Him a Trojan mother conceived and bore
to Crimisus river; not forgetful of his parentage, he wishes them joy of
their return, and gladly entertains them on his rustic treasure and
comforts their weariness with his friendly store.
to Crimisus river; not forgetful of his parentage, he wishes them joy of
their return, and gladly entertains them on his rustic treasure and
comforts their weariness with his friendly store.
Virgil - Aeneid
Here is my desire; this is my native country.
If thy
Phoenician eyes are stayed on Carthage towers and thy Libyan city, what
wrong is it, I pray, that we Trojans find our rest on Ausonian land? We
too may seek a foreign realm unforbidden. In my sleep, often as the dank
shades of night veil the earth, often as the stars lift their fires, the
troubled phantom of my father Anchises comes in warning and dread; my
boy Ascanius, how I wrong one so dear in cheating him of an Hesperian
kingdom and destined fields. Now even the gods' interpreter, sent
straight from Jove--I call both to witness--hath borne down his commands
through the fleet air. Myself in broad daylight I saw the deity passing
within the walls, and these ears drank his utterance. Cease to madden me
and thyself alike with plaints. Not of my will do I follow Italy. . . . '
Long ere he ended she gazes on him askance, turning her eyes from side
to side and perusing him with silent glances; then thus wrathfully
speaks:
'No goddess was thy mother, nor Dardanus founder of thy line, traitor!
but rough Caucasus bore thee on his iron crags, and Hyrcanian tigresses
gave thee suck. For why do I conceal it? For what further outrage do I
wait? [369-400]Hath our weeping cost him a sigh, or a lowered glance?
Hath he broken into tears, or had pity on his lover? Where, where shall
I begin? Now neither doth Queen Juno nor our Saturnian lord regard us
with righteous eyes. Nowhere is trust safe. Cast ashore and destitute I
welcomed him, and madly gave him place and portion in my kingdom; I
found him his lost fleet and drew his crews from death. Alas, the fire
of madness speeds me on. Now prophetic Apollo, now oracles of Lycia, now
the very gods' interpreter sent straight from Jove through the air
carries these rude commands! Truly that is work for the gods, that a
care to vex their peace! I detain thee not, nor gainsay thy words: go,
follow thine Italy down the wind; seek thy realm overseas. Yet midway my
hope is, if righteous gods can do aught at all, thou wilt drain the cup
of vengeance on the rocks, and re-echo calls on Dido's name. In murky
fires I will follow far away, and when chill death hath severed body
from soul, my ghost will haunt thee in every region. Wretch, thou shalt
repay! I will hear; and the rumour of it shall reach me deep in the
under world. '
Even on these words she breaks off her speech unfinished, and, sick at
heart, escapes out of the air and sweeps round and away out of sight,
leaving him in fear and much hesitance, and with much on his mind to
say. Her women catch her in their arms, and carry her swooning to her
marble chamber and lay her on her bed.
But good Aeneas, though he would fain soothe and comfort her grief, and
talk away her distress, with many a sigh, and melted in soul by his
great love, yet fulfils the divine commands and returns to his fleet.
Then indeed the Teucrians set to work, and haul down their tall ships
all along the shore. The hulls are oiled and afloat; they carry from the
woodland green boughs for oars and massy logs unhewn, in hot haste to
go. . . . One might descry them shifting [401-433]their quarters and
pouring out of all the town: even as ants, mindful of winter, plunder a
great heap of wheat and store it in their house; a black column advances
on the plain as they carry home their spoil on a narrow track through
the grass. Some shove and strain with their shoulders at big grains,
some marshal the ranks and chastise delay; all the path is aswarm with
work. What then were thy thoughts, O Dido, as thou sawest it? What sighs
didst thou utter, viewing from the fortress roof the broad beach aswarm,
and seeing before thine eyes the whole sea stirred with their noisy din?
Injurious Love, to what dost thou not compel mortal hearts! Again, she
must needs break into tears, again essay entreaty, and bow her spirit
down to love, not to leave aught untried and go to death in vain.
'Anna, thou seest the bustle that fills the shore. They have gathered
round from every quarter; already their canvas woos the breezes, and the
merry sailors have garlanded the sterns. This great pain, my sister, I
shall have strength to bear, as I have had strength to foresee. Yet this
one thing, Anna, for love and pity's sake--for of thee alone was the
traitor fain, to thee even his secret thoughts were confided, alone thou
knewest his moods and tender fits--go, my sister, and humbly accost the
haughty stranger: I did not take the Grecian oath in Aulis to root out
the race of Troy; I sent no fleet against her fortresses; neither have I
disentombed his father Anchises' ashes and ghost, that he should refuse
my words entrance to his stubborn ears. Whither does he run? let him
grant this grace--alas, the last! --to his lover, and await fair winds
and an easy passage. No more do I pray for the old delusive marriage,
nor that he give up fair Latium and abandon a kingdom. A breathing-space
I ask, to give my madness rest and room, till my very [434-469]fortune
teach my grief submission. This last favour I implore: sister, be
pitiful; grant this to me, and I will restore it in full measure when I
die. '
So she pleaded, and so her sister carries and recarries the piteous tale
of weeping. But by no weeping is he stirred, inflexible to all the words
he hears. Fate withstands, and lays divine bars on unmoved mortal ears.
Even as when the eddying blasts of northern Alpine winds are emulous to
uproot the secular strength of a mighty oak, it wails on, and the trunk
quivers and the high foliage strews the ground; the tree clings fast on
the rocks, and high as her top soars into heaven, so deep strike her
roots to hell; even thus is the hero buffeted with changeful perpetual
accents, and distress thrills his mighty breast, while his purpose stays
unstirred, and tears fall in vain.
Then indeed, hapless and dismayed by doom, Dido prays for death, and is
weary of gazing on the arch of heaven. The more to make her fulfil her
purpose and quit the light, she saw, when she laid her gifts on the
altars alight with incense, awful to tell, the holy streams blacken, and
the wine turn as it poured into ghastly blood. Of this sight she spoke
to none--no, not to her sister. Likewise there was within the house a
marble temple of her ancient lord, kept of her in marvellous honour, and
fastened with snowy fleeces and festal boughs. Forth of it she seemed to
hear her husband's voice crying and calling when night was dim upon
earth, and alone on the house-tops the screech-owl often made moan with
funeral note and long-drawn sobbing cry. Therewithal many a warning of
wizards of old terrifies her with appalling presage. In her sleep fierce
Aeneas drives her wildly, and ever she seems being left by herself
alone, ever going uncompanioned on a weary way, and seeking her Tyrians
in a solitary land: even as frantic Pentheus sees the [470-503]arrayed
Furies and a double sun, and Thebes shows herself twofold to his eyes:
or Agamemnonian Orestes, renowned in tragedy, when his mother pursues
him armed with torches and dark serpents, and the Fatal Sisters crouch
avenging in the doorway.
So when, overcome by her pangs, she caught the madness and resolved to
die, she works out secretly the time and fashion, and accosts her
sorrowing sister with mien hiding her design and hope calm on her brow.
'I have found a way, mine own--wish me joy, sisterlike--to restore him
to me or release me of my love for him. Hard by the ocean limit and the
set of sun is the extreme Aethiopian land, where ancient Atlas turns on
his shoulders the starred burning axletree of heaven. Out of it hath
been shown to me a priestess of Massylian race, warder of the temple of
the Hesperides, even she who gave the dragon his food, and kept the holy
boughs on the tree, sprinkling clammy honey and slumberous poppy-seed.
She professes with her spells to relax the purposes of whom she will,
but on others to bring passion and pain; to stay the river-waters and
turn the stars backward: she calls up ghosts by night; thou shalt see
earth moaning under foot and mountain-ashes descending from the hills. I
take heaven, sweet, to witness, and thee, mine own darling sister, I do
not willingly arm myself with the arts of magic. Do thou secretly raise
a pyre in the inner court, and let them lay on it the arms that the
accursed one left hanging in our chamber, and all the dress he wore, and
the bridal bed where I fell. It is good to wipe out all the wretch's
traces, and the priestess orders thus. ' So speaks she, and is silent,
while pallor overruns her face. Yet Anna deems not her sister veils
death behind these strange rites, and grasps not her wild purpose, nor
fears aught deeper than at Sychaeus' death. So she makes ready as
bidden. . . .
[504-538]But the Queen, the pyre being built up of piled faggots and
sawn ilex in the inmost of her dwelling, hangs the room with chaplets
and garlands it with funeral boughs: on the pillow she lays the dress he
wore, the sword he left, and an image of him, knowing what was to come.
Altars are reared around, and the priestess, with hair undone, thrice
peals from her lips the hundred gods of Erebus and Chaos, and the
triform Hecate, the triple-faced maidenhood of Diana. Likewise she had
sprinkled pretended waters of Avernus' spring, and rank herbs are sought
mown by moonlight with brazen sickles, dark with milky venom, and sought
is the talisman torn from a horse's forehead at birth ere the dam could
snatch it. . . . Herself, the holy cake in her pure hands, hard by the
altars, with one foot unshod and garments flowing loose, she invokes the
gods ere she die, and the stars that know of doom; then prays to
whatsoever deity looks in righteousness and remembrance on lovers ill
allied.
Night fell; weary creatures took quiet slumber all over earth, and
woodland and wild waters had sunk to rest; now the stars wheel midway on
their gliding path, now all the country is silent, and beasts and gay
birds that haunt liquid levels of lake or thorny rustic thicket lay
couched asleep under the still night. But not so the distressed
Phoenician, nor does she ever sink asleep or take the night upon eyes or
breast; her pain redoubles, and her love swells to renewed madness, as
she tosses on the strong tide of wrath. Even so she begins, and thus
revolves with her heart alone:
'See, what do I? Shall I again make trial of mine old wooers that will
scorn me? and stoop to sue for a Numidian marriage among those whom
already over and over I have disdained for husbands? Then shall I follow
the Ilian fleets and the uttermost bidding of the Teucrians? because it
is good to think they were once raised up by my [539-570]succour, or
the grace of mine old kindness is fresh in their remembrance? And how
should they let me, if I would? or take the odious woman on their
haughty ships? art thou ignorant, ah me, even in ruin, and knowest not
yet the forsworn race of Laomedon? And then? shall I accompany the
triumphant sailors, a lonely fugitive? or plunge forth girt with all my
Tyrian train? so hardly severed from Sidon city, shall I again drive
them seaward, and bid them spread their sails to the tempest? Nay die
thou, as thou deservest, and let the steel end thy pain. With thee it
began; overborne by my tears, thou, O my sister, dost load me with this
madness and agony, and layest me open to the enemy. I could not spend a
wild life without stain, far from a bridal chamber, and free from touch
of distress like this! O faith ill kept, that was plighted to Sychaeus'
ashes! ' Thus her heart broke in long lamentation.
Now Aeneas was fixed to go, and now, with all set duly in order, was
taking hasty sleep on his high stern. To him as he slept the god
appeared once again in the same fashion of countenance, and thus seemed
to renew his warning, in all points like to Mercury, voice and hue and
golden hair and limbs gracious in youth. 'Goddess-born, canst thou sleep
on in such danger? and seest not the coming perils that hem thee in,
madman! nor hearest the breezes blowing fair? She, fixed on death, is
revolving craft and crime grimly in her bosom, and swells the changing
surge of wrath. Fliest thou not hence headlong, while headlong flight is
yet possible? Even now wilt thou see ocean weltering with broken
timbers, see the fierce glare of torches and the beach in a riot of
flame, if dawn break on thee yet dallying in this land. Up ho! linger no
more! Woman is ever a fickle and changing thing. ' So spoke he, and
melted in the black night.
[571-603]Then indeed Aeneas, startled by the sudden phantom, leaps out
of slumber and bestirs his crew. 'Haste and awake, O men, and sit down
to the thwarts; shake out sail speedily. A god sent from high heaven,
lo! again spurs us to speed our flight and cut the twisted cables. We
follow thee, holy one of heaven, whoso thou art, and again joyfully obey
thy command. O be favourable; give gracious aid and bring fair sky and
weather. ' He spoke, and snatching his sword like lightning from the
sheath, strikes at the hawser with the drawn steel. The same zeal
catches all at once; rushing and tearing they quit the shore; the sea is
hidden under their fleets; strongly they toss up the foam and sweep the
blue water.
