Aeneid

Virgil

Vergil. The Aeneid of Virgil. Williams, Theodore, C, translator. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910.

But now his destined way he must be gone;
Now the last regions round the travellers lie,
Where famous warriors in the darkness dwell:
Here Tydeus comes in view, with far-renowned
Parthenopaeus and Adrastus pale;
Here mourned in upper air with many a moan,
In battle fallen, the Dardanidae,
Whose long defile Aeneas groans to see:
Glaucus and Medon and Thersilochus,
Antenor's children three, and Ceres' priest,
That Polypoetes, and Idaeus still.
Keeping the kingly chariot and spear.
Around him left and right the crowding shades
Not only once would see, but clutch and cling
Obstructive, asking on what quest he goes.
Soon as the princes of Argolic blood,
With line on line of Agamemnon's men,
Beheld the hero and his glittering arms
Flash through the dark, they trembled with amaze,
Or turned in flight, as if once more they fled
To shelter of the ships; some raised aloft
A feeble shout, or vainly opened wide
Their gaping lips in mockery of sound.

Here Priam's son, with body rent and torn,
is seen,—his mangled face,
His face and bloody hands, his wounded head
Of ears and nostrils infamously shorn.
Scarce could Aeneas know the shuddering shade
That strove to hide its face and shameful scar;
But, speaking first, he said, in their own tongue:
“Deiphobus, strong warrior, nobly born
Of Teucer's royal stem, what ruthless foe
Could wish to wreak on thee this dire revenge?
Who ventured, unopposed, so vast a wrong?
The rumor reached me how, that deadly night,
Wearied with slaying Greeks, thyself didst fall
Prone on a mingled heap of friends and foes.
Then my own hands did for thy honor build
An empty tomb upon the Trojan shore,
And thrice with echoing voice I called thy shade.
Thy name and arms are there. But, 0 my friend,
Thee could I nowhere find, but launched away,
Nor o'er thy bones their native earth could fling.”
To him the son of Priam thus replied:
“Nay, friend, no hallowed rite was left undone,
But every debt to death and pity due
The shades of thy Deiphobus received.
My fate it was, and Helen's murderous wrong,
Wrought me this woe; of her these tokens tell.
For how that last night in false hope we passed,
Thou knowest,—ah, too well we both recall!
When up the steep of Troy the fateful horse
Came climbing, pregnant with fierce men-at-arms,
't was she, accurst, who led the Phrygian dames
In choric dance and false bacchantic song,
And, waving from the midst a lofty brand,
Signalled the Greeks from Ilium's central tower
In that same hour on my sad couch I lay,
Exhausted by long care and sunk in sleep,
That sweet, deep sleep, so close to tranquil death.
But my illustrious bride from all the house
Had stolen all arms; from 'neath my pillowed head
She stealthily bore off my trusty sword;
Then loud on Menelaus did she call,
And with her own false hand unbarred the door;
Such gift to her fond lord she fain would send
To blot the memory of his ancient wrong!
Why tell the tale, how on my couch they broke,
While their accomplice, vile Aeolides,
Counselled to many a crime. 0 heavenly Powers!
Reward these Greeks their deeds of wickedness,
If with clean lips upon your wrath I call!
But, friend, what fortunes have thy life befallen?
Tell point by point. Did waves of wandering seas
Drive thee this way, or some divine command?
What chastisement of fortune thrusts thee on
Toward this forlorn abode of night and cloud?”

While thus they talked, the crimsoned car of Morn
Had wheeled beyond the midmost point of heaven,
On her ethereal road. The princely pair
Had wasted thus the whole brief gift of hours;
But Sibyl spoke the warning: “Night speeds by,
And we, Aeneas, lose it in lamenting.
Here comes the place where cleaves our way in twain.
Thy road, the right, toward Pluto's dwelling goes,
And leads us to Elysium. But the left
Speeds sinful souls to doom, and is their path
To Tartarus th' accurst.”
Cried out: “0 priestess, be not wroth with us!
Back to the ranks with yonder ghosts I go.
0 glory of my race, pass on! Thy lot
Be happier than mine!” He spoke, and fled.

