The Aeneid of Virgil Part 8

Here Agamemnonian Halaesus, foe of the Trojan name, yokes his chariot horses, and draws a thousand warlike peoples to Turnus; those who turn with spades the Ma.s.sic soil that is glad with wine; whom the elders of Aurunca sent from their high hills, and the Sidicine low country [728-761]hard by; and those who leave Cales, and the dweller by the shallows of Volturnus river, and side by side the rough Saticulan and the Oscan bands. Polished maces are their weapons, and these it is their wont to fit with a tough thong; a target covers their left side, and for close fighting they have crooked swords.

Nor shalt thou, Oebalus, depart untold of in our verses, who wast borne, men say, by the nymph Sebethis to Telon, when he grew old in rule over Capreae the Teleboc realm: but not so content with his ancestral fields, his son even then held down in wide sway the Sarrastian peoples and the meadows watered by Sarnus, and the dwellers in Rufrae and Batulum, and the fields of Celemnae, and they on whom from her apple orchards Abella city looks down. Their wont was to hurl lances in Teutonic fas.h.i.+on; their head covering was stripped bark of the cork tree, their s.h.i.+eld-plates glittering bra.s.s, glittering bra.s.s their sword.

Thee too, Ufens, mountainous Nersae sent forth to battle, of n.o.ble fame and prosperous arms, whose race on the stiff Aequiculan clods is rough beyond all other, and bred to continual hunting in the woodland; they till the soil in arms, and it is ever their delight to drive in fresh spoils and live on plunder.

Furthermore there came, sent by King Archippus, the priest of the Marruvian people, dressed with prosperous olive leaves over his helmet, Umbro excellent in valour, who was wont with charm and touch to sprinkle slumberous dew on the viper's brood and water-snakes of noisome breath.

Yet he availed not to heal the stroke of the Dardanian spear-point, nor was the wound of him helped by his sleepy charms and herbs culled on the Ma.s.sic hills. Thee the woodland of Angitia, thee Fucinus' gla.s.sy wave, thee the clear pools wept. . . .

Likewise the seed of Hippolytus marched to war, Virbius [762-796]most excellent in beauty, sent by his mother Aricia. The groves of Egeria nursed him round the spongy sh.o.r.e where Diana's altar stands rich and gracious. For they say in story that Hippolytus, after he fell by his stepmother's treachery, torn asunder by his frightened horses to fulfil a father's revenge, came again to the daylight and heaven's upper air, recalled by Diana's love and the drugs of the Healer. Then the Lord omnipotent, indignant that any mortal should rise from the nether shades to the light of life, launched his thunder and hurled down to the Stygian water the Phoebus-born, the discoverer of such craft and cure.

But Trivia the bountiful hides Hippolytus in a secret habitation, and sends him away to the nymph Egeria and the woodland's keeping, where, solitary in Italian forests, he should spend an inglorious life, and have Virbius for his altered name. Whence also hoofed horses are kept away from Trivia's temple and consecrated groves, because, affrighted at the portents of the sea, they overset the chariot and flung him out upon the sh.o.r.e. Notwithstanding did his son train his ruddy steeds on the level plain, and sped charioted to war.

Himself too among the foremost, splendid in beauty of body, Turnus moves armed and towers a whole head over all. His lofty helmet, triple-tressed with horse-hair, holds high a Chimaera breathing from her throat Aetnean fires, raging the more and exasperate with baleful flames, as the battle and bloodshed grow fiercer. But on his polished s.h.i.+eld was emblazoned in gold Io with uplifted horns, already a heifer and overgrown with hair, a lofty design, and Argus the maiden's warder, and lord Inachus pouring his stream from his embossed urn. Behind comes a cloud of infantry, and s.h.i.+elded columns thicken over all the plains; the Argive men and Auruncan forces, the Rutulians and old Sicanians, the Sacranian ranks and Labicians with [797-817]painted s.h.i.+elds; they who till thy dells, O Tiber, and Numicus' sacred sh.o.r.e, and whose ploughshare goes up and down on the Rutulian hills and the Circaean headland, over whose fields Jupiter of Anxur watches, and Feronia glad in her greenwood: and where the marsh of Satura lies black, and cold Ufens winds his way along the valley-bottoms and sinks into the sea.

Therewithal came Camilla the Volscian, leading a train of cavalry, squadrons splendid with bra.s.s: a warrior maiden who had never used her woman's hands to Minerva's distaff or wool-baskets, but hardened to endure the battle shock and outstrip the winds with racing feet. She might have flown across the topmost blades of unmown corn and left the tender ears unhurt as she ran; or sped her way over mid sea upborne by the swelling flood, nor dipt her swift feet in the water. All the people pour from house and field, and mothers crowd to wonder and gaze at her as she goes, in rapturous astonishment at the royal l.u.s.tre of purple that drapes her smooth shoulders, at the clasp of gold that intertwines her tresses, at the Lycian quiver she carries, and the pastoral myrtle shaft topped with steel.