And now Dawn broke, and, leaving the saffron bed of Tithonus, shed her
radiance anew over the world; when the Queen saw from her watch-tower
the first light whitening, and the fleet standing out under squared
sail, and discerned shore and haven empty of all their oarsmen. Thrice
and four times she struck her hand on her lovely breast and rent her
yellow hair: 'God! ' she cries, 'shall he go? shall an alien make mock of
our realm? Will they not issue in armed pursuit from all the city, and
some launch ships from the dockyards? Go; bring fire in haste, serve
weapons, swing out the oars! What do I talk? or where am I? what mad
change is on my purpose? Alas, Dido! now thou dost feel thy wickedness;
that had graced thee once, when thou gavest away thy crown. Behold the
faith and hand of him! who, they say, carries his household's ancestral
gods about with him! who stooped his shoulders to a father outworn with
age! Could I not have riven his body in sunder and strewn it on the
waves? and slain with the sword his comrades and his dear Ascanius, and
served him for the banquet at his father's table? But the chance of
battle had been dubious. If it had! whom did I fear [604-635]with my
death upon me? I should have borne firebrands into his camp and filled
his decks with flame, blotted out father and son and race together, and
flung myself atop of all. Sun, whose fires lighten all the works of the
world, and thou, Juno, mediatress and witness of these my distresses,
and Hecate, cried on by night in crossways of cities, and you, fatal
avenging sisters and gods of dying Elissa, hear me now; bend your just
deity to my woes, and listen to our prayers. If it must needs be that
the accursed one touch his haven and float up to land, if thus Jove's
decrees demand, and this is the appointed term,--yet, distressed in war
by an armed and gallant nation, driven homeless from his borders, rent
from Iulus' embrace, let him sue for succour and see death on death
untimely on his people; nor when he hath yielded him to the terms of a
harsh peace, may he have joy of his kingdom or the pleasant light; but
let him fall before his day and without burial on a waste of sand. This
I pray; this and my blood with it I pour for the last utterance. And
you, O Tyrians, hunt his seed with your hatred for all ages to come;
send this guerdon to our ashes. Let no kindness nor truce be between the
nations. Arise out of our dust, O unnamed avenger, to pursue the
Dardanian settlement with firebrand and steel. Now, then, whensoever
strength shall be given, I invoke the enmity of shore to shore, wave to
water, sword to sword; let their battles go down to their children's
children. '
So speaks she as she kept turning her mind round about, seeking how
soonest to break away from the hateful light. Thereon she speaks briefly
to Barce, nurse of Sychaeus; for a heap of dusky ashes held her own, in
her country of long ago:
'Sweet nurse, bring Anna my sister hither to me. Bid her haste and
sprinkle river water over her body, and bring [636-667]with her the
beasts ordained for expiation: so let her come: and thou likewise veil
thy brows with a pure chaplet. I would fulfil the rites of Stygian Jove
that I have fitly ordered and begun, so to set the limit to my
distresses and give over to the flames the funeral pyre of the
Dardanian. '
So speaks she; the old woman went eagerly with quickened pace. But Dido,
fluttered and fierce in her awful purpose, with bloodshot restless gaze,
and spots on her quivering cheeks burning through the pallor of imminent
death, bursts into the inner courts of the house, and mounts in madness
the high funeral pyre, and unsheathes the sword of Dardania, a gift
asked for no use like this. Then after her eyes fell on the Ilian
raiment and the bed she knew, dallying a little with her purpose through
her tears, she sank on the pillow and spoke the last words of all:
'Dress he wore, sweet while doom and deity allowed! receive my spirit
now, and release me from my distresses. I have lived and fulfilled
Fortune's allotted course; and now shall I go a queenly phantom under
the earth. I have built a renowned city; I have seen my ramparts rise;
by my brother's punishment I have avenged my husband of his enemy;
happy, ah me! and over happy, had but the keels of Dardania never
touched our shores! ' She spoke; and burying her face in the pillow,
'Death it will be,' she cries, 'and unavenged; but death be it. Thus,
thus is it good to pass into the dark. Let the pitiless Dardanian's gaze
drink in this fire out at sea, and my death be the omen he carries on
his way. '
She ceased; and even as she spoke her people see her sunk on the steel,
and blood reeking on the sword and spattered on her hands. A cry rises
in the high halls; Rumour riots down the quaking city. The house
resounds with lamentation and sobbing and bitter crying of women;
[668-700]heaven echoes their loud wails; even as though all Carthage or
ancient Tyre went down as the foe poured in, and the flames rolled
furious over the roofs of house and temple. Swooning at the sound, her
sister runs in a flutter of dismay, with torn face and smitten bosom,
and darts through them all, and calls the dying woman by her name. 'Was
it this, mine own? Was my summons a snare? Was it this thy pyre, ah me,
this thine altar fires meant? How shall I begin my desolate moan? Didst
thou disdain a sister's company in death? Thou shouldst have called me
to share thy doom; in the self-same hour, the self-same pang of steel
had been our portion. Did these very hands build it, did my voice call
on our father's gods, that with thee lying thus I should be away as one
without pity? Thou hast destroyed thyself and me together, O my sister,
and the Sidonian lords and people, and this thy city. Give her wounds
water: I will bathe them and catch on my lips the last breath that haply
yet lingers. ' So speaking she had climbed the high steps, and, wailing,
clasped and caressed her half-lifeless sister in her bosom, and stanched
the dark streams of blood with her gown. She, essaying to lift her heavy
eyes, swoons back; the deep-driven wound gurgles in her breast. Thrice
she rose, and strained to lift herself on her elbow; thrice she rolled
back on the pillow, and with wandering eyes sought the light of high
heaven, and moaned as she found it.
Then Juno omnipotent, pitying her long pain and difficult decease, sent
Iris down from heaven to unloose the struggling life from the body where
it clung. For since neither by fate did she perish, nor as one who had
earned her death, but woefully before her day, and fired by sudden
madness, not yet had Proserpine taken her lock from the golden head, nor
sentenced her to the Stygian under world. So Iris on dewy saffron
pinions flits down through the sky [701-705]athwart the sun in a trail
of a thousand changing dyes, and stopping over her head: 'This hair,
sacred to Dis, I take as bidden, and release thee from that body of
thine. ' So speaks she, and cuts it with her hand. And therewith all the
warmth ebbed forth from her, and the life passed away upon the winds.
BOOK FIFTH
THE GAMES OF THE FLEET
Meanwhile Aeneas and his fleet in unwavering track now held mid passage,
and cleft the waves that blackened under the North, looking back on the
city that even now gleams with hapless Elissa's funeral flame. Why the
broad blaze is lit lies unknown; but the bitter pain of a great love
trampled, and the knowledge of what woman can do in madness, draw the
Teucrians' hearts to gloomy guesses.
When their ships held the deep, nor any land farther appears, the seas
all round, and all round the sky, a dusky shower drew up overhead,
carrying night and storm, and the wave shuddered and gloomed. Palinurus,
master of the fleet, cries from the high stern: 'Alas, why have these
heavy storm-clouds girt the sky? lord Neptune, what wilt thou? ' Then he
bids clear the rigging and bend strongly to the oars, and brings the
sails across the wind, saying thus:
'Noble Aeneas, not did Jupiter give word and warrant would I hope to
reach Italy under such a sky. The shifting winds roar athwart our
course, and blow stronger out of the black west, and the air thickens
into mist: nor are we fit to force our way on and across. Fortune is the
stronger; let us follow her, and turn our course whither she calls.
[23-55]Not far away, I think, are the faithful shores of thy brother
Eryx, and the Sicilian haven, if only my memory retraces rightly the
stars I watched before. '
Then good Aeneas: 'Even I ere now discern the winds will have it so, and
thou urgest against them in vain. Turn thou the course of our sailing.
Could any land be welcomer to me, or where I would sooner choose to put
in my weary ships, than this that hath Dardanian Acestes to greet me,
and laps in its embrace lord Anchises' dust? ' This said, they steer for
harbour, while the following west wind stretches their sails; the fleet
runs fast down the flood, and at last they land joyfully on the familiar
beach. But Acestes high on a hill-top, amazed at the friendly squadron
approaching from afar, hastens towards them, weaponed and clad in the
shaggy skin of a Libyan she-bear.
Him a Trojan mother conceived and bore
to Crimisus river; not forgetful of his parentage, he wishes them joy of
their return, and gladly entertains them on his rustic treasure and
comforts their weariness with his friendly store. So soon as the
morrow's clear daylight had chased the stars out of the east, Aeneas
calls his comrades along the beach together, and from a mounded hillock
speaks:
'Great people of Dardanus, born of the high blood of gods, the yearly
circle of the months is measured out to fulfilment since we laid the
dust in earth, all that was left of my divine father, and sadly
consecrated our altars. And now the day is at hand (this, O gods, was
your will), which I will ever keep in grief, ever in honour. Did I spend
it an exile on Gaetulian quicksands, did it surprise me on the Argolic
sea or in Mycenae town, yet would I fulfil the yearly vows and annual
ordinance of festival, and pile the altars with their due gifts. Now we
are led hither, to the very dust and ashes of our father, not as I deem
without [56-90]divine purpose and influence, and borne home into the
friendly haven. Up then and let us all gather joyfully to the sacrifice:
pray we for winds, and may he deign that I pay these rites to him year
by year in an established city and consecrated temple. Two head of oxen
Acestes, the seed of Troy, gives to each of your ships by tale: invite
to the feast your own ancestral gods of the household, and those whom
our host Acestes worships. Further, so the ninth Dawn uplift the
gracious day upon men, and her shafts unveil the world, I will ordain
contests for my Trojans; first for swift ships; then whoso excels in the
foot-race, and whoso, confident in strength and skill, comes to shoot
light arrows, or adventures to join battle with gloves of raw hide; let
all be here, and let merit look for the prize and palm. Now all be
hushed, and twine your temples with boughs. '
So speaks he, and shrouds his brows with his mother's myrtle. So Helymus
does, so Aletes ripe of years, so the boy Ascanius, and the rest of the
people follow. He advances from the assembly to the tomb among a throng
of many thousands that crowd about him; here he pours on the ground in
fit libation two goblets of pure wine, two of new milk, two of
consecrated blood, and flings bright blossoms, saying thus: 'Hail, holy
father, once again; hail, ashes of him I saved in vain, and soul and
shade of my sire! Thou wert not to share the search for Italian borders
and destined fields, nor the dim Ausonian Tiber. ' Thus had he spoken;
when from beneath the sanctuary a snake slid out in seven vast coils and
sevenfold slippery spires, quietly circling the grave and gliding from
altar to altar, his green chequered body and the spotted lustre of his
scales ablaze with gold, as the bow in the cloud darts a thousand
changing dyes athwart the sun: Aeneas stood amazed at the sight. At last
he wound [91-126]his long train among the vessels and polished cups,
and tasted the feast, and again leaving the altars where he had fed,
crept harmlessly back beneath the tomb. Doubtful if he shall think it
the Genius of the ground or his father's ministrant, he slays, as is
fit, two sheep of two years old, as many swine and dark-backed steers,
pouring the while cups of wine, and calling on the soul of great
Anchises and the ghost rearisen from Acheron. Therewithal his comrades,
as each hath store, bring gifts to heap joyfully on the altars, and slay
steers in sacrifice: others set cauldrons arow, and, lying along the
grass, heap live embers under spits and roast the flesh.
The desired day came, and now the ninth Dawn rode up clear and bright
behind Phaethon's coursers; and the name and renown of illustrious
Acestes had stirred up all the bordering people; their holiday throng
filled the shore, to see Aeneas' men, and some ready to join in contest.
