When their frenzy seemed heightened and her first task complete, the purpose and all the house of Latinus turned upside down, the dolorous goddess flies on thence, soaring on dusky wing, to the walls of the gallant Rutulian, the city which Danae, they say, borne down on the boisterous south wind, built and planted with Acrision's people. The place was called Ardea once of old; and still Ardea remains a mighty name; but its fortune is no more. Here in his high house Turnus now took rest in the black midnight. Allecto puts off her grim feature and the body of a Fury; she transforms her face to an aged woman's, and furrows her brow with ugly wrinkles; she puts on white tresses chaplet-bound, and entwines them with an olive spray; she becomes aged Calybe, priestess of Juno's temple, and presents herself before his eyes, uttering thus:

'Turnus, wilt thou brook all these toils poured out in vain, and the conveyance of thy crown to Dardanian settlers? The King denies thee thy bride and the dower thy blood had earned; and a foreigner is sought for heir to the kingdom. Forth now, dupe, and face thankless perils; forth, cut down the Tyrrhenian lines; give the [427-458]Latins peace in thy protection. This Saturn's omnipotent daughter in very presence commanded me to pronounce to thee, as thou wert lying in the still night. Wherefore arise, and make ready with good cheer to arm thy people and march through thy gates to battle; consume those Phrygian captains that lie with their painted hulls in the beautiful river. All the force of heaven orders thee on. Let King Latinus himself know of it, unless he consents to give thee thy bridal, and abide by his words, when he shall at last make proof of Turnus' arms.'

But he, deriding her inspiration, with the words of his mouth thus answers her again:

'The fleets ride on the Tiber wave; that news hath not, as thou deemest, escaped mine ears. Frame not such terrors before me. Neither is Queen Juno forgetful of us. . . . But thee, O mother, overworn old age, exhausted and untrue, frets with vain distress, and amid embattled kings mocks thy presage with false dismay. Thy charge it is to keep the divine image and temple; war and peace shall be in the hands of men and warriors.'

At such words Allecto's wrath blazed out. But amid his utterance a quick shudder overruns his limbs; his eyes are fixed in horror; so thickly hiss the snakes of the Fury, so vast her form expands. Then rolling her fiery eyes, she thrust him back as he would stammer out more, raised two serpents in her hair, and, sounding her whip, resumed with furious tone:

'Behold me the overworn! me whom old age, exhausted and untrue, mocks with false dismay amid embattled kings! Look on this! I am come from the home of the Dread Sisters: war and death are in my hand. . . .'

So speaking, she hurled her torch at him, and pierced his breast with the lurid smoking brand. He breaks from sleep in overpowering fear, his limbs and body bathed in [459-494]sweat that breaks out all over him; he shrieks madly for arms, searches for arms on his bed and in his palace. The passion of the sword rages high, the accursed fury of war, and wrath over all: even as when flaming sticks are heaped roaring loud under the sides of a seething cauldron, and the boiling water leaps up; the river of water within smokes furiously and swells high in overflowing foam, and now the wave contains itself no longer; the dark steam flies aloft. So, for the stain of the broken peace, he orders his chief warriors to march on King Latinus, and bids prepare for battle, to defend Italy and drive the foe from their borders; himself will suffice for Trojans and Latins together. When he uttered these words and called the gods to hear his vows, the Rutulians stir one another up to arms. One is moved by the splendour of his youthful beauty, one by his royal ancestry, another by the noble deeds of his hand.

While Turnus fills the Rutulian minds with valour, Allecto on Stygian wing hastens towards the Trojans. With fresh wiles she marked the spot where beautiful Iuelus was trapping and coursing game on the bank; here the infernal maiden suddenly crosses his hounds with the maddening touch of a familiar scent, and drives them hotly on the stag-hunt. This was the source and spring of ill, and kindled the country-folk to war. The stag, beautiful and high-antlered, was stolen from his mother's udder and bred by Tyrrheus' boys and their father Tyrrheus, master of the royal herds, and ranger of the plain. Their sister Silvia tamed him to her rule, and lavished her care on his adornment, twining his antlers with delicate garlands, and combed his wild coat and washed him in the clear spring. Tame to her hand, and familiar to his master's table, he would wander the woods, and, however late the night, return home to the door he knew. Far astray, he floated idly down the stream, and allayed his heat on the green bank, when Iuelus' [495-528]mad hounds started him in their hunting; and Ascanius himself, kindled with desire of the chief honour, aimed a shaft from his bended bow. A present deity suffered not his hand to stray, and the loud whistling reed came driven through his belly and flanks. But the wounded beast fled within the familiar roof and crept moaning to the courtyard, dabbled with blood, and filling all the house with moans as of one beseeching. Sister Silvia, smiting her arms with open hands, begins to call for aid, and gathers the hardy rustics with her cries. They, for a fell destroyer is hidden in the silent woodland, are there before her expectation, one armed with a stake hardened in the fire, one with a heavy knotted trunk; what each one searches and finds, wrath turns into a weapon. Tyrrheus cheers on his array, panting hard, with his axe caught up in his hand, as he was haply splitting an oaken log in four clefts with cross-driven wedges.

But the grim goddess, seizing from her watch-tower the moment of mischief, seeks the steep farm-roof and sounds the pastoral war-note from the ridge, straining the infernal cry on her twisted horn; it spread shuddering over all the woodland, and echoed through the deep forests: the lake of Trivia heard it afar; Nar river heard it with white sulphurous water, and the springs of Velinus; and fluttered mothers clasped their children to their breast. Then, hurrying to the voice of the terrible trumpet-note, on all sides the wild rustics snatch their arms and stream in: therewithal the men of Troy pour out from their camp's open gates to succour Ascanius. The lines are ranged; not now in rustic strife do they fight with hard trunks or burned stakes; the two-edged steel sways the fight, the broad cornfields bristle dark with drawn swords, and brass flashes smitten by the sunlight, and casts a gleam high into the cloudy air: as when the wind begins to blow and the flood [529-560]to whiten, gradually the sea lifts his waves higher and yet higher, then rises from the bottom right into the air. Here in the front rank young Almo, once Tyrrheus' eldest son, is struck down by a whistling arrow; for the wound, staying in his throat, cut off in blood the moist voice's passage and the thin life. Around many a one lies dead, aged Galaesus among them, slain as he throws himself between them for a peacemaker, once incomparable in justice and wealth of Ausonian fields; for him five flocks bleated, a five-fold herd returned from pasture, and an hundred ploughs upturned the soil.

But while thus in even battle they fight on the broad plain, the goddess, her promise fulfilled, when she hath dyed the war in blood, and mingled death in the first encounter, quits Hesperia, and, glancing through the sky, addresses Juno in exultant tone:

'Lo, discord is ripened at thy desire into baleful war: tell them now to mix in amity and join alliance. Insomuch as I have imbued the Trojans in Ausonian blood, this likewise will I add, if I have assurance of thy will. With my rumours I will sweep the bordering towns into war, and kindle their spirit with furious desire for battle, that from all quarters help may come; I will sow the land with arms.'

Then Juno answering: 'Terror and harm is wrought abundantly. The springs of war are aflow: they fight with arms in their grasp, the arms that chance first supplied, that fresh blood stains. Let this be the union, this the bridal that Venus' illustrious progeny and Latinus the King shall celebrate. Our Lord who reigns on Olympus' summit would not have thee stray too freely in heaven's upper air. Withdraw thy presence. Whatsoever future remains in the struggle, that I myself will sway.'

Such accents uttered the daughter of Saturn; and the [561-594]other raises her rustling snaky wings and darts away from the high upper air to Cocytus her home. There is a place midmost of Italy, deep in the hills, notable and famed of rumour in many a country, the Vale of Amsanctus; on either hand a wooded ridge, dark with thick foliage, hems it in, and midway a torrent in swirling eddies shivers and echoes over the rocks. Here is shewn a ghastly pool, a breathing-hole of the grim lord of hell, and a vast chasm breaking into Acheron yawns with pestilential throat. In it the Fury sank, and relieved earth and heaven of her hateful influence.

