'Lo! Cassandra, maiden daughter of Priam, was being dragged with disordered tresses from the temple and sanctuary of Minerva, straining to heaven her blazing eyes in vain; her eyes, for fetters locked her delicate hands. At this sight Coroebus burst forth infuriate, and flung himself on death amid their columns. We all follow him up, and charge with massed arms. Here first from the high temple roof we are overwhelmed with our own people's weapons, and a most pitiful slaughter begins through the fashion of our armour and the mistaken Greek crests; then the Grecians, with angry cries at the maiden's rescue, gather from every side and fall on us; Ajax in all his valour, and the two sons of Atreus, and the whole Dolopian army: as oft when bursting in whirlwind West and South clash with adverse blasts, and the East wind exultant on the coursers of the Dawn; the forests cry, and fierce in foam Nereus with his trident stirs the seas from their lowest depth. Those too appear, whom our stratagem routed through the darkness of dim night and drove all about the town; at once they know the shields and lying weapons, and mark the alien tone on our lips. We go down, overwhelmed by numbers. First Coroebus is stretched by Peneleus' hand at the altar of the goddess armipotent; and Rhipeus falls, the one man who was most righteous and steadfast in justice among the Teucrians: the gods' ways are not as ours: Hypanis and Dymas perish, pierced by friendly hands; nor did all thy goodness, O Panthus, nor Apollo's fillet protect thy fall. O ashes of Ilium and death flames of my people! you I call to witness that in your ruin I [433-465]shunned no Grecian weapon or encounter, and my hand earned my fall, had destiny been thus. We tear ourselves away, I and Iphitus and Pelias, Iphitus now stricken in age, Pelias halting too under the wound of Ulysses, called forward by the clamour to Priam's house.
'Here indeed the battle is fiercest, as if all the rest of the fighting were nowhere, and no slaughter but here throughout the city, so do we descry the war in full fury, the Grecians rushing on the building, and their shielded column driving up against the beleaguered threshold. Ladders cling to the walls; and hard by the doors and planted on the rungs they hold up their shields in the left hand to ward off our weapons, and with their right clutch the battlements. The Dardanians tear down turrets and the covering of the house roof against them; with these for weapons, since they see the end is come, they prepare to defend themselves even in death's extremity: and hurl down gilded beams, the stately decorations of their fathers of old. Others with drawn swords have beset the doorway below and keep it in crowded column. We renew our courage, to aid the royal dwelling, to support them with our succour, and swell the force of the conquered.
'There was a blind doorway giving passage through the range of Priam's halls by a solitary postern, whereby, while our realm endured, hapless Andromache would often and often glide unattended to her father-in-law's house, and carry the boy Astyanax to his grandsire. I issue out on the sloping height of the ridge, whence wretched Teucrian hands were hurling their ineffectual weapons. A tower stood on the sheer brink, its roof ascending high into heaven, whence was wont to be seen all Troy and the Grecian ships and Achaean camp: attacking it with iron round about, where the joints of the lofty flooring yielded, we wrench it from its deep foundations and shake it free; it gives way, and [466-498]suddenly falls thundering in ruin, crashing wide over the Grecian ranks. But others swarm up; nor meanwhile do stones nor any sort of missile slacken. . . . Right before the vestibule and in the front doorway Pyrrhus moves rejoicingly in the sparkle of arms and gleaming brass: like as when a snake fed on poisonous herbs, whom chill winter kept hid and swollen underground, now fresh from his weeds outworn and shining in youth, wreathes his slippery body into the daylight, his upreared breast meets the sun, and his triple-cloven tongue flickers in his mouth. With him huge Periphas, and Automedon the armour-bearer, driver of Achilles' horses, with him all his Scyrian men climb the roof and hurl flames on the housetop. Himself among the foremost he grasps a poleaxe, bursts through the hard doorway, and wrenches the brazen-plated doors from the hinge; and now he hath cut out a plank from the solid oak and pierced a vast gaping hole. The house within is open to sight, and the long halls lie plain; open to sight are the secret chambers of Priam and the kings of old, and they see armed men standing in front of the doorway.
'But the inner house is stirred with shrieks and misery and confusion, and the court echoes deep with women's wailing; the golden stars are smitten with the din. Affrighted mothers stray about the vast house, and cling fast to the doors and print them with kisses. With his father's might Pyrrhus presses on; nor guards nor barriers can hold out. The gate totters under the hard driven ram, and the doors fall flat, rent from the hinge. Force makes way; the Greeks burst through the entrance and pour in, slaughtering the foremost, and filling the space with a wide stream of soldiers. Not so furiously when a foaming river bursts his banks and overflows, beating down the opposing dykes with whirling water, is he borne mounded over the fields, and sweeps herds and [499-529]pens all about the plains. Myself I saw in the gateway Neoptolemus mad in slaughter, and the two sons of Atreus, saw Hecuba and the hundred daughters of her house, and Priam polluting with his blood the altar fires of his own consecration. The fifty bridal chambers—so great was the hope of his children's children—their doors magnificent with spoils of barbaric gold, have sunk in ruin; where the fire fails the Greeks are in possession.
'Perchance too thou mayest inquire what was Priam's fate. When he saw the ruin of his captured city, the gates of his house burst open, and the enemy amid his innermost chambers, the old man idly fastens round his aged trembling shoulders his long disused armour, girds on the unavailing sword, and advances on his death among the thronging foe.
'Within the palace and under the bare cope of sky was a massive altar, and hard on the altar an ancient bay tree leaned clasping the household gods in its shadow. Here Hecuba and her daughters crowded vainly about the altar-stones, like doves driven headlong by a black tempest, and crouched clasping the gods' images. And when she saw Priam her lord with the armour of youth on him, "What spirit of madness, my poor husband," she cries, "hath stirred thee to gird on these weapons? or whither dost thou run? Not such the succour nor these the defenders the time requires: no, were mine own Hector now beside us. Retire, I beseech thee, hither; this altar will protect us all, or thou wilt share our death." With these words on her lips she drew the aged man to her, and set him on the holy seat.
'And lo, escaped from slaughtering Pyrrhus through the weapons of the enemy, Polites, one of Priam's children, flies wounded down the long colonnades and circles the empty halls. Pyrrhus pursues him fiercely with aimed [530-563]wound, just catching at him, and follows hard on him with his spear. As at last he issued before his parents' eyes and faces, he fell, and shed his life in a pool of blood. At this Priam, although even now fast in the toils of death, yet withheld not nor spared a wrathful cry: "Ah, for thy crime, for this thy hardihood, may the gods, if there is goodness in heaven to care for aught such, pay thee in full thy worthy meed, and return thee the reward that is due! who hast made me look face to face on my child's murder, and polluted a father's countenance with death. Ah, not such to a foe was the Achilles whose parentage thou beliest; but he revered a suppliant's right and trust, restored to the tomb Hector's pallid corpse, and sent me back to my realm." Thus the old man spoke, and launched his weak and unwounding spear, which, recoiling straight from the jarring brass, hung idly from his shield above the boss. Thereat Pyrrhus: "Thou then shalt tell this, and go with the message to my sire the son of Peleus: remember to tell him of my baleful deeds, and the degeneracy of Neoptolemus. Now die." So saying, he drew him quivering to the very altar, slipping in the pool of his child's blood, and wound his left hand in his hair, while in his right the sword flashed out and plunged to the hilt in his side. This was the end of Priam's fortunes; thus did allotted fate find him, with burning Troy and her sunken towers before his eyes, once magnificent lord over so many peoples and lands of Asia. The great corpse lies along the shore, a head severed from the shoulders and a body without a name.