First of all the prizes are laid out to view in the middle of the
racecourse; tripods of sacrifice, green garlands and palms, the reward
of the conquerors, armour and garments dipped in purple, talents of
silver and gold: and from a hillock in the midst the trumpet sounds the
games begun. First is the contest of rowing, and four ships matched in
weight enter, the choice of all the fleet. Mnestheus' keen oarsmen drive
the swift Dragon, Mnestheus the Italian to be, from whose name is the
Memmian family; Gyas the huge bulk of the huge Chimaera, a floating
town, whom her triple-tiered Dardanian crew urge on with oars rising in
threefold rank; Sergestus, from whom the Sergian house holds her name,
sails in the tall Centaur; and in the sea-coloured Scylla Cloanthus,
whence is thy family, Cluentius of Rome.
Apart in the sea and over against the foaming beach, lies a rock that
the swoln waves beat and drown what time the [127-159]north-western
gales of winter blot out the stars; in calm it rises silent out of the
placid water, flat-topped, and a haunt where cormorants love best to
take the sun. Here lord Aeneas set up a goal of leafy ilex, a mark for
the sailors to know whence to return, where to wheel their long course
round. Then they choose stations by lot, and on the sterns their
captains glitter afar, beautiful in gold and purple; the rest of the
crews are crowned with poplar sprays, and their naked shoulders glisten
wet with oil. They sit down at the thwarts, and their arms are tense on
the oars; at full strain they wait the signal, while throbbing fear and
heightened ambition drain their riotous blood. Then, when the clear
trumpet-note rang, all in a moment leap forward from their line; the
shouts of the sailors strike up to heaven, and the channels are swept
into foam by the arms as they swing backward. They cleave their furrows
together, and all the sea is torn asunder by oars and triple-pointed
prows. Not with speed so headlong do racing pairs whirl the chariots
over the plain, as they rush streaming from the barriers; not so do
their charioteers shake the wavy reins loose over their team, and hang
forward on the whip. All the woodland rings with clapping and shouts of
men that cheer their favourites, and the sheltered beach eddies back
their cries; the noise buffets and re-echoes from the hills. Gyas shoots
out in front of the noisy crowd, and glides foremost along the water;
whom Cloanthus follows next, rowing better, but held back by his
dragging weight of pine. After them, at equal distance, the Dragon and
the Centaur strive to win the foremost room; and now the Dragon has it,
now the vast Centaur outstrips and passes her; now they dart on both
together, their stems in a line, and their keels driving long furrows
through the salt water-ways. And now they drew nigh the rock, and were
hard [160-193]on the goal; when Gyas as he led, winner over half the
flood, cries aloud to Menoetes, the ship's steersman: 'Whither away so
far to the right? This way direct her path; kiss the shore, and let the
oarblade graze the leftward reefs. Others may keep to deep water. ' He
spoke; but Menoetes, fearing blind rocks, turns the bow away towards the
open sea. 'Whither wanderest thou away? to the rocks, Menoetes! ' again
shouts Gyas to bring him back; and lo! glancing round he sees Cloanthus
passing up behind and keeping nearer. Between Gyas' ship and the echoing
crags he scrapes through inside on his left, flashes past his leader,
and leaving the goal behind is in safe water. Then indeed grief burned
fierce through his strong frame, and tears sprung out on his cheeks;
heedless of his own dignity and his crew's safety, he flings the too
cautious Menoetes sheer into the sea from the high stern, himself
succeeds as guide and master of the helm, and cheers on his men, and
turns his tiller in to shore. But Menoetes, when at last he rose
struggling from the bottom, heavy with advancing years and wet in his
dripping clothes, makes for the top of the crag, and sits down on a dry
rock. The Teucrians laughed out as he fell and as he swam, and laugh to
see him spitting the salt water from his chest. At this a joyful hope
kindled in the two behind, Sergestus and Mnestheus, of catching up Gyas'
wavering course. Sergestus slips forward as he nears the rock, yet not
all in front, nor leading with his length of keel; part is in front,
part pressed by the Dragon's jealous prow. But striding amidships
between his comrades, Mnestheus cheers them on: 'Now, now swing back,
oarsmen who were Hector's comrades, whom I chose to follow me in Troy's
extremity; now put forth the might and courage you showed in Gaetulian
quicksands, amid Ionian seas and Malea's chasing waves. Not the first
[194-227]place do I now seek for Mnestheus, nor strive for victory;
though ah! --yet let them win, O Neptune, to whom thou givest it. But the
shame of coming in last! Win but this, fellow-citizens, and avert that
disaster! ' His men bend forward, straining every muscle; the brasswork
of the ship quivers to their mighty strokes, and the ground runs from
under her; limbs and parched lips shake with their rapid panting, and
sweat flows in streams all over them. Mere chance brought the crew the
glory they desired. For while Sergestus drives his prow furiously in
towards the rocks and comes up with too scanty room, alas! he caught on
a rock that ran out; the reef ground, the oars struck and shivered on
the jagged teeth, and the bows crashed and hung. The sailors leap up and
hold her with loud cries, and get out iron-shod poles and sharp-pointed
boathooks, and pick up their broken oars out of the eddies. But
Mnestheus, rejoicing and flushed by his triumph, with oars fast-dipping
and winds at his call, issues into the shelving water and runs down the
open sea. As a pigeon whose house and sweet nestlings are in the rock's
recesses, if suddenly startled from her cavern, wings her flight over
the fields and rushes frightened from her house with loud clapping
pinions; then gliding noiselessly through the air, slides on her liquid
way and moves not her rapid wings; so Mnestheus, so the Dragon under him
swiftly cleaves the last space of sea, so her own speed carries her
flying on. And first Sergestus is left behind, struggling on the steep
rock and shoal water, and shouting in vain for help and learning to race
with broken oars. Next he catches up Gyas and the vast bulk of the
Chimaera; she gives way, without her steersman. And now on the very goal
Cloanthus alone is left; him he pursues and presses hard, straining all
his strength. Then indeed the shouts redouble, as all together eagerly
cheer on the pursuer, and [228-264]the sky echoes their din. These
scorn to lose the honour that is their own, the glory in their grasp,
and would sell life for renown; to these success lends life; power comes
with belief in it. And haply they had carried the prize with prows
abreast, had not Cloanthus, stretching both his open hands over the sea,
poured forth prayers and called the gods to hear his vows: 'Gods who are
sovereign on the sea, over whose waters I run, to your altars on this
beach will I bring a snow-white bull, my vow's glad penalty, and will
cast his entrails into the salt flood and pour liquid wine. ' He spoke,
and far beneath the flood maiden Panopea heard him, with all Phorcus'
choir of Nereids, and lord Portunus with his own mighty hand pushed him
on his way. The ship flies to land swifter than the wind or an arrow's
flight, and shoots into the deep harbour. Then the seed of Anchises,
summoning all in order, declares Cloanthus conqueror by herald's outcry,
and dresses his brows in green bay, and gives gifts to each crew, three
bullocks of their choice, and wine, and a large talent of silver to take
away. For their captains he adds special honours; to the winner a scarf
wrought with gold, encircled by a double border of deep Meliboean
purple; woven in it is the kingly boy on leafy Ida, chasing swift stags
with javelin and racing feet, keen and as one panting; him Jove's
swooping armour-bearer hath caught up from Ida in his talons; his aged
guardians stretch their hands vainly upwards, and the barking of hounds
rings fierce into the air. But to him who, next in merit, held the
second place, he gives to wear a corslet triple-woven with hooks of
polished gold, stripped by his own conquering hand from Demoleos under
tall Troy by the swift Simois, an ornament and safeguard among arms.
Scarce could the straining shoulders of his servants Phegeus and Sagaris
carry its heavy folds; yet with it on, Demoleos at [265-302]full speed
would chase the scattered Trojans. The third prize he makes twin
cauldrons of brass, and bowls wrought in silver and rough with tracery.
And now all moved away in the pride and wealth of their prizes, their
brows bound with scarlet ribbons; when, hardly torn loose by all his art
from the cruel rock, his oars lost, rowing feebly with a single tier,
Sergestus brought in his ship jeered at and unhonoured. Even as often a
serpent caught on a highway, if a brazen wheel hath gone aslant over him
or a wayfarer left him half dead and mangled with the blow of a heavy
stone, wreathes himself slowly in vain effort to escape, in part
undaunted, his eyes ablaze and his hissing throat lifted high; in part
the disabling wound keeps him coiling in knots and twisting back on his
own body; so the ship kept rowing slowly on, yet hoists sail and under
full sail glides into the harbour mouth. Glad that the ship is saved and
the crew brought back, Aeneas presents Sergestus with his promised
reward. A slave woman is given him not unskilled in Minerva's labours,
Pholoe the Cretan, with twin boys at her breast.
This contest sped, good Aeneas moved to a grassy plain girt all about
with winding wooded hills, and amid the valley an amphitheatre, whither,
with a concourse of many thousands, the hero advanced and took his seat
on a mound. Here he allures with rewards and offer of prizes those who
will try their hap in the fleet foot-race. Trojans and Sicilians gather
mingling from all sides, Nisus and Euryalus foremost . . . Euryalus in
the flower of youth and famed for beauty, Nisus for pure love of the
boy. Next follows renowned Diores, of Priam's royal line; after him
Salius and Patron together, the one Acarnanian, the other Tegean by
family and of Arcadian blood; next two men of Sicily, Helymus and
Panopes, foresters and attendants on old Acestes; many besides whose
fame is hid in [303-338]obscurity. Then among them all Aeneas spoke
thus: 'Hearken to this, and attend in good cheer. None out of this
number will I let go without a gift. To each will I give two glittering
Gnosian spearheads of polished steel, and an axe chased with silver to
bear away; one and all shall be honoured thus. The three foremost shall
receive prizes, and have pale olive bound about their head. The first
shall have a caparisoned horse as conqueror; the second an Amazonian
quiver filled with arrows of Thrace, girt about by a broad belt of gold,
and on the link of the clasp a polished gem; let the third depart with
this Argolic helmet for recompense. ' This said, they take their place,
and the signal once heard, dart over the course and leave the line,
pouring forth like a storm-cloud while they mark the goal. Nisus gets
away first, and shoots out far in front of the throng, fleeter than the
winds or the winged thunderbolt. Next to him, but next by a long gap,
Salius follows; then, left a space behind him, Euryalus third . . . and
Helymus comes after Euryalus; and close behind him, lo! Diores goes
flying, just grazing foot with foot, hard on his shoulder; and if a
longer space were left, he would creep out past him and win the tie. And
now almost in the last space, they began to come up breathless to the
goal, when unfortunate Nisus trips on the slippery blood of the slain
steers, where haply it had spilled over the ground and wetted the green
grass. Here, just in the flush of victory, he lost his feet; they slid
away on the ground they pressed, and he fell forward right among the
ordure and blood of the sacrifice. Yet forgot he not his darling
Euryalus; for rising, he flung himself over the slippery ground in front
of Salius, and he rolled over and lay all along on the hard sand.
Euryalus shoots by, wins and holds the first place his friend gave, and
flies on amid prosperous clapping and cheers. Behind Helymus comes
[339-373]up, and Diores, now third for the palm. At this Salius fills
with loud clamour the whole concourse of the vast theatre, and the lords
who looked on in front, demanding restoration of his defrauded prize.
Euryalus is strong in favour, and beauty in tears, and the merit that
gains grace from so fair a form. Diores supports him, who succeeded to
the palm, so he loudly cries, and bore off the last prize in vain, if
the highest honours be restored to Salius. Then lord Aeneas speaks: 'For
you, O boys, your rewards remain assured, and none alters the prizes'
order: let me be allowed to pity a friend's innocent mischance. ' So
speaking, he gives to Salius a vast Gaetulian lion-skin, with shaggy
masses of hair and claws of gold. 'If this,' cries Nisus, 'is the reward
of defeat, and thy pity is stirred for the fallen, what fit recompense
wilt thou give to Nisus? to my excellence the first crown was due, had
not I, like Salius, met Fortune's hostility. ' And with the words he
displayed his face and limbs foul with the wet dung. His lord laughed
kindly on him, and bade a shield be brought forth, the workmanship of
Didymaon, torn by him from the hallowed gates of Neptune's Grecian
temple; with this special prize he rewards his excellence.
