Qass-Iilfe ?? 7 
 Book All ) 3 
 
 /?73 
 

 
 A'.-'l^/^. 
 
Jtrvc 
 
 THE 
 
 WORKS OF VI 
 
 <7 
 
 LI1 ORALLY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH PROSE, 
 
 WITH NOT£S, 
 
 BY DAVIDSON, 
 
 A i 
 
 A NEW EDITION, REVlSF.D. WITH ADDITIONAL MOTS?.' 
 
 TEEODOUE, ALOIS BUCKLEY. 
 
 i 
 
 OF CHRIST HHURCU. 
 
 LONDON: 
 BELL & DALDY, TOEK STEEET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 1873. 
 
<t 
 
 (A 
 
 
 <4l 
 
 By Transfer 
 
 MAR 15 19i; 
 
 LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET 
 AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
\T 
 
 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 The object of the publisher in issuing the present 
 volume was not so much to produce a new book, as to 
 render an old and, in many respects, a good one, more 
 suited to the present state of scholarship, and the exi- 
 gencies of the student. 
 
 With this view the translation has been carefully 
 compared with Wagner's text, and with the principal 
 commentaries ; many thousand alterations, involving 
 either closer accuracy in translation or a stricter adher- 
 ence to the construction, have been introduced; and, 
 while the brief historical and mythological notes of the 
 original work have been retained for the use of the tyro, 
 attention has also been paid in the editor's further 
 illustrations to the requirements of the more advanced 
 scholar. 
 
 The brief Memoir of Virgil contains every fact neces- 
 sary to be known by the general student and nothing 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 more. In criticising a poet, whose taste, rather than his 
 invention, is to be commended, it is easy to offend many, 
 and please none ; to draw comparisons, but fail of con- 
 viction. 
 
 THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY, 
 
 CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 Publius Vihgilius Maro was born on the 15th oi 
 V Octobej^B. .a-70, at Andes,, a little village near Mantua. 
 His mother's name was Maia^ and his father was proba- 
 bly a small landowner. Great attention must have 
 been bestowed upon the education of our poet, as he 
 appears to have been thoroughly imbued with the spirit 
 of ancient philosophy by his master, Syron. Delicacy 
 of health, and the probable want of influence arising 
 from his not being a Roman citizen by birth, no doubt 
 prevented his attention to the more rising professions of 
 war and oratory, and contributed to strengthen his 
 natural inclination for a retirement sacred to poetry 
 and agriculture. 
 
 The fatal issue of the battle of Philippi, in b. c. 42, 
 placed Maxk Antony and Octavianus at the head of 
 affairs, and the latter quickly began, on his return, to 
 reward his soldiers with allotments of land. To make 
 way for these new occupants, the old possessors had to 
 give up their own estates, and amongst these sufferers 
 
vm MEMOIR 
 
 was Virgil. The particulars of trie case are insufficiently 
 known to us, but Virgil probably owed trie subsequent 
 restitution of his estate (between b. c. 42 and 40) to the 
 advice and intercession of Asinius Pollio. The first 
 Eclogue is commonly regarded as a thank-offering of 
 the poet to Augustus. 
 
 About the same time Virgil became acquainted with 
 the proverbial patron of men of genius, Maecenas, at 
 whose mansion his friendship with Horace probably 
 commenced. The writings of the latter show that the 
 most cordial intimacy must have subsisted between these 
 distinguished poets and their liberal entertainer. 
 
 Critics seem to agree in placing the completion of the 
 Georgics in b. c. 31, while his Eclogues were no doubt 
 of an earlier date. As Theocritus formed the model of 
 these brief pastorals, so the Greek agricultural and 
 astronomical poems of Hesiod, Aratus, Nicander, and 
 others, whose works are only known to us in fragments, 
 furnished the materials, and often the language, of the 
 Georgics of Virgil. 
 
 The jEneid must have occupied our poet's thoughts 
 for a long time, although we have no certain data of its 
 commencement and progress. 1 At whatever time, how- 
 ever, it was begun, the poet appears to have regarded 
 it as an unfinished production at the time of his death, 
 
 1 A summary of some of the principal suppositions on this head "will 
 be found in Mr. George Long's article " Virgilius," in Smith's Biographic 
 cal Dictionary. x 
 
MEMOIR. 1* 
 
 ail opinion in which modern critics have unanimously 
 coincided. 
 
 On the return of Augustus from Samos in the year 
 b. c. 20, he met Virgil at Athens. An intended tour 
 through Greece was prevented by his failing health, 
 and Virgil died soon after his arrival at Brundusium, 
 on the 2nd of September, b. c. 19. His remains were 
 carried to Naples, which had been his favourite place 
 of residence, and, if we may believe Donatus, the 
 following inscription, from the poet's own hand, was 
 placed on the tomb. 
 
 " Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc 
 Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces." 
 
 Although Virgil had lived with the greatest liberality, 
 and had been studiously mindful of the fulfilment of 
 filial duty, he left considerable property, accumulated 
 by the- liberality of his friends. His manners were 
 modest and retiring ; his disposition distinguished by 
 amiable urbanity and unassuming gentleness. Nor was 
 his fortune inferior to his merits. He lived in the best 
 age of Rome, among the best spirits of that age, and 
 enjoyed the delights of fame without the persecutions 
 of envy and the sacrifice of character. If not possessed 
 of the mighty inventive genius of a Homer or JEschy- 
 lus, he was beyond all others in the true perception of 
 elegance, in the unaffected love of his subject, and in 
 the exquisite finish and sublimity of his episodes. 
 
^-^rS* 
 
 VIRGIL'S BUCOLICS. 
 
 ECLOGUE I. 
 
 Virgil, in this Eclogue, celebrates the praises of Augustus, for reftoiiag to 
 him his lands, of which he had been dispossessed, having been bestowed 
 upon the veteran soldiers who had fought in the cause of Augustus, at .the 
 battle of Philippi, b. c. 42. Tityrus personates Virgil, or probably his 
 father, and Melibceus, his less fortunate neighbours, the Mantuans. 
 
 Melibceus, Tityrus. 
 
 M. You, Tityrus, reclined under the covert of a full-spread 
 beech, practise a woodland lay on a slendir oaten pipe : We 
 leave the bounds of our country, and our pleasant fields ; we 
 fly our country ; you, Tityrus, stretched at ease in the shade, 
 teach the woods to re-echo beauteous Amaryllis. 1 
 
 T. O Meliboeus, a god hath vouchsafed us this tranquillity : 
 for to me he shall always be a god ; a tender lamb from our 
 folds shall often stain his altar [with its blood]. He per- 
 mitted my heifers to range at large, as you see, and myself to 
 play what I wished on my rural reed. 
 
 M. I envy you not indeed ; I rather marvel ; to such an ex- 
 tent is there confusion in the lands. Lo, myself, sick at heart, 
 am driving forth my tender she-goats : this, too, O Tityrus, 
 I drag along with difficulty : for here just now among the 
 thick hazels having yeaned twins, the hope of a flock, she left 
 them, alas ! on the naked flinty rock. This calamity, I re- 
 member, my oaks stricken from heaven often presaged to me, 
 had not my mind been infatuated : [often the ill-boding crow 
 from a hollow oak presaged. 2 ] But tell me, Tityrus, who 
 i* this god of yours ? 
 
 1 Amaryllis, the name of a country girl. Some have supposed that the 
 noet spoke of Rome under that name. 
 
 2 This line properly belongs to Eel. ix. 15. " Memini " is elegantly 
 ;ed with respect to ill omens. Cf. Ter. Phorm. i. 2, 24. B. 
 
A BUCOLICS. ecl. i. 20- .50 
 
 T. The city, Meliboeus, which they call Rome, I foolish 
 imagined to be like this our [Mantua 3 ], whither 4 we shep- 
 herds oft are wont to drive down 5 the tender offspring of our 
 ewes. So I had known whelps like dogs, so kids [like] their 
 dams : thus was I wont to compare great things with small. 
 But that city hath raised its head as far above others, as the 
 cypresses are wont among the limber shrubs. 6 
 
 M. And what so great a reason had you to visit Rome ? 
 
 T. Liberty; which, though late, yet kindly looked upon 
 me although indolent, after my beard began to fall off with a 
 whitish hue when I shaved ; yet [on me] she looked, and 
 after a long time came, when Amaryllis began to sway me, 
 and Galatea had cast me off. For I will not disown it, while 
 Galatea ruled me, I had neither hopes of liberty, nor concern 
 about my stock. Though many a victim went from my folds, 
 and fat cheese was pressed for the ungrateful city, 7 my right 
 hand never returned home heavy with money. 
 
 M. I used to wonder, Amaryllis, why disconsolate you 
 were invoking the gods ; and for whom you suffered the ap- 
 ples to hang on the tree. Your Tityrus hence was absent. 
 The very pines, O Tityrus, the fountains, these very copses 
 called for thee. 
 
 T. What could I do ? It was neither in my power, while I 
 staid here, to deliver myself from servitude, nor elsewhere to 
 experience gods so propitious. Here, Meliboeus, I saw that 
 youth, to whom for twice six days our altars yearly smoke 
 [with incense]. Here first he gave this entreating answer to 
 me : " Swains, feed your heifers as formerly, and yoke your 
 steers." 
 
 M. Happy old man, your lands then will remain [still in 
 your possession], and large enough for you. Though the naked 
 flint, and marsh with slimy rush, overspread all the pasture- 
 grounds ; yet no unaccustomed fodder shall harm thy languid. 
 
 3 Mantua, a city in the north of Italy on the Mincio, in the neighbour- 
 hood of which Virgil was born. 
 
 * li Quo "=" ad quam." This is a common usage in poetry, but is 
 scarcely to be imitated in prose. See Muncker on Hyginus, Fab. 3. B. 
 
 5 " Depellere." It must be remembered, that Virgil's village, Andes, 
 stood on high ground, and hence the road to the city lay downwards. B. 
 
 6 " Viburnum " is properly the " wayfaring tree." B. 
 
 7 Urbs is emphatically applied to Rome. So Tibull. i. 9, 61, "To 
 eanet agricola, e magna cum venerit urbe." B. 
 
ecl. i. 51—74. BUCOLICS 3 
 
 pregnant ewes ; nor noxious diseases of the neighbouring 
 flock shall hurt them. Happy old man ! here, among well- 
 known streams and sacred fountains, you will enjoy the cool 
 shade. On this side, a hedge planted at the adjoining boun- 
 dary, whose willow blossoms are ever fed on by Hyblaean 
 bees, 8 shall often court you by its gentle hummings to indulge 
 repose. On the other side, the pruner beneath a lofty rock 
 shall sing to the breezes : nor meanwhile shall either the 
 hoarse wood-pigeons, thy delight, or the turtle from his lofty 
 elm, cease to coo. 
 
 T. Sooner therefore shall the fleet stags pasture high in 
 the air, and the seas leave the fish naked on the shore ; sooner, 
 the bounds of each being traversed, shall the Parthian 9 exile 
 drink the Arar, or Germany the Tigris, than his countenance 
 be effaced from my breast. 
 
 M. But we must go hence ; some to the parched Africans, 10 
 some of us shall visit Scythia, and Oaxes the rapid [river] of 
 Crete, and the Britons totally separated from all the world. 
 Ah ! shall I ever hereafter, after a length of time, with won- 
 der behold my native territories, and the roof of my poor cot, 
 piled up with turf; some ears of corn, 11 my [only] kingdom ? 
 Shall a ruffian soldier possess these well-cultivated fields ? — a 
 barbarian, these my fields of standing corn ? See ! to what 
 extremity discord hath reduced us wretched citizens. See ! 
 for whom we have sown our fields. Now, Meliboeus, graft 
 your pear trees ; in order range your vines. Begone, my 
 
 8 Hyblaean bees, from Hybla, a mountain of Sicily, celebrated for its 
 excellent honey. 
 
 9 Parthian, &c. Parthia, now part of Persia, a country of Asia. The 
 Arar, or Saone, a river of France, which falls into the Rhone at Lyons 
 Germany, a large country of Europe, to the north of Italy. The Tigris, 
 a river of Asia, forming a junction with the Euphrates. 
 
 10 Africans, &c. Africa, one of the three divisions of the ancient world. 
 Scythia, a general name given by the ancients to the extreme northern 
 parts of Europe and Asia. Oaxes, a river in the southern part of the 
 island of Crete. The Britons, the inhabitants of Britain, which some 
 of the ancients believed was once joined to the continent of Europe. 
 
 11 So the later commentators ; but I am still inclined to follow Servius 
 in interpreting aristas " corn seasons." He observes, " quasi rusticns 
 per aristas numerat annos." See my note on Soph. Ant. 340. Dind. 
 So Silius It. viii. 61, *' Dura rlavas bis tondet messor aristas." Auso- 
 nius, however, probably understood it the other way, if we may judge 
 from his imitation, Id. 3, " Salve haerediolum majorum regna meo- 
 rum." B. 
 
* BUCOLICS. ecl. i. 75—84. n. 1—20. 
 
 goats, once a happy flock, begone : no more shall I, stretched 
 out in my verdant grot, henceforth behold you hanging far 
 above me from a rock with bushes overgrown. No carols 
 shall I sing ; no more, my goats, as I feed you, shall you 
 browse the flowery cytisus and bitter willows. 
 
 T. Yet here this night you may take up your rest with 
 me on green leaves. We have mellow apples, soft chestnuts, 
 and plenty of fresh-pressed curd. And now the high tops of 
 the villages afar smoke, and larger shadows fall from the lofty 
 mountains. 
 
 ECLOGUE II. 
 
 The subject of this Eclogue is copied from Theocritus. The shepherd Cory- 
 don is deeply enamoured of Alexis, an ungrateful youth of great beauty. 
 
 Alexis. 
 
 The shepherd Corydon burned 1 for beauteous Alexis, the 
 darling of his master ; nor had he any thing to hope. Only 
 among the thick beeches, high embowering tops, he con- 
 tinually came : there, in solitude, with unavailing fondness, he 
 cast forth to the mountains and the woods these undigested 
 [complaints] : 
 
 Ah, cruel Alexis, for my songs hast thou no care ? on me 
 hast thou no pity ? thou wilt surely at last 2 compel me to die. 
 Even the cattle now pant after shades and cool retreats ; now 
 the thorny brakes shelter even the green lizards ; and Thes- 
 tylis pounds the garlic and wild thyme, strong-scented herbs, 
 for the reapers spent with the violent heat. But to the hoarse 
 grasshoppers in company with me the thickets resound, while 
 under the scorching sun I trace thy steps. Was it not better 
 to endure the rueful spite and proud disdain of Amaryllis ? 
 Would it not [have been better to endure] Menalcas, though 
 he was black, though thou wast fair ? Ah, comely boy, trust 
 not too much to complexion. White privets fall neglected ; 
 the purple hyacinths are gathered. By thee, Alexis, I am 
 neglected ; nor dost thou inquire who I am ; how rich in 
 
 1 For this Grecism compare Hermesianax, 37, kcluto \ikv 'Savvoig. 
 Nemes. Ecl. ii. 1 , " Formosam Donacen puer Idas et puer Alcon arde- 
 bant." B. 
 
 2 The full force of " denique " seems to be, "What then? will you 
 
 force me," &c. B. 
 
ecl. ii. 20—48. BUCOLICS. 5 
 
 flocksj how abounding in snow-white milk. 3 ~A thousand 
 ewes of mine stray on the mountains of Sicily. I want not 
 milk in summer ; I have it new even in the cold weather. I 
 warble the same airs which Theban Amphion 4 was wont, 
 when on Attic Aracynthus 5 he called his herds together. Nor 
 am I so deformed : upon the shore I lately viewed myself, 
 when, the sea stood unruffled by the winds. I will not fear 
 Daphnis, thyself being judge, if my image never deceives me. 
 O would it but please thee to inhabit with me our mean rural 
 retreats and humble cots, and to pierce the deer, and to drive 
 together a flock of kids to the green mallow ! In the woods 
 along with me thou shalt rival Pan in singing. Pan 6 first 
 taught [men] to join several reeds with wax ; Pan guards 
 both the sheep and the shepherds. Nor let it displease thee 
 to rub thy lip with a shepherd's reed. What did Amyntas 
 not do to learn this same art ? I have a pipe of seven unequal 
 reeds compactly joined, of which Damoetas some time ago 
 made me a present, and dying, said, Thou ast now its second 
 master. Damoetas said : the foolish Amyntas envied. Be- 
 sides [I have] two young he-goats I found in a valley not 
 safe, whose skins even now are speckled with white ; each 
 day they drain both the udders of an ewe ; these I reserve 
 for thee. Long Thestylis has begged to have them fronr 
 me ; and she shall do so, since my presents are disdaineo 
 by you. 
 
 Come hither, O lovely boy ; behold the nymphs bring thee 
 lilies in full baskets. For thee, fair Nais, cropping the pale 
 violets 7 and heads of poppies, joins the daffodil and flower of 
 
 3 I follow Anthon's punctuation. But Servius defends " nivei pecto- 
 ris." There seems little difference. B. 
 
 4 Amphion, the famous king of Thebes who built the walls of that 
 city ; the stones whereof he is said to have made to dance into their places 
 by the music of his lyre. He is called Dircaeus, either from Dirce, hif/ 
 step-mother, whom he put to death for the injuries she had done to his 
 mother, Antiope ; or from a fountain in Boeotia of that name. 
 
 5 Ajacynthus was a town on the confines of Attica and Boeotia, 
 where was the fountain Dirce : it is called Actseo, Attic, from Acta or 
 Acte, the country about Attica, Ovid. Met. lib. ii. 720, " Sic super 
 Actaeas agilis Cyllenius arces inclinat cursus." 
 
 6 Pan, the god of shepherds, chiefly worshipped in Arcadia. B. 
 
 7 i. e. gilliflowers or wall-flowers. The term " pale " is here applied 
 to denote a pale, tawny hue, not mere whiteness, as Anthon has ob- 
 served. B. 
 
t> BUCOLICS. ecl. ii. 48—73. 
 
 sweet-smelling dill. Then, interweaving them with cassia, 8 
 and other fragrant herbs, sets off the soft hyacinths with saf- 
 fron marigold. Myself will gather for thee quinces hoary 
 with tender down and chestnuts which my Amaryllis loved. 
 Plums I will add of waxen hue. On this fruit 9 too shall 
 honour be conferred. And you, O laurels, I will crop ; and 
 thee, O myrtle, next: for, thus arranged, you mingle sweet 
 perfumes. 
 
 Cory don, thou art a clown. Alexis neither minds thy 
 presents; nor, if by presents thou shpuldst contend, would 
 Iolas yield. Alas, alas, what was the bent of my wretched 
 mind ? Undone, I have let the south wind loose among my 
 flowers, and the boars in my crystal springs. Ah, madman, 
 whom dost thou fly ? The gods themselves have dwelt in 
 woods, and the Trojan Paris. Let Pallas herself inhabit the 
 citadels she has erected. Let woods above all things delight 
 us. The grim lioness pursues the wolf, the wolf on his part 
 the goat ; the wanton goat pursues the flowery cytisus ; Co- 
 rydon thee, O Alexis. His own peculiar pleasure draws on 
 each one. 
 
 See, the steers bring home the plough hung upon the yoke, 
 and the retreating sun doubles the growing shadows ; but me 
 love still consumes. For what bounds can be set to love ? 
 Ah, Corydon, Corydon, what frenzy hath possessed thee? 
 Half-pruned is thy vine on the leafy elm. 10 Why rather 
 triest n thou not to weave, of osiers and pliant rush, some one 
 at least of those implements which thy work requires. Thou 
 wilt find another Alexis, if this disdains thee. 
 
 8 The "spurge plant," or " mountain widow-waile," not the aromatic 
 plant of the same name. Anthon. 
 
 9 " Pomum " is literally " an apple," but it is also used as a general 
 term for all kinds of fruit. 
 
 10 Vines were trained to elms. So Hor. Ep. i. 16, 3, "amicta vitibus 
 rJ.mo." B. 
 
 : Literally, " but do you rather," i. e. " than go en in this mad 
 way/" B. 
 
ecl. 111. 1—27. BUCOLICS. 
 
 ECLOGUE III. 
 
 This Eclogue exhibits a trial of skill in singing, between Damcetas and Me- 
 nalcas. Palsemon, who is chosen judge, after hearing them, declares his 
 inability to decide such an important controversy. 
 
 Menalcas, Damcetas, Pal^emon. 
 
 M. Tell me, Damcetas, whose 1 is that flock ? Is it that of 
 Meliboeus ? 
 
 D. No ; but .iEgon's. jEgon lately intrusted it to my care. 
 
 M. Ah skeep, ever "a luckless flock ; while he himself ca- 
 resses Neaera, and fears that she may prefer me to him, this 
 hireling shepherd milks his ewes twice in an hour ; and the 
 juice 2 is filched from the flock, and the milk from the lambs. 
 
 D. Remember, however, that these scandals should with 
 more reserve be charged on men. We know both who [cor- 
 rupted] you, and in what sacred grot, while the goats looked 
 askance ; but the good-natured nymphs smiled. 
 
 M. Then, I suppose, when they saw me with a felonious 
 bill hack Mycon's elm-grove and tender vines. 
 
 D. Or here by these old beeches, when you broke the bow 
 and arrows of Daphnis : which when you, cross-grained Me- 
 nalcas, saw given to the boy, you both repined, and had you 
 not, by some means or other, "done him a mischief, you had burst 
 [for envy]. 
 
 M. What can masters do, when pilfering slaves are so au- 
 dacious ? Miscreant ! did I not see thee entrap that goat of 
 Damon, while his mongrel barker 1 with fury ? And when I 
 cried out, Whither is he now sneaking off? Tityrus, assemble 
 your flock ; you skulked away behind the sedges. 
 
 D. Ought he not, when vanquished in singing, to give me 
 the goat which my flute by its music won ? If you know it 
 not, that same goat was my own : and Damon himself owned 
 it to me, but alleged that he was not able to pay. 
 
 M. You [vanquish] him in piping ? Or was there ever a 
 wax -jointed pipe in your possession ? Wast thou not wont, 
 thou dunce, in the cross- ways to murder a pitiful tune on a 
 squeaking straw ? 
 
 1 "Cujum," from the obsolete " cujus, -a, -wm." B. 
 
 2 i. e. animal lymphs as Edwards observes. Cicero Tusc. Q. ii. 17, 
 '* Subdue cibum unum diem athletae, ferre non posse exclamabit." B. 
 
8 BUCOLICS. ecl. in. 28—59. 
 
 D. Are you willing, then, that each of us try by turns what 
 we can do ? This young heifer I stake ; and lest you should 
 possibly reject it, she comes twice a day to the milking pail : 
 two calves she suckles with her udder: say for what stake 
 you will contend against me. 
 
 M. I dare not stake any thing with thee from the flock: 
 for I have a sire at home, I have a harsh step-dame : and 
 twice a-day both of them number the cattle, and one the kids. 
 But what thou thyself shalt own of far greater value, since 
 thou choosest to be mad, I will stake my beechen bowls, the 
 carved work of divine Alcimedon, 3 round which a curling vine, 
 superadded by the skilful carver's art, mantles the clustering 
 berries diffusely spread by the pale ivy. In the midst are two 
 figures, Conon ; and, who was the other ? He who with his 
 wand distributed among the nations the whole globe ; [who 
 taught] what seasons the reaper, what the bent ploughman, 
 should observe. Nor have I yet applied my lips to them, but 
 I keep them carefully laid up 
 
 D. For me too the same Alcimedon made two bowls, and 
 with soft acanthus 4 wreathed their handles: Orpheus in the 
 midst he placed, and the woods following. Nor have I yet ap- 
 plied my lips to them, but keep them carefully laid up. If you 
 consider the heifer, you have no reason to extol your bowls. 
 
 M. By no means shalt thou this day escape : I will come 
 to any terms you challenge. Let but that very person who 
 comes (lo, it is Pakenion) listen to this strain : I will take care 
 that you shall not challenge any henceforth at singing. 
 
 D. Come on, then, if thou hast aught [to sing] ; in me 
 there shall be no delay: nor do I shun any one. Only, 
 neighbour Palasmon, weigh this with the deepest attention ; 
 it is a matter of no small importance. 
 
 P. Sing, since we are seated on the soft grass ; and now 
 every field, now every tree, is budding forth : now the woods 
 look green ; now the year is most beauteous. Begin, Damoe- 
 tas : then you, Menalcas, follow. Ye shall sing in alternate 
 verses : the Muses love alternate verses. 
 
 3 Alcimedon, an excellent carver, but of what country is uncertain 
 Conon, a Greek astronomer of Samos, the contemporary and friend of 
 Archimedes, who, probably, was the other figure mentioned by the poet. 
 
 4 Plin. Ep. v. 6, "Acanthus in piano mollis, et, pene dixerim, liq'ii- 
 dus." It is the modern " Brankursine." B 
 
ecl. in. 60-83. BUCOLICS. l l 
 
 D. From Jove, ye Muses, 5 let us begin : all things are 
 full of Jove : he cherishes the earth ; by him are my songs 
 esteemed. 
 
 M. And me Phoebus loves: for Phoebus 6 are still with me 
 his appropriate gifts, the laurel and sweet-blushing hyacinth. 
 
 D. Galatea, wanton girl, pelts me with apples, 7 and flies to 
 the willows, but wishes first to be seen. 
 
 M. But my flame Amyntas voluntarily offers himself to me ; 
 so that now not Delia's 8 self is more familiar to our dogs. 
 
 D. A present is provided for my love : for I myself marked 
 the place where the airy wood-pigeons have built. 
 
 M. What I could, I sent to my boy, ten golden apples 
 gathered from a tree in the wood : to-morrow I will send him 
 ten others. 
 
 D. O how often, and what things Galatea spoke to me ! 
 Some part, ye winds, waft to the ears of the gods. 
 
 M. What avails it, O Amyntas, that you despise me not in 
 your heart, if, while you hunt the boars, I watch the toils. 
 
 D. Iolas, send to me Phyllis : it is my birthday. When for 
 the fruits I sacrifice a heifer, come thyself. 
 
 M. Iolas, I love Phyllis above others : for at my departure 
 she wept, and said, Adieu, fair youth, a long adieu. 
 
 D. The wolf is fatal to the flocks ; showers to ripened 
 corn ; winds to the trees ; to me the anger of Amaryllis. 
 
 M. Moisture is grateful to the sown corn ; the arbute to 
 weaned kids ; the limber willow to the teeming cattle ; to me, 
 Amyntas alone. 
 
 5 Muses, goddesses who presided over poetry, music, &c. The nine 
 Muses were called the Pierian Sisters, from Pieria in Macedonia, where 
 they were born. Virgil also calls them Sicilian Muses, because Theo- 
 critus, the celebrated pastoral poet, was a native of Sicily ; and Libethrian 
 nymphs, from Libethra, a mountain of Boeotia, in Greece. 
 
 6 Phoebus, a name given to Apollo. The " laurel " refers to his mistress 
 Daphne, who was changed into that tree, whilst flying from her lover. B. 
 
 7 The apple, under the Latin name of which {malum) the Romans 
 comprehended also the quince, the pomegranate, the citron, the peach, 
 &c, was sacred to Venus, whose statues sometimes bore a poppy in one 
 hand and an apple in the other. A present of an apple, or a partaking 
 of an apple with another, was a mark of affection ; and so, also, to throw 
 an apple at one. To dream of apples was also deemed by lovers a good 
 omen. Anthon. 
 
 8 Delia. Diana was so called, because she was born in the island of 
 Delos. 
 
10 BUCOLICS. ecl in. 84—105. 
 
 D. Pollio loves my muse, though rustic : ye Pierian Sis- 
 ters, feed a heifer for your reader. 
 
 M. Pollio himself too composes unrivalled verses : feed 
 [for him] the bull which already butts with the horn, and 
 spurns the sand with his feet. 
 
 D. Let him who loves thee, Pollio, rise to the same state tc 
 which Tie rejoices that thou [hast risen] ; for him let honey 
 flow, and the prickly bramble bring forth amomum. 
 
 M. Who hates not Bavius' 9 verse, may love thine, O 
 Maevius ; and the same may yoke foxes, and milk he-goats. 
 
 D. Ye swains who gather flowers, and strawberries that 
 grow on the ground, oh fly hence ; a cold snake lurks in the 
 grass. 10 
 
 M. Forbear, sheep, to advance too far ; it is not safe trust- 
 ing to the bank ; the ram himself is but now drying his fleece. 
 
 D. Tityrus, from the river remove your browsing goats ; 
 I myself, when it is time, will wash them all in the pool. 
 
 M. Pen up the sheep, ye swains : if the heat should dry up 
 the milk as of late, in vain shall we squeeze the teats with our 
 hands. 
 
 D. Alas, how lean is my bull amid the fattening vetch ! 
 the same love is the bane of the herd and of the herdsman. 
 
 M. Surely love is not the cause with these : they scarcely 
 stick to their bones. Some evil eye or other bewitches my 
 tender lambs. 
 
 D. Tell me, (and you shall be my great Apollo,) where 
 heaven's circuit extends no farther than three ells. 11 
 
 9 Bavius and Maevius, two contemptible poets in the age of Augustus, 
 contemporary with Virgil. 
 
 10 The Greek proverb is, V7rb ttclvtI XLOq) cr/c6p7rioc, ["under every 
 stone a scorpion,"] in Carcinus apud Athen. xv. 15. With regard to the 
 epithet, " frigidus," Kiessling, on Theocr. xv. 58, quotes a remark of the 
 Scholiast on Nicander Th. 291, to the effect that the epithet ipvxpbg is 
 applied to all reptiles in a similar manner. B. 
 
 11 Numerous explanations have been given to the enigma here stated, 
 some making the reference to be to a well ; others, to a pit in the centre of 
 Rome, in the Comitium, &c. The best solution, however, is that of As- 
 conius Pedianus, who heard Virgil himself say, that he meant to allude 
 to a certain Ccelius, a spendthrift at Mantua, who, having run through all 
 that he possessed, retained merely enough ground for a sepulchre ; and 
 that this very sepulchre, embracing about three ells in extent, is what 
 Damoetas refers to in the text, the whole enigma turning upon the similarity 
 in form and sound between coeli, " of heaven," and Coeli, (i e. CoelitJ " of 
 Oeiius." Anthon. 
 
ecl. in. 106—111. iv. 1—15. BUCOLICS. 1 1 
 
 M. Tell me in what land flowers grow, inscribed with the 
 names of kings ; 12 and have Phillis to thyself alone. 
 
 P. It is not for us to determine so great a controversy be- 
 tween you ; both you and he deserve the heifer ; and whoever 
 [so well] shall sing the fears of sweet [successful] love, and 
 experimentally describe the bitterness of [disappointment]. 13 
 Now, swains, shut up your streams ; the meads have imbibed 
 enough. 
 
 ECLOGUE IV. 
 
 V irgil, in this Eclogue, is supposed by some to refer to the birth of Marcellus, 
 the son of Octavia, the sister of Augustus ; or to a son of his patron, the 
 consul Pollio, to whom the Eclogue is inscribed. Others consider it to be 
 founded on ancient predictions respecting the Messiah, and apply it to our 
 blessed Saviour. 
 
 Pollio. 
 
 Ye Sicilian Muses, let us sing somewhat higher strains. 
 Vineyards and lowly tamarisks delight not all. If rural lays 
 we sing, let those lays be worthy of a consul's ear. The last 
 era, of Cumsean l song, is now arrived : The great series of 
 ages begins anew. Now, too, returns the virgin Astraea, 2 re- 
 turns the reign of Saturn ; now a new progeny is sent down 
 from high heaven. Be thou but propitious to the infant boy, 
 under whom first the iron age shall cease, and the golden age 
 over all the world arise, O chaste Lucina ; now thy own 
 Apollo reigns. While thou too, Pollio, while thou art con- 
 sul, this glory of our age shall make his entrance ; and the 
 great months begin to roll. Under thy conduct, whatever 
 vestiges of our guilt remain, shall, being done away, release 
 the earth from fear for ever. He shall partake the life of gods, 
 
 13 The allusion is to the hyacinth, which has, according to a poetic le- 
 gend, the letters AI marked on its petals, not only as a note of sorrow for 
 the death of Hyacinthus, but also as constituting half the name of Ajax, 
 i. e. Alag. Anthon. 
 
 13 There is much uncertainty respecting the reading of this passage 
 Anthon ingeniously transposes " amores " and " amaros." But I cannot 
 help thinking that there is no occasion to alter the common reading. B. 
 
 1 Cumsean song, from Cumse, a city of Italy, north-west of Naples, in 
 the vicinity of which resided the celebrated Cumsean Sibyl. 
 
 2 Astraea, in the mythology of the ancients, was the goddess of Justice, 
 who resided on earth during the reign of Saturn, or the golden age. Being 
 shocked by the impiety of mankind, she returned to heaven, and became 
 one of the twelve signs cf the zodiac, under the name of Virgo. 
 
12 BUCOLICS. ecl. iv. 15-49. 
 
 shall see heroes mingled in society with gods, himself be seen 
 by them, and rule the peaceful world with his father's vir- 
 tues. Meanwhile the earth, O boy, as her first offerings, shall 
 pour thee forth every where, without culture, creeping ivy 
 with lady ; s glove, and Egyptian beans with smiling acanthus 
 intermixed. The goats of themselves shall homeward convey 
 their udders distended with milk ; nor shall the herds dread 
 huge overgrown lions. The very cradle shall pour thee forth 
 attractive flowers. The serpent also shall die ; and the poison's 
 fallacious plant shall die : the Assyrian spikenard shall grow 
 in every soil. But soon as thou shalt be able to read the 
 praises of heroes, and the achievements of thy sire, and to 
 understand what virtue is, 3 the field shall by degrees grow yel- 
 low with soft ears of corn ; blushing grapes shall hang on the 
 rude brambles and hard oaks shall distil the dewy honey. 
 Yet some few footsteps of ancient vice shall remain, to prompt 
 [men] to brave the sea in ships, to enclose cities with walls, 
 and cleave furrows in the earth. There will then be another 
 Tiphys, and another Argo 4 to waft chosen heroes : there shall 
 be likewise other wars : and great Achilles 5 shall once more 
 be sent to Troy. After this, when confirmed age shall have^ 
 ripened thee into man, the sailor shall of himself renounce the 
 sea ; nor shall the naval pine barter commodities : all lands 
 shall all things produce. The ground shall not endure the 
 harrow, nor the vineyard the pruning-hook ; the sturdy 
 ploughman, too, shall now release his bulls from the yoke. 
 Nor shall the wool learn to counterfeit various colours : but 
 the ram himself shall in the meadows tinge his fleece, now 
 with sweet-blushing purple, now with saffron dye. Scarlet 
 shall spontaneously clothe the lambs as they feed. The Des- 
 tinies, harmonious in the established order of the Fates, sung 
 to their spindles: "Ye ages, run on thus." Dear offspring 
 of the gods, illustrious increase of Jove, set forward on thy 
 
 3 Servius rightly understands the successive studies of poetry and phi- 
 losophy, as they are enumerated in Plato Protag. § 43. B. 
 
 4 Argo, the name of the ship which carried Jason and his fifty-four 
 companions to Colchis, to recover the golden fleece. Tiphys, who was 
 pilot of the ship, died before reaching Colchis. The Argonautic expe- 
 dition happened about 1263 b. c. 
 
 5 Achilles, the bravest of all the Greeks in the Trojan war, where ho 
 performed prodigies of valour. He slew Hector, but was himself at last 
 ."•lain by Paris. 
 
ecl. iv. 50— 63. v. 1— 12. BUCOLICS. 13 
 
 way to signal honours ; the time is now at hand. See the 
 world with its convex weight nodding to thee, the earth, the 
 regions of the sea, and heavens sublime : See how all things 
 rejoice at the approach of this age. Oh that my last stage of 
 life may continue so long, and so much breath as shall suffice 
 to sing thy deeds ! Neither Thracian Orpheus, 6 nor Linus, 
 shall surpass me in song, though his mother aid the one, and 
 his s^re the other, Calliopea Orpheus, and fair Apollo Linus. 
 Should even Pan with me contend, Arcadia's self being judge, 
 even Pan should own himself overcome, Arcadia's self bein^r 
 judge. Begin, sweet babe, to distinguish thy mother by thy 
 smiles ; 7 ten months brought on thy mother tedious qualms. Be- 
 gin, young boy ; that child on whom his parents never smiled, 
 nor god ever honoured with his table, nor goddess with her bed. 
 
 ECLOGUE V. 
 
 In this Eclogue, the shepherds Menalcas and Mopsus celebrate the funeral 
 
 eulogium of Daphnis. 
 
 Menalcas, Mopsus. 
 
 Me. Since, Mopsus, we are met, both skilful swains, you 
 in piping on the slender reed, I in singing verses, why have 
 we not sat down here among the elms intermixed with hazels ? 
 
 Mo. You, Menalcas, are my superior : it is just that I be 
 ruled by you ; whether under the shades that waver by the 
 fanning zephyrs, or rather into this grotto we repair : see how 
 the wild vine with scattered clusters hath spread the grotto. 
 
 Me. Amyntas alone in our mountains may vie with thee. 
 
 Mo. What if the same should vie with Phoebus' self in 
 song ? 
 
 Me. Begin you, Mopsus, first ; whether you are disposed 
 to sing the passion of Phyllis, 1 or the praises of Alcon, or the 
 strife of Codrus ; begin : Tityrus will tend the browsing kids. 
 
 6 Orpheus, the son of CEagrus, king of Thrace, and the muse Calliope, 
 celebrated for his masterly skill in music. 
 
 7 Heyne wrongly refers " risu " to the mother's smile. B. 
 
 1 The names here introduced, namely, Phyllis, Alcon, and Codrus, be- 
 long not to real characters, but to fictitious pastoral personages. Phyllis, 
 therefore, must not be confounded with the daughter of Lycurgus, king of 
 Thrace, who was abandoned by Demophoon, nor Codrus with the early 
 king of Athens. Anthon. 
 
14 BUCOLICS. ecl. v. 13—51. 
 
 Mo. Nay, I will rather try those strains which lately 1 
 inscribed on the green bark of the beech tree, and sang and 
 noted them by turns : then bid Amyntas vie with me. 
 
 Me. As far as the limber willow is inferior to the pale 
 olive, and humble lavender to crimson beds of roses ; so far 
 is Amyntas, in my judgment, inferior to you. 
 
 Mo. But, shepherds, cease further words : we have reached 
 the grot. The nymphs wept Daphnis cut off by cruel death ; 
 ye hazels and ye streams witnessed [the mourning of] the 
 nymphs, when the mother, embracing the hapless corpse of 
 her son, reproached both gods and stars with cruelty. The 
 swains, Daphnis, then forgat to drive their fed cattle to the 
 cooling streams : no quadruped either tasted of the brook, or 
 touched a blade of grass. The savage mountains, Daphnis, 
 and the woods, can tell that even the African lions mourned 
 thy death. Daphnis taught to yoke Armenian tigers in the 
 chariot ; Daphnis, to lead up the dances in honour of Bacchus, 
 and wreathe the pliant wands with soft leaves. As the vine 
 is the glory of the trees, as grapes are of the vine, as the bull 
 is of the flock, as standing corn of fertile fields ; so thou wast 
 all the glory of thy fellow-swains. Ever since the Fates 
 snatched thee away, Pales 2 herself, and Apollo too, have left 
 the fields. Luckless darnel, and the barren oats, spring up in 
 these furrows, where we were wont to sow the plump barley. 
 Instead of the soft violet, instead of the purple narcissus, the 
 thistle springs up, and the thorn with its sharp prickles. 
 Strew the ground with leaves, ye shepherds, form a shade 
 over the fountains : these rites Daphnis for himself ordains. 
 And form a tomb ; and on that tomb inscribe this epitaph : I 
 am Daphnis of the groves, hence even to the stars renowned, 
 the shepherd of a fair flock, fairer myself. 
 
 Me. Such, matchless poet, is thy song to me, as slumbers 
 to the weary on the grass ; as in scorching heat to quench 
 thirst from a salient rivulet of fresh water. Nor equal you 
 your master in the pipe only, but also 3 in the voice. Happy 
 swain, you shall now be the next to him. Yet, I will sing 
 in my turn these verses of mine, such as they are, and exalt 
 
 2 Pales, the goddess of sheepfolds and of pastures, was worshipped with 
 great solemnity among the Romans. 
 
 3 I have supplied the ellipse of "et," with Burm. on Phaedr. Prol 
 i. 6. B. 
 
cl. v. 51— 79. BUCOLICS. 15 
 
 your Daphnis to the stars : Daphnis I will raise to the stars ; 
 me too Daphnis loved. 
 
 Mo. Can aught be more acceptable to me than such a pre- 
 sent? The swain himself was most worthy to be sung, and 
 Stimichon hath long since praised to me that song of thine. 
 
 Me. Daphnis, robed in white, admires the courts of heaven, 
 to which he is a stranger, and under his feet beholds the clouds 
 und stars. Hence mirthful pleasure fills the woods and every 
 field, Pan and the shepherds, and the virgin Dryads. 4 The 
 wolf doth neither meditate plots against the sheep, nor are 
 any toils set to insnare the deer ; good Daphnis delights in 
 rest. For joy, even the unshorn mountains raise their voices 
 to the stars : now the very rocks, the very groves, resound 
 these notes : a god, a god, he is, Menalcas. O be propitious 
 and indulgent to thy own ! Behold four altars ; lo, Daphnis, 
 two for thee, 5 and two for Phoebus. Two bowls foaming with 
 new milk, and two goblets of fat oil, will I present to thee 
 each year : and chiefly, enlivening the feast with plenty of 
 the joys of Bacchus, 6 before the fire if it be winter ; if har- 
 vest, in the shade, 7 I will pour thee forth Ariusian wine, a 
 new kind of nectar. Damcetas and Lyctian JEgon shall sing 
 to me : Alphesiboeus shall mimic the frisking satyrs. These 
 rites shall be ever thine, both when we pay our solemn an- 
 niversary vows to the nymphs, and when we make the circuit 
 of the fields. While the boar shall love the tops of mountains ; 
 while fishes love the floods ; while bees on thyme shall feed, 
 and grasshoppers on dew ; thy honour, name, and praise shall 
 still remain. As to Bacchus and Ceres, 8 so to thee the 
 
 4 Dryads, nymphs who presided over the woods. 
 
 5 " Lo! two (altars) for thee, O Daphnis, two larger ones for Phoe- 
 bus." Observe that altaria is here in opposition with aras understood. 
 This passage shows plainly that the distinctive difference between ara and 
 altare is here meant to be observed. Ara is an altar of smaller size, on 
 which incense, fruits of the earth, and similar oblations are offered up ; 
 altare is an altar of larger size, on which victims are burned. This serves 
 to explain, also, what immediately follows. To Daphnis, as to a deified 
 hero, no bloody offerings are to be made ; the oblations are to consist 
 merely of milk, oil, and wine. Anthon. 
 
 6 Bacchus first taught the use of the vine, &c, and was therefore call- 
 ed the God of wine. Ariusia, i. e. Chios, now Scio, an island in the 
 Archipelago, celebrated for its excellent wine. 
 
 7 Cicero de Senect. 14, "Me vero delectant et pocula minuta atque 
 rorantia,et refrigeratio aestate, et vicissim aut Sol aut ignis hibernus." I\* 
 
 8 Ceres, the goddess of corn and of harvests 
 
16 BUCOLICS. ecl. v. 80—90. vi. 1—13. 
 
 swains shall yearly perform their vows : thou too shalt bind 
 them by their vows. 
 
 Mo. "What, what returns shall I make to thee for so excel- 
 lent a song ? For neither the whispers of the rising south 
 wind, nor shores lashed by the wave, nor rivers that glide 
 down among the stony vales, please me so much. 
 
 Me. First I will present you with this brittle reed. This 
 taught me, " Cory don for fair Alexis burned." This same 
 hath taught me/" Whose is this flock? is it that of Meli- 
 boeus?" ; 
 
 Mo. But do you, Menalcas, accept this sheep-hook, beau- 
 tiful for its uniform knobs and brass, which Antigenes never 
 could obtain, though he often begged it of me ; and at that 
 time he was worthy to be loved. 
 
 ECLOGUE VI. 
 
 Silemis, a demi-god and companion of Bacchus, was noted for his love of 
 wine and skill in music : here he relates concerning the formation of the 
 world, and the nature of things, according to the doctrine of the Epicu- 
 reans. 
 
 Selenus. 
 
 My Thalia is the first who deigned to sport in Syracusian 
 strain, nor blushed to inhabit the woods. When I offered to 
 sing of kings and battles, Apollo twitched my ear, and warned 
 me thus : A shepherd, Tityrus, should feed his fattening 
 sheep, and sing in humble strain. 1 Now will I, O Varus, 2 
 (for there will be many who will desire to celebrate thy 
 praises, and record disastrous wars,) exercise my rural muse 
 on the slender reed. I sing not unbidden strains : yet whoso 
 enamoured [with my strains], whoso shall read even these, to 
 him, Varus, our tamarisks, each grove shall sing of thee : 
 nor is any page more acceptable to Phoebus, than on whose 
 front the name of Varus is inscribed. Proceed, Muses. 
 
 Deductum dicere carmen, a humble or slender song; a metaphor 
 taken from wool spun out till it becomes fine and slender. So Hor. lib. 
 ii. 1, 225, Tenui deducta poemata filo. And Tibul. lib. i. 3, 86, Deducat 
 plena stamina longa colo. 
 
 2 Varus, Quintilius Varus, a Roman proconsul, who commanded an 
 army in Germany, where he lost his life, with three whole legionti 
 
 K. D. 10. 
 
2,ol. vi. 13-35. BUCOLICS. 17 
 
 Chromis and Mnasylus, the youthful swains, saw Silenus lying 
 asleep in his cave, his veins, as usual, swoln with yesterday's 
 debauch. His garlands just 3 fallen from his head, lay at some 
 distance, and his heavy flagon hung by its worn handle. 
 Taking hold of him, (for often the sire had amused them both 
 with the promise of a song,) they bind him with his own 
 wreaths. JEgle associates herself with them, and comes un- 
 expectedly upon the timorous swains; -ZEgle, fairest of the 
 Naiads ; and j ust as he is opening his eyes, she paints his 
 forehead and temples with blood-red mulberries. He, smiling 
 at the trick, says, Why do ye fasten these bonds ? Loose me, 
 swains : it is enough that I have suffered myself to be seen. 
 Hear the song w^hich you desire : the song for you ; for her 
 I shall find another reward. At the same time he begins. 
 Then you might have seen the Fauns and, savages frisking in 
 measured dance, then the stiff oaks waving their tops. Nor 
 rejoices the Parnassian rock so much in Phcebus: 4 nor do 
 Rhodope and Ismarus 5 so much admire Orpheus. For he 
 sang how, through the mighty void, 6 the seeds of earth, and 
 air, and sea, and pure fire, had been together ranged ; how 
 from these principles all the elements, and the world's tender 7 
 globe itself, combined into a system : then how the soil began 
 to harden, to shut up the waters apart 8 within the sea, and by 
 
 3 Tantum capti delapsa, "Having fallen to such a distance from his 
 head." It is very hard to say what is here the true meaning of tantum. 
 If we join it with procul, it makes a most harsh construction; if we ren- 
 der it " only," it clashes with procul, unless this stand for juxta, which 
 is too forced ; if, with Voss., we make it equivalent to modo, "just," it 
 appears frigid and tame. We have ventured, therefore, to regard it as 
 standing for in tantum. Anthon. 
 
 4 Parnassian rock. Parnassus, a celebrated mountain of Phocis in 
 Greece, sacred to Apollo and the Muses, remarkable for its two summits. 
 
 5 Rhodope and Ismarus, two high mountains in Thrace. 
 
 6 Magnum per inane. The Epicureans, whose philosophy is here 
 sung, taught that incorporeal space, here called magnum inane, and cor- 
 poreal atoms were the first principles of all things : their void space they 
 considered as the womb, in which the seeds of all the elements were 
 ripened into their distinct forms. 
 
 7 " Tener," Anthon says, " because just created." But I prefer under- 
 standing it of the plastic nature of the materials, with Pliny, Hist. Nat. 
 ii. 3. B. 
 
 8 Et discludere Nerea ponto. Literally, " to shut up Nereus apart in 
 the sea," i. e. to separate the waters into their channel : Nereus the sea- 
 Sod being here put for the waters in general. 
 
 G 
 
18 BUCOLICS. ecl. vi. 36-66. 
 
 degrees to assume the forms of things : and how anon tho 
 earth was astonished to see the new-born sun shine forth ; and 
 how from the clouds, suspended high, the showers descend : 
 when first the woods began to rise, and when the animals, yet 
 few, began to range the unknown mountains. He next tells 
 of the stones which Pyrrha 9 threw, the reign of Saturn, the 
 fowls of Caucasus, 10 and the theft of Prometheus. To these 
 he adds the fountain where the sailors had invoked aloud 
 Hylas 11 lost; how the whole shore resounded Hylas, Hylas. 
 And he soothes Pasiphae 12 in her passion for the snow-white 
 bull: happy woman if herds had never been! Ah, ill-fated 
 maid, what madness seized thee ? The daughters of Proetus 13 
 with imaginary lowings filled the fields : yet none of them 
 pursued such vile embraces of a beast, however they might 
 dread the plough about their necks, and often feel for horns on 
 their smooth foreheads. Ah, ill-fated maid, thou now art 
 roaming on the mountains ! He, resting his snowy side on the 
 soft hyacinth, ruminates the blenched herbs under some 
 gloomy oak, or courts some female in the numerous herd. Ye 
 nymphs, shut up now, ye Dictasan 14 nymphs, shut up the 
 avenues of the forests, if any where by chance my bullock's 
 wandering footsteps may offer to my sight. Perhaps some 
 heifers may lead him on to the Gortynian stalls, 15 either 
 
 9 Pyrrha, the wife of Deucalion, in whose age all mankind was de- 
 stroyed by a deluge, these two excepted. On consulting the oracle, they 
 * r ere directed to repair the loss, by throwing stones behind their backs ; 
 those which Pyrrha threw were changed into women, and those of 
 Deucalion into men. 
 
 10 Caucasus, a lofty mountain of Asia, between the Euxine and Caspian 
 Seas. Prometheus, having made a man of clay, which he animated with 
 fire stolen from heaven, was, for the impiety, chained to a rock on the t«p 
 of Caucasus, where a vulture continually preyed upon his liver. 
 
 11 Hylas, a youth, the favourite of Hercules, who accompanied the 
 Argonautic expedition, but was drowned in the Ascanius, a river of 
 Bithynia, which afterwards received his name. 
 
 12 Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, king of Crete, who disgraced herself by 
 her unnatural passion. 
 
 13 Proetus, king of Argolis, whose three daughters became insane for 
 neglecting the worship of Bacchus, or, according to some, for preferring 
 themselves to Juno. 
 
 14 Dictrean nymphs, Cretan nymphs from Dicte, a mountain in the 
 island of Crete, where Jupiter was worshipped. 
 
 15 Gortynian stalls. Gortyna, an ancient city of Crete, the country 
 [.round which produced excellent pastures. 
 

 ROL. vi. 60—77. BUCOLICS. 19 
 
 enticed by the verdant pasture, or in pursuit of the herd. 
 Then he sings the virgin, 16 charmed with the apples of the 
 Hesperides : then he surrounds the sisters of Phaeton 17 with 
 the moss of bitter bark, and raises the stately alders from the 
 ground. . Then he sings how one of the Sister Muses led 
 Gallus, wandering by the streams of Permessus, 18 to the 
 Aonian mountains; and how the whole choir of Phoebus 
 rose up to do him honour : how Linus, the shepherd of song 
 divine, his locks adorned with flowers and bitter parsley, 
 thus addressed him : Here, take these pipes the Muses give 
 thee, which before [they gave] to the Ascraean 19 sage ; by 
 which he was wont to draw down the rigid wild ashes from 
 the mountains. On these let the origin of Grynium's grove 20 
 be sung by you ; that there may be no grove in which Apollo 
 may glory more. Why should I tell how [he sang] of 
 Scylla 21 the daughter of Nisus ? or of her whom, round the 
 snowy wa*ist, begirt with barking monsters, fame records to 
 have vexed 22 the Dulichian ships, and in the deep abyss, alas, 
 to have torn in pieces the trembling sailors with sea-dogs ? 
 
 16 i. e. Atalanta, daughter of Schoeneus, king of Scyros, or, according 
 to others, of Iasius, king of Arcadia, who was famed for her beauty, 
 which gained her many admirers. She consented to bestow her hand on 
 him that could outrun her, though he was to die if he lost the race. 
 Many of her suitors had perished in the contest, when Hippomenes offered 
 himself; during the race, he dropped, at intervals, three golden apples 
 from the garden of the Hesperides, which Atalanta stopping to pick up, he 
 arrived first at the goal, and obtained her in marriage. 
 
 17 The sisters of Phaeton, according to the mythologists, bewailing his 
 unhappy end, were changed into poplars by Jupiter. 
 
 18 Permessus, a river issuing from Mount Helicon in Aonia, (Bceotia,) 
 sacred to the Muses. 
 
 19 Ascraean sage. Hesiod, so named from Ascra, a village of Bceotia 
 in Greece, where he was born. 
 
 20 Grynium's grove. Grynium, a town on the coast of iEo'iia in Asia 
 Minor, where Apollo had a temple with a sacred grove. 
 
 21 Scylla, a daughter of Nisus, king of Megara, feigned to have been 
 changed into a lark. Dulichian ships, those of Ulysses, who was king 
 of the island of Dulichium. After the fall of Troy, Ulysses, in his return 
 home, encountered incredible hardships, and with difficulty escaped the 
 rocks of Scylla, so named from a daughter of Typhon, who was changed 
 by Circe into a frightful monster, when, throwing herself into the sea be- 
 tween Italy and Sicily, she became the dangerous rocks which continued 
 to bear her name. 
 
 22 Virgil's use of " vexare" is discussed by Gellius, ii. 6, and Macrob. 
 Sat. vi. 7. From their remarks, the word harass best appears to expresi 
 its meaning. B 
 
 c 2 
 
?o 
 
 BUCOLICS. ecl. vi. 78-86. vn. 1—9. 
 
 or how he described the limbs of Tereus 23 transformed? 
 what banquets and what presents Philomela for him pre- 
 pared ? with what speed he sought the deserts, and with what 
 wings, ill-fated one, he fluttered over the palace once his own ? 
 All those [airs] he sings, which happy Eurotas 24 heard, and 
 bade its laurels learn, when Phoebus played of old. The val- 
 leys, stricken [with the sound], re-echo to the stars; till 
 Vesper 25 warned [the shepherds] to pen their sheep in the 
 folds, and recount their number; and came forth from re- 
 luctant Olympus. 
 
 ECLOGUE VII. 
 
 In this Eclogue, Virgil, as Meliboeus, gives an account of a poetical contest 
 between Thyrsis and Corydon. 
 
 Melibceus, Corydon, Thyrsis. 
 
 M. Daphnis by chance sat down under a whispering 1 
 holm-oak, and Corydon and Thyrsis had driven their flocks 
 together; Thyrsis his sheep, Corydon his goats distended 
 with milk : both in the flower of their age, Arcadians both, 2 
 equally matched at singing, and ready to answer. To this 
 quarter, while I was fencing my tender myrtles from the cold, 
 the he-goat himself, the husband 3 of the flock, from me had 
 strayed away : and I espy Daphnis : when he in turn saw me, 
 he cried out, Come hither quickly, Melibceus ; your goat and 
 
 23 Tereus, a king of Thrace. He married Progne, a daughter of Pan- 
 dion, king of Athens, who, in revenge for his having violated her sister 
 Philomela, and cut out her tongue, killed his son Itys, and served him 
 up at a banquet. According to the poets, they were all changed into dif- 
 ferent kinds of birds. 
 
 24 Eurotas, (Vasili Potamo,) a river of Laconia, washing ancient Sparta, 
 and falling into the Mediterranean. 
 
 25 Vesper, the planet Venus, or the evening star. 
 
 1 The rustling of the breeze in the leaves is thus said \pi9vpi%SLv in 
 Greek. B. 
 
 2 i. e. both skilled in music, which was greatly cultivated among the 
 Arcadians. No reference to their country is intended, but merely to 
 their musical excellence. B. 
 
 3 Vir gregis ipse caper. " The he-goat himself, the husband of my 
 flock." (Compare Theocritus, viii. 49 : T Q Tpaye, rav XsvKav aiy&v 
 dvEp.) Observe the force of ipse here, implying that he was followed by 
 the rest of the flock ; (Wagner, Quaest. Virg. xviii. 2, b. ;) and hence wt 
 iiave, in verse 9th, " caper tibi salvus et hosdi." Anthon. So Martial, 
 'lip. ix. 31, "pecorisque maritus tanigeri." B. 
 
ecl. vii. 10-42. BUCOLICS. 21 
 
 kids are safe ; and, if you can stay a while, rest under thin 
 shade. Hither thy bullocks of themselves will come across 
 the meads to drink. Here Mincius 4 hath fringed the verdant 
 banks with tender reed, and from the sacred oak swarms of 
 bees resound. What could I do ? I had neither Alcippe, nor 
 Phyllis, to shut up at home my weaned lambs : but there was 
 a great match proposed, Corydon against Thyrsis. After all, 
 I postponed my serious business to their play. In alternate 
 verses therefore the two began to contend : alternate verses 
 the Muses would have me record. These Corydon, those 
 Thyrsis, each in his turn recited. 
 
 C. Ye Libethrian nymphs, my delight, either favour me 
 with such a song as ye did my Codrus 5 (he makes verses next 
 to those of Phoebus) ; or, if we cannot all attain to this, here 
 on this sacred pine my tuneful pipe shall hang. 
 
 T. Ye Arcadian shepherds, deck with ivy your rising poet, 
 that Codrus' sides may burst with envy. Or, if he praise me 
 beyond what I desire, bind my brow with lady's glove, lest his 
 evil tongue should hurt your future poet. 
 
 C. To thee, Delia, young Mycon [for me presents] this 
 head of a bristly boar, and the branching horns of a long-lived 
 stag. If this success be lasting, thou shalt stand at thy full 
 length in polished marble, thy legs with scarlet buskin bound. 
 
 T. A pail of milk and these cakes, Priapus, 6 are enough 
 for you to expect [from me] ; you are the keeper of a poor ill- 
 furnished garden. Now we have raised thee of marble such 
 as the times admit; but, if the breed recruit my flock, thou 
 shalt be of gold. 
 
 C. Galatea, daughter of Nereus, sweeter to me than Hybla's 
 thyme, whiter than swans, fairer than white ivy ; soon as the 
 well-fed steers shall return to their stalls, come, if thou hast 
 any regard for Corydon. 
 
 T. May I even appear to thee more bitter than Sardinian 
 Kerbs, 7 more rugged than the furze, more worthless than sea- 
 
 4 Mincius, the Mincio, a river in the north of Italy, falling into the 
 Po below Mantua. 
 
 5 Codrus, a Latin poet, contemporary with Virgil. 
 
 6 Priapus, 4 a deity among the ancients, who presided over gardens. He 
 was the son of Bacchus and Venus, and was chiefly worshipped at 
 Lampsacus on the Hellespont. 
 
 7 Sardinian herbs, a bitter herb which grew in the island of Sardinia, 
 said to cause convulsions and death. 
 
22 BUCOLICS. ecl. vn. 43—68 
 
 weed cast upon the shore, if this day be not longer to me than 
 a whole year. Go home, my well-fed steers, if you have any 
 shame, go home. 
 
 C. Ye mossy fountains, and grass more soft than sleep, and 
 the green arbute-tree that covers you with its thin shade, 
 ward off the midsummer heat from my flock ; now scorching 
 summer comes, now the buds swell on the fruitful tendrils. 
 
 T. Here is a glowing hearth, and resinous torches ; here is 
 always a great fire, and lintels sooted with continual smoke. 
 Here we just as much regard the cold of Boreas, 8 as either 
 the wolf does the number [of sheep], or impetuous rivers 
 their banks. 
 
 C. Junipers and prickly chestnuts stand thick ; 9 beneath 
 each tree its apples here and there lie strewn ; now all things 
 smile ; but, were fair Alexis to go from these hills, you would 
 see even the rivers dry. 
 
 T. The field is parched ; by the intemperature of the air 
 the dying herbage thirsts ; Bacchus has envied our hills the 
 shadow of his vine; [but,] at the approach of our Phyllis, 
 every grove shall look green, and Jove abundantly descend in 
 joyous showers. 
 
 C. The poplar is most grateful to Hercules, 10 the vine to 
 Bacchus, to lovely Venus 11 the myrtle, to Phoebus his own 
 laurel ; Phyllis loves the hazels : so long as Phyllis loves 
 them, neither the myrtle nor the laurel of Phoebus shall sur- 
 pass the hazels. 
 
 T. The ash is fairest in the woods, the pine in the gardens," 
 the poplar by the rivers, the fir on lofty mountains : but if, 
 my charming Lycidas, you make me more frequent visits, the 
 ash in the woods shall yield to thee, and the pine in the 
 gardens. 
 
 8 Boreas, the name of the north wind. According to the ancient poets, 
 Borsas was the son of Astraeus and Aurora. 
 
 9 Anthon rightly observes that this is the force of " stant." So Luta- 
 tius Placidus on Stat. Theb. x. 157, interprets "stat furor," by "plenus 
 est," quoting this line as an example. B. 
 
 10 Hercules, the most celebrated hero of fabulous history, the son of 
 Jupiter and Alcmena, was, after a life spent in achieving the most in- 
 credible exploits, ranked among the gods, and received divine honours. 
 
 11 Venus, a principal deity among the ancients, the goddess of love 
 and beauty. She was the wife of Vulcan, but passionately loved Adonip 
 and Anchises; bv the latter she became the mother of iEneas. 
 
:<jl. vil. 69, 70. vni. 1—21 BUCOLICS. 23 
 
 M. These verses I remember, and that vanquished Thyrsi s 
 in vain contended. From that time Corydon, Corydon i? 
 our man. 
 
 ECLOGUE VIII. 
 
 This Bucolic contains the strains of Damon for the loss of his mistress; and 
 Alphesibceus records the charms of an enchantress. 
 
 Damon, Alphesibceus. 
 
 The muse of the shepherds, Damon and Alphesiboeus, whom 
 the heifers, unmindful of their pasture, admired contending, 
 and by whose song the lynxes were astonished, and the rivers, 
 having changed their courses, stood still ; the muse of Damon 
 and Alphesiboeus I sing. - 
 
 Whether thou art now passing for me l over the rocks of 
 broad Timavus, 2 or cruising along the coast of the Illyrian 
 Sea ; 3 say, will that day ever come, when I shall be indulged 
 to sing thy deeds ? say, shall it come that I may be indulged 
 to diffuse over the world thy verses, which alone merit com- 
 parison with Sophocles' 4 lofty style ? With thee my muse 
 commenced ; with thee shall end. Accept my songs begun 
 by thy command, and permit this ivy to creep around thy 
 temples among thy victorious laurels. 
 
 Scarce had the cold shades of night retired from the sky, a 
 time when the dew on the tender grass is most grateful to the 
 cattle, when Damon, leaning against a tapering olive, thus 
 began : — 
 
 D. Arise, Lucifer, 5 and preceding usher in the cheerful 
 day ; while I, deceived by the feigned passion of my mistress 
 Nisa, complain ; and to the gods, now that I die, (though I 
 have availed me nought in taking them to witness,) yet in my 
 last hour appeal. Begin with me, my pipe, Maenalian strains. 
 
 1 " Mihi " is the dativus ethicus. B. 
 
 2 Timavus, the Timavo, a river of Italy, rising at the foot of the Alps 
 and falling into the gulf of Trieste. At its mouth are several small islands 
 containing hot springs. 
 
 3 Illyrian Sea, the Adriatic Sea between Italy and Dalmatia, &c. 
 
 4 Sophocles, a celebrated tragic poet of Athens, remarkable for sub- 
 limity of style. He was contemporary with Pericles and Euripides, and 
 died b. c. 406. 
 
 5 Lucifer, the name of the planet Venus, or morning star ; as Hesperur, 
 was of the same planet, or evening star. 
 
^4 BUCOLICS. ecl. viii. 22- 51. 
 
 Masnalus 6 always has a vocal grove and shaking pines; he 
 ever hears the loves of shepherds, and Pan, the first who suf- 
 fered not the reeds to be 7 neglected. Begin with me, my 
 pipe, Masnalian strains. Nisa is bestowed on Mopsus ! what 
 may we lovers not expect ? Griffins now shall match with 
 horses, and in the succeeding age the timorous does with dogs 
 shall come to drink. Mopsus, cut your fresh nuptial torches : 
 for thee a wife is on the point of being brought home. Strew 
 the nuts, 8 bridegroom ; Hesperus for thee forsakes GEta. 9 
 Begin with me, my pipe, Masnalian strains. O thou matched 
 to a worthy spouse ! while you disdain all others, and while 
 you detest my pipe and goats, my shaggy eye-brows, and my 
 overgrown beard ; nor believe that any god regards the affairs 
 of mortals. Begin with me, my pipe, Masnalian strains. 
 When thou wast but a child, I saw thee with thy mother 
 gathering the dewy apples on our hedges ; I was your guide ; 
 I had then just entered on the year next after eleven, I was 
 then just able to reach the slender boughs from the ground. 
 As soon as I saw thee, how was I undone ! how ah evil 
 error bore me away ! Begin with me, my pipe, Masnalian 
 strains. Now I know what Love is : Ismarus, or Rhodope, or 
 the remotest Garamantes, 10 produced him on rugged cliffs, a 
 boy not of our race or blood. Begin with me, my pipe, Mas- 
 nalian strains. Relentless Love taught the mother 11 to stain 
 her hands in her own children's blood ; a cruel mother too thou 
 wast : whether more cruel was the mother or more impious 
 the boy? Impious was the boy: thou, mother, too, wast 
 cruel. Begin with me, my pipe, Masnalian strains. Now let 
 
 6 Msenalus, now Roino, a mountain of Arcadia in Greece, sacred to 
 Pan. It was covered with pine trees. 
 
 7 "Esse" is elegantly omitted after such words as "pati," "sinere," 
 &c. Nemes. Cyn. 70, " Omnia tentantem passi." Apul. de Deo Socr. 
 " Sejugam veluti debilem passa est." Seneca, Ined. 182, " Quemve secu- 
 rum sinit." Virg. ^En. i. 389, "Nee plura querentem Passa Venus." B 
 
 8 On this custom compare Catull. Epith. p. 98. Muret. *' Da nucis 
 pueris iners Concubine, satis diu Lucisti nucibus." B. 
 
 9 GSta, a celebrated mountain, or, more properly, chain of mountains, 
 between Thessaly and Greece Proper. It was so high, that the poets 
 feigned the sun, moon, and stars rose behind it. 
 
 10 Garamantes, a people in the interior of Africa, now called Zaara. 
 
 11 Matrem. This cruel mother is Medea, who, to be avenged on Jason 
 for preferring another mistress to her, slew her sons whom she bore to 
 him, before his eyes. 
 
ecl. viii. 52-84. BUCOLICS. 25 
 
 the wolf of himself fly from the sheep ; the hard oaks bear 
 golden apples ; the alder bloom with narcissus ; the tamarisks 
 distil rich amber from their barks ; let owls with swans con- 
 tend ; be Tityrus an Orpheus ; an Orpheus in the woods, an 
 Arion 12 among the dolphins. Begin with me, my pipe, Mae- 
 nalian strains. Let all things become very mid ocean ; ye 
 woods, farewell. From the summit of yon aerial mountain 
 will I throw myself headlong into the waves : take this last 
 present from me dying. Cease, my pipe, now cease Maena- 
 lian strains. 
 
 Thus Damon : ye Pierian muses, say what Alphesiboeus 
 sung. We cannot all do all things. 
 
 A. Bring forth the water, and bind these altars with a soft 
 fillet: burn thereon oily vervain and male 13 frankincense, 
 that I may try, by sacred magic spells, to dispossess my love 
 of a sound mind. Only charms are here wanting. My charms, 
 bring Daphnis from the town, bring him home. Charms 
 can even draw down the moon from heaven ; by charms 
 Circe 14 transformed the companions of Ulysses : the cold snake 
 is in the meads by incantation burst. My charms, bring 
 Daphnis from the town, bring him home. First, these 
 three threads, with threefold colours varied, I round thee 
 twine ; and thrice lead thy image round these altars. The 
 gods delight in the uneven number. My charms, bring 
 Daphnis from the town, bring him home. Bind, Amaryllis, 
 three colours in three knots ; bind them. Amaryllis, now ; 
 and say, I bind the chains of Venus. My charms, bring 
 Daphnis from the town, bring him home. As this clay 
 hardens, and as this wax dissolves with one and the same fire ; 
 so may Daphnis by my love. Sprinkle the salt cake, and 
 burn the crackling laurels in bitumen. Me cruel Daphnis 
 burns ; I on Daphnis burn this laurel. My charms, bring 
 Daphnis from the town, bring him home. May such love 
 
 12 Arion, a famous lyric poet and musician of the isle of Lesbos. On 
 his return to Corinth from Italy, the mariners'formed a plot to murder him 
 for his riches, when he threw himself into the sea, and was carried on the 
 back of a dolphin to Taenarus in the Morea. 
 
 13 i. e. frankincense of the best sort. 
 
 14 Circe, a daughter of Sol and Perseis, celebrated for her knowledge 
 of magic and poisonous herbs. She changed the companions of Ulysses 
 into swine ; but afterwards, at his solicitation, restored them to their for- 
 mer state. 
 
'^6 BUCOLICS. lcl. viii. 85—109. ix. 1. 
 
 [seize] Daphnis as when a heifer, tired with ranging after the 
 bull through lawns and lofty groves, distracted, lies down on 
 the green sedge by a rivulet, nor is mindful to withdraw from 
 the late hour of night : let such love seize Daphnis ; nor let 
 his cure be my concern. My charms, bring Daphnis from the 
 town, bring him home. These garments the faithless one left 
 with me some time ago, the dear pledges of himself; which 
 to thee, O earth, on the very entrance, I now commit : these 
 pledges owe me Daphnis. My charms, bring Daphnis from 
 the town, bring him home. These herbs, and these baneful 
 plants, in Pontus 15 gathered, Moeris himself gave me : in Pon- 
 tus numerous they grow. By these have I seen Moeris trans- 
 form himself into a wolf, and skulk into the woods, often from 
 the deep graves call forth the ghosts, and transfer the spring- 
 ing harvests to another ground. My charms, bring Daphnis 
 from the town, bring him home. Bring forth the ashes, 
 Amaryllis ; throw them into a flowing brook, 16 and over thy 
 head ; look not back. Daphnis with these I will assail : 
 nought he regards the gods, nought my charms. My charms, 
 bring Daphnis from the town, bring him home. See the very 
 ashes have spontaneously seized the altars with quivering 
 flames, while I delay to remove them may it be a happy omen. 
 'Tis certainly something or other ; and Hylax 17 in the entrance 
 barks. Can I believe ? or do those in love form to them- 
 selves fantastic dreams ? Cease ; for Daphnis comes from the 
 town ; now cease, my charms. 
 
 ECLOGUE IX. 
 
 Virgil, having recovered his patrimony through the favour of Augustus, 
 devotes this pastoral to complain against Arius the centurion, who had 
 possession of his lands, and laid a plan for his assassination. 
 
 Ltcidas, Mceris. 
 L. Whither, Moeris, do thy feet [lead] l thee ? are you for 
 the town, whither the way leads ? 
 
 15 Pontus, a country of Asia Minor, bordering on the Euxine : it was 
 the kingdom of Mithridates the Great. 
 
 16 Rivoque fluenti, the same as in rivum fmentem, of which construc- 
 tion many examples occur in Virgil. See J&n. i. 293 ; ii. 250 ; v. 451 • 
 vi. 191 ; viii. 591 ; ix. 664 ; xii. 263. 
 
 17 Hylax, the name of a dog. 
 
 1 Supply " ducunt " from the following " ducit." B. 
 
ecl. ix. 2-32. BUCOLICS. 27 
 
 M. Ah, Lycidas, we have lived to see the day when an 
 alien possessor of my little farm (what we never apprehend- 
 ed) may say : These are mine ; old tenants, begone. Now 
 vanquished and disconsolate, since fortune confounds all 
 things, to him I convey these kids, of which I wish him little 
 good. 
 
 L. Surely, I heard that your Menalcas had saved by his 
 verse all that ground where the hills begin to decline, and by 
 an easy declension to sink down their ridges as far as the 
 stream and now broken tops of the old beech. 
 
 M. Thou heardst it, Lycidas, and it was reported; 2 but 
 our verse just as much avails amid martial arms, as they say 
 the Chaonian 3 pigeons do, when the eagle comes upon them. 
 But had not the ill-boding raven, from a hollow holm-oak, 
 warned me by any means to cut short the rising dispute, 
 neither your Moeris here, nor Menalcas himself, had been 
 alive. 
 
 L. Alas, is any one capable of so great wickedness ? Alas, 
 Menalcas, the charms of thy poetry were almost snatched from 
 us with thyself ! Who [then] had sung the nymphs ? who 
 with flowering herbs had strewn the ground, or covered with 
 verdant shade the springs ? or who [had sung] those songs 
 which lately I secretly stole from you, when you used to re- 
 sort to our darling Amaryllis ? " Feed, Tityrus, my goats till 
 I return, short is the way ; and when they are fed, drive 
 them, Tityrus, to watering ; and while you are so doing, be- 
 ware of meeting the he-goat : he butts with the horn." 
 
 M. Nay, rather these, which to Varus, and yet unfinished, 
 he sung : " Varus, the tuneful swans shall raise thy name- 
 aloft to the stars, if Mantua remain but in our possession ; 
 Mantua, alas, too near unfortunate Cremona!" 4 
 
 L. If thou retainest any, begin ; so may thy swarms avoid 
 Cyrnean yews: 5 so may thy heifers, fed with cytisus, dis- 
 
 2 I, however, prefer putting a note of interrogation after " audieras," 
 with Wagner. B. 
 
 3 Chaonian pigeons. Chaonia was a mountainous part of Epirus, in 
 which was the sacred grove of Dodona, where pigeons were said to deli- 
 ver oracles. 
 
 4 Cremona, a city of Italy on the northern bank of the Po. Its lands 
 were divided among the veteran soldiers of Augustus. 
 
 5 Cyrnean yews. Cyrnus, now Corsica, an island in the Mediterra- 
 nean, near the coast of Italy. The honey produced here had a bittes 
 
28 BUCOLICS. ecl. ix. 32—59 
 
 tend their dugs. The Muses have also made me a poet : I 
 too have my verses ; and the shepherds call me bard : but to 
 them I give no credit : for as yet methinks I sing nothing 
 worthy of a Varus or a Cinna, 6 but only gabble like 7 a goose 
 among sonorous swans. 
 
 M. That very thing, Lycidas, is what I am about ; and now 
 con it over in silence with myself, if I can recollect it : nor is 
 it a vulgar song. " Come hither, Galatea : for what pleasure 
 have you among the waves ? Here is blooming spring ; here, 
 about the rivers, earth pours forth her various flowers ; here 
 the white poplar overhangs the grotto, and the limber vines 
 weave shady bowers. Come hither : leave the mad billows to 
 buffet the shores." 
 
 L. [But] what were those which I heard you singing in a 
 clear night alone ? I remember the air, if I could recollect the 
 words. 
 
 M. Daphnis, why gaze you on the risings of the signs of 
 ancient date ? Lo, Dionasan Caesar's 8 star hath entered on its 
 course ; the star by which the fields were to rejoice with corn, 
 and by which the grapes on sunny hills were to take their hue. 
 Daphnis, plant thy pear-trees. Posterity shall pluck the fruit 
 of thy plantations. Age bears away all things, even the mind 
 itself. Often, I remember, when a boy, I spent long summer- 
 days in song. Now all these songs I have forgotten ; now the 
 voice itself has left Moeris ; the wolves have seen Moeris first. 9 
 But these Menalcas himself will often recite to you. 
 
 L. By framing excuses thou puttest off for a long time my 
 fond desire. And now the whole main for thee lies smooth 
 and still ; and mark how every whispering breeze of wind hath 
 died away. Besides, half of our journey still remains: for 
 
 taste, in consequence of the bees feeding on the yew trees, with which 
 the island abounded. 
 
 6 Cinna, a grandson of Pompey, the intimate friend of Augustus, and 
 patron of Virgil. 
 
 7 The poet puns upon the name of Anser, a contemporary poet. The 
 saying seems proverbial; as in Symmachus, Ep. i. 1, " Licet inter olores 
 canoros anserem strepere." B. 
 
 9 Dionaei Csesaris. Caesar of the Julian family, which sprung from 
 /Eneas the son of Venus, whom Mythology makes the daughter of Jupiter 
 and Dione. 
 
 Lupi Moerim videre priores. Alluding to a superstitious notion, that, i' 
 a wolf saw a man before it was seen by him, it made him lose his voice 
 
ecl. ix. 60-67. x. 1—12. BUCOLICS. 29 
 
 Bianor's 10 tomb begins to appear. Here, where the swains are 
 stripping off the thick leaves, here, Moeris, let us sing. Here 
 lay down your kids ; yet we shall reach the town. Or if we 
 are afraid that the night may gather rain before [we arrive], 
 yet we may still go on singing ; the way will be less tedious. 
 That we may go on singing, I will ease you of this burden. 
 
 M. Shepherd, urge me no more ; and let us mind the busi- 
 ness now in hand. We shall sing those tunes to more advan- 
 tage when [Menalcas] himself arrives. 
 
 ECLOGUE X. 
 
 Gallus, to whom this Eclogue is inscribed, was the patron of Virgil, a soldier 
 and a poet. He was greatly enamoured of Cytheris, whom he calls Ly- 
 coris, celebrated for her beauty and intrigues ; but she forsook him for 
 Mark Antony, by whom she was in turn abandoned for Cleopatra. 
 
 Gallus. 
 
 Grant unto me, O Arethusa, 1 this last essay. A few 
 verses, but such as Lycoris herself may read, I must sing to 
 my Gallus. Who can deny a verse to Gallus? So, when 
 thou glidest beneath the Sicilian wave, may the salt Doris 2 
 not intermingle her streams [with thine]. Begin : let us sing 
 the anxious loves of Gallus, while the flat-nosed goats browse 
 the tender shrubs. We sing not to the deaf ; the woods re- 
 ply to all. What groves, ye virgin Naiads, or what lawns 
 detained you, while Gallus pined 3 with ill-requited love? for 
 neither any of the tops of Parnassus, nor those of Pindus, 4 
 nor Aonian Aganippe, did retard you. The very laurels, the 
 very tamarisks bemoaned him: even pine-topped Maenalus 
 [bemoaned] him as he lay beneath a lonely rock, and over 
 
 10 "The same as Ocnus, of whom Virgil says in the tenth Eclogue, Fa- 
 tidiccB Ma?itus, et Thusci films Amnis. He was the founder o£ Mantua." 
 Servius. B. 
 
 1 Arethusa, the nymph who presided over the fountain of the same 
 name in Sicily. 
 
 2 Doris, a sea nymph, the mother of the Nereids ; here used to express 
 the sea itself. Naiads, nymphs, — goddesses who presided over rivers 
 and fountains. 
 
 * Observe that " periret " is used to express the traiceTo, i. e. " wasted 
 away," ofTheocr. i. 66. B. 
 
 4 Pindus, a mountain between Thessaly and Epirus, sacred to Apollo 
 and the Muses. Aonian Aganippe, a celebrated fountain of Bceotia, o/ 
 vhich Aonia was a district. 
 
30 BUCOLICS. ecl. x. 13-47 
 
 him tlie stones of cold Lycseus 5 wept. His sheep too stand 
 around him, nor are they ashamed of us ; nor, divine poet, be 
 thou ashamed of thy flock ; even fair Adonis 6 tended sheep 
 by the streams. The shepherd too came up ; the slow-paced 
 herdsmen came ; Menalcas came wet from winter-mast. All 
 question whence this thy love? Apollo came: Gallus, he 
 says, why ravest thou thy care ? 7 Lycoris is following another 
 through snows and horrid camps.. Silvanus 8 too came up 
 with rural honours on his head, waving the flowering fennels 
 and big lilies. Pan, the god of Arcadia, came; whom we 
 ourselves beheld stained with the elder's purple berries and 
 vermilion. What bounds, he says, will you set [to mourning] ? 
 Love regards not such matters. Nor cruel love with tears, 
 nor grassy meads with streams, nor bees with cytisus, nor 
 goats with leaves, are satisfied. But he, overwhelmed witL 
 grief, said, Yet 9 you, Arcadians, shall sing these my woes on 
 your mountains ; ye Arcadians, alone skilled in song. Oh how 
 softly then may my bones rest, if your pipe in future times 
 shall sing my loves ! And would to heaven I had been one 
 of you, and either keeper of your flock, or vintager of the 
 ripe grape ! Sure whether Phyllis or Amyntas, or whoever 
 else, had been my love, (what though Amyntas be swarthy ? 
 the violet is black, and hyacinths are black,) they would have 
 reposed with me among the willows under the limber vine ; 
 Phyllis had gathered garlands for me, Amyntas would have 
 sung. Here are cool fountains ; here, Lycoris, soft meads, 
 here a grove : here with thee I could consume my whole life 
 away. Now frantic love detains me in the service of rigid 
 Mars, in the midst of darts, and adverse foes. Thou, far from 
 thy native land, (let me not believe it,) beholdest nothing 
 but Alpine snows, 10 and the colds of the Rhine, ah, hard- 
 
 5 Lycaeus, a mountain of Arcadia, sacred to Jupiter, and also to Pan. 
 
 6 Adonis, a youth, the favourite of Venus : having lost his life by the 
 bite of a wild boar, he was changed into the flower Anemone. 
 
 7 ^Esch. Choeph. 233, <b cpiXarov fikXrjfjLa (i. e. "cura") dujfiaaiv 7ra- 
 Tpog. B. 
 
 6 Silvanus, a rural deity among the Romans, who presided over woods. 
 
 9 But Nonius Marcell. i. s. v. triste est mcestum, connects " tamen " 
 with "ille," which I should almost prefer, the sense being, "But ho 
 (despite all that even Pan could say) yet replied," &c. B. 
 
 10 Alpine snows. The Alps are a chain of mountains, the highest iu 
 Europe, separating Italy from France, Switzerland, and Austria. The 
 
ecl. x. 48— 77. BUCOLICS. 31 
 
 hearted one ! alone, without me. Ah, may neither these colds 
 hurt thee ! ah, may not the sharp ice wound thy tender feet ! 
 I will go, and warble on the Sicilian shepherd's reed those 
 songs which are by me composed in Chalcidian strain. 11 I 
 am resolved, rather to endure [my passion] in the woods, 
 among the dens of wild beasts, and to inscribe my loves upon 
 the tender trees : as they grow up, so you, my loves, will grow. 
 Meanwhile, in company with the nymphs, over Msenalus will 
 I range, or hunt the fierce boars. No colds shall hinder me 
 from traversing with my hounds the Parthenian lawns 12 around. 
 Now over rocks and resounding groves methinks I roam : 
 pleased I am to shoot Cydonian shafts from the Parthian bow : 
 [Fool that I am !] as if these were a cure for the rage of love ; 
 or as if that god could learn to be softened by human woes. 
 Now, neither the nymphs of the groves, nor songs themselves, 
 charm me any more : even ye woods, once more farewell. No 
 suffering can change him, though amidst frosts we drink of 
 Hebrus, 13 and undergo the Sithonian snows 41 of rainy winter ; 
 or even if we should tend our flocks in Ethiopia, 15 beneath the 
 sign of Cancer, when the dying rind withers on the stately elm. 
 Love conquers all ; 16 and let us yield to love. These strains, 
 ye divine Muses, it shall suffice your poet to have sung, while 
 he sat and wove his little basket of slender osiers : these you 
 will make acceptable, to Gallus ; to Gallus, for whom my love 
 grows as much every hour, as the green alder shoots up in the 
 infancy of spring. Let us arise : the shade is wont to prove 
 noxious to singers ; the juniper's shade now grows noxious ; 
 the shades are hurtful even to the corn. Go home, the even- 
 ing star arises, my full-fed goats, go home. 
 
 Rhine, a celebrated river which rises in the Alps, and, after a course of 
 600 miles, discharges itself into the German Ocean. 
 
 11 Chalcidian strain, that is, in the elegiac strain of Euphorion, a Gree>' 
 poet of Chalcis in Euboea. 
 
 12 Parthenian lawns. Parthenius was a mountain of Arcadia, foi 
 which it is here used ; as Cydonian shafts is used for Cretan darts, — Cy- 
 don being a city of Crete. 
 
 13 The cold of the Hebrus in Thrace was celebrated, as we find from 
 Philippus in Anthol. p. 47, "E/3oov Oprj'iKiov Kpv/ji(f TreTredrjfikvov vdojp. B. 
 
 14 Sithonian snows, from Sithonia, a part of Thrace. 
 
 15 Ethiopia, an extensive country of Africa: by the ancients, this name 
 was applied to modern Abyssinia, and the southern regions of Africa. 
 
 16 Heyne finds fault with the abruptness of this passage, but An thou 
 well remarks, that ''this line is meant to express a return to a soundci 
 mind. 5 * B. 
 
VIRGIL'S GEORGICS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Vbh admirable Poem was undertaken at the particular request of that great 
 patron of poetry, Maecenas, to whom it is dedicated, and has justly been 
 esteemed the most perfect and finished of Virgil's works. Of the Four 
 Books of which it consists, the First treats of ploughing and preparing the 
 ground ; the Second, of sowing and planting ; the Third, of the manage* 
 ment of cattle, &c. ; and the Fourth gives an account of bees, and of the 
 manner of keeping them among the Romans. 
 
 What makes the harvests joyous ; under what sign, Maecenas, 
 it is proper to turn the earth and join the vines to elms ; what 
 is the care for kine, the nurture for breeding sheep ; l and 
 how much experience for managing the frugal bees ; hence 
 will I begin to sing. Ye brightest lights 2 of the world, that 
 lead the year gliding along the sky ; Bacchus and fostering 
 Ceres, if by your gift mortals exchanged the Chaonian acorn 
 for fattening ears of corn, and mingled draughts of Achelous 3 
 with the invented juice of the grape ; and ye Fauns propitious 
 to swains, ye Fauns and Virgin Dryads, advance your foot in 
 tune : your bounteous gifts I sing. And thou, O Neptune, to 
 whom the earth, struck with thy mighty trident, first poured 
 forth the neighing steed ; and thou, tenant of the groves, for 
 whom three hundred snow-white bullocks crop Csea's 4 fertile 
 
 1 Pecori. Pecus here, as opposed to boves, signifies the lesser cattle, 
 as sheep and goats, but especially sheep ; as the word, I think, always 
 signifies in Virgil when it stands by itself. See Eel. i. 75; iii. 1, 20, 34; 
 y. 87. Georg. ii. 371. 
 
 2 Vos, 6. clarissima mundi, &c. Varro, in his seventh book of Agricul- 
 ture, invocates the sun and moon, then Bacchus and Ceres, as Virgil 
 does here : which sufficiently confutes those who take the words, vos, 6 
 clarissima lumina, to be meant of Bacchus and Ceres. 
 
 3 Achelous, (Aspro Potamo,) a river of Epirus in Greece, r said by some 
 to have been the first river that sprung from the earth after the deluge ; 
 hence it was frequently put by the ancients, as it is here, for water. 
 Davidson. Servius observes, " Acheloum generaliter, propter antiquita- 
 tetn fluminis, omnem aquam veteres vocabant." B. 
 
 4 Caea, (Zea,) an island in the Archipelago, one of the Cyclades. 
 
b. l 1S-4S, GEORGICS. 33 
 
 thickets : thou too, Pan, guardian of the sheep, Tegeaean 5 
 god, if thy own Maenalus be thy care, draw nigh propitious, 
 leaving thy native grove, and the dells of Lycaeus : and thou 
 Minerva, inventress of the olive ; and thou, O boy, teacher of 
 the crooked plough ; and thou, Sylvanus, bearing a tender 
 cypress plucked up by the root : both gods and goddesses all, 
 whose province it is to guard the fields ; both ye who nourish 
 the infant fruits from no seed, and ye who on the sown fruits 
 send down the abundant shower from heaven. 
 
 And thou too, Caesar, whom it is yet uncertain what 
 councils of the gods are soon to have ; whether thou wilt 
 vouchsafe to visit cities, and [undertake] the care of countries, 
 and the widely extended globe receive thee, giver of the 
 fruits, and ruler of the seasons, binding thy temples with thy 
 mother's myrtle : or whether thou comest, god of the unmea- 
 sured ocean, and mariners worship thy divinity alone ; 
 whether remotest Thule 6 is to be subject to thee, and Tethys 7 
 to purchase thee for her son-in-law with all her waves ; or 
 whether thou wilt join thyself to the slow months, a new con- 
 stellation, where space lies open between Erigone and the 
 [Scorpion's] pursuing claws: the fiery Scorpion himself al- 
 ready contracts his arms and leaves for thee more than an 
 equal proportion of the sky. Whatever thou wilt be, (for let 
 not Tartarus 8 expect thee for its king, nor let such dire lust of 
 sway once be thine ; though Greece admires her Elysian fields, 
 and Proserpine, 9 redemanded, is not inclined to follow her 
 mother,) grant me an easy course, and favour my adventurous 
 enterprise ; and pitying with me the swains who are strangers 
 to their way, commence [the god], and accustom thyself even 
 now to be invoked by prayers. « 
 
 In early spring, when melted snows glide down from the 
 
 5 Tegesean god. Pan is so called, from Tegea, a town of Arcadia, in 
 Greece, which was sacred to him. 
 
 6 Thule, an island in the most northern parts of the German Ocean, to 
 which the ancients gave the epithet of Ultima. Some suppose that it is 
 the island of Iceland, or part of Greenland, while others imagine it to be 
 the Shetland Isles. 
 
 7 Tethys, the chief of the sea-deities, was the wife of Oceanus. The 
 v ord is often used by the poets to express the sea. 
 
 8 Tartarus, the infernal regions, where, according to the ancients, the 
 most impious and guilty among mankind were punished. 
 
 9 Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, and wife of Pluto, who stole hei 
 away as she was gathering flowers in the plains of Enna in Sicil v. 
 
 D 
 
34 GEORGICS. b. i. 44—67. 
 
 hoary bills, and the crumbling glebe unbinds itself by the 
 zephyr ; then let my steer begin to groan under the deep- 
 pressed plough, and the share worn by the furrow [begin] to 
 glitter. That field at last answers the wishes of the covetous 
 farmer, which twice hath felt the sun, twice the cold, 10 har- 
 vests immense are wont to burst his barns. 
 * But, before we cleave an unknown plain with the plough- 
 share, let it be our care previously to learn the winds, and 
 various character of the climate, the ways of culture practised 
 by our forefathers, and the tillage and habits of the soil ; 
 what each country is apt to produce, and what to refuse. 
 Here grain, there grapes, more happily grow ; nurseries of 
 trees elsewhere, and herbs spontaneous bloom. Do not you 
 see, how Tmolus u sends saffron odours, India ivory, the soft 
 Sabseans their frankincense ? But the naked 12 Chalybes [send] 
 steel, Pontus strong-scented castor, Epirus 13 the prime of the 
 Olympic mares. These laws and eternal conditions nature 
 from the beginning imposed on certain places : what time 
 Deucalion first cast stones into the unpeopled world, whence 
 men, a hardy race, sprang up. Come then, let your sturdy 
 steers forthwith turn up a soil that is rich for the first month 
 of the year ; and let the dusty summer bake the scattered clods 
 with mature suns. But, if the land be not fertile, it will be 
 
 10 Anthon observes, " The usual custom of the Roman farmers was to 
 plough the land three times, when it fell under the denomination of hard 
 land. The first ploughing was in the spring, the second in the summer, 
 the third in autumn (tertiabatur, Colum. ii. 4). In this way the ground 
 was exposed twice to the heat of the sun, and once to the frost. If, how- 
 ever, the soil was unusually hard and stubborn, a fourth ploughing took 
 place at the end of autumn or beginning of winter; and it is to such a 
 process that the poet here alludes, the land having thus, in the course of 
 its four upturnings with the plough, twice felt the sun and twice the cold." 
 
 11 Tmolus, a mountain of Lydia, in Asia Minor, abounding in vines, 
 saffron, &c. Sabaeans, the inhabitants of Saba, a town of Arabia, famous 
 for frankincense, myrrh, and aromatic plants. Chalybes, a people of 
 Pontus, in Asia Minor ; their country abounded in iron mines. 
 
 12 If "nudi" be correct, Virgil must speak of the Chalys only as 
 lightly clad, (leviter vestiti,) as in his direction to husbandmen " to 
 plough and sow naked." But although this would be a very proper 
 way of speaking among people acquainted with this limitation of mean- 
 ing, yet it seems scarcely an apt epithet for a barbarian tribe, dwelling in 
 a cold region. Some years since, I proposed to read " duri." See the 
 supplement to my notes on Apul. de Deo Socr. B. 
 
 11 Epirus, (Albania,) a country of Greece, famous for its fine breed of 
 horses. 
 
b. i. 68-06. GEORGICS. oO 
 
 enough to raise it up^vith a light furrow, even towards the 
 rising of Arcturus : M in the former case, lest weeds obstruct 
 the joyous corn ; in the latter, lest the scanty moisture for- 
 sake the barren sandy soil. 
 
 You will likewise suffer your lands after reaping to lie fal- 
 low every other year, and the exhausted field to harden by 
 repose. Or, changing the season, you will sow there yellow 
 wheat, whence before you have taken up the joyful pulse, 
 with rustling pods, or the vetch's slender offspring and the 
 bitter lupine's brittle stalks, and rustling grove. For a crop 
 of flax burns 15 the land: as burn the oats and poppies im- 
 pregnated with Lethean sleep. 16 But yet your labour will be 
 easy [even though you should sow these kinds of grain] every 
 other year, provided only you be not backward to saturate 
 the parched soil with rich dung, or to scatter sordid ashes 
 upon the exhausted lands : thus, too, your land will rest by 
 changing the grain. Nor, in the mean time, will there be 
 ungratefulness. 
 
 Often, too, it has been of use to set fire to barren lands, and 
 burn the light stubble in crackling flames : whether the land 
 thence receives secret strength and rich nourishment from a 
 field left fallow ; or whether every vicious quality is exhaled 
 by the fire and the superfluous moisture sweats off; or whe- 
 ther the heat opens more passages, and secret pores, through 
 which the sap may come to the tender blades ; or whether it 
 hardens more, and binds the gaping veins ; that the small 
 showers, or keen influence of the violent sun, or penetrating 
 cold of Boreas, may not parch it up. 
 
 He, too, greatly benefits the land, who breaks the sluggish 
 clods with harrows, and drags osier hurdles over them, (nor 
 does yellow Ceres view him from high Olympus, 17 to no 
 
 14 Arcturus, a star near the tail of Ursa Major, whose rising and set- 
 ting was supposed to portend great tempests. In the time of Virgil, it 
 rose about the middle of September. 
 
 15 i. e. exhausts. Virgil does not forbid the sowing of flax and poppies, 
 but explains that, from their exhausting nature, they are bad crops in 
 rotation after wheat. So Anthon. B . 
 
 16 Lethsean sleep. Lethe was one of the rivers of hell, whose waters 
 had the power of causing forgetfulness. 
 
 17 Olympus, a lofty mountain on the confines of Thessaly and Mace- 
 donia, separated from Ossa by the vale of Tempe. The ancients sup- 
 posed that it touched the heavens with its top, and on that account the 
 poets made it the residence of the gods. 
 
36 GEOftGICS. B. i. 97—130. 
 
 purpose,) and he also who, after the plain has been torn, again 
 breaks through the land ; that raises up its ridges, turning 
 the plough across, 18 and gives it, frequent exercise and rules 
 his lands imperiously. 
 
 Pray, ye swains, for moist summers and serene winters. 
 In winter's dust most joyful is the corn, joyful is the field. 
 On no culture does Mysia 19 so much pride herself, and [hence] 
 even G-argarus admires his own harvest. 
 
 What shall I say of him, who, immediately after sowing 
 the seed, presses on the lands, and levels the heaps of barren 
 sand ; then on the sown corn drives the stream and ductile 
 rills ? and when the field is scorched with raging heat, the 
 herbs all dying, lo ! from the brow of a hilly tract he decoys 
 the torrent; which falling down the smooth rocks, awakes 
 the hoarse murmur, and with gurgling streams allays the 
 thirsty lands. 
 
 What of him who, lest the stalk with over-loaded ears bend 
 to the ground, feeds down the luxuriance of the crop in the 
 tender blade, when first the springing corn equals the fur- 
 rows ; and who drains from soaking sand the collected mois- 
 ture of the marsh, chiefly when, in the changeable months, the 
 swelling river overflows, and overspreads all around with slimy 
 mud, whence the hollow dykes sweat with tepid vapour ? 
 
 After all, (when the labours of men and oxen have tried 
 these expedients in cultivating the ground,) the voracious 
 goose, the Strymonian 20 cranes, and succory with its bitter 
 roots, and even the shades are in some degree injurious. The 
 Sire himself willed the ways of tillage not to be easy, and first 
 aroused the fields by art, whetting the skill of mortals with 
 care ; nor suffered he his reign to lie inactive in heavy sloth. 
 Before Jove, no husbandmen subdued the fields ; nor was it 
 even lawful to mark out, or by limits divide the ground. 
 They made all things common gain, and earth of herself pro- 
 duced every thing freely without any one asking. He infused 
 the noxious poison into the horrid serpent, commanded the 
 wolves to prowl, and the sea to be stirred ; and he shook the 
 
 18 A description of " cross-ploughing." B. 
 
 19 Mysia, a country of Asia Minor, bordering on Troas. Gargarus. a 
 mountain, or rather a part of Mount Ida, in Troas. 
 
 20 Strymonian cranes. Strymon, a river of Macedonia, the ancient 
 boundary between that eoantry and Thrace. 
 
B. I. 131—164. GEORGICS. 37 
 
 honey from the leaves, removed fire, and restrained the wine 
 that ran commonly in rivulets ; that experience, by dint of 
 thought, might gradually hammer out the various arts, in 
 furrows seek the blade of corn, and from the veins of flint 
 strike out the hidden fire. Then first the rivers felt the ex- 
 cavated alders ; then the seamen gave the stars their numbers 
 and their names, the Pleiades, 21 Hyades, and the bright 
 bear of Lycaon. Then were invented [the arts of] catching 
 wild beasts in toils, deceiving with birdlime, and encom- 
 passing the spacious lawns with hounds. And now one seek- 
 ing the depths, lashes the broad river with his casting-net ; 
 and on the sea another drags his humid lines along. Then 
 [arose] the rigid force of steel, and the flat blade of the grating 
 saw (for the first mortals cleft the splitting wood with wedges) ; 
 then various arts ensued. Incessant labour and want, in hard- 
 ships pressing, surmounted every obstacle. Ceres first taught 
 mortals with steel to turn the ground : when now the acorns 
 and arbutes of the sacred wood failed, and Dodona 22 refused 
 sustenance. Soon too was distress inflicted on the corn ; when 
 noxious mildew eat the stalks, and the lazy thistle shot up its 
 horrid spikes in the field. The crops of corn die ; a prickly 
 wood succeeds, burs and caltrops, and, amidst the shining 
 fields, unhappy darnel and barren wild oats bear sway. But 
 unless you both vex the ground by continual harrowings, fright 
 away the birds with a noise, and with the pruning-knife re- 
 strain the shades of the shaded field, and by prayers call 
 down the showers ; alas, [while thy labour proves] in vain, 
 thou wilt view another's ample store, and in the woods solace 
 thy hunger by shaking [acorns] from the oak. 
 
 We must also describe what are the instruments used by the 
 hardy swains ; without which the crops could neither be sown 
 nor spring. First, the share, and the heavy timber of the curved 
 plough, and the slow-rolling wains of the Eleusinian mother, 
 Ceres, and sledges and drags, and harrows of unwieldy weight ; 
 
 21 Pleiades, a name given to the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, 
 made a constellation in the heavens. Hyades, the five daughters of Atlas, 
 who were also changed into stars, and placed in the constellation Taurus. 
 Bear of Lycaon. Calisto, the daughter of Lycaon, was changed by Juno 
 into a bear, but Jupiter made her the constellation Ursa Major. 
 
 22 Dodona, an ancient city of Epirus, in Greece, where was a sacred 
 grove, with a celebrated oracle and temple of Jupiter. 
 
38 GEORGICS. b. i. 165—194 
 
 besides the mean osier furniture of Celeus, 23 arbute hurdles, 
 and the mystic fan of Bacchus ; all which, with mindful care, 
 you will provide long before-hand, if glory of a blissful coun- 
 try duly awaits thee. In the first place, 24 in the woods an elm 
 bent with vast force is subdued into the plough tail, and re- 
 ceives the form of the crooked plough. To this, at the lower 
 end, are fitted a beam extended to eight feet, two earth-boards, 
 and share-beams with a double back. The light linden also 
 is felled before-hand for the yoke, and the tall beech, and the 
 plough-staff, to turn the bottom of the carriage behind ; and 
 the smoke seasons 25 the timber hung up in the chimneys. 
 
 I can recite to you many precepts of the ancients, unless 
 you decline them, and think it not worth while to learn these 
 trifling cares. The threshing-floor chiefly must be levelled 
 with the huge roller, and wrought with the hand, and con- 
 solidated with binding chalk, that weeds may not spring up, 
 and that overpowered with drought it may not chap. Then 
 various pests baffle us ; often the diminutive mouse has built 
 its cell, and made its granaries ; or the moles, deprived of 
 sight, have dug their lodges under ground ; and in the cavities 
 has the toad been found, and vermin which the earth produces 
 in abundance ; the weevil plunders vast heaps of corn, and 
 the ant, fearful of helpless old age. 
 
 Observe also, when the almond 26 shall clothe itself abund- 
 antly with blossom in the woods, and bend its fragrant 
 boughs : if the rising fruit abound, in like quantity the corn 
 will follow, and a great threshing with great heat will ensue. 
 But, if the shady boughs abound with luxuriance of leaves, in 
 vain the floor shall bruise the stalks, fertile only in chaff. 
 
 I have indeed seen many sowers artificially prepare their 
 seeds, and steep them first in saltpetre and black lees of oil, 
 
 23 Celeus, a king of Eleusis, was the father of Triptolemus, whom 
 Ceres instructed in husbandry. 
 
 24 The order is, u ulmus flexa in silvis magna vi domatur in burim, et 
 accipit formam curvi aratri." Anthon. 
 
 25 Literally, " explores," " searches," i. e. to see if there be any 
 chinks. B. 
 
 26 The term mix is employed by the Roman writers in an extended 
 sense, to denote the almond, the walnut, the hazel-nut tree, &c. Most 
 commonly, however, an epithet is added, to make the meaning more de- 
 5nite ; thus, mixjuglans, " the walnut; " nux amygdala, " the almond ;" 
 xux avellana, " the hazel-nut or filbert," &c. Anthon. 
 
• b. i. 195—223. GEORGICS. 39 
 
 that the produce might be larger in the fallacious pods. And 
 though, being hastened, they were soaked over a slow fire, 
 selected long, and proved with much labour, yet have I seen 
 them degenerate, unless human industry with the hand culled 
 out the largest every year. Thus all things, by destiny, hasten 
 to decay, 27 and gliding away, insensibly are driven backward ; 
 not otherwise than he who rows his skiff with much ado against 
 the stream, if by chance he slackens his arms, and the tide 
 hurries him headlong down the river. 
 
 Further, the stars of Arcturus, and the days of the Kids, 
 and the shining Dragon, must be as much observed by us, as 
 by those who, homeward borne across the main, attempt the 
 [Euxine] Sea, 2S and the straits of oyster-breeding Abydos. 
 
 When Libra makes the hours of day and night equal, and 
 now divides the globe in the middle between light and shades, 
 work your steers, ye swains, sow barley in the fields, till toward 
 the last shower of the inclement winter solstice. Then too is 
 the time to hide in the ground a crop of flax, and the poppy 
 of Ceres, and high time to ply your harrows ; while the ground 
 yet dry, you may, while the clouds are yet suspendsd. 
 
 In the spring is the sowing of beans : then thee too, O 
 Medic plant ! 30 the rotten furrows receive, and millet comes, 
 an annual care, when the bright Bull with gilded horns opens 
 the year, and the Dog sets, giving way to the backward star. 
 But if you labour the ground for a wheat-harvest and sturdy 
 grain, and are bent on bearded ears alone ; let the Pleiades 
 in the morning be set, and let the Gnosian star 31 of [Ariadne's] 
 blazing Crown depart, before you commit to the furrows the 
 
 27 The infinitive is used absolutely to signify what is wont to hap- 
 pen. B. 
 
 28 The Euxine (or Black) Sea is situated between Europe and Asia, 
 and communicates with the Mediterranean by the Sea of Marmora and 
 the Dardanelles. 
 
 29 Abydos, a city of Asia Minor, on the Hellespont, (Dardanelles,) 
 opposite to Sestos, in Thrace ; famous for the bridge of beats which 
 Xerxes made there across the Hellespont, when he invaded Greece ; and 
 for the loves of Hero and Leander. 
 
 30 Medic plant, a species of trefoil, so called, because introduced from 
 Media into Greece. 
 
 31 Gnosian star, &c, Ariadne's crown, consisting of seven stars, so 
 called from Gnosus, a city of Crete, where Minos, the father of Ariadne, 
 reigned. Maia, one of the Pleiades. Boutes, a constellation near the 
 Ursa Major, or Great Bear- 
 
40 GEORGICS. b. i. 224—256 
 
 seed designed, and before you hasten to trust to the unwilling 
 earth the hopes of the year. Many have begun before the 
 setting of Maia ; but the expected crop hath mocked them 
 with empty ears. But if you are to sow vetches, and cheap 
 kidney beans, nor despise the care of the Egyptian lentil ; set- 
 ting Bootes will afford thee signs not obscure. Begin, and 
 extend thy sowing to the middle of the frosts. 
 
 For this purpose, the golden sun, through the twelve con- 
 stellations of the world, rules the globe measured out into 
 certain portions. Five zones embrace the heavens ; whereof 
 one is ever glowing with the bright sun, and scorched for ever 
 by his fire ; round which two furthest ones to the right and 
 left are extended, stiff with cerulean ice and horrid showers. 
 Between these and the middle zones, two by the bounty of the 
 gods are given to weak mortals ; and a path is cut through both, 
 where the series of the signs might revolve obliquely. As 
 the world rises high towards Scythia and Riphasan 32 hills ; so 
 sloping downward it is depressed towards the south winds of 
 Libya. 33 The one pole to us is always elevated ; but the other, 
 under our feet, is seen by gloomy Styx 34 and the ghosts below. 35 
 Here, after the manner of a river, the huge Dragon glides 
 away with tortuous windings, around and through between the 
 Bears ; the Bears that fear to be dipped in the ocean. There, 
 as they report, either dead night for ever reigns in silence, 
 and, outspread, wraps all things up in darkness ; or else Au- 
 rora 36 returns thither from us, and brings them back the day : 
 and when the rising sun first breathes on us with panting 
 steeds, there ruddy Vesper lights up his late illuminations. 
 
 Hence we are able to foreknow the seasons, in the dubious 
 sky, hence the days of harvest, and the time of sowing ; and 
 when it is proper to sweep the faithless sea with oars, when 
 to launch the armed fleets, or to fell the pine in the woods in 
 
 32 Ripheean hills, in the north of Scythia, near the rivers Tanais and 
 Rha. 
 
 33 Libya, an extensive country of Africa, lying between Egypt and the 
 Syrtis Major ; by the ancients it was often applied to Africa in generaL. 
 
 34 Styx, one of the rivers of hell, round which it was said to flow nine 
 times. The gods held the waters of the Styx in such veneration, that 
 they always swore by them ; an oath which was inviolable. 
 
 35 So "profunda Juno," for Proserpine, in Claudian, de Vap. i. 2. B. 
 3 * Aurora, the goddess of the morning. Vesper, the evening star ; often 
 
 used for the evening, as Aurora is for the morning. 
 
b.i. 257— 282. GEORGICS. 41 
 
 season. Nor in vain do we study the setting? and the risings 
 of the signs, and the year equally divided into four different 
 seasons. 
 
 If at any time a bleak shower confines the husbandman, 
 then is his time to do many things in season, which, as soon 
 as the sky is serene, would have to be done with expedition. 37 
 The ploughman sharpens the hard edge of the blunted share, 
 scoops little boats from trees, or stamps the mark on the 
 sheep, or the number on his sacks. Others sharpen stakes 
 and two-horned forks, and prepare Amerine [osier] bands 38 
 for the limber vine. Now let the pliant basket of bramble f 
 twigs be woven ; now parch your grain over the fire, now '• 
 grind it with the stone : for even on holy-days, divine and 
 human laws permit to perform some works. No religion 
 iiath forbidden to clear the channels, to raise a fence before 
 the corn, to lay snares for birds, to fire the thorns, and plunge 
 in the wholesome river a flock of bleating sheep. Often the 
 driver of the sluggish ass loads his ribs with oil, or common 
 apples ; and, in his return from the town, brings back an in- 
 dented mill-stone, or a mass of black pitch. 
 
 The moon too hath allotted days auspicious to works, some 
 in one order, some in another. Shun the fifth : [on this] pale 
 Pluto 39 and the Furies were born. Then at an unholy birth 
 the earth brought forth Coeus, 40 Iapetus, and savage Typhosus, 
 and the brothers who conspired to tear down the skies. For 
 thrice did they essay to pile Ossa 41 upon Pelion, and to roll 
 woody Olympus upon Ossa : thrice the Sire, with his thun- 
 
 37 So this line appears to be explained by Nonius Marc. i. p. 512, and 
 Macrob. Sat. vi. 3. " Maturare" at times is nearly identical with " pro- 
 perare." B. 
 
 38 Amerine bands, from Ameria, a city of Umbria, in Italy, which 
 abounded in osiers. 
 
 39 Pluto, in ancient mythology, was the son of Saturn and Ops, and 
 brother to Jupiter and Neptune ; in the division of his father's empire, 
 the kingdom of Hell was allotted to him. 
 
 40 Coeus, Iapetus, &c, famous giants, sons of Ccelus and Terra, who, 
 according to the poets, made war against the gods ; but Jupiter at last 
 put them to flight with his thunderbolts, and crushed them under Mount 
 ^Etna, in Sicily. 
 
 41 Ossa, Pelion, &c, celebrated mountains of Thessaly, in Greece, 
 which the giants, in their war against the gods, were feigned to have 
 heaped on each other, that they might with more facility scale the walls 
 of heaven. 
 
42 GEORGICS. b. i. 283-313. 
 
 tier, overthrew the piled-up mountains. The seventh, next 
 to the tenth, is lucky both to plant the vine, and break the 
 oxen caught, and to add the woof to the warp : the ninth is 
 better for flight, adverse to thefts. 42 Many works too have 
 succeeded better in the cool night ; or when morning sprin- 
 kles the earth with the rising sun. By night the light stub- 
 ble, by night the parched meadows, are better 43 shorn: the 
 clammy dews fail not by night. And some by the late fires 
 of the winter light, watch all night, and with the sharp steel 
 point torches. Meanwhile, his spouse, cheering by song her 
 tedious labour, runs over the webs with the shrill shuttle ; or 
 over the fire boils down the liquor of the luscious must, and 
 skims with leaves the tide of the trembling caldron. 
 
 But reddening Ceres is cut down in noontide heat ; and in 
 noontide heat the floor thrashes out the parched grain. Plough 
 naked, 44 sow naked : winter is an inactive time for the hind. 
 In the cold weather the farmers mostly enjoy the fruit of their 
 labour, and, rejoicing with one another, provide mutual enter- 
 tainments : the genial winter invites them, and relaxes their 
 cares ; as when weather-beaten ships have reached the port, 
 and the joyous mariners have planted garlands on the sterns. 
 But it then is the time both to strip the mast of oak, and the 
 bay-berries, the olive, and the bloody myrtle-berries ; then to 
 set springes for cranes, and nets for stags, and to pursue the 
 long-eared hares ; and whirling the hempen thongs of the 
 Balearian 45 sling, to pierce the does, when the snow lies deep, 
 when the rivers hurtle down the ice. 
 
 Why should I speak of the storms 46 and constellations of 
 autumn ? and what must be guarded against by swains when 
 the day is now shorter, and the summer milder ? or when the 
 
 42 Anthon remarks, " The ninth day would be favourable for the run- 
 away, since the moon would then be of sufficient age to give a good light, 
 and help him on his way. For this very reason, on the other hand, it 
 would be unfavourable for the thief, who prefers darkness/' Voss. ad loc. 
 
 43 I think the harmony of this verse will be increased by transposing, 
 thus, " Nocte leves stipulae melius," as it is quoted by Jul. Rufin. Schem. 
 Lex. 6. p. 31, ed. Ruhnk. B. 
 
 44 i. e. in thin attire. B. 
 
 45 Balearian sling, from the Baleares ; a name given to the islands of 
 Majorca and Minorca, in the Mediterranean, because the inhabitants were 
 expert slingers. 
 
 46 Nonius, i. s. v. tempestas, limits the sense of this word to " turbc 
 ventorum," I think, scarcely with reason. B. 
 
b, I. 313—346. GEORGICS. 43 
 
 showery spring pours down, the spiky harvest bristles in the 
 fields, and the milky corn swells in the green stalk ? Oft have 
 I seen, when the farmer had just brought the reaper into the 
 yellow fields, and was binding up the barley with the brittle 
 straw, all the battles of the winds engage, which far and wide 
 tore up the full-loaded corn from the lowest roots, and tossed 
 it up: just so, with blackening whirlwind, a wintry storm 
 would drive light straw and flying stubble. Often also an 
 immense march of waters gathers in the sky, and clouds, col- 
 lected from on high, brew thick an ugly storm of black show- 
 ers : the lofty sky pours down, and with storms of rain sweeps 
 away the joyful corn, and toils of steers : the ditches are filled, 
 and the hollow rivers 47 swell with roaring, and in the steam- 
 ing friths the sea boils. The Sire himself, amidst a night of 
 clouds, launches the thunders with his flaming right hand : 
 with the violence of which mighty earth trembles ; the beasts 
 are fled, and through the nations lowly fear hath sunk the 
 hearts of men. He with his flaming bolts strikes down or 
 Athos, 48 or Rhodope, or high Ceraunia: 49 the south winds 
 redouble, and «the shower is more and more condensed ; now 
 woods, now shores, moan 'neath the mighty blast. 
 
 This dreading, observe the months and constellations of the 
 heavens : which way the cold star of Saturn shapes his course, 
 into what circuits Mercury's fiery planet wanders in heaven. 
 Above all, venerate the gods ; and renew to great Ceres the 
 sacred annual rites, 50 offering up thy sacrifice upon the joyous 
 turf, at the expiration of the last days of winter, when the 
 spring is serene. Then the lambs are fat, and then the wines 
 most mellow ; then slumbers on the hills are sweet, and thick 
 the shades. For thee let all the rural youths adore Ceres ; to 
 whom, mix thou the honey-comb with milk and gentle wine ; 
 and thrice let the auspicious victim go round the recent grain ; 
 which let the whole chorus of thy companions accompany in 
 
 47 i. e. the mountain streams. Hesych. QaXaaaa icoiKr], rj x il ^P ia Q' B. 
 
 48 Athos, a lofty mountain of Macedonia, in Greece, on a peninsula : 
 it is now called Monte Santo, from the number of monasteries erected 
 upon it. Ceraunia, large mountains of Epirus, in Greece, stretching out 
 far into the Adriatic. 
 
 49 " Acroceraunia " is more usual. Servius on ^En. iii. B. 
 
 50 The poet here alludes to the Ambarvalia, a festival in honour of 
 Ceres, and which was so called because the victim was led around the 
 fields (quod victima ambiret arva} before it was sacrificed. Anthon. 
 
44 GEOKGICS. b. i. 347-383 
 
 jovial mood, and with acclamation invite Ceres into their 
 dwellings ; nor let any one put the sickle to the ripe corn, 
 till, m honour of Ceres, having his temples bound with 
 wreathed oak, he dance in measure uncouth, and sing hymns. 
 
 And that we may learn these things by certain signs, both 
 heats and rains, and cold-bringing winds, the Sire himself has 
 appointed what the monthly moon should betoken ; under 
 what sign the south winds should fall ; from what common 
 observations the husbandman should learn to keep his herds 
 nearer their stalls. 
 
 Straightway, when winds are rising, the friths of the sea 
 with tossings begin to swell, and a dry crashing noise to be 
 heard in the high mountains ; or the far-sounding shores to 
 be disturbed, and the murmurs of the grove to increase. Now 
 hardly the billows refrain themselves from the crooked ships, 
 when the cormorants fly swiftly back from the midst of the sea, 
 and send their screams to the shore ; and when the sea-coots 
 sport on the dry beach ; and the heron forsakes the well- 
 known fens, and soars above the lofty cloud. Often too, 
 when wind threatens, you will see the stars shoot precipitate 
 from the sky, and behind them long trails of flame whiten 
 athwart the shades of night ; often the light chaff and fallen 
 leaves flutter about ; or feathers swimming on the surface of 
 the water frisk together. 
 
 But when it lightens from the quarter of surly Boreas, and 
 when the house of Eurus 31 and Zephyrus thunders, all the 
 fields are floated with full ditches, and every mariner on the 
 sea furls his damp sails. Showers never hurt any unfore- 
 warned : either the airy cranes have shunned it in the deep 
 valleys as it rose ; or the heifer, looking up to heaven, hath 
 snuffed in the air with wide nostrils ; or the chattering swallow 
 hath fluttered about the lakes ; and the frogs croaked their old 
 complaint in the mud. 52 And often the ant, drilling her nar- 
 row path, hath conveyed her eggs from her secret cell ; and 
 the mighty bow hath drunk deep ; and an army of ravens, on 
 their return from feeding, have beaten the air and made a 
 noise, with wings close crowded. Now you may observe the 
 various sea-fowls, and those that rummage about the Asian 
 
 51 Eurus and Zephyrus, the east and west winds. 
 
 52 Alluding to the metamorphosis of the Lycian peasants into frogs fir 
 ii'jiulting Latona. Ovid, Met. vi 376. Anthon. B. 
 
B . t 384—409. GEORGICS. 4o 
 
 meads, in Cayster's 53 pleasant lakes, keenly lave the copious 
 dews upon their shoulders ; now offer their heads to the work- 
 ing tides, now run into the streams, and, sportive, revel vainly 
 in their desire of bathing. Then the impudent crow with full 
 throat invites the rain, and solitary stalks by herself on the 
 dry sand. Nor were even the maids, carding their nightly 
 tasks, ignorant of the approaching storm ; when they saw the oil 
 sputter on the heated sherd, and foul fungous clots grow thick. 54 
 Nor with less ease may you foresee, and by certain signs 
 discern, sunshine succeeding rain, and open serene skies. 
 For neither are the stars then seen with blunted edge, nor the 
 moon to rise as if indebted to her brother's beams ; nor thin 
 fleecy 55 clouds to be borne through the sky. Nor do the hal- 
 cyons, beloved by Thetis, 56 expand their wings upon the shore 
 to the warm sun : the impure swine are not heedful to toss 
 about with their snouts the loosened wisps. But the mists 
 seek the lower grounds, and rest upon the plain ; and the owl, 
 observant of the setting sun from the high house-top, practises 
 her evening songs in vain. Nisus in the clear sky appears 
 aloft, and Scylla pays penalty for the purple lock. Wher- 
 ever she flying cuts the light air with her wings, lo, hostile, 
 implacable Nisus, 57 with loud screams pursues her through the 
 sky : where Nisus mounts into the sky, she swiftly flying cuts 
 the light air with her wings. Then the ravens, with com- 
 
 53 Cayster, a river of Asia Minor, which falls into the iEgean Sea, near 
 Ephesus. 
 
 34 This was a popular superstition, as we learn from Schol. Aristoph. 
 Vesp. 260. B. 
 
 55 Cf. Lucret. vi. 503, "veluti pendentia vellera lanse." B. 
 
 56 Thetis, one of the sea-deities, daughter of N ere us and Doris and 
 mother of Achilles. 
 
 57 Minos having laid siege to Megara, of which Nisus was king, became 
 master of the place through the treachery of Scylla, the daughter of the 
 latter. Nisus had a purple or golden lock of hair growing on his head, 
 and, as long as it remained uncut, so long was his life to last. Scylla, 
 having seen Minos, fell in love with him, and resolved to give him the 
 victory. She accordingly cut off her father's precious lock as he slept, 
 and he immediately died. The town was then taken by the Cretans; hut 
 Minos, instead of rewarding the maiden, disgusted with her unnatural 
 treachery, tied her by her feet to the stern of his vessel, and thus dragged 
 her along till she was drowned. Nisus was changed after death into the 
 bird called the sea-eagle^ (aXiasrog,) and Scylla into that named ciriz 
 («*i(Otc) ; and the father continually pursues the daughter, says the legend, 
 to punish her for her crime. Anthon. 
 
46 GEORGICS. b. i. 410—444 
 
 pressed throat, three or four times repeat their clear notes ; 
 and often in their nests aloft, affected with I know not what 
 unusual charm, they rustle together among the leaves: the 
 rains now past, they are glad to revisit their little offspring 
 and beloved nests : not, indeed, I am persuaded, as if they had 
 a spirit of discernment from the gods, or superior knowledge 
 of things by fate ; but when the storm and fluctuating vapours 
 of the air have changed their course, and showery Jove by 
 his south winds condenses those things which just before were 
 rare, and rarefies what things were dense ; the images of their 
 minds are altered, and their breasts now receive different im- 
 pressions (different, while the wind rolled the clouds). Hence 
 that concert of birds in the fields, and the cattle frisking for 
 joy, and the ravens exulting in their caws. 
 
 But if you give attention to the rapid sun, and the moons 
 in order following ; the hour of ensuing morn shall never 
 cheat you, nor shall you be deceived by the treacherous aspect 
 of a serene night. When first the moon collects the returning 
 rays, if with horns obscure she encloses dusky air, a vast rain 
 is preparing for swains and mariners. But, if she should 
 spread a virgin blush over her face, wind will ensue : golden 
 Phoebe 58 always reddens with wind. But if at her fourth 
 rising (for that is the most unerring monitor) she passes along 
 the sky pure and bright, nor with blunted horns ; both that 
 whole day, and all those that shall come after it, till the month 
 be finished, will be free from rains and winds : and the mariners, 
 preserved, will pay their vows upon the shore to Glaucus, 59 
 Panopea, and Melicerta, Ino's son. 
 
 The sun too, both rising and when he sets in the waves, 
 will give signs. The surest signs attend the sun, both those 
 which he brings in the morning, and those when the stars 
 arise. When he shall chequer his new-born foce with spots, 
 hidden in a cloud, and has fled from view with half his orb, 
 you may then suspect showers : for the south wind, pernicious 
 to trees and corn and flocks, hastens from the sea. Or when, 
 
 58 Phoebe, a name of Diana, or Luna (the moon) ; as Phoebus is a 
 name of Apollo, or Sol (the sun). 
 
 39 Glaucus, a fisherman of Anthedon, in Boeotia, son of Neptune anu 
 Nai's, changed into a sea-deity. Panopea, a sea-nymph, one of the Ne- 
 reids. Melicerta, the son of Athanas and Ino, changed into a sea-god, 
 known also by the names of Palemon and Portumnus. 
 
b. i. 445-470. GEORGICS. 47 
 
 at the dawn the rays shall break themselves diversely among 
 the thick clouds ; or when Aurora, leaving the saffron bed of 
 Tithonus, 60 rises pale; ah, the vine-leaf will then but ill de- 
 fend the mellow grapes ; so thick the horrid hail bounds rat- 
 tling on the roofs. This too it will be more advantageous to 
 remember, when, having measured the heavens, he is just 
 setting ; for often we see various colours wander over his face. 
 The azure threatens rain ; the fiery, wind. But if the spots 
 begin to be blended with bright fire, then you will see all 
 things embroiled together with wind and storms of rain. Let 
 none advise me that night to launch into the deep, or to tear 
 my cable from the land. But if, both when he ushers in, and 
 when he shuts up, the revolving day, his orb is lucid ; in vain 
 will you be alarmed by the clouds, and you will see woods 
 waved by the clear north wind. 
 
 In fine, the sun will give thee signs what [weather] late 
 Vesper brings, from what quarter the wind will roll the 
 clouds serene, what wet Auster 61 meditates. Who dares to 
 call the sun deceiver ? He even forewarns often that hidden 
 tumults are at hand, and that treachery and secret wars are 
 swelling to a head. He also pitied Rome at Cassar's death, 
 when he covered his bright head with murky iron hue, 62 and 
 the impious age feared eternal night ; though at that time the 
 earth too, and ocean's plains, ill-omened dogs, and presaging 
 birds, gave ominous signs. How often have we seen jEtna 63 
 
 60 Tithonus, a son of Laomedon, king of Troy, was so beautiful that 
 Aurora became enamoured of him, and carried him away to Ethiopia. 
 
 61 Auster, the south wind. 
 
 62 "When he shrouded his bright head with a dark ferruginous hue." 
 According to Plutarch, (Vit. Cses. c. 90,) Pliny, (H. N. ii. 30,) and Dio 
 Cassius, (xlv. 17.) the sun appeared of a dim and pallid hue after the 
 assassination of Julius Caesar, and continued so during the whole of the 
 year. It is said, too, that, for want of the natural heat of that luminary, 
 the fruits rotted without coming to maturity. What Plutarch calls pale- 
 ness, Virgil, it will be perceived, denominates by a stronger term, /m*z^o. 
 This, of course, is the licence of poetry. The phenomenon mentioned by 
 the ancient writers is thought by some modern inquirers to have been oc- 
 casioned by spots on the sun ; and this is the more probable opinion. 
 There appears, however, to have been an actual eclipse of the sun that 
 same year, in the month of November. Anthon. 
 
 63 Mtna., (Gibello,) a celebrated volcanic mountain of Sicily. This 
 immense mountain is of a conical form ; it is two miles in perpendicular 
 height, 100 miles round the base, with an ascent, in some places, of 3C 
 miles, and its crater is a circle of about 3J miles in circumference. 
 
