The Æneid of Virgil translated into English prose

Virgil’S æNeid

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The æNeid Of Virgil

Translated Into English Prose

BY JOHN CONINGTON, M.A. LATE CORPUS PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

Edited, With Introduction And Notes By Edgar S. Shumway, Ph.D. Editor “Latine”

New York The Macmillan Company 1917

_All rights reserved_

Copyright, 1910, By The Macmillan Company.

Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1910. Reprinted June, 1914; September, 1917.

Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

Contents

Page

Introduction

The Æneid ix Virgil’s Life x Influence of the Æneid xiii The Epic Itself xvii The Story xix Sources xxi The Translation xxi Chronological Table xxv Verse Translations Recommended xxvi Books for Reference xxvii Subjects for Investigation xxvii

The æNeid

Book I. 1 II. 26 III. 51 IV. 74 V. 96 VI. 122 VII. 150 VIII. 176 IX. 198 X. 222 XI. 250 XII. 277

Notes 305

Index To Notes 345

Introduction

The æNeid

When Rome, torn and bleeding from a century of civil wars, turned to that wise judge of men, the second Cæsar, and acquiesced as, through carefully selected ministers, he gathered the reins of power into velvet-clad fingers of steel, she did wisely. Better one-man power than anarchy! It became the part of true patriotism for the citizen and of statesmanship for the politician to bring to the aid of the First Man of the state all the motives that could harmonize the chaotic elements, and start Republican Rome on the path of a new unity—the unity of the Empire.

For already “far away on the wide Roman marches might be heard, as it were, the endless, ceaseless monotone of beating horses’ hoofs and marching feet of men. They were coming, they were nearing, _like footsteps heard on wool_;[A] there was a sound of multitudes and millions of barbarians, all the North, mustering and marshalling her peoples.” In his great task Augustus, with the aid of Mæcenas, very cleverly drew to his help writers whose work has since charmed the world. We can almost pardon fate for destroying the Republic—it gave us Virgil and Horace.

Pleasant indeed had it been for Virgil to sing in emulation of his great teacher Lucretius! “As for me,” he says, “first of all I would pray that the charming Muses, whose minister I am, for the great love that has smitten me, would receive me graciously, and teach me the courses of the stars in heaven, the various eclipses of the sun and the earth, what is the force by which the deep seas swell to the bursting of their barriers and settle down again on themselves—why the winter suns make such haste to dip in ocean, or what is the retarding cause which makes the nights move slowly.” Pleasant, too, to spend his “chosen coin of fancy flashing out from many a golden phrase” in picturing “the liberty of broad domains, grottos and natural lakes, cool Tempe-like valleys, lawns and dens where wild beasts hide, a youth strong to labor and inured to scanty fare.” “Let me delight in the country and the streams that freshen the valleys—let me love river and woodland with an unambitious love.” “Then, too, there are the husbandman’s sweet children ever hanging on his lips—his virtuous household keeps the tradition of purity.” Ah, yes, to Virgil most attractive was the simple life of the lover of nature, and charmingly did he portray it in his _Eclogues_ and _Georgics_!

But Augustus, recognizing the genius of Virgil, and realizing the supreme need of a reinvigorated patriotism, urgently demanded an epic that should portray Rome’s beginnings and her significance to the world. Reluctantly then Virgil took up this task. Even at his death he considered it unfulfilled. Indeed it was his wish that the manuscript be destroyed. Almost immediately the _Æneid_ became the object of the closest study, and ever since it has evoked the deepest admiration. Perhaps no other secular writing has so profoundly affected literature.

Virgil’S Life

Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), born in the rural district near Mantua, a farmer’s son, was given by his loving father a careful education. Of his father Virgil says, “those whom I have ever loved and above all my father.” The regard of his hero Æneas for his father Anchises not merely illustrates the early Roman filial affection—it suggests Virgil’s relation to his own parent. In north Italy Virgil studied at Mantua, Cremona, and Milan, and at seventeen took up his wider studies at Rome itself in the year 53 B.C. Catullus had died the year before, Lucretius was dead two years. At Rome Virgil had the best masters in Greek, rhetoric, and in philosophy, a study in which he especially delighted. In forming his own poetic style Virgil was profoundly influenced by Lucretius, whose great poem _On Nature_ treated of the wondrous physical universe, and by the subtly sweet young Catullus,

“Tenderest of Roman poets.”

—Tennyson.

In such studies Virgil spent ten years. But in 41 B.C. he appears again in north Italy and this time in storm and stress. In the year of Philippi the triumvirs, settling their victorious legions, confiscated lands about Cremona, and Virgil, attempting to resist dispossession, came near to losing his life. Through fellow-students of the Roman days he secured an introduction to Octavius and was compensated—either recovering his own farm, or receiving in lieu of it an estate in Campania.

Virgil relates his experience in two of his ten _Eclogues_ which were published in their present form in 38 B.C. These charming poems were especially loved by Milton and Wordsworth. Macaulay indeed considered them the best of Virgil’s works. At Rome they met immediate success with the people and with Octavius and his wise minister Mæcenas, Horace’s patron. In them Virgil tenderly sings love of friends, home, and country.

Then Virgil spent seven years on the four books of the _Georgics_, publishing them in 29 B.C., two years after Actium. The _Georgics_ Merivale calls “the glorification of labor.” In them Virgil hymns the farmer’s life in beautiful Italy.

“Hail to thee, land of Saturn, mighty mother of noble fruits and noble men! For thee I essay the theme of the glory and the skill of olden days.”

Virgil was now acknowledged the greatest poet of Italy. In the year 26 B.C., one year after the title Augustus had been conferred on Octavius, we find the emperor writing Virgil the most urgent letters begging the poet to send him, then in Spain, some portion of the projected _Æneid_. It was, however, considerably later when Virgil read to Augustus the second, fourth, and sixth books, for the young Marcellus, the emperor’s nephew, died in 23 B.C., and we are told that Octavia, his mother, fainted on hearing the poet read the immortal lines about her son in the sixth book:—

“Child of a nation’s sorrow! Were there hope of thy breaking the tyranny of fate, thou shalt be Marcellus. Bring me handfuls of lilies, that I may strew the grave with their dazzling hues, and crown, if only with these gifts, my young descendant’s shade, and perform the vain service of sorrow.”

Virgil,

“who would write ten lines, they say, At dawn, and lavish all the golden day To make them wealthier in his readers’ eyes,”

had already spent some ten years on the _Æneid_, when in 19 B.C. he decided to devote three years to its revision and improvement amid the “famous cities” and scenes of Greece and Asia. It is in anticipation of this voyage that his friend Horace prays the winds to

“Speed thee, O ship, as I pray thee to render Virgil, a debt duly lent to thy charge, Whole and intact on the Attican borders Faithfully guarding the half of my soul.”

Augustus, however, met him at Athens and persuaded him to accompany his own return. But Virgil was never again to see Rome. He contracted a fever in Greece. It grew worse on the homeward trip; and he died, a few days after landing, in Brundisium, having reached the age of fifty-one. His tomb looks down upon the bay of Naples,

“That delicious Bay Parthenope’s Domain—Virgilian haunt; Illustrated with never dying verse And by the Poet’s laurel-shaded tomb, Age after age to pilgrims from all lands Endeared.”

—Wordsworth.

Influence Of The æNeid

As to the success of the _Æneid_, it was immediate with poets and people. Two years after Virgil’s death Horace writes in his _Secular Hymn_:—

“If Rome be all thy work, if Trojan bands Upon the Etruscan shore have won renown, That chosen remnant, who at thy command Forsook their hearths, and homes, and native town; If all unscathed through Ilion’s flames they sped By sage Æneas led, And o’er the ocean waves in safety fled, Destined from him, though of his home bereft, A nobler dower to take, than all that they had left.”

—Translated by MARTIN.

Some of the scholars, indeed, criticised it as having an undue simplicity, as coining new words and using old words, with new meanings, as borrowing too freely from Homer, as not written in chronological order, as containing anachronisms, etc. But within ten years it was as familiarly quoted by writers as we quote Shakespeare. It became the chief text-book in the Roman schools of grammar and rhetoric. The great writers of later days, like Pliny and Tacitus, show the profound influence of his style, which would seem to have gripped them as Goethe tells us Luther’s translation of the Scriptures affected his style, and as the King James version has left its indelible traces on English literature.

When the race-mind tired of problems of government and law, and turned strongly to the problems of religion,—degenerating easily, to be sure, to superstition,—it was evidence of Virgil’s grip on humanity that the poet of poets became the wizard of wizards. Even under the Antonines, the _Sors Vergiliana_ (Virgilian prophecy) was practised. The _Æneid_ was opened at random, and the first verse that struck the eye was considered a prophecy of good or bad portent. “The mediæval world looked upon him as a poet of prophetic insight who contained within himself all the potentialities of wisdom. He was called the Poet, as if no other existed; the _Roman_, as if the ideal of the commonwealth were embodied in him; the _perfect in style_, with whom no other writer could be compared; the _Philosopher_, who grasped the ideas of all things; the _Wise One_, whose comprehension seemed to other mortals unlimited. His writings became the Bible of a race. The mysteries of Roman priestcraft, the processes of divination, the science of the stars, were all found in his works.”

True indeed are the words of Professor MacMechan: “Beginning the _Æneid_ is like setting out upon a broad and beaten highway along which countless feet have passed in the course of nineteen centuries. It is a spiritual highway, winding through every age and every clime;” and these of Professor Woodberry: “The _Æneid_ shows that characteristic of greatness in literature which lies in its being a watershed of time; it looks back to antiquity in all that clothes it with the past of imagination, character and event, and forward to Christian times in all that clothes it with emotion, sentiment, and finality to the heart.”

As we approach modern literature, the great Italian Dante consciously takes Virgil as his “master and author.” “O glory and light of other poets! May the long zeal avail me, and the great love, that made me search thy volume. Thou art my master and my author.” On English literature the influence of the _Æneid_ has been so potent that our space will hardly suffice to convey the barest hint of its direct and indirect lines. Celtic story developed from it a voyage of Brutus who founds a new Troy, or London. Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century sets forth this tale in his history. It was believed down to the seventeenth century and is reported by Milton. Elizabethan literature has frequent references to it. Chaucer in his _House of Fame_ outlines the _Æneid_, emphasizing the Dido episode, which interested also Nash, Marlowe, and Shakespeare. Spenser teems with allusions and indeed translations, so—

“Anchyses sonne, begott of Venus fayre,” Said he, “out of the flames for safegard fled And with a remnant did to sea repayre; Where he, through fatall errour, long was led Full many yeares, and weetlesse wandered From shore to shore emongst the Lybick sandes Ere rest he fownd.”

—_F. Q._, III., ix., 41.

and—

“Like a great water-flood, that, tombling low From the high mountaines, threates to overflow With suddein fury all the fertile playne, And the sad husbandmans long hope doth throw Adown the streame, and all his vowes make vayne, Nor bounds nor banks his headlong ruine may sustayne.”

—_F. Q._, II., xi., 18; cf. _Æn._ II., 304 ff.

Bacon calls Virgil “the chastest poet and royalest that to the memory of man is known.” “Milton,” writes Dryden, “has acknowledged to me that Spenser was his original.” But beside this indirect influence, and that through the Italian school, Virgil’s direct influence on Milton is attested by many an allusion. Dryden, Cowper, with his “sweet Maro’s matchless strain,” Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold, with his “sweet, tender Virgil,” freely acknowledge the debt they owe our poet. Dryden and Morris translated the _Æneid_ into verse.

Tennyson, “the most Virgilian of modern poets,” gives the following tribute, written at the request of the Mantuans for the nineteenth centenary of Virgil’s death:—

“Roman Virgil, thou that singest Ilion’s lofty temples robed in fire, Ilion falling, Rome arising, wars, and filial faith, and Dido’s pyre, Landscape lover, lord of language more than he that sang the Works and Days, All the chosen coin of fancy flashing out from many a golden phrase, Thou that singest wheat and woodland, tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd, All the charm of all the Muses often flowering in a lonely word, Poet of the happy Tityrus piping underneath his beechen bowers, Poet of the poet-satyr whom the laughing shepherds bound with flowers, Chanter of the Pollio, glorying in the blissful years again to be, Summers of the snakeless meadow, unlaborious earth and oarless sea, Thou that seest Universal Nature moved by Universal Mind, Thou majestic in thy sadness at the doubtful doom of human kind, Light among the vanished ages, star that gildest yet this phantom shore, Golden branch amid the shadows, kings and realms that pass to rise no more, Now thy Forum roars no longer, fallen every purple Cæsar’s dome— Tho’ thine ocean-roll of rhythm sound forever of Imperial Rome— Now the Rome of slaves hath perished, and the Rome of freemen holds her place, I, from out the Northern Island, sundered once from all the human race, I salute thee, Mantovano, I that loved thee since my day began, Wielder of the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man.”

It is a lover of Horace (and who is not a lover of Horace?), the brilliant Andrew Lang, who points out (in his _Letters to Dead Authors_) a vital difference that has made Virgil’s the higher influence: “Virgil might wander forth bearing the golden branch ‘the Sibyl doth to singing man allow,’ and might visit, as one not wholly without hope, the dim dwellings of the dead and the unborn. To him was it permitted to see and sing ‘mothers and men, and the bodies outworn of mighty heroes, boys and unwedded maids, and young men borne to the funeral fire before their parents’ eyes.’ The endless caravan swept past him—‘many as fluttering leaves that drop and fall in autumn woods when the first frost begins; many as birds that flock landward from the great sea when now the chill year drives them o’er the deep and leads them to sunnier lands.’ Such things was it given to the sacred poet to behold, and the happy seats and sweet pleasances of fortunate souls, where the larger light clothes all the plains and dips them in a rosier gleam, plains with their own new sun and stars before unknown. Ah, not _frustra pius_ was Virgil, as you say, Horace, in your melancholy song. In him, we fancy, there was a happier mood than your melancholy patience.”

The Epic Itself

The purpose of the epic is to indicate the divinely ordained origin and history of Rome as a conquering, civilizing, and organizing government, destined to replace both anarchy and tyrannical despotism by liberty under law. As the real world-historic reason for Rome’s existence is so commonly overlooked, let us recall Mommsen’s words in the introduction to his _Provinces of the Roman Empire_: “It fostered the peace and prosperity of the many nations united under its sway longer and more completely than any other leading power has ever succeeded in doing.... If an angel of the Lord were to strike the balance whether the domain ruled by Severus Antoninus was governed with the greater intelligence and the greater humanity at that time or in the present day, whether civilization and national prosperity generally have since that time advanced or retrograded, it is very doubtful whether the decision would prove in favor of the present.” Virgil states the function of Rome clearly in the famous passage of the sixth book wherein Greek and Roman are compared:—

“Forget not, O Roman, thy fate—to rule in thy might o’er the nations: This is to be thine art—peace to the world to give.”