Thereafter, when the races are finished and the gifts fulfilled: 'Now,'
he cries, 'come, whoso hath in him valour and ready heart, and lift up
his arms with gauntleted hands. ' So speaks he, and sets forth a double
prize of battle; for the conqueror a bullock gilt and garlanded; a sword
and beautiful helmet to console the conquered. Straightway without pause
Dares issues to view in his vast strength, rising amid loud murmurs of
the people; he who alone was wont to meet Paris in combat; he who, at
the mound where princely Hector lies, struck down as he came the vast
bulk upborne by conquering Butes, of Amycus' Bebrycian line, and
stretched him in [374-410]death on the yellow sand. Such was Dares; at
once he raises his head high for battle, displays his broad shoulders,
and stretches and swings his arms right and left, lashing the air with
blows. For him another is required; but none out of all the train durst
approach or put the gloves on his hands. So he takes his stand exultant
before Aeneas' feet, deeming he excelled all in victories; and thereon
without more delay grasps the bull's horn with his left hand, and speaks
thus: 'Goddess-born, if no man dare trust himself to battle, to what
conclusion shall I stand? how long is it seemly to keep me? bid me carry
off thy gifts. ' Therewith all the Dardanians murmured assent, and bade
yield him the promised prize. At this aged Acestes spoke sharply to
Entellus, as he sate next him on the green cushion of grass: 'Entellus,
bravest of heroes once of old in vain, wilt thou thus idly let a gift so
great be borne away uncontested? Where now prithee is divine Eryx, thy
master of fruitless fame? where thy renown over all Sicily, and those
spoils hanging in thine house? ' Thereat he: 'Desire of glory is not
gone, nor ambition checked by fear; but torpid age dulls my chilly
blood, and my strength of limb is numb and outworn. If I had what once
was mine, if I had now that prime of years, yonder braggart's boast and
confidence, it had taken no prize of goodly bullock to allure me; nor
heed I these gifts. ' So he spoke, and on that flung down a pair of
gloves of giant weight, with whose hard hide bound about his wrists
valiant Eryx was wont to come to battle. They stood amazed; so stiff and
grim lay the vast sevenfold oxhide sewed in with lead and iron. Dares
most of all shrinks far back in horror, and the noble son of Anchises
turns round this way and that their vast weight and voluminous folds.
Then the old man spoke thus in deep accents: 'How, had they seen the
gloves [411-444]that were Hercules' own armour, and the fatal fight on
this very beach? These arms thy brother Eryx once wore; thou seest them
yet stained with blood and spattered brains. In them he stood to face
great Alcides; to them was I used while fuller blood supplied me
strength, and envious old age had not yet strewn her snows on either
temple. But if Dares of Troy will have none of these our arms, and good
Aeneas is resolved on it, and my patron Acestes approves, let us make
the battle even. See, I give up the gauntlets of Eryx; dismiss thy
fears; and do thou put off thy Trojan gloves. ' So spoke he, and throwing
back the fold of his raiment from his shoulders, he bares the massive
joints and limbs, the great bones and muscles, and stands up huge in the
middle of the ground. Then Anchises' lordly seed brought out equal
gloves and bound the hands of both in matched arms. Straightway each
took his stand on tiptoe, and undauntedly raised his arms high in air.
They lift their heads right back and away out of reach of blows, and
make hand play through hand, inviting attack; the one nimbler of foot
and confident in his youth, the other mighty in mass of limb, but his
knees totter tremulous and slow, and sick panting shakes his vast frame.
Many a mutual blow they deliver in vain, many an one they redouble on
chest and side, sounding hollow and loud: hands play fast about ear and
temple, and jawbones clash under the hard strokes. Old Entellus stands
immoveable and astrain, only parrying hits with body and watchful eye.
The other, as one who casts mounts against some high city or blockades a
hill-fort in arms, tries this and that entrance, and ranges cunningly
over all the ground, and presses many an attack in vain. Entellus rose
and struck clean out with his right downwards; his quick opponent saw
the descending blow before it came, [445-481]and slid his body rapidly
out of its way. Entellus hurled his strength into the air, and all his
heavy mass, overreaching, fell heavily to the earth; as sometime on
Erymanthus or mighty Ida a hollow pine falls torn out by the roots.
Teucrians and men of Sicily rise eagerly; a cry goes up, and Acestes
himself runs forward, and pityingly lifts his friend and birthmate from
the ground. But the hero, not dulled nor dismayed by his mishap, returns
the keener to battle, and grows violent in wrath, while shame and
resolved valour kindle his strength. All afire, he hunts Dares headlong
over the lists, and redoubles his blows now with right hand, now with
left; no breath nor pause; heavy as hailstones rattle on the roof from a
storm-cloud, so thickly shower the blows from both his hands as he
buffets Dares to and fro. Then lord Aeneas allowed not wrath to swell
higher or Entellus to rage out his bitterness, but stopped the fight and
rescued the exhausted Dares, saying thus in soothing words: 'Unhappy!
what height of madness hath seized thy mind? Knowest thou not the
strength is another's and the gods are changed? Yield thou to Heaven. '
And with the words he proclaimed the battle over. But him his faithful
mates lead to the ships dragging his knees feebly, swaying his head from
side to side, and spitting from his mouth clotted blood mingled with
teeth. At summons they bear away the helmet and shield, and leave palm
and bull to Entellus. At this the conqueror, swelling in pride over the
bull, cries: 'Goddess-born, and you, O Trojans! learn thus what my
strength of body was in its prime, and from what a death Dares is saved
by your recall. ' He spoke, and stood right opposite in face of the
bullock as it stood by, the prize of battle; then drew back his hand,
and swinging the hard gauntlet sheer down between the horns, smashed the
bones in upon the shattered brain. The ox rolls over, and quivering and
[482-516]lifeless lies along the ground. Above it he utters these deep
accents: 'This life, Eryx, I give to thee, a better payment than Dares'
death; here I lay down my gloves and unconquered skill. '
Forthwith Aeneas invites all that will to the contest of the swift
arrow, and proclaims the prizes. With his strong hand he uprears the
mast of Serestus' ship, and on a cord crossing it hangs from the
masthead a fluttering pigeon as mark for their steel. They gather, and a
helmet of brass takes the lots as they throw them in. First in rank, and
before them all, amid prosperous cheers, comes out Hippocoon son of
Hyrtacus; and Mnestheus follows on him, but now conqueror in the ship
race, Mnestheus with his chaplet of green olive. Third is Eurytion, thy
brother, O Pandarus, great in renown, thou who of old, when prompted to
shatter the truce, didst hurl the first shaft amid the Achaeans. Last of
all, and at the bottom of the helmet, sank Acestes, he too venturing to
set hand to the task of youth. Then each and all they strongly bend
their bows into a curve and pull shafts from their quivers. And first
the arrow of the son of Hyrtacus, flying through heaven from the
sounding string, whistles through the fleet breezes, and reaches and
sticks fast full in the mast's wood: the mast quivered, and the bird
fluttered her feathers in affright, and the whole ground rang with loud
clapping. Next valiant Mnestheus took his stand with bow bent, aiming
high with levelled eye and arrow; yet could not, unfortunate! hit the
bird herself with his steel, but cut the knotted hempen bands that tied
her foot as she hung from the masthead; she winged her flight into the
dark windy clouds. Then Eurytion, who ere now held the arrow ready on
his bended bow, swiftly called in prayer to his brother, marked the
pigeon as she now went down the empty sky exultant on clapping wings;
and as she passed under a dark cloud, [517-553]struck her: she fell
breathless, and, leaving her life in the aery firmament, slid down
carrying the arrow that pierced her. Acestes alone was over, and the
prize lost; yet he sped his arrow up into the air, to display his lordly
skill and resounding bow. At this a sudden sign meets their eyes, mighty
in augural presage, as the high event taught thereafter, and in late
days boding seers prophesied of the omen. For the flying reed blazed out
amid the swimming clouds, traced its path in flame, and burned away on
the light winds; even as often stars shooting from their sphere draw a
train athwart the sky. Trinacrians and Trojans hung in astonishment,
praying to the heavenly powers; neither did great Aeneas reject the
omen, but embraces glad Acestes and loads him with lavish gifts,
speaking thus: 'Take, my lord: for the high King of heaven by these
signs hath willed thee to draw the lot of peculiar honour. This gift
shalt thou have as from aged Anchises' own hand, a bowl embossed with
figures, that once Cisseus of Thrace gave my father Anchises to bear, in
high token and guerdon of affection. ' So speaking, he twines green bay
about his brows, and proclaims Acestes conqueror first before them all.
Nor did gentle Eurytion, though he alone struck the bird down from the
lofty sky, grudge him to be preferred in honour. Next comes for his
prize he who cut the cord; he last, who pierced the mast with his winged
reed.
But lord Aeneas, ere yet the contest is sped, calls to him Epytides,
guardian and attendant of ungrown Iulus, and thus speaks into his
faithful ear: 'Up and away, and tell Ascanius, if he now holds his band
of boys ready, and their horses arrayed for the charge, to defile his
squadrons to his grandsire's honour in bravery of arms. ' So says he, and
himself bids all the crowding throng withdraw from the long racecourse
and leave the lists free. The boys move in before their parents' faces,
glittering in rank on their [554-590]bitted horses; as they go all the
people of Troy and Trinacria murmur and admire. On the hair of them all
rests a garland fitly trimmed; each carries two cornel spear-shafts
tipped with steel; some have polished quivers on their shoulders; above
their breast and round their neck goes a flexible circlet of twisted
gold. Three in number are the troops of riders, and three captains
gallop up and down; following each in equal command rides a glittering
division of twelve boys. One youthful line goes rejoicingly behind
little Priam, renewer of his grandsire's name, thy renowned seed, O
Polites, and destined to people Italy; he rides a Thracian horse dappled
with spots of white, showing white on his pacing pasterns and white on
his high forehead. Second is Atys, from whom the Latin Atii draw their
line, little Atys, boy beloved of the boy Iulus. Last and excellent in
beauty before them all, Iulus rode in on a Sidonian horse that Dido the
bright had given him for token and pledge of love. The rest of them are
mounted on old Acestes' Sicilian horses. . . . The Dardanians greet
their shy entrance with applause, and rejoice at the view, and recognise
the features of their parents of old. When they have ridden merrily
round all the concourse of their gazing friends, Epytides shouts from
afar the signal they await, and sounds his whip. They gallop apart in
equal numbers, and open their files three and three in deploying bands,
and again at the call wheel about and bear down with levelled arms. Next
they start on other charges and other retreats in corresponsive spaces,
and interlink circle with circle, and wage the armed phantom of battle.
And now they bare their backs in flight, now turn their lances to the
charge, now plight peace and ride on side by side. As once of old, they
say, the labyrinth in high Crete had a tangled path between blind walls,
and a thousand ways of doubling treachery, where tokens to follow failed
in the [591-625]maze unmastered and irrecoverable: even in such a track
do the children of Troy entangle their footsteps and weave the game of
flight and battle; like dolphins who, swimming through the wet seas, cut
Carpathian or Libyan. . . .
This fashion of riding, these games Ascanius first revived, when he girt
Alba the Long about with walls, and taught their celebration to the Old
Latins in the way of his own boyhood, with the youth of Troy about him.
The Albans taught it their children; on from them mighty Rome received
it and kept the ancestral observance; and now it is called Troy, and the
boys the Trojan troop.
Thus far sped the sacred contests to their holy lord. Just at this
Fortune broke faith and grew estranged. While they pay the due rites to
the tomb with diverse games, Juno, daughter of Saturn, sends Iris down
the sky to the Ilian fleet, and breathes a gale to speed her on,
revolving many a thought, and not yet satiate of the ancient pain. She,
speeding her way along the thousand-coloured bow, runs swiftly, seen of
none, down her maiden path. She discerns the vast concourse, and
traverses the shore, and sees the haven abandoned and the fleet left
alone. But far withdrawn by the solitary verge of the sea the Trojan
women wept their lost Anchises, and as they wept gazed all together on
the fathomless flood.