BOOK EIGHTH

THE EMBa.s.sAGE TO EVANDER

When Turnus ran up the flag of war on the towers of Laurentum, and the trumpets blared with harsh music, when he spurred his fiery steeds and clashed his armour, straightway men's hearts are in tumult; all Latium at once flutters in banded uprisal, and her warriors rage furiously.

Their chiefs, Messapus, and Ufens, and Mezentius, scorner of the G.o.ds, begin to enrol forces on all sides, and dispeople the wide fields of husbandmen. Venulus too is sent to the town of mighty Diomede to seek succour, to instruct him that Teucrians set foot in Latium; that Aeneas in his fleet invades them with the vanquished G.o.ds of his home, and proclaims himself the King summoned of fate; that many tribes join the Dardanian, and his name swells high in Latium. What he will rear on these foundations, what issue of battle he desires, if Fortune attend him, lies clearer to his own sight than to King Turnus or King Latinus.

Thus was it in Latium. And the hero of Laomedon's blood, seeing it all, tosses on a heavy surge of care, and throws his mind rapidly this way and that, and turns it on all hands in swift change of thought: even as when the quivering light of water br.i.m.m.i.n.g in bra.s.s, struck back [23-56]from the sunlight or the moon's glittering reflection, flickers abroad over all the room, and now mounts aloft and strikes the high panelled roof. Night fell, and over all lands weary creatures were fast in deep slumber, the race of fowl and of cattle; when lord Aeneas, sick at heart of the dismal warfare, stretched him on the river bank under the cope of the cold sky, and let sleep, though late, overspread his limbs. To him the very G.o.d of the ground, the pleasant Tiber stream, seemed to raise his aged form among the poplar boughs; thin lawn veiled him with its gray covering, and shadowy reeds hid his hair. Thereon he addressed him thus, and with these words allayed his distresses:

'O born of the family of the G.o.ds, thou who bearest back our Trojan city from hostile hands, and keepest Troy towers in eternal life; O long looked for on Laurentine ground and Latin fields! here is thine a.s.sured home, thine home's a.s.sured G.o.ds. Draw not thou back, nor be alarmed by menace of war. All the anger and wrath of the G.o.ds is pa.s.sed away . . .

And even now for thine a.s.surance, that thou think not this the idle fas.h.i.+oning of sleep, a great sow shall be found lying under the oaks on the sh.o.r.e, with her new-born litter of thirty head: white she couches on the ground, and the brood about her teats is white. By this token in thirty revolving years shall Ascanius found a city, Alba of bright name.

My prophecy is sure. Now hearken, and I will briefly instruct thee how thou mayest unravel and overcome thy present task. An Arcadian people sprung of Pallas, following in their king Evander's company beneath his banners, have chosen a place in these coasts, and set a city on the hills, called Pallanteum after Pallas their forefather. These wage perpetual war with the Latin race; these do thou take to thy camp's alliance, and join with them in league. Myself I [57-89]will lead thee by my banks and straight along my stream, that thou mayest oar thy way upward against the river. Up and arise, G.o.ddess-born, and even with the setting stars address thy prayers to Juno as is meet, and vanquish her wrath and menaces with humble vows. To me thou shalt pay a conqueror's sacrifice. I am he whom thou seest was.h.i.+ng the banks with full flood and severing the rich tilth, gla.s.sy Tiber, best beloved by heaven of rivers.

Here is my stately home; my fountain-head is among high cities.'

Thus spoke the River, and sank in the depth of the pool: night and sleep left Aeneas. He arises, and, looking towards the radiant sky of the sunrising, holds up water from the river in fitly-hollowed palms, and pours to heaven these accents:

'Nymphs, Laurentine Nymphs, from whom is the generation of rivers, and thou, O father Tiber, with thine holy flood, receive Aeneas and deign to save him out of danger. What pool soever holds thy source, who pitiest our discomforts, from whatsoever soil thou dost spring excellent in beauty, ever shall my wors.h.i.+p, ever my gifts frequent thee, the horned river lord of Hesperian waters. Ah, be thou only by me, and graciously confirm thy will.' So speaks he, and chooses two galleys from his fleet, and mans them with rowers, and withal equips a crew with arms.

