Complete Works of Virgil

by Virgil

  “O Dwellers in the House of Heaven, why backward thuswise wins

  Your purpose? Why, with hearts unruled, raise ye the strife so sore?

  I clean forbade that Italy should clash with Troy in war.

  Now why the war that I forbade? who egged on these or those

  To fear or fight, or drave them on with edge of sword to close?

  Be not o’ereager in your haste: the hour of fight shall come,

  When dreadful Carthage on a day against the walls of Rome,

  Betwixt the opened doors of Alps, a mighty wrack shall send;

  Then may ye battle, hate to hate, and reach and grasp and rend:

  But now forbear, and joyfully knit fast the plighted peace.”

  Few words spake Jove; but not a few in answer unto these

  Gave golden Venus back again:

  “O Father, O eternal might of men and deeds of earth —

  For what else may be left to me whereto to turn my prayers? —

  Thou seest the Rutuli in pride, and Turnus, how he fares?

  Amidst them, borne aloft by steeds, and, swelling, war-way sweeps

  With Mars to aid: the fencèd place no more the Teucrians keeps,

  For now within the very gates and mound-heaped battlement

  They blend in fight, and flood of gore adown the ditch is sent,

  Unware Æneas is away. — Must they be never free

  From bond of leaguer? lo, again the threatening enemy

  Hangs over Troy new-born! Behold new host arrayed again

  From Arpi, the Ætolian-built; against the Teucrian men

  Tydides riseth. So for me belike new wounds in store,

  And I, thy child, must feel the edge of arms of mortal war.

  Now if without thy peace, without thy Godhead’s will to speed,

  The Trojans sought for Italy, let ill-hap pay ill deed,

  Nor stay them with thine help: but if they followed many a word

  Given forth by Gods of Heaven and Hell, by whom canst thou be stirred

  To turn thy doom, or who to forge new fate may e’er avail?

  Of ship-host burnt on Eryx shore why should I tell the tale?

  Or of the king of wind and storm, or wild and windy crowd

  Æolia bred, or Iris sent adown the space of cloud?

  But now withal the Gods of Hell, a world untried before,

  She stirreth, and Alecto sent up to the earthly shore

  In sudden hurry raves about towns of Italian men.

  No whit for lordship do I yearn: I hoped such glories then

  While Fortune was: let them be lords whom thou wilt doom for lords!

  But if no land thy hard-heart wife to Teucrian men awards,

  Yet, Father, by the smoking wrack of overwhelmèd Troy

  I pray thee from the weapon-dint safe let me send a boy,

  Yea, e’en Ascanius: let me keep my grandson safe for me!

  Yea, let Æneas toss about on many an unknown sea,

  And let him follow wheresoe’er his fortune shall have led:

  But this one let me shield, and take safe from the battle’s dread.

  Paphus, Cythera, Amathus, are mine, and I abide

  Within Idalia’s house: let him lay weed of war aside,

  And wear his life inglorious there: then shalt thou bid the hand

  Of Carthage weigh Ausonia down, and nothing shall withstand

  The towns of Tyre. — Ah, what availed to ‘scape the bane of war?

  Ah, what availed that through the midst of Argive flames they bore

  To wear down perils of wide lands, and perils of the main,

  While Teucrian men sought Latin land and Troy new-born again?

  Ah, better had it been for them by Troy’s cold ash to stay,

  To dwell on earth where Troy hath been. Father, give back, I pray,

  Their Xanthus and their Simoïs unto that wretched folk,

  And let them toil and faint once more ‘neath Ilium’s woeful yoke!”

  Then spake Queen Juno, heavy wroth: “Why driv’st thou me to part

  My deep-set silence, and lay bare with words my grief of heart?

  What one of all the Gods or men Æneas drave to go

  On warring ways, or bear himself as King Latinus’ foe?

  Fate-bidden he sought Italy? — Yea, soothly, or maybe

  Spurned by Cassandra’s wilderment — and how then counselled we

  To leave his camp and give his life to make the winds a toy?

  To trust his walls and utmost point of war unto a boy?

  To trust the Tuscan faith, and stir the peaceful folk to fight?