So the hero Æneas, himself of divine birth, is preserved by divine intervention when Troy falls, and mid dire perils for seven years’ voyagings, and all the bitter warring in Italy, “to bring the gods unto Latium,” “to found a city,” to teach Italy religion and a virile civilization. “Whence Rome mighty in her defences,” “a task of so great magnitude it was to build the Roman nation.” Twice,—once in fields Elysian from the lips of sainted Anchises, and again, portrayed on the shield that Vulcan made for Æneas, is rehearsed the long line of legendary and historical Roman heroes down to Augustus himself. “On this side is Augustus Cæsar, leading the Italians to conflict, with the senate and the people, the home-gods and their mighty brethren, standing aloft on the stern.” “But Cæsar ... was consecrating to the gods of Italy a votive tribute to deathless gratitude, three hundred mighty fanes the whole city through.” “Such sights Æneas scans with wonder on Vulcan’s shield ... as he heaves on his shoulder the fame and the fate of grandsons yet to be” (end of eighth book). Incidentally ground is given, in compensating fate, for Rome’s conquest of Greek lands—she is but loyal to her Trojan ancestry!—and for the duel to the death with Semitic Carthage—whose queen once was the stately Dido, left by King Æneas at Jove’s command! Incidentally, too, Virgil draws from Trojan origins governmental forms, religious rites, yes, even games.

While this great task of glorifying patriotism and harmonizing it with loyalty to Cæsar is ever present to Virgil, he cannot lose two qualities that make him the most modern of ancient poets—his love of nature and his pathos. As examples—of the former, it suffices to cite the charming harbor scene succeeding storm and wreck, in the first book; and, of the latter, the death-scene of the immortal twain, Nisus and Euryalus (in Book nine).

“Down falls Euryalus in death; over his beauteous limbs gushes the blood, and his powerless neck sinks on his shoulders; as when a purple flower, severed by the plough, pines in death, or poppies with faint necks droop the head, when rain has chanced to weigh them down. But Nisus rushes full on the foe ... and dying robs his foe of life. Then he flung himself on his breathless friend, pierced through and through, and there at length slept away in peaceful death.

“Happy pair! if this my song has ought of potency, no lapse of days shall efface your names from the memory of time, so long as the house of Æneas shall dwell on the Capitol’s moveless rock, and a Roman father shall be the world’s lord.”

The Story

The story on which Virgil builds is, briefly, the fall of Troy, the voyaging of Trojan refugees under Æneas, and the successful wars of Æneas with Italian barbarians.

According to the ancient legend the Greeks had warred ten years under Troy’s walls, because the Trojan prince, Paris, having awarded the prize of beauty to Venus as against Juno and Minerva, and, having been promised as reward by Venus Helen the beautiful wife of the Greek Menelaus, had eloped with that fatal beauty to Troy, and his father King Priam had refused to make restitution.

The story then, as related by Æneas to Queen Dido in her palace at Carthage, takes up (in the second book of the Æneid) the downfall and destruction of Troy, with the escape of Æneas, his father and son, together with a band of Trojans. Then (in the third book) are depicted their voyagings, unsuccessful attempts to found cities, and arrival in Sicily. Here father Anchises dies. From Sicily they sail in the endeavor to reach Latium in Italy.

It is at this point that the epic begins. So after his invocation and introduction (in Book one), Virgil makes unrelenting Juno, through the storm-king Æolus, let loose upon the Trojan fleet a fierce tempest, which drives the remnant of the fleet far away to the Carthaginian coast. Æneas, directed by his disguised mother Venus, comes to the court of Dido by whom he is kindly received, banqueted; and at her request narrates (in Books two and three) his harsh experiences.

Book four continues the Dido episode. The queen madly loves Æneas—this through the influence of Venus, who else had feared Carthaginian hostility to her dear Trojans. Juno thinks to thwart the fates and Jove’s will that Æneas should create the Roman race; and she plans to hold Æneas as spouse of the Carthaginian queen. Jove intervenes, sending Mercury with explicit commands to Æneas to seek Italy. He sails, and Dido slays herself.

In Book five they reach Sicily again, and it being the anniversary of Anchises’ death, Æneas celebrates it with athletic contests. During these Juno again attempts to thwart the fates, sending a messenger to incite the Trojan women to set the fleet on fire. But this attempt is only successful in so far as it leads Æneas to leave the weaklings under the kindly sway of their kinsman, the Sicilian chief, Acestes. The rest sail for Italy, losing the faithful pilot, Palinurus.

Book six details the visit Æneas, under the guidance of the Sibyl, to the abode of the dead. There he meets again his father Anchises, who passes in review, as souls about to be reborn into the upper world, their heroic descendants.

So far, with the exception of Book two, which recorded the fall and sack of Troy, a theme omitted by Homer, Virgil has recorded the Odyssey or wanderings of his hero Æneas. Now in the succeeding six books is given the Iliad or wars of Æneas in Italy. As he lands, King Latinus is divinely led to promise Æneas his daughter Lavinia. But she has been betrothed to Turnus. Under Juno’s prompting then begins this tremendous duel between Æneas and Turnus. And here we note a curious likeness between Milton and Virgil. As our sympathies are aroused in the _Paradise Lost_ for Lucifer, so Turnus, “the reckless one,” looms up a figure of heroic size, doomed by the fates to die that Rome may live.

Sources

As Virgil’s sources for his story and indeed for no small portion of his language may be mentioned preeminently:— Homer’s _Odyssey_ and _Iliad_; Euripides, “with his droppings of warm tears”; the Greek epic poets, called the cyclic poets, as dealing with the cycle of story revolving around Troy; the Greek freedman and teacher, Livius Andronicus, who translated roughly the _Odyssey_; Nævius, who wrote on the First Punic War, tracing Carthaginian hostility back to the Æneas visit; and especially Ennius, “father of Latin literature,” who in a great epic traced the history of Rome from Æneas down. Of Virgil’s borrowings it were enough perhaps to say that, like our Shakespeare, he ennobled what he borrowed, wove it into the texture of his song—stamped it Virgilian.

The Translation

Concerning the translation itself, we should perhaps set over against Emerson’s famous saying, “I should as soon think of swimming across Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals, when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue,” that other remark of a great scholar, that “the thing for the student of language to learn is that _translation is impossible_.” Exquisitely done as is this version by Professor Conington, noble student of Virgil as he was, some faint notion of what is lost in the process might be gained by comparing a prose version of, say, Longfellow’s “Evangeline” with his hexameters themselves:—

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic— Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

At the very least, “the noblest measure ever moulded by the lips of man,” Virgil’s “ocean-roll of rhythm,” is lost. That indeed is not revived for us in Conington’s own poetical version, not in Dryden’s, nor in Morris’s. Of Virgil also that is true which T. B. Aldrich, charming poet that he was, wrote me anent his own early translations, “But who could hope to decant the wine of Horace?”

Yet it may be not without interest to compare some verse renderings of the initial lines:—

I (woll now) sing (if that I can,) The armes and also the man, That first came through his destinie, Fugitive fro Troy the countrie Into Itaile, with full much pine, Unto the stronds of Lavine.

—CHAUCER, _House of Fame_.

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate, And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate, Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore, Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore, And in the doubtful war, before he won The Latian realm, and built the destined town; His banished gods restored to rites divine, And settled sure succession in his line, From whence the race of Alban fathers come And the long glories of majestic Rome.

—Dryden.

I sing of arms, I sing of him, who from the Trojan land, Thrust forth by Fate, to Italy and that Lavinian strand First came: all tost about was he on earth and on the deep By heavenly might for Juno’s wrath, that had no mind to sleep: And plenteous war he underwent ere he his town might frame, And set his gods in Latian earth, whence is the Latin name. And father-folk of Alba-town, and walls of mighty Rome.

—Morris.

Arms and the man I sing, who first, By Fate of Ilian realm amerced, To fair Italia onward bore, And landed on Lavinium’s shore:— Long tossing earth and ocean o’er, By violence of heaven, to sate Fell Juno’s unrelenting hate; Much labored too in battle-field, Striving his city’s walls to build, And give his gods a home: Thence come the hardy Latin brood, The ancient sires of Alba’s blood, And lofty-rampired Rome.

—Conington.

I sing of arms, and of the man who first Came from the coasts of Troy to Italy And the Lavinian shores, exiled by fate, Much was he tossed about upon the lands And in the ocean by supernal powers, Because of cruel Juno’s sleepless wrath. Many things also suffered he in war, Until he built a city, and his gods Brought into Latium; whence the Latin race, The Alban sires and walls of lofty Rome.

—Cranch.

I sing of war, I sing the man who erst, From off the shore of Troy fate-hunted, came To the Lavinian coast in Italy, Hard pressed on land and sea, the gods malign, Fierce Juno’s hate unslaked. Much too in war He bore while he a city built, and set His gods in Latium. Thence the Latin race, Our Alban sires, the walls of haughty Rome.

—Long.

Arms and the man I sing who first, from Troy Expelled by Fate’s decree, to Italy And the Lavinian shores, a wanderer came. Sore travail he endured by land and sea From adverse gods, and unrelenting rage Of haughty Juno: harassed, too, by war, His destined city while he strove to build And raise new altars for his exiled gods. The Latian race, the Alban fathers hence Their birth derived—hence Rome’s proud fabric sprung.

—Rickards.

(In hexameters.)

Arms and the hero I sing, who of old from the borders of Troja Came to Italia, banished by fate to Lavinia’s destined Sea coasts: Much was he tossed on the lands and the deep by enlisted Might of supernals, through Juno’s remembered resentment: Much, too, he suffered in warfare, while he was founding a city, And into Latium bearing his gods: whence issued the Latin Race, and the Alban fathers, and walls of imperial Roma.

—Crane.

Sing I the arms and the man, who first from the shores of the Trojan, Driven by Fate, into Italy came, to Lavinium’s borders Much was he vexed by the power of the gods, on the land and the ocean, Through the implacable wrath of the vengeful and pitiless Juno; Much, too, he suffered in war, until he could found him a city, And into Latium carry his gods; whence the race of the Latins, Alba’s illustrious fathers, and Rome’s imperial bulwarks.

—Howland.

Chronological Table

B.C. 98. Birth of Lucretius. 87. Birth of Catullus. 70. Virgil is born. 69. Birth of Mæcenas; Cicero is ædile. 66. Cicero is prætor. 65. Horace is born. 63. Birth of Octavius (afterward Gaius Julius Cæsar Octavianus Augustus). Cicero’s consulship and _Orations against Catiline_. 60. First Triumvirate (Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus). 58. Cicero banished. Cæsar begins conquest of Gaul. 57. Cicero recalled from exile. 55. Virgil assumes the _toga virilis_. Death of Lucretius, Cæsar in Britain. 54. Virgil studies in Milan. Death of Catullus. Cicero edits Lucretius’ _On Nature_, and (perhaps) Catullus’ _Odes_, and begins his essay _On the State_. 53. Virgil goes to Rome: Horace is also taken there. Cicero is augur. Parthians defeat Romans at Carrhæ. 52. Cicero’s _Oration for Milo_. 51. Cicero proconsul in Cilicia. 49. Civil War. Cæsar marches on Rome, bestowing Roman citizenship on Italians north of the Po. Pompey leaves Italy. 48. Battle of Pharsalia. Assassination of Pompey. 46. Battle of Thapsus. Suicide of Cato at Utica. 45. Horace goes to Athens. 44. Cæsar assassinated: Octavius, adopted in his will, assumes his name. Cicero’s _Philippics_. 43. Birth of Ovid. Second Triumvirate (Octavianus, Antony, and Lepidus). Assassination of Cicero. Civil war with Brutus and Cassius. Horace a tribune in Brutus’ army. 42. Battles of Philippi. Death of Brutus and Cassius. 41. Confiscations by the triumvirs. Virgil introduced to Mæcenas and Octavianus. Horace returns to Rome. 40. Virgil restored to his estate. 39. Horace introduced to Mæcenas by Virgil and Varius. 37. Virgil publishes _Eclogues_. Phraates king of Parthia. 36. Antony invades Parthia. 35. Horace publishes First Book of _Satires_. 33. Phraates attacks Armenia and Media. 31. Battle of Actium. Overthrow of Antony. Octavianus visits the East. 30. Horace publishes Second Book of _Satires_ and his _Epodes_. 29. Octavianus returns from the East and celebrates threefold triumph. Temple of Janus closed in sign of peace. Virgil publishes _Georgics_. 27. Octavianus receives the title of Augustus. 26. Augustus in Spain corresponds with Virgil. 24. Horace (probably) publishes first Three Books of _Odes_. 23. Death of Marcellus. Virgil reads portions of the _Æneid_ to Augustus. 20. Expedition of Augustus to the East. Parthians restore standards taken at Carrhæ. 19. Virgil journeys to Greece. Returns with Augustus. Dies at Brundisium. Augustus directs Virgil’s friend Varius and Tucca to edit the _Æneid_. 18. Horace publishes First Book of _Epistles_. 17. The Secular Festival. Horace writes the _Secular Hymn_. 13. Horace publishes Fourth Book of _Odes_. 8. Death of Mæcenas and Horace.

Verse Translations Recommended

DRYDEN; CONINGTON (Crowell, New York); WILLIAM MORRIS (Roberts Brothers, Boston); CRANCH; LONG (Lockwood Brooks & Co., Boston); CRANE (Baker & Taylor Co., New York); HOWLAND (D. Appleton & Co., New York), RICKARDS (Books I.-VI., Blackwood & Sons, London); RHOADES (Longmans); BILLSON (Edward Arnold, London).

Books For Reference

_Roman Poets of the Augustan Age_, Sellar (Oxford, Clarendon Press); _Virgil_, Nettleship (Appletons), and in his _Lectures and Essays_ (Oxford); _Classical Essays_, F. W. H. Myers (Macmillan); _Studies in Virgil_, Glover (Edward Arnold, London); _Country of Horace and Virgil_, Boissier (Putnam); _Master Virgil_, Tunison (Robert Clark & Co., Cincinnati); _Vergil in the Middle Ages_, Comparetti (Sonnenschein, London); _Legends of Virgil_, Leland (Macmillan); _Histories of Roman Literature_ by Teuffel (George Bell & Sons, London), Browne (Bentley, London), Cruttwell (Scribners, N.Y.), Simcox (Harpers, N.Y.). _Æneas as a Character Study_, Miller (Latine, Vol. IV., p. 18).