Aeneas straightway by the leftward cliff
Beheld a spreading rampart, high begirt
With triple wall, and circling round it ran
A raging river of swift floods of flame,
Infernal Phlegethon, which whirls along
Loud-thundering rocks. A mighty gate is there
Columned in adamant; no human power,
Nor even the gods, against this gate prevail.
Tall tower of steel it has; and seated there
Tisiphone, in blood-flecked pall arrayed,
Sleepless forever, guards the entering way.
Hence groans are heard, fierce cracks of lash and scourge,
Loud-clanking iron links and trailing chains.
Aeneas motionless with horror stood
o'erwhelmed at such uproar. “0 virgin, say
What shapes of guilt are these? What penal woe
Harries them thus? What wailing smites the air?”
To whom the Sibyl, “Far-famed prince of Troy,
The feet of innocence may never pass
Into this house of sin. But Hecate,
When o'er th' Avernian groves she gave me power,
Taught me what penalties the gods decree,
And showed me all. There Cretan Rhadamanth
His kingdom keeps, and from unpitying throne
Chastises and lays bare the secret sins
Of mortals who, exulting in vain guile,
Elude till death, their expiation due.
There, armed forever with her vengeful scourge,
Tisiphone, with menace and affront,
The guilty swarm pursues; in her left hand
She lifts her angered serpents, while she calls
A troop of sister-furies fierce as she.
Then, grating loud on hinge of sickening sound,
Hell's portals open wide. 0, dost thou see
What sentinel upon that threshold sits,
What shapes of fear keep guard upon that gloom?

Far, far within the dragon Hydra broods
With half a hundred mouths, gaping and black;
And Tartarus slopes downward to the dark
Twice the whole space that in the realms of light
Th' Olympian heaven above our earth aspires. —
Here Earth's first offspring, the Titanic brood,
Roll lightning-blasted in the gulf profound;
The twin , colossal shades,
Came on my view; their hands made stroke at Heaven
And strove to thrust Jove from his seat on high.
I saw Salmoneus his dread stripes endure,
Who dared to counterfeit Olympian thunder
And Jove's own fire. In chariot of four steeds,
Brandishing torches, he triumphant rode
Through throngs of Greeks, o'er Elis' sacred way,
Demanding worship as a god. 0 fool!
To mock the storm's inimitable flash—
With crash of hoofs and roll of brazen wheel!
But mightiest Jove from rampart of thick cloud
Hurled his own shaft, no flickering, mortal flame,
And in vast whirl of tempest laid him low.
Next unto these, on Tityos I looked,
Child of old Earth, whose womb all creatures bears:
Stretched o'er nine roods he lies; a vulture huge
Tears with hooked beak at his immortal side,
Or deep in entrails ever rife with pain
Gropes for a feast, making his haunt and home
In the great Titan bosom; nor will give
To ever new-born flesh surcease of woe.
Why name Ixion and Pirithous,
The Lapithae, above whose impious brows
A crag of flint hangs quaking to its fall,
As if just toppling down, while couches proud,
Propped upon golden pillars, bid them feast
In royal glory: but beside them lies
The eldest of the Furies, whose dread hands
Thrust from the feast away, and wave aloft
A flashing firebrand, with shrieks of woe.
Here in a prison-house awaiting doom
Are men who hated, long as life endured,
Their brothers, or maltreated their gray sires,
Or tricked a humble friend; the men who grasped
At hoarded riches, with their kith and kin
Not sharing ever—an unnumbered throng;
Here slain adulterers be; and men who dared
To fight in unjust cause, and break all faith
With their own lawful lords. Seek not to know
What forms of woe they feel, what fateful shape
Of retribution hath o'erwhelmed them there.
Some roll huge boulders up; some hang on wheels,
Lashed to the whirling spokes; in his sad seat
Theseus is sitting, nevermore to rise;
Unhappy Phlegyas uplifts his voice
In warning through the darkness, calling loud,
‘0, ere too late, learn justice and fear God!’
Yon traitor sold his country, and for gold
Enchained her to a tyrant, trafficking
In laws, for bribes enacted or made void;
Another did incestuously take
His daughter for a wife in lawless bonds.
All ventured some unclean, prodigious crime;
And what they dared, achieved. I could not tell,
Not with a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues,
Or iron voice, their divers shapes of sin,
Nor call by name the myriad pangs they bear.”

