Chapter 5

WhoShow'd me that epic was of all the king,Round, vast, and spanning all, like Saturn's ring?

We have already seen how the national pride of Rome was stirred by the completed subjugation of Italy and the first successful step in foreign conquest as the result of the First Punic War, and how this quickened national pride gave a new impulse to literature. We have seen how from this period under the powerful stimulus of Greek influence the drama sprang into being in its literary form. And it was in this same soil of awakened national consciousness, and in this same atmosphere of Greek thought and expression that the Roman epic had its beginnings.

The rude translation of Homer'sOdysseymade by Livius Andronicus is not to be considered in this connection, for this was produced with no national feeling, but only that he might have a text-book from which to instruct his Roman schoolboys in their native tongue. The honor of producing the first heroic poem in Roman literature belongs to Cn. Nævius, to whom Mommsen accords the high praise of "the first Roman who deserves to be called a poet." He was a native of the district of Campania, of plebeian family, of most sturdy and independent character. The period of his life falls approximately between the years 269 and 199 B. C. We know that he was a soldier in his earlier life, serving in the First Punic War in Sicily, that he was imprisoned for his bold attacks from the stage upon the noble family of the Metelli, and afterward banished to Africa, where he ended his days.

The tragedies and comedies of Nævius date from his life in Rome, but the occupation, and we may well believe the solace, of his old age in exile was the composition of hisBellum Punicum, a heroic poem upon the First Punic War. This poem is a truly national epic written in the rough old Saturnian verse which came down from hoary antiquity as a native Roman metrical product. This verse has a jingle not unlike some of our familiar nursery rhymes, of which

The king was in his counting-house counting out his money,

is a fair sample. Roman in form, the epic of Nævius was also intensely national in spirit and content. It was written in seven books, of which the first two form a kind of mythological background or prelude, and the remaining five books tell the story of the first great duel between Rome and Carthage.

In the scanty fragments of this poem, especially in the introductory books, we are surprised to find ourselves upon familiar ground, until we discover that we are dealing with one of the great sources of Vergil's inspiration. For here in these broken scraps as in a shattered mirror we catch glimpses of Æneas and Anchises departing from Troy with their wives and treasure, and of the storm that drove the Trojans out of their course and wrecked them upon the shores of Africa; we hear snatches of Venus' appeal to Jupiter in their behalf, of Jove's reply promising to the Trojans a mighty destiny, and of Dido's request to Æneas for his tale of the Trojan War.

The whole seems to have been written in an exceedingly simple and direct style, without much attempt at poetic embellishment. The poet prided himself upon his unadulterated Latinity, and protested against the strong Hellenizing tendency that was setting in. His epitaph (Roman writers had a weakness for composing their own epitaphs) may seem a bit over-laudatory of self from our modest modern standpoint, but it is quite in keeping with the outspoken style of his time, and is very interesting in the claim that he makes to be the mouthpiece and perhaps the last disciple of the native Italian muses (Camenæ). Here is his epitaph:

If it were meet that th' immortals' tears should fall on mortal clay,Then would our native Muses weep for this our Nævius;For truly, since to Death's great garner he was gathered in,Our Romans born have clean forgot to speak their mother tongue.

The Hellenizing tendency of which Nævius complains was setting in strongly already during his life at Rome. But it was especially the influence of his literary successor, an influence still more strongly tending toward Greek forms and motives, which the unfortunate Nævius mourned from his place of exile and which gave added bitterness to the lament which the sturdy old Roman has left us in his epitaph.

This literary successor was the poet Quintus Ennius, who may almost be said to have met Nævius at the gates of Rome, since he arrived at Rome at about the time when Nævius went into banishment. Ennius was not a Roman citizen at this time, having been born and reared down in the extreme heel of Italy, at Rudiæ in Calabria, a section which had for many generations been under Greek influence. He was of good local family, familiar with the rough Oscan speech of his native village, with the polished Greek of neighboring Tarentum, where he was probably at school, and with the Roman tongue, which had become the official language of his district after Rome had pushed her conquests to the limits of Italy. He was wont to say of himself that he had three hearts—Oscan, Latin, and Greek; and certainly by the circumstances of his birth and education he was a good representative of the threefold national influences which were rapidly converging.

Ennius was born in 239 B. C., shortly after the close of the First Punic War; but he comes first into notice as a centurion in the Roman army in Sardinia during the Second Punic War. Here Cato, while acting as quæstor in the island, found him, and no doubt attracted by the sturdy scholarly soldier, took him to Rome in 204 in his own train. The poet afterward accompanied M. Fulvius Nobilior on that general's expedition to Ætolia, a privilege which he richly repaid later by immortalizing in verse the Ætolian campaign. He obtained Roman citizenship in 184 through the instrumentality of the son of Fulvius. He was most fortunate, moreover, in enjoying the friendship of the great Scipio, with whom he lived on the most intimate terms. For himself, he lived always at Rome in humble fashion on a slope of the Aventine Hill, and gained a modest living by teaching Greek to the youths of Rome. There is a tradition not very trustworthy that it was of him that Cato himself "learned Greek at eighty."

That Ennius was fitted to be a confidential friend to great men of affairs we may well believe if, as Aulus Gellius, who has preserved the passage, would have us understand, the following picture was intended by the poet as a self-portraiture. The passage is from the seventh book of the "Annals," and has a setting of its own, but may well represent the familiar intercourse of the poet with Marcus Fulvius or with Scipio. If this is indeed a portrait, it is a passage of great value, for it pictures the character in great detail.

