
With swords your Trojans, and with fires your Troy!
Hard and unjust indeed, for men to draw
Their native air, nor take a foreign law!
That Turnus is permitted still to live,
To whom his birth a god and goddess give!
But yet 'tis just and lawful for your line
To drive their fields, and force with fraud to join;
Realms, not your own, among your clans divide,
And from the bridegroom tear the promised bride;

Petition, while you public arms prepare;
Pretend a peace, and yet provoke a war!
'Twas given to you, your darling son to shroud,
To draw the dastard from the fighting crowd,
And, for a man, obtend an empty cloud.
From flaming fleets you turned the fire away,
And changed the ships to daughters of the sea.
But 'tis my crime—the queen of heaven offends,
If she presume to save her suffering friends!
Your son, not knowing what his foes decree,
You say, is absent: absent let him be.
Yours is Cythera, yours the Cyprian towers,
The soft recesses, and the sacred bowers.
Why do you then these needless arms prepare,
And thus provoke a people prone to war?
Did I with fire the Trojan town deface,
Or hinder from return your exiled race?
Was I the cause of mischief, or the man,
Whose lawless lust the fatal war began?
Think on whose faith the adulterous youth relied;
Who promised, who procured, the Spartan bride?
When all the united states of Greece combined,
To purge the world of the perfidious kind,
Then was your time to fear the Trojan fate:—
Your quarrels and complaints are now too late.”
Thus Juno. Murmurs rise, with mixed applause,
Just as they favour or dislike the cause.
So winds, when yet unfledged in woods they lie,
In whispers first their tender voices try,
Then issue on the main with bellowing rage,
And storms to trembling mariners presage.
Then thus to both replied the imperial god,
Who shakes heaven's axles with his awful nod.
(When he begins, the silent senate stand,
With reverence listening to the dread command:
The clouds dispel; the winds their breath restrain;
And the hushed waves lie flatted on the main.)

“Celestials! your attentive ears incline!
Since (said the god) the Trojans must not join
In wished alliance with the Latian line—
Since endless jarrings and immortal hate,
Tend but to discompose our happy state—
The war henceforward be resigned to fate:
Each to his proper fortune stand or fall;
Equal and unconcerned I look on all.
Rutulians, Trojans, are the same to me;
And both shall draw the lots their fates decree.
Let these assault, if Fortune be their friend;
And, if she favours those, let those defend:—
The Fates will find their way.” The Thunderer said;
And shook the sacred honours of his head,
Attesting Styx, the inviolable flood,
And the black regions of his brother god.
Trembled the poles of heaven, and earth confessed the nod.
This end the sessions had: the senate rise,
And to his palace wait their sovereign through the skies.

Meantime, intent upon their siege, the foes
Within their walls the Trojan host enclosed:
They wound, they kill, they watch at every gate;
Renew the fires, and urge their happy fate.

The Æneans wish in vain their wanted chief,
Hopeless of flight, more hopeless of relief.
Thin on the towers they stand; and even those few,
A feeble, fainting, and dejected crew.
Yet in the face of danger some there stood:
The two bold brothers of Sarpedon's blood,
Asius and Acmon: both the Assaraci;
Young Hæmon, and, though young, resolved to die.
With these were Clarus and Thymœtes joined;
Thymbris and Castor, both of Lycian kind.
From Acmon's hands a rolling stone there came,
So large, it half deserved a mountain's name!

Strong-sinewed was the youth, and big of bone:
His brother Mnestheus could not more have done,
Or the great father of the intrepid son.
Some firebrands throw, some flights of arrows send;
And some with darts, and some with stones, defend.
Amid the press appears the beauteous boy,
The care of Venus, and the hope of Troy.
His lovely face unarmed, his head was bare;
In ringlets o'er his shoulders hung his hair.
His forehead circled with a diadem;
Distinguished from the crowd he shines a gem,
Enchased in gold, or polished ivory set,
Amidst the meaner foil of sable jet.

Nor Ismarus was wanting to the war,
Directing ointed arrows from afar,
And death with poison armed—in Lydia born,
Where plenteous harvests the fat fields adorn;
Where proud Pactolus floats the fruitful lands,
And leaves a rich manure of golden sands.
There Capys, author of the Capuan name,
And there was Mnestheus too, increased in fame,
Since Turnus from the camp he cast with shame.

Thus mortal war was waged on either side.
Meantime the hero cuts the nightly tide:
For, anxious, from Evander when he went,
He sought the Tyrrhene camp, and Tarchon's tent;
Exposed the cause of coming to the chief;
His name and country told, and asked relief;
Proposed the terms; his own small strength declared;
What vengeance proud Mezentius had prepared;
What Turnus, bold and valiant, designed;
Then showed the slippery state of humankind,
And fickle fortune; warned him to beware,
And to his wholesome counsel added prayer.
Tarchon, without delay the treaty signs,
And to the Trojan troops the Tuscan joins,

They soon set sail; nor now the Fates withstand;
Their forces trusted with a foreign hand.
Æneas leads; upon his stern appear
Two lions carved, which rising Ida bear—
Ida, to wandering Trojans ever dear.
Under their grateful shade Æneas sate,
Revolving war's events, and various fate.
His left young Pallas kept, fixed to his side,
And oft of winds inquired, and of the tide;
Oft of the stars, and of their watery way;
And what he suffered both by land and sea.

Now, sacred sisters, open all your spring!
The Tuscan leaders, and their army sing,
Which followed great Æneas to the war:
Their arms, their numbers, and their names, declare.

A thousand youths brave Massicus obey,
Borne in the Tiger through the foaming sea;

From Clusium brought, and Cosa, by his care:
For arms, light quivers, bows and shafts, they bear.
Fierce Abas next: his men bright armour wore:
His stern Apollo's golden statue bore.
Six hundred Populonia sent along,
All skilled in martial exercise, and strong.
Three hundred more for battle Ilva joins,
An isle renowned for steel, and unexhausted mines.
Asylas on his prow the third appears,
Who heaven interprets, and the wandering stars;
From offered entrails, prodigies expounds,
And peals of thunder, with presaging sounds.
A thousand spears in warlike order stand,
Sent by the Pisans under his command.

Fair Astur follows in the watery field,
Proud of his managed horse, and painted shield.
Gravisca, noisome from the neighbouring fen,
And his own Cære, sent three hundred men;
With those which Minio's fields, and Pyrgi gave,
All bred in arms, unanimous, and brave.

Thou, Muse, the name of Cinyras renew,
And brave Cupavo followed but by few;
Whose helm confessed the lineage of the man,
And bore, with wings displayed, a silver swan.
Love was the fault of his famed ancestry,
Whose forms and fortunes in his ensign fly.
For Cycnus loved unhappy Phaëthon,
And sung his loss in polar groves, alone,
Beneath the sister shades, to sooth his grief.
Heaven heard his song, and hastened his relief,
And changed to snowy plumes his hoary hair,
And winged his flight, to chant aloft in air.