48 GEORGICS. b. i. 471-498. 
 
 from its burst furnaces boil <over in waves on the lands of the 
 Cyclops, 64 and shoot up globes of flame, and molten rocks ! 
 Germany heard a clashing of arms over all the sky ; the Alps 
 trembled with unwonted earthquakes. A mighty voice too 
 was commonly heard through the silent groves, and spectres 
 strangely pale were seen under cloud of night ; and the very 
 cattle (O horrid !) spoke ; rivers stopped their courses, the 
 earth yawned wide ; the mourning ivory weeps in the tem- 
 ples, and the brazen statues sweat. Eridanus, 65 king of rivers, 
 overflowed, whirling in mad §ddy whole woods along, and 
 bore away the herds with their stalls over all the plains. 
 Nor at the same time did either the fibres fail to appear 
 threatening in the baleful entrails, or blood to flow from the 
 wells, and cities to resound aloud with wolves howling by 
 night. Never did more lightnings fall from a serene sky, or 
 direful comets so often blaze. For this Philippi 66 twice saw 
 the Roman armies in intestine war 67 engage; nor seemed it 
 unbecoming to the gods, that Emathia 6S and the extensive 
 plains of Hasmus should twice be fattened with our blood. 
 Ay, and the time will come, when in those regions the hus- 
 bandman, labouring the ground with the crooked plough, 
 shall find javelins all-eaten with corrosive rust, or with his 
 cumbrous harrows shall clash on empty helmets, and marvel 
 at the huge bones in dug-up graves. 
 
 Ye guardian deities of my country, ye Indigetes, 69 and thou, 
 
 64 Cyclops, a gigantic race of men, sons of Coelus and Terra: they 
 were Vulcan's workmen in fabricating the thunderbolts of Jupiter, and 
 were represented having only one eye in the middle of their forehead. 
 
 65 Eridanus, called afterwards Padus, (the Po,) the largest river of 
 Italy, rises in the Alps, and, after a course of nearly 400 miles^ falls into 
 ',he Adriatic, to the south of the city of Venice. 
 
 86 Philippi, a city of Macedonia, on the confines of Thrace, famous 
 for the defeat of Brutus and Cassius by Antony and Augustus, b. c. 42. 
 By the other battle at Philippi, mentioned here, Virgil is supposed to 
 allude to that between Caesar and Pompey on the plains of Pharsalia, 
 in Thessaly, which was fought near a town also called Philippi, 
 b. c. 48. 
 
 67 The force of "paribus telis" is well expressed by Lucan, i. 7, 
 "pares aquilas, et pila minantia pilis," as remarked by Servius. B. 
 
 68 Emathia, an ancient name of Macedonia and Thessaly. Haemus, an 
 extensive chain of mountains through Thrace, &c, in length about 400 
 miles. 
 
 69 Indigetes, a name given to those deities who were worshipped ir, 
 particular places, or to such heroes as were deified. 
 
*. i. 498—514. GEORGICS. 49 
 
 O Romulus, 70 and mother Vesta, 71 who guardest the Tuscan 
 Tiber, 72 and the palaces of Rome ; forbid not that this youth- 
 ful hero at least repair the ruins of the age. Long since 
 enough have we with our blood atoned for the perjuries of 
 Laomedon's Troy. 73 Long since, O Caesar, the courts of hea 
 ven envy us thee, and complain that thou art concerned about 
 the triumphs of mortals ; since among them the distinctions 
 of right and wrong are perverted ; so many wars, so many 
 aspects of crimes, are throughout the world ; the plough has 
 none of its due honours ; the fields lie waste, their owners 
 being drawn for service ; and the crooked scythes are forged 
 into rigid swords. Here Euphrates, 74 there Germany, raises 
 war ; neighbouring cities, having broken their mutual leagues, 
 take arms; impious Mars 75 rages through all the world. As 
 when the four-horsed chariots have burst forth from the goal, 
 they add speed to speed, and the charioteer, stretching in vain 
 the bridle, is hurried away by the steeds, nor is the chariot 
 heedful of the reins. 
 
 70 Romulus, a son of Mars and Rhea, grandson of Numitor, king of Alba, 
 and twin-brother of Remus. He was the founder and first king of Rome, 
 which he built on Mount Palatine, b. c. 753. By the triumphs of their 
 arms, and the terror of their name, the Romans gradually rose, during a 
 succession of ages, to universal empire, and Rome became, for a time, 
 mistress of the world. After his death, Romulus was ranked among the 
 gods, and received divine honours under the name of Quirinus. 
 
 71 Vesta, daughter of Rhea and Saturn, called the mother of the gods, 
 was the goddess of fire, and the patroness of the vestal virgins, among 
 the Romans. 
 
 72 Tiber, a celebrated river of Italy, rises in the Apennines, and falls 
 into the Mediterranean Sea, sixteen miles below the city of Rome. 
 
 73 Laomedon, king of Troy, and the father of Priam. He built the 
 walls of Troy, with the assistance of Apollo and Neptune ; but, on the 
 work being finished, he refused to reward them for their labours, and, in 
 consequence, incurred the displeasure of the gods. 
 
 74 Euphrates, a celebrated river of Asia, which rises in the mountains 
 of Armenia, and discharges itself into the Persian Gulf. 
 
 75 Mars, the god of war. Among the Romans, this deity received the 
 most unbounded honours. 
 
50 GEORGICS. b. n. 1—26 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 Virgil, having, in the First Book, treated of tillage, proceeds in the Second 
 to the subject of planting ; describes the varieties of trees, with the best 
 methods of raising them ; gives rules for the management of the vine and 
 olive, and for judging of the nature of soils ; and, in a strain of exalted 
 poetry, celebrates the praises of Italy, and the pleasures of a country life. 
 
 Thus far of the culture of fields, and of the constellations of 
 the heavens ; now, Bacchus, will I sing of thee, and with thee 
 of woodland trees, and of the slow-growing olive's offspring. 
 Hither, O father 1 Lenasus 2 (here is all full of thy bounties: 
 for thee the field, laden with the viny harvest, flourishes ; [for 
 thee] the vintage foams in the full vats): hither, O father 
 Lenasus, come ; and, having thy buskins stripped off, stain 
 thy legs, bared of the sandals, with me in new wine. 
 
 First, nature is various in producing trees : for some, with- 
 out any cogent means applied by men, come freely of their 
 own accord, and widely overspread the plains and winding 
 rivers ; as the soft osier and limber broom, the poplar and 
 the whitening willows, with sea-green leaves. But some arise 
 from deposited seed ; as the lofty chestnuts, and the aesculus, 
 which, in honour of Jove, shoots forth its leaves, the most 
 majestic of the groves, and the oaks reputed oracular by the 
 Greeks. To others a most luxuriant wood [of suckers] springs 
 from the roots ; as the cherries and the elms : thus, too, the 
 little bay of Parnassus raises itself under its mother's mighty 
 shade. Nature at first ordained these means [for the produc- 
 tion of trees] : by these every species blooms, of woods, and 
 shrubs, and sacred groves. Others there are, which experi- 
 ence has found out for itself on the way. 3 One, cutting off 
 the tender suckers from the body of their mother, sets them 
 in the furrows ; another buries the stocks in the ground, and 
 stakes split in four, and poles with the wood sharpened to a 
 point ; and some trees expect the bent-down arches of a layer, 
 
 1 The term " pater " is here applied to Bacchus, not with any reference 
 to advanced years, for the god is always represented by the ancient artists 
 with the attributes of youth, (compare Muller, Archeeolog. der Kunst, 
 p. 566,) but merely as indicative of his being the beneficent author of so 
 many good gifts unto men. Anthon. 
 
 2 Lenaeus, a surname of Bacchus, the god of wine, from Xrjvog, a 
 v inepress. 
 
 3 " Via " here denotes the " march of intellect." B. 
 
b. ii. 27-61. GEORGICS 51 
 
 and living nurseries in their native soil. Others have no need 
 of any root ; and the planter makes no scruple to commit to 
 earth the topmost shoots, restoring them [to their parent soil]. 
 Even (what is wondrous to relate) after the trunk is cut in 
 pieces, the olive-tree shoots forth roots from the dry wood. 
 Often we see the boughs of one tree transformed, with no 
 disadvantage, into those of another, and a pear-tree, being 
 changed, bear ingrafted apples, and stony cornels grow upon 
 plum stocks. 4 
 
 Wherefore come on, husbandmen, learn the culture pro- 
 per to each kind, and soften the wild fruits by cultivation : 
 nor let any lands lie idle: it is worth while to plant Ismarus 
 with vines, and clothe vast Taburnus 5 with olives. 
 
 And thou, glory mine, O thou deservedly the greatest 
 portion of my fame, be present, Maecenas, pursue with me this 
 task begun, and flying set sail on this sea, now opening wide. 
 I choose not to comprise all matters in my verse, even if I 
 had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, and an iron voice ; 
 be present, and coast along the nearest shore. The earth is 
 near at hand ; I will not here detain thee with fictitious song, 
 or with circumlocution and tedious preamble. 
 
 Those which spring up spontaneously into the regions of 
 light are unfruitful indeed ; but they rise luxuriant and strong : 
 for in the soil lies a native quality. Yet, if any one ingraft 
 even these, or deposit them transplanted in trenches well pre- 
 pared, they will put off their savage nature, and by frequent 
 culture will not be slow to follow whatever modes of culture 
 you call them to. And [the sucker] also which sprouts up 
 barren from the low roots, will do the same, 6 if it be distri- 
 buted through fields where room : now [in its natural state] 
 the high shoots and branches of the mother overshadow, and 
 hinder it from bearing fruit as it grows up, or pinch and 
 starve it when it bears. The tree, again, that is raised from 
 fallen seed, grows up slowly, so as to form a shade for late 
 posterity, and its fruits degenerate, forgetting their former 
 juices: thus even the vine bears sorry clusters, a prey for 
 birds. In fact, labour must be bestowed on all, and all must 
 
 4 So Martyn. But see Anthon. B. 
 
 5 Taburnus, a mountain of Campania, in Italy, which abounded with 
 olives. 
 
 6 i. e. will lay aside its wild and unproductive nature. Anthon. 
 
 e 2 
 
52 GEORGICS. b. ii. 62-90. 
 
 be forced into the trench, and tamed with vast pains. But 
 olives answer better [when propagated] by truncheons, vines 
 by layers, the myrtles of the Paphian [goddess 7 by settings] 
 from the solid wood. From suckers the hard hazels grow, 
 the mighty ash, and the shady poplar-tree, a crown for Her- 
 cules, and the oaks of the Chaonian Sire : thus also the lofty 
 palm is propagated, and the fir-tree doomed to visit the dan- 
 gers of the main. 
 
 But the rugged arbute is ingrafted on the offspring of the 
 walnut, and barren planes have borne stout apple-trees. 
 Chestnut-trees [have borne] beeches, and the mountain ash 
 hath whitened with 8 the snowy blossoms of the pear: and 
 swine have crunched acorns under elms. Nor is the method 
 of ingrafting the same with that of inoculating. For [inocu- 
 lating is thus] : where the buds thrust themselves forth from 
 the middle of the bark, and burst the slender coats, a small 
 slit is made in the very knot : hither they enclose a bud from 
 another tree, and teach it to unite with the moist rind. Or 
 again, [in ingrafting,] the knotless stocks are cut, and a pas- 
 sage is cloven deep into the solid wood with wedges : then 
 fertile scions are inserted ; and in no long time a huge tree 
 shoots up to heaven with prosperous boughs, and admires its 
 new leaves and fruits not its own. 
 
 Moreover, the species is not single, either of strong elms, 
 or of willows, of the lote-tree, or of the Idaean cypresses; 9 
 nor do the fat olives grow in one form, the orchades, and the 
 radii, and the pausia with bitter berries ; nor apples, and the 
 orchards of Alcinous; nor are the shoots the same of the 
 Crustumian and Syrian pears, and of the heavy volemi. The 
 same vintage hangs not on our trees, which Lesbos 10 gathers 
 
 7 Paphian goddess. Venus was so called, from Paphos, (Baffa,) a city 
 of Cyprus, where she was worshipped. 
 
 8 " Incanuit" is an instance of zeugma, for the chestnut bears no white 
 flower. B. 
 
 9 Idaean cypresses, from Mount Ida, in the island of Crete. Orchards 
 of Alcinous, king of Phaeacia, afterwards called Corcyra, (Corfu,) one of 
 the Ionian islands : his gardens, which were greatly famed, are beauti- 
 fully described by Homer. Crustumian and Syrian pears ; the first were 
 so called from Crustuminum, a town of Etruria, in Italy ; and the latter 
 from Syria, a country of Asia, along the eastern shore of the Mediterra- 
 nean. Phoenicia and Palestine were generally reckoned provinces of 
 Syria. 
 
 10 Lesbos, (Mytilene,) a large island in the Archipelago, celebrated 
 
b ii. 91—116. GE0RG1CS. &6 
 
 from the Methymnaean vine. There are the Thasian vines, 
 and there are the white Mareotides ; these fit for a rich soil, 
 and those for a lighter one : and the Psythian, more service- 
 able when dried, and the thin lageos, which will tie the feet 
 at length, and bind the tongue : the purple and the rath-ripe : 
 And in what numbers shall I sing of thee, O Rhaetian grape ? 
 nor therefore vie thou with the Falernian 11 cellars. There 
 are also Amminean vines, best-bodied wines ; which even 
 Tmolus and Phanae, king of mountains, honour; and the 
 smaller Argitis, which none can rival, either in yielding so 
 much juice, or in lasting so many years. I must not pass thee 
 over, Rhodian grape, grateful to the gods and second courses, 
 nor thee, bumastos, with thy swollen clusters. But we nei- 
 ther can recount how numerous the species, nor what are their 
 names, nor imports it to comprise their number ; which who- 
 ever would know, the same may seek to learn how numerous 
 are the sands of the Libyan Sea tossed by the zephyr ; or to 
 know how many waves of the Ionian Sea 12 come to the shores, 
 when Eurus, more violent, falls upon the ships. 
 
 But neither can all soils bear all sorts [of trees]. Willows 
 grow along the rivers, and elders in miry fens ; the barren 
 wild ashes on rocky mountains ; the shores rejoice most in 
 myrtle groves : Bacchus, in fine, loves open hills ; the yews, 
 the north wind and the cold. 
 
 Survey, also, the globe subdued by the most distant culti- 
 vators, both the eastern habitations of the Arabians, 13 and the 
 tattooed Geloni. Countries are distinguished by their trees. 
 
 particularly the city of Methymna, for its excellent wines. Thasian 
 vines, those of Thasos, also an island in the Archipelago, near the coast 
 of Thrace. Mareotides, a vine from Mareotis, a lake in Egypt, near 
 Alexandria. Psythian, from Psythia, an ancient town of Greece, famous 
 for its grapes. Rhaetian grape, from Rhaetia, (the Tyrol, &c.,) a moun- 
 tainous country to the north of Italy. 
 
 11 Falernian, &c. Falernus, a fertile mountain and plain of Campania, 
 in Italy. Amminia, a district of Campania. Phanse, a promontory of 
 the island of Chios (Scio). Rhodian grape, from Rhodes, a large and 
 fertile island in the Mediterranean, near the coast of Asia Minor, cele- 
 brated for a colossal statue of Apollo. 
 
 12 Ionian Sea, a part of the Mediterranean Sea, at the bottom of the 
 Adriatic, and between Sicily and Greece. 
 
 13 Arabians, &c, the inhabitants of Arabia, an extensive country of 
 A sia, forming a peninsula between the Persian and Arabian Gulfs : the 
 atter separates it from Africa. Geloni, a people of Scythia. 
 
54 GEOHGICS. b. ii. 117—146 
 
 India alone bears black ebony : the frankincense-tree belongs 
 to the Saboeans only. Why should I mention to thee balms 
 distilling from the fragrant woods, and the berries of the ever- 
 green acanthus ? why the forests of the Ethiopians whitening 
 with downy wool? and how the Seres 14 comb the slender 
 fleeces from the leaves ? or the groves which India, nearer the 
 ocean, the utmost skirts of the globe, produces ? where no 
 arrows ,by their flight have been able to surmount the airy 
 summit of the tree : and yet that nation is not slow at archery. 
 Media bears the bitter juices and the permanent flavour of the 
 happy apple ; than which no remedy comes more seasonably, 
 and expels the black venom from the limbs, when cruel step- 
 dames have drugged the cup, and mingled herbs and not in- 
 noxious spells. The tree itself is stately, and in form most 
 like a bay ; and if it did not widely diffuse a different scent, 
 would be a bay. Its leaves fall not off by any winds ; its 
 blossoms are extremely tenacious. With it the Medes correct 
 their breaths and unsavoury mouths, and cure their asthmatic 
 old men. 
 
 But neither the land of Media, most rich in woods, nor the 
 beauteous Ganges, 15 and Hermus turbid with golden sands, 
 can match the praises of Italy : not Bactra, 16 nor the Indians, 
 and Panchaia, all enriched with incense-bearing soil. Bulls 
 breathing fire from their nostrils never ploughed these regions, 
 sown with the teeth of a hideous dragon ; nor did a crop of 
 men shoot dreadful up with helmets and crowded spears : but 
 teeming corn and Bacchus' Campanian juice have filled [the 
 land], olives and joyous herbs possess it. Hence the warrior- 
 horse with stately port advances into the field ; hence, Cli- 
 tumnus, 17 thy white flocks, and the bull, chief of victims, after 
 
 14 Seres, a nation of Asia, between the Ganges and Eastern Ocean ; the 
 modern Tibet, or probably China. Media, a celebrated country of Asia, 
 .o the south of the Caspian Sea. 
 
 15 Ganges, a celebrated river of India, which arises in the Himalaya 
 mountains, and, after a course of 1500 miles, falls into the bay of Bengal, 
 below Calcutta. Hermus, (Sarabat,) a river of Lydia, in Asia Minor, 
 whose sands were mingled with gold : it receives the waters of the Pac- 
 tolus near Sardis, and falls into the iEgean, north-west of Smyrna. 
 
 16 Bactra, (Balkh,) the capital of Bactriana, a country of Asia. 
 Panchaia, a district of Arabia Felix. 
 
 17 Clitumnus, a river of Umbria, in Italy, which falls into the Tiber 
 It was famous for its milk-white flocks, selected as victims in the cele- 
 oration of the triumph. 
 
b. ii. 147-169. GEORGICS. * 55 
 
 they have been often plunged in thy sacred stream, escort the 
 Roman triumphs to the temples of the gods. Here is per- 
 petual spring, and summer in months not her own : twice a 
 year the cattle are big with young, twice the trees productive 
 in fruit. But here are no ravening tigers, nor the savage 
 breed of lions ; nor wolfsbane deceives the wretched gather- 
 ers; nor along the ground the scaly serpent sweeps his im- 
 mense orbs, nor with so vast a train gathers up himself into 
 coils. And so many magnificent cities, and works of elaborate 
 art ; so many towns upreared with the hand on craggy rocks ; 
 and rivers gliding beneath ancient walls. Or need I mention 
 the sea which washes it above, and that below ? or its lakes 
 so vast? thee, Larius, 18 of largest extent? and thee, Benacus, 
 swelling with the waves and roaring of the sea ? Or shall I 
 mention its ports, and the moles raised to dam the Lucrine, 19 
 and the sea raging indignant with loud murmurs, where the 
 Julian wave far resounds, the sea pouring in, and the Tuscan 
 tide is let into the straits of Avernus ? The same land hath 
 in its veins disclosed rivers of silver and mines of copper, and 
 copious flowed with gold. The same hath produced a warlike 
 race of men, the Marsi 20 and the Sabellian youth, and the 
 Ligurian inured to hardship, and the Volscians armed with 
 sharp darts : this same the Decii, 21 the Marii, and the great 
 
 18 Larius, (Como,) a beautiful lake of Cisalpine Gaul, through which 
 the Adua runs in its course to the Po, above Cremona. Benacus, (L. di 
 Garda,) a large lake, from which the Mincius issues, and flows into 
 the Po. 
 
 19 Lucrine Lake, near Cumae, on the coast of Campania. During an 
 earthquake, a. d. 1538, this lake disappeared, and in its place was formed 
 a mountain, two miles in circumference, and one thousand feet high, with 
 a crater in the middle. Avernus, a lake of Campania, whose waters were 
 so putrid, that the ancients regarded it as the entrance of the infernal re- 
 gions. Augustus united the Lucrine and Avernian lakes by the famous 
 Julian harbour, and formed a communication between the latter lake 
 and the sea. 
 
 20 Marsi were a people of Germany, who emigrated to Italy, and set- 
 tled near the lake Fucinus. The Sabellians were descended from the 
 Sabines, or from the Samnites ; — the Ligurians inhabited Piedmont ; — 
 the Volscians were a warlike people of Latium (Campagna di Roma). 
 
 21 Decii, a noble family of Rome, w r ho devoted themselves to death for 
 the safety of their country. Marii, the Marian family, the chief of whom 
 was Caius Marius, who, from a peasant, became one of the most power- 
 ful and cruel tyrants that Rome ever beheld during her consular govern- 
 ment. > 
 
56 GEORGICS. b. ii. 170—!% 
 
 Camilli, 22 the Scipios 23 invincible in war, and thee, most 
 mighty Caesar; who, at this very time victorious in Asia's 
 remotest limits, art turning away from the Roman towers the 
 humbled Indian. Hail, Saturnian 24 land, great parent of 
 fruits, great parent of heroes ; for thee I enter on a subject 
 of ancient renown and art, venturing to disclose the sacred 
 springs ; and I sing an Ascrsean strain through Roman cities. 
 
 Now it is time to describe the qualities of soils ; what is 
 the strength of age, what colour, and what its nature is most 
 apt to produce. First, stubborn lands, and unfruitful hills, 
 where lean clay [abounds], and pebbles in the bushy fields, 
 rejoice in Pallas' wood of long-lived olives. The wild olive 
 rising copious in the same soil is an evidence, and the fields 
 strewn with woodland berries. But, to the ground that is fat, 
 and gladdened with sweet moisture, and to the plain that is 
 luxuriant in grass, and of a fertile soil, (such as we are often 
 wont to look down upon in the hollow valley of a mountain,) 
 streams glide from the high rocks, and draw a rich fattening 
 slime along : and that which is raised to the south, and 
 nourishes the fern abhorred by the crooked ploughs, will in 
 time afford vines exceedingly strong, and flowing with abund- 
 ant wine: this will be prolific of grapes, this of such liquor 
 as we pour forth in libation from golden bowls, when the sleek 
 Tuscan has blown the ivory pipe at the altars, and we offer 
 up the smoking entrails in the bending chargers. 
 
 But if you are rather studious to preserve herds [of kine] 
 and calves, or the offspring of the sheep, or kids that kill the 
 pastures; seek the lawns and distant fields of fruitful Taren- 
 tum, 25 and plains like those which hapless Mantua hath lost, 
 
 22 Camilli, two celebrated Romans, father and son : the latter was 
 chosen five times dictator, expelled the Gauls under Brennus from Rome, 
 and, on account of his services to his country, was called a second Ro- 
 mulus. 
 
 23 The Scipios. P. Cornelius Scipio, surnamed Africanus, the con- 
 queror of Hannibal, and his grandson, ?. ^Smilianus Scipio, called Afri- 
 canus the younger, on account of his victories over Carthage, b. c. 146. 
 The two Scipios may justly be ranked among the brightest ornaments of 
 Roman greatness. 
 
 24 Saturnian land. Italy was so called, from Saturn, who, on being 
 dethroned by Jupiter, fled to Italy, where he reigned during the golden 
 age. 
 
 25 Tarentum, (Torento,) a maritime city of Calabria in Italy, situated 
 on a noble bay of the same name. 
 
b. ii. 199—229. GEORGICS. 57 
 
 feeding snow-white swans in the grassy stream. Neither 
 limpid springs nor pastures will be wanting to the flocks : and 
 as much as the herds will crop in the long days, so much will 
 the cold dews in the short night restore. 
 
 A soil that is blackish and fat under the deep-pressed share, 
 and whose mould is loose and crumbling, (for this we aim at 
 in ploughing,) is generally best for corn ; (from no plain will 
 you see more waggons move homeward with tardy oxen ;) or 
 that from which the angry ploughman has cleared away a 
 wood, and felled the groves that have been at a stand for 
 many years, and with their lowest roots grubbed up the an- 
 cient dwellings of the birds ; they abandoning their nests soar 
 on high, but the field looks gay when the ploughshare is driven 
 into it. For the lean hungry gravel of a hilly field scarcely 
 furnishes humble cassia and rosemary for bees : and no other 
 lands, they say, yield so sweet food to serpents, or afford them 
 such winding coverts, as the rough rotten-stone, and chalk 
 corroded by black water-snakes. That land which exhales 
 thin mists and flying smoke, and drinks in the moisture, and 
 emits it at pleasure ; and which always clothes itself with its 
 own fresh grass, nor hurts the ploughshare with scurf and 
 salt rust; will entwine thine elms with joyous vines; that 
 also is fertile of olives ; that ground you will experience, in 
 manuring, both to be friendly to cattle and submissive to 
 the crooked share. Such a soil rich Capua 26 tills, and the 
 territory neighbouring to Mount Vesuvius, 27 and the Clanius 
 not kind to depopulated Acerrae. 28 
 
 Now I will tell by what means you may distinguish each. 
 If you desire to know whether it be loose or unusually stiff 
 (because the one is fit for corn, the other for wine ; the stiff 
 is best for Ceres, and the most loose for Bacchus) : first you 
 
 26 Capua, a famous city of Italy, the capital of Campania. 
 
 27 Vesuvius, a celebrated volcanic mountain of Campania, about six 
 miles south-east of Naples, and 3780 feet high. The first great eruption 
 of Vesuvius on record was accompanied by an earthquake, a. d. 79, when 
 the towns of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabias were overwhelmed 
 under lava and ashes. The discovery of these towns after having lain 
 above 1600 years buried and unknown, has furnished the world with 
 many curious and valuable remains of antiquity. 
 
 28 Acerrae, a town of Campania, near the city of Naples; the river 
 Clanius almost surrounded the town, and by its inundations frequently 
 depopulated it. 
 
5S GEORGICS. b. ii. 230—263 
 
 shall mark out a place with your eye, and order a pit to be 
 sunk deep in solid ground, and again return all the mould into 
 its place, and level with your feet the sands at top. If they 
 prove deficient, the soil is loose, and more fit for cattle and 
 bounteous vines : but, if they deny the possibility of returning 
 to their places, and there be an overplus of mould after the 
 pit is filled up, it is a dense soil; expect reluctant clods, and 
 stiff ridges, and give the first ploughing to the land with sturdy 
 bullocks. 
 
 But saltish ground, and what is accounted bitter, where 
 corn can never thrive, 29 (it neither mellows by ploughing, nor 
 preserves to grapes their kind, nor to fruits their qualities,) 
 will give a proof to this effect. Snatch from the smoky roofs 
 baskets of close woven twigs, and the strainers of thy wine- 
 press. Hither let some of that vicious mould, and sweet water 
 from the spring, be pressed brimful : be sure all the water 
 will strain out, and big drops pass through the twigs. But 
 the taste will clearly make discovery ; and in its bitterness will 
 distort the wry faces of the tasters with the sensation. 
 
 Again, what land is fat we briefly learn thus : When 
 squeezed by the hand, it never crumbles, but, in handling, it 
 sticks to the fingers like pitch. The moist soil produces herbs 
 of a larger size, and is itself luxuriant beyond due measure. 
 Ah, may none of mine be [thus] too fertile, nor show itself too 
 strong at the first springing of the grain ! 
 
 That which is heavy betrays itself by its very weight, with- 
 out my telling you ; and likewise the light. It is easy to dis- 
 tinguish the black at first sight, and what is the colour of each. 
 But to search out the mischievous cold, is difficult : only pitch- 
 trees, and sometimes noxious yews, or black ivy, disclose its 
 signs. 
 
 These rules observed, remember to dry and bake the soil 
 \ong before, and to encompass the spacious hills with trenches, 
 expose the turned-up clods to the north wind, before you plant 
 the vine's joyous race. Fields of a loose crumbling soil are 
 best ; this effect the winds and cold frosts produce, and the 
 sturdy delver, close plying his acres, tossed and turned upside 
 down. 
 
 But those men, whom not any vigilance escapes, first seek 
 
 29 This rule is however scarcely universal, as is shown by Van Goe&. 
 on the Scriptorr. Rei Agrim. p. 137. B« 
 
j. ii. 266-303. GEORGICS. o9 
 
 out the same sort of soil, where the first nursery may be pro- 
 vided for their trees, and whither it may soon be transplanted 
 in rows ; lest the slips take not kindly to this mother suddenly 
 changed. They even mark on the bark the quarter of the sky, 
 that, in whatever manner each stood, in what part it bore the 
 southern heats, what sides it turned to the northern pole, they 
 may restore [it to the same position]. Of such avail is cus- 
 tom in tender years. 
 
 Examine, first, whether it is better to plant your vines on 
 hills or on a plain. If you lay out the fields of a rich plain, 
 plant thick ; Bacchus will not be less productive in a densely- 
 planted soil: but if a soil rising with a gentle ascent, and 
 sloping hills, give room to your ranks ; yet so that, your trees 
 being exactly ranged, each path between may be exactly even, 
 a line being cut. As often in dread war, when the extended 
 legion hath ranged its cohorts, the battalions stand marshalled 
 on the open plain, the armies set in array, and 1?he whole 
 ground wide waves with gleaming brass; nor yet are they 
 engaged in horrid battle, but Mars hovers dubious in the 
 midst of arms : [thus,] let all your vineyards be laid out in 
 equal proportions, not only that the prospect may idly feed 
 the mind, but because the earth will not otherwise supply 
 equal strength to all ; nor will the branches be able to extend 
 themselves at large. 
 
 Perhaps, too, you may ask what depth is proper for the 
 trenches. I could venture to commit my vine even to a slight 
 furrow. Trees, again, are sunk deeper down, and far into the 
 ground : especially the aesculus, which shoots downward to 
 Tartarus with its roots, as far as [it rises] with its top to the 
 ethereal regions. Therefore, nor wintry storms, nor blasts of 
 winds, nor showers, can uproot it : it remains unmoved, and, 
 rolling many ages of men away, outlasts them in surviving ; 
 then stretching wide its sturdy boughs and arms this way and 
 that way, itself in the midst sustains a mighty shade. 
 
 Nor let the vineyards lie towards the setting sun ; nor plant 
 the hazel among your vines ; neither seek after the extremities 
 of the shoots ; nor gather your cuttings from the top of the 
 tree, so much is their love for the earth : nor hurt your shoots 
 with blunted steel ; nor plant among them truncheons of wild 
 olive. For fire is often let fall from the unwary shepherds, 
 which at first secretly lurking under the unctuous bark, 
 
60 GEORGICS. b. ii. 304—340. 
 
 catches the solid wood, and shooting up into the topmost 
 leaves, raises a loud crackling to heaven ; thence pursuing its 
 way, reigns victorious among the branches and the lofty tops, 
 involves the whole grove in flames, and, condensed in pitchy 
 vapour, darts the black cloud to heaven ; especially if a storm 
 overhead rests on the woods, and the driving wind rolls round 
 the flames. When this happens, their strength decays from 
 the root, nor can they recover, though cut, or sprout up from 
 the deep earth such as they were : the unblest wild olive with 
 its bitter leaves [alone] survives. 
 
 Let no counsellor be so wise in your eyes as to persuade 
 you to stir the rigid earth when Boreas breathes. Then winter 
 shuts up the fields with frost ; and when the slip is planted, 
 suffers not the frozen root to fasten to the earth. The planta- 
 tion of the vineyard is best, when in blushing spring the white 
 stork comes in, abhorred by the long snakes ; or towards the 
 first colds of autumn, when the vehement sun does not yet 
 touch the winter with his steeds, and the summer is just gone. 
 The spring, too, is beneficial to the foliage of the groves, the 
 spring is beneficial to the woods : in spring the lands swell, 
 and demand the genial seeds. Then almighty father JEther 30 
 descends in fertilizing showers into the bosom of his joyous 
 spouse, and great himself, mingling with her great body, 
 nourishes all her offspring. Then the retired brakes resound 
 with tuneful birds ; and the herds renew their loves on the 
 stated days. Then bounteous earth is teeming to the birth, 
 and the fields open their bosoms to the warm breezes of the 
 Zephyr : in all a gentle moisture abounds ; and the herbs dare 
 safely trust themselves to the infant suns ; nor do the vine's 
 tender shoots fear the rising south winds, or the shower pre- 
 cipitated from the sky by the violent north winds ; but put 
 forth their buds, and unfold all their leaves. No other day, 31 
 I should think, had shone at the first origin of the rising world; 
 it was spring, the spacious globe enjoyed spring, and the east 
 winds spared their wintry blasts ; when first the cattle drew 
 in the light, and the earthly race of men upreared their heads 
 
 30 Virgil here follows the notions of Chrysippus, as delivered in ^Eschy- 
 lus, (Fragm. Danaid. fragm. 38, Dind.,) but especially by Euripides, 
 (Fragm. Chrysipp. No. vi. Dind.) B. 
 
 31 It was an ancient supposition, that the world was created in the 
 spring. B. 
 
b. ii. 341—371. GEORGICS. 61 
 
 from the rugged glebe, and the woods were stocked with wild 
 beasts, and the heavens with stars. Nor could the tender pro- 
 ductions [of nature] bear this labour, if so great rest did not 
 intervene between the cold and heat, and if heaven's indulgent 
 season did not visit the earth in its turn. 
 
 For what remains, whatever layers you bend down over all 
 the fields, overspread them with fat dung, and carefully cover 
 them with copious earth ; or bury about them spongy stones, 
 or rough shells : for thus the rains will soak through, and a 
 subtile vapour penetrate them, and the plants will take cour- 
 age. Some, too, have been found, who are for pressing them 
 from above with a stone, and the weight of a great potsherd : 
 this is a defence against the pouring rains : this [a defence] 
 when the sultry dog-star cleaves the gaping fields with 
 drought. 
 
 After your layers are planted, it remains to convey earth 
 often to the roots, and ply the hard drags ; or to work the soil 
 under the deep-pressed share, and guide your struggling bul- 
 locks through the very vineyards ; then to adapt [to the vines] 
 smooth reeds, and spears of peeled rods, and ashen stakes, and 
 two-horned forks ; by whose strength they may learn to shoot 
 up, to contemn the winds, and climb from stage to stage along 
 the highest elms. 
 
 And, while their infant age sprouts with new-born leaves, 
 you must spare the tender vines ; and while the joyous shoot 
 raises itself on high, being sent onward through the open air 
 with loose reins, 32 the edge of the pruning-knife itself must 
 not be applied ; but the leaves should be plucked with the in- 
 bent hands, and culled here and there. Thereafter, when they 
 have shot forth, embracing the elms with firm stems, then cut 
 their locks, then lop their arms. Before this they dread the 
 steel ; then, and not till then, exercise severe dominion, and 
 check the loose straggling boughs. 
 
 Fences, too, should be woven, and all cattle be kept out ; 
 especially while the leaves are tender and unacquainted with 
 
 32 A metaphor taken from horses, in imitation of Lucretius : 
 Arboribus datum est variis exinde per auras 
 Crescendi magnum immissis certamen habenis. 
 Per purum in Virgil signifies the same as per auras in Lucretius. Horace 
 uses it also for the air : 
 
 Per purum tonantes 
 
 E/rit eauos. 
 
62 GEORGICS. b. ii. 372-399 
 
 hardships ; to which, besides the rigorous winters and vehe- 
 ment sun, the wild bulls 33 and persecuting goats continually do 
 wanton harm ; the sheep and greedy heifers browse upon them. 
 Nor do the colds, condensed in hoary frosts, or the severe heat 
 beating upon the scorched rocks, hurt them so much as the 
 flocks, and poison of their hard teeth, and a scar imprinted on 
 the gnawed stem. 
 
 For no other offence is the goat sacrificed to Bacchus on 
 every altar, and the ancient plays come upon the stage : 34 and 
 the Athenians proposed for wits prizes Kbout the villages and 
 crossways; and, joyous amidst their cups, danced in the soft 
 meadows on wine-skins smeared with oil. [On the same ac- 
 count,] the Ausonian 35 colonists also, a race sent from Troy, 
 sport in uncouth strains, and unbounded laughter ; assuming 
 horrid masks of hollowed barks of trees : and thee, Bacchus, 
 they invoke in jovial songs, and to thee hang up mild images 36 
 from the tall pine. Hence every vineyard shoots forth with 
 large produce ; both the hollow vales and deep lawns are filled 
 with plenty, and wherever the god hath moved around his 
 propitious countenance. Therefore will we solemnly ascribe 
 to Bacchus his due honours in our country's lays, and offer 
 chargers, and the consecrated cakes ; and the sacred goat led 
 by the horn shall stand at his altar, and we will roast the fat 
 entrails on hazel spits. 
 
 There is also that other toil in dressing the vines ; on 
 which you can never bestow pains enough : for the whole soil 
 must be ploughed three or four times every year, and the 
 
 33 These must not be confounded with either the bison or the buffalo. 
 See Anthon. B. 
 
 34 Proscenia. In the Roman theatre there was first the porticus or 
 gallery for the populace, where the seats were formed like wedges, grow- 
 ing narrower as they came near the centre of the theatre, and therefore 
 called cunei, or wedges. 2. The orchestra, in the centre and lowest part 
 of the theatre, where the senators and knights sat, and where the dancers 
 arid musicians performed. 3. The proscenium, or space before the scenes, 
 which was raised above the orchestra, and where the actors spoke. 
 
 35 Ausonian, &c, the inhabitants of Ausonia, an ancient name of Italy, 
 who were supposed to be descended from ^Eneas. 
 
 36 Compare Anthon's remark : " And in honour of thee hang up the 
 mild oscilla on the tall pine." Oscillum, a diminutive, through osculum, 
 from os, means, properly, " a little face, and was the term applied to faces 
 or heads of Bacchus, which were suspended in the vineyards to be turned 
 in every direction by the wind. Whichsoever way they looked, they were 
 supposed to make the vines and other things in that quarter fruitful." 
 
It. ir. 400— 43;3. GEORGICS. 63 
 
 clods con tinu ally be broken with bended drags ; the whole 
 grove must be disburdened of its leaves. The farmer's past 
 labour returns in a circle, and the year rolls round on itself on 
 its own steps. And now, when at length the vineyard has 
 shed its late leaves, and the cold north wind has shaken from 
 the groves their honours ; 37 even then the active swain extends 
 his cares to the coming year, and closely plies the forsaken 
 vine, cutting off [the superfluous roots] with Saturn's crooked 
 hook, and forms it by pruning. Be the first to trench the 
 ground, be the first to carry home and burn the shoots, and 
 the first to return beneath your roof the vine-props : be the 
 last to reap the vintage. Twice the shade assails the vines ; 
 twice do weeds overrun the field with thick bushes ; each a 
 hard labour. Commend large farms ; cultivate a small one. 
 Besides all this, the rough twigs of butcher's-broom are to be 
 cut throughout the woods, and the watery reed on the banks : 
 and the care of the uncultivated willow gives new toil. Now 
 the vines are tied ; now the vineyard lays aside the pruning- 
 hook ; now the exhausted vintager salutes in song his utmost 
 rows : yet must the earth be vexed anew, and the mould put 
 in motion ; and now Jove is to be dreaded by the ripened 
 grapes. 
 
 On the other hand, the olives require no culture ; nor do 
 they expect the crooked pruning-hook and tenacious harrows, 
 when once they are rooted in the ground, and have stood the 
 blasts. Earth of herself supplies the plants with moisture, 
 when opened by the hooked tooth of the drag, and weighty 
 fruits, when [opened] by the share. Nurture for thyself with 
 this the fat and peace-delighting olive. The fruit-trees too, 
 as soon as they feel their trunks vigorous, and acquire their 
 strength, quickly shoot up to the stars by their own virtue, 
 and need not our assistance. At the same time, every grove 
 is in like manner loaded with offspring, and the uncultivated 
 haunts of birds glow with blood-red berries : the cytisus is 
 browsed ; the tall wood supplies with torches ; and our noc- 
 turnal fires are fed, and shed beamy light. And do men hesi- 
 tate to plant and bestow care ? 
 
 Why should I insist on greater things ? The very willows 
 and lowly broom supply either browse for cattle, or shade for 
 
 27 Hor. Ep. ii. 5. " December — silvis honorem decutit" B. 
 
64 GEORGICS. b. ii. 436-462 
 
 shepherds, fences for the corn, and materials for honey. It ia 
 delightful to behold Cy torus 38 waving with the grove of Na- 
 rycian pitch : it is delightful to see the fields not indebted to 
 the harrows, or to any care of men. Even the barren woods 
 on the top of Caucasus, which the fierce east winds continually 
 are crushing and tearing, yield each their different produce • 
 they yield pines, an useful wood for ships, and cedars and cy- 
 presses for houses. Hence the husbandmen have rounded 
 spokes for wheels ; hence they have framed solid orbs for 
 waggons, and bending keels for ships. The willows are fertile 
 in twigs, the elms in leaves for fodder ; the myrtle again is 
 useful for sturdy spears, and the cornel for war ; the yews 
 are bent into Ityraean bows. 39 In like manner the smooth- 
 grained limes, or box polished by the lathe, receive a shape, 
 and are hollowed with sharp steel. Thus too the light alder, 
 launched on the Po, 40 swims the rapid stream : thus too the 
 bees hide their swarms in the hollow bark, and in the heart of 
 . a rotten holm. What have the gifts of Bacchus produced so 
 worthy of record ? Bacchus has given occasion to offence and 
 guilt : he quelled by death the furious Centaurs, 41 Rhoetus and 
 Pholus, and Hylseus threatening the Lapithae with a huge 
 goblet. 
 
 Ah ! the too happy swains, did they but know their own 
 bliss ! to whom, at a distance from discordant arms, earth, of 
 herself most liberal, pours from her bosom their easy susten- 
 ance. If the palace, high raised with proud gates, vomits not 
 forth from all its apartments a vast tide of morning visitants ; 
 
 38 Cytorus, (Kidros,) a city and mountain of Paphlagonia, on the 
 Euxine. Narycian pitch, from Narycia, a town of the Locrians in Magna 
 Graecia, in the neighbourhood of which were forests of pine, &c. 
 
 39 Ityraean bows, from Ityrsea, a province of Syria, whose inhabitants 
 were famous archers. 
 
 40 Po, anciently called also Eridanus, the largest river of Italy, rises 
 in Mount Vestulus, one of the highest mountains of the Alps, and after an 
 easterly course of nearly 400 miles, and receiving numerous tributary 
 streams, discharges its waters into the Adriatic, about 30 miles S. of the 
 city of Venice. 
 
 41 Centaurs, a people of Thessaly, represented as monsters, half men 
 and half horses. The Lapithae, also a people of Thessaly, who inhabited 
 the country about Mount Pindus and Othrys. The allusion here is to 
 the battle of the Centaurs and Lapithae, at the celebration of the 
 nuptials of Pirithous, king of the latter, who invited not only the heroes 
 of his age, but also the gods themselves. In the contest that ensued, 
 many of the Centaurs were slain, and the rest saved themselves by flight. 
 
R n# 463—492. GEORGICS. 65 
 
 and they gape not at porticoes variegated with beauteous tor- 
 toise-shell, and on tapestries tricked with gold, and on Co- 
 rinthian brass ; and if the white wool is not stained with the 
 Assyrian drug, nor the use of the pure oil corrupted with 
 Cassia's aromatic bark ; yet [there is] peace secure, and a life 
 ignorant of guile, rich in various opulence ; yet [theirs are] 
 peaceful retreats in ample fields, grottoes, and living lakes ; 
 yet [to them] cool vales,- the lowings of kine, and soft slum- 
 bers under a tree, are not wanting. There are woodlands and 
 haunt3 for beasts of chase, and youth patient of toil, and 
 inured to thrift ; the worship of the gods, and fathers held in 
 veneration : Justice, when she left the world, took her last 
 steps among them. 
 
 But me may the Muses, sweet above all things else, 42 whose 
 sacred symbols I bear, smitten with violent love, first receive 
 into favour ; and show me the paths of heaven, and constella- 
 tions ; the various eclipses of the sun, and labours of the 
 moon ; whence the trembling of the earth ; from what influ- 
 ence the seas swell high, bursting their barriers, and again 
 sink back into themselves ; why the winter suns make such 
 haste to dip themselves in the ocean, or what delay retards 
 the slow-paced [summer] nights. 
 
 But if the cold blood about my heart hinders me from 
 penetrating into these parts of nature ; let fields and streams 
 gliding in the valleys be my delight ; inglorious may I court 
 the rivers and the woods. O [to be] where are the plains, 43 
 and Sperchius, and Tayget^s, 44 the scene of Bacchanalian 
 revels to Spartan maids ! O who will place me in the cool val- 
 leys of Haemus, and shelter me with a thick shade of boughs ? 
 Happy is he who has been able to trace out the causes of 
 things, and who has cast beneath his feet all fears, and in- 
 exorable Destiny, and the noise of devouring Acheron? 45 
 
 42 I have followed Wagner in joining " dulces ante omnia," but I Lave 
 some doubts whether the old interpretation is not better. B. 
 
 43 Thessalian plains. Thessaly, a country of Greece, south of Mace- 
 donia, in which was the celebrated vale of Tempe. Sperchius, a river of 
 Thessaly, rises in Mount CEta, and runs into the Maliac Gulf, near the 
 pass of Thermopylae. 
 
 44 Taygetus, a mountain of Laconia in Peloponnesus, (Morea.) on 
 which were celebrated the orgies of Bacchus ; it hung over the city of 
 Sparta, and extended from Taenarus to Arcadia. 
 
 45 Acheron, one of the rivers of hell, according to the ancient poets ; 
 
66 GEORGICS. b. ii. 493—521 
 
 Blest too is he who has known the rural deities, Pan and old 
 Silvanus, and the sister nymphs ! him nor the fasces of the 
 people, nor the purple of kings ; nor discord persecuting faith- 
 less brothers, nor the Dacian descending from the conspiring 
 Danube; 46 nor the revolutions of Eome, or perishing king- 
 doms, have moved. He neither pined with grief, lamenting 
 the poor, nor envied the rich. What fruits the boughs, what 
 the willing fields spontaneously yielded, he gathered ; nor saw 
 the iron-hearted laws, the madly litigious bar, or the public 
 courts. 
 
 Some vex the dangerous seas with oars, some rush into 
 arms, some work their way into courts, and the palaces of 
 kings. One destines a city and wretched families to destruc- 
 tion, that he may drink in gems, and sleep on Tyrian purple. 47 
 Another hoards up wealth, and broods over buried gold. 
 One, astonished at the rostrum, grows giddy ; another, peals 
 of applause along the rows, (for it is redoubled both by the 
 people and the fathers,) have captivated, and set agape ; some 
 rejoice when stained with their brother's blood ; and exchange 
 their homes and sweet thresholds for exile, and seek a coun^ 
 try lying under another sun. The husbandman cleaves the 
 earth with a crooked plough ; hence the labours of the year ; 
 hence he sustains the country, and his little offspring ; hence 
 his herds of kine, and deserving steers. Nor is there any in- 
 termission, but the year either abounds with apples, or with 
 the breed of the flocks, or with the sheaf of Ceres' stalk ; loads 
 the furrows with increase, and overstocks the barns. Winter 
 comes: the Sicyonian 48 berry is pounded in the oil-presses ; 
 the swine come home gladdened with acorns ; the woods yield 
 their arbutes ; and the autumn lays down its various produc- 
 
 often taken for hell itself. Virgil here follows Lucretius, i. 37, " Et 
 metus ille foras praeceps Acheruntis agendus Funditus, humanam qui 
 vitam turbat ab imo, Omnia suffundens mortis nigrore." And soon after, 
 vs. 79, " Quare religio pedibus subjecta." B. 
 
 ** The Danube rises in the black forest of Suabia, and, after a course of 
 about 1600 miles, discharges itself into the Euxine Sea. The Dacians 
 inhabited an extensive country, north of the Danube, now called Walla- 
 chia, Transylvania, and Moldavia. 
 
 47 Tyrian purple, from Tyre, a city of Phoenicia in Asia, celebrated for 
 its early commerce and numerous colonies, and for the invention of scar- 
 let and purple colours ; its ancient name was Sarra, now Soor. 
 
 48 Sicyonian berry, the olive, with which Sicyonia, a district of Pelo- 
 ponnesus, in Greece, abounded. 
 
K ii. 521—542. in. 1—3. GEORGICS. (57 
 
 tions; and high on the sunny rocks the mild vintage is 
 ripened. Meanwhile the sweet babes twine round their pa- 
 rents' neck : his chaste family maintain their purity ; the cows 
 hang down their udders full of milk ; and the fat kids wrestle 
 together with butting horns on the cheerful green. The swain 
 himself celebrates festal days; and, extended on the grass, 
 where a fire is in the middle, and where his companions crown 
 the bowl, invokes thee, O Lenaeus, making libation; and on 
 an elm sets forth to the masters of the flock prizes to be con- 
 tended for with the winged javelin ; and they strip their hardy 
 bodies for the rustic ring. 
 
 This life of old the ancient Sabines ; 49 this Remus and his 
 brother strictly observed; thus Etruria 50 grew in strength; 
 and thus too did Rome become the glory and beauty of the 
 world, and, single, hath encompassed for herself seven hills 
 with a wall. This life, too, golden Saturn led on earth, be- 
 fore the sceptred sway of the Dictaean 51 king, and before an 
 impious race feasted on slain bullocks. Nor yet had mankind 
 heard the warlike trumpets blow ; nor yet the swords laid on 
 the hard anvils clatter. 
 
 But we have finished this immensely extended field ; and 
 now it is time to unloose the smoking necks of our steeds. 
 
 BOOK in. 
 
 In the third Book, after invoking the rural deities, and eulogizing Augustus, 
 Virgil treats of the management of cattle, laying down rules for the choice 
 and breeding of horses, oxen, sheep, &c. The book abounds in admirable 
 descriptions ; many passages are inimitably fine. 
 
 Thee, too, great Pales, and thee, famed shepherd from Am- 
 phrysus, 1 ye woods and Arcadian rivers, will I sing. Other 
 themes, that might have entertained minds disengaged from 
 
 49 Sabines, an ancient people of Italy, reckoned among the aborigenes, 
 or those inhabitants whose origin was unknown ; their country was situ- 
 ated between the rivers Tiber, Nar, and Anio, having the Apennines on 
 the east. 
 
 50 Etruria, (Tuscany,) a country of Italy lying west of the Tiber. 
 
 51 Dictaean king, Jupiter is so called from Mount Dicte in Crete, where 
 he was worshipped. 
 
 1 Amphrysus, a river of Thessary, on the banks of which Apollo fed 
 the flocks of king Admetus. Arcadian rivers : Arcadia was a pastoral 
 district of Peloponnesus in Greece, of which Pan was the tutelary deity. 
 
 f 2 
 
68 GEORGICS. b. in. 4— 2G 
 
 song, are now all trite and common. Who is unacquainted 
 either with severe Eurystheus, 2 or the altars of infamous 
 Busiris ? By whom has not the boy Hylas been recorded, and 
 Latonian Delos ? 3 or Hippodame, 4 and Pelops, conspicuous 
 for his ivory shoulder, victorious in the race ? I, too, must at- 
 tempt a way, whereby I may raise myself from the ground, 
 and victorious hover through the lips of men. 
 
 I first returning from the Aonian mount, will (provided 
 life remain) bring along with me the Muses into my country ; 
 for thee, O Mantua, I first will bear off the Idumasan 5 palms, 
 and on thy verdant plains erect a temple of marble, near the 
 stream where the great Mincius winds in slow meanders, and 
 fringes the banks with tender reed. In the middle will I have 
 Cassar, and he shall command the temple. In honour of him 
 will I victorious, and in Tynan purple conspicuous, drive a 
 hundred four-horsed chariots along the river. For me all 
 Greece, leaving Alpheus 6 and the groves of Molorchus, shall 
 contend in races and the raw-hide cestus. I myself, graced 
 with leaves of the shorn olive, will bear offerings. Even now 
 I am well pleased to lead on the solemn pomps to the temple, 
 and to see the bullocks slain ; or how the scene with shifting 
 front retires ; and how the inwoven Britons lift up the purple 
 curtain. On the doors will I delineate, in gold and solid 
 
 2 Eurystheus, king of Argos and Mycenae, who, at the instigation of 
 Juno, imposed upon Hercules the most perilous enterprises, well known 
 by the name of the twelve labours of Hercules. Busiris, a king of 
 Egypt, noted for his cruelty in sacrificing all foreigners who entered his 
 country. 
 
 3 Delos, a small but celebrated island of the ^Egean Sea, nearly in 
 the centre of the Cyclades, in which Latona gave birth to Apollo and 
 Diana; hence the former is frequently called Delius, and the latter 
 Delia. 
 
 4 Hippodame, a daughter of CEnomaus, king of Pisa in Elis. Her 
 father refused to marry her except to him who could overcome him in a 
 chariot race ; thirteen had already been conquered, and forfeited their 
 lives, when Pelops, the son of Tantalus, entered the lists, and by bribing 
 Myrtilus, the charioteer of CEnomaus, insured to himself the victory. 
 
 6 ldumaean palms, from Idumaea, a country of Syria, on the south of 
 J uda,a, famed for its palm-trees. 
 
 6 Alpheus, (Rouphia,) a river of Elis in Peloponnesus, where the 
 Olympic games were celebrated. Molorchus, a shepherd of Argolis, who 
 kindly received Hercules, and in return the hero slew the Nemaean lion 
 which laid waste the country ; hence the institution of the Nemaean 
 games. 
 
b. in. 27—45. GEOEGICS. 69 
 
 ivory, the battle of the Gangarides, 7 and the arms of conquer- 
 ing Quirinus ; and here the Nile 8 swelling with war, flowing 
 majestic, and columns rising with naval brass. I will add the 
 vanquished cities of Asia, and subdued Niphates, 9 and the 
 Parthian presuming on his flight and arrows shot backward, 10 
 and two trophies snatched by the hand from two widely-distant 
 foes, and nations twice triumphed over on either shore. Here 
 too shall stand in Parian 11 marble, breathing statues, the off- 
 spring of Assaracus, 12 and the chiefs of the Jove-descended 
 race ; both Tros, the great ancestor [of Rome], and Cynthian 
 Apollo, founder of Troy. Here baneful envy shall dread the 
 Furies, and the grim river of Cocytus, 13 Ixion's twisted snakes, 
 the enormous wheel, and the insurmountable stone. 
 
 Meanwhile, let us pursue the woods of the Dryads, and un- 
 trodden lawns ; thy commands, Maecenas, of no easy import. 
 Without /thee my mind ventures on nothing sublime ; come 
 then, break off idle delays. Cithaeron L4 calls with loud halloo, 
 and the hounds of Taygetus, and Epidaurus, the tamer of 
 horses ; and the voice, doubled by the assenting groves, re- 
 
 7 Gangarides, a people of Asia, near the mouth of the Ganges. 
 
 8 Nile, a great river of Africa, and one of the most celebrated in the 
 world, is generally supposed to have its sources in that immense chain of 
 mountains in Central Africa, called the Mountains of the Moon. Its 
 course runs in a northerly direction, flowing through Nubia and Egypt ; 
 a little below Cairo it divides itself into two great branches, which en- 
 close the Delta, and fall into the Mediterranean, the western branch at 
 Rosetta, and the eastern at Damietta. 
 
 9 Niphates, a mountain of Armenia, part of the range of Taurus, from 
 which the river Tigris takes its rise. 
 
 10 Cf. Plutarch, Crass, p. 558, v7rs(pevyov ydp lifxa paWovreg oi 
 TIapOoi. B. 
 
 11 Parian marble, from Paros, an island of the iEgean Sea, one of the 
 Cyclades, famed for its beautiful white marble. 
 
 12 Assaracus, a Trojan prince, father of Capys, and grandfather of An 
 chises. Tros, a son of Erichthonius, king of Troy, which was so named 
 after him. Cynthian Apollo : the surname is from Cynthus, a mountain 
 in the island of Delos, where Apollo and Diana were born, and which 
 was sacred to them. 
 
 13 Cocytus, a river of Epirus in Greece, called by the poets one of the 
 rivers of hell. Ixion, a king of Thessaly, whom Jupiter is fain to have 
 struck with his thunder for having attempted to seduce Juno; he was 
 bound with serpents to a wheel in hell, which was perpetually in motion. 
 
 14 Cithaeron, a mountain of Bceotia in Greece, sacred to Jupiter and 
 the Muse^ Epidaurus, (Pidavra,) a city of Argolis in Peloponnesus, 
 tamed f<nflkemple of Esculapius, and for its fine breed of horses. 
 
70 GEORGICS. b. in. 46—80, 
 
 echoes. Yet ere long shall I be prepared to sing of Caesar's 
 ardent battles, and to transmit his name with honour through 
 as many years as Caesar is distant from the first origin of 
 Tithonus. 
 
 Whether any one, aspiring to the praises of the Olympian 
 palm, breeds horses, or whether any one [breeds] sturdy bul- 
 locks for the plough, let him choose with special care the 
 bodies of the mothers. The stern-eyed heifer's form is best, 
 whose head is disproportionately large, whose neck is brawny, 
 and whose dew -laps hang from the chin down to the legs. 
 Then there is no measure in her length of side ; all her parts 
 are huge, even her foot ; and her ears are rough under her 
 crumpled 15 horns. Nor would she displease me if streaked with 
 white spots, or if she refuses the yoke, and sometimes is surly 
 with her horn, and in aspect approaches nearer to a bull, and 
 if she is stately throughout, and sweeps her steps with the 
 extremity of her tail, as she goes along. 
 
 The age to undergo breeding and proper union ends before 
 ten, and begins after four years : the other years [cows] are 
 neither fit for breeding, nor strong for the plough. Mean- 
 time, while the flocks abound with sprightly youth, let loose 
 the males : be the first to indulge thy cattle in the joys of 
 love : and by generation raise up one race after another. Each 
 best time of life fly fast away from wretched mortals : dis- 
 eases succeed, and sad old age, and pain ; and the inclemency 
 of inexorable death snatches them away. There will always 
 be some whose bodies you would choose to have changed [for 
 better]. Therefore continually repair them ; and, that you 
 may not regret them when lost, be beforehand, and yearly 
 provide a new offspring for the herd. 
 
 The same discriminating care is also requisite for a breed 
 of horses. But still, on those which you intend to bring up 
 for the hope of the race, bestow your principal diligence im- 
 mediately from their tender years. The colt of generous 
 breed from the very first walks high throughout the fields, 
 and nimbly moves his pliant legs ; he is the first that dares to 
 lead the way, and tempt the threatening floods, and trust him- 
 self to an unknown bridge ; nor starts affrighted at vain 
 alarms. Lofty is his neck, his head little and slender, hie 
 
 15 Nonius, Marc, i., explains " camurum by obtortum." Hesiod, Opp 
 152, 'iXiicac (3oag. B. 
 
A in. 81-109. GEORGICS. 71 
 
 belly short, his back plump, and his proud chest swells luxu- 
 riant with brawny muscles : (the bright bay and bluish grey 
 are in most request ; the worst colours are the white and sor- 
 rel.) Then, if he by chance hears the distant sound of arms, 
 he knows not how to stand still ; he pricks up his ears, trem- 
 bles in every joint, and snorting, rolls the collected fire under 
 his nostrils. Thick is his mane, and, waving, rests on his right 
 shoulder. A double spine 16 runs along his loins, his hoof 
 scoops up the ground, and deep resounds with its solid horn. 
 Such was Cyllarus, broken by the reins of Amyclaean Pollux, 17 
 and such (which the Grecian poets have described) the har- 
 nessed brace of Mars, and the chariot-horses l8 of great Achil- 
 les. Such Saturn too himself, swift at the coming of his 
 wife, spread out a full mane on his [assumed] horse's neck, 
 and flying filled lofty Pelion with shrill neighing. 
 
 Him too, when with sickness oppressed, or now enfeebled 
 with years, he fails, shut up in his lodge, and spare his not in- 
 glorious age. An old horse is cold to love, and in vain drags 
 on the ungrateful task, and if ever he comes to an engagement, 
 he is impotently furious, as at times a great fire without 
 strength among stubble. Therefore chiefly mark their spirit 
 and age ; then their other qualities, their parentage, and what 
 is the sorrow of each when vanquished, what the pride when 
 victorious. 
 
 See you not ? 19 when in the rapid race the chariots have 
 seized the plain, and pouring forth rush along ; when the 
 hopes of the youth are elevated, and palpitating fear heaves 
 their throbbing hearts : they ply with the twisted lash, and 
 bending forward give full reins : the axle flies glowing with 
 the impetuosity. And now low, now high, they seem to be 
 borne aloft through the open air, and to mount up into the 
 
 16 In a horse that is in good case, the back is broad, and a fulness of 
 flesh near the spine is indicated, by which two ridges are formed, one at 
 each side of the bone. This is what the ancients mean by a double spine. 
 Valpy. 
 
 17 Amyclaean Pollux was the son of Jupiter, by Leda, and the twin 
 brother of Castor; he was so called from Amiclae, a city of Lycorjia, 
 where he was born. 
 
 18 With this sense of " currus," compare the similar Greek usage, Eur. 
 Hipp. 1224, rerpupov etcfiaivwv oxov, vs. 1352, ed. Monk, and Ion, 
 1151. B. 
 
 19 This is a formula used in adducing examples. Comp. Georg. i 56 ; 
 Lucr. ii. 196. Hickif. 
 
72 GEORGICS. e. in. 110—137. 
 
 skies. No stop, no stay : but a thick cloud of yellow sand is 
 tossed up ; the foremost are wet with the foam and breath of 
 those that follow. So powerful is the love of praise, so anx- 
 ious the desire of victory. 
 
 First Erichthonius 20 dared to yoke the chariot and four 
 steeds, and upon the rapid wheels victorious to stand. The 
 Pelethronian Lapithae first mounted on horseback applied the 
 reins, and turned him in the ring ; taught the horsemen under 
 arms to spurn the plain, and with proud ambling pace to 
 prance along. Either toil is equal ; with equal care the mas- 
 ters in either case seek after a [steed that is] youthful, of 
 warm mettle, and eager in the race : [they do not make choice 
 of an old horse,] though often he may have driven before him 
 the fiying foes, may boast of Epirus, or of warlike Mycenae 21 
 for his country, and derive his pedigree even from Neptune's 
 breed. 
 
 These things observed, they are very careful about the time 
 [of generation], and bestow all their care to plump him up 
 with firm fat whom they have chosen leader, and assigned 
 stallion to the herd : they cut downy herbs, and supply him 
 with plenty of water and corn, that he may be adequate to 22 
 the soothing toil, and lest the puny sons should declare the 
 meagreness of their sires. But they purposely attenuate the 
 brood mares with leanness : and, when now the known plea- 
 sure solicits the first enjoyment, they both deny herbs, and 
 debar them from the springs ; often too they shake them in 
 the race, and tire them in the sun, when beneath the beaten 
 grain the barn floor deeply groans, and in the rising zephyr 
 the empty chaff is tossed about. This they do, tljat excessive 
 pampering may not blunt the powers of the genial soil, and 
 choke up the sluggish passages ; but that it may with eager- 
 ness drink in the joys of love, and lay them up more deeply 
 within. 
 
 20 Erichthonius, a son of Vulcan, and king of Athens ; the invention 
 of chariots is ascribed to him. Pelethronian Lapithae, so called from 
 Pelethronium, a town of Thessaly at the foot of Mount Pelion, inhabited 
 by the Lapithae, who were excellent horsemen. 
 
 21 Mycenae, a city of Argolis in Peloponnesus, once the capital of a 
 kingdom, and the residence of Agamemnon. 
 
 22 " Superesse " is explained " praestantior esse" by the Scholiast on 
 Avianus, Fab. xiii. 10, but more clearly by Gellius, i. 22, '« supra laborem 
 esse, neque opprimi a labore." B. 
 
b. in. 138—164. GEORGICS. 73 
 
 Again the cares of the sires begin to fail, and that of the 
 dams to succeed ; when now, their months elapsed, they rove 
 about pregnant : let no one suffer them to drag the yokes of 
 heavy waggons, 23 or to leap across the way, scamper over the 
 meads with sprightly career, and swim the rapid floods. They 
 ought then to feed 24 in spacious lawns, and beside full rivers, 
 where moss, and grassy banks of prime verdure, and caves 
 may shelter them, and over them a shady rock project. 
 
 About the groves of Silarus, 25 and Alburnus, verdant with 
 ever-green oaks, abounds a flying thing, 26 which the Romans 
 name asilus, and the Greeks in their language have rendered 
 cestros ; of angry sting, humming harshly ; with which whole 
 herds affrighted fly dispersed through the woods ; the sky is 
 furiously shaken with bellowings, and the woods and banks of 
 dry Tanagrus. With this monster did Juno once exercise 
 her fell revenge, having meditated a plague for the Inachian 27 
 heifer. This, too, (for in the noontide heat it rages more 
 keenly,) you must keep off from the pregnant cattle ; and feed 
 your herds when the sun is newly risen, or when the stars 
 usher in the night. 
 
 After the birth, the whole care is transferred to the calves ; 
 and from the first they stamp with a hot iron the marks and 
 names of the race ; and which they choose to bring up for the 
 increase of the flock, or to keep sacred for the altar, or to 
 cleave the ground, and turn up the soil all rugged with broken 
 clods : the rest of the herd graze amidst the green pastures. 
 
 Those which you would form for the design and service of 
 agriculture, train up while calves, and enter on the way to 
 
 23 Here waggons stand for any " wheeled vehicle." Hickie. 
 
 24 Or rather, " scamper over." Heyne remarks, " proprie via carpitur 
 per prata." B. 
 
 25 Silarus, (Sele,) a river of Italy, separating Lucania from the terri- 
 tory of the Picentini : its banks were much infested with the gad-fly. Al- 
 burnus, a lofty mountain of Lucania, at the foot of which rises the river 
 Tanagros, (Negro,) remarkable for its cascades, and its beautiful rae- 
 anderings. 
 
 26 « Volitans," as Anthon remarks, is here used ;,& b kind of substan- 
 tive. Compare " volucri asilo," Valer. Flacc. hi. 581. 
 
 27 Inachian heifer. Io, daughter of Inachus, and priefelesa of Juno at 
 Argos, according to the poets, was changed into a heifer by Jupiter, but 
 afterwards restored to her own form, when she married Telegonus or 
 Osiris, king of Egypt, and after death was worshipped under the name 
 of I sis. 
 
74 GEOKGIOS. s. in. 165-197 
 
 tame them, whilst their minds in youth are tractable, while 
 their age is pliant. And first fasten about their necks loose 
 collars of slender twigs; next, when they have accustomed 
 their free necks to servitude, match your bullocks in pairs 
 joined by those same collars, and make them step together ; 
 and now let empty wheels be dragged by them along the 
 ground, and let them print their traces in the surface of the 
 dust. Afterwards let the beechen axle labouring under a 
 ponderous load creak, and the brass-girt pole draw the joined 
 wheels. Meanwhile for the young untamed bullocks you will 
 crop with your hand not only grass, or the tender 28 leaves of 
 willows, or a marshy sedge, but also springing corn : nor shall 
 your suckling heifers, as was the custom of our fathers, fill 
 the snowy milking-pails, but spend all their udders on their 
 sweet offspring. 
 
 But if thy inclination is to war and martial troops, or with 
 thy wheels to skim along the brink of Pisa's 29 Alphaean 
 streams, and drive the flying chariot in Jupiter's grove : the 
 first task of the horse must be to view the fierceness and the 
 arms of warriors, to be patient of the trumpet, and to bear the 
 rumbling of the wheels in their career, and in his stall to hear 
 the rattling bridles ; then more and more to rejoice in the 
 coaxing praises of his master, and to love the sound of his 
 patted neck. 30 And these let him hear as soon as weaned 
 from the udder of his dam, and now and then yield his mouth 
 to the soft halters when weak, and yet trembling, and yet not 
 confident in his years. But, three full years elapsed, when 
 his fourth summer has arrived, let him forthwith begin to 
 wheel in the ring, and with regular steps to prance ; and let 
 him bend the pliant joints of his legs alternately, and seem to 
 labour. Then let him dare the winds in swiftness, and 
 through the open plains flying, as loosened from the reins, 
 scarcely print his steps on the surface of the sand. As when 
 boisterous Boreas hath rushed forth from the Hyperborean 
 regions, and drives along the Scythian storms and dry clouds ; 
 
 28 "Vescas" is interpreted by Servius, " siccas et teneras." See 
 Gronov. on Liv. xxxiii. 48. intpp. on Lucret. i. 327. B. 
 
 29 Pisa, an ancient city of Elis in Peloponnesus, o:i the banks of the 
 Alpheus, and on the ruins of which Olympia is supposed to have been 
 built. 
 
 30 Silius, iv. 265, " stimulans grato plausae cervicis honore, Cornipederu 
 Liloquitur." B. 
 
B. in. 198—235. GEORGICS. 75 
 
 then the high corn and waving fields tremble with the gentle 
 gusts, the tops of the woods rustle, and the lengthened waves 
 press towards the shore : he flies, sweeping in his career at 
 once the fields, at once the seas. Such a courser will either 
 sweat at the goals and spacious bounds of the Elean plain, and 
 drive the bloody foam from his mouth, or will better bear the 
 Belgic cars on his pliant neck. Then at last, when they are 
 broken, let their ample bodies grow with fattening mash ; for, 
 [if full fed] before breaking them in, they will swell their 
 mettle high, and when seized, refuse to bear the limber whip, 
 and to obey the hard curb. 
 
 But no industry more confirms their strength than to avert 
 Yenus from them, and the stings of blind love, whether any 
 one be more fond of a breed of bullocks or of horses. And 
 therefore they remove the bulls to a distance, and to lonely 
 pastures, behind an obstructing mountain, and beyond broad 
 rivers, or keep them shut up within at full cribs ; for the fe- 
 male insensibly consumes his vigour, and fires him while in 
 his eye, 31 nor suffers him to mind his groves and pastures. 
 Often by her sweet allurements she even impels her haughty 
 lovers to combat with their horns. The beauteous heifer 
 feeds in the spacious wood ; they by turns with mighty force 
 engage with repeated wounds ; black blood laves their bodies ; 
 and their adverse horns are impelled on the straggling foes 
 with a vast groan ; the woods and spacious skies rebellow. 
 Nor is it usual for the warriors to dwell together ; but the one 
 vanquished retires, and becomes an exile in unknown distant 
 coasts ; much and often bemoaning his disgrace, and the 
 wounds of the proud victor, in fine, the loves which un- 
 avenged he has lost ; and, often gazing at the stalls, departs 
 from his hereditary realms. Therefore with the utmost care 
 he exercises his strength, and lies all night among the hard 
 rocks, on an unspread couch, feeding on prickly leaves and 
 sharp rushes ; he tries himself, and learns to collect his rage 
 into his horns, butting against the trunk of a tree ; dares the 
 winds with blows, and preludes to the fight by spurning the 
 sand. Afterwards, when his strength is rallied, and his vigour 
 
 31 Literally, " by their beholding her." Anthc-n truly remarks, that it 
 is a mistake to suppose that the gerund is used for the passive. Of. 
 " cantando," Eel. viii. 71, " tegendo," Georg. hi. 454, " habendo," 
 Lucret. i. 313. B. 
 
76 GEORGICS. b. iil 236—271 
 
 recovered, he begins the march, 32 and is borne headlong on 
 his unmindful foe ; as a wave, when it begins to whiten in 
 the midst of the sea, at distance and from the deep, draws 
 out its bosom, and as rolling to the land it roars dreadful 
 among the rocks, nor less than very mountain falls ; while 
 with whirlpools the water from the bottom boils, and tosses 
 up the blackening sand on high. 
 
 Indeed every kind on earth, both of men and wild beasts, 
 the fish, the cattle, and painted birds, rush into maddening 
 fires; love is in all the same. At no other time does the 
 lioness, forgetful of her whelps, range the plains more fierce ; 
 nor do the unshapely bears usually spread so numerous ravages 
 and such havoc in the woods : then ferocious is the boar, then 
 most fell the tiger. It is then, alas ! unhappy wandering in 
 the desolate fields of Libya. See you not how tremour thrills 
 through the horse's whole body, if his smell has but sucked 
 in the well-known gales ? And now neither bridles of men, 
 nor cruel whips, nor cliffs, nor hollow rocks, and opposed rivers 
 that whirl with the torrent even mountains swept away, can 
 retard him. Even the Sabellian boar rushes, and whets his 
 tusks, and with his feet tears up the ground, rubs his flanks 
 against a tree, and on this side and that side hardens his 
 shoulders to wounds. What does the youth, in whose vitals 
 relentless love fans the mighty fire ? Why, late in the dark- 
 some night he swims the frith boisterous with bursting storms ; 
 over whom the spacious gate of heaven thunders, and the seas 
 dashing against the rocks remurmur ; nor can his distressed 
 parents recall him, nor the maiden too, about to perish by a 
 cruel fate. What do the spotted ounces of Bacchus, and the 
 fierce race of wolves and dogs ? what the timorous stags ? 
 what dreadful wars they wage ! Yet know, the fury of the 
 mares is most of all extraordinary: and this spirit Venus 
 herself inspired, when four Potnian mares tore the limb of 
 Glaucus 33 to pieces with their jaws. Love drives them across 
 Gargarus, and roaring Ascanius : 34 they climb the mountains, 
 swim the rivers ; and forthwith, when the flame is secretly 
 
 32 Literally, " strikes the tents." B. 
 
 33 Glaucus, a son of Sisyphus, king of Corinth, who was torn to pieces 
 at Potnia in Boeotia, by his own mares. 
 
 34 Ascanius, afterwards called the Hylas, a river of Bithynia in Asia 
 Minor, flowing into the Propontis near Cius. 
 
B. in. 272—306, GEORGICS. i i 
 
 conveyed into their craving marrow, chiefly in the spring, (for 
 in the spring the heat returns into their bones,) they all, with 
 their mouth turned towards the Zephyr, stand on high rocks, 
 and catch the gentle gales ; and often, wondrous to relate ! 
 without any mate, impregnated by the wind, over rocks and 
 cliffs and hollow vales they scour ; not towards thine, O Eurus, 
 nor the sun's rising, nor towards Boreas and Caurus, 35 or 
 whence grim Auster arises, and saddens the sky with bleak 
 rain. Hence at last, what the shepherds call by its true 
 name, hippomanes, a clammy poison distils from their groins ; 
 hippomanes, which wicked stepdames often have gathered, 
 and mixed [therewith] herbs, and not innoxious spells. But 
 time flies meanwhile, flies irretrievable, while we, enamoured 
 [of the theme], minutely trace particulars. 
 
 Thus far of herds. Another part of our care remains, to 
 manage the fleecy flocks and shaggy goats. A labour this ; 
 hence hope for praise, ye sturdy swains. Nor am I at all 
 ignorant how difficult it is to raise such subjects by style, and 
 add this dignity to things so low. But the sweet love [of the 
 Muses] transports me along the lonely heights of Parnassus : 
 it delights me to range those mountain-tops, where no path 
 trodden by the ancients winds down with gentle descent to 
 Castalia. 36 
 
 Now, adorable Pales, now must I sing in lofty strain. To 
 begin, I appoint the sheep to be foddered in soft cots, till first 
 the leafy spring return : and that the hard ground under 
 them be strewn with plenty of straw, and with bundles of 
 ferns, lest the cold ice hurt the tender flock, and bring on the 
 scab, and foul foot-rot. Next, leaving them, I order to pro- 
 vide the goats with leafy arbutes, and to supply them with 
 fresh streams : and, away from the woods, to oppose their cots 
 to the winter sun, turned towards the south: when cold 
 Aquarius 37 now sets at length, and in the extremity of the 
 year sheds bis dews. Nor are these to be tended by us with 
 less care : nor will their usefulness be less ; though Milesian 
 
 35 Caurus, the north-west wind; Auster, the south wind. 
 
 54 Castalia, a celebrated fountain of Mount Parnassus, sacred to the 
 Muses. 
 
 37 Aquarius, one of the signs of the Zodiac, rises in January, and, as its 
 name imports, frequently accompanied wii/a rain. 
 
78 GEORGICS. b. in. 307—339. 
 
 fleeces, 38 that have drunk the Tyrian glow, be bartered for a 
 great price. From these is a more numerous breed, from 
 these a greater quantity of milk. The more the pail froths 
 with their exhausted udder, the more will joyous streams flow 
 from their pressed dugs. Meanwhile [the shepherds] also 
 shear the beards, and hoary chins, and long waving hair of 
 the Cinyphian 39 he-goats, for the service of the camp, and for 
 coverings to the adventurous mariners. And then they find 
 pasture from the woods, from the summits of Lycceus, from 
 the rough brambles, and from brakes that love the craggy 
 rocks. And mindful, the goats of themselves return home, 
 and bring their young with them, and can scarcely get over 
 the threshold with their teeming udders. Therefore, the less 
 they lack the care of mortals, the more careful must you be 
 to defend them from the ice and snowy winds ; and you must 
 cheerfully bring them food, and browse of tender twigs ; nor 
 shut up from them your stores of hay during the whole 
 winter. 
 
 But when the summer, rejoicing in the inviting Zephyrs, 
 shall send forth both flocks into the lawns and pastures ; at 
 the first rising of Lucifer, let us take to the cool fields ; while 
 the morning is new, while the grass is hoary, and the dew, 
 most grateful to the cattle, is on the tender grass. Then, as 
 soon as the fourth hour of day has brought on thirst, and the 
 plaintive grasshoppers shall rend the groves with their song ; 
 order the flocks to drink the water running in oaken troughs, 
 or at the wells, or at the deep pools ; but in the noontide heats 
 seek out a shady vale, wherever Jove's stately oak with an- 
 cient strength extends its huge bows, or wherever a grove, 
 embrowned with thick evergreen oaks, projects its sacred 
 shade. Then give them once more the translucent streams, 
 and once more feed them at the setting of the sun, when cool 
 Vesper tempers the air, and now the dewy moon refreshes the 
 lawns, and the shores resound with Haley one, and the bushes 
 with the goldfinch. 
 
 Why should I trace for thee in song the shepherds and 
 
 18 Milesian fleeces, from Miletus, a city of Asia Minor, the ancient 
 capital of Ionia : it was famous for its excellent wood. 
 
 39 Cinyphian he-goats, from Cinyphus, a river and country of Africa, 
 near Trip o Us. 
 
b. in. 340—370. GEORGICS. 7 ( J 
 
 pastures of Libya, and their huts with few and straggling 
 roofs ? Their flocks often graze both day and night, and for a 
 whole month together, and repair into long deserts without 
 any shelter ; so wide the plain extends. The African shep- 
 herd carries his all with him, his house, and household god, 
 his arms, his Amyclean dog, and Cretan quiver : 40 like the 
 fierce Roman, when armed for his country, he takes his way 
 under the unequal load, and, having pitched his camp, stands 
 in array of battle against the foe, before he is expected. 
 
 But not so, where are the Scythian nations, and the Maeotic 
 waves, 41 and the turbid Ister whirling his yellow sand ; and 
 where Rhodope returns, 42 stretched out itself under the middle 
 of the pole : there they keep their herds shut up in stalls ; 
 nor are either any herbs to be seen in the fields, or leaves on 
 the trees ; but the country lies deformed with mounts of snow, 
 and deep ice all around, and rises seven ells in height. It is 
 always winter, always north-west winds, blowing cold. Then 
 the sun never dissipates the pale shades, either when borne on 
 his steeds he climbs the lofty sky, or when he bathes his swift 
 chariot in the ocean's ruddy plain. Crusts of ice suddenly 
 are congealed in the running river : now on its back the wave 
 sustains wheels bound with iron ; the wave hospitable to broad 
 ships before, to waggons now. Yases of brass frequently burst 
 asunder, their garments grow stiff when worn, they cut with 
 axes the liquid wine, whole pools turn to solid ice, and the 
 horrid icicle hardens on their uncombed beards. Meanwhile 
 it snows incessantly through all the air ; the cattle perish ; the 
 large bodies of oxen stand wrapped about with hoar frost ; and 
 the deer, crowding all together, lie benumbed under the un- 
 
 40 Cretan quiver ; Crete, (Candia,) one of the largest islands in the 
 Mediterranean, at the south of the Cyclades. It was anciently famed for 
 its hundred cities, and for the laws of Minos established there ; the 
 Cretans were excellent archers, but infamous for falsehood and other 
 vices. The island was subdued by the Romans, b. c. 66. 
 
 41 Maeotic waves, now the Sea of Asoph, a large lake, or more properly 
 part of the sea between Europe and Asia, north of the Euxine, with which 
 it communicates by the Cimmerian Bosphorus. 
 
 42 Hickie compares Georg. ii. 271, "quae terga obverterit axo," with 
 the following remark : Rhodope is a chain of mountains in Thrace, which 
 extends eastward, and is then joined with Haemus, and parting from it, 
 returns northward." I need hardly remind the reader that Virgil is par- 
 tial to assigning verbs of motion to phaenomena which only appear to 
 exercise it. B. 
 
80 GEORGICS. b. in. 371—404 
 
 usual load, and scarcely appear with the tips of their horns. 
 These they pursue not with hounds let loose, nor with any 
 toils, nor scare them with the terror of the crimson plume ; 43 
 but as in vain they are shoving with their breasts the opposed 
 mountain [of snow], they stab them with the sword close at 
 hand, and put them to death piteously braying, and with loud 
 acclamation bear them off triumphant. The inhabitants them- 
 selves, in caves dug deep under ground, enjoy undisturbed 
 rest, and roll to their hearths piled oaks, and whole elms, 
 and give them to the flames. Here they spend the night in 
 play; and joyous, imitate the juice of the grape with their 
 beer and acid service. Such is that savage race of men lying 
 under the northern sign of Ursa Major, buffeted by the 
 Riphaean east wind, and whose bodies are clothed with the 
 tawny furs of beasts. 
 
 If the woollen manufacture be thy care ; first let prickly 
 woods, and burs, and caltrops, be far away : shun rich pas- 
 tures : and from the beginning choose flocks that are white 
 with soft wool. And that ram, though he himself be of the 
 purest white, under whose moist palate there lurks but a black 
 tongue, reject, lest he should sully the fleeces of the new-born 
 lambs ; and look out for another over the well-stocked field. 
 Thus Pan, the god of Arcadia, (if the story be worthy of 
 credit,) deceived thee, O moon, captivated with a snowy offer- 
 ing of wool, inviting thee into the deep groves : nor didst 
 thou scorn his invitation. 
 
 But let him who is studious of milk, carry to the cribs with 
 his own hand the cytisus, and plenty of water-lilies, and salt 
 herbs. Hence [the animals] are both more desirous of the 
 river, and distend their udders the more, and in their milk 
 return a faint savour of the salt. 
 
 Many restrain the kids as soon as grown up from their 
 dams, and fasten muzzles with iron spikes about their snouts. 
 What they milk at the sun-rising and the hour of morn, they 
 press at night : what they milk now in the evening and at 
 sun-setting, the shepherd at daybreak carries to town in bas- 
 kets ; or they season it with a small quantity of salt, and lay 
 it up for winter. 
 
 Nor let your care of dogs be the last : but feed at once with 
 
 43 On the " formido " here spoken of, see my note on ^En. iv. 121. B 
 
B, in, 406 -437. GEORG1CS, 81 
 
 fattening whey the switt hounds of Sparta, 44 and the fierce 
 mastiff of Molossis. While these are your guards, you need 
 never fear the nightly robber to your stalls, the incursions of 
 the wolves, or the restless Iberians 45 coming upon you by 
 stealth. Often too in the chase you will pursue the timorous 
 wild asses, and with hounds you will hunt the hare, with 
 hounds the hinds. Often, driving on with full cry, you will 
 give chase to the boar roused from his sylvan soil ; and over 
 the lofty mountains with shouts pursue the stately stag into 
 the toils. 
 
 Learn also to burn fragrant cedar in the folds, and to drive 
 away the rank water-snakes with the scent of galbanum. Often 
 under the mangers, when not moved, either the viper of per- 
 nicious touch lies concealed, and affrighted flies the light; or 
 that snake, the direful pest of kine, which is wont to shelter it- 
 self under a roof and shade, and shed its venom on the cattle, 
 keeps close to the ground. Snatch up stones, shepherd, snatch 
 up clubs ; and while he rears his threatening gorge, and swells 
 his hissing neck, knock him down : and now in fright he has 
 deeply hidden his dastardly head, while his middle-knots and 
 the wreaths in his tail's extremity are unfolded, and his last 
 tortuous joint now drags its slow spires along. There is also 
 that baneful snake in the Calabrian lawns, 46 winding up his 
 scaly back, with breast erect, and a long belly speckled with 
 broad spots ; who, while any rivers burst from their fountains, 
 and while the lands are moist with the dewy spring and rainy 
 south winds, haunts the pools, and, lodging in the banks, in- 
 temperate gorges his horrid maw with fishes and croaking frogs. 
 When the fen is burned up, and the earth gapes with drought, 
 he darts forth on dry ground, and, rolling his inflamed eyes, 
 rages in the fields, exasperated with thirst, and aghast with 
 heat. Let me not then choose to indulge soft slumbers in the 
 open air, or to lie along the grass in the slope of a wood, when, 
 
 44 Sparta, called also Lacedaemon, (Misitra,) a famous city of Pelopon- 
 nesus in Greece, the capital of Laconia, and long the rival of Athens. 
 Molossis, a district in the south of Epirus, celebrated for its fierce breed 
 of dogs. 
 
 45 Iberians, the Spaniards were so called, from Iberus, (the Ebro,) i. 
 large river of Spain. 
 
 46 Calabrian lawns. Calabria is a country in the south of Italy, ar- 
 dently part of Magna Graecia. 
 
 € 
 
82 GEORGICS. b, in. 438 -473. 
 
 renewed and sleek with youth by casting his slough, he rolls 
 along, leaving either his young or eggs in his den, reared to 
 the sun, and in his mouth quivers a three-forked tongue. 
 
 I will also teach thee the causes and the signs of their dis- 
 eases. The filthy scab infects the sheep, when the raw shower 
 hath pierced deep into the quick, and winter, rough with hoary 
 frost ; or, when the sweat unwashed away adheres to them 
 after shearing, and prickly briers have torn their bodies. On 
 this account, the shepherds drench the whole flock in sweet 
 streams, and the ram with damp fleece is plunged into the pool, 
 and sent to float along the stream ; or they besmear their bodies 
 after shearing with bitter lees of oil, and mix with it litharge 
 of silver, native sulphur, Idsean pitch, and fat unctuous wax, and 
 the sea-leek, rank hellebore, and black bitumen. But there is 
 not any more effectual remedy for their sufferings, than to lance 
 the head of the ulcer with steel : the distemper is nourished 
 and lives by being covered ; while the shepherd refuses to ap- 
 ply the healing hand to the wound, or sits still, praying the 
 gods for better omens. 
 
 Moreover, when the malady, penetrating into the inmost 
 bones of the bleating sheep, rages, and the parching fever preys 
 upon their limbs, it has been of use to drive out the kindled 
 inflammation, and between the under parts of the feet to open 
 a vein spouting with blood ; in such manner as the Bisaltae 47 
 use, and the fierce Gelonian, when he flies to Rhodope, and the 
 deserts of the Getaa, and drinks milk thickened with the blood 
 of horses. 
 
 Whatever sheep thou seest either creep away at a distance 
 from the rest, under the mild shade, or listlessly crop the tops 
 of the grass, and follow in the rear, or lie down as she is feed- 
 ing in the middle of the plain, and return by herself late in the 
 evening ; forthwith check the evil by the steel, before the dire 
 contagion spreads among the unwary flock. 
 
 The whirlwind, that brings on a wintry storm, rushes not 
 so frequent from the sea, as the plagues of cattle are numerous. 
 Nor do diseases only sweep away single bodies, but also whole 
 folds suddenly, the offspring and the flock at once, and the 
 
 4T Bisaltae, a people of Macedonia or Thrace. Getae, a people of Eu- 
 ropean Scythia, inhabiting that part of Dacia near the mouths of the Istex 
 (Danube). 
 
a. ill. 474- 505 GEORGICS. 83 
 
 whole stock from the first breed. Whoever views the aerial 
 Alps, and the Noric castles on the hills, and the fields of Iapi- 
 dian Timavus, and the realms of the shepherds even now after 
 so long a time deserted, and the lawns lying waste far and 
 wide, may then know this. Here, in former times, a doleful 
 sweeping plague 48 arose from the distemper of the air, and 
 grew more and more inflamed through the whole heat of au 
 tumn ; and delivered over to death all the race of cattle, all 
 the savage race ; poisoned the lakes, and tainted the pastures 
 with contagion. Nor was the way of their death simple ; 49 
 but when the burning fever, revelling in every vein, had 
 shrunk up their wretched limbs, again the dropsical humour 
 overflowed, and converted into its substance all the bones 
 piecemeal consumed by the disease. Often amidst the service 
 of the gods, the victim standing at the altar, while the woollen 
 wreath is entwined with snowy fillet, has dropped down gasp- 
 ing to death 50 in the hands of the lingering officiators. Or, if 
 the priest had stabbed any one before [it fell], neither do its 
 entrails, when laid on the altars, burn, nor is the augur, when 
 consulted, able thence to give responses ; and the knives ap- 
 plied are scarcely tinged with blood, and the surface of the 
 sand hardly stained with the meagre gore. Hence the calves 
 every where expire in the luxuriant pastures, and render up 
 their sweet lives at the full cribs. Hence the fawning dogs are 
 seized with madness ; and wheezing cough shakes the diseased 
 swine, and suffocates them with tumours in the throat. The 
 unfortunate horse, [once] conqueror, forgetful of his exercises 
 and his pasture, pines away, loathes the springs, and often 
 paws the ground with his foot ; his ears hang down ; an in- 
 termitting sweat [breaks out] about them, and that too cold 
 at the approach of death ; his withered skin feels hard, and 
 in handling resists the touch. These symptoms they give be- 
 fore death in the first days. But if in process of time the 
 disease begins to rankle, then are their eyes inflamed, and the 
 
 48 It is almost unnecessary to remind the reader that Virgil is indebted 
 to Thucydides and Lucretius throughout the following description. B. 
 
 49 Nee for et non : " And various were the forms of death." Hickie. 
 M Nor was the path of death one and the same." Anthon. 
 
 50 " Moribundus," according to Wagner, has three significations in Virgil : 
 ].=Moriens, Georg, iii. 488. 2.=Moriturus, Mn. iv. 323. 3.=Mortalis, 
 &n. vi. 732. B. 
 
 a 2 
 
84 GEORGICS. b. in. 506-644 
 
 breath fetched from the bottom of the breast is sometimes 
 mixed with a heavy groan ; and with a long sob they distend 
 their lowest flanks : black blood gushes from their nostrils, 
 and the rough tongue clings to their choked-up jaws. At first 
 it proved of service to pour the tenaean draught down their 
 throats ; this appeared the sole remedy for the dying : soon 
 after, this very thing proved their destruction ; and being re- 
 cruited, they burned with furious rage, and they themselves, 
 now in the agonies of death (may the gods award better things 
 to the good, and such frenzy to our foes !) tore their own man- 
 gled limbs with their naked teeth. Lo, the bull too, smoking 
 under the oppressive share, drops down, and vomits out of his 
 mouth blood mingled with foam, and fetches his last groans. 
 The ploughman, unyoking the steer that mourns his brother's 
 death, goes away sad, and in the midst of his work leaves the 
 plough fixed in the earth. Neither the shades of the deep 
 groves, nor the soft meadows, can affect his mind, nor the 
 river which, rolling over the rocks, glides to the plain more 
 pure than amber : but his deep sides grow lank, deadness rests 
 upon his heavy eyes, and his neck with unwieldy weight drops 
 to the ground. What do their labours or good offices now 
 avail them ? what [avails it] to have turned the heavy lands 
 with the share ? Yet they were never injured by the rich 
 gifts of Bacchus, or by banquets of many courses. They feed 
 on leaves and the nourishment of simple herbs ; the crystal 
 springs and running rivers are their drink ; and no care breaks 
 their healthful slumbers. At no other time, they tell us that 
 kine were wanting in those regions for Juno's sacred rites, and 
 that the chariots were drawn to her lofty shrine by wild-bulls 
 ill-matched. Therefore, with difficulty they tear the ground 
 with harrows, and with their very nails set the corn, and over 
 the high mountains drag the croaking waggons with their 
 strained necks. The wolf meditates no ambuscades around 
 the folds, nor prowls about the flock by night ; a sharper care 
 subdues him. The timorous deer and fugitive stags saunter 
 among the dogs, and about the houses. Now, too, the waves 
 wash out upon the extremity of the shore the breed of the 
 immense ocean, and all the race of swimmers, like shipwrecked 
 bodies ; and the unwonted sea-calves fly to the rivers. The 
 viper, too, in vain defended by her winding den, expires, and 
 
h. in. 545— 566. iv. 1—7. GEORGICS. S5 
 
 the astonished water-snakes, erecting their scales. To the very 
 birds the air becomes pernicious ; and falling headlong, they 
 leave their lives beneath the lofty cloud. 
 
 Nor, moreover, avails it now for their pasture to be changed ; 
 the arts to which they had recourse prove noxious : the mas- 
 ters failed, Chiron, 51 the son of Phillyra, and Melampus, the 
 son of Amythaon. Pale Tisiphone, 52 sent from the Stygian 
 glooms to light, rages : drives before her diseases and dismay : 
 and daily rising, higher erects her baleful head. With bleat- 
 ing of the flocks, and frequent lowings, the rivers, the withered 
 banks, and sloping hills resound; and now by droves and 
 flocks she deals destruction, and in the very stalls heaps up 
 carcasses rotting away with foul contagion, till they learn to 
 bury them in the ground, and hide them in pits. For neither 
 was there use for their hides, nor could any cleanse their flesh 
 with water, or purge it by fire ; nor durst they so much as 
 shear the fleeces corrupted with disease and filthy sores, or 
 touch the infected yarn. But yet, if any one tried the odious 
 vestments, fiery pustules and filthy sweat overspread his 
 noisome body ; and then, no long time intervening, the sacred 
 fire preyed upon his infected limbs. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 The subject of the Fourth Book is the management of bees ; their habits, 
 economy, polity, and government, are described with the utmost fidelity, 
 and with all the charm of poetry. The Book concludes with the beauti- 
 ful episode of Aristseus recovering his bees. 
 
 Next will I set forth the heavenly gift of a'erial honey. 
 Vouchsafe, Maecenas, thy regard to this part also of my work. 1 
 I will sing spectacles to you marvellous of minute things : the 
 magnanimous leaders, the manners and employments, the 
 tribes and battles of the whole race in order. My labour is 
 upon an humble theme, but not mean the praise, if the adverse 
 deities permit one, and Apollo invocated hear. 
 
 51 Chiron, one of the Centaurs, son of Saturn and Phillyra, was famous 
 for his skill in music, physic, and shooting. Melampus, a celebrated 
 soothsayer and physician of Argos. 
 
 52 Tisiphone, one of the Furies, who was the minister of Divine venge- 
 ance, and punished the wicked in Tartarus. 
 
 1 Probably in imitation of Aratus. Phaen. 29, /i©x0o£ fikv r 3 oXiyoc, to 
 dl uvptov avTiK ovtiap* TV. 
 
86 GEORGTCS. 
 
 b. iv. 8 — 42 
 
 First, a seat and station must be sought for the bees, where 
 neither winds may have access, (for the winds hinder them 
 from carrying home their food,) nor sheep and frisky kids 
 may trample down the flowers, or heifer, straying in the plain, 
 spurn off the dews, and bruise the rising herbs. 
 
 And let the lizards with speckled scaly backs be far from 
 the rich hives, and woodpeckers, and other birds ; and Progne, 2 
 whose breast is stained with her bloody hands. For they lay 
 all things waste around, and in their mouths bear away the 
 bees themselves while on the wing, a sweet morsel for their 
 merciless young. But let clear springs, and pools edged with 
 green moss, be near, and a gentle rivulet swiftly running 
 through the meads ; and let a palm or stately wild olive over- 
 shade the entrance : that, when the new kings lead forth the 
 first swarms in their own spring, and the youth, issuing from 
 the hives, indulge in sport, the neighbouring bank may invite 
 them to withdraw from the heat, and the tree just in their 
 way may receive them with its leafy shelter. Into the midst 
 of the water, whether it stagnates idle or purling runs, throw 
 willows across, and huge stones, that they may rest upon 
 frequent bridges, and spread their wings to the summer sun, 
 if the impetuous east wind has by chance dispersed those that 
 lag behind, or immersed them in the flood. Around these 
 places let green cassia, and far-smelling wild thyme, and 
 plenty of strong-scented savory, flower ; and let beds of 
 violet drink an irrigating 3 fountain. 
 
 But as for your hives themselves, whether they be compacted 
 of hollow bark, or woven with limber osier, let them have their 
 inlets narrow ; for winter congeals the honey with its cold, 
 and the heat melts and dissolves the same: either force is 
 equally dreaded by the bees : nor is it in vain that they smear 
 with wax 4 the slender crevices in their houses, and fill up the 
 edges with fucus and flowers, and preserve for those very uses 
 collected glue, more tenacious than bird-lime, or the pitch of 
 Phrygian Ida. 5 Often, too, if fame be true, they have 
 
 2 Progne, the wife of Tereus, king of Thrace, Avas feigned to have 
 been changed into a swallow. See note 23 on Eel. 6. 
 
 3 Observe the active force of " irriguos." B. 
 
 4 i. e. propolis. See Anthon. 
 
 5 Phrygian Ida, a celebrated mountain, or ridge of mountains, in the 
 vicinity of Troy, covered with pine trees, &c, and commanding an ex- 
 tensive view of the Hellespont and the adjacent countries. From Mount 
 
r. iv. 4a— 77. GE0RG1CS. 87 
 
 cherished their families in cells dug under ground, and have 
 been found deep down in hollow pumice-stones, and the cavity 
 of a rotten tree. But do thou, carefully cherishing, daub 
 their chinky chambers round with smooth mud, and strew it 
 thinly over with leaves ; and suffer not a yew near their 
 lodges, nor burn in the fire the reddening crabs, nor trust 
 them to a deep fen, or where there is a noisome smell of mire, 
 or where the hollow rocks resound on being struck, and the 
 struck image of the voice rebounds. 
 
 For what remains, when the golden sun has driven the 
 winter under ground, and opened the heavens with summer 
 light ; they forthwith traverse the lawns and woods, crop the 
 bright-hued flowers, and lightly skim the surface of the streams. 
 Hence, gladdened with I know not what agreeable sensation, 
 they grow fond of their offspring and young breed : hence 
 they labour out with art new waxen cells, and form the 
 clammy honey. After this, when now you see the swarm, 
 after emerging from the hives into the open air, swim through 
 the serene summer sky, and marvel at the blackening cloud 
 driven about by the wind, mark well : they always seek the 
 waters and leafy coverts : here sprinkle the juices prescribed, 
 bruised balm and the common herb of honey-wort : awake the 
 tinkling sounds, and beat around the cymbals of the mother. 6 
 They of themselves will settle on the medicated seats ; they 
 of themselves, after their manner, will retreat into the in- 
 most cells. 
 
 But if they should go forth to battle, (for often discord with 
 huge commotion seizes two kings,) you may straightway 
 know long before -hand both the animosity of the populace, 
 and their hearts in trepidation for war : for that martial clang 
 of hoarse brass rouses the loiterers, and a voice is heard re- 
 sembling the broken sounds of trumpets. Then in a hurry 
 they assemble, quiver with their wings, sharpen their stings 
 upon their beaks, prepare their sinews, crowd thick around 
 their king and to his pavilion, and with loud hummings chal- 
 lenge the foe. 
 
 As soon, therefore, as they find the spring serene, and the 
 
 Ida issued/the Simois, Scamander, and other rivers, and here it was that 
 Paris adjudged the prize of beauty to the goddess Venus. 
 
 8 Cybele, called the Mother of the Gods, was the daughter of Ccelus 
 Lud Terra, and wife of Saturn. Davidson. 
 
88 GEORGICS b. iv. 78—113. 
 
 fields of air open, forth they rush from their gates; they join 
 battle : buzzing sounds arise in the sky aloft : mingled they 
 cluster in a mighty round, and fall headlong : hail rains not 
 thicker from the air, nor such quantities of acorns from the 
 shaken oak. The kings themselves amidst the hosts, distin- 
 guished by their wings, exert mighty souls in little bodies ; 
 obstinately determined not to yield till the dread victor has 
 compelled either these or those to turn their backs in flight. 
 These commotions of their minds, and this so mighty fray, 
 checked by the throw of a little dust, will cease. 
 
 But when you have recalled both leaders from the battle, 
 put him to death that appears the worse, lest by prodigality 
 he do hurt ; and suffer the braver to reign in the court with- 
 out a rival. The one will glow with refulgent spots of gold ; 
 for there are two sorts : this is the better, distinguishable both 
 by his make, and conspicuous with glittering scales: the 
 other is horribly deformed with sloth, and ingloriously drags 
 a large belly. 
 
 As the kings are of two figures, so are the bodies of their 
 people. 7 For the one looks hideously ugly ; as when a 
 parched traveller comes from a very dusty road, and spits the 
 dirt out of his dry mouth : the others shine and sparkle with 
 brightness, glittering with gold, and their bodies spangled 
 with equal drops. This is the better breed : from these at 
 stated season of the sky you will press the luscious honey ; 
 yet not so luscious as pure, and fit to correct the hard relish 
 of the grape. 
 
 But when the roving swarms fly about and sport in the air, 
 disdain their hives, and leave the cold habitations, you will 
 restrain their unsettled minds from their vain play. Nor is 
 there great difficulty in restraining them : do you but clip the 
 wings of their kings ; not one will dare, while they stay be- 
 hind, to fly aloft, or pluck up the standard from the camp. 
 
 Let gardens fragrant with saffron flowers invite them ; and 
 the protection of Hellespontaic Priapus, the averter of thieves 
 and birds, with his willow scythe preserve them. Let him 
 who makes such things his care, himself bring thyme and 
 pines from the high mountains, to plant them far and wide 
 
 T This, like many other of Virgil's statements respecting bees, is er- 
 roneous. The reader will find much information in Anthon's entertain- 
 ing notes. B. 
 
B. iv. 114—146 GEORGICS. 89 
 
 about their hives: let him wear his hands with the hard 
 labour, set himself the fruitful plants in the ground, and water 
 them with kindly showers. 
 
 And indeed, were I not just furling my sails at the last 
 period of my labours, and hastening to turn my prow to land, 
 perhaps I might both sing what method of culture would 
 adorn rich gardens, and the rose-beds of twice blooming 
 Paestum ; 8 and how endive and banks green with parsley de- 
 light in drinking the rills ; and how the cucumber winding 
 along the grass swells into a belly : nor had I passed in silence 
 the late-flowering daffodil, or the stalks of the flexile acanthus, 
 or the pale ivy, and the myrtles that love the shores. For I 
 remember that, under the lofty turrets of CEbalia, 9 where 
 black Galsesus 10 moistens the yellow fields, I saw an old 
 Corycian, 11 to whom belonged a few acres of neglected land; 
 nor was that soil rich enough for the plough, proper for flocks, 
 or commodious for vines. Yet here among the bushes, plant- 
 ing a few pot-herbs, white lilies, vervain, and esculent poppies 
 all around, he equalled in disposition the wealth of kings ; 
 and returning late at night, loaded his board with unbought 
 dainties. He was the first to gather the rose in spring, and 
 fruits in autumn ; and, even when sad winter split the rocks 
 with cold, and bridled up the current of the rivers with ice, 
 in that very season he was cropping the locks of the soft 
 acanthus, chiding the late summer, and the lingering zephyrs. 
 
 He, therefore, was the first to abound with pregnant bees 
 and numerous swarms, and to strain the frothing honey from 
 the pressed combs : he had limes and pines in great abund- 
 ance ; and as many fruits as the fertile tree had been clothed 
 with in early blossoms, so many it retained ripe in autumn. 
 He too transplanted into rows the late [far-grown] elms, and 
 hard pear-trees, and sloe-trees now bearing damascenes, and 
 the plane now ministering shade to drinkers. But these I for 
 
 8 Paestum, (Pesto,) a town of Lucania, on the Gulf of Salerno, where 
 the roses blossom twice a year. 
 
 9 CEbalia, Tarentum, in the south of Italy, was so called because built 
 by a colony under Phalanthus, who came from CEbalia, or Laconia, in 
 Greece. Galsesus, a river of Calabria, flowing into the Bay of Tarentum. 
 
 10 Cf. " umbrosus Galsesus," Propert. ii. 25, 67. B. 
 
 11 Corycius, a contented old man of Tarentum, whose time was employed 
 in taking care of his bees. Some suppose that by Corycius, Virgil meant 
 a native of Corycus, (a town of Cilicia,) who had settled in Italy. 
 
90 GEOHGICS. b. iv. i47—177. 
 
 my pait pass over, restrained by the narrow bounds I have 
 prescribed to myself, and leave to others hereafter to record. 
 
 Come, now, I will unfold the qualities which Jupiter him- 
 self has implanted in the bees ; for which reward accompany- 
 ing the shrill sounds and tinkling brass of the Curetes, 12 they 
 fed the king of heaven under the Dictasan cave. They alone 
 have their offspring in common, share the buildings of a city 
 in common, and pass their lives under powerful laws ; and 
 they alone have a country of their own, and a fixed abode. 
 And, mindful of the coming winter, they experience toil in 
 summer, and lay up their acquisitions into the common stock. 
 For some are provident for food, and by fixed compact are 
 employed in the fields ; some within the enclosure of their 
 hives lay Narcissus' 13 tears, and clammy gum from bark of 
 trees, for the first foundation of the combs, then build down- 
 wards the viscid wax ; others bring up to their full growth 
 the young, the hope of the nation ; others condense the purest 
 honey, and distend the cells with liquid nectar. Some there 
 are to whose lot has fallen the watching at the gates, and 
 these by turns observe the waters and clouds of heaven ; or 
 receive the loads of those who return; or, forming a band, 
 drive from the hives the drones, a sluggish horde. The work 
 is warmly plied, and the honey smells fragrant of thyme. 
 
 And as when the Cyclops urge on the thunderbolts from 
 the stubborn masses, some receive and render back the air in 
 the bull-hide bellows ; some dip the sputtering brass in the 
 trough : JEtna groans under the weight of their anvils : they 
 alternately with vast force lift their arms in time, and turn 
 the iron with the griping pincers. Just so, if we may compare 
 small things with great, the innate love of gain prompts the 
 Cecropian bees, 14 each in his proper function. The elder have 
 
 12 Curetes, or Corybantes, the priests of Cybele, who inhabited Mount 
 Ida in Crete ; they were intrusted with the education of the infant Jupi- 
 ter, and to prevent his being discovered by his father, who sought to de- 
 stroy him, they invented a kind of dance, and drowned his cries by the 
 noise of their cymbals. 
 
 13 Narcissus, a beau tiful youth, who, on seeing his image reflected in 
 a fountain, became enamoured of it, thinking it to be the nymph of the 
 place. He died of grief, and was changed into a flower, which still bears 
 his name. 
 
 14 Cecropian bees, that is, Attic or Athenian bees, from Cecrops, the 
 iounder and first king of Athens. 
 
b. iv. 178—212. GEORGICS. 91 
 
 the care of their towns, and to fortify the combs, and frame 
 the artificial cells. But the younger return fatigued late at 
 night, their thighs laden with thyme ; they feed at large on 
 arbutes, and grey willows, on cassia, and glowing crocus, on 
 the gummy lime, and deep-coloured hyacinths. All have one 
 rest from work, all one common labour. In the morning they 
 r rush out of the gates without any delay. Again, when the 
 evening at length has warned them to return from feeding in 
 the fields, then they seek their habitations, and then refresh 
 their bodies : the hum arises, and they buzz about the borders 
 and entrance of their hives. Soon after, when they have 
 composed themselves in their cells, all is hushed for the night ; 
 and their proper sleep seizes their weary limbs. Nor do they 
 remove to a great distance from their hive when rain im- 
 pends, or trust the sky when east winds approach ; but in 
 safety supply themselves with water all around under the 
 walls of their city, and attempt but short excursions ; and 
 often take up little stones, as unsteady vessels do ballast in a 
 tossing sea; with these they poise themselves through the 
 void airy regions. 
 
 Chiefly you will marvel at this custom peculiar to the bees, 
 that they neither indulge in conjugal embrace, nor softly dis- 
 solve their bodies in the joys of love, nor bring forth young 
 with a mother's throes. But they themselves cull their pro- 
 geny with their mouths from leaves and fragrant herbs : they 
 themselves raise up a new king and little subjects, and build 
 new palaces and waxen realms. 
 
 Often, too, in wandering among the flinty rocks, have they 
 torn their wings, and voluntarily yielded up their lives under 
 their burden : so mighty is their love for flowers, and such 
 their glory in making honey. Therefore, though a narrow 
 term of life is their lot, (for it is not prolonged beyond the 
 seventh summer,) yet the race remains immortal, and through 
 many years the fortune of the family subsists, and grandsires 
 of grandsires are numbered. 
 
 Besides, not Egypt's self, nor great Lydia, 15 nor the nation 
 of the Parthians, nor Median Hydaspes, are so observant of 
 their king. Whilst the king is safe, there is one mind among 
 
 15 Lydia, a country of Asia Minor, south of Mysia, now part of Ana- 
 tolia. Hydaspes, a river of Persia, supposed to be the Choaspes, or the 
 Araxes. 
 
92 GEORGICS. b. iv. 213—245. 
 
 all : when he is dead, they sever their allegiance ; they them- 
 selves tear to pieces the fabric of their honey, and demolish 
 the structure of their combs. He is the guardian of their 
 works: him they admire, and all encircle him with thick 
 humming, and guard him in a numerous body ; often they lift 
 him up on their shoulders, expose their bodies in war, and 
 through wounds seek a glorious death. 
 
 From these appearances, and led by these examples, some 
 have alleged that a portion of the divine mind, and a heavenly 
 emanation, may be discovered in bees ; for that the Deity 
 pervades the whole earth, the tracts of sea, and depth of hea- 
 ven ; that hence the flocks, the herds, men, and all the race 
 of beasts, each at its birth, derive their slender lives. Ac- 
 cordingly, [they affirm] that all of them, when dissolved, re- 
 turn and are brought back thither hereafter ; nor is there any 
 room for death ; but that they mount up alive each into his 
 proper order of star, and take their seat in the high heaven. 
 
 When you intend to rifle the narrow mansions [of the 
 bees], and their honey preserved in their treasures, first, 
 sprinkled [as to your body], 16 gargle your mouth with a 
 draught of water, and bear in your hand before you the search- 
 ing smoke. Twice they press the teeming cells ; there are 
 two seasons of that harvest ; one, as soon as the Pleiad Tay- 
 gete 17 has displayed her comely face to the earth, and spurns 
 with her foot the despised waters of the ocean ; or when the 
 same star, flying the constellation of the watery Fish, descends 
 in sadness from the sky into the wintry wave3. They are 
 wrathful above measure, and when provoked, breathe venom 
 into their stings, and leave their hidden darts fixed in the 
 veins, and lay down their lives in the wound. 
 
 If, however, fearing 18 a hard winter, you both be sparing 
 for the future, and have pity on their drooping spirits and 
 shattered state ; yet who will hesitate to fumigate [their hives] 
 with thyme, and cut away the empty wax? for often the 
 lizard preys unseen upon the combs, and the cells are stuffed 
 with cockroaches that shun the light ; the drone also that sits 
 exempt from duty at another's repast, or the fierce hornet has 
 
 16 See Anthon's note. B. 
 
 17 Taygete, a daughter of Atlas and Pleione, who became one of the 
 Pleiades after death. 
 
 19 The older editions read " metues." B. 
 
B. iv. 245—282. GEORGICS. ^3 
 
 engaged them with unequal arms ; or the moth's direful 
 breed; or the spider, hateful to Minerva, has suspended her 
 loose nets in their gates. 
 
 The more they are exhausted, the more vigorously will 
 they all labour to repair the ruins of their decayed race, to fill 
 up the rows of cells, and weave their magazines of flowers. 
 But since life has on bees too entailed our misfortunes, if 
 their bodies shall languish with a sore disease, which you may 
 know by undoubted signs ; immediately the sick change 
 colour ; horrid leanness deforms the countenance : then they 
 carry the bodies of the dead out of their houses, and lead the 
 mournful funeral processions ; or clinging together by the feet, 
 hang about the entrance, and loiter all within their houses 
 shut up, both listless through famine, and benumbed with 
 contracted cold. Then a hoarser sound is heard, and in 
 drawling hums they buzz ; as at times the south wind mur- 
 murs through the woods ; as the ruffled sea creaks hoarsely 
 with refluent waves ; as rapid fire in the pent furnace roars. 
 In this case now I would advise to burn gummy odours, and 
 to put in honey through pipes of reed, kindly tempting and 
 inviting the enfeebled bees to their known repast. It will be 
 of service also to mix with it the juice of pounded galls, and 
 
 j dried roses, or inspissated must 19 thickened over a strong fire, 
 or raisins from the Psythian vine, Cecropian thyme, and 
 strong-smelling centaury. There is also in the meadows a 
 flower, to which the husbandmen have given the name of 
 amellus; an herb easy to be found; for from one root it 
 shoots a vast luxuriance of stalks, itself of golden hue ; but on 
 the leaves, which are spread thickly around, the purple of the 
 dark violet sheds a gloss. The altars of the gods are often 
 decked with plaited wreaths [of this flower]. Its taste is 
 bitterish in the mouth : the shepherds gather it in new-shorn 
 valleys, and near the winding streams of Mella. 20 Boil the 
 roots thereof in fragrant wine ; and present it as food [for the 
 bees] in full baskets at their door. 
 
 But if the whole stock should suddenly fail any one, and 
 
 ! he should have no means to recover a new breed ; it is time 
 
 is " When must was inspissated to one-half, it acquired the name of 
 defrutum." Anthon. 
 
 20 Mella, a small river of Cisalpine Gaul, falling into the Ollius, anc 
 with it into the Po. 
 
94 GEORGICS. b. iv. 283—317. 
 
 both to unfold the memorable invention of the Arcadian mas- 
 ter, and how the tainted gore of bullocks slain has often pro- 
 duced bees : I will disclose the whole tradition, tracing it high 
 from its first source. For where the happy nation of Pellaean 
 Canopus 21 inhabit the banks of the Nile, ^floating [the plains] 
 with his overflowing river, and sail around their fields in 
 painted gondolas ; and where the river, that rolls down as far 
 as from the swarthy Indians, presses on the borders of quivered 
 Persia, and fertiles verdant Egypt with black silt, and pouring 
 along divides itself into seven different mouths ; all the coun- 
 try grounds infallible relief on this art. First a space of 
 ground of small dimensions, and contracted for this purpose, 
 is chosen ; this they strengthen with the tiling of a narrow 
 roof and confined walls ; and add four windows of slanting 
 light in the direction of the four winds. Then a bullock, just 
 bending the horns in his forehead two years old, is sought out : 
 whilst he struggles exceedingly, they close up both his nostrils, 
 and the breath of his mouth ; and when they have beaten him 
 to death, his battered entrails are crushed within the hide that 
 remains entire. When dead, they leave him pent up, and lay 
 under his sides fragments of boughs, thyme, and fresh cassia. 
 This is done when first the zephyrs stir the waves, before the 
 meadows blush with new colours, before the chattering swal- 
 low suspend her nest upon the rafters. Meanwhile the juices, 
 warmed in the tender veins, ferment : and animals, wonderful 
 to behold, first short of their feet, and in a little while buzzing 
 with wings, swarm together, and more and more take to the 
 thin air : till they burst away like a shower poured down from 
 summer clouds ; or like an arrow from the whizzing string, 
 when the swift Parthians first begin the fight. 
 
 What god, ye Muses, what god disclosed to us this art ? 
 whence took this new experience of men its rise ? 
 
 The shepherd Aristaeus, 22 flying from Peneian Tempe, 23 
 
 tl Canopus, (near Aboukir,) a city of Egypt, 12 miles east from Alex- 
 andria. It is here called Pellaean, having been founded by a colony from 
 Pella, a city of Macedonia, or in allusion to the conquest of the country 
 by Alexander the Great, who was born at I^ella. 
 
 22 Aristasus was the son of Apollo and Cyrene. He became enamoured 
 of Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus, and was the first who taught mankind 
 the culture of olives, and the management of bees ; after death he was 
 worshipped as a god. 
 
 * Peneian Tempe, a celebrated vale in Thessaly, between Mount Olym- 
 
b. iv. 318-350. GEORGICS. 95 
 
 having lost his bees, as it is said, by disease and famine, stood 
 mournful by the sacred source of the rising river, much and 
 oft complaining : and with these accents addressed his parent : 
 Mother Cyrene, mother, who inhabitest the depth of this 
 flood, why hast thou brought me forth of the illustrious race 
 of gods, (if indeed, as you pretend, Thymbraean Apollo be my 
 sire,) thus abhorred by destiny ? or whither is thy love for me 
 banished? why didst thou bid me hope for heaven? Lo, I, 
 though thou art my mother, am even bereft of this very glory 
 of my mortal life, which, amidst my watchful care of flocks 
 and agriculture, I, after infinite essays, with much difficulty 
 achieved. Why then, go on ; root up with thine own hands 
 my happy groves ; bear the hostile flame into my stalls, and 
 kill my harvests ; burn up my plantations, and wield the 
 sturdy bill against my vineyards ; if such strong aversion to 
 my praise hath seized thee. 
 
 But his mother heard the sound beneath the chambers of 
 the deep river ; her nymphs around her were carding the Mile- 
 sian fleeces, dyed with rich glass-green tincture ; Drymo 24 and 
 Xantho, Ligea and Phyllodoce, their comely hair flowing down 
 their snow-white necks ; Nescaee and Spio, Thalia and Cy- 
 modoce, Cydippe and golden Lycorias ; the one a virgin, the 
 other just experienced in the first labours of Lucina; Clio, 
 and her sister Beroe, both daughters of Oceanus, both in gold, 
 both in spotted skins arrayed ; Ephyre and Opis, and Asian 
 Deiopeia ; and swift Arethusa, having at length laid her darts 
 aside : among whom Clymene was relating Vulcan's unavail- 
 ing care, the tricks and pleasant thefts of Mars, and recounted 
 the frequent amours of the gods down from Chaos. Whilst 
 the nymphs, charmed with this song, wind off their soft task 
 from the spindles, the lamentations of Aristaeus again struck 
 his mother's ears, and all were amazed in their crystal beds : 
 
 pus and Ossa, through, which the river Peneus flows into the Mgea.n. 
 Tempe was about five miles in length, but very narrow, in few places 
 above a quarter of a mile broad. The ancient poets have described it as 
 one of the most delightful spots in the world ; hence all valleys that are 
 pleasant are by the poets called Tempe. Thymbra, a plain in Troas, 
 through which the river Thymbrius flowed in its course to the Scaman- 
 der. Apollo had there a temple, and thence it is called Thymbraean. 
 
 24 Drymo, &c. These were sea-nymphs, the attendants of Cyrene, 
 daughter of the river Peneus, who was carried by Apollo to that part of 
 Africa which was called Cyrenaica, where she became the mother of 
 Aristae us. 
 
 I 
 
96 GEORGICS. b. iv. 361—378. 
 
 but Arethusa upreared her golden head before her other sis- 
 ters, darting her eyes abroad ; and afar [she cried], O sister 
 Cyrene, not in vain alarmed with such piteous moaning, thy 
 own Aristaeus, overwhelmed with sorrow, thy darling care, 
 stands weeping by the water of Peneus thy sire, and calls 
 thee cruel by name. To her the mother, her soul seized with 
 unusual concern, cries, Conduct, conduct him quickly to us : 
 to him it is permitted to tread the courts of the gods. At 
 the same time she commands the deep floods to divide on all 
 sides, that the youth might make his approach. And the 
 water, bent into the shape of a mountain, stood round about 
 him, received him into its ample bosom, and let him pass un- 
 der the river. And now admiring his mother's palace, and 
 humid realms, the lakes pent up in caverns, and the sounding 
 groves, he passed along, and amazed at the vast motion of the 
 waters, surveyed all the rivers gliding under the great earth in 
 different places ; Phasis 25 and Lycus, and the source whence 
 deep Enipeus first bursts forth, whence father Tiberinus, 26 
 and whence Anio's 27 streams, and Hypanis 28 roaring down 
 the rocks, and Mysian Caicus, and Eridanus, his bull-front 
 decked with two gilt horns, than whom no river pours along 
 the fertile fields with greater violence into the dark, trou- 
 bled 29 sea. 
 
 After he had arrived under the roof of her bed-chamber, 
 hung with pumice-stones, Cyrene was informed of the vain la- 
 mentations of her son, the sisters in order serve up the crystal 
 streams for the hands, and bring smooth towels. Some load 
 the board with viands, and plant the full cups. The altars 
 
 25 Phasis, (Phaz or Rhion,) a river of Colchis, rising in Mount Cauca- 
 sus, and falling into the Euxine. Lycus, a river of Armenia. Enipeus, 
 a river of Thessaly, falling into the Peneus. 
 
 26 Tiber, a celebrated river of Italy, on whose banks the city of Rome 
 was built. It was originally called Albula, from the whiteness of its 
 waters, and afterwards Tiber, from Tiburinus, king of Alba, who was 
 drowned in it. The Tiber rises in the Apennines, and, after dividing La- 
 tium from Etruria, falls into the Mediterranean 16 miles below Rome. 
 
 27 Anio, (Teverone,) a river of Italy which falls into the Tiber. 
 
 28 Hypanis, (Bog,) a river of European Scythia, which runs into the 
 Euxine. Caicus, (Grimakli,) a river of Mysia, falling into the JEge&n. 
 
 29 Compare Anthon, who observes, " We have preferred rendering 
 purpureum here by a double epithet. It is analogous to the Greek ttojO- 
 ^vptoc, as said of the troubled sea, whence f3iog iroptyvpovg OaXaamoc, 
 " & seaman's troublous life." 
 
a. iv. 379-413. GEORGICS. 97 
 
 blaze with Panchnsan fires. Then the mother thus speaks : 
 Take bowls of Maeonian wine, let us offer a libation to Ocean. 
 At the same time she herself addresses Ocean, the parent of 
 things, and the sister nymphs, a hundred of whom preside over 
 woods, a hundred over rivers. Thrice she sprinkled glowing 
 Vesta with the liquid nectar : thrice the flame, mounting to 
 the top of the roof, brightened : with which omen encouraging 
 her soul, she thus begins : In Neptune's Carpathian gulf there 
 dwells a seer, coerulean Proteus, 30 who measures the great sea 
 with fishes, and in a chariot yoked with two-legged steeds. 
 He now revisits the ports of Emathia and his native Pal- 
 lene : 31 him both we nymphs, and old Nereus 32 himself adore ; 
 for the prophet knows all things that are, that have been, and 
 what is being drawn on as about to be. For such is the will 
 of Neptune ; whose unwieldy droves, and ugly sea-calves, he 
 feeds under the deep. He, my son, must first be surprised 
 with chains, that he may explain to you the whole cause of 
 the disease, and make the issue prosperous. For no instruct 
 tions will he give without compulsion, nor can you move him 
 hy entreaty : ply him, when taken, with rigid force and 
 chains: all his tricks to evade these, proving vain, will at 
 length be baffled. I myself, as soon as the sun has inflamed 
 ► his noon-tide heats ; when the herbs thirst, and the shade be- 
 comes more grateful to the cattle, will conduct you into the 
 old god's retreats, whither he retires from the waves when fa- 
 tigued ; that you may easily assail him overpowered with 
 sleep. But when you shall hold him fast confined within 
 your arms and chains, then various forms and features of wild 
 beasts will mock your grasp. For suddenly he will become a 
 bristly boar, a fell tiger, a scaly dragon, and a lioness with a 
 tawny mane : or he will emit the roaring of flame, and escape 
 the chain ; or, liquefied into fluid waters, glide away. But the 
 more he shall transform himself into all shapes, still closer 
 draw, my son, the hampering chains, till, rechanged, he shall 
 
 30 Proteus, a sea-deity, son of Oceanus and Tethys. He is represented 
 by the poets as usually residing in the Carpathian Sea between Crete and 
 Rhodes : he possessed the gift of prophecy, and also the power of as- 
 suming different shapes. 
 
 31 Pallene, a small peninsula of Macedonia, on the ^Egean Sea. 
 
 32 Nereus, a sea-g6d, son of Oceanus and Terra, and husband of Doris 
 by whom he had fifty daughters, the Nereids 
 
 K 
 
98 GEORGICS u. iv. 414—452. 
 
 become such as you saw him when he closed his eyes in sleep 
 commenced. She spoke ; and shed around the liquid odour of 
 ambrosia, wherewith she sprinkled over the whole body of her 
 son. Now from his trimmed locks a delicious fragrance 
 breathed, and active vigour was infused into his limbs. In the 
 side of a hollowed mountain is a spacious cave, whither many 
 a wave is driven by the wind, and divides itself into receding 
 curves ; at times a station most secure for weather-beaten 
 mariners. Within Proteus hides himself behind the barrier of 
 a huge rock. Here the nymph places the youth in ambush re- 
 mote from view ; she herself takes her station at a distance, 
 shrouded in a misty cloud. Now the sultry dog-star, scorch- 
 ing the thirsty Indians, blazed in the sky, and the fiery sun 
 had finished half his course : the herbs withered ; and the rays 
 made the shallow over-heated rivers boil, their channels being 
 drained to their slimy bottom ; when Proteus, repairing to his 
 accustomed den, advanced from the waves. The watery race 
 of the vast ocean, gamboling around him, scatter the briny 
 spray far and near. The sea-calves apart lay themselves 
 down to sleep along the shore. He himself (as at times the 
 keeper of a fold upon the mountains, when evening brings 
 home the bullocks from the pasture, and the lambs with noisy 
 bleatings whet the hunger of the wolves) sits in the centre on 
 a rock, and counts over their numbers. Of [seizing] whom 
 since so favourable an opportunity offered itself to Aristaeus, 
 scarcely suffering the aged god to compose his weary limbs, he 
 rushes upon him with a great shout, and surprises him with 
 chains reclining. He, on the other hand, not forgetful of his 
 art, transforms himself into all the wondrous shapes in nature ; 
 fire, and a fierce savage, and flowing river. But when no 
 shifts could find him an escape, overpowered he returned to 
 himself, and at length thus spoke in human accent: Who, 
 most presumptuous youth, enjoined thee (he said) to approach 
 my habitation ? or what demandest thou here ? But he [re- 
 plied], Thou knowest, O Proteus, thou knowest of thyself; 
 nor is it in any one's power to deceive thee : but do thou cease 
 to try [to escape me]. In pursuance of divine command, I 
 come hither to consult thy oracle about my ruined affairs. 
 Thus much he spoke. Then the prophet at length, with 
 mighty force, rolled his eyes flashing with azure light, and 
 gnashing his teeth fiercely, thus opened his mouth to disclose 
 
u. iv. 453—485. GEORGICS. 99 
 
 the Fates : It is the vengeance of no mean deity that pursues 
 thee : thou art making atonement for heinous crimes : these 
 sufferings, by no means proportioned to thy guilt, unhappy 
 Orpheus entails upon thee, unless the Fates oppose ; and he 
 sorely rages for his ravished queen. She indeed, rushing 
 headlong along the river's bank, provided she could only 
 escape thee, the maid doomed to death saw not the hideous 
 water-snake before her feet, guarding the banks in the tall 
 grass. But her fellow choir of Dryads filled the highest 
 mountains with shrieks : the rocks of Rhodope wept ; so did 
 lofty Pangsea, 33 and the martial land of Rhesus, the Getae, and 
 Hebrus, and attic Orithyia. Orpheus 34 himself, soothing the 
 anguish of his love with his concave shell, sang of thee, sweet 
 spouse, of thee by himself on the lonely shore ; thee when the 
 day arose, thee when the day declined, he sang. He entering 
 even the jaws of Tsenarus, Pluto's gates profound, and the 
 grove overcast with gloomy horror, visited the Manes, and 
 their tremendous king, and hearts unknowing to relent at 
 human prayers. But the airy shades, and phantoms of the 
 dead, moved at his song, stalked forth from the deep re- 
 cesses of Erebus, 35 in such throngs, as birds that shelter 
 themselves by thousands in the woods, when evening, or a 
 wintry shower, drives them from the mountains ; matrons, and 
 men, and ghosts of gallant heroes deceased, boys and unmarried 
 virgins, and youths laid on the funeral piles before the faces 
 of their parents ; whom the black mud and unsightly reeds 
 of Cocytus, and the unlovely lake with sluggish wave, enclose 
 around, and Styx, nine times poured between, confines. The 
 very habitations and deepest dungeons of death were aston- 
 ished, and the Furies, with whose hair blue snakes were inter- 
 woven ; and yawning Cerberus repressed his three mouths ; 
 and the whirling of Ixion's wheel was suspended by the song. 
 And now retracing his way, he had overpaid all dangers ; 
 
 33 Pangsea, a mountain on the confines of Macedonia and Thrace. 
 
 34 Orpheus was feigned by the poets to have descended into the infernal 
 regions to recover his wife Eurydice, when he so charmed Pluto and 
 Proserpine with the music of his lyre, that they consented to restore her, 
 provided he forbore looking behind until he had gained the upper re- 
 gions ; but he forgot his promise, and his Eurydice instantly vanished. 
 