'But then an awful terror began to encircle me; I stood in amaze; there rose before me the likeness of my loved father, as I saw the king, old as he, sobbing out his life under the ghastly wound; there rose Creüsa forlorn, my plundered house, and little Iülus' peril. I look back [564-596]and survey what force is around me. All, outwearied, have given up and leapt headlong to the ground, or flung themselves wretchedly into the fire:
['Yes, and now I only was left; when I espy the daughter of Tyndarus close in the courts of Vesta, crouching silently in the fane's recesses; the bright glow of the fires lights my wandering, as my eyes stray all about. Fearing the Teucrians' anger for the overthrown towers of Troy, and the Grecians' vengeance and the wrath of the husband she had abandoned, she, the common Fury of Troy and her native country, had hidden herself and cowered unseen by the altars. My spirit kindles to fire, and rises in wrath to avenge my dying land and take repayment for her crimes. Shall she verily see Sparta and her native Mycenae unscathed, and depart a queen and triumphant? Shall she see her spousal and her home, her parents and children, attended by a crowd of Trojan women and Phrygians to serve her? and Priam have fallen under the sword? Troy blazed in fire? the shore of Dardania so often soaked with blood? Not so. For though there is no name or fame in a woman's punishment, nor honour in the victory, yet shall I have praise in quenching a guilty life and exacting a just recompense; and it will be good to fill my soul with the flame of vengeance, and satisfy the ashes of my people. Thus broke I forth, and advanced infuriate;]
'——When my mother came visibly before me, clear to sight as never till then, and shone forth in pure radiance through the night, gracious, evident in godhead, in shape and stature such as she is wont to appear to the heavenly people; she caught me by the hand and stayed me, and pursued thus with roseate lips:
'"Son, what overmastering pain thus wakes thy wrath? Why ravest thou? or whither is thy care for us fled? Wilt thou not first look to it, where thou hast left Anchises, [597-630]thine aged worn father; or if Creüsa thy wife and the child Ascanius survive? round about whom all the Greek battalions range; and without my preventing care, the flames ere this had made them their portion, and the hostile sword drunk their blood. Not the hated face of the Laconian woman, Tyndarus' daughter; not Paris is to blame; the gods, the gods in anger overturn this magnificence, and make Troy topple down. Look, for all the cloud that now veils thy gaze and dulls mortal vision with damp encircling mist, I will rend from before thee. Fear thou no commands of thy mother, nor refuse to obey her counsels. Here, where thou seest sundered piles of masonry and rocks violently torn from rocks, and smoke eddying mixed with dust, Neptune with his great trident shakes wall and foundation out of their places, and upturns all the city from her base. Here Juno in all her terror holds the Scaean gates at the entry, and, girt with steel, calls her allied army furiously from their ships. . . . Even now on the citadel's height, look back! Tritonian Pallas is planted in glittering halo and Gorgonian terror. Their lord himself pours courage and prosperous strength on the Grecians, himself stirs the gods against the arms of Dardania. Haste away, O son, and put an end to the struggle. I will never desert thee; I will set thee safe in the courts of thy father's house."
'She ended, and plunged in the dense blackness of the night. Awful faces shine forth, and, set against Troy, divine majesties . . .
'Then indeed I saw all Ilium sinking in flame, and Neptunian Troy uprooted from her base: even as an ancient ash on the mountain heights, hacked all about with steel and fast-falling axes, when husbandmen emulously strain to cut it down: it hangs threateningly, with shaken top and quivering tresses asway; till gradually, overmastered with [631-662]wounds, it utters one last groan, and rending itself away, falls in ruin along the ridge. I descend, and under a god's guidance clear my way between foe and flame; weapons give ground before me, and flames retire.
'And now, when I have reached the courts of my ancestral dwelling, our home of old, my father, whom it was my first desire to carry high into the hills, and whom first I sought, declines, now Troy is rooted out, to prolong his life through the pains of exile.
'"Ah, you," he cries, "whose blood is at the prime, whose strength stands firm in native vigour, do you take your flight. . . . Had the lords of heaven willed to prolong life for me, they should have preserved this my home. Enough and more is the one desolation we have seen, survivors of a captured city. Thus, oh thus salute me and depart, as a body laid out for burial. Mine own hand shall find me death: the foe will be merciful and seek my spoils: light is the loss of a tomb. This long time hated of heaven, I uselessly delay the years, since the father of gods and king of men blasted me with wind of thunder and scathe of flame."
'Thus held he on in utterance, and remained obstinate. We press him, dissolved in tears, my wife Creüsa, Ascanius, all our household, that our father involve us not all in his ruin, and add his weight to the sinking scale of doom. He refuses, and keeps seated steadfast in his purpose. Again I rush to battle, and choose death in my misery. For what had counsel or chance yet to give? Thoughtest thou my feet, O father, could retire and abandon thee? and fell so unnatural words from a parent's lips? "If heaven wills that naught be left of our mighty city, if this be thy planted purpose, thy pleasure to cast in thyself and thine to the doom of Troy; for this death indeed the gate is wide, and even now Pyrrhus will be here newly bathed in Priam's [663-695]blood, Pyrrhus who slaughters the son before the father's face, the father upon his altars. For this was it, bountiful mother, thou dost rescue me amid fire and sword, to see the foe in my inmost chambers, and Ascanius and my father, Creüsa by their side, hewn down in one another's blood? My arms, men, bring my arms! the last day calls on the conquered. Return me to the Greeks; let me revisit and renew the fight. Never to-day shall we all perish unavenged."
'Thereat I again gird on my sword, and fitting my left arm into the clasps of the shield, strode forth of the palace. And lo! my wife clung round my feet on the threshold, and held little Iülus up to his father's sight. "If thou goest to die, let us too hurry with thee to the end. But if thou knowest any hope to place in arms, be this household thy first defence. To what is little Iülus and thy father, to what am I left who once was called thy wife?"
'So she shrieked, and filled all the house with her weeping; when a sign arises sudden and marvellous to tell. For, between the hands and before the faces of his sorrowing parents, lo! above Iülus' head there seemed to stream a light luminous cone, and a flame whose touch hurt not to flicker in his soft hair and play round his brows. We in a flutter of affright shook out the blazing hair and quenched the holy fires with spring water. But lord Anchises joyfully upraised his eyes; and stretching his hands to heaven: "Jupiter omnipotent," he cries, "if thou dost relent at any prayers, look on us this once alone; and if our goodness deserve it, give thine aid hereafter, O lord, and confirm this thine omen."
'Scarcely had the aged man spoken thus, when with sudden crash it thundered on the left, and a star gliding through the dusk shot from heaven drawing a bright trail of light. We watch it slide over the palace roof, leaving [696-730]the mark of its pathway, and bury its brilliance in the wood of Ida; the long drawn track shines, and the region all about fumes with sulphur. Then conquered indeed my father rises to address the gods and worship the holy star. "Now, now delay is done with: I follow, and where you lead, I come. Gods of my fathers, save my house, save my grandchild. Yours is this omen, and in your deity Troy stands. I yield, O my son, and refuse not to go in thy company."
'He ended; and now more loudly the fire roars along the city, and the burning tides roll nearer. "Up then, beloved father, and lean on my neck; these shoulders of mine will sustain thee, nor will so dear a burden weigh me down. Howsoever fortune fall, one and undivided shall be our peril, one the escape of us twain. Little Iülus shall go along with me, and my wife follow our steps afar. You of my household, give heed to what I say. As you leave the city there is a mound and ancient temple of Ceres lonely on it, and hard by an aged cypress, guarded many years in ancestral awe: to this resting-place let us gather from diverse quarters. Thou, O father, take the sacred things and the household gods of our ancestors in thine hand. For me, just parted from the desperate battle, with slaughter fresh upon me, to handle them were guilt, until I wash away in a living stream the soilure. . . ." So spoke I, and spread over my neck and broad shoulders a tawny lion-skin for covering, and stoop to my burden. Little Iülus, with his hand fast in mine, keeps uneven pace after his father. Behind my wife follows. We pass on in the shadows. And I, lately moved by no weapons launched against me, nor by the thronging bands of my Grecian foes, am now terrified at every breath, startled by every noise, thrilling with fear alike for my companion and my burden.