So spake Apollo's aged prophetess.
“Now up and on!” she cried. “Thy task fulfil!
We must make speed. Behold yon arching doors
Yon walls in furnace of the Cyclops forged!
'T is there we are commanded to lay down
Th' appointed offering.” So, side by side,
Swift through the intervening dark they strode,
And, drawing near the portal-arch, made pause.
Aeneas, taking station at the door,
Pure, lustral waters o'er his body threw,
And hung for garland there the Golden Bough.

Now, every rite fulfilled, and tribute due
Paid to the sovereign power of Proserpine,
At last within a land delectable
Their journey lay, through pleasurable bowers
Of groves where all is joy,—a blest abode!
An ampler sky its roseate light bestows
On that bright land, which sees the cloudless beam
Of suns and planets to our earth unknown.
On smooth green lawns, contending limb with limb,
Immortal athletes play, and wrestle long
'gainst mate or rival on the tawny sand;
With sounding footsteps and ecstatic song,
Some thread the dance divine: among them moves
The bard of Thrace, in flowing vesture clad,
Discoursing seven-noted melody,
Who sweeps the numbered strings with changeful hand,
Or smites with ivory point his golden lyre.
Here Trojans be of eldest, noblest race,
Great-hearted heroes, born in happier times,
Ilus, Assaracus, and Dardanus,
Illustrious builders of the Trojan town.
Their arms and shadowy chariots he views,
And lances fixed in earth, while through the fields
Their steeds without a bridle graze at will.
For if in life their darling passion ran
To chariots, arms, or glossy-coated steeds,
The self-same joy, though in their graves, they feel.
Lo! on the left and right at feast reclined
Are other blessed souls, whose chorus sings
Victorious paeans on the fragrant air
Of laurel groves; and hence to earth outpours
Eridanus, through forests rolling free.
Here dwell the brave who for their native land
Fell wounded on the field; here holy priests
Who kept them undefiled their mortal day;
And poets, of whom the true-inspired song
Deserved Apollo's name; and all who found
New arts, to make man's life more blest or fair;
Yea! here dwell all those dead whose deeds bequeath
Deserved and grateful memory to their kind.
And each bright brow a snow-white fillet wears.
Unto this host the Sibyl turned, and hailed
Musaeus, midmost of a numerous throng,
Who towered o'er his peers a shoulder higher:
“0 spirits blest! 0 venerable bard!
Declare what dwelling or what region holds
Anchises, for whose sake we twain essayed
Yon passage over the wide streams of hell.”
And briefly thus the hero made reply:
“No fixed abode is ours. In shadowy groves
We make our home, or meadows fresh and fair,
With streams whose flowery banks our couches be.
But you, if thitherward your wishes turn,
Climb yonder hill, where I your path may show.”
So saying, he strode forth and led them on,
Till from that vantage they had prospect fair
Of a wide, shining land; thence wending down,
They left the height they trod;for far below
Father Anchises in a pleasant vale
Stood pondering, while his eyes and thought surveyed
A host of prisoned spirits, who there abode
Awaiting entrance to terrestrial air.
And musing he reviewed the legions bright
Of his own progeny and offspring proud—
Their fates and fortunes, virtues and great deeds.
Soon he discerned Aeneas drawing nigh
o'er the green slope, and, lifting both his hands
In eager welcome, spread them swiftly forth.
Tears from his eyelids rained, and thus he spoke:
“Art here at last? Hath thy well-proven love
Of me thy sire achieved yon arduous way?
Will Heaven, beloved son, once more allow
That eye to eye we look? and shall I hear
Thy kindred accent mingling with my own?
I cherished long this hope. My prophet-soul
Numbered the lapse of days, nor did my thought
Deceive. 0, o'er what lands and seas wast driven
To this embrace! What perils manifold
Assailed thee, 0 my son, on every side!
How long I trembled, lest that Libyan throne
Should work thee woe!”
Aeneas thus replied:
“Thine image, sire, thy melancholy shade,
Came oft upon my vision, and impelled
My journey hitherward. Our fleet of ships
Lies safe at anchor in the Tuscan seas.
Come, clasp my hand! Come, father, I implore,
And heart to heart this fond embrace receive!”
So speaking, all his eyes suffused with tears;
Thrice would his arms in vain that shape enfold.
Thrice from the touch of hand the vision fled,
Like wafted winds or likest hovering dreams.