  What God hath driven him to lie, what hardness of my might?

  Works Juno here, or Iris sent adown the cloudy way?

  ’Tis wrong for Italy, forsooth, the ring of fire to lay

  Round Troy new-born; for Turnus still to hold his fathers’ earth! —

  Though him, Pilumnus’ own son’s son, Venilia brought to birth —

  But what if Trojans fall with flame upon the Latin folk,

  And drive the prey from off their fields oppressed by outland yoke?

  Or choose them sons-in-law, or brides from mothers’ bosoms tear?

  Or, holding peace within their hands, lade ships with weapon-gear?

  Thou erst hadst might from Greekish hands Æneas’ self to draw,

  To thrust a cloud and empty wind in stead of man of war,

  And unto sea-nymphs ship by ship the ship-host mayst thou change.

  But we to help the Rutuli, ’tis horrible and strange!

  — Unware Æneas is away? — let him abide unware!

  Paphus thou hast, Idalium, and high Cythera fair,

  Then why with cities big with war and hearts of warriors deal?

  What! we it was who strove to wrack the fainting Trojan weal?

  We! — or the one who thwart the Greeks the wretched Trojans dashed?

  Yea, and what brought it all about that thus in arms they clashed,

  Europe and Asia? that men brake the plighted peace by theft?

  Did I the Dardan lecher lead, who Sparta’s jewel reft?

  Did I set weapons in his hand, breed lust to breed debate?

  Then had thy care for thine been meet, but now indeed o’erlate

  With wrongful plaint thou risest up, and bickerest emptily.”

  So pleaded Juno, and all they, the heavenly folk anigh,

  Murmured their doom in diverse wise; as when the first of wind

  Caught in the woods is murmuring on, and rolleth moanings blind,

  Betraying to the mariners the onset of the gale.

  Then spake the Almighty Sire, in whom is all the world’s avail,

  And as he spake the high-built house of God was quieted,

  And earth from her foundations shook, and heaven was hushed o’erhead,

  The winds fell down, the face of sea was laid in quiet fair:

  “Take ye these matters to your hearts, and set my sayings there;

  Since nowise the Ausonian folk the plighted troth may blend

  With Teucrians, and your contest seems a strife without an end;

  What fortune each may have today, what hope each one shears out,

  Trojan or Rutulan, will I hold all in balanced doubt,

  Whether the camp be so beset by fate of Italy,

  Or hapless wanderings of Troy, and warnings dealt awry.

  Nor loose I Rutulans the more; let each one’s way-faring

  Bear its own hap and toil, for Jove to all alike is king;

  The Fates will find a way to wend.”

  He nodded oath withal

  By his own Stygian brother’s stream, the pitchy waters’ fall,

  And blazing banks, and with his nod shook all Olympus’ land.

  Then fell the talk; from golden throne did Jupiter upstand,

  The heaven-abiders girt him round and brought him to the door.

  The Rutuli amid all this are pressing on in war,

&
nbsp; Round all the gates to slay the men, the walls with fire to ring,

  And all Æneas’ host is pent with fenced beleaguering.

  Nor is there any hope of flight; upon the towers tall

  They stand, the hapless men in vain, thin garland for the wall;

  Asius, the son of Imbrasus, Thymoetes, and the two

  Assaraci, and Thymbris old, with Castor, deeds they do

  In the forefront; Sarpedon’s sons, twin brethren, with them bide,

  Clarus and Themon, born erewhile in lofty Lycia’s side.

  And now Lyrnessian Acmon huge with strain of limbs strives hard,

  And raises up a mighty stone, no little mountain shard;

  As great as father Clytius he, or brother Mnestheus’ might:

  So some with stones, with spear-cast some, they ward the walls in fight,

  They deal with fire or notch the shaft upon the strainèd string.

  But lo amidst, most meetly wrought for Venus cherishing,

  His goodly head the Dardan boy unhooded there doth hold,

  As shineth out some stone of price, cleaving the yellow gold,

  Fair for the bosom or the head; or as the ivory shines,

  That with Orician terebinth the art of man entwines,

  Or mid the boxwood; down along his milk-white neck they lie

  The streams of hair, which golden wire doth catch about and tie.