'And now I was nearing the gates, and thought I had [731-764]outsped all the way; when suddenly the crowded trampling of feet came to our ears, and my father, looking forth into the darkness, cries: "My son, my son, fly; they draw near. I espy the gleaming shields and the flicker of brass." At this, in my flurry and confusion, some hostile god bereft me of my senses. For while I plunge down byways, and swerve from where the familiar streets ran, Creüsa, alas! whether, torn by fate from her unhappy husband, she stood still, or did she mistake the way, or sink down outwearied? I know not; and never again was she given back to our eyes; nor did I turn to look for my lost one, or cast back a thought, ere we were come to ancient Ceres' mound and hallowed seat; here at last, when all gathered, one was missing, vanished from her child's and her husband's company. What man or god did I spare in frantic reproaches? or what crueller sight met me in our city's overthrow? I charge my comrades with Ascanius and lord Anchises, and the gods of Teucria, hiding them in the winding vale. Myself I regain the city, girding on my shining armour; fixed to renew every danger, to retrace my way throughout Troy, and fling myself again on its perils. First of all I regain the walls and the dim gateway whence my steps had issued; I scan and follow back my footprints with searching gaze in the night. Everywhere my spirit shudders, dismayed at the very silence. Thence I pass on home, if haply her feet (if haply!) had led her thither. The Grecians had poured in, and filled the palace. The devouring fire goes rolling before the wind high as the roof; the flames tower over it, and the heat surges up into the air. I move on, and revisit the citadel and Priam's dwelling; where now in the spacious porticoes of Juno's sanctuary, Phoenix and accursed Ulysses, chosen sentries, were guarding the spoil. Hither from all quarters is flung in masses the treasure of Troy torn from burning shrines, [765-798]tables of the gods, bowls of solid gold, and raiment of the captives. Boys and cowering mothers in long file stand round. . . . Yes, and I dared to cry abroad through the darkness; I filled the streets with calling, and again and yet again with vain reiterance cried piteously on Creüsa. As I stormed and sought her endlessly among the houses of the town, there rose before mine eyes a melancholy phantom, the ghost of very Creüsa, in likeness larger than her wont. I was motionless; my hair stood up, and the accents faltered on my tongue. Then she thus addressed me, and with this speech allayed my distresses: "What help is there in this mad passion of grief, sweet my husband? not without divine influence does this come to pass: nor may it be, nor does the high lord of Olympus allow, that thou shouldest carry Creüsa hence in thy company. Long shall be thine exile, and weary spaces of sea must thou furrow through; and thou shalt come to the land Hesperia, where Lydian Tiber flows with soft current through rich and populous fields. There prosperity awaits thee, and a kingdom, and a king's daughter for thy wife. Dispel these tears for thy beloved Creüsa. Never will I look on the proud homes of the Myrmidons or Dolopians, or go to be the slave of Greek matrons, I a daughter of Dardania, a daughter-in-law of Venus the goddess. . . . But the mighty mother of the gods keeps me in these her borders. And now farewell, and still love thy child and mine." This speech uttered, while I wept and would have said many a thing, she left me and retreated into thin air. Thrice there was I fain to lay mine arms round her neck; thrice the vision I vainly clasped fled out of my hands, even as the light breezes, or most like to fluttering sleep. So at last, when night is spent, I revisit my comrades.
'And here I find a marvellous great company, newly flocked in, mothers and men, a people gathered for exile, [799-804]a pitiable crowd. From all quarters they are assembled, ready in heart and fortune, to whatsoever land I will conduct them overseas. And now the morning star rose over the high ridges of Ida, and led on the day; and the Grecians held the gateways in leaguer, nor was any hope of help given. I withdrew, and raising my father up, I sought the mountain.'
BOOK THIRD
THE STORY OF THE SEVEN YEARS' WANDERING
'After heaven's lords pleased to overthrow the state of Asia and Priam's guiltless people, and proud Ilium fell, and Neptunian Troy smokes all along the ground, we are driven by divine omens to seek distant places of exile in waste lands. Right under Antandros and the mountains of Phrygian Ida we build a fleet, uncertain whither the fates carry us or where a resting-place is given, and gather the people together. Scarcely had the first summer set in, when lord Anchises bids us spread our sails to fortune, and weeping I leave the shores and havens of my country, and the plains where once was Troy. I sail to sea an exile, with my comrades and son and the gods of household and state.
'A land of vast plains lies apart, the home of Mavors, in Thracian tillage, and sometime under warrior Lycurgus' reign; friendly of old to Troy, and their gods in alliance while our fortune lasted. Hither I pass, and on the winding shore I lay under thwarting fates the first foundations of a city, and from my own name fashion its name, Aeneadae.
'I was paying sacrifice to my mother, daughter of Dione, and to all the gods, so to favour the work begun, and slew a shining bull on the shore to the high lord of [22-54]the heavenly people. Haply there lay a mound hard at hand, crowned with cornel thickets and bristling dense with shafts of myrtle. I drew near; and essaying to tear up the green wood from the soil, that I might cover the altar with leafy boughs, I see a portent ominous and wonderful to tell. For from the first tree whose roots are rent away and broken from the ground, drops of black blood trickle, and gore stains the earth. An icy shudder shakes my limbs, and my blood curdles chill with terror. Yet from another I go on again to tear away a tough shoot, fully to fathom its secret; yet from another black blood follows out of the bark. With many searchings of heart I prayed the woodland nymphs, and lord Gradivus, who rules in the Getic fields, to make the sight propitious as was meet and lighten the omen. But when I assail a third spearshaft with a stronger effort, pulling with knees pressed against the sand; shall I speak or be silent? from beneath the mound is heard a pitiable moan, and a voice is uttered to my ears: "Woe's me, why rendest thou me, Aeneas? spare me at last in the tomb, spare pollution to thine innocent hands. Troy bore me; not alien to thee am I, nor this blood that oozes from the stem. Ah, fly the cruel land, fly the greedy shore! For I am Polydorus; here the iron harvest of weapons hath covered my pierced body, and shot up in sharp javelins." Then indeed, borne down with dubious terror, I was motionless, my hair stood up, and the accents faltered on my tongue.
'This Polydorus once with great weight of gold had hapless Priam sent in secret to the nurture of the Thracian king, when now he was losing trust in the arms of Dardania, and saw his city leaguered round about. The king, when the Teucrian power was broken and fortune withdrew, following Agamemnon's estate and triumphant arms, [55-87]severs every bond of duty; murders Polydorus, and lays strong hands on the gold. O accursed hunger of gold, to what dost thou not compel human hearts! When the terror left my senses, I lay the divine tokens before the chosen princes of the people, with my father at their head, and demand their judgment. All are of one mind, to leave the guilty land, and abandoning a polluted home, to let the gales waft our fleets. So we bury Polydorus anew, and the earth is heaped high over his mound; altars are reared to his ghost, sad with dusky chaplets and black cypress; and around are the Ilian women with hair unbound in their fashion. We offer bubbling bowls of warm milk and cups of consecrated blood, and lay the spirit to rest in her tomb, and with loud voice utter the last call.
'Thereupon, so soon as ocean may be trusted, and the winds leave the seas in quiet, and the soft whispering south wind calls seaward, my comrades launch their ships and crowd the shores. We put out from harbour, and lands and towns sink away. There lies in mid sea a holy land, most dear to the mother of the Nereids and Neptune of Aegae, which strayed about coast and strand till the Archer god in his affection chained it fast from high Myconos and Gyaros, and made it lie immoveable and slight the winds. Hither I steer; and it welcomes my weary crew to the quiet shelter of a safe haven. We disembark and worship Apollo's town. Anius the king, king at once of the people and priest of Phoebus, his brows garlanded with fillets and consecrated laurel, comes to meet us; he knows Anchises, his friend of old; we clasp hands in welcome, and enter his palace. I worshipped the god's temple, an ancient pile of stone. "Lord of Thymbra, give us an enduring dwelling-place; grant a house and family to thy weary servants, and a city to abide: keep Troy's second fortress, the remnant left of the Grecians and merciless Achilles. Whom follow [88-121]we? or whither dost thou bid us go, where fix our seat? Grant an omen, O lord, and inspire our minds."