After these things Aeneas was aware
Of solemn groves in one deep, distant vale,
Where trees were whispering, and forever flowed
The river Lethe, through its land of calm.
Nations unnumbered roved and haunted there:
As when, upon a windless summer morn,
The bees afield among the rainbow flowers
Alight and sip, or round the lilies pure
Pour forth in busy swarm, while far diffused
Their murmured songs from all the meadows rise.
Aeneas in amaze the wonder views,
And fearfully inquires of whence and why;
What yonder rivers be; what people press,
Line after line, on those dim shores along.
Said Sire Anchises: “Yonder thronging souls
To reincarnate shape predestined move.
Here, at the river Lethe's wave, they quaff
Care-quelling floods, and long oblivion.
Of these I shall discourse, and to thy soul
Make visible the number and array
Of my posterity; so shall thy heart
In Italy, thy new-found home, rejoice.”
“0 father,” said Aeneas, “must I deem
That from this region souls exalted rise
To upper air, and shall once more return
To cumbering flesh? 0, wherefore do they feel,
Unhappy ones, such fatal lust to live?”
“I speak, my son, nor make thee longer doubt,”
Anchises said, and thus the truth set forth,
In ordered words from point to point unfolding:

“Know first that heaven and earth and ocean's plain,
The moon's bright orb, and stars of Titan birth
Are nourished by one Life; one primal Mind,
Immingled with the vast and general frame,
Fills every part and stirs the mighty whole.
Thence man and beast, thence creatures of the air,
And all the swarming monsters that be found
Beneath the level of the marbled sea;
A fiery virtue, a celestial power,
Their native seeds retain; but bodies vile,
With limbs of clay and members born to die,
Encumber and o'ercloud; whence also spring
Terrors and passions, suffering and joy;
For from deep darkness and captivity
All gaze but blindly on the radiant world.
Nor when to life's last beam they bid farewell
May sufferers cease from pain, nor quite be freed
From all their fleshly plagues; but by fixed law,
The strange, inveterate taint works deeply in.
For this, the chastisement of evils past
Is suffered here, and full requital paid.
Some hang on high, outstretched to viewless winds;
For some their sin's contagion must be purged
In vast ablution of deep-rolling seas,
Or burned away in fire. Each man receives
His ghostly portion in the world of dark;
But thence to realms Elysian we go free,
Where for a few these seats of bliss abide,
Till time's long lapse a perfect orb fulfils,
And takes all taint away, restoring so
The pure, ethereal soul's first virgin fire.
At last, when the millennial aeon strikes,
God calls them forth to yon Lethaean stream,
In numerous host, that thence, oblivious all,
They may behold once more the vaulted sky,
And willingly to shapes of flesh return.”

So spoke Anchises; then led forth his son,
The Sibyl with him, to the assembled shades
(A voiceful throng), and on a lofty mound
His station took, whence plainly could be seen
The long procession, and each face descried.

“Hark now! for of the glories I will tell
That wait our Dardan blood; of our sons' sons
Begot upon the old Italian breed,
Who shall be mighty spirits, and prolong
Our names, their heritage. I will unfold
The story, and reveal the destined years.
Yon princeling, thou beholdest leaning there
Upon a royal lance, shall next emerge
Into the realms of day. He is the first
Of half-Italian strain, the last-born heir
To thine old age by fair Lavinia given,
Called Silvius, a royal Alban name
(Of sylvan birth and sylvan nurture he),
A king himself and sire of kings to come,
By whom our race in Alba Longa reign.
Next Procas stands, our Trojan people's boast;
Capys and Numitor, and, named like thee,
Aeneas Sylvius, like thee renowned
For faithful honor and for deeds of war,
When he ascends at last his Alban throne.
Behold what warrior youth they be! How strong
Their goodly limbs! Above their shaded brows
The civic oak they wear! For thee they build
Nomentum, and the walls of Gabii,
Fidena too, and on the mountains pile
Collatia's citadels, Pometii,
Bola and Cora, Castrum-Inui—
Such be the names the nameless lands shall bear.
See, in that line of sires the son of Mars,
Great Romulus, of Ilian mother born,
From far-descended line of Trojan kings!
See from his helm the double crest uprear,
While his celestial father in his mien
Shows forth his birth divine! Of him, my son,
Great Rome shall rise, and, favored of his star,
Have power world-wide, and men of godlike mind.
She clasps her seven hills in single wall,
Proud mother of the brave! So Cybele,
The Berecynthian goddess, castle-crowned,
On through the Phrygian kingdoms speeds her car,
Exulting in her hundred sons divine,
All numbered with the gods, all throned on high.
“Let now thy visionary glance look long
On this thy race, these Romans that be thine.
Here Caesar, of Iulus' glorious seed,
Behold ascending to the world of light!
Behold, at last, that man, for this is he,
So oft unto thy listening ears foretold,
Augustus Caesar, kindred unto Jove.
He brings a golden age; he shall restore
Old Saturn's sceptre to our Latin land,
And o'er remotest Garamant and Ind
His sway extend; the fair dominion
outruns th' horizon planets, yea, beyond
The sun's bright path, where Atlas' shoulder bears
Yon dome of heaven set thick with burning stars.
Against his coming the far Caspian shores
Break forth in oracles; the Maeotian land
Trembles, and all the seven-fold mouths of Nile.