But therewithal the queenly daughter of Saturn puts the last touch to war. The shepherds pour in full tale from the battlefield into the town, bearing back their slain, the boy Almo and Galaesus' disfigured face, and cry on the gods and call on Latinus. Turnus is there, and amid the heat and outcry at the slaughter redoubles his terrors, crying that Teucrians are bidden to the kingdom, that a Phrygian race is mingling its taint with theirs, and he is thrust out of their gates. They too, the matrons of whose kin, struck by Bacchus, trample in choirs down the pathless woods—nor is Amata's name a little thing—they too gather together from all sides and weary themselves with the battle-cry. Omens and oracles of gods go down before them, and all under malign influence clamour for awful war. Emulously they surround Latinus' royal house. He withstands, even as a rock in ocean unremoved, as a rock in ocean when the great crash comes down, firm in its own mass among many waves slapping all about: in vain the crags and boulders hiss round it in foam, and the seaweed on its side is flung up and sucked away. But when he may in nowise overbear their blind counsel, and all goes at fierce Juno's beck, with many an appeal to gods and void sky, 'Alas!' he cries, 'we are broken of fate and driven helpless in the [595-626]storm. With your very blood will you pay the price of this, O wretched men! Thee, O Turnus, thy crime, thee thine awful punishment shall await; too late wilt thou address to heaven thy prayers and supplication. For my rest was won, and my haven full at hand; I am robbed but of a happy death.' And without further speech he shut himself in the palace, and dropped the reins of state.

There was a use in Hesperian Latium, which the Alban towns kept in holy observance, now Rome keeps, the mistress of the world, when they stir the War-God to enter battle; whether their hands prepare to carry war and weeping among Getae or Hyrcanians or Arabs, or to reach to India and pursue the Dawn, and reclaim their standards from the Parthian. There are twain gates of War, so runs their name, consecrate in grim Mars' sanctity and terror. An hundred bolts of brass and masses of everlasting iron shut them fast, and Janus the guardian never sets foot from their threshold. There, when the sentence of the Fathers stands fixed for battle, the Consul, arrayed in the robe of Quirinus and the Gabine cincture, with his own hand unbars the grating doors, with his own lips calls battles forth; then all the rest follow on, and the brazen trumpets blare harsh with consenting breath. With this use then likewise they bade Latinus proclaim war on the Aeneadae, and unclose the baleful gates. He withheld his hand, and shrank away averse from the abhorred service, and hid himself blindly in the dark. Then the Saturnian queen of heaven glided from the sky, with her own hand thrust open the lingering gates, and swung sharply back on their hinges the iron-bound doors of war. Ausonia is ablaze, till then unstirred and immoveable. Some make ready to march afoot over the plains; some, mounted on tall horses, ride amain in clouds of dust. All seek out arms; and now they rub their shields smooth and make their spearheads glitter with [627-659]fat lard, and grind their axes on the whetstone: rejoicingly they advance under their standards and hear the trumpet note. Five great cities set up the anvil and sharpen the sword, strong Atina and proud Tibur, Ardea and Crustumeri, and turreted Antemnae. They hollow out head-gear to guard them, and plait wickerwork round shield-bosses; others forge breastplates of brass or smooth greaves of flexible silver. To this is come the honour of share and pruning-hook, to this all the love of the plough: they re-temper their fathers' swords in the furnace. And now the trumpets blare; the watchword for war passes along. One snatches a helmet hurriedly from his house, another backs his neighing horses into the yoke; and arrays himself in shield and mail-coat triple-linked with gold, and girds on his trusty sword.

Open now the gates of Helicon, goddesses, and stir the song of the kings that rose for war, the array that followed each and filled the plains, the men that even then blossomed, the arms that blazed in Italy the bountiful land: for you remember, divine ones, and you can recall; to us but a breath of rumour, scant and slight, is wafted down.

First from the Tyrrhene coast savage Mezentius, scorner of the gods, opens the war and arrays his columns. By him is Lausus, his son, unexcelled in bodily beauty by any save Laurentine Turnus, Lausus tamer of horses and destroyer of wild beasts; he leads a thousand men who followed him in vain from Agylla town; worthy to be happier in ancestral rule, and to have other than Mezentius for father.

After them beautiful Aventinus, born of beautiful Hercules, displays on the sward his palm-crowned chariot and victorious horses, and carries on his shield his father's device, the hundred snakes of the Hydra's serpent-wreath. Him, in the wood of the hill Aventine, Rhea the priestess [660-693]bore by stealth into the borders of light, a woman mingled with a god, after the Tirynthian Conqueror had slain Geryon and set foot on the fields of Laurentum, and bathed his Iberian oxen in the Tuscan river. These carry for war javelins and grim stabbing weapons, and fight with the round shaft and sharp point of the Sabellian pike. Himself he went on foot swathed in a vast lion skin, shaggy with bristling terrors, whose white teeth encircled his head; in such wild dress, the garb of Hercules clasped over his shoulders, he entered the royal house.

Next twin brothers leave Tibur town, and the people called by their brother Tiburtus' name, Catillus and valiant Coras, the Argives, and advance in the forefront of battle among the throng of spears: as when two cloud-born Centaurs descend from a lofty mountain peak, leaving Homole or snowy Othrys in rapid race; the mighty forest yields before them as they go, and the crashing thickets give them way.

Nor was the founder of Praeneste city absent, the king who, as every age hath believed, was born of Vulcan among the pasturing herds, and found beside the hearth, Caeculus. On him a rustic battalion attends in loose order, they who dwell in steep Praeneste and the fields of Juno of Gabii, on the cool Anio and the Hernican rocks dewy with streams; they whom rich Anagnia, and whom thou, lord Amasenus, pasturest. Not all of them have armour, nor shields and clattering chariots. The most part shower bullets of dull lead; some wield in their hand two darts, and have for head-covering caps of tawny wolfskin; their left foot is bare wherewith to plant their steps; the other is covered with a boot of raw hide.

But Messapus, tamer of horses, the seed of Neptune, whom none might ever strike down with steel or fire, calls quickly to arms his long unstirred peoples and bands [694-727]disused to war, and again handles the sword. These are of the Fescennine ranks and of Aequi Falisci, these of Soracte's fortresses and the fields of Flavina, and Ciminus' lake and hill, and the groves of Capena. They marched in even time, singing their King; as whilome snowy swans among the thin clouds, when they return from pasturage, and utter resonant notes through their long necks; far off echoes the river and the smitten Asian fen. . . . Nor would one think these vast streaming masses were ranks clad in brass; rather that, high in air, a cloud of hoarse birds from the deep gulf was pressing to the shore.

Lo, Clausus of the ancient Sabine blood, leading a great host, a great host himself; from whom now the Claudian tribe and family is spread abroad since Rome was shared with the Sabines. Alongside is the broad battalion of Amiternum, and the Old Latins, and all the force of Eretum and the Mutuscan oliveyards; they who dwell in Nomentum town, and the Rosean country by Velinus, who keep the crags of rough Tetrica and Mount Severus, Casperia and Foruli, and the river of Himella; they who drink of Tiber and Fabaris, they whom cold Nursia hath sent, and the squadrons of Horta and the tribes of Latinium; and they whom Allia, the ill-ominous name, severs with its current; as many as the waves that roll on the Libyan sea-floor when fierce Orion sets in the wintry surge; as thick as the ears that ripen in the morning sunlight on the plain of the Hermus or the yellowing Lycian tilth. Their shields clatter, and earth is amazed under the trampling of their feet.