And lo! suddenly, ominous and wonderful to tell, the milk-white sow, of one colour with her white brood, is espied through the forest couched on the green brink; whom to thee, yes to thee, queenly Juno, good Aeneas offers in sacrifice, and sets with her offspring before thine altar. All that night long Tiber a.s.suaged his swelling stream, and silently stayed his refluent wave, smoothing the surface of his waters to the fas.h.i.+on of still pool and quiet mere, to spare [90-121]labour to the oar. So they set out and speed on their way with prosperous cries; the painted fir slides along the waterway; the waves and unwonted woods marvel at their far-gleaming s.h.i.+elds, and the gay hulls afloat on the river. They outwear a night and a day in rowing, ascend the long reaches, and pa.s.s under the chequered shadows of the trees, and cut through the green woodland in the calm water. The fiery sun had climbed midway in the circle of the sky when they see afar fortress walls and scattered house roofs, where now the might of Rome hath risen high as heaven; then Evander held a slender state. Quickly they turn their prows to land and draw near the town.

It chanced on that day the Arcadian king paid his accustomed sacrifice to the great son of Amphitryon and all the G.o.ds in a grove before the city. With him his son Pallas, with him all the chief of his people and his poor senate were offering incense, and the blood steamed warm at their altars. When they saw the high s.h.i.+ps, saw them glide up between the shady woodlands and rest on their silent oars, the sudden sight appals them, and all at once they rise and stop the banquet. Pallas courageously forbids them to break off the rites; s.n.a.t.c.hing up a spear, he flies forward, and from a hillock cries afar: 'O men, what cause hath driven you to explore these unknown ways? or whither do you steer? What is your kin, whence your habitation? Is it peace or arms you carry hither?' Then from the lofty stern lord Aeneas thus speaks, stretching forth in his hand an olive bough of peace-bearing:

'Thou seest men born of Troy and arms hostile to the Latins, who have driven us to flight in insolent warfare. We seek Evander; carry this message, and tell him that chosen men of the Dardanian captains are come pleading for an armed alliance.'

Pallas stood amazed at the august name. 'Descend,' [122-154]he cries, 'whoso thou art, and speak with my father face to face, and enter our home and hospitality.' And giving him the grasp of welcome, he caught and clung to his hand. Advancing, they enter the grove and leave the river. Then Aeneas in courteous words addresses the King:

'Best of the Grecian race, thou whom fortune hath willed that I supplicate, holding before me boughs dressed in fillets, no fear stayed me because thou wert a Grecian chief and an Arcadian, or allied by descent to the twin sons of Atreus. Nay, mine own prowess and the sanct.i.ty of divine oracles, our ancestral kins.h.i.+p, and the fame of thee that is spread abroad over the earth, have allied me to thee and led me willingly on the path of fate. Darda.n.u.s, who sailed to the Teucrian land, the first father and founder of the Ilian city, was born, as Greeks relate, of Electra the Atlantid; Electra's sire is ancient Atlas, whose shoulder sustains the heavenly spheres. Your father is Mercury, whom white Maia conceived and bore on the cold summit of Cyllene; but Maia, if we give any credence to report, is daughter of Atlas, that same Atlas who bears up the starry heavens; so both our families branch from a single blood. In this confidence I sent no emba.s.sy, I framed no crafty overtures; myself I have presented mine own person, and come a suppliant to thy courts. The same Daunian race pursues us and thee in merciless warfare; we once expelled, they trust nothing will withhold them from laying all Hesperia wholly beneath their yoke, and holding the seas that wash it above and below. Accept and return our friends.h.i.+p. We can give brave hearts in war, high souls and men approved in deeds.'

Aeneas ended. The other ere now scanned in a long gaze the face and eyes and all the form of the speaker; then thus briefly returns:

'How gladly, bravest of the Teucrians, do I hail and [155-188]own thee!

how I recall thy father's words and the very tone and glance of great Anchises! For I remember how Priam son of Laomedon, when he sought Salamis on his way to the realm of his sister Hesione, went on to visit the cold borders of Arcadia. Then early youth clad my cheeks with bloom.

I admired the Teucrian captains, admired their lord, the son of Laomedon; but Anchises moved high above them all. My heart burned with youthful pa.s.sion to accost him and clasp hand in hand; I made my way to him, and led him eagerly to Pheneus' high town. Departing he gave me an adorned quiver and Lycian arrows, a scarf inwoven with gold, and a pair of golden bits that now my Pallas possesses. Therefore my hand is already joined in the alliance you seek, and soon as to-morrow's dawn rises again over earth, I will send you away rejoicing in mine aid, and supply you from my store. Meanwhile, since you are come hither in friends.h.i.+p, solemnise with us these yearly rites which we may not defer, and even now learn to be familiar at your comrades' board.'

