No More Learning

After the embers sank in
and the flame died away, they soaked with wine the remnant of thirsty
ashes, and Corynaeus gathered the bones and shut them in an urn of
brass; and he too thrice encircled his comrades with fresh water, and
cleansed them with light spray sprinkled from a [231-267]bough of
fruitful olive, and spoke the last words of all. But good Aeneas heaps a
mighty mounded tomb over him, with his own armour and his oar and
trumpet, beneath a skyey mountain that now is called Misenus after him,
and keeps his name immortal from age to age.

This done, he hastens to fulfil the Sibyl's ordinance. A deep cave
yawned dreary and vast, shingle-strewn, sheltered by the black lake and
the gloom of the forests; over it no flying things could wing their way
unharmed, such a vapour streamed from the dark gorge and rose into the
overarching sky. Here the priestess first arrays four black-bodied
bullocks and pours wine upon their forehead; and plucking the topmost
hairs from between the horns, lays them on the sacred fire for
first-offering, calling aloud on Hecate, mistress of heaven and hell.
Others lay knives beneath, and catch the warm blood in cups. Aeneas
himself smites with the sword a black-fleeced she-lamb to the mother of
the Eumenides and her mighty sister, and a barren heifer, Proserpine, to
thee. Then he uprears darkling altars to the Stygian king, and lays
whole carcases of bulls upon the flames, pouring fat oil over the
blazing entrails. And lo! about the first rays of sunrise the ground
moaned underfoot, and the woodland ridges began to stir, and dogs seemed
to howl through the dusk as the goddess came. 'Apart, ah keep apart, O
ye unsanctified! ' cries the soothsayer; 'retire from all the grove; and
thou, stride on and unsheath thy steel; now is need of courage, O
Aeneas, now of strong resolve. ' So much she spoke, and plunged madly
into the cavern's opening; he with unflinching steps keeps pace with his
advancing guide.

Gods who are sovereign over souls! silent ghosts, and Chaos and
Phlegethon, the wide dumb realm of night! as I have heard, so let me
tell, and according to your will unfold things sunken deep under earth
in gloom.

[268-303]They went darkling through the dusk beneath the solitary
night, through the empty dwellings and bodiless realm of Dis; even as
one walks in the forest beneath the jealous light of a doubtful moon,
when Jupiter shrouds the sky in shadow and black night blots out the
world. Right in front of the doorway and in the entry of the jaws of
hell Grief and avenging Cares have made their bed; there dwell wan
Sicknesses and gloomy Eld, and Fear, and ill-counselling Hunger, and
loathly Want, shapes terrible to see; and Death and Travail, and thereby
Sleep, Death's kinsman, and the Soul's guilty Joys, and death-dealing
War full in the gateway, and the Furies in their iron cells, and mad
Discord with bloodstained fillets enwreathing her serpent locks.

Midway an elm, shadowy and high, spreads her boughs and secular arms,
where, one saith, idle Dreams dwell clustering, and cling under every
leaf. And monstrous creatures besides, many and diverse, keep covert at
the gates, Centaurs and twy-shaped Scyllas, and the hundredfold
Briareus, and the beast of Lerna hissing horribly, and the Chimaera
armed with flame, Gorgons and Harpies, and the body of the triform
shade. Here Aeneas snatches at his sword in a sudden flutter of terror,
and turns the naked edge on them as they come; and did not his wise
fellow-passenger remind him that these lives flit thin and unessential
in the hollow mask of body, he would rush on and vainly lash through
phantoms with his steel.

Hence a road leads to Tartarus and Acheron's wave. Here the dreary pool
swirls thick in muddy eddies and disgorges into Cocytus with its load of
sand. Charon, the dread ferryman, guards these flowing streams, ragged
and awful, his chin covered with untrimmed masses of hoary hair, and his
glassy eyes aflame; his soiled raiment hangs knotted from his shoulders.
Himself he plies the pole and trims the sails of his vessel, the
steel-blue galley with freight [304-336]of dead; stricken now in years,
but a god's old age is lusty and green. Hither all crowded, and rushed
streaming to the bank, matrons and men and high-hearted heroes dead and
done with life, boys and unwedded girls, and children laid young on the
bier before their parents' eyes, multitudinous as leaves fall dropping
in the forests at autumn's earliest frost, or birds swarm landward from
the deep gulf, when the chill of the year routs them overseas and drives
them to sunny lands. They stood pleading for the first passage across,
and stretched forth passionate hands to the farther shore. But the grim
sailor admits now one and now another, while some he pushes back far
apart on the strand. Moved with marvel at the confused throng: 'Say, O
maiden,' cries Aeneas, 'what means this flocking to the river? of what
are the souls so fain? or what difference makes these retire from the
banks, those go with sweeping oars over the leaden waterways? '

To him the long-lived priestess thus briefly returned: 'Seed of
Anchises, most sure progeny of gods, thou seest the deep pools of
Cocytus and the Stygian marsh, by whose divinity the gods fear to swear
falsely. All this crowd thou discernest is helpless and unsepultured;
Charon is the ferryman; they who ride on the wave found a tomb. Nor is
it given to cross the awful banks and hoarse streams ere the dust hath
found a resting-place. An hundred years they wander here flitting about
the shore; then at last they gain entrance, and revisit the pools so
sorely desired. '

Anchises' son stood still, and ponderingly stayed his footsteps, pitying
at heart their cruel lot. There he discerns, mournful and unhonoured
dead, Leucaspis and Orontes, captains of the Lycian squadron, whom, as
they sailed together from Troy over gusty seas, the south wind
overwhelmed and wrapped the waters round ship and men.