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

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

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

Furthermore there came, sent by King Archippus, the priest of the Marruvian people, dressed with prosperous olive leaves over his helmet, Umbro excellent in valour, who was wont with charm and touch to sprinkle slumberous dew on the viper's brood and water-snakes of noisome breath. Yet he availed not to heal the stroke of the Dardanian spear-point, nor was the wound of him helped by his sleepy charms and herbs culled on the Massic hills. Thee the woodland of Angitia, thee Fucinus' glassy wave, thee the clear pools wept. . . .

Likewise the seed of Hippolytus marched to war, Virbius [762-796]most excellent in beauty, sent by his mother Aricia. The groves of Egeria nursed him round the spongy shore where Diana's altar stands rich and gracious. For they say in story that Hippolytus, after he fell by his stepmother's treachery, torn asunder by his frightened horses to fulfil a father's revenge, came again to the daylight and heaven's upper air, recalled by Diana's love and the drugs of the Healer. Then the Lord omnipotent, indignant that any mortal should rise from the nether shades to the light of life, launched his thunder and hurled down to the Stygian water the Phoebus-born, the discoverer of such craft and cure. But Trivia the bountiful hides Hippolytus in a secret habitation, and sends him away to the nymph Egeria and the woodland's keeping, where, solitary in Italian forests, he should spend an inglorious life, and have Virbius for his altered name. Whence also hoofed horses are kept away from Trivia's temple and consecrated groves, because, affrighted at the portents of the sea, they overset the chariot and flung him out upon the shore. Notwithstanding did his son train his ruddy steeds on the level plain, and sped charioted to war.

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

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



BOOK EIGHTH

THE EMBASSAGE TO EVANDER

When Turnus ran up the flag of war on the towers of Laurentum, and the trumpets blared with harsh music, when he spurred his fiery steeds and clashed his armour, straightway men's hearts are in tumult; all Latium at once flutters in banded uprisal, and her warriors rage furiously. Their chiefs, Messapus, and Ufens, and Mezentius, scorner of the gods, begin to enrol forces on all sides, and dispeople the wide fields of husbandmen. Venulus too is sent to the town of mighty Diomede to seek succour, to instruct him that Teucrians set foot in Latium; that Aeneas in his fleet invades them with the vanquished gods of his home, and proclaims himself the King summoned of fate; that many tribes join the Dardanian, and his name swells high in Latium. What he will rear on these foundations, what issue of battle he desires, if Fortune attend him, lies clearer to his own sight than to King Turnus or King Latinus.

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

'O born of the family of the gods, thou who bearest back our Trojan city from hostile hands, and keepest Troy towers in eternal life; O long looked for on Laurentine ground and Latin fields! here is thine assured home, thine home's assured gods. Draw not thou back, nor be alarmed by menace of war. All the anger and wrath of the gods is passed away . . . And even now for thine assurance, that thou think not this the idle fashioning of sleep, a great sow shall be found lying under the oaks on the shore, with her new-born litter of thirty head: white she couches on the ground, and the brood about her teats is white. By this token in thirty revolving years shall Ascanius found a city, Alba of bright name. My prophecy is sure. Now hearken, and I will briefly instruct thee how thou mayest unravel and overcome thy present task. An Arcadian people sprung of Pallas, following in their king Evander's company beneath his banners, have chosen a place in these coasts, and set a city on the hills, called Pallanteum after Pallas their forefather. These wage perpetual war with the Latin race; these do thou take to thy camp's alliance, and join with them in league. Myself I [57-89]will lead thee by my banks and straight along my stream, that thou mayest oar thy way upward against the river. Up and arise, goddess-born, and even with the setting stars address thy prayers to Juno as is meet, and vanquish her wrath and menaces with humble vows. To me thou shalt pay a conqueror's sacrifice. I am he whom thou seest washing the banks with full flood and severing the rich tilth, glassy Tiber, best beloved by heaven of rivers. Here is my stately home; my fountain-head is among high cities.'

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

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

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

It chanced on that day the Arcadian king paid his accustomed sacrifice to the great son of Amphitryon and all the gods in a grove before the city. With him his son Pallas, with him all the chief of his people and his poor senate were offering incense, and the blood steamed warm at their altars. When they saw the high ships, saw them glide up between the shady woodlands and rest on their silent oars, the sudden sight appals them, and all at once they rise and stop the banquet. Pallas courageously forbids them to break off the rites; snatching up a spear, he flies forward, and from a hillock cries afar: 'O men, what cause hath driven you to explore these unknown ways? or whither do you steer? What is your kin, whence your habitation? Is it peace or arms you carry hither?' Then from the lofty stern lord Aeneas thus speaks, stretching forth in his hand an olive bough of peace-bearing:

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

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

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

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

'How gladly, bravest of the Teucrians, do I hail and [155-188]own thee! how I recall thy father's words and the very tone and glance of great Anchises! For I remember how Priam son of Laomedon, when he sought Salamis on his way to the realm of his sister Hesione, went on to visit the cold borders of Arcadia. Then early youth clad my cheeks with bloom. I admired the Teucrian captains, admired their lord, the son of Laomedon; but Anchises moved high above them all. My heart burned with youthful passion to accost him and clasp hand in hand; I made my way to him, and led him eagerly to Pheneus' high town. Departing he gave me an adorned quiver and Lycian arrows, a scarf inwoven with gold, and a pair of golden bits that now my Pallas possesses. Therefore my hand is already joined in the alliance you seek, and soon as to-morrow's dawn rises again over earth, I will send you away rejoicing in mine aid, and supply you from my store. Meanwhile, since you are come hither in friendship, solemnise with us these yearly rites which we may not defer, and even now learn to be familiar at your comrades' board.'

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

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

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

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

'In these woodlands dwelt Fauns and Nymphs sprung of the soil, and a tribe of men born of stocks and hard oak; who had neither law nor grace of life, nor did they know to yoke bulls or lay up stores or save their gains, but were nurtured by the forest boughs and the hard living of the huntsman. Long ago Saturn came from heaven on high in flight before Jove's arms, an exile from his lost realm. He gathered together the unruly race scattered on the mountain heights, and gave them statutes, and chose Latium to be their name, since in these borders he had found a safe hiding-place. Beneath his reign were the ages named of gold; thus, in peace and quietness, did he rule the nations; till gradually there crept in a sunken and stained time, the rage of war, and the lust of possession. Then came the Ausonian clan and the tribes of Sicania, and many a time the land of Saturn put away her name. Then were kings, [330-364]and fierce Thybris with his giant bulk, from whose name we of Italy afterwards called the Tiber river, when it lost the true name of old, Albula. Me, cast out from my country and following the utmost limits of the sea, Fortune the omnipotent and irreversible doom settled in this region; and my mother the Nymph Carmentis' awful warnings and Apollo's divine counsel drove me hither.'

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

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

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

'While Argolic kings wasted in war the doomed towers of Troy, the fortress fated to fall in hostile fires, no succour did I require for her wretched people, no weapons of thine art and aid: nor would I task, dear my lord, thee or thy toils for naught, though I owed many and many a debt to the children of Priam, and had often wept the sore labour of Aeneas. Now by Jove's commands he hath set foot in the Rutulian borders; I now therefore come with entreaty, and ask armour of the god I worship. For the son she bore, the tears of Nereus' daughter, of Tithonus' consort, could melt thine heart. Look what nations are gathering, what cities bar their gates and sharpen the sword against me for the desolation of my children.'