His son Cupavo brushed the briny flood;
Upon his stern a brawny Centaur stood,
Who heaved a rock, and, threatening still to throw,
With lifted hands alarmed the seas below:
They seemed to fear the formidable sight,
And rolled their billows on, to speed his flight.

Ocnus was next, who led his native train
Of hardy warriors through the watery plain—
The son of Manto, by the Tuscan stream,
From whence the Mantuan town derives the name—
An ancient city, but of mixed descent:
Three several tribes compose the government;
Four towns are under each; but all obey
The Mantuan laws, and own the Tuscan sway.

Hate to Mezentius armed five hundred more,
Whom Mincius from his sire Benacus bore—
Mincius, with wreaths of reeds his forehead covered o'er.
These grave Aulestes leads: a hundred sweep
With stretching oars at once the glassy deep.
Him, and his martial train, the Triton bears;
High on his poop the sea-green god appears:
Frowning he seems his crooked shell to sound,
And at the blast the billows dance around.
A hairy man above the waist he shows;
A porpoise-tail beneath his belly grows;
And ends a fish: his breast the waves divides,
And froth and foam augment the murmuring tides.

Full thirty ships transport the chosen train,
For Troy's relief, and scour the briny main.

Now was the world forsaken by the sun,
And Phœbe half her nightly race had run.

The careful chief, who never closed his eyes,
Himself the rudder holds, the sails supplies.
A choir of Nereids meet him on the flood,
Once his own galleys, hewn from Ida's wood;
But now, as many nymphs, the sea they sweep,
As rode, before, tall vessels on the deep.
They know him from afar; and in a ring
Enclose the ship that bore the Trojan king.
Cymodoce, whose voice excelled the rest,
Above the waves advanced her snowy breast;
Her right hand stops the stern; her left divides
The curling ocean, and corrects the tides.
She spoke for all the choir; and thus began,
With pleasing words, to warn the unknowing man:—
“Sleeps our loved lord? O goddess-born! awake!
Spread every sail, pursue your watery track,
And haste your course. Your navy once were we,
From Ida's height descending to the sea;
Till Turnus, as at anchor fixed we stood,
Presumed to violate our holy wood.
Then, loosed from shore, we fled his fires profane
(Unwillingly we broke our master's chain),
And since have sought you through the Tuscan main.
The mighty Mother changed her forms to these,
And gave us life immortal in the seas.
But young Ascanius, in his camp distressed,
By your insulting foes is hardly pressed.
The Arcadian horsemen, and Etrurian host,
Advance in order on the Latian coast:

To cut their way the Daunian chief designs,
Before their troops can reach the Trojan lines.
Thou, when the rosy morn restores the light,
First arm thy soldiers for the ensuing fight:
Thyself the fated sword of Vulcan wield,
And bear aloft the impenetrable shield.
To-morrow's sun, unless my skill be vain,
Shall see huge heaps of foes in battle slain.”
Parting, she spoke; and with immortal force
Pushed on the vessel in her watery course;
For well she knew the way. Impelled behind,
The ship flew forward, and outstript the wind.
The rest make up. Unknowing of the cause,
The chief admires their speed, and happy omens draws.

Then thus he prayed, and fixed on heaven his eyes:—
“Hear thou, great Mother of the deities,
With turrets crowned! (on Ida's holy hill,
Fierce tigers, reined, and curbed, obey thy will.)
Firm thy own omens; lead us on to fight;
And let thy Phrygians conquer in thy right.”

He said no more. And now renewing day
Had chased the shadows of the night away.
He charged the soldiers, with preventing care,
Their flags to follow, and their arms prepare;
Warned of the ensuing fight, and bade them hope the war.

Now, from his lofty poop, he viewed below
His camp encompassed, and the enclosing foe.

His blazing shield, embraced, he held on high;
The camp receive the sign, and with loud shouts reply.
Hope arms their courage: from their towers they throw
Their darts with double force, and drive the foe.
Thus, at the signal given, the cranes arise
Before the stormy south, and blacken all the skies.

King Turnus wondered at the fight renewed,
Till, looking back, the Trojan fleet he viewed,
The seas with swelling canvas covered o'er,
And the swift ships descending on the shore.
The Latians saw from far, with dazzled eyes,
The radiant crest that seemed in flames to rise,
And dart diffusive fires around the field,
And the keen glittering of the golden shield.

Thus threatening comets, when by night they rise,
Shoot sanguine streams, and sadden all the skies:
So Sirius, flashing forth sinister lights,
Pale human kind with plagues and with dry famine frights.
Yet Turnus, with undaunted mind is bent
To man the shores, and hinder their descent,
And thus awakes the courage of his friends:—
“What you so long have wished, kind Fortune sends—
In ardent arms to meet the invading foe:
You find, and find him at advantage now.
Yours is the day: you need but only dare;
Your swords will make you masters of the war.
Your sires, your sons, your houses, and your lands,
And dearest wives, are all within your hands.
Be mindful of the race from whence you came,
And emulate in arms your fathers' fame.
Now take the time, while staggering yet they stand
With feet unfirm, and prepossess the strand:
Fortune befriends the bold.” No more he said,
But balanced, whom to leave, and whom to lead;

Then these elects, the landing to prevent;
And those he leaves, to keep the city pent.

Meantime the Trojan sends his troops ashore:
Some are by boats exposed, by bridges more.
With labouring oars they bear along the strand,
Where the tide languishes, and leap a-land.
Tarchon observes the coast with careful eyes,
And, where no ford he finds, no water fries,
Nor billows with unequal murmurs roar,
But smoothly slide along, and swell the shore,
That course he steered, and thus he gave command:
“Here ply your oars, and at all hazard land:
Force on the vessel, that her keel may wound
This hated soil, and furrow hostile ground.
Let me securely land—I ask no more;
Then sink my ships, or shatter on the shore.”

This fiery speech inflames his fearful friends:
They tug at every oar, and every stretcher bends:
They run their ships aground; the vessels knock
(Thus forced ashore), and tremble with the shock.
Tarchon's alone was lost, and stranded stood:
Stuck on a bank, and beaten by the flood,
She breaks her back; the loosened sides give way,
And plunge the Tuscan soldiers in the sea.
Their broken oars and floating planks withstand
Their passage, while they labour to the land,
And ebbing tides bear back upon the uncertain sand.

Nor Turnus leads his troops without delay,
Advancing to the margin of the sea.
The trumpets sound: Æneas first assailed
The clowns new-raised and raw, and soon prevailed.
Great Theron fell, an omen of the fight—
Great Theron, large of limbs, of giant height.

He first in open fields defied the prince:
But armour scaled with gold was no defence
Against the fated sword, which opened wide
His plated shield, and pierced his naked side.