[337-369]Lo, there went by Palinurus the steersman, who of late, while
he watched the stars on their Libyan passage, had slipped from the stern
and fallen amid the waves. To him, when he first knew the melancholy
form in that depth of shade, he thus opens speech: 'What god, O
Palinurus, reft thee from us and sank thee amid the seas? forth and
tell. For in this single answer Apollo deceived me, never found false
before, when he prophesied thee safety on ocean and arrival on the
Ausonian coasts. See, is this his promise-keeping? '

And he: 'Neither did Phoebus on his oracular seat delude thee, O prince,
Anchises' son, nor did any god drown me in the sea. For while I clung to
my appointed charge and governed our course, I pulled the tiller with me
in my fall, and the shock as I slipped wrenched it away. By the rough
seas I swear, fear for myself never wrung me so sore as for thy ship,
lest, the rudder lost and the pilot struck away, those gathering waves
might master it. Three wintry nights in the water the blustering south
drove me over the endless sea; scarcely on the fourth dawn I descried
Italy as I rose on the climbing wave. Little by little I swam shoreward;
already I clung safe; but while, encumbered with my dripping raiment, I
caught with crooked fingers at the jagged needles of mountain rock, the
barbarous people attacked me in arms and ignorantly deemed me a prize.
Now the wave holds me, and the winds toss me on the shore. By heaven's
pleasant light and breezes I beseech thee, by thy father, by Iulus thy
rising hope, rescue me from these distresses, O unconquered one! Either
do thou, for thou canst, cast earth over me and again seek the haven of
Velia; or do thou, if in any wise that may be, if in any wise the
goddess who bore thee shews a way,--for not without divine will do I
deem thou wilt float across these vast rivers and the Stygian
pool,--lend me a pitying [370-403]hand, and bear me over the waves in
thy company, that at least in death I may find a quiet resting-place. '

Thus he ended, and the soothsayer thus began: 'Whence, O Palinurus, this
fierce longing of thine? Shalt thou without burial behold the Stygian
waters and the awful river of the Furies? Cease to hope prayers may bend
the decrees of heaven. But take my words to thy memory, for comfort in
thy woeful case: far and wide shall the bordering cities be driven by
celestial portents to appease thy dust; they shall rear a tomb, and pay
the tomb a yearly offering, and for evermore shall the place keep
Palinurus' name. ' The words soothed away his distress, and for a while
drove grief away from his sorrowing heart; he is glad in the land of his
name.

So they complete their journey's beginning, and draw nigh the river.
Just then the waterman descried them from the Stygian wave advancing
through the silent woodland and turning their feet towards the bank, and
opens on them in these words of challenge: 'Whoso thou art who marchest
in arms towards our river, forth and say, there as thou art, why thou
comest, and stay thine advance. This is the land of Shadows, of Sleep,
and slumberous Night; no living body may the Stygian hull convey. Nor
truly had I joy of taking Alcides on the lake for passenger, nor Theseus
and Pirithous, born of gods though they were and unconquered in might.
He laid fettering hand on the warder of Tartarus, and dragged him
cowering from the throne of my lord the King; they essayed to ravish our
mistress from the bridal chamber of Dis. ' Thereto the Amphrysian
soothsayer made brief reply: 'No such plot is here; be not moved; nor do
our weapons offer violence; the huge gatekeeper may bark on for ever in
his cavern and affright the bloodless ghosts; Proserpine may keep her
honour within her uncle's gates. Aeneas of Troy, renowned [404-437]in
goodness as in arms, goes down to meet his father in the deep shades of
Erebus. If the sight of such affection stirs thee in nowise, yet this
bough' (she discovers the bough hidden in her raiment) 'thou must know. '
Then his heaving breast allays its anger, and he says no more; but
marvelling at the awful gift, the fated rod so long unseen, he steers in
his dusky vessel and draws to shore. Next he routs out the souls that
sate on the long benches, and clears the thwarts, while he takes mighty
Aeneas on board. The galley groaned under the weight in all her seams,
and the marsh-water leaked fast in. At length prophetess and prince are
landed unscathed on the ugly ooze and livid sedge.

This realm rings with the triple-throated baying of vast Cerberus,
couched huge in the cavern opposite; to whom the prophetess, seeing the
serpents already bristling up on his neck, throws a cake made slumberous
with honey and drugged grain. He, with threefold jaws gaping in ravenous
hunger, catches it when thrown, and sinks to earth with monstrous body
outstretched, and sprawling huge over all his den. The warder
overwhelmed, Aeneas makes entrance, and quickly issues from the bank of
the irremeable wave.

Immediately wailing voices are loud in their ears, the souls of babies
crying on the doorway sill, whom, torn from the breast and portionless
in life's sweetness, a dark day cut off and drowned in bitter death.
Hard by them are those condemned to death on false accusation. Neither
indeed are these dwellings assigned without lot and judgment; Minos
presides and shakes the urn; he summons a council of the silent people,
and inquires of their lives and charges. Next in order have these
mourners their place whose own innocent hands dealt them death, who
flung away their souls in hatred of the day. How fain were they now in
upper air to endure their poverty and [438-472]sore travail! It may not
be; the unlovely pool locks them in her gloomy wave, and Styx pours her
ninefold barrier between. And not far from here are shewn stretching on
every side the Wailing Fields; so they call them by name. Here they whom
pitiless love hath wasted in cruel decay hide among untrodden ways,
shrouded in embosoming myrtle thickets; not death itself ends their
distresses. In this region he discerns Phaedra and Procris and woeful
Eriphyle, shewing on her the wounds of her merciless son, and Evadne and
Pasiphae; Laodamia goes in their company, and she who was once Caeneus
and a man, now woman, and again returned by fate into her shape of old.
Among whom Dido the Phoenician, fresh from her death-wound, wandered in
the vast forest; by her the Trojan hero stood, and knew the dim form
through the darkness, even as the moon at the month's beginning to him
who sees or thinks he sees her rising through the vapours; he let tears
fall, and spoke to her lovingly and sweet:

'Alas, Dido! so the news was true that reached me; thou didst perish,
and the sword sealed thy doom! Ah me, was I cause of thy death? By the
stars I swear, by the heavenly powers and all that is sacred beneath the
earth, unwillingly, O queen, I left thy shore. But the gods, at whose
orders now I pass through this shadowy place, this land of mouldering
overgrowth and deep night, the gods' commands drove me forth; nor could
I deem my departure would bring thee pain so great as this. Stay thy
footstep, and withdraw not from our gaze. From whom fliest thou? the
last speech of thee fate ordains me is this. '

In such words and with starting tears Aeneas soothed the burning and
fierce-eyed soul. She turned away with looks fixed fast on the ground,
stirred no more in countenance by the speech he essays than if she stood
in iron flint or Marpesian stone. At length she started, and fled
wrathfully [473-508]into the shadowy woodland, where Sychaeus, her
ancient husband, responds to her distresses and equals her affection.
Yet Aeneas, dismayed by her cruel doom, follows her far on her way with
pitying tears.

Thence he pursues his appointed path. And now they trod those utmost
fields where the renowned in war have their haunt apart. Here Tydeus
meets him; here Parthenopaeus, glorious in arms, and the pallid phantom
of Adrastus; here the Dardanians long wept on earth and fallen in the
war; sighing he discerns all their long array, Glaucus and Medon and
Thersilochus, the three children of Antenor, and Polyphoetes, Ceres'
priest, and Idaeus yet charioted, yet grasping his arms. The souls
throng round him to right and left; nor is one look enough; lingering
delighted, they pace by his side and enquire wherefore he is come. But
the princes of the Grecians and Agamemnon's armies, when they see him
glittering in arms through the gloom, hurry terror-stricken away; some
turn backward, as when of old they fled to the ships; some raise their
voice faintly, and gasp out a broken ineffectual cry.

And here he saw Deiphobus son of Priam, with face cruelly torn, face and
both hands, and ears lopped from his mangled temples, and nostrils
maimed by a shameful wound. Barely he knew the cowering form that hid
its dreadful punishment; then he springs to accost it in familiar
speech:

'Deiphobus mighty in arms, seed of Teucer's royal blood, whose
wantonness of vengeance was so cruel? who was allowed to use thee thus?
Rumour reached me that on that last night, outwearied with endless
slaughter, thou hadst sunk on the heap of mingled carnage. Then mine own
hand reared an empty tomb on the Rhoetean shore, mine own voice thrice
called aloud upon thy ghost. Thy name and armour keep the spot; thee, O
my friend, I could not see nor lay in the native earth I left. '

[509-541]Whereto the son of Priam: 'In nothing, O my friend, wert thou
wanting; thou hast paid the full to Deiphobus and the dead man's shade.
But me my fate and the Laconian woman's murderous guilt thus dragged
down to doom; these are the records of her leaving. For how we spent
that last night in delusive gladness thou knowest, and must needs
remember too well. When the fated horse leapt down on the steep towers
of Troy, bearing armed infantry for the burden of its womb, she, in
feigned procession, led round our Phrygian women with Bacchic cries;
herself she upreared a mighty flame amid them, and called the Grecians
out of the fortress height. Then was I fast in mine ill-fated bridal
chamber, deep asleep and outworn with my charge, and lay overwhelmed in
slumber sweet and profound and most like to easeful death. Meanwhile
that crown of wives removes all the arms from my dwelling, and slips out
the faithful sword from beneath my head: she calls Menelaus into the
house and flings wide the gateway: be sure she hoped her lover would
magnify the gift, and so she might quench the fame of her ill deeds of
old. Why do I linger? They burst into the chamber, they and the Aeolid,
counsellor of crime, in their company. Gods, recompense the Greeks even
thus, if with righteous lips I call for vengeance! But come, tell in
turn what hap hath brought thee hither yet alive. Comest thou driven on
ocean wanderings, or by promptings from heaven? or what fortune keeps
thee from rest, that thou shouldst draw nigh these sad sunless
dwellings, this disordered land? '

In this change of talk Dawn had already crossed heaven's mid axle on her
rose-charioted way; and haply had they thus drawn out all the allotted
time; but the Sibyl made brief warning speech to her companion: 'Night
falls, Aeneas; we waste the hours in weeping. Here is the place where
the road disparts; by this that runs to the right [542-574]under great
Dis' city is our path to Elysium; but the leftward wreaks vengeance on
the wicked and sends them to unrelenting hell. ' But Deiphobus: 'Be not
angered, mighty priestess; I will depart, I will refill my place and
return into darkness. Go, glory of our people, go, enjoy a fairer fate
than mine. ' Thus much he spoke, and on the word turned away his
footsteps.