'Scarcely had I spoken thus; suddenly all seemed to shake, all the courts and laurels of the god, the whole hill to be stirred round about, and the cauldron to moan in the opening sanctuary. We sink low on the ground, and a voice is borne to our ears: "Stubborn race of Dardanus, the same land that bore you by parentage of old shall receive you again on her bountiful breast. Seek out your ancient mother; hence shall the house of Aeneas sway all regions, his children's children and they who shall be born of them." Thus Phoebus; and mingled outcries of great gladness uprose; all ask, what is that city? whither calls Phoebus our wandering, and bids us return? Then my father, unrolling the records of men of old, "Hear, O princes," says he, "and learn your hopes. In mid ocean lies Crete, the island of high Jove, wherein is mount Ida, the cradle of our race. An hundred great towns are inhabited in that opulent realm; from it our forefather Teucer of old, if I recall the tale aright, sailed to the Rhoetean coasts and chose a place for his kingdom. Not yet was Ilium nor the towers of Pergama reared; they dwelt in the valley bottoms. Hence came our Lady, haunter of Cybele, the Corybantic cymbals and the grove of Ida; hence the rites of inviolate secrecy, and the lions yoked under the chariot of their mistress. Up then, and let us follow where divine commandments lead; let us appease the winds, and seek the realm of Gnosus. Nor is it a far journey away. Only be Jupiter favourable, the third day shall bring our fleet to anchor on the Cretan coast." So spoke he, and slew fit sacrifice on the altars, a bull to Neptune, a bull to thee, fair Apollo, a black sheep to Tempest, a white to the prosperous West winds.
'Rumour flies that Idomeneus the captain is driven [122-154]forth of his father's realm, and the shores of Crete are abandoned, that the houses are void of foes and the dwellings lie empty to our hand. We leave the harbour of Ortygia, and fly along the main, by the revel-trod ridges of Naxos, by green Donusa, Olearos and snow-white Paros, and the sea-strewn Cyclades, threading the racing channels among the crowded lands. The seamen's clamour rises in emulous dissonance; each cheers his comrade: Seek we Crete and our forefathers. A wind rising astern follows us forth on our way, and we glide at last to the ancient Curetean coast. So I set eagerly to work on the walls of my chosen town, and call it Pergamea, and exhort my people, joyful at the name, to cherish their homes and rear the castle buildings. And even now the ships were drawn up on the dry beach; the people were busy in marriages and among their new fields; I was giving statutes and homesteads; when suddenly from a tainted space of sky came, noisome on men's bodies and pitiable on trees and crops, pestilence and a year of death. They left their sweet lives or dragged themselves on in misery; Sirius scorched the fields into barrenness; the herbage grew dry, and the sickly harvest denied sustenance. My father counsels to remeasure the sea and go again to Phoebus in his Ortygian oracle, to pray for grace and ask what issue he ordains to our exhausted state; whence he bids us search for aid to our woes, whither bend our course.
'Night fell, and sleep held all things living on the earth. The sacred images of the gods and the household deities of Phrygia, that I had borne with me from Troy out of the midst of the burning city, seemed to stand before mine eyes as I lay sleepless, clear in the broad light where the full moon poured through the latticed windows; then thus addressed me, and with this speech allayed my distresses: "What Apollo hath to tell thee when thou dost [155-188]reach Ortygia, he utters here, and sends us unsought to thy threshold. We who followed thee and thine arms when Dardania went down in fire; we who under thee have traversed on shipboard the swelling sea; we in like wise will exalt to heaven thy children to be, and give empire to their city. Do thou prepare a mighty town for a mighty people, nor draw back from the long wearisome chase. Thou must change thy dwelling. Not to these shores did the god at Delos counsel thee, or Apollo bid thee find rest in Crete. There is a region Greeks name Hesperia, an ancient land, mighty in arms and foison of the clod; Oenotrian men dwell therein; now rumour is that a younger race have called it Italy after their captain's name. This is our true dwelling place; hence is Dardanus sprung, and lord Iasius, the first source of our race. Up, arise, and tell with good cheer to thine aged parent this plain tale, to seek Corythus and the lands of Ausonia. Jupiter denies thee the Dictaean fields."
'Astonished at this vision and divine utterance (nor was that slumber; but openly I seemed to know their countenances, their veiled hair and gracious faces, and therewith a cold sweat broke out all over me) I spring from my bed and raise my voice and upturned hands skyward and pay pure offering on the hearth. The sacrifice done, I joyfully tell Anchises, and relate all in order. He recognises the double descent and twofold parentage, and the later wanderings that had deceived him among ancient lands. Then he speaks: "O son, hard wrought by the destinies of Ilium, Cassandra only foretold me this fortune. Now I recall how she prophesied this was fated to our race, and often cried of Hesperia, often of an Italian realm. But who was to believe that Teucrians should come to Hesperian shores? or whom might Cassandra then move by prophecy? Yield we to Phoebus, and follow the better [189-222]way he counsels." So says he, and we all rejoicingly obey his speech. This dwelling likewise we abandon; and leaving some few behind, spread our sails and run over the waste sea in our hollow wood.
'After our ships held the high seas, nor any land yet appears, the sky all round us and all round us the deep, a dusky shower drew up overhead carrying night and tempest, and the wave shuddered and gloomed. Straightway the winds upturn the main, and great seas rise; we are tossed asunder over the dreary gulf. Stormclouds enwrap the day, and rainy gloom blots out the sky; out of the clouds bursts fire fast upon fire. Driven from our course, we go wandering on the blind waves. Palinurus himself professes he cannot tell day from night on the sky, nor remember the way amid the waters. Three dubious days of blind darkness we wander on the deep, as many nights without a star. Not till the fourth day was land at last seen to rise, discovering distant hills and sending up wreaths of smoke. The sails drop; we swing back to the oars; without delay the sailors strongly toss up the foam, and sweep through the green water. The shores of the Strophades first receive me thus won from the waves, Strophades the Greek name they bear, islands lying in the great Ionian sea, which boding Celaeno and the other Harpies inhabit since Phineus' house was shut on them, and they fled in terror from the board of old. Than these no deadlier portent nor any fiercer plague of divine wrath hath issued from the Stygian waters; winged things with maidens' countenance, bellies dropping filth, and clawed hands and faces ever wan with hunger. . . .
'When borne hitherward we enter the haven, lo! we see goodly herds of oxen scattered on the plains, and goats flocking untended over the grass. We attack them with the sword, and call the gods and Jove himself to share our [223-258]spoil. Then we build seats on the winding shore and banquet on the dainty food. But suddenly the Harpies are upon us, swooping awfully from the mountains, and shaking their wings with loud clangour, plunder the feast, and defile everything with unclean touch, spreading a foul smell, and uttering dreadful cries. Again, in a deep recess under a caverned rock, shut in with waving shadows of woodland, we array the board and renew the altar fires; again, from their blind ambush in diverse quarters of the sky, the noisy crowd flutter with clawed feet around their prey, defiling the feast with their lips. Then I bid my comrades take up arms, and proclaim war on the accursed race. Even as I bade they do, range their swords in cover among the grass, and hide their shields out of sight. So when they swooped clamorously down along the winding shore, Misenus from his watch-tower on high signals on the hollow brass; my comrades rush in and essay the strange battle, to set the stain of steel on the winged horrors of the sea. But they take no violence on their plumage, nor wounds on their bodies; and soaring into the firmament with rapid flight, leave their foul traces on the spoil they had half consumed. Celaeno alone, prophetess of ill, alights on a towering cliff, and thus breaks forth in deep accents:
'"War is it for your slaughtered oxen and steers cut down, O children of Laomedon, war is it you would declare, and drive the guiltless Harpies from their ancestral kingdom? Take then to heart and fix fast these words of mine; which the Lord omnipotent foretold to Phoebus, Phoebus Apollo to me, I eldest born of the Furies reveal to you. Italy is your goal; wooing the winds you shall go to Italy, and enter her harbours unhindered. Yet shall you not wall round your ordained city, ere this murderous outrage on us compel you, in portentous hunger, to eat your tables with gnawing teeth."