Subjects For Investigation

(Miller, in _Latine_ for January, 1886.)

(1) Virgilian Proverbs. (2) A Word Study. (3) Fatalism in Virgil. (4) Virgil’s Pictures of Roman Customs. (5) Pen Pictures. (6) Astronomy in Virgil. (7) Virgil’s Debt to Homer. (8) Milton’s Debt to Virgil. (9) Virgil’s Gods and Religious Rites. (10) Omens and Oracles. (11) Virgil’s Influence upon Literature in General. (12) Figures in Virgil. (13) Virgilian Herbarium. (14) Detailed Account of the Wandering of Æneas. (15) The Geography of Virgil. (16) Virgil as a Poet of Nature. (17) Virgil’s Life as gleaned from his Works. [(18) The Manuscript Texts of Virgil.] (19) Virgilian Translators and Commentators. (20) Some Noted Passages—why? (21) The Platonism of the Sixth Book. (22) Dryden’s Dictum Discussed, (23) Dante—The Later Virgil. [(24) The Prosody of Virgil.] (25) Dido—A Psychological Study. (28) Æneas—A Character Study. [(27) _Testimonium Veterum de Vergilio._] (28) Virgil and Theocritus. (29) Virgil’s Creations. (30) Epithets of Æneas. (31) The Virgilian Birds. (32) Was Virgil Acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures? (33) Visions and Dreams—Supernatural Means of Spirit Communication. (34) Night Scenes in Virgil. (35) Different Names for Trojans and Greeks and their Significance. (36) The Story of the Æneid.

Virgil’S æNeid

The æNeid

Book I

Arms and the man I sing,[1] who at the first from Troy’s[2] shores the exile of destiny, won his way to Italy and her Latian[3] coast—a man much buffeted on land and on the deep by violence from above, to sate the unforgetting wrath of Juno[4] the cruel—much[5] scourged too in war, as he 5 struggled to build him a city, and find his gods a home in Latium—himself the father of the Latian people, and the chiefs of Alba’s[6] houses, and the walls of high towering Rome.

Bring to my mind, O Muse,[7] the causes—for what 10 treason against her godhead, or what pain received, the queen of heaven drove a man of piety so signal to turn the wheel of so many calamities, to bear the brunt of so many hardships! Can heavenly natures hate[8] so fiercely and so long? 15

Of old there was a city, its people emigrants from Tyre,[9] Carthage, over against Italy and Tiber’s mouths, yet far removed—rich and mighty, and formed to all roughness by war’s[10] iron trade—a spot where Juno, it was said, loved to dwell more than in all the world beside, 20 Samos[11] holding but the second place. Here was her armour, here her chariot—here to fix by her royal act the empire of the nations, could Fate be brought to assent, was even then her aim, her cherished scheme. But she had heard that the blood of Troy was sowing the seed of a 25 race to overturn one day those Tyrian towers—from that seed a nation, monarch of broad realms and glorious in war, was to bring ruin on Libya[12]—such the turning of Fate’s[13] wheel. With these fears Saturn’s[14] daughter, and with a lively memory of that old war which at first she had waged at Troy for her loved Argos’[15] sake—nor indeed had the causes of that feud and the bitter pangs they roused yet vanished from her mind—no, stored up 5 in her soul’s depths remains the judgment of Paris,[16] and the wrong done to her slighted beauty, and the race abhorred from the womb, and the state enjoyed by the ravished Ganymede.[17] With this fuel added to the fire, the Trojans, poor remnants of Danaan[18] havoc and 10 Achilles’[19] ruthless spear, she was tossing from sea to sea, and keeping far away from Latium; and for many long years they were wandering, with destiny still driving them, the whole ocean round. So vast the effort it cost to build up the Roman nation! 15

Scarce out of sight of the land of Sicily were they spreading their sails merrily to the deep, and scattering with their brazen prows the briny spray, when Juno, the everlasting wound still rankling in her heart’s core, thus communed with herself: “And am I to give up what I have 20 taken in hand, baffled, nor have power to prevent the king of the Teucrians[20] from reaching Italy—because, forsooth, the Fates forbid me? What! was Pallas[21] strong enough to burn up utterly the Grecian fleet, and whelm the crews in the sea, for the offence of a single man, the frenzy of 25 Ajax,[22] Oïleus’ son? Aye, she with her own hand launched from the clouds Jove’s[23] winged fire, dashed the ships apart, and turned up the sea-floor with the wind—him, gasping out the flame which pierced his bosom, she caught in the blast, and impaled on a rock’s[24] point—while I, who walk 30 the sky as its queen, Jove’s sister and consort both, am battling with a single nation these many years. And are there any found to pray to Juno’s deity after this, or lay on her altar a suppliant’s gift?”

With such thoughts sweeping through the solitude of 35 her enkindled breast, the goddess comes to the storm-cloud’s birthplace, the teeming womb of fierce southern blasts, Æolia.[25] Here, in a vast cavern,[26] King Æolus[27] is bowing to his sway struggling winds and howling tempests, and bridling them with bond[28] and prison. They, in their passion, are raving at the closed doors, while the huge rock roars responsive: Æolus is sitting aloft in his fortress, his sceptre in his hand, soothing their moods 5 and allaying their rage; were he to fail in this, why sea and land, and the deep of heaven, would all be forced along by their blast, and swept through the air. But the almighty sire has buried them in caverns dark and deep, with this fear before his eyes, and placed over them 10 giant bulk and tall mountains, and given them a king who, by the terms of his compact, should know how to tighten or slacken the reins at his patron’s will. To him it was that Juno then, in these words, made her humble request:— 15

“Æolus—for it is to thee that the sire of gods and king of men has given it with the winds now to calm, now to rouse the billows—there is a race which I love not now sailing the Tyrrhene[29] sea, carrying Ilion[30] into Italy and Ilion’s vanquished gods; do thou lash the winds to fury, 20 sink and whelm their ships, or scatter them apart, and strew the ocean with their corpses. Twice seven nymphs are of my train, all of surpassing beauty; of these her whose form is fairest, Deiopea, I will unite to thee in lasting wedlock, and consecrate her thy own, that all her days, for a 25 service so great, she may pass with thee, and make thee father of a goodly progeny.”

Æolus returns: “Thine, great Queen, is the task to search out on what thou mayest fix thy heart; for me to do thy bidding[31] is but right. Thou makest this poor realm 30 mine, mine the sceptre and Jove’s smile; thou givest me a couch at the banquets of the gods, and makest me lord of the storm-cloud and of the tempest.”

So soon as this was said, he turned his spear, and pushed the hollow mountain on its side; and the winds, as though 35 in column formed, rush forth[32] where they see any outlet, and sweep over the earth in hurricane. Heavily they fall[33] on the sea, and from its very bottom crash down the whole expanse—one and all, east and south, and south-west, with his storms thronging at his back, and roll huge billows shoreward. Hark to the shrieks of the crew, and the creaking of the cables! In an instant the clouds snatch sky and daylight[34] from the Teucrians’ eyes—night 5 lies on the deep, black and heavy—pole thunders to pole; heaven flashes thick with fires, and all nature brandishes instant death in the seaman’s face. At once Æneas’[35] limbs are unstrung and chilled[36]—he groans aloud, and, stretching his clasped hands to the stars, 10 fetches from his breast words like these:—“O happy, thrice[37] and again, whose lot it was, in their fathers’ sight, under Troy’s high walls to meet death! O thou, the bravest of the Danaan race, Tydeus’ son,[38] why was it not mine to lay me low on Ilion’s plains, and yield this fated life to 15 thy right hand? Aye, there it is that Hector,[39] stern as in life, lies stretched by the spear of Æacides[40]—there lies Sarpedon’s[41] giant bulk—there it is that Simois[42] seizes and sweeps down her channel those many shields and helms, and bodies of the brave!” 20

Such words as he flung wildly forth, a blast roaring from the north strikes his sail full in front and lifts the billows to the stars.[43] Shattered are the oars; then the prow turns and presents the ship’s side to the waves; down crashes in a heap a craggy mountain of water. Look! 25 these are hanging on the surge’s crest[44]—to those the yawning deep is giving a glimpse of land down among the billows; surf and sand are raving together. Three ships the south catches, and flings upon hidden rocks—rocks 30 which, as they stand with the waves all about them, the Italians call Altars, an enormous ridge rising above the sea. Three the east drives from the main on to shallows and Syrtes,[45] a piteous sight, and dashes them on shoals, and embanks them in mounds of sand. One in which the Lycians were sailing, and true Orontes, a 35 mighty sea strikes from high on the stem before Æneas’ very eyes; down goes the helmsman, washed from his post, and topples on his head, while she is thrice whirled round by the billow in the spot where she lay, and swallowed at once by the greedy gulf. You might see them here and there swimming in that vast abyss—heroes’ arms, and planks, and Troy’s treasures glimmering through the water. Already Ilioneus’ stout ship, already brave 5 Achates’, and that in which Abas sailed, and that which carried old Aletes, are worsted by the storm; their side-jointings[46] loosened, one and all give entrance to the watery foe, and part failingly asunder.

Meantime the roaring riot of the ocean and the storm let 10 loose reached the sense of Neptune,[47] and the still waters disgorged from their deep beds, troubling him grievously; and casting a broad glance over the main he raised at once his tranquil brow from the water’s surface. There he sees Æneas’ fleet tossed hither and thither over the 15 whole expanse—the Trojans whelmed under the billows, and the crashing ruin of the sky—nor failed the brother to read Juno’s craft and hatred there. East and West he calls before him, and bespeaks them thus:—“Are ye then so wholly o’ermastered by the pride of your birth? 20 Have ye come to this, ye Winds, that, without sanction from me, ye dare to confound[48] sea and land, and upheave these mighty mountains? ye! whom I—but it were best to calm the billows ye have troubled. Henceforth ye shall pay me for your crimes in far other coin. Make 25 good speed with your flight, and give your king this message. Not to him did the lot assign the empire of the sea and the terrible trident, but to me. His sway is over those enormous rocks, where you, Eurus,[49] dwell, and such as you; in that court let Æolus lord it, and rule in the prison-house 30 of the winds when its doors are barred.”

He speaks, and ere his words are done soothes the swelling waters, and routs[50] the mustered clouds, and brings back the sun in triumph. Cymothoë and Triton[51] combine their efforts to push off the vessels from the sharp-pointed 35 rock. The god himself upheaves them with his own trident,[52] and levels the great quicksands, and allays the sea, and on chariot-wheels of lightest motion glides along the water’s top. Even as when in a great crowd tumult is oft stirred up, and the base herd waxes wild and frantic, and brands and stones are flying already, rage suiting the weapon[53] to the hand—at that moment, should their eyes fall on some man of weight, for duty done and public 5 worth, tongues are hushed and ears fixed in attention, while his words sway the spirit and soothe the breast—so fell all the thunders of the ocean, so soon as the great father, with the waves before him in prospect, and the clear sky all about him, guides his steeds at will, and as he 10 flies flings out the reins freely to his obedient car.

Spent with toil, the family of Æneas labour to gain the shore that may be nearest, and are carried to the coasts of Libya. There is a spot retiring deep into the land, where an island forms a haven[54] by the barrier of its sides, which 15 break every billow from the main and send it shattered into the deep indented hollows. On either side of the bay are huge rocks, and two great crags rising in menace to the sky; under their summits far and wide the water is hushed in shelter, while a theatric background of waving woods, 20 a black forest of stiffening shade, overhangs it from the height. Under the brow that fronts the deep is a cave with pendent crags; within there are fresh springs and seats in the living rock—the home of the nymphs; no need of cable[55] here to confine the weary bark or anchor’s 25 crooked fang to grapple her to the shore. Here with seven ships mustered from his whole fleet Æneas enters; and with intense yearning for dry land the Trojans disembark and take possession of the wished-for shore, and lay their brine-drenched limbs upon the beach. And first Achates 30 from a flint struck out a spark, and received the fire as it dropped in a cradle of leaves, and placed dry food all about it, and spread the strong blaze among the tinder. Then their corn, soaked and spoiled as it was, and the corn-goddess’ armoury they bring out, sick of fortune; and make 35 ready to parch the rescued grain at the fire, and crush it with the millstone.

Æneas meanwhile clambers up a rock, and tries to get a full view far and wide over the sea, if haply he may see aught of Antheus, driven by the gale, and the Phrygian biremes,[56] or Capys, or high on the stern the arms of Caicus. Sail there is none in sight; three stags he sees at distance straying on the shore; these the whole herd follows in the 5 rear, and grazes along the hollows in long array. At once he took his stand, and caught up a bow and fleet arrows, which true Achates chanced to be carrying, and lays low first the leaders themselves, as they bear their heads aloft with tree-like antlers, then the meaner sort, and scatters with 10 his pursuing shafts the whole rout among the leafy woods; nor stays his hand till he stretches on earth victoriously seven huge bodies, and makes the sum of them even with his ships. Then he returns to the haven and gives all his comrades their shares. The wine next, which that good 15 Acestes had stowed in casks on the Trinacrian shore, and given them at parting with his own princely hand, he portions out, and speaks words of comfort to their sorrowing hearts:—

“Comrades! for comrades we are, no strangers to hardships 20 already; hearts that have felt deeper wounds! for these too heaven will find a balm. Why, men, you have even looked on Scylla[57] in her madness, and heard those yells that thrill the rocks; you have even made trial of the crags of the Cyclops.[58] Come, call your spirits back, 25 and banish these doleful fears—who knows but some day this too will be remembered[59] with pleasure? Through manifold chances, through these many perils of fortune, we are making our way to Latium, where the Fates hold out to us a quiet settlement; there Troy’s empire has 30 leave to rise again from its ashes. Bear up, and reserve yourselves for brighter days.”