Aeneas looks swiftly back, and sees beneath the cliff on the left hand a
wide city, girt with a triple wall and encircled by a racing river of
boiling flame, Tartarean Phlegethon, that echoes over its rolling rocks.
In front is the gate, huge and pillared with solid adamant, that no
warring force of men nor the very habitants of heaven may avail to
overthrow; it stands up a tower of iron, and Tisiphone sitting girt in
bloodstained pall keeps sleepless watch at the entry by night and day.
Hence moans are heard and fierce lashes resound, with the clank of iron
and dragging chains. Aeneas stopped and hung dismayed at the tumult.
'What shapes of crime are here? declare, O maiden; or what the
punishment that pursues them, and all this upsurging wail? ' Then the
soothsayer thus began to speak: 'Illustrious chief of Troy, no pure foot
may tread these guilty courts; but to me Hecate herself, when she gave
me rule over the groves of Avernus, taught how the gods punish, and
guided me through all her realm. Gnosian Rhadamanthus here holds
unrelaxing sway, chastises secret crime revealed, and exacts confession,
wheresoever in the upper world one vainly exultant in stolen guilt hath
till the dusk of death kept clear from the evil he wrought. Straightway
avenging Tisiphone, girt with her scourge, tramples down the shivering
sinners, menaces them with the grim snakes in her left hand, and summons
forth her sisters in merciless train. Then at last the sacred gates are
flung open and grate on the jarring hinge. Markest thou what sentry is
seated in [575-609]the doorway? what shape guards the threshold? More
grim within sits the monstrous Hydra with her fifty black yawning
throats: and Tartarus' self gapes sheer and strikes into the gloom
through twice the space that one looks upward to Olympus and the skyey
heaven. Here Earth's ancient children, the Titans' brood, hurled down by
the thunderbolt, lie wallowing in the abyss. Here likewise I saw the
twin Aloids, enormous of frame, who essayed with violent hands to pluck
down high heaven and thrust Jove from his upper realm. Likewise I saw
Salmoneus in the cruel payment he gives for mocking Jove's flame and
Olympus' thunders. Borne by four horses and brandishing a torch, he rode
in triumph midway through the populous city of Grecian Elis, and claimed
for himself the worship of deity; madman! who would mimic the
storm-cloud and the inimitable bolt with brass that rang under his
trampling horse-hoofs. But the Lord omnipotent hurled his shaft through
thickening clouds (no firebrand his nor smoky glare of torches) and
dashed him headlong in the fury of the whirlwind. Therewithal Tityos
might be seen, fosterling of Earth the mother of all, whose body
stretches over nine full acres, and a monstrous vulture with crooked
beak eats away the imperishable liver and the entrails that breed in
suffering, and plunges deep into the breast that gives it food and
dwelling; nor is any rest given to the fibres that ever grow anew. Why
tell of the Lapithae, of Ixion and Pirithous? over whom a stone hangs
just slipping and just as though it fell; or the high banqueting couches
gleam golden-pillared, and the feast is spread in royal luxury before
their faces; couched hard by, the eldest of the Furies wards the tables
from their touch and rises with torch upreared and thunderous lips. Here
are they who hated their brethren while life endured, or struck a parent
or entangled a client in wrong, or who brooded [610-643]alone over
found treasure and shared it not with their fellows, this the greatest
multitude of all; and they who were slain for adultery, and who followed
unrighteous arms, and feared not to betray their masters' plighted hand.
Imprisoned they await their doom. Seek not to be told that doom, that
fashion of fortune wherein they are sunk. Some roll a vast stone, or
hang outstretched on the spokes of wheels; hapless Theseus sits and
shall sit for ever, and Phlegyas in his misery gives counsel to all and
witnesses aloud through the gloom, _Learn by this warning to do justly
and not to slight the gods. _ This man sold his country for gold, and
laid her under a tyrant's sway; he set up and pulled down laws at a
price; this other forced his daughter's bridal chamber and a forbidden
marriage; all dared some monstrous wickedness, and had success in what
they dared. Not had I an hundred tongues, an hundred mouths, and a voice
of iron, could I sum up all the shapes of crime or name over all their
punishments. '

Thus spoke Phoebus' long-lived priestess; then 'But come now,' she
cries; 'haste on the way and perfect the service begun; let us go
faster; I descry the ramparts cast in Cyclopean furnaces, and in front
the arched gateway where they bid us lay the gifts foreordained. ' She
ended, and advancing side by side along the shadowy ways, they pass over
and draw nigh the gates. Aeneas makes entrance, and sprinkling his body
with fresh water, plants the bough full in the gateway.

Now at length, this fully done, and the service of the goddess
perfected, they came to the happy place, the green pleasances and
blissful seats of the Fortunate Woodlands. Here an ampler air clothes
the meadows in lustrous sheen, and they know their own sun and a
starlight of their own. Some exercise their limbs in tournament on the
greensward, contend in games, and wrestle on the yellow sand. Some
[644-676]dance with beating footfall and lips that sing; with them is
the Thracian priest in sweeping robe, and makes music to their measures
with the notes' sevenfold interval, the notes struck now with his
fingers, now with his ivory rod. Here is Teucer's ancient brood, a
generation excellent in beauty, high-hearted heroes born in happier
years, Ilus and Assaracus, and Dardanus, founder of Troy. Afar he
marvels at the armour and chariots empty of their lords: their spears
stand fixed in the ground, and their unyoked horses pasture at large
over the plain: their life's delight in chariot and armour, their care
in pasturing their sleek horses, follows them in like wise low under
earth. Others, lo! he beholds feasting on the sward to right and left,
and singing in chorus the glad Paean-cry, within a scented laurel-grove
whence Eridanus river surges upward full-volumed through the wood. Here
is the band of them who bore wounds in fighting for their country, and
they who were pure in priesthood while life endured, and the good poets
whose speech abased not Apollo; and they who made life beautiful by the
arts of their invention, and who won by service a memory among men, the
brows of all girt with the snow-white fillet. To their encircling throng
the Sibyl spoke thus, and to Musaeus before them all; for he is midmost
of all the multitude, and stands out head and shoulders among their
upward gaze:

'Tell, O blissful souls, and thou, poet most gracious, what region, what
place hath Anchises for his own? For his sake are we come, and have
sailed across the wide rivers of Erebus. '

And to her the hero thus made brief reply: 'None hath a fixed dwelling;
we live in the shady woodlands; soft-swelling banks and meadows fresh
with streams are our habitation. But you, if this be your heart's
desire, scale this ridge, and I will even now set you on an easy
[677-708]pathway. ' He spoke, and paced on before them, and from above
shews the shining plains; thereafter they leave the mountain heights.

