my men,' she begins, 'shew me
if [322-355]haply you have seen a sister of mine straying here girt
with quiver and a lynx's dappled fell, or pressing with shouts on the
track of a foaming boar.
if [322-355]haply you have seen a sister of mine straying here girt
with quiver and a lynx's dappled fell, or pressing with shouts on the
track of a foaming boar.
Virgil - Aeneid
?
The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Aeneid of Virgil, by Virgil, Translated
by J. W. Mackail
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Title: The Aeneid of Virgil
Author: Virgil
Release Date: August 29, 2007 [eBook #22456]
Language: English
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E-text prepared by David Clarke, Lisa Reigel, and the Project Gutenberg
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Transcriber's note:
Numbers in brackets [ ] refer to line numbers in Virgil's
Aeneid. These numbers appeared at the top of each page of text
and have been retained for reference.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A complete
list follows the text.
THE AENEID OF VIRGIL
Translated into English
by
J. W. MACKAIL, M. A.
Fellow Of Balliol College, Oxford
London
MacMillan and Co.
1885
Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh.
PREFACE
There is something grotesque in the idea of a prose translation of a
poet, though the practice is become so common that it has ceased to
provoke a smile or demand an apology. The language of poetry is language
in fusion; that of prose is language fixed and crystallised; and an
attempt to copy the one material in the other must always count on
failure to convey what is, after all, one of the most essential things
in poetry,--its poetical quality. And this is so with Virgil more,
perhaps, than with any other poet; for more, perhaps, than any other
poet Virgil depends on his poetical quality from first to last. Such a
translation can only have the value of a copy of some great painting
executed in mosaic, if indeed a copy in Berlin wool is not a closer
analogy; and even at the best all it can have to say for itself will be
in Virgil's own words, _Experiar sensus; nihil hic nisi carmina desunt. _
In this translation I have in the main followed the text of Conington
and Nettleship. The more important deviations from this text are
mentioned in the notes; but I have not thought it necessary to give a
complete list of various readings, or to mention any change except where
it might lead to misapprehension. Their notes have also been used by me
throughout.
Beyond this I have made constant use of the mass of ancient commentary
going under the name of Servius; the most valuable, perhaps, of all, as
it is in many ways the nearest to the poet himself. The explanation
given in it has sometimes been followed against those of the modern
editors. To other commentaries only occasional reference has been made.
The sense that Virgil is his own best interpreter becomes stronger as
one studies him more.
My thanks are due to Mr. EVELYN ABBOTT, Fellow and Tutor of Balliol, and
to the Rev. H. C. BEECHING, for much valuable suggestion and criticism.
THE AENEID
BOOK FIRST
THE COMING OF AENEAS TO CARTHAGE
I sing of arms and the man who of old from the coasts of Troy came, an
exile of fate, to Italy and the shore of Lavinium; hard driven on land
and on the deep by the violence of heaven, for cruel Juno's unforgetful
anger, and hard bestead in war also, ere he might found a city and carry
his gods into Latium; from whom is the Latin race, the lords of Alba,
and the stately city Rome.
Muse, tell me why, for what attaint of her deity, or in what vexation,
did the Queen of heaven drive one so excellent in goodness to circle
through so many afflictions, to face so many toils? Is anger so fierce
in celestial spirits?
* * * * *
There was a city of ancient days that Tyrian settlers dwelt in,
Carthage, over against Italy and the Tiber mouths afar; rich of store,
and mighty in war's fierce pursuits; wherein, they say, alone beyond all
other lands had Juno her seat, and held Samos itself less dear. Here was
her armour, here her chariot; even now, if fate permit, the goddess
strives to nurture it for queen of the nations. Nevertheless she had
heard a race was issuing of the blood of [20-53]Troy, which sometime
should overthrow her Tyrian citadel; from it should come a people, lord
of lands and tyrannous in war, the destroyer of Libya: so rolled the
destinies. Fearful of that, the daughter of Saturn, the old war in her
remembrance that she fought at Troy for her beloved Argos long ago,--nor
had the springs of her anger nor the bitterness of her vexation yet gone
out of mind: deep stored in her soul lies the judgment of Paris, the
insult of her slighted beauty, the hated race and the dignities of
ravished Ganymede; fired with this also, she tossed all over ocean the
Trojan remnant left of the Greek host and merciless Achilles, and held
them afar from Latium; and many a year were they wandering driven of
fate around all the seas. Such work was it to found the Roman people.
Hardly out of sight of the land of Sicily did they set their sails to
sea, and merrily upturned the salt foam with brazen prow, when Juno, the
undying wound still deep in her heart, thus broke out alone:
'Am I then to abandon my baffled purpose, powerless to keep the Teucrian
king from Italy? and because fate forbids me? Could Pallas lay the
Argive fleet in ashes, and sink the Argives in the sea, for one man's
guilt, mad Oilean Ajax? Her hand darted Jove's flying fire from the
clouds, scattered their ships, upturned the seas in tempest; him, his
pierced breast yet breathing forth the flame, she caught in a whirlwind
and impaled on a spike of rock. But I, who move queen among immortals, I
sister and wife of Jove, wage warfare all these years with a single
people; and is there any who still adores Juno's divinity, or will kneel
to lay sacrifice on her altars? '
Such thoughts inly revolving in her kindled bosom, the goddess reaches
Aeolia, the home of storm-clouds, the land laden with furious southern
gales. Here in a desolate cavern Aeolus keeps under royal dominion and
yokes in [54-85]dungeon fetters the struggling winds and loud storms.
They with mighty moan rage indignant round their mountain barriers. In
his lofty citadel Aeolus sits sceptred, assuages their temper and
soothes their rage; else would they carry with them seas and lands, and
the depth of heaven, and sweep them through space in their flying
course. But, fearful of this, the lord omnipotent hath hidden them in
caverned gloom, and laid a mountain mass high over them, and appointed
them a ruler, who should know by certain law to strain and slacken the
reins at command. To him now Juno spoke thus in suppliant accents:
'Aeolus--for to thee hath the father of gods and king of men given the
wind that lulls and that lifts the waves--a people mine enemy sails the
Tyrrhene sea, carrying into Italy the conquered gods of their Ilian
home. Rouse thy winds to fury, and overwhelm their sinking vessels, or
drive them asunder and strew ocean with their bodies. Mine are twice
seven nymphs of passing loveliness; her who of them all is most
excellent in beauty, Deiopea, I will unite to thee in wedlock to be
thine for ever; that for this thy service she may fulfil all her years
at thy side, and make thee father of a beautiful race. '
Aeolus thus returned: 'Thine, O queen, the task to search whereto thou
hast desire; for me it is right to do thy bidding. From thee have I this
poor kingdom, from thee my sceptre and Jove's grace; thou dost grant me
to take my seat at the feasts of the gods, and makest me sovereign over
clouds and storms. '
Even with these words, turning his spear, he struck the side of the
hollow hill, and the winds, as in banded array, pour where passage is
given them, and cover earth with eddying blasts. East wind and west wind
together, and the gusty south-wester, falling prone on the sea, stir it
up [86-120]from its lowest chambers, and roll vast billows to the
shore. Behind rises shouting of men and whistling of cordage. In a
moment clouds blot sky and daylight from the Teucrians' eyes; black
night broods over the deep. Pole thunders to pole, and the air quivers
with incessant flashes; all menaces them with instant death. Straightway
Aeneas' frame grows unnerved and chill, and stretching either hand to
heaven, he cries thus aloud: 'Ah, thrice and four times happy they who
found their doom under high Troy town before their fathers' faces! Ah,
son of Tydeus, bravest of the Grecian race, that I could not have fallen
on the Ilian plains, and gasped out this my life beneath thine hand!
where under the spear of Aeacides lies fierce Hector, lies mighty
Sarpedon; where Simois so often bore beneath his whirling wave shields
and helmets and brave bodies of men. '
As the cry leaves his lips, a gust of the shrill north strikes full on
the sail and raises the waves up to heaven. The oars are snapped; the
prow swings away and gives her side to the waves; down in a heap comes a
broken mountain of water. These hang on the wave's ridge; to these the
yawning billow shows ground amid the surge, where the sea churns with
sand. Three ships the south wind catches and hurls on hidden rocks,
rocks amid the waves which Italians call the Altars, a vast reef banking
the sea. Three the east forces from the deep into shallows and
quicksands, piteous to see, dashes on shoals and girdles with a
sandbank. One, wherein loyal Orontes and his Lycians rode, before their
lord's eyes a vast sea descending strikes astern. The helmsman is dashed
away and rolled forward headlong; her as she lies the billow sends
spinning thrice round with it, and engulfs in the swift whirl. Scattered
swimmers appear in the vast eddy, armour of men, timbers and Trojan
treasure amid the water. Ere now the stout ship of Ilioneus, ere now of
brave Achates, and she wherein [121-152]Abas rode, and she wherein aged
Aletes, have yielded to the storm; through the shaken fastenings of
their sides they all draw in the deadly water, and their opening seams
give way.
Meanwhile Neptune discerned with astonishment the loud roaring of the
vexed sea, the tempest let loose from prison, and the still water
boiling up from its depths, and lifting his head calm above the waves,
looked forth across the deep. He sees all ocean strewn with Aeneas'
fleet, the Trojans overwhelmed by the waves and the ruining heaven.
Juno's guile and wrath lay clear to her brother's eye; east wind and
west he calls before him, and thereon speaks thus:
'Stand you then so sure in your confidence of birth? Careless, O winds,
of my deity, dare you confound sky and earth, and raise so huge a coil?
you whom I--But better to still the aroused waves; for a second sin you
shall pay me another penalty. Speed your flight, and say this to your
king: not to him but to me was allotted the stern trident of ocean
empire. His fastness is on the monstrous rocks where thou and thine,
east wind, dwell: there let Aeolus glory in his palace and reign over
the barred prison of his winds. '
Thus he speaks, and ere the words are done he soothes the swollen seas,
chases away the gathered clouds, and restores the sunlight. Cymothoe and
Triton together push the ships strongly off the sharp reef; himself he
eases them with his trident, channels the vast quicksands, and assuages
the sea, gliding on light wheels along the water. Even as when oft in a
throng of people strife hath risen, and the base multitude rage in their
minds, and now brands and stones are flying; madness lends arms; then if
perchance they catch sight of one reverend for goodness and service,
they are silent and stand by with attentive ear; he with
[153-190]speech sways their temper and soothes their breasts; even so
hath fallen all the thunder of ocean, when riding forward beneath a
cloudless sky the lord of the sea wheels his coursers and lets his
gliding chariot fly with loosened rein.
The outworn Aeneadae hasten to run for the nearest shore, and turn to
the coast of Libya. There lies a spot deep withdrawn; an island forms a
harbour with outstretched sides, whereon all the waves break from the
open sea and part into the hollows of the bay. On this side and that
enormous cliffs rise threatening heaven, and twin crags beneath whose
crest the sheltered water lies wide and calm; above hangs a background
of flickering forest, and the dark shade of rustling groves. Beneath the
seaward brow is a rock-hung cavern, within it fresh springs and seats in
the living stone, a haunt of nymphs; where tired ships need no fetters
to hold nor anchor to fasten them with crooked bite. Here with seven
sail gathered of all his company Aeneas enters; and disembarking on the
land of their desire the Trojans gain the chosen beach, and set their
feet dripping with brine upon the shore. At once Achates struck a spark
from the flint and caught the fire on leaves, and laying dry fuel round
kindled it into flame. Then, weary of fortune, they fetch out corn
spoiled by the sea and weapons of corn-dressing, and begin to parch over
the fire and bruise in stones the grain they had rescued.
Meanwhile Aeneas scales the crag, and seeks the whole view wide over
ocean, if he may see aught of Antheus storm-tossed with his Phrygian
galleys, aught of Capys or of Caicus' armour high astern. Ship in sight
is none; three stags he espies straying on the shore; behind whole herds
follow, and graze in long train across the valley. Stopping short, he
snatched up a bow and swift arrows, the arms trusty Achates was
carrying; and first the leaders, their stately heads high with branching
antlers, then the common [191-222]herd fall to his hand, as he drives
them with his shafts in a broken crowd through the leafy woods. Nor
stays he till seven great victims are stretched on the sod, fulfilling
the number of his ships. Thence he seeks the harbour and parts them
among all his company. The casks of wine that good Acestes had filled on
the Trinacrian beach, the hero's gift at their departure, he thereafter
shares, and calms with speech their sorrowing hearts:
'O comrades, for not now nor aforetime are we ignorant of ill, O tried
by heavier fortunes, unto this last likewise will God appoint an end.