Not o'er domain so wide Alcides passed,
Although the brazen-footed doe he slew
And stilled the groves of Erymanth, and bade
The beast of Lerna at his arrows quail.
Nor half so far triumphant Baechus drove,
With vine-entwisted reins, his frolic team
Of tigers from the tall-topped Indian hill.
“Still do we doubt if heroes' deeds can fill
A realm so wide? Shall craven fear constrain
Thee or thy people from Ausonia's shore?
Look, who is he I may discern from far
By olive-branch and holy emblems known?
His flowing locks and hoary beard, behold!
Fit for a Roman king! By hallowed laws
He shall found Rome anew—from mean estate
In lowly Cures led to mightier sway.
But after him arises one whose reign
Shall wake the land from slumber: Tullus then
Shall stir slack chiefs to battle, rallying
His hosts which had forgot what triumphs be.
Him boastful Ancus follows hard upon,
o'erflushed with his light people's windy praise.
Wilt thou see Tarquins now? And haughty hand
Of vengeful Brutus seize the signs of power?
He first the consul's name shall take; he first
Th' inexorable fasces sternly bear.
When his own sons in rash rebellion join,
The father and the judge shall sentence give
In beauteous freedom's cause—unhappy he!
Howe'er the age to come the story tell,
't will bless such love of honor and of Rome.
See Decius, sire and son, the Drusi, see!
Behold Torquatus with his axe! Look where
Camillus brings the Gallic standards home!
“But who are these in glorious armor clad
And equal power? In this dark world of cloud
Their souls in concord move;—but woe is me!
What duel 'twixt them breaks, when by and by
The light of life is theirs, and forth they call
Their long-embattled lines to carnage dire!
Allied by nuptial truce, the sire descends
From Alpine rampart and that castled cliff,
Monoecus by the sea; the son arrays
His hostile legions in the lands of morn.
Forbear, my children! School not your great souls
In such vast wars, nor turn your giant strength
Against the bowels of your native land!
But be thou first, 0 first in mercy! thou
Who art of birth Olympian! Fling away
Thy glorious sword, mine offspring and mine heir!
“Yonder is one whose chariot shall ascend
The laurelled Capitolian steep; he rides
In glory o'er Achaea's hosts laid low,
And Corinth overthrown. There, too, is he
Who shall uproot proud Argos and the towers
Of Agamemnon; vanquishing the heir
Even of Aeacus, the warrior seed
Of Peleus' son; such vengeance shall be wrought
For Troy's slain sires, and violated shrines!
“Or who could fail great Cato's name to tell?
Or, Cossus, thine? or in oblivion leave
The sons of Gracchus? or the Scipios,
Twin thunderbolts of war, and Libya's bane?
Or, more than kingly in his mean abode,
Fabricius? or Serranus at the plough?
Ye Fabii, how far would ye prolong
My weary praise? But see! 'T is Maximus,
Who by wise waiting saves his native land.
“Let others melt and mould the breathing bronze
To forms more fair,—aye! out of marble bring
Features that live; let them plead causes well;
Or trace with pointed wand the cycled heaven,
And hail the constellations as they rise;
But thou, 0 Roman, learn with sovereign sway
To rule the nations. Thy great art shall be
To keep the world in lasting peace, to spare
humbled foe, and crush to earth the proud.”