Next Lichas fell, who, not like others born,
Was from his wretched mother ripped and torn;
Sacred, O Phœbus! from his birth to thee;
For his beginning life from biting steel was free.
Not far from him was Gyas laid along,
Of monstrous bulk; with Cisseus fierce and strong:
Vain bulk and strength! for, when the chief assailed,
Nor valour nor Herculean arms availed,
Nor their famed father, wont in war to go
With great Alcides, while he toiled below.
The noisy Pharos next received his death:
Æneas writhed his dart, and stopped his bawling breath.
Then wretched Cydon had received his doom,
Who courted Clytius in his beardless bloom,
And sought with lust obscene polluted joys—
The Trojan sword had cured his love of boys,
Had not his seven bold brethren stopped the course
Of the fierce champion, with united force.
Seven darts were thrown at once; and some rebound
From his bright shield, some on his helmet sound:
The rest had reached him; but his mother's care
Prevented those, and turned aside in air.

The prince then called Achates, to supply
The spears, that knew the way to victory—
“Those fatal weapons, which, inured to blood,
In Grecian bodies under Ilium stood:
Not one of those my hand shall toss in vain
Against our foes, on this contended plain.”
He said; then seized a mighty spear, and threw;
Which, winged with fate, through Mæon's buckler flew,

Pierced all the brazen plates, and reached his heart:
He staggered with intolerable smart.
Alcanor saw; and reached, but reached in vain,
His helping hand, his brother to sustain.
A second spear, which kept the former course,
From the same hand, and sent with equal force,
His right arm pierced, and holding on, bereft
His use of both, and pinioned down his left.
Then Numitor from his dead brother drew
The ill-omen'd spear, and at the Trojan threw:
Preventing fate directs the lance awry,
Which, glancing, only marked Achates' thigh.

In pride of youth the Sabine Clausus came,
And, from afar, at Dryops took his aim.
The spear flew hissing through the middle space,
And pierced his throat, directed at his face;
It stopped at once the passage of his wind,
And the free soul to flitting air resigned:
His forehead was the first that struck the ground;
Life-blood and life rushed mingled through the wound.
He slew three brothers of the Borean race,
And three, whom Ismarus, their native place,
Had sent to war, but all the sons of Thrace.
Halesus, next, the bold Aurunci leads:
The son of Neptune to his aid succeeds,
Conspicuous on his horse. On either hand,
These fight to keep, and those to win, the land.
With mutual blood the Ausonian soil is dyed,
While on its borders each their claim decide.

As wintry winds, contending in the sky,
With equal force of lungs their titles try:
They rage, they roar; the doubtful rack of heaven
Stands without motion, and the tide undriven:
Each bent to conquer, neither side to yield,
They long suspend the fortune of the field.

Both armies thus perform what courage can;
Foot set to foot, and crowded, man to man.

But, in another part, the Arcadian horse
With ill success engage the Latin force:
For, where the impetuous torrent, rushing down,
Huge craggy stones and rooted trees had thrown,
They left their coursers, and, unused to fight
On foot, were scattered in a shameful flight.
Pallas, who, with disdain and grief, had viewed
His foes pursuing, and his friends pursued,
Used threatenings mixed with prayers, his last resource,
With these to move their minds, with those to fire their force.
“Which way, companions? whither would you run?
By you yourselves, and mighty battles won,
By my great sire, by his established name,
And early promise of my future fame;
By my youth, emulous of equal right
To share his honours—shun ignoble flight!
Trust not your feet: your hands must hew your way
Through yon black body, and that thick array:
'Tis through that forward path that we must come;
There lies our way, and that our passage home.
Nor powers above, nor destinies below,
Oppress our arms: with equal strength we go,
With mortal hands to meet a mortal foe.
See on what foot we stand! a scanty shore—
The sea behind, our enemies before;
No passage left, unless we swim the main;
Or, forcing these, the Trojan trenches gain.”
This said, he strode with eager haste along,
And bore amidst the thickest of the throng.
Lagus, the first he met, with fate to foe,
Had heaved a stone of mighty weight, to throw:
Stooping, the spear descended on his chine,
Just where the bone distinguished either loin:

It stuck so fast, so deeply buried lay,
That scarce the victor forced the steel away.

Hisbo came on: but, while he moved too slow
To wished revenge, the prince prevents his blow;
For, warding his at once, at once he pressed,
And plunged the fatal weapon in his breast.
Then lewd Anchemolus he laid in dust,
Who stained his stepdame's bed with impious lust.
And, after him, the Daunian twins were slain,
Laris and Thymbrus, on the Latian plain;
So wondrous like in feature, shape, and size,
As caused an error in their parents' eyes—
Grateful mistake! but soon the sword decides
The nice distinction, and their fate divides:
For Thymbrus' head was lopped; and Laris' hand,
Dismembered, sought its owner on the strand:
The trembling fingers yet the falchion strain,
And threaten still the extended stroke in vain.
Now, to renew the charge, the Arcadians came:
Sight of such acts, and sense of honest shame,
And grief, with anger mixed, their minds inflame.
Then, with a casual blow was Rhœteus slain,
Who chanced, as Pallas threw, to cross the plain:
The flying spear was after Ilus sent;
But Rhœteus happened on a death unmeant:
From Teuthras and from Tyres while he fled,
The lance, athwart his body, laid him dead:
Rolled from his chariot with a mortal wound,
And intercepted fate, he spurned the ground.

As when, in summer, welcome winds arise,
The watchful shepherd to the forest flies,
And fires the midmost plant; contagion spreads,
And catching flames infect the neighbouring heads;
Around the forest flies the furious blast,
And all the leafy nation sinks at last,
And Vulcan rides in triumph o'er the waste;

The pastor, pleased with his dire victory,
Beholds the satiate flames in sheets ascend the sky:—
So Pallas' troops their scattered strength unite,
And, pouring on their foes, their prince delight.

Halesus came, fierce with desire of blood;
But first collected in his arms he stood:
Advancing then, he plied the spear so well,
Ladon, Demodocus, and Pheres fell.
Around his head he tossed his glittering brand,
And from Strymonius hewed his better hand,
Held up to guard his throat; then hurled a stone
At Thoas' ample front, and pierced the bone:
It struck beneath the space of either eye;
And blood, and mingled brains, together fly.
Deep skilled in future fates, Halesus' sire
Did with the youth to lonely groves retire:
But, when the father's mortal race was run,
Dire destiny laid hold upon the son,
And hauled him to the war, to find, beneath
The Evandrian spear, a memorable death.
Pallas the encounter seeks, but, ere he throws,
To Tuscan Tiber thus addressed his vows:—
“O sacred stream! direct my flying dart,
And give to pass the proud Halesus' heart:
His arms and spoils the holy oak shall bear.”
Pleased with the bribe, the god received his prayer:
For, while his shield protects a friend distressed,
The dart came driving on, and pierced his breast.