'She spoke, and winged her way back to the shelter of [259-293]the wood. But my comrades' blood froze chill with sudden affright; their spirits fell; and no longer with arms, nay with vows and prayers they bid me entreat favour, whether these be goddesses, or winged things ill-ominous and foul. And lord Anchises from the beach calls with outspread hands on the mighty gods, ordering fit sacrifices: "Gods, avert their menaces! Gods, turn this woe away, and graciously save the righteous!" Then he bids pluck the cable from the shore and shake loose the sheets. Southern winds stretch the sails; we scud over the foam-flecked waters, whither wind and pilot called our course. Now wooded Zacynthos appears amid the waves, and Dulichium and Same and Neritos' sheer rocks. We fly past the cliffs of Ithaca, Laërtes' realm, and curse the land, fostress of cruel Ulysses. Soon too Mount Leucata's cloudy peaks are sighted, and Apollo dreaded of sailors. Hither we steer wearily, and stand in to the little town. The anchor is cast from the prow; the sterns are grounded on the beach.
'So at last having attained to land beyond our hopes, we purify ourselves in Jove's worship, and kindle altars of offering, and make the Actian shore gay with the games of Ilium. My comrades strip, and, slippery with oil, exercise their ancestral contests; glad to have got past so many Argive towns, and held on their flight through the encircling foe. Meanwhile the sun rounds the great circle of the year, and icy winter ruffles the waters with Northern gales. I fix against the doorway a hollow shield of brass, that tall Abas had borne, and mark the story with a verse: These arms Aeneas from the conquering Greeks. Then I bid leave the harbour and sit down at the thwarts; emulously my comrades strike the water, and sweep through the seas. Soon we see the cloud-capped Phaeacian towers sink away, skirt the shores of Epirus, and enter the Chaonian haven and approach high Buthrotum town.
[294-328]'Here the rumour of a story beyond belief comes on our ears; Helenus son of Priam is reigning over Greek towns, master of the bride and sceptre of Pyrrhus the Aeacid; and Andromache hath again fallen to a husband of her people. I stood amazed; and my heart kindled with marvellous desire to accost him and learn of so strange a fortune. I advance from the harbour, leaving the fleet ashore; just when haply Andromache, in a grove before the town, by the waters of a feigned Simoïs, was pouring libation to the dust, and calling Hector's ghost to a tomb with his name, on an empty turfed green with two altars that she had consecrated, a wellspring of tears. When she caught sight of me coming, and saw distractedly the encircling arms of Troy, terror-stricken at the vision marvellously shewn, her gaze fixed, and the heat left her frame. She swoons away, and hardly at last speaks after long interval: "Comest thou then a real face, a real messenger to me, goddess-born? livest thou? or if sweet light is fled, ah, where is Hector?" She spoke, and bursting into tears filled all the place with her crying. Just a few words I force up, and deeply moved gasp out in broken accents: "I live indeed, I live on through all extremities; doubt not, for real are the forms thou seest . . . Alas! after such an husband, what fate receives thy fall? or what worthier fortune revisits thee? Dost thou, Hector's Andromache, keep bonds of marriage with Pyrrhus?" She cast down her countenance, and spoke with lowered voice:
'"O single in happy eminence that maiden daughter of Priam, sentenced to die under high Troy town at an enemy's grave, who never bore the shame of the lot, nor came a captive to her victorious master's bed! We, sailing over alien seas from our burning land, have endured the haughty youthful pride of Achilles' seed, and borne children in slavery: he thereafter, wooing Leda's Hermione and a Lacedaemonian [329-363]marriage, passed me over to Helenus' keeping, a bondwoman to a bondman. But him Orestes, aflame with passionate desire for his stolen bride, and driven by the furies of crime, catches unguarded and murders at his ancestral altars. At Neoptolemus' death a share of his realm fell to Helenus' hands, who named the plains Chaonian, and called all the land Chaonia after Chaon of Troy, and built withal a Pergama and this Ilian citadel on the hills. But to thee how did winds, how fates give passage? or whose divinity landed thee all unwitting on our coasts? what of the boy Ascanius? lives he yet, and draws breath, thy darling, whom Troy's . . . Yet hath the child affection for his lost mother? is he roused to the valour of old and the spirit of manhood by his father Aeneas, by his uncle Hector?"
'Such words she poured forth weeping, and prolonged the vain wail; when the hero Helenus son of Priam approaches from the town with a great company, knows us for his kin, and leads us joyfully to his gates, shedding a many tears at every word. I advance and recognise a little Troy, and a copy of the great Pergama, and a dry brook with the name of Xanthus, and clasp a Scaean gateway. Therewithal my Teucrians make holiday in the friendly town. The king entertained them in his spacious colonnades; in the central hall they poured goblets of wine in libation, and held the cups while the feast was served on gold.
'And now a day and another day hath sped; the breezes woo our sails, and the canvas blows out to the swelling south. With these words I accost the prophet, and thus make request:
'"Son of Troy, interpreter of the gods, whose sense is open to Phoebus' influences, his tripods and laurels, to stars and tongues of birds and auguries of prosperous flight, tell me now,—for the voice of revelation was all favourable to my course, and all divine influence counselled me to [364-396]seek Italy and explore remote lands; only Celaeno the Harpy prophesies of strange portents, a horror to tell, and cries out of wrath and bale and foul hunger,—what perils are the first to shun? or in what guidance may I overcome these sore labours?"
'Hereat Helenus, first suing for divine favour with fit sacrifice of steers, and unbinding from his head the chaplets of consecration, leads me in his hand to thy courts, O Phoebus, thrilled with the fulness of the deity, and then utters these prophetic words from his augural lips:
'"Goddess-born: since there is clear assurance that under high omens thou dost voyage through the deep; so the king of the gods allots destiny and unfolds change; this is the circle of ordinance; a few things out of many I will unfold to thee in speech, that so thou mayest more safely traverse the seas of thy sojourn, and find rest in the Ausonian haven; for Helenus is forbidden by the destinies to know, and by Juno daughter of Saturn to utter more: first of all, the Italy thou deemest now nigh, and close at hand, unwitting! the harbours thou wouldst enter, far are they sundered by a long and trackless track through length of lands. First must the Trinacrian wave clog thine oar, and thy ships traverse the salt Ausonian plain, by the infernal pools and Aeaean Circe's isle, ere thou mayest build thy city in safety on a peaceful land. I will tell thee the token, and do thou keep it close in thine heart. When in thy perplexity, beside the wave of a sequestered river, a great sow shall be discovered lying under the oaks on the brink, with her newborn litter of thirty, couched white on the ground, her white brood about her teats; that shall be the place of the city, that the appointed rest from thy toils. Neither shrink thou at the gnawn tables that await thee; the fates will find a way, and Apollo aid thy call. These lands moreover, on this nearest border of the Italian shore [397-432]that our own sea's tide washes, flee thou: evil Greeks dwell in all their towns. Here the Locrians of Narycos have set their city, and here Lyctian Idomeneus beset the Sallentine plains with soldiery; here is the town of the Meliboean captain, Philoctetes' little Petelia fenced by her wall. Nay, when thy fleets have crossed overseas and lie at anchor, when now thou rearest altars and payest vows on the beach, veil thine hair with a purple garment for covering, that no hostile face at thy divine worship may meet thee amid the holy fires and make void the omens. This fashion of sacrifice keep thou, thyself and thy comrades, and let thy children abide in this pure observance. But when at thy departure the wind hath borne thee to the Sicilian coast, and the barred straits of Pelorus open out, steer for the left-hand country and the long circuit of the seas on the left hand; shun the shore and water on thy right. These lands, they say, of old broke asunder, torn and upheaved by vast force, when either country was one and undivided; the ocean burst in between, cutting off with its waves the Hesperian from the Sicilian coast, and with narrow tide washes tilth and town along the severance of shore. On the right Scylla keeps guard, on the left unassuaged Charybdis, who thrice swallows the vast flood sheer down her swirling gulf, and ever again hurls it upward, lashing the sky with water. But Scylla lies prisoned in her cavern's blind recesses, thrusting forth her mouth and drawing ships upon the rocks. In front her face is human, and her breast fair as a maiden's to the waist down; behind she is a sea-dragon of monstrous frame, with dolphins' tails joined on her wolf-girt belly. Better to track the goal of Trinacrian Pachynus, lingering and wheeling round through long spaces, than once catch sight of misshapen Scylla deep in her dreary cavern, and of the rocks that ring to her sea-coloured hounds. Moreover, if [433-466]Helenus hath aught of foresight or his prophecy of assurance, if Apollo fills his spirit with the truth, this one thing, goddess-born, one thing for all will I foretell thee, and again and again repeat my counsel: to great Juno's deity be thy first prayer and worship; to Juno utter thy willing vows, and overcome thy mighty mistress with gifts and supplications; so at last thou shalt leave Trinacria behind, and be sped in triumph to the Italian borders. When borne hither thou drawest nigh the Cymaean city, the haunted lakes and rustling woods of Avernus, thou shalt behold the raving prophetess who deep in the rock chants of fate, and marks down her words on leaves. What verses she writes down on them, the maiden sorts into order and shuts behind her in the cave; they stay in their places unstirred and quit not their rank. But when at the turn of the hinge the light wind from the doorway stirs them, and disarranges the delicate foliage, never after does she trouble to capture them as they flutter about the hollow rock, nor restore their places or join the verses; men depart without counsel, and hate the Sibyl's dwelling. Here let no waste in delay be of such account to thee (though thy company chide, and the passage call thy sails strongly to the deep, and thou mayest fill out their folds to thy desire) that thou do not approach the prophetess, and plead with prayers that she herself utter her oracles and deign to loose the accents from her lips. The nations of Italy and the wars to come, and the fashion whereby every toil may be avoided or endured, she shall unfold to thee, and grant her worshipper prosperous passage. Thus far is our voice allowed to counsel thee: go thy way, and exalt Troy to heaven by thy deeds."