The fury of Scylla and the roaring recesses of her crags you have been
anigh; the rocks of the Cyclops you have trodden. Recall your courage,
put dull fear away. This too sometime we shall haply remember with
delight. Through chequered fortunes, through many perilous ways, we
steer for Latium, where destiny points us a quiet home. There the realm
of Troy may rise again unforbidden. Keep heart, and endure till
prosperous fortune come. '
Such words he utters, and sick with deep distress he feigns hope on his
face, and keeps his anguish hidden deep in his breast. The others set to
the spoil they are to feast upon, tear chine from ribs and lay bare the
flesh; some cut it into pieces and pierce it still quivering with spits;
others plant cauldrons on the beach and feed them with flame. Then they
repair their strength with food, and lying along the grass take their
fill of old wine and fat venison. After hunger is driven from the
banquet, and the board cleared, they talk with lingering regret of their
lost companions, swaying between hope and fear, whether they may believe
them yet alive, or now in their last agony and deaf to mortal call. Most
does good Aeneas inly wail the loss now of valiant Orontes, now of
Amycus, the cruel doom of Lycus, of brave Gyas, and brave Cloanthus.
[223-254]And now they ceased; when from the height of air Jupiter
looked down on the sail-winged sea and outspread lands, the shores and
broad countries, and looking stood on the cope of heaven, and cast down
his eyes on the realm of Libya. To him thus troubled at heart Venus, her
bright eyes brimming with tears, sorrowfully speaks:
'O thou who dost sway mortal and immortal things with eternal command
and the terror of thy thunderbolt, how can my Aeneas have transgressed
so grievously against thee? how his Trojans? on whom, after so many
deaths outgone, all the world is barred for Italy's sake. From them
sometime in the rolling years the Romans were to arise indeed; from them
were to be rulers who, renewing the blood of Teucer, should hold sea and
land in universal lordship. This thou didst promise: why, O father, is
thy decree reversed? This was my solace for the wretched ruin of sunken
Troy, doom balanced against doom. Now so many woes are spent, and the
same fortune still pursues them; Lord and King, what limit dost thou set
to their agony? Antenor could elude the encircling Achaeans, could
thread in safety the Illyrian bays and inmost realms of the Liburnians,
could climb Timavus' source, whence through nine mouths pours the
bursting tide amid dreary moans of the mountain, and covers the fields
with hoarse waters. Yet here did he set Patavium town, a dwelling-place
for his Teucrians, gave his name to a nation and hung up the armour of
Troy; now settled in peace, he rests and is in quiet. We, thy children,
we whom thou beckonest to the heights of heaven, our fleet miserably
cast away for a single enemy's anger, are betrayed and severed far from
the Italian coasts. Is this the reward of goodness? Is it thus thou dost
restore our throne? '
Smiling on her with that look which clears sky and [255-289]storms, the
parent of men and gods lightly kissed his daughter's lips; then answered
thus:
'Spare thy fear, Cytherean; thy people's destiny abides unshaken. Thine
eyes shall see the city Lavinium, their promised home; thou shalt exalt
to the starry heaven thy noble Aeneas; nor is my decree reversed. He
thou lovest (for I will speak, since this care keeps torturing thee, and
will unroll further the secret records of fate) shall wage a great war
in Italy, and crush warrior nations; he shall appoint his people a law
and a city; till the third summer see him reigning in Latium, and three
winters' camps pass over the conquered Rutulians. But the boy Ascanius,
whose surname is now Iulus--Ilus he was while the Ilian state stood
sovereign--thirty great circles of rolling months shall he fulfil in
government; he shall carry the kingdom from its fastness in Lavinium,
and make a strong fortress of Alba the Long. Here the full space of
thrice an hundred years shall the kingdom endure under the race of
Hector's kin, till the royal priestess Ilia from Mars' embrace shall
give birth to a twin progeny. Thence shall Romulus, gay in the tawny
hide of the she-wolf that nursed him, take up their line, and name them
Romans after his own name. I appoint to these neither period nor
boundary of empire: I have given them dominion without end. Nay, harsh
Juno, who in her fear now troubles earth and sea and sky, shall change
to better counsels, and with me shall cherish the lords of the world,
the gowned race of Rome. Thus is it willed. A day will come in the lapse
of cycles, when the house of Assaracus shall lay Phthia and famed
Mycenae in bondage, and reign over conquered Argos. From the fair line
of Troy a Caesar shall arise, who shall limit his empire with ocean, his
glory with the firmament, Julius, inheritor of great Iulus' name. Him
one day, thy care done, thou shalt welcome to heaven loaded
[290-321]with Eastern spoils; to him too shall vows be addressed. Then
shall war cease, and the iron ages soften. Hoar Faith and Vesta,
Quirinus and Remus brothers again, shall deliver statutes. The dreadful
steel-riveted gates of war shall be shut fast; on murderous weapons the
inhuman Fury, his hands bound behind him with an hundred fetters of
brass, shall sit within, shrieking with terrible blood-stained lips. '
So speaking, he sends Maia's son down from above, that the land and
towers of Carthage, the new town, may receive the Trojans with open
welcome; lest Dido, ignorant of doom, might debar them her land. Flying
through the depth of air on winged oarage, the fleet messenger alights
on the Libyan coasts. At once he does his bidding; at once, for a god
willed it, the Phoenicians allay their haughty temper; the queen above
all takes to herself grace and compassion towards the Teucrians.
But good Aeneas, nightlong revolving many and many a thing, issues
forth, so soon as bountiful light is given, to explore the strange
country; to what coasts the wind has borne him, who are their habitants,
men or wild beasts, for all he sees is wilderness; this he resolves to
search, and bring back the certainty to his comrades. The fleet he hides
close in embosoming groves beneath a caverned rock, amid shivering
shadow of the woodland; himself, Achates alone following, he strides
forward, clenching in his hand two broad-headed spears. And amid the
forest his mother crossed his way, wearing the face and raiment of a
maiden, the arms of a maiden of Sparta, or like Harpalyce of Thrace when
she tires her coursers and outstrips the winged speed of Hebrus in her
flight. For huntress fashion had she slung the ready bow from her
shoulder, and left her blown tresses free, bared her knee, and knotted
together her garments' flowing folds. 'Ha! my men,' she begins, 'shew me
if [322-355]haply you have seen a sister of mine straying here girt
with quiver and a lynx's dappled fell, or pressing with shouts on the
track of a foaming boar. '
Thus Venus, and Venus' son answering thus began:
'Sound nor sight have I had of sister of thine, O maiden unnamed; for
thy face is not mortal, nor thy voice of human tone; O goddess
assuredly! sister of Phoebus perchance, or one of the nymphs' blood?
Be thou gracious, whoso thou art, and lighten this toil of ours; deign
to instruct us beneath what skies, on what coast of the world, we are
thrown. Driven hither by wind and desolate waves, we wander in a strange
land among unknown men. Many a sacrifice shall fall by our hand before
thine altars. '
Then Venus: 'Nay, to no such offerings do I aspire. Tyrian maidens are
wont ever to wear the quiver, to tie the purple buskin high above their
ankle. Punic is the realm thou seest, Tyrian the people, and the city of
Agenor's kin; but their borders are Libyan, a race unassailable in war.
Dido sways the sceptre, who flying her brother set sail from the Tyrian
town. Long is the tale of crime, long and intricate; but I will briefly
follow its argument. Her husband was Sychaeus, wealthiest in lands of
the Phoenicians, and loved of her with ill-fated passion; to whom with
virgin rites her father had given her maidenhood in wedlock. But the
kingdom of Tyre was in her brother Pygmalion's hands, a monster of guilt
unparalleled. Between these madness came; the unnatural brother, blind
with lust of gold, and reckless of his sister's love, lays Sychaeus low
before the altars with stealthy unsuspected weapon; and for long he hid
the deed, and by many a crafty pretence cheated her love-sickness with
hollow hope. But in slumber came the very ghost of her unburied husband;
lifting up a face pale in wonderful wise, he exposed the merciless
altars and [356-387]his breast stabbed through with steel, and unwove
all the blind web of household guilt. Then he counsels hasty flight out
of the country, and to aid her passage discloses treasures long hidden
underground, an untold mass of silver and gold. Stirred thereby, Dido
gathered a company for flight. All assemble in whom hatred of the tyrant
was relentless or fear keen; they seize on ships that chanced to lie
ready, and load them with the gold. Pygmalion's hoarded wealth is borne
overseas; a woman leads the work. They came at last to the land where
thou wilt descry a city now great, New Carthage, and her rising citadel,
and bought ground, called thence Byrsa, as much as a bull's hide would
encircle. But who, I pray, are you, or from what coasts come, or whither
hold you your way? '
At her question he, sighing and drawing speech deep from his breast,
thus replied:
'Ah goddess, should I go on retracing from the fountain head, were time
free to hear the history of our woes, sooner would the evening star lay
day asleep in the closed gates of heaven. Us, as from ancient Troy (if
the name of Troy hath haply passed through your ears) we sailed over
alien seas, the tempest at his own wild will hath driven on the Libyan
coast. I am Aeneas the good, who carry in my fleet the household gods I
rescued from the enemy; my fame is known high in heaven. I seek Italy my
country, my kin of Jove's supreme blood. With twenty sail did I climb
the Phrygian sea; oracular tokens led me on; my goddess mother pointed
the way; scarce seven survive the shattering of wave and wind. Myself
unknown, destitute, driven from Europe and Asia, I wander over the
Libyan wilderness. '
But staying longer complaint, Venus thus broke in on his half-told
sorrows:
'Whoso thou art, not hated I think of the immortals [388-420]dost thou
draw the breath of life, who hast reached the Tyrian city. Only go on,
and betake thee hence to the courts of the queen. For I declare to thee
thy comrades are restored, thy fleet driven back into safety by the
shifted northern gales, except my parents were pretenders, and
unavailing the augury they taught me. Behold these twelve swans in
joyous line, whom, stooping from the tract of heaven, the bird of Jove
fluttered over the open sky; now in long train they seem either to take
the ground or already to look down on the ground they took. As they
again disport with clapping wings, and utter their notes as they circle
the sky in company, even so do these ships and crews of thine either lie
fast in harbour or glide under full sail into the harbour mouth. Only go
on, and turn thy steps where the pathway leads thee. '
Speaking she turned away, and her neck shone roseate, her immortal
tresses breathed the fragrance of deity; her raiment fell flowing down
to her feet, and the godhead was manifest in her tread. He knew her for
his mother, and with this cry pursued her flight: 'Thou also merciless!
Why mockest thou thy son so often in feigned likeness? Why is it
forbidden to clasp hand in hand, to hear and utter true speech? ' Thus
reproaching her he bends his steps towards the city. But Venus girt them
in their going with dull mist, and shed round them a deep divine
clothing of cloud, that none might see them, none touch them, or work
delay, or ask wherefore they came. Herself she speeds through the sky to
Paphos, and joyfully revisits her habitation, where the temple and its
hundred altars steam with Sabaean incense, and are fresh with fragrance
of chaplets in her worship.
They meantime have hasted along where the pathway points, and now were
climbing the hill which hangs enormous over the city, and looks down on
its facing towers. [421-456]Aeneas marvels at the mass of building,
pastoral huts once of old, marvels at the gateways and clatter of the
pavements. The Tyrians are hot at work to trace the walls, to rear the
citadel, and roll up great stones by hand, or to choose a spot for their
dwelling and enclose it with a furrow. They ordain justice and
magistrates, and the august senate. Here some are digging harbours, here
others lay the deep foundations of their theatre, and hew out of the
cliff vast columns, the lofty ornaments of the stage to be: even as bees
when summer is fresh over the flowery country ply their task beneath the
sun, when they lead forth their nation's grown brood, or when they press
the liquid honey and strain their cells with nectarous sweets, or
relieve the loaded incomers, or in banded array drive the idle herd of
drones far from their folds; they swarm over their work, and the odorous
honey smells sweet of thyme. 'Happy they whose city already rises! '
cries Aeneas, looking on the town roofs below. Girt in the cloud he
passes amid them, wonderful to tell, and mingling with the throng is
descried of none.
In the heart of the town was a grove deep with luxuriant shade, wherein
first the Phoenicians, buffeted by wave and whirlwind, dug up the token
Queen Juno had appointed, the head of a war horse: thereby was their
race to be through all ages illustrious in war and opulent in living.
Here to Juno was Sidonian Dido founding a vast temple, rich with
offerings and the sanctity of her godhead: brazen steps rose on the
threshold, brass clamped the pilasters, doors of brass swung on grating
hinges. First in this grove did a strange chance meet his steps and
allay his fears; first here did Aeneas dare to hope for safety and have
fairer trust in his shattered fortunes. For while he closely scans the
temple that towers above him, while, awaiting the queen, he admires the
fortunate city, the emulous hands and elaborate work of her craftsmen,
he sees ranged in order the [457-491]battles of Ilium, that war whose
fame was already rumoured through all the world, the sons of Atreus and
Priam, and Achilles whom both found pitiless. He stopped and cried
weeping, 'What land is left, Achates, what tract on earth that is not
full of our agony? Behold Priam!
my men,' she begins, 'shew me
if [322-355]haply you have seen a sister of mine straying here girt
with quiver and a lynx's dappled fell, or pressing with shouts on the
track of a foaming boar. '
Thus Venus, and Venus' son answering thus began:
'Sound nor sight have I had of sister of thine, O maiden unnamed; for
thy face is not mortal, nor thy voice of human tone; O goddess
assuredly! sister of Phoebus perchance, or one of the nymphs' blood?