So having spoken, he called for a man with whom often and gladlyTable he shared, and talk, and all his burden of duties,When with debate all day on important affairs he was wearied,Whether perchance in the Forum wide, or the reverend Senate;One with whom he could frankly speak of his serious matters,—Trifles also, and jests,—could pour out freely togetherPleasant or bitter words, and know they were uttered in safety.Many the joys and the griefs he had shared, whether public orsecret!This was a man in whom no impulse prompted to evil,Whether of folly or malice; a scholarly man and a loyal,Graceful, ready of speech, with his own contented and happy;Tactful, speaking in season, yet courteous, never loquacious.Vast was the buried and antique lore that was his, for the foretimeMade him master of earlier customs as well as of newer.Versed in the laws was he of the ancients, men or immortals.Wisely he knew both when he should talk and when to be silent.So unto him Servilius spoke in the midst of the fighting....Lawton.

Ennius died in 169 B. C., and tradition says that his bust was placed in the tomb of the family of his great patron, whereby the poet-soldier and the soldier-statesman were mutually honored. Upon that sarcophagus of Scipio surmounted by the poet's bust might well have been inscribed the saying of Sellar: "Ennius was in letters what Scipio was in action—the most vital representative of his epoch."

Ennius wrote satires and tragedies as we have seen; but it is because of his great epic poem theAnnales, the work of his ripe age, that he deserves the high title accorded to him by the Romans themselves—"the father of Roman literature." This work is epoch-making because of its form and because of its important contribution to the development of the Latin language itself. The poet perceived that the native Saturnian verse was rude and unfitted to serve as a vehicle for the highest form of literary expression. His feeling toward this verse is shown in a fragment upon the First Punic War in which he refers to theBellum Punicumof Nævius:

Others have treated the subject in the verses which in days of old the Fauns and bards used to sing, before any one had climbed to the cliffs of the Muses, or gave any care to style.Sellar.

Others have treated the subject in the verses which in days of old the Fauns and bards used to sing, before any one had climbed to the cliffs of the Muses, or gave any care to style.

Sellar.

From the Saturnian he turned to the hexameter, whose "ocean-roll of rhythm" had resounded in the great epics of Homer. But it was one thing to admire the Greek dactylic hexameter, with its smooth-flowing cadences, and quite another to force the heavy, rough Latin speech into this measure. But this task, difficult as it was, Ennius essayed, and by the very attempt to force the Latin into the shapely Greek mold, he modified and polished that language itself, and handed it down to his literary successors as a far more fitting vehicle of noble expression than he had found it. It is true that in comparison with the hexameters of Vergil and Ovid the lines of Ennius are noticeably rough and heavy; but still it must be remembered that it was the older poet's pioneer labors that made the verse of Vergil and Ovid possible.

The "Annals" of Ennius is an attempt to gather up the traditions of early Roman history and the facts of later times, and present them in a continuous narrative. Ennius was the pioneer in this work, and shows, as he says in the supposed self-portraiture quoted above, a very extensive knowledge of Roman antiquities, as well as a vivid first-hand perception of contemporary men and events. His active service as a soldier in the Second Punic War especially fitted him to write the story of a warlike nation. His descriptions of wars and stirring events arecon amore. He breathed the air of victory in the long series of Roman triumphs following the Second Punic War, and infused into his great national poem something of that exaltation of spirit which animated his times, and which raised his work far above the plane which his modest title suggests. The poem sank deep into the national heart, and became a very bible of the race, from which his successors drew freely as from a public fountain.

This poem, the work of the poet's old age, contained eighteen books, of which only about six hundred lines of fragments remain. The first book covers the period from the death of Priam to the death of Romulus. This period is, however, not as long as it is usually represented by tradition, for Ennius passes over the three hundred years of the Alban kings and represents Æneas as the father of Ilia, the mother of Romulus. One of the longest fragments describes the dream of Ilia in which the birth of Romulus and Remus is foreshadowed.

Then follow scattered fragments relating to the birth and exposure of the twins, their nourishment by the wolf, their growth to manhood, a long fragment on the taking of the auspices by which the sovereignty of Romulus over his brother was decided, and at the end a spirited passage from the lamentation of the Romans over the death of Romulus.

The second and third books give a history of the Roman kings after Romulus, with glimpses of the victory of the Horatii, the dreadful death of the treacherous Mettius Fufetius, the disgusting impiety of Tullia, and the rape of Lucretia, which precipitated the banishment of the Tarquins. The fourth and fifth books cover the period from the founding of the republic to the beginning of the war with Pyrrhus, which is described in the sixth book. This contains the fine passage in which King Pyrrhus refuses to accept money for the ransom of captives. He says to the Roman ambassadors:

Gold for myself I wish not; ye need not proffer a ransom.Not as hucksters might let us wage our war, but as soldiers:Not with gold but the sword. Our lives we will set on the issue.Whether your rule or mine be Fortune's pleasure,—our mistress,—Let us by valor decide. And to this word hearken ye also:Every valorous man who is spared by the fortune of battle,Fully determined am I of his freedom as well to accord him.Count it a gift. At the wish of the gods in heaven I grant it.Lawton.

The seventh book treats of the First Punic War, which he touches upon but lightly, since this subject had been so fully covered by his predecessor. Then follow, in the remaining books, the Macedonian, Ætolian, and Istrian wars, the history being brought down to within a few years of the writer's death. In the last book the old poet very fittingly compares himself to a spirited horse who has won victories in his day, but now enjoys his well-earned rest in the dignity and inactivity of age.