'This the seer uttered with friendly lips; then orders gifts to be carried to my ships, of heavy gold and sawn ivory, and loads the hulls with massy silver and cauldrons [467-502]of Dodona, a mail coat triple-woven with hooks of gold, and a helmet splendid with spike and tressed plumes, the armour of Neoptolemus. My father too hath his gifts. Horses besides he brings, and grooms . . . fills up the tale of our oarsmen, and equips my crews with arms.
'Meanwhile Anchises bade the fleet set their sails, that the fair wind might meet no delay. Him Phoebus' interpreter accosts with high courtesy: "Anchises, honoured with the splendour of Venus' espousal, the gods' charge, twice rescued from the fallen towers of Troy, lo! the land of Ausonia is before thee: sail thou and seize it. And yet needs must thou float past it on the sea; far away lies the quarter of Ausonia that is revealed of Apollo. Go," he continues, "happy in thy son's affection: why do I run on further, and delay the rising winds in talk?" Andromache too, sad at this last parting, brings figured raiment with woof of gold, and a Phrygian scarf for Ascanius, and wearies not in courtesy, loading him with gifts from the loom. "Take these too," so says she, "my child, to be memorials to thee of my hands, and testify long hence the love of Andromache wife of Hector. Take these last gifts of thy kinsfolk, O sole surviving likeness to me of my own Astyanax! Such was he, in eyes and hands and features; and now his equal age were growing into manhood like thine."
'To them as I departed I spoke with starting tears: "Live happily, as they do whose fortunes are perfected! We are summoned ever from fate to fate. For you there is rest in store, and no ocean floor to furrow, no ever-retreating Ausonian fields to pursue. You see a pictured Xanthus, and a Troy your own hands have built; with better omens, I pray, and to be less open to the Greeks. If ever I enter Tiber and Tiber's bordering fields, and see a city granted to my nation, then of these kindred towns [503-537]and allied peoples in Epirus and Hesperia, which have the same Dardanus for founder, and whose story is one, of both will our hearts make a single Troy. Let that charge await our posterity."
'We put out to sea, keeping the Ceraunian mountains close at hand, whence is the shortest passage and seaway to Italy. The sun sets meanwhile, and the dusky hills grow dim. We choose a place, and fling ourselves on the lap of earth at the water's edge, and, allotting the oars, spread ourselves on the dry beach for refreshment: the dew of slumber falls on our weary limbs. Not yet had Night driven of the Hours climbed her mid arch; Palinurus rises lightly from his couch, explores all the winds, and listens to catch a breeze; he marks the constellations gliding together through the silent sky, Arcturus, the rainy Hyades and the twin Oxen, and scans Orion in his armour of gold. When he sees the clear sky quite unbroken, he gives from the stern his shrill signal; we disencamp and explore the way, and spread the wings of our sails. And now reddening Dawn had chased away the stars, when we descry afar dim hills and the low line of Italy. Achates first raises the cry of Italy; and with joyous shouts my comrades salute Italy. Then lord Anchises enwreathed a great bowl and filled it up with wine; and called on the gods, standing high astern . . . "Gods sovereign over sea and land and weather! bring wind to ease our way, and breathe favourably." The breezes freshen at his prayer, and now the harbour opens out nearer at hand, and a temple appears on the Fort of Minerva. My comrades furl the sails and swing the prows to shore. The harbour is scooped into an arch by the Eastern flood; reefs run out and foam with the salt spray; itself it lies concealed; turreted walls of rock let down their arms on either hand, and the temple retreats from the beach. Here, an inaugural sight, four horses of snowy [538-570]whiteness are grazing abroad on the grassy plain. And lord Anchises: "War dost thou carry, land of our sojourn; horses are armed in war, and menace of war is in this herd. But yet these same beasts are wont in time to enter harness, and carry yoke and bit in concord; there is hope of peace too," says he. Then we pray to the holy deity, Pallas of the clangorous arms, the first to welcome our cheers. And before the altars we veil our heads in Phrygian garments, and duly, after the counsel Helenus had urged deepest on us, pay the bidden burnt-sacrifice to Juno of Argos.
'Without delay, once our vows are fully paid, we round to the arms of our sailyards and leave the dwellings and menacing fields of the Grecian people. Next is descried the bay of Tarentum, town, if rumour is true, of Hercules. Over against it the goddess of Lacinium rears her head, with the towers of Caulon, and Scylaceum wrecker of ships. Then Trinacrian Aetna is descried in the distance rising from the waves, and we hear from afar a great roaring of the sea on beaten rocks, and broken noises by the shore: the channels boil up, and the surge churns with sand. And lord Anchises: "Of a surety this is that Charybdis; of these cliffs, these awful rocks did Helenus prophesy. Out, O comrades, and rise together to the oars." Even as bidden they do; and first Palinurus swung the gurgling prow leftward through the water; to the left all our squadron bent with oar and wind. We are lifted skyward on the crescent wave, and again sunk deep into the nether world as the water is sucked away. Thrice amid their rocky caverns the cliffs uttered a cry; thrice we see the foam flung out, and the stars through a dripping veil. Meanwhile the wind falls with sundown; and weary and ignorant of the way we glide on to the Cyclopes' coast.
'There lies a harbour large and unstirred by the winds' [571-604]entrance; but nigh it Aetna thunders awfully in wrack, and ever and again hurls a black cloud into the sky, smoking with boiling pitch and embers white hot, and heaves balls of flame flickering up to the stars: ever and again vomits out on high crags from the torn entrails of the mountain, tosses up masses of molten rock with a groan, and boils forth from the bottom. Rumour is that this mass weighs down the body of Enceladus, half-consumed by the thunderbolt, and mighty Aetna laid over him suspires the flame that bursts from her furnaces; and so often as he changes his weary side, all Trinacria shudders and moans, veiling the sky in smoke. That night we spend in cover of the forest among portentous horrors, and see not from what source the noise comes. For neither did the stars show their fires, nor was the vault of constellated sky clear; but vapours blotted heaven, and the moon was held in a storm-cloud through dead of night.
