Virgil

“ Enough for Venus and the Fates that Teucrian men have trod
The fair Ausonia's fruitful field: and answering fates have I:
A wicked folk with edge of sword to root up utterly,
For stolen wife: this grief hath grieved others than Atreus' sons,
And other folk may run to arms than those Mycenian ones.
—Enough one downfall is, say ye?—Enough had been one sin.
Yea, I had deemed all womankind your hatred well might win.140
—Lo, these are they to whom a wall betwixt the sword and sword,
The little tarrying of a ditch,—such toys the death to ward!—
Give hearts of men! ”

“ Trojan Æneas, caught away from Libyan seas of late!
Thou, who alone of toils of Troy hast been compassionate,
Who takest us, the leavings poor of Danaan sword, outworn
With every hap of earth and sea, of every good forlorn,
To city and to house of thine: to thank thee to thy worth,600
Dido, my might may compass not; nay, scattered o'er the earth
The Dardan folk, for what thou dost may never give thee meed:
But if somewhere a godhead is the righteous man to heed,
If justice is, or any soul to note the right it wrought,
May the Gods give thee due reward. ”

“ Much about Lausus did he ask, and sore to men he spake
To bid him back, or warning word from his sad sire to take.840
But Lausus dead his weeping folk were bearing on his shield;
A mighty heart, to mighty hand the victory must he yield
The father's soul foretaught of ill, afar their wail he knew,
And fouled his hoar hair with the dust, and both his hands upthrew
Toward heaven aloft; then clinging fast unto that lifeless one:
"What lust," saith he, "of longer life so held my heart, O son,
That thee, my son, I suffered thus to bare thee to the bane
Instead of me ”

“ What earth hides thy body, mangled sore,
And perished limbs? O son, to me bringest thou back no more490
Than this? and have I followed this o'er every land and sea?
O pierce me through, if ye be kind; turn all your points on me,
Rutulians! Let me first of all with battle-steel be sped!
Father of Gods, have mercy thou! Thrust down the hated head
Beneath the House of Tartarus with thine own weapon's stress,
Since otherwise I may not break my life-days' bitterness."
Their hearts were shaken with her wail, and Sorrow fain will weep,
And in all men their battle-might unbroken lay asleep. ”

“ But Pallas, of the hardy heart, forbids the feast to break,110
While he, with weapon caught in haste, flies forth to meet the men,
And crieth from a mound afar:
"Fellows, what drave you then?
And whither wend ye on your ways by road untried before?
What folk and from what home are ye? and is it peace or war?"
Then spake the father Æneas the lofty deck aboard,
As with the peaceful olive-bough he reached his hand abroad;
"Troy's folk ye see and weapons whet against the Latin side,
Whom they have driven forth by war amid their plenteous pride. ”

“ Fame went that Duke Idomeneus, thrust from his fathers' land,
Had gone his ways, and desert now was all the Cretan strand,
That left all void of foes to us those habitations lie.
Ortygia's haven then we leave, and o'er the sea we fly
By Naxos of the Bacchus ridge, Donusa's green-hued steep,
And Olearon, and Paros white, and scattered o'er the deep
All Cyclades; we skim the straits besprent with many a folk;
And diverse clamour mid the ships seafarers striving woke;
Each eggs his fellow; On for Crete, and sires of time agone! ”

“ We fashion? That which all thine heart was set on thou hast found.
For Dido burns: bone of her bone thy madness is today:
So let us rule these folks as one beneath an equal sway:
Let the doom be that she shall take a Phrygian man for lord,
And to thine hand for dowry due her Tyrian folk award."
But Venus felt that Juno's guile within the word did live,
Who lordship due to Italy to Libya fain would give,
So thus she answered her again: "Who were so overbold
To gainsay this? or who would wish war against thee to hold,
If only this may come to pass, and fate the deed may seal? ”

“ Down fell the beast and on the earth lay quivering, outstretched, dead,
While over him from his inmost breast such words Entellus said:
"Eryx, this soul, a better thing, for Dares doomed to die,
I give thee, and victorious here my gloves and craft lay by."
Forth now Æneas biddeth all who have a mind to strive
At speeding of the arrow swift, and gifts thereto doth give,
And with his mighty hand the mast from out Serestus' keel
Uprears; and there a fluttering dove, mark for the flying steel,
Tied to a string he hangeth up athwart the lofty mast. ”

“ Amidst his flight, or give blind bane with unknown cast afar;
He ran to meet him man to man, prevailing in the war
By nought of guile or ambushing, but by the dint of blade.
Foot on the fallen then he set, and strength to spear-shaft laid:
"Fellows, here tall Orodes lies, no thrall in battle throng."
Then merrily his following folk shout forth their victory-song:
Yet saith the dying:
"Whosoe'er thou art, thou winnest me
Not unavenged: thy joy grows old: the like fate looks for thee,740
And thou the self-same lea shalt hold within a little while!" ”

“ Meanwhile the Seer-maid, not yet tamed to Phœbus, raves about
The cave, still striving from her breast to cast the godhead out;
But yet the more the mighty God her mouth bewildered wears,
Taming her wild heart, fashioning her soul with weight of fears.80
At last the hundred mighty doors fly open, touched of none,
And on the air the answer floats of that foreseeing one:
"O Thou, who dangers of the sea hast throughly worn away,
Abides thee heavier toil of earth: the Dardans on a day
Shall come to that Lavinian land,—leave fear thereof afar:
Yet of their coming shall they rue. ”

