Then thus th’ almighty sire began: “Ye gods,Natives or denizens of blest abodes,From whence these murmurs, and this change of mind,This backward fate from what was first design’d?Why this protracted war, when my commandsPronounc’d a peace, and gave the Latian lands?What fear or hope on either part dividesOur heav’ns, and arms our powers on diff’rent sides?A lawful time of war at length will come,(Nor need your haste anticipate the doom),When Carthage shall contend the world with Rome,Shall force the rigid rocks and Alpine chains,And, like a flood, come pouring on the plains.Then is your time for faction and debate,For partial favour, and permitted hate.Let now your immature dissension cease;Sit quiet, and compose your souls to peace.”
Thus Jupiter in few unfolds the charge;But lovely Venus thus replies at large:“O pow’r immense, eternal energy,(For to what else protection can we fly?)Seest thou the proud Rutulians, how they dareIn fields, unpunish’d, and insult my care?How lofty Turnus vaunts amidst his train,In shining arms, triumphant on the plain?Ev’n in their lines and trenches they contend,And scarce their walls the Trojan troops defend:The town is fill’d with slaughter, and o’erfloats,With a red deluge, their increasing moats.Aeneas, ignorant, and far from thence,Has left a camp expos’d, without defence.This endless outrage shall they still sustain?Shall Troy renew’d be forc’d and fir’d again?A second siege my banish’d issue fears,And a new Diomede in arms appears.One more audacious mortal will be found;And I, thy daughter, wait another wound.Yet, if with fates averse, without thy leave,The Latian lands my progeny receive,Bear they the pains of violated law,And thy protection from their aid withdraw.But, if the gods their sure success foretell;If those of heav’n consent with those of hell,To promise Italy; who dare debateThe pow’r of Jove, or fix another fate?What should I tell of tempests on the main,Of Aeolus usurping Neptune’s reign?Of Iris sent, with Bacchanalian heatT’ inspire the matrons, and destroy the fleet?Now Juno to the Stygian sky descends,Solicits hell for aid, and arms the fiends.That new example wanted yet above:An act that well became the wife of Jove!Alecto, rais’d by her, with rage inflamesThe peaceful bosoms of the Latian dames.Imperial sway no more exalts my mind;(Such hopes I had indeed, while Heav’n was kind;)Now let my happier foes possess my place,Whom Jove prefers before the Trojan race;And conquer they, whom you with conquest grace.Since you can spare, from all your wide command,No spot of earth, no hospitable land,Which may my wand’ring fugitives receive;(Since haughty Juno will not give you leave;)Then, father, (if I still may use that name,)By ruin’d Troy, yet smoking from the flame,I beg you, let Ascanius, by my care,Be freed from danger, and dismiss’d the war:Inglorious let him live, without a crown.The father may be cast on coasts unknown,Struggling with fate; but let me save the son.Mine is Cythera, mine the Cyprian tow’rs:In those recesses, and those sacred bow’rs,Obscurely let him rest; his right resignTo promis’d empire, and his Julian line.Then Carthage may th’ Ausonian towns destroy,Nor fear the race of a rejected boy.What profits it my son to scape the fire,Arm’d with his gods, and loaded with his sire;To pass the perils of the seas and wind;Evade the Greeks, and leave the war behind;To reach th’ Italian shores; if, after all,Our second Pergamus is doom’d to fall?Much better had he curb’d his high desires,And hover’d o’er his ill-extinguish’d fires.To Simois’ banks the fugitives restore,And give them back to war, and all the woes before.”
Deep indignation swell’d Saturnia’s heart:“And must I own,” she said, “my secret smart—What with more decence were in silence kept,And, but for this unjust reproach, had slept?Did god or man your fav’rite son advise,With war unhop’d the Latians to surprise?By fate, you boast, and by the gods’ decree,He left his native land for Italy!Confess the truth; by mad Cassandra, moreThan Heav’n inspir’d, he sought a foreign shore!Did I persuade to trust his second TroyTo the raw conduct of a beardless boy,With walls unfinish’d, which himself forsakes,And thro’ the waves a wand’ring voyage takes?When have I urg’d him meanly to demandThe Tuscan aid, and arm a quiet land?Did I or Iris give this mad advice,Or made the fool himself the fatal choice?You think it hard, the Latians should destroyWith swords your Trojans, and with fires your Troy!Hard and unjust indeed, for men to drawTheir native air, nor take a foreign law!That Turnus is permitted still to live,To whom his birth a god and goddess give!But yet is just and lawful for your lineTo drive their fields, and force with fraud to join;Realms, not your own, among your clans divide,And from the bridegroom tear the promis’d bride;Petition, while you public arms prepare;Pretend a peace, and yet provoke a war!’Twas giv’n to you, your darling son to shroud,To draw the dastard from the fighting crowd,And, for a man, obtend an empty cloud.From flaming fleets you turn’d the fire away,And chang’d the ships to daughters of the sea.But is my crime—the Queen of Heav’n offends,If she presume to save her suff’ring friends!Your son, not knowing what his foes decree,You say, is absent: absent let him be.Yours is Cythera, yours the Cyprian tow’rs,The soft recesses, and the sacred bow’rs.Why do you then these needless arms prepare,And thus provoke a people prone to war?Did I with fire the Trojan town deface,Or hinder from return your exil’d race?Was I the cause of mischief, or the manWhose lawless lust the fatal war began?Think on whose faith th’ adult’rous youth relied;Who promis’d, who procur’d, the Spartan bride?When all th’ united states of Greece combin’d,To purge the world of the perfidious kind,Then was your time to fear the Trojan fate:Your quarrels and complaints are now too late.”