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

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

Thereon, so soon as sleep, now in mid-career of waning night, had given rest and gone; soon as a woman, whose task is to sustain life with her distaff and the slender labours of the loom, kindles the ashes of her slumbering fire, her toil encroaching on the night, and sets a long task of fire-lit spinning to her maidens, that so she may keep her husband's bed unsullied and nourish her little children,—even so the Lord of Fire, nor slacker in his hours than she, rises from his soft couch to the work of his smithy. An island rises by the side of Sicily and Aeolian Lipare, steep with smoking cliffs, whereunder the vaulted and thunderous Aetnean caverns are hollowed out for Cyclopean forges, the strong strokes on the anvils echo in groans, ore of steel hisses in the vaults, and the fire pants in the furnaces: the house of Vulcan, and Vulcania the land's name. Hither now the Lord of Fire descends from heaven's height. In the vast cavern the Cyclopes were forging iron, Brontes and Steropes and Pyracmon with bared limbs. Shaped in their hands was a thunderbolt, in part already polished, such as the Father of Heaven hurls down on earth in multitudes, part yet unfinished. Three coils of frozen rain, three of watery mist they had enwrought in it, three of ruddy fire and winged south wind; now they were mingling in their work the awful splendours, the sound and terror, and the [432-469]angry pursuing flames. Elsewhere they hurried on a chariot for Mars with flying wheels, wherewith he stirs up men and cities; and burnished the golden serpent-scales of the awful aegis, the armour of wrathful Pallas, and the entwined snakes on the breast of the goddess, the Gorgon head with severed neck and rolling eyes. 'Away with all!' he cries: 'stop your tasks unfinished, Cyclopes of Aetna, and attend to this; a warrior's armour must be made. Now must strength, now quickness of hand be tried, now all our art lend her guidance. Fling off delay.' He spoke no more; but they all bent rapidly to the work, allotting their labours equally. Brass and ore of gold flow in streams, and wounding steel is molten in the vast furnace. They shape a mighty shield, to receive singly all the weapons of the Latins, and weld it sevenfold, circle on circle. Some fill and empty the windy bellows of their blast, some dip the hissing brass in the trough. They raise their arms mightily in responsive time, and turn the mass of metal about in the grasp of their tongs.

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

[470-505]'Princely chief of the Teucrians, in whose lifetime I will never allow the state or realm of Troy vanquished, our strength is scant to succour in war for so great a name. On this side the Tuscan river shuts us in; on that the Rutulian drives us hard, and thunders in arms about our walls. But I purpose to unite to thee mighty peoples and the camp of a wealthy realm; an unforeseen chance offers this for thy salvation. Fate summons thy approach. Not far from here stands fast Agylla city, an ancient pile of stone, where of old the Lydian race, eminent in war, settled on the Etruscan ridges. For many years it flourished, till King Mezentius ruled it with insolent sway and armed terror. Why should I relate the horrible murders, the savage deeds of the monarch? May the gods keep them in store for himself and his line! Nay, he would even link dead bodies to living, fitting hand to hand and face to face (the torture!), and in the oozy foulness and corruption of the dreadful embrace so slay them by a lingering death. But at last his citizens, outwearied by his mad excesses, surround him and his house in arms, cut down his comrades, and hurl fire on his roof. Amid the massacre he escaped to the refuge of Rutulian land and the armed defence of Turnus' friendship. So all Etruria hath risen in righteous fury, and in immediate battle claim their king for punishment. Over these thousands will I make thee chief, O Aeneas; for their noisy ships crowd all the shore, and they bid the standards advance, while the aged diviner stays them with prophecies: "O chosen men of Maeonia, flower and strength of them, of old time, whom righteous anger urges on the enemy, and Mezentius inflames with deserved wrath, to no Italian is it permitted to hold this great nation in control: choose foreigners to lead you." At that, terrified by the divine warning, the Etruscan lines have encamped on the plain; Tarchon himself hath sent ambassadors to me with the crown [506-539]and sceptre of the kingdom, and offers the royal attire will I but enter their camp and take the Tyrrhene realm. But old age, frozen to dulness, and exhausted with length of life, denies me the load of empire, and my prowess is past its day. I would urge it on my son, did not the mixture of blood by his Sabellian mother make this half his native land. Thou, to whose years and race alike the fates extend their favour, on whom fortune calls, enter thou in, a leader supreme in bravery over Teucrians and Italians. Mine own Pallas likewise, our hope and comfort, I will send with thee; let him grow used to endure warfare and the stern work of battle under thy teaching, to regard thine actions, and from his earliest years look up to thee. To him will I give two hundred Arcadian cavalry, the choice of our warlike strength, and Pallas as many more to thee in his own name.'

Scarce had he ended; Aeneas, son of Anchises, and trusty Achates gazed with steadfast face, and, sad at heart, were revolving inly many a labour, had not the Cytherean sent a sign from the clear sky. For suddenly a flash and peal comes quivering from heaven, and all seemed in a moment to totter, and the Tyrrhene trumpet-blast to roar along the sky. They look up; again and yet again the heavy crash re-echoes. They see in the serene space of sky armour gleam red through a cloud in the clear air, and ring clashing out. The others stood in amaze; but the Trojan hero knew the sound for the promise of his goddess mother; then he speaks: 'Ask not, O friend, ask not in any wise what fortune this presage announces; it is I who am summoned of heaven. This sign the goddess who bore me foretold she would send if war assailed, and would bring through the air to my succour armour from Vulcan's hands. . . . Ah, what slaughter awaits the wretched Laurentines! what a price, O Turnus, wilt thou pay me! how many shields and helmets and brave bodies of men shalt thou, [540-573]Lord Tiber, roll under thy waves! Let them call for armed array and break the league!'