“ And thine own day! cease not to fright all things with mighty dread.
Cease not to puff up with thy pride the poor twice-conquered folk,
And lay upon the Latin arms the weight of wordy yoke.
Yea, sure the chiefs of Myrmidons quake at the Phrygian sword,
Tydides and Achilles great, the Larissæan lord;
And Aufidus the flood flees back unto the Hadriac sea.
But now whereas this guile-smith fains to dread mine enmity,
And whetteth with a fashioned fear the bitter point of strife—
Nay, quake no more! for this mine hand shall spill no such a life ”

“ And 'gainst the words the tyrant spake such words from him there fall:
"Now shall I win me praise of men for spoiling of a King,
Or for a glorious death: my sire may outface either thing:450
Forbear thy threats."
He spake, and straight amid the war-field drew;
But cold in that Arcadian folk therewith the heart-blood grew;
While Turnus from his war-wain leapt to go afoot to fight:
And as a lion sees afar from off his watch burg's height
A bull at gaze amid the mead with battle in his thought,
And flies thereto, so was the shape of coming Turnus wrought. ”

“ As when the whitening of the wind across the flood doth run,
And step by step the sea gets up, and higher heaps the wave,
Until heaven-high it sweeps at last up from its lowest cave.530
And here, by dint of whistling shaft in forefront of the fight,
A youth, e'en Tyrrheus' eldest son, by name of Almo hight,
Was laid alow: there in his throat the reedy bane abode,
And shut with blood the path of speech, the tender life-breath's road.
And many a body fell around: there, thrusting through the press
With peaceful word, Galæsus old died in his righteousness;
Most just of men ”

“ Of Faunus and Laurentian nymph, Marica, do we learn
That he was born: but Faunus came of Picus, who must turn
To thee, O Saturn, for his sire: 'twas he that blood began.
Now, as God would, this king had got no son to grow a man,50
For he who first had dawned on him in earliest youth had waned:
A daughter only such a house, so great a world sustained,
Now ripe for man, the years fulfilled that made her meet for bed:
And her much folk of Latin land were fain enow to wed,
And all Ausonia: first of whom, and fairest to be seen,
Was Turnus, great from fathers great ”

“ Then sayeth Father Æneas: "O fellows, every gift
Shall bide unmoved: the palm of praise shall no man now displace.
Yet for my sackless friend's mishap give me some pity's grace."350
He spake, and unto Salius gave a mighty lion's hide,
Getulian born, with weight of hair and golden claws beside:
Then Nisus spake: "If such great gifts are toward for beaten men,
And thou must pity those that fall, what gift is worthy then
Of Nisus? I, who should have gained the very victory's crown,
If me, as Salius, Fate my foe had never overthrown." ”

“ The lost Anchises; and all they look ever on the deep
Amid their weeping: "Woe are we! what waters yet abide!
What ocean-waste for weary folk!" So one and all they cried,
And all they yearn for city's rest: sea-toil is loathsome grown.
So she, not lacking craft of guile, amidst them lighted down,
When she hath put away from her God's raiment and God's mien,
And but as wife of Doryclus, the Tmarian man, is seen,620
Old Beroë, who once had sons and lordly race and name;
Amid the Dardan mother-folk such wise the Goddess came:
"O wretched ones!" ”

“ A God hath spurred us on to flight, and biddeth hew atwain
The hempen twine. O holy God, we follow on thy way,
Whatso thou art; and glad once more thy bidding we obey.
O be with us! give gracious aid; set stars the heaven about
To bless our ways!"
And from the sheath his lightning sword flew out
E'en as he spake: with naked blade he smote the hawser through,580
And all are kindled at his flame; they hurry and they do.
The shore is left, with crowd of keels the sight of sea is dim;
Eager they whirl the spray aloft, as o'er the blue they skim. ”

“ BOOK XI. ARGUMENT. TRUCE IS MADE FOR THE BURYING OF THE DEAD: THE LATINS TAKE COUNSEL OF PEACE OR WAR. CAMILLA'S DEEDS AND DEATH.
Meanwhile Aurora risen up from bed of ocean wends,
And King Æneas, though his grief bids him in burying friends
To wear the day, and though his heart the death of men dismays,
Yet to the Gods of Dawning-tide the worship duly pays.
From a great oak on every side the branches doth he shear,
And setteth on a mound bedight in gleaming battle-gear
The spoils of King Mezentius: a gift to thee it stood,
O Might of War! ”

“ Why fleest thou not in haste away, while haste is yet to win?
Thou shalt behold the sea beat up with oar-blade, and the brand
Gleam dire against thee, and one flame shall run adown the strand,
If thee tomorrow's dawn shall take still lingering on this shore.
Up! tarry not! for woman's heart is shifting evermore."
So saying, amid the mirk of night he mingled and was lost.570
And therewithal Æneas, feared by sudden-flitting ghost,
Snatching his body forth from sleep, stirs up his folk at need:
"Wake ye, and hurry now, O men! get to the thwarts with speed,
And bustle to unfurl the sails! ”