But Lausus, no small portion of the war,
Permits not panic fear to reign too far,
Caused by the death of so renowned a knight;
But by his own example cheers the fight.
Fierce Abas first he slew—Abas, the stay
Of Trojan hopes, and hinderance of the day.

The Phrygian troops escaped the Greeks in vain:
They, and their mixed allies, now load the plain.

To the rude shock of war both armies came;
Their leaders equal, and their strength the same.
The rear so pressed the front, they could not wield
Their angry weapons, to dispute the field.
Here Pallas urges on, and Lausus there:
Of equal youth and beauty both appear,
But both by fate forbid to breathe their native air.
Their congress in the field great Jove withstands—
Both doomed to fall, but fall by greater hands.

Meantime Juturna warns the Daunian chief
Of Lausus' danger, urging swift relief.
With his driven chariot he divides the crowd,
And, making to his friends, thus calls aloud:—
“Let none presume his needless aid to join;
Retire, and clear the field; the fight is mine:
To this right hand is Pallas only due;
Oh! were his father here, my just revenge to view!”
From the forbidden space his men retired.
Pallas their awe, and his stern words, admired;
Surveyed him o'er and o'er with wondering sight,
Struck with his haughty mien, and towering height.
Then to the king:—“Your empty vaunts forbear;
Success I hope, and fate I cannot fear.
Alive, or dead, I shall deserve a name;
Jove is impartial, and to both the same.”
He said, and to the void advanced his pace:
Pale horror sat on each Arcadian face.
Then Turnus, from his chariot leaping light,
Addressed himself on foot to single fight.
And, as a lion—when he spies from far
A bull that seems to meditate the war,
Bending his neck, and spurning back the sand—
Runs roaring downward from his hilly stand:
Imagine eager Turnus not more slow,
To rush from high on his unequal foe.

Young Pallas, when he saw the chief advance
Within due distance of his flying lance,
Prepares to charge him first—resolved to try
If fortune would his want of force supply;
And thus to heaven and Hercules addressed:—
“Alcides, once on earth Evander's guest!
His son adjures you by those holy rites,
That hospitable board, those genial nights;
Assist my great attempt to gain this prize,
And let proud Turnus view, with dying eyes,
His ravished spoils.” 'Twas heard, the vain request;
Alcides mourned, and stifled sighs within his breast.
Then Jove, to sooth his sorrow, thus began:—
“Short bounds of life are set to mortal man.
'Tis virtue's work alone to stretch the narrow span.
So many sons of gods, in bloody fight
Around the walls of Troy, have lost the light:
My own Sarpedon fell beneath his foe;
Nor I, his mighty sire, could ward the blow.
Even Turnus shortly shall resign his breath
And stands already on the verge of death.”

This said, the god permits the fatal fight,
But from the Latian fields averts his sight.

Now with full force his spear young Pallas threw,
And, having thrown, his shining falchion drew.
The steel just grazed along the shoulder-joint,
And marked it slightly with the glancing point.
Fierce Turnus first to nearer distance drew,
And poised his pointed spear, before he threw:
Then, as the winged weapon whizzed along,
“See now,” said he, “whose arm is better strung.”

The spear kept on the fatal course, unstayed
By plates of iron, which o'er the shield were laid:
Through folded brass, and tough bull-hides, it passed,
His corselet pierced, and reached his heart at last.
In vain the youth tugs at the broken wood;
The soul comes issuing with the vital blood:
He falls; his arms upon his body sound;
And with his bloody teeth he bites the ground.

Turnus bestrode the corpse:—“Arcadians, hear,”
Said he; “my message to your master bear:
Such as the sire deserved, the son I send;
It costs him dear to be the Phrygian's friend.
The lifeless body, tell him, I bestow
Unasked, to rest his wandering ghost below.”
He said, and trampled down, with all the force
Of his left foot, and spurned the wretched corse;
Then snatched the shining belt, with gold inlaid—
The belt Eurytion's artful hands had made,
Where fifty fatal brides, expressed to sight,
All in the compass of one mournful night,
Deprived their bridegrooms of returning light.

In an ill hour insulting Turnus tore
Those golden spoils, and in a worse he wore.
O mortals! blind in fate, who never know
To bear high fortune, or endure the low!
The time shall come, when Turnus, but in vain,
Shall wish untouched the trophies of the slain—
Shall wish the fatal belt were far away,
And curse the dire remembrance of the day.

The sad Arcadians, from the unhappy field,
Bear back the breathless body on a shield.
O grace and grief of war! at once restored,
With praises, to thy sire, at once deplored.

One day first sent thee to the fighting field,
Beheld whole heaps of foes in battle killed;
One day beheld thee dead, and borne upon thy shield.
This dismal news, not from uncertain fame,
But sad spectators, to the hero came:
His friends upon the brink of ruin stand,
Unless relieved by his victorious hand.
He whirls his sword around, without delay,
And hews through adverse foes an ample way,
To find fierce Turnus, of his conquest proud.
Evander, Pallas, all that friendship owed
To large deserts, are present to his eyes—
His plighted hand, and hospitable ties.

Four sons of Sulmo, four whom Ufens bred,
He took in fight, and living victims led,
To please the ghost of Pallas, and expire,
In sacrifice, before his funeral fire.
At Magus next he threw: he stooped below
The flying spear, and shunned the promised blow,
Then, creeping, clasped the hero's knees, and prayed:
“By young Iulus, by thy father's shade,
O! spare my life, and send me back to see
My longing sire, and tender progeny.
A lofty house I have, and wealth untold,
In silver ingots, and in bars of gold:
All these, and sums besides, which see no day,
The ransom of this one poor life shall pay.
If I survive, shall Troy the less prevail?
A single soul's too light to turn the scale.”
He said. The hero sternly thus replied:—
“Thy bars and ingots, and the sums beside,
Leave for thy children's lot. Thy Turnus broke
All rules of war by one relentless stroke,
When Pallas fell: so deems, nor deems alone,
My father's shadow, but my living son.”

Thus having said, of kind remorse bereft,
He seized his helm, and dragged him with his left;
Then with his right hand, while his neck he wreathed,
Up to the hilts his shining falchion sheathed.

Apollo's priest, Hæmonides, was near;
His holy fillets on his front appear;
Glittering in arms, he shone amidst the crowd,
Much of his god, more of his purple, proud.
Him the fierce Trojan followed through the field:
The holy coward fell; and, forced to yield,
The prince stood o'er the priest, and, at one blow,
Sent him an offering to the shades below.
His arms Serestus on his shoulders bears,
Designed a trophy to the god of wars.

Vulcanian Cæculus renews the fight,
And Umbro born upon the mountain's height.
The champion cheers his troops to encounter those,
And seeks revenge himself on other foes.
At Anxur's shield he drove; and, at the blow,
Both shield and arm to ground together go.
Anxur had boasted much of magic charms,
And thought he wore impenetrable arms,
So made by muttered spells; and, from the spheres,
Had life secured, in vain, for length of years.
Then Tarquitus the field in triumph trod;
A nymph his mother, and his sire a god.
Exulting in bright arms, he braves the prince:
With his protended lance he makes defence;
Bears back his feeble foe; then, pressing on,
Arrests his better hand, and drags him down;
Stands o'er the prostrate wretch, and (as he lay,
Vain tales inventing, and prepared to pray)
Mows off his head: the trunk a moment stood,
Then sunk, and rolled along the sand in blood.