Such were the words his tongue uttered; heart-sick[60] with overwhelming care, he wears the semblance of hope in his face, but has grief deep buried in his heart. They 35 gird themselves to deal with the game, their forthcoming meal; strip the hide from the ribs, and lay bare the flesh—some cut it into pieces, and impale it yet quivering on spits, others set up the caldrons on the beach, and supply them with flame. Then with food they recall their strength, and, stretched along the turf, feast on old wine and fat venison to their hearts’ content. Their hunger sated by the meal, and the boards removed, they vent in 5 long talk their anxious yearning for their missing comrades—balanced between hope and fear, whether to think of them as alive, or as suffering the last change, and deaf already to the voice that calls on them. But good Æneas’ grief exceeds the rest; one moment he groans for 10 bold Orontes’ fortune, another for Amycus’, and in the depth of his spirit laments for the cruel fate of Lycus; for the gallant Gyas and the gallant Cloanthus.

And now at last their mourning had an end, when Jupiter from the height of ether,[61] looking down on the sea 15 with its fluttering sails, on the flat surface of earth, the shores, and the broad tribes of men, paused thus upon heaven’s very summit, and fixed his downward gaze on Libya’s realms. To him, revolving in his breast such thoughts as these, sad beyond her wont, with tears suffusing 20 her starry eyes, speaks Venus: “O thou, who by thy everlasting laws swayest the two commonwealths of men and gods, and awest them by thy lightning! What can my poor Æneas have done to merit thy wrath? What can the Trojans? yet they, after the many deaths they 25 have suffered already, still find the whole world barred[62] against them for Italy’s sake. From them assuredly it was that the Romans, as years rolled on—from them were to spring those warrior chiefs, aye from Teucer’s blood revived, who should rule sea and land with absolute sway—such 30 was thy promise: how has thy purpose, O my father, wrought a change in thee? This, I know, was my constant solace when Troy’s star set in grievous ruin, as I sat balancing destiny against destiny. And now here is the same Fortune, pursuing the brave men she has so oft discomfited 35 already. Mighty king, what end of sufferings hast thou to give them? Antenor,[63] indeed, found means to escape through the midst of the Achæans, to thread in safety the windings of the Illyrian coast, and the realms of the Liburnians, up at the gulf’s head, and to pass the springs of Timavus, whence through nine mouths,’mid the rocks’ responsive roar, the sea comes bursting up, and deluges the fields with its thundering billows. Yet in that spot 5 he built the city of Patavium for his Trojans to dwell in, and gave them a place and a name among the nations, and set up a rest for the arms[64] of Troy: now he reposes, lapped in the calm of peace. Meantime we, of thine own blood, to whom thy nod secures the pinnacle of heaven, our ships, 10 most monstrous, lost, as thou seest, all to sate the malice of one cruel heart, are given up to ruin, and severed far from the Italian shores. Is this the reward of piety[65]? Is this to restore a king to his throne?”

Smiling on her, the planter of gods and men, with that 15 face which calms the fitful moods of the sky, touched with a kiss his daughter’s lips, then addressed her thus: “Give thy fears a respite, lady of Cythera[66]: thy people’s destiny abides still unchanged for thee; thine eyes shall see the city of thy heart, the promised walls of Lavinium[67]; 20 thine arms shall bear aloft to the stars of heaven thy hero Æneas; nor has my purpose wrought a change in me. Thy hero—for I will speak out, in pity for the care that rankles yet, and awaken the secrets of Fate’s book from the distant pages where they slumber—thy hero shall 25 wage a mighty war in Italy, crush its haughty tribes, and set up for his warriors a polity and a city, till the third summer shall have seen him king over Latium, and three winters in camp shall have passed over the Rutulians’[68] defeat. But the boy Ascanius,[69] who has now the new 30 name of Iulus—Ilus he was, while the royalty of Ilion’s state stood firm—shall let thirty of the sun’s great courses fulfil their monthly rounds while he is sovereign, then transfer the empire from Lavinium’s seat, and build Alba the Long, with power and might. Here for full three 35 hundred years the crown shall be worn by Hector’s[70] line, till a royal priestess, teeming by the war-god, Ilia, shall be the mother of twin sons. Then shall there be one, proud to wear the tawny hide of the wolf that nursed him, Romulus, who will take up the sceptre, and build a new city, the city of Mars, and give the people his own name of Roman. To them I assign no limit, no date of empire: my grant to them is dominion without end. Nay, Juno, 5 thy savage foe, who now, in her blind terror, lets neither sea, land, nor heaven rest, shall amend her counsels, and vie with me in watching over the Romans, lords of earth, the great nation of the gown. So it is willed. The time shall come, as Rome’s years roll on, when the house of 10 Assaracus[71] shall bend to its yoke Phthia[72] and renowned Mycenæ,[73] and queen it over vanquished Argos.[74] Then shall be born the child of an illustrious line, one of thine own Trojans, Cæsar, born to extend his empire to the ocean, his glory to the stars,[75]—Julius, in name as in blood the heir of 15 great Iulus. Him thou shalt one day welcome in safety to the sky, a warrior laden with Eastern spoils; to him, as to Æneas, men shall pray and make their vows. In his days war[76] shall cease, and savage times grow mild. Faith with her hoary head, and Vesta,[77] Quirinus,[78] and Remus his 20 brother, shall give law to the world: grim, iron-bound, closely welded, the gates of war shall be closed; the fiend of Discord a prisoner within, seated on a pile of arms deadly as himself, his hands bound behind his back with a hundred brazen chains, shall roar ghastly from his throat of blood.” 25

So saying, he sends down from on high the son of Maia,[79] that Carthage the new, her lands and her towers, may open themselves to welcome in the Teucrians, lest Dido,[80] in her ignorance of Fate, should drive them from her borders. Down flies Mercury through the vast abyss of 30 air, with his wings for oars, and has speedily alighted on the shore of Libya. See! he is doing his bidding already: the Punic[81] nation is resigning the fierceness of its nature at the god’s pleasure; above all the rest, the queen is admitting into her bosom thoughts of peace towards the 35 Teucrians, and a heart of kindness.

But Æneas the good, revolving many things the whole night through, soon as the gracious dawn is vouchsafed, resolves to go out and explore this new region; to inquire what shores be these on which the wind has driven him, who their dwellers, for he sees it is a wilderness, men or beasts; and bring his comrades back the news. His fleet he hides in the wooded cove under a hollow rock, 5 with a wall of trees and stiffening shade on each side. He moves on with Achates, his single companion, wielding in his hands two spear shafts, with heads of broad iron. He had reached the middle of the wood, when his way was crossed by his mother, wearing a maiden’s mien and 10 dress, and a maiden’s armour, Spartan, or even as Harpalyce of Thrace, tires steed after steed, and heads the swift waters of her own Hebrus as she flies along. For she had a shapely bow duly slung from her shoulders in true huntress fashion, and her hair streaming in the wind, her knee 15 bare, and her flowing scarf gathered round her in a knot. Soon as she sees them, “Ho![82] youths,” cries she, “if you have chanced to see one of my sisters wandering in these parts, tell me where to find her—wandering with a quiver, and a spotted lynx hide fastened about her; or, it may 20 be, pressing on the heels of the foaming boar with her hounds in full cry.”

Thus Venus spoke, and Venus’ son replied:—“No sight or hearing have we had of any sister of thine, O thou—what name shall I give thee? maiden; for thy face is not 25 of earth, nor the tone of thy voice human: some goddess[83] surely thou art. Phœbus’[84] sister belike, or one of the blood of the nymphs? be gracious, whoe’er thou art, and relieve our hardship, and tell us under what sky now, on what realms of earth we are thrown. Utter strangers 30 to the men and the place, we are wandering, as thou seest, by the driving of the wind and of the mighty waters. Do this, and many a victim shall fall to thee at the altar by this hand of mine.”

Then Venus:—“Nay, I can lay claim to no such honours. 35 Tyrian maidens, like me, are wont to carry the quiver, and tie the purple buskin high up the calf. This that you now see is the Punic realm, the nation Tyrian and the town Agenor’s[85]; but on the frontiers are the Libyans, a race ill to handle in war. The queen is Dido, who left her home in Tyre to escape from her brother. Lengthy is her tale of wrong, lengthy the windings of its course; but I will pass rapidly from point to point. Her 5 husband was Sychæus, wealthiest of Phœnician landowners, and loved by his poor wife with fervid passion; on him her father had bestowed her in her maiden bloom, linking them together by the omens of a first bridal. But the crown of Tyre was on the head of her brother, Pygmalion, 10 in crime monstrous beyond the rest of men. They were two, and fury came between them. Impious that he was, at the very altar of the palace, the love of gold blinding his eyes, he surprises Sychæus with his stealthy steel, and lays him low, without a thought for 15 his sister’s passion; he kept the deed long concealed, and with many a base coinage sustained the mockery of false hope[86] in her pining love-lorn heart. But lo! in her sleep there came to her no less than the semblance of her unburied spouse, lifting up a face of strange unearthly 20 pallor; the ruthless altar and his breast gored with the steel, he laid bare the one and the other, and unveiled from first to last the dark domestic crime. Then he urges her to speed her flight, and quit her home for ever, and in aid of her journey unseals a hoard of treasure long hid in 25 the earth, a mass of silver and gold which none else knew. Dido’s soul was stirred; she began to make ready her flight, and friends to share it. There they meet, all whose hate of the tyrant was fell or whose fear was bitter; ships, that chanced to lie ready in the harbour, they seize, and 30 freight with gold. Away it floats over the deep, the greedy Pygmalion’s wealth; and who heads the enterprise? a woman[87]! So they came to the spot where you now see yonder those lofty walls, and the rising citadel of Carthage the new; there they bought ground, which 35 got from the transaction the name of Byrsa,[88] as much as they could compass round with a bull’s hide. But who are you after all? What coast are you come from, or whither are you holding on your journey?” That question he answers thus, with a heavy sigh, and a voice fetched from the bottom of his heart:—

“Fair goddess! should I begin from the first and proceed in order, and hadst thou leisure to listen to the chronicle 5 of our sufferings, eve would first close the Olympian gates and lay the day to sleep. For us, bound from ancient Troy, if the name of Troy has ever chanced to pass through a Tyrian ear, wanderers over divers seas already, we have been driven by a storm’s wild will upon your Libyan 10 coasts. I am Æneas, styled the good, who am bearing with me in my fleet the gods of Troy rescued from the foe; a name blazed by rumour above the stars. I am in quest of Italy, looking there for an ancestral home, and a pedigree drawn from high Jove himself. With twice ten 15 ships I climbed the Phrygian main, with a goddess mother guiding me on my way, and a chart of oracles to follow. Scarce seven remain to me now, shattered by wind and wave. Here am I, a stranger, nay, a beggar, wandering over your Libyan deserts, driven from Europe and Asia 20 alike.” Venus could bear the complaint no longer, so she thus struck into the middle of his sorrows:—

“Whoever you are, it is not, I trow, under the frown of heavenly powers that you draw the breath of life,[89] thus to have arrived at our Tyrian town. Only go on, and make 25 your way straight hence to the queen’s palace. For I give you news that your comrades are returned and your fleet brought back, wafted into shelter by shifting gales, unless my learning of augury was vain, and the parents who taught me cheats. Look at these twelve swans 30 exultant in victorious column, which the bird of Jove,[90] swooping from the height of ether, was just now driving in confusion over the wide unsheltered sky; see now how their line stretches, some alighting on the ground, others just looking down on those alighted. As they, thus rallied, 35 ply their whirring wings[91] in sport, spreading their train round the sky, and uttering songs of triumph, even so your vessels and your gallant crews are either safe in the port, or entering the haven with sails full spread. Only go on, and where the way leads you direct your steps.”

She said, and as she turned away, flashed on their sight her neck’s roseate hue; her ambrosial locks breathed from her head a heavenly fragrance; her robe streamed down 5 to her very feet; and in her walk[92] was revealed the true goddess. Soon as he knew his mother, he pursued her flying steps with words like these:—“Why wilt thou be cruel like the rest, mocking thy son these many times with feigned semblances? Why is it not mine to grasp 10 thy hand in my hand, and hear and return the true language of the heart?” Such are his upbraidings, while he yet bends his way to the town. But Venus fenced them round with a dim cloud as they moved, and wrapped them as a goddess only can in a spreading mantle of mist, that 15 none might be able to see them, none to touch them, or put hindrances in their path, or ask the reason of their coming. She takes her way aloft to Paphos,[93] glad to revisit the abode she loves, where she has a temple and a hundred altars, smoking with Sabæan[94] incense, and fragrant with 20 garlands ever new.

They, meanwhile, have pushed on their way, where the path guides them, and already they are climbing the hill which hangs heavily over the city, and looks from above on the towers that rise to meet it. Æneas marvels at the 25 mass of building, once a mere village of huts; marvels at the gates, and the civic din, and the paved ways. The Tyrians are alive and on fire—intent, some on carrying the walls aloft and upheaving the citadel, and rolling stones from underneath by force of hand; some on making 30 choice of a site for a dwelling, and enclosing it with a trench. They are ordaining the law and its guardians, and the senate’s sacred majesty. Here are some digging out havens; there are others laying deep the foundation of a theatre, and hewing from the rocks enormous columns, 35 the lofty ornaments of a stage that is to be. Such are the toils that keep the commonwealth of bees[95] at work in the sun among the flowery meads when summer is new, what time they lead out the nation’s hope, the young now grown, or mass together honey, clear and flowing, and strain the cells to bursting with its nectarous sweets, or relieve those who are coming in of their burdens, or collect a troop and expel from their stalls the drones, that lazy, 5 thriftless herd. The work is all afire, and a scent of thyme breathes from the fragrant honey. “O happy they, whose city is rising already!” cries Æneas, as he looks upward to roof and dome. In he goes, close fenced by his cloud, miraculous to tell, threads his way through the midst, 10 and mingles with the citizens, unperceived of all.