This said, he commands the feast and the wine-cups to be replaced whence they were taken, and with his own hand ranges them on the gra.s.sy seat, and welcomes Aeneas to the place of honour, with a lion's s.h.a.ggy fell for cus.h.i.+on and a hospitable chair of maple. Then chosen men with the priest of the altar in emulous haste bring roasted flesh of bulls, and pile baskets with the gift of ground corn, and serve the wine. Aeneas and the men of Troy with him feed on the long chines of oxen and the entrails of the sacrifice.

After hunger is driven away and the desire of food stayed, King Evander speaks: 'No idle superst.i.tion that knows not the G.o.ds of old hath ordered these our solemn rites, this customary feast, this altar of august sanct.i.ty; saved from bitter perils, O Trojan guest, do we wors.h.i.+p, and [189-225]most due are the rites we inaugurate. Look now first on this overhanging cliff of stone, where shattered ma.s.ses lie strewn, and the mountain dwelling stands desolate, and rocks are rent away in vast ruin. Here was a cavern, awful and deep-withdrawn, impenetrable to the sunbeams, where the monstrous half-human shape of Cacus had his hold: the ground was ever wet with fresh slaughter, and pallid faces of men, ghastly with gore, hung nailed on the haughty doors. This monster was the son of Vulcan, and spouted his black fires from his mouth as he moved in giant bulk. To us also in our desire time bore a G.o.d's aid and arrival. For princely Alcides the avenger came glorious in the spoils of triple Geryon slain; this way the Conqueror drove the huge bulls, and his oxen filled the river valley. But savage Cacus, infatuate to leave nothing undared or unhandled in craft or crime, drives four bulls of choice shape away from their pasturage, and as many heifers of excellent beauty. And these, that there should be no straightforward footprints, he dragged by the tail into his cavern, the track of their compelled path reversed, and hid them behind the screen of rock. No marks were there to lead a seeker to the cavern. Meanwhile the son of Amphitryon, his herds filled with food, was now breaking up his pasturage and making ready to go. The oxen low as they depart; all the woodland is filled with their complaint as they clamorously quit the hills. One heifer returned the cry, and, lowing from the depth of the dreary cave, baffled the hope of Cacus from her imprisonment. At this the grief and choler of Alcides blazed forth dark and infuriate. Seizing in his hand his club of heavy knotted oak, he seeks with swift pace the aery mountain steep. Then, as never before, did we see Cacus afraid and his countenance troubled; he goes flying swifter than the wind and seeks his cavern; fear wings his feet. As he shut himself in, and, bursting the [226-260]chains, dropped the vast rock slung in iron by his father's craft, and blocked the doorway with its pressure, lo! the Tirynthian came in furious wrath, and, scanning all the entry, turned his face this way and that and ground his teeth. Thrice, hot with rage, he circles all Mount Aventine; thrice he a.s.sails the rocky portals in vain; thrice he sinks down outwearied in the valley. There stood a sharp rock of flint with sides cut sheer away, rising over the cavern's ridge a vast height to see, fit haunt for foul birds to build on. This--for, sloping from the ridge, it leaned on the left towards the river--he loosened, urging it from the right till he tore it loose from its deep foundations; then suddenly shook it free; with the shock the vast sky thunders, the banks leap apart, and the amazed river recoils. But the den, Cacus' huge palace, lay open and revealed, and the depths of gloomy cavern were made manifest; even as though some force tearing earth apart should unlock the infernal house, and disclose the pallid realms abhorred of heaven, and deep down the monstrous gulf be descried where the ghosts flutter in the streaming daylight. On him then, surprised in unexpected light, shut in the rock's recesses and howling in strange fas.h.i.+on, Alcides from above hurls missiles and calls all his arms to aid, and presses hard on him with boughs and enormous millstones. And he, for none other escape from peril is left, vomits from his throat vast jets of smoke, wonderful to tell, and enwreathes his dwelling in blind gloom, blotting view from the eyes, while in the cave's depth night thickens with smoke-bursts in a darkness shot with fire. Alcides broke forth in anger, and with a bound hurled himself sheer amid the flames, where the smoke rolls billowing and voluminous, and the cloud surges black through the enormous den. Here, as Cacus in the darkness spouts forth his idle fires, he grasps and twines tight round him, till his eyes start out and his throat [261-295]is drained of blood under the strangling pressure. Straightway the doors are torn open and the dark house laid plain; the stolen oxen and forsworn plunder are shewn forth to heaven, and the misshapen carcase dragged forward by the feet.