Be thou gracious, whoso thou art, and lighten this toil of ours; deign
to instruct us beneath what skies, on what coast of the world, we are
thrown. Driven hither by wind and desolate waves, we wander in a strange
land among unknown men. Many a sacrifice shall fall by our hand before
thine altars. '
Then Venus: 'Nay, to no such offerings do I aspire. Tyrian maidens are
wont ever to wear the quiver, to tie the purple buskin high above their
ankle. Punic is the realm thou seest, Tyrian the people, and the city of
Agenor's kin; but their borders are Libyan, a race unassailable in war.
Dido sways the sceptre, who flying her brother set sail from the Tyrian
town. Long is the tale of crime, long and intricate; but I will briefly
follow its argument. Her husband was Sychaeus, wealthiest in lands of
the Phoenicians, and loved of her with ill-fated passion; to whom with
virgin rites her father had given her maidenhood in wedlock. But the
kingdom of Tyre was in her brother Pygmalion's hands, a monster of guilt
unparalleled. Between these madness came; the unnatural brother, blind
with lust of gold, and reckless of his sister's love, lays Sychaeus low
before the altars with stealthy unsuspected weapon; and for long he hid
the deed, and by many a crafty pretence cheated her love-sickness with
hollow hope. But in slumber came the very ghost of her unburied husband;
lifting up a face pale in wonderful wise, he exposed the merciless
altars and [356-387]his breast stabbed through with steel, and unwove
all the blind web of household guilt. Then he counsels hasty flight out
of the country, and to aid her passage discloses treasures long hidden
underground, an untold mass of silver and gold. Stirred thereby, Dido
gathered a company for flight. All assemble in whom hatred of the tyrant
was relentless or fear keen; they seize on ships that chanced to lie
ready, and load them with the gold. Pygmalion's hoarded wealth is borne
overseas; a woman leads the work. They came at last to the land where
thou wilt descry a city now great, New Carthage, and her rising citadel,
and bought ground, called thence Byrsa, as much as a bull's hide would
encircle. But who, I pray, are you, or from what coasts come, or whither
hold you your way? '
At her question he, sighing and drawing speech deep from his breast,
thus replied:
'Ah goddess, should I go on retracing from the fountain head, were time
free to hear the history of our woes, sooner would the evening star lay
day asleep in the closed gates of heaven. Us, as from ancient Troy (if
the name of Troy hath haply passed through your ears) we sailed over
alien seas, the tempest at his own wild will hath driven on the Libyan
coast. I am Aeneas the good, who carry in my fleet the household gods I
rescued from the enemy; my fame is known high in heaven. I seek Italy my
country, my kin of Jove's supreme blood. With twenty sail did I climb
the Phrygian sea; oracular tokens led me on; my goddess mother pointed
the way; scarce seven survive the shattering of wave and wind. Myself
unknown, destitute, driven from Europe and Asia, I wander over the
Libyan wilderness. '
But staying longer complaint, Venus thus broke in on his half-told
sorrows:
'Whoso thou art, not hated I think of the immortals [388-420]dost thou
draw the breath of life, who hast reached the Tyrian city. Only go on,
and betake thee hence to the courts of the queen. For I declare to thee
thy comrades are restored, thy fleet driven back into safety by the
shifted northern gales, except my parents were pretenders, and
unavailing the augury they taught me. Behold these twelve swans in
joyous line, whom, stooping from the tract of heaven, the bird of Jove
fluttered over the open sky; now in long train they seem either to take
the ground or already to look down on the ground they took. As they
again disport with clapping wings, and utter their notes as they circle
the sky in company, even so do these ships and crews of thine either lie
fast in harbour or glide under full sail into the harbour mouth. Only go
on, and turn thy steps where the pathway leads thee. '
Speaking she turned away, and her neck shone roseate, her immortal
tresses breathed the fragrance of deity; her raiment fell flowing down
to her feet, and the godhead was manifest in her tread. He knew her for
his mother, and with this cry pursued her flight: 'Thou also merciless!
Why mockest thou thy son so often in feigned likeness? Why is it
forbidden to clasp hand in hand, to hear and utter true speech? ' Thus
reproaching her he bends his steps towards the city. But Venus girt them
in their going with dull mist, and shed round them a deep divine
clothing of cloud, that none might see them, none touch them, or work
delay, or ask wherefore they came. Herself she speeds through the sky to
Paphos, and joyfully revisits her habitation, where the temple and its
hundred altars steam with Sabaean incense, and are fresh with fragrance
of chaplets in her worship.
They meantime have hasted along where the pathway points, and now were
climbing the hill which hangs enormous over the city, and looks down on
its facing towers. [421-456]Aeneas marvels at the mass of building,
pastoral huts once of old, marvels at the gateways and clatter of the
pavements. The Tyrians are hot at work to trace the walls, to rear the
citadel, and roll up great stones by hand, or to choose a spot for their
dwelling and enclose it with a furrow. They ordain justice and
magistrates, and the august senate. Here some are digging harbours, here
others lay the deep foundations of their theatre, and hew out of the
cliff vast columns, the lofty ornaments of the stage to be: even as bees
when summer is fresh over the flowery country ply their task beneath the
sun, when they lead forth their nation's grown brood, or when they press
the liquid honey and strain their cells with nectarous sweets, or
relieve the loaded incomers, or in banded array drive the idle herd of
drones far from their folds; they swarm over their work, and the odorous
honey smells sweet of thyme. 'Happy they whose city already rises! '
cries Aeneas, looking on the town roofs below. Girt in the cloud he
passes amid them, wonderful to tell, and mingling with the throng is
descried of none.
In the heart of the town was a grove deep with luxuriant shade, wherein
first the Phoenicians, buffeted by wave and whirlwind, dug up the token
Queen Juno had appointed, the head of a war horse: thereby was their
race to be through all ages illustrious in war and opulent in living.
Here to Juno was Sidonian Dido founding a vast temple, rich with
offerings and the sanctity of her godhead: brazen steps rose on the
threshold, brass clamped the pilasters, doors of brass swung on grating
hinges. First in this grove did a strange chance meet his steps and
allay his fears; first here did Aeneas dare to hope for safety and have
fairer trust in his shattered fortunes. For while he closely scans the
temple that towers above him, while, awaiting the queen, he admires the
fortunate city, the emulous hands and elaborate work of her craftsmen,
he sees ranged in order the [457-491]battles of Ilium, that war whose
fame was already rumoured through all the world, the sons of Atreus and
Priam, and Achilles whom both found pitiless. He stopped and cried
weeping, 'What land is left, Achates, what tract on earth that is not
full of our agony? Behold Priam! Here too is the meed of honour, here
mortal estate touches the soul to tears. Dismiss thy fears; the fame of
this will somehow bring thee salvation. '
So speaks he, and fills his soul with the painted show, sighing often
the while, and his face wet with a full river of tears. For he saw, how
warring round the Trojan citadel here the Greeks fled, the men of Troy
hard on their rear; here the Phrygians, plumed Achilles in his chariot
pressing their flight. Not far away he knows the snowy canvas of Rhesus'
tents, which, betrayed in their first sleep, the blood-stained son of
Tydeus laid desolate in heaped slaughter, and turns the ruddy steeds
away to the camp ere ever they tasted Trojan fodder or drunk of Xanthus.
Elsewhere Troilus, his armour flung away in flight--luckless boy, no
match for Achilles to meet! --is borne along by his horses, and thrown
back entangled with his empty chariot, still clutching the reins; his
neck and hair are dragged over the ground, and his reversed spear scores
the dust. Meanwhile the Ilian women went with disordered tresses to
unfriendly Pallas' temple, and bore the votive garment, sadly beating
breast with palm: the goddess turning away held her eyes fast on the
ground. Thrice had Achilles whirled Hector round the walls of Troy, and
was selling the lifeless body for gold; then at last he heaves a loud
and heart-deep groan, as the spoils, as the chariot, as the dear body
met his gaze, and Priam outstretching unarmed hands. Himself too he knew
joining battle with the foremost Achaeans, knew the Eastern ranks and
swart Memnon's armour. Penthesilea leads her crescent-shielded Amazonian
columns in furious heat with [492-524]thousands around her; clasping a
golden belt under her naked breast, the warrior maiden clashes boldly
with men.
While these marvels meet Dardanian Aeneas' eyes, while he dizzily hangs
rapt in one long gaze, Dido the queen entered the precinct, beautiful
exceedingly, a youthful train thronging round her. Even as on Eurotas'
banks or along the Cynthian ridges Diana wheels the dance, while behind
her a thousand mountain nymphs crowd to left and right; she carries
quiver on shoulder, and as she moves outshines them all in deity;
Latona's heart is thrilled with silent joy; such was Dido, so she
joyously advanced amid the throng, urging on the business of her rising
empire. Then in the gates of the goddess, beneath the central vault of
the temple roof, she took her seat girt with arms and high enthroned.
And now she gave justice and laws to her people, and adjusted or
allotted their taskwork in due portion; when suddenly Aeneas sees
advancing with a great crowd about them Antheus and Sergestus and brave
Cloanthus, and other of his Trojans, whom the black squall had sundered
at sea and borne far away on the coast. Dizzy with the shock of joy and
fear he and Achates together were on fire with eagerness to clasp their
hands; but in confused uncertainty they keep hidden, and clothed in the
sheltering cloud wait to espy what fortune befalls them, where they are
leaving their fleet ashore, why they now come; for they advanced, chosen
men from all the ships, praying for grace, and held on with loud cries
towards the temple.
After they entered in, and free speech was granted, aged Ilioneus with
placid mien thus began:
'Queen, to whom Jupiter hath given to found this new city, and lay the
yoke of justice upon haughty tribes, we beseech thee, we wretched
Trojans storm-driven over all [525-559]the seas, stay the dreadful
flames from our ships; spare a guiltless race, and bend a gracious
regard on our fortunes. We are not come to deal slaughter through Libyan
homes, or to drive plundered spoils to the coast. Such violence sits not
in our mind, nor is a conquered people so insolent. There is a place
Greeks name Hesperia, an ancient land, mighty in arms and foison of the
clod; Oenotrian men dwelt therein; now rumour is that a younger race
from their captain's name have called it Italy. Thither lay our course
. . . when Orion rising on us through the cloudrack with sudden surf
bore us on blind shoals, and scattered us afar with his boisterous gales
and whelming brine over waves and trackless reefs. To these your coasts
we a scanty remnant floated up. What race of men, what land how
barbarous soever, allows such a custom for its own? We are debarred the
shelter of the beach; they rise in war, and forbid us to set foot on the
brink of their land. If you slight human kinship and mortal arms, yet
look for gods unforgetful of innocence and guilt. Aeneas was our king,
foremost of men in righteousness, incomparable in goodness as in warlike
arms; whom if fate still preserves, if he draws the breath of heaven and
lies not yet low in dispiteous gloom, fear we have none; nor mayest thou
repent of challenging the contest of service. In Sicilian territory too
is tilth and town, and famed Acestes himself of Trojan blood. Grant us
to draw ashore our storm-shattered fleet, to shape forest trees into
beams and strip them for oars; so, if to Italy we may steer with our
king and comrades found, Italy and Latium shall we gladly seek; but if
salvation is clean gone, if the Libyan gulf holds thee, dear lord of thy
Trojans, and Iulus our hope survives no more, seek we then at least the
straits of Sicily, the open homes whence we sailed hither, and Acestes
for our king. ' Thus Ilioneus, and all the Dardanian company
[560-593]murmured assent. . . . Then Dido, with downcast face, briefly
speaks:
'Cheer your anxious hearts, O Teucrians; put by your care. Hard fortune
in a strange realm forces me to this task, to keep watch and ward on my
wide frontiers. Who can be ignorant of the race of Aeneas' people, who
of Troy town and her men and deeds, or of the great war's consuming
fire? Not so dull are the hearts of our Punic wearing, not so far doth
the sun yoke his steeds from our Tyrian town. Whether your choice be
broad Hesperia, the fields of Saturn's dominion, or Eryx for your
country and Acestes for your king, my escort shall speed you in safety,
my arsenals supply your need. Or will you even find rest here with me
and share my kingdom? The city I establish is yours; draw your ships
ashore; Trojan and Tyrian shall be held by me in even balance. And would
that he your king, that Aeneas were here, storm-driven to this same
haven! But I will send messengers along the coast, and bid them trace
Libya to its limits, if haply he strays shipwrecked in forest or town. '
Stirred by these words brave Achates and lord Aeneas both ere now burned
to break through the cloud. Achates first accosts Aeneas: 'Goddess-born,
what purpose now rises in thy spirit? Thou seest all is safe, our fleet
and comrades are restored. One only is wanting, whom our eyes saw
whelmed amid the waves; all else is answerable to thy mother's words. '
Scarce had he spoken when the encircling cloud suddenly parts and melts
into clear air. Aeneas stood discovered in sheen of brilliant light,
like a god in face and shoulders; for his mother's self had shed on her
son the grace of clustered locks, the radiant light of youth, and the
lustre of joyous eyes; as when ivory takes beauty under the artist's
hand, or when silver or Parian stone is inlaid in gold. [594-625]Then
breaking in on all with unexpected speech he thus addresses the queen:
'I whom you seek am here before you, Aeneas of Troy, snatched from the
Libyan waves. O thou who alone hast pitied Troy's untold agonies, thou
who with us the remnant of the Grecian foe, worn out ere now by every
suffering land and sea can bring, with us in our utter want dost share
thy city and home! to render meet recompense is not possible for us, O
Dido, nor for all who scattered over the wide world are left of our
Dardanian race. The gods grant thee worthy reward, if their deity turn
any regard on goodness, if aught avails justice and conscious purity of
soul. What happy ages bore thee? what mighty parents gave thy virtue
birth? While rivers run into the sea, while the mountain shadows move
across their slopes, while the stars have pasturage in heaven, ever
shall thine honour, thy name and praises endure in the unknown lands
that summon me. ' With these words he advances his right hand to dear
Ilioneus, his left to Serestus; then to the rest, brave Gyas and brave
Cloanthus.