But lord Anchises, deep in the green valley, was musing in earnest
survey over the imprisoned souls destined to the daylight above, and
haply reviewing his beloved children and all the tale of his people,
them and their fates and fortunes, their works and ways. And he, when he
saw Aeneas advancing to meet him over the greensward, stretched forth
both hands eagerly, while tears rolled over his cheeks, and his lips
parted in a cry: 'Art thou come at last, and hath thy love, O child of
my desire, conquered the difficult road? Is it granted, O my son, to
gaze on thy face and hear and answer in familiar tones? Thus indeed I
forecast in spirit, counting the days between; nor hath my care misled
me. What lands, what space of seas hast thou traversed to reach me,
through what surge of perils, O my son! How I dreaded the realm of Libya
might work thee harm! '

And he: 'Thy melancholy phantom, thine, O my father, came before me
often and often, and drove me to steer to these portals. My fleet is
anchored on the Tyrrhenian brine. Give thine hand to clasp, O my father,
give it, and withdraw not from our embrace. '

So spoke he, his face wet with abundant weeping. Thrice there did he
essay to fling his arms about his neck; thrice the phantom vainly
grasped fled out of his hands even as light wind, and most like to
fluttering sleep.

Meanwhile Aeneas sees deep withdrawn in the covert of the vale a
woodland and rustling forest thickets, and the river of Lethe that
floats past their peaceful dwellings. Around it flitted nations and
peoples innumerable; even as in the meadows when in clear summer weather
bees settle on the variegated flowers and stream round the snow-white
[709-742]lilies, all the plain is murmurous with their humming. Aeneas
starts at the sudden view, and asks the reason he knows not; what are
those spreading streams, or who are they whose vast train fills the
banks? Then lord Anchises: 'Souls, for whom second bodies are destined
and due, drink at the wave of the Lethean stream the heedless water of
long forgetfulness. These of a truth have I long desired to tell and
shew thee face to face, and number all the generation of thy children,
that so thou mayest the more rejoice with me in finding Italy. '--'O
father, must we think that any souls travel hence into upper air, and
return again to bodily fetters? why this their strange sad longing for
the light? ' 'I will tell,' rejoins Anchises, 'nor will I hold thee in
suspense, my son. ' And he unfolds all things in order one by one.

'First of all, heaven and earth and the liquid fields, the shining orb
of the moon and the Titanian star, doth a spirit sustain inly, and a
soul shed abroad in them sways all their members and mingles in the
mighty frame. Thence is the generation of man and beast, the life of
winged things, and the monstrous forms that ocean breeds under his
glittering floor. Those seeds have fiery force and divine birth, so far
as they are not clogged by taint of the body and dulled by earthy frames
and limbs ready to die. Hence is it they fear and desire, sorrow and
rejoice; nor can they pierce the air while barred in the blind darkness
of their prison-house. Nay, and when the last ray of life is gone, not
yet, alas! does all their woe, nor do all the plagues of the body wholly
leave them free; and needs must be that many a long ingrained evil
should take root marvellously deep. Therefore they are schooled in
punishment, and pay all the forfeit of a lifelong ill; some are hung
stretched to the viewless winds; some have the taint of guilt washed out
beneath the dreary deep, or burned away in fire. We [743-777]suffer,
each a several ghost; thereafter we are sent to the broad spaces of
Elysium, some few of us to possess the happy fields; till length of days
completing time's circle takes out the ingrained soilure and leaves
untainted the ethereal sense and pure spiritual flame. All these before
thee, when the wheel of a thousand years hath come fully round, a God
summons in vast train to the river of Lethe, that so they may regain in
forgetfulness the slopes of upper earth, and begin to desire to return
again into the body. '

Anchises ceased, and leads his son and the Sibyl likewise amid the
assembled murmurous throng, and mounts a hillock whence he might scan
all the long ranks and learn their countenances as they came.

