by Virgil
And plenteous cast of boughs and stones upon the monster laid;
While he, since now no flight availed to ‘scape that peril’s hold,
Pours from his mouth a mighty smoke, O wondrous to be told!
Enwrapping all the house about with blinding misty shroud,
Snatching the sight from eyes of men, and rolling on the cloud,
A reeking night with heart of fire and utter blackness blent.
Alcides’ spirit bore it nought; his body swift he sent
With headlong leap amid the fire where thickest rolled the wave
Of smoke, and with its pitchy mist was flooding all the cave;
Cacus he catcheth in the dark spueing out fire in vain,
And knitteth him in knot about, and, strangling him, doth strain
The starting eyes from out of him, and throat that blood doth lack:
Then the mirk house is opened wide; the doors are torn aback;
The stolen kine, that prey his oath foreswore to heaven are shown,
And by the feet is dragged today the body hideous grown;
Nor may men satiate their hearts by gazing on the thing;
His fearful eyes, the face of him, the man-beast’s fashioning
Of bristled breast; those jaws of his, whence faded is the flame.
“Hence is this honour celebrate, and they that after came
Still kept the day all joyfully; Potitius wrought it first,
This feast of mighty Hercules; the house Pinarian nursed,
The altar of the grove he reared, which Mightiest yet we call,
And ever more, in very sooth, shall mightiest be of all.
So come, O youths, these glorious deeds I bid you glorify:
Wreathe round your hair, put forth your hands and raise the cup on high!
Call on the God whom all we love, and give the wine full fain!”
He spake: the leaf of Hercules, the poplar coloured twain,
Shaded his hair; the leaves entwined hung down aback his head;
The holy beaker filled his hand: then merry all men sped,
And on the table poured their gift, and called the Gods to hear.
Meanwhile unto the slopes of heaven the Western Star drew near,
And then the priests, and chief thereof, Potitius, thither came,
All clad in skins, as due it was, and bearing forth the flame.
New feast they dight, and gifts beloved of second service bring,
And on the altar pile again the plates of offering.
The Salii then to singing-tide heart-kindled go around
The altars; every brow of them with poplar leafage bound:
And here the youths, the elders there, set up the song of praise,
And sing the deeds of Hercules: How, on his first of days,
The monsters twain his stepdame sent, the snakes, he crushed in hand;
And how in war he overthrew great cities of the land,
Troy and Oechalia: how he won through thousand toils o’ergreat,
That King Eurystheus laid on him by bitter Juno’s fate.
“O thou Unconquered, thou whose hand beat down the cloud-born two,
Pholeus, Hylæus, twin-wrought things, and Cretan monsters slew:
O thou who slew’st the lion huge ‘neath that Nemean steep,
The Stygian mere hath quaked at thee, the ward of Orcus deep
Quaked in his den above his bed of half-gnawed bones and blood.
At nothing fashioned wert thou feared; not when Typhoeus stood
Aloft in arms: nor from thine heart fell any rede away
When round thee headed-manifold the Worm of Lerna lay.
O very child of Jupiter, O Heaven’s new glory, hail!
Fail not thy feast with friendly foot, nor us, thy lovers, fail!”
With such-like song they sing the praise, and add to all the worth
The cave of Cacus, and the beast that breathed the wildfire forth.
The woods sing with them as they sing; the hills are light with song.
So, all the holy things fulfilled, they wend their ways along
Unto the city: the old king afoot was with them there,
And bade Æneas and his son close to his side to fare,
And as he went made light the way with talk of many a thing.
Æneas wonders, and his eyes go lightly wandering
O’er all; but here and there they stay, as, joyful of his ways,
He asks and hears of tokens left by men of earlier days.
Then spake the King Evander, he who built up Rome of old:
“These woods the earth-born Fauns and Nymphs in time agone did hold,
And men from out the tree-trunk born and very heart of oak;
No fashion of the tilth they knew, nor how the bulls to yoke,
Nor how to win them store of wealth, or spare what they had got;
The tree-boughs only cherished them and rugged chase and hot.
Then from Olympus of the heavens first Saturn came adown,
Fleeing the war of Jupiter and kingdom overthrown:
He laid in peace the rugged folk amid the mountains steep
Scattered about, and gave them laws, and willed them well to keep
The name of Latium, since he lay safe hidden on that shore.
They call the days the Golden Days that ‘neath that king outwore,
Amid such happiness of peace o’er men-folk did he reign.
But worsened time as on it wore, and gathered many a stain;
And then the battle-rage was born, and lust of gain outbroke:
Then came the host Ausonian; then came Sicanian folk;
And oft and o’er again the land of Saturn cast its name.
Then kings there were, and Thybris fierce, of monstrous body came,
From whom the Tiber flood is named by us of Italy,
Its old true name of Albula being perished and gone by.
Me, driven from my land, and strayed about the ocean’s ends,
Almighty Fortune and the Fate no struggling ever bends
Set in these steads; my mother’s word well worshipped hither drave,
The nymph Carmentis; and a god, Apollo, wayfare gave.”