Dido the Sidonian stood astonished, first at the sight of him, then at
his strange fortunes; and these words left her lips:
'What fate follows thee, goddess-born, through perilous ways? what
violence lands thee on this monstrous coast? Art thou that Aeneas whom
Venus the bountiful bore to Dardanian Anchises by the wave of Phrygian
Simois? And well I remember how Teucer came to Sidon, when exiled from
his native land he sought Belus' aid to gain new realms; Belus my father
even then ravaged rich Cyprus and held it under his conquering sway.
From that time forth have I known the fall of the Trojan city, known thy
name and the Pelasgian princes. Their very foe would extol the Teucrians
with highest praises, and boasted himself a branch [626-661]of the
ancient Teucrian stem. Come therefore, O men, and enter our house. Me
too hath a like fortune driven through many a woe, and willed at last to
find my rest in this land. Not ignorant of ill do I learn to succour the
afflicted. '
With such speech she leads Aeneas into the royal house, and orders
sacrifice in the gods' temples. Therewith she sends his company on
the shore twenty bulls, an hundred great bristly-backed swine, an
hundred fat lambs and their mothers with them, gifts of the day's
gladness. . . . But the palace within is decked with splendour of royal
state, and a banquet made ready amid the halls. The coverings are
curiously wrought in splendid purple; on the tables is massy silver and
deeds of ancestral valour graven in gold, all the long course of history
drawn through many a heroic name from the nation's primal antiquity.
Aeneas--for a father's affection denied his spirit rest--sends Achates
speeding to his ships, to carry this news to Ascanius, and lead him to
the town: in Ascanius is fixed all the parent's loving care. Presents
likewise he bids him bring saved from the wreck of Ilium, a mantle stiff
with gold embroidery, and a veil with woven border of yellow
acanthus-flower, that once decked Helen of Argos, the marvel of her
mother Leda's giving; Helen had borne them from Mycenae, when she sought
Troy towers and a lawless bridal; the sceptre too that Ilione, Priam's
eldest daughter, once had worn, a beaded necklace, and a double circlet
of jewelled gold. Achates, hasting on his message, bent his way towards
the ships.
But in the Cytherean's breast new arts, new schemes revolve; if Cupid,
changed in form and feature, may come in sweet Ascanius' room, and his
gifts kindle the queen to madness and set her inmost sense aflame.
Verily she fears the uncertain house, the double-tongued race of Tyre;
[662-698]cruel Juno frets her, and at nightfall her care floods back.
Therefore to winged Love she speaks these words:
'Son, who art alone my strength and sovereignty, son, who scornest the
mighty father's Typhoian shafts, to thee I fly for succour, and sue
humbly to thy deity. How Aeneas thy brother is driven about all the
sea-coasts by bitter Juno's malignity, this thou knowest, and hast often
grieved in our grief. Now Dido the Phoenician holds him stayed with soft
words, and I tremble to think how the welcome of Juno's house may issue;
she will not be idle in this supreme turn of fortune. Wherefore I
counsel to prevent her wiles and circle the queen with flame, that,
unalterable by any deity, she may be held fast to me by passionate love
for Aeneas. Take now my thought how to do this. The boy prince, my
chiefest care, makes ready at his dear father's summons to go to the
Sidonian city, carrying gifts that survive the sea and the flames of
Troy. Him will I hide deep asleep in my holy habitation, high on
Cythera's hills or in Idalium, that he may not know nor cross our wiles.
Do thou but for one night feign his form, and, boy as thou art, put on
the familiar face of a boy; so when in festal cheer, amid royal dainties
and Bacchic juice, Dido shall take thee to her lap, shall fold thee in
her clasp and kiss thee close and sweet, thou mayest imbreathe a hidden
fire and unsuspected poison. '
Love obeys his dear mother's words, lays by his wings, and walks
rejoicingly with Iulus' tread. But Venus pours gentle dew of slumber on
Ascanius' limbs, and lifts him lulled in her lap to the tall Idalian
groves of her deity, where soft amaracus folds him round with the
shadowed sweetness of its odorous blossoms. And now, obedient to her
words, Cupid went merrily in Achates' guiding, with the royal gifts for
the Tyrians. Already at his coming the queen hath sate her down in the
midmost on her golden [699-733]throne under the splendid tapestries;
now lord Aeneas, now too the men of Troy gather, and all recline on the
strewn purple. Servants pour water on their hands, serve corn from
baskets, and bring napkins with close-cut pile. Fifty handmaids are
within, whose task is in their course to keep unfailing store and kindle
the household fire. An hundred others, and as many pages all of like
age, load the board with food and array the wine cups. Therewithal the
Tyrians are gathered full in the wide feasting chamber, and take their
appointed places on the broidered cushions. They marvel at Aeneas'
gifts, marvel at Iulus, at the god's face aflame and forged speech, at
the mantle and veil wrought with yellow acanthus-flower. Above all the
hapless Phoenician, victim to coming doom, cannot satiate her soul, but,
stirred alike by the boy and the gifts, she gazes and takes fire. He,
when hanging clasped on Aeneas' neck he had satisfied all the deluded
parent's love, makes his way to the queen; the queen clings to him with
her eyes and all her soul, and ever and anon fondles him in her lap, ah,
poor Dido! witless how mighty a deity sinks into her breast; but he,
mindful of his mother the Acidalian, begins touch by touch to efface
Sychaeus, and sows the surprise of a living love in the
long-since-unstirred spirit and disaccustomed heart. Soon as the noise
of banquet ceased and the board was cleared, they set down great bowls
and enwreathe the wine. The house is filled with hum of voices eddying
through the spacious chambers; lit lamps hang down by golden chainwork,
and flaming tapers expel the night. Now the queen called for a heavy cup
of jewelled gold, and filled it with pure wine; therewith was the use of
Belus and all of Belus' race: then the hall was silenced. 'Jupiter,' she
cries, 'for thou art reputed lawgiver of hospitality, grant that this be
a joyful day to the Tyrians and the voyagers from Troy, a day to live in
our children's memory. [734-756]Bacchus, the giver of gladness, be with
us, and Juno the bountiful; and you, O Tyrians, be favourable to our
assembly. ' She spoke, and poured liquid libation on the board, which
done, she first herself touched it lightly with her lips, then handed it
to Bitias and bade him speed; he valiantly drained the foaming cup, and
flooded him with the brimming gold. The other princes followed.
Long-haired Iopas on his gilded lyre fills the chamber with songs
ancient Atlas taught; he sings of the wandering moon and the sun's
travails; whence is the human race and the brute, whence water and fire;
of Arcturus, the rainy Hyades, and the twin Oxen; why wintry suns make
such haste to dip in ocean, or what delay makes the nights drag
lingeringly. Tyrians and Trojans after them redouble applause.
Therewithal Dido wore the night in changing talk, alas! and drank long
draughts of love, asking many a thing of Priam, many a thing of Hector;
now in what armour the son of the Morning came; now of what fashion were
Diomede's horses; now of mighty Achilles. 'Nay, come,' she cries, 'tell
to us, O guest, from their first beginning the treachery of the
Grecians, thy people's woes, and thine own wanderings; for this is now
the seventh summer that bears thee a wanderer over all the earth and
sea. '
BOOK SECOND
THE STORY OF THE SACK OF TROY
All were hushed, and sate with steadfast countenance; thereon, high from
his cushioned seat, lord Aeneas thus began:
'Dreadful, O Queen, is the woe thou bidst me recall, how the Grecians
pitiably overthrew the wealth and lordship of Troy; and I myself saw
these things in all their horror, and I bore great part in them. What
Myrmidon or Dolopian, or soldier of stern Ulysses, could in such a tale
restrain his tears! and now night falls dewy from the steep of heaven,
and the setting stars counsel to slumber. Yet if thy desire be such to
know our calamities, and briefly to hear Troy's last agony, though my
spirit shudders at the remembrance and recoils in pain, I will essay.
'Broken in war and beaten back by fate, and so many years now slid away,
the Grecian captains build by Pallas' divine craft a horse of
mountainous build, ribbed with sawn fir; they feign it vowed for their
return, and this rumour goes about. Within the blind sides they
stealthily imprison chosen men picked out one by one, and fill the vast
cavern of its womb full with armed soldiery.
'There lies in sight an island well known in fame, Tenedos, rich of
store while the realm of Priam endured, [23-55]now but a bay and
roadstead treacherous to ships. Hither they launch forth, and hide on
the solitary shore: we fancied they were gone, and had run down the wind
for Mycenae. So all the Teucrian land put her long grief away. The gates
are flung open; men go rejoicingly to see the Doric camp, the deserted
stations and abandoned shore. Here the Dolopian troops were tented, here
cruel Achilles; here their squadrons lay; here the lines were wont to
meet in battle. Some gaze astonished at the deadly gift of Minerva the
Virgin, and wonder at the horse's bulk; and Thymoetes begins to advise
that it be drawn within our walls and set in the citadel, whether in
guile, or that the doom of Troy was even now setting thus. But Capys and
they whose mind was of better counsel, bid us either hurl sheer into the
sea the guileful and sinister gift of Greece, or heap flames beneath to
consume it, or pierce and explore the hollow hiding-place of its womb.
The wavering crowd is torn apart in high dispute.
'At that, foremost of all and with a great throng about him, Laocoon
runs hotly down from the high citadel, and cries from far: "Ah, wretched
citizens, what height of madness is this? Believe you the foe is gone?
or think you any Grecian gift is free of treachery? is it thus we know
Ulysses? Either Achaeans are hid in this cage of wood, or the engine is
fashioned against our walls to overlook the houses and descend upon the
city; some delusion lurks there: trust not the horse, O Trojans. Be it
what it may, I fear the Grecians even when they offer gifts. " Thus
speaking, he hurled his mighty spear with great strength at the
creature's side and the curved framework of the belly: the spear stood
quivering, and the jarred cavern of the womb sounded hollow and uttered
a groan. And had divine ordinance, had a soul not infatuate been with
us, he had moved us to lay violent steel on the Argolic hiding place;
[56-90]and Troy would now stand, and you, tall towers of Priam, yet
abide.
'Lo, Dardanian shepherds meanwhile dragged clamorously before the King a
man with hands tied behind his back, who to compass this very thing, to
lay Troy open to the Achaeans, had gone to meet their ignorant approach,
confident in spirit and doubly prepared to spin his snares or to meet
assured death. From all sides, in eagerness to see, the people of Troy
run streaming in, and vie in jeers at their prisoner. Know now the
treachery of the Grecians, and from a single crime learn all. . . . For
as he stood amid our gaze confounded, disarmed, and cast his eyes around
the Phrygian columns, "Alas! " he cried, "what land now, what seas may
receive me? or what is the last doom that yet awaits my misery? who have
neither any place among the Grecians, and likewise the Dardanians
clamour in wrath for the forfeit of my blood. " At that lament our spirit
was changed, and all assault stayed: we encourage him to speak, and tell
of what blood he is sprung, or what assurance he brings his captors.