As we survey these broken fragments, we gain some appreciation of the cruelty of that fate which preserved to posterity the ten tedious books of Lucan'sPharsalia, the seventeen books of Silius'Punica, and the twelve books of theThebaidof Statius, but swept away this great work of Rome's first genuine poet—a work rendered triply valuable because it was the first Roman experiment in hexameters, because in it the Latin language was just molding into literary form, retaining still much of its early roughness and heaviness, and because of the priceless contribution to Roman antiquities which it could have furnished us.

We turn from Ennius to Vergil as from prophecy to fulfilment. A hundred years separated the death of the one from the birth of the other, and nearly a century and a half stood between their maturer works, a period covering almost the whole range of republican literature. During this time many hands had been at work importing literary treasures from Greece, gleaning from native Italian sources the riches of ancient folk-lore, customs, traditions, and annals; many minds had pondered over the problems of life and human destiny, evolving and compiling treasures of philosophy. And the combined labors of all these had so enlarged, polished, and enriched the Latin speech, their common instrument, that, in the single generation embracing the Augustan age, that finished product was reached which we call the golden age of the language and its literature, and to the standard of which we refer all Latinity of earlier or later date.

During this period of development the "inspired" Accius, the immediate successor of Ennius, had given to the world those works which won for him the name of the greatest Roman tragic poet; Lucilius, the father of Roman satire, had left his strong imprint upon his country's life and language; Varro's tremendous diligence had stored up, among much other treasure, material upon agriculture and Roman history and antiquities; Lucretius had written his great didactic poem upon the Epicurean philosophy; Catullus, an older contemporary of Vergil, had finished his brief literary as well as earthly career before Vergil had well begun to write; and lastly, Cicero, Cæsar, and Sallust had wrought in their strong, polished prose for the further perfecting of the Latin speech.

With such a birthright was Vergil born; in such a school and from such masters did he gain the equipment for his literary career, which was destined to make him the most brilliant representative of the most brilliant period in Roman literature.

His origin was certainly humble enough to hide him from fate. He was born (B. C. 70) the son of a potter, or as some say a farmer, in an obscure little village near Mantua, in northern Italy, and received his early education in the not far away towns of Cremona and Mediolanum. Thence he went to Rome for his higher education, where he acquired the usual accomplishments of the Roman youth. His studies fitted him for the profession of the advocate, but not so his nature. His one appearance at the bar taught him his utter unfitness for that pursuit, for his natural shyness on that occasion quite overcame him. As Ovid tells us of his own experience, the Muses wooed him irresistibly away from the practical pursuits of the "wordy forum," and claimed him for their own. Nature had marked him for a poet. We are told that he was framed on large and generous lines, tall, with the genuine Italian swarthiness of hue, simple and gentle, almost rustic in appearance, with face so suggestive of the purity of character within that the Neapolitans, among whom he loved most to make his home, called himParthenias, "the maiden-like one." Even after he had attained fame, his natural shyness was so great that the popular notice which he attracted upon the streets was a torture to him, from which he always took refuge, as Donatus says, "into the nearest house," as from a hostile mob.

The steps which led our poet from obscurity to fame we cannot trace in detail. Local circumstances and his marked poetic ability brought him early under the influence and patronage of Asinius Pollio, soldier, statesman, and littérateur; he was admitted also to the select circle of Mæcenas, to which he himself was privileged later to introduce his friend Horace; and Mæcenas in turn introduced both these poets, so unlike and yet so firmly knit together in the bonds of friendship, to the Emperor Augustus.

Vergil's own works, aside from certain minor poems attributed to him, were three in number: theEclogues,Georgics, and theÆneid, all composed in the dactylic hexameter. His book ofEclogueswas written during the period from 43 to 39 B. C., and consists of ten bucolic or pastoral poems after the style of the Sicilian Greek poet Theocritus. These poems, while somewhat artificial in style, are full of genuine feeling for nature, and contain many valuable references to the poet himself and his contemporaries. TheGeorgicsare, as their name implies, a series of treatises in four books upon farming. The first book is devoted to the tilling of the soil, the second to the cultivation of the vine and fruit trees, the third to the breeding of cattle, and the fourth to the care of bees. The whole shows a minute and first-hand knowledge of the subjects treated which only long and loving personal observation could have given. The composition of this book occupied the seven years from 37 to 30 B. C. The work was done chiefly at Naples, where he seems to have passed the most of the remainder of his life. His third and greatest work was his epic poem in twelve books called theÆneid, because it relates the story of the Trojan prince Æneas and his followers.

This poem, whose merits are so evident to us, and whose faults are so slight in comparison, never in fact received the finishing touches from the author. Having spent eleven years upon the work, Vergil made a journey to Greece, intending to continue his travels to Asia also. But in Athens he met his friend Augustus, who easily persuaded him to return in his train to Italy. It was but coming home to die. Always of frail health, the poet's final sickness seized him on the homeward voyage, and increased so rapidly that he died shortly after landing at Brundisium, B. C. 19. His remains were buried in his beloved Naples, where still is proudly pointed out, upon the side of Posilippo hill, the so-called "tomb of Vergil." A further evidence of the pride which the modern Neapolitans feel in their great adopted fellow-townsman is to be seen in the beautiful memorial shrine of white marble which to-day stands to the poet's (and the city's) honor in theVilla Nazionale, the famous seaside park of Naples.

Vergil, conscious of the incomplete condition of theÆneid, left instructions to Varius and Tucca, his literary executors, to destroy all his unpublished manuscript; but this great loss to the world was prevented by the interference of the emperor, who directed Varius to revise and publish theÆneid, which was accordingly done, probably in the year 17 B. C.