  The mighty nations, Ismarus, there saw thee deft to speed

  The bane of men, envenoming the deadly flying reed;

  Thou lord-born of Moeonian house, whereby the tiller tills

  Rich acres, where Pactolus’ flood gold overflowing spills.

  There, too, was Mnestheus, whom his deed late done of thrusting forth

  King Turnus from the battlements hath raised to heavenly worth,

  And Capys, he whose name is set upon Campania’s town.

  But while the bitter play of war went bickering up and down,

  Æneas clave the seas with keel amidst the dead of night:

  For when Evander he had left and reached the Tuscan might,

  He met their king and told his name, and whence his race of old,

  And what he would and how he wrought: and of the host he told,

  Mezentius now had gotten him, and Turnus’ wrothful heart;

  He warned him in affairs of men to trust not Fortune’s part;

  And therewithal he mingleth prayers: Tarchon no while doth wait,

  But joineth hosts and plighteth troth; and so, set free by Fate,

  A-shipboard go the Lydian folk by God’s command and grace,

  Yet ‘neath the hand of outland duke: Æneas’ ship hath place

  In forefront: Phrygian lions hang above its armèd tyne

  O’ertopped by Ida, unto those Troy’s outcasts happy sign:

  There great Æneas sits, and sends his mind a-wandering wide

  Through all the shifting chance of war; and by his left-hand side

  Is Pallas asking of the stars and night-tide’s journey dim,

  Or whiles of haps by land or sea that fortuned unto him.

  Ye Goddesses, ope Helicon, and raise the song to say

  What host from out the Tuscan land Æneas led away,

  And how they dight their ships, and how across the sea they drave.

  In brazen Tiger Massicus first man the sea-plain clave;

  A thousand youths beneath him are that Clusium’s walls have left

  And Cosæ’s city: these in war with arrow-shot are deft,

  And bear light quivers of the bark, and bear the deadly bow.

  Then comes grim Abas, all his host with glorious arms aglow,

  And on his stern Apollo gleams, well wrought in utter gold.

  But Populonia’s mother-land had given him there to hold

  Six hundred of the battle-craft; three hundred Ilva sent,

  Rich isle, whose wealth of Chalyb ore wastes never nor is spent.

  The third is he, who carrieth men the words God hath to say,

  Asylas, whom the hearts of beasts and stars of heaven obey,

  And tongues of birds, and thunder-fire that coming tidings bears.

  A thousand men he hurrieth on with bristling of the spears;

  Pisa, the town Alpheüs built amid the Tuscan land,

  Bids them obey.

  Came Astur next, goodliest of all the band;

  Astur, who trusteth in his horse and shifty-coloured weed;

  Three hundred hath he, of one heart to wend as he shall lead:

  And these are they in Cæres’ home and Minios’ lea that bide,

  The Pyrgi old, and they that feel Gravisca’s heavy tide.

  Nor thee, best war-duke, Cinyras, of that Ligurian crew,

  Leave I unsung: nor thee the more, Cupavo lord of few,

  Up from the cresting of whose helm the feathery swan-wings rise.

  Love was thy guilt; thy battle-sign was thine own father’s guise.

  For Cycnus, say they, while for love of Phaëthon he grieves.

  And sings beneath his sisters’ shade, beneath the poplar-leaves;

  While with the Muse some solace sweet for woeful love he won,

  A hoary eld of feathers soft about him doth he on,

  Leaving the earth and following the stars with tuneful wails;

  And now his son amid his peers with Tuscan ship-host sails,

  Driving with oars the Centaur huge, who o’er the waters’ face

  Hangs, threatening ocean with a rock, huge from his lofty place,

  And ever with his length of keel the deep sea furrows o’er.

  Then he, e’en Ocnus, stirreth up folk from his father’s shore,

  Who from the love of Tuscan flood and fate-wise Manto came,

  And gave, O Mantua, walls to thee, and gave his mother’s name:

  Mantua, the rich in father-folk, though not one-stemmed her home.

  Three stems are there, from each whereof four peoples forth are come,

  While she herself, the head of all, from Tuscan blood hath might.