The vengeful victor thus upbraids the slain:—
“Lie there, proud man, unpitied on the plain;

Lie there, inglorious, and without a tomb,
Far from thy mother and thy native home,
Exposed to savage beasts, and birds of prey,
Or thrown for food to monsters of the sea.”

On Lucas and Antæus next he ran,
Two chiefs of Turnus, and who led his van.
They fled for fear; with these, he chased along
Camers the yellow-locked, and Numa strong;
Both great in arms, and both were fair and young.
Camers was son to Volscens lately slain,
In wealth surpassing all the Latian train,
And in Amyclæ fixed his silent easy reign.

And, as Ægæon, when with heaven he strove,
Stood opposite in arms to mighty Jove;
Moved all his hundred hands, provoked the war,
Defied the forky lightning from afar;
At fifty mouths his flaming breath expires,
And flash for flash returns, and fires for fires;
In his right hand as many swords he wields,
And takes the thunder on as many shields:
With strength like his, the Trojan hero stood;
And soon the fields with falling corpse were strowed,
When once his falchion found the taste of blood.

With fury scarce to be conceived, he flew
Against Niphæus, whom four coursers drew.
They, when they see the fiery chief advance,
And pushing at their chests his pointed lance,
Wheeled with so swift a motion, mad with fear,
They threw their master headlong from the chair.
They stare, they start, nor stop their course, before
They bear the bounding chariot to the shore.

Now Lucagus and Liger scour the plains,
With two white steeds; but Liger holds the reins,
And Lucagus the lofty seat maintains—
Bold brethren both. The former waved in air
His flaming sword: Æneas couched his spear,
Unused to threats, and more unused to fear.

Then Liger thus:—“Thy confidence is vain
To 'scape from hence, as from the Trojan plain:
Nor these the steeds which Diomede bestrode,
Nor this the chariot where Achilles rode;
Nor Venus' veil is here, nor Neptune's shield;
Thy fatal hour is come, and this the field.”
Thus Liger vainly vaunts: the Trojan peer
Returned his answer with his flying spear.
As Lucagus, to lash his horses, bends,
Prone to the wheels, and his left foot protends,
Prepared for fight—the fatal dart arrives,
And through the border of his buckler drives;
Passed through, and pierced his groin. The deadly wound,
Cast from his chariot, rolled him on the ground:
Whom thus the chief upbraids with scornful spite:—
“Blame not the slowness of your steeds in flight;
Vain shadows did not force their swift retreat;
But you yourself forsake your empty seat.”
He said, and seized at once the loosened rein;
For Liger lay already on the plain
By the same shock; then, stretching out his hands,
The recreant thus his wretched life demands:—
“Now, by thyself, O more than mortal man!
By her and him from whom thy breath began,
Who formed thee thus divine, I beg thee, spare
This forfeit life, and hear thy suppliant's prayer.”
Thus much he spoke, and more he would have said;
But the stern hero turned aside his head,
And cut him short:—“I hear another man;
You talked not thus before the fight began.
Now take your turn; and, as a brother should,
Attend your brother to the Stygian flood.”
Then through his breast his fatal sword he sent,
And the soul issued at the bloody vent.
As storms the skies, and torrents tear the ground,
Thus raged the prince, and scattered deaths around.

At length Ascanius, and the Trojan train,
Broke from the camp, so long besieged in vain.
Meantime the king of gods and mortal man
Held conference with his queen, and thus began:—
“My sister goddess, and well-pleasing wife,
Still think you Venus' aid supports the strife—
Sustains her Trojans—or themselves, alone,
With inborn valour force their fortune on?
How fierce in fight, with courage undecayed!
Judge if such warriors want immortal aid.”
To whom the goddess with the charming eyes,
Soft in her tone, submissively replies:—
“Why, O my sovereign lord, whose frown I fear,
And cannot, unconcerned, your anger bear—
Why urge you thus my grief? when, if I still
(As once I was) were mistress of your will,
From your almighty power your pleasing wife
Might gain the grace of lengthening Turnus' life,
Securely snatch him from the fatal fight,
And give him to his aged father's sight.
Now let him perish, since you hold it good,
And glut the Trojans with his pious blood.
Yet from our lineage he derives his name,
And, in the fourth degree, from god Pilumnus came!
Yet he devoutly pays you rites divine,
And offers daily incense at your shrine.”

Then shortly thus the sovereign god replied:—
“Since in my power and goodness you confide,
If, for a little space, a lengthened span,
You beg reprieve for this expiring man,
I grant you leave to take your Turnus hence
From instant fate, and can so far dispense.
But, if some secret meaning lies beneath,
To save the short-lived youth from destined death,
Or, if a further thought you entertain,
To change the fates; you feed your hopes in vain.”

To whom the goddess thus, with weeping eyes:—
“And what if that request, your tongue denies,
Your heart should grant—and not a short reprieve,
But length of certain life, to Turnus give?
Now speedy death attends the guiltless youth,
If my presaging soul divines with truth;
Which, O! I wish, might err through causeless fears,
And you (for you have power) prolong his years!”

Thus having said, involved in clouds, she flies,
And drives a storm before her through the skies.
Swift she descends, alighting on the plain,
Where the fierce foes a dubious fight maintain.
Of air condensed, a spectre soon she made;
And, what Æneas was, such seemed the shade.
Adorned with Dardan arms, the phantom bore
His head aloft; a plumy crest he wore:
This hand appeared a shining sword to wield,
And that sustained an imitated shield.
With manly mien he stalked along the ground,
Nor wanted voice belied, nor vaunting sound.
(Thus haunting ghosts appear to waking sight,
Or dreadful visions in our dreams by night.)
The spectre seems the Daunian chief to dare,
And flourishes his empty sword in air.
At this, advancing, Turnus hurled his spear:
The phantom wheeled, and seemed to fly for fear.
Deluded Turnus thought the Trojan fled,
And with vain hopes his haughty fancy fed.
“Whither, O coward?” (thus he calls aloud,
Nor found he spoke to wind, and chased a cloud),
“Why thus forsake your bride! Receive from me
The fated land you sought so long by sea.”
He said, and, brandishing at once his blade,
With eager pace pursued the flying shade.
By chance a ship was fastened to the shore,
Which from old Clusium King Osinius bore:

The plank was ready laid for safe ascent;
For shelter there the trembling shadow bent,
And skipped and skulked, and under hatches went.
Exulting Turnus, with regardless haste,
Ascends the plank, and to the galley passed.
Scarce had he reached the prow; Saturnia's hand
The hawsers cuts, and shoots the ship from land.
With wind in poop, the vessel ploughs the sea,
And measures back with speed her former way.
Meantime Æneas seeks his absent foe,
And sends his slaughtered troops to shades below.