What is theÆneid? The Roman no doubt saw in it a national epic, celebrating the greatness and glory of the Roman race. His heart swelled with renewed pride of citizenship as he read those glorious lines in which world dominion was promised to his race:

Others, belike, with happier graceFrom bronze or stone shall call the face,Plead doubtful causes, map the skies,And tell when planets set or rise:But, Roman, thou, do thou controlThe nations far and wide;Be this thy genius, to imposeThe rule of peace on vanquished foes,Show pity to the humbled soul,And crush the sons of pride.Conington.

But Vergil was not alone an intense patriot. He was also ardently attached to the new imperial administration; and he seems to have set himself the difficult task of knitting together again into harmony with Augustus' rule the different classes of Roman citizens so long rent asunder by factional strife and civil war. He attempts this by reminding his fellow-citizens of their glorious past and tracing the hand of destiny in unbroken manifestation from Æneas to Cæsar and to Cæsar's heir. Thus Jupiter is seen promising to Venus for her Trojan descendants "endless, boundless reign." This glorious reign is to culminate in the great Cæsar, who with his heir Augustus shall inaugurate the Golden Age again.

TheÆneiditself may be said in a sense to focus upon Augustus, for in the vision which is granted to Æneas in the underworld of the long line of his mighty descendants, it is Augustus who is singled out for most glowing tribute as the chief glory of the race that is to be:

This, this is he, so oft the themeOf your prophetic fancy's dream,Augustus Cæsar, god by birth,Restorer of the age of goldIn lands where Saturn ruled of old,O'er Ind and Garamant extremeShall stretch his reign, that spans the earth.Look to that land which lies afar,Beyond the path of sun or star,Where Atlas on his shoulder rearsThe burden of the incumbent spheres.Egypt e'en now and Caspia hearThe muttered voice of many a seer,And Nile's seven mouths, disturbed with fear,Their coming conqueror know.Conington.

Such strains as these in the setting of such a poem, embodying all that most delicately and most powerfully stimulated the Roman pride of birth and country, would do much to confer upon the ruling emperor historic and divine sanction.

Perhaps connected with the national character of theÆneidis the strong religious motive which animates the whole. Rome was not produced by chance. The poet never lets us lose sight of the fact that all has been predestined for ages past. Æneas from the first is in the hands of heaven, fated indeed to wander, to endure disappointment, suffering, loss that would have tried beyond endurance a man of weaker faith; but fated as well to work out a glorious destiny. And Æneas, like the typical Roman after him, believed in his destiny. He calmly consoles his shipwrecked friends upon the wild shores of Africa in the face of seemingly irreparable disaster:

Comrades! for comrades we are, no strangers to hardships already; hearts that have felt deeper wounds! for these too heaven will find a balm. Why, men, you have even looked on Scylla in her madness, and heard those yells that thrill the rocks; you have even made trial of the crags of the Cyclops. Come, call your spirits back, and banish these doleful fears. Who knows but some day this too will be remembered with pleasure? Through manifold chances, through these many perils of fortune, we are making our way to Latium, where the Fates hold out to us a quiet settlement; there Troy's empire has leave to rise again from its ashes. Bear up, and reserve yourselves for brighter days.Conington.

Conington.

TheÆneidbreathes throughout a tone of reverence for the gods. This is best seen if we contrast Vergil's and Ovid's attitude. The latter poet affects a free and easy familiarity with the deities of tradition, whose deeds, adventures, and escapades are told, often with slight reverence, and much to the detriment of their divine dignity. But in Vergil's poem the reader enters a stately temple filled with an all-pervading reverence for the gods of heaven, who are to be approached by men only in fitting wise, with veiled face and pure hands; whose power is over all and wielded in righteousness. It should be added that the whole sixth book is devoted to an account of the spirit world, where human souls receive their rewards and punishments for the deeds of their life on earth.

Vergil's poems have always been thought to have a decidedly Christian tone, so much so, indeed, that he was revered by the early Christian fathers, who regarded him in the light of a semi-inspired pagan. There is a tradition of the medieval church preserved in a mass sung in honor of St. Paul, in which that saint is said to have stood at the tomb of Vergil and to have exclaimed: "O greatest of poets, what a man I should have made of thee had I but met thee in thy day!"

Vergil's standing with the early church was no doubt much enhanced by his remarkable fourth eclogue, in which he foretells the golden age to be inaugurated by the birth of the infant son of Pollio. There is a remarkable similarity between the poet's description of the happy time of "peace on earth" which the Child shall bring and the language of the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah.

But entirely aside from its national, religious, or other characteristics, and so far as its place in the world's literature is concerned, theÆneidis first of all a story. It has not, indeed, the simple grandeur of theIliad, upon the model of which it was probably composed. The passing of nearly a millennium of world-life after Homer's time made that impossible; and it is obviously unfair to compare any product of the refined and artificial society of the Augustan with the product of the simple and fresh life of the Homeric age when the world was young. But theÆneidhas a grandeur, a grace, a polished beauty all its own; and, compared with the epic product of his own and later ages, Vergil's poem stands colossal—the unapproachable epic of the Roman tongue.

It is the heroic story of the last night of Troy, and the subsequent wanderings of a band of Trojans under Æneas, prince of Troy; their long, vain search for their fate-promised land; their shipwreck upon the shores of Africa; their sojourn in Carthage and the love tragedy of Dido and Æneas; their memorial games in Sicily; Æneas' visit to the underworld, and the struggle of the Trojan exiles against native princes for a foothold in their destined Italy—all a story of heroes and heroic deeds, sketched on broad lines and with a free hand, but worked out with exquisite grace and beauty of detail.