Phoenician eyes are stayed on Carthage towers and thy Libyan city, what
wrong is it, I pray, that we Trojans find our rest on Ausonian land? We
too may seek a foreign realm unforbidden. In my sleep, often as the dank
shades of night veil the earth, often as the stars lift their fires, the
troubled phantom of my father Anchises comes in warning and dread; my
boy Ascanius, how I wrong one so dear in cheating him of an Hesperian
kingdom and destined fields. Now even the gods' interpreter, sent
straight from Jove--I call both to witness--hath borne down his commands
through the fleet air. Myself in broad daylight I saw the deity passing
within the walls, and these ears drank his utterance. Cease to madden me
and thyself alike with plaints. Not of my will do I follow Italy. . . . '
Long ere he ended she gazes on him askance, turning her eyes from side
to side and perusing him with silent glances; then thus wrathfully
speaks:
'No goddess was thy mother, nor Dardanus founder of thy line, traitor!
but rough Caucasus bore thee on his iron crags, and Hyrcanian tigresses
gave thee suck. For why do I conceal it? For what further outrage do I
wait? [369-400]Hath our weeping cost him a sigh, or a lowered glance?
Hath he broken into tears, or had pity on his lover? Where, where shall
I begin? Now neither doth Queen Juno nor our Saturnian lord regard us
with righteous eyes. Nowhere is trust safe. Cast ashore and destitute I
welcomed him, and madly gave him place and portion in my kingdom; I
found him his lost fleet and drew his crews from death. Alas, the fire
of madness speeds me on. Now prophetic Apollo, now oracles of Lycia, now
the very gods' interpreter sent straight from Jove through the air
carries these rude commands! Truly that is work for the gods, that a
care to vex their peace! I detain thee not, nor gainsay thy words: go,
follow thine Italy down the wind; seek thy realm overseas. Yet midway my
hope is, if righteous gods can do aught at all, thou wilt drain the cup
of vengeance on the rocks, and re-echo calls on Dido's name. In murky
fires I will follow far away, and when chill death hath severed body
from soul, my ghost will haunt thee in every region. Wretch, thou shalt
repay! I will hear; and the rumour of it shall reach me deep in the
under world. '
Even on these words she breaks off her speech unfinished, and, sick at
heart, escapes out of the air and sweeps round and away out of sight,
leaving him in fear and much hesitance, and with much on his mind to
say. Her women catch her in their arms, and carry her swooning to her
marble chamber and lay her on her bed.
But good Aeneas, though he would fain soothe and comfort her grief, and
talk away her distress, with many a sigh, and melted in soul by his
great love, yet fulfils the divine commands and returns to his fleet.
Then indeed the Teucrians set to work, and haul down their tall ships
all along the shore. The hulls are oiled and afloat; they carry from the
woodland green boughs for oars and massy logs unhewn, in hot haste to
go. . . . One might descry them shifting [401-433]their quarters and
pouring out of all the town: even as ants, mindful of winter, plunder a
great heap of wheat and store it in their house; a black column advances
on the plain as they carry home their spoil on a narrow track through
the grass. Some shove and strain with their shoulders at big grains,
some marshal the ranks and chastise delay; all the path is aswarm with
work. What then were thy thoughts, O Dido, as thou sawest it? What sighs
didst thou utter, viewing from the fortress roof the broad beach aswarm,
and seeing before thine eyes the whole sea stirred with their noisy din?
Injurious Love, to what dost thou not compel mortal hearts! Again, she
must needs break into tears, again essay entreaty, and bow her spirit
down to love, not to leave aught untried and go to death in vain.
'Anna, thou seest the bustle that fills the shore. They have gathered
round from every quarter; already their canvas woos the breezes, and the
merry sailors have garlanded the sterns. This great pain, my sister, I
shall have strength to bear, as I have had strength to foresee. Yet this
one thing, Anna, for love and pity's sake--for of thee alone was the
traitor fain, to thee even his secret thoughts were confided, alone thou
knewest his moods and tender fits--go, my sister, and humbly accost the
haughty stranger: I did not take the Grecian oath in Aulis to root out
the race of Troy; I sent no fleet against her fortresses; neither have I
disentombed his father Anchises' ashes and ghost, that he should refuse
my words entrance to his stubborn ears. Whither does he run? let him
grant this grace--alas, the last! --to his lover, and await fair winds
and an easy passage. No more do I pray for the old delusive marriage,
nor that he give up fair Latium and abandon a kingdom. A breathing-space
I ask, to give my madness rest and room, till my very [434-469]fortune
teach my grief submission. This last favour I implore: sister, be
pitiful; grant this to me, and I will restore it in full measure when I
die. '
So she pleaded, and so her sister carries and recarries the piteous tale
of weeping. But by no weeping is he stirred, inflexible to all the words
he hears. Fate withstands, and lays divine bars on unmoved mortal ears.
Even as when the eddying blasts of northern Alpine winds are emulous to
uproot the secular strength of a mighty oak, it wails on, and the trunk
quivers and the high foliage strews the ground; the tree clings fast on
the rocks, and high as her top soars into heaven, so deep strike her
roots to hell; even thus is the hero buffeted with changeful perpetual
accents, and distress thrills his mighty breast, while his purpose stays
unstirred, and tears fall in vain.
Then indeed, hapless and dismayed by doom, Dido prays for death, and is
weary of gazing on the arch of heaven. The more to make her fulfil her
purpose and quit the light, she saw, when she laid her gifts on the
altars alight with incense, awful to tell, the holy streams blacken, and
the wine turn as it poured into ghastly blood. Of this sight she spoke
to none--no, not to her sister. Likewise there was within the house a
marble temple of her ancient lord, kept of her in marvellous honour, and
fastened with snowy fleeces and festal boughs. Forth of it she seemed to
hear her husband's voice crying and calling when night was dim upon
earth, and alone on the house-tops the screech-owl often made moan with
funeral note and long-drawn sobbing cry. Therewithal many a warning of
wizards of old terrifies her with appalling presage. In her sleep fierce
Aeneas drives her wildly, and ever she seems being left by herself
alone, ever going uncompanioned on a weary way, and seeking her Tyrians
in a solitary land: even as frantic Pentheus sees the [470-503]arrayed
Furies and a double sun, and Thebes shows herself twofold to his eyes:
or Agamemnonian Orestes, renowned in tragedy, when his mother pursues
him armed with torches and dark serpents, and the Fatal Sisters crouch
avenging in the doorway.
So when, overcome by her pangs, she caught the madness and resolved to
die, she works out secretly the time and fashion, and accosts her
sorrowing sister with mien hiding her design and hope calm on her brow.
'I have found a way, mine own--wish me joy, sisterlike--to restore him
to me or release me of my love for him. Hard by the ocean limit and the
set of sun is the extreme Aethiopian land, where ancient Atlas turns on
his shoulders the starred burning axletree of heaven. Out of it hath
been shown to me a priestess of Massylian race, warder of the temple of
the Hesperides, even she who gave the dragon his food, and kept the holy
boughs on the tree, sprinkling clammy honey and slumberous poppy-seed.
She professes with her spells to relax the purposes of whom she will,
but on others to bring passion and pain; to stay the river-waters and
turn the stars backward: she calls up ghosts by night; thou shalt see
earth moaning under foot and mountain-ashes descending from the hills. I
take heaven, sweet, to witness, and thee, mine own darling sister, I do
not willingly arm myself with the arts of magic. Do thou secretly raise
a pyre in the inner court, and let them lay on it the arms that the
accursed one left hanging in our chamber, and all the dress he wore, and
the bridal bed where I fell. It is good to wipe out all the wretch's
traces, and the priestess orders thus. ' So speaks she, and is silent,
while pallor overruns her face. Yet Anna deems not her sister veils
death behind these strange rites, and grasps not her wild purpose, nor
fears aught deeper than at Sychaeus' death. So she makes ready as
bidden. . . .
[504-538]But the Queen, the pyre being built up of piled faggots and
sawn ilex in the inmost of her dwelling, hangs the room with chaplets
and garlands it with funeral boughs: on the pillow she lays the dress he
wore, the sword he left, and an image of him, knowing what was to come.
Altars are reared around, and the priestess, with hair undone, thrice
peals from her lips the hundred gods of Erebus and Chaos, and the
triform Hecate, the triple-faced maidenhood of Diana. Likewise she had
sprinkled pretended waters of Avernus' spring, and rank herbs are sought
mown by moonlight with brazen sickles, dark with milky venom, and sought
is the talisman torn from a horse's forehead at birth ere the dam could
snatch it. . . . Herself, the holy cake in her pure hands, hard by the
altars, with one foot unshod and garments flowing loose, she invokes the
gods ere she die, and the stars that know of doom; then prays to
whatsoever deity looks in righteousness and remembrance on lovers ill
allied.
Night fell; weary creatures took quiet slumber all over earth, and
woodland and wild waters had sunk to rest; now the stars wheel midway on
their gliding path, now all the country is silent, and beasts and gay
birds that haunt liquid levels of lake or thorny rustic thicket lay
couched asleep under the still night. But not so the distressed
Phoenician, nor does she ever sink asleep or take the night upon eyes or
breast; her pain redoubles, and her love swells to renewed madness, as
she tosses on the strong tide of wrath. Even so she begins, and thus
revolves with her heart alone:
'See, what do I? Shall I again make trial of mine old wooers that will
scorn me? and stoop to sue for a Numidian marriage among those whom
already over and over I have disdained for husbands? Then shall I follow
the Ilian fleets and the uttermost bidding of the Teucrians? because it
is good to think they were once raised up by my [539-570]succour, or
the grace of mine old kindness is fresh in their remembrance? And how
should they let me, if I would? or take the odious woman on their
haughty ships? art thou ignorant, ah me, even in ruin, and knowest not
yet the forsworn race of Laomedon? And then? shall I accompany the
triumphant sailors, a lonely fugitive? or plunge forth girt with all my
Tyrian train? so hardly severed from Sidon city, shall I again drive
them seaward, and bid them spread their sails to the tempest? Nay die
thou, as thou deservest, and let the steel end thy pain. With thee it
began; overborne by my tears, thou, O my sister, dost load me with this
madness and agony, and layest me open to the enemy. I could not spend a
wild life without stain, far from a bridal chamber, and free from touch
of distress like this! O faith ill kept, that was plighted to Sychaeus'
ashes! ' Thus her heart broke in long lamentation.
Now Aeneas was fixed to go, and now, with all set duly in order, was
taking hasty sleep on his high stern. To him as he slept the god
appeared once again in the same fashion of countenance, and thus seemed
to renew his warning, in all points like to Mercury, voice and hue and
golden hair and limbs gracious in youth. 'Goddess-born, canst thou sleep
on in such danger? and seest not the coming perils that hem thee in,
madman! nor hearest the breezes blowing fair? She, fixed on death, is
revolving craft and crime grimly in her bosom, and swells the changing
surge of wrath. Fliest thou not hence headlong, while headlong flight is
yet possible? Even now wilt thou see ocean weltering with broken
timbers, see the fierce glare of torches and the beach in a riot of
flame, if dawn break on thee yet dallying in this land. Up ho! linger no
more! Woman is ever a fickle and changing thing. ' So spoke he, and
melted in the black night.
[571-603]Then indeed Aeneas, startled by the sudden phantom, leaps out
of slumber and bestirs his crew. 'Haste and awake, O men, and sit down
to the thwarts; shake out sail speedily. A god sent from high heaven,
lo! again spurs us to speed our flight and cut the twisted cables. We
follow thee, holy one of heaven, whoso thou art, and again joyfully obey
thy command. O be favourable; give gracious aid and bring fair sky and
weather. ' He spoke, and snatching his sword like lightning from the
sheath, strikes at the hawser with the drawn steel. The same zeal
catches all at once; rushing and tearing they quit the shore; the sea is
hidden under their fleets; strongly they toss up the foam and sweep the
blue water.