A grove there was in the heart of the city, most plenteous of shade—the spot where first, fresh from the buffeting of wave and wind, the Punic race dug up the token which queenly Juno had bidden them expect, the head of a fiery 15 steed—for even thus, said she, the nation should be renowned in war and rich in sustenance for a life of centuries. Here Dido, Sidon’s[96] daughter, was building a vast temple to Juno, rich in offerings and in the goddess’s especial presence; of brass was the threshold with its rising steps, 20 clamped with brass the door-posts, the hinge creaked on a door of brass. In this grove it was that first a new object appeared, as before, to soothe away fear: here it was that Æneas first dared to hope that all was safe, and to place a better trust in his shattered fortunes. For while his eye 25 ranges over each part under the temple’s massy roof, as he waits there for the queen—while he is marvelling at the city’s prosperous star, the various artist-hands vying with each other, their tasks and the toil they cost, he beholds, scene after scene, the battles of Ilion, and the 30 war that Fame had already blazed the whole world over—Atreus’[o] sons, and Priam, and the enemy of both, Achilles. He stopped short, and breaking into tears, “What place is there left?” he cries, “Achates, what clime on earth that is not full of our sad story? See there 35 Priam. Here, too, worth finds its due reward; here, too, there are tears[97] for human fortune, and hearts that are touched by mortality. Be free from fear: this renown of ours will bring you some measure of safety.” So speaking, he feeds his soul on the empty portraiture, with many a sigh, and lets copious rivers run down his cheeks. For he still saw how, as they battled round Pergamus,[98] here the Greeks were flying, the Trojan youth in hot pursuit; 5 here the Phrygians, at their heels in his car Achilles, with that dreadful crest. Not far from this he recognizes with tears the snowy canvas of Rhesus’ tent, which, all surprised in its first sleep, Tydeus’ son was devastating with wide carnage, himself bathed in blood—see! he drives off 10 the fiery steeds to his own camp, ere they have had time to taste the pastures of Troy or drink of Xanthus.[99] There in another part is Troilus[100] in flight, his arms fallen from him—unhappy boy, confronted with Achilles in unequal combat—hurried away by his horses, and hanging half 15 out of the empty car, with his head thrown back, but the reins still in his hand; his neck and his hair are being trailed along the ground, and his inverted spear is drawing lines in the dust. Meanwhile to the temple of Pallas,[101] not their friend, were moving the Trojan dames with locks 20 dishevelled, carrying the sacred robe, in suppliant guise of mourning, their breasts bruised with their hands—the goddess was keeping her eyes riveted on the ground, with her face turned away. Thrice had Achilles dragged Hector round the walls of Ilion, and was now selling for 25 gold his body, thus robbed of breath. Then, indeed, heavy was the groan that he gave from the bottom of his heart, when he saw the spoils, the car, the very body of his friend, and Priam, stretching out those helpless hands. Himself, too, he recognizes in the forefront of 30 the Achæan ranks, and the squadrons of the East, and the arms of the swarthy Memnon.[102] There, leading the columns of her Amazons, with their moony shields, is Penthesilea[103] in her martial frenzy, blazing out, the centre of thousands, as she loops up her protruded breast with a girdle of gold, 35 the warrior queen, and nerves herself to the shock of combat, a maiden against men.

While these things are meeting the wondering eyes of Æneas the Dardan—while he is standing bewildered, and continues riveted in one set gaze—the queen has moved towards the temple, Dido, of loveliest presence, with a vast train of youths thronging round her. Like as on Eurotas’ banks, or along the ridges of Cynthus, 5 Diana[104] is footing the dance, while, attending her, a thousand mountain nymphs are massing themselves on either side; she, her quiver on her shoulder, as she steps, towers over the whole goddess sisterhood, while Latona’s[105] bosom thrills silently with delight; such was Dido—such she 10 bore herself triumphant through the midst, to speed the work which had empire for its prospect. Then, at the doors of the goddess, under the midmost vaulting of the temple, with a fence of arms round her, supported high on a throne, she took her seat. There she was giving laws and judgments 15 to her citizens, and equalizing the burden of their tasks by fair partition, or draughting it by lot, when suddenly Æneas sees coming among the great crowd Antheus and Sergestus, and brave Cloanthus, and other of the Teucrians, whom the black storm had scattered over the 20 deep, and carried far away to other coasts. Astounded was he, overwhelmed, too, was Achates, all for joy and fear: eagerly were they burning to join hands with theirs, but the unexplained mystery confounds their minds. They carry on the concealment, and look out from the 25 hollow cloud that wraps them, to learn what fortune their mates have had, on what shore they are leaving their fleet, what is their errand here—for they were on their way, a deputation from all the crews, suing for grace, and were making for the temple with loud cries. 30

After they had gained an entrance, and had obtained leave to speak in the presence, Ilioneus, the eldest, thus began, calm of soul:—

“Gracious queen, to whom Jupiter has given to found a new city, and to restrain by force of law the pride of savage 35 nations, we, hapless Trojans, driven by the winds over every sea, make our prayer to you—keep off from our ships the horrors of fire, have pity on a pious race, and vouchsafe a nearer view to our affairs. We are not come to carry the havoc of the sword into the homes of Libya—to snatch booty and hurry it to the shore; such violence is not in our nature; such insolence were not for the vanquished. There is a place—the Greeks call it 5 Hesperia—a land old in story, strong in arms and in the fruitfulness of its soil; the Œnotrians were its settlers; now report says that later generations have called the nation Italian, from the name of their leader. Thither were we voyaging, when, rising with a sudden swell, Orion,[106] 10 lord of the storm, carried us into hidden shoals, and far away by the stress of reckless gales over the water, the surge mastering us, and over pathless rocks scattered us here and there: a small remnant, we drifted hither on to your shores. What race of men have we here? What 15 country is so barbarous as to sanction a native usage like this? Even the hospitality of the sand is forbidden us—they draw the sword, and will not let us set foot on the land’s edge. If you defy the race of men, and the weapons that mortals wield, yet look to have to do with gods, who 20 watch over the right and the wrong. Æneas was our king, than whom never man breathed more just, more eminent in piety, or in war and martial prowess. If the Fates are keeping our hero alive—if he is feeding on this upper air, and not yet lying down in death’s cruel shade—all 25 our fears are over, nor need you be sorry to have made the first advance in the contest of kindly courtesy. The realm of Sicily, too, has cities for us, and store of arms, and a hero-king of Trojan blood, Acestes.[o] Give us leave but to lay up on shore our storm-beaten fleet, to fashion 30 timber in your forests, and strip boughs for our oars, that, if we are allowed to sail for Italy, our comrades and king restored to us, we may make our joyful way to Italy and to Latium; or, if our safety is swallowed up, and thou, best father of the Teucrians, art the prey of the Libyan 35 deep, and a nation’s hope lives no longer in Iulus, then, at least, we may make for Sicania’s straits, and the houses standing to welcome us, whence we came hither, and may find a king in Acestes.” Such was the speech of Ilioneus; an accordant clamour burst at once from all the sons of Dardanus.

Then briefly Dido, with downcast look, makes reply:—“Teucrians! unburden your hearts of fear, lay your anxieties 5 aside. It is the stress of danger and the infancy of my kingdom that make me put this policy in motion and protect my frontiers with a guard all about. The men of Æneas and the city of Troy—who can be ignorant of them?—the deeds and the doers, and all the blaze of that 10 mighty war? Not so blunt are the wits we Punic folk carry with us, not so wholly does the sun turn his back on our Tyrian town when he harnesses his steeds. Whether you make your choice of Hesperia the great, and the old realm of Saturn, or of the borders of Eryx and their 15 king Acestes, I will send you on your way with an escort to protect you, and will supply you with stores. Or would you like to settle along with me in my kingdom here? Look at the city I am building, it is yours, lay up your ships, Trojan and Tyrian shall be dealt with by me without 20 distinction. Would to heaven your king were here too, driven by the gale that drove you hither—Æneas himself! For myself, I will send trusty messengers along the coast, with orders to traverse the furthest parts of Libya, in case he should be shipwrecked and wandering anywhere in 25 forest or town.”

Excited by her words, brave Achates and father Æneas, too, were burning long ere this to break out of their cloud. Achates first accosts Æneas:—“Goddess-born, what purpose now is foremost in your mind? All you see is safe, 30 our fleet and our mates are restored to us. One is missing, whom our own eyes saw in the midst of the surge swallowed up, all the rest is even as your mother told us.”

Scarce had he spoken when the cloud that enveloped them suddenly parts asunder and clears into the open sky. 35 Out stood Æneas, and shone[107] again in the bright sunshine, his face and his bust the image of a god, for his great mother had shed graceful tresses over her son’s brow, and the glowing flush of youth, and had breathed the breath of beauty and gladness into his eyes, loveliness such as the artist’s touch imparts to ivory, or when silver or Parian marble is enchased[108] with yellow gold. Then he addresses the queen, and speaks suddenly to the astonishment 5 of all:—“Here am I whom you are seeking, before you,—Æneas, the Trojan, snatched from the jaws of the Libyan wave. O heart that alone of all has found pity for Troy’s cruel agonies—that makes us, poor remnants of Danaan fury, utterly spent by all the chances of land and 10 sea, destitute of all, partners of its city, of its very palace! To pay such a debt of gratitude, Dido, is more than we can do—more than can be done by all the survivors of the Dardan nation, now scattered the wide world over. May the gods—if there are powers that regard the pious, if 15 justice and conscious rectitude count for aught anywhere on earth—may they give you the reward you merit! What age had the happiness to bring you forth? what godlike parents gave such nobleness to the world? While the rivers run into the sea, while the shadows sweep along 20 the mountain-sides, while the stars draw life from the sky, your glory and your name and your praise shall still endure, whatever the land whose call I must obey.” So saying, he stretches out his right hand to his friend Ilioneus, his left to Serestus, and so on to others, gallant Gyas 25 and gallant Cloanthus.

Astounded was Dido, Sidon’s daughter, first at the hero’s presence, then at his enormous sufferings, and she bespoke him thus:—“What chance is it, goddess-born, that is hunting you through such a wilderness of perils? what 30 violence throws you on our savage coasts? Are you, indeed, the famed Æneas, whom to Anchises the Dardan, Venus, queen of light and love, bore by the stream of Simois? Aye, I remember Teucer coming to Sidon, driven from the borders of his fatherland, hoping to gain a new 35 kingdom by the aid of Belus. Belus, my sire, was then laying waste the rich fields of Cyprus, and ruling the isle with a conqueror’s sway. Ever since that time I knew the fate of the Trojan city, and your name, and the Pelasgian princes. Foe as he was, he would always extol the Teucrians with signal praise, and profess that he himself came of the ancient Teucrian stock. Come then, brave men, and make our dwellings your home. 5 I, too, have had a fortune like yours, which, after the buffeting of countless sufferings, has been pleased that I should find rest in this land at last. Myself no stranger to sorrow, I am learning[109] to succour the unhappy.” With these words, at the same moment she ushers 10 Æneas into her queenly palace, and orders a solemn sacrifice at the temples of the gods. Meantime, as if this were nought, she sends to his comrades at the shore twenty bulls, a hundred huge swine with backs all bristling, a hundred fat lambs with their mothers, and the 15 wine-god’s jovial bounty.

But the palace within is laid out with all the splendour of regal luxury, and in the centre of the mansion they are making ready for the banquet; the coverlets are embroidered and of princely purple—on the tables is massy 20 silver, and chased on gold the gallant exploits of Tyrian ancestors, a long, long chain of story, derived through hero after hero ever since the old nation was young.

Æneas, for his fatherly love would not leave his heart at rest, sends on Achates with speed to the ships to tell Ascanius 25 the news and conduct him to the city. On Ascanius all a fond parent’s anxieties are centred. Presents, moreover, rescued from the ruins of Ilion, he bids him bring—a pall stiff with figures of gold, and a veil with a border of yellow acanthus,[110] adornments of Argive 30 Helen,[111] which she carried away from Mycenæ, when she went to Troy and to her unblessed bridal, her mother Leda’s marvellous gift; the sceptre, too, which Ilione had once borne, the eldest of Priam’s daughters, and the string of pearls for the neck, and the double coronal of 35 jewels and gold. With this to despatch, Achates was bending his way to the ships.

But the lady of Cythera is casting new wiles, new devices in her breast, that Cupid,[112] form and feature changed, may arrive in the room of the charmer Ascanius, and by the presents he brings influence the queen to madness, and turn the very marrow of her bones to fire. She fears the two-faced generation, the double-tongued sons of Tyre; Juno’s 5 hatred scorches her like a flame, and as night draws on the care comes back to her. So then with these words she addresses her winged Love:—“My son, who art alone my strength and my mighty power, my son, who laughest to scorn our great father’s Typhœan[113] thunderbolts, to thee 10 I fly for aid, and make suppliant prayer of thy majesty. How thy brother Æneas is tossed on the ocean the whole world over by Juno’s implacable rancour I need not tell thee—nay, thou hast often mingled thy grief with mine. He is now the guest of Dido, the Phœnician woman, and 15 the spell of a courteous tongue is laid on him, and I fear what may be the end of taking shelter under Juno’s wing; she will never be idle at a time on which so much hangs. Thus then I am planning to be first in the field, surprising the queen by stratagem, and encompassing 20 her with fire, that no power may be able to work a change in her, but that a mighty passion for Æneas may keep her mine. For the way in which thou mayest bring this about, listen to what I have been thinking. The young heir of royalty, at his loved father’s summons, is making 25 ready to go to this Sidonian city—my soul’s darling that he is—the bearer of presents that have survived the sea and the flames of Troy. Him I will lull in deep sleep and hide him in my hallowed dwelling high on Cythera or Idalia, that by no chance he may know or mar 30 our plot. Do thou then for a single night, no more, artfully counterfeit his form, and put on the boy’s usual looks, thyself a boy, that when Dido, at the height of her joy, shall take thee into her lap while the princely board is laden and the vine-god’s liquor flowing, when she shall 35 be caressing thee and printing her fondest kisses on thy cheek, thou mayest breathe concealed fire into her veins, and steal upon her with poison.”[114]

At once Love complies with his fond mother’s words, puts off his wings, and walks rejoicing in the gait of Iulus. As for Ascanius, Venus sprinkles his form all over with the dew of gentle slumber,[115] and carries him, as a goddess may, lapped in her bosom, into Idalia’s lofty groves, where a 5 soft couch of amaracus enfolds him with its flowers, and the fragrant breath of its sweet shade. Meanwhile Cupid was on his way, all obedience, bearing the royal presents to the Tyrians, and glad to follow Achates. When he arrives, he finds the queen already settled on the gorgeous tapestry 10 of a golden couch, and occupying the central place. Already father Æneas, already the chivalry of Troy are flocking in, and stretching themselves here and there on coverlets of purple. There are servants offering them water for their hands, and deftly producing the bread from the 15 baskets, and presenting towels with shorn nap. Within are fifty maidens, whose charge is in course to pile up provisions in lasting store, and light up with fire the gods of the hearth. A hundred others there are, and male attendants of equal number and equal age, to load the table with 20 dishes, and set on the cups. The Tyrians, too, have assembled in crowds through the festive hall, and scatter themselves as invited over the embroidered couches. There is marvelling at Æneas’ presents, marvelling at Iulus, at those glowing features, where the god shines 25 through, and those words which he feigns so well, and at the robe and the veil with the yellow acanthus border. Chief of all, the unhappy victim of coming ruin cannot satisfy herself with gazing,[116] and kindles as she looks, the Phœnician woman, charmed with the boy and the 30 presents alike. He, after he has hung long in Æneas’ arms and round his neck, gratifying the intense fondness of the sire he feigned to be his, finds his way to the queen. She is riveted by him—riveted, eye and heart, and ever and anon fondles him in her lap[117]—poor Dido, unconscious 35 how great a god is sitting heavy on that wretched bosom. But he, with his mind still bent on his Acidalian mother, is beginning to efface the name of Sychæus letter by letter, and endeavouring to surprise by a living passion affections long torpid, and a heart long unused to love.