Vergil follows common usage in telling his story in an order not chronological. The introduction reminds us that the struggle of the Trojan exiles is not confined to earth, but has its counterpart in heaven, where Juno cherishes many old grudges against the Trojans, while Venus champions them for the sake of her son Æneas. A recognition of this divine element is all essential to an understanding of the story, for it is through the agency of these rival goddesses that much of the action for better and for worse is wrought out.

The first view of our Trojan band shows them helpless in the grasp of a raging storm, wave-tossed and all but wrecked, they know not where. Through the uproar of the elements we hear the despairing cry of stout-hearted Æneas himself:

O happy, thrice and yet again,Who died at Troy like valiant men,E'en in their parents' view!O Diomed, first of Greeks in fray,Why pressed I not the plain that day,Yielding my life to you,Where, stretched beneath a Phrygian sky,Fierce Hector, tall Sarpedon lie:Where Simoïs tumbles 'neath his waveShields, helms, and bodies of the brave?Conington.

But even as he speaks, the mountain waves break and drive his frail ships upon the quicksands near some wild and unknown shore.

In striking contrast to this wild scene is the calm haven to which a portion of the shipwrecked band is guided by the kindly divinities of the sea. The description of this spot, and the rest and refreshment of the weary toilers forms one of the most charming bits of realism in the poem.

After the necessary refreshment of food and sleep, Æneas, with his faithful Achates as sole companion, sets out at early dawn to explore this wild region upon the shores of which they have been cast. As they wander through a deep forest they meet Venus in the disguise of a huntress, and from her they inquire the name of this land.

Æneas now learns that he has been wrecked upon the coast of Africa, not far from the new city which Dido, a Tyrian princess, is building. He learns her tragic story: how her brother had killed her husband Sychæus out of greed for gain, and how she had fled, in consequence, with a band of Tyrian followers. The goddess points out the way to this new city, bids them be of good cheer and follow it, and vanishes from their sight, revealing her true nature to her son as she departs.

They soon reach a height which overlooks the new city of Carthage, and find themselves before a temple of Juno, upon whose architrave are sculptured scenes from the Trojan War. It is early morning, and the city is all a-buzz with toil of its inhabitants who urge on the many busy works. Æneas, homesick for his lost city, and long baffled in his search for his own promised home, cries out in longing as he looks upon this scene:

Yea, all, like busy bees throughout the flowery mead,Are all astir with eager toil. O blessed toil!O happy ye, whose walls already rise! But I,—When shall I see my city and my city's walls?Miller.[F]

[F]These quotations are made from Miller and Nelson'sDido, an Epic Tragedy, by permission of Silver, Burdett & Co.

Soon they discover the pictures on the architrave, and are much moved as well as comforted to know that here, so far from home, their heroic struggles are known and appreciated. And now the strains of music and the stir of an approaching throng is heard, and, themselves unseen, Æneas and Achates behold the beautiful and stately queen Dido entering the temple with her train of maidens and courtiers. The queen takes her seat and proceeds to hold an impromptu court, planning the work of the day, and assigning tasks to her lieutenants.

Again the approach of a more noisy throng is heard, and into the stately temple breaks a group of desperate men whom Æneas at once recognizes to be a part of his own band who had been cast up upon another part of the shore. They are followed by a mob of jeering Carthaginians. Old Ilioneus, one of the Trojans, pleads their cause before the queen in a speech of mingled supplication and reproach, while at the same time he bewails the loss of his beloved prince Æneas.

The queen receives the wanderers with open-handed generosity, disclaims all intentional harshness, bids the Trojans freely share her city and her realm, and expresses the wish that their king himself, Æneas, were before her. These, we may be sure, were glad words to Æneas and his companions. They at once stand forth before the eyes of the astonished throng, joyfully greet their comrades, and Æneas salutes the queen with grateful and courtly speech:

Lo, him you ask for! I am he,Æneas, saved from Libya's sea.O, only heart that deigns to mournFor Ilium's cruel care!That bids e'en us, poor relics, tornFrom Danaan fury, all outwornBy earth and ocean, all forlorn,Its home, it's city share!We cannot thank you; no, nor they,Our brethren of the Dardan race,Who, driven from their ancestral place,Throughout the wide world stray.May heaven, if virtue claim its thought,If justice yet avail for aught,Heaven, and the sense of conscious right,With worthier meed your acts requite!What happy ages gave you birth?What glorious sires begat such worth?While rivers run into the deep,While shadows o'er the hillside sweep,While stars in heaven's fair pasture graze,Shall live your honor, name, and praise,Whate'er my destined home.Conington.

The astonished Dido finds fitting words of welcome for her royal guest, again assures the Trojans that her city is their own, and proclaims a great feast on the ensuing night in honor of the distinguished strangers.

This feast is a scene of royal and barbaric splendor. The Tyrian lords and Trojan princes throng the banquet-hall with its rich tapestries and flashing lights, vessels of massive silver and of gold, while the bright-hued robes of Dido and her train add gladness and color to the scene. Amidst the feasting there was a song by an old minstrel, which he accompanied by the strains of his lyre. The song was upon the ever fascinating theme of natural phenomena, the powers of the air, the earth, the sea—all the dim mysteries of being. We are told that he sang about these things. Let us phrase them for his lyric measures.