 35 Erebus, a god of hell ; often used to signify hell itself. Cerberus, 
 represented as a dog with three heads, that watched the entrance into thv 
 infernal regions. 
 
 k 2 
 
100 GEORGICS. b. iv. 486—521 
 
 and restored Eurydice was just approaching the regions above, 
 following him ; for Proserpina had given him that law ; when 
 a sudden frenzy seized the unwary lover, pardonable, indeed, 
 if the Manes knew to pardon. He stopped, and on the very 
 verge of light, ah ! unmindful, and not master of himself, 
 looked back on his Eurydice : there was all his labour wasted, 
 and the law of the relentless tyrant broken ; and thrice a dis- 
 mal groan was heard through the Avernian lake. Orpheus, 
 she says, who hath both unhappy me and thee undone : what 
 so great frenzy is this ? see once more the cruel Fates call me 
 back, and sleep closes my swimming eyes. And now fare- 
 well : I am snatched away, encompassed with thick night, and 
 stretching forth to thee my feeble hands ! ah, thine no more. 
 She spoke ; and suddenly fled from his sight a different way, 36 
 like smoke blended with the thin air : nor more was seen by 
 him grasping the shades in vain, and wishing to say a thou- 
 sand things ; nor did the ferryman of hell suffer him again to 
 cross the intervening fen. What should he do? whither 
 should he turn himself, his love twice snatched away ? with 
 what tears move the Manes, with what words the gods ? She 
 already cold was sailing in the Stygian boat. For seven whole 
 months, it is said, he mourned beneath a weather-beaten rock, 
 by the streams of desert Strymon, and unfolded these his woes 
 under the cold caves, softening the very tigers, and leading 
 the oaks with his song : as mourning Philomel under a poplar 
 shade bemoans her lost young, which the hard-hearted clown 
 observing in the nest has stolen unfledged ; but she weeps 
 through the night, and, perched upon a bough, renews her 
 doleful song, and fills the places all around with piteous wait- 
 ings. No loves, no hymeneal joys, could bend his soul. Alone 
 he traversed the Hyperborean tracts of ice, the snowy Tanais, 
 and fields never free from Riphsean frosts, deploring his rav- 
 ished Eurydice, and Pluto's useless gifts ; for which despised 
 rite 37 the Ciconian matrons, amidst the sacred service of the 
 
 36 I have always felt dissatisfied with this participle " diversa," al- 
 though, I believe, Servius and all MSS. support it. I think "dilapsa" is 
 more Virgilian. Cf. Georg. iv. 410. So Lucan, in an evident imitation of 
 this passage, iii. 34, " Sic fata, refugit Umbra per amplexus trepidi dilapsa 
 mariti." So " delapsa," Ovid, Art. Am. i. 43 ; " relapsa," Met. x. 57. B. 
 
 37 The attempts to explain this passage are confessedly hopeless. See 
 Anthon. " Munere " probably arose from a gloss upon the preceding 
 *' dona." Can " quo nomina " (= on what pretext) be the true reading ? B 
 
 
b. iv. 521-559. GEORGICS. iOI 
 
 gods and nocturnal orgies of Bacchus, having torn the youth 
 in pieces, scattered his limbs over the wide fields. And even 
 then, whilst OEagrian Hebrus rolled down the middle of its 
 tide, his head torn from the alabaster neck, the voice itself, 
 and his chilling tongue, invoked Eurydice, ah, unfortunate 
 Eurydice ! with his fleeting breath : the banks re-echoed Eu- 
 rydice all along the river. Thus Proteus sang, and plunged 
 with a bound into the deep sea ; and, where he plunged, he 
 tossed up the foaming billows under the whirling tide. 
 
 But not so Cyrene : for kindly she bespoke the trembling 
 [Aristeas] : My son, you may ease your mind of vexatious 
 cares. This is the whole cause of your disaster ; hence the 
 nymphs, with whom she used to celebrate the mingled dances 
 in the deep groves, have sent this mournful destruction on 
 your bees : but suppliant bear offerings, beseeching peace, and 
 venerate the gentle wood-nymphs ; for at your supplications 
 they will grant forgiveness, and mitigate their wrath. But 
 first will I show you in order what must be your manner of 
 worship. Single out four choice bulls of beauteous form, 
 which now graze for you the tops of green Lycseus ; and as 
 many heifers, whose necks are untouched [by the yoke]. For 
 these erect four altars at the lofty temples of the goddesses : 
 from their throats emit the sacred blood, and leave the bodies 
 of the cattle in the leafy grove. Afterwards, when the ninth 
 morn has displayed her rising beams, you may offer Lethsean 
 poppies as funeral rites to Orpheus, venerate appeased Eury- 
 dice with a slain calf, sacrifice a black ewe, and revisit the 
 grove. 
 
 Without delay, he instantly executes the orders of his 
 mother ; repairs to the temple ; raises the altars as directed ; 
 leads up four chosen bulls of surpassing form, and as many 
 heifers, whose necks were untouched. Thereafter, the ninth 
 morning having ushered in her rising beams, he offers the 
 funeral rites to Orpheus, and revisits the grove. But here 
 they behold a sudden prodigy, and wonderful to relate ; bees 
 through all the belly hum amidst the decomposed bowels of 
 the cattle ; pour forth with the fermenting juices from the 
 burst sides, and in immense clouds roll along ; then swaric 
 together on the top of a tree, and hang down in a cluster from 
 the bending boughs. 
 
 Thus of the culture of fields, and flocks, and of trees, J 
 
102 GEORGICS. b. iv. 56C*~566. 
 
 sung ; whilst great Caesar at the deep Euphrates was thun- 
 dering in war, was victoriously dispensing laws among the 
 willing nations, and pursuing the path to Olympus. At that 
 time, me, Virgil, sweet Parthenope 38 nourished, flourishing in 
 the studies of inglorious ease ; who warbled pastoral songs, 
 and, adventurous through youth, sung thee, O Tityrus, under 
 the covert of a spreading beech. 
 
 38 Parthenope, afterwards called Neapolis, (Naples,) a celebrated city 
 of Campania, in Italy, seated on a beautiful bay, from which it rises like 
 fji amphitheatre. It received the name of Parthencpe from one of the 
 Sirens who was buried there. 
 
 I 
 
nA^j^^<* A ^^ ji ^ / ^ 
 
 VIEGIL'S ^NEID 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 The subject of the JEneid is the settlement of iEneas in Italy. This noUc 
 Poem, on the composition of which Virgil was engaged eleven years, con- 
 sists of twelve books, and comprehends a period of eight years. In the 
 First Book, the hero is introduced, in the seventh year of his expedition, 
 sailing from Sicily, and shipwrecked upon the coast of Africa, where he is 
 kindly received by Dido, queen of Carthage. The description of the 
 storm in this book is particularly admired. 
 
 Arms I sing, 1 and the hero, who first, exiled by fate, came 
 from the coast of Troy to Italy, and the Lavinian 2 shore : 
 much was he tossed both on sea and land, by the power of those 
 above, on account of the unrelenting rage of cruel Juno : 
 much too he suffered in war till he founded a city, and brought 
 his gods into Latium : from whence the Latin progeny, the 
 Alban fathers, and the walls of lofty Rome. 
 
 Declare to me, O Muse ! the causes, in what 3 the deity 
 being offended, by what the queen of heaven was provoked 
 to drive a man of distinguished piety to struggle with so 
 many calamities, to encounter so many hardships. Is there 
 such resentment in heavenly minds ? 
 
 An ancient city there was, Carthage, 4 (inhabited by a colony 
 of Tyrians,) fronting Italy and the mouth of the Tiber, far 
 remote y vast in riches, and extremely hardy in warlike ex- 
 ercises ; which [city] Juno is said to have honoured more 
 
 1 Respecting the four verses usually prefixed to the iEneid, see Anthon. B. 
 
 2 Lavinium, (Pratica,) a city of Latium, built by iEneas, and called 
 by that name in honour of Lavinia. 
 
 3 i. e. " quo modo." It is a mistake to suppose that we should join 
 " quo numine," since Juno has been already mentioned. B. 
 
 4 Carthage, a powerful city of ancient Africa, on a peninsula, 12 miles 
 north-east of Tunis, was built by a colony of Tyrians under Dido, about 
 100 years before the foundation of Rome. After having been long mis- 
 tress at sea, and the rival of Rome, Carthage was totally destroyed by 
 Scipio Africanus the younger, in the third Punic war, b. c. 146, an event 
 to which the memorable words, " Delenda est Carthago," of the elder 
 Cato, mainly contributed. 
 
104 J3NEID. b. i. 16—33. 
 
 .han any other place of her residence, Samos 5 being set aside. 
 Here lay her arms ; here was her chariot ; here the goddess 
 even then designs and fondly hopes to establish a seat of 
 universal empire, would only the Fates permit. But she had 
 heard of a race to be descended from Trojan blood, that was 
 one day to overturn the Tyrian towers : that hence a people 
 of extensive regal sway, and proud in war, would come to the 
 destruction of Libya: so the destinies ordained. This the 
 daughter of Saturn dreading, and mindful of the old war 
 which she had the principal hand in carrying on before Troy, 6 
 in behalf of her beloved Argos ; 7 nor as yet were the causes 
 of her rage and keen resentment worn out of her mind ; the 
 judgment of Paris dwells deeply rooted in her soul, the affront 
 offered to her neglected beauty, the detested [Trojan] race, 
 and the honours conferred on ravished Ganymede : 8 she, by 
 these things fired, having tossed on the whole ocean the 
 Trojans, whom the Greeks and merciless Achilles had left, 
 drove them far from Latium ; 9 and thus, for many years, they, 
 driven by fate, roamed round every sea : so vast a work it 
 was to found the Roman state. 
 
 5 Samos, an island in the JSgean Sea, near the coast of Ionia. It is 
 extremely fertile, producing the most delicious fruits, and is famous as 
 being the birth-place of Pythagoras. Samos was sacred to Juno, who 
 had here a most magnificent temple. 
 
 6 Troy, or Ilium, one of the most renowned cities of antiquity, the 
 capital of Troas in Asia Minor, was built on a small eminence near Mount 
 Ida, between the Simois and Scamander, a short distance above their 
 confluence, and about four miles from the JEgesai shore. Of all the wars 
 that have been carried on among the ancients, that of Troy is the most 
 famous, whether we regard the celebrity of the chiefs engaged in it, or 
 the deeds in arms which it called forth. According to the generally re- 
 ceived account, the Trojan war was undertaken by the Greeks to recover 
 Helen, the wife of Menelaus, whom Paris, the son of Priam, king of 
 Troy, had carried away. All Greece united to avenge the cause of Me- 
 nelaus, and Troy, after a siege of ten years, was taken and burnt, b. c. 
 1184. No vestige now remains of ancient Troy; and even its site has 
 become matter of uncertainty. 
 
 7 Argos, the capital of Argolis, a district of Peloponnesus, of which 
 Juno was the chief deity. During the Trojan war, Agamemnon was king 
 of the united kingdom of Argos and Mycenae. 
 
 8 Ganymede, the son of Tros, king of Troy, feigned to have been taken 
 up to heaven by Jupiter, and there became the cupbearer of the gods in 
 the place of Juno's daughter Hebe. 
 
 9 Latium, (Campagna di Roma,) a country of Italy, on the east of the 
 Tiber. The Latins rose into importance when Romulus had founded the 
 city of Rome in their country. 
 
b. i. 34—54. JENEID. 105 
 
 Scarcely Lad the Trojans, losing sight of Sicily, 10 with joy 
 launched out into the deep, and were ploughing the foaming 
 billows with their brazen prows, when Juno, harbouring ever- 
 lasting rancour in her breast, thus witE herself: 11 Shall I 
 then, baffled, desist from my purpose, nor have it in my power 
 to turn away the Trojan king from Italy ? because I am re- 
 strained by fate ! Was Pallas able to burn the Grecian ships, 
 and bury themselves in the ocean, for the offence of one, and the 
 frenzy of Ajax, 12 Oileus' son? She herself, hurling from the 
 clouds Jove's rapid fire, both scattered their ships, and up- 
 turned the sea with the winds : him too she snatched away 
 in a whirlwind, breathing flames from his transfixed breast, 
 and dashed him against the pointed rock. But I, who move 
 majestic, 13 the queen of heaven, both sister and wife of Jove, 
 must maintain a series of wars with one single race for so 
 many years. And who will henceforth adore Juno's divinity, 14 
 or humbly offer sacrifice on her altars ? 
 
 The goddess by herself revolving such thoughts in her in- 
 flamed breast, repairs to .ZEolia, 15 the native land of storms, 
 regions 16 pregnant with boisterous winds. Here, in a vast 
 cave, king JEolus controls with imperial sway the reluctant 
 winds and sounding tempests, and confines them with chains 
 
 10 Sicily, the largest and most celebrated island in the Mediterranean 
 Sea, to the south of Italy, and separated from it by the Straits of Messina. 
 It is of a triangular form, and from its three promontories was anciently 
 called Trinacria. Its name Sicily was derived from the Siculi, a people 
 of Italy who settled in it. 
 
 11 Cf. interpp. on Ter. Andr. i. 1, 55, " Egomet continuo mecum." B. 
 
 12 Ajax, the son of Oileus, king of Locris, one of the Grecian chiefs in 
 the Trojan war. He was surnamed Locrian, to distinguish him from 
 Ajax the son of Telamon. 
 
 13 Such is the proper sense of " incedere." Cf. Mn. i. 493. Tibull. 
 li. 6, 34. Propert. ii. 1,5. More particularly Seneca, Nat. Q. vii. 31, 
 " non ambulamus, sed incedimus." Propert. ii. 2, 58 } " incedit vel 
 Jove digna soror." B. 
 
 14 Some MSS. of Quintilian, ix. 2, p. 772, give " nomen." Cf. Drak. 
 on Sil. i. 93. B. 
 
 15 The iEolian Islands, situated between Italy and Sicily, which were 
 seven in number. Here jEolus, the son of Hippotas, reigned, reputed 
 king of the winds, because, from a course of observations, he had ac- 
 quired some knowledge of the weather, and was capable of foretelling 
 at times what wind would blow for some days together, as we learn from 
 Diodorus and Pliny. 
 
 16 For the change of number, " patriam loca," cf. iEn. vi. " Itur 
 
 in antiquam silvam, stabula alta ferarum." B. 
 
106 JENEID. b. i. 55- 58 
 
 in prison. They roar indignant round their barriers, filling 
 the mountain with loud murmurs. ^Eolus is seated on a lofty 
 throne, wielding a sceptre, and assuages their fury, and moder- 
 ates their rage. For, unless he did so, they, in their rapid 
 career, would bear away sea and earth, and the deep heaven, 
 and sweep them through the air. But the almighty Sire, 
 guarding against this, hath pent them in gloomy caves, and 
 thrown over them the ponderous weight of mountains, and 
 appointed them a king, who, by fixed laws, and at command, 
 knows both to curb them, and when to relax their reins ; 
 whom Juno then in suppliant words thus addressed : -ZEolus, 
 (for the sire of gods and the king of men hath given thee 
 power both to smooth the waves, and raise them with the 
 wind,) a race by me detested sails the Tuscan Sea, transport- 
 ing Ilium, and its conquered gods, into Italy. Strike force 
 into thy winds, overset and sink 17 the ships ; or drive them 
 different ways, and strew the ocean with carcasses. I have 
 twice seven lovely nymphs, the fairest of whom, Deiopeia, I 
 will join to thee in firm wedlock, and assign to be thine own 
 for ever, 18 that with thee she may spend all her years for this 
 service, and make thee father of a beautiful offspring. 
 
 To whom -ZEolus replies : 'Tis thy task, O queen, to con- 
 sider what you would have done : on me it is incumbent to 
 execute your commands. You conciliate to me whatever of 
 power I have, my sceptre, and Jove. You grant me to sit 
 at the tables of the gods : 19 and you make me lord of storms 
 and tempests. 
 
 Thus having said, whirling the point of his spear, he struck 
 the hollow mountain's side: and the winds, as in a formed 
 battalion, rush forth at every vent, and scour over the lands 
 in a hurricane. They press upon the ocean, and at once, east, 
 and south, and stormy south-west, plough up the whole deep 
 from its lowest bottom, and roll vast billows to the shores. 
 The cries of the seamen succeed, and the cracking of the cord- 
 age. In an instant clouds snatch the heavens and day from 
 
 17 i. e. " obrue, ut submergantur." So in Greek, as Soph. CEd. T. 165, 
 •qvvaar eicro7riav 0\oya, i. e. were elvai eicT07riav. Eur. Ph. 446, diaX- 
 X&Zacrav o/JLoyeveig (piXovg. B. 
 
 18 This is the complete sense of " propriam," expressing the Homeric 
 fjv aiev keXSsai ijfiara rrdvra (II. JEJ. cap. 269). Cf. Westerhov. on Ter. 
 Andr. iv. 3, 1. B. 
 
 19 Festus, " maxima enim fuit honos, Divum epulis accumbere." B 
 
B. I. 89—110. -ENEID. 10? 
 
 the eyes of the Trojans: sable night sits brooding on the sea, 
 thunder roars from pole to pole, the sky glares with repeated 
 flashes, and all nature threatens them with immediate death. 
 Forthwith Eneas' 20 limbs are relaxed with cold shuddering 
 fear. He groans, and, spreading out both his hands to heaven, 
 thus expostulates : O thrice and four times happy they, who 
 had the good fortune to die before their parents' eyes, under 
 the high ramparts of Troy ! O thou, the bravest of the Gre- 
 cian race, great Tydeus' 21 son, why was I not destined to fall 
 on the Trojan plains, and pour out/ this soul by thy right 
 hand? where stern Hector 22 lies prostrate by the sword of 
 Achilles ; where mighty Sarpedon 23 [lies] ; where Simois 24 
 rolls along so many shields, and helmets, and bodies of heroes 
 snatched away beneath its waters. 
 
 While uttering such words a tempest, roaring from the 
 north, strikes across the sail, and heaves the billows to the 
 stars. The oars are shattered : then the prow turns away, 
 and exposes the side to the waves. A steep mountain of 
 waters follows in a heap. These hang on the towering surge ; 
 to those the wide-yawning deep discloses the earth between 
 two waves : the whirling tide rages with [mingled] sand. 
 Three other ships the south wind, hurrying away, throws on 
 hidden rocks ; rocks in the midst of the ocean, which the 
 Italians call Altars, 25 a vast ridge rising to the surface of the 
 
 20 ^Eneas, a Trojan prince, son of Anchises and Venus, who, after the 
 fall of Troy, came to Italy, where he married Lavinia, the daughter of 
 Latinus, whom he succeeded in his kingdom. 
 
 21 Tydeus' son, Diomedes, the son of Tydeus and Deiphyle, was king 
 of iEtolia, and one of the most renowned of the Grecian chiefs in the 
 Trojan war, where he performed many heroic deeds. 
 
 22 Hector, the son of Priam and Hecuba, was the most valiant of all 
 the Trojan chiefs. For a long time he gloriously sustained the destinies 
 of Troy, till at last he fell by the hand of Achilles, who dragged the body, 
 with insulting triumph, three times round the tomb of Patrocles and the 
 walls of Troy. 
 
 23 Sarpedon, a son of Jupiter by Europa, and brother to Minos, went 
 to the Trojan war to assist Priam, and was slain by Patroclus. According 
 to some authors, the Sarpedon who assisted Priam was king of Lycia, 
 and son of Jupiter by Laodamia, the daughter of Bellerophon. 
 
 24 Simois, a river of Troas, which rose in Mount Ida, and fell into the 
 Scamander below Troy. 
 
 25 Altars ; these were the iEgates, three small islands opposite Car- 
 thage, near which the Roman fleet, under L. Catulus, obtained a de- 
 cisive victory over that of the Carthaginians, which put an end to the 
 
• ' • ' 
 
 J 08 JENEID. e. i. Hi— 139. 
 
 sea. Three from the deep the east wind drives on shoals and 
 flats, a piteous spectacle ! and dashing on the shelves, it en- 
 closes them with mounds of sand. Before the eyes of ^Eneas 
 himself, a mighty billow, falling from the height, dashes 
 against the stern of one which bore the Lycian crew, and 
 faithful Orontes : 26 the pilot is tossed out and rolled head- 
 long, prone [into the waves] ; but her the driving surge 
 thrice whirls around in the same place, and the rapid eddy 
 swallows up in the deep. Then floating here and there on 
 the vast abyss, are seen men, their arms and planks, and the 
 Trojan wealth, among the waves. Now the storm over- 
 powered the stout vessel of Ilioneus, 27 now that of brave 
 Achates, and that in which Abas sailed, and that in which 
 old Alethes : all, at their loosened and disjointed sides, receive 
 the hostile stream, and gape with chinks. 
 
 Meanwhile Neptune perceived that the sea was in great 
 uproar and confusion, a storm sent forth, and the depths over- 
 turned from their lowest channels. He, in violent commo- 
 tion, and looking forth from the deep, reared his serene coun- 
 tenance above the waves ; sees .ZEneas's fleet scattered over 
 the ocean, the Trojans oppressed with the waves and the ruin 
 from above. Nor were Juno's wiles and hate unknown to 
 her brother. He calls to him the east and west winds ; then 
 thus addresses them : And do you thus presume upon your 
 birth ? dare you, winds ! without my sovereign leave, to em- 
 broil heaven and earth, and raise such mountains. Whom 
 
 I 28 But first it is right to assuage the tumultuous waves. 
 
 A chastisement of another nature from me awaits your next 
 offence. Fly apace, and bear this message to your king : That 
 not to him the empire of the sea, and the awful trident, but 
 to me by lot are given : his dominions are the mighty rocks, 
 
 first Punic war, b. c. 241. Davidson. Heyne would condemn this 
 line as spurious. It is, however, quoted by Quintil. viii. 2, p. 675, Cf. 
 Wyttenb. on Plat. Phaedon. § 135. B. 
 
 26 Orontes commanded the Lycian fleet, which, after the fall of Troy, 
 accompanied .Eneas in his voyage to Italy. 
 
 27 Ilioneus, son of Phorbas, was distinguished for his eloquence. 
 Achates, a friend of iEneas, whose fidelity was so exemplary, that Fidus 
 Achates became a proverb. 
 
 28 This aTro<JiuTrr)(jiQ, or sudden break in speaking, is remarked by 
 Donatus on Ter. Eun. i. 1, 20, Aquila Romanus, fig. rhet. p. 147, ed. 
 Kuhnk. and Quintil. ix. 2, p. 781. B. 
 
b. i. 140—171. ^ENEID. 109 
 
 your proper mansions, Eurus : in that palace let king Mollis 
 proudly boast, and reign in the close prison of the winds. 
 
 So he speaks, and, more swiftly than his speech, 29 smooths 
 the swelling seas, disperses the collected clouds, and brings 
 back the day. With him Cymothoe, 30 and Triton with exerted 
 might, heave the ships from the pointed rock. He himself 
 raised them with his trident ; lays open the vast sandbanks, 
 and calms the sea ; and in his light chariot glides along the 
 surface of the waves. And as when a sedition has perchance 31 
 arisen among a mighty multitude, and the minds of the ig- 
 noble vulgar rage ; now firebrands, now stones fly ; fury sup- 
 plies them with arms : if then, by chance, they espy a man 
 revered in piety and worth, they are hushed, and stand with 
 ears erect ; he, by eloquence, rules their passions, and calms 
 their breasts. Thus all the raging tumult of the ocean sub- 
 sides, as soon as the sire, surveying the seas, and wafted 
 through the open sky, guides his steeds, and flying, gives the 
 reins to his easy chariot. 
 
 The weary Trojans direct their course towards the nearest 
 shores, and make the coast of Libya. In a long recess, a sta- 
 tion lies ; an island forms it into a harbour by its jutting sides, 
 against which every wave from the ocean is broken, and divides 
 itself into receding curves. On either side vast cliffs, and two 
 twin-like rocks, threaten the sky ; under whose summit the 
 waters all around are calm and still. Above is a sylvan scene 
 with waving woods, and a dark grove with awful shade hangs 
 over. Under the opposite front a cave is of pendant rocks, 32 
 within which are fresh springs, and seats of living stone, 33 
 the recess of nymphs. Here neither cables hold, nor anchors 
 with crooked fluke moor the weather-beaten ships. To this 
 retreat JEneas brings seven ships, collected from all his fleet ; 
 and the Trojans, longing much for land, disembarking, enjoy 
 
 29 See Anthon. So Xdyov Oarrov, Heliodor. Eth. i. 15. iv. 10. B. 
 
 30 Cymothoe, one of the Nereids. Triton, a powerful sea-deity, son of 
 Neptune and Amphitrite. Many of the sea-gods were called Tritons, but 
 thtf name was generally applied to those only who were represented half 
 men and half fishes. 
 
 31 " Saepe," like the Greek ttoWolkiq, is often used in this sense, as ob- 
 served by Abresch. Diluc. Thucyd. p. 174, and Heindorf on Plat. Phae- 
 don. § 11. B. 
 
 32 My interpretation is justified by Ennius, Scriver. p. 20, " per spe- 
 luncas saxis strueias asperis pendentibus." B. 
 
 33 olvtotikt' dvrpa, ^Esch. Prom. 309. In English, " natural caves." B 
 
HO ^NEID. b. i. 172—205. 
 
 the wished-for shore, and stretch their brine-drenched limbs 
 upon the beach. Then first Achates struck spark from a flint, 
 received the fire in leaves, round it applied dry combustible 
 matter, and instantly blew up a flame from the fuel. Then, 
 spent with toil and hunger, they produce their grain, damaged 
 by the sea- water, and the instruments of Ceres ; and prepare 
 to dry over the fire, and to grind with stones, their rescued 
 corn. Meanwhile JEneas climbs a rock, and takes a prospect 
 of the wide ocean all around, if, by any means, he can descry 
 any [man like] Antheus tossed by the wind, and the Phrygian 
 galleys, or Capys, 34 or the arms of Caicus, on the lofty deck. 
 He sees no ship in view, but three stags straying on the shore : 
 these the whole herd follow, and are feeding through the valley 
 in a long-extended train. Here he stopped short, and snatch- 
 ing his bow and swift arrows, (weapons which the faithful 
 Achates bore,) first prostrates the leaders, bearing their heads 
 high with branching horns ; next the vulgar throng ; and dis- 
 perses the whole herd, driving them with darts through the 
 leafy woods. Nor desists he, till conqueror he stretches seven 
 huge deer on the ground, and equals their number with his 
 ships. Hence he returns to the port, and shares them amongst 
 all his companions. Then the hero divides the wine which 
 the good Acestes 35 had stowed in casks on the Sicilian shore, 
 and given them at parting, and with these words cheers their 
 saddened hearts : O companions, who have sustained severer 
 ills than these, (for we are not strangers to former days of 
 adversity,) to these, too, God will grant a termination. You 
 have approached 36 both Scylla's fury, and those deep roaring 
 rocks ; you are unacquainted with the dens of the Cyclops : 
 resume then your courage, and dismiss your desponding fears ; 
 perhaps hereafter it may delight you to remember these suf- 
 ferings. Through various mischances, through so many pe- 
 rilous adventures, we steer to Latium, where the Fates give us 
 the prospect of peaceful settlements. There Troy's kingdom 
 
 34 Capys. This brave Trojan was one of those who, against the advice oi 
 Thymcetes, wished to destroy the wooden horse, which proved the de- 
 struction of Troy. 
 
 35 Acestes, a king of Sicily, who assisted Priam in the Trojan war, 
 and who afterwards kindly entertained iEneas when he landed upon the 
 coast of Sicily. 
 
 36 " Accedere," = " to encounter," is properly used of any thing dan- 
 gerous. Cf. JBurm B, 
 
 
b. L 206-240. ^ENEID. 1 1 1 
 
 is allowed once more to rise. Persevere, and reserve your- 
 selves for prosperous days. So he says in words ; and op- 
 pressed with heavy cares, wears the looks of hope, buries deep 
 anguish in his breast. 
 
 They address themselves to the spoil and future feast ; tear 
 the skin from the ribs, and lay the flesh bare. Some cut into 
 parts, and fix on spits the quivering limbs : others place the 
 brazen caldrons on the shore, and prepare the fires. Then 
 they repair their strength with food, and, stretched along the 
 grass, regale themselves with old wine and fat venison. After 
 hunger was taken away by banquets, and the viands removed, 
 in long discourse they inquire after their lost companions, in 
 suspense between hope and fear, whether to believe them yet 
 alive, or that they have finished their destiny, and no longer 
 hear when called. Above the rest, the pious JEneas, within 
 himself, bemoans now the loss of the active Orontes, now of 
 Amycus, and then the cruel fate of Lycus, with valiant Gyas, 
 and valiant Cloanthus. 
 
 And now there was an end [of discourse] ; when Jove, 
 looking down from the lofty sky upon the sail-flown sea, and 
 the lands lying at rest, with the shores and the nations dis- 
 persed abroad ; thus stood on the pinnacle of heaven, and 
 fixed his eyes on Libya's realms. To him, revolving such 
 cares in his mind, Venus, in mournful mood, her bright eyes be- 
 dimmed with tears, addresses herself: O thou, who with eter- 
 nal sway rulest, and with thy thunder overawest, the affairs of 
 both gods and men, what so high offence against thee could 
 my iEneas or the Trojans be guilty of, that, after having suf- 
 fered so many deaths, they must be shut out from all the world 
 on account of Italy ? Surely you promised, that in some future 
 age, after circling years, the Romans should descend from 
 them, powerful leaders spring from the blood of Teucer 37 re- 
 stored, who should rule the sea, the nations with absolute 
 sway. Father ! why is thy purpose changed ? I, indeed, was 
 solacing myself with this promise under Troy's fall and sad 
 ruin, with fates balancing contrary fates. Now the same 
 fortune still pursues them, after they have been driven with 
 such variety of woes. Great king, what end to their labours wilt 
 
 37 Teucer, a king of Phrygia, son of Scamander. Troy was called 
 from him Teucria, and the Trojans Teucri. 
 
JJ2 ^NEID. e.i. 241—270 
 
 thou give ? 38 Antenor, escaped from amidst the Greeks, could 
 with safety penetrate the Illyrian gulf, and the inmost realms of 
 Liburnia, 39 and overpass the springs of Timavus ; whence, 
 through nine mouths, with loud echoing from the mountain, it 
 bursts away a sea impetuous, and sweeps the fields with a roar- 
 ing deluge. Yet there he built the city of Padua, 40 established 
 a Trojan settlement, gave the nation a name, and set up the 
 arms of Troy. Now in calm peace composed he rests : we, 
 thy own progeny, whom thou by thy nod ordainest the 
 throne of heaven, (oh woe unutterable !) having lost our ships, 
 are betrayed, driven hither and thither far from the Italian 
 coast, to gratify the malice of one. Are these the honours of 
 piety ? is it thus thou replacest us on the throne ? 
 
 The sire of gods and men, smiling upon her, with that as- 
 pect wherewith he clears the tempestuous sky, gently kissed 
 his daughter's lips ; then thus replies : Cytherea, 41 cease from 
 fear : immoveable to thee remain the fates of thy people. 
 Thou shalt see the city and promised walls of Lavinium, and 
 shalt raise magnanimous iEneas aloft to the stars of heaven ; 
 nor is my purpose changed. In Italy he (for I will tell thee, 
 since this care lies gnawing at thy heart, and tracing farther 
 back, I will reveal the secrets of fate) shall wage a mighty war, 
 crush a stubborn nation, and establish laws and cities to his 
 people, till the third summer shall see him reigning in Latium, 
 and three winters pass after he has subdued the Rutulians. 42 
 But the boy Ascanius, 43 who has now the surname of lulus, 
 (Tlus he was, while the empire of Hium flourished,) shall mea- 
 sure with his reign full thirty great circles of revolving months, 
 transfer the seat of his empire from Lavinium, and strongly 
 
 38 Eur. Alcest. 214, ioj Zev, rig av ira iropoq icaicwv Tkvoiro, icai Xihtiq 
 rvxag; B. 
 
 39 Liburnia, (Croatia,) a province of Illyria, at the head of the Adri- 
 atic. 
 
 40 Padua, a city of Italy, celebrated as the birth-place of Livy. 
 
 41 Cytherea, a surname of Venus, from Cythera, (Cerigo,) an island on 
 the southern coast of Laconia in Peloponnesus, which was sacred to her. 
 
 42 Rutulians, a people of Latium, anciently known, as well as the 
 -Latins, by the name of Aborigines. They supported Turnus their king 
 
 m the war which he waged against iEneas. 
 
 43 Ascanius, called also lulus, was the son of ^Eneas by Creusa ; he 
 accompanied his father to Italy, succeeded him in the kingdom of 
 Latinus, and built the city of Alba Longa. 
 
H. i. 271-299. JENEID. 113 
 
 fortify Alba Longa. Here again, for full three hundred years, 
 the sceptre shall be swayed by Hector's line, until Ilia, 44 a 
 royal priestess, impregnated by Mars, shall bear two infants 
 at a birth. Then Ilomulus, exulting in the tawny hide of the 
 wolf his nurse, shall take upon him the rule of the nation, 
 build a city sacred to Mars, and from his own name call the 
 people Romans. To them I fix neither limits nor duration of 
 empire ; dominion have I given them without end. And even 
 sullen Juno, who now, through jealous fear, creates endless 
 disturbance to sea, and earth, and heaven, shall change her 
 counsels for the better, and join with me in befriending the 
 Romans, lords of the world, and the nation of the gown. Such 
 is my pleasure. An age shall come, after a course of years, 
 when the house of Assaracus shall bring under subjection 
 Phthia 45 and renowned Mycenae, and reign over vanquished 
 Argos. A Trojan shall be born of illustrious race, Caesar, 
 who shall bound his empire by the ocean, his fame by the 
 stars, Julius his name, from great lulus derived. Him, loaded 
 with the spoils of the East, you shall receive to heaven at 
 length, having seen an end of all your cares : he too shall be 
 invoked by vows and prayers. Then, wars having ceased, 
 fierce nations shall soften into peace. Hoary Faith, Vesta, 
 and Quirinus, 46 with his brother Remus, shall administer jus- 
 tice. The dreadful gates of war 47 shall be shut with close 
 bolts of iron. Within impious Fury, sitting on horrid arms, 
 and his hands bound behind him with a hundred brazen 
 chains, in hideous rage shall gnash his bloody laws. 
 
 He said, and from on high sent down Maia's son, 48 that the 
 coasts of Libya and the new towers of Carthage might be open 
 hospitably to receive the Trojans ; lest Dido, 49 ignorant of hea- 
 ven's decree, should shut them out from her ports. He, on the 
 
 44 Ilia, or Rhea, priestess of Vesta, was a daughter of Numitor, king of 
 Alba, and the mother of Romulus and Remus by Mars. 
 
 45 Phthia, a city of Thessaly, celebrated as the birth-place of Achilles ; 
 it gave name to the surrounding district. 
 
 46 Quirinus, a name given to Romulus, after he was deified. 
 
 47 i. e. of Janus. War is here personified. 
 
 48 Maia's son ; Mercury, a celebrated god of antiquity, the son of Ju- 
 piter and Maia ; he was the messenger of the gods, and of Jupiter in par- 
 ticular. 
 
 49 Dido, called also Elisa, the daughter of Belus king of Tyre, and the 
 'wife of Sicilians, whom her brother Pygmalion murdered for his richer 
 
 I 
 
H4 JENEID. b. i. 300— 332. 
 
 steerage of his wings, flies through the expanded sky, and 
 speedily alighted on the coasts of Libya. And now he puts 
 his orders in execution ; and, at the will of the god, the Car- 
 thaginians lay aside the fierceness of their hearts : the queen, 
 especially, entertains thoughts of peace, and a benevolent dis- 
 position towards the Trojans. 
 
 But pious ^Eneas, by night revolving many things, resolved, 
 as soon as cheerful day arose, to set out, and to reconnoitre 
 the unknown country, on what coasts he was driven by the 
 wind ; who are the inhabitants, whether men or wild beasts, 
 (for he sees nothing but uncultivated grounds,) and inform 
 his friends of his discoveries. Within a winding grove, under 
 a hollow rock, he secretly disposed his fleet, fenced round with 
 trees and gloomy shades : himself marches forth, attended by 
 Achates alone, brandishing in his hand two javelins of broad- 
 pointed steel. To whom, in the midst of a wood, his mother 
 presents herself, wearing the mien and attire of a virgin, and 
 the arms of a Spartan maid ; or resembling Thracian Harpa- 
 lyce, 50 when she tires her steeds, and in her course outflies the 
 swift Hebrus : for, huntress -like, she had hung from her 
 shoulders a light bow, and suffered her hair to wanton in the 
 wind ; bare to the knee, with Jier flowing robes gathered in a 
 knot. Then first, Pray, youths, she says, inform me if by 
 chance ye have seen any of my sisters wandering this way, 
 equipped with a quiver, and the skin of a spotted lynx, or with 
 full cry urging the chase of a foaming boar. Thus Venus, and 
 thus Venus' son replied : Of your sisters not one has been 
 heard or seen by me. O virgin, by what name shall I address 
 thee ? for thou wearest not the looks of a mortal, nor sounds 
 thy voice human. O thou a goddess surely ! Are you the sister 
 of Phoebus, or one of the race of the nymphs ? Oh ! be propi- 
 tious, and whoever you are, ease our anxious minds, and in- 
 form us under what climate, on what region of the globe, we 
 at length are thrown. We wander strangers both to the 
 country and the inhabitants, driven upon this coast by furious 
 winds and swelling seas. So shall many a victim fall a sacri- 
 
 Dido was the founder of the city of Carthage, where she hospitably enter- 
 tained ^Eneas, who had been shipwrecked upon the coast. 
 
 50 Harpalyce, a daughter of Harpalycus, king of Thrace, a wotftUfl oi 
 the most undaunted courage 
 
b. i. 333— 368. ^NEID. -Ho 
 
 fice at thine altars by our right hand. Then Venus : I, indeed, 
 deem not myself worthy of such honour. It is the custom for 
 the Tyrian virgins to wear a quiver, and bind the leg thus 
 high with a purple buskin. You see the kingdom of Car- 
 thage, a Tyrian people, and Agenor's city. 51 But the country 
 is that of Libya, a race invincible in war. The kingdom is 
 ruled by Dido, who fled hither from Tyre, to shun her bro- 
 ther's hate : tedious is the relation of her wrongs, and intri- 
 cate the circumstances ; but I shall trace the principal heads. 52 
 Her husband was Sichasus, the richest of the Phoenicians in 
 land, and passionately beloved by his unhappy spouse. Her 
 father had given her to him in her virgin bloom, and joined 
 her in wedlock with the first connubial rites : but her brother 
 Pygmalion then possessed the throne of Tyre ; atrociously 
 wicked beyond all mortals. Between them hatred arose. 
 He, impious, and blinded with the love of gold, having taken 
 Sichaeus by surprise, secretly assassinates him before the 
 altar, regardless of his sister's great affection. Long he kept 
 the deed concealed, and wicked, forging many lies, amused the 
 heart-sick, loving [queen] with vain hope. But the ghost of 
 her unburied husband appeared to her in a dream, lifting up 
 his visage amazingly pale and ghastly : he opened to her view 
 the bloody altars, and his breast transfixed with the sword, 
 and detected all the hidden villany of the house ; then exhorts 
 her to hasten flight, and quit her native country ; and, to aid 
 her flight, reveals treasures ancient in the earth, an unknown 
 mass of gold and silver. Dido, roused by this awful mes- 
 senger, provided friends, and prepared to fly. They assem- 
 ble, who either had mortal hatred or violent dread of the 
 tyrant : what ships by chance are ready, they seize in haste, 
 and load with gold. The wealth of the covetous Pygmalion 
 is conveyed over sea. A woman is guide of the exploit. 
 Thither they came, where now you will see the stately walls 
 and rising towers of a new-built Carthage, and bought as 
 much ground as they could enclose with a bull's hide, called 
 Byrsa, 53 in commemoration of the deed. But [say] now, who 
 
 51 Agenor's city ; Carthage is so called, as being built by Dido, who 
 was a descendant of Agenor, king of Phoenicia. 
 
 52 Literally, " the chief footsteps." B. 
 
 53 Byrsa is also a citadel in the middle of Carthage, on which was the 
 temple Of -lEsculapius. 
 
 i 2 
 
116 ^NEID. b. i. 3G9— 400. 
 
 are you ? or from what coasts you came, or whither are you 
 bending your way ? To these her demands, the hero, with 
 heavy sighs, and slowly raising his words from the bottom of 
 his breast, [thus replies,] If I, O goddess ! tracing from their 
 first source, shall pursue, and you have leisure to hear, the 
 annals of our woes, the evening star will first shut heaven's 
 gates upon the expiring day. 54 Driven over a length of seas 
 from ancient Troy, (if the name of Troy hath by chance 
 reached your ears,) a tempest, by its wonted chance, threw 
 us on this Libyan coast. I am jEneas the pious, renowned 
 by fame above the skies, who carry with me in my fleet the 
 gods I snatched away from the enemy. I seek my country, 
 Italy ; and my descendants sprang fr6m Jove supreme. With 
 twice ten ships I embarked on the Phrygian Sea, having fol- 
 lowed the destinies vouchsafed me, my goddess-mother point- 
 ing out the way ; seven, with much ado, are saved, torn and 
 shattered by waves and wind. Myself, a stranger, poor and 
 destitute, wander through the deserts of Africa, banished from 
 Europe and from Asia. Venus, unable to bear his further 
 complaints, thus interrupted in the midst of his grief : Who- 
 ever you may be, I trust you live 55 not unbefriended by the 
 powers of heaven, who have arrived at a Tyrian city. But 
 do you forthwith bend your course directly to the palace of 
 the queen : for, that your friends are returned, and your ships 
 saved, and by a turn of the north wind wafted into a secure 
 harbour, I pronounce to thee with assurance, unless my pa- 
 rents, fond of a lying art, have in vain taught me divination. 
 See these twelve swans exulting in a body, whom the bird of 
 Jove, 56 having glided from the ethereal region, was chasing 
 through the open air : now, in a long train, they seem either 
 to choose their ground, or to hover over the place they have 
 already chosen. As they, returning, sportive clap their 
 rustling wings, wheel about the heavens in a troop, and raise 
 their melodious notes ; just so your ships and youthful crew, 
 either are possessed of the harbour, or are entering the port 
 
 54 See Anthem. Demosth. de Cor. § 91, k7n\ei\jyeL /is Xsyovra rj rjjispa 
 rd rojv 7rpoSorwv bvofxara. B. 
 
 35 Ruhnk. on Xen. Mem. iv. 3, 8, most appositely illustrates :lie 
 phrase, "auras vitales carpere," from a passage of iElian in Suidas, kqi 
 
 UtOOQ (JTVCLV, KCLl £%f<^ TpO<pr}V ZtOTJg TO fc£ CLVTOV 7TVEVtia. 
 
 iG Bird of Jove, i. e. the eagle. 
 
B. i. 401—434. .2ENEID. 1 17 
 
 with full sail. Proceed, then, and pursue your way where 
 tiiis path directs. 
 
 She said, and turning away, shone radiant with her rosy 
 neck, and from her head ambrosial locks breathed divine fra- 
 grance : her robe hung flowing to the ground, and by her gait 
 the goddess stood confessed. The hero, soon as he knew his 
 mother, with these accents pursued her as she fled : Why so 
 oft dost thou too cruelly mock thy son with vain shapes ? 
 why is it not granted me to join my hand to thine, and to hear 
 and answer thee by turns in words sincere and undissembled ? 
 Thus he expostulates with her, and directs his course to the 
 walls. But Venus screened them on their way with dim 
 clouds, and the goddess spread around them a thick veil of 
 mist, that none might see, or touch, or cause them interrup- 
 tion, or inquire into the reasons of their coming. She herself 
 wings her way sublime to Paphos, and with joy revisits her 
 seats ; where, sacred to her honour, is a temple, and a hundred 
 altars smoke with Sabean incense, and are fragrant with fresh 
 garlands. 
 
 Meanwhile they urged their way where the path directs. 
 And now they were ascending the hill that hangs over a great 
 part of the town, and from above surveys its opposite towers, 
 ./Eneas admires the mass of buildings, once cottages : 57 he ad- 
 mires the gates, the bustle, and the paved streets. The Tyri- 
 ans warmly ply the work : some extend the walls, and raise a 
 tower to push along unwieldy stones ; some choose out the 
 ground for a private building, and enclose it with a trench. 
 Some choose [a place for] the courts of justice, for the ma- 
 gistrates' [halls] and the venerable senate. 58 Here some are 
 digging ports ; there others are laying the foundations for 
 lofty theatres, and hewing huge columns from the rocks, the 
 lofty decorations of future scenes. Such their toil as in sum- 
 mer's prime employs the bees amidst the flowery fields under 
 the sun, when they lead forth the full-grown swarms of their 
 race, or when they press close the liquid honey, and distend 
 the cells with sweet nectar ; 59 or when they disburden those 
 
 57 i. e. " moveable huts." See Anthon. 
 
 58 But it is perhaps better to regard "legunt" as joined with "jura," 
 by a zeugma, in this sense ; "they [institute] laws, and choose magis- 
 trates.' ' B. 
 
 58 So iLikiaaav vsKTapi, Eur. Bacch. 148 
 
118 ^NEID. b. i. 434— 407 
 
 that come lioine loaded, or in formed battalion, drive the in- 
 active nock of drones from the hives. The work is hotly 
 plied, and the fragrant honey smells strongly of thyme. 6 
 happy ye, whose walls now rise ! ^Eneas says, and lifts his 
 eyes to the turrets of the city. Shrouded in a cloud, (a marvel 
 to be told !) he passes amidst the multitude, and mingles with 
 the throng, nor is seen by any. 60 In the centre of the city 
 was a grove, most delightful in shade, where first the Cartha- 
 ginians, driven by wind and wave, dug up the head of a 
 sprightly courser, an omen which royal Juno showed : for 
 by this [she signified], that the nation was to be renowned 
 for war, brave and victorious through ages. Here Sidonian 
 Dido built to Juno a stately temple, enriched with gifts, and 
 the presence of the goddess ; whose brazen threshold rose on 
 steps, the beams were bound with brass, and the hinge creaked 
 beneath brazen gates. In this grove the view of an unex- 
 pected scene first abated the fear [of the Trojans] : here 
 ^Eneas first dared to hope for redress, and to conceive better 
 hopes of his afflicted state. For while he surveys every ob- 
 ject in the spacious temple, waiting the queen's arrival ; while 
 he is musing with wonder on the fortune of the city ; and 
 [compares] the skill of the artists and their elaborate works, 
 he sees the Trojan battles [delineated] in order, and the war 
 now known by fame over all the world ; the sons of Atreus, 61 
 Priam, 62 and Achilles implacable to both. He stood still; and, 
 with tears in his eyes, What place, Achates, what country on 
 the globe, is not full of our disaster ? See Priam ! even here 
 praiseworthy deeds 63 meet with due reward : here are tears 
 for misfortunes, and the breasts are touched 04 with human 
 woes. Dismiss your fears : this fame of ours will bring thee 
 some relief. Thus he speaks, and feeds his mind with the 
 empty representations, heaving many a sigh, and bathes his 
 visage in floods of tears. For he beheld how, on one hand, 
 the warrior Greeks were flying round the walls of Troy, while 
 the Trojan youth closely pursued ; on the other hand, the 
 
 60 A Grecism for " ab ullo." Ovid, Trist. v. 10, 38, " non intellisor 
 ulli." B. 
 
 61 Sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus. 
 
 82 Priam, the son of Laomedon, and the last king of Troy, was slain by 
 Pvrrhus, the son of Achilles, the same night on which Trov was taken. 
 " 63 For this sense of " laus," cf. Catull. lxi. 102. Cicer. in Verr. § 47 B. 
 64 So OavovTiov ovckv d\yog airrtrai. Soph. CEd. C. 955. B. 
 
B# L 468—490. jENEID. 1 IP 
 
 Trojans [were flying], while plumed Achilles, in his chariot, 
 pressed on their rear. Not far from that scene, weeping, he 
 espies the tents of Rhesus, 65 with their snow-white veils; 
 which, betrayed by the first sleep, 66 cruel Diomede plundered, 
 drenched in much blood, and led away his fiery steeds to the 
 [Grecian] camp, before they had tasted the pasture of Troy, 
 or drank of Xanthus. 67 In another part, Troilus, 68 flying 
 after the loss of his arms, ill-fated youth, and unequally 
 matched with Achilles ! is dragged by his horses, and from 
 the empty chariot hangs supine, yet grasping the reins ; his 
 neck and hair trail along the ground, and the dusty plain is 
 traced by the inverted spear. Meanwhile the Trojan matrons 
 were marching to the temple of adverse Pallas, with their 
 hair dishevelled, and were bearing the robe, suppliantly mourn- 
 ful, and beating their bosoms with their hands. The goddess 
 turned away, kept her eyes fixed on the ground. Thrice had 
 Achilles dragged Hector round the walls of Troy, and was 
 selling his breathless corpse for gold. Then, indeed, .ZEneas 
 sent forth a deep groan from the bottom of his breast, when 
 he saw the spoils, the chariot, and the very body of his friend, 
 and Priam stretching forth his feeble hands. Himself too he 
 recognised mingled with the Grecian leaders, and the Eastern 
 bands, and the arms of swarthy Memnon. 69 Furious Pen- 
 thesilea 70 leads on her troops of Amazons, with their crescent 
 
 65 Rhesus, a warlike king of Thrace, who marched to the assistance of 
 Priam. The oracle having foretold that Troy should never be taken if 
 the horses of Rhesus drank the waters of Xanthus, and fed upon the grass 
 of the Trojan plains ; the Greeks, however, surprised him on the night of 
 his arrival, slew him in his tent, and carried away his horses in triumph 
 to their camp. 
 
 66 " Primo somno, utgraviorem ostenderet somnum." Servius. Sleep 
 is poetically said to have betrayed him, because he was surprised while 
 at rest. B. 
 
 67 Xanthus, (Mendere,) a river of Troas, in Asia Minor, rising in Mount 
 Ida, and falling into the sea at Sigseum. It is the same with the Sca- 
 mander ; according to Homer, it was called Xanthus by the gods, and 
 Scamander by men. 
 
 68 Troilus, a son of Priam and Hecuba, slain by Achilles. 
 
 69 Memnon, a king of Ethiopia, son of Tithonus and Aurora. He came 
 with a body of 10,000 men to assist his uncle Priam in the Trojan war, 
 where he displayed great courage, and killed Antilochus, Nestor's son, 
 but was himself afterwards slain by Achilles in single combat. 
 
 70 Penthesilea, a queen of the Amazons, daughter of Mars, who assisted 
 Priam, and was slain by Achilles. 
 
120 JENEI1). b. i. 491—529 
 
 shields, and burns amidst the thickest ranks. Below her ex- 
 posed breast the heroine had girt a golden belt, and the virgin 
 warrior dares even to encounter with men. 
 j, These wondrous scenes while the Trojan prince surveys, 
 y\ while he is lost in thought, and in one gaze stands unmoved ; 
 * / ^ Queen Dido, of surpassing beauty, advanced to the temple, 
 attended by a numerous retinue of youth. As on the banks 
 of Eurotas, or on Mount Cynthus' top, Diana leads the circu- 
 lar dances, round whom a numerous train of mountain nymphs 
 play in rings ; she bears her quiver on her shoulder, and 
 moving majestic, she towers above the other goddesses, while 
 silent raptures thrill Latona's 71 bosom; such Dido was, and 
 such, with cheerful grace, she passed amidst her train, urging 
 forward the labour and her future kingdom. Then at the 
 gate of the goddess, in the middle of the temple's dome, she 
 took her seat, surrounded with her guards, and raised aloft on 
 a throne. [Here] she dispensed justice and laws to her sub- 
 jects, and, in equal portions, distributed their tasks, or set- 
 tled them by lot ; when suddenly iEneas sees, advancing with 
 a vast concourse, Antheus, Sergestus, brave Cloanthus, and 
 other Trojans, whom a black storm had tossed up and down 
 the sea, and driven to other far-distant shores. At once he 
 was amazed, at once Achates was struck, and between joy and 
 fear both ardently longed to join hands ; but the uncertainty 
 of the event perplexes their minds. They carry on their dis- 
 guise, and, shrouded under the bending cloud, watch to learn 
 the fortune of their friends ; on what coast they left the fleet, 
 and on what errand they came : for a select number had come 
 from all the ships to sue for grace, and, with mingled voices, 
 approached the temple. 
 
 Having gained admission and liberty to speak in the presence, 
 Ilioneus their chief, with mind composed, thus began: O 
 queen, to whom Jove has granted to found this rising city 
 and to curb proud nations with just laws, we Trojans forlorn, 
 tossed by winds over every sea, implore thee : keep from our 
 ships the merciless flames ; spare a pious race, and propitious- 
 ly regard our distresses. We are not come either to ravage with 
 the sword the Libyan abodes, or to seize and bear away the plun- 
 der to our ships. We have no such hostile intention, nor does 
 such pride of heart become the vanquished. There is a place 
 71 Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana. 
 
b. i. 530—560. 
 
 JENEID. 1^1 
 
 called by the Greeks Hesperia, 72 an ancient land, renowned 
 for martial deeds and fruitful soil ; the QEnotrians 73 possessed 
 it once : now fame is that their descendants call the nation 
 Italy, from their leader's name ; hither our course was bent, ' 
 when suddenly tempestuous Orion 74 rising from the main, 
 drove us on hidden shallows, and with southern blasts fiercely 
 sporting, tossed us hither and thither over waves, and over 
 pathless rocks, overwhelmed by the briny deep : hither we few 
 have floated 75 to your coasts. What a race of men is this ? 
 what country so barbarous to allow such manners ? We are 
 denied the hospitality of the shore. In arms they rise, and 
 forbid our setting foot on the first verge of land. If you set 
 at nought the human kind, and the arms of mortals, yet know 
 the gods have a mindful regard to right and wrong. We had 
 for our king JEneas, than whom no one was more just in piety, 
 none more signalized in war and in martial achievements ; 
 whom, if the Fates preserve, if he breathe the vital air, and 
 do not yet rest with the ruthless shades, neither shall we de- 
 spair, nor you repent your having been the first in challenging 
 to acts of kindness. We have likewise cities and arms in Si- 
 cily, and the illustrious Acestes is of Trojan extraction. Per- 
 mit us to bring to shore our wind-beaten fleet, and from your 
 woods to choose [trees for] planks, and to refit our oars ; that, 
 if it be granted to bend our course to Italy, upon the recovery 
 of our prince and friends, we may joyfully set out thither, and 
 make the Latian shore. But if our safety has perished, and 
 thou, O father of the Trojans, the best of men ! now liest 
 buried in the Libyan sea, and no further hope of lulus remains, 
 we may at least repair to the straits of Sicily, and the settle- 
 ment there prepared for us, (whence we were driven hither,) 
 and visit king Acestes. So spoke Bioneus ; at the same time, 
 the other Trojans murmured their consent. 
 
 72 Hesperia, a name applied to Italy by the Greeks, and to Spain by 
 the Romans. 
 
 73 CEnotrians, the inhabitants of CEnotria, or that part of Italy which 
 was afterwards called Lucania. CEnotria is sometimes applied to Italy 
 in general. 
 
 74 Orion, one of the constellations, generally supposed to be accompa- 
 nied at its rising (in March) with great storms and rains. 
 
 75 " A&navimus " is employed to show that they had a bare escape. So 
 "vix enatavimus," Apul. Met. ii. p. 30; e&vrjZajjLeOa, Lucian, Ver. Hist, 
 U and de Merc. Cond. B. 
 
122 ^NEID. 3. i. 561— 594. 
 
 Then Dido, with downcast looks, thus in brief replies: 
 Trojans, banish fear from your breasts, lay your cares aside. 
 My hard fate, and the infancy of my kingdom, force me to take 
 such measures and to secure my frontiers with guards around. 
 Who is stranger to the iEneian race, the city of Troy, her 
 heroes, and their valorous deeds, and to the devastations of so 
 renowned a war ? We Carthaginians do not possess hearts 
 that are so obdurate and insensible, nor yokes the sun his 
 steeds so far away from our Tyrian city. Whether Hesperia 
 the greater, and the country where Saturn reigned, or ye 
 choose [to visit] Eryx' 76 coast and king Acestes, I will dis- 
 miss you safe with assistance, and support you with my wealth. 
 Or will you settle with me in this realm ? The city which I 
 am building shall be yours: 77 draw your ships ashore ; Tro- 
 jan and Tyrian shall be treated by me with no distinction. 78 
 And would that your prince JEneas too were here, driven by 
 the same wind ! However, I will send trusty messengers 
 along the coasts, with order to search Libya's utmost bounds, 
 if he is thrown out to wander in some wood or city. 
 
 Animated by these words, brave Achates and father -ZEneas 
 had long impatiently desired to break from the cloud. Achates 
 first addressed ^Eneas : Goddess-born, what purpose now 
 arises in your mind ? You see all is safe ; your fleet and 
 friends restored. One alone is missing, whom we ourselves 
 beheld sunk in the midst of the waves : every thing else agrees 
 with your mother's prediction. He had scarcely spoken, when 
 suddenly the circumambient cloud splits asunder, and dissolves 
 into open air. -ZEneas stood forth, and in the clear light shone 
 conspicuous, in countenance and form resembling a god : for* 
 Venus herself had breathed upon her son graceful locks, and 
 the radiant bloom of youth, and breathed a sprightly lustre 
 on his eyes : such beauty as the hand superadds to ivory, 
 or where silver or Parian marble is enchased with yellow 
 gold. 
 
 Then suddenly addressing the queen, he, to the surprise of 
 
 76 Eryx, a king of Sicily, son of Butes and Venus ; also a town and 
 mountain of Sicily, near Drepanum. On the summit of Mount Eryx 
 (Giuliano) stood a famous temple of Venus, who is hence called Erycina. 
 
 77 A common construction. Cf. Ter. Eun. iv. 3, 11. Plaut. Epid. iii. 
 £, 12. B. 
 
 78 Cf. JEn. x. 108, " Tros Tyriusve fuat, nullo discrimine habebo." B. 
 
b.i. 595— 629. ^ENEID. 123 
 
 all, 79 thus begins : I, whom you seek, am present before you ; 
 Trojan ^Eneas, snatched from the Libyan waves. thou, 
 who alone hast commiserated Troy's unnutterable calamities ! 
 who in thy town and palace dost associate us, a remnant saved 
 from the Greeks, who have now been worn out by woes in 
 every shape, both by sea and land, and are in want of all 
 things ! to repay thee due thanks, great queen, exceeds the 
 power not only of us, but of all the Dardan race, 80 wherever 
 dispersed over the world. The gods (if any powers divine 
 regard the pious, if justice any where exists, and a mind con- 
 scious of its own virtue) shall yield thee a just recompence. 
 What age was so happy as to produce thee ? who were the 
 parents of so illustrious an offspring ? While rivers run into 
 the sea, while shadows move round the convex mountains, 
 while heaven feeds the stars ; your honour, name, and praise 
 [with me] shall ever live, to whatever climes I am called. 
 This said, he embraces his friend Ilioneus with his right hand, 
 and Serestus with his left : then the rest, the heroic Gyas, and 
 heroic Cloanthus. 
 
 Sidonian Dido stood astonished, first at the presence of the 
 hero, then at his signal sufferings, and thus her speech ad- 
 dressed : What hard fate, O goddess-born, pursues thee 
 through such mighty dangers ! what power drives thee on 
 this barbarous coast? Are you that JEneas, whom, by 
 Phrygian Simois' stream, fair Venus bore to Trojan Anchises ? 
 And now, indeed, I call to mind that Teucer, expelled from 
 his native country, came to Sidon in quest of a new kingdom, 
 by the aid of Bel us. My father Belus then reaped the soil of 
 wealthy Cyprus, 81 and held it in subjection to his victorious 
 arms. Ever since that time I have been acquainted with the 
 fate of Troy, with your name, and the Grecian kings. The 
 enemy himself extolled the Trojans with distinguished praise, 
 and with pleasure traced his descent from the ancient Trojan 
 race. Come then, youths, enter our walls. Me, too, through 
 a series of labours tossed, a like fortune has at length 
 
 79 Mamertinus Pan. Jul. vi. § 3, " In medio Illyrici sinus improvisus 
 apparuit." " Improvisus "=" de improviso," " unexpectedly." B. 
 
 80 Dardan race ; the Trojans, as descended from Dardanus, the son of 
 Jupiter and Electra, who fled to Asia Minor, where he built the city of 
 Dardania, and became the founder of the kingdom of Troy. 
 
 81 Cyprus, a large and fertile island in the eastern part of the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea, sacred to Venus, who had here two celebrated temples. 
 
124 ^NEID. e. i. 630-601. 
 
 doomed to settle in this land. Not unacquainted with mis- 
 fortune [in my own person], I have learned to succour the 
 distressed. 
 
 This said, she forthwith leads iEneas into the royal apart- 
 ments, and at the same time ordains due honours for the tem- 
 ples of the gods. Meanwhile, with no less care, she sends 
 presents to his companions on the shore, twenty bulls, a hun- 
 dred bristly backs of huge boars, a hundred fat lambs, with 
 the ewes, as gifts and pleasure for the day. 82 But the inner 
 rooms are splendidly furnished with regal pomp, and banquets 
 are prepared in the middle of the hall. Couch draperies 
 wrought with art, and of proud purple ; massy silver plate on 
 the table, and, embossed in gold, the brave exploits of her 
 ancestors, a lengthened series of history traced down through 
 so many heroes, from the first founder of the ancient race. 
 iEneas (for paternal affection suffered not his ■ mind to rest) 
 with speed sends on Achates to the ships, to bear those tidings 
 to Ascanius, and bring [the boy] himself to the city. All 
 the care of the fond parent centres in Ascanius. Besides, he 
 bids him bring presents, saved from the ruins of Troy, a 
 mantle stiff with gold and figures, and a veil woven round 
 with saffron-coloured acanthus, the ornaments of Grecian 
 Helen, 83 which she had brought with her from Mycenas, when 
 bound for Troy, and lawless nuptials ; her mother Leda's 
 wondrous gift ; a sceptre too, which once Ilione, Priam's eldest 
 daughter, bore, a necklace strung with pearl, and a crown 
 set with double rows of gems and gold. This message to 
 despatch, Achates directed his course to the ships. 
 
 But Venus revolves in her breast new plots, new designs ; 
 that Cupid 84 should come in place of sweet Ascanius, assum- 
 ing his mien and features, and by the gifts kindle in the queen 
 all the rage of love, and enwrap the flame in her very bones ; 
 for she dreads the equivocating race, and the double-tongued 
 
 82 The readings vary between " die," " dii," and " dei." See Servius. 
 I have, with Wagner, preferred " dii," which has the additional authority 
 of Gellius, ix. 14. B. 
 
 83 Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, was the most beautiful 
 woman of her age. In the absence of her husband, Paris, son of king 
 Priam, carried her away, which was the cause of the ten years' war against 
 Troy, and the destruction of that celebrated city. 
 
 84 ' Cupid, in the heathen mythology, was the god of love, and the son 
 of Venus. 
 
B. l. 662— 701. ^ENEID. 125 
 
 Tyrians. Fell Juno torments her, and with the night her 
 care returns. To winged Love, therefore, she addresses these 
 words : O son, my strength, my mighty power ; my son, who 
 alone defiest the Typhoean bolts of Jove supreme, to thee I 
 fly, and suppliant implore thy deity. 'Tis known to thee 
 how round all shores thy brother .ZEneas is tossed from sea to 
 sea, by the spite of partial Juno, and in my grief thou hast 
 often grieved. Him Phoenician Dido entertains, and amuses 
 with smooth speech ; and I fear what may be the issue of 
 Juno's acts of hospitality : she will not be idle in so critical 
 a conjuncture ; wherefore, I purpose to prevent the queen by 
 subtle means, and to beset her with the flames of love, that 
 no power may influence her to change, but that with me she 
 may be possessed by great fondness for JEneas. How this 
 thou mayest effect, now hear my plan. The royal boy, my 
 chief care, at his father's call, prepares to visit the Sidonian 
 city, bearing presents saved from the sea and flames of Troy. 
 Him having lulled to rest, I will lay down in some sacred 
 retreat on Cythera's tops, or above Idalium, 85 lest he should 
 discover the plot, or interfere with it. Do you artfully coun- 
 terfeit his face but for one night, and, yourself a boy, assume 
 a boy's familiar looks ; that when Dido shall take thee to her 
 bosom in the height of her joy, amidst the royal feasts, and 
 Bacchus' stream, when she shall give thee embraces, and im- 
 print sweet kisses, thou mayest breathe into her the secret 
 flame, and by stealth convey the poison. Love obeys the dic- 
 tates of his dear mother, and lays aside his wings, and joyful 
 trips along in the gait of Iiilus. Meanwhile Venus pours the 
 dews of balmy sleep on Ascanius' limbs, and in her bosom 
 fondled, conveys him to Idalia's lofty groves, where soft mar- 
 joram, perfuming the air with flowers and fragrant shade, 
 clasps him round. 
 
 Now, in obedience to his instructions, Cupid went along, 
 and bore the royal presents to the Tyrians, pleased with 
 Achates for his guide. By the time he arrived, the queen 
 had placed herself on a golden couch, under a rich canopy, 
 and had taken her seat in the middle. Now father ^Eneas, 
 and now the Trojan youth, join the assembly, and couch them- 
 selves on the strawn purple. The attendants supply water 
 
 85 Idalium, (Dalin,) a town of Cyprus, at the foot of Mount Idalur, 
 with a grove sacred to Venus, who was hence called ldalia. 
 
126 ^NEID. b. i. 701— 73L 
 
 for the hands, dispense the gifts of Ceres from baskets, and 
 furnish them with the smooth-shorn towels. Within are fifty 
 handmaids, whose task it was to prepare provisions in due 
 order, and do honour 86 to the household gods. A hundred 
 more, and as many servants of equal age, are employed to 
 load the boards with dishes, and place the cups. In like 
 manner the Tyrians, a numerous train, assembled in the joy- 
 ful courts, invited to recline on the embroidered beds. They 
 view with wonder the presents of ^Eneas : nor with less 
 wonder do they view lulus, the glowing aspect of the god, 
 his well -dissembled words, the mantle and veil figured with 
 leaves of the acanthus in saffron colours. Chiefly the un- 
 happy queen, henceforth devoted to love's pestilential influ- 
 ence, cannot satisfy her feelings, and is inflamed with every 
 glance, and is equally moved by the boy and by his gifts. He 
 on -ZEneas' neck having hung with embraces, and having fully 
 gratified his fictitious father's ardent affections, makes for 87 
 the queen. She clings to him with her eyes, her whole soul, 
 and sometimes fondles him in her lap, Dido not thinking what 
 a powerful god is settling on her, hapless one. Meanwhile 
 he, mindful of his Acidalian mother, begins insensibly to 
 efface the memory of Sichseus, and with a living flame tries 
 to prepossess her languid affections, and her heart, chilled by 
 long disuse. 
 
 Soon as the first banquet ended, and the viands were re- 
 moved, they place large mixers, and crown the wines. A 
 bustling din arises through the hall, and they roll through 
 the ample courts the bounding voice. Down from the gold- 
 fretted ceilings 88 hang the flaming lamps, and torches over- 
 power the darkness of \he night. Here the queen called for 
 a bowl, heavy with gems and gold, and with pure wine filled 
 it to the brim, which Belus, 89 and all her ancestors from Belus, 
 used ; then, having enjoined silence through the palace, [she 
 thus began :] O Jove, (for by thee, it is said, the laws of hos- 
 pitality were given,) grant this may be an auspicious day both 
 
 86 " Adolere " = " augere," i. e. " to increase the power of the gods 
 ■who presided over the hearth, by due attention to culinary offices." Seo 
 Anthon. Davidson's note is founded upon an old mistake. B. 
 
 S7 i. e. " insidiatur." -Servius. See Burm. on Petron. p. 490. B." 
 
 88 So Sidon. Apoll. Ep. ix. 13, " laquearibus coruscis camerae in su» 
 perna lychnus." B. 
 
 09 Belus, a king of Tyre, from whom Dido was descended. 
 
b. ii 732-756. u. 1,2. JENEID. 127 
 
 to the Tyrians and my Trojan guests, and may this day be 
 commemorated by our posterity. Bacchus, the giver of joy 
 and propitious Juno, be present here ; and you, my Tyrians, 
 with good will, solemnize this meeting. She said, and on the 
 table poured an offering ; and, after the libation, first gently 
 touched [the cup] with her lips, then gave it to Bitias 90 with 
 a challenge : he quickly drained the foaming bowl, and laved 
 himself with the brimming gold. After him the other lords 
 [drank]. Long-haired Iopas [next] tunes his golden lyre to 
 what the mighty Atlas taught. He sings of the wandering 
 moon, and the eclipses of the sun ; whence the race of men 
 and beasts, whence showers and fiery meteors arise : of Arc- 
 turus, the rainy Hyades, and the two northern wains ; why 
 winter suns make so much haste to set in the ocean, or what 
 retarding cause detains the slow [summer] nights. The Ty- 
 rians redouble their applauses, and the Trojans concur. 
 
 Meanwhile unhappy Dido, with varied converse, spun out 
 the night, and drank long draughts of love, questioning much 
 about Priam, much about Hector : now in what arms Aurora's 
 son had come ; now what were the excellences of Diomede's 
 steeds ; now how mighty was Achilles. Nay come, my guest, 
 she says ; and from the first origin, relate to us the stratagems 
 of the Greeks, the adventures of your friends, and your own 
 wanderings ; for now the seventh summer brings thee [to our 
 coasts], through wandering mazes roaming o'er every land 
 and sea. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 In the Second Book, iEneas, at the desire of Queen Dido, relates the fall ol 
 Troy, and his escape, through the general conflagration, to Mount Ida. A 
 comparison with the poems of Petronius and Tryphiodorus will repay the 
 reader. 
 
 All became silent, and fixed their eyes upon him, eagerly at- 
 tentive : then father iEneas thus from his lofty l couch began : 
 
 90 Bitias and Iopas, African chiefs and suitors of Queen Dido. 
 
 1 Anthon is wrong in supposing that " alto " has no positive meaning. 
 It was customary to pile up the cushions and draperies of the couches, in 
 order to form a favourable position for the speaker to be heard. Cf. Apul. 
 Met. ii. p. 27, " Aggeratis in tumulum stragulis, et effultis in cubitum, 
 ^uborcctisque in torum — infit Telephon." B. 
 

 
 123 iENEID. b. ii. 3—30. 
 
 Unutterable woes, O queen, you urge me to renew : to tell 
 how the Greeks overturned the power of Troy, and its de- 
 plorable realms ; both what scenes of misery I myself beheld, 
 and those wherein I was a principal party. What Myrmidon, 2 
 or Dolopian, or who of hardened UlyssSs' 3 band, can, in the 
 very telling of such woes, refrain from tears ? Besides, humid 
 night is hastening down the sky, and the setting stars invite 
 to sleep. But since you are so desirous of knowing our mis- 
 fortunes, and briefly hearing the last effort of Troy, though my 
 soul shudders at the remembrance, and hath shrunk back with 
 grief, yet will I begin. The Grecian leaders, now disheartened 
 by the war, and baffled by the Fates, after a revolution of so 
 many years, [being assisted] by the divine skill of Pallas, 
 build a horse to the size of a mountain, and interweave its ribs 
 with planks of fir. This they pretend to be an offering, in 
 order to procure a safe return ; which report spread. Hither 
 having secretly conveyed a select -band, chosen by lot, they 
 shut them up into the dark sides, and fill its capacious caverns 
 and womb with armed soldiers. In sight [of Troy] lies Te- 
 nedos, 4 an island well known by fame, and flourishing while 
 Priam's kingdom stood : now only a bay, and a station unfaith- 
 ful for ships. Having made this island, they conceal them- 
 selves in that desolate shore. We imagined they were gone, 
 and that they had set sail for Mycenae. In consequence of 
 [this], all Troy is released from its long distress : the gates 
 are thrown open ; with joy we issue forth, and view the Gre- 
 cian camp, the deserted plains, and the abandoned shore. 
 Here were the Dolopian bands, there stern Achilles had 
 pitched his tent ; here were the ships drawn up, there they 
 
 2 The Myrmidons and Dolopians inhabited Thessaly, and the borders 
 of Epirus. 
 
 3 Ulysses, the son of Laertes and Anticlea, king of the islands of Ithaca 
 and Dulichium, and the hnsband of Penelope, was distinguished among 
 the Grecian chiefs for superior prudence and cunning. After the fall of 
 Troy, setting sail for his native country, he was exposed to incredible 
 dangers and misfortunes, and at last reached home, without a single com- 
 panion, after an absence of twenty years. The adventures of Ulysses, in 
 his return to Ithaca from the Trojan war, are beautifully depicted by Ho- 
 mer, in the first twelve books of the Odyssey. 
 
 4 Tenedos, a small but fertile island of the jEgean Sea, opposite Troy. 
 Here the Greeks concealed themselves, to make the Trojans believe (h'J, 
 they had abandoned the siege. 
 
 ; 
 
i. ii. 31-66. ^ENEID. 129 
 
 were wont to contend in array. 5 Some view with amaze- 
 ment that baleful offering of the virgin Minerva, and won- 
 der at the stupendous bulk of the horse ; and Thynioetes 6 first 
 advises that it be dragged within the walls and lodged in the 
 tower, whether with treacherous design, or that the destiny 
 of Troy now would have it so. But Capys, and all whose 7 
 minds had wiser sentiments, strenuously urge either to throw 
 into the sea the treacherous snare and suspected oblation of the 
 Greeks ; or by applying flames consume it to ashes ; or to lay 
 open and ransack the recesses of the hollow womb. The fickle 
 populace is split into opposite inclinations. Upon this, Lao- 
 coon, 8 accompanied with a numerous troop, first before all, with 
 ardour hastens down from the top of the citadel ; and while 
 yet a great way off, [cries out,] O wretched countrymen, what 
 desperate infatuation is this ? Do you believe the enemy 
 gone ? or think you any gifts of the Greeks can be free from 
 deceit ? Is Ulysses thus known to you ? Either the Greeks lie 
 concealed within this wood, or it is an engine framed against 
 our walls, to overlook our houses, and to come down upon our 
 city; or some mischievous design lurks beneath it. Trojans, 
 put no faith in this horse. Whatever it be, I dread the 
 Greeks, even when they bring gifts. Thus said, with valiant 
 strength he hurled his massy spear against the sides and belly 
 of the monster, where it swelled out with its jointed timbers ; 
 the weapon stood quivering, and the womb being shaken, the 
 hollow caverns rang, and sent forth a groan. And had not the 
 decrees of heaven [been adverse], if our minds had not been 
 infatuated, he had prevailed on us to mutilate with the sword 
 this dark recess of the Greeks ; and thou, Troy, should still 
 have stood, 9 and thou, lofty tower of Priam, now remained ! 
 
 5 "Acie." Some MSS. and Rutin, de Schem. lex. p. 33, have " acies." 
 Cf. Oudendorp on Frontin. ii. 2. B. 
 
 6 Thymoetes, a Trojan prince^ whose wife and son were put to death by 
 Priam ; in revenge, he persuaded his countrymen to bring the wooden 
 horse into the city. 
 
 7 On the ellipse of the pronoun, cf. Oudend. on Lucan, x. 347. B. 
 
 8 Laocoon, a son of Priam and Hecuba, and priest of Apollo, who. 
 with his two sons, were destroyed by two enormous serpents, while he 
 was sacrificing to Neptune. The punishment was believed to be inflicted 
 upon him for his temerity in dissuading the Trojans to bring into the 
 city the fatal wooden horse, as also for his impiety in hurling a javelin 
 against its sides as it entered within the walls. 
 
 9 But Wagner prefers " staret " B. 
 
 K 
 
130 ^NEID. b. u. 57— 82 
 
 In the mean time, behold, Trojan shepherds, with loud acclam- 
 ations, came dragging to the king a youth, whose hands were 
 bound behind him ; who, to them a mere stranger, had volun- 
 tarily thrown himself in the way, to promote this same de- 
 sign, and open Troy to the Greeks ; a resolute soul, and 
 prepared for either event, whether to execute his perfidious 
 purpose, or submit to inevitable death. The Trojan youth 
 pour tumultuously around from every quarter, from eagerness 
 to see him, and they vie .with one another in insulting the 
 captive. Now learn the treachery of the Greeks, and from 
 one crime take a specimen of the whole nation. 10 For as he 
 stood among the gazing crowds perplexed, defenceless, and 
 threw his eyes around the Trojan bands, Ah ! says he, what 
 land, what seas can now receive me? or to what further ex- 
 tremity can I, a forlorn wretch, be reduced, for whom there is 
 no shelter any where among the Greeks ? and to complete my 
 misery, the Trojans too, incensed against me, sue for satisfac- 
 tion with my blood. By which mournful accents our affec- 
 tions at once were moved towards him, and all our resentment 
 suppressed : we exhort him to say from what race he sprang, 
 to declare what message he brings, what confidence we may 
 repose in him, now that he is our prisoner. Then he, having 
 at length laid aside fear, thus proceeds: I indeed, O king, 
 will confess to you the whole truth, says he, be the event 
 what will ; nor will I disown that I am of Grecian extraction : 
 this I premise ; nor shall it be in the power of cruel fortune, 
 though she has made Sinon ll miserable, to make him also 
 false and disingenuous. If accidentally, in the course of re- 
 port, the name of Palamedes, 12 the descendant of Belus, and 
 
 10 Literally, " from one of their tricks learn what they all are." B. 
 . n Sinon, a crafty Greek, who prevailed on the Trojans to admit into 
 ' the city the wooden horse, which was filled with armed Greeks. 
 
 12 Palamedes was the son of Nauplius, king of Euboea, descended from 
 Belus, king of Africa, by his grandmother Amymone, the daughter of 
 Danaus. The story here referred to, is briefly thus : When Ulysses, to 
 be exempt from going to the Trojan war, under pretence of madness, was 
 ploughing up the shore, and sowing it with salt, Palamedes laid down his 
 son Telemachus in his way, and observing him to turn his plough aside, 
 that he might not hurt the boy, by this stratagem discovered his madness 
 to be counterfeit. For this Ulysses never could forgive him, and at last 
 wrought his ruin, by accusing him of holding intelligence with the enemy : 
 to support which charge he forged letters from Priam to Palamedes, 
 which he pretended to have intercepted, and conveyed gold into his tent, 
 
B. ii. 83—109. ^ENETT). 131 
 
 his illustrious renown, ever reached your ears (who, though 
 innocent, the Greeks sent down to death, under a false accus- 
 ation of treason, upon a villanous evidence, because he gavo 
 his opinion against the war; [but whom] now they mou^n 
 bereaved of the light) ; with him my poor father sent me in 
 company to the war, from my earliest years, being his near 
 relative. While he remained safe in the kingdom, and had 
 weight in the counsels of the princes, I too bore some reputa- 
 tion and honour : [but] from the time that he, by the malice 
 of the crafty Ulysses, (they are well-known truths I speak,) 
 quitted the regions above, I distressed dragged out my life in 
 obscurity and grief, and secretly repined at the fate of my 
 innocent friend. Nor could I hold my peace, fool that I was, 
 but vowed revenge, if fortune should any way give me the 
 opportunity, if ever I should return victorious to my native 
 Argos ; and, by my words, I provoked bitter enmity. Hence 
 arose the first symptom 13 of my misery ; henceforth Ulysses 
 was always terrifying me with new accusations ; henceforth 
 he began to spread ambiguous surmises among the vulgar, and, 
 conscious [of his own guilt], sought the means of defence. 
 Nor did he give over, till, by making Calchas 14 his tool — But 
 why do I thus in vain unfold these disagreeables ? or why do 
 I lose time ? If you place all the Greeks on the same footing, 
 and your having heard that be enough [to undo me], this very 
 instant strike the fatal blow : this the prince of Ithaca wishes, 
 and the sons of Atreus would give large sums to purchase. 
 Then, indeed, we grow impatient to know and to find out the 
 causes, unacquainted with such consummate villany and 
 Grecian artifice. He proceeds with palpitation, and speaks 
 in the falsehood of his heart. After quitting Troy, the Greeks 
 sought often to surmount the difficulties of their return, and, 
 tired out with the length of the war, to be gone. And I wish 
 
 alleging it was the bribe given him for his treason. Upon this presump- 
 tion Palamedes was condemned by a council of war, and stoned to death. 
 Vide Ovid. Met. xiii. 56. That Palamedes was thus taken off through a 
 stratagem of Ulysses, was a fact probably well known to the Trojans, 
 
 i though they might be ignorant of the colour for his being taken off. 
 
 ! Sinon, therefore, to secure the attention and belief of his hearers, very 
 Lrtfully pretends that Palamedes was murdered, because he had dissuaded 
 the Greeks from continuing the war against Troy. 
 
 13 Literally, "plague-spot." B. 
 
 14 Calchas, a famous soothsayer, who accompanied the Greeks to the 
 Trojan war. 
 
 k 2 
 
132 JENEID. b. ii. 110—130. 
 
 they had ! Often did the rough tempest on the ocean bar 
 their flight, and the south wind deterred them in their setting 
 out. Especially when now this horse, framed of maple planks, 
 was reared, storms roared through all the regions of the air. 
 In perplexity we send Eurypylus 15 to consult the oracle of 
 Apollo ; and from the sacred shrine he brings back this dis- 
 mal response : Ye appeased the winds, O ye Greeks, with the 
 blood of a virgin slain, 1Qk when first you arrived on the Trojan 
 coast ; by blood must your return be purchased, and atone- 
 ment made by the life of a Greek. Which intimation no 
 sooner reached the 'ears of the multitude, than their minds 
 were stunned, and freezing horror thrilled through their very 
 bones ; [anxious to know] whom the Fates destined, whom 
 Apollo demanded. Upon this Ulysses drags" forth Calchas 
 the seer, with great bustle, into the midst of the crowd ; im- 
 portunes him to say what that will of the gods may be ; and, 
 by this time, many presaged 17 to me the cruel purpose of the 
 dissembler, and quietly foresaw the event. He, for twice five 
 days, is mute, and close shut up, refuses to give forth his de- 
 claration against any person, or doom him to death. At length, 
 with much ado, teased by the importunate clamours of Ulysses, 
 he breaks silence by concert, and destines me to the altar. All 
 assented, and were content to have what each dreaded for 
 himself, turned off to the ruin of one poor wretch. And now 
 the rueful day approached ; for me the sacred rites were pre- 
 pared, and the salted cakes, and fillets [to bind] about my tem- 
 ples. From death, I own, I made my escape, and broke my 
 bonds ; and in a slimy fen all night I lurked obscure among 
 the weeds, till they should set sail, if by chance they should 
 
 15 Eurypylus, also a soothsayer in the Grecian camp before Troy. 
 
 16 When the Grecian army was arrived at Aulis, ready to sail over the 
 Hellespont to the siege of Troy, Diana, incensed against Agamemnon 
 for killing one of her favourite deers, withheld the wind. Calchas, hav- 
 ing consulted the oracles, reported that Iphigenia, Agamemnon's daughter, 
 must fall a victim to appease Diana's wrath. Ulysses went and fetched 
 the innocent fair, from the tender embraces of her mother, under colour 
 of her being to be married to Achilles. She was brought to the altar, 
 and on the point of being sacrificed, when Calchas informed that Diana 
 was satisfied with this act of submission, and consented to have a deer 
 substituted in room of Iphigenia ; but that she must be transported to 
 Tauris, there to serve the goddess for life in quality of priestess. 
 
 lT Canebant. Cf. Westerhov. on Ter. Heut. ii. 3, 19, who remarks that 
 it is an augurial word . B . 
 
b. ii 137-169. yENEID. 133 
 
 do so. Nor have I now any hope of being blessed with the 
 sight of my ancient country, nor of my sweet children, and 
 my much-beloved sire; whom they, perhaps, will sue to 
 vengeance for my escape, and expiate this offence of mine 
 by the death of those unhappy innocents. But I conjure 
 you, by the powers above, by the gods who are conscious to 
 truth, by whatever remains of inviolable faith are any where 
 among mortals, compassionate such grievous afflictions, com- 
 passionate a soul suffering unworthy treatment. 
 
 At these tears we grant him his life, and pity him from our 
 hearts. Priam himself first gives orders that the manacles 
 and strait bonds be loosed from the man, then thus addresses 
 him in the language of a friend : Whoever you are, now hence- 
 forth forget the Greeks you have lost ; ours you shall be : and 
 give me an ingenuous reply to these questions : To what 
 purpose raised they this stupendous bulk of a horse? who 
 was the contriver ? or what do they intend ? what was the 
 religious motive ? or what warlike engine is it ? he said. The 
 other, practised in fraud and Grecian artifice, lifted up to 
 heaven his hands, loosed from the bonds: To you, ye ever- 
 lasting orbs of fire, he says, and your inviolable divinity ; to 
 you, ye altars, and horrid swords, which I escaped ; and ye 
 fillets of the gods, which I a victim wore ; to you I appeal, 
 that I am free to violate all the sacred obligations I was under 
 to the Greeks ; I am free to hold these men in abhorrence, 
 and to bring forth to light all their dark designs ; nor am I 
 bound by any of the laws of my country. Only do thou, O 
 Troy, abide by thy promises, and, being preserved, preserve 
 thy faith ; provided I disclose the truth, provided I make thee 
 large amends. 
 
 The whole hope of the Greeks, and their confidence in the 
 war begun, always depended on the aid of Pallas : but when 
 fhe sacrilegious Diomede, and Ulysses the contriver of wicked 
 designs, in their attempt to carry off by force from her holy 
 temple the fatal Palladium, 18 having slain the guards of her 
 high tower, seized her sacred image, and with bloody hands 
 dared to touch the virgin fillets of the goddess ; from that day 
 the hope of the Greeks began to ebb, and, losing footing, to 
 
 18 Palladium, a celebrated statue of Pallas, said to hare fallen from 
 heaven upon Troy, and on the preservation of which depended the safety 
 of that city. 
 
134 ^NEID. b ii. 170—202. 
 
 decline : their powers were weakened, the mind of the god- 
 dess alienated : nor did Tritonia 19 show these indications [of 
 her wrath] by dubious prodigies ; for scarcely was the statue 
 set up in the camp, when bright flames flashed from her staring 
 eye-balls, and a briny sweat flowed over her limbs ; and (won- 
 derful to hear) she herself sprung thrice from the ground, 
 armed as she was, with her shield and quivering spear. | Forth- 
 y^with Calchas declares, that we must attempt the seas in flight, 
 and that Troy can never be razed by the Grecian sword, un- 
 less they repeat the omens at Argos, and carry back the god- 
 dess whom they had conveyed over the sea in their curved ships. 
 And now, that they have sailed for their native Mycenae with 
 the wind, they are providing themselves with arms, and gods 
 to accompany them ; and, having measured back the sea, they 
 will come upon you unexpected : so Calchas interprets the 
 omens. This figure, being warned, they reared in lieu of the 
 Palladium, in lieu of the violated goddess, in order to atone 
 for their direful crime. But Calchas commanded to build this 
 enormous mass, and raise it to the skies, that it might not be 
 admitted into the gates, or dragged into the city, nor protect 
 the people under their ancient religion. For [he declared 
 that] if your hands should violate this offering sacred to 
 Minerva, then signal ruin (which omen may the gods rather 
 turn on himself!) awaited Priam's empire and the Trojans. 
 But, if by your hands it mounted into the city, that Asia, 
 without further provocation given, would advance with a 
 formidable war to the very walls of Pelops, and our posterity 
 be doomed to the same fate. By such treachery and artifice 
 of perjured Sinon, the story was believed: and we, whom 
 neither Diomede, nor Larisssean 20 Achilles, nor [a siege of] 
 ten years, nor a thousand 21 ships, had subdued, were insnared 
 by guile and constrained tears. Here another greater scene, 
 and far more terrible, is presented to our wretched sight, and 
 iisturbs our unexpecting breasts. Laocoon, ordained Nep- 
 tune's priest by lot, was sacrificing a stately bullock at the 
 
 19 Tritonia, a surname of Minerva, from Tritonis, a lake and river of 
 Africa, near which she had a temple. 
 
 20 Larissaean, an epithet applied to Achilles, from Larissa, the capital 
 city of Thessaly. 
 
 21 See the commentators on ^Esch. Ag. 45. Virgil speaks in round 
 numbers, for the number of ships somewhat exceeded a thousand; "but is 
 variously stated B. 
 
M. II. 203—238. JENEID. 13o 
 
 cJtars set apart for that solemnity ; when, lo ! from Tenedos 
 (I shudder at the relation) two serpents, with orbs immense, 
 bear along on the sea, and with equal motion shoot forward 
 to the shore ; whose breasts erect amidst the waves, and 
 crests bedropped with blood, tower above the flood ; their 
 other parts sweep the sea behind, and wind their spacious 
 backs in rolling spires. A loud noise is made by the briny 
 ocean foaming : and now they reached the shores, and, suf- 
 fused with fire and blood as to their glaring eyes, with quiver- 
 ing tongues licked their hissing mouths. Half-dead with the 
 sight, we fly different ways. . They, with resolute motion, 
 advance towards Laocoon ; and first both serpents, with close 
 embraces, twine around the little bodies of his two sons, 
 and with their fangs mangle their wretched limbs. Next 
 they seize himself, as he is coming up with weapons to their 
 relief, and bind him fast in their mighty folds ; and now 
 grasping him twice about the middle, twice winding their 
 scaly backs around his neck, they overtop him by the head 
 and lofty neck. He strains at once with his hands to tear 
 asunder their knotted spires, while his fillets are stained with 
 gore and black poison : at the same time he raises hideous 
 shrieks to heaven ; such bellowing, as when a bull has fled 
 wounded from the altar, and has eluded with his neck the 
 missing axe. Meanwhile, the two serpents glide off to the 
 high temple, and repair to the fane of stern Tritonia, and are 
 sheltered under the feet of the goddess, and the orb of her 
 buckler. Then, indeed, new terror diffuses itself through the 
 quaking hearts of all ; and they pronounce Laocoon to have 
 deservedly suffered for his crime, in having violated the sacred 
 wood with his pointed weapon, and hurled his profane spear 
 against its sides. They urge with general voice to convey 
 the statue to its proper seat, and implore the favour of the 
 goddess. We make a breach in the walls, and lay open the 
 bulwarks of the city. All keenly ply the work ; and under 
 the feet apply smooth-rolling wheels ; stretch hempen ropes 
 from the neck. The fatal machine passes over 22 our walls, 
 pregnant with arms ; boys and unmarried virgins accompany 
 
 22 As it were " scales " the walls. Thus Ennius in Macr. Sat. vi. 2, 
 "Nam maximo saltu superavit gravidus armatis equus." Cf. Stat. Silv. 
 i. 1, 11 sqq. I need scarcely remark that the whole description has been 
 copied by Tryphiodorus. B. 
 
136 JENEID. b. n. 239—272 
 
 it with sacred hymns, and are glad to touch the rope with 
 their hand. It advances, and with menacing aspect slides 
 into the heart of the city. O country, O Ilium, the habitation 
 of gods, and ye walls of Troy by war renowned ! Four times 
 it stopped in the very threshold of the gate, and four times 
 the arms resounded in its womb : yet we, heedless, and blind 
 with frantic zeal, urge on, and plant the baneful monster in 
 the sacred citadel. Then, too, Cassandra, 23 by the inspiration 
 of the god, opens her lips to our approaching doom, never be- 
 lieved by the Trojans. Unhappy we, to whom that day was 
 to be the last, adorn the temples of the gods throughout the 
 city with festive boughs. Meanwhile, the heavens change, 24 
 and night advances rapidly from the ocean, wrapping in her 
 extended shade both earth and heaven, and the wiles of the 
 Myrmidons. The Trojans, dispersed about the walls, were 
 hushed : deep Sleep fast binds them weary in his embraces. 
 And now the Grecian host, in their equipped vessels, set out 
 from Tenedos, making towards the well-known shore, by the 
 friendly silence of the quiet moonshine, as soon as the royal 
 [galley] stern had exhibited the signal fire ; and Sinon, pre- 
 served by the will of the adverse gods, in a stolen hour un- 
 locks the wooden prison to the Greeks shut up in its womb : 
 the horse, from his expanded caverns, pours them forth to the 
 open air; and with joy issue from the hollow wood Thessan- 
 drus and Sthenelus the chiefs, and dire Ulysses, sliding down 
 by a suspended rope, with Athamas and Thoas, Neoptolemus, 
 the grandson of Peleus, and Machaon who led the way, with 
 Menelaus, and Epeus the very contriver of the trick. They 
 assault the city buried in sleep and wine. The sentinels are 
 beaten down; and with opened gates they receive all their 
 friends, and join the conscious bands. It was the time when 
 the first sleep invades languid mortals, and steals upon them, 
 by the gift of the gods, most sweet. In my sleep, lo ! Hector, 
 extremely sad, seemed to stand before my eyes, and to shed 
 floods of tears ; dragged, as formerly by the chariot, and black 
 
 23 Cassandra, the daughter of Priam and Hecuba. According to the 
 poets, she had the gift of prophecy, while none believed her predictions. 
 
 24 This is according to the astronomy of the ancients, who supposed 
 the heavens revolved round the earth, which remained stationary. On 
 the time in which Troy was taken, cf. Petron. 89, p. 435. Tryph. 452 
 eqq. B. 
 
b. ii. 273-307. ^NEID. 137 
 
 with gory dust, and his swollen feet bored through with 
 thongs. Ah me ! in what piteous plight he was ! how changed 
 from that Hector who returned clad in the armour of Achilles, 
 or darting Phrygian flames against the ships of Greece ! 
 wearing a grisly beard, hair clotted with blood, and those 
 many wounds which he had received under his native walls. 
 I, methought, in tears addressed the hero first, and poured 
 forth these mournful accents: O light 25 of Troy, O Trojans' 
 firmest hope ! what tedious causes have detained thee so 
 long ? Whence com est thou, my long-looked-for Hector ? 
 With what joy we behold thee after the many deaths of thy 
 friends, after the various disasters of men and city ! What 
 unworthy cause has deformed the serenity of thy looks ? or 
 why do I behold these wounds ? He [said] not a word ; nor 
 regards me, questioning of what nought availed ; but heavily, 
 from the bottom of his heart, drawing a groan ! Ah ! fly, 
 thou goddess-born, he says, and snatch thyself from these 
 flames : the enemy is in possession of the walls ; Troy falls 
 from its towering tops. To Priam, to my country, all duty 
 has been done. Could those walls have been saved by the 
 hand, by this same hand had they been saved. Troy com- 
 mends to thee her sacred things, her gods : these take com- 
 panions of thy fate ; for these go in quest of a city, which, in 
 process of time, you shall erect, larger of size, after a wander- 
 ing voyage. He said, and with his own hands brings forth, 
 from the inner temple, the fillets, the powerful Testa, and the 
 fire which always burned. 
 
 Meanwhile the city is filled with mingled scenes of woe ; 
 and though my father Anchises' house stood retired, and en- 
 closed with trees, louder and louder the sounds rise on the ear, 
 and the horrid din of arms assails. I start from sleep, and, 
 by hasty steps, gain the highest battlement of the palace, and 
 stand with erect ears : as when a flame is driven by the furi- 
 ous south winds on standing corn ; or as a torrent impetuously 
 bursting in a mountain-flood desolates the fields, desolates the 
 rich crops of corn, and the labours of the ox, and drags woods 
 headlong down : the unwary shepherd, struck with the sound 
 
 25 A beautiful imitation of Ennius, as quoted by Macrob. Sat. vi. 2, 
 " O lux Trojae, germane Hector. Quid ita cum tuo lacerato corpore 
 miser? Aut qui te sic respectantibus Tractavere nobis?" So Quintuo 
 Calaber i. 12, calls Hector r^iap ttoAjjwv. B 
 
138 ^ENEID. b. ii. 308- -336. 
 
 from the top of a high rock, stands amazed. Then, indeed, 
 the truth is confirmed, and the treachery of the Greeks dis- 
 closed. Now Deiphobus' 26 spacious house tumbles down, 
 overpowered by the conflagration ; now, next to him, Ucale- 
 gon 27 blazes: the straits of Sigasuni 28 shine far and wide with 
 the flames. The shout of men and clangour of trumpets arise. 
 My arms I snatch in mad haste : nor is there in arms enough 
 of reason : but all my soul burns to collect a troop for the 
 war, and rush into the citadel with my fellows : fury and rage 
 hurry on my mind, and it occurs to me how glorious it is to 
 die in arms. Lo ! then Pantheus, escaped from the sword of 
 the Greeks, Pantheus, the son of Othrys, priest of the citadel 
 and of Apollo, is hurrying away 29 with him the holy utensils, 
 the conquered gods, and his little grandchild, and makes for 
 the shore in distraction. How is it, Pantheus, with the main 
 affair ? what fortress do we seize ? I had scarcely spoken, 
 when, with a groan, he thus replies : Our last day is come, 
 and the inevitable doom of Troy: we are Trojans no more: 
 adieu to Hium, and the high renown of Teucer's race : fierce 
 Jupiter hath transferred all to Argos : the Greeks bear rule 
 in the burning city. The towering horse, planted in the 
 midst of our streets, pours forth armed troops ; and Sinon vic- 
 torious, with insolent triumph scatters the flames. Others are 
 pressing at our wide-opened 30 gates, as many thousands as 
 ever came from populous Micense : others with arms have 
 blocked up the lanes to oppose our passage ; the edged sword, 
 with glittering point, stands unsheathed, ready for dealing 
 death: hardly the foremost wardens of the gates make an 
 effort to fight, and resist in the blind encounter. By these 
 words of Pantheus, and by the impulse of the gods, I hurry 
 
 36 Deiphobus, a son of Priam and Hecuba, eminently distinguished 
 himself in the Trojan war, and after the death of his brother Paris, mai- 
 ried Helen. 
 
 27 Ucalegon, a Trojan chief, praised for the soundness of his counsels, 
 and his good intentions, though accused by some of betraying his country 
 to the Greeks. 
 
 28 Sigaeum, a famous promontory of Troas, at the entrance of the Hel- 
 lespont, where the Scamander fell into the sea. Here was the tomb of 
 Achilles, and near it were fought many of the battles between the Greeks 
 and the Trojans. 
 
 29 But " trahere " is properly used of little children, who follow with 
 difficulty. Curt. iii. 13, 12. B*. 
 
 30 i.e." having both valves open." B. 
 

 B. ii. 337-365. ^ENEID. 139 
 
 away into flames and arms ; whither the grim Fury, whither 
 the din and shrieks that rend the skies, urge me on. Ripheus, 31 
 and Iphitus mighty in arms, join me ; Hypanis and Dymas 
 coming up with us by the light of the moon, and closely ad- 
 here 32 to my side; and also young Coroebus, 33 Mygdon's son, 
 who at that time had chanced to come to Troy, inflamed with 
 a mad passion for Cassandra, and [in prospect, his] son-in- 
 law, brought assistance to Priam and the Trojans. Ill-fated 
 youth, who heeded not the admonitions of his raving spouse ! 
 Whom, close united, soon as I saw resolute to engage, to ani- 
 mate them the more I thus begin : " Youths, souls magnani- 
 mous in vain ! if it is your determined purpose to follow me 
 in this last attempt, you see what is the situation of our affairs. 
 All the gods, by whom this empire stood, have deserted their 
 shrines and altars abandoned [to the enemy] : you come to 
 the relief of the city in flames : let us meet death, and rush 34 
 into the thickest of our armed foes. The only safety for the 
 vanquished is to throw away all hopes of safety." Thus the 
 courage of each youth is kindled into fury. Then, like raven- 
 ous wolves 35 in a gloomy fog, whom the fell rage of hunger hath 
 driven forth, blind to danger, and whose whelps left behind 
 long for their return with thirsting jaws; through arms, through* 
 enemies, we march up to imminent death, and advance through 
 the middle of the city : sable Night hovers around us with' her 
 hollow shade. Who can describe in words the havoc, who the 
 deaths of that night ? or who can furnish tears equal to the dis- 
 asters ? Our ancient city, having borne sway for many years, 
 falls to the ground : great numbers of sluggish carcasses are 
 
 31 Ripheus was distinguished for his love of justice ; haying joined 
 ^Rneas the night that Troy was burnt, he was, after~ a brave resistance, 
 siam by the Greeks. Dymas : this brave Trojan also joined iEneas ; but, 
 being dressed in Grecian armour, was, through mistake, killed by his 
 countrymen. 
 
 32 i. e. " implicare." Nonius i. s. v. " agglomerare." B. 
 
 33 Coroebus, a Phrygian, son of Mygdon, the brother of Hecuba. He 
 assisted Priam in the Trojan war, with the hopes of being rewarded with 
 the hand of Cassandra, who advised him in vain to retire from the war. 
 He was slain by Peneleus. 
 
 34 On the supposition that the gods deserted a captured city, cf. iEscli. 
 Sept. cr Th. 204, aW ovv Sreovg rovg rijg oXovcttjq, 7r6\eog kKXeiirttr 
 Xoyoc. See the notes, and Northmore on Tryphiod. 508. B. 
 
 35 varepov irporepov, as Servius rightly remarks. So in Eur. Hec. 50, 
 
 TOVTOV TTOT IrtKOV K&<pepOV CwVTjQ V7TO. B. 
 
140 ^NEID. b. ii. 366—401. 
 
 ?trewn up and down, both in the streets, in the houses, and the 
 sacred thresholds of the gods. Nor do the Trojans alone pay 
 the penalty with their blood : the vanquished too at times re- 
 sume courage in their hearts, and the victorious Grecians fall : 
 every where is cruel sorrow, every where terror and death in 
 thousand shapes. 36 Androgeos first comes up with us, accom- 
 panied by a numerous band of Greeks, unadvisedly imagining 
 that we were confederate troops ; and he introduces himself to 
 us with this friendly address: Haste, men; what so tardy 
 sloth detains you ? Others tear and plunder the blazing towers 
 of Troy: are you but just come from your lofty ships ? He 
 said, and instantly perceived (for we returned him no very 
 trusty answer) that he had stumbled 37 into the midst of foes. 
 He was confounded, and with his words recalled his step. As 
 one who, in his walk, hath trodden upon a snake unseen in the 
 rough thorns, and in fearful haste hath started back from him, 
 w T hile he is collecting all his rage, and swelling his azure 
 crest; just so Androgeos, terrified at the sight [of us], began 
 to withdraw. We rush in, and pour around with arms close 
 joined, and knock them down here and there, strangers as 
 they were to the place, and possessed with fear: fortune 
 smiles upon our first enterprise. Upon this Coroebus, exult- 
 ing with success and courage, cried out, My fellows, where 
 fortune thus early points out our way to safety, and where 
 she shows herself propitious, let us follow. Let us exchange 
 shields, and fit to ourselves the badges of the Greeks : whether 
 stratagem or valour, who questions in an enemy ? they them- 
 selves will supply us with arms. This said, he puts on the 
 crested helmet of Androgeos, and the rich ornament of his 
 shield, and buckles to his side a Grecian sword. The same 
 does Ripheus, the same does Dymas too, and all the youth 
 well pleased : each arms himself with the recent spoils. We 
 march on, mingling with the Greeks, but not with heaven on 
 our side ; and in many a skirmish we engage during the dark 
 night ; many of the Greeks we send down to Hades. Some 
 fly to the ships, and hasten to the trusty shore ; some, through 
 dishonest fear, scale once more the bulky horse, and lurk 
 
 36 Thucyd. i. 81, 7raaa re icka Karkarr] Oavdrov. Cf. Tryphiodor. 
 573, sqq. B. 
 
 37 For the construction compare Muret. on Catull. iv. 2, " Ait fni^e 
 naviura celerrimus." Soph. Ant. 87. Trach. 5. 
 
B. ii. 402— 438. ^ENEID. 141 
 
 within the well-known womb. Alas ! on nothing ought man 
 to presume, while the gods are against him ! Lo ! Cassandra, 
 Priam's virgin daughter, with her hair dishevelled, was 
 dragged along from the temple and shrine of Minerva, raising 
 to heaven her glaring eyes in vain; her eyes — for cords 
 bound her tender hands. Coroebus, in the madness of his 
 soul, could not bear this spectacle, and, resolved to perish, 
 threw himself into the midst of the band. We all follow, and 
 rush upon them in close array. Upon this we are first over- 
 powered with the darts of our friends from the high summit 
 of the temple, and a most piteous slaughter ensues, through 
 the appearance of our arms, and the disguise of our Grecian 
 crests. Next the Greeks, through anguish and rage for the 
 rescue of the virgin, fall upon us in troops from every quarter ; 
 Ajax, most fierce, both the sons of Atreus, and the whole 
 band of the Dolopes : as, at times, in a burst hurricane, op- 
 posite winds encounter, the west and south, and Eur us, proud 
 of his eastern steeds ; the woods creak, foaming Nereus rages 
 with his trident, and rouses the seas from the lowest bottom. 
 They, too, whom, through the shades, in the dusky night, we 
 by stratagem had routed, and driven all over the city, make 
 their appearance ; they are the first who discover our shield « 
 and counterfeit arms, and mark our voices in sound discordant 
 with their own. In a moment we are overpowered by 
 numbers ; and first Coroebus sinks in death by the hand of 
 Peneleus, at the altar of the warrior-goddess : Ripheus too 
 falls, the most just among the Trojans, and of the strictest 
 integrity : but to the gods it seemed otherwise. 38 Hypanis and 
 Dymas die by the cruel darts of their own friends, nor did thy 
 signal piety, nor the fillets of Apollo, save thee, Pantheus, in 
 thy dying hour. Ye ashes of Troy, ye expiring flames of my 
 country ! witness, that in your fall I shunned neither darts nor 
 any deadly chances 39 of the Greeks ; and, had it been fated that 
 I should fall, I deserved it by my hand. Thence we are forced 
 away, Iphitus, Pelias, and myself (of whom Iphitus was 
 now unwieldy through age, and Pelias disabled by a wound 
 from Ulysses,) forthwith to Priam's palace called by the 
 outcries. Here, indeed, [we beheld] a dreadful fight, as 
 
 28 i. e. " contra," as explained by Donatus on Ter. Andr. Prol. 4. 
 There is an ellipse of, " such should have been his fate, but," &c. B. 
 89 i. e. "pcenas," says Burm. on Propert. i. 13, 10. B. 
 
142 JENEID. n. ii. 439—475 
 
 though this had been the only seat of the war, as though none 
 had been dying in all the city besides ; with such ungoverned 
 fury we see Mars raging and the Greeks rushing forward to 
 the palace, and the gates besieged by an advancing testudo. 
 Scaling ladders are fixed against the walls, and by their steps 
 they mount to the very door-posts, and protecting themselves 
 by their left arms, oppose their bucklers to the darts, [while] 
 with their right hands they grasp the battlements. On the 
 other hand, the Trojans tear down the turrets and roofs of 
 their houses ; with these weapons, since they see the ex- 
 tremity, they seek to defend themselves now in their last 
 death-struggle, and tumble down the gilded rafters, those 
 stately ornaments of their ancestors : others with drawn swords 
 beset the gates below ; these they guard in a firm, compact 
 body. Our ardour is restored to relieve the royal palace, sup- 
 port our friends with aid, and impart fresh strength to the 
 vanquished. There was a passage, a secret entry, a free com- 
 munication between the palaces of Priam, a neglected postern- 
 gate, by which unfortunate Andromache, 40 while the kingdom 
 stood, was often wont to resort to her parents-in-law without 
 retinue, and to lead the boy Astyanax to his grand-sire. I 
 mount up to the roof of the highest battlement, whence the 
 distressed Trojans were hurling unavailing darts. With our 
 swords assailing all around a turret, situated on a precipice, 
 and shooting up its towering top to the stars, (whence we were 
 wont to survey all Troy, the fleet of Greece, and all the Gre- 
 cian camp,) where the topmost story made the joints more apt 
 to give way, 41 we tear it from its deep foundation, and push 
 it on [our foes]. Suddenly tumbling down, it brings thunder- 
 ing desolation with it, and falls with wide havoc on the Gre- 
 cian troops. But others succeed : meanwhile, neither stones, 
 nor any sort of missile weapons, cease to fly. Just before the 
 vestibule, and at the outer gate, Pyrrhus exults, glittering in 
 arms and gleamy brass ; as when a snake [comes forth] to 
 light, having fed on noxious herbs, whom, bloated [with poi- 
 son], the frozen winter hid under the earth, now renewed, and 
 sleek with youth, after casting his skin, with breast erect he 
 rolls up his slippery back, reared to the sun, and brandishes a 
 
 40 Andromache, the daughter of ^Etion, king of Thebes, in Mysia, and 
 the wife of Hector, by whom she had Astyanax. 
 
 41 It must be remembered that this tower was of wood. See Anthon. 
 
 
b. ii. 475-506. .ENE1D. 143 
 
 three-forked tongue in his mouth. At the same time bulky 
 Periphas and Automedon, charioteer to Achilles, [now Pyr- 
 rhus'] armour-bearer ; at the same all the youth from Scyros 
 advance to the wall, and toss brands to the roof. Pyrrhus 
 himself in the front, snatching up a battle-axe, beats through 
 the stubborn gates, and labours to tear the brazen posts from 
 the hinges; and now, having hewn away the bars, he dug 
 through the firm boards, and made a large, wide-mouthed 
 breach. The palace within is exposed to view, and the long 
 galleries are discovered : the sacred recesses of Priam and the 
 ancient kings are exposed to view ; and they see armed men 
 standing at the gate. 
 
 As for the inner palace, it is filled with mingled groans 
 and doleful uproar, and the hollow rooms all throughout howl 
 with female yells : their shrieks strike the golden stars. Then 
 the trembling matrons roam through Jhe spacious halls, and 
 in embraces hug the door-posts, and cling to them with their 
 lips. 42 Pyrrhus 43 presses on with all his father's violence: 
 nor bolts, nor guards themselves, are able to sustain. The gate, 
 by repeated battering blows, gives way, and the door-posts, 
 torn from their hinges, tumble to the ground. The Greeks 
 make their way by force, burst a passage, and, being admitted, 
 butcher the first they meet, and fill the places all about with 
 their troops. Not with such fury a river pours on the fields 
 its heavy torrent, and sweeps away herds with their stalls over 
 all the plains, when foaming it has burst away from its broken 
 banks, and borne down opposing mounds with its whirling 
 current. I myself have beheld Neoptolemus raving with bloody 
 rage, and the two sons of Atreus at the gate : I have beheld 
 Hecuba, and her hundred daughters-in law, and Priam at the 
 altar, defiling with his blood the fires which himself had con- 
 secrated. 44 Those fifty bed-chambers, so great hopes of de- 
 scendants, those doors, that proudly shone with barbaric gold 
 and spoils, were levelled with the ground : where the flames 
 relent, the Greeks take place. 
 
 Perhaps, too, you are curious to hear what was Priam's 
 
 42 Cf. Soph. Phil. 535, liofisv, a> iraT, 7rpo<ricvcravTe ^tjv Icrw "Aoiicoy 
 
 HGOlKr]GlV. B. 
 
 43 Pyrrhus, also called Neoptolemus, was the son of Achilles and Dei- 
 damia daughter of King Lycomedes. His cruelty exceeded even that of 
 his father. 
 
 44 Ennius in Cicer. T. Q. iii. in Scriver. Coll. p. 19, " Hasc omnia vidl 
 inflammari : Priamo vi vitam evitari . Jovis aram sanguine turpari." B. 
 
144 JENEID. b. n. 507—539 
 
 fate. As soon as he "beheld the catastrophe of the taken city, 
 and his palace gates broken down, and the enemy planted in 
 the middle of his private apartments, the aged monarch, 
 with unavailing aim, buckles on his shoulders (trembling with 
 years) arms long disused, girds himself with his useless sword, 
 and rushes into the thickest of the foes, resolute on death. In 
 the centre of the palace, 45 and under the bare canopy of hea- 
 ven, stood a large altar, and an aged laurel near it, overhang- 
 ing the altar, and encircling the household gods with its 
 shade. Here Hecuba and her daughters (like pigeons flying 
 precipitantly from a blackening tempest) crowded together, 
 and embracing the shrines of the gods, vainly sat round the 
 altars. But as soon as she saw Priam clad in youthful arms, 
 unhappy spouse, she cries, What dire purpose has prompted 
 thee to brace on these arms ? or whither art thou hurrying ? 
 The present conjuncture hath no need of such aid, nor such 
 defence : though even my Hector himself were here [it would 
 not avail]. Hither repair, now that all hope is lost; this 
 altar will protect us all, or here you [and we] shall die toge- 
 ther. Having thus said, she took the old man to her em- 
 braces, and placed him on the sacred seat. But lo ! Polites, 
 one of Priam's sons, who had escaped from the sword of 
 Pyrrhus, through darts, through foes, flies along the long ■ 
 galleries, and wounded traverses the waste halls. Pyrrhus, 
 all on fire, pursues him with the hostile weapon, is just 
 grasping him with his hand, and presses on him with the 
 spear. Soon as he at length got into the sight and presence 
 of his parents, he dropped down, and poured out his life with 
 a stream of blood. Upon this, Priam, though now held in the 
 very midst of death, yet did not forbear, nor spared his tongue 
 and passion: But 46 may the gods, he cries, if there be any 
 justice in heaven to regard such events, give ample retribu- 
 tion and due reward for this wickedness, for these thy auda- 
 cious crimes, to thee who hast made me to witness 47 the death 
 of my own son, and defiled a father s eyes with the sight of 
 
 45 The impluvium is meant, Priam's palace forming a square court. 
 Cf. Athen. v. 3, 'O/j-rjpbg dk rr)v avXijv del rdrru Itti tGjv V7rai0pu)v totcojv, 
 tvOa rjv 6 tov 'Eptceiov Ztjvoq (3u)/j,6g. B. 
 
 46 For this use of " at " in reproaches, cf. Ovid. Her. xii. 1, "At tibi 
 Colchorum (memini) regina vacavi." Catull. iii. 13, " At vobis male sit, 
 malae tenebrae." B. 
 
 47 " Cernere fecisti " is a Lucretian form of expression. Cf. Lucr. iii. 
 101 ; " faciat vivere," 302, vi. 26] . B. 
 
B. it. 539— 573. JSNEID. li5 
 
 blood: yet he from whom you falsely claim your birth, even 
 Achilles, was not thus barbarous to Priam, 48 though his enemy, 
 but paid some reverence to the laws of nations, and a sup- 
 pliant's right, restored my Hector's lifeless corpse to be buried, 
 and sent me back into my kingdom. Thus spoke the old man, 
 and, without any force, threw a feeble dart: which was in- 
 stantly repelled by the hoarse brass, and hung on the highest 
 boss of the buckler without any execution. To whom Pyrrhus 
 replies, These tidings then yourself shall bear, and go with 
 the message to my father, the son of Peleus : forget not to 
 inform him of my cruel deeds, and of his degenerate son 
 Neoptolemus : now die. With these words he dragged him 
 to the very altar, trembling and sliding in the streaming gore 
 of his son : and with his left hand grasped his twisted hair, 
 and with his right unsheathed his glittering sword, and 
 plunged it into his side up to the hilt. Such was the end of 
 Priam's fate : this was the final doom allotted to him, having 
 before his eyes Troy consumed, and its towers laid in ruins ; 
 once the proud monarch over so many nations and countries of 
 Asia : now his mighty trunk lies extended on the shore, the 
 head torn from the shoulders, and a nameless corpse. 49 Then, 
 and not till then, fierce horror assailed me round: I stood 
 aghast ; the image of my dear father arose to my mind, when 
 I saw the king, of equal age, breathing out his soul by a cruel 
 wound ; Creiisa, 50 forsaken, came into mind, my rifled house, 
 and the fate of the little Iiilus. I look about, and survey 
 what troops were to stand by me. All had left me through 
 despair, and flung their fainting bodies to the ground, or gave 
 them to the flames. And thus now I remained all alone, 
 when I espy Helen keeping watch in the temple of Vesta, 
 and silently lurking in a secret corner : the bright flames give 
 me light as I am roving on, and throwing my eyes around on 
 every object. She, the common Fury of Troy and her 
 country, dreading the Trojans, her deadly foes, upon account of 
 their ruined country, and the vengeance of the Greeks, with 
 
 48 " In hoste " is for " erga hostem." See Broukh. on Tibull. iii. 6, 
 19. B. 
 
 49 See my note on iEsch. Choeph. 437. B. 
 
 50 Creiisa, daughter of Priam, and the wife of iEneas, who was lost in 
 the streets of Troy, when iEneas made his escape with his father Ai> 
 cliises and his son Ascanius. 
 
 L 
 
146 .ENEID. b. ii. 574— CIO. 
 
 the fierce resentment of her deserted lord, had hidden herself, 
 and was sitting near the altars, an odious sight. Flames were 
 kindled in my soul : rage possessed me to avenge my falling 
 country, and take the vengeance her guilt deserved. Shall 
 she then with impunity behold Sparta and her country My- 
 cenae, and go off a queen, after she has gained her triumph ? 
 shall she see her marriage-bed, her home, her fathers, her sons, 
 accompanied with a retinue of Trojan dames and Phrygian 
 women her slaves? shall Priam have fallen by the sword, 
 shall Troy have burnt with the flame, shall the Trojan shore 
 so often be drenched in blood ? It must not be so : for though 
 there be no memorable name in punishing a woman, nor any 
 honour in such a victory, yet shall I be applauded for having 
 extinguished a wicked wretch, and for inflicting on her the 
 punishment she deserves: besides, it will be a pleasure to 
 gratify my desire of burning revenge, and to give satisfaction 
 to the ashes of my friends. Thus was I rapidly reflecting, 
 and furiously agitated in my soul, when my benign mother 
 presented herself to my view with such brightness as I had 
 never seen before, and amidst the night shone forth in pure 
 light, displaying all the goddess, with such dignity, such sta- 
 ture, as she is wont to show to the immortals : she restrained 
 me fast held by the right hand, and besides, let fall these 
 words from her rosy lips : My son, what high provocation 
 kindles thy ungoverned rage? why art thou raving? or 
 whither art thy regards to me fled ? Will you not first see 
 in what situation you have left your father Anchises, encum- 
 bered with age ? whether your spouse Creiisa be in life, and 
 the boy Ascanius, around whom the Grecian troops from 
 -every quarter reel ? and, do not my care oppose, the flames 
 will have already carried off, or the cruel sword imbibed their 
 blood. Not the features of Lacedaemonian Helen, odious in 
 your eyes, nor Paris blamed ; but the gods, the unrelenting 
 gods, overthrow this powerful realm, and level the towering 
 tops of Troy with the ground. Turn your eyes; for I 
 will dissipate every cloud which now, intercepting the view, 
 bedims your mortal sight, and spreads a humid veil of mist 
 around you : fear not you the commands of a parent, nor re- 
 cuse to obey her orders. Here, where you see scattered ruins, 
 and stones torn from stones, and smoke in waves ascending 
 with mingled dust, .Neptune shakes the walls and foundations 
 
*. it. 611—639. 2ENEID. 147 
 
 loosened by his mighty trident, and overturns the whole city 
 from its basis. Here Juno, extremely fierce, is posted in the 
 front to guard the Scaean 51 gate, and, girt with the sword, 
 with furious summons calls from the ships her social band. 
 Tritonian Pallas (see !) hath now planted herself on a lofty tur- 
 ret, refulgent in a cloud, and with her Gorgon 52 terrible. The 
 Sire himself supplies the Greeks with courage and strength 
 for victory : himself stirs up the gods against the arms of 
 Troy. Speed thy flight, my son, and put a period to thy toils. 
 In every danger I will stand by you, and safe set you down 
 in your father's palace. She said, and hid herself in the thick 
 shades of night. Direful forms appear, and the mighty powers 
 of the gods, adverse to Troy. Then, indeed, all Ilium seemed 
 to me at once to sink in the flames, and Troy, built by Nep- 
 tune, to be overturned from its lowest foundation: even as 
 when with emulous keenness the swains labour to fell an 
 ash that long hath stood on a high mountain, hewing it about 
 with iron and many an axe, ever and anon it threatens, and 
 waving its locks, 53 nods with its shaken t^jtilL- gradually by 
 wounds subdued, it hath groaned itrfes^and torn from the 
 ridge of the mountain, draws along with it ruin. Down I 
 come, and under the conduct of the god, clear my way amidst 
 flames and foes : the darts give place, and the flames retire. 
 And now, when arrived at the gates of my paternal seat and an- 
 cient house, my father, whom I was desirous first to remove to 
 the high mountains, and whom I first sought, obstinately re- 
 fuses to prolong his life after the ruin of Troy, and to suffer exile. 
 You, says he, who are full of youthful blood, and whose powers 
 
 51 Scsean gate, one of the gates of Troy, where the tomb of Laomedon 
 was seen. 
 
 52 Gorgon, Medusa, whose head Perseus cut off and presented to 
 Minerva, who placed it on her aegis, with which she turned into stone all 
 such as fixed their eyes upon it. The Gorgons were the three daughters 
 of Phorcys and Ceto ; their hair, according to the ancients, was entwined 
 with serpents. Medusa was the only one of them who was subject to 
 mortality. 
 
 53 Comam — nutat. Virgil, considering a tree in analogy to the human 
 body, calls the extended boughs its arms, brachia, Georg. ii. 296, 368, 
 end here its leaves, comam, hair, or iocks. So also Milton, Paradise Lost, 
 *. 1065, 
 
 while the winds 
 
 Blow moist and keen, shattering the graceful locks 
 
 Of those fair spreading trees — 
 
 l 2 
 
148 iENEID. b. ii. 640—673 
 
 remain firm in all their strength, do you attempt your flight. 
 As for me, had the powers of heaven designed I should pro- 
 long my life, they had preserved to me this house : enough 
 it is, and more than enough, that I have seen one catastrophe, 
 and outlived the taking of this city. Thus, oh leave me thus 
 with the last farewell to my body laid in its dying posture. 
 With this hand will I find death myself. The enemy will 
 pity me, and lust for my spoils. Trivial is the loss of sepul- 
 ture. I have long since been lingering out a length of 
 
 O CD Cj O 
 
 years, hated by the gods, and useless from the time when the 
 father of gods, and sovereign of men, blasted me with the 
 winds of his thunder, and struck me with lightning. 
 
 Such purpose declaring, he persisted, and remained un- 
 alterable. On the other hand, I, my wife Creiisa, Ascanius, 
 and the whole family, bursting forth into tears, [besought] my 
 father not to involve all with himself, nor hasten our impend- 
 ing fate. He still refuses, and perseveres in his purpose, and 
 in the same settled position. Once more I fly to my arms, 
 and, in extremity of distress, long for death : for what expedi- 
 ent had I left, or what chance of hope ? Could you hope, sire, 
 that I could stir one foot while you were left behind ? could 
 such impiety drop from a parent's lips ? If it is the will of 
 the gods that nothing of this great city be preserved ; if this 
 be your settled purpose, ; and you will even involve yourself 
 and yours in the wreck of Troy ; the way lies open to that 
 death of which you are so fond. Forthwith Pyrrhus, [reek- 
 ing] from the effusion of Prianrs blood, will be here, who 
 kills the son before the father's eyes, and then the father at 
 the altar. Was it for this, my benign mother, you saved me 
 through darts, through flames, to see the enemy in the midst 
 of these recesses, and to see Ascanius, my father, and Creiisa 
 by his side, butchered in one another's blood ? Arms, my 
 men, bring arms ; this day, which is our last, calls upon us, 
 vanquished as we are. Give me back to the Greeks : let me 
 visit once more the fight renewed : never shall we all die un- 
 revenged this day. 54 
 
 Thus I again gird on my sword : and I thrust my left hand 
 into my buckler, bracing it fitly on, and rushed out of the 
 palace. But lo ! my wife clung to me in the threshold, grasp- 
 
 54 Donatus quotes this line to illustrate the threatening use of " hodie," 
 on Ter. Andr. i. 2, 25 ; ii. 4, 7, &c. So Plaut. Cure. v. 3, 11. B. 
 
a. ii. 674—709. JENEID. 149 
 
 ing my feet, and held out to his father the little lulus : If, 
 [says she,] you go with a resolution to perish, snatch us with 
 you to share all : but if, from experience, you repose con- 
 fidence in those arms you have assumed, let this house have 
 your first protection : To whom are you abandoning the ten- 
 der lulus, your sire, and me once called your wife ? Thus 
 loudly expostulating, she filled the whole palace with her 
 groans, when a sudden and wondrous prodigy arises : for amid 
 the embraces and parting words of his mourning parents, lo ! 
 the fluttering tuft from the top of lulus' head is seen to emit 
 light, and with gentle touch the lambent flame glides harmless 
 along his hair, and feeds around his temples. We, quaking, 
 trembled for fear, brush the blazing locks, and quench the 
 holy fire with fountain-water. But father Anchises 55 joyful 
 raised his eyes to the stars, and stretched his hands to heaven 
 with his voice ; Almighty Jove, if thou art moved with any 
 supplications, vouchsafe to regard us ; we ask no more : and 
 O sire, if by our piety we deserve it, grant us then thy aid, 
 and ratify these omens. Scarcely had my aged sire thus 
 said, when, with a sudden peal, it thundered on the left, and a 
 star, that fell from the skies, drawing a fiery train, shot 
 through the shade with a profusion of light. We could see 
 it, gliding over the high tops of the palace, lose itself in the 
 woods of Mount Ida, full in our view, and marking out the 
 way : then all along its course an indented path shines, and 
 all the place, a great way round, smokes with sulphureous 
 steams. And now my father, overcome, raises himself to 
 heaven, addresses the gods, and pays adoration to the holy star : 
 Now, now is no delay : I am all submission, and where you 
 lead the way I am with you. Ye gods of my fathers, save 
 our family, save my grandson. From you this omen came, 
 and Troy is at your disposal. Now, son, I resign myself in- 
 deed, nor refuse to accompany you in your expedition. He said, 
 and now throughout the city the flames are more distinctly 
 heard, and the conflagration rolls the torrents of fire nearer. 
 Come then, dearest father, place yourself on my neck ; with 
 these shoulders will I support you, nor shall that burden op- 
 press me. However things fall out, we both shall share either 
 
 55 Anchises, the son of Capys, by Themis, daughter of Ilus. His son 
 /Eneas saved his life by carrying him on his shoulders through the flames,, 
 when Troy was on fire. 
 