'"In all things assuredly," says he, "O King, befall what may, I will
confess to thee the truth; nor will I deny myself of Argolic birth--this
first--nor, if Fortune hath made Sinon unhappy, shall her malice mould
him to a cheat and a liar. Hath a tale of the name of Palamedes, son of
Belus, haply reached thine ears, and of his glorious rumour and renown;
whom under false evidence the Pelasgians, because he forbade the war,
sent innocent to death by wicked witness; now they bewail him when he
hath left the light;--in his company, being near of blood, my father,
poor as he was, sent me hither to arms from mine earliest years. While
he stood unshaken in royalty and potent in the councils of the kings, we
too wore a name and honour.
by J. W. Mackail
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
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Title: The Aeneid of Virgil
Author: Virgil
Release Date: August 29, 2007 [eBook #22456]
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AENEID OF VIRGIL***
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Transcriber's note:
Numbers in brackets [ ] refer to line numbers in Virgil's
Aeneid. These numbers appeared at the top of each page of text
and have been retained for reference.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A complete
list follows the text.
THE AENEID OF VIRGIL
Translated into English
by
J. W. MACKAIL, M. A.
Fellow Of Balliol College, Oxford
London
MacMillan and Co.
1885
Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh.
PREFACE
There is something grotesque in the idea of a prose translation of a
poet, though the practice is become so common that it has ceased to
provoke a smile or demand an apology. The language of poetry is language
in fusion; that of prose is language fixed and crystallised; and an
attempt to copy the one material in the other must always count on
failure to convey what is, after all, one of the most essential things
in poetry,--its poetical quality. And this is so with Virgil more,
perhaps, than with any other poet; for more, perhaps, than any other
poet Virgil depends on his poetical quality from first to last. Such a
translation can only have the value of a copy of some great painting
executed in mosaic, if indeed a copy in Berlin wool is not a closer
analogy; and even at the best all it can have to say for itself will be
in Virgil's own words, _Experiar sensus; nihil hic nisi carmina desunt. _
In this translation I have in the main followed the text of Conington
and Nettleship. The more important deviations from this text are
mentioned in the notes; but I have not thought it necessary to give a
complete list of various readings, or to mention any change except where
it might lead to misapprehension. Their notes have also been used by me
throughout.
Beyond this I have made constant use of the mass of ancient commentary
going under the name of Servius; the most valuable, perhaps, of all, as
it is in many ways the nearest to the poet himself. The explanation
given in it has sometimes been followed against those of the modern
editors. To other commentaries only occasional reference has been made.
The sense that Virgil is his own best interpreter becomes stronger as
one studies him more.
My thanks are due to Mr. EVELYN ABBOTT, Fellow and Tutor of Balliol, and
to the Rev. H. C. BEECHING, for much valuable suggestion and criticism.
THE AENEID
BOOK FIRST
THE COMING OF AENEAS TO CARTHAGE
I sing of arms and the man who of old from the coasts of Troy came, an
exile of fate, to Italy and the shore of Lavinium; hard driven on land
and on the deep by the violence of heaven, for cruel Juno's unforgetful
anger, and hard bestead in war also, ere he might found a city and carry
his gods into Latium; from whom is the Latin race, the lords of Alba,
and the stately city Rome.
Muse, tell me why, for what attaint of her deity, or in what vexation,
did the Queen of heaven drive one so excellent in goodness to circle
through so many afflictions, to face so many toils? Is anger so fierce
in celestial spirits?
* * * * *
There was a city of ancient days that Tyrian settlers dwelt in,
Carthage, over against Italy and the Tiber mouths afar; rich of store,
and mighty in war's fierce pursuits; wherein, they say, alone beyond all
other lands had Juno her seat, and held Samos itself less dear. Here was
her armour, here her chariot; even now, if fate permit, the goddess
strives to nurture it for queen of the nations. Nevertheless she had
heard a race was issuing of the blood of [20-53]Troy, which sometime
should overthrow her Tyrian citadel; from it should come a people, lord
of lands and tyrannous in war, the destroyer of Libya: so rolled the
destinies. Fearful of that, the daughter of Saturn, the old war in her
remembrance that she fought at Troy for her beloved Argos long ago,--nor
had the springs of her anger nor the bitterness of her vexation yet gone
out of mind: deep stored in her soul lies the judgment of Paris, the
insult of her slighted beauty, the hated race and the dignities of
ravished Ganymede; fired with this also, she tossed all over ocean the
Trojan remnant left of the Greek host and merciless Achilles, and held
them afar from Latium; and many a year were they wandering driven of
fate around all the seas. Such work was it to found the Roman people.
Hardly out of sight of the land of Sicily did they set their sails to
sea, and merrily upturned the salt foam with brazen prow, when Juno, the
undying wound still deep in her heart, thus broke out alone:
'Am I then to abandon my baffled purpose, powerless to keep the Teucrian
king from Italy? and because fate forbids me? Could Pallas lay the
Argive fleet in ashes, and sink the Argives in the sea, for one man's
guilt, mad Oilean Ajax? Her hand darted Jove's flying fire from the
clouds, scattered their ships, upturned the seas in tempest; him, his
pierced breast yet breathing forth the flame, she caught in a whirlwind
and impaled on a spike of rock. But I, who move queen among immortals, I
sister and wife of Jove, wage warfare all these years with a single
people; and is there any who still adores Juno's divinity, or will kneel
to lay sacrifice on her altars? '
Such thoughts inly revolving in her kindled bosom, the goddess reaches
Aeolia, the home of storm-clouds, the land laden with furious southern
gales. Here in a desolate cavern Aeolus keeps under royal dominion and
yokes in [54-85]dungeon fetters the struggling winds and loud storms.
They with mighty moan rage indignant round their mountain barriers. In
his lofty citadel Aeolus sits sceptred, assuages their temper and
soothes their rage; else would they carry with them seas and lands, and
the depth of heaven, and sweep them through space in their flying
course. But, fearful of this, the lord omnipotent hath hidden them in
caverned gloom, and laid a mountain mass high over them, and appointed
them a ruler, who should know by certain law to strain and slacken the
reins at command. To him now Juno spoke thus in suppliant accents:
'Aeolus--for to thee hath the father of gods and king of men given the
wind that lulls and that lifts the waves--a people mine enemy sails the
Tyrrhene sea, carrying into Italy the conquered gods of their Ilian
home. Rouse thy winds to fury, and overwhelm their sinking vessels, or
drive them asunder and strew ocean with their bodies. Mine are twice
seven nymphs of passing loveliness; her who of them all is most
excellent in beauty, Deiopea, I will unite to thee in wedlock to be
thine for ever; that for this thy service she may fulfil all her years
at thy side, and make thee father of a beautiful race. '
Aeolus thus returned: 'Thine, O queen, the task to search whereto thou
hast desire; for me it is right to do thy bidding. From thee have I this
poor kingdom, from thee my sceptre and Jove's grace; thou dost grant me
to take my seat at the feasts of the gods, and makest me sovereign over
clouds and storms. '
Even with these words, turning his spear, he struck the side of the
hollow hill, and the winds, as in banded array, pour where passage is
given them, and cover earth with eddying blasts. East wind and west wind
together, and the gusty south-wester, falling prone on the sea, stir it
up [86-120]from its lowest chambers, and roll vast billows to the
shore. Behind rises shouting of men and whistling of cordage. In a
moment clouds blot sky and daylight from the Teucrians' eyes; black
night broods over the deep. Pole thunders to pole, and the air quivers
with incessant flashes; all menaces them with instant death. Straightway
Aeneas' frame grows unnerved and chill, and stretching either hand to
heaven, he cries thus aloud: 'Ah, thrice and four times happy they who
found their doom under high Troy town before their fathers' faces! Ah,
son of Tydeus, bravest of the Grecian race, that I could not have fallen
on the Ilian plains, and gasped out this my life beneath thine hand!
where under the spear of Aeacides lies fierce Hector, lies mighty
Sarpedon; where Simois so often bore beneath his whirling wave shields
and helmets and brave bodies of men. '
As the cry leaves his lips, a gust of the shrill north strikes full on
the sail and raises the waves up to heaven. The oars are snapped; the
prow swings away and gives her side to the waves; down in a heap comes a
broken mountain of water. These hang on the wave's ridge; to these the
yawning billow shows ground amid the surge, where the sea churns with
sand. Three ships the south wind catches and hurls on hidden rocks,
rocks amid the waves which Italians call the Altars, a vast reef banking
the sea. Three the east forces from the deep into shallows and
quicksands, piteous to see, dashes on shoals and girdles with a
sandbank. One, wherein loyal Orontes and his Lycians rode, before their
lord's eyes a vast sea descending strikes astern. The helmsman is dashed
away and rolled forward headlong; her as she lies the billow sends
spinning thrice round with it, and engulfs in the swift whirl. Scattered
swimmers appear in the vast eddy, armour of men, timbers and Trojan
treasure amid the water. Ere now the stout ship of Ilioneus, ere now of
brave Achates, and she wherein [121-152]Abas rode, and she wherein aged
Aletes, have yielded to the storm; through the shaken fastenings of
their sides they all draw in the deadly water, and their opening seams
give way.
Meanwhile Neptune discerned with astonishment the loud roaring of the
vexed sea, the tempest let loose from prison, and the still water
boiling up from its depths, and lifting his head calm above the waves,
looked forth across the deep. He sees all ocean strewn with Aeneas'
fleet, the Trojans overwhelmed by the waves and the ruining heaven.
Juno's guile and wrath lay clear to her brother's eye; east wind and
west he calls before him, and thereon speaks thus:
'Stand you then so sure in your confidence of birth? Careless, O winds,
of my deity, dare you confound sky and earth, and raise so huge a coil?
you whom I--But better to still the aroused waves; for a second sin you
shall pay me another penalty. Speed your flight, and say this to your
king: not to him but to me was allotted the stern trident of ocean
empire. His fastness is on the monstrous rocks where thou and thine,
east wind, dwell: there let Aeolus glory in his palace and reign over
the barred prison of his winds. '
Thus he speaks, and ere the words are done he soothes the swollen seas,
chases away the gathered clouds, and restores the sunlight. Cymothoe and
Triton together push the ships strongly off the sharp reef; himself he
eases them with his trident, channels the vast quicksands, and assuages
the sea, gliding on light wheels along the water. Even as when oft in a
throng of people strife hath risen, and the base multitude rage in their
minds, and now brands and stones are flying; madness lends arms; then if
perchance they catch sight of one reverend for goodness and service,
they are silent and stand by with attentive ear; he with
[153-190]speech sways their temper and soothes their breasts; even so
hath fallen all the thunder of ocean, when riding forward beneath a
cloudless sky the lord of the sea wheels his coursers and lets his
gliding chariot fly with loosened rein.
The outworn Aeneadae hasten to run for the nearest shore, and turn to
the coast of Libya. There lies a spot deep withdrawn; an island forms a
harbour with outstretched sides, whereon all the waves break from the
open sea and part into the hollows of the bay. On this side and that
enormous cliffs rise threatening heaven, and twin crags beneath whose
crest the sheltered water lies wide and calm; above hangs a background
of flickering forest, and the dark shade of rustling groves. Beneath the
seaward brow is a rock-hung cavern, within it fresh springs and seats in
the living stone, a haunt of nymphs; where tired ships need no fetters
to hold nor anchor to fasten them with crooked bite. Here with seven
sail gathered of all his company Aeneas enters; and disembarking on the
land of their desire the Trojans gain the chosen beach, and set their
feet dripping with brine upon the shore. At once Achates struck a spark
from the flint and caught the fire on leaves, and laying dry fuel round
kindled it into flame. Then, weary of fortune, they fetch out corn
spoiled by the sea and weapons of corn-dressing, and begin to parch over
the fire and bruise in stones the grain they had rescued.
Meanwhile Aeneas scales the crag, and seeks the whole view wide over
ocean, if he may see aught of Antheus storm-tossed with his Phrygian
galleys, aught of Capys or of Caicus' armour high astern. Ship in sight
is none; three stags he espies straying on the shore; behind whole herds
follow, and graze in long train across the valley. Stopping short, he
snatched up a bow and swift arrows, the arms trusty Achates was
carrying; and first the leaders, their stately heads high with branching
antlers, then the common [191-222]herd fall to his hand, as he drives
them with his shafts in a broken crowd through the leafy woods. Nor
stays he till seven great victims are stretched on the sod, fulfilling
the number of his ships. Thence he seeks the harbour and parts them
among all his company. The casks of wine that good Acestes had filled on
the Trinacrian beach, the hero's gift at their departure, he thereafter
shares, and calms with speech their sorrowing hearts:
'O comrades, for not now nor aforetime are we ignorant of ill, O tried
by heavier fortunes, unto this last likewise will God appoint an end.