Of the orb of the wandering moon I sing,As she wheels through the darkening skies;Where the storm-brooding band of the Hyades swing,And the circling Triones arise;Of the sun's struggling ballWhich the shadows appallTill the menacing darkness flies;Of the all-potent forces that dwell in the air,With its measureless reaches of blue;The soft, floating clouds of gossamer there,And the loud-wailing storm-rack too;Of the rain and the windsAnd the lightning that blindsWhen its swift-darting bolt flashes through;Of the marvels deep hid in the bowels of earth,In the dark caves of Ocean confined,Where the rivers in snow-trickling rills have their birth,And the dense tangled mazes unwind;In the deep underland,In the dim wonderland,Where broods the vast cosmical mind.Of the manifold wonders of life I sing,Its mysterious striving to scan,In the rippling wave, on the fluttering wing,In beast and all-dominant man.'Tis the indwelling soulOf the god of the whole,Since the dawn of creation began.

Of the all-potent forces that dwell in the air,With its measureless reaches of blue;The soft, floating clouds of gossamer there,And the loud-wailing storm-rack too;Of the rain and the windsAnd the lightning that blindsWhen its swift-darting bolt flashes through;

Of the marvels deep hid in the bowels of earth,In the dark caves of Ocean confined,Where the rivers in snow-trickling rills have their birth,And the dense tangled mazes unwind;In the deep underland,In the dim wonderland,Where broods the vast cosmical mind.

Of the manifold wonders of life I sing,Its mysterious striving to scan,In the rippling wave, on the fluttering wing,In beast and all-dominant man.'Tis the indwelling soulOf the god of the whole,Since the dawn of creation began.

Meanwhile the queen, deeply moved with pity first, and now with admiration for her heroic guest, hangs breathless on his words, asks eagerly of the famous war, and at last begs him to tell entire the story of that last sad night of Troy. We listen too while he, whose tears start as he speaks, relates that tragic story. He tells how, at the end of the long struggle, when both warring nations were well-nigh exhausted of their strength, the Greeks at last gained entrance to their Trojan city by the trick of the wooden horse. This huge image, found without their walls, filled all unknown to them with their bravest foes, they draw through their gates, and place upon their very citadel, amid dancing children and the joyous shouts of all the citizens; for they have been assured by the lying Sinon that the Greeks have gone home, and have left this horse as an offering to Minerva for their safe return.

In the deep night watches, when all are drowned in careless slumber and their festal draughts of wine, Æneas dreams that Hector stands before him, begrimed with gory dust and weeping bitterly.

"Ah! fly, goddess-born!" cries he, "and escape from these flames—the walls are in the enemy's hands—Troy is tumbling from its summit—the claims of country and king are satisfied—if Pergamus could be defended by force of hand, it would have been defended by mine, in my day. Your country's worship and her gods are what she intrusts to you now—take them to share your destiny—seek for them a mighty city, which you shall one day build when you have wandered the ocean over."Conington.

Conington.

As Æneas springs up from his couch, warned by this vision, his ears are greeted by the confused sound of distant clamor, hoarse cries, and the accustomed noise of battle. The sky is red with flames. Rushing out, he finds that the Greek forces from wooden horse and fleet have filled the city, while the Trojans, taken unawares, are making brave but desultory resistance. Collecting a band of men, he makes stubborn stand again and again; but at last overpowered, his men flee in scattered twos and threes.

Æneas finds himself near Priam's palace. This is beset by swarms of Greeks, who scale the walls and batter at the doors, while desperate defenders on the roof hurl down whatever comes to hand. Æneas gains the roof by a private way, and looking down upon the inner court, he is witness to the darkest tragedy of that night. Old Priam, with Hecuba his wife and helpless daughters, sits cowering upon the steps of the central shrine. A mighty crash and outcry from within tell that the Greeks have gained an entrance at the door. Now out into the peristyle, along the beautiful colonnades of the spacious court, comes Priam's youthful son Polites, hard-pressed by the spear of Pyrrhus, leader of the Greeks. In breathless fascination they watch the race for life until the boy falls slain just at his parent's feet. The aged king, roused by this outrage, stands forth; clad in his time-worn armor, and weak and trembling with age, he chides the Greek:

"Aye," cries he, "for a crime, for an outrage like this, may the gods, if there is any sense of right in heaven to take cognizance of such deeds, give you the full thanks you merit, and pay you your due reward; you, who have made me look with my own eyes on my son's death, and stained a father's presence with the sight of blood. But he whom your lying tongue calls your sire, Achilles, dealt not thus with Priam his foe—he had a cheek that could crimson at a suppliant's rights, a suppliant's honor. Hector's lifeless body he gave back to the tomb, and sent me home to my realms in peace." So said the poor old man, and hurled at him a dart unwarlike, unwounding, which the ringing brass at once shook off, and left hanging helplessly from the end of the shield's boss. Pyrrhus retorts: "You shall take your complaint, then, and carry your news to my father, Pelides. Tell him about my shocking deeds, about his degenerate Neoptolemus, and do not forget. Now die." With these words he dragged him to the very altar, palsied and sliding in a pool of his son's blood, wreathed his left hand in his hair, and with his right flashed forth and sheathed in his side the sword to the hilt. Such was the end of Priam's fortunes, such the fatal lot that fell upon him, with Troy blazing and Pergamus in ruins before his eyes—upon him, once the haughty ruler of those many nations and kingdoms, the sovereign lord of Asia! There he lies on the shore, a gigantic trunk, a head severed from the shoulders, a body without a name.Conington.

Conington.