Thus Juno. Murmurs rise, with mix’d applause,Just as they favour or dislike the cause.So winds, when yet unfledg’d in woods they lie,In whispers first their tender voices try,Then issue on the main with bellowing rage,And storms to trembling mariners presage.
Then thus to both replied th’ imperial god,Who shakes heav’n’s axles with his awful nod.(When he begins, the silent senate standWith rev’rence, list’ning to the dread command:The clouds dispel; the winds their breath restrain;And the hush’d waves lie flatted on the main.)“Celestials, your attentive ears incline!Since,” said the god, “the Trojans must not joinIn wish’d alliance with the Latian line;Since endless jarrings and immortal hateTend but to discompose our happy state;The war henceforward be resign’d to fate:Each to his proper fortune stand or fall;Equal and unconcern’d I look on all.Rutulians, Trojans, are the same to me;And both shall draw the lots their fates decree.Let these assault, if Fortune be their friend;And, if she favours those, let those defend:The Fates will find their way.” The Thund’rer said,And shook the sacred honours of his head,Attesting Styx, th’ inviolable flood,And the black regions of his brother god.Trembled the poles of heav’n, and earth confess’d the nod.This end the sessions had: the senate rise,And to his palace wait their sov’reign thro’ the skies.
Meantime, intent upon their siege, the foesWithin their walls the Trojan host inclose:They wound, they kill, they watch at ev’ry gate;Renew the fires, and urge their happy fate.
Th’ Aeneans wish in vain their wanted chief,Hopeless of flight, more hopeless of relief.Thin on the tow’rs they stand; and ev’n those fewA feeble, fainting, and dejected crew.Yet in the face of danger some there stood:The two bold brothers of Sarpedon’s blood,Asius and Acmon; both th’ Assaraci;Young Haemon, and tho’ young, resolv’d to die.With these were Clarus and Thymoetes join’d;Tibris and Castor, both of Lycian kind.From Acmon’s hands a rolling stone there came,So large, it half deserv’d a mountain’s name:Strong-sinew’d was the youth, and big of bone;His brother Mnestheus could not more have done,Or the great father of th’ intrepid son.Some firebrands throw, some flights of arrows send;And some with darts, and some with stones defend.
Amid the press appears the beauteous boy,The care of Venus, and the hope of Troy.His lovely face unarm’d, his head was bare;In ringlets o’er his shoulders hung his hair.His forehead circled with a diadem;Distinguish’d from the crowd, he shines a gem,Enchas’d in gold, or polish’d iv’ry set,Amidst the meaner foil of sable jet.
Nor Ismarus was wanting to the war,Directing pointed arrows from afar,And death with poison arm’d—in Lydia born,Where plenteous harvests the fat fields adorn;Where proud Pactolus floats the fruitful lands,And leaves a rich manure of golden sands.There Capys, author of the Capuan name,And there was Mnestheus too, increas’d in fame,Since Turnus from the camp he cast with shame.
Thus mortal war was wag’d on either side.Meantime the hero cuts the nightly tide:For, anxious, from Evander when he went,He sought the Tyrrhene camp, and Tarchon’s tent;Expos’d the cause of coming to the chief;His name and country told, and ask’d relief;Propos’d the terms; his own small strength declar’d;What vengeance proud Mezentius had prepar’d:What Turnus, bold and violent, design’d;Then shew’d the slipp’ry state of humankind,And fickle fortune; warn’d him to beware,And to his wholesome counsel added pray’r.Tarchon, without delay, the treaty signs,And to the Trojan troops the Tuscan joins.
They soon set sail; nor now the fates withstand;Their forces trusted with a foreign hand.Aeneas leads; upon his stern appearTwo lions carv’d, which rising Ida bear—Ida, to wand’ring Trojans ever dear.Under their grateful shade Aeneas sate,Revolving war’s events, and various fate.His left young Pallas kept, fix’d to his side,And oft of winds enquir’d, and of the tide;Oft of the stars, and of their wat’ry way;And what he suffer’d both by land and sea.
Now, sacred sisters, open all your spring!The Tuscan leaders, and their army sing,Which follow’d great Aeneas to the war:Their arms, their numbers, and their names declare.
A thousand youths brave Massicus obey,Borne in the Tiger thro’ the foaming sea;From Asium brought, and Cosa, by his care:For arms, light quivers, bows and shafts, they bear.Fierce Abas next: his men bright armour wore;His stern Apollo’s golden statue bore.Six hundred Populonia sent along,All skill’d in martial exercise, and strong.Three hundred more for battle Ilva joins,An isle renown’d for steel, and unexhausted mines.Asylas on his prow the third appears,Who heav’n interprets, and the wand’ring stars;From offer’d entrails prodigies expounds,And peals of thunder, with presaging sounds.A thousand spears in warlike order stand,Sent by the Pisans under his command.