'Now come, the glory hereafter to follow our Dardanian progeny, the
posterity to abide in our Italian people, illustrious souls and
inheritors of our name to be, these will I rehearse, and instruct thee
of thy destinies. He yonder, seest thou? the warrior leaning on his
pointless spear, holds the nearest place allotted in our groves, and
shall rise first into the air of heaven from the mingling blood of
Italy, Silvius of Alban name, the child of thine age, whom late in thy
length of days thy wife Lavinia shall nurture in the woodland, king and
father of kings; from him in Alba the Long shall our house have
dominion. He next him is Procas, glory of the Trojan race; and Capys and
Numitor; and he who shall renew thy name, Silvius Aeneas, eminent alike
in goodness or in arms, if ever he shall receive his kingdom in Alba.
Men of men! see what strength they display, and wear the civic oak
shading their brows.
They shall establish Nomentum and Gabii and Fidena
city, they the Collatine hill-fortress, Pometii and the Fort of Inuus,
Bola and Cora: these shall be names that are now nameless lands. Nay,
Romulus likewise, seed of Mavors, shall join [778-810]his grandsire's
company, from his mother Ilia's nurture and Assaracus' blood. Seest thou
how the twin plumes straighten on his crest, and his father's own
emblazonment already marks him for upper air? Behold, O son! by his
augury shall Rome the renowned fill earth with her empire and heaven
with her pride, and gird about seven fortresses with her single wall,
prosperous mother of men; even as our lady of Berecyntus rides in her
chariot turret-crowned through the Phrygian cities, glad in the gods she
hath borne, clasping an hundred of her children's children, all
habitants of heaven, all dwellers on the upper heights. Hither now bend
thy twin-eyed gaze; behold this people, the Romans that are thine. Here
is Caesar and all Iulus' posterity that shall arise under the mighty
cope of heaven. Here is he, he of whose promise once and again thou
hearest, Caesar Augustus, a god's son, who shall again establish the
ages of gold in Latium over the fields that once were Saturn's realm,
and carry his empire afar to Garamant and Indian, to the land that lies
beyond our stars, beyond the sun's yearlong ways, where Atlas the
sky-bearer wheels on his shoulder the glittering star-spangled pole.
Before his coming even now the kingdoms of the Caspian shudder at
oracular answers, and the Maeotic land and the mouths of sevenfold Nile
flutter in alarm. Nor indeed did Alcides traverse such spaces of earth,
though he pierced the brazen-footed deer, or though he stilled the
Erymanthian woodlands and made Lerna tremble at his bow: nor he who
sways his team with reins of vine, Liber the conqueror, when he drives
his tigers from Nysa's lofty crest. And do we yet hesitate to give
valour scope in deeds, or shrink in fear from setting foot on Ausonian
land? Ah, and who is he apart, marked out with sprays of olive, offering
sacrifice? I know the locks and hoary chin of the king of Rome who shall
establish the infant city in his [811-843]laws, sent from little Cures'
sterile land to the majesty of empire. To him Tullus shall next succeed,
who shall break the peace of his country and stir to arms men rusted
from war and armies now disused to triumphs; and hard on him
over-vaunting Ancus follows, even now too elate in popular breath. Wilt
thou see also the Tarquin kings, and the haughty soul of Brutus the
Avenger, and the fasces regained? He shall first receive a consul's
power and the merciless axes, and when his children would stir fresh
war, the father, for fair freedom's sake, shall summon them to doom.
Unhappy! yet howsoever posterity shall take the deed, love of country
and limitless passion for honour shall prevail. Nay, behold apart the
Decii and the Drusi, Torquatus with his cruel axe, and Camillus
returning with the standards. Yonder souls likewise, whom thou
discernest gleaming in equal arms, at one now, while shut in Night, ah
me! what mutual war, what battle-lines and bloodshed shall they arouse,
so they attain the light of the living! father-in-law descending from
the Alpine barriers and the fortress of the Dweller Alone, son-in-law
facing him with the embattled East. Nay, O my children, harden not your
hearts to such warfare, neither turn upon her own heart the mastering
might of your country; and thou, be thou first to forgive, who drawest
thy descent from heaven; cast down the weapons from thy hand, O blood of
mine. . . . He shall drive his conquering chariot to the Capitoline
height triumphant over Corinth, glorious in Achaean slaughter. He shall
uproot Argos and Agamemnonian Mycenae, and the Aeacid's own heir, the
seed of Achilles mighty in arms, avenging his ancestors in Troy and
Minerva's polluted temple. Who might leave thee, lordly Cato, or thee,
Cossus, to silence? who the Gracchan family, or these two sons of the
Scipios, a double thunderbolt of war, Libya's bale? and Fabricius potent
in poverty, or [844-875]thee, Serranus, sowing in the furrow? Whither
whirl you me all breathless, O Fabii? thou art he, the most mighty, the
one man whose lingering retrieves our State. Others shall beat out the
breathing bronze to softer lines, I believe it well; shall draw living
lineaments from the marble; the cause shall be more eloquent on their
lips; their pencil shall portray the pathways of heaven, and tell the
stars in their arising: be thy charge, O Roman, to rule the nations in
thine empire; this shall be thine art, to lay down the law of peace, to
be merciful to the conquered and beat the haughty down. '

Thus lord Anchises, and as they marvel, he so pursues: 'Look how
Marcellus the conqueror marches glorious in the splendid spoils,
towering high above them all! He shall stay the Roman State, reeling
beneath the invading shock, shall ride down Carthaginian and insurgent
Gaul, and a third time hang up the captured armour before lord
Quirinus. '

And at this Aeneas, for he saw going by his side one excellent in beauty
and glittering in arms, but his brow had little cheer, and his eyes
looked down:

'Who, O my father, is he who thus attends him on his way? son, or other
of his children's princely race? How his comrades murmur around him! how
goodly of presence he is! but dark Night flutters round his head with
melancholy shade. '

Then lord Anchises with welling tears began: 'O my son, ask not of the
great sorrow of thy people. Him shall fate but shew to earth, and suffer
not to stay further. Too mighty, lords of heaven, did you deem the brood
of Rome, had this your gift been abiding. What moaning of men shall
arise from the Field of Mavors by the imperial city! what a funeral
train shalt thou see, O Tiber, as thou flowest by the new-made grave!
Neither shall the boyhood of any [876-901]of Ilian race raise his Latin
forefathers' hope so high; nor shall the land of Romulus ever boast of
any fosterling like this. Alas his goodness, alas his antique honour,
and right hand invincible in war! none had faced him unscathed in armed
shock, whether he met the foe on foot, or ran his spurs into the flanks
of his foaming horse. Ah me, the pity of thee, O boy! if in any wise
thou breakest the grim bar of fate, thou shalt be Marcellus. Give me
lilies in full hands; let me strew bright blossoms, and these gifts at
least let me lavish on my descendant's soul, and do the unavailing
service. '

Thus they wander up and down over the whole region of broad vaporous
plains, and scan all the scene. And when Anchises had led his son over
it, each point by each, and kindled his spirit with passion for the
glories on their way, he tells him thereafter of the war he next must
wage, and instructs him of the Laurentine peoples and the city of
Latinus, and in what wise each task may be turned aside or borne.