The guileful phantom now forsook the shroud,
And flew sublime, and vanished in a cloud.
Too late young Turnus the delusion found,
Far on the sea, still making from the ground.
Then, thankless for a life redeemed by shame,
With sense of honour stung, and forfeit fame,
Fearful besides of what in fight had passed,
His hands and haggard eyes to heaven he cast:—
“O Jove!” he cried—“for what offence have I
Deserved to bear this endless infamy?
Whence am I forced, and whither am I borne?
How, and with what reproach, shall I return?
Shall ever I behold the Latian plain,
Or see Laurentum's lofty towers again?
What will they say of their deserting chief?
The war was mine: I fly from their relief!
I led to slaughter, and in slaughter leave;
And even from hence their dying groans receive.
Here, overmatched in fight, in heaps they lie,
There, scattered o'er the fields, ignobly fly.
Gape wide, O earth, and draw me down alive!
Or, oh! ye pitying winds, a wretch relieve!
On sands or shelves the splitting vessel drive;
Or set me shipwrecked on some desert shore,
Where no Rutulian eyes may see me more—

Unknown to friends, or foes, or conscious fame,
Lest she should follow, and my flight proclaim.”

Thus Turnus raved, and various fates revolved:
The choice was doubtful, but the death resolved.
And now the sword, and now the sea, took place—
That to revenge, and this to purge disgrace.
Sometimes he thought to swim the stormy main,
By stretch of arms the distant shore to gain.
Thrice he the sword essayed, and thrice the flood;
But Juno, moved with pity, both withstood,
And thrice repressed his rage; strong gales supplied,
And pushed the vessel o'er the swelling tide.
At length she lands him on his native shores,
And to his father's longing arms restores.

Meantime, by Jove's impulse, Mezentius armed,
Succeeding Turnus, with his ardour warmed
His fainting friends, reproached their shameful flight,
Repelled the victors, and renewed the fight.
Against their king the Tuscan troops conspire;
Such is their hate, and such their fierce desire
Of wished revenge—on him, and him alone,
All hands employed, and all their darts are thrown.
He, like a solid rock by seas enclosed,
To raging winds and roaring waves opposed,
From his proud summit looking down, disdains
Their empty menace, and unmoved remains.

Beneath his feet fell haughty Hebrus dead,
Then Latagus, and Palmus as he fled.
At Latagus a weighty stone he flung:
His face was flatted, and his helmet rung.
But Palmus from behind receives his wound:
Hamstringed he falls, and grovels on the ground:
His crest and armour, from his body torn,
Thy shoulders, Lausus, and thy head, adorn.
Evas and Mimas, both of Troy, he slew.
Mimas his birth from fair Theano drew—

Born on that fatal night, when, big with fire,
The queen produced young Paris to his sire.
But Paris in the Phrygian fields was slain,
Unthinking Mimas on the Latian plain.

And, as a savage boar, on mountains bred,
With forest mast and fattening marshes fed,
When once he sees himself in toils enclosed,
By huntsmen and their eager hounds opposed,
He whets his tusks, and turns, and dares the war,
The invaders dart their javelins from afar:
All keep aloof, and safely shout around;
But none presumes to give a nearer wound:
He frets and froths, erects his bristled hide,
And shakes a grove of lances from his side:
Not otherwise the troops, with hate inspired,
And just revenge against the tyrant fired,
Their darts with clamour at a distance drive,
And only keep the languished war alive.

From Corythus came Acron to the fight,
Who left his spouse betrothed, and unconsummate night.
Mezentius sees him through the squadron ride,
Proud of the purple favours of his bride.
Then, as a hungry lion, who beholds
A gamesome goat, who frisks about the folds,
Or beamy stag, that grazes on the plain—
He runs, he roars, he shakes his rising mane;
He grins, and opens wide his greedy jaws:
The prey lies panting underneath his paws:
He fills his famished maw; his mouth runs o'er
With unchewed morsels, while he churns the gore:
So proud Mezentius rushes on his foes,
And first unhappy Acron overthrows:
Stretched at his length, he spurns the swarthy ground;
The lance, besmeared with blood, lies broken in the wound.

Then with disdain the haughty victor viewed
Orodes flying, nor the wretch pursued,
Nor thought the dastard's back deserved a wound,
But, running, gained the advantage of the ground:
Then turning short, he met him face to face,
To give his victory the better grace.
Orodes falls, in equal fight oppressed:
Mezentius fixed his foot upon his breast,
And rested lance; and thus aloud he cries:—
“Lo! here the champion of my rebels lies!”
The fields around with “Iö Pæan!” ring;
And peals of shouts applaud the conquering king.
At this the vanquished, with his dying breath,
Thus faintly spoke, and prophesied in death:—
“Nor thou, proud man, unpunished shalt remain.
Like death attends thee on this fatal plain.”
Then, sourly smiling, thus the king replied:—
“For what belongs to me, let Jove provide;
But die thou first, whatever chance ensue.”
He said, and from the wound the weapon drew.
A hovering mist came swimming o'er his sight,
And sealed his eyes in everlasting night.

By Cædicus, Alcathöus was slain;
Sacrator laid Hydaspes on the plain;
Orses the strong to greater strength must yield;
He, with Parthenius, were by Rapo killed.
Then brave Messapus Ericetes slew,
Who from Lycaon's blood his lineage drew.
But from his headstrong horse his fate he found,
Who threw his master, as he made a bound:
The chief, alighting, struck him to the ground;
Then Clonius, hand to hand, on foot assails:
The Trojan sinks, and Neptune's son prevails.

Agis the Lycian, stepping forth with pride,
To single fight the boldest foe defied;
Whom Tuscan Valerus by force o'ercame,
And not belied his mighty father's fame.

Salius to death the great Authronius sent:
But the same fate the victor underwent,
Slain by Nealces' hand, well skilled to throw
The flying dart, and draw the far-deceiving bow.

Thus equal deaths are dealt with equal chance:
By turns they quit their ground, by turns advance,
Victors and vanquished in the various field,
Nor wholly overcome, nor wholly yield.
The gods from heaven survey the fatal strife,
And mourn the miseries of human life.
Above the rest, two goddesses appear
Concerned for each: here Venus, Juno there.
Amidst the crowd, infernal Ate shakes
Her scourge aloft, and crest of hissing snakes.

Once more the proud Mezentius, with disdain,
Brandished his spear, and rushed into the plain,
Where towering in the midmost ranks he stood,
Like tall Orion stalking o'er the flood
(When with his brawny breast he cuts the waves,
His shoulders scarce the topmost billow laves),
Or like a mountain-ash, whose roots are spread,
Deep fixed in earth—in clouds he hides his head.