150 ^ENEID. b. ii. 710-747. 
 
 one common danger or one preservation : let the boy lulus be. 
 my companion, and my wife may trace my steps at some dis- 
 tance. Ye servants, needfully attend to what I say. In your 
 way from the city is a rising ground, and an ancient temple 
 of deserted Ceres ; 56 and near it an aged cypress, preserved 
 for many years by the religious veneration of our forefathers. 
 To this one seat by several ways we will repair. Do you, 
 father, take in thy hand the sacred symbols, and the gods of 
 our country. For me, just come from war, from so fierce and 
 recent bloodshed, to touch them would be profanation, till I 
 have purified myself in the living stream. This said, I spread 
 a garment and a tawny lion's hide over my broad shoulders 
 and submissive neck ; and stoop to the burthen : little lulus 
 is linked in my right hand, and trips after his father with 
 unequal steps : my spouse comes up behind. We haste away 
 through the gloomy paths : and I, whom lately no showers of 
 darts could move, nor Greeks enclosing me in a hostile band, 
 am now terrified with every breath of wind; 57 every sound 
 alarms me anxious, and equally in dread for my companion 
 and my burthen. By this time I approached the gates, and 
 thought I had overpassed all the way, when suddenly a thick 
 sound of feet seems to invade my ears just at hand ; and my 
 father, stretching his eyes through the . gloom, calls aloud, 
 Fly, fly, my son, they are upon you: I see the burnished 
 shields and glittering brass. Here, in my consternation, some 
 unfriendly deity or other confounded and bereaved me of my 
 reason ; for while in my journey I trace the by-paths, and 
 forsake the known beaten tracks, alas ! I know not whether 
 my wife Creiisa was snatched from wretched me by cruel fate, 
 or lost her way, or through fatigue stopped short ; nor did 
 these eyes ever see her more. Nor did I observe that she 
 was lost, or reflect with myself, till we were come to the rising 
 ground, and the sacred seat of ancient Ceres : here, at length, 
 when all were convened, she alone was wanting, and gave 
 disappointment to all our retinue, especially to her son and 
 husband. Whom did I frantic not accuse, of gods or men ? 
 or of what more cruel scene was I a spectator in all the 
 desolation of the city ? To my friends I commend Ascanius, 
 
 56 i. e. neglected during the war. See Anthon. B. 
 67 Silhis vi. 58, " Sonus omnis et aura Exterrent, pennaque levi com* 
 muta volucris." B. 
 
p. ii. 748—781. .ENEID. 15] 
 
 iny father Anchises, with the gods of Troy, and lodge them 
 secretly in a winding valley. I myself repair back to the 
 city, and brace on my shining armour. I am resolved to re- 
 new every adventure, revisit all the quarters of Troy, and 
 expose my life once more to all dangers. First of all, I re- 
 turn to the walls, and the dark entry of the gate by which I 
 had set out, and backward unravel my steps with care amidst 
 the darkness, and run them over with my eye. Horror on all 
 sides, and at the same time the very silence affrights my soul. 
 Thence homeward I bent my way, lest by chance, by any 
 chance, she had moved thither : the Greeks had now r^hed 
 in, and were masters of the whole house. In a moment the 
 devouring conflagration is rolled up in sheets by the wind to 
 the lofty roof; the flames mount above; the fiery whirlwind 
 rages to the skies. I advance, and revisit Priam's royal seat, 
 and the citadel. And now in the desolate cloisters, Juno's 
 sanctuary, Phcenix and the execrable Ulysses, a chosen guard, 
 were watching the booty : hither, from all quarters, the pre- 
 cious Trojan moveables, saved from the conflagration of the 
 temples, the tables of the gods, the massy golden goblets, 
 and plundered vestments, are amassed: boys, and timorous 
 matrons, stand all around in a long train. Now adventuring 
 even to dart my voice through the shades, I filled the streets 
 with outcry, and in anguish, with vain repetition, again and 
 again, called on Creiisa. While I was in this search, and with 
 incessant fury ranging through all quarters of the town, the 
 mournful ghost and shade of my Creiisa's self appeared be- 
 fore my eyes, her figure larger than I had known it. I stood 
 aghast ! my hair rose on end, and my voice clung to my jaws. 
 Then thus she bespeaks me, and relieves my cares with these 
 words: My darling spouse, what pleasure have you thus to 
 indulge a grief which is but madness ? These events do not 
 occur without the will of the gods. It is not allowed you 
 to carry Creiisa hence to accompany you, nor is it permitted 
 by the great ruler of heaven supreme. In long banishment 
 you must roam, and plough the vast expanse of the ocean : to 
 the land of Hesperia you shall come, where the Lydian 58 
 Tiber, w T ith his gentle current, glides through a rich land of 
 
 58 Lydian Tiber ; the epithet is applied to the Tiber, because it passes 
 clong the borders of Etruria, whose inhabitants were once a Lydian 
 olony. 
 
152 . ^ENEID. b. ii. 782— 804. in. 1—8. 
 
 heroes. There, prosperous state, a crown, and royal spouse, 
 await you : dry up your tears for your beloved Creusa. I, of 
 Dardanus' noble line, and the daughter-in-law of divine Venus, 
 shall not see the proud seats of the Myrmidons and Dolopes> 
 nor go to serve the Grecian dames ; but the great mother of 
 the gods detains me upon these coasts. And now farewell, 
 and preserve your affection to our common son. 
 
 With these words she left me in tears, ready to say many 
 things, and vanished into thin air. There thrice I attempted 
 to throw my arms around her neck; thrice the phantom, 
 grasped in vain, escaped my hold, swift as the winged winds, 
 and resembling most a fleeting dream. Thus having spent 
 the night, I at length revisit my associates. And here, to my 
 surprise, I found a great confluence of new companions : ma- 
 trons, and men, and youths, drawn together to share our exile, 
 a piteous throng ! From all sides they convened, resolute [to 
 follow me] with their souls and fortunes, into whatever coun- 
 try I was inclined to conduct them over the sea. By this time, 
 the bright morning star was rising on the craggy tops of lofty 
 Ida, and ushered in the day : the Greeks held the entrance of 
 the gates blocked up ; nor had we any prospect of relief. 
 I gave way, and bearing up my father, made towards the 
 mountain. 
 
 book in. 
 
 In the Third Book, JEneas continues his narration, by a minute account of 
 his voyage, the places he visited, and the perils he encountered, from the 
 time of leaving the shores of Troas, until he landed at Drepanum, in Sicily, 
 where he buried his father. — This Book, which comprehends a period of 
 about seven years, ends with the dreadful storm, with the description of 
 which the First Book opened. 
 
 After it had seemed fit to the gods to overthrow the power 
 of Asia, and Priam's race, undeserving [of such a fate], and 
 stately Ilium fell, and while the whole of Troy, built by Nep- 
 tune, smokes on the ground ; we are determined, by revelations 
 from the gods, to go in quest of distant retreats in exile, and 
 unpeopled lands; we fit out a fleet just under the walls of 
 Antandros x and the mountains of Phrygian Ida ; and draw 
 our forces together, uncertain whither the Fates point our way, 
 where it shall be given us to settle. Scarcely had the firyt 
 1 Antandros, a city of Troas, in the Gulf of Adramyttium. 
 
3. Hi. 9—40. -&NEID. 153 
 
 summer begun, when my father Anchises gave command to 
 hoist the sails, in accordance with the Fates. Then with tears 
 I leave the shores and ports of my country, and the plains 
 where Troy once stood : an exile I launch forth into the deep, 
 with my associates, my son, my household gods, and the great 
 gods [of my country]. 
 
 At a distance lies a martial land, peopled throughout its 
 wide-extended plains, (the Thracians cultivate the soil,) over 
 which in former times fierce Lycurgus 2 reigned : an ancient 
 hospitable retreat for Troy, and whose gods were leagued with 
 ours, while fortune was with us. Hither I am carried, and 
 erect my first walls along the winding shore, entering with 
 Fates unkind; and from my own name I call the citizens 
 iEneades. I was performing sacred rites to my mother Venus, 
 and the gods, the patrons of my works begun ; and to the ex- 
 alted king of the immortals I was sacrificing a sleek bull on 
 the shore. Near at hand there chanced to be a rising ground, 
 on whose top were young cornel-trees, and a myrtle rough 
 with thick spear-like branches. I came up to it, and attempt- 
 ing to tear from the earth the verdant wood, that I might 
 cover the altars with the leafy boughs, I observe a dreadful 
 prodigy, and wondrous to relate. For from that tree which 
 first is torn from the soil, its rooted fibres being burst asunder, 
 drops of black blood distil, and stain the ground with gore : 
 cold terror shakes my limbs, and my chill blood is congealed 
 with fear. I again essay to tear off a limber bough from an- 
 other, and thoroughly explore the latent cause : and from the 
 rind of that other the purple blood descends. Raising in my 
 mind many an anxious thought, I with reverence besought the 
 rural nymphs, and father Mars, who presides over the Thra- 
 cian territories, kindly to prosper the vision 3 and avert evil 
 from the omen. But when I attempted the boughs a third 
 time with a more vigorous effort, and on my knees struggled 
 against the opposing mould, (shall I speak, or shall I forbear ?) 
 a piteous groan is heard from the bottom of the rising ground, 
 and a voice sent forth reaches my ears : JEneas, why dost thou 
 
 2 Lycmgus, a king of Thrace, son of Dryas, who, it is said, drove Bac- 
 chus out of his kingdom. 
 
 3 For " visa," which is used in the same phrase by Silius, viii. 124. 
 Lucan. i. 635. On the myrtle-tomb of Polydore, compare Auson. 
 Epitaph. Her. xix. 
 
154 ^NEID. *. in. 41— 6& 
 
 tear an unhappy wretch ? Spare me, now that I am in my 
 grave ; forbear to pollute with guilt thy pious hands : Troy 
 brought me forth no stranger to you ; nor is it from the trunk 
 this blood distils. Ah, fly this barbarous land, fly the ava- 
 ricious shore! 'For Polydore 4 am I: here an iron crop of 
 darts hath overwhelmed me, transfixed, and over me shot up 
 in pointed javelins. Then, indeed, depressed at heart with 
 perplexing fear, I was stunned ; my hair stood on end, and 
 my voice clung to my jaws. This Polydore unhappy Priam 
 had formerly sent in secrecy with a great weight of gold to 
 be brought up by the king of Thrace, when he now began 5 
 to distrust the arms of Troy, and saw the city with close siege 
 blocked up. He, as soon as the power of the Trojans were 
 crushed, and their fortune gone, espousing Agamemnon's 
 interest and victorious arms, breaks every sacred bond, assas- 
 sinates Polydore, and by violence possesses his gold. Cursed 
 thirst of gold, to what dost thou not drive the hearts* of men ! 
 After fear left my bones, I report the portents of the gods to 
 our chosen leaders, and chiefly to my father, and demand 
 what their opinion is. All are unanimous to quit that ac- 
 cursed land, abandon the polluted society, and spread the sails 
 to the winds. Therefore we renew funeral ceremonies to 
 Polydore, and a large mound of earth is heaped up for the 
 tomb : an altar is reared to his manes, mournfully decked 
 with leaden-coloured wreaths and gloomy cypress ; and 
 round it the Trojan matrons stand with hair dishevelled ac- 
 cording to custom. We offer the sacrifices of the dead, bowls 
 foaming with warm milk, and goblets of the sacred blood : we 
 give the soul repose in the grave, and with loud voice address 
 to him the last farewell. 6 
 
 * Polydorus, the youngest son of Priam and Hecuba, was assassinated 
 by Polymnestor, king of Thrace, who had been intrusted with the care 
 of the young prince. 
 
 5 Eur. Hec. ii. iv\ el tcot 'iXlov rsixrf tt&goi, I need scarcely refer 
 the reader to the whole passage. B. 
 
 6 I have illustrated this custom in my notes on Eurip. Alcest. 610. 
 Ausonius Parent. 159, 10, " Voce ciere animas funeris instar habet. 
 Gaudent compositi cineres sua nomina dici. . . . Nomine ter dicto paene 
 sepultus erit." On the funeral offerings here described, see my notes ou 
 Much. Pers. p. 83, ed. Bohn. Statius, Theb. vi. 209, " Spumantesque 
 mero paterae verguntur, et atri Sanguinis, et rapti gratissima cymbia lac- 
 tis." Alcseus Mess, in Brunck. Annal. i. p. 490, /cat tciQov vxpujcravro 
 ydXciKTi de Troifikveg aiyuv'Eppavav, ZavOqi yn^diitvoi fxkXiTL. B. 
 
b. in. 69— 101. JSNEID. 155 
 
 This done, when first we durst confide in the main, when 
 the winds present peaceful seas, and the south wind in soft 
 whispering gales invites us to the deep, my mates launch the 
 ships and crowd the shore. We are wafted from the port, 
 and the land and cities retreat. 
 
 Amidst the sea there lies a charming spot of land, sacred to 
 [Doris], (the mother of the Nereids,) and iEgean Neptune ; 
 which once wandering about the coasts and shores, the piour 
 god who wields the bow fast bound with high Gyaros 7 and 
 Mycone, and fixed it so as to be habitable, and mock the 
 winds. Hither I am led : this most peaceful island receives 
 us to a safe port after our fatigue. At landing we pay vener- 
 ation to the city of Apollo. King Anius, 8 both king of men 
 and priest of Phoebus, his temples bound with fillets and sa- 
 cred laurel, comes up, and presently recognises his old friend 
 Anchises. We join right hands in amity, and come under his 
 roof. I venerated the temple of the god, a structure of ancient 
 stone, [and thus began] : Thymbraean Apollo, grant us, after 
 all our toils, some fixed mansion ; grant us walls of defence, 
 offspring, and a permanent city : preserve those other towers 
 of Troy, a remnant left by the Greeks and merciless Achilles. 
 Whom are we to follow ; or whither dost thou bid us go ? 
 where fix our residence ? Father, grant us a prophetic sign, 
 and glide into our minds. Scarcely had I thus said, when 
 suddenly all seemed to tremble, both the temple itself, and 
 laurel of the god ; the whole mountain quaked around, and 
 the sanctuary being exposed to view, the tripod moaned. In 
 humble reverence we fall to the ground, and a voice reaches 
 our ears : Ye hardy sons of Dardanus, the same land which 
 first produced you from your forefather's stock, shall receive 
 you in its fertile bosom after all your dangers; search out 
 your ancient mother. There the family of ^Eneas shall rule 
 over every coast, and his children's children, and they who 
 from them shall spring. 
 
 Thus Phoebus. Emotions of great joy, with mingled tu- 
 mult, arose ; and all were seeking to know what city is de- 
 signed ; whither Phoebus calls us wandering, and wills us to 
 
 7 Gyaros and Mycone, two of the islands called the Cyclades, in the 
 iEgean Sea. 
 
 8 Anius, the son of Apollo and Rhea, was king of Delos, and father of 
 Andrus. 
 
156 ^NEID. b. in. 102— 127 
 
 return. Then my father, revolving the historical records of 
 ancient heroes, says, Ye leaders, give ear, and learn what you 
 have to hope for. In the middle of the sea lies Crete, the 
 island of mighty Jupiter, where is Mount Ida, and the nursery 
 of our race. The Cretans inhabit a hundred mighty cities, 
 most fertile realms : whence our mighty ancestor Teucrus, if 
 I rightly remember the tradition, first arrived on the Rhoetean 
 coasts, 9 and chose the seat of his kingdom. No Hium then 
 nor towers of Pergamus 10 were raised ; in the deep vales they 
 dwelt. Hence came mother Cybele, the patroness of the 
 earth, and the brazen cymbals of the Corybantes, 11 and the 
 Idaean grove ; hence that faithful secrecy in her sacred rites ; 
 and harnessed lions were yoked in the chariot of their queen. 
 Come, then, and, where the commands of the gods point out 
 our way, let us follow ; let us appease the winds, and seek the 
 Gnossian realms. Nor lie they at the distance of a long 
 voyage : provided Jove be with us, the third day will land 
 our fleet on the Cretan coast. 
 
 This said, he offered the proper sacrifices on the altars, a 
 bull to Neptune, a bull to thee, O fair Apollo : a black sheep 
 to the Winter, and a white one to the propitious zephyrs. A 
 report flies abroad, that leader Idomeneus 12 banished, hath 
 quitted his paternal kingdom, and that the shore of Crete is 
 deserted; that its mansions are free from the enemy, and 
 palaces stand forsaken. We leave the port of Ortygia, 13 and 
 scud along the sea : we cruise along Naxos, (on whose moun- 
 tains the Bacchanals revel,) green Donysa, 14 Olearos, snowy 
 Paros, and the Cyclades scattered up and down the main, and 
 narrow seas thick-sown with clustered islands. With various 
 
 9 Rhoetean coasts ; Trojan coasts, from Rhoeteum, a promontory of 
 Troas, on the Hellespont, near which the body of Ajax was buried. 
 
 10 Pergamus, the citadel of Troy, often used for Troy itself. 
 
 11 Corybantes, the priests of Cybele. 
 
 12 Idomeneus, king of Crete, the son of Deucalion. Having left Crete 
 after kis return from the Trojan war, he came to Italy, and founded the 
 city of Salentum on the coast of Calabria. 
 
 13 Ortygia, an ancient name of the island of Delos, where was a famous 
 temple and oracle of Apollo. Naxos, a celebrated island of the ^Egean 
 Sea, the largest and most fertile of all the Cyclades. 
 
 14 Donysa, one of the Cyclades famed for producing green marble, as 
 Paros was for white marble. Olearos, (Antiparos,) one of the Cyclades, 
 south-west of Paros. Cyclades, islands in the ^Egean Sea, about fifty in 
 number, encircling Delos. 
 
B. in. 125—162. .ENE1D. 157 
 
 emulation the seamen's shouts arise. The crew animate one 
 another : For Crete and our ancestors let us speed our course. 
 A wind springing up astern, accompanies us on our way, and 
 we at length skim along to the ancient seats of the Curetes. 
 Therefore, with eagerness, I raise the walls of the so-much- 
 wished for city, and call it the city of Pergamus ; and I ex- 
 hort my colony, pleased with the name, to love their hearths, 
 and erect turrets on their roofs. And now the ships were 
 mostly drawn up on the dry beach : the youth were engaged 
 in their nuptials and new settlements ; I was beginning to 
 dispense laws and appropriate houses ; when suddenly, from 
 the infection of the climate, a wasting and lamentable plague 
 seized our limbs, the trees, and corn ; and the year was 
 pregnant with death. Men left their sweet lives, or dragged 
 along their sickly bodies : at the same time the dog-star 
 burned up the barren fields : the herbs were parched, and the 
 unwholesome grain denied us sustenance. My father ad- 
 vises, that, measuring back the sea, we again apply to the 
 oracle of Ortygia, and Apollo, and implore his grace, [to 
 know] what end he will bring to our forlorn state ; whence 
 he will bid us attempt a redress of our calamities, whither 
 turn our course. 
 
 It was night, and sleep reigned over all the animal world. 
 The sacred images of the gods, and the tutelar deities of 
 Phrygia, whom I had brought with me from Troy and the 
 midst of the flames, were seen to stand before my eyes while 
 slumbering, 15 conspicuous by a glare of light, where the full 
 moon darted her beams through the inserted windows. Then 
 they thus [seemed to] address me, and dispel my cares with 
 these words : What Apollo would announce to you, were you 
 wafted to Ortygia, he here reveals, and lo ! unasked, he sends 
 us to your dwelling. We, after Troy was consumed, followed 
 thee and thy arms ; under thy conduct we have crossed the 
 swelling sea in ships : we too will exalt thy future Face to 
 heaven, and give imperial power to thy city. Do thou pre- 
 pare walls mighty for mighty inhabitants, and shrink not 
 from the long labours of thy voyage. You must change your 
 place of residence : these are not the shores that Delian Apollo 
 advises for you ; nor was it in Crete he commanded you to 
 
 *-■* I read " iu somnis," not " insomnis." See Anthoii. B. 
 
158 -ENEID. b. in. 163— 195. 
 
 settle. There is a place, (the Greeks call it Hesperia by name,) 
 an ancient country, powerful in arms and fertility of soil : the 
 CEnotrians peopled it once ; now there is a report, thrt their 
 descendants have called the nation Italy, from the founder's 
 name. These are our proper settlements : hence Dardanus 
 sprang, and father Iasius, 16 from which prince our race is de- 
 rived. Haste, arise, and with joy report to thy aged sire these 
 intimations of unquestionable credibility : search out Coritus 17 
 and the Ausonian lands ; Jupiter forbids thee the Cretan ter- 
 ritories. 
 
 Astonished by this vision and declaration of the gods (nor 
 was that a sound sleep, but methought I clearly discerned their 
 aspect before me, their fillet-bound locks, and their forms full 
 in my view ; then a cold sweat flowed over my whole body) ; 
 I snatch my frame from the couch, and lift up my hand supine 
 to heaven with my voice, and pour hallowed offerings on the 
 fires. Having finished the sacrifice, with joy I certify An- 
 chises, and disclose the fact in order. He recognised the dou- 
 ble stock, and the double founders [of the Trojan race], and 
 that he had been deceived by a modern mistake respecting 
 ancient countries; then he thus bespeaks me: My son, piac- 
 tised in woe by the fates of Troy, Cassandra alone predicted 
 to me that such was to be our fortune. Now I recollect that 
 she foretold this should be the destiny of our race, and 
 that she often spoke of Hesperia, often of the realms of Italy. 
 But who could believe that the Trojans were to come to the 
 Hesperian shore ? or whom then did the prophetic Cassandra 
 influence ? Let us resign ourselves to Phoebus, and, since 
 we are better advised, let us follow. He said ; and, exulting, 
 we all obey his orders. This realm we likewise quit, and, 
 leaving a few behind, unfurl our sails, and bound over the 
 spacious sea in our hollow barks. 
 
 When the ships held possession of the deep, and no land is 
 any longer in view, sky all around, and ocean all around ; then 
 an azure rain-cloud stood over my head, bringing on night and 
 wintry storm ; the waves grew rough in the gloom ; 18 the winds 
 
 16 Iasius, a son of Jupiter and Electra, and brother to Dardanus ; he 
 was one of the Atlantides, and reigned over part of Arcadia. 
 
 17 Coritus, (Cortona,) a town and mountain of Etruria, so called from 
 Coritus, a king of Etruria, father to Iasius. 
 
 18 Compare Pacuvius, " Inhorrescit mare, tenebrae conduplicantur, noo- 
 tisque et nubium occaecat nigror." B. 
 
7. xxi. 196—227. -3ENEID. 159 
 
 overturn the sea, and mighty surges rise : we are tossed to and 
 fro on the face of the boiling deep : clouds enwrapped the day, 
 and humid night snatched the heavens [from our view] ; from 
 the bursting clouds flashes of lightning redouble. We are 
 driven from our course, and wander in unknown waves. Pa- 
 linurus 19 himself owns he is unable to distinguish day and 
 night by the sky, and that he has forgotten his course in the 
 mid sea. Thus for three days, that could hardly be distin- 
 guished by reason of the dark clouds, as many starless nights, 
 we wander up and down the ocean. At length, on the fourth 
 day, land was first seen to rise, to disclose the mountains from 
 afar, and roll up smoke : the sails are lowered, we ply hard 
 the oars ; instantly the seamen, with exerted vigour, toss up 
 the foam, and sweep the azure deep. 
 
 The shores of the Strophades 20 first receive me rescued from 
 the waves. The Strophades, so called by a Greek name, are 
 islands situated in the great Ionian Sea ; which direful Celseno 21 
 and the other Harpies inhabit, from what time Phineus' palace 
 was closed against them, and they were frighted from his table, 
 which they formerly haunted. No monster more fell than they, 
 no plague and scourge of the gods more cruel, ever issued from 
 the Stygian waves. They are fowls with virgin faces, most 
 loathsome is their bodily discharge, hands hooked, and looks 
 ever pale with famine. Hither conveyed, as soon as we en- 
 tered the port, lo ! we observe joyous herds of cattle roving 
 up and down the plains, and flocks of goats along the meadows 
 without a keeper. We rush upon them with our swords, and 
 invoke the gods and Jove himself to share the booty. Then 
 along the winding shore we raise the couches, and feast on the 
 rich repast. But suddenly, with direful swoop, the Harpies 
 are upon us from the mountains, shake their wings with loud 
 din, prey upon our banquet, and defile every thing with their 
 
 19 Palinurus, a skilful pilot of the ship of JEneas. He fell overboard 
 while asleep, and after being three days exposed to the tempests, he 
 reached the shore near Velia, a town of Lucania, when he was murdered 
 by the inhabitants. A promontory, on which a monument was raised to 
 him, received the name of Palinurus. 
 
 20 Stroplv jl es > (Stamphane,) two small islands in the Ionian Sea, south 
 of the island of Zacynthos (Zante). 
 
 21 Celaeno, one of the Harpies : these were fabulous monsters, with 
 wings, three in number, daughters of Neptune and Terra. They wers 
 sent by Juno to plunder the tables of Phineus, king of Thrace, whence 
 they were driven to the Strophades, where JEneas found them. 
 
160 J5NEID. B . in. 228—257. 
 
 touch : at the same time, together with a rank smell, hideous 
 screams arise. Again we spread our tables in a long recess, 
 under a shelving rock, enclosed around with trees and gloomy 
 shode ; and once more we plant fire on the altar. Again the 
 noisy crowd, from a different quarter of the sky, and obscure 
 retreats, flutter around the prey with hooked claws, taint our 
 viands with their mouths. Then I enjoin my companions to 
 take arms, and wage war with the horrid race. They do no 
 otherwise than bidden, dispose their swords secretly among 
 the grass, and conceal their shields out of sight. 22 Therefore, 
 as soon as stooping down they raised their screaming voices 
 along the bending shores, Misenus 23 with his hollow trumpet 
 of brass gives the signal from a lofty place of observation : my 
 friends set upon them, and engage in a new kind of fight, to 
 employ the sword in destroying obscene sea-fowls. But they 
 neither suffer any violence on their plumes, nor wounds in 
 the body ; and, mounting up in the air with rapid flight, leave 
 behind them their half-eaten prey, and the ugly prints of 
 their feet. Celasno alone alighted on a high rock, the pro- 
 phetess of ill, and from her breast burst forth these words : 
 War too, ye sons of Laomedon, is it your purpose to make 
 war for our oxen which you have slain, for the havoc you 
 have made upon our bullocks, and to banish the innocent 
 Harpies from their hereditary kingdom ? Lend them an ear, 
 and in your minds ^ these my words : what the almighty 
 Sire revealed to Phoebus, Phoebus Apollo to me, I the chief 
 of the furies disclose to you. To Italy you steer your course, 
 and Italy you shall reach after repeated invocations to the 
 winds, and you shall be permitted to enter the port : but you 
 shall not surround the given city with walls, till dire famine 
 and disaster, for shedding our blood, compel you first to gnaw 
 around and eat up your tables 24 with your teeth. 
 
 22 Cf. Silius ix. 99, " condit membra occultata." B. 
 
 23 Misenus was a son of jEoIus, and the trumpeter of Hector, after 
 whose death he followed iEneas to Italy, and was drowned on the coast 
 of Campania, because he had challenged one of the Tritons. 
 
 24 The sense of this prediction is seen from its accomplishment in the 
 Seventh Book, verse 116. This is not merely poetical invention, it was an 
 historical tradition, related by Dionysius and Strabo, that iEneas had re- 
 ceived a response from an oracle, foretelling that, before he came to his 
 {settlement in Italy, he should be reduced to the necessity of eating his 
 trenchers. Varro says he got it from the oracle of Dodona. Virgil puts 
 
». in. 258-285. JENEID. 1GI 
 
 She said, and on her wings upborne flew into the wood. 
 As for my companions, their blood, chilled with sudden fear 
 stagnated ; their minds sunk : and now they are no longer for 
 arms, but urge me to solicit peace by vows and prayers, 
 whether they be goddesses, or cursed and inauspicious birds. 
 My father Anchises, with hands spread forth from the shore, 
 invokes the great gods, and enjoins due honours to be paid 
 them : Ye gods, ward off these threatenings ; ye gods, avert 
 so great a calamity ; and propitious save your pious votaries. 
 Then he orders to tear the ropes from the shore, loose and dis- 
 engage the cables. The south winds stretch our sails : we 
 fly over the foaming waves, where the wind and pilots urged 
 our course. Now amidst the waves appear woody Zacynthos, 25 
 Dulichium, Same, and Neritos, with its steep rocks. We 
 shun the cliffs of Ithaca, 26 Laertes' realms, and curse the land 
 that bred the cruel Ulysses. Soon after this the cloudy tops 
 of Mount Leucate, 27 and [the temple of] Apollo, the dread of 
 seamen, open to our view. Hither we steer our course op- 
 pressed with toil, and approach the little city. The anchor 
 is thrown out from the prow : the ships are ranged on the 
 shore. Thus at length possessed of wished-for land, we both 
 perform a lustral sacrifice to Jupiter, and kindle the altars in 
 order to perform our vows, and signalize the promontory of 
 Actium 28 by celebrating the Trojan games. Our crew, hav- 
 ing their naked limbs besmeared with slippery oil, exercise 
 the wrestling matches of their country : it delights us to have 
 escaped so many Grecian cities and pursued our voyage 
 through the midst of our enemies. 
 
 Meanwhile the sun finishes the revolution of the great year, 
 and frosty winter exasperates the waves with the north winds. 
 
 this prophecy in the mouth of the harpies, as being both suitable to their 
 nature, and more apt to raise surprise when coming from them. 
 
 25 Zacynthos, &c. These are islands in the Ionian Sea, on the western 
 coast of Greece. Zacynthos is now called Zante. Dulichium was part 
 of the kingdom of Ulysses. Same, now called Cephalonia, the inhabitants; 
 of which went with Ulysses to the Trojan war. Neritos, a mountain in 
 the island of Ithaca, often applied to the whole island. 
 
 26 Ithaca, an island in the Ionian Sea, where Ulysses reigned. 
 
 27 Leucate, (Cape Ducato,) a high promontory of Leucadia, (St. Maura,) 
 an island in the Ionian Sea, where was a famous temple of Apollo. 
 
 28 Actium, (Azio,) a town, and (Cape Figalo) a promontory of Epirus, 
 celebrated for the naval victory of Augustus over Antony and Cleopatra, 
 
 .31. 
 
 M 
 
162 ^NEID. b. in. 286-317. 
 
 Ou the front door-posts [of the temple] I set up a buckler of 
 hollow brass, which mighty Abas wore, and notify the action by 
 this verse : " These arms JEneas [won] from the victorious 
 Greeks." Then I ordered [our crew] to leave the port, and 
 take their seats on the benches. They with emulous ardour 
 lash the sea, and sweep the waves. In an instant we lose 
 sight of 29 the airy towers of the Phaeacians, cruise along the 
 coast of Epirus, and enter the Chaonian port, and ascend the 
 lofty city of Buthrotus. 30 Here a report of facts scarce cre- 
 dible invades our ears, that Helenus, 31 Priam's son, was reign- 
 ing over Grecian cities, possessed of the spouse and sceptre of 
 Pyrrhus, the grandchild of -ZEacus, and that Andromache had 
 again fallen to a lord of her own country. I was amazed, and 
 my bosom glowed with strange desire to greet the hero, and 
 learn so signal revolutions of fortune. I set forward from the 
 port, leaving the fleet and shore. Andromache, as it chanced, 
 was then offering to [Hector's] ashes her anniversary 32 feast 
 and mournful oblations before the city in a grove, near the 
 stream of the fictitious Simois, and invoked the manes at 
 Hector's tomb ; an empty tomb which she had consecrated of 
 green turf, and two altars, incentives to her grief. As soon 
 as she saw me coming up, and to her amazement beheld the 
 Troj an arms around me, terrified with a prodigy so great, she 
 stiffened at the very sight ; vital warmth forsook her limbs : 
 she sinks down, and at length, after a long interval, with fal- 
 tering accent speaks : Goddess-born, do you present yourself 
 to me a real form, a real messenger ? Do you live ? or, if 
 from you the benignant light has fled, where is Hector ? She 
 said, and shed a flood of tears, filling all the place with cries. 
 To her, in this transport, I with difficulty make even a brief 
 reply, and in great perturbation open my mouth in these few 
 broken words : I am alive indeed, and spin out life through 
 all extremes. Doubt not ; for all you see is real. Ah ! what 
 accidents of fife have overtaken you, since you were thrown 
 
 29 So Kpv7TT£tv is elegantly used in Greek. Plat. Protag. 70, <ptvyuv 
 etg to irkXayoQ, ditoKOv^avra yrjv. See Herndorfs note. B. 
 
 30 Buthrotus, (Butrinto,) a sea-port town of Epirus, opposite Corfu. 
 
 31 Helenus, a celebrated soothsayer, the only one of Priam's sons who 
 survived the ruin of his country; he was king of Chaonia when he received 
 ^Eneas on his way to Italy. 
 
 32 So Servius. In the same manner Kara irog eKaarov. Thucyd. iii. 
 58. B. 
 
ft. in. 318—349. ^ENEID. 163 
 
 down from [the possession of] your illustrious lord ? or what 
 fortune, some way suited to your merit, hath visited you once 
 more ? Is then Hector's Andromache bound in wedlock to 
 Pyrrhus ? Downward she cast her eyes, and thus in humble 
 accents [spoke] : O happy, singularly happy, the fate of Priam's 
 virgin-daughter, who, compelled to die at the enemy's tomb 
 under the lofty walls of Troy, suffered not in having any lots 
 cast for her, nor as a captive ever touched the bed of a victor 
 lord ! We, after the burning of our country, being trans- 
 ported over various seas, have in thraldom borne with a mo- 
 ther's throes the insolence of Achilles' heir, and a haughty, 
 imperious youth ; who afterwards, attaching himself to Her- 
 mione, 33 the granddaughter of Leda, and a Lacedaemonian 
 match, delivered me over a slave into the possession of a slave, 
 Helenus. But Orestes, 34 inflamed by the violence of love to 
 his betrothed snatched from him, and hurried on by the Furies 
 of his crimes, surprises him in an unguarded hour, and assas- 
 sinates him at his paternal altar. By the death of Neoptole- 
 mus, a part of his kingdom fell to Helenus ; who denominated 
 the plains Chaonian, and the whole country Chabnia, from the 
 Trojan Chaon, and built on the mountains [another] Perga- 
 mus and this Trojan fort. But what winds, what fates, have 
 guided your course ? or what god hath landed you on our 
 coasts without your knowledge ? What is become of the boy 
 Ascanius ? Lives he still, and breathes the vital air ? whom 
 to your care, when Troy was Has the boy now any con- 
 cern for the loss of his mother ? Is he incited, by both his 
 father iEneas and his uncle Hector, to ancient valour and 
 manly courage ? 
 
 Thus bathed in tears she spoke, and heaved long unavailing 
 sobs ; when the hero Helenus, Priam's son, advances from the 
 city with a numerous retinue, knows his friends ? with joy 
 conducts them to his palace, and sheds tears in abundance 
 between each word. I set forward, and survey the little 
 
 33 Hermione, the (laughter of Menelaus and Helen, was married to 
 Pyrrhus, (Neoptolemus,) the son of Achilles ; but having been previously 
 promised to Orestes, Pyrrhus was assassinated, when she became the 
 wife of Orestes. 
 
 34 Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, and the faithful friend of Pylades. 
 Having slain his mother Clytemnestra and her paramour Egisthus, because 
 they had murdered his father, Orestes was tormented by the Furies, ai:d 
 exiled himself to Argos, the throne of which he afterwards filled. 
 
 m2 
 
164 JENEID. b. in. 350—377 
 
 Troy, the castle of Pergamus resembling the great original, 
 and a scanty rivulet bearing the name of Xanthus ; and I 
 embrace the threshold of a Scaean gate. The Trojans too, at 
 the same time, enjoy the friendly city. The king entertained 
 them in his spacious galleries. In the midst of the court 
 they quaffed brimmers of wine, while the banquet was served 
 in gold, and each stood with a goblet in his hand. 
 
 And now one day, and a second, passed on, when the gales 
 invite our sails, and the canvass bellies by the swelling south 
 wind. In these words I accost the prophet, [Helenus,] and 
 question him thus : Son of Troy, interpreter of the gods, who 
 knowest the divine will of Phoebus, the tripods, the laurels 
 of the Clarian 35 god; who knowest the stars, the ominous 
 sounds of birds, and the prognostics of the swift wing, 36 come, 
 declare (for [hitherto the omens of] religion have pronounced 
 my whole voyage to be prosperous, and all the gods, by their 
 divine will, have directed me to go in pursuit of Italy, and 
 attempt a settlement in lands remote: the Harpy Celaeno 
 alone predicts a prodigy strange and horrible to relate, and 
 denounces direful vengeance and foul famine) what are the 
 principal dangers I am to shun ? or by the pursuit of what 
 means may I surmount toils so great ? Upon this Helenus 
 first solicits the peace of the gods by sacrificing bullocks in 
 due form, then unbinds the fillets of his consecrated head, 
 and himself leads me by the hand to thy temple, O Phoebus, 
 anxious with great awe of the god ; then the priest, from his 
 lips divine, delivers these predictions :| Goddess-born, (for that 
 you steer through the deep under some higher auspices, is un- 
 questionably evident ; so the sovereign of the gods dispenses 
 his decree ; thus he fixes the series of revolving events ; such 
 a scheme of things is coming to its accomplishment,) that you 
 may with greater safety cross the seas to which you are a 
 
 35 Clarian god, a name of Apollo, from Claros, a city of Ionia, where 
 he had a famous temple and oracle. 
 
 K Volucrum linguas, et praspetis omina pennae. Some birds were sub- 
 servient to divination by the sounds they uttered, and these were called 
 " Oscines ; " of which land were the crows, ravens, &c. Hor. iii. Carm. 
 Ode xxvii. 2, 
 
 Oscinem corvum prece suscitabo 
 Solis ad ortu. 
 Others, again, answered the same end by their manner of flying, Ural 
 v.ere called " Praebetes." 
 
b. in. 378—410 ^ENEID. 1G5 
 
 stranger, and settle in the Ausonian port, I will unfold to you 
 a few particulars of many ; for the Destinies 37 prevent you 
 from knowing the rest, and Saturnian Juno forbids Helenus 
 to reveal it. First of all, a long intricate voyage, with a 
 length of lands, divides [you from] Italy, which you unwit- 
 tingly deem already near, and whose ports you are preparing 
 to enter, as if just at hand. You must both ply the bending 
 oar in the Trinacrian wave, and visit with your fleet the 
 plains of the Ausonian Sea, the infernal lakes, and the isle of 
 ^Esean Circe, before you can build a city in a quiet, peaceful 
 land. I will declare the signs to you: do you keep them 
 treasured up in your mind. When, thoughtfully musing by 
 the streams of the secret river, you shall find a large sow that 
 has brought forth a litter of thirty young, reclining on the 
 ground, under the holms that shade the banks, white [the 
 dam], the offspring white around her dugs : that shall be the 
 station of the city ; there is the period fixed to thy labours. 
 Nor be disturbed at the future event of eating your tables : 
 the Fates will find out an expedient, and Apollo invoked will 
 befriend you. But shun those coasts, and those nearest limits 
 of the Italian shore, which are washed by the tide of our sea : 
 all those cities are inhabited by the mischievous Greeks. Here 
 the Narycian Locrians have raised their walls, and Cretan 
 Idomeneus with his 'troops has possessed the plains of Salen- 
 tum : here stands that little city Petilia, defended by the walls 
 of Philoctetes 38 the Meliboean chief. [Remember] also (when 
 your fleet, having crossed the seas, shall come to a station, 
 and you shall pay your vows at the altar raised on the shore) 
 to cover your head, muffling yourself in a purple veil, lest 
 the face of an enemy, amidst the sacred fires in honour of the 
 gods, appear, and disturb the omens. This 'custom, in sacri- 
 fice, let your friends, this yourself observe ; to this religious 
 institution let your pious descendants adhere. But when, 
 after setting out, the wind shall waft you to the Sicilian coast, 
 
 * 7 The Destinies, or Fates, deities who presided over the birth anil 
 the life of mankind. They were three in number, Clotho, Lachesis, and 
 Atropos, daughters of Nox and Erebus, or, according to others, of Jupiter 
 and Themis. 
 
 38 Philoctetes, the son of Poean, king of Meliboea in Thessaly. After 
 bis return from the Trojan war, he settled in Italy, where he built the 
 town of Petilia (Strongoli) in Calabria. 
 
i66 ^NEID. b. in. 411— 447. 
 
 and the straits of narrow Pelorus 39 shall open wider to the 
 eye, veer to the land on the left, and to the sea on the left, by 
 a long circuit ; fly the right both sen and shore. These lands, 
 they say, once with violence and vast' desolation convulsed, 
 (such revolutions a long course of time is able to produce,) 
 slipped asunder ; when in continuity both lands were one, the 
 sea rushed impetuously^ between, and by its waves tore the 
 Italian side from that of Sicily ; and with a narrow frith runs 
 between the fields and cities separated by the shores. Scylla 
 guards the right side, implacable Charybdis 40 the left, and thrice 
 with the deepest eddies ot its gulf swallows up the vast billows, 
 headlong in, and again spouts them out by turns high into the 
 air, and lashes the stars with the waves. But Scylla a cave, 
 confines within its dark recesses, reaching forth her jaws, and 
 sucking in vessels upon the rocks. First she presents a human 
 form, a lovely virgin down to the middle ; her lower parts are 
 those of a hideous sea-monster, with the tails of dolphins 
 joined to the wombs of wolves. It is better with delay to 
 coast round the extremities of Sicilian Pachynus, 41 and steer 
 a long winding course, than once to behold the misshapen 
 Scylla under her capacious den, and those rocks that roar 
 with her sea-green dogs. Further, if Helenus has any skill, 
 if any credit is due to him as a prophet, if Apollo stores his 
 mind with truth, I will give you this one previous admonition, 
 this one, goddess-born, above all the rest, and I will inculcate 
 it upon you again and again : Be sure you, in the first place, 
 with supplications worship great Juno's divinity; to Juno 
 cheerfully address your vows, and overcome the powerful queen 
 with humble offerings: thus, at length, leaving Trinacria, 
 you shall be dismissed victorious to the territories of Italy. 
 When, wafted thither, you reach the city Cumae, the hallowed 
 lakes, and Avernus resounding through the woods, you will 
 see the raving prophetess, who, beneath a deep rock, reveals 
 the fates, and commits to the leaves of trees her characters 
 and words. Whatever verses the virgin has inscribed on the 
 leaves, she ranges in harmonious order, and leaves in the 
 cave enclosed by themselves : uncovered they remain in their 
 
 39 Pelorus, (Cape Peloro,) one of the three principal promontories ol 
 Sicily, separated from Italy by the straits of Messina. 
 
 40 Charybdis, a dangerous whirlpool on the coast of Sicily, opposite 
 Scylla, on the coast of Italy. 
 
 41 Pachynus, (Cape Passaro,) the south-eastern promontory of Sicily. 
 
it. in. 448— 481. -3ENEID. K>7 
 
 position, nor recede from their order. But when, upon 
 turning the hinge, a small breath of wind has blown upon 
 them, and the door [by opening] has discomposed the tender 
 leaves, she never afterwards cares to catch the verses as they 
 are fluttering in the hollow cave, nor to recover their situation, 
 or join them together. Men depart without a response, and 
 detest the Sibyl's 42 grot. Let not the loss of some time there 
 seem of such consequence to you, (though your friends chide, 
 and your voyage strongly invite your sails into the deep, and 
 you may have an opportunity to fill the bellying canvass with 
 a prosperous gale,) as to hinder you from visiting the pro- 
 phetess, and earnestly entreating her to deliver the oracles 
 herself, and vouchsafe to open her lips in vocal accents. She 
 will declare to you the Italian nations, and your future wars, 
 and by what means you may shun or sustain each hardship ; 
 and, with reverence addressed, will give you a successful voy- 
 age. These are all the instructions I am at liberty to give 
 you. Go then, and by your achievements raise mighty Troy 
 to heaven. Which words when the prophet had thus with 
 friendly voice pronounced, he next orders presents to be 
 carried to the ships, heavy with gold and ivory ; and within 
 the sides of my vessel stows a large quantity of silver plate, 
 and caldrons of Dodonean brass, a mail thick set with rings, 
 and wrought in gold of triple tissue, together with the cone 
 and waving crest of a shining helmet, arms which belonged 
 to Neoptolemus : my father too has proper gifts conferred on 
 him. He gives us horses besides, and gives us guides. He 
 supplies us with rowers, and at the same time furnishes our 
 crew with arms. Meanwhile Anchises gave orders to equip 
 our fleet with sails, that we might not be late for the favour- 
 ing gale. Whom the interpreter of Apollo accosts with much 
 respect : AnchiseS, honoured with the illustrious bed of Ve*ius, 
 \hou care of the gods, twice snatched from the ruins of Troy, 
 lo ! there the coast of Ausonia lies before you ; thither speed 
 your way with full sail : and yet you must needs steer your 
 course beyond. That part of Ausonia which Apollo opens lies 
 remote. Go, says he, happy in the pious duty of your son : why 
 do I further insist, and by my discourse retard the rising gales ? 
 
 42 The Sibyls were certain women supposed to be inspired, who flour- 
 ished in different parts of the world. According to Varro, the number of 
 the Sibyls was ten, of whom the most celebrated was that of Cumae in 
 Italy. 
 
168 .ENEID. b. in. 482—517 
 
 In like manner Andromache, grieved at our final departure, 
 brings forth for Ascanius vestments wrought in figures of 
 gold, and a Phrygian cloak ; nor falls short of his dignity : 43 
 she loads him also with presents of her labours in the loom, 
 and thus addresses him, Take these too, my child, which may 
 be memorials to you of my handy work, and testify the per- 
 manent affection of Andromache, the spouse of Hector : ac- 
 cept the last presents of thy friends. O image, which is all 
 that I have now left of my Astyanax ! j ust such eyes, such 
 hands, such looks he showed ; and now of equal age with you, 
 would have been blooming into youth. I, with tears in my 
 eyes, thus addressed them at parting : Live in felicity, ye 
 whose fortune is now accomplished : we are summoned from 
 fate to fate. To you tranquillity is secured ; no expanse of 
 sea have you to plough, or to pursue the ever-retreating lands 
 of Ausonia. You behold the image of Xanthus, and the Troy 
 which your own hands have built: Heaven grant it be with 
 happier auspices, and be less obnoxious to the Greeks. If 
 ever I shall enter the Tiber, and the lands that border on the 
 Tiber, and view the walls allotted to my race, we will here- 
 after make of our kindred cities an allied people, [yours] in 
 Epirus, [and mine] in Italy, who have> both the same founder, 
 Dardanus, and the same fortune ; [we will, I say, make] of 
 both one Troy, in good- will. Be this the future care of our 
 posterity. 
 
 We pursue our voyage near the adjacent Ceraunian moun- 
 tains ; whence lies our way, and the shortest course by sea to 
 Italy. Meanwhile the sun goes down, and the dusky moun- 
 tains are wrapped up in shade. On the hpsom of the wished- 
 for earth we throw ourselves down by the waves, having 
 distributed the oars by lot, and all along the dry beach we re- 
 fresh our frames [with food] ; sleep diffuses its dews over our 
 weary limbs. Night, driven by the hours, had not yet reached 
 her mid-way course, when Palinurus springs alert from his 
 bed, examines every wind, and lends his ears to catch the 
 breeze. He marks every star gliding in the silent sky, Arc- 
 turus, the rainy Hyades, and the two northern Bears, and 
 throws his eyes round Orion armed with gold. After having 
 
 43 i. e. "her presents are such as his merits deserve." Scaurus, as 
 we learn from Servius, read " hc-nore," which certainly seems mor2 
 simple. B. 
 
D. in. 518— 553. JENEID. 169 
 
 seen all appearances of settled weather in the serene sky, he 
 gives the loud signal from the stern : we decamp, attempt our 
 voyage, and expand the wings of our sails. And now the 
 stars being chased away, blushing Aurora appeared, when far 
 off we espy the hills obscure, and lowly Italy. Italy ! Achates 
 first called aloud ; Italy the crew with joyous acclamations 
 hail. Then father Anchises decked a capacious bowl with a 
 garland, and filled it up with wine ; and invoked the gods, 
 standing on the lofty stern : Ye gods who rule sea, and land, 
 and storms, grant us a prosperous voyage by the wind, and 
 breathe propitious. The wished-for gales begin to swell ; and 
 now the port opens nearer to our view, and on a height ap- 
 pears the temple of Minerva. Our crew furl the sails, and 
 turn about their prows to the shore. Where the wave breaks 
 from the east, the port bends into an arch; the jutting cliffs 
 foam with the briny spray ; [the port] itself lies hidden : two 
 turret-like rocks stretch out their arms in a double wall, and 
 the temple recedes from the shore. Here, on the grassy 
 meadow, I saw, as our first omen, four snow-white steeds 
 grazing the plain at large. And father Anchises [calls out], 
 War, O hospitable land, thou betokenest ; 44 for war steeds are 
 harnessed ; war these cattle threaten : but yet, the same qua- 
 drupeds having long been used to submit to the chariot, and 
 in the yoke to bear the peaceful reins, there is hope, also, of 
 peace, he says. Then we address our prayers to the sacred 
 majesty of Pallas, with clashing arms arrayed, who first re- 
 ceived us elated with joy ; and before her altars we veiled our 
 heads with a Phrygian veil ; and according to the instructions 
 of Helenus, on which he laid the greatest stress, in due form 
 we offer up to Argive Juno the honours enjoined. Without 
 delay, as soon as we had regularly fulfilled our vows, we turn 
 about the extremities of our sail-yards, and quit the abodes 
 and suspected territories of the sons of Greece. Next is seen 
 the bay of Tarentum, sacred to Hercules, if report be true ; 
 and the Lacinian 45 goddess rears herself opposite : the towers 
 of Caulon 46 [also appear], and Scylaceum infamous for ship- 
 
 44 Cf. Mn. iv. 840, " tristia omnia portans." Petron. § 124, " incendia 
 portat." See also Westerhov. on Ter. Andr. i. 1, 46. B. 
 
 45 Lacinian goddess ; that is, Juno Lacinia, who had a celebrated tem- 
 ple near Crotona, a city of Calabria in Italy. 
 
 46 Caulon and Scylaceum, (Squillace,) "both towns of Calabria, south 
 of Crotona. 
 
170 ^ENEID. n. m. 554— 588 
 
 wrecks*. Then, far from the waves, is seen Trinacrian iEtna ; 
 and from a distance we hear the loud growling of the ocean, 
 the beaten rocks, and the murmurs of breakers on the coast : 
 the deep 47 leaps up, and sands are mingled with the tide. And, 
 [says] father Anchises, Doubtless this is the famed Charybdis ; 
 these shelves, these hideous rocks Helenus foretold. Rescue 
 us, my friends, and with equal ardour rise on your oars. They 
 do no otherwise than bidden; and first Palinurus whirled 
 about the creaking prow to the left waters. The whole crew, 
 with oars and sails, bore to the left. We mount up to heaven 
 on the arched gulf, and down again we settle to the shades 
 below, the wave having retired. Thrice the rocks bellowed 
 amid their hollow caverns ; thrice we saw the foam dashed 
 up, and the stars drenched with its dewy moisture. 
 
 Meanwhile the wind with the sun forsook us spent with 
 toil ; and not knowing our course, we near the coasts of the 
 Cyclops. The port itself is ample, and undisturbed by the 
 access of the winds ; but, near it, ^Etna thunders with horri- 
 ble ruins, and sometimes sends forth to the skies a black cloud, 
 ascending in a pitchy whirlwind of smoke and glowing em- 
 bers ; throws up balls of flame, and kisses the stars : some- 
 times, belching, hurls forth rocks and the shattered bowels of 
 the mountain, and with a rumbling noise wreaths aloft the 
 molten rocks, and boils up from its lowest bottom. It is said 
 that the body of Enceladus, 48 half consumed with lightning, is 
 pressed down by this pile, and that cumbrous JEtna, laid 
 above him, spouts forth flames from its burst furnaces ; and 
 that, as often as he shifts his weary side, all Trinacria, 49 with 
 a groan, inly trembles, and overshades the heavens with smoke. 
 Lying that night under the covert of the woods, we suffer 
 from those hideous prodigies ; nor see what cause produced 
 the sound. For neither was there the light of the stars, nor 
 was the sky enlightened by the starry firmament ; but gloom 
 was over the dusky sky, and a night of extreme darkness 
 muffled up the moon in clouds. 
 
 And now the next day with the first dawn was rising, and 
 
 47 " Vada" must not be rendered " shallows." See Heyne. B. 
 
 48 Enceladus, the son of Titan and Terra, and the most powerful of all 
 the giants, who conspired against Jupiter. According to the poets, he was 
 struck with Jupiter's thunders, and overwhelmed under Mount ^Etna. 
 
 49 Trinacria, an ancient name of the island of Sicily, from its three 
 promontories. 
 
B. in. 589— G26. JENEID. 171 
 
 Aurora had dissipated the humid shades from the sky ; when 
 suddenly a strange figure of a man unknown to us, emaciated 
 to the last degree, and in a lamentable plight, stalks from the 
 woods, and, with the air of a suppliant, stretches forth his 
 hands to the shore. We look back: he was in horrid filth, 
 his beard overgrown, 50 his garment tagged with thorns ; but, 
 in all besides, he was a Greek, and had formerly been sent to 
 Troy accompanying the arms of his country. As soon as he de- 
 scried our Trojan dress and arms, struck with terror at the 
 sight, he paused a while, and stopped his progress : a moment 
 after, rushed headlong to the shore with tears and prayers. I 
 conjure you, [says he,] by the stars, by the powers above, by 
 this celestial light of life, ye Trojans, snatch me hence; con- 
 vey me to any climes whatever, I shall be satisfied. It is true, 
 I am one who belonged to the Grecian fleet, and, I confess, I 
 bore arms against the walls of Troy : for which, if the demerit 
 of my crime be so heinous, scatter my limbs on the waves, 
 and bury them in the vast ocean. If I die, I shall have the 
 satisfaction of dying by the hands of men. He said, and clasp- 
 ing our knees, and wallowing [on the ground], clung to our 
 knees. We urge him to tell who he is, of what family born ; 
 and next to declare what fortune pursues him. My father 
 Anchises frankly gives the youth his right hand, and re-assures 
 his mind by that kind pledge. At length, fear removed, he 
 thus begins : I am a native of Ithaca ; a companion of the un- 
 fortunate Ulysses, Achaemenides my name. I went to Troy, 
 my father Adamastus being poor, but would that my state of 
 life had remained as it was: Here, in the huge den of the 
 Cyciop, my unmindful companions deserted me, while in con- 
 sternation they fled from his cruel abodes. It is an abode of 
 gore and bloody banquets, gloomy within, and vast ; [the Cy- 
 clop] himself, of towering height, beats the stars on high, (ye 
 gods, avert such a pest from the earth !) fiercely scowling in 
 his aspect, and inaccessible to every mortal : he feeds on the 
 entrails and purple blood of hapless wretches. I myself be- 
 held, when, having grasped in 1 his rapacious hand two of our 
 number, as he lay stretched on his back in the middle of the 
 cave, he dashed them against the stones, and the bespattered 
 pavement floated with their blood : I beheld, when he ground 
 
 50 Cf. Sisenna apud Non. ii. 471, " Coraplures menses barba immiss#, 
 ot iiitonsb capilio." B. 
 
172 ^ENEID. b. hi. 627-661. 
 
 their members distilling black gore, and their throbbing limbs 
 quivered under his teeth. 51 Not with impunity, it is true ; such 
 barbarity Ulysses suffered not [to pass unrevenged], nor was 
 the prince of Ithaca forgetful of himself in that critical hour. 
 For as soon as, glutted with his banquet, and buried in wine, 
 he reposed his reclined neck to rest, and lay at his enormous 
 length along the cave, disgorging blood in his sleep, and gob- 
 bets intermixed with gory wine ; we, having implored the 
 great gods, and distributed our several parts by lot, pour in 
 upon him on all hands at once, and with our pointed javelins 
 bore out the huge single eye which was sunk under his lower- 
 ing front, like a Grecian buckler, or the orb of Phoebe ; and 
 at length we joyfully avenge the manes of our friends. But 
 fly, ah wretches ! fly, and tear the cables from the shore. For 
 such and so vast Polyphemus 52 [is, who] pens in his hollow 
 cave the fleecy flocks, and drains their dugs, a hundred other 
 direful Cyclops commonly haunt these winding shores, and 
 roam on the lofty mountains. The horns of the moon are now 
 filling up with light for the third time, while in these woods, 
 among the desert dens and holds of wild beasts, I linger out 
 my life, and descry from the rock the vast Cyclops, and quake 
 at the sound of their feet and voice. The berries and the 
 stony cornels, which the branches supply, form my wretched 
 sustenance, and the herbs feed me with their plucked up roots. 
 Casting my eyes around on every object, this fleet I espied 
 first steering to the shore ; to it I was resolved to give up my- 
 self, whatever it had been ; it suffices me that I have escaped 
 from that horrid crew. Do you rather destroy this life by 
 any sort of death. Scarcely had he spoken this, when on 
 the summit of the mountain we observe the shepherd Poly- 
 phemus himself, stalking with his enormous bulk among his 
 flocks, and seeking the shore, his usual haunt ; a horrible 
 monster, mis-shapen, vast, of sight deprived. The trunk of a 
 pine guides his hand, and makes firm his steps: his fleecy 
 sheep accompany him ; this his sole delight, and the solace of 
 his distresses : \_from his neck his whistle hangs. 53 j After 
 
 51 The reader may compare Horn. Od. I. 288; Eur. Cycl. 379 sqq.; 
 Ovid Met. xiv. 205 sqq. B. 
 
 92 Polyphemus, a son of Neptune, and king of the Cyclops. He is re- 
 presented as a monster of great strength, with one eye in the middle of 
 the forehead, which Ulysses put out as he was asleep. 
 
 6J A spurious attempt to fill up the verse. B. 
 
i3. in. 662— 694 JhlNEID. 173 
 
 he touched the deep floods, and arrived at the sea, he therewith 
 washes away the trickling gore from his quenched orb, gnash- 
 ing his teeth with a groan : and now he stalks through the 
 midst of the sea, while the waves have not yet wetted his 
 gigantic sides. We, in consternation, hasten our flight far 
 from that shore, having received our suppliant, who thus 
 merited our favour ; we silently cut the cable, and bending 
 forward, sweep the sea with struggling oars. He perceived, 
 and at the sound turned his steps. But when no opportunity 
 is afforded him to reach us with his eager grasp, and he is 
 unable in pursuing us to equal the Ionian waves, he raises a 
 prodigious yell, wherewith the sea and every wave deeply 
 trembled, and Italy, to its inmost bounds, was affrighted, and 
 -ZEtna bellowed through its winding caverns. Meanwhile the 
 race of the Cyclops, roused from the woods and lofty moun- 
 tains, rush to the port, and crowd the shore. We perceive the 
 JEtnean brothers, standing side by side in vain, with lowering 
 eye, bearing their heads aloft to heaven ; a horrid assembly : 
 as when aerial oaks, or cone-bearing cypresses, Jove's lofty 
 wood, or Diana's grove, together rear their towering tops. 
 Sharp fear impels our crew to tack about to any quarter what- 
 ever, and spread their sails to any favourable wind. • On the 
 other hand, the commands of Helenus warn them not to con- 
 tinue their course between Scylla and Charybdis, a path which 
 borders on death on either hand : our resolution [therefore] 
 is, to sail backward. 
 
 And lo ! the north- wind sent from the narrow seat of Pe- 
 lorus comes to our aid. I am wafted beyond the mouth of 
 Pantagia, 54 formed of natural rock, the bay of Megara, and 
 low -lying Tapsus. These Achgemenides, the associate of 
 accursed Ulysses, pointed out to us, as backward he cruised 
 along the scenes of his wanderings. 
 
 Before the Sicilian bay outstretched lies an island opposite 
 to rough Plemmyrium ; 55 the ancients called its name Orty- 
 gia. 56 It is said, that Alpheus, a river of Elis, hath hither 
 
 54 Pantagia, a small but rapid river on the eastern coast of Sicily, be- 
 tween Catana and Syracuse. Tapsus, a peninsula in the bay of Megara, 
 north of Syracuse. 
 
 55 Plemmyrium, a promontory in the bay of Syracuse. 
 
 56 Ortygia, a small island within the same bay, in which was the cele 
 brated fountain Arethusa. 
 
174 
 
 JENEID. 
 
 b. in. 695—718. 
 
 worked a secret channel under the sea ; which, by thy mouth, 
 
 Arethusa, is now blended with the Sicilian waves. We 
 venerate the great divinities of the place, as commanded ; and 
 thence I pass the too luxuriant soil of the overflowing Helo- 
 rus. 57 Hence we skim along the high cliffs and prominent 
 rocks of Pachynus ; and at a distance appears Camarina, by 
 fate forbidden to be ever removed ; the Geloian plains and 
 huge Gela, called by the name of the river. Next lofty Acra- 
 gas 58 shows from far its stately walls, once the breeder of 
 generous steeds. And thee, Selinus, fruitful in palms, I leave, 
 by means of the given winds ; and I trace my way through 
 the shallows of Lilybeum, 69 dangerous through its hidden 
 rocks. Hence the port and joyless coast of Drepanum receive 
 me. Here, alas ! after being tossed by so many storms at sea, 
 
 1 lose my sire Anchises, my solace in every care and suffer- 
 ing. Here thou, best of fathers, whom in vain, alas ! I saved 
 from so great dangers, forsakest me spent with toils. Neither 
 prophetic Helenus, when he gave me many fearful warnings, 
 nor dire Celasno, predicted to me this mournful stroke. This 
 was my finishing disaster, this the termination of my long 
 tedious voyage. Parting hence, a god directed me to your 
 coasts. 
 
 Thus father iEneas, while all sat attentive, alone recounted 
 the destiny allotted to him by the gods, and gave a history of 
 his voyage. He ceased at length, and, having here finished 
 his relation, rested. 
 
 57 Helorus, (Abisso,) a river of Sicily, south of Syracuse, which over- 
 flowed its banks at certain seasons. Camarina, a lake, and Gela, a city 
 on the southern coast of Sicily. 
 
 58 Acragas, called also Agrigentum, (Girgenti,) a celebrated city of 
 Sicily, built on a mountain of the same name. Selinus, a city in the 
 south-west of Sicily, the vicinity of which "abounded with palm-trees. 
 
 59 Lilybeum, (Cape Boee,) one of the three famous promontories oj 
 Sicily. Drepanum, (Trapani,) a town on the western coast of Sicily 
 near Mount Erix, where Anchises died. 
 
x tv. 1—28. ^NETD. ITS 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 In the Fourth Book, Queen Dido becomes deeply enamoured of JEneas, to 
 whom she proffers her hand and her crown ; but, on finding him deter- 
 mined, in obedience to the command of the gods, to leave Carthage, rage 
 and despair took possession of the unhappy queen. At last, the sudden 
 departure of iEneas led to the fatal catastrophe of her death, by her own 
 hand, on the funeral pile which she had erected. 
 
 But the queen, long since pierced with painful care, feeds the 
 wound in her veins, and is consumed by unseen flames. 1 The 
 many virtues of the hero, the many honours of his race, recur 
 to her thoughts : his looks and words dwell fixed in her soul : 
 nor does care allow calm rest to her limbs. Returning Aurora 
 now illuminated the earth with the lamp of Phoebus, and had 
 chased away the dewy shades from the sky, when she, half- 
 frenzied, thus addresses her sympathizing sister : Sister Anna, 
 what dreams terrify and distract my mind ! What think you 
 of 2 this wondrous guest who has come to our abodes ? In mien 
 how graceful he appears ! in manly fortitude and warlike deeds 
 how great ! I am fully persuaded (nor is my belief ground- 
 less) that he is the oifspring of the gods. Fear argues a de- 
 generate mind. Ah ! by what fatal disasters has he been 
 tossed ! what toils of war he sang, endured to the last ! 3 Had 
 I not been fixed and stedfast in my resolution, never to join 
 myself to any in the bonds of wedlock, since my first love by 
 death mocked and disappointed me ; had I not been thoroughly 
 tired of the marriage-bed and nuptial torch, to this one frailty 
 I might perhaps give way. Anna, (for I will own it,) since 
 the decease of my unhappy spouse Sichasus, and since the house- 
 hold gods were stained with his blood shed by a brother, this 
 [stranger] alone has warped my inclinations, and interested 
 my wavering mind : I recognise the symptoms of my former 
 flame. But sooner may earth from her lowest depths yawn 
 for me, or the almighty Sire hurl me by his thunder to the 
 shades, the pale shades of Erebus and deep night, than I vio- 
 late thee, modesty, or break thy laws. He who first linked 
 
 1 Cf. Aristenet. Ep. ii. 5, kKfioaKtrai yap fik rig dvepjjirjvevroQ odvvrj. B. 
 
 2 Davidson has better expressed the force of this Greek construction 
 than Anthon. Cf. Soph. Ant. 7; El. 328; Msch. Ch. 8. B. 
 
 * Literally, " drained to the dregs." Cf. ^En. x. 57. B. 
 
176 ^NEID. b. iv. 28—60 
 
 me to himself hath borne away my affection ; may he possess 
 it still, and retain it in his grave. This said, she filled her 
 bosom with trickling tears. \ Anna replies : O dearer to your 
 sister than the light, will you thus in mournful solitude waste 
 your bloom of youth, nor know the dear delights of children, 
 and rewards of love ? Think you that ashes and the buried 
 dead care for that ? 4 What though no lovers moved you before, 
 when your sorrows were green, either in Libya, or before in 
 Tyre ? what though Iarbas 5 was slighted, and other princes 
 whom Afric, fertile in triumphs, maintains ? Will you also re- 
 sist a flame which you approve ? Will you not reflect in whose 
 country you now reside ? Here the Getulian 6 cities, a race 
 invincible in war, unrestrained Numidians, and inhospitable 
 quicksands, enclose you round ; there, a region by thirst 
 turned into a desert, and the wide-raging Barcaeans. Why 
 should I mention the kindling wars from Tyre, and the me- 
 naces of your brother ? It was surely, I think, under the 
 auspices of the gods, and by the favour of Juno, that the Tro- 
 jan ships steered their course to this our coast. O sister, how 
 flourishing shall you see this city, how potent your kingdom 
 rise from such a match ! By what high exploits shall the Car- 
 thaginian glory be advanced, when the Trojan's arms join 
 them ! Do thou but supplicate the favour of the gods, and, 
 having performed propitiating rites, indulge in hospitality, 
 and devise one pretence after another for detaining [your 
 guest], while winter's fury rages on the sea, and Orion charged 
 with rain ; while his ships are shattered, and the sky is in- 
 clement. 
 
 By this speech she fanned the fire of love kindled in Dido's 
 breast, buoyed up her wavering mind with hope, and banished 
 her scruples. First to the temples they repair, and by sacri- 
 fice the peace of heaven implore : to Ceres the lawgiver, to 
 Phoebus, and to father Bacchus, they offer ewes of the age of 
 two years, according to custom ; above all to Juno, whose 
 province is the nuptial tie. Dido herself, in all her beauty, 
 
 4 Petron. § iii. " Id cineres, aut manes credis sepultos sentire ?" B. 
 
 5 Iarbas, a son of Jupiter and Garamantis, and king of Getulia, from 
 whom Dido bought land to build Carthage. He was a lover of the queen 
 at the time iEneas came to Carthage. 
 
 6 Getulians, Numidians, &c, the inhabitants of countries in Northern 
 Africa, now Algiers, Barbary, &c. 
 
B . iv. 61— 100. J3NE1D. 177 
 
 holding in her right hand the cup, pours it between the horns 
 cf a white heifer ; or before the images of the gods in solemn 
 pomp around the rich-loaded altars walks, renews one offering 
 after another all the day long, and, gaping over the disclosed 
 breasts of the victims, consults their panting entrails. Alas ! 
 how ignorant the minds of seers ! what can prayers, what can 
 temples, avail a raging lover ? The gentle Hame preys all the 
 while upon her vitals, and the secret wound rankles in her 
 breast. Unhappy Dido burns, and frantic roves over all the 
 town ; like a wounded deer, whom, off her guard, a shepherd 
 pursuing with his darts has pierced at a distance among the 
 Cretan woods, and unknowingly [in the wound] hath left the 
 winged steel : she flying bounds over the Dictaean woods and 
 glades : the fatal shaft sticks in her side. Now she conducts 
 JEneas through the midst of her fortifications ; shows him both 
 the treasures brought from Tyre, and her new city : she be- 
 gins to speak, and stops short in the middle of a word. When 
 day declines, she longs to have the same banquets renewed ; 
 and, fond even to madness, begs again to hear the Trojan 
 disasters, and again hangs on the speaker's lips. Now, when 
 they had severally retired, while the fading moon in her alter- 
 nate course withdraws her light, and the setting stars invite 
 sleep, she mourns alone in the desert hall, presses the couch 
 which he had left, and in fancy hears and sees the absent 
 hero ; or, captivated with the father's image, hugs Ascanius 
 in her bosom, if possibly she may divert her unutterable love. 
 The towers which were begun cease to rise ; her youth prac- 
 tise not their warlike exercises, nor prepare ports and bulwarks 
 for war ; the works and the huge battlements on the walls, 
 and the engines that mate the skies, are discontinued. 
 
 Whom when Jove's beloved wife perceived to be thus pos- 
 sessed with the blighting passion, and that even sense of 
 honour could not resist its rage, Saturnia thus artfully ad* 
 dresses Venus : Distinguished praise, no doubt, and ample 
 spoils, you and your boy carry off, high and signal renown, if 
 one woman is overcome by the wiles of two deities. Nor am 
 I quite ignorant, that you apprehend danger from our walls, 
 and view the structures of lofty Carthage with a jealous eye. 
 But where will all this end ? or what do we now propose by 
 such hot contention ? Why do not we rather promote an eternal 
 peace, and nuptial contract ? You have your whole soul's do- 
 
 N 
 
178 ^NEID. b. iv. 101—129 
 
 sire ; Dido burns with love, and has sucked the fury into her 
 very bones. Let us therefore rule this people in common, 
 and under equal sway : let Dido be at liberty to bind herself 
 in wedlock to a Trojan lord, and into thy hand deliver over 
 the Tyrians by way of dowry. 
 
 To whom Yenus (for she perceived that she spoke with an 
 insincere mind, with a design to transfer the seat of empire 
 from Italy to the Libyan coasts) thus in her turn began : 
 Who can be so mad as to reject these terms, and rather choose 
 to engage in war with you, would fortune but concur with the 
 scheme which you mention ? But I am driven to an uncer- 
 tainty by the Fates, [not knowing] whether it be the will of 
 Jupiter that the Tyrians and Trojans should dwell in one city, 
 or if he will approve the union of the two nations, and the 
 joining of alliance. You are his consort: to you it belongs 
 by entreaty to work upon his mind. Lead you the way ; I 
 will follow. Then imperial Juno thus replied : That task 
 be mine : meanwhile (mark my words) I will briefly show by 
 what means our present design may be accomplished. iEneas 
 and most unhappy Dido are preparing to hunt together in the 
 forest, soon as to-morrow's sun shall have brought forth the 
 early dawn, and enlightened the world with his beams. While 
 the [bright-hued] plumage flutters, 7 and they enclose the 
 thickets with toils, I will pour on them from above a blacken- 
 ing storm of rain with mingled hail, and with peals of thunder 
 make heaven's whole frame to shake. Their retinue shall fly 
 different ways, and be covered with a dark night [of clouds]. 
 Dido and the Trojan prince shall repair to the same cave : 
 there will I be present, and, if I have your firm consent, I will 
 join them in the lasting bonds of wedlock, and consecrate her 
 to be his for ever. The god of marriage 8 shall be there. Yenus, 
 without any opposition, agreed to her proposal, and smiled at 
 the fraud she discovered. 
 
 Meanwhile Aurora rising left the ocean. Soon as the beams 
 
 7 This is the proper meaning of "alae." Cf. Ovid. Met. i. 106. In 
 minting, nets were drawn around a considerable space, within which the 
 beasts were driven. In order to scare them thither, a number of bright- 
 coloured feathers were hung to strings at a little distance, called the 
 " formido." It was chiefly employed in hunting deer. Cf. Ulit. on 
 Gratius Cyneg. 77 and 85. B. 
 
 8 Hymen, the god of marriage, was the son of Bacchus and Venus, or, 
 according to others, of Apollo and one of the Muses. 
 
3. tv. 130—157. ^ENEID. 17^ 
 
 of day shot forth, the chosen youth issue through the gates : 
 the fine nets, the toils, the broad-pointed hunting spears, the 
 Massylian 9 horsemen, and a pack of quick-scented hounds, 
 pour forth together. Before the palace-gate the Carthaginian 
 nobles await the queen lingering in her alcove : her steed, 
 richly caparisoned with purple and gold, ready stands, and 
 fiercely champs the foaming bit. At length she comes at- 
 tended by a numerous retinue, attired in a Sidonian chlamys 
 with embroidered border : she has a quiver of gold ; her 
 tresses are tied in a golden knot ; a golden buckle binds up her 
 purple robe. The Trojan youth, too, and sprightly lulus, 
 accompany the procession. JEneas himself, distinguished in 
 beauty above all the rest, mingles with the retinue, and adds 
 his train to hers : as when Apollo, leaving Lycia, 10 his winter 
 seat, and the streams of Xanthus, revisits his mother's island 
 Delos, and renews the dances : the Cretans, Dryopes, 11 and 
 painted Agathyrsi, 12 mingle their acclamations around his 
 altars : he himself moves majestic oh Cynthus' top, and ad- 
 justing his waving hair, crowns it with a soft wreath, and en- 
 folds it in gold ; his arrows rattle on his shoulders. With no 
 less active grace iEneas moved : such comeliness shines forth 
 in his matchless mien. { Soon as they reached the high moun- 
 tains, and pathless lairs, lo ! from the summit of the craggy 
 cliff the wild goats dislodged skip down the rocks : on the 
 other side the stags scour along the open plains, and gather 
 together in flight their dust- covered squadrons, and forsake 
 the mountains. Now the boy Ascanius delights in his 
 sprightly courser through the enclosed vales ; and now these, 
 
 9 The Massylians, a warlike people of Mauritania in Africa, near Mount 
 Atlas : when they went on horseback, they never used saddles or bridles, 
 but only sticks. 
 
 10 As Dido is before compared to Diana, iEn. i. 498, so ^Eneas here to 
 Apollo, the brother of Diana. It was a common opinion, that the gods at 
 certain times of the year changed their places of residence ; and Servius 
 says it was firmly believed, that Apollo gave responses at Patara, a city of 
 Lycia, during the six months of winter, and at Delos in the summer 
 months. Hence Apollo is called Delius and Patareus, Hor. Carm. iii. 
 
 4, 62. 
 
 qui Lycise tenet 
 
 Dumeta, natalemque silvam, 
 Delius et Patareus Apollo. 
 
 11 Dryopes, a people of Greece, in the vicinity of Mount CEta and 
 Parnassus. 
 
 12 Agathyrsi, an effeminate nation of Scythia. 
 
 N 2 ^ 
 
180 ^NEID. a. iv. 158— 190 
 
 now those he outrides, and devoutly wishes that a foaming 
 boar would cross his way amidst the feeble flocks, or a tawny 
 lion descend from the mountain. 
 
 Meanwhile the air begins to be disturbed with loud murmur- 
 ings ; a deluge of rain with mingled hail succeeds. And here 
 and there the Tyrian train, the Trojan youth, and Venus' 
 grandchild of Dardanian line, for fear sought different shelters 
 through the fields. Whole rivers from the mountains come 
 pouring down. Dido and the Trojan prince repair to the 
 same cave. [Then] first the Earth, and Juno who presides 
 over marriage, gave the signal: lightnings flashed, the sky 
 was a witness to the alliance, and the nymphs were heard to 
 shriek on the mountain tops. That day first proved the 
 source of death, the source of woes : for [now] Dido is neither 
 influenced by appearance nor character, nor is she now studi- 
 ous to carry on clandestine love : she calls it marriage : she 
 veils 13 her guilt under that name. 
 
 Forthwith Fame 14 through the populous city of Libya runs : 
 Fame, than whom no pest is more swift, by exerting her 
 agility grows more active, and acquires strength on her way : 
 small at first through fear ; soon she shoots up into the skies, 
 and stalks along the ground, while she hides her head among the 
 clouds. Parent Earth, enraged by the vengeance of the gods, 
 produced her the youngest sister, it is said of Coeus, and 
 Enceladus, swift to move with feet and persevering wings : a 
 monster hideous, immense ; who (wondrous to relate !) for as 
 many plumes as are in her body, numbers so many wakeful 
 eyes beneath, so many tongues, so many babbling mouths, 
 pricks up so many listening ears. By night, through the mid 
 region of the sky, and through the shades of earth, she flies 
 buzzing, nor inclines her eyes to balmy rest. Watchful by 
 day, she perches either on some high house-top, or on lofty 
 turrets, and fills mighty cities with dismay; as obstinately 
 bent on falsehood and iniquity as on reporting truth. She 
 then, delighted, with various rumours filled the people's ear, 
 and uttered facts and fictions indifferently; [namely,] that 
 
 13 More literally, " she weaves over her fault with this title." D'Orville 
 on Chariton, p. 82, compares Ovid Her. v. 131, "vim licet appelles, et 
 culpam nomine veles." Aristoph. Plut. 159, ovofxari TrepiTrkrovcri ttjv 
 fioxQrjpicLv. 
 
 14 Fame was worshipped by the ancients as a powerful goddess, and 
 generally represented blowing a trumpet, &c. 
 
D. iv. 191— 216. ^ENEID. 181 
 
 iEneas, sprung from Trojan blood, had arrived, whom Dido, 
 with all her charms, vouchsafed to wed ; that now in revelling 
 with each other they enjoyed the winter, throughout its length, 
 unmindful of their kingdoms, and enslaved by a base passion. 
 With such news the foul goddess fills the mouths of the 
 people. To king Iarbus straight she turns her course ; in- 
 flames his soul by her rumours, and aggravates his rage. This 
 Iarbus, the son of Ammon by the ravished nymph Gara- 
 mantis, raised to Jove a hundred lofty temples within hi? 
 extensive realms, a hundred altars ; and there had he conse- 
 crated the wakeful fire, with a sacred watch to keep eternal 
 guard, a piece of ground, fattened with victims' blood, and 
 the gates adorned with wreaths of various flowers. He, 
 maddened in soul, and inflamed by the bitter tidings, is said, 
 before the altars, amid the very presence of the gods, to have 
 [thus] importunately addressed Jupiter in suppliant form 
 with uplifted hands : Almighty Jove, to whom the Maurusian 
 race, that feast on painted couches, now honour thee with a 
 libation of wine, seest thou these things ? or do we vainly 
 dread thee, when thou, O father ! dartest thy thunder-bolts ? 
 and are those lightnings in the clouds that terrify our minds 
 blind and fortuitous, and do they mingle mere idle sounds ? 
 A wandering woman, who hath built in our dominions a small 
 city [on a spot] she purchased ; to whom we assigned a tract 
 of shore for tillage, and upon whom we imposed the laws of 
 the country, hath rejected our proffered match, and hath taken 
 ^Eneas into her kingdom for her lord : and now this other 
 Paris, 15 with his unmanly 16 train, bound under the chin with 
 a Lydian cap, 17 and with his locks bedewed [with odours], 
 
 15 He calls yEneas Paris, both to denote him effeminate, and a ravisher, 
 
 i one who had carried off from him that princess whom he looked upon as 
 I his property, and thought he had a right to marry. In allusion to which 
 i rape, he says at the end of the sentence, rapto potitur. 
 
 16 Is said in allusion to the manner of the Phrygians, who were great 
 ' worshippers of the goddess Cybele, whose priests were eunuchs. 
 
 17 Mseonian or Lydian mitre, a sort of bonnet wore by the Lydian and 
 Phrygian women, a part of dress which would have been quite infamous 
 in a man, especially when it had the redimicula or fillets, wherewith it 
 was tied under the chin, mentum subnexus : 
 
 Vobis picta croco et fulgenti murice vestis ; 
 
 Desidiae cordi ; juvat indulgere choreis ; 
 
 Et tunicae manicas et habent redimicula nitrae : 
 
 O vere Phrvgise, neque enim Phryges I ^En. ix. 14. 
 
182 ^NEID. b. iv. 217—247. 
 
 enjoys the ravished prize: [this we have deserved forsooth,] 
 because we bring offerings to thy temples, and cherish an 
 idle glory. 18 
 
 While in such terms he addressed his prayer, and grasped 
 the altar, the almighty heard, and turned his eyes towards 
 the royal towers [of Carthage], and the lovers regardless of 
 their better fame. Then thus he bespeaks Mercury, and gives 
 him these instructions : Fly quick, my son, call the zephyrs, 
 and on thy pinions glide: and to the Trojan prince, who now 
 loiters in Tyrian Carthage, nor regards the cities allotted him 
 by the Fates, address yourself; and bear [this] my message 
 swiftly through the skies. Not such a one did his fairest 
 mother promise us, nor was it for this she saved him twice 
 from the Grecian sword: but that he should be one who 
 should rule Italy, big with [future] empire, and fierce in war, 
 who should evince his descent from Teucer's noble blood, and 
 bring the whole world under his sway. If he is not fired 
 by the glory of such deeds, nor will himself attempt any 
 laborious enterprise for his own renown, will he, the father, 
 envy Ascanius Rome's imperial towers ? What does he pro- 
 pose ? or with what prospect lingers he so long among an 
 unfriendly race, nor regards his Ausonian offspring, and 
 Lavinian fields ? Bid him set sail. No more : be this our 
 message. 
 
 He said : Mercury prepared to obey his mighty father's 
 will : and first to his feet he binds his golden sandals, which 
 by their wings waft him aloft, whether over sea or land, swift 
 as the rapid gales. Next he takes his wand ; with this he 
 calls from hell the pale ghosts, despatches others down to sad 
 Tartarus, gives sleep, or takes it away, and unseals the eyes 
 from death. 19 Aided by this, he drives along the winds, and 
 breasts the troubled clouds. And now in his flight he espies 
 the top and lofty sides of hardy Atlas, 20 who with his summit 
 
 ls i. e. of being thy descendants. B. 
 
 19 This explanation is neatly supported in Anthon's note. B. 
 
 20 Atlas, one of the Titans, son of Japetus and Clymene. He was king 
 of Mauritania, and upon Perseus showing him the head of Medusa, was 
 changed into the mountain which bears his name. Mount Atlas runs 
 across the deserts of Africa, east and west, and is so high that the ancients 
 imagined that the heavens rested on its top, and that Atlas supported the 
 world on his shoulders. 
 
 
B. iv. 248-282. ^NEID. 183 
 
 supports the sky ; Atlas, whose head, crowned with pines, is 
 always encircled with black clouds, and lashed by wind and 
 rain : large sheets of snow enwrap his shoulders ; from his 
 aged chin torrents headlong roll, and his grisly beard is stiff 
 with icicles. Here first Cyllenius, 21 poising himself on even 
 wings, alighted ; hence with the weight of his whole body he 
 flings himself headlong to the floods ; like the fowl, which 
 [hovering] about the shores, about the fishy rocks, flies low 
 near the surface of the seas : just so Maia's son, shooting 
 down from his maternal grandsire between heaven and earth, 
 [skimmed along] the sandy shore of Libya, and cut the 
 Hs^inds. 22 ! As soon as he touched the cottages [of Afric] with 
 his winged feet, he views JEneas founding towers, and rais- 
 ing new structures ; and at his side he wore a sword studded 
 with yellow jasper, and a cloak, hanging down from his 
 shoulders, glowed with Tyrian purple ; presents which wealthy 
 Dido had given, and had interwoven the stuff with threads of 
 gold. Forthwith he accosts him : Is it for you now to be lay- 
 ing the foundations of stately Carthage, and, the fond slave of 
 a wife, be raising a city [for her], regardless, alas ! of your 
 kingdom and nearest concerns? The sovereign of the gods, 
 who governs heaven and earth by his nod, himself sends me 
 down to you from bright Olympus. The same commanded 
 me to bear these his instructions swiftly through the air. What 
 dost thou propose, or with what prospect dost thou waste thy 
 peaceful hours in the territories of Libya ? If no glory from 
 such deeds moves thee, and thou wilt attempt no laborious en- 
 terprise for thy own renown ; have some regard [at least] to 
 the rising Ascanius, and the hopes of thine heir lulus, for 
 whom the kingdom of Italy and the Roman territories are 
 destined. When Cyllenius had spoken thus, he left mortal 
 vision in the very midst of the conference, and far beyond 
 sight vanished into thin air. 
 
 Meanwhile ^Eneas, entranced by the vision, was struck 
 dumb ; his hair with horror stood erect, and his tongue 
 cleaved to his jaws. He burns to be gone in flight, and leave 
 the darling land, awed by the message and dread command of 
 
 21 Cyllenius, a name of Mercury, from Cyllene, a mountain of Arcadia, 
 where he was Lorn. 
 
 22 This whole passage is probably spurious. See Anthon. The zeugma 
 ia the last line is intolerable. B. 
 
184 ^NEID. *. iv. 283—313 
 
 the gods. Ah ! what can he do ? in what terms can he now 
 presume to solicit the consent of the 23 raving queen ? With 
 what words shall he introduce the subject ? And now this 
 way, now that, he swiftly turns his wavering mind, snatches 
 various purposes by starts, and roams uncertain through all. 
 Thus fluctuating, he fixed on this resolution as the best : he 
 calls to him Mnestheus, 24 Sergestus, and the brave Cloanthus ; 
 [and bids them] with silent care equip the fleet, summon their 
 social bands to the shore, prepare their arms, and artfully con- 
 ceal the cause of this sudden change : [adding,] that he him- 
 self, in the mean time, while generous Dido was in ignorance, 
 and had no apprehension that their so great loves could be 
 dissolved, would try the avenues [to her heart], what may be 
 the softest moments of address, what means might be most 
 favourable to their design. With joyful speed they all obey 
 the commands, and put his orders in execution. 
 
 But the queen (who can deceive a lover ?) was beforehand 
 in perceiving the fraud, and the first who conjectured their 
 future motions, dreading even where all seemed to be safe : 
 the same malignant fame conveyed the news to her frantic, 
 that the fleet was being equipped, and preparing to set sail. 
 She rages even to madness, and inflamed, she wildly roams 
 through all the city : like a Bacchanal wrought up into en- 
 thusiastic fury in celebrating the sacred [mysteries of her 
 god], when the triennial orgies stimulate her, at hearing the 
 name of Bacchus, and the nocturnal howlings on Mount 
 Citheron invite her. At length, in these words she first ac- 
 costs -ZEneas : And didst thou hope, too, perfidious one, to be 
 able to conceal from me so wicked a purpose, and to steal 
 away in silence from my coasts ? Can neither our love, nor 
 thy once plighted faith, nor Dido resolved to die by a cruel 
 death, detain thee ? Nay, you prepare your fleet even in the 
 wintry season, and haste to launch into the deep amidst 
 northern blasts ! Cruel one ! suppose you were not bound 
 for a foreign land and settlements unknown, and old Troy 
 was still remaining ; should you set sail for Troy on this tem- 
 
 23 Literally, " to get around." Anthon. 
 
 24 Mnestheus, a Trojan, descended from Assaraeus : he obtained a prize 
 hi the funeral games of Anchises, and was the progenitor of the Memmii 
 at Rome. Sergestus, a sailor in the fleet of iEneas, from whom the family 
 of the Sergii at Rome were descended. Cloanthus, one of the companion!? 
 of iEueas, the ancestor of the Cluentii family at Rome. 
 
b. iv. 31-V-346. ^ENEID. 185 
 
 pestuous sea? Wilt thou fly from me? By these 25 tears, by 
 that right hand, (since I have left nothing else to myself now, 
 a wretch forlorn,) by our nuptial rites, by our conjugal loves 
 begun ; if I have deserved any thanks at thy hand, or if ever 
 you saw any charms in me, take pity, I implore thee, on a 
 falling race, and, if yet there is any room for prayers, lav 
 aside your resolution. For thy sake have I incurred the 
 hatred of the Libyan nations, of the Numidian princes, and 
 made the Tyrians my enemies ; for thy sake have I sacrificed 
 my shame, and, what alone raised me to the stars, my former 
 fame : to whom dost thou abandon Dido, soon about to die, 
 my guest ! since, instead of a husband's name, only this re- 
 mains? 26 What wait I for? is it till my brother Pygmalion 
 lay this city of mine in ashes, or Iarbas, the Getulian, carry 
 me away his captive? Had I but enjoyed offspring by thee 
 before thy flight ; did a young ^Eneas play in my hall, were 
 it but to give me thy image in his features, I should not indeed 
 have thought myself quite a captive and forlorn. 
 
 She said. He, by the commands of Jove, held his eyes- 
 unmoved, and with hard struggles suppressed the anxious 
 care in his heart. At length he briefly replies, That you, O 
 queen, have laid on me numerous obligations, which you may 
 recount at large, I never shall disown ; and I shall always re- 
 member Elisa with pleasure, while I have any remembrance 
 of myself, while I have a soul to actuate these limbs. But to 
 the point in debate I shall briefly speak : believe me, I neither 
 thought by stealth to have concealed this my flight, nor did I 
 ^ever pretend a lawful union, or enter into such a contract^ 
 ±Iad the Fates left me free to conduct my life by my own di- 
 rection, and ease my cares according to my own choice ; my 
 first regards had been shown to Troy and the dear relics of 
 my country ; Priam's lofty palace should [now] remain, and 
 with this hand I would have repaired for the conquered the 
 walls of Pergamus, raised again from ruin. But now to great 
 Italy Grynasan Apollo, to Italy the Lycian oracles have com- 
 
 25 For this collocation of words, compare Eur. Andr. 892, irpbg as r&v 
 Ik yovvdrwv. Hipp. 601, Tvpbg <rk rf)Q arjg ds%iag. j&n. x. 369. Ter. 
 Andr. iii. 3, 6. Tibull. i. 5, 7. B. 
 
 26 Valpy well remarks, that, as iEneas disowns the nnptial tie, Dido 
 addresses him by the title of guest, which he cannot reject. Seneca has 
 expressed the same idea, Here. Fur. 1, '■' Soror Tonantis, hoc eniui 
 solum mini nomen relictum est." B. 
 
i^6 ^ENEID. b. iv. 347—377 
 
 manded me to repair. This is the object of my love, this my 
 country. If the towers of Carthage and the sight of a 
 Libyan city engross you, a Phoenician born, why should you 
 be dissatisfied that we Trojans settle in the land of Ausonia? 
 Let us too have the privilege to go in quest of foreign realms. 
 Whenever the night overspreads the earth with humid shades, 
 as often as the fiery stars arise, the troubled ghost of my 
 father Anchises visits me in my dreams, and with dreadful 
 summons urges [my departure] : my son Ascanius [calls] me 
 [hence], and the injury done to one so dear, whom I defraud 
 of the Hesperian crown, and his destined dominions. Now 27 
 also the messenger of the gods, despatched from Jove himself, 
 (I call them both to witness !) swift gliding through the air, 
 bore to me his high commands : myself beheld the god in con- 
 spicuous brightness entering your walls, and with these ears 
 I received his voice. Cease to torment yourself and me by 
 your complaints : the Italian coasts I pursue, not out of 
 choice. 28 
 
 Thus while he speaks, she views him all along from the 
 beginning with averted looks, rolling her eyes hither and 
 thither, and with silent glances surveys his whole person, then 
 thus inflamed with wrath breaks forth : Nor -goddess gave 
 thee birth, perfidious one ! nor is Dardanus the founder of 
 thy race, but frightful Caucasus on flinty cliffs brought thee 
 forth, and Hyrcanian tigers gave thee suck. For why should 
 I dissemble ? or for what greater injuries can I be reserved ? 
 Did he so much* as sigh at my distress ? did he once move his 
 eyes ? Did he, overcome, shed a tear, or compassionate me in 
 my love ? Where shall I begin my complaint ? Now neither 
 mighty Juno nor the Saturnian sire, considers these things 
 with impartial eyes. Firm faith no where subsists. An 
 outcast on my shores, an indigent wretch, I received him, and 
 fool that I was, settled him in partnership of my crown ; his 
 wrecked fleet [I renewed], his companions from death I saved. 
 Ah ! I am all on fire, I am distracted with fury ! " Now 29 the 
 prophetic voice of Apollo ; now the Lycian lots ; and now the 
 
 27 This sophistical defence of ^Eneas has been partly copied by Silius, 
 viii. 109 sqq. B. 
 
 28 On this abruptly finished passage, see Weichart, de vers, npmr < p. 
 71. B. 
 
 29 Dido ironically repeats his words. 
 

 E iv. 378—410. ^NEID. 167 
 
 messenger of the gods, despatched from Jove himself, through 
 the air conveys the horrid mandate." A worthy employ- 
 ment, forsooth, for the powers above, a weighty concern to 
 disturb them in their peaceful state ! I neither detain you, 
 nor argue against what you have said. Go, speed your way 
 for Italy with the winds, pursue this kingdom of yours, over 
 the waves. I hope, however, (if the just gods have any power,) 
 thou mayest suffer punishment amid the rocks, and often 
 [vainly] call on Dido's name. I, though absent, will pursue 
 thee with black flames : and, when cold death shall have 
 separated these limbs from my soul, as a shade will I haunt 30 
 thee in every place : Wretch ! thou shalt make atonement : I 
 shall hear it ; even in the deep shades these tidings will reach 
 me. With these words she breaks off in the middle of the 
 conference, and sickening shuns the light: she turns about, 
 and flings away out of his sight, leaving him greatly per- 
 plexed through fear, and preparing to say a thousand things. 
 Her maids raise her up, bear her fainting limbs into her 
 marble bed-chamber, and gently lay her on a couch. 
 
 Meanwhile pious JEueas, though by solacing means he 
 desires to ease her grief, and by words to divert her anguish, 
 heaving many a sigh, and staggered in his mind by mighty 
 love, yet gives obedience to the commands of the gods, and 
 revisits his fleet. Then, indeed, the Trojans intensely ply 
 their work, and launch the ships all along the shore. The 
 pitchy keel floats ; through eager haste to sail, they bring from 
 the woods oars not cleared of leaves, and unfashioned timber. 
 You might have seen them removing, and pouring from all 
 quarters of the town, as when ants, mindful of winter, plunder 
 a large granary of corn, and hoard it up in their cell ; the 
 black battalion marches over the plains, and along the narrow 
 track they convey their booty through the meadows ; some, 
 shoving with their shoulders, push forward the cumbrous 
 grain ; some rally the [straggling] bands, and chastise those 
 that lag : the path all glows with the work. 
 
 Dido, how wast thou then affected with so sad a prospect ? 
 What groans didst thou uttex, when from thy lofty tower thou 
 beheldest the shore in its wide extent glowing [with bustle], 
 
 30 Ovid, Ibis, 146. " Turn quoque factorum veniam memor umbra 
 tuorum, Insequar et vultus ossea forma tuos. Quae vis Deorum est 
 manium." B. 
 
188 -EXEID. b. IV. 411— 442. 
 
 and didst also observe, full in thy view, the whole watery 
 plain resounding with such mingled shouts ? Unrelenting 
 love, how irresistible is thy sway over the mind of mortals ! 
 She is constrained once more to have recourse to tears, once 
 more to assail him by prayers, and suppliant to subject the 
 powers of her soul to love, lest, by leaving any means unat- 
 tempted, she should throw away her life rashly, and without 
 cause. Anna, thou seest over all the shore how they are 
 hastening : the whole bands are drawn together, the canvass 
 now invites the gales ; and the joyful mariners have crowned 
 their stems with garlands. sister, since I was able to fore- 
 see this so sad a blow, I shall be able to bear it. Yet, Anna, 
 perform this one request for your wretched sister : for that 
 perfidious man made you the sole object of his esteem, even 
 intrusted you with the secrets of his soul, you alone knew the 
 occasions and soft approaches to his heart. Go, sister, and in 
 suppliant terms bespeak the haughty foe : I never conspired 
 with the Greeks at Aulis 31 to extirpate the Trojan race, or 
 sent a fleet to Troy ; nor did I disturb the ashes and manes 
 of his father Anchises. Why does he stop his unrelenting 
 ears to my words ? whither does he fly ? Let him grant but 
 this last favour to his unhappy lover ; to defer his flight till it 
 be safe, and till the winds blow fair. 32 I plead no more for 
 that old- promised wedlock, which he has betrayed; nor that 
 he should deprive himself of fair Latium, and relinquish a 
 kingdom. I ask a trifling moment ; a respite and interval 
 from distracting pain, till, subdued by fortune, I learn to sus- 
 tain my woes. This favour I implore as the last, (pity thy 
 sister!) which, when he has granted, I shall send him away 
 completely happy in my death. 
 
 To this effect she prayed ; and her sister, deeply distressed, 
 bears once and a^ain this mournful message to ^EEneas ; but bv 
 none of her mournful messages is he moved, nor listens with 
 calm regard to anv words. The Fates stand in his wav ; and 
 heaven renders his ears deaf to compassion. And as the 
 Alpine north winds by their blasts, now on this side, now on 
 
 31 Aulis. a sea-port town of Boetia, in Greece, where the Grecian forces 
 a--embled in the expedition against Troy. 
 
 s - Vent^sque ferentes, i. e. Yentosque secundos. as in SeDeca de B. V 
 c 21, Navigantem secundns et ferens ventus exhilarat. So Pliny hi his 
 panegyric, Yenti ferentes et brevis cursus ootentur. 
 

 „ 1V . 443—473. JSNEID. 189 
 
 that, strive with joint force to overturn a sturdy ancient oak ; 
 a loud howling goes forth, and the leaves strew the ground in 
 heaps, while the trunk is shaken ; the tree itself cleaves fast to 
 the rocks ; and as high as it shoots up to the top in the ethereal 
 regions, so deep it descends with its root towards Tartarus : 
 just so the hero on this side and that side is plied with impor- 
 tunate remonstrances, and feels deep pangs in his mighty soul ; 
 his mind remains unmoved ; unavailing tears are shed. 
 
 Then, indeed, unhappy Dido, struck to the heart by her 
 fate, longs for death ; she sickens of beholding the canopy of 
 heaven. The more to prompt her to execute her purpose, 
 and to part with the light, while she was presenting her 
 offerings upon the altar that smoked with incense, she beheld, 
 horrid to relate ! the sacred liquors grow black, and the out- 
 poured wine turn into inauspicious blood. This vision she 
 revealed to none, not even to her sister. Besides, there was in 
 the palace a marble shrine in honour of her former husband, 
 to which she paid extraordinary veneration, [having] it encir- 
 cled with snowy fillets of wool and festal garlands. Hence 
 voices,, and the words of her husband calling her, seemed to 
 be heard, 33 when dim night shrouded the earth ; and on the 
 house-tops the solitary owl often complained in doleful ditty, 
 and spun out his long notes in a mournful strain. Besides, 
 many predictions of pious prophets terrify her with dreadful 
 forebodings. JSneas himself, now stern and cruel, disturbs 
 her raving in her sleep ; and still she seems to be abandoned 
 in solitude, still to be going a long tedious journey, with no 
 attendance, and to be in quest of her Tyrians in some desert 
 country: as frantic Pentheus 34 sees troops of Furies, two 
 suns, and Thebes appear double ; or like Orestes, Agamem- 
 non's son, with distraction hurried on the stage, when he flies 
 from his mother armed with firebrands 35 and black snakes 
 and the avenged Furies are planted at the gate. 36 
 
 33 Compare Silius, viii. 122 sqq., and Ovid, Her. vii. 100 sqq. Such 
 prodigies are great favourites with the Greek romancists. Thus in 
 Heliodor. ii. 70, eK pvx&y rov arrrjXaiov, (piovrjg rig rjxog sZtjkovsto, 
 9edyeyeg, KaXovarjg. And Chariton, i. p. 12, \po<pog ovk early, dXXd (pwvri 
 KaXovyrcoy fie r&v vTroxQovicjy irpbg avrovg. B. 
 
 34 Pentheus, son of Echion and Agave, was king of Thebes in Bceotia. 
 In consequence of his refusal to acknowledge the divinity of Bacchus, he 
 was torn to pieces by the bacchanals. 
 
 35 There is an evident reference to the stage costume of the Furies. B 
 w According to Servius, Virgil follows a tragedy of Pacuvius, in whicli 
 
190 JENEID. b. iv. 474—501 
 
 
 
 When, therefore, overpowered with grief, she had taken 
 the Furies 37 into her breast, and determined to die, she pon 
 ders the time and manner with herself; and thus accosting 
 her sister, the partner of her grief, covers her intention in her 
 looks, and puts on a serene air of hope. Rejoice, O sister, 
 with thy sister ! I have found an expedient, which will restore 
 him to me, or set my love-sick soul at liberty from him. 
 Near the extremity of the ocean and the setting sun, the utmost 
 boundary of ./Ethiopia lies, where mighty Atlas on his shoul- 
 der whirls about the globe, spangled with refulgent stars 
 hence appeared to me a priestess of the Massylian nation, the 
 guardian of the temple of the Hesperides, 38 who supplied the 
 dragon with food, and watched the sacred branches on the 
 tree, infusing liquid honey and the sleepy poppy. She un 
 dertakes, by charms, to release any souls, whom she will, 
 [from the power of love,] and to entail on others irksome 
 cares : to stop the course of rivers, and turn the stars back- 
 ward : she summons up the ghosts by night. You shall see 
 the earth bellow under her feet, and the wild ashes descend 
 from the mountains. My dear sister, I call the gods, and you, 
 and that dear person of thine, to witness, that it is against my 
 will I set about these magic arts. Do you in secrecy erect a 
 funeral pile in the inner court, under the open air, and lay 
 upon it his arms, which he, impiously base, left fixed in my 
 bed-chamber, with all his clothes, and the nuptial bed in 
 which I was undone. The priestess orders and directs me to 
 destroy every monument of that execrable man. Having thus 
 said, she ceases : at the same time, paleness overcasts her 
 whole complexion. Yet Anna imagines not that her sister 
 aimed at death under pretext of these unusual rites ; nor 
 once suspects that she had formed such a desperate purpose, 
 
 Orestes was represented taking refuge in the temple of Apollo, while the 
 Furies kept watch for him at the gate. For the more usual stage arrange- 
 ment, see my notes on -^Esch. Eum. p. 180, note 4, ed. Bohn. B. 
 
 37 The Furies, daughters of Acheron and Nox : they were three in 
 number, Tisiphone, Megara, and Alecto, and we-e supposed to be the 
 ministers of the vengeance of the gods. 
 
 38 Hesperides, three celebrated nymphs, daughters of Hesperus: they 
 presided over the garden which contained the golden apples that Juno gave 
 to Jupiter on the day of their nuptials. This garden, according to the an- 
 cients, was situated near Mount Atlas, in Africa, and the tree bearing the 
 golden apples was guarded by a huge dragon. 
 
 
a. iv. 502—535. ^ENEID. 19! 
 
 nor dreads any thing worse than had happened at the death of 
 Sichaeus. Therefore she makes the desired preparations. 
 
 But the queen, as soon as the vast pile was erected under 
 the open air in the inner court, with torches and faggots 
 of oak, encircles the ground with garlands, and crowns it with 
 funeral boughs : upon the bed she lays his clothes, the sword 
 he left, and his image, well knowing of the future. Altars 
 are raised around; and the priestess, her hair dishevelled, 
 with thundering voice, invokes three hundred gods, and Ere- 
 bus, and Chaos, and threefold Hecate, 39 virgin Diana's triple 
 form. She sprinkled also water counterfeiting that of the 
 lake Avernus: 40 full-grown herbs, cut by moonlight with 
 brazen sickles, are searched out, together with the juice of 
 black poison : the [mother's] love, 41 too, torn from the fore- 
 head of a new-foaled colt, and snatched away from the dam, 
 is sought out. The queen herself, now resolute on death, 
 having one foot bare, her robe-ungirt, standing by the altars, 
 with the salt cake and pious hands, makes her appeal to the 
 gods, and to the stars conscious of her fate : then, if any deity, 
 both just and mindful, regards lovers unequally yoked, him 
 she invokes. 
 
 It was night, and weary bodies over the earth were enjoy- 
 ing a peaceful repose : the woods and raging seas were still ; 
 when the stars roll in the middle of their gliding course; 
 when every field is hushed : the beasts, and speckled birds, 
 both those that far and wide haunt the liquid lakes, and those 
 that possess the fields with rough bushes overgrown, all 
 stretched under the silent night, allayed their cares with sleep, 
 and every heart forgot its toil. But not so the soul-distressed 
 queen ; not one moment is she lulled to rest, nor enjoys the 
 night with eyes or mind. Her cares redouble ; and love, again 
 arising, rages afresh, and fluctuates with a high tide of pas- 
 sions. Thus then she persists, and revolves these secret re- 
 flections in her breast : Lo ! what shall I do ? Baffled as I am, 
 shall I, in my turn, apply to my former suitors? shall I 
 humbly sue for a match with one of the Numidians, whom I 
 
 39 Hecate, the daughter of Perses and Asteria, or rather of Jupiter and 
 Latona : she was called Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, and Hecate, or 
 Proserpine, in hell. 
 
 40 « Avernales aquas." Hor. Ep. v. 15. Cf. Macrob. iii. 1. B 
 
 41 On the " hippomanes," here meant, see Anthon. B. 
 
192 iENEID. b. iv. 536-573, 
 
 have so often disdained as lords ? Shall I then attend the fleet 
 of Ilium, and submit to the basest commands of the Trojans? 
 and that, because I am well rewarded for having lent them my 
 assistance, and in their grateful hearts a just sense of my 
 former kindness remains ? But, suppose I had the will, who 
 will put it in my power, or receive into their proud ships me, 
 the object of their hate ? Ah ! lost one, art thou unacquainted 
 with, art thou still to learn, the perfidiousness of Laomedon's 
 race ? What then ? Shall I steal away by myself to accom- 
 pany the triumphant crew ? or, attended by my Tyrians, and 
 all my people in a body, shall I pursue them, and again lead 
 out to sea, and order those to spread their sails to the winds, 
 whom, with much ado, I forced from Tyre ? Nay, rather die, 
 as you deserve, and end your woes with the sword. You, 
 sister, subdued by my tears, you first oppressed my distracted 
 mind with these woes, and exposed me to the enemy. Might 
 I not have led an innocent unwedded life, like a savage of the 
 field, and have avoided such cares ? I have violated the faith 
 I plighted to the manes of Sichasus. 
 
 Such heavy complaints she poured forth from her heart. 
 JEneas, determined to depart, was enjoying sleep in the lofty 
 stern, all things being now in readiness. The form of the god, 
 returning with the same aspect, appeared to him in his sleep, 
 and thus again seemed to admonish him ; in every thing re- 
 sembling Mercury, in voice, complexion, golden locks, and 
 comely youthful limbs : " G-oddess-born, can you indulge in 
 sleep at this conjuncture ? Infatuated, not to see what dangers 
 in a moment may beset you, nor listen to the breathing of the 
 friendly zephyrs ! She, bent on death, is revolving guileful 
 purposes and horrid wickedness in her breast, and fluctuates 
 with a tide of angry passions. Will you not fly hence with 
 precipitation, while thus to fly is in your power ? Forthwith 
 you shall behold the sea in commotion with her oars, and 
 torches fiercely blaze ; forthwith the shore lighted up with 
 flames, if the morning reach you lingering on these coasts. 
 Come then, quick, break off delay: woman is a fickle and 
 ever changeable creature." This said, he mingled with the 
 3able night. 
 
 Then, indeed, JEneas, in consternation at this sudden ap- 
 parition, snatches his frame from the couch, and rouses his 
 companions : Awake, my mates, in haste, and plant your- 
 
b. iv. 574— 609. ^ENEID. , 193 
 
 selves on the benches ; instantly unfurl the sails. A god, 
 despatched from the high heavens, once more prompts me to 
 hasten my departure, and cut the twisted cables. We follow 
 thee, O holy power, whoever thou art, and once more with 
 joy obey thy commands. Ah ! be present, lend us thy pro- 
 pitious aid, and light up friendly stars in the heavens. He 
 said, and snatches his keen flashing sword from the sheath, 
 and cuts the halsers with the drawn steel. The same eager- 
 ness at once seizes them all: they hale, they hurry away: 
 they have quitted the shore ; the sea lies hidden under the 
 fleet ; they with exerted vigour upturn the foaming billows, 
 and sweep the azure deep. 
 
 And now Aurora, leaving Tithonus' saffron bed, first sowed 
 the earth with new-born light : soon as the queen from her 
 watch-towers marked the dawn whitening, and the fleet set- 
 ting forward with balanced sails, and perceived the shore and 
 vacant port without a rower ; thrice and four times smiting 
 her fair bosom, and tearing her golden locks : Jupiter ! 
 shall he go ? she says : and shall this stranger mock my king- 
 dom ? Will they not make ready arms, and pursue from all 
 the city ? and will not others tear my ships from the docks ? 
 Run quick, fetch flames, unfurl the sails, ply the oars. What 
 am I saying ? or where am I ? what madness turns my brain ? 
 Unhappy Dido ! art thou then at length stung with the sense 
 of his foul impious deeds ? 42 Then it had become thee so to 
 act, when thou impartedst [to him] thy. sceptre. Is this the 
 honour, the faith ! this [the man] who, they say, carries with 
 him his country's gods ! who bore on his shoulders his father 
 spent with age ! Might I not have torn in pieces his mangled 
 body, and strewn it on the waves? might I not with the 
 sword have destroyed his friends, Ascanius himself, and served 
 him up for a banquet at his father's table ? But the fortune 
 of the fight was doubtful. Grant it had been so : thus reso- 
 lute on death, whom had I to fear ? I might have hurled fire- 
 brands into his camp, filled the hatches with flames, extirpated 
 the son, the sire, with the whole race, and flung myself r ipon 
 the pile. Thou -Sun, who with thy flaming beams surveyest 
 all works on earth, and thou, Juno, the author 43 and witness 
 of these my cares ; Hecate, with howlings invoked through 
 
 42 " facta," not " fata." B. 
 
 ** " interpres," i. e. " media et conciliatrix." Servius. B. 
 
194 JENEID. b. iv. CIO— 632. 
 
 the cities in the crossways by night ; and ye avenging Furies, 
 and gods of dying Elisa ! receive these my words ; in justice 
 to my wrongs, turn to me your divine regard, and hearken to 
 my prayers. If it must be, and Jove's decrees so require, if 
 this be his determination,- that the execrable traitor reach the 
 port, and get safe to land : yet harassed, at least, by war, and 
 the hostilities of an audacious people, expelled from his own 
 territories, torn from the embraces of lUlus, may he sue to 
 others for relief, and see the ignominious deaths of his friends ; 
 and, after he shall have submitted to the terms of a disadvan- 
 tageous peace, let him neither enjoy his crown, nor the wished- 
 for light, but die before his time, and [he] unburied in the 
 midst of the sandy shore. These are my prayers ; 44 these the 
 last words I pour forth with my blood. You, too, Tyrians, 
 with irreconcilable enmity, pursue his offspring and all his 
 future race, and present these offerings to my shade : let no 
 amity or leagues between the two nations s subsist. Arise some 
 avenger 45 from my ashes, who may persecute those Trojan 
 fugitives with fire and sword, now, hereafter, at whatever time 
 power shall be given. Let them take this curse from me, 46 
 that their shores, their waves, their arms, and ours, may still 
 be opposed to one another ; and may their posterity too [and 
 ours] be still in war engaged. 
 
 She said, and every way turned her shifting soul, seeking, 
 as soon as possible, to bereave herself of the hated light. 
 Then briefly thus she bespoke Barce, the nurse of Sichseus 
 
 44 Respecting their mythical fulfilment, see Servhis, and the satisfac- 
 tory notes of Anthon. B. 
 
 45 Such as Hannibal proved. B. 
 
 46 It was an opinion very prevailing among the ancients, that the pray- 
 ers of the dying were generally heard, and that their last words were pro- 
 phetic. Thus Virgil makes Dido imprecate upon ^Sneas a series of 
 misfortunes, which actually had their accomplishment in his own person, 
 or in his posterity. 1. He was harassed with war in Italy by Turnus 
 2. He was necessitated to abandon his son, and go into Etruria to beg for 
 assistance, iEn. viii. 80. 3. He saw his friends cruelly slain in battle, 
 especially Pallas, JEn. x. 489. 4. He died before his time, being slain 
 by Mezentius, according to the most authentic tradition, and was left un- 
 buried on the banks of the Numicus, by whose waters his body was at 
 length carried off, and never more appeared. 5. The Romans and Car- 
 thaginians were irreconcilable enemies to one another, and no leagues, 
 no ties of religion, could ever bind the two nations to peace. 6. Hannibal 
 was Dido's avenger, who arose afterwards to be the scourge of the 
 Romans, and carried fire and sword into Italy. 
 
b. iv. 633— 666. ^ENEID. 195 
 
 (for the dark grave lodged her own in her native country) : 
 Dear nurse, call hither to me my sister Anna ; bid her make 
 haste to sprinkle her body with running water, and bring 
 with her the victims and the things for expiation of which 
 I told her : thus let her come ; and you yourself cover your 
 temples with a holy fillet. I have a mind to finish the sacri- 
 fice begun with proper rites, which I have prepared for Jupiter 
 Stygius, 47 to put a period to my miseries, and to commit to the 
 flames the pile of the Trojan. She said : the other quickened 
 her pace with an old woman's officiousness. 48 
 
 But Dido, trembling with agitation,' and maddened on ac- 
 count of her horrid purpose, rolling her blood-red eye-balls, 
 her throbbing cheeks suffused with spots, and all pale with 
 approaching death, burst into the gate of the inner palace, 
 and frantic mounts the lofty pile, and unsheaths the Trojan 
 sword ; a present not provided for such purposes as these. 49 
 Here, after she had viewed the Trojan vestments and the con- 
 scious bed, having wept and mused awhile, she threw herself 
 on the bed, and spoke her last words : Ye dear remains, while 
 god and the fates permitted, receive this soul, and free me 
 from these cares. I have lived, and finished the race which 
 fortune gave me. And now my ghost shall descend illustrious 
 to the shades below : I have raised a glorious city, have seen 
 the walls of my own building, have avenged my husband, 
 punished an unnatural brother ; happy, ah ! too happy, had 
 but the Trojan ships never touched my shores ! She said, 
 and pressing her lips to the bed, Shall I die unrevenged ? 
 But let me die, 50 she says : thus, thus with pleasure I descend 
 to the shades below. Let the cruel Trojan from the sea feed 
 his eyes with these flames, and bear with him the omens of 
 my death. She said; and while she spoke, her attendants 
 perceive her fallen on the sword, and the weapon stained with 
 foaming gore, and her hands besmeared. The outcry reaches 
 the lofty palace ; fame wildly flies through the alarmed city ; 
 
 47 i. e. Pluto. Cf. Macrob. Sat. iii. 3. Msch. Suppl. 164, Zrjva rwv 
 
 K&KfUfJKOTiOV. B. 
 
 48 With Anthon, I prefer " anili " to " anilem." B. 
 
 ** i. e. " qusesitum in pignus amoris," as Silius, viii. 50, says, with au 
 evident reference to this passage. Cf. Ovid Her. vii. 195. B. 
 w Happily imitated by Propert. ii. 7, 79 : 
 
 " Sic igitur prima moriere setate, Properti ? 
 Bed morere, interitu gaudeat ilia tuo." B. ,_- 
 
 o 2 
 
196 ^NEID. b. it. 667— 694. 
 
 the houses ring with lamentations, groans, and female yells, 51 
 and the sky resounds with loud shrieks: just as if all Car- 
 thage, or ancient Tyre, in the hands of the invading enemy, 
 were falling to the ground, and the furious flames were rolling 
 over the tops of houses and temples. 
 
 Her sister was breathless at the news, and with trembling 
 haste, all aghast, tearing her face with her nails, and [beating] 
 her bosom with her hands, rushes through the midst of the 
 crowd, and calls her dying [sister] by name: O sister, was 
 this your meaning ? did you practise thus to deceive me ? was 
 this what I had to expect from that pile, those fires and altars ? 
 Abandoned ! where shall I begin to complain ? Did you dis- 
 dain a sister for your companion in death ? Had you invited 
 me to the same fate, one distress and one hour had snatched 
 us both away by the sword. Did I raise [that pile] with 
 these very hands, and with my voice invoke our country's 
 gods, that I should cruelly absent myself from you, thus 
 stretched upon it. Ah sister ! you have involved yourself 
 and me, your people, your Tyrian nobles, and your city, in 
 one common ruin. Let me bathe her wounds with water, 52 
 and catch with my lips, if there be yet any straggling remains 
 of breath. 53 This said, she mounted the high steps, and in 
 her bosom embracing, cherished her expiring sister with 
 sighs, and dried up the black blood with her robe. She 
 essaying to lift her heavy eyes, again sinks down. The wound 
 deep fixed in her breast, emits a bubbling noise. Thrice 
 leaning on her elbow, she made an effort to raise herself up ; 
 thrice she fell back on the bed, and with swimming eyes 
 sought the light of heaven, and having found it, heaved a 
 groan. 
 
 Then all-powerful Juno, in pity to her lingering pain and 
 uneasy death, sent down Iris 54 from heaven, to release the 
 
 5i Synes. Ep. p. 164, C. avdputv oi/xwy?), yvvcwcujv 6\o\vyrj. B. 
 
 52 I read " date, [i. e. " aquam,"] vulnera." See Anthon, who renders, 
 " give me it, I will wash." B. 
 
 M This was the ancient custom. Cf. Bion, i. 47, a%joic aV6 ^XVQ *Q 
 efxBv orSfia ktic Efxov r\izap wvevfjia rebv psvay. B. 
 
 5i Iris, daughter of Thaumus and Electra, was one of the Oceanides, 
 and messenger of the gods, more particularly of Juno. Her office was 
 to cut the thread which seemed to detain the soul in the body of those 
 that were expiring. She is represented with all the variegated and beau- 
 tiful colours of the rainbow 
 
D. iv. 695—705. v. 1—19. -ENEID. 197 
 
 struggling soul and the tie that bound it to the body: for, 
 since she neither fell by fate, nor by a deserved death, but 
 unhappily before her time, and maddened with sudden rage, 
 Proserpina had not yet cropped the yellow hair from the 
 crown of her head, and condemned her to Stygian Pluto. 
 Therefore dewy Iris, drawing a thousand various colours from 
 the opposite sun, shoots downward through the sky on saffron 
 wings, and alighted on her head : I, by command, bear away 
 this lock sacred to Pluto, and disengage you from that body. 
 She said, and cut the lock with her right hand : at once all the 
 vital heat was extinguished, and life vanished into air. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 In the Fifth Book, JEneas sails from Carthage for Italy, but is forced by a 
 storm to revisit Dreparmm in Sicily, where he celebrates the anniversary of 
 his father's death by various games and feats at arms. Here the Trojan 
 women set fire to the fleet, which is saved by the interposition of Jupiter, 
 with the loss of four ships. After this event, iEneas pursues his voyage 
 to Italy. 
 
 Meanwhile, JEneas, in direct course, was now fairly on 
 his route with the fleet, 1 and was cutting the black billows be- 
 fore the wind, looking back to the walls which now glare 
 with the flames of unfortunate Elisa. What cause may have 
 kindled such a blaze is unknown ; but the thought of those 
 cruel agonies that arise from violent love when injured, and 
 the knowledge of what frantic woman can do, led the minds 
 of the Trojans through dismal forebodings. 
 
 As soon as their ships held the main, and no more land 
 appears, sky all around, and ocean all around ; a dark lead- 
 coloured watery cloud stood over his head, bringing on night, 
 and storm ; and the waves became horrid in the gloom. The 
 pilot Palinurus himself from the lofty stern [exclaims] : Ah ! 
 why have such threatening clouds begirt the sky ? or what, O 
 father Neptune, hast thou in view ? Thus having spoken, he 
 next commands to furl the sails, and ply the sturdy oars ; the 
 bellying canvass he turns askance to the wind, and thus 
 speaks : Magnanimous JEneas, should Jupiter on his authority 
 assure me, I could not hope to reach Italy in this weather. 
 The winds changed roar across our path, and arise thick from 
 
 1 See Anthon, whom I have closely followed. B . 
 
198 ^NEID. B. v. 20-51, 
 
 the darkening west, and the air is condensed into cloud. We 
 are neither able to make head against [the storm], nor even 
 to withstand it : since fortune overpowers us, let us follow 
 her, and turn our course where she invites us: the trusty 
 shores of your brother Eryx, and the Sicilian ports, I deem 
 not far off, if I but rightly remembering review the stars I 
 observed before. Then the pious ^Eneas [said], I indeed 
 have observed long ago that the winds urge us to this, and 
 that your contrary efforts are in vain. Shift your course by 
 the sails. Can any land be more welcome to me, or where I 
 would sooner choose to put in my weather-beaten ships, than 
 that which preserves for me Trojan Acestes, and in its womb 
 contains the bones of my father Anchises ? This said, they 
 make towards the port, and the prosperous zephyrs stretch the 
 sails : the fleet swiftly rides on the flood ; and at length the 
 joyous crew are wafted to the well-known strand. But 
 Acestes, from a mountain's lofty summit, struck with the dis- 
 tant prospect of their arrival, and at the friendly ships, comes 
 up to them, all rough with javelins, 2 and the hide of an 
 African bear : whom, begotten by the river Crinisius, 3 a Tro- 
 jan mother bore. He, not unmindful of his origin, congratu- 
 lates them on their safe arrival, and cheerfully entertains them 
 with rude magnificence, and refreshes them fatigued with 
 friendly cheer. 
 
 When with the early dawn the ensuing bright day had 
 chased away the stars, ^Eneas summons to council his follow- 
 ers from all the shore, and from the summit of a rising ground 
 addresses them: Illustrious Trojans, whose descent is from 
 the exalted blood of the gods, the annual circle is completed, 
 by the fulfilment of months, since we lodged in the earth the 
 relics and bones of my godlike sire, and consecrated to him 
 the altars of mourning. And now the day, if I mistake not, 
 is at hand, which I shall always account a day of sorrow, al- 
 ways a day to be honoured: such, ye gods, has been your 
 pleasure . Were I to pass this day in exile among the Syrtes 
 
 2 It is strange that Heyne should have found any difficulty in this 
 phrase. The preposition is merely redundant. Cf. Val. Flacc. i. 641, 
 " subitus in hasta." Lucan, i. 423, "leves in armis." See Wagner, and 
 Weichart on Val. Flacc. viii. 136. 
 
 3 Crinisius, a river on the western side of the island of Sicily, neax the 
 city Segesta. 
 
p. v. 52—85. -ENEID. 199 
 
 of Getulia, or overtaken [by it] on the Grecian Sea, or in the 
 city of Mycene, yet would I regularly perform my annual vows, 
 and the solemn funeral processions, and heap the altars with 
 their proper offerings. Now, without premeditated design, 
 though not, I judge, without the will or the influence of the 
 gods, we are come to the ashes and bones of my own father, 
 and are wafted to the friendly port which we are now entering. 
 Come then, and let us all celebrate the joyous rites. Let us 
 pray for [prosperous] winds, and that, when our city is built, 
 he will permit me to offer to him these rites annually in tem- 
 ples consecrated to his honour. Acestes, a son of Troy, gives 
 you two oxen for each ship : invite to the feast your household 
 and country gods, and those whom our host Acestes worships. 
 Further, if the ninth morning shall bring forth the day fair 
 and serene to mortals, and brighten up the world with its 
 beams, I will propose to the Trojans the first trial of skill to 
 be with the swiftest of their ships. And whoever excels in 
 running, in strength who boldly dares, or moves superior in 
 the javelin, 4 and the light arrows, or who has courage to en- 
 counter with the bloody cestus ; let all such be ready at hand, 
 and expect prizes of victory suitable to their merit. Do ye all 
 keep religious guard over your lips, and encircle your temples 
 with boughs. 
 