Now, as he spake, hard thereunto the altar-stead doth show,
And gate that by Carmentis’ name the Roman people know;
An honour of the olden time to nymph Carmentis, she,
The faithful seer, who first foretold what mighty men should be
Æneas’ sons; how great a name from Pallanteum should come.
Then the great grove that Romulus hallowed the fleer’s home
He showeth, and Lupercal set beneath the cliff acold,
Called of Lycæan Pan in wise Parrhasia used of old.
Thereafter Argiletum’s grove he shows and bids it tell,
A very witness, where and how the guesting Argus fell.
Next, then, to the Tarpeian stead and Capitol they went,
All golden now, but wild of yore with thickets’ tanglement:
E’en then at its dread holiness the folk afield would quake
And tremble sore to look upon its cliff-besetting brake.
“This grove,” saith he, “this hill thou seest with thicket-covered brow,
Some godhead haunts, we know not who: indeed Arcadians trow
That very Jove they there have seen, when he his blackening shield
Hath shaken whiles and stirred the storm amidst the heavenly field.
Look therewithal on those two burgs with broken walls foredone!
There thou beholdest tokens left by folk of long agone:
For one did Father Janus old, and one did Saturn raise,
Janiculum, Saturnia, they hight in ancient days.”
Amid such talk they reach the roofs whereunder did abide
Unrich Evander; and they see the herd-beasts feeding wide
And lowing through the Roman Courts amid Carinæ’s shine.
But when they came
unto the house, “Beneath these doors of mine
Conquering Alcides went,” he said; “this king’s house took him in.
Have heart to scorn world’s wealth, O guest, and strive thou too to win
A godhead’s worth: take thou no scorn of our unrich estate.”
He spake, and ‘neath the narrow roof Æneas’ body great
He led withal, and set him down; and such a bed was there
As ’twas of leaves, and overlaid with skin of Libyan bear.
Night falleth, and its dusky wings spreads o’er the face of earth,
When Venus, fearful in her soul (nor less than fear ’twas worth),
Sore troubled by Laurentine threats and all the tumult dread,
Bespeaketh Vulcan, as she lay upon his golden bed,
And holiness of very love amidst her words she bore:
“When Argive kings were wasting Troy predestined with their war,
Were wracking towers foredoomed to fall mid flames of hating men,
No help of thine for hapless ones, no arms I asked for then,
Wrought by thy craft and mastery: nor would I have thee spend
Thy labour, O beloved spouse, to win no happy end;
Though many things to Priam’s house meseemeth did I owe,
And oftentimes I needs must weep Æneas’ pain and woe.
But now that he by Jove’s command Rutulian shores hath won,
I am thy suppliant, asking arms, a mother for her son,
Praying thy godhead’s holiness: time was when Nereus’ seed,
Tithonus’ wife, with many tears could bend thee to thy need.
Look round, what peoples gather now; what cities shut within
Their barrèd gates are whetting sword to slay me and my kin.”
She spake: with snowy arms of God she fondled him about,
And wound him in her soft embrace, while yet he hung in doubt:
Sudden the wonted fire struck home; unto his inmost drew
The old familiar heat, and all his melting bones ran through:
No otherwise than whiles it is when rolls the thunder loud,
And gleaming of the fiery rent breaks up the world of cloud.
In glory of her loveliness she felt her guile had gained.
Then spake the Father, overcome by Love that ne’er hath waned:
“Why fish thy reasons from the deep? where is thy trust in me,
I prithee, O my God and Love? Had such wish weighed on thee,
Then, also, had it been my part to arm the Teucrian hand,
Nor had the Almighty Sire nor Fate forbidden Troy to stand,
And Priam might have held it out another ten years yet.
And now if thou wouldst wage the war, if thus thy soul is set,
Thy longing shall have whatsoe’er this craft of mine may lend;
Whatever in iron may be done, or silver-golden blend;
Whatever wind and fire may do: I prithee pray no more,
But trust the glory of thy might.”
So when his words wore o’er
He gave the enfolding that she would, and shed upon her breast
He lay, and over all his limbs he drew the sleepy rest.
But when the midmost night was worn, and slumber, past its prime,
Had faded out, in sooth it was that woman’s rising-time,
Who needs must prop her life with rock and slender mastery
That Pallas gives: she wakes the ash and flames that smouldering lie,
And, adding night unto her toil, driveth her maids to win
Long task before its kindled light, that she may keep from sin
Her bride-bed; that her little ones well waxen-up may be.
Not otherwise that Might of Fire, no sluggard more than she,
To win his art and handicraft from that soft bed arose.
Upon the flank of Sicily there hangs an island close
To Lipari of Æolus, with shear-hewn smoky steep;
Beneath it thunder caves and dens Ætnæan, eaten deep
With forges of the Cyclops: thence men hear the anvils cry
‘Neath mighty strokes, and through the cave the hissing sparkles fly
From iron of the Chalybes, and pants the forge with flame.
The house is Vulcan’s, and the land Vulcania hath to name.