'And now the morrow was rising in the early east, and the dewy darkness rolled away from the sky by Dawn, when sudden out of the forest advances a human shape strange and unknown, worn with uttermost hunger and pitiably attired, and stretches entreating hands towards the shore. We look back. Filthy and wretched, with shaggy beard and a coat pinned together with thorns, he was yet a Greek, and had been sent of old to Troy in his father's arms. And he, when he saw afar the Dardanian habits and armour of Troy, hung back a little in terror at the sight, and stayed his steps; then ran headlong to the shore with weeping and prayers: "By the heavens I beseech you, by the heavenly powers and this luminous sky that gives us breath, take me up, O Trojans, carry me away to any land soever, and it will be enough. I know I am one out of the Grecian fleets, I confess I warred against the household gods of Ilium; for that, if our wrong and guilt is so great, throw [605-639]me piecemeal on the flood or plunge me in the waste sea. If I do perish, gladly will I perish at human hands." He ended; and clung clasping our knees and grovelling at them. We encourage him to tell who he is and of what blood born, and reveal how Fortune pursues him since then. Lord Anchises after little delay gives him his hand, and strengthens his courage by visible pledge. At last, laying aside his terror, he speaks thus:
'"I am from an Ithacan home, Achemenides by name, set out for Troy in luckless Ulysses' company; poor was my father Adamastus, and would God fortune had stayed thus! Here my comrades abandoned me in the Cyclops' vast cave, mindless of me while they hurry away from the barbarous gates. It is a house of gore and blood-stained feasts, dim and huge within. Himself he is great of stature and knocks at the lofty sky (gods, take away a curse like this from earth!) to none gracious in aspect or courteous of speech. He feeds on the flesh and dark blood of wretched men. I myself saw, when he caught the bodies of two of us with his great hand, and lying back in the middle of the cave crushed them on the rock, and the courts splashed and swam with gore; I saw when he champed the flesh adrip with dark clots of blood, and the warm limbs quivered under his teeth. Yet not unavenged. Ulysses brooked not this, nor even in such straits did the Ithacan forget himself. For so soon as he, gorged with his feast and buried in wine, lay with bent neck sprawling huge over the cave, in his sleep vomiting gore and gobbets mixed with wine and blood, we, praying to the great gods and with parts allotted, pour at once all round him, and pierce with a sharp weapon the huge eye that lay sunk single under his savage brow, in fashion of an Argolic shield or the lamp of the moon; and at last we exultingly avenge the ghosts of our comrades. But fly, O wretched men, fly [640-674]and pluck the cable from the beach. . . . For even in the shape and stature of Polyphemus, when he shuts his fleeced flocks and drains their udders in the cave's covert, an hundred other horrible Cyclopes dwell all about this shore and stray on the mountain heights. Thrice now does the horned moon fill out her light, while I linger in life among desolate lairs and haunts of wild beasts in the woodland, and from a rock survey the giant Cyclopes and shudder at their cries and echoing feet. The boughs yield a miserable sustenance, berries and stony sloes, and plants torn up by the root feed me. Sweeping all the view, I at last espied this fleet standing in to shore. On it, whatsoever it were, I cast myself; it is enough to have escaped the accursed tribe. Do you rather, by any death you will, destroy this life of mine."
'Scarcely had he spoken thus, when on the mountain top we see shepherding his flocks a vast moving mass, Polyphemus himself seeking the shores he knew, a horror ominous, shapeless, huge, bereft of sight. A pine lopped by his hand guides and steadies his footsteps. His fleeced sheep attend him, this his single delight and solace in ill. . . . After he hath touched the deep flood and come to the sea, he washes in it the blood that oozes from his eye-socket, grinding his teeth with groans; and now he strides through the sea up to his middle, nor yet does the wave wet his towering sides. We hurry far away in precipitate flight, with the suppliant who had so well merited rescue; and silently cut the cable, and bending forward sweep the sea with emulous oars. He heard, and turned his steps towards the echoing sound. But when he may in no wise lay hands on us, nor can fathom the Ionian waves in pursuit, he raises a vast cry, at which the sea and all his waves shuddered, and the deep land of Italy was startled, and Aetna's vaulted caverns moaned. But the tribe of the [675-709]Cyclopes, roused from the high wooded hills, run to the harbour and fill the shore. We descry the Aetnean brotherhood standing impotent with scowling eye, their stately heads up to heaven, a dreadful consistory; even as on a mountain summit stand oaks high in air or coned cypresses, a high forest of Jove or covert of Diana. Sharp fear urges us to shake out the sheets in reckless haste, and spread our sails to the favouring wind. Yet Helenus' commands counsel that our course keep not the way between Scylla and Charybdis, the very edge of death on either hand. We are resolved to turn our canvas back. And lo! from the narrow fastness of Pelorus the North wind comes down and reaches us. I sail past Pantagias' mouth with its living stone, the Megarian bay, and low-lying Thapsus. Such names did Achemenides, of luckless Ulysses' company, point out as he retraced his wanderings along the returning shores.
'Stretched in front of a bay of Sicily lies an islet over against wavebeat Plemyrium; they of old called it Ortygia. Hither Alpheus the river of Elis, so rumour runs, hath cloven a secret passage beneath the sea, and now through thy well-head, Arethusa, mingles with the Sicilian waves. We adore as bidden the great deities of the ground; and thence I cross the fertile soil of Helorus in the marsh. Next we graze the high reefs and jutting rocks of Pachynus; and far off appears Camarina, forbidden for ever by oracles to move, and the Geloan plains, and vast Gela named after its river. Then Acragas on the steep, once the breeder of noble horses, displays its massive walls in the distance; and with granted breeze I leave thee behind, palm-girt Selinus, and thread the difficult shoals and blind reefs of Lilybaeum. Thereon Drepanum receives me in its haven and joyless border. Here, so many tempestuous seas outgone, alas! my father, the solace of every care and chance, Anchises is [710-718]lost to me. Here thou, dear lord, abandonest me in weariness, alas! rescued in vain from peril and doom. Not Helenus the prophet, though he counselled of many a terror, not boding Celaeno foretold me of this grief. This was the last agony, this the goal of the long ways; thence it was I had departed when God landed me on your coasts.'
Thus lord Aeneas with all attent retold alone the divine doom and the history of his goings. At last he was hushed, and here in silence made an end.
BOOK FOURTH
THE LOVE OF DIDO, AND HER END
But the Queen, long ere now pierced with sore distress, feeds the wound with her life-blood, and catches the fire unseen. Again and again his own valiance and his line's renown flood back upon her spirit; look and accent cling fast in her bosom, and the pain allows not rest or calm to her limbs. The morrow's dawn bore the torch of Phoebus across the earth, and had rolled away the dewy darkness from the sky, when, scarce herself, she thus opens her confidence to her sister:
'Anna, my sister, such dreams of terror thrill me through! What guest unknown is this who hath entered our dwelling? How high his mien! how brave in heart as in arms! I believe it well, with no vain assurance, his blood is divine. Fear proves the vulgar spirit. Alas, by what destinies is he driven! what wars outgone he chronicled! Were my mind not planted, fixed and immoveable, to ally myself to none in wedlock since my love of old was false to me in the treachery of death; were I not sick to the heart of bridal torch and chamber, to this temptation alone I might haply yield. Anna, I will confess it; since Sychaeus mine husband met his piteous doom, and our household was shattered by a brother's murder, he only hath [22-55]touched mine heart and stirred the balance of my soul. I know the prints of the ancient flame. But rather, I pray, may earth first yawn deep for me, or the Lord omnipotent hurl me with his thunderbolt into gloom, the pallid gloom and profound night of Erebus, ere I soil thee, mine honour, or unloose thy laws. He took my love away who made me one with him long ago; he shall keep it with him, and guard it in the tomb.' She spoke, and welling tears filled the bosom of her gown.