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

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

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

But Venus the white goddess drew nigh, bearing her gifts through the clouds of heaven; and when she saw her [610-646]son withdrawn far apart in the valley's recess by the cold river, cast herself in his way, and addressed him thus: 'Behold perfected the presents of my husband's promised craftsmanship: so shalt thou not shun, O my child, soon to challenge the haughty Laurentines or fiery Turnus to battle.' The Cytherean spoke, and sought her son's embrace, and laid the armour glittering under an oak over against him. He, rejoicing in the magnificence of the goddess' gift, cannot have his fill of turning his eyes over it piece by piece, and admires and handles between his arms the helmet, dread with plumes and spouting flame, as when a blue cloud takes fire in the sunbeams and gleams afar; then the smooth greaves of electrum and refined gold, the spear, and the shield's ineffable design. There the Lord of Fire had fashioned the story of Italy and the triumphs of the Romans, not witless of prophecy or ignorant of the age to be; there all the race of Ascanius' future seed, and their wars fought one by one. Likewise had he fashioned the she-wolf couched after the birth in the green cave of Mars; round her teats the twin boys hung playing, and fearlessly mouthed their foster-mother; she, with round neck bent back, stroked them by turns and shaped their bodies with her tongue. Thereto not far from this he had set Rome and the lawless rape of the Sabines in the concourse of the theatre when the great Circensian games were celebrated, and a fresh war suddenly arising between the people of Romulus and aged Tatius and austere Cures. Next these same kings laid down their mutual strife and stood armed before Jove's altar with cup in hand, and joined treaty over a slain sow. Not far from there four-horse chariots driven apart had torn Mettus asunder (but thou, O Alban, shouldst have kept by thy words!), and Tullus tore the flesh of the liar through the forest, his splashed blood dripping from the briars. Therewithal Porsena commanded [647-681]to admit the exiled Tarquin, and held the city in the grasp of a strong blockade; the Aeneadae rushed on the sword for liberty. Him thou couldst espy like one who chafes and like one who threatens, because Cocles dared to tear down the bridge, and Cloelia broke her bonds and swam the river. Highest of all Manlius, warder of the Tarpeian fortress, stood with the temple behind him and held the high Capitoline; and the thatch of Romulus' palace stood rough and fresh. And here the silver goose, fluttering in the gilded colonnades, cried that the Gauls were there on the threshold. The Gauls were there among the brushwood, hard on the fortress, secure in the darkness and the dower of shadowy night. Their clustering locks are of gold, and of gold their attire; their striped cloaks glitter, and their milk-white necks are entwined with gold. Two Alpine pikes sparkle in the hand of each, and long shields guard their bodies. Here he had embossed the dancing Salii and the naked Luperci, the crests wreathed in wool, and the sacred shields that fell from heaven; in cushioned cars the virtuous matrons led on their rites through the city. Far hence he adds the habitations of hell also, the high gates of Dis and the dooms of guilt; and thee, O Catiline, clinging on the beetling rock, and shuddering at the faces of the Furies; and far apart the good, and Cato delivering them statutes. Amidst it all flows wide the likeness of the swelling sea, wrought in gold, though the foam surged gray upon blue water; and round about dolphins, in shining silver, swept the seas with their tails in circle as they cleft the tide. In the centre were visible the brazen war-fleets of Actium; thou mightest see all Leucate swarm in embattled array, and the waves gleam with gold. Here Caesar Augustus, leading Italy to battle with Fathers and People, with gods of household and of state, stands on the lofty stern; prosperous flames jet round his brow, and his [682-715]ancestral star dawns overhead. Elsewhere Agrippa, with favouring winds and gods, proudly leads on his column; on his brows glitters the prow-girt naval crown, the haughty emblazonment of the war. Here Antonius with barbarian aid and motley arms, from the conquered nations of the Dawn and the shore of the southern sea, carries with him Egypt and the Eastern forces of utmost Bactra, and the shameful Egyptian woman goes as his consort. All at once rush on, and the whole ocean is torn into foam by straining oars and triple-pointed prows. They steer to sea; one might think that the Cyclades were uptorn and floated on the main, or that lofty mountains clashed with mountains, so mightily do their crews urge on the turreted ships. Flaming tow and the winged steel of darts shower thickly from their hands; the fields of ocean redden with fresh slaughter. Midmost the Queen calls on her squadron with the timbrel of her country, nor yet casts back a glance on the twin snakes behind her. Howling Anubis, and gods monstrous and multitudinous, level their arms against Neptune and Venus and against Minerva; Mars rages amid the havoc, graven in iron, and the Fatal Sisters hang aloft, and Discord strides rejoicing with garment rent, and Bellona attends her with blood-stained scourge. Looking thereon, Actian Apollo above drew his bow; with the terror of it all Egypt and India, every Arab and Sabaean, turned back in flight. The Queen herself seemed to call the winds and spread her sails, and even now let her sheets run slack. Her the Lord of Fire had fashioned amid the carnage, wan with the shadow of death, borne along by the waves and the north-west wind; and over against her the vast bulk of mourning Nile, opening out his folds and calling with all his raiment the conquered people into his blue lap and the coverture of his streams. But Caesar rode into the city of Rome in triple triumph, and dedicated his vowed [716-731]offering to the gods to stand for ever, three hundred stately shrines all about the city. The streets were loud with gladness and games and shouting. In all the temples was a band of matrons, in all were altars, and before the altars slain steers strewed the ground. Himself he sits on the snowy threshold of Phoebus the bright, reviews the gifts of the nations and ranges them on the haughty doors. The conquered tribes move in long line, diverse as in tongue, so in fashion of dress and armour. Here Mulciber had designed the Nomad race and the ungirt Africans, here the Leleges and Carians and archer Gelonians. Euphrates went by now with smoother waves, and the Morini utmost of men, and the horned Rhine, the untamed Dahae, and Araxes chafing under his bridge.

These things he admires on the shield of Vulcan, his mother's gift, and rejoicing in the portraiture of unknown history, lifts on his shoulder the destined glories of his children.



BOOK NINTH

THE SIEGE OF THE TROJAN CAMP

And while thus things pass far in the distance, Juno daughter of Saturn sent Iris down the sky to gallant Turnus, then haply seated in his forefather Pilumnus' holy forest dell. To him the child of Thaumas spoke thus with roseate lips:

'Turnus, what no god had dared promise to thy prayer, behold, is brought unasked by the circling day. Aeneas hath quitted town and comrades and fleet to seek Evander's throne and Palatine dwelling-place. Nor is it enough; he hath pierced to Corythus' utmost cities, and is mustering in arms a troop of Lydian rustics. Why hesitate? now, now is the time to call for chariot and horses. Break through all hindrance and seize the bewildered camp.'

She spoke, and rose into the sky on poised wings, and flashed under the clouds in a long flying bow. He knew her, and lifting either hand to heaven, with this cry pursued her flight: 'Iris, grace of the sky, who hath driven thee down the clouds to me and borne thee to earth? Whence is this sudden sheen of weather? I see the sky parting asunder, and the wandering stars in the firmament. I follow the high omen, whoso thou art that callest me to arms.' And with these words he drew nigh the wave, and [23-58]caught up water from its brimming eddy, making many prayers to the gods and burdening the air with vows.

And now all the army was advancing on the open plain, rich in horses, rich in raiment of broidered gold. Messapus rules the foremost ranks, the sons of Tyrrheus the rear. Turnus commands the centre: even as Ganges rising high in silence when his seven streams are still, or the rich flood of Nile when he ebbs from the plains, and is now sunk into his channel. On this the Teucrians descry a sudden cloud of dark dust gathering, and the blackness rising on the plain. Caicus raises a cry from the mound in front: 'What mass of misty gloom, O citizens, is rolling hitherward? to arms in haste! serve out weapons, climb the walls. The enemy approaches, ho!' With mighty clamour the Teucrians pour in through all the gates and fill the works. For so at his departure Aeneas the great captain had enjoined; were aught to chance meanwhile, they should not venture to range their line or trust the plain, but keep their camp and the safety of the entrenched walls. So, though shame and wrath beckon them on to battle, they yet bar the gates and do his bidding, and await the foe armed and in shelter of the towers. Turnus, who had flown forward in advance of his tardy column, comes up suddenly to the town with a train of twenty chosen cavalry, borne on a Thracian horse dappled with white, and covered by a golden helmet with scarlet plume. 'Who will be with me, my men, to be first on the foe? See!' he cries; and sends a javelin spinning into the air to open battle, and advances towering on the plain. His comrades take up the cry, and follow with dreadful din, wondering at the Teucrians' coward hearts, that they issue not on even field nor face them in arms, but keep in shelter of the camp. Hither and thither he rides furiously, tracing the walls, and seeking entrance where way is none. And as a wolf prowling [59-92]about some crowded sheepfold, when, beaten sore of winds and rains, he howls at the pens by midnight; safe beneath their mothers the lambs keep bleating on; he, savage and insatiate, rages in anger against the flock he cannot reach, tired by the long-gathering madness for food, and the throat unslaked with blood: even so the Rutulian, as he gazes on the walled camp, kindles in anger, and indignation is hot in his iron frame. By what means may he essay entrance? by what passage hurl the imprisoned Trojans from the rampart and fling them on the plain? Close under the flanking camp lay the fleet, fenced about with mounds and the waters of the river; it he attacks, and calls for fire to his exultant comrades, and eagerly catches a blazing pine-torch in his hand. Then indeed they press on, quickened by Turnus' presence, and all the band arm them with black faggots. The hearth-fires are plundered; the smoky brand trails a resinous glare, and the Fire-god sends clouds of glowing ashes upward.

What god, O Muses, guarded the Trojans from the rage of the fire? who repelled the fierce flame from their ships? Tell it; ancient is the assurance thereof, but the fame everlasting. What time Aeneas began to shape his fleet on Phrygian Ida, and prepared to seek the high seas, the Berecyntian, they say, the very Mother of gods, spoke to high Jove in these words: 'Grant, O son, to my prayer, what her dearness claims who bore thee and laid Olympus under thy feet. My pine forest beloved of me these many years, my grove was on the mountain's crown, whither men bore my holy things, dim with dusky pine and pillared maples. These, when he required a fleet, I gave gladly to the Dardanian; now fear wrings me with sharp distress. Relieve my terrors, and grant a mother's prayers such power that they may yield to no stress of voyaging or of stormy gust: be birth on our hills their avail.'