The fury of Scylla and the roaring recesses of her crags you have been
anigh; the rocks of the Cyclops you have trodden. Recall your courage,
put dull fear away. This too sometime we shall haply remember with
delight. Through chequered fortunes, through many perilous ways, we
steer for Latium, where destiny points us a quiet home. There the realm
of Troy may rise again unforbidden. Keep heart, and endure till
prosperous fortune come. '
Such words he utters, and sick with deep distress he feigns hope on his
face, and keeps his anguish hidden deep in his breast. The others set to
the spoil they are to feast upon, tear chine from ribs and lay bare the
flesh; some cut it into pieces and pierce it still quivering with spits;
others plant cauldrons on the beach and feed them with flame. Then they
repair their strength with food, and lying along the grass take their
fill of old wine and fat venison. After hunger is driven from the
banquet, and the board cleared, they talk with lingering regret of their
lost companions, swaying between hope and fear, whether they may believe
them yet alive, or now in their last agony and deaf to mortal call. Most
does good Aeneas inly wail the loss now of valiant Orontes, now of
Amycus, the cruel doom of Lycus, of brave Gyas, and brave Cloanthus.
[223-254]And now they ceased; when from the height of air Jupiter
looked down on the sail-winged sea and outspread lands, the shores and
broad countries, and looking stood on the cope of heaven, and cast down
his eyes on the realm of Libya. To him thus troubled at heart Venus, her
bright eyes brimming with tears, sorrowfully speaks:
'O thou who dost sway mortal and immortal things with eternal command
and the terror of thy thunderbolt, how can my Aeneas have transgressed
so grievously against thee? how his Trojans? on whom, after so many
deaths outgone, all the world is barred for Italy's sake. From them
sometime in the rolling years the Romans were to arise indeed; from them
were to be rulers who, renewing the blood of Teucer, should hold sea and
land in universal lordship. This thou didst promise: why, O father, is
thy decree reversed? This was my solace for the wretched ruin of sunken
Troy, doom balanced against doom. Now so many woes are spent, and the
same fortune still pursues them; Lord and King, what limit dost thou set
to their agony? Antenor could elude the encircling Achaeans, could
thread in safety the Illyrian bays and inmost realms of the Liburnians,
could climb Timavus' source, whence through nine mouths pours the
bursting tide amid dreary moans of the mountain, and covers the fields
with hoarse waters. Yet here did he set Patavium town, a dwelling-place
for his Teucrians, gave his name to a nation and hung up the armour of
Troy; now settled in peace, he rests and is in quiet. We, thy children,
we whom thou beckonest to the heights of heaven, our fleet miserably
cast away for a single enemy's anger, are betrayed and severed far from
the Italian coasts. Is this the reward of goodness? Is it thus thou dost
restore our throne? '
Smiling on her with that look which clears sky and [255-289]storms, the
parent of men and gods lightly kissed his daughter's lips; then answered
thus:
'Spare thy fear, Cytherean; thy people's destiny abides unshaken. Thine
eyes shall see the city Lavinium, their promised home; thou shalt exalt
to the starry heaven thy noble Aeneas; nor is my decree reversed. He
thou lovest (for I will speak, since this care keeps torturing thee, and
will unroll further the secret records of fate) shall wage a great war
in Italy, and crush warrior nations; he shall appoint his people a law
and a city; till the third summer see him reigning in Latium, and three
winters' camps pass over the conquered Rutulians. But the boy Ascanius,
whose surname is now Iulus--Ilus he was while the Ilian state stood
sovereign--thirty great circles of rolling months shall he fulfil in
government; he shall carry the kingdom from its fastness in Lavinium,
and make a strong fortress of Alba the Long. Here the full space of
thrice an hundred years shall the kingdom endure under the race of
Hector's kin, till the royal priestess Ilia from Mars' embrace shall
give birth to a twin progeny. Thence shall Romulus, gay in the tawny
hide of the she-wolf that nursed him, take up their line, and name them
Romans after his own name. I appoint to these neither period nor
boundary of empire: I have given them dominion without end. Nay, harsh
Juno, who in her fear now troubles earth and sea and sky, shall change
to better counsels, and with me shall cherish the lords of the world,
the gowned race of Rome. Thus is it willed. A day will come in the lapse
of cycles, when the house of Assaracus shall lay Phthia and famed
Mycenae in bondage, and reign over conquered Argos. From the fair line
of Troy a Caesar shall arise, who shall limit his empire with ocean, his
glory with the firmament, Julius, inheritor of great Iulus' name. Him
one day, thy care done, thou shalt welcome to heaven loaded
[290-321]with Eastern spoils; to him too shall vows be addressed. Then
shall war cease, and the iron ages soften. Hoar Faith and Vesta,
Quirinus and Remus brothers again, shall deliver statutes. The dreadful
steel-riveted gates of war shall be shut fast; on murderous weapons the
inhuman Fury, his hands bound behind him with an hundred fetters of
brass, shall sit within, shrieking with terrible blood-stained lips. '
So speaking, he sends Maia's son down from above, that the land and
towers of Carthage, the new town, may receive the Trojans with open
welcome; lest Dido, ignorant of doom, might debar them her land. Flying
through the depth of air on winged oarage, the fleet messenger alights
on the Libyan coasts. At once he does his bidding; at once, for a god
willed it, the Phoenicians allay their haughty temper; the queen above
all takes to herself grace and compassion towards the Teucrians.
But good Aeneas, nightlong revolving many and many a thing, issues
forth, so soon as bountiful light is given, to explore the strange
country; to what coasts the wind has borne him, who are their habitants,
men or wild beasts, for all he sees is wilderness; this he resolves to
search, and bring back the certainty to his comrades. The fleet he hides
close in embosoming groves beneath a caverned rock, amid shivering
shadow of the woodland; himself, Achates alone following, he strides
forward, clenching in his hand two broad-headed spears. And amid the
forest his mother crossed his way, wearing the face and raiment of a
maiden, the arms of a maiden of Sparta, or like Harpalyce of Thrace when
she tires her coursers and outstrips the winged speed of Hebrus in her
flight. For huntress fashion had she slung the ready bow from her
shoulder, and left her blown tresses free, bared her knee, and knotted
together her garments' flowing folds. 'Ha! my men,' she begins, 'shew me
if [322-355]haply you have seen a sister of mine straying here girt
with quiver and a lynx's dappled fell, or pressing with shouts on the
track of a foaming boar. '
Thus Venus, and Venus' son answering thus began:
'Sound nor sight have I had of sister of thine, O maiden unnamed; for
thy face is not mortal, nor thy voice of human tone; O goddess
assuredly! sister of Phoebus perchance, or one of the nymphs' blood?
Be thou gracious, whoso thou art, and lighten this toil of ours; deign
to instruct us beneath what skies, on what coast of the world, we are
thrown. Driven hither by wind and desolate waves, we wander in a strange
land among unknown men. Many a sacrifice shall fall by our hand before
thine altars. '
Then Venus: 'Nay, to no such offerings do I aspire. Tyrian maidens are
wont ever to wear the quiver, to tie the purple buskin high above their
ankle. Punic is the realm thou seest, Tyrian the people, and the city of
Agenor's kin; but their borders are Libyan, a race unassailable in war.
Dido sways the sceptre, who flying her brother set sail from the Tyrian
town. Long is the tale of crime, long and intricate; but I will briefly
follow its argument. Her husband was Sychaeus, wealthiest in lands of
the Phoenicians, and loved of her with ill-fated passion; to whom with
virgin rites her father had given her maidenhood in wedlock. But the
kingdom of Tyre was in her brother Pygmalion's hands, a monster of guilt
unparalleled. Between these madness came; the unnatural brother, blind
with lust of gold, and reckless of his sister's love, lays Sychaeus low
before the altars with stealthy unsuspected weapon; and for long he hid
the deed, and by many a crafty pretence cheated her love-sickness with
hollow hope. But in slumber came the very ghost of her unburied husband;
lifting up a face pale in wonderful wise, he exposed the merciless
altars and [356-387]his breast stabbed through with steel, and unwove
all the blind web of household guilt. Then he counsels hasty flight out
of the country, and to aid her passage discloses treasures long hidden
underground, an untold mass of silver and gold. Stirred thereby, Dido
gathered a company for flight. All assemble in whom hatred of the tyrant
was relentless or fear keen; they seize on ships that chanced to lie
ready, and load them with the gold. Pygmalion's hoarded wealth is borne
overseas; a woman leads the work. They came at last to the land where
thou wilt descry a city now great, New Carthage, and her rising citadel,
and bought ground, called thence Byrsa, as much as a bull's hide would
encircle. But who, I pray, are you, or from what coasts come, or whither
hold you your way? '
At her question he, sighing and drawing speech deep from his breast,
thus replied:
'Ah goddess, should I go on retracing from the fountain head, were time
free to hear the history of our woes, sooner would the evening star lay
day asleep in the closed gates of heaven. Us, as from ancient Troy (if
the name of Troy hath haply passed through your ears) we sailed over
alien seas, the tempest at his own wild will hath driven on the Libyan
coast. I am Aeneas the good, who carry in my fleet the household gods I
rescued from the enemy; my fame is known high in heaven. I seek Italy my
country, my kin of Jove's supreme blood. With twenty sail did I climb
the Phrygian sea; oracular tokens led me on; my goddess mother pointed
the way; scarce seven survive the shattering of wave and wind. Myself
unknown, destitute, driven from Europe and Asia, I wander over the
Libyan wilderness. '
But staying longer complaint, Venus thus broke in on his half-told
sorrows:
'Whoso thou art, not hated I think of the immortals [388-420]dost thou
draw the breath of life, who hast reached the Tyrian city. Only go on,
and betake thee hence to the courts of the queen. For I declare to thee
thy comrades are restored, thy fleet driven back into safety by the
shifted northern gales, except my parents were pretenders, and
unavailing the augury they taught me. Behold these twelve swans in
joyous line, whom, stooping from the tract of heaven, the bird of Jove
fluttered over the open sky; now in long train they seem either to take
the ground or already to look down on the ground they took. As they
again disport with clapping wings, and utter their notes as they circle
the sky in company, even so do these ships and crews of thine either lie
fast in harbour or glide under full sail into the harbour mouth. Only go
on, and turn thy steps where the pathway leads thee. '
Speaking she turned away, and her neck shone roseate, her immortal
tresses breathed the fragrance of deity; her raiment fell flowing down
to her feet, and the godhead was manifest in her tread. He knew her for
his mother, and with this cry pursued her flight: 'Thou also merciless!
Why mockest thou thy son so often in feigned likeness? Why is it
forbidden to clasp hand in hand, to hear and utter true speech? ' Thus
reproaching her he bends his steps towards the city. But Venus girt them
in their going with dull mist, and shed round them a deep divine
clothing of cloud, that none might see them, none touch them, or work
delay, or ask wherefore they came. Herself she speeds through the sky to
Paphos, and joyfully revisits her habitation, where the temple and its
hundred altars steam with Sabaean incense, and are fresh with fragrance
of chaplets in her worship.
They meantime have hasted along where the pathway points, and now were
climbing the hill which hangs enormous over the city, and looks down on
its facing towers. [421-456]Aeneas marvels at the mass of building,
pastoral huts once of old, marvels at the gateways and clatter of the
pavements. The Tyrians are hot at work to trace the walls, to rear the
citadel, and roll up great stones by hand, or to choose a spot for their
dwelling and enclose it with a furrow. They ordain justice and
magistrates, and the august senate. Here some are digging harbours, here
others lay the deep foundations of their theatre, and hew out of the
cliff vast columns, the lofty ornaments of the stage to be: even as bees
when summer is fresh over the flowery country ply their task beneath the
sun, when they lead forth their nation's grown brood, or when they press
the liquid honey and strain their cells with nectarous sweets, or
relieve the loaded incomers, or in banded array drive the idle herd of
drones far from their folds; they swarm over their work, and the odorous
honey smells sweet of thyme. 'Happy they whose city already rises! '
cries Aeneas, looking on the town roofs below. Girt in the cloud he
passes amid them, wonderful to tell, and mingling with the throng is
descried of none.
In the heart of the town was a grove deep with luxuriant shade, wherein
first the Phoenicians, buffeted by wave and whirlwind, dug up the token
Queen Juno had appointed, the head of a war horse: thereby was their
race to be through all ages illustrious in war and opulent in living.
Here to Juno was Sidonian Dido founding a vast temple, rich with
offerings and the sanctity of her godhead: brazen steps rose on the
threshold, brass clamped the pilasters, doors of brass swung on grating
hinges. First in this grove did a strange chance meet his steps and
allay his fears; first here did Aeneas dare to hope for safety and have
fairer trust in his shattered fortunes. For while he closely scans the
temple that towers above him, while, awaiting the queen, he admires the
fortunate city, the emulous hands and elaborate work of her craftsmen,
he sees ranged in order the [457-491]battles of Ilium, that war whose
fame was already rumoured through all the world, the sons of Atreus and
Priam, and Achilles whom both found pitiless. He stopped and cried
weeping, 'What land is left, Achates, what tract on earth that is not
full of our agony? Behold Priam!
my men,' she begins, 'shew me
if [322-355]haply you have seen a sister of mine straying here girt
with quiver and a lynx's dappled fell, or pressing with shouts on the
track of a foaming boar. '
Thus Venus, and Venus' son answering thus began:
'Sound nor sight have I had of sister of thine, O maiden unnamed; for
thy face is not mortal, nor thy voice of human tone; O goddess
assuredly! sister of Phoebus perchance, or one of the nymphs' blood?