And now Dawn broke, and, leaving the saffron bed of Tithonus, shed her
radiance anew over the world; when the Queen saw from her watch-tower
the first light whitening, and the fleet standing out under squared
sail, and discerned shore and haven empty of all their oarsmen. Thrice
and four times she struck her hand on her lovely breast and rent her
yellow hair: 'God! ' she cries, 'shall he go? shall an alien make mock of
our realm? Will they not issue in armed pursuit from all the city, and
some launch ships from the dockyards? Go; bring fire in haste, serve
weapons, swing out the oars! What do I talk? or where am I? what mad
change is on my purpose? Alas, Dido! now thou dost feel thy wickedness;
that had graced thee once, when thou gavest away thy crown. Behold the
faith and hand of him! who, they say, carries his household's ancestral
gods about with him! who stooped his shoulders to a father outworn with
age! Could I not have riven his body in sunder and strewn it on the
waves? and slain with the sword his comrades and his dear Ascanius, and
served him for the banquet at his father's table? But the chance of
battle had been dubious. If it had! whom did I fear [604-635]with my
death upon me? I should have borne firebrands into his camp and filled
his decks with flame, blotted out father and son and race together, and
flung myself atop of all. Sun, whose fires lighten all the works of the
world, and thou, Juno, mediatress and witness of these my distresses,
and Hecate, cried on by night in crossways of cities, and you, fatal
avenging sisters and gods of dying Elissa, hear me now; bend your just
deity to my woes, and listen to our prayers. If it must needs be that
the accursed one touch his haven and float up to land, if thus Jove's
decrees demand, and this is the appointed term,--yet, distressed in war
by an armed and gallant nation, driven homeless from his borders, rent
from Iulus' embrace, let him sue for succour and see death on death
untimely on his people; nor when he hath yielded him to the terms of a
harsh peace, may he have joy of his kingdom or the pleasant light; but
let him fall before his day and without burial on a waste of sand. This
I pray; this and my blood with it I pour for the last utterance. And
you, O Tyrians, hunt his seed with your hatred for all ages to come;
send this guerdon to our ashes. Let no kindness nor truce be between the
nations. Arise out of our dust, O unnamed avenger, to pursue the
Dardanian settlement with firebrand and steel. Now, then, whensoever
strength shall be given, I invoke the enmity of shore to shore, wave to
water, sword to sword; let their battles go down to their children's
children. '
So speaks she as she kept turning her mind round about, seeking how
soonest to break away from the hateful light. Thereon she speaks briefly
to Barce, nurse of Sychaeus; for a heap of dusky ashes held her own, in
her country of long ago:
'Sweet nurse, bring Anna my sister hither to me. Bid her haste and
sprinkle river water over her body, and bring [636-667]with her the
beasts ordained for expiation: so let her come: and thou likewise veil
thy brows with a pure chaplet. I would fulfil the rites of Stygian Jove
that I have fitly ordered and begun, so to set the limit to my
distresses and give over to the flames the funeral pyre of the
Dardanian. '
So speaks she; the old woman went eagerly with quickened pace. But Dido,
fluttered and fierce in her awful purpose, with bloodshot restless gaze,
and spots on her quivering cheeks burning through the pallor of imminent
death, bursts into the inner courts of the house, and mounts in madness
the high funeral pyre, and unsheathes the sword of Dardania, a gift
asked for no use like this. Then after her eyes fell on the Ilian
raiment and the bed she knew, dallying a little with her purpose through
her tears, she sank on the pillow and spoke the last words of all:
'Dress he wore, sweet while doom and deity allowed! receive my spirit
now, and release me from my distresses. I have lived and fulfilled
Fortune's allotted course; and now shall I go a queenly phantom under
the earth. I have built a renowned city; I have seen my ramparts rise;
by my brother's punishment I have avenged my husband of his enemy;
happy, ah me! and over happy, had but the keels of Dardania never
touched our shores! ' She spoke; and burying her face in the pillow,
'Death it will be,' she cries, 'and unavenged; but death be it. Thus,
thus is it good to pass into the dark. Let the pitiless Dardanian's gaze
drink in this fire out at sea, and my death be the omen he carries on
his way. '
She ceased; and even as she spoke her people see her sunk on the steel,
and blood reeking on the sword and spattered on her hands. A cry rises
in the high halls; Rumour riots down the quaking city. The house
resounds with lamentation and sobbing and bitter crying of women;
[668-700]heaven echoes their loud wails; even as though all Carthage or
ancient Tyre went down as the foe poured in, and the flames rolled
furious over the roofs of house and temple. Swooning at the sound, her
sister runs in a flutter of dismay, with torn face and smitten bosom,
and darts through them all, and calls the dying woman by her name. 'Was
it this, mine own? Was my summons a snare? Was it this thy pyre, ah me,
this thine altar fires meant? How shall I begin my desolate moan? Didst
thou disdain a sister's company in death? Thou shouldst have called me
to share thy doom; in the self-same hour, the self-same pang of steel
had been our portion. Did these very hands build it, did my voice call
on our father's gods, that with thee lying thus I should be away as one
without pity? Thou hast destroyed thyself and me together, O my sister,
and the Sidonian lords and people, and this thy city. Give her wounds
water: I will bathe them and catch on my lips the last breath that haply
yet lingers. ' So speaking she had climbed the high steps, and, wailing,
clasped and caressed her half-lifeless sister in her bosom, and stanched
the dark streams of blood with her gown. She, essaying to lift her heavy
eyes, swoons back; the deep-driven wound gurgles in her breast. Thrice
she rose, and strained to lift herself on her elbow; thrice she rolled
back on the pillow, and with wandering eyes sought the light of high
heaven, and moaned as she found it.
Then Juno omnipotent, pitying her long pain and difficult decease, sent
Iris down from heaven to unloose the struggling life from the body where
it clung. For since neither by fate did she perish, nor as one who had
earned her death, but woefully before her day, and fired by sudden
madness, not yet had Proserpine taken her lock from the golden head, nor
sentenced her to the Stygian under world. So Iris on dewy saffron
pinions flits down through the sky [701-705]athwart the sun in a trail
of a thousand changing dyes, and stopping over her head: 'This hair,
sacred to Dis, I take as bidden, and release thee from that body of
thine. ' So speaks she, and cuts it with her hand. And therewith all the
warmth ebbed forth from her, and the life passed away upon the winds.
BOOK FIFTH
THE GAMES OF THE FLEET
Meanwhile Aeneas and his fleet in unwavering track now held mid passage,
and cleft the waves that blackened under the North, looking back on the
city that even now gleams with hapless Elissa's funeral flame. Why the
broad blaze is lit lies unknown; but the bitter pain of a great love
trampled, and the knowledge of what woman can do in madness, draw the
Teucrians' hearts to gloomy guesses.
When their ships held the deep, nor any land farther appears, the seas
all round, and all round the sky, a dusky shower drew up overhead,
carrying night and storm, and the wave shuddered and gloomed. Palinurus,
master of the fleet, cries from the high stern: 'Alas, why have these
heavy storm-clouds girt the sky? lord Neptune, what wilt thou? ' Then he
bids clear the rigging and bend strongly to the oars, and brings the
sails across the wind, saying thus:
'Noble Aeneas, not did Jupiter give word and warrant would I hope to
reach Italy under such a sky. The shifting winds roar athwart our
course, and blow stronger out of the black west, and the air thickens
into mist: nor are we fit to force our way on and across. Fortune is the
stronger; let us follow her, and turn our course whither she calls.
[23-55]Not far away, I think, are the faithful shores of thy brother
Eryx, and the Sicilian haven, if only my memory retraces rightly the
stars I watched before. '
Then good Aeneas: 'Even I ere now discern the winds will have it so, and
thou urgest against them in vain. Turn thou the course of our sailing.
Could any land be welcomer to me, or where I would sooner choose to put
in my weary ships, than this that hath Dardanian Acestes to greet me,
and laps in its embrace lord Anchises' dust? ' This said, they steer for
harbour, while the following west wind stretches their sails; the fleet
runs fast down the flood, and at last they land joyfully on the familiar
beach. But Acestes high on a hill-top, amazed at the friendly squadron
approaching from afar, hastens towards them, weaponed and clad in the
shaggy skin of a Libyan she-bear.
Him a Trojan mother conceived and bore
to Crimisus river; not forgetful of his parentage, he wishes them joy of
their return, and gladly entertains them on his rustic treasure and
comforts their weariness with his friendly store. So soon as the
morrow's clear daylight had chased the stars out of the east, Aeneas
calls his comrades along the beach together, and from a mounded hillock
speaks:
'Great people of Dardanus, born of the high blood of gods, the yearly
circle of the months is measured out to fulfilment since we laid the
dust in earth, all that was left of my divine father, and sadly
consecrated our altars. And now the day is at hand (this, O gods, was
your will), which I will ever keep in grief, ever in honour. Did I spend
it an exile on Gaetulian quicksands, did it surprise me on the Argolic
sea or in Mycenae town, yet would I fulfil the yearly vows and annual
ordinance of festival, and pile the altars with their due gifts. Now we
are led hither, to the very dust and ashes of our father, not as I deem
without [56-90]divine purpose and influence, and borne home into the
friendly haven. Up then and let us all gather joyfully to the sacrifice:
pray we for winds, and may he deign that I pay these rites to him year
by year in an established city and consecrated temple. Two head of oxen
Acestes, the seed of Troy, gives to each of your ships by tale: invite
to the feast your own ancestral gods of the household, and those whom
our host Acestes worships. Further, so the ninth Dawn uplift the
gracious day upon men, and her shafts unveil the world, I will ordain
contests for my Trojans; first for swift ships; then whoso excels in the
foot-race, and whoso, confident in strength and skill, comes to shoot
light arrows, or adventures to join battle with gloves of raw hide; let
all be here, and let merit look for the prize and palm. Now all be
hushed, and twine your temples with boughs. '
So speaks he, and shrouds his brows with his mother's myrtle. So Helymus
does, so Aletes ripe of years, so the boy Ascanius, and the rest of the
people follow. He advances from the assembly to the tomb among a throng
of many thousands that crowd about him; here he pours on the ground in
fit libation two goblets of pure wine, two of new milk, two of
consecrated blood, and flings bright blossoms, saying thus: 'Hail, holy
father, once again; hail, ashes of him I saved in vain, and soul and
shade of my sire! Thou wert not to share the search for Italian borders
and destined fields, nor the dim Ausonian Tiber. ' Thus had he spoken;
when from beneath the sanctuary a snake slid out in seven vast coils and
sevenfold slippery spires, quietly circling the grave and gliding from
altar to altar, his green chequered body and the spotted lustre of his
scales ablaze with gold, as the bow in the cloud darts a thousand
changing dyes athwart the sun: Aeneas stood amazed at the sight. At last
he wound [91-126]his long train among the vessels and polished cups,
and tasted the feast, and again leaving the altars where he had fed,
crept harmlessly back beneath the tomb. Doubtful if he shall think it
the Genius of the ground or his father's ministrant, he slays, as is
fit, two sheep of two years old, as many swine and dark-backed steers,
pouring the while cups of wine, and calling on the soul of great
Anchises and the ghost rearisen from Acheron. Therewithal his comrades,
as each hath store, bring gifts to heap joyfully on the altars, and slay
steers in sacrifice: others set cauldrons arow, and, lying along the
grass, heap live embers under spits and roast the flesh.
The desired day came, and now the ninth Dawn rode up clear and bright
behind Phaethon's coursers; and the name and renown of illustrious
Acestes had stirred up all the bordering people; their holiday throng
filled the shore, to see Aeneas' men, and some ready to join in contest.