So did Anchises speak, then, after pause,
Thus to their wondering ears his word prolonged:
“Behold Marcellus, bright with glorious spoil,
In lifted triumph through his warriors move!
The Roman power in tumultuous days
He shall establish; he rides forth to quell
Afric and rebel Gaul; and to the shrine
Of Romulus the third-won trophy brings.”
Then spoke Aeneas, for he now could see
A beauteous youth in glittering dress of war,
Though of sad forehead and down-dropping eyes:
“Say, father, who attends the prince? a son?
Or of his greatness some remoter heir?
How his friends praise him, and how matchless he!
But mournful night Tests darkly o'er his brow.”
With brimming eyes Anchises answer gave:
“Ask not, 0 son, what heavy weight of woe
Thy race shall bear, when fate shall just reveal
This vision to the world, then yield no more.
0 gods above, too glorious did ye deem
The seed of Rome, had this one gift been sure?
The lamentation of a multitude
Arises from the field of Mars, and strikes
The city's heart. 0 Father Tiber, see
What pomp of sorrow near the new-made tomb
Beside thy fleeting stream! What Ilian youth
Shall e'er his Latin kindred so advance
In hope of glory? When shall the proud land
Of Romulus of such a nursling boast?
Ah, woe' is me! 0 loyal heart and true!
0 brave, right arm invincible! What foe
Had 'scaped his onset in the shock of arms,
Whether on foot he strode, or if he spurred
The hot flanks of his war-horse flecked with foam?
0 lost, lamented child! If thou evade
Thy evil star, Marcellus thou shalt be.
0 bring me lilies! Bring with liberal hand!
Sad purple blossoms let me throw—the shade
Of my own kin to honor, heaping high
My gifts upon his grave! So let me pay
An unavailing vow!”
Then, far and wide
Through spacious fields of air, they wander free,
Witnessing all; Anchises guides his son
From point to point, and quickens in his mind
Hunger for future fame. Of wars he tells
Soon imminent; of fair Laurentum's tribes;
Of King Latinus' town; and shows what way
Each task and hardship to prevent, or bear.

Now Sleep has portals twain, whereof the one
Is horn, they say, and easy exit gives
To visions true; the other, gleaming white
With polished ivory, the.dead employ
To people night with unsubstantial dreams.
Here now Anchises bids his son farewell;
And with Sibylla, his companion sage,
Up through that ivory portal lets him rise.
Back to his fleet and his dear comrades all
Aeneas hastes.Then hold they their straight course
Into Caieta's bay. An anchor holds
Each lofty prow; the sterns stand firm on shore.

One more immortal name thy death bequeathed,
Nurse of Aeneas, to Italian shores,
Caieta; there thy honor hath a home;
Thy bones a name: and on Hesperia's breast
Their proper glory.When Aeneas now
The tribute of sepulchral vows had paid
Beside the funeral mound, and o'er the seas
Stillness had fallen, he flung forth his sails,
And leaving port pursued his destined way.
Freshly the night-winds breathe; the cloudless moon
Outpours upon his path unstinted beam,
And with far-trembling glory smites the sea.
Close to the lands of Circe soon they fare,
Where the Sun's golden daughter in far groves
Sounds forth her ceaseless song; her lofty hall
Is fragrant every night with flaring brands
Of cedar, giving light the while she weaves
With shrill-voiced shuttle at her linens fine.
From hence are heard the loud lament and wrath
Of lions, rebels to their linked chains
And roaring all night long; great bristly boars
And herded bears, in pinfold closely kept,
Rage horribly, and monster-wolves make moan;
Whom the dread goddess with foul juices strong
From forms of men drove forth, and bade to wear
the mouths and maws of beasts in Circe's thrall.
But lest the sacred Trojans should endure
such prodigy of doom, or anchor there
on that destroying shore, kind Neptune filled
their sails with winds of power, and sped them on
in safety past the perils of that sea.