[93-126]Thus her son in answer, who wheels the starry worlds: 'O mother, whither callest thou fate? or what dost thou seek for these of thine? May hulls have the right of immortality that were fashioned by mortal hand? and may Aeneas traverse perils secure in insecurity? To what god is power so great given? Nay, but when, their duty done, they shall lie at last in their Ausonian haven, from all that have outgone the waves and borne their Dardanian captain to the fields of Laurentum, will I take their mortal body, and bid them be goddesses of the mighty deep, even as Doto the Nereid and Galatea, when they cut the sea that falls away from their breasts in foam.' He ended; and by his brother's Stygian streams, by the banks of the pitchy black-boiling chasm he nodded confirmation, and shook all Olympus with his nod.

So the promised day was come, and the destinies had fulfilled their due time, when Turnus' injury stirred the Mother to ward the brands from her holy ships. First then a strange light flashed on all eyes, and a great glory from the Dawn seemed to dart over the sky, with the choirs of Ida; then an awful voice fell through air, filling the Trojan and Rutulian ranks: 'Disquiet not yourselves, O Teucrians, to guard ships of mine, neither arm your hands: sooner shall Turnus burn the seas than these holy pines. You, go free; go, goddesses of the sea; the Mother bids it.' And immediately each ship breaks the bond that held it, as with dipping prows they plunge like dolphins deep into the water: from it again (O wonderful and strange!) they rise with maidens' faces in like number, and bear out to sea.

The Rutulians stood dumb: Messapus himself is terror-stricken among his disordered cavalry; even the stream of Tiber pauses with hoarse murmur, and recoils from sea. But bold Turnus fails not a whit in confidence; nay, he [127-158]raises their courage with words, nay, he chides them: 'On the Trojans are these portents aimed; Jupiter himself hath bereft them of their wonted succour; nor do they abide Rutulian sword and fire. So are the seas pathless for the Teucrians, nor is there any hope in flight; they have lost half their world. And we hold the land: in all their thousands the nations of Italy are under arms. In no wise am I dismayed by those divine oracles of doom the Phrygians insolently advance. Fate and Venus are satisfied, in that the Trojans have touched our fruitful Ausonian fields. I too have my fate in reply to theirs, to put utterly to the sword the guilty nation who have robbed me of my bride; not the sons of Atreus alone are touched by that pain, nor may Mycenae only rise in arms. But to have perished once is enough! To have sinned once should have been enough, in all but utter hatred of the whole of womankind. Trust in the sundering rampart, and the hindrance of their trenches, so little between them and death, gives these their courage: yet have they not seen Troy town, the work of Neptune's hand, sink into fire? But you, my chosen, who of you makes ready to breach their palisade at the sword's point, and join my attack on their fluttered camp? I have no need of Vulcanian arms, of a thousand ships, to meet the Teucrians. All Etruria may join on with them in alliance: nor let them fear the darkness, and the cowardly theft of their Palladium, and the guards cut down on the fortress height. Nor will we hide ourselves unseen in a horse's belly; in daylight and unconcealed are we resolved to girdle their walls with flame. Not with Grecians will I make them think they have to do, nor a Pelasgic force kept off till the tenth year by Hector. Now, since the better part of day is spent, for what remains refresh your bodies, glad that we have done so well, and expect the order of battle.'

[159-192]Meanwhile charge is given to Messapus to blockade the gates with pickets of sentries, and encircle the works with watchfires. Twice seven are chosen to guard the walls with Rutulian soldiery; but each leads an hundred men, crimson-plumed and sparkling in gold. They spread themselves about and keep alternate watch, and, lying along the grass, drink deep and set brazen bowls atilt. The fires glow, and the sentinels spend the night awake in games. . . .

Down on this the Trojans look forth from the rampart, as they hold the height in arms; withal in fearful haste they try the gates and lay gangways from bastion to bastion, and bring up missiles. Mnestheus and valiant Serestus speed the work, whom lord Aeneas appointed, should misfortune call, to be rulers of the people and governors of the state. All their battalions, sharing the lot of peril, keep watch along the walls, and take alternate charge of all that requires defence.

On guard at the gate was Nisus son of Hyrtacus, most valiant in arms, whom Ida the huntress had sent in Aeneas' company with fleet javelin and light arrows; and by his side Euryalus, fairest of all the Aeneadae and the wearers of Trojan arms, showing on his unshaven boy's face the first bloom of youth. These two were one in affection, and charged in battle together; now likewise their common guard kept the gate. Nisus cries: 'Lend the gods this fervour to the soul, Euryalus? or does fatal passion become a proper god to each? Long ere now my soul is restless to begin some great deed of arms, and quiet peace delights it not. Thou seest how confident in fortune the Rutulians stand. Their lights glimmer far apart; buried in drunken sleep they have sunk to rest; silence stretches all about. Learn then what doubt, what purpose, now rises in my spirit. People and senate, they all cry that Aeneas [193-226]be summoned, and men be sent to carry him tidings. If they promise what I ask in thy name—for to me the glory of the deed is enough—methinks I can find beneath yonder hillock a path to the walls of Pallanteum town.'

Euryalus stood fixed, struck through with high ambition, and therewith speaks thus to his fervid friend: 'Dost thou shun me then, Nisus, to share thy company in highest deeds? shall I send thee alone into so great perils? Not thus did my warrior father Opheltes rear and nurture me amid the Argive terror and the agony of Troy, nor thus have I borne myself by thy side while following noble Aeneas to his utmost fate. Here is a spirit, yes here, that scorns the light of day, that deems lightly bought at a life's price that honour to which thou dost aspire.'

To this Nisus: 'Assuredly I had no such fear of thee; no, nor could I; so may great Jupiter, or whoso looks on earth with equal eyes, restore me to thee triumphant. But if haply—as thou seest often and often in so forlorn a hope—if haply chance or deity sweep me to adverse doom, I would have thee survive; thine age is worthier to live. Be there one to commit me duly to earth, rescued or ransomed from the battlefield: or, if fortune deny that, to pay me far away the rites of funeral and the grace of a tomb. Neither would I bring such pain on thy poor mother, she who singly of many matrons hath dared to follow her boy to the end, and slights great Acestes' city.'

And he: 'In vain dost thou string idle reasons; nor does my purpose yield or change its place so soon. Let us make haste.' He speaks, and rouses the watch; they come up, and relieve the guard; quitting their post, he and Nisus stride on to seek the prince.

The rest of living things over all lands were soothing their cares in sleep, and their hearts forgot their pain; the foremost Trojan captains, a chosen band, held council [227-261]of state upon the kingdom; what should they do, or who would now be their messenger to Aeneas? They stand, leaning on their long spears and grasping their shields, in mid level of the camp. Then Nisus and Euryalus together pray with quick urgency to be given audience; their matter is weighty and will be worth the delay. Iuelus at once heard their hurried plea, and bade Nisus speak. Thereon the son of Hyrtacus: 'Hear, O people of Aeneas, with favourable mind, nor regard our years in what we offer. Sunk in sleep and wine, the Rutulians are silent; we have stealthily spied the open ground that lies in the path through the gate next the sea. The line of fires is broken, and their smoke rises darkly upwards. If you allow us to use the chance towards seeking Aeneas in Pallanteum town, you will soon descry us here at hand with the spoils of the great slaughter we have dealt. Nor shall we miss the way we go; up the dim valleys we have seen the skirts of the town, and learned all the river in continual hunting.'

Thereon aged Aletes, sage in counsel: 'Gods of our fathers, under whose deity Troy ever stands, not wholly yet do you purpose to blot out the Trojan race, when you have brought us young honour and hearts so sure as this.' So speaking, he caught both by shoulder and hand, with tears showering down over face and feature. 'What guerdon shall I deem may be given you, O men, what recompense for these noble deeds? First and fairest shall be your reward from the gods and your own conduct; and Aeneas the good shall speedily repay the rest, and Ascanius' fresh youth never forget so great a service.'—'Nay,' breaks in Ascanius, 'I whose sole safety is in my father's return, I adjure thee and him, O Nisus, by our great household gods, by the tutelar spirit of Assaracus and hoar Vesta's sanctuary—on your knees I lay all my fortune and trust—recall my father; [262-296]give him back to sight; all sorrow disappears in his recovery. I will give a pair of cups my father took in vanquished Arisba, wrought in silver and rough with tracery, twin tripods, and two large talents of gold, and an ancient bowl of Sidonian Dido's giving. If it be indeed our lot to possess Italy and grasp a conquering sceptre, and to assign the spoil; thou sawest the horse and armour of Turnus as he went all in gold; that same horse, the shield and the ruddy plume, will I reserve from partition, thy reward, O Nisus, even from now. My father will give besides twelve mothers of the choicest beauty, and men captives, all in their due array; above these, the space of meadow-land that is now King Latinus' own domain. Thee, O noble boy, whom mine age follows at a nearer interval, even now I welcome to all my heart, and embrace as my companion in every fortune. No glory shall be sought for my state without thee; whether peace or war be in conduct, my chiefest trust for deed and word shall be in thee.'