First of all the prizes are laid out to view in the middle of the
racecourse; tripods of sacrifice, green garlands and palms, the reward
of the conquerors, armour and garments dipped in purple, talents of
silver and gold: and from a hillock in the midst the trumpet sounds the
games begun. First is the contest of rowing, and four ships matched in
weight enter, the choice of all the fleet. Mnestheus' keen oarsmen drive
the swift Dragon, Mnestheus the Italian to be, from whose name is the
Memmian family; Gyas the huge bulk of the huge Chimaera, a floating
town, whom her triple-tiered Dardanian crew urge on with oars rising in
threefold rank; Sergestus, from whom the Sergian house holds her name,
sails in the tall Centaur; and in the sea-coloured Scylla Cloanthus,
whence is thy family, Cluentius of Rome.
Apart in the sea and over against the foaming beach, lies a rock that
the swoln waves beat and drown what time the [127-159]north-western
gales of winter blot out the stars; in calm it rises silent out of the
placid water, flat-topped, and a haunt where cormorants love best to
take the sun. Here lord Aeneas set up a goal of leafy ilex, a mark for
the sailors to know whence to return, where to wheel their long course
round. Then they choose stations by lot, and on the sterns their
captains glitter afar, beautiful in gold and purple; the rest of the
crews are crowned with poplar sprays, and their naked shoulders glisten
wet with oil. They sit down at the thwarts, and their arms are tense on
the oars; at full strain they wait the signal, while throbbing fear and
heightened ambition drain their riotous blood. Then, when the clear
trumpet-note rang, all in a moment leap forward from their line; the
shouts of the sailors strike up to heaven, and the channels are swept
into foam by the arms as they swing backward. They cleave their furrows
together, and all the sea is torn asunder by oars and triple-pointed
prows. Not with speed so headlong do racing pairs whirl the chariots
over the plain, as they rush streaming from the barriers; not so do
their charioteers shake the wavy reins loose over their team, and hang
forward on the whip. All the woodland rings with clapping and shouts of
men that cheer their favourites, and the sheltered beach eddies back
their cries; the noise buffets and re-echoes from the hills. Gyas shoots
out in front of the noisy crowd, and glides foremost along the water;
whom Cloanthus follows next, rowing better, but held back by his
dragging weight of pine. After them, at equal distance, the Dragon and
the Centaur strive to win the foremost room; and now the Dragon has it,
now the vast Centaur outstrips and passes her; now they dart on both
together, their stems in a line, and their keels driving long furrows
through the salt water-ways. And now they drew nigh the rock, and were
hard [160-193]on the goal; when Gyas as he led, winner over half the
flood, cries aloud to Menoetes, the ship's steersman: 'Whither away so
far to the right? This way direct her path; kiss the shore, and let the
oarblade graze the leftward reefs. Others may keep to deep water. ' He
spoke; but Menoetes, fearing blind rocks, turns the bow away towards the
open sea. 'Whither wanderest thou away? to the rocks, Menoetes! ' again
shouts Gyas to bring him back; and lo! glancing round he sees Cloanthus
passing up behind and keeping nearer. Between Gyas' ship and the echoing
crags he scrapes through inside on his left, flashes past his leader,
and leaving the goal behind is in safe water. Then indeed grief burned
fierce through his strong frame, and tears sprung out on his cheeks;
heedless of his own dignity and his crew's safety, he flings the too
cautious Menoetes sheer into the sea from the high stern, himself
succeeds as guide and master of the helm, and cheers on his men, and
turns his tiller in to shore. But Menoetes, when at last he rose
struggling from the bottom, heavy with advancing years and wet in his
dripping clothes, makes for the top of the crag, and sits down on a dry
rock. The Teucrians laughed out as he fell and as he swam, and laugh to
see him spitting the salt water from his chest. At this a joyful hope
kindled in the two behind, Sergestus and Mnestheus, of catching up Gyas'
wavering course. Sergestus slips forward as he nears the rock, yet not
all in front, nor leading with his length of keel; part is in front,
part pressed by the Dragon's jealous prow. But striding amidships
between his comrades, Mnestheus cheers them on: 'Now, now swing back,
oarsmen who were Hector's comrades, whom I chose to follow me in Troy's
extremity; now put forth the might and courage you showed in Gaetulian
quicksands, amid Ionian seas and Malea's chasing waves. Not the first
[194-227]place do I now seek for Mnestheus, nor strive for victory;
though ah! --yet let them win, O Neptune, to whom thou givest it. But the
shame of coming in last! Win but this, fellow-citizens, and avert that
disaster! ' His men bend forward, straining every muscle; the brasswork
of the ship quivers to their mighty strokes, and the ground runs from
under her; limbs and parched lips shake with their rapid panting, and
sweat flows in streams all over them. Mere chance brought the crew the
glory they desired. For while Sergestus drives his prow furiously in
towards the rocks and comes up with too scanty room, alas! he caught on
a rock that ran out; the reef ground, the oars struck and shivered on
the jagged teeth, and the bows crashed and hung. The sailors leap up and
hold her with loud cries, and get out iron-shod poles and sharp-pointed
boathooks, and pick up their broken oars out of the eddies. But
Mnestheus, rejoicing and flushed by his triumph, with oars fast-dipping
and winds at his call, issues into the shelving water and runs down the
open sea. As a pigeon whose house and sweet nestlings are in the rock's
recesses, if suddenly startled from her cavern, wings her flight over
the fields and rushes frightened from her house with loud clapping
pinions; then gliding noiselessly through the air, slides on her liquid
way and moves not her rapid wings; so Mnestheus, so the Dragon under him
swiftly cleaves the last space of sea, so her own speed carries her
flying on. And first Sergestus is left behind, struggling on the steep
rock and shoal water, and shouting in vain for help and learning to race
with broken oars. Next he catches up Gyas and the vast bulk of the
Chimaera; she gives way, without her steersman. And now on the very goal
Cloanthus alone is left; him he pursues and presses hard, straining all
his strength. Then indeed the shouts redouble, as all together eagerly
cheer on the pursuer, and [228-264]the sky echoes their din. These
scorn to lose the honour that is their own, the glory in their grasp,
and would sell life for renown; to these success lends life; power comes
with belief in it. And haply they had carried the prize with prows
abreast, had not Cloanthus, stretching both his open hands over the sea,
poured forth prayers and called the gods to hear his vows: 'Gods who are
sovereign on the sea, over whose waters I run, to your altars on this
beach will I bring a snow-white bull, my vow's glad penalty, and will
cast his entrails into the salt flood and pour liquid wine. ' He spoke,
and far beneath the flood maiden Panopea heard him, with all Phorcus'
choir of Nereids, and lord Portunus with his own mighty hand pushed him
on his way. The ship flies to land swifter than the wind or an arrow's
flight, and shoots into the deep harbour. Then the seed of Anchises,
summoning all in order, declares Cloanthus conqueror by herald's outcry,
and dresses his brows in green bay, and gives gifts to each crew, three
bullocks of their choice, and wine, and a large talent of silver to take
away. For their captains he adds special honours; to the winner a scarf
wrought with gold, encircled by a double border of deep Meliboean
purple; woven in it is the kingly boy on leafy Ida, chasing swift stags
with javelin and racing feet, keen and as one panting; him Jove's
swooping armour-bearer hath caught up from Ida in his talons; his aged
guardians stretch their hands vainly upwards, and the barking of hounds
rings fierce into the air. But to him who, next in merit, held the
second place, he gives to wear a corslet triple-woven with hooks of
polished gold, stripped by his own conquering hand from Demoleos under
tall Troy by the swift Simois, an ornament and safeguard among arms.
Scarce could the straining shoulders of his servants Phegeus and Sagaris
carry its heavy folds; yet with it on, Demoleos at [265-302]full speed
would chase the scattered Trojans. The third prize he makes twin
cauldrons of brass, and bowls wrought in silver and rough with tracery.
And now all moved away in the pride and wealth of their prizes, their
brows bound with scarlet ribbons; when, hardly torn loose by all his art
from the cruel rock, his oars lost, rowing feebly with a single tier,
Sergestus brought in his ship jeered at and unhonoured. Even as often a
serpent caught on a highway, if a brazen wheel hath gone aslant over him
or a wayfarer left him half dead and mangled with the blow of a heavy
stone, wreathes himself slowly in vain effort to escape, in part
undaunted, his eyes ablaze and his hissing throat lifted high; in part
the disabling wound keeps him coiling in knots and twisting back on his
own body; so the ship kept rowing slowly on, yet hoists sail and under
full sail glides into the harbour mouth. Glad that the ship is saved and
the crew brought back, Aeneas presents Sergestus with his promised
reward. A slave woman is given him not unskilled in Minerva's labours,
Pholoe the Cretan, with twin boys at her breast.
This contest sped, good Aeneas moved to a grassy plain girt all about
with winding wooded hills, and amid the valley an amphitheatre, whither,
with a concourse of many thousands, the hero advanced and took his seat
on a mound. Here he allures with rewards and offer of prizes those who
will try their hap in the fleet foot-race. Trojans and Sicilians gather
mingling from all sides, Nisus and Euryalus foremost . . . Euryalus in
the flower of youth and famed for beauty, Nisus for pure love of the
boy. Next follows renowned Diores, of Priam's royal line; after him
Salius and Patron together, the one Acarnanian, the other Tegean by
family and of Arcadian blood; next two men of Sicily, Helymus and
Panopes, foresters and attendants on old Acestes; many besides whose
fame is hid in [303-338]obscurity. Then among them all Aeneas spoke
thus: 'Hearken to this, and attend in good cheer. None out of this
number will I let go without a gift. To each will I give two glittering
Gnosian spearheads of polished steel, and an axe chased with silver to
bear away; one and all shall be honoured thus. The three foremost shall
receive prizes, and have pale olive bound about their head. The first
shall have a caparisoned horse as conqueror; the second an Amazonian
quiver filled with arrows of Thrace, girt about by a broad belt of gold,
and on the link of the clasp a polished gem; let the third depart with
this Argolic helmet for recompense. ' This said, they take their place,
and the signal once heard, dart over the course and leave the line,
pouring forth like a storm-cloud while they mark the goal. Nisus gets
away first, and shoots out far in front of the throng, fleeter than the
winds or the winged thunderbolt. Next to him, but next by a long gap,
Salius follows; then, left a space behind him, Euryalus third . . . and
Helymus comes after Euryalus; and close behind him, lo! Diores goes
flying, just grazing foot with foot, hard on his shoulder; and if a
longer space were left, he would creep out past him and win the tie. And
now almost in the last space, they began to come up breathless to the
goal, when unfortunate Nisus trips on the slippery blood of the slain
steers, where haply it had spilled over the ground and wetted the green
grass. Here, just in the flush of victory, he lost his feet; they slid
away on the ground they pressed, and he fell forward right among the
ordure and blood of the sacrifice. Yet forgot he not his darling
Euryalus; for rising, he flung himself over the slippery ground in front
of Salius, and he rolled over and lay all along on the hard sand.
Euryalus shoots by, wins and holds the first place his friend gave, and
flies on amid prosperous clapping and cheers. Behind Helymus comes
[339-373]up, and Diores, now third for the palm. At this Salius fills
with loud clamour the whole concourse of the vast theatre, and the lords
who looked on in front, demanding restoration of his defrauded prize.
Euryalus is strong in favour, and beauty in tears, and the merit that
gains grace from so fair a form. Diores supports him, who succeeded to
the palm, so he loudly cries, and bore off the last prize in vain, if
the highest honours be restored to Salius. Then lord Aeneas speaks: 'For
you, O boys, your rewards remain assured, and none alters the prizes'
order: let me be allowed to pity a friend's innocent mischance. ' So
speaking, he gives to Salius a vast Gaetulian lion-skin, with shaggy
masses of hair and claws of gold. 'If this,' cries Nisus, 'is the reward
of defeat, and thy pity is stirred for the fallen, what fit recompense
wilt thou give to Nisus? to my excellence the first crown was due, had
not I, like Salius, met Fortune's hostility. ' And with the words he
displayed his face and limbs foul with the wet dung. His lord laughed
kindly on him, and bade a shield be brought forth, the workmanship of
Didymaon, torn by him from the hallowed gates of Neptune's Grecian
temple; with this special prize he rewards his excellence.