Anna replies: 'O dearer than the daylight to thy sister, wilt thou waste, sad and alone, all thy length of youth, and know not the sweetness of motherhood, nor love's bounty? Deemest thou the ashes care for that, or the ghost within the tomb? Be it so: in days gone by no wooers bent thy sorrow, not in Libya, not ere then in Tyre; Iarbas was slighted, and other princes nurtured by the triumphal land of Africa; wilt thou contend so with a love to thy liking? nor does it cross thy mind whose are these fields about thy dwelling? On this side are the Gaetulian towns, a race unconquerable in war; the reinless Numidian riders and the grim Syrtis hem thee in; on this lies a thirsty tract of desert, swept by the raiders of Barca. Why speak of the war gathering from Tyre, and thy brother's menaces? . . . With gods' auspices to my thinking, and with Juno's favour, hath the Ilian fleet held on hither before the gale. What a city wilt thou discern here, O sister! what a realm will rise on such a union! the arms of Troy ranged with ours, what glory will exalt the Punic state! Do thou only, asking divine favour with peace-offerings, be bounteous in welcome and draw out reasons for delay, while the storm rages at sea and Orion is wet, and his ships are shattered and the sky unvoyageable.' With these words she made the fire of love flame up in her spirit, put hope in her wavering soul, and let honour slip away.
[56-90]First they visit the shrines, and desire grace from altar to altar; they sacrifice sheep fitly chosen to Ceres the Lawgiver, to Phoebus and lord Lyaeus, to Juno before all, guardian of the marriage bond. Dido herself, excellent in beauty, holds the cup in her hand, and pours libation between the horns of a milk-white cow, or moves in state to the rich altars before the gods' presences, day by day renewing her gifts, and gazing athirst into the breasts of cattle laid open to take counsel from the throbbing entrails. Ah, witless souls of soothsayers! how may vows or shrines help her madness? all the while the subtle flame consumes her inly, and deep in her breast the wound is silent and alive. Stung to misery, Dido wanders in frenzy all down the city, even as an arrow-stricken deer, whom, far and heedless amid the Cretan woodland, a shepherd archer hath pierced and left the flying steel in her unaware; she ranges in flight the Dictaean forest lawns; fast in her side clings the deadly reed. Now she leads Aeneas with her through the town, and displays her Sidonian treasure and ordered city; she essays to speak, and breaks off half-way in utterance. Now, as day wanes, she seeks the repeated banquet, and again madly pleads to hear the agonies of Ilium, and again hangs on the teller's lips. Thereafter, when all are gone their ways, and the dim moon in turn quenches her light, and the setting stars counsel to sleep, alone in the empty house she mourns, and flings herself on the couch he left: distant she hears and sees him in the distance; or enthralled by the look he has of his father, she holds Ascanius on her lap, if so she may steal the love she may not utter. No more do the unfinished towers rise, no more do the people exercise in arms, nor work for safety in war on harbour or bastion; the works hang broken off, vast looming walls and engines towering into the sky.
So soon as she perceives her thus fast in the toils, and [91-124]madly careless of her name, Jove's beloved wife, daughter of Saturn, accosts Venus thus:
'Noble indeed is the fame and splendid the spoils you win, thou and that boy of thine, and mighty the renown of deity, if two gods have vanquished one woman by treachery. Nor am I so blind to thy terror of our town, thine old suspicion of the high house of Carthage. But what shall be the end? or why all this contest now? Nay, rather let us work an enduring peace and a bridal compact. Thou hast what all thy soul desired; Dido is on fire with love, and hath caught the madness through and through. Then rule we this people jointly in equal lordship; allow her to be a Phrygian husband's slave, and to lay her Tyrians for dowry in thine hand.'
To her—for she knew the dissembled purpose of her words, to turn the Teucrian kingdom away to the coasts of Libya—Venus thus began in answer: 'Who so mad as to reject these terms, or choose rather to try the fortune of war with thee? if only when done, as thou sayest, fortune follow. But I move in uncertainty of Jove's ordinance, whether he will that Tyrians and wanderers from Troy be one city, or approve the mingling of peoples and the treaty of union. Thou art his wife, and thy prayers may essay his soul. Go on; I will follow.'
Then Queen Juno thus rejoined: 'That task shall be mine. Now, by what means the present need may be fulfilled, attend and I will explain in brief. Aeneas and Dido (alas and woe for her!) are to go hunting together in the woodland when to-morrow's rising sun goes forth and his rays unveil the world. On them, while the beaters run up and down, and the lawns are girt with toils, will I pour down a blackening rain-cloud mingled with hail, and startle all the sky in thunder. Their company will scatter for shelter in the dim darkness; Dido and the Trojan captain [125-159]shall take refuge in the same cavern. I will be there, and if thy goodwill is assured me, I will unite them in wedlock, and make her wholly his; here shall Hymen be present.' The Cytherean gave ready assent to her request, and laughed at the wily invention.
Meanwhile Dawn rises forth of ocean. A chosen company issue from the gates while the morning star is high; they pour forth with meshed nets, toils, broad-headed hunting spears, Massylian horsemen and sinewy sleuth-hounds. At her doorway the chief of Carthage await their queen, who yet lingers in her chamber, and her horse stands splendid in gold and purple with clattering feet and jaws champing on the foamy bit. At last she comes forth amid a great thronging train, girt in a Sidonian mantle, broidered with needlework; her quiver is of gold, her tresses knotted into gold, a golden buckle clasps up her crimson gown. Therewithal the Phrygian train advances with joyous Iülus. Himself first and foremost of all, Aeneas joins her company and unites his party to hers: even as Apollo, when he leaves wintry Lycia and the streams of Xanthus to visit his mother's Delos, and renews the dance, while Cretans and Dryopes and painted Agathyrsians mingle clamorous about his altars: himself he treads the Cynthian ridges, and plaits his flowing hair with soft heavy sprays and entwines it with gold; the arrows rattle on his shoulder: as lightly as he went Aeneas; such glow and beauty is on his princely face. When they are come to the mountain heights and pathless coverts, lo, wild goats driven from the cliff-tops run down the ridge; in another quarter stags speed over the open plain and gather their flying column in a cloud of dust as they leave the hills. But the boy Ascanius is in the valleys, exultant on his fiery horse, and gallops past one and another, praying that among the unwarlike herds a foaming boar may issue or a tawny lion descend the hill.
[160-194]Meanwhile the sky begins to thicken and roar aloud. A rain-cloud comes down mingled with hail; the Tyrian train and the men of Troy, and the Dardanian boy of Venus' son scatter in fear, and seek shelter far over the fields. Streams pour from the hills. Dido and the Trojan captain take refuge in the same cavern. Primeval Earth and Juno the bridesmaid give the sign; fires flash out high in air, witnessing the union, and Nymphs cry aloud on the mountain-top. That day opened the gate of death and the springs of ill. For now Dido recks not of eye or tongue, nor sets her heart on love in secret: she calls it marriage, and with this name veils her fall.
Straightway Rumour runs through the great cities of Libya,—Rumour, than whom none other is more swift to mischief; she thrives on restlessness and gains strength by going: at first small and timorous; soon she lifts herself on high and paces the ground with head hidden among the clouds. Her, one saith, Mother Earth, when stung by wrath against the gods, bore last sister to Coeus and Enceladus, fleet-footed and swift of wing, ominous, awful, vast; for every feather on her body is a waking eye beneath, wonderful to tell, and a tongue, and as many loud lips and straining ears. By night she flits between sky and land, shrilling through the dusk, and droops not her lids in sweet slumber; in daylight she sits on guard upon tall towers or the ridge of the house-roof, and makes great cities afraid; obstinate in perverseness and forgery no less than messenger of truth. She then exultingly filled the countries with manifold talk, and blazoned alike what was done and undone: one Aeneas is come, born of Trojan blood; on him beautiful Dido thinks no shame to fling herself; now they hold their winter, long-drawn through mutual caresses, regardless of their realms and enthralled by passionate dishonour. This the pestilent goddess [195-227]spreads abroad in the mouths of men, and bends her course right on to King Iarbas, and with her words fires his spirit and swells his wrath.