Answering whom Euryalus speaks thus: 'Let but the day never come to prove me degenerate from this daring valour; fortune may fall prosperous or adverse. But above all thy gifts, one thing I ask of thee. My poor mother of Priam's ancient race, whom neither the Ilian land nor King Acestes' city kept from following me forth, her I now leave in ignorance of this danger, such as it is, and without a farewell, because—night and thine hand be witness!—I cannot bear a parent's tears. But thou, I pray, support her want and relieve her loneliness. Let me take with me this hope in thee, I shall go more daringly to every fortune.' Deeply stirred at heart, the Dardanians shed tears, fair Iuelus before them all, as the likeness of his own father's love wrung his soul. Then he speaks thus: . . . 'Assure thyself all that is due to thy mighty enterprise; [297-330]for she shall be a mother to me, and only in name fail to be Creuesa; nor slight is the honour reserved for the mother of such a son. What chance soever follow this deed, I swear by this head whereby my father was wont to swear, what I promise to thee on thy prosperous return shall abide the same for thy mother and kindred.' So speaks he weeping, and ungirds from his shoulder the sword inlaid with gold, fashioned with marvellous skill by Lycaon of Gnosus and fitly set in a sheath of ivory. Mnestheus gives Nisus the shaggy spoils of a lion's hide; faithful Aletes exchanges his helmet. They advance onward in arms, and as they go all the company of captains, young and old, speed them to the gates with vows. Likewise fair Iuelus, with a man's thought and a spirit beyond his years, gave many messages to be carried to his father. But the breezes shred all asunder and give them unaccomplished to the clouds.

They issue and cross the trenches, and through the shadow of night seek the fatal camp, themselves first to be the death of many a man. All about they see bodies strewn along the grass in drunken sleep, chariots atilt on the shore, the men lying among their traces and wheels, with their armour by them, and their wine. The son of Hyrtacus began thus: 'Euryalus, now for daring hands; all invites them; here lies our way; see thou that none raise a hand from behind against us, and keep far-sighted watch. Here will I deal desolation, and make a broad path for thee to follow.' So speaks he and checks his voice; therewith he drives his sword at lordly Rhamnes, who haply on carpets heaped high was drawing the full breath of sleep; a king himself, and King Turnus' best-beloved augur, but not all his augury could avert his doom. Three of his household beside him, lying carelessly among their arms, and the armour-bearer and charioteer of Remus go [331-364]down before him, caught at the horses' feet. Their drooping necks he severs with the sword, then beheads their lord likewise and leaves the trunk spouting blood; the dark warm gore soaks ground and cushions. Therewithal Lamyrus and Lamus, and beautiful young Serranus, who that night had played long and late, and lay with the conquering god heavy on every limb; happy, had he played out the night, and carried his game to day! Even thus an unfed lion riots through full sheepfolds, for the madness of hunger urges him, and champs and rends the fleecy flock that are dumb with fear, and roars with blood-stained mouth. Nor less is the slaughter of Euryalus; he too rages all aflame; an unnamed multitude go down before his path, and Fadus and Herbesus and Rhoetus and Abaris, unaware; Rhoetus awake and seeing all, but he hid in fear behind a great bowl; right in whose breast, as he rose close by, he plunged the sword all its length, and drew it back heavy with death. He vomits forth the crimson life-blood, and throws up wine mixed with blood in the death agony. The other presses hotly on his stealthy errand, and now bent his way towards Messapus' comrades, where he saw the last flicker of the fires go down, and the horses tethered in order cropping the grass; when Nisus briefly speaks thus, for he saw him carried away by excess of murderous desire; 'Let us stop; for unfriendly daylight draws nigh. Vengeance is sated to the full; a path is cut through the enemy.' Much they leave behind, men's armour wrought in solid silver, and bowls therewith, and beautiful carpets. Euryalus tears away the decorations of Rhamnes and his sword-belt embossed with gold, a gift which Caedicus, wealthiest of men of old, sends to Remulus of Tibur when plighting friendship far away; he on his death-bed gives them to his grandson for his own; after his death the Rutulians captured them as spoil of war; these he fits on the shoulders valiant [365-396]in vain, then puts on Messapus' light helmet with its graceful plumes. They issue from the camp and make for safety.

Meanwhile an advanced guard of cavalry were on their way from the Latin city, while the rest of their marshalled battalions linger on the plains, and bore a reply to King Turnus; three hundred men all under shield, in Volscens' leading. And now they approached the camp and drew near the wall, when they descry the two turning away by the pathway to the left; and in the glimmering darkness of night the forgotten helmet betrayed Euryalus, glittering as it met the light. It seemed no thing of chance. Volscens cries aloud from his column: 'Stand, men! why on the march, or how are you in arms? or whither hold you your way?' They offer nothing in reply, but quicken their flight into the forest, and throw themselves on the night. On this side and that the horsemen bar the familiar crossways, and encircle every outlet with sentinels. The forest spread wide in tangled thickets and dark ilex; thick growth of briars choked it all about, and the muffled pathway glimmered in a broken track. Hampered by the shadowy boughs and his cumbrous spoil, Euryalus in his fright misses the line of way. Nisus gets clear; and now unthinkingly he had passed the enemy, and the place afterwards called Albani from Alba's name; then the deep coverts were of King Latinus' domain; when he stopped, and looked back in vain for his lost friend. 'Euryalus, unhappy! on what ground have I left thee? or where shall I follow, again unwinding all the entanglement of the treacherous woodland way?' Therewith he marks and retraces his footsteps, and wanders down the silent thickets. He hears the horses, hears the clatter and signal-notes of the pursuers. Nor had he long to wait, when shouts reach his ears, and he sees Euryalus, whom even now, in the perplexity of ground and [397-431]darkness, the whole squadron have borne down in a sudden rush, and seize in spite of all his vain struggles. What shall he do? with what force, what arms dare his rescue? or shall he rush on his doom amid their swords, and find in their wounds a speedy and glorious death? Quickly he draws back his arm with poised spear, and looking up to the moon on high, utters this prayer: 'Do thou give present aid to our enterprise, O Latonian goddess, glory of the stars and guardian of the woodlands: by all the gifts my father Hyrtacus ever bore for my sake to thine altars, by all mine own hand hath added from my hunting, or hung in thy dome, or fixed on thy holy roof, grant me to confound these masses, and guide my javelin through the air.' He ended, and with all the force of his body hurls the steel. The flying spear whistles through the darkness of the night, and comes full on the shield of Sulmo, and there snaps, and the broken shaft passes on through his heart. Spouting a warm tide from his breast he rolls over chill in death, and his sides throb with long-drawn gasps. Hither and thither they gaze round. Lo, he all the fiercer was poising another weapon high by his ear; while they hesitate, the spear went whizzing through both Tagus' temples, and pierced and stuck fast in the warm brain. Volscens is mad with rage, and nowhere espies the sender of the weapon, nor where to direct his fury. 'Yet meanwhile thy warm blood shalt pay me vengeance for both,' he cries; and unsheathing his sword, he made at Euryalus. Then indeed frantic with terror Nisus shrieks out; no longer could he shroud himself in darkness or endure such agony. 'On me, on me, I am here, I did it, on me turn your steel, O Rutulians! Mine is all the guilt; he dared not, no, nor could not; to this heaven I appeal and the stars that know; he only loved his hapless friend too well.' Such words he was uttering; but the sword driven hard home is gone [432-464]clean through his ribs and pierces the white breast. Euryalus rolls over in death, and the blood runs over his lovely limbs, and his neck sinks and settles on his shoulder; even as when a lustrous flower cut away by the plough droops in death, or weary-necked poppies bow down their head if overweighted with a random shower. But Nisus rushes amidst them, and alone among them all makes at Volscens, keeps to Volscens alone: round him the foe cluster, and on this side and that hurl him back: none the less he presses on, and whirls his sword like lightning, till he plunges it full in the face of the shrieking Rutulian, and slays his enemy as he dies. Then, stabbed through and through, he flung himself above his lifeless friend, and there at last found the quiet sleep of death.