 This said, he crowns his temples with his mother's myrtle. 
 The same does Elymus ; 5 the same Acestes ripened in years ; 
 the same the boy Ascanius, whose example the other youths 
 follow. He went from the assembly to the tomb with many 
 thousands, in the centre of a numerous retinue attending. 
 Here in due form, by way of libation, he pours on the ground 
 to Bacchus two bowls of wine, two of new milk, two of sacred 
 blood ; then scatters blooming flowers, and thus speaks : Hail, 
 holy sire ! once more hail, ye ashes revisited in vain ! ye ghosts 
 and shades of my father ! Heaven would not allow us to go 
 together in quest of the bounds of Italy, and of the lands allotted 
 to me by fate, or the Ausonian Tiber, whatever river that is. 
 He said ; when from the bottom of the shrine a huge slippery 
 snake trailed along, seven circling spires, seven folds, gently 
 
 4 Wyttenbach on Julian, p. 161, condemns this as corrupt. I do not 
 6ee any substantial grounds of objection. B. 
 
 5 Elymus, a youth at the court of Acestes, who engaged in the foot- 
 races at the tomb of Anchises. 
 
200 
 
 -3ENEID 
 
 B. V. 
 
 twining round the tomb, and gliding over the altars ; whose 
 back azure streaks, and whose scales drops of burnished gold 
 brightened up ; as the bow in the clouds draws a thousand 
 various colours from the opposite sun. JEneas stood amazed 
 at the sight. At length the reptile, creeping with his long 
 train between the bowls and smooth-polished goblets, gently- 
 tasted the banquet, and harmless retired again into the bottom 
 of the tomb, and left the altars on which he had fed. ^Eneas 
 with the more zeal pursues the sacrifice begun in honour of his 
 father, in doubt whether to think it the genius of the place, or 
 the attendant of-his parent. He sacrificed five ewes, two years 
 old, according to custom ; as many sows, as many bullocks 
 with sable backs : and he poured out wine from the goblets, 
 and invoked the soul of great Anchises, and his ghost from 
 Acheron released. In like manner his companions offer gifts 
 with joy, each according to his ability; they load the altars, 
 and sacrifice bullocks. Others place the brazen caldrons in 
 order, and, stretched along the grass, apply burning coals 
 under the spits, and roast the flesh. 6 
 
 Now the wished-for day approached, and the steeds of the 
 sun ushering in the ninth morning with serene sky ; fame, 
 and the renown of illustrious Acestes, had drawn together the 
 neighbourhood. They filled the shores with joyous crowd, 
 some to see the Trojans, some too prepared to try their skill. 
 The prizes first are set before their eyes in the midst of the 
 circus ; sacred tripods, green garlands, and palms, the reward 
 of the conquerors ; arms, and vestments of purple dye, two 
 talents, one of gold and one silver: and the trumpet from 
 the midst of the rising ground gives the signal that the games 
 are begun. 
 
 Four ships selected from the whole fleet, equally matched 
 with ponderous oars, first enter the lists. Mnestheus manages 
 the swift-sailing Pristis, with stout rowers, [destined] soon 
 [to be] the Italian Mnestheus, from which name the family 
 of Memmius is derived ; Gyas, 7 the huge Chimera of stupend- 
 ous bulk, a work like a city, which with a triple tier the Tro- 
 jan youth impel ; the oars rise together in a triple row. Ser- 
 
 6 " Viscera," i. e. all that is contained in the skin of the animal. See 
 Anthon, on JEn. i. 211. So " visceratio " is " a distribution of meat." B. 
 
 7 Gyas, one of the companions of iEneas, who distinguished himself at 
 the naval games exhibited by JEneas in honour of his father Anchises. 
 Gyas commanded the ship Chimera, of which Menoetes was the pilot. 
 
 
 
b. v 121-154. ^NEID. 201 
 
 gestus, from whom the Sergian family has its name, rides iw 
 the bulky Centaur ; and Cloanthus in the sea-green Scylla, 
 from whom, O Roman Cluentius, is thy descent. Far in the 
 sea there lies a rock opposite to the foaming shore, which 
 sometimes overwhelmed is buffeted by the swelling surges, 8 
 when the wintry north-west winds overcloud the stars : in a 
 calm it lies hushed, and rises above the still wave as a plain, 
 and a delightful station for the cormorants basking in the sun. 
 Here father -ZEneas erected a verdant goal of branching oak 
 for a signal to the mariners ; whence they might know to turn 
 back, and whence to wind about the long circuits. Then they 
 choose their places by lot ; and on the poops the leaders, 
 adorned with gold and purple, shine from afar with distin- 
 guished lustre. The rest of the youth are crowned with pop- 
 lar wreaths, and glitter, having their naked shoulders be- 
 smeared with oil. They sit down side by side on the benches, 
 and their arms are stretched to the oars : with eager attention 
 they wait the signal, and their throbbing hearts beat heavily 
 with the impulse of fear, and the generous thirst of praise. 
 Then, as soon as the loud trumpet gave the signal, all (there 
 is no delay) started from their barrier : the seamen's clamour 
 strikes the skies ; and the seas, upturned by their in-bent 
 arms, foam. At once they plough the watery furrows ; and 
 the whole deep opens, convulsed with oars and trident beaks. 
 Not with such violent speed the coursers in the two-yoked 
 ehariot-race spring to the field, and start with full career from 
 the goal ; nor with such ardour do the charioteers shake the 
 waving 9 reins over the flying steeds, and, bending forward, 
 hang to [give] the lash. 10 Then, with the applause and up- 
 roar of the seamen, and the eager acclamations of the favour- 
 ing crowd, every grove resounds : the bounded shores roll the 
 voices on; the lashed hills re-echo the sound. Amidst the 
 bustle and uproar, Gyas flies out before the rest, and scuds 
 away the foremost on the waves : whom next Cloanthus fol- 
 lows, a more skilful rower, but the vessel, sluggish through its 
 bulk, retards him. After these, at equal distance, the Pristis 
 
 8 The reading quoted "by Agraetius de Serm. Lat. p. 1346, " tumidis 
 quod nuctibus olim Tunditur," is far more harmonious than the usual ar- 
 rangement. B. 
 
 9 Cf. Tryphiod. 67, BTriKv^iaivovaa jierrjopog avykvi Kvprif. B. 
 
 10 For this construction, cf. Sil. viii. 283, " U'epida pendens in verbers 
 plania." B, 
 
202 ^ENEID. b. v. 155—190. 
 
 and Centaur strive to gain the foremost place. And now the 
 Pristis has the advantage, now the huge Centaur gets before 
 her vanquished [antagonist] ; anon both advance together 
 with united fronts, and with their long keels plough the briny 
 waves. And now they were approaching the rock, and had 
 reached the goal, when Gyas the foremost, and [hitherto] vic- 
 torious, thus in mid-sea accosts Menoetes, the pilot of his ship : 
 Whither, I pray, are you going so far to the right ? this way 
 steer your course ; keep to the shore, and let the oar graze 
 upon the rocks to the left : let others stand out to sea. He 
 said : but Menoetes, dreading the hidden rocks, turns out his 
 prow towards the waves. Gyas with loud voice called to him 
 again, Menoetes, whither are you steering opposite ? once 
 more, I say, keep to the rocks : And lo ! he espies Cloanthus 
 pressing on his rear, and keeping a nearer compass. He, be- 
 tween Gyas' ship and the roaring rocks, brushes along the 
 left-hand path on the" inside, and suddenly gets a-head of him 
 who was before, and leaving the goal, gains the safe seas. 
 Then indeed severe grief blazed up in the inmost vitals of the 
 youth : nor were his cheeks free from tears ; and regardless 
 both of his own dignity and the "safety of his. friends, he hurls n 
 dastardly Menoetes headlong from the lofty stern into the sea. 
 Himself succeeds to the helm both as pilot and commander ; 
 encourages his men, and turns his rudder to the shore. But 
 when encumbered Menoetes with difficulty at length had risen 
 from the deep bottom, being now in years, and languid by 
 reason of his wet garments, he crawls up to the summit of the 
 rock, and sat down on the dry cliff. The Trojans laughed 
 both to see him fall, and to see him swimming ; and they re- 
 new their laughter when from his breast he vomits up the 
 £< briny wave. Here Sergestus ^nd Mnestheus, the two last, 
 were fired with joyous hope to outstrip Gyas lagging behind. 
 Sergestus gets the start, and makes up to the rock, nor yet 
 had he the advantage by the whole length of the ship, only by 
 a part : the rival Pristis partly presses him with her beak. 
 But Mnestheus on the mid-deck walking among his crew ani- 
 mates them : My Hectorean 12 bands, whom I chose associates 
 in Troy's last fatal hour, now, now with keenness ply your 
 
 11 " Deturbare, dejicere, demovere." Nonius ii. p. 540, ed. Gothof. B. 
 
 12 Instead of" Hectorei socii," Rufinianus, § 35, p. 221, ed. Ruluik. 
 reads, " hortor vos socii." B. 
 
B. v. 191—225. .3ENEID. 203 
 
 oars; now exert that vigour, now that soul of which you 
 were masters in the quicksands of Getulia, in the Ionian Sea, 
 and on Malea's 13 coast, where waves succeeding waves pur- m 
 sued us. / Your Mnestheus aspires not now to the foremost 
 place, nor contends for the victory : though would to heaven ! 
 but may those conquer to whom thou, O Neptune, hast given 
 that boon. Let us be ashamed to come in the last. Surmount, 
 my countrymen, and repel that criminal disgrace. They 
 bend to the oar with the greatest emulation: the brazen- 
 beaked galley trembles with the vast strokes, and the [watery] 
 surface flies from under them. Then thick panting shakes 
 their limbs and parched jaws : sweat flows from every pore 
 in rivulets. Mere chance procured the men the wished-for 
 honour : for while Sergestus, between Mnestheus and the goal, 
 in his furious career, is pressing up the head of the ship to the 
 rocks, and steers in a disadvantageous place, he unluckily stuck 
 among the jutting rocks. The cliffs are shaken, and on* a 
 sharp reef the struggling oars were loudly snapped, and the 
 prow dashed against [the rocks] stood suspended. The marin- 
 ers arise together, and with great clamour desist ; and apply 
 stakes shod with iron, and poles with sharpened points, and 
 gather up their shattered oars on the stream. Meanwhile 
 Mnestheus rejoiced, and more afnimated by this same success, 
 with the nimble march of the oars, and winds called to his 
 aid, cuts the easy waves, and scuds away on the open sea. As 
 a pigeon, whose nest and darling young are in some harbour- 
 ing rock, suddenly scared from her covert, flies away into the 
 fields, and, starting in a fright, gives a loud flapping with her 
 wings against the nest ; then, shooting through the calm still 
 air, skims 14 along the liquid way, nor moves her noble 
 pinions : thus Mnestheus, thus the Pristis herself in her 
 career, cuts the utmost boundary of the watery plain ; thus 
 the mere vehemence of her motion carries her forward in her 
 flying course. And first she leaves behind her Sergestus 
 struggling against the high rocks and scanty shallows, in vain 
 imploring aid, and trying to row on with shattered oars. Then 
 he overtakes Gyas, and Chimera's self of mighty bulk : she 
 yields, because she is deprived of her pilot. And now, in the 
 very end of the course, Cloanthus alone is before him ; whom 
 
 13 Malea, a promontory of Peloponnesus, on the southern coast of La- 
 tonia, dangerous to navigators. 
 
 14 Xtvpbv olfiov aiOkpog \paipu irTtpoiq. ^Esch. Prom. 394. B. 
 
204 ^NEID. b. y. 226—258 
 
 he endeavours to reach, and, straining with the utmost vigour, 
 pursues. Then, indeed, the shouts redouble, and all, with 
 hearty applauses, stimulate him in the pursuit, and the sky 
 resounds with roaring acclamations. These are fired with in- 
 dignation, lest they should lose their possession of glory and 
 the honour they have won ; and they are willing to barter life 
 for renown. Those success cherishes ; they are able because 
 they seem to be able. And, perhaps, they had both gained 
 the prize with equalled beaks, 15 had not Cloanthus, stretching 
 out his hands to the sea, poured forth prayers and invoked the 
 gods to his vows : Ye gods, to whom belongs the empire of 
 the main, over whose seas I sail, I, bound by vow, 16 will 
 joyously present before your altars a snow-white bull on this 
 shore, and cast forth the entrails on the briny wave [as an 
 offering to you], and make a libation of pure wine. He said ; 
 and the whole choir of the Nereids and Phorcus, 17 and the 
 virgin Panopea, heard him from the bottom of the waves ; and 
 father Portunus 18 himself, with his mighty hand, pushed on 
 the galley in her course. She flies to land swifter than the 
 south wind, and the winged arrow, and lodged herself in the 
 harbour's deep recess. Then Anchises' son, having assembled 
 all in form, proclaims Cloanthus conqueror, by the loud voice 
 of the herald, and crowns his temples with verdant laurel ; 
 allows him the choice of three bullocks as presents for the 
 galleys, and gives him wine and a great talent of silver to 
 carry away. On the leaders themselves he confers peculiar 
 honours : to the conqueror he presents a mantle embroidered 
 with gold, round which a thick fringe of Melibean purple ran 
 in a double maze, and where the royal boy [Ganymede] in- 
 woven pursues, with darts and full career, the fleet stags on 
 woody Ida, eager, seeming to pant for breath ; whom Jove's 
 swift armour-bearer, with his crooked talons, snatched aloft 
 from Ida. The aged keepers in vain stretch out their hands 
 to the stars, and the baying of the hounds rages to the skies. 
 To him who by his merit won the second place, he gives to 
 
 15 i. e. " they would have both come in together." B. 
 
 18 He is said to be reus voti who has undertaken a vow on a certain 
 condition ; and when that condition is fulfilled, then he is damnatus voti, 
 or votis, i. e. the gods condemn and sentence him to pay his vow. 
 
 17 Phorcus, a sea-deity, son of Pontus and Terra, and father cf thy 
 Gorgons. 
 
 M Portunus, a name of Melicerta. 
 
B. v. 259—294. ^NEID. 205 
 
 wear a coat of mail, thick set with polished rings, and wrought 
 in gold with a triple tissue, which he himself victorious had 
 torn from Demoleus by rapid Simoi's under lofty Ilium: to be 
 his ornament and defence in war. The servants, Phegeus 
 and Sagaris, with united force, scarcely bore the cumbrous 
 [armour] on their shoulders : but Demoleus, formerly clad 
 therein, used to chase before him the straggling Trojans. For 
 the third present he bestows two caldrons of brass, and silver 
 bowls of finished work, and rough with figures. And thus 
 now all rewarded, and elated with their wealth, were moving 
 along, having their temples bound with scarlet fillets, when 
 Sergestus brought up his hooted galley without honour, hardly 
 with much art disentangled from the cruel rock, with the loss 
 of her oars, and in one tier quite disabled. As often a ser- 
 pent surprised in the highway, (which a brazen wheel hath 
 gone athwart, or a traveller, coming heavy with a blow, hath 
 left half dead and mangled by a stone,) attempting in vain to 
 fly, shoots his body in long wreaths ; in one part fierce, dart- 
 ing fire from his eyes, and rearing aloft his hissing neck ; the 
 other part, maimed with the wound, retards him, twisting [his 
 body] in knots, and winding himself up on his own limbs : 
 with such kind of steerage the ship slowly moved along : her 
 sails, however, she expands, and enters the port with full sail. 
 iEneas gladly confers on Sergestus the promised reward for 
 preserving the vessel, and bringing the crew safe back. To 
 him is given a female slave, not unskilful in the works of 
 Minerva, Pholoe, a Cretan by extraction, with her two chil- 
 dren on the breast. 
 
 This game being over, pious iEneas advances to a grassy 
 plain, which woods on winding hills enclosed around ; and in 
 the mid valley was the circuit of a theatre, whither the hero, 
 in the midst of many thousands, repaired, and took a high 
 seat. Here he offers inviting rewards to those who chanced 
 to be inclined to enter the lists in the rapid race, and exhibits 
 the prizes. The Trojans and Sicilians, in mingled throngs, 
 convene from every quarter : Nisus and Euryalus 19 the first : 
 
 19 Nisus and Euryalus, two Trojans who accompanied JEneas to Italy, 
 and immortalized themselves by their mutual friendship. They fought 
 with great bravery against the Rutulians, but at last Nisus perished in 
 attempting the rescue of his friend Euryalus, who had fallen into the 
 demy's hands. 
 
200 ^INEID. b. v. 295—333. 
 
 Euryalus, distinguished by his lovely form and blooming 
 youth ; Nisus, by his true affection for the boy : whom next 
 Diores followed, a royal youth of Priam's illustrious line. 
 After him Salius, and with him Patron ; of whom the one 
 was an Acarnanian, the other from Arcadia, of the blood of 
 the Tegasan race. Next two Sicilian youths, Elymus and 
 Panopes, trained to the woods, the companions of aged 
 Acestes ; and many more besides, whom fame hath buried in 
 obscurity. In the midst of whom thus -ZEneas spoke : Mark 
 these my words, and attend with joy : none of this throng 
 shall go unrewarded by me. Two bright Gnossian 20 darts of 
 polished steel, and a carved battle-axe of silver, I will give 
 [each man] to bear away. This honour shall be conferred 
 equally on all. The first three shall receive prizes, and shall 
 have their heads bound with swarthy olive. Let the first con- 
 queror have a steed adorned with rich trappings ; the second 
 an Amazonian 21 quiver full of Thracian arrows, which a broad 
 belt of gold around embraces, and a buckle clasps with a 
 tapering gem: and let the third content himself with this 
 Grecian helmet. When he had thus said, they take their re- 
 spective places, and upon hearing the signal, start in a trice, 
 and quit the barrier, darting forward like a tempest : at the 
 same time they mark the goal. Nisus gets the start, and 
 springs away far before the rest, outflying the winds and 
 winged lightning. Next to him, but next by a long interval, 
 follows Salius : then after him Euryalus, with some space left 
 [between them] ; and Elymus follows Euryalus ; close by 
 whose side, lo ! next Diores flies, and now jostles heel with 
 heel, pressing on his shoulder ; and, had more stages remained, 
 he had skipped away before him, or left the victory dubious. 
 And now they were almost in the utmost bound, and, ex- 
 hausted, were approaching towards the very goal ; when un- 
 happy Nisus slides in a slippery puddle of blood, as by chance 
 it had been shed on the ground from victims slain, and soaked 
 the verdant grass. Here the youth, already flushed with the 
 joy of victory, could not support his tottering steps on the 
 ground he trod, but fell headlong amidst the noisome filth and 
 
 20 Gnossian darts, i. e. Cretan darts, from Cnossus, or Gnossus, a city 
 of Crete. 
 
 tl Amazonian quivers : the Amazons were a warlike nation of women, 
 who lived near the river Thermodon in Pontus. 
 
 
« t. 334-370. ^ENEID. 207 
 
 sacred gore. He, however, was not then forgetful of Eury- 
 alus, nor of their mutual affection ; for, as he rose from the 
 slippery mire, he opposed himself to Salius : he again, tum- 
 bling backward, lay prostrate on the clammy sand. Euryalus 
 springs forward, and victorious by the kindness of his friend, 
 holds the foremost place, and flies with favouring applause 
 and acclamation. Elymus comes in next; and Diores, now 
 [entitled to] the third prize. Here Salius fills the whole as- 
 sembly of the ample pit, and the front seats of the fathers, 
 with loud outcries, and demands the prize to be given to him 
 self, from whom it was snatched away by unfair means. The 
 favour [of the spectators] befriends Euryalus, and his grace- 
 ful tears, and merit that appears more lovely in a comely per- 
 son. Diores aids him, and exclaims with bawling voice ; who 
 succeeded to a prize, and had a claim to the last reward in 
 vain, if the first honours be given to Salius. Then father 
 iEneas said: Your rewards, youths, stand fixed, and none 
 shall turn the prize out of its due course : give me leave to 
 compassionate the disaster of my innocent friend. This said, 
 he gives to Salius the huge hide of a Getulian lion, ponderous 
 with shaggy fur and gilt claws. Upon this Nisus says, If to 
 the vanquished such rewards be given, and your pity be ex- 
 tended to those that fell, what gifts are due to Nisus? [to 
 me,] who by my merit won the first prize, had not the same 
 unkind fortune which bore Salius down overpowered me. 
 And with these words he at the same time showed his face 
 and limbs besmeared with oozy filth. The excellent father 
 smiled on his plight, and ordered the buckler to be produced, 
 Didymaon's ingenious work, torn down by the Greeks from 
 the sacred posts of Neptune's temple. With this signal pre- 
 sent he rewards the illustrious youth. 
 
 Next, when the race was finished, and the prizes were dis- 
 tributed : Now, [says he,] whoever he may be in whose breast 
 courage and resolution dwell, let him stand forth, and raise 
 aloft his arms, having his hands bound [with the cestus]. He 
 said, and proposes a double prize for the combat : to the con- 
 queror a bullock decked with gold and fillets ; a sword and 
 shining helm, the solace of the vanquished. Without delay, 
 Dares shows his face with strength prodigious, and rears him- 
 self amidst the loud murmurs of the spectators ; he who alone 
 was wont to enter the lists with Paris ; the same at the tomb 
 
208 J3NTCTD. tj. v. 371— 401. 
 
 where mighty Hector lies, struck down victorious Butes 22 of 
 mighty frame, who boasted his descent from the race of 
 Amycus, king of Bebrycia, and stretched him gasping on the 
 tawny sand. Such Dares uprears his lofty head first in the 
 lists, and presents his broad shoulders, and in alternate throws 
 brandishes his arms around, and beats the air with his fists. 
 For him a match is sought; nor dares one of all that numer- 
 ous crowd encounter him, and draw the gauntlets on his hands. 
 Elated, therefore, and imagining that all had quitted preten- 
 sion to the prize, he stood before ^Eneas' feet : and then, with- 
 out further delay, with his left hand he seizes the bull by the 
 horns, and thus speaks : Goddess-born, if no one will dare to 
 trust himself to the combat, where will be the end of hanging 
 on ? how long must I be detained ? Order the presents to 
 be brought. At the same time all the Trojans murmured their 
 consent, and ordered the promised prizes to be delivered to 
 him. Then venerable Acestes thus chides Entellus, as he sat 
 beside him on the verdant grassy couch : Entellus, in vain 
 [reputed] the stoutest of champions once, will you then suffer 
 so great prizes to be carried off without any contest ? Where 
 is now that god of ours, Eryx, whom you in vain gave out to 
 be your master ? where is your fame through all Trinacria ? 
 where the spoils that used to hang from your roof ? He to this 
 immediately [replies] : It is not that my thirst of praise is 
 gone, or my glory has departed, driven away by fear : but my 
 frozen blood languishes through enfeebling age, and the strength 
 worn out in my body is benumbed. Did I but now enjoy that 
 youth which once I had, and wherein that varlet triumphs 
 with vain confidence, then would I have taken the field ; not 
 indeed induced by the prize of this fair bullock, for I regard 
 not rewards. Thus having spoken, he then throws into the 
 midst a pair of gauntlets 23 of huge weight ; wherewith fierce 
 
 22 Butes, a descendant of Amycus, king of Bebrycia, (Bithynia,) killed 
 by Dares at the tomb of Hector. At the funeral games of Anchises in 
 Sicily, Dares was overcome at the combat of the cestus, by Entellus, a 
 friend of Acestes. 
 
 23 Crestus. The caestus was a sort of leathern guards for the hands, 
 composed of thongs, and commonly filled with lead or iron, to add force 
 and weight to the blow : though others, indeed, will have them to have 
 been a kind of whirlbats or bludgeons of wood, with lead at one end. 
 But the description Virgil gives of these weapons, particularly when ho 
 calls them immensa volumina vinclorum, 408, and sa*'s, 425, 
 
„. v . 402—429. .ENEID. 209 
 
 Eryx was wont to engage in the fight, and to brace his arms 
 with the stubborn hide. Amazement seized their minds. Seven 
 huge thongs of such vast oxen lay stiffening with lead and iron 
 sewed within. Above all Dares himself stands aghast, and 
 utterly declines the combat : and the magnanimous son of 
 Anchises this way and that way poises the weight and the 
 complicated folds of the gauntlets. Then the aged champion 
 thus spake from his soul : What if any [of you] had seen the 
 gauntlet and arms of Hercules himself, and the bloody 24 com- 
 bat on this very shore ? These arms your brother Eryx for- 
 merly wore. You see them yet stained with blood and shat- 
 tered brains* With these he stood against great Alcides : with 
 these I was wont [to combat], while better blood supplied me 
 with strength, nor envious age as yet had scattered grey hairs 
 over my temples. But if Trojan Dares decline these our 
 arms, and if the pious iEneas be so determined, and Acestes, 
 who prompts me [to the fight], approve, let us be equally 
 matched : To oblige you, I lay aside the weapons of Eryx ; 
 dismiss your fears, and do you put off your Trojan gauntlets. 
 This said, he flung from his shoulders his double vest, and 
 bared his huge limbs, his big bones and sinewy arms, and 
 stood forth of mighty frame in the middle of the field. Then 
 the sire, sprung from Anchises, brought forth equal gauntlets, 
 and bound both their hands with equal arms. Forthwith 
 each on his tiptoes stood erect, and undaunted raised his arms 
 aloft in the air. Far from the blow they backward withdrew 
 their towering heads: now hand to hand they join in close 
 encounter, and provoke the fight ; the one having the advan- 
 
 Et paribus palmas amborum innexuit armis, 
 agrees to the former idea, but by no means to the latter. They were tied 
 about the arm as high as the elbow, both as a guard to the arm, and to 
 keep them from sliding off. Some derive the name from ice<=rov, a girdle ; 
 .others from caedo, to kill ; which last answers well enough to the nature 
 of the combat, which was so cruel and bloody, that Lycurgus made a law 
 forbidding the Lacedaemonians to practise it. 
 
 24 The combat is called tristis, woeful, or bloody, because Eryx was 
 slain in it by Hercules. The occasion of the combat is thus related. 
 Hercules having put to death Geryon, king of Spain, was returning with 
 his booty, which was a herd of fine oxen : and having visited Sicily in hir 
 way, received a challenge from Eryx, king of the island, to fight him with 
 the gauntlet. If the victory fell to Eryx, he was to have Hercules' s 
 oxen; but if he was vanquished, then the whole island of Sicily was to b€ 
 Hercules's property. Thus Eryx lost both his life and his crown. 
 
 r 
 
210 jENEID b. v. 430-465. 
 
 tage in agility of foot, and relying on Lis youth ; the other 
 surpassing in limbs and bulk ; but his feeble knees sunk under 
 his trembling body : his difficult breathing shakes his vast 
 frame. The heroes deal many blows to one another with 
 erring aim, and many on the hollow sides redouble ; from 
 their breasts [the thumps] resound aloud, and round their 
 ears and temples thick strokes at random fly; their jaws 
 crackle under the heavy blow. Enteilus stands stiff and un- 
 moved in the same firm posture, only with his body and 
 watchful eyes evades the strokes. The other, as one who 
 besieges a lofty city with batteries, or under arms besets a 
 mountain fortress, explores now these, now those approaches, 
 and artfully traverses the whole ground, and pursues his 
 attack with various assaults, still baffled. Enteilus, rising on 
 tiptoe, extended his right arm, and lifted it on high: the 
 other nimbly foresaw the blow descending from above, and 
 with agility of body shifting, slipped from under it. Entei- 
 lus spent his strength on the wind ; and, both by the force of 
 his own natural weight, and the violence of the motion, falls 
 to the ground of himself with his heavy bulk ; as sometimes, 
 on Erymanthus 25 or spacious Ida, a hollow pine torn from the 
 roots tumbles down at once. The Trojan and Sicilian youth 
 rise together with eager feelings : their acclamations pierce 
 the skies ; and Acestes first advances in haste, and in pity 
 raises from the ground his friend of equal age. But the hero, 
 not disabled nor daunted by his fall, returns to the combat 
 more fierce, and indignation rouses his spirit : then shame and 
 conscious worth set all the powers of his soul on fire ; and 
 inflamed he drives Dares headlong over the whole plain, re- 
 doubling blows on blows, sometimes with the right hand, 
 sometimes with the left. No stop, no stay : as thick showers 
 of hail come rattling down on the house-tops, so with thick 
 repeated blows, the hero thumps Dares with each hand, and 
 tosses him hither and thither. Then father JEneas suf- 
 fered not their fury longer to exert itself, nor Enteilus to 
 rage with such fierce animosity ; but put an end to the com- 
 bat, and rescued Dares quite overpowered, soothing him with 
 words, and bespeaks him in these terms : Unhappy ! what 
 strong infatuation possessed your mind? Are you not sensible 
 
 25 Erymanthus, a mountain of Arcadia, ^here Hercules slew the famous 
 Er) manthian boar. 
 
B< v . 466— 504. jENEID. 211 
 
 of [his having] foreign assistance, and that the gods have 
 changed sides ? Yield to the deity. He said, and by his word 
 put an end to the combat. As for Dares, his trusty com- 
 panions conduct him to the ships, dragging his feeble limbs, 
 and tossing his head to either side, disgorging from his throat 
 clotted gore, and teeth mingled with his blood ; and, at ^Eneas' 
 call, they take the helmet and sword, leave the palm and bull 
 to Entellus. At this the conqueror, in soul elated, and proud 
 of the bull, says : Goddess-born, and ye Trojans, hence know 
 both what strength I have had in my youthful limbs, and from 
 what death you have saved Dares. He said, and stood against 
 the front of the opposite bull that was set for the prize of the 
 combat, and rearing himself up, with his right hand drawn 
 back, levelled the cruel gauntlets directly between the horns, 
 and, battering the skull, drove through the bones. Down 
 drops the ox, and, in the pangs of death, falls sprawling to the 
 ground. Over him he utters these words : This life, more 
 acceptable, O Eryx, I give thee in exchange for Dares' death ; 
 here, victorious, I lay down the gauntlets with my art. 
 
 JEneas forthwith invites such as may be willing to try their 
 skill with the swift arrow, and sets prizes : and with his 
 mighty hand raises a mast taken from Serestus' ship, and from 
 the high mast hangs a fluttering dove by a rope thrust through 
 at which they may aim their shafts. The competitors assem- 
 ble ; and a brazen helmet received the shuffled lots. The lot 
 of Hippocoon, 26 the son of Hyrtacus, comes out first of all 
 with favouring shouts ; whom follows Mnestheus, lately victor 
 in the naval strife, Mnestheus, crowned with green olive. The 
 third is Eurytion, the brother, illustrious Pandarus, of thee, 
 who, once urged to violate the treaty, didst first hurl thy dart 
 into the midst of the Greeks. Acestes remained the last, and 
 in the bottom of the helmet ; he too adventuring with his 
 [aged] hand to essay the feats of youth. Then with stout 
 force they bend their pliant bows, each man according to his 
 ability, and draw forth their arrows from their quivers. And 
 first the arrow of young Hyrtacus' son, shot through the sky 
 from the whizzing string, cleaves the fleeting air, both reaches 
 [the mark], and fixes in the wood of the opposite mast. The 
 
 26 Hippocoon was brother to Nisus, and the friend of ^Eneas. Eury- 
 tion and Pandarus were sons of Lycaon ; the latter was slain by Diomede, 
 in the Trojan war. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 ^NEID. b. v. 505— 542, 
 
 mast quivered; and the frighted bird, by its wings, showed 
 signs of fear ; and all quarters rang with loud applause. Next 
 keen Mnestheus stood with his bow close drawn, 27 aiming on 
 high, and directed his eye and arrow both together. But it 
 was his misfortune not to be able to hit the bird itself with his 
 shaft ; he burst the cords and hempen ligaments to which it 
 hung tied by the foot from the high mast. She with winged 
 speed shot into the air and dusky clouds. Then Eurytion in 
 eager haste, having his arrow long before extended on the 
 ready bow, poured forth a vow to his brother [Pandarus], as 
 he now beheld the joyful dove in the void sky, and pierced 
 her under a dark cloud as she was clapping her wings. She 
 dropped down dead, and left her life among the stars of heaven ; 
 and, falling to the ground, brings back the arrow fastened 
 [in the wound]. Acestes alone remained after the prize was 
 lost; who, notwithstanding, discharged his shaft into the 
 aerial regions, the sire displaying both his address and twang- 
 ing bow. 28 Here is unexpectedly presented to view a prodigy, 
 designed to be of high portent ; this the important event after- 
 wards declared, and the alarming soothsayers predicted the 
 omens late. For the arrow, flying among the watery clouds, 
 took fire, and with the flames marked out a path, till, being 
 quite consumed, it vanished into thin air ; as often stars loos- 
 ened from the firmament shoot across, and flying draw [after 
 them] a train of light. The Sicilians and Trojans stood fixed 
 in astonishment, and besought the gods ; nor does mighty 
 iEneas reject the omen, but, embracing Acestes overjoyed, 
 loads him with ample rewards, and thus bespeaks him : Ac- 
 cept these, O sire, for the great king of heaven, by these 
 omens, has signified his will, that you receive the honour [of 
 the victory, though] out of course. This gift, which belonged 
 to aged Anchises' self, you shall possess ; a bowl embossed 
 with figures, which Thracian Cisseus formerly gave for a 
 magnificent present to my sire, as a monument and pledge of 
 his love. This said, he crowns his temples with verdant 
 laurel, and in view of all pronounces Acestes the first con- 
 queror. Nor does good Eurytion envy him the preference in 
 honour, though he alone struck down the bird from the ex- 
 
 27 This is the force of " adducto." denoting that the bow was fully 
 drawn. Cf. Sil. i. 334. Ovid Met. i. 435. B. 
 
 28 i. e. having lost the mark, he showed to what height he could shoot 
 
E. v. 643—577. ^NEID. 213 
 
 alted sky. He next comes in for a prize, who broke the cords ; 
 the last is he who pierced the mast with his winged shaft. 
 
 But father JEneas, the games not being yet ended, calls to 
 him the son of Epytus, young lulus' guardian and companion, 
 and thus whispers in his trusty ear : Go quick, says he, desire 
 Ascanius (if he has now gotten ready with him his company 
 of boys, and has arranged the movements of the horses) to bring 
 up his troops, and show himself in arms in honour of his 
 grandsire. He himself orders the crowd to remove from the 
 extended circus, and the field to be cleared. The boys ad- 
 vance in procession, and uniformly shine on the bridled steeds 
 full in their parents' sight ; in admiration of whom, as they 
 career along, the whole Trojan and Trinacrian youth join in 
 acclamations. All in due form had their hair pressed with a 
 trim garland. They bear two cornel spears pointed with steel ; 
 some have polished quivers on their shoulders. A pliant cir- 
 cle of wreathed gold goes from the upper part of their breasts 
 about their necks. Three troops of horsemen, and three 
 leaders, range over the plain : twelve striplings following 
 each, shine in a separate body, and with commanders equally 
 matched. One band of youths young Priam, bearing his 
 grandsire's name, leads triumphant ; thy illustrious offspring, 
 O Polites, 29 who shall one day do honour to the Italians, whom 
 a Thracian courser bears, dappled with white spots ; the fet- 
 locks of his foremost feet are white, and, tossing his head 
 aloft, he displays a white front. The second is Atys, 30 from 
 whom the Attii of Rome have derived their origin ; little 
 Atys, a boy beloved by the boy lulus. Iiilus the last, and in 
 beauty distinguished from all the rest, rode on a Sidonian 
 steed which fair Dido had given him as a monument and 
 pledge of her love. The rest of the youths ride on Trinacrian 
 horses of aged Acestes. The Trojans with shouts of applause 
 receive them anxious [for honour], 31 and are well-pleased 
 with the sight, and recognise the features of the aged sires. 
 Now when the joyous youths had paraded on horseback round 
 
 29 Polites, a son of Priam and Hecuba, whose son, also named Priam, 
 accompanied iEneas to Italy, and was one of the friends of young 
 Ascanius. 
 
 30 Atys, who also accompanied iEneas, is supposed to have been the 
 progenitor of the family of the Attii at Rome. 
 
 8i i. e. " eager with excitement." So Servius, " glorise cupidiiato 
 ijllkitos." B. 
 
214 ^JNEID. b. v. 578— 6C3. 
 
 the whole ring, and full in their parents' view, Epytus' son, 
 from afar, gave a signal to them by a shout, as they stood 
 ready, and clanked with the lash. They broke away in parted 
 order, keeping the same front, and broke up the troops into 
 separate bands by threes ; and again, upon summons given, 
 they wheeled about, and bore their hostile spears [on one 
 another]. 32 Then they again advance, and again retreat in 
 their opposite grounds, and alternately involve intricate circles 
 within circles, and call up the representation of a fight in 
 arms. And now flying they expose their defenceless backs ; 
 now in hostile manner turn their darts [on each other] : now, 
 peace being made up, they are borne along together. As of 
 old in lofty Crete was a labyrinth famed for having had an 
 alley formed by dark intricate walls, and a puzzling maze 
 with a thousand avenues, where a [single] mistake, unob- 
 served, but not to be retraced, frustrated the marks for guiding 
 one on the way ; in just such course the sons of the Trojans 
 involve their motions, and with intricate movement represent 
 fighting and flying in sport ; like dolphins, that, swimming 
 through the watery deep, cut the Carpathian or Libyan Sea, 
 and gambol amid the waves. This manner of tilting, and 
 those mock fights, Ascanius first renewed, and taught the 
 ancient Latins to celebrate, when he was enclosing Alba 
 Longa with walls : as he himself, when a boy, as the Trojan 
 youth with him [had practised them], so the Albans taught 
 their posterity ; hence, in after times, imperial Rome received 
 them, and preserved the same in honour of her ancestors : and 
 at this day it is called [the game of] Troy, 33 and the boys 
 r that perform it], the Trojan band. 
 
 Thus far the trials of skill were exhibited [by ^Eneas in 
 
 32 I have followed Anthon. The student will find an excellent ex- 
 planation of the manoeuvres in his notes. B. 
 
 33 This game, commonly known by the name of the Lusus Trojse, is 
 purely of Virgil's own invention, he had no hint of it from Homer. This 
 he has substituted in the room of three of his, the wrestling, the single 
 combat, and the discus, and, in the opinion of a very judicious modern, 
 it is worth all those three in Homer. This game Virgil added to please 
 Augustus, who had at that time renewed the same. Suetonius tells us, 
 Trojse ludum edidit (Augustus) frequentissime, majorum minorumve 
 puerorum delectu : prisci decorique moris existimans, clarse stirpis indo- 
 iem sic innotescere, &c. Suet, in August, cap. 43. Julius Caesar had 
 al*o exhibited the same before, as we learn from the same author, Trqjam 
 lusit turma duplex, majorum minorumve puerorum. In Jul. cap. 36. 
 
B . v . 604—638. JENEID. 215 
 
 honour] of his sanctified sire. Here shifting Fortune, changing, 
 first altered her faith. While they are celebrating the anni- 
 versary festival at the tomb with various games, Saturnian 
 Juno despatched Iris from heaven to the Trojan fleet, and with 
 the fanning winds speeds her on her way, forming many plots, 
 and having not yet glutted her old revenge. The virgin god- 
 dess accelerating her way, seen by none, amidst the bow with 
 a thousand colours, shoots down the path with nimble motion. 
 She descries the vast concourse ; then, surveying the shore, 
 sees the port deserted, and the fleet deserted. But at a dis- 
 tance the Trojan dames apart were mourning the loss of An- 
 chises on the desolate shore, and all of them with tears in 
 their eyes viewed the deep ocean : Ah ! that so many shoals, 
 such a length of sea should still remain for us after all our 
 toils ! was the sole complaint of all. They pray for a city, 
 are sick of enduring the hardships of the main. Therefore 
 she, not unpractised in mischief, throws herself into the midst 
 of them, and lays aside the mien and vesture of a goddess. 
 She assumes the figure of Beroe, the aged wife of Thracian 
 Doryclus, 34 who was of noble birth, and once had renown, and 
 offspring. And thus she joins in discourse with the Trojan 
 matrons : Ah ! unhappy we, who were not dragged forth to 
 death in the war by the Grecian host under our native walls ! 
 Ill-fated race ! for what miserable doom does fortune reserve 
 you ? The seventh summer since the destruction of Troy is 
 already rolled away, while we, having measured all lands and 
 seas, so many inhospitable rocks and barbarous climes, are 
 driven about ; while along the wide ocean we pursue an ever- 
 fleeing Italy, and are tossed on the waves. Here are the 
 realms of his brother Eryx, and his friend Acestes : who pre- 
 vents our founding walls, and giving our citizens a city ? Ah, 
 my country, and our gods in vain saved from the enemy ! 
 shall a city never more arise to be named from Troy ? Shall I 
 never see the Hectorean rivers, Xanthus and Simois ? Nay, 
 lather come, and burn with me our cursed ships. For in my 
 sleep the ghost of the prophetess Cassandra seemed to pre- 
 sent me with flaming brands : Here, says she, seek for Troy, 
 here is your fixed residence. Now is the time for action. 
 
 u Doryclus, a brother of Phineas, king of Thrace, and the husband of 
 Beroe, whose form was assumed by Iris, when she advised the Trojan 
 women to burn the fleet of iEneas in Sicily. 
 
2 1 6 JENEID. b. v. 639—673. 
 
 Nor let there be delay after such signs from heaven. Lo ! 
 here are four altars to Neptune : the god himself supplies us 
 with fire-brands, and with courage [for the attempt]. With 
 these words, she violently snatches the destroying fire, and, 
 lifting up her right hand with exerted force, waves it at a 
 distance, throws it. Roused are the minds and stunned the 
 hearts of the Trojan matrons. Then one of the number, 
 Pyrgo, 35 the most advanced in years, the royal nurse to 
 Priam's numerous sons, [said,] Matrons, this is not Beroe 
 whom you have here, it is not she from Rhasteum, the wife of 
 Doryclus : mark the characters of divine beauty, eyes bright 
 and sparkling ; what breath, what looks ; or the accents of 
 her voice, or her gait as she moves. Myself lately, as I came 
 hither, left Beroe sick, in great anguish that she alone was cut 
 off from such a solemnity, and was not to pay the honours due 
 to Anchises. She said. But the matrons first began to view 
 the ships with malignant eyes, dubious and wavering between 
 their wretched fondness for the present land, and the realms 
 that summoned them by the Fates ; when on equal poised 
 wings the goddess mounted into the sky, and in her flight cut 
 the spacious bow beneath the clouds. Then, indeed, con- 
 founded at the prodigy, and driven by madness, they shriek 
 out together, and snatch the flame from the inmost hearths. 36 
 Some rifle the altars, and fling boughs, and saplings, and 
 brands together ; the conflagration rages with loose reins 
 amidst the rowers' seats, and oars, and painted sterns of fir. 
 Eumelus conveys the tidings to Anchises' tomb, and to the 
 benches of the theatre, that the ships were burned ; and they 
 themselves behold the sparks of fire flying up in a pitchy 
 cloud. And first, Ascanius, as joyous he led the cavalcade, 
 just as he was, with full speed rode up to the troubled camp ; 
 nor was it in the power of his guardians, half-dead for fear, to 
 check him. What strange frenzy this ? whither, he cries, ah ! 
 my wretched countrywomen, whither would you now ? It i3 
 not the enemy, or the hostile camp of the Greeks, but your 
 own hopes ye burn. Here am I, your own Ascanius. He 
 threw at their feet the empty helmet, which he wore while 
 
 35 Pyrgo, the nurse of Priam's children, who followed iEneas in his 
 flight from Troy. 
 
 26 i. e. from the neighbouring dwellings. The fire on the altars was 
 not sufficient. B. 
 
R v . 674—706, jENEID 217 
 
 calling forth the images of war in sport. At the same time 
 iEneas and the bands of the Trojans came up in haste. But 
 the matrons for fear fly different ways up and down the shore, 
 and skulking repair to the woods and hollow rocks wherever 
 there are any. They loathe the deed, the light, and penitent 
 recognise their friends; and Juno is dislodged from their 
 breasts. But the flames and conflagration did not therefore 
 abate their ungovernable fury. The tow lives under the 
 moistened boards, disgorging languid smoke ; the smothered 
 fire gradually consumes the keel, and the contagious ruin 
 spreads through the whole body of the vessel. Neither the 
 efforts of the heroes, nor outpoured streams, avail. Then 
 pious iEneas tore his robe from his shoulders, and invoked 
 the gods to his aid, and stretched out his hands : Almighty 
 Jove, if thou dost not yet abhor all the Trojans to a man, if 
 thy ancient goodness regards human disasters with commiser- 
 ation, grant now, O father, that our fleet may escape from 
 these flames, and save from desolation the humbled state of 
 the Trojans. Or, to complete thy vengeance, hurl me down 
 to the death with thy vindictive thunder, if I so deserve, and 
 crush me here with thy right hand. Scarce had he spoken 
 these words, when a black tempest of bursting rain rages with 
 uncommon fury : both hills 37 and valleys quake with thunder ; 
 the shower in turbid rain, and condensed into pitchy dark- 
 ness by the thick-beating south winds, pours down from the 
 whole atmosphere. The ships are filled from above ; the 
 half-burned boards are drenched, till the whole smoke is ex- 
 tinguished, and all the ships, with the loss of four, are saved 
 from the pest. 
 
 But father JEneas, struck with the bitter misfortune, turned 
 his anxious thoughts now this way, now that, pondering with 
 himself whether fhe should settle in the territories of Sicily, 
 regardless of the Fates, or steer his course to the Italian 
 coast. Then aged Nautes, 38 whom above others Tritonian 
 Pallas taught, and rendered illustrious for deep science, gave 
 forth these responses, what either the great displeasure of the 
 
 37 More literally, "the steeps of land." Cf. Symmach. Epist. vii. 69, 
 " ardua clivi." Apul. Met. L, " ardua montium." Varro, R. R. ii. 10, 
 "montium arduitatem." Hieron. Epist. 22, " aspera montium." B. 
 
 38 Nautes, a Trojan soothsayer, who consoled iEneas when his fleet 
 had been burnt in Sicily. He was the progenitor of the Nautii, at Rome, 
 a family to whom the Palladium of Troy was afterwards intrusted. 
 
218 ^ENEID. b. v. 707-739. 
 
 gods portended, or what the series of the Fates required. 
 And thus, solacing iEneas, he begins : Goddess-born, let us 
 follow the Fates, whether they invite us backward or forward c 
 come what will, every fortune is to be surmounted by pa- 
 tience. You have Trojan Acestes of divine origin : admit 
 him the partner of your counsels, and unite yourself to him 
 your willing friend : to him deliver up such as are supernu- 
 merary, now that you have lost some ships ; choose out those 
 who are sick of the great enterprise, and of your fortunes ; 
 the old with length of years oppressed, and the matrons fa- 
 tigued with the voyage ; select the feeble part of your com- 
 pany, and such as dread the danger, and, since they are tired 
 out, let them have a settlement in these territories : they shall 
 call the city Acesta 39 by a licensed name. 
 
 Then indeed iEneas, fired by these words of his aged friend, 
 is distracted in his mind amidst a thousand cares. Now sable 
 Night, mounted on her chariot with two horses, held the skies, 
 when the form of his father Anchises, gliding down from the 
 skies, suddenly seemed to pour forth these words : Son, once 
 dearer to me than life, while life remained ; my son, severely 
 tried by the fates of Troy ; hither I come by the command of 
 Jove, who averted the fire from your fleet, and at length 
 showed pity from the high heaven. Comply with the excel- 
 lent counsel which aged Nautes now offers : carry with you 
 to Italy the choice of the youths, the stoutest hearts. In 
 Latium you have to subdue a hardy race, rugged in manners. 
 But first, my son, visit Pluto's infernal mansions, and, in 
 quest of an interview with me, cross the deep floods of Aver- 
 nus : for not accursed Tartarus, nor the dreary ghosts, have 
 me in their possession ; but I inhabit the delightful seats of 
 the blest, and Elysium. 40 Hither the chaste Sibyl shall con- 
 duct thee after shedding profusely the blood of black victims. 
 Then you shall learn your whole progeny, and what walls are 
 assigned to you. And now farewell: humid Night wheels 
 about her mid course, 41 and the dawning light, which fiercely 
 summons me away, hath breathed upon me with panting steeds. 
 
 39 Acesta, or Segesta, a city of Sicily, built by iEneas in honour of 
 king Acestes. 
 
 40 Elysium, a place in the infernal regions, where, according to the 
 mythology of the ancients, the souls of the virtuous were placed after 
 death. The Elysian fields, according to Virgil, were situated in Italy 
 
 41 The reader will call to mind the words of the ghost in " Hamlet." B. 
 
B, v. 740- -774. JENEID. 219 
 
 He said; and vanished like smoke into the fleeting air. 
 Whither so precipitant ? says then iEneas ; whither dost thou 
 whirl away ? whom fliest thou ? or who debars me from my 
 embraces ? So saying, he awakes the embers and dormant fire, 
 and suppliant pays veneration to his Trojan domestic god, and 
 the shrine of hoary Vesta, with a holy cake and full censer. 
 Forthwith he calls his followers, and first of all Acestes, and 
 informs them of Jove's command, and the instructions of his 
 beloved sire, and of the present settled purpose of his soul. 
 No obstruction is given to his plans ; nor is Acestes averse 
 to the proposals made. They enrol 42 the matrons for the city, 
 and set on shore as many of the people as were willing, souls 
 that had no desire of high renown. Themselves renew the 
 benches, and repair the timbers half consumed by the flames ; 
 fit oars and cables to the ships ; in number small, but of ani- 
 mated valour for war. 
 
 Meanwhile -ZEneas marked out a city with the plough, and 
 assigns the houses by lot : here he orders a [second] Ilium 
 to arise,' and these places to be called after those of Troy. 
 Trojan Acestes rejoices in his kingdom; institutes a court of 
 justice ; and having assembled his senators, dispenses laws. 
 Then on the top of Mount Eryx a temple approaching the 
 stars is raised to Idalian Venus ; 43 and a priest is assigned to 
 the tomb of Anchises, with a grove hallowed far and wide. 
 And now the whole people had kept the festival for nine days, 
 and sacrifices had been offered on the altars, peaceful breezes 
 have smoothed the seas, and the south wind in repeated gales 
 invites into the deep. Loud lamentations along the winding 
 shores arise : in mutual embraces they linger out both night 
 and day. Even the matrons, and those to whom the face of the 
 sea lately seemed horrid, and its divinity 44 intolerably severe, 
 would willingly go, and submit to all the toil of the voyage ; 
 whom good .ZEneas solaces in friendly terms, and, weeping, 
 commends to his kinsman Acestes. Then he orders to sacri- 
 fice to Eryx three calves, and a female lamb to the tempests, 
 and to weigh anchor after the due rites were performed. He 
 himself, having his head bound with a trim garland of olivo 
 
 42 " Transcribere " is a word properly used of colonizing. SeeServius 
 Cf. Seneca, Episc. 4, " te in viros philosophia transcripseris." B. 
 ** So called from Mount Ida. 
 44 But " nomen " seems simpler. See Anthon. B. 
 
220 JENEID. b. v. 775— 809. 
 
 leaves, standing on the extremity of the prow, holds the cup, 
 and casts forth the entrails on the briny waves, and pours the 
 limpid wine. A wind arising from the stern accompanies them 
 in their course. The crew, with emulous vigour, lash the sea 
 and brush its smooth surface. 
 
 Meanwhile Venus, harassed with cares, addresses Neptune, 
 and pours forth these complaints from her breast : The heavy 
 resentment and insatiable passion of Juno compel me, O Nep- 
 tune, to descend to all entreaties ; Juno, whom neither length 
 of time or any piety softens ; and who is not quelled and sub- 
 dued even by Jove's imperial sway, or by the Fates. It is not 
 enough for her to have effaced the city from among the Phry- 
 gian race by her unhallowed hate, nor to have dragged its re- 
 lics through all sorts of suffering ; she persecutes the ashes and 
 bones of ruined Troy. The causes of such furious resentment 
 are to her best known. Yourself can witness for me what a 
 heaving tempest she suddenly raised of late on the Libyan 
 waves. The whole sea she blended in confusion with the sky, 
 vainly relying on JEolus' storms ; this presuming [even] in 
 your realms. Lo also (O wickedness !) by acting upon the 
 Trojan matrons, she hath shamefully burned the ships, and 
 forced their friends, now that they have lost their fleet, to 
 abandon them in an unknown land. As to what remains, may 
 they be allowed, I pray, to sail over the waves secure by thy 
 protection : may they be allowed to reach Laurentian Tiber ; 45 
 if I ask what may be granted, if the Destinies assign those set* 
 tlements. Then the Saturnian ruler of the deep ocean thus 
 replied : Cytherea, 46 it is perfectly just that you confide in my 
 realms, whence you derive your birth : besides, I have a just 
 claim ; [for] often have I checked the furious rage and mad- 
 dening tumult of sea and sky. Nor was I less careful of your 
 JEneas on earth (I call Xanthus and Simois to witness). 
 When Achilles, pursuing the breathless troops of Troy, dashed 
 them against their walls, gave many thousands to death, and 
 the choked rivers groaned, and Xanthus could not find his 
 way, nor disembogue himself into the sea ; then in a hollow 
 cloud I snatched away JEneas, while encountering the mighty 
 Achilles with strength and gods unequal ; though I was de- 
 
 45 Laurentian Tiber, so called from Laurentum, (Paterno,) the caj.'.al 
 of Latium in the reign of Latinus. 
 
 46 Cytherea. A surname of Venus. 
 
*. v. 810—842. JENEID. 22 1 
 
 pirous of overthrowing from the lowest foundation the walls 
 of perj ured Troy, reared by my hands. And still I am of tho 
 same disposition : banish your fear ; he shall arrive safe at the 
 port of Avernus, which you desire. One only, lost in the deep, 
 shall he seek for : one life shall be given for many. 47 The sire, 
 having by these words soothed and cheered the heart of the 
 goddess, yokes his steeds to his golden car, puts the foaming 
 bit into their fierce mouths, and throws out all the reins. 
 Along the surface of the seas he nimbly glides in his azure 
 car. The waves subside, and the swelling ocean smooths its 
 liquid pavement under the thundering axle : the clouds fly off 
 the face of the expanded sky. Then [appear] the various forms 
 of his retinue, unwieldy whales, 48 and the aged train of Glaucus, 
 and Palemon, 49 Ino's son, the swift Tritons, and the whole 
 band of Phorcus. On the left are Thetis, Melite, and the virgin 
 Panopae, Nessee, Spio, Thalia, and Cymodoce. Upon this, 
 soft joys in their turn diffuse themselves through the anxious 
 soul of father ^Eneas. Forthwith he orders all the masts to 
 be set up, and the yards to be stretched along the sails. At 
 once they all tacked together, and together let go sometimes 
 the left-hand sheets, sometimes the right : at once they turn 
 and turn back the lofty end of the sail-yards : friendly gales 
 waft the fleet forward. Palinurus, the master-pilot, led the 
 closely-united squadron : towards him the rest were ordered 
 to steer their course. 
 
 And now the dewy night had almost reached the middle of 
 her course ; the weaij^sailors, stretched along the hard benches 
 under the oars, relaxed their limbs 50 in peaceful repose ; when 
 the god of sleep, gliding down from the ethereal stars, parted 
 the dusky air, and dispelled the shades ; to you, O Palinurus, 
 directing his course, visiting you, though innocent, with dismal 
 dreams : and the god took his seat on the lofty stern, in the 
 similitude of Phorbas, 51 and poured forth these words from 
 
 47 i. e. Palinurus. Cf. Eur. Electr. 1026, tKreive tto\)<Cjv fxiav V7rep. B. 
 
 48 i. e. fish of large size. Nonius, v. " cetarii," remarks =" cete in mari 
 majora sunt piscium genera.*' B. 
 
 49 Balemon, the same with Melicerta and Portumnus. See note 59, 
 Georgics, B. I. page 46. Tritons, &c., sea-deities. The name Tritons was 
 generally applied to those only who were half men and half fishes. 
 
 50 Cf. Homer's XvcnfieXrig vttvoq, Od. ¥. 342.> Orph. in Somn. 5. B. 
 
 51 Phorbas, a son of Priam, killed in the Trojan war by Menelaus. 
 The god Somnus, by assuming his shape, deceived Palinurus, and threw 
 him into the sea. 
 
222 ^NEID. b. v. 843—871. 
 
 his lips : Palinurus, son of Iasius, the seas themselves carry 
 forward the fleet ; the gales blow fair and steady, the hour for 
 rest is given. Recline your head, and steal your weary eyes 
 from labour. Myself awhile will discharge your duty. To 
 whom Palinurus, with difficulty lifting up his eyes, answers : 
 Do you then bid me be a stranger to the aspect of the calm 
 sea and its quiet waves ? Shall I confide in this extraordin- 
 ary apparition ? Why should I trust iEneas to the mercy of 
 the fallacious winds, 52 after having been so often deceived by 
 the treacherous aspect of a serene sky ? These words he 
 uttered, while fixed and clinging he did not part with the 
 rudder, and held his eyes directed to the stars ; when, lo ! the 
 god shakes over both his temples a branch drenched in the 
 dew of Lethe, and impregnated with soporific Stygian influ- 
 ence ; and, while he is struggling against sleep, dissolves his 
 swimming eyes. Scarcely had unexpected slumber begun to 
 relax his limbs, when the god, leaning on him, with part of 
 the stern broke off, together with the helm, plunged him head- 
 long into the limpid waves, often calling on his friends in 
 vain : taking flight, raised .himself on his wings aloft into the 
 thin air. Meanwhile, the fleet runs its watery course on the 
 plain with equal security, and fearless is conducted by father 
 Neptune's promises. And now wafted forward, it was even 
 coming up to the rocks of the Sirens, 53 once of difficult ac- 
 cess, and white with the bones 54 of many (at that time the 
 hoarse rocks resounded far by the contiaual buffeting of the 
 briny waves) ; when father .ZEneas perfl^ed the fluctuating 
 galley to reel, having lost its pilot ; and he himself steered her 
 through the darkened waves, deeply affected and wounded in 
 his soul for the misfortune of his friend. Ah, Palinurus, 
 [says he,] who has too much confided in the fair aspect of 
 the skies and sea ! naked wilt thou lie on unknown sands ! 
 
 62 On this general use of " austri," cf. ^En. i. 51, 536; ii. 304; v. 
 396, &c. B. 
 
 53 Sirens ; these were three fabiflous sisters who usually resided in a 
 small island near Cape Pelorus in Sicily, and by their melodious voices 
 decoyed mariners to their destruction on the fatal coast. Ulysses having, 
 by an artifice, escaped their fascination, the disappointed Sirens threw 
 themselves into the sea, and perished. 
 
 54 Statins Silv. ii. 7, 65, " albos ossibus Italis Philippos." Senec. CSd 
 3L4. Cf. Pric. on Apul. p. 436. B. 
 
ft vi. 1—21. jENEID. 223 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 In the Sixth Book, iEneas, on reaching the coast of Italy, visits, as he had 
 been forewarned, the Sibyl of Cumae, who attends him in his descent into 
 the infernal regions, and conducts him to his father Anchises, from whom 
 he learns the fate that awaited him and his descendants the Romans. The 
 book closes with the well-known beautiful panegyric on the younger Mar- 
 cellus, who was prematurely cut off in the flower of his youth. 
 
 Thus he speaks with tears, and gives his ship full sail, 1 
 and at length he reaches the Euboean coast 2 of Cumae. They 
 turn their prows out to the sea : then the anchor with its te 
 nacious fluke moored the ships, and the bending sterns fringe 3 
 the margin of the shore. The youthful crew spring forth 
 with ardour on the Hesperian strand : some seek for the seeds 
 of fire latent in the veins of flint ; some plunder the copses, 
 the close retreat of wild beasts, and point out rivers newly 
 discovered. But the pious iEneas repairs to the towers over 
 which Apollo presides on high, and to the spacious cave, the 
 cell of the Sibyl awful at a distance ; into whom the prophetic 
 god of Delos breathes an enlarged mind and spirit, and dis- 
 closes to her the future. Now they enter Diana's groves, 
 and [Apollo's] golden roofs. Daedalus, 4 as is famed, flying 
 the realms of Minos, adventuring to trust himself to the sky 
 on nimble wings, sailed through an untried path to the cold 
 regions of the north, and at length gently alighted on the 
 tower of Chalcis. ILming landed first on those coasts, to thee, 
 O Phoebus, he consWated his hoary wings, and reared a 
 spacious temple. On the gates the death of Androgeos 5 [was 
 represented] : then the Athenians, doomed, as an atonement 
 
 1 Literally, " gives a loose rein." Cf. Ritterh. on Oppian, Hal. 229. B. 
 
 2 Euboean coast, applied to Cumae in Italy, as having been built by a 
 colony from Chalcis, a city of Eubcea, (Negropont,) an island in the 
 Archipelago. 
 
 8 i. e. with the " aplustria." See Anthon. B. 
 
 4 Daedalus, a most ingenious artist of Athens, who, with his son Icarus, 
 1 fled, by the help of wings, from Crete, to escape the resentment of Minos; 
 i bnt Icarus fell into that part of the ^Egean Sea which bears his name. 
 
 5 Androgeos, the son of Minos and Pasiphae, famous for his skill in 
 ■ wrestling, was put to death by iEgeus, king of Athens, who became 
 
 iealous of him ; to revenge his death, Minos made war upon the Athe- 
 nians, and at last grant them peace, on condition that they sent yearly 
 ■even youths and seven virgins, from Athens to Crete, to be devoured by 
 tlie Minotaur, a fabulous monster, ha]f a man and half a bull. 
 
224 ^ENEID. b. vi. 22—52. 
 
 (a piteous case !) to pay yearly the bodies of their children by 
 sevens : there stands the urn whence the lots were drawn. In 
 counterview answers the land of Crete raised above sea ; here 
 Pasiphae's fierce passion for the bull is seen, and she [is intro- 
 duced] by artifice humbled [to his embrace], with the Minotaur, 
 that mingled birth, and two-formed offsprings, monuments of 
 execrable lust. Here [are seen] the laboured work of the Laby- 
 rinth, and the inextricable mazes. But Daedalus, pitying the 
 violent love of queen [Ariadne], unravels [to Theseus] 6 the in- 
 tricacies and windings of the structure, himself guiding his dark 
 mazy steps by a thread. You too, O Icarus, should have borne a 
 considerable part in that great work, had [thy father's] grie^ 
 permitted. Twice he essayed to figure the disastrous story m 
 gold ; twice the parent's hand misgave him. And now [the 
 Trojans] would survey the whole work in order, were not 
 Achates, who had been sent on, just at hand, and with him the 
 priestess of Phoebus and Diana, Deiphobe, 7 Glaucus' daughter, 
 who thus bespeaks the king : This hour requires not such 
 amusements. At present it will be more suitable to sacrifice 
 seven bullocks from a herd unyoked, and as many chosen ewes, 
 with usual rites. The priestess having thus addressed iEneas, 
 (nor are they backward to obey her sacred orders,) calls the 
 Trojans into the lofty temple. I The huge side of an Euboean 
 rock is cut out into a cave, whither a hundred broad avenues 
 lead, a hundred doors ; whence rush forth as many voices, 
 the responses of the Sibyl. They had come to the threshold, 8 
 when thus the virgin exclaims : Now^(fe the time to consult 
 your fate : the god, lo the god ! While thus before the gate 
 she speaks, on a sudden her looks change, her colour comes 
 and goes, her locks are dishevelled, her breast heaves, and her 
 fierce heart swells with enthusiastic rage ; she appears in a 
 larger form, her voice speaking her not a mortal, now that 
 she is inspired with the nearer influence of the god. Do you 
 delay, 9 Trojan iEneas, she says, do you delay with thy vows 
 
 6 Theseus, king of Athens, and son of iEgeus, was, next to Hercules, 
 the most celebrated of the heroes of antiquity. He slew the Minotaur, 
 and escaped from the Labyrinth of Crete, by means of a clue of thread 
 given to him by Ariadne, daughter of Minos. 
 
 r Deiphobe, the Cumaean Sibyl, daughter of Glaucus, who conducted 
 <Eneas into the infernal regions. 
 
 8 i. e. to the entrance nearest Cumae. B. 
 
 9 On this construction, see Markland on Stat. Silv. l. 2, 195 B. 
 
B> vi. 52—89. iRNEID. 225 
 
 and prayers ? [Instantly begin] : for not till then shall the 
 ample gates of this awe-stricken mansion unfold to the view. 
 And having thus said, she ceased. Chill horror ran thrilling 
 cold through the bones of the Trojans ; and their king poured 
 forth these prayers from the bottom of his heart : Apollo, who 
 hast ever pitied the troubles of Troy, whoguidedst the Trojan 
 darts and the hand of Paris to the body of Achilles ; under 
 thy conduct I have entered so many seas encompassing coun 
 tries, and the Massylian nations far remote, and regions vast 
 stretched in front by the Syrtes. Now at length we grasp of 
 the coast of Italy that flies from us. Let it suffice that the 
 fortune of Troy has persecuted us thus far. Now it is just 
 that you too spare the Trojan race, ye gods and goddesses, all, 
 to whom Ilium and the high renown of Dardania were ob- 
 noxious. And thou too, most holy prophetess, skilled in fu- 
 turity, grant (I ask no realms but what are destined to me 
 by fate) that the Trojans, their wandering gods, and the per- 
 secuted deities of Troy, may settle in Latium. Then will I 
 appoint to Phoebus and Diana a temple of solid marble, and 
 festal days, called by the name of Apollo. Thee too a spacious 
 sanctuary awaits in our realms : for there, benignant one, I 
 will deposit thy oracles, and the secret fates declared to my 
 nation, and will consecrate chosen men. Only commit not thy 
 verses to leaves, lest they fly about in disorder, the sport of 
 the rapid winds : I beg you yourself will pronounce them. He 
 ended his address. 
 
 But the prophetess^ as yet not suffering the* influence of 
 
 Phoebus, raves with wild outrage in the cave, struggling if 
 
 i possible to disburden her soul of the mighty god : so much 
 
 I the more he wearies her foaming lips, subduing her ferocious 
 
 I heart, and, by bearing down her opposition, moulds her to his 
 
 i will. And now the hundred spacious gates of the abode were 
 
 opened of their own accord, and pour forth the responses of 
 
 the prophetess into the open air : O thou who hast at length 
 
 overpassed the vast perils of the ocean ! yet more afflicting 
 
 trials by land await thee. The Trojans shall come to the 
 
 realms of Lavinium, (dismiss that concern from thy breast,) 
 
 but they shall wish too they had never come. Wars, horrid 
 
 wars, I foresee, and Tiber foaming with a deluge of blood. 
 
 Nor Simois nor Xanthus, nor Grecian camps, shall be wanting 
 
 to you there. Another Achilles is prepared in Latium : he 
 
 Q 
 
226 ^NEID. b. vi. 90—121. 
 
 too the son of a goddess. Nor shall Juno, added to the Trojans 
 [as their scourge], leave them wherever they are : while in 
 your distress, which of the Italian states, which of its cities, 
 shall you not humbly supplicate for aid ? Once more shall a 
 consort, a hostess, once more shall a foreign match, be the 
 cause of so great calamity to the Trojans. Yield not under 
 your sufferings, but encounter them with greater boldness 
 than your fortune shall permit. 10 What you least expect, 
 your first means of deliverance shall be unfolded from a Gre- 
 cian city. Thus from her holy cell the Cumsean Sibyl de- 
 livers her mysterious oracles, and, wrapping up truth in 
 obscurity, bellows in her cave: Such reins Apollo shakes 
 over her as she rages, and deep in her breast he plies the 
 goads. 
 
 As soon as her fury ceased, and her raving tongue was silent, 
 the hero -ZEneas begins : To me, O virgin, no shape of sufferings 
 can arise new or unexpected ; I have anticipated all things, 
 and acted them over beforehand in my mind. My sole re- 
 quest is, (since here the gate of the infernal king is said to 
 be, and the darksome lake [formed] from the overflowing 
 Acheron,) that it may be my lot to come into the sight and 
 presence of my dear father ; that you would show the way, 
 and open to me the sacred portals. On these shoulders I 
 rescued him, through flames and a thousand darts pursuing, 
 and saved him from the midst of the enemy. He accompanied 
 my path, attended me in all my voyages, and, though infirm, 
 bore all the terrors both of the sea and sky, beyond the power 
 and condition of old age. Nay more, he it was who earnestly 
 requested and enjoined me to come to thee a suppliant, and 
 visit thy temple. Benignant one, pity, I pray, the son and 
 the sire ; for thou canst do all things ; nor hath Hecate in vain 
 given thee charge of the Avernian groves. If Orpheus had 
 power to recall his consort's ghost, relying on his Thracian 
 harp and harmonious strings ; if Pollux 11 redeemed his brother 
 
 10 I prefer "quam" with Wagner, notwithstanding Anthon's defence 
 of "qua." B. 
 
 11 Pollux and Castor were twin brothers : according to ancient my* 
 thology, Pollux was the son of Jupiter, and so tenderly attached to his 
 brother Castor, that he entreated Jupiter he might share his immortality, 
 which being granted, they alternately lived and died every day. They 
 were made constellations under the name of Gemini, which never appeal 
 together, but when one rises the other sets. 
 
B. vi. 122—160. ^NEID. 227 
 
 by alternate death, and goes and comes this way so often : [J 
 hope I may also be allowed to go and return :] why need 1 
 mention Theseus, or great Alcides ? I too derive my birth 
 from Jove supreme. 
 
 In such terms he prayed, and held the altar, when thus the 
 prophetess began to speak : Offspring of the gods, thou Tro- 
 jan son of Anchises, easy is the path that leads down to hell ; 
 grim Pluto's gate stands open night and day : but to retrace 
 one's steps, and escape to the upper regions, this is a work, 
 this is a task. Some few, whom favouring Jove loved, or il- 
 lustrious virtue advanced to heaven, the sons of the gods, have 
 effected it. Woods cover all the intervening space, and Co- 
 cytus gliding with his black winding flood surrounds it. But 
 if your soul be possessed with so strong a passion, so ardent a 
 desire, twice to swim the Stygian lake, twice to visit gloomy 
 Tartarus, and you will needs fondly pursue the desperate en- 
 terprise, learn what first is to be done. On a tree of deep 
 shade there lies concealed a bough, with leaves and limber 
 twigs of gold, pronounced sacred to infernal Juno : this the 
 whole grove covers, and shades in dark valleys enclose. But 
 to none is it given to enter the hidden recesses of the earth, 
 till from the tree he pluck the bough with its golden locks. 
 Fair Proserpine hath ordained this to be presented to her as 
 her peculiar present. When the first is torn off, a second of 
 gold soon succeeds ; and a twig shoots forth leaves of the 
 same metal. Therefore search out for it on high with thine 
 eyes, and when found, pluck it with the hand in a proper 
 manner ; for, if the Fates invite you, itself will come away 
 willing and easy ; otherwise you will not be able to master it 
 by any strength, or to lop it off by the stubborn steel. Be- 
 sides, the body of your friend lies breathless, (whereof you, 
 alas ! are not aware,) and pollutes the whole fleet with death, 
 while you are seeking counsel, and hang lingering at my gate. 
 First convey him to his place of rest, and bury him in the 
 grave. Bring black cattle : let these first be the sacrifices of 
 expiation. So at length you shall have a view of the Stygian 
 groves, realms inaccessible to the living. She said, and 
 closing her lips, was silent. 
 
 .iEneas, his eyes fixed on the ground with sorrowing looks, 
 takes his way, leaving the cave, and muses the dark event in 
 his mind ; whom faithful Achates accompanies, and steps on 
 
 q 2 
 
228 ^ENEID. e. ti. 161—197. 
 
 with equal concern. Many doubts they started between them 
 in the variety of their conversation ; who was the lifeless 
 friend designed by the prophetess, what corpse was to be in- 
 terred. And as they came, they saw Misenus 12 on the dry 
 beach, slain by an unworthy death ; Misenus, son of -ZEolus, 
 whom none excelled in rousing warriors by the brazen trump, 
 and kindling the rage of war by its blast. He had been the 
 companion of great Hector, and about Hector he fought, dis- 
 tinguished both for the clarion and spear. After victorious 
 Achilles had bereaved Hector of life, the valiant hero asso- 
 ciated with Dardanian .ZEneas, following no inferior chief. 
 But at that time, while madly presumptuous he makes the 
 seas resound with his hollow trump, and with bold notes chal- 
 lenges the gods to a trial of skill, Triton, jealous, (if the story 
 be worthy of credit,) having inveigled him between two rocks, 
 had overwhelmed him in the foaming billows. Therefore all 
 murmured their lamentations around him with loud noise, 
 especially pious JEneas; then forthwith weeping they set 
 about the Sibyl's orders, and are emulous to heap up the altar 
 of the funeral pile with trees, and raise it towards heaven 
 They repair to an ancient wood, the deep lairs of the savage 
 kind : down drop the firs : the holm crashes, felled by the 
 axes ; and the ashen logs and yielding oak are cleft by 
 wedges ; down from the mountains they roll the huge wild 
 ashes. -ZEneas, too, chief amidst these labours, animates his 
 followers, and is equipped with like implements. 
 
 Meanwhile he thus ruminates in his distressed breast, sur- 
 veying the spacious wood, and thus prays aloud : O if that 
 golden branch on the tree now present itself to our view amid 
 this ample forest ; since, Misenus, all that the prophetess de- 
 clared of thee, is true, alas ! too true. Scarcely had he spoken 
 these words, when it chanced that two pigeons, in their airy 
 flight, came directly into the hero's view, and alighted on the 
 verdant ground. Then the mighty hero knows his mother's 
 birds, and rejoicing prays : Oh ! be the guides of the way, if 
 any way there is, and steer your course through the air into 
 the groves, where the precious branch overshades the fertile 
 soil. And thou, my goddess-mother, oh be not wanting to 
 me in this my perplexity ! Thus having said, he paused, ob- 
 
 12 Misenus, a son of iEolus, the trumpeter of Hector, after whose death 
 s.e followed J^neas to Italy, and was drowned on the coast of Campania 
 
d. vi. 19&-232. iENEID. 229 
 
 serving what indications they offer, whither they bend their 
 way. They, feeding and flying by turns, advanced before 
 only as far as the eyes of the followers could trace them with 
 their ken. Then, having come to the mouth of noisome 13 
 Avernus, they mount up swiftly, and, gliding through the 
 clear air, both alight on the wished-for place, on that tree 
 from whence the gleam of the gold, of different hue, shone 
 through the boughs. As in the woods the mistletoe, which 
 springs not from the tree from whence it grows, is wont to 
 bloom with new leaves in the cold of winter, and to twine 
 around the tapering trunk with its yellow offspring ; such was 
 the appearance of the gold sprouting forth on the shady holm : 
 in like manner the metallic leaf tinkled with the gentle gale. 
 Forthwith ^Eneas grasps, and eagerly tears off the lingering 
 branch, and bears it to the grotto of the prophetic Sibyl. 
 
 Meanwhile the Trojans were no less assiduously employed 
 in mourning Misenus on the shore, and in paying the last 
 duties to his senseless 14 ashes. First they rear a vast pile 
 anctuous with pines and split oak, whose sides they inter- 
 weave with black boughs, and place in the front deadly 
 cypresses, and deck it above with glittering arms. Some get 
 ready warm water, and caldrons bubbling from the flames ; 
 and wash and anoint his cold limbs. The groan is raised: 
 they then lay the bewailed body on a couch, and throw over 
 it the purple robes, his wonted apparel. Others bore up the 
 cumbrous bier, a mournful office ; and with their faces turned 
 away, after the manner of their ancestors, under it they held 
 the torch. Amassed together, blaze offerings of incense, 
 viands, whole goblets of oil poured [on the pile]. After the 
 ashes had sunk down, and the flames relented, they drenched 
 the relics and soaking embers in wine ; and Chorinaeus en- 
 closed the collected bones in a brazen urn. Thrice too he 
 made the circuit of the company with holy water, sprinkling 
 them with the light spray, and a branch of the prolific olive ; 
 and he purified them, and pronounced the last farewell. But 
 
 13 Nonius, i. 46, quoting these verses, observes, " Arernus iccirco ap- 
 pellatus est, quia est odor ejus avibus infestissimus." This is probably a 
 mistaken etymology. For the expression, compare Georg. iv. 270, 
 " grave olentia Centaurea." B. 
 
 14 " Ingrato, gratiam non sentienti," is Servius's last and correct ex- 
 planation. Cf. Copa, vs. 35, (in Anth. Lat. T. i. p. 74,) "Quid cineri 
 ingrato servas bene olentia serta." B. 
 
 
230 JENEID. b. vi. 233—266 
 
 pious iEneas erects a spacious tomb for the hero, with his 
 arms upon it, and an oar and trumpet, beneath a lofty moun- 
 tain, which now from him is called Misenus, and retains a 
 name eternal through ages. 
 
 This done, he speedily executes the Sibyl's injunctions. 
 There was a cave profound and hideous with wide yawn- 
 ing mouth, stony, fenced by a black lake, and the gloom of 
 woods ; over which none of the flying kind were able to wing 
 their way unhurt : such exhalations, issuing from its grim 
 jaws, ascended to the vaulted skies : [for which reason the 
 Greeks called the place by the name of Aornus.] 15 Here 
 first the priestess places four bullocks with backs of swarthy 
 hue, and pours 16 wine on their foreheads, and cropping the 
 topmost hairs between the horns, lays them on the sacred 
 flames as the first offerings, by voice invoking Hecate whose 
 power extends both to heaven and hell. Others employ the 
 knives, 17 and receive the tepid blood in bowls. -ZEneas him- 
 self smites with his sword a ewe -lamb of sable fleece in honour 
 of the mother of the Furies, and her great sister, and in 
 honour of thee, Proserpina, a barren heifer. Then he sets 
 about the nocturnal sacrifices to the Stygian king, and lays on 
 the flames the solid carcasses of bulls, pouring fat oil on the 
 broiling entrails. Lo now, at the early beams and rising of 
 the sun, the ground beneath their feet began to rumble, the 
 Wooded heights to quake, and dogs were seen to howl through 
 the shade of the woods, at the approach of the goddess. 
 Hence, far hence, O ye profane, exclaims the prophetess, and 
 begone from all the grove : and do you, JEneas, boldly march 
 forward, and snatch your sword from its sheath : now is the 
 time for fortitude, now for firmness of resolution. This said, 
 she raving plunged into the open cave. He, with intrepid 
 steps, keeps close by his guide as she leads the way. 
 
 Ye gods, to whom the empire of ghosts belong, and ye silent 
 shades, and Chaos, and Phlegethon, places where silence 
 reigns around in night ! permit me to utter the secrets I have 
 
 15 This line is probably the work of a grammarian. B. 
 
 16 Literally, " tilts the vessel," the verb properly meaning the action of 
 bending the cup as the liquid is poured out. So Lucret. v. 1007, " Illi 
 imprudentes ipsi sibi ssepe venenum Vergebant." Cf. Gronov. Obs. ii. 
 7. B. 
 
 17 i. e. cut the throats of the victims. B. 
 
B. vi. 267-298. JENEID. 231 
 
 heard ; ma)'- I by your divine will disclose tilings buried hi 
 deep earth and darkness. They moved along amid the gloom 
 under the solitary night through the shade, 18 and through the 
 desolate halls and empty realms of Pluto ; such as is a journey 
 in woods beneath the unsteady moon, under a faint, glimmer - 
 ing light, when Jupiter hath wrapped the heavens in shade, 
 and sable night hath stripped objects of colour. 
 
 Before the vestibule itself, and in the first jaws of hell, 
 Grief and vengeful Cares have placed their couches, and pale 
 Diseases dwell, and disconsolate Old Age, and Fear, and the 
 evil counsellor Famine, and vile deformed Indigence, forms 
 ghastly to the sight ! and Death, and Toil ; then Sleep, akin 
 to Death, and criminal Joys of the mind ; and in the opposite 
 threshold murderous War, and the iron bed-chambers of the 
 Furies, and frantic Discord, having her viperous locks bound 
 with bloody fillets. 
 
 In the midst a gloomy elm displays its boughs and aged 
 arms, which seat vain Dreams are commonly said to haunt, 
 and under every leaf they dwell. Many monstrous savages, 
 moreover, of various forms, stable in the gates, the Centaurs 
 and double-formed Scyllas, and Briareus 19 with his hundred 
 hands, and the enormous snake of Lerna 20 hissing dreadful, 
 and Chimsera armed with flames ; Gorgons, Harpies, and the 
 form of Geryon's three-bodied ghost. Here iEneas, discon- 
 certed with sudden fear, grasps his sword, and presents the 
 naked point to each approaching shade : and had not his skil- 
 ful guide put him in mind that they were airy unbodied phan- 
 toms, fluttering about under an empty form, he had rushed in, 
 and with his sword struck at the ghosts in vain. 
 
 Hence is a path, which leads to the floods of Tartarean 
 Acheron : here a gulf turbid and impure boils up with mire 
 and vast whirlpools, and disgorges all its sand into Cocytus. 
 
 18 Observe the accumulation of epithets, all denoting the excessive 
 darkness ; " obscuri " — " sola nocte " — " per umbram." B. 
 
 19 Briareus, a famous giant, son of Ccelus and Terra. The poets feigned 
 he had one hundred arms and fifty heads, and was thrown under Mount 
 iEtna for having assisted the giants against the gods. 
 
 20 Lerna, a lake of Argolis in Greece, where Hercules killed the 
 famous hydra. Chimsera, a fabulous monster, represented with three 
 heads, that of a lion, of a goat, and of a dragon. Geryon, a celebrated 
 monster, whom Hercules slew. He was represented by the poets as 
 having three bodies and three heads. 
 
I 
 
 232 ^NEID. b, vi. 299-337 
 
 A grim ferryman guards these floods and rivers, Charon, 21 Oj I 
 frightful slovenliness ; on whose chin a load of grey hair neg- j 
 leeted lies ; his eyes are flame : his vestments hang from his 
 shoulders by a knot, with filth overgrown. Himself thrusts 
 on the barge with a pole, and tends the sails, and wafts over 
 the bodies in his iron-coloured boat, now in years : but the 
 god is of fresh and green old age. Hither the whole tribe in 
 swarms came pouring to the banks, matrons and men, the 
 souls of magnanimous heroes who had gone through life, boys 
 and unmarried maids, and young men who had been stretched 
 on the funeral pile before the eyes of their parents ; as numer- 
 ous as withered leaves fall in the woods with the first cold of 
 autumn, or as numerous as birds flock to land from deep ocean, 
 when the chilling year 22 drives them beyond sea, and sends 
 them to sunny climes. They stood praying to cross the flood 
 the first, and were stretching forth their hands with fond de- 
 sire to gain the further bank : but the sullen boatman admits 
 sometimes these, sometimes those: whilst others, to a great 
 distance removed, he debars from the banks. 
 
 -ZEneas (for he was amazed and moved with the tumult) 
 thus speaks : O virgin, say what means that flocking to the 
 river ? what do the ghosts desire ? or by what distinction must 
 these recede from the banks, those sweep with oars the livid 
 flood ? To him the aged priestess thus briefly replied : Son 
 of Anchises, undoubted offspring of the gods, you see the deep 
 pools of Cocytus, and the Stygian lake, by whose divinity the 
 gods dread to swear and violate [their oath]. All that crowd, 
 which you see, consists of naked and unburied persons : that 
 ferryman is Charon : these, whom the stream carries, are in- 
 terred ; for it is not permitted to transport them over the 
 horrid banks, and hoarse waves, before their bones are quietly 
 lodged in a final abode. They wander a hundred years, and 
 flutter about these shores : then at length admitted, they visit 
 the wished-for lakes. 
 
 The offspring of Anchises paused and repressed his steps, 
 deeply musing, and pitying from his soul their unkind lot. 
 There he espies Leucaspis, 23 and Orontes, the commander 0/ 
 
 21 Charon, a god of hell, son of Erebus and Nox, who conducted the 
 souls of the dead in a boat over the river Styx to the infernal regions. 
 
 22 i. e. " season.'* See Broukh. on Tibull. i. 1, 17. B. 
 
 23 Leucaspis, one of JSneas' companions, lost during a storm in the 
 Tyrrhene Sea. 
 
S, vi, 338—370, ^ENEID. 233 
 
 the Lycian fleet, mournful, and bereaved of the honours of 
 the dead : whom, as they sailed from Troy, over the stormy 
 seas, the south wind sunk together, whelming both ship and 
 crew in the waves. Lo ! the pilot Palinurus slowly advanced, 
 who lately in his Libyan voyage, while he was observing the 
 stars, had fallen from the stern, plunged in the midst of the 
 waves. When with difficulty, by reason of the thick shade, 
 -ZEneas knew him in this mournful mood, he thus first accosts 
 him: What god, O Palinurus, snatched you from us, and 
 overwhelmed you in the middle of the ocean ? Come tell me. 
 For Apollo, whom I never before found false, in this one re- 
 sponse deceived my mind, declaring that you should be safe 
 on the sea, and arrive at the Ausonian coasts: Is this the 
 amount of his plighted faith ? 
 
 But he [answers] : Neither the oracle of Phoebus beguiled 
 you, prince of the line of Anchises, nor a god plunged me in 
 the sea ; for, falling headlong, I drew along with me the helm, 
 which I chanced with great violence to tear away, as I clung 
 to it, and steered our course, being appointed pilot. By the 
 rough seas I swear, that I was not so seriously apprehensive 
 for myself, as that thy ship, despoiled of her rudder, dispos- 
 sessed of her pilot, might sink while such high billows were 
 rising. The south wind drove me violently on the water over 
 the spacious sea, three wintry nights : on the fourth day I de- 
 scried Italy from the high ridge of a wave [whereon I was] 
 raised aloft. I was swimming gradually towards land, and should- 
 have been out of danger, had not the cruel people fallen upon 
 me with the sword, (encumbered with my wet garment, and 
 grasping with crooked hands the rugged tops of a mountain,) 
 and ignorantly taking me for a rich prey. Now the waves 
 possess me, 24 and the winds toss me about the shore. But by 
 the pleasant light of heaven, and by the vital air, by him who 
 gave thee birth, by the hope of rising lulus, I thee implore, 
 invincible one, release me from these woes : either throw on 
 me some earth, (for thou canst do so,) and seek out the Yeline 
 port ; or, if there be any means, if thy goddess mother point 
 out any, (for thou dost not, I presume, without the will of the 
 gods, attempt to cross such mighty rivers and the Stygian 
 lake,) lend your hand to an unhappy wretch, and bear me 
 
 24 i. e. " my body." So avrovg is used by Horn II. A. 4. Cf. below, 
 vi. 507. B. 
 
 
23^ ^ENEID. b. vi. 371—402 
 
 with you over the waves, that in death at least I may rest in 
 peaceful seats. 
 
 Thus he spoke, when thus the prophetess began : Whence, 
 O Palinurus, rises in thee this so impious desire ? Shall you 
 unburied behold the Stygian floods, and the grim river of the 
 Furies, or reach the bank against the command [of heaven] ? 
 Cease to hope that the decrees of the gods are to be altered by 
 prayers ; but mindful take these predictions as the solace of 
 your hard fate. For the neighbouring people, 25 compelled by 
 portentous plagues from heaven, shall through their several 
 cities far and wide offer atonement to thy ashes, erect a tomb, 
 and stated anniversary offerings on that tomb present ; and 
 the place shall for ever retain the name of Palinurus. By 
 these words his cares were removed, and grief was for a time 
 banished from his disconsolate heart: he rejoices in the land 
 that is to bear his name. 
 
 They therefore accomplish their journey begun, and ap- 
 proach the river : whom when the boatman soon from the 
 Stygian wave beheld advancing through the silent grove, and 
 stepping forward to the bank, thus he first accosts them in 
 words, and chides them unprovoked: Whoever thou mayest 
 be, who art now advancing armed to our rivers, say quick for 
 what end thou comest ; and from that very spot repress thy 
 step. This is the region of Ghosts, of Sleep, and drowsy 
 Night : to waft over the bodies of the living in my Stygian 
 boat is not permitted. Nor indeed was it joy to me that I re- 
 ceived Alcides on the lake when he came, or Theseus and Pi- 
 rithous, 26 though they were the offspring of the gods, and in- 
 vincible in might. One with his hand put the keeper of Tar- 
 tarus in chains, and dragged him trembling from the throne 
 of our king himself; the others attempted to carry off our 
 queen from Pluto's bed-chamber. 
 
 In answer to which, the Amphrysian prophetess spoke: 
 No such plots are here, be not disturbed, nor do these weapons 
 bring violence : the huge porter may bay in his den for ever, 
 terrifying the incorporeal shades : chaste Proserpine may re- 
 
 25 This befell the Lucanians. See Servius. B. 
 
 26 Pirithous, a son of Ixion, and king of the Lapithae, whose friendship 
 with Theseus, king of Athens, was proverbial. According to the poets, 
 the two friends descended into the infernal regions to carry away Proser- 
 pine, but Pluto, who was apprized of their intention, bound Pirithous tc 
 It is father's wheel, and Theseus to a huge stone. 
 
E . YI . 403—436. ^NEID. 235 
 
 main in her uncle's palace. Trojan .TEneas, illustrious for piety 
 and arms, descends to the deep shades of Erebus to his sire. 
 If the image of such piety makes no impression on you, own 
 a regard at least to this branch (she shows the branch that was 
 concealed under her robe). Then his heart from swelling rage 
 is stilled : nor passed more words than these. He with wonder 
 gazing on the hallowed present of the fatal branch, beheld 
 after a long season, turns towards them his lead-coloured 
 barge, and approaches the bank. Thence he dislodges the 
 other souls that* sat on the long benches, and clears the 
 hatches ; at the same time, receives into the hold the mighty 
 -ZEneas. The boat of sewn hide 27 groaned under the weight, 
 and, being leaky, took in much water from the lake. At 
 length he lands the hero and the prophetess safe on the other 
 side of the river, on the foul slimy strand and sea-green weed. 
 Huge Cerberus makes these realms to resound with barking 
 from his triple jaws, stretched at his enormous length in a den 
 that fronts the gate. To whom the prophetess, seeing his 
 neck now bristle with horrid snakes, flings a soporific cake of 
 honey and medicated grain. He, in the mad rage of hunger, 
 opening his three mouths, snatches the offered morsel, and, 
 spread on the ground, relaxes his monstrous limbs, and is ex- 
 tended at vast length over all the cave. -ZEneas, now that the 
 keeper [of hell] is buried [in sleep], seizes the passage, and 
 swift overpasses the bank of that flood whence there is no 
 return. ~— 
 
 Forthwith are heard voices, loud wailings, and weeping 
 ghosts of infants, in the first opening of the gate ; whom, be- 
 reaved of sweet life out of the course of nature, and snatched 
 from the breast, a black day cut off, and buried in an un- 
 timely grave. 
 
 Next to those, are such as had been condemned to death by 
 false accusations. Nor yet were those seats assigned them 
 without a trial, without a judge. Minos, 28 as inquisitor, 
 shakes the urn: he convokes the council of the silent, and 
 examines their lives and crimes. 
 
 The next places in order those mournful ones possess, 
 
 37 i. e. formed of hides sewn across wicker ribs. See Anthon. B. 
 
 28 Minos, a celebrated king and lawgiver of Crete, son of Jupiter and 
 Europa. He was rewarded for his equity, after death, with the office of 
 judge in the infernal regions, with iEacus and Rhadamanthus. 
 
236 jENEID. b. vi. 437—460 
 
 who, though free from crime, procured death to themselves 
 with their own hands, and, sick of the light, threw away their 
 lives. How gladly would they now endure poverty and pain- 
 ful toils in the upper regions ! Fate opposes, and the hate- 
 ful lake imprisons them with its dreary waves, and Styx, nine 
 times rolling between, confines them. 
 
 Not far from this part, extended on every side, are shown 
 the fields of mourning : so they call them by name. Here by- 
 paths remote conceal, and myrtle-groves cover those around, 
 whom unrelenting love, with his cruel venom, consumed 
 away. Their cares leave them not in death itself. In these 
 places he sees Phagdra 29 and Procris, 30 and disconsolate Eri- 
 phyle pointing to the wounds she had received from her cruel 
 son; Evadne 31 also, and Pasiphae: these Laodamia accom- 
 panies, and Cseneus, once a youth, now a woman, and again 
 by fate transformed into his pristine shape. Amongst whom 
 Phoenician Dido, fresh from her wound, was wandering in a 
 spacious wood ; whom as soon as the Trojan hero approached, 
 and discovered faintly through the shades, (in like manner as 
 one sees, or thinks he sees, the moon rising through the clouds 
 in the beginning of her monthly course,) he dropped tears, 
 and addressed her in love's sweet accents : Hapless Dido, was 
 it then a true report I had of your being dead, and that you 
 had finished your own destiny by the sword ? Was I, alas ! 
 the cause of your death ? I swear by the stars, by the powers 
 above, and by whatever faith may be under the deep earth, 
 that against my will, queen, I departed from thy coast. 
 
 29 Phaedra, a daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, who married Theseus ; 
 her criminal passion for Hippolytus, and the tragical end of that young 
 prince, by his chariot being overturned and dragged among rocks, so 
 stung her with remorse, that she hanged herself. 
 
 30 Procris, a daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens/ and wife of 
 Cephalus. Eriphyle, a sister of Adrastus, king of Argos, and the wife of 
 Amphiaraus: she was murdered by her son Alcmaeon, for having dis- 
 covered where Amphiaraus was concealed, that he might not accompany 
 the Argives in their expedition against Thebes. 
 
 31 Evadne, the wife of Capaneus, one of the seven chiefs who went 
 against Thebes ; she threw herself on his funeral pile, and perished in 
 the flames. Laodamia, a daughter of Acastus, and the wife of Protesi- 
 laus, whose departure for the Trojan war, and subsequent fall by the 
 hand of Hector, caused her death from excessive grief. Caeneus, a Thes- 
 salian woman, feigned by the poets to have had the power of changing 
 her sex. 
 
dg Vi. 461—489. JENEID. 237 
 
 But the mandates of the gods, which now compel me to travel 
 through these shades, through noisome dreary regions and 
 deep night, drove me from you by their authority ; nor could 
 I believe that I should bring upon you such deep anguish by 
 my departure. Stay your steps, and withdraw not thyself 
 from my sight. Whom dost thou fly ? This is the last time 
 fate allows me to address you. With these words iEneas 
 thought to soothe her soul inflamed, and eyeing him with 
 stern regard, and provoked his tears to flow. She, turned 
 away, kept her eyes fixed on the ground ; nor alters her looks 
 more, in consequence of the conversation he had begun, than 
 if she were fixed immovable like a stubborn flint or rock of 
 Parian marble. At length, she abruptly retired, and in de- 
 testation fled into a shady grove, where Sichaeus 32 her first 
 lord answers her with [amorous] cares, and returns her love 
 for love. .iEneas, nevertheless, in commotion for her disas- 
 trous fate, with weeping eyes, pursues her far, and pities her 
 as she goes. 
 
 Hence he holds on his destined way ; and now they had 
 reached the last fields, which by themselves apart renowned 
 warriors frequent. Here Tydeus 33 appears to him, here Par- 
 thenopoeus illustrious in arms, and the ghost of pale Adrastus. 
 Here [appear] those Trojans who had died in the field of 
 battle, much lamented in the upper world : whom when he 
 beheld all together in a numerous body, he inwardly groaned : 
 Glaucus, 34 Medon, Thersilochus, the three sons of Antenor, 
 and Polybastes devoted to Ceres, and Idaeus still handling his 
 chariot, still his armour. The ghosts in crowds around him 
 stand on the right and left: nor are they satisfied with 
 seeing him once; they wish to detain him long, to come 
 into close conference with him, and learn the reasons of his 
 
 32 Sicheeus, the husband of Dido, and the priest of Hercules, whom 
 Pygmalion, his brother-in-law, murdered, to obtain his riches. 
 
 33 Tydeus, the son of CEneus, king of Calydon, was one of the seven 
 chiefs of the army of Adrastus, king of Argos, in the Theban war, where 
 he behaved with great courage, but was slain by Melanippus. He was 
 father to Diomedes, who was therefore called Tydides. Parthenopoeus, 
 a son of Meleager and Atalanta, was also one of the seven chiefs who 
 accompanied Adrastus in his expedition against Thebes. 
 
 34 Glaucus, a son of Hippo] ochus, and grandson of Bellerophon. Ho 
 assisted Priam in the Trojan war, and was slain by Ajax. Thersilochus, 
 c sou of Antenor, and leader of the Paeonians, was slain by \chilles. 
 
238 -ENELD. b. vi. 490—523. 
 
 visit. But as soon as the Grecian chiefs and Agamemnon's 35 
 battalions saw the hero, and his arms gleaming through the 
 shades, they quaked with dire dismay : some turned their 
 backs, as when they fled once to their ships ; some raise their 
 slender voices; the scream begun dies in their gasping 
 throats. 36 
 
 And here he espies Deiphobus, the son of Priam, mangled 
 in every limb, his face, his face and both his hands cruelly 
 torn, his temples bereft of the ears cropped off, and his nostrils 
 slit with a hideously deformed wound. Thus he hardly knew 
 him quaking for agitation, and seeking to hide the marks of 
 his dreadful punishment ; and he firsts accosts him with well- 
 known accents : Deiphobus, great in arms, sprung from Teu- 
 cer's noble blood, who could choose to inflict such cruelties ? 
 Or who was allowed to exercise such power over you ? To 
 me, in that last night, a report was brought that you, tired 
 with the vast slaughter of the Greeks, had fallen at last on a 
 heap of mingled carcasses. Then, with my own hands, I raised 
 to you an empty tomb on the Rhoetean shore, and thrice with 
 loud voice I invoked your manes. Your name and arms pos- 
 sess the place. Your body, my friend, I could not find, or, 
 at my departure, deposit in thy native land. And upon this 
 the son of Priam said : Nothing, my friend, has been omitted 
 by you ; you have discharged every duty to Deiphobus, and 
 to the shadow of a corpse. But my own fate, and the cursed 
 wickedness of Helen, plunged me in these woes : she hath left 
 me these monuments [of her love]. For how we passed that 
 last night amidst ill-grounded joys you know, and must re- 
 member but too well, when the fatal horse came bounding 
 over our lofty walls, and pregnant brought armed infantry in 
 its womb. She, pretending a dance, led her train of Phrygian 
 matrons yelling around the orgies : herself in the midst held a 
 large flaming torch, and called to the Greeks from the lofty 
 tower. I, being at that time oppressed with care, and over- 
 powered with sleep, was lodged in my unfortunate bed-cham- 
 ber : rest, balmy, profound, and the perfect image of a calm, 
 peaceful death, pressed me as I lay. Meanwhile my incom- 
 parable spouse removes all arms from my palace, and had 
 
 35 Agamemnon was king of Mycenae and Argos. He was chosen com- 
 mander-in-chief of the Greeks in the Trojan war. 
 
 38 Literally, " fails them as they open their mouths to utter it." B. 
 
b. vi. 521—555. ^ENEID. 239 
 
 withdrawn my trusty sword from my Lead : she calls Mene- 
 laus 37 into the palace, and throws open the gates ; hoping, nc 
 doubt, that would be a mighty favour to her amorous husband, 
 and that thus the infamy of her former wicked deeds might 
 be extinguished. In short, they burst into my chamber : that 
 traitor of the race of iEolus, 38 the promoter of villany, is 
 joined in company with them. Ye gods, requite these cruel- 
 ties to the Greeks, if I supplicate vengeance with pious lips ! 
 But come now, in thy turn, say what adventure hath brought 
 thee hither alive. Dost thou come driven by the casualties 
 of the main, or by the direction of the gods ? or what fortune 
 compels thee to visit these dreary mansions, troubled regions, 
 where the sun never shines ? 
 
 In this conversation the sun in his rosy chariot had now 
 passed the meridian in his ethereal course ; and they perhaps 
 would in this manner have passed the whole time assigned 
 them; but the Sibyl, his companion, put him in mind, and 
 thus briefly spoke : iEneas, the night comes on apace, while 
 we waste the hours in lamentations. This is the place where 
 the path divides itself in two : the right is what leads beneath 
 great Pluto's walls ; by this our way to Elysium lies : but the 
 left carries on the punishments of the wicked, and conveys to 
 cursed Tartarus. On the other hand, Deiphobus [said] : Be 
 not incensed, great priestess ; I shall be gone ; I will fill up 
 the number [of the ghosts] and be rendered back to dark- 
 ness. Go, go, thou glory of our nation ; mayest thou find 
 fates more kind ! This only he spoke, and at the word turned 
 his steps. 
 
 .ZEneas on a sudden looks back, and under a rock on the 
 left sees vast prisons enclosed with a triple wall, which Tar- 
 tarean Phlegethon's rapid flood environs with torrents of 
 flame, and whirls roaring rocks along. Fronting is a huge 
 gate, with columns of solid adamant, that no strength of men, 
 nor the gods themselves, can with steel demolish. An iron 
 tower rises aloft ; and there wakeful Tisiphone, with her 
 
 37 Menelaus, the brother of Agamemnon, and the husband of Helen, 
 the daughter of Tyndarus, with whom he received the crown of Sparta. 
 This, however, he had enjoyed only a short time, when Helen was car- 
 ried away by Paris, the son of Priam, which laid the foundation of the 
 Trojan war, where Menelaus behaved with great spirit and courage. 
 
 38 Race of ^Eolus; Ulysses is here meant, Sisyphus, the on of iEolus, 
 Deing, according to some his father. 
 
240 2ENEID. n. vi. 556—586. 
 
 bloody robe tucked up around her, sits to watch the vestibule 
 both night and day. Hence groans are heard ; the cruel 
 lashes resound^ the grating too of iron, and clank of drag- 
 ging chains^__JZEneas stopped short, and starting, listened to 
 the din. ! What scenes of guilt are these ? O virgin, say ; or 
 with what pains are they chastised? what hideous yelling 
 [ascends] to the skies ! Then thus the prophetess began : 
 Renowned leader of the Troj ans, no holy person is allowed to 
 tread the accursed threshold : but Hecate, when she set me 
 over the groves of Avernus, herself taught me the punish- 
 ments appointed by the gods, and led me through every part. 
 Cretan Rhadamanthus 39 possesses these most ruthless realms; 
 examines and punishes frauds ; and forces every one to con- 
 fess what crimes committed in the upper world he had left 
 [unatoned] till the late hour of death, hugging himself in 
 secret crime of no avail. Forthwith avenging Tisiphone, 
 armed with her whip, scourges the guilty with cruel insult, 
 and in her left hand shaking over them her grim snakes, calls 
 the fierce troops of her sister Furies. 
 
 Then at length the accursed gates, grating on their dread- 
 ful-sounding hinges, are thrown open. See you what kind 
 of watch sits in the entry ? what figure guards the gate ? An 
 overgrown Hydra, 40 more fell [than any Fury], with fifty 
 black gaping mouths, has her seat within. Then Tartarus 
 itself sinks deep down, and extends towards the shades twice 
 as far as is the prospect upwards to the ethereal throne of 
 heaven. Here Earth's ancient progeny, the Titanian youth, 
 hurled down with thunderbolts, welter in the profound abyss. 
 Here too I saw the two sons of Aloeus, 41 gigantic bodies, who 
 attempted with their might to overturn the spacious heavens, 
 and thrust down Jove from his exalted kingdom. Salmoneus 42 
 
 39 Rhadamanthus, a son of Jupiter and Europa, who reigned over the 
 Cyclades and many of the Greek cities in Asia, and for his justice and 
 equity was made one of the judges of hell. 
 
 40 Hydra, a fabulous monster of the serpent tribe : that which infested 
 the neighbourhood of the lake Lerna, in Peloponnesus, was killed by 
 Hercules. 
 
 41 Two sons of Aloeus, the giants Otus and Ephialtes, who made war 
 against the gods, and were killed by Apollo and Diana. 
 
 42 Salmoneus, a king of Elis, who for his impiety in imitating the thun- 
 der of Jupiter, was feigned to have been struck by a thunderbolt, and 
 placed in the infernal regions, near his brother Sisyphus. 
 
 
K. vi. 586— 618. ^XEID. 241 
 
 likewise I beheld suffering severe punishment, for having imi- 
 tated Jove's flaming bolts, and the sounds of heaven. He, 
 drawn in his chariot by four horses, and brandishing a torch, 
 rode triumphant among the nations of Greece, and in the 
 midst of the city Elis, and claimed to himself the honour of 
 the gods : infatuate ! who, w r ith brazen car, and the prancing 
 of his horn-hoofed steeds, would needs counterfeit the storms 
 and inimitable thunder. But the almighty Sire amidst the 
 thick clouds threw a bolt, (not firebrands he, nor smoky light 
 from torches,) and hurled him down headlong in a vast whirl- 
 wind. Here too you might have seen Tityus, 43 the foster- 
 child of all-bearing Earth : whose body is extended over nine 
 whole acres ; and a huge vulture, with her hooked beak, peck- 
 ing at his immortal liver, and his bowels, the fruitful source 
 of punishment, both searches them for her banquet, and dwells 
 in the deep recesses of his breast ; nor is any respite given to 
 his fibres still springing up afresh. Why should I mention 
 the Lapithse, Ixion, and Pirithous, over w r hom hangs a black 
 flinty rock, every moment threatening to tumble down, and 
 seeming to be actually falling ? Golden pillars [supporting] 
 lofty genial couches shine, and full in their view are banquets 
 furnished out with regal magnificence ; the chief of the Furies 
 sits by them, and debars them from touching the provisions 
 •with their hands ; and starts up, lifting her torch on high, 
 and thunders over them with her voice. 'Here are those 44 
 who, while life remained, had been at enmity w^ith their bro- 
 thers, had beaten a parent, or wrought deceit against a client ; 
 or who alone brooded over their acquired wealth, nor assigned 
 a portion to their own ; which class is the most numerous : 
 those too who were slain for adultery, who joined in impious 
 wars, and did not scruple to violate the faith they had plighted 
 to their masters : shut up, they aw^ait their punishment. But 
 what kind of punishment seek not to be informed, in what 
 shape [of misery], or in what state they are involved. Some 
 roll a huge stone, and hang fast bound to the spokes of wheels. 
 There sits, and to eternity shall sit, the unhappy Theseus : 
 
 43 Tityus, a celebrated giant, son of Terra, or, according to others, of 
 Jupiter and Elara. 
 
 44 Cf. Aristoph. Ran. 146, and mv notes on ^sch. Eum. p. 188, n. 2, 
 od. Bohn. B. 
 
242 JENEID. b. vi. 619—650, 
 
 and Phlegyas 45 most wretched is a monitor to all, and with 
 loud voice proclaims through the shades : " Warned [by ex- 
 ample], learn righteousness, and not to contemn the gods." 
 One sold his country for gold, and imposed on it a domineer- 
 ing tyrant ; made and unmade laws for money. Another in- 
 vaded his daughter's bed, and an unlawful wedlock: all of 
 them dared some heinous crime, and accomplished what they 
 dared. Had I a hundred tongues, and a hundred mouths, a 
 voice of iron, I could not comprehend all the species of their 
 crimes, nor enumerate the names of all their punishments. 
 
 When the aged priestess of Phoebus had uttered these words, 
 she adds, But come now, set forward, and finish the task yon 
 have undertaken ; let us haste on : I see the walls [of Pluto], 
 wrought in the forges of the Cyclops, and the gates with their 
 arch full in our view, where our instructions enjoin us to 
 deposit this our offering. She said; and with equal pace 
 advancing through the gloomy path, they speedily traverse 
 the intermediate space, and approach the gates. JEneas 
 springs forward to the entry, sprinkles his body with fresh 
 water, and fixes the bough in the fronting portal. 
 
 Having finished these rites, and performed the offering to 
 the goddess, they came at length to the regions of joy, delight- 
 ful green retreats, and blessed abodes in groves, where happi- 
 ness abounds. A freer 46 and purer sky here clothes the fields 
 with sheeny light : they know their own sun, their own stars. 
 Some exercise their limbs on the grassy green, in sports con- 
 t end, and wrestle on the tawny sand : some strike the ground 
 with their feet in the dance, and sing hymns. [Orpheus,] 
 too, the Thracian priest, in his long robe, replies 47 in melodi- 
 ous numbers to the seven distinguished notes ; and now strikes 
 the same with his fingers, now with his ivory quill. Here 
 may be seen Teucer's ancient race, a most illustrious line, 
 magnanimous heroes, born in happier times, Ilus, 48 Assaracus, 
 
 45 Phlegyas, a son of Mars, king of the Lapithse in Thessaly, who 
 plundered and burnt the temple of Apollo at Delphi; for this impiety he 
 was killed by Apollo, who placed him in hell, where a huge stone was 
 suspended over his head, which kept him in continual alarms. 
 
 46 Compare Anthon's note. B. 
 
 47 See Anthon. B. 
 
 48 Ilus, the fourth king of Troy, was son of Tros and Callirhoe, ami 
 father of Themis and Laomedon. 
 
3. vi. 650-686. ^ENEID. 243 
 
 and Dardanus, the founder of Troy. From afar, [iEneas] 
 views with wonder the arms and empty chariots of the chiefs. 
 Their spears stand fixed in the ground, and up and down 
 their horses feed at large through the plain. The same fond- 
 ness they had when alive for chariots and arms, the same con- 
 cern for training up shining steeds, follow them when deposited 
 beneath the earth. 
 
 Lo ! he beholds others on the right and left feasting upon 
 the grass, and singing the joyful paean to Apollo in concert, 
 amidst a fragrant grove of laurel ; whence from on high the 
 river Eridanus rolls in copious streams through the wood. 
 Here is a band of those who sustained wounds in fighting for 
 their country ; priests who preserved themselves pure and 
 holy, while life remained ; pious poets, who sung in strains 
 worthy of Apollo ; those who improved life by the invention 
 of arts, and who by their worthy deeds made others remember 
 I them : all these have their temples crowned with a snow- 
 i white fillet. Whom, gathered around, the Sibyl thus ad- 
 i dressed, Musaeus 49 chiefly ; for a numerous crowd had him in 
 their centre, and looked up with reverence to him raised above 
 them by the height of his shoulders : Say, blest souls, and 
 thou, best of poets, what region, what place contains Anchises ? 
 on his account we have come, and crossed the great rivers of 
 ' hell. And thus the hero briefly returned her an answer : 
 None of us have a fixed abode ; in shady groves we dwell, or 
 lie on couches all along the banks, and on meadows fresh with 
 I rivulets : but do you, if so your heart's inclination leads, over- 
 pass this eminence, and I will set you in the easy path. He 
 said, and advanced his steps on before, and shows them from 
 I a rising ground the shining plains ; then they descend from 
 tthe summit of the mountain. But father Anchises, deep in a 
 ! verdant dale, was surveying with studious cares the souls 
 tthere enclosed, who were to revisit the light above ; and hap- 
 pened to be reviewing the whole number of his race, his dear 
 ^descendants, their fates and fortunes, their manners and 
 ^.achievements As soon as he beheld ^Eneas advancing towards 
 him across the meads, he joyfully stretched out both his hands, 
 and tears poured down his cheeks, and these words dropped 
 
 49 Musaeus, an ancient Greek poet, supposed to have been the son oi 
 di^iple of Linus or Orpheus, and to have lived about 1410 years b. c. 
 
244 J2NEID, b. vi. 687—722. 
 
 from his mouth : Are you come at length, and has that piety, 
 experienced by your sire, surmounted the arduous journey ? 
 Am I permitted, my son, to see thy face, to hear and return 
 the well-known accents ? So indeed I concluded in my mind, 
 and reckoned it would happen, computing the time : nor have 
 my anxious hopes deceived me. Over what lands, O son, 
 and over what immense seas, have you, I hear, been tossed ! 
 with what dangers harassed ! how I dreaded lest you had 
 sustained harm from Libya's realms ! But he [said], Your 
 ghost, your sorrowing ghost, my sire, oftentimes appearing, 
 compelled me to set forward to these thresholds. My fleet 
 rides in the Tyrrhene Sea. Permit me, father, to join my 
 right hand [with thine] ; and withdraw not thyself from my 
 embrace. So saying, he at the same time bedewed his cheeks 
 with a flood of tears. There thrice he attempted to throw his 
 arms around his neck ; thrice the phantom, grasped in vain, 
 escaped his hold, like the fleet gales, or resembling most a 
 fugitive dream. 
 
 Meanwhile ^ZEneas sees in the retired vale, a grove situate 
 by itself, shrubs rustling in the woods, and the river Lethe 
 which glides by those peaceful dwellings. Around this un- 
 numbered tribes and nations of ghosts were fluttering ; as in 
 meadows on a serene summer's day, when the bees sit on the 
 various blossoms, and swarm around the snow-white lilies, all 
 the plain buzzes with their humming noise. ^Eneas, con- 
 founded, shudders at the unexpected sight, and asks the causes, 
 what are those rivers in the distance, or what ghosts have in 
 such crowds filled the banks ? Then father Anchises [said], 
 Those souls, for whom other bodies are destined by fate, at 
 the streams of Lethe's flood quaff care-expelling draughts and 
 lasting oblivion. Long indeed have I wished to give you a 
 detail of these, and to point them out before you, and enu- 
 merate this my future race, that you may rejoice the more 
 with me in the discovery of Italy. O father, is it to be 
 imagined that any souls of an exalted nature will go hence to 
 the world above, and enter again into inactive bodies ? What 
 direful love of the light possesses the miserable beings ? I, 
 indeed, replies Anchises, will inform you, my son, nor hold 
 you longer in suspense : and thus he unfolds each particular 
 in order. 
 
b. vi. 723—756. JENEID. 245 
 
 In the first place, the spirit within nourishes the heavens, 
 
 the earth, and watery plains, 50 the moon's enlightened orb, and 
 
 ^ the Titanian stars ; 51 and the mind, diffused through all the 
 
 J members, actuates the whole frame, and mingles with the vast 
 
 s body [of the universe]. Thence the race of men and beasts, 
 
 ,i the vital principles of the flying kind, and the monsters which 
 
 ' the ocean breeds under its smooth plain. These principles 
 
 i have the active force of fire, and are of a heavenly original, 
 
 i so far as they are not clogged by noxious bodies, blunted by 
 
 . earth-born limbs and dying members. Hence they fear and 
 
 1 desire, grieve and rejoice ; and, shut up in darkness and a 
 
 \ gloomy prison, lose sight of their native skies. 52 Even when 
 
 with the last beams of light their life is gone, yet not every 
 
 fc ill, nor all corporeal stains, are quite removed from the un- 
 
 6 happy beings ; and it is absolutely necessary that many im- 
 
 , perfections which have long been joined to the soul, should be 
 
 J in marvellous ways increased and riveted therein. Therefore 
 
 are they afflicted with punishments, and pay the penalties of 
 
 s their former ills. Some, hung on high, are spread out to the 
 
 s empty winds ; in others the guilt not done away is washed 
 
 out in a vast watery abyss, or burned away in fire. We each 
 
 endure his own manes, 53 thence are we conveyed along the 
 
 spacious Elysium, and we, the happy few, possess the fields 
 
 of bliss ; till length of time, after the fixed period is elapsed, 
 
 hath done away the inherent stain, and hath left the pure 
 
 celestial reason, and the fiery energy of the simple spirit. 
 
 All these, after they have rolled away a thousand years, are 
 
 ; summoned forth by the god in a great body to the river 
 
 Lethe ; to the intent that, losing memory [of the past], they 
 
 may revisit the vaulted realms above, and again become will- 
 
 i ing to return into bodies. Anchises thus spoke, and' leads his 
 
 : son, together with the Sibyl, into the midst of the assembly 
 
 k and noisy throng ; thence chooses a rising ground, whence he 
 
 k may survey them all as they stand opposite to him in a long 
 
 row, and discern their looks as they approach. 
 
 80 i. e. "mana." Servius. Cf. Ovid. Met. i. 315, "campus aqua- 
 rum." B. 
 
 51 The sun is particularly meant, " Sol, quern et supra unum fuisse de 
 Titanibus diximus." Servius. 
 
 52 i. e. of their proper nature. Cf. Plato Phaedon. § 24 and 25. B. 
 M See Servius, and Anthon's no** 1 . B. 
 
246 ^NEID. b. vi. 757—781. 
 
 Now come, I will explain to you what glory shall hence- 
 forth attend the Trojan race, what descendants await them of 
 the Italian nation, distinguished souls, and who shall succeed 
 to our name ; yourself too I will instruct in your particular 
 fate. See you that youth who leans on his pointless spear ? 
 He by destiny holds a station nearest to the light ; he shall 
 ascend to the upper world the first [of your race] who shall 
 have a mixture of Italian blood in his veins, Sylvius, 54 an 
 Alban name, your last issue ; whom late your consort Lavinia 
 shall in the woods bring forth to you in your advanced age, 
 himself a king, and the father of kings ; in whom our line 
 shall reign over Alba Longa. 55 The next is Procas 56 the 
 glory of the Trojan nation ; then Capys and Numitor follow, 
 and JEneas Sylvius, who shall represent thee in name, equally 
 distinguished for piety and arms, if ever he receive the crown 
 of Alba. See what youths are these, what manly force they 
 show ! and bear their temples shaded with civic oak ; these to 
 thy honour shall build Nomentum, 57 Gabii, and the city Fi- 
 dena ; these on the mountains shall raise the Collatine towers, 68 
 Pometia, the fort of Inuus, Bola, and Cora. These shall then 
 be famous names ; now they are lands without names. Fur- 
 ther, martial Romulus, whom Hia of the line Assaracus shall 
 bear, shall add himself as companion to his grandsire [Numi- 
 tor]. See you not how the double plumes stands on his head 
 erect, and how the father of the gods himself already marks 
 
 54 Sylvius, a son of iEneas by Lavinia, from whom afterwards the 
 kings of Alba were called Sylvii. Lavinia, the daughter of Latinus and 
 Amata, who was betrothed to her relation, king Turnus, but was after his 
 death given to ^Eneas. 
 
 55 Alba Longa, a city of Latium, built by Ascanius. 
 
 56 Procas, a king of Alba, father of Numitor and Amulius. Numitor, 
 the father of Rhea Silvia, and grandfather of Romulus and Remus, who 
 restored him to his throne, from which he had been expelled by Amulius, 
 his younger brother. 
 
 57 Momentum, (La Mentana,) a town of the Sabines in Italy. Cabii, 
 a city of the Volsci, between Rome and Prseneste, where Juno was wor- 
 shipped, who was hence called Gabina. Fidena, a town of the Sabines, 
 on the Tiber, north of Rome. 
 
 58 Collatine towers : Collatia, a town of the Sabines on the river Anio, 
 built on an eminence. Pometia, a town of the Volsci, which was totally 
 destroyed by the Romans because it had revolted. Inuus, a town of 
 Latium, on the shores of the Tyrrhene Sea. Bola, a city between Tibur 
 and Prseneste. Cora, a town of Latium, on the confines of the Volsci, 
 built by a colony of Dardanians before the foundation of Rome. 
 
 
b. vi. 782-812. iENEID. 247 
 
 Vim out with his distinguished honours ! Lo, my son, under 
 his auspicious influence Rome, that city of renown, shall mea- 
 sure her dominion by the earth, and her valour by the skies, 
 and that one city shall for herself wall around seven strong 
 hills, happy in a race of heroes ; like mother Berecynthia, 
 when, crowned with turrets, she rides in her chariot through 
 the Phrygian towns, joyful in a progeny of gods, embracing a 
 hundred grandchildren, all inhabitants of heaven, all seated in 
 the high celestial abodes. This way now bend both your 
 eyes ; view this lineage, and your own Eomans. This is 
 Caesar, and these are the whole race of Iulus, 5 ^ who shall one 
 day rise to the spacious axle of the sky. This, this is the 
 man whom you have often heard promised to you, Augustus 
 Csesar, the offspring of a god ; who once more shall establish 
 the golden age in Latium, through those lands where Saturn 
 reigned of old, and shall extend his empire over the Gara- 
 mantes and Indians : their land lies without the signs [of the 
 zodiac], beyond the suns annual course, where Atlas, sup- 
 porting heaven on his shoulders, turns the axle studded with 
 flaming stars. Against his approach even now both the Cas- 
 pian 60 realms and the land about the Palus Masotis are dread- 
 fully dismayed at the responses of the gods, and the quaking 
 mouths of seven-fold Nile hurry on their troubled waves. 
 Even Hercules did not run over so many countries, though he 
 transfixed the brazen-footed hind, quelled the forests of Ery- 
 manthus, and made Lerna tremble with his bow : nor Bac- 
 chus, who in triumph drives his car with reins wrapped about 
 with vine leaves, driving the tigers from Nyssa's 61 lofty top. 
 And doubt we yet to extend our glory by our deeds ? or is 
 fear a bar to our settling in the Ausonian land ? 
 
 But who is he at a distance, distinguished by the olive 
 boughs, bearing the sacred utensils ? I know the locks and 
 hoary beard of the Roman king, who first shall establish this 
 city by laws, sent from little Cures 62 and a poor estate to vast 
 
 59 lulus, a name given to Ascanius. 
 
 60 Caspian realms, the Scythian nations inhabiting the borders of the 
 Caspian Sea. Palus Masotis, Sea of Asoph. 
 
 61 Nyssa, the name of several cities in various quarters of the world, 
 sacred to Bacchus. 
 
 62 Cures, a town of the Sabines: it was the birth-place of Numa Pom- 
 pilius, the second king of Rome, a monarch distinguished by his love of 
 peace Numa was succeeded by Tullus Hostilius, who was of a warlike 
 
248 ^NEID. B. vi. 813—831 
 
 empire. Whom Tullus shall next succeed, who shall break 
 the peace of his country, and rouse to arms his inactive sub- 
 jects, and troops now unused to triumphs. Whom follows 
 next vain-glorious Ancus, even now too much rejoicing in the 
 breath of popular applause. Will you also see the Tarquin 
 kings, and the haughty soul of Brutus, 63 the avenger [of his 
 country's wrongs], and the recovered fasces ? 64 He first shall 
 receive the consular power, and the axe of justice inflexibly 
 severe; and the sire shall, for the sake of glorious liberty, 
 summon to death his own sons, raising an unknown 65 kind of 
 war. Unhappy he ! however posterity shall interpret that 
 action, love to his country, and the unbounded desire of 
 praise, will [prevail over paternal affection]. 66 See besides at 
 some distance the Decii, Drusi, 67 Torquatus, 68 inflexibly se- 
 vere with the axe, 69 and Camillus recovering the standards. 
 But those [two] ghosts whom you observe to shine in equal 
 arms, in perfect friendship now, and while they remain shut 
 up in night, ah ! what war, what battles and havoc will they 
 between them raise, if once they have attained to the light of 
 life ! the father-in-law descending from the Alpine hills, and 
 the tower of Monoecus ; 70 the son-in-law furnished with the 
 
 disposition. Ancus Martius, the grandson of Numa, was the fourth king 
 of Rome after the death of Tullus : he inherited the valour of Romulus 
 with the moderation of Numa, and after a reign of twenty-four years, was 
 succeeded by Tarquin the elder. 
 
 63 Brutus (L. Junius), son of M. Junius and Tarquinia, second daugh- 
 ter of Tarquin Priscus. He was the chief instrument in expelling the 
 Tarquins from Rome, thus avenging Lucretia's violated honour, to which 
 he had sworn. 
 
 64 i. e. the government. B. 
 
 65 Civil war being previously unknown in Rome. B. 
 
 66 Alluding to the punishment of his sons for attempting the restoration 
 of Tarquin. 
 
 67 Drusus, the surname of the Roman family of the Livii, of which was 
 Livia Drusilla, the wife of Augustus. 
 
 68 Torquatus, a surname of Titus Manlius, a celebrated Roman, whose 
 severity in putting to death his son, because he had engaged the enemy 
 without his permission, though he had gained an honourable victory, has 
 been deservedly censured. 
 
 69 i. e. strict in exacting justice. B. 
 
 70 Monoecus, a maritime town on the south-west coast ot Liguria, 
 where Hercules had a temple. The two warriors here referred to are 
 Julius Caesar and his son-in-law, Pompey the Great. The civil war be- 
 tween Caesar and Pompey, which terminated with the battle of Pharsalia, 
 a. c. 48, led to the overthrow of the Roman republic. 
 
u. vi. 832-847. ^ENEID. 249 
 
 troops of the east to oppose him. Make not, my sons, make 
 not such [unnatural] wars familiar to your minds ; nor turn 
 the powerful strength of your country against its bowels. 
 And thou, [Caesar,] first forbear, thou who derivest thy ori- 
 gin from heaven ; fling those arms out of thy hand, O thou, 
 my own blood ! That one, having triumphed over Corinth, 71 
 shall drive his chariot victorious to the lofty Capitol, illus- 
 trious from the slaughter of Greeks. The other shall over- 
 throw Argos, and Mycenae, Agamemnon's seat, and Eacides 72 
 himself, the descendant of valorous Achilles ; avenging his 
 Trojan ancestors, and the violated temple of Minerva. Who 
 can in silence pass over thee, great Cato, 73 or thee, Cossus ? 74 
 who the family of Gracchus, 75 or both the Scipios, 76 those two 
 thunderbolts of war, the bane of Africa, and Fabricius in low 
 fortune exalted? 77 or thee, Serranus, 78 sowing in the furrow 
 [which thy own hands had made] ? Whither, ye Fabii, 79 do 
 you hurry me tired ? Thou art that [Fabius justly styled] 
 the Greatest, who alone shall repair our state by delay. 
 
 71 Corinth, the capital of Achaia in Greece, was situated on the isthmus 
 between the Corinthian and Saronic gulfs. This famous city was totally 
 destroyed by L. Mummius the Roman consul, b. c. 146. 
 
 72 iEacides is here applied to Perseus, king of Macedon, who was de- 
 scended from Achilles, the grandson of iEacus. Perseus was totally de- 
 feated and taken prisoner by Paulus ^Emilius, the Roman consul, in the 
 battle of Pydna, b. c. 168. Soon after this period, the whole of Greece 
 fell under the Roman power. 
 
 73 Cato, surnamed Uticensis, great-grandson of Cato the censor, was 
 distinguished for his integrity and justice. To prevent his falling into 
 the hands of Caesar, he stabbed himself, after he had read Plato's treatise 
 on the Immortality of the Soul, at Utica, in Africa, whither he had fled, 
 b. c. 46. 
 
 74 Cossus, a military tribune, who killed Tolumnus, king of Veii, in 
 battle, and was the second who obtained the spolia opima, which he 
 offered to Jupiter. 
 
 75 Gracchus, T. Sempronius, was distinguished both in the senate and 
 the field ; he was the father of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus. 
 
 76 Scipios ; both the father and son are meant. 
 
 77 Fabricius, C. L., a celebrated Roman, the conqueror of Pyrrhus, 
 king of Epirus, was remarkable for the great simplicity of his manLers, 
 and :ontempt of luxury and riches. Davidson. Cf. Lucan, x. 151, '* et 
 nomina pauperis aevi Fabricios Curiosque graves." B. 
 
 78 Serranus, a surname given to Cincinnatus, who was found sowing 
 his fields when informed that the senate had chosen him dictator. 
 
 79 Fabii, a noble and powerful family at Rome, of whom sprung Quin- 
 tus Fabius, the opponent of Hannibal. 
 
250 JENEID. b. vi. 848— SS3 
 
 Others, I grant indeed, shall with more delicacy mould the 
 breathing brass ; from marble draw the features to the life ; 
 plead causes better ; describe with the rod the courses of the 
 heavens, and explain the rising stars : to rule the nations with 
 imperial sway be thy care, O Romans ; these shall be thy 
 arts ; to impose terms of peace, to spare the humbled, and 
 crush the proud. 
 