Be thou gracious, whoso thou art, and lighten this toil of ours; deign
to instruct us beneath what skies, on what coast of the world, we are
thrown. Driven hither by wind and desolate waves, we wander in a strange
land among unknown men. Many a sacrifice shall fall by our hand before
thine altars. '
Then Venus: 'Nay, to no such offerings do I aspire. Tyrian maidens are
wont ever to wear the quiver, to tie the purple buskin high above their
ankle. Punic is the realm thou seest, Tyrian the people, and the city of
Agenor's kin; but their borders are Libyan, a race unassailable in war.
Dido sways the sceptre, who flying her brother set sail from the Tyrian
town. Long is the tale of crime, long and intricate; but I will briefly
follow its argument. Her husband was Sychaeus, wealthiest in lands of
the Phoenicians, and loved of her with ill-fated passion; to whom with
virgin rites her father had given her maidenhood in wedlock. But the
kingdom of Tyre was in her brother Pygmalion's hands, a monster of guilt
unparalleled. Between these madness came; the unnatural brother, blind
with lust of gold, and reckless of his sister's love, lays Sychaeus low
before the altars with stealthy unsuspected weapon; and for long he hid
the deed, and by many a crafty pretence cheated her love-sickness with
hollow hope. But in slumber came the very ghost of her unburied husband;
lifting up a face pale in wonderful wise, he exposed the merciless
altars and [356-387]his breast stabbed through with steel, and unwove
all the blind web of household guilt. Then he counsels hasty flight out
of the country, and to aid her passage discloses treasures long hidden
underground, an untold mass of silver and gold. Stirred thereby, Dido
gathered a company for flight. All assemble in whom hatred of the tyrant
was relentless or fear keen; they seize on ships that chanced to lie
ready, and load them with the gold. Pygmalion's hoarded wealth is borne
overseas; a woman leads the work. They came at last to the land where
thou wilt descry a city now great, New Carthage, and her rising citadel,
and bought ground, called thence Byrsa, as much as a bull's hide would
encircle. But who, I pray, are you, or from what coasts come, or whither
hold you your way? '
At her question he, sighing and drawing speech deep from his breast,
thus replied:
'Ah goddess, should I go on retracing from the fountain head, were time
free to hear the history of our woes, sooner would the evening star lay
day asleep in the closed gates of heaven. Us, as from ancient Troy (if
the name of Troy hath haply passed through your ears) we sailed over
alien seas, the tempest at his own wild will hath driven on the Libyan
coast. I am Aeneas the good, who carry in my fleet the household gods I
rescued from the enemy; my fame is known high in heaven. I seek Italy my
country, my kin of Jove's supreme blood. With twenty sail did I climb
the Phrygian sea; oracular tokens led me on; my goddess mother pointed
the way; scarce seven survive the shattering of wave and wind. Myself
unknown, destitute, driven from Europe and Asia, I wander over the
Libyan wilderness. '
But staying longer complaint, Venus thus broke in on his half-told
sorrows:
'Whoso thou art, not hated I think of the immortals [388-420]dost thou
draw the breath of life, who hast reached the Tyrian city. Only go on,
and betake thee hence to the courts of the queen. For I declare to thee
thy comrades are restored, thy fleet driven back into safety by the
shifted northern gales, except my parents were pretenders, and
unavailing the augury they taught me. Behold these twelve swans in
joyous line, whom, stooping from the tract of heaven, the bird of Jove
fluttered over the open sky; now in long train they seem either to take
the ground or already to look down on the ground they took. As they
again disport with clapping wings, and utter their notes as they circle
the sky in company, even so do these ships and crews of thine either lie
fast in harbour or glide under full sail into the harbour mouth. Only go
on, and turn thy steps where the pathway leads thee. '
Speaking she turned away, and her neck shone roseate, her immortal
tresses breathed the fragrance of deity; her raiment fell flowing down
to her feet, and the godhead was manifest in her tread. He knew her for
his mother, and with this cry pursued her flight: 'Thou also merciless!
Why mockest thou thy son so often in feigned likeness? Why is it
forbidden to clasp hand in hand, to hear and utter true speech? ' Thus
reproaching her he bends his steps towards the city. But Venus girt them
in their going with dull mist, and shed round them a deep divine
clothing of cloud, that none might see them, none touch them, or work
delay, or ask wherefore they came. Herself she speeds through the sky to
Paphos, and joyfully revisits her habitation, where the temple and its
hundred altars steam with Sabaean incense, and are fresh with fragrance
of chaplets in her worship.
They meantime have hasted along where the pathway points, and now were
climbing the hill which hangs enormous over the city, and looks down on
its facing towers. [421-456]Aeneas marvels at the mass of building,
pastoral huts once of old, marvels at the gateways and clatter of the
pavements. The Tyrians are hot at work to trace the walls, to rear the
citadel, and roll up great stones by hand, or to choose a spot for their
dwelling and enclose it with a furrow. They ordain justice and
magistrates, and the august senate. Here some are digging harbours, here
others lay the deep foundations of their theatre, and hew out of the
cliff vast columns, the lofty ornaments of the stage to be: even as bees
when summer is fresh over the flowery country ply their task beneath the
sun, when they lead forth their nation's grown brood, or when they press
the liquid honey and strain their cells with nectarous sweets, or
relieve the loaded incomers, or in banded array drive the idle herd of
drones far from their folds; they swarm over their work, and the odorous
honey smells sweet of thyme. 'Happy they whose city already rises! '
cries Aeneas, looking on the town roofs below. Girt in the cloud he
passes amid them, wonderful to tell, and mingling with the throng is
descried of none.
In the heart of the town was a grove deep with luxuriant shade, wherein
first the Phoenicians, buffeted by wave and whirlwind, dug up the token
Queen Juno had appointed, the head of a war horse: thereby was their
race to be through all ages illustrious in war and opulent in living.
Here to Juno was Sidonian Dido founding a vast temple, rich with
offerings and the sanctity of her godhead: brazen steps rose on the
threshold, brass clamped the pilasters, doors of brass swung on grating
hinges. First in this grove did a strange chance meet his steps and
allay his fears; first here did Aeneas dare to hope for safety and have
fairer trust in his shattered fortunes. For while he closely scans the
temple that towers above him, while, awaiting the queen, he admires the
fortunate city, the emulous hands and elaborate work of her craftsmen,
he sees ranged in order the [457-491]battles of Ilium, that war whose
fame was already rumoured through all the world, the sons of Atreus and
Priam, and Achilles whom both found pitiless. He stopped and cried
weeping, 'What land is left, Achates, what tract on earth that is not
full of our agony? Behold Priam! Here too is the meed of honour, here
mortal estate touches the soul to tears. Dismiss thy fears; the fame of
this will somehow bring thee salvation. '
So speaks he, and fills his soul with the painted show, sighing often
the while, and his face wet with a full river of tears. For he saw, how
warring round the Trojan citadel here the Greeks fled, the men of Troy
hard on their rear; here the Phrygians, plumed Achilles in his chariot
pressing their flight. Not far away he knows the snowy canvas of Rhesus'
tents, which, betrayed in their first sleep, the blood-stained son of
Tydeus laid desolate in heaped slaughter, and turns the ruddy steeds
away to the camp ere ever they tasted Trojan fodder or drunk of Xanthus.
Elsewhere Troilus, his armour flung away in flight--luckless boy, no
match for Achilles to meet! --is borne along by his horses, and thrown
back entangled with his empty chariot, still clutching the reins; his
neck and hair are dragged over the ground, and his reversed spear scores
the dust. Meanwhile the Ilian women went with disordered tresses to
unfriendly Pallas' temple, and bore the votive garment, sadly beating
breast with palm: the goddess turning away held her eyes fast on the
ground. Thrice had Achilles whirled Hector round the walls of Troy, and
was selling the lifeless body for gold; then at last he heaves a loud
and heart-deep groan, as the spoils, as the chariot, as the dear body
met his gaze, and Priam outstretching unarmed hands. Himself too he knew
joining battle with the foremost Achaeans, knew the Eastern ranks and
swart Memnon's armour. Penthesilea leads her crescent-shielded Amazonian
columns in furious heat with [492-524]thousands around her; clasping a
golden belt under her naked breast, the warrior maiden clashes boldly
with men.
While these marvels meet Dardanian Aeneas' eyes, while he dizzily hangs
rapt in one long gaze, Dido the queen entered the precinct, beautiful
exceedingly, a youthful train thronging round her. Even as on Eurotas'
banks or along the Cynthian ridges Diana wheels the dance, while behind
her a thousand mountain nymphs crowd to left and right; she carries
quiver on shoulder, and as she moves outshines them all in deity;
Latona's heart is thrilled with silent joy; such was Dido, so she
joyously advanced amid the throng, urging on the business of her rising
empire. Then in the gates of the goddess, beneath the central vault of
the temple roof, she took her seat girt with arms and high enthroned.
And now she gave justice and laws to her people, and adjusted or
allotted their taskwork in due portion; when suddenly Aeneas sees
advancing with a great crowd about them Antheus and Sergestus and brave
Cloanthus, and other of his Trojans, whom the black squall had sundered
at sea and borne far away on the coast. Dizzy with the shock of joy and
fear he and Achates together were on fire with eagerness to clasp their
hands; but in confused uncertainty they keep hidden, and clothed in the
sheltering cloud wait to espy what fortune befalls them, where they are
leaving their fleet ashore, why they now come; for they advanced, chosen
men from all the ships, praying for grace, and held on with loud cries
towards the temple.
After they entered in, and free speech was granted, aged Ilioneus with
placid mien thus began:
'Queen, to whom Jupiter hath given to found this new city, and lay the
yoke of justice upon haughty tribes, we beseech thee, we wretched
Trojans storm-driven over all [525-559]the seas, stay the dreadful
flames from our ships; spare a guiltless race, and bend a gracious
regard on our fortunes. We are not come to deal slaughter through Libyan
homes, or to drive plundered spoils to the coast. Such violence sits not
in our mind, nor is a conquered people so insolent. There is a place
Greeks name Hesperia, an ancient land, mighty in arms and foison of the
clod; Oenotrian men dwelt therein; now rumour is that a younger race
from their captain's name have called it Italy. Thither lay our course
. . . when Orion rising on us through the cloudrack with sudden surf
bore us on blind shoals, and scattered us afar with his boisterous gales
and whelming brine over waves and trackless reefs. To these your coasts
we a scanty remnant floated up. What race of men, what land how
barbarous soever, allows such a custom for its own? We are debarred the
shelter of the beach; they rise in war, and forbid us to set foot on the
brink of their land. If you slight human kinship and mortal arms, yet
look for gods unforgetful of innocence and guilt. Aeneas was our king,
foremost of men in righteousness, incomparable in goodness as in warlike
arms; whom if fate still preserves, if he draws the breath of heaven and
lies not yet low in dispiteous gloom, fear we have none; nor mayest thou
repent of challenging the contest of service. In Sicilian territory too
is tilth and town, and famed Acestes himself of Trojan blood. Grant us
to draw ashore our storm-shattered fleet, to shape forest trees into
beams and strip them for oars; so, if to Italy we may steer with our
king and comrades found, Italy and Latium shall we gladly seek; but if
salvation is clean gone, if the Libyan gulf holds thee, dear lord of thy
Trojans, and Iulus our hope survives no more, seek we then at least the
straits of Sicily, the open homes whence we sailed hither, and Acestes
for our king. ' Thus Ilioneus, and all the Dardanian company
[560-593]murmured assent. . . . Then Dido, with downcast face, briefly
speaks:
'Cheer your anxious hearts, O Teucrians; put by your care. Hard fortune
in a strange realm forces me to this task, to keep watch and ward on my
wide frontiers. Who can be ignorant of the race of Aeneas' people, who
of Troy town and her men and deeds, or of the great war's consuming
fire? Not so dull are the hearts of our Punic wearing, not so far doth
the sun yoke his steeds from our Tyrian town. Whether your choice be
broad Hesperia, the fields of Saturn's dominion, or Eryx for your
country and Acestes for your king, my escort shall speed you in safety,
my arsenals supply your need. Or will you even find rest here with me
and share my kingdom? The city I establish is yours; draw your ships
ashore; Trojan and Tyrian shall be held by me in even balance. And would
that he your king, that Aeneas were here, storm-driven to this same
haven! But I will send messengers along the coast, and bid them trace
Libya to its limits, if haply he strays shipwrecked in forest or town. '
Stirred by these words brave Achates and lord Aeneas both ere now burned
to break through the cloud. Achates first accosts Aeneas: 'Goddess-born,
what purpose now rises in thy spirit? Thou seest all is safe, our fleet
and comrades are restored. One only is wanting, whom our eyes saw
whelmed amid the waves; all else is answerable to thy mother's words. '
Scarce had he spoken when the encircling cloud suddenly parts and melts
into clear air. Aeneas stood discovered in sheen of brilliant light,
like a god in face and shoulders; for his mother's self had shed on her
son the grace of clustered locks, the radiant light of youth, and the
lustre of joyous eyes; as when ivory takes beauty under the artist's
hand, or when silver or Parian stone is inlaid in gold. [594-625]Then
breaking in on all with unexpected speech he thus addresses the queen:
'I whom you seek am here before you, Aeneas of Troy, snatched from the
Libyan waves. O thou who alone hast pitied Troy's untold agonies, thou
who with us the remnant of the Grecian foe, worn out ere now by every
suffering land and sea can bring, with us in our utter want dost share
thy city and home! to render meet recompense is not possible for us, O
Dido, nor for all who scattered over the wide world are left of our
Dardanian race. The gods grant thee worthy reward, if their deity turn
any regard on goodness, if aught avails justice and conscious purity of
soul. What happy ages bore thee? what mighty parents gave thy virtue
birth? While rivers run into the sea, while the mountain shadows move
across their slopes, while the stars have pasturage in heaven, ever
shall thine honour, thy name and praises endure in the unknown lands
that summon me. ' With these words he advances his right hand to dear
Ilioneus, his left to Serestus; then to the rest, brave Gyas and brave
Cloanthus.
