Complete Works of Virgil

by Virgil

  ‘Tell, O Dardanians, for we are not ignorant of your city and race, nor unheard of do you bend your course [197-228] overseas, what seek you? what the cause or whereof the need that hath borne you over all these blue waterways to the Ausonian shore? Whether wandering in your course, or tempest-driven (such perils manifold on the high seas do sailors suffer), you have entered the river banks and lie in harbour; shun not our welcome, and be not ignorant that the Latins are Saturn’s people, whom no laws fetter to justice, upright of their own free will and the custom of the god of old. And now I remember, though the story is dimmed with years, thus Auruncan elders told, how Dardanus, born in this our country, made his way to the towns of Phrygian Ida and to the Thracian Samos that is now called Samothrace. Here was the home he left, Tyrrhenian Corythus; now the palace of heaven, glittering with golden stars, enthrones and adds him to the ranged altars of the gods.’

  He ended; and Ilioneus pursued his speech with these words:

  ‘King, Faunus’ illustrious progeny, neither hath black tempest driven us with stress of waves to shelter in your lands, nor hath star or shore misled us on the way we went. Of set purpose and willing mind do we draw nigh this thy city, outcasts from a realm once the greatest that the sun looked on as he came from Olympus’ utmost border. From Jove hath our race beginning; in Jove the men of Dardania rejoice as ancestor; our King himself of Jove’s supreme race, Aeneas of Troy, hath sent us to thy courts. How terrible the tempest that burst from fierce Mycenae over the plains of Ida, driven by what fate Europe and Asia met in the shock of two worlds, even he hath heard who is sundered in the utmost land where the ocean surge recoils, and he whom stretching midmost of the four zones the zone of the intolerable sun holds in severance. Borne by that flood over many desolate seas, we crave a scant dwelling [229-261] for our country’s gods, an unmolested landing-place, and the air and water that are free to all. We shall not disgrace the kingdom; nor will the rumour of your renown be lightly gone or the grace of all you have done fade away; nor will Ausonia be sorry to have taken Troy to her breast. By the fortunes of Aeneas I swear, by that right hand mighty, whether tried in friendship or in warlike arms, many and many a people and nation — scorn us not because we advance with hands proffering chaplets and words of supplication — hath sought us for itself and desired our alliance; but yours is the land that heaven’s high ordinance drove us forth to find. Hence sprung Dardanus: hither Apollo recalls us, and pushes us on with imperious orders to Tyrrhenian Tiber and the holy pools of Numicus’ spring. Further, he presents to thee these small guerdons of our past estate, relics saved from burning Troy. From this gold did lord Anchises pour libation at the altars; this was Priam’s array when he delivered statutes to the nations assembled in order; the sceptre, the sacred mitre, the raiment wrought by the women of Ilium. . . .’

  At these words of Ilioneus Latinus holds his countenance in a steady gaze, and stays motionless on the floor, casting his intent eyes around. Nor does the embroidered purple so move the King, nor the sceptre of Priam, as his daughter’s marriage and the bridal chamber absorb him, and the oracle of ancient Faunus stirs deep in his heart. This is he, the wanderer from a foreign home, foreshewn of fate for his son, and called to a realm of equal dominion, whose race should be excellent in valour and their might overbear all the world. At last he speaks with good cheer:

  ‘The gods prosper our undertaking and their own augury! What thou desirest, Trojan, shall be given; nor do I spurn your gifts. While Latinus reigns you shall not [262-294] lack foison of rich land nor Troy’s own riches. Only let Aeneas himself come hither, if desire of us be so strong, if he be in haste to join our friendship and be called our ally. Let him not shrink in terror from a friendly face. A term of the peace for me shall be to touch your monarch’s hand. Do you now convey in answer my message to your King. I have a daughter whom the oracles of my father’s shrine and many a celestial token alike forbid me to unite to one of our own nation; sons shall come, they prophesy, from foreign coasts, such is the destiny of Latium, whose blood shall exalt our name to heaven. He it is on whom fate calls; this I think, this I choose, if there be any truth in my soul’s foreshadowing.’

  Thus he speaks, and chooses horses for all the company. Three hundred stood sleek in their high stalls; for all the Teucrians in order he straightway commands them to be led forth, fleet-footed, covered with embroidered purple: golden chains hang drooping over their chests, golden their housings, and they champ on bits of ruddy gold: for the absent Aeneas a chariot and pair of chariot horses of celestial breed, with nostrils breathing flame; of the race of those which subtle Circe bred by sleight on her father, the bastard issue of a stolen union. With these gifts and words the Aeneadae ride back from Latinus carrying peace.

  And lo! the fierce wife of Jove was returning from Inachian Argos, and held her way along the air, when out of the distant sky, far as from Sicilian Pachynus, she espied the rejoicing of Aeneas and the Dardanian fleet. She sees them already house-building, already trusting in the land, their ships left empty. She stops, shot with sharp pain; then shaking her head, she pours forth these words:

  ‘Ah, hated brood, and doom of the Phrygians that thwarts our doom! Could they perish on the Sigean [295-326] plains? Could they be ensnared when taken? Did the fires of Troy consume her people? Through the midst of armies and through the midst of flames they have found their way. But, I think, my deity lies at last outwearied, or my hatred sleeps and is satisfied? Nay, it is I who have been fierce to follow them over the waves when hurled from their country, and on all the seas have crossed their flight. Against the Teucrians the forces of sky and sea are spent. What hath availed me Syrtes or Scylla, what desolate Charybdis? they find shelter in their desired Tiber-bed, careless of ocean and of me. Mars availed to destroy the giant race of the Lapithae; the very father of the gods gave over ancient Calydon to Diana’s wrath: for forfeit of what crime in the Lapithae, what in Calydon? But I, Jove’s imperial consort, who have borne, ah me! to leave naught undared, who have shifted to every device, I am vanquished by Aeneas. If my deity is not great enough, I will not assuredly falter to seek succour where it may be; if the powers of heaven are inflexible, I will stir up Acheron. It may not be to debar him of a Latin realm; well; and Lavinia is destined his bride unalterably. But it may be yet to defer, to make all this action linger; but it may be yet to waste away the nation of either king; at such forfeit of their people may son-in-law and father-in-law enter into union. Blood of Troy and Rutulia shall be thy dower, O maiden, and Bellona is the bridesmaid who awaits thee. Nor did Cisseus’ daughter alone conceive a firebrand and travail of bridal flames. Nay, even such a birth hath Venus of her own, a second Paris, another balefire for Troy towers reborn.’

  These words uttered, she descends to earth in all her terrors, and calls dolorous Allecto from the home of the Fatal Sisters in nether gloom, whose delight is in woeful wars, in wrath and treachery and evil feuds: hateful to [327-360] lord Pluto himself, hateful and horrible to her hell-born sisters; into so many faces does she turn, so savage the guise of each, so thick and black bristles she with vipers. And her Juno spurs on with words, saying thus:

  ‘Grant me, virgin born of Night, this thy proper task and service, that the rumour of our renown may not crumble away, nor the Aeneadae have power to win Latinus by marriage or beset the borders of Italy. Thou canst set brothers once united in armed conflict, and overturn families with hatreds; thou canst launch into houses thy whips and deadly brands; thine are a thousand names, a thousand devices of injury. Stir up thy teeming breast, sunder the peace they have joined, and sow seeds of quarrel; let all at once desire and demand and seize on arms.’

  Thereon Allecto, steeped in Gorgonian venom, first seeks Latium and the high house of the Laurentine monarch, and silently sits down before Amata’s doors, whom a woman’s distress and anger heated to frenzy over the Teucrians’ coming and the marriage of Turnus. At her the goddess flings a snake out of her dusky tresses, and slips it into her bos
om to her very inmost heart, that she may embroil all her house under its maddening magic. Sliding between her raiment and smooth breasts, it coils without touch, and instils its viperous breath unseen; the great serpent turns into the twisted gold about her neck, turns into the long ribbon of her chaplet, inweaves her hair, and winds slippery over her body. And while the gliding infection of the clammy poison begins to penetrate her sense and run in fire through her frame, nor as yet hath all her breast caught fire, softly she spoke and in mothers’ wonted wise, with many a tear over her daughter and the Phrygian bridal:

  ‘Is it to exiles, to Teucrians, that Lavinia is proffered in marriage, O father? and hast thou no compassion on [361-392] thy daughter and on thyself? no compassion on her mother, whom with the first northern wind the treacherous rover will abandon, steering to sea with his maiden prize? Is it not thus the Phrygian herdsman wound his way to Lacedaemon, and carried Leda’s Helen to the Trojan towns? Where is thy plighted faith? Where thine ancient care for thy people, and the hand Turnus thy kinsman hath so often clasped? If one of alien race from the Latins is sought for our son, if this stands fixed, and thy father Faunus’ commands are heavy upon thee, all the land whose freedom severs it from our sway is to my mind alien, and of this is the divine word. And Turnus, if one retrace the earliest source of his line, is born of Inachus and Acrisius, and of the midmost of Mycenae.’

  When in this vain essay of words she sees Latinus fixed against her, and the serpent’s maddening poison is sunk deep in her vitals and runs through and through her, then indeed, stung by infinite horrors, hapless and frenzied, she rages wildly through the endless city. As whilome a top flying under the twisted whipcord, which boys busy at their play drive circling wide round an empty hall, runs before the lash and spins in wide gyrations; the witless ungrown band hang wondering over it and admire the whirling boxwood; the strokes lend it life: with pace no slacker is she borne midway through towns and valiant nations. Nay, she flies into the woodland under feigned Bacchic influence, assumes a greater guilt, arouses a greater frenzy, and hides her daughter in the mountain coverts to rob the Teucrians of their bridal and stay the marriage torches. ‘Hail, Bacchus!’ she shrieks and clamours; ‘thou only art worthy of the maiden; for to thee she takes up the lissom wands, thee she circles in the dance, to thee she trains and consecrates her tresses.’ Rumour flies abroad; and the matrons, their breasts kindled by the furies, run all at once [393-426] with a single ardour to seek out strange dwellings. They have left their homes empty, they throw neck and hair free to the winds; while others fill the air with ringing cries, girt about with fawnskins, and carrying spears of vine. Amid them the infuriate queen holds her blazing pine-torch on high, and chants the wedding of Turnus and her daughter; and rolling her bloodshot gaze, cries sudden and harsh: ‘Hear, O mothers of Latium, wheresoever you be; if unhappy Amata hath yet any favour in your affection, if care for a mother’s right pierces you, untie the chaplets from your hair, begin the orgies with me.’ Thus, amid woods and wild beasts’ solitary places, does Allecto goad the queen with the encircling Bacchic madness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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