The Trojan prince beheld him from afar,
And dauntless undertook the doubtful war.
Collected in his strength, and like a rock
Poised on his base, Mezentius stood the shock,
He stood, and, measuring first with careful eyes
The space his spear could reach, aloud he cries:—
“My strong right hand, and sword, assist my stroke!
(Those only gods Mezentius will invoke.)
His armour, from the Trojan pirate torn,
By my triumphant Lausus shall be worn.”
He said; and with his utmost force he threw
The massy spear, which, hissing as it flew,
Reached the celestial shield: that stopped the course;
But, glancing thence, the yet unbroken force

Took a new bent obliquely, and, betwixt
The side and bowels, famed Antores fixed.
Antores had from Argos travelled far,
Alcides' friend, and brother of the war;
Till, tired with toils, fair Italy he chose,
And in Evander's palace sought repose.
Now falling by another's wound, his eyes
He casts to heaven, on Argos thinks, and dies.

The pious Trojan then his javelin sent;
The shield gave way; through treble plates it went
Of solid brass, of linen trebly rolled,
And three bull-hides which round the buckler rolled.
All these it passed, resistless in the course,
Transpierced his thigh, and spent its dying force.
The gaping wound gushed out a crimson flood.
The Trojan, glad with sight of hostile blood,
His falchion drew, to closer fight addressed,
And with new force his fainting foe oppressed.

His father's peril Lausus viewed with grief;
He sighed, he wept, he ran to his relief.
And here, heroic youth, 'tis here I must
To thy immortal memory be just,
And sing an act so noble and so new,
Posterity will scarce believe 'tis true.
Pained with his wound, and useless for the fight,
The father sought to save himself by flight:
Encumbered, slow he dragged the spear along,
Which pierced his thigh, and in his buckler hung.
The pious youth, resolved on death, below
The lifted sword, springs forth to face the foe;
Protects his parent, and prevents the blow.
Shouts of applause ran ringing through the field,
To see the son the vanquished father shield.
All, fired with generous indignation, strive,
And with a storm of darts, to distance drive
The Trojan chief, who, held at bay from far,
On his Vulcanian orb sustained the war.

As, when thick hail comes rattling in the wind,
The ploughman, passenger, and labouring hind,
For shelter to the neighbouring covert fly,
Or, housed, or safe in hollow caverns, lie;
But, that o'erblown, when heaven above them smiles,
Return to travail, and renew their toils:
Æneas thus, o'erwhelmed on every side,
The storm of darts, undaunted, did abide;
And thus to Lausus loud with friendly threatening cried:—
“Why wilt thou rush to certain death, and rage
In rash attempts, beyond thy tender age,
Betrayed by pious love?”—Nor, thus forborne,
The youth desists, but with insulting scorn
Provokes the lingering prince, whose patience, tired,
Gave place; and all his breast with fury fired.
For now the Fates prepared their cruel shears;
And lifted high the flaming sword appears,
Which, full descending with a frightful sway,
Through shield and corselet forced the impetuous way,
And buried deep in his fair bosom lay.
The purple streams through the thin armour strove,
And drenched the embroidered coat his mother wove;
And life at length forsook his heaving heart,
Loth from so sweet a mansion to depart.

But when, with blood and paleness all o'erspread,
The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead,
He grieved; he wept (the sight an image brought
Of his own filial love, a sadly pleasing thought),
Then stretched his hand to hold him up, and said:—
“Poor hapless youth! what praises can be paid
To love so great, to such transcendent store
Of earthly worth, and sure presage of more?
Accept whate'er Æneas can afford;
Untouched thy arms, untaken be thy sword;

100

And all that pleased the living, still remain
Inviolate, and sacred to the slain.
Thy body on thy parents I bestow,
To rest thy soul, at least, if shadows know,
Or have a sense of human things below.
There to thy fellow-ghosts with glory tell,
'Twas by the great Æneas' hand I fell.”
With this, his distant friends he beckons near,
Provokes their duty, and prevents their fear:
Himself assists to lift him from the ground,
With clotted locks, and blood that welled from out the wound.

Meantime, his father, now no father, stood,
And washed his wounds, by Tiber's yellow flood:
Oppressed with anguish, panting, and o'erspent,
His fainting limbs against an oak he leant.
A bough his brazen helmet did sustain;
His heavier arms lay scattered on the plain:
A chosen train of youth around him stand;
His drooping head was rested on his hand:
His grisly beard his pensive bosom sought;
And all on Lausus ran his restless thought.
Careful, concerned his danger to prevent,
He much inquired, and many a message sent
To warn him from the field—alas! in vain!
Behold, his mournful followers bear him slain!
O'er his broad shield still gushed the yawning wound,
And drew a bloody trail along the ground.
Far off he heard their cries, far off divined
The dire event with a foreboding mind.
With dust he sprinkled first his hoary head;
Then both his lifted hands to heaven he spread;
Last, the dear corpse embracing, thus he said:—
“What joys, alas! could this frail being give,
That I have been so covetous to live?
To see my son, and such a son, resign
His life, a ransom for preserving mine?

101

And am I then preserved, and art thou lost?
How much too dear has that redemption cost!
'Tis now my bitter banishment I feel:
This is a wound too deep for time to heal.
My guilt thy growing virtues did defame;
My blackness blotted thy unblemished name.
Chased from a throne, abandoned, and exiled
For foul misdeeds, were punishments too mild:
I owed my people these, and, from their hate,
With less resentment could have borne my fate.
And yet I live, and yet sustain the sight
Of hated men, and of more hated light—
But will not long.” With that he raised from ground
His fainting limbs, that staggered with his wound;
Yet, with a mind resolved, and unappalled
With pains or perils, for his courser called—
Well-mouthed, well-managed, whom himself did dress
With daily care, and mounted with success—
His aid in arms, his ornament in peace.

Soothing his courage with a gentle stroke,
The steed seemed sensible, while thus he spoke:—
“O Rhœbus! we have lived too long for me—
If life and long were terms that could agree.
This day thou either shalt bring back the head
And bloody trophies of the Trojan dead—
This day thou either shalt revenge my woe,
For murdered Lausus, on his cruel foe;
Or, if inexorable Fate deny
Our conquest, with thy conquered master die:
For, after such a lord, I rest secure,
Thou wilt no foreign reins, or Trojan load, endure.”

102

He said; and straight the officious courser kneels,
To take his wonted weight. His hands he fills
With pointed javelins; on his head he laced
His glittering helm, which terribly was graced
With waving horse-hair, nodding from afar;
Then spurred his thundering steed amidst the war.
Love, anguish, wrath, and grief, to madness wrought,
Despair, and secret shame, and conscious thought
Of inborn worth, his labouring soul oppressed,
Rolled in his eyes, and raged within his breast.
Then loud he called Æneas thrice by name:
The loud repeated voice to glad Æneas came.
“Great Jove,” he said, “and the far-shooting god,
Inspire thy mind to make thy challenge good!”
He spoke no more, but hastened, void of fear,
And threatened with his long protended spear.