There are twin portals of Sleep, whereof the one is fabled of horn, and
by it real shadows are given easy outlet; the other shining white of
polished ivory, but false visions issue upward from the ghostly world.
With these words then Anchises follows forth his son and the Sibyl
together there, and dismisses them by the ivory gate. He pursues his way
to the ships and revisits his comrades; then bears on to Caieta's haven
straight along the shore. The anchor is cast from the prow; the sterns
are grounded on the beach.




BOOK SEVENTH

THE LANDING IN LATIUM, AND THE ROLL OF THE ARMIES OF ITALY


Thou also, Caieta, nurse of Aeneas, gavest our shores an everlasting
renown in death; and still thine honour haunts thy resting-place, and a
name in broad Hesperia, if that be glory, marks thy dust. But when the
last rites are duly paid, and the mound smoothed over the grave, good
Aeneas, now the high seas are hushed, bears on under sail and leaves his
haven. Breezes blow into the night, and the white moonshine speeds them
on; the sea glitters in her quivering radiance. Soon they skirt the
shores of Circe's land, where the rich daughter of the Sun makes her
untrodden groves echo with ceaseless song; and her stately house glows
nightlong with burning odorous cedarwood, as she runs over her delicate
web with the ringing comb. Hence are heard afar angry cries of lions
chafing at their fetters and roaring in the deep night; bears and
bristly swine rage in their pens, and vast shapes of wolves howl; whom
with her potent herbs the deadly divine Circe had disfashioned, face and
body, into wild beasts from the likeness of men. But lest the good
Trojans might suffer so dread a change, might enter her haven or draw
nigh the ominous shores, Neptune filled [23-55]their sails with
favourable winds, and gave them escape, and bore them past the seething
shallows.

And now the sea reddened with shafts of light, and high in heaven the
yellow dawn shone rose-charioted; when the winds fell, and every breath
sank suddenly, and the oar-blades toil through the heavy ocean-floor.
And on this Aeneas descries from sea a mighty forest. Midway in it the
pleasant Tiber stream breaks to sea in swirling eddies, laden with
yellow sand. Around and above fowl many in sort, that haunt his banks
and river-channel, solaced heaven with song and flew about the forest.
He orders his crew to bend their course and turn their prows to land,
and glides joyfully into the shady river.

* * * * *

Forth now, Erato! and I will unfold who were the kings, what the tides
of circumstance, how it was with ancient Latium when first that foreign
army drew their fleet ashore on Ausonia's coast; I will recall the
preluding of battle. Thou, divine one, inspire thou thy poet. I will
tell of grim wars, tell of embattled lines, of kings whom honour drove
on death, of the Tyrrhenian forces, and all Hesperia enrolled in arms. A
greater history opens before me, a greater work I essay.

Latinus the King, now growing old, ruled in a long peace over quiet
tilth and town. He, men say, was sprung of Faunus and the nymph Marica
of Laurentum. Faunus' father was Picus; and he boasts himself, Saturn,
thy son; thou art the first source of their blood. Son of his, by divine
ordinance, and male descent was none, cut off in the early spring of
youth. One alone kept the household and its august home, a daughter now
ripe for a husband and of full years for marriage. Many wooed her from
wide Latium and all Ausonia. Fairest and foremost of all [56-93]is
Turnus, of long and lordly ancestry; but boding signs from heaven, many
and terrible, bar the way. Within the palace, in the lofty inner courts,
was a laurel of sacred foliage, guarded in awe through many years, which
lord Latinus, it was said, himself found and dedicated to Phoebus when
first he would build his citadel; and from it gave his settlers their
name, Laurentines. High atop of it, wonderful to tell, bees borne with
loud humming across the liquid air girt it thickly about, and with
interlinked feet hung in a sudden swarm from the leafy bough.
Straightway the prophet cries: 'I see a foreigner draw nigh, an army
from the same quarter seek the same quarter, and reign high in our
fortress. ' Furthermore, while maiden Lavinia stands beside her father
feeding the altars with holy fuel, she was seen, oh, horror! to catch
fire in her long tresses, and burn with flickering flame in all her
array, her queenly hair lit up, lit up her jewelled circlet; till,
enwreathed in smoke and lurid light, she scattered fire over all the
palace. That sight was rumoured wonderful and terrible. Herself, they
prophesied, she should be glorious in fame and fortune; but a great war
was foreshadowed for her people. But the King, troubled by the omen,
visits the oracle of his father Faunus the soothsayer, and the groves
deep under Albunea, where, queen of the woods, she echoes from her holy
well, and breathes forth a dim and deadly vapour. Hence do the tribes of
Italy and all the Oenotrian land seek answers in perplexity; hither the
priest bears his gifts, and when he hath lain down and sought slumber
under the silent night on the spread fleeces of slaughtered sheep, sees
many flitting phantoms of wonderful wise, hears manifold voices, and
attains converse of the gods, and hath speech with Acheron and the deep
tract of hell. Here then, likewise seeking an answer, lord Latinus paid
fit sacrifice of an hundred woolly ewes, and [94-127]lay couched on the
strewn fleeces they had worn. Out of the lofty grove a sudden voice was
uttered: 'Seek not, O my child, to unite thy daughter in Latin
espousals, nor trust her to the bridal chambers ready to thine hand;
foreigners shall come to be thy sons, whose blood shall raise our name
to heaven, and the children of whose race shall see, where the circling
sun looks on either ocean, all the rolling world swayed beneath their
feet. ' This his father Faunus' answer and counsel given in the silent
night Latinus restrains not in his lips; but wide-flitting Rumour had
already borne it round among the Ausonian cities, when the children of
Laomedon moored their fleet to the grassy slope of the river bank.