 Thus father Anchises, and, as they are wondering, sub- 
 joins: Behold how adorned with triumphal spoils Marcellus 80 
 stalks along, and shines victor above the heroes all ! He, 
 mounted on his steed, shall prop the Roman state in the rage 
 of a formidable insurrection ; the Carthaginians he shall hum- 
 ble, and the rebellious Gaul, and dedicate to father Quirinus 
 the third spoils. And upon this ^Eneas [says] ; for he beheld 
 marching with him a youth distinguished by his beauty and 
 shining arms, but his countenance of little joy, and his eyes 
 sunk and dejected: What youth is he, father, who thus 
 accompanies the hero as he walks ? is he a son, or one of the 
 illustrious line of his descendants ? What bustling noise oi 
 attendants round him ! How great resemblance in him [to 
 the other] ! but sable Night with her dreary shade hovers 
 around his head. Then father Anchises, while tears gushed 
 forth, began : Seek not, my son, [to know] the deep disaster 
 of thy kindred; him the Fates shall just show on earth, nor 
 suffer long to exist. Ye gods, Rome's sons had seemed too 
 powerful in your eyes, had these your gifts been permanent. 
 What groans of heroes shall that field near the imperial city 
 of Mars send forth ! what funeral pomp shall you, O Tiberi- 
 nus, see, when you glide by his recent tomb .! Neither shall 
 any youth of the Trojan line in hope exalt the Latin fathers 
 so high ; nor shall the land of Romulus ever glory so much 
 in any of her sons. Ah piety ! ah that faith of ancient 
 times ! and that right hand invincible in war ! none with 
 impunity had encountered him in arms, either when on foot 
 he rushed upon the foe, or when he pierced with his spur his 
 foaming courser's flanks. Ah youth, meet subject for pity ! 
 
 80 Marcellus, Marcus Claudius, a famous Roman general, signalized 
 himself against the Gauls, having obtained the spolia opima, by killing 
 with his own hand their king, Viridomarus. After achieving the con- 
 quest of Syracuse, he was opposed in the field to Hannibal, but perished 
 ii: an ambuscade. 
 
B. vi. 884-902. vit. 1, 2. ^)NEID. 251 
 
 if by any means thou canst burst rigorous fate, thou shalt be 
 a Marcellus. 81 Give me lilies in handfuls ; let me strew the 
 blooming flowers ; these offerings at least let me heap upon 
 my descendant's shade, and discharge this unavailing duty. 
 Thus up and down they roam through all the [Elysian] re- 
 gions in spacious airy fields, and survey every object : through 
 each of whom when Anchises had conducted his son, and 
 fired his soul with the love of coming fame, he next recounts 
 to the hero what wars he must hereafter wage, informs him 
 of the Laurentine people, and of the city of Latinus, 82 and 
 by what means he may shun or surmount every toil. 
 
 Two gates there are of Sleep, whereof the one is said to 
 be of horn ; by which an easy egress is given to true visions ; 
 the other shining, wrought of white ivory ; but [through it] 
 the infernal gods send up false dreams to the upper world. 
 When Anchises had addressed this discourse to his son and 
 the Sibyl together, and dismissed them by the ivory gate, 83 
 the hero speeds his way to the ships, and revisits his friends ; 
 then steers directly along the coa^ for the port of Ca'ieta : 84 
 where, [when he had arrived,] t anchor is thrown out from 
 the forecastle, the sterns rest upu the shore. 
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 In the Seventh Book, JEneas reaches the destined land of Latium, and con- 
 cludes a treaty with the king Latinus, who promises him his only daughter 
 Lavinia in marriage ; the treaty is, however, soon broken by the inter- 
 ference of Juno, whose resentment still pursues the Trojans. The god- 
 dess excites Turnus to war, who calls to his aid the neighbouring princes ; 
 and the book concludes with an animated description of the enemy's forces, 
 and their respective chiefs. 
 
 Thou, too, Ca'ieta, nurse to JEneas, gavest to our coasts 
 immortal fame by thy death ; and now thy honour here re- 
 
 81 Marcellus, the son of Octavia, the sister of Augustus. He married 
 Julia, the emperor's daughter, and was intended for his successor, but 
 died suddenly at the early age of eighteen. Virgil procured himself great 
 favours by celebrating the virtues of this amiable prince. 
 
 82 City of Latinus ; Laurentum, (Paterno,) which was the capital of 
 Latium in the reign of Latinus. 
 
 83 Hence Warburton concluded that Virgil meant the whole episode 
 to be regarded only as a dream of ths initiated. Too much ingenuity has 
 been wasted on the subject. B. 
 
 84 Ca'ieta, (Greta,) a sea-port town of Latium in Italy. 
 
252 ^INEID. b. vii. 3—36. 
 
 sides, 1 and thy name marks thy remains [interred] in Hesperia 
 the great, if that be any title to renown. And now that her 
 funeral obsequies in due form were paid, and the mound of 
 the tomb raised, pious -ZEneas, soon as the swelling seas were 
 hushed, sails on his course, and leaves the port. The gales 
 breathe fair towards the approach of night ; nor does the silver 
 moon oppose his voyage ; under her trembling light the ocean 
 shines. They skim along the coasts adjacent to Circe's 2 land : 
 where with incessant song the wealthy daughter of the Sun 
 makes her inaccessible groves resound, and in her proud pa- 
 lace burns fragrant cedar for nocturnal lights, running over 
 the slender web with her shrill-sounding shuttle. Hence were 
 distinctly heard groans, the rage of lions reluctant to their 
 chains, and roaring at the late midnight hour : bristly boars 
 and bears were raging in their stalls, and wolves of prodigious 
 form howled ; whom Circe, cruel goddess, had by her power- 
 ful herbs transformed from human shape into the features 
 and limbs of wild beasts : which monstrous changes that the 
 pious Trojans might not undergo, if carried to that port, nor 
 land on those accursed shores, Neptune filled their sails with 
 favouring winds, and sped their flight, and wafted them be- 
 yond the boiling shoals. And now the sea began to redden 
 with the beams of the sun, and from the lofty sky the saffron- 
 coloured morn shone in her rosy car, when on a sudden the 
 winds grew still, every breath of air died away, and the oars 3 
 struggle on the smooth surface of the lazy main. And here, from 
 the deep, JEneas espies a spacious grove. Through this Tiberi- 
 nus, [god] of the pleasant river Tiber, with rapid whirls and 
 vast quantities of yellow sand discoloured, bursts forward into 
 the sea. All around, and over-head, various birds, accustomed 
 to the banks and channel of the river, charmed the skies with 
 their songs, and fluttered up and down the grove. [Hither 
 ^Eneas] commands his mates to bend their course, and turn 
 their prows towards land; and with joy he enters the shady 
 river. 
 
 1 Literally, " thy honour preserves its abiding place." Others take 
 " sedens " as equivalent to " sepulchrum." B. 
 
 2 Quos hominum ex facie. Circe is said to have transformed men into 
 wild beasts, by means of certain herbs, and a magical wand, with whicb 
 she touched them. The fable is taken from Homer, Odyss. x. 135. 
 
 * " tonsae," scil. " arbores," used for oars. B. 
 
 
b. vii. 37—62. .2ENEID. 253 
 
 Come now, Erato; 4 I will unfold, who were the kings, 
 what the complexion 5 of the times, what the state of things in 
 ancient Latium, when this foreign army first landed their fleet 
 on the Ausonian coasts ; and trace back the original of the 
 rising war. Do thou, O goddess, do thou instruct thy poet. 
 I will sing of horrid wars, and kings by their fierce pas- 
 sions driven to destruction, the Tuscan troops, and all Hes- 
 peria in arms combined. A greater series of incident rises to 
 my view ; in a more arduous task I engage. King Latinus, 6 
 now full of days, ruled the country and its cities quiet in a 
 lasting peace. This prince, as we traditionally receive, was 
 the offspring of Faunus and Marica, a Laurentine nymph. 
 Faunus had Picus 7 for his sire; and he, O Saturn, claims 
 thee for his : thou art the remotest author of the line. To 
 him, (Latinus,) by the appointment of the gods, no son, no 
 male issue remained; but one, just as he grew up, was 
 snatched away in the opening bloom of youth. An only 
 daughter was to preserve his line, and so large possessions, 
 now arrived at maturity, and fully ripe for marriage. Many 
 from wide Latium, and throughout Ausonia, sought her hand : 
 Turnus 8 makes his addresses, in charms far surpassing all the 
 rest, and powerful in ancestors for many generations ; whom 
 the royal consort, with wonderful eagerness, urged to have united 
 to the family as her son-in-law : but prodigies from heaven, 
 with various circumstances of terror, oppose. In the centre of 
 the palace, within the deep recesses of the inner court, stood a 
 laurel, with sacred locks, and for many years preserved with 
 awe : which king Latinus having discovered when he was 
 raising the first towers of his palace, was said to have conse- 
 
 Erato, one of the Muses, who presided over lyric, tender, and amatory 
 poetry. 
 
 5 " tempora " refers to the condition of the different states in their 
 mutual relations ; " status" to the independent condition of each respec- 
 tively. B. 
 
 6 Latinus, the son of Faunus, and king of the aborigines in Italy, whc 
 from him were called Latins. He ^svas succeeded on the throne of Latium 
 by ^Eneas, who married his daughter Lavinia. 
 
 7 Picus, a son of Saturn, and father of Faunus, reigned in Latium, and 
 was feigned to have been changed by Circe into a woodpecker. 
 
 8 Turnus, son of Daunus and Venilia, and king of the Rutuli, in Italy. 
 He made war against JEneas, who was his rival for the hand of Lavinia, 
 daughter of king Latinus, but was defeated, and at last slain by JEneas 
 in single combat. 
 
/ 
 
 254 ^NEID b. vii. 63—98. 
 
 crated to Phoebus, and from it to have given the name of 
 Laurentines to the inhabitants. On the high summit of this 
 tree thick clustering bees, strange to hear, wafted athwart the 
 liquid sky with a great humming noise, planted themselves ; 
 and, having linked their feet together by a mutual hold, the 
 swarm hung in a surprising manner from the leafy bough. 
 Forthwith the prophet said, We behold a foreign hero hither 
 advancing, and an army making towards the same parts 
 [where the bees alight], from the same parts [whence they 
 came], and bearing sway in the lofty palace. Again, while 
 with holy torches the virgin Lavinia kindles the altars, and is 
 standing by her sire, she seemed, O horrid ! to catch the fire 
 in her long flowing hair, and to have her whole attire con- 
 sumed in the crackling flames, all in a blaze both as to her 
 royal locks and crown rich with gems : then in clouds of 
 smoke, [she seemed] to be involved in ruddy light, and to 
 spread the conflagration over the whole palace. As to this, it 
 was reputed terrible, and of astonishing aspect: for [the 
 soothsayers] foretold, that Lavinia herself would be illustrious, 
 both in fame and fortune, but threatened her people with a 
 great war. 
 
 But the king, anxious at these portentous signs, repairs to 
 the oracle of prophetic Faunus, his sire, and consults his 
 grove beneath lofty Albunea, 9 which, of woods the chief, re- 
 sounds with a sacred fountain, and from its dark retreats sends 
 forth a pernicious stream. Hence the Italian nations, and the 
 whole land of (Enotria, seek responses when in perplexity. 
 Hither when the priest had brought offerings, and in the deep 
 silence of night laid himself down on the outspread skins of 
 slain sheep, and disposed himself to sleep ; he observes 
 many visionary forms fluttering about in a wondrous manner, 
 hears various sounds, and enjoys interviews with the gods, 
 and converses with the manes in the infernal regions. Here 
 even father Latinus himself, being then in quest of a re- 
 sponse, with due rites sacrificed an hundred fleecy ewes, and 
 lay supported on their skins and outspread fleeces. From the 
 deep grove a sudden voice was delivered : Seek not, my son, 
 to join thy daughter in Latin wedlock, nor rest thy hopes on 
 the match now designed. A foreigner comes, thy [future] 
 
 9 Albunea, a wood near the city Tibur and the river Anio, sacred to 
 the Muses. 
 
 
r>. rii. 98— 133. JENEID. *oo 
 
 son-in-law, who, by his blood, shall exalt our name to the star?, 
 and from whose race our descendants springing, shall see all 
 things reduced under their feet, and ruled by their sway, 
 where the revolving sun visits either ocean. 
 
 These responses of father Faunus, and intimations given in 
 the silence of night, Latinus himself shuts not up within his 
 lips : but fame, fluttering all around, had now wafted the 
 tidings through the Ausonian cities, when Laomedon's sons 
 had moored their fleet to 10 the grassy rising bank. iEneas, 
 the chief leaders, and blooming Iiilus, recline their bodies at 
 ease under the branches of a tall tree ; prepare the repast, 
 and under their banquet spread cakes of fine wheat along 
 the grass, (so Jove himself admonished,) and load the wheaten 
 board with woodland fruits. Here, as it chanced, having con- 
 sumed their other provisions, as want of food compelled them 
 to turn their teeth to the scanty cake, and violate with hands 
 and daring jaws the orb of the fated bread, nor spare its broad 
 quarters : What ! lulus says, are we eating up tables too ? 
 nor carried his pleasantry further. No sooner was this remark 
 heard than it announced the termination of their toils ; and 
 instantly from the speaker's mouth his father snatched the 
 word, and transported with admiration at the fulfilment of the 
 oracle, mused awhile. Forthwith he spoke: Hail, O land, 
 destined to me by the Fates ! and hail, ye gods, ye faithful 
 tutelar gods of Troy ! This is our home, this our country. 
 My sire Anchises (for now I recollect) bequeathed to me these 
 secrets of Fate : When famine shall compel thee, my son, 
 wafted to an unknown shore, to eat up your tables after your 
 provisions fail, then be sure you hope for a settlement after 
 your toils, and therewith your own hand found your first city, 
 and fortify it with a rampart. This was that hunger [to 
 which he alluded] : these our last calamities awaited us, which 
 are to put a period to our woes. Come then, and with the 
 sun's first light let us joyously explore what. places are these, 
 or what men are the inhabitants, or where are the cities of 
 the race ; and from the port let us pursue different ways. At 
 present pour forth bowls in libation to Jove, and by prayers 
 
 10 We must observe that the preposition " ab " is used in reference to 
 the place whence the fastening proceeds. It is omitted in Ovid Met. 13, 
 4o9, " Litore Threicio classem religarat Atrides." In Greek the con- 
 struction is with a dative, as Apoll. Rh. ii. 177, yaiy ir*i<rua , r' avrjyf/av. B. 
 
256 ^NEID. B. vii. 134— 1G3. 
 
 invoke my father Anchises, and replace 11 the wine profusely 
 on the boards. 
 
 Thus having said, he binds his temples next with a verdant 
 bough, and supplicates the Genius of the place, and Earth, 
 the eldest of the gods, together with the nymphs and rivers 
 yet unknown ; 12 then Night, and the night's rising constella- 
 tions,, and Idsean Jove, and Phrygian mother Cybele, he in- 
 vokes in due form, and both his parents, the one in heaven, 
 and the other in Erebus. 13 Upon this the almighty Sire 
 thrice from the lofty heavens thundered aloud, and from the 
 sky displays a cloud refulgent with beams of golden light, 
 brandishing it in his hand. 
 
 Here suddenly the rumour spreads through the Trojan 
 bands, that the day was arrived whereon they were to build 
 the destined city. With emulation they renew the banquet, 
 and, rejoicing in the mighty omen, place the bowls, and crown 
 the wines. Soon as the next day arisen had enlightened the 
 earth with its first beams, by different ways they explore the 
 city, the boundaries and the coasts of the nation : [they learn 
 that] these are the standing waters of the fountain Numicus, 14 
 this the river Tiber, that here the valiant Latins dwell. Then 
 the son of Anchises orders a hundred ambassadors, selected 
 from every rank, 15 to repair to the imperial palace of the king, 
 all of them decked 16 with Minerva's boughs ; and carry gifts 
 to the hero, and implore his peace towards the Trojans. 
 Forthwith, commanded, they hasten and set forward with 
 quick pace. JEneas himself marks out the walls with a low 
 trench, and builds upon the spot, and encloses the first settle- 
 ment on the shore, in the form of a camp, with a parapet and 
 rampart. And now the youths, having measured out their 
 way, beheld the towers, and lofty structures of the Latins, 
 and approached the wall. Before the city, boys and youths 
 in the bloom of early life are exercised on horseback, and 
 
 11 i. e. " renew the banquet." Anthon. 
 
 K So Silius, vi. 171, " Intramus tamen, et nymphas numenque preca- 
 mur Gurgitis ignoti." B. 
 
 13 i. e. Venus and Anchises. B. 
 
 14 Now the Stagno di Levante. We must not understand the river 
 Numicus near Lavinium. B. 
 
 15 Not " from all the people." See Anthon. B. 
 
 16 Compare the Greek i^ear^fjLkvoi The garlands were carriel in tliO 
 iiani. B. 
 
 
 
b. vii. 163-188. JENEID. 257 
 
 tame the yoked steeds on the dusty plain ; or bend the stiff 
 bows, or, with the exerted strength of their arms, hurl the 
 quivering dart, and challenge one another in the race or to 
 pugilism : when a messenger riding before, bears the news to 
 the aged king, that men of huge dimensions, in a strange garb, 
 were arrived. He orders them to be invited into the palace, 
 and seated himself in the midst on his ancient throne. On 
 the highest part of the city stood a magnificent capacious 
 structure, raised aloft on a hundred columns, the palace of 
 Picus of Laurentum, awful for its sacred woods, and the re- 
 ligious veneration of ancestors. It was [considered] a good 
 omen for the kings here to receive the sceptre, and raise the 
 first badges of royalty; this temple was their senate-house, 
 this their apartment allotted for sacred banquets : here, after 
 the sacrifice of a ram, the fathers were wont to take their seats 
 together at the long tables. Besides, in the vestibule, accord- 
 ing to their order, the statues of their ancestors in antique 
 cedar stood; Italus, 17 and father Sabinus, and old Saturn, 18 
 the planter of the vine, holding a crooked scythe under his 
 figure, and the image of double-faced Janus ; 19 and other 
 monarchs from the origin [of the race], who sustained martial 
 wounds in fighting for their country. Besides, on the sacred 
 door-posts many arms, captive chariots, and crooked scimeters, 
 are suspended, helmet- crests, and massy bars of gates, and 
 darts and shields, and beaks torn from ships. Picus himself, 
 the breaker of steeds, sat with his augural wand, 20 dressed in 
 
 17 Italus, an Arcadian prince, who is said to have established a king- 
 dom in Italy, which received its name from him. Sabinus, from whom 
 the Sabines were named. He received divine honours after death, and 
 was one of those deities whom ^Eneas invoked when he entered Italy. 
 
 18 Saturn, the son of Ccelus and Terra, married his sister Ops, who is 
 also called Rhea and Cybele. He was dethroned and imprisoned by his 
 brother Titan, but was restored to liberty and to his throne, by his son 
 Jupiter, who, however, afterwards banished him from his kingdom, which 
 he divided with his brothers Neptune and Pluto. Saturn fled to Italy, 
 where his reign was so mild, that mankind have called it the golden age. 
 
 19 Janus, the most ancient king of Italy, was a native of Thessaly, and, 
 according to some, the son of Apollo; after death he was ranked among 
 the gods, and is represented with two faces. His temple at Rome, where 
 i he was chiefly worshipped, was always shut in time of peace, and open in 
 
 time of war. 
 
 20 This is the ablative of manner. Gellius, however, v. 8, supposes aa 
 ellipse; others regard "succinctus lituo " as a zeugma. B. 
 
258 
 
 -ENEID. 
 
 u. vii. 189—222. 
 
 his scanty tucked-up robe, and in his left hand wielded a little 
 target ; whom Circe, his concubine, stung with desire, having 
 struck with her golden rod, and by her spells transformed, 
 made a bird, and interspersed his wings with colours. 
 
 Within such a temple of the gods, and on his ancestral 
 throne, Latinus, seated, called to him the Trojans into the 
 palace ; to whom, when they had entered, he, in mild accent, 
 first these words addressed : Say, ye sons of Dardanus, (for we 
 are not unacquainted with your city or with your race, nor 
 hither have you steered your course unheard of,) what seek 
 ye ? what cause, or pressing exigency, has wafted your fleet 
 to the Ausonian coast, over such an extent of azure seas ? 
 Whether you have entered the banks of our river, and sta- 
 tioned yourself in our port, by wandering from your way, or 
 driven by stress of weather, (such things as in many shapes 
 seamen suffer in the deep,) decline not hospitality, nor remain 
 strangers to the Latins, Saturn's race, who practise equity, 
 not by constraint or laws, but from spontaneous choice, and 
 regulating themselves by the conduct of that ancient god. 
 And, indeed, I call to mind, (the tradition is somewhat obscure 
 through length of time,) that the old Aurunci 21 thus reported ; 
 how Dardanus, a native of this country, reached the Idaean 
 cities of Phrygia, and Thracian Samos, which now is called 
 Samothracia. 22 Hence he had set out from his Tuscan seat in 
 Corythus ; now enthroned, he sits in the golden palace of the 
 starry heavens, and adds to the number of the altars of the 
 gods. 
 
 He said ; and Ilioneus made the following reply : O king, 
 illustrious offspring of Faunus, neither a grim storm forced us, 
 by billows harassed, to enter your realms ; nor did the stars 
 or the coast mislead us from the course of our voyage. We 
 I all with design, and willing minds, are brought to this city ; 
 expelled from a kingdom, once the most powerful which the 
 sun coursing from the extremity of heaven surveyed. From 
 Jove is the origin of our race ; the sons of Dardanus rejoice 
 in Jove their ancestor. Our king himself, JEneas the Tro- 
 jan, sprung from Jove's exalted line, sent us to your courts. 
 What a terrible storm, bursting from cruel Mycenae, hath 
 
 M Aurunci, an ancient people of Latium, south-east of the Volsci. 
 
 w Samothracia, an island in the Archipelago, off the coast of Thrace. 
 
3. vii. 223-259 ^ENEID. 259 
 
 overrun the plains of Ida, under the influence of what fates 
 both worlds of Europe and Asia engaged ; even those have 
 heard, if such there are, whom earth's extremity removes afar, 
 the expanded ocean intervening ; and those, if such there are. 
 whom the regions of the intemperate sun, extended in the 
 midst of the other four, divides [from the rest of mankind]. 
 From that deluge borne over so many vast oceans, we beg for 
 our country's gods a small settlement, and a harmless shore, 
 and water and air, which are open to all. We shall be no 
 dishonour to your realm ; nor shall trivial fame redound to 
 
 : you, or our grateful sense of so generous an action ever be ef- 
 faced ; nor shall the Ausonians repent that they received 
 
 • Troy into their bosom. I swear by the fates of iEneas, and 
 by his right hand that excels, whether any one has experienced 
 
 : it in faith, or in war and martial deeds ; many people, many 
 nations, (contemn us not, because of ourselves we bring in our 
 hands the wreaths, and [in our mouths] the words of sup- 
 pliants,) have not only been willing, but courted us to asso- 
 ciate with them. But the destiny of the gods, by their 
 commanding influence, compelled us to go in quest of your 
 territories. Dardanus, who sprang from this country, hither 
 re demands his offspring ; and Apollo, by his mighty summons, 
 urges us to the Tuscan Tiber, and the sacred streams of the 
 fountain Numicus. 23 ^Eneas offers you, besides, some small 
 presents, remnants of his former fortune, saved from the flames 
 of Troy. From this golden bowl father Anchises performed 
 libations at the altar : this was borne by Priam, when he gave 
 laws in form to the assembled people, the sceptre, and sacred 
 diadem, and the robes, the work of the Trojan dames. 
 
 At these words of Ilioneus, Latinus keeps his countenance 
 fixed in steady regard, and remains unmoved on the ground, 
 rolling his eyes intent. Neither the embroidered purple, nor 
 Priam's sceptre, move him so much, as he muses on his 
 daughter's nuptials, and deep in his breast revolves the oracles 
 of ancient Faunus ; [concluding] that this is he who, come 
 from foreign parts, by the Fates was ordained his son-in-law, 
 and called to the regal power with equal sway : that from him 
 a race would come in valour eminent, and who, by their 
 power, should master the whole world. At length, with joy, 
 he says : May the gods crown with success our enterprise and 
 
 23 See vs. 151, with the note 
 6 2 
 
260 JENEJD. b. vii. 260—292. 
 
 their own presage. Trojan, what you demand shall be given : 
 aot do I reject your present. While Latinus is king, not the 
 fatness of a luxuriant soil, nor the opulence of Troy, shall be 
 wanting to you. Only let JEneas come in person, if he has so 
 great affection to us, if he longs to be joined with us in hospi- 
 table league, and to be called our ally ; nor let him dread our 
 friendly presence. To me it will be an advance towards 
 peace to touch the hand of your prince. Do you now, on your 
 part, report these my instructions to your king: I have a 
 daughter, whom neither the oracles from my father's shrine, 
 nor numerous prodigies from heaven, permit me to match with 
 a husband of our own nation ; they foretell that this destiny 
 awaits Latium, that its sons-in-law shall come from foreign 
 coasts, who, in their descendants, shall to the stars exalt our 
 name. That this is he whom the Fates ordain I both judge, 
 and (if aught of truth my mind divines) I wish it too. 
 
 This said, the sire chooses out steeds from his whole num- 
 ber : in lofty stalls, three hundred of them stood in sleek ap- 
 pearance. Forthwith for all the Trojans he commands the 
 winged coursers, caparisoned with purple and embroidered 
 trappings, to be led forth in order. Golden poitrels hang low 
 down from their breasts; arrayed in gold, they champ the 
 yellow gold under their teeth. For the absent hero, [he or- 
 ders] a chariot, and a pair of harnessed steeds of ethereal 
 breed, from their nostrils snorting fire, of the race of those 
 whom crafty Circe produced, when, having stolen [horses] 
 from her father [the Sun], she raised up a spurious breed by 
 a substituted mare. With these presents and speeches from 
 Latinus, the Trojans, mounted on their steeds, return, and 
 bring back peace. 
 
 But lo ! the unrelenting wife of Jove was on her return 
 from Inachian Argos, 24 and, wafted in her chariot, possessed 
 the aerial regions ; and, from on high, at the distance of 
 Sicilian Pachynus, far off she spied -ZEneas full joyous, and 
 the Trojan fleet. She sees [the Trojans] already labouring 
 on the buildings, already settled in the land, and that they 
 have abandoned their ships. Pierced with sharp grief she 
 stood ; then tossing her head, she poured forth these words 
 
 24 Inachian Argos, the capital of Argolis, in Peloponnesus, was so 
 called from Inachus, u son of Oceanus and Tethys, who founded the king 
 dom of Argos. 
 
D. vxi. 293— 319. jENEID. 2(>1 
 
 from her breast : Ah ! race detested, and Fates of Troy op- 
 posed to ours ! Was it in the compass of my power to over- 
 throw them to the plains of Sigseum ? 25 made captives, could 
 they be kept in captivity ? when Troy was burned to ashes, 
 were they consumed ? through the midst of armies, through 
 the midst of flames, have they then found their way ? But, 
 I suppose, the power of my divinity, tired out now, lies inac- 
 tive ; or glutted [with full revenge], I have dropped my 
 resentment. Yet, with hostile intention, I dared to pursue 
 them over the waves, when they had been driven out of their 
 country, and on the vast wide ocean to oppose myself to the 
 exiles. The powers of heaven and sea have been spent on the 
 Trojans. Of what avail to me were the Syrtes, or Scylla, or 
 the vast Charybdis ? In Tiber's wished-for channel they are 
 lodged, secure against the seas and me. Mars was able to 
 destroy the gigantic race of the Lapithae ; the father of the 
 gods himself gave up his beloved Calydon 26 to Diana's re- 
 sentment : what crime, either of the Lapithae, or of Calydon, 
 had deserved such severe punishment ? But I, the great con- 
 sort of Jove, who had power to leave no means untried, who 
 had recourse to all expedients, unhappy ! am vanquished by 
 JEneas. But if my own divinity is not powerful enough, 
 surely I need not hesitate to implore whatever deity any 
 where subsists : if I cannot move the powers above, I will 
 solicit those of hell. Grant I be not permitted to bar him 
 from the kingdom of Latium, and Lavinia be unalterably 
 destined his spouse by fate ; yet I may protract, and throw 
 obstacles in the way of those mighty events ; yet I may cut 
 off the subjects of both kings. With this costly price of their 
 people's blood, let the father and son-in-law unite. Thy 
 dowry, virgin, shall be paid in Trojan and Rutulian blood ; 
 and Bellona 27 waits thee for thy bride's-maid : nor did teem- 
 
 26 Sigaeum, see note *•, iEneid, Book II. p. 138. 
 
 26 Calydon, a city of JEtolia in Greece, where (Eneus, the father of 
 Meleager, reigned. The king having neglected to pay homage to Diana, 
 the goddess sent a wild boar to ravage the country, which at last was 
 killed by Meleager. All the princes of the age assembled to hunt this 
 boar, which event is greatly celebrated by the poets, under the name of 
 the Chase of Calydon, or of the Calydonian Boar. 
 
 27 Bellona, the goddess of war, daughter of Phorcys and Ceto, and, ac- 
 cording to some, the sister and wife of Mars. ,— 
 
262 ^NEID. b. vii. 320-350. 
 
 ing Hecuba 28 alone, impregnated with a firebrand, bring forth 
 a blazing nuptial torch ; to Venus too this production of hers 
 shall prove the same, even a second Paris, and a firebrand 
 fatal to Troy again tottering to its fall. 
 
 Having uttered these words, dreadful down to earth she 
 plunged. From the mansions of the dire sisters, and the in- 
 fernal glooms, she calls up baleful Alecto ; whose heart's de- 
 light are rueful wars, strifes, and deceits, and noxious crimes. 
 Her even her father, Pluto's self, abhors, her hellish sisters 
 abhor the monster ; into so many shapes she turns herself, so 
 hideous are her forms, with so many snakes the grim Fury 
 sprouts up. Whom Juno stimulates with these words, and 
 thus addresses : Virgin, offspring of Night, perform me this 
 task, this service, your own peculiar province ; that our hon- 
 our and wounded fame be not quite baffled, nor the JEnean 
 race be able fawningly to circumvent Latinus by this match, 
 or take possession of the Italian territories. Thou canst arm 
 to war the most cordial brothers, and by animosities embroil 
 families : thou canst introduce into houses scourges and fire- 
 brands of death ; with thee are a thousand specious pretexts, 
 a thousand arts of doing mischief : ransack thy fruitful bosom, 
 unhinge the established peace, sow crimes that lead to war ; 
 let the youth incline to, and at once demand and snatch up 
 arms. 
 
 Forthwith Alecto, infected with Gorgonian poisons, repairs 
 first to Latium, and the lofty palace of the Laurentine mon- 
 arch, and took possession of Amata's 29 silent gate; in whose 
 inflamed breast female cares and angry commotions kept dis- 
 quieting 30 on account of the arrival of the Trojans, and the 
 match with Turnus. At her the goddess flings from her dark 
 locks one of her snakes, and plunges it deep in her bosom 
 down to its inmost recesses, that, by the monster, driven to 
 fury, she may embroil the whole family. He, sliding between 
 her robes and smooth breast, rolls on with imperceptible touch, 
 
 28 Hecuba, daughter of Dymas, a Phrygian prince, or, according to 
 others, of Cisseus, a Thracian king, was the second wife of Priam king 
 of Troy, and the mother of Paris. 
 
 29 Amata, the wife of king Latinus : she zealously favoured the ii terest 
 of Turnus against ^Eneas. 
 
 30 So " coquit" is used in Ennius apud Cic de Sen. i. " curamic In- 
 V&8SO, Quae nunc te coquit." B, 
 
B. tii. 351— 3*3. ^NEID. 263 
 
 and, in the transport of her rage, steals on her unawares, in- 
 fusing into her a viperish soul : the huge snake becomes a 
 chain of wreathed gold around her neck, he becomes a long 
 winding fillet, and entwines her hair, and in slippery mazes 
 creeps over her limbs. And while the first infection, down- 
 ward gliding, with its humid poison attacks her senses, and 
 blends the mingling fire with her bones ; and while her mind 
 has not yet felt the flame throughout her bosom ; she spoke 
 with softer accents, and in the wonted manner of mothers, 
 making many a heavy lamentation about her daughter and the 
 Phrygian match : And is Lavinia given in marriage to Trojan 
 exiles ? and have you, her father, no pity on your daughter, 
 or on yourself, or on her mother, whom with the first fair 
 wind 31 the perfidious pirate will abandon, and return to sea, 
 carrying off the virgin ? And did not the Phrygian shepherd 
 thus steal into Lacedaemon, and bear away Leda's daughter, 
 Helen, totthe Trojan city? What becomes of your solemnly 
 plighted faith, your ancient regard for your people, and your 
 right hand so often plighted to your kinsman Turnus ? If the 
 Latins must have a son-in-law from a foreign nation, and this 
 be determined, and the commands of your father Faunus press 
 you, for my part I reckon every land foreign, which, inde- 
 pendent, is disjointed from our dominion, and that thus the 
 gods intend. And (if the first origin of his family be traced 
 back) Turnus has Inachus and Acrisius 32 for his progenitors, 
 and Mycenae, the heart [of Greece, for his country]. 
 
 When, having tried him by these words in vain, she finds 
 Latinus resolutely fixed against her, and the serpent's infuri- 
 ated poison had now sunk deep into her bowels, and crept 
 through all her frame; then, indeed, in wretched disorder, 
 startled by hideous nionsters, she rages frantic with unex- 
 ampled fury through the ample bounds of the city : as at times 
 a whip-top whirling under the twisted lash, which boys intent 
 on their sport drive in a large circuit round some empty court ; 
 the engine driven about by the scourge is hurried round and 
 round in circling courses ; the unpractised throng and beard- 
 less band are lost in admiration of the voluble bcx-wood: 
 
 ai The north wind would be favourable to a departure from Italy. B. 
 
 82 Acrisius, king of Argos, was descended from Inachus, its founder, 
 and was one of Turnus' ancestors. He was accidentally slain by his grand « 
 aon Perseua 
 
 
264 ^NEID. B. vii. 384—420 
 
 they lend their souls to the stroke. With no less impetuous 
 career is the queen driven through the midst of cities, and 
 among crowds all in fierce commotion. Aiming even at a 
 more atrocious deed, and ushering in a higher scene of mad- 
 ness, having counterfeited the enthusiasm of Bacchus, she 
 flies out into the forest, and conceals her daughter in the 
 woody mountains, that from the Trojans she may wrest the 
 match, and retard the nuptials : exclaiming, Evoe Bacchus, 
 and bawling out, that thou alone art worthy of the virgin ; 
 for that, in honour of thee, she wields the tender ivy-wands, 
 round thee she moves in the dance, for thee she feeds her 
 sacred locks. The rumour flies ; and the same enthusiasm at 
 once actuates all the matrons, inflamed by the furies in their 
 breasts, to seek new habitations : they instantly abandon their 
 homes ; to the winds they expose their necks and hair. Others 
 again fill the skies with tremulous yells, and, wrapped in skins, 
 wield their vine-dressed spears. She herself, in the midst of 
 them, all on fire sustains a blazing pine, and sings the nuptial 
 song for her daughter and Turnus, whirling her bloody eye- 
 balls round ; and suddenly, with a stern air, she cries, to ! 
 ye Latin matrons, hear, whatever you may chance to be : if 
 any affection for unhappy Amata dwells in your humane 
 souls, if concern for a mother's right touches you to the 
 quick, unbind the fillets of your hair, with me take up the 
 orgies. In this manner among the woods, among the deserts 
 of wild beasts, Alecto, with the stimulating fury of Bacchus, 
 all around goads on the queen. 
 
 After she seemed sufficiently to have kindled the first trans- 
 ports of rage, and embroiled the counsel and the whole family 
 of Latinus ; forthwith the baleful goddess hence is borne on 
 dusky wings to the walls of the bold Rutulian ; which city 
 Danae, 33 wafted by the impetuous south wind, is said to havo 
 fo unded for her Acrisian colony. The place was formerly 
 ca lied Ardea by the ancient inhabitants, and now Ardea it 
 remains, an illustrious name: 34 but its fortune has departed. 
 Here, in his lofty palace, was Turnus enjoying repose at the 
 h lack hour of midnight. Alecto lays aside her hideous aspect, 
 and Fury's limbs ; she transforms herself into the shape of an 
 
 33 Danae, the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos : she fled to Italy, 
 and founded the city of Ardea, the capital of the Rutuli. 
 
 34 i. e. " a name and nothing more." See Drakenb. on Silius i. 293. B< 
 
n Til. 421—453. JENEID. 265 
 
 old hag, ploughs with wrinkles her loathsome front, assumes 
 grey hairs with a fillet, and binds on them an olive bough : 
 she takes the form of Calybe, the aged priestess of Juno's 
 temple, and with these words presents herself to the youth full 
 in his view : O Turnus, will you suffer so many toils to be lost 
 and thrown away, and your sceptre to be transferred 36 to a 
 Trojan colony? The king absolutely refuses you the match 
 and dowry you have purchased with your blood ; and a 
 foreigner is sought to inherit his kingdom. Go now, thus 
 baffled, expose yourself to thankless dangers ; go, overthrow 
 the Tuscan armies ; in peace protect the Latins. And now, 
 in these very terms, the all-powerful queen of heaven herself 
 commanded me plainly to address you, reclining in the still 
 silent night. Wherefore despatch, and with alacrity order the 
 youth to be armed, and march forth to war ; in flames con- 
 sume both the Phrygian leaders, who are stationed in the fair 
 river, and their painted vessels. So the awful majesty of 
 heaven commands. Let king Latinus himself, unless he con- 
 sents to grant the match, and stand to his word, know, and at 
 length experience Turnus in arms. 
 
 Upon this the youth, deriding the prophetess, thus in his 
 turn replies : The intelligence has not escaped my ears, as 
 you imagine, that a fleet is arrived in the Tiber's channel. 
 Forge not to me such grounds of fear : for of us imperial Juno 
 is not unmindful. But old age, O dame, oppressed with 
 dotage, and barren of the truth, in vain harasses thee with 
 cares ; and with false alarms deludes thee a prophetess, amid 
 the warlike affairs of kings. Your province is to guard the 
 statues and temples of the gods : let men have the management 
 of peace and war, by whom war ought to be managed. 
 
 By these words Alecto kindled into rage. As for the 
 youth, while yet speaking, a sudden trembling seized his 
 limbs ; his eyes stiffened : with so many snakes the Fury hisses, 
 and a shape so horrid discloses itself: then, as he hesitates, 
 and purposes more to say, rolling her fiery eyeballs, she re- 
 pelled [his words], and reared the double snakes in her hair, 
 clanked her whip, and thus further spoke in outrageous 
 accent : Lo, here am I oppressed with dotage, whom old age, 
 barren of the truth, deludes with false alarms amid the arms 
 
 85 Cf. ^Sn. v. 750, and the note. B 
 
266 -ENEID. b. vii. 454—490, 
 
 of kings. Turn thy eyes to these signs : I came from the 
 abode of the dire sisters ; wars and death in my hand I bear. 
 Thus having spoken, she flung a firebrand at the youth, and 
 deep in his breast fixed the torch smoking with grim light. 
 Excessive terror broke his rest, and sweat bursting from every 
 pore drenched his bones and limbs. Frantic for arms he 
 raves, for arms he searches the bed and the palace : a passion 
 for the sword, a cursed madness after war, and indignation 
 besides rage [in his breast]. As when with loud crackling a 
 fire of twigs is applied to the sides of a bubbling caldron, and 
 by the heat the water dances ; within, the violence of the 
 water rages, and high the smoky fluid in foam overflows ; nor 
 can the wave now contain itself; in pitchy steam it flies all 
 abroad. Therefore, now that the peace is profanely violated, 
 he enjoins the chief of the youth to repair to king Latinus, and 
 orders arms to be prepared to defend Italy, to expel the 
 enemy from their territories : [adding,] that he is a sufficient 
 match for Trojans and Latins both. When he had thus 
 spoken, and in vows had addressed the gods, the Rutulians 
 with emulous ardour animate one another to arms. One is 
 incited by his distinguished gracefulness of form and youth ; 
 another by his regal ancestors ; a third by his right hand, with 
 its glorious deeds. 
 
 While Turnus inspires the Rutulians with courageous souls, 
 Alecto on Stygian wings against the Trojans speeds her flight : 
 having with fresh artifice espied the place where on the shore 
 fair lulus was by snares and chase pursuing beasts of prey. 
 Here the virgin of hell throws on his hounds a sudden mad- 
 ness, and affects their nostrils with the well-known scent, with 
 keen ardour to pursue a stag ; which was the first source of 
 calamities, and inflamed the rustic minds to war. The stag 
 was of exquisite beauty, and large horns ; which, snatched 
 from its mother's dugs, the sons of Tyrrhus nursed up, and 
 Tyrrhus, the father, to whom the royal herds are in subjec- 
 tion, and the charge of the fields all around intrusted. The 
 animal, trained to discipline, their sister Sylvia 36 with her 
 utmost care was wont to deck, interweaving his horns with 
 30ft garlands ; she combed and washed him in the clear stream. 
 
 38 Sylvia, the daughter of Tyrrhus, shepherd of king Latinus, whose 
 favourite stag was killed by Ascanius, which was the cause of war between 
 iEneas and the Latins. 
 
B. vii. 491—524. JENEID. 267 
 
 He, patient of the touch, and accustomed to his master's 
 board, would range in the woods ; and again at night, how- 
 ever late, to his home, his familiar retreat, of himself repaired. 
 Him at a distance, while roving, the mad hounds of the hunts- 
 man lulus roused, when by chance he was floating down with 
 the stream, and on the verdant bank was allaying his heat. 
 Ascanius himself too, fired with the love of distinguished 
 praise, from his bended bow aimed arrows [at him] ; nor was 
 the god unaiding to his erring hand ; 37 and with a loud [whiz- 
 zing] sound the shaft impelled, pierced his belly and his flanks. 
 The wounded animal fled homeward to his own habitation, 
 and groaning entered his stall ; and all bloody, and like one 
 imploring [pity], filled the house with moans. Sylvia, the 
 sister, first, beating her arms with her palms, implores aid, 
 and calls together the hardy swains. They (for the fierce 
 fiend lurks in the secret woods) suddenly appear ; one armed 
 with a brand hardened in the fire, one with a sturdy knotted 
 club ; whatever by each in rummaging was found, his rage 
 makes a weapon. Tyrrhus, as by chance with driven wedges 
 he was cleaving an oak in four, breathing fury, snatches up 
 his axe, and summons his rustic bands. But the savage god- 
 dess, having from her place of observation found the oppor- 
 tunity of executing her mischievous plot, mounts the high 
 roof of the stall, and from the lofty summit sounds the shep- 
 herd's signal, and in the winding horn strains her hellish 
 voice; with which every grove forthwith quaked and the 
 deep woods inly trembled. Even the lake of Diana heard it 
 from afar ; the Nar, 38 white with sulphureous water, heard it, as 
 well as the springs of Velinus ; and frightened mothers press- 
 ed their infants to their breasts. Then, indeed, wherever the 
 cornet direful gave the alarm, the wild unpolished swains, 
 snatching up arms, hasten in concert from every quarter ; 
 and, in like manner, from their open tents the Trojan youth 
 pour forth supplies to Ascanius. They ranged their battalions. 
 Nor now in rustic skirmish are they engaged with hardened 
 
 clubs, and stakes burned at the point ; but with the doubtful 
 
 « 
 
 37 i. e. " his hand which would otherwise have erred." See Anthon. B. 
 
 38 Nar, (Nera,) a river of Italy, rises in the Apennines, and forming a 
 junction with the Velino, flows with great rapidity, and falls into the Ti- 
 ber. Its waters are celebrated for their sulphureous properties. Velino 
 ilso rises in the Apennines, and, by its stagnant waters, fo-ms a lake near 
 the town of Reate, and falls into the Nar, near Spoletium 
 
 
263 .ENEID. b. vii. 525— 55H. 
 
 steel 39 they encounter, and a hideous crop of drawn swords 
 shoot up with horrid aspect, far and wide, and the arms of 
 brass struck with the sunbeams glitter, and dart their radi- 
 ance to the clouds : as when with the first breath of wind the 
 wave begins to whiten, the sea rises by degrees, and higher 
 and higher heaves its billows, then from the lowest bottom 
 swells up together to the skies. Here, before the foremost 
 line of battle, young Almon, the eldest of the sons of Tyrrhus, 
 is by a whizzing arrow slain; for deep in his throat the 
 wounding weapon stuck fast, and with the blood choked up 
 the passage of the humid voice 40 and slender breath of life. 
 Round him many bodies of heroes fall, and aged Galassus, 
 while he is offering to mediate peace ; a man who was of all 
 others the most upright, and formerly the richest in Ausonian 
 lands. Five flocks of bleating sheep with live herds of cattle 
 returned home [from his pastures] ; 41 and with a hundred 
 ploughs he turned the soil. 
 
 Now whilst through the plains these actions are going on 
 with equal fury, the goddess, having accomplished her pro- 
 mise, when she had drenched the field of war in blood, and 
 began the havoc of the first encounter, leaves Hesperia, and 
 turning away through the aerial sky in triumph, addresses 
 Juno with haughty speech : See discord brought for you to its 
 consummation by baleful war ! Bid them combine in friend- 
 ship, and contract alliances, since I have imbrued the Trojans 
 with Ausonian blood ! To these will I add this also ; if I be 
 assured of your consent, the neighbouring towns by rumours 
 will I urge on to the war, and inflame their minds with the 
 passion of furious Mars, that from all hands they may come 
 as auxiliaries ; war will I spread over all the country. Then 
 Juno [said] in return : Of terrors and fraud there is enough : 
 fixed are the causes of the war ; in arms they combat hand to 
 hand ; those arms, which chance first gave, recent blood hath 
 stained. Such espousals and such nuptial rites let Venus' 
 peerless offspring and king Latinus himself celebrate. Father 
 
 39 Referring to the equality of forces on both, sides. So " dubia cus* 
 pide," Silius iv. 188. B. 
 
 40 Cf. Silius iv. 171, " Haesit barbaricum sub anhelo gutture teluni; 
 Et clausit raucum letali vulnere murmur." B. 
 
 41 Davidson prefers taking " redeo " in its sense " of being one's in- 
 come, stock or revenue/ ' B. 
 
B, vn. 556—590. JENEID. 269 
 
 Jove, the great ruler of heaven supreme, permits you not to 
 roam with farther licence in the higher regions. Retire from 
 these places. Whatever turn of fortune our labours may 
 henceforth take, myself will manage. These words Saturnia 
 uttered. At which the Fury lifts up her wings hissing with 
 snakes, and hies to the mansion of Cocytus, leaving the high 
 places in this upper world. In the centre of Italy, under lofty 
 mountains, lies a place of high renown, and celebrated by fame 
 in many regions, the valley of Amsanctus : 42 the side of a 
 grove, gloomy with thick boughs, hems it in on either hand, 
 and in the midst a torrent, in hoarse murmurs and with whirl- 
 ing eddies, roars along the rocks. Here are shown a horrible 
 cave and the breathing-holes 43 of grisly Pluto ; and a vast 
 gulf, having burst hell's barriers, expands his pestilential jaws : 
 into which the Fury, abhorred demon, having plunged out of 
 sight, disburthened heaven and earth. 
 
 Not less active meanwhile is the imperial daughter of Sa- 
 turn, in putting the last hand to the war begun. The whole 
 body of the shepherds rush from the field of battle into the 
 city ; and bring back their slain, the young Almon, and the 
 corpse of Galaesus with ghastly wounds dishonoured: they 
 implore the gods, and call Latinus to witness. Turnus too 
 comes up, and in the midst of the charge of fire and sword, 
 aggravates the terror; [complains] that the Trojans are in- 
 vited to share the crown, and the Phrygian race incorporated 
 [with the Latins], and he himself driven from the threshold. 
 Then those, whose mothers, struck with Bacchanal fury, 
 bound over the pathless groves in choirs, collected from every 
 quarter combine, and importunately urge the war; for not 
 inconsiderable is the influence of Amata's name. All these 
 forthwith against the omens, against the decrees of the gods, 
 in defiance of the thwarting power of heaven, crave the im- 
 pious war. Emulously they beset the palace of king Latinus. 
 He, like a rock in the sea unmoved, withstands them : like a 
 rock in the sea, which, when the mighty shock comes on, while 
 numerous waves around it roar, supports itself by its own 
 huge weight ; in vain the cliffs and foamy rocks rage around, 
 and the sea-weed dashed against its sides is driven back. But 
 
 Amsanctus, a pestilential lake near Capua, in Italy, supposed, by tha 
 poets, to be the entrance to the infernal regions. 
 
 '• i. e. the vents, through which the mephitic vapour exhales. B. 
 
270 .ENEID. b. vii. 591—626. 
 
 when no means avail to defeat their blind resolution, and 
 things go on by the direction of fierce Juno, the aged monarchy 
 having poured forth many protestations to the gods and skies 
 in vain, exclaims, Alas ! by the Fates are we overpowered, 
 and borne down by the storm. Yourselves, O wretches ! with 
 your sacrilegious blood shall pay the atonement ; and thee, O 
 Turnus, the impious promoter of this war, thee dire vengeance 
 shall in time overtake ; and thou shalt supplicate the gods by 
 vows too late. For, as to me, my rest is provided, and all my 
 security is near 44 at hand : I am only deprived of a happy end. 
 Nor more he said, but shut himself up in his palace, and quitted 
 the reins of government. 
 
 In Hesperian Latium it was a custom, which the Alban 
 cities all along have observed as sacred, and which Rome, the 
 mistress of the world, now religiously observes, when first they 
 rouse Mars to battle; whether with the Getes 45 they intend 
 to wage the disastrous war, or with the Hyrcanians, or the 
 Arabs, or to march against the Indians, and pursue the morn- 
 ing, and from the Parthians redemand the standards. There 
 are two gates of War (for so they are called) deemed sacred 
 from religious association, and the dread of cruel Mars: a 
 hundred brazen bolts, and the eternal strength of iron, shut 
 them fast ; and guardian Janus stirs not from the threshold. 
 When the fathers have fixed the firm sentence of war, the 
 consul himself, distinguished by his royal robe and Gabine 
 cincture, unlocks the jarring portals; himself rouses the com- 
 bat: then all the youth follow, and the brazen cornets with 
 hoarse assent conspire. In this fashion Latinus then too was 
 urged to declare war against the Trojans, and unfold the 
 dreary gates. The aged prince refrained from touching them, 
 and with abhorrence shrunk from the shocking office, and shut 
 himself up in the dark shades. Then Saturnia, the queen of 
 the gods, shooting from the sky, herself with her own hand 
 pushed the lingering doors, and, turning the hinge, burst the 
 brazen portals of war. 
 
 Ausonia, before at rest and unmoved, is all on fire. Some 
 prepare to take the field on foot ; some, mounted on lofty 
 steeds, amidst clouds of dust, rush with fury [to the war] : all 
 
 44 Literally, " my port is wholly in view." B. 
 
 45 The Getes were a people of European Scythia, inhabiting that part 
 of Dacia near the mouth of the Danube. 
 
b vii. 626—653. 
 
 uENEID. 271 
 
 are importunate for arms. Some with fat lard cleanse their 
 smooth bucklers and glittering spears, and on the whetstone 
 grind their axes ; well pleased to bear the standards, and hear 
 the trumpets sound. Moreover, five great cities renew their 
 arms, on anvils raised, namely, the powerful Atina, 46 and 
 proud Tivoli, Ardea, and Crustumeri, and Antemnae, with tur- 
 rets crowned. They hollow trusty coverings for their heads, 
 and bend the osier hurdles for the bosses of their bucklers : 
 others hammer out the brazen corselets, or from ductile silver 
 mould the smooth greaves. To this all regard of the share 
 and scythe, for this all love for the plough gave way. In fur- 
 naces they forge their fathers' swords anew. And now the 
 trumpets sound : the watchword, the signal for the war, is 
 issued forth. One in eager haste snatches a helmet from 
 the roof; another joins his neighing steeds to the yoke, 
 and braces on his buckler and habergeon wrought in gold of 
 triple texture, and girds himself with his trusty sword. 
 
 Now open Helicon, 47 ye goddesses, and inspire me while I 
 sing : what kings were incited to the war ; what troops fol- 
 lowing each leader filled the plain ; with what heroes the aus- 
 picious land of Italy flourished even in those early days, with 
 what arms it blazed. For you, O goddesses, both remember, 
 and can record : to us a slight breath of fame scarcely glides. 
 
 First enters on the war, fierce from the Tuscan coasts, Me- 
 zentius, 48 the contemner of the gods, and arms his troops. 
 Next to him Lausus his son, to whom no one was more grace- 
 ful, except the person of Laurentine Turnus. Lausus, the 
 breaker of horses, and a mighty huntsman, leads from the 
 city Agylla a thousand followers in vain: 49 worthy to have 
 had more joy in [obeying] a father's commands, and to whom 
 
 46 Atina, a city of the Volsci. Tivoli, the ancient Tibur, a city of the Sa- 
 bines, about sixteen miles north-east of Rome, delightfully situated on the 
 banks of the Anio: it was the favourite country residence of the Romans. 
 Ardea, the capital of the Rutuli. Crustumerium and Antemnae, towns of 
 the Sabines : the latter was situated near the confluence of the Anio and 
 Tiber. 
 
 47 Helicon, a celebrated mountain of Boeofia, sacred to Apollo and the 
 Muses, from which issued the fountains Hippocrene and Aganippe. 
 
 48 Mezentius, king of the Tyrrhenians, was expelled by his subjects on 
 account of his cruelties, when he fled to Turnus, who employed him in 
 his war against the Trojans. He and his son Lausus were slain by 
 /Eneas. 
 
 49 Because he was never to return. B. 
 

 272 JENEID. b. vii. 654—684 
 
 Mezentius ought not to have been the father. Next to these 
 fair Aventinus, sprung from renowned Hercules, 50 proudly 
 displays upon the grassy plain his chariot distinguished by the 
 palm, and his victorious steeds ; and on his buckler wears his 
 paternal ensign, a hundred snakes, and a hydra environed 
 with serpents: whom in a wood on the Aventine hill the 
 priestess Rhea brought forth, her furtive offspring, into the re- 
 gions of light, a woman mixing with a god ; at the time when 
 the victorious Tirynthian 51 hero, having slain Geryon, reached 
 the Laurentine fields, and washed his Iberian heifers in the 
 Tuscan river [Tiber], Javelins in their hands, and cruel pikes, 
 they bear into the field of war ; and fight with the tapering point 
 of the Sabine spike-dart. Himself [appeared] on foot, shaking 
 a lion's enormous hide, shaggy with fearful bristles, its white 
 tusks displayed, having it thrown over his head : thus he en- 
 tered the royal palace, a horrid figure, and his shoulders man- 
 tled with the attire of Hercules. Two brothers next, Catillus 52 
 and fierce Coras, Argive youths, forsake the walls of Tibur, its 
 people called by their brother Tiburtus' name ; and before the 
 van, amidst thick flying darts, are hurried along : as when two 
 cloud-born Centaurs from the high mountain's top descend, 
 with impetuous career, leaving Omole 53 and snowy Othrys ; the 
 spacious wood gives way to them as they move, and the shrubs 
 with loud rustling noise give way. Nor did the founder of 
 the city Prseneste 54 absent himself: king Caeculus, whom 
 every age believed to have been begotten by Vulcan amidst 
 the rural herds, and to have been found near the fire. Him 
 a rustic band accompanies from all the neighbourhood around : 
 both those who inhabit high Prseneste, and those who culti- 
 vate the fields of G-abine Juno, or the cool Anio, and the 
 mountainous towns of the Hernicians, 55 dewed with rills: 
 
 50 Anthon's version is, " Aventinus, of heroic mien, sprung from Her- 
 cules, type of heroic beauty." B. 
 
 81 Tirynthian hero, a name of Hercules, from Tirynthus, a town of 
 Argolis in Peloponnesus, where he generally resided. 
 
 52 Catillus, a son of Amphiaraus, who. with his brothers Coras and Ti- 
 burtus, assisted Turnus against ,<Eneas. 
 
 53 Omole and Othrys, two lofty mountains in Thessaly, once the resi. 
 dence of the Centaurs. 
 
 54 Praeneste, (Palestrina,) a city of Latium, about twenty -four "tiiles e^st 
 from Rome, supposed to have been built by Caeculus, the son of Vuican. 
 
 w Hernicians, a people of Campania, who were inveterate enemies a1 
 
K. Til 684—711. .ENEID. 273 
 
 whom thou, rich Anagnia, whom thou, father Amasenus, 
 feedest. These are not all supplied with rattling arms, or 
 shields, or cars : tho greatest part sling balls of livid lead : 
 some wield two javelins in the hand, and for covering to their 
 heads wear tawny beavers of the fur of wolves : with the left 
 foot naked they tread the ground ; a shoe of un wrought 
 leather covers the other. Messapus 56 next, a gallant horse- 
 man, Neptune^ offspring, whom none had power to prostrate 
 by fire or steel, suddenly calls to arms his peopl long sunk in 
 indolence, and his troops disused to war, and handles the 
 sword once more. These command the Fescennine troops, 
 and the Falisci 57 famed for equity ; those possess the strengths 
 of Soracte, 58 and the Flavinian land, and the lake and moun- 
 tain of Ciminus, and Capena's groves. Uniformly they moved 
 in harmonious order, and sang the praises of their king : as 
 when at times the snow-white swans through the liquid sky 
 are homeward borne from pasture, and through their long 
 necks pour melodious notes ; the river [Cayster] and the 
 Asian lake, struck from far, return the sound. Nor would 
 any one have taken them for armed troops of such a vast body 
 promiscuously joined, but for an airy cloud of hoarse-voiced 
 fowls driven to the shore from the deep abyss. Lo ! Clausus, 59 
 of the ancient blood of the Sabines, [came,] leading a mighty 
 host ; [Clausus,] from whom the Claudian tribe and clan are 
 now through Latium diffused, since Rome has been shared 
 with the Sabines. With them Amiterna's 60 numerous bands, 
 and the ancient Quirites, 61 the whole power of Eretum, and 
 olive-bearing Mutuscae : those who inhabit the city Nomen- 
 
 the Romans. Anagnia, a city of the Hernici. Amasenus, (La Toppia,) 
 a river of Latium, falling into the Tyrrhene Sea. 
 
 56 Messapus, a son of Neptune, who left Boeotia. and came to settle in 
 Italy, where he assisted Turnus against ^Eneas. 
 
 " Falisci, a people of Etruria, originally a Macedonian colony. Fes- 
 cennia, also a town of Etruria. 
 
 58 Soracte, (M. S. Oreste,) a mountain of Etruria, about 26 miles ncrth 
 i of Rome, sacred to Apollo. Flavinia and Copena, towns of Etruria. 
 i Ciminus, a mountain and lake of Etruria. 
 
 59 Clausus, king of the Sabines, who assisted Turnus against ^Eneas : 
 ! he was the progenitor of Ap. Claudius, the founder of the Claudian family. 
 
 60 Amiterna, Eretum, and Mutuscae. towns of the Sabines. 
 
 61 Quirites ; the Sabines were so called from the town of Cures, which 
 they inhabited ; the name was also given to the citizens of Rome, aftei 
 their union with the Sabines. 
 
274 .ENEID. if. vn. 712— 734. 
 
 turn, and the dewy fields of Velino, the horrid rocks of Te- 
 
 trica, 62 and Mount Severus, Casperia, and Foruli, and the river 
 of Himella: 63 those who drink the Tiber and the Fabaris ; 
 those whom cold Nursia sent, the Hortine squadrons, and the 
 Latin nations ; and those whom Allia, 64 an inauspicious name, 
 dividing runs between : in such numbers as the billows are 
 rolled on the surface of the Libyan main, when surly Orion 
 sets in the wintry waves ; or as numerous as are the thick 
 ears of corn, scorched by the first heat of the [summer's] sun, 
 either on the plain of Hermus, or in Lycia'3 yellow fields. 
 Their bucklers ring, and earth, struck with the trampling of 
 their feet, trembles. Next Halesus, 65 of Agamemnon's race, 
 foe to the Trojan name, yokes his steeds in the chariot, and 
 hurries to Turnus' aid a thousand fierce tribes ; those who 
 with harrows turn the soil of Massicus fertile in vines, and 
 whom the Auruncan fathers sent from their lofty hills, and 
 the adjacent plains of Sidicinum ; 66 those who march from 
 Cales, and who border on the fordable river Vulturnus ; to- 
 gether with the hardy inhabitants of Saticula, 67 and the troops 
 of the Osci. Short tapering darts are their weapons; but 
 their fashion is to fit them with a limber thong. A short 
 target covers their left arms ; and hand to hand [they fight 
 with] crooked falchions. Nor shall you, CEbalus, 68 be in my 
 numbers left unnamed, whom Telon is said to have begotten 
 from the nymph Sebethis, when, now advanced in years, he 
 
 62 Tetrica and Severus, mountains in the country of the Sabines, near 
 the river Fabaris. Casperia and Foruli, towns of the Sabines. 
 
 68 Himella and Fabaris, (Farfa,) rivers of the Sabines ; the former falls 
 into the Tiber below Cures. Nursia and Hortu, towns of the Sabines. 
 
 64 Allia, (Aia,) a river of Italy falling into the Tiber. On its banks 
 the Romans were defeated with great slaughter by the Gauls under Bren- 
 nus, b. c. 387. Hence it was deemed inauspicious. 
 
 65 Halesus, a son of Agamemnon and Briseis or Clytemnestra. Having 
 been driven from home, he came to Italy, where he settled on Mount 
 Massicus, in Campania, and was killed by Pallas in the war between 
 Turnus and ^Eneas. 
 
 66 Sidicinum and Cales, towns of Campania, in Italy. Vulturnus, a 
 river of Campania, rising in the Apennines, and falling into the Tyrrhene 
 Sea, after passing near the city of Capua. 
 
 67 Saticula, a town of the Samnites, in Italy, east of Capua. Osci, a 
 people between Campania and the country of the Volsci. 
 
 68 CEbalus, a son of Telon, king of the Teleboans, a people of iEtolia, 
 in Greece, and the nymph Sebethis. The Teleboans under CEbalus set- 
 lied in Caprea?, (Capri,) an island on the coast of Campania in Italy. 
 
r. vii. 735— 762. -2ENE1D. 275 
 
 possessed Capreae, the realms of the Teleboans ; and the son 
 likewise, not content with his paternal lands, even then ex- 
 tended his dominion far and wide over the Sarrastes, 69 and 
 the plains which Sarnus waters. Those also who inhabit 
 Rufae and Batulum, and the fields of Celenna, and those whom 
 the walls of fruit-bearing Abella overlook ; who, after the 
 Teutonic fashion, are wont to sling the Cateian darts, 70 whose 
 helmets are the rind torn from the cork-tree, and whose half- 
 moon shields and swords are formed of glittering brass. And 
 thee too, Ufens, 71 mountainous Nursse sent forth to battle, 
 signalized by fame and happy feats of arms: whose subjects 
 are the .ZEquicolae, a race peculiarly rough, bred in a hardened 
 soil, and inured to frequent hunting in the woods. In arms 
 they harass the earth, and ever take delight to carry off fresh 
 spoils, and live by plunder. And Umbro 72 too, of singular 
 fortitude, came by permission from his prince Archippus, 
 priest of the Marrubian nation, his helmet decked with a 
 wreath of the auspicious olive ; who by enchantment and 
 dexterity was wont to sprinkle sleep on the viper's race, and 
 the noxious-breathing hydras ; their fury he assuaged, and by 
 his art their stings he healed. But to cure the hurt of pointed 
 Dardanian steel surpassed his power and skill ; nor soporific 
 charms, nor herbs gathered on the Marsian mountains, availed 
 him aught against those wounds. For thee, Angitia's grove, 
 for thee, Fucinus, with his crystal flood, for thee the glassy 
 lakes did mourn. Virbius, 73 too, the beauteous offspring of 
 Hippolytus, marched to the war; whom his mother Aricia 74 
 
 99 Sarrastes, a people of Campania on the river Sarnus, which divides 
 that country from the Picentini, and falls into the Bay of Naples. Rufae, 
 &c, towns of Campania. 
 
 70 Perhaps resembling the " aclydes " in vs. 730. See Anthon. B. 
 
 71 Ufens, a river of Latium, falling into the Tyrrhene Sea near Tarra- 
 cina. Nursae, a town of Umbria in Italy. ^Equicoli, a people of Latium 
 near Tibur. 
 
 72 Umbro, a general of the Marsi, whose capital, Marrubium, was situ- 
 ated on the banks of the lake Fucinus. Angitia, a wood in the country 
 of the Marsi, between Alba and the lake Fucinus (L. di Celano). 
 
 73 Virbius, a name given to Hippolytus after he had been restored to 
 life by iEsculapius at the instance of Diana, who pitied his unfortunate 
 end. Virgil makes him the son of Hippolytus. 
 
 74 Aricia, an Athenian, whom Hippolytus married, after he had been 
 restored to life by ^Esculapius. Egeria, a nymph of Aricia in Italy 
 where Diana was particularlv worshipped 
 
 t 2 
 
276 iRNEID. B. vii. 7G3— 798 
 
 sent forth illustriously accomplished, having been educated in 
 the groves of Egeria, near the humid shores, where, rich 
 Jwith offerings], and not implacable, Diana's altar stands. 
 For they report that Hippolytus, when by his step-dame's art 
 he had fallen, and with his blood had satiated his father's 
 vengeance, having been torn in pieces by his frighted steeds, 
 again visited the ethereal stars, and the superior regions of 
 this world, recalled [to life] by medicinal herbs, and Diana's 
 love. Then the almighty father, incensed that any mortal 
 should rise to the light of life from the infernal shades, him- 
 self with thunder hurled down to the Stygian floods Apollo's 
 offspring, the inventor of such medicine and art. But pro- 
 pitious Diana conceals Hippolytus in a secret recess, and 
 consigns him to the nymph of the Egerian grove ; where in 
 solitude and obscurity he passed his life in the Italian woods, 
 and changing his name was called Virbius : whence too from 
 Trivia's 75 temple and sacred groves horn-hoofed steeds are 
 debarred, because, frightened by sea-monsters, they overturned 
 the chariot and the youth on the shore. Yet not the less 
 eagerly his son managed his fiery steeds on the level plain, 
 and in his chariot rushed on to the war. Turnus himself, a 
 comely personage, moves on in the van, wielding his arms, 
 and by a full head overtops the rest ; whose towering helmet, 
 plumed with a triple crest of hair, sustains a Chimaera breath- 
 ing from her jaws iEtnean fires. The more outrageous was 
 she, and tremendous with baleful flames, in proportion as with- 
 the effusion of blood the combat grows more fierce. An Io, 
 wrought in gold with horns erect, adorned his polished steel ; 
 Io, now overgrown with fur, now a heifer, (a mighty device,) 
 and Argus 76 the virgin's keeper, and Inachus her sire, pouring 
 the river from his embossed urn. A cloud 77 of infantry suc- 
 ceeds, and shielded battalions in condensed array overspread 
 the whole plain ; the Argive youth, the Ausonian bands, the 
 Kutuli, and ancient Sicanians, the Sacranian hosts, and the 
 Labici with their painted bucklers: those, Tiberinus, who 
 cultivate thy glades, and the sacred banks of Numicus, and 
 
 75 Trivia, a name given to Diana, because she presided over all places 
 where three roads met. 
 
 76 Argus, feigned to have a hundred eyes, of which only two were 
 asleep at once. Juno sent him to watch Io. 
 
 77 Cf. Horn. II. A. 274. Apoll. Rh. iv. 397, dvefxevewv dvdpZv vitpog. B- 
 
R vii. 798—817. vni. 1—7. J3NEID. 277 
 
 with the ploughshare labour the Rutulian hills and Circe's 
 mount ; over which fields presides Jupiter of Anxur, 78 and Fe- 
 ronia rejoicing in her verdant grove, where lie Saturn's gloomy 
 fen, and where chill Ufens through deep valleys seeks his way, 
 and sinks into the sea. Besides these came Camilla 79 of the 
 Volscian nation, leading a squadron of horse, and troops gorge- 
 ously arrayed in brass ; a virgin-warrior. Not to the distaff 
 or the work-baskets of Minerva had she accustomed her fe- 
 male hands ; but, though a virgin, [was inured] to bear the 
 hardships of war, and in swiftness of foot to outstrip the 
 winds. Even over the topmost stalks of standing corn she 
 could have lightly skimmed, nor once had hurt the tender 
 ears in her career ; or along the main, suspended on the heav- 
 ing surge, could glide, nor in the liquid plain dip her nimble 
 feet. Her all the youth, pouring from city and country, and 
 the crowd of matrons, view with wonder, and gaze after her 
 as she goes, gaping with minds aghast to see how the regal 
 ornament of purple mantles her smooth neck ; how the buckle 
 interlaces her hair in gold ; with what grace she bears her 
 Lycian quiver, and her pastoral myrtle -spear tipped with 
 steel. 
 
 BOOK VIII. 
 
 In the Eighth Book, iEneas forms an alliance with Evander, who sends to 
 his assistance a chosen hody of men under his son Pallas. Yenus presents 
 iEneas with a suit of armour, fabricated by Vulcan ; on the shield are 
 represented the future glory and triumph of the Romans. 
 
 Soon as from the citadel of Laurentum Turnus had dis- 
 played the signal, and with hoarse clangour the trumpets rat- 
 tled ; soon as he roused the sprightly coursers, and clashed 
 the arms ; forthwith their minds are driven to high commo- 
 tion ; all Latium at once with hurrying tumultuous haste com- 
 bine, and the frantic youth burn with fury. The chief leaders, 
 Messapus and Ufens, and that contemner of the gods, Mezen- 
 
 78 Anxur, a city of the Volsci in Latium, sacred to Jupiter. Feronia, 
 a Roman goddess, the mother of Herilus; she had the care of woods and 
 orchards. 
 
 79 Camilla, queen of the Volsci, was the daughter of Metabus and Cas- 
 ir.illa. She assisted Turnus in the war- against iEneas, and signalized 
 herself by undaunted bravery. 
 
2 ?8 JENEID. b. vin 8—41 
 
 tius, draw together their succours from every quarter, and 
 of their labourers depopulate the lands around. Venulus 1 
 too is sent to the city of great Diomede to crave a supply, 
 and to bear word, that the Trojans were settled in Latium ; 
 that -ZEneas was arrived with a fleet, and was introducing 
 his conquered gods, and gave out that he was designed by 
 Fate to be the king [of Latium] ; that many nations joined 
 themselves to the Trojan, and his fame began to be spread 
 abroad all through Latium. What he proposes by these 
 measures, what result of the war he longs to bring about, (if 
 fortune attend him,) appear more obvious to [Diomede] him- 
 self than to king Turnus, or king Latinus. 
 
 Such in Latium was the state of affairs : all which the Tro- 
 jan hero perceiving, fluctuates with a high tide of anxious 
 care ; and now this way, now that, he swiftly turns his wa- 
 vering mind, snatches various purposes by starts, and shifts 
 himself every way: as when in brazen caldrons 2 of water the 
 tremulous light, reflected from the sun, 3 or from the image of 
 the radiant moon, swiftly glances over every place around, and 
 now is darted up on high, and strikes the ceiling of the lofty 
 roof. It was night, and profound sleep held fast the wearied 
 animals, the cattle and flying kind over all the earth ; when on 
 the bank, and beneath the axis of the chill sky, father iEneas, 
 disturbed in mind with the thought of disastrous war, laid 
 himself down, and indulged his weary limbs in late repose. 
 To his view Tiberinus himself, the old god of the place, from 
 his smooth gliding stream, was seen to lift up his head among 
 the poplar boughs : a fine robe of lawn enwrapped his limbs 
 in its sea-green folds, and shady reeds covered his locks. 
 Then thus he addressed [JEneas], and with these words eased 
 him of his cares : O thou, sprung from the race of gods, who 
 to us bringest home Troy saved from its foes, and preservest 
 Pergamus, destined to stand for ever, an expected [guest] to 
 the Laurentine soil and lands of Latium ; here is thy sure 
 abode, thy sure dwelling-place : flinch not, nor be dismayed 
 by the threats of war. All indignation and anger of the gods 
 
 1 Venulus, an ambassador sent by Turnus to demand the assistance of 
 Diomedes. 
 
 2 Literally, " the lips of the caldrons." B. 
 
 * By " sole " I think is to be understood the image of the sun reflected w 
 the water, as in the next words, the image of the moon. 
 
* viii. 43 — 78. ^5NEID. 279 
 
 v sre overpast And now that you may not imagine sleep forma 
 these as visionary images, under the elms on the banks of the 
 river you will find a sow lying, that has farrowed a litter cf 
 thirty young, white the dam, reclining on the ground, her off- 
 spring white around her dugs. That place shall be the station 
 for your city, a sure rest from your toils ; in consequence of 
 which, after a revolution of thrice ten years, Ascanius shall 
 build the city Alba of illustrious name. Events I foretell not 
 uncertain. Now attend ; I will briefly show by what means 
 you may accomplish with success the work in hand. On 
 these coasts the Arcadians, a race from Pallas descended, 
 (who, hither accompanying their king Evander and his stand- 
 ard, have chosen their place [of residence], and in the moun- 
 tains built a city [called] Pallanteum, 4 from the name of their 
 ancestor Pallas,) perpetually carry on war with the Latin na- 
 tion : admit them as confederates of your camp, and with 
 them join league. Myself will conduct you along my banks 
 and river straight on your way, that borne up [by my aid] 
 you may with oars surmount the adverse stream. Arise, be- 
 stir yourself, O goddess-born, and with the first-setting stars 
 offer prayers to Juno in due form, and by suppliant vows over- 
 come her resentment and threats. To me you shall pay 
 honour when victorious. I am he whom you behold gliding 
 along the banks with my full stream, and dividing the fertile 
 lands ; the azure Tiber, a river highly favoured by heaven. 
 Here is my spacious mansion ; near lofty cities my fountain 
 springs. He said, then in the deep pool the river-god 
 plunged, diving to the bottom : from jEneas night and sleep 
 departed. He started up, and viewing the rising beams of the 
 ethereal sun, in his hollow palms with pious form he raised 
 water from the river, and poured forth to heaven these words : 
 Ye nymphs, ye Laurentine nymphs, whence rivers have their 
 origin ! and thou, O father Titer, with thy sacred river ! re- 
 ceive JEneas, and defend him at length from dangers. In 
 whatever source thy lake contains thee compassionate to our 
 
 4 Evander, an Arcadian, and the grandson of Pallas, left his native 
 city, Pallanteum, probably in consequence of parricide, committed at the 
 instigation of his mother Nicostrata, or Carmentis, (Servius on vs. 51,) 
 and founded a city in Latium, called after the mother state. Dionys. Hal. 
 i. p. 25, ed. Sylb. Aurel. Victor de or. Rom. Gent. v. 3. Afterwards 
 the Romans called it the Palatium. It was the most sacred and hallowed 
 part of Rome, as Maineitinus remarks, Paneg. Vett. i. B 
 
280 ^NEID. b. vin. 79—110. 
 
 misfortunes, from whatever soil thou springest forth most 
 _beauteous. Horn-bearing river, monarch of the Italian 
 streams, ever shalt thou be honoured with my veneration, 5 
 ever with my offerings : Oh grant us by thy present aid, and 
 by nearer aid confirm thy divine oracles. Thus he speaks ; 
 and from his fleet singles out two galleys, and furnishes them 
 with implements for rowing ; at the same time supplies his 
 friends with arms. But lo ! a prodigy sudden and strange to 
 sight, a milk-white sow of similar colour with her white 
 young, lay along the wood, and was seen on the verdant 
 bank ; which to thee, O sovereign Juno, even to thee, pious 
 JEneas devotes as an offering, and presents before thy altar 
 with her offspring. The Tiber, all that night long, calmed 
 his swelling river, and refluent with a silent stream subsided 
 to such a degree, that, like a mild pool and peaceful lake, he 
 smoothed his watery plain, that there might be no need of 
 struggling with the oar. Therefore with auspicious cheers 
 they speed their commenced voyage: the well-pitched fir 
 glides along the stream ; the waves admire, the woods, unac- 
 customed to the sight, survey with wonder the far-gleaming 
 shields of heroes, and the painted keels floating on the river. 
 Their steerage night and day they labouring ply, overpass 
 the long windings [of the river], are screened with various 
 trees, 6 and cut the green woods, as they move along the 
 smooth glassy plain. 
 
 The scorching sun had ascended the mid region of the 
 sky, when at a distance they descry the walls, the fort, and 
 the roofs of houses here and there, which now the Roman 
 power hath raised to heaven : Evander then possessed the 
 scanty domains. They turn their prows to land without de- 
 lay, and approach the city. On that day the Arcadian king 
 chanced to be offering a solemn sacrifice before the city in a 
 grove to the great [Hercules], Amphitryon's son, 7 and to the 
 gods. At the same time his son Pallas, 8 and with him all the 
 
 5 " Honor " refers to acts of worship, " donis " to offerings made 
 therein. So Liv. viii. 33, " arse sacrifices fument, honore, donis curau- 
 ientur." B. 
 
 6 Which overhung the banks on both sides. B. 
 
 7 i. e. reputed son, being really the son of Jove. B. 
 
 Pallas, the son of Evander, was sent with a body of troops to assist 
 -Eneas, and, after performing many gallant deeds, was killed by Turnus. 
 
p. viii. 111—148. iENEID. 281 
 
 youth of quality, and the poor 9 senate, were offering incense ; 
 and the tepid blood smoked at the altars. Soon as they ob- 
 serve the tall vessels gliding towards them amidst the shady 
 grove, and that [the crew] were bending to the silent oars, 
 they are startled at the sudden sight, and leaving their ban- 
 quets, all rise up at once ; whom Pallas boldly forbids to in- 
 terrupt the sacred rites, and snatching up a javelin flies him- 
 sels to meet them, and at a distance speaks from a rising 
 ground : Youths, what motives have induced you to attempt 
 an unknown way ? whither are you bound ? who are you by 
 descent ? whence came you ? peace bring you hither or war ? 
 Then father JEneas thus from the lofty deck replies, and in 
 his hand before him extends a branch of peaceful olive : The 
 sons of Troy you see, and arms hostile to the Latins, who have 
 exiled and driven us out by haughty war. To Evander we 
 repair. Bear him these tidings, and say, Dardania's chosen 
 chiefs are come, imploring his confederate arms. Pallas, struck 
 with so great a name, stood amazed : Land, he says, whoever 
 thou art, address my father in person, and come under our 
 roof as a guest. Then he grasped him by the hand, and clung 
 closely to his right hand. Advancing, they enter the grove, 
 and leave the river. Then with courteous accents JEneas 
 addresses the king : Worthiest of the sons of Greece, to whom 
 fortune hath led me to make my supplication, and to spread 
 forth these boughs, with suppliant wreaths adorned ; I truly 
 had no apprehension from your being a Grecian leader and an 
 Arcadian, or from your being originally allied to the two sons 
 of Atreus ; but my own uprightness, the holy oracles of the 
 gods, the affinity of our ancestors, and your fame propagated 
 over the earth, have bound you to me in friendship, and by 
 fate urged me hither a willing guest. Dardanus, the first 
 father and founder of the city Ilium r 10 born of Electra, the 
 daughter of Atlas, as the Greeks record, to the Trojans steered 
 his course : the mighty Atlas, who on his shoulder props the 
 celestial orbs, gave to the world Electra. Your father is 
 Mercury, whom bright Maia having conceived, on Cyllene's 
 
 9 This phrase elegantly expresses the humble resources of the times 
 The observation of Servius deserves notice, " libri veterum tradunt a ma< 
 joribus sacrificando parsimoniam observatam esse." B. 
 
 10 Ilium, the citadel of Troy, generally taken for the city itself, so 
 named from Ilus, one of the Trojan kings. 
 
282 tfiNEID. b. viii, 149—179. 
 
 frozen top brought forth. But Atlas, if we may give any 
 credit to tradition, the same Atlas who supports the stars of 
 heaven, begot Maia. Thus from one stock both our stems 
 divide, Relying on these circumstances, I had not recourse 
 to embassies, nor artfully employed preliminary means of 
 sounding your inclination : myself and my own life I have 
 exposed, and am come a suppliant to your threshold. The 
 same Daunian nation, 11 which pursues you with cruel war, 
 if they once expel us, nothing they presume will hinder them 
 from entirely reducing all Hesperia under their yoke, and 
 from being masters of the sea, both that above, and that which 
 washes it below. 12 Take, and give pledges of faith. With 
 us are stout hearts for war, with us are valiant souls, and youth 
 tried and approved in action. 
 
 iEneas said. Evander had all along with attention sur- 
 veyed his mouth and eyes, and whole body as he spoke. Then 
 thus he briefly replies: Most gallant of the Trojan race, how 
 gladly do I receive and recognise you ! how well I recollect 
 the words, the voice, and features of your great sire Anchises ! 
 For I remember, that Priam, Laomedon's son, in his way to 
 Salamis 13 to visit the realms of his sister Hesione, [continuing 
 his progress] forward, visited likewise Arcadia's frozen coasts. 
 Then manhood first shaded my cheek with down : I admired 
 the Trojan chiefs ; Laomedon's son in particular 14 I admired ; 
 but Anchises walked more majestic than all of them : my soul 
 burned with youthful desire to accost the hero, and join hand 
 in hand. I came up and fondly led him to the walls of Phe- 
 neus. 15 He at departing gave me a splendid quiver, and 
 Lycian arrows, a mantle interwoven with gold, and two 
 bridles with golden bosses, of which my son Pallas is now 
 possessed. Therefore I both join my right hand with you in 
 
 11 Daunian nation : Daunus, a son of Pilumnus and Danae, and father 
 of Turnus, came from Illyricum into Apulia, where he reigned over part 
 of the country, from him called Daunia. 
 
 12 i. e. the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian Seas. B. 
 
 13 Salamis, (Coulouri,) an island of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, near 
 the coast of Attica. Hesione, a daughter of Laomedon, king of Troy, 
 and sister to Priam. Hercules, having delivered her from a sea-monster 
 to which she was exposed, gave her in marriage to Telamon, king of 
 Salamis. 
 
 14 " Ipsum " is emphatic, in opposition to " duces Teucros." B. 
 
 15 Pheneus, (Phonia,) a town of Arcadia, near Mount Cyllene. 
 
B. vin 180—206. . ^NEID. 283 
 
 league as you desire ; and, when first the morrow's light shall 
 to earth return, I will dismiss you joyful with supplies, and 
 aid you with my power. Meanwhile, since hither you are 
 come as our friends, with willing minds celebrate with us this 
 anniversary festival, which to defer is impiety, and even now 
 accustom yourselves to the banquets of your allies. Thus 
 having said, he orders the dishes and cups which had been 
 removed, to be replaced, and himself plants the heroes on the 
 grassy seat : and JEneas in chief he compliments with a couch 
 and the fur of a shaggy lion, and invites him to share his 
 maple throne. Then with earnestness the chosen youths and 
 priest of the altar bring forward the roasted joints of the 
 bullocks, heap in canisters the gifts of laboured Ceres, 16 and 
 dispense the joys of Bacchus. iEneas, and at the same time 
 the Trojan youth, feast on the chine and hallowed entrails of 
 an entire ox. 
 
 As soon as hunger was assuaged, and the lust of eating 
 stayed, king Evander says : Not superstition vain, and ignor- 
 ant of the ancient gods, hath imposed on us these solemn rites, 
 these banquets in due form, this altar to so great a deity • 
 from cruel dangers saved, my Trojan guest, we perform these 
 rites, 17 and renew merited honours. Now first observe this 
 rock suspended on crags ; how the huge piles are scattered 
 far abroad, and the mountainous abode stands desolate, and 
 the cliffs have dragged down mighty ruin [in their fall]. 
 Here, in a vast recess, far removed from sight, was a cave, 
 which the hideous figure of the but half -human Cacus 18 pos- 
 sessed, inaccessible to the sunbeams ; and ever with recent 
 bloodshed the pavement smoked ; and affixed to the haughty 
 entrance hung the heads of men all pale with piteous gore. 
 Vulcan was this monster's father ; whose sooty flames belch- 
 ing from his mouth, he stalked with bulk enormous. Time 
 at length to us also brought the wished-for aid and presence 
 of a god: for Hercules, the illustrious avenger, seasonably 
 arrived, proud from the death and spoils of three-bodied 
 Geryon ; and victorious drove his stately bulls this way : and 
 
 16 i. e. " of Ceres wrought for use," a periphrasis for "bread." B. 
 
 17 Anthon renders : " we do all this." But it seems better to give 
 " facimus " its sacrificial sense. B. 
 
 18 Cacus, the son of Vulcan and Medusa, a notorious robber, slain by 
 Hercules. 
 
204 ^NEID. b. viii. 207-242. 
 
 the heifers possessed the valley and the river. But the mind 
 of Cacus, maddened by the Furies, lest any villany or fraudu- 
 lent practice might be undevised or unattempted, he abstracts 
 from their stalls four bullocks of exquisite make, and as many 
 heifers of form surpassing: and these, lest there should be 
 any prints of their feet direct, having dragged towards the 
 cave by the tail, and hurried along with the traces of their 
 way reversed, he concealed in his gloomy den. No signs 19 
 led the searcher to the cave. Meanwhile, when now the hero 
 was moving from their stalls his full-fed herds, and preparing 
 to be gone, the heifers, at parting, began to low, the whole 
 grove was filled with their plaintive notes, and the hills with 
 clamorous din were cleft. One of the heifers returned the sound, 
 and pent up in the spacious cave rebellowed, and frustrated the 
 hope of Cacus. Then, indeed, from his black gall the hero's in- 
 dignation kindled into fury : in his hand he snatches up arms, 
 and his oak ponderous with knots, and with speed seeks the 
 summit of the airy mountain. Then first our men beheld Cacus 
 dismayed, and by his eyes betraying confusion. Instantly he 
 flies swifter than the east w^nd, and seeks the cave: fear 
 added wings to his feet. Soon as he had shut himself in, and, 
 bursting the chains in haste, let down the enormous rock, 
 which, by iron 20 wrought by his father's art, was suspended, 
 and on bolts relying made fast the gates ; lo ! the Tirynthian 
 hero transported with fury was upon him, and, examining 
 every passage, hither and thither rolled his eyes, gnashing 
 with his teeth. Boiling with ire, he thrice surveys the whole 
 Aventine mount ; thrice in vain essays the gates of rock ; 
 thrice in the vale fatigued he sat down to rest. A sharp flinty 
 rock stood forth, with broken cliffs in the points around ; on 
 the ridge of the cave rose, towering to the sight, a convenient 
 shelter for the nests of inauspicious birds. This, where, 
 bending forward with its brow, it overhung the river on the 
 left, [the hero,] opposite to it on the right, with strained effort 
 shook, and from the deep roots uptorn disjoined; then on a 
 sudden impelled it : with which impulse the sky in its wide 
 extent resounds, the banks leap hither and thither, and the 
 affrighted river runs back. And now the den and spacious 
 hall of Cacus, bared of covering, appeared, and his gloomy 
 
 19 Because the foot-prints pointed the wrong way. B. 
 
 20 I consider this as an hendiadys. B. 
 
u. vin. 243—272. ^NEID. 285 
 
 caverns in their inmost recesses were laid open ; just as if by 
 some violence the earth, in her deep recesses yawning wide, 
 should unlock the infernal mansions, and disclose those pale 
 realms abhorred by the gods, and from above the hideous gulf 
 be seen, and the ghosts be terrified at the light 21 darted in 
 upon them. Him, therefore, suddenly surprised in the unex- 
 pected light, imprisoned in his excavated rock, and in strange 
 manner braying, Alcides from above galls with darts, calls 
 every weapon to his aid, and plies him with boughs of trees 
 and ponderous stones. 22 But he (for now no refuge from the 
 danger remains) from his jaws vomits up vast quantities of 
 smoke, wondrous to tell ! and involves the cave in pitchy 
 vapour, snatching all power of sight from the eye ; and deep 
 in his cave shoots up in wreaths a night of smoke, inter- 
 mingling lire with darkness. Alcides in his rage could not 
 endure this, but with an impetuous spring threw himself 
 amidst the flame, where the smoke drives its waves thickest, 
 and the capacious den fluctuates with pitchy vapour. Here, 
 in his darkened cell, he seizes Cacus disgorging unavailing 
 flames, grasping him like a knot ; then, griping fast, keeps 
 choking him until his eyes start from their sockets, and his 
 throat is drained of blood. Forthwith, the doors being 
 wrenched, the grim mansion is laid open ; the heifers that had 
 been filched away, and the stolen effects abjured, 23 are exposed 
 to the sky ; and the deformed carcass is dragged forth by the 
 feet. They are unable to satiate their curiosity with gazing 
 on his haggard eyes, his countenance, and the breast of the 
 half-savage shaggy with bristly hair, and the extinguished 
 fires in his throat. From that time the honours [of the hero] 
 have been celebrated, and posterity with joy have observed 
 the day : and Potitius, 24 the first founder, and the Pinarian 
 family, the guardian of this institution sacred to Hercules, 
 erected this altar in the grove, which shall both be styled by 
 us the Great, and the Great shall be for ever. 23 Wherefore 
 
 21 Compare Silius v. 618, " Manesque profundi Antiquum expavere 
 diem." B. 
 
 28 Literally, "millstones." B. 
 
 23 i. e. which he had denied the possession of, on oath. B. 
 
 24 Potitius and Pinarius, Arcadians who came with Evander to Italy, 
 and were intrusted with the sacrifices of Hercules. 
 
 25 Concerning this altar Livy puts the following words in the mouth <•{ 
 Evander, addressing himself to Hercules : " Jove nate, Hercules salve, 
 
286 .ENEID. b. viii. 273—295. 
 
 come, O youths, in celebrating virtue so illustrious, encircle 
 your locks with a garland, and stretch forth your goblets in 
 your hands, invoke our common god, and offer the wine with 
 good will. He said; when with its Herculean shade the 
 poplar of varying hue both decked his locks, and with its leaves 
 entwined hung down ; and a sacred goblet filled his right 
 hand. Quickly all with joy pour libations on the table, and 
 supplicate the gods. Meanwhile the sphere of day declining, 
 evening draws nearer on ; and now the priests, and Potitius 
 at their head, marched in procession, clad in skins, according 
 to custom, and bore flaming torches. They renew the feast, 
 and introduce the grateful offerings of the second service, 26 
 and heap the altars with loaded chargers. Then round the 
 altars smoking with perfumes, the Salii 27 amidst songs ad- 
 vance, having their temples bound with poplar boughs ; [in 
 two bands they divide,] the one a choir of youths, the other of 
 aged men; who celebrate the praises of Hercules and his 
 deeds in verse : how with his hand he slew the first [sent] 
 monsters of his step -mother [Juno], and squeezing strangled 
 her two snakes ; how in war the same hero overthrew illus- 
 trious cities, both Troy and (Echalia ; 28 how, under king Eu- 
 rystheus, 29 by the destination of unfriendly Juno, he endured a 
 thousand grievous toils. Thou, invincible, dost with thy arm 
 [subdue] the cloud-born, double-membered Centaurs, Hylseus 
 and Pholus ; thou subduest Cretan monsters, and the huge 
 overgrown lion under the rock of Nemea. 30 For fear of thee 
 
 te mihi mater veridica interpres Deum aucturum coelestium mimerum 
 cecinit, tibique aram hie dicatum iri, quam opulentissima in terris gens 
 maximam vocet, tuoque ritu colat." The reason of the name is given by 
 Dionysius, that this being the altar whereon Hercules himself offered the 
 tithes of his spoils, it became on that account the object of chief veneration, 
 and was called Maxima to distinguish it from the numerous other altars 
 which that hero had in Italy. 
 
 26 i. e. the evening repast, as shown by Weichart. The other had taken 
 place at mid-day. B. 
 
 27 Salii, an order of priests at Rome, who had the charge of the sacred 
 shields called Ancilia, which they carried every year, on the first of 
 March, in a solemn procession round the walls of Rome, dancing and 
 singing praises to the god Mars. 
 
 28 QSchalia, a country of Laconia in Peloponnesus, with a town of the 
 6ame name, where Eurytus reigned, and which was destroyed by Hercules. 
 
 29 Eurystheus, the brother and task-master of Hercules. 
 
 30 Nemea, a town of Argolis in Peloponnesus, near which Hercules per 
 formed his first labour by killing the celebrated Nemean lion. 
 
n. vni. 296—326. iENEID. 287 
 
 the Stygian lakes, for fear of thee the porter of hell did trem- 
 ble, cowering down in his bloody den upon his half- gnawed 
 bones : nor did any forms throw thee into consternation ; not 
 Typhosus 31 himself, of towering height, with arms in hand : 
 thee, not perplexed, the Lernaean snake, many-headed monster, 
 around beset. Hail, undoubted offspring of Jove, added to 
 the gods as a glory : visit both us and these thy sacred rites 
 with thy auspicious presence. Such deeds they celebrate in 
 song : above all, they subjoin the den of Cacus, and himself 
 breathing flames. The whole grove rings with the din, and 
 the hills resound. 
 
 Then, having finished the divine service, all hie back to the 
 5Uty. The king, oppressed with age, set forward ; and, as he 
 Jvalked along, had JEneas to accompany him, and his son by 
 his side, and with various discourse relieved [the tediousness 
 of] the way. ^Eneas admires, and turns his rolling 32 eyes 
 around on every object ; is charmed with the different places ; 
 and inquires and learns the several monuments of the men of 
 antiquity. 
 
 Then king Evander, the founder of the Roman power, [thus 
 began] : These groves the native Fauns and Nymphs pos- 
 sessed, and a race of men sprung from the trunks of trees and 
 stubborn oak ; who had neither laws nor refinement ; knew 
 neither to yoke the steer, nor to gather wealth, nor to use their 
 acquisitions with moderation ; but the branches, and hunting, 
 a rough source of sustenance, supplied them with food. From 
 the ethereal sky Saturn first came, flying from the arms of 
 Jove, and an exile dispossessed of his realms. He formed 
 into society a race undisciplined and dispersed among the high 
 mountains, and introduced laws ; and chose to have the coun- 
 try named Latium, because in these regions he had lurked se- 
 cure. Under his reign was the golden age which they 
 celebrate : in such undisturbed tranquillity he ruled his sub- 
 jects ; till by degrees an age more depraved, and of an inferior 
 
 31 Typhoeus, a famous giant, son of Tartarus and Terra, said to have 
 had a hundred heads like those of a serpent or a dragon. He made war 
 upon the gods, but Jupiter put him to flight with his thunderbolts, and 
 crushed him under Mount iEtna, in Sicily, or, according to some, undei 
 the island Inarime (Ischia). ^ 
 
 32 " faciles," i. a easily bending and turning in aff&irections. B 
 
288 ^JNEID. b. viii. 327—3/57. 
 
 hue, and the fury of war, and love of gain, 33 succeeded. 
 Then came the Ausonian bands, and the Sicilian nations ; and 
 the Saturnian land often changed its name. Then [came a 
 succession of] kings, and fierce Tybris of gigantic make, from 
 whom we Italians in after times named the river Tiber ; an- 
 cient Albula lost its true name. Me, from my country driven, 
 and tracing the remote tracks of the sea, almighty fortune and 
 uncontrollable destiny fixed in these regions : and the awful 
 predictions of my mother, the nymph Carmentis, 34 and the god 
 Apollo by his authority urged me [hither]. 
 
 Scarcely had he spoken, when setting forward he shows 
 him next both the altar, and the gate filled by a Roman 35 
 name Carmentalis, which they record to be the ancient memo- 
 rial in honour of the prophetic nymph Carmentis, who first fore- 
 told the future grandeur of the ^ZEnean race, and the renown of 
 Pallanteum. Next he points out the spacious grove which 
 Romulus reduced into a sanctuary, and under a cold rock the 
 Lupercal, 36 so called, according to the Arcadian manner, from 
 Lycsean Pan. He likewise shows the grove of Argiletum, 37 
 sacred [to Argus] ; and calls the place to witness his inno- 
 cence, and relates the death of Argus his guest. He leads him 
 next to the Tarpeian Rock and the Capitol, now of gold, once 
 rough and horrid with wild bushes. Even then the religious 
 horrors of the place awed the minds of the timorous swains ; 
 *ven then they revered the wood and rock. This grove, says 
 he, this wood-topped hill, a god inhabits, but what god is un- 
 certain : the Arcadians believe they have seen Jove himself, 
 when often with his right hand he shook the blackening segis, 
 and roused the clouds of thunder. Farther, [says he,] yon 
 two towns you see with their walls demolished, the remains 
 and monuments of ancient heroes : this city father Janus, that 
 
 33 Literally, " of having," as in Hor. Ep. i. 7, 85. So "habendi 
 fames," Pacatus Paneg. 25; " finis habendi," Prudent. Hamart. 255. B, 
 
 34 Carmentis, a prophetess of Arcadia, mother of Evander, with whom 
 she came to Italy. One of the gates of Rome was named after her. 
 
 35 But Wagner and Anthon read " Romani," I think, with little rea- 
 son. B. 
 
 36 "Lupercal, a place at the foot of Mount Aventine, sacred to Pan, 
 whose festivals, called Lupercalia, were celebrated annually. 
 
 57 Argiletum, a place at Rome near the Palatium, where tradesmen 
 had their shops. 
 
B. vin. 357—383. JENEID 289 
 
 Saturnus built ; the one was named Janiculum, 38 the other 
 Saturnia. In such mutual talk they came up to the palace 
 of poor Evander ; and in [that place where now are] the 
 Roman forum and magnificent streets, they beheld around 
 herds of cattle lowing. Soon as they reached his abode, 
 This threshold, he says, the victorious 39 Alcides entered; 
 him this palace received: dare then, my guest, to under- 
 value magnificence, and do you too mould yourself [into a 
 temper] becoming a god, and come not disgusted with these 
 our mean accommodations. He said, and under the roof of 
 his narrow mansion conducted the magnanimous JEneas, and 
 set him down to rest on a bed of leaves, and the fur of a Li- 
 byan bear. 
 
 Night comes on apace, and with her dusky wings mantles 
 the earth. Meanwhile Yenus, the parent-goddess, not without 
 cause alarmed in mind, and disturbed both by the threats 
 and fierce uproar of the Laurentines, addresses Vulcan, 40 and 
 in her husband's golden bedchamber thus begins, and by 
 her accents breathes into him love divine : While the Grecian 
 kings by war were bringing fated Troy to desolation, and its 
 towers doomed to fall by hostile flames, not any succour to the 
 wretches, nor arms of thy art and power, I craved ; nor, my 
 dearest spouse, was I willing to employ you or your labours 
 in vain ; though I both owed much to the sons of Priam, and 
 often mourned the severe sufferings of iEneas. Now, by 
 Jove's command, he hath settled on the coast of the Rutulians : 
 therefore I the self-same [fond wife] appear as a suppliant, 
 and implore arms from thy divinity to me adorable, a mother 
 for a son. Thee the daughter of Nereus, thee the wife of Ti- 
 
 38 Janiculum, one of the seven hills at Rome, on which Janus built a 
 town of the same name. Saturnia, an ancient town of Italy, supposed to 
 have been built by Saturn on the Tarpeian Rock. 
 
 39 From this circumstance Hercules probably derived his surname of 
 " Victor/' having been received into " parva regia, sed summa religione," 
 as Mamertinus says, Pan. 1. See Macrob. Sat. iii. 6. B. 
 
 40 Vulcan, the son of Jupiter and Juno, or of Juno alone, and the hus- 
 band of Venus, was the god of fire, and the patron of all artists who 
 worked in iron and metals. He is said to have been cast down from 
 heaven, and by his fall in the island of Lemnos, to have broke his leg, and 
 ever after remained lame of one foot. The Cyclops in Sicily were his 
 workmen, and with him they fabricated, in his forges, which were sup- 
 posed to be under Mount ^Etna, not only the thunderbolts of Jupiter, 
 but also arms for the gods and the most celebrated heroes. 
 
 u 
 
290 
 
 ^NEID. b. viii. 384—415 
 
 thonus, by tears could persuade. See what nations combine, 
 what towns, having shut up their gates, whet their swords 
 against me, and for the extirpation of my people ! The god- 
 dess said, and, [throwing] her snowy arms around him, 
 in soft embrace caresses him, hesitating : suddenly he caught 
 the wonted flame ; and the accustomed warmth pierced his 
 marrow, and ran thrilling through his trembling bones: just 
 as when at times, with forked thunder burst, a chinky stream 
 of lire in flashy lightning shoots athwart the skies. This his 
 spouse, well pleased with her wiles, and conscious of her 
 charms, perceived. 
 
 Then father [Yulcan], fast bound in eternal love, thus 
 speaks : Why hast thou recourse to far-fetched reasons ? whi- 
 ther, goddess, hath thy confidence in me fled ? Hadst thou 
 been under the like concern before, then too it had been a 
 righteous thing in me, [at thy desire,] to arm the Trojans. 
 Nor did almighty father Jove, or the Fates, 41 forbid that 
 Troy should stand, or Priam survive for ten years more. 
 And now if war you meditate, and this be your resolution ; 
 whatever zeal in my art I can promise; whatever can be 
 done by steel or liquid electrum, 42 as far as the power of fire 
 and breathing engines reach, [you may depend on me ;] for- 
 bear by solicitation to bring your power in question. Hav- 
 ing spoken these words, he gave her the wished embrace, and, 
 on the bosom of his spouse dissolved away, courted soft repose 
 to every limb. 
 
 Then, soon as the first [interval of] rest, now that the mid- 
 career of night had rolled away, had chased away sleep [from 
 his eyes] ; what time the housewife, whose chief concern it is 
 to earn her living by the distaff and poor handiwork, 43 awakes 
 the heaped-up embers and the dormant fires, adding night to 
 her labour, and by the lighted tapers employs her maids in 
 their long tasks, that chaste she may preserve her husband's 
 bed, and bring up her little ones : not otherwise, nor at that 
 time less industrious, the mighty god of fire rises from the soft 
 couch to his mechanic labours. 
 
 41 The ancients supposed that the will of the Fates could not be ulti- 
 mately overcome, but that its execution might be delayed. See Sor- 
 vius. B. 
 
 4 - A mixture of gold and silver. B. 
 
 43 " The loom yielding but a scanty reward." Anthon. B. 
 
b. viii. 416-451. JENEID 291 
 
 Near the side of Sicily and iEolian Lipari 44 an island is 
 upraised of steep ascent, with smoking rocks ; under which a 
 den, and the caves of iEtna, eaten out by the forges of the 
 Cyclops, thunder, and from the anvils the sturdy strokes in 
 echoing groans resound, the bars of steel hiss in the caverns, 
 and the fire pants in the furnaces : Vulcan's habitation, and the 
 land Vulcanium called. Hither then he of fiery power de- 
 scended from the lofty sky. The Cyclops in their capacious 
 cave were working the steel, Brontes, and Steropes, and 
 naked-limbed Pyracmon. In their hands half-formed, with one 
 part already polished, was a thunderbolt, [such as those], which 
 in profusion the eternal father from all quarters of the sky 
 hurls on the earth : the other part unfinished remained. 
 Three shafts they had added of the wreathed hail, three of 
 watery cloud, three of glaring fire and winged wind. Now 
 they were mingling in the work alarming flashes, noise and 
 terror, and the wrath of heaven with its vengeful flames. In 
 another part they were hastening forward a chariot and nimble 
 wheels of Mars, by which he uprouses men and cities ; and 
 were polishing amain the tremendous aegis, the armour of en- 
 raged Pallas, with serpent's scales of gold, and the snakes in 
 mutual folds entwined, and (to be worn on the breast of the 
 goddess) the Gorgon's self, rolling her eyes 45 after decapi- 
 tation. 
 
 Away with all, he says, ye iEtnean Cyclops, and set aside 
 your begun labours, and hither turn your minds. Arms for a 
 valiant hero must be forged ; now it is requisite to ply your 
 strength, now your nimble hands, now all your masterly skill. 
 Shake off all delay. Nor more he said, and all instantly be- 
 gan to work, and equally the labour shared. Brass and mines 
 of gold in rivulets flow ; and wounding steel in the capacious 
 furnace melts. They mark out the form of a spacious shield, 
 alone sufficient against all the weapons of the Latins, and orbs 
 in orbs seven-fold involve. Some with the puffing bellows 
 receive and explode the air by turns; others dip the sputter- 
 ing metals in the trough ; the cave groans with the incumbent 
 
 44 Lipari, anciently the iEolian Islands, on the northern coast of Sicily . 
 they are evidently of volcanic origin. 
 
 45 The eyes moved by a mechanical contrivance, according to "Wagner. 
 But I should simply understand the expression of the eye as meant. B. 
 
 u 2 
 
292 ^JNEID. b. vni. 452—489 
 
 anvils. They with vast force alternately lift their arms in 
 equal time, and with the griping pincers turn the mass. 
 
 While in the ^Eolian regions the Lemnian sire is urging on 
 these works, the cheering light, and the morning songs of 
 birds under his roof, rouse Evander from his humble mansion. 
 The veteran arises, and in his tunic clothes his limbs, and 
 binds the Tuscan sandals round his feet ; then to his side and 
 shoulders girds his Arcadian sword, doubling back [on the 
 right shoulder] a panther's skin that hung down from his left. 
 Two guardian-dogs too from the lofty gate march forth, and 
 accompany their master's steps. The hero, mindful of their 
 conversation, and the service he had promised, hies to the 
 apartment and recess of his guest JEneas. [Meanwhile] 
 JEneas no less early was on his way. With the one his son 
 Pallas, with the other Achates came in company. At meeting 
 they join hands, seat themselves in the midst of the court, and 
 at length enjoy unrestrained conversation. The king thus 
 first [begins] : Most mighty leader of the Trojans, during 
 whose life I truly will never admit that the power and realms 
 of Troy are overthrown ; small are our abilities to support the 
 war in proportion to so great a name : on the one hand we 
 are bounded by the Tuscan river [Tiber] ; on the other hand 
 the Rutulians press upon us, and beset our walls around with 
 clashing arms. But I intend to join with you mighty nations 
 and camps rich and royally magnificent, which saving relief 
 unexpected fortune opens to our view: hither you come in- 
 vited by the Fates. Not far from this spot stands inhabited 
 the city of Agylla, 46 of ancient foundation, where heretofore 
 the Lydian nation, illustrious in war, planted a settlement on 
 the Tuscan mountains. This city, having flourished for many 
 years, Mezentius at last came to rule with imperious sway and 
 cruel arms. Why should I mention his unutterable barbari- 
 ties ? or why the tyrant's horrid deeds ? May the gods re- 
 compense them on his own head, and on his race ! He even 
 bound to the living the bodies of the dead, joining together 
 hands to hands, and face to face, a kind of torture : and [the 
 victims] pining away with gore and putrefaction in this 
 loathed embrace, he thus with lingering death destroyed. But 
 at length his subjects, weary [of his cruelties], in arms around 
 46 Agylla, afterwards called Caere, a town of Etruria, 
 
b. vni. 490—523. JENEID. 293 
 
 beset both the tyrant himself raging past utterance, and all 
 his house : they assassinate his adherents, hurl flames against 
 his roof. He, amidst the massacre making his escape, flies 
 for shelter to the territories of the Rutulians, and finds pro- 
 tection from the arms of Turnus, his hospitable friend. 
 Therefore all Etruria ros with just fury ; and the people by 
 present war redemand their king for punishment. Over these 
 thousands, JEneas, I will assign you leader. For all along 
 the shore the vessels ranged in thick array resound with 
 clamour ; and crave to urge on the banners. Them an aged 
 soothsayer restrains, this oracle in prophetic strains deliver- 
 ing : Ye chosen youths of Lydia, the flower and excellence of 
 ancient heroes, whom just indignation urges against the foe, 
 and Mezentius fires with due resentment ; no native of Italy 
 is destined to subdue that powerful nation : make choice of 
 foreign leaders. Then, overawed by the declaration of the 
 gods, the Tuscan army, respiting their fury, encamped on 
 this plain. Tarchon 47 himself hath sent ambassadors with 
 the royal crown and sceptre, and to me commends these en- 
 signs ; [imploring me] to repair to the camp, and assume the 
 Tuscan administration. But life with frozen blood benumbed, 
 and worn out with years, and my capacity for heroic deeds 
 superannuated, deny me empire. My son I would urge to it 
 were it not that, being of mixed race by reason of a Sabine 
 mother, he derived a portion of his country from this land. Do 
 you, most gallant leader of the Trojans and Italians, to whose 
 years and lineage also fate is indulgent, you whom the oracles 
 invite, enter upon the task. Him too, my hope and solace, 
 Pallas, to thee I will join ; under thee his master let him prac- 
 tise to endure warfare, and the laborious service of Mars, be 
 spectator of thy deeds, and from his earliest years make thee 
 the object of his admiration. To him I will give two hun- 
 dred Arcadian horsemen, the chosen strength of the youth ; 
 and as many more will Pallas give thee in his own name. 
 
 Thus he had scarcely spoke, when JEneas, the offspring of 
 Anchises, and trusty Achates, held their eyes fixed on the 
 ground, and with heavy hearts began to revolve many hard 
 thoughts, 48 had not Cytherea displayed a sign in the open air : 
 
 47 Tarchon, an Etrurian chief, who assisted iEneas against the Rutulians. 
 4( * Cf. Propert. i. 15, 1, " Saepe ego multa tuae levitatis dura time- 
 bam." B. 
 
294 ^ENEID. B. viii. 524—554 
 
 for unexpectedly a flash of lightning, darted from the sky, 
 came with a peal ; 49 and suddenly all things seemed to threaten 
 ruin, and the blast of the Tuscan trumpet rattled through the 
 skies. Upwards they gaze : again and again in dreadful peals 
 it thunders ; in a serene quarter of the heavens, among the 
 clouds they observe arms blaze athwart the clear expanse, and 
 clashed peal with thunder. The rest were astounded with 
 amazement ; but the Trojan hero knew the sound and pro- 
 mised signs of his goddess-mother. Then [to Evander] he 
 addressed his speech : By no means, my hospitable friend, by 
 no means be anxious to explore what crisis these prodigies 
 portend : I am called by heaven. My divine parent foretold 
 that she was to send this signal, if war should assail me, and 
 that she would bring Vulcan-wrought arms through the aerial 
 regions to my aid. Ah ! what havoc awaits the hapless Lau- 
 rentines ! what ample satisfaction shalt thon, O Turnus, give 
 me ! what numerous shields, and helmets, and bodies of gal- 
 lant heroes, shalt thou, father Tiber, roll down thy streams ! 
 Let them challenge our armies, and violate their leagues. 
 
 Having said these words, he raised himself from his lofty 
 throne : and first of all he wakes the dormant altars with fires 
 in honour of Hercules, and visits with joy the Lar, 50 whom 
 yesterday he had first worshipped, and the little household 
 gods : with accustomed rites he offers a sacrifice of chosen 
 ewes; in like manner Evander, in like manner the Trojan 
 youth. After this he repairs to the ships, and revisits his 
 friends ; from whose number he chooses out such as excelled 
 in valour, to accompany him to the war : the rest by the de- 
 scending stream are borne along, and without effort glide 
 down with the current of the river, to bring Ascanius tidings 
 of his father, and of the affairs in hand. The Trojans, re- 
 pairing to the Tuscan territories, are supplied with steeds : 
 for ^Eneas they led forth one distinguished from the rest, 
 which a lion's tawny hide, shining before with gilded claws, 
 completely covers. 
 
 Suddenly through the little city, the rumour, made public, 
 
 49 D'Orville, Critic. Vann. p. 594, compares Quintus Cal. xiv. 457, 
 olov ore crrepoTrrJGLV hirifipkjxti aGirerog alOrjp. B. 
 
 50 Lar : the Lares were two in number, sons of Mercury and Lara, one 
 of the Naiads. The Romans paid them divine honours, ard they pre- 
 sided over houses and families. 
 
B. viii. 555—591. ^ENEID. 295 
 
 flies, that a band of horse were swiftly marching to the court of 
 the Tuscan king. Through fear the matrons redouble their 
 vows ; and the nearer to the danger, the more the terror grows, 
 and the image of Mars appears enlarged. Then father Evander, 
 grasping the hand [of his son] as he was going away, clings 
 to him, weeping beyond measure, and utters these words : Oh 
 that Jupiter would recall my past years! [or that I were now] 
 what I was when, under the very walls of Praeneste, I mowed 
 down the foremost ranks, and victorious set heaps of shields 
 on fire, and with this right hand sent king Herilus 51 down to 
 Tartarus ; to whom at his birth, dreadful to relate, his mother 
 Feronia had given three lives, and triple arms to wield ; thrice 
 by death was he to be overthrown : whom nevertheless this 
 right hand then bereft of all these lives, and stripped of as 
 many suits of armour ! nothing now, my son, should part me 
 from your loved embrace : nor had ever our neighbour Mezen- 
 tius, insulting over this person of mine, by the sword effected 
 so many cruel deaths, bereaved the city of so many inhabitants. 
 But, O ye powers, and thou Jupiter, great ruler of the gods, 
 compassionate, I pray, an Arcadian king, and hear a father's 
 prayers ; if your providence divine, if the Fates reserve Pal- 
 las for me in safety, if I live destined to see him again, and 
 to have a meeting with him, I pray for life ; I will submit to 
 endure any hardship whatever. But if, O fortune, thou 
 threatenest him with some disaster not to be named, now, oh ! 
 now, let me break off my cruel life, while my cares are hover- 
 ing in suspense, while I have hope of the future, [however] 
 uncertain ; while thee, dear boy, my late, my only joy, I hold 
 in my embrace : lest more mournful tidings wound my ears. 
 These words the father poured forth at the final parting : his 
 attendants bear him to the palace fainting away. 
 
 And now the horse had gone forth by the expanded gates : 
 among the foremost -ZEneas and his faithful Achates ; then 
 other peers of Troy. Pallas himself, in the centre of his 
 troop, appears conspicuous in his mantling robe and painted 
 arms ; such as when, bathed in the ocean's waves, Lucifer, 
 whom Yenus loves beyond the other starry lights, hath dis- 
 played his holy visage in the heaven, and dispersed the dark- 
 
 51 Herilus, king of Praeneste, was son of Feronia, the goddess of woods 
 and orchards : as he is said to have received three lives from his mother, 
 lie was killed three times by Evander. 
 
?96 ^NEID b. viii. 592—625. 
 
 ness. On the walls the timorous matrons stknd, and follow 
 with their eyes the dusty cloud, and troops gleaming with 
 brass. Through the thickets, where nearest lies the boundary 
 of their way, they march in arms. Their acclamations rise ; 
 and, a squadron formed, the hoof beats with the trampling 
 din the mouldering plain. 
 
 Near the cold river of Caere 52 is a spacious grove, sacred 
 all around by the religion of the fathers ; hollow hills on 
 every side have enclosed, and encompass the grove with 
 gloomy fir. There is a tradition, that to Sylvanus, god of 
 the fields and flocks, the ancient Pelasgi, 53 who were once the 
 first possessors of the Latin territories, consecrated this grove 
 and a festival- day. Not far from this, Tarcho and the Tus- 
 cans kept their camp, defended by the ground ; and now from 
 the hill the whole legion could be surveyed, and had pitched 
 their tents upon the spacious plains. Hither father iEneas 
 and his youthful band, chosen for the war, advance, and 
 fatigued they tend their horses and themselves. 
 
 Meanwhile the goddess Yenus in bright beauty among the 
 ethereal clouds, drew nigh, bearing her gifts ; and soon as at 
 a distance she espied her son in a recluse valley, apart by 
 the cold river, she voluntarily presented herself, and addressed 
 him in these words : Behold, my son, the presents finished by 
 my consort's promised skill ; that so this instant you need not 
 demur to challenge either the insolent Laurentines or fierce 
 Turnus to the combat. Cytherea said, and rushed into the 
 embraces of her son: under an oak, full in his view, she 
 placed the radiant arms. He, overjoyed with the presents of 
 the goddess, and such signal honour, gazes on them with in- 
 satiable fondness, and rolls his eyes over them one by one ; he 
 admires, and in his hands or arms shifts about the helmet 
 terrible with its crest and shooting flames, and the sword 
 fraught with death, the corslet stiff with brass, immense, of 
 sanguine hue ; as when the azure cloud by the sunbeams grows 
 more and more inflamed, and shines afar ; then the polished 
 greaves of electrum and gold refined, the spear and the tex- 
 ture of the shield beyond expression. There the god of fiery 
 
 52 Caere, anciently Agylla, a city of Etruria, once the capital of the 
 whole country, situated on a small river east of Rome. 
 
 53 Pelasgi, the ancient inhabitants of Greece, supposed to be one of tb-; 
 most ancient people in the world. 
 
b. VIII. 626—651. <ENEID. 297 
 
 power, not unskilled of prophecies, or ignorant of futurity, had 
 represented the Italian history and triumphs of the Romans ; 
 there all the descendants of the future race from Ascanius, 
 and their battles fought in order. There, too, he had figured 
 the fostering wolf lying in the verdant cave of Mars : the twin 
 boys, hanging about her dugs, to play, and fearless suck their 
 dam ; while she, with tapering neck reclined, fondly licked 
 them by turns, and moulded their bodies with her tongue. 
 Not far from this he had added Rome, and the Sabine virgins 
 lawlessly ravished from th% assembly of the circus at the great 
 Circensian 54 games, and suddenly a new war bursting upon 
 the sons of Rome, and aged Tatius, 55 and the rigid Cures. 
 Next the same princes, now that mutual hostilities are laid 
 aside, sheathed in armour, and with the goblets in their hands, 
 stood before Jove's altars, and, having sacrificed a sow, struck 
 a league. Not far from thence rapid chariots had torn Metius 56 
 limb from limb asunder, (but thou, Alban, shouldst have ad- 
 hered to thy stipulations,) and Tullus was dragging the 
 traitor's entrails through the wood ; and the bushes, sprinkled 
 with his blood, were dripping wet. Here, too, Porsenna 57 
 was commanding [the Romans] to receive expelled Tarquini- 
 us, and invested the city with close siege. The Romans in 
 defence of liberty were rushing on the sword. Him [Por- 
 senna] you might have seen like one enraged, and like one 
 breathing threats, because Codes had dared to beat down the 
 bridge, and Clcelia, 58 having burst her chains, swam across 
 
 54 Circensian games were first established by Romulus, and performed 
 in the circus at Rome. The Romans, having invited their neighbours 
 the Sabines to the celebration of these games, forcibly carried away all 
 their females who had attended. 
 
 55 Tatius, king of Cures among the Sabines, made war against the 
 Romans after the rape of the Sabine women. Peace having been made 
 between the two nations, Tatius shared the royal authority with Romulusc 
 
 56 Metius, dictator of Alba in the reign of Tullus Hostilius. He be- 
 came subject to the Romans by the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii, 
 but afterwards proving faithless, Tullus put him to death by placing him 
 between two chariots, which were drawn by four horses different ways. 
 
 67 Porsenna, king of Etruria, who made war upon the Romans in 
 favour of Tarquin, and attempted in vain to replace him on the throne. 
 Codes, (Pub. Horat.) a noble Roman, who greatly signalized himself by 
 alone opposing for a time the whole army of Porsenna. 
 
 58 Clcelia, a Roman virgin, who having been given with other maidens 
 as hostages to Porsenna, escaped from her confinement, and swam across 
 the Tiber to Rome. 
 
298 JSNE1D. B. vin. 652— Go2 
 
 the river. On the summit [of the shield] Manlius, 59 guardian 
 of the Tarpeian tower, before the temple stood, and defended 
 the lofty Capitol; and the palace, as newly thatched with 
 Romulean straw, appeared rough. And here a goose in silver, 
 fluttering athwart the gilded galleries, gave warning that the 
 Gauls were just at hand : the Gauls were advancing along the 
 thickets, and were seizing the fort, protected by the darkness 
 and benefit of dusky night. Of gold their tresses were, and 
 of gold their vestments ; in striped mantelets they shine ; then 
 their milk-white necks are girt with gold : two Alpine javelins 
 each in his hand brandishes, having their bodies protected with 
 long bucklers. Here he had embossed the dancing Salii, and 
 the naked priests of Pan, the caps tufted with wool, and the 
 shields that fell from heaven : chaste matrons in soft carriages 
 were conducting the sacred pageants through the city. To 
 these in remoter prospect he likewise adds the Tartarean man- 
 sions, Pluto's profound realms, the sufferings of the damned ; 
 and thee, Catiline, 60 suspended from a threatening rock, and 
 trembling at the faces of the Furies ; and the good apart [from 
 the wicked, with] Cato 61 dispensing laws to them. Amidst 
 these scenes the image of the swelling ocean was widely dif- 
 fused in gold ; but the seas foamed with hoary waves, and all 
 around conspicuous in silver the wheeling dolphins swept the 
 seas with their tails, and cut the tide. In the midst were 
 to be seen fleets with brazen prows, the fight of Actium ; 62 
 and you could discern Leucate all in a ferment with the 
 marshalled war, and the billows brightly displayed in gold. 
 On one side is Augustus Csesar conducting the Italians to the 
 engagement, with the senators and people, the domestic dei- 
 ties, and the great gods, standing on the lofty stern ; whose 
 auspicious temples dart forth two flames, and on whose crest 
 his father's star is displayed. In another part Agrippa, 63 
 
 59 Manlius, (Marcus,) a celebrated Roman, surnamed Capitolinus, foi 
 his gallant defence of the Capitol against the Gauls under Brennus 
 Manlius was afterwards accused of ambitious designs, and having been 
 condemned, he was thrown down from the Tarpeian Rock. 
 
 60 Catiline, a noble Roman, but cruel, and of the most depraved habits. 
 He conspired against the liberties of his country, and perished in battle, 
 B. c. 63. 
 
 61 Cato the major is meant. 
 
 62 Actium, the seat of the final victory of Augustus. 
 
 63 Agrippa, a celebrated Roman, who favoured the interest of Augustus 
 
n. yui 682-706. ^ENEID. 299 
 
 with winds and gods propitious, stands aloft 64 leading his 
 squadron ; for whom, proud badge of warfare, his brows are 
 adorned with a naval crown's refulgent beak. On the other 
 side victorious Antony, 65 with barbarian supplies and various 
 troops, brings up with him, from the nations of the morning, 
 and the coasts of the Red Sea, Egypt, 66 the strength of the 
 east, and Bactra, the boundary of his empire ; and him fol- 
 lows, oh foul disgrace ! his Egyptian spouse Cleopatra. 67 All 
 are rushing on together, and the whole watery plain foams 
 convulsed with the labouring oars and trident-beaks. They 
 make for the deep : you would have imagined, that the Cy- 
 clades uptorn were floating on the main, or lofty mountains 
 encountering mountains : with such force the warriors in their 
 turreted ships urge on the attack. From their hands flaming 
 balls of tow, and from missile engines the winged steel is 
 flung : Neptune's fields redden with the first slaughter. In 
 the midst the queen rouses her squadrons with her country's 
 sistrum ; nor as yet regards the two snakes behind her. 68 Her 
 monstrous gods of every form, and barking Anubis, 69 opposed 
 to Neptune, Venus, and Minerva, are wielding their weapons. 
 In the midst of the combat Mars sculptured in iron storms, 
 and the grim Furies from the sky; and Discord with her 
 mantle rent stalks well pleased, whom Bellona follows with 
 her bloody scourge. Apollo of Actium, viewing these things 
 from above, was bending his bow : with the terror thereof all 
 Egypt and the Indians, the Arabs and Sabseans, all were 
 
 at the battles of Actium and Philippi, where he behaved with great 
 valour. 
 
 64 " arduus " refers to his position on the stern of his ship. B. 
 
 65 Mark Antony, the Roman triumvir. After his defeat in the battle of 
 Actium, he fled to Alexandria in Egypt, where he stabbed himself, 
 b. c. 30. 
 
 66 Egypt, a celebrated country of Africa, watered by the Nile ; bounded 
 by the Red Sea (Arabian Gulf) on the east, and by Libya on the west. 
 
 67 Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, was cele- 
 brated for her beauty and mental acquirements, as also for her intrigues 
 and licentious life. Cleopatra supported the cause of her favourite An- 
 tony against Augustus at the battle of Actium, but by flying with sixty 
 sail, contributed to his defeat ; she then retired to Egypt, where, to avoid 
 falling into the hands of Augustus, she destroyed herself by the bite of an 
 nn asp, b. c. 30. At 'her death Egypt became a Roman province. 
 
 68 i.'e. she does not foresee her end. B. 
 
 89 Anubis, an Egyptian god, represented with the head of a dog. 
 
300 JENEID b. viii. 707-731. 
 
 turning their backs. The queen herself, invoking the winds, 
 seemed to sail, and with eager haste to be letting loose the 
 uncoiled cables. Her the god of fire had represented amidst 
 the slaughter, driven along by waves and winds, pale with tha 
 [terrors of] approaching death ; and opposite, [he had sculp- 
 tured] the Nile with his gigantic form in deep distress, ex- 
 panding his skirts, and with all his robe displayed, calling the 
 vanquished into his azure bosom and sheltering streams. 
 Csesar again, having in triple triumph entered the walls of 
 Rome, was consecrating through all the city three hundred 
 stately temples, his immortal vow to the Italian gods. The 
 streets rung with joy, and games, and acclamations. In all 
 the temples are choirs of matrons ; and in all the temples al- 
 tars. Before the altars the sacrificed bullocks cover the 
 ground. Augustus himself, seated in the snow-white porch 
 of shining Phoebus, reviews the offerings of the people, and 
 fits them to the stately pillars. In long orderly procession 
 the vanquished nations march, as various in the fashion of their 
 garb and arms as in their language. Here Mulciber had 
 figured the Numidian race, and the Africans loose in their 
 attire ; here the Leleges, 70 the Carians, and Geloni armed with 
 arrows. Euphrates now flowed with gentler streams ; the 
 Morini, 71 remotest of the human race, [appeared,] and the 
 two-horned Rhine, the untamed Dahse, and the Araxes, 72 that 
 disdained a bridge. 
 
 Such scenes on Vulcan's shield, the present of his parent- 
 goddess, the hero views with wonder, and [though] a stranger 
 to the events, rejoices in their representation, and on his 
 shoulder bears aloft the fame and fortune of his descendants. 
 
 70 Leleges, a wandering people who originally inhabited Caria. in Asia 
 Minor, and who fought in the Trojan war under their king Altes. 
 
 71 Morini, a people of Belgic Gaul, on the shores of the British Ocean. 
 
 72 Araxes, (Arras,) a large river of Asia, falling into the Caspian Sea; 
 it .vvept away a bridge which Alexander the Great built over it. 
 
M. rx. 1-26. ^ENEID 301 
 
 BOOK IX. 
 
 In the Ninth Book, Turnus, availing himself of iEneas' absence, makes a 
 furious assault upon his camp. The Trojans, reduced to the utmost ex- 
 tremity, despatch to iEneas, Nisus and Euryalus, whose immortal friend- 
 ship, in thi9 perilous adventure, is painted in the most glowing language. 
 Turnus attacks the city, but is forced, after making a great slaughter, tc 
 save himself by swimming the Tiber. 
 