Men cannot satisfy their soul with gazing on the terrible eyes, the monstrous face and s.h.a.ggy bristling chest, and the throat with its quenched fires. Thenceforth this sacrifice is solemnised, and a younger race have gladly kept the day; Pot.i.tius the inaugurator, and the Pinarian family, guardians of the rites of Hercules, have set in the grove this altar, which shall ever be called of us Most Mighty, and shall be our mightiest evermore. Wherefore arise, O men, and enwreathe your hair with leafy sprays, and stretch forth the cups in your hands; call on our common G.o.d and pour the glad wine.' He ended; when the twy-coloured poplar of Hercules hid his shaded hair with pendulous plaited leaf, and the sacred goblet filled his hand. Speedily all pour glad libation on the board, and supplicate the G.o.ds.

Meanwhile the evening star draws nigher down the slope of heaven, and now the priests went forth, Pot.i.tius at their head, girt with skins after their fas.h.i.+on, and bore torches aflame. They renew the banquet, and bring the grateful gift of a second repast, and heap the altars with loaded platters. Then the Salii stand round the lit altar-fires to sing, their brows bound with poplar boughs, one chorus of young men, one of elders, and extol in song the praises and deeds of Hercules; how first he strangled in his gripe the twin terrors, the snakes of his stepmother; how he likewise shattered in war famous cities, Troy and Oechalia; how under Eurystheus the King he bore the toil of a thousand labours by Juno's malign decrees. Thine hand, unconquered, slays the cloud-born double-bodied race, Hylaeus and Pholus, the Cretan monster, and the huge lion in the hollow Nemean rock. Before thee the Stygian pools [296-329]shook for fear, before thee the warder of h.e.l.l, couched on half-gnawn bones in his blood-stained cavern; to thee not any form was terrible, not Typhoeus' self towering in arms; thou wast not bereft of counsel when the snake of Lerna encompa.s.sed thee with thronging heads. Hail, true seed of Jove, deified glory! graciously visit us and these thy rites with favourable feet. Such are their songs of praise; they crown all with the cavern of Cacus and its fire-breathing lord. All the woodland echoes with their clamour, and the hills resound.

Thence all at once, the sacred rites accomplished, retrace their way to the city. The age-worn King walked holding Aeneas and his son by his side for companions on his way, and lightened the road with changing talk. Aeneas admires and turns his eyes lightly round about, pleased with the country; and gladly on spot after spot inquires and hears of the memorials of earlier men. Then King Evander, founder of the fortress of Rome:

'In these woodlands dwelt Fauns and Nymphs sprung of the soil, and a tribe of men born of stocks and hard oak; who had neither law nor grace of life, nor did they know to yoke bulls or lay up stores or save their gains, but were nurtured by the forest boughs and the hard living of the huntsman. Long ago Saturn came from heaven on high in flight before Jove's arms, an exile from his lost realm. He gathered together the unruly race scattered on the mountain heights, and gave them statutes, and chose Latium to be their name, since in these borders he had found a safe hiding-place. Beneath his reign were the ages named of gold; thus, in peace and quietness, did he rule the nations; till gradually there crept in a sunken and stained time, the rage of war, and the l.u.s.t of possession. Then came the Ausonian clan and the tribes of Sicania, and many a time the land of Saturn put away her name. Then were kings, [330-364]and fierce Thybris with his giant bulk, from whose name we of Italy afterwards called the Tiber river, when it lost the true name of old, Albula. Me, cast out from my country and following the utmost limits of the sea, Fortune the omnipotent and irreversible doom settled in this region; and my mother the Nymph Carmentis' awful warnings and Apollo's divine counsel drove me hither.'

Scarce was this said; next advancing he points out the altar and the Carmental Gate, which the Romans call anciently by that name in honour of the Nymph Carmentis, seer and soothsayer, who sang of old the coming greatness of the Aeneadae and the glory of Pallanteum. Next he points out the wide grove where valiant Romulus set his sanctuary, and the Lupercal in the cool hollow of the rock, dedicate to Lycean Pan after the manner of Parrhasia. Therewithal he shows the holy wood of Argiletum, and calls the spot to witness as he tells the slaying of his guest Argus. Hence he leads him to the Tarpeian house, and the Capitol golden now, of old rough with forest thickets. Even then men trembled before the wood and rock. 'This grove,' he cries, 'this hill with its leafy crown, is a G.o.d's dwelling, though whose we know not; the Arcadians believe Jove himself hath been visible, when often he shook the darkening aegis in his hand and gathered the storm-clouds. Thou seest these two towns likewise with walls overthrown, relics and memorials of men of old. This fortress lord Ja.n.u.s built, this Saturn; the name of this was once Janiculum, of that Saturnia.'