Happy pair! if my verse is aught of avail, no length of days shall ever blot you from the memory of time, while the house of Aeneas shall dwell by the Capitoline's stedfast stone, and the lord of Rome hold sovereignty.

The victorious Rutulians, with their spoils and the plunder regained, bore dead Volscens weeping to the camp. Nor in the camp was the wailing less, when Rhamnes was found a bloodless corpse, and Serranus and Numa and all their princes destroyed in a single slaughter. Crowds throng towards the corpses and the men wounded to death, the ground fresh with warm slaughter and the swoln runlets of frothing blood. They mutually recognise the spoils, Messapus' shining helmet and the decorations that cost such sweat to win back.

And now Dawn, leaving the saffron bed of Tithonus, scattered over earth her fresh shafts of early light; now the sunlight streams in, now daylight unveils the world. Turnus, himself fully armed, awakes his men to arms, and each leader marshals to battle his brazen lines and whets their ardour with varying rumours. Nay, pitiable sight! they [465-499]fix on spear-points and uprear and follow with loud shouts the heads of Euryalus and Nisus. . . . The Aeneadae stubbornly face them, lining the left hand wall (for their right is girdled by the river), hold the deep trenches and stand gloomily on the high towers, stirred withal by the faces they know, alas, too well, in their dark dripping gore. Meanwhile Rumour on fluttering wings rushes with the news through the alarmed town and glides to the ears of Euryalus' mother. But instantly the warmth leaves her woeful body, the shuttle starts from her hand and the threads unroll. She darts forth in agony, and with woman's wailing and torn hair runs distractedly towards the walls and the foremost columns, recking naught of men, naught of peril or weapons; thereon she fills the air with her complaint: 'Is it thus I behold thee, O Euryalus? Couldst thou, the latest solace of mine age, leave me alone so cruelly? nor when sent into such danger was one last word of thee allowed thine unhappy mother? Alas, thou liest in a strange land, given for a prey to the dogs and fowls of Latium! nor was I, thy mother, there for chief mourner, to lay thee out or close thine eyes or wash thy wounds, and cover thee with the garment I hastened on for thee whole nights and days, an anxious old woman taking comfort from the loom. Whither shall I follow? or what land now holds thy mangled corpse, thy body torn limb from limb? Is this all of what thou wert that returns to me, O my son? is it this I have followed by land and sea? Strike me through of your pity, on me cast all your weapons, Rutulians; make me the first sacrifice of your steel. Or do thou, mighty lord of heaven, be merciful, and with thine own weapon hurl this hateful life to the nether deep, since in no wise else may I break away from life's cruelty.' At this weeping cry their courage falters, and a sigh of sorrow passes all along; their strength is benumbed and broken for battle. Her, while [500-535]her grief kindled, at Ilioneus' and weeping Iuelus' bidding Idaeus and Actor catch up and carry home in their arms.

But the terrible trumpet-note afar rang on the shrill brass; a shout follows, and is echoed from the sky. The Volscians hasten up in even line under their advancing roof of shields, and set to fill up the trenches and tear down the palisades. Some seek entrance by scaling the walls with ladders, where the defenders' battle-line is thin, and light shows through gaps in the ring of men. The Teucrians in return shower weapons of every sort, and push them down with stiff poles, practised by long warfare in their ramparts' defence: and fiercely hurl heavy stones, so be they may break the shielded line; while they, crowded under their shell, lightly bear all the downpour. But now they fail; for where the vast mass presses close, the Teucrians roll a huge block tumbling down that makes a wide gap in the Rutulians and crashes through their armour-plating. Nor do the bold Rutulians care longer to continue the blind fight, but strive to clear the rampart with missiles. . . . Elsewhere in dreadful guise Mezentius brandishes his Etruscan pine and hurls smoking brands; but Messapus, tamer of horses, seed of Neptune, tears away the palisading and calls for ladders to the ramparts.

Thy sisterhood, O Calliope, I pray inspire me while I sing the destruction spread then and there by Turnus' sword, the deaths dealt from his hand, and whom each warrior sent down to the under world; and unroll with me the broad borders of war.

A tower loomed vast with lofty gangways at a point of vantage; this all the Italians strove with main strength to storm, and set all their might and device to overthrow it; the Trojans in return defended it with stones and hurled showers of darts through the loopholes. Turnus, leading the attack, threw a blazing torch that caught flaming on the [536-570]side wall; swoln by the wind, the flame seized the planking and clung devouring to the standards. Those within, in hurry and confusion, desire retreat from their distress; in vain; while they cluster together and fall back to the side free from the destroyer, the tower sinks prone under the sudden weight with a crash that thunders through all the sky. Pierced by their own weapons, and impaled on hard splinters of wood, they come half slain to the ground with the vast mass behind them. Scarcely do Helenor alone and Lycus struggle out; Helenor in his early prime, whom a slave woman of Licymnos bore in secret to the Maeonian king, and sent to Troy in forbidden weapons, lightly armed with sheathless sword and white unemblazoned shield. And he, when he saw himself among Turnus' encircling thousands, ranks on this side and ranks on this of Latins, as a wild beast which, girt with a crowded ring of hunters, dashes at their weapons, hurls herself unblinded on death, and comes with a bound upon the spears; even so he rushes to his death amid the enemy, and presses on where he sees their weapons thickest. But Lycus, far fleeter of foot, holds by the walls in flight midway among foes and arms, and strives to catch the coping in his grasp and reach the hands of his comrades. And Turnus pursuing and aiming as he ran, thus upbraids him in triumph: 'Didst thou hope, madman, thou mightest escape our hands?' and catches him as he clings, and tears him and a great piece of the wall away: as when, with a hare or snowy-bodied swan in his crooked talons, Jove's armour-bearer soars aloft, or the wolf of Mars snatches from the folds some lamb sought of his mother with incessant bleating. On all sides a shout goes up. They advance and fill the trenches with heaps of earth; some toss glowing brands on the roofs. Ilioneus strikes down Lucetius with a great fragment of mountain rock as, carrying fire, he draws [571-606]nigh the gate. Liger slays Emathion, Asylas Corinaeus, the one skilled with the javelin, the other with the stealthy arrow from afar. Caeneus slays Ortygius; Turnus victorious Caeneus; Turnus Itys and Clonius, Dioxippus, and Promolus, and Sagaris, and Idas where he stood in front of the turret top; Capys Privernus: him Themillas' spear had first grazed lightly; the madman threw down his shield to carry his hand to the wound; so the arrow winged her way, and pinning his hand to his left side, broke into the lungs with deadly wound. The son of Arcens stood splendid in arms, and scarf embroidered with needlework and bright with Iberian blue, the beautiful boy sent by his father Arcens from nurture in the grove of our Lady about the streams of Symaethus, where Palicus' altar is rich and gracious. Laying down his spear, Mezentius whirled thrice round his head the tightened cord of his whistling sling, pierced him full between the temples with the molten bullet, and stretched him all his length upon the sand.