 And while these transactions were carrying on in a far dif- 
 ferent quarter, Saturnian Juno sent Iris from heaven to daring 
 Turnus. Turnus then by chance was sitting at rest in the 
 grove of his progenitor Pilumnus, in a consecrated vale; 
 whom thus the daughter of Thaumas l with rosy lips bespoke : 
 What none of the gods, O Turnus, could dare to promise to 
 thy wishes, lo ! revolving time hath of itself brought about ! 
 JEneas, having abandoned his city, his friends, and fleet, hath 
 repaired to the realms and abode of Pal an tine Evander. And, 
 not content with that, he hath penetrated to the remotest cities 
 of Corythus, 2 and arms a band of Lydians, rustics, whom he 
 has drawn together. Why do you demur ? now is the time 
 to call for your steeds, now your chariots. Break off all delay, 
 and seize his camp while in disorder. She said, and on poised 
 wings raised herself to heaven, and in her flight cut the spa- 
 cious bow beneath the clouds. The youth knew [the goddess], 
 and, stretching forth both hands to heaven, with these accents 
 pursued her flying : Iris, thou glory of heaven, who sent thee 
 down to me on earth shot from the clouds ? whence arises, 
 on a sudden, this so bright a sky ? I see heaven in the midst 
 cleave asunder, 3 and stars wandering athwart the firmament. 
 Signs so illustrious will I obey, whoever thou art who sum- 
 monest me to arms. And thus having said, he repaired to 
 the river, and from the surface of the stream drew water, in- 
 voking the gods at large ; and loaded heaven with vows. 
 
 And now on the open plains his whole army marched, rich 
 in steeds, rich in embroidered vests and gold. Messapus 
 
 1 Thaumas, a son of Neptune and Terra, who married Electra, one of 
 the Oceanides, by whom he had Iris, the Harpies, &c. 
 
 2 The mythic founder of Cortona, here put for the city itself. B. 
 
 3 " Discedere" is a customary term in describing this prodigy, as in 
 Cicer. de Div. i. 43. Jul. Obseq. de Prod. p. 60. Compare Plutarch. 
 Ttmol. p. 239, tdo%ev atyvideiog payevra rbv ovpavbv v7rkp rrjg vku>£ 
 Uxeai 7ro\v teal 7repi(paveg to irvp B. 
 
302 ^ENEID. b. ix. 27— G5 
 
 commands the van, the sons of Tyrrhus in the rear ; in the 
 centre king Turnus moves along, wielding his arms, and over- 
 tops the rest by the whole head. 4 As the deep Ganges, fed 
 with seven peaceful rivers, in silence [flows] ; or, as the Nile, 
 with its fertilizing waters, when from ? the plains he has re- 
 tired, and now lodges himself within his channel. Here the 
 Trojans descry a sudden cloud condensed in wreaths of black- 
 ening dust, and darkness rising on the plains. Caicus first 
 from the opposite rampart calls forth : What numerous bands, 
 O citizens, are hither rolling in a black cloud of dust ? Quick, 
 bring arms, give darts, mount the walls : haste, the foe is at 
 hand. With loud outcry the Trojans block themselves up 
 within all their gates, and man the walls : for thus ^ZEneas, 
 most accomplished in arms, at departing had ordered ; that, 
 if any accident should befall in the interim, they would not 
 venture to set their army in array, nor trust to the field ; only 
 guard their camp and walls secured by a rampart. There- 
 fore, though shame and indignation prompt them to engage, 
 yet they barricade their gates against [the foe], execute the 
 orders [of their chief], and in arms expect the enemy within 
 their holy turrets. 
 
 Turnus, flying out before, had got the start of his sturdy 
 band, accompanied with twenty chosen horse, and unexpected 
 comes upon the city ; whom a Thracian steed with white spots 
 bears, and a golden helmet with crimson crest defends. 
 Which of you youths first will join me to attack the foe ? See 
 here, he cries, and brandishing his javelin, darts it into the 
 air, the prelude of the fight ; and mounted aloft he rushes to the 
 field. With shouts his friends second the motion, and follow 
 with dreadful-sounding din : they wonder at the faintheart- 
 edness of the Trojans, that they venture not themselves in the 
 equal field, nor oppose arms [to arms], but lie loitering in the 
 camp. Turbulent with ire, hither and thither on his steed he 
 surveys the walls, and by every pathless pass explores access. 
 As when a wolf, in ambush for a full cot of sheep, lies growl- 
 ing at the folds, enduring winds and rains at midnight ; under 
 their dams the lambkins in safely bleat ; he, fierce and ruth- 
 less with ire, rages against the absent prey : his ravenous 
 hunger by length of time contracted, and his blood-thirsty 
 jaws, pinch him incessantly: just so the Hutulian's anger 
 4 This line is a spurious repetition from ^En. vii. 784. B. 
 
B. ix. 65—100. ^NEID. 303 
 
 kindles, while he views the walls and camp ; and within his 
 hard bones anguish burns, [exploring] by what means he may 
 tempt access, and now force the enclosed Trojans from their 
 entrenchment, and pour them forth into the plain. Their fleet, 
 which, adjoining the side of their camp, lay concealed, fenced 
 around with ramparts and the streams of the river, he assails ; 
 loudly calls for flames from his triumphing followers ; and 
 ardent fills his hand with a blazing pine. Then indeed they 
 exert themselves strenuously : the presence of Turnus urges 
 them on, and the whole youth are armed with black torches. 
 They pillage the hearths : the smoky brand sends up a pitchy 
 light, and the flames hurl mingled ashes to the stars. 
 
 Ye muses, say, what god averted from the Trojans so 
 fierce a conflagration ? who from the ships repelled such 
 mighty flames ? Ancient is the testimony of the fact, but 
 immortal is its fame. 
 
 At the time when .ZEneas first formed his fleet on Phrygian 
 Ida, and prepared to launch into the deep, Berecynthia 5 her- 
 self, the mother of the gods, is said to have addressed great 
 Jove in these words : At my request, O son, bestow what 
 thy dear parent from thee craves, now that Olympus is sub- 
 dued. On a lofty mountain stood a piny wood by me many 
 years beloved, shaded with gloomy firs, and the maples' 
 boughs, whither they brought me sacred offerings : these 
 trees I with pleasure gave to the young Trojan hero, when 
 he wanted a fleet: now anxious dread [on their account] 
 presses my unquiet mind. Dissipate my fears, and let a 
 parent by her prayers obtain, that by no voyage they may be 
 shattered, or by whirling blast of wind subdued : let it avail 
 them that from our mountains they sprung. To her in reply 
 her son, who rolls the stars of the universe, said : Whither, 
 my parent-goddess, art thou urging destiny ? or what is thy 
 aim in this request ? Shall vessels built by mortal hands 
 enjoy an immortal privilege, and -ZEneas, insured of safety, 
 run the round of dubious peril ? in what god is so great power 
 lodged ? However, when, having finished their course, they 
 shall reach the goal and the Ausonian ports, whichever of 
 them hereafter shall have escaped the wayes, and carried the 
 Dardanian chief to the Laurentian fields, I will divest them 
 
 5 Berecynthia, a name of Cybele, from Mount Berecyn thus in Phrygia, 
 where she was worshipped. 
 
304 J3NEID. e. ix. 101-138. 
 
 of their mortal form, and command to be goddesses of *hc 
 spacious ocean ; such as the daughters of Nereus, Doto, and 
 Galatea, who cut with their breasts the foaming deep. He 
 said: and in sign of its being ratified by the rivers of his 
 Stygian brother, by those banks that roll with torrents of 
 pitch and black whirlpools, nods his head ; and with that nod 
 he made heaven's whole frame to tremble. 
 
 The promised day was therefore come, and the Fates had 
 filled up the destined periods of time, when the outrage of 
 Turn us called on the mother [of the gods] to repel the fire- 
 brands from her sacred ships. Here first an unusual light 
 flashed forth on the eyes [of the Trojans], and from the east 
 a vast refulgent cloud was seen to shoot athwart the sky, and 
 [in it] her choirs of priests; 6 then through the air a tremen- 
 dous voice drops from above, and fills the hosts both of Tro- 
 jans and Rutulians: Be in no hurry, 7 ye Trojans, to protect 
 my ships, nor arm your hands ; sooner to Turnus it shall be 
 given to burn up the seas than those sacred pines. Glide on 
 at your liberty, glide ye on, goddesses of the main^ the parent 
 [of the gods] commands. And forthwith from the banks the 
 ships break each away her halsers, and dolphin-like diving 
 with their beaks plunge to the bottom of the sea. Thence, 
 wondrous prodigy, so many virgin-forms rise up, and ride 
 along the main, as brazen prows had before stood ranged 
 along the shore. The Rutulians stoop astonished in their 
 minds ; Messapus himself, his steeds being startled, is seized 
 with consternation ; the river too makes a pause, resounding 
 hoarsely, and Tiberinus recalls his current 8 from the deep. 
 
 But the confidence of daring Turnus abated not ; he briskly 
 raises their spirits with his words, and briskly chides [their 
 fears]: Against the Trojans are these portents aimed; from 
 them even Jove himself hath withdrawn his wonted aid ; 
 [their ships] wait not the darts or fires of the Rutulians, 
 Therefore the seas are inaccessible to the Trojans, nor have 
 they any hopes of flight ; from one half of the globe they are 
 cutoff; and the land [the other half] is in our hands; so 
 many armed thousands the Italian nations bring to our aid. 
 To me the fatal responses of the gods, whatever they are to 
 
 6 i. e. the Corybantes, Curetes, and the Idsei Dactyli. B. 
 
 7 "trepidate" is explained as equivalent to "festinate" by Nonius i. 7. B. 
 
 8 Literally, " his foot." B. 
 
*. ix. 134—167. ^:NEID. 305 
 
 which the Phrygians pretend, give no concern. To the Fates 
 and Venus enough is given, that the Trojans have reached 
 the lands of fruitful Ausonia. I too, on the other hand, have 
 my destiny, to extirpate with the sword the accursed race, 
 being robbed of my spouse : nor does the painful sense of 
 that indignity move only the sons of Atreus, 9 nor to Mycenae 
 alone is licence given to take up arms [in such a cause]. 
 But [perhaps] it is enough that they fell once : [doubtless,] 
 had they thought it enough to commit the same crime but 
 once before, having conceived almost a total aversion towards 
 the whole race of women. They whom this confidence in 
 their intervening rampart, whom the temporary defences of 
 their trenches, narrow partitions from death, inspire with so 
 much courage ; have they not seen the walls of Troy, built by 
 the hand of Neptune, sink down in flames ? But, my chosen 
 warriors, who prepares to storm their rampart sword in hand, 
 and with me invades their disordered camp ? To me there 
 is no need of Vulcan- wrought armour, or of a thousand ships 
 against the Trojans. Let all the Tuscans this instant con- 
 nect themselves with them in allian.ce : they need not fear the 
 night, and the dastardly theft of the Palladium, slaying the 
 guards of [Minerva's] lofty tower ; 10 nor will we hide our- 
 selves in the dark womb of a horse ; we are resolved openly by 
 day to surround their walls with fire. I shall make them 
 sensible that they have not to do with Greeks and Argive 
 striplings, whom Hector kept at bay till the tenth year. Now 
 then, since the better part of the day is past, for what remains, 
 my men, as things have [thus far] succeeded well, cheerfully 
 refresh your bodies, and prepared expect the fight. Mean- 
 while to Messapus is assigned the charge to beset their gates 
 with sentinels, and enclose their ramparts with watch-fires. 
 Twice seven Rutulians are chosen out to guard the walls ; 
 and those are followed each by a hundred youths waving their 
 purple plumes, and glittering with gold : they patrole around, 
 and mount guard by turns, and by turns stretched along the 
 grass they indulge the wine, and drain 11 the brazen bowls. 
 The fires together shine ; in play the guards spend the sleep - 
 
 9 Alluding to the abduction of Helen. B. 
 
 10 Turnus sneers at the conduct of Ulysses and Diomede. See JEn. Li. 
 164 sqq. B. 
 
 11 Compare Virgil's use of "vergere." B. 
 
306 2ENEID. B . IX . 168-199. 
 
 less night. These things the Trojans above from the rani- 
 parts survey, and in arms guard their high posts ; their gates 
 too in hurrying consternation they strictly watch, and with 
 bridges join the outworks : they stand to their arms. Mnes- 
 theus and fierce Serestus urge them on ; whom father ^Eneas 
 appointed directors of the youthful bands, and managers of 
 affairs, if at any time cross accidents should call them. The 
 whole legion, having shared the danger, by lot keep guard 
 along the walls, and perform the alternate duties of the post 
 which each has assigned him to maintain. 12 
 
 Nisus, the son of Hyrtacus, in arms most fierce, stood sen- 
 tinel of the gate ; whom Ida, famed for hunting, sent the at- 
 tendant of JEneas, nimble at the javelin and fleet arrows : and 
 by his side his companion Euryalus, than whom of all the 
 followers of ^Eneas no one was more comely, and none [more 
 graceful] wore the arms of Troy ; a stripling whose cheeks 
 were streaked with the first bloom of youth. Their love was 
 one, and with equal eagerness they rushed to the war : then 
 too they were posted in common to guard the gate. Nisus 
 says, Do the gods, Euryalus, infuse this ardour into our 
 minds ? or is each one's earnest inclination his god ? 13 Long 
 has my mind been instigating me either to attempt the fight, 
 or some great enterprise ; for it is not content with peaceful 
 inaction. You see what confidence in the state of their 
 affairs possess the Rutulians ; their lights twinkle here and 
 there ; buried in sleep and wine they have laid themselves 
 down; the places all around are hushed in silence. % Learn 
 further what my doubting thoughts suggest, and the purpose 
 which now rises in my soul. That .ZEneas should be invited 
 home, all, both the people and the higher orders, impor- 
 tunately crave ; and that messengers be despatched to inform 
 him of the true state of our affairs. If to thee they will promise 
 what I demand, (for, to myself the glory of the exploit is 
 enough,) I think I can find a way under the brow of yon hill 
 to the walls and fortifications of Pallanteum. Euryalus, 
 stung with violent desire of praise, stood astonished ; at the 
 same time he thus addresses his ardent friend : Do you then, 
 Nisus, decline to admit me as your companion in those high 
 
 12 Literally, " take turns as to what is to be defended." B. 
 
 13 " Diine nostris mentibus cupiditates injiciunt et desideria ? An deus 
 sit ipse mentis cupiditas ?" Servius. B. 
 
B. ix. 200—232. ^ENEID. 307 
 
 enterprises ? Shall I send you away alone on such perilous 
 adventures ? It was not thus my warlike father Opheltes 
 instructed me, bred up amidst the alarms of Greece and the 
 disasters of Troy ; nor have I acted such a part in your 
 company, following the magnanimous ^Eneas and his for- 
 tune in all extremities. This soul, this soul of mine, con- 
 temns the light, and deems that honour, to which you aspire, 
 well bought, even at the expense of life itself. To this Nisus 
 [replied] : Believe me, I had no such apprehensions of you ; 
 nor have I reason. No, so may great Jove, or whatever god 
 with a favouring eye regards what we are about, return me 
 to you triumphant. But if any chance, (as many such you 
 see in an enterprise of this hazardous nature,) or deity hurry 
 me on to adverse fate, I wish that you may survive : your age 
 has a juster claim to life. Let me leave one who may deposit 
 me in the earth among the dead, snatched from the field, or 
 redeemed by ransom ; or who (if any fortune shall stand in 
 the way of this) may pay funeral obsequies to my absent 
 corpse, and honour me with an empty tomb : nor let me be 
 the cause of such deep anguish to thy wretched mother, who, 
 my boy, of many mothers alone adventurous follows thee, nor 
 minds the walls 14 of the great Acestes. But he rejoined: In 
 vain you weave fruitless remonstrances, nor is my resolution 
 now staggered from its first position : let us despatch : at the 
 same time he awakes the guard. They succeed, and take 
 their turns of duty : having resigned his post, he sets forward 
 in company with Nisus, and they seek the king. 
 
 All other creatures over the whole earth with sleep relaxed 
 their cares, and lost their toils in sweet oblivion. But the 
 Trojan chiefs and select youth were holding consultation about 
 the important concerns of the state ; what they ought to do, 
 or who should be the messenger to iEneas. Leaning on their 
 long spears they stand, wielding their targets, in the centre 
 of the camp and plain. Then Nisus, and with him Euryalus, 
 with prompt alacrity, beg to be admitted ; [alleging] that 
 their business was important, and would compensate the de- 
 lay. 15 In this their hurry and trepidation lulus first re- 
 ceived them, and ordered Nisus to speak. Then thus Hyrta- 
 
 u i. e. nor cares to tarry at Segesta with the other matrons. B. 
 14 i. e. the delay of their counsels. B. 
 
 X 2 
 
308 JENEID. b. ix. 233—265. 
 
 cides 16 [spoke] : Ye followers of JEneas, listen with unbiassed 
 minds; nor be these our proposals judged of by our years. 
 The Rutulians, buried in sleep and wine, have composed them- 
 selves to rest ; we ourselves have observed a place fit for our 
 secret design, that lies obvious in the double way from the 
 gate which is nearest the sea. Their fires are dying away, 
 and a pitchy smoke ascends to heaven. If you give us leave 
 to embrace the fortunate occasion, you shall soon see JEneas, 
 in quest of whom we go to the walls of Pallanteum, here pre- 
 sent with spoils, and after vast havoc made : nor set we out 
 strangers to the way ; often in the shady vales at hunting 
 have we seen the skirts of the town, and have surveyed the 
 whole river. 
 
 At this, Alethes, loaded with years and matured in judg- 
 ment, [said:] Ye gods of my country, under whose divine 
 protection Troy always is, [though you have been angry with 
 us for a time,] yet you do not intend utterly to destroy the 
 Trojans, since you have produced such souls, and such reso- 
 lute hearts in our youth. So saying, he grasped the shoulders 
 and hands of both, and with tears his face and cheeks be- 
 dewed. What rewards, brave youths, what rewards of worth 
 proportioned to such enterprises can I judge possible to be 
 conferred upon you ? the fairest shall the gods in the first 
 place and your own virtues give; ithen the rest the pious 
 JEneas shall anon bestow, and Ascanius, in his prime of life, 
 who never will forget so high an obligation. 
 
 But, subjoins Ascanius, I, whose sole happiness depends on 
 my father's safe return, conjure you, Nisus, by our great do- 
 mestic gods, by the tutelar deity of Assaracus, and the shrines 
 of hoary Vesta, (whatever fortune or confident hope 17 I have, 
 I rest in your own bosoms,) recall my parent, give back his 
 presence ; at his return all our sorrows will disappear. Two 
 goblets of silver will I give of finished work, and rough with 
 embossed figures, which my father won from sacked Arisba ; 18 
 and a pair of tripods, two great talents of gold, a bowl of an- 
 
 16 Hyrtacides, Nisus and Hippocoon are so styled, from their father 
 Hyrtacus, who was a Trojan of Mount Ida. 
 
 17 i. e. of my father's safety. B. 
 
 18 Arisba, a colony of the Mityleneans in Troas, destroyed by the 
 Trojans. 
 
b, ix, 266—306. iENEID, 30j 
 
 tique cast, which Sidonian Dido gave me. But if it shall bo 
 my fortune to be victorious, possess myself of Italy, enjoy the 
 crown, and divide the spoils by lot ; saw you on what steed, 
 in what arms Turnus rolled all in gold ? that very shield and 
 crimson-crested helmet I will choose out from the lot ; prizes, 
 O Nisus, which are already your own. Besides the persons 
 of twelve select matrons my sire shall give, and as many cap- 
 tives of the other sex, and the arms that to them all belong ; 
 besides these, that ground which king Latinus himself pos- 
 sesses. And as for you, idolized boy, whom my age follows 
 in the nearer stages of life, I now receive you with my whole 
 soul, and embrace you for my companion in all events. With- 
 out thee no glory shall be sought by my exploits, whether I 
 am engaged in peace or war ; to thee chiefly I will intrust 
 my acts and counsels. To whom Euryalus thus replies : No 
 day shall evince me unfit for enterprises so heroic ; let fortune 
 fall out prosperous or adverse. But one thing above all fa- 
 vours I of thee implore : I have a mother of Priam's ancient 
 race, whom unhappy neither the land of Ilium, nor the city of 
 king Acestes, could withhold from going along with me. Her 
 now I leave a stranger to this perilous adventure, whatever it 
 is, and without taking farewell ; night, and this right hand of 
 thine, be witness [for me, that it was not for want of duty, 
 but] that I cannot bear a mother's tears : but comfort her for- 
 lorn, I beg, and succour her in her desolation. Let me bear away 
 this hope from thee ; so shall I go with greater intrepidity on 
 all adventures. The Trojans with minds deeply affected shed 
 tears ; above all, comely lulus ; and the image of parental 
 affection touched his soul to the quick. Then thus he addresses 
 [Euryalus] : Expect all that is due to your glorious under- 
 takings. For that mother of thine shall be mine, and only the 
 name Creiisa shall be wanting ; nor small gratitude awaits 
 her for giving birth to such a son, whatever fortune may at- 
 tend the deed. I swear by this head of mine, by which my 
 father before me was wont to [swear], whatever I promise to 
 yourself, if you return in safety, and the event be prosperous, 
 the same shall be made good to your mother and kindred. 
 Thus weeping over him he speaks ; at the same time divests 
 his shoulder of his gilded sword, which Cretan Lycaon with 
 marvellous art had made, and dexterously fitted to the ivory 
 sheath. On Nisus, Mnestheus bestows the skin and spoil of 
 
310 ^NEID, b. ix. 307— 338. 
 
 a grim shaggy lion ; trusty Alethes exchanges with him his 
 helmet. Forthwith they march thus armed ; whom the whole 
 body of the nobles, both young and old, with ardent prayers 
 accompany in their way to the gates ; and the comely lulus 
 too, endued with a soul and manly concern beyond his years, 
 gave them many instructions to carry to his sire; but the 
 winds disperse them all, and fruitless give them to the clouds 
 away. 19 
 
 Having set out, they overpass the trenches, and amidst the 
 shades of night advance to the hostile camps ; destined, how- 
 ever, first to be 20 the death of many. In loose disorder they 
 beheld bodies under the influence of wine and sleep, stretched 
 along the grass, chariots with their poles erect 21 along the 
 banks, men between the traces and the wheels ; arms together 
 lying, together wine. First the son of Hyrtacus thus spoke : 
 The right hand, Euryalus, must be boldly exerted ; now the oc- 
 casion itself invites us. Here lies our way : watch you, and keep 
 guard that no hand be able to lift itself against us from behind. 
 These fields I will render waste, and lead thee along a broad 
 pathway. This said, he suppresses his speech ; at the same 
 time with his sword attacks proud Rhamnes; who, as it 
 chanced, raised high on lofty carpets, was snoring forth sleep 
 from his whole breast ; at once a king himself, and an augur 
 in highest favour with king Turnus : but not by his augur's 
 art could he ward off the stroke of death. Three servants by 
 his side lying at random among the arms, and the armour- 
 bearer of Remus, and (whom he found beneath the very horses' 
 feet) the charioteer he stabs, and with his sword cuts off their 
 reclining necks; then from the master himself takes off the 
 head, and leaves the trunk gulping with blood; in purple 
 gore the reeking earth and beds are drenched. Add to these 
 Lamyrus, Lamus, and young Serranus, who, of distinguished 
 beauty, had been much engaged that night in play, and was 
 lying overpowered in every limb with the fulness of the god ; 
 happy if without intermission he had equalled that play with 
 the night, and lengthened it out till day. As a famished lion 
 
 19 Because both the messengers perished by the way. B. 
 
 20 " Destined to be." This sense of " futurus," and similar participles, 
 is very common in Virgil. " Inimica " seems to contain the notion that 
 the camps would prove fatal to themselves. B. 
 
 21 The horses being unharnessed. B. 
 
3. ix. 339— 370. ^ENEID. 311 
 
 making wild havoc amidst a sheep-fold, (for ravenous hunger 
 prompts him on,) grinds and tears the flock, feeble and dumb 
 with fear, and gnashes his bloody jaws : nor less was the car- 
 nage made by Euryalus : he too all on fire rages throughout, 
 and in the middle falls upon a vulgar nameless throng. Fadus 
 and Hebesus, Rhoetus and Abaris, not dreaming of their fate ; 
 Rhoetus broad awake, and viewing all ; but who, for fear, was 
 hiding himself behind a capacious jar ; in whose opposed 
 breast now close at hand he plunges the whole blade as he 
 rises, and withdrew it amidst abundant death. He vomits up 
 the purple stream of life, and in death renders back his wine 
 mingled with blood. The other, with ardour at [the success 
 of his] stratagem, presses on, and now was advancing towards 
 the social bands of Messapus, where he saw the fire just in 
 its extremity dying away, and the horses in order tied crop- 
 ping the grass ; when Nisus thus briefly says, (for he per 
 ceived that they were hurried on by too eager love of slaughter,; 
 Let us desist ; for the unfriendly light approaches. We have 
 glutted ourselves with vengeance to the full: a passage is 
 made through our foes. Many arms of the heroes [slain], of 
 solid silver elaborately wrought, they leave behind, and, to- 
 gether with them, goblets and beautiful carpets. Euryalus 
 [seized] the rich trappings of Rhamnes, and the belts with 
 golden bosses ; presents which opulent Caedicus of old had 
 sent to Tiburtine Remulus, 22 when in absence he plighted with 
 him a league of hospitality (he at death bequeaths the same 
 to his grandson to possess ; and after his death the Rutulians, 
 masters of the field and booty) : 23 these he seizes, and adjusts 
 to his valiant shoulders, but in vain. 24 Then he puts on the 
 well-fitting helmet of Messapus, with plumes adorned. They 
 quit the camp, and take possession of safe ground. 
 
 Meanwhile three hundred horse, all shielded, with Volscens 25 
 
 22 Remulus, a chief of Tibur, whose arms were seized by the Rutulians, 
 and became part of the plunder which Euryalus obtained. 
 
 23 We must understand, "gave them to Rhamnes." Wagner with 
 reason considers this line spurious. B. 
 
 24 " Nequidquam " must be joined with " aptat," not with " fortibus," 
 as is remarked by Servius. Compare vss. 312 sq. B. 
 
 25 Volscens, a Latin chief, who attacked Nisus and Euryalus as they 
 returned from the plunder of the Rutulians. He killed Euryalus, but 
 *<vas himself immediately slain by Nisus. 
 
312 J3NEID. b. rx. 371— 404 
 
 at their head, despatched before from the city of Latinus, 
 (while the rest of the legion in battle-array slowly on the plains 
 advance.) were marching up, and bore an answer to king 
 Turnus. And now they were approaching the camp, and 
 just entering the rampart, when at a distance they espy them 
 turning away on the left-hand path ; and in the glimmering 
 shade of night the helmet betrayed the unwary Euryalus, and 
 opposed to the beams of the moon, shot a gleamy light. Scarce- 
 ly was the object seen, Yolscens from the troop exclaims 
 aloud : Stand, fellows ; what motive brings you hither ? or 
 who are ye thus in armour ? or whither are ye bound ? They 
 aimed not at making a reply ; but hastened their flight into 
 the woods, and trusted to the night. On each side the horse- 
 men plant themselves at the known passes, and encircle every 
 avenue with a guard. There was a wood wide overgrown 
 with stiff underwood and gloomy holms, which thick bram- 
 bles had choked up on every side ; here and there a path led 
 through hidden tracks. The thick shade of boughs and cum- 
 brous booty embarrass Euryalus, and fear misleads him from 
 the straight way. Nisus retires ; and now unawares had 
 escaped from the foe, and from the lakes which in after times 
 were called Albanian from Alba's name : then king Latinus 
 had there his lofty stables. Soon as he stopped, and for his 
 absent friend looked back in vain, [he exclaimed :] Unfortu- 
 nate Euryalus, in what quarter have I left thee ? or whither 
 shall I follow thee ? Again measuring back the whole per- 
 plexed path of the mazy wood, he at once with accurate sur- 
 vey retraces his steps, and ranges over the silent thickets : he 
 hears the steeds, he hears the bustling noise, and signals of the 
 pursuers. Nor long time intervened, when a shout assails 
 his ears, and he sees Euryalus, whom the whole band are 
 now dragging along with sudden tumultuous uproar, betrayed 
 and intercepted by the treachery of the place and night, and 
 struggling hard in vain. What shall he do ? by what power, 
 by what arm shall he attempt the youth to rescue ? shall he, 
 resolute on death, fling himself into the midst of his foes, and 
 through wounds open a quick passage to a glorious death ? 
 Straight with his contracted arm brandishing a javelin, thus 
 to the moon on high with eyes upturned he addresses his 
 prayer : Do thou, O goddess, do thou propitious aid my enter- 
 
B. rx. 405— 440. -ENE1D. 313 
 
 prise, thou glory of the stars, 26 and daughter of Latona, guard- 
 ian of the groves : if ever my father Hyrtacus for me brought 
 offerings to thy altars ; if ever I added to the number by my 
 svlvan spoils, or suspended any in thy vaulted ceiling, or af- 
 fixed to thy sacred roof; suffer me to confound this congre- 
 gated rout, and guide my weapons through the air. He said, 
 and straining at once with his whole body, hurls the steel. 
 The flying spear cuts the shades of night, and lights on the 
 back of Sulmo, who stood opposite to him ; and there is 
 shivered, and with the splintered wood pierces through his 
 vitals. Down he falls cold [in death], discharging from his 
 breast the warm stream of life, and with long sobs beats his 
 flanks. They throw their eyes around different ways. Lo, 
 he, animated the more with this, poised from the tip of his 
 ear 27 another weapon, while they are bustling about. The 
 whizzing spear pierced through both the temples of Tagus, 
 and warmed in his transfixed brain stuck fast. Yolscens 
 furious storms, nor any where discerns the owner of the wea- 
 pon, or one on whom in his burning rage he may wreak his 
 vengeance. But you, meanwhile, he says, with your warm 
 blood, shall pay the forfeit of both : at the same time with 
 sword unsheathed he rushed on Euryalus. Then indeed in 
 terrible agony Nisus frantic screams aloud ; nor longer was 
 able to conceal himself in darkness, or to support such deep 
 distress : On me, on me, here am I who did the deed, O turn 
 your swords on me, Rutulians : mine is all the offence : he 
 neither durst nor could do aught : this heaven and conscious 
 stars I call to witness : only he loved his unhappy friend too 
 much. Thus he spoke : but the sword with force driven 
 home pierces through his sides, and bursts his snow-white 
 breast. Euryalus is overwhelmed in death, the blood flows 
 down his beauteous limbs, and on his shoulders the drooping 
 neck reclines : as when a purple flower, cut down by the 
 plough, pines away in death, or the poppies on their weary 
 necks drop down their heads, when with rain they chance to 
 be overcharged. But Nisus rushes into the midst of them, 
 and seeks Yolscens alone through all : on Yolscens alone he 
 fixes his attention ; whom (Nisus) the foes encircling close, 
 
 26 So Hor. Carm. Sec. 1, " Phoebe, lucidum coeli decus." Moschus, 
 vii. 2, Kvavkaq Upbv (pi\e vvktoq dyak/uia. B. 
 27 . Virgil expresses the vapd x ctlTav pfyai of Eurip. Hippol. 220. B. 
 
314 ^NEID. b. ix. 441— 478. 
 
 this way and that way drive off. He not less keenly presses 
 on, and whirls his flashing sword, till he plunged it into the 
 mouth, full opposite, of the bawling Rutulian, and dying, 
 bereft his foe of life. Then covered with wounds, he flung 
 himself on his liftless friend, and there at length in peaceful 
 death reposed. Kappy pair ! if my verses can aught avail, 
 no day shall . ever erase you from the records of time ; while 
 the race of iEneas shall inhabit the immovable Capitoline 
 rock, and a Roman monarch hold the empire [of the world]. 
 
 The victorious Butulians, masters of the prey and spoils, 
 in mournful procession bore lifeless Yolscens to the camp. 
 Nor in the camp was the mourning less, when they found 
 Rhamnes pale in duath, and so many chiefs slain by one 
 slaughter, and Serrar.us, and Numa. There is a great con- 
 course about the bodies, about the expiring warriors, the 
 ground, recent with warm slaughter, and rivulets full of foam- 
 ing blood. They recognise the spoils, and among themselves 
 Messapus' shining helmet, and the trappings with much sweat 
 regained. 
 
 And now early Am ora, leaving Tithonus' saffron-coloured 
 bed, sprinkled the earth with new-born light ; the sun having 
 now shed his beams [on the world], and objects by his light 
 being again revealed; Turnus rouses his men to arms, him- 
 self with arms begirt around, and each leader rallies to the 
 battle his troops arrayed in brass ; and 'by various rumours 
 they stimulate their martial rage. Even the heads of Nisus 
 and Euryalus, a piteous spectacle, on spears erect they in the 
 front affix, and with vast acclamation follow. On the left 
 side of the walls the hardy Trojans opposed to them their 
 host (for the right is bounded by the river) ; and they main- 
 tain their ample trenches, and on their lofty turrets mournful 
 stand, as soon as the heads of the youths fixed up to view, 
 but too well known to the unhappy spectators, distilling black 
 gore, excited [their grief]. 
 
 Meanwhile the winged messenger Fame, flying through the 
 affrighted city, rushes along, and glides to the ears of the 
 mother of Euryalus ; then suddenly, with misery over- 
 whelmed, the vital warmth forsook her bones. The weaving 
 instruments dropt from her hands, and her labours were 
 unravelled. The hapless woman flies out, and with female 
 shrieks, tearing her hair, frantic takes her way with speed to 
 
B. ix. 479-511. ^ENEID. 315 
 
 the walls and nearest bands. Not of men, or of darts, or of 
 danger, is she heedful: then with these complaints she fills 
 the sky: Is this you 28 I see, Euryalus? art thou that late 
 solace for my old age ? Cruel one ! couldst thou leave me all 
 alone ? and to thy wretched mother didst thou not allow ac- 
 cess to address to thee her last farewell, when on such peril- 
 ous adventures sent ? Alas ! in a strange land, given a prey 
 to Latian dogs and fowls, thou liest ! nor I, thy own mother, 
 laid thee out for thy funeral obsequies, nor closed thy eyes, 
 nor bathed thy wounds, covering thee with the robe, which 
 for thee in haste I forwarded both night and day, and with 
 the loom solaced my aged cares. Whither shall I go in pur- 
 suit of thee ? or what land now holds thy limbs, thy mangled 
 members, and lacerated corse ? Is this all of thee, my son, 
 thou bringest me back ? is this what I have followed both by 
 land and sea ? Pierce me, O Rutulians, (if you have any 
 tenderness,) at me hurl all your darts ; me first cut off with 
 the sword : or thou, great father of the gods, compassionate 
 me, and with thy bolts thrust down to Tartarus this detested 
 head, since I can by no other means shake off cruel life. By 
 these doleful lamentations the minds [of the Trojans] are 
 deeply struck, and a sorrowful groan is heaved from every 
 breast ; quite broken and benumbed are all their powers for 
 battle. Idaeus and Actor, by the direction of Ilioneus and 
 deeply afflicted lulus, seize her while she is thus inflaming the 
 general grief, and in their arms bear her back to her dwelling. 
 Meanwhile the trumpet from afar, with its shrill-sounding 
 brass, chided with dreadful peal. 29 Shouts follow, and heaven 
 echoes back the sound. The Yolscians with uniformity ad- 
 vance, a testudo being formed. 3a They prepare both to fill up 
 the trenches and demolish the rampart. Some explore access, 
 and by scaling-ladders [seek] to mount the walls, where the 
 troops are but thin, and where, not so thick of men, the cir- 
 cling band is seen through. On the other hand, the Trojans, 
 practised by long war to defend their walls, poured on them 
 every kind of missile weapons, and pushed them down with 
 
 28 " Hunc " is used for " talem." See Pierius. B. 
 
 29 " Increpuit " is elegantly used. Servius well explains it thus : " ct 
 insouuit, et segmtiam increpuit." B. 
 
 80 Cf. Sallust, Jug. 94, " turn vero cohortatus milites. et ipse extra Val- 
 ium egressus, testudine acta, succedere." B. 
 
316 ^ENEID. b. ix. 512—543 i 
 
 sturdy poles. They rolled down rocks too of destructive 
 weight, trying whether they could break through their fenced 
 battalion : while [the Rutulians] notwithstanding, under the 
 close fence of their shields, are willing to sustain all dangers, 
 Nor now are they able to stand the shock ; for, where thick 
 embodied ranks press on the attack, the Trojans roll and hurl 
 down an enormous pile, which made wide havoc among the 
 Rutulians, and broke the fence-works of their shields. Nor 
 care the bold Rutulians longer to contend in covered fight, but 
 by missile weapons strive to beat them from the rampart. In 
 another quarter Mezentius, horrid to be seen, brandished a 
 Tuscan pine, and hurls smoky firebrands. Again, Messapus, 
 a horseman brave, the progeny of Neptune, makes a breach 
 in the rampart, and calls for ladders against the walls. 
 
 Ye [sacred Nine, and thou], Calliope, [in chief,] 31 aid me 
 while I sing what desolations, what deaths there Turnus then 
 with the sword effected, what hero each sent down to Pluto ; 
 and trace with me the vast outlines of the war : for ye, O 
 goddesses, both remember, and can rehearse them. 
 
 Of height prodigious, and with lofty communications, 32 
 there stood a tower, commodious in its situation,, which with 
 their utmost efforts all the Latins strove to storm, and with 
 the full extent of their resources to overthrow : the Trojans, 
 on the other hand, defended it with stones, and flung darts in 
 thick volleys through the hollow loop-holes. Turnus in the 
 foremost tossed a blazing brand, and to the sides [of the tower] 
 fixed the flame, which by the wind diffusely spread, seized the 
 boards, and to the pillars clung until they were consumed. 33 
 [The Trojans,] all aghast, raised a fearful bustle within, and 
 shelter from the disaster sought in vain. While they crowd 
 together, and retreat into that part which is free from the con- 
 tagious ruin, then suddenly the tower, with the weight [over- 
 burthened], tumbled town, and with the crash all heaven thun- 
 ders : down to the ground half dead they come, an immense 
 pile of ruins following, pierced with their own weapons, and 
 
 31 I have retained Davidson's translation of this bold syllepsis, for which, 
 as Servius remarks, correct language would require, " vos Musae, aut tu, 
 Calliope." B. 
 
 32 i. e. from the walls. 
 
 33 Anthon renders " partially consumed." But the other sense seems 
 borne out by Silius i. 363, " pluteis Vulcanus exercet adesis." B. 
 
B. lx. 544— 581. J3NEID. 317 
 
 their breasts transfixed with the iron -pointed wood. Helenor 
 alone and Lycus with great difficulty escaped : whereof the 
 elder Helenor (whom the slave Licymnia by a stolen embrace 
 had borne to the Lydian king, and sent to Troy in forbidden 
 arms) was lightly armed with a naked sword, and inglorious 
 with his escutcheon blank. And as soon as he saw himselt 
 amidst Turnus' thousands, and on either hand around him 
 ranged the Latin troops ; as a beast of chase, which, hemmed 
 in by a thick band of huntsmen, rages against their darts, wil- 
 fully flings herself on death, and with a bound springs on the 
 hunters' spears ; just so the youth, certain to die, rushes on 
 his foes, and where he sees the darts thickest, advances. But 
 Lycus, far more swift of foot, through foes and through arms, 
 by flight reaches the walls, and strives with his hand to grasp 
 their high summits, and reach the arms of his friends : whom 
 victorious Turnus at once with swift career and dart pursuing, 
 thus upbraids : Fool, didst thou hope thou wouldst be able to 
 escape our hands ? At the same time he gripes him hanging, 
 and with a great fragment of the wall pulls him down : as 
 when Jove's armour-bearer, soaring on high, hath in his 
 crooked talons raised aloft either a hare, or snow-white swan ; 
 or, sacred to Mars, the wolf hath snatched from the folds a 
 lambkin, by the dam with many a bleating sought. The shout 
 from every quarter rises. They fall on, and with heaps of 
 earth fill up the trenches ; others to the battlements toss the 
 blazing brands. With a rock, and vast fragment of a moun- 
 tain, Ilioneus overthrows Luceti us,' approaching to the gate, 
 and armed with flames ; Liger Emathion, Asylas Chorinseus, 
 the one skilled in the javelin, the other in the far-deceiving 
 arrow ; Ceeneus [overthrows] Ortygius, Turnus the victorious 
 Casneus ; with Itys, Clonius, Dioxippus, Promulus, Sagaris, 
 and Idas standing in defence of the lofty turrets : Capys 
 Privernus. Him the spear of Themilla at first had grazed ; 
 [on which he,] infatuate, throwing away his shield, applied 
 his hand to the wound ; up to him then the arrow glides on 
 its wings, and to the left side his hand was nailed : and deep 
 lodged within, with a deadly wound, it burst the breathing 
 engines 34 of the soul. In arms illustrious the son of Arcens 35 
 
 * 4 l 'Dennitio pulmonum, qui dicuntur a spirando." Servius. B. 
 85 Arcens, a Sicilian, who permitted his son to accompany iEneas into 
 Italy, where he was killed by Mezentius 
 
318 ^NEID. b. ix. 582—612. 
 
 stood, clad in an embroidered chlamys, and shining in Iberian 
 purple, of distinguished form ; whom his father Arcens sent, 
 in the grove of Mars bred up about the streams of Simaethus, 36 
 where, fat [with offerings] and placable, the altar of Palicus 37 
 stands. Mezentius himself, having laid aside his arms, thrice 
 whirling around his head the thong, discharged a hissing 
 sling, and with the half-melted lead clove his temples asunder 
 as he stood full opposite to him, and stretched him at his full 
 length on a large space of the sandy plain. Then for the first 
 time in war Ascanius is said to have directed a fleet arrow, 
 having been wont before only to fright the fugitive beasts of 
 chase, and by his hand to have prostrated brave Numanus, 
 whose surname was Remulus, and who had to wife the 
 younger sister of Turnus, in wedlock lately joined. Before 
 the van, bawling aloud [whatever first occurred, whether] 
 decent or indecent to hear, and in heart puffed up with his new 
 regal honour, he stalked, and thus with vast clamour made 
 his vaunt : Ye Phrygians, twice enslaved, are you not ashamed 
 to be a second time shut up by blockade and entrenchments, 
 and to screen yourselves from death within your walls ? Lo, 
 these are they, who by force of arms claim to themselves our 
 brides ! What god, what madness drove you to Italy ? They 
 are not the sons of Atreus you have here, nor the crafty- 
 tongued Ulysses ; but a race hardy from their original. Our 
 infants soon as born to the rivers we first convey, and in the 
 rigid icy stream we harden. In the chase our boys are keen, 
 and harass 38 the woods : 'their pastime is to manage steeds, and 
 dart the arrow from the bow. Our youth again of labour 
 patient, and to frugality inured, either by the harrow subdue 
 the ground, or batter towns in war. Our whole lifetime is 
 worn out in arms, and with the inverted spear we goad the 
 backs of our steers ; nor does slow age impair our strength of 
 mind, or alter our vigour. Our grey hairs we with the helmet 
 
 56 Simaethus, (Giaretti,) a river of Sicily which falls into the sea be- 
 tween Catana and Leontini. In its neighbourhood the gods Paiici were 
 born, and particularly worshipped. 
 
 ** As the Paiici (sons of Jove by the nymph iEtna, or the muse Tha- 
 lia) were two in number, we should perhaps read " Palicum " with 
 Cerda. I myself prefer u Palicis," which might be more easily corrupted 
 from ignorance of this use of the dative. B. 
 
 ** For this use of " fatigare," compare Val. Flacc. lii. 26. So " fatigat 
 Hebrum," Silius ii. 74. 
 
H. ix. 612— 644. JENEID. 319 
 
 press ; and still 'tis our delight to sweep together fresh booty, 
 and to live on plunder. Your very dress is embroidered with 
 saffron-hues and gaudy purple ; indolence is your heart's de- 
 light ; to indulge in dances you love ; your vests have sleeves, 
 and your mitres ribands. O Phrygian women, surely, for 
 Phrygian men you cannot be ! go range along the lofty tops of 
 Dindymus, 39 where the pipe sounds the discordant 40 note to 
 you accustomed. The timbrels and Berecynthian flute 41 of 
 the Idaean mother Cybele invite you : leave arms to men, and 
 from the sword refrain. Him blustering thus in words, and 
 proclaiming horrid indignities, Ascanius could not bear ; and, 
 fronting him full, on the horse-hair string extended his arrow, 
 and drawing both his arms to a wide distance, paused, first 
 suppliant addressing Jove in vows : Almighty Jove, assist my 
 daring enterprise. So to thy temples will I bring thee solemn 
 offerings, and before thy altars present a bullock with a gilded 
 forehead of snowy whiteness, and bearing his head of equal 
 stature with his dam, who already butts with his horn, and 
 spurns the sand with his feet. The sire gave ear, and from a 
 serene quarter of the sky thundered on the left. At the same 
 time twangs the deadly bow ; and whizzing dreadful flies the 
 drawn-back arrow, and passes through the head of the Rutu- 
 lian, and with the steel point transfixes his hollow temples. 
 Go, insult valour in haughty terms. To the Rutulians your 
 twice subdued Phrygians send back this answer. Ascanius 
 said no more. The Trojans second him with acclamation, 
 ring with joyous applauses, and extol his valour to the stars. 
 
 In the ethereal region fair-haired Apollo was then by 
 chance surveying from above the Ausonian troops and city, 
 seated on a cloud, and thus he bespeaks victorious lulus : Go 
 on, increase in early valour, O boy ! Such is the pathway to 
 the stars, O descendant of the gods, and from whom gods are 
 to descend. Under the line of Assaracus all wars by fate or- 
 dained in justice shall subside ; nor is Troy capable of con- 
 taining thee. At the same time, having pronounced these 
 
 s * Dindymus, a mountain of Galatia in Asia Minor, where Cybele was 
 worshipped. 
 
 40 Literally, " its twofold tone." " Biforis " simply means that it had 
 but two perforations. B. 
 
 ** These flutes were formed of box, B. 
 
320 JENEID. b. tx. 645—670 
 
 words, lie throws himself from the lofty sky, divides the whis- 
 pering gales, and seeks Ascanius ; then in the features of his 
 face he is transformed into aged Butes. To Dardanian An- 
 chises this man had formerly been armour-bearer, and faithful 
 guardian at the gate : then father ^ZEneas assigned him the 
 companion of Ascanius. Thus marched Apollo, in every thing 
 resembling the aged sire, both in voice and complexion, in 
 silver locks, and arms fierce with rattling din : and in these 
 words he addresses the ardent lulus : Offspring of .ZEneas, let 
 it suffice that by thy shafts Numanus hath fallen, thyself un- 
 hurt : to thee this first glory great Apollo vouchsafes, and 
 envies not thy similar feats of arms. For what remains, O 
 *oy, abstain 42 from fight. This said, Apollo dropped his hu- 
 man appearance, in the midst of the interview, and into thin 
 air far vanished out of sight. The Dardanian chiefs knew 
 the god and his divine shafts, and in his flight perceived his 
 rattling quiver. Therefore, by the mandate and divine au- 
 thority of Phoebus, they restrain Ascanius greedy for the 
 fight : themselves once more to the combat advance, and on 
 apparent dangers throw their lives. Along the battlements 
 round the whole compass of the walls their acclamations run ; 
 they bend the rapid bows, and whirl the slings. All the 
 ground is strewn with darts ; then shields and hollow helmets 
 in the conflict ring : a fierce engagement ensues : with such 
 fury as a shower by the influence of the rainy Kids 43 arising 
 from the west lashes the ground ; or as thick as storms of hail 
 come down headlong into the floods, when Jupiter in the 
 south wind tremendous hurls down a watery tempest, and 
 bursts the hollow clouds in the sky. 
 
 Pandarus and Bitias, sprung from Alcanor of Mount Ida, 
 whom sylvan Hiera trained up in Jupiter's sacred grove, 
 youths tall as their native firs and mountains, on their arms 
 relying, throw open the gate which by their general's com- 
 mand was intrusted to their charge, and from the ramparts 
 voluntarily challenge the foe. Themselves within, on right 
 and left, before the turrets stand, armed with steel, and their 
 towering heads with plumes adorned: as about the crystal 
 
 42 Homer II. A. 422, 7ro\efiov d' a.7ro7ravao 7rdfX7rav. B. 
 
 43 These stars rise in October, and are always atttended with rain. 
 They are seated in the constellation Auriga, See Servius. " B. 
 
*. ix. 680— 714. ^ENEID. 321 
 
 streams, whether on the banks of Po, or by the pleasant 
 Adige, 44 two aerial oaks together rise, and shoot up to heaven 
 their unshorn heads, and nod with their towering tops. The 
 Kutulians, soon as they saw a passage opened, rush in. 
 Forthwith Quercens, Aquicolus graceful in arms, and Tmarus 
 in mind precipitant, and martial Haemon, with all their troops, 
 either routed turned their backs, or at the very threshold of 
 the gate laid down their lives. Then the hostile minds 
 [within] grow more fierce with rage; and thither now the 
 Trojans flock in thick embodied troops, and dare to encounter 
 hand to hand, and make sallies 45 [on the foe]. To Turn us the 
 leader, in a different quarter raving, and throwing the troops 
 into disorder, intelligence is brought that the enemy rages 
 with fresh slaughter, and had set the gates wide open. He 
 *• quits his present enterprise, and stirred with hideous rage, 
 rushes forward to the Trojan gate, and the haughty brothers ; 
 and first Antiphates, (for he presented himself the first,) the 
 spurious issue of noble Sarpedon by a Theban mother, with a 
 javelin hurled he overthrows. The Italian shaft 46 flies 
 through the thin air, and, piercing the stomach, sinks deep 
 into his breast ; the gaping aperture of the wound emits a 
 foamy tide of black blood, and in his transfixed lungs the steel 
 is warmed. Then Merops, Erymas, and Aphidnus with his 
 hand he stretches on the plain ; next Bitias, flashing fire from 
 his eyes, and in soul outrageous; not by a javelin, for to the 
 javelin Jhe would not have resigned his life ; but a brandished 
 fiery dart loud hissing flew, like a bolt of thunder shot, which 
 neither the two bulls' hides [which formed his shield], nor his 
 trusty corslet with double scales of gold, were able to sus- 
 tain : his enormous limbs fall prostrate on the ground. Earth 
 gives a groan, and over him his buckler thunders loud. As on 
 Baia's 47 Euboean shore there falls at times a rocky pile, which 
 before built of enormous bulk they in the ocean place ; thus 
 tumbling headlong it draws ruin with it, and dashed against the 
 shallows, sinks to its rest quite down : the seas are all embroiled, 
 
 44 Adige, the ancient Athesis, a river of Cisalpine Gaul ; it rises in the 
 Rhoetian A.ps, and falls into the Adriatic. 
 
 43 Such is the sense of " procurrere." See Drakenb. on Silius, vii, 
 566. B. 
 
 46 Literally " cornel-wood." B. 
 
 47 Baia, a city of Campania, on a small bay west of Naples, and oppo- 
 site Puteoli, said to have been founded by Baius, a companion of Ulysses 
 
322 JENEID. b. ix. 714—747 
 
 and the black sands are heaved on high ; then at the roaring 
 noise highProchyta 48 trembles, and Inarime's hard bed, thrown 
 on Typhoeus by Jove's command. Here Mars potent in arms 
 inspired the Latins with additional courage and prowess, and 
 deep in their breast plies his sharp goad ; and on the Trojans 
 he threw flight and grim terror. [The Latins] from every 
 quarter gather, now that opportunity of a battle is offered, 
 and the warrior god hath fallen upon their minds. Pandarus, 
 soon as he perceives his brother stretched at his length, in 
 what situation their fortune stands, and what an unexpected 
 turn is given to their affairs, hurls the gate with vast force on 
 the turned hinge, shoving it along with his broad shoulders, and 
 leaves many of his friends shut out from the city in the hard 
 combat'; but others with himself he encloses, and admits them as 
 they pour forward : infatuate ! who did not mark the Rutulian 
 prince amidst the troops rushing upon him, or eagerly con- 
 fined him within the city, as a hideous tiger among the feeble 
 flocks. Instantly an unusual light flashed from his eyes, and 
 his arms sounded dreadful ; his flaming crests tremble on his 
 head, and from his shield he gleamy lightnings darts. The 
 Trojans suddenly discover his detested face and hideous limbs, 
 and are confounded. Then mighty Pandarus springs out, 
 and, inflamed with rage for his brother's death, addresses him 
 aloud : Not Amata's palace thy promised dowry this, nor is it 
 the heart of Ardea that contains Turnus within his native 
 walls. The hostile camps you see ; there is no possibility of 
 your escaping hence. Turnus with mind sedate smiling on 
 him [says] : Begin, if any courage be in thy soul, and hand 
 to hand with me engage ; to Priam you shall report that heie 
 too you found an Achilles. He said. The other, exerting 
 his utmost force, hurls at him a spear rough with knots and 
 the green rind. The air received the wound ; Saturnian 
 Juno interposing turned it aside, and the spear fixes in the 
 gate. But not so this weapon, which my right hand wields 
 with might, shall you escape ; for not [so feeble is 49 ] he who 
 
 48 Prochyta, (Procida,) an island of Campania, between the island of 
 Inarime and the coast. Inarime, (Ischia,) an island near the coast of 
 Campania, with a mountain, under which Jupiter is feigned to have con- 
 fined the giant Tiphoeus. 
 
 49 "Is" is here used for "talis," as " hunc" for " talem " in x& 
 481. B. 
 
fc. ix. 748-781. ^NEID. 323 
 
 owns the weapon, or who inflicts the wound. Thus he said ; 
 and rises to his sword lifted high, and in the middle between 
 the temples, his forehead with the blade cleaves asunder, and 
 [pierces] his beardless cheeks with a hideous wound. A sound 
 ensues ; with his mighty weight earth receives a shock. In 
 death he stretches on the ground his stiffening limbs, and 
 arms bespattered with blood and brains ; and on this side and 
 that side his head in equal parts from cither shoulder hung. 
 In tumultuous consternation the Trojans, turning their backs, 
 fly hither and thither ; and had the conqueror immediately 
 conceived the thought of tearing away the bolts with his 
 hands, and admitting his comrades by the gates, that day 
 both to the war and [Trojan] race had been the last: but 
 fury and mad desire of slaughter drove him on the foes now 
 full in his view. First Phalaris and Gyges (having smitten 
 on the ham) 50 he catches up; then seizing their spears, darts 
 them into the backs of the fugitives : Juno supplies him with 
 force and courage. He joins Halys their companion [in death], 
 and Phegeus, having transfixed his shield ; next Alcander and 
 Halius, Noemon and Prytanis on the walls, unapprized [of his 
 admission], and rousing the martial spirit [of their friends]. 
 Lynceus advancing against him, and calling on his friends, 
 he from the rampart dexterously with his glittering sword 
 assails, straining every nerve : his head, together with the 
 helmet, at one close blow struck off, was laid far off; the next 
 [attacks and kills] Amycus, that destroyer of the savage kind, 
 than whom no one was more skilful to anoint 51 the dart, and 
 arm the steel with poison ; and Clytius, a son of iEolus, and 
 Creteus, a friend to the Muses; Creteus, the Muses' com- 
 panion, who in the song and lyre still took delight, and to 
 adapt poetic numbers to the strings : of steeds, and arms, and 
 combats of heroes he for ever sang. 
 
 At length the Trojan leaders, Mnestheus and fierce Se- 
 restus, apprized of the slaughter of their troops, assemble; 
 and perceive their friends dispersed and the enemy within the 
 city. And Mnestheus calls : Whither, whither next bend ye 
 
 50 The nature of this wound shows that he was flying with the rest, as 
 \nthon observes. Cf. Ovid. Met. viii. 364, " succiso liquerunt poplite 
 acrvi." B. 
 
 51 i. e. to poison. So " ungere " is used in Hor. Od. ii. 1. Lucan 
 ii. 266. B. 
 
324 ^ENEID. *. ix. 782—819. 
 
 your flight ? what other walls, what other fortifications have 
 you now beyond this ? Shall one man, O citizens, by ramparts 
 every way hemmed in, spread such vast havoc through the 
 city with impunity ? shall he despatch to Pluto so many of 
 the most illustrious of our youths ? Can neither shame nor 
 pity towards your unhappy country, your ancient gods, and 
 great .ZEneas, touch your recreant breasts ? Fired by these 
 words they are fortified [with courage], and in a close body 
 stand firm. Turnus begins by slow degrees to retreat from 
 the fight, and make towards the river, and that part [of the 
 wall] which is bounded by the stream. So much the more 
 keenly the Trojans press upon him with loud acclaim, ana 
 form a clustering band : as with annoying darts a troop [of 
 hunters] press on after a fierce lion ; while the appalled savage, 
 surly, louring stern, flinches back; nor rage, nor courage, 
 suffer him to fly ; nor can he, for darts and men, (though fain 
 indeed he would,) make head against them ; just so Turnus 
 hovering in suspense backward withdraws his lingering steps ; 
 and his soul with rage tumultuous boils. Even then twice 
 had he attacked the enemy in the centre ; twice along the 
 walls he chased the troops in confusion routed. But [issuing] 
 from the camp in haste, the whole host against him alone 
 combine ; nor dares Saturnian Juno supply him with strength 
 against them, for Jupiter sent down from heaven aerial Iris, 
 bearing no mild mandates to his sister, unless Turnus quit the 
 lofty walls of the Trojans. Therefore, neither with his shield 
 nor arm is the youth able to withstand so great a shock : he is 
 so overwhelmed on all hands with showers of darts. With 
 incessant clang the helmet round his hollow temples rings, 
 and the solid arms of brass are riven with battering stones ; 
 from his head the plumes are struck off; nor is his buckler's 
 boss sufficient to support the blows : The Trojans, and thun- 
 dering Mnestheus himself at their head, with spears redouble 
 thrust on thrust. Then all over his body the sweat comes 
 trickling down, and pours a black clammy tide ; nor has he 
 power to breathe; languid, panting heave his weary limbs. 
 Then at length in all his arms with a bound he flung himself 
 headlong into the river. He, expanding his yellow bosom, 
 received him at coming up, and upbore him on his peaceful 
 streams ; and, having washed away his stains of blood, re- 
 turned him joyous to his friends. 
 
8. x. 1-28. -ENE1D. 32. 
 
 BOOK X. 
 
 In the Tenth Book, Jupiter calls a council of the gods, and attempts in Tain 
 a reconciliation between Juno and Venus, who favour the opposite parties. 
 The fight is renewed. JEneas returns and joins battle with the Latins, 
 when Pallas is killed by Turnus, who is saved from the avenging hand of 
 iEneas by the interposition of Juno. 
 
 Meanwhile the palace of all-powerful heaven is opened, 
 and the parent of the gods, the sovereign of men, summons a 
 council into the starry mansion, whence, from aloft, he views 
 all lands, the Trojan camp, and Latin nations. In the abode 
 with its two-valved gates, they take their seats ; Jove himself 
 begins : Ye high celestials, why is your purpose backward 
 turned ; and why so fiercely do ye with hostile minds con- 
 tend? It was my will that with the Trojans Italy should not 
 engage in war : what means this dissension against my prohi- 
 bition ? what jealousy hath prompted these or those to pursue 
 hostilities, and rouse the sword? The just time for fight will 
 come, (anticipate it not,) when hereafter fierce Carthage shall 
 on Roman towers pour down mighty ruin, and the opened 
 Alps: then shall leave be given you to fight with mutual 
 animosities, then to plunder. 1 At present forbear, and cheer- 
 fully ratify the destined league. Thus Jupiter briefly said ; 
 but bright Venus on the other hand not briefly replies : O 
 Sire, O eternal power of gods and men ! (for what other sub- 
 sists whom now we can implore?) seest thou how the Rutu- 
 lians insult, and how Turnus on his steed conspicuous is hur- 
 ried through the ranks, and swollen with successful war pours 
 along ? now not even their fenced bulwarks protect the Tro- 
 jans; even within the gates, and on the very turrets of the 
 walls, they join battle, and the trenches are deluged with blood. 
 ^Eneas unwittingly is absent. Will you never suffer them 
 from blockade to be relieved ? Once more our enemies, another 
 army too, are hovering over the walls of Troy just rising anew 
 into life; and once more Tydides from JEtolian Arpi 2 rises 
 
 1 i. e. to carry on war after the early fashion. Servius well refers this to 
 the " clarigatio," or public challenge offered by the Feciales, (see Diet. 
 Antiq.,) observing that " Caedere " was equivalent to " res rapere," " sa- 
 tisfacere " to " res reddere." B. 
 
 2 Arpi, called also Argyripa, a city of Apulia in Italy, built by Diomcdc 
 r.fter the Trojan war. 
 
326 ^INEID. b. x. 29—63. 
 
 against the Trojans. I truly believe new wounds are reserved 
 for me; 3 and I, your own progeny, await a contest with a 
 mortal. If without thy permission, and in defiance of thy 
 will, the Trojans have come to Italy, let them atone for their 
 offence ; and do not support them with thy aid : but if [they 
 came] in pursuance of so many responses, which powers celes- 
 tial and infernal both delivered, why now has any one the 
 power to pervert thy commands, or to frame new schemes of 
 fate ? What need have I to recall to mind the firing of their 
 fleet on the Sicilian shore ? or why the king of storms and his 
 furious winds raised from iEolia, or Iris sent down from the 
 clouds ? Now, even to the powers of hell (that quarter 
 of the universe [alone] unsolicited remained) she has re- 
 course ; and Alecto, suddenly let loose upon the upper world, 
 infuriate hath roamed through the midst of the Italian 
 cities. For empire I am no further solicitous ; these hopes we 
 entertained while fortune was ours ; let those prevail whom 
 thou wilt rather have prevail. If there be no spot on earth 
 which thy rigid spouse will vouchsafe to the Trojans, thee 
 I conj ure, father, by the smoking ruins of demolished Troy, 
 permit me to dismiss Ascanius safe from arms ; permit my 
 grandchild to survive. For ^Eneas, truly let him on seas 
 unknown be tossed, and pursue whatever course fortune shall 
 give him : let me but have power to protect the boy, and 
 rescue him from the horrid fray. Amathus is mine: lofty 
 Paphos, and Cythera, and the mansion of Idalia, are mine : 
 here, laying arms aside, let him inglorious spend his days. 
 Command Carthage to rule Ausonia with powerful sway; 
 from him no opposition shall arise to the Tyrian cities. What 
 hath it availed ^Eneas to escape the ravages of war, and to 
 have fled through the midst of Grecian flames ; and to have 
 drained to the dregs so many dangers both by sea and land 
 immense, while the Trojans are in quest of Latium, and of 
 another Pergamus again tottering to its fall ? Would it not 
 have been better for them to settle on the last ashes of their 
 country, and the soil where Troy once was? Give back, 1 
 pray, to the hapless ones their Xanthus and Simois ; and, 
 further, permit the Trojans to struggle once more with the 
 disasters of Troy. Then imperial Juno, stung with fierce rage, 
 thus spoke : Why do you compel me to break my profound 
 8 Venus had been previously wounded by Diomede. B. 
 
B. x. 64-93. ^NEID 327 
 
 silence, and by words proclaim my smothered grief? Did any 
 of the gods or human race constrain JEneas to pursue war, and 
 present himself as a foe to king Latinus ? He set out for Italy, 
 by the authority of the Fates : I grant it ; impelled by Cas- 
 sandra's mad predictions. Did we advise him to abandon his 
 camp, or to commit his life to the winds ? or to trust a boy 
 with the chief administration of the war, or with the city ; 
 or [to solicit] the protection of the Tuscan monarch, and 
 embroil nations that were at peace ? What god, or what rigid 
 power of mine, urged him to these guileful measures ? Where 
 was Juno on this occasion, or Iris, who, [you tell us,] has 
 been despatched from above? A high indignity, [no doubt,] 
 it is, that the Latins should surround your infant Troy with 
 flames, and that Turnus should settle in his native land ; he 
 whose grandsire is Pilumnus, 4 whose mother is the goddess 
 Venilia. 5 What is it then for the Trojans to assault the 
 Latins with the gloomy brand, or to enthral kingdoms not 
 their own, and bear away the plunder ? What is it for them to 
 suborn fathers-in-law, and carry off betrothed spouses from 
 the bosoms [of their plighted lords] ? What is it for them to 
 sue for peace like suppliants, while on their ships they dis- 
 played the ensigns of war ? You can privately convey JEneas 
 from the hands of the Greeks, and in his stead spread before 
 their eyes a misty cloud and empty air : you too can trans*- 
 form his ships into so many nymphs; for us to have aided the 
 Rutulians against him ever so little is a heinous crime. JEneas, 
 [you say,] in ignorance is absent: and absent let him remain 
 in ignorance. Paphos is yours, Idalium also, and lofty Cythera ; 
 why then do you solicit a city big with war, and hearts a 
 rough mould ? Do we attempt to overturn from its foundation 
 thy frail Phrygian state ? is it we ? or rather he who to the 
 Greeks exposed the wretched Trojans ? Who 6 was the cause 
 that Europe and Asia rose together in arms, and by a perfidi- 
 ous crime violated their league ? Was it under my conduct that 
 the Trojan adulterer stormed Sparta? or did I supply him 
 with arms, or foment the war by lust ? Then it became you to 
 
 4 Pilumnus, a deity worshipped at Rome, from whom Turnus boasted 
 of being lineally descended. 
 
 5 Venilia, a nymph, sister to Amata, and mother of Turnus by Daunus. 
 
 6 " Quae " must not be joined with " causa," but taken independently, 
 as is evident from the imitation of Propert. ii. 2, 45, " Olim mirabar, qua: 
 Uiti ad Pergama belli Europae atque Asiae causa puella fait." B. 
 
328 J3NEID. e. x. 94-1,% 
 
 be in fear for your minions : now too late you rise with un« 
 just complaints, and throw out reproaches of no avail. Thu> 
 Juno pleaded her cause ; and all the celestials murmured out 
 various assent ; as when the rising gales, pent in the woods, 
 begin to mutter, and roll along soft whispers, that to mariners 
 betoken approaching winds. 
 
 Then the almighty Sire, whose is the chief command of the 
 universe, begins. While he speaks, the sublime mansion of 
 the gods is hushed, and earth from its foundation trembles ; 
 the lofty sky is silent ; then the zephyrs are still ; the sea levels 
 its peaceful surface. Listen, therefore, and fix in your minds 
 these my words : since it is not permitted that with the Tro- 
 jans the Ausonians be joined in league, and your dissensions 
 receive no end ; whatever fortune to-day is for each, whatever 
 hope each cuts out for himself, be he Trojan or Rutulian, I 
 will regard them both without distinction ; whether the camp 
 [of the Trojans] be now besieged by the Latins, through the 
 decrees of fate, or in consequence of Troy's fatal error, and 
 inauspicious presages. 7 Nor do I exempt the Rutulians. To 
 each his own enterprise shall procure disaster or success. 
 Sovereign Jove shall be to all the same. The Fates shall take 
 their course. Bowing his head, he confirmed the promise by 
 the streams of his Stygian brother, by the banks that roll 
 with torrents of pitch and black whirlpools, and by his nod 
 made heaven's whole frame to tremble. Here the consulta- 
 tion ended : then Jupiter rises from his golden throne, whom 
 in their centre the celestial powers conduct to his palace. 
 
 Meanwhile the Rutulians at all the gates are keenly em- 
 ployed in slaughtering the troops, and encompassing the walls 
 with flames. On the other hand, the host of the Trojans 
 within their ramparts are closely shut up ; nor have they any 
 hope of escape. Forlorn they stand on the lofty turrets to no 
 purpose, and with thin bands beset the walls. Asius, the son 
 of Imbracus ? and Thymcetes, the son of Hicetaon, the two 
 Assaracci, and aged Tybris, with Castor, lead the van : those 
 both the brothers of Sarpedon and Clarus, and Hsemon, from 
 lofty Lycia, accompany. Acmon of Lyrnessus, inferior 
 neither to his father Clytius, nor to his brother Mnestheus, 
 
 ' i. e. " or through their wrongly interpreting the uncertain presages 
 •which had been sent as a warning." Servius refers the remark tt» 
 (( Cassandree impulsus furiis" in vs. 68. B 
 
\\. x. 131—1(33. ^NEID. 329 
 
 Straining with his whole body, bears a huge rock, no incon- 
 siderable portion of a mountain. Some with darts, some 
 with rocks, strive to defend [the town] ; others burl fire- 
 brands, and fit their arrows to the string. Lo, in the midst, 
 Venus' most worthy care, the young prince of Troy, with his 
 comely head uncovered, sparkles like the diamond which 
 divides the yellow gold, an ornament either for the neck or 
 for the head : or as shines the ivory by art enchased in box- 
 wood, or Orician ebony; 8 whose spreading locks his milk- 
 white neck receives, and a circle of ductile gold upbinds. 
 Thee too, O Ismarus, the magnanimous nations saw aiming 
 wounds, and arming thy shafts with poison; [Ismarus,] de- 
 scended from a noble Lydian family, where the swains till, 
 and Pactolus 9 waters with his golden streams, rich fertile- 
 lands. Mnestheus too lent his aid, whom his former glory of 
 having beaten Turnus from the bastion greatly exalts: and 
 Capys : from him the name of the Campanian city 10 is 
 derived. They were mutually engaged in the combats of 
 rugged war : jEneas at midnight was ploughing the waves. 
 For soon as having left Evander, entering the Tuscan camp, 
 he repairs to the king, and lays before him his name and 
 nation ; informs him what is his demand, what proposals he 
 brings; what troops Mezentius is procuring for himself; the 
 outrageous temper of Turnus ; reminds him how little confi- 
 dence there is in human affairs, and intermixes prayers : no 
 delay ensues. Tarchon joins his forces, and strikes a league. 
 Then the Lydian nation, disengaged from the restraint of fate, 
 enter the fleet, by order of the gods put under the conduct of 
 a foreign leader. iEneas' galley leads the way, under whose 
 beak are Phrygian lions yoked : Ida towers above, most grate- 
 ful to the Trojan exiles. Here great iEneas sits, and revolves 
 with himself the various events of war ; and Pallas attached 
 to his left side, now questions him of the stars, their path 
 amid the darksome night ; now of the sufferings he sustained 
 both by land and sea. 
 
 8 Orician ebony, from Oricum, a town of Epirus in Greece, on the 
 Adriatic. 
 
 9 Pactolus, a river of Lydia in Asia Minor, issuing from Mount 
 Tmolus, and falling into the Hermus below Sardes. The sands of the 
 Pactolus, like those of the Hermus, were mingled with gold. 
 
 u i. e. Cap la. B. 
 
330 .ENEID. b. x. 164—189 
 
 Now open Helicon, ye goddesses, and me inspire to sing ; 
 what troops meanwhile accompany JEneas from the Tuscan 
 coasts, man his ships, and are borne on the main. 
 
 First Massicus in the brazen-beaked Tigris ploughs the 
 waves, under whom is a band of a thousand youths, who left 
 the walls of Clausium, 11 and who the city Cosae; 12 whose 
 weapons are arrows and light quivers on their shoulders, and 
 the deadly bow. With him stern Abas goes : his whole 
 squadron with burnished arms, and his stern with a gilded 
 Apollo shone. To him Populonia, his mother-city, had given 
 six hundred youths expert in arms ; but Hva, 13 an island en- 
 nobled by inexhaustible mines of steel, three hundred. The 
 third, Asylas, the famed interpreter of gods and men, to whom 
 the fibres of victims, to whom the stars of heaven, are in sub- 
 jection, and the languages of birds, and the flashes of presaging 
 thunder, pours along his thousand close-ranged in battle- 
 array, and with erect spears. These Pisa, 14 a Tuscan city in 
 its territory, Alphean in origin, to him put in subjection. 
 Astur follows, a most comely hero, Astur confiding in his 
 steed and parti-coloured arms. Those who in Caere, 15 who in 
 the plains of Minio 16 dwell, and ancient Pyrgi, and unwhole- 
 some Graviscae, join [with him] three hundred (all have one 
 resolution to follow). Thee, Cycnus, 17 chief of the Lugurians, 
 most valorous in war, I cannot pass over ; nor thee, Cupavo, 
 by few troops accompanied, on whose crest a swan's plumes 
 arise, (your crime was love,) the ensign of your father's trans- 
 
 11 Clausium, the ancient Clusium, a town of Etruria, on the banks of 
 the Clanis, where Porsenna was buried. 
 
 12 Cosae and Populonia, maritime towns of Etruria. 
 
 13 Ilva, (Elba,) an island of the Tyrrhene Sea, between Italy and Cor- 
 sica; it was famous for its iron mines. Davidson. Compare Rutil. 
 Itin. i. 351, " Chalybum memorabilis Ilva metallis." B. 
 
 14 Pisa, a town of Etruria, at the mouth of the Arnus, built by a 
 colony from Pisa in Elis. 
 
 15 Caere, a city of Etruria, of which Mezentius was king when JEneas 
 came to Italy. 
 
 16 Minio, (Mignone,) a river of Etruria, falling into the Tyrrhene Sea. 
 Pyrgi and Graviscae, maritime towns of Etruria. 
 
 17 Cycnus, a son of Sthenelus, king of Liguria, who was deeply af- 
 fected at the death of his friend Phaeton, and was metamorphosed into a 
 swan. Phaeton, the son of Phoebus and Clymene, according to the poets, 
 was intrusted by his father with the chariot of the sun for one day, when, 
 by his unskilful driving, he nearly set the world on fire, upon which Jupi^ 
 ter struck him with a thunderbolt, and he fell into the river Po. 
 
b. x.* 190— 220. JENEID 331 
 
 formation. 18 For they tell us that Uycnus, while for grief of 
 his beloved Phaeton he sings among the poplar boughs, his 
 sisters' shade, and with music soothes his disconsolate love, 
 [by transformation clothed] with downy plumes, brought upon 
 himself 19 hoary age, leaving the earth, and soaring to the stars 
 with his song. The son, in the fleet accompanying his coeval 
 troops, with oars impels the bulky Centaur : the monster stands 
 on the flood, and reared high threatens the waves with an 
 enormous rock, and with his long keel ploughs the deep seas. 
 The famed Ocnus 20 too leads on a squadron from his native 
 coasts, son of the prophetic Manto and the Tuscan river 
 [Tiber], who gave thee walls, O Mantua, and his mother's 
 name ; Mantua rich in ancestors : 21 but they are not all of 
 one lineage. Three clans to her belong : under each clan are 
 four communities ; of those communities she herself is the 
 capital city. The strength [of her inhabitants are] of Tuscan 
 blood. Hence too Mezentius arms five hundred against him- 
 self, whom Mincius, sprung from the parent-lake Benacus, 
 crowned with azure reed, conveyed to the sea in hostile ships 
 of pine. The stern Aulestes advances, and, rising [to the 
 stroke], lashes the wave with a hundred oars : the surface 
 overturned, the billows foam. The enormous Triton bears 
 him with his shell-trumpet affrighting the azure floods : whose 
 hairy front, as he swims along, displays a human form down 
 to the waist, his belly terminates in a pristis, under his half- 
 savage breast the foamy surges murmur. So many chosen 
 chiefs in thirty vessels went to the aid of Troy, and ploughed 
 with prows of brass the briny plains. 
 
 And now day had withdrawn from the heavens, and auspi- 
 cious Phoebe in her night-wandering car was shaking the 
 mid-region of the sky. JEneas (for anxiety gives not sleep 
 to his limbs) himself, seated at the helm, both steers and man- 
 ages the sails. And, lo ! in his mid-course there came up to 
 him a choir of those who were his attendants before, nymphs 
 
 18 Put a comma after *' pennae," taking the words " crimen amor ves- 
 trum " in a parenthesis. See Wagner. B. 
 
 19 I have followed Heyne. The whiteness of his plumage made him 
 appear like an aged person. B. 
 
 20 Ocnus, the son of Tiber and Manto, who assisted ^Eneas against 
 Turnus. He built a town which he called Mantua, after his mother's 
 name. 
 
 21 So Statius Theb. i. 391, " Adrastus dives avis." B. 
 
332 ^NEID. b. x. 221- 253. 
 
 whom propitious Cybele had appointed Id enjoy divinity in 
 the sea, and from ships to become nymphs : with equal motion 
 they swam along, 22 and cut the waves ; as numerous as the 
 brazen-beaked vessels which had before been drawn up on 
 the shore. Their king at a distance they descry, and in 
 circling dances him surround : of whom the most accomplished 
 speaker, Cymodocea, following, with her right hand grasps 
 the stern, while with her back she rises [above the flood], and 
 with her left hand gently rows her way along the silent waves. 
 Then him unknowing she thus addresses : Wakest thou, 
 .ZEneas, offspring of the gods ? awake and give your ship full 
 sails. We are the pines of Ida, from that mountain's sacred 
 top, [once] thy fleet, now nymphs of the sea. When the per- 
 fidious Rutulian pressed us with fire and sword till we were 
 on the brink of ruin, constrained we burst thy cables, and go 
 in quest of thee through the ocean. The mother [of the 
 gods] in pity new-fashioned in form, and permitted us to be- 
 come goddesses, and to pass our life under the waves. But 
 [know that] the boy Ascanius is blocked up in the W T all and 
 trenches, amidst darts, and amidst the Latins arrayed in all 
 the terrors of Mars. Now the Arcadian horse, united with 
 the valiant Tuscans, have reached the place appointed : It is 
 the determined resolution of Turnus to intercept their march 
 with his troops, that they may not join the camp. Come, 
 arise, and at the approach of morn first command thy troops 
 to arms ; and take thy shield, which, of unconquerable might, 
 the god of fire gave to thee, and encircled its borders with 
 gold. To-morrow's sun (if you deem not my words vain) 
 shall behold vast heaps of Rutulian slaughter. She said ; and 
 parting, with her right hand shoved forward the lofty stern, 
 not unskilful in the art : the vessel flies along the waves 
 swifter than the javelin, and the arrow that keeps pace with 
 the winds. The rest then speed their course. The Trojan 
 son of Anchises, himself not knowing [the cause], is lost in 
 wonder, yet by the omen raises the spirits of his men. Then 
 surveying the high vault of heaven, he briefly prays : Boun- 
 teous parent of the gods, Idaean Cybele, whose dear delight is 
 Dindymus, and turret-bearing cities, and lions yoked in pairs 
 
 22 So Oppian Hal. i. 565, eggvto Gclggov o'kttov. v. 477, ds\(pig d' rjvr 
 o'igtoq — KpaiTrva Qkwv. " Modo " refers to the keeping the ship properly 
 poised, while the impulse was given, as is remarked by Anthon. B. 
 
ii. 'x. 254—289. ^ENEID. 333 
 
 under thy reins, be thou now my leader in the fight ; do thou, 
 O goddess, in due form render the omen propitious, and with 
 thy propitious influence aid the Trojans. 
 
 This only he said, and meanwhile the day revolved, was 
 now with perfect light advanced, and had chased away the 
 night. First he enjoins his troops to observe the signal, and 
 to dispose their minds for arms, and prepare themselves for 
 the combat. And now he has the Trojans and his camp in 
 view, standing on his lofty deck. Then next on his left arm 
 he raised aloft his flaming buckler. The Trojans from their 
 walls raise acclamations to the stars. Additional hope rouses 
 up their fury. Darts from their hands they hurl : as under 
 the gloomy clouds Strymonian cranes give the signal, and 
 swim along the skies with din, and from the south winds with 
 joyous clamour fly. But to the Rutulian prince and Ausonian 
 leaders this seemed amazing ; till looking back they observed 
 the fleet turned towards the shore, and the whole channel of 
 the river gliding along with vessels. The tufted helmet on 
 his head blazes, and from the top of his crest a flame is poured 
 forth, and the golden boss of his buckler darts copious fires ; 
 just as when in a clear night the sanguine comets baleful 
 glare ; or, as Sirius, that blazing star, when he brings droughts 
 and diseases on sickly mortals, rises and saddens the sky with 
 inauspicious light. Yet daring Turnus dropped not his bold 
 purpose to preoccupy the shore, and, as they approached, beat 
 them from the land. Then eagerly addressing his men, he 
 raises their courage, and briskly chides their fears: 23 That 
 which you ardently wished is come, by dint of valour to crush 
 [the foe] ; Mars himself, brave men, is in your power. 24 Now 
 each man be mindful of his wife and home ; now let him re- 
 flect on the mighty deeds, the glory of his ancestors. Let us 
 of ourselves make head against them by the stream, while 
 they are in disorder, and their first steps at landing stagger. 
 Fortune_assists the daring. He said, and ponders within 
 himself whom to lead against [the enemy], or to whom he 
 may intrust the siege of the town. 
 
 Meanwhile iEneas by bridges lands his troops from their 
 lofty ships. Many watched the retreat of the ebbing sea, and 
 
 23 There seems little doubt that this line is a spurious introduction fron* 
 Mn. ix. 127. B. 
 
 24 i. e. you can bring them to an open fight. B. 
 
334 ^NEID. b. x. 289— 31C. 
 
 with a spring committed themselves to the shallows ; others 
 row themselves ashore. Tarchon having surveyed the strand 
 where there is no surf, 25 and where no dashing wave remur- 
 murs, but the sea unbroken glides along with the swelling 
 tide, suddenly turns hither his prow, and addresses his asso- 
 ciates : Now, my select band, ply the sturdy oars ; push 
 briskly, urge on your vessels ; cleave with your beaks this 
 hostile soil, and let the keel plough a way for itself. Nor 
 shall I refuse to dash my ship in pieces in such a port, if we 
 but once seize the land. Which as soon as Tarchon thus had 
 said, his mates rose to their oars at once. And full on the Latin 
 coast their foaming galleys bear, till the beaks rest on the dry 
 dock, and all the keels without harm are moved : but not so 
 thy vessel, Tarchon ; for while against the shallows dashed 
 she hangs on the fatal ridge, long balanced in suspense, and 
 tires the waves, she is staved, and exposes the crew in the 
 midst of the waves ; whom fragments of oars and floating 
 benches embarrass, while the tide retreating draws back their 
 steps. 
 
 Then no supine delay withholds Turnus ; but impetuous he 
 hurries on his whole host against the Trojans, and on the 
 shore ranges them full opposite. They sound the alarm. 
 iEneas first attacked the rustic troops, an omen 26 of the fight ; 
 and routed the Latins, having slain Theron, their giant chief, 
 who boldly makes up to JEneas : through the brazen texture 
 [of his buckler], and through his tunic rough 27 with gold, he 
 with the sword drains 28 his transfixed side. Next he smites 
 Lycas, who was cut out of his mother when dead, and to thee, 
 O Phoebus, devoted, because in infancy he was permitted to 
 escape the perilous chances of steel. 29 Not far onward he 
 
 25 But others read " sperat " for " spirant." B. 
 
 26 Servius observes: "omen, quia, sicut nunc, sic ubique vincet 
 ^neas." B. 
 
 27 Or " dull to the view." Anthon. But I prefer the explanation of 
 Crellius ii. 6, "significat copiam densitatemque auri in summarum 
 speciem intexti." B. 
 
 28 i. e. " drinks the blood from his side." But it may also be taken 
 as equivalent to " transfodit." Servius observes: "cum enim a latere 
 quis aliquem adortus gladio occidit, hausit ilium dicunt." So Ovid Met. 
 v. 126, "Herenti latus haurit Abas." Silius i. 392, " Et rapto nudum 
 clypeo latus haurit Hiberi." B. 
 
 29 Such cluldren were consecrated to Apollo. See Servius. B. 
 
o. x. 317—353. ^NEID. 53.5 
 
 overthrows in death hardy Cisseus, and gigantic Gyas, as 
 they were felling the troops with clubs. Neither the wea- 
 pons of Hercules, nor their strength of arm, aught availed 
 them ; nor did they profit by having Melampus for their 
 father, the companion of Alcides, as long as earth supplied 
 him with toilsome labours. Lo, at Pharus hurling a javelin, 
 he fixes it full in his bawling mouth, while he vaunts das- 
 tardly speeches. Thou, too, Cydon, (while thou hapless art 
 pursuing Clytius, thy new charmer, shading his cheeks with 
 the first yellow down,) overthrown by the Trojan arm, re- 
 gardless of those loves which thou ever didst entertain for 
 boys, hadst lain an object of compassion, had not a band of 
 brothers, the progeny of Phorcus, in close array made head 
 against him : seven in number, and seven darts they fling ; 
 part from his helm and shield ineffectual rebound ; part just 
 grazing on his skin indulgent Venus turned aside. -ZEneas 
 thus bespeaks his trusty Achates : Supply me with darts, (not 
 one against the Rutulians shall my right hand hurl in vain,) 
 [of those] which on the Trojan plains once stood in the bodies 
 of the Greeks. 30 Then he grasps at once and tosses a mighty 
 spear; it flying pierces through the brazen plates of Moeon's 
 shield, and his cuirass together with his breast transfixes. 
 To him comes up his brother Alcanor, and with his right 
 hand sustains his falling brother ; piercing whose arm, the 
 darted spear flies straitly on, and drenched in blood, holds on 
 its course ; and from the shoulder by the nerves the arm hung 
 lifeless. Then Numitor, from his brother's body having 
 snatched a javelin, aims it at ^Eneas: but to him it is not 
 permitted in his turn to transfix [the hero], and it grazed on 
 the thigh of great Achates. Here Clausus of Cures, confiding 
 in his youthful person, comes up, and wounds Dryops at a 
 distance with a rigid spear, under his chin with force driven 
 home ; and, transfixing his throat while the word is in his 
 mouth, at once of speech and life bereaves him : but he with 
 his front beats the ground, and at his mouth disgorges clotted 
 blood. Three Thracians, too, of Boreas' exalted line, and 
 three whom their father Idas and Ismara their parent soil 
 sent, by various fate he overthrows. Halaesus runs up, and 
 the Auruncian bands; Messapus, too, the son of Neptune, 
 with his steeds conspicuous comes up : now these, now those, 
 30 Which had been plucked from the bodies of the slain. B. 
 
336 JENEID. b. x. 354—392 
 
 strive to beat off each other. In the very confines of Ausonia 
 the contest rages. As in the spacious sky jarring winds with 
 equal rage and force raise war ; nor they to one another, nor 
 clouds, nor sea, [on either side] give way : long is the com- 
 bat dubious ; all things stand struggling against each other : 
 just so the Trojan and the Latin hosts encounter; foot to foot 
 is fixed, and man to man closely joined. But in another quar- 
 ter, where the torrent had far and wide dispersed whirling 
 stones, and thickets uptorn from the banks, as soon as Pallas 
 saw the Arcadians, unused to combat on foot, turning their 
 backs to Latium fierce in the pursuit, since the rugged nature 
 of the ground induced them to let go their steeds ; now witb 
 entreaty, now with bitter expostulation, (the sole expedient left 
 in this distress,) he rouses their valour : Whither, my fellow- 
 soldiers, do you fly ? By yourselves and your own gallant 
 deeds, by the name of Evander your chief, by the battles you 
 have won, and by my hopes, which now, emulating my father's 
 glory, trust not to your heels. With the sword you must 
 burst a passage through your foes, where that globe of men in 
 thickest array press on us : this way your ennobled country 
 calls you and Pallas your leader. They are not gods who 
 pursue us : mortal ourselves, by a mortal foe are we urged : 
 to us as many souls, as many hands, [as to them] belong. 
 Lo ! the ocean with his immense barrier of sea hems us in : 
 now land too is wanting for us to fly to : whither, into the 
 deep, or for Troy, shall we bend our course ? He said, and 
 into the midst of thick-embodied foes bursts a way. Him 
 Lagus first opposes impelled by his inauspicious fate ; him, 
 while he is tugging a stone of enormous weight, he transfixes 
 with a whirled lance, where along the middle [of the back] 
 the spine divided the ribs; and forces away the spear fast 
 sticking in the bones : whom, [while thus employed,] Hisbon 
 fails in striking from above, though this, indeed, he hoped; 
 for, as he rushes on unguarded, while, by the cruel death of 
 his companion, he is driven to madness, Pallas surprises him 
 first, and buries the sword in his swollen lungs. Next Sthe- 
 nelus he attacks, and, of the ancient race of Rhoetus, Anche- 
 molus, who dared to violate, by incest, his step-dame's bed. 
 In the Rutulian plains, likewise, you twin-brothers fell, Lari 
 dus and Thymber, Daucus' exactly similar offspring, undir- 
 tinguished by your own parents, and [the objects of] their 
 
s. x. 393—429. jENEID. 337 
 
 j .leasing error. But now Pallas on you fixed cruel marks of 
 distinction ; for from thee, O Thymbras, the Evandrian blade 
 leaped off the head ; and thy dismembered hand, O Laridus, 
 seeks for thee its owner ; the dying fingers quiver, and gripe 
 once more the steel. Against their foes mixed indignation 
 and shame arm the Arcadians fired by this warning, and view- 
 ing the hero's glorious deeds. Then Pallas transfixes Rhceteus 
 flying across [him] in his chariot. This gave Ilus space [to 
 live], and just so long respite: for at Ilus he had aimed from 
 far the sturdy spear ; which Rhceteus coming between inter- 
 cepts, as thee he flies, most valiant Teuthras, and thy brother 
 Tyres ; and, rolled from his chariot, half-dead, he spurns the 
 Rutulian fields. And as in summer, the winds having risen 
 to his wish, the shepherd lets loose scattered fires among the 
 woods ; in a trice Vulcan's squadrons, having seized the in- 
 termediate trees, are at once extended in horrid array over all 
 the spacious plains ; victorious he sits viewing the triumphant 
 flames: just so the whole valour of thy troops in one com- 
 bines, and supports thee, O Pallas. But Halaesus, fierce in 
 war, advances against the hostile bands, and within the covert 
 of his arms himself collects. Ladon, Pheres, and Demodocus 
 ha knocks down ; from Strymonius with his shining blade he 
 strikes off the right hand raised against his throat ; with a 
 rock he batters Thoas' front, and scatters the bones mingled 
 with bloody brains. His father in the woods had concealed 
 Halassus, presaging his fate. Soon as the aged sire in death 
 relaxed his aged eyes, the Destinies laid hands on him, and 
 devoted him to the arms of Evander, whom Pallas approaches, 
 first addressing his prayer thus: Grant now, O father Tiber, 
 to this missile steel I poise, success, and a passage through the 
 breast of stern Halsesus ; so shall thy oak possess these arms 
 and spoils of the hero. To this address the god gave ear ; 
 while Halaesus screened Imaon, in an unhappy hour he ex- 
 poses his defenceless breast to the Arcadian dart. But Lau- 
 sus, no small portion of the war, suffers not his troops to be 
 dispirited by the vast havoc which the hero made. First 
 Abas to him opposed he kills, the knot and stay 31 of the bat* 
 tie. Down drop Arcadia's sons, down drop the Tuscans, and 
 
 31 " Nodum " is a metaphor derived from the difficulty with which 
 knots are unfastened. On " mora " compare Silius i. 479, " Romani 
 belli mora." So Senec. Ag. 211. Troad. 124. Phcen. 458. B. 
 
 z 
 

 338 ^NEID. b. x. 430— 406. 
 
 you, ye Trojans, frames undestroyed by the Greeks. Both 
 hosts in encounter join, with leaders and with forces equal; 
 those in the rear press on the ranks before; nor does the 
 throng leave room to wield their hands or weapons. Here 
 Pallas drives on and urges the attack ; there, in opposition to 
 him, Lausus ; nor is there great difference in their ages ; in 
 comeliness they are distinguished ; but their return to their 
 country fortune had denied. Yet he who reigns in heaven 
 supreme permitted not that with each other they should en- 
 gage ; their destiny awaits them soon from a superior foe. 
 
 Meanwhile Turnus, who through the midst of the host in 
 his fleet chariot cuts his way, his gentle sister warns to fly to 
 Lausus' relief. Soon as his friends he viewed, [he exclaimed,] 
 It is time to desist from battle : against Pallas I alone am 
 bound : to me alone is Pallas doomed : would to heaven his 
 sire himself were spectator. He said ; and from the plain the 
 troops at his command retired. But the youth, struck with 
 the retreat of the Rutulians, and the imperious orders, gazes 
 on Turnus with astonishment ; over his huge body he rolls his 
 eyes, and with ferocious visage all the man aloof surveys. 
 Then with these words in return to the tyrant's speech moves 
 up : Now, or by bearing away triumphal spoils, or by illus- 
 trious death, shall I be signalized. For either chance my sire 
 is equal. Away with your threatenings. This said, he advances 
 into the middle of the plain. Round the Arcadian hearts the 
 cold blood congeals. Down from his chariot Turnus sprang ; 
 on foot prepares to meet him hand to hand. And as a lion, 
 when from his lofty place of observation he hath espied a bull 
 standing on the plains aloof, meditating the fight, flies up to 
 him ; such is the image of Turnus rushing [to the combat]. 
 Soon as Pallas supposed him to be within reach of the darted 
 lance, he makes the first advance with strength unequal, 
 [trying] if fortune by any means will aid his bold enterprise ; 
 and thus to the lofty heavens himself addresses : By my father's 
 hospitality, and those boards which thou his guest didst visit, 
 Alcides, aid, I thee implore, my arduous attempt : may the 
 dying eyes of Turnus behold me strip him expiring of his 
 bloody armour, and let his dying eyes endure the sight of a 
 victorious foe. Alcides heard the youth, and deep in the bottom 
 of his heart a heavy groan suppresses, and pours forth unavail- 
 ing tears. Then the Sire with these kind words his son be- 
 
B x< 4G7— 504. jENEID. 339 
 
 speaks : To every one bis day is fixed : 'a short and irretrievable 
 term of life is given to all n but by deeds to lengthen out fame, 
 this is virtue's task. Under the lofty walls of Troy so man) 
 sons of gods have fallen : with them even Sarpedon, my owr 
 offspring, fell ; Turnus too his destiny calls, and to the utmost 
 verge of life he is arrived. He said ; and from the fields of the 
 Rutulians he averts his eye. 
 
 But Pallas with mighty force hurls the spear, and from the 
 hollow scabbard tears his shining blade. The weapon flying 
 lighted where the armour rises high on the shoulder., and, 
 opening a way through the extremity of the shield, at length 
 too on the great body of Turnus grazed. At this Turnus, long 
 poising a javelin tipped with sharpened steel, darts it at Pallas, 
 and thus speaks : See whether ours be not the more penetrat- 
 ing dart. He said; and with a quivering stroke the point 
 pierces through the mid-shield, through so many plates of iron, 
 so many of brass, while the bull's hide so many times encom- 
 passes ft, and through the corslet's cumbrous folds transfixes 
 his breast with a hideous gash. 32 He in vain wrenches out the 
 reeking weapon from the wound : at one and the same passage 
 the blood and soul issue forth. Down on his wound he falls : 
 over him his armour gave a clang ; and in death with bloody 
 jaws be bites the hostile ground. Whom Turnus bestriding, 
 says, Ye Arcadians, to Evander faithfully these my words re- 
 cord : in such plight as he deserved I send his Pallas back. 
 Whatever honour is in a tomb, whatever solace is in interment, 
 1 freely give him. His league of friendship with JEneas shall 
 cost him not a little. And thus having spoken, he pressed 
 with his left foot the breathless corpse, tearing away his belt's 
 enormous weight, and the horrid story with which it was em- 
 bossed, (in one nuptial night a band of youths barbarously 
 murdered, and their bridal beds bathed in blood,) 33 which 
 Clonus, Eurytion's son, had carved in abundant gold : in which 
 spoil Turnus now triumphs, and exults in the possession. How 
 blind is the mind of men to fate and future events ! how un- 
 willing to practise moderation, and how with prosperity elated ! 
 the time will come when Turnus shall wish that it had been 
 purchased at a dear price, that Pallas had not been touched, 
 and when these spoils and this day he shall detest. But Pallas 
 
 32 Servius, and I think more correctly, refers <: ingens " to "cusp is." B 
 M i.e. the story of the daughters of Danaus. B. 
 
 z 2 
 

 340 iENEID b. x. 505—542. 
 
 stretched on his shield, a numerous retinue of his friends, with 
 many a groan and tear, back convey. O thou that art about 
 to return to thy parent, his grief and ample glory both ! This 
 day first gave thee to the war, the same snatches thee away ; 
 yet after thou hast left vast heaps of Rutulians. 
 
 And now not mere rumour, but an unquestionable voucher 
 of so great disaster flies to .ZEneas ; that his friends were on 
 the verge of utter ruin, that it was high time to succour the 
 flying Trojans. With his sword he mows down whatever was 
 near him, and with the steel impetuous forces a wide passage 
 through the host, in quest of thee, O Turnus, proud of thy 
 recent slaughter. Pallas, Evander, all are full before his eyes ; 
 the first banquets in which then a guest he joined, and their 
 plighted right hands. Here four youths, the progeny of Sulmo, 
 and as many more whom Ufens bred, alive he snatches ; whom 
 as victims he may offer to the shade [of Pallas], and drench 
 with their captive blood the flames of his funeral pile. Next, 
 when at Magus he aimed from afar his hostile lance, he art- 
 fully stoops, and over his nead the quivering javelin flies ; and 
 embracing his knees, him suppliant he thus addresses : By my 
 father's manes, and the hopes of thy rising son Iiilus, I im- 
 plore thee, spare this life, 34 both for a son and for a father's 
 sake. A stately mansion I possess ; talents of silver embossed 
 lie deep-lodged under ground ; masses of wrought and un- 
 wrought gold I have ; it is not upon this that the victory of 
 the Trojans turns : one life will not so great a difference 
 make. He said ; to whom iEneas thus, on the other hand, 
 replies.: Those many talents of gold and silver you mention, 
 reserve for your sons : those mutual stipulations of war Turnus 
 first cancelled from the moment Pallas was slain. So [thinks] 
 the manes of my sire Anchises, so thinks Iiilus. This said, 
 he grasps his helmet with his left nand, and bowing back his 
 neck, as he begged for mercy, plunged [in his throat] his 
 sword up to the hilt. Not far on JEmonides, the priest of 
 Phoebus and Diana, whose temples a mitre with holy fillets 
 bound, in his robe and burnished armour all refulgent : him 
 encountering he drives along the plain, and standing over him 
 fallen, offers him a victim, and covers him with the deep shades 
 [of death]. Serestus, gathering up his arms, bears them on 
 
 34 A Greek expression. Herodot. viii. 118. Itrwcrs /3a<ji\rjog rr\v -^v\r]v 
 So Juvenal vi. 653, " Morte viri cupient animam servare catellae." B. 
 
p. x. 542-576. iENEID. 341 
 
 his shoulders as a trophy to thee, king Mars. Caeculus, born 
 of Vulcan's race, and Umbro, who came from the Marsian 
 mountains, renew the fight. The Trojan prince burns with 
 fury against them. Anxur's left arm and his buckler's whole 
 circumference he with his sword had struck off. Some mighty 
 spell he had pronounced, and imagined there would be virtue 
 in the word; perhaps he was exalting his soul to heaven with 
 vain hopes, and had proposed himself grey hairs and length 
 of years. On the other hand, Tarquitus, whom to sylvan 
 Faunus the nymph Dry ope bore, in his refulgent arms exult- 
 ing, to the incensed hero himself opposed. He, darting a 
 spear with full force, renders his corslet and buckler's vast 
 bulk useless for defence : then strikes down to the ground 
 his head as he begs in vain, and seeks to plead much; and, 
 tumbling the warm trunk, over it pronounces these words 
 from his hostile breast: There now, thou dreaded one, lie. 
 Thee in the earth no dearest mother shall lodge, nor in thy 
 native soil load thy limbs with a grave ; to birds of prey thou 
 shalt be left ; or sunk in the deep, the waves shall bear thee 
 down, and hungry fishes suck thy wounds. Forthwith Antaeus 
 and Lycas, Turnus' foremost leaders, he pursues, and valiant 
 Numa, and Camers of yellow locks, from magnanimous Vol- 
 scens sprung ; who of all Ausonia's sons was richest in land 
 estate, and over Amyclae, the city of silence, 35 reigned. As 
 JEgseon who, they say, had a hundred arms and a hundred 
 hands, and flashed fire from fifty mouths and breasts ; when 
 against the thunderbolts of Jove he on so many equal bucklers 
 clashed, unsheathed so many swords : just so the victorious 
 -ZEneas wreaked his fury all over the plain, when once his 
 pointed steel was warmed [with blood], even against the four 
 harnessed steeds of Niphasus and their chests opposed he ad- 
 vances : but, as soon as from far they saw him marching up, 
 and breathing dire revenge, with affright wheeling about, and 
 rushing back, they tumble out the chief, and whirl the chariot 
 to the shore. Meanwhile Lucagus, in his chariot drawn by two 
 white steeds, flings himself into the midst, as also his brother 
 Liger : but with the reins his brother guides the steeds : fierce 
 Lucagus flourishes the naked sword. JEneas could not pati- 
 
 35 It had been deserted by the inhabitants, in consequence of the ser- 
 pents that infested it. So Wagner. Heyne refers the epithet to its 
 Laconian extraction. See Servius. B. 
 
342 JENEID. b. x. 577—615. 
 
 ently see them raging with such impetuosity : on he rushed, 
 and majestic stood before them with his lance opposed. To 
 whom Liger [said], You see not here the steeds of Diomede, 
 nor the chariot of Achilles, or the plains of Troy : now on this 
 ground shall a period to the war and thy life be given. Such 
 words from raving Liger fly : but somewhat instead of words 
 the Trojan hero in return prepares ; for against his foe a javelin 
 he hurls. As Lucagus stooping forward to the lash with a dart 
 urged his yoked steeds, while with his left foot thrown out be- 
 fore he prepares himself for the fight ; the spear passes through 
 the lowest border of his shining buckler, then pierces his left 
 groin : tossed from the chariot in the pangs of death he wal- 
 lows ; whom pious .ZEneas in bitter terms addresses : Lucagus, 
 it is not the slowness of thy steeds in flight thy chariot hath 
 betrayed, nor have empty shadows turned them from the foe : 
 thyself springing from the wheels, desertest the chariot. Thus 
 having said, he seized the steeds. His hapless brother, leap- 
 ing down from the same car, stretched forth his defenceless 
 hands: By thy own self, O Trojan hero, by the parents who 
 begot thee thus illustrious, spare this life, and pity a wretch 
 who begs for mercy. To whom, pleading at greater length, 
 ^ZEneas : It was not language like this you lately uttered : die, 
 and brother desert not brother. Then with the pointed steel 
 he discloses his breast, the latent seat of the soul. 36 Such 
 havoc made the Trojan chief over the field, raging like an im- 
 petuous flood or gloomy whirlwind. At length the boy As- 
 eanius and the youth, in vain blocked up, sally forth and quit 
 the camp. 
 
 Meanwhile Jupiter, of his own free motion, thus addresses 
 Juno : My sister, and my dearest consort both ! it is Venus, 
 as you alleged, who supports the Trojan powers : nor does 
 your judgment deceive you ; no active hands for war have the 
 men themselves, no souls courageous or patient of danger. 
 To whom Juno, all submission, [says,] My spouse, in whom 
 all beauty dwells, why dost thou tease me oppressed with an- 
 guish, and dreading thy severe mandates ? Had I that influ- 
 ence over your affection which once I had, and which it 
 became me to have, thou the Omnipotent couldst not surely 
 refuse me this ; that I might have it in my power both to res- 
 
 36 Davidson has happily anticipated the explanation of Jacobs, regard- 
 ing " latebras animae " as in apposition with " pectus," not vice versa. B 
 
b. x. 616—652. ^ENEID. 343 
 
 cue Turnus from the fight, and preserve him in safety for his 
 father Daunus. Now let him die, and glut the vengeance of 
 the Trojans with his pious blood; yet from our stock he de- 
 rives his name, and Pilumnus is his father in the fourth de- 
 gree : and often with liberal hand and many offerings has he 
 heaped thy courts. To whom the sovereign of the ethereal 
 heaven thus briefly speaks : If you plead for a respite from 
 present death, and a breathing-time to the short-lived youth, 
 and if it be thy will that I should settle it thus ; bear off 
 Turnus by flight, and save him from impending fate. Thus 
 far to indulge thee is allowed. But if any higher favour be 
 couched under these petitions, and you imagine that the whole 
 face of the war is to be shifted or reversed, you feed yourself 
 with empty hopes. To whom Juno [replies] with tears : 
 What if thou shouldst grant with thy heart what in words 
 thou declinest, and this life to Turnus were to be continued 
 fixed ? Now a woeful end awaits the guiltless youth, or vain 
 are my pretensions to the truth : but oh that I may rather be 
 with groundless fears misled, and that thou, to whom the 
 power belongs, mayest alter thy purposes for the better !, 
 
 When she had pronounced these words, forthwith she shot 
 down from the lofty sky arrayed in a cloud, driving storm and 
 tempest through the air; and sought the Trojan army and 
 Latin camp. Then of a hollow cloud, strange monster to be- 
 hold ! the goddess, in the shape of ^ZEneas, dresses up in Tro- 
 jan armour an airy powerless phantom, and imitates to the life 
 both his shield and the crested helmet of his divine head ; 
 gives it empty words, and gives it sound without sense, and 
 counterfeits his gait as he walks ; such as those forms which 
 after death are said to flutter about, or those dreams which 
 mock the slumbering senses. But the phantom frisky exults 
 before the foremost ranks, and the hero with darts provokes, 
 and with the tongue defies : on whom Turnus presses, and at 
 a distance hurls a hissing spear : the spectre, wheeling about, 
 turned its steps. But then, as soon as Turnus imagined that 
 -ZEneas with his back turned was giving ground, and boisterous 
 in soul drank in vain hope, [he cried out,] -ZEneas, whither 
 dost thou fly ? Desert not thy plighted nuptials : by this right 
 hand shall the settlement be given you in quest of which you 
 have traversed the seas. Thus vociferating, he pursues him, 
 Lud brandishes his naked sword ; nor sees that the winds bear 
 his joys away. 
 
344 J5NEID. b. x. 6536—91 
 
 By chance there stood a ship adjoining to the margin of a 
 steep rock with extended ladders, and a bridge prepared, in 
 which king Osinius had been wafted from the Clusian shores. 
 Hither in fearful haste the image of .ZEneas flying throws it- 
 self into a hiding-place : and Turnus with no less speed pur- 
 sues ; surmounts all obstacles, and overleaps the lofty bridges. 
 Scarcely had he reached the prow, when Saturnia bursts the 
 cable, and over the rolling waves hurries the vessel torn away 
 from the shore. But him absent .ZEneas with impatience to 
 the combat seeks ; and many a hero whom he meets on the 
 way he despatches to the shades below. Then the fleeting 
 image now no further concealment seeks, but soaring aloft 
 blended itself with a dusky cloud ; when in the mean time the 
 whirlwind drives Turnus on the mid-ocean. Back he casts 
 his eyes quite at a loss, and thankless for his preservation, and 
 both hands to heaven he raises with his voice : Almighty Fa- 
 ther, couldst thou judge me worthy of such criminal shame, 
 and appoint me to suffer such punishment ? Whither am I 
 borne ? Whence am I come ? What ignominious flight carries 
 me off, and in what disgrace will it bring me back ? Shall I 
 again venture to behold the walls of Laurentum, or the Auso- 
 nian camp ? What will that band of warriors [say], who fol- 
 lowed me and my arms, and whom, O foul impiety ! I aban- 
 doned in horrible death ? And now I see them straggling, and 
 hear the groans of the falling. What can I do? or what 
 earth will now yawn deep enough for me ? Or rather, on me, 
 ye winds, have pity ; on rocks, on crags (I Turnus heartily 
 entreat you) drive my vessel, and fling it on the cruel shelves 
 of quicksands, whither neither the Rutulians nor conscious 
 fame may follow me. So saying, now hither, now thither, he 
 fluctuates in his soul, whether frantic he shall sheathe the 
 pointed steel in his bosom on account of such a flagrant dis- 
 grace, and through his sides drive home the cruel sword, or 
 throw himself into the midst of the waves, by swimming seek 
 the winding shore, and rush again amidst the Trojan arms. 
 Thrice he essayed either expedient : thrice mightiest Juno 
 restrained, and pitying him from her soul checked the youth. 
 He glides away, cutting the deep, with prosperous wind and 
 tide, and is wafted to the ancient city of his father Daunus. 
 
 Meanwhile, by Jove's suggestion, furious Mezentius suc- 
 ceeds [him] in the fight, and assaults the Trojans flushed with 
 success. The Tuscan troops rush on him at once, and with 
 
B. x. 692-722. JENEID, 345 
 
 all their rage and darts following press on him, on him alone. 
 He [stands firm] as a rock that projects into the vast ocean, 
 obnoxious to the fury of the winds, and exposed to the main, 
 and endures all the violence and threatenings of the sky and 
 sea, itself remaining unmoved. He stretches on the ground 
 Hebrus, the son of Dolicaon, with him Latagus and fugitive 
 Palmus ; but to Latagus with a rock and vast fragment of a 
 mountain he gives a preventing blow on his jaws and adverse 
 face : Palmus hamstrung he suffers to roll inactive ; and gives 
 Lausus 37 to wear his armour on his shoulders, and on his hel- 
 met's top to fix his plumes. Evas the Phrygian too [he ovei- 
 throws], and Mimas, the companion of Paris., and his equal 
 in age ; whom Theano brought forth to his father Amycus in 
 the same night that queen Hecuba, the daughter of Cisseus, 
 pregnant with a firebrand, bore Paris : he in his native 
 city buried lies, while the Laurentine coast possesses Mimas 
 unknown. And as a huge 38 boar by baying hounds pursued 
 from the high mountains, (while pine-bearing Yesulus 39 had 
 sheltered for many years, and the lake of Laurentum,) that in 
 the reedy wood had fed, makes a stand soon as he has arrived 
 among the toils, ferocious roars aloud, and bristles up his 
 shoulders : nor has any one the courage to venture boldly 
 or approach near him, but aloof they ply him with darts and 
 shouts secure from harm: 40 undaunted, however, he resists 
 their attacks on every side, gnashing his tusks, and shakes the 
 lances from his back : in the same manner, of those whom j ust 
 rage against Mezentius fires, not one has spirit to encounter 
 him with the naked sword ; at a distance they gall him with 
 missile weapons and loud clamour. From the ancient coasts 
 of Corytus had Acron come, a Grecian, who deserted [to 
 -ZEneas], leaving his nuptials unconsummated : him when from 
 far Mezentius saw breaking through the midst of the ranks, 
 gaily arrayed in the plumes and purple favours of his be- 
 
 37 Lausus, a son of king Mezentius, killed by iEneas. Mimas, a Tro- 
 jan, son of Amycus and Theano, and the intimate friend of Paris. He 
 accompanied iEneas to Italy, and was slain by Mezentius. 
 
 38 " Antiqui ille, vel magnitudini, vel nobilitati adsignabant." Servius. 
 See, however, Anthon's note. B. 
 
 39 Vesulus, (Viso,) a large mountain in the range of the Alps, between 
 Liguria and Gaul, where the Po takes its rise. 
 
 40 Compare Silius v. 442, " propioremque addere Martem Haud ausum 
 cuiquam, laxo ceu bellua campo Incessebatur tutis ex agmine telis." B. 
 
346 ^ENEID. e. x. 723—761 
 
 trothed spouse ; as a famished lion that often ranges over the 
 loft j stalls, (for maddening hunger prompts him,) if by chance 
 he espies a timorous goat, or stag conspicuous for stately horns, 
 exults yawning hideously, rears his hair on end, and couch- 
 ing down over [his prey], fast to the entrails clings, black 
 gore laves his ravenous jaws: thus Mezentius rushes with 
 alacrity on the embodied foes. Ill-fated Acron is overthrown, 
 and expiring spurns with his heels the tawny ground, and with 
 his blood besmears the broken lance. The same deigned not 
 to cut off Orodes as he fled, or with the darted spear to give 
 him a wound unseen : but, overtaking him, he confronted face 
 to face, and encountered man to man ; superior not in strata- 
 gem, but valiant arms. Then, trampling on him overthrown, 
 and resting on his lance, [he says] : Friends, stately Orodes 
 lies no mean portion of the war. His associates in acclama- 
 tion join, repeating the joyful psean. But he expiring [says] : 
 Whoever thou art, not over me unrevenged, nor long shalt 
 thou victorious rejoice; thee too like destiny awaits, and soon 
 shalt thou on these same fields be stretched. To whom Me- 
 zentius, smiling with a mixture of indignation, [replied] : Now 
 die ; but of me let the father of gods and king of men dis- 
 pose. So saying, he from the body outdrew the dart. Cruel 
 slumbers and the iron sleep of death press down his eyes ; his 
 eyes are sealed in everlasting night. 41 Casdicus slays Alca- 
 thous, Sacrator, Hydaspes, Rapo Parthenius, and Orses ex- 
 tremely robust in strength; Messapus [kills] Clonius, and 
 Ericetes the Lycaonian ; the one by a fall from his unruly 
 steed thrown on the ground ; the other on foot himself on foot 
 [assailed : against him] Lycian Agis too had stepped forth ; 
 but him Valerius, not lacking of the valour of his ancestors, 
 overthrows : Anthronius by Salius falls, and Salius by Neal- 
 ces, skilled in the javelin and far-deceiving arrow. Now stern 
 Mars equalled the distresses and mutual deaths : the victors 
 and the vanquished equally slew, and equally fell : nor these, 
 nor those, know what it is to fly. In the courts of Jove the 
 gods compassionate the fruitless rage of both, and [seem to. 
 lament] that such toils are appointed to mortals. On the one 
 side Venus, on the other Saturnian Juno sits spectator. Pale 
 Tisiphone in the midst of thousands wreaks her fury. 
 
 41 I almost prefer the ablative, as in Ovid Ep. x. 113. See Burm. oc 
 Propert. ii. 10, 17. B. 
 
b. x. 762—796 JENEID. 347 
 
 But now Mezentius all turbulent and boisterous advances in 
 the field, brandishing his massy spear ; as huge Orion, when 
 on foot he marches, cutting his way through the vast watery 
 fields of the mid-ocean, with his shoulder overtops the waves ; 
 or, conveying an aged ash from the high mountains, stalks on 
 the ground, and hides his head among the clouds ; just so Me- 
 zentius in vast armour strides along. Him on the other hand 
 JEneas, having descried him in the long battalion, prepares 
 to encounter. He unterrified remains expecting his mag- 
 nanimous foe, and stands firm in his own vast mass of frame ; 
 and, measuring with his eye as much space as his javelin 
 could reach, [says,] Now let this right hand, my god, and the 
 missile weapon 42 which I poise, be my aid ; I vow that you, 
 my own Lausus, shall be clad in the spoils torn from the 
 pirate's body, the trophy of ^Eneas. He said, and hurled from 
 afar the hissing dart : but the winged dart is by the shield 
 flung off, and deep pierces illustrious Antores between the side 
 and flank ; Antores, the attendant of Hercules, who from Ar- 
 gos sent had joined Evander, and settled in his Italian city. 
 He falls, unhappy, by another's wound, looks up to heaven, 
 and in death remembers his beloved Argos. Then pious 
 -ZEneas darts his spear : through the concave orb of triple 
 brass, through the linen folds, and the work with three bulls' 
 hides 43 inwoven, it made way, and settled low down in the 
 groin ; but had spent its force. Instantly ./Eneas, over- 
 joyed at seeing the Tuscan blood, snatches his sword from 
 his thigh, and darts impetuous on his confused foe. Lausus, 
 soon as he saw it, heaved a deep groan in fond pity to his be- 
 loved sire, and the tears came trickling down his cheeks. 
 Here be assured I shall not pass in silence either thee, praise- 
 worthy youth, or the catastrophe of thy piteous death, or thy 
 deeds, thou best of sons, if any future age will give credit to 
 an act so noble. The father, drawing back his steps, quite 
 disabled and encumbered, gave ground, and in his buckler 
 trailed the hostile spear. The youth sprang forward, and 
 flung himself amidst the armed troops ; and stood under the 
 
 
 42 See my note on ^Esch. Sept; c. Th. p. 51, ed. Bohn. B. 
 
 43 Observe the metaphor by which the animal itself is put for its hide. 
 Lucan iv. 133, " csesoque induta juvenco." Statius Theb. " clipeum tes- 
 tisse juvenco." B. 
 
348 ^XEID. b. x. 797—830. 
 
 point of JEneas' sword, just as he was rising with his arm, 
 and fetching the stroke ; and keeping him awhile at bay, sus- 
 tained the shock. His friends second him with loud acclama- 
 tion, till, by the target of the son protected, the father with- 
 drew ; fling showers of darts, and at a distance repel the foe 
 with missile weapons. iEneas storms, and keeps himself 
 under covert [of his shield]. And as, if at times the clouds 
 in a drift of hail rush down, every labouring hind flies from 
 the fields away, and every swain, and the 'traveller lurks in 
 some secure retreat, either on the banks of a river, or in the 
 cleft of a high rock, the shower be overblown, that on the 
 earth, when the sun returns, they may be able to pursue the 
 labours of the day : just so ^Eneas, with darts from every 
 quarter overwhelmed, sustains the whole storm of war, till 
 the thunder spends its rage ; and chides Lausus, and threatens 
 him thus : Whither dost thou rush to thy own destruction, 
 and why dost thou attempt what exceeds thy strength ? Thy 
 pious duty blindfolds thee unguarded. He infatuated still 
 braves [the hero] no less. And now the fierce wrath of the 
 Trojan leader rises to a greater height, and the Destinies to 
 Lausus collect the last threads [of life] ; for ^Eneas through 
 the middle of his body plunges his mighty sword into the 
 youth, and buries it to the hilt. 44 The pointed steel pierced 
 both through the thin shield, the light armour of the vaunting 
 youth, and the vest, which with soft thread of gold his mother 
 had spun ; and the blood filled his bosom : then to the shades 
 his soul fled mourning through the air, and left the body. But 
 soon as the offspring of Anchises saw his visage and dying 
 looks, his looks wondrously pale, in pity he drew a heavy 
 groan, and stretched forth his hand; and the image of his 
 filial piety touched his soul. Lamented youth, what recom- 
 pence for those virtues, what honour becoming so great ex- 
 cellence, shall pious iEneas on thee now confer ? Thy arms, 
 wherein thou rejoiced, still retain: and to the manes and 
 ashes of thy parents, if that be any object of thy care, I re- 
 sign thee. Yet, hapless one, with this thou shalt solace thy 
 wretched death ; by the hand of great JEneas thou fallest. 45 
 
 44 " Totum " seems equivalent to " capulo tenus." B. 
 44 Compare Ovid Met. viii. 7, " Magnaque dat nobis tantus solatia 
 victor." B. 
 
B. x. 830—863. .3SNEID. 349 
 
 Then straight he chides his lingering followers, and from the 
 ground raises up the youth, with his blood marring his locks 
 in comely order dressed. 
 
 Meanwhile the father at the stream of the river Tiber 
 stanched his wounds with water, 46 and gave a more easy pos- 
 ture to his body, leaning on the trunk of a tree. From the 
 boughs apart his brazen helmet hangs, and his unwieldy arms 
 rest on the mead. Chosen youths around him stand ; himself 
 faint, panting for breath, eases his drooping neck, having 
 spread on his breast a length of waving beard. Of Lausus he 
 incessantly inquires, and many messengers he sends again and 
 again to recall him [from the fight], and bear to him the 
 orders of his afflicted father. But his weeping friends were 
 carrying lifeless Lausus on their arms, a mighty corpse, and 
 with mighty wound overthrown. 47 
 
 The ill-boding mind [of Mezentius] at a distance under- 
 stood their groans. His hoary locks with vile dust he de- 
 forms, to heaven stretches both his hands, and fast to the body 
 clings : O my son, was I with such fond desire of life pos- 
 sessed, to suffer him whom I begot to substitute himself for 
 me to the foe's right hand ? by these wounds of thine am I 
 thy father saved, living by thy death ? Alas ! now at length 
 on wretched me my exile heavy lies, now a wound is driven 
 deep home. I too, my son, the same have by my guilt sullied 
 thy fame, for odious misdeeds driven from my throne and pa- 
 ternal sceptre. It is I that to my country owed satisfaction, 
 and to the odium of my subjects ought to have forfeited my 
 guilty life by every kind of death. And still I live : nor yet 
 from men and light withdraw : but I will withdraw. Then 
 with these w r ords he raises himself on his maimed thigh ; and, 
 though the violent smart of the deep wound retards him, yet, 
 not cast down, he orders his courser to be brought. This was 
 his glory, this his solace ; by this he came off victorious in all 
 his wars. The sympathizing animal he bespeaks, and thus 
 begins : Long, Rhoebus, have we lived, if aught can be said 
 to subsist long with mortals. To-day you shall either vic- 
 torious bear away the head of iEneas, and those spoils all 
 
 46 That this was the customary treatment, we learn from Celsus v. 26. 
 Athenaeus ii. 4. B. 
 
 47 So Silius v. 524, " Interea exanimem mcesti super arma SychEeum 
 Portabant Poeni, corpusque in castra ferebant." B. 
 
350 ^ENEID. b. x. 864—899 
 
 bathed in his blood, and with me avenge the griefs of Lausus ; 
 or, if no efforts open a way, you shall fall with me : for never, 
 I presume, wilt thou, most generous, deign to bear the com- 
 mands of another, and a Trojan lord. He said ; and received 
 on his back, placed his limbs on the accustomed seat, and with 
 pointed javelins loaded each hand, his head gleaming with 
 brass, and roughly garnished with a crest of horse-hair. Thus 
 with rapid speed he drove into the midst. Deep in his heart 
 boils overwhelming shame : and frantic rage, with intermin- 
 gled grief, and love racked with furious despair, and con- 
 scious worth : and here thrice with loud voice he called iEneas. 
 JEneas knew him well; and, pleased [with the challenge, 
 thus] his prayer addresses : So may that great father of the 
 gods, so may exalted Apollo influence thee to begin the com- 
 bat. This only he said, and with his menacing spear ad- 
 vances against him. But he [exclaimed], Most barbarous 
 man, why thinkest thou to affright me, now that my son is 
 snatched from me ? This was the only way whereby thou 
 couldst destroy me. I neither fear death, nor any of your 
 gods regard. Forbear threats : now I am come to die, but 
 first to thee these gifts I bring. He said, and hurled a dart 
 against the foe ; then after that another and another he fixes 
 fast, and flies around in a spacious circuit ; but the golden 
 boss sustains the shock. Thrice round JEneas, as he stood 
 against him, he rode in circles to the left, throwing javelins 
 with his hand; thrice the Trojan hero, [wheeling as he 
 wheels,] bears about with him in his brazen shield a frightful 
 grove [of spears]. And now when he is tired with spinning 
 out so long delays, and drawing out so many darts, and when 
 he is severely harassed, being engaged in an unequal fight, 
 revolving many thoughts in his mind, at length he springs 
 forth, and between the hollow temples of the warrior-steed 
 darts his lance. The horse raises himself upright, then with 
 his heels buffets the air, and falling upon his dismounted 
 rider, keeps him down, and falling forward, overlays his 
 prostrate shoulder. The Trojans and Latins both with ac- 
 clamations rend the sky. JEneas flies to him, and snatches his 
 sword from the scabbard, and over him these [words pro- 
 nounces] : Where is now the stern Mezentius ? where is that 
 wild impetuosity of soul ? On the other hand, the Tuscan, as 
 soon as lifting up his eyes to heaven he began to breathe the 
 
i. t. 900—908. xi. 1—15. .ENEID 351 
 
 air, and recover his senses, [said,] Despiteful foe, why insult- 
 est thou and threatenest death ? There is no crime in shed- 
 ding my blood ; nor engaged I in the combat on such terms 
 [that you should spare my life], nor did my Lausus make 
 such a contract with you on my behalf. One thing I implore, 
 by that grace, if any grace to a vanquished foe belongs, suffer 
 my body to be covered with earth. I know the cruel resent- 
 ment of my subjects besets me round; 48 defend me, I pray 
 you, from this outrage, and to a grave consign me in part- 
 nership with my son. He said, and in his throat, not unpre- 
 pared, receives the blade, and pours forth life in the blood 
 streaming on his armour. 
 
 BOOK XL 
 
 In the Eleventh Book, the funeral of Pallas is solemnized. Latinus, in 
 council, attempts a reconciliation with iEneas, which is prevented by Tur- 
 nus, and by the hostile approach of the Trojan army. Camilla greatly 
 signalizes herself, but is at last slain, when night puts an end to the 
 combat. 
 
 Meanwhile Aurora rising left the ocean. ^Eneas, though 
 both his cares strongly urge him to allot time for interring 
 his friends, and his mind is disturbed by the death [of Pallas], 
 yet, in consequence of his victory, paid to the gods his vows 
 soon as the dawn appeared. } A huge oak, with its boughs 
 on every side lopped off, he erected on a rising ground, and 
 adorned it with shining arms, the spoils of king Mezentius : 
 to thee a trophy, thou great warrior-god ! He fits [to the 
 trunk] his crest dripping with blood, and the hero's shattered 
 arms, and his breastplate in twice six places dented and trans- 
 fixed ; and to the left arm he fastens his target of brass, and 
 from the neck suspends his ivory-hilted sword. Then thus 
 beginning he encourages his joyous friends (for all the chiefs 
 in a crowded body enclosed him) : Warriors, our most import- 
 ant work is done : henceforth all fear be banished. For 
 what remains, these are the spoils, the first-fruits of victory 
 
 48 He feared that they would deprive him of sepulture. B. 
 
 1 Servius well remarks that those who were polluted by a funeral could 
 not make offerings to the gods, until they had been purified. If, how- 
 ever, as in the present case, a man was bound to the performance of both 
 duties, he first made his offering, and then engaged in the funeral rites. 
 