With such mutual words they drew nigh the house of poor Evander, and saw scattered herds lowing on the Roman Forum and down the gay Carinae. When they reached his dwelling, 'This threshold,' he cries, 'Alcides the Conqueror stooped to cross; in this palace he rested. Dare thou, my guest, to despise riches; mould thyself to [365-396]like dignity of G.o.dhead, and come not exacting to our poverty.' He spoke, and led tall Aeneas under the low roof of his narrow dwelling, and laid him on a couch of stuffed leaves and the skin of a Libyan she-bear. Night falls and clasps the earth in her dusky wings.

But Venus, stirred in spirit by no vain mother's alarms, and moved by the threats and stern uprisal of the Laurentines, addresses herself to Vulcan, and in her golden bridal chamber begins thus, breathing divine pa.s.sion in her speech:

'While Argolic kings wasted in war the doomed towers of Troy, the fortress fated to fall in hostile fires, no succour did I require for her wretched people, no weapons of thine art and aid: nor would I task, dear my lord, thee or thy toils for naught, though I owed many and many a debt to the children of Priam, and had often wept the sore labour of Aeneas. Now by Jove's commands he hath set foot in the Rutulian borders; I now therefore come with entreaty, and ask armour of the G.o.d I wors.h.i.+p.

For the son she bore, the tears of Nereus' daughter, of t.i.thonus'

consort, could melt thine heart. Look what nations are gathering, what cities bar their gates and sharpen the sword against me for the desolation of my children.'

The G.o.ddess ended, and, as he hesitates, clasps him round in the soft embrace of her snowy arms. He suddenly caught the wonted flame, and the heat known of old pierced him to the heart and overran his melting frame: even as when, bursting from the thunder peal, a sparkling cleft of fire shoots through the storm-clouds with dazzling light. His consort knew, rejoiced in her wiles, and felt her beauty. Then her lord speaks, enchained by Love the immortal:

'Why these far-fetched pleas? Whither, O G.o.ddess, is thy trust in me gone? Had like distress been thine, [397-431]even then we might unblamed have armed thy Trojans, nor did doom nor the Lord omnipotent forbid Troy to stand, and Priam to survive yet ten other years. And now, if thou purposest war, and this is thy counsel, whatever charge I can undertake in my craft, in aught that may be made of iron or molten electrum, whatever fire and air can do, cease thou to entreat as doubtful of thy strength.' These words spoken, he clasped his wife in the desired embrace, and, sinking in her lap, wooed quiet slumber to overspread his limbs.

Thereon, so soon as sleep, now in mid-career of waning night, had given rest and gone; soon as a woman, whose task is to sustain life with her distaff and the slender labours of the loom, kindles the ashes of her slumbering fire, her toil encroaching on the night, and sets a long task of fire-lit spinning to her maidens, that so she may keep her husband's bed unsullied and nourish her little children,--even so the Lord of Fire, nor slacker in his hours than she, rises from his soft couch to the work of his smithy. An island rises by the side of Sicily and Aeolian Lipare, steep with smoking cliffs, whereunder the vaulted and thunderous Aetnean caverns are hollowed out for Cyclopean forges, the strong strokes on the anvils echo in groans, ore of steel hisses in the vaults, and the fire pants in the furnaces: the house of Vulcan, and Vulcania the land's name. Hither now the Lord of Fire descends from heaven's height. In the vast cavern the Cyclopes were forging iron, Brontes and Steropes and Pyracmon with bared limbs. Shaped in their hands was a thunderbolt, in part already polished, such as the Father of Heaven hurls down on earth in mult.i.tudes, part yet unfinished. Three coils of frozen rain, three of watery mist they had enwrought in it, three of ruddy fire and winged south wind; now they were mingling in their work the awful splendours, the sound and terror, and the [432-469]angry pursuing flames. Elsewhere they hurried on a chariot for Mars with flying wheels, wherewith he stirs up men and cities; and burnished the golden serpent-scales of the awful aegis, the armour of wrathful Pallas, and the entwined snakes on the breast of the G.o.ddess, the Gorgon head with severed neck and rolling eyes. 'Away with all!' he cries: 'stop your tasks unfinished, Cyclopes of Aetna, and attend to this; a warrior's armour must be made. Now must strength, now quickness of hand be tried, now all our art lend her guidance. Fling off delay.'

He spoke no more; but they all bent rapidly to the work, allotting their labours equally. Bra.s.s and ore of gold flow in streams, and wounding steel is molten in the vast furnace. They shape a mighty s.h.i.+eld, to receive singly all the weapons of the Latins, and weld it sevenfold, circle on circle. Some fill and empty the windy bellows of their blast, some dip the hissing bra.s.s in the trough. They raise their arms mightily in responsive time, and turn the ma.s.s of metal about in the grasp of their tongs.