When the banquet’s first lull was come, and the board removed, then they set up the huge bowls and wreathe the wine. A din rings to the roof—the voice rolls through 5 those spacious halls; lamps[118] hang from the gilded ceiling, burning brightly, and flambeau-fires put out the night. Then the queen called for a cup, heavy with jewels and gold, and filled it with unmixed wine; the same which had been used by Belus, and every king from Belus downward. 10 Then silence was commanded through the hall. “Jupiter, for thou hast the name of lawgiver for guest and host, grant that this day may be auspicious alike for the Tyrians and the voyagers from Troy, and that its memory may long live among our posterity. Be with us, Bacchus,[119] 15 the giver of jollity, and Juno, the queen of our blessings; and you, the lords of Tyre, may your goodwill grace this meeting.” She said, and poured on the table an offering of the wine, and, the libation made, touched the cup first with her lips, then handed it to Bitias, rallying his 20 slowness. Eagerly he quaffed the foaming goblet, and drenched himself deep with its brimming gold. Then came the other lords in order. Iopas, the long-haired bard, takes his gilded lyre, and fills the hall with music; he, whose teacher was the mighty Atlas.[120] His song[121] is of 25 the wanderings of the moon and the agonies of the sun, whence sprung man’s race and the cattle, whence rain-water and fire; of Arcturus and the showery Hyades, and the twin Bears; why the winter suns make such haste to dip in ocean, or what is the retarding cause that 30 bids the nights move slowly. Plaudits redouble from the Tyrians, and the Trojans follow the lead. With varied talk, too, she kept lengthening out the night, unhappy Dido, drinking draughts of love long and deep, as she asked much about Priam, about Hector much; 35 now what were the arms in which Aurora’s son had come to battle; now what Diomede’s steeds were like; now how great was Achilles. “Or rather, gentle guest,” cries she, “tell us the story from the very first—all about the stratagems of the Danaans, and the sad fate of your country, and your own wanderings—for this is now the seventh summer that is wafting you a wanderer still over every land and wave.”

Book II

Every tongue was hushed, and every eye fixed intently, when, from high couch, father Æneas began thus:—

“Too cruel to be told, great queen, is the sorrow you bid me revive—how the power of Troy and its empire met with piteous overthrow from the Danaans—the 5 heartrending sights which my own eyes saw, and the scenes where I had a large part to play. Who, in such recital—be he of the Myrmidons[122] or the Dolopes, or a soldier of ruthless Ulysses’[123] band—would refrain from tears? And now, too, night is rushing in dews down the steep of heaven, 10 and the setting stars counsel repose. Still, if so great be your longing to acquaint yourself with our disasters, and hear the brief tale of Troy’s last agony, though my mind shudders at the remembrance, and starts back in sudden anguish, I will essay the task. 15

“Broken by war and foiled by destiny, the chiefs of the Danaans, now that the flying years were numbering so many, build a horse of mountain size, by the inspiration of Pallas’ skill, and interlace its ribs with planks of fir. A vow for their safe journey home is the pretext: such the 20 fame that spreads. In this they secretly enclose chosen men of sinew, picked out by lot, in the depth of its sides, and fill every corner of those mighty caverns, the belly of the monster, with armed warriors.

“In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an island of wide-spread 25 renown, powerful and rich while Priam’s empire yet was, now a mere bay, a treacherous roadstead for ships. Thus far they sail out, and hide themselves on the forsaken coast. We thought them gone off with a fair wind for Mycenæ. And so all Trojan land shakes off the agony of 30 years. Open fly the gates; what pleasure to go and see the Dorian camp, and the places deserted, and the shore forsaken! Yes, here were the troops of the Dolopes; here the tent of that savage Achilles; here the ships were drawn up; here they used to set the battle in array. Some of 5 us are standing agaze at the fatal offering to the virgin goddess, and wondering at the hugeness of the horse; and Thymœtes takes the lead, urging to have it dragged within the walls, and lodged in the citadel, either with treasonable intent, or that the fate of Troy had begun to 10 set that way. But Capys, and the men of saner judgment, bid us send this snare of the Danaans, this suspicious present, headlong into the sea, or light a fire under and burn it; or, if not that, to pierce and probe that hollow womb that might hide so much. The populace, unstable as 15 ever, divides off into opposite factions.

“Throwing himself before all, with a great crowd at his back, Laocoon,[124] all on fire, comes running down the steep of the citadel, crying in the distance, ‘What strange madness is this, my unhappy countrymen? Think you 20 that the enemy has sailed off, or that a Danaan could ever make a present that had no treachery in it? Is this your knowledge of Ulysses? Either the Achæans are shut up and hiding in this piece of wood, or it is an engine framed against our walls, to command the houses and come down 25 on the city from above, or there is some other secret trick. Men of Troy, put no faith in the horse. Whatever it be, I fear a Greek even with a gift in his hand.’ With these words he hurled a mighty spear with all his force against the beast’s side, the jointed arch of its belly. It lodged, 30 and stood quivering; the womb shook again, and an echo and a groan rang hollow from its caverns; and, then, had but heaven’s destiny and man’s judgment been unwarped, he had led us to carry sword and havoc into the Argive lurking-place, and Troy would now be standing, 35 and thou, Priam’s tall fortress, still in being.

“Meanwhile, see! some Dardan shepherds are dragging with loud shouts before the king a young man with his hands tied behind him, who had thrown himself, a stranger, across their way, to compass this very thing, and thus let the Achæans into Troy—bold of heart, and ready for either issue, either to play off his stratagem, or to meet inevitable death. From all sides, in eager curiosity, 5 the Trojan youth come streaming round, vying in their insults to the prisoner. Now then, listen, to the tale of Danaan fraud, and from one act of guilt learn what the whole nation is. There as he stood, with all eyes bent on him, bewildered, defenceless, and looked round on the 10 Phrygian bands, ’ Alas!’ he cries, ‘where is there a spot of earth or sea that will give me shelter now? or what last resource is left for a wretch like me—one who has no place among the Danaans to hide my head—while the children of Dardanus no less are in arms against me, 15 crying for bloody vengeance?’ At that piteous cry our mood was changed, and every outrage checked. We encourage him to speak—to tell us what his parentage is; what his business; what he has to rest on as a prisoner. ‘All, my lord, shall be avowed to you truly, whatever 20 be the issue. I will not deny that I am an Argive by nation; this to begin with. Nor if Fortune has made a miserable man out of Sinon, shall her base schooling make him deceiver and liar as well. If haply in talk your ears ever caught the name of Palamedes, of the house of 25 Belus, and his wide-spread renown—his, whom under false accusation, an innocent man, charged by the blackest calumny, all because his voice was against the war, the Pelasgians sent down to death, and now, when he is laid in darkness, lament him too late—know that it was 30 as his comrade and near kinsman I was sent by a needy father to a soldier’s life in earliest youth. While he stood with his royal state unimpaired, an honoured member of the kingly council, I, too, enjoyed my measure of name and dignity; but after the jealousy of false Ulysses—you 35 know the tale—removed him from this upper clime—dashed from my height, I dragged on life in darkness and sorrow, and vented to my own heart my rage at the disaster of my innocent friend. Nor did I keep silence—madman that I was! No, if ever the chance were given me—if ever I came back with glory to my native Argos—I vowed myself his avenger, and my words stirred up bitter enmity. From that time my ruin began; from that 5 time Ulysses was ever threatening me with some new charge, ever scattering abroad words of mystery, and looking for allies to plot with. Nor did he rest till by Calchas’[125] agency—but why recall this unwelcome story with no end to gain? Why waste your time, if you hold all Achæans 10 alike, and to hear that is to hear enough? Take the vengeance you should have taken long ago. It is just what would please the Ithacan, and earn a large reward from the sons of Atreus!’[126]

“This makes us burn, indeed, to explore and inquire into 15 the reason of his tale, not knowing that crime could be so monstrous, and Pelasgian art so cunning. He resumes, in faltering tones, spoken from his false heart:—

“‘Often have the Danaans designed to turn their back on Troy and accomplish a retreat, and abandon the war 20 that had wearied them so long; and would they had done it! As often has the fierce inclemency of the deep barred their purpose, and the south wind frightened them from sailing. Especially, when this horse was set up at last, a compacted mass of maple planks, the thunder of the storm-clouds 25 was heard the whole firmament over. In our perplexity we send Eurypylus to inquire of Phœbus’[127] oracle, and this is the gloomy message that he brings back from the shrine: “With blood it was ye appeased the winds, even with a maiden’s slaughter, when first ye came, Danaans, 30 to the shore of Ilion. With blood it is ye must buy your return, and propitiate heaven by the life of an Argive!” Soon as the news reached the public ear, every mind was cowed, and a cold shudder thrilled the depth of every heart. For whom has Fate a summons? Whom does 35 Apollo demand as his prey? And now the Ithacan, with boisterous vehemence, drags forward the prophet Calchas, insists on knowing what that announcement of heaven’s will may mean; and many even then were the prophetic mouths that warned me of the trickster’s cruel villany, and many the eyes that silently foresaw the future. Ten days the seer holds his peace, and keeps his tent, refusing to utter a word that should, disclose any name or sacrifice 5 any life. At last, goaded by the Ithacan’s vehement clamour, he breaks into a concerted utterance, and dooms me to the altar. All assented, well content that the danger which each feared for himself should be directed to the extinction of one poor wretch. And now the day of horror 10 was come; all was being ready for my sacrifice—the salt cakes for the fire, and the fillet to crown my brow—when I escaped, I own it, from death, and broke my bonds, and hid myself that night in a muddy marsh in the covert of the rushes, while they should be sailing, in the 15 faint hope that they had sailed. My old country, I never expect to see it again, nor my darling children, and the father I have longed so for! No! they are likely to visit them with vengeance for my escape, and expiate this guilt of mine by taking their poor lives. O! by the 20 gods above, and the powers that know when truth is spoken, if there is yet abiding anywhere among men such a thing as unsullied faith, I conjure you, have pity on this weight of suffering, have pity on a soul that is unworthily borne down!’ 25

“Such a tearful appeal gains him his life, and our compassion too. Priam himself is first to bid them relieve the man of his manacles and the chains that bound him, and addresses him in words of kindness. ‘Whoever you are, from this time forth have done with the Greeks, and forget 30 them. I make you my man, and bid you answer truly the questions I shall put. What do they mean by setting up this huge mountain of a horse? Who was the prompter of it? What is their object? Some religious offering, or some engine of war?’ 35

“Thus Priam: the prisoner, with all his Pelasgian craft and cunning about him, raised his unfettered hands to the stars:—

“‘You, eternal fires, with your inviolable majesty, be my witnesses; you, altars and impious swords, from which I fled; and you, hallowed fillets, which I wore for the sacrifice! I am free to break all the sacred ties that bound me to the Greeks. I am free to treat them as my foes, and 5 disclose all their secrets to the light of day, all the claims of the land of my birth notwithstanding. Only do thou abide by thy plighted word, and preserve faith with thy preserver, land of Troy, if he tells thee true, and makes thee large returns. 10

“‘The strength of the Danaan hopes, and the soul of their confidence in the war they plunged into, has ever been the aid of Pallas. From the time when Tydeus’ impious son and Ulysses, that coiner of villany, dared to drag away from her hallowed temple the fateful Palladium,[128] 15 slaughtering the guards who watched the citadel’s height, thenceforth there was an ebb and a backsliding in the Danaan hopes, their forces shattered, the goddess estranged. Nor were the portents dubious that betokened Tritonia’s change of mood. Scarce was the image lodged 20 in the camp, when flashing fire glowed in her uplifted eyes, and salt sweat trickled over her frame, and thrice of herself she leaped from the ground, marvellous to relate, shield and quivering lance and all. Forthwith Calchas sounds the note for flight over the perilous deep, for that Pergamus 25 can never be razed by Argive steel, unless they go to Argos for fresh omens, and bring back the divine aid which their crooked keels bore with them aforetime over the sea. And now this their voyage home to Mycenæ is to get new forces and gods to sail with them; they will re-cross 30 the deep, and come upon you unforeseen. Such is Calchas’ scanning of the omens. As for this image, he warned them to set it up in exchange for the Palladium, and, in expiation of injured deity, to atone for their fatal crime. Calchas, however, bade them raise it to the vast 35 height you see, knitting plank to plank, till it was brought near to heaven, that it might not be admitted at the gates or dragged within the walls, and thus restore to the people the bulwark of their old worship. For if your hand should profane Minerva’s offering, then (said he) a mighty destruction—may the gods turn the omen on his head ere it falls on yours!—would come on the empire of Priam and the Phrygian nation; but if these hands of yours 5 should help it to scale your city’s height, Asia would roll the mighty tide of invasion on the walls of Pelops,[129] and our posterity would have to meet the fate he threatened.’

“Such was the stratagem—the cursed art of perjured Sinon—that gained credence for the tale; and such the 10 victory won over us by wiles and constrained tears—over us, whom not Tydeus’ son, nor Achilles of Larissa, nor ten years of war subdued, nor a fleet of a thousand sail.