To whom Mezentius thus:—“Thy vaunts are vain.
My Lausus lies extended on the plain:
He's lost! thy conquest is already won;
The wretched sire is murdered in the son.
Nor fate I fear, but all the gods defy.
Forbear thy threats: my business is to die;
But first receive this parting legacy.”
He said; and straight a whirling dart he sent;
Another after, and another, went.
Round in a spacious ring he rides the field,
And vainly plies the impenetrable shield.
Thrice rode he round; and thrice Æneas wheeled,
Turned as he turned: the golden orb withstood
The strokes, and bore about an iron wood.
Impatient of delay, and weary grown,
Still to defend, and to defend alone,
To wrench the darts which in his buckler light,
Urged, and o'er-laboured in unequal fight—
At length resolved, he throws, with all his force,
Full at the temples of the warrior horse.

103

Just where the stroke was aimed, the unerring spear
Made way, and stood transfixed through either ear.
Seized with unwonted pain, surprised with fright,
The wounded steed curvets, and, raised upright,
Lights on his feet before; his hoofs behind
Spring up in air aloft, and lash the wind.
Down comes the rider headlong from his height:
His horse came after with unwieldy weight,
And, floundering forward, pitching on his head,
His lord's encumbered shoulder overlaid.

From either host, the mingled shouts and cries
Of Trojans and Rutulians rend the skies:
Æneas, hastening, waved his fatal sword
High o'er his head, with this reproachful word:—
“Now! where are now thy vaunts, the fierce disdain
Of proud Mezentius, and the lofty strain?”

Struggling, and wildly staring on the skies
With scarce recovered sight he thus replies:—
“Why these insulting words, this waste of breath,
To souls undaunted, and secure of death?
'Tis no dishonour for the brave to die:
Nor came I here with hope of victory;
Nor ask I life, nor fought with that design.
As I had used my fortune, use thou thine.
My dying son contracted no such band;
The gift is hateful from his murderer's hand.
For this, this only favour let me sue,
If pity can to conquered foes be due,
Refuse it not; but let my body have
The last retreat of human kind, a grave.
Too well I know the insulting people's hate;
Protect me from their vengeance after fate:

104

This refuge for my poor remains provide,
And lay my much-loved Lausus by my side.”
He said, and to the sword his throat applied.
The crimson stream distained his arms around,
And the disdainful soul came rushing through the wound.

The poet here begins to tell the names of the Tuscan captains who followed Æneas to the war: and I observe him to be very particular in the description of their persons, and not forgetful of their manners; exact also in the relation of the numbers which each of them command. I doubt not but as, in the Fifth Book, he gave us the names of the champions who contended for the several prizes, that he might oblige many of the most ancient Roman families, their descendants,—and as, in the Seventh Book, he mustered the auxiliary forces of the Latins on the same account,—so here he gratifies his Tuscan friends with the like remembrance of their ancestors, and, above the rest, Mæcenas, his great patron, who, being of a royal family in Etruria, was probably represented under one of the names here mentioned, then known among the Romans, though, at so great a distance, unknown to us. And, for his sake chiefly, as I guess, he makes Æneas (by whom he always means Augustus) to seek for aid in the country of Mæcenas, thereby to endear his protector to his emperor, as if there had been a former friendship betwixt their lines. And who knows, but Mæcenas might pretend that the Cilnian family was derived from Tarchon, the chief commander of the Tuscans?

These were transformed from ships to sea-nymphs. This is almost as violent a machine as the death of Arruns by a goddess in the episode of Camilla. But the poet makes use of it with greater art; for here it carries on the main design. These new-made divinities not only tell Æneas what had passed in his camp during his absence, and what was the present distress of his besieged people, and that his horsemen, whom he had sent by land, were ready to join him at his descent; but warn him to provide for battle the next day, and foretell him good success: so that this episodical machine is properly a part of the great poem; for, besides what I have said, they push on his navy with celestial vigour, that it might reach the port more speedily, and take the enemy more unprovided to resist the landing; whereas the machine relating to Camilla is only ornamental; for it has no effect, which I can find, but to please the reader, who is concerned that her death should be revenged.

I have mentioned this passage in my preface to the Æneïs, to prove that fate was superior to the gods, and that Jove could neither defer nor alter its decrees. Sir Robert Howard has since been pleased to send me the concurrent testimony of Ovid: it is in the last book of his Metamorphoses, where Venus complains that her descendant, Julius Cæsar, was in danger of being murdered by Brutus and Cassius, at the head of the commonwealth faction, and desires [the gods] to prevent that barbarous assassination. They are moved to compassion; they are concerned for Cæsar; but the poet plainly tells us that it was not in their power to change destiny. All they could do was to testify their sorrow for his approaching death by foreshowing it by signs and prodigies, as appears by the following lines:—

Talia necquidquam toto Venus anxia cælo
Verba jacit; superosque movet: qui rumpere quanquam
Ferrea non possunt veterum decreta sororum,
Signa tamen luctûs dant haud incerta futuri.

Then she addresses to her father, Jupiter, hoping aid from him, because he was thought omnipotent. But he, it seems, could do as little as the rest; for he answers thus:—

— sola insuperabile Fatum,
Nata, movere paras? Intres licet ipsa sororum
Tecta trium; cernes illic, molimine vasto,
Ex ære et solido rerum tabularia ferro,
Quæ neque concursum cæli, neque fulminis iram,
Nec metuunt ullas, tuta atque æterna, ruinas.
Invenies illic, incisa adamante perenni,
Fata tui generis. Legi ipse, animoque notavi;
Et referam, ne sis etiamnum ignara futuri.
Hic sua complevit (pro quo, Cytherea, laboras)
Tempora, perfectis, quos terræ debuit, annis, etc.

Jupiter, you see, is only library keeper, or custos rotulorum, to the Fates: for he offers his daughter a cast of his office, to give her a sight of their decrees, which the inferior gods were not permitted to read without his leave. This agrees with what I have said already in the preface; that they, not having seen the records, might believe they were his own handwriting, and consequently at his disposing, either to blot out or alter, as he saw convenient. And of this opinion was Juno in those words, tua, qui potes, orsa reflectas. Now the abode of those Destinies being in hell, we cannot wonder why the swearing by Styx was an inviolable oath amongst the gods of heaven, and that Jupiter himself should fear to be accused of forgery by the Fates, if he altered anything in their decrees; Chaos, Night, and Erebus being the most ancient of the deities, and instituting those fundamental laws by which he was afterwards to govern. Hesiod gives us the genealogy of the gods; and I think I may safely infer the rest. I will only add, that Homer was more a fatalist than Virgil; for it has been observed that the word Τυχη, or Fortune, is not be to found in his two poems; but, instead of it, always Μοιρα.