Fair Astur follows in the wat’ry field,Proud of his manag’d horse and painted shield.Gravisca, noisome from the neighb’ring fen,And his own Caere, sent three hundred men;With those which Minio’s fields and Pyrgi gave,All bred in arms, unanimous, and brave.
Thou, Muse, the name of Cinyras renew,And brave Cupavo follow’d but by few;Whose helm confess’d the lineage of the man,And bore, with wings display’d, a silver swan.Love was the fault of his fam’d ancestry,Whose forms and fortunes in his ensigns fly.For Cycnus lov’d unhappy Phaeton,And sung his loss in poplar groves, alone,Beneath the sister shades, to soothe his grief.Heav’n heard his song, and hasten’d his relief,And chang’d to snowy plumes his hoary hair,And wing’d his flight, to chant aloft in air.His son Cupavo brush’d the briny flood:Upon his stern a brawny Centaur stood,Who heav’d a rock, and, threat’ning still to throw,With lifted hands alarm’d the seas below:They seem’d to fear the formidable sight,And roll’d their billows on, to speed his flight.
Ocnus was next, who led his native trainOf hardy warriors thro’ the wat’ry plain:The son of Manto by the Tuscan stream,From whence the Mantuan town derives the name—An ancient city, but of mix’d descent:Three sev’ral tribes compose the government;Four towns are under each; but all obeyThe Mantuan laws, and own the Tuscan sway.
Hate to Mezentius arm’d five hundred more,Whom Mincius from his sire Benacus bore:Mincius, with wreaths of reeds his forehead cover’d o’er.These grave Auletes leads: a hundred sweepWith stretching oars at once the glassy deep.Him and his martial train the Triton bears;High on his poop the sea-green god appears:Frowning he seems his crooked shell to sound,And at the blast the billows dance around.A hairy man above the waist he shows;A porpoise tail beneath his belly grows;And ends a fish: his breast the waves divides,And froth and foam augment the murm’ring tides.
Full thirty ships transport the chosen trainFor Troy’s relief, and scour the briny main.
Now was the world forsaken by the sun,And Phoebe half her nightly race had run.The careful chief, who never clos’d his eyes,Himself the rudder holds, the sails supplies.A choir of Nereids meet him on the flood,Once his own galleys, hewn from Ida’s wood;But now, as many nymphs, the sea they sweep,As rode, before, tall vessels on the deep.They know him from afar; and in a ringEnclose the ship that bore the Trojan king.Cymodoce, whose voice excell’d the rest,Above the waves advanc’d her snowy breast;Her right hand stops the stern; her left dividesThe curling ocean, and corrects the tides.She spoke for all the choir, and thus beganWith pleasing words to warn th’ unknowing man:“Sleeps our lov’d lord? O goddess-born, awake!Spread ev’ry sail, pursue your wat’ry track,And haste your course. Your navy once were we,From Ida’s height descending to the sea;Till Turnus, as at anchor fix’d we stood,Presum’d to violate our holy wood.Then, loos’d from shore, we fled his fires profane(Unwillingly we broke our master’s chain),And since have sought you thro’ the Tuscan main.The mighty Mother chang’d our forms to these,And gave us life immortal in the seas.But young Ascanius, in his camp distress’d,By your insulting foes is hardly press’d.Th’ Arcadian horsemen, and Etrurian host,Advance in order on the Latian coast:To cut their way the Daunian chief designs,Before their troops can reach the Trojan lines.Thou, when the rosy morn restores the light,First arm thy soldiers for th’ ensuing fight:Thyself the fated sword of Vulcan wield,And bear aloft th’ impenetrable shield.Tomorrow’s sun, unless my skill be vain,Shall see huge heaps of foes in battle slain.”Parting, she spoke; and with immortal forcePush’d on the vessel in her wat’ry course;For well she knew the way. Impell’d behind,The ship flew forward, and outstripp’d the wind.The rest make up. Unknowing of the cause,The chief admires their speed, and happy omens draws.
Then thus he pray’d, and fix’d on heav’n his eyes:“Hear thou, great Mother of the deities.With turrets crown’d! (on Ida’s holy hillFierce tigers, rein’d and curb’d, obey thy will.)Firm thy own omens; lead us on to fight;And let thy Phrygians conquer in thy right.”
He said no more. And now renewing dayHad chas’d the shadows of the night away.He charg’d the soldiers, with preventing care,Their flags to follow, and their arms prepare;Warn’d of th’ ensuing fight, and bade ’em hope the war.Now, his lofty poop, he view’d belowHis camp incompass’d, and th’ inclosing foe.His blazing shield, imbrac’d, he held on high;The camp receive the sign, and with loud shouts reply.Hope arms their courage: from their tow’rs they throwTheir darts with double force, and drive the foe.Thus, at the signal giv’n, the cranes ariseBefore the stormy south, and blacken all the skies.