“And now another object, greater and far more terrible, 15 is forced on my poor countrymen, to the confusion of their unprophetic souls. Laocoon, drawn by lot as Neptune’s priest, was sacrificing a mighty bull at the wonted altar—when behold from Tenedos, over the still deep—I shudder as I recount the tale—two serpents coiled in vast 20 circles are seen breasting the sea, and moving side by side towards the shore. Their breasts rise erect among the waves; their manes, of blood-red hue, tower over the water, the rest of them floats behind on the main, trailing a huge undulating length; the brine foams and dashes 25 about them; they are already on shore, in the plain—with their glowing eyes bloodshot and fiery, and their forked tongues playing in their hissing mouths. We fly all ways in pale terror: they, in an unswerving column, make for Laocoon, and first each serpent folds round one 30 of his two sons, clasping the youthful body, and greedily devouring the poor limbs. Afterwards, as the father comes to the rescue, weapon in hand, they fasten on him and lash their enormous spires tight round him—and now twice folded round his middle, twice embracing his neck with 35 their scaly length, they tower over him with uplifted head and crest. He is straining with agonizing clutch to pull the knots asunder, his priestly fillets all bedewed with gore and black poison, and raising all the while dreadful cries to heaven—like the bellowing, when a wounded bull darts away from the altar, dashing off from his neck the ill-aimed axe. But the two serpents escape glidingly to the temple top, making for the height where ruthless Tritonia 5 is enthroned, and there shelter themselves under the goddess’s feet and the round of her shield. Then, indeed, every breast is cowed and thrilled through by a new and strange terror—every voice cries that Laocoon has been duly punished for his crime, profaning the sacred wood 10 with his weapon’s point, and hurling his guilty lance against the back of the steed. Let the image be drawn to her temple, and let prayer be made to the goddess, is the general cry—we break through the walls and open the town within. All gird them to the work, putting 15 wheels to run easily under its feet, and throwing lengths of hempen tie round its neck. It scales the walls, that fateful engine, with its armed brood—boys and unwedded girls, standing about it, chant sacred hymns, delighted to touch the rope. In it moves, rolling with threatening brow 20 into the heart of the city. O my country! O Ilion, home of the gods! O ye, Dardan towers, with your martial fame! Yes—four times on the gateway’s very threshold it stopped, four times the arms rattled in its womb. On, however, we press, unheeding, in the blindness of our 25 frenzy, and lodge the ill-starred portent in our hallowed citadel. Even then Cassandra[130] unseals to speak of future fate those lips which by the god’s command no Trojan ever believed—while we, alas! we, spend the day that was to be our last in crowning the temples of the gods 30 with festal boughs the whole city through.

“Meantime round rolls the sky, and on comes night from the ocean, wrapping in its mighty shade earth and heaven and Myrmidon wiles: through the city the Trojans are hushed in careless repose, their tired limbs in the arms of 35 sleep. Already was the Argive host on its way from Tenedos, through the friendly stillness of the quiet moon, making for the well-known shore, when see! the royal ship mounts its fire signal, and Sinon, sheltered by heaven’s partial decree, stealthily sets at large the Danaans, hid in that treacherous womb, and opens the pine-wood door: they as the horse opens are restored to upper air, and leap forth with joy from the hollow timber, Thessander and 5 Sthenelus leading the way, and the dreaded Ulysses, gliding down the lowered rope, and Achamas and Thoas, and Neoptolemus of Peleus’ line, and first Machaon, and Menelaus, and the framer of the cheat himself, Epeus. They rush on the town as it lies drowned in sleep and revelry. 10 The watchers are put to the sword, the gates thrown open, and all are welcoming their comrades, and uniting with the conspiring bands.

“It was just the time when first slumber comes to heal human suffering, stealing on men by heaven’s blessing 15 with balmiest influence. Lo! as I slept, before my eyes Hector,[131] in deepest sorrow, seemed to be standing by me, shedding rivers of tears—mangled from dragging at the car, as I remember him of old, and black with gory dust, and with his swollen feet bored by the thong. Ay me! 20 what a sight was there! what a change from that Hector of ours, who comes back to us clad in the spoils of Achilles, or from hurling Phrygian fire on Danaan vessels! with stiffened beard and hair matted with blood, and those wounds fresh about him, which fell on him so thickly 25 round his country’s walls. Methought I addressed him first with tears like his own, fetching from my breast the accents of sorrow—‘O light of Dardan land, surest hope that Trojans ever had! What delay has kept you so long? From what clime is the Hector of our longings returned 30 to us at last? O the eyes with which, after long months of death among your people, months of manifold suffering to Troy and her sons, spent and weary, we look upon you now! What unworthy cause has marred the clear beauty of those features, or why do I behold these wounds?’ 35 He answers nought, and gives no idle heed to my vain inquiries, but with a deep sigh, heaved from the bottom of his heart—‘Ah! fly, goddess-born!’ cries he, ‘and escape from these flames—the walls are in the enemy’s hand—Troy is tumbling from its summit—the claims of country and king are satisfied—if Pergamus could be defended by force of hand, it would have been defended by mine, in my day. Your country’s worship and her 5 gods are what she entrusts to you now—take them to share your destiny—seek for them a mighty city, which you shall one day build when you have wandered the ocean over.’ With these words he brings out Queen Vesta[132] with her fillets and the ever-burning fire from the secret 10 shrine.

“Meanwhile the city in its various quarters is being convulsed with agony—and ever more and more, though my father Anchises’ palace was retired in the privacy of embosoming trees, the sounds deepen, and the alarm of 15 battle swells. I start up from sleep, mount the sloping roof, and stand intently listening—even as, when among standing corn a spark falls with a fierce south wind to fan it, or the impetuous stream of a mountain torrent sweeps the fields, sweeps the joyous crops and the bullocks’ 20 toil, and drives the woods headlong before it, in perplexed amazement a shepherd takes in the crash from a rock’s tall summit. Then, indeed, all doubt was over, and the wiles of the Danaans stood confessed. Already Deiphobus’ palace has fallen with a mighty overthrow 25 before the mastering fire-god—already his neighbour Ucalegon is in flames—the expanse of the Sigean sea shines again with the blaze. Up rises at once the shouting of men and the braying of trumpets. To arms I rush in frenzy.—not that good cause is shown for arms—but 30 to muster a troop for fight, and run to the citadel with my comrades is my first burning impulse—madness and rage drive my mind headlong, and I think how glorious to die with arms in my hand.

“But see! Panthus, escaped from an Achæan volley, 35 Panthus, Othrys’ son, priest of Phœbus in the citadel, comes dragging along with his own hand the vanquished gods of his worship and his young grandchild, and making distractedly for my door. ‘How goes the day, Panthus? What hold have we of the citadel?’ The words were scarcely uttered when with a groan he replies, ‘It is come, the last day, the inevitable hour—on Dardan land no more Trojans; no more of Ilion, and the great renown 5 of the sons of Teucer; Jove, in his cruelty, has carried all over to Argos; the town is on fire, and the Danaans are its masters. There, planted high in the heart of the city, the horse is pouring out armed men, and Sinon is flinging about fire in the insolence of conquest; some are 10 crowding into the unfolded gates—thousands, many as ever came from huge Mycenæ: some are blocking up the narrow streets, with weapons pointed at all comers; the sharp steel with its gleaming blade stands drawn, ready for slaughter; hardly, even on the threshold, the sentinels 15 of the gates are attempting resistance, in a struggle where the powers of war are blind.’

“At these words of the son of Othrys, and heaven’s will thus expressed, I plunge into the fire and the battle, following the war-fiend’s yell, the din of strife, and the 20 shout that rose to the sky. There join me Rhipeus and Epytus, bravest in fight, crossing my way in the moonlight, as also Hypanis and Dymas, and form at my side; young Coroebus, too, Mygdon’s son; he happened to be just then come to Troy, with a frantic passion for Cassandra, 25 and was bringing a son-in-law’s aid to Priam and his Phrygians—poor boy! to have given no heed to the warnings of his heaven-struck bride! Seeing them gathered in a mass and nerved for battle, I begin thereon:—‘Young hearts, full of unavailing valour, if your desire 30 is set to follow a desperate man, you see what the plight of our affairs is—gone in a body from shrine and altar are the gods who upheld this our empire—the city you succour is a blazing ruin; choose we then death, and rush we into the thick of the fight. The one safety for vanquished 35 men is to hope for none.’ These words stirred their young spirits to madness: then, like ravenous wolves in night’s dark cloud, driven abroad by the blind rage of lawless hunger, with their cubs left at home waiting their return with parched jaws, among javelins, among foemen, on we go with no uncertain fate before us, keeping our way through the heart of the town, while night flaps over us its dark, overshadowing wings. Who could unfold in 5 speech the carnage, the horrors of that night, or make his tears keep pace with our suffering? It is an ancient city, falling from the height where she queened it many a year; and heaps of unresisting bodies are lying confusedly in the streets, in the houses, on the hallowed steps of temples. 10 Nor is it on Teucer’s sons alone that bloody vengeance lights. There are times when even the vanquished feel courage rushing back to their hearts, and the conquering Danaans fall. Everywhere is relentless agony; everywhere terror, and the vision of death in many a manifestation. 15

“First of the Danaans, with a large band at his back, Androgeos crosses our way, taking us for a troop of his friends in his ignorance, and hails us at once in words of fellowship: ‘Come, my men, be quick. Why, what sloth 20 is keeping you so late? Pergamus is on fire, and the rest of us are spoiling and sacking it, and here are you, but just disembarked from your tall ships.’ He said, and instantly, for no reply was forthcoming to reassure him, saw that he had fallen into the thick of the enemy. Struck 25 with consternation, he drew back foot and tongue. Just as a man who at unawares has trodden on a snake among thorns and briers in his walk, and recoils at once in sudden alarm from the angry uplifted crest and the black swelling neck, so Androgeos, appalled at the sight, was retiring. 30 But we rush on him, and close round, weapons in hand; and, in their ignorance of the ground, and the surprise of their terror, they fall before us everywhere. Fortune smiles on our first encounter. Hereon Coroebus, flushed with success and daring, ‘Come, my friends,’ he 35 cries, ‘where Fortune at starting directs us to the path of safety, and reveals herself as our ally, be it ours to follow on. Let us change shields, and see if Danaan decorations will fit us. Trick or strength of hand, who, in dealing with an enemy, asks which? They shall arm us against themselves.’ So saying, he puts on Androgeos’ crested helm, and his shield with its goodly device, and fastens to his side an Argive sword. So does Rhipeus, so Dymas 5 too, and all our company, with youthful exultation, each arming himself out of the new-won spoils. On we go, mixing with the Greeks, under auspices not our own, and many are the combats in which we engage in the blindness of night, many the Danaans whom we send down to 10 the shades. They fly on all hands: some to the ships, making at full speed for safety on the shore; others, in the debasement of terror, climb once more the horse’s huge sides, and hide themselves in the womb they knew so well. 15

“Alas! it is not for man to throw himself on the gods against their will!

“Lo! there was a princess of Priam’s house being dragged by her dishevelled hair from the temple, from the very shrine of Minerva, Cassandra, straining her flashing 20 eyes to heaven in vain—her eyes—for those delicate hands were confined by manacles. The sight was too much for the infuriate mind of Coroebus: rushing to his doom, he flung himself into the middle of the hostile force. One and all, we follow, close our ranks, and fall on. And 25 now, first from the temple’s lofty top we are overwhelmed by a shower of our own countrymen’s darts, and a most piteous carnage ensues, all along of the appearance of our arms and our mistaken Grecian crests. Then the Danaans, groaning and enraged at the rescue of the maiden, rally 30 from all sides, and fall on us. Ajax, in all his fury, and the two sons of Atreus, and the whole array of the Dolopes—even as one day when the tempest is broken loose, and wind meets wind—west, and south, and east exulting in his orient steeds—there is crashing in the woods, and 35 Nereus,[133] in a cloud of foam, is plying his ruthless trident, and stirring up the sea from its very bottom. Such of the foe, moreover, as in the darkness of night we had driven routed through, the gloom—thanks to our stratagem—and scattered the whole city over, rally again: they are the first to recognize the imposture of shield and weapon, and to mark the different sound of our speech. All is over—we are overwhelmed by numbers: first of 5 all, Coroebus is stretched low; his slayer Peneleos, his place of death the altar of the Goddess of Arms; slain, too, is Rhipeus, the justest and most righteous man in Troy—but heaven’s will is not ours—down go Hypanis and Dymas both, shot by their friends; nor could all 10 your acts of piety, good Panthus, shield you in your fall; no, nor the fillet of Apollo on your brow. Ye ashes of Ilion, and thou, funeral fire of those I loved, witness ye that in your day of doom I shrank from no Danaan dart, no hand-to-hand encounter; nay, that had my fate been 15 to fall, my hand had earned it well. We are parted from the rest, Iphitus, Pelias, and I. Iphitus, a man on whom years were already pressing; Pelias, crippled by a wound from Ulysses—all three summoned by the shouting to Priam’s palace. 20

“Here, indeed, the conflict was gigantic—just as if the rest of the war were nowhere—as if none were dying in the whole city beside: even such was the sight we saw—the war-god raging untamed, the Danaans streaming up to the roof, the door blockaded by a long penthouse of shields. 25 The scaling ladders are clasping the walls; close to the very door men are climbing, with their left hands presenting the buckler to shelter them from darts, while with their right they are clasping the battlements. The Dardans, on their part, are tearing up from the palace turret and 30 roof—such the weapons with which, in their dire extremity, in the last death-struggle, they make ready for their defence—gilded rafters, the stately ornaments of elder days, they are hurling down; while others, their swords drawn, are stationed at the doors at the bottom, and 35 guarding them in close array. The fire revived within me, to bring succour to the royal roof, and relieve those brave men, and breathe new daring into the vanquished.

“A door there was, a hidden entrance, a thoroughfare through Priam’s palace, a postern which you leave in the rear; by it the hapless Andromache,[134] while yet the throne was standing, used often to repair unattended to her husband’s 5 parents, and pull the boy Astyanax into his grandsire’s presence. Through it I make my way to the summit of the roof, whence the wretched Teucrians were hurling darts without avail. There was a tower standing precipitous, its roof reared high to the stars, whence could be seen all Troy, and the Danaan fleet, and the Achæan camp; 10 to this we applied our weapons, just where the lofty flooring made the joining insecure; we wrench it from its eminence, we have toppled it over—down it falls at once, a huge crashing ruin, and tumbles far and wide over the Danaan ranks. But others fill their place; while stones and every 15 kind of missile keep raining unabated.

“There in the entry, at the very gate, is Pyrrhus[135] in his glory, gleaming with spear and sword, and with all the brilliance of steel. Even as against the daylight a serpent gorged with baleful herbage, whom winter’s cold of late 20 was keeping swollen underground, now, his skin shed, in new life and in the beauty of youth, rears his breast erect, and wreathes his shining scales, towering to the sun, and flashes in his mouth his three-forked tongue. With him gigantic Periphas and Automedon, his armour-bearer, 25 once Achilles’ charioteer, with him the whole chivalry of Scyros press to the walls, and hurl up fire to the roof. Himself among the foremost, a two-edged axe in hand, is bursting through the stubborn door and forcing from their hinges the valves copper-sheathed; see! now he has 30 cut out a plank and delved into that stout heart of oak, and made a wide gaping window in the middle. There is seen the house within, and the long vista of the hall; there is seen the august retirement of Priam and the monarchs of past days, and armed warriors are disclosed 35 standing in the entrance.