Thither the Master of the Fire went down from upper air,
Where Cyclop folk in mighty den were forging iron gear;
Pyracmon of the naked limbs, Brontes and Steropes.
A thunderbolt half-fashioned yet was in the hands of these,
Part-wrought, suchwise as many an one the Father casts on earth
From all the heaven, but otherwhere unfinished from the birth,
Three rays they wrought of writhen storm, three of the watery wrack;
Nor do the three of ruddy flame nor windy winging lack:
And now the work of fearful flash, and roar, and dread they won,
And blent amid their craftsmanship the flame that followeth on.
But otherwhere they dight the wain and wingèd wheels of Mars,
Wherewith the men and walls of men he waketh up to wars.
There angry Pallas’s arms they wrought and Ægis full of fear,
And set the gold and serpent scales, and did with mighty care
The knitted adders, and for breast of very God did deck
The Gorgon rolling eyen still above her severed neck.
“Do all away,” he said, “lay by the labour so far done;
Cyclops of Ætna, turn your minds to this one thing alone:
Arms for a great man must be wrought; betake ye to your might;
Betake ye to your nimble hands and all your mastery’s sleight,
And hurry tarrying into haste.”
No more he spake: all they
Fall swift to work and portion out the labour of the day:
The brazen rivers run about with metal of the gold,
And soft the Chalyb bane-master flows in the forges’ hold.
A mighty shield they set on foot to match all weapons held
By Latin men, and sevenfold ring on ring about it weld.
Meanwhile, in windy bellows’ womb some in the breezes take
And give them forth, some dip the brass all hissing in the lake,
And all the cavern is agroan with strokes on anvil laid.
There turn and turn about betwixt, with plenteous might to aid,
They rear their arms; with grip of tongs they turn the iron o’er.
But while the Lemnian Father thus speeds on the Æolean shore
The lovely light Evander stirs amid his lowly house,
And morning song of eave-dwellers from sleep the king doth rouse.
Riseth that ancient man of days and on his kirtle does,
And both his feet he binds about with bonds of Tyrrhene shoes;
Then Tegeæan sword he girds to shoulder and to side,
And on the left he flings aback the cloak of panther-hide.
Moreover, from the threshold step goes either watchful ward,
Two dogs to wit, that follow close the footsteps of their lord.
So to the chamber of his guest the hero goes his way,
Well mindful of his spoken word and that well-promised stay.
Nor less Æneas was afoot betimes that morning-tide,
And Pallas and Achates went each one their lord beside.
So met, they join their right hands there and in the house sit down,
And win the joy of spoken words, that lawful now hath grown;
And thuswise speaks Evander first:
“O mightiest duke of Trojan men, — for surely, thou being safe,
My heart may never more believe in Troy-town’s vanquishing, —
The battle-help that I may give is but a little thing
For such a name: by Tuscan stream on this side are we bound;
On that side come Rutulian arms to gird our walls with sound.
But �
��tis my rede to join to you a mighty folk of fight,
A wealthy lordship: chance unhoped this hope for us hath dight;
So draw thou thither whereunto the Fates are calling on.
Not far hence is a place of men, on rock of yore agone
Built up; Agylla’s city ’tis, where glorious folk of war,
The Lydian folk, on Tuscan hills pitched their abode of yore.
A many years of blooming once they had, until the king
Mezentius held them ‘neath his pride and cruel warfaring.
Why tell those deaths unspeakable, and many a tyrant’s deed?
May the Gods store them for the heads of him and all his seed!
Yea, yea, dead corpses would he join to bodies living yet,
And hand to hand, O misery! and mouth to mouth would set;
There, drenched with gore and drenched with dew of death, must they abide,
A foul embrace unspeakable, and long and long they died.
Worn out at last, his folk in arms beset his house about,
And him therein all mad with rage, cut of his following rout,
And cast the wildfire therewithal over his roof on high:
But he, amidst the slaughter slipped, to fields of Rutuli
Made shift to flee, and there is held a guest by Turnus’ sword.
So by just anger raised today Etruria is abroad,
Crying with Mars to aid, ‘Give back the king to pay the cost!’
Æneas, I will make thee now the captain of their host:
For down the whole coast goes the roar from out their ship-host’s pack;
They cry to bear the banners forth; but them still holdeth back
The ancient seer, thus singing Fate:Mæonia’s chosen peers,
The heart and flower of men of old, whom grief’s just measure bears
Against the foe; souls that your king hath stirred to righteous wrath,
No man of Italy is meet to lead this army forth;
Seek outland captains. Then, indeed, the Tuscan war array,
Feared by such warnings of the Gods, amidst these meadows lay.
Tarchon himself hath hither sent sweet speakers, bearing me
Their lordships’ kingly staff and crown, and signs of royalty;
And bidding take the Tuscan land and join their camp of war.
But eld adull with winter frost and spent with days of yore,
My body over-old for deeds begrudged such government.
I would have stirred my son, but he, with Sabine mother blent,
Shared blood of this Italian land: but thee the Fates endow
With years and race full meet hereto; the Gods call on thee now.
Go forth, O captain valorous of Italy and Troy.