Thereafter, when the races are finished and the gifts fulfilled: 'Now,'
he cries, 'come, whoso hath in him valour and ready heart, and lift up
his arms with gauntleted hands. ' So speaks he, and sets forth a double
prize of battle; for the conqueror a bullock gilt and garlanded; a sword
and beautiful helmet to console the conquered. Straightway without pause
Dares issues to view in his vast strength, rising amid loud murmurs of
the people; he who alone was wont to meet Paris in combat; he who, at
the mound where princely Hector lies, struck down as he came the vast
bulk upborne by conquering Butes, of Amycus' Bebrycian line, and
stretched him in [374-410]death on the yellow sand. Such was Dares; at
once he raises his head high for battle, displays his broad shoulders,
and stretches and swings his arms right and left, lashing the air with
blows. For him another is required; but none out of all the train durst
approach or put the gloves on his hands. So he takes his stand exultant
before Aeneas' feet, deeming he excelled all in victories; and thereon
without more delay grasps the bull's horn with his left hand, and speaks
thus: 'Goddess-born, if no man dare trust himself to battle, to what
conclusion shall I stand? how long is it seemly to keep me? bid me carry
off thy gifts. ' Therewith all the Dardanians murmured assent, and bade
yield him the promised prize. At this aged Acestes spoke sharply to
Entellus, as he sate next him on the green cushion of grass: 'Entellus,
bravest of heroes once of old in vain, wilt thou thus idly let a gift so
great be borne away uncontested? Where now prithee is divine Eryx, thy
master of fruitless fame? where thy renown over all Sicily, and those
spoils hanging in thine house? ' Thereat he: 'Desire of glory is not
gone, nor ambition checked by fear; but torpid age dulls my chilly
blood, and my strength of limb is numb and outworn. If I had what once
was mine, if I had now that prime of years, yonder braggart's boast and
confidence, it had taken no prize of goodly bullock to allure me; nor
heed I these gifts. ' So he spoke, and on that flung down a pair of
gloves of giant weight, with whose hard hide bound about his wrists
valiant Eryx was wont to come to battle. They stood amazed; so stiff and
grim lay the vast sevenfold oxhide sewed in with lead and iron. Dares
most of all shrinks far back in horror, and the noble son of Anchises
turns round this way and that their vast weight and voluminous folds.
Then the old man spoke thus in deep accents: 'How, had they seen the
gloves [411-444]that were Hercules' own armour, and the fatal fight on
this very beach? These arms thy brother Eryx once wore; thou seest them
yet stained with blood and spattered brains. In them he stood to face
great Alcides; to them was I used while fuller blood supplied me
strength, and envious old age had not yet strewn her snows on either
temple. But if Dares of Troy will have none of these our arms, and good
Aeneas is resolved on it, and my patron Acestes approves, let us make
the battle even. See, I give up the gauntlets of Eryx; dismiss thy
fears; and do thou put off thy Trojan gloves. ' So spoke he, and throwing
back the fold of his raiment from his shoulders, he bares the massive
joints and limbs, the great bones and muscles, and stands up huge in the
middle of the ground. Then Anchises' lordly seed brought out equal
gloves and bound the hands of both in matched arms. Straightway each
took his stand on tiptoe, and undauntedly raised his arms high in air.
They lift their heads right back and away out of reach of blows, and
make hand play through hand, inviting attack; the one nimbler of foot
and confident in his youth, the other mighty in mass of limb, but his
knees totter tremulous and slow, and sick panting shakes his vast frame.
Many a mutual blow they deliver in vain, many an one they redouble on
chest and side, sounding hollow and loud: hands play fast about ear and
temple, and jawbones clash under the hard strokes. Old Entellus stands
immoveable and astrain, only parrying hits with body and watchful eye.
The other, as one who casts mounts against some high city or blockades a
hill-fort in arms, tries this and that entrance, and ranges cunningly
over all the ground, and presses many an attack in vain. Entellus rose
and struck clean out with his right downwards; his quick opponent saw
the descending blow before it came, [445-481]and slid his body rapidly
out of its way. Entellus hurled his strength into the air, and all his
heavy mass, overreaching, fell heavily to the earth; as sometime on
Erymanthus or mighty Ida a hollow pine falls torn out by the roots.
Teucrians and men of Sicily rise eagerly; a cry goes up, and Acestes
himself runs forward, and pityingly lifts his friend and birthmate from
the ground. But the hero, not dulled nor dismayed by his mishap, returns
the keener to battle, and grows violent in wrath, while shame and
resolved valour kindle his strength. All afire, he hunts Dares headlong
over the lists, and redoubles his blows now with right hand, now with
left; no breath nor pause; heavy as hailstones rattle on the roof from a
storm-cloud, so thickly shower the blows from both his hands as he
buffets Dares to and fro. Then lord Aeneas allowed not wrath to swell
higher or Entellus to rage out his bitterness, but stopped the fight and
rescued the exhausted Dares, saying thus in soothing words: 'Unhappy!
what height of madness hath seized thy mind? Knowest thou not the
strength is another's and the gods are changed? Yield thou to Heaven. '
And with the words he proclaimed the battle over. But him his faithful
mates lead to the ships dragging his knees feebly, swaying his head from
side to side, and spitting from his mouth clotted blood mingled with
teeth. At summons they bear away the helmet and shield, and leave palm
and bull to Entellus. At this the conqueror, swelling in pride over the
bull, cries: 'Goddess-born, and you, O Trojans! learn thus what my
strength of body was in its prime, and from what a death Dares is saved
by your recall. ' He spoke, and stood right opposite in face of the
bullock as it stood by, the prize of battle; then drew back his hand,
and swinging the hard gauntlet sheer down between the horns, smashed the
bones in upon the shattered brain. The ox rolls over, and quivering and
[482-516]lifeless lies along the ground. Above it he utters these deep
accents: 'This life, Eryx, I give to thee, a better payment than Dares'
death; here I lay down my gloves and unconquered skill. '
Forthwith Aeneas invites all that will to the contest of the swift
arrow, and proclaims the prizes. With his strong hand he uprears the
mast of Serestus' ship, and on a cord crossing it hangs from the
masthead a fluttering pigeon as mark for their steel. They gather, and a
helmet of brass takes the lots as they throw them in. First in rank, and
before them all, amid prosperous cheers, comes out Hippocoon son of
Hyrtacus; and Mnestheus follows on him, but now conqueror in the ship
race, Mnestheus with his chaplet of green olive. Third is Eurytion, thy
brother, O Pandarus, great in renown, thou who of old, when prompted to
shatter the truce, didst hurl the first shaft amid the Achaeans. Last of
all, and at the bottom of the helmet, sank Acestes, he too venturing to
set hand to the task of youth. Then each and all they strongly bend
their bows into a curve and pull shafts from their quivers. And first
the arrow of the son of Hyrtacus, flying through heaven from the
sounding string, whistles through the fleet breezes, and reaches and
sticks fast full in the mast's wood: the mast quivered, and the bird
fluttered her feathers in affright, and the whole ground rang with loud
clapping. Next valiant Mnestheus took his stand with bow bent, aiming
high with levelled eye and arrow; yet could not, unfortunate! hit the
bird herself with his steel, but cut the knotted hempen bands that tied
her foot as she hung from the masthead; she winged her flight into the
dark windy clouds. Then Eurytion, who ere now held the arrow ready on
his bended bow, swiftly called in prayer to his brother, marked the
pigeon as she now went down the empty sky exultant on clapping wings;
and as she passed under a dark cloud, [517-553]struck her: she fell
breathless, and, leaving her life in the aery firmament, slid down
carrying the arrow that pierced her. Acestes alone was over, and the
prize lost; yet he sped his arrow up into the air, to display his lordly
skill and resounding bow. At this a sudden sign meets their eyes, mighty
in augural presage, as the high event taught thereafter, and in late
days boding seers prophesied of the omen. For the flying reed blazed out
amid the swimming clouds, traced its path in flame, and burned away on
the light winds; even as often stars shooting from their sphere draw a
train athwart the sky. Trinacrians and Trojans hung in astonishment,
praying to the heavenly powers; neither did great Aeneas reject the
omen, but embraces glad Acestes and loads him with lavish gifts,
speaking thus: 'Take, my lord: for the high King of heaven by these
signs hath willed thee to draw the lot of peculiar honour. This gift
shalt thou have as from aged Anchises' own hand, a bowl embossed with
figures, that once Cisseus of Thrace gave my father Anchises to bear, in
high token and guerdon of affection. ' So speaking, he twines green bay
about his brows, and proclaims Acestes conqueror first before them all.
Nor did gentle Eurytion, though he alone struck the bird down from the
lofty sky, grudge him to be preferred in honour. Next comes for his
prize he who cut the cord; he last, who pierced the mast with his winged
reed.
But lord Aeneas, ere yet the contest is sped, calls to him Epytides,
guardian and attendant of ungrown Iulus, and thus speaks into his
faithful ear: 'Up and away, and tell Ascanius, if he now holds his band
of boys ready, and their horses arrayed for the charge, to defile his
squadrons to his grandsire's honour in bravery of arms. ' So says he, and
himself bids all the crowding throng withdraw from the long racecourse
and leave the lists free. The boys move in before their parents' faces,
glittering in rank on their [554-590]bitted horses; as they go all the
people of Troy and Trinacria murmur and admire. On the hair of them all
rests a garland fitly trimmed; each carries two cornel spear-shafts
tipped with steel; some have polished quivers on their shoulders; above
their breast and round their neck goes a flexible circlet of twisted
gold. Three in number are the troops of riders, and three captains
gallop up and down; following each in equal command rides a glittering
division of twelve boys. One youthful line goes rejoicingly behind
little Priam, renewer of his grandsire's name, thy renowned seed, O
Polites, and destined to people Italy; he rides a Thracian horse dappled
with spots of white, showing white on his pacing pasterns and white on
his high forehead. Second is Atys, from whom the Latin Atii draw their
line, little Atys, boy beloved of the boy Iulus. Last and excellent in
beauty before them all, Iulus rode in on a Sidonian horse that Dido the
bright had given him for token and pledge of love. The rest of them are
mounted on old Acestes' Sicilian horses. . . . The Dardanians greet
their shy entrance with applause, and rejoice at the view, and recognise
the features of their parents of old. When they have ridden merrily
round all the concourse of their gazing friends, Epytides shouts from
afar the signal they await, and sounds his whip. They gallop apart in
equal numbers, and open their files three and three in deploying bands,
and again at the call wheel about and bear down with levelled arms. Next
they start on other charges and other retreats in corresponsive spaces,
and interlink circle with circle, and wage the armed phantom of battle.
And now they bare their backs in flight, now turn their lances to the
charge, now plight peace and ride on side by side. As once of old, they
say, the labyrinth in high Crete had a tangled path between blind walls,
and a thousand ways of doubling treachery, where tokens to follow failed
in the [591-625]maze unmastered and irrecoverable: even in such a track
do the children of Troy entangle their footsteps and weave the game of
flight and battle; like dolphins who, swimming through the wet seas, cut
Carpathian or Libyan. . . .
This fashion of riding, these games Ascanius first revived, when he girt
Alba the Long about with walls, and taught their celebration to the Old
Latins in the way of his own boyhood, with the youth of Troy about him.
The Albans taught it their children; on from them mighty Rome received
it and kept the ancestral observance; and now it is called Troy, and the
boys the Trojan troop.
Thus far sped the sacred contests to their holy lord. Just at this
Fortune broke faith and grew estranged. While they pay the due rites to
the tomb with diverse games, Juno, daughter of Saturn, sends Iris down
the sky to the Ilian fleet, and breathes a gale to speed her on,
revolving many a thought, and not yet satiate of the ancient pain. She,
speeding her way along the thousand-coloured bow, runs swiftly, seen of
none, down her maiden path. She discerns the vast concourse, and
traverses the shore, and sees the haven abandoned and the fleet left
alone. But far withdrawn by the solitary verge of the sea the Trojan
women wept their lost Anchises, and as they wept gazed all together on
the fathomless flood.