The tide of carnage sucks out of the palace and ebbs away. As Æneas descends from the palace roof, he sees Helen skulking in a neighboring shrine. His heart is hot at sight of her who has been the firebrand of the war, and he resolves to kill her. But Venus flashes before his vision and warns him to hasten to the defense of his own home would he not see his own father lying even as Priam. Conscience-smitten, he hurries thither, divinely shielded from fire and sword. His plan is fixed to take his household and seek a place of safety without the city.

The unexpected resistance of his aged father, who is resolved not to survive his beloved Troy, is at last overcome; and soon, with his sire upon his shoulders, his little son held by the hand, and his household following, Æneas steals out the city gate on the side toward Mount Ida, and makes his way to a preconcerted place of meeting. Here, to his consternation, he discovers that his wife Creüsa is missing, and wildly rushes back to the city in search of her. Regardless of danger to himself, he is calling her name loudly through the desolate streets when her shade appears to him and says:

"Whence this strange pleasure in indulging frantic grief, my darling husband? It is not without heaven's will that these things are happening. That you should carry your Creüsa with you on your journey is forbidden by fate, forbidden by the mighty ruler of heaven above. You have long years of exile, a vast expanse of ocean to traverse—and then you will arrive at the land of Hesperia, where Tiber, Lydia's river, rolls his gentle volumes through rich and cultured plains. There you have a smiling future, a kingdom and a royal bride waiting your coming. Dry your tears for Creüsa, your heart's choice though she be. I am not to see the face of Myrmidons or Dolopes in their haughty homes, or to enter the service of some Grecian matron—I, a Dardan princess, daughter by marriage of Venus the immortal. No, I am kept in this country by heaven's mighty mother. And now farewell, and continue to love your son and mine." Thus having spoken, spite of my tears, spite of the thousand things I longed to say, she left me and vanished into unsubstantial air. Thrice, as I stood, I essayed to fling my arms round her neck—thrice the phantom escaped the hands that caught at it in vain—impalpable as the wind, fleeting as the wings of sleep.So passed my night, and such was my return to my comrades. Arrived there, I find with wonder their band swelled by a vast multitude of new companions, matrons and warriors both, an army mustered for exile, a crowd of the wretched. From every side they were met, prepared in heart as in fortune to follow me over the sea to any land where I might take them to settle. And now the morning star was rising over Ida's loftiest ridge with the day in its train—Danaan sentinels were blocking up the entry of the gates, and no hope of succor appeared. I retired at last, took up my father, and made for the mountains.Conington.

So passed my night, and such was my return to my comrades. Arrived there, I find with wonder their band swelled by a vast multitude of new companions, matrons and warriors both, an army mustered for exile, a crowd of the wretched. From every side they were met, prepared in heart as in fortune to follow me over the sea to any land where I might take them to settle. And now the morning star was rising over Ida's loftiest ridge with the day in its train—Danaan sentinels were blocking up the entry of the gates, and no hope of succor appeared. I retired at last, took up my father, and made for the mountains.

Conington.

Thus simply ends the thrilling story of the Trojan War, told by one who was himself an active participant in those mighty deeds. It passes from turbulent action to pathetic rest like the tired sobbing of a child which has cried itself to sleep.

The banquet-hall of Dido has remained throughout this recital in breathless silence, and now a long sigh of relief from the strained tension of passionate sympathy breathes along the couches.

After an impressive pause, during which no word is spoken, Æneas resumes his story and tells of the seven years of wandering over the sea in search of the land that fate has promised him. With his little fleet of vessels, built at the foot of Ida, he touches first at a point in Thrace, intending to found a city there; but he is warned away by a horrible portent. He touches next at Delos, and implores the sacred oracle for a word of guidance to his destined home. To this prayer the oracle makes answer by a voice wafted from the inner shrine, while the whole place rocks and trembles:

Sons of Dardanus, strong to endure, the land which first gave you birth from your ancestral tree, the same land shall welcome you back, restored to its fruitful bosom; seek for your old mother till you find her. There it is that the house of Æneas shall set up a throne over all nations, they, and their children's children, and those that shall yet come after.Conington.

Conington.

So it is "Ho, for the mother-land!" But where is that? Whence sprang the Trojans? Here old Anchises, father of Æneas, rich in the lore of old tradition, says:

Listen, lords of Troy, and learn where your hopes are. Crete lies in the midst of the deep, the island of mighty Jove. There is Mount Ida, and there the cradle of our race. It has a hundred peopled cities, a realm of richest plenty. Thence it was that our first father, Teucer, if I rightly recall what I have heard, came in the beginning to the Rhoetean coast, and fixed on the site of empire. Ilion and the towers of Pergamus had not yet been reared; the people dwelt low in the valley. Hence came our mighty mother, the dweller on Mount Cybele, and the symbols of the Corybants, and the forest of Ida: hence the inviolate mystery of her worship, and the lions harnessed to the car of their queen. Come, then, and let us follow where the ordinance of heaven points the way; let us propitiate the winds, and make for the realm of Gnossus—the voyage is no long one—let but Jupiter go with us, and the third day will land our fleet on the Cretan shore.Conington.

Conington.