Dido the Sidonian stood astonished, first at the sight of him, then at
his strange fortunes; and these words left her lips:
'What fate follows thee, goddess-born, through perilous ways? what
violence lands thee on this monstrous coast? Art thou that Aeneas whom
Venus the bountiful bore to Dardanian Anchises by the wave of Phrygian
Simois? And well I remember how Teucer came to Sidon, when exiled from
his native land he sought Belus' aid to gain new realms; Belus my father
even then ravaged rich Cyprus and held it under his conquering sway.
From that time forth have I known the fall of the Trojan city, known thy
name and the Pelasgian princes. Their very foe would extol the Teucrians
with highest praises, and boasted himself a branch [626-661]of the
ancient Teucrian stem. Come therefore, O men, and enter our house. Me
too hath a like fortune driven through many a woe, and willed at last to
find my rest in this land. Not ignorant of ill do I learn to succour the
afflicted. '
With such speech she leads Aeneas into the royal house, and orders
sacrifice in the gods' temples. Therewith she sends his company on
the shore twenty bulls, an hundred great bristly-backed swine, an
hundred fat lambs and their mothers with them, gifts of the day's
gladness. . . . But the palace within is decked with splendour of royal
state, and a banquet made ready amid the halls. The coverings are
curiously wrought in splendid purple; on the tables is massy silver and
deeds of ancestral valour graven in gold, all the long course of history
drawn through many a heroic name from the nation's primal antiquity.
Aeneas--for a father's affection denied his spirit rest--sends Achates
speeding to his ships, to carry this news to Ascanius, and lead him to
the town: in Ascanius is fixed all the parent's loving care. Presents
likewise he bids him bring saved from the wreck of Ilium, a mantle stiff
with gold embroidery, and a veil with woven border of yellow
acanthus-flower, that once decked Helen of Argos, the marvel of her
mother Leda's giving; Helen had borne them from Mycenae, when she sought
Troy towers and a lawless bridal; the sceptre too that Ilione, Priam's
eldest daughter, once had worn, a beaded necklace, and a double circlet
of jewelled gold. Achates, hasting on his message, bent his way towards
the ships.
But in the Cytherean's breast new arts, new schemes revolve; if Cupid,
changed in form and feature, may come in sweet Ascanius' room, and his
gifts kindle the queen to madness and set her inmost sense aflame.
Verily she fears the uncertain house, the double-tongued race of Tyre;
[662-698]cruel Juno frets her, and at nightfall her care floods back.
Therefore to winged Love she speaks these words:
'Son, who art alone my strength and sovereignty, son, who scornest the
mighty father's Typhoian shafts, to thee I fly for succour, and sue
humbly to thy deity. How Aeneas thy brother is driven about all the
sea-coasts by bitter Juno's malignity, this thou knowest, and hast often
grieved in our grief. Now Dido the Phoenician holds him stayed with soft
words, and I tremble to think how the welcome of Juno's house may issue;
she will not be idle in this supreme turn of fortune. Wherefore I
counsel to prevent her wiles and circle the queen with flame, that,
unalterable by any deity, she may be held fast to me by passionate love
for Aeneas. Take now my thought how to do this. The boy prince, my
chiefest care, makes ready at his dear father's summons to go to the
Sidonian city, carrying gifts that survive the sea and the flames of
Troy. Him will I hide deep asleep in my holy habitation, high on
Cythera's hills or in Idalium, that he may not know nor cross our wiles.
Do thou but for one night feign his form, and, boy as thou art, put on
the familiar face of a boy; so when in festal cheer, amid royal dainties
and Bacchic juice, Dido shall take thee to her lap, shall fold thee in
her clasp and kiss thee close and sweet, thou mayest imbreathe a hidden
fire and unsuspected poison. '
Love obeys his dear mother's words, lays by his wings, and walks
rejoicingly with Iulus' tread. But Venus pours gentle dew of slumber on
Ascanius' limbs, and lifts him lulled in her lap to the tall Idalian
groves of her deity, where soft amaracus folds him round with the
shadowed sweetness of its odorous blossoms. And now, obedient to her
words, Cupid went merrily in Achates' guiding, with the royal gifts for
the Tyrians. Already at his coming the queen hath sate her down in the
midmost on her golden [699-733]throne under the splendid tapestries;
now lord Aeneas, now too the men of Troy gather, and all recline on the
strewn purple. Servants pour water on their hands, serve corn from
baskets, and bring napkins with close-cut pile. Fifty handmaids are
within, whose task is in their course to keep unfailing store and kindle
the household fire. An hundred others, and as many pages all of like
age, load the board with food and array the wine cups. Therewithal the
Tyrians are gathered full in the wide feasting chamber, and take their
appointed places on the broidered cushions. They marvel at Aeneas'
gifts, marvel at Iulus, at the god's face aflame and forged speech, at
the mantle and veil wrought with yellow acanthus-flower. Above all the
hapless Phoenician, victim to coming doom, cannot satiate her soul, but,
stirred alike by the boy and the gifts, she gazes and takes fire. He,
when hanging clasped on Aeneas' neck he had satisfied all the deluded
parent's love, makes his way to the queen; the queen clings to him with
her eyes and all her soul, and ever and anon fondles him in her lap, ah,
poor Dido! witless how mighty a deity sinks into her breast; but he,
mindful of his mother the Acidalian, begins touch by touch to efface
Sychaeus, and sows the surprise of a living love in the
long-since-unstirred spirit and disaccustomed heart. Soon as the noise
of banquet ceased and the board was cleared, they set down great bowls
and enwreathe the wine. The house is filled with hum of voices eddying
through the spacious chambers; lit lamps hang down by golden chainwork,
and flaming tapers expel the night. Now the queen called for a heavy cup
of jewelled gold, and filled it with pure wine; therewith was the use of
Belus and all of Belus' race: then the hall was silenced. 'Jupiter,' she
cries, 'for thou art reputed lawgiver of hospitality, grant that this be
a joyful day to the Tyrians and the voyagers from Troy, a day to live in
our children's memory. [734-756]Bacchus, the giver of gladness, be with
us, and Juno the bountiful; and you, O Tyrians, be favourable to our
assembly. ' She spoke, and poured liquid libation on the board, which
done, she first herself touched it lightly with her lips, then handed it
to Bitias and bade him speed; he valiantly drained the foaming cup, and
flooded him with the brimming gold. The other princes followed.
Long-haired Iopas on his gilded lyre fills the chamber with songs
ancient Atlas taught; he sings of the wandering moon and the sun's
travails; whence is the human race and the brute, whence water and fire;
of Arcturus, the rainy Hyades, and the twin Oxen; why wintry suns make
such haste to dip in ocean, or what delay makes the nights drag
lingeringly. Tyrians and Trojans after them redouble applause.
Therewithal Dido wore the night in changing talk, alas! and drank long
draughts of love, asking many a thing of Priam, many a thing of Hector;
now in what armour the son of the Morning came; now of what fashion were
Diomede's horses; now of mighty Achilles. 'Nay, come,' she cries, 'tell
to us, O guest, from their first beginning the treachery of the
Grecians, thy people's woes, and thine own wanderings; for this is now
the seventh summer that bears thee a wanderer over all the earth and
sea. '
BOOK SECOND
THE STORY OF THE SACK OF TROY
All were hushed, and sate with steadfast countenance; thereon, high from
his cushioned seat, lord Aeneas thus began:
'Dreadful, O Queen, is the woe thou bidst me recall, how the Grecians
pitiably overthrew the wealth and lordship of Troy; and I myself saw
these things in all their horror, and I bore great part in them. What
Myrmidon or Dolopian, or soldier of stern Ulysses, could in such a tale
restrain his tears! and now night falls dewy from the steep of heaven,
and the setting stars counsel to slumber. Yet if thy desire be such to
know our calamities, and briefly to hear Troy's last agony, though my
spirit shudders at the remembrance and recoils in pain, I will essay.
'Broken in war and beaten back by fate, and so many years now slid away,
the Grecian captains build by Pallas' divine craft a horse of
mountainous build, ribbed with sawn fir; they feign it vowed for their
return, and this rumour goes about. Within the blind sides they
stealthily imprison chosen men picked out one by one, and fill the vast
cavern of its womb full with armed soldiery.
'There lies in sight an island well known in fame, Tenedos, rich of
store while the realm of Priam endured, [23-55]now but a bay and
roadstead treacherous to ships. Hither they launch forth, and hide on
the solitary shore: we fancied they were gone, and had run down the wind
for Mycenae. So all the Teucrian land put her long grief away. The gates
are flung open; men go rejoicingly to see the Doric camp, the deserted
stations and abandoned shore. Here the Dolopian troops were tented, here
cruel Achilles; here their squadrons lay; here the lines were wont to
meet in battle. Some gaze astonished at the deadly gift of Minerva the
Virgin, and wonder at the horse's bulk; and Thymoetes begins to advise
that it be drawn within our walls and set in the citadel, whether in
guile, or that the doom of Troy was even now setting thus. But Capys and
they whose mind was of better counsel, bid us either hurl sheer into the
sea the guileful and sinister gift of Greece, or heap flames beneath to
consume it, or pierce and explore the hollow hiding-place of its womb.
The wavering crowd is torn apart in high dispute.
'At that, foremost of all and with a great throng about him, Laocoon
runs hotly down from the high citadel, and cries from far: "Ah, wretched
citizens, what height of madness is this? Believe you the foe is gone?
or think you any Grecian gift is free of treachery? is it thus we know
Ulysses? Either Achaeans are hid in this cage of wood, or the engine is
fashioned against our walls to overlook the houses and descend upon the
city; some delusion lurks there: trust not the horse, O Trojans. Be it
what it may, I fear the Grecians even when they offer gifts. " Thus
speaking, he hurled his mighty spear with great strength at the
creature's side and the curved framework of the belly: the spear stood
quivering, and the jarred cavern of the womb sounded hollow and uttered
a groan. And had divine ordinance, had a soul not infatuate been with
us, he had moved us to lay violent steel on the Argolic hiding place;
[56-90]and Troy would now stand, and you, tall towers of Priam, yet
abide.
'Lo, Dardanian shepherds meanwhile dragged clamorously before the King a
man with hands tied behind his back, who to compass this very thing, to
lay Troy open to the Achaeans, had gone to meet their ignorant approach,
confident in spirit and doubly prepared to spin his snares or to meet
assured death. From all sides, in eagerness to see, the people of Troy
run streaming in, and vie in jeers at their prisoner. Know now the
treachery of the Grecians, and from a single crime learn all. . . . For
as he stood amid our gaze confounded, disarmed, and cast his eyes around
the Phrygian columns, "Alas! " he cried, "what land now, what seas may
receive me? or what is the last doom that yet awaits my misery? who have
neither any place among the Grecians, and likewise the Dardanians
clamour in wrath for the forfeit of my blood. " At that lament our spirit
was changed, and all assault stayed: we encourage him to speak, and tell
of what blood he is sprung, or what assurance he brings his captors.
'"In all things assuredly," says he, "O King, befall what may, I will
confess to thee the truth; nor will I deny myself of Argolic birth--this
first--nor, if Fortune hath made Sinon unhappy, shall her malice mould
him to a cheat and a liar. Hath a tale of the name of Palamedes, son of
Belus, haply reached thine ears, and of his glorious rumour and renown;
whom under false evidence the Pelasgians, because he forbade the war,
sent innocent to death by wicked witness; now they bewail him when he
hath left the light;--in his company, being near of blood, my father,
poor as he was, sent me hither to arms from mine earliest years. While
he stood unshaken in royalty and potent in the councils of the kings, we
too wore a name and honour.