352 JENEID. 
 
 B. xi. lu — 5c, 
 
 won from that insolent tyrant ; and to this state Mezentius is 
 by my arm reduced. Now to the king and the walls of La- 
 tium our way lies open : make ready your arms, and with 
 stout hearts and hopes anticipate the war, that obstacles may 
 not detain you unawares, or deliberation, resulting from fear, 
 retard you, slow of movement, when first the gods permit us 
 to pluck up the standard, and to lead forth the youth from 
 the camp. Meanwhile let us commit to earth the unburied 
 corpses of our friends ; which is the sole honour in deep Ache- 
 ron. Go, he says, with the last duties grace those illustrious 
 souls who for us have won this country with their blood ; and 
 first to the mourning city of Evander let Pallas be conveyed, 
 whom, not deficient in prowess, a gloomy inauspicious day cut 
 off, and sank in an untimely death. Thus weeping he speaks, 
 and to the threshold takes his way, where aged Acoetes 
 watched the corpse of lifeless Pallas laid out : Acoetes, who 
 formerly was armour-bearer to Arcadian Evander, and now 
 with less auspicious omens came [to the war], appointed 
 guardian to his darling foster-son. The whole retinue of his 
 servants stood around, a band of Trojans and mourning dames 
 of Ilium, with tresses in usual form dishevelled. But soon as 
 .iEneas entered the lofty gates, beating their breasts they 
 raise to heaven a mighty groan, and the palace rings with 
 mournful lamentation. When he himself beheld the bolstered 
 head and face of Pallas, white and cold as snow, and in his 
 smooth breast the gaping wound of the Ausonian spear, he 
 thus with gushing tears begins : Lamented youth, how envious 
 was Fortune, just when she began to smile, to snatch thee 
 from me, that thou should st not see my kingdom, nor be borne 
 victorious to thy paternal dwelling ! Not such things of thee 
 I at parting promised to thy sire Evander, when taking leave 
 of me with embraces, he sent me against a mighty empire, 
 and trembling warned me that the enemy were fierce, and 
 that the battle would be with a sturdy nation. And now he 
 indeed, highly possessed with empty hope, is, perhaps, both 
 making vows, and loading the altars with offerings ; while we 
 in grief with unavailing, pomp attend the youth, a lifeless 
 corpse, and now released from his allegiance to the powers 
 above. Ill-fated sire, thou shalt see the dismal funeral of thy 
 owii son ! Is it thus we return ? are these our hoped-for tri- 
 umphs? this my boasted confidence? Yet, Evander, thou 
 
n. xi. 5G— 93. ^NEID. 353 
 
 plialt not see him with inglorious wounds repulsed; nor on 
 thy son, thus saved, shalt thou, in spite of paternal affection, 
 imprecate an accursed death. Ah me, how glorious a pro- 
 tector thou, Ausonia, and thou, lulus, [in him] hast lost ! 
 
 When he had thus vented his grief, he orders them to bear 
 away the woeful corpse, and sends a thousand men, selected 
 from the whole army, to accompany these last honours, and 
 bear a part in the parent's tears ; small consolation for such 
 mighty woe, but due to the unhappy sire ! others with for- 
 ward zeal weave hurdles, and a pliant bier of arbute rods and 
 oaken twigs, and with a covering of boughs shade the bed 
 high raised. Here on the rural couch aloft they raise the 
 youth : like a flower, either of the tender violet or drooping 
 hyacinth, cropped by a virgin's hand, 2 from which not the gay 
 bloom, or its own fair form, hath yet departed; the parent 
 soil no longer feeds it, or supplies it with strength. Then 
 two vests, stiff with embroidery of gold and purple, JEneas 
 brought forth ; which formerly Sidonian Dido, pleased with 
 the task, with her own hands for him had wrought, and striped 
 the stuff with slender threads of gold. In one of these, the 
 last ornament, he sorrowful arrays the youth, and muffles up 
 in a veil his hair devoted to the flames. Besides, he piles up 
 many prizes of the Laurentine war, and orders the booty to 
 be led in long procession. He adds the steeds and arms 
 whereof he despoiled the foe. And to their backs he had 
 bound the hands of those whom to his shade as offering he 
 would send, to sprinkle with their shed blood the flame ; and 
 the chiefs themselves he commands to bear trunks of trees 
 decked with hostile arms, and the names of the enemies to be 
 inscribed upon them. Unhappy Accetes, worn out with age, 
 is led, now with his fists tearing his breasts, now with his 
 nails his face ; and bending forward with his whole body, he 
 lies prostrate on the ground. His chariots too they lead be- 
 smeared with Rutulian blood. Next his warrior-horse, JEthon, 
 his trappings laid aside, moves on weeping, and with the big 
 drops bedews his cheeks. Others bear his spear and helmet : 
 for of the rest victorious Turnus is possessed. Then in 
 mournful plight, the phalanx, the Trojan and the Tuscan 
 leaders follow, and the Arcadians with inverted arms. After 
 
 * Propert. i. 20, 39, " Quae modo decerpens tenero pueriliter ungui 
 Proposito florem prsetulit officio." B. 
 
 2 A 
 
354 ^NEID. b. xi. 94—129. 
 
 the whole body of attendants had advanced before in long pro- 
 cession, ^3Eneas paused, and with a deep groan subjoined these 
 words : We to other scenes of woe, by the same horrid fate of 
 war, are summoned hence. Farewell for ever, illustrious Pal- 
 las, and adieu for ever. This said, he bent his course to the 
 high walls, and directed his steps back to the camp. 
 
 And now from the city of king Latinus ambassadors came 
 bearing olive boughs, supplicating grace [from ^Eneas] ; that 
 he would deliver to them the bodies [of their dead], which by 
 the sword lay scattered over the field, and permit them to be 
 entombed in the earth ; [alleging] that with the vanquished 
 and the lifeless war is at an end ; [and hoping] that he would 
 spare a people to whose hospitality and alliance he was once 
 invited. 
 
 Whom, not unreasonable in their demands, the courteous 
 JEneas receives with grace, and adds these words : What un- 
 deserved fate, ye Latins, hath involved you in so disastrous a 
 Avar, who thus decline us your friends ? Is it for the dead, 
 and the slain by the chance of war, you implore peace ? I truly 
 would grant it to the living too. I should not have come 
 hither unless the Fates had here assigned my settlement and 
 place or residence ; nor with the [Latin] nation wage I war. 
 With us your king renounced hospitality, and rather trusted 
 himself to the arms of Turnus. More just had it been for 
 Turnus to expose himself to this death. If to terminate the 
 war by personal valour, if to expel the Trojans, he intends, me 
 in these arms he ought to have encountered : he [of us two] 
 had lived, to whom God or his own right hand had given life. 
 Now go, and under your unfortunate countrymen apply the 
 funeral fire. JEneas said. They in silence stood astonished, 
 and turning held their eyes and faces to each other. 
 
 Then aged Drances, 3 who still by calumny and invectives 
 vented his animosity on young Turnus, thus replies in turn : 
 Trojan hero, mighty in fame, but mightier still in arms, by what 
 praises shall I exalt thee to heaven ? which shall I most admire, 
 thy justice or thy achievements in war ? We truly with grate- 
 ful hearts will bear this answer back to our city ; and, if any 
 fortune shall open the way, will associate thee to king Latinus : 
 let Turnus seek alliances for himself. We will even with 
 
 3 Drances, a friend of king Latinus, remarkable for his eloquence and 
 weakness. 
 
b. xi. 130—163. ^NEID. 355 
 
 pleasure rear up the fabric of your destined walls, and on our 
 shoulders bear the stones of Troy. 
 
 He said ; and all with one voice murmured their assent. 
 They settled a truce for twice six days : and during the inter- 
 mediate 4 peace, Trojans and Latins promiscuous without hos- 
 tility ranged the woods along the mountains. Felled by the 
 two-edged steel the ash crashes ; pines shot up to the stars 
 they overthrow ; they neither cease to cleave with wedges the 
 oaken planks and fragrant cedar, nor to convey in groaning 
 waggons the mountain-ashes. 
 
 And now flying fame, the harbinger of so great woe, fills 
 Evander and Evander's palace and city ; fame, which just now 
 to Latium bore the news that Pallas was victorious. The Ar- 
 cadians rush to the gates, and, as the ancient manner was, 
 snatched up funeral torches. With a long train of flames the 
 path all shines, and far and wide illuminates 5 the fields. The 
 band of Trojans advancing opposite to them join the lamenting 
 troops ; whom, soon as the matrons beheld approaching the 
 walls, they inflame the mourning city with their shrieks. But 
 no force can restrain Evander from rushing through the midst. 
 The bier being laid down, on Pallas he falls prostrate, and 
 with sobs and groans clings to [the corpse] ; and at length with 
 much ado for grief is a passage opened to these words : These, 
 O Pallas, are not the promises thou gavest thy parent, that 
 with more caution thou wouldst trust thyself to the savage 
 combat. I was not ignorant how far rising glory in arms, and 
 the bewitching renown of the first action, might carry you. 
 Ah ! fatal to the youth his first essays, hard his probation in 
 early war ! Alas ! my vows and prayers by none of the gods 
 regarded ! Thou most holy partner of my bed, happy in thy 
 death, and not to this woe reserved ; whilst I by living on have 
 overpassed my natural bounds to remain a childless father. 6 
 When I followed the confederate arms of Troy, the Rutulians 
 should have overwhelmed me with their darts : my life I had 
 resigned, and me, not Pallas, this pomp had home con- 
 
 4 "Media: nam que sequester est aut medius inter duos altercantes; 
 aut ad quem aliquid ad tempus seponitur." Servius. B. 
 
 5 Literally, " renders distinguishable. " B. 
 
 * Literally, "surviving [my own son]." This was thought a severe 
 misfortune. So Plautus, " Ita ut tuum vis unicum gnatum tuae superesse 
 vitae, sospitem et superstitem." B. 
 
 2 a 2 
 
356 JENEID. b. xi. 164—137. 
 
 veyed. Nor you, ye Trojans, will I accuse, nor your alliance, 
 nor those right hands we joined in hospitable league : this 
 stroke of fortune was destined for my old age. However, if 
 untimely death awaited my son, it will be some satisfaction, 
 that ushering the Trojans into Latium he fell, having first 
 slain thousands of the Yolscians. And now with no other 
 funeral obsequies, O Pallas, can I grace thee, than what pious 
 JEneas, and the noble Trojans, the Tuscan leaders, and whole 
 army of the Tuscans, [have given thee]. Thy illustrious 
 trophies they bear, those whom to death thy right hand offered. 
 Thou too, O Turnus, shouldst have stood [among them] a 
 huge trunk in arms, had my age been equal, and my strength 
 from years the same. But why do I, hapless one, detain the 
 Trojans from the war? Go, and faithfully bear back these 
 mandates to your king : If I linger out a hated life, after Pal- 
 las is slain, it is in consequence of thy [avenging] right hand ; 
 from which you see Turnus is justly due to a son and sire. 
 This post [of honour] is alone reserved for thee and thy 
 fortune. It is not joy in life I seek, nor is it fit I should ; 
 but I wish to bear the tidings to my son down to the shades 
 below. 
 
 Meanwhile to wretched mortals Aurora had brought forth 
 the benignant light, renewing the works and labours [of the 
 day]. 7 Now father -ZEneas, now Tarchon, on the winding 
 shore erected funeral piles. Hither they conveyed, each after 
 the manner of his ancestors, the bodies of their dead ; and the 
 sad 8 fires being applied under them, the lofty sky with smoke 
 is hidden in darkness. Thrice round the blazing piles they 
 ran, clad in shining armour; thrice they encompassed the 
 mournful funeral fire on horseback, and sent forth doleful yells. 
 With their tears is the earth bedewed, bedewed are their arms. 
 The shrieks of men and clang of trumpets pierce through the 
 sky. Next into the fire some throw the spoils torn from the 
 Latins slain, helmets, and gleaming swords, bits, and glowing 
 wheels : some, well-known gifts, their own bucklers and un- 
 successful darts. Many heads of oxen all around are offered 
 
 7 Cf. Quintus Calab. vi. 4, tol £' tig ipya rpairovro /3porol pua 
 <p6Lvv9evTeg. B. 
 
 8 This is the usual interpretation of " atris ignibus," but I think it is 
 far more natural to understand, " dark, pitchy flames." So Eur. Troad, 
 550, do/xoig de Trafjupaeg crkXag Trvpbg fxkXaivav a'iyXav "EdwKav. B. 
 
b. xi. 198—235 /ENEID. 357 
 
 victims to death ; and over the flames they stab bristly boars, 
 and sheep snatched from all the fields : then along the whole 
 shore they view their burning friends, and watch their half- 
 consumed piles : nor can they be torn from them, before humid 
 night inverts the face of heaven, bespangled with shining 
 stars. 
 
 Nor with less care the sorrowing Latins in a different quar- 
 ter reared numberless piles ; and they partly bury in the earth 
 many bodies of their heroes, and part carried off they to the 
 neighbouring fields convey, and send back to the city. The 
 rest, and a vast heap of promiscuous slaughter, without num- 
 ber and without honour, they burn : then on all sides the spa- 
 cious fields, as rivalling each other, blaze together with frequent 
 fires. The third day's light had from the sky removed the 
 chill shades : when in sadness they huddled together on the 
 hearths the heaped-up ashes and bones mingled in confusion, 
 and loaded them with a warm mound of earth. Bat now in 
 the courts of opulent Latinus, and in the city, is the chief up- 
 roar, and by far the deepest scene of mourning. Here mothers 
 and hapless brides, here tender-hearted sisters in deep anguish, 
 and striplings of their sires bereft, curse the rueful war, and 
 the nuptials of Turnus ; and himself they urge by arms, him- 
 self by the sword, to decide the quarrel, since for himself alone 
 he claims the crown of Italy and the first honours. These the 
 malicious Drances aggravates, and protests that Turnus alone 
 is called, alone is challenged to the combat. On the other side 
 the votes of many, in various speech, are given for Turnus, 
 and him the queen's illustrious name protects ; and his own 
 distinguished fame, for trophies justly won, supports the hero. 
 
 Amidst these commotions, in the heat of this raging tumult, 
 lo ! to complete the distress, the ambassadors, from Diomede's 
 imperial city [returning] sorrowful, bring their answer; that 
 nothing was effected by all the expense of so great labour ; 
 that neither the gifts, nor gold, nor importunate prayers, had 
 aught availed ; that the Latins must have recourse to other 
 arms, or sue for peace from the Trojan prince. With great 
 grief king Latinus himself faints away. The wrath of the 
 gods, and the recent tombs before his face, declare that 
 iEneas, the messenger of fate, is led on by a manifest divine 
 impulse. 
 
 Therefore within the lofty palace he assembles his great 
 
358 tENEID. b. xi. 236—266 
 
 council, and the peers of his realm, summoned by his imperial 
 order. They meet together, and flock to the royal apartments 
 along the crowded ways. In the centre, with unjoyous as- 
 pect, sits Latinus, both most advanced in age, and first in 
 sway And here he orders the ambassadors now returned 
 from the ^Etolian city, to say what message they bring back, 
 and demands each particular answer in its order. Then si- 
 lence sat on every tongue ; and Yenulus thus, in obedience to 
 command, begins : We have seen, citizens, Diomede and 
 the Argive camp, and measuring a length of way, have over- 
 passed a thousand dangers, and touched that hand by which 
 Troy's kingdom fell. He victorious was raising in the plains 
 of Apulian G-arganus 9 the city Argyripa, 10 from the name of 
 his native country. After we were admitted, and had per- 
 mission given to speak in the presence, we first present our 
 gifts ; declare our name and country ; who made war upon 
 us ; what errand drew us to Arpi. Our message heard, he 
 thus with mild accent replied : O happy nations, once Saturn's 
 realm, ancient Ausonians, what fortune disturbs you peaceful, 
 and prompts you to rouse unusual wars ? As many of us as 
 with the sword violated the lands of Ilium, (I wave those ex- 
 tremities which in fighting under its lofty walls we sustained, 
 what illustrious heroes that Simois of theirs swept away,) have 
 borne unutterable sufferings over the world, and all punish- 
 ments for our crime ; a band whom even Priam would pity. 
 Minerva's disastrous constellation knows, and the Euboean 
 rocks, and vengeful Caphareus. 11 Ever since that expedition, 
 have we on different coasts been driven ; Menelaus, the son 
 of Atreus, is exiled as far as the pillars of Proteus ; 12 Ulysses 
 hath seen the Cyclops of ^3Etna. Shall I mention [the tragic 
 fate of] Neoptolemus' realms, and the overthrow of Idomeneus' 
 settlement, or the [dispersion of the] Locri who inhabit Li- 
 bya's coast? The prince of Mycenae 13 himself, the leader of 
 
 9 Garganus (St, Angelo,) a lofty mountain of Apulia, projecting in the 
 form of a promontory into the Adriatic Sea. 
 
 10 Argyripa, or Arpi. 
 
 11 Caphareus, (Cape D'Oro,) a lofty promontory on the south-east coast 
 of Euboea, an island in the iEgean Sea. 
 
 12 Proteus, a king of Egypt, on whose coasts Menelaus, in his return 
 from the Trojan war, was forced by stress of weather. 
 
 13 Prince of Mycenae, Agamemnon, who was chosen chief commander 
 of the Grecian forces in the war against Troy. After the destruction ol 
 
i.. xi. 267—299 ^NEID. 359 
 
 the illustrious Greeks, fell by the hand of his unnatural 14 
 spouse, in the first entrance to his palace ; and his adulterous 
 assassin by traitorous means lay in wait for the conqueror of 
 Asia. 15 [Or shall I mention] how the envious gods forbade 
 that I myself, restored to my native country, should see my 
 much-loved spouse, and lovely Calydon ? Even now prodigies 
 of horrid aspect pursue me ; my lost associates, into the aerial 
 regions have winged their way, and, to birds transformed, 
 wander along the rivers, (ah, dire vengeance on my friends !) 
 and fill the rocks with doleful notes. And indeed I had rea- 
 son to expect these calamities ever since that time, when with 
 the sword I madly assaulted the celestial beings, and violated 
 the hand of Venus with a wound. But urge me not, urge not 
 me to fights like these: neither with the Trojans wage I any 
 war, now that Troy is overthrown ; nor remember I with joy 
 their former woes. Those gifts, which to me you brought 
 from your native coasts, transfer to iEneas. We against his 
 keen darts have stood, and engaged him hand to hand ; trust 
 me, who by experience know how stern he rises to his shield, 
 with what a whirl 16 he throws his lance. Had Ida's land 
 produced two such heroes more, the Trojans had first ad- 
 vanced to the cities of Inachus, and Greece by a reverse of 
 fate would have mourned. Whatever obstruction was given 
 at the walls of stubborn Troy, the victory of the Greeks was 
 suspended by the hand of Hector and iEneas, and was re- 
 tarded till the tenth year. Both for valour are distinguished, 
 both for noble feats of arms ; this man in piety excels. Let 
 your, right hands be joined in league, by whatever means it is 
 permitted ; but beware of opposing arms to arms. Thus, best 
 of kings, you have at once both heard his answer, and his re- 
 solution on this important war. Scarcely had the deputies 
 spoken, when through Ausonia's troubled sons a various noise 
 ran ; as, when rocks retard a river's rapid course, from the 
 pent-up flood a murmur arises, and with the beating waves 
 the neighbouring banks resound. 
 
 that city, Agamemnon returned to Argos, where he was murdered by his 
 wife Clytemnestra and her paramour JEgisthus. 
 
 14 For " infandae," Macrobius, Sat. iv. 4,*reads " infandum ! " which is 
 approved by Burmann on Anthol. Lat. T. i. p. 196. B. 
 
 15 See Anthon. The readings vary, since the time of Servius. B. 
 
 16 So "ballistae turbine," Lucan. iii. 465; " directo turbine robur," 
 Silmi iv. 542. B. 
 
360 ^NEID. b. xi. 300—335 
 
 Soon as their minds were calmed, and their tumultuous 
 tongues were hushed, the king, having first addressed the 
 gods, from his lofty throne begins : I indeed could wish, ye 
 Latins, and it had been better, that we had before determined 
 on the common cause, and not to call a council at such a junc- 
 ture, 17 when the foe lays siege to our walls. Incommodious 
 war, O citizens, we wage with a nation of gods and heroes in- 
 vincible, whom no battles tire out, and who, when vanquished, 
 cannot lay down the sword. What hope you entertained from 
 the invited arms of the JEtolians, now dismiss : each must be 
 his own hope : but how feeble this is, you see. In what ruin 
 the rest of our affairs are involved, all is by yourselves both 
 seen and felt. Nor yet accuse I any : what the highest pitch 
 of valour could, has been achieved ; with the whole strength 
 of the realm we have struggled. Now then, (lend your atten- 
 tion,) I will unfold, and briefly show what purpose rises in my 
 doubtful soul. To me an ancient tract of land belongs, near 
 the Tuscan river, in length extended to the west, even beyond 
 Sicania's 18 bounds : the Auruncians and Eutulians sow, and 
 harass with the share the stubborn hills, and turn to pasture 
 their most rugged parts. Let this whole region, and the lofty 
 mountain's piny tracts, be given away to the friendship of the 
 Trojans ; and let us pronounce equal terms of peace, and, as 
 our allies, invite them into our realms. Let them settle, if 
 they have such strong desire, and build cities. But if they 
 have a mind to take possession of other territories and another 
 country, and if from our land they can withdraw, let us build 
 twice ten ships of Italian timber, or more, if they are able to 
 man them : all the materials lie along the river ; let them- 
 selves order the number and fashion of the vessels ; let us 
 with money, men, and naval stores supply them. Besides, 
 our pleasure is, that a hundred ambassadors of the first rank 
 from Latium go to bear our instructions, and confirm* the al- 
 liance, and in their hands extend the boughs of peace, bearing 
 presents of ivory, and sums of gold, a chair of state, and royal 
 robe, the ensigns of our crown. Advise for the common 
 good, 19 and relieve a distressed state. 
 
 17 This is the proper meaning. See Drakenb. on Sil. viii. 112. B. 
 
 18 Sicania, an ancient name of Sicily, which it received from the Si- 
 cani, a people of Spain, who first passed into Italy, and afterwards into 
 Sicily, where they established themselves. 
 
 19 So " in commune "is used, as in Tacit. Agr. § 12. Sueton.Ner. §15. 3- 
 
B. xi. 336—369. JENEID. 361 
 
 Then the same hostile Drances rises, (whom the glory of 
 Turnus inflamed with oblique envy 20 and malignant stings ; 
 abounding in wealth, and more in tongue, but a cold champion 
 in war, yet deemed of no mean authority in consultations ; in 
 faction powerful; him his mother's quality inspired Avith the 
 pride of noble blood, but by the father's side he was of birth 
 obscure, 21 ) and loads Turnus with these invectives, and aggra- 
 vates animosity : Gracious sovereign, you ask counsel in an 
 affair which to none is obscure, nor requires our debate. All 
 must own that they well know what the weal of the nation 
 demands; but they hesitate to speak their mind. Let him 
 allow that freedom of speech, and moderate his vaunts, for 
 whose inauspicious influence and perverse conduct (for my 
 part I will speak out, even though he should threaten me with 
 hostility and death) we have seen so many illustrious chiefs 
 perish, and the whole city sit in mourning ; while he tempts 
 the Trojan camp trusting to flight, and defies heaven with his 
 arm. To those numerous gifts which you order to be sent and 
 delivered to the Trojans, this one, this one more, O best of 
 sovereigns, add ; nor let any one's violent remonstrances deter 
 thee from giving away your daughter, by a father's right, to 
 an illustrious son-in-law, (a worthy match,) and from confirm- 
 ing this peace by a perpetual alliance. And if such dread [of 
 Turnus] haunts our minds and souls, him let us implore, and 
 from him sue for grace ; that to his sovereign he may resign, 
 and to his country give up his proper right. Why dost thou 
 so often expose thy wretched citizens to open dangers ? O 
 thou, the source and origin of these ills to Latium ! no safety 
 [is for us] in war : to thee, O Turnus, we all sue for peace, 
 at the same time for the sole inviolable pledge of peace. 22 I 
 the first, (whom as your malicious foe you image to yourself, 
 nor am I concerned to disprove the charge,) lo ! I come thy 
 suppliant : have pity on thy own ; lay aside thy fierceness, 
 and baffled quit the field. Full many deaths have we with 
 loss of victory seen, and brought the extended fields to desola- 
 tion. Or, if fame have influence, if in your breast such forti- 
 tude you lodge, and if your heart be so much set on a palace 
 
 20 " Qui non ex aperto impugnabat Turnum ; sed eum reipublicae 
 simulata defensione lacerabat." Servius. B. 
 
 21 Literally, " he bore himself] uncertain on the father's side." B. 
 83 i. e. Lavinia. B. 
 
362 ^EKEID, b xi. 370—407 
 
 for yDur dowry ; dare it, and bravely expose your breast ad- 
 verse to the foe. Forsooth, that Turnus may be blessed with a 
 royal consort, we, abject souls, may be strewn on the field, an 
 unburied and unwept throng. And now, if you have any 
 spirit, if you have aught of your country's Mars, look him in 
 the face who gives you the challenge. With these invectives 
 the fierce mind of Turnus was inflamed : he groans, and from 
 the bottom of his breast forces out these accents : Drances, I 
 own, you have always a rich profusion of words at the time 
 when wars call for action ; and when the fathers are convened, 
 you are there the foremost : but this is not a time to fill the 
 court with words which fly in big torrents from thee in safety, 
 while the bulwarks of our walls keep off the foe, and the 
 trenches float not with blood. Wherefore thunder on in noisy 
 eloquence, as thou art wont, and arraign me of cowardice, 
 thou [the valiant] Drances, since thy right hand hath raised 
 so many heaps of slaughtered Trojans, and every where thou 
 deckest the fields with trophies. You may, however, put that 
 animated valour of yours to the proof; for not far have we to 
 seek our foes ; they all around beset our walls. March we 
 against the adversary ? why do you demur ? will your prowess 
 always lie in your blustering tongue, and in those feet only 
 swift to fly? Am I routed? or will any one, thou most abject 
 wretch, justly tax me with being routed, who shall view the 
 swollen Tiber rise with Trojan blood, and Evander's whole 
 family with his race stretched on the ground, and the Arca- 
 dians stripped of their armour ? Not so Bitias and bulky 
 Pandarus me proved, nor those thousands whom, in one day, 
 I victorious sent down to Tartarus, enclosed within the walls, 
 and shut up by the rampart of the foe. No safety, [you say,] 
 is in war. Go, madman, vent such language to the Dardanian 
 chief, and thy own party. Wherefore cease not to embroil 
 all with dreadful alarms, to extol the strength of the twice 
 vanquished race, and on the other hand to depress the arms 
 of Latinus. Now the Myrmidonian 23 chiefs tremble at the 
 Phrygian arms ! now Diomede and Larissaean Achilles ! and 
 the river Aufidus 24 flies back from the Adriatic waves; even 
 when the wicked dissembler feigns himself under terror of 
 
 23 All this is spoken ironically. B. 
 
 24 Aufi'dus, (Ofanto,) a river of Apulia in Italy, falling into the Adri« 
 rtic. The battle of Cannae was fought on the banks of the Aufidus. 
 
b. xi. 407—441. ^NEID. 363 
 
 my menaces, and by his own fear aggravates the charge against 
 me. Cease from being disturbed ; never shalt thou lose such 
 a soul as thine by this right hand : let it dwell with thee, and 
 rest in that ignoble breast. Now I return to thee, sire, and 
 to thy important debates. If in our arms you repose no further 
 confidence ; if we are so desolate, and utterly undone by our 
 army being once defeated, and our fortune is capable of no 
 redress ; let us sue for peace, and let us extend our hands un- 
 armed. Yet oh ! did any of our wonted worth remain, that 
 man were happy in my judgment beyond all others, in his 
 toils, and heroic in soul, who, that he might not see aught like 
 this, fell once for all, and dying bit the ground. But if we 
 both have resources, and youthful troops still fresh, and Italian 
 cities and nations left to our aid ; if the Trojans purchase their 
 honour with much blood ; if they too have their funerals, and 
 the storm [of war has raged] through all with equal fury : 
 why faint we dishonourably in the first entrance [to the 
 war] ? why does trembling seize our limbs, before the trumpet 
 [sounds] ? Length of days, and the various labour of change- 
 ful time, have reduced many things to a better state : fortune, 
 that visits alternately [with good and ill], hath baffled many, 
 and again placed them on a firm basis. The ^Etolian prince, 
 [it seems,] and Arpi, will not support us ; but Messapus will, 
 and the fortunate Tolumnius, 25 and those leaders whom so 
 many nations have sent : nor shall small glory attend the se- 
 lect troops from Latium and the Laurentine fields. With us 
 too is Camilla, 26 of the illustrious race of the Yolscians, who 
 leads a squadron of horse, and troops gaily glittering with 
 brass. But if the Trojans demand me alone to the fight, and 
 if this be your pleasure, and I so much obstruct your com- 
 mon good ; victory has not hitherto with so much hate aban- 
 doned my right hand, as for me to decline any enterprise for 
 so glorious a prospect. I will advance against [^Eneas] with 
 confidence, though he should even approve himself a great 
 Achilles, and sheathe himself in similar armour forged by 
 Vulcan's hands. To you, and to Latinus, my [promised] 
 father-in-law, I, Turnus, not inferior in valour to any of the 
 
 25 Tolumnius, an augur in the army of Turnus against ^neas, who 
 violated the league between the Rutulians and Trojans, and -was after- 
 wards slain. 
 
 - s Camilla, the virago female warrior. 
 
364 JENEID. b. xi. 442—471 
 
 ancient heroes, have this life devoted. Does iEneas challenge 
 me alone ? Heaven grant he may. Nor let Drances rather, 
 if either this be the angry resolve of the gods, by death make 
 the atonement ; or, if an opportunity of glory and valour, let 
 him bear away [the prize]. 
 
 They in mutual contention were debating on the perplexed 
 state of their affairs, iEneas was advancing his camp and army 
 [towards the city of Laurentum]. Lo, in great hurry, a mes- 
 senger rushes through the court, and fills the city with dread- 
 ful alarms; that, from the Tiber's stream, the Trojans, ar- 
 ranged in battle-array, and the Tuscan host, were marching 
 down over all the plains. Forthwith their minds were seized 
 with perturbation, the hearts of the populace are stunned, and 
 their rage with keen impulse is roused. In hurry they call 
 for arms in hand ; for arms, the storming youth exclaim : the 
 fathers in sadness mourn and repine in low accents. 27 Here, 
 from every quarter, the loud clamour ascends with various 
 discordant notes to the skies : just as when by chance in some 
 tall grove flocks of birds alight, or in Padusa's 28 fishy streams, 
 hoarse swans raise a clattering din through the loquacious 
 floods. Citizens, says Turnus, seizing the opportunity, con- 
 vene your council, and seated harangue in praise of peace, 
 whilst they rush into our kingdom in arms. This said, he 
 instantly put himself in motion, and quick from the lofty hall 
 withdrew. You, Volusus, he says, command to arms the 
 Yolscian troops, and lead on the Rutulians ; ye, Messapus, and 
 Coras 29 with your brother, pour abroad the armed horsemen 
 over the extended plains ; let some secure the passes to the 
 city, and man the towers ; the rest employ their arms with me 
 where I shall command. Instant to the walls they flock from 
 all quarters of the town. The sire, Latinus himself, quits the 
 council and his great designs [of peace], and distracted with 
 the dismal conjuncture, adjourns ; himself he much accuses, 
 that he had not directly received the Trojan hero, and to the 
 city admitted him as his son-in-law. Others dig trenches 
 before the gates, or heave up to them rocks and palisades ; 
 the hoarse trumpet sounds the bloody signal for the war: 
 
 27 This is the proper force of " rmissant." B. 
 
 28 Padusa, the most southern mouth of the Po, from which there was 
 5 cut to the town of Ravenna. 
 
 29 Coras, a brother of Catillus and Tiburtus, who fought against .££nea CT 
 
b. xi. 475—516. JENEID. 365 
 
 then in various circling bands, matrons and boys crowned the 
 ramparts : the extremity of distress calls every one. Mean- 
 while the queen, with a great retinue of matrons, is borne 
 aloft to the temple and high towers of Pallas, carrying offer- 
 ings ; and by her side attends the virgin Lavinia, the cause of 
 so great woe, fixing on the ground her beauteous eyes. The 
 matrons follow, and with incense fume the temple, and from 
 the lofty threshold pour forth their doleful prayers : Patroness 
 of war, powerful in arms, Tritonian virgin, crush with thine 
 arm the Phrygian pirate's lance, and stretch himself prostrate 
 on the ground, and overthrow him under our lofty gates. 
 
 Turnus himself, with emulous ardour raging, is armed for 
 battle ; and now, clad in his Rutulian corslet, was rough with 
 brazen scales, and had sheathed his legs in gold, his temples 
 yet naked ; to his side he had buckled on his sword, and from 
 the high fort speeding his way shone all in gold ; with spirit 
 he exults, and already in hope anticipates the foe : as when 
 the courser, having burst his bonds, flies from the stall, at 
 length at liberty, and possessed of the open plain ; either to 
 the pastures and herds of mares he bends his way, or accus- 
 tomed to be laved in the well-known flood, springs forth, and 
 rearing up his crest on high, neighs with wanton pride ; and 
 his mane plays on his neck and shoulders. Whom full in the 
 face, Camilla, attended by her Yolscian squadron, meets, and 
 under the very gates the queen leaps down from her horse ; 
 after whose example the whole troop, quitting their steeds, slid 
 down to earth. Then thus she speaks: Turnus, if justly in 
 themselves the brave may aught confide, I dare, and promise 
 to stand the shock of the Trojan host, and singly to make head 
 against the Tuscan horse. Suffer me with this arm to tempt 
 the first dangers of the war : near the walls stay you behind 
 on foot, and guard the city. To this Turnus, with eyes fixed 
 on the formidable maiden, [replies] : O heroine, glory of Italy, 
 what thanks can I prepare to express, or what return can I 
 make to thee ? But now since that soul of thine is superior 
 to all things, share with me the toil. -ZEneas, as fame and the 
 scouts we sent bring sure advice, with wicked purpose hath 
 sent on light-armed horse to scour the plains : himself along 
 the desert height of the mountains, hastening down its brow, 
 marches against the city. A stratagem of war I devise, in a 
 winding path of the wood to beset the twofold defile with an 
 
366 ^ENEID. 
 
 b. xi. 517—552. 
 
 armed band. Do you in close fight engage the Tuscan horse. 
 The brave Messapus will be with you. and the Latin troops^ 
 and the Tiburtine band : and do thou also assume the gene- 
 ral's charge. He said, and in like terms animates Messapus 
 and the confederate chiefs to the fight, and marches on against 
 the foe. In a mazy winding tract a valley lies, commodious 
 for ambush and the wiles of war ; which a gloomy flank of 
 wood encloses with thick boughs : whither leads a scanty 
 path, narrow defiles and malignant passes guide. Over this, 
 in the mountain's heights and lofty summit, lie a concealed 
 plain and safe retreats ; whether from right or left you wish 
 to attack an enemy, or from the ridge to harass him, and tum- 
 ble on him ponderous rocks. Hither young Turnus repairs 
 along the path's well-known track ; he with expedition seized 
 .the post, and in the dangerous thickets insidiously lay. 
 f Meanwhile Diana in the superior mansions addressed swift 
 Opis, 30 one of her virgin train and sacred retinue, and with sad 
 accent pronounced these words : O nymph, Camilla to cruel 
 war sets out, and is with our arms in vain arrayed, she who 
 is dear to me above her fellows : nor is this a new passion 
 that rises in Diana, and with a sudden fondness moves my 
 soul. When Metabus, 31 expelled from his kingdom for in- 
 vidious measures, and insolent abuse of power, quitted his 
 ancient city Privernum, flying amidst the contests of war, he 
 carried off the infant his companion in exile, and from her 
 mother's name Casmilla, with small variation, called her Ca- 
 milla. He, in his bosom bearing her before him, to the re- 
 mote mountains and solitary groves took his way ; cruel darts 
 pursued him on all sides, and the Yolscians hovered about 
 with troops around him spread. Lo, in the midst of his 
 flight, Amasenus overflowing foamed over his highest banks ; 
 such a torrent of rain had burst from the clouds: he, pre- 
 paring to swim, is retarded by his tenderness for the child, 
 and fears for his darling charge. As he was pondering every 
 expedient within himself, suddenly this resolution with re- 
 luctance settled [in his breast]. An enormous javelin, which 
 in his strong hand the warrior chanced to wield, solid with 
 
 30 Opis, a nymph among Diana's attendants, who avenged the death ci 
 Camilla by shooting Arus, by whose hand the qneen had fallen. 
 
 31 Metabus, king of Privernum, a city of the Volsci in Latium, and 
 f ather of Camilla. 
 
b. xi. 553—593. jENEID. 367 
 
 knots and well- seasoned oak; to this he fastens the babe 
 wrapped up in bark and sylvan cork, and with dexterity binds 
 her about the middle of the dart ; which poising in his vast 
 hand, he thus addresses himself to heaven: To thee, virgin 
 daughter of Latona, auspicious inmate of the woods, this child, 
 thy handmaid, I in a father's right devote: wielding thy 
 weapons first she flies through the air, thy suppliant, from the 
 foe : O goddess, I implore thee, receive thy own, who now is 
 committed to the uncertain winds. He said, and with inbent 
 arm flung the whirled lance; the waves resound; over the 
 rapid stream ill-fated Camilla on the whizzing javelin flies. 
 But Metabus, a numerous troop now pursuing him more 
 closely, flings himself into the flood, and, master of his wish, 
 plucks from the grassy turf the spear, with the virgin, Diana's 
 gift. Him no cities, nouses, or walls received ; nor, by reason 
 of his savage nature, would he have condescended [so to live] : 
 but in the lonely mountains he led a shepherd's life. There 
 among the brakes and horrid lairs, he nurtured his child from 
 the dugs of a brood-mare, and with animal milk, milking the 
 teats into her tender lips. And soon as the infant with the 
 first prints of her feet had marked the ground, he loaded her 
 hands with the pointed javelin, and from the shoulders of the 
 little girl hung a bow and arrows. Instead of ornaments of 
 gold for the hair, instead of being arrayed in a long trailing 
 robe, a tiger's hide hangs over her back down from her head. 
 Even then with tender hand she flung childish darts, and 
 whirled round her head a smooth-thonged sling, and struck 
 down a Strymonian crane or white swan. Many matrons 
 through the Tuscan towns in vain wished her for their 
 daughter-in-law. She with Diana alone content, a spotless 
 maid, cherishes the perpetual love of darts and virginity. 
 Would she had never been in love with war like this, nor at- 
 tempted to assault the Trojans ! My favourite, and one of my 
 retinue, she might now have been. But come, O nymph, 
 since it is so determined by cruel fates, glide down from the 
 sky, and visit the Latin coast, where with inauspicious omens 
 the woeful fight is ushered in. Take these [weapons], and 
 from thy quiver draw forth a vengeful arrow : by this, who- 
 ever with a wound shall violate her sacred body, whether 
 Trojan or Italian, let him to me without distinction pay the 
 forfeit with his blood. Then in a hollow cloud will I into a 
 
363 JENEID. b. xi. 594-630 
 
 tomb convey the corpse and uncaptured arms of my lamented 
 maid, and restore her to her native land. She said: but Opis, 
 shooting down through the light airy regions of the sky, rat- 
 tled along, her body wrapped around in a black whirlwind. 
 
 But the Trojan host meanwhile approach the walls, and the 
 Tuscan chiefs and the whole army of horsemen in order were 
 ranged in troops. The prancing courser neighs aloud over 
 all the plain, and battles with the tightened reins, this way and 
 that way w r heeling about : then far and wide an iron field of 
 spears bristles to the view, and the plains shoot a fiery glare 
 with arms raised aloft. Again on the other side opposed to 
 these appear in the field Messapus, and the swift Latins, and 
 Coras wdth his brother, and virgin Camilla's winof : and with 
 right hands drawn back stretch forth their spears far before 
 them, and brandish their darts : the advance of the heroes and 
 neighing of the steeds appear more and more fierce. And 
 now each army, advancing w r ithin a javelin's throw, make a 
 halt : with a sudden shout they spring forth, and cheer on 
 their sprightly steeds : at once from all quarters they pour 
 thick showers of darts, like snow, and with their shade the 
 face of heaven is screened. Forthwith Tyrrhenus and fierce 
 Aconteus, exerting their whole force, rush on each other 
 with lance to lance opposed, and first with mighty noise give 
 the first shock, and with violent contact dash their horses' 
 breasts against each other. Aconteus, tossed [from his steed] 
 after the manner of a thunderbolt, or weight shot from an 
 engine, is flung headlong to a distance, and disperses his 
 life in air. Instantly the lines are thrown into disorder ; and 
 the Latins put to flight, cast their shields behind, and turn the 
 horses to the city. The Trojans pursue: Asylas chief leads 
 on the troops. And now r they approached the gates : when 
 the Latins again raise a shout, and wheel about the pliant 
 necks [of their steeds] ; the others fly, and, giving their horses 
 full reins, retreat: as when the sea rolling with alternate 
 tides now rushes on the land, and foaming throws over the 
 rocks its waves, and with its skirts overflows the extremity of 
 the strand : now back with rapid motion, and sucking in 
 again the stones rolled backwards with the tide, it retreats, 
 and with the ebbing current leaves the shore. Twice the 
 Tuscans drove the flying Rutulians to their walls : twice the 
 repulsed [Rutulians] face about on their foes, who, w T ith their 
 
h. xi. 630—665. JENEID. 3G9 
 
 targets defend their backs. But, after joining battle the tnird 
 time, they mingled their whole armies in close fight, and man 
 singles out his man ; then are dying groans ; and arms, and 
 bodies, and expiring steeds, mingled with slaughtered heaps 
 of men, roll in deep blood : a furious combat ensues. Orsilo- 
 chus against the horse of Remulus, when he dreaded to en- 
 counter the rider himself, hurled a lance, and left the steel 
 beneath his ear : with which blow the courser rages bounding 
 high, and, impatient of the wound, tosses his legs aloft, rear- 
 ing up his breast. His lord dismounted, falls to the ground. 
 Catillus overthrows Iolas, and Herminius, formidable for 
 courage, for size, and arms ; whose yellow locks [waved] on 
 his bare head, and whose shoulders were also uncovered. 
 Wounds dismay him not : so mighty he stands to arms op- 
 posed. The spear, driven through his broad shoulders, trem- 
 bles, and, transfixing the warrior, doubles him down with 
 pain. Black gore is poured forth all around : vying with each 
 other, they deal destruction with the sword, and by wounds 
 seek glorious death. But amidst heaps of slain the Amazon 
 Camilla, armed with a quiver, proudly prances over the field, 
 with one breast bared for the fight ; and now with her hand 
 in showers tough javelins she throws, now with unwearied 
 arm she snatches her sturdy halberd. From her shoulder rat- 
 tles her golden bow, and the arms of Diana. Even if at any 
 time repulsed she gave ground, still turned [against the foe] 
 she aimed the winged shafts from her bow. Around her were 
 her select retinue, the virgin Larina, Tulla, and Tarpeia brand- 
 ishing her brazen axe, Italian nymphs ; whom sacred Camilla 
 herself had chosen for her glory, and as trusty assistants in 
 war and peace : like Thracian Amazons, when they beat the 
 banks of Thermodon, 32 and war with particoloured arms, 
 either round Hippolyte, 33 or about Penthesilea, when that 
 martial lady in her chariot returns ; and with loud yelling up- 
 roar the female troops with half-moon 34 shields exult. Whom 
 first, whom last, didst thou, fierce virgin, with thy shafts 
 
 32 Thermodon, (Thermeh,) a river of Pontus, in Asia Minor, in the 
 country of the Amazons, falling into the Euxine Sea near Themiscyra. 
 
 33 Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons, given in marriage to Theseus, by 
 Hercules, who had conquered her. 
 
 34 So called from their form. Cf. Quintus Calab. i. 146, avy Wer' ac- 
 rrida oiav dXiyKiov avrvyt firjvijg. B. 
 
 2 B 
 
370 JENEID. b. xi. 666— 70G 
 
 overthrow ? or how many bodies didst thou stretch gasping 
 on the ground ? First Eumenius, the son of Clytius, whose 
 exposed breast, as he stood right against her, she transfixes 
 with the long spear of fir. He, vomiting up torrents of blood, 
 falls and bites the bloody ground, and dying writhes on his 
 own wound. Then Liris and Pagasus besides ; of whom the 
 one tumbling backward from his horse wounded under him 
 while he gathers up the reins, the other, as he comes up, and 
 reaches his unavailing hand to his falling friend, both fall 
 headlong and at once. To these she joins Amastrus, the son 
 of Hippotas ; and at distance keenly plying with darts pur- 
 sues Tereas, Harpalycus, Demophoon, and Chromis ; and 
 as many shafts as shot from her hand the virgin hurled, so 
 many Trojan heroes fell. Afar the hunter Ornytus in strange 
 arms rides on his lapygian 35 steed; his broad shoulders a 
 hide torn from a fierce bullock overspreads ; his head a wolfs 
 vast yawning mouth and jaws with white teeth cover, and a 
 rustic lance 36 arms his hand. In the midst of the troops he 
 moves about, and overtops the rest by a full head. Him in- 
 tercepted (nor hard was the task, now that she had put his 
 troop to flight) she transfixes, and over him these words with 
 hostile heart pronounces : Tuscan, didst thou fancy that thou 
 wast hunting beasts of chase in the woods ? The day is come, 
 that by a female arm confutes your vaunts : yet to the manes 
 of thy fathers this no trifling honour shalt thou bear, that 
 thou didst fall by the weapon of Camilla. In order next Or- 
 silochus and Butes, the two most bulky bodies of the Trojans, 
 [she assaults] : but Butes right against her with the pointed 
 lance she transfixes, between the corslet and the helmet, where, 
 as he sits r upon the horse], the shining neck appears, and 
 where down from his left arm the buckler hangs : Orsilochus 
 she mocks with [dissembled] flight, and wheeling round in a 
 spacious orb, turns short upon him in a narrower circle, and 
 pursues the pursuer. Then rising high, with redoubled 
 strokes she drives her sturdy axe through his arms, and 
 through his bones, while he prays and earnestly begs his life : 
 with his warm brains the wound besmears his face. The 
 warrior son of Aunus, the Apennine mountaineer, casually 
 
 35 i. e. " Appulo." Servius. Compare Gellius ii. 22. B. 
 u " Spams," a rustic missile, called, according to Varro, (cf. Serviur.) 
 ft m\ its similarity to a fish of that name. B. 
 
it. xi. 701— 733. ^ENEID. 371 
 
 encountered her, and startled with the sudden sight stopped 
 short ; not the last of the Ligurians, while the Fates suffered 
 him to practise fraud. Soon as he perceives that now by no 
 flight he can evade the combat, nor avert the queen who 
 presses him close, with policy and craft attempting to execute 
 his wishes, he thus begins : What mighty courage, female, if 
 on a warlike steed you rely ? throw away the means of flight, 
 and trust thyself with me hand to hand on equal ground, and 
 prepare for the combat on foot: soon shalt thou know to 
 which of us his vain-glorious boasting will bring harm. 37 He 
 said ; but she, breathing fury, and stung with fierce resent- 
 ment, delivers her steed to an attendant, and confronts him in 
 equal arms with the naked sword on foot, and with her device- 
 less shield undaunted. But the youth, presuming that he had 
 overcome by artifice, instantly flies off, and, turning about his 
 horse's head, is borne away with precipitation, and tires his 
 fleet courser with the iron spur. Fond Ligurian, [says she,] 
 flushed with unavailing pride of soul, in vain hast thou per- 
 fidious tried thy country's slippery arts ; nor shall all thy arti- 
 fice bring thee off safe to cheating Aunus. Thus the virgin 
 said, and with nimble foot, all on fire, outruns his courser's 
 speed, and, grasping the reins, engages him face to face, and 
 takes vengeance on his hostile blood ; with the same ease as 
 from a lofty rock the falcon, sacred bird [of Mars], with 
 winged speed overtakes a dove aloft among the clouds, and 
 seizing gripes her fast, and scoops out the bowels with his 
 hooked talons : then from the sky her blood and torn plumes 
 drop down. 
 
 But not with inattentive eyes the Sire of gods and men 
 these scenes surveying, on high Olympus exalted sits. The 
 Sire rouses Tuscan Tarchon to bloody battles, and with no 
 mild incentives inflames his rage. Therefore, amidst the 
 scenes of slaughter and flying squadrons, Tarchon is hurried 
 on by his steed, and with various remonstrances animates the 
 wings, calling each man 38 by his name ; and rallies the broke u 
 troops to battle. Oh never to be moved with just indigna- 
 tion ! Oh still dastardly faint-hearted Tuscans, what fear, 
 
 37 "Fraudem" seems to have been always regarded as the correct 
 reading. See Servius. B. 
 
 "* So Furius apnd Macrob. Sat. vi. 1, "nomine quemque ciet." Silius 
 t '154, " Cunctosque ciebat nomine. "■ B. 
 
 i b 2 
 
372 JENEID. b. xi. 734-7G7 
 
 what cowardice so base has seized your souls ? Does a woman 
 drive you straggling, and put these squadrons to flight? 
 What avails the sword ? or why wield we in our hands these 
 useless weapons ? But not so slothful are ye in the service of 
 Venus and her nocturnal wars, 39 or when the bent pipe of 
 Bacchus hath summoned the choirs to wait for the banquets 
 and bowls at the sumptuous board. This is your delight, 
 this your ambition, while the auspicious augur declares the 
 sacred rites, and the fat victim invites you to the deep groves. 
 This said, he spurs on his steed into the midst, he too bent on 
 death, and in furious perturbation advances directly against 
 Venulus ; and with his right hand grasps the foe torn off his 
 steed, and precipitant with huge violence bears him off before 
 him. A shout is raised to heaven ; and all the Latins turned 
 their eyes. Fiery Tarchon flies over the plain, bearing both 
 the warrior and his arms : then from the top of his lance he 
 breaks off the steel, and explores the open chinks where he 
 may inflict the mortal wound. He, on the other hand, strug- 
 gling against him, wards off his hand from his throat, and 
 force by force evades. And as when the tawny eagle soaring 
 high bears off a serpent whom she hath seized, hath fixed in 
 him her feet, and with her talons griped him fast ; but the 
 wounded serpent writhes his curving volumes, and with 
 erected scales is stiff, and hisses with his mouth, rising high 
 against [his foe] : she not the less with hooked beak squeezes 
 him struggling, at the same time flaps the air with her wings ; 
 just so, from the army of the Tiburtines Tarchon in tri- 
 umph bears off his prey. The Tuscans, following the ex- 
 ample and fortune of their leader, rush on. Then Aruns 40 
 to death devoted, with his javelin and much artifice, first 
 courses round the swift Camilla, and watches what most 
 favourable opportunity may occur. Wherever amidst the 
 troops the furious maid drove on, there Aruns follows, and 
 silently surveys her steps. Wherever she victorious returns, 
 and from the foe withdraws her steps, that way the youth 
 secretly winds about the reins with speed. Now these, now 
 those approaches, and the whole circuit he traverses, and with 
 mischievous purpose shakes his unerring lance. By chance 
 
 39 Virgil expresses the Greek vvKro/Liax^v (cf. Aristaenet. i. 10). B. 
 
 40 Aruns, a Trojan, who slew Camilla, and was killed by a dart cf 
 Diana. 
 
B. xi 768—800. ^ENEID. 373 
 
 Chloreus, 41 sacred to Cybele, and formerly her priest, at dis- 
 tance shone conspicuous in Phrygian arms, and spurred on his 
 foaming courser ; which a hide compact with gilt scaly plates 
 of brass in form of plumes, covered. He himself, gaudy in 
 barbaric purple of darkened hue, shot Cretan arrows from his 
 Lycian bow. Of gold the bow hung rattling from his shoulders, 
 and of gold was the helmet of the priest : then in a knot with 
 a clasp of yellow gold he had collected his saffron chlamys, 
 and its rustling plaits of lawn, having his Phrygian tunic 
 embroidered with needle-work. Him the virgin, whether 
 that she might fix Trojan arms in the front of the temple, or 
 show herself at the chase in captive gold, of all the warring 
 chiefs alone blindly pursued ; and through the whole host, 
 from a woman's longing for the prey and spoils, with heedless 
 ardour roamed : when at length Aruns, snatching the occasion, 
 from his covert throws a dart, and thus to the powers above 
 addresses his prayer : Apollo, greatest of gods, guardian of 
 holy Soracte, whom we chiefly adore ; for whom the fire of 
 pine 42 with heaps [of fuel] is fed ; and in whose honour, 
 through the midst of the flames, 43 we thy votaries, relying on 
 our piety, walk over a length of burning coals ; grant, almighty 
 Sire, that by our arms this infamy may be blotted out. Not 
 pillage or trophy, or any spoils of a vanquished maid, I seek : 
 to me my other exploits will bear renown. If, smitten by a 
 wound from me, this rueful pest shall fall, I to my native city 
 shall [willingly] return inglorious. Phoebus heard, and with 
 himself ordained that part of the vow should be fulfilled ; part 
 in fleet air he dispersed. By sudden death to overthrow 
 Camilla off her guard, he granted to his suppliant ; that his 
 illustrious country should see him safely return he denied, and 
 that petition the tempests turned adrift among the winds. 
 Therefore, soon as sent from his hand the spear gave a whiz- 
 zing sound through the air, the armies turned their attention, 
 
 41 Chloreus, a priest of Cybele, who came with iEneas into Italy, and 
 was killed by Turnus. 
 
 42 But this may also mean " the pitchy flame," as in Soph. Antig. 124, 
 jrsvicaevO' "RcpaKjrov. So Tryphiodorus, 214, TrevKrjavrog dvaaxofievoi 
 Trvpbg bpjxi]v. Compare Heins. on Silius v. 179. B. 
 
 43 This is illustrated from a historical passage in Pliny, lib. vii. cap. 
 2. Haud procul urbe Roma, in Faliscorum agro, familiae sunt paucae, 
 quae vocantur Hirpiae : quae sacriricio annuo, quod fit ad montem Soractem 
 Apollini, super ambustam ligni struem ambulantes non aduruntur. 
 
•'■> ' 4 x jKNEID. b. xi. 801—837. 
 
 and all the Volscians on the queen their eyes directed. Neither 
 air nor whizzing sound did she heed, or the weapon flying 
 from the sky, till plunged beneath her naked breast the spear 
 stuck fast, and driven home drank deep her virgin blood. 
 Her attendants in trembling haste pour in together, and lift 
 up their falling queen. Above all, Aruns, stunned with joy 
 and mingled fear, flies ; and now no longer dares trust to his 
 spear, or make head against the weapons of the virgin. And 
 as some fierce 44 w r olf 5 after he has slain a shepherd or lusty 
 bullock, conscious of his daring deed, forthwith by some un- 
 beaten path hath to the lofty mountains made his retreat, 
 before the hostile darts pursue him ; and cowering hides his 
 cowardly tail under him, and hastens to the woods: just so 
 Aruns in hurrying perturbation from sight withdrew, and 
 pleased with his flight mixed among the armed troops. She 
 dying wrenches out the weapon with her hand ; but between 
 the bones in her side the steel point stands fixed with a deep 
 wound. Down she sinks lifeless ; down sink her cold eyes in 
 death ; her once blooming hue hath forsaken her face. Then 
 thus, breathing her last, she addresses Acca, one of her com- 
 peers, who, beyond the rest, was singularly trusty to Camilla, 
 with whom she used to divide her cares ; and thus these words 
 she speaks : So far, O sister Acca, have I held out ; now a 
 cruel wound unffces me, and all objects around put on a 
 face of darkness. Fly quick, and bear these, my last com- 
 mands, to Turnus : let him advance to the combat, and repel 
 the Trojans from the city. And now farewell. At the same 
 time with these words she dropped the reins, sinking to the 
 ground involuntarily : then of vital heat bereft, she disengages 
 herself from the whole body by degrees ; and reclined her 
 drooping neck, and head subdued by death, leaving her arms; 
 and with a groan her life indignant fled to the shades. Then 
 indeed a prodigious outcry arising strikes the golden stars. 
 The combat grows more bloody, now that Camilla is over- 
 thrown. At once in thick array rush on the whole strength 
 of the Trojans, the Tuscan chiefs, and the wings of Arcadian 
 Evander. 
 
 But Opis, appointed by Diana to watch [the fair J, a long 
 while had sat aloft on the high mountains, and fearless viewed 
 
 44 See, however, Anthon on Mn. x. 707. B. 
 
B. xi. 838— 874. ^NEID. OiO 
 
 the combat. And soon as from far she espied Camilla by a 
 lamentable death overthrown amidst the bustle of the infu- 
 riated youths, she inly groaned, and from the bottom of her 
 breast uttered these words : Ah virgin, too, too cruel punish- 
 ment hast thou sustained, for offering to defy the Trojans in 
 war ! nor hath it aught availed thee that lonely in the woods 
 thou wast a votary to Diana, and on thy shoulder didst bear 
 our quivers : yet not without honour has thy queen forsaken 
 thee now in death's extremity, nor shall this thy death be un- 
 recorded amongst the nations, nor shalt thou bear the infamy 
 of being unrevenged : for whoever with a wound hath violated 
 thy body, shall by just death his crime atone. Under the 
 lofty mountain stood the stately tomb 45 of Dercennus, the 
 ancient king of Laurentum, formed of a mount of earth, and 
 shaded with gloomy holm. Here first the goddess, pre-emi- 
 nent in beauty, with a rapid effort [of her wings] alights, and 
 Aruns from the high eminence surveys. Soon as she saw him 
 shining in armour, and vainly swelling, she said, Why dost 
 thou move off that way ? hither direct thy course, hither come 
 to meet thy doom, that from Camilla thou may est receive thy 
 due reward. Shalt thou, too, have the honour to die by Di- 
 ana's shafts? She said, and from her gilded quiver the Thra- 
 cian nymph drew forth a winged arrow, and wrathful bent 
 her bow, and stretched it to its length, till the crooked points 
 together met, and now with both hands alike she touched, 
 with the left the steel point, and with the right and bow-string 
 her breast. Forthwith Aruns heard at once the hissing of 
 the shaft and sounding air, and in his body the steel stuck 
 fast. Him, expiring and groaning his last, his regardless 
 friends abandon in the dusty plain unknown: Opis to the 
 ethereal sky on wings is borne away. 
 
 First fly the warriors of Camilla's left-armed wing, now 
 that their queen is lost ; the Rutulians in confusion fly ; va- 
 liant Atinas flies ; the discomfited leaders, and the desolate 
 companies, both seek safe retreats, and turning their backs, on 
 coursers bend their way towards the town. Nor is any one 
 able with arms to sustain, or stand against the Trojans press- 
 ing on, and dispensing death ; but on their languid shoulders 
 they bear off their bows unbent, and with swift career the 
 
 45 " Bustum " is, properly, the place where a corpse has been burnt. B. 
 
376 J3NEID. b. xi. 875—914. 
 
 courser's hoof beats the mouldering plain. Dust, in thick 
 clouds of black vapour, is rolled towards the walls ; and from 
 the towers the matrons beating their breast raise the female 
 shriek to the stars of heaven. On those who first with speed 
 burst within the expanded gates a hostile throng in a mingled 
 body presses ; nor escape they deplorable death, but in the 
 very entrance, under their native walls, and amidst the shelter 
 of the houses, transfixed together they breathe out their souls. 
 Some shut the gates, nor dare to open a passage to their 
 friends, or within the walls to receive them imploring : and a 
 most lamentable slaughter ensues of such as guarded with 
 their arms the passes, and such as rushed on 4hose arms. The 
 excluded, before the eyes and faces of their grieving parents, 
 partly tumble headlong into the deep trenches, ruin closely 
 pursuing. Some giving loose reins, blindfold and with rapid 
 speed batter against the gates, and the firmly barricaded posts. 
 Even the trembling matrons, soon as from the walls they 
 espied the corpse of Camilla, with the greatest eagerness (since 
 affection to their country prompts them) cast darts with their 
 hands, and, rushing precipitant with hardened oaks, stakes, 
 and poles burnt at the point, imitate iron weapons, and are 
 ambitious to die the first before the walls. Meanwhile this 
 horrid intelligence fills [the ears of] Turnus [as he lies am- 
 bushed] in the woods, and to the youth Acca reports the 
 dreadful disorder ; that the troops of the Yolscians were cut 
 in pieces, Camilla had fallen, the vengeful foes were making a 
 furious onset, and by a successful battle had made themselves 
 masters of all ; that the consternation was now propagated to 
 the city. He furious (for so the inflexible decrees of Jove 
 require) quits the hills he had beset, forsakes the rugged woods. 
 Scarcely had he gone out of sight, and possessed the plain, 
 when father .ZEneas, entering the open lawns, overpasses the 
 mountain's ridge, and safe through the gloomy wood takes his 
 way. Thus both impetuous, and with their whole army, to- 
 wards the city advance ; nor are they many paces distant from 
 each other. And at once ^Eneas at a distance espied the plain 
 smoking with dust, and saw the Laurentine bands ; and Tur- 
 nus descried ^Eneas fierce in arms, and heard the tread of feet, v 
 and the snorting of the steeds. Forthwith they would engage 
 in fight, and essay the combat, did not rosy Phoebus now dip 
 his tired steeds in the western ocean, and, day declining, 
 
b. xi 915. xn. 1—24. JENEID. 377 
 
 bring back the night. In their camps before the town they 
 rest, and entrench the walls. 
 
 BOOK XII. 
 
 In the Twelfth Book, Juno prevents the single combat agreed upon by Tur- 
 nus and iEneas. The Trojans are defeated in the absence of their king, 
 who had retired wounded, but is miraculously cured by Venus. On his 
 return, he again challenges Turnus to the combat, with whose death the 
 poem concludes. 
 
 As soon as Turnus saw that the Latins, broken with unsuc- 
 cessful war, had lost heart ; that now his promise was claimed, 
 himself marked out by the eyes [of all] ; he burns with volun- 
 tary determination not to yield, 1 and raises his martial spirit. 
 As in the fields of Carthage, a lion, whose breast is pierced 
 by the hunters with a smart wound, then at length prepares 
 for battle, and delights in shaking the brawny muscles of his 
 shaggy neck, and undaunted breaks the infixed weapon of the 
 hunter and roars with bloody jaws: just so in Turnus' in- 
 flamed breast violence rises, 2 then thus he addresses the king, 
 and thus in perturbation begins : In Turnus is no delay ; the 
 dastardly Trojans have no handle to retract their challenge, 
 or to decline what they have agreed to. I enter the lists : 
 order thou, O sire, the sacred rites, and ratify the truce. 
 Either I with this right hand shall despatch to Tartarus the 
 Trojan, the renegado of Asia, (let the Latins sit still and look 
 on,) and alone shall with the sword repel the common charge ; 
 or let him rule us vanquished, let Lavinia be resigned his 
 spouse. To him with mind composed Latinus replied: 
 youth surpassing in soul, the more you excel in fierce valour, 
 the more solicitously it concerns me to consult [your safety], 
 and with fearful caution to weigh the danger. You are heir 
 to the kingdom of your father Daunus, many cities have been 
 won by your valour, wealth also, and a high spirit, belong to 
 Latinus. There are other virgins unwedded in Latium and 
 
 1 I have been compelled to use a circumlocution in translating " ultro 
 implacabilis ardet." Servius well observes : " bene ducis dignitatem 
 servavit, ut non ideo faceret, quia quidam reposcebant ; sed sua sponto 
 accenderetur in proelium." B. 
 
 2 "Gliscit" rather means "increases, grows vehement." So Lucret. 
 i. 475, " Ignis Alexandri Phrygio sub pectore gliscens." iv. 1062, " In- 
 ouc dies gliscit furor." B. 
 
378 ^NEID. b.xii. 25—55. 
 
 the territories of Laurentum, not ignoble in their birth. 
 Give me leave to lay before you without guile these truths, not 
 pleasant to be spoken ; at the same time, imbibe them with deep 
 attention. It was decreed that I should wed my daughter to 
 none of her former suitors ; and this both gods and men unani- 
 mous pronounced. Overpowered by my affection for thee, over- 
 powered by the ties of kindred blood, and by the tears of my 
 afflicted consort, I broke through all restraints ; wrested my 
 daughter from the son-in-law to whom she was promised; 
 took up impious 3 arms [against him.] From that time, Turnus, 
 you see what calamities, what wars pursue me ; what disasters 
 you in chief endure. In two great battles routed, with diffi- 
 culty we defend our hopes of Italy in this city : the streams 
 of Tiber still run warm with our blood, and the spacious 
 fields are white with the bones [of our slain]. Whither am I 
 so often driven back? what infatuation changes my mind? 
 If, upon Turnus' death, I am resolved to invite [the Trojans 
 to be] my allies, why not rather put an end to all dissensions 
 while he lives ? What will my kinsmen the Rutulians, what 
 will the rest of Italy say, if to death (Heaven disappoint my 
 fears !) I betray you, who court my daughter and alliance by 
 marriage ? Consider the various chances of war : pity your 
 aged sire, whom now disconsolate his native Ardea separates 
 far from you. By these remonstrances the rage of Turnus is 
 by no means checked : he swells up the more, and by medicine 
 grows more distempered. As soon as he was able to speak, 
 he thus began in words : Whatever care for me you entertain, 
 most excellent prince, I beseech you, for my sake, lay aside, 
 and suffer me to purchase death in exchange for glory. We 
 too, O sire, can fling 4 the dart and spear with no feeble arm, 
 and blood is wont to flow from the wounds which we inflict. 
 Nought shall his goddess-mother him avail, 5 who in a female 
 cloud screens the fugitive, and conceals herself in delusive 
 shades. But the queen, terribly alarmed with the new state 
 of the fight, wept, and ready to die [with grief], grasped her 
 
 3 Not only because ^Eneas was destined by the gods to be his son-in- 
 law, but because the war was between persons who had formed a truce. B. 
 
 4 Literally, scatter. So Silius vii. 635, " spargentem in vulnera saevus 
 Fraude fugs calamos." ix. 390, " spargere tela raanu." B. 
 
 5 Such is the force of " longe," as illustrated by Gronov. on Sen. Hip- 
 pol. 974; Drakenb. on Sil. xvii. 80. B. 
 
b xii. 56—90. -32XEID. 379 
 
 raging son-in-law : Turnus, by these tears, by whatever regard 
 for Amata touches your soul : thou art now the only hope, 
 the only solace of my wretched old age ; on thee depends the 
 glory and power of Latinus ; on thee our whole family now in 
 its decline relies ; this one request I make, forbear to engage 
 with the Trojans. /Whatever fortune awaits thee in that com- 
 bat, Turnus, awaits me also ; with you will I quit this hated 
 light, nor captive will I see iEneas my son-in-law. Lavinia, 
 bathing her glowing cheeks in tears, listens to the words of 
 her mother; [Lavinia,] in whom profound modesty kindled 
 up a burning flush, 6 and diffused itself over her blushing 
 visage. As if one had stained the Indian ivory with ruddy 
 purple i or as white lilies mingled with copious roses blush ; 
 such colours the virgin in her visage showed. Love raises 
 a tumult in his soul, and fixes his looks upon the maid. 
 He burns for arms the more, and briefly thus addresses 
 Amata : O mother, do not, I beseech thee, do not with 
 tears, do not with so inauspicious an omen, send me from 
 you, now that I am on my way to the combat of rigid wars ; 
 for Turnus is not at liberty to retard his death ! Idmon, 
 my herald, report from me this no pleasing message to the 
 Phrygian tyrant : when first the ensuing morn, borne in her 
 crimson car, shall blush in the sky, let him not lead his 
 Trojans against the Rutulians ; let the arms of Trojans and 
 Rutulians rest ; by our blood be the war decided ; in that field 
 let Lavinia be won as a bride. When he had pronounced 
 these words, and with great speed retired into the palace, he 
 calls for his steeds, and exults to see them neighing in his 
 presence ; which steeds Orithyia 7 gave (a royal present) to 
 Pilumnus, such as in whiteness might surpass the snow, in 
 speed the winds. The active grooms stand around, and with 
 their hollow hands cheer their stroked chests, and comb their 
 waving manes. Then he himself wraps about his shoulders 
 his corslet, rough with gold and pale orichalchum: at the 
 same time fits for use his sword and buckler, and the horns of 
 his flaming crest ; the sword which the god of fire himself had 
 forged for his father Daunus, and plunged, when glowing, in 
 
 6 More literally, " unto whom a deep blush kindled up the hot current 
 within, and overspread her burning visage." Anthon. 
 
 7 Orithyia, a daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens, and wife of 
 Boreas, king of Thrace, 
 
SB 3 .ENEID. r. xn. 91—124 
 
 the Stygian wave. Next with force lie grasps his strong 
 spear, which in the middle of the palace stood resting on a 
 mighty column, Auruncian Actor's spoil, and brandishes it 
 quivering, exclaiming : Now, O spear, that never baulked my 
 call, the time is now at hand. Thee, heroic Actor, thee the 
 right hand of Turnus now wields : grant that I may stretch 
 his body on the ground, and with my strong hand rend the 
 corslet torn from the Phrygian eunuch, and soil in the dust 
 his locks frizzled with hot irons and dripping with myrrh. 
 With such furies is he driven, and from the whole face of the 
 inflamed warrior sparks incessant ily : from his fierce eyes the 
 fire flashes : as when a bull to usher in the fight raises 
 hideous bellowings, and essays his rage for a combat with 
 horns, goring against the trunk of a tree ; with blows he beats 
 the air, and preludes to the fight by spurning the sand. 
 Meanwhile iEneas, fierce in the arms given by his mother, no 
 less whets his martial fury, and kindles up his rage, pleased 
 that the war was to be decided on the proffered terms. Then 
 he solaces his friends and the fears of sorrowing Iiilus, teach- 
 ing them the fates ; and orders the messengers to carry back 
 his positive answer to king Latinus, and prescribe the terms 
 of peace. 
 
 The next day arisen had scarcely sprinkled the tops of the 
 mountains with light, when first from the deep gulf the horses 
 of the sun lift up their heads, and from their erected nostrils 
 breathe forth day. Under the walls of the spacious city both 
 the Rutulians and Trojans, having measured the ground, pre- 
 pared it for the combat ; and in the centre [raised] hearths 
 and altars of turf to their common gods : others attired in 
 linen veils, 8 and having their temples bound with vervain, 
 bore fountain-water, and fire. The Ausonian legion ad- 
 vances, and the armed squadrons pour forth at the crowded 
 gates : on the other side the whole Trojan and Tuscan army 
 with various arms rush [to the field], no otherwise arranged 
 in battle-array, with sword in hand, than if summoned to the 
 
 8 Servius writes that the priests and sacred ministers among the Rom- 
 ans, by whom the laws of peace and war were confirmed, were prohibited 
 to wear any thing of linen ; and that Virgil designedly clothes the Feciales 
 in linen veils on this occasion, to give us to know beforehand that the 
 league was to be broken, since it was ushered in with unlawful rites. 
 Others for lino read limo, a kind of garment or apron worn by the priests 
 in sacrifice, that reached down from the navel to the feet. 
 
n xii. 125—160. JENEID. 381 
 
 fierce combat of Mars. The leaders, too, in gold and purple 
 decked, amidst the thousands scamper [over the plain] ; 
 Mnestheus, the offspring of Assaracus, and brave Asylas ; and 
 Messapus, a renowned horseman, Neptune's son. And soon 
 as, upon the signal given, each man to his station retired, they 
 fix down their spears in the ground, and rest their shields. 
 Then, with eagerness [to see the combat], matrons in crowds, 
 the populace unarmed, and feeble old men, occupy the towers 
 and roofs of houses ; others stand near the lofty gates. But 
 from the summit of the hill, which is now called Alban, (then 
 the mount had neither name, nor honour, nor glory,) Juno, 
 stretching her view, surveyed the field and both armies of 
 Laurentines and Trojans, and the city of Latinus. Forthwith 
 she thus addressed the sister of Turnus, a goddess to the deity 
 who over pools and sounding streams presides ; on her this 
 sacred honour Jove, the high sovereign of the sky, for her 
 ravished virginity conferred: O nymph, the glory of rivers, 
 dearest to my soul, thou knowest how thee in chief, to all the 
 maids of Latium who mounted 9 the ungrateful bed of mighty 
 Jove, I have preferred, and willingly settled thee partner of 
 the skies : learn now, Juturna, 10 lest you should accuse me, 
 your sad disaster. As far as fortune seemed to suffer, and the 
 Fates permitted the state of Latium to prosper, Turnus and 
 your city I protected: now I see the youth engaging with 
 unequal fates : the day and unfriendly power of the Destinies 
 approach. With these eyes I am not able to behold this com- 
 bat, or this league. If aught thou darest more ready for a 
 brother, proceed : it becomes thee ; perhaps better fortune 
 will attend the wretched [Latins]. Scarcely had she spoken, 
 when from her eyes Juturna poured forth tears, and thrice 
 and four times with her hand smote her comely breast. This 
 is no time for tears, Saturnian Juno says ; despatch, and if 
 there be any means, rescue your brother from death : or 
 kindle now the war anew, and dissolve the concerted league. 
 I authorize you in the daring attempt. Having thus ad- 
 vised, she left her perplexed, and distracted with a sad 
 wound of soul. 
 
 9 Virgil expresses ^Esch. Suppl. 37, £7rij8^i/at Xeicrpcjv, So also Eurip. 
 Hel. 376. B. 
 
 10 Juturna, the sister of king Turnus, changed into a fountain of tho 
 same name, the waters of which were used in the sacrifices of Vesta. 
 
382 ^NEID. b. xii. 161—190. 
 
 Meanwhile the kings, [and in particular] n Latinus of ample 
 frame, rides in a chariot by four horses drawn, whose reful- 
 gent temples twelve golden rays encompass, the emblem of 
 his ancestor the sun : 12 Turnus moves in a car drawn by two 
 white steeds, brandishing in his hand two javelins tipped with 
 broad steel. On the other side, father ^Eneas, the founder oi 
 the Roman race, blazing with his starry shield and arms divine, 
 and Ascanius by his side, the other hope of mighty Rome, 
 advance from the camp : in a pure vestment the priest brought 
 up the youngling of a bristly sow, and an unshorn ewe-lamb, lb 
 and presented the victims at the blazing altars. They, turning 
 their eyes towards the rising sun, sprinkle with their hands 
 the salt cakes, and mark with the sword the top of the vic- 
 tims' foreheads, and from the sacred goblets pour libations on 
 the altars. Then pious JEneas, having unsheathed his sword, 
 thus prays : Thou, sun, be witness now to my prayer, and 
 this land, ior whose sake I have been able to sustain such 
 grievous toils ; and thou, almighty father, and thou, Saturnian 
 Juno, now goddess, now more propitious, I pray : and thou, 
 glorious father Mars, who by thy sovereign will disposest the 
 fate of all battles : the fountains and rivers I invoke, and 
 whatever objects of religion are in the heavens above, and the 
 deities that dwell in the azure ocean. If the victory should 
 chance to fall to Ausonian Turnus, it is agreed that the van- 
 quished [Trojans] shall to Evander's city retire : lulus shall 
 quit these territories : nor in future shall the ^Eneades, vio- 
 lating the peace, make war again to harass these realms with 
 the sword. But if victory shall declare Mars on our side, (as 
 I rather presume, and rather may the gods confirm by their 
 divine will,) never shall I compel the Italians to be subject to 
 the Trojans, nor aim I at empire for myself: let both nations 
 
 11 I have followed Anthon's construing. B. 
 
 12 Latinus was the grandson of Picus, who took Circe, the daughter of 
 the sun, to be his wife or concubine, and by her had Faunus, the father 
 of Latinus, who consequently was the grandchild of the sun. 
 
 13 Ruaeus observes, that the ewe was offered for iEneas, after the man- 
 ner of the Greeks, who commonly ratified a league with the sacrifice of 
 a sheep or lamb, as we see in Homer, II. iii. 103. The sow again is for 
 Latinus, after the Roman or Italian fashion, which Livy intimates to have 
 been of very great antiquity, lib. i. 24, where he gives the form of rati- 
 fying a league between the Romans and Albans, in the reign of Tullus 
 Hostilius : "Audi Jupiter, &c. — Si prior defexit, tu illo die Jupiter popu- 
 lum Romanum sic ferito, ut ego hunc porcum hie hodie feriam." 
 
H. xii. 191—224. ^ENEID. 383 
 
 unsubdued submit on equal terms to an everlasting league. 
 I shall ordain the sacred rites and the gods: 14 let my father- 
 in-law Latinus enjoy the control of the war, his wonted sove- 
 reign rule: to me my Trojans shall raise a city, and to that 
 city Lavinia shall give the name. Thus iEneas first [said] : 
 then thus Latinus, raising his eyes to heaven, succeeds, and 
 to the stars stretches forth his right hand : By those same 
 powers, .ZEneas, by the earth, the sea, the stars, I swear, by 
 Latona's double offspring, and two-faced Janus, by the majesty 
 of the gods infernal, and the sanctuary of inexorable Pluto. 
 These oaths let the Sire hear, who by his thunder ratifies our 
 leagues. On the altars I lay my hand ; and the fires here 
 placed in the midst of them, and the gods I call to witness : 
 no day shall ever violate this peace, this treaty, on the part 
 of the Italians, whatever way the event shall fall out : nor 
 shall any power make me swerve from them with my will, 
 even though it should wash away the earth into the waves, 
 blending it with the flood, and dissolve heaven into hell. As 
 this sceptre (for a sceptre in his hand he chanced to wield) 
 shall never sprout forth with light leaves, twigs, or shady 
 boughs, since once lopped in the wood from the low stem it 
 was severed from its mother-tree, and by the axe laid down 
 its locks and branching arms ; once a tree, now the artist's 
 hand hath enchased it in beauteous brass, and fashioned it for 
 the Latin kings to wield. By such asseverations they mutu- 
 ally confirmed the league full in the view of the chiefs : then 
 over the flames they stab 15 the victims consecrated in due 
 form, and tear out their entrails from them yet alive, and heap 
 up the altars with loaded chargers. 
 
 But to the Rutulians the match had long seemed unequal, 
 and their breasts were agitated with various mixed emotions ; 
 but then the more, as they discern more nearly that the con- 
 test is one of unequal strength. Turnus advancing with a 
 silent gait, and in suppliant form with downcast eyes vener- 
 ating the altars, his wan cheeks, and the paleness over his 
 youthful form, aggravate their fears ; which surmises soon as 
 his sister Juturna observed to be spread abroad, and that the 
 drooping hearts of the populace were wavering ; into the 
 midst of the troops, personating the form of Camertus, (who 
 
 14 i. e. the Latins are to receive those of the Trojans. B. 
 14 " Jugulare" properly means "to cut the throat." B. 
 
384 
 
 ^ENEII). t. xii. 225—259. 
 
 was of a noble ancient line, and from his father's valour de- 
 rived an illustrious name, himself too most valiant in arms,) 
 into the midst of the troops she throws herself, not unskilled 
 in expedients, sows various rumours [among the ranks], and 
 thus harangues them : Are you not ashamed, O Eutulians ! to 
 expose one life for all who are such? 16 are we not equal in 
 numbers and in strength ? Lo Trojans and Arcadians both, 
 and the fatal band, Etruria, inveterate to Turn us, all are here : 
 yet should but every second man of us engage, we hardly have 
 a foe. He, [Turnus,] it is true, by fame shall be advanced to 
 the gods, at whose altars he devotes himself, and in the mouths 
 l_of men] shall ever live ; we who now are seated idle on the 
 plain, shall, after having lost our country, be constrained to 
 submit to haughty lords. 
 
 By these words the resolution of the youths was now more 
 and more inflamed, and through the troops the murmur glides. 
 Even the Laurentines are changed, and those very Latins, 
 who were recently promising themselves repose from war, 
 and prosperity to the state, now are to arms inclined, wish the 
 league unmade, and pity the hard fate of Turnus. To these 
 incentives Juturna adds another yet stronger, and gives a 
 sign from high heaven, than which none more effectually dis- . 
 turbed the minds of the Italians, and misled them by its por- 
 tent. For in the ruddy sky the tawny bird of Jove with 
 winged speed pursued some water-fowl, and a noisy tribe of 
 the feathered kind ; when suddenly swooping down to the 
 waves, cruelly rapacious, he snatched up in his crooked 
 pounces a goodly swan. The Italians roused their attention : 
 and all the fowls with screaming noise turn their flight, 
 amazing to see ! and darken the sky with their wings, and 
 forming a cloud, pursue 17 their foe through the air; till, by 
 the force [of their attacks], and the very encumbrance of his 
 burthen, overpowered, the bird gave way, and from his talons 
 dropped his prey into the river, and flew far into the clouds. 
 Then indeed with acclamation the Rutulians salute the omen, 
 and make ready their troops : and first Tolumnius the augur 
 says,. This is what with prayers I often sought : I welcome 
 
 i 
 
 16 i. e. "who are equal in valour to Turnus." Anthon. B. 
 
 lt Literally, " press on." Silius v. 281, " eeu tigride cerva Hyrcana 
 cum pressa tremit. x. 125, " Haud secus ac Libyca fetam tenure leae- 
 nam Venator premit obsesso cum Maurus in antro." B. 
 
p. xir. 260—294. ^ENEID. 385 
 
 [the omen], and own [the interposition of] the gods ; myself, 
 myself at your head, snatch up the steel, O Rutulians, whom 
 this injurious foreigner like weak fowls with war dismays, and 
 by violence ravages your coasts. He shall betake himself to 
 flight, and set sail far into the deep. Do ye with one accord 
 close your squadrons, and from the combat save your king, 
 whom they would ravish from you. 18 
 
 He said, and rushing forth, hurled a dart full in the face of 
 the enemy : the whizzing cornel-shaft gives a twang, and with 
 unerring aim cuts the air. At once it is done, at once a loud 
 shout arises, and the whole ranks are disturbed, and their 
 hearts inflamed with tumultuous rage. The flying javelin, as 
 against it stood nine brothers, (most comely personages, whom 
 one faithful consort of Tuscan blood had borne to Arcadian 
 Gilippus,) one of these, a youth distinguished by his mien and 
 shining arms, just in the middle, where the stitched belt is 
 worn by the waist, and a clasp confines the joints of the sides : 
 it penetrates the ribs, and stretches him on the yellow sand. 
 But the brothers, a resolute band, and stung with grief, some 
 draw their swords, some snatch the missile steel, and rush 
 blindfold ; against whom the troops of Laurentum spring 
 forth : then in close array Trojans, and Tuscans, and Arca- 
 dians with painted arms, again stream forth. One common 
 ardour so strongly possesses all to decide the strife by dint of 
 sword. They rifled the very altars ; a thick tempest of darts 
 flies through all the air, and an iron shower pours down 
 amain ; and they bear away the hearths and goblets. 19 Latinus 
 himself, the league now broken, flies, bearing off his baffled 
 gods. Some rein their chariots, or with a bound vault on their 
 steeds, and with drawn swords are ready. Messapus, eager to 
 violate the truce, gives a terrible shock to the Tuscan Aules- 
 tes, a king, and bearing the ensigns of a king, by jostling 
 against him with his horse : he retreating falls, and unhappily 
 among the altars planted behind him tumbles on his head and 
 shoulders. But Messapus fierce flies up with his lance, and 
 with the beamy weapon from on high, raising himself on his 
 steed, smites him heavily, earnestly imploring [his life], and 
 
 18 " Raptum " is used proleptically. B. 
 
 19 The priests and ministers bear away the utensils which had beeu 
 employed in pledging the truce. B. 
 
 '2 c 
 
386 ^NEID. b. xii. 295—330, 
 
 thus speaks : He has got it, 20 this victim is given to the great 
 gods as a more grateful offering. The Italians flock toward 
 him, and strip his limbs, yet warm. From the altar Cho- 
 rinaeus snatches a burning brand, and confronting Ebusus, as 
 he is coming up and aiming a blow, prevents him, by dashing 
 the flames full in his face. His bushy beard blazed, and singed 
 all over, diffused a smell. The other, pursuing the blow, with 
 his left hand grasps the hair of his confounded foe, and with 
 exerted force, pressing his knee against him, nails him fast to 
 the ground ; in this posture he plunges the cruel sword into 
 his side. Podalirius with naked sword pursuing the shepherd 
 Alsus, as in the front of the battle he rushes through the darts, 
 presses close upon him : he (Alsus) drawing back his axe, 
 cleaves asunder in the middle the forehead and chin of his op- 
 ponent, and with the bespattered blood besmears his arms. 
 Cruel slumbers and the iron sleep [of death] press down his 
 eyes ; closed are their orbs in everlasting night. 
 
 But pious JEneas, with his head uncovered, stretched forth 
 his unarmed hand [in sign of truce], and with loud acclama- 
 tion called to his men : Whither rush you ? what sudden dis- 
 cord has thus arisen ? O restrain your rage ! the league is 
 now struck up, and all the articles are settled : I alone have 
 a right to engage ; permit me, and banish your fears : this hand 
 of mine shall make the league firm : those sacred rites give me 
 security for Turnus. Amidst these words, amidst such ex- 
 postulations, lo ! a hissing arrow with winged speed alighted 
 on the hero : by whose hand shot, by whose whirling force 
 impelled, who acquired such glory to the Rutulians, whether a 
 god or chance, is uncertain : smothered was the fame of the 
 illustrious action ; nor did any one vaunt himself on [having 
 inflicted] a wound on .ZEneas. 
 
 Soon as Turnus saw ^Eneas retiring from the army, and 
 the leaders all in disorder, with sudden hope impetuous lie 
 burns : for his steeds and arms at once he calls, and proudly 
 springs into the chariot with a bound, and with his own 
 hands guides the reins. Flying along, he gives to death many 
 gallant frames of men ; many half dead he rolls along, or with 
 his chariot tramples down the troops, or plies their flying 
 
 *• i. e. " he has received his coup de grace" a gladiatorial phrase. Of 
 Ter. Andr. i. 8, 56. B. 
 
 
 
b. xii. 331-365. ^ENEID 387 
 
 backs with darts caught up. 21 As when by the streams of the 
 cold Hebrus bloody Mars with fierce commotion clashes with 
 his shield, and kindling war, lets loose his furious steeds ; they 
 over the plain outfly the south winds and zephyr ; Thrace to 
 its utmost bounds groans beneath the trampling of their feet, 
 and the features of grim Terror, Rage, and Stratagem, the re- 
 tinue of the god, stalk around : with like fury Turnus through 
 the midst of the embattled plain exulting drives his steeds 
 steaming with sweat, prancing over his miserably slaughtered 
 foes : their rapid hoofs scatter the dewy drops of blood, and gore 
 with mingled sand is spurned up. And now to death he gave 
 Sthenelus, andThamyris, and Pholus, encountering the two last 
 hand to hand, the other at a distance ; at a distance also both 
 the sons of Imbrasus, Glaucus and Lades, whom m Lycia Im- 
 brasus had bred, and furnished with equal skill in arms, either 
 to fight hand to hand, or on horseback to outfly the wind. In 
 another quarter Eumedes rushes into the midst of the field, 
 the warlike son of the ancient Dolon,, 22 representing his grand- 
 sire in name, in soul and action his sire ; who once, sent as a 
 , spy to visit the Grecian camp, durst claim for his reward the 
 chariot of Achilles. Him Tydides for so audacious an attempt 
 honoured with a very different reward; and no more he 
 aspires [now] to the steeds of Achilles. Him as soon as Tur- 
 nus at a distance espied on the open plain, having first sent 
 after him a fleet arrow through the extended void, he stops 
 his harnessed steeds, down from the chariot springs, and flies 
 up to him expiring and prostrate ; and, pressing his foot on 
 his neck, wrests the sword from his hand, and deep in his 
 throat plunged the shining blade, and withal added these 
 words: Lo ! Trojan, stretched at your length measure the 
 lands, and that Hesperia which by war you sought : these 
 rewards they reap who dare attack me with the sword ; thus 
 they build their walls. Hurling his lance he sends Butes to 
 bear him company: and Chloreas, and Sybaris, Dares, and 
 Thersilochus, and Thymoetes, who had fallen from the neck 
 of his plunging 23 steed. And as, when the blast of Thracian 
 
 21 Snatched up from his own chariot, or from the bodies of the slain. B. 
 
 22 Dolon, a Trojan remarkable for his swiftness, having been sent as a 
 spy to the Grecian camp, he was seized and put to death by Diomedes. 
 
 23 So Silius uses "sternax," i. 261, " correpti sternacem ad proelia 
 fraenis Frangere equum." Servius interprets it, " qui facile sternit se- 
 dcntem." B. 
 
 2 c 2 
 
388 JENEID. b. xn. 366—397. 
 
 Boreas roars on the iEgean Sea, and to the shore pursues the 
 waves, wherever the winds exert their incumbent force, the 
 clouds fly through the air: just so before Turnus, wherever 
 he cuts his way, the troops give way, and the routed squadrons 
 fly : his impetuous ardour bears him on, and the wind, blowing 
 right against his chariot, shakes his fluttering crest. Him thus 
 bearing all before him, and bellowing with mad rage, Phegeus 
 could not endure ; he opposed himself to the chariot, and, with 
 his right hand, twisted the mouths of the steeds as they are 
 hurried along, foaming with the bit. While he is dragged 
 along, and hangs upon the pole, [Turnus'] broad lance reaches 
 him undefended, and piercing bursts his double-tissued coat 
 of mail, and with a wound grazes the surface of his body. 
 But he, with shield opposed turning on the foe, advanced, 
 and from his unsheathed sword 24 sought assistance ; when 
 the wheel, and the axle accelerated in its career, hurled him 
 headlong, and stretched him on the ground ; and Turnus fol- 
 lowing, with his sword struck off his head, between the lower 
 extremity of the helmet and the upper border of the corslet, 
 and left him on the sand a [headless] trunk. 
 
 Now while in the field victorious Turnus makes such havoc, 
 in the interim Mnestheus, and trusty Achates, and Ascanius, 
 accompanying, placed in the camp JEneas bleeding [from his 
 wound, and] on a long spear propping his alternate steps. 25 
 He storms, and, having broken off the shaft, struggles to 
 wrench out the dart, and demands the speediest means of aid ; 
 bids them make an incision with the broad sword, and quite 
 lay open the weapon's recess, and send him back to the war. 
 And now came to his aid Iapyx, 26 the son of Iasius, by Phoe- 
 bus above others beloved ; upon whom Apollo himself, capti- 
 vated with a violent passion for him, heretofore had offered 
 to bestow his arts, his own gifts, his skill in augury, the lyre 
 and winged shafts. He, to prolong his dying father's fate, 
 chose to understand the powers of herbs and use of medicine, 
 and inglorious to practise those silent arts. 27 Raving vio- 
 
 24 I may as well remark, that "mucro" generally means a short, 
 broad weapon. B. 
 -" So Silhis vi. 68, " Saucius — fractae innitens hastae." B. 
 
 26 Iapyx, a Trojan, the son of Iasius, and a favourite of Apollo, who 
 instructed him in medicine. 
 
 21 Because unheralded by fame. Anthon. B. 
 
B. xii. 393—435. -ENEID. 38Q 
 
 lently ^Eneas stood, leaning on his massy spear, unmoved, 
 amidst the vast confluence, either by the tears of the youths 
 or of grieving lulus. The sage, in his robe doubled back, 
 girt up 28 after the physician's fashion, with anxious trepida- 
 tion makes many efforts in vain with his healing hand, and 
 the potent herbs of Phoebus ; in vain with his right hand tugs 
 the dart, and with tenacious pincers grips the steel. No 
 success attends the means ; his patron Apollo lends no aid ; 
 and the fierce terror of the field spreads more and more, and 
 the mischief is nearer. Now they see the air stand thick with 
 dust : [Turnus'] cavalry are advancing, and thick showers of 
 darts fall in the midst of the camp : to heaven ascend the dis- 
 mal shouts of youth, some fighting, and some falling under 
 cruel Mars. 
 
 Here the parent-goddess Venus, deeply affected with the 
 undeserved suffering of her son, from Cretan Ida crops a 
 stalk of dittany, all blooming with downy leaves and purple 
 flowers : to the wild goats those herbs are not unknown ; [for 
 from them they seek relief,] when in their backs the winged 
 shafts have stuck. This Venus, her face muffled in a dim 
 cloud, conveyed ; with this she tinctures the water poured in 
 the shining vase, secretly medicating it; and injects the juice 
 of healing ambrosia, and fragrant panacea. With this liquor 
 aged Iapyx, not knowing [its communicated virtue], fomented 
 the wound ; and suddenly (for all the pain fled from his body, 
 and all the blood in the deep wound was stanched ; and now 
 the arrow, following the hand, without any compulsion drop- 
 ped out, and to his pristine state his vigour returned anew) 
 Iapyx exclaims, Quick fly for the hero's arms ; why do you 
 stand ? thus he first kindles their courage against the foe. [He 
 adds,] Not from human aid, or from the masterly art [of man], 
 proceeds this cure, nor, ^Eneas, is it my right hand that saves 
 thee : a god more powerful is the agent, and releases thee for 
 enterprises of greater moment. He, panting for the combat, 
 had incased his legs in gold, is impatient of delay, and brand- 
 ishes his lance. When his shield was fitted to his side, and 
 the corslet to his back, within his armed folds he embraces 
 Ascanius, and, through his helmet, gently touching his lips, 
 thus addresses him : From me, my son, learn valour and true 
 
 28 In order to be less encumbered in his operations. So Siiius v. 367, 
 " intortos de more adstrictus amictus, Mulcebat lympha purgatum san- 
 guine vulnus." B. 
 
390 ^ENEID. b. xii. 436—469 
 
 fortitude ; thy fortune [learn] from others. Now shall my 
 hand by war set thee in safety, and lead thee to the glorious 
 fruits of victory. Be sure you this remember, when ere long 
 your age shall reach maturity ; and, calling often to mind the 
 examples of your ancestors, let your father -ZEneas, and uncle 
 Hector, spur you on. 
 
 Soon as he uttered these words, from the gates he issued 
 forth majestic; in his hand brandishing a ponderous javelin: 
 at the same time in a thick body rush forth Antheus and 
 Mnestheus, and all the troops from the abandoned camp pour 
 along. Then with mingled clouds of blinding dust the plain 
 is overspread, and the earth, shaking by the trampling of their 
 feet, trembles. Them marching Turnus saw from an oppo- 
 site hill ; the Ausonians saw, and cold fear ran through their 
 inmost bones. Before all the Latins Juturna first heard and 
 recognised the sound, and in consternation fled. The hero 
 (iEneas) speeds his way, and along the open plain drives his 
 fiery squadron. As when under some stormy 29 constellation 
 a tempest moves athwart the mid ocean towards the land; 
 ah ! how the hearts of the desponding swains, presaging from 
 afar, shudder ! it will bring ruin on the trees, and desolation 
 on the fields of corn, it will lay all waste around : the winds 
 before it fly, and waft hoarse murmurs to the shore : with such 
 fury the Trojan chief leads on his squadron against the oppos- 
 ing foes : in the thick array they crowd upon each other, 
 closing their serried files. Thyrnbrseus with the sword smites 
 down the stern Osiris, Mnestheus beats down Archetius, 
 Achates kills Epulo, and Gyas Ufens. The augur's self To- 
 lumnius falls, who first had hurled his lance against the ad- 
 verse foes. To heaven a shout is raised ; and the Rutulians, 
 routed in their turn, show their backs all dusty over the field. 
 ^Eneas himself neither deigns to put the fugitives to death, 
 nor does he pursue those who engage in close fight, or who 
 [at a distance] throw the javelin : Turnus alone, with accur- 
 ate survey, he searches out, amidst the thick clouds of dust : 
 him alone he demands to the combat. 
 
 With dread of this the warlike maid Juturna, struck to the 
 heart, overthrows Metiscus, 30 Turnus' charioteer, between the 
 
 29 Literally, " when [the influence of] some constellation has burst 
 forth." B. " 
 
 *° Metiscus, the charioteer of Turnus, whose form was assumed by 
 Juturna, the sister of Turnus. 
 
b. xii. 470—506. JENEID. 391 
 
 harness, and leaves him far behind fallen from the beam. 
 Herself succeeds, and with her hand guides the waving reins, 
 assuming all, the voice, the person, and arms of Metiscus. As 
 when throughout the spacious mansions of some wealthy lord 
 the sable swallow flutters, and on the wing traverses the lofty 
 courts, picking up her scanty fare, and food for her loquacious 
 young ; and now in the empty cloisters, now about the liquid 
 pools chatters : in like manner through the midst of the foes 
 Juturna rides, and flying in her rapid chariot, circuits all : 
 and now here, now there, exhibits her brother in triumph ; 
 nor suffers him to engage [in single combat] ; but far [from 
 iEneas] devious flies. 
 
 .iEneas, with no less eagerness, pursues mazy orbs, in order 
 to intercept him, traces out the warrior, and with a loud voice 
 calls after him through the broken troops. As often as he 
 casts his eyes on the foe, and by his agility attempted the 
 winged courser's speed ; so often Juturna wheeled about the 
 chariot, turning it from him. Alas, what can he do ? in vain 
 he fluctuates with a varying tide, and different cares urge his 
 mind to opposite schemes. At him Messapus, as in his swift 
 career he chanced in the left hand to wield two javelins pointed 
 with steel, levels one of them, hurling it with a well-aimed 
 blow. JEneas stopped short, and shrunk himself up behind 
 his buckler, stooping on his knee; yet the impetuous dart 
 bore away the tufted top of the helmet, and from his head 
 struck off the towering crest. Then indeed his rage swells ; 
 and, driven on by the deceitful arts [of his foe], when he per- 
 ceived that the steeds and chariot were driven back in a dif- 
 ferent career, he makes large protestations to Jove, and the 
 altars of the broken league. At length he rushes into the 
 midst of the lines, and under the auspicious influence of 
 Mars, arrayed in terrors, ushers in a hideous undistinguished 
 slaughter, and gives loose reins to all his fury. 
 
 What god in song can now to me unfold so many disastrous 
 scenes, what god [can tell] the various havoc and death of 
 the chiefs, whom by turns now Turnus chases over all the 
 plain, and now the Trojan hero? Was it thy pleasure, Jove, 
 that nations, which were [one day] to be joined in everlasting 
 peace, should with such commotion engage ? ^Eneas, not losing 
 time, full in the side smote Sucro the Rutulian, (this combat 
 first checked the Trojans in their career,) and, where death is 
 
392 ^ENEID. b. xn. 507—547 
 
 speediest, through the ribs and wattled fences of his breast 
 drives home the cruel blade. Turnus on foot encountering 
 Amycus from his horse overthrown, and his brother Diores, 
 smites the one with his long spear as he comes up, the other 
 with his sword ; and, having cut off the heads of both, sus- 
 pends them on his chariot, and bears them along bedewed with 
 blood. The other despatches Talos, Tanai's, and stout Cethe- 
 gus, all three at one assault, and dejected Onytes, of Theban 
 extraction, the son of Perida. Turnus [again overthrows] 
 the brothers sent from Lycia and Apollo's lands, and Menoetes, 
 an Arcadian youth, in vain to war averse ; whose art and poor 
 abode had been about the streams of Lerna, abounding in 
 fishes ; nor were the employments of the great known to him, 
 while in farmed land his father sowed. And as two fires rage, 
 let loose from different quarters upon a withered copse, and 
 crackling laurel groves ; or as with impetuous fall from the 
 steep mountains two foaming rivers roar along and roll to the 
 sea, each laying his passage waste : with no less impetuosity 
 -ZEneas and Turnus both rush through the embattled plain ; 
 now, now their rage boils up within ; their invincible breasts 
 are ready to burst with fury ; now with full career they drive 
 into the midst of wounds. The one (JEneas) with a rock and 
 the whirling force of a huge stone, overthrows headlong, and 
 at his length stretches on the ground, Murranus, vaunting loud 
 his ancestry, and the ancient names of his forefathers, and his 
 whole line through the Latin kings derived : him beneath the 
 harness and yoke the wheels dragged along, and with rap on 
 rap the hurrying hoofs of his steeds, regardless of their mas- 
 ter, trample upon him. The other (Turnus) encounters Hus 
 rushing on, and storming hideous with ire, and against his 
 gilded temples hurls a javelin ; through his helmet transfixing 
 his brain, the spear stood still. Nor could thy right hand, O 
 Creteus, bravest of Greeks, save thee from Turnus ; nor did 
 his own gods protect Cupencus from the assault of ^Eneas. 
 The sword found easy access to his heart : nor did the resist- 
 ance of the brazen shield aught avail its hapless owner. Lau- 
 rentum's fields, O iEolus, saw thee too fall, and [stretched] on 
 thy back widely cover the earth. Thou, whom neither the 
 Grecian squadrons could prostrate, nor Achilles, who over- 
 threw Priam's empire, meetest thy doom. Here were the 
 boundaries of thy life : under Mount Ida thy stately palace, 
 
b. xii. 547-582 JE8ETD. 393 
 
 in Lyrnessus thy stately palace ; [here] a grave in Laurentine 
 ground. Thus now both hosts are [on each other] turned, 
 both Latins and Trojans all: Mnestheus, and stern Serestus, 
 and Messapus, a horseman renowned, and gallant Asylas, the 
 Tuscan phalanx, and Arcadian Evander's cavalry, the war- 
 riors each to his power their utmost efforts exert. 31 No stop, 
 no stay ; with vast emulation they strain their utmost. 
 
 Here his lovely parent inspired iEneas with the resolution 
 to march to the walls, and forthwith advance his army against 
 the city, and with an unexpected blow confound the Latins. 
 While through the various ranks in quest of Turnus he rolled 
 his eyes hither and thither around, he sees the city exempt 
 from the disastrous war, and in safety undisturbed. Instantly 
 the image of a more decisive battle inflames his soul : he calls 
 the chiefs, Mnestheus, Sergestus, and brave Serestus, and 
 takes a rising ground, where the rest of the Trojan army 
 assemble in thick array, 32 nor lay their targets or darts aside. 
 He in the centre, posted on the eminence, addresses them : 
 Let no obstruction be given to my proposal : Jove stands by 
 us : nor, because the design is sudden, let any one be the more 
 backward. The city, the cause of the war, the empire itself of 
 Latinus, unless the people consent to receive our yoke, and 
 vanquished to submit, this day will I overturn, and lay their 
 smoking towers level with the ground. Am I forsooth 
 to wait till Turnus deign to accept our offered challenge, and 
 [so often] beaten, be again disposed to take the field ? This is 
 the source, my friends, this the great hinge of the execrable 
 war. Quickly bring brands, and with fire re-assert the league. 
 He said ; and all at once with emulous ardour form the wedged 
 battalion, and to the walls in a dense body move. Suddenly 
 the scaling ladders, and unexpected flames appear. Some fly 
 to the gates, and butcher the first they meet ; others hurl the 
 steel, and darken the sky with darts. -ZEneas himself among 
 the foremost beneath the walls extends his hand, and with a 
 loud voice accuses Latinus ; the gods he calls to witness, that 
 he is a second time compelled to the fight ; that the Italians 
 are now twice become his foes, and this the second league they 
 
 31 This seems like an imitation of Plautus, Amphit. i. 1, 76, " Pro se 
 quisque, id quod quisque potest et valet." Cf. Ter. Heut. i. 1, 74. Ovid 
 Met. iii. 642. B. 
 
 32 " Densi " refers to " milites," which is implied in " legio." B. 
 
394 ^ENEID. b. xii. 583—620 
 
 broke. Among the trembling citizens dissension arises ; some 
 press to dismantle the town, and open the gates to the Trojans, 
 and drag the king himself to the ramparts. Others take up 
 arms, and march on to defend the walls. As when a shepherd 
 hath traced out a swarm of bees enclosed in some harbouring 
 cleft, and filled [their cells] with bitter smoke ; they within, 
 alarmed for their affairs, in trepidation run hither and thither 
 through the waxen camp, and with loud buzzing whet their 
 rage : through their cells the black stench is rolled ; then with 
 faint murmur the caverns within resound ; to the empty 
 regions of air the smoke ascends. 
 
 This disaster too befell the distressed Latins, which with woe 
 shook the whole city to the foundation. The queen, soon as she 
 saw the enemy advancing to the town, the walls assaulted, the 
 flames flying up to the roofs ; no where the Rutulian bands, 
 no troops of Turnus ; had the misfortune to believe the youth 
 slain in the heat of battle, and, with sudden grief distracted, 
 cries, that she had been the cause, the criminal author, and 
 source of ills ; and frantic in her raving anguish, pouring 
 forth many exclamations, with her hands in despair asunder 
 tears her purple robes, and from a lofty beam ties the noose 
 of her unseemly 33 death. Which disaster when it reached the 
 unhappy Latin dames, first her daughter Lavinia tore her 
 golden tresses and rosy cheeks with her hands ; then all the 
 rest run raving about. With shrieks the palace far and wide 
 resounds. Hence the doleful intelligence is blazed through 
 the town. Their souls despond. Latinus, thunderstruck with 
 the destiny of his queen, and the ruin of his city, goes about 
 tearing his robe, deforming his hoary locks, sprinkled over 
 with sordid ashes ; and much himself accuses, for not having 
 before received Trojan JEneas, and cordially admitted him as 
 his son-in-law. 
 
 Meanwhile the warrior Turnus in the extremity of the field 
 pursues a few straggling troops, now more languid, and less 
 elated with the speed of his horses. The wind wafted to him 
 this outcry mingled with unseen terrors ; the din and unjoy- 
 ous murmurs of the distracted city struck his listening ears. 
 Ah me ! why with such woe are our walls disturbed ? What 
 
 33 Either referring to the supposed treatment of those who had com- 
 mitted suicide, in the other world, or to the disgracefulness of a death by 
 hanging. See Servius. B. 
 
p.. xii. 621—659. ^KNEID. 395 
 
 alarming shouts burst from the various quarters of the town? 
 He said, and, pulling in the reins, stood still, in amazement 
 lost. Then his sister, now that she was transformed into the 
 figure of the charioteer Metiscus, and guided the chariot, the 
 horses, and the reins, in these words replies : This way, Tur- 
 nus, let us pursue the sons of Troy, where our first conquest 
 opens the way. Others there are who by their prowess can 
 defend the walls : iEneas assails the Italians, and [with them'j 
 joins battle. Let us too, by exerting our activity, dispense 
 death to the Trojans without pity ; nor shall you quit the field 
 inferior to him in the number [of the slain], or in the honour 
 of the fight. To this Turnus [replied] : O sister ; I knew 
 you long ago, when first by artifice you broke the truce, and 
 engaged yourself in these wars ; and now, though a goddess, 
 in vain you wear disguise. But what god commissioned you 
 to quit the skies in order to sustain such toils ? [are you 
 come] to be witness of your unhappy brother's cruel death ? 
 For what can I do ? or what success now can fortune pro- 
 mise? Myself before my eyes saw Murranus, than whom 
 there survives not one to me more dear ; [I saw him] fall as 
 he called on me wuth his [expiring] breath, mighty the man, 
 and with a mighty wound subdued. Ill-fated Ufens fell, that 
 he might not be a spectator of my disgrace : The Trojans are 
 in possession of his corpse and arms. Shall I suffer our city 
 to be razed, the only thing that was wanting to our distress — 
 nor by this right hand refute the calumnies of Drances ? 
 Shall I turn my back? and shall this earth see Turnus fly? 
 Is it then so grievous a misfortune to die ? Oh infernal powers, 
 befriend me, since the will of the powers above is hostile ! To 
 you I shall descend a spotless soul, from that imputation clear, 
 and at no time degenerate from my great ancestors. 
 
 Scarcely had he said, when lo ! Sages, hurried by his foam- 
 ing steed, flies through the midst of the foes, wounded with 
 an arrow athwart the face, and imploring Turnus by name he 
 rushes forward : Turnus, on thee our last relief depends ; 
 have pity on thy own. .ZEneas thunders in arms, and threat- 
 ens to overthrow the stately towers of Latium, and raze them 
 to the ground : and now to our roofs the fire-brands fly. On 
 thee their eyes, on thee their whole regard the Latins turn : 
 king Latinus himself demurs, whom to call his son-in-law, or 
 to which alliance to incline. Besides, the queen, most faith- 
 
396 JENEID. b. xn. 659—695 
 
 ful to jour interest, has fallen by her own hand, and, aban- 
 doned to despair, has fled from life. Before the gates Messapus 
 and brave Atinas alone sustain the fight. Around those on 
 each side the battalions stand in thick array, and an iron crop 
 of naked swords shoot a horrid glare : [yet, during these pub- 
 lic alarms,] you are wheeling your chariot along the desert 
 field. 
 
 Confounded with the varied aspect of affairs, Turnus was 
 stunned, and stood in silent gaze. Deep in his breast boils 
 overwhelming shame, also frantic rage with intermingled 
 grief, and love racked with fury, and conscious worth. Soon 
 as the clouds were dispelled, and light to his mind restored, 
 towards the walls he rolled his naming eye-balls in turbulence 
 of soul, and from his car surveyed the spacious city. When 
 lo ! a torrent of flames whirling amid the different stories, in 
 rolling waves ascended to heaven, and had seized the tower ; 
 the tower which himself of jointed beams had reared, and 
 under it wheels applied, and with lofty bridges overlaid. 
 Sister, [he cries,] now, now, destiny prevails ; forbear to stop 
 me ; let us follow whither god and rigid fortune calls. I am 
 resolved to enter the lists with iEneas ; whatever bitterness 
 is in death, I am resolved to bear it : nor, sister, shall you see 
 me longer in disgrace. Permit me first, I pray, to give vent 
 to this fury. 
 
 He said, and instantly from his chariot sprang with a bound 
 upon the plain ; through foes, through darts he rushes, and 
 leaves his mourning sister, and with rapid course bursts 
 through the middle ranks. And as when a rock tumbles pre- 
 cipitately down from a mountain's top, torn by the winds, 
 whether furious rains have washed it away, or undermining 
 time by length of years hath loosened it ; down the precipice 
 abrupt the pertinacious mass of mountain with vast impulse 
 is hurried, and bounds over the ground, sweeping away with 
 it woods, flocks, and men: just so through the broken troops 
 Turnus rushes to the walls of the city, where to a vast extent 
 the earth is drenched in streaming blood, and the air hisses 
 with javelins. With his hand he makes a sign, and at the 
 same time thus with a loud voice begins : Now, Rutulians, 
 forbear, and, ye Latins, withhold your darts ; whatever for- 
 tune of the war remains is mine : it is more equitable that I 
 alone expiate the ["violated"^ league in your stead, and by the 
 
B. xii. 695—730. 7ENEID. 397 
 
 sword decide the strife. All the troops retired from between 
 them, and made room. 
 
 But father .ZEneas, having heard Turnus' name, forsakes 
 the walls, and forsakes the lofty towers, and spurns at all de- 
 lays : all his enterprises he breaks off, exulting with joy, and 
 thunders dreadful in arms ; as mighty as Athos, as mighty as 
 Eryx, or mighty as the parent [mountain] Apenninus 34 him- 
 self, when with his waving oaks he roars, and rejoices in his 
 snowy top, exalting himself to the skies. And now both 
 Rutulians, and Trojans, and all the Italians, eagerly turned 
 their eyes ; both those who on high guarded the battlements, 
 and those who with the ram battered the walls below : their 
 arms they laid down from their shoulders. Latinus himself 
 with amazement views the mighty heroes, born in distant 
 quarters of the globe, encountering each other, and deciding 
 their quarrel with the sword. They, soon as the lists in the 
 spacious plain were cleared, having with rapid onset flung 
 their javelins from afar, rush to the combat with shields and 
 arms of brass resounding. Earth gives a groan ; then stroke 
 on stroke they redouble. Chance and courage are blended to- 
 gether. And as in Sila's 35 spacious grove, or on lofty Tabur- 
 nus, 36 when two bulls with butting fronts rush to the hostile 
 combat, the shepherds in consternation have fled ; all the herd 
 stand dumb with fear, the heifers faintly low, dubious which 
 shall rule the herd, whom the whole drove are to obey : they 
 with great force deal promiscuous wounds to each other, and 
 struggling keenly infix their horns, and with profusion of 
 blood lave their necks and shoulders : the whole grove re- 
 bellows with their groans. Just so Trojan iEneas, and the 
 Daunian hero, with shields against each other tilting, rush 
 forward : loud clashing fills the skies. Great Jove sustains 
 two equally-poised scales, and puts into them the different 
 fates of both ; whom the toilsome combat destines to victory, 
 and in which scale death sinks down. Here Turnus, presum- 
 ing he might with safety, springs forth, and on his tiptoes 
 rises with his whole body to his uplifted sword and aims a 
 blow. The Trojans and trembling Latins shriek aloud, and 
 
 • 
 
 34 Apenninus, a ridge of high mountains, running through, the middle 
 of Italy. 
 
 5 Sila, a large wood in Lucania, abounding with pitch. 
 
 K Taburnus, a mountain of Campania. B. 
 
398 .ENEID. b. xii. 731—765. 
 
 both armies are fixed in suspense. But the treacherous sword 
 breaks short, and in the middle of the stroke leaves the in- 
 flamed chief [at the mercy of his foe], unless flight should 
 succeed to his relief. Swifter than the east wind he flies, soon 
 as he saw the unknown hilt, 37 and his right hand disarmed. 
 There is a report that in his headlong haste, when he mounted 
 his yoked steeds for the first onset, while he was in hurried 
 trepidation, he snatched the sword of his charioteer Metiscus, 
 leaving his father's [heavenly tempered] steel behind: and 
 long that served his purpose, while the Trojans offered their 
 flying backs ; but, when it came to Vulcan's arms divine, 38 
 tne mortal blade, like brittle ice, in shivers flew with the 
 stroke ; along the yellow sands its splinters shine. Therefore 
 Turnus, in frantic flight, traverses the several quarters of the 
 field, and now hither, then thither, wheels in uncertain mazes. 
 For on every hand the Trojans in close circling bands en- 
 closed him ; and on this side a vast morass, on that steep 
 mountains environ him. Nor less eagerly .ZEneas, though, dis- 
 abled by the shaft, his knees sometimes check and oppose his 
 speed, pursues, and fervent presses close upon the heels of his 
 trembling foe. As a hound, when he has found a stag en- 
 closed by a river, or hedged around by the terror of the crim- 
 son plumes, 39 pursues him with speed and full cry; he, mean- 
 while, scared by the toils and steep bank, backward and 
 forward flies a thousand ways : but the staunch Umbrian dog 
 closes upon him, with open mouth, is just in act to gripe [his 
 prey] and, as if now he griped him, chides with his jaws, and 
 with, delusive bite is mocked : then shouts arise, the banks 
 and lakes around re-echo, and the whole sky thunders with 
 uproar. At once he (Turnus) flies, at once chides the Ru- 
 tulians all, calling on each by name, and importunately 
 craves his well-known sword. ^Eneas, on the other hand, de- 
 nounces death and present destruction, if any one should ap- 
 proach ; and overawes the trembling troops, threatening to 
 raze the city, and, wounded as he was, presses on. Five rounds 
 they finish in their career, and trace back as many more, this 
 way and that. For no slight or frivolous prize is sought; hut 
 for the life and blood of Twrnus they strive. 
 
 37 He struck with the sword of Metiscus, not his own. B. 
 
 38 i. e. those of ^Eneas. B. 
 
 19 On the " formido," see my note on iEn. iv. 120. B. 
 
 
F. xii. 766—801. .ENEID. 399 
 
 Sacred to Faunus 40 here chanced to stand a wild olive witli 
 its bitter leaves, a tree long revered by seamen ; where saved 
 from the waves they used to fix their offerings to the Lauren- 
 tine god, and suspend their garments vowed. But the Tro- 
 jans without distinction had cut down the sacred stock, that 
 they might combat in a clear field. Here stood the spear of 
 ^Eneas : here fixed the hurling force [of his right hand] had 
 conveyed it, and riveted it in the tough root. The Trojan 
 stooped, and attempted with his hand to wrench out the steel, 
 that with the missile weapon he might pursue him, whom by 
 speed he could not overtake. Then Turnus, with fear dis- 
 tracted, cries : O Faunus, pity, I pray ; and thou, propitious 
 Earth, detain the weapon, if I have always held your honours 
 sacred, which, on the contrary, the sons of Troy have by war 
 profaned. He said, and invoked the aid of the god by vows 
 not vain. For JEneas, long struggling, after loss of time in 
 essaying the tenacious root, was unable, by his utmost efforts, 
 to disengage the firm hold of the wood. While he keenly 
 strains and presses, the Daunian goddess, again transformed 
 into the shape of the charioteer Metiscus, runs forward, and 
 restores to her brother the sword. Venus, indignant that 
 such licence should be given to the audacious nymph, ap- 
 proached, and from the deep root tore up the spear. The 
 towering chiefs, in arms and courage renewed, the one relying 
 on his trusty sword, the other stern and majestic with his 
 spear, stand opposed, breathless in the martial combat. 
 
 Meanwhile the sovereign of all-powerful Olympus addresses 
 Juno, as from a yellow cloud she viewed the fight : Consort, 
 when shall this strife be at an end ? what further remains ? 
 You yourself know, and own you are not ignorant, that 
 ^Eneas is destined to be a denizen of the sky, and by the 
 Fates is to be advanced to the stars. What then do you pro- 
 pose, or with what view are you hovering in the chill clouds ? 
 Was it seemly for a god [elect] to be violated by a wound 
 from a mortal ? or that Turnus (for without you what power 
 had Juturna ?) should have his wrested sword restored, and to 
 the vanquished new strength accrue ? Now at length desist, 
 and be swayed by my entreaty : nor let such discontent prey 
 upon you in silence ; nor let gloomy cares so often meet me 
 
 40 Faunus, the son of Picus. who is said to have reigned in Italy about 
 500 b. c. 
 
400 22NEID. b. xn. 802-836. 
 
 from those sweet lips. Xow affairs are come to a crisis : you 
 have been empowered to harass the Trojans by sea and land, 
 to kindle a nameless war, entail dishonour on the house [of 
 Latinus], and blend sorrows with these nuptials [of JEneas 
 and his daughter] ; further to attempt I forbid you. Thus 
 Jupiter spoke : thus on the other hand the Saturnian goddess 
 with downcast look [rejoined] : I own, great Jove, it was 
 because I knew this to be your will, that I, against my inclin- 
 ation, from Turnus and the earth withdrew. Nor had you 
 seen me else now sitting alone in this airy recess, enduring 
 things worthy, unworthy; 41 but, girt with flames, I had been 
 planted in the very field of battle, drawing the Trojans on to 
 adverse fight. I confess that I advised Juturna to relieve her 
 unhappy brother, and I approved that for his life she should 
 make higher attempts ; yet not that she should [throw] a dart 
 or bend a bow ; I swear by the inexorable source of the Sty- 
 gian lake, which is set forth the sole object of religious dread 
 to the gods above. And now for my part I yield, and loath- 
 ing renounce combats. This, which by no law of fate is with- 
 holden, I implore of thee in behalf of Latium, and for the 
 honour of [its princes], thy own blood ; that when by this 
 auspicious match (so be it) they shall establish peace, when 
 they shall unite in laws and leagues, you will not command 
 the natives of Latium to change their ancient name, or become 
 Trojans, and be called Teucri, or to change 42 their language 
 or alter their dress. Let Latium subsist; let the kings of 
 Alba subsist through ages ; let the sons of Rome rise to 
 imperial power by means of the Italian valour : Troy hath 
 perished, and suffer it to perish with its name for ever. To 
 her the founder of men and things thus smiling [spoke] : 
 Sister of Jove, and Saturn's other offspring, do you still roll 
 in your breast such tides of passion ? But come and quell the 
 fury indulged in vain. I grant what you desire ; [by your 
 prayers] I am subdued, and willingly myself resign. Their 
 native language and customs the Ausonians shall retain ; and, 
 as it now is, the name shall be : only incorporated with them 
 the Trojans shall settle [in Latium] ; the institutions and 
 
 41 A proverbial phrase, equivalent to "suffering everything.*' So 
 u requa, iniqua ;" " fanda, infanda." B. 
 
 42 I think "viros" is somewhat emphatic, thus: "nor compel such 
 men, as they are, to wear the effeminate Trojan costume." B. 
 
b. xii 837-875. JENEID.. 40! 
 
 ceremonials of religion I will add, and make them all Latins 
 of one speech. Hence a race mingled with Ausonian blood 
 shall rise, which by its piety you shall see exalted above men, 
 above gods ; nor shall any nation with equal zeal celebrate 
 your honour. To these words Juno assents, and, filled with 
 complacency, gave her mind a contrary bias. Meanwhile she 
 quitted the sky, and from the cloud withdrew. 
 
 This done, the Sire revolves another purpose with himself, 
 and meditates to dismiss Juturna from [aiding] her brother's 
 arms. Two pests there are, the dire sisters called ; whom, 
 with hellish Megaera, 43 joyless Night at one and the same 
 birth brought forth, and bound with equal spires of serpents, 
 and added to them wings swift as the wind. These at the 
 throne of Jove, and at the court of the incensed sovereign 
 present themselves, and sharpen terror in the minds of feeble 
 mortals, what time the king of gods prepares baleful death and 
 diseases, or terrifies guilty cities with war. Of these Jove 
 sends down one in haste from the lofty aether, and bids her 
 stand before Juturna as a fatal sign. She flies and in a rapid 
 whirlwind to earth is borne : just as through a cloudy sky an 
 arrow shot from the string, which tinged with the bitterness 
 of malignant poison a Parthian (a Parthian or Cydonian) hath 
 hurled an incurable dart, flies hissing and unseen athwart the 
 fleeting shades ; in like manner the offspring of Night shot 
 away and hied to the earth. Soon as she perceives the Tro- 
 jan battalions and the troops of Turnus, she suddenly shrinks 
 up into the form of the little fowl, which at times sitting by 
 night on tombs or desolate towers, late inauspicious hoots 
 amidst the shades : into this shape transformed, the fiend in 
 sight of Turnus flies backward and forward screaming, and 
 flaps on his buckler with her wings. Unusual numbness relaxed 
 his limbs with fear, his hair with horror stood on end, and his 
 speech clove to his jaws. But, when his sister Juturna at a 
 distance knew the shrill noise and the Fury s wings, in deep 
 distress she tears her dishevelled tresses, mangling her face 
 with her nails, and her breasts with blows : Turnus ! what 
 can thy sister now avail thee ? wretch that I am, what expe- 
 dient have I now left ? by what art can I prolong thy life ? so 
 rueful a portent can I withstand ? Now, now I quit the field. 
 
 43 Megaera, one of the Furies, daughter of Nox and Acheron* 
 
 2 i> 
 
402 ^ENEID. b. xii. 875-910. 
 
 Add not terror to my fear, ye inauspicious fowls : the beating 
 of your wings, your deadly screams I know ; nor am I a stran- 
 ger to the stern mandates of imperious Jove. Are these the 
 returns he makes for my virginity ? Why gave he me immor- 
 tal life ? why was I exempt from the law of mortality ? surely 
 now I might have put an end to such oppressive woes, and 
 accompanied my wretched brother through the shades below. 
 I immortal ! or can I, brother, relish aught of my enjoyments 
 without thee ? Ob, what earth to me will yawn full deep, and 
 despatch a goddess to the shades below ? This said, the god- 
 dess muffled up her head in a sea-green veil, drawing many a 
 groan, and plunged herself into the deep river. 
 
 On the other hand, .ZEneas urges the attack, majestic waves 
 his massy spear, and thus with wrathful soul bespeaks [his 
 foe] : What means this delay now after all ? or why, O 
 Turnus, do you now decline the combat ? It is not in running 
 that we must try our skill, but in close fight with cruel arms. 
 Turn thee into all shapes, collect whatever assistance you can, 
 whether from valour or from artifice : wish to reach on wings 
 the lofty stars, or shut up within the hollow earth to lie con- 
 cealed. He, shaking his head, [replies] : Not thy boisterous 
 words, insulting foe, cause my fears : the gods, and adverse 
 Jove, intimidate me. Nor more he said, but casts his eye on 
 a huge stone, a stone antique, of huge dimensions, which in 
 the field by chance was lying, set for a land-mark, to dis- 
 tinguish the controverted bounds of the fields. 44 Scarcely 
 would twelve chosen men support it on their shoulders, such 
 frames of men as earth now produces. The hero snatched it 
 up with hurrying hand ; raising himself aloft, and rushing on 
 with speed, he hurled it against his foe. But he knows not 
 himself, either while running or going, nor when he lifts up 
 with his hand, or wields the enormous stone. 45 His knees 
 sink under him: his chill blood with shuddering terror 
 is congealed. Then the stone itself, rolled through the 
 empty air, neither reached the hero's whole length, nor 
 bore home the intended blow. And as in dreams by night, 
 when languid sleep hath closed our eyes, we seem in vain to 
 make effort to prolong a race on which we are intent, and in 
 midst of our efforts sink down faint; nor power is in the 
 
 44 Literally, "to determine some dispute respecting the fields.'* B. 
 4i i. e. he feels the loss of his wonted strength. B. 
 
b. xii. 911—947. ^ENEID 403 
 
 tongue, nor in the body competency of wonted strength, 
 nor voice nor words obey [the dictates of our will] ; just so 
 from Turnus the cursed fiend withholds success, by whatever 
 efforts of valour he sought the way. Then various thoughts 
 are rolling in his breast. Now he turns his eyes on the Rutu- 
 lians, now on the city [of Laurentum], now stands hover- 
 ing in dread, and trembles for the approach of the dart. Nor 
 [perceives he] whither he can fly, nor how he may make 
 head against his foe, nor sees he any where the chariot or his 
 sister charioteer. In this perplexity .ZEneas brandishes against 
 him the dart of fate, having with his eye marked out the des- 
 tined wound, and with the whole force of his body hurls it 
 from afar. Never did stones shot from a battering engine 
 roar so loud, nor from the thunder burst such mighty peals. 
 Like a black whirlwind flies the javelin winged with dire de- 
 struction ; it opens a passage through his corslet's border, and 
 the utmost orb of his seven-fold shield ; then hissing passes 
 through his mid thigh. Down to earth the mighty Turnus 
 wounded sinks on his doubled knee. 
 
 Up rise the Rutulians together with a groan, and the whole 
 mountain around rebellows, and the deep groves far and near 
 return the sound. He, humble and suppliant, stretching his 
 eyes and imploring hand, says, I L.r r e indeed deserved, nor 
 do I deprecate : improve thy fortune. If any regard to a 
 wretched father can move thee, (thou too hadst such a sire, 
 Anchises,) have compassion, I pray thee, on the age of Daunus ; 
 and me, or, if you rather choose, this body, despoiled of life, 
 unto my friends restore. You have overcome, and the Auso- 
 nians have seen thy vanquished foe stretch forth his [suppliant] 
 hands : Lavinia is thy bride. Persist not further in thy hate. 
 iEneas, fierce as he was from the heat of action, stood rolling 
 his eyes, and repressed his hand : and still more and more the 
 speech had begun to move his wavering mind, when on the 
 high shoulder [of his foe] the inauspicious belt appeared, and 
 with its well-known bosses, the girdle of youthful Pallas shone, 
 whom vanquished, Turnus with a wound had slain, and on 
 his shoulders wore the hostile badge. Soon as the hero espied 
 the memorials of his cruel grief and the spoils [of his friend], 
 inflamed with fury and terribly enraged, [he exclaimed, And] 
 shalt thou from me hence escape clad in the spoils of my 
 
404 .ENEID. b. xii. 948—952. 
 
 friends? Thee Pallas, Pallas, with this wound a victim de- 
 votes, and takes vengeance on thy accursed blood. With 
 these words deep in his opposed bosom he furious plunged the 
 sword. But with the chill of death are his limbs relaxed, and 
 with a groan the indignant soul hurries down to the shades. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET 
 AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
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