“But the palace within is a confused scene of shrieking and piteous disorder; the vaulted chambers wail from their hollow depths with female lamentation; the noise strikes the golden stars above. The terror-stricken matrons are running to and fro through the spacious courts, clinging claspingly to the gates and printing them with kisses. On presses Pyrrhus with all his father’s might; neither 5 barrier of oak nor yet living guard can resist him; the door gives way under the thick strokes of the battery, and the valves are torn from their hinges and brought down. Force finds its way; the Danaans burst a passage, rush in, and slaughter those they meet, and the whole 10 wide space is flooded with soldiers. With far less fury, when the river, all foam, has broken the prison of its banks and streamed with triumphant tide over the barriers set to check it, down it comes tumbling along the corn-fields, and along the whole country sweeps away herd and stall. 15 With my own eyes I saw Neoptolemus, mad with carnage, and the two Atridæ on the palace-floor. I saw Hecuba[136] and her hundred daughters-in-law, and Priam at the altar, polluting with his blood the flames he had himself made holy. Those fifty marriage-chambers, the splendid 20 promise of children’s children, doors gorgeous with barbaric gold and plundered treasure, all sank in dust. Where the fire flags, the Danaans are masters.

“Perhaps, too, you may be curious to hear the fate of Priam. When he saw his city fallen and captured, the 25 doors of his palace burst open, the foe in the heart of his home’s sanctuary, poor old man! helplessly and hopelessly he puts about his shoulders, trembling with age, his armour, long disused, and girds on his unavailing sword, and is going to his doom among the thick of the foe. In 30 the midst of the palace, under the naked height of the sky, stood a great altar, and by it a bay tree of age untold, leaning over the altar and enfolding the household gods in its shade. Here about the altar Hecuba and her daughters, all helpless, like doves driven headlong down 35 by a murky tempest, huddled together and clinging to the statues of the gods, were sitting. But when she saw Priam—yes, Priam—wearing the arms of his youth—‘What monstrous thought,’ cries she, ‘my most wretched spouse, has moved you to gird on these weapons? or to what are you hurrying? It is not help like this, not protections like those you wear, that the crisis needs. No, not even if my lost Hector were now at our side. Come, 5 join us here at last; this altar shall be a defence for us all, or we will die together.’ With these words she took him to where she was, and lodged his aged frame in the hallowed resting-place.

“But, see! here is Polites, one of Priam’s sons escaped 10 from Pyrrhus’ murderous hand, through showers of darts and masses of foemen, flying down the long corridors and traversing the empty courts, sore and wounded, while Pyrrhus, all on fire, is pursuing him, with a deadly stroke, his hand all but grasping him, his spear close upon him. 15 Just as at last he won his way into the view and presence of his parents, down he fell and poured out his life in a gush of blood. Hereon Priam, though hemmed in by death on all sides, could not restrain himself, or control voice and passion. ‘Aye,’ cries he, ‘for a crime, for an outrage like 20 this, may the gods, if there is any sense of right in heaven to take cognizance of such deeds, give you the full thanks you merit, and pay you your due reward; you, who have made me look with my own eyes on my son’s death, and stained a father’s presence with the sight of blood. But 25 he whom your lying tongue calls your sire, Achilles, dealt not thus with Priam his foe—he had a cheek that could crimson at a suppliant’s rights, a suppliant’s honour. Hector’s lifeless body he gave back to the tomb, and sent me home to my realms in peace.’ So said the poor old 30 man, and hurled at him a dart unwarlike, unwounding, which the ringing brass at once shook off, and left hanging helplessly from the end of the shield’s boss. Pyrrhus retorts: ‘You shall take your complaint, then, and carry your news to my father, Pelides. Tell, him about my 35 shocking deeds, about his degenerate Neoptolemus, and do not forget. Now die.’ With these words he dragged him to the very altar, palsied and sliding in a pool of his son’s blood, wreathed his left hand in his hair, and with his right flashed forth and sheathed in his side the sword to the hilt. Such was the end of Priam’s fortunes, such the fatal lot that fell upon him, with Troy blazing and Pergamus in ruins before his eyes—upon him, once 5 the haughty ruler of those many nations and kingdoms, the sovereign lord of Asia! There he lies on the shore, a gigantic trunk, a head severed from the shoulders, a body without a name.

“Now, for the first time grim horror prisoned me round—I 10 was wildered—there rose up the image of my dear father, as I saw the king, his fellow in age, breathing out his life through that ghastly wound. There rose up Creusa[137] unprotected, my house, now plundered, and the chance to which I had left my little Iulus. I cast my eyes back and 15 look about to see what strength there is round me. All had forsaken me, too tired to stay; they had leapt to the ground, or dropped helplessly into the flames. And now I was there alone. When lodged in the temple of Vesta, and crouching mutely in its darkest recess, the daughter of 20 Tyndareus[138] meets my eye; the brilliant blaze gives light to my wandering feet and ranging glance. Yes, she in her guilty fears, dreading at once the Teucrians whom the overthrow of Pergamus had made her foes, and the vengeance of the Danaans, and the wrath of the husband she 25 abandoned—she, the common fiend of Troy and of her country, had hid herself away, and was sitting in hateful solitude at the altar. My spirit kindled into flame—a fury seized me to avenge my country in its fall, and to do justice on a wretch. ‘So she is to see Sparta and her 30 native Mycenæ again in safety, and is to move as a queen in a triumph of her own? She is to look upon her lord and her old home, her children and her parents, with a crowd of our Trojan ladies and Phrygian captives to wait on her? Shall it be for this that Priam has died by the 35 sword, that Troy has been burnt with fire, that the Dardan shore has gushed so oft with the sweat of blood? No, never—for though there are no proud memories to be won by vengeance on a woman, no laurels to be reaped from a conquest like this, yet the extinction of so base a life and the exaction of vengeance so merited will count as a praise, and it will be a joy to have glutted my spirit with the flame of revenge and slaked the thirsty ashes of those 5 I love.’ Such were the wild words I was uttering, such the impulse of my infuriate heart, when suddenly there appeared to me, brighter than I had ever seen her before, and shone forth in clear radiance through the night, my gracious mother, all her deity confessed, with the same 10 mien and stature by which she is known to the dwellers in heaven. She seized me by the hand and stayed me, seconding her action with these words from her roseate lips; ‘My son, what mighty agony is it that stirs up this untamed passion? What means your frenzy? or 15 whither has fled your care for me? Will you not first see where you have left your father Anchises, spent with age as he is? whether your wife, Creusa, be yet alive, and your child, Ascanius? All about them the Grecian armies are ranging to and fro, and were not my care exerted to 20 rescue them, ere this they had been snatched by the flame, devoured by the foeman’s sword. It is not the hated beauty of the daughter of Tyndareus, the Spartan woman—not the reviled Paris. No, it is heaven, unpitying heaven that is overturning this great empire and levelling 25 Troy from its summit. See here—for I will take away wholly the cloud whose veil, cast over your eyes, dulls your mortal vision and darkles round you damp and thick—do you on your part shrink in naught from your mother’s commands, nor refuse to obey the instructions 30 she gives. Here, where you see huge masses rent asunder, and stones wrenched from stones, and blended torrents of smoke and dust, is Neptune with his mighty trident shaking the walls and upheaving the very foundations; here is Juno, cruellest of foes, posted at the entry of the 35 Scæan gate, and summoning in tones of fury from the ships her confederate band, herself girt with steel like them. Look behind you—there is Tritonian Pallas, seated already on the summit of our towers, in the lurid glare of her storm-cloud and grim Gorgon’s head. The great Father himself is nerving the Danaans with courage and strength for victory—himself leading the gods against our Dardan forces. Come, my son, catch at flight while 5 you may and bring the struggle to an end. I will not leave you, till I have set you in safety at your father’s door.’ She had ceased, and veiled herself at once in night’s thickest shadows. I see a vision of awful shapes—mighty presences of gods arrayed against Troy. 10

“Then, indeed, I beheld all Ilion sinking into flame, and Neptune’s city, Troy, overturned from its base. Even as an ancient ash on the mountain-top, which woodmen have hacked with steel and repeated hatchet strokes, and are trying might and main to dislodge—it keeps nodding 15 menacingly, its leafy head palsied and shaken, till at last, gradually overborne by wound after wound, it has given its death-groan, and fallen uprooted in ruined length along the hill. I come down, and, following my heavenly guide, thread my way through flames and foemen, 20 while weapons glance aside and flames retire.

“Now when at last I had reached the door of my father’s house, that old house I knew so well, my sire, whom it was my first resolve to carry away high up the hills—who was the first object I sought—refuses to survive the 25 razing of Troy and submit to banishment. ‘You, whose young blood is untainted, whose strength is firmly based and self-sustained, it is for you to think of flight. For me, had the dwellers in heaven willed me to prolong my life, they would have preserved for me my home. It is enough 30 and more than enough to have witnessed one sack, to have once outlived the capture of my city. Here, O here as I lie, bid farewell to my corpse and begone. I will find me a warrior’s death. The enemy will have mercy on me, and my spoils will tempt him. The loss of a tomb 35 will fall on me lightly. Long, long have I been a clog on time, hated of heaven and useless to earth, from the day when the father of gods and sovereign of men blasted me with the wind of his lightning, and laid on me the finger of flame.’[139]

“Such the words he kept on repeating and continued unshaken, while we were shedding our hearts in tears—Creusa, my wife, and Ascanius and my whole house, 5 imploring my father not to be bent on dragging all with him to ruin, and lending his weight to the avalanche of destiny. But he refuses, and will not be moved from his purpose or his home. Once more I am plunging into battle, and choosing death in the agony of my 10 wretchedness—for what could wisdom or fortune do for me now? What, my father? that I could stir a step to escape, leaving you behind? was this your expectation? could aught so shocking fall from a parent’s lips? No—if it is the will of heaven that naught of this mighty city 15 should be spared—if your purpose is fixed, and you find pleasure in throwing yourself and yours on Troy’s blazing pile, the door stands open for the death you crave. Pyrrhus will be here in a moment, fresh from bathing in Priam’s blood—Pyrrhus, who butchers the son before the 20 father’s face, who butchers the father at the altar. Gracious mother! was it for this that thou rescuest me from fire and sword—all that I may see the foe in the heart of my home’s sanctuary—may see my Ascanius, and my father, and my Creusa by them sacrificed in a pool of each other’s 25 blood? My arms, friends, bring me my arms! the call of the day of death rings in the ears of the conquered. Give me back to the Danaans, let me return and renew the combat. Never shall this day see us all slaughtered unresisting. 30

“Now I gird on my sword again, and was buckling and fitting my shield to my left arm, and making my way out of the house—when lo! my wife on the threshold began to clasp and cling to my feet, holding out my little Iulus to his father. ‘If it is to death you are going, then carry us 35 with you to death and all, but if experience gives you any hope in the arms you are resuming, let your first stand be made at your home. To whom, think you, are you leaving your little Iulus—your father, and me who was once styled your wife?’

“Thus she was crying, while her moaning filled the house, when a portent appears, sudden and marvellous to relate. Even while the hands and eyes of his grieving 5 parents were upon him, lo, a flickering tongue of flame on the top of Iulus’ head was seen to shoot out light, playing round his soft curly locks with innocuous contact and pasturing about his temples. We are all hurry and alarm, shaking out his blazing hair and quenching the 10 sacred fire with water from the spring—but Anchises my father raised his eyes in ecstasy to heaven, directing hand and voice to the stars: ‘Almighty Jove, if any prayer can bow thy will, look down on us—’tis all I crave—and if our piety have earned requital, grant us thy 15 succour, father, and ratify the omen we now see.’ Scarce had the old man spoken, when there came a sudden peal of thunder on the left, and a star fell from heaven and swept through the gloom with a torchlike train and a blaze of light. Over the top of the house we see it pass, 20 and mark its course along the sky till it buries itself lustrously in Ida’s wood—then comes a long furrowed line of light, and a sulphurous smoke fills the space all about. Then at length overcome, my father raises himself towards the sky, addresses the gods, and does reverence to the 25 sacred meteor: ‘No more, no more delay from me. I follow your guidance, and am already in the way by which you would lead me. Gods of my country! preserve my house, preserve my grandchild. Yours in this augury—your shield is stretched over Troy. Yes, my son, I 30 give way, and shrink not from accompanying your flight.’ He said—and by this the blaze is heard louder and louder through the streets, and the flames roll their hot volumes nearer. ‘Come then, dear father, take your seat on my back, my shoulders shall support you, nor shall I feel the 35 task a burden. Fall things as they may, we twain will share the peril, share the deliverance. Let my little Iulus walk by my side, while my wife follows our steps at a distance. You, our servants, attend to what I now say. As you leave the city there is a mound, where stands an ancient temple of Ceres all alone, and by it an old cypress, observed these many years by the reverence of our sires. This shall be our point of meeting in one place from 5 many quarters. You, my father, take in your hand these sacred things, our country’s household gods. For me, just emerged from this mighty war, with the stains of carnage fresh upon me, it were sacrilege to touch them, till I have cleansed me in the running stream.’ 10

“So saying, I spread out my shoulders, bow my neck, cover them with a robe, a lion’s tawny hide, and take up the precious burden. My little Iulus has fastened his hand in mine, and is following his father with ill-matched steps, my wife comes on behind. On we go, keeping in the 15 shade—and I, who erewhile quailed not for a moment at the darts that rained upon me or at the masses of Greeks that barred my path, now am scared by every breath of air, startled by every sound, fluttered as I am, and fearing alike for him who holds my hand and him I carry. And now I 20 was nearing the gates, and the whole journey seemed accomplished, when suddenly the noise of thick trampling feet came to my ear, and my father looks onward through the darkness. ‘Son, son,’ he cries, ‘fly: they are upon us. I distinguish the flashing of their shields and the 25 gleam of their steel.’ In this alarm some unfriendly power perplexed and took away my judgment. For, while I was tracking places where no track was, and swerving from the wonted line of road, woe is me! destiny tore from me my wife Creusa. Whether she stopped, 30 or strayed from the road, or sat down fatigued, I never knew—nor was she ever restored to my eyes in life. Nay, I did not look back to discover my loss, or turn my thoughts that way till we had come to the mound and temple of a