Now morning flushed the wave, and saffron-garbed
Aurora from her rose-red chariot beamed
in highest heaven; the sea-winds ceased to stir;
a sudden calm possessed the air, and tides
of marble smoothness met the laboring oar.
Then, gazing from the deep, Aeneas saw
a stretch of groves, whence Tiber's smiling stream,
its tumbling current rich with yellow sands,
burst seaward forth: around it and above
shore-haunting birds of varied voice and plume
flattered the sky with song, and, circling far
o'er river-bed and grove, took joyful wing.
Thither to landward now his ships he steered,
and sailed, high-hearted, up the shadowy stream.

Hail, Erato! while olden kings and thrones
and all their sequent story I unfold!
How Latium's honor stood, when alien ships
brought war to Italy, and from what cause
the primal conflict sprang, O goddess, breathe
upon thy bard in song. Dread wars I tell,
array of battle, and high-hearted kings
thrust forth to perish, when Etruria's host
and all Hesperia gathered to the fray.
Events of grander march impel my song,
and loftier task I try. Latinus, then
an aged king, held long-accepted sway
o'er tranquil vales and towns. He was the son
of Faunus, so the legend tells, who wed
the nymph Marica of Laurentian stem.
Picus was Faunus' father, whence the line
to Saturn's Ioins ascends. O heavenly sire,
from thee the stem began! But Fate had given
to King Latinus' body no heirs male:
for taken in the dawning of his day
his only son had been; and now his home
and spacious palace one sole daughter kept,
who was grown ripe to wed and of full age
to take a husband. Many suitors tried
from all Ausonia and Latium's bounds;
but comeliest in all their princely throng
came Turnus, of a line of mighty sires.
Him the queen mother chiefly loved, and yearned
to call him soon her son. But omens dire
and menaces from Heaven withstood her will.
A laurel-tree grew in the royal close,
of sacred leaf and venerated age,
which, when he builded there his wall and tower,
Father Latinus found, and hallowed it
to Phoebus' grace and power, wherefrom the name
Laurentian, which his realm and people bear.
Unto this tree-top, wonderful to tell,
came hosts of bees, with audible acclaim
voyaging the stream of air, and seized a place
on the proud, pointing crest, where the swift swarm,
with interlacement of close-clinging feet,
swung from the leafy bough. “Behold, there comes,”
the prophet cried, “a husband from afar!
To the same region by the self-same path
behold an arm'd host taking lordly sway
upon our city's crown!” Soon after this,
when, coming to the shrine with torches pure,
Lavinia kindled at her father's side
the sacrifice, swift seemed the flame to burn
along her flowing hair—O sight of woe!
Over her broidered snood it sparkling flew,
lighting her queenly tresses and her crown
of jewels rare: then, wrapt in flaming cloud,
from hall to hall the fire-god's gift she flung.
This omen dread and wonder terrible
was rumored far: for prophet-voices told
bright honors on the virgin's head to fall
by Fate's decree, but on her people, war.