Aeneas, with the foremost of his captains and fair Iulus, lay them down
under the boughs of a high tree and array the feast. They spread wheaten
cakes along the sward under their meats--so Jove on high prompted--and
crown the platter of corn with wilding fruits. Here haply when the rest
was spent, and scantness of food set them to eat their thin bread, and
with hand and venturous teeth do violence to the round cakes fraught
with fate and spare not the flattened squares: _Ha! Are we eating our
tables too? _ cries Iulus jesting, and stops. At once that accent heard
set their toils a limit; and at once as he spoke his father caught it
from his lips and hushed him, in amazement at the omen. Straightway
'Hail, O land! ' he cries, 'my destined inheritance! and hail, O
household gods, faithful to your Troy! here is home; this is our native
country. For my father Anchises, now I remember it, bequeathed me this
secret of fate: "When hunger shall drive thee, O son, to consume thy
tables where the feast fails, on the unknown shores whither thou shalt
sail; then, though outwearied, hope for home, and there at last let
thine hand remember to set thy house's foundations and bulwarks. " This
was [128-162]the hunger, this the last that awaited us, to set the
promised end to our desolations . . . Up then, and, glad with the first
sunbeam, let us explore and search all abroad from our harbour, what is
the country, who its habitants, where is the town of the nation. Now
pour your cups to Jove, and call in prayer on Anchises our father,
setting the wine again upon the board. ' So speaks he, and binding his
brows with a leafy bough, he makes supplication to the Genius of the
ground, and Earth first of deities, and the Nymphs, and the Rivers yet
unknown; then calls on Night and Night's rising signs, and next on Jove
of Ida, and our lady of Phrygia, and on his twain parents, in heaven and
in the under world. At this the Lord omnipotent thrice thundered sharp
from high heaven, and with his own hand shook out for a sign in the sky
a cloud ablaze with luminous shafts of gold. A sudden rumour spreads
among the Trojan array, that the day is come to found their destined
city. Emulously they renew the feast, and, glad at the high omen, array
the flagons and engarland the wine.

Soon as the morrow bathed the lands in its dawning light, they part to
search out the town, and the borders and shores of the nation: these are
the pools and spring of Numicus; this is the Tiber river; here dwell the
brave Latins. Then the seed of Anchises commands an hundred envoys
chosen of every degree to go to the stately royal city, all with the
wreathed boughs of Pallas, to bear him gifts and desire grace for the
Teucrians. Without delay they hasten on their message, and advance with
swift step. Himself he traces the city walls with a shallow trench, and
builds on it; and in fashion of a camp girdles this first settlement on
the shore with mound and battlements. And now his men had traversed
their way; they espied the towers and steep roofs of the Latins, and
drew near the wall. Before the city boys and men in their early
[163-196]bloom exercise on horseback, and break in their teams on the
dusty ground, or draw ringing bows, or hurl tough javelins from the
shoulder, and contend in running and boxing: when a messenger riding
forward brings news to the ears of the aged King that mighty men are
come thither in unknown raiment. He gives orders to call them within his
house, and takes his seat in the midst on his ancestral throne. His
house, stately and vast, crowned the city, upreared on an hundred
columns, once the palace of Laurentian Picus, amid awful groves of
ancestral sanctity. Here their kings receive the inaugural sceptre, and
have the fasces first raised before them; this temple was their
senate-house; this their sacred banqueting-hall; here, after sacrifice
of rams, the elders were wont to sit down at long tables. Further, there
stood arow in the entry images of the forefathers of old in ancient
cedar, Italus, and lord Sabinus, planter of the vine, still holding in
show the curved pruning-hook, and gray Saturn, and the likeness of Janus
the double-facing, and the rest of their primal kings, and they who had
borne wounds of war in fighting for their country. Armour besides hangs
thickly on the sacred doors, captured chariots and curved axes,
helmet-crests and massy gateway-bars, lances and shields, and beaks torn
from warships. He too sat there, with the divining-rod of Quirinus, girt
in the short augural gown, and carrying on his left arm the sacred
shield, Picus the tamer of horses; he whom Circe, desperate with amorous
desire, smote with her golden rod and turned by her poisons into a bird
with patches of colour on his wings. Of such wise was the temple of the
gods wherein Latinus, sitting on his father's seat, summoned the
Teucrians to his house and presence; and when they entered in, he thus
opened with placid mien:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When in this vain essay of words she sees Latinus fixed against her, and
the serpent's maddening poison is sunk deep in her vitals and runs
through and through her, then indeed, stung by infinite horrors, hapless
and frenzied, she rages wildly through the endless city. As whilome a
top flying under the twisted whipcord, which boys busy at their play
drive circling wide round an empty hall, runs before the lash and spins
in wide gyrations; the witless ungrown band hang wondering over it and
admire the whirling boxwood; the strokes lend it life: with pace no
slacker is she borne midway through towns and valiant nations. Nay, she
flies into the woodland under feigned Bacchic influence, assumes a
greater guilt, arouses a greater frenzy, and hides her daughter in the
mountain coverts to rob the Teucrians of their bridal and stay the
marriage torches. 'Hail, Bacchus! ' she shrieks and clamours; 'thou only
art worthy of the maiden; for to thee she takes up the lissom wands,
thee she circles in the dance, to thee she trains and consecrates her
tresses. ' Rumour flies abroad; and the matrons, their breasts kindled by
the furies, run all at once [393-426]with a single ardour to seek out
strange dwellings.