  Five hundred thence Mezentius arms against himself in fight,

  Whom Mincius’ flood, Benacus’ son, veiled in the sedges grey,

  Was leading in the fir of fight across the watery way.

  Then heavy-huge Aulestes goes; the oar-wood hundred-fold

  Rises for beating of the flood, as foam the seas uprolled.

  Huge Triton ferries him, whose shell the deep blue sea doth fright:

  Up from the shaggy naked waist manlike is he to sight

  As there he swims, but underneath whale-bellied is he grown;

  Beneath the half-beast breast of him the foaming waters moan.

  So many chosen dukes of men in thrice ten keels they sail,

  And cut with brass the meads of brine for Troy and its avail.

  And now had day-tide failed the sky, and Phoebe, sweet and fair,

  Amid her nightly-straying wain did mid Olympus wear.

  Æneas, who might give his limbs no whit of peacefulness,

  Was sitting with the helm in hand, heeding the sail-gear’s stress,

  When lo a company of friends his midmost course do meet:

  The Nymphs to wit, who Cybele, the goddess holy-sweet,

  Bade turn from ships to very nymphs, and ocean’s godhead have.

  So evenly they swam the sea, and sundered wave and wave,

  As many as the brazen beaks once by the sea-side lay;

  Afar they know their king, and round in dancing-wise they play;

  But one of them, Cymodocea, who speech-lore knew the best,

  Drew nigh astern and laid thereon her right hand, with her breast

  Above the flood, the while her left through quiet waves rowed on,

  And thus bespoke him all unware:

  “Wak’st thou, O Godhead’s son!

  Æneas, wake! and loose the sheets and let all canvas fill!

  We were the pine-trees on a time of Ida’s holy hill,

 
Thy ship-host once, but sea-nymphs now: when that Rutulian lord

  Fell faithless, headlong, on our lives with firebrand and the sword,

  Unwillingly we brake our bonds and sought thee o’er the main.

  The Mother in her pity thus hath wrought our shape again,

  And given us gift of godhead’s life in house of ocean’s ground.

  Lo now, the boy Ascanius by dyke and wall is bound

  Amid the spears, the battle-wood that Latins forth have sent.

  And now the horse of Arcady, with stout Etruscans blent,

  Holdeth due tryst. Now is the mind of Turnus firmly set

  To thrust between them, lest thy camp they succour even yet.

  Wherefore arise, and when the dawn first climbs the heavenly shore

  Call on thy folk, and take thy shield unconquered evermore,

  The Fire-lord’s gift, who wrought its lips with circling gold about:

  Tomorrow’s light, unless thou deem’st my words are all to doubt,

  Shall see Rutulian death in heaps a-lying on the land.”

  Therewith departing, forth she thrust the tall ship with her hand,

  As one who had good skill therein, and then across the seas

  Swifter than dart she fled, or shaft that matcheth well the breeze,

  And straight the others hastened on. All mazed was he of Troy,

  Anchises’ seed, but yet the sign upraised his heart with joy,

  And, looking to the hollow heaven, in few words prayed he thus

  “Kind Ida-Mother of the Gods, whose heart loves Dindymus

  And towered towns, and lions yoked and tamed to bear the bit,

  Be thou my battle-leader now, and do thou further it,

  This omen, and with favouring foot the Trojan folk draw nigh.”

  But while he spake, Day, come again, had run adown the sky,

  With light all utter perfect wrought, and driven away the night.

  Then folk he biddeth follow on the banners of the fight,

  And make them ready for the play and shape their hearts for war.

  But he, aloft upon the poop, now sees them where they are,

  His leaguered Teucrians, as his left uprears the blazing shield;

  And then, the sons of Dardanus up to the starry field

  Send forth the cry, and hope is come to whet their battle-wrath.

  Thick flies their spear-storm: ’tis as when the Strymon cranes give forth

  Their war-sign on the mirky rack, and down the heavens they run

  Sonorous, fleeing southern breeze with clamour following on.

  But wondrous to Rutulian king and dukes of Italy

  That seemed, until they look about, and lo, the keels they see