The King, sore troubled by these portents, sought
oracular wisdom of his sacred sire,
Faunus, the fate-revealer, where the groves
stretch under high Albunea, and her stream
roars from its haunted well, exhaling through
vast, gloomful woods its pestilential air.
Here all Oenotria's tribes ask oracles
in dark and doubtful days: here, when the priest
has brought his gifts, and in the night so still,
couched on spread fleeces of the offered flock,
awaiting slumber lies, then wondrously
a host of flitting shapes he sees, and hears
voices that come and go: with gods he holds
high converse, or in deep Avernian gloom
parleys with Acheron. Thither drew near
Father Latinus, seeking truth divine.
Obedient to the olden rite, he slew
a hundred fleecy sheep, and pillowed lay
upon their outstretched skins. Straightway a voice
out of the lofty forest met his prayer.
“Seek not in wedlock with a Latin lord
to join thy daughter, O my son and seed!
Beware this purposed marriage! There shall come
sons from afar, whose blood shall bear our name
starward; the children of their mighty loins,
as far as eve and morn enfold the seas,
shall see a subject world beneath their feet
submissive lie.” This admonition given
Latinus hid not. But on restless wing
rumor had spread it, when the men of Troy
along the river-bank of mounded green
their fleet made fast.Aeneas and his chiefs,
with fair Iulus, under spreading boughs
of one great tree made resting-place, and set
the banquet on. Thin loaves of altar-bread
along the sward to bear their meats were laid
(such was the will of Jove), and wilding fruits
rose heaping high, with Ceres' gift below.
Soon, all things else devoured, their hunger turned
to taste the scanty bread, which they attacked
with tooth and nail audacious, and consumed
both round and square of that predestined leaven.
“Look, how we eat our tables even!” cried
Iulus, in a jest. Such was the word
which bade their burdens fall. From his boy's lip
the father caught this utterance of Fate,
silent with wonder at the ways of Heaven;
then swift he spoke: “Hail! O my destined shore,
protecting deities of Ilium, hail!
Here is our home, our country here! This day
I publish the mysterious prophecy
by Sire Anchises given: ‘My son,’ said he,
‘When hunger in strange lands shall bid devour
the tables of thy banquet gone, then hope
for home, though weary, and take thought to build
a dwelling and a battlement.’ Behold!
This was our fated hunger! This last proof
will end our evil days. Up, then! For now
by morning's joyful beam we will explore
what men, what cities, in this region be,
and, leaving ship, our several errands ply.
Your gift to Jove outpour! Make thankful prayer
unto Anchises' shade! To this our feast
bring back the flowing wine!” Thereat he bound
his forehead with green garland, calling loud
upon the Genius of that place, and Earth,
eldest of names divine; the Nymphs he called,
and river-gods unknown; his voice invoked
the night, the omen-stars through night that roll.
Jove, Ida's child, and Phrygia's fertile Queen:
he called his mother from Olympian skies,
and sire from Erebus. Lo, o'er his head
three times unclouded Jove omnipotent
in thunder spoke, and, with effulgent ray
from his ethereal tract outreaching far,
shook visibly the golden-gleaming air.
Swift, through the concourse of the Trojans, spread
news of the day at hand when they should build
their destined walls. So, with rejoicing heart
at such vast omen, they set forth a feast
with zealous emulation, ranging well
the wine-cups fair with many a garland crowned.

Soon as the morrow with the lamp of dawn
looked o'er the world, they took their separate ways,
exploring shore and towns; here spread the pools
and fountain of Numicius; here they see
the river Tiber, where bold Latins dwell.
Anchises' son chose out from his brave band
a hundred envoys, bidding them depart
to the King's sacred city, each enwreathed
with Pallas' silver leaf; and gifts they bear
to plead for peace and friendship at his throne.
While on this errand their swift steps are sped,
Aeneas, by a shallow moat and small,
his future city shows, breaks ground, and girds
with mound and breastwork like a camp of war
the Trojans' first abode. Soon, making way
to where the Latin citadel uprose,
the envoys scanned the battlements, and paused
beneath its wall. Outside the city gates
fair youths and striplings in life's early bloom
course with swift steeds, or steer through dusty cloud
the whirling chariot, or stretch stout bows,
or hurl the seasoned javelin, or strive
in boxing-bout and foot-race: one of these
made haste on horseback to the aged King,
with tidings of a stranger company
in foreign garb approaching. The good King
bade call them to his house, and took his seat
in mid-court on his high, ancestral throne.

Large and majestical the castle rose:
a hundred columns lifted it in air
upon the city's crown—the royal keep
of Picus of Laurentum; round it lay
deep, gloomy woods by olden worship blest.
Here kings took sceptre and the fasces proud
with omens fair; the selfsame sacred place
was senate-house and temple; here was found
a hall for hallowed feasting, where a ram
was offered up, and at long banquet-boards
the nation's fathers sat in due array.
Here ranged ancestral statues roughly hewn
of ancient cedar-wood: King Italus;
Father Sabinus, planter of the vine,
a curving sickle in his sculptured hand;
gray-bearded Saturn; and the double brow
of Janus' head; and other sires and kings
were wardens of the door, with many a chief
wounded in battle for his native land.
Trophies of arms in goodly order hung
along the columns: chariots of war
from foeman taken, axes of round blade,
plumed helmets, bolts and barriers of steel
from city-gates, shields, spears, and beaks of bronze
from captured galleys by the conqueror torn.
Here, wielding his Quirinal augur-staff,
girt in scant shift, and bearing on his left
the sacred oval shield, appeared enthroned
Picus, breaker of horses, whom his bride,
enamoured Circe, smote with golden wand,
and, raining o'er him potent poison-dew,
changed to a bird of pied and dappled wings.