They quickly reach the Cretan shore, joyfully lay out their new city, and begin again the sweet, simple life in home and field which had been theirs before Paris brought the curse on Troy. But alas for their bright hopes! A blighting pestilence falls on man and beast, on tree and shrub; the very ground is accursed. It is the harsh warning of fate that they must not settle here. But where? To Æneas, as he tosses in sleepless anxiety through the night, there appear in the white moonlight the images of his country's gods, who give him the needed counsel:

We, the followers of you and your fortune since the Dardan land sank in flame—we, the comrades of the fleet which you have been guiding over the swollen main—we it is that will raise to the stars the posterity that shall come after you, and crown your city with imperial sway. Be it yours to build mighty walls for mighty dwellers, and not abandon the task of flight for its tedious length. Change your settlement; it is not this coast that the Delian god moved you to accept—not in Crete that Apollo bade you sit down. No, there is a place—the Greeks call it Hesperia—a land old in story, strong in arms and in the fruitfulness of its soil—the Oenotrians were its settlers. Now report says that later generations have called the nation Italian, from the name of their leader. That is our true home: thence sprung Dardanus and father Iasius, the first founder of our line. Quick! rise, and tell the glad tale, which brooks no question, to your aged sire; tell him that he is to look for Corythus and the country of Ausonia. Jupiter bars you from the fields of Dicte.Conington.

Conington.

Again on board, they sail for many stormy days until they reach the islands of the Strophades. Here dwell the Harpies, loathsome human birds, whose touch is defilement and whose speech is bitter with railing. Yet even here Æneas finds a prophecy of his destiny. Offended by the onslaught of the Trojans, Celæno, one of the Harpy band, thus reviles and prophesies:

What, is it war for the oxen you have slain and the bullocks you have felled, true sons of Laomedon? Is it war thatyouare going to make onus, to expel us, blameless Harpies, from our ancestral realm? Take, then, into your minds these my words, and print them there. The prophecy which the Almighty Sire imparted to Phoebus, Phoebus Apollo to me, I, the chief of the Furies, make known to you. For Italy, I know, you are crowding all sail: well, the winds shall be at your call as you go to Italy, and you shall be free to enter its harbors; but you shall not build walls around your fated city, before fell hunger and your murderous wrong against us drive you to gnaw and eat up your very tables.Conington.

Conington.

Hastily Æneas leaves this place with an earnest prayer that this dire threat may be averted. Past green Zacynthos, Dulichium, and craggy Neritos they go, past Ithaca, cursing it for crafty Ulysses' sake, and reach the rocky shores of Actium; then on past the Phæacian land to Buthrotum in Epirus, on the western shore of Greece. He is astounded and delighted to find that the strange fortunes of war have set Helenus, son of Priam, here as king, with Andromache, wife of the lamented Hector, as his queen. We may be sure that the meeting was sweet and bitter too for all the exiles.

They pass many days in hospitable intercourse, recalling the vanished life of their old Phrygian home, and recounting the checkered experiences of their recent years. And now, one bright morning, the breezes call loudly to the sails, and Æneas would pursue his way. He knows by now that Italy is the object of his quest, but how he may reach the destined spot in that vast stretch of coast, and what wanderings still await him, he does not know. But Helenus, his host, is famed as a diviner of hidden things, and to him Æneas appeals.

Helenus first warns his friend that he must shun that part of Italy which seems so near at hand, for on this eastern shore the Greeks have many cities; but he must sail far around, until he reach the farthest shore. Above all, let him not try to speed his course through the straits of Sicily, for here the dread monsters Scylla and Charybdis keep the way. They shall at last come to "Cumæ on the western shore, and the haunted lake, and the woods that rustle over Avernus," and there shall they learn further of their fates from the inspired prophetess of Apollo's shrine. Their final resting-place, where heaven shall permit them to found their city and end their wanderings, by this strange token they shall know—a huge white sow with thirty young, lying at ease beneath a spreading oak. "Such," says Helenus, "are the counsels which it is given you to receive from my lips. Go on your way, and by your actions lift to heaven the greatness of Troy."

With exchange of gifts, tokens of mutual love, sad at parting, but with high thoughts of glorious destiny, the royal pair speed their guests on their way. One reach to the northward, a night on the sandy shore, an early embarkation in the misty dusk of the morning, and Æneas turns his prows once more to the unknown west.

And now the stars were fled, and Aurora was just reddening in the sky, when in the distance we see the dim hills and low plains of Italy. "Italy!" Achates was the first to cry. Italy, our crews welcome with a shout of rapture. Then, my father Anchises wreathed a mighty bowl with a garland, and filled it with wine, and called on the gods, standing upon the tall stern: "Ye powers that rule sea and land and weather, waft us a fair wind and a smooth passage, and breathe auspiciously!"Conington.

Conington.

They make a hasty landing on this nearest shore, pay solemn tribute to Juno as Helenus had bidden them, and speeding across the great curving bay of Tarentum, hug fast the shores of southern Italy. Barely escaping the dangerous straits of Sicily, they pass the night upon the shore near Ætna, whose awful rumblings, whirlwinds of glowing ashes, and belched up avalanches of molten stone, appall their hearts. This night of dread ends in a morning of horror, for there, upon the mountainside, they see the Cyclopean monsters whom Ulysses and his band had so narrowly escaped. Hastily they push away from this dread coast, and sail clear around to western Sicily, where Æneas' aged father dies, and is buried in the friendly realm of King Acestes.

From here one more short course would have brought them to their journey's end; but Juno's implacable hate had stirred the winds against them, and by that dark storm they had been driven far away and wrecked on the coast of Africa.

Thus father Æneas, alone, amid the hush of all around, was recounting heaven's destined dealings, and telling of his voyages; and now at length he was silent, made an end, and took his rest.Conington.

Thus father Æneas, alone, amid the hush of all around, was recounting heaven's destined dealings, and telling of his voyages; and now at length he was silent, made an end, and took his rest.

Conington.

Ages after this, Othello the Moor won the love of Desdemona by tales of valor and of suffering:

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