While the lord of Lemnos is busied thus in the borders of Aeolia, Evander is roused from his low dwelling by the gracious daylight and the matin songs of birds from the eaves. The old man arises, and draws on his body raiment, and ties the Tyrrhene shoe latchets about his feet; then buckles to his side and shoulder his Tegeaean sword, and swathes himself in a panther skin that droops upon his left. Therewithal two watch-dogs go before him from the high threshold, and accompany their master's steps. The hero sought his guest Aeneas in the privacy of his dwelling, mindful of their talk and his promised bounty. Nor did Aeneas fail to be astir with the dawn. With the one went his son Pallas, with the other Achates. They meet and clasp hands, and, sitting down within the house, at length enjoy unchecked converse. The King begins thus: . . .

[470-505]'Princely chief of the Teucrians, in whose lifetime I will never allow the state or realm of Troy vanquished, our strength is scant to succour in war for so great a name. On this side the Tuscan river shuts us in; on that the Rutulian drives us hard, and thunders in arms about our walls. But I purpose to unite to thee mighty peoples and the camp of a wealthy realm; an unforeseen chance offers this for thy salvation. Fate summons thy approach. Not far from here stands fast Agylla city, an ancient pile of stone, where of old the Lydian race, eminent in war, settled on the Etruscan ridges. For many years it flourished, till King Mezentius ruled it with insolent sway and armed terror. Why should I relate the horrible murders, the savage deeds of the monarch? May the G.o.ds keep them in store for himself and his line!

Nay, he would even link dead bodies to living, fitting hand to hand and face to face (the torture!), and in the oozy foulness and corruption of the dreadful embrace so slay them by a lingering death. But at last his citizens, outwearied by his mad excesses, surround him and his house in arms, cut down his comrades, and hurl fire on his roof. Amid the ma.s.sacre he escaped to the refuge of Rutulian land and the armed defence of Turnus' friends.h.i.+p. So all Etruria hath risen in righteous fury, and in immediate battle claim their king for punishment. Over these thousands will I make thee chief, O Aeneas; for their noisy s.h.i.+ps crowd all the sh.o.r.e, and they bid the standards advance, while the aged diviner stays them with prophecies: "O chosen men of Maeonia, flower and strength of them, of old time, whom righteous anger urges on the enemy, and Mezentius inflames with deserved wrath, to no Italian is it permitted to hold this great nation in control: choose foreigners to lead you." At that, terrified by the divine warning, the Etruscan lines have encamped on the plain; Tarchon himself hath sent amba.s.sadors to me with the crown [506-539]and sceptre of the kingdom, and offers the royal attire will I but enter their camp and take the Tyrrhene realm.

But old age, frozen to dulness, and exhausted with length of life, denies me the load of empire, and my prowess is past its day. I would urge it on my son, did not the mixture of blood by his Sabellian mother make this half his native land. Thou, to whose years and race alike the fates extend their favour, on whom fortune calls, enter thou in, a leader supreme in bravery over Teucrians and Italians. Mine own Pallas likewise, our hope and comfort, I will send with thee; let him grow used to endure warfare and the stern work of battle under thy teaching, to regard thine actions, and from his earliest years look up to thee. To him will I give two hundred Arcadian cavalry, the choice of our warlike strength, and Pallas as many more to thee in his own name.'

Scarce had he ended; Aeneas, son of Anchises, and trusty Achates gazed with steadfast face, and, sad at heart, were revolving inly many a labour, had not the Cytherean sent a sign from the clear sky. For suddenly a flash and peal comes quivering from heaven, and all seemed in a moment to totter, and the Tyrrhene trumpet-blast to roar along the sky. They look up; again and yet again the heavy crash re-echoes. They see in the serene s.p.a.ce of sky armour gleam red through a cloud in the clear air, and ring clas.h.i.+ng out. The others stood in amaze; but the Trojan hero knew the sound for the promise of his G.o.ddess mother; then he speaks: 'Ask not, O friend, ask not in any wise what fortune this presage announces; it is I who am summoned of heaven. This sign the G.o.ddess who bore me foretold she would send if war a.s.sailed, and would bring through the air to my succour armour from Vulcan's hands. . . .

Ah, what slaughter awaits the wretched Laurentines! what a price, O Turnus, wilt thou pay me! how many s.h.i.+elds and helmets and brave bodies of men shalt thou, [540-573]Lord Tiber, roll under thy waves! Let them call for armed array and break the league!'

These words uttered, he rises from the high seat, and first wakes with fresh fire the slumbering altars of Hercules, and gladly draws nigh his tutelar G.o.d of yesternight and the small deities of the household. Alike Evander, and alike the men of Troy, offer up, as is right, choice sheep of two years old. Thereafter he goes to the s.h.i.+ps and revisits his crew, of whose company he chooses the foremost in valour to attend him to war; the rest glide down the water and float idly with the descending stream, to come with news to Ascanius of his father's state. They give horses to the Teucrians who seek the fields of Tyrrhenia; a chosen one is brought for Aeneas, housed in a tawny lion skin that glitters with claws of gold. Rumour flies suddenly, spreading over the little town, that they ride in haste to the courts of the Tyrrhene king. Mothers redouble their prayers in terror, as fear treads closer on peril and the likeness of the War G.o.d looms larger in sight. Then Evander, clasping the hand of his departing son, clings to him weeping inconsolably, and speaks thus:

'Oh, if Jupiter would restore me the years that are past, as I was when, close under Praeneste, I cut down their foremost ranks and burned the piled s.h.i.+elds of the conquered! Then this right hand sent King Erulus down to h.e.l.l, though to him at his birth his mother Feronia (awful to tell) had given three lives and triple arms to wield; thrice must he be laid low in death; yet then this hand took all his lives and as often stripped him of his arms. Never should I now, O son, be severed from thy dear embrace; never had the insolent sword of Mezentius on my borders dealt so many cruel deaths, widowed the city of so many citizens. But you, O heavenly powers, and thou, Jupiter, Lord and Governor of Heaven, have compa.s.sion, I pray, on [574-609]the Arcadian king, and hear a father's prayers. If your deity and decrees keep my Pallas safe for me, if I live that I may see him and meet him yet, I pray for life; any toil soever I have patience to endure. But if, O Fortune, thou threatenest some dread calamity, now, ah now, may I break off a cruel life, while anxiety still wavers and expectation is in doubt, while thou, dear boy, my one last delight, art yet clasped in my embrace; let no bitterer message wound mine ear.' These words the father poured forth at the final parting; his servants bore him swooning within.

And now the cavalry had issued from the open gates, Aeneas and trusty Achates among the foremost, then other of the Trojan princes, Pallas conspicuous amid the column in scarf and inlaid armour; like the Morning Star, when, newly washed in the ocean wave, he shews his holy face in heaven, and melts the darkness away. Fearful mothers stand on the walls and follow with their eyes the cloud of dust and the squadrons gleaming in bra.s.s. They, where the goal of their way lies nearest, bear through the brushwood in armed array. Forming in column, they advance noisily, and the horse hoof shakes the crumbling plain with four-footed trampling. There is a high grove by the cold river of Caere, widely revered in ancestral awe; sheltering hills shut it in all about and girdle the woodland with their dark firs. Rumour is that the old Pelasgians, who once long ago held the Latin borders, consecrated the grove and its festal day to Silva.n.u.s, G.o.d of the tilth and flock. Not far from it Tarchon and his Tyrrhenians were encamped in a protected place; and now from the hill-top the tents of all their army might be seen outspread on the fields. Lord Aeneas and his chosen warriors draw hither and refresh their weary horses and limbs.

But Venus the white G.o.ddess drew nigh, bearing her gifts through the clouds of heaven; and when she saw her [610-646]son withdrawn far apart in the valley's recess by the cold river, cast herself in his way, and addressed him thus: 'Behold perfected the presents of my husband's promised craftsmans.h.i.+p: so shalt thou not shun, O my child, soon to challenge the haughty Laurentines or fiery Turnus to battle.' The Cytherean spoke, and sought her son's embrace, and laid the armour glittering under an oak over against him. He, rejoicing in the magnificence of the G.o.ddess' gift, cannot have his fill of turning his eyes over it piece by piece, and admires and handles between his arms the helmet, dread with plumes and spouting flame, as when a blue cloud takes fire in the sunbeams and gleams afar; then the smooth greaves of electrum and refined gold, the spear, and the s.h.i.+eld's ineffable design.

There the Lord of Fire had fas.h.i.+oned the story of Italy and the triumphs of the Romans, not witless of prophecy or ignorant of the age to be; there all the race of Ascanius' future seed, and their wars fought one by one. Likewise had he fas.h.i.+oned the she-wolf couched after the birth in the green cave of Mars; round her teats the twin boys hung playing, and fearlessly mouthed their foster-mother; she, with round neck bent back, stroked them by turns and shaped their bodies with her tongue.

Thereto not far from this he had set Rome and the lawless rape of the Sabines in the concourse of the theatre when the great Circensian games were celebrated, and a fresh war suddenly arising between the people of Romulus and aged Tatius and austere Cures. Next these same kings laid down their mutual strife and stood armed before Jove's altar with cup in hand, and joined treaty over a slain sow. Not far from there four-horse chariots driven apart had torn Mettus asunder (but thou, O Alban, shouldst have kept by thy words!), and Tullus tore the flesh of the liar through the forest, his splashed blood dripping from the briars.